#i also do gig work in my other career outside of school

[lexosaurus]

Hello! Very random and no worries if that's not your intention for the blog, but I love reading about your teacher experience and insights! Take this ask more so as encouragement to write more about it if you feel like it, because I'm going to start teaching soon (and yes, many people I've met have warned me about both its miracles and horrors lol) and it's really helpful to hear others' experiences :)

Thanks for the ask! Honestly I'm just a first year, so I don't have a tonnnn of advice to give. But here's a few general first year tips from one to a future another:

1 — No matter what, having a good department team is ESSENTIAL. You're going to be relying on them a lot your first year for help, advice, curriculum stuff, behavioral management stuff, etc. Talk to them, get to know them, have lunch with them, share issues/seek advice from them. You're going to encounter situations that your degree did not prepare you for (likely, in the first week lol. For me, it was Day 1) and having people around to help you judgement free is going to be crucial. I was super lucky that my department team and all the teachers from other departments that I work closely with are really amazing, easy to work with, etc.

2 — You're also going to want a good relationship with the "other" departments. The library staff, tech staff, sped department, guidance, janitors, etc. They're all lovely people, so don't be afraid to pop in to introduce yourself on the first week!

3 — Crazy things are going to happen. Like....all the time. Don't bring them home with you. As soon as you exit the doors, shake it off. All your students made it on the bus to their parents alive, so it's fine. Your job is done for the day. I've been going to the gym a lot right from school, and it's been really helpful to prevent myself from taking anything home with me so to speak.

4 — Document, document, document. Did something happen? Document it, email a copy to whoever's applicable: admin, guidance, sped, BCBA, etc. "Hello, just emailing a summary of what happened today" is not an uncommon email for me to send out. If an IEP isn't working, well at the next IEP meeting it shows they have 10 emails in the last month from you about little Timmy's hourly verbal threats and attempted physical violence to his classmates, so maybe the BCBA needs to do some data collection to adjust his BIP, or they need to give him a 1-1, or give him more resource intervention, etc.

5 — This isn't so much of advice, more like reassurance. The small moments when it clicks for a student and they get something, and then the confidence and excitement shows, it's really the best. That's probably why I've fallen so in love with working where I did. The other day, after weeks of struggling to help this student with Downs with his math, I tried a totally different approach based off a few example problems I saw in a math intervention workbook and hOLY HELL IT WORKED. It totally clicked for him, and the kid was so excited to do a problem out on the board for the class. It was amazing. Another student with an LD who I've been helping heavily school aced a quiz in one of her classes and legit ran into the room to show me. Cue me literally jumping out of my chair to high-five her, and her calling her parents to deliver the good news. Like, little things like that are really really special, and they're going to mean so much to you. And I hope you get to experience LOTS of them too!

[sl-vega]

0.1; retired theater kids-(y/n's squad)

project: love liason! - a scaramouche smau

y/n:

hopelessly in love with childe (has been since freshman year) you are on fairly good terms with him, (even if half of your interactions play out in your head rather than reality)

(ridiculously) hopeful romantic

you were the one who started your friend group after you met everyone else in a drama camp during eighth grade (hence the name retired theater kids)

the "responsible" friend (even though the general consensus is that lynette and navia are the actual responsible ones)

mona:

your best friend and scara's academic "rival". having been forced to have tons of classes together in the past two years, mona and him have been pretty cut throat when it comes to them competing with each other

mona finds him insufferable, and has vented to you about him on numerous occasions, even though you've never even met the guy

super into astrology and zodiacs

she's well known around campus for having scary accurate predictions

"that wasn't on your 2024 bingo card? well it was on MINE."

furina:

president of the drama club at your school, and is often put in charge of directing all of the drama club's shows

she used to be a semi-popular child actress that frequently appeared in famous kids shows, but she took a break recently to focus more on her directing career

was essentially a guarantee for any lead in school productions when she was younger

absolute drama queen

navia frequently keeps her up to date with all the latest gossip so she's a real treat to talk to

lyney:

lynette's older twin brother, and a part time magician for kids birthday parties

one of the girls

also a member of the drama club

both an actor and member of the stage crew as he helps with special effects for productions as well

wants to continue working in the film industry after high school

bounces around as a freelance worker instead of being tied down to a specific gig despite having many offers from several places

says that if he waits the salary offers will get higher

lynette:

lyney's younger twin sister and part time magic assistant

her brother often jokes that she ditched him, but she just preferred to explore her own interests outside of lyney's career

member of both the drama club and science club

unlike lyney she only helps with behind the scenes work

most notably special effects, but she's more interested in the scientific aspect of making it work

navia:

DEFINITION of an fbi friend

knows everything about everyone, does loyalty tests on people's boyfriend's sometimes if they pay her

picks up crazy amounts of info, and has a shit ton of connections to tons of people and places

doesn't disclose how she finds out all of this

the type of friend that can find someone only by their first initial

give her a single piece of info and BOOM

she has their full legal name, all their social media accounts, the location of the grocery store they frequent, and their parent's Facebook pages

currently in a situation ship with chlorinde

additional notes:

profiles are out!

not much I wanna say but yeah :D

i'll try my best to do frequent updates

if you wanna be tagged just send me an ask/comment!

𝜗𝜚 SYNOPSIS: you're head over heels in love with childe, and scaramouche is (begrudingly) smitten with his "rival" mona. and, by sheer divine coincidence, you both happen to be the best friends of each other's objects of affection, so you strike a deal with each other. if scaramouche helps you ask out childe, you'll set him up with mona. so with the annual spring formal right around the corner, the two of you vow to be each other's wingmans so you can end your junior year on a high note (and maybe even kick off your senior year with a new relationship!). between, scheming, planning, and researching, you and scaramouche find yourselves developing a new relationship via helping each other out. now the real question is whether this friendship will remain as a pure platonic bond, or blossom into something more?

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🎀 - taglist!;

@agaygothicmushroom, @035814, @freyao7, @sketcheeee, @tsukimara, @shyentsmissingink, @justpeachyteastea, @aries-afk, @lxkeeeee, @sakiimeo, @sugxryratz, @shutingstar, @lalaloveallmydays, @bellflower1257, @haruumei, @kichiyosh1, @littlemisssatanist, @dee-zbignuts, @candyescapism, @crimxeorcremeexistspeacefully

[socgf]

the outsiders bts tea from rob lowe's book: part 1 (casting)

okay i am reading rob lowe's autobiography and taking notes on anything the outsiders related! this first part is some personal background as well as the casting for the outsiders.

i know some of this is already common knowledge about their audition process but i thought rob had some interesting insights/ways of describing it so thought i would share. 😁 also i am recording every word he says about matt dillon because that's my man

ch 1-8: early life and acting idrc

at 15 rob gets a role in a tv sitcom, "a new kind of family” - this is when he first starts being seen as a teen idol, he's only 15 and getting fan mail from men in jail asking to see him shirtless :( and girls chase him around and basically jump him, they steal his shoelaces (?) he writes a lot about how he hates this ear piercing scream of teenage girls

he moves to santa monica and becomes friends with the LA actors crowd, mostly through his high school - he’s friends with the sheens and penns, robert downey jr, emilio estevez

charlie sheen is a freak and sometimes wears a bulletproof vest to school and is a huge conspiracy theorist but we knew he was a weirdo

but the tv show flops and he has trouble landing acting gigs for a while, he feels like a has been at 17, thinks of doing something else with his life, is ready to go into usc

in december 1982, he’s told he can audition for the outsiders - it’s basically his last chance

ch 9: the audition process part 1

LA auditions: tom cruise, emilio estevez, tommy howell

every male actor in hollywood between ages of 15 and 30 were being asked to audition

coppola didnt even know the outsiders existed until one middle school liked the book so much that they petitioned it to be made into a movie and he was like okay

rob says s.e. wrote the outsiders set in the 50s? maybe a writing mistake but i think that’s so funny if he actually thought it was in the 50s this whole time

rob sees emilio at the soundstage for the audition among 25 other actors, the audition is nothing like he's seen before, emilio is wearing a ‘ridiculous looking pompadour’ and rob asks him wtf is going on, emilio is like “hey what can i say it’s francis” - his dad genuinely almost died of a heart attack working for coppola on apocalypse now

side note the filming process of apocalypse now is absolutely INSANE - sickness everywhere, a tapeworm coming out of martin’s driver’s mouth at one point, playboy bunnies were just written into the film etc

everyone is leaving the auditions miserable except for this one guy who comes out all happy, telling rob and emilio that francis sent all the actors away except for him - rob describes him as friendly and funny but having a robotic, bloodless, focused intensity (tom cruise btw)

francis keeps switching everyone’s parts and having them read each others parts in front of the other actors

tom reads for sodapop randy darry and dally!

rob reads for sodapop and randy

emilio reads for sodapop and darry

the auditions have this insane setup of a table with a small light and 4 chairs in the middle of a dark room, everyone who’s not in the scene is circling around watching- he describes it like a boxing match

he says tom looks like he wants to bash his brains in and steal his role from him

1st lineup: dennis quaid as darryl, scot bayo as sodapop, tommy howell as ponyboy

tommy is so lowkey he doesn’t seem like he’s trying, but also seems very real and authentic, he looks like a baby

tommy is stonefaced and cool the entire time he’s watching others, they can’t believe he’s only 15

mickey rourke comes in and rob says he looks dirty and homeless lol francis worships him

2nd lineup: rob and tommy play their respective roles with john laughlin as darry

robs entire career lowkey rests on the soda crying monologue, he’s only able to cry because he sees tommy’s eyes water for him (aw)

francis gets mad at some of the actors for pronouncing soc as sock LOLLLL

the role of sodapop is most coveted after ponyboy, it’s supposed to be huge, romantic, with the big breakdown scene at the end - he will bring this back later i assume with how he was upset about it being cut

NYC auditions: matt dillon, ralph macchio

they fly to new york for the next round of auditions

on the flight together rob tommy emilio and tom are ‘working a cute stewardess for alcohol’ lol and become friends - this is like the LA squad

the new york actors make up the other group which is kinda fighting for roles against this LA group, they’re tough, intense, serious

the actors stay at the plaza hotel and they’re told they need to share rooms

as soon as tom hears this he calls his agent and rob literally does an impression of him “uh paul? they’re making us share 😠” he is certain this is not right and wants this fixed asap, he’s already a diva

the boys go out to times square and get super drunk

next morning is what rob calls the east coast vs. west coast acting brawl (screentest time)

rob’s impressions of the other actors below:

matt dillon

matt is already a huge teen idol, he’s pretty intimidated by him

he’s reading the part of dallas - “and by reading i mean reading, he’s holding the entire script with his eyes locked on the text” - idk what he means by this i thought this is what they’re supposed to do.. whatever

after a while he puts it down and is paraphrasing completely, adlibbing, making up dialogue while the other actors try to keep up with him

he can’t tell if francis told him to freestyle it or not - if so, he’s got the part locked in and if he didn’t, then matt dillon has “dangling, clanking, scary big elephant balls”

ralph macchio

he recognizes ralph because they were competing for a part in ‘eight is enough’

describes him as a tiny kid, bro is 21

he says it’s clear he’s the front runner for johnny

ralph says him and matt have only been reading for their respective parts and have been doing so for days (together btw) (it’s clear the dally-johnny dynamic is very important to francis)

this is very interesting to me!!! how everyone else was so in between parts and matt and ralph were just. locked in from the start. and paired.

tom comes in and is asked to do sodapop, he is nailing the breakdown and rob’s like ‘i’m done that’s it’ - he is a force to be reckoned with

then tom stops in the middle of the scene!! and says “this just isn’t working for me i’m sorry”, francis lets him try again but it doesn’t hit so that’s how he loses the role basically

rob does the scene and crushes it

that’s all for chapter 9, no one is casted yet. the only greaser not mentioned at auditions at this point is patrick, i assume he will get to that + diane lane + others in the next part though, and it’ll also cover the dynamic between the cast once they already get the roles

pt 2 coming soon hopefully some more juicy stuff 😋

[voidmountain]

@piratedllama I can but you’re not going to like it!

Void’s guide to getting a job in conservation

My story

My educational credentials: BAs in philosophy and creative writing from a big cheap state school, and a PhD in English literature with a specialization in environmental humanities from a small private R1. Couple years as an adjunct professor.

I trained my entire life to be a literature professor. It’s all I ever wanted. By the time I was finishing my doctorate, I had a very limiting belief that I was either over- or underqualified for any job outside academia. I was wrong.

By the time I made the decision to leave academia, I had published 2.5 peer reviewed academic articles and several magazine pieces. I also had about 5ish years of part-time communications consulting under my belt from helping run the writing center at my institution. I got a part-time social media/SEO management gig, and then used a grant to fund a comms internship at a local environmental nonprofit. Then I straight up just applied to jobs at conservation orgs on LinkedIn at a rate or 5 per week for about 6 months. I was looking for jobs in communications and education. Landed a couple interviews then got a position as a comms manager. My islander heritage ended up being relevant too bc I have a cultural insight into the regions where the org works. I’ve worked here for about a year, mostly wfh desk stuff, but I like to tag along to projects so I can take pics/do interviews/help with fieldwork/coordinate community meetings & info sessions. I still have a publishing career on the side, with 2 new articles out and a book manuscript in the works.

I do not recommend doing it this way lol.

What I would do instead

Conservation orgs have room for people with all kinds of backgrounds and expertise. If your goal is to have a job similar to mine, get lots of writing and science communication experience. Be able to show that you’ve built impactful campaigns and learn your way around SEO and communications terminology. Start with internships/social media, try and get some experience working with journalists, and have a nice portfolio of campaigns (easy way to start is an awareness campaign for a particular policy or science issue). Other creative experience is a plus (photography/graphic design/web design/UI).

Fieldwork is not that hard to get into. You can get field experience as an undergrad by working in research labs or volunteering. From there, lots of conservation orgs in your area are probably looking for volunteers or part-time workers to do field monitoring. TBH you don’t really need a degree to get into fieldwork, but the ceiling is kind of low without one. With a BS you can work your way up through an org probably to a manager level position where you could lead a field team but not direct a program. Generally, without a MS or PhD, you won’t be designing programs—just carrying them out, which can be really rewarding. You can also make lateral moves towards things like project management—coordinating supplies, transportation, methods, and problem-solving stuff.

Other ways to get into the field: orgs often contract out conservation tech companies to carry out specialized operations, like aerial monitoring and bait distribution. Getting a license for like a heavy-lift drone, an ROV, or boat stuff can also get you in the thick of it.

If you want to design and direct conservation programs, unfortunately you probably need to go to grad school. I can write up a separate post about how to decide whether to pursue an advanced degree if people are interested, but my general advice is Never Enroll In A Masters Program. Either do it as a 4+1 with your undergrad or go straight for the PhD. That’s where you’ll get experience designing your own experiments and contributing to the sum of conservation knowledge.

Extremely important caveat

You do not have to do any of these things in any particular order. It’s totally cool to work in the field for a couple years before going back for the PhD. You also do not need to link your education to your job (god knows I didn’t). My side hobbies of wildlife photography and scuba diving made me a great candidate for the job I eventually got, and they didn’t have anything to do with my degree or original career path. There’s also a million other jobs that conservation orgs have that don’t involve having a science background at all—HR, finance, admin, philanthropy, consulting, & policy analysis are huge parts of this. So are other jobs that aren’t *within* conservation at all, like journalism & social organizing.

A lot of folks I meet out here in the conservation world are on their third or fourth careers. It’s very, very normal to switch it up, try many things, land somewhere, leave, and pick up somewhere else.

All this to say: the world is really, really big. Don’t feel pressured to take the shortest most linear possible path. There are a million ways to have a good life.

[cybersodas]

Yay, the inbox is open again! (genuine) Now I can spam you with more asks >:)

First, how is the rest of the world in comparison to Neotropolis (assuming we see outside the city)? Would you say most of the sci-fi tech in your world comes from Neotropolis specifically, or are there other places making major technological progress too? Are other places also cyberpunk or is California Neotropolis just like that tm.?

Next, I’m assuming that Rock is going to have a major role in the story, but who else will be super important to the plot. Are any of the first liners (*cough Cutman *cough) or any of your ocs major players?

Also, what do Rock and the other bots do in their free time? Do any of them go to school or have side gigs?

Sorry for the long ask, I just love hearing about world building!

RUBS MY GAY LITTLE HANDS TOGETHER OKAY

Neotropolis is definitely one of the leading areas in computer science; it’s one of the most heavily machine/robot automated cities in the world, and lots of aspiring android engineers will move their to advance their careers. That being said, there are plenty of other places that have a lot of advanced technology, such as Russia and Japan. Neotropolis is actually pretty well-connected to Japan in the area of robotics; lots of trading relations for things like parts, robot models, etc. the rest of the world is also pretty machine automated, but in more disenfranchised/third world areas it’s very rare to see a robot unless it’s a police/military robot what who said that

I mentioned this in that other ask, but yes, the whole light family is basically gonna act as a big ensemble cast to the story; they work as a team to fight against Dr Wily much like they do in the ariga mangas!

And finally, some of the light bots do have little hobbies and stuff that they’ve picked up!! Rock is really into this old scifi comic his dad liked as a kid, Cutman looooves keeping bugs as pets and helping birds/other animals who are hurt or need food, and he also likes singing to himself when he’s bored. Elecman also eventually does pick up the electric guitar just like in canon.

[links-gender]

Sims 4 DLC idea: musical instruments pack

So the sims 4 has its share of DLC already, but one thing I haven’t seen yet and haven’t heard many people talk about, is a musical instruments/musician pack. You know how ts3 Late Night let us make actual bands (albeit only rock bands)? I think that’s be a pretty good concept for a sims 4 pack.

In an ideal world, EA will give us a wide variety of instruments as well as different music-related paths for our sims to take. I’m sure they’d give us more guitars, pianos/keyboards and probably a drum kit, though I really hope that they expand beyond just traditional rock band instruments: brass instruments! Woodwinds!

One of the main features of this pack would be the ability to form bands, similarly to how they worked in the sims 3. Additionally, there would be new music-related after school activities for kids and teens to go to - something as simple as a rabbit hole orchestra or band, with an unique uniform. For sims who want to learn piano, guitar, etc., they would be able to have solo lessons with a teacher, either as an after school activity or as individual skill classes. In the end of the week, there could be a recital event where your sim travels to a special venue (concert hall?) to perform in front of an audience.

Aside from playing instruments, your sims could also learn to compose music! The game already has an existing comedy skill that you can raise by composing routines on the computer, and I guess the music composing skill would work similarly - your sim composes music and then they have the ability to perform it afterwards.

I think the least they could do in terms of new careers is add a music teacher career, and maybe a symphony orchestra related career? Your sim could either be a musician or a conductor. Perhaps also a composer or songwriter career?

Most of what I’ve suggested already is very rabbit hole-y, which is honestly fine, especially if they also give us the option to form a band together with other sims. Bands could probably work similarly to how the groups from Get Together work, and gigs/concerts could be a type of social event where you take your band to a venue and have them perform in front of an audience. As far as new venues go, a concert hall would be cool, maybe even a sort of outside festival grounds - like a music festival with stages and food stalls and such???

Anyways those are just my ideas as a musician who would love this type of gameplay in a life sim

[brightviewblog]

Q+A

Andrew Gagne and Henning Reinholdt are two key members of the local band, Bright View. Gagne is the lead vocalist and Reinholdt maintains the beat on the drums. As well as an additional two members, Declan Rider dually plays the guitar and piano, and Rob Ricz as the bass. Four band members from all different backgrounds, and corners of New England such as Maine, and New Hampshire came together during their freshman year at Endicott College and formed a unique cover band. This band sprouted during their sophomore year at Endicott College when they were eager to transform their friendship into a cohesive band. Gagne started his love for singing when he was in Middle School and looked up to his vocally talented sister, and wanted to be just as great as her. Reinhold formed his love for drumming throughout high school and knew it was a talent that would bleed into his collegiate career. While Gagne is planning on becoming instrumentally fluent just like his bandmates, he is still enjoying mastering his vocal craft and elevating the band with it. The band is also working towards twisting existing music to gain more chemistry and ease into original content. For example, they turned a traditional piano ballad into a rock song through their creativity. This is how Gagne and Reinoldt believe they set themselves apart from existing local bands, as their friendship and passion show through their music. Andrew, Henning, Rob, and Declan have a bright future ahead of them, which is articulated very well in the interview. Looking into the future, Gagne and Reinholdt have plans to study abroad in Ireland for four months in the fall, they both are confident that the band will stay intact and even perform better once they are together again. 

