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onceuponaloonatic · 4 years ago

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The night Mina and Nayeon confessed to Sana, she couldn’t sleep. She could feel the girls all rolling around in her stomach, they were all restless too. She should be happy, she got the girls. And Sana was happy. She got Mina and Nayeon. She thought that would solve all of her problems. But it didn’t.

They hadn’t talked about the contract yet. Every single day Sana was closer and closer to her due date, but she didn’t know if she was going to stay after the babies were born. Mina and Nayeon didn’t seem to be thinking about it, too happy to have Sana. She was happy to have them too, but there was the gnawing question at the back of her mind. Staying would break their contract, and Sana wasn’t sure Mina and Nayeon were okay with that. She decides to live one day at a time, with Mina and Nayeon. They seem to be taking it one day at a time too. But taking it one day at a time almost made things worse. Sana fell in love with the girls taking things one day at a time. She had realistically fallen in love with them after seeing them on the ultrasound for the first time, but she finally allows herself to feel that love. She still cries whenever they are active. Before it used to be out of longing, but now it was out of love and confusion. Sana didn’t know what the future held. All she knew was she loved Mina, Nayeon, and the children.

When Sana’s due date came around, she was so scared. Mina and Naeyon mistook her fear for the fear of childbirth, but Sana wasn’t afraid of that. She was afraid of leaving. “Sana, we need to go to the hospital.” Mina sighed, nuzzling Sana’s neck as Sana tried to busy herself with her phone. She was in a lot of pain, but she was trying to ignore it.

“N-No. I’m okay.” Sana nodded, on the verge of tears from holding back pain.

“You're not though.” Nayeon could practically feel Sana’s pain radiating off of her. “What’s wrong?” “I-I-” Sana couldn’t say it aloud.

“It’s okay.” Mina squeezed her hand. “What’s wrong?” “Do I have to leave once they are born?” Sana asked. “I know that’s what's in my contract but I don’t think I can.” Mina and Nayeon both got stiff at the mention of the contract.

“We don’t want you to go anywhere.” Nayeon whispered, kissing Sana’s temple. “If you want to stay, we would love to have you.” “Yeah. Who cares about the contract?” Mina kissed Sana’s cheek. “We’re in this together now. If you want of course.” “I do want that.” Sana gulped back a scream of pain.

“Okay then.” Nayeon smiled at her. Sana would never forget that smile. It was so beautiful. “Let’s go have some babies, yes?”

xx The ride to the hospital was a blur. All Sana remembers is holding onto Mina’s hand so tight she was scared she was going to break it. Sana wasn’t expecting as much pain as she was experiencing. It hurt so much. She cried the whole way. Once they got to the hospital, Sana was quickly moved to a delivery room. Mina and Nayeon were there the whole time she was in labor. They never left her side, not once. Nayeon would occasionally rain kisses on Sana’s face while Mina whispered how good she was doing. Sana had to admit, it definitely helped. When the first baby was born, the relief lasted only a moment. The pain gripped Sana again almost immediately after the first one was born. She could hear the oldest crying while the doctors performed a check up on her and Sana delivered the second one fifteen minutes later. After the second one, Sana’s pain somehow magnifies. It hurts so bad. The third one is out not long after the second, only about seven minutes separating the two.

“I can’t do this Nayeon.” Sana whispered as the fourth one moved into position. It hurt so bad, hot white pain enveloped Sana’s entire body. She couldn’t do it. It hurt too much.

“You’ve got this baby.” Nayeon kissed Sana’s temple. “Just one more. One more, and you're done.” That motivated Sana to push on the doctor's command. When the fourth one was born, Sana nearly passed out. It hurt. It hurt so much. She felt like she could barely breathe.

The doctors did a check up on Sana while the nurses prepared the babies. Once Sana was starting to feel better, the nurses brought the babies over. Sana took one of them, the youngest one, and held her against her chest.

“Hello.” Sana whispered to the baby. The baby wiggled around on her chest, and Sana’s heart completely melted. She looked at Mina and Nayeon. Nayeon had two babies in her arms while Mina was cradling the oldest. “You did it.” Mina smiled at Sana with tears in her eyes. “I did…” Sana trailed off. “They are all so beautiful.” Sana couldn’t help the tears that welled up in her eyes. “They are.” Nayeon mentioned, tears already rushing down her cheeks. “Thank you Sana.” “Thank you.” Sana answered, looking down at the tiny baby in her arms. She was the smallest of the four, a gentle weight in Sana’s arms. “Thank you so much.” xx

After some time was spent with the girls, the nurses took them away for a little bit to let Sana rest. Mina and Nayeon stayed by her side, helping her get comfortable in her uncomfortable hospital bed.

“Do you need anything?” Mina asked, noticing how Sana was adjusting her pillow.

“No.” Sana nodded. “I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?” Nayeon asked. “I’m fine.” Sana responded. She saw a file of paperwork tucked under Nayeon’s arms. “What’s that?” “Nothing.” Nayeon quickly moved the file away.

“It’s not nothing.” Sana narrowed her eyes at Nayeon. “What is it?”

“It’s, it’s the contract.” Nayeon stated. “I was uh looking at it to see what we agreed to do after the babies were born.” “What does it say?” “Well uh…” Nayeon made eye contact with Mina. “It says you aren’t supposed to see the babies again. And that we won’t see you again.” “I knew it said that, you're going to change it right?” “I, um… It’s a lot harder to change than I thought it would be.” Nayeon avoided eye contact with Sana. “There’s another thing too… Your name isn’t on the girls’ birth certificates.” “What?” “I’m trying to change it, but since they have already been printed it’s going to be hard…” Nayeon explained. “Technically, you don’t legally have any relationship to them right now.” “You can change it right?” Tears came to Sana’s eyes. “Right?” She had only been with the girls for a little bit, but it was long enough for her to know she never wanted to let them go. She wanted to hold them all again. They were so precious to her. They were her babies. Sana could say it now. They were her daughters.

“I can try… But I think it would be easier if we left it that way, at least legally.” Nayeon kept avoiding looking at Sana. “You can of course still know them and be with them and us, but I think it will be easier for us to keep things the way they are…” “Sana, it will just be more simple for everyone. You can still see them and love them, you will still be their mom.” Mina added. “The media is relentless, it’s best for everyone if we don’t let them know we fell in love with you.

“But not their real mother…” Sana trailed off. “You can just say you don’t want me around if you don’t want me.” “No no Sana that’s not it- it’s just- we um for appearances sake-”

“I’m sorry I’m not good enough to be seen in the media.” Sana could feel anger rising up inside her. She had so many emotions swirling around. She had just had four babies, and her hormones were a mess. And she was upset. Sure legal stuff doesn’t make a family, but Sana wanted to at least be listed on her daughter’s birth certificates. “I’m sorry I ruin your precious appearances.” “No Sana it’s not that- it’s just. We’re trying to protect you.” “Protect me?!” Sana asked. “I can protect myself. You can just say it you know. Tell me I’m not good enough for your perfect media family.” Sana didn’t notice she was crying. “If I’m not good enough, don’t even waste your time.” “What Sana-”

“No. Just go. You don’t want to change the contract, then we won’t change it.” Sana sobbed. “I’ll send Momo to collect my stuff from your apartment. Take good care of them okay?” “Sana please-” Mina was crying too.

“Just go please.” Sana sobbed, burying her face into her pillow. “Please.” Sana heard their footsteps moving around her. When they were finally gone, Sana let out a loud sob. Why had she done this to herself? xx

After being discharged from the hospital, she went to Momo’s. True to her word, Sana sent Momo to collect her things at Mina and Nayeon’s. Momo had told her Mina and Nayeon weren’t home, and Mina’s assistant had let her in. Two weeks later, the money promised to Sana appeared in her bank account.

Sana had been so sad after leaving the hospital. She was depressed. She barely ate, she barely slept. It killed Momo and Jihyo to see her like that. They knew she was in pain, and they were worried this was going to happen. Especially Jihyo. She had been so scared this was going to happen to Sana, and it was going to break her. And it did.

Sana throws herself into her studies, and Momo and Jihyo do anything to cheer her up. She appreciates that she has the two of them. They are the best friends she could ask for, and she wasn’t sure what she would do without them. They help her get back on her feet and land a job as a first grade teacher for a well paying fancy private school.

Sana never truly gets over the loss of the babies. She’s of course crushed about Mina and Nayeon, but the babies crush her even more. She never even got to know their names. She only held them once. She grew them and protected them for eight months, and now she had to live with the fact she was never going to see them again. The worst part was she knew it was her fault. She had done this to herself. She had abandoned her children. Some nights, it hits her so hard she breaks down in Momo or Jihyo’s arms.

But over time, the pain starts to go away a bit. Sana is busy with her own job now, and Momo and Jihyo are always there for her when it’s particularly painful for her. It gets to a point where Sana is able to live with herself a bit more. Sana starts therapy, knowing she’s going to need it to process her more complex emotions. It helps. She’s still miserable every time she thinks about Mina, Nayeon, or the babies, but she’s overall better now.

As her kids get closer to her student age, Sana wonders if any of her students act like the kids. She wonders what they look like. What their names are. How they are doing. Every year on May twentieth, Sana regresses to her original sad state. That was the girls’ birthday. And it always served as a reminder for what she’s lost.

On the sixth year anniversary of the day she lost everything, she breaks down more than usual. Momo was out of town at a work conference and Jihyo had been avoiding Sana on account of the fact she was in rut. But when Sana called Jihyo, drunk and sobbing, Jihyo can’t help but come over. Jihyo wraps Sana up in a hug and tells her everything is okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Sana tells her to prove it. One thing led to another, and they ended up in bed together, naked and hot.

Due to Sana’s depression and drunken state, she didn’t even think about protection. Jihyo’s rut had clouded her judgement, so she forgot to ask. Neither regretted the sex the next day, but it didn’t lead to a relationship. They never saw each other that way.

When Sana got pregnant for the second time, she cried. There was so much going through her mind. She was scared, sad, and she wasn’t sure she deserved to have another baby after what she had done to her first ones. But Jihyo was there for her the minute she told her. She told her she wasn’t going anywhere, and then asked if Sana wanted to keep it. Sana nodded, putting one hand over her stomach. She still felt like she didn’t deserve the baby, but her therapist had helped her a lot.

Her second pregnancy was much easier than her first. There was only one baby this time, and Sana was under less stress. She was able to love this baby. To think of herself as its mother. She hadn’t been able to do that before. She falls so in love with her new baby, but she doesn’t forget her old ones. When she feels her kicking it reminds her of when her older babies used to fight inside of her. Each of them had their own personalities, and there were two of them that were so squirmy inside of her. Her new baby wasn’t as active, but she would still move around inside Sana to reassure her she was there.

When Nico was born two months early, Sana thought it was some kind of punishment for giving up her older babies. Jihyo reassured her it’s not, that fate had just brought them Nico earlier than planned. When she held Nico for the first time, Sana couldn't stop crying. And when the doctors tried to take her away, Sana refused. Jihyo apologized and told them Sana needed a bit more time with the baby. Sana never wanted to let Nico go again. She didn’t want to lose her like she lost her older babies.

While Nico is in the hospital, Sana is always there. Momo and Jihyo both knew Sana was just scared that someone was going to take Nico from her, so they didn’t try to take her away much, but they made sure she was eating properly and still taking care of herself.

Taking Nico home was such a big deal for Sana. She was always so scared someone was going to take Nico from her, so taking her home made her feel so emotional. Sana was living with Momo, Momo being a supportive friend throughout Sana’s entire pregnancy with Jihyo. She had actually found it hilarious that her best friends had made an accidental baby, and she had declared that she would stay by their sides and help out in any way she could.

Sana was so happy finally being Nico’s mother. She had been waiting to be someone’s mother for so long. Nico was not a replacement for her older girls, but she did help Sana heal. Sana was finally getting to be a mother to her baby. She still felt guilty about what she had done with Mina, Nayeon, and the older kids, but she was happy. She was happy with Nico and Momo and Jihyo.

Until one day, everything changed forever. Sana had been away on maternity leave for a bit but she was excited to start her class with all her new students. Being a teacher had been her dream, and it made her so happy to finally live her dream. On the first day, she had all her students introduce themselves with their names and their favorite animals and colors. She found that worked the best in getting to know her class of six and seven year olds the best, at least at first. It was all going normal until she reached the girl sitting in the first seat of the third row. She had looked familiar when Sana had first seen her. She wasn’t sure why, but she assumed she was the younger sister of a different student she had taught before. She was not expecting what she got when the girl introduced herself.

“Hi, my name is Im-Myoui Saki. I’m six years old and my favorite color is purple and my favorite animal is dinosaurs.” Sana’s heart stopped beating when she heard the child’s name. Im-Myoui. This was Nayeon and Mina’s child. This was her child.

#this is basically a fic chapter lol #surrogate au #twice #3na #minatozaki sana #myoui mina #im nayeon #park jihyo #hirai momo #hints of sahyo i guess

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gustafsnightangel · 4 years ago

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A Softer Side Part 6

“Sounds good.”

“I’d be there in person but I can’t leave. We need to keep her hidden and alive.”

“Absolutely.” Steve paused. “Have you heard from Meekland?”

“She fired me and Jerry.”

“Same with me and Davis. Good to know we’ve been given the green light to fuck shit up.”

“Oh we’re going to do more than fuck it up.” Strand chuckled.

“You sniffing something boss?” He could hear the grin in Wainwright’s voice.

“We have the syndicate and all their buyers and sellers. Once this trio of girls have been sold for the year we’re going to razz their entire operation to the ground.”

“Count me in.”

“Absolutely.” He eyed Ayla as she jumped out of her chair and moved to him, the urgent look on her face piqued his interest. “I’ll get Jerry to open a link between us and forward the information we have.”

“I’ll do the same.” Strand hung up as Ayla tapped him on the arm lightly and waved him to follow.

“Slow down Ayla.” He said gently, knowing the speed at which she was moving was painful to her. She pointed to a photo of Meekland on one of the monitors and tapped a few keys bringing up all the information on his boss. Some of it he knew, some of it he didn’t. “What’s the connection?” His brow furrowed as she tapped her DNA laptop and turned it for him to see the screen. Tapping her photo on the large monitor she then tapped her laptop. “That’s Meekland?” He asked looking at her with bewilderment and she nodded. There was more than tears in her eyes, there was sorrow, remorse. “You’re sure?” She nodded and pointed to herself and then at Meekland. “You knew her?”She nodded. “Was she one of the stolen infants?” She nodded again and opened up another file on her laptop. Strand began to read as she sat, eyes watching him intently.

“I know this is an old photo but why is this guy familiar?” He said and tapped her laptop screen without thinking and it went dark. “Shit sorry.” She logged back in and shrugged as if it were no big deal. Turning to the bank of monitors she brought up the commanding officer of their department, Meekland’s boss. “Oh fuck me.” He breathed. “I never saw it.” He felt his gut plummet. All this time they’d been fucking each other, the dominance play, he’d never even considered. He felt sick as his thoughts churned along with his stomach. “He bought her.” He stated more than asked.

Ayla’s hand rested on his to comfort, but he flinched and slapped it away, not caring if it hurt, not giving a shit as she scrambled away. He recoiled violently at the thoughts screaming through his head. Standing abruptly he walked away without a word, needing space, needing to crawl out of his own skin, needing to fucking breathe.

“Karl.” Mia said sternly as he stormed past her and out the French doors. “What the fuck was that?” She snapped.

“She was one of them Mia.” He spat pacing the dirt. “Sarah Meekland.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. You slapped Ayla’s hand away, did you forget what ninth circle of hell you just pulled her from?” She seethed.

All Strand could do was glare at her.

“She was only doing what you asked her to do. Just because you found out something about an ex girlfriend that even your black heart managed to love doesn’t give you the right to slap her away and treat her like shit.”

“I never said I loved her and we’re not together.”

“You didn’t have to, it’s practically written over your face.” She snarked.

“Don’t you fucking dare.” He warned, he was in no mood for her sarcasm or teasing.

“You fucked her again didn’t you? After everything she put you through the first time, you fucked her again?” She said in disbelief.

“We both needed to blow off steam.” He mumbled. “It’s just sex.”

“Ok sure, I get that, but despite who she is and how she was raised, she nearly killed you Strand, you do remember that yes?”

“Fuck you Mia.”

“No.” She snarled and got in his face, which for a petite girl of 5’ 2”, was impressive. “Fuck you. I was the one who had to bring you back from the brink after that op went south on her orders, so fuck you Karl.” She drilled a finger into his chest. “You almost died in my fucking arms.” She spat, the tears in her voice evidence of how much she cared about him. “So fuck you for doing the one thing I asked you not to do, to not get personally involved with that soul sucking bitch again.” He reached for her. “Don’t you fucking touch me.” She snarled and slapped his hand away, the contact painful. “You treat Ayla like that again and I’ll fucking murder you in your sleep. You were right, you’re no good for her.” The barb struck deep as it had been intended. “You’re such an asshole.” She turned and walked back inside, it was only then he saw Ayla at the door, witness to everything they’d just said, turn, and disappear from view.

“Fuck!” He snarled, the overwhelming urge to shoot something thrumming through him.

It took him nearly an hour to pace and calm down, the look skyward at the stars and the moon making him feel so much worse than Ayla hearing his dirty laundry. “Well, I’ve been trying to tell you I’m an asshole, now you know.” He breathed and mentally kicked himself. “Fucking relationships.” He growled, sitting in the dirt he stared at the moon. Every interaction, every moment with Sarah went through his head, pulling it apart, analyzing it. The sex between them had always been consensual, had always been rough. Not once had she uttered her safe word or a color for stop, and her pain threshold was virtually non existent. “That should have been a red flag right there.” He muttered. How was he to know who she really was, her background, her upbringing?

******

It was almost midnight when he ventured back inside, the house quiet. Thinking everyone had gone to bed he turned for the rec room and saw Ayla still working hard and his heart cracked, had he hurt her too? Mia was nowhere to be found and Jerry’s door was shut which meant he was probably passed out.

He went to take a shower, the need to feel clean before he tried to mend the rift with Ayla. When he came back out she wasn’t at the computer. Standing at her bedroom door he saw the silhouette of her tiny body curled up, pressed against the wall. “Sweet girl.” He choked and walked to her, she shrank back as he sat next to her. “I know you’re angry at me and I’m sorry, but don’t sleep here sweet girl, get comfortable and warm in bed.” She shook her head and pulled away from him, the keening whimper warning him to back off. “Ok.” He sighed. “Ok. You can come lay down with me when you’re ready too.” She wanted nothing to do with him, that vacant stare breaking him, he’d caused that. He’d caused her to withdraw, to scamper away from him like a kicked puppy. Climbing into the bed he could hear the soft sobs and knew he may never get her to trust him again.

Karl woke to an empty room, the other side of the bed undisturbed, she’d slept on the floor all night and disappeared before he’d woken. “Back to square one.” He sighed to the ceiling and felt like the asshole he was. Venturing to the rec room he saw Jerry hard at work, the girls nowhere to be seen.

“Morning boss.”

“Morning. Mia and Ayla?” He asked taking a seat and watching the feed of the prime merch factory.

“No clue but our feed is up.”

“Thanks.” He said quietly.

“Not me, Ayla had it up last night.” He said pointing at the monitor. “She found background on all of them, the missing pieces from her laptop.”

“Pity we can’t print it off.”

“She did, well, sort of.” Jerry looked at him. “She didn’t show you?”

“Show me what?” He snarled.

Jerry pulled her DNA laptop over and started to pull up the data.

“How come you can touch it?” He asked growled.

“She gave me access, to everything.” Strand touched the screen and it shut down.

“No surprises there.” He growled.

“Did something happen I don’t know about?” Jerry asked and Karl pinched the bridge of his nose as he told Jerry what happened last night. “Oh.” He said simply.

“Yeah, I fucked up.” Karl scrubbed a hand over his face and paced. “So where do we stand with all the information, the case?” He had to just get on with it.

“The prime merch is under surveillance, we have background and parental info. Once we shut this down we can reunite. Ayla found the link to the milk money and I was right, runaways and homeless, the occasional school kid but those were borderline runaways. She’s taken every missing persons list from every county nationwide and run it against the websites buy/sell list, we’re still getting hits and that list is going to be astronomical. The websites have been up and running since the dawn of the internet.”

“So this goes deeper than Allen Raven.”

“Much deeper, though that part of the case will be for another time, we’re still collecting info.” Jerry leaned back in his chair and pulled the laptop into his lap. “The op is set, we have weeks to observe, but where it gets interesting is where Meekland’s involved. This asshole.” He tapped the screen in front of him and a photo of her boss filled it. “Is a prime merch purchaser. He’s a prime asshole too, but we’ll shelve that rant for another day. He’s purchased six girls over the past thirty years funneling money from the company we’re a part of, correction, were a part of. That’s a girl every five years, Meekland was, or is, his first, and he’s up for a new girl this year. He usually takes the third 16 year old prime Raven has to offer.”

“Good, we’ll be geared up to take his ass down. What happened to the others?” Strand asked already knowing the answer.

“We’re still running the searches for them. They’re either dead or chained somewhere much like Ayla was. There’s also connections to others in the department, some on Meekland’s list, some that Ayla found on top of it.”

“She’s uncovered all of this?” He looked at Jerry.

“I’m only just scratching the surface of information she has on here.” He said tapping her laptop. “Every transaction, every girl, prime down to milk money, every client and what they like.”

