#druggist

[weirdyearbook]

Source details and larger version.

Like a drug: my collection of vintage medicine can be habit forming.

[stone-cold-groove]

Scenes from home, past and present.

[whats-in-a-sentence]

According to legend, in 1899 (CE, that is) a relative of Wang Qirong, director of the Imperial Academy in Beijing, caught malaria and sent a servant to buy a decayed turtle shell, a traditional Chinese remedy.*

*I say "according to legend" because the trail leading to Zhoukoudian, the great prehistoric site in Chapter 1, is said to have begun the same year in much the same way, when a German naturalist, trapped in Beijing by civil unrest, recognized a "dragon bone" in a druggist's store as an early human tooth. The coincidence is slightly suspicious.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[makaylasmutilatedcorpse]

[retropopcult]

Webb & Seward pose with their Model A delivery van outside their drugstore in Pasadena, California

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Maaaan I'm playing a mobile card game I havent in a while bc I more or less cleared it in terms of achievements but I guess it got an update, which on one hand! Yay! New class! New things to unlock! On the other hand I guess they got a new localiser or something because my god the actual text has gotten. Noticeably worse

[vintage-portland]

Throwback!

Plummer & Byerley Druggists on the corner of SW 1st Avenue and SW Main Street, 1888. This image was originally posted in April 2010. City of Portland (OR) Archives, AP/7400. View this image in Efiles by clicking here.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

concepts related to different professions

Businessperson

abettor, adjutant, adviser/advisor, aid/aide, announcer, apprentice, archaeologist, assistant, auditor, authority, baker, barber, broker, businessperson, buyer, caretaker, cartoonist, chair, chef, client, colleague, conservator, consumer, correspondent, court, creator, curator, customer, dabbler, desk jockey, developer, drudge, employee, envoy, espionage, explorer, fellow, flier, flyer, fortuneteller, freshman, go-between, gourmet, guard, guru, hacker, hand, hawker, helper, hooker, inferior, informant or informer, inspector, interviewer, investigator, janitor, labor, liaison, messenger, moderator, monitor, navigator, newsman/woman, page, patron, picket, pioneer, poet, practitioner, prodigal, protégé, referee, representative, reviewer, rival, sailor, scout, seaman/woman, seller, shopper, speaker, spokesperson, spy, subordinate, tailor, traveler, virtuoso, wayfarer, writer

Educator

academic, adviser/advisor, alumnus/alumna, coach, conductor, disciplinarian, faculty, freshman, graduate, intellectual, learner, martinet, mastermind, monitor, practitioner, professor, rookie, savant, school, swami, trainer

Entertainer

acrobat, actress, aficionado, ballet dancer, character, comic, creator, director, fan, groupie, hero/heroine, humorist, inventor, luminary, magician, name, participant, personage/personality, player, protagonist, star, troubadour, virtuoso, zany

Financier

accountant, bean counter, broker, investor, spendthrift

Government officer

administrator, ambassador, authoritarian, autocracy, bureaucrat, consul, delegate, despot, diplomat, emir, empress, establishment, exile, fascist, figurehead, front runner, informant/informer, intermediary, leader, liaison, magistrate, master, mogul, mouthpiece, officer, oppressor, pacifist, patrol, personage/personality, police/police officer, prime minister, representative, snitch, spokesperson, tyrant, weasel

Legal practitioner

attorney, beneficiary, counsel, heir, judge, lawyer, officer, proponent, witness

Media person

commentator, journalist, newsman/woman, reporter, writer

Medical practitioner

analyst, druggist, nurse, patient, physician, researcher, therapist

Military person

combatant, conqueror, fighter, gladiator, lookout, militant, patrol, recruit, scout, seaman/woman, truant, warmonger, warrior

Politician

advocate, anarchist, apostle, arbitrator, conservative, dissident, extremist, firebrand, idealist, militant, mouthpiece, nonconformist, patron, picket, proponent, reactionary, sectarian

Religious person

acolyte, angel, atheist, chaplain, conformist, creator, deacon, doubter, dreamer, evangelism, father, genie, inventor, loner, minister, monk, pagan, pastor, priest, saint, skeptic, visionary, witch, wizard

NOTE

The above are concepts classified according to subject and usage. It not only helps writers and thinkers to organize their ideas but leads them from those very ideas to the words that can best express them.

It was, in part, created to turn an idea into a specific word. By linking together the main entries that share similar concepts, the index makes possible creative semantic connections between words in our language, stimulating thought and broadening vocabulary.

Source ⚜ Writing Basics & Refreshers ⚜ On Vocabulary

[thetygre]

Maybe in Warhammer 40k, ‘Fuck’ is like an antiquated swear word. Like it’s so old fashioned that its usage actively diminishes your seriousness. ‘Fuck’ is on the same level as ‘golly gee’ and ‘horse feathers’. A commissar says ‘Fuck’ and is driven out of his Guard unit after the troops won’t stop asking him if he wants to mosey down to the druggist for a cold sarsaparilla.

[stone-cold-groove]

Scenes from home, past and present.

