#because he used to help be the youth pastor

[sugarlesswriting]

Do you ever have a family member say the most entitled shit you've ever heard and go ??? girl you're 32 and acting like a 16 year, calm down

[spyeriasecret]

and now it's time to play WOULD GRAVITY FALLS CHARACTERS RESPECT YOUR PRONOUNS (pre-weirdmageddon) (non gravity falls fans take this as a sign.)

DIPPER PINES - not sure he'd understand the concept immediately, but would catch on quick because he understands what it's like not being called something you want to be called

MABEL PINES - YES. no question about it. there's so many things i could say here. she'd correct herself for THINKING the wrong pronouns.

STANLEY PINES - understands and correctly genders you for all the wrong, crime-related reasons! bro is the king of preferred names. you say "hey i'm actually exam/ple" and he'll be like "AH. I GET IT. WINK. DO YOU ALSO WANT TO BE NOTIFIED WHEN THE COPS ARE IN TOWN" like i cant overstate this. if you say hey i want to change my identity he will pull out a stack of fake IDs and have you pick one. he's a little confused but he got the spirit!

STANFORD PINES - if you ever need a guy to not grasp a modern-day concept, call this guy! he'd do his best, but only because he wants to be nice. he does Not understand. give him a little bit of systematic exposure and he'll get it! he will take a scientific approach! but he'll get it! somebody get this man 2024ccs of woke liberalism stat

SOOS RAMIREZ - calls you dude and bro. does not call you anything but dude and bro. he knows what you are and he respects that! but let's be real honest here.

WENDY CORDUROY - incredibly supportive and super chill. if you were still in the closet, she'd do the mouth zip motion thing. you get it. she's so awesome about you

WADDLES - oink?

GIDEON GLEEFUL - yes to your face! no behind closed doors. he'd probably call you "that queer" while villain monologuing in his room . i can hear it in his voice

BUD GLEEFUL - THE gravity falls homophobic youth pastor let's be for real he'd say "it's not too late to turn to God" as a christian trans person i'm pretty sure God thinks about lgbtq+ kids and fraudulent capitalists on two separate ends of a very long line

SHERIFF BLUBS & DEPUTY DURLAND - do i even have to say it. i'm gonna say it. solid top and DEAD SERIOUS bottom. they ARE the loud and proud gravity falls lgbtq+ community. if they're transphobic i'll eat my socks.

CANDY CHIU - i know what you guys are thinking . "oh candy's so sweet of course she'd respect your pronouns!" CANDY MOTHERFUCKING CHIU WILL NOT ONLY RESPECT YOUR PRONOUNS, BUT SHE WILL GO OUT OF HER WAY TO USE THEM AT ANY POSSIBLE MOMENT. if she sees somewhere to say your pronouns, she will DO it. because she LOVES YOU. and also she'd fight anyone who gets it wrong!

GRENDA GRENDINATOR - trans. she loves you. will help candy fight anybody who gets your pronouns wrong.

FIDDLEFORD MCGUCKET - honestly this is a hard one. he could ACKNOWLEDGE! your pronouns! but other than that i'm not sure. pre-memory wipe, i think he'd feel a little weird about it, but it would become nothing to him eventually

PACIFICA NORTHWEST - "ew. what the fuck." and then suddenly she's asking you how you figured that out. For No Reason

ROBBIE VALENTINO - calls you a faggot. is it because he is homophobic? because he is one? because he hates you specifically? the world will never know

BLENDIN BLANDIN - he lives in the year 207̃012. i find it hard to believe they haven't made respecting pronouns mandatory yet.

AGENTS POWERS & TRIGGER - are the pronouns on your legal documents????? it's not funny stop laughign

TYLER CUTEBIKER - gay. his pronouns are get/it. he will respect you (in his own ways)

LAZY SUSAN - forgets you had the wrong pronouns in the first place. she respects you by default

TIME BABY - does not refer to you

BILL CIPHER - he would call you your preferred pronouns but DON'T get it twisted. he does not respect you as a living thing. it isn't bigoted (that would be ironic considering that whole sixer thing) he just doesn't. maybe he'd make HEAVY fun of you for good measure but he's got to dig at somebody somehow. also were pronouns even real in his dimension anything could happen man ????

SHMEBULOCK - shmebulock

(did i forget anybody? let me know)

[godspeedviper]

Preacher's Daughter - Jonathan Crane x Reader

𖤐 Summary: Jonathan Crane reminisces on a rendezvous he had in his youth back in Georgia with the town preacher’s daughter.

𖤐 Pairing: Jonathan Crane x Reader

𖤐 Word Count: 826

𖤐 Rating: +18. smut. gun kink. blasphemy. degradation. femdom.

“Yer trespassin’ boy.”

  That voice, sharp, succinct, like the predatory click of her daddy’s shotgun, signaled the start of our game. I may have been the prey, but she was the prize. So I raise my hands in defeat, I play along, and quietly walk down the empty church aisle in the dark. She pressed the barrel of the gun on the small of my back and I could already feel myself grow hard. We couldn’t go to her house on account of her 5 siblings and pastoral parents, and my house was no less forgiving (crazy grandma Keeny’s reign of terror was at its peak). So when we wanted to sin, the local church seemed like the safest option. This only served to heighten the illicit nature of our rendezvous. 

“No I aint.” I said to her, a shit eating grin apparent in my tone of voice. “This here is the house of God, not yours.” 

  She walked me up to the pulpit and made me kneel, pushing me to the floor with the heel of her boots. I looked up at the preacher’s daughter as she stood over me, powerful, and committed the image to memory. The way her skin glowed under the silver moonlight pouring in through the church windows, shadows accentuating every curve, and her daddy’s shotgun glittering menacingly. Years later she remains the only woman who could bring the great Scarecrow to his knees, quivering. 

“I am God.” she said, and she was right. 

Suddenly, I feel a pressure between my legs. I look down and see she is pushing her boot onto my tented blue jeans. I gasp, and she swats my outstretched hand with the butt of the shotgun. 

“Now, I want you to put your hands together and pray.” she says. 

“Why?” I reply, voice raspy. 

“Because you’re a sinner.” her voice was curt. 

  My vision, now clouded with lust, begins to see dull halos of moonlight around my lover’s stern gaze. I put my hands together and begin to do as I’m told, closing my eyes and mumbling a Hail Mary as quickly as I can. She pushes the barrel of the gun to my forehead and her foot to my sex. 

“Again.” her dissatisfaction was made clear. 

“Hail Mary fullofgra-'' I ramble off, beads of sweat blossoming on my brow in the thick Georgia heat. She flips the rifle and hits me again. My head begins to spin, and I slowly turn my gaze back up to her, hazy and dream-like. 

“Say it right, boy.” she returns the cool metal of the gun barrel to my feverish skin, and I give out a small sigh. 

“Hail, Mary, full of grace…” I pause and make sure to lock eyes with her. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.” 

  She pulls the gun away from my forehead, casting it aside, and removes the pressure from between my legs. She then kneels down before me, cupping my face into her gentle grasp. We share a chaste kiss and she lovingly whispers to me. 

“Good boy,” she says. 

  Her hands reach down and begin to remove my belt buckle. I help her speed the process along, gasping breathily as I free my member from its confines. She puts her hands on my chest, and I can feel her clammy palms through the thin fabric of my white tank top. She was just as nervous and aroused as I. For a moment, our personas dissipate into the surrounding humidity, and we both moan in unison as she lowers her body onto my lap. Her insides felt just like a ripe Georgia peach at the height of summer, 

slick, 

moist, 

sweet. 

“Now,” her voice was little more than a gasp. “Say it again.” 

   I extended my legs beneath me, putting one hand on the floor to lean on, and the other slipping in under her nightdress to feel her bare skin. She held still, defiant, and I could tell she wouldn’t move till I said my part. I took that moment to kiss her neck and lick her ear. She shivered, and I took in one last deep breath. Her skin smelled of old fashioned bar soap and a cheap vanilla body spray that she used to try to hide the scent of Marlboro reds. With each word I uttered she hastened her pace, rolling her hips against mine until she reached a full gallop. 

“Hail, Mary, full of grace,

the Lord is with thee.

Blessed art thou amongst women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death…”

Like a man possessed, my back arches up, eyes rolling, and I see the light. 

“Amen.”

ao3 || Ko-Fi || WiPs || Guidelines

[adventuringblind]

Church Girl

Oscar Piastri x Autistic!reader

Genre: hurt/comfort

Request: no (check masterlist for request status)

Summary: Church has a tendency to make people feel unwanted. When reader goes to visit her family, they convince her to go with them to the place she’s trying to forget. Good thing Oscar is there with her.

Warnings: toxic religious folk, religious trauma, creepy old men, panic attacks

Notes: okay so this goes out to my neurodivergents who were stuck in a church that didn’t understand them with peers who made them feel like they were an alien, adults who were always asking the wrong questions and judging their clothes, and were forced into the stereotypes they wanted you to fit in. Fire Drill by Melanie Martinez was on repeat while writing this.

This is loosely based on true events

Masterlist

Summer break is here which means it’s time to go visit family. She and Oscar board the plane to her home country, all smiles and laughs.

She’s missed them since being away. Her family hasn’t always understood her, but she loves them dearly.

When they arrived they were greeted with hugs and questions about the trip.

At the dinner table that night, Oscar was quick to realize that he didn’t fully realize how religious his girlfriends family is. It seemed to be their favorite topic.

The girl next to him was struggling with the conversation and he could feel her stimming under the table. She’d talked about her church experience a little with him. He didn’t want to push her so he didn’t know the full extent of everything that happened. He recalls her mom having to put up with some horrible people and the tears over how it hurt her to see her mom so broken in a place she should feel loved. How her sister felt she would never be good enough for their expectations. How her dad uses is to control them sometimes.

And yet they’d convinced them to go with. Well- more like she was trying to please and wants to spend time with her family.

In the lonesome of their room that night, she collapsed into him.

“I think I might vomit.”

He simply hold her. “Do you want to talk about it? We can always say we changed our minds.” He suggests. His attempt at reassuring her futile as she panics more.

“The people there judge so critically. It didn’t help that I was weird to kids my age and mature enough for the adults to ask me why I’m showing my shoulders because they’re a distraction.”

Oscar hums in understanding. Carful not to interrupt her explanation but still show he’s listening.

“They say it’s a stereotype, but it’s true. I’ve been teased and looked down on and made out to be over dramatic. My old youth pastor used to talk to my mom about my ‘behavior’ and how I argued with him to much. Then I yelled at him for getting in my personal space and saying things an adult should never say to a child, in my opinion. I was constantly told I talk to much about the wrong things and not enough about the right.”

Though Oscar’s shirt is getting wet, he doesn’t care. Her more harmful stimming habits are showing as he’s determined not to let that happen. She plays with his fingers instead. “I can’t do it Jack.”

The endearing nickname alerts him this is serious. He didn’t know how far this trauma had been rooted inside her. No wonder she struggles with her self-esteem, she was told her entire life she’d never measure up. She’d endured hours of countless awkward conversations and events she couldn’t wait to leave.

The worst part is that he knows it’s why she apologizes for everything. It didn’t matter how much she tried to look ‘normal’ she couldn’t get it right and people were mad at her for it.

“I will leave it up to you, but say the word and I’ll have us out of here in an hour.”

~

Oscar had half a mind just to feign sickness and tell them they can’t go. The girl pacing the room had yet to get dressed or pull the plug and say she doesn’t want to go.

“I say wear something comfortable and scandalous.” He leans back on the bed with a smirk.

“Since when are you so evil? And are you crazy? I’d get eaten by judgmental stares.”

“Let them stare. You deserve to be comfortable in whatever you wear without feeling judged and preyed on.”

~

They took a separate car from her parents. Partially because they wanted to leave early, mostly because in case of emergency they had an escape vehicle.

He could feel her trying to self soothe in the passenger seat. She’d finally settled for her favorite pair of pants and his sweatshirt. Comfort clothes for a hard situation definitely seemed like the best option.

He held her hand as they walked to the front door and stopped right outside. “Remember you’re not stuck. We can leave anytime you want.” She nods her head appreciatively, then they step through the doors.

He felt like the were underdressed. Which is an absolutely ridiculous notion because it’s eight in the morning and he’d rather be asleep. How these people look dressed for a ball at this hour is beyond him.

Oscar spots her family amongst the sea of people and weaves them into their vicinity.

“Y/N, hi! How are you? It’s been so long!” Chirps an elderly woman who awkwardly embraces the girl. She’s still as a board and yet the lady doesn’t get the hint.

“I’m alright.” She smiles politely.

“And who’s this young man?”

“My boyfriend, Oscar.”

He reaches out his hand to her and she shakes it. “It’s nice to meet you.” He offers his media coached smile.

“Oh are you two planning on settling down? Having kids?”

She shuffles awkwardly looking for a response. She hates invasive questions like these. Now would normally be where an inappropriate joke about Lando practically being their child would go but she thinks that might be wrong. But what’s even right in this situation?

