#cheap pool fencing

[toxicanonymity]

My dearest toxic, I would simply do anything for a NW blurb. On top of the election I'm having one of the worst weeks I've had in awhile tbh. I saw you were doing blurbs/requests and figured I would throw my hat into the ring 🙃 as always, you're the best and deserve all the love and accolades 🖤

tired

JOEL x READER | 1k | NIGHT WALKS AU

NOTES: I’m so sorry for your week, bestie. Ty for your kind words. I hope he can help some of y'all a little bit. Love you 🖤 Y'all don't have to know Night Walks, but if you care about the timeline: After Menace, before Late Night Dip.

WARNINGS: 18+ blog. Unspecified source of angst, crying, comfort, soft but it also gets a little horny.

When you got home, your throat was sore from trying not to cry. You put on your PJs, went outside, and unscrewed the floodlight to be in the dark. Seated on a cheap plastic chair, you looked at the joint and lighter in your hand and didn’t even have the energy. You set them down, bent forward, and buried your face in your hands. Warm tears coated your fingers. Your throat untied itself, your chest opened up, and, physically at least, you felt some relief.

Then a light turned on in an upstairs window. Worried that you were louder than you realized, you got up to take a walk so you wouldn’t have to talk about it.

The thing was, you didn’t really have the energy to walk either. You shuffled along, until you got to the pool. It was as good a place as any to stop. The frogs and crickets made it a comfortable silence. You stood outside the fence with your forearms resting on top of it, doubled over.

By the time a twig snapped behind you, you must have been ugly crying.

Your skin prickled until his smooth, deep voice sliced through the tension. “Wanna talk about it?”

When you didn’t answer, you heard and felt him come closer. Joel was like a furnace, and the heat reached you without contact. When you didn’t answer him, he joined you against the fence, both of you looking toward the pool. His hand was resting a few inches away from your elbow.

“Hmm?” He prodded.

You shook your head, sniffled, and dabbed your eyes. “You wouldn’t get it,” you told him.

“Maybe not,” he conceded. “But I still got ears.”

“I’m okay,” you lied.

He answered, “Don’t have to be,” then laid his big, warm hand on your back and it brought a crescendo of emotion. Grief, gratefulness for him, and guilt for selling him short. He was more than a sleaze, he just didn’t tend to show it.

He rubbed your back as you took ragged breaths and tried to stop, then he got closer.

“It’s not just–it’s everything,” you sniffled. “It’s a lot.”

He kept rubbing slow circles on your back for a minute. Then, with a lighter tone, he offered,

“Who do I gotta fight?”

“You don’t seem like the fighting type,” you replied, then finally looked at him.

“I can be,” he cocked an eyebrow, and faced you with one hand still on your back. Your eyes settled on his strong pecs and biceps stretching his tee. And yeah, he could’ve been a fighter for all you knew. He could for sure fuck someone up. The small tattoos you saw in the shower crossed your mind. Then your thoughts drifted to the rest of him.

“I’ll be anything ya want, pumpkin,” he murmured as he got behind you and moved his hand to your hip. He thumbed the waistband of your bottoms and chuckled. You were dressed alike.

He nosed your hair and inhaled deeply as he wrapped his arms around you. You kept your arms resting on the pool fence, but your body relaxed into his embrace. He held you, with his feet bracketing yours. For the first time all week, you felt safe on some level. And not so alone.

It was the first time he’d hugged you like this. Holding you without a hard-on poking you, and–yeah, nope–there it was.

Not raging, but it twitched and made itself known.

He dipped his head and murmured into your neck, “Let’s go have a beer, watch a movie or somethin’," and his hips pushed forward, making you throb. But at the same time, you tensed at an assumption that he had expectations all along.

“Yeah, I know,” he acknowledged, without backing away. “Too damn hot, pumpkin. I just wanna hold ya, now I got two things in the way.”

“Two things?”

“That fine ass and this cock.”

You had been enjoying the softer side of him, but the harder side sure did make you tingle.

“I just wanna rest,” you answered.

“We'll just rest, then,” he replied. “We can just sleep if ya want. Can’t promise I'll behave in the *mornin’*, but…”

“Feels good out here,” you said.

“Alright pumpkin,” he agreed. “We’ll stay here a while.” Then he asked with light-hearted skepticism, “Feel good against this fence?”

His arms relaxed around you, then fell away.

You felt cold as he stepped aside, but he took your hand and gently pulled you to the pool gate. He reached his free hand over and unlocked it. The metal creaked as he pushed it open.

“C’mon,” he led you in, all the way to the edge of the pool. He dropped your hand to roll up his pj pants, then while he was down there, he rolled yours up, too. You both slipped of your sandals. “Sometimes I just look at the water….all lit up. Speakin’ of,” he reached in his pocket and showed you a joint.

“Not now,” you answered, and he tucked it behind his ear as he sat down on the edge.

You sat down an inch or two away from him, and he scooted over to close the gap. He placed his hand on the back of your head and you leaned into him. He put his arm around you. “Ya know pumpkin… it’s gonna be okay.” Your throat tightened again. He continued, ”There’s been times I thought it wouldn’t. But it always got better.”

You both watched the light patterns dance in the water, and he added, “Might’a taken time, but it did.”

“I dunno,” you sniffled.

He rubbed your arm and said, “Well, you’re not alone, anyway.”

And you couldn't help but laugh, “yeah I've noticed.”

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Thank you for reading 💙🫂

[emjiroki]

Pool Boy Yuuta Okkotsu x Lonely Housewife Reader

Word Count: 1.7k

Warnings: Infidelity, exhibitionism (outside), Yuuta is the lonely housewife slayer fight me

A/N: I'm back babies with Pool boy Yuuta for the lovely Wet Hot Slimeball summer block party collab event! My prompt was 'Humid' so I hope I captured the theme and everyone enjoys! @bastardblvd (look at Yuuta holding the pool skimmer! Im pretty proud of my editing skills)

Collab Masterlist

likes, reblogs, and comments are much appreciated

‘God they need to do something about this global warming shit’ You thought as the sun beat down. It had been storming over the last week in Grimetown so the humidity was intense; thick like you were being compressed and forced to breathe the water evaporating from the ground. And with the storms came strong winds, knocking small branches and a whole heap of leaves into the once pristine blue water of your pool. You had made plans to clean it out…soon, maybe ask that big man that stole your package and stuffed that block party flier in your mailbox to fix it, had really planned to ask your husband to do it before he left for two weeks on a “business trip”. It would be comical to believe that these trips were for business at this point, your husband coming home one too many times smelling of perfume that wasn’t the scent you wore. Something cheap and cloying that set a stone in your stomach. But you liked your life, all your bills were paid and your husband still treated you like you were his world, why bother rocking the boat over some whore? He’ll get bored with her eventually and come crawling back, take you on some big vacation as a secret sorry and it’ll be done with.

So here you were lounging on one of your pool chaises trying and failing to read your book with your brain a frenzy of thoughts when you vaguely heard a knock on the gate. You pulled on the slipcover for your bikini and went to open the hefty latch to the privacy fence. The sudden heat to your skin wasn’t from the sun beating down or the suffocating humidity, but most certainly from the man in front of you with a pool skimmer propped up on his shoulder. 

“I’m Yuuta Okkotsu from Grimetown Pool and Landscaping, sorry for the intrusion but I tried the front door and no one answered”. He seemed about your age, maybe a year or two younger, with sweet dark eyes and a handsomely cut jaw. Obviously fit under the company t-shirt that hugged his body. You bit your cheek slightly to try and keep your thoughts in check and not written across your face as you extended your hand to his to shake and introduced yourself. 

“I’m guessing you’re the poor soul that they sent to come clean my disaster of pool?” You asked opening the gate a bit wider for him.

“That’s what was on my schedule for today ma’am,” He said with a sheepish smile as he fumbled to close the gate latch behind him and followed you over to the poolside.

“And in this humidity too? Yikes,” You empathized, taking a discarded magazine from the table and fanning yourself as he surveyed the mess. 

“This will probably take a day or two to clean out and get balanced again,” Yuuta said with a determined look set on his face. 

“Please, take all the time you need” You requested, pulling the slip from your bikini off, “I’m assuming the husband will just write a check for whatever”. 

“R-Right, of course” He stammered, a rosy hue to his cheeks as he not so subtly looked you up and down. But he didn’t look away from your gaze when you made eye contact, going so far as to take a small step forward. You gave him a soft alluring smile before slipping your sunglasses on and lounging back in your chair.