[theamericanpin-up]

Ren Wicks - "Druggist's Daughter" - (she has notions) - July 1953 Ballyhoo Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - American Pin-up Calendar Collection

[ausetkmt]

Pharmacist Lunsford Richardson made Vicks a household name throughout the nation, but his popular product did not do the same for him.

Even in his native North Carolina, where his most celebrated of chemical concoctions has been right under our stuffy noses and on our congested chests for generations, the mention of Richardson’s name elicits blank stares from all but those who study and cherish history.

Richardson’s salve, Vicks VapoRub, helped the world breathe easier during the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918 and during the countless colds and flus of our childhoods, yet most of us couldn’t pick Lunsford Richardson out of a one-man police lineup, much less a who’s who of medical pioneers.

Why didn’t Richardson — by all accounts a creative inventor and smart businessman — ever become as famous as those vapors packed into the familiar squat blue jar?

Because his name wouldn’t fit on the jar.

That’s one version of the story. According to company and family lore, Richardson initially dubbed his promising new product Richardson’s Croup and Pneumonia Cure Salve. Realizing that this name didn’t exactly roll off the tongue nor fit when printed on a small medicine jar, Richardson changed the name to honor his brother-in-law, Dr. Joshua Vick. Another account suggests the inventive druggist plucked the name from a seed catalog he’d been perusing that listed the Vick Seed Co.

The truth may never be known. What is known, though, is that Lunsford Richardson created a medicinal marvel for the ages, the likes of which may never be equaled.

Croupy beginnings

A Johnston County native born in 1854, Richardson loved chemistry and hoped to study it at Davidson College. The college’s chemistry program at the time wasn’t as strong as he’d hoped it would be, so he studied Latin instead, graduating with honors in three years. He returned to Johnston County and taught school, but it wasn’t long before the young man’s love of chemistry got the best of him. In 1880, he moved to Selma to work with his physician brother-in-law, Dr. Vick. It was not uncommon in those days for doctors to dispense drugs themselves, but Vick was so busy seeing patients that he teamed up with Richardson, allowing him to handle the pharmacy duties for him. Richardson relied on his knowledge of Latin to help him learn the chemical compounds required to become a pharmacist, and that’s when he began to experiment with recipes for the product that would become Vicks VapoRub.

It wasn’t until Richardson moved to his wife’s hometown of Greensboro in 1890 that his magical salve and other products he created began to take off.

“He was a man of great intellect and talent,” says Linda Evans, community historian for the Greensboro Historical Museum, which has an exhibit devoted to Richardson and Vicks.

“Druggists at the time fashioned their own remedies a lot, and he created a number of remedies, in addition to his magic salve, that he sold under the name of Vick’s Family Remedies. He was obviously a man of such creativity.”

In Greensboro, working out of a downtown drugstore he purchased (where he once employed a teenaged William Sydney Porter, the future short story writer O. Henry), Richardson patented some 21 medicines. The wide variety of pills, liquids, ointments, and assorted other medicinal concoctions included the likes of Vick’s Chill Tonic, Vick’s Turtle Oil Liniment, Vick’s Little Liver Pills and Little Laxative Pills, Vick’s Tar Heel Sarsaparilla, Vick’s Yellow Pine Tar Cough Syrup, and Vick’s Grippe Knockers (aimed at knocking out la grippe, an old-timey phrase for the flu).

These products sold with varying degrees of success, but the best seller in the lineup of Richardson’s remedies was Vick’s Magic Croup Salve, which he introduced in 1894. And by all accounts, necessity was the key to its success.

“He had what they referred to as a croupy baby — a baby with a lot of coughing and congestion,” explains Richardson’s great-grandson, Britt Preyer of Greensboro. “So as a pharmacist, he began experimenting with menthols from Japan and some other ingredients, and he came up with this salve that really worked. That’s how it all started.”

Another version of the story suggests that all three of the Richardson children caught bad colds at the same time, and Richardson, dissatisfied with the traditional treatment of the day, which included poultices and a vapor lamp, spent hours at his pharmacy developing his own treatment.

Richardson’s salve — a strong-smelling ointment combining menthol, camphor, oil of eucalyptus, and several other oils, blended in a base of petroleum jelly — was a chest-soothing, cough-suppressing, head-clearing sensation. When the salve was rubbed on the patient’s chest, his or her body heat vaporized the menthol, releasing a wave of soothing, medicated vapors that the patient breathed directly into the lungs.

Vicks in the mailbox

In 1911, Richardson’s son Smith, by now a successful salesman for his father’s company, recommended discontinuing all of the company’s products except for Vick’s Magic Croup Salve. He believed the salve could sell even better if the company stopped investing time and money in the other, less successful remedies. He also suggested renaming the salve Vicks VapoRub, according to the company’s history timeline, to “help dramatize the product’s performance.” Richardson agreed, and a century later, the name’s still the same.

Meanwhile, Richardson intensified his marketing efforts by providing free goods to druggists who placed large orders and publishing coupons for free samples in newspapers. He also advertised on billboards and sent promotional mailings to post office boxes, addressed to Boxholder rather than the individual’s name, thus earning him the distinction of being the father of junk mail.