“She’s trying to right wrongs that aren’t even hers.” He murmured, echoing Mia’s words from the other day.

“She’s trying to help you.” Jerry said gently.

“I really fucked up didn’t I?”

“Yeah you did boss, but she’ll come around, give her time.”

“And what if she doesn’t?”

“She will, she loves you, you saved her.” Hunt said gently.

“I hit her.” Strand snarled.

“You slapped her hand away, it’s not the same as what was done to her and you know it.” Jerry said finding his spine.

“It may as well have been a full on backhand across the face.”

“Boss, that’s not who you are, but you did it and you can’t take it back.”

“No I can’t, and she may never trust me again.”

“Give her some time, Mia too.” Hunt said and got back down to it knowing Karl wasn’t one to talk about his feelings. They were all on edge, maybe the distance was for the best.

******

Strand spent the day reading and compiling notes on their next op, monitoring the feed from Wainwright. When it was apparent the girls were not going to surface he set his own searches to run, his own lists to compile and went to bed early, Jerry doing much the same. This would be their routine for the following weeks leading up to the op.

He was restless, the thoughts of what he’d done to Ayla, to Mia, how did he fix it? Time sure, mending the rift with Mia was easy enough, it wasn’t the first time they’d gone head to head, but Ayla? He may never be able to fully mend that chasm between them now. “Mia was right, I’m no fucking good for you sweet girl.” He growled and punched the pillow trying to make it more comfortable. “No fucking good at all.”

******

The following morning Strand made his way out to a silent house, the girls were still tucked away somewhere, his only concern was Ayla. Was she eating, sleeping, was she ok? Mia, he knew would surface eventually and they’d snarl at each other again for a while and things would get back to normal. Ayla on the other hand, she was alone again, he’d left her alone, the one thing he’d promised he wouldn’t do. With his thoughts on Ayla he sat and noticed his searches were complete, his notes compiled, and new searches running along roughly the same lines as his thoughts were at the new data.

“Ayla left that running for you this morning.” Jerry said as he sat, handing a coffee to Karl.

“She...” He breathed. “Was Mia with her?” He asked and Jerry shook his head.

“I haven’t seen Mia.” He said and Strand nodded.

“She’ll be back when she’s ready to strip another layer of skin from my hide.” He snarked and sipped his coffee. “Quite rightly.” He added in a low growl.

Settling in at the computer he got to work, more reading, more notes, more tugging loose ends to see what they unraveled. Jerry did much the same, the pair working in a comfortable silence. That would be their routine for the next few weeks. Get up, silently thank Ayla for finding whatever she was able to find for him and Jerry, work, sleep, rinse, repeat.

He put Ayla out of his mind as much as he could, he had to if this op was going to be successful, which was increasingly difficult as the days turned into weeks. He missed her, that slight smile, her touch, her kiss, the way she looked at him as if he was her whole world.

“Shit.” He snarled one night as he sat outside looking up at the moon, the soft halo that surrounded it. “That’s because you are her whole world you fuckhead.” He swore, this was all she knew outside of the concrete shit hole Raven had put her in, he was all she knew. Coming back into the house he wasn’t expecting to see Ayla at the computers, working hard to find them whatever lead she could. He felt his breath rush out at the sight of her, she’d put on weight, the gaunt, frail look gone from her limbs.

Without hesitation he walked to her and dropped to his knees beside her, he’d grovel if he had to, anything to make it right. He saw her hands freeze on the keys as he turned her chair and rested his forehead on her knees.

“I’m sorry.” He choked. “I’m so fucking sorry.” He knew this had freaked her out just by the way she sat stock still, barely breathing. He kept his hands in his lap, not trusting himself to touch her in case he damaged their tenuous relationship any further. “Nothing, absolutely nothing excuses my behavior, for slapping your hand away, for terrifying you, hurting you. I’m sorry.” He stared at her bare feet, her toenails painted a sunny yellow, the manacle marks at her ankles only a slightly darker shade of pink now instead of angry red welts, the silver scars from years of wearing them like a spiderweb. “I’m no good for you, but I know I’m all you’ve got. I’ll do better.” He left it there, half expecting the silence that followed, half terrified she’d push him away. When her shaky hand cupped the side of his head tenderly he almost choked on a sob. “I don’t deserve you, someone as forgiving as you.” He whispered and leaned into her hand eager to feel more of her, that loving touch he craved.

Her finger hooked under his chin and she tugged enough for him to lift his head, a silent plea to look at her. He felt his heart lurch as he laid eyes on her face for the first time in nearly three weeks. Sea green eyes looked back, intense, sharp, loving. The weight she’d put on had filled out her cheeks, the hollow look gone without a trace of the tortured woman beneath.

“I’m so sorry.” He whispered, his voice catching and the slight smile that tugged the corners of her mouth melted him as she brushed a thumb over his lips. Melted, him, the asshole Karl Strand, on his knees, a fucking mess at her feet.

The ping of the computer had her head whip around. She studied the data, as he studied her, before turning back to face him. Her eyes searched his and before he could stop her she kissed him, that slow burn that told him she’d not only forgiven him, that she wanted more, it spoke of a love he wasn’t entirely sure he was worthy of. Turning back to the screen she dropped her hand from his face and with a few keystrokes pulled up the data he’d been searching for earlier.

“I’m sorr...” She touched a finger to his lips and shook her head, it was finished now. He stayed where he was, reading the data she’d pulled up, her hand casually resting on his shoulder, fingers absently toying with the collar of his shirt. It was such a tender intimacy he’d never had before and it floored him.

“Thank you for you help the past few weeks.” He said softly as his emotions settled. “Jerry and I have been able to get this case organized and progressing. We’d still be neck deep in it if we didn’t have your help.” She looked at him and he felt her eyes search his face, her soft kiss melting him again.

A little after three she set a few searches to run and pushed back her chair to stand. Karl was still on his knees, not game to move from his spot, terrified the spell would be broken and this little slice of peace with her would be taken from him. He looked up at her, the rich whisky colored hair framing her face, damn she was stunning. Holding out her hand for his, he chuckled. This was a turn of events he thought, the slight smile telling him it wasn’t lost on her either. He stood, his tall frame dwarfing hers, the urge to kiss her, hold her, overwhelming. Taking his hand in hers she led him to her room. He stopped on her threshold and looked at her. “Sweet girl.” He breathed as she tugged his hand. “I don’t know if this is a good idea.” His gentle tone trying to ease her into the rejection. He couldn’t sleep with her tonight even though his body yearned for it. His emotions were a mess and if he fucked this up now they’d be done forever.

Her eyes pleaded and the hand in his shook slightly. “I want to, but...” She shook her head and tugged his hand. Stepping into the room she surprised him when she shut the door quietly behind him. He looked around her room, it too had changed, there were books on the nightstand, clothes in the closet he could see via the slightly open door. Mia had taken her shopping, or online shopping at least. He watched as she sat on the bed and patted her hand on the covers.

“You sure sweet girl?” He asked and at her nod he walked to the other side and climbed in. Watching her she climbed under the covers, switched the lamp off, and tentatively moved closer to him, the need to feel her in his arms making his fingers itch. With the moonlight streaming through the open curtains he let his eyes adjust to the glow. Her fingers twitched as they touched his arm, still unsure and timid of sleeping beside him in a bed. He was about to suggest he go sleep in his room when she shifted, laying beside him, body flush with his, her hand fisted in his shirt as her head rested on his bicep. “Sweet girl.” He breathed and wrapped his arms around her slowly, the press of her against him stirring something inside him that should have stayed dormant. “I missed you.” He whispered and kissed her head, the scent of her clouding his mind, his reasoning, his judgement. “I’m so sorry.” Her head tipped back to look at him as her fingers trailed thought his scruff, those soft lips brushing his tenderly. “Sleep sweet girl, we both need sleep.” Because if she kept touching and kissing him like this he would fuck her to satisfy his own craving for her. She curled into him, her head burrowing under his chin and relaxed. Holding her close he leveled out his breathing and willed his over confident cock to stand down. How the fuck did he end up with these sorts of feelings for her?

He felt her plummet into sleep, but his mind raced. She looked peaceful in his arms, the weeks of food, water, sleep, and safety blossoming her into a very attractive woman. “Sweet girl you undo me, make me feel things I’m not sure I have the right to feel.” He murmured into the night, the scent of her filling his senses and pulling him under. “I’m still no good for you.” He mumbled.

******

He woke with a start as she shifted, the sun painting the sky beyond the curtains pretty colors. They’d only been asleep for a few hours and he growled as he hit the button to close the curtains for more darkness. She trembled as the sun disappeared, the soft blue glow from the curtains the only light in the room. “You’re safe sweet girl, sleep some more.” He cuddled her in close, the softness of her body a sharp contrast to the body he’d held weeks ago after bringing her out of the concrete prison she’d been forced to live in. She turned into him, face buried into his chest, the soft whimper tearing at him. “You’re safe with me.” He brought his arms around her tighter and kissed her forehead, sleep still held her just as tightly. “You’re always safe with me.” Her body slowly went lax, the warmth from him soothing her as much as his voice.

******

He woke hours later to the prickly feeling he was being watched. His eyes snapped open to see those sea green pools staring at him from under dark lashes. If things weren’t as fragile as they were he would have stripped them both naked and taken her. He found being this close to her, with that look made his blood boil in the most erotic way. “You have the prettiest eyes sweet girl.” He murmured, his voice husky with need. Feeling this way about her wasn’t healthy. She tilted her head back, stretched up, and kissed him. “We can’t Ayla.” He breathed as he pulled back, fuck this was killing him. “I...” She kissed him again sweetly and pulled back the covers. “I’m not good for you.” He said as she climbed out of bed, the flat look she gave him was one of annoyance, she didn’t want to hear it. “Fuck me.” He swore as she closed the bathroom door. “I’m trying to do the right fucking thing here.” He sighed to the ceiling.

He couldn’t get involved with her. Once the case was finished, what then, he wasn’t the settling down type. He didn’t want to play happy families. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to fuck her and leave her, she didn’t deserve that, didn’t deserve the domination game he liked to play. He played hard and rough and that was far from what she needed. Sex for him was explosive, was a primal need to be sated, to take and give only what he allowed, where he was in control, he was the one making choices. It was always concentual, but his tastes ran a little wild.

Dressed she came out of the bathroom and glanced at him before disappearing, closing the door behind her. He ripped off the covers off angry at himself, fuming at this whole fucked up situation. Heading back to his own bathroom he shucked his sweats and shirt and stroked his raging hard cock, fuck he needed release.

Under the hot spray he soaped up and began to find it, the image of Ayla invading his mind. His hand pumping slowly as if he was sinking into her, her tightness enveloping him. Letting his fantasy run wild he took her with his mind, every inch of her devoured while he fucked her. His soft grunt as he came more a sigh as he rode the pleasure the mere thought of fucking her gave him. Rinsing off he turned the water off and wrapped a towel at his hips. Staring in the mirror he was disgusted with himself. “You have no business lusting after that woman.” He snarled at his reflection. “She doesn’t need your shit you asshole.” He dressed and headed out to hunt down some food.

******

Seeing Ayla at the workstation with Jerry he smiled, she was looking good and seemed happy. Mia glared at him from the kitchen and he thought now was as good a time as any to clear the air between them.

“I apologized to Ayla last night.” He said softly and took a seat on the opposite side of the kitchen island, he wasn’t completely stupid. “On my knees.”

“As you fucking should.” She growled.

“Mia, I really want to move on from this, for her sake, but if we need to go a round where you beat the shit out of me for it then step the fuck outside.” His tone was irritated, he wanted to move them all past this.

“I’m not as naïve as she is Strand. I know what you’re capable of and exactly what you are.”

“I’m an asshole, I’ve never lied to her about that. I even reiterated that last night. I’m an asshole and I don’t deserve her, but as you keep pointing out, it’s her fucking choice.”

“You can always say no.” She ground out.

He stalked around the island and got in her face, in her space. “I have. Repeatedly.” His glare lit the fire in her eyes. “Take a swing Mia, you’ll only get one.”

“You fucking know ones all I need.”

“Then consider it a free pass.” He welcomed her violence, the pain would be better than the ache in his heart for Ayla.

“You’re in love with her.” She whispered, the realization dropping from her lips seriously as she clued into the internal pain he was feeling.

“I don’t know what I feel for her Mia, and that terrifies me.” He backed off, his eyes flicking to the rec room entrance. “She’s the complete opposite to what I’m usually interested in. Sex aside because it’s not happening, what do I have to offer her? I’m a loner, I’m a prick, I’m controlling, I’m everything she shouldn’t want to ever see again after what she’s been through.”

“She doesn’t see it that way Karl. God you’re so thick sometimes.” She blurted out suddenly exasperated. “You’re the first male to care about her, and despite the situation of how you met, she loves you. She’s discovering who she is and what she likes.”

“I don’t want to hurt her, intentionally or not, I can’t bear to see her in pain or upset, it fucking guts me Mia.”

“You’re helping her find her way Strand, it’s a big deal for her.”

“Has she talked to you?” He asked.

“No, she hasn’t uttered a word to me. We did girly things, shopped online, ate ice cream watched some movies. I gave her a taste of what normal single girls do.” She looked at him. “She not naïve about sex, she didn’t get upset at sex scenes in the movies we watched, she knows the difference between what was done to her and what’s normal.”

“My sexual taste is a little on the wild side Mia and you know that.”

“You’re never going to know hers if you push her away and deny her.”

“I like the domination the spanking, the hand at the throat, and I like it rough, I highly doubt she’ll be into that.” He growled.

“Like I said, you’ll never know if you don’t talk to her. She’ll find her voice when you do Karl. You want her to talk to you, to open up? You need to do the same.” She sat the coffee in front of him and took a bowl of ice cream in for Ayla, he smirked at that, it had become her normal.

******

Each night Ayla curled up with him he thought about what to say to her, chewed on Mia’s words. In the morning he would shower after her and stroke himself until he came, thinking of her and those sea green eyes he’d fallen in love with. Did he love her or was it just lusting after her because they’d been forced together? During the day the four of them worked, the sell date creeping forward, the methodical task of closing the net and catching every last one of these monsters. Then and only then could he really dive into his feelings for Ayla and determine a way forward, that’s if she didn’t make his choice for him in the mean time.

******

As the days crawled toward the second auction Ayla had settled. Working with Jerry, curling up at night with Karl, spending more time venturing outside to unwind with Mia. Strand had noticed the spark in her, taking chances, making choices, becoming herself. She was still reserved and calculating, but more at ease with the three of them.

“I have a question.” Jerry said as they sat around the dinner table one night. “In a few days the auction is going to go live, because, hey, we’re the ones initiating it. But will they be expecting an infant to turn up as per usual?” Karl looked at him and thought about it.

“I would assume so.” He mused. “The switch happened after he’d kidnapped the child, it was when he dropped it off that he collected the teen.”

“We might have a problem then. If they’re expecting a baby for the teen, we’re fucked.”

“Not necessarily.” Mia said. “You can always lock it down when you collect the teen. No one in or out.”

“Another question is will they hand over the teen to someone that’s not Raven?” Jerry said softly.

“You’re full of good cheer tonight.” Karl said sarcastically as he tossed his cutlery on the plate. “Plan B?”

“We don’t have one.”

“We better make one.” He growled. “Could Davis or Wainwright pass for Raven with some help?” He asked Mia.

“I can work on it, have them send a scan of their bone structure and I can work some magic.”

“It was a quick handover and in the dark.”

“Burke will be on that night, we’ll get her to answer the door. Maybe he had trouble getting an infant? Would they accept that?” Karl mused and watched as Ayla slipped away and came back with her DNA laptop. She silently worked on something while they tossed ideas around and he mentally kicked himself he hadn’t thought of this issue sooner. Had your mind been where it should be, he scolded himself, on the op and all the logistics that went with it, this would have been rectified weeks ago not days before. Instead you’re off chasing a piece of ass that you shouldn’t be tangoing with.

“I don’t see why not, it’s his operation.” Jerry shrugged.

Ayla looked at Karl. “What is it sweet girl?” Her eyes flicked to everyone in the room and she turned the laptop around. Strand scanned the list. “The dates are different.” He looked at her. “For the ones you highlighted. He’s had issues with snatching a kid on the anniversaries in the past.” She nodded. “We can use that. At least this isn’t going to be a once off.” There was sorrow in her eyes tonight, the case and what they had to do weighing on her, her own trauma and history. “Thanks.” He smiled at her and she nodded again as Mia dished up ice cream. He watched Ayla take her bowl and laptop back and get down to work again. “She’s already feeling it.” Strand said quietly to the other two. “The case, the apprehension, the pressure.”

“She feels powerless.” Mia said and took another bite of strawberry ice cream. “Vulnerable. She knows she’s safe, but she knows other aren’t and she can’t stop what’s happening.”

“She’s helping though.” Strand said as he saw her pull more data up on screen and run more searches.

“Maybe you should tell her that.” She shrugged. “She feels responsible Karl, and I know that sounds ridiculous, but she was with him for her entire life, watched as he destroyed others. She was powerless in the literal sense, she’s not now.”

“Righting wrongs that aren’t hers.” He sighed.

“We know that.” Mia said, leaving it hanging, she squeezed his shoulder as she walked to the kitchen.

They continued to work the slight change to the op, Mia and Jerry finding their beds at around 11, Ayla was still plowing through data. Strand sat next to her as he compiled op notes to send to the team and setup a call tomorrow to run through it. He saw the tears, her eyes intent on her work, the fact she ignored them breaking his heart.

“Sweet girl.” He sighed and brushed a knuckle against her cheek. Her fingers hastily scrubbed them away and she shook her head before trying to focus on her tasks. Pushing herself, he thought, pushing so hard to save them. “Ayla? None of this is your fault, you’re not responsible fo...” She pushed his hand away and shook her head. “You’re not.” Her tears turned into sobs. “Look at me.” He said gently. “Please.” Those stormy ocean green eyes held pain and anger when they looked back. “You had no choice but to do as he commanded.” He started. “None.” His fingers held her under the chin tenderly, his thumb stroking her tears away. “You were stolen, abused, used, you’re not responsible for what you had to do to stay alive and to keep him from torturing you.” His voice cracked at the keening sound coming from her. “You’re a good person sweet girl, you’re here helping. We didn’t ask, you made a choice to help the other girls. Made the choice to help us shut down the auctions, to get the girls to safety.” As he watched her those eyes saw parts of himself he couldn’t hide, parts he struggled to bury. “This is not your burden Ayla, that’s all on Allen Raven. You’re allowed to be angry at him, but not yourself. You had no choice back then sweet girl, none of this is your fault.” She nodded and he raked his fingers through her hair gently cupping her head and urging her close. Crawling into his lap she wept for the girls, for her part in it, for herself. “My sweet Ayla.” He murmured as he soothed her.

The tears subsided and she sat in his lap staring at the screens, that vacant look in her eyes, it had been weeks since she’d retreated inward. Setting a few searches to run overnight he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bedroom. He tucked her in and reassured her he wasn’t leaving for long, before taking care of his business in the bathroom. Leaving the curtains open wide he curled in behind her, his body cradling hers, protecting, soothing. She eventually rolled over, those slender fingers fisting in his shirt, her head using his bicep as a pillow. It had become their normal which Strand knew would be harder when it came time for him to leave. “Sleep now sweet girl, you’re safe. I’ll keep you safe.” For as long as I can, he added silently.

******

He woke to Ayla still huddled into him, the fragility of her blindingly obvious. Resting his lips on her head after a kiss he combed his fingers through her hair in an attempt to soothe her awake. “I don’t know what I feel when I’m with you.” He said quietly. “I don’t know if it’s love or lust, whether it’ll last beyond our time here. I don’t know if I should keep you at arms length for your own protection or for mine. Sometimes I’m not sure starting something with you is a good idea, but then when I’m near you I crave every inch of you.” He kissed her head again and breathed her in. “It terrifies me.” He whispered. “I don’t know how to be what you need me to be.” Her head tipped back and soulful eyes pinned him.

Her fingers toyed with his scruff and held him there as she kissed him, slow and tender. She was so giving, he thought, he’d done nothing to deserve that. “You sleep ok?” He asked changing topics quickly before he ended up doing something he’d regret, her nod set him at ease. “You don’t have to sit through the op review or any of it if you don’t want to.” She shook her head and started to get up. “Stay a minute.” He said quickly. “Please.” She snuggled back in and let him hold her, the feel of her hair between his fingers soothing him more than her.

******

He showered first, the op review looming closer by the minute and he wanted his thoughts in order. Leaving her to sleep some more he sat with a coffee and got down to business.

“Ayla not up yet?” Jerry asked as he sat with his own coffee.

“Rough night.” Karl thumbed through his file. “She blames herself.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah. She’s retreated inward a little which is understandable.” He tossed the file on the desk and brought up the prime merch feed. “I gave her an option of not joining us for the takedown, it’ll be her choice whether she joins us or not.”

“Fair call.”

“If only.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face as he punched in the number for the team and bringing them online for their briefing.

******

“It’s a solid plan Strand.” Davis rasped. “We’ll have the girl safely stashed away before the auction goes online.”

“You sure you’re ok for this?” Karl asked as he stared at the dark bruising against Davis’s throat.

“It sounds worse than it is.” He chuckled, which sounded like he’d smoked ten packs a day for a hundred years.

“Coms check and in position by 22:30. I want to watch the outside of the building for a while, make sure we’re not walking into something we’re not prepared for.”

