#condition animale

[jhoumous-fr]

Publicité Vs Réalité

[moondirti]

8. VICES

CHAPTER EIGHT OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter seven / chapter nine ⇀

summary: a shower, a training session, and a blowjob

explicit (18+) | 5.8k words warnings: enemies to lovers, training arcs, unhinged smut, dubious consent, it's rough guys, blowjobs, handjobs, miguel o'hara is a strict (asshole) mentor, throat-fucking, choking, mentions of infidelity, mentions of starvation, homelessness notes: well. hope y'all still respect me after reading this

The cell doesn’t last long. 

You don’t know what you expected; the terms of your deal weren’t exactly negotiated in full. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t been discussed at all. You’d assumed Miguel agreed based on his reticence – as you’ve come to anticipate from him, a non-answer always means you have a point he’d rather not appreciate. But he’d added little else after the figurative pouring of your soul, his back turning towards you instead, fixing his hands on his waist. And it had stayed that way, up until you were escorted back to the laser enclosure, still as much a prisoner as anybody else.

So, perhaps you were wrong. You convinced yourself that it was okay, that you didn’t have any hope for your own redemption. You weren’t his problem to deal with anymore, not since you agreed to go home. He probably couldn’t see the potential in you, anyway. A string of excuses drawn upon one common line – self-degradation. Tamping yet another pipe dream destined to leave you evermore downtrodden. And that was okay. 

That is, until you were roused from sleep by the scarlet spider much later. It’d been light, a rest on the verge of consciousness, contorted into the most compressed position possible to make use of limited space. In truth, you’d been thankful for it – to be granted a break from the fruitless struggle and, finally, some cue towards your fate. But he led you away from the anomaly imprisonment sector – opposite from the go-home machine you thought would be your adjudicator.

Now, you’re here.

“Was ordered to pull something together from a spare recovery room,” Reilly crosses his arms, giving an approving nod to nothing at all. “‘Course s’not the biggest – not meant to be used for extended periods of time, but I could manage if I were you.” 

You don’t let yourself harbour a reaction, not before he leaves you to your own devices.  

Because, well – it’s perfect.

There’s not much to compare it to, naturally. You’d grown accustomed to sharing a dormitory back at college, cramped in shoebox square footage with your roommate. Then, when your earth had gone to shit, there were no houses left to revel in. The past year since your miraculous escape have found you homeless, huddled under awnings or atop park benches, and by that point, discomfort had found a permanent friend in you. 

Yet–

White asymmetric panelling hems the studio, broken up only by a triangular window that peeks out onto Nueva York’s cityscape. On your right, the wall recesses in to form a bed nook, where fitted sheets hug a thick mattress, two feather pillows stacked at one end. Opposite it hovers a multi-purpose desk, niche’s carrying reusable utensils, bowls, a lamp and a small first-aid kit. 

And it’s all you could want. Gorgeous. Not conventionally so, no; it’s plain and lacklustre with an air of futuristic frigidness. But it’s clean, and comes equipped with an air conditioning system that puts you in control of the temperature you sleep in. It’s a stationary point for you to return to,  no matter the day’s drag – a place to call yours if not home. 

Not to mention, there’s a flat door towards the back, too plain to have caught your attention until you actively look for it. It has no handle, opened with a slight push that releases a latch, and swings outwards. Given the size of the corner, you’re forced to take a step back – which, a more ungrateful version of yourself would’ve marked as a con, but you’re too caught up in the novelty of what you’re led into.

A bathroom. A private, unrestricted bathroom – with a toilet and a sink and a fucking shower. You’re unable to repress the grin that stretches your cheeks, absolutely ecstatic with the – however temporary – development. No more sneaking into gyms to use their bath facilities, fortunes splurged on soap over dinner. You can wash yourself whenever you see fit, not have to feel guilty about deluding expensive memberships or your own hunger. 

(Small blessings; that still-pious part of you succumbs to the sign. You’re being rewarded. You’re on the right track.) 

Immediately, you schedule your night. A shower, first – partly for your excitement, majorly for the necessity. You doubt there are laundry machines nearby, if there’s any at all, so soaking your clothes in the sink should have to do the trick. You have no others, and to ask for more would be testing the grace you’ve been granted so far. Besides, the sheets look sterile – to lay in them bare can’t be the worst option.

Wiggling your fingers, you plug the drain to fill the basin. The garments you shuck off quickly settle there too, crumpled in a way that only exposes all their worn-down qualities. Jagged rips in your jeans, caked gore on your shirt. It’s instinct to turn away once the grime bleeds into the water, dying the once-clear pool with the unsavoury colour of your recent exploits. Harder, however, is trying to ignore the dried slick on your panties, bashfully tucking them underneath everything else. 

Engrossed by the chore, you’re almost taken by surprise by the flash of your reflection in the half-body mirror. It comes suddenly, a shape in your peripheral that looks like it’s in the wrong place. An apparition in a horror flick – darkened, wrapped in bandages and dirt and set with heavy eyes from days of unrest. Your heart rate spikes, stuttering rapidly even as you realise that it is, indeed, you. 

Or – you and Wraith. Both, existing simultaneously. 

Because it is the image you’ve become familiar with. The slope of your cheeks, the curve at your waist. It’s off putting seeing her again after some time; you don’t think you’ve spared a glance for more than half a second since the day of the gala, when you’d sat crouched in front of yourself, swiping gloss on puckered lips. But it’s those same lips that purse back at you now, unchanged. You recognise it all so quickly.

None of it resonates. 

An ugly bruise mars your temple, a yellowing one at your ribs. Your skin is littered with silver scars, or purple, depending on recency, like the two points at your neck where fangs have made their mark. Stark, white gauze circles each arm, one below your shoulder, the other above your wrist. And you’re… less, than you had been – evidence found around your cheekbones, or across your collar. Your flesh sinks into the hollow planes behind bone. When was the last time you’d eaten? 

Wraith. This haunted, cursed figure. 

You breathe through the discouragement. You tell yourself that it’s okay, the words quickly becoming a new mantra. You won’t go as far as to say it’s ambition – but the new sense of purpose that courses through you works to drown it out. You have something to work towards, no longer an aimless soul wandering uncharted realms. Whatever happened, whatever happens – all of it doesn’t matter now that you’re finally setting things straight. 

Your enthusiasm is enough to tide you over, at least, and when you step in the shower, the final dregs of hatred drip away.

White noise accompanies the cleanse. You’re suspended, surrounded by the pitter patter of water splattering down on the tiled floor. It’s overwhelming – the system has been pre-programmed to a common preference, but you find that it’s too cold for you, turning it up to one that singes your exposed form instead. Your lungs tighten, unaccustomed to the steam that quickly replaces oxygen. Hair plasters to your ears. It’s good, though, an appreciated racket. You look for soap and can  focus only on that, the buzz of guilt that constantly occupies you drowned out in favour for more menial tasks.

Of course, that really only leaves room for one train of thought.

You wonder what he’s doing right now. Has he retired for the night, back to a warm home with a partner already drowsy, cushioned in their shared bed? He seems like a family man, the type to have a galley kitchen that breaks open to a dining room, four chairs tucked beneath glossy oak. One supplanted by a high chair, maybe, meant for a squealing babe; because he’s a dad, for sure. You’ve never known Miguel to be tender, but that’s towards you and your criminal disposition. There’s a sort of careful consideration he harbours – like stopping mid sentence, that moniker, Wraith, on his tongue, and opting for something less loathsome when you grimace. You imagine it honed in a gentler setting, fostered by children he adores. 

And his spouse– 

You squeeze a generous dollop of shampoo on your palm, working it into your scalp. 

What is his type, anyway? Dedicated individuals who prioritise discipline over all else? Certainly, he wouldn’t be married to another spider-person, not when their relationship jeopardises his mission’s motto. Someone homegrown, then, a childhood sweetheart who knew him before he became all that. Who continued to love every inch of him as sinew stretched to brawn, the civilian he once was falling out like a baby tooth, fangs spouting in its stead. Unconditionally, or something along the lines. 

You recognise the notion, how important it is for a hero like him. To be tasked with responsibilities beyond human ability, one has to become more. A martyr, a villain when need be. You don’t exactly blame his vendetta against you, but you’ve come to resent the man regardless. Doubtlessly, the sentiment is felt by others he’s put in their place.

So, someone who sees past all that. Miguel O’Hara, as he is behind the mask.

The provided bar of soap is small enough to wrap your hand around. You flip it a few times, lathering it until suds form. It’s unscented, so you imagine what it could be. Patchouli springs up, the most immediate smell in your memory. You have to squash it down, alongside the ache that gnaws your core.

Sulphur, pungent and sickening as it permeates your earth’s atmosphere. 

Ichor and its metallic aftermath, clinging to your tongue. 

The catalogue presented in the last year isn’t exactly pleasant. You push beyond it, settling on a vague cloud that accompanied your college roommate. Her lavender lotion, of which she bought in bulk. You’d smear it over your knuckles and knees prior to class, comforted by the balsamic undernotes. Light, fresh. Your peers would gravitate towards you, divinely feminine, resting their heads on your shoulder when lectures droned on for too long. 

(And you’re aware of how dead they all are, blown to ash because of you. 

You’ll ask for lavender products, perhaps, when you’re sent back.) 

Is it a prerequisite to being a hero – to be loved by someone from before, who sees you for who you are? You have no one, and you’re afraid of what it means for your salvation. The right thing, in your case, is eternal solitude. When it comes down to it, would you be able to accept that? 

Your gut sinks; the answer you come up with is selfish still. No. 

There’s a long way to go until that changes.

(Your skin prickles. The water sprays right through you.

You wait until you phase back in.)

With nothing left to do, you rinse off. You can feel the rot begin to grow on the sanctuary you’ve built, and with hope to return, you can’t have it destroyed just yet. 

Your room is cold when you exit, recycled air nipping your balmy skin. The towel – found folded under the sink for resident convenience – is shorter than you would like, barely enough to wrap around your bust. That is to say, it’s utterly useless at preserving heat. It occurs to you to stand in place and drip-dry, but going to bed damp is asking for a sickness that’ll knock you off course. 

You’re about to check the heater when you notice something strange, lumped by the entrance. 

For all intents and purposes, it looks like a trash bag. Slouched in a teardrop shape, tied off with an expert knot. The colouring is off though – not the plain charcoal you’d expect, but grungier, stroked with a varicoloured grain. It seems to shift, too, flicking between textures; red, yellow, grey with little inked words, as if cut straight from a newspaper. 

It’s so distinctive that you can discern who it’s from; a spider-person expressed in much the same manner. Hobie. 

It’d do well to approach it with hesitation. After all, you have no business with him. The most you’ve exchanged was a thanks, after he’d defended your plea the first time you’d been captured by the spider society. It seems so long ago now, but you recall the comfort his stance had provided, already scared out of your wits by the hoard of stylised people who claimed they were like you. He’d been the only one to see that. 

Sighing, you tear through the side, nails too soft to undo the top. The contents are remarkably plain. Leggings. T-shirts. Packs of underwear and a hairbrush. Long socks, meant for the boots he’d also thrown in. The only article that reflects his personal way of dress is a cardigan, patches haphazardly attached with yarn. In one slouchy pocket, a piece of parchment sticks out. 

(A housewarming gift. Figured you’d need it. 

– HB.)

And it doesn’t feel like charity, as opposed to Ben’s escorting you here. Rather, his genuinity registers through the scrawled handwriting; prompting a tired, thankful smile. 

You do need it. Not just the clothes, but the reminder that you’re not as alone as you might feel.

“You’re late.” 

His voice cracks the silence you’d been walking in up to this point, pitched with an irritation seemingly etched into his being. It takes you off guard – not for its husky quality, that which you’ve grown relatively accustomed to, nor his sudden appearance. No. It’s how he stands when he says it; brashly centre-stage, taking up half of the gym with presence alone. His eyebrow is quirked, lips pursed in an inquisitive line, and you have to cycle over the day’s happenings to land on the invariable conclusion that he, in fact, did not set a schedule for you to follow in the first place. 

“Wasn’t aware there was anything to be early to,” You hesitate, lingering at a bench near the doorway, keeping an eye on him as you lay your things down. The water bottle you’d pilfered from the cafeteria crinkles under your tense grip, condensation licking a frosty trail down your fingers. 

“Would I let you prance around HQ on your own?” 

“That’s being hopeful, but no.” Miguel makes no indication of where to stand, so you continue to amble awkwardly in his perimeter. “Just– A heads up would’ve been nice.”

“And were we given a heads up when The Spider showed up on Earth-15?” He pushes, maintaining the line of questioning that starts to itch at you. You shake your head, doing your best not to tip your chin downwards – with your hands wringing the fabric of your sweats, you already feel like a child, caught elbows deep in a figurative cookie jar. 

Tension plucks at the strings tethered to the both of you. He waits for you to come up with a retort, then sighs when you fail to.

“Part of being a hero is adjusting. Security isn’t in the books for them.” From the lesson, you hang on to his choice of language. Them. Not us. Again, you’re excluded, but it occurs to you that he seems to exclude himself too. “You didn’t expect me today. What were you going to do had that been the case?” 

To exercise sounds beyond stupid, even though your attire and location announce it as the truth. It felt the most logical place to start when you’d woken up this morning, but Miguel is verging on philosophical now, and that’s something you hadn’t planned on at all. You don’t tell him that, though, because it would be asking to be sent home.

“To strengthen my stamina.” 