Tell me, how did the band start?

Andrew: Me and Declan last year would come and do like little two-man stuff with just an acoustic guitar and a voice but we always watched other bands and we talked about it a little bit last year… I mean we were friends with Henning and we didn’t really know Rob but we liked the band so we talked about filling in and we just got started this year right away, it’s been fun. 

What are your individual roles for the band? How did you start?

Henning: I play the drums so I hold the beat down for the song and I set the cadence- so if it’s a slower rap song ill probably be playing more tighter, quite sounding drums- or if it’s like a rock song ill be playing more symbols- it’s just about volume and keeping everyone in the same kind of rhythm.

Andrew:  Im just a vocalist- I’m not an instrumentalist right now, its definitely something I want to work towards, but it takes time. It definitely takes time. When I was growing up, my sister was big into the theater, chorus scene.  So me trying to one -up her all the time, I got into it, too, and tried to just be better than her. So it's definitely a huge stylistic change, too, from what I was doing in high school and middle school to what I'm doing now.  when I came when I came into college I'd like swore off music just because I'd been doing it for so long that I was like I was done but I guess it's just the people I start hanging around with drag me back in and I'm still like I'm still off of like where I was in high school was all chorus and theater so I'm off that but it's been fun with the band 

Where do you primarily perform? Do you enjoy performing?

Andrew: So we basically just book all our own gigs, whenever we want to around campus. I mean, we’re definitely interested in expanding it outside of campus, but so far the opportunity just hasn't come for us to. 

Henning: I think it’s like easier when it’s just us playing because we get to put together like a five-song performance rather than wait to play… this band is a lot more fun just because we’re close friends all of us and there's good banter… it makes the music experience a lot cooler. 

What is your musical process? What are the challenges?

Andrew: So far we need to improve our process I think definitely that's one of our areas where we’re all needing to improve because we're all such go-with-the-flow people that will text and say we’ll practice tomorrow but then we just don't feel like it or something comes up. 

Henning: We hold the phone up to the amp and we listen to all of our parts and then everyone kind of gets a feel for it and then we just see how far we can make it playing the song together and then we just play it over and over. 

Andrew: You always start with the skeleton of a song, just the chords and the basic melodies. And then you just try to add like little accents and layers where to make it sound like a little bit more full. 

Have you begun playing original music? 

Andrew: We’re in the process of that right now, I mean as a new band we just kind of tried to do covers to get ourselves started and kind of gain some chemistry. There have been a couple of songs that we changed up the styles. There’s a song called Lou by Richy Mitch and The Coal Miners that was generally like a slower piano ballad type of song, but we tried to rock it out a little more so that it could fit our band style. 

Henning: I think the next step is to write all together, get in a room together, and just all decide what we want it to sound like then we can write lyrics together and stuff- but that's further down the line right now. 

Do you come across any conflicts within the group?

Andrew: Definitely, since were all friends, were not afraid to call each other out. If we weren’t friends then it would be way more awkward. 

Henning: There’d be moments of a little grimace on my face, it’d be these moments of onset tension…it would make shit really hard to finish. Like we would not get through stuff very quickly. 

Are there any lasting details about being in a band youd like to add? 

Henning: Well, I think it's cool because Andrew and Declan have never really been in a band before and for like relatively like new band members, they're very easy to work with and like very talented people so I think it just goes to show that anyone should try music, like you know, it doesn't matter what level you are or if you think you can't sing or whatever.  Andrew:  I was definitely hesitant to jump into it here in front of like everyone that I go to school with every day, but like, I think people just need to understand that it's not that serious. Like, it's purely for fun, so like, just do what makes you happy and get it done.

[humdelhi]

“My first video that went viral didn’t even carry my name. It was a stand-up act on Nokia's ‘patli pin wala charger’ and iPhone’s so-called capabilities. It was circulating across the country through WhatApp forwards and I had no clue about it. I realised how popular it had become much later when a person called me and said, ‘Sir kitne mahino se dhundh raha hu apko. Apka video dekha thha magar naam nahi thha uspe. Humare office mein bhi aakar perform kariye please.’ That was a pivotal moment for me. Until a couple of years before that day, I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest of dreams that I’d end up becoming a stand-up comedian.

I grew up in a middle-class family in Delhi that witnessed a transition from Bajaj Chetak to Hero Splendor to a Maruti 800. I was a typical 90s kid who collected Center Fresh cricket cards and played with Lays tazos. I was also quite good in academics and often topped the government school that I used to go to. And hence, I had an ambition to study at an IIT. I tried twice but couldn’t make it. I had the option to join an NIT, but decided to study engineering at a college within the city for the love of Delhi.

Having studied in a government school all my life, I had never gotten a chance to develop other skills or interests. I felt a little like an outsider when I hung out with the ‘cool kids’ of my college. So I started reading a few books like '7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ and 'Rich Dad Poor Dad’, which helped me understand the world around me better. However, I wanted to do something more hands-on, and told my elder brother about it. He recommended joining ‘Toastmasters Club’ to brush up my public speaking skills. When I first went up on stage, I was nervous, shivering from head to toe, and my mind went blank. I didn’t like it, but decided to continue because I used to take my brother’s advice seriously. I practised a lot and slowly started to get better at public speaking. I became a regular member of the club and also began enjoying the feeling of being on stage. In fact, some club members told me that I was funny, so I started putting more jokes in my speeches and made them hilarious.

I used to watch Russell Peters and Rivaldo at that time. Their comedy was more verbal and opinion-based. This was a refreshing change from character and situation based comedy that we had grown up watching. I realised that I could pursue this form of comedy. I was about to finish college then and had a job offer in hand. However, my elder brothers were working and that acted as a safety net for me. So, I decided to try out a full-time career in comedy. My first performance at a stand-up comedy event won me the second position and two thousand rupees. This was followed by a small gig at a mall that got me three thousand bucks. While the pay wasn’t much, the feeling of going up on the stage and talking to an audience who listens to you and laughs with you was surreal. Eventually, the Nokia/iPhone video went viral and it has luckily been an upward journey from there.

But growth and change are continuous processes ‒ now, I’m adjusting to the system of online shows in the Covidian era. While the experience of doing live shows is incomparable, virtual shows have their perks too. It’s a different feeling to see an audience that is watching my show in their pyjamas. I get a chance to engage with people from so many cities at the same time, and they really seem to enjoy it. I know a person who joins the show early to provide some unsolicited advice on adjusting the lights. Recently, an engaged couple joined my online show separately from their own homes as a way to spend time together. Things like these warm my heart and have made me closer to my audience than ever before.”

[mystomachfeelsawful]

I turned 30 this year. My brother (who is literally getting ready to plan out his life as a father lol) told me that 30 was going to change me. That I was going to transform at 30. I scoffed at this. Ridiculous. 

I feel like a real artist. For the first time in, literally forever. 

I gigged so much in 2022. I directed 5 plays and 4 workshops and had an additional 3 where I was a playwright, each on a scale I’d never dreamed of. I finished first drafts of three musical theatre books, a whole complete draft of Woking Phoenix, did my first tour and won a sparkly trophy.  

I’ve never worked this much in my life. At the end of 2019, I was getting ready to direct at a community theatre with a leadership team that frankly, didn’t want me there. I was barely making ends meet financially (though I had convinced myself otherwise) and was working a catering job where my favourite supervisor was quickly becoming a Ben Shapiro “centrist” stan. So yeah, I dunno, success.

But I think somewhere along the way, I realized that I think, for maybe the first time, I needed to work on myself. Beyond me as an artist. On my 30th birthday, my summer roommate Thomas and I decided to have a dumpling party for me. We invited a bunch of people over to make dumplings at my house, friends, students and just have a birthday party. I don’t usually host parties, or really host anything aside from theatre things. I haven’t had a real birthday party for just friends since I was a kid. 

A whole bunch of people showed up. Like, lots of people. And we kept making dumplings, frying them, eating them. Just a bunch of buds, former students, friends. And I just felt really loved. Felt really taken care of.

And I think, I realized that this was a part of my life I was missing - like living a more full life meant more than just making art I believed in. Mind, you, I think me feeling success as a theatre artist was the catalyst for this, as I think I had convinced myself in my twenties that I could not be happy unless I had achieved career success first (which stems back to a lot of other things), but yeah. I think Adam was right. Something did change.

Here’s some things that happened this year.

1 - I taught and directed at two theatre schools - the University of Toronto Missisauga and Toronto Metropolitan University. Both Hookman and Servant were two of the largest projects I’ve ever worked on in terms of scale - a far cry from the fringe shows I’m used to working on. I got white models, a woodshop was working on the project, people would show me samples of fabrics and prints before rehearsals. I had a moment during the tech of Servant where I saw Sarah’s set load in and I got emotional. I wasn’t getting heatstroke in a garage. I was directing a real show with real moving parts in a non-festival setting.

More importantly, I was able to direct on my own terms (more on this in the next point). I always resented the theatre school guest director who flew in from somewhere exotic, spoke down to the students and then flew away - I always resented the guest director that students were scared of. So I really tried to treat the students like they were professionals on my indie productions, with the same level of scrappy tenacity and being really honest when things weren’t working without making them feel shame. 

Teaching also presented some challenges - especially that of balancing pedagogy and directing. How do you nurture students while also giving them a sense of rigor? How do you adapt to folks who aren’t benefitting/don’t work with your process? How do you deal with class dynamics that can exist outside and inside a room? I learned a lot from both experiences and am excited to use what I learned in Winnipeg when I fly out in two months(!). I take teaching really seriously because my first theatre school teachers failed me (in both crushing my sense of belief in myself and feeling like I belonged in this industry). It’s our job as educators to not only give students rigor, but a sense that they can do this if they have strong process. Hungry to get back in the ring.

2 - I put my demons to rest at TMU. I feel every year I end up talking about Ryerson and how hurt I was, etc. Never did I think I’d be directing there so soon in my career, and never did I think I’d be directing a dream show there.

I read Hookman early in pandemic and immediately fell in love with it as a script. It was wild, violent and had a deeply moving core. Also, it seemed like it was an impossible play on the indie scale I usually work at. How do you do a fight in a moving car onstage? How can characters get stabbed and profusely bleed - with actual stage blood. Hookman felt like a project I’d work on when I was well into my “career” and could find a theatre that could fully back in.

Much to my surprise, Hookman happened earlier than I thought. 

Walking outside RTS (rip the old building) has always given me a sense of small dread. It represents a journey I wasn’t able to finish, one I desperately wanted to finish at the time, but was told by the faculty (repeatedly) that I should leave. As immature as this is, I never got to do a fourth year show, I never got to even speak in class (the acting class in the first semester is one where you have to be silent), so the school has always existed as a weird mark of failure for me. I was kind of worried I’d be triggered going back there. 2/3 of the faculty that sat on my panel as I was told to leave (and then told that I could use the yoga I learned to lose weight in my real life) were still teaching there. 

I set up protocols. Those folks weren’t allowed in my rehearsal room. They weren’t allowed to email me, etc. I wanted to make sure that the room was a safe space for me in returning back to a site that’s haunted me for the last 12 years.

I didn’t need those protocols. What I got was a process where I met incredible collaborators and where we all got to put up our best work in the hottest rehearsal space I’ve ever worked in (not sexually. thermally. 370 was a sauna and I have no idea how Desmond fought in what was essentially a full morph suit every rehearsal). A process where the students fought for me as much as I fought for them. A process where, I think, we all left as stronger artists.

As we all sat in the basement of the creative school after our show (and the subsequent quasi-techie dance that followed), and we kind of all cried together and shared stories of how proud of each other we all were, I kind of felt my RTS demons leave me. My closure toward RTS wasn’t destroying the school or cancelling my problematic teachers, it was being the leader I didn’t have when I was there. Someone who pushed, but also encouraged students to be great artists, that even if the run/work wasn’t strong that day, it was still always achievable. Where we could laugh at failure openly and view success as not an end destination, but another thread to rediscover in the run. Where they didn’t have to leave the program with a big chip on their shoulder, but with work everyone was genuinely proud of.

I feel really grateful to have the TMU experience that I did. I feel I can walk past the Creative School with a wonderful sense of closure. I had my fourth year show, but it was on my terms and put the students first. And no letter or probationary status can take that away from me.

Also, if you want me to vouch for any of my students at UTM or TMU, shoot me a line. Wild about them and all of their work. 

3 - Quitting. A big part of this year was also learning to value my own self worth as an artist and a person. Another beautiful part of working so much was the ability to say no to projects at any point. A lot of my own work in pandemic has been recognizing my own self worth and recognizing that I don’t need to make theatre all the time regardless of work conditions - no matter if the project is near and dear to my heart or it isn’t. That sacrificing myself for the greater good or someone else’s needs is not something I ever want to do. I left projects this year because the environment was abusive, the organizational structure was dreadful, or it was simply time to go. It doesn’t matter what the project is, if the vibe feels wrong or something feels off, I can’t do it.

This also applies to people. I ended some friendships this year and cut some people out. I think sometimes you can only try so much before you realize that something isn’t working and that person isn’t worth your energy anymore.

4 - After June 12th and the aforementioned birthday party, I entered the world of online dating. After not dating for 8 years because of an ex who messed me up, I think I reached a point where I was happy with myself enough to see if it was for me again. I had a goal of going at just one date by August 30th.

And man, what a weird ride that was. I met a whole slew of people, from someone who told me that she didn’t believe that she could be happy if she was single, to someone else who tried to get me into bitcoin, to a weirdly quiet date where someone told me her only goal in life was to make a lot of money so she could become a landlord.

I think though, in spite of all of the weirdos (myself included), the normies, the awkward silences and the occasional moments of genuine connection, I felt braver after this summer, like I started to figure out what I wanted in other people, but also when a connection was genuinely forming. I also started viewing myself as genuinely attractive as a human, not just an artist, someone who could desire and be desired. So yeah, pretty rad. 

5 - I feel like if my twenties were about learning about myself as an artist, my thirties could be about learning about myself as a human - about putting myself first always and not compromising my own needs for other people. I feel genuinely like 2022 was the happiest and most secure I’ve been as an artist and a human. I did a lot of things for just me that were private goals - going to the reference library and reading a bunch of plays, walking from Science World to the Cultch, hosting an impromptu taco birthday for someone I barely knew, starting an activity club in the summer, eating terrible food at a theme restaurant, or just having a whole week to myself to play video games. I’m really fucking content and I want to keep doing that and being that. If that means leaving the party early to play God of War, or just taking time to quietly walk through a new neighbourhood, I really like myself these days and all of my weirdness.

PLAYS

1 - Is God Is

2 - Post Democracy

3 - Love You Wrong Time 

4 - Killing Time 

5 - Queen Goneril

THINGS ON SCREENS (not all new releases in 2022!)

1 - Sort Of

2 - The Bear

3 - Shiva Baby 

4 - Causeway

5 - Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 

6 - The Northman

MEMORIES

1 - Standing on the shores of wreck beach with Maddie, talking about where we were going, who we wanted to be and things we were saying no to.

2 - Walking home from every rehearsal as the sun set, or during a winter afternoon and feeling like, holy shit, I’m doing this.

3 - The whole noche buena workshop.

4 - Hookman’s opening. 

5 - That dumpling party.

6 - Going to the reference library over the summer and grabbing more plays than my hands could hold, sifting through them until I found one that I couldn’t put down.

7 - Seeing Servant’s set for the first time. 

8 - Hearing Meat and WOKING PHOENIX for the first time in front of a live audience after endless zoom meetings (4 years combined total for both).

[goldilockswrites]

Thunderstorm // Eddie Munson

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Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader (she/her)

Requested: Yes (by my brain)

Summary: When reader has troubles going to bed, because of her fear of thunderstorms, Eddie swoops right in and saves the day... Well, the night.

Warnings: A description of a thunderstorm. Other than that all is fluff.

A/N: Hey, loves! I typed this one out at 1 AM, with my eyes half-closed, because OMG I had a dream about this and just couldn’t not write about it! Anyway here it is! 

Also let’s all collectively thank my friends for being so supportive and encouraging me to post this + helping out with the cover!

All the love,

Axe <3

Tags: @moonlight-simp​ (If you want to be on the taglist, click on the link below and fill out the form.)

© 2021-2022 @idyllicbutterfly​ on Tumblr All Rights Reserved

Add yourself to my taglist - Check out my other stories

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It had started as a murmur that echoed through the air. Followed by a silver cloud, dragging its shapeless body through the sky. Not even a minute later, a violent downpour fell over Hawkins - lightning striking the ground, the loud growl of a thunder sneaking right after.  

The deep rumble of nature send the unpleasant kind of shivers down Y/N’s back. She glanced at the clock on the wall - it was a hair past 2 AM. Even more sweat dripped down her forehead, as the sky wailed again. “You are fine.” She whispered to herself. Her tearful orbs scanned the room - in the darkness she was able to identify a wrinkled bed sheet, a guitar, an ashtray and an opened pack of condoms. In the end her eyes stumbled upon the pile of notebooks on the desk, trying to count how many were there in the stack, which occupied her mind for a while. 

But just then yet another thunder echoed outside. Y/N hugged her knees to her chest, cuddling into her pillow, careful not to wake the sleeping boy next to her. Eddie was completely unaware of the panic, that the spiders in the corners of her mind seemed to thread. His chest rose and fell at a steady pace, as his eyes remained shut. Chapped lips were slightly parted, allowing a few soft (and a few not so soft) snores to slip out here and there. Occasionally he would scrunch his nose, or mutter something in barely a rasp, but that was as much as anyone could get out of him while he was asleep.

Despite wanting to crawl out of her skeleton, Y/N decided against waking up the boy. He had a busy day - driving her around town, doing school work, staying behind for extra credit and still remembering to pick her up and take her home, a Hellfire meeting and a gig with Corroded Coffin, drug sales. It felt unfair to bother him for something so little (at least to her).

That's why she chose to try and suppress the wave of fear that washed over her and sliced her open, leaving her bleeding each time. So she closed her eyes and started fantasising - about what she and Eddie will do after graduation, about their new home, their wedding, his career as a rockstar, her own job. But nature had other plans, sending yet another thunder to shake up Hawkins. This one sounded much more scary than the previous ones, as if Zeus himself had just landed a mere foot away and was now preparing to bury the whole town alive.

The sound made each fantasy crumble, leaving Y/N weeping. She didn't even realise she was crying until she brought her palm to her cheek to wipe off more sweat and as a result she couldn't bite into her palm on time to suppress the sob that wrecked her chest. The sound was so loud that it woke Eddie up.

The boy let out a grunt, rubbing his fists over his eyes. His fingers ran through the tousled mop of curls on his head, getting tangled in the mess. When the sleep was shrugged off of his body, he turned to his right to hug the beautiful girl by his side only to find her body shaking, as she bit down on her palm in an attempt to silence her cries.

“Hey, hey, hey…” Eddie gently leaned towards Y/N, slipping his arm around her frame. “I- I h-hate th-thunderstorms.” The girl nuzzled into his touch, pressing her side to his own. “I know. I know you do, baby.” He kissed the crown of her head, pulling her closer. Her cheek landed on his bare shoulder. The boy twisted around to flip the switch of the closest lamp on, breaking apart the darkness. In the process, he managed to knock the red ashtray over, letting out a harsh “Fuck!” when old butts and ash littered the floor. 

Another thunder echoed through the city - getting yet another yelp from Y/N and a whole new downpour of snot and tears. The metalhead turned to the girl, pressing his lips on her slaty cheek, pulling his arms around her neck. “Do you wanna watch a movie?” Eddie wiped a few tears off of his girlfriend’s cheek. “I can put on one of those you brought.” If it wasn’t for the crippling panic that had taken over Y/N, she would be swooning over how quickly the boy was ready to drop his metal attitude for her. But for now she just resorted to trembling and nodding. 

