#like you think modern french is this perfect specimen when in fact it is a LANGUAGE created by HUMANS and therefore riddled with

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: What Comes After (14/18)

Summary: Dead Like Me AU. After Belle French loses her life in an accident, she finds out that she has been recruited to join the ranks of the Grim Reapers, helping souls pass on. It’s a huge upheaval to deal with, but her fellow reapers are there to help her out, especially head reaper Gold.

Who says you can’t find love after life?

Rated: E overall, this chapter is T.

CW for this chapter: mild gore.

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] [Seven] [Eight] [Nine] [Ten] [Eleven] [Twelve] [Thirteen] [AO3]

=====

Fourteen

The Rabbit Hole was just as it had always been. The lights were still dim, the bartender not bothering to replace the blown bulbs. The floor was still sticky with spilled drinks and various other substances, and she wondered if it had ever been cleaned within her lifetime. The pool table was where it always had been, and the drinks prices had not changed.

She didn’t know why she thought that it would be any different to the last time that she had been in here. She guessed that she was still having some trouble getting to grips with the idea that life was still going on around her as normal even though she herself had died, and that although so much upheaval had gone on in her own life, not everywhere had suffered the same fate.

“Are you ok?” Ella asked. “You’ve spaced out again. I noticed that you weren’t entirely with it this morning in the diner.”

“Just nostalgia,” Belle said. “I was remembering coming here with Ruby sometimes. I wonder if I’ll see her and Dorothy in here tonight. It shouldn’t be a problem if we do. We’ll just keep to ourselves and they’ll hopefully have fun and not be too traumatised by what’s going to happen here later.”

There were still a couple of hours to kill before the reaping time, and in such a comparatively small space, it wasn’t going to be too hard to work out who was who. The method of death was still eluding her though. There were a lot of things in a bar that could be potentially dangerous, and the patrons ranked top of the list – especially the patrons of the Rabbit Hole. She really hoped that they weren’t looking at a reap similar to Ella’s a few weeks ago, with a drunken fight turning deadly.

At least this time none of them would have to row anywhere to collect the victims’ souls, and Ella laughed when Belle voiced this thought to her.

“I have chalked that one up in my tally of ‘most interesting reaps’,” she said. “It was very amusing once I got over the indignity of having to row myself. I should have got David to come along and chauffeur me.”

“I don’t think that it’s really called chauffeuring when you’re in a boat,” Belle said, but they were prevented from any further discussion of syntax by the arrival of Mulan and a woman with a mass of bright red frizzy hair that was presumably Merida. They were both giggling, and Belle could safely say that it was the most vibrant and happiest that she had ever seen Mulan.

“Belle, this is Merida,” she said as she came over to the bar beside them, practically bouncing in her excitement. “Merida, this is our new reaper Belle, and you’ll remember Ella from the Spain trip, of course.”

“It’s good to see you, darling. How are the highlands doing?”

Merida wrinkled her nose.

“Considering the sparsity of the population where our area is, we do quite well for external influences,” she said. “But it’s so, so boring at times. Going to other places is always a bit of an adventure.”

“Well, you’re in luck today,” Ella said. “We’ve got a double reap in this very bar this evening, and we’re taking bets on what the kicker’s going to be.”

Belle and Mulan just looked at Ella, who rolled her eyes.

“All right, I’m betting on it, and everyone else is being boring as usual.”

They stayed speaking to Mulan and Merida for a while until Ella took Belle’s arm and steered her over to a free table, ostensibly to give the two girlfriends some time to themselves without a third and fourth wheel. Belle got the impression that there was a lot more that Ella wanted to say.

“So, since I know that this morning’s lapse in concentration can’t really be put down to nostalgia for a somewhat dodgy bar, and since I had a rather interesting conversation with Gold – well, it wasn’t really a conversation, it was more along the lines of me teasing him mercilessly until he gave in and divulged a few spare details – I was hoping that I could help.”

Belle sighed. “Well, things were a bit weird this morning,” she said. “Last night was great, don’t get me wrong, but this morning, everything seemed awkward. Gold didn’t really know what to do with himself and I felt that it would probably be easier for everyone involved if I just absented myself from the situation.” She paused. “I guess that he would probably do the same if he hadn’t been in his own house with nowhere to run.”

Ella nodded. “Likely. He does like running away from things sometimes. And by things I mean feelings.”

Belle laughed. “I don’t think that he’s really running away from his feelings, I’m just not sure if he knows what those feelings even are.”

“I think that one of the fundamental problems that you face is that for all Gold seems to be caught up with the modern world, he was born a hundred and fifty years ago and he’s not a big dater. He missed out on the free love movement, which was a real shame because damn, he needed to get laid around that time. Anyway, enough of that. He’s moved with the times in a lot of things, but when it comes to relationships, he’s not had any experience since before the turn of the century. The twentieth century. So I’m not surprised if he’s somewhat overwhelmed at the moment, but don’t hold that against him. He just needs educating in the ways of the modern world and how dating works.”

Belle felt heat suffuse her cheeks. “We’re a little bit past dating now.”

“Well, he needs to learn how that works as well. Let’s just say that he didn’t get a lot of encouragement from his wife in such matters.”

Belle traced a fingertip around the rim of her glass and thought back to the morning’s awkwardness. She’d had a good time last night; and she was sure that they both had. Was it really just a case that Gold had never had to deal with a morning after before and had no idea how to go about it? No, there was definitely something more at stake here.

She hadn’t come last night when they’d made love, but she hadn’t really been expecting to. It was her first time with a new partner and she knew that said new partner was a century out of practice. It was never going to be perfect, but surely Gold knew that too. Except if he didn’t, and he was worried about what she had thought of his own performance. Maybe that was why he had been reluctant to go for a second round in the morning and had fumbled over breakfast instead. It was certainly food for thought, but she was never going to get to the bottom of the problem if he wouldn’t talk to her, and she said as much to Ella.

“I would suggest tying him to a kitchen chair and not letting him up again until you’ve actually got to the bottom of it all, but that might be a bit drastic.” She spoke with air of someone who had experience of doing just that, and Belle couldn’t decide if she wanted to know more about Ella and Gold’s early reaping exploits or not.

“You speak to him in the shop often enough,” Ella said. “It doesn’t have to be an incredibly scary conversation. But I don’t think that this is the end of the world for either of you. It’s just a miscommunication because you come from very different eras. You’re never going to be able to get over that fact so you might as well embrace it and accept it. And you know, the Victorians were kinkier than everyone likes to remember. Well, not Gold, I don’t think that you could find someone less kinky than him, but you’d be surprised.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “They were so concerned about ankles that they covered their chair legs,” she pointed out.

Ella winked. “Not all of them.”

“You know, I’m not even going to ask.”

Belle glanced at her watch; time was ticking down before the reap and she should probably focus on that for a while before getting distracted by Ella again. Once the souls had been despatched, she could return to the topic of kinky Victorians.

She looked around the bar for any signs of trouble, but things seemed to be going pretty smoothly, no signs of fights breaking out on the horizon. There were a group of men by the bar showing off for Mulan and Merida with all the usual swagger of young men. Mulan and Merida weren’t at all impressed and caused the most sensational reaction when they simply started kissing each other instead, meeting with some whoops and applause from the other patrons and stunned stares from the men who had been trying to get their attention.