“This humidity is a killer, let me know if you need anything” You commented as he pulled his phone from his pocket, assumedly to call his boss and tell them the plan.

“Oh I will, don’t worry,” He said with a lowkey promise in his tone that had you clenching. 

♡

An hour or two passed as he pulled out branches and skimmed the pool, the humidity absolutely baring down and making the air thick. You were glad for the sunglasses because you couldn’t help but stare when he stripped off his shirt. Sweat ran down his neck to the dip in his collarbones before rolling down his chest and chiseled abdomen, your eyes tracing the wet path down as you unconsciously clenched your legs together. You reached for your drink and realized the glass was empty, the ice slowly melting at the bottom.

“Yuuta, would you like a drink? Take a break in the a/c for a minute?” You called over as you gather your stuff to head back inside away from this killer heat. 

“Sure that would be great” He replied, pulling the skimmer from the water and setting it aside before quickly following you as you lead him in through the back door to the kitchen. The cool was a relief from the stagnant heat hovering around outside, Yuuta gratefully taking the towel you handed him and wiped his face and neck. 

“Water? Lemonade?” You asked as you opened the refrigerator, pulling the pitcher out and refilling your own glass.

“Lemonade is great, thanks” He huffed as he sat back in one of the bar chairs, pushing his damp black hair back away from his face. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t ogle for a moment, quickly turning away when looked up at you and filled the glass you pulled down for him. He said thank you again as you handed it to him, watching as he took a few big gulps of the cold liquid, his Adam's apple bobbing as he drank greedily. 

“You know Yuuta, I really wish my husband had a job like yours,” You commented, taking the seat next to him.

“Oh? And why’s that?” He asked, surprise in his tone but something curious and almost heated sparkling in his dark eyes. Damn, how could he be this pretty?

“Well, he’s always gone and I think the finance industry is making him dishonest” You admitted, casually messing with your discarded sunglasses on the island. The worst has already happened, at this point, you didn’t care about throwing yourself out there as you gently touched his fingers resting next to yours. 

“I’d be dishonest too if I got a house like this and a wife like you” He commented, a rosy hue to his cheeks though he didn't pull his hand away when you expected him to. 

“But the house is always so empty, it's lonely here… all by myself,” You said tracing one of your manicured nails up his hand to his forearm, goosebumps breaking across his skin, “He gives me everything I want but nothing that I need”. Yuuta turned slightly, leaning in close enough that a gasp escaped you, his dark eyes swimming with something you wanted to be devoured by.

“And what is it that you need?” He murmured, his lips close enough that you would only have to lean in an inch or two to feel them against yours, “Love? Good dick?”. It felt as if someone had lit a fire in your cheeks and it was rapidly traveling to the spot between your legs, your breath not filling your lungs anymore as his hand moved to your bare thigh. Your hands were shaking as you tried to take a drink from your glass, a small splash of lemonade running down your mouth to your chest. You squeaked out a soft moan when you felt his warm tongue against your skin, his mouth following the sour liquid down to the curve of your breast and sucking lightly in a soft kiss. Gripping his arms to keep yourself steady, he smiled up at you, that seemingly innocent shy boy smile from earlier. “Is that a yes?”.

♡

“Yuuta! Fuck!” You cried as he bottomed out inside of you for what seemed like the hundredth time today, you both barely able to get out of your bed this morning.

“You really never get tired do you?” He said with a chuckle, hissing as your walls squeezed around him, “Can’t even get my job done”. He’s right, hadn’t even gotten the chemicals ready for the pool before he was spread on the chaise lounge for you again, your thong bikini shredded by his eager hands and thrown somewhere in the yard. You were both slick with sweat from the heat, humidity ever present as you devoured each other for your neighbors on both sides to hear. His hands were rough against your ass as he squeezed and help you along to take his length, your hands on his sweaty chest as you bounced, spearing yourself on him again and again like you were possessed. 

“You’re just… so good” You moaned as he pulled you down to press against him, nipping his teeth across your throat and thrusting up into you. 

“Oh, you’re so good too beautiful, so fucking hot” He groaned, feeling your slick leaking out and running down to coat his balls in creamy white. He was so deep inside, carving out a place only his cock could satisfy, rutting into your soft walls like an animal. You couldn’t get enough as you moved your hips against his, his hand going up to wipe the drool from your lips as you fell apart.

“With a pussy like this I might just get obsessed,” He said his voice turning to a growl as you raised up again, his dark eyes seeming to grow darker as he watched your breasts bounce and the sweat rolling down your skin. “But you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”. You nodded, groaning out a soft yes as the flames of your climax licked up your spine, your brain foggy with the heat and the pleasure buzzing through your bloodstream. If only your “husband” could see you right now, being ravaged into a puddle in this primal humidity.As if he heard your thoughts, your phone began to ring. You didn’t think to pick up, only looked when you saw Yuuta’s hand move. His hand wrapped around it, squeezing the volume button until it buzzed on silent, flipping it over. His arms wrapped around you and pulled you down to lay against his chest again, practically growling as he pressed your face to his throat and fucked so deep into you you could feel him battering your cervix. The sound that broke from your lips as you creamed around his cock was something you hadn’t heard before, breathy and wild.

“That’s right baby, cum on my cock as much as you want” He panted, his hands running soothingly up your back despite him still hammering into your sensitive pussy, “I’m your husband now, I’ll make him disappear and you'll be all mine won't you?”.

[hometoursandotherstuff]

The look of this 2022 home in Austin, Texas is deceiving. It looks so plain and the wire fence outside looks cheap, but inside, it's drama. 4bd, 3ba, $1.699M.

The living room is black w/a huge red half-circle (I would've liked a fireplace, though).

You can see the covered patio.

Open concept to the kitchen with a feature wall and the black, red & white color theme follows thru.

This area serves as the dining room. $1.7M and no formal dining room.

Chairs at the island counter for casual seating.

Smallish modern kitchen, again $1.7M for this? Look at the striped mural on the stairs, tying in with the railings.

Hall and primary bedroom.

And, in this bedroom, who doesn't love a drippy wall? I don't know, this could be the primary bedroom, b/c it's so big.

Nice new bathroom, but I wonder if all the neon conveys. For $1.7M, none of the bedrooms have en-suites.

Bedroom #3's curtains are a work of art- a lady w/a an old TV for a head.

Love the blue tile in this bath.

The bedroom is big enough for a pool table.

I don't know how this room fits in, b/c it says 4 bds, and this would make it 5.

Patio and yard. Hmmm, a propane tank sitting there fueling the fire pit.

Giant chess game probably included.

No garage, just a car port. IMO, this house is way overpriced. .26 acre lot.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1604-Miriam-Ave-Austin-TX-78702/29389783_zpid/

[nonotnolan]

Cuerpo Inc: After Hours Perk

“Look, dude... I know you’re not really Jake.  The sooner you drop the act, the sooner we can have an actual conversation between us.”  I tried not to any trace of fear reach my smile as Jake’s neighbor continued to stare me down, his arms folded across his chest.  Thomas was right, of course-- Jake and I had swapped bodies with each other a few hours ago.  I wanted to take advantage of the pool in Jake’s suburban backyard, and he wanted to take advantage of my downtown apartment to have a few nights out on the town.  It wasn’t specifically against the rules, but since the office frowned upon non-work swapping we had promised each other that we were going to keep it on the downlow.  Did he know about Jake’s job?  He probably knew about Jake’s job..

“Why would...?  Thomas, my man... it’s the weekend!  Why the hell would I swap bodies over the weekend?”  I gave him a playful shove on the shoulder, like I had seen Jake do to so many of our coworkers back at the office.  “I spend enough time during the work week swapping bodies with people so that my company doesn’t have to pay for airfare.  After a solid week of swaps across the country, I’m gonna be spending the weekend in my own body, thank you very much.”

Thomas simply shook his head at me.  “Yeah, I dunno, man... being Jake’s neighbor, I can’t help but notice a few things.”  Jake had warned me that his neighbor on the other half of the duplex was weirdly nosy, but this was a special kind of intrusive that I hadn’t prepared myself for.  “It seems like Jake always swaps bodies with someone on Fridays, and he doesn’t swap back until Sunday afternoon or so.  Not everyone who wears that body is as good as pretending to be Jake as you are, stranger.”