Eddie laid the girl down, covering her up with the blanket and looking for her handbag. He reached his hand inside, pulling out a journal, a camera, make-up, and… “Jesus, where is it?” “Do you-” “No, it’s fine, babe, I will find it.” After some more shuffling and producing a few polaroids and pens, Eddie finally let out a small cheer when he pulled the copy of the film out. (He never thought he’d be happy over a copy of “Flashdance”.)

He quickly turned on the TV, setting it up, before playing the movie at a low volume. Y/N sat up a little bit, cuddling into Eddie’s side when he got back in bed, looking at the screen. The boy took a cigarette out of the pack, bringing it up to his lips and lighting it. He held it out in front of the girl - his subtle way to ask her if she wanted to smoke with him. She nodded, letting him slip it between her lips. 

About half an hour later, after sinking in the covers of Eddie’s bed, and watching the movie (Well, it was more listening to the boy fuss about it and planting kisses to his bare chest.), she curled up to the metalhead and closed her eyes. With a “You know, this isn’t very metal from you.” she drifted off to sleep, leaving Eddie with a smile on his lips as he finished off the cigarette. His girlfriend was back.

[collapsedsquid]

One day last September, a curious email arrived in Chris Hables Gray’s inbox. An author and self-described anarchist, feminist, and revolutionary, Gray fits right into Santa Cruz, Calif., where he lives. He’s written extensively about genetic engineering and the inevitable rise of cyborgs, attending protests in between for causes such as Black Lives Matter.

While Gray had taken some consulting gigs over the years, he’d never received an offer like this one. The first shock was the money: significantly more than he’d earned from all but one of his books. The second was the task: researching the aesthetics of seminal works of science fiction such as Blade Runner. The biggest surprise, however, was the ultimate client: Mohammed bin Salman, the 36-year-old crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

MBS, as he’s known abroad, was in the early stages of one of the largest and most difficult construction projects in history, which involves turning an expanse of desert the size of Belgium into a high-tech city-region called Neom. Starting with a budget of $500 billion, MBS bills Neom as a showpiece that will transform Saudi Arabia’s economy and serve as a testbed for technologies that could revolutionize daily life. And as Gray’s proposed assignment suggested, the crown prince’s vision bears little resemblance to the cities of today. Intrigued, Gray took the job. “If I can be honest with how I see the world, I’ll pretty much put my work out to anyone,” he says.

[...]

Many  staffers seem to have genuinely bought into that message. Jan Paterson,  a British-Canadian who heads planning for Neom’s “sports sector,” says  she wants her grandchildren to grow up in the city, which she hopes will  be the most physically active urban center in the world. Three years  in, she’s one of the longest-serving employees. “I joined because, in my  working career, no one has ever said, ‘Do you fancy setting up a  semi-autonomous state using your passion as a tool for positive social  change?’ ” Paterson explains. “It’s as simple as that.” Her eyes light  up as she describes an ideal day in the Neom of the future. Imagine a  sixth grader, she says. When he wakes up, his home will scan his  metabolism. Because he had too much sugar the night before, the  refrigerator will suggest porridge instead of the granola bar he wanted.  Outside he’ll find a swim lane instead of a bus stop. Carrying a  waterproof backpack, he’ll breaststroke the whole way to school.  Paterson actually means this; Neom says it’s considering an idea for  canals filled with swimmable water, creating a novel aquatic commuting  option. If all goes well, she says, residents can expect an extra 10  years of “healthy life expectancy.”

[...]

Gray, the Santa Cruz author, was hired to help conceive a high-end tourism zone called the Gulf of Aqaba, which internal documents say will feature luxurious homes, marinas, nightclubs, and a “destination boarding school.” MBS told its designers that he liked the aesthetic of “cyberpunk,” a sci-fi subgenre that typically depicts a dark, tech-infused future with a seedy underworld—think William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer or the Keanu Reeves vehicle Johnny Mnemonic (also based on a book by Gibson). “I was a little surprised to hear that the prince was very interested in science fiction, but many people are, of all sorts of political persuasions,” Gray says. He and a team of other consultants were soon working long hours to research the aesthetics and implied culture of cyberpunk’s many iterations, which fed into a taxonomy of science fiction atmospheres that Neom employees were developing.

Building a cyber-feudal corporate omni-surveillance hellzone, we call this act “The Anarchists“

[atlafan]

Regular Thing - One Shot

a/n: okay, here’s bouncer!Harry, or bouncerry as I like to call him. this turned into a longer thing than I thought, and it’s a no strings attached type situation. there is A LOT of smut, enjoy! (reblogs and feedback are greatly appreciated) not proofread, sorry! 

Warnings: SMUT

Words: 14K

Being a bouncer in a college town wasn’t Harry’s intended career of choice, but it was a decent enough gig while he was in grad school. He was sort of over partying and boozing himself, so he didn’t feel like he was missing out much. It was fun at first, letting people in, turning others away. He took his job very seriously, never giving into the people that would flirt with him when the bar had reached capacity.

“Sorry, you’ll have to wait until some people leave.” He would say to them. The girls would push their boobs up and try to look as convincing as possible, but it never worked on Harry.

That was how the beginning of the night usually went. He’d stand outside for a few hours checking ID’s, and listening to the chatter of the people that would come out for a smoke or for some fresh air. He sometimes had a co-worker outside with him on the busier night, but most of the time it was him. Then he’d head inside and help grab empty glasses and survey the scene for overly drunk people. The bartenders would nod towards specific people and Harry would get them the fuck out.

It was tough at a college bar because people would often come to the bar already smashed. Their parties would get ruined by noise complaints, so everyone over twenty-one would come down to have some more fun. That’s not to say people wouldn’t try to sneak in, that’s when more of the flirting will happen.

“I just wanna dance with my friends, please? You can even stamp my hand.”

“No can do, come back in a few months.”

Harry was going for his MBA, and wanted to be a business owner someday. He got paid well as a bouncer, especially since he had boxing experience. His boss knew he could take care of business when need be. His boss, Greg, had taken him under his wing. Not only did Greg own the bar, but he also owned some off-campus apartments. He told Harry once he had his MBA a property manager job would be waiting for him. It would be an incredible start for Harry as buying and selling homes was something he really wanted to get into. He even wouldn’t mind owning the bar, or some bar, himself one day. He had time to figure it out.

For now, he was perfectly complacent working Tuesday through Sunday (technically Saturday, but the bar closes at 1:30AM), getting free drinks and food when he wanted, and listening to music. Luckily, his classes were either online, or in the afternoons, some were even weekend intensives, all of it was manageable.

//

Y/N worked at the university in town, also going for her master’s, but was only able to do so through her benefits as an employee. She didn’t get to go out that much, pretty much only when her friends were in town. One of her good friends, Mike, was in grad school for biology, and when her friends would come to stay with him, he’d invite her out. She had explained that unless it was a small thing at his place, or a night at the bar, she couldn’t really party with him or them if it was somewhere else. Nothing would look worse than her boss seeing her on barstool sports, hammered and popping her ass at some off-campus party where there could easily be people underage. It just wasn’t worth the risk.

Y/N only had guy friends, who she just referred to as her boyfriends. It wasn’t on purpose, it just sort of happened. She started hanging out with them her junior year of college when they were seniors, and they all just clicked. She had dated one of them earlier in the school year, but none of them put two and two together until later. She sort of absorbed them as a friend group, and the one she dated never really came around much.

Mike: hey, Y/N! The boys are coming into town this weekend. We plan to go to the bar Friday and Saturday night, will you come out???

Y/N: hey! Omfg I’d love to!

Mike: great! Can’t wait to see you

Y/N: same here, who exactly is coming?

Mike: Danny, Rob, Drew, and Conor

Y/N: amazing!! It’s gonna be a great weekend

//

There was a local band playing tonight. Harry didn’t love the way they sounded, and most people couldn’t wait for them to finish their set so the dance floor could open up, but it was a nice break from all of the overplayed music. The DJ on Fridays always spun the same tunes.

It was starting to get a little colder out at night, and even though Harry had been doing this a while, he still couldn’t quite understand how some of these people came out half dressed. People were coming in herds, and Harry had to turn a good chunk of them away. There was a $3.00 cover charge to see the band, but no one ever carries cash, and Harry couldn’t let them in without the cover. Simple as that.

He noticed this girl walking down to the entrance by herself. She had her hair up in a cute ponytail that flowed, and she was wearing skinny jeans with some booties, the jeans look to be high-waist. She was wearing a wind-breaker and a crop top. Not totally bundled up, but certainly more sensible than what many of the other people inside were wearing. As she got closer he could tell she had some light makeup on, but her eyes were done up. Whatever shadow she had on made her eyes pop.

Y/N had been to this bar many times, but not in a long time, and never at the hour Harry worked. Or maybe she had, but she had never really noticed him. As she approaches she gets her ID out and ready.

“Hi.” She smiles at him and hands him her ID to check.

Clearly not already intoxicated, good sign, he thinks to himself.

“Evening.” Harry mutters as he shines a small light on the ID, double checking it before handing it back to her. He catches her name; Y/N.

“Thanks.” She starts walking towards the door.

“There’s a cover tonight, three dollars.”

“What?” She scoffs. “Very funny.”

“Not kidding, we have bands a lot on Friday nights now…”

“Shit, it would have been nice for my friends to let me know, I would have stopped to get cash.” She fishes her phone out of her pocket. “And there’s never any service over here, ugh.”

Normally Harry would turn someone like this away, he would tell them where the nearest ATM was, and to have a nice night. But she looked up at him with wide eyes, and he couldn’t help himself. He sighs heavily and then speaks.

“Do you plan on drinking once you’re in there?”

“Well, yeah, obviously.”

“If I let you in, do you promise to tip the bartenders really well to make up for the three bucks?”

“Are you serious?” She perks up. “Yeah, of course!”

“Alright, go ahead.” He nods towards the door.

“Really?”

“Yeah, have fun.” He smiles, something he rarely did to the patrons.

“Thank you so much.” She smiles back and heads inside.

“Mate…” Niall, the other bouncer says. “Did you just let a girl flirt with you to get in?”

“No.” Harry scoffs. “I felt bad for her, that’s all. She looked panicked. Her friends clearly didn’t communicate with her properly.”

“Right.”

//

Inside, Y/N makes her way around to find her friends. She grins when she sees them all sitting down at a high top. She walks up and smacks Mike’s arms.

“Could have told me there was a cover.” She pouts and he gets up to hug her.

“Sorry, we didn’t know either. The bouncer made us go to an ATM.”

“It’s fine.” She says as she sits down and puts her jacket on the back of the seat. “He let me in for free.”

“Of course he did.” Conor rolls his eyes. “And don’t sit down, you have hugs to give out.”

“You’re right.” She giggles and gets up to hug all of her friends.

“We got you a drink already, at least.” Danny says, sliding it over to her.

“Ah, thank you, boys.” They all clink their glasses and get to drinking.

The band wasn’t terrible, but Y/N was definitely ready to dance with her friends. As soon as they packed up, and the DJ got on the turntables, they all made their way to the dancefloor. Y/N loved dancing with her friends, they always made her laugh, and the sleezy guys around usually left her alone. She could feel how lit she was and she knew she needed to slow down. Harry was at the point in the evening where he was standing inside, scoping out the scene. You walk by him giggling with Drew, you needed some fresh air and he needed a smoke.

“Shit, it’s cold out.” She says as she unties her jacket form around her waist.

“Mm, these keep me pretty warm.” Drew smirks as he takes a drag from his cigarette.

“That’s a nasty habit.”

“I only smoke when I drink, chill.” He chuckles. “You offered to come outside with me.”

“Certainly wasn’t going to do it alone.” You wobble a bit as you stand. You hear a song you love come on and you both look at each other.

Drew puts his cigarette out, and you both run back inside, whipping right by Harry. He notices how your friends are people he made go to the ATM earlier. He also noticed they were all guys. He figured you weren’t dating one of them, if you had a boyfriend you probably would have said so, and if you had a proper boyfriend he either would have come with you to the bar, or would have waited for you outside.

“Hey, Greg wants you outside again.” Niall says.

“Why?”

“Because I guess the town cop is coming tonight to make sure people leave safely, and Greg knows you won’t say something stupid to him.”

“Oh, Tom’s coming? Love that guy, he’s so chill.”

“If you say so.” He shrugs.

“Alright, I’ll go back out.” Harry sighs and goes back out, pretty much forgetting about Y/N until it was 1:30 in the morning, and she was walking out with her friends.

She was laughing hysterically about something, and Harry was making small talk with Tom. She stops short in front of Harry.

“Hey!” She smiles.

“Y/N, come on.” Mike tugs on her arm.

“Hold on.” She scolds him and looks back at Harry. “I did what you said.”

“Which was what?”

“Tip the bartenders well.” She bats her lashes at him. “You let me in without the cover, which was super nice, so I wanted you to know I did what you said.”

“Oh…um…good, thanks.”

“Come on, Y/N, I’ll give you a piggy back ride back to the apartment.” Mike says and she immediately gets excited. Y/N hated walking anywhere while she was drunk.

Harry watches as she hops on the man’s back, and wraps herself around him happily as the group walks up the small hill to the street.

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you at such a loss for words.” Tom nudges him. “Thought the college girls didn’t affect you.”

“They don’t…and she’s not just some college girl, she’s a little older, I saw on her license. She’s around my age.” Harry shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter, I’ve never seen her before, and I’ll probably never see her again.”

//

Or so Harry thought when she came strolling down with all of the same guys. This time around she had a ripped pair of black skinny jeans on, not so high-waist, Harry could see her belly piercing, and she was wearing a white crop top. Her hair was half up, and flowed down her shoulders. She looked pretty, gorgeous really. All of them were giggling over something, and it was already 11:30, so Harry assumed they had already started drinking.

“Hello.” Y/N smiles and hands him her ID.

“Evening.” He says as he shines the light over the card. “All set.” He says as he hands it back.

“No smile tonight?”

“Go inside, would you?” He says as he checks the other ID’s.

“Too bad.” She giggles. “You have a nice smile.”

“Y/N.” Rob hushes her and leads her inside.

“Hear that, mate, you got a nice smile.” Niall jokes.

“Shut up.” Harry grumbles and crosses his arms.

//

The boys all wanted to play pool, which Y/N sucked at, so she just happily stood by sipping her drink, swaying to the music. She munches on popcorn, and notices Harry going around collecting empty glasses and bringing them behind the bar. She notices how he smiles at the bartenders, letting them nudge him playfully.

He looks over and sees her looking at him and his eyes widen. Instead of feeling embarrassed, she keeps looking at him. She smiles and bites the straw in her drink, and his face flushes before turning away. Harry wasn’t an easily flustered man, so he was extremely confused. When he looks over in that direction he finds her cheering on her friends. He wondered why you weren’t playing, billiards weren’t that difficult.

Later on when she was on the dance floor with her friends, they point over to the door where Harry was effortlessly carrying someone out.

“Damn, that guy must have been fucked up!” Danny says.

“Yeah!” Mike says.

“I wonder how I could get him to pick me up like that?!” Y/N says and the boys laugh.

“Are you gonna try to pick him up?!” Conor says.

“Not tonight, it’s boy’s night!” She backs her ass up to Drew and he laughs as he dances with her. “But maybe another time, he’s cute!”

“Last night was boy’s night.” Rob scoffs. “Go on and get yourself some.”

“Maybe when he’s less busy.” She laughs.

Harry was about to go on a fifteen minute break as he was carrying some empties to the glass racks. Right when he was walking back to the main area, he bumped into someone, causing them to spill their drink on the floor.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” He sighs.

“Oh! No, that was my fault, I…” Y/N looks up at Harry. “I should have been more careful.”

“Can I get you a new one?” He rubs the back of his neck.

“Really, it’s okay, not that much spilled.” Harry nods at her. “So…you work here, that’s cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Saw you toss that guy out, does that happen often.”

“Maybe a couple times of week.” Harry shrugs.

“You seemed like you were in a hurry, am I keeping you from something?”

“No, I was just headed for my break.” He looks her up and down, she was so pretty, and maybe it was the couple of shots he had in his system, but he was feeling more bold than usual. “There’s an office in the back I usually go hang in for a bit…it’s quiet.” He steps a little closer to her.

“Do you wanna show me?”

Harry nods at her and she smiles. She follows close behind him to the back office. Now, normally this wasn’t something Harry did. Hooking up with drunk girls while he was barely inebriated himself wasn’t an activity he participated in often. Having worked at the bar for a good chunk of time now, though, he’s able to tell that she’s fine. She can stand on her own feet fine, and she’s not wobbling around.

“How many drinks have you had?” He asks as he closes the door, locking it.

“This is my second.” She says as she places it on the desk.

“And before coming down?”

“Just a couple of shot.” She shrugs. “How long is your break?” She walks towards him.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“And how would you like to spend that little chunk of time?” She says as she presses her hands to his chest.

Harry’s answer is to cup her jaw and lean down to kiss her, which she happily accepts. Her lips were sticky-sweet with the cranberry juice from her drink. He runs his tongue over her bottom lip before sucking on it. She tugs on his shirt as she balls it up in her fists. His hands move to her hips to walk her back towards the desk.

“Is this okay?” He whispers against her lips.

“Yes.” She smiles up at him. “You’re right, it is quiet in here.”

Harry smirks at her and attaches his lips to hers again. Her hands splay across his back, and she runs her nails down the length of him. She’s back up against the desk with his leg between her. His hands slide down to her ass and he squeezes what he can, getting a gasp from her.

“Um, what’s your name?” She says as he kisses from her jaw to her neck.

“It’s Harry.” He mumbles against her.

“I’m Y/N.” She grunts as his teeth graze her soft skin. “That feels good, but I don’t think you have time for all that.”

He moves to look at her, eyes pleading to have him just touch her already.

“You really wanna do this?” His asks as he grips onto the waistband of her jeans.

“Yes, would have tried to last night, but I was way too fucked up.”

“And you’re not tonight?”

“Nope.”

“How do you want it?”

“Just bend me over the desk.”

A soft groan leaves Harry’s lips. He undoes her jeans, and slides his hand inside to get a feel for her, and her back arches. She bites her bottom lip as his fingers graze over her folds.

“Just wanna make sure you’re wet enough for me.” He kisses her again as she grinds against his hand. She whines when he takes his hand away. “Turn around.” She nods and braces herself with her palms gripping the edge of the desk.

“Wait!” She says and rummages through her purse. “Condom.” She gives him a shy smile as he takes it.

“Good catch.”

He tears it open with his teeth and undoes his belt and zipper, tugging his boxers and pants down just enough to get his hard dick out. He rolls the condom down his length. You tug down your own jeans and panties. The lights in the office were dim, so neither of them felt over exposed. It was the perfect atmosphere, really.

He sucks his fingers into his mouth and reaches between her folds again, finger her for a moment or two just to make sure she was good to go.

“Please.” She whimpers as she looks over her shoulder at him.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

Harry nods and grips her hips as he slowly pushes inside her. Y/N’s mouth falls open as he keeps feeding it into her.

“Oh my god.” She breathes.

“Alright?”

“Yeah, you can move.” She looks at him briefly. “And remember, you have to be quick.”

“Want it fast, is that what you’re telling me?” He smirks and she nods with hooded eyes.

Harry pulls almost all the way out and slams back into her. She gasps, but she encourages him to do it again. And he does, over and over until he gets a comfortable rhythm going. He was drilling into her, but she seemed okay. He snakes an arm around her chest so he can grope at one of her breasts. She arches into him, and her head falls back against his shoulder. He licks into her mouth while his other hand works to rub her clit. She moans into his mouth, and he hooks an arm around his head to tug at his hair, causing him to moan into her mouth. He slows his pace up to focus on her. She was moving her hips in sync with the motions of his fingers on her clit.

“Fuck.” She groans. Her breathing gets heavier and faster and she bites his bottom lip to stifle her cry. She bucks into his hand as she climaxes.