“Ah, the alpha male,” Ella said happily, looking over at the one who seemed to be the leader of the pack, looking particularly gobsmacked. “He really can’t understand why, when faced with such a prime specimen of the male form as himself, any self-respecting girl would choose another girl instead. Do you think I ought to go over and console him? Mind you, he’s not that handsome.”

“Well, if you do decide to help him bemoan his loss, can you find out if his name’s K. Nottingham?” Belle asked.

“I shall go and do that,” Ella said. “By the way, a graveling just kicked some empty peanut packets off that table over there. I’m sure there’s going to be some significance to that later.”

Belle looked over at the peanut packets on the floor, but there was no sign of the graveling. Ella’s sixth sense when it came to these things seemed to have paid off again.

Ella left her, going over to the bar to speak to the group of young men and see what she could glean from them. They didn’t look to be too impressed by her flirting, and Belle had to laugh at just how fearful some of them looked when confronted with Ella. She really was a force of nature, and it was wonderful to behold sometimes. She hadn’t been on all that many reaps with Ella, but she always made them more entertaining whenever she could.

After a few moments conversation at the bar, she came back over, grinning from ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat. One of the men, a greasy, weasly looking sort, wearing black leather despite the summer heat outside, was following her.

“Lacey, this is Keith,” she said. “He saw you sitting all alone down here and wondered if you would oblige him and his friend George with a game of pool.”

Belle looked at Keith, then looked at the man pointed out as George, who was still at the bar and appeared to be attempting to get Mulan and Merida to have a threesome with him. Mulan sighed, then suddenly slapped him, the action taking out his soul. Belle could see the satisfaction in her friend’s face, and smiled to herself. Keith and George were fate’s chosen victims today, and she really couldn’t say that she was at all sorry for it.

She sidled out of the booth where she and Ella had been sitting and came over to Keith, swaying her hips. She’d never usually been one for flaunting her feminine wiles before, but in this case, she thought that it would just add the icing on the cake for these two losers.

“Well, how can I turn down such a wonderful offer?” she purred. “Two for the price of one.”

She brushed past Keith, dancing her fingertips over his shoulder to pull out his soul. They’d both been reaped. Now all she had to do was play a few shots of pool and see what the gravelings had in store for them, and where on earth the peanut packets fitted in.

George came over, rubbing his jaw and grumbling about Mulan and Merida not taking him up on his generous offer, and soon the game was in full swing.

Belle had potted two balls when she felt Keith’s hand on her backside, and everything happened very quickly after that. Instinctively, she shoved her elbow back into his solar plexus, and by the time she had turned around to give him a piece of her mind, Fate was already in motion. Keith staggered backwards with the force of her blow, slipping on the shiny peanut packets just behind him. This sent him flying and there was a blood-curdling thwack as his head hit the table.

It was not just Keith that had been sent flying by the trip, though. It was also his pool cue, which managed to hit George in the side of the face and stun him enough to make him fall too – right onto his own pool cue.

For a long time, no-one in the bar moved. Keith and George’s souls stared at each other, and then down at the grim sight of their bodies on the ground.

“I think I’m going to throw up,” George said faintly.

“No you won’t,” Merida said cheerfully, slipping off her bar stool and giving George a smack on the shoulder. “You can’t throw up when you’re dead. Come on boys, I think it’s last orders for you.”

She shooed the souls towards the doors; no-one in the bar seemed to see her, too engrossed with the calamity that had just occurred.

“You know, I think that now would be the perfect time to make a judicious exit,” Ella said as voice and movement returned to the stunned bar patrons and the place descended into chaos.

Belle and Mulan nodded their agreement.

X

“Well, that was certainly one of the more gruesome reaps that I’ve seen in my time,” Ella said conversationally as she and Belle were walking along the road back in the direction of Belle’s apartment. The souls had been despatched to their lights with very little fuss, and Mulan and Merida had gone off in the other direction towards home. Belle was happy to leave them to it. It was wonderful that they had remained so close despite the distance between them, and she wished them every happiness. Now all that remained was to get to the bottom of her own relationship problems. “Although, there was that accidental beheading back in ’75; now that was certainly one for the history books.”

“You know, Ella, I really don’t think that I want to know.”

“You’re right, it’s not for the faint of heart or stomach. Onto happier and less bloodthirsty topics. Have you decided what you’re going to do about Gold?”

Belle nodded. She had considered just calling him as soon as she got back into her apartment, but she accepted that it was late and she was somewhat intoxicated, so it probably wouldn’t have been the most satisfactory of conversations.

“Excellent. I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding boiling down to the fact that he hasn’t had any kind of romantic experience in something close to a geological eon and now he’s overthinking it. He does that a lot, you know, although he’s getting a lot better at hiding it. Still.” They had reached Belle’s building and stopped outside the door. “I’m sure that you’ll be able to work something out. I have every faith in you both, and if it does all go pear-shaped, I will be waiting in the wings with a baseball bat to keep you both in line. Now that Mulan’s headed towards her happy ending I’ll be damned if you and Gold don’t get yours as well.”

Belle laughed, and accepted Ella’s exuberant hug goodbye. She was a good friend to both of them, and Belle knew that whatever happened, she had Ella fighting in her corner. As she climbed the stairs to the apartment, she thought that the future was looking bright.

X

As expected, Mulan wasn’t present at the morning meeting the next day, taking advantage of her time off to spend as much time with Merida as possible. Having one reaper down meant that the rest of them were going to be busy for the next few days, but luckily fate seemed to know that they were understaffed and had not been too unkind in the amount of people who were due to meet their demises.

Ella and David left the diner quickly after receiving their post-its, and Belle knew that it was because they wanted to leave her and Gold alone together to get to the bottom of whatever needed to be got to the bottom of.

They stayed in awkward silence for a while, looking at their drinks rather than each other, and finally Belle spoke.

“About the other night,” she began, but she didn’t really have any idea where she was going to go next with the sentence.

“Yeah… I probably didn’t handle that quite as well as I should have done.” Gold gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Forget a reaper’s handbook, I think I’d be better off with a guide to life in the twenty-first century and how to navigate the perils and pitfalls of dating in it.”

“It’s all right,” Belle said. “I just didn’t really know where I stood with the whole situation.”

“Neither did I, which was part of the problem. What is the etiquette for things like that?”

“I don’t really think that there is one,” Belle said. “You just sort of take it all as it comes and work it out as you go along. There aren’t any hard and fast rules these days, which I think there were when you were last… You know. Courting.”

“Please don’t make me sound even older than I am.”

“You’re not that old, honestly. I think you need to stop being so worried about your age. We’re reapers. It’s irrelevant.”

Gold nodded. “Yes, Ella keeps telling me that.”

“Well, she does have a point.”

Gold looked around the diner. “Can we discuss this somewhere with less people?” he asked. “Maybe the shop?”

Belle nodded. “Of course.”

They settled the bill and left the diner, Belle wheeling her bike along in the direction of the shop. She was almost done with her mail round and the final couple of houses could wait a little longer for their letters.

“I guess I panicked,” Gold said once they were in the back room of the shop. It was dark and cool in there, and Belle felt that it was much more conducive to honest discussion than the crowded diner was. “I was worrying about what you were thinking.”

