#charcoal panel for interiors | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

p0orbaby · 5 days ago

Text

Born to Love You Back

summary: a very important question is on the horizon

warnings: none

a/n: some rich!reader for you all

word count: 1.7k

The jeweller’s salon is tucked into a narrow street in the 1st arrondissement, down a street so narrow you almost missed it, the kind of place that doesn’t need signage because everyone who matters already knows where it is. The building itself is unassuming but pristine, a five-storey townhouse with cream-coloured stone, wrought-iron balconies, a double door painted a deep charcoal with brass fixtures that gleam in the waning afternoon sun. Outside, a delivery van idles, spilling faint notes of Edith Piaf from its radio as a man unloads crates of flowers: cyclamen, lilies, eucalyptus branches arranged in bursts of green and white. They’ll likely find their way to the salon’s interior within the hour, arranged with almost mathematical precision to evoke a studied nonchalance.

Inside, it’s quiet—museum-like but less sterile, hushed but alive. There’s a balance between the soft hum of conversation from another room and the faint, barely perceptible scent of lilies and leather. The floors are a herringbone parquet, polished to an impossible sheen, and the walls are panelled in dove grey. Everything about the space is designed to whisper money. Even the receptionist, stationed behind a desk lacquered to such a high gloss that it might double as a mirror. She’s mid-twenties, probably just out of university—Sciences Po, perhaps, or one of the Grandes Écoles—wearing a black crepe shift dress that hits just above the knee. Chanel, you’d bet, though it’s hard to tell from here. Her hair is sleek and straight, parted sharply in the middle, her nails painted in Rouge Noir, a colour so iconic it’s practically shorthand for Parisian sophistication. She greets you in French first, then switches to English the moment she hears your accent, though her tone remains precisely the same—warm but not too warm, deferential but not subservient.

Aurélie is waiting for you on the stairs. She’s maybe late thirties, tall, with that certain froideur that women in her line of work cultivate like a second skin. Her blazer is Saint Laurent—black, sharply tailored, peak lapels—and her silk blouse is an ivory so fine it catches the light in a way cotton never could. Her trousers skim the tops of her Louboutin heels—black patent leather, red soles so subtle they barely register. Her jewellery is minimal but deliberate: a single strand of Mikimoto pearls, their lustre so perfect they almost look artificial, and a pair of matching studs. She smiles when she greets you, her lips painted a nude so neutral it could have come from any number of Tom Ford palettes, but you’d guess Casablanca.

“This way, please,” she says, gesturing towards the stairs with a hand that’s manicured in a soft ballet pink, not a chip in sight. You follow her up, noting the faint scent of her perfume—Chanel No. 19, not a popular choice but a discerning one, with its crisp notes of galbanum and iris that feel both professional and unapologetically feminine.

On the landing, there’s a painting—a still life, maybe Cézanne, maybe a very good imitation. You don’t stop to look, but it catches your eye enough to linger in your mind as Aurélie opens a door to the second-floor where Its quieter, darker. The walls are a deep navy—Farrow & Ball, maybe Hague Blue—and the rug beneath the central display case is thick enough to swallow the sound of your footsteps. The case itself is glass-topped and backlit, the kind of lighting that renders diamonds almost supernatural in their brilliance. The rings are arranged by cut and carat, each one nestled in its own velvet slot, the symmetry of the display both calming and slightly overwhelming.

Aurélie steps aside, giving you space but remaining close enough to anticipate your needs. She stands with her hands loosely clasped in front of her, her posture immaculate.

“Take your time,” she says, standing back with the same attentive grace she’s shown since you arrived.

You nod, your gaze already falling to the rings. You’ve thought about this for weeks, maybe months, but standing here, it feels more real, the weight of the decision settling in your chest. Not because you’re uncertain—you’re not—but because this is a moment you’ll remember, whether you want to or not.

The first ring is a cushion-cut diamond, two carats, set in a band of pave diamonds. Platinum, naturally. The proportions are flawless, the craftsmanship impeccable, but as you turn it in the light, you know immediately it’s wrong. Too ornate. Too eager. Alexia would hate it. You imagine her wearing it for a moment, and the thought feels so ridiculous you almost laugh. She doesn’t like excess, at least not in the obvious sense. Her taste is clean, modern, unfussy.

The second ring is pear-shaped, slightly smaller, but with a brilliance that draws your eye. The stone feels alive under the light, its facets catching every subtle movement of your hand. For a moment, you hesitate, thinking about how it would look on her hand, but then you remember something she said once, flipping through a magazine in bed: “Pear cuts are too delicate. They look like they’re trying too hard.”

You sigh, not quite aloud, but enough for Aurélie to notice. She steps closer, just enough to offer a quiet suggestion. “Does she have a preference?” she asks, her tone light, neutral. “For the setting, or the cut?”

“She likes things simple,” you say, the words coming out more clipped than you mean them to. It’s not her fault, this unease you feel. “Classic, but not boring”

Aurélie nods, her expression unchanged, and steps back again. You wonder if she can sense the weight of what you’re doing—if she’s seen enough of this to know the signs. The third ring catches your eye before you reach for it. A round brilliant diamond, 1.8 carats, set in a plain platinum band. No pave, no halo, no embellishments. It’s striking in its simplicity, the kind of ring that doesn’t need to assert itself because it knows what it is. You pick it up, holding it to the light, and as you turn it, something settles in you. This is the one. You don’t need to overthink it.

Aurélie smiles faintly, as though she already knew. “Shall I prepare it for you?” she asks.

You nod, handing it back, and she takes it with both hands, disappearing into a back room.

While she’s gone, you pull out your phone. You shouldn’t call her—she’s probably still at training, her mind on drills and tactics—but you do it anyway. She answers on the third ring, her voice steady but soft, with that familiar cadence you’ve missed more than you’d care to admit.

“Hey,” she says, her voice clear, grounded, with just the faintest lilt of distraction. In the background, there’s a low murmur of voices, the familiar thud of a ball meeting turf, maybe a coach shouting something that’s swallowed up by the wind. You imagine the sun slicing through the Catalan sky, the kind of relentless brightness that makes the whole city shimmer.

“Hey,” you reply, smoothing nonexistent creases from your blazer out of habit, though no one is watching. Your reflection in the polished glass of the display case looks composed, disinterested, but the sound of her voice pulls something taut inside you. “How’s training?”

“Same as always,” she says, and there’s a pause—just long enough for you to hear her exhale softly, almost imperceptibly. You know she’s stepped aside, moved to some quieter corner of the training complex where no one will overhear. She’s careful like that, never careless, always aware of her surroundings.

“Still exhausting?” you ask, and she laughs under her breath—a low, warm sound that lingers longer than it should.

“Mhm,” she hums, the sound of it makes you smile despite yourself. “But it’s a good kind of exhausting. You know how it is”

“Not sure I do,” you tease, leaning against the edge of the display case, its surface cool against your hand. “I can’t say I’ve run laps around a pitch lately. Unless you count running several businesses as exercise”

“Of course,” she says, dry but affectionate, “such an athlete. Truly inspiring”

The corner of your mouth twitches upward. “I aim to impress”

There’s a faint rustle of movement on her end—maybe she’s leaning against a wall, maybe adjusting the strap of her training bib. You picture her in that effortless way she carries herself: shorts sitting just right, socks perfectly rolled down, hair tied back in that half-loose, half-styled way that only someone like her can pull off.

“Where are you?” she asks, not because she doesn’t know, but because it’s the kind of question you ask when you want the conversation to last a little longer.

“Near Rue de la Paix,” you say, keeping it vague. “Finishing up a meeting”

“You’re always finishing up a meeting,” she says, and there’s a lightness to her tone, but it doesn’t quite hide the subtext.

“You’re always training,” you counter, matching her tone, and you hear her chuckle, soft but genuine.

“Buen punto”

There’s a brief pause. In the background, someone calls her name, a voice you don’t recognise, and she responds with a quick, sharp “Un momento.” The way she switches languages so fluidly—it’s seamless—and yet it reminds you, in a small but certain way, that her world is different from yours. Barcelona, with its golden afternoons and relentless sun, its terracotta rooftops and restless streets, feels a thousand miles away from the polished stillness of this Parisian jewellers.

“You should,” you encouraged knowing full well she’ll make no move to end the call herself.

“I’ll see you tonight?” she asks, and it’s a question, but not really.

“Of course,” you say, without hesitation this time.