“Not currently. I travel for work majority of the year so it would be difficult to start a family.” She’s grateful Oscar knows to manage conversation.

“Oh well… that’s to bad.” Then the woman shuffles away.

“I told you it’s bad.”

“I see your point. Did you know her?”

“No but apparently everyone is allowed to talk to you like that even if you just know a persons name because we’re a ‘church family’.

As they wait for the service to start, they pass the time by people watching. Snickering at the obvious fake smiles and perfect families people show off on Sunday mornings.

They are rudely interrupted by a male probably in his forties. “Excuse me, I have got to ask, are you two siblings?”

He must be newer, she thinks to herself, it’s not like she’s been gone that long. She shakes her head at the man, one hand in Oscar’s the other inside the sweatshirt pocket. “No sir, we’re dating actually.”

“That’s a real shock. He’s a keeper if that’s how you dress all the time and he still chose you.” His comment is directed at her. The social analysis kicking in. Is this sarcasm? Or maybe a joke she doesn’t get? Is he being serious?

“What do you mean by that?” Oscar is quick to ask back. Again, saving her from most likely saying something she shouldn’t.

“Most guys enjoy when a girl wears appropriate female clothing. I’m just saying she’s lucky to have you if this is what she wears all the time.” He eyes her up and down. “Would be prettier in a dress I reckon.”

“Nope. She’s pretty in everything she wears.” Oscar is dragging her off in the opposite direction before turning around. “Also, sir, I’m the lucky one.”

The service is long and boring. The two pass notes back and forth like they are in high school. Though they aren’t necessarily trying to hide the fact they are doing it.

When it’s over, they quickly tell her parents they are heading out because truthfully, the girl is in the verge of a meltdown from the over stimulation.

They get almost to the door before being stopped again by the last person she wanted to ever see again. Her old youth pastor.

“Y/N! I didn’t think you were ever coming back!” He goes to hug her but she steps back. Almost using Oscar as a barrier. “Awe don’t be like that.” He pouts.

“We were actually just heading out.” Oscar steps in. He didn’t like how the man is eyeing her. It’s uncomfortable for him and even more so for her.

“And you are…?”

“Oscar, her boyfriend.”

A look of shock spreads across his face. “That’s gooier to hear. I didn’t think she’d ever find someone.” Oscar doesn’t hesitate to use his sarcasm and over expressive facial expressions as he feigns curiosity.

“Why’s that?”

“I could never get her to shut up about things that weren’t important. And after the lengthy discussion we had with the board about her argumentative attitude with her male superiors, I just thought it would never happen.”

She didn’t tell him about that one. Oscar can see out of the corner of his eye how her head drops in shame. He doesn’t let go of her hand. “So you work with kids but when one doesn’t act the way you want you take to abusive behaviors? Glad to see a church full of people who are supposed to be loving are letting their youth get hurt by adults.” He says launder then necessary, but it gets his point across because people heard him.

He turns in his heels and places a protective arm around her waist as they walk to the car.

He knows she’s overstimulated, so he tries lets her go at her own pace when they get back to her parents house. The spare key still in the same place it’s been for years, so no need to wait outside.

In the safety of the room, she latches herself onto the Aussie. “I’m sorry.”

He holds her and does his best to soothe her. “You’ve nothing to apologize for. Those people are sick, I swear. I’m sorry you had to go through all that.”

“That meeting was the worst day of my life. Sitting in a room with a bunch of older men telling me how to behave. They made some jokes that they shouldn’t have and told me I’d never have a good life if I kept acting like I had been.” She’s wailing now.

Oscar can practically hear his hear shatter. How could people be so ignorant and blind?

“They said that my autism isn’t an excuse and that I need to try harder. Then they said maybe one of them can take me under their wing and show me how to treat a man right. I was barely eighteen.”

They spent the night like that. Her crying into his shoulder and him trying to calm her down. She fell asleep in his arms and he didn’t have the heart to move her and risk waking her up.

He couldn’t fathom someone telling her her brain being different means she’s not good enough. It’s what makes her unique in his eyes. How could someone not love the way her eyes light up when she talks about those interests that she never gets tired of. How her honesty and ability to stand her ground make conversations with her never dull.

Oscar leans down and kisses her head. “I don’t care who says you aren’t good enough, they are lying. You are for more then enough and I feel so special that you love me and are willing to share those pieces of yourself with me.”

[slutouttanowhere]

Count your blessings

Priest!Drew McIntyre x reader

Warnings: major themes of blasphemy, absolutely down right disrespectful to religion. Oral (f) receiving, fingering, manipulation tactics, disorientation, dub-con. MINORS DO NOT READ!

Word count: 2k

a/n: Ummm literally nobody asked for this, I was left unattended pre-mania, and post mania. In fact this was inspired by that promo Drew did the Monday week of Mania. Which if you’re a Drew stan I feel like we could all use some good chaotic content after that Philadelphia screw job. So here it is…unhinged, 100% pure crack, I hope you all enjoy, I was kinda nervous about sharing this. Like reblog, leave a comment and follow for more.

You walked into the large Catholic Church a friend of yours had recommended a while ago. It was familiar in a sense where your eyes seemed to land on it every time you drove past it on the way to the market. You haven’t been in a church of any kind since you were a teenager, and at this point you’re not even sure if you believe in God. However, recently you’ve been struggling with, to put it in your mothers words,‘treating your vagina like a Hell Mouth.’ After last weekend where you picked up a guy from a bar, that one ended badly, and at some point you were being stalked. Your best friend Shamus handled that though, the sleaze wouldn’t be bothering you anymore.

Your heels clicked against the perfectly waxed wooden floors, and that’s how you could describe the whole church, perfect. Pristine condition, it made you feel like the hour long hot shower you took before now wasn’t enough to feel like you deserved to be here. For a second you pause when a man, whom you assume is the pastor, slowly turns to you from where he stood at the altar. Your breath hitches in the back of your throat, ‘goddamn he was hot,’ you thought to yourself.

“May I help you, miss?” He asked, his accent thick, and his tone gentle. His gray-blue eyes watches you with curiosity, he gives you a once over, suddenly you wish you wore a longer skirt. Absent-mindedly you pulled at the hem of your skirt in an attempt to adjust yourself.

‘Tall, dark, handsome, and Scottish. Fuck I’ve hit the motherload.’ Once again caught up in your thoughts, the sound of him clearing his throat jump starts you back into reality. “Oh, um…I came to confess?” You wanted to kick yourself for how ridiculous you sound, his lips slightly turn upward into a small smile. With a bemused expression on his face, he let out a soft chuckle. That’s when you noticed the dimples in his cheeks, they brought a youthfulness to his face.

“Are you sure?” He questions teasingly, you roll your eyes, instantly relaxing, and oddly enough feeling like the two of you were old friends. He chuckles again, then takes a few steps towards you, and the closer he gets, the taller he becomes. “Please excuse my humor, I’m Father Andrew McIntyre, why don’t you sit, and talk to me. Tell me a little about yourself.”

Suddenly you feel shy under his gaze, when his large hands envelopes yours, the warmth of him, and the glint in his pretty eyes cause fluttering in the pit of your stomach. Peaking at him from under your long lashes, you silently agree, and let him lead you over to the front row seats.

“Okay, well um, I haven’t been in a church in years…” You trail off, the handsome priest is quiet, and inventive as he hangs onto your every word. Naturally you began to ramble, dancing around the actual reason you were there.

“And the reason you’re here is because?” He asks, trying to steer you back on task, he sat studiously. His dark gray suit seemingly straining against his large muscles, he watches you expectantly.

“Polyamory seems to be causing me a lot of trouble…but I don’t know how to stop. I just see a man, and instantly I’m attracted to them. Next thing I know, I’m in their bed.” You explain in a quiet, bashful voice. Your eyes looking past him, you’d rather stare at your hands than Father Galloway’s judgmental eyes. He didn’t speak, but nodded his head for you to continue, so you did. “I don’t even feel bad about it, in fact I love it, sometimes I…ache for it. Being pent up, walking on eggshells all day, and finally being able to just totally let go. Just this sense of being an absolute animal with another stranger, it does something to me.” And that’s when you began to feel like you said too much, your breath hitches when your gaze met his.

“Well it seems like we’re in quite a predicament here.” He said deeply, his eyes darkened, and his hand smoothly slid up on my knee. “There’s only one way I could help you my dear, would you like to know?” The way his touch heated up your entire body wasn’t lost on you, but you tried to swallow it. You could see Jesus’ face in the stained glass window from your peripheral. Getting horny under the eyes of God seemed absolutely sacrilegious, but that didn’t stop your nipples from hardening painfully.

You swallowed, then nodded your head, “yes.” Your voice sounded uneven, as if you were fighting yourself, as if you didn’t even trust yourself around this man. Little did you know, you weren’t the one that shouldn’t have been trusted.

“See, the only way for me to extract this sinful behavior out of you, is to fuck it out of you.” He explained carefully.

To say you were baffled by the words this man just uttered was an understatement. You blinked a few times trying to wrap your brain around what he just said, and you looked around the church just to double check that you were indeed in a church. “I– isn’t that the exact opposite of what I should be doing?”

“Do you think you’re in any position to question a man of God y/n? Trust in me, this is the way; to have a release so great that you would never again think of another man’s touch again.” His hand softly trailed higher up your thigh, his other hand grasped your chin, and forced your eyes to meet yours.

“You’re feeling it now aren’t you? That carnal desire to be raptured, tore apart, and devoured.” His large hand slid down your cheek caressing it, then down the base of your neck, and when he got to your breast he ghosted over it instead of touching you. Your breath caught in your throat, for a second you could have sworn his eyes flickered a bright red, but when you blinked they were back to that gray-blue color. You shook your head trying to snap out of whatever trans he had you in.

“This…this is wrong I mean, no I’m not doing this.” Quickly you stood to your feet, and though you found it weird that he didn’t stop you, you don't question it. You’re halfway to the exit when a wave of heat passes over you, and straight between your thighs. A sensation so strong it weakened your knees causing you to grab onto the end of a wooden row. “What the fuck?” For a second you looked over your shoulder to see the priest still standing where you left him. The corners of his lips turned upward, you turned back feeling your hands shake, and you squeezed your eyes shut. When you opened them, you were back in the front of the church, but now you were laid out at the altar. Your vision was a bit blurry, all you could really make out was all the candles that were lit around you, and that fucking image of Jesus in the glass window.

“What the fuck?” Your voice croaked, you tried to move but quickly realized your hands were bound together. “Priest–

“Please, I prefer you call me Father.” He walked into your line of sight, you tried to blink away the fog, but mainly the sweat that had fallen into your eyes. He grabbed you by the chin, gently this time, and dabbed away the sweat around your forehead and eyes. A wave of heat ripped through you once more traveling down your body, and right between your thighs. Your clit throbbed almost painfully causing your back to arch, he let out a deep chuckle. “I have a new proposition for you, I will soothe your aches anytime you please.” He paused, thankful you had a drop of common sense left because you knew there was a clause, he snorted, “well I’m glad you didn’t think it was that easy, smart human you are. I will soothe your aches anytime you please…if you become my new toy.”

Before you could answer, heat rolled through you again, this time causing a painful sting to your nipples. The sensation of something warm pressed against your clit, but when you looked up, Father Andrew was standing in front of you. “What are you doing to me? Who are you? What are you?” You moaned out, your hips moving back and forth with the motion of whatever it was that was teasing you between your thighs. Head thrown back, and eyes closed, something was bringing you closer to release. Right when you were on edge it stopped, then you realized you were holding your breath in anticipation.

“Prolonging the inevitable I see, that’s fine, I have nothing but time my sweet little mortal.” He teased, then took his index finger, and dragged from your neck down to your stomach. It was then that you realized you were left in your bra and panties. He drew circles with his finger just below your belly button, slowly a ripple of pleasure began to stir in a heated sensation. Your skin prickled as you began to feel hot and cold at the same time.

“Please.” You begged, your body squirmed around in discomfort, and desire, a conflicting urge.

He laughed at you darkly, “you can’t even comprehend what you’re begging for. Though, it’s not like it matters, I could smell the stench on you from the second you laid eyes on me.” His voice modulated to a baritone, and boisterous volume.

“I’ll do it, I’ll be whatever you want, just please.” You pleaded weakly, another wave of heat washed over you, and if you were standing you’d probably fall over. Right when you thought he was going give you what you wanted, his hand slowly trailed down from your belly button, and down between your thighs where he stopped. His large hand cupping your cotton covered cunt, your hips rocked forward, desperately trying to gain some kind of pleasure.

“All you have to do is say yes, be my pet, give yourself to me. And you’ll never go looking elsewhere.” He offered again, and when you thought about it, it really wasn’t a promising deal. Then your nipples painfully tightened, and your clit began to pulse, suddenly logic left you. At this point sweat was lining your hairline, and pooling between your breasts.