“I already told you that it didn’t matter,” Belle said. “It was our first time together, it was never going to be amazing. Believe me, there are definitely people out there worse than you. You just need practice, that’s all.” She smiled. “You know, I’m more than willing to help you practise.”

Gold laughed softly. “Are you sure about that?”

“You’re hardly going to get worse. So, you were worried about your prowess. There’s really no need to compare yourself to whatever anyone else might be doing. We have all the time in the world, Alistair. We can go at our own pace, whatever that might be.”

Gold nodded. “Thank you.”

She had never really thought of him as having any issues with self-esteem before, but now that she thought about it, she wondered if that was where the uncertainties had come from. He could be confident and calm in everything to do with reaping because he had so much experience of it, but when it came to other things where he had less practical knowledge, then naturally he wasn’t going to be as confident. Maybe he was thinking that since he was so long-lived and had so much experience in other fields, he ought to have more experience and more confidence in this particular area and that was why he was panicking so much.

“Don’t panic,” she said. “Maybe that should be the first rule of functional immortality as well as the first guideline for the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.”

Gold laughed, then he leaned in and kissed her, a kiss full of promise.

“Thank you,” he said. “I promise that you will not need to massage my bruised ego in the future.”

“That’s good to hear. I will not, however, be averse to massaging other things.”

Had he been drinking at that moment, Gold would probably have spat all over her, such was his stunned expression. Belle smiled. She couldn’t wait to get started on their relationship once more.

[indefenseofplants]

This Isn't Even My Final Form! A Pothos Story

Pothos might be one of the most widely cultivated plants in modern history. These vining aroids are so common that I don't think I can name a single person in my life that hasn't had one in their house at some point or another. Renowned for their hardy disposition and ability to handle extremely low light conditions, they have become famous the world over. They are so common that it is all too easy to forget that they have a wild origin. What's more, few of us ever get to see a mature specimen. The plants living in our homes and offices are mere juveniles, struggling to hang on as they search for a canopy that isn't there.

Trying to find information on the progenitors of these ubiquitous houseplants can be a bit confusing. To do so, one must figure out which species they are talking about. Without a proper scientific name, it is nearly impossible to know which plant to refer to. Common names aside, pothos have also undergone a lot of taxonomic revisions since their introduction to the scientific community. Also, what was thought to be a single species is actually a couple.

To start with, the plants you have growing in your home are no longer considered Pothos. The genus Pothos seemed to be a dumping ground for a lot of nondescript aroid vines throughout the last century. Many species were placed there until proper materials were thoroughly scrutinized. Today, what we know as a "Pothos" has been moved into the genus Epipremnum. This revision did not put all controversies to rest, however, as the morphological changes these plants go through as they age can make things quite tricky.

As I mentioned, the plants we keep in our homes are still in their juvenile form. Like all plants, these vines start out small. When they find a solid structure in a decent location, they make their bid for the canopy. Up in a tree in reach of life giving sunlight, these vines really hit their stride. They quickly grow their own version of a canopy that consists of massive leaves nearing 2 feet in length! This is when these plants begin to flower. 

As is typical for the family, the inflorescence consists of a spadix covered by a leafy spathe. The spadix itself is covered in minute flowers and these are the key to properly identifying species. When pothos first made its way into the hands of botanists, all they had to go on were the small, juvenile leaves. This is why their taxonomy had been such a mess for so long. Materials obtained in 1880 were originally named Pothos aureus. It was then moved into the genus Scindapsus in 1908.

Controversy surrounding a proper generic placement continued throughout the 1900's. Then, in the early 1960's, an aroid expert was finally able to get their hands on an inflorescence. By 1964, it was established that these plants did indeed belong in the genus Epipremnum. Sadly, confusion did not end there. The plasticity in forms and colors these vines exhibit left many confusing a handful of species within the group. At various times since the late 1960's, E. aureum and E. pinnatum have been considered two forms of the same species as well as two distinct species. The latest evidence I am aware of is that these two vines are in fact distinct enough to warrant species status. 

The plant we most often encounter is E. aureum. Its long history of following humans wherever they go has led to it becoming an aggressive invader throughout many regions of the world. It is considered a noxious weed in places like Australia, Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, and Hawai'i (just to name a few). It does so well in these places that it has been a little difficult to figure out where these plants originated. Thanks to some solid detective work, E. aureum is now believed to be native to Mo'orea Island off the west coast of French Polynesia. 

It is unlikely that most folks have what it takes to grow this species to its full potential in their home. They are simply too large and require ample sunlight, nutrients, and humidity to hit their stride. Nonetheless there is something to be said for the familiarity we have with these plants. They have managed to enthrall us just enough to be a fixture in so many homes, offices, and shopping centers. It has also helped them conquer far more than the tiny Pacific island on which they evolved. Becoming an invasive species always seems to have a strong human element and this aroid is the perfect example.

Photo Credits: [1] [2] [3] [4]

Further Reading: [1] [2] [3] 

[talabib]

Leadership Journey: Germany

 When we think of Germany, we often associate it with black-and-white footage from horrific conflicts: Hitler delivering impassioned speeches from behind a podium; bombs raining down on European cities; half-starved people, freshly liberated from concentration camps. But Germany’s history is much richer than this.

Let’s dive into German history and explore some of the facts that lie beyond common knowledge.

Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate, the most famous monument in Germany, has a bittersweet history.

On July 13, 2014, a sea of wild soccer fans stood before the Brandenburg Gate in Germany’s capital city, Berlin. It was the day of the FIFA World Cup finals, and, on a screen as tall as the gate itself, Germany went head to head with one of the federation’s most formidable teams, Argentina.

Why did Germany screen this historic game here?

Well, the Brandenburg Gate, according to professor and politician Monika Grütters, is a locus of symbolic power for Germans, a sort of centerpiece to all national celebrations. Indeed, this austere monument, which is considered a masterwork of neoclassical architecture, is the most famous landmark in modern-day Germany.

Commissioned by the Prussian king Frederick William II and intended as a symbol of peace, the Brandenburg Gate was constructed between 1788 and 1791. It was modeled after the gate to the Acropolis in Athens, and it served as a sort of capstone to Frederick II’s project of cultural improvement in Berlin. He’d already had a series of new and fashionable streets built, as well as an opera house and a palatial library.

Though born in triumph and optimism, the gate soon saw darker days. In 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte led the French army past the gate’s Doric columns and into Berlin. The French had prevailed at the battles of Jena and Auerstädt, defeating the Prussian army. Napoleon was now ruler of Prussia’s capital city.

Nor did Napoleon hesitate to demonstrate his dominance. He had the bronze sculpture that crowns the gate removed, carted all the way to Paris and put on display in the Louvre. This was a symbolic slap in the face, for the sculpture in question was the Quadriga of Victory – a horse-drawn chariot driven by the female figure Victory.

The Prussians got the last laugh. Seven years later, with the assistance of the Russians, they defeated Napoleon and marched to Paris, where they reclaimed the stolen Quadriga. In 1814, it was returned to its rightful place atop the Brandenburg Gate.

It’s still there to this day. On that July day in 2014, it overlooked the crowd of joyful soccer fans as Germany scored one goal against Argentina and won the country its fourth World Cup.

The Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961, physically divided an already ideologically divided country.

