#but then people not wanting to work for my store have been our best wage negotiators

[foldingfittedsheets]

When I was working at the sex shop I was pulling poverty wages. I loved my job but I was on food stamps and still barely getting by. When they hired the stores first male employee and he started at my pay rate after I’d been there for three years I quit.

I was initially really nervous when I saw the post for the mattress job. It listed a pay scale that I couldn’t even conceptualize and I appeared qualified. When I got an interview I was over the moon but also petrified. Reactions to my line of work often varied but most people were very embarrassed or skeptical. I worried about how I’d address it in the actual interview.

I lived far to the north of their headquarters and drove almost two hours to get there. When I finally arrived it was in the nicest thrift store clothes I could find, but I shrank inside to see a room full of older white men in nice suits waiting to be interviewed for the same job.

Why did I bother? I was decades younger than anyone else in the room, shabbily dressed, and I suspected I was the only afab person in the entire building. I stewed in my insecurities until I was called in.

The second I met my interviewer I was instantly put at ease. The man had the energy of a therapy dog, he was abound with positive, good natured energy. He was also incredibly beautiful. I grinned back at his welcoming smile as we said our pleasantries. But still. This very beautiful polished man seemed very innocent. How would the sex shop question go?

“I see here you worked at STORE?”

“Yes,” I said hesitantly.

“And that was sales? Or you just rang people up.”

“No, it was sales. I’d help people find products, we were encouraged to upsell, there was sales spiffs, and most importantly we educated customers on products to help them find what they liked best.”

He grinned approvingly and asked, “Can you give me an example of a time you successfully upsold a customer?”

I paused, wringing my hands before I asked, “How vague would you like me to be…?”

“Not at all!” He assured me. “Go for it!”

“Well. A man came in looking for something to make his fingers vibrate so when he was touching his wife it would enhance that sensation. We had cheap $10 cockrings that I showed him first. But we had a rechargeable waterproof one made of nicer material, and after I showed him a demo he bought that one.”

“How much was that one?”

“$110”

“Wow! You had an upsell of 100% from what he came in looking for! That’s incredible!”

He was so truly genuinely stoked and not at all embarrassed that for the first time I saw a tiny glimmer of a future where I didn’t have ramen and peanut butter tiding me over between paychecks.

He asked me to wait then came back to tell me he liked me so much that he wanted to send me right into another interview, if that was okay. He didn’t want me to have to drive back later, it was terribly considerate and exciting. I beamed and told him it would be lovely.

I then had the second worst interview I’ve ever had. The worst goes to the time I applied to be a store manager for a pet food place years later. The district and store manager interviewing me passed notes and texted while I was speaking. When the district manager called to inform me I didn’t get the job I told him I’d never have accepted anyway because I’d never had such a disrespectful interview.

The new man sitting behind the desk radiated an aura of a brick wall. As someone with anxiety I’m highly keyed into the emotional states of people I’m talking to. To receive no feedback at all was my personal hell. After a perfunctory greeting he asked me with no inflection to sell him a pen.

I gathered the shreds of my courage and attempted the Herculean task he’d set me. Through my whole improvised spiel he resisted all attempts at engaging him, regarding me with a cold apathy as I touted the benefits of my fictitious pen.

Halfway through I broke into a cold sweat. My smile didn’t waver but it grew strained as I projected friendliness and warmth into the black hole of his heart. My thoughts scattered and my sales pitch grew redundant in the face of his nothingness. I finally concluded with a hard close and he simply nodded.

He glanced at my resume and commented, “You didn’t ask me to touch or hold it. Though I suppose I can understand from your previous line of work why you wouldn’t.” I shriveled and died inside knowing that I encouraged people to touch dildos all day long and had been too frazzled to offer him the pen.

He bid me a cool farewell. I made it to my car before I started sobbing. I had never been so rattled. I couldn’t understand what I’d done to make him so unfriendly or if my threadbare clothes were what had made him treat me like dirt. I drove an hour and a half to get home, weeping intermittently.

I was therefore taken by complete surprise to receive a call the next day inviting me on board for their five week training program. The first man who’d interviewed me gushed on the phone about how the second guy had loved me and that I was going to be fantastic.

I was in shock. When I showed up to training the second interviewer was charming my new classmates, beaming and laughing. He was an utterly different person. To my dismay I learned he was the trainer for my district and would be my point of contact if I made it through training.

He joked with me later that his interview facade was just a tactic to see how people held up under pressure and I filed him into a category of my deepest enmity. I never forgave him for how small he made me feel that day, but I never showed him the depths of my fury.

I aced every test and went on to be valedictorian of the eight people who had survived the rigorous training process to earn a sales position. When I got my first paycheck I bought myself new clothes, the first non-thrifted things I’d owned in years.

[steal-this-idea]

When I hired at my job (a long time ago), they hired me at 155% the minimum wage (at the time and in my state). Now, after half a lifetime having worked for them I make, uh...124% the minimum wage and my store went from hiring at 155% of the minimum wage to hiring at EXACTLY minimum wage

Yay...

[jupitervega]

fleein the south part II

hi, i'm ri & i'm an autistic nonbinary trans guy-lite-ish person. 4 years ago i moved out to denver from mississippi (where i was born & raised) & immediately had a massive improvement in my quality of life. i was able to access medical & psychiatric care, my career stabilized, people were addressin me with correct terms for the most part, & i was startin to feel like life had finally begun

unfortunately when the lease ran out on our house end of summer last year my roommates decided not to renew, & then the people who were gonna be my new roommates backed out last minute. in a panic i looked for other options but with time runnin short & top surgery approachin i decided to recover at a friend's house & move back to mississippi once my surgeon cleared me to travel cross country so i could regroup somewhere i figured would be less expensive & at least somewhat familiar

that, friends, was a very costly & painful mistake! every single problem that made me wanna move away in the first place has only exacerbated!

i'm comin up on 8 months post top surgery, i have a beard, & i'm still gettin called ma'am/she/her. trump flags & signs still adorn many yards/porches here. hatred & bigotry run rampant in local politics. the other day i didn't even enter one of the convenience stores in the town where i live when i stopped by because they had posted a very thinly veiled racist sign on the door

when i arrived back here i was not even a full month outta surgery & i had a minor complication, so i went to the emergency room cause what else was i sposed to do? applied for charity as i had around $100 to my name at that point, which i THINK? got approved? also applied for mississippi medicaid the same day, which got denied almost outright as i have no children. so i've been uninsured since november & rationin the 3 month supply of my psych/migraine meds i received before leavin colorado for goin on 7 months. never mind bein able to access hrt!

job prospects here are Not Great! i've had to collect unemployment for a while as i cannot for the life of me find a full time job with a livin wage. otherwise i literally cannot make ends meet as the jobs i've held so far down here are payin average 50% or less of what i was makin in denver. even with the part time gigs i've had i have yet to crack 30hr/wk on any kind of regular basis

housin is an absolute shitshow. my lease is up 1 july (got a month extension) & i've been searchin everywhere for an affordable place of my own or at least a good roommate. the more affordable studio/1bd apartments go for around $700 & up, but most have income requirements of 2.5-3x the monthly rent which, considerin previous point abt wages, is near impossible. roommate listins are available but the majority are questionable at best & seekin a live-in bangmaid at worst

with all these considerations i spent the past few weeks feelin worse & worse lookin for somewhere close to the job i currently have. the leases are like 6mo-1y so i was picturin another year down here & how i was gonna survive, let alone thrive. my thoughts got darker & darker. i'd wake up in the mornin & be sad/disappointed i'd survived the night

this is no way to live

i snapped a few days ago. said to myself "if i'm destined to struggle wherever i go, i'd rather do it somewhere i actually Wanted to be in the first place" & started applyin for housin in denver. waitin to hear back from my first option & have secured a backup with a friend with a spare room for 6mo in case that falls through

right now i need help gettin the hell out! i've got first month's rent already put back, i can continue to collect unemployment until i land a good job in denver, & i'm already reachin out to find somewhere to work. i just don't have anywhere to go for another month or two to save the money i'll need to travel almost 1200mi (~1900km) back to colorado. i'll need at least $500 to make gas/food happen durin the time it will take me to get there, & i need it by the first of july (38 days from day of postin)

please help me escape!!!

ca: $jupitervega

vmo: jupitervega

ppal

please please please donate whatever you're able! pls boost!

thank u so much for readin, pls have an item from my emergency happy photo folder for yr enjoyment

[kallie-den]

Renewable Energy

Ziratha, an intrepid young succubus researcher, finds the ultimate solution to the looking Succubus Energy Crisis: a device that brainwashes its subjects back into nourishing, delicious, easily-flustered virgins - even rough, experienced, punk trans girls like Vivi

This was a delightful commission from GrillFan65, one of my patrons, and features a very, very fun TF ;)

If you enjoy my work and are looking for more, or you want to support me, I strongly encourage you to check out my Patreon! I write erotica full-time, which means I need your patronage to keep creating, and my Patrons also get benefits like early access to my stories, extra stories, and the ability to vote on what I write next! So, if that sounds good to you, head over and join the couple hundred patrons I already have :)

---

“Wow. This is a succubus’s lab?” The crust punk trans girl looked around Ziratha’s research laboratory and sniffed. “I would have expected more candles. Magic circles. Maybe a few jars of goat semen or something.”

Ziratha the succubus rolled her eyes as the punk laughed at her own bad joke. “That’s a stereotype. You’d think humans would know better now. We’ve been living amongst your kind for decades now, and-“

“And succubi are simply people just like us, living perfectly normal lives, except for the whole needing sex for subsistence thing,” the punk interrupted. “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard the history lesson before.”

Ziratha had to suppress a groan. Alongside her PhD research, a full-time job in its own right, she worked part-time as an adjunct making minimum wage. She’d forgotten what a good night’s sleep felt like. Half her blood was coffee. She was way too tired for this.

Unfortunately for her, this punk girl - Vivi - was the best shot she was going to get at seeing her research reach fruition.

“Anyway,” Vivi piped up, “hurry up and tell me why I’m here already.”

“You’re here,” Ziratha replied tersely, “because I caught you breaking a window at the back of the lab. Probably looking for something to sell. And because if you help me out, I can delete the feed from the security camera. Got it?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do,” Vivi shot back. “HRT ain’t free, you know?”

Ziratha sighed. In truth, she didn’t hold the attempted theft against her. It was simply that the succubus really, really needed just one single research subject. One was surely all it would take to get the funding board to sit up and pay attention.

“So, c’mon,” Vivi insisted. “What do you need me to do?”

Ziratha took a very, very deep breath. “OK, let me explain. Firstly, what do you know about the SEC?”

Vivi sniffed. “Sounds familiar.

“The Succubus Energy Crisis,” Ziratha told her patiently. “We succubi depend on energy harvested from our sexual partners. You clearly know that much. However, what you may not know is that sexual energy isn’t a sustainable resource.”

“How’s that?” Vivi seemed more interested in scoping out Ziratha’s messy lab than in the answer.

“The amount of energy a succubus harvests from her partner is inversely proportional to their sexual experience,” Ziratha went on. Reciting this was practically automatic. She’d been over it a hundred times in class. “The potency of sexual energy declines after, well, sex. Especially sex with succubi. The more we take, the less they have to give. Sex with ‘well-used’ partners yields negligible energy - and furthermore, might actually kill the human.”

“OK.” Vivi laughed offhandedly. “So what? There will always be more virgins, right?”

“That’s what people used to say about coal and oil,” Ziratha pointed out. “As it turns out, no. Thanks to a declining birth rate, an increasingly sexualized culture, and a constant expansion of liberal sexual mores into untapped parts of the world, reserves are depleting faster than they can naturally refill. Humanity’s store of sexual energy is trending towards zero. Starvation for succubuskind.”

“Right…” Vivi said skeptically, before shrugging. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with me.”

“I was getting to that,” Ziratha retorted. “I’m working on a solution, OK? See, traditional succubic magiscience holds that the depletion of sexual energy following virginity loss is a spiritual-metaphysical phenomenon. In other words, completely and totally irreversible. But that’s bullshit!”

Vivi looked up sharply at the sudden outburst of passion from the succubus.

“Those idiots in the academy just don’t want to let go of their precious little doctrines!” Ziratha fumed. “They’d rather sink billions into pipe dreams than admit the textbooks could be wrong.  I mean, the SuperCharm Collider? Seriously? It’s a joke! But once I get my funding, I’ll be the one who’s laughing!”

She let out a loud, rich cackle worthy of her demonic forebears.