His benign acceptance of Jake’s body swapping habits was starting to make me question just how often Jake was swapping bodies outside of work hours.  Jake swore that he only swapped once every few months, but there was no way Jake’s neighbor would be this suspicious if that were true.  “I’m not pretending, it’s really me in here!” I said, laughing as I slapped my chest for emphasis.  There really wasn’t any reason for me to double down on this lie, but... telling Thomas the truth felt like giving up, and I wasn’t about to take that loss.  “I’m Jake, dammit!  What do I have to do to prove it to you?”

“Take your shirt off,” he said, staring me down with a shit-eating grin.

I couldn’t help but laugh.  There had to be a catch, but I had no idea what it could possibly be.  Better to try and just bluff my way through it.  “You’re such a weirdo-- you know that, right?”  I peeled my tank-top off over my shoulders, trying to mimic the body language I’d seen Jake use before.  I wadded it up and tossed it over my shoulder, making sure to maintain eye contact with him as I did so.  “Are you happy, now, Thomas?  Do you believe me?”

He just smiled at me as his shit-eating grin got even wider.  “Quite the opposite, stranger.  The HOA around here gets very angry about partial states of undress, so the real Jake wouldn’t go shirtless unless he was behind a fence.  So.  Let’s head over into Jake’s backyard so we can talk about this further.  What is your name?”

“Gah, fine.  My name is Ethan,” I said, shaking my head.  Not that it really mattered that Thomas had figured out that I was lying, but it still felt weird that he cared so much.  I made my way toward the gate, and gestured him through.  Jake’s backyard had a nice, tall wooden privacy fence to keep the pool hidden from view, and there was a patio area with a few plastic beach chairs set up near a cheap outdoor table.  I’d expected Thomas to be gloating-- it’s what I would have done after calling out someone’s lies like that-- but instead he was typing away on his phone.

“Is this you?” Thomas asked, holding up a picture of a guy in a suit.  More to the point, it was a photo of me wearing a suit.

It took me a bit to figure out when that photo had been taken.  “Yeah, that’s my body,” I said, staring back at Thomas.  I wasn’t sure why he had a photo of me, but I didn’t see much point in trying to lie anymore.  “Assuming it’s a recent photo, that was probably taken last Wednesday.  I swapped with a guy out in Milwaukee who needed to be local, and he needed someone who was wearing something a bit nicer than business casual.”  It was a part of my job as an Accountant / Host.  Since my job was 100% virtual, my workplace also expected me to swap bodies with anyone who needed to be local for an important meeting.  I’d gotten used to filling out spreadsheets while wearing someone else’s body a long time ago, but not everyone was used to Cuerpo Inc’s casual approach to body swapping.  Maybe Thomas was one of them?

“Just thought you should know, he’s using a photo of you on his Grindr profile,” Thomas said, handing me his phone.  Sure enough, there was my name and my face on a profile littered with peach emojis, declaring that I was a hungry bottom eager for a hung daddy.  Well, that explained why he had a photo of my body.  “Jake does this a lot,” he added.  “He’ll find a guy with a young face and a slender build, and then spend the weekend knee deep in gay sex.  So, when your ass hurts on Monday, that’s why.”

“I appreciate the warning,” I said, giving Thomas his phone back.  “I’m a gay man myself, so I’m not too bothered by it, but... it is the sort of thing Jake should have told me before we swapped.”  I have to admit, I was not expecting Jake to be into that kind of thing.  When he told me he wanted to spend the weekend out on the town, I really did just assume he was going to get super drunk in my body.  Jake usually carried himself as a man’s man around the office, talking about beers, sports, or his most recent fishing trip.  True, he never mentioned a wife, but I assumed that meant he got burned in a divorce or something.  A thought occurred to me as I looked closer at Thomas.

“I can’t help but notice that you also have a Grindr profile,” I said, slipping my hands into my waistband.  “Perhaps you would like to enjoy me for some fun out here by the poolside?  Seems like this fence would give us a lot of privacy...”

Thomas stepped forward, close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath hitting my chest.  “So let me get this straight.  I come here to warn you about Jake’s plans to have sex inside of your body, and you decide to... try and have sex inside of his body instead?”

I looked down at him, staring directly into his eyes.  “I suppose that is exactly what I’m doing, yes.”  It was my turn to stare at Thomas with a wide grin.  “It only seems fair, after all.  What’s good for my body must also be good for his.  And I can’t help but notice that you haven’t turned me down.”

He responded by placing his hands on my shoulders.  “Well, now.  I suppose I haven’t.  But do you really think it would be a good idea for me to fool around with my neighbor’s body while he’s not inside of it?”

I responded by grabbing one of his hands, and sliding it down to one of Jake’s pierced nipples.  “I just asked if you wanted to join me.  Who said it was going to be a good idea?”  

[muspellssynir]

ADWD little snippet made for my kitty because. Well.

She gave me the material how could I not?

NSFW

You took the words not like an invitation but a recommendation. You did need to destress and hot springs sounded absolutely ideal.

He must have been around of course. People die all the time everywhere, and they do seen to enjoy hot water. You think he must know that too. Reapers have baths right?

If he doesn't he should.

That'd be...

The thought of his hair floating in the water, his pale skin almost glistening with droplets, his knees up because he's too tall for the tub, legs spread...

You gotta stop yourself. The heat is starting to rise up and you don't know if you'll be able to put it back down in time. There's only one train left today to take you there and you cannot miss it.

You pick something breezy, cute and beach like as an outfit. It feels almost like you're going on holiday even if it's just one afternoon. It's thrilling.

You're still using caspers software to communicate when he's away: he seems to refuse to just call You on the phone. Still he at least nerded out again and got you a phone app. You message him telling him you'll be going and hope he sees it. Maybe you could send him a Pic or two over there, get his own imagination going.

The thought of his blushy pout when he refuses to acknowledge he's been looking will never not be funny.

But there's nothing hotter than the way he looks at you when he does, confident and full of fire and aching to touch you.

You taunt him and tease him but he doesn't answer. You can't even tell if he's read the messages: he didn't allow that function for you. Silly little reaper keeps thinking you don't know he's always on top of everything you do.

Still an answer would be nice.

You turn up the music and the commute gets so short; the train stops barely a couple of blocks away from the place he mentioned. There are several hotels around there but the inn was more akin to an old Japanese castle: you almost feel like you have to bow when you get in.

However its people are immensely nice and inviting.

You get yourself some nice food and a room with a view to the open meadows behind; it is surprisingly cheaper than you expect. Not cheap per se but they offered so many accommodations for afixed price you didn't wanna leave before exploring every inch of the place.

After lunch and setting up it's finally time. You shoot him a last text before going. _this is all you're missing_ you write while posing very casually in you bathing suit. You cover it with a tiny sundress and get ready to go downstairs.

You're already chuckling at the idea of him losing his mind, convincing himself he does not want to touch and taste every bit of you and failing miserably at it when you open the door to the hot spring you reserved. These are individual separated pools by fences of reeds and stone. They're also meant to be enjoyed without a bathing suit.

But see. You don't expect him to be the one to tell you.

"You're a bit too dressed to be standing there,aren't you sunshine?"

Your heart shoots up to your throat and the entirely of your body to your cheeks. Well, almost.

He knows. Which must mean that under the water that goes up to his chest, slim shoulders and surprisingly toned arms learned on the Stones at the edge of the pool there was also only bare skin.

You swallow hard but there's still not much room for your voice to come out.

"When did you-"

"I invited you here didn't I?" He says ignoring the fact you paid for your own room but that seems to be such an unimportant detail in lieu of watching his silver strands floating like moonlight onto the water.

You try to be enticing, letting your sundress fall around you but your eyes can't stop staring.he smiles, or better yet, smirks, licking the edge of his teeth as if he was about to sink them into you. The blushy shy little boy had left to give room to this suave feral man that looked he could only be satisfied by every bit of you all at once.

You untie your top,let your bottoms falls and you can see him staring, exploring, swallowing hard. He doesn't even notice the groan coming out of him, the way his hand almost tried to reach. He needs to take a minute before finding that confident smugness and gets up to offer a hand to you.

It's. Impressive is saying so little. And that is not little. Your eyes trail down his abs, the v line of his hips, the way the water covers half his thighs and still isn't low enough to show him off.

You swallow hard again for different reasons. Your mouth suddenly water as you look at his crotch and hear him chuckle.

"What happened? Cat got your tongue?" He tries to tease you

"The reaper will get to, actually" you taunt back as you walk to him almost hypnotized, only one idea in your mind.

Is his cock as cold as the rest of his skin?

Will it taste as Pristine as he does?