In 1925, Vicks even published a children’s book to help promote the product. The book told the story of two elves, Blix and Blee, who rescued a frazzled mother whose sick child refused to take nasty-tasting medicines. Their solution, of course, was the salve known as Vicks VapoRub.

Expanding and experimenting

As successful as the marketing campaign was, nothing sold Vicks VapoRub like the deadly Spanish flu outbreak that ravaged the nation in 1918 and 1919, killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. Loyal Vicks customers and new customers stocked up on the medicine to stave off or fight the disease.

According to the company’s history timeline, VapoRub sales skyrocketed from $900,000 to $2.9 million in a single year because of the pandemic. The Vicks plant in Greensboro operated around the clock, and salesmen were pulled off the road to help at the manufacturing facility in an effort to keep up with demand.

As the flu spread across the nation, Richardson grew ill with pneumonia in 1919 and died. Smith took over the company. Vicks continued to grow, buying other companies until Procter & Gamble bought it in the 1980s. Through the years, Vicks continued adding new products to its arsenal of cold remedies: cough drops, nose drops, inhalers, cough syrup, nasal spray, Formula 44, NyQuil. And whatever success those products attained, they got there standing on the broad shoulders of Richardson.

Richardson will never be a household name, but his salve has held that status for more than a century — and may do so for the next hundred years. And for Richardson, were he still around, that ought to be enough to clear his head.

A cure-all salve

Vicks users have claimed the salve can cure and heal many maladies. Even though Vicks doesn’t say the salve works for these problems, people still believe.

Toenail fungus: Rub the salve on your toenails, cover with socks, and sleep your fungus problems away. Cough: For a similar fix to a nagging cough, some believe rubbing Vicks on the soles of your feet can fix the problem. Dandruff: Rub Vicks directly on the scalp, and your flakes may just disappear. Chapped lips: Petroleum jelly is one of the ingredients in Vicks, and some say the ointment can help heal cracked lips. Mosquito bites: If you smooth Vicks on the red bumps on your legs and arms, it can supposedly take the itch right out. Warts: Dab Vicks on the wart, cover with duct tape, and it may fall off in a few days.

Greensboro Historical Museum 130 Summit Avenue Greensboro, N.C. 27401 (336) 373-2043 greensborohistory.org

See historical Vicks VapoRub bottles and learn about Lunsford Richardson.

[doberbutts]

I’m wondering if you have thoughts on James Baldwin’s “open letter to the born again”? I’m struggling a bit with what his point is in that piece; it feels kinda dismissive on Jewish zionists agency in creation of Israel? But I may be missing parts or not getting things

The text in question.

And the segment I think anon is struggling with:

I know what I am talking about: my grandfather never got the promised “forty acres, and a mule,” the Indians who survived that holocaust are either on reservations or dying in the streets, and not a single treaty between the United States and the Indian was ever honored. That is quite a record.

Jews and Palestinians know of broken promises. From the time of the Balfour Declaration (during World War I) Palestine was under five British mandates, and England promised the land back and forth to the Arabs or the Jews, depending on which horse seemed to be in the lead. The Zionists—as distinguished from the people known as Jews—using, as someone put it, the “available political machinery,’’ i.e., colonialism, e.g., the British Empire—promised the British that, if the territory were given to them, the British Empire would be safe forever.

But absolutely no one cared about the Jews, and it is worth observing that non-Jewish Zionists are very frequently anti-Semitic. The white Americans responsible for sending black slaves to Liberia (where they are still slaving for the Firestone Rubber Plantation) did not do this to set them free. They despised them, and they wanted to get rid of them. Lincoln’s intention was not to “free” the slaves but to “destabilize” the Confederate Government by giving their slaves reason to “defect.” The Emancipation Proclamation freed, precisely, those slaves who were not under the authority of the President of what could not yet be insured as a Union.

It has always astounded me that no one appears to be able to make the connection between Franco’s Spain, for example, and the Spanish Inquisition; the role of the Christian church or—to be brutally precise, the Catholic Church—in the history of Europe, and the fate of the Jews; and the role of the Jews in Christendom and the discovery of America. For the discovery of America coincided with the Inquisition, and the expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Does no one see the connection between The Merchant of Venice and The Pawnbroker? In both of these works, as though no time had passed, the Jew is portrayed as doing the Christian’s usurious dirty work. The first white man I ever saw was the Jewish manager who arrived to collect the rent, and he collected the rent because he did not own the building. I never, in fact, saw any of the people who owned any of the buildings in which we scrubbed and suffered for so long, until I was a grown man and famous. None of them were Jews.

And I was not stupid: the grocer and the druggist were Jews, for example, and they were very very nice to me, and to us. The cops were white. The city was white. The threat was white, and God was white, Not for even a single split second in my life did the despicable, utterly cowardly accusation that “the Jews killed Christ’’ reverberate. I knew a murderer when I saw one, and the people who were trying to kilI me were not Jews.