“See, my research indicates that the source of this problem is purely neural-psychological,” Ziratha ranted. “In other words: if you can turn back the clock on someone’s mind, you can completely refill their sexual energy. It’s a perfect solution. Renewable energy for all, forever. But the Institutional Review Board won’t give me the damn funding for a proper set of clinical trials.”

“Hold up,” Vivi broke in. “Are you about to tell me that I’m your guinea pig? And… you want to turn me back into a virgin?”

Ziratha grinned, her eyes flashing behind her nerdy glasses. “Exactly! Behold my Transcranial Magical Stimulation Unit. Which I expect to be known more widely as: the revirginization helmet!”

Reaching over to her workbench, she picked up something that looked halfway between an old VR headset and a military-issue tin foil hat.

Vivi folded her arms over her battle vest. “There’s no way I’m wearing that.”

“It’s safe!” Ziratha insisted defensively. “I made sure of it. If it wasn’t, this would kill my entire career.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Vivi replied, unconvinced. Then, she tilted her head to one side, and a crafty, dirty grin slowly spread across her face. “Hey. How about you and I go someplace comfortable and find a solution to a different kind of energy crisis?”

“Huh?” Ziratha blinked.

Vivi kept grinning and winked.

“Oh, I see.” Ziratha smiled wearily. “You want to have sex.”

Vivi giggled and nodded. “Don’t take this the wrong way,” the punk girl said, “but you look like you could do with a little top-off.”

Ziratha frowned. “Rude!”

In truth, though, she couldn’t be too offended. It had been a long time since Ziratha had fed properly, and it showed. Proper, nourishing partners weren’t easy to come by. Her deep red skin had taken on a slightly unhealthy pallor, her horns were nubs, and her tail was just a thin, dainty little thing. It was a far cry from the kind of overbearingly transhuman appearance succubi could have if they were permitted to glut themselves to their hearts’ content.

Admittedly, Ziratha wasn’t exactly playing to her own strengths. Instead of anything particularly alluring, she was dressed in the universal uniform of the overworked grad student: an old t-shirt, grey sweatpants and comfy sneakers, with a lab coat over top. Her hair was tied back in a hasty ponytail, her huge, round glasses made her look like exactly the nerd she was, and she hadn’t bothered with any makeup to hide the dark circles under her eyes.

Beneath it all, though, she still had a killer body. She was still a succubus, after all.

“What do you say?” Vivi proposed. She glanced pointedly at Ziratha’s chest. “Wanna turn those C-cups into something bigger?”

Ziratha was surprised Vivi knew so much about how energy levels affected succubi. “You’ve slept with my kind before?”

“Sure have.” Vivi’s smirk was infuriatingly cocky. “A few times. And don’t worry - they were never disappointed. I know just how to treat a girl - mortal or demon.”

Ziratha rolled her eyes at the lewd comments, but she was smiling too. This made Vivi the ideal test subject. It was what Ziratha had been hoping for when she’d first laid eyes on her. Vivi was tall, hot, and confident, and while Ziratha knew better than to judge a book by its cover, Vivi did look like someone with a certain amount of ‘experience’.

She was pure punk, top to bottom. Vivi was wearing a battle vest covered in patches and spikes over a simple, loose-fitting top, and beneath the belt she had on a pleated skirt, some torn stockings, and an impressive pair of boots. A lot of the skin she was showing was covered in ink, and both sides of her head were shaven, leaving her with a messy streak of hair that was dyed neon blue.

Ziratha would have been pretty shocked if Vivi had told her she was a virgin.

“As attractive an offer as that is, I’ll have to decline.” Ziratha didn’t bother to conceal her weary sarcasm. “You’re a guinea pig.”

Vivi rolled her eyes. “Fine. I guess I can think of worse things than getting my ‘sexual energy’ replenished - whatever that’s gonna feel like.”

“Great. Great!” Ziratha immediately started ushering Vivi deeper into her lab before the punk could change her mind. “Take a seat, please.”

She gestured towards a chair that looked like it had been ripped out of a hospital examination room, with all kinds of wires and machines hooked up to it. Vivi glanced at the chair dubiously, but still moved to sit down.

“What’s all this, huh?” she asked, settling.

“Just monitoring equipment,” Ziratha explained. “Taking your vitals, measuring neural readings. That kind of stuff.”

“Nerd stuff, got it.” Vivi winked. “OK. I’m ready, I guess.”

Ziratha could barely contain her excitement. This was it. Her breakthrough. Her triumph. But the succubus was too much of a scientist to count her chickens before they hatched. “Here. Put this on.”

She handed Vivi the helmet she’d spent hundreds of hours designing and building. The punk looked at the strange, ramshackle device even more dubiously than she had at the chair, but she did as she was told. Once the helmet was properly adjusted, the screen mounted to it hung in front of Vivi’s face, obscuring most of her vision.

Ziratha tapped a few keys on her laptop and the screen came to life. A few lights and indicators on the helmet started to glow and flash, and the whole apparatus began to hum as the large capacitors mounted to it started to charge.

“Hey, so, how long is this going to take, anyway?” Vivi asked. The punk sounded a little less brash and a little more uncertain now. “Is this, like, some kind of long-ass meditation thing? Because I have places to be.”

“No, don’t worry,” Ziratha answered. “It’s much quicker than that.”

The succubus tapped a few more keys, checked a few readouts, and then hammered the space bar.

There was a huge, bright flash, like an old camera going off.

Vivi went still and stiff for a moment, and then groaned faintly.

“What the fuck?” she complained. “What… was that it?”

“That was it,” Ziratha confirmed. Her tail was very straight, and her voice was thick with anticipation. “How do you feel?”

“My head is throbbing.” Vivi slipped the helmet off her head and blinked as her eyes readjusted. “You could have given me some real warning, you know. So, did it work?”

Ziratha glanced at her laptop screen. “According to the diagnostics, it should have worked.”

“How’s my, uh, energy?” Vivi asked, a faintly mocking smile on her face. “Any of your fancy instruments tell you that?”

Ziratha simply returned the smile. “Oh, I don’t need any instruments for that at all.”

The succubus reached out and took Vivi’s hand, and let her demonic sixth sense for energy tell her everything she needed to know. Her smile immediately became a wide grin. Oh yes, it had worked. Succubi could always tell when someone would make a good meal. It was no different from any other predator’s sense of smell, although physical contact made it far more precise. Right now, Vivi had the scent of a ripe, untouched virgin.

This was it. The breakthrough Ziratha had long searched for. Her invention was about to change the world.

Despite such heady thoughts, though, Ziratha wasn’t celebrating. Something else had caught her attention. There was something very strange about the way Vivi was reacting.

The punk girl was trying not to let it show, but she kept squirming and shifting in her seat. A distinct pink blush was showing in her cheeks, and Ziratha could feel Vivi’s palm starting to turn hot and sweaty as they held hands.

The succubus tilted her head. Now this was very, very interesting.

“Vivi,” Ziratha said. “How do you feel now?”

Vivi couldn’t seem to meet her gaze. “I-I’m fine,” she blurted out in reply. “It’s nothing.”

Ziratha wasn’t buying that for an instant. She had a succubus’s instincts. She could tell when someone was seriously flustered. Experimentally, Ziratha lent in closer and squeezed Vivi’s hand.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes! Jeez!” Vivi’s voice was a little too strained. Under Ziratha’s watchful gaze, she twitched tellingly. “You’re just being kind of l-lewd.”

Lewd? Just by holding her hand? “Fascinating…” Ziratha murmured.

The succubus pulled away, allowing Vivi to breathe a sigh of relief, and inspected some of her equipment readouts more carefully.

“It clearly worked,” she said, as much to herself as to her test subject. “But there’s signs of something else, too… hey, Vivi. Remind me: you’ve had sex, right?”

In contrast to her earlier, cocksure attitude, Vivi now looked like a deer in headlights at the question. “W-w-well, yeah! Of c-course!”

“So your memory hasn’t been affected, just…” Ziratha murmured, before turning back to Vivi and clapping her hands. “I think I know what’s happened!”

“What?” Vivi demanded. “I mean, uh, nothing. Obviously. But what?”

“Just as I was hoping, my revirginizer helmet completely returned you to a virgin state regarding your reserve of sexual energy,” Ziratha explained. “But I theorize that it also affected some of your closely-related inhibitions, skills, and arousal responses.”

Vivi blinked. “And what does that mean? English please.”

“Well, do you remember being a blushing, nervous, inexperienced teenager, years ago? Remember how much ‘steam’ you had to blow off on a daily basis? Remember how it made you feel when a girl so much as looked at you?”

Vivi nodded, and waited for Ziratha to say something else. But when Ziratha just glanced at her significantly, the punk girl turned as white as a sheet.

“N-no way,” Vivi protested. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m afraid so.” Ziratha giggled. “It’s all connected, it seems. Congratulations. In just about every way that counts, you’re a virgin again.”

Vivi turned from white back to red upon hearing the v-word said out loud. She made to stand up. “I-I can’t believe you did this to me. I gotta get out of here.”

“Wait, wait,” Ziratha urged. She moved to Vivi’s side and calmed her with a simple hand on her arm. “I should really run a few more tests. Just to make sure.”

The succubus’s nostrils flared. She was shocked at how potent Vivi’s energy now felt. It was palpable, even when they weren’t touching. She could sense it in the air. Clearly, she had to investigate further. All in the name of science, of course.

Vivi was back to looking flustered, but she still threw a mutinous glare at Ziratha. “Y-you’re crazy! I can’t believe I even…”

Ziratha swiftly decided that if the betterment of succubuskind wasn’t a good enough reason for Vivi, she’d have to resort to other forms of persuasion. She bent down at the waist, putting her face close to the punk’s, and made her eyes very big and alluring.

“Please?” she whispered, in a voice that was suddenly soft and intimate. “Won’t you stay with me?”

Vivi looked like her body temperature had just shot up ten degrees, and Ziratha noticed that she couldn’t seem to meet her gaze properly. The succubus was sure she wouldn’t have fallen for that five minutes ago, but now she was a total sucker. “S-s-sure,” Vivi managed, in a strained voice.

“Wonderful.” Ziratha licked her lips. The distinctive virgin-scent Vivi was starting to give off was just delicious. “These readings - and reactions - are extraordinary. And I’ve done nothing more than hold your hand.”

Vivi whimpered plaintively.

“I can’t help but wonder,” the succubus murmured, “what kind of yields you might produce with slightly more purposeful stimulation.”

Vivi’s eyes registered alarm but, before she could protest, Ziratha slipped closer and planted a kiss on the punk girl’s cheek.

Her reaction was as immediate as it was striking. Vivi let out a faint gasp and her back arched slightly, even though she was clearly trying as hard as possible not to show it. But even more striking was the intensified deer-in-headlights look in her eyes, like she was desperately struggling to figure out what this meant and what she should do about it, even as she was so devastatingly flustered she couldn’t even manage basic addition.

Ziratha’s nostrils flared again. This was amazing, and she was starting to become aware of just how long it had been since she’d had a real feeding.

“Wow,” she said teasingly, momentarily letting her instincts get the better of her. “Just from one little kiss, huh?”

Vivi whined indignantly. "I-it’s not… that’s… t-this is nothing!”

“Yeah?” Ziratha couldn’t resist a giggle. “It’s just so funny - you seemed so cocky before. So experienced.”

“I am experienced!” Vivi tried to insist. “I’ve f… um… fu… I mean, you know… I’ve had s-s-s-“

Ziratha’s grin just kept growing as she watched the previously fierce punk trail off, her blush growing steadily deeper as she struggled to bring herself to actually say it. The transformation was quite the sight to behold. She had to keep pushing Vivi further. She just had to. It was part of the experiment, somehow, she reasoned. The succubus took advantage of Vivi’s helpless spluttering to press closer still and put her lips right by her ear.

“Sex?” Ziratha breathed, pouring as much suggestion and seductive glee as she possibly could into that one, single word.

Vivi looked like she was about to explode.

“You see?” Ziratha drew back, smirking victoriously. “You’re not experienced. Not really. Not anymore. You can remember that you’ve had sex before - but that’s it. And you can barely even bring yourself to think about those memories, because you might get too worked up. Neither your mind nor your body knows how to handle it.” She giggled. “Typical virgin.”

“I-I’m not…!” For a moment she thought Vivi was about to start tearing up, but then the punk girl managed to rally herself. “Y-you’re just messing with me! That’s all! It’s your stupid little machine, making me all confused. T-that’s the only reason I can’t think straight right now. I’m not, um, w-worked up.”

“Yeah?” Ziratha challenged. “Then explain this for me, please.”

She reached down and rested her hand firmly on the big, unmistakable tent in Vivi’s skirt.

