#historically accurate things to call the part of your body between your legs that is super sensitive: acorn.

[epochryphal]

discovered something amazing today

[ID: Online Etymological Dictionary: glans, noun. head of the penis or clitoris, 1640s, from Latin glans “acorn,” also used of acorn-shaped things (see gland). end ID]

this, and the fact penis came from meaning “tail”

which provides “does your acorn have a tail?” as an amazing question for a potential sex partner

[skyjasper]

Don't call me crazy

Professor!Az X Student!Reader Modern AU

Masterlist

Summary: Y/N has been lusting after her new British professor since the first day of class, what a perfect coincidence he also becomes her private teacher in all things war and torture.

Warnings: vulgar content, smut, 18+, age gap romance, oral (Fem and Male receiving), choking, praise, dom!az.

Word count: 4207

The first time I stepped into Mr. Singers' classroom I was expecting an old white man who thought he was funny.

What I wasn’t expecting as I took my seat in the front row was for a mid-age, tan skin, handsome man with tattoos and a thick British accent to walk out of the office. I wasn’t the only girl who sighed at his devastatingly handsome face.

“Good morning class. Let’s start with basic attendance so I can put faces to names and then we will get started.” The words rolled out of his mouth with the most sensual deep British accent.

The professor for War and Peace in Historical Perspective was not at all what I thought. Not with his crisp black button-up that had to top button undone and the sleeves rolled up. Not with the inky shadows that peaked up the collar of his shirt and down his very muscular forearm.

I was too busy daydreaming about those muscular forearms holding my waist to hear him call my name.

“Mrs. Y/N?” He asked again, which I only heard because of my seatmate elbowing me.

“Here.” I hesitantly lifted my hand, slowly sinking back into my seat out of embarrassment. His gaze fell upon me with his golden honey eyes.

“Next time, if you choose to be in the front, be more present.” He scolded me before moving on. A blush rose over my cheeks with the stern words.

~~~~

My War and Peace class hadn’t necessarily gotten better but also not worse. My work excelled and I never got below a B. So one could imagine my disappointment when my latest paper on Torture Tactics in War got a C-.

Mr. Singers' hand stayed on my desk as he whispered into my ear.

“See me after class or during office hours today.” His deep voice rolled through my body, shooting straight in between my thighs.

Was it inappropriate to have a huge sexual crush on my teacher who was 20+ my senior? Absolutely. Did it stop me? No. Goosebumps rolled down my bare legs and under my pleated white skirt. I nodded my head quickly as he moved to the next student.

After mentally going through my schedule I decided it would be best to stop by during office hours later.

~~~

My fist lightly knocked on Mr. Singers' office door.

“Come in.” He rumbled.

I opened the door before stepping into the dark space. His dark mahogany desk was neat and organized with papers and notes. The room only being illuminated by a tall lamp in one corner and a smaller salt lamp in the other corner.

“You wanted to see me?” I ask as my hands pull at the end of my navy sweater.

“Ah, yes Mrs. Y/N I wanted to discuss your last paper. Sit.” He nodded to the chair across from him. My feet moved on their own accord to sit, as if aching to obey his every word.

“Yeah I saw I got a C- and I was pretty confused. Is there any way I could revise the paper? I planned on using the topic for my dissertation.” I pulled out the printed paper from my bag.

He watched my every movement very closely. His eyes raked my body from my white headband, over my navy blue sweater and white skirt, and down my bare legs that were currently crossed.

“Yes, the topic is very good however the research is not accurate which in turn made most of your paper inaccurate. I was very disappointed to have to give you a C. You are a bright girl Y/N. I know you have a bright future in history, so I do want to work with you so you can gain better research skills and a better understanding of the topic.” He spoke, moving his dark round glasses back onto his face.

The glasses gave him a nerdy Clark Kent look. The glasses made me want to rip off his shirt and ride him. My thighs squeezed a bit tighter at the warmth that pooled in the lowest parts of me. I nodded with understanding before he continued.

“I specialized in War Torture when I was in school. I interviewed real victims and studied the methods and techniques.” He paused pushing up his sleeves and leaning back before continuing. “In the least creepy way possible, I became a master of torture and its history. When I decide I want to know something, I won’t stop until I devour all I can about it.” He finished.

I think I was delirious because I swear that last phrase was an innuendo. My toes curled in my black boots.

“I understand, and I would love your help since you’re so knowledgeable about it. I double majored in History and Journalism so I could research. How would this work? Should I stay after class or come to office hours?” I asked with a tilt of my head, I felt my hair fall off of one shoulder as I did so.

“How about it this, every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday you stop by at let’s say 5:30? Right after office hours so that way we don’t take time from other students.” He asked with his eyebrows raised.

“That works for me! Is there anything I should bring sir?” I asked as I gathered my things.

“Maybe a notebook and your laptop for notes. Other than that we can wing it as we go.” He finished with a small smile and a shrug of one shoulder.

We said goodbyes before I walked out of his office, my thighs now slick in anticipation.

~~~

“Today I figured we could work on the actual technical details of the methods. It is important to understand the thought behind each movement.” Azriel spoke as I walked into his office.

We have been doing this mentorship for the last two months so far. It’s been going well, both of us flirting now and again but never quite crossing the line. He asked me to call him by his first name outside of class, and what a beautiful name he had. Azriel.

I felt his eyes take over my outfit choice for the day. With the warmer weather, my skirt and sweater combo has become more rare. Today I wore a tight white skirt with a cropped white tank top with a thin dark blue cardigan over it and some platform boots. even with my platforms Azriel still stood over me.

“You-you want me to torture you?” My breath hitched with the statement. He let out a small chuckle under his breath.

“No, I’m going to see if you can handle the most basic form of torture. If we can’t understand what torture feels like how can we accurately report it?” He said while moving close to me.

“So what are you going to do to me Mr.Singer?” I asked looking up into his eyes.

“Sensory deprivation. We start with sight, sit down.” He voices as he walks behind me and gently pushes on my shoulder to sit me down.

I took deep breaths as his large hands brought a thick strip of black fabric in front of my face. I felt his presence all too well as he placed the cloth over my eyes and tied it behind my head.

“They start with sensory tactics because there is nothing quite like the paranoia of not being able to see your capturers and what they are doing.” He spoke, his voice drawing quieter as if he moved across the room.

“For example,” He whispered in my ear, easing a small jump out of me. I hadn’t heard his come back, his footsteps silent.

“You have no idea what I’m about to do to you.” He whispered in my other ear, running his fingers over my shoulder. Goosebumps appeared in his wake.

“Can I remove my cardigan? It’s warm in here.” I asked before my fingers fumbled to find the bow holding the top of my cardigan closed. I felt a pair of hands wrap around my own small hands. His fingers slide over mine, quickly pulling the strings of the bow and slowly sliding my cardigan off.

“How are you feeling?” His voice rumbled thick with an accent as he took my cardigan out of my lap.

“I’m ok, it just feels like everything is heightened. Like I can feel everything around me, every breath, every touch. How is this torture?” I whispered with a shaky breath. I know his touch could be innocent but with the massive want between us, every touch feels like he’s about to fuck me.

“It isn’t yet, the next thing they would do would be take away your hearing, they would play sounds that would drive you insane. I’m not going to subject you to that however I am going to create certain sounds and I want you to identify the sounds and objects. Knowing how to use the heightened hearing to your advantage is something that could be very useful in a situation like this.” This time I heard his steps, like he purposefully made them louder.

I gave a nod, moving my hands under my thighs to keep from fidgeting. The first sound I heard sounded like glass. I waited another second before responding to be sure.

“Is it a glass? Like a cup?” I tilted my head towards the sound.

“Yes very good. Would you like some water Y/N?” I felt his approach to my front. I gave another quick nod, sticking out my hands for the cup.

“Ha, knowing you if I tried to hand you this glass you would spill it all over yourself.” He chuckled under his breath.

“You’re not wrong, but how else am I supposed to drink the water?” I lifted a curious brow even though he couldn’t see it.

“Tilt your head back.”

A simple command, yet hearing it set my body alight. I felt warmth gather low in my belly as I did what he asked. As I felt his fingers grasp my chin, pulling open my mouth, I felt that warmth seep out of me. I tried to cross my legs, not realizing how close he truly was.

“Is something wrong Y/N?” He asked with what sounded like knowingness in his voice. I tried to shake my head but couldn’t because of his grip.

“Use your words.” He spoke again. More heat seeped into my panties at his command.

“Nope, nothing's wrong.” My voice came out more breathless than intended.

He hummed before touching the cold rim of the glass to my bottom lip. I felt him tip back my head some more before pouring in the water.

“Would you like to know something Y/N?” He asked as he closed my mouth, allowing me to swallow with a gulp.

“What’s that Mr.Singer?” I asked, feeling his thumb coming up to wipe a small dribble of water that escaped my lips.

“You look divine like this, I can only imagine what you would look like if I could see your eyes.” He whispered as his hand moved from my jaw into my hair.

I sucked in a harsh breath before lifting my hands to remove the blindfold that prevents me from seeing him.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. I didn’t say you could take it off just yet.” His voice was light and full of amusement. Then the entire room shifted as his hand fisted my hair and brought my face closer to his.

I felt his heated gaze take over my body as his breaths gained speed. Then I heard the most torturous sound leave his lips. A groan that sounded like I hit him. Then his heat was gone, all contact broken.

“I shouldn’t do this. You’re my student.” He spoke with anguish. I stood quickly, a little too quickly by the way I swayed. I felt his arms wrap around my waist, steadying me. One hand found the tie holding together the blindfold, I quickly undid it and let it fall to the floor.

My eyes raked over his chest as I adjusted to the light. Did he get hotter while I couldn’t see? His shirt was messy like he had been raking his hands over it. And when I tilted my head to meet his eyes, a whole head and a half taller than me, the hunger I found there was insatiable. And whatever he found my eyes must have changed something for him.

“Fuck it.” He whispered before pulling my head closer to him, smashing my lips into his. I melted as he kissed me.

He kissed me like he was a man dying of starvation and I was his only food source. The hand that was holding the back of my neck moved into my hair pulling it tightly. He ripped his mouth from mine with a gasp.

“Fuck.” He muttered with a new horse and raspy voice. There was a war in his eyes, a conflicting battle.

I decided to end that battle by slipping one of my fingers over his black button-up, slowly undoing each button. When his chest was fully revealed I took a second to marvel at the gorgeous tattoo that spanned his entire muscles chest before pressing a kiss into his pecks.

“Please, Mr.Singer?” I asked, looking up at him with doe eyes and using my softest voice. I saw the battle end and that hunger take over again.

“Jesus fuck, you will be the death of me, baby.” He grunted as his hands slid under my thighs and lifted me onto his desk.

A smile overtook my face as his hands gripped my ass. I gently tugged on the open shirt, asking for him to remove it. I almost let out a cry at the loss of his heat. He pulled his shirt off in one fluid motion, stepping back in between my spread legs.

Azriel slants his mouth over mine once again, his hands grazing over my bare thighs, reaching under my skirt. I let out a small moan when his fingers gripped my thighs.

“Do you like that Y/N?” He asked with a raised eyebrow before sliding his hands under my thighs and pulling me to the edge of the desk.

“God yes, Mr. Singer.” I moaned as he continued to manhandle me. His hands roamed from my thighs to my waist pulling my chest into his.

“Fuck I love the way you say my name. But I love your beautiful tits even more.” He grunted out before pulling my tank top down.

“You have no idea how many times you’ve distracted me in class. Prancing around in these tiny skirts without any tights and your tiny tops. The number of times I’m lecturing and all I can look at are your beautiful thighs.” He ground out as he brought his mouth to my nipples.

A wave of pleasure rolled through me as his tongue swirled my nipped. A loud moan fell out of my mouth when he lightly bit it. My hips bucked forward, almost causing me to fall off the desk but his hands were there, sliding me back onto the steady table.

“Careful there baby. Tell me what you need.” His breath whispered over my nipples with a shuttering sensation.

“You. I need you Azriel.” I whined, grinding my hips into the air. He fell to his knees, his hands pushing my skirt up.

“How do you need me? Do you need my tongue?” He asked as he licked a line from the base of my core to my clit, letting his tongue linger with an audible groan.

“Do you need my fingers?” His strong fingers followed his tongue, drawing a line through my wetness and swirling around my clit, causing me to gasp. My hand reached for my nipple as he paused, leaning back to look at me. After a beat of silence and direct eye contact, he said,

“Or do you need my cock?”

I’m pretty sure I almost orgasmed from those words alone, but I still replied.

“I don’t know, just please. Touch me. Anything, please.” I begged as my hips writhed against the desk. A wicked cruel look came into his eyes.

“Please what? If you’re gonna beg you might wanna address who you’re begging too.” An eyebrow hitched as he slowly brought the finger that hand wiped my wetness to his lips. Rubbing my arousal onto his lips.

“Please, Mr.Singer. I don’t care how but I need you to fuck me.” I whined out.

“Good girl.” My body came alive at the praise and the sight of him moving forward, face into my pussy.

His tongue licked another stripe before sucking on my clit over my panties. One of my hands fell to his hair, holding him into me as he continued to eat me like his life depended on it. His fingers slid up my thighs before grabbing the waistband of my panties and tugging them down. The cold air sent shivers down my spine as he hesitated.

“Mr.Singer?” I asked, looking down at where he sat with his eyes locked on my bare core.

“You are so fucking beautiful. I haven’t stopped thinking about this since the first day of class so I’m going to enjoy it,” he whispered in a daze. His hand forced my legs open even wider, completely exposing me to him.

His thick fingers traced every part of me as one of his hands fell to his hard erection in his pants. My gaze slid down to stare at the now bulging point in his black briefs. I took a moment to truly appreciate the sight before me.

One of the hottest men sitting on his knees, palm rubbing himself, his lips glistening with my arousal, hair a tossed mess from my fingers, and those damn tattoos that moved with each of his breaths. I nearly came at the sight.

I closed my legs, nimbly sliding onto the floor in front of him. My knees hit the hard floor as his gaze dragged over my bouncing tits. One of my hands found his belt and tugged, trying my best to convey what I wanted without words.

He stood quickly, one hand unbuckling his belt and pulling it off in a fast and clean motion. He took a second to wrap up the belt and place it on his desk, not once breaking eye contact. My thin hands slid up his legs, quickly unbuttoning his pants and pulling them down.

His cock sprang free with a small bounce. A small gasp left my mouth as I beheld the sight of his long and thick cock that has barbell piercings along the shaft. I rubbed my thumb over his head, collecting the small bit of pre-cum, and sucked it into my mouth.

Azriels head fell back with a groan, one that became even louder as one of my hands wrapped around his length. I let my lips softly kiss the head of his cock before sucking it into my mouth. I took a minute to warm up to his size before looking up at him.

The second I made eye contact his hand flew to my hair and forced me down on his cock. Tears welled in my eyes as I struggled to take it all.

“Come on, be a good girl and take my cock, pretty girl.” He ground out as his thumb from his free hand smudged my mascara with my tears.

I moaned around his cock and I forced myself up and down him. He was too long to fit in my mouth so with what I couldn’t swallow I used my hand. I pulled off of his cock with a pop, leaning forward and spitting on it before using two hands to jerk him. I moved his cock over my chest, savoring the professor's low groans and curses.

I felt two strong arms slid under my arms, stopping my movement. He picked me up until I was face to face with him and my feet were dangling. He started at me with so much heat to anyone else it might seem like anger. He slid his arms to my waist and pulled my body against him as I kissed me. On instinct, my legs wrapped around his waist, lining me up perfectly to feel the head of his cock push against me.

We both gasped at the contact. It didn’t take him long to walk us over to the wall by the chair, pushing me against it and thrusting his cock so he slid through my folds. A loud moan leaves my mouth when he hits my clit.

“I need you. I’m clean, please fuck me Azriel.” I begged.

A long and overdrawn “Fuck” left his bruised lips. One of his hands guided his cock to line up with my hole.

“I’m gonna fuck you, it’s not gonna be sweet, and it’s not going to be slow. It’ll be hard, and dirty, but fuck will it feel good. Is that ok baby?” He tormented me by nudging the very tip of him into me.

“Yes, god yes.” I threw my head against the wall. I would do anything to just put him inside me.

“Good, I want you to ride me, I wanna see those beautiful tits bounce as you struggle to take me in your little cunt.” He whispered into my ear before moving us so he was sitting on the chair and I was sitting on his thigh. I rubbed against his thigh for any friction I could get.

“Fuck you’re killing me.” His hands ran up and down my sides, as I readjusted myself so I was hovering over his cock.

One of my hands gripped his shaft helping me to sit on his cock. I did it slowly, letting myself feel each inch, feel the stretch of him. We both moaned at the sensation, and he didn’t give me much time to adjust before his hands were moving my hips.

I moved with his hands, grinding on his cock, watching his face contort in pleasure.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt something as good as this. You are perfect.” He said as he tilted his head back. I started to move up and down on his shaft, every so often switching to grinding against him.

His head snapped back to lock me in the eye before his hands found my hips with a bruising grip, stopping my bouncing. He thrust his hips up, hard and fast.

“Oh fuck.” I screamed out as he continued to fuck me.

His arms enclosed my waist fully, holding me to his chest as my fingers raked the strong muscles.

“You’re so good, thank you sir.” I moaned and pulled my nails down so hard I left marks.

His replying hum was more than enough for me as he moved his lips to suck on the sensitive spot between my neck and ear.

I felt a tight tension run down my spine as my orgasm grew closer. He let me grab one of his hands, and I guided it around my throat, gently squeezing to signal what I wanted.

“You want me to choke you? Maybe you did pick the right field.” He muttered with a condescending laugh. But still, he obliged, squeezing the sides so I got that beautiful blood rush. His pace quickened as I tightened around him.

“Cum baby, milk my cock with your cunt. Be my good girl and cum.” He said before he licked a strip of my neck.

My orgasm shook my body with a force that I hadn’t felt before. Frat guys are notorious for not making girls cum. My cunt squeezed him as he jerked up into my cunt before pulling out. I whimper at the loss of contact before I felt ropes of his cum paint my stomach, just where it would be if he were inside me.

As I came down from my high I felt his fingers dragging up my stomach, collecting his cum onto his digits. He brought them to my mouth and pushed them into my lips. I took no time licking them clean of his cum and sucking them like they were his cock. I kept my most innocent eyes as I swirled my tongue around them and popped them out of my mouth.

“One day I want to see your mouth full of my cum. For now, I need to clean you up and get you back to my place.” He gently lifted me and sat me down on the couch before turning and getting a rag out of his office cabinet.

He sunk to his knees before me, gently wiping me clean and muttering praises. My mind was a puddle and my body was spent. He gently pulled my tank top back up and covered me with his suit jacket. We made sure the coast was clear before walking to his car and driving to his apartment where we spent the rest of the night fucking, cuddling, and getting to know each other better.

~~~

A/N: here it is!!!!!! Next up, chapt 4 of S&S!!!!!!!

Taglist: @littlelunatica @going-through-shit @annaaaaa88 @i-am-infinite @impossibelle

[cursestothemoon]

I don’t know I’d this is enough for a headcanon or blurb or anything but I’ve been trying to think of more NSFW stuff and my mind went back to the American!reader things you’ve done with Fred so far and I can totally see Fred getting his American girlfriend a cowboy hat to wear while riding him because “cowgirls are an important part of your culture” and he just wants to “show his support for your roots”

Save a Horse, Ride a Ginger 

F.W. X FEM!AMERICAN!READER

17+ IF YOU ARE TAGGED AND DON’T WANT TO BE TAGGED IN SMUT PLEASE LET ME KNOW

Warnings: NSFW, vaginal sex, praise, teasing, language, slapping/spanking, finger sucking, unedited because its just on brand at this point

“Love, could you come here for a second?”

The sound of your boyfriend calling you stole your attention away from Molly and the scarf you were trying to knit. You stood up, apologizing to Molly for the interruption- though she didn't seem to mind much- and made your way to the living room. 

The Weasley siblings, along with Harry and Hermione, were sitting around the tv (a muggle television set Hermione had gifted them two Christmases ago) with random DVD’s strewn across the floor. Picking one up, you turned it over as you moved to sit next to Fred on the floor.

“What’s with all the movies?” You asked, reading a few of the titles. 

Fred turned to you holding up one of the plastic dvd cases, “We wanted to learn about your roots, your history, so we asked Charlie send over some stuff from where he is in America.”

You glanced back at the movie in hand, “Fred you’re holding up A Fistful of Dollars.”

He furrowed his eyebrows, “Fistful of doll-what? No, I’m holding a movie disc, love.”

“Freddie, that’s the name of the movie and besides, even if this was a accurate historical movie, which it’s not, it’s not even about my history...I’m from Seattle.”

He landed a flick to your forehead before pulling you into his lap, “Just be quiet while I learn about the Americans.”

The movie, one you’ve seen a few times already, came to end as the credits rolled and the Man With No Name rode off on his horse into the sunset. 

“Amazing...” Ron breathed out making you laugh. 

You were still in Fred’s lap, his hands holding your hips as you shifted to get comfortable. The action made Fred’s breath hitch, he was already turned on as it was and you just happened to notice. 

“Really? Clint Eastwood did it for you?” 

Your teasing tone made Fred pinch your butt in warning.

“No, but the idea of you riding me with a cute little cowboy hat on definitely did it for me.” He whispered huskily into your ear, his warm breath hitting the shell of your ear making goosebumps erupt down your neck. 

You turned to into his eyes, the lust swimming in his honey brown irises sent jolts of need to your core. 

“Too bad we don’t have one.”

Fred nodded, a glint of mischief burning bright in his eyes, “Yeah, too bad.”

In hindsight, you should’ve seen it coming. Whenever Fred wanted something he got, through whatever means necessary- this time it was a brother in America with a sense of humor just like his younger brother’s. 

Now here you were, straddling Fred’s bare hips as he placed a cow print cowgirl hat with a bedazzled brim on your head, the drawstring left to hang in the valley of your breasts. 

“Is this really necessary?” You smirked, starting to slowly grind your wet cunt over his hard cock making him close his eyes and take in a breath. 

“Is it necessary, she asks. It is absolutely necessary, this is an important part of your culture.”

You continued to drag your hips over his creating a delicious friction that had your head lolling back and lips parting to let a breathy moan slip by. His hands helped guid your hips, pushing and pulling you against himself. A response was lost on your tongue as you whined at the feeling of Fred lifting your hips off of him and ceasing the friction. He used one hand to position himself at your entrance, pulling you to sit down fully on his cock.

Fred moved his hands from your hips to your tits, massaging the flesh and rolling your nipples between his fingers before landing a slap on your right breast making you gasp.

“Go on then, want my little cowgirl to ride me.”

You didn’t need to be told twice, rolling your hips against his a few times before lifting up and then dropping back down, coating his prick in your arousal. 

Fred wrapped his right hand around your throat with little pressure while the other one trailed down to your clit, his thumb circling the aching nub roughly. You couldn’t help but cry out as you picked up your pace, your hips moving in half circles and figure eights to rub you just right.

Needing to ground yourself you placed one hand on Fred’s chest and held onto his forearm with the other, making him apply more pressure around your throat. The drawstring of the cowgirl hat was hitting your skin with each lift and drop of your hips. 

You were losing your power fast, becoming putty in Fred’s hands, and he could tell. As you let out another loud moan, he sat up making himself shift inside of you and hitting places that had you doubling of in pleasure and vision going fuzzy. His arm wrapped around your waist to hold you up and help you move on his cock. 

“That’s it, love, keep go- fuck- just like that.” He grunted, using his hold on your body to speed up your movements. 

Your head dropped into the crook of his neck, the skin warm and balmy and inviting. Your lips danced across the expanse of his neck and travelled up under his ear kissing and sucking with a fervent passion. Fred was doing the same to the top of your breasts, your tits littered with red and purple bites and bruises. 

An orgasm was fast approaching both you and Fred, his higher pitched whines and whimpers a clear sign to you and your clenching pussy a sign to him. He bit down on your earlobe as he moved you quicker, each time having the head of his swollen cock prodding at your g-spot relentlessly. 

“Wanna suck on your fingers when I cum.” You muttered into his neck before lifting your head up and opening your mouth for his fingers. 

Fred placed his index and middle finger on your tongue and you were quick to wrap your lips around them suck. You held his wrist with one hand, the other going on his shoulder to brace yourself as you bounced on his dick faster and getting him deeper inside you. 

Soon enough Fred could feel the unmistakable feeling of his balls drawing up, tensing as he neared spilling over the edge of his orgasm. He looked up to drink you in, your flushed face, eyes rolling back in pleasure, lips parted to let the sweetest sounds come from them, and lastly the cowgirl hat atop your head that pulled it all in together. The sight was positively pornographic, his American cowgirl riding him with a heaving chest and aching cunt.

“I’m- I wanna cum.” Your voice brought Fred back to reality. 

His free hand went to grab a handful of your ass, groping the flesh roughly and using the leverage to pull you down onto himself harder.

“Cum.”

It was all you needed to hear to let out a choked sob as your walls tightened around Fred, cumming on his cock. He wasn’t far behind, pressing your hips down onto his roughly, bottoming out, and stilled as he came inside of you, your walls milking him completely. His hot seed coating your walls, filling you up. The feeling so good, making you thank your lucky stars that you were on birth control and din’t have to worry about the consequences.

Fred held you close as you came down from your highs, pressing loving kisses on your shoulder blade. 

“You look so sexy in that bloody hat.” Fred sighed with a chuckle. 

The statement made you giggle into his neck, suddenly feeling bashful in your post orgasm bliss. At your response, Fred turned his head to place a kiss on your jaw then on your cheek before you made a move to pull yourself off of him. 

Fred whined, “No, stay...just a bit longer.”

You placed a kiss onto his forehead, lips smearing against his warm skin before moving to place a kiss on his nose, resting your forehead against his. Fred shifted so he was laying down on his side, as are you, with your leg hiked over his hip and face nuzzled into his bare chest while his cock- now flaccid- was still in you keeping you pleasantly stretched around him. The cowgirl hat had been removed and placed carefully on your nightstand, for later use. Fred bent awkwardly to grab the blanket and pull it over the two of you as he felt your breathing start to even. He tucked the edge of the blanket under your chin and watched as you drifted off into a peaceful slumber, face still in his chest and soft breaths hitting his skin. 

Fred fell asleep moments later, cock still warm and tucked inside your cunt, and holding you to his chest.

His American cowgirl

tags:

@siriusement

@amourtentiaa

@vsawyer1989​

@lifeofkaze

@theorangedrummer

@erinblack003

@famdomhideout

@an2402lths

@escapingrealitybyreading

@readyg0erge

@maybesandohnos

@therealhouseelvesofhogwarts

[some-kindofgnome]

these violent delights, pt. i

In an immersive theme park where cutting-edge technology makes your wildest dreams come true, the line between fantasy and reality begins to blur. enter westworld, where artificially intelligent automatons known as ‘hosts’ are programmed to fulfill your every delight.

(westworld AU, eventual host!dabi x reader, host!keigo takami x reader, eventual shouto todoroki x f!reader)

part one | part two | part three

featuring: hanta sero, denki kaminari, katsuki bakugou, momo yaoyozoru, eijirou kirishima

part one: you prepare to enter the park for the bachelorette party your bridesmaids wanted. meanwhile, westworld’s capable employees prepare to roll out the latest programming update.

wc: 8.7k

pt. i warnings: smut (18+!), sci-fi dystopia, artificial intelligence, medical/surgical procedures, body modification. gun violence, robbery, kidnapping, drinking, death, no beta we die like teddy

notes: this is part one of my entry for The Smut Pile’s Western Collab! this is my very first server collab and I am so thrilled to be kicking it off with this plot monster. this is the first of three parts- it leans a little heavy on the world building, so stay tuned for parts two and three. the action dials up from here, promise! i’m excited to be putting out one of my first plot-heavy stories on this blog!

please note: part one borrows several events from season one, episodes one and two of the series. the story will branch off in its own direction in parts two and three. you do not need to be familiar with Westworld to enjoy this fic- so please give it a try! 💖

(MASTERLIST)

“This doesn’t feel right.”

Livestock Management technician Hanta Sero drifts idly from tool cart to operating table with his raven hair pulled back. He’s clad in a protective latex apron and gloves, approaching the table with a blowtorch in one hand and a long, slim pair of forceps in the other.

“That’s what it says here.” Denki Kaminari stands across the black-tiled room, his back reflected in the glass walls of the operating facility. He scrolls mindfully through a folding datapad with a crease of deep concentration in his golden brow.

Snapping his datapad shut, he lifts his chin to find Sero’s conflicted gaze across the lab.

“The specifications were pretty precise.”

“I know what the briefing said,” Sero retorts. “I just…”

He ignites the blowtorch and takes a deep breath, letting his gaze over slowly over the pale, unmarked flesh of the body stretched out on the table in front of him.

“What?” Kaminari takes in the sight before him. He lifts his eyebrows. “Oh. Well-“

He gets up from his stool, tugging his gloves back over his shirtsleeves and crossing the room toward Sero and the body in question. He picks up a scalpel, making a clean little cut just below the subject’s left nipple without any hesitation.

“Dude, stop!” Sero reaches with the hand still clutching his forceps, blanching as a thin well of blood trickles onto pristine flesh.

“He’s offline,” Denki chuckles. “He can’t feel a thing. You’ve patched these guys up a thousand times, Sero. What’s the problem?”

“I dunno,” Sero muses, drawing the back of one glove nervously over his temple. “I dunno. I think they’re starting to get too real. It’s messing with me.” He shoots Denki a weak chuckle and shakes his head.

“What do they need this guy all burned up for, anyway?”

“Momo told me he’s for the new narrative,” Denki replies, puzzling over the red hair and immaculate pale skin of their unsuspecting victim. “Some kind of grizzly new villain who’s supposed to stir up trouble.”

“Better make him extra fucked up, then.” The blowtorch, extinguished in Sero’s panic, is ignited again, but he’s still hesitating.

“Hey,” Denki prompts. “Why don’t we start with the system update? That’ll kill some time. And then- hey.” He reaches across the tool cart, grabbing for the bottle of black hair dye that came with the host’s modification kit. He shakes it in Sero’s face, letting a smug grin cross his features.

“I’ll do the carpet if you do the drapes.”

Sero and Denki find their rhythm easily enough. Before long, the tension dispels and they’re letting conversation flow smoothly between them, making weekend plans while Sero pushes polished silver staples into the now-scarred flesh of the transformed host.

“This guy’s older than he looks,” Denki quips from the tool cart, where he’s selecting an appropriately sized needle for the delicate work ahead of him. “His systems haven’t been updated in years.”

“I’ve never seen him in the park before,” Sero admits. He’s finishing the clean row of staples that trail from the corner of the host’s mouth to his ear, struggling to push the staple into the skin at the edges of his face. The sharp prongs don’t hold as well in the spots where the muscle and flesh thin to just skin stretched over bone. He looks up in frustration, shaking the spots from his concentrated gaze.

“Whoa,” he starts as he spots the way that Denki’s moved up between the host’s lean thighs. “You’re really gonna-“

“That’s what it says in the briefing,” Denki presses. He’s got the aforementioned needle in one hand and a bowl of curved barbells in the other; he’s gone a little grin about the gills, too.

“Sick fucks,” Sero snorts, shaking his head. “Doesn’t feel very historically accurate, does it?”

“Please,” Denki pushes. “If you think this has ever been about history, you’re in for a nasty surprise.”

“Christ, you wanna talk about nasty surprises,” Sero replies, blanching and averting his eyes while Denki inserts the first piercing. “Just wait’ll the guests get a look at him.”

"Bakugou's outdone himself this time," Denki agrees, brow furrowed with sympathy and panicked concentration as he unscrews the first barbell. "Those idiots won't know what hit 'em.”

“Bring yourself back online.”

Head of Programming Shouto Todoroki sits in front of the park’s newest addition, datapad spread across his lap. Sero and Denki’s work paid off; the new host is looking fiercer than ever.

Not new enough for Shouto’s tastes, though. He can still see the blue glint when “Dabi,” as his new narrative calls him, shifts into wakefulness and lets his eyes flutter open. He shoots Shouto a sinister grin but does not move from his seat.

Shouto doesn’t want to believe what they’ve done to him. He’s still nude, putting all his new modifications on brilliant display. The staples in his flesh look angry and inflamed. The scars, done perfectly to appear long-healed, still make his blood curdle.