There’s another silence after that, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s the kind of silence you could live in, one where nothing needs to be said because the words are already understood. Finally, she says, “Te quiero,” and you hear the faint click as she ends the call.

Aurélie returns with the ring, now nestled in a velvet box so pristine it looks almost untouched by human hands. You slip it into your pocket, the weight of it grounding you, and leave the salon with a nod of thanks.

Outside, Paris feels sharper, brighter. The air smells faintly of rain and burnt sugar from a nearby crepe stand, and the light is just beginning to soften as dusk approaches. For the first time all day, you feel steady.

#alexia putellas #alexia putellas x reader #fcb femeni #fcb femeni x reader #espwnt #espwnt x reader #woso #woso x reader #woso imagine #woso community

394 notes · View notes

chilopodafic · 2 months ago

Text

Dolls, pt 1.

CW: Psychological abuse, gaslighting, brainwashing, dubcon, masochism

They'd run the full gamut of pharmaceutical interventions over the years - from SSRIs and benzos to the latest miracle nootropics fresh off the clinical trial pipeline. Nothing seemed to touch that crushing, pervasive sense of dread that clouded their thoughts and sapped all motivation from their days.

Maybe this whole hypnotherapy thing was just another dead end. But at this point, Alex was desperate enough to try just about anything if it meant clawing their way back towards some semblance of inner peace.

commissioned by @soldierexclipse

The waiting room was a study in muted grays and soft, organic curves - more akin to the interior of some alien seed pod than a clinical space. Cushy biomorphic chairs moulded themselves to the contours of Alex's body as they settled into their gentle embrace, fingers toying with the frayed hem of their tattered Nine Inch Nails shirt. A muffled rhythmic thrumming pulsed through the spongy floor beneath their feet, mixing abruptly with ambient new age music piped in over hidden speakers and calming white noise.

Alex shifted uncomfortably, the plush surroundings doing little to ease the tightness coiling in their chest. Every inhalation felt leaden, each breath drawn through lungs constricted by the ever-present specter of anxiety clawing at their ribs. They'd run the full gamut of pharmaceutical interventions over the years - from SSRIs and benzos to the latest miracle nootropics fresh off the clinical trial pipeline. Nothing seemed to touch that crushing, pervasive sense of dread that clouded their thoughts and sapped all motivation from their days.

Maybe this whole hypnotherapy thing was just another dead end. Some wellness culture snake oil, repackaged and dressed up in the superficial trappings of legitimacy to seem more palatable than some guy in a bad toupee dangling a pocketwatch. But at this point, Alex was desperate enough to try just about anything if it meant clawing their way back towards some semblance of inner peace.

A soft chime sounded from the oak-paneled door across the waiting room, and it slid aside with a quiet hiss-slide and a grunt of exertion to reveal a woman in a smart charcoal pantsuit who regarded Alex with a warm, impersonal smile, sitting comfortably in a strange, almost tiny looking wheelchair. Not one of the medical ones Alex had seen before with his parents, designed for being pushed. "Alex Gale?" Her tone was rich and unhurried, the crisp articulation of someone who placed a great deal of emphasis on the weight of each spoken word.

Alex gave a hesitant half-nod, already feeling a hot flush of self-consciousness as the woman's keen, dark-eyed gaze raked over their swollen-feeling frame. Her expression remained neutral, though - giving no outward sign of judgment as she gestured through the open doorway. "Doctor Cohen - but please, call me Lily. Right this way."

The treatment room was even more warmly intimate than the waiting area, all soft, amorphous shapes and diffuse lighting that cast everything in a gentle, womblike ambience. A surprisingly normal leather recliner took up the center of the room, the kind you'd see in a lavish home theater setup or man-cave, while the doctor's own seat was a sleek, shiny black contraption that seemed far more suited to her diminutive stature.

"Make yourself comfortable," Lily intoned in that same smooth, unhurried cadence as she closed the door behind them and glided over to a wall-mounted control panel - a row of soft multicoloured lights flickering to life at her touch. The ambient music and thrumming shifted to a lower register, joined by a soft, susurrant hiss of air ionizers that Alex hadn't noticed until now. His nostrils flared at the subtle tang of ozone mingling with the aroma of some unfamiliar blend of essential oils as the air became faintly misty with a cool, moisturizing vapor.

Alex settled back into the plush embrace of the oversized recliner as Lily finished manipulating the control suite, their eyelids already growing heavy as the atmosphere took on a languid, almost narcotic quality. Then she turned back towards them with a gentle smile, wheeling closer until her hands rested neatly in her lap and their eyes were on an even plane.

"Now then," she began, voice lowering to an almost conspiratorial murmur, "I'm sure this must all feel a bit strange and new. But please, don't let appearances deceive you - I run an extremely pragmatic practice. No mystic hooey or new age theatrics." She laughed softly at that, dark eyes sparkling with good-natured humor. "Merely a few creature comforts to help put the mind at ease for the work ahead."

Her fingers steepled before her, cradling her chin in a gesture of quiet contemplation. "Tell me Alex, what is it you know - or think you know - about hypnosis, and how it works?" Another warm smile curved her lips, no hint of condescension or judgment in the query.

Alex took a breath, stalling for time as their thoughts swirled in a slow, lazy eddy. What did they know about hypnosis, really? Other than the obvious pop culture tropes and cliches - the kind of old-timey theatrical bullshit Lily had just taken great pains to distance herself from. But there had to be more to it than that, right? For it to be taken seriously enough as a therapeutic modality for some medical professionals to stake their entire careers upon it…

"I… I dunno, not that much I guess?" They shrugged, giving an awkward little self-deprecating laugh. "I've seen people do the whole focus-on-the-swinging-thing, but that always seemed more like a magic trick than anything real. It can't actually make you do things against your will or plant false memories or whatever, right? Just kind of… helps focus your mind and relax?"

Lily gave a slow, considering nod, seeming to mull over the response for a long, pensive moment before responding. "Well, you're not entirely wrong. There is a bit more to it than simple trickery, though our media tends to indulge in a great deal of exaggeration and myth-making." She tilted her head slightly, thick curls of dark hair shifting over one shoulder.

"Simply put, hypnosis is a naturally-occurring state of consciousness that all of us slip into from time to time - when we're lost in thought, or engage in certain repetitive tasks. It's a trance-like state of hyper-focus accompanied by a suspension of peripheral awareness. I simply provide a framework and guidance to ease people into that state in a safe, directed manner."

Her hands unlaced, one palm drifting down to caress the plush armrest of her chair as she continued in that same unhurried tone. "When under hypnosis, the conscious mind takes more of a backseat while the subconscious becomes more accessible and open to… let's call them suggestions. It heightens imagination and focus while suspending the usual critical inner voice that might dismiss certain ideas or sensations out of hand."

She canted her head towards Alex, eyes glittering with an almost impish glint. "And to lay one particular myth to rest right up front - while hypnosis canNOT compel someone to commit acts that go against their core values or will, it can absolutely open them up to things they might otherwise be closed off to or judgmental about in their normal waking state. Especially when those things lie in a person's shadow - those unconscious desires and impulses they might not even be consciously aware of."

Lily gave a blithe shrug of her square shoulders. "In a sense, it's like a form of guided self-exploration, shedding away the layers of artifice we accumulate - all those self-imposed barriers and inhibiting thought patterns we construct around ourselves. But I'm getting rather ahead of things." Another warm smile curved her lips as she made a placating gesture with one small hand. "Please, do feel free to ask any other questions you might have - I always make a point of ensuring my clients have a solid understanding of the process before we begin."

Alex nodded slowly, chewing their plump lower lip as they took a moment to process it all. "S-so…" they began haltingly, already feeling the warm lethargy of the treatment room's aura tugging at them. "I-it can't like… unlock hidden memories or anything, right? Cause I've heard some people freaking out about hypnotherapy being used to recover repressed memories of being abducted by aliens or… or Satanic rituals or whatever."

A soft, mirthless chuckle escaped the doctor's lips as she shook her head in a bemused fashion. "Heavens no, nothing of the sort. Those are just pernicious urban legends borne of credulous minds and vivid imaginations during the Satanic Panic era, I'm afraid. No, we can't recover memories that simply aren't there - and anything a client experiences under hypnosis is drawn directly from their own mind. Their subconscious may weave some rather creative metaphors or symbolic representations, but it's all ultimately self-generated."