Immediately, Vivi went as white as a sheet. Clearly, until that moment, she hadn’t noticed the huge hard-on she was sporting. She attempted a protest, or perhaps an explanation, but all that came out was a few strangled, incoherent sounds.

“My, my.” Ziratha licked her lips again, without even realizing it. She was so very hungry. “You see? You’ve become so adorably excitable.”

Vivi whined as Ziratha started stroking her fingertips along the surface of her bulge. “Y-you can’t just… what the hell are you d-doing? This is harassment!”

“I’m a scientist, Vivi,” Ziratha chided, in a voice that made her sound anything but scientific. “After my experiment, it’s only natural for me to give you a nice, thorough examination.”

The punk girl let out another whimpered protest, seeming to sense Ziratha’s ulterior motive, but under the succubus’s ministrations that soon gave way to a weak, pitiful moan. The new virgin was like putty in Ziratha’s hands. The power, the energy, the scent - it was all intoxicating.

“In particular,” Ziratha decided, “I think it’s only proper that I get a reading on your, ah, endurance. I really think - I really do think - it could be very, very scientifically interesting.”

Science was increasingly slipping out of view. Ziratha’s gaze was set firmly on the huge tent in Vivi’s skirt, and it was getting harder and harder to think clearly. After a little teasing, that sweet, sweet virgin energy was coming off Vivi in waves. The laboratory was thick with its scent.

Vivi was still giving the succubus that achingly alluring deer-in-headlights look, but after a moment, her willpower started to wane. She nodded. Ziratha’s nostrils flared. That made sense too. What kind of virgin had the resolve to say ‘no’ to a succubus?

In exchange, Ziratha decided, maybe it was time to make good use of some of the inherent succubic talents she’d spent all of grad school neglecting.

Ziratha straightened up and, as Vivi watched, shrugged out of her heavy lab coat. As it fell to the ground, she reached up and removed her hair tie, shaking her head to make sure her hair cascaded down around her face. Vivi was all but hypnotized by the sight.

But that was only the beginning.

Next, Ziratha took her t-shirt by its hem and lifted it off over her head. She moved slowly, though, letting the helpless punk watching her savor the sight of her tummy and cleavage being revealed. The way she slipped out of her sweatpants was even more seductive. She made a dance of it, swinging her hips from side to side as she peeled them away from her body to expose her long, sculpted legs.

The striptease left Vivi with a little trail of drool escaping one corner of her mouth. She couldn’t seem to stop leering. Her eyes were shining like she couldn’t believe her luck, and the tent in her skirt was now marked with a growing spot of damp precum.

Underneath her clothes, Ziratha wasn’t wearing lingerie, merely a comfy sports bra and a matching pair of boxers. But that, she decided, was plenty to work with when it came to a virgin.

And from the look on Vivi’s face, she was right.

“Tell me,” Ziratha panted, “have you ever gotten a lap dance before?”

Vivi looked almost panicked as she shook her head.

“Great,” Ziratha purred. “Then I suppose this will be a genuine first.”

Effortlessly, the succubus eased her weight into the examination chair, and backed up inch by inch until her naturally huge, curvy ass was pressed right up against Vivi’s hard bulge.

Vivi squeaked like a mouse.

At this point, her every little noise and twitch was like a red rag to a bull. The newly-restored virgin’s scent was so thick in the air Ziratha could taste it. Her hunger was awakening instincts she’d never known she had. Moving to the sound of unheard music, she started grinding and gyrating like she’d been doing it all her life.

The effect the lap dance had on Vivi was nothing short of explosive.

The punk looked like every bit the virgin she now was. Her eyes were wide and practically bulging, and her mouth was contorted into a goofy, uneven shape halfway between an amazed grin and a look of desperate, anxious disbelief.

She looked like she was about to blow.

“C’mon,” Ziratha mocked, in a voice dripping with honey and brimstone. “You can do better than this, right, virgin?”

Her teasing elicited another strangled whimper that just made the succubus want to push Vivi further and further. She danced her way up the punk girl’s body and turned to face her, rolling her hips as she pushed her ass back out behind her to grind into her throbbing bulge.

“Be a good girl,” she teased. “Hold on a little longer for me.”

Vivi just nodded haplessly. Her eyes were scrunched up closed, and she was gripping the sides of the chair so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Ziratha could just imagine what was going on in her head. Baseball scores. Times tables. Whatever she needed to help not utterly humiliate herself.

“Let’s see if you can handle something a little more… direct.”

Ziratha arched her and straightened her tail, daring the virgin punk writhing beneath her to open her eyes and stare at her amazing tits. Then, she reached back and used her deft fingertips to unfasten Vivi’s skirt. Vivi let out a moan that was as much protest as eagerness, but it didn’t stop Ziratha from using the motion of her hips and thighs to slide the garment out of the way, and then pull aside her panties until her hard, leaking cock was completely exposed.

Zirath’s long, forked tongue lolled out of her mouth as she stared at it, dripping drool down onto Vivi.

She needed it.

“Good news, punk,” she breathed, shivering. “You’re about to get your cherry popped.”

“W-w-what?” Vivi exclaimed pitifully.

“It’s, uh, for the experiment,” Ziratha reasoned. She was frenzied as she tore off her bra and panties. “I need to sample, uh… and, well, get a reading on the volume of…” She rolled her eyes and licked her lips. “Actually, forget the science. I’m just hungry, and you’re ripe for the eating.”

“B-b-but!” the trans girl spluttered, as Ziratha positioned herself against her cock. “I-I don’t know if I’m ready yet!”

“Yeah?” Ziratha paused, bemused.

"I mean… uh…” A bashful look came over Vivi’s face. “It’s just… I maybe… I wanted it to be special. You know?”

“Oh my god.” Ziratha snorted a laugh, and grinned wickedly. “You are going to be just delicious.”

In a single motion, she dropped her hips and impaled herself on Vivi’s cock.

Immediately, Vivi’s voice shot up an octave, and she let out a girlish cry of absolute pleasure. Right after, Ziratha’s rich, gleeful moans joined the chorus. The succubus couldn’t believe how good the virgin’s cock felt. It wasn’t just the sensation. It was the sustenance. Merely being in Vivi’s presence for the last few minutes had made Ziratha fiercely hungry. Now, at last, that hunger was being sated.

Once she recovered from the initial hit, Ziratha started moving her hips and bouncing greedily on the end of Vivi’s shaft. With each bounce, the punk girl underneath her thrashed madly in a clumsy, instinctive attempt to meet Ziratha thrust for thrust.

She mostly failed. But the attempt, at least, was adorable.

As she rode the sensitive, inexperienced punk, Ziratha started howling with glee. She’d never had the pleasure before, but it was true what they said - there was nothing like milking a virgin. Her body was humming with energy, and every time she buried Vivi’s cock to the hilt inside her pussy, the sensation got sweeter and sweeter. Something about the flavor of a virgin’s energy was utterly transcendent, and it was made all more nourishing by what it represented.

Ziratha’s complete and total victory.

Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long before Vivi’s moans started to peak, signaling that she was at the edge. Clearly, despite her memories, the virgin had absolutely no stamina. Ziratha wasn’t going to complain. The orgasm was the sweetest part of the meal.

“Go ahead!” Ziratha urged. “Blow your load already. We both know you can’t hold back anymore.”

With a cry of absolute, mortified bliss, Vivi exploded inside her.

Ziratha’s moans peaked too when she felt Vivi’s virile, nourishing cum paint her insides. It was better than anything she’d ever felt before. The power, the pleasure, the feeding - all of it. Ziratha could already feel her body priming itself to swell and change with the infusion of fresh energy.

The ecstatic rush of it made her greedy. She wanted more. She wanted it all. Ziratha squeezed down on Vivi and started riding her harder and faster than ever. Every bounce, every thrust, coaxed more and more sweet, sweet cum from the virgin’s cock, until Vivi was whining in blissful agony as she came down from the high of orgasm. Eventually, Vivi’s eyes rolled back  into her head and simply passed out, her mind overwhelmed past its limits by sheer pleasure.

Ziratha kept riding her all the same. The succubus didn’t stop until she’d milked her for every last drop.

Eventually, though, once her hunger was sated, she slumped down next to the punk girl, giggling intermittently in giddy, light-headed glee. The succubus’s head was already filling with daydreams of fame and wealth when Vivi came to and pulled her into a hesitant, needy embrace.

“Hey, u-um,” Vivi whispered earnestly, in a voice that was anything but punk. “W-was it good for you too?”

“Huh?” Ziratha roused herself. There was something strange about the way Vivi sounded. No; about the way she felt. Ziratha had expected her to start returning to something closer to her normal behavior.

“I-I-I just, uh…” Vivi was once again turning bright red. “I-I thought it was really special. You know? Like, um, maybe we really have a connection.”

Ziratha seized Vivi’s hand again and, as Vivi stared at her hopefully, paid close attention to what she could sense from the punk girl. When the penny dropped, she started cackling.

“Oh my god!” she howled. “I can’t believe it. You’re still the same way. As fresh as ever.”

“What do you mean?” Vivi sounded defensive.

“I’m definitely going to need to hold you for some… oversight observation. Just to make sure.” Ziratha licked her lips suggestively. “But I can already tell. It’s like your brain can’t adapt anymore. Not just your energy levels. Your social skills. Your inhibitions. Your stamina. Everything.”

“What?” Vivi pressed anxiously.

“It’s the revirginization,” Ziratha pronounced. “All of it. It’s permanent.”

***

Mere weeks later, it was a very different Ziratha that stood upon the stage to make her big pitch to a room packed full of succubus leaders and investors. It wasn’t just the confidence - although she had that in spades, now that her Nobel prize was apparently all but assured. Her body had changed too. She stood taller. Grander. She exuded power and presence, and all of her body’s assets had gone from merely ‘hot’ to inhumanly mouth-watering. Her horns were a massive, knotted crown upon her head, and her tail was as deft as a whip and as thick as an anaconda.

All thanks to her favorite little meal.

Vivi was standing a little way behind her on the stage, and while physically she was unchanged, she seemed to have shrunk just as Ziratha had grown. She exuded a fragile, nebbish submissiveness despite all tattoos and piercings. She wore a choker collar bearing Ziratha’s name around her neck, and she was wearing a dress.

Ziratha liked her that way. And Vivi was no longer able to argue with the succubus.

“So, as you can see from our data, our early clinical trials have borne out the most promising of my invention’s results,” Ziratha was saying, as she rounded off her speech. “The regression to maiden status is, both psychologically and metaphysically speaking, permanent. The process isn’t damaging, but the subject’s mind naturally sheds its ability to develop new sexual skills or comfort zones, physical or social. Accordingly, their energy levels remain at peak capacity and potency - forever.”

Ziratha paused for a beat, letting the crowd of succubi sitting in front of her drink that in.

“In short,” she concluded, “they’re helpless perma-virgins. Isn’t that right, Vivi?”

Vivi blushed an incredibly deep red and looked down at the floor, but nodded.

“So!” Ziratha clapped her hands. “It’s safe to say that we’re ready to move into pre-production. Soon enough, each and every one of you could have one of my devices in your very own hands - assuming you’re willing to provide me with funding, of course. What do you say, ladies? A future of infinite, renewable energy awaits us!”

As expected, the auditorium was immediately filled with thunderous applause.

The age of the Succubus Energy Crisis was over.

The age of perma-virgin mortals and succubus dominance was about to begin.

---

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[inairbinad]

maybe together we can get somewhere

Written for my lovely, talented, and frequent brainworm-sharing friend @stobinesque! Happy birthday, I hope you have the best day!! 🥳💙 This one is also affectionately known as stobin: codependent delivery drivers. Featuring the soulmates soulmating, some Rockie fluff, and just a dash of Steddie. rated: T | wc: 4k | cw: none [read on ao3]

Robin slaps the classified section in front of Steve as he’s making their morning coffee. It’s been another long night of tossing and turning, of holding each other through anxious dreams thanks to the latest round of shit they’ve been through. It’s exhausting, but they’re figuring it out together. Again. Because if all they can do is stay attached at the hip, share a bed, and tell each other everything’s okay as long as they have each other? Well, Robin’s more than willing to do that for Steve. And after two times around this ride already, Robin knows Steve’s more than willing to do that for her too.

So she uses the time not sleeping to scour the paper for job leads. It’s not like she’s dying to work again, but if she and Steve ever want to realize their plans of getting the hell out of Hawkins and moving to the city, they’re gonna need something. If they can’t sleep without each other, they certainly can’t be expected to work without each other. 

Luckily Robin thinks she’s finally stumbled upon something that could be great for both of them.

“I think I found our next excursion through the perils of capitalism,” she grins and takes her mug from Steve, who always knows just how to make her coffee. She’s actually pretty sure they could do each other’s morning routines in their sleep, by now. 