“Fine.” You panted out of breath, “I’ll do it, I will be your pet. I’ll be whatever you want just please, I need it.” Finally you caved, that’s all he needed to hear, and before your very eyes he transformed. Dark black horns grew to a point from his head, his muscles, and chest grew larger causing him to rip out of his suit. His eyes morphed from that stormy blue-gray to a blood red, and the smirk on his lips deepened. Traces of dark clouds rolled off of him, as you tried to look upon him, an intense wave of pleasure rolled through you. You cried out, “god!”

Father Andrew chucked deviously. “God isn’t here! Call back later.” He teased in a melodic voice.

“What are you?” You asked out of breath, your eyes were screwed shut because clearly looking directly at him in this form was a mistake.

“What am I? Depending on who you ask, I’m a sexy beast.” He answered arrogantly, you opened your eyes to rebuttal and nearly jumped out of your skin from his sudden proximity. “Don’t you dare look away, look me in the eyes when you speak to me please.” He demanded, reluctantly you opened your eyes, he was gorgeous, a point where you were almost jealous. His dark hair had grown longer, almost covering his eyes like curtains, and his lips plush and pink.

Your back arching off the wooden cross you were strapped to, your breath shuddered when his large hands grasped your thighs, and spread you apart. Already you were aching, throbbing, and slick. He ripped your panties off you as if they were nothing, a slight breeze caressed you causing you to cry out again.

“Yesssss, let me hear you, I love those weak human moans you’re letting out.” His tongue licked from your cheek, down your neck and between your breasts. You wanted to rip yourself in half, by the end of this, you’d known for sure you’d be a fend. He reached up to undo your tied hands, your hands ran through his silky soft hair gripping them as tightly as you could. He let out a guttural growl, his lips found yours pulling you into a sloppy, wet kiss. Picking you up in his large muscular arms, he laid you out on the altar, without needing much talk, Father Andrew stuffed his face between your thighs, and began to lap at your already dripping cunt. “Ah!” Your head fell all the back, you weren’t sure if there was legit something wrong with you or if it were the effects of Andrew’s abilities, whatever thoes were you weren’t sure, but something about how fucked up this whole scenario was turned you on even more.

He looked up from between your thighs, the corner of his mouth pulled into a sly grin. “Mmm you're just what I needed, a little pet that would do anything I told her too. Mmm.” He mumbled between licks to your clit, you lifted your hips to his mouth, and his hands held onto your ass keeping you there. You rocked back and forth on his face desperately, your hands found his horns, and held onto them tightly.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” You cried over and over, you were so close you could cry.

“Now that’s not how we confess, is it?” He teased letting go of your clit with a pop of his mouth, then without giving you much of a break he slid one thick finger in as deeply as possible. “Forgive me Father for I have sinned…” he trailed off, then closed his lips around your clit again, restimulating your little brown bud.

With the air left in your lungs, “f-forgive me father.” You trembled, but you tried again, deciding to try and fight through the waves of heat, and fluttering in the core of your body. “Forgive me father, for I have– OHHHH!” Just like that you squirted all over Andrew, and yourself making a complete mess. Your heart thudded, and your vision was slightly blurry, you blinked a few times trying to clear the fog. All you could do was lie there while your muscles tried to relax, but the waves just kept coming.

“It’ll stop after a minute…or two, poor human body wasn’t even prepared.” Andrew laughed at you, ‘evil bastard,’ you thought to yourself, but he was right, it subsided after a moment. When you finally mustered the strength to sit up, you brought your knees to your chest wanting to be covered under his observatory gaze. His form had gone back to how it was originally when you first stepped into the church. His chest was still bare, and now that you looked at him half clothed, you could tell by his physique he was no average man. His arms, chest, and neck were ripped. His arms and legs were ridiculously long, this man’s stature was unbelievable, yet here he was standing before you. He was covered in a thin layer of hair from his chest down past his navel.

“I know, it’s a lot to take in my pet, but you’ll adjust in time.” He said softly, he walked over to you, and kneeled on one knee to meet you eye to eye. The Ruby red irises are long gone, but that’s when it dawned on you.

“Adjust?” You wondered out loud, more so to yourself.

“Well you didn’t think I’d let you go after that? Oh no, you’re…perfect.” He purred, his eyes glossed over with desire. His tongue darted out to wet his lips, and his hand dragged over his chin, then tasting the wetness you sprayed over his face.

“You can’t just keep me here.” You fussed, not like it would do much.

“I’ll be whatever you want.” He mocked your words from earlier, and instantly your stomach dropped, regretting your decision. Once again letting your pussy think for you.

“And what I want you to be is my pretty little toy, now I’ve fulfilled my end of the bargain…it’s your turn. Don’t worry though, I’ll let you walk out of here tonight, but don’t try to get smart. You have my mark now.” Andrew grinned, in all his years of doing this, they never seem to learn, but you were close to breaking his spell the first time. Your will was your own, but you were too insecure to know the power over men you had.

Before you had a chance to question him, the inside of your forearm began to burn, but nothing like the heat you’ve experienced before, this was worse. “AGH!” You screamed as it felt like your flesh was being burned, you looked down to see a symbol you didn’t recognize. “What the fuck?”

“That is my mark, just think of it as a tracking device, and an anti human make repellent rolled into one. And before you start fussing, it’s the human male population I don’t trust darlin. Anyways…don’t worry about coming to me next time, I’ll come to you. Wherever you are.” He rattled off quickly, then snapped his fingers before you could fuss, you blinked and you were back in bed. Sleep clothes already on, and everything. You wanted to argue but you were hit with exhaustion, your eyelids too heavy to keep open. The second they closed you were out, that night you dreamed of him, Andrew McIntyre, but you had yet to learn of his true name.

[maintitle]

Sebastian: "My family put me in the Chantry because I was giving them a bad name." Sebastian: "It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I found peace. I found a purpose." Sebastian: "Before I came here, I used to be out to all hours, drinking and whoring. I didn't believe in anything except my own pleasure." Isabela: "Why couldn't I have met you then?"

I think about this banter a lot, because it's used to paint Sebastian as this wild child turned chantry boy, and I guess that's valid, but my thing is I don't believe him at all.

To me, he reads like a youth pastor. I didn't grow up religious necessarily, but I spent time in and out of church environments, and occasionally I'd meet some guy who would always sit down and kick it with the youth and talk about how he had a crazy life before he found the Church and how finding the Church could help a kid who got into trouble, and as I got older I realized that with nearly no exceptions that guy was absolutely full of shit. Either he was just saying stuff because it might bring people to God in the same way a pastor might do with an adult, or he was a sheltered kid who skipped a couple church sunday's to drink a single beer out in the woods, and oh boy were those wild days!

Don't get me wrong, he obviously did Some Shit between his time in the Chantry, but I absolutely do think he's just saying what he thinks Isabela needs to hear, regardless of if he believes it or not. This is "guy who thinks he was wild but wasn't actually wild" syndrome at play, and I do not think you did anything other than some fun over-the-clothes action Sebastian, just own it.

[temis-de-leon]

The Nemean Lion

Characters: male!MC, Luke (platonic) and an unnamed old man

Summary and Disclaimer

Main Masterlist

C/W: some swearing, descriptions of violence and brief description of murder

A/N: very different from what I normally write, so tell me if I should add something in the c/w.

.

It'll teach you a lesson, his cousin had said.

It's either this or therapy, he had said.

Babysitting or therapy? More like suffering humiliation or showing weakness.

At least he was getting paid.

Although perhaps not enough.

The child, Luke, seemed to hate being with him as much as MC hated being there at all. London was cold and humid, too different from the sunny skies he was used to, and the rich people he worked for were fucking weird. There was no other word for them; plain weird with weird-ass names and a weird-ass taste in clothes. One of them didn't even know how to wear a jacket!

And he knew there were just weird because his family was rich as well and none of them were that fucking awkward. Violent, sure, and entitled to aggressiveness, but the safety of old money allowed them to indulge as much as they wanted.

Except for MC, but he couldn't really be mad about it; Meg did divorce him because she was afraid of him, after all, and it wasn't like he could go to an office, sit on a lounge chair and seriously say “I threatened and screamed at my wife because my stepmother pushed my buttons and provoked me”.

So babysitting it was.

However, if he had to hear “I’m not a child!” one more time, he might just bang his head against a wall until he bled and call it a day. It had been amusing at the beginning, but the bakery, or patisserie, as Luke insisted on calling it, was all the way across town and the kid had done nothing but yap like an eager puppy and then yell at MC with an embarrassed blush whenever he teased him for it.

Besides, the old stone path was treacherous, eroded by the wind, the strides of those who’d walked on it and the endless rains and storms that had conquered Britain since the dawn of times; and both of them had almost tripped and fallen more than once. After the first few times, MC had offered to carry Luke so they could get there faster, but the child had looked at him like he’d just murdered his mother, immediately walking faster to avoid him and prove a point and ultimately falling backwards as a result, which just made him feel even more embarrassed if that was possible. MC did consider placing him on his shoulder and ignoring his complaints, but wouldn’t that look like kidnapping?

He could not risk his chances. Being seen as a short-tempered madman by his whole community was already hard enough.

“Your ass is wet” he snickered, barking a laugh at the grey sky when Luke turned around with cheeks blushing in a scandalized expression.

“My what??”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Your butt is wet”

“I understood you the first time!”

“Okay, damn” muttered MC, which served only to receive another appalled look. Was he babysitting a preteen or an old lady?

Maybe he was a sheltered kid? His tutor, a young father or an older brother, MC wasn’t sure, looked like a youth pastor dressed in a navy uniform, so maybe swearing and behaving inappropriately were non-existent in their house.

“It wasn’t my fault I fell; you know”

“I never blamed you” he said kicking a rock down the street. “But you wouldn’t have fallen if you’d let me carry you…”

Luke interrupted him, balling his fists until his knuckles were white.

“You carry a child! I’m not a child! I can walk perfectly fine. Hmph!”

“You can also fall perfectly fine; nice form back there”

“Shut up!”

He chuckled again, nicer that time, and lightly pushed Luke so he would keep walking forward, but a quick movement on the porch beside them brought his attention.

It was a man, but he couldn’t pinpoint how old he was. Half of his face was covered by a long bushy beard and the insane amount of muscles made him look younger. Not even the fur and leather jacket he wore helped cover his bulky body. His eyes were light brown, almost golden and surrounded by wrinkles and age spots, and when they disappeared behind the window and the front door opened a few seconds later, MC’s first impulse was to grab Luke by the scruff of the neck and place him behind his body. Whatever argument the kid tried to say died under the man’s voice.

His stance was powerful too, not an ounce of weakness emanated from him.

“Shut your fucking mouths, the both of you” he rasped, his voice unsurprisingly deep. MC could feel Luke shrink as if trying to hide from the man, no sound came from him. “You’re talking too damn loud”

“I think those are the voices in your head, man”

A tiny fist punched his back repeatedly, silently urging him to stop talking. Unfortunately for Luke, he almost couldn’t notice the hits.

“We’re just passing by, using the sidewalk like good-behaved civilians” MC said nonchalantly, keeping his hands inside the pockets of his jacket and opening his arms as if showing the deserted street. The man frowned and licked his teeth, looking at him from head to toe, clearly assessing him. “If you have a problem with that, suck it up and cry to whoever gives a shit about you. I know I don’t”

“You…!”

In the span of a second, the stranger crossed the distance between them and looked down with a sneer. He was bigger than him, angrier and more willing to punch, but MC knew he could win the fight if they ever happened to start one. However, Luke was shaking like a leaf and even though the wind had risen and the sky threatened to hide the sun again, MC knew it wasn’t due to the cold.

“Hey, not my fault if you’re lonely” he muttered after swallowing his pride, trying not to chuckle without bothering to hide to curving corner of his lips. “But if you’re into that shit we won’t bother you anymore“

“You’re crossing a line, kid”

That made MC chortle.

He would’ve already struck with a fist by then had it been any other situation, especially when his ego was so sore by his brand new living arrangement.

Although only a few months had passed, his vision still went blind each time he remembered the argument. If only his father had been there when everything happened, the situation would’ve been extremely different, but who knew where he was? Probably getting more random women pregnant. Instead, they had his stepmother, his father’s first and only wife, who had single-handedly stripped MC of his inheritance to give it all to his cowardly cousin, whose solution to resolve the scandal “faster” had been to send MC away.

And now he was babysitting a preteen and dying to fight an old man in the streets of London.

“You were sitting by the window watching children go by; if we’re talking about crossing lines…”

He missed the Mediterranean sun and the burning feeling on his shoulders amid summer; having someone by his side each morning and no worries that could keep him awake at night.

The old man quickly grabbed the collar of his jacket before pulling him towards his alcohol-reeking body. He bore his teeth, hardly visible under the unkempt beard, and sneered when MC smiled with twisted satisfaction.

An almost imperceptible tremble behind him made him retreat in an instant.

“Be bitter on your own” he ended up saying after forcefully peeling himself out of the grasp and taking a few steps back. He grabbed Luke’s bicep in the process to drag him by his side.

The man was fuming with fists clenching in unrestraint rage but thankfully stayed where he was.

“And leave the rest of us out of it”

So they left.