There's only one way to find out

[universallydestinytaco]

A Wild Nerve-Ending on a Friday Night (Oneshot)

*mood music*

Well, tonight is the end of S2, beautiful friends…it’s been a lot of fun. I’d like to thank each and every one of you who made this off the wall, chaotic shitposting journey with us. This blog wouldn’t have been anything without y’all! Hopefully this show left us with some good memes….

So, until S3, I’m gonna keep writing silly little fanfics like this! Stay gold, critters.

….bang. /ref

Inspired by this post from @friendlysmiler

Pim is canonically quite the party animal himself from what we saw in everyone’s favorite episode so who knows what hijinks the little pink imp gets into? XD

Side Note: Bill and Smormu are not only both alive here but they’re a wlw couple here, Bill is a he/him lesbian and Smormu is transfemme and sapphic, because that’s how I roll.

Monday, 7:15am

A fresh start to a brand new week at the Smiling Friends charity has officially began as everyone punched in and awaited their breakfast Alan theatrically-prepared while he channeled his inner Joichiro Yukihira in the breakroom kitchen.

Charlie was scrolling through his phone while smirking at old Rage Comics from over a decade ago with Glep watching on his shoulder and making a similar goofy smirk while Pim happily drew a picture of his co-workers in colored pencils to stick onto the fridge while quietly singing a song from one of his comfort shows.

“Take a moment to think of juuuust, flexibility love and truuust~”

Once Pim colored inside the lines, he hopped out of his chair and scurried to the fridge to display his masterpiece. “Excuse me, I’m just going to grab the cheese to melt over our deluxe omelette.” asked Alan in his usual monotone voice while Pim let out a nervous squeak while stepping out of Alan’s way. While Alan grabbed what he needed he inspected Pim’s drawing a with an impressed smile. “I really like your picture here, you even perfectly replicated my scales.”

Pim started excitedly fidgeting his hands as he chirped: “Thank you, Alan, I always find it weird whenever people draw you, they tend to forget or deliberately leave it out. I think your scales are beautiful!” Alan got a bit bashful while trying to stay focused on finding the cheese grater, uttering a somewhat-shaker “Thank you, you’re too kind….damn can’t find it, don’t want to burn the omelette so I’ll just-“ Alan grabbed a knife and precisely peeled thin-layers of cheddar to gently lay on top of the fluffy eggy clouds seasoned with garden-fresh herbs and spring onions.

Charlie couldn’t resist making a cheap shot at his slinky red co-worker: “Hey guys, Alan cut the cheese.”, such was a line that caused him and Glep to burst into laughter as if they where in grade school. Alan, who was serving plates carrying slices of the omelette, wasn’t amused and was tempted to gift the two wisecracking ingrates each an equally-tasteless surprise of pulling a Glep into their food, but took the high-brow road with a classy remark: “Let’s switch the conversation to a topic with actual substance…so, how did everyone’s weekend go?”

Charlie piped up first: “I played through the entirety of this one cool RPG for two days straight then when I finally beat it I celebrated getting wasted at the bar before getting kicked out for starting another brawl and spent all Sunday sleeping off my hangover.” He lifted his right sleeve to reveal the cherry on top: “On the way home I got this bitchin’ tattoo.” Lovingly detailed on Charlie’s arm was a crudely-drawn snake-dragon thing with arms breathing fire.

Alan then turned to Pim, asking: “How was yours?” to which Pim casually replied: “Oh, nothing much, the highlight was me and some friends hanging out at a pool.”

…

Friday, 6:00pm ~ Three Nights Ago…

Pim was sneaking around with a group of familiar faces as the moon hung in the sky like a charm on a bracelet, a chorus of snickering harmonized with the chirping crickets and the hooting owls. They stop at their final destination: the fence barring access to a familiar estate from the common folk….that didn’t stop the wild bunch from helping each other break in by climbing over and slipping through. Greeting the mischievous party was a grandiose pool yard just begging for the crowd to jump in. “Ah, the perks of having connections with an A-List Celebrity….” Pim monologued to himself, before taking his shirts and shorts off revealing underneath was a hot sparkly teal one-piece with a star-shaped hole at the back for his pollywog tail to peek through. Smormu, who wore a pink floral-print bikini under her button-up and capri-pants whispered to Pim: “Are you sure we’re not going to get caught?” Pim replied with a grin: “Don’t worry, love, Mr. Frog’s out and about somewhere, probably at a crummy bar, and probably causing his usual commotions there so he isn’t too concerned with whatever’s happening here.” As Duncan and Dj Spitz set the mood by the former playing a 90s bop out of a retro boombox and the latter breaking out the booze, Everyone stampeded over to the pool in unison, each individual jumping in the cold crisp waters in various amusing ways as the loud victory cry of “GERONIMOOOO!!!!” bursted out of the ever-excitable Filmore’s mouth like a firework into the sky. It was a rip-roaring time with just a hint of good-old-fashioned chaos, just the way Pim liked it.

Just three nights night ago around this time, Pim was uncontrollably sobbing to himself in a pillow over the fact that his fickle sister Amy invited literally everyone she knew to her wedding… except for her ever-loyal and loving baby brother, bragging about having Mr. Frog as a celebrity guest. Sick of crying his eyes out and being excluded from his family’s lives on a daily basis, he figured he could have a celebration of his own! The only downside was his co-workers having plans of their for that weekend, otherwise he would have invited them over for this late-night dive.

“A toast to our dear comrade and member of the Pennsylvania UFO-Hunting Squad, the ever-lovable Pimling!” Bill proposed as he raised his glass, everyone followed suit, chanting Pim’s name, except for a heavily-intoxicated Dj Spitz pounding in his chest and hollering out: “FUCK YEAH ROCK ON LIL PINK MAN!!!” Of course Pim immediately got flustered, his face turned a vivid shade of hot pink as a result of all the positive attention while mustering the confidence to reply until grinning sheepishly and raising his own glass, stuttering: “T-thank you everyone, you’re all too kind…all this hype about little ol’ me.” In a rush off of the praise and the sheer audacity of his actions, he chugged his drink down without a second thought. Everything after that was a string of vague, discombobulated visions of what happened in-between the rest of the night…

Saturday, 5:02am

It was a very early morning when the dizzy, light-headed Pim woke up front-facing the twilight sky melting into daytime, getting up and finding himself floating inside Mr. Frog’s grandiose fountain in front of his house until he immediately snapped out of it upon just noticing the strewn toilet paper and graffiti all over the statue. In a panic, Pim swam out and scurried around looking for everyone else and making sure nobody was left behind, his heart raced discovering more of the shameless if not karmic defilement of Mr. Frog’s property: overturned lawn chairs with one thrown into a window, discarded junk inside the pool and the jacuzzi, more TP strewn around like party streamers and someone’s trunks (presumably Duncan’s) hung like a flagpole like a comical take on a windsock. It seemed everyone except Pim had taken off before sunrise if not gotten arrested. Combined with the panic attack he was getting and the unambiguous symptoms of a hangover reeking havoc on his body, Pim tried to reach for a trash can to stress-vomit until he collapsed and relieved his bile in the jacuzzi. Minutes went by as Pim felt weak like a newborn kitten, prepared for the legal trouble he was about to get himself in if Mr. Frog wasn’t going to maim him Spamtopia-style first….just then a familiar voice rang in Pim’s ears that filled him with relief, Pim’s eyes cracked open as he started upward at a sober Bill holding the hand of his stumbling partner, Smormu. “Morning, buddy, need a hand?” Pim responded without so much words as it was a tired grunt and raising his stubby pink hand to initiate Bill and Smormu helping their friend up. “Let’s hurry and get out of here, unless we wanna throw a party in the county tank.” Bill chuckled.

Later that day saw a double-dose of tea and drama Pim was secretly and gleefully catching up with, from Pim’s mother recanting to Pim how much of a disaster Amy’s wedding was when Mr. Frog showed his ass once again by getting drunk and trashing the place, even spilling red wine on her wedding dress. Then the news that Mr. Frog came home to his place utterly savaged, claiming he’d seek revenge on the purp but considering the type of person he was, everyone assumed that Frog did it himself after coming home from the wedding he was invited too and was too drunk to remember.