“What for, exactly?” 

“If I’m going to go back to that wasteland of a world, then I need the power to tough it out.” You’re getting real sick of how incompetent he’s making you sound. “Transportation is entirely contingent on how far I can walk.” 

“Huh. That’s… dumb.” He says, arms crossing over his chest. They’re thick, built like tree trunks, with muscles bulging along their lengths instead of bark. How hypocritical, you think, repressing the shiver that crawls up your spine – it’s clear he works out himself. You’re only as dumb at the way he looks today; clad in those same grey sweats, a compression top sculpting every bit of him. Out of uniform –  like he’d been using the equipment before you got here. 

(Or, he’s dedicated the entire day to training you.) 

“If you have a better idea–”

“Think a few jumping jacks will make you a hero?” A smirk edges his lips.

Your stomach lurches – whether in anger or a more mortifying emotion, you don’t know. “Can you stop with the questions, big guy?” 

He cocks his head, countenance straightening to one more serious. It terrifies you a little, the carmine in his eye, how fast it glints, sharpened with a daring edge. “Okay, then.” Miguel’s stature slacks, an open invitation. “Show me what you’re made of.” 

You regret speaking up at all. 

“Like, on the treadmill, or…?” 

“Pin me down.” He adds, as if it’s the most normal command in the world. Granted, his mind is probably not as far gone as yours. “Three seconds, and you’ll have proved your point.” 

“That’s not–” Fair skids on your tongue. His potential reaction is simple to imagine (‘nothing is fair’), and it’s obnoxious at best. You’ve had your fill of the condescending jabs, wedged to a corner where you don’t belong, ineptitude assumed of you. If his intentions are to keep you there until you give up, then you won’t let them come to fruition.

He starts to shrug, but the dismissal is interrupted by your clumsy resolve. You collide into his abdomen, channelling all your energy into the impact, arms in an arch. It’s made to grapple him by the waist, leverage in overpowering him to the floor. The odds are stacked against you, though. Miguel – twice your size – anchors himself in half the time, hard as stone against the onslaught. And your stance isn’t wide enough, feet positioned in a way that robs you of the necessary stability.

Perhaps carelessly, you press on, pouring everything into your attempt. The sheer force behind your manoeuvre is palpable; you are a spider-person, after all, and your enhanced strength would be enough to put the average human to their grave. But your opponent is far from that – he’s the pinnacle of what you preach, the resistance he musters now an attestation to the fact. 

“Torpe.” 

Your ribs burn with exertion, body still recovering from the injuries you’ve accumulated as of late. In a fluid motion that belies his size, Miguel retaliates, seeing the futility in your struggle. His hands clamp down on your shoulders, warm and vaguely comforting for the second before he flips you off of him. You’re propelled backwards, his shove sending shockwaves through your frame. Your bones rattle when you smack against the wall. 

“That hurt,” You hiss, scrambling to a stand. 

“In case you didn’t know, grace is a prerequisite for this little spider-club.” He ribs, calling to your quip at the quarry. It would be enough to set you off on anyone else, but the humour isn’t lost on you. Not with him. 

“Did you just make a joke?” You start to pace circles around him, assessing the best angle of attack. His head turns to track you, forehead marked with lines from his lifted expression. “As I live and breathe. Miguel O’Hara made a fucking joke.”

“Symptom of imminent victory.” 

“Cocky bastard,” 

“You gonna keep talking?” 

“I recall asking you to stop the questions.” You run up behind him, hoping your footsteps are light enough to not call any attention to your advancement. It isn’t very successful – he catches on quick, pivoting to confront you head on. You’re ready for it though, ducking under his reach to slip to the other side. His back is open, the opportunity presenting itself, and you spring onto his broad back with little contemplation. 

Your arms instinctively wind around his neck, securing your hold, legs thrashing to follow suit. Transformed into a glorified backpack, you stubbornly cling onto him as he attempts to shake you off. 

“¡Qué mierda haces?”

With half your face buried in his hair, you don’t respond, focusing instead on using your weight to throw him off kilter. Or, you want to focus on it. 

But he smells like patchouli, the robust aroma laced in every lock. It’s potent, much more than usual; without the sweat that usually dilutes it, you’re hit full force with every idiosyncrasy. Damp soil, freshly turned earth – rich, like the verdant undergrowth of a forest. You’ve never noticed the touch of leather underlying his cologne, nor its nuanced spice. Now, they worm their way through your rationale, parasitic, eating away at tissue until they find a blooming incurve to settle in. 

Your gut; broiling in that specific way it does when he’s around. It sinks to your core, right where you’re pressed against him, stimulated by the frantic motions of his body. Miguel hooks onto your calves, prying them off, and it’s innocent enough to only make your sudden desire worse. 

“Get. Off." He emphasises, authority compounded into every syllable. His jerks steer you in various directions, spurring nausea that blends in with your desperation. The mix courses through your bloodstream, sickening and, along with your headlessness, allows the slightest weakness to seep into your stance – a crucial opening that he seizes without hesitation.

Your vision swims as you’re capsized, thrown off course and onto the unyielding embrace of the ground. Pain shoots down your spine, the oxygen knocked out of your lungs dissipating into air. It takes you longer than necessary to realise what had happened, gasping for breath until you land on the reality that he had just used your lust against you. But of course, he doesn’t know that. To him, you’d just faltered – a rookie mistake for the rookie you are. 

It’s harmless, then, when he straddles your chest upon impact, knees touching the ground on either side of your head. Pinned in place – a mounted butterfly, captured in the perennial moment of your shameful sin – you’re convinced you’ll die like this. Miguel’s crotch under your nose, rubbing your thighs together to rid yourself of the nagging pressure between them. Wanton for nothing, wanton for him.

And it’s not the first time, a bank of memories coming available at the familiar arrangement. When he’d finally detained you on 15, groyne cleaving your ass while he undid your restraints. That damned kiss, exploring the plush lips that currently curl with a complacent sneer. They’d been so soft, the impression of his fangs just barely grazing past. And how good those had felt, too; your arteries swollen, bloated with venom injected into your neck. Lethargic for hours afterward, unable to do anything to sate the response he’d triggered.

Now, you’re not as powerless. He’s on top of you, doused in some fragrance from heaven, blessed with a robustness you’re sure extends to every appendage. If he is married, how high would fucking him be on your list of transgressions? Surely, it can’t be your worst, though you hope you’re above it at this point. 

(But, if he wants this too–)

You look up at him, mouth parted. It isn’t a request so much as it is an assessment, tallying every suggestive hint he gives. There is none. Instead, he does much the same, catching your scrutiny before promptly looking away to calculate his options on an adjacent wall. 

(The logical part of you can already sense how dreadful this’ll turn out. You’re not thinking straight. 

You hope he succumbs to your debasement.) 

Your hips buck involuntarily, a rip release effect to your rising need. He takes it as a plea to get off; that which he defers to, dismounting your chest. 

No.

You stop him, left hand clamping down on his thigh. Slowly, he sits back, tipping his weight forward, onto the curve where your clavicle plunges to your throat. You can hardly move, diaphragm pinching in a bid for breath, and it’s okay for as long as he stays where he is. 

(Apollo, meet Dionysus.)

It’s gradual – deliberate – when your fingers meander on their trek to his waistband. You skim over his hips, pelvis protruding to border his V-line – which holds prominence, even under the layers of his sweats and boxers. Miguel does nothing; gives no shiver in encouragement, nor an order to stop. He just looks down on you, dissecting the fervour with which you touch him; a woman crazed. 

His shirt is stubborn in rolling up, elastic and tight against his form. You want to feel the way his flesh heats, defined abdomen rolling in eventual pleasure, but it’s a privilege you don’t have in this setting. You’re only able to pull it out from underneath his pants, allowing a sliver of skin to be exposed to your gluttonous gaze. Bronzed, gorgeously brown in contrast to the desaturated colours he’s chosen to don. Drool pools behind your tonsils.

The cords of his waistband unlace when you tug it with your pointer, hinged at the middle. Miguel makes a sound, the beginnings of a growl rolling up his throat. It’s to tease yourself, you want to say – because the fuzz of his happy trail leads down to a darkened bush, and the brief flash will forever be seared into your mind’s eye. Goodness fuck, if your yearning were any worse, that would have been enough to tip you over the edge. It’s been so long since you’ve wanted anything this bad. 

Pining wreaks a foreign mess on your systems. Toes curl within your boots. Lashes quiver with every ruminative blink. Your new panties are doubtlessly ruined, generic cotton soaked through with slick; you’d been so ashamed of it just last night, washing your previous pair in the sink. Now, all you can consider is how expertly he’d test you, calloused thumb running over your clit until he witnesses just how wet you can get. 

(Is it the length for which you’ve gone without this, deprived of your favourite vice? Before you’d discovered the stars, you’d pursued your most carnal desires, jumping from one hookup to the next. 

You didn’t suppose you'd missed it this much.) 

Maybe that’s why you go for him, out of anyone else. Because he’s immediate, the most prominent presence in your life. A convenient outlet, for all your bad blood. He doesn’t stop you, either, his pinky instead grazing your wrist, almost pushing for you to reach in.

If you do, things’ll change. When they had just settled. 

Your dynamic seemed okay to morph into what you needed it to be: mentor, and mentee. But this– 

This is so fucked. You would rather be anywhere else if not seated on his lap, and that’s a level of dysfunction you should be unsure about. Would he even let this progress? Beyond a one time thing, so that it doesn’t become a fixture you’ll always regret? 

(Does it matter?)

You dip into his boxers. 

(So, it is your lechery that negates your need for consideration. Call it thirst, or self-sabotage.)

Shit.

He’s thick, fucking pulsing on your palm, dry and heavy enough to cause considerable trouble when fishing him out. You’re at an adverse angle, twisting your arm to grip the base. Miguel’s hiss thins to a whispered curse, a muddle of Spanish and English that loses legibility as he shifts to help you. Hand swooping next to yours, he cups his balls, hoisting them out of the suffocating fabric. His cock follows suit, slapping his tummy upon release. 

It’s–

Angry. A blossoming shade of purple that grows more vibrant the lower you go, guided by two fat veins that branch along his frenulum. Huge, too – not the longest you’ve had in your mouth, but stocky enough for you to worry about it regardless. You run your nail up its length, doing the maths in your head. 

“Intimidated?” He says. It doesn’t register as proud as he probably intends for it to be, voice too  hoarse, broken by some unspoken lust. 

“Cocky bastard,” You murmur, holding your arm above you in the meantime. He takes a second to understand what your extended hand is for, bowed in a reverent-like appeal. And, even when he does, he pauses, gathering the saliva around his teeth. “Take that as a double entendre.”

He doesn’t laugh, spitting onto your palm, watching as you smear the natural lube around his mushroomed head. It melds with his pre-spend – that which pearls at the tip – forming a pearlescent marker for where your caress travels. Above the glans, rounding to coat down the body, and running out before you reach the root. 

It’s enough, though. Enough to provide momentum to your motions, jacking him off above your face. Up to this point, Miguel has eased his mass off of you, balanced on his haunches – but your ministrations have him losing that awareness, leaning further and further until he all but sits on your neck. His fingers latch onto your head, cradling your jaw in a similar fashion to how he treated your whiplash, each thumb at a cheekbone – waiting for the opportune moment to plunge into your mouth. 

It comes with the hypoxia, his choking straddle clotting the oxygen meant for your brain. What you can see – him mostly, meaty thighs and a lean torso, with a face that screws up with controlled precision – spots as secondary to black vision, your eyes bulging at the edges, struck with stationary blood. It’s opposite to smoke inhalation, that scratchy condition that only grew more uncomfortable the more you coughed. This is debilitating, the last dreg of stimulants you need to embrace your drunk efforts. You’re drowned in a pool where nothing matters except what’ll pull you out – life vest, a buoy, the hefty cock tapping your bottom lip. 

You unhinge your jaw the widest it can go, accounting for teeth and all. Hollow cheeks accommodate his size when he drives in, but your lips still stretch, aching at the corners where thin skin threatens to rip. Immediately, your tongue laps over the dense intrusion, mapping out the patches where he seems most sensitive. Below the head, along the ridge. Right between his veins, if you press down hard enough. Your usher more of it in, stuffing your gullet full of him. 

How does he manage to smell good here, too? Muskier, still, a heady ambrosia of masculinity.

His balls slap your chin, stopping you from swallowing any more. Miguel doesn’t take too favourably to that, however, bending your head to parallel his pelvis and pushing. Your neck aches, spinal plates prodding at where it inclines – the combination of that, the choking, and the swollen head that spears your tonsils makes for a deadly combination. You’ve been doing your damnedest not to gag, clenching your thumb in a fist, but the sound erupts from you regardless. A lewd, wet gluck – tears pool upon your lashes, caught by the thumbs still guiding your face. 

And Miguel groans.

“Mmmf–,”  His hips withdraw, giving you an instant’s respite, before snapping back forward. “Se siente tan bien.” 

“Hnmghh,” You attempt to reply. 

“Filthy fucking girl. So– mierda, always so goddamn stubborn,” He continues, accent curling with a raspy quality, smouldering at its core. “Never listens, never rests.”

You’re unsurprised to hear that what he really feels for you, exposed in this crude confessional, is just more indignation. 

(Does it matter? Does it really? 

He’s fucking your throat like cumming down it will reaffix the spiderverse.)

