#like... the other ones are so SWEARY

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I have the most random and oddball question... What would be some expletive type language in Welsh?

I'm playing a dragon in my D&D group who is from this fantasy world's equivalent of Wales and I want to add some flavor when he is fighting that he starts using bits of his mother-tongue instead of Common.

It's easy enough to find a random list of words, but without cultural context I have no clue what would be a proper equivalent of, for example "fuck off you asshole"... I probably am putting "too much" thought into it, but I'm a cultural anthropologist, so it bugs me to not think too much about it.

A funny quirk of Welsh is that we actually tend to swear in English when we need to - because one of the social arenas it survived in was through the chapels, the closest you'd get are things that in English you'd probably associate with your granny saying, or those sad little Christian youth camps in America. One of my favourites is Nêfi blŵ, which is literally just the Welsh transliteration of the words 'navy blue' said in a Welsh accent. Why is this a swear? Unknown. I presume someone somewhere hated the colour.

However, there are a couple:

Sweary

Sguthan/ysguthan: this is probably equivalent to 'bitch', it's certainly gendered the same way and has similar weight. Except much as 'bitch' literally just means a dog, sguthan means 'woodpigeon'. Why is this a swear? Unknown

Cach i fant: fuck off. 'Shit off', literally. Tbh though I don't actually know anyone who would actually use this. Mileage can and will vary wildly (keep an eye on the notes for other Welsh speakers chiming in), but this one always felt a bit like a sheep's eyeball to me, to use a Pratchett-ism. Like something Golwg would use to Appeal To The Youth. But, it is real, and does work.

Dos i ffwcio dy hunan: go fuck yourself. Now THIS one I use

Twll tin bob ____: Every ____ is an asshole. Naturally, the phrase in Wales is 'Twll tin bob Sais', but substitute Sais for the group of your choice.

Cêr y diawl: go to hell. Literally, 'go to the devil', with devil there being a reasonable stand-in for any devil you wish, not just, like, Satan.

And of course, Wenglish can provide:

Be'r ffyc 'dy hwnna: what the fuck is that

Pwy'r ffyc 'dy hwnna: who the fuck is that

etc

Non-Sweary

Bois bach a mawr: okay listen this is going to sound like I'm joshing you but I swear this is real. It's used by an older generation, admittedly, but even younger generations will say 'Bois bach' sometimes. It, uh. It literally means "Big and little boys". Or just "little boys". Just a sort of general mild exclamation. Or what you say when you sit down and your knees complain. Um.

Ych a fi: gross. Can also be Wenglished to 'Ych a ffycin fi' which is, you know, fucking gross.

Be' ti 'di 'neud?: what have you done?

Be' sy'n bod 'da ti?: What is wrong with you?

Cô ni off, bois!: Off we go, lads (gender neutral)!

There's probably a million I'm forgetting and will think of as I try to sleep tonight, but hopefully these will tide you over. Keep an eye on the notes, I expect others will chime in with further suggestions!

[sonjalikestodraw]

Heehee sweary gamer rage boy funny, lemme just *trips over the Thorn chapter and falls in love with Cheated*

Design notes:

Based on a street pigeon; pigeons were once domesticated and "cheated" by humanity.

As a part of Slayer's psyche, represents Anger Born of Worry + Sense of Justice/Fairness

Razor shredded his outfit :(

Let's do some fashion crimes! He's in White Tie casino attire. Gambling theming fits his risktaker mindset, while the formal wear is symbol for how he's a stickler for the rules and hates random bullshit.

BUT he wears a (gasp) Black Tie-style blood-red cummerbund. Because I like cummerbunds. It represents getting stabbed in the gut in chapter 1.

Wherever Slayer gets chopped, Cheated gets scarred. Notably in-game our knife hand gets lopped off so that one scar is always there, along with our throat getting slit. (He'll take it for Slayer's sake, but he's gonna complain about it the whole time)

If he hasn't met Razor or Nightmare, like in other Chapter 3 routes, the cummerbund is white and his outfit is intact. "Fuck off Opportunist, I'm getting Thorn outta here!"

Fun fact: he's a trans dude ~

Like Oppy, he's in modern clothing instead of vaguely medieval/ren faire like the rest, because of how he talks like a gamer trying to exploit mechanics.

Barefoot to match Razor.

Has Hot-blooded Sideburns.

The dyed sidecut is a reference to various let's players, and also just looks nice. I think it suits him to have a punk hairstyle that he can meticulously maintain, yet claw at and mess with when he's frustrated (which is... all the time).

You'd best believe that when he gives Razor The Look, he pushes back his hair :P

[fuzzybirdie]

Hero of Changing Faces

Warning, 'tis a bit sweary. Enjoy!

Ch.2 The MOTHERFUCKER Of All Time

The GODDAMN Joker was attacking the GODDAMN ammusement park in the middle of the GODDAMN school holidays! So Duke was a teensy bit pissed.

Today was supposed to be fun! Everyone, including Tim and Alfred, had made sure to clean up their scheduals enough for a family outing, and they managed to pull steph along as well!

Everything was going well so far too! Sure, Damian couldn't stop scoffing at this couple yelling 'Ghost!' All the time, and Tim and Jason were trying to one-up eachother at all the carnival games, (before being absoloutley demolished by cass), but it was fun! They Were having fun.

And then the motherfucker of all time hijacked the roller coaster.

Alfred had managed to sneak everyone's costumes into their day packs, probably foreseeing something going wrong. Either way, this meant that everyone could sneak away and change to fight the Joker.

After getting changed, Signal charged towards the announcer's booth, running into Nightwing on the way. Nightwing who looked pale and terrified. "B went ahead to the roller coaster!" Nightwing called. Ah, Signal's question must've been obvious.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Signal called back,

"Not as a civillian! He went in before it got hijacked!"

"Fuck!"

"Red, Orphan, and I are en route to the rollercoaster" Red Hood interupted "Robin's on his way to the announcer booth, and Spoiler is on evac duty,"

"Roger," Nightwing grappeled past a group escaping one of the rides, "Signal and I will randevous with robin. B is among the civillians on the roller coaster."

"Understood. We'll be in touch once the civvies are safe. Over and Out."

The announcer booth was surrounded by goons, who were taken care of easily enough. (Thank you, pepper spray bottles of sleeping gas!) Leaving the door wide open. Nightwing and Signal crept in, the only hint of their (re: Signal's) presence was the lights dimming and the shadows growing.

The Joker had set himself in the middle of the moniter room. He'd somehow found the time to inflate an air matress and was now lying down, eating popcorn, and kicking his legs like a schoolchild.

"Oh boo!" The Joker cried as the rollercoaster judded to a stop "they didn't even get halfway up! This show sucks!"

Robin took this moment to reveal himself both to his brothers and the Joker by attempting to skewer the latter through the arm. "Oh hi, little Robin!" Joker cackled as Robin missed "Come to watch the show? Though," he looked at where Robin's sword had punctured his matress "That was really rude. Guess I can kill you now!"

As Joker pulled out a gun to shoot at Robin, Signal manipulated the light of the moniters to blind him. Nightwing's escrima crackled into his exposed back, and he was down.

Something clattered out of the Joker's hands along with the gun. Signal had a closer look at it while Nightwing cuffed Joker and Robin shut down all the rides.

"Joker had a deadman trigger!" He practically shrieked into the comms "Get everyone out of there now!" Looking closer at the moniters, it was easy to see the bombs at the bottom of every other support. Thankfully, with Robin having turned off the rides, the safety bar had let go, and the other bats had gotten all the civillians off the ride. Unfortunately, they were still in the blast zone.

Red Robin turned to say something to the civillians. Then this white haired kid practically threw Red Hood into Orphan, who was checking someone for injuries. With everyone behind him, the kid threw out his hands, as a sheet of ice grew from them. The ice seemed to thin to stop anything, but it covered everyone quickly. Once a dome had formed the ice began to thicken.