“Copy that boss.”

With the briefing done and their operation stitched up tightly Strand wandered back to Ayla’s room. Curled up in a tight ball in the middle of the bed, she barely registered he’d appeared in front of her.

“Sweet girl.” He murmured. “You’re not alone, I’m right here.” He stroked her cheek gently before laying down next to her. His huge hands stroked and soothed gently until her body uncoiled and she looked at him. Her finger played with his scruff, as if it reassured her it was him. “Hey there sweet girl.” He smiled at her and her lips twitched into that half smile. What he wouldn’t give, he thought, to see a full happy smile, hear a belly laugh. Her finger trailed to his chest where it fanned out, the need to ground herself, feel safe. “You’re safe.” She nodded and looked up at him. “You hungry?” She shrugged. “I think Mia stashed some chocolate chip ice cream in the freezer earlier.” He grinned. “How about we go eat some?” He kissed her brow and she shook her head. “Tummy upset?” She nodded. Stress, fear, grief, he was so not equipped for handling this. “Understandable.” He kissed her brow again and just held her.

She drifted back to sleep, Karl able to separate himself from her to grab some dinner and make a mug of soup for her.

“She still in bed?” Mia asked as she stacked the dishwasher.

“Yeah, tired, overwhelmed, stressed. She blames herself.” He said quietly and Mia nodded. “I’m turning in for the night, staying close to her.” He mumbled and headed off to her room, but not before seeing the smirk plastered across Mia’s face. He felt ridiculous. He was a grown ass man getting all soft on a girl he had no business getting soft over.

He managed to persuade her to eat half the monster cup of soup he brought in, nibbled on the dark rye bread she liked. Sitting, legs stretched out he was consumed by his thoughts. Thoughts of past relationships, if he was being honest with himself he’d never had a long term relationship, it was one night stands or an arrangement like he and Meekland had. He hadn’t even contemplated that clusterfuck, was she loyal to her owner or to the girls, the case? Where did their relationship fit into it all, had she used him, too blinded by what he thought was love to see it? Was that why he couldn’t admit he loved Ayla? He watched her set the cup of soup aside and visit the bathroom. Was he in love with her? The eternal batchelor? Just be what and who she needs, he thought, as she climbed back into bed and curled up at his hip. A while later he lay behind her and cocooned her with his frame, safe, secure, dare he think it, loved.

******

The morning of the op he had to separate himself from her, get his head in the game, do his damn job. He pulled her from sleep gently, those eyes fluttering open as his fingertips brushed the hair from her face. “Morning sweet girl.” His smile brought that twitch to her lips he liked. “I have to get to work, I need to prepare for tonight.” She nodded but her hand gripped and scrunched his shirt. “I’ll be right here in the house, safe with you.” She nodded again. “I need to know you’ll be ok while I’m taking care of these assholes.” She pressed her face against his chest and relaxed, her grip on his shirt lessening. Nodding she looked up at him before her lips claimed his. It floored him every time she did that, made him feel emotions he wasn’t ready to handle. He deepened it, fingers raking through her hair to cup her head, greedy for a taste of her, to feel her, his cock stirring to life at the rush.

Resting his forehead on hers he eased away before he took it a step further. “I wish you’d talk to me.” His voice husky. “I’m skating a moral line with you. I want to do right by you, not take advantage of you or the situation, but at the same time I want to throw caution to the wind and give you what you want, what you’re asking for. Sex with me isn’t gentle Ayla, I like it rough, I like to dominate, and honestly, that’s the last kind of lover I want to be if I’m with you. Because I know it’ll hurt you, not physically, even I have lines I won’t cross, but psychologically.” He looked down into those pretty eyes. “I can’t do anything that might hurt you sweet girl. It’ll end me.” He kissed her brow and lingered. “It guts me when you cry, like there’s a tangible bond between us. I don’t know how to handle this, to do what’s right for both of us, I just don’t know. And though with most women I’d wing it, you’re different. So different that I want to do it right. And I’m fucking rambling.” He huffed a chuckle. “You’ve got me all tied up in knots.” She stretched up and kissed him, his soft groan into her mouth startling him. “I don’t deserve you, deserve what you freely want to give me. I’ll only disappoint you sweet girl.” She shook her head as if to say no you wont or you haven’t yet.

“I need to go to work.” He needed to step away to collect himself. She nodded and smoothed a hand over his chest. “I won’t deny I have feelings for you Ayla, I’m just terrified at what that’ll mean for us.” He kissed her forehead quickly and pulled back the covers.

A shower and some food in his belly seemed to settle the ragged edges of his emotions. Sitting with a coffee he digested the overnight searches enough to get his head in the game, they were closing in. To his surprise Ayla ventured out as they sat for dinner, showered, dressed, with a look of determination on her face. She sat next to him, her hands slightly shaking as she ate. My brave sweet girl, he thought, she was going to put herself through hell tonight. The internal war inside him to say something, tell her she didn’t have to do it, raged. Her choice, the little voice in his head whispered, she’d chosen to fight, to help the girls that had no choice in where they were, what they were forced to do.

He watched her take her ice cream into the rec room and sit at her laptop, fingers already moving as she worked, studied the op, took it all in. “Her choice.” He said gruffly as Mia looked at him disconcertingly. “I’ve explained she didn’t need to be in on this, that we understood if she wanted to sit this out. Her choice. Don’t chew my ass on it.” He grumbled and went to sit beside her. No way was he leaving her alone tonight.

******

Focusing on the op they monitored the prime merch factory, the team in position, and Wainwright looked like a carbon copy of Raven. So much like him he saw Ayla cower, the soft whimper escape before he placed his hand on hers and she gripped tightly. “That’s Wainwright sweet girl. I know with 100% certainty, Allen Raven is on Hades 6. That’s not him.” She nodded and kept a tight hold of his hand, the tremble in her body gutting him.

They watched with baited breath as Wainwright knocked on the door, the tense moments as it opened and the girl handed over to him. It wasn’t until he’d dropped the girl at the safe house and driven away that Strand broke the silence.

“Did they suspect?”

“No, I got no vibes that they knew something was off.” He was breathing a little easier now. “Burke and I are heading back to wait for the drop location. Davis is standing by with his team for deploying the net, just like last time.”

“Good job.”

“Save that until after we nail this next buyer.” He chuckled. “Were not done tonight.”

“No, we’re not, but you going undetected is a damn good start.” Strand said honestly.

In the brief hiatus between the teen pickup and the auction due to go online the team took a moment to calm the nerves. Ayla was quiet, too quiet, Strand thought, as he watched her out of his periphery. He was concerned when she turned down the bowl of ice cream that Mia had placed beside her. Those eyes were intense as they watched every screen, every bit of movement, preparing for Allen Raven to jump through the screen at her.

Karl tugged her hand gently and she looked at him. “Sweet girl.” He said gently, the invitation to curl up with him in his tone. It took her a moment to process his words, the offer of the safety she found in his arms. Without a word she hunched onto his lap, curled in as tightly as she could. “You’re safe sweet girl.” He murmured and kissed her hair, the scent calming him, her hand fisting in his shirt.

Jerry waited until 12:01 precisely to send the auction live, the quick paced bidding war had begun as the silence was interrupted every so often with a ping.

“There’s a few new buyers, I don’t recognize these four.” Jerry said pointing at the screen. Ayla was watching and her hand shot out to pull up data from her DNA laptop with a few easy strokes. “Ahhhh, that explains it. Another like our asshole commanding officer.” Jerry growled. “This guy is on a three year replacement deal.” While Jerry read, Ayla pulled the keyboard into her lap and pulled data on the other three. Even Karl had to admit her hacking skill were out of this world. Snuggled into him as she worked he started to watch her finesse the data, tease it out of every corner.

“You sweet girl, are amazing.” He breathed, that low rumble of his voice only for her to hear as he kissed her head. They worked through the early morning, jumping on every new bidder to obtain as much information as they could.

“These are the wannabes.” Jerry said as he compared this auction history to the last. “These guys bid for the thrill, knowing that the big fish have yet to enter. It hasn’t even tipped over 800 K.”

“Give it until nine tonight, things will start to pick up then for sure.” Karl said as he shifted Ayla in his lap.

“She’s asleep boss.” Hunt chuckled.

“I know. My ass is asleep too.”

“I’ll hold down the fort, go sleep. We can switch at lunch.”

“You sure?”

“Positive, I’ll wake you if the shit hits the fan.” Jerry turned and got to work and he looked at Mia. Her slight nod told him she’d keep the rookie company.

*******

Ayla barely moved as he carried her to her room. So not to disturb her too much he decided to sit up in bed, the mattress slightly more comfortable on his ass than the chair had been. Eventually he slid them horizontal and under the covers. Her dreams kept him awake, the soft whimper, her hands first pushing him away then pulling him closer. “Sleep sweet girl, you’re safe now, you’re safe with me.” He caged her in, his massive frame protecting her. Her sigh shuddered out and with it every ounce of terror and stress. “Sleep now Ayla, you’re safe.” She dropped into sleep like a stone and once he was sure she was out cold, he followed.

******

He knew she was watching him, could feel her gaze. Her finger brushed his scruff, the tip tickling his lip and he felt her jump at his chuckle.

“That tickles.” He smiled and opened his eyes to see those deep sea green pools looking at him, so soulful, a small smile tugged at her lips. He went to say something but her finger silenced him, the shake of her head telling him she didn’t want words, she wanted silence. Laying there in the quiet, her fingers mapping his face, he fell for her a little more, how could he not?

“You up boss?” Jerry called softly through the door as he knocked.

“Yeah.”

“I’m out. I need at least a solid six.”

“Sounds good.” He looked down at Ayla, eyes searching hers. She stretched up and kissed him, slow and soft, the tenderness from her melting him. He deepened it, the yearning for her tugging at him. Rolling he pressed her into the mattress, the feel of her beneath him igniting an inferno inside him, he wanted her like his next breath. “Ayla.” He breathed, losing himself to the moment, her mouth enticing him to linger. “I have to go to work sweet girl.” He said resting his forehead against hers, voice husky with need. She nodded and splayed her fingers out across his chest. “I could use the company, the help if you’re up for it?” He asked gently. She nodded again and tapped her fingers against his chest as if to say, get your ass up then.

He rolled off her and let her take a shower first, the tent in his sweats would be a dead giveaway as to what that kiss had done to him. Was he in love with her, he pondered, could he love her how she deserved, how she needed? She needed slow and tender, loving, could he be that for her? He watched as she came out in leggings and a sloppy knit sweater, how did that turn him on where he wanted to strip her naked and fuck her senseless?

He took a shower, a cold one, and joined her in the rec room where she’d made a coffee for him.

“Thanks.” He said sitting and she nodded as her fingers were already flying over the keyboard hard at work. “You find something sweet girl?” He followed her finger as it tapped the screen for the newest ping from the auction. “Ivan Petrov.” He murmured and Ayla nodded. “And he’s serious with that bid.” The auction just took a 1.3 million dollar hike as it evened it out to a cool 2.2 million total. “He watched as her fingers caressed the photo of Jerry ’s sister. “I know sweet girl.” He sighed. “Here’s hoping he’s the winning bidder.” His growl was feral. “Because then Jerry can beat the location of Eva out of him.” Her hand covered his and he calmed, it was almost instantaneous. “Before I ship him off to Hades 6.” He added looking down at her, understanding looked back. She stood and collected his cup, kissed his cheek, and wandered out to the kitchen.

They worked side by side until Mia surfaced around eight hungry. Ayla helped her out in the kitchen, her eyes intent on what Mia was doing. It was these simple everyday things that she’d been denied, he thought. Mia had taught her how to cook, how to do laundry, basic self care. She’d been denied so much.

Jerry made his way out at the smell of food and Karl filled him in on the current bidding situation with Petrov. “As much as I’d love to rig it so he wins, I want to see his fucking face when we take him down and he was none the wiser. There’a a great deal of satisfaction knowing he did it all himself and we’re going to nail him.”

“We may have to offer him a deal for your sister.” Strand watched him carefully.

“Then he gets a deal. He’ll still be shipped to Hades 6 even if I have to fly the damn shuttle myself.” Jerry spat.

“I wasn’t finished.” Karl growled, his irritation evident and Jerry backed off. “We’ll offer it to him, but there’s nothing in my current job description that says I have to honor that offer.” Strand watched as Jerry’s face split with a grin.

“You really are an asshole.”

“So I’ve been told.” He said wryly.

They sat and ate, the conversation about anything but the case, the need to step away briefly before submerging themselves in the job, the overwhelming nastiness that was sex slavery and pedophilia. Karl smiled at Ayla eating through a full meal, it seemed like only yesterday she was barely able to stomach half a cup of soup.

“Tomorrow we’re taking the day off and making burgers.” He said quietly. “I promised this sweet girl a juicy burger when we came here.”

“Mmmm, bison burgers.” Mia said wistfully. “I have some in the deep freeze.”

“Oven fries.” Said Jerry. “Gotta have the oven fries, all nice and crispy. You’re in for a treat Ayla.” He smiled. “Oooo and sourdough buns, toasted with mustard. God damn I haven’t had a decent burger in a while.” He chuckled.

They talked about other food she needed to try, tacos, gyros, hummus, roast turkey, laughed at Mia as she was virtually salivating. With full bellies and bowls of ice cream they ventured in to run the remaining part of the op. At 11:30 they were all business, the laughter put aside, the jokes saved for another time.

@hausofobsession @ill-skillsgard @grandpa-sweaters @authentic90skidd @tuckersgirl @fairlyfallacy @flowers-in-your-hayr @raewritesfiction @stinkerbelle007 @kamie-b @mrsaugustwalker @skrsgardspam @loliwrites @trippedmetaldetector @lihikainanea @fay-walden

#Karl Strand fanfic #a softer side #gustaf skarsgard #sexy as fuck

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beanfic · 6 years ago

Text

The Criminal

Pairing: Tyler x reader

Warnings: Language, Angst, and violence.

Word Count: 2069

Request: Tyler Req? Where he is a criminal and he is on the run and he meets the reader by accident and he is exposed so he kidnaps the reader. He is rough at first but then he turns soft for the reader but then something Angst happens in the end??

You wrapped the scarf around your neck as you headed out your door to head to the nearest coffee shop. It was just around the corner, which was only a fifteen-minute walk from your small apartment. Your wifi had gone down, and you needed the free wifi to get your psych 300 essay finished up. The wind was cold against your nose, probably making it red underneath the lin layer of concealer you had put on.

The Barista waved his hand as the bell dinged when you opened the door. You flashed him a smile as you placed your backpack on a chair in the corner. There were only three people in line, and you stood behind them deciding on what you were in the mood for.

“Nice to see you again! Wifi still down?” the barista said with a smile. He had short black hair and was wearing red flannel. You always thought he was cute

“Unfortunately,” you nodded. “Can I get a peppermint mocha please?”

“Sure thing,” he said cheerfully as he punched in your order. “$4.25.”

You handed him a five dollar bill and then dropped the leftover change into the tip jar. The drink didn’t take long at all to make, and you quickly grabbed it and walked back to your seat. The essay was over half written so you weren’t too stressed. You pulled open the laptop and started typing away at the next paragraph.

“Excuse me, miss?” You looked up at a young man with dark brown hair and eyes looking down at you. “Can I sit with you?”

“Uh, sure,” you stalled with your answer but then moved your backpack off of the chair so the young man could sit down. He was wearing a black t-shirt, black jeans, and black tennis shoes. You could see that tattoos decorated his arms, and he had multiple cuts and bruises on his face.

“Do you have twenty dollars I could borrow for a cab?” he asked. You stared into his eyes, not knowing what to say to this stranger asking you for money.

“Oh, um, why do you need it?”

“It’s kind of hard to explain, I just need a cab,” he ran his hand through his hair and you watched it as it fluffed up.

“Where are you heading?” you asked softly.

“You ask a lot of questions,” he chuckled.

“I don’t feel comfortable giving stranger money so I’m asking you questions so we aren’t strangers.”

“Interesting, well my name is Tyler, I’m 23, and I am headed anywhere that is not here.”

“That’s suspicious, are you running from something,” you joked. Tyler cleared his throat and shuffled uncomfortably

“Doesn’t matter, I don’t know you either so why would I tell you my life story.”

“No need to get defensive, Tyler.” You watched him as he kept on looking around him nervously as if he was afraid someone was going to come in.

“Look, just pretend I was never here,” he whispered as he stood up to walk away but you grabbed his arm to stop him.

“My name is Y/N,” you told him. “Why don’t we get to know each other a little better, want to come back to my apartment?”

“Sure,” Tyler whispered. He looked afraid.

“Tyler, are you okay?” He nodded but the way he stared at the ground told you differently.

“How far away is your house?”

“Fifteen minutes away, come on.” You put your computer back into your backpack and threw it over your shoulder. Tyler put his hood on and followed you out of the coffee shop. You both were quiet as you powered through the winter air.

“This is your place?” Tyler let out a whistle at your pretty nice apartment that you were renting while you were going to school.

“Yeah, I share it with three other roommates but they are all out of town this week visiting the big school for parties,” you explained.

“Cool.” His eyes avoided everything but the ground as you showed him the inside of your place.

“So tell me about yourself, Tyler.”

“You go first, so I know I can trust you.”

You were taken aback, but you were also so curious about what he was hiding. “Okay, well I’m 20, I go to UC and I am a psychology major, I don’t talk to my parents anymore because they kicked me out when they found out I got an abortion, and I suffer from depression.”

“Okay,” Tyler whispered.

You took a deep breath, “There, now you know who I am. Who are you?”

Tyler bit his lip before looking up you with a serious gaze. “Can I trust you? I know that we barely know each other, but can I trust you?”

You nodded your head, “Yes.”

“I’m running from the police right now, and I really need to get to Indiana which is why I need the money for a cab or bus.”

“What do you mean you’re running from the police?” You took a few steps back realizing that you invited a criminal into your apartment when no one else was home.

“I did something bad, and they want me arrested.”

“What do you mean by something bad?” you narrowed your eyes at him.

“I robbed a bank because I needed to pay my boss,” he admitted.

“Your boss?”

“It’s complicated.” Suddenly you both were interrupted by a series of knocks on your front door following a deep voice.

“This is the police, I need you to open up!” Tyler stared at you with wide eyes and then he grabbed something from the inside of his sweatshirt.

“Do what I say and you won’t get hurt.” He pointed a small handgun at you. You nodded slowly, terrified that you were going to die. You wanted to run and open the door, but at the same time, you knew that was not the right decision.

“What do we do,” you whispered.

“Do you have a car?” he asked and you nodded. “Grab the keys and we will go down the fire escape.”

“Okay,” you whispered. You ran over to your purse and grabbed your keys out of it. You pulled open your window and took a step out of it with Tyler following behind. You could feel the gun on your back, and you found it hard to breathe.

“Go faster,” Tyler sneered. “They could break down the door any minute.” You hurried down the escape until you were down on the street.

“My car is the blue honda civic.”

“Drive, now,” he commanded you once you both were in the car. “Get on the freeway.”

“Okay, please don’t kill me,” you whispered.

“Shut up!”

“You know that you’re practically kidnapping me which is only going to add to your list of felonies.”

“I said shut up!” he pointed the gun at your side.

“Put the gun away Tyler, I know you wouldn’t kill me.” You stared him down until he put the gun down and away. He started out the window and didn’t talk, and you focused on the road in front of you.

You probably had been driving for three hours before Tyler told you to find a motel. He had only talked to you a few times that entire time, and it was only about where to go and what he wanted you to do. You were scared, and you wanted to call the police, but at the same time, you knew that Tyler most likely didn’t have it in him to hurt you.

“Is this okay?” you asked pulling into a crappy, run down motel. He nodded his head and slammed the door once you had parked. You slowly followed him into the entrance where he was already talking to the receptionist.

“What do you mean you only have one room with one bed? This is the shittiest hotel,” he said through gritted teeth.

“You can leave and find another place,” the old lady lowered her glasses and stared Tyler down. She then looked back to you and you watched her eyes as they danced from your head to your toes. “She with you?”

“Yes, but-”

“The one room will be fine,” you interrupted Tyler. He glared back at you and smirked at him. The receptionist nodded as she printed out the paperwork and handed you the key.

“Room 147, it will be down the hall and on the right.”

“Thank you,” you smiled brightly at the old lady and headed down to the room. You wondered what was going to happen next because you didn’t have any extra clothes or anything.

“Is this where you are going to kill me?” you asked Tyler once you were in the small room. Tyler laughed a little before shaking his head.

“I don’t kill people, I’m not like that.”

“Then what are you like? You are so mysterious, and I feel like I should know since you kind of kidnapped me.”

“I shouldn’t have fucking sat down and asked you for money,” he groaned as he stared out the window.

“I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“I know, neither did I, the last thing I wanted was to be stuck with a bitch” he with an angry tone. He walked over to you and stared you down. “

“You’re pathetic,” you whispered.

“I’m pathetic? You have no idea what I have been through or my life story,” Tyler yelled. “I am trying to save my parents, and I got into the wrong crowd and now I can’t get out. I’m either going to be killed or arrested.”

“Tyler,” you whispered. You watched him as he fell to his knees and started to sob.

“I’m so fucking scared, Y/N. I saw you in the coffee shop and something inside me told me to talk to you, and now look what I’ve done.”

“Tyler I was joking about you kidnapping me, I’m not afraid of you.”

“I’m afraid of myself. I’m a horrible person.”