Their bodies, at least. A part of MC wished to stay behind in search of warmth and the smell of copper.

What loneliness did to an angry man…

Silence stayed between them for a long time, even when they finally reached the damn patisserie and stood outside to wait in line. A poster on the window warned a maximum of two people inside the tiny establishment and the old-fashioned doorbell only rang every few long minutes, so it seemed they’d be there for a while. Those around them were chatting, mindlessly commenting on the menu’s options and the impending storm that would eventually ruin their evening’s plans; the distant thundering only proving their point.

“I don’t get it, though” he said trying to ignore his inner turmoil. Luke raised his head to look at him, obviously impatient to go in and order some sweets. “Why did you want to come here? Why not bake whatever they sell? I thought you were good”

“I am good! Even Michael loves…” his voice suddenly stopped and his face contorted in regret.

He’d said something he shouldn’t have, hadn’t he? MC squatted, immediately distracted and interested, and smiled at the kid with morbid curiosity.

Morningstar had introduced him to Luke’s tutor in the morning, mere minutes before shamelessly leaving him under his care and going to who knows where to attend some business. Simeon, a pretty guy if MC had ever seen one, had given the same excuse, but, if he saw correctly, and he knew he did, both had gone in different directions. Had any of them left to go see this Michael?

“Who’s that?” he urged. Unfortunately, despite looking so nervous, Luke wasn’t willing to talk about it.

“No one!” he answered, but he sounded furious at his own response. He opened his mouth again but changed the subject at the end, much to MC’s disappointment. “If you’re that interested, I’m going to buy puff pastry cups; here they bake them with a secret ingredient, so I want to experiment with different fillings at The Angel’s Halo”

“You know you won’t be able to sell them, right?”

“Yes, but I’m okay with that. I like to bake, regardless of any compensation I might receive. As long as my friends enjoy it, then I’m happy!”

And golly gee, wasn’t that a beautiful mindset?

MC tried not to roll his eyes, equally amused and exasperated at the child’s kindness. He had never met anyone so virtuous, let alone a boy that young, and it got him to briefly wonder if there was the slight possibility of having been as innocent as Luke had his family been completely different. On the other side, what if they were doomed to fail from the start? The thought was infuriating and made his muscles tense once again.

“Do I get to have one too?” he muttered, trying to get the sour taste out of his mouth. Imagining a homemade dessert was a decent solution.

“You?” answered Luke with raised brows, surprised by his request. He then frowned and crossed his arms with a dignified expression. “You really think you deserve it? You used some bad words back then”

He chuckled at the reprimand, feigning ignorance with obscene exaggeration.

“Bad words? Which ones?”

“I’m not going to repeat them!”

“Are you gonna give me one of those sweets if I swear I won’t say them again?”

“I… I don’t know! Maybe!”

“Okay, I’ll make sure not to say them in front of you then”

“Wait, no- That’s not fair! And you said you didn’t know which ones I meant anyway!”

A melodic ring interrupted their conversation, finally letting the last customers get out of the store and filling the narrow street with the sweet smell of butter and sugar.

“C’mon, don’t think about it too hard”

“Wait…!” he tried to protest, but MC was pushing him inside the cosy establishment without paying any attention to his words.

The rest of the evening passed faster than he would’ve imagined when he was given his task that morning. Luke, as annoying as his moral compass was most of the time, had a way of keeping the conversation going without being irritating or repetitive, even with their limited topics. He was curious and naïve but also had a fiery determination and the more MC teased him the less offended he acted about it.

In the end, they came back to The Angel’s Halo discussing their favourite flavours and toppings, staying like that for hours. When Simeon returned, quiet and reflective, the night had already claimed the sky and had brought dark clouds and the bite of cold wind with it. After that, it was only a matter of time until it started raining and, before anyone could realise it, the sidewalks were already covered in dirty water.

MC knew the moment he stepped out of the café that he should’ve gone back to Serenity Manor, reported to Morningstar and cleaned off the heavy rain with a shower, but his feet thought otherwise; even when his t-shirt clung uncomfortably and the drenched denim jacket added unnecessary weight to his stride. For some reason, instead of the blankets and the sweaters waiting for him in the guest room he’d been assigned, his memories were swarmed by a vaguely familiar fur and leather jacket.

That old man was stronger than him and more intimidating too, but also bitter and lonely. There could be a million reasons why an elder ended up without a family: opportunities lost to time, death, rejection… Wrongdoings? But MC couldn’t care less. It didn’t even matter. At the end of the day, they were both sides of the very same angry coin, with the difference that only one was wearing a good jacket.

And MC swore on his father’s blood that it would be him.

With a mind clouded by senseless ire, he ignored the clean modern road leading to the manor and went instead through the streets he had walked hours before with Luke. Who knew if MC was alone because no one was there or because those who were had chosen to hide, but the idea of still being respected, even if caused by fear, felt better than he cared to admit. It was flattering.

MC could notice his heart beating faster as the old man’s house appeared in his vision. It reminded him of one time, years ago, when he had gone with his brother and their mother to the zoo and they had all stared at the lions’ enclosure with yearning and excitement; the desire to reach and touch the mane and golden coat strong enough to give him energy for two days and tire his poor mother.

He needed that jacket.

Although some houses nearby had the lights on, no one was there to hear him jump the gate. He crossed the small overgrown garden and stared at the inside of the house through the window glass, just as the old men had looked at Luke and him earlier.

The living room was dark and empty, including furniture and decoration. There was only an armchair placed in a corner next to a worn-out standing floor lamp and a simple table with stacks of paper stuck under a couple of its legs. As far as he could see, the end of the hallway showed no light either.

MC clicked his tongue, ignoring the tendrils of impatience before walking towards the door in a crouch and pushing it softly. It opened with a creak but emitted no sound as it closed and, once he was inside and the dark engulfed him, he quietly locked the deadbolt. Whichever reason the man had for keeping his home open, whether it was his arrogance or no possession of value, wasn’t interesting to MC.

There, in silence, he could only hear his own breathing, the speed of his blood flow, the faint ticking of a clock and the constant humming of an appliance. The lack of snoring in the house did nothing but excite him even further. It did not matter to him what state the old man was in; deep in slumber or wide awake, being caught by surprise would leave him weak and at a disadvantage.

The kitchen was at the end of the corridor, illuminated only by the moonlight through the curtains. It had a backdoor, which MC quickly closed before leaving and going straight to the stairs.

A wide taxidermy collection decorated the halls. The creepy and empty stares of the stuffed animals seemed fixed on him as he stepped over the carpeted floors to make as little noise as possible. There were skulls on the walls too and weapons scattered around, especially hunting knives and machetes. He noticed some were stained and, after little consideration, chose to ignore it.

No family pictures or portraits to make the house more human; just the stench of death. Recollections of past violence.

A messy office, a bathroom reeking of mould and, finally, the bedroom.

The door was ajar, so opening it enough to enter comfortably wasn’t difficult, although It creaked a bit. Thankfully, it was still raining and the noise went unnoticed, so before he could even realise it, MC found himself looming over the old man.

MC saw with surprising indifference that he had taken off the leather jacket to carelessly throw it over a chair for the night. He could grab it, leave and let the situation stay as a petty theft; but what then? Would he ever be able to wear it comfortably out of the privacy of the house?

He looked down again. The old man was sleeping, face up and mouth open, and for a glorious moment, he looked frail.

Without thinking much about it, MC leaned over and grabbed the other end of the pillow with slow movements, careful not to make any noise. He lifted his knee at the same time, placing it over the man’s pelvis and, once his body was somewhat aligned over the laying one, he pushed down as strongly as possible, pressed the pillow against the man’s face and seized his thick neck with an iron grip.

The denim protected him from the scratches, but he would still have bruises the next day. The hits hurt, of course, and it seemed the old man was trying to bite him through the pillow. Unfortunately for him, there was nothing in MC’s bitter mind besides the bone-chilling coldness of the city and the reminder of an empty bed back at Serenity Manor.

The rain was heavier than before if that was possible, but at least he’d leave that awful house with a good jacket.

.

.

Taglist: @ilovecandys2010  @ollieoven @kingofspadesdelusion @whimsybloom @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf

[middlingmay]

Rebel!John and Pastor's Son!Gale AU finally has a name!

That Ol' Devil Called Love.

To celebrate, I'll share a few more snippets that I've developed for the story:

First - Mechanic Marge! She's very suspicious of John, given his reputation around town, so drops by the garage to see him. Gale is her best friend and she's very protective of him. John says if she wants to talk, she has to work, and she quickly becomes enthralled with cars, and wants to learn to drive. The boys of the 100th Garage teach her. One time, Gale drops by and sees Marge in overalls that are far too baggy, using an old piece of a handbrake cable as a belt to hold them up. She's covered in dirt and John looks delighted with himself. "Look at me, corrupting all the youth," he says.

Also, Gale meets Alex and Macon, who do not take to him because of his dad, but they warm up eventually. John takes Gale dancing to a secret club well known for being very accepting, and Alex stumbles across Gale and John getting heavy in the alley. Including the absolutely filthy mouth Gale has apparently. That pretty much banishes any reservations Alex has about Gale being like his father. He likes to tease Gale about what he saw and heard at every opportunity.

Although Alex is a great technical drawer, in this Macon is the artist. He designs cars like no one's business, but he can't get his own business set up. Also, Gale has to help Alex fix his car on the roadside one day, because his usual mechanic has racked up the prices and they can't afford it.

You see where this is going. Gale tells Alex about John's garage and it just so happens John is also looking for a new market to break into (or Crank will actually murder him. Crank is the manager and accountant and is the only thing that keeps the garage functioning).

So Macon starts working at the 100th, and with him, Marge, and even Gale doing the odd bit of work, Crank needs to tell John to stop bringing in strays if he wants them to stay afloat.

Much later on, we'll also meet Lawyer Rosie who specialises in helping victims of sexual abuse and LGBTQ+ discrimination. It is the 1940s and there are no discrimination laws, but assault is assault, and Rosie is damn good at his job.

And I just really love the idea of some of Benny's family being in the mob, and Benny, the sugar plum, not having a clue. None of the boys in the 100th do. But Gale does and he doesn't know how the fuck everyone thinks the boys of the 100th are 'rebels' when all they see is the good in everyone.

[varianandhugodonotgetrawed]

I did a thing

Thanks to @shelobussy for giving me the idea for this little one shot! You didn't think I was serious, did you? But I was, oh, I was.

Desc: Hugo and Varian run into a problem while helping at VBS (vacation Bible school for those unfamiliar. It's literally summer camp but Christian). Warning for minor cursing, past homophobia.

___________________________________

"And... it's locked." Hugo sighed and slid down the door of the closet. "Who designed this thing? Why would a door auto-lock when you close it?"

"Why wouldn't it?" Varian had already sat down. "If you hadn't dropped the key we would be out of here."

"You're always blaming me for stuff. This isn't even the right closet! This is the damn communion supply closet, and I told you the cleaning supplies were down the hall, but no, Heaven forbid I be right."

"I got turned around! Half the hallways out of the sanctuary look the same anyway." At least they wouldn't starve, though Varian might rather starve than subsist on grape juice and crackers that looked and tasted like Styrofoam. And would it be heretical to eat and drink communion elements outside of the ceremony? Surely God would understand, like that story with David and the sacred bread.

"Uh, earth to Freckles," Hugo's annoying voice cut through Varian's thoughts. "How are we gonna get out of here? The VBS has, like, four chaperones for the middle schoolers including us, we need to get out."

"Can't you pick locks, Beanpole?" Varian had never seen Hugo lockpick, but he looked like the type to know how.

With his long undercut blond hair, piercings, alternative clothing style, and flamboyantly gay demeanor, Hugo wasn't really the sort of person Varian would expect to be a youth group leader, but West Ingvarr Methodist Church prided itself on diversity and inclusion. Varian couldn't help but think, though, that even if it wasn't a sin, Hugo didn't need to make being queer his whole personality. Varian certainly managed not to.

"I can't pick this kind of lock. I don't know the inside mechanisms of the automatic doors. And I'll thank you not to use that tone when asking. I don't why you think you're better than me-"

"I don't think I'm better than you-" Varian began.

Hugo snorted. "Could've fooled me. Anyways, I could maybe figure out how to disassemble the lock, but I don't think Pastor Robin would be very happy with me."

"So we're stuck here," Varian groaned.

"Until someone comes along and sees the key on the ground, yes. Don't look at me like that, Freckles, I'm not pleased about it either. You're stuck in a closet with someone you hate, I'm stuck with someone who hates me."

"I don't hate you. You're annoying as- as heck, and loud, and honestly I don't think you should curse around the kids-"

"They're middle and high schoolers, they've heard the word 'shit' before. Besides, I know what it is. You don't like the way I dress, the way I talk, you don't like when I talk about my homosexuality-" Hugo said the last word like he was an old man deeply offended by it.