Then the bombs detonated.

~~~~~~

first / prev / next

It was under the word limit!

So, how many of you got the cameo last chapter? :)

As always, this was inspired by @freedomanddisorder's art and the following prompt chain. Please check out both, they are So cool,

[lulublack90]

Prompt 12 - Jealous

@jegulus-microfic November 12, Word count 746

Previous part First part

James jumped out of his car before any of the others could even unbuckle their seatbelts and opened Regulus’s door for him. Regulus looked up at him a bit bewildered, but took his hand anyway and let James guide him out of the car. 

“How come you never do that for me?” Remus pouted as he walked around the car to where Sirius stood waiting.

“Because of what I let you do to me this morning,” Sirius quipped, raising his brow, daring Remus to keep going as he would definitely describe every moment in minute detail. He’d done it before and would feel no shame in recounting their exploits in front of his brother. Remus smartly kept his mouth shut, and they headed into the gallery silently. 

James was surprised how many people were milling around the exhibits and just how large the art show actually was. There were so many artists showcasing their work. 

“Where’s yours?” He asked Regulus as they followed the crowd to the first display. 

“Back right,” Regulus told him, pointing in the right direction. James started to walk that way, but Regulus tugged his hand to stop him. “No, we have to look at everybody’s. We can’t just go straight to mine,” Regulus muttered quickly. 

“Why not?” James questioned. “I want to see yours,” Regulus’s cheeks turned pink as he ducked his head. 

“I need a few minutes to prepare myself for going over there,” Regulus admitted, clearly nervous about how James would react.

“Let’s go look at some art then,” James said, kissing the back of Regulus’s hand and following after Sirius and Remus. “Thank you for telling me what you needed, love. You can always do that, and I’ll respect it every time,” He didn’t need to look down to know how deep the red was that coloured Regulus’s cheeks now, he could quite happily picture it in his head.

They caught up with Sirius and Remus, the former having a heated discussion with Remus in front of the artist about his piece. 

“I just don’t get it,” Sirius was saying. “I mean, it’s just a tennis ball,” Remus sighed. 

“It’s modern art; the tennis ball represents the way that commercialism has changed the way sports are viewed,”

“It represents a game of fetch,” Sirius retorted, much to the artist's ire. Remus hurriedly moved Sirius along to a painting of a park. “See, Remus, there’s a dog playing fetch with a tennis ball,” He said loudly as they took in the work. 

“I changed my mind,” Regulus said quietly into James’s ear. “I can not follow him around here, let's just go see my stuff,” James beamed down at him. 

“Lead the way, love,” 

Regulus led them all the way to the back of the hall and stopped in front of ‘Burk with a Nana’. “Wait!” James exclaimed. “They let you display it with that name?!” Regulus shrugged. 

“Art,” He said simply, as a means of explanation. “As long as it isn’t too sweary, they don’t mind.” 

James moved with Regulus, looking at each piece. Regulus seemed to lean towards painting, but there were charcoal sketches, clay sculptures and a cat made from intricately twisted gold-coloured wire. James was in awe of Regulus and was about to say so when he spotted him chatting with a tall, dirty-blonde-haired man. He felt suddenly quite jealous, an emotion he wasn’t used to feeling at the easy way they were conversing and the smile on Regulus’s face. He strode over there, putting a possessive arm around Regulus and waited to be introduced. 

“James, this is Evan. Our parents know each other. Evan, this is James, my, er, my…”

“Boyfriend,” James provided helpfully. To be fair to Regulus, they hadn’t discussed labels, but, by the pleased look on Regulus’s face, he quite liked this one. Evan’s eyebrows shot up his face in surprise. 

“Oh, wow,” He said. “Erm, wow, Regulus, that’s so good,” His face softened. “I’m so happy for you. I’m here with my boyfriend, actually. I think you know him. Oh, look, here he is now. Darling, look who it is,” A slim-built man in an expensive-looking suit strode over to their little group, his dark brown hair slicked back expertly, showing off the sparking diamond earring, glinting off the light as he neared them. James felt Regulus still at his side. 

“Barty,” Regulus breathed out when the man stopped before them, looking shocked at who Evan was talking to. 

“Reggie?” 

Next part

[calaisreno]

Sixth Sense

885 Words / Prompt: Intuition

Molly notices. 

She’s not really a friend of John’s. They're friendly, but she never has much to say to him. He’s kind to her, and probably aware of how she felt about Sherlock. 

As one of the few who knows Sherlock is alive, she has a terrible advantage over John Watson. Not the one she used to wish for. 

They met in her lab, when Mike Stamford came looking for Sherlock, to introduce him to John. Well, nobody introduced her. Sherlock was fixated on her lipstick for some reason. She remembers John’s eyes on her, then turning to focus on Sherlock. That was the day she finally figured out that Sherlock wasn’t interested in her. In time, her crushing disappointment was lessened by the realisation that he was gay. It wouldn’t have mattered what shade of lipstick she wore or however many coffees she brought him; he would never look at her the way he looked at John.

At first she thought John was straight. After her blunder with Jim from IT (who turned out to be not only gay, but also a criminal) she consulted her friend Jasper, another gay man. “How can you tell?”

Asking this, she wasn’t thinking about Sherlock, or even Jim. What she was wondering about was John, who sometimes looked at Sherlock as if he’d hung the moon, but still dated ridiculous women. 

Of course men have different taste in women, just as women prefer certain types of men. She was attracted to men like Sherlock— tall, pale, Byronic hair, blindingly intelligent. Men who entered rooms with a swirl, who spoke with voices that made her shiver. They were hard to find, and to expect such a man also to be kind, romantic, and not gay was apparently too much. 

John dated women who were a bit out of reach. Taller women, confident women, the kind who didn’t need the right lipstick to be noticed. The kind who didn’t own three cats and spend the holidays with their ageing mother. These unobtainable women never lasted more than two dates. And he never seemed to mind.

John is not Molly’s type. She appreciates his abilities as a doctor. He has the right manner with Sherlock, a bit snarky, but not mean. He’s not tall, not gracefully slender. He has a temper. He’s blond and a bit sweary, good-looking in an average way, an ordinary bloke who goes out for pints with people like Greg Lestrade and Mike Stamford. 

She’d barely noticed him that day in the lab. He’s a man who doesn’t stand out, who completely disappears in the shadow of a man like Sherlock.

John and she are that awkward thing: friends of friends. He would never introduce her as, my friend, Molly. It would be Sherlock’s friend, Molly. If he asked a favour of her, she would do it because Sherlock would appreciate it, not because she feels any obligation to John.

She doesn’t hate him, or wish anything bad on him. She might have felt jealous for a few days, simply because Sherlock never forgets John the way he forgets about her the minute she’s out of his sight. 

She noticed him watching John, usually when he wasn’t looking. He looked sad. And she thought, I know what that feels like.

The memory of that look weighs on her, weeks after Sherlock’s funeral. A hard day, that was, sitting in a pew trying to fake sadness as she watched others grieve.

As she watched John grieve. 

What does it mean that John Watson looks like he’s lost everything? She sees him at the hospital sometimes, his hooded gaze avoiding the eyes of others, his psychosomatic limp making him wince with pain. 

She can’t say what it is that tells her. Maybe she’s just practiced for so long on other men that she’s developed a sixth sense about it. 

John loved Sherlock— not just as a friend. And he’s probably just now realising that. She supposes that quite a few men dismiss those feelings of attraction. Jasper says, all men are gay, potentially. It’s just easier to stay in the closet.

There are various reasons for that, and she doesn’t want to speculate what John’s are, but she observes his grief, and knows regret is a large part of that. 

Sherlock will be back, someday. He wasn’t very clear about when. Six months, maybe a year. But she thinks he’s being optimistic; he wants to come home to John, not leave him to grieve for years. 

And by the time he does make it back, John will have found another woman. Blonde and pretty. Nothing like the dark beauties he used to date. But still, clever like Sherlock, a bit imperious and demanding. He will look at her the way Sherlock always looked at him, when he didn’t notice. 

She could tell him. There’s only her promise to stop her from doing that. Could John keep the secret? Sherlock told her not knowing will keep him alive, that knowing would put him in danger.

She’s not in danger. Nobody thinks she mattered that much to Sherlock. Her feigned grief is taken as real, but everybody knows she’ll get over it. Just a crush.

As for John Watson, this might just kill him. 

That’s a problem she could solve. 

[c-u-c-koo-4-40k]

Future Inlaws?

Next in the Severe Miscalculation storyline!

Previous Chapter Here:

Next Chapter Here: coming hopefully soon.

Edit! This Here!

For the madness that started it all click here!

Summary: We see some more of Khopesh's...family for lack of a better term. Another short interlude.

Warning: Swears! Other than that not many Karlsor makes a groaning statement about shoving an icepick in his brain. I guess that counts.

Tags: @kit-williams (Who let me use Anrir so Thank You!) @gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan (Who let me use their sweary lad Karlsor, Thank you!)

@bleedingichorhearts @bispecsual @egrets-not-regrets @passionofthesith @sleepyfan-blog @barn-anon

Scrtch scrtch scrtch scratch. The gentle sounds of a stylis on paper filled the dimly lit chamber with one sole inhabitant.

An ancient a terrifying being, with both wit and knowledge that spanned centuries, millenia even.

The Terran born Nightlord known as Anrir reviewed and continued to bonder over his notations. Some where simple paperwork relating to his position as Apothercary, others were more...personal pursuits.

The Nature of Warp Bonds and Their Affects

The top of the page read. Sprawling throughout the documents were testimonies, graphs, data and hypothesese about the strange phenomenon known as bonding.

Even before Anrir had achieved his own bond he'd been endlessly Fascinated with the concept. In a manner he saw it as the main driving force between All interactions that occurred in this bizarre version of Terra's timeline they'd been sent to.

Without bonds, the more...vicious of their brother cousins would have likely converted at least half the native population into bloody pulp for the Skull Throne.

With them, as well as the lack of resources making sustained conflict untenable, the foundation for the greater alliance was made.

And their Appearance. Anrir could not see it himself, but the Librarians and Psychers he had collaborated with told him they often took the appearance of plants and flora. The exact type varied heavily depending on the relationship in question.

Anrir hypothesized the continuity might be due to their minds visualizing the unseeable. A bizarre form of paradolia that gave form to the formless. He continued to review his latest additions to his notes-

CrrrAsh! "Mother fucker I Swea..."

Thud! "...have to Run faster than tha..."

Until a pair of Very Recognizable voices faded in and out of the background as they ran, interrupted his writing.

Anrir sighed, placing his stylus down....next to a cracked picture frame from the Last Time this happened.

The stomping footsteps became louder again. He turned, briefly calculating the distance in his mind.

Thump thump thump thump Thump!

Anrir casually flexed the unmarred digits of his right hand before-

"If I didn't know any better I'd day you're gettin slower Karlsi-EeK!"

Snatch! One Charmingly Taxing Nightlord scout scruffed in his hold. While more frantic (or perhaps furious) footsteps approached.

Thump,thump,thump,thump,thump,thump,thump!

"Mother fucker I'm gonna kill you! I'm gonna fucking kill- Fuck..."

Anrir turned his eyes to his Claw's librarian, Karlsor, who'd stopped a few paces away.

"N-now Anrir, we didn't fuckin break anyth-Hurk!"

Two, two little Charmingly-Taxing-Nightlords scruffed.

"What...have I told you two?" Anrir asked, his voice firm yet controlled. "About Running near my Research?"

"Dont fuckin do it?" "Don't?" They said in unison.

"And...What, were you just doing?" He posed further.

"That," "Yeah, but he fuckin Started it!"

"You left the glasses unattended! You're lucky Ghosk didn't decide to snatch em!"

"They're My Sun goggles and How Fuckin Dare You!"

As the two younger Nightlords started bickering back and forth Anrir took a deep steadying breath and gently, but firmly... Knocked their skulls together.

Clack!

"Owwww!" "Fuckin hell that stings!"

"Now..." Anrir began. "Are we ready to discuss things properly?"

"Yes..." "Fine! fuck..."

"Khopesh...return Karlsor's glasses." Anrir commanded.

"Fine." Khopesh grumbled, more at his fun ending than Actually having to give the shades back.

"Hrmph!" Karlsor snatched them back with a growl, before placing them back on his face.

"And What do we say, when we have done something Wrong?"

"...I am sorry for taking your sun glasses." Khopesh aquiesed reluctantly.

"Hmph! Damn right you're sorry!"

"Karlsor..."

"And I accept your apology." Karlsor added quickly.

"Good." Anrir released the youngsters from their scruffing.

Khopesh rubbed the back of his neck. "You gotta Know you don't even Need them in this part of the base, riiiiight Karlsy?" Khopesh teased, gesturing to the Very dim surroundings which were custom suited to the Nightlords dark adapted eyes.

"Don't fuckin call me that ya whelp! And so fuckin what! They're My Shades and I'll wear them where I damn well please!" Karlsor snarled, before turning to stomp away.

"You're going to run into things again if you do that." Khopesh pointed out.

"The fuck I-WoAhAAH!" CRASH! The impact of the armored Nightlord hitting the wall rattled the room. On the worktable the picture frame once again fell over.

Unluckily as Khopesh predicted, Karlsor indeed did run into something. Or rather tripped. Whether that was do to wearing shades in a dark room or him being too mad to notice his surroundings was up for debate.

The grouchy librarian righted himself, before turning back to Khopesh with a seething look. "Not - one - word."

Khopesh smiled. "Okay. I'll just laugh then! BWAHAHAAHAHAHAHAA!"

"You're a FUCKIN DEAD FUCK I SWEAR!"

"ENOUGH!"

Oh shit. Both the younger Nightlords flinched as they remembered exactly Who they were squabbling near.

"Sorry Anrir." "Sorry." They replied hurriedly quieting their tones. The older Nightlord had his back turned, simply righting the framed photo from where it had fallen.

Thankfully, not Off the desk this time. Anrir took a moment to examine it, as he often did throughout the day.

No New cracks, thankfully. But the large one down the middle...no that truly wouldn't do. He did not Enjoy how it stretched between him and his Kitty.

He'd find a new sheet of plastic or glass. He'd prefer to keep the frame. Cutesy and childish as a lesser man would have considered it with its numeral stickers and pom poms and finger paint, courtesy of his darling participating in one of her daycare charges' crafting activities.

Anrir placed the frame back down with careful reverence, before turning back to his Sons.

"Let us but the matter Behind us, shall we?" He questioned. Though there was no room for debate in his tone. "Onto more Important things. Khopesh, you mentioned an announcement over your vox?"

The mood shifted with the change of subject almost immediately. The long haired Nightlord began bouncing in place, practically vibrating.

"Yes yes yes! I have someone Very special to introduce to all of you And! A new Hunt for us to plan!"

Well now That did intrigue Anrir. Khopesh could be very eager to go on Hunts (some would even say too eager). But far be it from Anrir to stifle something that made his son truly happy And generally made the world a safer place.

"You mention these two things at once...are they related?" Anrir questioned.

"If they are it's not much of a hunt if you Bring the fucker to us, dumbass." Karlsor snubbed a bit. Still a bit grouchy about the glasses...and grouchy in general.

"NO!" Khopesh snarled, barring his full teeth to his battle brother.

Karlsor's frustration was replaced with shock. This display wasn't the most frightening he'd seen, but he was stunned to see it come out of Khopesh, at Him.

Given the stunned silence Khopesh seemed to realize he over reacted. "I mean, No no no no No...well Yes technically." Khopesh corrected quickly. "They are not the one to be hunted! They are the one who was Harmed by the one we are going to be hunting. And they'll be here soon! I Just Know you'll Love Them!" Khopesh went from frantic correction to...cooing like a lovesick Lamenter??

"I see..." Anrir paused. "And...may I assume that this person is...Special to you?"

"Very much so! They are my sweet Lullaby! And we'll be sharing our first meal together tonight!" Khopesh said excitedly, quickly pulling up his vox messages and other saved photos. "I want them to meet all of you and your bonded's eventually! I think they'd fit in very well here. See?"

Khopesh showed off a few picts. One was of his Lullaby riding in horse competition. Another was them helping a young child learn to ride a horse. The picts and videos were a selection Khopesh had found from their mother's business' noosphere media.

Originally he'd obtained them as part of his investigation into Lullaby as a person, when he'd first met them. Now he simply kept his favorites, and to have something to show his Claw for reference.