“Okay.” He breathes, and pushes her back over the desk. He grips both of her hips and gives it to her full forces. “Good?” He grunts.

“Y-yeah!” She gasps. With each stroke he was hitting deeper and deeper, brushing her g-spot. “D-don’t stop.”

He could feel his orgasm bubbling at the base of spine, and his stomach was starting to tighten. She was squeezing around him, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could last, especially when he looks down at the way her ass bounces back against him.

“Shit, fuck.” He moans out as he releases into the condom and he gasps when he feels her squeeze around him again, another release of her own coinciding.

He pulls out of her slowly and wraps the condom in a tissue before throwing it away. He didn’t need Greg giving him a tough time. He pulls his pants back up all the way and watches as she does the same.

“Sorry, I don’t have any rags in here, uh-“

“It’s okay, I’ll just go use the bathroom.” She wipes his fingers under eyes and looks at herself using the camera on her phone. Her voice was a little hoarse now, so she takes a sip of her almost forgotten drink. She makes a relieved noise once the cool liquid hits her throat. “Look at that.” She says, pointing to the clock on the wall. “You’ve got two minutes to spare.” She winks and leaves him standing there.

“Holy shit.” He says to himself as he makes sure the office is in order. He scarfs down a granola bar, and heads back into the bar. He looks for Y/N, he wanted to make sure she was okay.

There she was, back on the dancefloor with her friends. She was grinding back against one of her friends, who could only assume was one of her friends, he could easily be her second fuck for the night. Harry furrows his brows and then snaps out of it. It was a simple one-night-stand, if one could even call it that, he felt good after his release.

Last call on a Saturday night never failed to irritate Harry. There was usually a few different girls that stayed until the last second to try to pick him up, but he never went. Those girls were usually way too drunk, and it just wasn’t worth it to him. He was behind the bar now, helping the bar tenders get the last few orders in, and square up some tabs. He sees Y/N walk up to the bar with one of her friends.

“I’ve got it, Y/N.” Conor says.

“No, you’re not paying for me again.”

“Technically Danny got all the drinks last night.”

“Yeah, so it’s my turn.”

“Your money’s no good. Hey, man, put everything of hers on Donovan.” Conor says to Harry and he nods.

“No! I can pay for my own drinks!” She laughs at her friend. “You’re the worst.”

“We’re just taking care of you, Y/N.” Conor puts his arm around her and she leans her head on his shoulder.

“Here.” Harry slides the card and receipt to Conor. He looks at Y/N and she looks at him, a grin growing on her face, and a blush growing on his. “Have a good night.” He says more so to her.

“I don’t think it could get much better than it already is.” She says to him.

“Not true, we’re gonna go stuff our faces with pizza and have a group snuggle, what’s better than that?” Conor says to her as he signs the slip and leaves a decent tip.

“Oh, god, yeah, I really need to snuggle right now.” She says to her friend with a pout.

“I’ll bet.” He winks at her and leads her away from the bar.

Harry’s face turns beat red. Did she tell them what she went off to go do? He didn’t want rumors being spread that the bouncer fucks. He needed to keep some authority, after all. People start leaving, and others linger until the lights flip on at closing. Harry helps clean up and gets everyone out of the bar. He hadn’t seen Y/N again, but that was okay.

“So, you had a good break.” Niall teases him as they head to their apartment, which was conveniently just above the bar.

“What do you mean?”

“Saw you go into the office with that girl.”

“So what if I did?” Harry shrugs. “Not like you haven’t done it before.”

“Oh, I’m not judging at all, please know that. I’m more so just shocked. Usually you shoot every person that flirts with you down.”

“I know, I don’t really know what came over me, but she was hot so.” He shrugs again. “I’m going to bed, I’m exhausted.”

“I’m sure you.” Niall nudges him as they make their separate ways to their rooms.

//

Y/N woke up spooning Rob, and with Drew spooning her. Not the most unusual way to wake up with her friends. She felt gross as she sat up. She was cozy in some borrowed sweats, but there was an ache in her stomach and between her legs. The stomach was easily from the amount of sugar she had from the cranberry juice in her drinks, and between her legs, well, a sexy bouncer comes to mind for that.

Everyone slowly gets up and they all decide to go out for brunch, just like old times. They laugh and reminisce over the fun the weekend brought them all.

“Wait, so did you really hook up with that dude?” Mike asks.

“Mhm.” She giggles as she sips her coffee. “It was good too.”

“Define good.” Rob says.

“I had two orgasms that I didn’t have to conjure up myself, I’d say that’s pretty good.” She says bluntly and they all laugh.

“Do you think you’ll try to see him again?” Conor asks.

“Oh god, I have no idea. I have no reason to go to the bar unless you all are here.”

“You could always go down with Mike on trivia night or something.” Drew says.

“Mm, no, I don’t like going out on work nights. I’m always way too tired the next morning.”

“You don’t have to drink. Come on, when was the last time we went to trivia night?” Mike says.

“True…maybe next week? I don’t wanna seem too eager, you know? I’m not really looking for anything serious right now, and I don’t need him thinking I’m stalking him.”

“Don’t force her, man, if she just wants it to be a one night stand she can leave it as that.” Danny says.

“See, he gets it.” She says.

//

Harry had thought of the pretty girl he fucked in his boss’ office only a couple of times, and then he slowly let her slip away. He had class and schoolwork to occupy his head. The same could be said for Y/N. Harry had left some after affects, but he slowly faded in her mind as well.

Well, it had faded until she was mindlessly swiping through Bumble one night, and she came across his profile. Even if she hadn’t already met him, she would have liked him. He really did have a nice smile, and his pictures weren’t the standard douchebag pictures. She decides to swipe right and see what happens. She wasn’t sure how often he used the app, if at all, but she was interested to see if she’d see anything from him.

On a Sunday evening, after getting some homework done, Harry went on to Bumble to see if he had any notifications. He used the app less and less as he didn’t want to accidentally hook up with someone that might be too young for him. His eyes widen when he comes across Y/N’s profile.

“So she is from around here.” He says to himself. He had thought maybe you had just come into town for that weekend for some fun with friends. He takes a leap of faith and swipes right. He smirks when he sees it’s a match.

Harry preferred Bumble to the other “dating” apps out there. He never wanted to make someone uncomfortable, so he liked that the girl had to message first.

Y/N was just getting out of the shower when she saw the notification from Bumble that she had a new match. Her jaw drops when she sees that it’s Harry.

Y/N: let’s go out on Friday night…I matched with that bouncer on Bumble…but I’d rather talk in person

Mike: sounds like a plan to me! I’ll be the perfect wingman

Y/N: don’t think I exactly need your help for that lol

Mike: maybe you can be mine then

Y/N: deal

//

Harry had completely forgotten about the Bumble thing until he saw Y/N strolling down the hill with Mike. She gets her ID ready for him.

“Is there a cover tonight?” She asks him. His gaze on her was intense, like they both knew about the giant elephant looming around them.

“No band tonight.”

“Ah.”

He checks Mike’s ID, and the two go inside. The sit down at the bar after Mike makes up a bowl of popcorn.

“Don’t let me drink too much.” She tells him. “I’m gonna try to nurse a vodka-lemonade for a bit.”

“You got it. Hey, maybe you could give me another shot of showing you how to play pool?”

“I’m looking to get laid again, I don’t need to make a fool of myself, Michael.”

“He could think it’s cute, maybe he could teach you.”

“He’s on the job.”

After the nightly rush, Harry’s relieved from the cold, and comes inside to do his other duties. He gathers up empty glasses, cleans up anything that’s spilled, and goes behind the bar. He notices Y/N about halfway done with her drink.

“Are you gonna want another?”

“I could certainly use another blue moon.” Mike grins at Harry and he nods.

Y/N watches as Harry’s muscles flex as he pulls the tap. He grabs an orange wedge to put on the lip of the glass and slides it over to Mike.

“Thanks.” Mike throws a couple of singles on the bar and Harry pockets them.

“Well?”

“Trying to get me drunk?” She smirks. “Thought you might like me a little more sober.”

Harry smirks and leans on the bar so he can talk a little closer to her.

“Don’t tell me you came all the way down here just to see me again?”

“Maybe.” She shrugs and takes a careful sip of her drink. “What time you off?”

“Two.”

“Places closes at 1:30…”

“Mhm, and then I have side-work. You don’t have to wait if you don’t want to.”

“No…I’ll wait.” She looks at her watch. “It’s only a couple of hours anyways.”

Harry nods and walks away to get back to work. Mike gives Y/N a thumbs up of approval.

“Well, if you won’t play pool with me, will you at least go dance with me once I’m done with this drink?”

“Oh, without question.”

There were plenty of people on the dancefloor. Y/N didn’t love coming to the bar often, only because sometimes she’d run into some of her student workers and it could get a little awkward. For the most part, things seemed safe. She was having a great time with Mike, but her eyes kept scanning the room for Harry. Once in a while they’d lock eyes and smile awkwardly, fully knowing what was most likely going to go down at the end of the night. When 1:30 hit, she let Mike go square up his tab so she could chat with Harry.

“So…” She says as she approaches him. He was putting chairs on top of tables.

“Mine or yours?” He asks bluntly. “I live right upstairs, but if you felt more comfortable at your place then-“

“Yours.” She smiles. “Yours sounds good.” Y/N didn’t like bringing men home that she didn’t know all that well. His place was better.

“Okay.” He looks around the bar and furrows his brows. “You gotta get rid of your friend, we’re not really supposed to let a lot of people hang around.”

“Oh, alright, well, where should I wait?”

“Take a seat at the bar, it’s fine.”

She nods and goes over to Mike to say goodnight. He winks at her and tells her to call if she needs anything. Niall was running around with Harry mopping the floors and cleaning everything up while the bartenders cleaned up the bar. They gave Y/N a couple of knowing looks, but other than that no one seemed phased that she was waiting for him.

“Hang down here a minute.” Harry says to Niall. “I’d like to get her in my room first.”

“Say no more, I’m actually headed to a little cutie’s of my own.” Niall winks. “Have fun.” He says as he heads out.

“Y/N?” She turns to look at him. “Ready?”

“Mhm.” She smiles and follows him up a set of stairs.

Harry unlocks the door to let them both in and she looks around. It was a decent enough set up.

“Can I get you anything?” He asks as he closes the door.

“No, I’m all set.” She presses him against the wall and wraps her arms around his neck. “There’s really only one thing I want from you, anyways.”

He leans down to kiss her, and her fingers lace through his hair. His hands slide down her sides to her butt, to the backs of her thighs.

“Jump.” He says, and she does so. She kisses on his neck as he carries her to his room.

He doesn’t bother with the light, he just kicks his door shut, the only light in the room coming in through the shades from the street lights. He gets her on his bed and they both work to get each other’s clothes off. He gets her jeans off and she lays back as he kisses on the fleshy parts of the tops of her breasts. She tugs his shirt off and runs her hands up and down his torso. She could just make out some of the tattoos he had. Interesting, she thinks.

“You have condoms?” She asks as he unhooks her bra.

“Yeah.”

She hum in approval and lets him continue getting to know her body. He swirls his tongue around one of her nipples before sucking on it. His hand goes between her legs, and rubs her covered clit. She feels him pull the material to the side, and then she feels him slip his middle finger in, the cool from his rings causing her to gasp.

“You were really tight last time, did I hurt you?” He mumbles against her neck as he gently sucks on her skin.

“N-no, I would have told you if it hurt.”

Harry kisses her as he slides another finger inside her warm center. Her mouth falls open as his thumb rubs her puffy clit. She reaches between them, and pets him over his boxers. He groans into her neck and starts pumping his fingers faster, curling them, hoping to find that spot of hers.

“Oh, oh!” She gasps. “Just like that, oh fuck, please don’t stop!” She has to clutch at the blankets on his bed to ground herself.

He kneads her breast with his other hand, and wraps his lips back around her other nipple, consuming just about all of her senses. She was panting and moaning and squeezing around his fingers. He feels her pulse around him and her legs twitch as she comes to her release.

“Shit.” She breathes with a smile on her face. “You’re good at that.”

“Don’t it’ll go right to my head.” He smirks. “Let me go get a condom.” He kisses her forehead before getting up to rummage through his desk drawer.

Y/N wriggles out of her now drenched panties, and tosses them somewhere on the floor, and gets more comfortable on his bed. As good as the office sex was she was sort of happy to be somewhere they could do a little more.

“Ready for me?” He asks as he gets on the bed.

“Mhm.”

He parts her legs and gets situated between them, running his tip along her folds and clit. She lifts her hips towards him, and it makes him good knowing how impatient she was. He pushes inside her and bottoms out.

“Jesus!” She gasps.

“You’re so fucking tight.” He grunts as he starts to move.

“I think you’re just big.” She moans as he rocks in and out of her. “Not complaining though.”

He comes down closer to her, and hooks one of her legs under his arm to thrust in deeper. It has her head rolling back. She gets a fistful of his hair and he moans as she tugs on it.

“You like that, huh?” She says into his ear and she feels him nod yes. Harry nibbles on her earlobe before responding.

“What do you like?” His deep voice in hear ear was enough to send her flying to the moon.

“God, anything you wanna do to me I think I’d like.” He moves to look at her with a raise eyebrow. “Within reason of course.”

“Wanna get on top?”

“Sure.”

He pulls out and shifts to sit up against the headboard. She was a little surprised since most guys liked to lay flat when she rode them, but she wasn’t going to watch him on it. She swings her leg of his lap to properly sink down on him. When she starts to move he stops her.

“I wanted you on top, that doesn’t mean you need to do anything.” He pecks her lips and thrusts him into her, her mouth forming an ‘O’. “Deeper, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She licks into his mouth as he grips her hips to move her on and off his cock. “Fuck.” She whispers in his ear. She was going to come soon, and she knew it. She wanted to hold on a little longer, but she also just really wanted to let go. “H-Harry, fuck, I-“

“Go on, come, Y/N.”

She cries out into his neck, tugging his hair maybe a little too hard. She just misses the moan he lets out as he spills into the condom. They stay there like that for a moment before she gets off him.

“Bathroom?” She says, reaching for the shirt he was wearing earlier.

“Just down the hall on the left.”

“Great, thanks.” She slips out the door and Harry gets his boxers on after throwing the condom out. She comes back in and shines her flashlight on the floor to find her clothes. “It’s really late, you can crash if you want.”

“Oh, that’s alright.” She says. “I’ll sleep better in my own bed. Besides, the last thing I need to run into any of the students on my way home in the morning.”

“Do you, um, work at the university?” He hadn’t even thought to ask.

“Yeah.” She tugs her jeans on and snatches her shirt from the floor.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you message me after matched?”

“Oh.” She blushes. “I don’t know…I like doing these things in person better.”

“Me too. I only swiped to see if you did.”

“So, you’re not, like, seeing anyone else?”

“Not on the regular, no. What about you?” She shakes her head no at him. “Do you want my number?”

“And what would I do with it?” She smirks.

“Use it to give me a heads up if you’re coming to the bar or…or if you just want me after one of my shifts.” She bites her bottom lip and hands him her phone. He puts his number in and texts himself. “Can I give you a ride home or anything?”

“No, I’m parked right out on the street, actually, but thank you.”

“Well, let me at least walk you out there.”

“Okay.”

Harry throws on some sweats and leads Y/N out. He walks her down to her car, and he presses her up against it, kissing her before letting her go. Once her car is out of sight he heads back up to his room. He wasn’t sure how often they’d communicate, but at least he knew if she didn’t feel like waiting for him in the bar, they could just plan it out better.

//

Y/N didn’t want to come off as greedy or clingy. She didn’t want to text him every time she felt like getting railed, but she couldn’t stop thinking about his dick, or how he used it. He was careful and aggressive all at the same time. She could tell he respected her, maybe all women in general, just by the way he would check in. It was a wonder to her how no one else was fucking him, well, maybe they were. Just because he said he didn’t have anything else on the regular didn’t mean he didn’t have an assortment of numbers in his phone. The following Saturday night she couldn’t sleep, and before she even had a chance to text him, he texted her.

Harry: you up?

Now, usually a text like that would make her eyes roll out of her head, but it was nice coming from him. He was clearly up because it was one in the morning and he was working. If anything it was courteous.

Y/N: yeah

Harry: how come?

Y/N: couldn’t sleep

Harry: maybe I could come tire you out when I get off work

Y/N: you know, I love a home remedy as opposed to taking a pill, so that sounds good to me, I’ll text you my address

Harry: 👍

Y/N bites her bottom lip and springs out of bed. She wanted to tidy up a little before he got there. Maybe they could just fuck on her couch or something. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him in her room just yet, but it might not be up to her when he gets there. She’d let him fuck her where he wanted. She wanted to make herself look cute, but she wasn’t sure how much he’d really care. She decides to change into a tank top and shorts as she waits for him.

Around 2:15AM there’s a knock on her door, jolting her awake from the couch.

“I’m getting too old for this.” She says as she rubs her eyes. She gets up and opens the door for him. “Hi, Ha-mph!”

He cuts her off by cupper her jaw and kissing her. He kicks her door closed, and picks her up.

“Sorry I’m late, where’s your room?” The girl simply points him in the direction of where to go and she lets him carry her there. “I even tried to leave early, but these idiots were causing problems.” He says as he gets his shoes and socks off, along with his shirt. “I had to break up this fight and it was a whole thing.” He unbuckles his belt and lets his pants drop to the floor.

“No worries, I figured you’d get here eventually.” She shrugs and works on getting herself naked. “You promised to help tire me out, after all.”

“That I did.” He smirks and pulls her towards him for a searing kiss.

Harry pushes her back on the bed, and kisses down her body. Her skin felt soft and smelled cocoa butter, she must have put lotion on before he got there. He looks up at her just as he reaches her naval.

“Can I?”

“Can you what?”

“Eat you out.”

“Oh! Um, only if you really want to.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Well, yeah, but only if you want to also. I don’t like when guys just do it to do it, you know?”

“I can assure you that’s not the type of guy I am.”

“Okay.”

He kisses and sucks on her inner thigh, marking her up, and then he licks a flat stripe up her center. He does this a few times, just getting a feel for how she tastes, and then he swirls the tip of his tongue around her clit.

“Shit.” She breathes. “Found it pretty fast.” She pushes some hair out of his face as he smirks up at her.

“S’not rocket science.”

Before she can say anything she’s gasping as he sucks on her clit. She gets a grip on his hair as she grits her teeth. He works her up, almost to the brink, and then he drags his tongue around her folds. He licks into her center and she cries out from the warm feeling of his tongue. His thumb rubs circles into her clit as continues to give her the best head she’s ever had. Every time he moaned against her she moaned louder. She couldn’t believe he was enjoying it so much. Her legs were starting to shake around him and she just wanted to close him in around her, but he had his other hand pressed firmly on one of her thighs to keep her open.

“Oh my god, oh my god!” Her back arches off the bed as she comes on his tongue. He laps her up before kissing up her body. “Let me put my mouth on you too.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” He lays down next to her. “But come sit on me and I’ll do you at the same time.”

“Fuck, really?”

“Yeah.”

Y/N feels giddy as she situates herself over Harry’s head. She leans forward to get him out of his boxers. His hard dick slaps back against his stomach. She spits into her and grips him. She feels him jolt underneath her and she chuckles. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to concentrate on giving him a blow job while he was slurping away at her again, but she’d do her best. She gives him a few pumps before wrapping her lips around his tip. He groans into her and squeezes the backs of her thighs. She sinks lower on him and bobs up and down. She has to dig her nails into one of his thighs to keep herself from gagging on him. She decides to focus on sucking his tip and pumping the rest.

“I’m gonna come if you keep doing that.” He tells hers, but she doesn’t let up. He starts panting and fingers her because he just can’t use his mouth on her right now.

“Oh, fuck, don’t’ stop.” She pops off him to say and then goes back to sucking him off.

She comes around his fingers just as his hot come shoots up into her throat. He hears her gulp as she swallows and then she licks his tip clean. She rolls off him and giggles, he giggles too, and she props herself up on her elbows to look at him.

“What?”

“Think that’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh.”