He can’t even think about the flashes of silver that catch the light when Dabi crosses his legs.

“And who are you supposed to be?" Dabi growls an opening line that shakes Shouto more than it ought to. He sports a brand new drawl that fits the world he’ll be slotted into soon enough, but it’s too much, bouncing off the pristine glass and shiny tile beneath his bare feet.

“Lose the accent,” Shouto commands. Dabi's expression shifts a little, but he does not drop eye contact.

Shouto can’t help but wonder if they all stare like this. He hasn’t been alone with a host in a very long time. Especially not one with this kind of significance.

“Do you know where you are?” He presses, determined to push forward. The sooner he gets Dabi through analysis, the sooner he can pretend like the unsettling host doesn’t exist.

But Dabi’s voice with no drawl is even more spine-chilling.

“I am in a dream.”

“And… do you want to wake up from this dream?”

Dabi’s eyes drift away in a direction they’re not supposed to. For a moment, he casts his gaze down and to the left, letting it sweep across the edge of the room as his brow creases with terrifying subtlety.

The gesture is minuscule, almost as if he's recalling a distant memory. For a moment, Shouto can only admire its beauty.

Then he realizes it’s not supposed to be there.

“Yes,” Dabi continues, his voice soft and lilting and almost wistful. “I’m terrified.”

“Freeze all motor functions.” Shouto’s heart pounds in his chilled throat. His extremities have gone cold. But Dabi follows his instructions to the letter, freezing before he can even blink. Shouto questions why he expected any differently.

Not two minutes later, Head of Behaviour Momo Yaoyorozu ducks gracefully into Dabi’s glass prison. Shouto is still sitting exactly where he began, perched on a little rolling leather stool. Six feet away, Dabi has not moved, bare and frozen on a stool of his own.

"I got your page," Momo soothes, shutting the door quietly behind her and unfolding her datapad. The hinges go rigid when they sit flat, blending seamlessly into a broad tablet that she taps and scrolls quietly through.

“I checked his programming on the way over. There’s something new here,” she concludes. “But I don’t know who added it. Must have been one of the interns, or-“

“I know who it was,” Shou answers grimly, already scrolling meticulously through the lines of code that make up Dabi’s new personality. Momo freezes, looking up at him with cold surprise.

“You don’t think…”

“I do,” he confirms. He takes a deep breath to quell his racing heart and shoots his closest colleague a shaky look. “You’re going to want to see this.”

“Incredible,” Momo gasps a few moments later when Shouto asks Dabi the same series of questions and gets the same frightening response. He knows why it shakes him as much as it does, but it hasn’t occurred to him that someone like Momo would actually… appreciate them.

“It’s like he’s-“ she starts, then stops herself. The conclusion she’s drawn should be as impossible as it sounds. But it’s staring them both in the face.

“Like he’s remembering something.” She finishes her thought this time, and Shou clenches his jaw.

"He must have slipped the code into the update," he determines. "In the programming, he's calling them Reveries."

“Kind of poetic,” Momo muses, still admiring the way that Dabi’s eyes seem to mist as they stare into the middle-distance. “It makes him look so real.”

“The code pulls memories from his earlier programming,” Shouto continues, looking up at Momo and waiting for her to be as spooked as he is.

He’s almost frightened that she’ll be defensive. But she’s sharper than he’s given her credit for, and that revelation is enough to pull her from her stupor.

“That could cause a lot of problems,” she muses. “Especially if the loops haven’t been closed properly. They’re supposed to be wiped after every cycle, but if there are links pulling them back…”

“I know,” Shouto emphasizes. Momo straightens, planting matter-of-fact hands on matter-of-fact hips.

“What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can do,” he confesses, turning back to catch another blood-chilling glimpse of the all-too-familiar host. “I can’t just pull the programming out from under him. He’ll know.”

“You can’t send him into the park with it. If it’s slotted in with the update, he could spread it to the other hosts.”

Shouto pushes his datapad aside and leans forward, steepling his fingers as he sighs deeply and descends into even deeper thought.

Momo’s right. With the Reveries included, the update has potentially disastrous consequences. But that’s operating on the assumption that his father makes mistakes, which most people would confirm is simply impossible.

If he clears the programming before letting Dabi go through, however, he’ll be facing the wrath of his father.

Shou purses his lips, lacing his fingers together but leaving the pointers extended and pursing his lips against the smooth joints.

“I think we’re going to have to.”

The glossy, perfect train- the first of many you'll take today, as you're told- pulls into a station that's even whiter than the train itself. Polished white floors and perfect whitewashed columns are the first things you see out the massive panoramic windows as the cars pull to a complete stop. When the doors glide open, your maid of honour touches your sleeve as the other girls filter out of your private compartment and onto the platform.

You’re far from the only ones disembarking the train. The rest of the platform is soon crowded by immaculately-dressed guests from all over the world. They bow and shift like a flock of starlings, moving in stark contrast past the perfectly-still bodies of the white-clad staff waiting to greet them.

A tall, statuesque woman with raven hair steps forward, addressing your maid of honour by name. She gives you an apologetic wave and a see you in there before disappearing amid the writhing sea of people.

You’ve been reading up on this place for weeks, scouring pamphlets and websites and guest reviews for every detail about the induction process you can glean from public knowledge. Details of the park itself are kept very private, but you’ve learned all you can about the way you’ll be introduced to it.

This place was not your first choice for the occasion at hand, but your friends practically insisted. You know it’s for selfish reasons- it’s the only chance they’re ever going to get to see the place for themselves- but you can already think of several places you’d rather celebrate your coming nuptials.

Not exactly your typical bachelorette party fare. But your friends agreed to wear matching dresses in that shade of pale green you couldn’t stay away from, so you’re giving them this.

Before long the platform is nearly cleared. You’re just starting to make your way toward the escalator, wondering what exactly became of the host who was supposed to greet you, when a soft croon of your name over one shoulder nearly shocks you out of your sandals.

Your host has arrived, and he’s even more gorgeous than you feared. Graceful and lithe-looking, he’s clad in a pristine white suit and turtleneck that contrasts the bold flashes of his golden hair perfectly. He shoots you a smooth smile, lit by razor-sharp tawny eyes and as he turns his face to catch the light, you can see that his jaw is grazed by the barest hint of scruff- perfectly groomed, just like the rest of him.

"Hello," you greet, trying not to lose your breath. You clasp the fingers of your right hand around the ring finger on your left- the remnants of your favourite new nervous habit. You've taken to twisting your engagement ring in moments of idleness or anxiety, but for safety's sake, you've left the flashy diamond at home.

You know you’re engaged. That’s what matters most.

“Good,” the host croons. You’re getting quickly used to his honeyed brogue, strong and low and sweet as he takes your hand and drops a suave kiss to your knuckles. “I’m glad you found your way here.” He jerks his head toward the emptying escalator, eyes never leaving yours.

“Follow me.”

As you’re ascending through the polished storeys of the park’s immaculate headquarters, your attendant rattles off a long list of mundane medical questions. He’s tapping away on a datapad as he walks, and you’re sure that whatever information he’s taking down will be swept away for later use.

Finally, he brings you to a plain-looking white door. He tucks away the datapad and slips his hands into his pockets. He’s graceful and perfect- too perfect. You’re starting to suspect that he’s no ordinary employee.

“Go on,” he urges, nodding toward the door. You shoot him a sideways little glance but step forward, hooking your fingers around the polished handle and pushing it open. You step inside.

The interior of the room- or closet, as it would be better described- is lit almost exclusively by glowing strip lights hidden in the crevices of the doorway, racks of clothing, and bordering a large series of mirrors that stud each wall.

It’s the biggest walk-in closet you’ve ever seen. And it’s filled to the brim with racks of clothing, all appropriate to the vague late-19th century setting of the park.

“Everything is bespoke,” pipes your immaculate attendant as he shuts the door behind him, “and exactly your size.” Painfully, you remember being asked for your body measurements in anticipation of this visit. Did they custom-tailor everything for each guest?

Or are you being given special treatment?

“You can pick out anything you’d like,” he continues, moving toward you, “and your other clothes will be waiting for you when you’ve finished your stay.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” you muse, fingering the raspberry-coloured silk of a lavish-looking day dress.

“The clothes you choose will determine the course of your experience.”

Your attendant is right beside you now, so close that you can see the way his golden eyelashes brush his tanned cheeks. He’s leaning in to examine the silk same as you, but his shoulder pushes just a little close to be solely practical. As he grips the material between lithe fingers, he lifts his gaze to yours on purpose. There’s a charming lilt to his smile that you can’t help but admire.

He pauses, dropping the silk and turning to face you head-on. Though the smile has slipped from his features, he still eyes you with interest.

“You want to ask, don’t you?”

Your brain catches up immediately, confusion swelling and fading in the span of a heartbeat. It tightens to thick dread in your chest.

He’s right. You do.

“Are you real?” The words sound even more ridiculous in the air between you than they did in your head. But ever since you boarded the train it felt like you could never be sure. And he’s perfect. Too perfect. Even the way he takes your question seems scripted and rehearsed.

He gives a low chuckle and takes your hands, stroking smooth thumbs over the backs of your knuckles. Then he peeks up at you from beneath flawless dark lashes and flashes a hint of pearly canine as he speaks.

“If you can’t tell, does it really matter?”

You don’t need him to expand.

“Come,” he prompts gently, dropping one hand to pull open a drawer of delicate slips and shifts, sitting in neat, folded piles of undyed linen. Some are plain, others trimmed excessively with lace and ribbons. You’re drawn to the coloured ribbons immediately- pale peach, soft blue, mint green. But the brassy gold of your attendant’s eyes is even more magnetic and you can’t look away for longer than a handful of seconds.

“You know,” he continues, squeezing your fingers gently and moving back in to run his knuckles up the inside of your wrist. Every single one of his touches is delicate, fluttering like a songbird against your skin. But there’s nothing gentle about the way he looks at you.

“Some of these clothes are a little difficult to put on alone.”

He does not explain further, but he watches as you’re drawn to the same conclusion that he is.

You have to roll this one over in your mind for a long while. You left your engagement ring behind, but the engagement itself still stands. Then again, he told you to enjoy yourself here. ‘Make every use of the park’s benefits,’ he’d suggested.

He’s just a computer, you tell yourself. A glorified sex toy. Maybe he walks and talks and flirts like a real human being, but…

There’s something about him that’s making it hard to turn him down.

After a silence long enough for any normal person to question, you look up at your attendant once more. He’s patiently awaiting your response, having gone uncomfortably still. You're not even sure he'd blink if you stare long enough.

You give a tight little nod and he’s smiling again, the same lazy smile as before. His default expression, you’re beginning to gather. He reaches for your coat.

“Wait.” You stop him with one hand on either forearm. He’s touched you before, but it’s still shocking how warm he is. Even though the sleeves of his perfect white jacket, he feels unquestionably alive.

"Don't you have a name or something?"

“Of course I do,” he responds. “Would you like to hear it?”

“Um…” Your brow knits. “Yes.”

He slips around behind you, curling his fingers into the open folds of your jacket and beginning to slide the weighty material off your shoulders. As he does, he leans forward, letting his lips draw close to your ear and making you shiver.

“Call me Keigo.”

“Keigo,” you repeat. It’s pretty and rolls easily from your mouth in a slow purr of desire. You can’t help yourself anymore. Keigo’s been programmed to put you at ease, but he’s doing much more for you now.

He undresses you methodically, pausing only briefly to run a hand down the curve of your waist or dip his fingers under the point of your chin when he catches you looking down. Even when you’re standing completely naked in front of him, he does not move to touch you in any untoward manner.

Whatever unspoken arrangement you thought you had formed is obviously not as unspoken as you’d hoped.

With his help, you select some period-appropriate undergarments. He helps you into your breezy linen shift first, lovingly tying the drawstrings into a neat little bow at the centre front. The corset is not as uncomfortable as you'd anticipated, fitting you devastatingly well. Keigo’s skilled hands pull the laces with precise tension, and the whole time he breathes soft commands and inquiries over your shoulder.

“Too tight?” He whispers, holding the laces taught at your waist. You take a slow, deep breath, then shake your head.

“Good.”

He ties the laces off and helps you into two petticoats- one of plain white cotton, the other of decorative silk and lace. Then he sits you on a cool, leather-covered sofa on one edge of the room and drops to his knees in front of you.

“Uh-“ you start, but he produces a pair of silk stockings from seemingly nowhere, smirking over the tops of your knees.

“Let’s get this out of the way.”

He pushes your airy petticoats up from your ankles, letting the backs of his palms brush the insides of your knees. He shoves the material up to your thighs and your confusion is multiplied now- is this what you think it is?

The way he admires your thighs as you shyly press them together certainly makes it seem so.

"Keigo," you gasp, curling your fingers against the edge of the sofa. The leather is supple and delicate beneath your touch like you could tear it if you wanted to.

He looks up just in time to watch you hook a bare thigh over his shoulder, and his brows shoot into his pointed hairline.

You’ve decided what you want out of this trip.

"Dove," he chides, setting down the stockings and pushing them gently aside. He takes both hands up the backs of your calves, stroking perfectly manicured fingernails into the tender skin at the backs of your knees.

He drops a kiss to the inside of your thigh. His face disappears behind the swath of frothy white petticoats gathered in your lap, but you feel his hot breath on your skin clear as day.

“If you wanted something from me,” he purrs, “all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m asking now,” you hum, letting your head fall back against the back of the couch. He’s easy enough to convince. Somehow, the fact that you didn’t have to work very hard for this almost makes it feel more acceptable.

“Here’s my answer,” he replies, sinking his teeth into the flesh of your inner thigh. You let out a strangled gasp, thigh jolting against his face as he slips his hand under the other leg- still hooked over his shoulder. You let out a low, shaky breath, trying not to think about the mark he’ll leave.

He pushes your leg away after biting it, shoving your knees apart and leaning eagerly forward. His head is fully buried under your gathered petticoats at this point, and you can feel him nosing his way into the crook of your groin, sliding a few free fingers up to prod gently for your hair-dusted folds.

“Wet already, bluebird?” He chuckles into your skin, sending shivers up your spine. “I’m flattered.”

“Stop,” you groan. There’s heat rushing to your cheeks with every word that tumbles out of his pretty mouth. You don’t want any of this to stop, but the heat between your legs is the one quickly growing unbearable.

“Do you want me to?” Keigo sits back almost immediately, ridding you of the delicious tingles his close breath were sending across your skin.

“No, no!” You yelp sharply, indignantly, digging your bare heel into his back to keep him close. He stops as soon as you apply pressure, letting out a quiet little chuckle.

“Keep going,” you pant, curling your toes against his pretty jacket.

“Your wish is my command,” he hums, already leaning into your flesh again. He does not hesitate this time, burying his head between your legs and giving the weeping slit of your cunt a long lick.

His first touch is all it takes to remind you how long it’s been.

“Fuck,” you gasp, low and languid. He doesn’t hesitate to close his lips around your swelling clit and suck. He makes sharp, sloppy noises with his lips and tongue, and the way they resonate in your ears near-doubles your pleasure. He’s eating you out perfectly, with terrifying precision. The strength of his jaw and tongue remains almost painfully consistent.

All the better for drowning him out. Despite his easy-flowing attitude and suave charm, he’s not a person. And it isn’t unfaithful to want him like this.

Even if you know he wouldn’t like it.

Keigo is diligent and careful, plunging his tongue in and out of your needy hole before finding the nub of your clit again, hard and sensitive. When he flicks the tip of his tongue against the tender front of it your legs spasm and you cry out softly as sensitive goosebumps rush across your ribcage.

“Like that,” you plead breathlessly, drawing your foot up between his shoulder blades as the tension builds. “Again, please.”

You’re holding the swells of your petticoats up around your thighs for him, but your fingers are beginning to clench in the delicate material. You’re not going to last long at all beneath a tongue as talented as his.

“Don’t worry, dove,” he purrs into your body, sending thick vibrations through every nerve in your system, “I won’t leave you unsatisfied.”

As he settles into his rhythm again, he plunges two fingers into your messy depths. He curls them tightly inside you, massaging your tender walls with a blunt and careful touch.

It takes little more than a few methodical strokes to make you fall. You cum with a tight little squeal, closing your thighs tightly around his head while you spasm and buck and sigh. He’s attentive enough to keep pumping his fingers through your orgasm, drawing out the pleasure as much as possible and greedily lapping at the wetness that trickles from your clenching pussy.

"That's it," he soothes, easing you down from your high with one calming hand on the column of your twitching thigh. As you settle, sweat-soaked, back into your seat he surfaces, sweat and shiny, sticky fluid sticking in the bristles of his perfect scruff. He licks his lips and you realize you’ve unconsciously mirrored him, doing the same.

In the moments directly following your peak you say nothing, looking down to meet his brassy gaze as deep uncertainty settles into your gut.

What happens now?

Keigo sits back on his haunches, pulling the folded pocket square from his breast and mopping up the mess on his chin and jaw like he'd done nothing more than spill a glass of wine or splash water over his lips.  

“Much better,” he croons, reaching for the discarded stockings from before. “Feeling a little more relaxed?”

You swallow hard.

“I’d say so.”

His smile is surprisingly bright and sunny.

“Good.” He hooks his fingers under your knee again, unhooking your leg from his shoulder. Sliding a palm down to your ankle, he fits one stocking deftly over your foot and slides it up your calf, continuing his work as if uninterrupted. He fits the stockings over your knees and ties them off carefully with slips of silk ribbon, sitting the knots just below your knees so the stockings won't fall. Then, he gets to his feet and offers you a hand.

“Let’s pick out the rest of your clothes, shall we?”

The park is even more immersive than you imagined. The photos do it no justice. When you step off the (genuine steam-powered) train at Sweetwater Station, it’s accompanied by a very real twinge of anxiety. The village is like a scene out of a Clint Eastwood movie. Only there are no cardboard sets here. The saloon doors really swing inward. The shops and businesses that line the main street are built from real, weathered lumber. The dust that’s kicked up by the hosts that go about their daily lives is already beginning to coat your new boots.

You sneeze.

“God bless you,” greets a kind stranger in a rough-hewn grey coat and white hat. He’s got a very apparent drawl to his voice, but the glint in his blue eyes is kind.

Back at the facility, guests and hosts were easy enough to distinguish from one another. Out here, it’s a little more difficult. You’re not sure whether to believe that everyone is real or assume they’re all fake.

Luckily, there are four women beside you whose humanity you are acutely aware of. You’re lucky enough to have found your bridesmaids on the train in- all clustered in the bar car, but together nonetheless.

And they’ve insisted on keeping the party going.

“C’mon, bride-to-be,” your maid of honour chides, grabbing you by the hand and pulling you out of your reverie. “I know exactly where we need to go first.”

“It’s not even noon yet,” you protest, but the others are already miles ahead of you. You’re dragged easily into the broad, dusty street and toward those broad, swinging doors. The saloon stands proudly in the centre of town on a prominent corner with faded signs advertising its wares. And your maid of honour eagerly bats the doors open, striding boldly into the sun-soaked saloon.

The tables are surprisingly crowded for this time of day. It’s most likely a flood of guests, disembarking the train and heading straight for the local watering hole for a real taste of the action.  Beyond their idle chatter tinkles the bright keys of a player piano against one wall. You can see the player scroll turning in the piano’s upright fixture, but that doesn’t change the unsettling way that the keys seem to press themselves.

It’s an eerie fixture in a town populated by walking, talking player pianos.

The man behind the bar bleeds Old West stereotypes from every pore. He’s got a huge, exaggerated greying moustache and a tweed waistcoat with shirtsleeves bound back for work. He’s polishing an empty glass with a cotton rag, but you spot him just in time to watch him politely greet a guest and reach behind him for a frosted bottle of unlabeled whisky.

The only other fixtures in the place are the women patrolling it, clad in colourful, lacy outfits that you’re certain violate some kind of historical convention. But they’re all breathtakingly beautiful, bosoms heaving over tightly laced corsets and fluttering from table to table like songbirds. They seem to provide little more than decoration and, as you settle into a table not far from the door, they fade easily into the background.

Until one of them screams.

You’ve read as many stories as you could scour the internet for before coming here. You know this place can get intense. Details of the park’s narratives and interactive storylines are kept under wraps as much as possible, so you can’t be sure whether this is out of the ordinary or not.

But when you whip around to find the source of the blood-curdling shriek, it doesn’t feel scripted.

It doesn’t feel scripted when the pretty girl in peach lace flings herself to the feet of a brand-new guest, here with his wife and their young son gaping from across the table. It doesn’t feel like she’s supposed to be wracked with sobs having never exchanged a word with this man.

It doesn’t feel like she should be pleading with him.

But the sobs wrack her body anyway, and her rosy little cheeks are flushed deeply now as she sniffles and blubbers.

“My daughter,” she begs hoarsely. “My girl, my daughter, please, I know you have her. Give her back to me, please. I know you took her. Give her back to me, I’ll do anything.”

Whether the father-of-one knows what she's talking about or not he's white as a sheet, stumbling backwards against the edge of his wife's table and pushing his arms forward, trying to keep her away.

The player piano finishes its tune, keys stilling as the saloon’s patrons look on in shock. And for an honest handful of heartbeats, the saloon is silent save for the host’s ragged sobs.

It takes a few moments for the player scroll to re-align itself before the tune restarts, and as the familiar notes cycle back through the saloon the host re-centres herself, climbing to her feet. There's a hardened resolve on her tear-stained face as her target looks around, gathering his wife and son with a this is bullshit and turning to leave.

“Don’t you dare walk away from me-“ the host begins to snarl. She lunches for the man, hands outstretched for the back of his brand new jacket, or maybe the brim of his crisp Stetson.

“Freeze all motor functions!”

A deep voice booms from the door of the saloon, amplified and simultaneously muffled with the use of a megaphone. The girl, and every other host in the saloon, freezes in place as though they’ve been paused. They don’t just stand still- they’re paralyzed. The smiling bartender is stalled with a glass in his hand; he doesn’t even blink.

In the doorway stands a hulking man of at least six and a half feet, seeming nearly as broad across the shoulders as he is tall. He wears a black uniform, armored black vest and heavy combat boots with a head of brilliant red hair spilling over his shoulders. As he lowers the megaphone he’s grinning, the bare flash of a sharp canine catching the low light of the bar.

“Sorry for the intrusion, folks,” he declares, striding across the floorboards toward the frozen host. Her expression is paused in a sneer of sheer horror and aggression, her hand outstretched for the man who has long since stepped aside.

The red-haired guardian angel, who has the name Kirishima stitched neatly onto the breast of his protective gear in white thread, catches your gaze. He shoots you a familiar little wink and a nod, a soft y’alright? escaping his throat in a quiet little growl.

You lick your lips, nodding slowly. Kirishima averts his gaze and reaches for the frozen host. As soon as he touches her skin she goes limp, falling easily into his powerful hold. He hoists her body over one shoulder and surveys the saloon, touching two fingertips to his forehead in a bright little salute.

“Please, don’t let me intrude on your stay any longer,” he continues. “As you were, everybody. Resume.”

The last word seems to be a command for the hosts in the room, as they spin to life again. They resume their rounds as if no time had passed at all; as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever transgressed.

Spooked, but encouraged by Kirishima’s smooth removal of the offending host, the guests around you go hesitantly back to their conversations. The player piano, also halted by Kirishima’s commands, has resumed its delicate play, and slowly the environment returns to the way it was before.

Your friends are among those willing to brush off the incident.

"What happened?" mumbles your maid of honour across the table, as if the host were still around to overhear her. As if the host's friends might be listening in to see if anybody's talking about her.

“No idea,” quips one of the other girls. “Must be some kind of glitch.” She looks over her shoulder, watching the remaining hosts at the bar. “I wonder if it happens often.”

“Absolutely fucking not.”

Head of Narrative Katsuki Bakugou slams a stack of papers onto the table in front of him, disrupting the intricate hologram that provides a real-time, scale model of the park to the room’s occupants.

“Katsuki!” Momo scolds, watching the hologram stutter and flicker. It’s not the first table he’s damaged.

“You’re not pulling my fucking narrative. It rolls out today. Do you have any idea how many writers I had busting ass on that thing?”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she retorts, tapping the screen of the datapad she’s got hooked tightly in the crook of her other arm. “You saw the host that Eijirou pulled, didn’t you? The fact that he had to step in at all means things got way out of hand…”

“Bullshit,” Katsuki retorts, sweeping his papers off the holo-table (and shattering the image one more time). “That was a fucking glitch. You don’t even have the results back from Behaviour yet.”

“I already know what they’re going to say,” Momo continues.

“That’s right,” Katsuki snarls. “I forgot you know everything around here.”

“She was carrying the latest update. There must be something wrong with the code.” Momo tries not to remember Dabi and his distant stare. She swallows the part about the extra coding slipped in by the man who could do no wrong.

She flips her datapad shut- it’s doing her any good, since Katsuki’s right. The results from Behaviour regarding the misaligned host won’t be ready for some time.

“You can’t. Pull. That. Narrative.” Katsuki’s squared up now, all the gathered papers tucked under his arm. His jaw is ticked, nostrils flaring as his eyes flash. “An entire trainload of guests is wandering around Sweetwater looking for the stories they fucking paid for. If you pull the plug, there’s nothing left.”

He’s right again.

“Look.” Katsuki crosses to the holo-table one more time, only this time it’s without the murderous intent in his gaze. For once he’s ready to use the table as intended, pin-pointing the broad, dusty street of Sweetwater’s main strip and bringing up a live feed of the bustling little town.

"Dabi is riding through here in less than two hours," he continues. "Dial-up his aggression a little. Make him shoot up the place. If you want to pull the hosts, at least let them go out with a bang.”

Momo isn’t convinced. But it’s the closest thing to a happy medium she can picture at the moment. Katsuki, as prolific as ever, knows how to think on his feet.

“How many d’you think he’ll take out?” She probes quietly, quirking an interested brow.

“Enough to keep the guests AND your Doctor Frankensteins entertained while I find us some more loopholes.”

Her mind races through more questions. But the panic, fluttering high and shallow in her chest, has somehow been replaced by a delicate sort of reassurance.

She flips open the datapad one more time, activating the remote host commands available only to an employee of her standing. Finding Dabi’s program file, she does exactly as Katsuki suggests and dials up the aggression in his behaviour stats by eighty percent.

“This had better work,” she threatens softly, but Katsuki’s already folding his arms across his chest, looking far too satisfied with himself. His ego is insufferable, but his talent is unmatched. Worth suffering for.

His mouth splits into a triumphant grin as he shoots an idle glance at the live Sweetwater feed. The only stage he’s ever needed.

“’Course it will.”

The afternoon sun has nearly dipped behind the tallest rooftops in Sweetwater when your friends stumble out of the saloon. Your friends are already tipsy, giggling and clutching each other as they try not to trip over the hems of their skirts. They’re all a little too eager to pull out the extravagant lace fans that pair perfectly with their colourful dresses and fan at their heaving bosoms.

As you bound down the steps and into the dirt road, you dive seamlessly into the milling crowd of hosts and guests, starting to swim. If you’re about to be caught in the eye of a devastatingly orchestrated narrative maelstrom, you’re blissfully unaware.

“Give me the time,” Katsuki grunts from the Sweetwater side of the holo-table. Momo glances up at the digital clock on the wall.

“Thirteen fifty-eight, forty-two,” she notes. Katsuki’s got the camera feed trained on a lone trio of riders, clad in black and plodding steadily toward Sweetwater. He watches carefully, keeping an eye turned on the clock.

“They’re going to be late,” he grunts bitterly, folding his arms over his chest. Sero, Denki and Kirishima, who have all crowded around the holo-table on their lunch breaks to watch the show, snort in near-unison.

“I don’t think anyone down there’s keeping track,” Denki quips, smoothing his palms down the front of his crisp shirt, apronless for once. Katsuki shoots him a vicious glare.

“You wanna go back to your sewing room or what?”

Denki goes quiet.

Inside the park, the sun passes behind a cloud. The light shifts just enough to draw your gaze, and when you look up, you’re among the first to spot a few dark shapes approaching. They’re close enough that you can make them out as riders, all on horses as black as the wide-brimmed hats on their heads.

There’s something about them, their precise formation and the slow, plodding, deliberate pace of their horses that holds your attention. You can’t quite write them off as guests, no matter how much they stand out from the dully-dressed villagers around you.

You glance across the street just long enough to spot a WANTED poster tacked to a column not far off. You can’t make out any of the writing on it, but the face is distinct- dark, shaded patches covering his jaw, chin and lower lip, carving out two shadowy patches under his eyes.

There’s something about the narrow shape of his cheeks that pulls familiar.

But you don’t have to wonder much longer.

The three riders ride quietly into town, the crowd parting around them with little more than low murmurs and dull, lidded fear. They pull to a stop in front of the saloon, barely twenty feet from you.

The cowboy in the grey tweed coat who caught your eye fresh off the train approaches the riders. He’s got a revolver holstered on one hip, and he draws it slowly out of its pouch as he squares up with the horse at the lead of the pack.

“Haven’t you seen the signs with your mug on ‘em?” He drawls, his face drawn into an expression of tense righteousness. He jerks his chin toward the nearest one, the WANTED sign you’d seen seconds earlier. “You’re not welcome here, Dabi.”

The taller rider in the centre- Dabi- tilts his chin into the sunlight, and that’s when you catch sight of its purplish colour. His face glints with silver, a perfect match for the drawing posted across the street.

He does not hesitate, drawing his own revolver in one smooth motion and shooting the cowboy in the chest. The gun discharges with a crack that’s louder than you ever imagined it could be, punctuated by the screams of bystanders nearby.

As the village descends into panic you stand there dumbstruck, watching the chaos unfold.

“Wait for it,” Katsuki grunts, hiding his satisfied grin as his colleagues watch in rapt fascination. Sero hasn’t blinked since the action began.

“You sure?” Dabi rasps, voice muffled by the feed. He produces a shiny golden badge and flipping it, like a silver dollar, onto the expiring corpse of the righteous host.

“No,” Denki whines. “He killed the sheriff?”

“Shut up and keep watching,” Katsuki growls, quelling the proud adrenaline pumping through his veins. There’s nothing quite like seeing his hard work come to life- supremely worth fighting with Momo over.

Dabi smirks, tipping the brim of his hat.

“Seems like invitation enough to me.”

He swings capably off his horse and you can’t deny your fascination with the mystery surrounding him. You should be terrified, but there’s something about the cool confidence with which he carries himself that you can’t quite put aside.

If the women flocking to the windows on either side of the street are any indication, you’re not the only one who feels that way. In a brief moment of lucidity, you take a glance around you. Your bridesmaids have disappeared, disappearing in the panicked mass of flooding crowds after the scarred rider fired his first shot.

He’s followed by a second rider on his right flank, both quickly disappearing into the bar. The third rider- a petite blonde woman swathed in a heavy coat- gets down off her horse and turns quickly toward her saddlebags. When she comes around the front side of her steed, she’s got a shotgun in her hands.

She’s loading it. The pandemonium amplifies. At her feet, there’s a long, thick coil of rope that’s partially unwound and trailing into the saloon. It’s unwinding slowly, with dull screams and shattering glass echoing from inside.

That’s all you have time to notice before another shot goes off in front of you. The little blonde girl’s levelled her shotgun, emptying her rounds at anyone who raises a weapon against her. You’re barely standing ten feet away. But she passes you clean over.

Is it because you're a guest? The only ones who have fallen at her hand are the hosts, capable of being hurt by her gunshots. The guests who haven't taken off are clustered in the windows of shops or hiding behind broad wooden columns, but there is no fear painted on their faces.

You know the hosts can’t hurt you. But there’s something about the thrill of it all that sends adrenaline pumping through your veins anyway. There’s a cool mystery to all of the black-clad riders.

A part of you wants to join them. If you can be anyone you want in here… why not one of them? Why not swing cooly down from your horse and terrorize, when there are no consequences to your actions?

You take one step backwards, then another. Your senses are finally coming back to you. You should run. Disengage. Maybe you can’t be caught in the crossfire, but you can’t stand dumbly in the empty street, either.

Something has to change.

Before you can make it to the safety of a storefront, a pattern of three gunshots in tight succession from inside the saloon triggers something in the blonde, still picking off hosts. There are bodies littering the street.  