"Rabbit and them both compete in sports, And they have experience in childcare and teaching from their family business like Kitty!" Khopesh explained. "And they're so sweet I'm sure Claude will find them very calming, once he gets past his usual shyness and then-"

Anrir's focus trailed off, but not for lack of interest! One of his sons had found a partner, And yes he Knew it was a partner; the smell he'd walked on base with, the 'glowing' and 'bouncing' energy he seemed filled with, and the presence of the bruising marks known as 'hickies' were enough to tell him that much.

He apparently Really liked and was looking forward to spending time with them. And Anrir would support Khopesh in this endeavor whole heartedly, bond involved or not. Anrir was many things but he was Not an Absent Parent.

No...it was because something about those photos-

Shwoop!

Khopesh's vox pings and a notification pops up covering the screen.

Lullaby: Hey I've arrived...I think? But I'm not sure where to go. Also I'm not sure they'll just let me in?

"Oh whoops! One moment." Khopesh shoots a vox message back.

Khopesh Thing That goes Prank in the Night: You should be able to enter the main lobby as it is open to the public. Wait for me there please! I want to introduce you to my brothers! I'm so excited for you to meet them.

Lullaby: Oh okay...how many am I meeting?

Khopesh: Just the ones in my claw that are here now. Don't worry they're gonna Love You! ;3

Lullaby: Including the one you made angry enough to chase you?? You suuuuure he'll like me? 🤔🤭

Khopesh smiled as he typed his next reply.

Khopesh: I'm Certain of it. He'll probably like how mouthy and sassy you are!

He stopped but then added...

But he can't have you of course! You're mine.

Lullaby: pfft! You've pissed him off that much huh? Well either way I'm making my way into the main lobby. The building is so Biiiiiig. I'm not used to this kinda space.

A photo came in. Showing Lullaby standing next to one of the Astarte sized chairs near the main entrance. It did indeed dwarf them as an average sized human.

"And saved!" Khopesh trilled, doing exactly that with the new photo.

Khopesh: Excellent! I will see you soon!

Anrir and Karlsor watched on with fascination. Well Karlsor was more still stunned to see this range of behavior from his brother.

Anrir, having his own special someone, was more understanding. But Still something itched at his brain.

"I must go greet them now. I will be back soon!" Khopesh stated, turning quickly to leave.

To his credit he did start by walking normally...until his speed picked up and he Launched himself into scrambling running climb throughout the unique architecture of the Nightlord base area.

Again, specially designed for suit their preference for skulking and climbing.

Karlsor stood their bewildered for a moment, before turning to Anrir. "What the Fuck was that about?"

Anrir simply chuckled. "Ah...young love..." He shook his head fondly before returning to his notes. Best sort and put them away for now, after all he'd be greeting a new face soon, best to look Presentable and make a good first impression.

He said much the same to Karlsor. "I'm assuming he'll be bringing his 'Sweet Lullaby' to meet us soon. Best get ready for that."

Karlsor groaned. Baselines were...well they were Frustrating or deal with! They either Weren't scared or were too scared. Sometimes they'd scream way too loud! And worse sometimes they'd giggle and call him...Bleh. Cute.

And Khopesh had apparently found 'someone special'. "If it turns out he's fuckin found someone Just Like Him I'm gonna stab myself with an Ice Pick!"

"I doubt Khopesh could find someone Exactly like himself dear Karlsor." Anrir assured, his desk now clean. He turned back to the Librarian.

"Though...I Must admit I am curious about his... Lullaby." Anrir muttered to himself.

Why couldn't he shake the feeling he was missing something?

"What got you Fuckin stewing suddenly?" Karlsor asked, noting Anrir's change in demeanor.

...

"...Those photos...did you recognize the Baseline in them?"

"...no?? Did you?"

Anrir turned back to Karlsor, his expression was serious. "I'm Certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that I've Never," he emphasized. "Met them before in my Life."

"So why Do I recognize them?"

Next chapter will be Here: (hopefully soon pray for my sanity)

[swearyshera]

Thank you!

This may end up being a long, rambly post because I'm a little emotional. But bear with me.

I am so incredibly thankful for all the love you've sent this week, and it humbles me to realise how much this silly little parody blog meant to people. Thank you for reading, liking, reblogging, commenting, asking, going absolutely unhinged in the tags... I read them all, and they've spurred me to keep going through 32 months, over 5000 posts, 40GB of screenshots and the wildest, most brilliant time of my life.

I'd love to thank people individually, but there's so many of you that I would inevitably miss someone out and that seems unfair! But I will say a special thank you to the She-Ra Uncut team, who I'm proud to consider some of the greatest friends I've made through this fandom, and whether we make many wonderful things, or never make anything again, I hope we can consider each other friends for life.

(Sob story time, feel free to skip!) In 2015, I had a huge breakdown. I was off work for 8 months, in hospital for a week, had therapy twice a week for a year... It was fucking awful. And though I got better, I never really felt like I had a reason to, and that I was just treading water until the darkness came back with vengeance. Then, as She-Ra ended, I made some silly posts that ended up as Etheria Nine-Nine, which led me onto what would become Sweary She-Ra. I had no idea how much this would change my life.

The response to this blog led me to write a script for a She-Ra Uncut trailer, and I loved it. I wrote more and developed a love for the craft, that I wanted to continue. It became a joy, and gave me a dream for the first time I could remember. So I kept writing, I kept learning and improving. In September 2022, I was sat in the Lowry theatre in Salford surrounded by the laughter of an audience watching a play that I wrote. That was the most incredible feeling of my life.

And I wouldn't have had that without thinking "Catra should be allowed to say fuck".

So while, it may be over (and it was pointed out to me that Sweary She-Ra ran for longer than the actual show did!), it's hopefully not the end. I'm very keen to make an audio sequel if I can, maybe several, and I'm not going to disappear into the ether. And hey, I don't know what the future will bring.

But there is a future.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you, everyone.

Alice.

(PS - Hi Crew-Ra, if you're reading this as I maybe suspect one or two of you may be. I am sorry but also not sorry, but also hire me when the strikes are over 😁. Thank you for making She-Ra, I love you!)

[jellybeanium124]

stede is silly so I think you can put flandersisms into his speech quite easily, the trick is he shouldn't be swearing less than ed. I've read fic before where ed and izzy are swearing such a ridiculous amount it's stupid and stede isn't swearing at all. nobody on this show is particularly sweary more or less than others. sure, izzy says "twat" more than everyone else, but like your fucks and shits are not concentrated to any one character. and like we all know there's underlying reasons to why this has happened.

[half-an-hour-hence]

Some random headcanons for the ghosts if they were alive today (part 2)

THOMAS

Is a self-published, fairly unsuccessful author, so he also works in a supermarket. Never ask him how he is when he’s on the checkout. He will go on for several minutes and will have a breakdown if you try to leave before he’s finished talking.

Thomas very proudly runs a Lord Byron hate account on Twitter, which has two followers (one is Pat because he felt sorry for him, and the other is his own personal account).

He is addicted to collecting vinyls. He spends the majority of the money he earns on records at both independent stores and HMV. It gets so bad sometimes that his younger sister has to lend him money to pay his bills.

Despite him having (almost) every dating app ever made on his phone, he’s remained painfully single for the vast majority of his life. However, he met a woman called Isabelle about a week ago and he’s convinced that she’s the one (they’ve spoken once)

JULIAN

He’s still an MP, and he DID have a heart attack, however the paramedics were able to resuscitate him. Now he’s slightly more bearable, and has been spending a lot more time with his wife and child. He still has the occasional fling and he isn’t exactly a saint in parliament, but Julian’ll tell you that improvement is a slow process.

He and Robin have a weekly chess competition on Sundays, during which they play as many games as possible before the football starts at 4:30pm (Julian loses every week).

He’s permanently banned from both Disneyland AND his local Waitrose (don’t ask)

Julian will prank anyone he associates with. He’ll turn up at the museum the Captain works at just to touch the things behind the ‘don’t touch’ signs. He changes the directions on Pat’s satnav when he’s taking the scouts out of town. He’ll write a sweary speech about the Opposition on Mary’s drawing (she’ll sell it anyway). He swears he’ll stop but he never will.

FANNY

Although she doesn’t need to work because she inherited a LOT of money from her parents, she works at the same university as Robin as a professor of mathematics. Her lectures are fairly boring and most students aren’t overly fond of her, however she’s very proud of herself for doing something she actually enjoys and proving her father wrong.

She likes to go on walks in the country with the Captain and her dog, Dante. James and Fanny are the most unlikely of friends, but they both find it easy to be their authentic selves around each other.

Fanny owns a kindle, on which she reads smutty novels without any sort of plot whatsoever. She enjoys reading them before bed, while snacking on a cheeky chocolate bar.

One of her hobbies is doing the family tree. After she discovered she had a distant relative called Alison, she hesitantly got in contact with her. Now she comes over frequently with her husband Mike. They have tea and make small talk. Although Fanny finds it hard to understand Alison’s generation, she is slowly warming up to her and is beginning to think of her as family.

[charliespringverse]

i've touched on this before but like . i really do think rowan's feelings get accidentally overlooked by readers that ,,, Aren't a bit obsessed and rereading for the nth time

and it's understandable because the version we primarily get of rowan is fereshteh's warped fanon & jimmy's longtime best friend mental illness riddled descriptions . and Because jimmy is unwell he almost idolises rowan in a way that holds him up as a pillar of stability and permanence — which is what jimmy needs and it's not a wholly negative thing, but he also inadvertently fails to accept any evidence to the contrary

whereas with lister we Learn a lot because jimmy is learning a lot — through deeper-than-usual conversations or blatant cries for help or very revealing behaviours — we don't get to discover anything new about rowan, and so when he's kinda mean or angry or distrusting it's easy to misinterpret that as him being deliberately and needlessly nasty

but if you stop looking at him through jimmy's lens, that boy has had an absolute bastard of a week . the jowan photo leak affects him as much as jimmy (arguably more so, because all the while he's dating bliss, jowan is an Active Lie rather than just an untruth), he's dealing with the same contract stress, his secret relationship has been exposed to the world, his girlfriend is ignoring him at a really difficult time, he's watching his two closest friends fall apart, he's learning that he really doesn't know one of them very well at all, his best friend is missing, the other is definitely an alcoholic making no moves to resolve that, his girlfriend has dumped him, he feels like they (and bliss) are being stalked by a member of a group he already feels like he isn't safe around, he feels like he's losing the two people closest to him

and all this time he's considering himself wholly and singlehandedly responsible for fixing all of this, feeling he has to hold himself and the world together . there's no real safe space for him to unload any of this because the three people he's closest to are either dumping him or going off the rails, and the only way he's ever known how to make himself comfortable is to have complete control over a situation, which just Is Not available to him here

it's not the fault of jimmy's narration that we never get to truly sit with the extent of what's going on with rowan, and in fact it really Really adds to the themes of being unable to truly know somebody and personal perception destroying objective truth

but GOD it breaks my heart to see people say they don't care for rowan, or don't like him, because he's snappy and sweary and short with people . because that's such a natural response to having that much shit piled on top of you in under a week AND losing your only coping mechanism (in this case, taking the weight of everything and moulding it into something tangible and possible to hold)

anyway. i am a rowan omondi stan first and a human being second and WOW rowan needs therapy and jimmy needs to stop idealising him

[redpool]

Because we are moving, I've been rewatching Supernatural while packing and I've decided i want to make a list of the episodes that i actually like (meaning that I actually like what I'm watching).

Season 1:

Episode 1 'Pilot' - Minus the intro, i usually skip that

Episode 2 'Wendigo' - That last bit, where Dean has the bandage on his throat... *insert debby ryan meme here*

Episode 3 'Dead in the Water' - Enough said, i mean come on..

Episode 5 'Bloody Mary' - I used to be terrified of this ep. But the way the boys are so soft and comforting towards the girls. (and Mary is pretty)

Episode 7 'Hook Man' - Love me some hook man. and the black shirt and brown jacket combo on Dean *chefs kiss*

Episode 12 'Faith' - Dean is just really attractive to me i this ep, he's so sick and pathetic looking and i love it... THE HOODIE

Episode 17 'Hell House' - AHDHGDGDHGDHBGDGDCVGDCB PRANK WARS!!!!!!

Episode 19 'Provenance' - Idk why "HOLY, BLONDE, CHEERLEADER, BATMAN" < I quote that so so much

Season 2:

Episode 2 'Everybody Loves A Clown' -

I want to say Bloodlust because of Benny but I hate that other shitbird

Episode 4 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' - Its just a fun ep

Episode 5 'Simon Said' - ASH MY LOVE!!!!!

Episode 6 'No Exit' - America's first known serial killer

Episode 11 'Playthings' - "Of course, the most troubling question is: Why do these people assume we're gay?" "Well, you are kinda butch, but I just think you're overcompensating."

Episode 15 'Tall Tales' - GABE MY LOVE!!!!!!

Episode 17 'Heart' - uhhh werewolves, need I say more?

Episode 18 'Hollywood Babylon' - another idk why

Episode 19 'Folsom Prison Blues' - two words, Blue. Steel.

Season 3:

Episode 3 'Bad Day At Black Rock' - Bela *Insert debby ryan meme*

Episode 5 'Bedtime Stories' - another fun one

Episode 6 'Red Sky at Morning' - Bela, my love!'

Episode 8 'A Very Supernatural Christmas' - Protective Dean, "You fudging touch me again, I'll fudging kill ya!"

Episode 11 'Mystery Spot' - GABE MY LOVE!!!!!!

Episode 13 'Ghostfacers' - GHOST- GHOSTFACERS, I also love that we see a whole different version of the Winchesters. (sweary)

Season 4:

Episode 1 'Lazarus Rising' - The beginning of the longest queerbaiting relationship ever

Episode 4 'Monster Movie' - do I really need to explain?

Episode 6 'Yellow Fever' - "I'll man the flashlight!"

Episode 7 ' It's the Great Pumpkin, Sam Winchester' - ngl the title makes no sense, and there is a reason, i just can't think of it.

Episode 8 'Wishful Thinking' - another fun episode, this is the episode that, that kid that killed his mum and set out to take the Canadian prime minster out is in.

Episode 12 'Criss Angel Is a Douche Bag' - *shrugs*

Episode 13 'After School Special' - BABY SAM, younger Dean 😏

Episode 14 'Sex and Violence' - BI DEAD BI DEAN BI DEAN BI DEAN

Episode 18 'The Monster at the End of This Book' - also *shrug*

Episode 19 'Jump the Shark' - ADAM!!!! Adam ☹️😢

Season 5:

Episode 5 'Fallen Idols' - another fun episode

Episode 6 'I Believe the Children Are Out Future' - JESSE!!!!! There was so much potential in this kid, we could have the greatest duo with Jesse and Jack.

Episode 7 'The Curious Case of Dean Winchester' - BI DEAD BI DEAN BI DEAN BI DEAN

Episode 8 'Changing Channels' - GABE MY LOVE!!!!!!!!

Episode 9 'The Real Ghostbusters' - fair enough

Episode 11 'Sam, Interrupted' - ✨therapy✨

Episode 12 'Swap Meat' - fun episode

Episode 14 'My Bloody Valentine' - "I don't like it!" "No one likes it."

Episode 17 '99 Problems' - "Not you. Or me. Sam of course is an abomination. We'll have to find someone else." & "Well, what is she, exactly?" "The whore." "Wow, Cas, tell us what you really think."

Episode 18 'Point of No Return' - ADAM!!!! Adam... ☹️😢

Episode 19 'Hammer of the Gods' - GABE!!!!! Gabe.... ☹️😢

Episode 21 'Two Minutes to Midnight' - OH, DEATH, OH, DEATH, OH, DEATH,

Episode 22 'Swan Song' - THE BEGINNIG OF MIADAM!!!! funny story, when i had an iPhone i had "Hey, Assbutt" as my text tone and it was almost as scary as when I had Obi-Wan's "Hello there"

Season 6:

Episode 3 'The Third Man' - BALTHAZAR MY LOVE!!!!!!!!

Episode 9 'Clap Your Hands If You Believe' - Souless!Sam is a dick but I kinda love him.

Episode 17 'My Heart Will Go On' - BALTHAZAR!!!!!!!! "Sorry, you have me confused with the other angel. You know, the one in the dirty trench coat who's in love with you."

Episode 18 'Frontierland' - Why is Elias kinda hot...?

Episode 19 'Mommy Dearest' - I just like the bar scene

Season 7:

Episode 1 'Meet the New Boss' - "And who says you speak for God? You're wrong. I am utterly indifferent to sexual orientation. On the other hand, I cannot abide hypocrites like you, Reverend." "Okay, fun's over, friend" "Tell your flock where your genitals have been before you speak for Me." "And who the heck are you?" "I'm God.", basically the whole church scene

Episode 5 'Shut Up, Dr. Phil' - It's just a funny episode

Episode 9 'How to Win Friends and Influence Monsters' - "I think you pissed off my sandwich."