“Chalk it up to being lightheaded.” He sighs. “Just give me a minute, and then I’ll fuck you.”

“If you’re too tired, we don’t have to-“

“M’not tired, I just need a second.” He gives her ankle a squeeze.

“Want some water?”

“Sure, that’d be great.”

She gets up and quickly shuffles into her kitchen to get a glass of water. She takes a sip first before going back into her bedroom. She hands it to him and he thanks her. She knees onto the bed and sits next to him.

“You have condoms?” He asks.

“Mhm.” She reaches over into her bed side table takes one out.

“Alright, I’m ready if you are.” He says, taking it from her.

“If I lay on my stomach, will you get on top and fuck me from behind?”

“Uh, yeah.” He clears his throat. He liked a girl that was blunt and forward.

She smiles and gets on her stomach for him. He parts her lips and slides in, she was still plenty wet. She groans into her pillow as he rocks in and out of her. He snakes his hand between her and the bed to rub her clit.

“God, you’re so attentive.” She says, looking over her shoulder at him in amazement.

He smirks at her and gives her a bum a smack before pushing her head back down into the pillow. His chest was flush with her back, and they were moving in a perfect rhythm with each other. She was white knuckling her blankets feeling the damn about to break again.

“Oh, shit, fuck, Harry!” She cries out as she comes again. He gives her a few harsh thrusts before he fills the condom up. Once he pulls out she rolls onto her back. “Trash is over there.” She breathes, pointing to the can in the corner.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll be right back.” She gets up and slips out to use the bathroom. He’s just pulling his boxers on when she comes back. She throws on a large tee shirt to cover herself up a bit.

“Tired now?” He smirks at her.

“Very.” She chuckles. “Um…it’s, like, almost four in the morning…you can stay if you don’t feel like driving.”

“Oh, um, that would be great actually…if you’re sure.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.”

Harry nods and stands up.

“Bathroom?”

“Just outside the door on the right.”

“Thanks.”

Y/N hadn’t let a guy sleep over in a while, but it would only be for a few hours, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. Harry comes back in a few moments later smelling like mint.

“Used some of your mouth wash, hope that’s alright.”

“It’s fine.” She smiles and gets settled into bed with him. “Well, goodnight.”

“Night.”

She rolls over and he turns with her, spooning her. She adjusts into him, getting especially comfy, and before she knows it, she’s drifting off, and so is he.

The next morning, Y/N wakes up to the sounds of Harry rustling about getting his clothes on.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s okay.” She yawns with a stretch of her arms. “Do you want me to make some coffee or…?”

“No, I’m gonna crash when I get back, I just wanted to get out of your hair.” He runs a hand through his hair. “That was fun, last night.”

“Mhm.” She smiles and curls up in her blankets. “It’s been fun every time.”

“What if, uh, I mean, would you want to make this a regular thing? My schedule is the way it is, so relationships are tough, but this…is easier.”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t want a relationship right now, but having sex with a hot guy is certainly something I’d like to continue doing.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes.”

“Cool.” He smiles and knees onto the bed to peck her lips.

“What time does your shift usually start? Not that I don’t love waiting up until after two in the morning, but I’m not usually awake that late.”

“Oh, right, um, I usually go in around seven. I help out at the end of the dinner rush. Get the place set up and all that.”

“I usually get out of work around 4:30 most days…”

“I typically have Sundays and Mondays off too, just FYI.”

“You know, I think this could work out well.” She smiles.

“So do I.” He kisses her again before getting off the bed. “I’ll text you later, or, I don’t know maybe you could text me first.” He says sarcastically.

“I was actually going to text you last night, but you got to me first.” She giggles.

“Right.” He rolls his eyes. “See ya later, Y/N.”

“Bye, Harry.”

//

“You’ve been exceptionally chipper lately.” Y/N’s colleague, Lilly, says at lunch on Monday.

“I’m getting laid, that’s why.” Y/N was close with Lilly, it wasn’t unusual for them to have a conversation like this.

“Oh? With who?”

“Do you ever go down to the Yard Dog?”

“The bar where all the students go?” She laughs. “No.”

“Okay, well I go there when my friends come to visit because it’s nostalgic for us, you know? Anyways, there’s this bouncer that works there…and one thing led to another one night and I fucked him in the back office of the building.”

“Oh shit.”

“I know! And then we matched on Bumble a little later, so I went to the bar again, and I waited for him and we fucked at his place, and then the other day he came to my place. We have a regular thing going now.”

“Damn…is it the British guy?”

“Yeah! His name is Harry, do you know him?”

“Yeah, I recruited him for the MBA program.” Lilly worked with international students at the graduate level. Y/N worked in grad admissions as well, but at the domestic level. “I told him to look for a job down there, guess he listened.”

“He’s nice enough, quiet, and sort of intimidating, but he’s nice to me.”

“Well, that’s all that matters.” She laughs. “When do you think you’ll see him again?”

“I don’t know…I was thinking of texting him to come over tonight because he doesn’t work on Monday nights…is that too eager?”

“No way. It’s been established that you’re using each other for a specific service, I say go for it.”

“Right, like, it’s just sex, it’s not like I need to make him dinner or anything.”

“Don’t offer him any food at all. As soon as you share a meal with the person you’re sleeping with, it becomes more.”

“Shit, you’re right…good call.”

“It’s what I’m here for.”

After lunch Y/N goes back to her office and contemplates texting Harry. It really shouldn’t be this difficult, they agreed to make it a regular thing, she should be able to just let him know what she wants.

Y/N: hey, Harry…are you free around 7 tonight?

She sent it, and took a deep breath. It’s fine, this is fine.

Harry: I can be, my place or yours?

She nearly squeals when she sees the response.

Y/N: could we do mine if it’s not too much trouble?

Harry: no trouble at all, see you then

“I could give him some wine or something.” She says to herself. “I know I’ll need to have a glass.”

//

Y/N wasn’t sure what she should wear. Should she stay in her work clothes, which she looked awfully cute in, or should she put something sexier on? Would he even care? She groans to herself as she goes to change into a nicer set of underwear. Maybe he’d appreciate some lace.

“I should really go shopping for some lingerie.” She huffs. Y/N did, however, have a silk robe, so that paired with the lacey underwear would be good enough.

She goes into her kitchen and gets two glasses down, and fills one just under halfway with some sweet red wine. She takes a generous sip, and sighs. There’s a knock at the door, and she goes to answer. She has to keep herself from drooling when she sees him. He was dressed so differently. Usually he was in all black, but tonight he was wearing a long sleeve blue shirt with the first few buttons undone, and a dark blue pair of jeans. He was wearing a black jacket to tie the whole thing together along with a beanie.

“Hey, come on in.” She smiles as he steps inside.

“Getting bloody cold out.” He says as you close the door. “You look cozy.”

“Cozy?” She pouts at him.

“Cute.” He says as he shrugs his jacket off. She unties her robe to slightly reveal how little she has on underneath. “Sexy.”

“Much better.” She giggles. “Would you like a glass of wine or anything?”

“No, thanks.”

He grabs her and holds her from behind. He kisses her cheek, her jaw, and then her neck. She cranes it to give him better access, and he walks her over to the couch. He slides her robe off and turns her around.

“Very sexy.” He pecks her lips. “You wore this for me?”

“I just wanted to look nice.” She starts unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. “Let’s go to the bedroom, it’s comfier.”

Harry nods and follows her in. He cups her jaw as she undoes his pants, and he licks into her mouth. She palms him over his boxers, and he bucks closer into her hand.

“Really wanted my dick tonight, hm?”

“Mhm.”

She puts her hands on his hips and pushes him to sit down on the bed. She sucks on his bottom lips and kisses her way down his stomach until she’s on her knees in front of him. She tugs his boxers off and looks up at him as she wraps her lips around his tip. He runs a soothing hand through her hair and keeps it out of her face for her. She sinks lower on him before popping all the way off and taking him in her hand. She brings her lips back to his tip and just rubs it around her low lip before licking over his slit.

“Feels amazing, Y/N.” His head rolls back momentarily, but he doesn’t want to miss a second, so he forces himself to look back down. “I don’t wanna wait to fuck you…”

She sucks on him a little longer before getting back up. She takes a condom out from one of the cups of her bra and hands it to him as she wiggles out of her panties. She unhooks her bra and lets it drop to the floor. He grabs her hips and turns her around. She sits in his lap as he lines himself up and she moans out. He reaches around front to rub her clit while she moves up and down on him. She turns to face him and she licks into his mouth. She swallows a groan from him. His other hand kneads her breast, and he kisses on her shoulder, biting down just enough to make her gasp. Her head rolls back to his shoulder.

“H-Harry.” She whimpers.

He thrusts up inside her, and she loses all control. She lets him move her, bounce her, whatever she wants. His fingers on her clit felt incredible. Y/N had hooked up with plenty of guys, but Harry was so different. He was attentive. He asked the important questions, and nothing more. She didn’t need to get to know him other than his body, and he felt the same way about her. This was perfect.

“Y/N I’m gonna come.” He grunts into her ear.

“M-me too.” She pants.

She feels him fill up the condom just as she’s coming around him. He peppers her neck and shoulder with kisses before he helps her off of him. She grabs a tee shirt to throw on while he grabs all of his clothes to get dressed.

“Thanks for coming by.” She says as she walks him to the door.

“Thanks for the invite.” He smirks as he gets his beanie back on.

“I felt bad since it was sort of short notice.”

“Gave you my number for a reason, didn’t I? Never be afraid to use it.” He hooks an arm around her waist and pulls her in for a kiss. “Have a good night.”

“You too.” She smiles and so does he. He leaves shortly after that.

Y/N finishes her glass of wine, takes a shower, and puts herself to sleep. She fell asleep with a smile on her face.

//

Things continued you like that for a few weeks. Sometimes Y/N would go over to Harry’s before his shift for a quickie, or if she could stay up, he’d zip over to her place after his shift. If it was a particularly late night, they would sleepover, but other than that they wouldn’t. Not that the either didn’t offer, they were both polite people.

“You seeing that girl again this weekend?” Niall says to Harry as he whips up dinner on Thursday.

“No, I have a weekend intensive, I’m getting an elective out of the way.”

“Are you still working?!”

“I am tonight, but I have Friday and Saturday night off. I couldn’t pass up the tips on ladies night.”

“I hear that.” Niall sets a plate of pancakes in front of Harry.

“Thanks.” He takes a bite. “Do you think I should let her know I won’t be around this weekend?”

“Like ahead of time?”

“Yeah, like, what if she texts me expecting me to come right over and I can’t? I’d feel bad.”

“You could just sext with her.” Niall smirks as he takes a bite of his own pancakes. “You said she was pretty good at that.”

“She’s better than good. She’s a fucking wordsmith.” Harry smiles. “But I’ll be working on the rest of the projects for class, so I won’t have time for that either.”

“So give her a heads up, then no one needs to feel rejected.” Niall shrugs.

“Maybe I should tell her in person, I’m a gentleman after all.”

“Or you wanna bone one more time before having to focus on school.”

“Let’s go with both.”

Harry: wanna come over quick before my shift?

Y/N: god yes, stressful day at work, definitely need the distraction

Harry: cool, come by whenever

“She’s coming over, make yourself scarce.” Harry says to Niall.

“You got it, I’m actually going down to bus some tables for a little extra money.”

Y/N comes over to Harry’s about twenty minutes later, and barely gives him a chance to say hello before she’s kissing him. He carries her to his room, and finally gets a breath in.

“How do you want it, Y/N?” He says against her lips as his hands slide down to her ass.

“I want you to bend me over the bed and fuck me so hard I forget my own name.”

Both of his eyebrows shoot up.

“Shit, you really did have a stressful day, huh?” He caresses one of her cheeks.

“Yeah, I did.” She bites her bottom lip. “But I didn’t come here to talk about it.”

He kisses her again and starts undoing her pants. He knew what she needed, and he was happy to give it to her. Normally he would have taken more time to prep her, but he really did need to be quick so he wasn’t late for work. Once they’re both naked, and he has a condom on, he bends her over his bed, and pushes inside her. She clutches at the blankets as he slams in and out of her.

“Just like that, fuck, Harry!” She moves her ass back against him to feel even more, and it makes him moan out.

“You’re so fucking sexy.” He grunts. “Like it when I give it to you like this?”

“Yes!”

“I want you to come for me.”

“I’m really close, just keep going.” She was starting to pant and squirm.

“Yeah? You’re close?”

“So close, I..oh fuck!”

She releases around him, and he spills into the condom shortly after. He pulls out and helps her stand up. She faces him and wraps her arms around his neck. She slots her mouth over his and he groans into it.

“Fuck, I…I wanna go again, but it would look bad to be late when I live right here.”

“No, it’s okay, um…I’m gonna be busy this weekend, like, I’ll even barely be on my phone.”

“Me too, actually, it’s why I invited you over tonight.” He smiles and steps back to throw the condom away. She starts putting her clothes back on.

“How kind of you.” She laughs as she wipes the smudged makeup under her eyes.

“Feeling better?” He asks as he puts his own clothes on. The ones she’s more familiar with.

“Yeah, thanks.” She smiles. “It’s too bad you have to get right to work.” She puts her hands on his shoulders. “These black shirts look too fucking good on you.”

“Really? I always thought it was the tight jeans.” He smirks.

“That too, your ass is perfect.” She gives him a little pinch and pecks his lips. “Guess we’ll just talk next week?”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

“Okay, have a good weekend.”

“You too.”

Harry sighs happily as he goes into his bathroom to fix his hair before his shift. He grabs his jacket and heads down to go outside and starting manning the door. It was the same as ever, lots of pretty girls flirting with him, and him having to turn half of them away because they’re underage. Later on Harry and one of the bartenders to take bets to see who Niall was going to take home later.

“What about you?” Ryan says. “Gonna try to get lucky?”

“Nah, got my fill earlier.” Harry says as he wipes down the bar with a rag. “Plus, all these girls are wasted, you know I don’t play that.”

“True, you’re definitely one of the good ones.” He claps his hand on Harry’s shoulder and gives him a squeeze before going to grab more empty glasses.

Harry didn’t see it like that. Guy or girl, if someone was drunk, he declined any offer he got. It just didn’t feel right to him.

//

Y/N had the day off from work Friday, but only because she had a weekend intensive for grad school. It was an elective she was trying to get out of the way. All of the other classes she had to take were online, but she thought it would be nice to just get this over with in a weekend. It would be a class of twelve people, she just hoped it wouldn’t be awkward.

She gets into the building, and finds the classroom. A couple of people were there already. She finds a spot to sit down and set her things up. There was a poster that was due on the first day. Weekend intensives involved a lot of prep work. She gets her laptop out and sips on her coffee.

Harry was exhausted. He didn’t get off work until nearly 2:30 because people didn’t want to leave the bar. When his alarm went off, he was not looking forward to spending the day with a bunch of people he didn’t know. He was interested in the subject matter, and almost excited to present his poster, he just could have easily done it all in an online class. His eyes were too tired for contacts, so he goes for his glasses. He throws his beanie on, a sweater, and a nice pair of jeans, and heads out. He grabs a cup of coffee before heading for the academic building. He walks in and scans the room. There were a few people there. His eyes widen when he sees Y/N. He wasn’t sure what do. Should he ignore her? Should he sit next to her? Before he can decide she happens to look up and make eye contact with him. He sighs and makes his way over to her table and sits down.

“Thought you just worked here.” He says as he sets his things down.

“I do…but I’m also in grad school. I’m taking this as an elective.”

“Same here. What program are you in?”

“Education, you?”

“MBA.”

“Nice.” She nods. “And here we were thinking we wouldn’t see each other all weekend.”

“Mm, lucky us.” He smirks.

“I didn’t know you wore glasses.” She rests her chin on her palm.

“Something tells me we’re going to get to know each other fairly well in the next forty-eight hours.” He leans back in his chair with his arms crossed. “You okay with that?”

“I don’t quite think I have a choice. It’s not the end of the world, it’s sort of nice to know someone.”

“Yeah, we could grab lunch or something.” He says it nonchalantly as he takes his laptop out of his bag.

“Yeah.” She nods. “Or something.” She winks at him and he smiles as he rolls his eyes.

The professor comes in shortly after, and has everyone sit in a circle. Everyone explains what program they’re in, why they’re in grad school, and what career aspirations they may have. Y/N and Harry were already learning a lot about each other. For example, he thought it was extremely ironic that Y/N recruited students to come get their grad degrees, and she herself didn’t have one yet.

Next, the professor had them all work on a craft project. They had to build these towers that had all these different components. They could listen to their own music and just work away. Harry and Y/N occasionally glanced at each other, but they did their best to focus.

“Okay everyone, it’s time for lunch! Afterwards, we’ll come back and present our towers.” The professor says.

They look at each other awkwardly.

“Our break is an hour and a half.” Harry says to her.

“I don’t need that long to eat, do you?”

“Nah, well…” He smirks at her and she blushes.

“I don’t live that far from here, um…if you wanna just come to my place to eat.”

“Sure.” He shrugs. “Want me to drive, or?”

“No, I can.” She grabs her keys and he follows her out.

Once they’re in Y/N’s apartment, he’s got her laying on the couch with his head between her legs. She tugs at his hair as she squirms underneath him.

“I-I thinking you were hungry than you let on!”

He groans against her in response, and slides two fingers into her as he sucks on her clit. He looks up at her/ She looks down at him, confused for a moment, and then her mouth falls open when he slides a third finger inside her. He pumps them in and out of her slowly to not hurt her. His tongue flicks back and forth on her clit, and she tugs harder on his hair.

“H-Harry!” Her back arches as she comes. He sits up and licks his lips, and his fingers, before undoing his pants. He tugs them down enough to get his dick out. “Condom.” She breathes and points to the side table.

“You keep them in your living room now?” He chuckles as he reaches into the drawer to get one.

“Are you making fun of easy access?”

“Not at all, you’re resourceful.”

He rolls the condom on and moves to hover her. He pushes inside and she wraps her legs around his waist. He bites her bottom lip and sucks on it as he rocks in and out of her. He bottoms out and she gasps. He smirks against her lips and keeps thrusting into the same spot.

“Oh my god.” She moans. “Fuck, that feels so good.”

“Right there?”

“Yeah, right there, don’t stop.” Her breathing gets heavier, and he can feel her tightening around him. She cries out as she comes, and he follows suit.

On the drive back to campus things are quiet, but not uncomfortable. They both head into the classroom, and sit down. Harry takes out the lunch he packed and digs in, Y/N does the same. Once everyone is back, the professor has the class present their towers. It was an oddly emotional experience. Some tears were shed, and there was no judgement whatsoever. Y/N was stunned when it was Harry’s turn. He got choked up when he had to talk about his family. It was just him and his sister. They both needed a change of scenery, so he came to get his grad degree in the states, and she moved to France. That was about all he was willing to say, which was fine.

After the towers are done, there’s a quick bathroom break, and then they get into the poster presentations. Harry found Y/N to be extremely intelligent. She clearly knew what she was talking about. He briefly wondered how such a smart, beautiful girl could be single. Then again, he knew how little free time there was while working full time and going to school. He knew he didn’t have time for a relationship, anyways. Nor was he emotionally available enough for one, but that was a separate story.

“I want to thank you all for the wonderful work you did today. Nothing to work on tonight, as I know today was draining. Tomorrow, we’ll be talking about the readings that were assigned ahead of time.”

It was 8PM, and Y/N was exhausted. Harry happened to park in the same lot as her, so he walks her to her car.

“That was better than I was expecting.” She says.

“Yeah, wasn’t terrible. Sort of flew by.”

“I can’t wait to crawl into bed and just pass out.”

“Same here.” He hits the unlock button for his car. He runs a hand through his hair. “Well, see you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow.” She smiles. “Thanks for the afternoon delight earlier.”

“Please, it was my pleasure.” He winks and opens his car door.

“Harry, wait, uh…”

“Yeah?”

“You live above the bar right?”

“Um…yeah?”

“Well, it’s bound to be pretty loud, how will you sleep?”

“Noise cancelling headphones.”

“Oh.”

“Why?”

“Well, I was thinking you could come back to place if you wanted.”