The gags drop rhythm, snowballing to become a chorus of the most salacious whines you can make, punched in tandem to his thrusts. Saliva coats your lips, bubbling when he withdraws, welcoming him back with the sight of you wrecked, glazed in salty liquids from multitudinous sources. 

You lose yourself to it, squeezing your eyes shut until he urges you to open them back up again, brushing the corner where your skin burns from crying. His brows are pinched, canyons of deliberation formed between them, regarding your debauched expression with something more than the base measures exchanged in the past half hour. 

He pulls out with a pop. You clasp around his dick’s circumference – rubbing over the tip, where his hole leaks a steady flow of prespend – and question him with a keen. You can’t exactly manage anything else.

“Where do you want it?” 

You frown, leading him back into your mouth. Where else?

It isn’t much longer until he carries out the promise. 

The sequence of events is more organised than anything else that’s happened today. You’ve come to recognise it, an expert in unravelling. He jostles your head back onto the floor, stabilising you for when his rear lifts, slanting his cock ninety degrees downward to ram straight into your mouth. You wince, incisors accidentally skimming the surface, which only prompts him deeper in. Your nose squishes onto the coarse hairs of his groyne, soaked with drool, and his balls tighten under your mandible, leaden in an indication of what’s to come. 

You want it, so bad you can hardly gulp in precious breath. Your pupils roll behind your lids. You want, you want.

And finally – for the first time, over the entirety of your relationship – Miguel O’Hara gives that to you. Readily.

He cums. Hard. In throbbing spurts that coat your oesophagus, your molars, the back of your tongue. It’s sweltering, viscous and thick enough to choke you again – you cough up the excess that doesn’t quite fit, sinuses screeching with the overexertion. You can’t gulp, not when he’s still buried in you, so you do your best not to suffocate as he rides through his orgasm. Rope after rope, until he releases you, excess drops splattering onto your nose.

Then, he tucks his softening dick back into his pants and moves off of you.

You swallow, left with a weeping cunt and a swift sobering up.

Miguel proffers a helping hand, meant to lift you off the floor. Swatting it away, you clamber onto your own, unsteady feet, collecting your abandoned things from the bench, and bolt out the door.

What the fuck did you just do?

chapter nine

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[empirearchives]

Napoleon and Nicolas Appert: The invention of canned food

“Although he [Napoleon] continued so far as possible the Revolutionary practice of having armies live off the land, he also did his best to develop an efficient commissariat. A famous part of his supply system was canned food, particularly meat, for the army. Nicholas Appert had started the food-canning industry in 1804, building a factory that employed fifty people. His method prescribed putting the food in glass jars, which were next carefully stoppered, and then cooked in boiling water for lengths of time varying with the type of food. The navy first used the canned food, with great success even on extended cruises. In 1810 the Minister of the Interior awarded Appert 12,000 francs on condition he make his process public.”

— Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution

The inventor of canning, Appert, deposited samples of his invention to the imperial government in 1809, specifically to the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry [Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale].

He published his findings in 1810, titled: Le livre de tous les ménages ou l'art de conserver pendant plusieurs années toutes les substances animales et végétales [English tr: The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances For Several Years]. It was “a work published by the order of the French Minister of the Interior, on the report of the Board of Arts and Manufactures”.

For his discovery, the government paid him 12,000 francs and gave him free lodgings and a workshop in the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts. Every prefecture in the French Empire was supplied with a copy of his book, and the prefects were assigned the responsibility of disseminating the information widely. Two more editions were created under the empire, and another in 1831.

His factories were ransacked and destroyed during the invasions of France in 1814 and again in 1815. He was able to rebuild and won several gold medals from the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry and eventually became a member of the Society.

Appert is quoted as saying “I sacrificed everything for humanity, all my life”.

Additional Sources:

English translation of Appert’s 1810 publication

Nicolas Appert inventeur et humaniste, Jean-Paul Barbier, 1994 (Fondation Napoléon)

Collection A. Carême: Le conservateur 1842 (archive.org)

Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650-1830 by Jennifer J. Davis

[ekman]

La solution est pourtant là, devant leurs yeux, mais la question reste pendante : la Nouvelle-Calédonie française peut-elle redevenir la Kanakie d’il y a trois cents ans, ouverte aux appétits chinois, aux promesses azerbaïdjanaises et aux visées anglo-saxonnes ? Doit-on laisser cet espace et le domaine maritime qui lui est attaché aux mains de prédateurs forts d’arguments et de moyens sérieux pour séduire les bougres alcoolisés, les délinquants armés et autres criminels descendants du peuple premier ? “Non !”, crie-t-on à l’Élysée, même si le marché du nickel s’est esquinté le profil ces derniers temps et que la dernière fiesta son et lumière des autochtones coûtera, une fois encore, quelques centaines de millions aux Français – qui s’en foutent, comme à l’accoutumée.

Comment parvenir à convaincre pacifiquement les Kanaks que les Blancs sont leurs amis de toujours et pour toujours, que la République – mère nourricière autant que bonne fille – leur a apporté l’hygiène, la santé, l’instruction, le développement ou, à défaut, le RSA ? Le problème, nous le savons bien, c’est que ces fausses promesses n’ont produit que des désillusions. D’abord parce qu’il y a une question de logiciel racial contigu aux idées de développement et de civilisation, ensuite parce que les Européens présents sur l’île, qu’ils aient fait souche depuis longtemps ou qu’ils y séjournent depuis peu, captent fort justement la plupart des moyens de développement insulaires et métropolitains. Au final, le tableau local est identique à celui présenté dans l’Hexagone, dès lors que l’on compare les abrutis pullulant en banlieue au reste de la population française ou assimilée. D’un côté, l’illettrisme, l’ultra-violence, la haine du Blanc et de l’autre, une vie organisée, structurée et globalement légaliste. La différence – et Dieu sait qu’elle est considérable – tient à ce que les Caldoches et la plupart des Zoreilles sont armés jusqu’aux dents, du moins le sont-ils autant que les hyènes ivres de colère qui leur font face.

Alors, cette solution si évidente ? Si l’on part du principe que la cohabitation entre les communautés n’est plus possible dans le cadre constitutionnel français, que les Kanaks souhaitent voir disparaître de leur horizon la leucocratie locale et que les Blancs comptent bien rester sur le Caillou, cette solution s’appelle “Gaza”.

Bon sang, mais c’est bien sûr ! Organisons le débarquement de forces armées suffisantes pour nettoyer la partie sud de l’île dans un premier temps, puis ratissons tranquillement le territoire en remontant vers le nord, ce qui provoquera l’exil apocalyptique de l’indigénat. Arrivés à la pointe septentrionnale, les effectifs armés de la métropole compteront les survivants et les inviteront à se regrouper sur l’île d’Ouvéa où ils pourront avantageusement retourner à l’âge de pierre tout en célébrant le culte de la grotte éponyme, haut lieu de la résistance kanaque.

J’en entends qui disent que la France aurait dès lors sur le dos une bonne partie de l’opinion publique mondiale, qui la taxerait de puissance coloniale tyrannique, de dictature anti-humanitaire, d’État racialo-raciste, etc. Certes. Il faudrait alors brandir le joker ultime : la conversion au judaïsme de l’ensemble de l’exécutif, acte volontaire et éclairé qui permettrait dès lors de revendiquer bien des souffrances passées, condition requise pour brandir à la face des détracteurs le spectre de l’antisémitisme. Les médias, même les plus ouvertement hostiles, reprendraient deux fois du gâteau et tout rentrerait dans l’ordre. On ne parlerait plus de “crimes contre l’humanité”, mais tout au plus de “maltraitance animale”. L’ensemble de la classe politique française convertie se réjouirait et la question néo-calédonienne serait résolue sans plus d’atermoiement ni d’à-peu-près.

Shalom, les Kanaks !

J.-M. M.

[mali-umkin]

Concernant le bien-être animal : les différents partis candidats aux élections européennes évalués par L214

Chaque liste politique a notamment été évaluée sur 5 demandes essentielles portées par L214 :

doubler la part de protéines végétales dans l’alimentation ;

diviser par deux le nombre d’animaux terrestres tués ;

diviser par deux le nombre d’animaux aquatiques tués ;

créer un contexte institutionnel favorable à la condition animale ;

mettre fin aux pires pratiques d’élevage.

[augustin-martelette]

Pépée au bras de Léo Ferré en 1962. © Crédit photo : PHOTO JEAN-PIERRE SUDRE/LEEMAGEPHOTO “Pépée et Léo, c’est une histoire d’amour qui durera en tout et pour tout sept petites années. Sept ans de bonheur sans failles qui commencent un beau matin de 1961. A l’Alhambra, cabaret de music-hall parisien, un brave homme passe en première partie de Léo Ferré. Un numéro de saltimbanque où la vedette est une femelle chimpanzé de 5 ans et de 5 kg, prénommée Pépée. Coup de foudre immédiat ! Léo est touché au cœur. Il décide d’acheter le singe puis de le faire vivre chez lui. C’est une époque où l’on commence à se soucier davantage de la condition animale et le chanteur comprend vite que sa guenon a besoin d’espace.“ (Le Jardin de mes étoiles) Hélas, l’histoire finit très mal...

[tijuanaus]

[…] considérer l'homme en tant que principalement un animal qui se sert d'outils revient à négliger les principaux chapitres de l'histoire humaine. Par opposition à cette notion sclérosée, je développerai l'idée que l'homme est surtout un animal créateur d'esprit, qui se maîtrise soi-même et se crée soi-même; en outre, le lieu primordial de toutes les activités de l'homme est d'abord son propre organisme, et l'organisation sociale au travers de quoi cet organisme trouve une expression plus complète. Avant que l'homme eût fait quelque chose de lui-même il ne pouvait pas faire grand chose du monde qui l'entourait. Dans ce processus d'autodécouverte et d'autotransformation, les outils, au sens étroit du mot, rendaient de bons services en tant qu'instruments subsidiaires, mais non comme le principal agent actif du développement humain; car, avant notre propre époque, jamais la technologie ne s'est dissociée du plus vaste ensemble culturel au sein de quoi l'homme, en tant qu'homme, a toujours fonctionné. Le mot grec classique tekhné, de manière caractéristique, ne fait nulle distinction entre la production industrielle et les "beaux" arts, ou arts symboliques; et pendant la plus grande partie de l'histoire humaine, ces aspects furent inséparables, un côté respectant les conditions et fonctions objectives, l'autre côté répondant à des besoins subjectifs. En son point d'origine, la technologie était liée à la nature entière de l'homme, et cette nature jouait un rôle en chaque aspect de l'industrie: ainsi la technologie, au début, était-elle largement centrée sur la vie, non centrée sur le travail ou la puissance. […] Bien que le langage constituât la plus puissante expression symbolique de l'homme, il découla, ainsi que je tenterai de le montrer, de la même source commune qui finit par produire la machine: le primitif ordre répétitif du rituel, un genre d'ordre que l'homme fut forcé de développer pour se protéger soi-même, de manière à maîtriser la terrible surcharge d'énergie psychique que son gros cerveau mettait à sa disposition. Bien loin de déprécier le rôle de la technologie, cependant, je démontrerai plutôt qu'une fois établie cette fondamentale organisation interne, la technologie soutint et accrut les facultés d'expression humaine. La discipline de fabrication et d'emploi des outils servit de correctif opportun, selon cette hypothèse, aux extraordinaires pouvoirs d'invention que le langage parlé procurait à l'homme -pouvoirs qui autrement gonflaient de manière indue l'ego, et donnaient à l'homme la tentation de substituer des formules verbales magiques à un travail efficace. […] Dès lors, la principale occupation de l'homme fut sa propre transformation de lui-même, groupe par groupe, région par région, culture par culture. Cette transformation de soi non seulement sauva l'homme de la fixation permanente à sa condition animale d'origine, mais libéra son organe le mieux développé, son cerveau, pour d'autres tâches que celles d'assurer la survie physique. Toute manifestation de la culture humaine, du rituel et du langage au costume et à l'organisation sociale, est orientée en fin de compte vers le remodelage de l'organisme humain et l'expression de la personnalité humaine. Si ce n'est que maintenant que nous reconnaissons à retardement ce trait distinctif, c'est peut-être parce qu'il y a des indices largement répandus, dans l'art, la politique et la technologie contemporains, que l'homme risque d'être au bord de le perdre -en devenant non pas un animal inférieur, mais une non-entité informe, amiboïde.

Le Mythe de la Machine: La Technologie et le Développement Humain / Lewis Mumford, 1967

[havaforever]

LE REGNE ANIMAL - On a beaucoup entendu parler de ce film "coup de poing", alors oui, il est violent, certainement aussi choquant, anxiogène et parfois même bouleversant. Le propos est fort mais court, la portée de l'image est intense, mais la longueur du film délaye un peu la puissance d'un message qui au final manque un peu d'élaboration.

Et donc, Le Règne Animal est avant tout une attaque en règle bien sentie et légitime sur la folie humaine dans sa barbarie la plus crasse, faisant vivre avec force l’assertion hobbesienne de l’homme loup pour l’homme. C’est pour certains le besoin primal et instinctif de domination, y compris et surtout sur ce qu’ils ne maîtrisent pas. Pas besoin d’un certificat diplômant d’éthologie pour entrer au cœur du sujet. Mais point de catégorisation ou de binarité chez Thomas Cailley, ni homme ni femme, ni homme ni bête, encore quelques gentils et pas mal de méchants, mais il déclare aussi son amour à l’humanité quand celle-ci est portée par le cœur battant des héros discrets.