“Yippee,” Steve says with all the enthusiasm of someone on death row. He knows as well as Robin does that they need to find another job after the Family Video quite literally crumbled to dust, but neither of them is exactly eager to dive back into the hells of minimum wage labor. Not to mention that Robin’s more than a little worried that they’re cursed, and the total destruction of both of their previous workplaces might precede them.

“Come on, as long as we do it together it won’t be that bad,” Robin tries to persuade him before telling him what the actual job is.

“You said that about the last one!” Steve points out, looking so scandalized that Robin’s a little annoyed.

“Are you saying you don’t want to work together anymore?”

“No,” Steve course-corrects so quickly that Robin can’t help but laugh at him. “I whine about work about five-hundred percent more if you aren’t there with me, Robbie. You know that.”

“I’m familiar,” she chuckles, thinking back to every single time Keith scheduled Steve to work without her at the video store. And every time they’d come back to work together at Scoops after a few days apart, Steve would have countless tales of people-watching and bizarre customers to share, even before they considered each other certified soulmates.

“So what is it?” Steve asks.

“How would you like to be one of the newest faces of Surfer Boy Pizza?”

“I thought you couldn’t drive,” Keith narrows his eyes at Robin before going back to inspect her newly acquired driver’s license. She figured it was time to get one after the shit hit the fan for the second time in less than a year, so that’s exactly what she did…after a few tries, anyway.

Steve would argue that she still can’t drive, actually looks like the words are poised on the tip of his tongue before he thinks better of it.

Robin can’t exactly blame him, not after all he went through trying to teach her. She has to hold back a wince as she relives the time she popped one of his tires like a balloon just from rolling over a curb. But by some miracle—arguably her impeccable parallel parking skills, which might be the only thing she’s actually good at, go figure—Robin finally did manage to get her license.

So the way Keith is looking at it like it has to be a fake is a little bit insulting.

“It’s newly minted, I’ll admit,” Robin sighs and leans across the counter to try and level with him. How he managed to snag up a manager’s spot here so quickly baffles her, quite honestly, since they just opened. (The rumor is that the owners saw Argyle driving around in his van so frequently that they were inspired to open a franchise. Robin isn’t sure what that says about her potential new employers, but she’s trying not to think about it too hard.)

At least she knows how to talk Keith into things he doesn’t necessarily want to do by now.

“But I’m super careful and am an excellent parallel parker,” she continues. “You won’t find any scratches on your shiny new delivery vans when I’m working, or get calls from customers saying I left a dent in their bumper like the infamous kid that used to drive for that other pizza joint in town.”

“We don’t mention that place in here,” Keith grumbles, knowing full well that he is that infamous kid. It’s another reason Robin is shocked that someone hired him to work at a pizza place again, even if he isn’t driving this time around. Keith passes her license back over before glancing at Steve, who knows to stay quiet and let Robin handle things. He merely shrugs and gives Keith a look that imparts so much confidence in Robin that it makes her heart swell. “Fine, you’re both hired. Again. But—”

Robin cuts him off with a soft whoop, surprised at how excited she is to be able to make a mixtape and drive around town without a manager breathing down her neck for her entire shift. She doesn’t really care much about the handing pizzas off to people part, more so the independence. And then to come back to the store and gab with Steve about it while they wait for their next call.

It maybe doesn’t promise quite as much togetherness at work as they’re accustomed to, but Robin has a feeling they’ll find a way to work around that.

“But—” Keith says again with his supposedly stern face on and points at Robin specifically. “You’ll deliver by bike until I trust you with a van.”

Robin feels the way her shoulders slump like she’s sinking into quicksand. “It’s about to be summer, Keith—”

Steve kicks her ankle and clears his throat loudly before he sells her out like a Judas. “Deal.”

Robin stares daggers at the side of his head like the good old days when he was just the douchebag who left bagel crumbs everywhere he went. He doesn’t look at her, though, just shakes hands with Keith and seals her to her sweaty fate.

Robin doesn’t speak to Steve again until they pull up in front of her house. “I can’t believe you threw me under the proverbial bike like that, dingus.”

“Do you want to hear my plan, or do you want to go back and quit before you even get your little yellow visor?” he asks as he shuts off the Beemer.

“I’ll hear your plan,” Robin sighs, glad he seems to have one at all. “But I reserve the right to reject it out of hand. Visor be damned.”

Steve smiles and twists around in his seat to face her, like whatever he’s come up with excites him.

“Okay, so every time Keith sends you out on your bike, you ride around the corner and wait, then I’ll pick you up in the van. That way we can do all our deliveries together until Keith trusts you to drive on your own.” Steve crosses his arms and grins at her like he’s some kind of evil, work-avoidant genius.

Robin thinks he just might be.

“I guarantee we’ll still cover just as much ground if I push the speed limit, Hawkins is so small,” he continues. “Then we’ll both basically be getting paid to do one job, and Keith never has to know.”

“You’re a genius Steve, you know that?” she figures it can’t hurt to tell him. It breaks her heart a little to watch the shadow of disbelief that crosses his face to hear it.

“I don’t know about that…”

Robin claps a hand over his mouth before he can say anything self-deprecating. “Nope. Take the compliment. I only have one question.”

“Shoot, Bobbie,” Steve says. He’s probably trotting out one of Robin’s favorite nicknames to counteract the fact that his lips are moving against her palm as he talks, which he knows creeps her out. How she understands what he’s saying anyway is beyond her, but she does.

“What do we do on nights that I’m scheduled to work, but you’re not?” Robin asks as she drops her hand.

Steve shrugs and gives her such an easy smile, Robin thinks his knack for scheming is one of her favorite things about him.

“Help cover the gas, and I’ll drive you around anyway,” he says. “But you’re pretty good at convincing Keith to schedule us together already.”

Robin wonders if maybe this job will actually be kind of fun.

Robin’s pretty sure Keith catches on to their little routine after about a week of doing it. But she’s already plotted a route around Hawkins that maximizes the ground they can cover, and Steve’s had all the best places to speed memorized for years, so every customer ends up singing their praises to the point where Keith can’t really bring himself to do anything about it.

She thinks she might never have to drive a delivery van herself as long as they keep this up. That’s fine by Robin, because even if the pay is shit, it’s probably the most fun she’s ever had at work.

It beats slinging ice cream in a sailor outfit, anyway.

People actually seem happy to see Robin when she’s the one who rings the bell, delivering their dinner with a smile and a little bit of a clumsy lilt to her gait. It always gives her an extra dose of confidence when the particularly hot moms of Hawkins are thrilled to see her—whether it’s for closeted sapphic reasons or just gender solidarity, Robin can’t help but enjoy the attention and praises heaped upon her.

“Robin, you look almost as adorable in that uniform as you did in the sailor outfit. Yellow really is a good color on you,” Mrs. Wheeler says to her one night, and Robin nearly faints from it.  

Eventually she starts flirting a little—not with Nancy’s mom, but maybe with some of the others who didn’t birth her friends—just subtly enough to make getting out of the car to talk to the babes on their route worth it. Steve grumbles about letting Robin talk to all the pretty girls at first, but it’s good natured and really Robin can tell that he’s proud of her for being a little charmer.

He doesn’t mind flirting with the dudes instead, anyway. Especially not when Eddie starts ordering pizza way more frequently than is strictly necessary, even for someone still recovering from his first stint in the underworld.

“Why don’t you just ask him out?” Robin asks when Steve climbs back in the van with a goofy smile on his face for the fourth time in one week. Between the kids hanging out at Max’s and Eddie calling so often, they spend more time delivering to their new, unearthquaked end of the trailer park than anywhere else.

“Why don’t you just ask Vickie out?” Steve counters, just like he always does. Robin tries to flick some of her Coke at him (that she may or may not have snagged from the work fridge behind Keith’s back), but she fumbles the execution and ends up spilling the whole can on Steve’s shirt. Then Steve’s laughing, but also glaring at her as he whines about his work shirt being sticky now.

Robin tries to stifle her own laughter with apologies, chooses not to point out that Eddie’s laughing from his door, too. She strips her own Surfer Boy tee off, leaving just the white tank top she’s wearing underneath, and hands it to Steve to change into. They share clothes like it’s their lot in life anyway. Robin’s actually kind of convinced that one might’ve been Steve’s shirt to begin with.

“Thanks,” he grumbles and changes hastily. He finally notices Eddie’s still watching once he’s trying to fix his hair in the rearview mirror.

Robin revels in the way his neck flushes, just a teeny bit. Steve waves shyly, Eddie waves back, and she wonders how long they’ll continue to be dumbasses as Steve finally pulls away.

“Where to next?” he asks, and Robin checks her list.

Her groan tells Steve everything he needs to know.

“Vickie’s it is!” He sounds entirely too cheerful about it.

The drive from Eddie’s to Vickie’s is vanishingly short, especially with Steve and Robin’s System of Fast and Efficient Pizza Delivery, patent pending.

“Gimme my shirt back,” Robin implores as Steve pulls up to Vickie’s, feeling exposed all of a sudden in just her tank top. She anxiously looks towards the front door as she waits. The porch light’s on for them, because Vickie is always one of the more courteous customers they’ve got—and one of the best tippers.

“Oh so I’m supposed to sit here shirtless because you don’t want to show off your arms to a pretty girl?” Steve asks, and Robin whips her head around to realize he’s not planning on giving her shirt back at all.

“It’s company policy not to approach a door without your uniform!” Robin shrieks, not because she cares much about company policy, but because Steve should have her back on principle. “Plus, you enjoy being shirtless, you flirt!”

“I don’t think Vickie’s going to mistake you for a missionary,” Steve says blandly, ignoring the mild-slut shaming completely. “Plus, you’ve still got your visor on.”

“Steve,” Robin tries, but he just grins at her without moving a muscle.

“You look great. Go get ‘em, Tiger.”

“Oh god. You did not just say that,” Robin sighs, delaying further just to make fun of him a little. She thinks it’s deserved.

“I did, and I meant it,” Steve raises an eyebrow at her. “Unless you want me to drop this one?”

“No,” Robin tells him with all the annoyance she can muster. She might be awkward, flailing, and hopelessly pining over Vickie already, but she’s not gonna let any of that stop her from going up to that door. “Gimme the damn pizza.”

Steve reaches to get it out of the back and hands it over to Robin with a shit-eating grin. She really regrets not giving him more hell over Eddie back there, but she takes the box and squares her shoulders before making her way up Vickie’s front stairs.

Robin rings the bell and does her best not to fidget the entire time she’s waiting. Which isn’t very long at all. Vickie opens the door with a wide smile in greeting, looking almost angelic in the way the light behind her frames her fiery hair, her eyes bright and excited just because Robin’s there. 

Or maybe she’s just really hungry, a more cynical part of Robin’s brain corrects.

“Veggie pizza?” Robin asks, and Vickie nods.

“Thanks,” Vickie says, already moving to exchange pizza for money. “That was really fast.”

“Oh, well. Steve and I have a system. I kind of buried myself in maps for a night while I worked out the quickest routes around town, then we spent the next couple of days figuring out how to drive them quickly without hitting any pedestrians or breaking too many traffic laws,” Robin says without thinking. No matter how many times they talk, Robin doesn’t seem to be able to stop blurting things out around Vickie.

Vickie just laughs though, leaning a little around Robin so she can wave to Steve who is very obviously watching them from the car.

“That’s a whole lot of dedication to the job,” Vickie comments, and Robin can feel her ears turn pink.

“Sometimes I just plan stuff out when I can’t sleep, even if I never actually end up doing it,” Robin admits.

“Me too,” Vickie says with such soft knowing in her voice that Robin wants to wrap herself up in it like a blanket. For the first time she wonders if maybe Steve isn’t the only person who can calm her nerves enough to help her sleep. She doesn’t have much time to get caught up in the thought, though, because Vickie keeps talking.

“Is that your normal uniform?” she asks, and Robin hopes she’s not imagining the way Vickie’s gaze lingers over her bare shoulders, her chest, her neck. She feels exposed, still, her skin alight with any attention Vickie is willing to give, but it feels nice. So nice, actually, that Robin doesn’t remember how to respond for a moment. “Or did you just want to show off your tan?”

Vickie bites her lip and flushes ever so slightly, like maybe she hadn’t quite meant to say that part out loud. Robin can’t think of anything but how desperate she is to kiss her.

“I really don’t tan,” Robin admits. “Freckle, mostly. Sometimes burn if I’m not careful. Which I guess isn’t surprising, given the history of skin cancer in my family—” Robin hears herself and wants to die. She snaps her mouth shut before she can say anything else horrifying.