“Thought you were ready to pass out.”

“I feel like I’m so exhausted that I won’t be able to sleep.” She laughs. “Would be nice to be able to roll over and have the person there that’s usually good to make me fall asleep.”

“I like the way you think. Let me just grab some clothes from my place and then I’ll head over.”

“Sounds good.”

Harry comes over to Y/N’s, and needless to say after a couple rounds they both sleep pretty well. He was snuggled up against her when her alarm goes off.

“I need to shower.” She yawns. “Feel free to sleep a little longer.”

“I could go for a shower, actually.” His hand drifts down between her legs and she starts rubbing her folds.

“Please tell me you wanna fuck in the shower.”

“I wanna fuck in the shower.”

“Race you!” Y/N kicks the covers back and sprints to her bathroom. Harry wasn’t too far behind.

Once they’re in the water, he has her pressed up against the wall. He fingers her, slow at first, and then he picks up the pace. She wraps her hand around him and pumps him at the same time. Her other hand squeezes at his chest, leaving crescent shaped marks behind. They come at the same time, and then take turns actually showering.

Harry gets dressed while Y/N is still in the bathroom, doing her morning skin care. He stands in the bathroom doorway for a moment.

“So, I’m gonna head out, you good?”

“Yeah, go on.” She waves him off. “See you in a little while.”

“I’m gonna grab coffee, do you want anything?”

“No! No, um, that’s okay, I’ll just make my own here, uh, thanks though.”

“Alright.” He shrugs. “See ya.”

//

Harry sits next to Y/N again in class. She enjoyed listening to him speak about the readings. She shouldn’t be surprised at how articulate he could be. Sometimes when they sent explicit texts her would write these paragraphs describing the things he would do to her.

It was another long day. This time around, Y/N was truly exhausted, and wasn’t in the mood to fuck, so she doesn’t offer to Harry to spend the night again, not that he was expecting her to. He walks her to her car, and they say goodnight.

Sunday was a half day, and time for reflection on their final papers. As they were packing up at the end of class, curiosity takes over Y/N.

“So, how many more credits do you need?”

“Not sure, honestly. I just know I have another year and half. What about?”

“I have, like, five more classes to take. I can only do a couple per semester. I’m done until end of January, which is nice.”

“I wish more of my classes were online. I have a class that meets twice a week in the afternoons, so my break won’t start for another few weeks.”

“Do you…see your sister often? Like, will you spend the holidays with her?”

“Y/N, we don’t have to do this.” He says as he slings his bag over his shoulder. They start walking out together.

“Do what?”

“This.” He gestures between them. “I sort of like that we don’t know a ton about each other. It makes it easier just to meet up and do what we do, you know?”

“Oh! Yeah, I completely agree…I just…” She stops when they reach their cars.

“You’re a compassionate person, I can see that. I do see my sister. We FaceTime when we can, and we take turns visiting. I spend the holidays with my roommate, he’s one of the other bouncers. I’m going to France for a bit this summer when I’ll have more free time. Any other questions?” He smiles at her.

“Nope, that’s about all I wanted to know.” She smiles back. “I’ll see you soon.”

“See you soon.”

//

Mike: the boys are coming to town this weekend, be ready to get fucked up!

Y/N: god bless, I love boys weekend!

Y/N goes over to Mike’s Friday night, and they all pregame before heading to the bar. As they approach, she realizes she forgot to give Harry a heads up that she was coming. His eyes widen when he sees her.

“Where’s your coat?” He asks immediately.

“I…didn’t need it.” She blushes.

He rolls his eyes as he checks everyone else’s ID’s.

“It’s cold out…” He frowns at her. “And you’re wearing a crop top and jeans.”

“Don’t worry, dude, we’ll keep her plenty warm.” Drew says and throws an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s go.”

She giggles and goes inside with her friends. It puts a sour taste in his mouth. Obviously he didn’t own her, and he knew they had to be just friends, but he wondered if she had a past with any of them.

Y/N and her friends do three rounds of tequila shooters before hitting the dance floor. Harry was at the point of the night where he was inside the bar helping out. One of the bartenders snaps her fingers at him and points at two idiots who were demanding to be served more. Harry grabs Niall and they make the people leave. When Harry gets back inside he sees Y/N on the dancefloor grinding against Rob, and Conor. They were all laughing, but he didn’t like what he was seeing at all. If she needed something to grind against, all she had to do was ask.

“I’m gonna go to the ladies room!” She shouts at them, and leaves the dance floor to go wait in line.

She sees Harry and who she assumes is Niall walk by everyone and pound on the door. Harry kicks the door open and finds three people doing lines off the bathroom counter.

“Jesus Christ.” Niall groans. “You can’t be doing that in here!”

Harry and Niall grab the guys, and they struggle at first, but they get them out of the bathroom.

“Now we have to fucking call the police.” Harry says as he basically picks one of them up by the back of their shirt. “Tom’s gonna love this.”

“Doing fucking drugs in the bathroom, grow up boys.” Niall says and Y/N watches as they get them out of the bar.

“Holy shit.” She says to herself.

Around last call, Y/N sees Harry behind the bar cleaning up. She goes up and sits down on one of the few open stools. She taps her finger nails on the bar and he looks at her. She pouts and bats her lashes at him.

“You can come up later, but I’m not fucking you.”

“Why not?”

“You’re drunk.”

“We’ve had sex before after I’ve been drinking.” She scoffs.

“Not like this, you’ve had a lot. I saw the tab.”

“So then why would you want me to come up if we can’t fuck?”

“Because…I…where would you go otherwise?”

“Back to Mike’s.” She points over at her friends. “We do, like, a group sleepover when they come visit, it’s fun.” Harry scrunches his face slightly at that. “What?”

“You all stay in the same bed?”

“No, don’t be silly, I usually end up sleeping in Mike’s bed with him, and one of the other guys. We did it a lot when we were all in school together.”

“Is that all you did?” Harry plants both of his hands on the bar and cocks his head. “With them?”

“Are you asking me if I’ve ever slept with one of them? Because that’s really none of your business.”

“From the way you were dancing with them I didn’t even think you’d be looking to go home with me.” She starts giggling and smiling at him. “What?”

“I just didn’t you could get any cuter, and here you are being a jealous little thing.”

“I’m not jealous.” He scoffs.

“Really? So it wouldn’t bother you if I went back with all of them, and tugged one of them into the bathroom with me, and got all hot and naked?”

“Nope.” He smirks. “Because you’d be thinking of me the whole time, babe.” He leans forward and pecks her lips. “Or am I wrong about that?”

“So I can really come up when you’re done?”

“Yeah, but no hanky panky.” She bursts out laughing at that.

“I am totally down to just cuddle.”

“Better tell them that.” He nods towards the group of boys and she turns around. She waves goodbye to them and they all give her a thumbs up. “They’re a supportive group, huh?”

“You have no idea.”

//

Y/N was doing her best to stay awake, sipping on some water at the bar, while Harry was running around cleaning up. Her eyes flutter closed for a moment when she feels his hand on her back.

“M’all set.” He says.

“Okay.” She yawns. “Think I’m sober now if you wanna get a little frisky.” She wobbles a bit as she gets on her feet.

“Mhm, yeah.” He chuckles. “Come on booze-bag, let’s get you up to bed.”

“Heyyy, don’t be mean.” She swats at his chest. “I only drink like this when my boyfriends come to town.”

He rolls his eyes as he helps her up the stairs to his apartment. He gets her into the bathroom first, using a warm washcloth to help take her makeup off. She giggles and sighs as he does so. Harry could be really gentle when he wanted to be. He gives her some privacy when she needs to use the toilet, and then he leads her into his room.

“Alright, you can have the Kiss shirt for bed.”

“Oh, my favorite!”

He chuckles and helps her out of her clothes, and into the bed shirt. He strips down to his boxers and gets into bed with her. She lays her head right on his chest.

“Why didn’t you wear a coat tonight?”

“I got drunk at Mike’s and felt too warm to wear it when we made our way to the bar. Why do you care so much?”

“I saw on the news once that a lot of college girls get sick or get hypothermia from not dressing warm enough on their ways to parties or whatever. It’s scary.” She shifts to look up at him. He moves some hair away from her face. “I got nervous when I saw you walking up.”

“You were worried about me?”

“A little.” He clears his throat. “But to be fair, I worry about everyone I see dressed like that.”

“Mm, nice save.”

“Shut up.” He smirks. “You’re only here so I can fuck you in the morning.”

“Got that right. You could fuck me now if you wanted.”

“No, I couldn’t.” He strokes her cheek. “It wouldn’t be right.” He says softly. “Try and sleep, yeah?”

“Okay.” She mumbles and nuzzles into his chest.

He plays with her hair until her breathing evens out. He rolls over onto his side, and he feels her tighten her hold around his stomach. It had been quite some time since Harry let someone spoon him, but right now it just felt nice. He puts his hand over hers, just to give her a comforting squeeze, but she ends up lacing her fingers with his. He doesn’t pull away, he just lets it be. He knows he’s fucked now, of course, but he tells himself he’ll worry about it after some sleep.

Part Two

[scotianostra]

Happy birthday to Derek William Dick, better known as Fish, frontman with the group Marillion.

Fish was born on April 25th 1961 in Dalkeith, first born son of Robert And Isabella Dick. His parents ran a garage and petrol station, where he worked as a pump attendant in his youth. He has a sister, Laura, 3 years his junior. He attended Kings Park Primary School and Dalkeith High School, in his childhood home town, just outside Edinburgh and I remember him scooting about town on his motorbike, always looking rather odd on the wee bike as he is a rather tall guy, as I recall he wore a leather jacket with a fish on it’s back.

He left school; with grade A O-grades in History, Chemistry, English, Maths and Biology and grade B O-grades   in German and English Literature, so he is a smart cookie! 

In 1976 he started to work as Forester four years later he quit and started a musical career. He joined a band called Blewitt then joined Marillion in 1981. After a year of intense gigging in the UK they got signed to EMI and released their debut album “Script for a Jester’s Tear” in 1983. Their biggest hit singles were “Kayleigh” and “Lavender” in 1985 (from the number one album “Misplaced Childhood”) and “Incommunicado” in 1987. Their other top 40 singles included “Garden Party”, Sugar Mice" and “Warm Wet Circles”. In 1988, after touring their critically acclaimed fourth album “Clutching at Straws”, he left the band to start a solo career.

In 1987 Derek married Tamara, a model from Berlin who he had met during the recording of the album “Misplaced Childhood” and who appears in the music video of “Kayleigh”. Later she also appeared in the video of his solo single, “A Gentlemen’s Excuse Me”. They have a daughter, Tara Rowena Dick, born on January 1st, 1991. In 2001 Fish and Tamara separated.

Derek has also tried his hand at acting his first job was in Zorro, and he isn’t shy of having a bit of fun in his roles, playing “Derek Trout”, a record producer in the 1999 series A young person’s guide to becoming a rockstar.

Music critics have acknowledged Fish for his voice, which has been described as both “distinct” and a “conflation of Roger Daltrey and Peter Gabriel”, while his lyrics have been praised as “poetic prose”. Fish was voted number 37 in the greatest voices in rock by Planet Rock listeners in 2009.

In 2020, Fish released his final studio album Weltschmerz, to positive reviews and commercial success.  His management say it should have reached number two in the UK charts,  but because UK chart rules require distribution through official channels it was precluded from the official charts. 

In an interview last year he said he didn’t find the whole lockdown period too much of a struggle. “I’m lucky because we live in East Lothian, near Haddington to the south of Edinburgh,” he explains. “It’s in the country and I live on a farm so I’m lucky that we’ve got a big garden and my wife and I are both enthusiastic amateur gardeners and that kind of saved us, basically.”

He has his own Facebook page, and yes he runs it himself, it features a  programme called Fish on Friday  It’s a two-hour show where he plays music and talks about songs and what was going on, he  describes it as a great release for himself.

It’s good he is keeping his hand in someway as on the musical career front he says it’s all over;

“I decided in 2015 that I had one more album left in me,” he says, “and the same reason I left Marillion with [1987’s] Clutching at Straws... I left that band with the best album that I thought we made together and it was at a high benchmark.

“I didn’t want to kind of peter out; I’ve never been the kind of person that throws a bit of plastic at loyal punters just to get some cash off them. ‘Oh, it’s Christmas, we’d better put an album out’ – I’ve never worked along that way, and I’ve got other things to do.”

So no more touring or albums for oor man , but he recently was in Malta and  delivered keynote speech at a conference focusing on mental wellness at the workplace.

The song I have chosen today is not one of his well known, but I don’t think there are many videos more Scottish than the one accompanying it’s called Internal Exile and is a veritable feast of Scottishness! 

I saw a blue umbrella in Princes Street Gardens

Heading out west for the Lothian Road

An Evening News stuffed deep in his pocket

Wrapped up in his problems to keep away the cold

Grierson’s spirit haunts the dockyard

The only men working, documentary crews

Shooting film as the lines get longer

As the seams run out, as the oil runs dry

Hey there, laddie, internal exile

When will you see that we got to let go?

Hey there, lassie, internal exile

When will you realize we got to let go?

Starlings wheeling, Georgian spires

And the fires of Grangemouth burn the skies

A lion sleeps in a tenement close

In a country that’s tired and deaf to his roar

Hey there, laddie, internal exile

When will you see that we got to let go?

Hey there, lassie, internal exile

When will you realize we got to let go?

We got to go now

Oh, would you please let us go now?

They bury the wasteland deep in the wilderness

Poison the soil and reap the harvest

Of blind indifference, greed and apathy

Sowed way back in our history

The fish are few and the harbors are empty

The keels now rot on our oil slicked shores

The sheep are gone, the farms deserted

It sounds out of sight and we’re out of mind

Hey there, laddie, internal exile

When will you see that we got to let go?

Hey there, lassie, internal exile

When will you realize we got to let go?

We’re gonna go now

We’re gonna go now

Like our fathers before us we’ve eyes for America

Dream of a new life on foreign shores

Wherever we go we will always know

That the land we stand on is never our own

Hey there, laddie, internal exile

When will you see that we got to let go?

Hey there, lassie, internal exile

When will you realize we got to let go?

We’re internal exile, we got to, got to let go

We’re internal exile, we simply got to let go

Got to let go

We got to go now

Would you please let us go now?

Internal exile, internal exile

Would you please let us go?

[conniespringerblkwife]

Drummer Boy

(Connie Springer x Female Reader | NSFW)

A/N: So i was using the bathroom and then BOOM Connie fic idea. In conclusion, using the bathroom=best ideas.

Also I wrote this awhile back and since it’s Connie’s bday today, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to post it.

Warnings: Connie with eyeliner, Smut: Fingering, rough sex, and Connie grabbing the headboard

Summary: Y/N and her childhood best friend, Connie grew apart when once they began college. Three years later, Connie sees Y/N practicing and his feelings return for her.

*2,785 words*

Songs I listened to while writing:

Bubblegum Bitch by Marina and the Diamonds

Bad Romance (Lady Gaga) by Halestorm [Cover]

You and Connie used to be close friends since you were three all the way up to college.

Even though you two were best friends, you were polar opposites. He was an extrovert and you enjoyed quiet time by yourself. You had straight As, and Connie on the other hand, struggled in school. A D was an A to him. And although Connie was more popular than you, there was always one thing that brought you two together. Music.

Music has always been something you two can bond over. You played the violin and he played the drums. Even though you two enjoyed different genres of music, you understood each other's passion. Connie always wanted to play in a band and you always wanted to travel with a big orchestra and be first chair. You two understood each other's motives and worked hard everyday.

When you two started to grow up, you guys made a promise to never forget about each other when you two become famous. But that promise was broken, when you went to college. You and Connie both attended the same university, but became distant as you two joined different groups. You guys didn't realize the relationship died, it just gradually happened.

You both were caught up in different careers and lost time for each other.

You two met again, while you were practicing your solo, for an upcoming concert. You didn't realize anyone walked in until you heard the sound of clapping and a voice. "Wow!"

Your eyes adjusted to the figure below and you realized it was Connie. "That was amazing Y/n, you really have grown." He flashed a smile and you gave him a small one in return.

"Thanks Connie." You started to place your instrument in the case.

"How you've been?" He asked softly.

"Fine. And you?" You turned around to make eye contact with him.

"Good." You two stood in awkward silence. It's been so long since you two interacted with each other. You didn't know what to say. You guys haven't talked since freshman year of college, you're a senior now.

"Well, I'll go now." You gave him another small smile and proceeded. As you were heading out, you heard him call out your name.

"Wait Y/N!" You turned around and saw him jogging towards you. "Come to my gig tomorrow night."

"I don't know, I think I have practice tomorrow."

"Well if you don't." He pulled out a folded piece of paper out his pocket and handed it to you. "You're always welcomed." You studied the flyer and saw at the top, "10 pm: Riot of the Red Heart will be performing, 'There's a Hole in My Stomach.'"

"I'll see." You smiled and left the building.

*

You plopped on the bed and studied the flyer. "Riot of the Red Heart," you said to yourself. You decided to look them up and was amazed how popular they were on campus. You noticed they had an Instagram and clicked on their page. There were three members: Connie, a girl and a guy. The guy hair was pretty long and he had a beard, and also played guitar. The girl, you assumed was the main singer, had light brown hair and in her right hand was a potato.

As you continued to scroll through their page, you took note how happy Connie looked. Something in your heart twisted as memories came back, but you suppressed them and told yourself that you were happy that he was happy.

Unlike Connie, you didn't make any close friends during your four years of college. You had one friend named Mikasa and that was because she was your stand partner in orchestra, but outside of practice, you two never talked and if you did, it was only about what time practice was.

You put your phone on the charger and placed the flyer on the nightstand next to you, heading off to bed.

*

The next day you found out you didn't have practice and a part of you was happy that you could have a break. You decided to head back to your dorm and take a nap. It was rare for you to go a day without practicing, but you deserved it. You've practiced so much that your shoulders hurt more than usual. You would always forget to do stretches before and after practicing and would have to suffer the consequences because of that. As you drifted off to sleep you thought about Connie and wondered what he was doing right now.

*

"You guys excited for the night?!" Connie said wrapping his arms around Jean and Sasha's shoulders.

"Yep!" Sasha exclaimed, "Also after our performance can we go out to eat? I was thinking about that steak house down the street."

"Do you wanna go there because you've been crushing on that waiter?" Jean teased.

"What's his name?" Connie scratched his head and then smirked, "Niccolo?"

Sasha elbowed Connie in the side and walked off, " That's not true, I just liked the food there." Sasha crossed her arms while staring at the pavement trying to hide her embarrassment. "

"Mhmm, whatever you say." Jean remarked.

"Oh guys I invited someone." Connie spoke up.

"OOO who??" Sasha said.

"Her name's Y/n, she's a childhood friend." Connie rubbed the top of his head. "I want you guys to meet her."

"Oh she must be really special," Jean teased Connie.

"Yeah she is actually."

"Well I cant wait to meet her." Sasha said while throwing her arm around Connie's shoulders. Ever since Connie saw you yesterday, he couldn't get you out of his head. Connie used to have crush on you from middle school all the way to high school, but it left as you two grew apart. But those feeling returned when he saw you playing.

He didn't say anything that day when he entered the building and saw you practicing. He just stared in awe as you engrossed yourself in the music. Although you music was placed in front of you, your eyes were closed. It made him think how hard you have been working that you didn't even need to look at the music. He hoped you come tonight because he really missed you, and wanted to start over with you and possible relationship.

*

When you woke up , you saw that it was 9:00 pm. Your eyes then traveled to the flyer next to your clock. Connie's performance started in an hour. "I guess I could go." You said to yourself as you got ready.

You threw on a sweatshirt and jeans and fixed your hair before grabbing your purse.

Connie's band was performing at a small place called, The Corps Club.

When you entered the club, there were a lot of people, but it was pretty calm. Everyone was genuinely having a good time and you cursed yourself for not bringing Mikasa with you. You felt awkward as you sat at the bar fiddling with your purse, hoping to see Connie.

"Can I get you something?" A bartender said while cleaning a cup.