Episode 14 'Plucky Pennywhistle's Magical Menagerie' - "Ha! I'm sorry, you look like you got attacked by some PCP-crazed strippers."

Episode 20 'The Girl with the Dungeons and Dragons Tattoo' -CHARLIE BABY!!!!!!

Episode 21 'Reading is Fundamental' - KEVIN MY LOVE!!!!!!

Season 8:

Episode 1 'We Need to Talk About Kevin' - That whole first scene, BENNY MY LOVE!!!!!!

Episode 2 'What's Up, Tiger Mommy?' - ALFIE!!!!!!!!! BENNY!!!!!!!

Episode 4 'Bitten' - outside perspectives are always funny

Episode 5 'Blood Brother' - BENNNY!!!! Vampirates.

Episode 6 'Southern Comfort' - GARTH!!!!!

Episode 7 'A Little Slice of Kevin' - KEVIN!!!! Dean isn't even trying to hide his gay.

Episode 8 'Hunteri Heroici' - I'll introgate the cat."

Episode 9 'Citizen Fang' - I hate this episode but yeah

Episode 11 'LARP and the Real Girl' - CHARLIE, MY LOVE!!!!!!

Episode 12 'As Time Goes By' - HENRY, MY LOVE!!!!!!

Episode 13 'Everybody Hates Hitler' - Adam Rose is in it, do i need to continue?

Episode 15 'Man's Best Friend with Benefits' - I hate witches but this ep is good.

Episode 20 'Pac-Man Fever' -

Episode 23 'Sacrifice' - The last scene and speech that Dean says to Sam.

Season 9:

Episode 1 'I Think I'm Gonna Like It Here' - GADDY!!!!!! MY BABY!!!!!!

Episode 4 'Slumber Party' - CHARLIE!!!!! TIIO!!!!!!

Episode 5 'Dog Dean Afternoon' - just a fun one, the pigeon is the best character in this episode.

Episode 7 'Bad Boys' - BABY DEAN BABY DEAN BABY DEAN

Episode 8 'Rock and a Hard Place' - "But when you get down to it, what's the big deal? Sure, there's the touching and the feeling all of each other, my hands everywhere, tracing every inch of her body. The two of us moving together, pressing, pulling, grinding, and then you hit that sweet spot and everything just builds, builds and builds until it all just... [Makes explosion noise] ...But the whole thing was just a little too sticky."

Episode 13 'The Purge' - Out of all of the creatures in this show the Pishtacos are my favourite.

Episode 15 '#thinman' - the return of the Ghostfacers, they're so gay for eachother.

Episode 16 'Blade Runners' - sexy

Episode 19 'Alex Annie Alexis Ann' - ALEX!!!!!!!

Season 10:

Episode 1 'Black' - DEMON!DEAN FOR THE WIN!!!!

Episode 2 'Reichenbach' - Demon Dean...

Episode 3 'Soul Survivor' - Demon Dean.

Episode 4 'Paper Moon' - KATE!!!!

Episode 5 'Fan Fiction' - Do I really need to explain why I like this one? 🎶"JOHN AND MARY, HUSBAND AND WIFE, BRINGING HOME A BRAND NEW LIFE, HIS NAME IS SAMMY, I'M BIG BROTHER DEAN"🎶

Episode 6 'Ask Jeeves' - the interactions are just really funny.

Episode 7 'Girls, Girls, Girls' - ROWENA!!!!!! the only witch I can stand.

Episode 8 'Hibbing 911' - JODIY AND DONNA SUPREMACY!!!!

Episode 12 'About a Boy' - Just a fun episode

Episode 13 'Halt & Catch Fire' - ghosts are always fun episodes

Episode 14 'The Executioner's Song' - the end of Cain

Episode 15 'The Things They Carried' - probably my favourite Cole episode.

Episode 16 'Paint It Black' - I just like this ep

Episode 19 'The Werther Project' - BENNY!!!!!!

Season 11:

Episode 4 'Baby' - self explained, i'd say.

Episode 5 'Thin Lizzie' - idk why

Episode 7 'Plush' - its just funny

Episode 8 'Just My Imagination' - 'She's got sparkle on her face!'

Episode 11 'Into the Mystic' -

Episode 12 'Don't You Forget About Me' - DAD DEAN DAD DEAN DAD DEAN DAD DEAN

Season 12:

Episode 6 'Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox' - It's just funny watching people react the way they do towards the boys.

Episode 8 'LOTUS' - ARTHUR!!!!!!

Episode 11 'Regarding Dean' - Considering that he was going to die this and the Zanna episode are my all time favourites.

Season 13:

Episode 1 'Lost and Found' - JACK!!!!!!! MY BABY!!!!!!!

Episode 2 'The Rising Son' - Jack means a lot to me.

Episode 4 'The Big Empty' - ✨therapy✨

Episode 6 'Tombstone' - GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

Episode 10 'Wayward Sisters' - GIRLFRIENDS GIRLFRIENDS GIRLFRIENDS GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

Episode 16 'Scoobynatural' - I like it when they give us a break from the on-going trauma filled story lines.

Season 14:

Episode 4 'Mint Condition' - fun episode

Episode 6 'Optimism' - fun episode

have you guys seen this yet? this is such a cool picture.

Season 15:

Episode 1 'Back and to the Future' - BELPHEGOR!!!!! (i only like Alex's version)

Episode 2 'Raising Hell' - a trip down memory lane

Episode 3 'The Rapture' - *shrugs*

Episode 7 'Last Call' - I just think its funny how Dean faked being able to sing for all those years, I assume to make Sam laugh.

Episode 8 'Our Father, Who Aren't In Heaven' - ADAM!!!!!!! MIDAM!!!!!!! THATS A RELATIONSHIP I WANNA JOIN!!! Oh and its a win for Destial too i guess.

Episode 15 'Gimme Shelter' - Jack & Dean bonding experience.

[kalcifers-blog]

Thinking about Generation Loss and thought about how cool it would have been if Jacksepticeye was in it? SO HERE HAVE GL!JSE

The idea is that while "Jack" is under Showfalls control- he's basically the version of himself that got his chanel extremely popular (think 2015-2018 era) with the green hair and "Loud Sweary Irishman" was his whole brand- how it looks like he has heterochromia until the mask is turned off and we actually see that his eye has been removed entirely to fit in a mind control esc device into his skull.

I also think that "Jack" has been at this for a very long time- and he's played many different roles (Similar to GL!Slime/Charlie) and those roles being each of The Egos- making him have so many different roles and names that he doesn't remember his actual name, he just knows that it isn't the one that he was given by Showfall.

I feel like he'd act mostly as an ally to Ranboo in a similar way to how Sneeg did- but was more interested into figuring out who they actually where before Showfall over actually escaping- probably being the first to ask everyone as to how much they actually remember outside of Showfall Media.

ANYWAY. Let me know if I should make more of other YouTubers in Generation Loss!!

[luciledrakkhen]

TCM talking... my theory

Everyone in the last few days since ep72 full dropped have been theorising that the astro arm made him talk cause he had no way of talking etc. Ive also seen other theories that the Techfolk can talk but in their own language etc..

My theory? Yeah the Techfolk do talk to each other but with something akin to a comms system so on the outside they're silent BUT the Titans (and Poly/TV units) can talk out loud to harass/insult the Skibidi like TTVM/Poly does. Before he got trashed, TCM had 2 small box like things, 1 on either side of his main lens, in e72 one is missing, to me they look like speakers.

And yes i know the speaker faction could theoretically talk in this scenario but in my head, like TSM when he flew past TTVM screaming at GMan in e72... the other speakers prefer screeching at their foes.

So, in short, Cams prefer silence when fighting, Speakers like screeching and TV's just love to throw out sweary insults.

*goes back to fic writing while looking at pics of Poly....*

[justforbooks]

All My Precious Madness by Mark Bowles

This keenly observed debut brilliantly captures the internal monologue of a misanthrope, in a portrait of intellectual melancholia

Henry, the middle-aged narrator of Mark Bowles’s debut novel, is ensconced in a Soho cafe, trying to write a memoir about his late father. To his considerable irritation, a digital entrepreneur at a nearby table is prattling loudly into his phone about his startup and his recent travels in the far east, while deploying inordinate amounts of business speak. (When he begins one sentence with “As per yourself,” we can place the type exactly.) Distracted from his task, Henry’s mind wanders, brooding on, among other things, mass tourism in the Instagram age (“The flattening of the world to wallpaper for the grinning head”), the marketisation of education and the perniciousness of corporate jargon. We remain inside his head for most of the next 200-odd pages, intermittently checking back in with the voluble tech bro, who embodies everything Henry hates about the 21st century; his animus builds to almost psychotic proportions as the novel progresses.

The sociological ruminations soon give way to a personal narrative. We learn that Henry hails from Bradford, attended Oxford University and, after a decade in a soul-crushing telesales job, completed a philosophy doctorate to become an academic. A self-styled autodidact, he once resolved to learn about the great composers by listening to them in alphabetical order. (“I did not get very far … today I listen almost exclusively to Bach, Bartók and Beethoven”.) Because of his working-class background, he suffered from impostor syndrome; his assimilation into academia was “a trajectory of imitation and rebuff, of overzealous imitation compensating for prior exclusion”. There is indeed a hint of affectation in the narrator’s slightly mannered prose style: he is fond of “whilst” and “wherein”, and prone to the occasional throwback sentence structure (“I … opened ever so gently the window”). Fully conscious of this, he quips: “I wore my learning, such as it was, like a trench coat on a summer’s day.”

Henry’s humour, oscillating between candid self-deprecation and sardonic misanthropy, keeps the reader on side. At various points, his meandering consciousness revels in the nuances of language: he muses on posh people’s fondness for the word “copious”, the paradoxical ugliness of “pulchritude” and the inherently sad timbre of the Brummie accent, “wherein one hears only the murmur of diurnal disappointment, and which, defined by bathos and anticlimax, is quintessentially English”. We eventually circle back to Henry’s childhood, via a heart-rending anecdote about a school bully who once forced a fellow pupil to eat faeces. Henry’s father had been an aloof and domineering figure, but in his latter years, “pockets of eccentricity and kindness were opened”, and a tentative camaraderie developed between them: “the two of us, sat side by side, each opened the door of our solitude to the other”.

All My Precious Madness is an astutely observed portrait of intellectual melancholia. We tend to associate nostalgia with reactionary politics, but it can, of course, take other forms too: with his blend of sweary, disaffected rage and leftwing idealism, the narrator’s sensibility recalls the US comic Bill Hicks. Henry is down on England and Englishness, which he identifies with parochial conservatism, and romanticises Paris and Rome. For him, the humble espresso symbolises a world of possibility. “There is,” he declares, “every reason to live in Old Europe at the point of its demise and disappearance, rather than sniffing after the Zeitgeist, which is made of cables and clouds, brands and fragile exoskeletons amalgamated from images.”

It’s hard to disentangle these somewhat sweeping sentiments from the narrator’s class-based ennui. Henry’s fetishistic passion for “Old Europe” originates in his yearning to transcend the cultural horizons of his upbringing in the monochrome landscape of 1980s England. Seen in this light, his chuntering fixation on the tech bro – and the vulgar, Thatcherite aspiration he represents – feels like a projection. Perhaps the charmless bore who blathers on about his frolics in the global south isn’t really all that different from the intellectual bon vivant, who is no less of a tourist just because he knows his Sartre from his Lacan. They may inhabit very different moral and aesthetic realms, but they have in common a restless drive: to reinvent themselves, to evolve and escape – by whatever means necessary.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[itssotragic]

Rhea/Dom/Damian/JD + “you don’t need to earn my affection, not now and not ever.”

pleassseeee 🥹

Rated: T Tags: Insecurity, love confession (sort of), slight allusion to OCD, polyamory, some sweary words.

Prompt List

JD sat alone in the locker room, his hoodie and sweatpants were thrown on over his gear to ward off the chill of the cavernous backstage halls, his fingers tracing carefully over a silver bracelet. It had become a habit over the past few days. Whenever he felt like he was spiraling into another pit of doubt and uncertainty, he'd fish it out of his bag and slip it on, the metal biting briefly into his skin before clipping into place. However small it was, it sat heavy with the weight of meaning—a reminder that, for the first time in a long time, he wasn't doing this alone. And maybe that was what made it feel so daunting.

He'd never been good at gestures. Words came easily enough, most of the time, but when it came to more tangible efforts, he felt like he was trying to decipher a riddle in a language that had been dead for a thousand years. But for something so big that meant so much to all of them, he couldn't help but feel like he needed to do something in return.

But nothing he could think of felt like enough.

Which was why he was hiding in a dimly lit side room while Rhea finished up with press. Usually, he'd be lurking a few feet away, next to Dom, but tonight he'd hung back under the guise of having a headache. It wasn't an outright lie, but he was fairly certain the pain at the back of his skull was less from his head bouncing off the mat earlier and more from the thin shard of stress that had buried itself there. Now, he could hear the rumble of equipment trolleys loading onto trucks and the faint buzz of conversation and laughter shifting through the halls, fading off into the distance, and whatever time he'd been afforded to settle his mind had already elapsed.

He hefted his bag off the bench beside him and yanked the tie out of his hair, stuffing it absent-mindedly into his pocket as he lurched into the hallway. His footsteps echoed faintly off the cement and cinder block, growing slightly more muffled as he rounded into the staging area and towards where the others had gathered, giving a brief nod of acknowledgment as Dom glanced over his shoulder.

There was something in the way Dom smiled at him—the effortless, bright, beaming smile—that made him forget a little bit of that stress. But Dom was easy; it was the other two that left him feeling apprehensive sometimes. Not that they had ever done anything to cause that worry, but he was hyper-aware of the fact that he was a brand new variable being introduced into a situation that had existed, so finely balanced, for over a year. It was going to take time to rid himself of the fear that one wrong move would send him plummeting off the metaphorical scaffolding onto the ground below. Most of the time, he was fine. It didn't sit with him constantly. But once in a while, that shard, that splinter of thought, dug right into the center of his brain and refused to budge, no matter how much logic and reason he tried to apply to force it out.

He slumped against Dom's side, catching the tail end of their conversation. Damian said something in Spanish he only caught half of, and Dom chuckled, wrapping an arm around his waist like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

"We good?" Damian asked, turning his attention to JD. There was something in his expression that was a little softer than usual—a quiet sort of concern he knew not to question. He had an uncanny ability to read people, and it made him wonder if he hadn't already noticed that something was off, or if he might still be able to play it off with the same excuse he'd been using most of the night.

"More or less," he shrugged. "I'm not concussed if that's what you're worried about."

"You checked out?" Damian folded his arms across his chest, attention flitting away for half a second as Rhea grabbed her sweatshirt off the top of her bag and yanked it on over her head.

"Yeah, I stopped by medical after my match. They said I'm fine."

Damian nodded, satisfied enough for now, though it wasn't like they were going to have a conversation about anything more involved than that in the middle of everything. "Alright," he said, "let's roll, then. You guys want to grab something to eat on the way?"

"Always," Dom answered, giving JD one more squeeze before he pulled away, falling in line next to Rhea with a playful bump of his shoulder against hers and the same wide, adoring grin he always had for her.

They made their way out through the arena towards the parking garage, with Damian leading the pack, Rhea and Dom next to each other, and JD trailing just behind. A few people were still milling around, but most had either left already or were on their way out. There were a few nods and waves exchanged on the way—brief passing conversations that faded into an echo and then into nothingness. Then the sharp, hollow beep from the rental van's key fob cut through the relative quiet, lights blinking, and the click of the doors unlocking carried across the nearly empty lot.

"Why don't you sit up front?" Damian said, thumping JD on the shoulder with one hand as he threw his duffel bag on top of everyone else's and slammed the hatch closed.

His eyebrows raised slightly, and he shrugged. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Make the kids sit in the back."

Normally he was one of the kids, but with Finn still on holiday, he assumed he was technically the next in line. No one seemed to mind, or at least not enough to argue about it, so JD slid into the passenger's seat and dragged the seatbelt over his shoulder, clicking it into place before Damian even got the door closed on the other side. He kept his hands pinned between his knees, palms together, watching Damian plug his phone into the aux cord and tick the volume down a few levels. The heat whirred on, and a few clicks later, the seats and steering wheel were warming up as well.

Damian tipped his head back against the headrest, glancing into the rearview mirror. "You want to find somewhere to eat, and I'll punch it into the GPS before we take off?"

Rhea murmured a quick "Yep" and slung herself across the back seat, draped over Dom's lap so he could look at her phone with her while she scrolled through all the restaurants and drive-thrus between here and their hotel. It was a process. Checking hours, checking menus, checking to see how far off their route it was going to take them to get there, and whether there were carry-out options or if they felt up to crowding into a booth. Then, inevitably, they repeated the cycle three or four more times until they found something that had everything they wanted.

But at least the van was warm.