“Oh, I burn too! Even with all the sunscreen in the world, sometimes–” Vickie cuts herself off with a nervous laugh. “Well, the freckles look very good, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Robin murmurs, and she thinks maybe she’s blushing enough to look sunburnt now.

“Robin?” Vickie asks, still holding the pizza between them like she’s afraid if she moves the moment might break.

Or maybe that’s just what Robin’s scared of.

“Yeah?”

“Can you help me with something real quick, or are you super busy tonight?” Vickie asks. The hopeful way she tilts her head is so precious Robin might implode right there on the spot.

Robin doesn’t care how busy they are, there’s no way she’s not following Vickie inside. “I can help. What’s up?”

“It’s just that my VCR is jammed,” Vickie says, already leading Robin inside and talking over her shoulder. She puts the pizza down on the coffee table and nods toward the TV. Robin ambles over, not sure there’s anything she can do to fix it, but she’s willing to try.

“You worked at Family Video for a while, right?” Vickie asks. Robin nods and tries not to relive every time Vickie came in to rent something and Robin acted like a fool. “Thought maybe you’d have the magic touch with it.”

Robin doesn’t think she’s imagining the flirtatious way that Vickie says magic touch, so she pours all of her focus into the malfunctioning machine in front of her before she malfunctions and melts into a puddle on Vickie’s floor.

She feels Vickie’s eyes watching her as she works and thinks she might melt anyway.

It doesn’t take long to figure out the problem. After some fumbling, Robin manages to untangle some loose tape from inside the deck. She can’t help but think it looks haphazardly shoved in there. “Were you babysitting, or something?”

“No?” Vickie says, voice inexplicably laced with questionable guilt.

“Just seems like it got stuffed in there,” Robin says as she turns around with the tangle on display. “Like maybe a kid was playing with it.”

“Oh. Well. Weird.” Vickie’s biting her lip and looking at her feet all of a sudden. Robin can see the sheen of freshly applied gloss on Vickie’s lips. She wonders what it tastes like.

She also wonders if maybe Vickie put it on just for her.

“Vickie?” Robin’s voice is whisper quiet.

“Yeah?”

“Did you really need my help with the VCR?”

Vickie’s eyes snap to Robin’s face, worried, like she’s been caught out. But then Robin smiles at her, so gently she feels like it might break her own heart just to feel it on her face, and Vickie relaxes her shoulders.

“No,” she admits.

Robin doesn’t know where the courage comes from, what comes over her or how, but one minute she’s standing in Vickie’s living room thinking she might pass out from nerves, and the next she’s cupping Vickie’s cheek with all the casual smoothness Robin’s ever mustered in her life. Then Robin leans in to kiss her.

It’s heady, the power Robin feels just from being the one to move first. It’s like her body was made for this, for gently holding Vickie’s face and tasting the strawberry flavor of her lip gloss, feeling the soft pout of her lips slotting between Robin’s own like puzzle pieces fitting together.

But mostly Robin is soaring because Vickie is kissing her back, fiercely, like maybe this was actually what Vickie was hungry for instead of pizza in the first place.

Robin isn’t entirely sure what being a good kisser entails, at least not when you actually want the person you’re lip to lip with so badly you’re seeing stars. There’s no universe in which Robin thinks this can’t be good, though, because her whole body is tingling from the way Vickie presses up against it, the way she gently slips her hand into Robin’s hair and tilts Robin’s head just so.

Robin feels her visor come tumbling off her head, but she can hardly care when Vickie lets out a delicate moan that leaves her absolutely weak in the knees.

“Vickie,” Robin breathes out when they separate, already wanting to dive in for more. Vickie smiles against Robin’s mouth, kisses the corner of her lips again like she’s worried she missed a spot.

“Yes, Robin?” Vickie asks, suddenly sounding much more confident than she’d looked just a moment before—almost teasing.

“That was really good,” Robin says plainly.

“I agree,” Vickie hums. She pecks Robin on the lips one more time, gentle and quick about it. “And as much as I want to do it again, I think Steve’s waiting for you.”

It’s only then that Robin even hears the distinct sound of the van’s horn honking—two quick beeps to remind her that there’s still two more deliveries they need to make.

“Damn him,” Robin mutters, and Vickie just laughs. Her breath against Robin’s face is minty fresh, and Robin can’t really be expected to function when she knows Vickie planned this whole thing, can she?

“Call me later?” Vickie asks.

Robin nods, but not before kissing her again, deliveries be damned.

“Your lips are swollen,” Steve says first thing when she gets back in the car, dazed and floaty like she’s just taken the best drugs of her life. (This is something Robin actually has a point of reference for now, and she’s easily putting ‘Kisses From Vickie’ at the top of the list.)

“I kissed her,” Robin says, staring straight ahead. Steve squeals like a little girl and bounces in his seat.

“Finally!” he cheers, giving Robin’s shoulders an excited shake. “Are you comatose over there?”

“A little,” Robin admits, but she feels the smile break out on her face like an explosion of fireworks. She sucks in a deep breath and finally looks at Steve. He looks so happy for her she thinks her heart might burst all over again. “I kissed a girl.”

“Was it everything you imagined?” Steve asks, not bothering to hide the hopeless romantic that lives in his chest and pulls all of his heartstrings.

“And then some,” Robin says, hearing how dreamy she sounds and just rolling with it. Steve starts the van up again just as Vickie waves at them both from her front window. She blows Robin a kiss, and Robin thinks she’s died and gone to a heaven she’s not sure she believed in until now.

“Seems this job was worth it after all,” Steve admits.

Robin really can’t disagree.

[kouhaiofcolor]

Dude you know what makes less and less sense to me the older i get? The basis of being charged for rent and utilities in this day and age when we spend less and less time actually at home doing anything fr. Like when you take into consideration how fucking burnt out we are on a regular basis (esp and particularly among adolescents and young adults), how do I even have a bill for utilities I’m never home to really use for any significant amount of time?

I’m being charged increasingly for streaming services i don’t have the energy outside of work to watch with any actual consistency or attention. Most of the time I turn the mf tv on for white noise — to scroll through social media on my damn phone 😂 bc the sound of the tv in the background gives me this illusion of control over how I’m spending my time “leisuring”, only bc it’s something i can use to convince myself that the shackles have been at least temporarily removed. They’re never removed though. Literally ever.

You spend $200 on 10 damn items at the grocery store now; groceries that don’t even last, at that. The essential-est essentials have prices straight out of apocalyptic hell. At the same time, this is the same damn country that decided no one has a technical right to food or sustenance — with the phenomena of food insecurity all over the damn nation. People can’t even truly afford to take care of their health being tethered to working “tirelessly”, and with health insurance having no seriousness here whatsoever.

I’m paying 1,000+ damn dollars a month for rent alone, working for shit wages that never really budge in any way that matters and that I can’t actually save shit with, bc I never really have any disposable income. It’s just a fucking nightmare. How are y’all doing this with children??? How are y’all doing this with dependents and pets and car payments and student loans and credit card debt on top of a never ending series of American obligations?? How are y’all not losing your very minds living like this every day??? The math doesn’t even add up. Logic doesn’t even apply.

There’s nothing logical or fair about any of this. It doesn’t even make systemic sense the way we’re charged damn near everything year-round to exist here. How are they incentivizing y’all to breed playing w our rights like this in our faces?? It’s worth it to y’all? I could grind my teeth to nothing trying to make the vaguest sense of it. I feel so utterly squeezed by and ensnared in bills 24/7/365. And like………… in a way…… it kinda doesn’t make declining birth rates seem so bad? This really might be for the best.

Tf we supposed to do, just work for other human beings all our lives? 8 billion of us?? What right do human beings have to demand such consistent energy from other human beings? 😂 Just to be a vessel by which others procure and sustain wealth via our underpaid and exhausted labor while we struggle to survive on meager resources? Doesn’t seem sustainable. Or realistic. Or humane. I’ve never wanted to be here less. I’ve never wanted to not be needed so badly in my entire life. I’m so fucking tired of being here.

[allsassnoclass]

Kid fic prompts

Had a request to gather some prompts about characters with kids! Most of these are single parent aus, but there are other iterations of characters with kids as well.

While I came up with some of these, many of these come from my AU notebook, which is years and years old and from before I properly sourced things. If they are from your prompt list, please let me know and I'll credit or remove them, which ever you prefer!

I'm the band teacher and you're the new choir teacher at this under-funded public school

We knew each other in high school and ran into each other at the grocery store and my teenage child saw the interaction and is now trying to set us up

I PUT THE KID I'M BABYSITTING DOWN FOR TWO SECONDS HOW ARE THEY GONE WHERE-- oh you found them and are now holding them and searching for their guardian

We're camp counselors at the summer camp that we both went to as little kids

We both work at Disney World and all of the little kids LOVE you

Alternatively, you work at Disney World and I did not mentally prepare myself for spending a full day at the park with my child and no adult backup and you're an employee who is saving my life at every turn

I don't like you and you don't like me but our best friends died in a car crash and left their 1-year-old child in our custody so now we've got to act civil and learn how to co-parent

You run my kid's daycare

I'm only at this park because my younger sibling wanted to come (not because I'm secretly a small child inside haha what are you talking about) why are YOU here?

We both babysit the same kid on different days and I have to listen to the kid gush about you the entire time I'm watching them and we're FINALLY meeting at the kid's birthday party

We are overly invested soccer parents

I'm the host of a children's TV show and you're the child supervisor on set

The kids we're escorting to trick or treating on Halloween just dropped their bags and got all of their candy mixed up

I accidentally scared a kid on Halloween and their adult is angry

Your kid keeps kicking the back of my seat on this airplane

Hey we hooked up last night and it turns out you're my kid's teacher

My parents died and left me, a barely legal adult, in charge of my kid sibling and the only person that I can be myself around is you, some guy I work with at my crappy minimum wage job

My baby insists on crying all night long and you came into the hallway of our apartment complex to see what's up and offer help

We're the only single parents in the play group and all of the other parents are definitely shipping us hardcore

My kid threw a fit at the ice cream/toy/whatever store and you were the only person nice enough to help without judging me

Our kids are best friends and oh look we're both single so I guess I'll ask you out for a drink

I'm on the bus and my 2-year-old won't stop crying except you just smiled at them and they did

I asked you to babysit one time and now my child keeps asking when you will spend time with them again

You asked me to the store with you and your child and now my distant relative we met thinks I'm married with a kid

We're friends and my child's first word was your name and I'm jealous and also kind of endeared

You've been sleeping at mine because you're house is being renovated and we aren't even dating, yet every time you wake up to the baby crying and sigh "I'll go" I feel like we might as well be married

We've been on a few dates and my child just asked us when we're getting married

Our children are in the same class and we both hate the teacher, eventually the parent's evenings are just us competing at who can call out snarkier comments

We are the only two parents to agreed to attend the school trip (bonus: so I guess we share this hotel room...?)

I'm so sorry that my child pointed out how your shirt--actually never mind, I agree, that shirt is horrendous

You crouched down to coo at my baby but I forgot to tell you their favorite thing to do is play with people's hair and now they won't let go of you

I work as an elf at a mall Santa grotto and you keep bringing a seemingly endless supply of kids through to meet Santa

[ask-zaukodar]

For those who don't particularly follow gaming, there's currently a hot new game out in the field called "Helldivers 2" and it is making hype train waves like very few games have before. There is also a lot of discourse about why it's doing the kinds of numbers and having the popular support that it currently has, and while I know this may not reach a lot of people I still want to drop my thoughts on things.

Just to recap briefly: "Helldivers 2" is the sequel to the titular PC/PS4 game "Helldivers" where you play satirical Starship Troopers waging a war of aggression pre-emptive strike on alien powers who were content to be left alone dangerous enemies of humanity and democracy in the name of subjugating these powers to steal their resources and technology liberty, freedom, and defending our way of life. It was developed by Arrowhead games, who in addition to the original Helldivers previously made Magicka (not Magicka 2) and Gauntlet (2014), and the devs very clearly knew what they wanted to make in regards to all three games and hyperfocused on making those elements work to make the game the best possible experience.

Yes, there are live services aspects such as a rotating armor shop and a "seasonal pass" in the form of something called a War Bond, but the game has gone to impressive lengths to ensure that you aren't pressured into buying stuff through old tactics like FOMO and the like. And yes, the dev team has been in crisis mode addressing the server issues and fixing bugs and (hopefully) addressing the cheater problems, but they have a clear vision and have been working hard to make sure everyone can enjoy it. But it isn't the no-pressure live service, or the on-the-up-and-up dev team in and of itself, or even the chaotic and satirical nature of the game itself I spotted after playing as long as I have.