If you were to walk along the Spree river past the Reichstag building where the German Parliament meets, you wouldn’t think that Berlin was a city with a grim history. In fact, it looks like any other affluent metropolis – except that, along the waterfront stand white crosses commemorating those who died while attempting to scale the Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Germany for almost 30 years.

The Berlin Wall, constructed in 1961, was the result of years of political disunity.

In 1945, directly after World War II, Germany was divided into four zones controlled by the four principal military powers: the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Russia. Berlin was divided along the same lines.

In the eastern, Soviet-controlled zone, the leadership instituted a communist system of government. The other three zones were democratic and promoted more capitalistic values. This led to an economic and ideological imbalance. By 1952, citizens in West Germany were enjoying much more wealth and freedom than their East German counterparts – and, from that year forward, roughly 200,000 East Germans emigrated to the West every year.

By 1961, more than 3.5 million East Germans had defected. And so, on August 12, 1961, the West German border was closed. At 2:00 a.m. on August 13, the East German government began building a wall.

The Berlin Wall created a no-man’s land between East and West Germany. On the eastern side, anyone who approached the wall was shot, no questions asked.

Furthermore, since the wall’s construction was unannounced and took place in the dead of night, many Germans were separated from their families. If you lived in East Germany and your spouse, parent or child was residing in the West on that fateful night – well, you wouldn’t see them again until reunification and the demolition of the wall in 1989.

Though the physical wall came down almost 30 years ago, there is still an ideological wall of sorts; East Germany has palpably communist leanings, while West Germany is as capitalistic as ever.

And the wall is undeniably present in the country’s collective memory. Cobblestones delineate where the wall once stood, and tourists and locals alike walk along it daily and remember.

German influence once extended much further, making the country’s borders difficult to trace.

Like the Seine in France and the Thames in England, the Rhine river in Germany is as much a cultural symbol as a geographical feature.

Indeed, some of Germany’s most famous artists have incorporated it into their work. In his poem Die Lorelei, the nineteenth-century German poet Heinrich Heine situates the siren-like Lorelei on a cliff overlooking the Rhine, where she combs her long, blonde hair and sings bewitching songs that distract sailors on passing ships, causing them to wreck on the rocks. And composer Richard Wagner’s cycle of epic musical dramas, The Ring of the Nibelung, uses the Rhine as a backdrop.

Now, it’s hard to get more German than Wagner and Heine, but, if you were to look at a map, the Rhine might not seem that German; for a good stretch, it runs along and even crosses over the French-German border. So why is it considered so fundamentally German?

Well, current European borders were drawn relatively recently, and Germany once encompassed far more than it does today. So, historically and culturally speaking, the Rhine is decidedly German.

The city of Strasbourg, renowned for its massive cathedral, is a similar case. Though located in a French city, the cathedral’s architecture is patently German. Indeed, in 1770, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany’s most famous poet, said that the cathedral, which was completed in 1439, was a perfect symbol of German identity.

Furthermore, inside the cathedral is a large astronomical clock housed within a fine-wrought, three-tiered construction – an excellent specimen from the German clock-making industry that had its heyday near the tail end of the Renaissance. The clock truly is marvelous. Every hour, as the bells begin to toll, small, carved figurines act out scenes important to Christianity.

So the cathedral and the clock within it, though in France, are examples of German ingenuity. And it’s not hard to find other examples of German technology and architecture beyond the borders of modern-day Germany. Indeed, German culture and influence once extended far and wide into many different kingdoms and principalities.

German identity is constructed around the German language, standardized by Martin Luther.

During World War II, Thomas Mann, the German novelist and Nobel Laureate, went into exile. It would be more than a decade before he returned to his native land. However, when he did return in the summer of 1949, he told journalists that he’d never ceased to feel like a German author. For Mann, his language, in which he’d never stopped writing, was a truer home than his country.

Indeed, German identity is constructed around the German language.

As previously mentioned, modern-day Germany was formed relatively recently. For hundreds of years, the Germanic kingdoms within the Holy Roman Empire – Prussia, Bavaria, Austria and Saxony – were connected by nothing but language.But that’s not to say this connection wasn’t powerful and important.

Back in 1806, when Napoleon invaded Prussia, the Bavarian King Ludwig I sought to strengthen German identity and unify his people against the French threat by building a massive hall. Called the Walhalla, it contained statues of famous individuals who spoke the German language – such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Albrecht Dürer and Ludwig van Beethoven, among many others.

The language-based identity that King Ludwig I memorialized remains strong today, because, though there are many regional dialects, all Germans are united by a standardized written language – the legacy of a sixteenth-century Augustinian monk named Martin Luther.

Luther, a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, was a zealous reformer, and in 1517, he began to take issue with the dogmas and restrictions imposed by the Catholic church. He believed that laymen should have direct contact with God, unmediated by priests, and so he translated the Bible – hitherto only available in Latin – into German.

The printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the previous century made possible the wide dissemination of the Luther Bible, and soon it was being used as a standard reference book for written German, selling more than 500,000 copies before Luther’s death in 1546. Its unifying influence can be felt to this day.

Beer is about as German as it gets, and consuming it is a national pastime with a rich history.

France is the nation of wine, Russia, the nation of vodka. Indeed, some countries are so closely linked to a particular beverage that you can’t talk about one without thinking of the other. And for Germans the national elixir is beer.

In addition to solidifying German national identity, King Ludwig I also transformed the consumption of beer into a cultural institution.

In October 1810, the young king got married in Munich, the Bavarian capital. The matrimonial festivities included a great deal of beer consumption, and the populace enjoyed themselves so much that, in every year since, they’ve repeated the celebration, which was christened Oktoberfest.

Today, this two-week-long beer-drinking bonanza is the most popular festival in the world. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors – more than even the Rio Carnival in Brazil – and in Oktoberfest fortnight those attendees consume some 7.5 million liters of beer.

Munich may be the beeriest city in the land, but the beverage is popular throughout Germany and has been for centuries. At the British Museum, one can view an impressive display of drinking vessels – testaments to the fact that Germanic peoples have been taking beer seriously for quite some time.

Indeed, it would seem that Germans have been guzzling the stuff for roughly 2,000 years.

The Roman historian Tacitus, writing in the first century CE, notes that barbarian tribes living along the Rhine and near the Baltic Sea shared an enthusiasm for beer, which they would consume by the barrel, sometimes from sunrise till sunset. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Germanic tribes, who warred against the Roman Empire for centuries, used beer as a sort of performance-enhancing drug.

Beer is a libation of such national importance that, in the nineteenth century, some Germans sought to claim it as a symbol of German identity.

These nationalists cited the German Beer Purity Law written in 1487, which restricts the ingredients admissible in the production of pure beer to water, barley and hops. They claimed that Germany was the only country that brewed beer with pure, untainted water. Thus, it was the land with the best beer.

National pride in beer is still alive and well. Indeed, the German Beer Purity Law is enforced to this day, though some exceptions have been made. Yeast and sugar are now allowed, and recipes for gluten-free beer are considered special cases.

Remnants of Germany’s vast medieval trade network can still be found abroad today.

Today, Germany is famous for its strong economy, but this is nothing new. Indeed, the Germans have been commercially successful for hundreds of years.