JD settled back in his seat and stretched his legs out, shoving his toes to the end of his sneakers and hooking them under the dashboard to soak up heat from the base vents. Damian thrummed his fingers against the steering wheel, mostly in tempo with the song humming out of the speakers, but there was a stutter to it—something thoughtful, half a beat behind the rest. When, after a few long seconds, he finally dredged up the courage to look over, he found Damian staring straight through him. Disconcertingly precise and deliberate.

"What?" he frowned, holding Damian's gaze even as a flush crept into his cheeks.

Damian shifted, angled himself towards JD, and rested his elbow against the door, his hand still draped over the spoke of the steering wheel. "I'm still wondering what's up with you tonight."

He heaved a sigh and reached up to shove his hair out of his face. "Nothing, really—"

"Bullshit."

"—it's just…" Another sigh, this time more frustrated. He could feel the impulse to answer honestly, but he didn't know why he was fighting it as hard as he was, or why he kept looking for an excuse to cast the truth into the abyss again. He dragged his lower lip through his teeth and thumped his head back against the headrest, eyes closed, that shard shifting a little deeper.

"Look, I don't..." he started again. "I don't know how to do this shit, alright? I'm bad at it; I'm genuinely bad at it." He gestured vaguely with both hands, trying to summon something more than just panic and insecurity from thin air. "The only person I've ever felt right with was Finn, and he's always been here, so we just sort of figured it out together. But now there's you three, and I feel—I'm starting to feel—the same way, and I don't know how to... show that, how to break even. I don't know what I'm doing, and I don't want to be the piece that makes this all fall apart."

It was a hell of a lot more than he'd planned on saying, but once he started, he couldn't stop the words from pouring out of him. By the time he'd caught his breath and lowered his hand from where it was clutching the neckline of his hoodie, Rhea had leaned forward into the space between the seats, her hand resting on his upper arm. Damian reached out too, fingers encircling JD's wrist as his thumb brushed softly over the face of the bracelet—a gesture that carried more than enough intent for him to understand.

"Maybe part of your problem is feeling like you have to break even in the first place," Damian said, his voice softer and gentler now, though it still rang with a tone that suggested this should have been obvious. "It's not about keeping score; you don't have to do anything to earn our affection—not now, not ever. It's there; you've got it." He tapped the bracelet with his thumb, then slid his hand around to trace JD's wrist with his fingertips. "And we're all still figuring it out. Trust me, it was bumpy in a few places when this all started; it still is sometimes. But that's just how things are. If you want it badly enough, you work through it."

JD hesitated for a moment, then slowly turned his hand over, palm-up, watching with a spark of amazement as Damian laced their fingers together and squeezed. It was such a simple gesture—so small, so ordinary—but it carried a weight of its own. It was the first time they'd ever done that, and yet it felt familiar already—the weight of his palm, the calluses on his fingertips. He drew in a slow breath and nodded, then turned his gaze back up towards Damian's face.

He wasn't sure what it was that Damian saw there, but he almost immediately pulled back, flipped the center console up, and reached out to place his hand on the back of JD's neck, dragging him forward with a soft "Goddammit, c'mere, kid." It was awkward; the seatbelt bit into the side of his neck, but he didn't care. His arms slid around Damian's torso, hands clutched in the back of his jacket, and his face buried against his shoulder. His breath shuddered softly, muffled by leather and solid flesh.

"If you need a place to start," Damian said, almost in a whisper, though he was sure both Rhea and Dom could hear it from the back, "start by telling us what you need, when you need it. Don't let it get this bad. We've all got you, and we've all got each other. That's how it works."

"Okay," JD murmured.

Damian pulled back, his hand at JD's jaw, and his head tipped down just enough to look him in the eyes under the veil of errant curls. "Familia, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And," Rhea added, thrumming her fingers softly against his shoulder, "if you ever feel like you're getting in your own way, come talk to one of us."

"Or all of us," Dom said.

"Or all of us," Rhea agreed.

He nodded and scrubbed hastily at his cheek with the cuff of his sleeve as he sank back in his seat. Anything he might have said was caught behind a lump in his throat, but that sharp prickle of anxiety had vanished from the back of his mind, leaving behind little more than a faint buzz of residual nerves and a warmth he was fairly certain had nothing to do with the heating vents. Damian twisted back into his seat, and Rhea gave his shoulder a quick squeeze before she fell back against Dom, who wrapped his arm around her waist and peered over her shoulder at her phone again.

There was a lull, a trickle of silence. JD sniffed. Damian cleared his throat.

"So are we getting food, or what?" Damian asked.

"If you two would shut the fuck up for ten seconds, I'd have told you that we found a place." Rhea rolled her eyes, overdramatic, but handed her phone over, so Damian could enter the address into the on-screen navigation.

He passed the phone back over his shoulder to her when he was done, shifted the van into gear, and started the winding journey out of the garage. The glitter of streetlamps was a lot more pleasant than the waxy yellow lights and dingy cement, and JD let himself relax a little against the window, keeping the three of them in his peripheral. It wasn't until they stopped at a red light that he felt Damian's hand slide over the armrest, fingers splayed and his palm resting upward. He looked up, meeting Damian's gaze with a smile as he tangled their fingers together again.

[harrygoeswest]

Trigger Warnings: sweary sweary language, sexual content

Word count: 14,704

Chapters fifteen, sixteen & seventeen

eighteen

We had a few more drinks at The Swan before we called it a night, but at Harry’s house a raucous and carnal adventure began. It started in the hallway as soon as the door was closed, and reached its magnificent end on his sofa in the living room. We never stopped on our journey, even if we were not moving - the desire we had for one another just did not cease, a feat that used up every last ounce of energy until I was settled on top of him, his skin tacky and sticking to mine in every place it could find.

The room was hot, as were we, with every possible window opened to let in as much fresh air as we could, even though it was humid and uncomfortable. Somehow, it didn’t matter to me. I was blissfully unaware of the temperature and the state it brought my physical being to while I was with this man.

I was unabashedly staring at him, using my fingers to travel the lines of his beautiful face. He seemed content - he was looking at me with this tiny smile, his eyes moving over my own face while his fingers drew pictures on my naked back. I wasn’t paying attention to what he was drawing, nor did it even occur to me that I maybe should have been. If he was trying to play a silly little game, it was the last thing on my mind.

“Estoy obsesionada con tu cara.” I’m obsessed with your face, I whispered as my index finger brushed over his lips.

He seemed to take a deep breath, and his lips pulled upwards further. Around his exhale, he said, “No se que dijiste.” I don’t know what you said.

I pulled back a little, failing to hide my glee. “Muy bueno. ¿Quien te enseñó eso?”

Harry gave a small grunt. “Don’t push your luck.”

I giggled. “I said very good, where did you learn that?”

He gave an understanding hum. “That’s a secret. What did you say before that?”

“That’s also a secret.” I said, and pressed my lips tightly together.

“But now you’ve got two secrets and I’ve only got one.”

“Harry, los secretos no deberían ser como el dinero.”

He tipped his head with a frown.

“Secrets shouldn’t be used like money. It’s how problems start.”

He took another deep breath and nodded, stroking his hands up and down my back. “I see what you mean.”

“You do?”

“I do. Secrets can be transactional which, while when they’re little like ours can be irrelevant, it can also lead to trust issues and overreaction.”

“Right, yeah.” Why did he have to talk in riddles? “I think our secrets should be our own, and if one day we want to share them with each other we can, and if we don’t we shouldn’t have to.”

“Is this your way of cementing that you won’t ever tell me about the incident at the dentist?”

“Maybe.” I muttered. “But it also means you don’t have to tell me if you’re learning Spanish from a less reliable source than me.”

“What if it was your mother?”

“Then you’d be in good hands. Although I will admit I’d be jealous of you spending time with my mother over me.”

Harry cackled, squeezing my body tighter to his. “I have to admire your honesty, Floss.”

I watched him for a minute with a scrutinising look. “Is it my mother…?”

“No tienes que preocuparte.” You don’t need to worry, he said as he poked my nose, but he said it in such a way that made me suspicious it still could be my mother. 

“You need to work on your accent.” I said in rebuttal.

“So I’ve been told. Maybe that’s something you can help me with.”

“Or maybe you should just get a better teacher.”

He giggled, delighted by the sudden irritation in me. “I’m gonna tell your mum you said that.”

I gasped. “It is not my mum teaching you Spanish.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Sé que nunca te dejaría hablar con un acento tan tonto como ese.” I know she would never let you speak with an accent as rubbish as that.

“Florence, don’t be petty.” He was still quite obviously entertained.

“Querido, no tienes idea de cómo soy cuando estoy siendo mezquina.” Darling, you have no idea what I’m like when I’m being petty.

He narrowed his gaze at me, still smirking, so I did the same back to him complete with chagrin. I then rested my head against his chest to avoid the imminent neck ache I could feel manifesting, and Harry smoothed his hand over my hair.

“You’re funny when you’re grumpy.” He said in a whisper.

“Now who’s pushing their luck?” 

He giggled, his chest vibrating beneath my head. I could hear his heartbeat thumping in my ear - it was calm but a little irregular, I assumed from the delight he took on at my irritation. Still, it was a nice thing to listen to. I could’ve fallen asleep right there and then.

“I like having you here.” Harry said suddenly, words spoken after an extended period of silence. “Like this.”

I took a deep breath, the hairs on my body suddenly standing on end. For some reason I couldn’t move.

“Bought this stupid big house ‘cause I wanted Oscar to have somewhere with a lot of space to grow up in, but it can be so lonely. When you said last week that you didn’t like being alone… I really resonated with that a lot. I felt seen. But not exposed, more like understood. I finally felt like someone related to the same feelings that I did - you managed to put it into words for me. And now for us to be able to do this, and for me to be able to have another person in the house, it just feels nice. It feels right.”

I shifted my head slightly so that I could see his face, and he looked down at me with a surprisingly ambivalent expression.

“Well, I’m glad I could help in some way. If you stop teasing me about my mother I might come over more often.”

“I’ll never tease you about anything ever again if you stay here with me next Friday as well?”

“I will come over every Friday until the end of time if you keep to your word, just… not next Friday.”

He pouted.

“Geri’s kind-of-but-not-really emergency girl's night?”

“Oh yeah,” he sighed. “Two weeks… that’s a long time to wait for you.”

“You’ve waited longer.”

“But it’s different now.” He whined. “I want you all the time.”

“Well… maybe we could have a lunch date in the week?”

He smirked. “Like a naughty lunch date?”

My mouth fell. “Is that all I am to you? A tool for your pleasure?”

“That’s not all you are to me. But I do rather enjoy it…”

I rolled my eyes. “Rather than thinking about when you don’t have me, why don’t you make the most of my company now?”

He nodded fervently. “I can do that.”

In the next breath his lips were on mine, and while I hadn’t meant him to take it quite so literally, I certainly wasn’t going to push him away. Not when I enjoyed drowning in him so much.

I don’t know how long we were like it - just kissing and groping like the world was close to ending -, but it was some time. I was wired up, fired up, and ready to be filled up. My core was sweating with anticipation and I was ready to take him the way we both really wanted to. I was on top of him now, his shaft between my legs but not inserted, and causing all kinds of problems to my state of mind.

“Fóllame de todas las formas posibles,” I was breathless and eager as I spoke, clinging to him with every limb I could.

“You’ve said that before.” He heaved into my mouth.

“I’ve also told you what it means.” I said against his lips, eating at them like an ice-cream.

“You might have to tell me again.”

You’d think with it being such a dirty phrase he might’ve retained the meaning, but apparently not. “F-,”

My phone began to ring from wherever I’d abandoned it when entering the house. I pulled away, a little startled, and looked towards the front door.

“Leave it.” Harry begged, his kisses moving down to my throat.

They made me delirious, and I was very close to ignoring the call to carry on with our salacious adventure. But I refrained.

“I can’t, what if it’s Ruby?”

Harry sighed, nodding as he dropped his head against my chest. “No, you’re right.”

I took hold of his face and pressed my lips to his, and then clambered off him to retrieve my phone from its hiding place. The stone floor in the kitchen was a shock to my bare feet.

I just missed the phone call, but it was from my parents’ home phone. I immediately called it back. Harry appeared just then wrapped up in a blanket, and wrapped it around me so that we were cocooned inside together. I laid my head on his chest again.

“Mummy?” Ruby answered on the second ring.

“Ruby?” I asked, looking at the time on my phone. It was nearly midnight. “What are you doing up so late, are you alright?”

“Mummy, I can’t sleep.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, poppet. Where’s Grandma and Grandad?”

“They’re asleep. Grandma didn’t feel very well so she went to bed and Grandad looked really tired so we had to go early too and now I can’t sleep. But I don’t want to wake them up, not if Grandma isn’t very well.”

“That’s really good of you, Rubes, well done. But you really need to go back to bed and try to get some sleep. Can you do that for me?”

“I tried, Mummy, but I’m scared. Can’t you come and stay with me? I don’t want to be on my own.”

I took a deep breath and looked at Harry. He cocked his head at the sad expression on my face. “Yeah, I can come to you. I’ll be there really soon, alright? But you need to be in bed when I get there.”

Harry slowly nodded, apparently understanding what was happening.

“Okay, Mummy. Thank you.”

“No problem. I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

I put the phone down and sighed, resting my forehead against Harry’s chest.

“What’s the matter with her?” Harry asked softly.

“She can’t sleep, and it sounds like Mum and Dad are sick so I should probably go and keep her company.” I met his gaze again. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. She’s your baby - nothing more important than that.”

“We can definitely have that lunch date in the week to make up for it.”

Harry smiled. “You’ve got yourself a deal, señorita.”

I giggled and gave him a gentle kiss. 

“I’ll walk you down to the house.” He said against my mouth.

“You don’t have to do that, it’s not far.” I shook my head, pulling away and out of our little cocoon to collect my discarded clothes.

“I don’t care if it’s not far, it’s the middle of the night and I don’t want you out walking alone.”

I stared at him for a minute, a little taken aback by the sternness in his voice. “Okay.”

He nodded once and smiled. “Good.”

No more than ten minutes later, Harry and I had walked along the main road the short distance to my parents’ house on the square that wasn’t a square. We shared one last goodnight kiss before he left, and I let myself into the house as quietly as I could. 

Downstairs it was quiet and dark, although the shadows that lingered on the walls from my mother’s many trinkets and collectibles were still as creepy to me as an adult as they were when I was a child. I made my way upstairs, and the lamp in Ruby’s bedroom was turned on. She was in bed like I’d asked her to be, facing the door with her eyes wide open. Bongo was curled up fast asleep in his dog bed in the corner of the room. I shut the door behind me.

“Hola, querida.” I whispered.

“Hola, máma.” She replied in a quiet voice.

“¿Cómo estás?”

“No buena. My brain won’t go to sleep.”

“I’m sorry, poppet.” I sighed, stroking my hand over her soft hair. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t even know. I… I feel like everything is going to change and I don’t like it. I like things the way they are now - just me and you, and Grandma and Grandad and Bongo, and living here and doing the things we do together. I don’t want that to change.”

“Oh, baby. You don’t need to be scared - sometimes change can be a good thing. And I’m not saying that things are going to change. I certainly don’t intend on moving you away from here, or from your grandma and grandad. But take Oscar, for example. You didn’t see him coming and now he’s one of your best friends. That’s a change for good, isn’t it?”

“Yeah… But Oscar is different. He hasn’t changed my life, not really. He’s just in it now, when he wasn’t before. I don’t want someone to come and ruin the way we do things. I want to keep it this way forever and ever.”