Helldivers 2 is a perfect (and perfectly-timed) B-game.

For anyone who never owned a console before the seventh generation (Playstation 3, Wii, and XBox 360) I'll explain briefly: every console had its "big title" (later known as AAA) games: Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy, Battlefield, Call of Duty, Metal Gear, and all of the other ones an elder millennial can name off the top of their heads. But there also used to be games that very explicitly weren't that big-named that were still amazing games in their own right, like the Legacy of Kain series or Jak & Daxter series or Wild Arms or Guitar Hero or Pikmin or Overlord or Saints Row, there's lots of examples of "great games that didn't have mega-bux budgets". These games were the backbone of any console you owned, ever, and some of the best times you had with friends. They were not priced or marketed like AAA games were, but were the kind of game that kept you going back to any video game store of your choice.

For reasons I still don't fully comprehend these types of titles started drying up in the seventh generation, I don't know if it's because of the always-online culture that started appearing in gaming or if it had to do with the emergence of "indie games" or if it was manufacturers wanting bigger slices of the pie or whatever, but for whatever reason these games eventually fell into obscurity, and everything started to fall into "indie dev" or "AAA studio" with little exception. The few games of this category from this time period that were saved in PC ports are old and clunky and not as enjoyable to play, so people don't appreciate just how satisfying these games could be.

The thing about B-games is that they were incredibly solid. Yeah they might have reminded you of other games that were more mainstream or older games that you played on lesser graphics, but even if you didn't always enjoy the game you couldn't deny that it was decently made and it was the kind of game the devs wanted to make so you could play it. They weren't always the flashiest, highest-poly-count, or biggest marketing budget titles ever, but it still left an impression on you that could make you think back to it even now.

Flashing forward back to the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-Four and the landscape has changed so radically that the concept of a mid-level game that sets out to do something it wants to do is almost alien. But this is what Arrowhead started doing back in the 2010's when they made a dopey magic game where spells were based on your controller input that could friendly-fire (or outright troll) your friends. They used to be indie, but now they've grown enough to be a legitimate mid-level developer making the kind of games they know they want to make.

And because the gaming community is starved for something remotely original or fun they piled on it like sharks on bloody meat and they are eating it up wholesale. Which is great for the devs! And hopefully great for the gaming community at large, because maybe we'll get a return of some of these "not quite AAA games but still very solid and definitely not basement-developed" games.

[daigah]

Tell us abt the teacher AU

Oooh having to put my thoughts into words..

Okay, so like Max is the principal and J'onn is the VP. They are both fed UP with the job, but still do genuinely like interacting with the students and teachers... even if it gives them a headache (if Max can't be a good guy in canon I cope and make him a good guy in my AU)

Bea is the fashion design and textiles teacher. The sewing room tends to be a hub for people who want a place to gossip and you best believe Bea is EAVESDROPPING. Sometimes her students just tell her gossip directly too. She goes home and goes to Tora like "you would not BELIEVE what Becky did..." (Tora and Bea live together. They're dating :])

Tora teaches ancient history, like about the Greeks, Romans, Norse, etc.. The students LOVE her and her room is sort of a safe place for anyone who's upset and needs an area to just hang out.

Guy teaches P.E. and a lot of the students DON'T like him, but he does forge a genuine connection with some students, especially those who have faced tough times. Bit of a dick but you tell him you've been bullied? he's always willing to stand up for you

Booster teaches history and is the football coach. Most students (football players or no) call him Coach affectionately. Some of them have got their hands on the "booster" nickname too from overhearing other teachers call him that.

Ted is the physics teacher and runs the robotics club. His room is filled with stupid, corny posters and he makes dumb, corny jokes all the time but the students adore him. Yk those videos of physics teachers doing absolutely insane experiments inside their high school classroom? That's Ted. It's all Ted. Him and Booster are married and the proposal took place in the dollar store because Booster saw two cheap plastic rings that were blue and gold and went "haha those are our colours :D" *gets down on one knee*. The only witness to this was a 15 yr old minimum wage worker. They regularly pop by the dollar general now and go "hey 👋👋" . Later on when they get Rani and Rip students see Ted with them and are like "omg Mr kord are those your kids???" And hes like "yea I grew them in a lab"

Sometimes the students will pick up on something between Beatora and Boostle and they just start gaslighting the students. Atp they don't really care but just want to see who gets found out first.

Scott was the mechanics teacher for a while before quitting to go run his fix-it shop. Barda teaches at the local elementary school. They regularly have Scott's old co-workers over for dinner :)

Also. Manga Khan teaches economics and runs the theatre club and L-Ron is his teacher assistant. Manga is still in love with L-Ron in this AU because I think it's really funny. Sometimes I think I hallucinated that plot point. The students like Manga because it's really easy to make him soliloquize and then they don't have to do work

[fairykukla]

Capitalism rant.

I work in niche retail. My toxic boss actually passed away suddenly earlier this year. And while this has cleared away some of the problems I've been having with my job,bits also revealing some of the other problems in play.

My department has been short staffed for years now. One person retired during Covid, another got a cancer diagnosis and semi-retired. They were both full time people.

We have one new hire. She works two or three days a week, and no more than that.

We had another new person, but her personal life interfered with her availability so she left.

So we lost two full time people, and gained back one very part time person.

And the owner sees that we are functional, and doesn't want to hire anyone else. But if someone has to call in sick, or plan a vacation, we can't cover the floor.

A member of the staff in the rest of the store asked for cross training and agreed to work part time for my department. I'm a big fan of this, but because of my toxic manager literally nobody wanted to work for her.

So we had a new person, someone who only needed training on our department duties and our specific product line.

And I was *warned* about her by the other coworkers on the other side. When I asked for clarification I was told that she's ambitious. She wants to be a manager someday. She thinks she's better than everyone.

And I was like, "So what?" She either is an incompetent person with delusions of grandeur, or she's actually a hard worker who cares about how things are run. If she was incompetent, she wouldn't have been given this opportunity.

So the rest of my department became hostile to her, and tried to push her out.

I wanted her here. I was delighted to train her. I wanted to harness her desire to learn. And one day, we might need someone who is ambitious enough to be a retail manager, which is a horrible, thankless job that I don't want, despite my seniority.

Was she my new best friend? No. Not even remotely. Did I want her to continue to work for us? Absolutely.

So I was discussing it with the lady who makes the schedule, and she said, "Well, her availability wasn't what we needed."

So I asked for what qualities we needed. I said that we need another full time person.

"Well, we need someone that *could* work any of the days that we are open. Someone we can use to plug the holes in the schedule. Someone who doesn't want to work five days every week, but could work five days if we needed them at random moments."

And I laughed. I told her that she's describing a person that doesn't exist. Someone who doesn't need a consistent paycheck, but is willing to work up to 5 days a week? For just above minimum wage?

Anyone available for 5 days sometimes probably needs the five days all the time. Anyone who is content with working 1-3 days a week is either only available part time due to another job, or has a full calendar of non work things.

And I'm doing 3 people's worth of work, because they can't find their perfect candidate?

[zooophagous]

Today's entry of Wayward Souls deals with the aftermath of Mr. Strauss' big night on the town and is an aside exploring the point of view of a side character.

I went back and forth over when the best time was to share this. It's sort of been bothering me ever since it happened, and my therapist told me it's healthy to share and write it down. For a couple of reasons, I hesitated. First, because it sounds stupid. At best, people would think I was exaggerating for attention. Second, because some really sketchy people really, really didn't want me to say anything.

Well, sue me.

For the purposes of our story, you can call me "Tina."  Fake name, just in case someone figures out I blabbed, but it's not like they'll have a hard time figuring it out from the details anyway.

I used to work at a pet store as a sales associate. I say 'used to' because after what  I saw, I'm not going back in there. I didn't even go back to get my last check. I made them mail it. This wasn't a nice pet store, it was a chain store. A Pets-R-Inn in a shitty strip mall. The sort of pet store that sells puppies and always sort of smells like shit.

You know the type. Yeah, I know it's bad. I knew it was bad while I worked there. I figured maybe I could work part time with animals and elevate the care a little bit, you know? I can't make a store stop selling puppies but I can make sure the puppies are clean. I can scoop a dead fish out of a tank. I can quarantine a sick rat before it infects the others. Maybe trying to make a difference in a place like that was my first mistake.

I've seen so much shit and vomit and pee and parasites it would make your head spin. I'm not saying this to bring down the 'good name' of the chain pet store that sells sickly puppy mill dogs for three grand a piece and pays just above the federal minimum wage in the year of our Lord 2023 however. No, that's a rant for another time.

 I'm telling you this so you understand that I have a strong stomach. You HAVE to have a strong stomach when you work with animals. Any time you work with living things, inevitably you're going to work with dying things. Especially when most of the animals you work with are rodents with a natural lifespan not even a tenth of your own, who all live in close quarters and share their food and water and diseases alike.

I'm not being dramatic. I'm not getting worked up over nothing and I am NOT making this up. I was a good worker and I was good at my job. I didn't let one weird guy ruin it for me. It was ruined for me by a monster. And now I'm terrified I'm being followed by the FBI or the CIA or some government something. I don't know who they are. I don't care anymore. If I go missing maybe whoever reading this can figure out who to blame.

I'm getting off track here. So, this one day, I'm working the shop by myself. It was sort of a cold rainy day, real grey and dark. My stupid shit head manager Derek takes off for a "meeting" that was a 2 hour lunch he didn't clock out for, and left me to run the shop alone.

Not a huge deal, when I'm alone I can slack off and do whatever, and the major chores for the day were done because it was dead slow so I was just at the counter on my phone. As I'm standing there the door jingles open and this guy walks in.

I look up a little and say hi. I'm not really paying as much attention to him as I should, because he sort of looks like he knows what he wants already and heads right in. He looked sort of  bedraggled, scruffy, but a lot of our customers are "animal people" who have dirty stuff to do so I don't think much of it. It was half storming outside anyway.

He goes back to where we keep the feeder mice. Now, I'm sure you're probably aware that snakes eat whole prey. Well, we try really hard to get our customers to switch to frozen whole prey instead of live because live isn't as humane, and being the kindly little Snow White I am, I start preparing my spiel.

I see he's already trying to open the cages. That's no good. Liability. God forbid someone get bit by a rat or drop the whole fucking fish tank full of them and sue us. Or worse, some bleeding heart trying to "save" them again by stealing them or turning them loose.

So I'm helpful and I go back with my keys and I say to him "Hey, I need to be the one to open that for you." Now I actually do get a look at the guy. He's muddy. Like covered in mud. Soaked. He looks homeless and he might be having an episode of some sort and Derek is still gone. Great.

By this time he's got the cage open. Which, by the way, is locked. He broke the lock. The padlock. With his hands. His hands that are now rooting around in a tank full of white mice. I don't really want to stop him. I don't think I CAN stop him. He turns around and he looks at me.

He's got a little pink tail coming out of his mouth. He has a mouse in his fucking mouth. He ate a fucking mouse.

My chest gets tight and I don't really know if I should scream or if that will make it worse but I'm screaming anyway and he spits the mouse out and shoves another one into his mouth and I hear it CRUNCH and he stares me dead in the eyes while he does it.

Speaking of eyes, his were glowing. The way a cats eyes sort of shine in different colors. He's taking a step towards me and I see he's got more mice in his hand and he has claws on his hand instead of nails.

This is when I started yelling. Not screaming, really, more of a holler. An angry yell. A garbled sort of half terror and half "what the fuck do you think you're doing" that came out in a single loud note that cut my throat raw as I let it out.

I hear the door jingle again. I'm hoping it's Derek. No, just more customers, or so I thought. They're yelling at him. He backs off, he's like... hiding from them? I think for a moment I'm saved, that maybe this is just some sort of patient that wandered away from his handlers or something. But then more people pile in.

And now one of them has a gun.

Somehow or other it has now managed to ESCALATE. This guy fucking panics, throws down a whole shelf of cages and they all shatter. There are mice EVERYWHERE. They don't just scatter though, they're running together in a swarm towards the lady with a gun. Did I mention it was a lady? I thought it was weird it was a lady. Usually ladies don't shoot up stores.

But anyway these mice are running to her and running up her legs and she's screaming and while she's freaking out the guy rushes them and knocks everyone over and he's just out of there like a bat out of Hell. The crowd runs off with him, and suddenly I'm alone again.

Just surrounded by broken glass, loose mice, and no explanation at all of what the fuck just happened. It was about this time Derek FINALLY decided to grace me with his presence and yell at me for all the shit that went wrong. As if I could have stopped it.

And of course he didn't believe me until AFTER he saw the security footage. I mean granted I sounded like a mess but what the Hell kind of lie would it be that a crazy person came in and started eating mice?