Back in the twelfth century, in the northern port cities of Lübeck and Hamburg, a number of merchant guilds came together and formed the Hanseatic League, later called Hansa. This confederation soon attracted new members, and by 1400, 90 German market towns had joined it.

It was a confederation with considerable power. The Hanseatic cities were united but independent; they each adhered to the Hanseatic legal system and funded their own armies, and they all had each other’s back, so they didn’t have to worry about fines or harassment from local lords or nobility.

Most importantly, they controlled the shipping routes throughout the north. They hired guards to protect their merchants against pirates in the North and the Baltic Seas, not to mention along Europe’s major rivers from the Volga to the Thames. These were attractive perks indeed, and the Hansa were very successful.

So Hansa didn’t even need to trade or produce goods; they simply grew wealthy and enriched their region by providing secure trade routes.

One can still see remnants of this vast German trade network today.

For instance, near Cannon Street Station in London, there’s a dark passageway named Steelyard Station. Back in the thirteenth century, the Steelyard – or, to give it its German name, the Stahlhof – was a famous trading spot.

In fact, it was the English headquarters of Hansa – a massive warehouse where merchant ships would offload German wine and beer before being reloaded with wool, a staple of English trade.

Germany maintained its economic presence in England well into the nineteenth century, with affluent German traders as well as artists such as Hans Holbein the Younger playing a central role in English society.

Prussian royalty wore iron jewelry to show that they preferred utility to luxury.

Modern-day Germans aren’t exactly known for their frivolity, and it wasn’t much different two hundred years ago when Germans wore jewelry that was almost as sober as their personalities.

Unlike most European courts, which treasured gemstones and finery, Prussian royalty preferred iron.

In Prussia, jewelry was strikingly sober, particularly in the nineteenth century. It wasn’t uncommon for the pendant of a necklace to consist of nothing more than a black iron cross.

Nor was iron considered a precious metal. In fact, it was quite commonly the material used to make household items such as forks and knives, and military ones such as armor and weapons.

The metal did have symbolic value. In Prussia, iron jewelry showed that the wearer was willing to sacrifice luxury at the altar of utility.

The fad for this sombre and unassuming metal was particularly pronounced in the Prussian capital of Berlin.

Just consider King Frederick William I, who, after beating back an army of invading Swedes in the 1670s, celebrated his victory by commissioning a statuette. It portrayed the vanquishing king mounted on a horse and trampling upon a vile dragon. In any other court, such a sculpture would have been cast in bronze. But in Frederick William I’s, which was based in Berlin, it was made from iron.

During the 1806 Napoleonic Wars, the Prussian predilection for iron experienced a resurgence. In Berlin, Prussian nobles gave their valuable pieces of jewelry to the state to raise money for the war, and, in return, were given jewelry made of iron. Nonetheless, Napoleon was victorious.

In 1813, Prussia’s position improved. Napoleon’s army had been weakened, and King Frederick William III decided to honor the country’s beloved metal by reviewing the system of military decoration. He introduced a new military decoration: the Iron Cross.

Napoleon was defeated by the Prussians near Leipzig in 1813, and every man who’d participated in the war effort received the Iron Cross. Such an egalitarian gesture had never before been made in the armed forces.

One of the darker sides of Germany’s recent history is expressed in the art of Käthe Kollwitz.

In the 1860s, the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck led his country to the apotheosis of its military glory, and, in 1871, he became chancellor of the newly united German Empire. These were the first steps toward a modern German state and they were undeniably auspicious. Unfortunately, they were short-lived – crushed before the next century was even 20 years old.

This dark patch in Germany’s history is well expressed in the art of Käthe Kollwitz.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Kollwitz was living in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg, a working-class neighborhood. Hundreds of thousands of Berliners lived in abject poverty, despite the social-welfare institutions instated by Bismarck.

Indeed, the restless and despairing atmosphere reminded Kollwitz of the conditions that led to the German Peasants’ War of the 1520s, during which hundreds of thousands of peasants revolted against their masters and were brutally massacred. Kollwitz even made a series of paintings depicting these events.

Another of her moving works, Woman and Dead Child, honors the impoverished mothers of Berlin, who could do nothing but watch as their children succumbed to malnutrition and illness.

Käthe Kollwitz’s paintings weren’t mere imaginings of reported events. She’d witnessed the horrors of history firsthand – and, when World War I began in 1914, she was subjected to even more personal hardship.

One of Kollwitz’s sons, Peter, who wasn’t yet of age, asked if he could volunteer to fight. Kollwitz convinced her husband to grant his permission, and Peter was killed in action that same year.

This threw Kollwitz into an awful state of depression. For the next ten years, she worked on a statue dedicated to the memory of her dead son; it’s of two kneeling figures – a woman, stooped and shrouded, and a man, whose arms are crossed over his chest. Its name is The Grieving Parents.

In a chilling echo of Kollwitz’s first loss, her grandson, also named Peter, was killed in World War II, just two years before Kollwitz’s death.

Kollwitz never stopped creating art about the things that had shaped her life: death, grief and war – three elements that were all too common throughout Germany in the first half of the 20th century.

Germany’s history, though somewhat overshadowed by the grim events of recent history, is rich and fascinating. Before fascism and communism, not to mention the disturbing events of World War I, Germany was a federation of countries united by a common language that had been standardized by the great religious reformer Martin Luther. Beer, the favorite national drink, brought Germanic peoples even closer together. Furthermore, Germans controlled one of the largest international-trade networks of medieval times, and their homeland gave birth to both gothic architecture and mechanical clocks.

[anavoliselenu]

Manwhore chapter 9

My phone buzzes. I stare at the caller ID, my body once again getting into the action. SIN. Flushing just at the thought of him, I tuck the phone aside and watch my toes get a nice pink coat of paint.

“After the toes, full-on bikini wax,” Victoria announces from her seat next to mine.

I wonder whether she could speak a little louder so that not only the entire spa but the outside world as well could hear.

I lean forward and drop my voice. “No thanks.”

“Um. Hello? Not a question.”

I laugh. “Girl, I’ve got it perfectly maintained. Leave it!”

“All right.” She slaps down the magazine she’d been reading and sets it aside. “But guys like Justin like Brazilians.” She smiles secretively. “And of course, all those gorgeous girls from Brazil too.” She chooses a new magazine and continues in her role of advisor, like she’s an expert on him. “Womanizers like all girls; it’s part of their charm. They’re perfect specimens, and we can’t help but be drawn to that.” She smiles. “You know that earthiness about you, that gentle fierceness—he can be drawn to that. I saw that he was drawn to that. Under that drive, you’re sweeter and more gentle, and he’s more like fire, more forceful, more ambitious. Justin plays around but he’s hard—as everybody who’s done business with him knows.”

My phone vibrates, and this time it’s a call. SIN.

Force and fire.

Hard.

I want to answer. I want to hear his voice.

I also want to not want these things.

I swear, if the knot in my stomach gets any tighter, I’m going to implode.

I’m staring at my phone when another text pops up.

What does a man need to do to get you to say yes?

Chewing on my inner cheek, I stare at my phone for what feels like forever. Yes! Yes! YES! But also NO. We cannot. NO. NO. NO.