“No, you’re not.” You wondered if you should comfort him but you weren’t sure how he would be with physical touch. “Can I hold you?”

“What?” Tyler wiped his eyes as he looked up at you.

“Sometimes when I am having a hard day I like to just be held.”

“Why would you do that for me.”

“Because Tyler, even though I just met you I feel like I know you. I know that you aren’t a bad guy and that you need help. I want to help you,” you explained. Tyler stood up and you both went over to the bed where you wrapped yours around his body. He continued to cry into your shoulder, and you rubbed small circles into his back.

“Thank you, I’ve never had someone care for me like this, especially someone that I just threatened with a gun,” Tyler said with a little chuckle. His brown eyes locked with yours, and he started to lean in. His lips ended up touching yours, and soon you both were kissing each other. Your hands grabbed at his hair while his hands danced around your body.

“In there!” a voice came from outside while the door was pounded down. The room was filled with what looked like FBI agents.

“Tyler!” you screamed at you watched someone dressed in black grab his body and hand him to a cop.

“I’m sorry,” he mouthed to you as he was getting handcuffed.

“Are you okay?” said the man wearing all black. You avoided eye contact and you watched Tyler be dragged out of the room. You wanted to run after him and save him, but you knew there was nothing you could do.

“I’m fine,” you mumbled.

“Let’s get you home and then we can talk about pressing charges.”

“I don’t want to press charges.”

“Are you sure?” he asked and you nodded. After they were done interrogating you with questions, and you didn’t tell them anything important about Tyler to protect him, you were finally able to go home.

Once you were in bed you started to think of the crazy day you had. This mysterious stranger asked you for money, and then he held a gun to your body and then broke down in your arms. You wondered if you ever going to see Tyler again. You hoped so and you hoped he was going to be okay.

#tyler joseph #tyler joseph x reader #twenty one pilots #twenty one pilots fanfic #tyler joseph fanfic #tyler joseph fanfiction #twenty one pilots fanfiction #tyler joseph one shot #twenty one pilots one shot #top fanfic #top fanfiction #tyler joseph fic #twenty one pilots fic #top fics #beanfic

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unholyhelbig · 6 years ago

Note

Save a horse, ride a cowboy, Bechloe?

[A/N: Is this… I mean, not exactly sexual but if you guys want a part two then I could totally do that. Cause I don’t know what this turned into.]

The hay tasted like a sweet relief against her tongue. It frayed as her teeth crunched down on it, its edge hanging lazily from her lips like a dully lit cigar with a fine paper wrapping. She considered it a mortal sin in some way or another if she were to smoke in this church. To spark something in a hot flame. Beca Mitchell wanted the smoke to curl into her lungs and lick the back of her throat, but instead, she settled for this.

Her arm was stretched against the back of the pew, it’s cooling wood soaking through not only her button-down but her fur lined jacket. She decided to focus on the leather-bound bible in front of her instead. Its words were embossed in gold, pages brown and some dog-eared. They had been owned before, donated, maybe.

Beca moved her ankle up to her knee, trying her hardest to pay attention to the man that commanded the church with such vigor and passion. She could swear he made eye contact with her more than once. The type of gaze that lingered in eternal judgment. She simply lowered her stare and blocked her view with the wide-brimmed Stetson, the black material stood out upon the pastel reinks of proper dress attire.

“Where do you stand with God?” The stout little man walked across the carpeted stage. It muffled his boots, and he shoved his hands in his pockets in attempt to look more relaxed. “In this very moment, sitting in this church, on this sweltering day, I bet your answer would be good.”

The woman bit her tongue in attempt to stifle the scoff that pushed past her throat. Good? Her standing with the lord was close to non-existent at this point in her life. The patrons around her shifted uncomfortably and she couldn’t’ help but wonder what most of them were compensating for.

There was a young mom in the front row, hugging her baby close, trying to keep him quiet. She clung onto every single word that the pastor had to offer. A man sat behind her and kept a glowering expression on his face. His hands were soaked in grease despite the nice flannel he had buttoned up. To the right of him sat the rest of his family; the little girl read through a book that had a neon pink casing, clearly not the bible. The boy was weaving a rope against his fingers and nudging his sister to stick her hand through the center. It was the worst game of cats cradle that Beca had ever seen.

“You are a good law-abiding citizen. You place coins in strangers’ cups when they hold them out to you. You hold the door open and give a kind smile whenever eye contact is met. But none of you here…. None of you have a clear connection with God.”

Beca Mitchell swallowed and let her vision center on the Bible once more. She had a habit of turning out the rest of any sermon that was thrown her way. This man knew nothing about God, almost as little as she did. The difference between the two of them lay in the masks. Beca didn’t’ have one, but this man did. This oily faced man who welcomed all sinners under his roof. He was sweating because of the heat, resisting the urge to swat away at the gnats that flew close to his reddened ears.

The little chapel cleared out fast after he closed his statements with a prayer and a half-hearted action from the chorus. They sang as beautifully as any small-town would. Their best singer was sure to get a job at a pub when she was old enough to stop lacing her boots to the tune of the gospel.

Beca had held her place in the back pew until everyone left, again, refusing to make obvious eye contact with anyone that this little place had to offer. They had one stop light, and their accents were thick enough to layer on sweet cream. She had no use for small minded people who followed a man like this, blindly, at that.

“Andrew Strickland?” She asked, accent strong. She had lifted her head up enough to give him a good view of midnight eyes. He was shuffling nervously with the papers on his podium, no doubt marked out with the spots of his sermon that he had to hit. He was shaking.

Beca Mitchell walked down the long-carpeted aisle between two columns of pews. They were coated in enough dust to create another desert. His skin was like leather and the closer she got the more she could smell his primal sweat.

She stopped at the edge of the first row, lifting her hat from her shoulders as she shifted the piece of sweet hay from one side of her teeth to another. “I think you owe my boss some money, sir.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He swallowed thickly. “Now, not that I don’t believe in talking to my followers. I must be going.”

He hastily walked along the stage before trying to edge around the woman. He was taller than her and his fingers were trembling worse than she had ever seen before. His breath was sour like dairy left out on a hot day such as this. “I think you know, them. The Posen’s? A very forgivin’ family.”

Pastor Andrew Strickland sucked in a heavy breath before he shook his head and sidestepped her completely, walking down the main aisle. He dropped a few papers, let them fall loudly without an attempt to turn and pick them up.

Beca rolled her eyes and placed her hat back on her head, reaching for the small pearl revolver that was holstered between the hot skin of her back and her jeans. She fished into her pockets and pulled out a single bullet, shelving it within the weapon. That’s all it took for her, just one. She aimed easily.

Shooting this man would be no worse than putting a wounded animal out of its misery. Andrew certainly wasn’t foaming at the mouth, though, and she had a strict policy about shooting a man when his back was turned. Instead, she cleared her throat and took a step forward, pushing the barrel back into place loud enough for him to recognize the sound with his insulant ears.

He turned with those eyes that almost stared through her.

“Most of the time, that is.” She took another step forward “Sometimes they get impatient when they’re not given the money that they are so clearly owed.”

“Like I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about. So if you would kindly-“

“What does the Bible say about ignorance, Pastor?” Beca Mitchell was running her finger over the edge of the gun now “They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. Or somethin’ like that.”

Maybe she had retained some things from the serpent eyed man that stood in front of her. Or the dozen’s of others that she had taken from this world. She had mulled over the first one but realized easily that they were all human. None were more divine than the other. This was simply her job. Her burden to carry.

“Ephesians 4:18, I’m aware.” He said, “I don’t have your money.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t let you leave, Pastor.”

She raised the gun once more, feeling a familiar ache in her arm. He stared her down with the deep gaze that was supposed to make her reconsider, to feel some type of mercy against the man. But none of that happened. Beca Mitchell squeezed the trigger.

“Wait!” His voice cracked. He was no longer the composed man who deemed himself worthy by judging others so cruelly. He grasped at the collars of her jacket. “I can get the money. Please. Just give me until the end of the day.”

Beca was stone-faced, his hands left sweaty prints on her coat. He was desperate, a thick brine of sweat soaking into her white t-shirt. There were terra cotta prints on the edges, yellowed stains under her arms. She wanted to cringe away from the man, begging didn’t’ fit anyone especially not him.

“You have until sundown.” She shoved him off, careful not to set off the gun. “You try to run, and I will find you. I don’t hesitate to shoot twice, Pastor.”

“Thank you, oh praise the Lord, thank you.”

She took a step back, letting him gather his papers before rushing into the sweltering day that awaited him. Beca chewed evenly on the hay. Her job was never to show any type of mercy, but she had a few hours to kill in this little dust town- there was no reason for her to not allow the pastor his earnest right of begging a dried-up bank for the money that he owed. The Posen’s held control over this place, including the tellers behind the bulletproof glass.

Beca shelved her gun once more, breathing in the musty air that the church had to offer. She cocked a brow, reaching into the closest pew, the very one that she sat at before. There must have been some type of hierarchy of sin that went into stealing a bible. It was thievery, but in the prospect of knowledge, Beca deemed it level.

She drummed her fingers on the cover and sunk down into the near middle of the pew, seemingly craving the coolness that the wood had to offer. The Stetson was removed, and she worked her hand through sweat bridled locks. Was it the New, or Old Testament that held more presence?

Instead, she flipped to the first page. It was musty and the read was droning on, but she had the time to kill. It was better than stacking up in the local pub and drowning her sorrows in liquor before a sloppy hit. Of course, if Pastor Andrew Strickland got the money, then she could be merrily on her way. She read about the creation of the earth sectioned into days.

“Let there be light, and there was light.”

The voice was airy, like light, so aptly mentioned, itself. Warm and tantalizing. She lowered her feet to the floor and turned slightly in the pew, taking the hay from her mouth. She hadn’t heard the door open and even felt the heat that the day had to offer. Instead, there was a woman; A woman that didn’t’ seem to mind the summer atmosphere, her perfect copper ringlets falling over a long sleeve shirt, buttoned all the way to her throat. It was blue. Blue like her eyes and rolled up to accommodate for something. She held a plate of cookies. Chocolate chip, by the scent of it.

“Ah,” She lifted her chin “Never quite understood why he divided’ it into darkness after that.”

“Philosopher, then?” The girl shifted her weight and gave a sort of a half-smile that was earth-shattering in its own right. A small-town girl that was a big fish in a little pond. Even now, Beca Mitchell could see that. She didn’t’ need a name, even though she craved it. “Have you seen Pastor Strickland anywhere?”

“Oh, you just missed him. He said he needed to run some errands.” Beca explained as she closed the Bible and set it back in its little slot. She was honest with herself- if she had stolen it, it would sit at the edge of her bookshelf reminding her that her sin wasn’t one contracted, but one decided. “Anything I can help you with?”

“I’m not sure. My mother, own’s the bakery in town, said she owed somethin’ to the man so figured cookies were a good thing to level the field.” She laughed, angelically, “Debt is a funny thing.”

The stranger plopped down on the pew next to her, wafting a scent of lavender mixed with sweat, but it wasn’t the same way the pastor smelled. Instead, it was sweeter, and she worked the heat like it was a warm lump of clay. It was either that or the cookies.

“Want one?” She asked, moving the cellophane wrap away from the mound of baked goods “I promise you, there ain’t no poison in these.”

Beca lifted her eyebrow and cautiously took a cookie: here was this stranger, this woman who didn’t’ question her presence in an empty church or the fact that the man she was looking for had seemingly vanished. She was holding a blind trust and Beca was amused by it, taken aback. The people she worked for would never conjure up a simple act of kindness like this.

“Thank you,” She said evenly.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

She grasped a cookie herself and set the plate to the side of her, letting the chips melt further in the heat of the day. The heat of a closed area that only had light streaming from expertly crafted stained glass windows. They left crimson splotches on the carpet.

“Fraid’ not. I’m here on business with Strickland myself.”

Beca tried the cookie, biting down on it easily. The taste that filled her mouth may have been attributed to the long dust-wracked journey that curbed her appetite, or the simple fact that this strangers mother had a fantastic choice in career. It made her stomach churn as an undeniable moan sneaked it’s way past her lips.

It made the beautiful stranger giggle, a sound that was unfamiliar and made a smile pass over Beca’s lips “Sorry, Ma’am, this is just about the damn best cookie I’ve ever had.”

“None of that Ma’am stuff. You can call me Chloe.”

“Beca,” She shifted, leaning her arm against the back of the pew. “it’s not short for nothin’, my parents just don’t’ know how to finish their thoughts.”

“You’re funny,” Chloe took a bite of the cookie in her hand, not having the same reaction that Beca did. She was probably more than used to the gooey taste of sweets. “I like that. What kind of business does someone like you have with a man like Strickland?”

She hesitated at that, breathing in the hot air. A small strand of hair fell into Chloe’s ocean eyes. There weren’t waves around for miles, but Beca could swear upon the bible that she almost stole, that she could smell the salty shore and hear the seagulls beacon to one another the longer she stared. The longer she swam.

“Not my business really. Your kin owes him, and he owes my employers.” She explained, taking another bite of the baked good, this time fighting back a groan. “I’m just here collecting what’s been promised.”

“Ah, an eye for an eye and heart for a heart.” She tapped her temple, “I think the bible says something about that too.”

Beca scoffed and rolled her head back off the edge of the pew, stretching the sore muscles that wracked her. They were taught. She got a good look at the stained glass above them: A baby in a manger that slowly turns into a man hung from a cross with bloodied nails. It was a story displayed for all to see- a guilt trip, as far as she was concerned.

Chloe set the rest of her cookie down on the plate and wiped her hands against the fabric of her expertly woven pants. She laid her head back too, squinting at the visions of reds and blues that trapped them in a terrarium of religion and its mortal stories. “You know the story of baby Jesus?”

“Haven’t read that far, I’m afraid. I’m glad I’ve got the picture version to go by. You very religious, Chloe?”

“Livin’ in a world like this?” She scoffed, her breath hot and noticeable on Beca’s cheek, it sent shivers down her spine and made her stiffen. “Who can be?”

#Beca Mitchell #Chloe Beale #Bechloe #fanfiction #request #fic #bechloe fic rec #bechloe au #western au

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kootenaygoon · 6 years ago

Photo

So,

At first, I was nervous about tackling news stories.

I knew the stakes from my summers at the Whitehorse Star, had seen how small fuck-ups could have large consequences. Telling someone else’s story is a huge privilege, a power you have over them, and it can be intoxicating. But if you do it wrong, you will hear about it. I preferred the lighter elements of the job, like taking pictures at the Pride Parade or typing up an exhaustive feature on the Capitol Theatre’s production of Chicago. I was a hype machine, excitedly Photoshopping my images and then sprawling back in my desk chair with the newly printed paper’s pages flung open to reveal my handiwork. I floated through the summer of 2014 high on the experience of it all, letting myself fall in love with each new artist I interviewed.

Some people believed the proliferation of artists in the Nelson area was thanks to the town being situated on a bed of magical quartz, but I figured it was more a case of kindreds being attracted to one another. People were looking for a life less ordinary, far from the city. Most locals had some sort of regular job and then spent the remainder of their time investing in creative endeavours, whether that meant painting a mural, starting a food truck or playing in an 80s cover band called Val Kilmer and the New Coke. I started learning the names of local authors, meeting up with poet Tom Wayman and short story writer Myler Wilkenson. I wrote a feature about a photographer named Ryan Oakley who had crowd-funded a book called Humans of Nelson, based on the viral hit Humans of New York. It featured daily portraits of people he met during his lunch breaks, along with a pithy quote that captured their essence. One young singer named Anilah had just landed her Enya-esque tracks on some TV show, a spoken word poet named Magpie Ulysses was releasing a chapbook and a popular saxophonist named Clinton Swanson was playing relentless gigs around town. I giddily funnelled their stories on to Facebook and Twitter, where I obsessively watched the engagement numbers climb. Within a month or two our web presence had exploded, and pretty soon Calvin was bragging that we had the best social media numbers in the Kootenays.

But every now and then, things got dark. The first heavy story that landed on my desk involved a quartet of teenagers who had gone missing the day before I arrived in town. It was eventually discovered that they’d commandeered a canoe and gone adventuring right into a windstorm on Slocan Lake��a body of water so enormous it almost looks like the ocean in places. Authorities were able to recover the canoe pretty quickly, and found a young girl near death. Though they rushed her to medical services, she died in the hospital. There was no trace of the others, three dudes ranging in age from late teens to early twenties. The grief was heavy in the community, and right away I felt it settle in my chest — a clenched fist of empathy. I interviewed the RCMP as they conducted a large-scale search, checking in each day to hear if there was anything to report. At one point it looked like they were going to call it off, but then the families hired a husband-wife duo from the U.S. who had a submersible specially designed for these sorts of retrievals. Within a few days they’d located the boys, down in the darkness, and dragged them back up into the light. I shuddered when I thought of how they must’ve looked after that long underwater, after being cradled to the surface with a claw. The people I interviewed talked about the closure that brought to the families, and I quoted various people silver lining it, but it was the sort of tragedy that was so random it felt cruel on a cosmic level. Like a deity reaching down from heaven to smudge out a few people with his thumb.

“We cannot presume what happened. Our best speculation is misadventure. It wasn’t a very big canoe,” RCMP officer Darryl Little told me.

“It was more of a swift water canoe than a lake canoe. There wasn’t much space below the gunnels and we figure the wind came up and that was it.”

During those weeks I kept running into people who knew the kids, and saw the impact plain on their heartbroken faces. One woman burst into tears while I was renewing my car insurance. I decided to interview the school district psychologist, Dr. Todd Kettner, to get his insights into the community’s grief process. We met at Lakeside Park and shot a video of him sitting on a park bench, calling out the provincial government and Premier Christy Clark. They had docked his pay during the teacher’s strike, right while he was in the midst of putting in overtime to coordinate a critical incident crisis management plan for the Slocan community. He was the only psychologist for the district, which according to him was chronically under-funded. For him it wasn’t about the dollars they took off his cheque, it was the overall neglect rural schools were receiving that really set him off. In an online open letter that went viral around the province he laid out some of the routine cases he was dealing with from day to day, underlining the ways the community was failing to support students with mental health issues.

“I was awakened Sunday morning by a phone call informing me that a student at one of the 21 schools I’m responsible for was on life support in ICU after an accidental drug overdose,” he wrote.

“Monday morning, while continuing to support the staff at the school where the hospitalized student learns, a dedicated and caring school administrator and I were informed that we were needed at another school to help the staff there prepare to gently inform their students that their classmates’ parent had been killed in a tragic accident.”

Kettner was eventually reimbursed for his pay cut, but didn’t see any change at an institutional level. At the end of the day he was still doing his job the best way he could in seemingly impossible circumstances. In the newsroom Tamara filled me in on the realities of SD8, and the issues were deeply systemic. The whole system was cash-starved because the undeclared income of the cannabis industry meant that, on paper, it was the poorest district in the province. The local high school was past capacity, there were multiple elementary schools that should have been demolished years ago, and sitting through board meetings meant hearing about financial snafus of the highest order.

“Those school board meetings, Will? Worst part of my job, easy. You wouldn’t believe how boring they are. All the ‘motion to accept this’ and ‘motion to accept that’. Makes me want to blow my brains out,” she said.

“The key is, you have to get to know the trustees, the superintendent. Once you have them as a connection, they can pretty much talk you through anything.”

“You think the strike will last much longer?”

“Shit, I don’t know. Those teachers are pissed, and they’re not going to back down.”

Around this time I came to an instinctive conclusion about the type of reporter I wanted to be: not aloof, or unfeeling, but the type that engages to an almost scary degree. If I was going to write a story, I wanted to understand it on a far deeper level than I needed for the paper, I wanted to be the guy in town that was the ultimate expert on that topic — right down to its human nuances.

The story commanding my most fervid attention was the trial of Andrew Stevenson, the bank robber that Cass had told me about. Calvin, Tamara and I spent a good half an hour scouring through Facebook trying to find a photo of him and his co-accused, Krista Kalmikoff, so we could have something to illustrate Greg’s stories about the court hearings. We were unsuccessful. The guy was being charged with seven robberies over the course of about six months, of both banks and pharmacies. The NPD had identified addiction as the driving force behind the crimes, and had been able to predict the exact day of his last robbery: April 25, 2014. In my free time I interrogated anyone who knew anything about what happened, picking up scraps of information here and there. A drunk woman at a party described seeing him come careening out of the bank’s parking lot on a bike, cutting in front of city hall and hurtling down towards the lake as cops sprinted after him. I wanted, so badly, to know what this guy looked like. Calvin sent me down to the court to get a shot of him walking in handcuffed—a goon shot—but then it turned out he was appearing by video link. Foiled!

As I got to know the NPD cops, attending one of their award ceremonies, I met a soft-spoken sergeant named Nate Holt. He had thickly muscled arms, a neatly trimmed blond beard and spiky hair that was nearly white. Not only was he holding an award for bravery, he was also one of the guys who was at the bridge that day, with Andrew Stevenson's stolen money raining down from the tree like confetti. I pictured the bank robber squirming on the rocks, trying to crawl away, while they descended on him like blue wraiths. The thing about Nate was you could feel the toll his work took on him, and you could see it in the way he carried himself. He was piggy-backing a lot of sadness. One suicidal dude came at him with a butcher knife and Nate didn’t even pull his gun. No, he got close enough to tackle him in a bear-hug, wrestle the knife out of his grip and save both of their lives. Sometimes I thought about those two men, rolling on the Baker Street sidewalk in that guy’s blood, while shocked residents looked on. I couldn’t believe that someone could have an experience like that and return to work the next day. But that’s exactly what he did.