But the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews; it was created for the salvation of the Western interests. This is what is becoming clear (I must say that it was always clear to me). The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of “divide and rule” and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.

Finally: there is absolutely—repeat: absolutely—no hope of establishing peace in what Europe so arrogantly calls the Middle East (how in the world would Europe know? having so dismally failed to find a passage to India) without dealing with the Palestinians. The collapse of the Shah of Iran not only revealed the depth of the pious Carter’s concern for “human rights,” it also revealed who supplied oil to Israel, and to whom Israel supplied arms. It happened to be, to spell it out, white South Africa.

Well. The Jew, in America, is a white man. He has to be, since I am a black man, and, as he supposes, his only protection against the fate which drove him to America. But he is still doing the Christian’s dirty work, and black men know it.

My friend, Mr. Andrew Young, out of tremendous love and courage, and with a silent, irreproachable, indescribable nobility, has attempted to ward off a holocaust, and I proclaim him a hero, betrayed by cowards.

For context: Andrew Young, considered the right hand of MLK Jr, had a longstanding and occasionally fraught relationship with the Jewish community. He stepped down from Congress shortly after being forced to choose between voicing support for Palestine and continuing to work towards black-jewish interests by his constituents and fellow politicians, as he felt very strongly about supporting both. This was a fairly unpopular move. While I don't believe he ever called himself Jewish by the strictest sense, he was actively involved in Jewish communities and the known "white" ancestry within him is a Polish Jew in his great grandparents.

To be honest, I don't really see much a problem with this as I think it fairly closely matches up not only with my understanding of the history of this problem but also my own country's part in it as well as my personal feelings on it decades later. It pretty blatantly says that Zionism is utilizing a machination of white supremist colonism due to the extensive history of antisemitism and having had the ancestral land dangled in front of them like bait on a hook from the British Empire, which owned Palestine at the time. It also goes on to say that many Zionists aren't even Jewish and are antisemitic in nature, but are Christians happy to get rid of as many Jews as possible and how that tracks due to the Christian church's millennia-deep history of antisemitism.

I don't think it lets anyone off the hook. I think it pretty much flat out says this is a problem caused first and foremost by white Christians who hate Jews and Arabs alike and have a vested interest in getting the two populations to fight because it'll be easier to kill off just the one group instead of both of them, if one ends up eradicating the other. It even talks about the friction between the black community and the Jewish community, what caused it, what drives it, how that friction in itself is a tool of white supremacy to hurt us both.

[youcallyourselfafilmcritic]

The "Palo Alto" bit in A Tale of Two Stans is one of my favourite bits from the episode-and it works extremely well that we never see it followed up-but there honestly is a part of me that would find it SO FUCKING FUNNY if Ford realised what he basically cost McGucket outside of his mental capacity

Ford: Drats I'm out of plutonium! Where am I going to find more-it's not exactly something you find in the druggist

Stan: Just try HeeBuy, Poindexter! Bid for stuff on the internet. I once outbid a guy in Tuscany for a stuffed bison-managed to pick the thing up before they realised I sent them bogus credit card details. I wonder what happened to that thing....

Ford: Wait. You have access to an internet system?

Stan: What are ya talking about? I have a computer in the study-just go on that and buy your substance that could potentially kill you and our family. God knows I've brought in enough of that-now it's your turn

Ford: A....home computer? With internet access?

Dipper: Yeah Ford-everyone can use it. Everyone has computers. I guess you've been out of this dimension for a long time-maybe we should have caught you up better...

Mabel: *gasps* We can do a slideshow! I'll get the glitter a-Great Uncle Ford, are you okay?

Ford: I uh. I...need to make a. Really grovelling phone call....

[disease]

[CHEMIST & DRUGGIST: V.198 | AUG 1972]

[yoursweetheartsrevenge]

Never Again

Summary: On a cold night, she was working late at the post office when it was robbed by three young men around her age triggering memories of her past as she was taken hostage.

Read on Ao3

Warnings: smut (p in v sex, fingering, cock warming), robbery, threats of violence, threats with a gun, panic attacks, mentions of noncon, MINORS DNI, 18+

Tag: @thought--bubble

Word Count: 4.4k

Author’s Note: I am so so happy I finally got a chance to watch this short film. Immediately when the robbery happened and a hostage was taken my brain was turning with fic ideas. This is a bit darker than what I usually write, but it was a nice change of pace. I got too into this. I have an idea for a part two/sequel if there is interest.  Enjoy the angst!

She had made a promise to herself it would never happen again. 

In the mirror, before she left each day for therapy she swore it. 

Never again. 

How many times had she told herself those two words?

It had been seven months since the incident. 

Five months since she let her nan talk her into therapy. 

She was not okay. 

She would never be okay again. 

She tried to control her breathing. The heaviness in her chest was too much. It felt like she would never be able to get enough air. Her eyes squinted in frustration. She began to sob. 

She wasn’t scared though. 

Never again, she had told herself so many times. And yet here she was. 

Here it was happening again. 

Happening to her. 

Seven months ago it had been her job at a corner shop, a knife at her throat as he demanded the druggist give him a certain supply of narcotics. 