This felt like a very mature conversation to be having with a seven-year-old. It also felt like a bit of an insult to Oscar and the friendship he’d provided for her, but who was I to argue. I was going to have to tread very carefully with my words. “Well, I can tell you that, for now, nothing will change. As far as I can see, nothing has to change for the foreseeable future. Everything will stay as it is. I promise.”

“You do?”

“I do. Now, I need to go and find some PJs from my old room. Can you wait two minutes for me to come back?”

“Okay.”

“Good girl.” I said, and kissed the top of her head.

In my old bedroom, I found an old t-shirt that I forgot even existed - a tie-dye red, yellow and turquoise Red Hot Chilli Peppers crop top. Never mind using it just as a pyjama top for the night, this was coming home with me tomorrow. I paired it with some old PJ shorts that clashed so much they’d make your eyeballs bleed. Apparently 16-year-old me thought that was a really good look.

I opened the window in Ruby’s room when I returned, and slipped under the covers beside her. It was perhaps a little too warm in there, but for the sake of my daughter’s sanity, I would suffer through it for the night. She was asleep within ten minutes.

In the morning I woke before Ruby, and I could hear one of my parents moving around downstairs, so I went down for an early breakfast. My mother was tidying the kitchen up after last night’s dinner.

“Buenos días.” I said quietly so as not to startle her, and sat at the table in the window.

My mother looked over her shoulder with a frown, and did a double take. “Buenos días… ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí? ¿Tu cita con Harry no fue bien?” What are you doing here? Did your date with Harry not go well?

“No… mi cita con Harry iba muy bien.” No… my date with Harry was going very well. “Ruby me llamó a medianoche diciendo que no podía dormir. Así que lo acortamos.” Ruby called me at midnight saying she couldn’t sleep. So we cut it short.

“Oh… lo siento, querida.” My mother pouted, stroking my cheek with the back of her hand. “I guess this is what the struggles of dating with children will be like.”

I hummed, my chin in my palm.

“Was Harry alright?”

She’d continued in Spanish, so I did too. “Yeah, he walked me here. I guess with having a child of his own he understands that they come first. We had a good evening regardless, it hasn’t changed anything.”

“Well that’s good. I honestly think you’ve hit a gold mine with that one - he’s a saint.”

“Mm… all men have their flaws.” I said dryly.

“What’s his?”

“He drives a Range Rover.”

“Oh,” my mother scoffed and swatted my arm with the tea towel in her hand.

I laughed, delighted with myself. “Bromeo, todavía no lo he encontrado.” I’m joking, I haven’t found it yet.

“Your father’s is that he constantly says he’s going to fix something and then never bloody fixes it. Or still, after 40 years of marriage, leaves the toilet seat up. Or doesn’t lock the shed door when he’s finished with it.”

All of those things seemed very discernible rather than complex. “Well, 40 years down the line and you’re still married to him, so he can’t be that bad.”

She sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You’re right - he’s not that bad at all.”

“Anyway, what were you going to do with Ruby today?”

“She was coming to the salon with me, wasn’t she?”

“Oh shit, yeah.” We both needed haircuts. “She might still want to do that.”

“Well, we can ask her when she wakes up.”

So, we did. I helped my mother make a big breakfast for the four of us, which easily roused my sleeping daughter and father. Ruby sank an entire glass of orange juice as soon as she sat down she was that dehydrated, and practically hoovered up her breakfast. At least I could always count on her appetite.

“Ruby, what do you want to do today - do you want to stay with me for the day at the salon?”

“Yeah! Can Bongo come?”

“Of course he can.”

“Mummy, will you be coming?” Ruby asked.

I took a deep breath. “I don’t know, poppet. It wouldn’t be very useful of me to be there, to be honest, so probably not.”

“Oh… but can I still go?”

“Of course you can - I can pick you up later? I’ll need to come back for a haircut after all of Abuela's appointments are finished anyway.”

“Okay!”

While Ruby was finishing up downstairs, I headed upstairs to have a shower and get dressed. I texted Harry while I was changing.

Floss 09:41 Did you have any plans today?

I waited for a response while I sorted my hair out, but never received one. Eventually, my phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Are you running away from your child?”

“Ha ha.” I said bluntly, and then spoke as quietly as I possibly could. “No, she wants to go with my mum for the day, so I’m free until about half four.”

He hummed, a short and thoughtful noise. “I think I know lots we can do in that space of time.”

“That’s good - you can tell me later.”

“Do you want me to pick you up?”

“I need to go home and change first - all I’ve got is yesterday’s clothes and a t-shirt from when I was a teenager.”

“What t-shirt is it?” He asked, flirting.

“I think you’d like it. It’s a crop top.”

“Will you wear it today?”

I laughed and immediately regretted it. “Not today, no. Maybe some other time.”

He sighed, the sound of faux disappointment. “Fine. I’ll be at yours in half an hour?”

“Sounds good.”

I collected my things and made my way downstairs - everyone was still in the kitchen. 

“Mummy, what were you laughing at?”

“Zara - she said something daft. Right, I’m going to head home to change and then run some errands. I’ll be back later to come and get you from the salon, okay?”

“Okay. Will you be going shopping?”

“Maybe… or I might save that for later so we can go together.”

“If you go before you pick me up, can you get me some sweets?”

“Oh, yes.” I said with a grin, and pecked the top of her head. “What sweets would you like?”

“Um…” she put her finger to her pursed lips, like a caricature in thought. “Surprise me!”

I giggled. “Alright, my darling, I will do that. Be a good girl for Abuela, okay?”

“Yes!”

“Buena. I’ll see you all later on.”

My small family said their goodbyes to me, and I quickly departed the house to walk home. 

It was another hot day, which meant another tear-up of my wardrobe to find something appropriate to wear. I didn’t know what Harry was thinking for us to do if he wanted to pick me up, but I assumed it meant escaping Bibury for a few hours, which I was more than okay with. Whatever it was, I’d be with Harry, which meant it could only be perfect.

nineteen

Harry picked me up as we arranged, wearing the same cream linens as yesterday with a white vest and a weird kind of pale blue Hawaiian shirt. I’d never looked at him and immediately thought ‘dad’ until now. He leaned over the centre console to give me a kiss once the door was closed, pushing his sunglasses into his hair first.

“Long time, no see.” He joked.

I laughed as I clipped in my seatbelt. “Gonna be like this for a while, I think. At least until Ruby is over whatever weird spot this is that she’s in.”

He hummed, pulling off. “We’ll manage.”

He drove us out to the Sherborne Estate and parked up a little out the way. I thought we’d be doing the same walk as I had done on Ruby’s birthday, but when Harry pulled a picnic basket out of his boot I grew a little confused. There was no way we’d be carrying that around with us for hours.

“I know a little spot.” He said with a smirk when he noticed the look on my face.

I lifted my head slightly. “Okay.”

I hoped his ‘little spot’ wasn’t far, because I was not wearing suitable clothing for a long walk. I had on a blue and white vertical pinstripe skirt that barely reached my knees, a white cropped t-shirt with a peach embroidered on the breast and some white hi-top Converse.

He took my hand to lead the way, in the opposite direction to where I would usually go. I supposed that was a good sign.

Harry led me through the trees that lined the estate, taking extra caution to keep me on my feet; ensuring I didn’t fall on my face. At this point we both knew it was a very high possibility that that might happen. The sun shone through the treetops so that everything had a golden glow and a lushness to it. The floor was covered in bluebells and thick ferns, spread wide and far right to the edges of the woodland.

Only a few minutes into the woods Harry stopped, picked the biggest bluebell he could find and handed it to me. The sentiment made me blush, and he pressed a kiss to my temple when I didn’t immediately say anything.

We walked a little further, in a direction that was completely lost on me. I was hoping and praying that wherever we went, that by the time we were home I wouldn’t be covered in grass stains and stinger rashes. If I’d have known we were going walking in the woods I would’ve put my jeans on.

The trees and grass grew thicker the further in we went, brushing around my ankles and my knees so that it tickled like feathers. I clung onto Harry’s hand as if my life depended on it, my gaze permanently fixed on the floor.

After maybe 20 minutes of walking, Harry suddenly stopped. I looked at him with a frown, but he didn’t meet my gaze. He just pulled back a thick mass of green leaves and dark branches and nodded me onwards.

“Tú primero, querida.” You first, darling, he said, and even though he wasn’t looking at me, I could still see that proud grin on his face.

I rolled my eyes and squeezed around his broad frame through the bristly bushes.

I found myself, somehow, inside a small, grove-like clearing. It was bright and open, no trees above us, filled with colourful wildflowers and bright green grass. There was a single park bench at the far end almost lost to the greenery around it, so it was obviously a known part of the estate, but there was no one else here. It was just Harry and I.

“Como demonios…” I muttered to myself as I stared around the private sanctuary, utterly bewildered. How had I lived here my whole life and not known that this place existed until now?

“What d’you think?” Harry asked, an excited lilt to his question.

“Er,” I laughed once, breathy, “I think it’s a pisstake that I’ve lived here forever and never knew this was even here, and that I’m being shown to it by an outsider.”

“An outsider?” He giggled. “Is that what you think of me?”

“Well, you’re not a local.” I argued.

“No, perhaps not. But I was married to one.”

His comment stunned me. That was the first time I’d heard Harry so much as mention Lottie since I’d known him. It seemed to come from him so easily that it took me by surprise.

“What?” He asked when I didn’t say anything. “Does that not count?”

I cleared my throat. “Oh, er, no, that’s not what I meant.”

“Do you not like it?”

Christ alive, Florence, get a grip.

“No!” I stressed, turning to face him. “I love it, it’s beautiful. I just can’t get over the fact that I didn’t know about it.”

“It is signposted.” He chuckled as he placed the basket on the ground.

I’d obviously missed that.

“Will you be happy with a picnic here?”

“God yes.”

Harry and I set up our picnic in the middle of the little grove, consisting of finger sandwiches, an abundance of deli meats and cheeses, more fruit than I knew what to do with and a half-bottle of champagne I couldn’t possibly try and pronounce the name of. His picnic blanket was made of a tartan fleece material and had a lining on the underside that was covered in sand. He’d obviously taken it to the beach with him at some point. I tried not to imagine the sand somehow finding its way into my shoes and between my toes. The mere thought made me want to cringe.

“There’s no way you had time to make all this up before you picked me up…” I said as I took a bite out of a salmon and cream cheese sandwich.

“What if I did?” He challenged.

“Well, you obviously didn’t.”

He chuckled. “No, I was hoping we’d get to do this anyway, so I made it up yesterday before I collected Oscar from school. If for some reason we couldn’t have it, I’d have just taken Oscar to the park and we’d have had it there instead.”

“Oh…” I pursed my lips. “Feel like I’ve kind of ruined your day with Oscar. That would’ve been nice.”

“Don’t talk bollocks.” He shook his head. “I did this for you.”

I tried to hide my smile and failed. “You did a good job. I’m a very happy girl.”

“Good.” He grinned, and leaned over to kiss my lips. “And, by the way, I really like your outfit.”

I looked down at myself. “You do?”

He nodded. “Look like you’re about to step onto Centre Court at Wimbledon.”

I was confused. “Don’t you have to wear loads of padding and funny hats at Wimbledon?”

He blinked at me a couple of times, equally confused. “Are you thinking about cricket…?”

“Is that not what they play at Wimbledon?”

Harry giggled. “No, Floss. Tennis is played at Wimbledon.”

“Oh,” I whined and hid my face in my hands. I should know that - my mother loves Freddie Flintoff. Un hombre tan fornido… she’d sigh out anytime he appeared on the telly, which roughly translated to ‘such a strapping man’. Dad would then grumble and call him a prick.

We carried on eating, with me trying extra hard at not saying anything else stupid while we chatted about our children and our work. I ended up lying on my back as I listened to him tell me a story about one of Oscar’s first accidents when he was around two. Lottie wasn’t present in the story but I couldn’t figure out if it was because she just wasn’t there, or because he didn’t want to mention her in the context, or because she’d already passed away. I guess Lottie wasn’t really integral to the story, but my mind did drift to her a lot.

By the end of his anecdote, Harry’s head was in my lap, both of us with our eyes closed because the sun was so bright, and I had one hand stroking through his hair while he held my other in his own. It was quiet apart from our light chatter - you couldn’t hear anything for miles apart from the odd bird and maybe a slight irregular breeze. I couldn’t remember ever feeling a peace like it.

I sat up on my elbows at one point, feeling the urge for a strawberry. I found the packet, keeping Harry where he was as I fished a few out and into my hand, and took a bite out of the largest one I had. I could feel his eyes on me, and I didn’t shy away from looking at him.

“Can I have one?” He asked in a near whisper.

I had a strong urge to say no, but refrained. “Of course.”

I took the next largest strawberry and fed it to him, his hand still around my wrist and his eyes still on mine. He ate the whole thing down to the stalk, and when he was done his lips were smattered with pink juice. It all felt kind of erotic, and I couldn’t help myself as I leaned over him and pressed my lips to his, kissing the strawberry juice away. His mouth tasted sweet over everything else, and I wanted to stay with him like that, with my mouth on his mouth, for the rest of the day. We kissed like that for a long time - him with his head in my lap and me folded over him, my right hand stroking his chest while my left played with his hair -, until I was uncomfortable and practically inviting back ache to pay me a visit.

Eventually we switched so that Harry was on his back and I was lying on top of him. Our lips never parted, at least not until I could feel something (you know the thing) between my legs and I wanted, no, needed, to taste that instead. I kissed my way down his front, pushing his unbuttoned shirt aside and lifted his vest up so I could marvel at his body. I kissed every inch of his chest, and I left a nice little love bite just under his right pectoral.

The whole time, Harry was talking in whispers - I couldn’t understand what he was saying and I wasn’t entirely sure he’d registered what I was doing.

I continued on down the length of his body until I was between his legs and my teeth were grazing his lower abdomen. He groaned loudly when I started brushing my palm against his crotch and lifted his head up.

“Are you really gonna do that here?” He asked breathlessly, but it wasn’t a defensive question. It was more like shock.

I had momentarily forgotten where we were, but considering I’d basically already tried to do this once before, when we were walking Bongo in the field behind my house, I was surprised he had to ask. Nevertheless, “Do you want me to do it here?”

“I really want you to do that here.”

I think I was smirking, but I couldn’t be sure. I continued showing his abdomen, which was very beautifully defined and toned, by the way, the attention it deserved while I unbuttoned and unzipped Harry’s linens. He was hard when I took him out, throbbing in my hand, warm to the touch and a kind of iridescent pink in colour. It made my mouth water.

And so, in the middle of that luscious grove I’d never heard of, surrounded by beautiful wildflowers and tall grass and with the sun at its highest and hottest, I gave Dr Styles head until he was writhing and ready to go. His hands were in my hair, holding it out of the way and tucking it behind my ear. It became so hot that I had to tie it up at one point. I also had my fingers in his mouth more than once, his tongue licking its way around my digits like they were an ice cream. We were making the most obscene noises - if anyone did discover us like that I would be mortified, but I was equally excited.

I can’t quite remember if he stopped me or if I stopped myself, but I do remember him sitting up a little to pull me towards him, my legs straddling his hips.

“Please tell me you have a condom?”

He smirked. “There’s one in the picnic basket somewhere.”

Without taking myself off him in the slightest, I leaned over to rummage through the basked one-handedly. I found it tucked away in one of the pockets that had the side plates in it, and I ripped it open, took it out of the foil and rolled it down Harry’s length. Then, I lifted my bum up, holding Harry’s dick in one hand and readjusting my underwear with the other. I didn’t even take my knickers off, I just moved the seat aside and sank down onto his thick length.

That familiar unified groan oozed out of us, and Harry sat up while he waited for me to adjust to him. He propped himself up on one hand, the other placed at the back of my head above the nape of my neck with a somewhat rough grip. His kiss was greedy and sloppy and he grunted into my mouth with such menace that I was getting wetter by the second.

I started rolling my hips over him, and I told him to lie back at the same time. He seemed reluctant, but he did what I said. As I rocked back and forth over him his hands travelled my thighs and my chest like an eager sea captain. He slipped them under my t-shirt to fondle my boobs, and I gripped his wrists when he did so. 