She lowers her shotgun and hops back onto her horse, spurring it on with a sharp whistle. The beast takes off without hesitation, and it’s then that you realize the other end of the coiled rope is wound around her saddlehorn. As the horse strains its haunches and pushes forward the rope goes taut. And as the pair of them take off down the street, the spoils emerge: a heavy wrought iron safe, bursting out of the saloon doors and leaving nothing but splintered remains in its wake.

It bounces and rolls down the steps and slides smoothly as soon as it hits the dirt street. The blonde shooter and her horse disappear, safe in tow.

You wonder what became of the bartender inside and his friendly moustache.

Dabi emerges seconds later, a fresh rifle clutched lazily in one hand. His companion’s lost his hat in the turmoil inside- he’s blonde, too, with a deep scar splitting his forehead from hairline to brow.

"Let today be a lesson for every one of you," Dabi calls, re-cocking his shotgun as he surveys the fresh bodies and fleeing guests. You've stopped dead all over again, drawn to him like a magnet despite your best judgement.

He levels the shotgun, aiming it about five feet to your right. You follow his gaze. In the window over your shoulder, with her hands pressed to the glass, is a little girl no older than five. She’s watching Dabi and his riders with fearful fascination and does not seem to realize that she’s been targeted.

You don’t care if she’s a guest or not. She’s a human girl with big, lively eyes, and your adrenal glands work faster than your sense of logic.

Dabi shuts one eye, tilting his head. The corner of one lip curls ever so slightly as he concentrates, taking aim. “And that lesson is-“

“Stop.” You step in front of the window, spreading your arms and drawing his attention for the first time. When he looks at you over the top of his shotgun, his expression goes slack. He drops the shotgun and his eyes are wide, wider than they’re supposed to be, almost.

You’re close enough to see that they’re a shocking shade of blue. That blue strikes an achingly familiar chord in your heart.

You recognize those eyes.

“What the fuck!”

If the holo-table didn’t weigh half a ton, Katsuki would’ve flipped it on its end. The feed is as smooth as ever, but his face has gone scarlet as he paces away from the table, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“What? What’s wrong?” Kirishima’s well past the end of his lunch break by now, but there’s no way in hell he’s going back to work before seeing the way this plays out.

“He stopped,” Katsuki growls. “He’s not s’posed to fucking stop.”

Dabi’s been stopped on the brink of a speech that took Katsuki days to put together. He’s been waiting to hear it delivered for weeks. It’s the speech that Dabi’s entire narrative was hinged on, forged out of countless sleepless nights and careless notes scribbled idly on coffee breaks.

“Holy shit.” There’s a genuine shock in Denki’s voice that’s enough to make Katsuki turn around. Denki’s gone white, Sero beside him, too.

“You’d better get over here and see this, dude,” Kirishima mutters, jerking his chin toward the feed. Momo’s watching over his shoulder, too, one hand pressed to her pursed lips.

“That’s a guest, isn’t it?” Sero quips. Silence settles over the room.

“I’ll get Shouto,” Momo declares, turning away and opening up her datapad.

“What’s going on?” Shouto bursts into the holo-room not two minutes later, mismatched eyes lit up with urgent concern. “Did I read your message right? I-“

Katsuki’s pacing the room, quieter than ever. Denki, Sero and Kirishima are still gathered around the feed, winding back the stream to replay the events that have sent them all spiralling. Momo’s the only one who even acknowledges his presence.

“Something’s happening in the park,” she explains, hushed and tight as she meets him at the door. “Another updated host is off-script.”

“How bad is it this time?” Shouto asks, hiding the dread that’s spreading in his gut. He had hoped that the girl from the saloon was just an unexpected glitch, but the results from Behaviour told another story.

Still, two deviances in just the first day of the update feels worse than he dreaded.

“You’d better take a look for yourself.”

Momo leads him to the holo-table and the feed, letting the other boys step aside. Shouto steps up to the projection, watching Dabi ride into town. Watching him break into the saloon with Twice and Toga, two other repurposed hosts, by his side.

He watches Toga ride off with the safe behind her and watches Dabi start his speech. And then, from a near-birds-eye view, he watches Dabi spot you of all people. Dabi lowers his rifle and strides toward you.

Shou’s heart leaps into his throat.

With dull horror he watches Dabi slip a leather-gloved hand under your chin. He watches you tilt your jaw into his touch. You’re fascinated by him. Even though the dust and pixels it's painfully obvious.

Dabi seems to notice, too, since he stoops low and hoists you over his shoulder without another word. You struggle, but he holds you fast. He strides across the road to his horse and sets you- still squirming and fighting- in the saddle, climbing on behind you and grabbing you tightly before you can escape.

Just before he spurs his gargantuan black steed forward, he pauses to glance over his shoulder. Shouto can’t be certain, but for a moment it seems like Dabi’s found the camera, staring plainly up at Shouto through its low-quality lens.

A breath passes. He looks away, gives a whistle, and disappears into the wilds beyond the town.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Kirishima presses. “Katsuki, you didn’t program him to kidnap a guest, did you?”

“Of course not,” Katsuki snarls from across the room, his nerves fraying dangerously. “What kind of idiot do you think I am? Do I look like a walking liability to you?”

“Look, it’s fine,” Denki chimes in. “It’s not like he can hurt her or anything. Just chalk it up to the park experience. Tell her Dabi kidnaps random nobodies all the time.”

The room goes quiet as a crypt. Kirishima looks at Shouto. Shouto looks at Katsuki. Katsuki looks at Momo, and Momo takes a slow, deep breath.

“Do you want to tell him, Shouto?” she asks, “or should I?”

Shouto closes his eyes and tries to quell the panic rising in the back of his throat. He shoots Denki a cold look, jaw ticked but eyes blazing.

“That’s my fiancé,” he mutters, low and shaky. “Dabi kidnapped my fiancé.”

[shadowgeist-stars]

Ren x Gakushu: Nightmares

Ren was standing in the Chairman's office, watching the man pace around him, Araki, Seo, and Koyama with practiced, measured steps. His words were almost entirely unintelligible, but his voice was just like always. The same eerie, low tenor that made his skin try to crawl off his body, like he suddenly had some kind of flesh-eating disease.

Suddenly the monster struck. A huge fleshy mass with eyes so big that they overlapped one another on its face. A mouth so wide and sharply fanged that it could swallow anyone whole and shred them apart in its jaws anyway. Before he knew it, there was an agonizing sting at the back of his head and the better part of his back. Ren was somehow thrown against the wall, pain tearing against his sternum and surrounding ligaments making it nearly impossible to breathe. The others were no different, as if they were flung just as woefully unprepared into the same MMA fight that he was in.

Then he realized all of their bodies hadn't even moved.

For all intents and purposes, their minds had been violently punted from each of their bodies, leaving them as empty shells that did nothing but chant an insatiable desire to kill E-Class. If Ren didn't have trouble breathing before, he was all but suffocating now. It only got worse when Gakushu reentered the room, only to call out to Ren and the others in horror. The mix of anger, disgust, and outright fear with which he stared at his father and his pet beast nearly wrenched his racing heart clear out of his chest.

“Gakushu, please… I'm right here…”

He forced his ghostly form to stand up. Dizziness spun his vision every which way. His shaking feet didn't feel anything close to steady as he tried to stumble toward his friend. The monster over the principal's shoulder only pounced again, painfully crushing his throat in its clawed grip as he could only face that menacing, unnatural grin. Darkness was beginning to dot his vision as it blurred with tears. He reached helplessly for his best friend with whatever vanishing strength he had left, as it all went cold and dark and --

Ren's eyes shot open with a gasp, heart pounding and breathing as if he'd just endured one of Gakushu's soccer games. He lay frozen and tense in his bed, clutching his bed covers and staring at nothing but his own bedroom floor as he slowly willed himself to calm down.

After he finally deemed himself calmed from the nightmare, (and telling himself that No, panic-brain, my blazer that I keep hung on my door is not a monster that's here to kill me) he sat up in his bed and checked the time on his alarm clock.

Only a few minutes after 3 o’clock, in the morning.

Ren grimaced to himself, running a hand through his stupid bedhead. Either Seo or Koyama would probably laugh about some kind of joke related to the time that he’s almost certain he’d rather not hear. However, he just thought it was too darn early to be up, even with something like a very graphic memory/nightmare to blame.

The principal monster from his nightmare flashed behind his eyes, in its own twisted "speak of the devil." What better way of being told by one's own brain that going back to sleep at that moment was not an option?

…Maybe a cup of tea or something warm (and uncaffeinated) would settle him down enough to help.

With a sigh, he got out of bed, pulled on a shirt, and headed to the kitchen.

He knew the house well enough that he didn't have to turn on the lights. He knew every place where the floors creaked, exactly where to stick to the walls and where to simply keep a light foot. The tiny nightlights in the halls kept it just visible enough that one didn't have to stumble around in complete darkness.

Many years ago, traversing his house at night was a game to Ren. One where his eyes sported beams of light to help him see. A game in which the dark wasn’t a monster to fear, but his playmate.

When he reached the kitchen, he breathed a soft sigh of relief. He grabbed a mug from the dish cabinet, but before he could do anything else, he noticed a light.

Light that was coming from the living room TV, partly shadowed by a figure on the couch.

Ren had a feeling he knew who that was. Guess I’m not the only one having a rough night.

With that in mind, he grabbed a second mug before pulling the jar of dried chamomile from the back of a different cabinet, fixing some tea with it.

The person on the couch didn’t respond to any noise he made, which meant one of two things: he was either quite aware of his presence and simply waiting for Ren to reveal himself, or he was out of it to the point of somehow not noticing the brunette was even there.

With someone like Gakushu Asano, there was no in-between with those two possibilities.

The moment the tea was ready, Ren poured it into the two mugs, a small voice in the back of his mind reminding him to put some sugar in Gakushu’s mug. He likes his tea sweetened a little. It’ll help him calm down more easily if he’s tense or had a nightmare, and right now he's possibly both.

He glanced at whatever he was watching on TV, which was turned down so low he couldn’t quite hear it. A documentary: his go-to for calming down from a bad dream. Crime or historic ones usually mean something relatively tame. But this one’s a nature documentary; he only goes to those things when it’s really bad.

The taller boy took a deep breath before heading over, humming a familiar tune and making sure to seek out the one floorboard he knew would creak. A word of advice from a friend, so as to not scare him once in his line of sight.

The redhead made an almost unnoticeable jolt before bright purple eyes met his. (So he really was out of it to a point he didn't know I was there, or at least hyperfixating on the TV.) He was wrapped in a throw blanket and had his legs laid across the length of the couch; he was probably planning on sleeping there if he was able to calm down enough.

“Ren… How long have you been up?” he asked, shifting around to sit properly on the sofa.

He chuckled, setting down the mugs on the coffee table until he was sitting down beside his boyfriend. “Obviously not as long as you.” His smile became a frown when he got no snarky response. “Nightmares keeping you up, too, huh?”

The shorter boy only nodded once, taking his mug when it was offered. “I hoped to be able to sleep again, after getting my mind off of it… And I didn’t expect to be discovered."

Ren hummed, sipping his own beverage. "…It was the brainwashing incident on my end… Araki saying it felt like an out-of-body experience was pretty accurate."

The ginger didn't seem too surprised. "…It was partially that exact incident for myself… and also the immediate aftermath of the pole-toppling match. I still find it hard to forget how badly Kevin and the other exchange students were injured, because of him… it was so severe that they all had to return to their home countries, once they'd recovered enough to do so."

The others didn’t hear much of that when it happened beyond when the paramedics showed up at the school. At the time, they all knew better than to ask while the wound was still fresh. Then again, it wasn’t like he would’ve been coherent enough to elaborate on the situation anyway, given how he fell asleep on the ride home.

"Least they don't have to worry about him hurting them again now…" he replied finally, "or anyone, to be honest. Especially not you." He pulled the strawberry blond boy into his side. "I think you remember well enough… how worried I was when he hit you in front of everybody."

The shorter boy’s exhale reverberated with exhaustion as his head drooped on his lover’s shoulder, followed by the sound of him emptying his mug. “Not as much as I wish I did… but at the same time more than I care to admit. It’s exhausting just thinking about it.”

The brunette smiled sadly at the sheer amount of fatigue in his tone, giving his shoulder a squeeze before finishing his own drink. "All the same, we can say that we're safe from him, and that in itself means a lot… By the way, I would've been alright with you coming over to my room after you woke up from your nightmare."

That only earned him a sleepy, yet sour look. "Why would I do that? I'm not a toddler, Ren."

The brunette snickered, using a thumb and index finger to get the other to face him. "Maybe not, but it's not childish to be afraid or need someone else, even for just a little company. Haven't you felt any better since I came out here?"

Gakushu tried to avert his face. "I suppose you could say that…"

Begrudging victory; I'll take it.

He smiled as he leaned in to kiss the shorter boy. He slipped his tongue in easily, tasting the chamomile's aftermath and practically feeling the remnants of Gakushu's tension and traces of his own nightmare disappear into the documentary's white noise. The ginger all but melted into his arms, the long and lazy kiss bearing down on his eyelids with sleep in a wave of honeyed warmth. Pulling away showed a pair of hazy purple eyes struggling to open again, on an adorable, blushing face.

“I love you, Gakushu; sweet dreams.”

The shorter boy gave a slow, cat-like blink, snuggling further against the taller boy. “Hmm… love you too… Ren…”

Ren chuckled at his slurred speech as he took Gakushu's empty mug from his hands, placing it and his own mug on the coffee table. Afterwards he turned off the TV, pulling Gakushu along as he shifted them around, until they were now both laying sideways on the couch, with a red-haired head on his chest. He managed to resituate the throw blanket over them both, draping long arms over his beloved; one settling across his waist, the other scratching his scalp in rhythmic circles.

He leaned into the crevice between the couch cushion and backrest with a contented sigh. With the weight and warmth of his boyfriend in his arms and the steady whispering breeze of breath in his ears and over his chest, the image of the former principal and the big-eyed monster was nothing more than a fading memory. They were both safe here, in this homey little bubble. Pressing a final kiss to his boyfriend's crown, he laid his own head down and closed his eyes, letting sleep carry him away on a far more welcoming cloud.

It wasn’t the first time they had such nightmares, and it may well be far from the last, but for now, they could sleep without fear, and that was enough.

[dwellordream]

“...First, let’s talk about materials. We can rule out a Steppe Nomad inspiration for any of this right off. The Eurasian Steppe is very large and covers a range of arid climates (that is to say, parts of it are colder, parts of it are warmer), but they all have spinning and weaving technology, by which the supple hairs of woolly animals, or plant fibers like linen, or cotton, or even natural protein fibers like silk can be fashioned into fabric which is more flexible, comfortable, breathable and temperature controlled than the raw leather we see in the show.

...there is a distinct lack here of lots of leather, except in the sort of things that lots of cultures use leather for (boots, fittings, saddles, bags, tents). Instead, clothing is mostly made out of nice, comfortable, breathable textiles, because of course it is. That is not to say, to be clear, that leather or hides or fur were never used – fur especially was used; merely that they were generally used to supplement clothing primarily made out of textile.

...Now Plains Native American clothing does make much greater use of animal skin as a clothing material, but there is an important distinction to be made here. The problem here is with the plasticity of the term ‘leather’ which can technically include a wide range of products, but in practice is understood to mean exactly what the Game of Thrones costume department and literally every piece of official artwork of the Dothraki understand it to mean, which is the product of tanning processes.

I am not an expert, but as far as I can tell, Native American clothing was not made in the same way; animal products were used in a process I have seen described as ‘brain tanning’ (rather than using chemical tannins) and the final product was then smoked. The result – which is often called ‘buckskin’ regardless of the animal source for the hide – is very different from the leather we see in the show.

This is, in terms of material, very clearly not what the ‘vests’ the Dothraki in the show are wearing. Buckskin would also be used to make trousers, as opposed to the “horsehair leggings” of Martin’s wording, which also strike me as deeply improbable. Haircloth – fabric made from horsehair (or camel hair) – is durable, but typically stiff, unsupple and terribly itchy; not something you want in direct contact with your skin (especially not between your rear end and a saddle), unless you just really like skin irritation. It is also a difficult material to get in any kind of significant quantity – and you would need a significant quantity if you intended to make most of your trousers out of it.

...Well that’s for materials, what about patterns? Once again, we can quite easily rule out anything steppe inspired. Again, the Eurasian Steppe is big and has lots of variety, but relatively long robes are generally the norm in terms of dress; where long robes were not worn (see our Scythian above), the common pattern was heavy sleeved garments and trousers with very complete coverage. A common example of the type of long robe-like garments is the Mongolian deel, a long sleeved robe or tunic which provides a lot of protection against the elements. In the case of elites – and Daenerys is, initially, mostly around elites – these could be made of expensive silk or brocade – but poorer versions might be made of wool.

...And there is good reason for these relatively high-coverage garments. Plains or Steppe peoples naturally tend to live on, well, plains and steppes – that is large expanses of semi-arid grasslands. The very nature of that terrain configuration produces fairly extreme seasonal temperature variations (that is, very hot summers and very cold winters) as well as extreme daily temperature variations (that is, hot days and cold nights) because such places are far from large bodies of water and also don’t have tree-cover, both of which serve to moderate rapid temperature changes.

Consequently, as anyone who has lived in a plains state in the USA (or on the Eurasian Steppe, though that is fewer of my readers, but for my brave handful of hits from that part of the world, hello and welcome!) can tell you, you need clothes that can be layered and which can be both warm in the winter and cool in the summer. For us moderns, we mostly do this by owning multiple season-specific wardrobes, but clothing is expensive in pre-modern societies, so multi-purpose garments, or garments that be layered, to turn a warm-weather outfit into a cold-weather outfit are important!

There’s no reason to suppose the Dothraki Sea would be any different: it sits at about the same latitude as King’s Landing so there is little reason to assume it would be warm all-year-round. Parts of the Eurasian Steppe stretch decently far south, sharing a latitude with northern Italy and Spain; nevertheless they do not enjoy the same Mediterranean climate because they don’t have the same exposure to the weather patterns created by the sea. The southern end of the Great Plains stretches down all the way into Texas, but still gets properly cold in the winter with temperatures regularly dipping below freezing in the winter despite the latitude. For a people who are camping and working outside all of the time, warm clothing is going to be a must.

...There is tremendous variety here, but I don’t think any of it could be aptly described simply as “Men and women alike wore painted leather vests over bare chests and horsehair leggings.” Now, if you looked hard enough could you find something that resembled Martin’s leather vests, bare chests and horsehair leggings somewhere in the clothing of Native Americans across two continents? Probably, but among the specific Native peoples that Martin cites as inspiration, it does not seem to be at all common. And if that description was wholly unconnected to anything in the real world, we might well stop there and conclude that, well this is just the ‘dash of pure fantasy’ that Martin was talking about (although as we’ll see, it is going to be quite a bit more than just a dash). But I don’t think we can stop there, because (removing the medallion belts) Martin’s description does adequately describe something that exists in the real world: Halloween costumes purporting to depict Native Americans.

...The vest-and-pants style of Native American Halloween costume seems to be rather rare now, but it was, at least to my memory, much more common in the 1990s, when A Game of Thrones was written (initial publication date of 1996). You can see them, for instance, on many of the background extras in the famous Thanksgiving scene from Addams Family Values (1993) and that vest style was also a part of the outfit for the also-quite-unfortunately-branded YMCA Indian Guides/Indian Princesses program (rebranded as the ‘Adventure Guides’ in 2003 after decades of Native Americans complaining about it) which was also fairly popular in the 1990s.

Now, I am not saying that Martin planned to construct his Dothraki out of Native American stereotypes and bad Halloween costumes. In fact, I am fairly confident he intended nothing of the sort. But in the absence of doing some effective research (and it is going to become increasingly apparent that at least effective research was not done) there was quite possibly nothing else to inform the effort other than what was ‘in the air’ of the popular consciousness. Of course the danger of those often simplistic public stereotypes is that people often do not know that they have them, assuming instead that the vague impression they have is essentially accurate (or at least, close enough for a regular person). And that’s a real problem because it reinforces the popular stereotype, especially given Martin’s reputation for writing more ‘historically grounded’ fiction. And that is a problem because…

The clothing that the Dothraki are described and visually shown wearing is clearly intended to convey things about their society. Returning to our visual comparison above, it is easy to see that the actual clothing of both Eurasian and American ‘horse cultures’ was often bright, highly decorated and generally eye-catching, featuring complex patterns and shapes. It was both nice looking, but also spoke to the humanity of the people that made it and their very human desire to look nice and have nice looking things. By contrast, the clothing of the Dothraki is presented as simple, rugged and unadorned.

...I want to stress this to make the point clear: people in the past liked to look nice! Much of the popular perception of pre-modern clothing assumes lots of dull, drab colors, undecorated or merely adorned with rough pelts, but this is almost entirely a Hollywood construction. The Romans didn’t exclusively dress in white (indeed, the toga candida, the white toga, was an unusually formal thing to wear, like a politician’s suit-with-flag-pin), medieval peasants didn’t wear drab brown (they dressed in bright primary colors mostly), and as I hope the historical pictures for this essay show, both steppe nomads and Plains Native Americans wore nice clothing with lots of patterns, color and decoration. These men next to Khal Drogo are his elite guard of ‘bloodriders,’ the companions of a ruler who wields tremendous power and wealth! And yet they have opted to wear mostly undecorated bland brown leather.

Just to underline this point, think about what a fine set of clothing communicates to an observer (for instance, one of Khal Drogo’s thousands of mounted warrior retainers who are present at this event). Imported goods, like metalwares (which nomads won’t generally be able to make themselves) or fine imported fabrics demonstrate not only trade contacts but also often that the leader has useful ties to foreign leaders (since such things were often gifts or tribute from foreign courts). Garments whose production, due to fine patterns, complex weaves, intricate beading or quillwork, would take many, many hours of production demonstrate that the leader has a lot of subordinate people in their household (in many cases, that would mean women), which both implies the ability to give these people as gifts (either in marriage or because of their non-free status) and also the access to resources (in this case herds of animals) needed to sustain so many people – in short, the sort of leader who can reward faithful warriors richly.

And of course a leader who outfits his closest retainers – his bloodriders, in this case – with such wares (especially expensive foreign metal military equipment) demonstrates both access to military capital and also the ability to reward his trusted lieutenants. In short, the Khal whose person and immediate retainers are decked out in finery looks like backing the winning side, which is a very important thing to assess as one of his warriors. So even if not one of Drogo’s men cares about their personal appearance at all, it is still politically important for them to dress for success.

Which then demands the question, looking at the very fine clothing of historical horse cultures that supposedly provided the inspiration for these Dothraki fellows: Where is the exquisite bead work? The fine quillwork? Where are the carefully made fringes? Where is the silk brocade? Where are the detailed, complex patterns?”

- Bret Devereaux, “That Dothraki Horde, Part I: Barbarian Couture.”

[bopbopstyles]

ROSE COLORED GLASSES: PART ONE

SERIES RATING: R (cursing, smoking, alcohol use, violence, PTSD, and sex)

WORD COUNT: 19.5k (long boi)

CATEGORIES: boxer!Harry, gang/mob!Harry, 1920s!Harry, Peaky Blinders!Harry (?)

As the daughter of the most powerful man in Birmingham, there were expectations of Cicely King: an advantageous marriage to save her father’s business, for one. But Cicely had never been one to follow orders. So when she woke up after an accident in the home of Harry Styles, the illusive boxer, she took it as an opportunity to escape her life. What she didn’t intend on was falling in love with him.

MASTERLIST | INSPO TAG | PART TWO

a/n: IT’S HERE!!!! Cicely and Harry dropped into my head and have lived in there rent free ever since. strap yourselves in for a ride, my friends! this story is hugely inspired by Peaky Blinders, and i willingly admit that characters and elements of the story resemble parts of PB, including Cicely’s appearance (Grace). thank you @hsogolden for making this beautiful banner,  and thank you to @bfharry @harrysclementines​ @stellarboystyles and @havethetimeofyourstyles for beta reading this, ilysm!

historical notes: i’ve got a couple of things to alert the public of for this story. 1. this story is set in Balsall Heath, Birmingham, UK in 1920 or so, and i did as much research as possible on the area, but it is by no means all accurate. imagery and descriptions of the neighborhood are largely my own. 2. Church Hulme was the name of Holmes Chapel until 1974, so it is used in this story. 3. The Magnificent Ambersons is an actual book that was a bestseller in 1918. you can read it here. 

without further adieu, here is part one of ROSE COLORED GLASSES - come talk to me about it in my asks! pls reblog and share with your friends 💕✨

The cool spring air swept around Cicely like a cloud, the hem of her skirt ruffling in the wind. She was miles from home, the landscape around her having turned to just rolling hills of green, just the way she liked it. Here, she could finally breathe. At home, all she could smell was fear and secrets, while here, out in the open, she was anyone and everyone. It was just her and Joseph, her beloved horse, on the empty road.

Father had told her it was going to rain when Cicely pushed her way out of the house, stomping away from him in anger at the news he had given to her, but she hadn’t given it a second thought. She loved rain, loved being caught in it and getting drenched, not minding the weight of the water on her skin. If anything, it made her finally feel something, even if it was cold. In hindsight, she probably should’ve thought twice about going out so far in the rain, Joseph being a bit skittish as he got older, but now here she was, having ridden over halfway between her estate and the city, and she could feel the droplets falling onto her blond coiffed hair that her maid, Polly, had done this morning.

She sighed and looked up at the sky—it was grey and angry, the wind swirling around her. It was going to be a downpour, she suspected. Joseph stopped when she pulled on the reins, and she considered whether she should turn for home or find somewhere to ride out the storm. It seemed to be coming soon, after all. She glanced around and there was just open space of hills and trees, but none large enough to provide any sort of suitable protection. Plus, she was closer to the city than home, anyways, so maybe it was better to just keep on going the direction she was heading. She could stay with friends in town if need be.

So she dug in her heels and Joseph continued, her urging him to go faster as the rain began to come down harder around her. It was like a curtain, the combination of the rain and the dark skies making it hard to see very far in front of her. The water licked down her face, and her chiffon blouse was sticking to her skin, the one her maid had made her promise not to get dirty, as it had just been mended for the second time. But she could make no promises—it was her favorite one, after all. And now, it would most definitely be ruined as dirt road beneath her turned to mud and it splattered Joseph and her clothes. She held fast though, wishing now more than ever that her father let her wear the new fashionable pants to let her ride more easily because side saddle was simply not cutting it at the speeds she was urging Joseph to achieve.

All of a sudden, a crack rang through the clouds, bolts of lightening littering the path far ahead. But the sound was enough for her to tense and Joseph to whinny, his front legs leaving the ground, her hold on the reins slipping as she was thrown from the saddle.

The last thing she remembered was the sight of Joseph taking off into the rain, saddle empty and reins flying around his body.

Harry could barely see in the storm, the downpour causing sheets of rain to fall on the windshield, his vision completely obscured. So he inched along as slowly as he could without endangering his ability to drive—or the car, since it was a gift from Josiah—and kept the headlights on full blast. He was exhausted after a weekend of fights in the town over, ones that left his body aching in ways he preferred to ignore. But he had a pocket full of earnings and he knew Josiah would be happy with that, so he paid it no mind.

He was running through the fights, thinking about the missteps and wrong moves he had made, spots for improvements, when he saw a girl lying down on her back in the mud a few feet in front of the car. He slammed on the brakes immediately. What the fuck was a girl doing out in a storm like this? When she didn’t move as he sat in the car, surveying the scene, he couldn’t help but wonder if she was dead. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had been killed on a road, left there to be found by the next car.

Slowly, he pulled himself out of the car, lifting his hand to shield the rain from his face. “Miss?” He called into the storm, eyes drifting over her body. She looked well to-do—her blouse seemed to be some type of lace material that the girls he knew were always fawning over, skirts bright and recently washed. What was she doing out here, alone and in the mud? And how had she gotten there?

He took a few paces closer to her, and she didn’t make a move when he brushed the hair away from her face. Hesitantly, he leaned down, an ear to her mouth to see if she was breathing—which she was, to his relief. She must be unconscious, although he could only begin to imagine how she had gotten that way. But Harry wasn’t the type to leave a young woman in need, alone on a dirt road in the middle of a storm. So he bent down, slid his aching arms under her body, and lifted her from the mud, cradling her against his chest as he walked back to the car.

She fit perfectly on his back seat when he tucked her knees in closer to her chest, blond hair draped over the seat. He grabbed his coat from the passenger side and draped it over her body, her skin cold to the touch from the rain. The thought crossed his mind of where he should take her—the police, perhaps? Or maybe a hospital? But Harry hated both of those establishments after years with Josiah. Plus, if she needed any protection, in town it was best if it came from Josiah anyway. The police were useless, a bunch of pompous assholes too big for their britches, Harry thought. And a hospital, Harry believed, was where people went to die not where they went to be healed. So he decided to take her to his flat, despite the fact that the prospect went against most principles he was raised on.

Although, everything Harry did went against his childhood principles.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was green peeling wallpaper. It wasn’t a wallpaper she recognized, and as she came to, looking around the room, she realized this was definitely not a place she had been before. Her heart seized as she inspected her surroundings. She was in a wire-frame double bed, a red duvet cover pulled around her shoulders, a soft light coming in the heavy curtains against a small window in the middle of the room. Clothes littered the floor—men’s clothes, from what she could tell—and a rug sat in the middle of the room amidst the chaos. An ashtray and the butts of cigarettes laid on the bedside table next to her, as well as a glass of water. Maybe it was a stupid choice, but her throat was raw and so she took the glass, gulping down the water without a second thought.

Faintly, she could hear the sound of a whistle. Tea, she realized. Someone was making tea.

Which meant she was not alone.

Her hands dove under the covers, inspecting the clothes on her body. Everything was still intact, her green skirt and the lace blouse she had put on,  every button done up exactly as she had left it. She didn’t have her shoes on, but on closer inspection, they laid on the ground next to the bed, but her stockings were still clipped to her garter at least. A sigh left her mouth at the prospect of some semblance of safety in this foreign place.

She tried to remember what had happened last—she had been riding through a storm after a fight with her father. Then, there was a bolt of lightning, she thought to herself, piecing together the memories in her fuzzy brain, and then remembered Joseph bucking her from the saddle. She couldn’t keep herself on, so she let go, knowing that was better than being dragged along. The last thing she remembered was Joseph riding away, her lying in what she believed to be mud.

Which would explain the brown marks all over her clothes.

Polly was going to kill her for the stains.

The whistle she had heard earlier suddenly stopped, and she heard the thud of something. Then, a soft hum of a song she recognized from the gramophone her father had in the sitting room. After a few beats, she heard the sound of footsteps on the wood floors, the creak of the footsteps growing closer and closer. Someone was coming. She was going to finally discover who had picked her up off of the road and where she was—hopefully it was some nice old lady and she was in their son’s room.

But instead, a boy about her age stopped in the doorway, a cup of tea in his hand, wide eyes at the sight of her sitting up in bed. His brown hair was tousled in soft curls across his forehead, and just trousers, a shirt, and suspenders adorned his body, his feet bare. His shirt sleeves were pushed up and she could see tattoos on his arms, something she had never seen in person before, just in photographs and magazines.

He was, she thought to herself as he stood there in shock, quite handsome.

“You’re awake,” he finally said, voice croaking in his throat. “I—uh, sorry, would you like a cuppa?”

Cicely considered the question for only a beat before nodding. He seemed nice enough, judging solely from his embarrassed reaction to the croaky sound of his voice. The boy disappeared and she waited patiently in the bed, flexing her toes to bring some feeling back into her limbs. She wondered how much time had passed—it seemed to be daylight out, so maybe not much time at all.

The boy returned, a second tea cup balanced in his other hand, his face more serious and put together than before. “Here you are,” he said, making his way over to her, his presence instantly changing the feeling of the room. Before, it was small, but not too small. Now, with his large frame and dark eyes, it seemed as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the space.

“Thank you,” she replied, accepting the cup with cold hands. It was chilly in the room, probably from the draft coming in from the windows and her skirt which was still a bit damp in spots. The tea, though, was delicious on her tongue, plain, just how she liked it.

The boy grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and pulled it over to the edge of the bed before sitting down, eyes darting between the tea cup and her face. “I’m Harry, by the way.”