Before Paisley moved into our new place, Muppet and I got a few days of lackadaisical meandering. I took her to Kaslo May Days with me, slaloming along the highway up Kootenay Lake in a state of giddy bliss, thinking yes I think I made the right decision while I gazed out at the water. I spotted a weird gargoyle sculpture on top of a house on Front Street, and wondered to myself what the deal was there. I spent a lot of time wandering through parks with my camera, approaching strangers and asking to take their photos. Cass would later jokingly call these spreads “All the people Will met at the park the other day”. Eventually I decided I had to see this bridge Andrew Stevenson jumped off, so I got on the highway out to Castlegar and went looking for it. We turned off the highway and followed a switch-back down to the Columbia River, just a few kilometres up from a massive hydroelectric dam. I parked at one end of the bridge and walked Muppet out across the dusty concrete to the middle so we could see the spot it happened. It was a clear, sunny afternoon, and I eventually identified the small cedar he’d attempted to jump into. Below was nothing but a rocky slope to the river, twenty feet further on. This was where it all ended for him, after evading the cops six times. Maybe it was the new pot I was smoking, or maybe it was something else, but I was feeling an electric need to understand this story. I’d been struggling for years on a novel that wasn’t coming along, partially because I was finding it difficult to invent new parts of the narrative, but here was a true fucking story that I could actually throw my weight into. I stood there for a long time, while cars rocketed by in the distance and wind hurtled through the canyon. The air smelled delicious.

I stood there drinking a Slurpee while Muppet panted happily.

The Kootenay Goon

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newstfionline · 6 years ago

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The Tragedy Of Saudi Arabia’s War

By Declan Walsh, NY Times, Oct. 26, 2018

Chest heaving and eyes fluttering, the 3-year-old boy lay silently on a hospital ward in the highland town of Hajjah, a bag of bones fighting for breath.

His father, Ali al-Hajaji, stood anxiously over him. Mr. Hajaji had already lost one son three weeks earlier to the epidemic of hunger sweeping across Yemen. Now he feared that a second was slipping away.

It wasn’t for a lack of food in the area: The stores outside the hospital gate were filled with goods and the markets were bustling. But Mr. Hajaji couldn’t afford any of it because prices were rising too fast.

“I can barely buy a piece of stale bread,” he said. “That’s why my children are dying before my eyes.”

The devastating war in Yemen has gotten more attention recently as outrage over the killing of a Saudi dissident in Istanbul has turned a spotlight on Saudi actions elsewhere. The harshest criticism of the Saudi-led war has focused on the airstrikes that have killed thousands of civilians at weddings, funerals and on school buses, aided by American-supplied bombs and intelligence.

But aid experts and United Nations officials say a more insidious form of warfare is also being waged in Yemen, an economic war that is exacting a far greater toll on civilians and now risks tipping the country into a famine of catastrophic proportions.

Under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi-led coalition and its Yemeni allies have imposed a raft of punitive economic measures aimed at undercutting the Houthi rebels who control northern Yemen. But these actions--including periodic blockades, stringent import restrictions and withholding the salaries of about a million civil servants--have landed on the backs of civilians, laying the economy to waste and driving millions deeper into poverty.

Those measures have inflicted a slow-burn toll: infrastructure destroyed, jobs lost, a weakening currency and soaring prices. But in recent weeks the economic collapse has gathered pace at alarming speed, causing top United Nations officials to revise their predictions of famine.

“There is now a clear and present danger of an imminent and great, big famine engulfing Yemen,” Mark Lowcock, the under secretary for humanitarian affairs, told the Security Council on Tuesday. Eight million Yemenis already depend on emergency food aid to survive, he said, a figure that could soon rise to 14 million, or half Yemen’s population.

“People think famine is just a lack of food,” said Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation” which analyzes recent man-made famines. “But in Yemen it’s about a war on the economy.”

The signs are everywhere, cutting across boundaries of class, tribe and region. Unpaid university professors issue desperate appeals for help on social media. Doctors and teachers are forced to sell their gold, land or cars to feed their families. On the streets of the capital, Sana, an elderly woman begs for alms with a loudspeaker.

“Help me,” the woman, Zahra Bajali, calls out. “I have a sick husband. I have a house for rent. Help.”

And in the hushed hunger wards, ailing infants hover between life and death. Of nearly two million malnourished children in Yemen, 400,000 are considered critically ill--a figure projected to rise by one quarter in the coming months.

“We are being crushed,” said Dr. Mekkia Mahdi at the health clinic in Aslam, an impoverished northwestern town that has been swamped with refugees fleeing the fighting in Hudaydah, an embattled port city 90 miles to the south.

Flitting between the beds at her spartan clinic, she cajoled mothers, dispensed orders to medics and spoon-fed milk to sickly infants. For some it was too late: the night before, an 11-month old boy had died. He weighed five and a half pounds.

Looking around her, Dr. Mahdi could not fathom the Western obsession with the Saudi killing of Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul.

“We’re surprised the Khashoggi case is getting so much attention while millions of Yemeni children are suffering,” she said. “Nobody gives a damn about them.”

She tugged on the flaccid skin of a drowsy 7-year-old girl with stick-like arms. “Look,” she said. “No meat. Only bones.”

The embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington did not respond to questions about the country’s policies in Yemen. But Saudi officials have defended their actions, citing rockets fired across their border by the Houthis, an armed group professing Zaidi Islam, an offshoot of Shiism, that Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy, views as a proxy for its regional rival, Iran.

The Saudis point out that they, along with the United Arab Emirates, are among the most generous donors to Yemen’s humanitarian relief effort. Last spring, the two allies pledged $1 billion in aid to Yemen. In January, Saudi Arabia deposited $2 billion in Yemen’s central bank to prop up its currency.

But those efforts have been overshadowed by the coalition’s attacks on Yemen’s economy, including the denial of salaries to civil servants, a partial blockade that has driven up food prices, and the printing of vast amounts of bank notes, which caused the currency to plunge.

And the offensive to capture Hudaydah, which started in June, has endangered the main lifeline for imports to northern Yemen, displaced 570,000 people and edged many more closer to starvation.

A famine here, Mr. Lowcock warned, would be “much bigger than anything any professional in this field has seen during their working lives.”

When Ali Hajaji’s son fell ill with diarrhea and vomiting, the desperate father turned to extreme measures. Following the advice of village elders, he pushed the red-hot tip of a burning stick into Shaher’s chest, a folk remedy to drain the “black blood” from his son.

“People said burn him in the body and it will be O.K.,” Mr. Hajaji said. “When you have no money, and your son is sick, you’ll believe anything.”

“The big countries say they are fighting each other in Yemen,” Mr. Hajaji said. “But it feels to us like they are fighting the poor people.”

Yemen’s economic crisis was not some unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of the fighting.

In 2016, the Saudi-backed Yemeni government transferred the operations of the central bank from the Houthi-controlled capital, Sana, to the southern city of Aden. The bank, whose policies are dictated by Saudi Arabia, a senior Western official said, started printing vast amounts of new money--at least 600 billion riyals, according to one bank official. The new money caused an inflationary spiral that eroded the value of any savings people had.

The bank also stopped paying salaries to civil servants in Houthi-controlled areas, where 80 percent of Yemenis live. With the government as the largest employer, hundreds of thousands of families in the north suddenly had no income.

At the Sabeen hospital in Sana, Dr. Huda Rajumi treats the country’s most severely malnourished children. But her own family is suffering, too, as she falls out of Yemen’s vanishing middle class.

In the past year, she has received only a single month’s salary. Her husband, a retired soldier, is no longer getting his pension, and Dr. Rajumi has started to skimp on everyday pleasures, like fruit, meat and taxi rides, to make ends meet.

“We get by because people help each other out,” she said. “But it’s getting hard.”

Economic warfare takes other forms, too. In a recent paper, Martha Mundy, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, analyzed coalition airstrikes in Yemen, finding that their attacks on bridges, factories, fishing boats and even fields suggested that they aimed to destroy food production and distribution in Houthi-controlled areas.

Saudi Arabia’s tight control over all air and sea movements into northern Yemen has effectively made the area a prison for those who live there. In September, the World Health Organization brokered the establishment of a humanitarian air bridge to allow the sickest Yemenis--cancer patients and others with life-threatening conditions--to fly to Egypt.

Among those on the waiting list is Maimoona Naji, a 16-year-old girl with a melon-size tumor on her left leg. At a hostel in Sana, her father, Ali Naji, said they had obtained visas and money to travel to India for emergency treatment. Their hopes soared in September when his daughter was told she would be on the first plane out of Sana once the airlift started.

But the agreement has stalled, blocked by the Yemeni government, according to the senior Western official. Maimoona and dozens of other patients have been left stranded, the clock ticking on their illnesses.

“First they told us ‘next week, next week,’” said Mr. Naji, shuffling through reams of documents as tears welled up in his eyes. “Then they said no. Where is the humanity in that? What did we do to deserve this?”

The Saudi coalition is not solely to blame for Yemen’s food crisis.

In Houthi-held areas, aid workers say, commanders level illegal taxes at checkpoints and frequently try to divert international relief aid to the families of soldiers, or to line their own pockets.

Despite the harrowing scenes of suffering in the north, some Yemenis are getting rich. Upmarket parts of Sana are enjoying a mini real estate boom, partly fueled by Yemeni migrants returned from Saudi Arabia, but also by newly enriched Houthi officials.

Local residents say they have seen Houthi officials from modest backgrounds driving around the city in Lexus four-wheel drives, or shopping in luxury stores, trailed by armed gunmen, to buy suits and perfumes.

Tensions reached a climax this summer when the head of the United Nations migration agency was forced to leave Sana after clashing with the Houthi administration.

In an interview, the Houthi vice foreign minister, Hussain al-Ezzi, denied reports of corruption, and insisted that tensions with the United Nations had been resolved.

“We don’t deny there have been some mistakes on our side,” he said. “We are working to improve them.”

Only two famines have been officially declared by the United Nations in the past 20 years, in Somalia and South Sudan. A United Nations-led assessment due in mid-November will determine how close Yemen is to becoming the third.

To stave it off, aid workers are not appealing for shipments of relief aid but for urgent measures to rescue the battered economy.

“This is an income famine,” said Lise Grande, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Yemen. “The key to stopping it is to ensure that people have enough money to buy what they need to survive.”

The priority should be to stabilize the falling currency, she said, and to ensure that traders and shipping companies can import the food that Yemenis need.

Above all, she added, “the fighting has to stop.”

One hope for Yemenis is that the international fallout from the death of the Saudi dissident, Jamal Khashoggi, which has damaged Prince Mohammed’s international standing, might force him to relent in his unyielding prosecution of the war.

Peter Salisbury, a Yemen specialist at Chatham House, said that was unlikely.

“I think the Saudis have learned what they can get away with in Yemen--that western tolerance for pretty bad behavior is quite high,” he said. “If the Khashoggi murder tells us anything, it’s just how reluctant people are to rein the Saudis in.”

#Yemen #Saudi Arabia in Yemen #famine in Yemen

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productestate · 4 years ago

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violetsystems · 4 years ago

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#personal

This is week two. To be fair, I woke up in a fairly horrible mood. My final paycheck was not what I had expected it to be. There’s not a lot that I can expect in terms of transparency these days. Still don’t even have final paystubs to work with. So I have to always improvise. The last week has been a wake up call as to who I can rely on. In absolutely catastrophic times like these, it is only me. I definitely feel like my entire life has been disrupted. At the same time, no one cares enough in real life to ask or reach out. People are scared. Embarrassed. Maybe too overloaded with their own problems. I’ve been scrambling to move money around to make sure bills are paid through August just in case. Every day there seems to be a promise of a new lump sum but no solid date in sight. I spent yesterday biking to the bank to fix an error in a transfer. I sent money to my credit union to pay a bill ahead of schedule and the bank somehow reversed it. Taking the money out instead of putting it in. It may well have been my own mistake. I withdrew money and went to deposit it at an atm to fix it quickly. Every PNC bank that accepts deposits for my credit union no longer does. So there was absolutely no place to fix the error myself. I spent more time at the bank and on the phone getting suggestions on how to fix it. In the end, I got dinged thirty two dollars but rectified it with both parties by handling it myself. I also spoke a bit with a banker about the future in terms of checking accounts and investments. This morning I woke up to a message from TIAA that a small windfall went from process to payment in that same account. They sent that at one thirty in the morning. The overwhelming message here being that throughout the process people were still working with me. I felt embarrassed and vulnerable. And this is week two. And this is still all easier to navigate than the unemployment system. I am not unemployed. I’m self employed. Technically I’m on severance though I am in a limbo of sorts. It’s all not very clear. Also I don’t even have a state id or driver’s license to claim that at the moment anyway. Only a passport that expires in 2021. I do have enough money to lock myself down for a long while. And as horrible as yesterday was to deal with on my own, I learned I have far more options than I realize. And also that working any harder for more money right now is unhealthy. Even the printer that was on it’s way from Dell to print my resume is delayed until August 15th. Too bad everything is online anyway.

And then there’s the state of things in this world. Yes, my health insurance expires in October. Yes, I have the money to pay COBRA. Yes, that’s expensive. Yes, there’s a lot of taxes that the government is getting from me this year. And yes, Mitch McConnell probably would use me as the poster boy for pension denial. The free nest mini that YouTube sent was reading the news headlines the other day. One of which that DeutschBank was being sued for it’s ties financially to Jeffrey Epstein. The other big one in Chicago is longtime speaker Madigan tied to a scandal with ComEd regarding bribes. All this money is invested and stored in these great financial institutions. Come twenty years after how many ever lawsuits and scandals, will my pension be safe? Will I even be alive? People made decisions in the short term to secure their long term survival. I was not part of that survival so I am on my own. The process is pretty clear to me. And thus, with some heavy penalties I decided to completely decouple and divest from twenty years of my life of constant employment. I don’t lose sleep at night. I don’t worry about how I feel about China. I don’t worry about who I am sexually attracted to and why. I don’t even worry about anything beyond August other than keeping myself alive, happy and healthy. And this has grown out of two weeks of experiencing the world and my country. Shit is fucked up. Nobody wants to admit it. Things will crumble. I’ll still be out there in the bike lane trying to get my shit together before everything seizes up. And the police will still park in that bike lane to openly intimidate me. You can’t even get more than one roll of quarters at a time from the bank now. And imagine if I had to deal with this and still bite my nails about where my next paycheck comes from. My next paycheck comes from me. I spent years working on music, my identity, and being a good person. I was brainwashed into thinking that was not enough. Now I am the only person I can rely on. It’s strange. Harsh. Emotional. But there’s no real breakdown. And what I see from my perspective and optics is not what the world sees. And in times like this, how you handle yourself says it all. When the world is flailing and failing every step of the way. My feet don’t waver. And my instincts aren’t held back. It’s a pretty fucking feral time for me. Although I really haven’t changed much. I don’t have any time to apologize really. Because I’m owed way more than you can imagine. On paper.

I do these weekly because it is part of my regimen. Staying healthy and connected during times of extreme isolation is imperative. The reality that we may go back into lockdown is going to fuck with a lot of people’s mental state. Things are shaky for me right now for sure. But not in a way that threatens the roof over my head or my high speed connection to the internet. A lot of people want to jeopardize that from the outside without ever walking a mile in my shoes. People see it now. See just how long it’s been going on. How many lies people told about me to make me stumble. How many people out there are projecting openly and why. All the trainees at the police academy who make it a point to park another squad day after day in the bike lane on my route to downtown. People are obstinate, angry, disorganized and irritable. And it will only get worse until it implodes. They don’t stop and reflect. They don’t understand their place in the ecosystem. They don’t love thy neighbor. They preach it. But it’s more of a way to keep other people in check. It’s also from the Bible. Matthew for the record. I’m not Christian. I accept all religions. I quote the Quran as much as I’d quote the Bible. In an election year, politicians like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio ignite and manipulate voters about Hong Kong over the same type of rhetoric. China returns the favor by sanctioning both of them. It’s great theatre. But I live in a city that has revealed to me a painful truth. It’s got nothing to do with politics or sentiment. It’s all about money. How much you have. How stable it is. And how connected to the swamp that will drain over time due to the laws of physics. People built their fortunes on pyramids that will not weather the storm. The storm is just out there. If you’ve ever biked in a city all season you know how it feels to bike against the wind chill across a bridge. I doubt any of your politicians who were elected on huge piles of cash ever felt that connection to nature. I have. I’ve lived. I’ve survived. And I keep looking sexier doing it every day. And I don’t have to cry about it. I don’t have to command everyone’s attention. I don’t have to say anything. It moves within me. Fear does at times too. Which is why I plan and take action. I set goals for myself. I don’t rely on validation much. I rely on myself. I think maybe deep down I’m beginning to show you that more than I ever could in the past. It’s not easy. But I’m not angry. Not anymore. I do think it’s all kind of funny. And I do still remember how to smile. I smile a lot when I think about you. If you think about me make sure not to worry. I’ll be alright. Stay fine and stay safe. <3 Tim

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inkinghubris · 5 years ago

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Ep. 50: Can You Make a Living Writing Blog Posts?

Episode 50: Can You Make a Living Writing Blog Posts?

Can you make a living writing blog posts? The answer is yes. The longer answer is explained in this article where I explain to you how you can quickly and easily earn over $5000 per month writing simple blog posts. You can listen to the episode right here. The transcription is below the player. Feel free to add your comments using the comment section below.

Episode # Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and humans, as such, it may contain errors. Please, double-check the audio file before quoting anything from this page. Introduction 00:00 Hi kids! For episode 50 I want to return to the copywriting side for a while. As the last few weeks we have covered a lot of personal items for writing, I want to focus more on a specific writing type. Today I will answer the question "Can I make a living writing blog posts?" The answer may surprise you. Hang tight, I'll be right back. 00:00 00:00 And I am back, did you miss me? Let's get started. Ghostwriting, and blog or article writing in particular, is like the red-headed step child of the copywriting umbrella. Unlike the copywriters that work on advertorials, marketing, or introducing new products through white papers, blog writers are more or less, left in the ball pit at the burger joint when all the other kids are secured safely in the car to go home.