Tonight it had been at her job, her first job since the incident, at the post office, a gun to her face, cold and heavy, as three men demanded money. 

Money. 

Drugs. 

It never mattered to her. 

Seven months ago she was afraid. 

Tonight she felt betrayed. 

Betrayed by herself for not doing what she had promised she would if this rare occurrence ever happened to her again. She had pepper spray. It wasn’t on her. It was in her purse, safely in her locker in the break area. She had frozen, unable to move unlike her promise to scream and fight back no matter the weapon. 

The gun had felt so heavy against her soft cheek. 

Her eyes even betrayed her. She teared up when she realized it was happening to her again. 

The rest of the employees were no help. 

It was her first night on the closing shift. She felt a bit vulnerable as she didn’t know much about closing up. There were three of them, her manager and another older woman who had worked there for twenty five years. They had all been nice to her. Everyone had been very understanding when she flinched when a customer spoke to her too loudly or when she ate her paper bag lunches alone, refusing invitations from her co-workers to go out on break. 

She was a bundle of nerves about to be broken. 

He had held her tight as another robber in a ski mask pressed the gun to her cheek pushing it against her molars. Her body had trembled uncontrollably, not able to hear much of anything from the other two robbers. The young man had held onto her as if she was a lifeline, but there was a slight tremble to him. 

He was scared. 

While she was frustrated, he was scared. 

The man with the knife had been sure and steady as if he had done this so many times before. 

These robbers were loose, shaky even. 

If she had done what her mind was screaming for her to do she would have been able to overpower him, but her body froze. 

Her body had betrayed her very mind. 

Now she had her hands bound in cheap frayed ropes listening to the three men arguing outside near the back end of the car. 

No. 

Not men. 

Boys. 

Three boys. 

Their voices sounded young as if they were about her age. One boy she heard sobbing harder than she had ever heard any boy ever sob. They were occasionally talking about what to do with her. It was almost as if they were confused as to why she was there. Her shoulders trembled in her tight olive green turtleneck. Her entire body felt tight. She attempted to control her breathing focusing on exercises she had learned in therapy. 

Five things she could see. 

That could help ground her. 

Fuck if she could see anything. Her eyes were so blurry with tears. Her mind was so overwhelmed with survival she could barely recognize her senses. 

She tried her best to concentrate. To remember how to ground herself and ease her panic. 

“I GRABBED THE GIRL! YOU FUCKIN TOLD ME TO GRAB HER!”

The words made her flinch as if reliving the moment again. 

Five things she could see. 

She dared to turn around.

Scared little boys in over their heads. 

Gloves clinging to sweaty hands. 

A face mask loosely hanging off a scalp. 

A gun. 

She averted her eyes. She leaned back against the seat deciding that this method was not going to work at this moment. Certainly if she had to listen to them argue. If she did, she felt like she might hear something she didn’t want to hear. 

Something about what they would do with the money. 

About what they would do to her. 

They were her age. 

There was something terrifying about that. The man with the knife only wanted drugs, to get high as quickly as possible. He had been older and focused. These lads were young, unfocused and . . . she tried not to think about what they might want by taking her. 

The one in the middle, the boy crying, kept going on about his mum. 

What did he have to cry about? 

She was the one who was kidnapped. 

Tied up in a stranger’s car for God knows what reason. 

They were the aggressors. 

They had the power. 

Fuckin’ crybaby.

She was surprised to see through her own tears. Surprised to hear as her heart was pounding in her ears. Through the thudding she could hear the one comforting the crying boy. She turned around. He was holding him so tightly she knew they were close. These were all friends that did a stupid, stupid thing. The crybaby was regretting it. The one in the ski mask was trying to gain control of the situation unraveling before him. 

He must have been the leader, the planner in all this. 

As the dynamics emerged in front of her she was realizing how little control they all had with each other. This had been a sloppy plan for quick cash. 

Desperate people often did horrible things and for the first time in the long few minutes or hour she felt a pang of fear. Her heart thudded. She wished she could hold her chest to feel it. She needed to feel something, but all she could do was feel the hot wet tears stream down her face and the heaviness that ballooned in her chest. 

“FUCKIN’ LEAVE!”

Her eyes widened seeing that the crying boy was taking off running. The ski mask boy with the gun seemed to have pushed him off. She closed her eyes letting her shaky hands settle on her black dress pants. Her eyes fluttered up to turn around again. The other boy made eye contact with her. He had a round face and dark hair. His expression spoke volumes, of fear and anger and confusion.

His eyes darted. 

Please don’t leave me, she thought. If he left the one with the gun would be the only one left. 

He ran, tumbling forward before disappearing in the dark. 

She breathed out waiting for him to turn around. To look at her. Instead he shook his head and headed to pass her door. She panicked looking forward, realizing he would be sitting in front of her. 

She flinched as he entered, the car dinging to indicate his door opening. 

Her breath was too hurried. 

Her teary hiccups were too loud. 

She didn’t know why, but she said her name. Introduced herself. She read somewhere if your captors saw you as a person they would be less likely to kill you.