Her hands folded in her lap once more as she wheeled an inch or two further away. "What hypnosis can do is help process and metabolize past traumas through a sort of… waking dream state, I suppose you could call it. Remove some of the sting and raw emotion from painful memories and experiences, and help you view them from a more detached, outside perspective." Those broad shoulders lifted in another languid shrug. "But no unlocking Pandora's box of repressed horrors, I can assure you."

Alex chewed the inside of their cheek, feeling an odd sense of relief at those words despite their lingering skepticism. "So… kinda like lucid dreaming then? Or… or a waking trance state? You're sorta guiding me to look at things from a different angle, but I'm not blacking out or anything?"

Lily smiled and nodded, clearly pleased that Alex was grasping the core concepts. "Yes, precisely - it's a hyperfocused yet expansive state of consciousness, like viewing the world through a different lens while being fully present and retaining your own agency and self-awareness. And of course, anything we do will be at your own pace and with your full consent at every step of the way."

She leaned in slightly, voice lowering to a more conspiratorial murmur as her eyes bored into Alex's with quiet intensity. "No 'unlocking Pandora's boxes' as you put it - just a safe, comfortable space where you can explore your own inner world and experiences without judgment or fear. My role is simply as a guide, helping to facilitate that journey of self-discovery and provide the framework for change."

Alex met Lily's gaze for a long, silent moment, their own eyes slightly glazed as the atmosphere of the room and the doctor's words washed over them in languid waves. Somewhere in the back of their mind, a tiny niggling voice warned them not to be too trusting - that this polished professional persona might simply be a facade, concealing some darker agenda. But the rest of Alex's being was already lost in the gentle lull of the treatment room, suspended in that liminal space between wakefulness and sleep.

Another smile curved Lily's full lips as she watched the subtle shift in Alex's demeanor with the keen eyes of a seasoned observer. She'd seen that look countless times before - that subtle transition from guarded skepticism to a sort of open, receptive vulnerability. Like a veil being slowly drawn aside, leaving them pliant and malleable, ready for the true work to begin.

She gave a barely perceptible nod, as if confirming something to herself. Then she drew back, rolling her chair a few feet until her legs were tucked securely beneath the recliner, hands resting on the plush armrests as she assumed a posture of open, relaxed attentiveness.

"Well then," she murmured, voice slipping into a lower, slower register that Alex could feel resonating through their very bones. "Since you seem to understand the core tenets, shall we get started with a bit of guided relaxation first? Just to ease you into the right headspace and give you a taste of the process?"

Alex felt themselves nod before the words had even fully registered, already growing increasingly comfortable. As soon as Lily noticed their infinitesimal motion of assent, she continued in that same low purr.

"Excellent. Now, I want you to settle back, making yourself as comfortable as you can. That's it, just sink down into the cushions, letting all the tension flow out of your body with each slow, steady breath…" Her voice seemed to be emanating from all around them, no longer pinpointed to a single point in the room but reverberating through their very being.

Alex's eyelids slid closed of their own volition as Lily spoke, their body growing heavier, more grounded with each syllable that rolled from the doctor's lips. They felt suspended in warm, viscous fluid, the soft thrumming of the room's acoustics undulating through their flesh like the steady thrum of a mother's heartbeat. Lily's words seemed to meld with the sounds, drifting through Alex's consciousness like a whispered mantra.

"When you breathe in, I want you to imagine your lungs filling with a warm glow that spreads out into your chest, into your limbs with each inhalation. When you exhale, feel any lingering tension melting away, leaving your muscles loose and pliant. Allow each breath to immerse you a little deeper, a little further into a state of profound relaxation…"

Already, Alex could feel the insidious grip of their persistent anxiety beginning to loosen its stranglehold. Their racing, spiraling thoughts smoothed out into a still, placid lake, growing quieter and quieter until there was only the gentle lapping of Lily's words lulling them ever deeper. The rigid furrow of their brow unfurled, leaving their features slack and open, a faint sheen of sweat beading along their hairline as the air's moisture and subtle floral bouquet enveloped them in a balmy caress.

Slumped back in the buttery leather embrace of the recliner, Alex felt their worries and doubts ebbing away like the receding tide - their usual inner turmoil subsumed by a profound yet alien tranquility. Lily's presence receded from their awareness, until all that remained was the steady rise and fall of their chest, the gentle susurrus of breath, and those honeyed murmurings suffusing every atom of their being.

Floating, drifting… falling into a state of deep hypnagogic suspension, like the space between waking and sleep. On some level, Alex knew they remained fully cognizant and present - but their sense of embodiment had become attenuated, unmoored from the usual trappings of physical form. A vast, silent inner space unfurled inside their consciousness, stretching out into a formless void as Lily's words tugged them deeper and deeper into trance.

From somewhere beyond that infinite expanse, a single crystalline thought coalesced: cigarettes. Alex's brow furrowed almost imperceptibly at the realization - they could no longer taste the usual smoky bitterness lingering at the back of their throat, or smell that acrid tang of smoke clinging to their clothes. No insistent craving, no sour churning in the pit of their gut signaling the itch for their usual coping mechanism.

"…them again, do you? You know it's not healthy for you. Isn't that right?" they heard, tuning back into Lily's words. They felt themselves nodding along. That was right. It all made perfect sense. Alex's mouth hung open a little loosely.

"That's right," they heard themselves slurring. "Not healthy for me," they repeated.

"That's right, it's not good for you. You should quit smoking. You don't need cigarettes anymore. You feel better without them crowding your lungs, don't you? You feel light and free. You'll never want to smoke again after today." The words pressed in, calm yet firm, Lily's rich, mellow tones laced with utter certainty. Alex nodded sluggishly again, the words resonating somewhere deep in their core. They could feel the truth of the statements settling into their very bones. It just felt… axiomatic. "When you think about picking up a cigarette, it makes you nauseous. Disgusted. Anxious. Something you need to tell your therapist about. She can fix it."

Somewhere in the back of their mind, a tiny voice tried to protest that they hadn't asked for this, to have such a major decision made on their behalf without consent. But the words slid off that voice like water on polished marble, leaving no trace or ripple of resistance behind. Alex's consciousness already felt lighter, unencumbered by those familiar, grounding pangs of addiction that had been their near-constant shadow for so many years. The idea of lighting up seemed… repellant, somehow. Unclean. Anathema to their newfound state of serenity.

A tiny, blissful sigh slipped from Alex's slack lips as their shoulders settled deeper into the yielding cushions. Even the last lingering dregs of their ever-present anxiety seemed to be dissipating, replaced by a profound and all-encompassing inner calm. Whatever thread of consciousness still clung to physical embodiment felt almost… buoyant. Unbound and unburdened in a way Alex couldn't recall ever experiencing before.

"That's right. Just let everything go…" Lily murmured, her tone soft yet insistent as she watched Alex's features relax into an expression of utter stillness. "You are healing. You are whole and complete and perfect just as you are." She paused to let the words burrow deeper into Alex's subconscious foundations, then continued. "And you will be honest with me. Honest with your therapist about every single desire, every secret thought and compulsion that crosses your mind from now on - how can she fix you if you don't tell her what's broken about you?"

Alex gave the barest perceptible nod of acknowledgment, eyes still closed and mind spiraling deeper into that boundless inner landscape. They could feel something shifting inside them, a subtle internal alignment taking place. A sense of connection, of profound rapport intertwining their own essence with Lily's in some intangible way. As if the doctor's very presence was suffusing their neural architecture, seeding it with new pathways, new modes of being that blossomed like strange alien flowers.

Lily nodded in satisfaction, dark eyes glittering as she watched Alex sink deeper into trance with each steady exhalation. They looked so… open. Receptive. Pliant and unguarded in a way that set the doctor's pulse quickening despite the detached, clinical facade of her expression. How easy it would be to delve deeper, to slip past those last few tissue-thin psychic barriers and make this pliable creature into a living vessel for all her basest wants and perversions. To render them a hollow husk devoid of compunction or conscience, existing solely to serve as her own personal fuck-toy and plaything.

But no. Much as the thought thrilled some primal, atavistic part of Lily's psyche, she reined herself in. She was a professional, after all - and there were protocols to follow before she could indulge herself to that degree. Like curing a fine meat before placing it in the smoker, building up the proper seasoning and marinade to enhance the flavors. For now, she would content herself with sowing the seeds, planting the first few innocuous suggestions to pave the way for what was to come.

Lily leaned back slightly, letting a few moments of silence elapse. Then she spoke again, her tone carefully modulated to that same hypnotic murmur.