My pace grew faster and faster, Spanish words tumbling out of my mouth in high-pitched and breathless succession.

“Me haces sentir tan jodidamente bien.” I said, followed by, “Nunca me había sentido así antes.” To him and his basic knowledge of Spanish, that would sound like… well, not very much at all. I felt like I was opening up the floodgates. My head was rolling as if my neck were broken, I could barely concentrate.

Harry lifted his arse off the ground in time with the rolling of my hips, his length pushing deeper inside of me. His hands lowered to my bum, squeezing and gripping in silent encouragement to go faster. “Tell me what you’re saying.” He begged.

“Santa mierda,” Holy fucking shit, I hissed, a reaction to his movement.

“That’s a naughty saying.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Of course he somehow managed to retain the swearing phrases. I doubt he’d been taught them by his elusive Spanish teacher. “The fact that you know that tells me you’re not taking your lessons seriously.”

“I take them very seriously.”

I looked down at him and he was just watching me - his head in amongst the pretty grass, hair a knotted mess and body writhing with pleasure. His skin had a glowing sheen to it, hairline a little damp in the same way his chest glistened with sweat. He looked gorgeous. I wanted a picture of him like that, and I’d probably put it somewhere completely inappropriate, like the ceiling above my bed.

“What did you say?” He asked again.

“I said I’ve never felt this way before.”

He seemed to let the air leave him, tight chest relaxing. “Me neither.”

That made me smile. I wrapped my hands around both his wrists, and I forced one of his hands under my top to play with my tits again, and then with the other, I put his fingers in my mouth.

“Jesus Christ,” He muttered, watching me with an extreme intensity that I felt like I was suddenly performing. But I liked it.

I wet his index and middle finger until I was satisfied, a string of saliva following them when I took them out of my mouth, and guided them to between my legs. He did exactly what I needed him to, and rubbed against my clit in a way that made me squirm because it felt that fucking good.

Barely a minute later, the two of us unravelled together in the hot early summer afternoon, and I collapsed on top of him, heaving from exhaustion. He kissed me, slow and tender, until I got my breath back and he wasn’t so amped up. 

Harry cleaned himself up while I ate the rest of the sandwiches. Apparently shagging in the middle of a field can work up an appetite. Who knew? After we were completely done eating we packed everything up and walked back to the car, hand in hand and a little smitten.

“Can we still do lunch in the week?” Harry asked. I was holding his hand, keeping it in my lap as we drove back into Bibury.

“Sure,” I said, looking over at him with a smile, “what day?”

He pursed his lips. “How about Tuesday?”

“Sounds good to me. Just let me know on the day what time and I’ll come to you.”

Harry grinned, and he brought my hand up to his lips and kissed the back of it. “Deal.”

I turned slightly in my seat, resting my head against the backrest while I watched him. He’d calmed his tousled hair on our walk back and he looked a lot less flush in his face. He concentrated on the road, but occasionally, when he felt it was safe, he’d glance my way. That was another photo I wanted to take and keep, so I did. I fished my phone out from between my thighs and I took a picture of him like that. He didn’t even blush.

“That gonna be your new phone background?”

I gave a bitter laugh. “Only if you’re happy with Ruby murdering you.”

He shrugged. “Would be alright. I think I peaked today with what we just did.”

“You think that’s peaking?”

“Well, for now. There are… other things I’d like to do with you. But I don’t think you’ll let me anywhere near you in a dental room. Basically what I’m trying to say is that if I died today I’d die happy.”

I gave him a scrutinous look. “I don’t think that’s true, is it?”

“Why not?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Oscar?”

Harry pressed his lips together. “Yeah, alright. That’s fair.”

Harry dropped me off at home so I could change, and then I drove around to Mum’s salon to get my hair done and take Ruby shopping.

“Hola, querida,” My mother grinned at me as soon as I walked in the door.

“Hola, mamá.” I said, pecking her cheek as I passed. She was doing Ruby’s hair, putting it into plaits while wet. “Hola, mi amor.” I said to Ruby as I sat down in the chair next to her.

She grinned but didn’t say anything or move her head. She’d probably been told to sit very still.

“¿Entonces que hiciste?” What did you do, then? Mother asked me.

“Fui de picnic con ya sabes quién.” Went for a picnic with you know who.

She smirked, tied the last of Ruby’s braids with a tiny elastic band, and then looked straight at me. “Parece que la pasaste bien.” You look like you had a good time.

I narrowed my eyes at her. “¿Sentido?” Meaning?

“Parece que te han arrastrado a través de un seto hacia atrás.” You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.

I screwed my face up at her.

“Me alegra que te diviertas. Te lo mereces.” I’m glad you’re having fun. You deserve it.

“Abuela, can I get up now?” Ruby asked.

“Sí, querida. Vamos.”

Ruby stood up from the chair, and I stood too.

“Do you want to wash your hair?” My mother asked me.

I shrugged. “I don’t need to.”

“Alright, sit down then.” She nodded to the chair. “I’ll just give it a trim, yeah?”

“Por favor.”

“Mummy, did you get my sweets?” Ruby asked, sitting beneath the vanity table between my feet.

“I didn’t have time to go shopping, muffin. But we can go together now and you can pick something really naughty for dinner. How’s that sound?”

“Oh, yes! Can we do hot dogs?”

“If that’s what you want to do we absolutely can. And you can pick a new film to watch as well, yeah?”

My mother pulled my hair. She knew I was probably buttering her up.

“Yay!”

“Oh,” Mum leaned over my shoulder, “they’ve announced the dates for the county fair. It’s the weekend the kids break up for school - you should get together with Geri and Harry and arrange to go.”

Ruby was already looking at me, a blank expression on her face. I tried to play my worry off as nothing. “What do you think, Rubes? Do you want to go to the fair this year with Milly and Oscar?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“¿Qué quieres decir, tal vez?” What do you mean, maybe? My mother scoffed. She only said full sentences in Spanish with Ruby when she was irritated. “They’re your friends - don’t you want to go with them?”

“I do.”

“So why ‘maybe’, then? Aye? What’s all this ‘maybe’ nonsense?”

My daughter mumbled something, looking at the floor.

“I can’t hear you, Ruby.”

I didn’t very often hear my mum take a stern tone like that with Ruby.

“I don’t want Oscar’s daddy to go.”

I rolled my head back and took a deep breath. Ruby’s random and sudden dislike for Harry was beginning to upset me. Quite a lot. I could see things with Harry going a long way, and it would be a real shame if it couldn’t go any further than what we were doing now - sneaking around and behaving like teenagers - because Ruby didn’t want me to have a partner.

“And why not?” My mother demanded. “What has Oscar’s dad ever done to upset you?”

Ruby looked at me, then at her abuela, and then back to me. I knew what she was saying, without saying anything at all. And I also knew that if she did say it, my mother would lose her temper.

“Ah, come on.” I said, brushing my hand to try and make light of the subject. “It’s alright. We can just go on our own, can’t we Ruby?”

My daughter looked at the floor again and started playing with her feet.

“Ella se está volviendo egoísta, Florence.” She’s getting selfish, Florence.

“Ella está aterrorizada por el cambio.” She’s just terrified of change, I argued.

“El cambio es una parte natural de la vida. No puedes seguir mimándola porque es tu bebé.” Change is a natural part of life. You can’t keep coddling her because she’s your baby.

I knew my mother was right. We were both right, to some extent. Ruby needed to learn that in life things change when you least expect them to, even if we don’t like them. I also knew that she was the only thing I had - she was my entire world and I hated seeing her upset. But sometimes we have to upset the ones we love because it’s for the better.

Eventually I would have to tell Ruby that Harry and I were seeing each other. We hadn’t broached that subject with each other yet, but it was coming. I had no desire to see other people, and from what I could understand, he didn’t either. And whenever the time came to tell Ruby, she would just have to accept it.

twenty

Ruby was very quiet with me for that whole following week. I was somewhat offended, considering I wasn’t the one who’d challenged her on her opinions of the not-so-new dad in town. I was hoping that perhaps she’d change her mind about how she was feeling after the dressing-down from her abuela, but I knew that was optimistic of me. The only way Ruby would be changing her opinion was if it came from her own volition. She really was Latina in that way.

She spent most of her time in her room when we were at home, and I could never really hear much from her. Every time I went to put her to bed she was already in it and fast asleep, or if I went to check on her she would just mumble something incoherent and turn away from me.

It all escalated again on Tuesday.

I had to cancel my lunch date with Harry because I had too much to do and not enough time to do it. Unusually I was the first one to the school to pick Ruby up. I think that was a combination of both manic clock-watching to make sure I left on time and trying to get into my daughter’s good books.

Geri arrived shortly afterwards and started talking about Friday.

“We’ll be there straight after work, mate, don’t worry.” I said calmly, Geri thinking Zara and I had forgotten. Well, Zara might have done, but I hadn’t.

“Okay, good. ‘Cause I’ve bought a fuck load of alcohol and I intend to drink it. Preferably with the two of you, but I will do it alone if I have to.”

I gave Geri a concerned look. I hadn’t forgotten the conversation I’d overheard between her and Owen at Ruby’s birthday party. That felt like a lifetime ago, but it was there, in the back of my mind. Something else must’ve happened. “I promise you we’ll be there. Can’t have you drinking alone on a Friday night.”

“Well, you do it all the time.”

How rude.

In the next minute Harry’s car pulled in, and I tried my best not to behave like a teenage girl at the sight of her crush walking down the corridor. Geri was talking about my Friday nights and how dull they must be with Ruby at my parents and being alone in my home. I couldn’t wait to shatter that little imaginary scenario when I told her about Harry. I could tell my friends about him - that didn’t bother me at all.

When Harry approached us he stood on my right, and I felt him brush his finger along a short length of my arm. My hairs stood on end as he did and I tried not to shiver.

“Harry, will you tell Floss here that it’s not healthy to spend Friday nights alone every week.” Geri demanded.

I scowled at her, and then turned my attention to the dentist.

He looked at me with a kind of charged smile. “Geri’s right - that’s not healthy.”

“Thank you, Harry.”

“How I spend my Friday nights is nobody’s business.” I retorted.

“Well, you’re welcome at my house anytime, Floss.”

I whipped my head around and glared at him. He seemed perfectly at ease and it irked me. Were we children now? Why was I being teased? Why was Harry joining in?

Milly appeared in front of us then, and there were no other children even on the playground or remotely visible anywhere. How was she always the first one out the doors? Did she teleport here?

“Hello, darling.” Geri said breathlessly.

“Hi.” Milly smiled.

“Ready to go?”

She nodded, and so Geri took her hand and started walking away. “I’ll see you on Friday night, Florence!”

I rolled my eyes and gave her an irritated wave. Harry started giggling, so I smacked his arm.

“Ow.”

“If there’s anything you need to learn, it’s that you shouldn’t wind me up.” I warned him.

“Why don’t you just tell her we’ve been seeing each other?”

“I will be. On Friday. When Zara is also present.”

“You haven’t told Zara?”

“No, we have this rule. If we have news all three of us have to be there to share it. One isn’t allowed to know before the other.”

Harry’s brows lifted, and I was convinced he thought we were mental. We were, actually, a little bit mental.

“I’m sorry about lunch, by the way. I was really excited this morning and then a billion cars turned up and ruined it for me.”

“It’s alright,” He said with an easy smile, and his fingers were stroking up and down my arm again, “things like this are gonna happen, aren’t they?”

I gave him a solemn nod. “Do you want to try again tomorrow?”

He appeared to wince. “I think for now we should just ditch the idea of lunch dates. I was being greedy - it’s not going to work. I’ll just have to wait until next week, won’t I?”

I grunted. “Unless you somehow manage to convince Ruby you’re an angel so we can have dinner together, yes. We’ll just have to wait.”

“But I am an angel.”

“No you’re not.” I said, turning back towards the playground.

Ruby and Oscar were walking together, but they weren’t behaving like they usually did. Well, Oscar was. Ruby appeared to still be sulking. The two approached us together, but Ruby didn’t stop walking once they’d reached us. She carried on marching all the way up to the car.

I sighed and rubbed my cheek.

“Is she alright?” Harry asked, concern very apparent in his tone.

“No.”

“Why, what happened?”

I shook my head. “She got a bit of a telling-off from my mum on Saturday and she’s just been like this ever since.”

“That’s not like Ruby. Or your mum…”

“Tell me about it. But she’s not talking to me, either.”

Harry was silent for a moment, and I wondered if he understood what the problem was. “It’ll sort itself out, Floss. Just give her some time.”

I hummed, the sound dead. “I hope so.” I gave him another downhearted smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow to pick her up.”

“Alright, love.”

“Bye, Oscar.” I forced a better smile and a wave.

He did the same to me, and then we went our separate ways.

I unlocked the car for Ruby before I got there, and she wasted no time getting inside. The journey to Mum and Dad’s, though short, was silent, and I hated it. She didn’t comment on anything, she didn’t say anything about her day, she didn’t ask me a question. Nothing. If a pin ever did drop in that moment it would’ve been deafening.

At my parents’ house she ran straight up to her room there without even saying hello to anyone. I went straight to the sofa and curled up in a ball next to my dad.

“What’s going on? Why is she upstairs?” My mother asked as she leaned on the back of the sofa.

“She’s still not talking.”

“Really?” My mother kissed her teeth. “That’s some really petty nonsense right there, Floss.”

“Tell me about it. It’s like having a teenager.”

“Well, it’s because you let her believe it’s an acceptable way to behave.”

Of course this was all my fault. My mother was the one who upset her but I was the one getting the blame for it? But then the more I thought about it, I realised maybe it was my fault. I was the one who started sleeping with the sexy dentist in the first place. 

Curse me and my raging hormones.

“Go and get her, Dave.” My mother patted Dad’s arm. “I’m not having her come here for dinner to hide in that room all evening. She can go home if that’s what she’s gonna do.”

I redacted the fact that going home to her own bedroom was exactly what Ruby wanted to do.

Dad stood from his place with a displeased groan and disappeared to try and coax my daughter downstairs. I stayed put and stared at the TV without registering what was going on. My mother went back into the kitchen to finish cooking dinner.

Ten minutes later my dad was back, without Ruby. “She’s not coming.” He announced with a long sigh.

“No,” Mum slapped her tea towel on the counter and marched into the hallway, muttering as she went, “no soy un hostal, soy su abuela. Ella se sentará aquí con el resto de nosotros y nos mostrará un poco de respeto.”

I sat up and watched her storm about the house, terrified. I hadn’t seen my mother like this since I was a teenager.

“Ruby Fuentes-Carter!” She screamed up the stairs. “I do not invite you to this house for dinner so you can sit in that room and ignore us. Come downstairs right now! No me importa por lo que estés molesto, comerás con nosotras si te gusta o no.”

A door opened upstairs, and this little voice shouted, “¡No estoy llegando!” I’m not coming!

I put my head in my hands, an ache in my chest.

My mother went back to stomping around, making passive aggressive comments that flipped between Spanish and English, sometimes mid-sentence.

“I’m not feeding her.” She told me, pointing a finger at me, and then carried on. A minute later she came back and said, with the same stature, “I am not feeding her, Florence. If she’s going to behave like that in my house she can go without her dinner, I don’t care.”

And I knew she meant it, too, because I spent many nights in my room without dinner when I was 14 or 15. Except Ruby was only half that age, and it was really unusual. It seemed like an immense overreaction on her part to being given a little challenge by her grandma. 

I stood up and without looking at anybody said, “I’m gonna take her home.”

“What about your dinner?” My mother asked, hands on her hips and offence written right across her face.

“Mum, I’m not gonna let you feed me but not Ruby. That’s ridiculous.”

“No, what’s ridiculous is this attitude she’s got all of a sudden. All because her mamá might have someone else in her life that means she won’t get every single ounce of attention. She should be happy for you, Florence. You have been on your own for so long and you have finally met somebody who obviously makes you happy. And she’s throwing a temper tantrum because she’s ‘scared of change’. I am not having it for you. She should be over the fucking moon.

“I know you tried really hard to make sure she didn’t turn into a typical only child brat stereotype by giving her things in moderation. Trivial things, functional things. But you forgot about the other thing. You had two parents growing up as an only child, and she has only ever had you. And it’s very possible that she will only ever have you. She has no idea what it’s like to share a person because she’s never had to, and unless you put your foot down, she never will.”