Earn money writing blog posts working from home. 00:00 What you may not realize, though, is that these writers are in high demand, the entry requirements are low and there is a hell of a lot of money to made out there. If you have command of the English language, basic grammar and are half-way decent at stringing words together, you can earn quite a living writing blog posts. How do You Start? 00:00 So how is this done? What is the earning potential for blog writers? Where do I go to get a client or a gig? I can hear you, eager and willing. But let's slow down a bit. Lets' talk about what you can expect, first. 00:00 If you are new to the industry, or have yet to be paid for your writing, sit down and pay attention. Even if you don't have a college degree, you can earn over $5000 per month writing articles and blog posts for others. Let me show you how. The first step is understanding. You need to understand what you are getting into, what your expectation level needs to be and you need to understand there is no glory here. Know What Blog Writing Entails 00:00 What you are getting into is a long day of writing, turning into long weeks of writing, followed by even more time finding writing gigs. It is a job, so get those pipe dreams of opening your laptop for an hour a day while you sip margarita's at the beach out of your head. If you want to earn the money, you have to do the work. Believe me, there will be enough time for beach front margarita's later. 00:00 Your expectation levels also need to be lowered. You won't be writing an article for Time magazine or The Wall Street Journal. Instead, you will be writing a 2000 word article on effective measures to remove bed bug poop from bed sheets. I know. I wrote that article. Believe me, there is no glory or glamour when you are writing a bed bug series of articles. I still got to take my paycheck to the bank though, so I have no regrets. Maybe a few nightmares, but no regrets. 00:00 The point is, if you want to earn the cash, you have to just suck it up and do the work. As far as your expectations go, you need to decide how much time and devotion you have to the craft. If this is a once in a while thing where you want to do an article or two per month between your yoga classes and that trip to the outlet mall, that is fine. However, if you want to work from home, at your computer and not have to worry about name tags, angry bosses and uniforms, then you are going to put in the work. Let's see the Process 00:00 I will use a monthly income average of $3000. While the earning potential for blog writers can be much higher, I think setting your goals for $3000 a month is a good place to start. You may find that you surpass this goal quickly. Others may find it takes a bit of time. As with anything else in life, there is an element of luck built in. For example, when I first started, I made a goal of earning $1000 a month, which equaled my then current monthly income from my shitty retail job. I ended up making $1000 my first week. It can happen, I've done it. 00:00 I also put in the work. Instead of working 8 hours per day behind a cash register, I was working 10 to 12 hours a day behind my computer. While that may sound like a lot, I also got to take breaks whenever I wanted, go for a walk, or go to the store for more Doritos. I didn't always wear pants. There are a lot of creature comforts you are afforded when you work from home for yourself. As long as you are diligent. The Hiring Process

Getting your first blog posts writing gig isn't that difficult. 00:00 You need to start by understanding how the process works. So, let me cover that quickly. You find a potential client, usually through a job posting or a hiring board. You don't get hired on the spot. Usually the client has a lot of applications to go through and is looking for more than one writer. Your entry sits on the pile with the others waiting to be read over. If you make the cut, about a week (sometimes two weeks) later you get a response asking you to write a test piece. 00:00 A test piece is generally an article the client needs written, that is done for a lower fee and expected a quick turn around. So instead of a 2000 word article, you may be asked to write a 500 word piece at half the hiring cost. I will caution you to be wary of clients asking you to write for them for free before you get the job. Always get paid for your work, even during the hiring process. Even if it is half cost, you don't work for free. There are enough paying jobs out there, you don't need to waste your time doing things without being compensated. 00:00 That soapbox speech is for another time. Back to getting hired. So you get the offer and write the test piece. You turn it in and you get paid for it. Then, you wait, again. A few days later the client decides that your writing will do and offers you the gig. You accept and off you go. Writing Blog Posts as a Beginner 00:00 Now, when you first start off, you will most likely be working at a per word pricing structure. Depending on the client, the type of writing you are doing and how much work they have for you, this can range from a few cents per word to a dollar per word. Don't get your hopes up though, the average price just starting out is about 3 or 4 cents per word. However, even at 3 center per word, a 2000 word article earns you $60 bucks. This isn't a lot, but hey, it only took you 4 or 5 hours to do, which translates into about 20 bucks per hour. 00:00 If you don't want to work in your underwear and earn 20 bucks an hour without the need for a webcam, I don't know what to tell you. Back to the expectations. The articles you get at this stage will most likely be either informative or comparative. This means you write article with headlines like "How to wash the engine block of your car." or "Which robot vacuum is the best?" 00:00 They aren't glorious articles, the styles are highly structured and for the most part, you don't get a lot of say in what the article layout, headings and sub headings will be. The client has a niche site where they are trying to sell shit. Your job is to write an article to explain or detail how awesome that particular product or service is. If you do your job well, you will earn $60 bucks in your pocket. Which is abut how much your client will make for every visitor that clicks a link on their site. Yeah, you lose, but you can't think of it like that. Just Do Your Job 00:00 If you just shut up and do the work you agreed to do and don't worry about what other people are earning or making off of your work, you will be much better off. Every article you write makes you a better writer. The more words you can put down, the better those words will end up being. Believe me. As a test, the first paid article you do, save it. Download it or print it out and put it away. Come back in a year with the last article you wrote and look at the two. I bet you will want to throw up a little bit after reading the first one again. 00:00 Finally, for your expectations, you need to understand how much you will work to earn that $3000 per month. If you are earning $50 to $60 per article, then you will need to write 50 to 60 articles a month. To break it down for you, that is 100,000 words written, per month. 25,000 words per week. If you plan for a 5-day work week, that is 5,000 words per day. It Isn't For Everyone

In the beginning you will work more, for less. That will soon change 00:00 It is a lot of work. It takes a lot of time to research the information, get the specs on the products, build your tables and write paragraphs. As you get used to the process, though, you will get faster. Even with my ADD and other issues, I can easily knock out 2000 words in about two hours. If I needed to write 5,000 words per day, 5 days a week, that means I am done by lunch and still earning $3000 a month. It can be done. You just need to be diligent. 00:00 Assuming, though, that you are like me, these articles will get old quickly. A way to make them better? Earn more for them. I would much rather write a 2000 word article explaining how to wash a car when I am getting paid 200 bucks to do so, instead of $60. Wouldn't you? 00:00 In time, you can. One of the best ways to do this is to make long-term clients. Instead of applying for a job, writing an article or two and then moving to the next job posting, try to find clients with months or years worth of work. They aren't as rare as you may think. After a couple of months turning in high-quality articles and not missing deadlines (that is important, by the way, always be on time!), then you get to start making demands. How to Earn More For the Same Amount of Work 00:00 You can ask for a raise, but you aren't likely to get it. Instead, you want to make the process easier for the client. My go-to answer is to ask to be put on a retainer. 00:00 A retainer? Like a lawyer? Exactly like that. Send an email to your client and explain the situation. Remind them how tedious is it to count the words and do the math to make sure you get paid for the exact penny. Wouldn't it be much easier to just offer a flat rate per article? Then we can dismiss this silly word counting portion and just move forward? 00:00 In most situations, the client will agree. Anything you can do to make their end easier, the more rewarded you will be. Remember, that for every article you turn in, that client is making 10 times what they paid you for it. It is easy enough for the valuable writer to stay happy and turning in those high-quality articles. If your words are valuable enough, the client will gladly offer you a larger cut of those profits. They know you will continue to earn them 10 times the value (or more) and you get to earn more money, too. Establish a Flat Rate, Then go for the Jugular 00:00 Once you have a flat rate established, say $150 per article, you essentially asked for a raise from 3 cents per word to 8 cents per word. And if you have been keeping up, that is well above the industry standard for these articles. So, you continue this for another couple of months. hen you send your client another email. 00:00 Look boss, we have a good thing going here. Wouldn't it be easier on you to send me the article briefs you need written each month all at once? How about we go on retainer. You pay me $3000 on the first of the month, send over 12 articles and I will write them up over the next four weeks and send them back to you. We don't need to have an email back and forth every other day to submit the articles and wait for a new brief and repeat every day. Your time is valuable, and the less time you spend having to worry about these articles, the easier it is on everyone. 00:00 The first thing the client is going to do is look at how much they currently pay you. Over the course of the last few months you haven't missed any deadlines, you provide high quality articles and you are already earning about $3000 per month. It sounds like a good deal at that point. Pay you once, which saves them fees, get you out of their hair so they can focus on other things. After a couple of days you will be surprised at the response. I have asked each of my long term clients to be put on retainer after proving my worth. I have never been turned down. It's Better if it Seems Like Their Idea 00:00 As long as you make it sound like a convenience thing, it is easier for them, better for them, you are less likely to be turned down. But did you notice what we did? We offered our current monthly rate for 12 articles. When we got hired a few months back we were earning $60 per article working for 3 cents a word. Then we moved to a flat rate of $150 per article, or 8 cents per word. Now, instead of working 5 days a week writing 5000 words per day, we are earning $250 per article for 12 articles. $3000 a month and you now work 12 days a month (assuming you can write an article per day).

You know what time it is now. 00:00 I don't know about you, but I would much rather work a 3-day work week and earn the same amount of money as I did when I was working 5 or 6 days a week. It's a no-brainer. And for those wondering about the math, you are now averaging between $45 and $60 per hour, depending on how fast you can finish an article. In Conclusion 00:00 Now you have a couple of options. You are working 3-days per week, earning $3000 a month. That is a livable wage. You also have 2 or 3 days per week for more work. Even with one more client, going through the same process, you can double your income. Go back to working 5 days per week with 2 long-term clients instead of just one, and you are making $4500 to $6000 per month. Every month. For writing a blog post. 00:00 I will end this episode with a question for you. In a year from now, do you want to be wondering where you could be or what you could be doing, or do you want to be ghostwriting articles and earning over $5000 a month? I'm pretty sure I know what you will answer. 00:00 Until next week, kids. Have fun; write words. 00:00 Read the full article

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bestinteriordesignerchennai-blog · 6 years ago

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Best Living Room Design Ideas

In many homes, the living room is where families and their guests go to kick back and relax after a long day. In many homes, this room is also where the television, computer and other knickknacks come together and choke the space. This is even truer in a small living room, which fills up after putting just a few pieces of furniture inside. Because of this, many people think that having a larger space is better but that isn’t always true. The secret to making a small living room look good is to take advantage of the living space you already have.

Tiny furniture isn’t a must, but there’s also no need to fill the space with a giant couch or table. Try to resist the temptation to fill up the space when you don’t need to. This will just make you and your guests feel like you’re being crowded out. Design elements like shelving, hidden storage, accent lighting and a solid color scheme also go a long way in making a small space seem larger.

1. Eclectic Elegance

This little beauty highlights how each piece in a space can be wildly different yet still be harmonious. Visual interest is abundant in this small living room interior, from the golden leather ottomans to the glass and driftwood coffee table. On the wall behind the sofa, the chinoserie wallpaper and golden mirrors work together to give the room a touch of flash without overstating their presence and drowning the sofa out. Each piece is like a unique cast member in a stage play or television show. Every piece in this room is small, but each piece still has immense personality.

2. Earthly Pleasures

This room has a money-saving secret in its design. Can you spot it? If your eyes went to the rug, then you’re right. The rug is actually a piece of broadloom and can actually save you quite a bit of pocket change if you are designing on a budget. Unlike most ordinary carpets, you can also cut have the broadloom cut to a specific size, meaning you can fill oddly-shaped spaces you wouldn’t have been able to otherwise. Best of all, your guests likely won’t notice the difference at first glance, meaning it can be your little home decor secret.

3. Recreational Activities

Have you ever seen a room in a magazine that was just so stunning that you had to have it in your own home? While you may not be able to recreate it perfectly, decorating a small living room doesn’t have to break the bank. Print the picture out, take it with you to your favorite furniture stores and have a little fun trying to match each piece. You probably won’t find perfect matches, but similar pieces you do find will feel much more personal and make the final space much cozier. For visual interest, try some thrift store finds.

4. Monochrome with Color

If you just want to spice up a dull space, that one visual oddity can make all the difference. This is especially true in a small living room since there normally isn’t much to look at. The rug in this room is a great example because it breaks up the plainness and uniformity the room otherwise has. It also accomplishes this without being overly intrusive. It also forces you to look down at the floor, then up at everything else in the room, ensuring you see every bit of the room’s contents. The right accent pieces make all the difference.

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5. The Fine Line

This next room illustrates why decorating a small living room is tricky. When you want to make a room stand out but are unsure how to do so, you may think of adding some visual interest pieces like pictures or pottery. In a small space like this one, however, there is a very fine line between making your space look lived-in and making your space look messy. This room walks that line spectacularly with an array of shapes, sizes and colors that make it look like someone lives here already. Make sure each piece has a purpose and a function.

6. A Marriage of Styles

What do you do when you don’t agree with your spouse on what to do with a space? This is a very common problem that just leads to hurt feelings and an empty wallet. Rather than try to push your style over theirs, figure out what elements each of you likes and incorporate both of your tastes into the room. This small living room design is a marriage of masculine and feminine with an exceptional mix of bold lines and pastel accents. The ceiling light is also a perfect representation of the two merged styles, being both geometrical and curvaceous.

interiors in chennai

7. Wooden Wonder

Whether you are working with a small living room or a large living room, balance makes all the difference in the world. This room proves that you don’t need outrageous shapes or colors to create a beautiful space. The untreated dark oak floorboards and the earthy color scheme come together to provide an elegant balance of light, shapes, textures and colors. Nothing in this room aggressively screams, “Look at me!” but the room also has just enough visual interest to command your attention. If a room like this does not give you several small living room design ideas, nothing will.

8. New York Shorty

Decorating a small living room is one thing, but decorating a small New York living room is a task and a half. This tiny abode is an exceptional study in taking advantage of what you have. The exposed brick wall, wood floors and tall, sunny windows were already there when this designer showed up. The only thing it was missing was color, and this darling space is the result. This space is all about contrast with the plain white animal busts on the brick wall and the colorful sofa and armchair complementing the earth tones of the floor and wall.

Interior decorator in Chennai

9. Sunlight and Shadow

This space demonstrates why color choice has such a large impact on a room. It shows that sometimes, achieving a stellar small living room design is as simple as using black and white. Using black, white and grey as your primary colors and adding a pop of color here and there would be a dramatic departure from the norm. The eye is drawn to color by nature, so it can be used to draw attention to specific areas of the room or it can be placed all over the room to provide a concise tour of the room in moments.

10. Mirror, Mirror

When you have to work with a room with an awkward shape, implementing the small living room designs that you love becomes a major challenge. It may not look like it, but this room had some incredible design challenges, including a cramped dining area. To remedy this, the designer decided to hang some mirrors in the dining area. Not only does the space look larger, but it also transforms the way the dining area looks. By putting the chairs on one side and the mirrors on the other, the dining area doesn’t look nearly as small as it truly is.

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11. Seabird’s Nest

This cozy little space shows how small living room decor can quickly become an art form given the right pieces. In this room’s case, the abstract white sculptures on one wall and the feather painting on the other would probably point to an oceanic theme, but when you get to the blue area rug and notice the flowers, you begin to wonder if the room really is following a specific theme. Without those pieces of wall art, the room would look stale and a bit generic, which shows how even one piece can transform a room’s look in unexpected ways.

12. From Warsaw

When it comes to a small living room organization is crucial. This tiny Warsaw home’s living room is no bigger than your average trailer and includes the dining area and bedroom, meaning space is at a premium. This is why the accent wall in this room uses vertical stripes: to make it look taller. Not a single piece in this room is without purpose, from the shelf the television sits on to the small office niche at the end of the room. For instance, the track lighting in the ceiling replaces bulky floor lamps that would take up valuable space.

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13. A Thousand Words

Interior design for small living room is all about balancing and contrasts, which this next home has plenty of. This home, described by the designer as “Scandinavian Rustic,” further shows how one element can change a room dramatically. This room possesses a wealth of 2D and 3D elements as well as polygonal and round elements. The eye-catching wall art literally defines how the space should feel, while the long and narrow sofa coupled with the two spool-like tables take advantage of the limited dimensions. The phrase “opposites attract” appear to be this room’s motto and it adheres to it well.

14. Urban Jungle

In home design, one practice that novice designers avoid is mixing and matching patterns or textures. Many beginning designers stick with a uniform and consistent look in order to play it safe. While that isn’t necessarily bad, this room shows how rewarding it can be to get creative and take a few risks. Leather, glass, metal, wood and even water join forces with lovely neutral tones, zebra print, jagged stripes and a spectacular art piece to create a small living room sure to get guests talking. There is so much going on in this room, but it isn’t overwhelming, either.

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thelongestdamnreviews · 7 years ago

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Endless Sky

Endless Sky is a free-to-play single player game and it took me around 45 hours or so to get to the end of the Free Worlds campaign. I didn't check to see if it had controller support, but I found keyboard and mouse worked just fine, with me just sticking to plain keyboard most of the time.

It's the early 31st century and like any bright-eyed youth on your backwater planet, you want to leave home and see the stars. You apply for a bank loan and drop the cash on your very first craft...and now that you're out in space, you need to figure out how you're gonna pay off that loan before the interest gets outta control. There are plenty of options out there for the enterprising captain, and some of them aren't legal. Decisions, decisions.

Picked my poison with this one.

I never played Escape Velocity, but Endless Sky is something of a homage to it made by one guy in his free time with the help of users and fans' contributed content. I wound up playing this since my last foray into scratching that "gotta do space" itch fell apart, and I'm honestly impressed with what I found. Here, space is a 2D ocean seen from the 'top' sorta like in SPAZ, but everything is on its own invisible layer/plane when asteroids and other ships are taken into account. This goes out the window when weapons are involved. You can't ram ships but trying to down a target with missiles doesn't work too well when you're in the middle of an asteroid field.

Controls were kinda different and this was one time I didn't change anything. Arrow keys control thrust and turning (no strafing) and turning your ship around 180 degrees for reverse. From there, the keys are kinda weird because instead of them being in something resembling an array or shortcuts, they correspond to the action you want. So you hit L to Land on a planet, you hit J to Jump between systems, you hit F to have your fleet Focus fire on your current target, you hit B to Board a disabled ship, etc. Kinda intuitive too, I thought. You can use the mouse to click on things but I didn't do that too often except where the autopilot picked poor options for things I wanted to board or so on.

There is a small variety of missions. You have your standard "deliver X amount of Y resource to Z system," you have the same but with passengers, then you have those with time limits. When you jump between systems, the game's calendar advances a day, you pay crew salaries as well as the current payment on any ongoing loans, and your ship uses up some hyperspace fuel. Landing on most planets refills your fuel and repairs your ships, but also advances the calendar when you leave, so there is some strategy in planning routes to your destination. You are able to hail ships to request repairs or fuel, but it's not something I'd rely on, especially with several ships in your fleet. There are also "escort ship to X system" missions where you need to help another captain get their ship to whichever system without the pirates you'll undoubtedly face blowing them up first. And once you've won yourself some fights, you'll get bounty missions where you're to search nearby systems for a ship or a small fleet and destroy them for the bounty. I think on my save I have over a hundred of these left to do, mostly because the target has a wide range of systems it can appear in and I didn't feel like doing hide-and-seek.

This may look bad...because it is. Smaller ships are dead in the water (space?) when their hull gets below 50% like mine.

But those are just the sandboxy missions. There are currently two longer quest chains that have characters and actual choices and there is a major branch in the Free Worlds storyline too. The story missions are still kinda structured the same, but having actual interaction with characters makes it feel less samey as the random missions you get otherwise. Free Worlds deals with a terrorist attack and an investigation into the real culprit, while war with the Republic gradually becomes a reality. Or you can just ignore it all, but apart from explicitly timed missions, you lose nothing by putting things off for a few years. One minor gripe is that some story missions are unlocked by visiting random Space Ports on planets and hoping you trigger something to advance.

For those who want to do trading to get by, the interface is extremely easy to understand. Pick your destination system in the maps screen and look at the Ports submenu, and it'll show you the price difference for each commodity between the two systems. While prices fluctuate a little as you travel, I didn't see anything drastic like a 250cr profit per good dropping to -10 or something before I even got there. An early strategy I used was to find a nearby system with several quests I could complete at the same time and I filled up the rest of my cargo with the most profitable commodity to get a bunch of cash for one run.

This is only one part of the map. The game calendar has advanced about ten years since I started playing, so I've jumped over 3000 times so far. It's not that big, but there are a lot of systems here.

Space combat is a little overwhelming when you first start out because all three of the starter ships aren't great at all and apart from friendlies in the system, you're on your own. There's an option to have the game automatically turn your ship to face your target so your forward-facing guns stay on target, and I'd suggest using that. You can later buy ships that have a turret slot and turrets fire independently of your ship's orientation, a massive help. When you have more ships under your command, they generally follow a 'seek and destroy' behavior, but you can have them either focus their attacks on a single ship, swarm around you, or hold position at a fixed point/current position. Your ships stop attacking (but fired projectiles keep going!) when an enemy ship suffers enough hull damage to shut down, and you're able to board the ship at that point. You can either take the ship's equipment like their thrusters or weapons, or you can try to take it over altogether with your crew fighting the other ship's crew to the death. Win and the ship is now yours, albeit likely heavily damaged and easily blown up if more enemies pop up. You could keep the ship along and have it help you with fighting...or sell it off for a quarter of its base value. It's kinda funny that you can get a lot of money by playing pirate against the actual pirates.

I really liked capping ships for some reason. I set up my fleet with lasers and sometimes sat in areas pirates kept hitting. I'd end up with a bunch of disabled ships and I'd just go between them and steal them, then set them up with lasers and repeat. At one time I had over 120 ships! Not efficient since each ship needs to be staffed and that comes out of your funds every day, but it was pretty fun just seeing how many ships I could swipe in a single sitting. And since I could just dump the ships at any planet with a Shipyard later, that was even easier money. Nothing like claiming the bounty on a ship and then selling it to double-dip.

Easy money is never a bad thing.

Customization in this game is pretty deep. Each model of ship has its own stats like hull integrity, mass, and a default loadout of engines and other systems as well as weapons sometimes, and there's a comprehensive stat screen for each ship that shows this as well as other information like how many degrees a second it can turn and how much heat total it can generate before it overheats. On planets with Outfitters, you're able to install different hardware on each ship in your fleet, provided you respect the limits placed on you. Every piece of equipment takes up Outfit Space, weapons take up both Outfit Space and Weapon Space, and engines take both Outfit Space and Engine Space. You also have only a set number of Gun and Turret Slots, and you also also have to mind the power generation and heat generation that comes from operating each ship. A lot of limits but there's still quite a lot of play with how you set things up. If taking enemy ships isn't your speed, you can outright buy ships from Shipyards, but of course not every system has a Shipyard or Outfitter, and not all of them carry the same stock. At least you can also check which ships and outfits are sold where once you've visited the planet/bought a map.

There's a lot of description too. The planets all have text that describes the planet in general accompanied by a picture, and the Space Port has its own description too about how it looks and the surrounding area, etc. Ships in the Shipyard and equipment in the Outfitter all have descriptions too. Like the Tyrant-class Plasma Engines coming in an enormous crate with a big dinosaur bearing an improbable number of teeth printed on the side. A bunch of nice little touches. The ship names are pretty varied too, with Republic ships all starting with R.N.S., or pirate ships having names like Death By Lorelei or Satan's Madness or other tryhard names. You can rename anything you own at the Shipyard but apart from my primary ship, I left everything as default. Try to hail a pirate ship you've disabled sometime to see all the various insults they can think of.

The pictures are almost all taken on Earth or source images, some of which have been edited for color to make them feel alien.

I didn't really dislike much about the game. I would've liked an option to slow down combat since trying to give individual orders (hey you, nearly-dead ship--get outta here!) kinda didn't work, but you can click on the ship's icon on the bottom-left to sorta target it for commanding. I'd sometimes reload just because I lost a ship I liked. I mentioned the thing with the random nature of starting story missions and that kinda sucks. I really only had lag when I had a ton of ships on the screen fighting each other, and I could see how badly my system suffered by having the CPU and GPU % usage overlaid on top of the screen. I wound up bumping my fleet back from 120 assorted ships to about 30 robust ones just for that. And shuffling parts between ships is a little bad because you have to sell the part to an Outfitter and then buy it back (at no net loss, thankfully) with the other ship selected to install it there. In the original review, I complained about not being able to buy outfits and put them directly into cargo, but CTRL+click the currently-selected ship and there you go.