"I want you to relax even deeper now, and listen very closely…" she began, gauging Alex's response as their eyes fluttered open a crack, fixing her with a heavy-lidded vacant stare. "There may be certain thoughts and feelings that come up over the course of our sessions together. Things that make you feel uncomfortable or ashamed or excited in some respects. But I want you to simply observe those impulses without judgment."

A tiny furrow creased Alex's brow, but they didn't look away - if anything, their gaze grew more intensely focused, as if drinking in Lily's every word. The doctor favored them with a gentle smile, continuing in that same hypnotic cadence.

"Some of the things we'll discuss together might seem unpleasant, maybe even disturbing to your conscious mind. But I need you to remember that those thoughts and impulses ultimately come from you, Alex. Your deepest, most primal self. And all I'm here to do is help you confront and process them in a safe, non-judgmental environment."

She paused for a beat, letting the weight of those words sink into Alex's subconscious. Their eyes remained locked with hers, the furrow in their brow gradually smoothing away until their features assumed that same glassy, tranquil mask once more. Satisfied, Lily drew in a slow, measured breath before pressing on.

"You can trust me completely, Alex. Trust that I would never force you to do anything you didn't want to do. Trust that however shocking or perverse some of your desires might seem… well, I've heard and seen it all before. Nothing is too extreme for me. So don't hold anything back, okay?"

Alex's head rolled in a minute nod, their lips barely parting to let out a wordless, breathy 'mmm' of acknowledgment. Lily bit back a predatory grin as she noticed a swelling, growing stain of arousal bleeding through the crotch of Alex's pants. Now when had that happened?

She settled back in her chair, allowing them both a few moments to bask in that languid trance as she pondered her next steps. There was still so much groundwork left to lay, but she had them well and truly enthralled now - their subconscious wide open, like an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Lily let her gaze rove over Alex's slumped, inert form with undisguised relish, mentally mapping out all the ways she would slowly corrupt and subvert that innocuous exterior until all that remained was her perfect little dolly.

As she watched, Alex's brow furrowed and their mouth worked silently, as if struggling to give voice to some burgeoning thought or realization. Curious, Lily arched one dark, sculpted brow.

"Something on your mind, Alex? Don't be afraid to share it with me. This is a safe, non-judgmental space, remember?"

There was a pregnant pause as Alex's lips moved wordlessly, throat working with the effort of it before they finally managed to force the words out in a low, husky slur.

"I… I want…" Their eyelashes fluttered for a moment, and they seemed to war with themselves internally before finishing the sentence with an almost inaudible mumble. "…people to hurt me…"

Lily's eyebrows shot upwards, her eyes going wide for just a split second before she caught herself. She pressed her lips together to stifle any involuntary reaction, nodding slowly as she absorbed that revelation. It took every ounce of discipline and self-control she possessed to maintain her composure in the face of that confession.

"I see." She cleared her throat delicately, letting the words hang in the air for a few seconds that stretched on into an eternity. "Well now, that's certainly something we can explore in time, Alex. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, all right? There's still so much groundwork to lay first before we delve into areas like that."

Alex didn't respond, seeming to retreat back into that tranquil mental void. Lily watched them quietly for a few more beats, her pulse thrumming in her ears as her mind raced. She could…

But no. Not yet. Slow, and steady. That was the key to really breaking someone - a gradual process of eroding away their inhibitions and resistance, one microscopic layer at a time. Gain their trust, then use it to turn them inside out until all they lived for was her.

Lily finally expelled the breath she didn't even realize she'd been holding in a slow, measured exhalation. Then she spoke again in that same sibilant murmur.

"For now, just keep breathing. Deep, slow breaths in through your nose… out through your mouth. Let everything else just drift away, until all that remains is my voice and the beating of your heart. Just focus on that… let it pull you deeper into a state of perfect tranquility…"

As she allowed the words to wash over Alex's consciousness in languid, reverberating waves, Lily's mind drifted to the next stage. She would need to push things further, start probing into the heart of why someone so outwardly unassuming harbored such stark proclivities. Begin drawing it all to the surface, one thread at a time - the traumas and repressed compulsions that festered in their subconscious like an open wound.

Alex had been so easy to ensnare, she mused as she watched their body relax even further into a posture of utter surrender and malleability. A few more sessions like this one and they would be utterly enthralled - little more than a fleshy marionette awaiting her deft touch on its strings. And once they were stripped down to their basest, most naked essence, Lily would be able to begin rebuilding them from the ground up. Reconstituting their identity into the shape of her deepest, most perverse desires until the very concept of selfhood was erased from their psyche.

Her lips curled in a small, secret smile at the thought. Most would likely view such aspirations as a gross violation of ethics and human dignity. But Lily knew better. Her reverie was interrupted by a faint stirring from the recliner as Alex's eyelids fluttered open a crack. There was no hint of lucidity in their glassy expression, just a sort of vacant placidity as their pupils swiveled listlessly to meet Lily's gaze. "Let's get started with those anxieties, now that you're properly relaxed, shall we, Alex?"

They answered with an infinitesimal nod, a tiny sigh slipping from parted lips as their eyes slid closed once more. Lily settled back, fingers steepling together as she watched them closely.

"The first step is to let your mind drift back… back to the roots of that constant state of worry that plagues you. Focus on your breathing and let the memories come unbidden. Don't judge or analyze them, simply let them arise and pass through you like clouds drifting across an open sky…"

Lily's voice took on a deeper, more reverberant quality as she spoke - the words no longer seeming to emanate from her lips but manifesting directly inside Alex's consciousness. They were falling deeper into that hypnagogic space now, their body melting away from their awareness until there was nothing but an endless inner void as Lily's murmurings echoed through their psyche.

Alex let their eyelids slide shut obediently, focusing inward and letting their breath slow to a steady, meditative rhythm. Images began to coalesce out of the void as memories surfaced one by one - a kaleidoscope of moments and experiences from both their childhood and more recent adulthood.

A sense of dread settled over Alex like a leaden mantle, a profound, bone-deep unease that seemed to permeate each recalled instant. They saw the world through a child's eyes, filled with a thousand tiny anxieties and paranoias. The sick lurch of terror over every perceived slight or harsh word from friends or family. That constant, nagging sense of being somehow wrong for experiencing certain impulses and urges that other kids never seemed to display.

The images dissolved like smoke on the wind, only to be replaced with more recent vignettes - social situations where Alex's stomach knotted with worry over how they looked, how they were coming across, if the people around them secretly hated them or merely tolerated their presence out of obligation. Intimate encounters where they froze up, paralyzed by panic at the thought of revealing too much about the darkness that resided in the recesses of their psyche.

On and on the memories came, each one weighed down by that same burdgeoning sense of existential angst. Alex tried to pull back, to retreat from the deluge - but Lily's voice was there, a steady anchor amidst the storm.

"Let it flow through you, Alex. Don't fight it, simply surrender to the tide and let it wash over you without resistance. You are safe here. You are comfortable. We can fix you."

Alex felt themselves begin to cry, eyes watering through their glassy, empty expression.

It was all so agonizing, so heavy. They had pushed it down, smothered it, for so long. All that pain and fear and loneliness they had swaddled themselves in like a heavy cloak, afraid to let anyone see the teeming maelstrom of self-loathing and sexual deviancy lurking beneath.

Lily's voice continued to weave through their subconscious in soft, hypnotic waves. "Tell your therapist, Alex. Tell me what's wrong with you. I'm here to listen without judging." It was gentle, coaxing. A voice of authority, like someone who could fix all the broken parts.

Alex trembled as their mind's eye was drawn to a much more recent memory - the one that had eaten away at them every single day since it happened. Their body went rigid and still as they fought for the willpower to speak, to give voice to that shameful secret at long last. Then finally, the words slipped from their lips in a quavering whisper.

"I… I wanted her to k-kill me. During sex. I asked her to choke me until I passed out, and when she finally let go… a huge part of me was disappointed I was still breathing."

There was a long, hushed pause as Lily absorbed this revelation. To her credit, she barely reacted - her face remaining a mask of impassive neutrality as she watched Alex's vacant features.

"I understand," she said at last, her tone unbearably gentle. "It must've been so disappointing. Have your lovers all disappointed you like this?"

Alex's head rolled from side to side slowly, the ghost of tears leaking from their tightly-clenched eyelids. "I… I can't tell them," they croaked out in a voice raw with emotion. "They'd hate me because I'm a freak."