Monday, 7:27am

Pim finished with an uproar of laughter from his co-workers plus Mr. Boss, all of them in shock and awe that the one always perceived as the cute little “goody-two-shoes” of the Smiling Friends charity was capable of getting up to some serious frat boy-level shenanigans. Charlie felt as if he wasted his time spending his weekend the same as the last, so he asked his best friend: “Hey Pim, you think I can hang out with you next weekend?” Pim made an innocent pose, putting his finger on his lips as if he was a kid who got caught stealing from a cookie jar. “Well, maybe not same-the-same-place but I know another celebrity’s pool yard to break into! I hear the Krombledashians are hosting the Meep Gala next Saturday…”

[frogchiro]

Hey darl' how are you I hope you are well and taking care of yourself ❤️ I'm the girl who requested if you could write more about addley koffin but you took a break and deleted your inbox.

I was wondering if you can still write some about him no pressure at all you don't have to if you don't wanna Iove your blog allot and your writing is just wonderful ❤️❤️❤️

Dw I'm delighted to do this!! More nasty Addley hc's! <3

Imagine if his parents and yours are friends from way back and while they're not outright trying to get you two to be together, they sure push him onto you a bit because 'you'd be such a good influence!'. Yeah 'good influence my ass'.

He's just nasty! He doesn't shower all that often because in his mind 'his natural musk is gonna attract all the ladies' while in reality he smells of sweat, cigarettes, the cheap booze he loves to gulp down and he generally doesn't smell like the mature man he wants to be but more like a sweaty boy :((

Not to mention the way he stares at you and licks his lips! You were once playing around in your pool and caught the pervert staring at you from over his fence :(

Plus you're pretty sure Addley gets off when you call him nasty and a perv because when you were (unwillingly) ushered to his bedroom by your parents to 'spend quality time and get to know each other better' and called him out on his perverted and weird behavior, his pupils doubled in size, almost covering the clear blue of his eye and his breath got heavier :((

[rockethorse]

Foundations for Families Challenge: Rebooted!

Inspired by an ask, this is a reboot of the Foundations for Families contest over at Mod The Sims 2 from 2012. I've reverse-engineered the original floorplans based on the surviving entry images, streamlined/loosened the rules, and hopefully this old contest will interest some players as a new challenge!

You can participate using any Sims game.

The challenge:

Pick one foundation blueprint below and assign it to one of the families below.

Place an empty lot and build a foundation that matches the blueprint exactly. You may use any lot size or type, position the foundation anywhere on the lot, and rotate the foundation however you like (but cannot mirror it).

Build something on the foundation according to the specifications of the family you picked.

You're done! Share with the tag #Foundations For Families Challenge or simply enjoy your handiwork!

The rules:

You can only use each blueprint and each family once; so at the end of the challenge you will have four different families with four different foundations.

You can have as many decorative floors/dormers as you want, but only the first one or two floors may be useable or accessible by Sims (after the foundation).

You can use any combo of the three basegame foundation types to build the blueprint, but stages can only be placed above existing foundations.

You can only build walls above foundation, and you cannot have flooring or roofs extend/"hang" over the edge of the foundation. This includes greenhouses, but excludes pool walls. Fencing, flooring, and awnings are allowed on the ground.

If you want to build a basement, go for it, but it must be contained entirely within the original foundation and cannot be visible from the outside. There may only be one level of basements.

The families (all credit to @w-sims):

The Barkworth Family - Mike and Meadow Barkworth both love the outdoors. They've always dreamed out having a beautiful log cabin home they can come back to after a long day of hiking and insect collecting. They would love for their house to be a traditional pine cabin, with a gorgeous fireplace in the living room. The bathroom(s) should be simple and in-keeping with the style of the house, and Meadow loves the idea of flowers, home-made quilts and decorations all throughout the house.

The Montenegro Family - Rain Montenegro is a struggling artist. Her house is filled with art projects in various states of completion, but she wants a studio in her house so she can escape the world and focus on her art. As for the rest of the house, simple, cheap furniture will do, as long as it's bright and colourful. Rain loves the colour green, but can't stand purple.

The Lewis Family - When Layton and Lucinda found out they were expecting it was the greatest day of their lives. When they found out they were having triplets? Not so much. Now their three daughters (athletic Lara, bookworm Leanne and musician Lorrie) are all teenagers, they are demanding their own rooms. Layton and Lucinda are happy to move, but want a large master bedroom and their own en-suite bathroom.

The Gravel Family - Tyler Gravel is a romantic, fitness fanatic and rising athlete. He wants his house to have a modern feel, and the wow factor that will impress all the ladies. A home-gym is a must, and a swimming pool outside would be his idea of perfection. Tyler also wants a guest bedroom for when his family fly in to town to watch his matches.

The blueprints:

Have fun and feel free to share your finished builds with #Foundations For Families Challenge!

[simverses]

WFS Beach Converted for Sims 4

Medieval sim beach bums also want rustic stuff! Sims 2 Creator Nofrena/Wood for Sims knew this, and here is her Beach set converted for Sims 4. It's a huge set, including both items for the beach in Sulani (or Tartosa!) or for a spot with a pond and water where the sims go fishing. In Sulani you can easily place the water items in the water, on other lots, use T.O.O.L.

Oh, and some of it is of course not medieval. But there are a lot of Rustic yearners out there! Death to plastic!

In this set:

Two boat loungers. Equipped with special flexible wood from Sulani! :P (You will see what I mean when they use them :D )

Functionality like those plastic ones.

Beach Bouy

One beach ball deco to place on land

One beach ball deco to place on water

One deco column, handy for the hammocks if there are no trees nearby.

Functional rope fence, find in build mode.

4 different deco net fences in different lengths and heights

Two Drying Racks with fish (deco)

One Beach Towel with patterns from the set, not really showing all the swatches in play, will fix when figuring that one out.

Beach Towel default replacement - not sure how well it works, take it out if you dont like it or report back to me how it works out! You can have only ONE default replacement, as usual. Towels exist in both cheap and expensive version but looks the same, not sure which one works. Delete them all if they annoy you.

One Beach Divider Screen (Well there you see the towel and how it should look :P)

One Diving Board, adaptation of the WFS one for Sims 2, works with pools.

One Bucket with Dried Fish (deco)

One Fish Trap (functional) place on water

One Fish Trap deco version

One Small Round Fountain

One Big Round Fountain

One Waterfall Fountain

One functional Beach Hammock for adult and kids (looks better when they just relax..)

One functional Beach Hammock for toddlers

One Lounge Recliner - German model

One Loveseat - also German model, popular on the southern shores of the Baltic sea :)

Beach recliner made of fishnet

Pool Ladder, rustic model

Beach Reed - 2 variations. place in ponds and moots

Beach Stones, 5 variations

Sunshades (Parasols) - 2 variations

Water Lilies, 4 variations, a bit smaller than the EA ones

Boat Bed - to sleep in when you get tired of the sun or if you have to live on the beach (Hey, I know the blanket goes though the wood. Beggars are not chosers. Be happy there is a blanket!)

Deco boats: Being painted, Upside down, and a normal one.

End table, which is a leg bend, but works as an end table :P

Ship in Bottle deco

Small deco ship to place on water or land

Deco Floor Planks, to create walkways on the hot beach sand.

Download WFS Beach set (Curseforge)

Find the other sets here:

WFS Big Barn Add-Ons for Horses (Curseforge)

WFS Big Barn Furniture (Curseforge)

WFS Big Barn Build (Curseforge)

WFS Big Barn Decorative (Curseforge)

WFS Big Barn Extras (Curseforge)

WFS Winery Set (Curseforge)

Download WFS Old West Walls & Floors (Curseforge)

Rustic matching spiral stairs (Curseforge)

Olden stuff for pets (Curseforge)

Happy Winterfest! Reminder: Midsummer is just 6 months away.

[sirfrogsworth]

Looking Forward

If I trust my brother... and he did my dad's will properly... and set up my trust correctly... then I should be able to stay in the house for roughly 2 years.

If I trust my brother.

Then I can either sell the house and use that money for a small apartment or try to find a roommate situation to help me stay in the house a little longer. The nice thing about paying the mortgage is I can get most of that money back if I ever do sell the house. It's almost like a savings account with all my stuff inside.

Let's just hope the property value doesn't plummet for some reason. Though it has been around the same amount for many years.

I like living in my house. It's what I've known for 30 years. But being alone in the house is going to be a hard adjustment. After two years (or sooner) I may want to move near Katrina or Delling so I am closer to a support system. I wish we could all live next door to each other. Or live on a farm/ranch situation. And instead of chickens it is just a bunch of free range corgis.

I tried convincing Katrina to build a pool house, but she has a small backyard and no pool. HOWEVER... Apparently Florida has a lot of "mother-in-law suites." I had no idea that had a name, but I could be Katrina's mother-in-law. I have the skill set to guilt trip, make passive-aggressive comments, and judge how she raises her future kids. (And any other outdated stereotypes I've learned from 80s comedians.)