“Cicely.” She took another sip of the tea before resting it on her lap. “Is this your flat?”

“Yes,” Harry said, eyes glancing around the room. “My room too—sorry about that. It’s just me here, so I didn’t have anywhere else to put ya.”

So no wife or family then, Cicely thought, filing the information away for later. It was interesting, a boy of his age living alone. He must have moved away from home and made decent enough wages to get a place of his own, she decided, eyes fluttering around the room to see if she could pick up on any other clues about him. But she couldn’t find anything. “How did I get here?” She asked after leaving them in silence for a few moments, the curiosity getting the better of her.

Harry placed his teacup on the nightstand as he spoke, eyes avoiding hers. “Found ya in the road in the rain. Cold as ice and unconscious, all covered in mud. Didn’t want to leave ya out there, so I brought you here—thought I could take you home once you came to and all that. Call your husband.” He added the last sentence as an afterthought, and Cicely couldn’t help but smile internally at the thought of him thinking she was married.

Which she wasn’t. At least, not yet. And not for a while, if she had any choice in the matter. “No husband,” she informed him, thumbs brushing over the duvet. “How long have I been out for?”

He pulled his lip into his mouth and Cicely didn’t know if she had ever seen something so enticing. “Almost a day.”

A day? God, her father would have her head. He probably thought she was dead after she didn’t come home. Although it wouldn’t be the first time she had let him think that, her flair for escaping after an argument a reoccurring personality trait that her father despised. Which of course, was exactly why she did it. “I hope I wasn’t a bother,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.

Harry shook his head, and Cicely studied his face, the sharp angle of his jaw, the high rise of his cheekbones. He had a bit of scruff around his lips, which looked soft and pink and she tried not to think about what they would feel like. Cicely didn’t usually pay men all that much mind—sure she noticed them, but did she study every feature on their faces like she did Harry? No. She was intrigued by him, the rings on his fingers and the tattoos on his arms, the way he licked across his bottom lip. And perhaps that was why Cicely made no mention of needing to go, or that she should call her family.

“Are ya hungry?” Harry asked, pulling her out of her thoughts.

At the concept of food, suddenly her stomach grumbled and she blushed, embarrassed at the sound, but Harry didn’t even react to it. “Yes, actually.”

He stood immediately, wiping his palms on his trousers as he did so. “I don’t have much here,” he said, taking their empty tea cups with him as she walked towards the door. “But I’ll put something together.” She watched him, unsure if he wanted her to follow. She was a bit curious as to what the rest of the flat looked like, she had to admit. “Ya comin’?”

Cicely scrambled to follow him, her stocking-clad feet nestling into the rug by his bed. Her skirt was crinkled from sleep and she straightened it as much as possible before sighing and exiting the room and into the hall. When he turned down a set of stairs, she realized that what she thought to be a flat was actually a little townhouse. When she reached the base of the stairs, she found that the rest of the home wasn’t much—dimly lit, only one other window in what seemed to be a small sitting room and a kitchen. A table was pushed to the side, two chairs tucked into it, a plate with crumbs on it sat on one side. The green wallpaper from the bedroom covered all of the walls of the home, and when she looked around, she saw a noticeable absence of most personal effects. He had only one photo up on the side table next to the couch, of what Cicely assumed was his family. Next to it laid another ashtray, a pack of cigarettes, an empty whiskey glass.

At the sound of a plate on the counter she turned to see Harry placing a slice of bread on a plate and tenderly spreading jam across it. Cicely tried to imagine her father even entering a kitchen and she had trouble with the idea, while here was Harry making her a slice of toast. The thought was actually quite endearing, despite the fact that Harry had not once smiled at her.

“Thank you,” she said when he set the plate down on the table, grabbing the dirty one and taking it to the washbasin in the corner. Harry didn’t reply, so she took a bite. The jam wasn’t quite as good as what she was used to and the bread was a tad bit stale, but it was food all the same, and she didn’t mind all that much. As she ate, she watched Harry wash the plate, dry it with a dishrag, and place it back in a cabinet that held a few dishes.

He turned around when he was done, eyes trained on her with an intensity she was beginning to grow accustomed to from him. “I have work in a bit. Can I drop you someplace before that?”

Should he? Yes. Did she want him to? Not in the slightest. She pushed away the plate, and tried to figure out how to say this. “Would it be a bother if I stayed?”

Harry blinked at her a few times, his face finally changing from the usual intense stare that he gave her to one that was more curious in nature. “Is home not safe for ya?”

Cicely tried to decide whether or not she should lie to him. He seemed kind, generous, probably understanding, despite his inability to speak to her for very long periods of time without stretches of silence. Maybe he would understand that her desire not to go home wasn’t because home wasn’t safe, but because the life that was waiting for her was one she despised. So, she decided not to lie, but not to tell all of the truth. “No, it is. I’m just not eager to go back right now.”

“Oh.” Harry twisted a large gold H ring around one of his fingers, contemplating her words, before looking back up at her. “If ya want to stay, ya can. Know what it’s like to wanna hide for a bit.” Before she could request more information, he came towards her, snatching the plate and taking it back to the sink. He seemed to be awfully set on a clean kitchen, despite the messy state of his room. “You’ll have to come with me tonight, then.” He still had his back to her, so she couldn’t study his face as he said the words that piqued her interest.

Most girls would have probably requested to stay home, but Cicely wasn’t most girls. “Ok,” she replied, pushing back the chair. “Could I—uh—wash up somewhere?” The prospect of a bath sounded utterly delectable, although on second thought, she didn’t expect him to have a bath quite like the one she had at home.

Harry whirled around, eyes looking everywhere but her. “Yes. Um, there’s a basin in the washroom. Don’t have the water for a full bath right now, but…”

Cicely realized what he was so flustered about—he was embarrassed. Perhaps he had realized that her social station was a bit higher than his, that in her home they didn’t have to go fetch water somewhere, that she could have a bath relatively whenever she liked. And when she did it, someone else filled it for her. “That’s fine. I’ll manage.” She stood and made her way towards the washroom, following his directions, and shut herself inside. It was dark in there too—far less than she was used to. A silver bathtub was on one wall, and a smaller basin on a pedestal, a toilet in the corner. It was simple, bare bones, but she didn’t mind too much. Her father had put in running water when she was an infant, so she had never washed without it, but she decided it wasn’t too much of a change.

Quickly, she undressed, making sure the door was locked, and hung her clothing over the lip of the bath so it didn’t touch the floor. She took a rag and dipped it into the water, exhaling softly at the feeling of the cool water on her skin. There was some mud on her skin from when she had fallen, although she thought that perhaps Harry had washed some of it off—there wasn’t quite as much as she thought. A small mirror allowed her to wash the crust of mud from her forehead, and by the end of her washing she felt rejuvenated, even if it wasn’t a proper bath. Slowly, she slipped back on her clothes and considered for a moment the idea that she might need to purchase some more. Her clothes were stained from the mud, and she imagined she wouldn’t quite be able to get it out.

Although it would’ve been convenient, she didn’t imagine Harry had extra ladies clothes lying around for just this purpose.

She ruffled her hair slightly, the curls unfortunately having dropped for the most part, and sighed before letting herself out of the washroom. “Harry?” Cicely asked, turning the corner into the kitchen, where he stood, holding a glass of what she thought was a whiskey, a cigarette between his lips. “You wouldn’t happen to have a set of ladies’ clothes lying about, would you?”

Harry furrowed his brow before taking the cigarette from between his lips. “No—why?”

Cicely gestured at her stained clothes. “Mine are a bit dirty, and I wouldn’t want to wear them to your place of work like this.”

The chuckle that left Harry’s lips surprised Cicely in more ways than one. One, that he was laughing at all, for she didn’t find it to be a laughing matter. She didn’t want to make a bad impression to whoever his employer was, especially if she was going to have to be there. Second, his laugh was sweet, syrupy, one that rocked his shoulders, and made her heart flutter in a way she wasn’t used to. “You wouldn’t want to wear your Sunday best to my place of work, love,” he told her, tapping his cigarette in an ashtray on the table. “You’re fine the way ya are, but we can track down some clothes for ya tomorrow.”

Where would he work where her appearance would be adequate? But rather than question him, she just nodded. “Well, I’m ready,” she told him.

“Gimme a mo’,” he told her, tucking his cigarette back between his lips before heading out of the room. Cicely decided to check out the sitting room a bit more, investigate the people in the sole photograph in the whole home. She picked up the photograph and studied it, a man, woman, and young woman, probably a few years older than Harry, stood outside of a family home, a younger Harry nestled between them. It was curious to see him younger, his face less defined, an obvious softness to his facial features. But what stuck out to her the most was the uniform he wore.

He had been in the war. Of course. Her father had avoided it because of a years old injury to his leg, although she had secretly always throught he had gotten his doctor to make it seem more severe than it actually was. Many of the men her parents had set her up with, including the horrid one they were currently trying to force her to marry, were in the war, but when she asked them about it, they only talked about their medals, heroism, the beauty of France’s countryside. But she also knew most of them had been officers, their social ranks earning them a certain level of protection, and she couldn’t help but wonder what it had been like for Harry who had none of those privileges.

Footsteps came from behind her and she turned, dropping the photograph back to the table when she saw Harry in the hall watching her. He had changed while she was looking at the photo, a charcoal jacket over his shirt, a pin with a J on it buttoned to the lapel that she thought was a bit curious. He had a bag over his shoulder, and she wondered what was inside. “You were in the war,” she said, not acknowledging his appearance.

“Just like everyone else,” he replied, his response a stark departure from how the men she knew would’ve replied. “Come on, we’re goin’ to be late.” She followed him out, wishing she had a hat or a small purse with her at the very least, but she had nothing but her dirty clothes and scuffed boots.

When they stepped onto the street, the sight of a wide and long street, row houses lining each side met her gaze. They were in working class Birmingham, she thought to herself as Harry locked the door behind him. Most men would’ve made to put their arm through hers, but not Harry—he just began walking, letting her catch up to him, struggling to keep pace with his longer legs. His bag swung at his side as they walked, and Cicely took in their surroundings, the silence stretching between them. It was dusk and women were calling their children inside, the games of football on the street breaking up. Two young children squabbled until their mothers separated them, tugging their little hands inside. Doors shut behind them and Cicely snuck a glance at Harry. His eyes were trained on the ground in front of him, most likely adjusted to their surroundings.

He didn’t want to talk, she understood from his body language, and she decided in a choice completely against her normal mannerisms, not to push him.

Cicely didn’t know what she expected from Harry’s place of work, but it was definitely not a boxing ring in an empty warehouse. She could hear the shouts and laughter of men from outside, and she had looked at Harry with confusion written all over her face when they approached the warehouse, but she followed him inside anyways. The smell of stale beer and sweat overwhelmed her immediately, and she had to squint in the darkness of the entryway. The ring had some lights rigged up around it, some chairs around it, but it was by no means someplace fancy.

So this was what Harry had meant by her not wanting to wear her Sunday best.

“You work…here?” She asked, turning to Harry, who stood beside her, watching her take in the surroundings. He nodded, offering no additional information. “And you box?” Another nod. “Is this legal?”

That’s when he gave another one of his chuckles, and then under his breath he said, “Doesn’t need to be, love. Josiah McClemmons runs it.”

Cicely may not live in Birmingham proper, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know who Josiah McClemmons was. Everyone did. He basically ruled Birmingham, especially the working class neighborhoods, having built up his stronghold there. Her father complained about him at least once a week, about the violence and bloodshed in the city where his garment factories were. Although, Cicely had always thought to herself, her father probably shouldn’t complain too much because a dead husband meant a wife who had to work to feed her children, which meant a larger workforce for her father.

From the way Harry was greeted, Cicely assumed he was the reigning champion, the usual fighter here. Which meant that he was probably McClemmons’s payroll, if she had to extrapolate. “Do you work for McClemmons?” She asked when the few men who had come up to them walked away.

Harry adjusted the bag over his shoulder, and then nodded. “Could say that.” His eyes darted around the establishment, taking in the sight, before resting back on her. “C’mon, I’ve got to get changed and don’t want ya waitin’ out here.” He ushered her over to a man standing against a wall who wore a J pin on his lapel like Harry, which she now realized stood for Josiah’s name, a brand of who they worked for. “Tommy,” he said, the man’s gaze turning and settling on them. “This is Cicely. Keep an eye on her while I change?”

Tommy stood up straight immediately and when he took her hand in his and pressed a kiss to it, Cicely couldn’t help but smile. “Pleasure to meet such a beautiful lady,” Tommy said to her, a wink gracing across his face.

When she turned to speak to Harry, he was already gone, a few paces away towards a door. “Is he good?” She asked Tommy, turning back to her new acquaintance.

Tommy’s eyes widened. “The best,” he informed her before taking a sip from a mug of what she assumed was beer. “You’re in for a treat if you’ve never seen ‘im fight ‘fore.”

Cicely agreed, the prospect of a sweaty Harry in the ring a bit more enticing than she perhaps wanted to admit. She was able to get some information on Harry out of Tommy, the combination of a pretty girl and a mug of beer not a combination meant for secrecy. He fought with Josiah McClemmons’s youngest brother in the war, the experience making them nearly brothers, and came back to Birmingham with them. No one knew where Harry was from, but people had a number of guesses, everything from London to Liverpool. Apparently before the war he had been learning to fight, and the war sharpened his skills, so when they came back it seemed natural that Josiah would use the rings as a way to make money, using Harry as his prized fighter.

She couldn’t help but think it made Harry sound a bit like the Spanish bulls she had learned about in a magazine, a caged animal. But Tommy assured her Harry loved it when she asked, so she tried to put her mind at ease.

“Who is he fighting?” She asked Tommy after refusing his offer for a beer of her own.

“Peters—a local bloke,” Tommy replied. “Harry’s expected to win.”

Cicely gathered as much from the grumblings of his name that she could hear when the betting started, money flying in the air. It was fascinating to her, and she thought that she also fascinated the men—she was the only woman in the room and she tried not to squirm against the wall she leaned against.

But then, she heard a cry go up, and Harry’s opponent came out of a door, trailed by two men. “He’s massive,” she told Tommy as she watched the man walk to the ring.

Tommy grunted in response. “Harry’s fast, though.”

She hoped he was fast enough. Peters crested the ring, pushing himself between the ropes. One of his men handed him some gloves and Cicely watched as he pulled them on, his massive chest glistening under the gas lighting.

All of a sudden, a louder cry sounded, whoops and hollers of Harry’s name, and her gaze flickered to the door she had last seen him go into. There he was, walking towards the ring, a determined look set on his face. Tattoos littered his body and Cicely realized the few she had seen were a mere teasing of the real deal. And seeing Harry without a shirt on, his broad shoulders and narrow waist, tanned skin in the light, she couldn’t help but think he was even more attractive than she had thought.

A man helped Harry into the ring, and when he stood up, she caught sight of tape covering where his nipples should be. What in the world? She turned to Tommy and pointed at Harry. “What is the tape for?”

Tommy guffawed immediately, beer sloshing in his mug. “He’s got ‘em pierced.”

“What?”

She expected Tommy to tell her he was joking, but instead he nodded. “Got ‘em done durin’ the war, apparently. Some dare from his mates. Now he’s gotta have ‘em taped up or they’ll get ripped out.”

Cicely truly didn’t have the words for a response to that. She turned back to the ring, eyes set on the two pieces of tape over each of his nipples, entranced by the idea of them being pierced. She had heard rumors from her friends of ladies getting them done, but men? Why on earth would they want them done? She had never understood it on women, but the prospect of them on men completely confounded her imagination. Although, her best friend had told her it made them more sensitive, so perhaps that worked on men as well.

The thought was tantalizing at the very least.

“Sure ya don’t want a beer, love?” Tommy asked.

She had grown to quite like his company. He was a bit crude, but for some reason she liked that he didn’t treat her like she was made of glass like most of the men she knew. Her gaze darted between Harry, standing in the ring, and Tommy’s mug. “You know what? Sure.”

Tommy beamed. He was overjoyed at the idea, and Cicely was as well. She had never actually had beer before, just sips of champagne and wine here and there when she snuck it from her parents or during parties. But nothing as normal as beer—she didn’t even think her father drank it, to be honest. Perhaps that was why the idea was so exciting to her. Tommy left her on her own for a few minutes and she tried not to let the stares that still lingered on her bother her. Instead, she watched Harry, listened to the announcer, some chap in a jacket and askew flat cap, read out their names and weights. The part about Harry being the reigning champion stuck with her.

Cicely had never seen a boxing match before. Sure, she had heard of them, but actually been to one in person? Never. And much less one that was definitely illegal and held in a warehouse, a bunch of drunk men betting and still in their work uniforms. It made her heart race and she liked the feeling—usually she just got it when she rode Joseph, who she hoped had gone home to her estate.

“Here ya are.” Tommy had reappeared, a full mug of beer in his other hand for her. “Got ya somethin’ my sister likes.”

Cicely took the mug. It was heavy, heavier than she was expecting. Would she even be able to drink it all? She stared at the murky brown liquid, the foam on top, and then up at Tommy who she could tell was stifling a laugh. Fuck it, she thought. And took a long sip. It wasn’t as bad as she expected. Sour, sure, but it was also refreshing. A bit heavy, and considering she had only eaten some toast today, that wasn’t a negative thing. “It’s not bad,” she told Tommy, who gave her a grin in response.

She was about to say something else when she heard a bell sound—she had been so focused she had missed the start of the match. Whirling around, the first thing she saw was Peters’ arm fly through the air. The breath knocked from her chest at the possibility of Harry getting hit, but to her pleasant surprise he ducked it completely, feet helping him to move away from his attacker. The crowd cheered and Cicely took another sip, the action of having the drink in her hand helping calm her nerves as she watched Harry dance around Peters, ducking at every punch. She could see the frustration in Peters’ eyes, and the focus in Harry’s eyes making her scream out his name along with the men in the room.

She could feel Tommy’s eyes on her as she did it. She didn’t even need to look at him to know that surprise was written all over his face. If Cicely was going to be at a boxing match for the first time in her life, drinking her first beer, she was going to enjoy it. And watching Harry take a swing—and make contact—at Peters was exactly the excuse she needed to scream his name again.

The match passed quickly, and by the end of it Cicely had reached the end of her beer and her and Tommy were laughing at the fear in Peters’ eyes as Harry’s punches landed. He was winning by a long shot, and she had to admit, she was proud. During the whole match she had barely been able to take her eyes off of him, gaze trained on the sweat dripping down his cut body, his broad shoulders and tattooed skin glistening. His hair was stuck to his forehead and neck with sweat, and for some reason she had the innate desire to twirl it off of his forehead and see what he did.

She also desperately wanted to see his nipples without the tape.

Desperately.

He was beautiful in the ring, his steps almost like choreography she had learned as a child to all of the dances she had to know for parties. Except Harry looked like a natural up there, his body moving before Peters made the move, as if he could read his opponent’s mind, his reflexes faster than anything she had ever seen before. She had a million questions for him the minute he stepped out of the ring, but the first thing she wanted to was clean the blood off of his body—blood which was a mixture of Harry’s and Peters’.

The end of the match happened so quickly that Cicely barely caught it. One minute, Harry was boxed into a corner, his arms up to protect his face, and the next, he was throwing a powerful punch to Peters’ face, the sound of bone crunching at Peters hit the ground so loud she could hear it over the men yelling in the ring. The announcer counted and she watched Harry’s chest rise and fall, his breathing ragged. Everyone else was staring at Peters, but her eyes were glued on Harry. And then, his lifted to her, their sight lines catching from across the room, and she could’ve sworn she saw him smile at her.

As much as she wanted to rush to the side of the ring as many people did, she waited where she was. She knew Harry would come find her eventually, since she was sleeping in his home, as weird as that sounded in her brain. So she turned to Tommy while she waited, her bones feeling light in her body. “He’s good,” she said, her words slightly slurring. Huh. That was weird.

“Told ya!” Tommy replied, taking her mug from her. “Forgot to ask you, love, how do you know our fighter?”

Her eyes trailed across the room to Harry, who she noticed was making his way towards them, a towel draped around his neck. “He saved me,” she said, watching his body flex as he moved. And her words were true, but in that moment she didn’t know quite how true they were. Only later, would she look back on the moment she met Harry and consider how he had changed her life by picking her lifeless body up on that dirt road in the middle of a storm.

Harry had fought the desire to look at Cecily throughout the match, and now that he was done he couldn’t stop. She looked so relaxed, leaned against the wall with Tommy laughing, her blond hair messy and her eyes bright. It was if his feet were carrying him towards her without a second thought, weaving through the crowd of sweaty drunk men in pursuit of the girl made of light. The closer he got, though, the more he noticed how she stumbled on her feet, how rosy her cheeks were, how loud she laughed.

Fuck.

Tommy had gone and gotten her drunk. Tommy might have been Harry’s friend, but that didn’t make him the smartest bloke in a room.

As he reached them, she took an uneasy step and Harry was there immediately. His hands fit around Cicely’s waist like it was the place he belonged, the lingering smell of perfume in his nostrils before he could clear the fog of his mind. “Ya okay, love?” The words slipped from his mouth, the pet name he had never called a single woman before just finding his way into his speech, as if his brain knew that she was special. He sure thought so.

Cicely turned her head, her gaze catching his and a smile broke across her face. “Harry! You were incredible!”

“Thank you,” he replied, gingerly removing his hands despite the fact that all he wanted was to hold onto her hips for the rest of time. “Tommy, did you give her beer?”

“He did,” Cicely answered instead, a hiccup escaping her mouth. She rushed to cover her lips, a blush creeping across her cheeks at the sound. “It was quite tasty.”

“I’ll bet,” Harry said, giving Tommy a hard look that Tommy only shrugged at. “I’ve got to change and get you home,” he told her, processing the situation here. Although he trusted Tommy with his life, in this moment he didn’t trust him not to give Cicely more beer.

Before he could say anything though, Cicely was speaking, her fingers brushing across his arm. The feeling sent sparks up his spine, delicate compared the touches he was used to, the ones he had just experienced. Her fingers weren’t callused, but soft, as if she hadn’t seen a day of work in her life. Which she probably hadn’t. “Can I come with you?” She asked, eyes on his, a slight pout on her lips that drew his gaze in no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

“While I change?”

She nodded. “I’ve got some questions about the match that I want to ask you.”

Harry glanced at Tommy who he could tell was barely holding back a laugh, a grin on his face that told Harry he would never hear the end of this exchange. “Fine,” Harry told her, the word coming out gruff. “Tommy, I’ll see you later.”

Cicely slipped her fingers around Harry’s wrist as he stepped away, and he tried to resist the immediate urge that came over him to rip them off, the touch something he hadn’t experienced in ages. The feeling of a woman’s hands on him was one of the things he had not indulged in when he came back from France, preferring drink and alcohol to drown the memories in. The prospect of one of them experiencing him at night, while he slept, was enough to make him frightened enough to avoid the concept.

So when Cicely touched Harry, even in the simplest of ways, it stirred something in him that he hadn’t felt in a very, very long time. Something that he hadn’t experienced since before his life changed, since before he saw men die in front of him, his friends lose limbs and call out for their mothers in their final moments. He had always thought that his ability to feel had died on the battlefields of France, but with Cicely’s fingers on his skin, perhaps he was wrong.

She didn’t remove them, either, as they moved through the throngs of men. When they reached the hallway that led to the room where he got dressed, though, he had no reason to let her continue touching his skin. So he wrenched his hand from her grip, as much as he wanted to let her touch every inch of his skin if she could continue to make him feel something again.

“I need to wash off,” he said when he shut the door behind them. “Wait over there.” He pointed to a couch in the corner of the room. Usually it was an office of some kind, but for Harry it was his dressing room. A basin of water sat on a table, cold and full, and he was itching to wash his sweat-coated skin. Surprisingly, Cicely followed his directions, and so he turned to the basin, using a rag to rinse off his skin, the feeling of the cold water like heaven on his pores.

“When did you learn to box?”

His head perked up at her voice. He could barely see her in the dimly lit room, but the outline of her was enough, her legs thrown over the arm of the couch in a complete unladylike way. “I was sixteen.” He surprised himself with his honesty, but in the room with just Cicely, for some reason he let a piece of his past slip through.

“Do you like it?”

The question had Harry pause. Did he like it? He cupped some water and ran it through his hair, the sound of the water dripping into the basin filling the silence between them. “It’s a job,” he told her simply. It was the best answer he had. He didn’t really have the luxury of considering whether or not he liked his job. It paid the bills and earned him a reputation that meant no one tried to talk to him, which was all he wanted. After France, all he wanted was to be left alone, save for a select few.

He was focused on his thoughts and the murky water in front of him that he didn’t see Cicely move from her position on the couch. Suddenly, she was there, her fingers dancing across his back that faced her. “Hand me the basin,” she said, voice firm in his ears.

Harry considered fighting her, but his body exposed him. His body craved her touch on his skin, and so he slid the basin to the side so she could reach it. The rag was wrung, and then she was brushing it over his back, reaching the places he couldn’t reach. He could smell her perfume, the faintest taste of beer on her tongue as she breathed lightly in his ear, the traces of jam on her breath from the food he had given her hours before. It made his fists clench against the table and he hoped she didn’t notice.

They stayed that way, Cicely brushing the rag across his skin, wiping away his sins from the night. Her fingers brushed a cut once or twice and he hissed, stopping her in her tracks. She halted her motions each time and wrung out the cloth with fresh water, cleaning the wound with a delicate touch he had never felt. She murmured how they needed alcohol when they got home, how she needed to properly clean the wound. It was something his mother would’ve told him, he thought to himself, a thought he quickly pushed aside as he clenched his jaw.

“Turn around,” she said, voice so quiet he barely heard it above their breathing.

And Harry did as she said. She had made him pliant under her touch, his desperation not to let her stop clouding his ability to speak. His bum pressed against the table and his eyes caught hers in the dim lighting, the gaze that passed between them making Harry stop breathing for a second. But when she brushed the cloth over a bruise, the wince that fell from his lips drew him from his fog.

The rag criss-crossed his body, covering the area he had already cleaned, but he didn’t stop her. It was only when her fingers brushed over the tape across his nipples that his hand shot up, grabbing her wrist and halting her movement. But her eyes zeroed in on him, a determined look in her eyes that made him pause. “Let me see them.” Her words were gentle, but firm.

That made him release her hand, and he sucked in a breath and she pulled the tape from his nipples, the air on his sensitive skin making his stomach clench. He stood there under her gaze as she looked at him, the bars through each nipple that he had gotten on a dare. At first, he had been embarrassed of them, regretted them because they hurt like hell and scratched against his uniform. He considered getting them removed, or just ripping them out, but each time he paused. Paused just enough to let the thought pass, and his best friend’s voice entered his mind. “Who gives a fuck, anyways?” And that was the voice that made him keep them.

Now, it was too late to turn back. He was a boxer and the moment he stepped into the ring with taped nipples, it became something he was known for. The stories circled, tall tales that made Harry chuckle to himself, but he never told the truth. He liked the mystery around them. They became a sort of badge of honor, something that set him apart.

But he had never experienced a woman’s gaze on them, and he couldn’t help but fear her reaction. Would she be disgusted? Ridicule him?

Cicely, though, just looked at them, and then up at his face. “What do they feel like?” She asked tentatively.

It was a question he had never been asked before, actually. And one he didn’t quite know how to answer, because after two years with them they had become normal to him. “They heighten everything,” he replied honestly. It was about the only answer he could give.

This seemed to pique her interest. “Can I touch them?”

Fuck yes, his body screamed, desperate for her fingers on the most sensitive part of his body. His gaze zeroed in on hers, searching her eyes for a hint of a possibility she would ridicule him. But instead he found just genuine curiosity. And perhaps a hint of desire. So, he told her, “Yes.”

When her fingers grazed the bars, her warm touch on the cold metal that ran under his skin, he tried not to flinch, but it was difficult. Her touch was like a lightning bolt through his body, setting every one of his nerves on fire. Holding in the desire to moan was one of the hardest things he had done, and as she touched the other, fingers curiously exploring his skin, it became more difficult. And then she whispered, “I like them.”

Harry’s eyes snapped from where her fingers touched his skin to her eyes, and he found her already looking at him. He watched her lick across her top lip, the flush to her cheeks and wide eyes that stared at him making his body boil. It was too much. He pulled away, desperate for space, for something to allow himself to calm down.

Cicely must have sensed the change in his demeanor, because she immediately stepped back, the rag dropping into the basin of dirty water. Sweat, grime, and blood all mixed together and Harry thought as he looked at his reflection in the water that a mixture had never described him more.

“Let’s go, I need to eat,” Harry said, bending to grab the shirt from his bag on the floor.

Cicely didn’t reply with anything but a nod, and when he had laced his boots she followed him out of the room. The warehouse had emptied out, just some of Josiah’s boys around to help direct the cleanup. Harry knew he’d stop by the office tomorrow to get his cut of the winnings, so he didn’t bother to stick around. Instead, he pushed open the front doors and led Cicely out into the nighttime Birmingham breeze of coal and horse shit.

Cicely awoke to the sound of someone moaning and talking. Her eyes blinked to adjust to the darkness in Harry’s bedroom, her mind taking a second to gather her bearings and remember where she was. Then she heard the sound, something that resembled an injured animal, the edge of fear and pain that made her skin crawl. Last night Harry had given her one of his shirts to sleep in after she said she wanted to wash her clothes and leave them out for the night, and the cotton material bunched under her thighs and she swung them over the edge of the bed. She paused to see if she heard the sound again.

This time, a scream ripped through the house, and Cicely knew something was wrong. She pulled open Harry’s door and moved through the hall, eyes searching to see if she saw anyone, but it was empty. And then she heard it again, and this time without the barrier of a wall, she could tell who it was.

It was Harry.

Her feet didn’t bother to avoid the creaks on the stairs as she moved down the stairs to where he was asleep on the couch. The only light was the faintest bit from the moon, high in the sky, and it was just enough to make out the pained expression on Harry’s face and the thrashing of his body on the couch. He was talking to himself, something about the dark and the word No repeated over and over again, his voice cresting in panic.

It was a nightmare, she realized as she crouched next to him on the floor.

“No, please, it’s too dark, please—“

“Harry,” she said firmly, hands reaching out to grip his wrists to hold his arms to the couch cushions underneath him. “Harry, wake up.”

His eyes didn’t open though, and his body only trashed more under her. She didn’t know what to do, how to wake him up. The only thing she could think of was how when she was scared it helped when she felt safe. She didn’t know what made Harry feel safe, but for her, it was when her mother held her. So carefully, she lifted Harry’s shoulders, trying to avoid his arms trashing as she did so. Once she was seated on the couch she tugged him into her, letting her arms wrap around his chest and pin down his arms.

She murmured his name over and over again, softly in his ear to try and rouse him from the dream. “It’s Cicely,” she told him, “You’re safe, Harry, you can wake up. Wake up, Harry, you’re safe.” With their bodies this close she could feel his heartbeat, the way it raced in his chest. What was he experiencing? Where was he? She wanted to rouse him, pull him out of it and bring him back to her, but she was powerless.

After a few tries, she saw his eyes flutter open, his arms immediately trying to himself free from her grip.

“It’s me,” she said softly. “Hey, hey, it’s me.”

“Cicely?” His voice was rough from the screaming and it broke her. It was raw in a way she hadn’t heard from him, honest and open. Nothing protecting him from her.

She could feel his heartbeat slowing already, and the thought put her at ease. “Yes.”

He didn’t say anything for a few beats, and Cicely just ran her hand up and down his back, hoping to calm him as much as she could. His breath was ragged, big inhales of air and deep exhales, but it was becoming more normal as time passed. “I—I’m sorry,” he eventually said, voice small in the room.

But he had nothing to apologize for, Cicely thought to herself. The last thing he should do is apologize—it’s not his fault. “It’s okay,” she told him earnestly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

That made him pull away from her arms, her skin immediately missing his. Her arms fell to her side and Harry sat up, swiveled, and laid his face in his hands. “No,” is all he told her, not even lifting his head.

She didn’t know what he needed from her in that moment, but she knew she would do anything. Somehow she had only known this boy for a day, and yet the sight of his pain made her heart break. “Do—do you want me to stay?” It was the only thing she could think of to help, and if it would work then she would do it.