Finally I focus on the job, tell myself it’s a yes with an emotional and physical no attached, and answer:

I’ll meet you there

My hand is shaking as I tuck my phone away again and try to come back to the present. Spa. Makeover. Victoria. Oh yes, Victoria. Very interesting development here. I scrutinize her in confusion, then say, “From what you just told me, I’m starting to think you actually want me to succeed.”

To be honest, I don’t bother to hide my surprise because, well, I’ve been surprised by Victoria in a great way today.

“I do want you to succeed—why wouldn’t I? I love working at Edge. Where am I supposed to go?” A look of puzzlement crosses her face. “We all know we’re on our last breath. Nobody’s taking over. Our print run gets tinier by the second. Every one of us will end up without a job.” She shakes her head. “I don’t want that.” She sighs. “I want to be looked upon favorably by our bosses, but to be honest, I’m not sure what I’d do with Justin if I ever had him.”

“Oh, that boy just can’t be had.” I laugh lightly, but inside, this makes me sad. That Justin is so apart from the crowd may make it harder for him to feel like he “belongs” anywhere. That he will never belong to anyone at all.

“What do you mean, ‘he can’t be had’?”

“He just can’t be had, not in any way that matters to him. Nobody’s gotten more than just a tiny piece of Justin. Not his dad, not even his mother. No woman. Not his friends or his businesses. He spreads himself around, even in his interests. Nothing really claims him. He keeps that to himself, all that fire. He just gives you a glimpse of the spark.”

“Well”—she fans her face with her hands—“you already have a better grasp of him than I do!”

A little before 8 p.m., I enter my apartment, remembering I’d promised Victoria I’d wear a dress. “Try not to reveal too much. People always take their tops off for Justin. He might like wondering what’s underneath instead.”

“He won’t get to see it, so he can wonder to death,” I flippantly said.

But I’m surprised my tongue didn’t catch fire, because I don’t feel flippant. I feel anticipation of the kind that makes you concentrate on nothing. Makes you try to do ten things at once and fail at them all.

I haven’t seen him since he Frenched me outside my apartment right before the elevator doors closed.

By the time Gina gets home, I’ve got clothes strewn all over my room. I had texted her: Sin is at the Tunnel tonight and we’re going!

Whereas I’d been deliberating what to wear since before I even opened the door, she instantly storms inside and takes charge.

“What are you still doing in bra and panties? Get dressed! Wear that top that’s cool and modern in blue and white that says MY BOYFRIEND IS A SAILOR, just because you want to appear taken and like you didn’t try too hard.”

“Not try too hard? I spent four hours at a spa. I paid for my silly makeover.”

“Wear that top anyway that says your boyfriend is a sailor. If he wants in your pants, he’s going to loathe that.”

I pull the top out of my closet and eye it, my nerves skyrocketing as the seconds tick by. I decide maybe I will wear a skirt and the boyfriend top. Not as seductive as a dress but still, he can get an eyeful of long legs now that they’re slick and oiled up nicely. And why are you wanting to show him your long legs, Selena?

“Is this a good idea, G?” I leap into my skirt.

“It’s a fucking great idea, it’s exactly what you wanted!”

“Um, no, it isn’t. I wanted research, but this is almost like a date.”

“No, it’s not. Justin doesn’t date. He just hooks up.”

God, I’m wishing he’ll drool for me.

I’m wishing that at least one night, one night in his existence, he will have a wet dream about me.

But I’m still so uncertain. I turn and ask Gina, “Is this all right? I’m treading such a fine line. . . .”

“Selena, just remember he’s using you, you’re using him; you’re not in a relationship, nor will you ever be. Just do the job and don’t get involved.”

“Okay,” I quickly agree, just to get her to stop saying the word using.

I gulp back a ball of nerves the size of a lemon and as bitter as the peel, then grab my bag and tell myself that I can do this, that I want to do this, that I want to do this more than I want to do him.

16

TUNNEL

“Okay, we’re mingling. Help me find Emmett.”

Wynn, Gina, and I roam the mazelike rooms inside the Tunnel with the smells of clay walls and sweat filling our nostrils along with perfume, cologne, and alcohol. Flashing lights and music hit us as we head toward the heart of the Tunnel, the “pit.” Wynn leads the pack while I trail behind, head turning as I look for him.

“Bet he’s there.” Gina points at a room to the right, which is filled to capacity, so I can’t even see past the wall of glittery dresses and skin at its fringes.

“Why there?”

“Hello? Where there’s smoke there’s fire? Where there’s Justin, there are GIRLS.”

Frowning at that, I wedge myself through to the busiest corner, and my heart stutters because there he is, the Guy Who Owns My Hormones. While Callan and Tahoe look good, Justin could be wearing a sign that says BRING EXTRA PANTIES.

Two women sit on each of his friends’ laps, and a pretty blonde socialite is talking to Justin, looking at him in complete rapture.

Music pulses through the speakers. Bodies bump and jostle as I steal this moment to watch him while he’s not watching me. Tan, his hair standing up a little bit, his shirt rolled to the elbows like it always is at the clubs, where it gets hot and crazy. God, butterflies.

He’s laughing as he turns, rather casually scanning the room, and then his shoulders tense. My heart stops, flips, because he’s noticed me. Then I’m subjected to the seriously uncomfortable pressure of his scrutiny.

He cocks a brow, and once again he gets that curl to his lip. You going to stay there all night? I can almost hear him say.

Justin sets his drink down on the side table and comes over. Every step makes my heart beat faster and faster. He looks at me, starting at my feet and working his way upward—his eyes miss no detail.

“Selena.” He draws me into his strong arms and presses a kiss to my cheek, the brush of his lips so incredibly light I can’t believe such a minuscule gesture can do so many things to my body. I’m having a war inside myself as I try to steady my breathing as he takes my hand and tugs me to their table in the back. I was born a girl; I’ve got proof of that on my birth certificate. But I’ve never felt so much like a girl until this moment, when my hand feels tiny and fragile in his strong grip.

Callan and Tahoe greet me through the music. “Hey Rache!” “Hey Rache!”

I slide into the booth and Justin settles down beside me, his shirt stretching in so many places I can’t help feeling constrained in my own skin just by the sight.

He orders a drink for me, then sits back, looking as relaxed as I am tense. Something happened when he visited my apartment. The fact that it mattered to him if I was feeling well or not touched a chord, but also, he opened up to me in a way that surprised me, and, even more surprisingly, I opened up to him. We both shared things—real things. Now, the intimacy between us is so palpable right now that every inch of me aches to get closer, as close as we felt that night.

His arm outstretched behind me, his friends continue to banter and do wicked things to their whores with their drinks. “How was your week, Selena?” At Justin’s question, a warm glow of excitement flows through my veins, because there’s real interest in his gaze.

“Good. My work is good. My mother’s good. I . . . well, I don’t want to bore you.” But I smile. I can’t remember when anyone’s looked so attentive listening to me describe what my week was like.

Then I ask him about his trip to London—because of course I read that he was there for forty-eight hours—and he says it was “good,” then shifts the subject back to me.

“What are you writing about now?” he whispers.

He’s always so focused on everything I say; people pass and slap his back or call his name, and never once does he lift his head to acknowledge anyone apart from me. Just as engrossed in him and having trouble steering away from dangerous topics, I hedge and say, “Researching for next week’s column.”