But I also like the idea of having a roommate. I could accommodate a single person or a small family. And I'd love to have an animal of some kind around. We have a huge fenced-in area left over from Otis.

I think I could offer someone a pretty sweet living situation. I have a full basement apartment that I reside in and so the entire upstairs is available for people to live in. I could charge cheaper rent than a cheap apartment in exchange for helping with chores that I struggle to do.

There is plenty of furniture and appliances ready to use. Full laundry room. I've got a really nice home theater in the living room so they can watch movies in style. I also have a few hundred TV series and several thousand movies on Plex. They get a full kitchen and bathroom to themselves. Plenty of garage space and a long driveway to park vehicles. They can have up to 5 rooms to do whatever in. They could do 3 bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a small den area. My mom liked the den because she could watch her Judge Judy shows while my dad watched JAG in the living room.

If they don't have a family, they could convert 2 of the bedrooms into office space or craft rooms or S&M dungeons. They can decorate any way they'd like. But they have to keep the sex swing clean so I can use it. Not for sex--I just enjoy centripetal forces. And they'll have great privacy as I will be in the downstairs apartment. They'd only see me if I exit the house or if they invite me to dinner or movie night.

All they would have to pay is whatever I can't cover. I'd estimate in the $600-$800 range once the trust fund runs out. Plus the chores like cleaning and yard duty. That's a good deal, right?

The only downside is the house is in a deteriorating neighborhood. Businesses are closing and people are moving away. Our street is pretty isolated so there isn't much danger or crime. But we are adjacent to a dangerous neighborhood and the schools aren't great. That said, while there isn't much around here, in St. Louis you are always ~25 minutes from anything you need. The highway is literally down the street so driving to anywhere is fairly hassle free.

Also, I'd be happy to lend out the car for transport to a job. I'll only need it to get groceries every few weeks. They'd have to get added to my insurance and help with gas and maintenance.

Soooo... yeah, I think I have a lot to offer with my house.

They do have to be okay with my big subwoofer rattling things. The sound doesn't really travel through the floor, but the vibrations can. I can tone it down if they are sleeping though.

Oh! We also have a huge workshop on the property too. It could be used for working on cars or woodworking or an art space. It has electricity, lighting, heating and is perfect for anything that requires getting dirty. If that makes sense.

One idea I have been considering is seeking out an unhoused queer individual who was kicked out or is struggling to afford a decent place. If their parents don't want them, maybe I could provide a safe place. Things are so scary for LGBTQ+ folks right now. Especially in Missouri. St. Louis is a pretty blue city, but Missouri is a blood red state. If I could do something small for someone like that, I would be happy to help. Could be mutually beneficial.

So those are all of my thoughts and ideas as of now.

Again, if I trust my brother, I should have a decent amount of time to figure things out.

If things go sideways, I might be screwed.

So far he seems to be doing all the things he should be doing to get me sorted.

I'm going to choose to trust him.

With my life.

Oof.

[redundant2]

Thoughts on the Olive Garden

Nothing earthshaking or resembling more than a sip of tea, but I found this Reddit user's comments to be interesting:

"I have some info on the house. It had a lot of issues when they purchased it and for Montecito, it's relatively low in price. I'm from SoCal originally and was in Santa Barbara for a friend's bday a year ago. We decided to go check out M&H's house - we both love looking at houses and were interested in M&H. What's interesting about what's fondly referred to as The Olive Garden is that we thought for sure it would be in a heavily gated community or an estate property where you wouldn't be able to see anything.

It's actually in a community with an ornamental gate, but anyone can drive though the neighborhood. Most of the houses in this little subdivision are pretty normal (for Montecito) - maybe 5-6000 sq ft on average. It's not some ultra exclusive enclave. There are tons of kids and families, just out for walks, playing with their dogs, etc. M&H's house is actually one of the few with security gates. Most are just stand alone house with a driveway live anywhere else. Both the gates and surrounding fencing are covered in heavy green tarps and there are literally at least 20 cameras in all directions on their driveway. They have one of those spheres with 6 cameras and then mounted fixed cameras everywhere. They do the ugly tarps wherever they go based on the Canada retreat photos. I had wanted to take a picture, but my friend wouldn't let me so we just drove by. I have a feeling they have committed the cardinal sin of real estate - you never want to be the biggest or most ostentatious house in a neighborhood. It's better to be the worst house in the most exclusive area.

The other thing about Montecito is that the people with the real money (Oprah, Ellen, etc ) don't live in subdivisions. They live on gated estates with massive acres of land set way back from the road, completely away from other neighbors. I was surprised how close M&H's house is to the common, everyday looking people. I would call this more entry level or tier 2 Montecito when the real trophy properties are 50-100 million plus.

I've heard that they have had plumbing problems because it was a newer house built on the cheap. The plumbing or sewage system has created an odor on the property. I am in the minority, but from the photos, I kind of like the Olive Garden. I like Spanish and the grounds with the pool, yoga studio, etc. Compared to Tyler Perry's truly tasteless La Quinta Inn new money mansion in on steroids, Montecito looks practically historic.

I can see them moving back to LA. I heard they compromised and moved to Montecito because Harry was not a fan of Beverly Hills (although it seems to have grown on him and Meghan, each with their alleged own hotel suites in the area at separate clubs/hotels). I heard they ended up in Montecito because the properties they really had wanted in Malibu were out of reach."

[plasticcharmbracelet]

Crow

For @wriightworth for the 2023 AJ:AA Secret Santa!

I have no clue what this is. I hope you can derive some enjoyment from it anyhow?

The sky is the brownish grey of cheap paper, and the dry stalks inside the fence and the dry grasses outside it abrade one another quietly in the weak, warm, suspirant breeze that has breathed unceasingly on him for the long afternoon of three months.

Apollo doesn’t really care whether the birds are scared or not. It’s been one long day / a week / three withering summer months, and the sky hasn’t changed, and he can’t close his eyes.

He can’t move. He can’t make a sound. He has not always been a scarecrow, but he is. He is one now.

Apollo has almost never spoken about growing up in another country, wedged in the mountains east of Nepal and Bhutan, and he has spoken even less about growing up in two different countries, because his childish, snowblind memories of the faraway supported him during his foundling years in Los Angeles the way a bangle bracelet and a broken promise never did.

His foster father in the Himalayas had had little enough choice to bring Apollo and his own son along on those expeditions. Children were obviously at risk in the faraway, but at least at more easily disregarded risk than if left to themselves in a bungalow in the snow for an overnight hike that might take three years on the other end. But Apollo’s gratitude for the trips had extended beyond the simply practical, because -

Because a fugitive in the reported world could wield wonders away. A person could feed promises to the wind and to the steep planes of sunlight and have them kept, in words written on the clapper of a chime hung in the air or drawn in powdered pigment on the snow. 

Because a runaway could have promises kept, and beauty with them. And when he was homesick, it was the faraway he was homesick for.

He had spent years scrabbling at the walls of the world. Very literally, as a child, and then via research and rumors in the internet’s dirty puddles as a teenager, in libraries as a student, and at last, as an adult, by reading between the lines of every job listing tangentially related to Law. His foster father had told him the truth about this, as much as he hated to admit it. Gates to the faraway have irregular locations and subtle locks, and lucky discoveries are children’s stories; everyone who has learned one has found someone to show it to them. 

Two years and seven months out of law school, a job making transcripts overnight, before he had finally seen the advertisement whose in-between-the-lines he had read correctly and whose demands he had been able to meet. A little old-fashioned, the skills required, the wording.

Kristoph Gavin, Esq. A little old-fashioned, the man’s clothes. (Though handsome, striking even, the man who wore them.) A little strange, the quiet pools of tension in the conversation.

And at last, after a probation with the mail and the filing cabinets and the little tests in every detail, he had followed his new boss up a narrow flight of stairs in the strange office building - a fading blue piece of 1980s Los Angeles frivolity with circular windows and half-stories and a wraparound balcony - and into a parlor left over from an earlier time than that, one full of dark wooden furniture and glass-fronted cabinets and a grandfather clock whose silver pendulum only wriggled once in its case, and whose windows looked out not on a wide intersection full of Mercedes-Benzes and box trucks but on this Kansas that would never know Technicolor. 