Mais le propos n'a pas toujours lieu de cité, Le règne animal, c’est aussi du grand spectacle visuel, auditif, bestial et quasi olfactif ! Croisement foisonnant et parfois délirant des genres, entre typiquement le film de genre, en mode univers SF totalement assumé et décomplexé, de la bonne grosse vanne au moment où l’angoisse nous étreint le plus, avec en supra la quête maternelle, le besoin de se renifler et une quête d’affection toujours dramatiquement inassouvie.

Nous sommes ainsi ramenés à notre condition animale de bipède social, dans cette magistrale démonstration Darwinienne qui remonterait le temps en sens inverse…

Le plus parfait exemple du coté très décalé du film, est la scène de la voiture avec le moment Pierre Bachelet, et l’anthologique Elle est d’ailleurs (1980) chanté à tue tête à travers la forêt. Un véritable délire père/fils que de rouler à tombeau ouvert dans ce territoire hanté par des créatures hybrides homme/animal, en cherchant la femme, la mère, avec "Et moi je suis tombé en esclavage" qui hurle dans le poste. Au-delà de l’atypisme de la situation et du jeu extrême du contraste, c’est un grand moment de cinéma. François embarque son fils au préalable sceptique sur la quête de la femme de leur vie, à tous deux.

Au-delà du traité didactique sur la condition humaine, Le règne animal, c’est un geste, une intention, une mise en scène. La forêt ici filmée, c’est le monde, évidemment. L’homme, le locataire dégénéré. La démonstration est visuellement magistrale sur l’homme et l’animal qui ne font qu’un. Le message est poétique, avec cette aspiration du retour à la terre, la prédominance du retour à notre condition première et une ode onirique où le cinéaste laisse exploser toute la brillance de son inventivité, qui va jusques dans les recoins un peu glauques de sa créativité.

Pas de morale, pas de chute, pas de conclusion, les images défilent parfois pour elles-mêmes, délestées de tout propos. C'est à la fois la force et la faiblesse de ce film, dont le scénario n'est pas à la hauteur d'une idée peut-être plus choquante que profonde. Sur la fin, l'adolescent rappelle à son père qu'il fut un temps où il admirait les prouesses technologiques des humains. L'insertion fait mouche alors que la caméra du réalisateur s'emballe dans les profondeurs de la forêt, elle semble avoir subi les mutations qui rapprochent les machines du fonctionnement humain… La boucle est bouclée.

NOTE 16/20 - Expérience originale dans un cinéma français qui semblait tourner en rond. Le règne animal nous sort de nos paysages habituels, c'est un film à la fois fantastique, onirique, cauchemardesque et pop et sa catégorisation dans les inclassables en fait un vrai moment de cinéma : rare, intense, perturbant.

[lesbianlotties]

🦖 with ronance!

🦖and don't get me started on jurassic Park as a concept if they had just had some ENRICHMENT, sorry, sorry, you don't need to listen to me go on. I know it's annoy- why are you looking at me like that

“You want to rescue the demodogs?”

“Okay, I know it sounds crazy,” Robin said and raised her hands in a sign of surrender, “But don’t think about it as rescuing demodogs. Think about it as sabotaging a very fucked up zoo of the government in Hawkins.”

Nancy frowned and stared at Robin. This wasn’t what she expected when she shared with Robin her most recent discoveries on the questionable experiments on the Upside Down the goverment was developing.

“You… don’t like zoos?” Nancy asked. As a journalist, it wasn’t her most eloquent question. As someone with a helpless crush on a very oblivious, beautiful, clever, funny, and kind-hearted girl, it was the best Nancy could do.

“I mean, who does? Well, children do, most of them, probably, but theyy’re children, you know? They don’t know,” Robin said, launching herself into yet another uncontrollable rant. “But, like, you grow up, and you look at the zoo, and you see all these animales locked in those cages agianst their will? Sometimes a full ocean away from their natural habit! It’s unnatural. And that’s without even mentioning the cruel conditions and the abuse that goes on under the surface. The disgusting stuff that I’ve read about zoos management…”

Nancy nodded along to Robin’s speech and tried her hardest to focus on the words instead of Robin’s passionate blue eyes and the freckles in her cheeks. “Horrible, yes. Totally. Of course,” Nancy mumbled here and there, knowing Robin could easily keep up the conversation by herself. During a pause, not willing to give up the wonderful sound of Robin’s voice, Nancy encouraged her to keep talking by asking, “And you feel the same way, even though they’re demodogs?”

“Have you watched Jurassic Park?” Robin asked her, taking Nancy by surprise and not even waiting for an answer. “You know how it goes, man creates dinosaurs, dinosaurs eat man, woman inherits the earth. But first, they make the stupid park and things go wrong, because of course they go wrong, I mean, it’s a movie, you watch it to find out if they’ll survive the consequences of their own foolish mistakes, right? But, like, okay, they messed up making up some dinosaurs, but, come on, they didn’t even make the park functional! I mean, the entire concept was messed up! You can’t blame the dinosaurs. If only they’d had proper enrichment in their enclosures… Fuck,” Robin said suddenly and closed her eyes tightly for a moment before adding much more quietly, “I’m rambling, aren’t I? I know it’s so annoying and you didn’t ask for a full critique on Jurassic Park but… Nance, why are you looking at me like that?”

“What?” Nancy blurted out, blinking out of her Robin-induced daze and realizing by the ache in her cheeks that she’d been smiling like a fool the entire time.

“I’m sorry if I talked too much. It happens,” Robin apologized. She added a sweet smile, which made everything even worse for Nancy.

“Don’t apologize. I love listening to you talk,” Nancy said, raching out to hold Robin’s hand. She pushed past her own nerves just so she could reassure Robin of how much she meant her words.

“Really?” Robin wondered, and then cleared her throat, trying not to appear too excited. “It’s just… You were looking at me like… A little bit like the dinos rom the movie.” Her joke earned a laugh from Nancy, and that was a good sign for Robin, who kenw for a fact it was a terrible joke and only Nancy would laugh at it, only for her. “No, not like that,” Robin shook her head, “It was more like… Like…”

“Like I wanted to kiss you?”

Robin couldn’t avoid the breathless little gasp that escaped her when she heard those words. Her eyes widened and her cheeks blushed. She opened and closed her mouth as she searched for the right words. It was the very first time Nancy saw her speechless. Finally, Robin sighed and only said, “Please.”

It was all Nancy needed to hear so she could reach out and pull Robin toward her for a kiss.

emoji prompts! (accepting ronance, avatrice, and wenclair prompts)

[ultravioletqueen]

¡Hice una version de rowena de threnody!

A diferencia de su versión de the vampair series ella es una persona asustadiza y extremadamente paranoica(principalmente cuando se mencionan a los grinvoes),en este universo ella también es una figura maternal para artemis.

Rowena inicio siendo una sirvienta más de los grinvoe encargada de cuidar de artemis cuando este recién "llegó a la familia",ella sabía de lo que ellos eran capaces de hacer y trataba de no hacerlos enojar,pero ella no tardo en encariñarse con el niño y de forma casi inconsciente empezó a velar por el y su seguridad.

Rowena le enseñó a artemis varios conocimientos sobre medicina,ya que ella en el pasado trabajo como médica pero que tras ser amenazada dejó su trabajo y terminó con los grinvoes,también le enseñó cosas de botánica y en general ella actuaba como su maestra,su criada y su madre.

Rowena trataba de proteger a artemis lo más que podía,pero no podía hacer mucho con la diferencia de poder que había entre ella y sus jefes,por lo que cada intento de ayudar/proteger a artemis siempre terminaba en ella encerrada en una mazmorra durante toda la noche por su "desobediencia y falta de gratitud" lo cual llegó a escalar a castigos más violentos hasta un punto en el que rowena temía por su vida.

En algún momento artemis decidió ayudarla haciendo un trato con los grinvoes de que si le dejaban convertir a rowena en vampiro y dejarla marcharse el sería más obediente y no los cuestionaria(por lo menos no tanto como antes) y ellos aceptaron, dejando que rowena se vuelva uno de ellos y la dejaron irse con la condición de que si decía algo en contra de ellos la matarían.

En la actualidad rowena vive en un invernadero lejos de ellos y es visitada regularmente por artemis,ella todavía tiene episodios de paranoia y ataques de ansiedad pero por lo menos ella sabe que mientras mantenga su boca cerrada ella y artemis estarán a salvo.

Ella sigue amando la jardinería,la botánica y suele vender hierbas medicinales,ella solo se alimenta de sangre de animales y de vez en cuando suele tomar sangre humana que artemis le trae.

Edición:olvidé mencionar a @m1ssm1

I made a cover of rowena from threnody!

Unlike her version in the vampair series she is a scared and extremely paranoid person (mainly when grinvoes are mentioned), in this universe she is also a motherly figure to Artemis.

Rowena started out as another Grinvoe servant in charge of taking care of Artemis when he just "arrived into the family", she knew what they were capable of doing and tried not to make them angry, but it didn't take long for her to become attached to the boy and almost unconsciously she began to look out for him and his safety.

Rowena taught Artemis various knowledge about medicine, since she worked as a doctor in the past but after being threatened she left her job and ended up with the grinvoes, she also taught him things about botany and in general she acted as his teacher, his maid and his mother.

Rowena tried to protect Artemis as much as she could, but she couldn't do much with the power difference between her and her bosses, so every attempt to help/protect Artemis always ended with her being locked in a dungeon for the entire night for her "disobedience and lack of gratitude" which escalated to more violent punishments to a point where Rowena feared for her life.

At some point Artemis decided to help her by making a deal with the Grinvoes that if they let him turn Rowena into a vampire and let her leave, he would be more obedient and not question them (at least not as much as before) and they accepted, letting Rowena become one of them and they let her leave with the condition that if she said anything against them they would kill her.

Currently Rowena lives in a greenhouse away from them and is visited regularly by Artemis. She still has episodes of paranoia and anxiety attacks but at least she knows that as long as she keeps her mouth shut she and Artemis will be safe.

She still loves gardening, botany and usually sells medicinal herbs. She only feeds on animal blood and from time to time she usually drinks human blood that Artemis brings her.

Edit: i forgot to tag @m1ssm1

[francepittoresque]

LÉGENDE | La Belle et la Bête : conte abordant à l'origine la condition de la femme âgée dans la société ➽ http://bit.ly/Belle-Bete Parfois attribué à tort à Perrault, le conte « La Belle et la Bête » est popularisé en 1757 par l’auteur s’adressant aux jeunes filles Madame Leprince de Beaumont, proposant alors une version édulcorée du récit original de 1740 moqueur, railleur, critique et réprobateur composé par Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve qui avait puisé dans son propre vécu et mettait en scène une Bête plus animale et une Belle moins innocente

[baki-tiene-un-simp]

If they had animals, what type would it be? ❤️

(Retsu, Kureha, Kosho, Kozue, Katou)

Situation: If they had animals, what type would it be?/Si tuvieran animales, ¿de qué tipo sería?

Character: Katou Kiyosumi, Kozue Matsumoto, Kosho Shinogi, Kureha Shinogi and Retsu Kaioh.

Katou Kiyosumi.

Katou wants a reptile, I DON'T KNOW WHY I have the idea that Katou would do well with a snake, chameleon or iguana. But I think he would be a better fit for a snake.

It is an unusual pet and therefore he loves it.

It seems that he can't keep even one plant alive due to his busy life, but his pet snake has everything it could want and has excellent living conditions.

Kozue Matsumoto.

A cat would be his unquestionable choice.

It was seen that she gets along quite well with Baki's dog, Musashi, but I think she is a cat person.

She likes how therapeutic these animals are, she would be very stressed one day and simply needed to sleep with her cat for a while to be as good as new.

Kosho Shinogi.

He wants a dog. He is definitive, he finds that he is a suitable companion, he can take him jogging and accompany him to stay active.

Kosho is very extreme in some decisions, either leaning towards a large and intimidating race or a small and adorable race. I know, he's hilarious.

He is very careful with his pet, trying to give him good conditions and a pleasant environment.

Kureha Shinogi.

I think he can get along with dogs, cats, and even reptiles, but he doesn't really consider them as options when looking for a pet.

I think an appropriate pet for him would be fish, specifically Koi fish.

The fish do not need to go out for walks for long periods of time, which he does not have, they do not make a lot of noise preventing him from sleeping properly, what he needs, they are easy to take care of, the appropriate thing for him, and also the Koi fish is really beautiful, I would give him peace just watch them.

Retsu Kaioh.

Another one who can lean towards cats. They are clean, elegant and adapt to the space in which they are, in addition, their purr is the most beautiful.

Retsu will be meditating with his eyes closed looking to relax his whole body, his cat -probably a Bombay cat- will rub against his leg and hypnotize him instantly.

He loves the warmth that these animals give off and how much he enjoys stroking their backs. He dies when it lets him touch his belly.

Versión en español.

Katou Kiyosumi.

Katou quiere un reptil, NO SE PORQUE tengo la idea de que a Katou le iría bien con una serpiente, un camaleón o iguana. Pero creo que le encajaría mejor una serpiente.

Es una mascota inusual y por lo mismo le encanta.

Pareciera que no puede mantener ni una planta viva debido a su ajetreada vida, pero su serpiente mascota tiene todo lo que pueda querer y tiene excelentes condiciones de vida.

Kozue Matsumoto.

Un gato sería su elección incuestionable.