I notice one of his outstretched arms is farther down on the back of my seat, and think, My topic is you.

A painful yearning hits me dead center. Whoa. Where did that come from?

I glance down at my lap as I try to regroup. Why, oh why do these feelings of instability have to happen to me with you?

Is it because I want to draw you out when you get so serious and you’re not teasing me?

Or is it that you really want to know, for some inexplicable reason, the things that move me?

Or maybe it’s because you make me so nervous . . . or maybe, simply, because you asked?

I drag in a breath, aware of being watched through those thick lashes by those boundless, deep-set eyes, green like the forest, hiding all the secrets of somebody who’s never really reveals his cards until the game is won. Cunning eyes. Male eyes. Interested eyes. I want to shut myself up and not keep putting myself out there with him while he’s still giving me back hardly anything at all, but I can’t help wanting to answer him when he asks me questions. I glance at the dance floor and slowly rise to my feet, tugging his hand.

“Dance with me,” I tell him.

I’m sick and tired of wondering, stressing, wanting and fighting it. I’m tired of thinking, of trying not to feel. Suddenly all I want is to dance with him. An hour of fun, an hour of being just a girl with a guy.

He cocks a brow, says nothing . . . but he stands. He stands slowly, like a serpent uncoiling. I laugh and tug on his hand a little more to lead him to the connecting room, where the dance floor is. “Dance with me, Justin.”

His hand is large and long-fingered in mine as I tug him forward, and he lets me lead him, like a lazy wild animal indulging his prey before pouncing, and he steps onto the dance floor with me, his hands lifting to my hips. A fire churns inside me when I glance up to see the wicked tilt at the corners of his lips.

He watches me as I move sinuously under his hands, up and down and sideways, using him as a pole. A pole I want to kiss, just like any other girl, because it turns out I’m pretty human after all. He starts letting his hands roam up and down my sides, his eyes glinting like a devil’s. I take his hands and put them on my nape so he holds me close. My stupid head can’t think—my thoughts are all blanked. I want him naked, sweaty, out of his element, not smirking, not amused, definitely not in control.

“Is that the best you can do?” I taunt, surprised when he yanks me closer.

Then, with my hips in his hands, he moves me. Wow. He’s hard. All. Over. People jumping around us, bumping against us, Justin dances like his body is an extension of mine. He draws me against him with very little effort on his part, and the stubble of his jaw scrapes against my nape as he pulls my hair to the side and runs the silver rings on his hand up the column of my neck. I’m so shocked by the soft sensuality in his movements and touch, the stealth and ripple of his muscles against mine, how safe and excited I feel in his arms, I’m high on this feeling. On him. On this night. I’m stealing touches that might definitely be too close to the fire, but my hands have a mind of their own. Part of me is crazed. His lips were made to kiss, his hands to touch; that’s the sole purpose of his thick hair: for women to cling to while he pounds them hard. His eyes seem to offer peeks into heaven and into some kind of party in hell, and I’m maddened by it all.

I run my fingers up his shirt, around his square shoulders, savoring the rock-hard feel of his muscles. I couldn’t stop the way I want to touch him even if I tied myself up!

The song ends, and he takes my hand and leads the way back to the table. Beads of perspiration run down between my breasts. Dozens of stares come at us; nearly every woman in the room is surveying me, head to toe, most with expressions that tell me they want to claw my skin off.

I almost wince.

At the booth, Callan is relating Justin anecdotes to the socialite whores.

“Oh yeah, but Justin crushed those rumors.”

“Crushed!” Tahoe proudly echoes, fist to palm.

Ignoring them, Justin pulls me into the booth with him and resumes his position with his arm on the backrest of my seat, his head lowered in my direction so I can feel his warm breath at the back of my ear. “Hey . . . look at me,” he coaxes as he slides his hand to my thigh and my thoughts scatter.

The touch sparks all my nerve receptors, all my yearning. I don’t know if it’s been building for minutes, hours, days, weeks, or my whole life, but I know I’m never aware of it unless he’s near. Ruled by impulse now, I turn around and lean a little against him. He shifts so that his arm is now loose around my shoulders, and shiver as his fingers wander under the fall of my hair. His friends are talking. Justin whispers in my ear, “You look very pretty.”

Suddenly my cheeks are burning and my stomach turns into a live thing.

The music stops and “Kiss You Slow” by Andy Grammer starts. He cups my face, his eyelids at half-mast. He kisses the corner of my lips.

The air feels like a lick of fire on my skin.

He gathers me tighter and flatter against his side, then drags all four of his silver-ringed fingers down the side of my face, his eyes following their path. “I’m with the hottest girl in the Tunnel tonight,” he murmurs as he rubs my lipstick off my mouth with the sexiest brush of his thumb I could imagine.

And there, in his beautiful eyes, is a wild desire mirroring the one inside me. Desire unlike anything I’ve ever known clogs my throat, drives me to gently nip his thumb. I shouldn’t be doing this, but I can’t stop. The song is talking about kissing slow . . .

My perspective zooms out for a little bit, and I become aware of his friends making out in their corner with their whores just like Justin is making out with me. Of my friends mingling out there, somewhere. Of people dancing, others glancing in our direction. And of my life, changing, right this moment, somehow, as he stares at my face, the colors in his eyes shifting like a kaleidoscope as he seems to battle with the same confusing emotions that I am.

He takes my hips and slowly guides me to his lap. I go all too willingly, loosening my body so he can sit me sideways while I clutch onto his neck for dear life.

“Do you want this?” he whispers as he reaches beneath my skirt and I feel the warmth of his hand caressing the inside of my thigh.

Heart violently fluttering in my chest, my fingertips slide up his neck as I try to press closer. His neck is hard and thick and I duck my head to smell him. Then I whisper recklessly in his ear, “I’m with the most handsome guy.”

“You fucking sly dog. You’re probably going to do some jousting later on with Rache, too!” Tahoe calls from his seat, lifting his wineglass at us while his floozy tries to readjust her dress.

Justin’s hand pulls out from my skirt, but he squeezes my thigh as he looks into my eyes regretfully. “Busy, T,” he growls. He levels Tahoe a look that could just about flay the skin off his bones.

I blow out a breath, remembering the images and the rumors already going around about me, only making my job so much more risky.

“Not here,” I tell him when I recover at least a little bit of my brain.

Making out in a club? Really, Selena? With Justin?

Justin seizes my hips and helps me down off his lap.

“Hey, he really likes you,” Tahoe calls to me, wagging his eyebrows as Justin summons a waiter and asks for something that makes him rush away, only to come back and nod.

“Mr. Justin, follow me,” the waiter says.

Justin grabs his jacket from the bench and then takes me by the elbow, murmuring in my ear, “Come with me, Selena.”

We’re led into a private room. There’s a table at the end with little electric candles. A wine bucket, two wineglasses, a vase with a single pink tulip, dimmed lights. The same song playing outside but far more intimate.

“Anything you need, Mr. Justin?” the waiter says, and when Justin pushes what looks like several bills into his hand, the waiter almost falls apart.

“Thank you,” Justin says. He guides me by the hand to the couch, and the waiter shuts the door with a soft, heart-dropping little click.

My legs can barely hold me but thank god, Justin sits me down. He shifts his toned, beautiful body so he can look at me. God. His eyes. I can’t even hold them with mine for more than a few seconds; my heart is pounding in my chest, my skull, between my aching legs.