"Just a lemonade please, thank you." You were so focused on watching the bartender pour your drink you didn't even notice the presence beside you.

"Y/N Hey!" It was Connie. You took in his appearance and noticed he had on black eyeliner and wore a gray shirt that no sleeves along, a sliver necklace around his neck, and a chain that hooked to his pants. "I wasn't expecting you to come." He leaned on the table, "Hey Levi I'll pay for it."

"Oh no Connie that's okay." You protested but the man already took the money. "Thank you." You said softly while taking a sip of your drink.

"Thanks for coming y/n, I really appreciate it."

"Of course."

Connie then grabbed your arm and pulled you through the crowds of people. "I want you to meet my friends." He shouted and lead you through a door. "Guys I want you to meet y/n."

You seen them before, but it was different seeing them in person. "Y/N this is Sasha and Jean."

"It's so nice to meet you!" Sasha said and then pulled you into a hug. "Any special friend of Connie's is ours too. You want some chips?"

"No thanks," You said, your face heating up slightly at the thought of Connie talking about you to his friends.

"I'm Jean." He said as he held out his hand. You didn't imagine him to be so tall you thought as you shook his hand. "Connie you didn't tell us your friend was hot." Your eyes widened at his words.

"Jean please shut up you're making her uncomfortable." Connie said while hitting the back of his head.

"Anyways y/n, we're performing a song called There's a Hole in My Stomach. It's about a guy and girl who are twin flames, but the girl gets shot in her stomach and the boy basically loses another piece of himself." Your mouth opens slightly at the sad, but oddly specific, story behind the song. "I know right depressing, but it was Connie's idea." Sasha continued.

"We have five minutes 'till we perform...Y/N I'll show you a good spot to watch us." Connie said while grabbing your arm. He led you to the front row, "This seems like a good spot." He then pulled you into a hug and you felt your heart beat quicken. "Thank you y/n," he whispered into your ear. He pulled away and ran off, leaving you stunned.

You were blown away how good Connie's band was. Although the topic of their song was depressing, they played as if it wasn't. The three complemented each other so well. Sasha's voice was also beautiful and powerful. Jean played the guitar with a smirk plastered on his face as he rocked his head back and forth (let me stop before i turn this into a jean fic).

You then looked over to Connie and saw how intense he was as he hit the drums. It was like he was different person. You seen him play the drums before in high school, but that was nothing compared to now. His muscles flexed as he drummed. You thought he looked sexy, especially with the sweat gliding down his face and his eye liner starting to smudge. As if he heard your thoughts, Connie made eye contact with you and winked and quickly looked away.

After the performance you met up with the three and congratulated them. "You guys did amazing and Sasha your voice is so beautiful."

"Thank you." She said while wiping the sweat off her forehead. They all were sweating and you saw how Connie's eyeliner was now smeared across his eyes. "Are you coming with us to eat?"

"Oh no, it's late, I need to get back to my dorm."

'Are you sure Y/N?" Connie said while patting his neck with a towel.

"Yeah..Thank you."

"Well let me walk you back since it's late." He said while throwing his towel on the couch.

"Bye y/n!" Jean and Sasha said as you and Connie headed out.

The walk back to your dorm was silent until Connie said, "Thank you for coming. I'm so happy to see you again."

You smiled, "Of course Connie."

"It's been a long time since we seen each other." You hummed in agreement. "I missed you so much y/n" Connie stopped walking and stared into your eyes.

"I missed you too." There was tension between you two and you didn't know why, but you continued walking anyway.

You two were now in front of your dorm's door. "Thank you for inviting me Connie. Good night." As you were going to open your door Connie then said, "Y/n wait." You turned around in confusion.

"I want to start over."

"What?"

"I really missed you. Like a lot." You nodded your head, confused to where he was going with this. "Fuck it." He then pulled you by your waist and pressed his lips against yours. Your eyes widened at his sudden actions. You knew you should've pulled away but you couldn't.

You two were now in your dorm and you made out with each other as you straddled his waist at the edge of your bed. His tongue explored your mouth as he rubbed and squeezed your thighs.

Wanting more friction, you decided to rock against him and he groaned in your mouth. "Keep doing that." He said against your lips as he slid his hands under your sweatshirt to unstrap your bra. You were still in shock that you were making out with your old best friend, but that thought left when you felt his big hands cup your breasts and his thumbs circle your nipples.

He pinched and twisted your nipples as his mouth traveled from your cheek to your neck to suck on the skin.

You ran your hands through his hair and noticed that it was longer than last time you remembered. You giggled as a memory of you calling Connie a bald penguin popped up in your mind.

He then took your sweatshirt off and stared at your breast and then he squeezed your hips, urging you to keep grinding on him. "Stop staring."You whispered in embarrassment. He then attached his mouth to your nipple and you gasped at the wet feeling. His hands traveled your body up and down, his hands rubbing your curves and then cupping your ass as you continued rocking against him.

Your panties were wet and you wanted nothing more than for him to touch you where you most needed it. He didn't notice you unbuttoned your pants until you grabbed his hand and slid it down to cupped you down there. He felt how warm and wet you were and began caressing you gently through your underwear.

He then pulled your panties to the side and rubbed a finger up and down your folds before placing his middle finger inside of you. You hid your face in his neck as you rocked against him while he placed another finger inside of you. He rubbed his other hand up and down your back to ease you. "You're so beautiful," he said softly before placing a third finger inside of you.

"Connie" You moaned his name and that's when he lost it. He pulled his fingers out of you and laid you on your back. He shoved your pants and underwear down while he peppered kisses on your neck. You kicked the remaining clothing off your legs and pulled his shirt off while you wrapped your legs around his waist.

You two were now fully naked as Connie teased your folds with his penis. You bit your lip in anticipation. "Connie pl-" before you could finish he pushed himself inside of you and you clawed at his back as he stretched you out. He moved slowly first and you watched as his chain dangled in front of your face. You took that opportunity to grabbed him by his chain and pull him into a kiss.

He started to pick up his pace and you had to hold onto his shoulders for support. "So fucking tight." He said as he watched how you took him so well. When he felt you loosen up, he took the opportunity to lift your legs over his shoulder and pound into you. This new angle had you gasping for air as his hips snap against the back of your thighs.

His hand was gripping the headboard to go faster and his other hand also had a death hold grip on your waist, you knew there will be a bruise there tomorrow but you didn't mind. The more you said his name, the faster he would go.

He slowed down a bit when he felt your walls clench around him. You were close and he had to control himself because he wanted to make you cum first before him.

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as you came intensely and then a few moments later, Connie also came.

Connie then pulled out and collapsed on top of your body, then proceeded to give you small kisses between your breast. You both were breathing hard and you felt a small smile slowly form on your face. "I know this wasn't the proper way to build our relationship back up." He said against your skin. "Let me make it up to you and take you out tomorrow." He looked up at you through his long eyelashes.

You smiled and brought his head up to kiss him again, "I would love that."

*

*

*

Follow me on Instagram @//jungjaehoe127

[theliterarywolf]

1/3 Tbh that Onlyfans issue honestly fucks me up so bad. I'm not a sex worker, never will be, just not for me. But fucking Christ, I'm so tired of how badly treated sex workers are in general, especially when it comes any careers they might try outside sex work. How it's still fine for people to get fired for doing SW, because it could be "bad" for a company or their job, or even schooling? Why is it still allowed to weaponise someone's career choice against them? Why do we dehumanise people who

2/3 are just trying to make money? Just because it's sex work. No one is going to fire Jen over her Etsy side hustle. But sex work? Nah fuck them. Right? /s I think what fucks me up is that we've literally come to a point where we talk about sexual harassment, and try to empower women, and companies pretend to be accepting, but we all know it's just a farce. Because instead of helping Sex workers, their field gets demonised, and they get less protection against violence, trafficking, and similar

3/3 issues. Laws get put in place to make it harder to protect these people, and make it easier to allow bad shit to get through, and under the table. Laws that help no one. Big companies love making money from sex work, or any NSFW content, but they will also be the first to squash it down, and treat anyone doing it, worse than dog shit when it comes time to choose. It's like they see the money, but still think that people choosing sex work are nothing but trash to be discarded whenever.

I literally can't say much else here.

Because, while it's one thing to say 'oh, hey, if you work for our preschool, you can't go around advertising that you're the number one Anal star on PH', if its a matter of someone working at a bank and then someone on the staff finds out that they have an OnlyFans, it shouldn't be a case of 'Oh, you WHORE! Get out of my establishment this instant!' then that's a little fucked.

Especially when it should be: 'The fuck? I'm not paying you guys to show each other your social media and side-gigs! Get back to work! Also, *turns to the accusing coworker* why are you showing NSFW content to your coworkers? Probation! get out of here!'

[melisa-may-taylor72]

QUEEN BEFORE QUEEN

THE 1960s RECORDINGS

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PART 4:

THE OPPOSITION

JOHN DEACON WAS THE QUIETEST MEMBER OF A MIDLAND-BASED FIVE-PIECE WHOSE GREATEST AMBITION WAS TO PLAY ANOTHER GIG.

Initial research John S. Stuart. Additional research and text: Andy Davis.

John Deacon was the fourth and final member to join Queen. He became part of that regal household 25 years ago this month, enrolling as the band’s permanent bassist in February 1971. His acceptance marked the culmination of a six-year ‘career’ in music, much of which he spent in an amateur, Leicestershire covers band called the Opposition.

From 1965 until 1969, Deacon and his schoolmates ploughed a humble, local furrow in and around their Midlands hometown, reflecting the decade’s mercurial moodswing with a series of names, images and styles of music. The most remarkable fact about the Opposition was just how unremarkable the group actually was.

Collectively, they were an unambitious crew: undertaking precisely no trips down to London to woo A&R men; winning only one notable support slot for the army of chart bands who visited Leicester in the ‘60s (opening for Reperata & the Delrons in Melton Mowbray in 1968); and managing even to miss out on the option of sending a demo tape to any of the nation’s record labels. The band’s saving grace is its solé recorded legacy: a three-track acetate — although even this was done for purely private consumption, and has rarely been aired outside the confines of their inner circle.

It is perhaps indicative of the Opposition’s modest outlook that their most promising bid for stardom, a beat contest, was called off before they had the chance to play in the finals. For John Deacon and friends, it seems, merely being in a band was reward enough.

Considering of all of this, it’s easy to imagine the response to the following story, related in the ‘60s to one of the Opposition’s guitarists, Ronald Chester:...[ ]

...[ ] “There was a teacher who worked at Beauchamp School, which John attended, who told fortunes. They went to see her one Saturday and were told, ‘John Deacon is going to be world famous and very, very rich. Of course, they all fell about laughing. She was determined that this was going to happen. But they all thought it was a joke."

What particularly amused Deacon’s colleagues was the unlikeliness of this scenario, given the plain facts of his demeanour. John was born in Leicester in 1951, the product of affluent, middle-class, middle England. As a youngster, he was known to his friends as ‘Deaks’ and grew up to be quiet and reserved, what Mark Hodkinson referred to in ‘Queen — ‘The Early Years’ as “a ghost of a boy".

“He is basically shy,” confirms Richard Young, the Opposition’s first guitarist/vocalist, and later keyboardist. “I suppose he was quieter than the rest of us — but he was fairly static with Queen if you look at him on stage.”

Ron Chester agrees: “John was quiet by nature. His sister, Julie, was the same. Once he got going, though, he wasn’t any different from anybody else. But on first approach, you really had to coax him out of his shell. We’d have to pick him up. He couldn’t walk down the road to meet us."

CONFIDENT

Despite any lack of personal dynamics, Deacon was a capable teenager: “He was very confident," recalls another of the band’s guitarists, David Williams. “But in a laidback sort of way. He didn’t have a problem with anything. ‘Yeah, I can do that’, he’d say. We used to call him ‘Easy Deacon’, not because of any sexual preferences, but because he’d say something was easy without it sounding big-headed. I remember saying to him once, I’m going to have to knock off the gigs a bit to revise for my ‘A’ levels. What about you?’ ‘No’, he said, ‘I don’t need to. I’ve never failed an exam yet, and I’ve never revised for one’. Ultimately, he was just confident, with a phenomenally logical mind. If he couldn’t remember something, he could work it out. And, of course, he got stunning results.”

John’s earliest interest was electronics, which he studied into adulthood. He also went fishing, trainspotting even, with his father. Then music took over. After dispensing with a ‘Tommy Steele’ toy guitar, John used the proceeds from his paper round to buy his first proper instrument, an acoustic, when he was about twelve. An early musical collaborator was a school mate called Roger Ogden, who like Roger Taylor down in Cornwall, was nicknamed ‘Splodge’. But his best friend was the Opposition’s future drummer, Nigel Bullen.

“I’d first got to know John at Langmore Junior School in Oadby, just outside Leicester, in either 1957 or 1958,’' recalls Nigel. “We were both the quiet ones. We started playing music together at Gartree High School, when we were about thirteen. We were inspired by the Beatles — they made everybody want to be in a group. John was originally going to be the band’s electrician, as he called it. He used to build his own radios, before we had any amps, and he fathomed a way of plugging his guitar into his reel-to-reel tape recorder. He was always the electrical boffin."

The prime mover in the formation of the group was another Oadby boy they met on nearby Uplands Park, Richard Young. “Richard was at boarding school," recalls Nigel Bullen. “He was always the kid with the expensive bike. He played guitar, and what’s more had a proper electric, with an amplifier. He instigated getting the band together. Initially, we rehearsed in my garage, and then anywhere we could. John played rhythm to begin with. He was a chord man, the John Lennon of the group, if you like."

SWITCH

Despite his later switch to the bass, Deacon’s technique on the guitar also developed, as Dave Williams reveals: “Later on, I remember he could play ‘Classical Gas’ on an acoustic, which was a finger-picking execise and no mean feat. It’s a bit like ‘McArthur Park’, a fantastic piece of music, and when I heard it, I thought, ‘Bloody hell. You dark horse!’ Because he never showed off."

The Opposition’s first bassist was another school friend of John’s called Clive Castledine. In fact, the group made its debut at a party at Castledine’s ouse on 25th September, 1965 (their first public performance took place the...[ ]

...[ ] following month at Gartree’s school hall). Clive looked good and appreciated the kudos of being in a group, but he wasn’t up to even the Opposition’s schoolboy standards. “I was the least proficient, to put it mildly,” he admitted to Mark Hodkinson.“His enthusiasm was 100%,” adds Richard Young, “but his actual playing ability was null, so we had a meeting and got rid of him.” Deacon took over, initially playing on his regu­lar guitar, using the bottom strings. “John was good,” Young continues. “It was no problem for him to switch to bass. He hit the right notes at the beginning of the bar, and we were a better band for it. Whereas Clive made us sound woolly, as anyone who just plonked away on any old note would, John was solid.”

DIARY

Young turned out to be the Opposition’s archivist, keeping a diary of each gig played, the equipment used, and the amounts of money earned (as indeed did John Deacon). Richard’s diary documented the day Deacon — now, of course, bassist in one of the world’s most famous groups — first picked up his chosen instrument. “In an entry for 2nd April, 1966,” says Young, “it reads, ‘We threw Clive out on the Saturday afternoon. Had a practice in Deaks’ kitchen, and Deaks went on bass. Played much better.’ John didn’t have a bass, so we went down to Cox’s music shop in King Street in Leicester, and bought him an EKO bass for £60. I paid for it, but I think he paid me back eventually.”

“John’s bass style with the Opposition was the same as with Queen,” reckons Nigel Bullen. “He never used to play with a plectrum, which was unusual, but with his fingers, which meant that his right hand is drooped over the top of the guitar. Also, he plays in an upward fashion, which I’d never seen before, certainly when we were in Leices­ter. Over the years, I’ve watched many bass players adopt that style. I’d say he has been copied a lot. I’ve mentioned this to him, but he doesn’t agree.”

Clive Castledine wasn’t the last member of the band to be dismissed. “The vocal and lead guitar side of the Opposition was changing all the while,” recalls Nigel. “Myself, John, and Richard Young were always there — as were Dave Williams and Ron Chester later on — but we had a succession of other musicians who I can hardly remember now. There was a guy called Richard Frew in the very early days, and a young lad called Carl, but he didn’t fit in. After we began playing proper gigs, Richard decided he wasn’t happy with his singing and wanted to move onto keyboards, so we brought in Pete Bart (formerly with another local band, the Rapids Rave) as a guitarist and vocalist. He was good, but again, didn’t last long.”

“Bart was a bit of a rocker, while we were all mods,” remarks Dave Williams. “We were impressed by mod bands like the Small Faces and the original Who. Bart seemed to come from a different era altogether.”

“Deaks had the Parka with the fur collar,” remembers Ron Chester. “And short hair, a crew cut. Mirrors on his scooter.” Richard Young agrees: “John was more of a mod than us. But you couldn’t really pigeonhole the band, because our music went right across the board”.

”Buying Deacon his bass was no one-off, and Richard Young is remembered as the group’s benefactor. Being older than the others, he had a steady job working for his father’s electronics company in Leicester, which brought him a regular, and by all accounts, generous wage. He rarely thought twice before splashing out on equipment for the other members.

RECEIPTS

“Richard bought me a P.A.,” recalls David Williams. “But he didn’t ask, he used to think that the group needed it. He’d buy it and then say, ‘You owe me this’. My mum used to get really annoyed. She’d was at that going- through-my-pockets stage, probably looking for contraceptives. She once found a receipt from Moore and Stanworth’s, a local music shop. It was for a Beyer microphone, which cost about £30. I was still at school, getting pocket money, and my mum said, ‘What on earth is this?!’ Receipts on the Sunday dinner table, that sort of thing. It was good, though. The group needed it.”

“I was dead serious about the band,” claims Young, who switched to organ with the arrival of Williams in July 1966. “Perhaps more so than anybody else. I could see it going nowhere if money wasn’t pumped into it.”

“Dick Young was an accomplished organ player,” adds Dave, “and he improved the group quite a lot. He always had plenty of dosh, and a car. But he was totally mad, a crazy bloke. He’d come round with an organ one week, then next week, he’d have a better one. He ended up with a Farfisa, with one keyboard on it, then one with two keyboards — one above the other. Then he had a Hammond, an L 100. which was really heavy. Then he had a ‘B’ series one. The ‘L’ was top-of-the-range and he sawed it in half to make it easier to carry!”

Dave Williams helped to improve the group as well. “He was at school with us,” says Nigel Bullen, “but in another band, who we always looked up to.” That band was the Leeds-based Outer Limits (who went on to issue several singles — without Dave — in the late ‘60s). “I joined the Opposition after they asked me to watch them and tell them what I thought,” recounts Dave. “The Outer Limits were older lads, all mods, but I was after something a bit more easy going, and the Opposition were my own age. They were okay, but I first saw them at John’s house, when they were still practising in bedrooms, and they were absolutely awful. I said, ‘Have you thought of tuning up?’ They said they had. But it sounded like they were playing in different keys — totally horrendous. It was so funny. They were so conscientious, they’d all learned their bits, but hadn't tuned up to each other. That was my first tip.”

“Our first proper gig was supporting a local band, the Rapids Rave, at Enderby Coop Hall,” recalls Nigel Bullen. “They used to play at this village hall every week. and then we ended up doing it every week for quite some time.” Richard’s diary records the Opposition’s debut taking place on 4th December 1965, and that the band’s fee was £2. Thereafter, they began to offer their Services in the local ‘Oadby & Wigston Advertiser’, which led to bookings in youth clubs and village halls in local hot-spots like Kibworth, Houghton-on- the-Hill, Thurlaston and Great Glen.

SCHOOL WORK

By spring 1966, the Opposition were playing every weekend, school work permitting. The peaks and troughs of their career are illustrated by the following memorable gigs: one at St. George’s Ballroom, Hinckley, on 23rd June 1967, when just two people turned up and the band went home after a couple of numbers; and a September appearance in a series of shows at U.S. Airforce Bases in the Midlands, at which they were required to play for four-and-half hours with just two twenty-minute breaks. It was nothing if not diverse.