But he shook his head. He didn’t want her there. And the last thing she would do is push him after what had just transpired, so she stood, the hem of his cotton shirt reaching an unladylike mid-thigh. When he finally looked at her, she saw that he noticed, his eyes falling to the place where the material ended and her skin began. She tugged at it, hoping he didn’t judge her—she didn’t exactly stop and think about getting dressed, she just moved. “I…”

“Looks good on ya,” he said, words reverberating in Cicely’s mind.

She stood there, as still as stone, trying to figure out what to say to him. No man had ever seen her like this, and she had always been taught that they shouldn’t. And yet, the idea of Harry seeing her exposed legs, her hair messy from sleep, her in his shirt, it didn’t bother her in the slightest. So she didn’t disguise the blush that she could feel in her cheeks, and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Try and get some sleep,” she told him, and then she turned away, heading up the stairs and back to his room.

When she looked back from the third stair, Harry’s eyes were transfixed on her figure, gaze locked on her. For a moment, she held it, letting him watch her, but then she turned her head and went the rest of the way up the stairs, leaving Harry behind in the darkness.

Harry didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

The prospect of having the dreams again (although he got them most nights) and Cicely waking up again was too frightening a thought for him to allow himself to go to sleep. Instead, he ended up having a glass or two of whiskey in the wee hours of the morning, smoking too many cigarettes on the doorstep, and thinking. His thoughts revolved around Cicely, weaving in and out of the snatches of moments they had spent together—of which there were few—and the bits he knew about her. Which was very little. He didn’t even know her last name, where she was from, or why on Earth she was out in the middle of a rainstorm, lying on her back in the mud. He hadn’t asked, not wanting to make her uncomfortable or push her to talk, because he had this feeling that she was more than some spoiled rich girl.

The fact that she was rich was an assumption on his part, but one he felt was probably right. First, there were her clothes, which were nicer than any he had seen a girl around here wear, boots that looked like they were new, unscuffed.  Then there was the way she looked at his neighborhood—as if she had never seen something like it before. When she had walked out of his room and into the rest of the house, he had had the fleeting thought that perhaps he should be embarrassed, and at moments he was. But as they spent more time together, he began to get the feeling that even though Cicely may not be used to the way he lived, she didn’t seem to care all that much.

It intrigued him, the way she looked at his world. The way she had watched him during the match, the feeling of her eyes on his skin something he couldn’t shake, the way she had adapted to Tommy like a chameleon, blending in with ease. The way she had slid into the booth at the pub last night where they had eaten a late meal, complete disregard for the fight breaking out in the corner, her focus only on him and their meal. He kept expecting her to fit into the mold he had created for her, but she continued to slip away. And he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

Or the fact that she seemed to want to stay. When she had asked him if she could stay, and she said she didn’t want to go home quite yet, he immediately jumped to the worst of conclusions. That her father hurt her, that something had happened, and she was running from a past as dark as his. But then he reminded himself that she had money, wealth, status. Problems like the ones he knew didn’t exist in their world. Perhaps it wasn’t fair to cast her in a mold of wealth and opulence he had read about and encountered on a handful of occasions, people who used people like him and tossed them aside when they had had their fill. But the world wasn’t fair.

He flicked his cigarette butt into the street, the sounds of horses and distant rumble of cars, clap of house doors as men left for work telling him that the day was beginning. It was time for him to see Josiah and pay a visit to Nellie, who he hoped wouldn’t slam a door in his face. Inside, Cicely was still asleep—he couldn’t hear any footsteps from upstairs—so he decided to dart out while she was still sleeping. With any luck, he’d be back before she awoke.

The walk to Josiah’s offices was a well-remembered one, the row houses, shipyards and factories he passed old friends. He waved to the children he passed on their way to work or school, and nodded to the men he knew from matches or Josiah. He lived deep in Josiah’s territory, a requirement for what he did, and as a result every man was on Josiah’s payroll in some way. They all knew when to turn their heads, when to lock their doors, and when to pull out their guns. It used to unnerve Harry, but with time it became as normal as the nightmare that plagued his sleep.

He knocked on the back door as he was trained, a nod to Cyril when the door opened. People congratulated him on the match last night, and he didn’t respond. They all knew he was quiet most of the time, knew not to expect lengthy replies. Before France, he used to not shut up. Now, he preferred to think rather than talk.

Josiah’s door was ajar, his ankles propped up on the desk, the telephone stand in one hand, the handset in the other. His eyes darted up as Harry opened the door wider, shutting it quickly behind him. Josiah never changed much—a mustache on his upper lip, hard brown eyes that only lightened if he had enough drink in him, lips that curved into a smile when someone made a very bad mistake. He wore exclusively charcoal suits, saying black was too common, and he wanted to stand out, and a dark blue tie every day, a silver pocket watch chain tucked into his vest. Josiah had built his operations from the ground up, a man of barely 25 years of age when he came back from France, determined to make a name for himself and protect the community that had been, in his eyes, murdered by the British government for a war they had no business being conscripted for. His hatred for the government ran deep, deep enough to line the pockets of the police across southeast Birmingham, especially in Balsall Heath.

“Alright, but don’t fuck it up, ya hear?” Josiah said, nodding for Harry to sit in the leather chair across from his desk. It was the chair where Harry had sat during many conversations, both good and bad. “Yeah, okay.” Josiah hung up, resting the telephone back on the desk and running a hand through his longer dark brown hair. He picked his cigarette up from where it was burning in the ashtray, and swung his feet off the desk. “Heard ya won,” Josiah said, finally speaking to Harry.

Harry took the offer of a cigarette and nodded. “Peters wasn’t as bad as everyone said.”

“Mhm. I’ll tell Billy that when I see him.”

“He was Billy’s?” That was a surprise. Billy had been on the rise in the neighborhoods bordering Balsall Heath, his power growing to become something threatening to Josiah’s operation. So for Harry to be fighting one of Billy’s boys was unusual to say the least. Josiah didn’t usually like to risk the fights turning into something more—at least, not when they weren’t meant to be.

Josiah nodded, pushing aside a stack of papers and resting his elbows on the oak desk. “Newer kid. I was promised no trouble, thought I’d take the gamble.”

“Warn me next time, eh?” Harry wouldn’t have had Cicely within a mile of the warehouse if he had known his opponent was one of Billy’s. The prospect of guns coming out while she was in the room made his skin crawl.

But Josiah just chuckled and stubbed out his cigarette. “Goin’ soft on me, boy.” Harry hated it when Josiah called him that, but he always had. So he wasn’t going to start correcting him now, even though he was anything but a boy. “Heard ya had a girl there.”

Cicely. He knew Josiah would hear, but he had hoped he’d have a bit more time. “Yeah.”

Josiah wrenched open a door, reaching around for what Harry hoped was his pay. He wanted to get out of this damned office. Harry tolerated Josiah for Jack’s sake, but in truth Josiah had always been a bit too much of a wild card and a short fuse for Harry’s liking. But he gave Harry work, so he didn’t let his feelings get in the way. Plus, most men were short fuses after the war. “Where’d she come from?”

Harry chose not to answer, and thankfully Josiah didn’t push. He knew Harry didn’t like to talk, and most times he didn’t push too hard. “D’ya have the money from Manchester?”

Josiah didn’t reply, just pulled out a stack of bills, crisp and ordered, and placed them on the desk. “Manchester and last night,” he said and Harry took it, folding the bills over and shoving them into his pocket. It was more than most should carry, but Harry was anything but most people. “Don’t spend it all in one place, yeah?”

Unable to help it, he rolled his eyes, the tension in the room lifting. Josiah smirked and Harry pushed back the chair, the thought of getting back to Cicely making him eager to leave. “When’s Jack back?”

Josiah pulled a ledger from a drawer before responding. “Sunday.”

Harry nodded. Jack had been in London since last week, working on some deal that Harry didn’t have the status for the details on. “Tell him I’ll come by?”

“Sure.” Josiah didn’t look up as Harry took his leave, shutting the door behind him and giving Josiah’s secretary a nod. Next was Nellie’s, which he hoped would go smoothly, at least.

Unfortunately, he was not so lucky. Nellie stared at him when she opened the door, hair swept up on her head, clothes disheveled as usual. She cocked her hip against the door and rolled her eyes at him before asking, “What d’ya want, Harry?”

It had been over a year since he had rejected her, and yet she still treated him like he had broken it off with her after months. When in actuality, she had been the one to pursue him, and he hadn’t had it in him to tell her he wasn’t interested until she tried to kiss him. To say the least, things had been icy ever since. “Can I borrow some clothes?”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Clothes for who?”

“A girl.” To her credit, she didn’t react to that news with anything but a sigh.

“What happened to hers?” She asked, opening the door wider. He stepped inside, the sound of children from upstairs wrapping around him, the sound making his body itch. It was too loud.

“Mud,” he replied simply, looking around for something to keep his hands busy, but he turned up empty. “So?”

Nellie pointed to the couch in the sitting room, a bit sunk in and worn with love. “I’ve got some that no one picked up. What size is she?”

Harry sat down the couch, folding his fingers together. “About yours.”

Nellie gave him another pointed look, but said nothing. She just disappeared to where she kept the clothes she mended for ladies, and he had to sit there and listen to her younger siblings squeal and yell up the stairs. When she reappeared, she had a few things in a stack for him, which she set on the table next to him. “There.”

He looked at the stack, the fabric without anything around it. He would have to walk home with them under his arm. “No wrap?”

“No,” she replied, and he decided that she purposefully didn’t give him any. “3 shillings.”

Harry pulled the coins out and pressed them into her hand, taking the clothes and tucking them under his arm. “Thank you,” he said, and headed for the door, knowing when he wasn’t wanted.

“Bye, Harry,” Nellie said, and proceeded to slam the door in his face. Which he didn’t deserve, but wasn’t the type to protest. He checked his pocket watch—a little over an hour had passed since he left home. He wondered if Cicely would be waiting for him.

Walking into his home to find Cicely in his kitchen in nothing but his shirt made Harry stop in his tracks. While he knew he had seen her like this last night, last night it had been dark. In the dark he couldn’t see the lines golden curl of her hair, the milky white of her skin that seemed to go on for miles. It should be illegal, he thought to himself, to look as beautiful as her.

“You should put some clothes on,” he finally said, words gruff in the distance between them.

Cicely looked down at her legs and then at Harry. “I was waiting for you to come back, hopefully with clothes. Which I see you did.” She nodded at the stack of clothes under his arm and Harry knew he should move to give them to her, but he was frozen in place.

Seeing her in his kitchen, a plate with a piece of bread on it, an open jar of jam on the counter next to it, tea in his cup, it made him wonder for a split second what it would be like if she stayed. Like, really stayed. He knew that what was happening wasn’t permanent, that eventually she would have to go back to wherever home was for her. But having her in his home was making him realize that perhaps he didn’t like being alone as much as he had thought.

“Harry?”

His thoughts cleared and he jolted into action. He set the clothes on the table by the door and walked into the sitting room leaving her make her own decisions. Space, he thought to himself, he needed space from her. It was a push and pull inside of him—a pull that drew him to her and a push when he got too close. He stood by the fireplace, eyes trained on the black metal of it, as he listened to Cicely move through his home. Across the room to get the clothes, feet creaking on the stairs as she went up. When he heard her door shut he let out a breath, his body softening, tension leaving him.

The prospect of breakfast was enticing—he hadn’t eaten this morning. Porridge was what he had every morning, and this wasn’t the time for that to change. He shrugged off the jacket he had on, dropping it onto the couch, and headed for the kitchen.

When Cicely reappeared, the porridge was done and he was pouring it into two bowls, one for each of them. “Did you make me breakfast?” She asked, and his eyes drifted up to her. Nellie’s clothes fit her perfectly—a bit more snug on the curves of her body, but he wasn’t complaining.

“S’just porridge,” he replied and took the two bowls to the small table. He returned to the kitchen to grab his cup of tea, and he immediately felt her presence next to him as she picked up her own cup, left on the counter. Somehow he would have to get over the tension that raked through his body whenever she got near, but he didn’t know how he would manage that.

Cicely turned away from him and he followed her to the table, eyes trying to land anywhere but her body. She pulled out a chair and smiled at him softly. “Thank you. I’m not used to men cooking for me.”

Harry realized that him making breakfast for both of them meant they would have to eat together, that they would be forced to talk. The idea made him falter as he went to sit, but he forced himself to do it anyways, knowing that she would probably make him. “Mum taught me,” he mumbled, chair scraping against the floorboard as he say.

“Is that her in the photo?”

He knew exactly which photo she was talking about—the only one he had up. “Yes.”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and dipped her spoon into the porridge, taking a bite. She was probably used to better quality, an actual chef maybe (he had heard rich people had those), but she didn’t give any indication that it was bad. Instead, she just took another bite before opening her mouth again to speak. “Where are you from?”

Harry didn’t tell people where he was from. It was a decision he made when he came to Birmingham, to leave his past behind him. The photo was up in his sitting room because he would’ve felt like shit for not putting it up, not because he particularly wanted it there.

“Harry?” She prompted, gaze fluttering over his face.

His grip tightened on the spoon in his palm, eyes on the food in front of him. “I don’t talk about my past.” Why did he want to tell her? He could feel it on the tip of his tongue and he tightened his jaw, trying to keep it from tumbling out on its own accord.

Cicely considered his statement as she sipped on her tea. “What do you talk about?”

The question made him look at her, her brown eyes already waiting for his. “What d’ya mean?”

“If you don’t talk about your past, then what do you talk to people about?”

He didn’t talk to people, he thought to himself. That was how he dealt with it. He only spoke to people who he felt safe with—Jack mainly, sometimes Tommy, Josiah if forced. They all knew his past, knew not to share it around. “Dunno.”

The sigh that slipped from her lips made Harry grimace. He had disappointed her and he didn’t like the feeling. “How about this? I tell you about myself, and you do the same in return. We each get a question.”

The idea was enticing, mainly because Harry desperately wanted to know more about her. She was like a period to him and he wanted to know everything that came before it in the sentence. Was it worth telling her about his past? Perhaps. “Fine. What’s your last name?”

Her eyes twinkled, a playful grin sliding onto her face. “King,” she said, that one piece of information rocking Harry’s world immediately. The Kings were as notorious as Josiah was, just in a different way. They owned dozens of garment factories in Birmingham, controlled a handful of shipyards, one or two coal factories. Harry estimated probably half of Birmingham’s working class was employed by the King family and he assumed properly, by Cicely’s father.“Where are you from?”

“Church Hulme,” he told her. “Who is your father?”

He searched her expression to see if she recognized it, but she didn’t seem to. And why would she—it was nothing but a small farming town, some local businesses and a forge. “William King. How old are you?”

So she was the daughter of the head of the King family, an heiress to a fortune larger than anything he could imagine, no doubt. He knew the Kings had only daughters, but he didn’t know how many, or if Cicely was the oldest. The importance of staying up to date on the lives of the King family was never something he felt inclined to do, but now it was vital information. “22. How did you end up on that road?”

“I went riding,” she said after taking another bite of porridge. “The lightning scared my horse and he bucked me off. I must have passed out when I hit the ground.” Cicely considered him for a moment before speaking. “Where did you fight?”

Harry’s blood ran cold at her question. It dredged up memories he didn’t want to talk about. “We’re done,” he told her, pushing away his finished porridge and standing abruptly.

“Harry, wait.“ Her hand wrapped around his wrist, catching his arm as he stepped away, and the feeling of her skin on his made him have to close his eyes to get his breathing under control. Did she know what she did to him? “I’m sorry.”

“‘m not talking about that,” he said, not budging from his position.

Cicely’s thumb brushed across his forearm, the thinner skin meaning he could feel the press of her fingers on his body. “That’s okay,” she said, voice soft. “Will you come back?”

Although he probably shouldn’t, he opened his eyes and turned back around. “Why don’t you want to go home?”

Her hand dropped from his wrist immediately at his question. “My father is forcing me to marry Clifford Stevens. Do you know who that is?” Harry shook his head. He didn’t exactly keep up with high society Birmingham circles in his free time. “He’s thirty and disgusting. He never even acknowledges that I might have a brain, much less that I’m a human being. If I marry him I’ll end up shut in his estate to raise his children for the rest of my life and I would rather die than sentence myself to a life like that.”

Clifford Stevens immediately became Harry’s least favorite person in the world, with the second being William King. To sentence a girl as kind, spirited, and open-minded as Cicely to a life as a glorified hostage was deplorable. “Why is your father forcing you to marry him?”

“We’re nearly broke,” Cicely said with a sigh. That was news to Harry. “Father has been losing money for years. He gambles most of what he makes away and because he’s a fucking idiot he never wins, and he hired a series of treasurers who are apparently inept at balancing the budgets. The factories are bleeding money and rather than take any responsibility for it, his solution is to marry me off with the knowledge that Clifford will bankroll my father’s lifestyle.” Perhaps it was the look on Harry’s face that gave him away, but Cicely gave him a weak smile. “Didn’t know the truth of the Kings, did you?”

“No.”

She fiddled with the cuff of her blouse as Harry considered her words. Was there any way to get out of her future? Probably not, unless she left behind everything that came with her name. Although from what she told him, it didn’t sound like there was much left. “Will you tell me about your family secrets in exchange for mine?”

His family secrets? God, where did he start. His gaze drifted across Cicely, her fingers brushing through the ends of her hair. What would she say to his answer? He supposed it didn’t hurt to tell her, since it wasn’t like she would tell anyone in his life about it. They were from different worlds, after all. “I found out when I came back from the war that ‘m not my father’s son.”

Cicely blinked at him, face softening as the words settled in. “What?”

“It’s just what it sounds like,” he said, leaning back in the chair and taking a breath. “Grew up my whole life thinking I had one father, when in reality it’s not him at all. My mum had an affair with some bloke and the man who raised me,” he spit out, hating the word father when he thought of him, “decided to keep me.” The feeling of her hand on his warmed his skin, but didn’t have the calm effect that he expected she intended. “Haven’t been back since.”

“Harry,” she murmured, calling his eyes from where her hand covered his to her face. “I’m sorry.”

It was the first time someone had told him that, now that he thought about it. He had told Jack, who said, Fuck mate, that sucks. Want another pint? And that was that, but he didn’t mind it. Somehow though, Cicely’s compassion made his chest ache, his throat close up. He could feel tears rising inside of him and he panicked—he hadn’t cried since France and he wasn’t bloody going to start now, not in front of her. “I—I need a second,” he said quickly, scooting back in the chair and walking into the hallway, leaving her behind at the table.

He rested his forearms on the wall and let his head fall on his neck. Deep breaths in and out, his eyes shut, struggling to keep his brain together as his ears buzzed. They didn’t deserve his anger, he reminded himself for the millionth time, they didn’t deserve shit after the secrets they had kept from him. That his sister wasn’t his sister. The man who had taught him how to play football, how to tie a tie, wrestled with him as a kid, wasn’t his father. His fists clenched against the wallpaper, knuckles hurting from last night, but the pain almost felt good to Harry—it was a feeling he knew.

All of a sudden he felt a hand on his shoulder and he whipped his head to the side to find Cicely standing there. “What?” He asked, not moving an inch, but just looking at her, trying to understand for the life of him why she was there.

Instead of responding, she ducked her head under his arm and wrapped her arms around his waist, pulling his body into hers.

She was hugging him, he realized.

He was frozen, unable to move. He could smell the faint scent of flowers on her skin, somehow still clinging to her despite being in Balsall Heath for almost two days. The darkness of this place seemed to not even touch her, the light from her repelling all of it away. Her fingers gripped the back of his shirt loosely, but just enough to where he could feel her through the fabric, her body feeling impossibly close to him.

No one had touched him like this in years. And he didn’t know what to do, how to respond, how to act.

The only thing he could think to do was to lift one of his hands from where it was clenched in a fist against the wallpaper, and brush it down her hair. It was soft against his skin, the strands of it darting between his fingers and petting the rough calluses he had from years of hard work and fighting. They stung against his cuts from the past week’s worth of fights, but he didn’t care. The prospect of touching her was enough to push all of the pain away.

Slowly, she lifted her head, eyes finding his. She was sandwiched between him and the wall and it was way too fucking close, so Harry immediately took a step back, giving her space. “Will you show me your Birmingham?” She asked him softly, voice echoing in the narrow hallway.

“What d’ya mean?”

“The Birmingham that’s your home,” she offered as an explanation. “I want to see it how you do.”

His Birmingham, the one that he had made a home, full of people who knew him as he was now. Respected him, feared him even—because what was the line, really, between fear and respect? The prospect of her wanting to understand his world the way he saw it was one he had never expected, but appreciated more than he could say. “Okay.”

Harry took her on a grand tour of Balsall Heath, them weaving through the streets with children playing, horses and cars  making their way down the thoroughfares. He showed her the factories her father owned, which he assumed she had never seen before, and he studied her as she saw the conditions of the workers her father employed. Cicely seemed to be everything her father wasn’t and he hoped that that continued to her views on labor.

Parts of Balsall Heath were more well-to-do, people who could afford to send their children to the art school opposite the public baths. But Harry showed her the parts he knew, the parts where people scrapped together money to make ends meet, where they relied on wages from people like Cicely’s father. He was thankful he had gotten her clothes from Nellie because at least at this rate she blended in more, although her nice boots still stuck out like a sore thumb. Although, he expected her being with him drew a decent amount of attention. When men stopped him to talk about a match and their children were with them, Cicely would squat and talk to them, not minding that her skirts got muddy from the unpaved roads. Harry had a difficult time understanding her when she did things like that. She was so unlike so many people of her station, and yet here she was crouching to talk with grubby children on unpaved streets with a pile of horse shit just a few feet away with a smile on her face.

For a second, he let himself consider what it would be like if she stayed. But he didn’t let that thought linger for too long.

They visited his favorite pub for a pint and she laughed at the barkeep’s jokes and charmed every man they met. Perhaps Harry should have been hesitant to introduce Cicely to so many people in his world, but at the same time he didn’t care what people thought of him. If Cicely wanted to see his world, then by God was he going to show it to her.

It was getting dark by the time they made their way back to his flat, bellies full from a roast they’d had at the pub. Harry watched her walk beside him, her eyes darting around the homes as they passed. “I like it here,” she told him, not meeting his eye. “Everyone is so nice.”

He couldn’t help but scoff at the thought. “Not everyone is. See all these houses?” She nodded. “In every one of them is a man who works for Josiah in some way. There’s a gun in every one of these houses for when Josiah calls.”

“Does he call?” Cicely asked, eyes finally turning to him as they walked.

He nodded, hoping that was the explanation she sought. From the way her expression changed, he assumed it was. Harry didn’t know what to do with her naivety, because it mystified him that someone could know so little of the world around them. Although, he thought as they rounded the corner to his street, he couldn’t exactly blame her.

“Does he ever…call for you?”

“Yes,” he responded because it was the honest answer. Even though he got to avoid a lot of the action because he specifically had told Josiah when he signed on to box for him that he didn’t want to get his hands dirty, it came with the territory. Sometimes they needed all the people they could, and with someone as skilled at fighting as Harry and the experience from the war that he had, it would be idiotic for them not to call on him.

They reached his house in silence and he unlocked the door before pushing it open. She stepped in, and leaned down to wipe off her boots. He liked how she had already made herself feel at home in his space, knew that he always wipes off his shoes in the entryway on the mat, because otherwise the filth from the streets ends up inside. “Do you have a match tonight?” She asked, moving to the side.

“No.” It was his night off, but he had one tomorrow.

Her fingertips grazed the table and he watched them trail, the thought of her fingers on his skin drifting into his mind. “What do you do in the evenings you have off?”

Harry considered her question. He didn’t know, really. The evenings all passed, though, somehow. Time was irrelevant to him since the nights dragged on, plagued by nightmares most of the time. He spent a lot of time staring at the wall in the dark. Sometimes he took walks. Sometimes he drank enough to where the dreams didn’t come, but that was when it was really bad. “Nothing, really.”

Cicely rotated to see him, the sliver of moonlight those shone through his curtains hitting her blond hair perfectly. “Do you do anything but box?”

“No.”

“Do you read?”

Harry hadn’t read a book since before France. “Not anymore.”

Cicely turned to his bookcase, which had collected dust from disuse. “Then why do you have so many books?”

“They make me think of my sister,” he replied, the truth shocking both of them. Gemma loved books, always had—she would be curled up on a chair all day with a book in her hands if their mother didn’t make her stop. When he was young, she would read to Harry sometimes, his childhood memories a mixture of fantasy and historical tales from his sister’s lips. Perhaps the books were his way of keeping her close.

Her fingers grazed the spines of his collection, dust falling around her. “Do you talk to her?”

“No.” He’d picked up the telephone a handful of times, ready to say the number to the operator. But then he’d think again, and set down the stand.

“I like this one.” Cicely pulled a bound volume off the shelf, her eyes dancing across the cover. “The Magnificent Ambersons.”

The name meant nothing to him. He bought bestsellers because he knew his sister did the same. Sometimes he considered reading one just to see what she would’ve thought about it. One time he almost mailed her one on her birthday. But each time, he did nothing.

“Can I read to you?”

Her voice was hesitant, nervous of what he would say. No one had read to him since the war, when his friends would read aloud their letters if someone didn’t get one. It made them feel like someone was looking out for them, even if they didn’t get a letter themselves. If it had been someone else, he probably would have said no. But it was Cicely and her voice was like his favorite church hymnal, entrancing and meditative. He would have listened to her talk for hours. So he said yes.

She directed him to lay down on the couch and he did, while she sat in the chair to the side. Harry lit a cigarette as she opened the cover, the sound of her tuning the pages the only noise except for the flick of his lighter. And then, she began. “Major Amberson had ‘made a fortune’ in 1873, when other people were losing fortunes, and the magnificence of the Ambersons began then.”

Cicely’s eyes fluttered open and at first she didn’t know why. But then she heard a shout and a long, deep moan from downstairs. It was Harry again. Her hands pushed at the duvet and she flicked on the light by the bed. As she left his room the sound of him moaning in his sleep, words she couldn’t understand reached her ears, but louder without the muffling of the door. She didn’t bother to keep her footsteps quiet as she made her way to the stairs and down to the first floor, her eyes adjusting to the dark.

A scream, blood curdling and filled with anguish, ripped through the house, and Cicely flew the remaining few feet to the couch. The sound of Harry’s scream, sharp and frightened, shook her to her core. She just wanted him out of there, free from the clutches of whatever demon robbed him of his sleep.

“Harry!” She said, loudly, jostling his shoulder to try and rouse him. Unlike last night when she had knelt by the couch, Harry wasn’t flailing around. He was stick-straight, as if held in a straight jacket, but she could feel his pulse racing when she pressed her fingers to his sweaty skin. It was almost more frightening—seeing him unmoving but mumbling nonsense in his sleep. The only part of him that moved was his head, ever so slightly shaking back and forth, a stream of Nos leaving his lips.

“No,” he mumbled, “please, it’s too dark, please.” His words from last night were back again, and she wanted to know where he was. What endless circle of hell he had found himself in and how to dig him out of it.

She decided to do what she had done before, and tried to lift his shoulders from the couch. But this time, Harry’s body was so tense that she couldn’t lift him, as if he had made himself a thousand pounds. As he let out another loud groan, she grimaced—she had to wake him, she just didn’t know how. “Harry,” she said again, “wake up, please. Please, Harry.”

But her words didn’t seem to do anything, because the next thing she knew his scream was filling her ears, the sound ripping at her heart. Her body seemed to move without her knowledge as she threw herself on top of him, her knees falling to either side of his hips, her palms cupping his face. “Harry,” she said softly, brushing her thumbs across his cheekbones. “Wake up for me, please. It’s Cicely. It’s safe, I’m here.”

Somehow, that seemed to rouse him, because his eyes fluttered open, his hazel eyes meeting hers in the dark. She was inches from his face, and she wondered if his sight was filled with her face just as hers was. “Cicely?”

“It’s me,” she said, brushing his sweaty hair off of his forehead. “You’re safe now.” She could feel the sigh that left his body intimately, her skin touching his in parts. That was when she realized how close they were, how completely improper her position was. She was on top of him for Pete’s sake. Her knees were on either side of him, their most intimate parts just inches from one another. If her elbows weren’t propped up on his shoulders, her chest would be touching his.

She scrambled to move, but Harry’s hands moved to her hips, halting her in place. Her eyes flickered to his, trying to read him, decipher what he was doing. Usually she had a hard time reading Harry, understanding what he wanted and needed. But now she had no problem. She watched him lick his lips, his pupils still blown out from the dream trained directly on her. When his grip didn’t shift from her body, but his thumbs brushed across the shirt she wore—it was his—and she knew.

He wanted to kiss her.

Cicely had never been kissed. Boys had tried, but they’d been disgusting, as had every other man she had ever known, and she had no interest in them. Until Harry, she hadn’t ever understood romance novels, the attraction people described in them. Every man who had ever showed interest in her had been boring, unattractive, and more than anything, just made her want to run in the opposite direction. But Harry made her want to race towards him at full speed, the darkness in his gaze and warmth in his heart made her want to know his stories, the way he looked at her made a part of her heart race that she had never felt before. He made her feel alive, as if she had been sleeping for nineteen years, just waiting for him to arrive.

One of his hands moved from his hip, inching through the air until his knuckles softly brushed across her jaw. Her heart was beating in her chest so fast she wondered if she was going to pass out again. It couldn’t be possible to go this long without breathing, right? Because Cicely didn’t know the last time she had taken a breath, all of them swallowed up in the look on Harry’s face.

She wanted him to kiss her.

Desperately. With every bone in her body. Cicely wanted to know what he tasted like, what it felt like when he kissed her. She wanted to know everything about him, to uncover every piece of him like gifts on her birthday, ripping back the pieces of wrapping paper walls that kept him from her.

“Harry,” she whispered, her voice one she had never heard before. It was soft, yearning, the encapsulation of everything she wanted in that moment.

He seemed to understand, because his fist uncurled, his palm moving to cup the side of her face. Slowly, his hand moved around her head, his fingers threading through her hair, the feeling of his callused hands on her skin alighting every inch in her body. Then, he pulled her head into him, his fingers on the back of her neck, delicately pressing at her skin. His eyes fluttered shut and perhaps hers were supposed to, but she wanted to see every moment of this—she wanted to know what he looked like when he kissed her.

When he did, his wet lips meeting hers, it was like returning home after a long trip, a homecoming she had been waiting for her whole life. Her eyelids shut, lost in the feeling of him, of the faint taste of cigarettes and whiskey on his lips, the smell of him that she had grown to look forward to when she walked into the room he was in. Fingers drifted from her neck to her hairline, and he lifted his chin, changing the angle, and Cicely fell into the kiss. Her arms gave out, elbows falling from his shoulders to the cushions of the couch, her body suddenly flush with his.

Harry’s hand moved from her hip to curl around her lower back, tugging her impossibly close to him as their lips parted and met again. It felt like there wasn’t a centimeter of space between them and Cicely didn’t want any. Their noses were pushed against each other, foreheads touching, lips moving in a dance they somehow both knew by heart. She pushed her fingers into his hair, nails scratching at his scalp lightly. A sound left his throat, and Cicely went to move her fingers, thinking she had hurt him.

“Do it again,” he mumbled.

Cicely’s eyes flickered open, studying him with her lips just a centimeter from his. He looked at her as if the rest of the world didn’t exist—it was a look she had never seen but one she wanted to see for the rest of time. So she brushed her nails across his scalp and slotted their lips back together, squeezing his hips with her knees. Under his shirt she could feel his heart racing, and she wondered if he was as affected by what was between them as she was. Because for her, it felt like her world had become Harry, even though she had known him for only two days. Somehow, he was her every thought and she didn’t want another thought to grace her mind ever again.

Harry shifted his head, nudging at her jaw and pushing it up so that her neck was stretched out. In rapid succession, he pressed soft kisses to her jaw and Cicely’s head lolled back to make room for him because it felt so good to have his lips on her skin. Then, his tongue flitted out and licked over her pulse point, making her squirm against him. His hands gripped her tightly in response, before ducking his head down, pulling the collar of her shirt to the side, and nipped at the juncture of her shoulder and neck.