It doesn't have much variety but I still got nearly 60 hours out of it. There's a lot of space for personal challenges, like "I want to have every node on the map unlocked" or "I want to amass a billion credits any way I can" or "I want to conquer Earth", but completing the Free Worlds story is really only part of the game and there's always more storylines to come someday. And if you like the game, you can contribute with plugins or new ships or outfits or entire quest chains if you want! And it sits under 100MB for me, so I'm keeping this installed probably forever.

The adventure continues...

#pc #recommended

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hanihyunsu · 5 years ago

Text

Account of Mr. Caretaker

I work in this tower where all walls were shelves, filled with books that only chosen people could read. I am the caretaker of this tower with everyone else who works here, and being the "chosen" isn't really anything special, you just had to be hired.

You see, none of the books in this tower are found anywhere else. All books that are stored here directly came from the government, and people were hired to guard this tower from possible robbers.

Not that anyone would try, anyway.

All books here were once people. They lived somewhere from the earliest times of civilization to years recent enough for them to live as our friends. They all went through the government's top secret system of transferring their consciousness into pagesーinto wordsーand sending them into this tower as punishment.

These books are criminals, and this is their punishment: living their lives immortalized in pages of a book no one would ever read. Being a book must be hard; your priority would be being read and contributing to someone's life, and so being a book locked in a tower is the same as being in jail. After a while, those in the higher floors would be taken out and burned to make room for newer books.

But they aren't exactly left unread forever. In my free time, I sneak up to the higher floors and read. I just finished reading the Victorian timesーreading stories of toyshop thieves, horse-murderers and serial killers dressed in tophats and longcoats. My current reading is in the large sections of assassins, soldiers and world leadersーWW1 and WW2.

I do remember those times myself. I was a child when my father left for war. My mother would hold her own gun and always had us move around the country after our city was taken. I also saw the book of that kid that threw my ball onto the mud when I was 6. He became a scientist based in Russia. My highschool teacher also appeared in one of the spines I saw. She became a spy for the Allies and betrayed her loyalty and switched sides with the Axis.

When I read a book, I kept thinking about how the book must have feel as a human. We all know the common saying "...like an open book" and I just assume it isn't anything like invading their privacy. I flip the pages with care, I make sure I don't damage the fragile binding and I don't fold anything nor drop it.

In the first pages would be their story, written in third person which I questioned, but in the last pages was them. They plead for the reader to come save them. Others plead to just be burned and forgotten, buried in their guilt. Some beg for forgiveness and repentance. Rare ones doesn't even have last pages; it was torn off before they were even shipped to this tower. Most of them insist that they were just framed, others own up to their mistakes but wanted for their side of the story be known.

Everytime I read a book in this tower, I feel a lot of things. Some books make me feel pity for the criminal. Others either make me feel scared or uncomfortable. Most of them make me angry, either at the book or the government that made them like this. Most of them don't even deserve such punishment. Most of them are just children forced to do crimes by kidnappers and orphanages or by their own parents and family. Others are war criminals, a large portion of them soldiers who were only told to fire and never to listen to the man in the enemy lines.

But this books only start at the moment they either got arrested or went to court, retelling what exactly they did in third person's point of view. They introduce themselves so robotically that I believe it was part of the restriction the government did. The only part they had freewill to speak was in the last pages, and I read last pages more than first ones.

They bring me nothing but disappointment and pain. When I close a book, I would always take a moment to stare blankly at the wall and let the entire thing sink in. That was a life of someone I may have never met but knew with all knowledge what wrong he had done. That is the disappointment I had in these booksーthey only say the criminal's life, not the human itself. They start at the moment the person was caught wrong and never at the moment that the person encountered something that made themselves do wrong.

I would read how this soldier would follow his superior's orders, and he would be caught and used as prisoner of war and/or executed. I never got to read about the family he left behind, or the reason why he seemed so shocked when he met the enemy's commander with the same face as him. I would read about a murderer who kills an entire family without knowing that maybe he was avenging someone that the dead family took away from him. I would read about this bank robber who made headlines in the city in the past that didn't mention he donated his robbed money to the charity his daughter was in.

I never got to know how they felt in the government facility being killed and their brains consciousness transferred onto paper. I never got to know if they preferred winter or summer, or sweet or bitter. I never got to know how much they loved someone they would be able to do anything. I never got to know what their favorite place were, or their last words spoken. I never got to know them as a human and only as a criminal.

These books are indeed printed for propaganda. I don't find it so horrible they were dumped in thid tower with no one meant to read them, because if they were read, they would only be known for the bad things they had done.

I made friends in those books. I may end up as one of them in the future, but I am content in reading them for now. Who knows, I might read yours.

hani.h

#short story #concept #ill never write a legit story out of this

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topicprinter · 7 years ago

Link

NOTE: I will look over literally anybody's funnel here online and provide you feedback - FREESo here's some quick and dirty background for you.I'm 31 now and I've been a full-time freelance writer for over seven years. In just the last three years or so I've started commanding very good pricing (I make at lest $10,000 a month and I charge at least $10,000 per project for most of the big projects I do - I have some examples of that later in this post).I'm a high school dropout with no college education (although I DO have a Good Enough Diploma - GED).I've been traveling around the world the last two years, primarily throughout Southeast Asia. I live in Chiang Mai, Thailand right now.I first got published when I was 19 years old in Savannah, GA. I lied about my age (had a fake ID saying I was 21) and got a job as a bar/lifestyle reporter for a regional magazine around at the time called The South Magazine covering bars and restaurants and that sort of thing.Here's a 2006 scanned article with my name in print from that time (William McCanless): LINKOf course, they eventually found out that I was a 19 year old writing about drinking in their magazine and - for some strange reason - their lawyer thought I was a "liability" so they fired me. But I came away from it with three contributor copies and my name in print.Then I started doing music writing for a music magazine in Atlanta...stuff like this: LINKBut of course I wasn't getting paid much. Eventually I moved online and started using (at the time) sites like Elance (now Upwork), freelancer, and more.I was doing SEO, web content, batch blog writing.Eventually I started doing ghostwriting, which made me a little more money (and also crushed my soul as I was writing insane amounts of content every week...I would write 60,000 words in a week).Then, i started learning about Direct Response Copywriting. I started studying the Great Masters like David Ogilvy, Robert Collier, Claude Hopkins, and Gary Halbert. I learned, for example, that many of the great copywriters over the last 100 years could routinely make more money for a single sales page than a best-selling novelist makes for an entire year of book sales.I saw how people like Dan Kennedy don't even start negotiations until $30,000 is on the table for him to start writing a promotion.Eventually I got good and I started getting paid. And now I make at least $10,000 a month and charge at least $10,000 + 3% - 5% royalties on sales my promotions generate.Some examples of what different types of writing looks like based on payHere's a promotion that's not live yet, in fact this version is for the Legal Department to review (you must rigorously backup all claims and have this type of copy reviewed by a legal department). This is for a financial advisory (for natural resource investors). This advisory is SEC-regulated. You have to be REALLY careful with these because ad networks like Facebook, Yahoo, Bing, Google, Revcontent, tabloo, Outbrain, and more are very leery of financial copy (LOTS of scams) so it takes a lot of research to write one of these, lots of revisions - goes through Editorial, Legal, Ad compliance. This is an example of a $10,000 project with 5% royalties - LINKHere's another promotion, but rather than online, this is Direct Mail. This type of promotion is called a "Magalog" which is a combination of the words "Magazine" and "Catalog." One truth in Direct Response Marketing that was learned over the last 100 years of just...MILLIONS of various campaigns...that is that advertising that looks more like an editorial always does better. That's why - for example - Facebook has timeline ads (they look like a post). It's why Google Adwords has their ads look like actual search results. And, of course, it's why sending something that is perceived as a magazine is less likely to be rejected outright than a blatant "THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT" type of ad would. This is an example of a project that costs $10,000, but because it's to generate qualified leads and not immediate sales, there is no royalty other than a $5,000 bonus if it becomes a "control": LINKI don't JUST do $10,000 jobs and stuff like that. I would say I do about 6 promotions a year of these (one every two months).There's also many jobs I take on from online marketing clients who have online businesses for...$3,000 to $6,000 and they can be done very quickly because they don't require as much research or back-and-forth.For example a 45-minute VSL (video sales letter) script is something that I could pound out in about three days. So I will do one or two of those a month.Finally, the third type of project is just VERY small - absolutely no research required - things that I can pound out in literally a couple of hours in the afternoon.Here's an example of a script I wrote along those lines for $500: LINKHere's some of my favorite sales pages of all timeThis ad for Rolls-Royce by David OgilvyThis subscription direct-mail sales page for the Wall Street Journal, which is the most successful single piece of advertising in advertising history and brought in over nearly $3 BILLION in subscription sales for the nearly 30 years it ran (imagine being the copywriter who got 5% of THOSE sales, eh?)This sales letter for International Living written in the early 1970s by Bill Bonner, which launched a billion-dollar international publishing company called Agora (which is one of my clients). It returned $3 for every $1 in advertising costs.HERE'S A VIDEO I DID FOR THIS AMAWARNING NSFW: I cuss like a sailor, drink like a fish, and smoke like a chimney in this video. At least I'm a stereotype for writing...Video: https://youtu.be/P0Hdud6bd74Time Stamps:0:01 - 1:06Rambling introduction. I'm in Koh Phangan. I'm on vacation. It's Sangkron, Thai New Year. People throwing water on each other. Ridiculously transparent attempt to use Sangkron as an excuse to drink and smoke excessively on camera.1:07 - 5:17Why am I doing this AMA. No, it's not purely selfless - I was using previous AMAs to gauge audience response and see if people were hungry for a copywriting course. I was doing market research, essentially. r/writing had a bigger response than r/entrepreneur and r/marketing.I've been heavily considering teaching for some time and this was my attempt to see if anybody even wanted to learn what I had to teach.Got invited to a copywriting conference (big one) flaked out, was scared to teach, thought it was pointless. It bothered me - I felt like I had failed myself. A little bit about why I was scared. This is my attempt to get out of my comfortable seclusion and contribute.5:18 - 7:16Why would people in r/writing be interested in copywriting? Why I chose copywriting as a money-maker (versus novels, screenplays...etc).Quick background on me - ADHD (clinically), authority issues, bad around people, introvert, anti-social, writing for a living was really the only thing I could do.If I didn't make money writing - as a living - I'd be dead.7:21 - 9:47How and why I ended up in direct response copywriting after starting as an aspiring novelist and screenplay writer.9:48 - 11:04Does being a direct response copywriter make you a pathetic fucking sellout?11:05 - 17:25How and why doing Direct Response Copywriting for a living, helped me be a better, more disciplined writer in general (including the number one most important thing I learned about the writing process).Putting words down on paper - and writing FORWARD - no matter what, even if you don't feel like it.Crafting your writing with a "marketing mindset."17:28 - 23:53What the fuck is Direct Response Copywriting?23:54 - 29:10Is Direct Response Copywriting used to sell scam products (like penis pills and and get-rich-quick schemes).Some products you know that were marketed direct-response style (and written by copywriters). The George Foreman Grill, P90x, Nutribullet, real estate, car dealerships.29:11 - 33:43How can I charge so much money for this type of writing, and why are companies so willing to pay $10,000, $20,0000, $30,000 (or more) PLUS royalties on sales?33:45 - ENDConcluding thoughts on why I think direct response copywriting is a good option for people who love writing in general and who want to live a more location and time independent lifestyle.DISCLAIMER - At no point during this AMA, on any of my replies, nor any of the PMs I get will I reference you to an affiliate link, try to pitch a course that I've created, or essentially try to sell you anything unless I'm directly approached for it via PM - that's it.I'm only here to give the best answers, help, and advice I can for whoever wants it.For Those That Want Me To Show Bank StatementsI've been asked this before then when I refused there was an "ah-hah! Liar!" accusation. First of all, I don't feel comfortable sharing bank statements or account screen shots on the Internet. I'm scared there's going to be some telling information on there that gets me hacked or....identity stolen or something (by people who are a lot smarter than me).But here's my constellation. This is a recorded Skype call between me and a man named Joe Schrieffer who heads-up Agora Financial, in this 30 minute call I land a $10,000 job from him

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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anavoliselenu · 7 years ago

Text

Relese me chapter 12

“Your father did nothing?” The anger in Stark’s voice is palpable.

“I don’t know my dad. They divorced when I was a baby. He lives somewhere in Europe now. I almost told my grandfather once, but I never quite worked up the courage before he died.”

“That horrific bitch.” He spits out the word, and though I completely agree, I can feel social niceties rising to my lips, as if I have to find excuses for my mother.

I tamp them down. “My sister tried to help.” I smile as I remember the way Ashley used to shine a light under the crack in my door and read me stories until I got sleepy. At least until our mother found out.

“She didn’t have to have her beauty sleep, too?”

“She didn’t win enough, so my mom eventually quit entering her in pageants.” The freedom had given Ashley time. It had given her back her life. I had adored my big sister, who’d always been my guardian angel, but I’d been incredibly jealous, too. I used to think she was the lucky one.

And then she’d killed herself.

I shiver. “I really don’t want to talk about it anymore,” I say.

He doesn’t acknowledge my words, but after a moment he speaks again. “I thought I knew a bit about photography, but I guess I know less than I thought. I always assumed some light was allowed in.”

I glance sideways at him, grateful for his discretion. He’s stepped away from my personal issues with the dark, but kept the thread of our original conversation. “At a certain point in the process, yes,” I say, letting my fears and memories fade under the weight of a subject I love. “And a red or amber safelight is common when making black and white prints because most of the papers are sensitive only to blue or blue-green light. But if you’re working with color like I usually do, then the prints need to be kept in total darkness until they’re properly fixed.”

I shrug. “It’s really not a big deal. Access to a darkroom is expensive and doing your own developing eats up a lot of time. One of these days I’ll get a digital camera, but in the meantime, I send my film out and get back a contact sheet along with all the pictures on disk. Then I sit down and play with the images in my native environment.”

“The computer?” he asks, grinning.

“Ever since I got my first one at age ten,” I confirm. I don’t tell him that the computer was my escape. I could turn it on and tell my mother I was doing homework, then lose myself in games and later in writing my own code. For a week or so, I’d even used the screen as a nightlight, but my mother caught on. My mother never missed a thing.

“Doing photographic work on the computer is like holding magic in your hand,” I say. “I mean, I could take a picture of you and then find stock footage of the surface of the moon and make it look like you’re standing in space.” I grin wickedly. “Or I could put your head on the body of monkey.”

“I’m not sure that would show me off to my best advantage.”

I have to agree. “No, it wouldn’t.”

“That’s one of the apps you have for sale, isn’t it?” he asks.

I blink, surprised he knows about that. I’ve designed, coded, and am selling three smartphone apps across various platforms. I designed them while I was at UT, though not for any particular class. Turns out there’s actually a market for apps that allow you to paste a headshot onto a provided stock animal photo, then share the new image across various social media.

“How did you know about that?” I ask. That app is reasonably popular, but it’s not bringing in so much money that it would be on Stark’s radar.

“I make it a point to know everything I can about the things I care about.” He’s looking at me as he speaks, and there’s no mistaking that he means me and not the app. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Justin never misses a thing, either.

I smile, feeling flattered but also exposed. I can’t help but wonder what other things he knows about me. How deep has he looked? Considering the resources at Justin Stark’s disposal, he could have looked pretty damn deep, and that truism gives me pause.

If he notices my mood this time, he ignores it. “I’ve always thought of science as magic, too,” he says, returning to the thread of our conversation. “Though not just computer science.”

“I was pretty impressed with your questions during the pitch,” I say. His questions had covered the technical aspects of the software design as well as the anatomical components, reflecting an understanding of both tech and basic anatomy. “What did you study in college?”

“I didn’t go to college,” he says. “For that matter, I didn’t go to school. I had private tutors from the time I was ten. My coach insisted, and my father agreed.”

An unfamiliar edge sharpens his voice, and although I want to know more, it’s clear I’ve stumbled upon a sore subject. “So, do you know much about photography?” I ask, grappling for a shift in the conversation. I remember the photos in his reception area. “Did you take the pictures outside your office?”

“I know just enough to be dangerous,” he says lightly, and I’m glad of the change in mood. “And no. I tried to find photos that represent my hobbies. Those are done by a local photographer. He has a studio in Santa Monica, actually.”

“He’s very skilled. His use of contrast and perspective is stunning.”

“I agree, and I’m flattered you thought I might be the photographer.”

I shift in my seat to look at him better. “Well, you are a remarkably talented man. And very full of surprises.”

His decadent grin is pure Justin, promising more surprises to come, and I feel an answering tingle between my thighs.

I drop my eyes and clear my throat. “Your hobbies, huh? So there were photographs of the ocean, some mountains, redwoods, and a bike tire. I’m guessing sailing, skiing, I have no idea, and biking.”

“Not bad. The ocean represents diving and the trees are for hiking. Other than that, you got it right. Any of those appeal to you, Ms. Fairchild?”

“All of them,” I admit. “Although I’ve never tried diving. Not many opportunities in Texas.”

“California has excellent diving,” he says. “Though a wetsuit is a bit cumbersome. I much prefer the warmer waters of the Caribbean. There,” he says, pointing out the window.

It takes me a second to switch gears, but then I see that he’s pointing to Santa Barbara.

“I’ll need to put her into the landing pattern soon, but why don’t you take control for a bit.”

“What?” I clear my throat and try that again without squeaking. “I’m sorry, but what?”

“It’s easy,” he says, releasing his hold on the wheel. He reaches over and takes my hand. The contact burns through me—why do I feel this man’s every touch so intensely? Right then, I wish I didn’t, because he’s putting my hands on the wheel and I’m supposed to keep this plane in the air, and he’s making it really hard to concentrate.

“Oh, fuck,” I say as he lets go of my hand. “Shit, Stark! What am I supposed to do?”

“You’re doing it. Just keep her steady. Push in, we descend. Pull out, we climb. Go ahead, pull out gently.”

I do nothing.

He laughs. “Go on. Give it a try.”

This time I do, and then gasp with pleasure as the plane responds to my command.

“I like that sound,” Justin says. “I think I need to hear that sound on the ground.” He puts his thumb on my cheek and strokes it softly. This time, I try very hard not to make a sound. “There you go, baby. Okay, steady it out.”

His hand grazes down my neck and rests on my shoulder. He squeezes it lightly. “Good job.”

My breathing is coming fast, and I’m not sure if it’s the exhilaration from the flight or from the man. “I am flying,” I say. “I am really flying.”

“Yes,” he says. “And you will again.”

We’re the only guests on the terrace dining area at the Santa Barbara Pearl Hotel on Bank Street. We’re just a few blocks from the ocean, and from where we sit, we can see the pier at Stearns Wharf and, in the distance, the Channel Islands rising like sea creatures from the water.

I’m sipping a white chocolate martini, and I’m pleasantly full after a lunch of raw oysters and stuffed salmon. “This is amazing,” I say. “How did you find this place?”

“It wasn’t difficult,” he says. “I own the hotel.”

I don’t know why I’m surprised. “Is there anything you don’t own, Mr. Stark?”

He reaches out and takes my hand. “At the moment, everything I want is mine.”

I take a sip of the martini to hide my reaction.

“Don’t worry, Ms. Fairchild. I take very good care of the things I own.”

My cheeks flush, and I’m suddenly very aware of my body, especially the parts below my waist. I savor the feeling, because the truth is that I’m a little afraid he’s going to want to back out of our deal once he gets a full view of the condition of the merchandise.

A man in a tailored suit steps onto the terrace and approaches us. He’s carrying a white shopping bag, which he hands to Justin. “This just arrived for you, Mr. Stark.”

“Thank you, Richard.”

As Richard leaves, Justin passes me the bag. “I believe this is for you.”

“Really?” I put the bag in my lap, peer into it, and gasp. It’s a Leica, shiny and new.

I look to Justin and see his wide, delighted grin. “You like? It’s digital. Top of the line.”

“It’s wonderful.” I laugh. “You’re amazing, Mr. Stark. You just blink and things happen.”

“A bit more than a blink, but it was worth the extra effort. How else will you get shots of the beach today?”

I stand and walk to the edge of the terrace. “I can see the ocean from here, but not much of the beach.”

“The view will be better when we’re walking on it.”

I lift my foot and show off my pumps with the two-inch heels. “I don’t think I’m dressed for the occasion.”

The ankle bracelet sparkles in the sun. He runs his finger over it, the heat from his skin radiating over mine.

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

“Beauty for beauty,” he replies. “The emeralds match your eyes.”

I smile, delighted. “I’m feeling showered with gifts lately.”

“Good. You deserve to be. And that’s not a gift,” he says, brushing his finger over the bracelet. “It’s a bond … and a promise.” He’s looking right at me as he speaks, and my cheeks heat with a blush.

“I don’t want to miss walking on the beach with you,” I admit. My words come out a whisper. “I can go barefoot.”

He chuckles. “You could. But have you looked under the camera box?”

“Under?” I go back to the table and pull out the box. Sure enough, there’s something else there, wrapped in blue tissue paper. I look at him, but his expression gives nothing away. Slowly, I pull out the tissue paper. Whatever’s hidden is flat and firm. I peel back the paper until I reveal a pair of black flip-flops. I look up at Justin and grin.

“For walking on the beach,” he says.

“Thank you.”

“Anything you want. Anything you need.”

“Not everything can be bought,” I say.

“No,” he agrees, and he’s looking hard at me. “But I stand by my promise.”