“It didn’t seem to matter what you played,” says Dave. “People would clap simply because you were making music. They never said, ‘Do you do Motown, or soul stuff?’ ” The band’s repertoire initially consisted of chart sounds and the poppier end of the R&B spectrum. “Although we were inspired by the Beatles, we never did any of their songs,” claims Nigel. “But we covered the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and things like Them’s ‘Gloria’, and the Zombies’ ‘She’s Not There’.

They also altered their name slightly to the New Opposition, which they unveiled at the Enderby Coop Hall. “The name-change was decided overnight, when John moved from rhythm to bass guitar,” recounts Richard, whose diary records the date of the transition as 29th April 1966. Interestingly, though, it makes no mention of another local group also called the Opposition, long thought to have been the reason for Deacon’s crew adopting the ‘New’. The change did act as an impetus for further development, however, instigated by Dave Williams, who soon took over as the group’s lead vocalist.

“When I joined they were doing all Beach Boys stuff,” he recalls, “and I think I may have brought in a little credibility. In the Outer Limits, I’d been playing John Mayall, the Yardbirds, that sort of thing, plus that group was into really good soul like the Impressions, and fantastic vocal bands from the States. So I had a broad musical knowledge by then, whereas the Opposition had been a bit poppy.” Appropriately, the words “Tamla” and “Soul” were now added to the Opposition’s ads and calling cards.

Towards the end of 1966, the New Opposition were enhanced further by the arrival of Ron Chester, who’d previously played with Dave Williams in the Outer Limits, as well as in an earlier band, the Deerstalkers. “Ron Chester was a bit eccentric,” claims Richard Young. “He never used to go anywhere without his deerstalker. He was a really good guitarist (“stunning”, adds Dave Williams). We were probably at our best when Ron was in the band.”

On 23rd October 1966, the New Opposition entered the local Midland Beat Contest. They won their heat, landing themselves a place in the semifinals on 29th January 1967. They won this, too, and steeled themselves for the finals, which were due to be held on 3rd March 1967, when they were to be pitched against...[ ]

...[ ] an act called Keny. The stars of the show would have been the nearest the Opposition came to having a rival: an outfit called Legay. (A year later, incidentally, this band issued a now collectable single, “No One” (Fontana TF 904,£80J.) Unfortunately, for all concerned, however, the contest never took place. “That was a fiasco,'' laughs Ron. “Somehow we won those heats, but in fact, I don’t remember seeing anybody else playing. I don’t know whether we won by default or not. After that, they pulled the plug on the competition — probably because they knew we’d be playing again!”.

CASINO

“The heats took place in a club in Leicester called the Casino, which was the place to play,” adds Nigel. “The guy who ran the competition was an agent for the club. His company was called Penguin (or P.S) Promotions and he walked like a penguin too, with his feet sticking out. The final was going to be held in the De Montford Hall, which is still the main venue in Leicester. We thought, ‘Crumbs, this is it, perhaps we might make the big time.’ But the guy did a runner with all the money — people had to pay to come to the heats. So the final was called off.”

David Williams wasn’t too fussed, as he scored another prize that night: “I remember taking a girl back to Dick’s car on the strength of us winning our heat. I said, ‘Can I borrow your keys, Dick? He said, ‘What for? You can’t drive!’ “

Were the New Opposition — or the Opposi­tion, as they dropped the ‘New’ again in early 1967 — left in limbo by the cancellation of the Beat Contest? Having achieved the most public recognition of their talents so far, were they disappointed with the loss of the chance to prove themselves further?

“No. It was almost insignificant,” reckons Ron. “We didn’t really look upon it as a stairway to stardom.” And what would John Deacon have thought? “Nothing really,” suggests Chester. “ ‘It’s cancelled. What are we doing next, then?’ That would have been about the depth of it. We were a village band, all gathering at the church hall to try and improve our abilities. The financial aspect of it wasn’t in the forefront of our minds. We were more concerned with our music, and if we could get a booking doing it as well, to pay off some of the equipment, then that was a real bonus. Three bookings a week was enough for us while we were working or still at school.” Despite any dodgy dealings, history does have the Penguin promoter to thank for the only professionally-taken photograph of the Opposition. (“We didn’t go much on photos in the band,” remembers Dave Williams.) On Tuesday, 31st January 1967, two days after winning the semi-finals, the ‘Leicester Mercury’ dispatched a staff photographer over to Richard Young’s parents’ house in Oadby. Here, the group lined-up in the front room, looking more like refugees from 1964, rather than 1967. The only indications of the actual date are perhaps Ron Chester’s deerstalker hat and the ridiculous length of David Williams’ shirt collars — seven inches, no less, from neck to nipple.

“Dave was very extrovert,” recalls Nigel. “But we all had those silk shirts with the great long collars made by our mums and grandmas for our stage gear.” Dave admits: “Our clothes were all a bit mixed up. We had silk shirts with tweed jackets — which were fashionable for a while — and bell-bottoms. Musically, we were pretty good, better than...[ ]

...[ ] most of the local bands around that time, but we had this squeaky-clean, schoolboy image which let us down. I used to get frustrated when we were billed with other bands, and they’d all play with so many wrong chords but had a better image and still the punters applauded. Were they stupid? We were still at school — we didn’t leave until we were eighteen — and weren’t allowed to grow our hair long”.

“After the mod thing,” he continues, “long hair became really important. Bands were growing their hair right down their backs. I remember getting to one gig with John and Nigel a year or so later, and the other group were already on. And when they saw us they turned round and said, ‘Look! They’ve got no hair!’. We were quite upset about that”.

“We also went through the flower-power look,” Dave adds. “And then we got into those little jumpers without any sleeves that Paul McCartney used to wear, the ones so small that half your stomach showed. And then it was grandad shirts without the collars and flares.” Ron Chester: “The flowery shirts and flared trousers were everywhere. We looked like a right shower of poofters. But so did everybody else. You stood out if you didn’t wear them.”

1967 also heralded the arrival of an additional attraction to the Opposition’s stage show: two go-go dancers. At least, it did if the existing literature on the subject is to be believed. “I vaguely remember it,” admits Richard, “but speaking to Nig, neither of us can recal who those dancers were”.

Dave Williams throws some light on the subject: “They were the jet-set girls of the sixth form, they came from the big houses. They came to a couple of gigs and just started dancing. Somebody who booked us for the following week actually advertised us ‘with go-go girls’. But they were never really part of the show.”

ART

On 16th March, 1968 for a gig at Gartree School, the Opposition changed their name once again. “We called ourselves Art,” reveals Nigel, “because Dave was arty, that is, he was training as an artist. It was as simple as that.” Dave agrees: “It was my idea, because I’d been doing art at school.” Nigel Bullen was aware of another band using that name around the same time (the pre-Spooky Tooth outfit), but assuming them to be American, reckoned they’d be no confusion. As the Leicester-based Art never made it to London, there wasn’t.

Despite wording like “A time to touch and feel, to taste and experience, to hear and understand” appearing on the group’s tickets, Richard maintains that Art was “just the same band” as before. “Nothing changed."

“It was mutton dressed up as lamb, really,” admits Ron Chester. “We thought if we were called something different, people might come because they were curious. But it didn’t make a lot of difference. The audiences were captive at the places we played anyway. There was nowhere else to go on a Friday or Saturday night. Everyone used to roll up to see whoever was on, whether they’d heard of them or not.”

1968 was the year psychedelia caught up with many provincial British bands. The Art were no different, but their acknowledgement of what had been last year’s scene in London was via sight rather than sound. Their light shows seem to have been particularly memo­rable, as Dave Williams explains: “They were brilliant. We used the projectors from school, filled medicine bottles with water and oil, and projected through them to get this lovely golden, amber backdrop. As the image came out upside down, when we poured in some Fairy Liquid, it dropped straight through in a blob, but came out on the wall like a giant green mushroom cloud. It was amazing, and we had about four of them at the back, projecting over the band.”

John Deacon was party to another of Dave’s exploits. “One day,” recalls Williams, “John and I bought a 100-watt P.A. — which was pretty big for those days — and took it into the lecture theatre full of kids at Beauchamp School (which Deacon had attended since September 1966) for our version of Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’. We cranked it up as loud as we could, put the light show on, and let off these smoke bombs, which were DDT pellets we’d got from the chemist. All the kids started choking, and then the headmaster walked in...[ ]

...[ ] with a load of governors. You could see the fury in his face. One of the governors asked what we were doing. ‘It’s a demonstration in sound and light, sir,’ I said. ‘We’re using these ink bottles turned upside down, but we’re a bit worried about these DDT pellets so we might knock the smoke on the head, but we’re still experimenting.’ And he fell for it!”.

INFLUENTIAL

Towards the end of 1968, a crop of new groups began to have a profound effect on the maturing schoolboys: Jethro Tull, the Nice, Taste, and in particular Deep Purple. Ron: “We used to buy Purple records and learn to play them. We’d seen John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers and the Downliners’ Sect in Leicester, the Nice, King Crimson. These sort of groups. We learned a lot from just watching them. They were influential. There was always a big discussion in the band as to whether we should do a particular song. Once we’d decided that, there’d be another big discussion as to how we should do it. Everybody had their say.”

Hair, too, had finally began to grow: “John grew his quite long,” recalls Ron. “We all had longish hair, but not shoulder length. We couldn’t look too unkempt for the normal side of life, but we didn’t want to be too prissy for the other end of the spectrum. That was when we started playing universities, and we went a bit heavier. The audiences were far more serious minded about music and more enthusiastic. In some of the youth clubs we’d been playing, the audience would be moving around on roller skates, or peeling bananas all over the place, things like that”.

“We felt we were making an impression towards the last year or two of the band,” he continues. But it went no further: “We were at school, some of us had jobs, and there was an element of common sense overriding what we would have liked to have done. None of us wanted to chuck in our apprenticeships or courses. If we’d had a flair for writing our own material, we might have taken off. But we just played what was popular, nothing different from most other groups. That wasn’t a basis on which to launch ourselves. So it never happened."

“We didn’t think that far ahead,” admits Richard Young. “I just thought of playing and getting repeat bookings. John was probably the least ambitious of all of us, to be honest. I think he felt that there was no mileage in what we were doing, although it was good fun. I think he had the impression that this was a hobby, a phase he was going through.”

Sometime in the Sixties, possibly 1969, but maybe earlier, Art recorded an acetate. Whatever the date, the crucial point is that John Deacon was present at the session. “We weren't asked to do it,” recalls Nigel. “We just wanted to make a disc. I think it cost us about five shillings.”

The venue was Beck’s studio, thirty miles south east of Oadby in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire. “I’d never been in a studio before and it seemed awesome, really,” recalls Dave Williams. “It was a fairly decent-sized room for acoustics. It was all nicely low-lit, with lots of screens. The guy knew what he was doing.” Richard Young was less impressed, though: I’ve been in studios all my life,” he says. “That was just another session. Nothing about it stood out.”

The “guy” Dave remembered was engineer Derek Tomkins, who informed the group that they could record three tracks in the time allotted. “We’d only gone in there with two, ‘Sunny’ and ‘Vehicle’,” says Nigel, “and we didn’t want to waste the opportunity, so Richard knocked up a little instrumental called Transit 3’ — named after our new van, the third one — right there in the studio. Although we were purely a covers band, everybody had a bash at writing, but we never did anything of our own on stage. The exception was Transit 3’, which was incorporated into the set after this session.”

“ Transit 3’ was about about the only track we ever wrote," reckons Richard Young (“Heart Full Of Soul”, as reported in ‘As It Began’, is in fact a Graham Gouldman nurnber). “I initially had the idea, but I can’t really remember anything about it. It’s very basic. It wouldn’t take a great deal of effort to write something like that.” To the objective observer, “Transit 3”, taped in mono but well recorded, is a fairly uncomplicated, organ-led scale- hopper, reminiscent of Booker T & the MGs.

 “Everybody was listening to ‘Green Onions’,” confirms Nigel, “so Booker T would have been an influence there.” But for all that, it’s well- played, with memorable lead and twangy, wah-wah guitar passages courtesy of Dave Williams. And, crucially, John Deacon’s thumping bass is plainly audible throughout. On this evidence, the Opposition were clearly a tight, confident outfit. “Transit 3” could have been incorporated into any swinging ‘60s film soundtrack, and no one would have jumped up shouting, “Amateurs”!.

UNFAMILIAR

The other two tracks, covers of Bobby Hebb’s ‘Sunny' and the more obscure, soul- tinged ‘Vehicle’ (later a hit for the Ides of March), featured a vocalist, but an unfamiliar one: another of the Opposition’s fleeting frontmen. “We had a singer for a while called Alan Brown,” recalls Nigel. “He came and went fairly quickly. He was good, really good. Too good for us, I think. That wasn’t him saying that. We just knew it.”

On both songs, Brown is in deep, soulful voice, sounding not unlike a cross between Tom Jones and the early Van Morrison — if such an amalgam can be imagined. The Art’s reading of “Vehicle” is edgy and robust, dominated by Richard Young’s distinctive keyboards and Nigel Bullen’s bustling drum work. Dave Williams is again in fine form, delivering more sparkling wah-wah guitar, while on the cassette copy taped from Nigel Bullen’s acetate, at least, John’s bass is very prominent, over-recorded in fact, booming in the mix.

“Sunny” goes one better, breaking into jazzy 3/4 time halfway through, before slotting back into the more traditional 4/4. It’s an imaginative arrangement, with alternate soloing from both Dave and Richard, while the whole track is underpinned by swirls of Hammond organ and John Deacon’s pounding bass.

“We did ‘Sunny’ as part of our stage set,” says Nigel, “but I don’t recall us ever going into the jazzy bit. That’s quite interesting. We might have talked about that before we went into the studio, but I think it was just for this session. Dave had two guitars, a six-string and a twelve-string, or it could even have been twin-necked. I still quite like the wah-wah he played on that track. By this time Richard would have been onto his second or third organ — he was heavily into Hammonds and Leslies."

Operating as they did in a fairly ambition- free zone, and having prepared the listener for a mundane set of recordings with their trademark laid-back approach, Art’s acetate comes as something of a revelation. Let any bunch of today’s schoolboys loose in a studio for an afternoon and defy them to come up with something half as good!

Just two copies of the Art disc are known to have survived. John Deacon’s mother is believed to own one and Nigel Bullen has the other. “I’d forgotten all about this record,” admits Nigel. “We know that one copy was converted to an ashtray!. We stubbed out cigarettes on Richards at rehearsal one night.” Although treated with anything but respect at the time, the importance of the disc is now apparent to Nigel Bullen: “This is probably John Deacon’s first recording, apart from tracks he did in his bedroom on his reel-to-...[ ]

...[ ] reel, which are probably long gone. Although, knowing John, they’re probably not!”

The beginning of the end for Art came in June 1969, when John Deacon left Beauchamp. With a college course lined up in London, his days with the band were obviously numbered. He played his final gig with the group on 29th August at a familiar venue, Great Glen Youth and Sports Centre Club. By October, he’d moved to London to study electronics at Chelsea College of Technology, part of the University of London.

Another blow was dealt in November, when the band's lynchpin, Richard Young, left to join popular local musician Steve Fearn in Fearn’s Brass Foundry.

“They were a Blood, Sweat and Tears-type of group,” recalls Richard, “and paid better money than I’d been used to. I was out five nights a week, on about £3 per night, against an average of about £10 between us.” The previous year, Richard had played session keyboards on the Foundry’s two Decca singles: “Don’t Change It” (F 12721, January 1968, £10) and “Now I Taste The Tears” (F 12835. September 1968, £8).

SAVAGE

Ron Chester departed shortly afterwards, and gave up music: “I left in the early 70s, after John Deacon moved to London. John was replaced by a bass player was called John Savage, who unsettled me. He had different tastes and drove us a bit hard. His approach was totally different from Deaks's, and he was much more interested in the financial side of things. We’d all been mates before, we didn't just knock about for the band. It just wasn’t the same.”

Nigel, Richard and Dave pushed on into 1970 with the new bassist, changing the band’s name again, this time to Silky Way. They returned to Beck’s studio to record a cover of Free’s “Loosen Up” with another vocalist, Bill Gardener, but that was the band’s last effort. Dave left after falling into Nigel’s drumkit, drunk on stage at a private party one Christmas. “I waited for them to pick me up the next day,” he recalls sheepishly, “but they never carne.”

Richard and Nigel moved into a dinner- dance type outfit called the Lady Jane Trio — “Corny, or what!”, laughs Bullen — but Nigel left music altogether soon afterwards to con­centrate on his college work. Richard turned professional, moving into cabaret with the Steve Fearn-less Brass Foundry, before forming a trio called Rio, finding regular work on the holiday camp and overseas cruise circuit. In the late ‘70s, he joined a touring version of the Love Affair.

Down in London, John Deacon caught a glimpse of his future world-beating musical partners as early as October 1970, when he saw the newly-formed Queen perform at College of Estate Management in Kensington. “They were all dressed in black, and the lights were very dim too,” he told Jim Jenkins and Jacky Gunn in ‘As It Began’, “All I could really see were four shadowy figures. They didn’t make a lasting impression on me at the time.”

While renting rooms in Queensgate, John formed a loose R&B quartet with a flatmate, guitarist Peter Stoddart, one Don Cater on drums and another guitarist remembered only as Albert. The new band was hardlv a great leap forward from Art: they wrote no originals, and when asked to perform their only gig at Chelsea College on 21st November 1970, supporting Hardin & York and the Idle Race, they hastily billed themselves — in a rare fit of self-publicity for the quiet Oadby boy — as Deacon.

A few months later in early 1971, John was introduced to Brian May and Roger Taylor by a mutual friend, Christine Farnell, at a disco at Maria Assumpta Teacher Training College. They were looking for a bassist. John auditioned at Imperial College shortly after­wards. Roger Taylor recalled Queen’s initial reaction to Deacon in ‘As It Began’: “We thought he was great. We were so used to each other, and so over the top, we thought that because he was quiet he would fit in with us without too much upheaval. He was a great bass player, too — and the fact that he was a wizard with electronics was definitely a deciding factor!”

How did the members of the Art/Opposition back in Leicester, view John’s success with Queen? “It wasn’t sudden”, says Ron Chester. “First we heard he’d got into another group. We couldn’t believe that — were they deaf? There were all these sort of jokes going along. Then we heard he’d got a recording contract and the next thing he had a record out. It was a gradual progression. No one dreamed he would end up the way he did.”

“I don’t think we expected success for any of us" admits Nigel Bullen. “Richard maybe. He was the first one to go professional. But when John left for London to go to college, he left all his kit here. I thought that was the end of it for him. He had absolutely no intention of continuing. His college course was No.1. It was only after he kept seeing adverts for bass players in the ‘Melody Maker’ that he became interested again.”

He also seemed to lose some of that ‘Easy Deacon’ touch which so impressed Dave Williams in the ‘60s. “He’d ring up these bands,” continues Nigel, “but when he found they were a name act, he bottle out. When he went to auditions for anonymous bands, where he would queue up with about thirty other bass players, he had a bit of confidence. He just wanted to play in a decent band. Once I heard what Queen had recorded at De Lane Lea, and John played me the demo of their first album, I thought they were well set.”

CABARET

By early 1973, Dave Williams had forsaken a career in animation to join Highly Likely, a cabaret outfit put together by Mike Hugg and producer Dave Hadfield on the back of their minor hit, “Whatever Happened To You (The Likely Lads Theme)”. While Dave was in the band, they recorded a follow-up single which wasn’t released, before evolving into a glam rock outfit, Razzle, which later become the Ritz, who issued a few singles. “During Queen’s early days, before they’d had any real success, John came to see us once,” recalls Dave, “and said, ‘I wish I was in a band like this which could actually play some gigs’.” Dave concludes: “I remember John coming round once around that time, saying I’ve got a demo’. ‘So have I!’, I said. So we put his on first, and the first track was ‘Keep Yourself Alive’. My mouth dropped wide open and I thought. ‘Bloody hell! What a great track’. I remember saying that the guitarist was as good as Ritchie Blackmore — who was still our hero then — and thinking ‘They’re serious about this. This is the real thing’.”

RECORD COLLECTOR Nº 198 FEBRUARY 1996

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