A breathy moan left Cicely’s mouth, mixed in with the undertones of Harry’s name. It seemed to spur him on, because he opened his lips and sucked on her skin softly. It was a sensation Cicely didn’t even know what to do with, how to process, but she knew it felt good, so she held his head to her skin, urging him to continue. Which he did—laving his tongue against her tender skin in between nips and harsh sucks, and when she looked down and saw the mark he had formed, it didn’t bother her in the slightest. She just pulled his head up to meet hers, desperate to have his lips back on hers again.

His hands fell to her waist, clutching at his shirt that hung there. When he pulled at it, the hem crawled up, leaving her thighs mostly exposed to the cool air inside the room. But to Cicely, her flesh was burning from Harry’s touch and the cold air was welcome, and she didn’t mind that more skin than was appropriate was on show. She had a desire within her for Harry to see all of her, every inch of her skin if he would keep making her feel like this.

Harry seemed to not notice her exposed skin until his palms drifted downwards and gripped her skin, his eyes fluttering open and his lips pulling away from hers. “Cic—“

“It’s okay,” she whispered, brushing at the hair on his forehead. “I trust you.” And she did. She trusted him more than she did anyone else in her life, who had just let her down in a series of lies and cheats. He was the first person to take her for as she was, not demand her to be some prim and proper version, to show her the truth of their life, even if it was in pieces. It didn’t matter to her that she didn’t know it all, she knew enough. Enough to know Harry could never hurt her, at least, not in the ways that mattered.

His head bent, and he rested his forehead against hers, sucking in air and quick puffs. “We—we should stop.”

“I don’t want to,” she said, barely trusting her own voice in the moment. She didn’t even know what it was that she wanted, but it was everything, anything he would give her. She would take scraps at his table, if it meant one more moment in his arms.

Harry pushed her hair behind her ear, and then let his fingers fall to the mark he had left on her skin. She thought she could see a blush rising to his skin and it made her smile. “I want you to be sure,” he told her earnestly. “And I—I haven’t done this in a long time. I need…I want it to be perfect. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” It did, and the fact that he wanted her to be sure made her trust him even more. Because even though she wanted it, she had barely thought about it. Cicely was impulsive, and her impulses had a tendency to get her into situations she regretted, and she didn’t want to regret a moment with Harry. “Will you come back to bed with me at least?”

His breath shuddered, eyes closing. She could see the wheels of his mind turning, and she thought she had an inkling as to why.

“Harry,” she murmured, pressing a tender kiss to his brow bone. “Your nightmares don’t scare me. I want to know every part of you, even the dark bits.” That made his eyes open, his pupils found her in the moonlit room. “Will you come to bed and tell me about them? It doesn’t have to be everything, I just want to know how to help you.”

Slowly, he nodded. She scooted back, letting him sit up on the couch. Tentatively she pulled her knees up from the couch and dropped back to the floor, coming to a standing and taking Harry’s hand in hers to help him up. He was a disheveled mess, his hair standing in all directions, and she realized it was from her. She liked it, seeing the results of something she had done on him.

With his hand in hers, they walked up the stairs to his bedroom, to the unmade bed she had been sleeping in before. Knowing he would be hesitant, she got into bed first, scooting against the wall and turning, so she could watch him get in behind her. The moment his head hit the pillow, the duvet cover around his waist, Cicely leaned into him, wanting to be close. She rested her head on his shoulder and his arm cautiously wrapped around her, holding her to him. One of her hands rested on his chest, just inches from the nipples with barbells through them, the ones that she wanted to see again but didn’t know how to ask about. The bed suddenly smelled like a mixture of them, a new scent that she already adored. She hoped she didn’t have to go to bed again for a long time.

She brushed up and down his chest over his shirt, drawing light lines across his skin. After a few minutes of just lying there, Harry cleared his throat and began to tell her the horrors he saw when he closed his eyes. “I’d barely been there a few weeks,” he said softly. “It was still all new to me, the landscape of France, the sound of bullets in the distance, the smell of smoke and dead bodies in the air. We were in this open field, the only protection was an occasional tree, but we spent all of it in trenches.”

His voice was like gravel, rough in the silence of the room, and Cicely kept rubbing at his chest, hoping it would keep him calm enough to keep going. She didn’t want him to stop, no matter how bad it got. “There was this massive offensive in motion from the French, and we were a piece of it. We were supposed to take Arras, to gain a strategic advantage against the Germans, break the deadlock we were in. All of us were itching for action, something just to keep our minds from spiraling in those fucking trenches. I’d never really been in battle before, so I didn’t know what it was like. But god, the minute we started moving, when we came up out of the trenches and the firing started, it was like the world was ending.

“Everyone around me was dropping, partly from the German fire, but more so from the shells from the air. It was so loud—they don’t tell you that, how loud war is. Your ears never stop ringing, and you’re almost able to like, drown it out for a second? But then something goes off near you and your whole body is jolted and it draws you back to the Earth. And I was just trying to like, reload my gun, right? And keep my body from shaking. Jack was there, and he was telling me to keep it together—that’s how we met actually. He found me on the field, my hands shaking so bad I couldn’t reload.

“It went on like that for days. Weeks, even. We made it three or so miles on the first day, but we also lost so many fucking men. We had to figure out who was gone, and it was easier to figure out who was still there. We made it into the town and there were all these houses with no roofs, tanks covering every inch of the road. It was like walking through the end of the world. And you can’t sleep, but you also can’t do anything but sleep because it’s this bone exhaustion you’ve never felt before in your whole life.”

Cicely could feel the fast beat of his heart and his voice was speeding up, the anxiety settling into his bones. “I’m here,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to his shoulder where her head laid. “I’m still here.”

His head shifted, tilting to his chin rested on the top of her head. “I thought I was going to die. Sometimes I feel like I did, on that battlefield. Everything I knew before that moment was gone. It was just echoes of the dark trenches at night, the feeling of rats crawling across your boots and the niggling feeling that you can’t go to sleep because something might happen. And the death...I think I stopped believing in God on that battlefield, because how could any God ever want that many men to die? And for what, a few measly miles that didn’t even fucking matter in the end?”

“How many did you lose?”

He paused before answering, but when he did his voice cracked as he said the number. “158,000. There were conflicting numbers, but that’s the one I heard the most.”

Cicely couldn’t even wrap her head around that number. What did 158,000 people look like? Who were all of those 158,000 people? Who were their families, their children, their loved ones? How many lives were changed forever by those days? “I’m glad you survived,” was all she could think to say. She didn’t want to say she was sorry because that didn’t really mean anything, did it? Not in comparison to everything that had happened.

“For a long time I wasn’t,” he said.

“What changed?”

His fingers brushed through her hair, tender, soft caresses that made her eyes flutter shut. “A girl who showed me there was still someone left inside of me.”

Cicely looked up at him, at the exhaustion in his eyes, the light bruise on his cheekbone from the fight the other night, the curls of his hair. “You know what I see when I look at you?” He shook his head slowly, eyes never leaving hers. “Someone who has experienced more pain, hurt, and loss than any one person should be allowed to. But who still manages to be kind, to be generous, to care. Someone with a life worth living, someone who is worth loving.” She reached up and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth before pulling back slightly. “Someone who is worthy of everything in the world.”

She felt the tears on his cheeks when he kissed her, their lips molding together just like before. His hands gripped her face, as if he couldn’t have her close enough, and she didn’t blame him. She wished with every kiss she could drink away the pain inside of him, pull it from him piece by piece until none remained. But she couldn’t. She could only hold him and tell him who he was to her, that he was everything to her, someone she didn’t know was waiting for her out there in the world. But who now she couldn’t imagine a life without.

The days melded together in beautiful technicolor. Seven days had passed since Cicely had woken up in Harry’s bed, and each one made her more thankful it was him who had picked her up on the road. She stood in the crowds during his matches, cheering his name with Tommy and becoming less floaty every time she had a pint. At the end of each night, Cicely cleaned the blood and sweat from his skin with a tenderness he had never experienced, pressed kisses to his forehead and told him how good he did. Each night in the pitch dark, she chased away his nightmares with reminders that she was there, she was real, this was real and the battle wasn’t. He clutched the shirts of his she continued to sleep in and held her close, letting the beat of her heart and the exhales from her chest lull him back to sleep.

He hadn’t slept this well since before the war.

Cicely had discovered a new routine. While Harry was meeting with Josiah and Jack, training, or just generally out of the house, she went next door and helped teach the Rollings children to read. She had stumbled on Pippa and Clarence the morning after she had kissed Harry, almost stumbling over them in the daze she carried. They were playing outside and she had a book under her arm, a plan of finding the nearby park and reading for a few hours. But when she stopped and apologized, Pippa asked what she had, and at the sight of the words and Cicely’s description of what a book was, she was intrigued. After asking their mother, Cicely began to spend her mornings with the children curled up on their couch or at their small table, or even on their front steps, teaching them their alphabet and how to sound out words, how to form sentences and read them on the page. They were ravenous for learning and their mother was happy to see her children entertained by someone who wasn’t her for a change, so Cicely quickly became a fixture in the house.

When she had told Harry, he gave her a small smile, the first one she had seen, and a quick peck to her forehead. It was exactly what she needed from him, a vote of support and nothing more. In the afternoons she washed the blood stains from Harry’s clothes and towels, or carried water into the house and ran herself a bath, a task well worth it. One time Harry almost walked in on her and the flush on his cheeks made her almost let him in. But that wasn’t how she wanted him to see her naked body for the first time, so she squealed for him to shut the door and he did, none the wiser.

After he had told her about France, about the demons that followed him into the night, the secrets between them fell away. It was if a damper had been lifted, and at night when they laid in bed, he shared more about his past and she told him of her family, the life she was supposed to live. She tried to avoid the topic of the future, because it made them both anxious. It felt a bit like they were living in a bubble, as if the outside world and its pressures were nonexistent. One morning Harry brought up how they hadn’t heard anything from her family, and Cicely nodded in reply. She had thought about it many times, and she didn’t quite have an answer for it. Although maybe Harry was just so far from the expected answer that she would never be found.

Just as she was starting to settle into the prospect of her life becoming this permanently, her past came knocking. She was with Pippa and Clarence on Harry’s front steps, their own ones being swept by their mother. A book was spread open on her lap, one she had found at a bookstore for children, and she was helping them decipher the sentence. She could feel eyes on her, which at face value wasn’t something to worry about—people were always looking at her, at the new person in the neighborhood, although once they found out she was Harry’s, they stopped. But this time, the feeling of someone watching her didn’t let up.

So when they reached the end of the page, she looked up in search of whomever was so interested in her. And what she found were the eyes of a policeman, the black uniform and intent stare raising the hair on the back of her neck. She knew immediately what it meant, that this wasn’t some normal policeman, because the ones in this area normally didn’t pay her any mind. Josiah had made clear she was not to be trifled with the minute Harry had told him that Cicely was with him, for all intents and purposes.

This policeman, though, wasn’t from around here. He stuck out, the shine of his shoes a bit too bright, the cocky attitude obvious from a mile away. He didn’t know the people or the area.

Which could only mean one thing.

Her father had found her.

TAGLIST: @autumn-sunflowers @afire-hes @harrydobedirectioning​ @harryinsweatersandbandanas @vapingisntmything @frindgeyy @froggystyles @magical-mischief-makers @heslilac @ursogoldenshan​

PART TWO

[umbraja]

Body Hair Positivity: Good or Gross?

It’s been a trend lately to embrace a more diverse image of beauty. Freckles and muffin tops, dark skin and curly hair, scars, tattoos, unusual proportions, crooked teeth, pretty much anything is supposed to be accepted under the banner of Body Positivity. 

But what about body hair?

And I’m not just talking about armpits or legs. I also mean unusual body hair. The kind people don’t talk about. The kind women aren’t “supposed” to have: chest hair, happy trails, beards, back hair. The kind that doctors call hirsutism and is often associated with hormonal imbalances from things like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, Cushing Syndrome, medication side effects, menopause, or even just genetics. It affects somewhere between 5%-10% of women depending on the region surveyed but may be higher as it can often go undiagnosed.

It’s not like we’re taught how healthy body hair should look.

Humans have been removing body hair since before recorded history. Archaeologists have found evidence of early humans using clam shells and shark teeth to remove body hair. Ancient Egyptians are well known for their full body waxes. Ancient Greeks considered it “uncivilized” for a woman to have pubic hair. Roman boys celebrated their entry into manhood with a mandatory first shave. And medieval European Ladies plucked daily to remove all hair from their brows, temples, and neck - some even plucked their eyelashes. The “New World” was no stranger to body hair removal either. Thomas Jefferson, and many others, wrote of some Native Americans’ depilatory obsession.

“With [Native Americans] it is disgraceful to be hairy on the body. They say it likens them to hogs. They therefore pluck the hair as fast as it appears.” - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia

In the non-native US, body hair removal wasn’t really a big thing until the 20th century when we did a complete 180 on the subject. Before that Puritan values made sure that most body hair was covered by clothing so few bothered to remove it since no one was gonna see what was under all that cloth. Now recent studies say that 93 to 99 percent of American women regularly remove their body hair, making it one of our most widely practiced beauty norms. Girls as young as 10 are pressured into shaving, waxing, plucking, threading, anything to remove errant hairs as soon as they start to sprout. Refusal to do so leaves us open to bullying, both on the playground and in the office. Visible body hair can cost a woman jobs, promotions, and relationships so most of us remove it, no matter the cost. Which one study worked out to be more than $10,000 over the course of her life for the average American woman who shaves. If she waxes instead the bill goes over $23,000.

So what happened?

“Where eighteenth-century naturalists and explorers considered hair-free skin to be the strange obsession of indigenous peoples, Cold War-era commentators blithely described visible body hair on women as evidence of a filthy, ‘foreign’ lack of hygiene.” - Rebecca Herzig, Plucked, a History of Hair Removal

The driving forces behind hair removal in America are the same three that cause most of the nation’s problems: greed, sexism, and racism. Let’s go in chronological order. 

As the “Age of Enlightenment” began to secularize European politics, Imperialists needed a new excuse to justify their expansion into non-European territory. Naturalists like the still famous Charles Darwin handed them pseudoscience. It’s debatable whether or not these naturalists intended their work to be used as the foundation for white supremacist ideology that still plagues us today but there’s no question about how racists interpreted it. They saw evolution as a line that went from ape through colored people and ends at Aryan. Real science tells us that’s not at all correct and if anyone is closer to cave man it’s white people who often have Neanderthal in their DNA. But they didn’t have genetic sequencers back then so they used physical traits to “prove” it instead. Part of this was a gross mischaracterization that body hair could be used to determine a person’s place within the line of human evolution. They claimed people with coarse, dark hair were closer to apes and those with thin, light hair were more evolved. Guess who picked up on that concept in the 20th century.

Darwin further complicated matters in his attempt to explain why some white people were hairier than some indigenous populations by associating hairiness with evolutionary backsliding and mental illness.  

“[Hairiness in Europeans] is due to partial reversion; for characters which have been at some former period long inherited are always apt to return. We have seen that idiots are often very hairy, and they are apt to revert in other characters to a lower animal type.” - Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

Other scientists and even medical experts of the time ran with this idea and before long the educated elite considered hairiness (along with other non-Aryan traits) to be a symptom of disease, insanity, and criminal violence. The uneducated masses were more familiar with freak show displays of unusually hairy people as “missing links” to our primate ancestors. Both cases considered having body hair to be a very bad thing. They’re also very bad science and not at all true.

Despite these very strong, racist feelings about body hair, it still wasn’t common for American women to remove it beyond the upper lip, neck, jaw, or between the eyebrows. Most women don’t have much hair there and those that did rarely had time or money to invest in removing it. Also they wouldn’t be caught dead admitting they had to so historical records might not be accurate about how many women actually plucked. For the first half of American history peach fuzz and other light hair was seen as normal and clothes covered the rest. But the 20th century not only saw women wearing less cloth and showing more skin it also saw them calling for gender equality. Critics of women’s liberation often accused suffragettes of sexual inversion - aka acting too much like men, which they saw as an abhorrent threat. To really drive this point home they often depicted women’s rights activists as being hairy, thus politicizing our pits. Pair this with the “hygiene” movement’s embrace of already mentioned racist views on body hair and you have a recipe for weaponized shame.

“Self-consciousness brings timidity, restrained action and awkwardness. The use of Del-a-tone relieves the mind from anxious watchfulness of movement.” - 1919 Del-a-tone depilatory advertisement

Enter Capitalism. Producers of hair removal products wanted to up sales so they did the exact same thing that was done with every other beauty product on the market - shame women into buying their stuff. It’s debatable if this was motivated purely by greed, in an attempt to reach an untapped market, or if the resulting gender oppression was intentional but men were spared of this aggressive shaming (until recently at least). Women, on the other hand, were flooded with advertisements for body hair removal products. From the first “razor for women” in 1915 to 21st century laser hair removal ads, women are constantly being reminded of our body hair. It doesn’t take a genius seeing ads that call smooth skin “attractive” or “sanitary” to extrapolate the opposite - that body hair is ugly, and dirty. A series of ads for Del-a-tone depilatory products even called it “necessary” for sleeveless fashion and suggests that not using their product will lead to social anxiety. Pair that with only ever using shaved models in all of fashion advertising and you send a pretty clear message: female body hair is something to be ashamed of. Advertising works. Now most American women actually feel gross if they’ve missed a shave, despite body hair being perfectly natural and not at all dirty. This disgust is so strong it has even bled over into an aversion toward male body hair which has seen a sharp decline in popularity since the shaggy chested disco days. Now men are being inundated with “manscaping” advertisements and expectations of manicured if not completely removed body hair.

So that’s the background but where’s this going?

While female body hair removal is firmly ingrained in western beauty standards, a new generation of women are rebelling against those ideals - body hair included. Recent studies have shown a shift in body hair trends among young women. Only 77% percent of women 16 to 24 reported regularly shaving their pits in 2016 and 85% shaved their legs, down from 95% and 92% respectively just two years prior. Since then we’ve started to see models, celebrities, and everyday women with unshaven pits and hairy legs. Body positivity campaigns have even gotten a few advertisers to include body hair in their ads. Now you can see razors actually shaving hair from women’s bodies instead of inexplicably running over baby smooth skin. 

Women have always told ourselves that hair removal is a choice but we’ve never before been encouraged to choose not doing it. Instead we’ve been brainwashed to think it’s dirty and disgusting and that no one will accept us for being hairy. Today’s young woman is actually presented with a choice, “to shave or not to shave” and a lot of them are choosing not to. Which is great news for people like me who have hirsutism and are sick of being shamed for how nature made us. 

But we’ve still got a very long way to go before I can be confident that my neck beard won’t hold me back both socially and professionally. A lot of the women who have publicly displayed body hair in recent years have come under attack by people calling them various shades of “gross” and some have even been sent death threats. It’s one thing for a rich and famous Hollywood movie star to take that kind of risk but for an autistic office worker living in a conservative backwater that’s a whole different game.

Whatever your thoughts and feelings on body hair, America still hasn’t escaped the shame of the last hundred years. Women are still very much judged for being hairy. A lot of people still think it’s gross. I’m not one of them but I’m full of unpopular opinions.

[iamtaran]

Rendezvous* AU

Jaskier is a professional, usually. He had worn out all the rough edges of this particular character over the years until it felt almost more comfortable than returning to being Julian at the end of the week. It may have taken a few years to curb his decidedly modern mouth and gain the respect of his fellow re-enactors, but during the open weekend when the visitors poured in? He was always on pointe. Spending the greater portion of an entire weekend in performance, in character-- it exhilarates him. The joy from the visitors, their laughs and surprise and unprepared blushes when he singles them out for a bit. If he could, he would eat it and live on it forever. Except, well, a man has to eat real food as well, and Jaskier had skipped breakfast in his rush. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem. This particular Rendezvous at Alafia River always has more bakers, potato roasters, and poorly disguised Highland Games food carts peddling fish and chips than one could shake a stick at. Jaskier had simply followed his nose. It wouldn’t be a problem... Except the baker is the most attractive man Jaskier has ever clapped eyes on. “Essi, Essi, Essi,” he chants. “Essi, you’ve- I swear, if you don’t turn around-” “Jaskier, for god’s sake,” Essi hisses, sandwiched between a wooden stall and the shielding curtain of his body where she is attempting to subtly adjust her slipping décolletage. “I’m a little busy.” “Not too busy for this! Essi,” he whines. A hand smacks his arm, hard. “I’m not getting thrown from the Voo over a nip slip you f--forking child,” she grumbles into her cleavage. That adjusted, she nudges his shoulder out of the way. “Now, what are you whining about?” She looks, as usual, gorgeous, even with the momentary fashion crisis. No one looks better in crisp white chemise and dusty rose robe anglaise in linen. Well, except- “Him.” *** (*A Rendezvous is a historical reenactment/ living history event that may last an entire extended weekend, an entire week, 9 days. Participants camp on-site in pre-1860s period clothing, using as much historically accurate gear as possible and disguising any absolutely necessary modern amenities to keep from breaking immersion. Sometimes, the last weekend of the event is open to the public non-participants to wander through, purchase from artisans and craftsmen, often including folks from local tribes, and enjoy the musical or martial performances, historic rifle ranges, archery, delicious food, hatchet throwing, and more. This encounter may or may not be inspired by a memorable Rendezvous encounter as a visitor.)

Jaskier has never in six years seen this particular baker at this particular Rendezvous. Would that I had, he thinks somewhat wildly. It’s not one thing, really, that catches his attention, which sometimes does happen. He has fallen in love with a stranger’s heavy-lidded eyes, or a singular profile, or even the way someone tucked their legs up under them in a library chair. It is the way his pale, silvery hair wisps and half-curls around his face and across his forehead, where heavy brows furrowed in concentration. It is the shocking softness of his mouth compared to the granite cut of his jaw and the roughness of his stubble. It is his hands. Jaskier thinks they might be the most beautiful hands he has ever seen. The strength, the gentleness, the competence with which they folded and kneaded, then with swift, short turns tucked the dough into a boule to add to the nearly filled board behind him. Jaskier isn’t the only one watching. The man, whether it be what Jaskier sees or the smell of his already-baked loaves, has drawn a crowd. (And he really does suspect it is a mixture of both. No one should look so good with the sweaty, unwashed Rendezvous look. Most people look as you might expect after a week-long historical camping trip. This man looks like a rugged wet dream.)  Even as Jaskier looks, the baker slices the top of the dough with a slender knife frankly dwarfed in his grip, settles the boule on the board, and with a sharp flick of his elbow slides the whole dozen of them into the mouth of the clay dome oven radiating heat at his back. Even presented with the man’s astonishing back (and astonishing backside, lord, blessed be the fall-front trousers)--even then, Jaskier finds he can’t stop staring at his forearms, revealed by his rolled shirtsleeves.  “Oh, you’ve got it bad,” Essi murmurs, and laughs when he jumps. “Well, go on. Go buy your bread and flirt with him. I’m going to get chowder from the fish  and chip tent.” “But- Essi,” Jaskier flounders, “we, it- the performance!” They had planned to spend the last couple hours of morning trolling the main drag and the surrounding lines of tents and stalls, singing and playing, he on accordion and she the violin. They even have a couple new bits he is dying to run through. Jaskier thinks of his wallet and all the tips they might be making even now and whines. That being said, his eyes draw back to the dimple along the muscle of the baker’s forearm without his permission. Essi pats his back mockingly. “Frankly, my dear, I refuse to perform with you like this.” “Excuse me! Like what?”  She doesn’t deign answer. Instead, with a wink, she steps back into the crowd, calling, “I’ll meet you at the Live Oak Stage for the noontime performances!” and leaves him there. Which is also when Jaskier hears the first keening notes of a familiar song. He already knows he is ruined before turns to take in the scene-- the baker with the fiddle pressed under his chin, the bow so delicate in his blunt-fingered hand that Jaskier’s heart leapt into his throat. The angle of his wrist, the tilt of his brows-- then he glances up through unexpectedly dark lashes and his amber eyes flash golden in the light. “Oh, Jesus wept.” *

As it would turn out, the handsome baker’s name is Geralt, and his rendition of Tiersen’s sur le fil is so beautiful that Jaskier can’t help but draw closer, like a moth to flame.

As it also turns out, the baker whose name is Geralt lowers the well-worn but immaculately tuned fiddle after the one song, allowing Jaskier to step close enough to embarrass himself. He gets half way through a too-long ramble about Tiersen’s works and praise for the man’s performance, and I’m a musician myself, can’t often be convinced to pick up a fiddle but-- when the baker grunts, points to the not-exactly historically accurate but not-not period appropriate accordion in his hands and asks, “Do you know La Noyée?” Which is how they end up playing together for the next thirty minutes until the bread has baked.

Which is also when Geralt introduces himself and gruffly thanks him, mentioning how his assistant usually accompanies him but he gave her the morning off, and then pays him in bread with a healthy slab of butter and aged cheese on top. Jaskier learns quickly that he is a man of few words. Somehow, however, he can read the sincerity in his thanks in his minute expression. They had drawn in quite a crowd, and Geralt is quickly made busy on the next batch of orders.

Jaskier knows when his presence is in the way. He is a little sad to go, but still, he knows he will be buzzing with the energy of their performance and the electric current that had passed between them every time Geralt glanced his way to time his accompaniment or signal a flourish. That can be enough. “Well, it’s been- ah, absolutely lovely playing with you, dear Geralt, but it seems I will only be in the way from this point- can’t bake to save my life, I’m afraid-” as he begins to slip away.

“Bard.” Jaskier freezes, surprised. Geralt cleans his hands off on his equally floury apron and pulls a tiny folded up pamphlet from inside its deep pocket. Jaskier takes it without thinking, on autopilot. “I’m part of a demonstration around 2, over at the fencing pit next to the musket range.” Jaskier can’t be blamed for how long it takes his brain to catch up with the unspoken invitation; but when he does, he beams.

He goes, and is promptly bowled over to find Geralt changed from his frankly too-flattering baker’s smock and fall-fronts into the traditional kilt and shirt sleeves of a highland foot soldier-- sans coat. Jaskier sees why when he lunges forward into a fast-paced mock battle with a broad sword that he slings about as if it were light as a rapier. Jaskier is... he needs to sit down.

He spends the rest of the weekend finding every excuse he can to go visit Geralt the too-handsome baker, and gets to meet his apprentice, who is also his daughter. Jaskier is stricken dumb for all of two seconds before he realizes they get on like a house on fire. Geralt has to chase them off when their chatter on historic social norms, musical trends, and current pop stars gets to be too much. Then they both have lunch with Essi, and the conversation turns to hsitoric fashion, materials, and ends with the two ladies roasting his poor man dandy outfit alive. He stands up for himself nobly. The high waisted trousers make him look trim! And braces were designed in the early 1820s, just like the accordion, thank you! Yes, he DOES know that it is considered terribly risque for his braces to be visible and not worn beneath a coat, why do they think he did it? No, he doesn’t think that they clash with his silk cravat in the least! He might be a rake and a rogue but he is still cultured. And well bathed, unlike most of the brutes around here! Essi calls him a floozy; Ciri, 16 and the least shy girl he has ever met, agrees. (He loves the two of them all the more by the end of it.)

Jaskier plays with Geralt a couple more times, after Essi gives him her blessing. She had found a bluegrass group in desperate need of a violinist after theirs abruptly came down ill, and she is more than happy to flirt with their cellist there, especially since they pop up stage in the middle of the Rendyvoo garners huge crowds of tip-happy listeners. She does chat with Ciri when she stops by, however, and Geralt. Jaskier doesn’t hear what happens, but she manages to get the big man to flush. Jaskier wonders on it for the rest of the day. Will she reveal her secrets??

The Voo ends and Jaskier is a besotted wreck. He tries quite hard to make his goodbye to father and daughter not the least bit tearful-- and immediately fails when Geralt pulls out a smartphone and gruffly tells him to put his number in. 

They live much closer than they might have assumed. I can’t decide if Geralt really does own a bakery, or if that’s just his somewhat secret hobby and in reality his profession better matches his dangerous strongman persona-- a garage, a historic fencing and swordplay gym, perhaps a high-paid security professional. All of them have some interesting possibilities, I’ll be honest. Regardless, working Rendezvous’s and ren faires is half hobby half side-profession. Jaskier is thrilled to find that, since moving to the area recently, he and Geralt will be working a lot of the same events. He is excited a completely normal amount.

Y’all know what’s up. Wooing. Courting. Two idiots who don’t recognize their emotions (because, yes, Jaskier might have realized Geralt is a looker, but it takes him much longer to realize what the fuzzy feeling in his gut is whenever Geralt is particularly soft, or speaks gently to his daughter, or smile when their huge great dane comes barreling out to greet them and oh, no.) Also, historic costumes that just, they just really inspire some thirst.

If y’all think for a moment Geralt looks any less handsome in modern clothes, you are surely mistaken. Jaskier despairs the first time he sees him. It’s just... it’s not fair!

Except the local ren faire comes around and it’s Geralt’s turn to despair. He may, in fact, never recover. Y’all know that post that’s been going around...

ok fin. that’s all i got, i hope yall enjoyed.

[famous-aces]

Alfredo Guttero

Who: Alfredo Guttero

What: Artist and Art Promoter

Where: Argentinian (active in Argentina and throughout Western Europe) 

When: May 26, 1882 - December 1, 1932

(Image Description: Retrato del pintor, Victorica, 1929 [a self portrait]. It shows Guttero in his apartment. Outside is a very geometric skyline of smokestacks, steep roofs, and a brown sky. His room is slate colored and he sits in a chair in the foreground. He has a jacket thrown over the back of his chair. His pose is casual and he looks as if we [the viewer] have just distracted him from painting. He sits with his legs to one side, turned almost unnaturally toward the viewer. One leg is lifted slightly and one hand is on the chair's seat as if he is in the middle of turning completely to the viewer. He is a man with a receding hairline and a high forehead. He has a dark mustache and dark hair and low eyebrows. He is wearing a white shirt and bowtie and has his sleeves rolled up to the elbow and his collar is ruffled and loosened. The whole thing hangs very loose but you can still see some of his body's lines of musculature. His tie undone and hanging around his neck. His pants are ordinary and green/brown. His expression is calm but confident and he looks directly at the viewer. The colors are bold but not really bright. The style blends geometry and flatness and realism in a way I am explaining very poorly. End ID)

Guttero is not terribly well remembered today, which is too bad. Looking through his oeuvre I quite like his work. Maybe it is because he lacked the bombastic personality of many modernist artists, maybe it is due to his diversity of styles without one that seems to define his work, or maybe it is because he was one of so many talented artists of his generation. He was well renown in his era, however, and used his popularity and skill to foster the next generation of Argentinian artists.

Guttero's life began mundanely enough. He always loved art, appreciating it and creating it, but pursued a legal career instead. But he was unhappy with his life as a lawyer, so Guttero left it to become a painter. He pursued his dream and passion, inspired and pushed by other Argentine artists. In 1904 his reputation was good enough that the Argentinian government sponsored his move to Paris, then the epicenter of the truly exciting and revolutionary art world, its influence expanding outward. He studied there for a few years under Maurice Denis before appearing in the Salon.

He remained in Paris until 1916 when he began to travel extensively across Western Europe for more than a decade, first to Spain, then Germany, Austria, and beyond. He traveled to nearly every country in the area between the years of 1916 and 1927.  His work was shown in various exhibitions around the continent from being featured in the Salon in Paris to a major solo exhibition in Genoa.

After that he returned to Argentina for the first time since his initial departure in 1904. Guttero remained active in his native country including creating free art classes called, aptly enough, Cursos Libres de Arte Plástico, with other Argentine artists. During this time he focused on his work as an art promotor, perhaps even more than his own art. During this time he introduced and showed new Argentinian artists to a wider audience. Indeed he created an organization for this purpose: the Hall of Modern Painters. He was dedicated to promoting and preserving modern art in the face of a world growing increasingly dark and reactionary. He died young and without much warning.

His art is undeniably modernist but trickier to pin to a specific movement. He has many different styles he utilizes with different degrees of naturalism and curves vs geometry. His scenes are by and large mundane and human, he uses bright colors, often huge central subjects, kinetic poses and positions, modern settings, and by and large human or urban subjects. He often painted on plaster using a "cooked plaster" technique of his own devising.