Lily's eyes were hooded as she watched Alex's features contort with pain and self-loathing. Her tongue darted out to wet her full lips as a familiar thrill of sadistic delight set her nerve endings tingling.

"Oh no, Alex… no no no," she crooned in that same soothing burr. "They don't hate you, you hate yourself. There's nothing at all wrong with those urges. They're perfectly natural, you know. We all have them. It's just that most of us have been conditioned to feel shame. I'm not going to judge you. Your therapist will never judge you for telling the truth."

Alex sniffed loudly, head lolling to one side as their eyes slitted open a crack. For a moment their gaze seemed to regain some semblance of lucidity, fixing on Lily with an ineffable mix of desperation and hope.

"Y-you don't think I'm a freak? For wanting…" Their voice cracked on the last word, unable to give voice to those perverse compulsions even now. But Lily understood. She lifted one hand in a soothing, placating gesture as she offered them a warm smile.

"Not at all, dear. It's just a form of consensual masochism taken to an extreme degree. Nothing outright sinister about that if both parties understand the risks and have negotiated terms clearly." She wheeled herself a few inches closer, holding Alex's heavy gaze with that same gentle intensity. "And no - what you're describing hardly even qualifies as 'extreme'. Your therapist has helped plenty of others overcome hang-ups and discomforts far more unsavory than that."

Alex regarded Lily with something bordering on awe through their half-lidded eyes. Their lips moved, but no sound emerged as they struggled to process this new reality. Here was someone - a professional no less - who seemed to view their darkest proclivities not with horror or disgust, but complete acceptance. Validation, even.

A palpable sense of relief washed over them, like a heavy burden being lifted from their shoulders at long last. For the first time in longer than they could remember, Alex felt… safe. Understood. Free to be their authentic self without fear of persecution. Lily watched as their expression softened, features slackening into that same mask of vacant tranquility once more.

"It's not uncommon for those with histories of trauma or abuse to develop certain compensatory coping mechanisms," Lily continued in that same low, hypnotic croon. "Especially ones that might seem counterintuitive or disturbing to an outside perspective. Masochistic compulsions, a desire to revisit past traumas and recontextualize them as something empowering rather than victimizing. To sublimate pain into a form of cathartic release. To develop unhealthily codependent relationships, instead of healthily dependent ones."

She favored Alex with a beatific smile and a slight nod of encouragement. "So please, don't hold back with me, Alex. I can help guide you through all those dark and troubling impulses that have been haunting you. This is a safe space for you to finally be your true self without shame or judgment. The real work begins now."

It was as if Lily's words had flipped some deep-seated switch within Alex's psyche. The last vestiges of internalized shame and self-loathing seemed to evaporate like smoke on the wind, leaving them open and vulnerable in a way they never thought possible. Their therapist understood - and not only that, but she encouraged them to give voice to those forbidden compulsions. A profound sense of relief washed over Alex, like a massive burden being lifted from their shoulders at long last.

They drew in a deep, shuddering breath as fresh tears welled up behind their closed eyelids. But there was no sadness there now - only a profound catharsis spreading through them from the inside out like a soothing balm. For the first time in what felt like forever, Alex felt… free. Unbound by fear or self-recrimination. Whole.

It was all going to be okay. Lily would help them confront those dark impulses, guide them through processing the unresolved anguish and childhood traumas that had birthed those perverse compulsions. She would show them the way to turn those masochistic urges into something empowering, something transcendent. In that moment, Alex had never felt safer or more at peace.

Lily watched with a mixture of clinical detachment and predatory relish as Alex's body relaxed into an even deeper posture of surrender. Their expression was one of utter serenity and trust, every iota of resistance and doubt having melted away to leave them utterly open and vulnerable before her.

She reached out, letting her fingertips trace a feather-light caress along the plush swell of Alex's inner thigh. They didn't even flinch or tense at her touch, so deeply under were they. Lily thrilled at the feel of soft, yielding flesh through the thin barrier of denim, her dark eyes glittering with avarice.

"Excellent work today, Alex," she murmured, her voice slipping back into that same rich, resonant tone that seemed to caress their very neurons. "I think we made some real, meaningful breakthroughs in our first session - and I'm so very proud of how open and honest you were able to be with me."

Those were the last coherent words Alex's conscious mind registered before the world dissolved around them. Even as Lily continued speaking, her words became a wordless, enveloping vibration that suffused their entire being. Like a warm sonic balm, bathing them in pleasurable sensation as their sense of embodiment ebbed away, leaving only consciousness itself drifting in a vast, placid sea.

Alex had no concept of how long they remained suspended in that state, cradled by the ebb and flow of Lily's voice resonating through their psyche like the tides of some inner ocean. All they knew was warmth, safety, a profound sense of peace and acceptance the likes of which they had never known. When at last their awareness began to gradually resurface, they felt rested and refreshed in a way that defied simple description. A damp squelching had spread throughout their boxers, back to front, and Alex couldn't bring themselves to care in the slightest.

Lily's face slowly came back into focus, the doctor smiling warmly as she watched Alex's eyes flutter open with a heavy-lidded, bleary expression. She reached over to give their hand a gentle squeeze.

"How do you feel?" There was no hint of condescension or judgment in her tone, only open warmth and compassion. Alex blinked slowly, taking stock of themselves for a long moment. Then a small, beatific smile curved their lips as they met the doctor's gaze with an expression of profound serenity.

"Perfect," Alex replied, face raw and puffy with tears and snot.

#hypnok1nk #hypnosis #corruption kink #brainwashing #writing #mind control #nsft #t4t nsft #trans nsft #masochist kink #bdsmkink

37 notes · View notes

mybeingthere · 2 months ago

Text

"When I carve shell it comes from our country.

I tell personal and spiritual stories.

It’s about keeping our culture alive, and, when I dance, I am proud of who I am."

Russell ‘Wossy’ Davey Jooda, Bardi dancer and pearlshell carver, 2015

Decorated pearl shell pendants from the Kimberley region, Western Australia. These have been incised with traditional Aboriginal as well as more contemporary designs, and filled in with red ochre.

"Pearl shell was the highly prized focus of ritual and exchange networks in Australia. Its glistening iridescent qualities embody the shimmer of water, rain, and lightning, evoking ideas of spiritual well-being and ancestral connection. Engraved pearl shell pendants were given to boys during rites that marked their transition to adulthood and were predominantly used and worn by men during ceremonies, attached by belts or necklaces of hair string, with the power to bring rain or heal the sick.

Known by a variety of local names (including riji, jakuli, longkalongka) they were, and in many areas still are, exchanged along a vast network of overland trade routes that extends along the western coast and across the vast desert interior as far as Australia’s southern shore, more than a thousand miles away. Carved from the shell of the gold-lipped pearl oyster (Pinctada maxima; a species not endangered in the region), each is engraved with a series of angular geometric motifs which are filled with red ochre and fat, or powdered charcoal to highlight dynamic designs.

These linear elements meander across the surface of the lustrous inner lip of the shell and are typically composed of three parallel lines which flow and interlock to create animated designs. The geometry of these interlocking zig-zags and meandering lines indicate the movement of water, so vital to life, in its many manifestations: the rain of storm clouds, the ebb and flow of tides, and the tracks of ancestral beings such as the Lightning Snake across the landscape."

https://museum.wa.gov.au/.../lustre-online-text-panels/guwan

23 notes · View notes

antisocialmastermind · 4 months ago

Text

Chapter 3

Day 3: IORHNRE= hornier, hire

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 (on Ao3)

Kurt wakes up hornier than usual. Apparently his ego has not seen fit to share last night’s humiliating memo with his dick. Or maybe he went to sleep with Elliott too much on his mind. Either way, he’s hungover, regretful, mortified, and apparently really needs to get laid. By someone other than Elliott.

Who, annoyingly, seems completely unaffected by the whole awkward incident.

Kurt stumbles into the kitchen to find his roommate singing into a spatula, shaking his ass, and plating his patented pancake breakfast sandwiches.

“Oh my god, I think I love you,” Kurt mumbles, looking for the syrup, and Elliott looks up with a grin.

“But only platonically, right?”

Hungover Kurt is always a little vulnerable – the surface of his skin an exuberance of tesselating cracks that weaken his wit and self-confidence. He blinks and snaps, “Over it.”

Elliott considers him for the briefest of seconds before he tosses a hash brown patty onto each plate and slides one plate across the counter. “Good,” he says. “Me, too. Eat some grease.”