“I live with my nan and my little brother and sister. They are eight and nine. I just started working at the post office nine days ago. Not even two weeks. I needed the money. Nan isn’t doing well and I . . . my parents . . . they’re shit. And she’s been so kind to take us in and . . .” She couldn’t stop herself from leaning forward to let the tears fall in big drops from her eyes. 

She choked.

She sobbed. 

She heaved. 

“Stop fuckin’ crying.” He said it softly with a sigh. She couldn’t stop. She fuckin hated herself for not being able to stop. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her ears were her heartbeat. Her hands were shaking. “Would you shut the fuck up?!” 

He snapped his head back. 

She saw his angry blue eyes. 

She sniffled. Her mouth quivered, giving small gasps as she sucked in her breath. 

His eyes settled into sadness and worry. 

“I ain’t gonna hurt you.” It sounded serious. “I swear I’m not going to hurt you. Alright?” 

She swallowed, nodding her head. She tried to blink away her tears. She watched his hand with the gun. 

“You live with your nan?” He said with a deep sigh. She saw his squinting blue eyes in the rear view mirror. 

“Yes.” She said simply trying to not start crying again. 

“How sick is she?” His voice almost seemed concerned. 

“Not sick. Not doing well. She had a bad fall this past summer tending her garden.” 

She remembered getting the call when her mum had been too hung over or drunk to bother to answer the phone. She had been the one to take her little siblings to visit Nan in the hospital. She knew then that she’d need taking care of. She was all too eager to get out of the town that now frightened her with an alcoholic mum and a job she could never go back to. 

Nan had been their savior. 

In a way so had that fall. 

“She on the mend?” 

“She’s got a good amount of screws in her hip, but yeah, she’s doing better. Never be fully healed though. It was a bad fall and she was alone.” She swallowed hard watching as he rubbed the barrel of the gun against his forehead. 

“Your parents? You said they’re shit.” 

“Yeah, mum’s an alcoholic and da . . . well . . . he’s on drugs some days, in prison other days.” She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her dad. She figured he had been around to at least conceive her little sister, so maybe eight years ago. They all looked identical so she thought they were all full siblings. 

“Yeah, my mum . . . she was . . .well . . .and I live with my nan. She’s unwell.” 

Her eyes flickered up at his confusion. 

Common ground was good. 

It gave her a better chance at survival. 

“Am I doing something wrong?” He sucked in a bit of a breath. “I don’t even know what I’m fuckin’ doing half the time.” He looked at her in the mirror. Her face fell a bit at the realization she had said something similar in therapy only two days ago. He rubbed his finger against his  forehead, latex gloves squeaking a bit. “No matter what I fuckin do . . . I  . . . I just . . .I just hope I make her proud.” He stared off in the distance. 

She didn’t know what to say. 

Didn’t know what to say to herself when she had questioned her own life in this way. 

“Nobody is going to give you what you need.” She swallowed. “You can’t hope for other people’s feelings to be what you want. You can’t control other people. You can only control yourself, your actions.” 

He peered at her in the mirror again, a lilt of his head tipped to the side. 

“Sounds like something a therapist would say.” 

“Doesn’t it?” She gave a weak reassuring smile. “I’ve thought about the same thing. I try to do what’s best for my brother and sister, but I always feel like everything I do will make them just as fucked up as my mum and da made me.” Her heart was beating for a different reason now. 

She hadn’t even said this to her therapist. 

She just focused on the incident, her fear of losing control of any given situation. 

She never mentioned how badly she wanted her siblings to have a normal childhood. 

“All kids end up fucked up anyway.” He scoffed. “Just make some good memories for them. Ice cream and snow ball fights. Summer in a field of dandelions. Those kinds of memories that can chase away the shit ones.” Those were oddly specific memories. She wondered if those were shared with the mum he had mentioned earlier. 

“My . . . um . . .mate . . . I slept with his girl.” He gave a big gulp after confessing it. “Yeah . . . um . . . a couple months ago. We were hanging out just the two of us. Met for drinks and . . . yeah . . . I thought she might, you know . . . like me I suppose, but I don’t think it meant anything to her.” He sniffed in. His palm rubbed into his eyes. “Fuck. Shit.” He was frustrated at the tears in his eyes. 

“Why’d you do it?” She wondered, trying to keep him engaged. Happy even. The gun was still in his hand. 

She half expected him to give a non answer. 

“Wanted to feel something.” He shrugged as if it were obvious. “I saw how much she cared about him. How much she loved him and . . . I guess . . . I wanted that. Needed that.” Their eyes met. “I’m a fuckin awful human.” 

“Oxymoron. All humans are awful. One way or another.” It was a sad statement. A sad world view she had. 

“I’m not really helping the image of humankind am I?” 

She had to laugh at that. 

He even smiled, high cheekbones looking beautiful in the moonlight. 

“She’s pregnant.”  It was abrupt as if he was letting it fall from his mouth. “My mate’s girl and . . . I don’t know . . . it might be mine. It could be, but I can’t say nothin’. Might end up having a kid out there and I’ll never . . . I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.” His eyes, soft and blue, shot behind him. His body fully turned. “I should let you go.” 