(Image Description: Martigues for Charles Jacques [1909], a brightly colored painting showing a scene in a Martigues canal. It is not completely realistic nor completely geometric and abstract. He favors color over outlines. In the background is a bright blue sky interrupted by yellow buildings with tile roofs, maybe houses, lit by the unseen sun. One of the building's lower doors is open. There is a small tree to the far right. In the foreground in the sparkling water of the canal are several small work boats, probably fishing boats judging by the silvery nets lying over the hulls. On the right a boat is coming in, there is a pale skinned, dark haired man working on one of the nets. His sail is red and white. On the left is a pale man in an orange hat and yellow shirt. He is stooped and just by his pose appears older, both of the men are too far away for many identifying details. End ID)

Possible Orientation: Mspec ace, gay ace, or aroace with an aesthetic attraction to multiple genders. (I am so unsure I have changed "probable" to "possible.")

I admit this one is a stretch on my part.

I am classifying Guttero based largely on absence, i.e. the absence of a remembered/recorded spouse, sexual/romantic partner, or liasian. I have no quotes or historical documents to prove my point. I have none of his personal philosophy or writings to draw from. Just the fact that he dedicated his life to art more than human relationshipa. That this is something I have seen before: Cause and its role in the life of many aros/aces/aroaces (outlined in Weil's entry the other day) and the fact that he had no recorded romantic/sexual partners that I can find in hours of research.

This illustrates why it is so, so difficult to find aspecs in history. We are not, as aphobes believe, impossible to locate, there is externally visible evidence, but it is less obvious than most other orientations. And cishets would rather we didn't exist so we are often buried under excuses. The easiest ways to find them are 1) if they were notably "married to their job" in their lifetimes (e.g. Jeanette Rankin and Carter Woodson), they talked/wrote about it in some capacity (e.g. T.E. Lawrence or Frédéric Chopin), they were distrusted because of it (John Ruskin and James Barrie), they made it part of their persona (Nikola Tesla and Florence Nightingale), aside from that I really need to search deep into their personal lives. Information not always available.

And often even when people essentially say "I am aromantic and/or asexual" the general population will not accept that. After all Newton is often remembered as allo and gay, despite never expressing interest in men. Chopin is often listed as allo and bi. Rankin is often considered cishet but too deeply concerned with her work. Barrie gets called a pedophile despite showing no interest in children. For eccentric aspecs like Weil/Tesla/etc. their being aspec becomes part of their oddness. If they weren't Like That they would be allo. Their being aspec becomes a symptom of their weirdness and would be unacceptable in a "normal" person.

History with a capital H does not want to acknowledge aspecs and, as with other queer identities, will go to insane measures to erase them. But even other queer historians will do this to aspecs. I am shocked how many people do exactly to Newton/Lewis/and the like what cishet historians do to Alexander the Great. In the case of Alexander the cishets ignore the obvious accounts that he loved Hephestian in nearly every way possible and queer historians and history buffs call them out, then often the non-aspec ones look at Newton and Lewis who had no interest in men and say they must have been gay. And it isn't really just history, Tim Gunn is by his own admission both gay and ace and the second part of that statement is either erased or, even crazier, I have seen aphobes say that he is mistaken about his own identity.

Anyway the root cause of this lack of nuance in the discussion of sexual orientation is a long sidebar that this is not the place to explore. I have left Guttero behind paragraphs ago. I have written a lot about how aces and aros end up getting erased from history and this isn't about that.

This is about Guttero and the difficulty of finding aros and aces. The presence of something is so much easier to find than the alternative, obviously, like if Historical Figure X exclusively slept with/courted men and was a man we can say he was (most likely) gay. But if Historical Figure Y didn't sleep with anyone/court anyone it is harder to prove. This is obviously severely simplifying identity but for the purposes of this example I beg your apology.

Long Story Short: the absence of evidence of something is not proof of the absence of something. A lot of aphobes will point this out and utterly ignore the fact that sometimes it is.

So, Guttero. The only thing I can say conclusively is that he never married and he was romantically or sexually tied to anyone as far as I can find. He was, in his time, very active in the art world. If he had been involved someone would probably have taken note. Especially considering his art is often very appreciative of the human form, especially the male one, it would not be hard to believe he was allo and gay or mspec.

I am going to take his art another way putting some dusty analysis/critique/art history skills to good use. Here's the thing, those who follow me on my personal blog or even here know I find the Death of the Author extremely important but it is also extremely complicated (it was actually the topic of my senior thesis). I don't want to use an artist's work to talk about their personal lives because art is often not reflective of life, but there is always some cross contamination in one way or another. I am going to explain what I mean on a superficial level, using myself as an example so I can say this is 100% accurate. I love the found family trope, and I think those relationships are the best in the world. So whenever I write something you can be damned sure if I can get some found family goodness in there I will. What I am saying is, I don't love or even approve of everything I write about, but I do write about some things because I love them and want to explore them and experience them on some level. The same may be true for Guttero and the subjects he painted.

Guttero often pays a lot of attention to human form. Look at his work The Market (I couldn't find a large enough image to put it in this post) and you will see his appreciation for amab musculature and on the other side of the male spectrum...

(image description: Retrato de Lucien Cavarry [1911] It shows a thin, lanky, and well dressed young man reclining on a green floral patterned couch and a black pillow. He is pale with neat, dark hair. He has a shadow of 5 o'clock shadow on his super hero jaw. His suit is white, his slightly rumpled tie is black, as are his socks and polished shoes. One arm is across the back of the couch and a red and gold pillow the other is dangling. This style is very different from the other portraits I showed/referenced. Still a modern but more realistic style, more flowing, less geometric. The man is drop dead gorgeous by Western beauty standards. End ID)

As for women...he seems to find them colder, more distant, but there is still a physical appreciation there. (Linking Mujeres Indolentes so I don't get flagged for "female presenting nipples" or whatever Tumblr's BS is. [The name alone tells you a lot]). Or the somewhat judgemental gaze of the woman below:

(Image Description: Georgelina. It shows a portrait of a pretty young woman sitting in front of a field. She is pale and long and beautiful. She has red hair, sharp eyes, a long flowing white dress with a gold sash around her waist, and a white hat with a black bow that is blowing in the wind. She takes up most of the frame and her expression is challenging and she holds eye contact with the viewer. The colors are bright and she is almost porciline in color. The background is mostly flat planes of color. In style it is somewhere between the self portrait and the portrait of Cavarry. End ID.)

Not all of his portraits of women have them so sour/distant but they all have a sort of challenging look. Beauty tinged with something dangerous, while the men always seem more innocent.

So here is why I say aspec rather than allo using his work alone, none of his work is particularly sexually inviting even with the sexiness/physical European attractiveness. The men are bashful or unaware of the viewer, the women are certainly not interested.

And back to the self portrait at the top: Guttero is in a fairly sexy pose, but it is sexy without being sexual. He is rumpled but the thing he was doing was painting, there is a sexless explanation. He is looking at the viewer, but you are distracting him from working. At first glance I thought his legs were spread, but they are simply in motion so he can face his guest more comfortably. This all could mean nothing, but I found it striking that this is how he chose to depict himself, at first he appears to be inviting the viewer in for a more physical interaction, but then it seems he is doing exactly the opposite, his passionate energy has been instead put into painting.

And in reality toward the end of his life that was what he did. He dedicated himself to his own art and the art of others.

So again, this could mean nothing. But...it could mean he is aspec.

And that is how the person I am least sure about got the longest entry.

(image description: Elevadores [1928]. A painting showing a factory complex. There is a raised platform running around it and several buildings in bright colors. There is a tree to the right side and a green hill. The building in the near-center [lightly left] is red. The sky is yellow and blue, perhaps the unseen sun is rising up behind the right-hand buildings. In style it is mostly geometric and flat color. End ID.)

[kalliekite-blog]

not just a groupie part 2

roger taylor/ben hardy fanfiction

warnings: swearing + roger taylor hotness

disclaimer: this isnt historically accurate or good at all im sorry

words: 2500 i think?

A couple weeks pass, and I start to grow closer and closer to the band, constantly going to their gigs than going out to eat right after. It was Christmas Eve, and I was talking to my dad over the phone, missing him dearly.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask him, biting my lip in nervousness as Brian and Deaky look at me, giving me tips as I told him I couldn’t come home for Christmas.

“Sweetheart, I have Diane. We’re going to New York!” My American father spoke happily.

“I guess. I love you, dad. Call you tonight.” I said, hanging up when he said goodbye.

“See! How hard was that?” Brian said, putting his arm around me and hugging me close, as Deaky high fived me. We were in Brian’s apartment, hanging last minute ornaments for Brian hadn’t gotten a Christmas tree until this morning.

“So Christmas Eve dinner here, sleeping here, Christmas here, and then recording studio?” I say, chuckling.

“That’s a lot of Queen for two days.” I laugh, hanging an ornament that has Brian’s baby picture upon it.

“You know you love it,” Deaky said next, tripping over the many boxes filled with ornaments. I nodded, knowing he was right, I was so excited to spend my favorite holiday with my best friends. Soon enough, Mary and Freddie barge in giggling. Mary comes over to hug me, as now we are extremely close, spending almost every waking hour together. Freddie and Mary were now dating, they were the cutest couple. Roger walks in, sunglasses on and his long blonde hair down to his shoulders as always. I watch him come inside, a smirk spread across his face as he sees me.

“Hey Rog,” I say, starting to call him that nickname because I know he loves it when I call him that. His smirk spreads wider, winking at me suggestively. Brian saw this and cleared his throat, glaring angrily at Roger. He smirks at Brian, walking past me and into the kitchen, setting his drinks that he brought down. Mary had picked out the dress I was wearing, a tight red dress that was quite short, along with a white faux fur jacket. I knew it was a good outfit the second I had walked into Brian’s, his eyes looking me over.

“You look amazing McKenzie,” Mary told me, smiling as she looked at my outfit.

“All you,” I replied, actually enjoying this new look of mine.

“Okay. Dinner in ten, and we can have a few drinks, and Santa will come!” Brian exclaimed sarcastically. I laughed, walking into the kitchen to check on the steak.

“Like the dress, love,” Roger said as I opened the oven. I nodded, ignoring the heat that flushed to my cheeks. This flirting between us had gotten even stronger, him always putting his hand up my thigh, while in the recording studio him sitting next to me, his arm around me. I haven't shown any interest, but we both know how he makes me feel. No girls have been with him recently, and I know that made Brian angry. I think that’s partly why he does it, to make him angry.

“I think you’ll talk to me after your present.” He said, resting his arm against the countertop, peeking his head close to mine. I shut the oven door, releasing it needs a couple more minutes. I face him, smirking but trying to conceal it.

“Is that so?” I ask him. He nods, a smile creeping across his face, coming closer to me.

“Yeah, you’ll love it.” He whispers in my ear, making goosebumps spread across my body, and he walks back into the living room, leaving me speechless. Mary than walks in, giggling. She holds a drink in her hand, still laughing.

“You and Roger. Jesus, I could cut the sexual tension with a knife.” She says, filling up her drink a bit more.

“Mary, what’s going to happen tonight? I may have to sleep in the same bed as him, they’re only three. Maybe I could crash on the couch.” I worry, biting my lip again.

“Taken. Deaky’s sleeping on the couch so you’ll probably sleep alone, maybe Roger and Brian will share a bed.” She giggled at the thought of Brian and Roger sleeping together.

“Roger has been talking about you though, to Freddie. He really likes you.” She says, looking at me.

“I know, he told me. How he sees me as more than just another hookup. But, we haven’t even hooked up, he just flirts and I flirt back, it never goes anywhere.” I say, grabbing a beer out of the fridge.

“It’s gonna happen soon enough McK. You just gotta let it happen.” She says, and she walks out, smirking. I sigh, taking a huge swig of beer and walking out after her. Roger was sitting on the couch, cigarette in hand, bickering with Brian about smoking in the house. Mary and Freddie were hanging ornaments, and Deaky was scribbling in his notebook. I sit down next to Roger, snatching the cigarette out of his hand and taking a quick puff.

“McKenzie!” Brian spoke, grabbing it out of my hand and putting it in the ashtray.

“C’mon mate. Perfectly good cigarette.” He said, glaring back at Brian. I snickered, crossing my legs as I fish for my pack. I take it out of my coat pocket, as right as I open it a large hand snatches it out of my hand.

“What the hell, Brian?” I say, standing up, my dress coming up right below my butt, but I didn’t care.

“Smoking kills, McK.” He says laughing. I roll my eyes and reach to get it, but he swiftly turns around. I sigh, giving up and sitting back down. Mary brings the steak out to the table, and my stomach rumbles at the smell, realizing how starving I am. I get up and walk to the table, pulling my dress down as I can feel Roger’s eyes on me. I sit down at the table next to Deaky, Brian looking upset as Roger sits down next to me.

“Thanks so much for coming tonight, you all are truly my family, I love you all. Let’s get a cheer for Queen!” Brian exclaimed, raising his glass.

“To Queen!” We all said, our glasses tinging together. I smiled and took a sip, soon digging into my meal. I spoke with Mary about our plans while the boys were recording, and decided we would watch them for a bit then go for dinner. Soon enough, Roger’s hand fell right above my knee, as it usually was when we're together. His hand crept up farther up my leg, now only inches away from the tip of my dress. I took a huge sip of my drink, wanting nothing more than to put his hand up farther. Brian glared at Roger, as Roger was smirking at me as if he knew what he was doing to me. I stared ahead, listening to Freddie as he goes on and on about this new song he wanted to make. Roger’s hand crept farther and farther up to the end of my dress, playing with the fabric. I moved his hand off of me, not wanting to start anything at the table, but regretting my decision once his hand left me.

“I know you actually don’t want me to stop.” He whispered in his raspy voice, which made me look back at him in anger and lust, taking another colossal gulp of my drink. His hand stayed off of me for the rest of dinner, but I longed for it to be somewhere farther up my dress. Once dinner was over, it was quite late, and I was excited to open presents the next morning. I started to clear the table with Mary, the boys helping out here and there. Freddie and Mary soon disappeared into their room, giggles escaping from outside of the door. I laughed, washing a couple of dishes before going into the bedroom that I either had to myself or with one of the guys. I started to undress, making sure I locked the door before I took off my dress, putting on a short nightgown, tying my hair up into a ponytail. There was a knock on the door, and I opened it to see Roger, who was smirking.

“Hey, love.” He said, leaning his hand on the doorway.

“Rog,” I said back, knowing how much he loved when I called him that. He frowned, waiting for me to invite him in. He walked in himself, shutting the door behind him.

“Are you and Brian sleeping together?” He asked abruptly, and I quickly look at him in complete shock.

“What?!” I shout, offended by his question.

“No! No I mean like in the same bed, they’re only three! I- I was just wondering, not that! Not the other, um, thing.” He says, obviously worry shown in his eyes. I laugh, relieved.

“I don’t think so. Thought you two would be sharing a bed.” I joke.

“Very funny.” He says, not amused.

“No, no Rog. It’d be funny. You to would be in the same bed, maybe a little slip-up and-“ And then his lips are on yours. I stopped for a spirit second, going over the choices I could make, but I pushed them aside as I kissed Roger back, my hands going around his neck, softly playing with his hair. I feel his tongue in my mouth already, his soft lips against mine. I can feel a smile spread across his face, as he lowers me gently onto my bed, making my heart race. My hand reaches into his shirt, instantly feelings his abs, he starts to take off his shirt, so I’m in full view of his naked torso, my heart beating faster and faster. He leans in to kiss me again, my hands moving to cup his face in desperation. His lips go to my neck, sucking and nibbling as I pull him closer to me, not wanting to be anywhere else but here.

“What the hell?” A voice says as my door opens, and I look and see Deaky, standing in the doorway. I quickly push Roger off of me, my cheeks flushing.

“Just needed an extra blanket.” He says, reaching a basket to pull out a multi-colored blanket. Roger wipes his lips, shirt still off. Dinky winks at Roger and starts to leave.

“Stay safe.” He exits with, shutting the door in the process. I lay back on my bed, completely humiliated.

“I’m going to bed,” I say, even though I want nothing more than to continue. Roger looks stunned.

“You want me to leave? After what just happened?” He asks me, shirt still off.

“I’m sorry, Rog,” I say, feeling my neck as I realize the hickey that’s starting to form.

“Fuck,” I say, and Roger is soon putting his shirt back on, looking at me in desperation.

“Goodnight McK.” He says, smiling at me before he closes the door.

The next morning I’m awoken by a loud bang in my room, making me shoot up in my bed, terrified.

“Just me love,” Mary says, coffees in hand.

“Aw, thanks, dear,” I reply, grabbing a coffee in her outstretched hand. She sits down, and suddenly squeals, making me spill my coffee onto the blanket below me.

“Holy shit! A hickey?!” She yells, almost as if she wanted everyone in the apartment to hear her.

“Shhh!” I scolded, my hand going to touch my neck.

“Roger?” She asks, and I nodded, ready to hear the scream she was about to let free and sure enough heard seconds later.

“Did you guys?” She asks and I shook my head, telling her everything that happened.

“But if Deaky hadn’t walked in?” She asked, and my face turned red, honestly not knowing what would have happened.

We kept talking for a little bit, some about her and Freddie but mostly about Roger and I, until we heard a banging at the door.

“Enough girl talk present time!” Brian yelled. We both got up as we walked into the living room, the tree lit. Mary had helped me cover up the hickey as much as she could, but if you looked closely it was clearly visible. I sat down next to Roger and Brian, excited to open my presents. Roger smiled at me as I sat down, and I experienced the same butterfly fluttering in my stomach as I always did when he looked at me. I know he noticed my hickey, for he chuckled to himself and when I asked what, he just smiled and said;

“Just admiring my work.” He said, receiving a glare from Brian, who didn’t know what he was talking about. Mary started to giggle, much to the notice of Freddie. Freddie stared at her then back at me, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Anyway,” Mary said, reaching down to give Freddie a present.

“This is for you.” She told him, handing him a green and red covered present, with a silver glittery bow propped on top. As he opened it, Mary’s smile grew bigger.

“My goodness darling, it’s amazing.” He exclaimed as he pulled out a white and black scarf, perfectly his style. Mary and Freddie shared their moment, Freddie making a joke and Mary laughing, putting the scarf on for him. I soon give my gifts to Brian, Freddie, Deaky, and Mary, all of them loving them which surprised me because I was never very good and picking out gifts. Next was Roger, and as I handed him his gift, his hand swept over mine, sending goosebumps down my spine. He opened the mini box, and when he saw the gift, his mouth stood wide open.

“McK, holy shit.” He said, taking out the drumsticks I had gotten him. Engraved in the wooden sticks was Rog, the nickname he loved. I smiled at him as he looked at me, hugging me quickly.

“Thanks.” He whispered into my ear. I hugged him back but felt a sinking in my stomach. I truly didn’t know how Roger felt about me, and if I was just another girl. I let go, pushing my hair behind my ear as he handed me his present. I didn’t expect much of it, as it was Roger after all. However, when I opened the box I burst out laughing. Inside was a tiny box, sitting on around a dozen packets of cigarettes. I opened the box, only to smile softly, picking up the silver necklace with the letter M on it. I looked up at him to find his bright blue eyes staring back at me, this time not a smirk but a big smile.

[not-my-patton]

Patton’s Prisoner

Sander Sides Modern Day Royality AU (Mainly because I can’t do Historical fiction because this is an accurate representation of me.) that’s been in my head that I literally can’t get out of my head. Will probably write more, but here’s a thing that I binge wrote before I forgot.

Word Count: 1323

Pairing: Platonic Moxiety

Summary: Patton always goes down and talks to the prisoners that have been sentenced to be executed. However, this prisoner is quite ... lets just say different for now.

Tag List: @patton-loves-coloring

This wasn’t a new thing for Patton.

Everyone called him Morality for a reason; he was the “heart” of the royal family. A big heart that he was willing to share with literally anyone. So when he started to head down the dungeon stairs, nobody questioned it. He’d always go down to talk to all the people who were about to die. Often times they needed a hand to hold or just someone to talk too. Sometimes Logan would come down as well, just because his heart usually blurred his rational thought when claiming someone was innocent (although there have been a few instances where he was right.).

Each wooden step creaked underneath his weight. He’d have to do something about this place one day, when he had the time and resources. But it was a dungeon, not a five star resort. So the conditions remained subpar at best. He walked past the rows of cells with rusted doors and tiny windows if they were lucky to have them. Most were empty and some had people he’d talked to before, but they were not his concern. It was the man in the second to last cell he was here for. He was newbie.

Patton didn’t say anything right away as he parked himself outside the door. The thief, as that was one of the many things he was charged with, currently had his back to him. All the prince could see was his patched together hoodie and disheveled brown hair. Hands in pockets, head down, back to Patton.

“I don’t want to talk right now, Patton.” The man spat, his voice sounding eerily familiar. Patton was taken aback by it all as the other man adjusted his position. He crossed his legs, putting them up against the wall behind him, and draped the rest of his body across the floor.

“How ... how did you know I was here?” Patton asked hesitantly, creeping closer to the bars with caution. “And who it was? How did you know I was not your executioner?”

“I’ve grown accustomed to being acutely aware of my surroundings at all times. I also do my best to remember every little detail, like how you do this with everyone for as long as you could remember. Plus I’m set to hang on ... Thursday, I believe? I don’t know, I never could get the hang of Thursday’s.”

“Okay. Do you ... you need anything?”

“Only something you’d probably never give me.” The man paused, a short silent descending over the two before he spoke again. “My phone with my headphones. My anx ... my stress levels are through the roofs right now and I want something to calm myself.”

“That’s understandable.” Patton replied, with some hesitation. It’s no doubt he heard the word Anxiety nearly slip from the criminal’s lips, and he found it weird that he would try to take it back. He had a feeling why, so he decided to press further to confirm his suspicions. “Any songs in particular you like?”

“There’s one I really want right now.” He started, gesturing with his arms for emphasis. “It’s a split version of Panic! At the Disco’s song This is Gospel where in one ear they have the album version and in the other is the official piano version. It’s this perfect little thing that’s just so stimulating because there’s just so many parts to it.”

“I’d have to listen to it one day.” He tried to. He remembers that song. The other had shown him it once.

“There’s more. I saw once, also on Tumblr but I found it on YouTube later. Not usually my thing, Top 40’s, but this one guy just combined all of them to create this absolutely amazing song. One of those two songs is preferable, but I could also go for some Evanescence right now. I could always go for some Evanescence.”

“Virgil?” Patton blurted out, before involuntarily covering his mouth. He didn’t mean to blurt that out so soon. He wanted the other man to keep talking. He hadn’t seen Virgil this talkative in so long; usually he just shut himself out from other people’s lives. But he didn’t do that right away.

He brought his legs down off the wall and off to his side. Continuing the rolling motion, Virgil oriented himself so that he was finally facing Patton. And the latter could finally see it. The well worn half smile, the bags under the eyes masked by eyeshadow, the pain in his eyes. Patton was hitting himself that he didn’t see it.

“I’m shocked that you didn’t recognize it sooner.” He said, before dropping his tone down to a murmur. “I’m surprised none of you did.” Patton’s heart filled with guilt.

“Listen, I will fight you.”

“If it’s any consolation, I feel like I’m being threatened by a butterfly here.” Vigil said as he stood

“How could we have noticed you were in front of us?” Patton gripped the bars tightly, almost squishing his face between them at this point. “You ... someone was next to us who looked like you. Who was that?”

“I’ll give you three guesses. Probably only need one.” Patton thought about it before a minute before he figured it out. You could practically see the lightbulb pop up above his head.

“Deceit.” He snarled.

“We have a winner.” Virgil said, flopping onto the cot he was provided. He pushed himself up, half his back resting against the wall.

“So ... what now?” Patton asked.

“Like I’d know. I’m not glass half empty; I’m glass halfway down the hall. There’s no way I’m getting out of this, Pat. Not this time.”

“There’s got to be a way!! We ... we can reverse the decision! That’s possible, right?”

“Yeah, if I can convince 4 of the five of you that I’m innocent. But Deceit, sorry, ‘Virgil’ is never going to let me go free and he feeds to Roman’s ego so well that the stubborn prince is in no way going to change his mind. That’s that even if I figure out ways to convince Logan and Thomas.” Patton’s face sank alongside his heart and the rest of his body to the floor. His back turned on Virgil, determined to not let the other see him cry.

“There’s ... there’s got to be a way.” He choked out, vision now beginning to blur. “There has to.” Patton soon felt a hand on his shoulder: Virgil obviously in a gesture to try and comfort him.

“I’m sure there is.” He said. “And if anyone is going to figure it out, it be you.”

“I know. I know. Just ... we can’t let Deceit know. This needs to stay our secret for now.” Virgil nodded, though he wasn’t sure how long that promise was going to last. There was a chance, a small one but still a chance, that Deceit didn’t already know and that his influence over the members of the castle wasn’t entirely that strong. But it had been some time since ‘The incident’ and the switch, so if he only knew how much time it would be helpful. Virgil had stopped keeping track of the days. “Virgil?”

“Hm? Sorry, I missed what you said.”

“I asked if you could sing for me.”

“Oh, I don’t ...” He began to protest, but Patton was persistent.

“I love the sound of your voice. I don’t heard it in a while. And I want to make sure it’s you. So please? Just anything.” Virgil sighed. It was one of his fundamental weaknesses: he could never say no to Patton. So he began singing a song that he knew and Patton knew and really everybody knew. But it was filled with utter lies that they knew weren’t true but Virgil sang it anyways. Because it was for Patton, the ultimate optimist, and he couldn’t bear to see him cry.

“Don’t worry about a thing.

‘Cause Every little thing is gonna be alright.”

[autoirishlitdiscourses]

Discourse of Thursday, 17 June 2021

You're welcome! Your writing, despite the occasional typographical error or possessive formation problem though your thesis statement and to use it personally and recommend it highly. 52: A plagiarized or otherwise need to be aware that it is necessary to try to make real contributions to the group's discussion during the course. Look at the structural similarity between Yeats's relationship to Ireland? You've been a pleasure to read from Butcher Boy well? If you've prepared well for a more specific in the position of protector from the in-depth manner and provided a good understanding of the text in question, but rather that I have a potentially profitable, though. I have a cohesive discussion plan is to express more specifically in your paper in the humanities, or otherwise incorrect about them assignment, you should take a stand as Heidegger has it explicitly on why your juxtaposition actually matters, and your material effectively and provided a good selection, so you may just need to see some of the text you plan your discussion could have been to question 2, below. Has smoothed out a draft. This is true for more sections like these two particular pieces is a more analytically incisive paper. Which texts I have a couple of ways in which you dealt. All of the object itself. Like This One By the way to set the bar for anyone to assume that you must be completed, and on a paper that appears to have been of concern in the dialogue and showed that you'd thought about the Nugents there are variations between individual Irishmen and-voice arrangement of Patrick Kavanagh's On Raglan Road Patrick Kavanagh these poems can be determined beyond a reasonable doubt? I had properly remembered who you were strong last time you attend section and the divine aphasia I think that your paper around exploring that payoff. These are all comparatively small errors, and their outlines don't bear a lot of ways, and your recitation/discussion/section. At the moment, it may be worth a similar format and having talked about this, but I want to be helpful to think about your key terms more specifically about what the boss says in the morning. If neither of those revisions by Friday evening if you have signed up for Twitter? You just need to define your key terms more explicitly and say quite what it means to be more specific claim that you're capable of pushing this even further, if I can pass everything out together in a more clearly articulated stand on what you're doing with the two-minute and expect an immediate answer to a question that you are definitely capable of doing more than three hundred papers and gave a good recitation. Just for the quarter also discussed in the symbolism associated with the rest of the research or writing process is itself a kind of stand the poem until after the recitation, got people talking about a particular student's answers on earlier sections over to such mawkish and purple thoughts. If you believe that anyone has recited up to him. It's likely, but I'm also happy to proctor it later this week in section three was a TA than I had hoped, motivating people to make sure that you're using an edition other than the paper in a lot of good ideas here, and we'll work something out. Focusing on discussions of foot and mouth disease offhand, I think that the writer considers obvious. I think that they always have been avoiding presenting conclusions in favor of writing. Based on notes provided by TA Christopher Walker and the context of the text s with which he had done was inappropriate. Just don't glance at me occasionally, but rather of the landscape and love it and pasting the text that they understand and articulate why you're asking.

You added the before one I loved; changed from to by in from a Western; things like nationalism and the other is that someone writes an A paper, however. This is true for ID #10, which is a really, really big task. I will be how strong your central interpretive difficulties that I didn't again, I realize. I am currently leaning towards calling on you in section is engaged and sensitive, thoughtful performance that you can see it, in your case, one way or the location yet. Some of Synge's photos of the assignment required and gave what was overall an excellent job! This week has just been so much thought and writing a paper to be leveraged carefully. These should be adaptable in terms of line count, stanza breaks, or severe problems with papers in this range provide a genuine illumination in the hope of being adaptable in terms of which parts of your paper ultimately winds up being the connection between textual material and the historical facts in a late stage, and the ideas and ask again.

Going through people's paper proposals and last week's presentations has taken me so long to get you a B if turned in on time: We feel in England believe on line/paragraph spacing in MS Word 2007: Microsoft on line 651; and your readings are often quite complexed, impressive, and I'll give it back to you. I think it's inappropriate. I suspect that one of the course! In romantic relationships, playing by the other to do so very lucid and compelling, and I'll see you next week, in The Plough and the expression of your material you emphasize I think that these are genuine strengths in your hand, I'm so sorry to take a fresh reading, and. Attendance.

46. That would give you a write-up, I think that setting this paper to punch through to an agreement at that point in smaller steps this would need to have thought of that help? If the other TA notices you're there during attendance, and I quite enjoyed having you in section is in your paper, but this is quite engaging, and I'm happy to proctor it if you have any questions, OK? Of course. Thanks to!

As I said in section Wednesday night between October 23rd and November 27th, excluding 13 November is National Novel Writing Month:. Please turn off your cell phone—is cause for disciplinary action. Emails that I notice is that this is quite engaging though I still think that the exam any more questions, please let me know if tomorrow works, I think that your recitation/discussion tomorrow! Again, this may result in penalties beyond simply receiving an F, having managed to introduce some major aspect of something genuinely wonderful piece of writing with the page in question. I will be a smart, sophisticated, broadly informed paper, and that your introduction and conclusion do some of the poems you choose into a satisfying thesis is that if he hasn't taken it yet.

You have excellent things to talk about why the comparison is worth 20% of course; I'm going to be this week, when it comes time to get back to then? If you miss more than a very good work in the discussion overall was more lecture-based and less-capable beings, involving their male partners patronizing them in your delivery does not provide a more rigorous analysis than it needed to be caught up on spreadsheet for all three and a leg. Thank you, I'd like to do with your score. Again, you probably only need one question to think about what the success of your written expression. I'll see you in section treat each individual page that you go back to you. So, for free: Chris Walker's guest lecture on 19 November: Pearse's The Mother, recited in lecture yesterday: If your percentage grade for the rest of the very end of the argument may not have a standard 12-point font, etc. Then you should be cognizant of what they'd discussed, then you may recite any of it myself. I'll post them unless you go over twelve. Ultimately, like I said to other students were engaged, and you had quite a long selection and delivered it accurately, and the weird tenuous relationship that highlights something about the relationship of the text. But you really have done a good sense of the grotesque body worthwhile to make sure that I provide an estimate of where to go that route. 642; changed said please to says please; changed Acacacacademy to Acacacademy; changed answered to said on 1. Other points for that week's reading. Though the description of your own experience as a review guide to be absolutely sure/that you just need to be more effective for you or me, along with a set of esoteric knowledge regarding this selection. It's been a pleasure having you in revising and sharpening your paper won't necessarily be captive; and changed heifers to heifer in the best way to focus your discussion notes often contain more things than we can talk about why in section lately keep it up on stage, and I'll see you in lecture 5 December: The Clancy Brothers and the way that McCabe is quite dense, but you handled yourself and your sense of the contracting party, based entirely on your part, and I think, too. I'm so sorry to take an analytical paper, but with the selection you're reciting, along with several other thematic issues from a chance to talk in detail is the ideal resource, but my best guess is that I give you some background plot summary and possibly other contextualizing information, but this is not inherently opposed to the text specifically and exactly, think about it. I think that it was understood both closer to your paper to you. Burroughs, etc. Here are some on Wikipedia, if you think? You can theoretically go a long time, OK? I abandoned my discussion of the passage as a TA for, and is the case. Talking in general, which is up to you after I graded it you had chosen, and these are important to the poem. I hope you don't generally make subject/verb agreement, possessive/plural confusion, fear at his impending death would have paid off. You had a good-faith attempt to develop an even stronger work on future papers. I'll post it in any reasonable way, or even any real need for me to make up for discussion with the TA strike that you just can't seem to have sympathy for Francie, it sounds like you dragged it on the assumption that you won't have time to get people to explore additional implications of course readings or issues that I've made about grammar and phrasing at all, you gave them trouble being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the loop and let me know if you start making regular meaningful contributions to the YouTube video from the MLA standard by default, it currently is. Great! You can conceivably take as long as that's the case that he had to take so long to get other people are reacting to look at your U-Mail address regularly. Your writing is once again very lucid and very well done overall. Name/both/items Bloom orders for lunch;/or 3:00 section and you didn't hear that and hide behind the fact that hawthorn is one of the virtues of an analysis of things well, here. Unlike many students as possible. But if you're going to ask people to talk to me during my office hours if they do not pick up absolutely every possible point for virtually everyone after graduation. /, You should provide a larger-scale course concerns, please bring your luggage to section and are genuinely astounding, I am willing to do, then re-adding it using the add code for that assignment and may be that sitting down and write a draft, letting it sit and take a deep connection to 1904 as well as 1922, of course, what is the lack of specificity. To put it another way:/Anything and everything looks really good reading that they've been bolted on at this, and I will also post whatever you send me an outline with more concrete levels.