His words twist deliciously inside me, and I’m saved from answering by our waiter’s entrance. We return to the table for coffee and a chocolate lava cake that is so perfect I wish I’d let Justin order two instead of insisting that I only wanted a few bites.

“What else did you do this weekend?” I ask him.

“I worked.”

“Earn another billion?”

“Not quite, but the time was profitable. And you?”

“Laundry,” I admit. “And we went dancing Saturday night.”

“We?”

“Ollie,” I say. “And my roommate, Jamie.”

His expression is tense. Is that jealousy? I think maybe it is, and I’m just petty or vain or something enough to be a little bit glad of that.

“Shall I take you dancing this week?”

“I’d like that,” I say.

“Where did you go with Jamie and Ollie?”

“Westerfield’s,” I tell him. “It’s that new place on Sunset close to the St. Regis.”

“Mmm.” He looks thoughtful. I’m guessing that loud clubs aren’t his thing.

“Too wild for you?” I ask. “That harsh beat? Those bright lights?” I know he’s only thirty, but he usually seems so much older. I wonder if he belongs to a ballroom dancing club. Surely they have those in Los Angeles. I consider the idea, thinking of all the movies I’ve watched with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Yeah, I could handle dancing like that in Justin’s arms.

“Did you like Westerfield’s?”

“I did. But, you know, I just left college, and Austin has a lot of clubs. So the loud music and the heavy beat don’t really—” I stop, suddenly aware of the amused expression on his face. I feel my shoulders slope as I figure it out. “You own the place, don’t you?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“Hotels. Clubs. What happened to your little technology empire?”

“Empires are often widespread,” he says. “I believe there’s strength in having a varied portfolio. And my empire is not little at all.”

“I pegged you wrong,” I admit.

“Did you?”

“I was picturing us as Fred and Ginger. When you take me dancing, I mean. But I’m okay with a nasty little bump and grind, too.” I give him my most flirtatious smile and am shocked at myself for doing so. I blame it on the martini. Well, the martini and the man.

He smiles enigmatically, then stands and crosses the terrace. I see him fiddling with something on the wall. A moment later, I hear music. It’s “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” one of my favorite Astaire and Rogers numbers. He returns to me with his hand out. “Ms. Fairchild, may I have this dance?”

My throat constricts and my pulse races wildly as he pulls me up and into his arms. I’m not a good dancer, but with Justin leading I feel like I’m floating. We glide over the terrace, his hand on my back as light as a feather. And when the music ends, he pulls me close and bends me backward, smiling down at me with devilish intent.

I’m breathless, my chest rising and falling in his arms. His lips hover over mine, and I find myself unable to think of anything but the way his lips would feel pressed against mine. The touch of his mouth. Of his tongue.

“Is there something on your mind, Ms. Fairchild?”

“No.”

He lifts an eyebrow, and I hear his voice in my head. No lies.

“I just—I was just wondering.”

“Wondering what?” He eases me up, and our bodies are pressed close. Hips touching. My breasts against his chest, my hard nipples revealing my arousal. “Tell me,” he whispers, his lips grazing my ear and making me shiver with desire.

“I was wondering if you were going to kiss me.”

He turns his head slowly, then looks me in the eye. I want to lose myself in the heat I see there, and my lips part in anticipation of a kiss.

“No,” he says, and then he takes a single step away from me.

I blink, confused. No?

His smile is wicked. “No,” he repeats. And that’s when I understand. He’s punishing me for pulling back in his office. “Our week begins when you arrive for your first sitting.”

“Tonight?” I ask.

“At six.”

I nod, disappointed but excited.

His hand slides down the curve of my ass over the thin material of my skirt. “And, Selena,” he adds, “don’t bother wearing underwear. You really won’t need any.”

I swallow and realize I’m already wet with anticipation.

Oh. Fucking. My.

I hang the Leica around my neck, but we leave the rest of our stuff with Richard and exit the back door of the hotel, following a path that takes us past the pool, an outdoor dining area, and then the tennis courts. Two couples are playing doubles, laughing and teasing each other as they miss most every stroke.

“Not a lot of hotels have courts,” I say. “Was that your idea?”

“The courts were here when I bought the place,” Justin says. It may be my imagination, but I think he’s begun to walk faster. I, however, am slowing down. There’s a bench just off the courts, and I pause there, my hands on the backrest. I’m looking at the players, but I’m imagining Justin on the court. His legs taut and tanned. His broad shoulders and strong arms. His jaw tight with determination.

After a moment, I feel him come up behind me. “We should go,” he says. “I want to show you the wharf, and I need to be back in the office by three.”

“Oh. Sure. I forgot.” I take his hand and we continue walking, leaving the hotel grounds and then strolling past the charming stucco houses on Mason Street.

“Do you miss it?” I ask, as we turn right off Mason into a small, green park. Ahead of us is the beach and the Pacific Ocean, shining blue-green in the afternoon sun. “Tennis, I mean.”

“No.” His answer is flat, without any hesitation or guile. Even so, I don’t quite believe him, and I say nothing, hoping that he will elaborate. After a few more moments, he does. “At first, I loved it. But after a while, the fun went out of the game. There was too much baggage.”

“The competition?” I ask. “Maybe you could get the fun back if you just played. I’m terrible, but we could hit a ball around sometime.”

“I don’t play anymore,” he says. His tone is hard and firm, and doesn’t mirror my light suggestion at all.

“Okay.” I lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. It’s obvious I’ve touched a nerve, and I’m not quite sure how to get the flirtatious, laughing Justin back. “I’m sorry.”

He looks at me sideways, then exhales, as if in frustration. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry.” He smiles, and I see the ice starting to melt, revealing nice underneath. “It’s just that I’m done with tennis. Like you’re done with pageants. You don’t compete anymore, do you?”

I laugh. “Hell no. But there’s a difference. I never thought it was fun.” Dammit, I should have kept my mouth shut. I don’t want him icing over again.

But he’s not icy at all. He’s looking at me with interest. “Never?”

“Never,” I say. “Well, maybe when I was little I liked the dressing up. I honestly don’t remember. But, no, I don’t think I liked it even then. I can’t remember feeling like anything other than my mother’s personal Barbie doll.”

“And dolls don’t have a life of their own,” he says.

“No, they don’t,” I say, pleased that he understands so well. “Did your parents push you to play?” I’m edging up against a sore point, but I want to get to know this man better.

We’ve reached the end of the park, and he takes my hand as we cross Cabrillo Boulevard. We reach the beach and walk in silence toward the surf. I’ve pretty much decided that I’m not going to get an answer when Justin finally speaks.

“At first I liked it. Loved it, actually. I was so damn young, but even then I loved the precision and the timing. And the power. Damn, I could hit that ball. It was a crappy year—my mother was sick—and I took out all my frustration on the court.”

I nodded. I got that. When I was younger, I lost myself in the computer or behind a camera. It was only when that stopped being enough that I started cutting. Somehow, everyone finds a way to cope. I think of Ashley and bite back a frown. They find a way—or they don’t.

“I started staying after school and the gym teacher coached me, but pretty soon he said that I’d blown past him. My dad worked in a factory and I knew that we couldn’t afford a coach, but that was okay. I was a kid, only eight, and I just wanted to play for fun.”

“What changed?”

“The teacher knew my mom was sick and that we couldn’t afford lessons. He mentioned me to a friend, and before I knew it this local pro was working with me, free of charge. I loved it, especially when I started winning tournaments. You might have noticed that I’m slightly competitive.”

“You? I’m flabbergasted.” I take off my flip-flops and dangle them from my fingers so that I can kick my toes in the surf. Justin is already barefoot, having left his shoes with Richard at the hotel. I don’t think many men could walk barefoot on a beach in a tailored suit and look damned sexy doing it, but Justin does. It was like a reflection of his confidence. That whatever he wanted, he would simply take.

Like me.

Pleasure trills up my spine, and I smile. Despite its rather crappy beginning, this is turning out to be an exceptional day.

There are a few people on the beach, but it’s a weekday and not very crowded. Even so, the sand has been picked clean, and I can’t find one decent shell, just bits and pieces, but the ripples that the water leaves as it surges in and out are beautiful in their precision. I drop the shoes so that I can take the lens cap off and focus, wanting a shot that includes the ridged sand and the white froth of the waves.

Justin waits until the shutter clicks, then hooks his arms around my waist. I feel the light pressure of his chin against my head. “Will you tell me the rest?” I ask. “What changed for you?”

“Success,” he says darkly.

I turn in his arms. “I don’t understand.”

“I got good enough to attract a bastard of a professional coach.” His tone is so low and biting it gives me chills. “He made a deal with my father—he’d train me for a percentage of my prize money.”

I nodded; his first professional coach had been in the Wikipedia article I’d read. They’d worked together from the time Justin was nine until he was fourteen. That’s when his coach had committed suicide. Apparently he was cheating on his wife.

I can’t help but think of Ashley, and I don’t want to raise those kinds of ghosts for Justin. Instead, I ask, “Did competing make it shift from fun to work?”

Justin’s face darkens and the change is so quick and so dramatic that I actually look up to see if something overhead cast a real shadow. But it is just him. Just the reflection of his own emotions. “I don’t mind hard work,” he says flatly. “But everything changed when I was nine.” There’s a harshness in his voice that I don’t understand. It occurs to me that he hasn’t answered my question.

“What happened?”

“I told my father I wanted to quit, but I was already earning prize money, and he said no.”

I squeeze his hand. Once again, he’s evaded my question, but I don’t press. How can I when evasion is an art I know well?

“I tried to get out again about a year later. I was playing all over the country by then, internationally, too. I was missing so damn much school that my dad just hired tutors. I focused mostly on science, and I loved it. I read everything I could on every subject, from astronomy to physics to biology. And fiction. Man, I ate up sci-fi novels. I even secretly applied to a private science academy. They not only accepted me, they offered me a full scholarship.”

I lick my lips. I’ve figured out where this is going. How could I not see the way the story was developing? We are so alike, he and I. Our childhoods ripped from us and driven by the whims of a parent. “Your parents said no.”

“My father did,” Justin says. “My mother had died a year earlier. It was—” He draws in a breath, then reaches down to collect my shoes. We start walking down the beach again, heading for the massive pier that makes up Stearns Wharf. “I was ripped up the year she died. Numb. I let it all out on the court. All the anger, the betrayal.” His jaw is tight with the memory. “Hell, it’s probably why I played so damn good.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, and my words sound hollow. “I knew you were attracted to the sciences. All anyone has to do is look at the businesses you’re in. But I never realized it was a lifelong fascination.”

“Why would you?”

I tilt my head up to eye him. “You’re not exactly a blank slate, Mr. Stark. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re something of a celebrity. You’ve even got a Wikipedia page. But there’s nothing on it about turning down a scholarship to a science academy.”

His mouth tightens into a thin line. “I’ve worked hard to keep my past off the Internet and away from the press.”

I think about what Evelyn said about Justin learning to control the press at a young age. Apparently, she was right. I wonder what other bits and pieces of his life Justin Stark has kept close to the vest.

I lift the camera and look through the viewfinder, aiming it first at the sea, and then at Justin, who puts up his hands as if to ward me off. I laugh and snap a few images in quick succession. “Bad girl,” he says, and I laugh more.

“You bought the camera,” I say. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“Oh, no,” he says, and he’s laughing now, too. I dance backward as he lunges for me. I’m happy to see him smiling again and the melancholy of visiting the past fading from his eyes. I lift the camera and take another set of shots.

“And she keeps piling on the punishment,” he says, following his words with a tsk-tsk noise.

I let the camera hang from its strap as I raise my hands in mock surrender. “I’m a free agent today, remember.”

His grin is positively devilish. “I may not be allowed to act on it,” he says, “but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep a list for future reference.”

“Oh, really?” I snap another picture of him. “If I’m going to be punished anyway, it might as well be worth it.”

His expression is all heat and promise. “I assure you I’ll be very thorough.”

“Of course, I don’t think you’re being very equitable. I mean, fair is fair. You’re going to have a portrait of me. I think I should have some photos of you.”

“Nice try,” he says. “But the punishment stands.”

I ease in close to him and slide my arm around his neck. Only the bulk of the camera is keeping us apart, and I’m suddenly enveloped in the heat of him. I lift myself up on my tiptoes so that I can whisper in his ear. “What would you say if I told you I was looking forward to it?”

He stands completely still, but as I ease back, I see a single muscle in his cheek twitch. It’s not much, but it’s enough. I’ve surprised Justin Stark. More than that, I’ve turned him on.

With a light laugh, I skip back, overflowing with feminine self-satisfaction.

We’ve reached the wharf, but we don’t go out onto it. Instead, we turn around and head back down the beach toward Bath Street and the hotel. As we walk, I take a few snaps of the Channel Islands, then manage to get an excellent shot of two seagulls flying so close together they look like one creature. We’ve almost returned back the length of the beach when Justin settles on a bench. I think I see a sand dollar and squat in the sand in front of him.

“I’m looking forward to tonight, Ms. Fairchild,” he says, his voice ripe with quiet urgency. He’s looking right at me, and I see the heat in his eyes that has become familiar to me. “It’s hard to be so close to something so precious and know you don’t yet possess it.”

“Possess?” I repeat.

His grin is slow and confident. “Possess. Have. Hold. Enjoy. Control. Dominate. Pick your verb, Ms. Fairchild. I intend to explore so very many of them.”

ar��/

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consciousowl · 8 years ago

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Do You Own Money? Or Does Money Own You?

For those of us who are upwardly mobile, the big objective is to be financially free, so that we can do anything we want. We feel that IF we ONLY had money, THEN we could go for our dreams. Since we don’t have the money right now, we must grab as much as we can along the way until we are finally ready. In the process, we make money our god; all the while feeling it is a necessary evil.

In truth, our money, or our frantic insistence upon it, owns us, or we own it. Either we work for money, or money works for us. Whether it is our slave driver, or our incomparable servant, is ultimately up to each of us.

It would greatly help if we had a crystal clear understanding of what makes money money, something precious few of us, even professional economists, have mastered.

Remove Money Fears

Learn how to end fears of financial success

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What Is Money?

When we think of money, we first visualize currency, such as dollar bills, or coins, originally silver and gold, now mostly copper and nickel. If we are more sophisticated, we imagine gold bullion behind sealed vaults. Few of us think of money as simply electronic bank deposits of digital numbers.

We think of money, itself, as containing value. The value of the money is the denomination on the face of the bill. Surely it is worth that much. The federal government guarantees its acceptance. What we don’t sufficiently realize is that the Federal Reserve, and by extension, our government, literally prints money, creating it out of nothing. The Fed doesn’t flood the market with notes, simply because the currency would become too diluted. It presses its luck only so far.

We have been off the gold and silver standards for decades. This means there doesn’t need to be a single ounce of precious metal to back up a single buck. As you dwell on this, you will begin to realize that what we call money represents agreed-upon value, that it is both a symbol and a medium of exchange. It replaces barter. Do you really want to try to trade your old Mac for a cow? Not many ranchers would take you up on the offer!

How Real Is Money?

Money is real only in the sense that the beautiful menu in an elegant French restaurant is real. It is a tool to facilitate buying and selling, or a fair exchange between both parties. The dollars are like inches on a ruler. They are purely conceptual. You can’t eat them or drink them. Without massive value behind them, they would be worth less than the very paper upon which they are printed. This is a poignant point to anyone from countries that have suffered run-away inflation.

It would be a huge mistake to suppose that money is a total illusion, as it represents goods and services that are indispensable for our very survival and wellbeing. Behind these goods and services are people, equipment, buildings, farms and the very ecosystem of our planet. Every dollar in our pocket presupposes a massive infrastructure to support it. Millions of people invested the bulk of their lives to make this happen.

Money, itself, can be looked upon as an instrument, an essential tool to serve humanity. Our post-industrial society couldn’t function without it. Even if we overhauled the global monetary system and operated on a command economy, we would still have to come up with some system of measuring and negotiating value. The function money serves is utterly irreplaceable.

What Is True Wealth?

True wealth is far more than platinum, gold, silver and diamonds. These minerals have great ornamental and decorative value, and are useful in some industrial processes. For example, diamonds are strong enough to cut steel. However, true wealth is the accumulated resources of Planet Earth, herself, and, by extension, the physical universe.

True wealth is contained in what we think of as civilization, such as cities, monuments, farms and transportation systems, from railroads to supersonic jets, even rockets. Yet it is also lies beyond what we consider as civilization, the mountains, the oceans, the rivers and the atmosphere. It lies in organizations of people who have taken us from the Stone Age to the Information Age.

True wealth, on a deeper level, includes spiritual resources, as well as the world of culture and the arts, much of which is largely invisible, but which makes our lives worthwhile. Imagine stripping the world of all its museums, libraries and bookstores. Imagine, if even for a week, having the World Wide Web suddenly go down. What would we do if Google went out of business? It is not so much the high technology, as what it delivers for us?

How to Create Agreement

You may be wondering how to put these insights to use to realize your own financial freedom. Money may be but a symbol and a medium of exchange, but you sure could use a lot more of it! What to do?

We frequently make the mistake of assuming it takes money to make money, that you have to have money to win agreement. Not so! Sales is the art of getting people to agree on the value of a product or service you offer, and act upon it NOW.

It is interesting to note in the 2016 Presidential Election, that Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, had the most cash available for her campaign, nearly a billion dollars. Bernie Sanders had 20 million votes behind him, powered by nominal donations of individual contributors. Donald Trump, a multibillionaire, conspicuously used a very modest amount of money to fund his campaign, defying convention at every step.

To create agreement, you need to totally empathize with as many people as possible, to listen to them on a very deep level, and come up with compelling solutions to their problems. They don’t even have to be your own solutions. You can sell other people’s products and services. You then need to help them appropriate the solution today, rather than at a later time. This, of course, requires a certain skill with negotiation. You might think of it as “creative selling.”

How to Create Value

To create value, you simply need to start thinking out of the box, to hang out in the world of possibility. When Steve Jobs began selling the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad, he was selling things that no one really “had” to buy. When he rolled out the iMac as the first Internet-ready PC in a transparent box, Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy. When he held up the iPhone for the first time in 2007 to a spellbound audience, no one had a clue that they might even need such a device. Do I really need to buy a computer, a mobile phone and a music player all in one device?

Apple during the 2000’s did such a splendid job of creating the highest standards of innovation, excellence, durability and sheer beauty, that it broke all sales records and became the world’s most valuable company. When Steve Jobs passed away in 2011, Apple began a slight, but steady, erosion in innovation, because the passion that drove the company to such heights, was now gone.

Steve Jobs knew in his bones how to create value. It is very hard to follow an act of that magnitude.

To create value, yourself, look for new possibilities that deeply speak to you, that tie in with your own dreams and passions. It could be as simple as being deeply frustrated at the responsiveness of taxis in one of the most prominent cities. Travis Kalanick conceived of Uber while waiting for a cab in San Francisco. Like Steve Jobs, he didn’t think San Francisco, he thought the entire world. As we can see, his dream is well on its way to becoming real.

The More Money Flows, The More It Grows

If you are anything like me, you imagine money much like a pot of gold, a huge stash in a highly secure place where you can flip your fingers through a mountain of hundred-dollar bills, and gold and silver American Eagles. This is a useful exercise to fuel your desire for prosperity, but it is a bit counterproductive.

The world’s leading entrepreneurs and capitalists look at every dollar as a little servant that they can put to work. If the economy is secure, they want their servants out in the field, providing value to others. They have many holdings, and it takes a CPA to manage the balance sheet and accurately determine their net worth. True entrepreneurs and capitalists go well beyond simple money games, such as playing day trader. They are into building new worlds.

You may want to keep some cash under a mattress for a rainy day. But it won’t gain in value. Inflation is likely to eat the life out of it.

When money is hoarded it stagnates. When it is exchanged and flows through the economy, it builds value.

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As an exercise, with your next paycheck, ask yourself, “What new possibilities could I create with this cash?”

Think Like an Enlightened Capitalist, Think Like a Social Entrepreneur

We are undergoing a global transformation among leading magnates, such as Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg, who have taken the Billionaire’s Pledge. They have all agreed to literally give away 90% or more of their wealth to worthwhile causes, many startup businesses out to make a difference in the world. If you hear Bill and Melinda Gates talk today, they get immense satisfaction from their Foundation, the largest in the world, and treat it more like a full-time job, than a hobby.

Enlightened capitalists and social entrepreneurs deeply care about large-scale, intractable problems, such as global warming, religious terrorism and the digital divide. They believe in Spirit and in people. They are here to make a difference, and they are profoundly grateful for all the support they got on the way to becoming superrich. They want nothing more than to help other people be in a position to make a difference.

You might start by checking out the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and finding out more about how it operates. The founders soon came to realize that to responsibly give away money required a great deal of scrutiny. They wanted to use the very same business skills that built Microsoft, to create new businesses that help humanity, not only survive this era, but thrive in the next.

Your Source Owns the Universe

To free you from a very earthbound conception of money, contemplate your true identity, who you really are in this, and any other, incarnation. Being born again, in both the Christian and Hindu sense, is about discovering your spiritual identity, that you are a son or daughter of God, that you, in your ultimate identity, are nothing less than the I AM behind the entire Universe.

One hymn claims that Our Father owns the cattle on ten thousand hills. This is literally true. God is your and my Source, our only true and ultimate Identity.

Why let money own you, when you already own the entire universe?

Do You Own Money? Or Does Money Own You? appeared first on http://consciousowl.com.

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