It’s a realization she felt herself unsure for. 

She doesn't know what will happen to her after she leaves this car. 

Doesn’t know what she wanted. 

She heard him open the driver’s side door. Out the window she could see him tuck the gun in the waistband at the back of his pants. He looked at her. 

Really looked at her. 

The tears were still there, staining her cheeks, traces of makeup running. It was as if he was realizing for the first time the damage he had done. His face widened with concern and confusion. It was as if he was wondering how he could do this. 

She saw him too. The confusion etched in his face told her he didn’t mean what he did. At least what he did to her. His eyes were so wide, so blue, so very lost. She swallowed, letting herself hope. She hoped to be free. She hoped to not die. She hoped that she could feel something other than frustration or terror or fear. 

He ran a gloved hand through his hair tussling it a bit. 

Her body, her stupid body, reacted with a tremor of longing. 

How long had it been since she had found someone attractive? 

Since she had been with someone? 

She swallowed again, deciding to squint her eyes closed, especially when the door opened. The cool air hit her. The hinge of the door bounced a bit. She heard him sniffle, but her eyes were closed so tightly because she feared what her stupid body would do if she looked at him again. 

“Yeah, okay, your hands.” He said as he reached down. 

He thought she wasn't running off into the dark because her hands were still tied. She felt him then. He was close to her, pulling at the ropes. The blonde young man loosened them rather easily. She could feel his fingers against her wrist, smooth with the plastic white gloves pulling at the frayed coarse ropes. She winced a bit. 

“Almost there, love.” 

She felt herself open her eyes. He was looking down, unraveling the ropes. Her heart was beating loudly in her ears, a different set of thuds. She was not fearful or frustrated. His words had eased her in a way, made her realize just how lonely he was. How much they had in common despite how very opposite their situations were.

“There.” he tossed the ropes to the floor of the back seat. “Off you go then.” He was about to step aside, pull back from her to fulfill his promise. 

Her arms were now free to do as they pleased. 

She wrapped her arms around her captor’s neck and pulled him down on top of her. Her lips took his in a quick meeting of chapped lips against his soft cupid’s bow. 

“The fuck?!” He pushed off of her looking for a moment. 

She didn't know what he saw that made his eyes fall back to her lips, plush and pinkened. 

Perhaps it was her desperation to feel something. 

Or maybe it was the way her chest heaved against her tight olive turtleneck. She knew it made her tits look great. Maybe he could see the outline of her black bra.

Maybe it was a realization of what that quick kiss meant. 

Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. 

He was on top of her kissing her back with a hungry unknown need. His mouth opened for her. It invited her to tangle with his tongue and possess him, body and soul. He held her face making slight little mmmms. She rewarded him with little needy whimpers. His knees fit snugly on the back seat caging her in. He didn’t let his lips leave hers as he shrugged off his coat in frustration, tossing it to the floor. 

She could feel his chest press against hers nearly crushing her as he struggled to get as close to her as he physically could. She didn’t mind it. The feel of his weight was satisfying. She wanted him closer too. Her hands were in his floppy blonde hair pulling and caressing all at once. It made him harden. She could feel his hardening cock against her as he humped her uncontrollably. 

One of his greedy large hands snaked down between her legs. He palmed her mound. She felt heat rise in embarrassment as she had very clearly seeped her arousal through her work pants. She felt him smile against her lips giving a very pleased noise in the back of his throat. His fingers unbuttoned her trousers in one go as his lips and tongue made her wetter with longing kisses. His fingers ran along her cotton panties finding the trail of wetness.

When his thumb grazed her thigh she was made aware of the plastic gloves. That was when she found her voice. 

“Take off the gloves.” She was not one to be making demands, but she needed to feel his skin.

He was clearly frustrated that she had slipped away from their perpetual kisses to voice her request, but he kissed her chin and nodded. 

“ ‘Course.” It was somewhere between a moan and a mumble. 

He pulled off one glove at a time before continuing to both kiss her and find her sweet tight cunt. Before she could take a deep breath in preparation, her panties were down to her knees. He ran his fingers over her bare slit, stroking her lovingly. She moaned out her desire. 

“You need this as much as me, don’t you?” He asked, finally breaking to look into her eyes. There was an edge of wetness under his eyes. Tears that were so very happy to feel something good. 

“More, maybe.” Was her quick response. 

He gave her a soft kiss that read sweet even though there was a gun in his waistband and fingers teasing her wanting pussy. He sank a finger inside her as he began to make out with her again. The noise she made was one of uncontrollable lust. He let her lips go to hear it. Hear all the noises she made as he pumped one finger into her before adding another without warning. His lips moved to kiss and suckle at the softness of her neck smelling her perfume, notes of musk and pear.