And that’s it.

They eat side-by-side at the counter as they usually do. Kurt does the dishes and makes a shopping list. Elliott’s near the window working charcoal into a canvas. He’s not satisfied with the play of light over Kurt’s cheekbones. He’s working from a photo, so Kurt’s presence isn't required.

Kurt takes advantage of Elliott’s deep concentration to look at him for too long, then slips into his room and closes the door. Lying on his bed, he thinks about last night, about the last eight months. He loves Elliott. He really does. But does he love him that way? Maybe he’s just missing a relationship in his life. It’s been a while, after all.

He doesn’t cry. It hurts, but he doesn’t cry. That, more than anything, tells him he’ll get through this.

****

They go to look at the gallery space in the afternoon. Elliott’s pace gets bouncier and quicker as they get closer, and even Kurt’s grinning like a loon by the time they step through the glass door into the cool, dim interior.

Elliott walks Kurt through the space, explaining how he’s hired someone to remove appliances and make the kitchen smaller. They’ll keep the refrigerator, one counter, and the industrial sink and dishwasher since they’ll be handy for artists’ receptions. That half of the kitchen will become the in-house studio.

“The rest of the kitchen’s gonna be gutted and walled off,” Elliot explains. “Gives us more gallery space. And there are bathrooms of course, and an office already…”

The office is little more than a closet with a desk and chair, but that’s all they’ll really need. The floor is a gorgeous tobacco wood, highly varnished, and the walls, Elliot says, will be white.

“You need modular display panels,” Kurt declares as he turns a circle in the center of the large space. “Easier than repairing the walls every time the show changes, and it’ll give you much more surface area.”

“See?” Elliott grins, “This is why I need you. So much more than a pretty face.”

Kurt feels heat creep up his neck and over his face and turns to the window.

“Good natural light,” he continues, and mentally congratulates himself for not missing a beat. Elliott just says these things. He’s always been flirty, but he knows now and it’s just awkward for Kurt to ignore the elephant between them. But he does his best. “You’ll still need good fixtures. Cool light with the amount of contemporary work you’ll be showing. Rail lighting, maybe. In stainless steel, not black.”

Elliott grins again, but he doesn’t say anything, and Kurt breathes a tiny sigh of relief. He can do this.

****

He can’t do this.

How is he supposed to get some clarity and get over this when Elliott’s always just there?

Kurt switches his night shift for a day shift on Thursdays, when Elliott DJs at The Duplex. He loses tips but gains an entire day where he doesn't see Elliott at all. He accepts Justin and Michael’s dinner invitation even though Elliott can’t make it. Sometimes he goes out with Chandler for drinks or to catch a movie – but he has to be careful there because he thinks maybe Chandler has a crush on him. And that’s not happening.

He watches Elliott with their friends. He’s maybe extra flirty with Sebastian, but he’s most calm and down to earth with Kurt. He’s happy and flirty and genuine and wacky with everyone. That’s just who he is, and Kurt wouldn’t change him if he could.

As weeks pass and the gallery opening gets closer, Kurt feels better. He’s still a little hung up, but he’s got some perspective now, and he’s about ready to move on. He’s also busy. So that helps.

He’s getting pieces ready to hang for the opening and he’s helping Elliott choose light fixtures and wine glasses and restroom decor. He’s at the restaurant six out of seven days. He’s doing this. He’s doing it.

****

It’s a Tuesday evening a few weeks out when Elliott pokes his head around Kurt’s bedroom door and says “Hey. Can I talk to you?”

Elliott sits Kurt down on the sofa looking serious and thoughtful. Kurt’s heart is jumping like a rabbit in his chest.

“How involved do you want to be, Kurt?” Elliott asks softly.

Oh my god, this is it. He’s changed his mind. Kurt’s eyes flood instantly and his pulse, impossibly, quickens. He might vibrate off the couch and onto the floor.

“Um. What?” Kurt mumbles.

“Well, I mean, do you just want to show your work? Do you want an attendant position? I can’t pay much just yet – it’ll mostly be me working there – but you’re hired if you want to be.” He smiles at Kurt. “Do you want to maybe think about buying in? Being my partner? What do you see yourself doing?”

Kurt almost laughs at the irony in Elliott’s words. He pretty much wants the fucking sofa to swallow him whole. It doesn’t. He smiles, a little shakily, and sighs.

“For now,” he says, “I want to show. In the future, I’ll probably want more, but right now, I’m just. Not ready.”

“Okay,” Elliot replies. “Let me know when you are.”

“I definitely will,” Kurt says, clasping Elliott’s shoulder.

He goes to bed.

Chapter 4

#kws 2024 #kws2024 #klaine word scramble #klaine-word-scramble #klaine fanfic

8 notes · View notes

arecomicsevengood · 1 year ago

Text

TRIP REPORT: SPX 2023

I went down to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland this past Sunday. While I lived in Baltimore for a number of years, and it was essentially a local show, this is the first time I've been since moving to Philly in 2019. It took a year (or two?) off on account of COVID. I don't have much to say about the show itself, I enjoyed walking around talking to people, I probably didn't see all the stuff I would've liked, I'm not really in a good place to judge trends. I missed some people I would've liked to have met, like Drew Lerman, who left before I got there. He won an Ignatz though, and good for him. I do believe that the thing about SPX and the Ignatzes is that everyone essentially occupies very different spheres of interest and sets of influences. As I walked around, seeing little cards on people's comics saying they were nominated for an Ignatz, I would ask them if they had heard of or were familiar with the thing that won, they almost never were.

At the one panel discussion I attended, about drawing detailed backgrounds as a way of of establishing worldbuilding, Rosemary Valero-O'Connell cited Taiyo Matsumoto's approach as an influence, and as I sat in the audience thinking "Yes! Let's talk more about that!" everyone else on stage, quite reasonably, talked about their own influences instead - which for Daria Tessler, who I came to see, included Mark Beyer and Jim Woodring. The panel was generally good and interesting, and it's not meant as a slight to the moderator Rob Clough to point out that the best questions came during the Q+A from the audience. One member asked the question, how do you handle tonal shifts when you are using detailed visuals for plot purposes, and everyone agreed that that at emotional climaxes or at moments of more interiority they reduce the level of background detail.

Daria Tessler was the artist I was most excited to meet of anyone at the fest. Since my local shop, Partners And Son, is on top of it, I had already read her newest comic, volume 2 of Cagelessness, which absolutely rules, and so I had to shell out the big bucks for a copy of her fully-silkscreened book Dust, that uses multi-color collages as a backdrop for the cowboy characters who, in Cagelessness, move through ornately designed drawn worlds. Her work is beautiful, another high point of the panel discussion was her talking about how Marc Bell calls the tiny details cluttering up the backgrounds of his comics "chicken fat," and while Clough cited the term as originating from Will Elder, Tessler described chicken fat as "what you put in the soup to make it taste better, if you're not vegan," perfectly capturing what makes these artists work such a delicious meal for the eyes.

A similar "I already have all of these" experience was behind my purchase of Tales Of Old Snake Creek, by Drew Lerman, which collects his anthology contributions from recent years and adds watercolor to them. I love these comics in their original formats but I'm not going to say no to the convenience of this, which is also printed at a size larger than the digests in which some things ran.

Shout-out to Bread Tarleton, who pointed out to me the Paradise Systems table, where everything looked good and lavish, but what I picked up was Cry by Yan Cong. I believe Paradise Systems to be a reprinter of self-published comics from China. Cry features cartoony figures in a charcoal textured world, and follows a man having a sexual experience with a prostitute with a weird visual punchline.

Adam Szym directed me to the Strangers Fanzine table, where I picked up Shony Glassware 2 by Manning Coe, which is in some ways probably the sort of zine a lot of people go to SPX to get. Pretty funny stuff, maybe Ben Jones influenced, by a 26-year-old who lives in Osaka. Drawing himself in a Beat Happening shirt but with a bio where he talks about listening to 100 Gecs, there is a definite vibe at work here and while I don't remember the price point of this one I feel like it had to be cheap because it's that kind of comic. If you're ordering the new printing of Bhanu Pratap's Dear Mother from Strangers and want something else that's not too genre-y make sure you throw this in there.

Adam Szym's Their Use Continues is a horror short about the current trend towards reviving dead actors as CGI phantoms in movies currently in the news. Feels nice and relevant, I think I would've liked this to be a little bit bigger (it's printed digest size) and hi-res. Adam uses some digital collage elements for backgrounds and borders that I mostly felt was making the book smaller and fuzzier still.