Varian rolled his eyes. "That's not it. If it makes you feel better, I'm literally bisexual. I just don't think you need to talk about it as much as you do-"

"Freckles, what would your life be like if you had had an openly queer leader in the church when you were those kid's age? Because I'll tell you right now, mine would have been a hell of a lot better. You can keep your internalized homophobia to yourself, but I'm going to be who I am. And I'm going to be for those kids what I needed." Hugo finished and turned his head away, arms crossed.

Varian couldn't think of a thing to say. He tried not to think about it much, now that he was out of Old Corona, and two years into college, but he remembered growing up in a church very different from West Ingvarr. Forget it being unsafe to be queer, Varian had dyed a streak of his hair blue when he was fourteen and been looked at like he was the devil's child into he finally broke and dyed it black again. Eventually, fifteen-year-old Varian had decided he couldn't take it anymore, and ran away. It'd quickly gone wrong, and he'd fallen in with a very bad crowd before his father found him, and promised they would move away after Varian tearfully confessed the reason for his rebellion.

All that to say, Hugo was right. Varian cringed thinking it. But Varian had been unfair in his judgment of him, and it was the right thing to do to admit that.

"I'm... sorry." Varian finally said. Hugo didn't turn his head, but his eyes flicked over and his eyebrows rose slightly. "I think... I let my biases color how I judged you, and that was... unfair and not very 'Good Christian' of me. I... really don't hate you, Hugo."

Hugo turned his head, and Varian could see him holding back a smile. "Thanks for the self-awareness. I forgive you, I guess."

Varian scoffed. "Thanks, 'I guess'."

"Well," Hugo began, obnoxious grin on his face, before pausing. "I think I hear footsteps! HEY? IS ANYONE THERE?" He yelled, forcing Varian to cover his ears.

"Yes, ominous voice? Wait. Hugo, is that you?"

"Yep!" He replied. "Varian, we're in luck! Okay, Yong, there's a key on the ground. I need you to slide it under the door, alright?"

"I don't see a- oh! There you go!" A second later, the bronze key appeared by the door. Varian and Hugo stood up, and unlocked the door.

"Feels good to be free!" Hugo declared, stretching.

"We were only in there for twenty minutes," Varian commented, grinning.

"Yeah, but twenty minutes stuck with you? Basically twenty years."

"Shut up, Beanpole," Varian pretended to punch Hugo's arm. Maybe he wasn't so bad after all.

[godsdaughter3]

Yap Session 2: Spiritual Warfare/Demonic Attacks.

!!!I AM NOT TRYING TO FORCE ANYTHING ONTO YOU PLEASE SCROLL IF YOU FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE!!!

I, like all Christian's have gone through Spiritual Warfare. It's hard to identify Spiritual Warfare but once you do, you know how to fight it, by using the Armour of God. If you don't know what that is I got you. I am not a pastor, just a girl who loves the Lord and wants to help others by telling them what I know.

Belt of truth: Sets the believer apart from the world and protects them from lies 

Breastplate of righteousness: Protects the heart from Satan's accusations

Shoes of the gospel of peace: Allows believers to share God with others and to know that God loves them 

Shield of faith: Protects believers from the devil's attacks 

Helmet of salvation: Protects the mind from the devil's doubt 

Sword of the Spirit: The Word of God, which believers can use to fight off the devil and his temptations (Ephesians 6:14-17)

My church had a youth service on 10/5/24 man, I tell you the Holy Spirit MOVED. My friend (a fellow youth member) preached about the full armour of God. His explanation of it really opened my eyes and helped me realize that the reason that the devil attacks me so much is because I don't have the full armour of God on, and the devil knows that I am destined for great things through Christ and he was going to stop that in any way that he can.

Spiritual warfare is exhausting especially when you don't know it's happening. When I was going through spiritual warfare I felt drained, I didn't want to get out of bed, I was tired, unable to focus on schoolwork, sleeping through church, overthinking, panic attacks, crying for no reason and so much more. One thing that I remember specifically was that the devil was using to bring me back down is music. I love music, when I was in the world I was hooked to sexual music such as, The Weeknd, Chase Atlantic, Plvtinum, Billie Eilish, and much, much more. The devil was trying to tell me that I needed to listen to them 'only for the melody' no, cause if I listened to their music, I would've payed attention to the lyrics and fallen into sexual temptation. Music has power over you, your mind, your soul. So, I replaced them with Christian artists that I absolutely love. (If you want I'll send you a list of Christian arstists that you should try out, just send me a dm ♡). Now I'm going to tell you what I used to help me get through the spiritual attack in just five steps. Step one: Identify the lie.

Genesis 3:2-4 "The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman." This verse is talking about Eve, Eve was under a spiritual attack from the lie that the serpent (the devil) gave her, that's why she ate the fruit. Then there was the fall of humanity.

Now in John 8:31-32 says, "To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (Words in red because it was Jesus speaking). Lies, lead to bondage. For example, let's take someone who's addicted to porn. Porn would be the fruit, the lie could be, 'I'm lonely and unloved, so I need a false excerpt of what love is'. This is just an example, I'm not saying that if someone is addicted to porn they're demon possessed, no. When you do this, keep in mind that the lie could be hidden, so take your time. One quote that I love says, "The strongholds in our lives are the lies we believe."

Step two: Repent from the lie.

Psalm 51:7-12 "Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity. Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me." This is a prayer that King David prayed to God after he slept with Bathsheba and killed her husband. See, David just commited adultery and murder. Two things that God hates, now he was asking God to make him white as snow. And guess what? God will always do that. Now that doesn't mean, sin whenever repent later, it doesn't work like that. You need to feel conviction and genuine regret.

Step three: Stand against the lie. Ephesians 6:10-12 "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Be ready for attacks by putting on the full amour of God cause if you do, then satan cannot touch you.

James 4:7-8 "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." Submit and run to God and He will help you.

Matthew 16:22-23 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!” Jesus turned and said to Peter “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.” In this passage Jesus was telling His disicples about how He was going to get crucified and reserect on the 3rd day. Then Peter pulled Him aside to tell Him it was never going to happen. Essentially what Jesus was doing here was rebuking the devil for trying to stop what God had planned for Him. You can directly quote Jesus here when the devil tries to attack you.

Step four: Replace the lie with truth.

Matthew 12:43-45 “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” Unfortunately, when you finally get free from a spiritual attack demons will come back with stronger ones so that you end up in a worse state then what you were before.

Galatians 5:16-17 "So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want." Your flesh has the power to make you do things that might not want to do, like listening to music that you're not supposed to listen too, in my case. Here are some emotions that can be replaced with fruits of the Spirit. ~Anxiety, replace it with peace. ~Depression, replace it with joy. ~Hate, replace it with love. ~ Quick temper, replace it with patience. ~Selfishness, replace it with kindness ~Evil thoughts, replace them with good ones. ~Fear, replace it with faith. ~Harshness, replace it with gentleness. ~Fleshly desires, replace it with self control. ~Shame, replace it with honor. Step five: Walk in truth. Psalm 86:11-13 "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead." The truth of God is stronger than any lie the devil wants to tell you.

Never forget to pray, remember that being a Christian in this world is single-handely the hardest thing you could ever do in this world. Remember that God set you free, you have access to freedom today because, Jesus loves you. ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

[enby-wrights]

(warning i do not understand how tumblr works i have been on here for like two months and gathered absolutely nothing so i apologize if i did something wrong with like tags and the like? also i think i kind of sound like a youth pastor towards the end of this but it’s okay i do what i want. anyways)

greetings marble hornets fanbase i just have some (long) thoughts to share on tim and alex :) i have some Mental Health Hot Takes that are not worded well because i wrote this at one in the morning but feel free to read anyways. also i know that the marble hornets mental illness allegory conversation has been done to death but please let me throw in my two cents i am just a little guy and i even said please

in all my six long years traversing the Deep Dark Depths of the marble hornets fanbase, i’ve never been all that interested in exploring any kind of close relationship between alex and tim within the story-- i think 2006 alex comes off as a bit desperate and overbearing, and i think that would have made 2006 tim a little too anxious to attempt to get close to him. it’s just interesting to think that they wouldn’t quite fit together at the only point in their lives where they would have had the chance.

their position in the overall story as narrative foils to one another, however........... now that’s a tasty character dynamic if i do say so myself :) although essentially all of season three revolves around the conflicts between people as they react to the mental illness metaphor operator in their own Fun And Unique ways, alex and tim are undoubtedly the poster children of this concept. both of them begin dealing with almost identical issues, and their reactions to these issues shape their individual narratives in completely opposite directions. i was thinking about it while listening to the podcast great, more tapes today (which if you haven’t listened to it i totally recommend it even though it has been dead for a year) and it’s kind of a really great allegory for the ways in which people’s reactions to experiences with mental illness can either make or break our recovery. as someone who has intentionally made my own recovery worse on multiple occasions out of general manic faux edginess, the parallels kind of hit me really hard

i’m gonna highlight the differences between alex and tim’s reactions to the mental illness metaphor operator using a bullet point list because i’m autistic and all of my thoughts occur in bullet point lists actually

during the filming of alex kralie’s marble hornets, as their symptoms are both beginning to set in, we see alex alone incredibly often. tim, on the other hand, is always seen surrounded by other people (this also comes down to the contexts in which they were filming but whatever it’s artistic framing or something idk)

tim seeks medical attention. duh. i think it’s probably pretty safe to assume that alex did not seek any sort of medical attention for his mental health issues leading up to all that murder, otherwise there maybe wouldn’t have been murder

aside from seeking medical help, we also see tim seeking help (or at least visibility) from his peers. entry #66 is just tim yelling at jay about how scared he is. and even if jay isn’t really much help, he can at least see where tim is coming from in the future and has the opportunity to act accordingly (he does not take this opportunity but hey at least it’s there. as alex’s condition worsens, all we see is him lying to his loved ones about what’s going on. which is bad.

alex constantly walks in anger and fear. tim doesn’t stifle his emotions (i.e. him beating the shit out of jay), but he also acts logically and doesn’t dwell on them for too long

by season three alex is just fucking living all alone in the woods (which if you didn’t know is the opposite of seeking help)!! not only is he running around in an echo chamber but he chose to bring a gun into the echo chamber with him which is a really great way to become more mentally ill. tim on the other hand has a job, and a life, and people in his life who at least care enough about him to call him and see if he’ll be at work on time. he keeps busy and he interacts with the world around him and even when he’s having to constantly check in with his doctor to make sure he stays okay he is out and about and being a person

and it’s a weird thing to think about because when i’m at my worst psychologically i tend to bring a (METAPHORICAL) gun into my own echo chamber and sulk around in there until i start to believe some pretty shitty things about the world around me

but on the few occasions where i do manage to reach for help and respect my feelings while still existing outside myself it’s a miraculous feeling. i get better. and then i get worse again, because mental illness is a bitch, but it gets easier and easier to reach out every time.

and i think that’s part of the reason why alex gets eaten up by the idea of the operator while tim doesn’t. tim has experience with getting help, and he’s clearly developed a skill for taking care of himself. he just got lucky that his first time dealing with a mental health crisis wasn’t as fucked up as alex’s.

anways tldr alex kralie is my new example for what not to do in my mental health recovery journey also he’s a bitch 

(ps i don’t understand how i got to the end of this rant without mentioning masky a single time but i promise he fits into the mental illness allegory somewhere probably maybe)

[ifishouldvanish]

pondering alucard as a happy middle ground between olrox and mizrak. like human enough for both but vampiric enough too

Oh for real anon! I mentioned it in an earlier reply but like... I think meeting Alucard will be some kind of turning point for Mizrak, that helps him to better open his eyes about what vampires are and who they can be, the multitudes they can hold 🥺

I think it was easy for him to write off Olrox because Olrox is admittedly a little sus from his perspective: Beautiful and charismatic stranger shows up out of the blue knowing way more information than he should, gets him straight into bed, and starts poking holes in everything he understands about the situation with no clear motive? And just when Mizrak starts to trust him, he withdraws from the biggest fight of their lives like, "yeah no, sorry, I can't actually help here"

But then Alucard shows up at the eleventh hour for the express purpose of helping them fight said battle, and is met with Richter's ringing endorsement of basically like, "wow!! You mean the bedtime stories my family would tell me about the friendly vampire who once helped our ancestors save the world were true??!! 🤯" ...which obviously paints a vastly more flattering picture.

The thing is, I don't think Mizrak needed Olrox to win the battle for them. He wanted to see him try. Mizrak is prepared to die fighting, and—*youth pastor voice*—you know who else goes into a fight and doesn't give up no matter how badly he's getting his ass beat? Adrian Fahrenheit Ţepeş, that's who!!!!

Obviously as the audience we understand there's more to Olrox's insistence that he's not strong enough. But to Mizrak it looks like cowardice, like he's protecting his own ass and leaving them to die. It's a confirmation of all the biases he holds about vampires: that they're selfish, incapable of caring about others, etc.