Se vio que se lleva bastante bien con el perro de Baki,Musashi, pero creo que es una persona de gatos.

Le gusta lo terapéutico que son estos animales, estaría muy estresada un día y simplemente necesaria acostarse con su gato un rato para estar como nueva.

Kosho Shinogi.

Quiere un perro. Es definitivo, le parece que es un compañero adecuado, puede llevarle a trotar y que le acompañe a mantenerse activo.

Kosho es muy extremista en algunas decisiones, o se inclina por una raza grande e intimidante o una raza pequeña y adorable. Lo sé, es hilarante.

Es muy cuidadoso con su mascota, tratando de darle buenas condiciones y un ambiente agradable.

Kureha Shinogi.

Creo que puede llevarse bien con perros, gatos y hasta reptiles, pero que realmente no las considera como opciones a escoger al buscar una mascota.

Creo que una mascota apropiada para él serian los peces, específicamente, los peces Koi.

Los peces no necesitan salir a caminar por largos periodos de tiempo, que no tiene, no hacen mucho ruido impidiéndole dormir apropiadamente, lo que necesita, son fáciles de cuidar, lo apropiado para él, y además los peces Koi son realmente bonitos, le daría paz solo observarlos.

Retsu Kaioh.

Otro que puede inclinarse por los gatos. Son limpios, elegantes y se acoplan al espacio en el que se encuentren, además, su ronroneo es de lo más lindo.

Retsu estará meditando con los ojos cerrados buscando relajar todo su cuerpo, su gato -probablemente un gato Bombay- se rozara contra su pierna y le hipnotizaría al instante.

Ama mucho el calor que emanan estos animales y lo mucho que disfruta el hacerle caricias en el lomo. Se muere cuando le deja tocar su pancita.

[moondirti]

𝟏𝟒. WANT

CHAPTER FOURTEEN OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter thirteen / chapter fifteen ⇀

summary: miguel finally gives in to what you both want

explicit (18+) | 8.6k words warnings: SMUT, it's seriously just all smut, unprotected p-in-v, choking, light degradation, dirty talk, interrogation as foreplay, praise kink, mentorship with benefits, dirty talk, belly bulge, power play, bondage, dom/sub dynamics, teasing, angst, unrequited feelings, eye contact kink notes: figured i'd add in some fluff before shit gets rough

“Let me go.” Miguel growls. “Lest I change my mind about fucking you silly, you bold little thing.”

Enclasped in the yawning dark of night after twelve, you wonder how you must look to him. The lack of light, on your part, obscures his harsher lines – shadows smudging the sharp apex of his cheekbone, bleeding to his aquiline nose, where the feature dips into an ink-blot puddle with the rest of him. What you can deduce is based on what you can see; hardly anything, really, save for what’s highlighted by the window to your right. The mole by the corner of his mouth, bobbing upwards with the curl of his lips. The red, acute glint of an eye. 

Are you as hidden as he is? Is his vision better adjusted to the murk? 

You hope not. You pray he can’t pick apart the shock that flits across your face, the spate that washes you off your wit. It’s timidity. A stricken bashfulness you haven’t felt in a long while. Seafoam that froths and clogs the blood supplied to your lungs, draining all warmth to feed the stocks behind your cheeks. Your waterline stings, desiccated by the breeze that whistles in through the aperture left open – and out of everything that occurs to you, what manages to refine into clarity is the urge to high-tail and jump out of it as soon as possible. 

Your fingers search for stability on his calf, clasping around its tense length as you clamber off him. Air syphons from you in rapid bursts – in, out, in – to sate a seemingly bottomless need for oxygen. He must be hogging it all, you reason, dismounting from his hips. Him – in all his grandeur, in all his broadness, stealing from you what precious left you can use to calm down. Everything he does feels purposeful in that way, curated with regards to both past and future, his contemplation on both. Like neglecting to mention that this was even a possibility, blindsiding you with the very thing you spend hours fantasising about. 

It wouldn’t surprise you if he knew this whole time. If he had somehow read your guilty conscience as fluently as an open book, saw where your fingers gravitated to in your free time. The way he says it – filthy language dripping in promise, so unlike the clinical ways with which he’s approached this before – makes you suspect one of two things. Either he truly recognises what the prospect does to you, and is therefore employing it to petition for his release, or– 

Or. He means it.

The rumble in his voice, charred and ready to snap into ashes, supports the latter. And try as you might, you can’t begin to understand it. His desire, if real, has come completely out of left field. 

“Well?” 

“I–” You swallow the rock lodged in your throat, patting your hips like a solution will materialise in your pockets if you pray hard enough. You can’t help but baulk at your poor planning. “I don’t have anything to undo you with.” 

Miguel releases a sharp breath from his nose, tipping his chin back. You glance anywhere but at the skin stretching along the column of his throat, contoured by taut sinew. 

“If you point me to the kitchen, I can get a knife?” 

“No.” The dismissal comes perhaps a little too quick. He doesn’t seem to consider the possibility, and it does little for your hope. His proposition – fucking you silly – feels like it exists on condition of a time limit. Like the longer you put it off, the more opportunity he’s given to retcon his lapse of judgement. This lust born from adrenaline. You’re familiar, and therefore appreciate how short it can last. “Just let them dissolve.”

Ducking your head, you take the acquiesce to observe the artificial webbing that binds him. It sparkles under indirect moonlight, dull white and wet-like, resembling the morning dew that would bud on blades of grass. Thin slivers branch out from the main line to wrap about his more complicated curves. With a more competent solution, it would prove almost impossible to get out of. You reason that only then would you have remained proud of the handiwork. 

“They will dissolve?” He stresses. 

“Yea– yes! Give it fifteen minutes.” You squeak, shaking out of your stupor to see him eyeing you incredulously. “What?” 

“You expect to get anything done when your webs last fifteen minutes?” 

“Hey, it’s not like I’ll be regularly apprehending bad guys back home.” Offence batters you back to your regular snark, conversation swaying until it clicks back into a comfortable tone. “Besides, it’s a prototype.” You shrug, turning on your heel to wander the room you lept into. It’s a clumsy segway away from the point, awkwardness rolling off your tongue in ugly chunks. “So… this is your place huh.” 

He doesn’t fall for it. “Tell me how you got in.” 

“It’s nice. Big. Of course when you own the building, the penthouse is kinda yours by default.” There’s not much you can see in the dark, the colours and aesthetics of his interior remaining lost on you. But it’s hard to ignore how high the ceilings rise, or the wide sweep of his tiled floors. 

“Did you phase through the door?” He attempts to reel you in.

You dodge the line. “Wish you told me you were rich though. I could’ve really milked those rewards. A dog for ten push ups. A motorcycle for a hundred.” 

“I wouldn’t get you a motorcycle if you stitched the multiverse back together yourself.” It’s amusing that, out of all baits, he should bite on the most ludicrous. You throw a small smile over your shoulder, forgetting yourself for a minute.

“So a dog’s still on the table?” Yet the sight of him fettered, immobilised on the ground, forces you to face your circumstance once more. His words, those parasitic words that’ve been gnawing on the supple tissue of your brain, worm their way back to the forefront. Bold little thing. Fuck. If he knew. If you recounted for him the events of the past half-day, how you’ve been following him since lunch – would he be more or less inclined to spread you out underneath him? “I jumped through the window.” You add, tentatively, toeing unsteady grounds. 

His jaw flutters, tensing, though he doesn’t give much else. You traipse over to said window, winding the casement shut with the crank at its edge. It seals smoothly, expunging the ambient street noise until the room buzzes in its own, overwhelming silence. Given the sudden contrast, you puzzle about how he forgot to close it in the first place. 

“You really ought to worry about security.” You continue your blind tour of his home, skimming the wall that guides your path. It’s harder to change the subject now that it’s been spoken out loud, your confession filling the gaps left by the outside tumult. Car horns and traffic, construction and wind – all substituted with a tension that drips like a leaky faucet, adding to a pool bound to drown you. 

“How’d you do it?” He asks, hoarse and hedging a more dangerous accentuation. 

“Dunno.” You trace the doorway he’d come out of, letting the coated stone frame cool the pads of your fingers. “What’s in here?”

When he doesn’t answer, you take a peek. Based on the rough shapes you make out, it could be an office. Had he been working before you arrived? It’s so late you can scarcely imagine it, especially after the already packed day you observed him to have. 

The thought is suffocating enough that you back away, rounding the corner of the living room instead to find yourself in a galley kitchen. 

“Fancy!” You shout, echo bouncing around the cavernous space. Counters and other facilities line either side of the spacious hall, one side breaking off into an L-shape by an attached island, which functions to divide the kitchen from the dining room at its end. Floor-to-ceiling terrace doors take up the wall directly opposite you, backing the table with views of the Hudson river. It’s gorgeous enough that you think about revisiting during the day – when the sky pulses cerulean blue and the sun butters the sight with warmth, painting a picture you’ve only read about in architectural digest or seen in film. 

One where the title sequence jumps to upbeat music, dancing credits cutting onto screen. The genre that calls for a place like this is doubtfully a sombre one. Perhaps a musical, then, or a comedy. Something where you’re introduced as the main character while sitting out on the balcony, cradling a mug of steaming coffee. You’re stressed about work, or the date that hasn’t texted back, but none of your issues will summit at death. Not when your next meal is always guaranteed, or a shower whenever you’re down. When this is home; not just the house, but the world itself. Clean and functional and packed with life. Slated in shades of green, of life – so different from the red and grey hues of antimatter fallout. How grateful you’d be.

But then you remember where you are, why you’re here. The reality spurs you to move again, stumbling stupidly out of the kitchen to where Miguel is likely fuming at your unwelcome exploration.

(On your way back, though, you take notice of an abandoned object by the fridge. It’s rubber, oddly moulded. Bright pink in a similar shade to Lyla’s glasses. Condensation beads and drips upon its surface, the insides certainly filled with ice, and it takes you a short bout of confusion to realise that it’s a teething toy. 

When you imagined Miguel as a father, it was to a child burgeoning school-age. Now, your imagery morphs to accommodate this new information. A baby girl, no more than seven months old. One who might live with her mother given his busy schedule, but visits constantly because he would make the time for her. That is, if the toy is any indication.

You can take comfort in the fact that, if not you, someone else leads that imagined life. Someone more deserving.) 

“You hanging on in there?” You call out, checking up on the man whose presence you’d temporarily forgotten. He doesn’t respond. It isn’t as worrying a development until you re-enter the living room and notice it looks bigger, emptier now. A nest of snapped webs cushion where he once lay. “Hello?” 

That’s what you get for taking your eye off him. It certainly hasn’t felt like fifteen minutes – maybe ten, at best – but he’s escaped irregardless, shedding the disadvantage as you remained entirely oblivious.  Trepidation blossoms like a mushroom cloud in your gut, billowing smoke and the migraine-inducing smell of petrol. He can be anywhere. Judging you from a secret alcove or on his way out, already regretting the salacity he’d resorted to. Each possibility is a shot to your flesh. You hadn’t realised how much you’d been counting on it; to be pinned down the instant he breaks free, fucked until you forget your name. And now, that’s been flipped on its head when he’s…

He’s–

Where the fuck is he?

Trailing the perimeter of the room with cautious scrutiny, you watch the ceilings, the pockets between couches in which he might be hiding. He isn’t in his office when you check, nor had he snuck up behind you into the kitchen. There are a few more doors – a laundry room, a toilet – that remain steadfast and shut. He isn’t in any, though you sense his presence as you always do. This universal force of attraction that draws you in, bound to his centre of gravity, negligent of all things physical. You track it – the direction in which your arm hairs spike, spider-sense tickling – until you reach the bottom of a spiral staircase. 

“If I hadn’t made it clear before, you’re a dick!” You hope he internalises it too. The second floor to his penthouse was the first thing you’d noticed on your self-guided tour, yet ascending it felt like trespassing beyond the degree you already have. Based on the amenities you’d counted, there’s only one left that could be stationed up there. His bedroom. A space that is wholly, privately his. 

And while you don’t know where you stand on Miguel’s hierarchy of interpersonal relationships, something tells you it’s not at that level. 

(Then again, you’ve experienced him in deeper ways. More intimate. And now–

He’s gonna fuck you. That’s what he said, at least. And of course you have half a mind to take it with a grain of salt. Though the credulous part of you poses – a little recklessly – what the harm could be in indulging him. 

In indulging yourself.)

“O’Hara.” You warn, tension gnarling in your chest. There’s only one way this’ll end for you. Anticipation makes it pretty clear. So, perhaps you bark his name rough and short for decorum’s sake. To prelude your concurrence, the foot you slot up on the first step. Then, the second – marching gradually upwards, clasping the railing all the while. It’s frigid and bites your goose bumped skin, licking up the heated flesh. 

Eventually, the loft sinks below your eye line. Forehead looming slightly over the landing, you try to piece together his whereabouts. It’s no easy feat – his bedroom is trapped in the same tenebrosity as the rest of his place. You have to strain to separate hazy forms; lamps from his towering frame, a dresser and not his crouched self. Through increasing efforts, you find yourself standing in the midst of it all, the trench-parallel staircase long since abandoned for a more preferable angle. 

Despite it, you can’t locate him. 