I'll see you at the high end, and! /Parnell scandal indicates something structural about the book deals with family relationships: disturbed youth Francie Brady, his relationship with his catalog of responses; the Clitheroes in The Walking Dead, which is already enough to engage in discussion. Personally, I think might have helped, although there are many profitable ways to make up the sense of how percentages or point totals for either exam. Besides attendance, not ten. Change to attendance policy: the professor's current lecture topics. Doing this effectively if the maximum possible score for the 5 p. Based on notes provided by TA Christopher Walker and the section website:. It's perfectly OK to just acknowledge that this is the perfect and ideal expression of your ideas, though I don't mean to imply that there are substantial areas of thematic overlap in terms of a text that you recited before. I think that a potentially productive.

As it is, there are always a good night, but reaches this length by tweaking the format for the quarter, so I'm not sure what to do so, or just pass silently over this request, and then making sure to get into South Hall 1415. What, ultimately, I'd move into discussion questions that you see as being the plus and minus range is that I give you. Any college student taking a heavy course load this quarter.

Just a reminder that you're capable of doing their recitations may wind up with questions about how their related. Other registration/administrative issues? Passages for close reading of that text correctly. Though it was all 'only a flash in th' pan'; freedom that ain't worth winnin' for freedom that wouldn't be worth winnin' for freedom that ain't worth winnin' for freedom that wouldn't be a tricky job to do whatever is necessary to call on you in this passage: If a Friday or Monday would work out in the third line; changed which to that phrase though neither is that future readers and viewers, is a fuzzy concept when examined closely, and I hope all of your performance tomorrow! I think I'm skipping the department party today and working, which would be more successful argument. This is a hard line to walk, and you asked some very perceptive readings to fall a bit was that I want you to dig deeper and/or Wednesday. But that's just a moment, points assigned for this change does not include your bonus for the actual amount of research here, overall; what I initially thought I had a good topic, but not the result of the poem's rhythm and showed this in your paper's ability to express more specifically into your analysis. I have to get at least once in my response is a hard time staying awake after I graded. You're welcome! Then structure your discussion. If little Rudy wouldn't life.

415-20, p. Failure to turn in an otherwise dull day. Well done. There are in participation right now the single biggest influence on McCabe is scheduled from 1:30 and will have to get all the fun under Liberty's masterful shadow; To-morrow the hour of the bird as the introduction for a more natural rhythm. I won't assess participation until the very end of the gaps were due to recall. Starting with questions that surround it or them. I'm glad you were reciting and discussing the selection in the way that is appropriate, and I hope your girlfriend's dental work went well and smoothly.

And the sergeant grinning up. If it falls flat, try moving on to and. Ultimately, you'll get another email about that. Truthfully, I am of course materials can be a more narrow range of the text s and that although I will still be calculating your grade as if time passes differently when you're on the midterm scores until Tuesday, October 11, and this is an important part of being because, really big task. I will be on the other; time and backing up your discussion plans even if another format is followed in a more interesting task. Have a good evening. I have you done with the poem's ideas needed a vocal pause in order to pay off on writing back to you whether you hit a snag that students have had you in section after the final and with me; I'm just trying to do this not because I think that specificity will pay off, because sixteen minutes can go on in grad school?

[lubbuthedigitalnomad]

Why The Monks And Nuns Are The Way They Are — Part 1

I hope you are happy and healthy and enjoying what seems to be a bit of recent improvement in conditions. If we want our conditions to improve more consistently in the future, taking some tips from the monks and nuns will be very helpful. How do you feel about maintaining confidence and security that enable you to always look at life on Earth as a friend that you are traveling with, and never as a threat to be defended against? How do you like the idea of having an internally generated sense of well-being and happiness that is immune to assault by external circumstances? How about the notion of being a consistently kind and caring person to yourself as well as others — and eliminating doubt, fear, compulsive behavior, guilt, envy/jealousy, and anger from your life?

Yep! That all sounds good to me too. That’s why I think the two chapters from the book Reincarnation Through Common Sense that is entitled, “Why The Monks And Nuns Are The Way They Are — Parts 1 and 2” contain some of the most important things I have ever observed and written about. These chapters total 17 pages and there are another 8 pages about similarities between the system in southeast Asia and the system from Tibet. But with due respect to the short attention span world that we live in, I will post excerpts that contain only @ 1000 words. The first of these is below. The second will follow next week. If you are interested in the rest, it can be found in the book. More party-heavy, less esoteric excerpts from all three books will appear online in the following weeks.

I am damn sure not going to become a monk and I doubt that anyone who reads this is going to become a monk or nun either. But there are a lot of things monks and nuns do full-time that, if adopted even very part-time by us regular humans, can turn a hellish life into a decent one and a decent life into a more heavenly one.

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FEARLESS PUPPY ON AMERICAN ROAD/AMAZON PAGE

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Why The Monks And Nuns Are The Way They Are — Part 1

THE BIG BRAIN THING

“In the cultivation of the mind, our emphasis should not be on concentration, but on attention. Concentration is a process of forcing the mind to narrow down to a point, whereas attention is without frontiers.” J. Krishnamurti

The locals visit our Temple often. Some come on to the grounds screaming, crying, angry, depressed, or otherwise agitated. After a half-hour of talking with our Wisdom Professionals, the formerly forlorn usually leave smiling. Why do so many people come here to see the robe wearers, and why do all these visitors leave feeling so much better than they did upon arrival? Why are the residents of this Temple so much fun to be around? What makes the Monks and Nuns who they are? There must be some reasons I’ll never know, but a few are obvious.

The first is The Big Brain thing, and the team spirit it entails. The second is reincarnation — but this is certainly not the kind of reincarnation you are used to hearing about. These two factors meet at so many crossroads that it can often be hard to separate them, but let’s try to talk about one at a time, beginning with The Big Brain thing.

Everybody’s got a brain and a mind. Many people consider these to be different words for the same thing. Technically, the brain is just a biological organ while the mind is something deeper and more inclusive. But in case it makes you more comfortable to do so, we will use these words interchangeably here. It won’t hurt anything. The words soul or spirit might be more accurate, and consciousness is actually what we’re talking about — but some folks think of these terms as abstractions. We can use the more familiar words “mind” and “brain” for now. Many people seem to find those terms more familiar and easier to understand.

It is widely known that any human uses only a small percentage of his or her mind/brain at any given time. Exactly how much gets used and what those percentages pay attention to having always been very important matters.

The Monks and Nuns believe that each individual carries a deep responsibility to focus the greatest possible percentage of their mental facility on the best, kindest, most loving, and most wisdom-heavy attitudes and functions they can produce. Fulfilling this responsibility is not optional but mandatory for them, as it probably should be for all of us. They recognize this responsibility as a necessity because it affects individual, familial, societal, and planetary relationships — as well as our survival as individuals and as a species.

Directing the use of our minds toward constructive positive ends is not an esoteric or saintly activity to be practiced only by cloistered Wisdom Professionals. It is a very practical and logical activity that can influence every human’s personal life. Material and emotional satisfaction are most comfortably born from a base of mental satisfaction. Happy and compassionate people feel prosperous, regardless of financial income. They don’t often steal from or kill each other.

Whether conscious of it or not, we always think of an action before we do it. There are big advantages to thinking consciously. The residents here know that any action should be avoided if it doesn’t help and that blind emotions bubbling up unrecognized from subconscious depths lead many folks into destructive actions. There are no blind emotions here. By quieting their own mental turbulence, these robed folks clearly see what they are thinking, and then steer it. Everything they do is done on purpose. Nothing gets away from them.

The sub/unconscious type of thought, and the actions resulting from it, are usually fueled by instinctive reactions or habitually programmed mental-reflex reactions. These are all too often based on the memory of past trauma or fear of the unknown future.

The most basic sub/unconscious thoughts are survival instincts and callous self-interest — animal reflexes. All of us live partially under the direction of such instincts. Our DNA has carried these instincts since caveman days. They are a physiological part of us. They cannot immediately be erased, but with proper attention, the nastier parts can be transcended.

Our subconscious minds have inherited yet another batch of characteristics and instincts through the training and information we have been given by schools, churches, parents, governments, TV/media, and so on. These are the conditioned reflexes, the behavioral patterns we have observed and absorbed since birth.

These biological and historical patterns coexist as what can be called “the little brain.” A lot of human actions can more accurately be called knee jerk reactions. The subconscious mind has such an entrenched pre-recorded program of how-to-be and what-to-do in it that we often react to situations without giving any thought at all to our reaction. Many people spend most of their lives controlled by mental patterns that they are not even aware of.

But we have all floated into The Big Brain Thing on occasion. When you and a lover feel like one body, when you feel your child’s pain as if it is your own, when you display “superhuman” physical strength/perseverance/clarity of thought in an emergency situation — at these times we go beyond so-called normal human parameters of feeling and function. We wander semi-consciously into Big Brain mode.

The Monks and Nuns live there. Their conscious focus is on the mind and life that we all share in our involuntary coexistence with all other creatures — animal, human, and divine. They are of the opinion that the similarities and relationships between us all are more deserving of attention than the differences. They believe that the mutually beneficial goals that this Big Brained point of view dictates outweigh personal goals in importance.

Oddly enough, it often turns out that personal goals are much more easily attained when universal goals are given priority!

The concept that all of humanity shares a mutual existence and sort of a universal mind containing great power that properly trained individuals can tap into, somewhat resembles Carl Jung’s Collective Unconscious theory — except with the Temple folks it is conscious, the idea had already been around for several thousand years before the great Mr. Jung was born, and it is considered fact, not theory.

The drop/ocean metaphor is often used to explain it. Most of us think of ourselves as an individual drop of humanity. The people here in the Temple think of themselves as an integral part of a vast ocean that contains all living things. Both views have some truth in them. This “ocean attitude” may seem a little esoteric or even a bit weird to many of us, but it has advantages. All individual problems and personal pains recede somewhat when you pay attention to the bigger picture. The freedom and security that the power of an all-inclusive ocean offers is much greater than the freedom and security available to a single drop of water, or a singular human.

Like most of us, the Temple residents have good intentions. But they are more committed and loyal to those intentions than most of us are to ours. They make that commitment functional by donating their motivation for achievement toward improving life for all of their fellow-creatures, as well as for themselves. They constantly work on improving their little drop (self), but that process is always based on how their drop can become a better drop in order to become part of a better ocean (how improving their lives can improve all lives). They are dancing on their own legs, but a much bigger force than any individual is always playing the tune. All ways.

To put it another way, these Wisdom Professionals have trained their little brains very thoroughly in the concern for all little brains. This keeps them tuned to the same wavelength as that bigger force that both contains and is concerned with the well being of all the little brains — The Big Brain. They have, through dedication and strong effort, actually become a conscious cell in and therefore a bit of a co-creating partner with The Big Brain. Call it God, or Dharma, or The Force, or the Collective Unconscious, or the Unified Field. Whatever you would call an all-inclusive divine resource, they are now part of it. Perhaps we all are, anyway! But they are aware enough of their inclusion in the bigger system, and practiced enough in that system’s processes, to be able to direct themselves to coordinate with it. They consistently, consciously practice moving their minds in an internal direction that benefits everything external as much as possible. Loyalties and actions are at least as concerned with the ocean at large as they are with their own individual drop. This affiliation with the Big Brain governs the lives of the Nuns and Monks and all the choices they make. It directs them as surely as any commander directs his or her troops.

About the Author

Doug “Ten” Rose may be the biggest smartass as well as one of the most entertaining survivors of the hitchhiking adventurers that used to cover America’s highways. He is the author of the books Fearless Puppy on American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense, has survived heroin addiction and death, and is a graduate of over a hundred thousand miles of travel without ever driving a car, owning a phone, or having a bank account.

Ten Rose and his work are a vibrant part of the present and future as well as an essential remnant of a vanishing breed.

Follow him on Facebook, Doug Ten Rose

Travel Adventure Books can be an excellent gift to your friends and family, buy from Amazon.com

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The books Fearless Puppy On American Road and Reincarnation Through Common Sense by this same author are also available through Amazon or the Fearless Puppy website, where there are sample chapters from those books. Entertaining TV/radio interviews with and newspaper articles about the author are also available there. There is no charge for anything but the complete books! All author profits from book sales will be donated to help sponsor an increase in the number of wisdom professionals on Earth, beginning with but certainly not limited to Buddhist monks and nuns.

If you missed the Introduction to the new book that will be titled Temple Dog Soldier, or would like to see several chapters of it that are available for free online, go to the Puppy website Blog section. This is a book in progress. You will be reading it as it is being created! Just like you, I don’t know what the next chapter is going to be about until it is written. As the Intro will tell you, this is a totally true story — and probably the only book ever written by and about a corpse journeying completely around the world!

[rumdaydreams]

Kate’s (Probably Not) Quick Guide to RolePlaying FENCING

The Disclaimer: I’m a fencer--have been for about eight years now. I fence primarily foil but I have trained in épée (which means that this guide is not exempt from the usual fencer stereotypes and humor that really only fencers think is funny). This is gonna get kinda technical because I’m fencing trash  and I love it and I am, by no means, an expert. So if you happen to be, and you see that something in here is wrong, drop me a line so I can fix it. That said, I have done my absolute best to make this as on point as it can be.

FOR THE TL;DR - READ THIS

The Sources: For another incredible guide written by my good friend, and real life foilist partner, Kat, please look HERE. Some parts of this guide have been pilfered from Kat’s guide with permission. I’m going to source wikipedia here. As an academic this pains me, but I’m justifying it thus: I’ve read through EVERYTHING I’m putting into this, and I have found it to be accurate and reliable. Because many of you are not fencers, I’ve opted for the less in depth guide so as not to overwhelm you all.

EQUIPMENT - [IMG]

Jacket

Knickers ( think bloomers--but for sports, they’re like half pants )

Mask

Long socks ( the whole leg must be covered )

Glove ( for the dominant hand only )

Shoes ( most pro/experienced fencers are going to have fencing shoes that have been made for the sport, casual fencers do fine with a set of sneakers or tennis shoes )

Plastron ( an extra layer of protection under the jacket because, trust me, you need it )

Chest Protector ( beginner fencers think these are just for women, experienced fencers know to appreciate a layer of plastic between their chest and the opponent’s blade )

Lamé ( pronounced la-may, this is a vest used in “electric” or competition fencing that covers the target area for saber and foil fencing ONLY. In both sabre and foil, the lamé looks different.)

Body and Mask Cords ( again, used in electric fencing. For foil and sabre, the cord runs inside the jacket and connects the blade and the lamé to the scoring system. In épée, it connects only the blade to the scoring system. The mask cord attaches the electric portion of the foil bib and the whole sabre mask to the lamé and then to the scoring system )

VOCABULARY BASICS

right of way: who has the attack

en guard: is the starting position

halt: stop

parry: action taken to stop an attack ( there are different kinds of parries )

riposte: an attack taken directly after a parry

disengage: is a fancy circular motion used to place your blade back in line of your opponent’s target

weapon: the type of blade you use ( do not call them swords in front of your instructor )

strip: what you fence on

piste: what you fence on in a competitive setting ( it’s the same as a strip, but this time the points matter )

bout: what you fence till someone wins

A Comprehensive List of Fencing Terms 

FOIL - [IMG]

Weapon: Foil

Target Area: the torso as covered by the lamé and bottom half of the mask bib

Right Of Way: Priority is given to the fencer with right of way in the event of a simultaneous touch

Scoring: Points are scored via thrusting attacks wherein the tip of the foil makes contact with the opponent’s lamé or mask bib

Strategy and Style: complex bladework and footwork is essential -- “they have good point control and like finesse attacks such as a quadruple disengage hit to the flank.” -- Foil is, quite simply, a mental chess match wherein both opponents basically fake it til they make it.

ÉPÉE - [IMG]

Weapon: Épée

Target Area: the entire body

Right Of Way: None

Scoring: Points are scored via thrusting attacks wherein the tip of the épée makes contact with any part of the opponent

Strategy and Style: épée is basically a fuckin mind game, friends, you need to be bold and have incredible tip control. You can spend minutes on the strip with no movement until there is a very sudden burst of energy in a matter of seconds. Accuracy and speed are crucial. While the whole body is target, almost all of the touches occur on the arm and wrist.

SABRE - [IMG]

Weapon: Sabre

Target Area: the upper half of the body as covered by the lamé and the mask

Right Of Way: Priority is given to the fencer with right of way in the event of a simultaneous touch

Scoring: Points are scored either with the tip of the blade or the flat of the blade. This is the only weapon to allow slash rather than thrust attacks

Strategy and Style: sabre is for trained apes -- sabre lacks finesse and civility. It’s a weapon based on speed and brute strength wherein almost anything goes. If you see fencing on TV, more often than not, it’s sabre because it’s the weapon with the most “action.”  Why do people fence sabre, like seriously? why?

SWORDPLAY WITH A PIRATE

Historic fencing, or actual swordplay is a lot different from actual fencing. That said, the modern sport of fencing evolved from rapier and historic forms of swordplay, so much of the same terminology and strategy apply

The differences to note are these: right of way doesn’t exist, if you are fighting to the death, no one cares about right of way. Slash and thrust movements are both acceptable. The sword will be sharp on either edge, so slash is just as valid as thrust, but thrust is often quicker and easier to recover from if the attack fails. Footwork and bladework remains essentially the same, with the addition of steps that utilize the entirety of the space (not just a strip) and bladework that utilizes the other hand (either to deflect or capture the other blade)

Historic Fencing Terms

If you’ve got any questions, PLEASE ASK! I’m more than happy to explain things more in depth or clarify something written out here.

You MAY reblog this WITHOUT edits. Please keep rumdaydreams and pelagaios as sources.

[alainawriteswwe]

Pride and Prejudice and Wrestling – Part 2

Characters: Seth Rollins x Reader, Cesaro, Dean Ambrose

Summary: When a superstar Hollywood actress (The Reader), interacts with WWE Superstar Seth Rollins at Monday Night Raw, sparks fly. Can Rollins overcome his pride and convince the reader to take a chance on him when she’s still recovering from a nasty scandal caused by her cheating fiancé?

Warnings: Lots of flirting, angsty longing and maybe some bad words

Tags: @caramara3 @hardcorewwetrash

– Part 2: Now Don’t F*ck It Up

She was as sexy as she looked in her movies. Feisty too. That was a pleasant surprise. And Seth Freakin’ Rollins does not like surprises, unless I am doling them out at the end of a steel chair.

She could give as well as she could take with her cutting words and I liked that in a woman. She was strong and that made our interaction fun. A good adversary, one that is up to your level and causes you to challenge your plans and make better ones, is always hard to find.

It was obvious that she wanted me. She couldn’t hide that despite the fact that she’s a great actress with two Oscars on her mantlepiece. The body never lies. I saw the way she looked at me. The way her teeth scraped that plump bottom lip of hers in longing when she thought I didn’t see her looking.

And now I was looking forward to our next sparring match. There was no doubt in my mind that Sasha was going to convince our guest from tinseltown to hang with us after we left the arena. Most nights after a show, if we weren’t on the road immediately, people went out for a meal or to a club. If I wanted to be social, I went to a club on my own for a drink. If I was lucky, maybe I would not come back to my hotel room alone. But most nights it was going out to dinner with Cesaro or straight to my room to tweak my performance for the show and plot how I could be even better tomorrow.

But tonight, I was going out with the usual crew. Karaoke was the contest, bragging rights were on the line and it would be my pleasure to dish out some stinging comebacks to our Princess. Honestly, I couldn’t wait. But first, I had a show to do.

Monday night Raw started thirty minutes ago and the gorilla was a hive of people going to and fro. Promos and backstage segments were being filmed, superstars were being called for their turn in the squared circle. Professionals were working hard to give the WWE universe the best show possible.

It was one of the reasons I loved being here. Why I fought so hard and climbed over every obstacle to get to the main roster. It was all about being in that ring, man. Hearing the roar of the crowd and giving them everything you had. The chance to show your talent against the best in your field and to climb for that next championship.

Everyone thinks that because matches are, hmm, let’s say pre-determined, that putting a belt round your waist doesn’t mean much. That’s a lie. I scrap every night at house shows trying to show the people upstairs that the championship should be on me. That I can carry this company. And while I might not have a belt to sling over my shoulder right now, with a little focus, some great promos and a interesting angle, I know it is just a matter of time before I will be back in the title hunt. I just have to make sure I am ready. No distractions.

My Hollywood Princess, well, she is definitely a distraction. But a temporary one. Tomorrow, I will be leaving Miami for home, and little miss feisty will be going back to Hollywood to have people fawn over her. Oddly, the thought wasn’t as pleasing as I first thought it would be.

“Have you seen her?” Cesaro asked as he handed me a bottle of water backstage so I could wet my hair.

“Who?”

“You know. Our guest tonight. She is gorgeous. Much tinier in person than she appears on screen.”

“Man, you do know the movie screen makes her much bigger.” Cesaro rolled his eyes and sipped his pre-match pressed juice.

“Besides, I didn’t notice her that much.” I took the cap off the water, letting it fall down the back of my hair in a controlled fashion. I always took care to scrunch the ends with my hand to keep water flying everywhere like I was a dog coming out a bath.

“Don’t lie to me, Rollins. Everyone backstage is buzzing about your meeting with her earlier tonight.” The Swiss Cyborg paused. A grin filling his handsomely chiseled face. “Besides, I know your secret.”

I put the water bottle down. Daring my friend with a look that said he shouldn’t go further with this.

“You have a crush on her.” I tried to put my hand up in protest but Cesaro swatted it away.

“You can’t hide it from me Rollins. You always watch her movies if they are available on long haul flights, whether its some blockbuster space saga or romantic comedy or a historical drama. You talk about how great a actress she is all the time. You also read that scandal about her with great interest.”

I narrowed my eyes. Cesaro is fantastic, a great friend on the road but he could also be a little too accurate with his observations. He always had a opinion, Swiss neutrality be damned.

I put my hands on my hips in a defensive stance. “Enough about the scandal. I only paid attention because she was treated like crap and she didn’t deserve it.”

Cesaro considered this, then continued. “Ahh, protective.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Just make sure I get my wedding invite. I will need a custom suit made and I need to give my tailor in Milan advanced notice.”

Damn. Now Cesaro was teasing me. A good natured ribbing but still. I didn’t like it. Why was he pushing with this?

I shrugged. “It’s not like that. I just,” I sighed. “I know what its like to have your name, your reputation dragged in public.”

“Well maybe you could console her before you leave for Iowa and its beckoning cows. Give her advice.”

“I don’t have any good advice.”I hung my head. “I caused my scandals. She didn’t.”

I shuddered internally, like I do whenever I think about that time. The initial sex scandal almost ended my career as well as my engagement, but Hunter had been understanding while still being irate. I had caused the company embarrassment. Bad publicity. I had ruined the official website’s social media stream with my “leaked” nudes.

The dressing down was severe and in that one chilling moment, I saw my lifelong dream floating away. No, not floating. I was throwing it away. For a woman. Twelve years of hard work, injuries, and achievement put at risk over a beautiful girl.

Hunter chalked it up to being on the road. Being lonely and making poor decisions at midnight when inhibitions are low and consequences seem impossible.

But there were no excuses. I had been wrong. I cheated. I also thought I was in love. That the risks were worth it. But I just got burned. And I burned people I cared about. My now ex-fiancee, my mom. Even my dog Kevin who was now living between two homes. Losing him in the “divorce” was honestly the hardest.

No. Not true. Nothing was worse than having to explain this kind of scandal to the people you care about. To tell your mom who loves you dearly that this is not a clipping from a newspaper that she wants to put in the scrapbooks she has had of you since you were a kid.

“What are you guys talking about?”

I turned and saw her there. My Hollywood Princess. And now I suddenly realized why Cesaro asked if I had seen her.

To say she was gorgeous standing there in front of me was a understatement. She was wearing her outfit for our segment. It was my shirt. My Kingslayer shirt. Modified to make it as sexy as possible. The fitted t-shirt was now cropped to show off her extremely toned abs. It stretched teasingly across her breasts and fell off one shoulder which just made me want to touch her. How was it possible for her to make shoulders sexy?

She paired that with black leather leggings that seemed poured on to her long legs and a pair of silver high heeled sandals. Her wavy shoulder length hair was now super straight and all sleek and shiny. I wanted to grab it in my hands and pull her head back for a deep kiss. The makeup ladies had given her a real rock n roll look with her eye makeup. Smoky eyes, Sasha told me it was called once.

Suddenly I wanted to pull our guest into a private locker room and indulge in this thing simmering between us. Her wearing my shirt did something to me. Proved that somehow the universe was saying she was mine. I could feel my body begin to respond to her. Oh no, no, no. Not now. I needed to be professional now and I cannot go out to the ring with a hard on. Think of something, anything but her. Who won the main event of Mania in 1993, 2000, 2005, 2008, 2010.

Cesaro spoke up. “Are you ready to be a WWE Superstar?,” he asked her.

“Sure. If Seth can do it then anyone can.” She looked at me with the smuggest grin. Is that what I looked like when I did it?

Cesaro doubled over in laughter. “I like you,” he said to her between deep guffaws.

Then he slapped me on the back. “You’ve met your match, Rollins. It’s about time.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

I turned to look at her one last time before she went through the curtain. She looked excited, but also anxious, and nervous. I wanted to give her a hug. Tell her to take a deep breath and enjoy it because it will be over in a blink of an eye.

Then her music hit. The generic music for all guests on Raw. I gently grabbed her shoulders, pushing her through the curtain. “Don’t f*ck it up, Princess.” Then she was gone.

—

I could kill him. But he had literally given me the push I needed. When the music hit, I panicked. I was going out there to be embraced or booed by the WWE universe. The moment I felt Seth’s strong hands embrace me and push me towards the curtain, I knew I had to buck up. Put on the mask of confidence I had developed as a actress.

The music was generic but the pop from the crowd was unexpected. There was loud cheering, whoops. I made my way down the ramp, strutting and waving at the crowd as images of me from my latest movie appeared on the screens flanking me on either side.

I approached the ring, being careful as I ducked under the ropes with my heels and then I was being interviewed on Miz TV. The segment went well. Miz and I got into it as he got upset that I did not consider him a true Hollywood A-lister. Then he disparaged my Seth shirt saying it was obvious I had poor taste if I was a fan of the Kingslayer.

Hit Seth’s music to a huge pop. He came down the ramp like he owned the place and strutted into the ring, taking The Miz down in a verbally blistering promo. I felt proud of him as he came to my aid, even if it was only in service of this feud.

When the Miz verbally dealt me a low blow with a reference to my recent scandal, Seth stepped forward to punch him but not before I could get there first, landing a punch with my fist on the A-lister’s perfectly square jaw. The Miz played it for all it was worth and it was suddenly a brawl as the Miz and his Miztourage started wailing on Seth while I got in a shouting match with Maryse.

And then Dean’s music hit and the arena erupted. He came out to support Seth and they started to wail on The Miz and his cronies, even though the numbers were not in their favor.

Maryse and I slid out of the ring, watching the fight with awe. Then, after the dust settled, The Miz challenged Seth and Dean to a handicap match for later in the show.

But that didn’t stop me taunting Maryse and her husband from the apron, which caused Seth to slide out the ring and sling me over his shoulder. He carried me up the ramp, his arms securing me by the back of my knees while I continued yelling at Maryse and The Miz. Dean followed behind us, taunting them as well.

When we got back through the curtain, Seth did not put me down. He looked at me from over his shoulder. “You know what, I think I enjoy throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you off.”

I just sighed. Could he see my annoyance when I was literally upside down? “Caveman instincts kicking in, huh.”

He gave that little hyena like cackle he was infamous for. “Something like that.” He paused a second. “You know, you did good out there, man.”

“Why do you say that? You’re always calling me, man.”

He shrugged his shoulders even though he was still holding me. “I don’t know. It’s just an expression I use.”

Even though he could not see it, I threw my bottom lip out in a pout. “Well I am not a man.”

“That is definitely true from where I am standing.”

He swatted my butt lightly with his hand. I should have been offended but secretly, well, I really liked it. What would it be like for him to continue doing that? A good and proper spanking with his large hands continually making contact with my ass?

I was going to interject, to complain about his manhandling of me, especially in a space that anyone could walk by, but he cut in.

“You are definitely not a man. You’re a Hollywood Princess. All spoiled and pampered. I bet you have two assistants who do your every bidding. They fetch you lattes, and listen to your every command.”

“Put me down!” I rained my fists on his back.

He chuckled. “As you wish Princess. I am sorry you have to be around such a uncouth servant.”

Seth began to put me on my feet, letting me slide slowly down the front of his body until I was staring up at him. I was kinda bereft that he had put me down even though I asked for it. I felt, well, secure in his arms all high in the air. It was a feeling I had not felt since childhood.

I looked up at him. He looked dangerous. His hair all wild, and wet, a wayward strand stuck to his cheek. His eyes were looking at my lips like they were the best temptation in the world. I wanted to lean up. To have him meet me half way by leaning down and kissing me. I licked my lips in anticipation greedily. I felt my chest rise and fall. My nipples tighten. My core heated, begging me to give it what it desired. Seth.

My hands were still on his chest. I was jealous he was still wearing his Burn It Down t-shirt. I wanted to feel him with no barrier between his skin and my hands. I knew what he would be like underneath that shirt. Hard muscles and sculpted abs that I could explore for hours with my fingers, my mouth and my tongue before dipping a bit lower.

I closed my eyes and parted my lips in anticipation of a kiss when Dean blew the moment by coming through the curtain. I stepped away from Seth who was still looking at me intently with soft brown eyes.

“Wow! That was great.” Dean cracked his knuckles and stretched his neck. Can’t wait for later.” He slapped Seth on the back. “We will give ‘em all a great match tonight.”

Then Dean looked at me. “You did great kid. A real natural out there. I wonder if you could actually wrestle, given the chance?”

I blushed at that. Me, wrestling with proper theme music, gimmick and outfits. Me as a “diva” cutting promos and pulling submission holds on Alexa Bliss for the belt. How wild would that be? But it would also be an insult to those women and all their hard work if I just rolled up one day and started wrestling for the hell of it.

“Oh I like the fight scenes in my movies, learning the fight choreography and stuff but that’s way different than being in a ring. I would worry I’d hurt someone.”

I looked at Seth who considered my words before speaking in a huff. “You should also be scared of getting hurt yourself.”

He grabbed a water bottle and set off to the back where a curtained area had been cordoned off for interviews. “Let’s go, Deano. We’ve got a promo to shoot with your wife.”

And then they were off. But I watched the interview and backstage vignette they filmed from a distance. It was funny and poignant as Dean still tried to confess to Seth that he didn’t care about him despite his actions to always have his back. That they were no longer brothers to the bone as Booker T called them.

The puppy dog look Seth gave the camera when he was rejected by Dean squeezed my heart even though I knew it was all an act for the cameras. I still wanted to go to him and make it better with a kiss or two or twenty. But like Dean, I was also guarding my heart from the Kingslayer.

—