So imagine the whiplash of another vampire he's never even met or heard of showing up moments later to kick some ass because it's just the right thing to do!!! Hoo boy, like that changes EVERYTHING!!! 🫨

All this to say: 100%. I can totally see Mizrak befriending Alucard and that serving as a sort of stepping stone for reconciling things with Olrox. Changing his impression of "he left us to die because he's a vampire and has no soul" to "he fled from the fight because he was vulnerable and made a strategic judgement call"

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Darrell Lucus at Loud, Liberal, Christian:

For the better part of this year, one of the biggest stories that wasn’t related to the presidential election was the downfall of one of America’s most prominent pastors, Robert Morris. In case you missed it, Morris, founding pastor of one of America’s most influential churches, Gateway Church in Southlake, Texas—a suburb of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex—fell fast and fell hard this past summer when he was exposed as a child predator. In 1984, when Morris was an up-and-coming youth evangelist, he began grooming and molesting then 12-year-old Cindy Clemishire at her home in Hominy, Oklahoma—an outer suburb of Tulsa. It proved to be the start of a long nightmare for Cindy. While the abuse only ended four years later, Morris’ efforts to cover up his depravity continued for another four decades. Through it all, he told anyone who would listen that he had merely had “moral failure” with ‘a young lady.” As this story went, he was cleared to return to ministry by his elders at Shady Grove Church, a charismatic megachurch in another Metroplex suburb, Grand Prairie. He kept up this line when he founded Gateway in 2000; Gateway absorbed Shady Grove in 2015.

Morris’ deceit finally caught up with him in June after Clemishire finally found someone willing to listen to her—Dee Parsons of Wartburg Watch. Morris tried to spin the same lies to the general public that he’d spun to those close to him for four decades When it became apparent that wasn’t going to fly, he resigned. Morris would have had us believe that he had merely sinned. But any right-thinking person knows that this wasn’t a sin. On the weekend before Election Day, Gateway formally acknowledged what any right-thinking person following this story has known—it was a crime. Gateway also revealed that Morris and those who helped cover up his deceit at Gateway are now the subjects of a very active criminal investigation. And now, this writer can exclusively report who is leading said investigation.

[...] We should want this investigation to take time. After all, we cannot afford to have a repeat of the Bill Cosby case. Even though it was clear beyond any doubt that he was a rapist, Cosby was allowed to walk free because prosecutors in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, were either too lazy or too blinded by headlines to do the actual work necessary to make sure his 2018 conviction stuck. Instead, they relied almost entirely on evidence gleaned from testimony in a civil suit—a Fifth Amendment violation that could not be countenanced, even though Cosby was manifestly guilty. Even without that to consider, Morris theoretically has the resources to fight a conviction, so it’s incumbent upon Drummond to ensure there’s enough evidence to ensure any appeal is a fool’s errand. I confess, I hope this doesn’t end the way Bakker’s trial ended. He would still be in prison today if a judge hadn’t gotten diarrhea of the mouth at sentencing. When I first found out that Morris was indeed the target of an investigation, I couldn’t help but think of a number of friends who haven’t set foot in a church building in ages because so many churches turn a blind eye to child sexual abuse. This investigation is as much for them as it is for Cindy and other victims of sexual abuse in the church. It is long past time that someone was not only willing to listen, but make the effort to see that justice is done.

Darrell Lucus has the scoop on scandal-ridden sexual abusing “pastor” Robert Morris facing a criminal investigation in Oklahoma.

[hippodamoi]

A friend said she read Crime & Punishment but wasn't impressed by it. All she recalled was an entitled man killing an old woman and pity party for the murderer's poor tortured soul. This was my response to her, I thought others might enjoy it too.

"It is a staunch criticism, not a pity party. There was this idea of a cosmopolitan man, a Nietzschean übermensch was someone capable of transcending social and moral codes. Prime example being Napoleon, a man without parallel. Them being 'great' would make them invincible to guilt because all actions they took would be something considered beneficial to society - Raskolnikov thought he was one of these men, and by devolving throughout the narrative he realizes he is not one of these "great" men, he is just like any other citizen and there is no excuse for thinking morals and laws don't apply to you. It's a direct message to the students and academic men of the time. The old woman is a horrible loanshark and abuses the woman she lives with, her niece, and he tries to convince himself that killing her would be excusable since he considers her a cancer on society. But he also ends up killing the niece to cover up his crime as she returns and witnesses it - removing even that sliver of argument or defense for his actions. He hoped to 'serve humanity' by eradicating the mean-spirited moneylender, but also had the utilitarian idea that he would steal her money and use said money to further his education, so that he could become a great man and have positive influence and help more people. The whole murder has the spirit of a psychological experiment which fits the theme and craft of the novel. Raskolnikov has delusions of godhood and this is after Dostovyevsky has been in a gulag for 10+ years, so he knows that the young think themselves immortal and anointed, a common misconception of the youth in western education at the time and even to this day,

After killing her he realizes just how much he is not beyond good and evil. Something he previously thought was petty, something for plebians.

It has three dimensions, his biography, his christian faith (there's several references to the bible and lazarus who he symbolizes) and criticism/exploration of philosophical ideas. Its a direct response to utopian socialism and rational nihilism. He even foresaw many of the horrors of the russian revolution.

The epilogue is not just redemption, but sanctification. Raskolnikov has become a saint. Russian religion at the time was very orthodox and process-oriented, so we follow the steps of his redemption in the narrative. He confessed his sin out of weakness instead of strength, his transformation from the snivelling arrogant youth to a saint is not verbal, its a lived out experience and process. even the title in russian refers to the carrying of a cross, the very first scene is him crossing a bridge from the dirty streets of Skt. Petersburg to fresh clean air of the pastoral. Both foreshadowing and commentary on the squalor most of the citizens live in. as well as the moral degradation of the cosmopolitan cities. Skt. Petersburg was usually described as extravagant and beautiful in literature, while he describes it as smelly, dirty and sort of a wasteland - a hell, you might say.

There's also this dominating motif of christian authenticity that is typical of russian lit. A christian heart will react in a christian way - meaning it will recognize good and evil in a way that a rationally educated mind does not. (especially in reference to that horrible scene with the horse)

Raskolnikov is described as a misanthrope, and alienated from both religion and other people, leading him to commit same sin as Cain, not killing his brother per se, but a fellow human being. that very act transforms him. something in him dies with the moneylender - his common humanity.

out of that death comes a different life, drawing parallel to Lazarus as I mentioned before. It's like a whole hermeneutic event, his return to common humanity starts with Sonia telling him the very story of Lazarus. anyway, enough of me writing novels about novels! It's so convoluted and deep and I genuinely love it. Its a prime example of literature being an educating, moralizing element capable of engendering empathy and inspiring positive social progress."

[whositmcwhatsit]

Stay the Same

A/N: I am so close to the wire with this one! Angsty smut written for last week's prompt: army Elvis (We're sort of army-adjacent because I'm a rule bender.)

As always, shout out to my people: @thatbanditqueen, @be-my-ally, @ellie-24, @missmaywemeetagain, @from-memphis-with-love, @vintageshanny for love, support, encouragement and deep, depraved horniness.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“I need you, darlin’. You don’t understand. I need you somethin’ awful.”

It played over and over in Kitty’s head as she sped along the dark highway, praying that none of the wildlife she glimpsed skittering about at the edge of the road decided to do a suicide run in front of her car. She could explain away taking the car, an emergency maybe, a sick friend or someone who was having trouble at home. Lots of her friends were getting married right now, and there were always dramas in the early days. It was plausible. What she wouldn’t be able to explain to her mother was why her station wagon had an armadillo smushed in the fender; not many of them wandering around their suburban streets.

Oh Lord, what was she doing? She lifted her foot off the gas slightly and started to look for a place to safely pull in. She was not a flighty, foolish kind of girl. Ask anyone who knew her and they would tell you that Kitty Cowan was not the spontaneous type. For a girl who graduated early so that she could travel around performing in a country and western duo with her brother, Kitty had a surprisingly level head on her shoulders. Or she used to, until a certain Hillbilly Cat had wandered onto their roadshow with his Blue Moon Boys and promptly melted the sense right out of her mind.

Back then, all he’d have to do was stare at her with those shy, hooded eyes and flutter those long, thick lashes and she would be doing his laundry and pressing his shirts like she was a combination laundress/housewife. Her brother Chick, knowing how she pitched a fit when their mama asked her to help out with chores at home, would gawp at her like she had gone and sold her brain for a dime, but all Kitty needed was that lopsided grin and the press of Elvis’ soft lips against her cheek when she handed over the clean, pressed clothes and it seemed worth it. More, she felt like she had done something important for someone who was worth it.

Only, all that craziness had ended a couple of years before when Elvis had moved up to the big leagues and Chick and Kitty, having grown bored of the same old shows at the same old places, decided to stash their guitars in the garage and settle down for a real, normal life. There was never a question that they could follow him, Elvis paved his own pathway through the wilderness and none of them were quite talented enough to follow it.

Which was fine, Chick had got a job at a radio station, putting that gift of the gab to good use, and he was doing well at it, travelling around again as an emcee for the new rock n roll shows that had burst onto the scene, feeding off the teenage excitement. Sometimes he’d run across Elvis and get to spend time shooting the breeze backstage.

‘He’s just the same,’ he’d report back to Kitty, ‘His performance has gotten real smooth, but off stage he’s still the same old unassuming fellow. Everyone I talk to can’t say enough about him.’

It seemed like no one could say enough about him. Kitty couldn’t read a newspaper without an article about how that shy, charming boy was ruining the youth of America. She often thought about him quietly playing gospel songs on the piano between shows when she read that pastors were denouncing him as Satan in sideburns from their pulpits. When she saw him on television, jiggling and gyrating right there on the screen, she could still see the playful, bashful boy she knew, but there was something else now, something shiny twinkling in his eyes that she didn’t think had been there before. She wondered if that was what had everyone so flustered and furious about him.

Now that dangerous threat, that affront to polite society, was headed to the Army. Chick had spent night after night for the past few weeks fielding calls to the radio station from wailing girls calling to protest their heart throb being stolen by Uncle Sam and also requesting his new single. Chick said he couldn’t work out if it was career suicide or promotional genius, because everything Elvis released was shooting up the charts. And Kitty hadn’t thought much about it at all until the phone rang at home and Chick, up in Memphis for a series of dances, was shouting down the line saying that he had someone with him that wanted to speak to her.

“Hi Kitty Cat? You there?” Kitty’s stomach did a strange loop de loop that had her dinner almost returning the way it came. She recognised the voice immediately, even though it was louder than normal, much louder, trying to be heard over the racket in the background.

“Elvis? Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me, darlin’. You forgotten me already, huh?”

“No, no, of course not. Only I can hardly hear you! Where are you?” She heard fumbling and Elvis’ voice off in the distance, followed by some loud guffaws, then a thumping noise. When he got back on the line, it was quiet in the background.

“Had to shut myself in the dang closet,” he informed her, chuckling quietly. “Hi, hi Kitty honey, how are you? It’s been a hundred years. Where are you?” Kitty frowned at the receiver.

“You called me at my house, Elvis.”

“I know,” he laughed in that silly, self-conscious way he had. “I meant, why ain’t you here? Why ain’t you here where I need you, baby?”

Kitty didn’t know quite what to say. She cradled the receiver, feeling how cool the plastic was against her rapidly heating cheek.

“Hey, you still there? Damn stupid-ass phone, I-“

“I’m still here,” she murmured, touching her face, her hair and the back of her neck like she was reminding herself that she had a physical, material body that prevented her from floating down the telephone line that she wanted to.

“Oh, huh, thought I lost ya. You can come, can’t you, honey? You know they’re sending me away soon and I might not have another chance to see you before I go.” He’d had the last two years, a cool, doubtful voice in her head pointed out and she nodded at it before she disregarded it completely.

“Come where? Where are you?”

“Oh, right now? Right now we’re at Hotel Chisca, helpin’ out my pal Dewey on his, uh, show. Red, Hot and Blue, you know it?”

“Yes, I’m aware of Dewey Phillips and his show.” She wondered if he thought she had stopped existing the minute he had left her behind. Perhaps he thought she had been packed away in a closet with her guitar.

“How soon can you get here, darlin’?”

“Tonight? Elvis, I-”

“Now, I don’t wanna hear that you can’t make it. My days are numbered, honey. I tell ya, I just wanna see as many folks as I can before- before it’s all over.” He went hoarse at the end like it choked him up to even say it, and her heart panged for him. In her head she was already imagining herself running upstairs to change and sneaking her mother’s keys from her purse.

“Will you still be there?” she asked finally. “At the Hotel Chisca, by the time I get there?”

“I’ll wait all night if I have to. I need you, darlin’. You don’t understand. I need you somethin’ awful.”

After several aborted u-turns and a whole two-way argument with herself as she hit downtown, Kitty pulled into the parking lot for the hotel. She had been listening to Red, Hot and Blue on the way and Dewey had been hyping up his listeners with the news that Elvis was haunting the corridors and was even choosing some of the records he was playing, so she wasn’t surprised to find the lobby of the hotel packed with kids. Luckily, she spotted Chick having a laugh and a joke with some of the girls up on the mezzanine floor where WHBQ had its offices and booths and she called to him, beckoning with her arm as much as her little black bolero jacket would allow. His eyes widened and he hurried over.