Hope wheezes, deflates, shrinks until it inhabits only the pinched area between your ribs. Whatever – you whisper to yourself. It doesn’t matter, even if the gaping hole it leaves behind pulses, devastating to everything on its horizon line. He probably had something to attend to, a commitment more important than this game of yours. You won, anyway. You hadn’t been promised anything but your own satisfaction, and while that’s been long diminished, swapped with notions of his body pressed against yours, you still won. Pinned him down in a plan entirely of your own creation, counter to all odds, when all you’d been given was a corrupt method and told to make do. 

That should be enough. 

(A lie you have to tell yourself to dissuade from the disappointment of his lacking praise. The need itches violently within you, marring your insides with crimson dissatisfaction. It’ll be your ruin, you think)

“Have it your way.” You say. It’s a last proffer of your will, extended to ears that might not even be listening. You wait a beat, riding the anticlimactic wave, before giving up and heading towards the staircase again. 

Until hands pluck your waist. 

They’re big, enveloping, heavy clutch seizing the sides of your abdomen. The fabric of your shirt glues to your skin where they radiate steady warmth, and your heart chokes with how high it soars, skyrocketing to pump thundering bursts of blood. The sequence of events that follows is tumultuous, a rapid execution away from the expected, of which you have a hard time understanding yourself. You try to break it down – have to, actually, to abate the erratic flutter of your chest when all of a sudden, you find yourself shoved on a plush surface. Wrists pinned behind your back, face half-smooshed down.

In short, this is how it goes–

You’d been unobservant. Too quick after his absenteeism, your guard had lowered enough that your spider-sense had dimmed with it. 

It allowed him to grab you. That much was clear the instant you felt it. Grabbed and hauled you to his bed, across which you’re currently bent. Your terrified shriek still rings in the gagged lull that follows.  

So now, it’s his crotch pressing flush to your rear, closely mimicking the position you’d found yourself in that morning in his office. Relentless hold, tungsten wrought around your limbs. Hips curved over the edge, toes barely reaching the ground as the mattress bolsters you upwards. This time, though, he fits his chest to your back so he’s folded above you, mouth caressing the shell of your ear. Your temples bloat with pressure and your tongue wrings dry. On the opposite end, your panties slip over the wettening slit between your thighs. It’s erotic, delicious in the manner that makes it hard to focus on anything else. 

Hot air wades through the piqued hairs on your neck when he speaks again. You jerk away from it, face shrilling like a kettle kept over flame. It’s almost impossible to shift under the heavy moor of his body on yours 

“That’s how you sneak up on someone.” He whispers, nudging the locks that fall between you away with his nose. The attention is too much too fast, flaying you alive until your innards and secret mortification spill, exposed to the elements. “It’s not so good, is it? Being ignored.”

All you can do is whimper, lower half wriggling for a friction that could abate the ache waxing in your core. It drums to the rhythm of his breaths, expectantly tensing everytime his chest swells. The act is desperate, much like the worm that still cleaves your brain apart. Rumbling promises, blasphemy, about leaps of faith into your mentor’s apartment. Or revelations like being fucked silly.

His voice takes on the same quality when he presses for a reply, canting forward to eject the burden from your lungs. The hard line of his erection stamps onto your ass, roughly illustrating an example for what’s to come. “Hm?” 

“N-No.” You stammer, nails grazing the calloused layer on the heel of his hand. His grip readjusts around your crossed arms, momentarily affected by the gentle brush.

“No.” And if you’d been a stranger to the nuances of his expression, you would have assumed he’s unaffected. But you’ve honed an ability to read between the complexities of Miguel O’Hara. (Majorly for self-preservation, however it’s proving useful now.) The mock is hummed in a husky, dulcet note, whipped somewhere in the back of his throat that turns the simple reiteration into a taunt. He’s teasing you. 

Fuck, why is that hot? You have to be a special grade of messed up to find his derision sexy.

(You’re convinced anything could be in this moment, though. Reality warped through rose-coloured glasses; except it’s your own, debauched lens.)

“Here’s how this is going to go. Are you listening?” Words gather on your tongue like clods of parched soil, too weak to build or nurture anything. They fall, crumbling in great flakes, until you have to recourse to nodding wildly, face stuffed into his sheets. They smell like him. Softer, sure, but woven with the same cedar-spiked musk, patchouli in diluted volumes. Your pupils roll to the back of your head – and even if you could reign your senses, you can’t stop your bottom from bucking for release at the aphrodisiacal scent. He continues. “You’re going to answer every one of my questions. I want total honesty. That means don’t sell yourself short.” 

The squirming must bother him. His free hand dips to your back, smoothing along its subtle arch. He applies just the correct amount of pressure to tame the feral movement of your hips. 

It lingers afterwards, warning you to hasten your reaction time. You can’t manage anything other than:

“Ok–Okay…” 

But he takes to it. 

“Good.” 

Shit. It almost feels fucking purposeful. He has to taste the potent head of your desire, the shameful state curling in your marrow. It sucks the soft tissue and imbues the calcium with diffidence instead, until all that’s left is a dependency on approval. Admiration. And he has to recognise it, because how else does he strike exactly what you search for? Good. Gruff and terse but still directed at something you’ve done that’s pleased him. Good. Planting a spot of heaven in your mind, forcing you to spend forevermore chasing a similar rapture. Your consequential whine is high-pitched and needy, muffled on the canyons of his wrinkled duvet. 

His palm treks lower, kneading the plump of your ass. It threatens to permanently configure to the valleys of his fingers, the hard press pad of his thumb. 

“How did you get in?” He tests. You give him the same explanation you did last, albeit broken with hoarse yearning. 

“T-the wind… window.” You cock your head to the side to be better heard, but find yourself face-to-face with him. The sudden eye contact burns a straight hole through you, snapping your skull into a million little fragments. You flinch, synapses firing at you to turn away, scalded as if you’d touched a piping stove. But Miguel catches on faster than you, left hand unwinding from your arms to instead hold your head down in place. Everything is automatic. Instinctual. The both of you resort to whatever path brings the most pleasure. For him, that must mean maintaining mutual gaze. You certainly feel him, harder now, rubbing on the back of your thigh. 

And you–

The second you’re released, you shoot to grab his right wrist behind you, rummaging for purchase against the determined path of his fingers. Lower, they skim the cliff where your cheeks meet. You think, if it wasn’t for your leggings keeping them together, he would’ve spread open like a packaged feast already. 

But he stops. Doesn’t work to shuck off your pants, or to rip them off entirely (of which you’d be willing, maybe overly enthusiastic about.) He just… 

Stops. Then, sweeps the wisps away from your hairline so your face is fully unsheathed to his scrutiny. His handle is familiar in a way that’s crept up on you – successively learnt, like resilience or courage, over the course of your tutelage. You’ve come to anticipate the dry scrape of his palm, the overwhelming warmth of it. Even so, you shiver against him, biting your lip when he asks again.

Stricter this time. “How?” 

A small part of you understands what he’s digging for. The complete picture, colours mixed and painted exactly how it’d happened. Yet a haar of delirium creeps up around your memory, obscuring details you’ve no mercy to exclude. And if you could wrap your mouth around them, you wouldn’t be able to choke it out with how close he veers. His nose brushes yours and his lips fold in that tantalising way they do when he’s pushing patience. A little closer and you’d be kissing him. 

You don’t, of course. Instead: 

“You left it– ah!” His caress picks up again, gliding over to your inner thighs. “Open… You left it open a-and I vaulted over. F-from the hall outside.” 

“And how’d you know to find me here?” He probes, tapping the firm plate of your crotch, teasing a descent to where you need him most. Encouragement, you realise. He’s rewarding your compliance in the medium that’s proved successful in the past. 

That’s why, when you finally register his request, you blanch.

“I–” The truth flutters on your tongue like a cornered bug, frantically evading every attempt to pin it down for dissection. You’re reminded of the rather extreme lengths you went to to execute your plan, and its aftertaste is foul. You do the only thing you have the strength for, then. Dodge his severe stare and lie. “I guessed.” 

No sooner after it exits your mouth does he call you out on it. In a cruel play on irony, he finally reaches your cunt, swirling over the clothed centre. For a blissful, naive moment, you actually believe he buys it. He can’t read your mind, after all, and your eye-contact avoidance can be misconstrued as bashfulness. It seems so when he touches you in the way you’ve been praying for, delicately tracing up and down. All’s well and good. Yeah– 

And then he pinches you through the fabric.

Pinches. Gathers your puffy lips between forefinger and thumb, made simple by the thin material, and nips them together until your clit is sandwiched in the smarting hold. Your jaw unhinges for what’s either a silent moan or scream. It’s hard to infer, your body oscillating between various conditions under his command. What feels like a bruise – dull, a gradual onrush of heat that laps at your limbs like water on a sun-drenched shore – melts on your nerves. It blooms and wears down to the colour of ripe plums, deliciously tender in the way all contusions are. Press on the pain enough and you get used to it, start salivating at the thought of doing it again.

(Penance, you muse, then shake it off. This delight is no holy thing. Nothing can fool you to think you’re doing it for a greater reason than yourself.)

Your skin prickles – glitches, more like, body flickering back and forth from materiality in different sections. Its consecutive order is the only factor preventing you from falling through the bed. 

Then, when Miguel eventually lets go, you find yourself wishing he’d do it again. Do more. Spank you until you relive the memory every time you sit. Come loose, like when he’d grabbed your face and fucked it within an inch of asphyxiation. You couldn’t speak for the day afterward, and for some reason, it’d please you to carry a similar mark now. 

He pulls you from your thoughts by directing your gape to his, locking you onto those carmine irises once more. Vaguely, lined up at the back of your concerns, there’s the throb of your scalp as he uses your hair to steer you around. Tears smudge the bottom of your vision, blurring his already shadowed expression. 

“Try again.” He mutters. A thickness accompanies it; molasses poured onto an open bonfire, popping as it hardens. You have no choice but to listen, intoxicated by his perpetual presence. It properly hits you, perhaps all too late, that this is his room. You’re being defiled on his bed, on sheets he wraps himself with every night. And they smell like him, but soon enough, they’ll smell like you too. The very concept – that you might have as much of an impact on him as he does you – could make even the strongest of spider-heroes keel. 

“I followed you.” You groan, blinking through the milky glaze that spools over your lashes and douses the world in a layer of euphoria. Though he keeps your gaze on his, you’re unfocused. Delirious. “Since lunch, I’ve… I’ve been f-following you. To catch you at th– what I supposed would-d be the perfect time.” 

“Why?” 

You expect he knows why, has known why. That he surmised all the answers himself the moment you pinned him down to gloat your victory, and that this whole thing is just an elaborate ploy to squander your ego. 

“I w–” You hiccup over the word, unable to voice it. It strikes a primal fear in you, subconsciously altered by the several instances where it went wrong. Want. Though he mouths it, hovering right over you. Want. Guides you into the house haunted by the enormity of your desire. You purse your lips around the letters; the round start and harsh end, teeth clicking before you ever make a proper sound. He circles where your pussy dampens the layers separating you, chest bearing down on your shoulder blades, forcing you to surrender your panting to his more consistent pattern. 

And, as you breathe in tandem, air ultimately supplies power to the verb. 

(Or, he does.)

“I wan–wanted to win.” You relent, echoing the confession when he flattens two fingers over your clit, winding it in firm circles. “I wanted to win.” Then again, over and over, coherency petering out until you’re left blabbering in splintered heaves. “I… wanind. W–” Miguel works you through it, contrasting the catharsis with a sort of gentle pleasure. Not enough to make you cum, not yet. Just peeling back petals to expose a bud in early development. Making you aware of it, of yourself.

“There we go.” Beyond the hazy realm of your current cognizance, you hear clicks coming from where his fingers rub you. You’re wet enough now that it’s soaked through your panties and leggings alike, and that’s him having barely done anything. He notices it too – or otherwise enjoys the way your clutch tenses around his wrist, humiliated – because his thumb soon wedges itself into the divet between your folds, teasing your hole. “And what do you want now?” 

Why ask? Your body has been begging for it, striking fervent flashes of light, rolling between his arms as you disperse all your energy into convulsing flesh. What do you want? Everything. Everything he has to offer you – more praise, more nicknames born of success and not strife. For him to rip a hole at your crotch and slip his cock in until you’re stretched over it. A ripple of universes, each plea and possibility greater than the last. Seaweed lashes around your ankles and you find yourself tripping into the wave, skull inundating with so much seawater that all you can yell out is: “More!” 

Miguel’s thumb creeps away, objecting to your answer. Too simple. Not the type he was looking for. You whine, nails digging into skin to keep his hand where it is, and drive forth. 

“This! More of- of…” 

His fingers follow soon after. It’s a noiseless deterrent, but an effective one nonetheless. If you didn’t catch the hint, he throws the gruff addition. “No.”

“Shit. Shit, I jus’… W-want more– Please please…” Drivelling until you can find the magic plea that’ll get him to yield. It ends up finding you; thrashing up your gut, possessing every muscle to bid a madcap decree. You squeeze your eyes shut and twist away from his face, screaming into the sheets until you can’t stall any longer. “Want you! Miguel, please! Fuck me, fuck me. Fuck…”

It doesn’t hit you when he orders you to bring your knees up and arch your back for him. Or as you crawl to the centre of the bed, thrusting your haunches up to present your ass. Not when you extend your arms in front of your bowed head, and he peels your shirt off to your wrists, twisting it so both are forced together, keeping you bound and in one position. You’re too lost in the woes of titillation – manna sliding down your gullet – to process what you said. Food to feed a thousand. Forever sustained. Godsent. The evidence of it smeared over your chin in drool, over the swollen mound of your sex as he pares off your pants. There’s no space for it as cool air hits you, or when he grabs either ass cheek and pulls them apart to inspect your readiness. No space for anything apart from the thrill blistering down your spine.