And his new boss had smiled at him across a desk and a cup of milk with barely a splash enough of coffee to deserve the name before taking his left arm in a blacksmith’s grip, pulling his bracelet off his wrist, and hauling him out of the room over his shoulder as if he were a sack of dry leaves. He was.

The breeze rattles the brown stems, the sun never moves, there’s a pole along his shoulders and one at his back, and he’s forgetting the lines of Auden’s Roman Wall Blues.

In the mountains north and east of Ojai, there is a tiny community started by long-ago immigrants from the same Himalayas, and their spot in the faraway had been a vague goal. Somewhere the rules might be similar enough to what he remembers, where he could conceivably reacclimate or acclimate at all.  But he had anticipated something entirely else for faraway Los Angeles - tomols pulling up onto golden beaches, turquoise Hockney poolwater, willow/tule domes alongside silver screen diners where a girl could be discovered on that lucky afternoon. Colors that would suit Kristoph Gavin, blond and blue and white.

Here there are crows sometimes, circling and yelling above the prarie brown beyond the fence, but they don’t approach. Neither does the man who hired him, fooled him, brought him here, robbed him and planted him in this grim faraway grass.

Over the heather / I don’t know why / I shall do nothing but look at the sky.

A crow lands on him.

Perhaps the wind has become infinitesimally stronger or the haze infinitesimally darker, but it may just be that this crow LOOKS storm-tossed, tumbling out of the air exhausted with feathers in all directions. The oily sheen on it is purplish and its beak hangs open as it heaves to breathe. 

Apollo can do nothing for it. Not a movement, not a sound - but his paralysis, in the smallest of comforts, prevents him from doing anything that will agitate it further. If Kristoph wants him to frighten birds, then his own small comfort will be in letting this one rest, if it decides to. 

He waits. The crow moves up to his shoulder, under the brim of the stranger’s hat that Kristoph had dropped on top of his head, hunches itself into a ball, and sleeps.

Time brushes past, warm and weak and irregular as the breeze.

When the crow at last rouses itself, sorts its feathers halfway, and hops and glides down to the ground, Apollo realizes that he will miss it when it goes. But it doesn’t. It stalks and pecks in a circle around the base of the pole, finding a few bits of dry seed, and something like a worm - likelier a centipede, since his peripheral vision suggests that it has hair-fine legs along it. After it seems satisfied - though how can it be? - it smoothes its feathers a little more and flies back to his shoulder, to rest again.

The pattern repeats another three times. It provides a sense of a day and night cycle, however feeble.

It is his crow now.

Kristoph never makes an appearance from the still, sullen house behind him, or at least not one that he can perceive. There is never the sound of the door, or of footsteps, or clinking pans or anything of the kind. He worries for the bird even more than for himself, should Kristoph spot it, but it seems to understand circumspection and doesn’t fly closer to the structure than an acre-wide circle will bring it, both ends of which Apollo can see.

His crow has never cawed at him, either, or at anything else. It is a surprise when at last it says: “ba.” It’s not a crowy noise; it sounds more like a pet raven in a video clip, making something still a few lengths from music. 

His crow bounces sideways down his arm and back. “Ba-ba ba-ba ba ba?” He wishes, partially, that he could respond, but is selfishly glad that it has stayed close and unafraid of him. “Ba ba ba-ba ba ba.” Something Annie Lennox about it.

Day/night/what passes for them. 

The circles his crow flies become tighter, keeping it closer to him. When it comes back, it wedges itself between the hat and Apollo’s straw shoulder in the remnants of his own shirt. Its feathered-over heartbeat feels fast, but its heartbeat always does.

At the end of one particular circle, then, the bird skims past him and keeps going, in the direction of the blank, disapproving house. It can’t be more than a few minutes that he feels its absence, and minutes are a concept he has lost most of his use for, but he doesn’t like it. It makes him nervous.

His crow has lost its mind when it comes back. It doesn’t caw or scream or ba-ba, but it lands hard on the end of the shoulder pole, where his wrist might be, and flaps hard enough that the beats sound like flags in the wind or a person falling down a flight of stairs. It grips and rustles in its panic, then takes off and repeats its actions at the end of his other arm, hitting the pole and buffeting the air again.

What are you doing?, he thinks. The agitated bird stretches its wings up like blades and strains at the pole. Again. Stop. He worries how long it can continue before it -

His vision becomes a dizzy brown swoop as the pole that holds him upright spins at his crow’s last assault and tips sideways, leaving him at a thirty-degree angle and facing the house the other way. The bird is drinking air on his left wrist, shaking, gathering itself. 

A small brass bell that he had not had time to notice hangs on a string by the door, straight toward the ground, entirely unmoved by the breeze. The rest of the yard fidgets in it, brown leaves insinuating against their neighbors, dry sticks dragging themselves an inch in the dust, cloth in bundles on the ground by the fences almost shrugging, then wrinkling down empty.

The nearest bundle has a pair of glasses. Another is topped by a hooded sweatshirt, bleached grey on top and its original grey showing when the wind lifts it. 

As that understanding hits him, his crow caws for the first time and continues, loud, scraping the air and echoing off the dirty clouds. Other birds, the ones that have never dared to come close to the fenced plot of land, scream back and start to gather. One approaches him, lands nervously three feet away, then ignites its courage and joins his crow further along his arm. They all begin to gather along his arms, all facing the house, staring, yelling. Challenging.

The little brass bell on the porch starts to swing in the air, emits a sour little chime. Two more. Then louder. 

Kristoph, taller than Apollo remembers him, opens the door, one hand raised. 

The crows dive at him, surge at him, in a zigzagging clawed cacophony. One tangles itself in his hair, others snap and stab at his eyes, draw blood from his palms and the bony peaks of his knuckles, though a few of these he knocks out of the air with savage swipes of his arms. Apollo’s and some of the others evade him completely, though, and vanish into the shadows of the house. Kristoph shifts his attention from the birds attacking him and pelts after the interlopers. After Apollo’s crow.

The door hangs open and a few battered crows lie in the doorway or just inside it. Apollo can do nothing but stare and listen as the crashes diminish, the shouts and the wild calls diminish, until the scraping leaves are once again the only sounds half-submerged in the silence. 

It could be an hour/a day/five skipped heartbeats before there is movement from the house. Two crows, each carrying something shining in its beak, hopping out into the brighter dimness and soaring away over the roof for the horizon. Neither has a purple sheen to its feathers. Nor do the next half a dozen that come. 

Minutes and eras.

A scraping sound, not dead stalk on dead stem but something wooden and something that isn’t. 

Apollo’s crow hobbles from the door, dragging a broken claw, a cluster of flight feathers, and Apollo’s bronze bracelet. Its scuffling steps are painful to watch, have to be so much more so to execute, but it hauls the bangle to the foot of the scarecrow pole and waits, chest fluttering. Then it catches its breath and hops flapping at him, falls back to the ground with a sound more like a shaken piece of paper than a caw. 

It tries again, can’t lift the bracelet with one leg. Tries and fails with its beak. Puts its head through and manages a flailing glide to one ruined knee of Apollo’s suit trousers, claws its way up to his shoulder, sidesteps, so tired, along the length of his left arm, and deliberately maneuvers the bracelet onto the end of the beam.

Apollo collapses face-first into the dead leaves and comes up with dirt on his human face. His arms are shaking from their own weakness, not from the sickly breeze. He blinks for the first time in weeks, months, yellow crud in the corners of his eyes. When he sits up all the way, he sees his crow hunched in the plants, staring at him. 

He picks it up and it lets him, and he carries it wobbling on weak legs into what may no longer be Kristoph’s house. He can come back for the wounded birds, but first -

At the foot of the stairs that lead back down to Los Angeles is a scarecrow in a blue suit, its head bent to one side and a tear in its fabric neck from which straw has started to slide to the floor. He steps back, carefully.

The room he had sat in is thrown apart, jewelry and pocketknives and keys and things spilling out of drawers angled downwards from their caves, across the desk, everywhere on the floor.  Black feathers here and there. 

“Is something yours?”

“Ba ba.” His crow nods its head several times, but shakes it again when he starts to paw through the shiny mess. 

“No?”

The bird in the crook of his arm becomes agitated again when he moves for the doorway, unfolds out a wing to one side and then grumbles in pain.

Apollo turns to look and catches sight of his reflection in the case of the grandfather clock. The strange pendulum isn’t a solid rod, is it, but a chain with a jagged silver pendant as a bob. The case is locked when he tries it.