I nonetheless liked it better than another horror comic I picked up, issue 1 ofJenna Cha and Lonnie Nadler's The Sickness, published by Uncivilized. Both people are more mainstream-comics, which I think is fine, but this does something I really associate with the dumbest kind of attitude that can be present in horror stuff, the kind of tonal miscalculation the comics I like avoid: Presenting a mid-century American setting where characters nonetheless are using a high degree of vulgar language, of a sort that would be stylized and off-putting if it were depicting the modern era but really just completely pulls me out of something set in the past. The second printing changes the color palette on the cover in a way that makes the drawing better, but this is not the sort of thing I would recommend anyone track down, which is sad, because it's likely far more readily available than anything I liked.

Tim Lane's Happy Hour In America 1, from a few years ago, was available at the Fantagraphics table. Presumably because Tim was signing, but I never saw him. I haven't read the big books collecting his short stories, but I like his contributions to anthologies. He's a guy who can really draw, in a way that you don't often see at small press shows, or that feels more appreciated by a mainstream-comics crowd. If his stories aren't as psychotically involved on a plot level as Mack White, he's nonetheless interesting as like a Gen X'er talking about American masculinity and what animates it. I would gladly read it in single issue comics format, though I missed these the first time because it wasn't what I felt I was in the mood for.

Another thing I picked up as a half-off copy of David B's Incidents In The Night, volume 2, from Uncivilized. I think volume 1 did pretty well, and is now sold out, but now that that's unavailable, volume 2 is a harder sell. David B is one of those dudes, like Joann Sfar or Christophe Blain, that got the big bookstore push like fifteen years ago but now no one wants to put out their books in the U.S. David B is also a guy, like GIpi, who had a comic put out by the Ignatz line Fantagraphics had. I bought issue 1 of Babel at the time and didn't care for it, and would've told you I didn't iike David B's work. But lately I've been tracking down books in the Ignatz line I skipped the first time (along with the First Second books of Gipi and Sfar from roughly the same time) and enjoying them, and this fits into that trend as well. A pretty involving plot, involving booksellers, the occult, criminal organizations. I both want to track down a copy of volume 1 and am frustrated that the volume 3 advertised at the end of this book was never translated into English.

Yasmeen Abediford's Death Bloom won an Ignatz, for best minicomic. All of the Ignatz awards are really ill-defined categories, and this is one is a $25 risograph thing, which to me seems like it should exist in a different category than cheapo xerox stuff, but whatever. Anyway, I believe Abediford will also be in the new issue of Freak, which I have seen Instagram posts indicating contributors got an advance copy of but have yet to be for sale online. Abediford is from the Bay Area, but this book was printed by Lucky Pocket Press, based in Baltimore, but from people who either moved there or didn't have the press going until after I left there. They sold me the comic in a little printed bag, which included a family tree for their little mascot guy, citing the "onion peow guy" as "(father, deceased)" and "(comics legend)," which is interesting to me insofar as I don't think of any of the Peow stuff as being interesting to me, though I'm happy it found its audience and made a mark. I don't really get this one either but whatever, I'll reread it tos ee if my opinion changes.

I would also put the output of publisher Silver Sprocket in a similar category to Peow - Not for me, seems like it's for younger people, in a way that dominates SPX as it's currently constituted. I have the deepest sympathies for them not being able to dominate SPX this year though, due to a misplaced/inaccessible pallet of books that they didn't get until halfway through Sunday. They had flown out Leo Fox from England, to debut his new book Prokaryote Season. I had seen Fox's stuff on Twitter last year and thought it looked good/interesting, but was also frustrated by the fact that he had apparently released a comic that was only for sale for 24 hours - maybe a way to create demand so that people actually order a thing, but in an artificial scarcity kind of way I resent. Anyway, I bought one of his self-published things, My Body Unspooling, and yeah I think it looks really cool and interesting, though the approach taken, a sort of simple narrative about the notion of the self rather than something that seems interested in having characters interact is again the kind of trend I blanch at in work made by people younger than me. I nonetheless liked the comic, and thought it was cool, and am going to read his book soon.

I bought issue 9 of Mike Centeno's Futile from the Radiator Comics distro booth. It is explicitly labeled as No Previous Readin' Necessary, so while there were two older issues of Futile at the table, printed at smaller dimensions, I didn't pick them up. This was cool, a mostly black and white (but with pages in the middle in color) comic about a musician taking mushrooms . It looks great on a flipthrough, though Audra Stang, working the table, tried to close the center-spread of my flipthrough so that the burst into full-color I was admiring didn't spoil the story's progression and surprises. Format and cartooning kinda reminded me of Nate Doyle's series Crooked Teeth. (Nate had a larger-formatted barbarian fantasy comic available from Strangers Fanzine, which I passed on.)

I also bought Beth Heinly's Girls Named Meghan from her, though Heinly is Philly-based and I've had plenty of chances to pick it up before. It's a memoir of her teenage years, growing up in Delaware County, which is where I went to high school, and the friendships she had that veered into rebellion and her apprehensions about being around people more "troubled" than she was. It is basically black and white but there's little red-pencil edits throughout, like maybe the wrong PDF was sent to the printer or something, sourced from a file where she was noting what she wanted to fix. I don't think of the other copies I have seen were like this though. Again, I think this is the sort of self-published autobio thing that many people go to SPX to find. I can see the places there this could be stronger or more impactful but there is still a fine sense for who all the characters were, and what the era was like.

I got a few other things but this is all I have read so far, at this moment when I felt like writing. Andrew White gave me a copy of the new Yearly, and a name I recognized from his writing for The Comics Journal, Henry Chamberlain, gave me a copy of his book George's Run, a biography of a Twilight Zone writer published by Rutgers University Press. I also got issue 3 of a comic called Cat Scratch Fever by a woman named Emily Zullo, and Soumya Dhulekar's Flash Valley. Both of these are in the classic digest sized minicomic format with black and white throughout, though Dhulekar opted for a a cardstock cover. This is the sort of thing I am most happy to buy from a stranger at a show and basically not even care about the quality as long as the price is right, though of course the price for both of these is higher than it used to be. I also bought and haven't yet read Leo Fox's Prokaryote Season, the theoretical "book of the show," although another contender for that title, the collection of Liam Cobb comics, What Awaits Them, looked great but I will pick it up when it comes into my local shop.

10 notes · View notes

zmediaoutlet · 2 years ago

Text

was listening to 'sanctify' by st paul & the broken bones and literally just started writing with zero plan in mind; ended up with a stanford-era john/dean thing. so.

(AO3)

Dean lights a match and holds it steady. The flame's a bright-white flare. Little, but enough. He watches past the tiny pool of not-dark, the heat creeping closer to his fingers. When he's about to get burned he shakes it out and drops it to the wrecked carpet. Can't be any worse than anything else that's happened to this floor. He rubs his hot fingertips together, shoulders shifting to get more comfortable against the wall. Rips another match out of the book and lights it.

He's nearly finished with the whole book before there's a brighter wash of headlights through the torn curtains and the room goes black and white—shadows of bedframe and window crossbars and his own hand flung up against his face—and he lets the last match keep going, down to his fingers to scorch his skin, and he's still holding onto the burnt skeleton of the matchstick when the door opens, across the room, and it's—

"Dad," he says.

Backlit by the headlights but Dean would know that silhouette in his sleep, when he's drunk, when he's dead. "Yeah," Dad says, slow and kind of sighing, and he stands in the open door with his hand heavy on the knob and his face hidden in black. Dean wishes he had one more match. "You good?" Dad says, after what feels like a long time, and Dean nods immediately because—but his head feels strange and his jaw feels kind of loose and the nod spools out into something that's maybe not so loyal.

"Yeah," Dad says again, slower, lower, and his silhouette shifts, ducks, when he runs his other hand over the back of his head, and there's another sigh before he says, "Hold on, dude," and turns around and disappears, leaving just the headlight blare in the room and Dean's heart in his throat and his singed fingers grinding the matchstick down to charcoal dust.

Lights off and the night flows back into the room, thick and cold. Dean's shoulderblades grind against the wallpaper. Then—Dad, back, and the lines of the door barely picked out in the dark show him closing it, and then—the camping lantern jolting to life, whiter than the headlights, making this little sun that sears across the Coleman cooler Dad's set it on and the sad iron bedframe with its stained old boxspring and the ratty green curtains and—Dad, five days of stubble grown into what's basically a beard, his face tired, his arm bandaged from Dean's fuck-up. Where Dean can practically see radiating lines, like a cartoon panel, going hey idiot, hey moron, you see? you see what you did?