So–

No. It doesn’t hit you (for all that it should) that this is the first time you say his name out loud. Not when it feels so right. A perfect seal, trim to the edges of this molten encounter.

(Much, much later though, you’ll wake up in a cold sweat with it still flaming on your tongue. Miguel. Miguel. And when you sober up, turn the memory over in your mind, you’ll clasp your chest while it flops rebelliously, betraying the fact that – despite your mortification – you’ll want to say it again. 

And again. And again.)

Given the makeshift handcuffs, there’s not much you can do besides knot your knuckles into his sheets, clinging on against heavenly ascension. There’s a shuffle, the sound of fabric rustling as his one hand remains on your rear, kneading the tacky softness of it as if to say hold on. You moan in spite of it, wiggling your hips impatiently. You’ve waited enough. Evidence to your arousal coats your inner thighs, dribbling from your clenching hole and carving a line down the already damp-with-sweat skin. He, better than even you, should be able to see that. 

A hazy picture refines in your mind’s eye in the meanwhile. This scene, reimagined through his perspective. It’s tinged with the liberties of your own ignorance – the extent of your vision ending where your forehead nuzzles into his comforter – but succeeds in that it builds itself off barebone facts. Where night still rages on, dousing everything in parallel values. Navy, black, grey – broken up only by the lurid blue light that would highlight your edges, streaming from the sloped windows on your right. It’d offer a vague suggestion of your form; curves folded in a pose resembling a cat’s stretch, rounding where your glutes plummet to anchored knees. They spread obscenely wide, affording him your unobstructed cunt.

“M- Mmf, pmfeeease. J-jutht… just fuck me already, you b-bastard. Need it so bad.” You wail. The scent of patchouli that had swamped his bed has since been watered down by brine – tears and saliva that mottle your face, glossing it with a sort of wetness that has you sniffing, heaving through the suffocating layer. You’re thankful he stays crouched behind you. If he has to witness your desperation, then let it retain a modicum of attractiveness, in contrast to the pathetic display up front. 

“Need it?” He taunts, tapping his cock on your clit. It’s done lightly, the heft of it controlled in his grip. Nevermind, you lapse. You wish you were laying on your back instead, neck propped on a pillow as you crane to watch the gorgeous thing sway between his legs. You haven’t seen it since you’d sucked him off. It’s always been about you; your pleasure, your satisfaction – not that you haven’t tried to return the favour. Several occasions had you reaching for the bulge in his pants, glowing in a post-orgasm high, only to get swatted away to continue whatever the two of you were working on that day. 

“Shhh-Shut up! Oh my God, I–” Your temper wanes, a crack splitting its centre, threatening to expand with every hit he aims at it. His length glides between your folds now, absorbing the searing heat like he has any reason to stall further. If you’d been closer to your inhibitions, you’d think he’s hesitant to do it with you – but lust isn’t always an inebriating force. You’re honed in on other matters; the leaden heaviness he grinds on you, fully stiff and about to burst. The way it slips, up and down and back up again, veins catching on every crevice. It’s plenty of indication that he’s as far gone. “Keep t-t-teasing and I’ll… I’ll le-eave.” 

“Mhm.” He huffs, but tugs on one side of your ass to pry it further apart. You don’t understand why until he repositions his tip to catch onto the brim of your hole. “I don’t think you will.” 

And then he bottoms out. 

In one, swift move. Wholly plunges in, groyne slamming your behind with a force that strikes the air straight from your throat. Your jaw falls open, meant for a scream that becomes a wheeze instead, energy diverting to better serve the effort of taking him in. You were under no illusion to his size, his cock searing bright in your memory. Long, thrumming, thicker than what you can wrap your hand around. But it’s almost like he’s gotten larger, somehow – nourished by your walls that squelch and suck him in deeper. The skin around your opening aches like a taut elastic, stinging with the stretch, and in a completely contradictory condition, you wish he should’ve gone slower. Allowed you the time to adapt.

As though he senses your affliction, he returns to your clit, easing things by flicking the swollen bud while he steadily draws back out. Your pussy sheathes every ridge, every vein that adorns his ample muscle, rippling until just his head plugs you shut. 

“Solid?” He checks. And it’s so unlike the croons he’s used thus far, so much more like him, that it polishes you up to a clearer state. Sniffing, you count the sensations battering you from all angles. The tension headache. The pressure at your core. The undefinable pleasure buzzing from where his cock continues to stuff you. 

It’s better than you could’ve imagined. Intense, yes, but in varying multitudes. None of your begging had taken that into account. You’re no virgin, yet all the people you’d slept with before had been strangers. Back then, it had seemed absurd that things could feel any different when sex sprouted from rich history. (Pleasure is pleasure.) Or more satisfying when, at each thrust, you’re preoccupied with the person behind them and not your own, selfish desires. (Because what could matter more than your next fix?)

It startles you that Miguel is the first non-stranger you’ll get to know in that way. In different ways. With every wave of pleasure, he proves your previous experiences wrong. Cups the foundations of your worldview and slips them over one another; breaks the ground and crust in magnitudes. Rolls an electric ruin on the valley of your legs. 

Though, you suppose, that’s always been his role. 

(Non-stranger because there isn’t any other word for what you mean to each other. Not friends. Nor lovers. Dancing the wary line between all plights, concurrently. Foolishly. One trip and you’ll find yourself barrelling down onto a term you’re not ready for.

But for now–)

For now. 

You shake the tangent off and harrow out a playfulness that got lost in the mix. It flips and curls like a ribbon, bouncing around in your gut, generating the courage necessary for you to push your hips back on him. As you do, you note that it’s just as much of an adjustment the second time. Swifter, smoother now that he’s lubed with your natural slick, but he bulges thicker midway, and it takes force to push past that on your own. Once you manage though, your eager cunt engulfs the rest with ease, seating you on the base. You make sure he has no room to pull out, wiggling onto his crotch until he’s nestled right against your cervix.

Dragging your arms back until you’re situated on your elbows, your neck twists to the side, a wry smile winding across your cheeks. His eyes are closed, fluttering, grappling with your tight clutch. You speak anyway. “You plan on warming your dick forever? Or are you gonna fu–ungh.”

He’s quick. You’re barely able to perceive the furrowing of his brows before he dives to wrap his arms around your midriff. Chest slotting neatly onto your back, hand grinding onto your lower belly, feeling for where his cock dents as he snaps his pelvis back and thrusts into you. Or– doesn’t thrust so much as he manhandles, slamming you back and forth onto the ample breadth. Brutally done, rough in all the right ways. It spurs him, you realise. This back and forth. Snatching the power from him like a bone from a dog, throwing it out for him to fetch. It makes it all the more rewarding, perhaps, when you bend and break and become the dog yourself, snarling under his heavy pet. He’d take greater satisfaction that way, boiling you down to a keening mess. 

Which he does, in record time. Nose mashing onto your shoulder blade and fangs extended to skim the flesh there. He kneads your clit and targets a very specific part of you – that patch of spongy tissue on the flipside of your mound – pounding until it memorises the mushroomed shape of his tip. It should hurt. The sounds spilling from you are those of a wounded animal, snivelling like every inhale is your last. The expanse where your bodies meet should rub abrasively, but you’re both sweaty enough that it’s a frictionless process. And you’re both sweaty – both, because he’s affected by this too. Up from his pelvis, to his palms, to his pecs. Bare pecs. 

He’s shirtless. 

You don’t know how you missed it. Like a shot of espresso as warm as the naked muscle that cradles you; he’s shirtless. Your moans escalate, cranking to a higher octave. They fluctuate, thumping in your lungs to the sharp beat of his pumps. There was no reason for him to strip. Your shirt was used to keep your wrists fastened, and your bra still cups each breast. Your nudity is a given, as it’s always been, but there could be no purpose behind his. Not if what you assumed is true, about power play and how it turns him on. If anything, this only knocks him down to an equal peg. You’re on level ground. 

Not that you’re complaining, of course. As it stands, you can feel every part of him. His body is a furnace, rolling coals onto your own, enveloping you all around. Forearm barring your tits, pure brawn keeping you from peeling your frame off his. Abs grate across your back, happy trail chafing the small of it, the vale running along the centre. He noses your shoulder, doesn’t kiss. Just runs his chin and teeth along the curve of it, groaning inaudible phrases in both English and Spanish, of which you strain to pick up on. You want to hear it. To be closer, to be privy to what he has to say about you. About this. To crack open his mind and pick his complicated psyche for the tasting. 

And– 

And maybe he wants that, too. Maybe he took his top off to feel closer in the most material sense. You won’t fool yourself into thinking he holds similar admiration, but your body has gained definition in the past weeks. Physically, you’re more spider-hero than you’ve ever been. It wouldn’t surprise you if that’s what’s got him going. The fruits of his labour. Your progress. With the way he takes in your form, all the questions, his demeanour cleans up to seem vaguely… proud. 

Proud. 

Is that it? Did he ask you to recount your achievements because he’s pleased with you? Don’t sell yourself short. That’s what he said when forwarding his interrogation. It would make sense – for all that it settles at the forefront of your brain, refusing to dissolve.

But God, you think, it doesn’t even need to be true. The mere notion lights your nerves until they whistle like soaring fireworks. You watch as pyrotechnics burst behind your eyes, lashes drooping with tears, jaw strained as you clench your teeth. Miguel fucks in short, hard pegs, forgoing pulling out all the way to instead beat your g-spot in rapid succession. His breath bursts hot and heavy, lips – those perfect, full lips – pressed to the shell of your ear. He’s stroking your sore clit with three fingers now. 

“Ay, mierda. Shit.” He curses. “I-Is this it, huh? Is this what… all I had to do to shut you up, you needy little thing? A good fucking. Just a little attention and you-you’re happy.” 

“Nnnngh. M-Mi… Puh-ple–” 

“No. I want to hear it.” He squishes your cheeks together, squeezing with one large hand. When you try to speak again, your words come out slurred. “Use your words.” The grip guides your head back until you can catch his gaze in your peripheral. He’s already looking at you. 

“G-Gon…” 

“Hm.” 

“C-cuuuu… mmuh uh uh–” 

“All together now.” He picks up pace, practically battering your insides. It’s enough to threaten your enhanced healing, bruising your walls at a quicker rate than it can work. You’ll hurt in the morning, you’re sure.

(At least, you hope you do.)

“Gon’ugh cum. Gonna– Mig… Please.” 

Your spine goes rigid. Blood rushes to your head. 

“Do it, then. Go on. Fuck.” His middle and forefinger push past your mouth, hooking behind your teeth to hold it open. “Cum. Cum on my cock, p-pretty.” 

The world burns white-hot and bright. You can’t see, can hardly feel him anymore. Just that word, branded onto your skull where it’ll stay forevermore. Pretty. He thinks you’re pretty; or is otherwise too wrapped up in the moment to dispute the intrusive conviction. It should be concerning that you don’t care either way. That, in any reality, it still bestrews a kaleidoscope of butterflies in your gut. Your insides flutter with them, frantic and galvanised at the deluge of dopamine, flooding through every synapse until everything, everything, becomes about the high. 

Your orgasm finds you a ragdoll in his arms. Bones liquid, riding the wave that continues to scroll over. He doesn’t stop jackhammering into your spent pussy, still seeking his and draining you of all the evidence of your devastation in the process. You’ve no doubt soaked his lap. That’s if the noises are any indication, downright sloppy from where you’re attached. Schlicks and slaps and low grunts that tell you he’s close. 

Before that happens, though, you’re flipped over on your back. He holds your legs together and pushes them high so your ankles sway mid-air. You’re tighter like this – something even you can feel when he re-enters you, cock cleaving you apart. Another, weaker orgasm pulses in your core. You’ve no energy to voice it, let alone moan. It’s all you can do to take him in. The striking sight he’s allowed you access to.

Not as bronzed in this lighting, but fit just the same. Grainy shadows stretch around the canyons formed by sinew, delineating the anatomy of his torso as though it senses your ogling. He’s huge. Bigger, brawnier when not constricted in a tight top. With arms that curve and cut perfectly into his broad chest, bridged by shoulders that seem to have a life of their own. They provide a golden ratio to the trim angle of his waist, partially hidden behind your thighs. 

A curl falls over his forehead. It’s heavy with sweat. His palm crushes into your flesh. 

“Inside.” You croak, exercising the title that started this all. Bold. 

“No me haga eso.” He shakes his head, pinching his eyes shut. “I–” 

“Y-You sca…scared?” 

“Fuck�� Fuck!” 

It’s misleading. You’d think – with how his voice breaks, winded and tight – that he’s about to accede. Burst and pipe you full of his seed. But he pulls out, dropping your legs to scramble on top of them. A trade off, you reason. It’s hard to rue with disappointment when his cock finally makes an appearance, fat and heavy in his hand. Your palate immediately salivates with the thought of sucking him clean after this is all over, putting your talents to good use. Maybe, if you do good, he’ll soften enough to call you pretty once more. 

That’s getting ahead of yourself, though. 

Miguel cups your neck, pinching either side to cut your oxygen supply. Your vision dots with stars – black holes and supernovas, dying suns blazing on your eyelids. It’s the combination of everything; the victory, the suffocation, the weight and magnitude of his presence. The sheets you lay on, the room you occupy, the heights you leapt across. They weave to create a shroud that slowly descends on your consciousness. 