“Kit, what in God’s name, girl?” He waved to the security guard, letting him know that Kitty could be allowed through. “Do Mama and Pop know you’re out this late by yourself?”

“I’m a grown woman, Charles,” she informed him. “And of course they don’t.” She felt bubbles of anticipation in her belly as Chick opened the door into the corridor and revealed a lively group laughing and talking over each other. At the edge of the group, but somehow still seemingly the focus, was an unmistakable tall, dark-haired boy.

“Well, folks, look what the cat drug in,” said Chick in his charming brotherly way.

Leaning against the wall, laughing and about to take a sip of Pepsi from the bottle in his hand, Elvis glanced over his shoulder and straightened sharply. The look on his face would have been comical if it hadn’t crushed Kitty so completely. He looked shocked, like he had not been in the slightest bit serious when he had begged her to come, like he had not thought her stupid enough to rush off into the night the minute he asked. Her face burnt with embarrassment and she leant back against Chick’s hand that was between her shoulder blades, trying to retreat.

As her vision fractured and blurred under the sting of mortification, Elvis shoved his bottle into his cousin Gene’s chest and strode towards her, giving Chick’s shoulder a squeeze even as he was pushing him away. She exhaled sharply when Elvis crashed into her and squeezed all the air out of her body. His arms were locked around her, his face buried in the crook of her neck and his hips were jammed against hers. She was trapped. The guys in the corridor snorted and guffawed like it was part of a skit for their entertainment, but the longer Elvis remained clinging to her, the quieter they became.

“I can’t believe you’re really here!” he murmured, finally drawing back, but only enough so that she could stare up into his heavy-lidded eyes and feel the breath from his mouth as he spoke. “You came all the way up here just for me?”

“You asked me,” she returned, the edge still in her voice because it still stung. Not that he thought she was pathetic now, but that he thought she didn’t care enough to come when he asked.

“Not everybody would’ve,” he said softly, adjusting his tight arm around her waist, tugging her in just a little bit closer.

“I’m not everybody,” she returned, studying his face.

“I know,” he said in a small voice, pecking her softly on the tip of her cold nose. He was almost cross-eyed staring so intently at her with their faces so close together. All of a sudden, that irrepressible, dazzling smile spread across his face and she had turned away from the glare. It hurt to look at.

“Come meet everybody.” He grabbed her hand and yanked her before she had absorbed his words, making her totter a little on her heels as he rushed back to his group. “Hey y’all, this is that little girl I told you about.”

Kitty’s inside froze when she heard those words, her chest tight and heavy. He wouldn’t have told them, he promised!

“Chick and Kitty here were real kind to me when I first started out. Man, I was so green, most everybody laughed me off the damn stage, but Kitty Cat-” He wrapped his arm around her waist again, tugging her into his side and pulling her off balance, making her stumble into him. “-She made sure I didn’t go down in flames inside of a week.”

The guys nodded politely, most of them eyed her chest and ran their eyes down her legs, but it was the handful of girls in the group that examined her most closely. Kitty could feel them measuring and portioning her up, their sharp eyes noting the body language and the way that Elvis couldn’t seem to bring himself to loosen his grip on her. Women saw things that men missed.

They lingered longer in the corridor, someone explaining that Dewey was about to interview Elvis, and everyone was laughing and joking. Elvis was boisterous in a way that Kitty had never really seen before, fooling around with his cousin like they were the two stooges, play fighting and talking in made up words that no one else could understand. The girls kept trying to join in, grabbing his arm and knocking into him, and he would get distracted for a minute, before he retreated back to where Kitty was standing with Chick. She was wondering what she had dragged herself out of the house for, because it wasn’t this brash, loud boy whose thumb had just ‘accidentally’ grazed a pretty blonde girl’s breast as she grabbed him by the waist.

Taking a couple of clumsy steps backwards, he wrapped his fingers around Kitty’s wrist and angled his head behind him, motioning for her to walk backwards with him. In the most ridiculous pantomime, they slipped away, giggling as they ducked inside a door, and Kitty found herself standing in a storage closet, a bare light bulb hanging over their heads.

“Was this where you were when we were talking on the phone?” she asked, glancing around at a broom and the cans and bottles on the shelves.

“Huh? Oh yeah, this here is my office at the Hotel Chisca,” he intoned in a deep, officious voice. “Not much room, but just take in those spectacular views!” She scanned the narrow cupboard and then frowned at him, flushing when she caught his eyes sliding down her body.

“Stop it,” she muttered, shoving him. He instantly placed his hand over hers on his chest and held it there. She could feel his heart pounding beneath the warm cotton of his shirt. “You used to be such a nice boy!”

“I’m still a nice boy,” he returned absently, his free hand slipping onto the small of her back and pulling her in. “Just like you’re still…” He bit his lip and his nostrils flared slightly before he exhaled. “…Sorry, what was I sayin’, honey? I lost track.”

Kitty shook her head, but she was grinning as she sank against him, her mouth finding his as if no time at all had passed. He tasted the way he always had, sweet and warm, which, when combined with the soft muskiness of being enveloped by him, brought her straight back to cheap motel rooms and hastily snatched minutes and hours on the road.

“Hell, I miss this,” he sighed, pulling her with him as he leant against the far wall and the sign that said, ‘All items property of the Hotel Chisca signed by Management.’ “Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty I don’t miss about those early days, the lousy motel rooms, havin’ to grab shut-eye in the back seat while Bill drove my car like a damn madman, washing up in dirty dressing rooms… No, but this, this I miss.”

“You mean to tell me that a big, fancy movie star like you doesn’t have girls just hanging off him at every turn? Because what I saw out there makes you out a liar.” He ducked his head so she only caught a glimpse of his wide, radiant grin.

“Naw, I ain’t saying that,” he admitted to his shoes. “There’s girls, there’s girls all right… None of them are you, though, honey.”

No one else could have said that so sincerely, she reflected, and had it received that way too. She didn’t feel like laughing, because she desperately wanted it to be true even as she knew it probably wasn’t.

“And I ain’t gonna be a movie star much longer.” The light faded from his smile, doors slamming shut and windows being shuttered. “Just gonna go back to being little ole Elvis, whoever the hell he is.”

Kitty put both her hands on his chest, a little surprised at how easily the old familiarity came back. Chick was wrong, she reflected, he wasn’t the same, but somehow he wasn’t any different either. Sliding her palms down his chest, she caught the way his breath hitched as she continued down his stomach towards his belt.

“He was- is- a sweet, talented, devastatingly good-looking man and no amount of time in the army will change that,” she informed him with absolute assurance.  He huffed a laugh, tugging her hips in against his, and she tried not to notice there was a firmness poking against her pencil-skirt now.

“Devastatingly good-looking, huh,” he replied with a grin. “I seem to remember you thinkin’ I was pretty goofy looking at first.”

“Well, that ain’t my fault, you were!!” she protested and he burst out in loud laughter, throwing back his head.

“You turned out all right though,” she continued with a playful wink. 

“I wore ya down,” he nodded, his features growing calmer and still, those sleepy looking eyes back and fixed on her. “Wore you down pretty good if I recall.” Kitty felt a wave of goosebumps crash down her spine as his hands descended, cupping her ass.

“Elvis,” she murmured, turning away her face, but making no effort to break free of his hands. “We should-“

“Get a hotel room?” he finished with a small smile and a lift of an eyebrow. He said it in a way that meant he could make it into a joke if she refused, but also sounded serious if she agreed.

“My brother and half of Memphis are outside that door,” she reminded him.

“I can handle Chick,” he murmured. “No one would even notice, honey, I promise.” He seemed to realise at the same time that she did how that made him sound: practised, and skilled at impulsive sex in hotel rooms. In response, he draped himself over her, his lips pressed into the crook of her neck, hot breath against her skin.

“I just- I just wanna- Wanna spend some time with you without everyone watchin’. I want you all to myself again, darlin’, like we used to.” She opened her mouth to respond. “You know, I’m heading off to war soon…”

“There’s no war, Elvis,” she answered slightly reproachfully, as if she was stupid enough to fall for that.

“Well, you never know,” he shrugged diffidently. “And you gotta get your kicks while you can.” The effect was ruined by the smirk he was wearing.

“Aw, Hollywood went and got you real good, didn’t it,” she remarked, shaking her head.

She didn’t mean it as a condemnation. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing that he had become more confident, more aware of the effect that he could have on people, girls mostly, but she was a little sad. She had liked that boy, the one that had trembled when she first sat on the end of his bed and unfastened the buttons of her blouse. She still sometimes caught herself thinking of how he used to look, mouth open and eyelashes fluttering as he moved above her; the little lip curl as he flushed with pleasure, twitching in her hands.

Whatever she intended, Elvis’ face dropped and his brows drew together, making him look like a confused, sad little boy.

“Now, wait a minute,” he said, starting forward and somehow looming over her in the confined space. “How is that fair, huh? You got no idea the- the bullshit I gotta go through. I mean, I ain’t complaining, I’m blessed, I know that, but… If I act like I’m enjoying myself I’m big-headed and- and I’ve forgotten where I came from. If I try to seem humble I’m ungrateful and a liar… Hell, what am I supposed to do? How do I keep everyone happy?”

“Well, you can’t,” Kitty replied, reaching up and giving one of his beseeching hands a squeeze. “Nobody can make everybody happy all the time, honey, not even you.” He seemed like he wanted to say something else, but someone started banging on the door, disillusioning them that they had ever sneaked off unseen in the first place. They were calling him for his interview with Dewey and he hollered out that he was coming.

“Don’t go nowhere,” he instructed her, squeezing her arm as he sidled past her to the door. “I mean it now, Kitty.” She scoffed as he watched him being dragged along the corridor by his pals, wondering where he got the audacity to demand anything from her. But, of course she stayed, even as she judged herself for it, standing with Chick in the producer’s office, looking through the glass window into the booth where Elvis was teasing the girls peering in and grinning at Dewey’s hyper antics.

“You know what you’re doin’?” Chick asked out of the side of his mouth as they stood smiling.

“Rarely if ever,” she replied, shooting him a wry look. “Relax, Chickadoo, it’s just one night.”

“Yeah, those sound like famous last words.”

After the interview, Elvis strode out of the booth like he was on a mission, announcing that he was hungry and they were leaving. He rushed past Kitty, grabbing her wrist as he passed and not even slowing in consideration for the fact that she was wearing heels.

They took the service elevator down to the kitchens, Elvis bouncing on his heels and humming to himself. He started nudging Gene and they inexplicably engaged in some sort of battle to kick each other in the shin, even as he was entwining his fingers with Kitty’s.

Sneaking through the kitchens, they skidded around cooks and waiters, bursting out into the delivery bay at the back of the hotel. Kitty started to move towards her car, Elvis towards his and they engaged in a little tug of war that ended up with her skittering into his side because of her stupid shoes.

“What you doin’, we’re taking my car,” he said, looking at her like she had lost her mind.

“I need to drive home,” she countered. “I’ll need my car.” He gritted his teeth and looked intensely frustrated for a minute, before shrugging it off and announcing that Gene would drive her car. Gene seemed as unimpressed with this idea as she was.

“Look, everybody needs to stop coming up with goddamn problems!” Elvis snapped. “Y’all are doing my head in.”

It seemed a disproportionate reaction for a minor inconvenience to Kitty, but no one else seemed perturbed or surprised by his outburst. She handed over her mother’s keys with misgivings, making Gene promise, promise, that he would drive carefully what was technically a stolen car.

A bunch of people piled into the big, gleaming Cadillac and Kitty felt hemmed in pressed into Elvis’ side as he swung the wheel, trying to avoid the knot of people that spotted him and immediately tried to crowd the hood as if being run over by Elvis Presley would be an honour.

They drove over to Krystal and the car was flooded with greasy bags of their little square burgers.

“Didn’t you boys get Krystal’s last night too?” asked a blonde girl in the backseat, squashed very much like a slab of meat between two large guys.

“Yes, ‘cause they’re damn good,” one of the men said, shoving nearly the entire small bun in his mouth.

“Gotta make the most of it, huh, EP? They don’t serve chow like this in the service.”

Elvis had been fiddling with the radio knobs, moving his head in time with the music as he chewed, his cheeks filled like a hamster. At his friend’s words, his eyebrows dropped and he shot the guy a death look, which shut him up quickly. It seemed like Elvis was getting sick of hearing about what his life was going to be like after induction.

The atmosphere in the car got a little dense with nobody knowing what to say to ease the tension, when Elvis ducked down, his head pressed against Kitty’s chest, as he sucked on her straw from the cup in her lap.

“Hey!” she cried, overacting to counter the quiet, “that’s mine, you got your own!” She had her hand on the back of his neck and gave the hair at the nape of his neck a quick scratch with her nails, which made him shiver adorably. 