The aftermath was Hell. I had to stay late that night catching mice and cleaning up broken glass and spilled bedding. He broke the door too on his way out, which Derek had to leave yet again to go get a chain and padlock to keep it shut while I stayed behind and had another panic attack.

While I was cleaning up I found a couple of dead ones. Mice, I mean. They're not built to be thrown around like that. One I found though was very interesting. It was dead, yes, but it looked like it had been dead a while.

It was hard to the touch, and brittle. Mummified like a cat in the wall of an old building. I thought maybe it had escaped a long time ago and the activity only just now knocked the carcass loose from wherever it was stuck. But its fur was damp, and it had a large, suspiciously tooth shaped gash in its abdomen.

It was the mouse that guy ate. Except he didn't eat it. He just... sucked every drop of fluid out of it and spit it back out. Then he went back for more. He wasn't eating them, just... juicing them.

After finding that I finally gave up and called it quits. I didn't have it in me to keep cleaning and I wasn't sure I could come back to the store either, so despite Derek's vociferous petulant protests I went home.

Aside from suddenly being jobless, life was quiet and normal after that. I avoided the store but I'm told the creepy guy never came back. I thought maybe that lady actually shot him, not sure if it would really make me feel bad or not.

But the story doesn't just end there. Oh no! I should be so lucky! No, seeing someone having an episode or a meth bender or what have you is definitely distressing, but it doesn't really typically tip the scales from a moment of terror and confusion to a chronic anxiety that you're being followed and watched.

A few days after that little incident, I get a knock at my door. I open it, and I find an official looking little envelope. Maybe it's a subpoena to be a witness to the crime or whatever. I open it up.

No, it's a letter. Addressed to me, personally. "Dear Redacted, my name is Ursula Harker, I am writing on behalf of the Van Helsing Institute relating to a recent incident at 'Pets R Inn' retail store, in which you were the victim of an assault and may be entitled to financial compensation. Please contact me at your earliest convenience. This is an attempt to settle the matter out of court without the input of the police. By accepting our cash offer you are relinquishing your right to file civilly against the Institute, and agreeing to a non-disclosure cause. The Institute can be reached at..."

You get the idea. So I call this woman, Miss Ursula Harker. Even her name sounds creepy. She picks up, I tell her who I am.  She immediately starts apologizing to me, promising to pay for any store damages or medical bills and then some. Asking to buy my silence. So I tell her I've only got one question for her.

She says go ahead.

I ask her "What was that guy?"

She starts telling me that his name is Luther and he's a patient at such and such and I cut her off and I say again No.

What was that guy?

She's quiet for a bit and she asks what I mean. Now, I'm not a doctor. But I know a decent amount about animals. And I know this. People don't have eyes that glow in the dark. People also can't desiccate a mouse by sucking it dry in five seconds flat. She hesitates but then starts making excuses about HIPAA laws and how she can't discuss their patients and she asks me how much it would take for me to stay quiet.

I hang up on her.

Maybe that was really stupid. Could have got some cash out of the deal. The store got a new door and a nice fat payday they spent on a facelift for the place, and it only cost them their security footage.

More than that, it was really stupid because they kept calling me. She left me at least three messages before giving up. I was afraid to leave my apartment. They already knew my name and obviously knew where I lived. And they were protecting that guy... that THING somehow. Maybe they were the ones who made him? Like he was an experiment that got out and they were doing damage control?

I did a little asking around about "The Van Helsing Institute" and all I could find was that it's a private Catholic hospital. A "research hospital," whatever the fuck research that entails, I don't want to know about it.

The craziest shit though, is that this has apparently happened before. While I was digging around I found the contact info for a guy called "John." He's apparently an ex employee and now very outspoken critic of that hospital, trying to gather as much dirt on them as he can. I gave him my story, and all the descriptions I could. Basically if I see anything even remotely weird I report to him now.

It feels good, I guess, not being alone. I don't know that he could actually protect me if they got mad and came after me but I like that someone is watching them. Someone is keeping score. Mostly it feels good to know that I actually saw what I saw. It was a monster, I'm not crazy, and I think I did the right thing not selling my silence even though the lack of a paycheck hurts.

I keep getting more and more paranoid though. I've been seeing this weird woman follow me around town. Not the gun one- a different one this time. She's got sort of a medium tan skin tone, she's very petit, and she has this incredibly long dark hair and dark eyes. It makes her stand out in a crowd. I see her more and more whenever I'm out and I don't know if she's with John or with... the other guys.

I don't go out much after dark any more. I don't know how much this involves me now but I'm trying to move back in with my mom in Wisconsin. If I make it, you won't hear from me again. If I don't, just keep an eye on the obituaries. If I die, let it be known I don't want any part of my body used for research. It should be burned.

[sissymissysworld]

Being turned into a Pro

So we’ve been in this dynamic now for a couple of years and over that time we’ve progressed from just the two of us having vanilla fun to pegging, chastity, Fem Dom, FLR, foursomes and me being cucked by my Mistress.

But things took a bit of a turn recently when our finances took a hit as Mistress lost her job She hated relying on me to support her financially and wanted to earn her own money.

So she came up with this money-making scheme where all the money went to her. I would keep my normal wages but as she was totally in charge of our sexual relationship she was going to start pimping me out and charging for me to be used, fucked and abused.

She had heard about a few dogging sites nearby, a glory hole and she said we should also use Grindr, fab guys and fab swingers to try and get some business.

As I was her submissive and she had a signed, notorised and witnessed contract I had no choice in any of this and had to obey her wishes.

As our sexual FLR dynamic lasted from Friday until Sunday every week. This was to be what we would do from now on until she could find a new job and she was to keep all the proceeds.

I don’t usually get dolled up and dressed every weekend. But to maximise any financial aspect of this. I was now to keep myself fully smooth and to dress up from Friday to Sunday from now on to be available at any and every time someone wanted my services.

So I was to be very active on all the internet sites and like people's profiles, send winks and taps etc and from that strike up conversations and try and engage with men or even a woman if that’s what she wanted.

The second night a guy was really showing interest in Grindr and asked me to send some pics, I had some stored, so I sent a couple and he said he really wanted to meet me that night. I told him that I had a mistress and that the only way she would let me come and meet him is if he paid for my services. At first, he refused but after some discussion on the price. We agreed on £15 for a blow job and £50 if he chose to fuck me.

So I got all dolled up, Mistress put my cock cage on me as I was to have no play on me just in case the guy wanted to play with my cock. She plugged my ass as well. This was a remote control vibrating plug which has a range of 30 metres. As Mistress was to drive me to the meet, she was hoping she could still use it on me, while I was being used like a whore.

We got to his house and I was told to use the back door, which is apt as that’s exactly what he did to me 30 mins later.

He opened the door, invited me in and wasted no time. He gave me £50 as he said he’d decided he wanted a blow job and to fuck me too. Once again I had no choice in this as I had a signed contract and I did whatever Mistress instructed me to.

He led me to the living room where he had some porn on playing. I didn’t really look closely but it looked like porn with a guy fucking a crossdresser. Maybe he was getting some tips. He sat next to me on the sofa and started to stroke my neck and hair. and I put my hand on his crotch. I’m used to being dominated by my Mistress and following instructions but I had to take the lead here as he was just sitting there waiting for me to pleasure him.

I took out his cock and it was about 5 or 6 inches. Nothing huge but enough to play with. I started to stroke him and I asked him if he wanted me to suck it. He nodded, so I put my hair in a rough bun with a bobble and got down to work. I got on my knees and first started on his balls all the time looking up at him and maintaining eye contact. I then took his growing head in my mouth and went down slowly as it all disappeared down my throat. Mistress had been having me practice on dildos for the last 2 years. So his 6 inches wasn’t a problem. I took it all like a pro. Mistress wanted me to do the best blow job ever, as she wanted me to get him to tell all his friends as she wanted to make as much money as possible. I was going up and down on his cock nice and slowly as I heard him groan with pleasure. He then grabbed my hair and got me to stop and held my hand and took me upstairs.

We got to his bedroom and he took down his trousers and his shirt off. He was standing there just in his socks. I asked him how he wanted me, and he said bent over the bed legs spread. I did as I was told, and he slowly pulled down my panties to reveal my caged cock and plug. Just as he started to remove the plug it vibrated. Mistress must have seen the light go on and wanted me to know that she knew what was happening.

Once he’d removed the plug my ass was still gaping wide and he slid in his cock without any hesitation. He wasn’t taking his time and he was quite fast and rough. He just fucked me hard for about a minute before he turned me around and came all over my face ruining my make-up. I cleaned off his cock and he then just got up and sat on the bed. There I was a used whore with £50 in my purse for Mistress. I straightened myself up, popped my plug back in and got up and left.

I got back to the car and realised I’d left my knickers in his house. I gave Mistress the £50 and told her I’d forgotten my panties. She then told me not to worry. As I have another customer in 30 mins and 2 more after that, so I wouldn’t be needing them for the rest of the night.

And that’s the first night I was a whore for my Mistress it’s been 6 weeks now and I’ve been a working girl every Friday, Saturday and Sunday since then. Mistress's last count was that I’d averaged 14 men a weekend. But she thinks we can easily increase this if we go to the glory hole. I also have a few regulars now too so I don’t see this ending any time soon.

I’m making Mistress about £500 a week so I’m not sure she’s even looking for a job right now. I guess I better get used to my new weekends.

[oldguy56-world]

I, Robot

Well it is almost here. I am talking about the prophesy from that documentary 'The Terminator' where machines take over the world. This time it doesn't appear to be violent (so far) but to set your mind at ease (and just in case) I googled the name Sarah Connor and there are thousands of them out there so one should be able to save mankind or produce a child that will do so.

Setting that aside let's look at how they will be taking over the world. it started with them replacing cashiers at stores and has grown to the point where they now can write songs, movies and create just about anything we need making most of us obsolete. (You may not know this but I am currently in a job share program with one of these sneaky bastards and they have been producing 50% of my blogs. I can guarantee you that any time you find one unfunny or not interesting it wasn't one of mine)

Try calling a help desk and it is a computer that is answering and they do their best to try to divert you from talking to another human. I believe they are afraid that if we converse amongst ourselves we could compare notes and catch on to their insidious plans.

The U.S. is afraid migrant workers will take all the jobs they do not want for themself but it is the advance of robotic technology that is actually taking all of the mindless routine work away from people leaving us more time to.....I am not quite sure. Company executives will spend tens of millions of dollars developing automation to save them from paying minimum wage workers. The math makes my head hurt. Robots can't feel so they are perfect for some of the tasks they are programmed to perform, but others not so much.

There once was a robot named Chuck

Who was really down on his luck

For he wanted to meet girls

Cause they made circuits swirl

Too bad he wasn't programmed to .....Love. (GP version)

Luckily there are still some jobs they are not equipped to handle.

Attendants at a seniors home. No one wants those cold hands helping with bathroom duties no matter what the number needs to be done.

Building other robots. Do we want to start that end of world chain?

Wet Nurse. I don't believe oil is good for babies.

Grief counselor. All they would do is wipe your mind and reboot.

Teachers. It would throw off our entire education system having them work 12 months with no PD days. Who needs that?

Chef. Could they tell when the fish has turned?

Politician. Logic has no place in that field.

So let's maybe take a step back and look at what we are doing.

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK: Progress can only be called that when humanity is moving forward.

[freeworldallahmbaclass]

California followed suit with the fair chance act to compete for a job act of 2019 that me and Mayor Bill De Blasio put in to place if you know the story I got that from Michelle Alexander book the new Jim Crow of mass incarceration of the so called poorer people of America that law is suppose to help their chances of gaining employment and not facing discrimination in getting their housing apartments applications and a license to be a counselor , casac , security guards, even a barber or any other job needing licensure you can hit that with Article 23A and get your license and job , I still say we should ban the conviction box on the job application I think I taught you how to get out of that and get a job just scroll down on this page , recently California just raised their minimum wage following suit from me and Governor Andrew Cuomo minimum wage salaries raised program in New York City California went as much as $ 20 Dollars an hour that is very good better than New York but Kathy Hochul the Governor is fixing that for New Yorkers she is pretty good a friend of mines true I always say they should cut how much taxes they take from a person paycheck it is sad to see people working that can't afford child support let alone support themselves they can't afford the rent , food for the week or give their spouse support and even transportation and they work provide services for their employers and their city or town and they have a job providing services to make life better for the people's that is bad help them keep more of their paycheck in their pocket and bank accounts and boost their salary funny thing is employers that get in on that there are tax breaks and tax cuts for them and tax benefits for them where was they at before I came along being that the cost of living is okay in California other states should follow suit now imagine if they did that in regions like Louisiana , Atlanta , Texas , North Carolina , Delaware , Chicago , Boston , Baltimore , which they should being that you can get an apartment for $ 400 to $ 800 monthly that leaves money for transportation , food for the week , school tuition private school tuition for their kids to afford their kids a great future better city services like sanitation services and cleaner and better parks like New York City which now how laps and miles counters and city shelters have water fountains that save for recycling with their bottle refill machines , the wages has been stagnant for decades in those regions I propose we raised the National minimum wage level to $ 20 - $ 25 dollars an hour to better assist in the states creating a better quality of life for it's citizens and beautify their neighborhoods with Citibikes like New York City got now and legal recreational Marijuana stores on every corners and guardrails in our train stations ensuring the safety of the people .