He places the bird as gently as he can on the cushion of a velveteen sofa in the corner of the parkor, despite its bas of concern, then all but charges down the stairs and wrenches the pale blue coat off of Kristoph’s scarecrow, leaves the thing limp against the baseboard and wraps the coat around his left hand and arm as he stomps back up on ever more steady legs. 

He closes his eyes in front of the clock and swings his swaddled fist through the glass of the case. It is a satisfying thing to do.

He pulls the pendant and its chain carefully from the hook in the mechanism, and carries it back to his crow, which is watching him with an intensity that is certainly hope, but apprehension too.

“This?”

A long pause. “Ba.”

He sits on the floor and his crow edges forward and lands gracelessly on his knee. 

“You’re on my lap.”

“Ba ba ba? ba -“

“Fine -“

His hands shake only a little as he holds up the chain and lets it settle around the sleek black neck.

An instant later he has another young man collapsing ragged against him, beautiful in black and purple with bruises purpling his fingers, a man who could be the mirror of Kristoph and who, beyond all clarity, is not in any way like him at all. 

There are so many things they will need to do, soon. But for now, Apollo’s crow embraces him and buries his face against the crook of his neck, and Apollo tilts his head toward him, and holds him close, and loves him, loves him back.

[bluemoonperegrine]

Staying cool on the mini-farm

My husband recently expanded the fenced area in the back yard to include the two enormous loblolly pines that provide a lot of shade. I moved the ducks' and chicken's large water dish to the shade under the pines and the river birch (that normally has shaggy bark like that).

Apoc 🦆 finally figured out she can sit in the giant water dish.

Meanwhile Arma is feeling broody and sitting on eggs that will never hatch because we don't have a drake.

The goats just want out to play and eat everything not nailed down.

I might get a cheap plastic kiddie pool for the ducks and chicken. The trick is to get water in the pool before the goats gnaw on it. Goats don't like water.

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

the average nutritional value of road salt and the inside of a 9 millimeter casing

i have a secret

i have a secret and i’ve never managed to look my father in the eye while admitting it

and i’d rather spit in your face than tell it to you in confidence

the kind of secret you drag bodily into your grave and hope your stomach buries before the dirt gets that far

i have a secret i’d rather die than tell you and you’re about to figure it out

two and two make four, you can do this slugger

and there is glass in my fingers and slush warming itself on my ankles

and you're staring me down with shaking fingers

and between the two of us i’m pretty sure you’d vomit first if i smiled with my whole mouth

and you’re still just fucking standing there with my life in your hands like it was hard to grab

(i’m wondering idly if there’s enough money in my wallet to palm to you)

(enough to ask you to pull the trigger wavering between my right eye and collarbone)

(the odds of it hitting somewhere solid enough to kill me fast)

(the potential energy of a prayer so i can die, godless but quickly)

(god let me die quickly. god please turn the knife from somewhere i won’t see it coming)

there are spots in my memory like cheap film reel and there’s blood on the ground between us

and i can’t remember whose it is

there’s a copper smell in my mouth and ringing in my ears and i think that might be real

but there’s this look on your face like i bit your mother, or maybe just you

and there’s blood all over the fucking place 

and despite who’s holding the gun i don’t think it’s mine

streetlights are creeping down the alleyway like overbearing parents and they’re glinting roughly off every surface they can reach

yellow-white fuzz growing off windows and chainlink fences and a tire well

i can see the back half of a car around your wobbling knees

some old tanker halfway up the sidewalk and throughly in the mouth of the alleyway

i think i'm blacking out and i am so fucking scared i am about to miss my own death and

(i can’t stop staring at the grey-green car)

(paint glittering like soft chalk, somewhere between colors and my legs twinge underneath me)

(cramped and clawing and aching softly, the body willing the spirit to stir, to rise)

(to cross pavement like a dead man, to stumble, upwards and over)

(to rap a line of knuckles against the window, to see if it would break, if anyone is still sitting inside)

(if anyone is about to hear a murder from all the distance of two-hundred feet and a corner office)

(i can’t pull my gaze away, even as the muzzle flashes with the streetlamp mold)

(black then grey than white-gold and gone, sunk into the sea of dark static that surges when i turn my head that far)

(i haven’t been able to see out of my right eye for a couple of minutes now)

it’s not snowing

it’s not snowing anymore

i don’t know why it matters

why relief lives in a clear, starless sky waving down at a blood-smeared alleyway

where my knees hurt and my teeth hurt and i am not in any pain that is going to mean anything

i don’t know how much of me is mixed in with the grime and the slush and the gravel and i’m starting to suspect it doesn’t matter

because i’m pretty sure i’m gonna die here regardless

because it’s skin to cold to nothing, because i cannot feel my mouth 

enough of my throat left to know i am not speaking aloud

enough of me left to shiver and ache and watch you from somewhere on the ground

even as the wind tugs hair loose from the smear of blood spilling into your eyes

as mine sting and blister under the care of spilt ends and a breeze made of glass

and i’m starting to think the glass isn’t real

(It’s shredding my mouth and melting in my throat)

(cool and thin and lukewarm while it pools in my stomach)

(a faint whistle from the mouth of the alleyway, deadened in this brick maw of service doors)

(i am half dead and slack jawed and overwhelmingly grateful)

(because from this angle i can slide my gaze far enough over to meet yours)

and i much prefer the version of this encounter

where you are gifted the view of my death

and not just the view of you killing me

[lunaryrs]

✨ cora and sienna

the metal bed frame creaks beneath her as she rolls over, bunching the cold cotton of a lumpy, years-old pillow under her arm. she inhales deeply, taking in the scent of the strawberries and cream shampoo of her own shower, used to rinse the chlorine from her best friend's hair. an arm drapes around sienna's waist as cora pulls her snug, immediately warmed by skin tanned under summer sun; basked under at borrowed pools. it was a chain-linked fence they'd jumped that day, kicking off rubber flip-flops, strewing their towels over loungers at the local motel. cora had shrugged off the snap of beer cans cracking open around her; turned her nose up at shots of vodka she swore were just too cheap to stomach. she hadn't mentioned the violent swirling in her stomach that urged her to reject her old vices, nor acknowledged the swelling of her breasts, which suddenly filled out the size-too-big chevron bikini claimed from a lost-and-found box the summer prior. "i haven't had my period in a while," she admits, eyes opened over the crook of her friend's shoulder. she peers into the pitch darkness of her bedroom. there's a flutter deep in her belly; real or imagined, she isn't sure. "i don't, like, think i am, or anything," she lies. "but can we get a test tomorrow?"

[huntmeslow]

Roses 4/5/23

Give me a rose I’ll keep it forever. My love immortalized in the petal, dry and crumbling. I collect them like trophies; they litter my room. It was only your roses that escaped me. For every bruise I got a flower to soften the blow. I cherished every thorn, they only served to make the red petals brighter, the green stem stronger. But they escaped me. They weren't mine to keep, nor will they be for the next poor girl. They will wilt and die and she will inevitably escape you too.

But for now, I hope the Air BnB on Patchen Ave burns down. I hope Daddy’s golf course goes bankrupt. I hope you say the wrong thing just loud enough for the right person to hear, maybe then you’ll get what you deserve. But I’ll still look for your rose on the Metro-North and in the bedroom of the girl I let get hurt. My heart will drop everytime I think I see that blood-red hue. 

What made you so miserable? Was the picket fence too white, the water in the pool too blue? Or am I too young, too north-eastern and liberal? My college education and my empathetic disposition, has it dulled my hate? I must not have lived as much as you. Those 5 short years hold the key to the rage I've yet to unlock. You may have turned the key, but you were too weak to open the door. Perhaps I underestimate you. I am happy (sometimes), in a happy (sometimes) relationship with a boy that's not you and I’m grateful for that. But I'm stuck here writing about you. Maybe I’d be writing about razors if I could no longer bleed. Maybe I’ll write about booze when I quit (and I assure you that day will be soon). I’ll never quit loving men like you. You grew like a weed. Your thorns punctured my skin. You cut so deep my eyes watered with saved up tears and I could no longer see the flowers you presented. I swore I could still smell it, I thought it was there somewhere. I hoped if I waited out the sting I’d get to see your petals again.

So there I sat, as I do now, for much too long. But your roses were artificial; a cheap plastic reproduction. A real rose would be too sweet for your nose. You would have ripped the bud away before it could flower. God forbid you let the light in. God forbid you be a real person. Stifle your humanity, because I know you bury it somewhere. One day I’ll stop seeing you in the eyes of every man I meet. One day I’ll stop guessing what soured you. I’m just scared. I'm scared it will happen to me too.