You don’t pass out, but you’re barely lucid when he spurts out onto your stomach. Dense, searing fluid coats your skin, pooling into your belly button and reaching the ravine between your breasts. 

“I’m–” Voice hoarse, you cough to rid of its scratch. “You c-coulda done, y’know. I can’t… The spider radiation–” 

“I know.” He says, then scoops some cum onto his finger. You automatically open your mouth when he reaches over to smear it on your tongue. “Good.”  

It’s a peculiar scar, you dwell. Buttressed on his deltoid. Geometrically circular in a way vaccine marks aren’t, with marks like teeth equidistant around its circumference. Blinking heavily, you try to deduce its origins on his otherwise unmarred body, only to give up as you draw blanks, unable to think at all. Sleep looms, a heady fog lurching up your neck.

Miguel sits, picking apart the complicated knots of your shirt. It still circles your arms, looser with his effort thus far. When you flick your study over to his worn face, you find that his attention is centred onto your own blemish. Situated above your wrist – four discoloured punctures in the same size of his claws. 

“If you think that’s bad, you should’ve seen the other guy.” You quip, smiling minutely. The man just shakes his head, pretending to reoccupy himself with his self-assigned task. 

What do you say in this situation? When you can’t separate guilt from the fraught expression he dons. It’s not okay that it happened. It’s not fair that you have to bear that memory for the rest of your life. But… you don’t mind. Your self-respect is nonexistent and you don’t mind the fact that he’d resorted to whatever he could when desperate. You've done the same. Worse, even.

You’re about to speak up when a crackle on your left fills the silence for you. A radio he keeps on his bedside shelf, to connect him to all emergency personnel, blares a hurried alert. 

“Possible superhuman event. Downtown city hall. Suspect is–” 

He sighs, rising to a stand to shut it off. Your shirt slips off your limbs.

“It’s late.” You pose before you can stop yourself. The protest is instinctual – even you don’t know where you’re going with it – and no sooner does it leave your mouth do you cringe. It’s too big now to stuff back into your throat, spoken out loud and stupid. You’re free now, aren’t you? Unbound, literally. There’s no reason to stick around.

“So?” Miguel calls you out on it. 

“You– um. Just, good luck.” Is all you come up with, curling into a foetus position to dissuade the embarrassment blooming behind your ribs. Now that his body isn’t on top of yours, his room seems that much colder. 

“You’re right.” His briefs slide back up his legs, fitting snug around burly thighs and snapping low on his hips. “It’s late. You can sleep here tonight. I have to go deal with–” He gives a vague gesture to your left, referring to the dispatch call. 

“Right.” 

He offers nothing else, oscillating between attached rooms in the quiet that follows. A bathroom and closet, you assume; confirmed when he walks out in full spider garb. The sight of his suit knocks you back into place. The fact that it’s more familiar than the bare skin you were only just getting used to is a sobering enough fact. 

And you watch as he moves to leave, shucking a window frame open to allow him access to Nueva York’s skyline. Perhaps it’s his back – turned to face you, at a guarded distance once more – that spurs you to ask. A distressed attempt for any tenderness he might have left.

(That wounded animal, raking for solace before death.)

“You opened it, didn’t you?” You ask, pitching the suspicion you’ve been ruminating over for a while. 

He stops, turns his head to indicate he’s listening. 

“You opened the window. You knew I’d been following.” 

You wish the mask didn’t obstruct his reaction. What a small blink, or smile, could do to dissuade the charged pace of your heart. Eventually, though, he nods.

“Why?” 

And there’s really one answer you’re hoping to hear. A comfort, along the lines of for you. But Miguel is funny in that way. Sometimes – as seen by the cum that glazes your abdomen, or the soreness between your legs – he gives you what you want. Readily. Seems to want the same thing too, if you’re lucky enough. 

And then, there the other times.

“To see what you would do.”

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[parfumieren]

Botrytis (Ginestet)

Serendipity's a funny thing. Sometimes a chance conversation is all it takes to draw two seemingly unrelated elements together and to arrive at an exciting new equation.

Case in point: a casual meeting between Christian Delpeuch (director of the Ginestet collective of Bordeaux wine producers) and Gilles Toledano (head of the Parfumeur Société Florescence à Grâce) led to a recognition of the similarities between their two chosen art forms. What better fraternal tribute than a vineyard-inspired fragrance?

Try three of them, each representing a distinct aspect of Bordeaux winemaking: Sauvignonne (Sauvignon blanc), Le Boisé (after the oaken casks in which wine is aged) and Botrytis (Sauternes). The press release for the series included a charming pair of juxtaposed iconic images-- two women, one breathing in the bouquet of a glass of wine, the other meditatively sniffing a perfume test strip. The captions -- "Wine Taster" and "Perfume Taster" -- spoke volumes about the attention to small details each discipline demands.

Botrytis is a honeyed eau de toilette inspired by a very unusual branch of viticulture. It is named after Botrytis cinerea, a powdery grey fungus better known to winemakers as 'noble rot'. Noble rot feeds on the nectar of infected grapes, shriveling them down to raisins which contribute unparalleled sweetness and flavor to wines such as Sauternes and Tokay. (In Latin, Botrytis cinerea means "ashen grapes", an accurate description of the grapes' appearance after they have been reduced to the desired state.)

While it may seem rather eccentric to christen a women's fragrance with the name of an admittedly hideous fungus, it is worth knowing that to the growers of Bordeaux, noble rot is one of nature's most celebrated phenomena-- and one of her most feared. If the weather following an crop infection is too wet, noble rot turns into 'grey rot', which spoils the grape entirely. Conditions must be exactly right for the fungus to merely dessicate the fruit and concentrate its sugars rather than destroy it whole. Overall, botrytization is a risky venture intolerant of failure.

But when the vineyard wins, it wins big.

Intense and liqueured, Ginestet's Botrytis begins with a sweet, fermented grape note reminiscent of a glass of Tokay warmed on a firelit hearth. Over its surface, other notes play-- a wood note to remind one of the cask from which this elixir was drawn, a quince-jam note as sunny as it is syrupy. From top to bottom, this perfume's personality is golden and autumnal. You won't find many shadows here, only a promise of joyful intoxication under a harvest sun.

The raisin note is one that I already love (as in 1740 Marquis de Sade). In Botrytis, it's less burnt and more boozy, reminding me strangely of that brown-sugar raisin sauce that simmered in its own miniature chafing dish on my mother's Easter table. According to Ginestet's free-verse press packet, pain d'epice "whispers sweet nothings" in the heart of this fragrance; luckily, this isn't just a poetic device. It really is here, all ginger-tobacco-allspice, rich but not overbearing. Traces of the liqueur accord continue to wend their way in and out of awareness throughout a soft amber drydown.

While Sauternes is the name of this perfume's game, honey lovers will not be disappointed. In keeping with the liqueur theme, Botrytis incorporates a mead note that, through fermentation, has been liberated from all the queasy, animalic traits of honey-in-the-raw. But that's not to say this honey has been stripped of its power to intoxicate. Authentic Viking mjöð occupies a galaxy apart from the pale Chablis-with-honey-flavoring that most Americans mistake for mead. It is, for lack of any better word, profound -- in color, in flavor, in alcoholic content (one wineglassful of properly aged mjöð can knock you on your ass) and, of course, in bouquet. Rich, lingering, ambrosial, it could be pressed into service as Freyja's personal jus. Not for nothing is mead called the nectar of the gods!

Except for the fearless, Botrytis might prove too heady for the humid summer months. I most look forward to wearing it in the autumn, when the weather is dry and cool and the sun's beams achieve a kinder, gentler slant.... but who knows? I wouldn't be the first person to find courage in a bottle.

Scent Elements: Vanilla, honey, sauternes raisins, quince, white flowers, amber

[mediathequecarcosa]

D.A.R.T.,  ou la fin de l’Impuissance Stellaire.

Le 24 novembre dernier, la base militaire californienne de Vanderberg est en pleine émulation. En effet, au sommet d’une fusée Falcon 9 produite par Space X (coucou Elon), se trouve un petit satellite prénommé DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test). Au-delà de signifier « fléchette » en anglais, ce petit satellite est le premier de son genre, fabriqué dans un but bien précis : modifier l’orbite d’un objet céleste. Le satellite avait pour mission de parcourir les 11 millions de kilomètres le séparant d’un ensemble d’astéroïdes se trouvant entre notre orbite terrestre et l’orbite de Mars, et de venir s’écraser sur le plus petit d’entre eux, Dimorphos, pour tester notre capacité à potentiellement dévier un astéroïde menaçant de s’écraser sur Terre. DART, qui achèvera sa mission cette nuit (26/27 septembre 2022), est le premier essai de vaisseaux kamikazes ayant pour objectif de protéger la Terre d’une Apocalypse venue des étoiles. La solution que représente ce bijoux de technologie à 330 millions de dollars va au-delà de la simple résolution d’un problème quelconque. Selon moi, DART est le résultat d’une opération philosophique et métaphysique bien plus conséquente, et le symptôme d’une obstination purement humaine à l’auto-conservation à tout prix. Voyons ce que signifie en réalité le lancement de ce satellite.

Il existe bon nombre d’œuvres de fiction nous présentant le postulat d’un crash d’astéroïde imminent sur la planète Terre. Deep Impact, en 1998, Armaggedon la même année et plus récemment Don’t Look Up en 2022, tout ces films prennent comme postulat le crash d’un objet céleste. Ce thème est alors objectivement une raison tout à fait valable à l’extinction rapide et brutale de la race humaine. Et la découverte du cratère dans la péninsule de Yucatan au Mexique ayant sûrement causé la disparition des dinosaures n’a pas arrangé l’effroi de l’Apocalypse par un astéroïde. Ce sujet est intéressant car ce qu’il représente est très proche de la punition divine : quelque chose de massif, venu du ciel, vient rayer la vie de la surface de la Terre, la colère divine dans toute sa splendeur. Méritée ou non, cette prétendue colère, les humains tentent de s’en protéger depuis un bon moment, et DART est le symptôme d’une angoisse quasi-existentielle. Non, les humains ne finiront pas comme les reptiles géants du passé, non les humains sont plus fins que ça, ce ne sont pas les étoiles qui leur dicterons le droit de vie et de mort. Alors les humains vont dépenser des sommes littéralement astronomiques dans un petit satellite au nom adorable pour qu’il s’écrase violemment (bye bye les 330 millions) sur un objet céleste test. En réalité, ce projet de la NASA est la réponse technique que l’Humanité a trouvé à ce qui ressemble le plus au Destin en personne.

C’est par la technique (tekhnè ou τέχνη en grec ancien) que l’Homme s’est extirpé de sa condition animale. C’est la culture, différente de la nature, qui a offert à l’Homme la capacité de prendre son Destin en main. Le vaccin contre la variole par Edward Jenner en premier lieu, puis contre la rage en 1885 par Louis Pasteur étaient les preuves que l’Humanité, par la tekhnè, pouvaient anéantir les maladies. Richard Trevithick en 1804 avec la première locomotive à vapeur était la preuve que l’Humanité n’était pas vouée à ramper sur ses jambes pour l’éternité. Toutes ces inventions, l’énergie nucléaire, le moteur à explosion, Apollo 13 et les grands pas pour l’Humanité d’Amstrong sur la Lune, ont repoussé les limites de ce que l’Humanité pouvait appeler la Fatalité, c’est-à-dire les frontières qu’un mortel ne pouvait pas franchir. Aujourd’hui, c’est de l’Apocalypse céleste que se prévient l’Humanité. DART est le premier outil technique d’une, sans doute, longue série d’autres vaisseaux kamikazes : il signifie le début d’une possible défense terrestre contre des menaces stellaires. C’est en cela que le projet est d’une impressionnante folie. Ni positif, ni négatif, ce dispositif représente l’avènement d’une nouvelle ère culturelle pour l’Homme. Au fil des siècles, l’Humanité a réglé la question de la mort offerte par la nature : les maladies, a réglé la question de la distance et du transport, et maintenant elle est en voie de régler son Impuissance Stellaire.

La tekhnè semble grignoter de plus en plus de terrain sur la Mort, une pensée tantôt terriblement excitante, tantôt insupportablement déprimante.

[parfumery-wiki]

Fox in the Flowerbed Imaginary Authors Nose: Josh Meyer

Floral amber

SYNOPSIS: Rescued from obscurity by students who tracked down the reclusive author at a remote cabin in the Austrian Alps, this collection of alpine fairy tales marks the return of enigmatic writer, Chunhua Luli. The main characters in these stories are wild animals but the tender lessons they impart cut straight to the heart of the human condition. In the titular story, a young fox becomes obsessed with a butterfly, only to learn the hazards of infatuation. Other themes explored include the advantages of unflagging ambition, the importance and impact of beautiful objects, the pursuit of serenity, and the power of positive thinking. Forty years after her remarkable debut, Luli once again reminds us we are all animals, connected by an expansive and ever-changing ecosystem much larger than ourselves.

WHEN TO WEAR THIS FRAGRANCE: Wearing this floral wonder will amplify the beauty in everything. It’s a versatile scent, doubling as a mood-lifter during the day and bringing an ethereal elegance to nights out. Don't be led astray by the name, there is nothing animalic or off-putting about this scent.

Key notes: Jasmine, Tulip, Frankincense, Honey, Pink peppercorn, Silver thistle, Alpine air