His gentle rhythm made her whimpers soft and palpable. Her eyes fluttered and nearly rolled at the feeling. When he curled those fingers it was when her hands found his shoulder and hair for support. She felt like she was going to lose herself as he quickened his pace. Her words were of approval, a series of yeses and mores and pleases. She could feel his prideful smile against her neck which quickly turned sour as she felt his cock straining against his trousers. Her inner walls were clenching around his fingers. 

He pulled them out without warning. 

“No, wait, please.” She felt like a needy little child, opening and closing her hands on his shoulder and in his hair. 

“I need to fuck you.” 

He pushed up so he was on his knees looking at her. He took off his belt. It ended up on the floor, but so did the gun. He eyed it for a moment. He was too pent up to care and so was she. His fingers were so slippery with her arousal that it made him struggle to unbutton his pants. She sat up slightly assisting in the button and zipper. When she looked up she saw he was watching her. 

He saw her again. 

His hand palmed her cheek. 

The same cheek he had pressed a gun to an hour or so before. 

“You are so beautiful.” She didn’t know if he meant it. 

What was beauty? 

Was it the fact that she is physically attractive to him? 

No. He hadn’t said it like that. 

More than likely it was how she responded to him. How she reacted. The words she said. How they realized that they just both wanted to do something different. 

Be someone different. 

To make the people they loved proud of them. 

She was beautiful because she could feel so much in the span of an hour. 

His fingers played with her wettened cheek, soft and tender with tears. She didn’t mind it. She didn’t mind him. He was looking down at her as if memorizing this moment. Her face was soft and gentle despite everything. Her eyes and his were the same, blown black with lust and primal hunger. 

She nodded.

She knew.

He was so very hard. 

She could see the bulge, prominent and nearly angry in his boxers. 

He trailed his hand from her cheek, down her neck, and to her breast. He gave her a healthy squeeze there. He moaned louder than her. It was at that, when he released himself. His cock was decently sized with a ruddy red tip glistening with precum. He held it tracing it along her slit. He found her clit and rubbed his tip on it in slow gentle circles.

“My name is Will.” He said in a seductive whisper. He leaned forward to share the rest of his desire. “You’ll say it when I fuck you.” 

His lips and teeth were on her neck as he pushed inside her. The stretch was agonizing for only a small second. It had been so long since anyone had been inside her. Her vibrators weren’t as girthy as Will’s cock. 

“Will . . .” She murmured as he bottomed out inside her. “Will.” She wanted to be good, fulfill his desire. What the fuck is wrong with me? She thought for a small moment, but the pleasure erased any wrong feelings she felt about fucking the boy who kidnapped, held a gun to her head, made her experience trauma. 

“That’s right. You’ll remember me. This cock. You’ll remember it.” 

Will eased slowly. It was different then the rutting desire she had felt moments ago. His mouth was buried in the crook of her neck. He gave her deep steady strokes at first. All the way out then a thrust back in. It was a pace that made her aware of how good he felt inside her, dragging along her walls. She felt all of him moving, thrusting, grunting, and panting. She altered holding his neck to his shoulders for support. 

The only warning she received indicating he would start pounding into her was a soft look. Their eyes connected. He breathed in and out harshly, fully inside her, then began shallow thrusts. Her only response was to nod in agreement. 

She wanted him to fuck her hard. 

He started pounding into her relentlessly. His hips snapped onto her at a rate that made her body quiver. Her moans were audibly loud. She couldn’t remember what she should be doing with her hands. She settled for gripping his shoulders. He was grunting and pushing against her thighs spreading them wide to get in deep. His angle inside her kissed her sweet spot. 

“Will! Oh my god! Yes!” Her hips struggled to meet his because he was pounding her hard into the back seat almost making her bounce back. “Will. Will. Will. Will.” She knew he liked that. His cock was twitching inside her. 

“Fuck! Fuck! I’m gonna cum.” He pulled out as her walls spasmed around his cock. 

He spilled himself half on her thigh and half on the mound of her cunt. Her back arched. Her eyes screwed shut as her pussy clenched around nothing. She felt a thumb. His thumb rubbed tight circles around her clit. 

“There you go, baby girl. I got you.” She whimpered letting fresh tears roll down her face as she orgasmed. “There it is.”

Her chest heaved. She barely had enough time to catch her breath when he slipped his softened cock back inside her. He pressed his body on top of her letting her feel his weight. She was a bit taken aback at first when she realized what he was doing. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling him inside her, safe and warm. 

“Just,” He swallowed and kissed her tears spurred on from her orgasm. “Stay with me a little longer.” He had no room to make demands. “Please.” He was nestled inside her and on top of her, holding her again as close as he could. 

She could feel his breath. 

She could feel his heart, steady and lazy. 

She could smell his scent, salty cum, sweaty heat, and a tingle of aftershave at his chin which now rested between her covered cleavage. 

Her fingers pet against his hair. 

Never again, she remembered. Never again did she want to feel helpless or the loss of control. 

Never again did she want to feel alone. 

She knew now she could never make that promise. 

A new one floated in her mind. 

“I want you.” She knew it was what Will needed to hear, but it is a whispered secret, a shameful truth. For him and herself. “Over and over again.” 

They needed to be needed. 

At this moment they needed each other.