I dedicate my life to Joyce Meyer my pastor and my mom and now she is a pastor of yours now and also a mother of yours now , the new Mother Teresa of our times on a serious note New Yorkers are using voodoo like it is the new cool even kids are using voodoo witchcraft now no the new cool is learning your religion all over again it is okay you are redeemed , restored and forgiven and love being one of Gods favorite people no matter what religion you consider yourself to be in you could be anything you want except a knowingly evil person the holy spirit will get you everytime and that is promised and is what is promised .

I'm inviting you and introducing you to some of my favorite people Joel Osteen of Lakewood church in Houston Texas get all his books your best life now and change your life your rusty old foul self into a beautiful beautiful beautiful human being and read my mom books and you can call her your mom now Joyce Meyer the new Mother Teresa of our times and the Joyce Meyer ministries read their books and follow their show that is what I do and so should you , get the books you are going to love the books that is on their bookshelves .

Introducing

National minimum wage salaries raised to better pay and quality of life bill .

Just scroll this page to learn more .

24 × 7 = 168 hours

In 1995 Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people poor soul

Columbia Presbyterian hospital is on 168th street and 168 is the end of the C train line

I am blessed and happy and to be envied because my iniquities are forgiven and my sins are covered up and completely buried . The Lord will take no account nor reckon it against me . - Romans 4:7 - 8

I am useful and helpful and kind to others , tenderhearted ( compassionate , understanding , loving - hearted ) , forgiving others ( readily and freely ) , as God in Christ forgive me . - Ephesians 4:32

All my children are christians and have christian friends , and God has set aside a Christian wife or husband for each of them . - 1 Corinthians 15:33

BE like this please 🥺 it works you love the lifestyle .

My children are not unequally yoked with unbelievers . - 2 Corinthians 6:14

My children walk and live ( habitually ) in the ( Holy ) spirit ( responsive to and controlled and guided by the spirit ) .

My children obey me in the lord , for this is right . They honor their father and mother - which is the first commandment with a promise - " that it may go well with them and that they may enjoy long life on the earth . " - Ephesians 6:1 - 3

I do not exasperate my children : instead I bring them up in the training and instruction of the lord . - Ephesians 6:4

God is good if I hear other humans talking to me 24 / 7 and is still able to do miracles like that and this page then I know God is the winner and not Satan in the end though and I choose to go the way of God not other forces .

Normal person hear cars and buses and trains go by them me I hear the sounds of the city but with me a tape is playing 24/ 7 in my head a verbal abusive self hating tape in my head it is people from the street crowd or rough and dirty crowd only dirty people do stuff like that it is sad that voodoo has become their way of life and no religion , no thank you since I became Talented Tenth now I judge other humans by the content of their character not the color of their skin , good luck to me and ridding myself of that auditory world of my own no thank you to those voices and bad people and their cognition distortions .

Thank you for Joyce Meyer and her books go get them they will change your life .

Thanks Governor Andrew Cuomo for my incubator in Brooklyn I'm keeping it and heeding to his advice , I'm good and enjoy the page .

[hasufin]

The things which I find wild about all these issues are:

The vast majority of these jobs can in fact be performed with reasonable aids. There's no reason to demand that cashiers or most other roles be on their feet nonstop. Even jobs which do require a lot of standing generally also have plenty of times when the workers could be sitting. In the majority of cases, it's perfectly possible to make reasonable accommodations. But when asked, managers get stubborn and refuse.

Employers are perennially short-staffed while also constantly shorting people on hours. That is, I guarantee this same place which just cannot manage to limit scheduling someone to six hours when they asked for it, also has three people who have been begging for more hours. But somehow scheduling managers are allergic to just fucking giving employees what they asked for, even when it would very clearly be in the business' best interests.[Way back when I worked at a grocery store, I asked to not be scheduled before 8 am - which only happened rarely for me anyway - for one week because of a late-night commitment that week. I was scheduled top open at 6am every day that week. This is not a new issue, sadly.]

in spite of there being people whose actual job is to handle scheduling, workers are invariably expected to handle their own coverage. If you want to call in sick, or gods forbid take some time off, it's always "OMG BUT WE'RE A FAMILY HOW CAN YOU ABANDON US IN OUR HOUR OF DIRE NEED" and not "Oh, yeah, I'll call one of the 78 people I've been refusing to schedule out of spite, you know, like I'm paid to do."

Speaking of which - businesses are constantly playing games with making sure they don't have to cover benefits. They will hire two people to work 20 hours/week rather than one full-time worker. And they WILL treat both of those workers as being on-call, even though that's specifically illegal.

Half of this is a need for our government to pro-actively enforce existing laws. Because right now most of it is structured such that you have to work under illegal conditions for a year, then you -the minimum-wage worker - can hire a lawyer and sue for retroactive benefits/pay/accommodation [good luck, they have better lawyers and will milk you dry in the process]. If the government regularly inspects a company's scheduling and workplace situation, gods know I've never seen it in my work history.

The other half is, we do need better laws. We should close the part-time benefit loophole: anyone who works 40 hours a week - regardless of how many jobs that is - should be getting full benefits. Someone who works part-time should get partial benefits. And it should always be cheaper to hire one full-time employee than multiple part-time employees. The ADA needs more teeth. And yes, we apparently need right-to-disconnect laws.

I would like to see more people talk about how jobs treat disabled employees.

I used to prep, wash dishes, and cook at mellow mushroom. I had chronic pain that wasn't NEARLY as bad as it is today, but it was still very debilitating. I told my employer "i cannot stand more than 4 to 6 hours. I CANNOT do shifts longer than this due to my illness." And even though i made my boundaries VERY clear, everyday i worked it was 8 hours at the least and 10 or 12 at the most. I would go up to my manager and say "look i really need to leave, my shift is over, my chronic pain is killing me." And he'd say "we really need to here, you HAVE to push through." And so i did, and after one, ONE month of that job my crps got incredibly worse to the point where i could no longer walk my dog around the block which was .5 miles. I quit, and that was FOUR years ago, and ever since that day I HAVE BEEN BEDRIDDEN AND HAVE TO USE A WHEELCHAIR. It is my biggest regret in life.

My best friend who has seen my whole journey has recently developed undiagnosed chronic pain, and she is in the EXACT same scenario i was 4 years ago. Busting her ass at a pizza place with extreme pain that hurts her so much she tells me "im in so much pain i don't even feel like a person." She doesn't feel LUCID. And her manager and coworkers are saying the same thing "if you don't help us you will let us down, we'll be in the shit."

That job thats hurting you isn't fucking worth it. I promise you no money is worth losing all your physical abilities and never getting them back. Your coworkers and boss do not give a shit about you, so don't you dare suffer for them. They will never understand your struggle and they will never try. They truly think being understaffed is worse than whatever pain you experience. They would rather you permanently damage yourself than inconvenience them. FUCK THEM. DON'T FUCKING DO IT!

[sa7abnews]

One sentiment is the greatest threat to the Democrats’ election hopes

New Post has been published on https://sa7ab.info/2024/08/12/one-sentiment-is-the-greatest-threat-to-the-democrats-election-hopes/

One sentiment is the greatest threat to the Democrats’ election hopes

“I want my life back.” It’s a broadly held sentiment that poses the greatest threat to the Democrats’ election hopes this November. Here’s why. For working- and middle-class Americans, it means returning to a time when you could go to the grocery store or fill your gas tank without being shocked by the costs. A lost and better time when getting a burger and fries was not a luxury purchase, your savings were sufficient to meet an unexpected expense, buying a house was not an impossible dream, and getting that new car was something your budget could handle. Those bygone days harken to a time before Democrats saw the pandemic as an opportunity to transform our economy. Recall the February 2021 The New York Times article titled “The Biden Team Wants to Transform the Economy. Really.” Democrats don’t talk about that much anymore, and with good reason. Their post-pandemic spending spree caused “inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation” – as their economist emeritus, Larry Summers, warned it would. As he predicted, inflation surged, dealing a devastating blow to American family budgets and aspirations. HARRIS IS ‘BIDEN’S CO-PILOT’ ON ‘BIDENOMICS’ POLICIES THAT PROMPTED WOEFUL JOBS NUMBERS: TRUMP CAMPSo, no one should be surprised that voters are now yearning for a president who spends less time rebuilding “our economy from the middle out and the bottom up” – whatever that means – and more time actually increasing their incomes with no or low inflation? Perhaps the greatest irony of the Biden-Harris effort to grow the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up” has been its “trickle up” effects. The wealthiest Americans have been benefiting from elevated levels of investment income.Working- and middle-class Americans, on the other hand, have seen their wages depleted by inflation, personal savings well below pre-pandemic levels, and credit card debt at record highs. In fact, rapidly growing credit card and car loan delinquencies are signaling “increased financial stress, especially among younger and lower-income households,” according to the New York Fed. As the impact of inflation has now hit the jobs market, a global stock market sell-off is threatening the value of retirement savings in 401(k) plans, potentially wiping out billions of dollars in value. Consider our economy officially transformed.KAMALA HARRIS AND HER TWO SOCIALIST PROPOSALS TO CRUSH THE US ECONOMYUnfortunately for Democrats, most Americans still recall 2019, a year in which, under President Trump, median household income soared to historic highs. The poverty rate plummeted to a 60-year low, hitting “an all-time record low for every race and ethnic group.” Income inequality also declined – yes, it declined. Job openings exceeded the number of people unemployed in every month. As a result, unemployment rates for Blacks, Hispanic and Asians all hit record lows while labor force participation increased. It was a very good year. Because this all occurred without Biden-Harris levels of transformative government spending, inflation remained under control, averaging 1.8% for the year. Wage growth, on the other hand, ended the year up 3.1%. Wages grew faster than prices and interest rates were low enough to make large purchases – such as cars and homes – economically feasible. AMERICA NEEDS ENERGY RESILIENCY, NOT BIDEN-HARRIS’ ACTIVIST IDEOLOGYSeriously, who doesn’t miss 2019’s economic security and prosperity (let alone world peace, safe cities and secure borders)? For working- and middle-class Americans, it was the best of times. Then, the pandemic hit. Biden and Harris claim they inherited a post-pandemic economic disaster and had to spend like drunken sailors (an insult to drunken sailors, who at least spend their own money) to prevent a recession. It’s a lie. Many governors shut down their states’ economies during the pandemic. That created a bipartisan economic crisis that Trump addressed well before the Biden-Harris administration took office. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FOX NEWS OPINIONIn the 10 months before January 2021, over 16.5 million workers (that’s about 1.7 million per month) returned to work as states. with Trump’s encouragement, reopened their economies. Economic growth accelerated at a V-shaped recovery pace with GDP hitting a stunning 33.4% in the third quarter of 2020 and a still impressive 4% in the fourth quarter. And, by the way, the inflation rate Biden/Harris inherited from Trump in January 2021 was 1.4%.The economy was on pace for a full V-shaped recovery. Absent the glaring economic incompetence of the Biden-Harris post-pandemic spending spree, it would have quickly and fully recovered.Should Harris prevail in November, we will get more – or worse – economic incompetence. Keep in mind that Harris cast the tie-breaking vote behind passage of both the ironically misnamed American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act. Those multitrillion-dollar spending boondoggles drove the surge in inflation that forced the Fed to increase interest rates – and she owns them. Harris’ San Francisco-style economic policies would include higher taxes, more regulation and more, much more, spending. From Trump, we would get growth-driving (and revenue-enhancing) tax cuts, reduced regulation, support for U.S. energy production and a pullback on the current absurd level of government spending (while preserving Medicare and Social Security). In other words, a return to the economic sanity that so clearly benefited working- and middle-class Americans. Bottom line, “I want my life back” means a future with the prosperity, peace and economic competence our nation once enjoyed under President Trump rather than the continuing chaos and insecurity of the Biden-Harris years. It’s a sentiment that could decide this election.CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM ANDY PUZDER