It's possible Dean's a little loopy.

"Got food, water, Gatorade," Dad says. He looks along his shoulder at Dean. "Booze. But maybe you had enough of that, huh?"

"No such thing," Dean says. Dad laughs, in that nearly-silent Dad-way that's just his shoulders moving and a little air coming out of his nose. Makes warmth crack painfully in Dean's chest, anyway. Hot water hitting ice. He licks his lips. "You okay?"

"Know how to give myself stitches," Dad says. Dismissing. Dean nods and tips his head back against the wall, his eyes hot and his fingers hurting and his ankle, god, his ankle really really hurts but that's—his own fault, and he knows it, and it makes perfect sense that Dad left him here to wait, in the dark, in some abandoned motel on the ass end of nowhere while he took care of what Dean couldn't.

The lantern-light leaves weird crazed patterns on the ceiling. Splintery cracks that blur and move. Dean keeps his eyes on that and focuses on breathing in some way that might sound normal and he listens as Dad's steps thump around the interior of the room. Then—

"What's with the matches?" Dad says. Dean blinks. Dad's right in front of him, crouching, frowning down at the pile of charcoal.

"It was dark," Dean says. His lips feel fat, stupid. "Zippo ran outta juice."

"They do that." Line between Dad's brows. Glint in his eye, but then he's backlit again and it's hard to see detail in the dark. His lips press together and he shakes his head and Dean doesn't want to say he's sorry because he doesn't want to hear what comes after it, whether the correction he deserves or shrugging he doesn't, but he wants to say—he wants—but Dad's on his own schedule and he says, "All right, man, let's go," and he grabs Dean's forearm and there's an arm around Dean's waist and he's upright, lickety-split like a magic trick, and the change in elevation does something weird to his head and his ankle screams inside the loose frame of his unlaced boot but Dean just bites down on any feeling or sound and turns his face, his nose and mouth and eyes closed against Dad's shoulder—canvas, smoke. Safe. God, that they're safe.

The arm stays around his waist. A hand, rough and warm, at the back of his neck. Thumb up behind his ear. "Hurts, huh," Dean hears, somewhere, and he nods dumb against the canvas. He's walked a step backward—oh, his leg—but his weight somehow isn't quite right, and he falls—is carried—bounce of the boxspring and a cloud of dust and that huffing breath, and Dad says, "Gotta let go, buddy," and Dean finds he's got a double-handful of canvas jacket and he's carried Dad right along with him so he's bent over Dean where he's half-sprawled back on the bed, his mouth curved up at one corner, and he's not—mad. He should be mad and he's not.

"I have to?" Dean says.

"You really are out of it." He should be. He should be mad, but he's just breaking Dean's grip on his jacket with easy twists of his thumb—and grabbing his bag, and crouching down on the floorboards like before to find Dean's boot, to roll his jeans up his shin, to hiss at the damage.

"Dad," Dean says, and Dad says, "Bite something, would you?" and Dean doesn't have to do that, when has he ever had to do that?—so that when Dad pulls his ankle Dean just sucks air and lets the tears smart and feels his foot weirdly small in the double-warm grip, the way that hand drags up the back of his calf, squeezes mean and then gentle and he relaxes from the iron he turned into and becomes—whatever the opposite of metal is. He drags up onto his elbows and watches down the stupid stained length of himself and sees Dad shrug. So, no break. That's something.

The opposite of metal. Melting, pooling. He's braced on his elbows but it feels like the only solid point in his whole body. Dad has a clean roll of Ace and he settles down, wraps Dean up tight, where it hurts but in that good way, where it'll have to heal. One of the few things that do. "How's that," Dad says, when he's stuck a butterfly in place, and Dean says, lightheaded, "Like buttah," and Dad smiles at him, for real, looking him right in the eye.

"Dad," Dean says, a third try, and Dad shakes his head. Dean bites his lip.

"Didn't go so hot, huh," Dad says, instead. Understatement of the century. He's not smiling anymore but he's not frowning, either. The puddle that is Dean remains soft. "We can talk about it when your brains aren't leaking out your ears. You have that whole bottle?" No answer to that, either. Especially since Dad's hand strokes back up the wrecked line of his tendon, soft. Firmer on the calf, and then blunt fingers up in the hollow of his knee, under his jeans, tucking there. "You awake, Dean?"

Too soft to speak. He nods, loose still and stupid still but knowing why he's nodding. That's enough. Dad's hand turns, slides up that last inch and cups the bare back of Dean's thigh, squeezes. Then—up—sitting by Dean on the boxspring, big hand sliding over and covering his crotch. Hot. Dean spreads his legs. His bandaged heel bumps his discarded boot. He stays up on his elbows and Dad sinks down next to him, leaning half over, his breath on Dean's shoulder—unbuckling, unbuttoning, unzipping with easy one-handed practice—and then in past the fly, sliding over the top of Dean's boxers, hotter through the thin cotton. Dean blinks. Dad's hand's so tan, the hair on his wrist black, blacker in the lantern light. Strange against Dean's white belly when Dad rucks his shirt up out of the way so they can see. When it's been years and that should be the most normal thing, but—usually it's not bright like this, and Dean's not woozy like this, and Dad's not just getting on with it, like this, but—

Dean's getting there. Dad rubs him, pushes his boxers down and out of the way, fists his dick. Rough thumb under the head, too rough, and Dean's hips lift, squirm, but that hurts his ankle—he makes a sound—and Dad shushes him, squeezes, his mouth going down to Dean's shoulder through his jacket. Sweat erupts at the back of his neck, his pits. That squeezing massaging rub—just the way Dad handles it—it's swelling in Dean's balls, his throat. Dad's breath heavy, puffing against his collarbone. Dad lets go—no—but just to put his fingers in Dean's open mouth, and Dean sucks on instinct, licking, and then it's wet, rubbing, playing with the head and going down to handle his nuts and jerking finally, working, and Dean tips his head back on his shoulders and dissolves, flows away.

His elbows go out from under him. He lays flat, legs hanging off the end of the bed, body a strange static-blur of over-warm relief, pain off at the end of some long unworrying road. The bedspring's shaking and Dean turns his head and Dad's beside him, laying back just like him, eyes closed and brow tight. Getting off. His cheeks turning red under the cover of the beard. His shoulder, working. Dean watches like it's a sunrise. Normally Dad's on top of him, inside him, behind his back, overhead with his hands gripped around Dean's ears. This side view feels new.

His ear, his jaw. Sweat at his temple. His lips part and there's a shadow inside that Dean wants to taste but he still wants to see. Compromise: he turns and slides his hand down and holds Dad's balls—huge, hotter and hairier, loose often when Dean sees them but cupping up tighter now, drawing in—and Dad's eyes scrunch closed and his free hand goes over Dean's side, grabs his ass, drags him in so Dean has to hitch his hurt leg over Dad's legs and curl in close—on top, practically—and there's a grunt, and wet, but mostly there's Dad's eyes opening wide, startled. His thick eyelashes. Dean puts his head down on Dad's shoulder and feels the heaving shock of his breath. Dad's hand finds his and drags them both up to lay on Dad's belly, and Dean watches that instead. How it goes up and down, in this steady wave. Dad's heart beating, under his ear. Dad's blood, and that means it's Dean's blood, too, coursing back and forth, regular as tides.

He wakes up in the dark. His ankle throbs, his burnt fingers sting. He swallows, dry-mouthed, aching, and finds out that he's the right way around on the box-spring, something thrown over his chest like a blanket. He curls his hands into it. Canvas, smoke.

He licks his lips but doesn't get the chance to talk. "Right here," Dad says, from somewhere—to the left, on the far side of the room, across from the door. "It can wait 'til morning."

Dean shifts, tugs the jacket further up over his shoulders. Dad, in the dark. He puts his nose into the collar of the jacket and whatever he might want seems impossible, here, now. Not even enough moonlight to show the edges of things.

"Sleep it off, soldier," Dad says.

#no idea #i'm gonna have to see if it's worth cleaning up in the morning #but for now -- hey i wrote something #literally better than nothing #my writing #john/dean #the full house of wincest #(it's technically not)#(but i feel like the absence of sam undergirds dean all the time)

38 notes · View notes