“I drank it already,” he shrugged sheepishly, sitting back up and pouting. Sighing, she offered him her cup and he grinned as he took it, repaying her with a lip-smacking kiss on the cheek.

“I like the hair,” she said softly, making the most of the relative quiet while his goofy, boisterous friends were still regrouping. “The black, I mean.”

“Oh yeah, well, it just looks better on film. Actors have been doing it all the way back to Tom Mix and Douglas Fairbanks, honey, right up to Tony Curtis today. Uh, I mean, I’m not comparing myself to them-” She nodded, reaching out a finger to snag a lock that had fallen across his forehead, giving it a gentle tug.

“It looks good,” she told him. “You look like a real movie star.” His lips curved into a more natural smile and he took another pull from the straw, his cheeks colouring slightly.

They drove around for about an hour, listening to the radio while Elvis took her on a whistlestop tour of significant places to him. They drove to Sun Studios. He wanted her to meet Sam Phillips and he thought that Sam might be up late like he often was, but the lights were out and the place all locked up.

“You know, I already met him a few times,” Kitty reassured him when he sighed and let himself drop back against the sooty wall at the back of the building. “Back when we were touring with y’all. I think Chick even talked to him about recording here, but it didn’t work out.”

“I was just hopin’ to see him,” he mumbled, his head bowed as he kicked out at a clump of grass that had fought its way through the concrete. “It feels like… like time’s runnin’ out.” She moved closer and gripped the bottom of his boxy striped sports jacket, giving it a tug.

“It’s just a pause, not the end,” she promised him.

“You can’t know that. No one knows for sure. I’ll tell ya, the Colonel and the folks at RCA Victor, and Mr Wallis, they all say right pretty things ‘bout how it’ll be when I get out, the plans they got to keep people interested and remembering me while I’m gone, but-“ He sighed a deep, chest-heaving sigh and drew Kitty in by the waist, squeezing her against him like he needed the comfort. “Look at how quick I came up, ain’t no one to say I won’t go down just as fast. Or maybe someone else’ll come onto the scene and all my fans’ll-“

“I know, because I know,” Kitty interjected, seeing how he was spiralling, one of his hands rubbing his face with increasing vigour. “I remember when I saw you sing for the first time, you were shaking and could barely put two words together between your songs. Even then I knew that you were something special, that you were different from the rest of us, and I was right, wasn’t I? I’m right about this too.”

“You know because you know,” he huffed a laugh and cupped her cheek with his hand, rubbing gently with his thumb. “Well, I’m convinced, Kitty Cat, by that stunning argument.” She gave his chest a shove with her forearm and ducked away as he laughed, trying to kiss her.

“You laugh now, boy, but when you’re out there in a couple of years buried under gold records and adoring fans, starring in all the movies, I expect you to come find me and beg for my forgiveness. On your knees!”

“Oh, I’ll always come on my knees for you, baby,” he intoned in a low, bass voice into the crook of her neck.

“You are so bad,” she giggled, smacking his shoulder. He nuzzled and nibbled on her neck, gripping her in a bear hold to stop her from wriggling away. Although they were sheltered by the shadows of the parking lot behind the studio, Kitty was aware that they were in public and that, at any moment, one of his friends might get bored waiting in the car and catch them.

“Elvis, Elvis honey, come on now, stop, people can see. Elvis!” She grabbed a handful of the hair at the back of his head, giving it a sharp tug to get him to let her loose.

“Come home with me,” he said one breath, squinting down at her, looking deliciously rumpled and excited. “I wanna show you- I can show you-”

“What about your family?” she asked in a low voice, her palms sliding up beneath his jacket, twitching as she followed the lines and curves, lingering over the peaks of his erect nipples beneath his shirt. He shuddered and didn’t waste time trying to answer, hooking her by the waist and merely lifting her over the low wall that separated the parking lot from the alleyway at the side of the building.

“We’re heading home,” he mumbled to his passengers, slamming his door. The car peeled away from the kerb with a high-pitched squeal. Nobody spoke and the journey passed in a blur of silence. Kitty’s eyes stayed fixed on Elvis’s white knuckles as he gripped the steering wheel. She barely registered the gate with the music notes, the winding drive or the impressive portico and columns.

“Well, I’ll see y’all later,” was all he said as he climbed out of the car, hands grabbing for Kitty’s forearm and tugging her towards him as he backed towards the brick steps. Kitty wasn’t sure whether anyone answered as she was too busy focusing on keeping up with him as he opened the front door. He turned back to her, grinning like a little kid and put his finger to his lips, pointing towards the stairs. Kitty slipped off her shoes, exhaling as she stretched her toes, and managed to grab them before he tugged her again, taking off up the stairs at a breakneck pace. She hissed at him to slow down, but he just shushed her and she could hear him laughing under his breath.

Kitty barely registered the dark room before Elvis shut the door behind her and pressed her into it, his hot mouth on hers snatching away her breath. Safely away from prying eyes, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and moaned into his mouth, pressing herself against him. He froze and pulled back, but she could barely see his face in the darkness and was about to ask what was wrong, when he gathered her up in his arms and threw her onto the bed. She shrieked, hastily slapping her hands over her mouth as she bounced on the mattress.

“Don’t worry about it, baby,” he murmured, kicking off his shoes and throwing his jacket onto a chair like he was competing in a race. “This room’s supposed to be soundproof. Let’s test it out, huh.”

It was reassuring to see him clamber awkwardly onto the bed and throw himself down next to her just like he used to, a sign that the boy that she had cared for was not all gone, just hidden in pockets and alcoves of behaviour and words. 

“Kitty honey?” he asked suddenly once he had settled himself down on the pillows and was looking up at her with a slightly furrowed brow. “You know we don’t have to-“

She dove down, mouth catching his and draped herself across him. She felt his lips curved into a smile as his hands settled onto her back, soon grazing her curves until they were palming the weight of her ass, squeezing slightly.

Kitty’s body was buzzing and tingling, she could already feel the muscles contracting in her stomach and lower down and she tried to find some relief from the ache, but could barely move her legs within her tight pencil skirt. 

Elvis tried to follow her up as she withdrew, moaning a little when she pulled away, and she snorted at his forlorn expression as she drew up to her knees on the bed. His eyes widened as she shrugged off her jacket and started to unbutton the body-hugging blouse beneath.

Like a true gentleman, he was up on his knees too in seconds to help her. He was more a hindrance than help, his long fingers getting in the way of her slipping the tiny buttons out of the holes, but he seemed to want to be useful. He stared down at her bare chest and bra like a boy who had never seen either, which was funny because Kitty knew for certain that he had. Then, slowly, carefully, he reached out to cup the back of her head and bring her closer, kissing her like she was one of his co-stars and he was the romantic hero.

It was an intricate dance of shadows, Elvis moving with confidence and tenderness, while in her head she was seeing the first time when his hands had trembled and his ripe bottom lip glistened as he had panted, moving too slowly and awkwardly. She had had to guide him, her hands on his hips, around his ass, urging him to move faster, to stop apologising and asking if she was okay.

None of that now, it was more than a dance, it was a routine. Her eyes followed him as he kissed between her breasts, the tip of his nose grazing her skin as he made his way down, taking a detour to lick her nipples, circling them with his tongue before sucking. She arched up into him, noting the contrast of his hair as it splayed against her pale skin.

As his fingers grazed the inside of her thighs, she thought about how his body had changed, filling out and becoming broader, and there was hair on his chest that wasn’t there before. She raked her fingers through it as he moved between her legs, his eyes sparkling with tenderness and a little amusement.

“You okay?” he murmured, biting down on a smile, though his eyebrow twitched against his best efforts.

“You know, I told you that if you ever asked me that again I’d pummel you,” she gasped, tilting her hips so that he was grinding down onto the right spot, her nerves fluttering out and down the inside of her thighs.

“I know, I know,” he laughed breathlessly, his open mouth going slack as he started to inch into her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, tightening her thighs to bring him in closer, faster, harder. One thing hadn’t changed, he was still too careful and gentle with her. He got the message though, thrusting hard until their hips were pressed together, slamming a hollow moan from her as he grunted.

She adjusted her grip on his shoulders, realising that she might need a tighter grip, and stared up at his face. His bottom lip was between his teeth as he adjusted to being inside her, to the friction and the pressure, but under the weight of her eyes, he tugged his upper lip up into his famous sneer, drawing out and then grinding back down just as quickly. She gasped and pressed her feet down onto the back of his thighs, finding a way to cling on as he demonstrated exactly how he had earned one of his cruder nicknames.

Somehow, they got turned around and they were horizontal across the vast landscape of his enormous bed, Kitty’s head hanging back off the mattress. He grabbed a handful of her hair as it trailed down towards the carpet, pulling her head back further, nipping and sucking at her pulse point at the same time as he pressed and rubbed and circled her clit and filled her too. Each time she opened her eyes he had this sly, mischievous look on his face like he knew how good he was, like he was proud to show her what he had learned.

Flushing with warmth, buzzing and trembling, she felt the crest of the wave beginning to build between her legs and she whined a little, gasping for air, wanting the sensation to only ever build and never peak. He tugged at her hair again, this time a little sharper, so that she opened her eyes and her vision swam and then slid back into crystal clear focus.

“Say it, darlin’,” he mumbled breathlessly. “I wanna hear you say it.” He drove into her harder and faster, making her cry out and he tugged her hair again until she relented and cried out his name as she came.

Seconds later, he pulled out and she felt him pulse against her belly as he crushed her mouth beneath his. She could barely breathe with his heaving chest pressing down on her, but she didn’t mind, it would be a wonderful way to go.

Finally, he pulled himself away, passing her his shirt to clean up, and he pressed himself to her back, tugging her backwards onto him like a blanket.

“You know why I kept asking if you were okay that first time?” he murmured, exhaling deeply into her ear as he drooped with exhaustion and satisfaction.

“Why?” she whispered, though she already knew the answer.

“Because I was fuckin’ far from okay,” he giggled, his words slurring and sliding together. “I was scared half to death, thought my heart was gonna pound itself right out of my chest… ‘Bout how I feel now I reckon.”

“You were fine then and you’re gonna be fine this time too,” she promised, reaching up to squeeze one of the arms he had folded around her chest.

“I sure hope you’re right.” He yawned, pressing a kiss onto her neck before dropping back onto his pillow. “You usually are. I just hope everything stays the same.”

 It seemed a strange and futile thing to wish for, especially for a man whose life had not stopped changing in the past three or four years, but she crossed her fingers as she relished the time that she had left in his arms and wished it alongside him. Let everything stay the same.

[roland-the-farter-stan-account]

I’ve noticed this phenomenon where men (I’ve only experienced this with white men) who thought they were going to spend their life “in the ministry” wake up and realize they don’t want to believe in the homophobia or accept the casual racism in white Christianity or any number of other problematic hateful things in the church and leave. And good for them! But they don’t have another plan for their lives now that this divine direction is gone, so they immediately look for an audience to share all their brand new, surely extremely valuable thoughts.

Infamously I think of Joshua Harris, who gave a generation of Christians significant trauma spewing dating advice from his arrogant teenaged ass in his book I Kissed Dating Goodbye only to immediately begin peddling advice on how to undo said trauma the exact second he began to peel back the rotten layers of his “deconstruction.” Bizarrely, I experienced what was in form a sermon in a yoga class. The pieces were all in place: lights dim, ambient music playing, and all of a sudden I heard “the church voice” as this bearded fuck in stretchy shorts and a tank top recalled some banal anecdote and tried to tease out a relatable message on his captive audience. And the there’s the pile of podcasts I tried to listen to only to realize 3 episodes in the these motherfuckers weren’t in any kind of position to offer me any help, and as men had frankly never suffered anything like I had in the church or now while leaving it.

If you think about it, Christian churches are a relatively easy way to build an audience. Particularly pre-influencer-era, with American Evangelical Christianity’s lack of corporate structure and hierarchy there are few barriers between you and an audience once a week lapping up your every word. You can build from a “couch church,” start as a youth pastor, or if you’re hot enough I guess, marry a preacher’s daughter and bypass even the minimal initial requirement of charisma. If a formal pastoral position isn’t for you there are even more plentiful roles leading small groups, Sunday schools, counseling (in many US states including mine counseling in a religious setting even about non religious issues requires no certification), or at bare minimum commanding the head of your family table.

But you leave, you have to because you don’t believe anymore. And all of a sudden you’re facing a lifetime of Not Being Listened To. What are you to do? Tell other people what to do! Immediately! It doesn’t even cross your mind that you’re still totally lost and in the thick of it. YOU have the insight people need RIGHT NOW to do exactly what you’re doing at this very moment!

They think they’re listening but they haven’t had the time, because for one thing they haven’t stopped talking for a goddamn second. They realize now they were wrong about “the role of women” and “homosexuality” (they are probably still saying it that way) and that they were a part of systems of oppression and patriarchy and racism, but it doesn’t compute that they need to sit the fuck down. Knowing something is wrong isn’t the same as knowing why it was wrong or knowing what is right. Step off the soapbox, turn off the microphone, and don’t you dare start a goddamn podcast.