“Justin . . .” I start.

He seems to have a one-track mind right now as we settle back on the couch, and he ducks his head and presses his lips to my neck. I moan and slip my fingers into his hair, feeling how thick and soft it is while a burning, boiling need circles around in my veins.

I shudder when his lips press to my pulse point. Then he’s tasting me with his tongue, slowly exploring the tender skin of my neck, and my toes are curling and my body’s trembling as he cups my breast in one hand and gently squeezes while he strokes his free fingers up my bare arm, up and down. “Are you okay with this?”

He leans back, lips curled as he looks at me, and when I nod, completely and totally breathless, he holds me by the back of the head and presses a slow kiss to the corner of my mouth. He’s gentle. Too gentle. Within a minute I’m too drunk, lust drunk, Justin drunk, to do anything but exist. Kisses. Touches. Kisses he sets on my ear. The corners of my mouth.

He slides his hand under my skirt again. “What are you wearing under there?” he husks out.

“Something.” My voice shakes with desire.

“Something you want to show me?” His lips curl again.

I’m helpless under his probing stare as he tugs my skirt up to reveal my panties. I don’t want to breathe, I don’t even want to live after this moment when he’s looking at me the way he is.

“Justin,” I plead, feeling all wanton and nervous.

“Shh,” he says softly as he takes a good look at my tiny, see-through lace panties, “I won’t hurt you. All I want is to look at you.”

“Only look?” I don’t know if I want him to say yes, no, I don’t know . . . what.

“And touch,” he coaxes. He draws my leg up to his hip and pulls me closer so that I half straddle him as his fingers skim the back of my knee. Suddenly a thousand nerve receptors awaken, so sensitive to the lightest pressure of his fingertips, I moan against his throat. When he pulls my hair up and ducks his head and uses his tongue on the side of my neck, I moan deeper . . .

Usually I’d expect him to head straight for my hottest, wettest spot, but this is one knowledgeable guy and he doesn’t do anything I expect him to. His lips press to my temple as he teases with his fingers up the back of my leg and then he grazes my inner thighs with his thumbs. My breath hitches, my nipples poking into my silk top and into his chest.

I arch my neck, pulling in deeper, faster breaths that smell of his cologne and intoxicate me. I think I just moaned his name. Using one hand, he slides a few fingers along the crotch of my panties.

“Tell me you want my fingers here,” he whispers. Against my temple, he’s smiling in obvious male delight because I’m absolutely wet already. I close my eyes and wrap my arms around his neck, and I imagine us naked, moving together.

He keeps one hand caressing my inner thigh and the back of my leg while he slides his other hand under my top. A restrained squeeze on my thigh and I can tell he’s getting serious. I can already feel an earth-shattering orgasm building, and I’m starting to get more than my little share of fear.

“Sain . . . um, Justin . . . don’t stop touching me, I just . . . need to slow down. . . .”

He eases back, and we separate for a moment, our breathing audible. My pupils can’t focus, he’s a blur. A blur I’m supposed to write about, not to have.

“Give me your hand,” he whispers. Lightly he reaches out and holds my hand in his strong grip, and I can feel his eyes, liquid and green, watching my reaction as he dips his finger to my palm. Suddenly I’m reminded of each of the forty thousand nerve endings in this very palm. He strokes between the base of my fingers and knuckles, the caress stimulating like electricity.

I watch, transfixed, as he interlocks our fingers and uses his thumb to massage my palm up to the base of my fingers in slow little circles. My blood vessels feel too close to my skin. A fire builds in my body as he holds my hand and slowly straightens out my arm. Gently, he kisses along the inside of my elbow, fluttering his tongue across my skin and bathing the warm spot with his breath. What he’s doing feels like a drug, a drug I never want to him to stop shooting into me.

Slowly, he tugs my top upward and tucks it into my bra strap so it stays up.

I’ve read the solar plexus is a powerful nerve cluster, but I’ve never experienced it before. He starts below my breasts, caressing upward, spreading me out on the couch so that he’s kissing me softly around my belly button. When I moan, he soothes and whispers, relaxing my body, my abs uncontracting so that all the blood heads to the part between my legs that’s on absolute fire. It burns and tingles at the prospect of being touched. He’s so close and at the same time so far away. He caresses up my ribs and down. Ducking his head, he uses his tongue around my navel, then dips it, hot and wet, into the tiny nook. A dozen erogenous zones awaken to him. Nerve endings never before stimulated like this tingle and scream, my hot zones alive. All of me. Alive. I’m excited mentally, physically, emotionally.

“You have no idea how much you excite me,” I hear myself admit as I caress his hair and he lifts his head, tugs my bra down off one swollen globe, curls his fingers around my breast, and gently suctions the tip of my nipple with a hungry sucking sound.

“I want you beneath me tonight, Selena.” His lashes sweep upward and he looks up at me, the gold rim around the green of his eyes gleaming with intent. Every breath, every undulating move of my body under his as he suckles me, everything undoes me from the very core outward. “Writhing,” he says. “Panting. Wet.”

He takes the hardened, already sensitized nipple back into his mouth. I slide down the seat, part my legs, and try to pull him above me. Instead he lets his hand slip in between my legs. My arms wind around his shoulders tight enough that I can feel the muscles flexed and taut under my fingertips as he slowly tugs my panties aside with his thumb and slides one finger inside me.

The touch triggers a cascade of pleasure through my body. I arch, a tiny sound of need and ecstasy slipping through my lips. I can see the mask of control he always wears slipping as he watches me, his lips curling with a soft smile. “For me . . . Selena. Let go for me.”

One rub of his thumb on my clit. One deft finger inside me. Those male eyes, glittering, watching. That voice, coaxing me. And I come, twisting with a soft cry, unable to stop it, unable to tell him that I wanted him to let go for me, too.

I gasp and pant for a while longer. He shifts his big body and watches me with that soft smile as he tugs my skirt back down and lets my top drop to cover me, using a hand to smooth it back in place as he whispers in my ear, “I’ve wanted to do that since the day you crashed my Ice Box party.”

He’s teasing me. I’ve gotten to know that tone now. So I tease him back. “I was dared by friends. Guess now I can say I met you and you were the heartless bastard everyone says you are.”

“Who’s everyone?”

“Your ex-girlfriends.”

“I don’t have girlfriends.”

“Ex-lovers, whatever.”

“I have something to say about that, too.”

“Oh really, what is it?”

“I’m innocent?” He smiles.

I laugh. I want to kiss him, kiss him real hard, and fuck him harder. Oh god, I want to give him what he just gave me, but then what? “Are you having fun with me?”

“That was me actually attempting to let the lady have fun with me.”

I put my hand on his thigh playfully. “You make my world spin a little faster.”

“I’d like to rock it even more,” he rumbles, and I laugh.

He looks at me, his grin, his eyes, all of him mischief to the tenth power. Mischief and sin.

“What’s your idea of rocking a girl’s world?”

“You tell me.” He trails his eyes down my body.

“Me?!” I cry. “What do I have to do with it?”

“I’ve never wanted to rock a woman’s world the way I want to rock yours.”

It seems my lungs just froze on an in breath.

elvetica","sa�3��--