And once again, my mother made an all-too-valid point.

I got mum to pack up two small plastic containers full of the dinner she’d made for us, and I took Ruby home and let her have it in her room. As soon as I’d done the washing up I went straight to bed and fell asleep, and I didn’t wake up until the next morning when my alarm went off.

On Wednesday and Thursday when I picked Ruby up from Harry’s, he told me Ruby had been just as quiet as she had all week (aside from her outburst on Tuesday with my mother). Apparently even Oscar had noticed it, because she was taking it to school with her.

I knew I needed to say something to her. She was about to spend the night at her grandma’s house and Daniela Fuentes would not take another episode lightly of whatever Tuesday was.

“Ruby, can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked, gesturing at the breakfast table before we even left the house on Friday morning.

She didn’t answer me, she just sat down and looked at her feet. I took the opposite seat and leant my weight on the table.

“If we’re going to have this conversation I need you to be looking at me.”

My daughter still never shifted her gaze, and her face was sullen.

“Ruby,”

She shook her head.

I gritted my teeth. Bongo was sitting on the floor staring between the two of us. He made a small whine and then stood, moving towards Ruby and muzzling his nose into her limp hand. She didn’t so much as flinch.

“Look at me, please.”

Still she glared at the floor, and I was losing my temper.

“Ruby!” I shouted, and I smacked a hand to the tabletop.

She jumped, and looked my way. Her eyes were wide and startled.

“I don’t know what I’ve done, or your grandma’s done, to deserve whatever this behaviour is from you, but it ends right now. Right now. You shouted at your abuela the other day in her own home and it was not okay, I did not raise you to be that way and neither did she. Whatever it is that’s going on, it ends now, because she is not going to tolerate it again.”

Ruby looked at me with a stare that was so emotionless it terrified me. “Abuela upset me.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled. “All she did was question you. In her head she can’t justify your reasoning for being upset, and neither can I. You’re terrified of change and that’s fine, but nothing is changing. Nothing.”

“You lied to me!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“You said you didn’t have a boyfriend and it was a lie!”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, Ruby!”

She started to cry. Apparently all of my daughter’s frustrations and anger and sadness had finally come to the surface, and they bubbled over like hot, aggressive lava. “I know you do! Oscar told me - you’ve been seeing his daddy when I go to Abuela’s! I said I didn’t want you to have a boyfriend!”

I rolled my head back and dragged my hands down my face. “Ruby, you might be too young to understand this, but Harry and I have labelled nothing. We haven’t decided what we are yet, okay? Yes, I have been spending time with Oscar’s daddy when I can, because I like him. I like him a lot, actually. But you have always been the most important thing to me - I said that, didn’t I?”

“So why are you choosing him over me?”

“I’m not.” I was exasperated. “When have I ever done that?”

“Saturday!”

“What are you talking about?”

“You said you weren’t coming with me and abuela because you had things to do. And you didn’t do them! You went to see Oscar’s daddy.”

I sat back a little. “Okay, yes. Fine. I did go and see Harry instead of doing what I said I was. I lied to you, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. That being said, I specifically gave you the option of coming with me or staying with Grandma, and you chose to stay. If you wanted to come with me, we would’ve done whatever you wanted to do.”

“You should’ve stayed with us.”

I took a deep breath, and then another. “I don’t know where you picked up this behaviour from, but it ends now. Do you understand?” I said in the sternest voice I could muster. “It is not up to you to dictate to me what I do and when I do it - I am your mother. You listen to me. Grandad is picking you up from school today, and you need to have got rid of whatever this attitude is by the time he does. Because Grandma might have lost her temper yesterday, but it is nothing compared to what your grandad can do.”

She scowled at her lap, remaining wordless again.

“Go and get in the car.”

That evening at Geri’s house I welcomed the first glass of wine she handed me. It was gone within five minutes, and she very quickly topped it up again.

“Oh, mate.” Zara cooed, rubbing my back.

“What’s going on with you?” Geri asked, sitting at the corner end of her ridiculously large sofa. “Is Ruby still playing up?”

“Yeah…” I said and gave a heaved sigh. “We had a massive fight this morning, the worst one we’ve ever had.”

“I went into the office at lunchtime and she were crying.” Zara said tightly. “Didn’t know what to do with myself. Her sandwich got all soggy.”

I laughed around at the reminder and leaned my head against her shoulder. It was true - at lunchtime, with five minutes too many to think about the state of my relationship with my seven-year-old, I’d burst into tears and cried into my sandwich until it was inedible.

“What’s wrong with her?”

“I told her she needed to sort out her attitude before she went to my mum and dad’s tonight ‘cause they wouldn’t be having it. She got so upset, it was really frustrating.”

“What’s she upset about, though?” Geri was frowning. “I know she’s been in a mood all week but you never said why.”

I chewed my lip, gaze flitting between the two of them. “I’ve been seeing someone.”

Geri’s mouth fell open, and Zara’s eyes went wide, charged with excitement. “Let me guess,” Zara started, “Darren?”

“What?” I frowned. “Ew, no.”

Geri swatted our friend’s arm. “It’s Harry, isn’t it?”

I failed at not smiling. Suddenly the room filled with delighted squeals. Zara stood up and started jumping around, and Geri launched herself at me once our wine glasses were a safe distance away, tackling me into the opposite corner of the sofa.

“I fucking knew it!” Zara screamed.

“Er, no you didn’t.” I argued, regaining my composure.

“Fine, I didn’t. But still, this is great news!”

“I’m so happy for you.” Geri said, still clinging to me. A tear rolled down her face.

“Thank you… Yeah. It’s early doors but it’s going really well. And I do really like him. Like, a lot.”

“How did it happen?” Zara asked, sitting back down.

“Half term.” I recollected my wine and took another large gulp. “You know I told you he broke down and I had to go and get him?”

“That day?!”

“Well, the day after. When he came to get his car from the garage.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

I looked at Geri, confused. “What do you mean?”

“He came to collect his car from the garage and then asked you on a date? Bit dull.”

“Oh,” I chewed my lip again, “not exactly.”

Zara gasped. “You did it in the garage?!”

I blushed and giggled so much I had to hide my face. More squealing ensued.

“You dirty bitch!” Zara was cackling.

“Look, I know you two think I’m some kind of nun, but I’m not, alright?” I was defensive but I was entertained. “I’ve slept with a lot more people than you think I have.”

“How many are we talking?”

“I don’t know, I never counted.” I shrugged.

“More than ten?”

“Oh, easily.”

“Twenty?”

“More.”

“Thirty?”

I stopped and thought about it. “Yeah, probably. Thirty-one if you count Harry.”

Zara’s laughter sounded like barking. “Why didn’t you tell us you were a bit of a slag?”

I kissed my teeth. “Because you were always badgering on at me to find a long-term boyfriend and I didn’t want that. Not then, anyway.”

“Aw.” Geri mumbled, rubbing my back. “Finding out that you’re a tart has made my day. No, my whole month.”

“Maybe even her year.” Zara sniggered.

“Piss off.” I said, laughing.

“So, what’s Ruby’s problem?”

I sighed. “She doesn’t want me to have a boyfriend because she doesn’t like change. I mean, me and Harry haven’t even gone near that whole labelling stuff yet, we’re just… I don’t know, we’re still learning about one another. Really, I barely know him. Took me until last week to realise that he’s Lottie’s husband.”

“Is he?” Zara asked with a furrowed brow.

“Of course he is, you twat.” Geri rolled her eyes.

“I thought their baby was like two years old?”

“He was when Lottie died. Five years ago.”

Zara screwed her face up. “That’s awkward. Does he talk about her?”

“Never.” I shook my head.

“Anyway, back to Ruby.” Geri pushed on. “You told her you’re seeing him and she got upset?”

“Well, no. I hadn’t told her anything. It’s only been, like, two weeks, for crying out loud. I thought I’d have at least a month or two before I needed to tell her, but as soon as it happened she started going off on how she doesn’t want things to change and me having a boyfriend would ruin that. Then on Saturday at the salon Mum said something about the county fair and all of us going, and Ruby said she didn’t want Harry to go, and my mum got really arsey with her.”

“Does your mum know?”

“Oh God, yeah. Can’t hide shit from that woman, she knew as soon as I arrived in Perranporth.”

“You were glowing.” Zara giggled.

“No, that’s literally what she said to me!”

Zara threw her head back laughing. “Amazing.”

“So… yeah. My mum really likes Harry and she was really excited for me, and I think she just got upset that Ruby isn’t. Especially because until she found out that we’d started seeing each other she really liked him.”

“She just needs to get over it, Floss.” Geri shrugged.

“Everyone keeps telling me that. But you’re not the ones living with her.”

“That’s the only child syndrome coming into play.” Zara said, pursing her lips.

“Exactly what my mum said.” I huffed. “I’ve concentrated too hard on not giving her what she wants all the time in terms of materialism that I forgot about teaching her to share people… Me.”

“It is, it’s learnt behaviour. She knows that she can get you whenever she wants you because you’ve always done it.”

I gasped. “You know last Friday night, I was with Harry and she called me to say Mum and Dad were sick and she couldn’t sleep. I went right to her.”

Both Geri and Zara wore the same mirrored expression; pressed lips around a cringe.

“I literally didn’t think of that. I mean it wasn’t far so I just went and spent the night with her and she was asleep within 5 minutes of me being there.”

“She’s clever, has to be said.” Geri laughed, but it was tight and nervous.

“Clearly doesn’t get it from me.”

“I know she’s your baby and you love her. You’re such a great mum, Floss, you don’t need to debate that ever. But Ruby needs to learn that change happens. Hell, shit happens. And she ain’t gonna like some of it, but that’s the way the world works. She can’t throw a tantrum every time something happens that she don’t like. You’ll be walking on eggshells around her.”

“No, I know.” I said, somewhat resigned.

“Anyway,” Zara held her glass up, “let’s have a toast to Florence finally finding a man she really likes. It’s only taken her twice as long as the rest of us.”

I scowled at her and drank out of my glass without raising it.

“We’re really happy for you, Floss.” Geri said, and it was in a much more sincere and serious tone than we’d been speaking before.

I held her gaze for a while, and I realised that this was Geri’s emergency girls night. Not mine. I’d spent all of it so far talking about me and my own problems. We were supposed to be here to talk to Geri about hers.

“Are you alright?” I asked her directly. It was vague enough to be considered a question for everyone, but I meant it just for her.

After a moment of silence, Geri finally said. “We’re getting a divorce.”

I kept looking at Geri, but I could see Zara shifting her gaze between the two of us, head moving like a bird in a cuckoo clock. “Who is?”

“We are.” Geri moved her gaze from me to Zara. “Me and Owen.”

“What?” She shifted her body to look directly at Geri, and only Geri. “Why? What happened?”

She cleared her throat. I just rubbed circles into her back. “I, er… It was me, I asked for it.”

I rested my head on her shoulder, because it felt like she’d probably need it. Zara had no idea what was coming and I thought it would be good for at least one of us to be holding onto her when she finally told us her news.

“Really?” 

“Yeah. I… I met someone else.”

“Oh my God, who?”

“Her name is August. She’s another mum but she lives in Meysey Hampton.”

Zara’s expression shifted so many times in a single second it gave me whiplash, but eventually she just lifted her head as if she understood. “I see. How did you meet?”

“Gymnastics. Her daughter and Milly are in the same class.” Geri was shrugging but something seemed odd about it. It was like she was embarrassed to admit that she’d started seeing a woman, and I couldn’t figure out why immediately. “We were always talking, always chatting at the sessions. I thought I was crazy for a bit, ‘cause she was quite flirty and I thought she meant it in the same way us guys do. You know how girlfriends flirt with each other?”

“Fuck yeah.” I said into her shoulder.

“But I liked it. In the back of my mind I knew it wasn’t the same. She was flirting with me, and I fucking loved it. And she’s gorgeous, you know? God I felt so odd. I’d both love and hate going to those sessions when it was like that, ‘cause I wanted to see her but I knew I shouldn’t. I’m married. To a man. And I have two kids, and it would destroy us, doing that.”

“So what happened?”

“I started sending Owen. Made him feel bad, said he needed to spend some time with his daughter outside the house.”

“Oh, Ger…”

“I know, it’s bad. But I wanted August to see that we were a family, you know? I wanted her to stop. Anyway, I had to take Milly to her lesson myself one day a few months later because Owen was out of town. August was there, cheerful as ever. She started doing it again, flirting, and I ended up telling her to kind of back off. I think she was offended, but she got it. We barely spoke to each other again for a while.”

I frowned, looking at her. “But that makes it sound like you kind of ended it.”

“Yeah, well that’s what I thought. A few months later, Christmas time,”

“Hang on…” Zara stopped her, “this is last year?”

Geri nodded. “Yeah, I know. Not great. Er, yeah, Christmas time, I was out with work for our staff party, and we went to The Bull in Fairford, we had this private room for dinner, it was really nice. When we were done and leaving I noticed her, August, in the main part of the pub. Thought it was a bit weird ‘cause I think it was a Tuesday or something. Anyway, I gave her a little smile, nothing massive, I just didn’t want to be rude, and I went outside.

“Everyone else had lifts or taxis pre-booked, but I didn’t. Owen was on parent duty so he couldn’t leave the kids at home. So I went back inside and tried to order a taxi with someone at the bar. Before I could, August offered to drive me home. I did try and get a taxi again, but she was really insistent, right. Talking about saving money and she wouldn’t be a very good friend if she didn’t. She’s really persuasive.”

Zara and I shared a look.

“So August drove me home. We talked about the kids, how they’re getting on, what we were doing at the pub, how work was going. You know, normal shit that friends talk about. I threw in some shit about Owen just to remind her that I am married and technically unavailable. I think she found that funny. Just before we got into Bibury she pulled over, you know in that parking bay on Salt Way?”

I did know the parking bay on Salt Way, it was right by my house. If my memory served me rightly, it was a dogging site.

“The dogging one?” Zara asked, unfazed.

Geri let her head fall in her hands. “Yeah, that one.”

“Geri, you don’t have to… butter this up so much.” I told her, wrapping my arms around her middle. “You can say that you fancied her and something happened on Salt Way and you don’t want to take it back.”

“Shut up, Floss, I want her to finish the story in all its gory detail!” Zara whined, and Geri laughed.

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad? That you shagged a sexy MILF on the side of a road in the middle of the night while your miserable husband was at home with your children?” Zara never had hidden her dislike for Owen. “Fuck no, I hope you did it every day!”

I shook my head. “Look, perhaps it could’ve been in better circumstances… But, it happened. And it obviously happened for a reason, right?”

“I hope so. I’m splitting our family up because of it.”

“No, but seriously. What made you change your mind after she pulled over?” Zara begged, patting Geri’s hand like a needy cat.

“Oh, I was really selfish. I felt like such a shitbag afterwards.” Geri scratched her face.

“Go on, be honest.”

“It was her body.”

Zara gasped, and then purred really loudly. “Yes?”

“I have never been more attracted to anyone than I am to August. Ever. Not even Owen. I think Owen is handsome as shit, but August is like, fuckin’ beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous beautiful. She was wearing this sparkly shift dress with big silver sequins on it. And it did absolutely fuck all for her ‘cause I’ve seen her in t-shirts and jeans and that woman is curvacious. And I wanted to see her without it, I really did.

“She said she was pulling over because her engine light had come on.” Geri looked directly at me. “I know that was a lie - her engine light did not come on. I’ve had too many lectures from you to know when something is or isn’t wrong with a car.”

“That’s my girl.” I said proudly.

“I was in two minds. I knew she was stalling, and I really wanted to go home and be a good wife, but I also desperately wanted to see what she looked like naked. I got out of the car after about two minutes of arguing with myself, and I closed the bonnet while she pretended to know what she was doing, and she looked right at me, wide eyed. And I said  “What do you want from me?”  and without hesitation she said  “I want you.” Girls, I was like a woman reborn that night, I shit you not.”

“You’ve never been with a girl before August?” Zara asked.

“No, never. I kind of fancied women when we were younger. Before I was with Owen I’d sometimes watch lesbian porn, but I’d never tried anything. I didn’t know how to. I guess the term they use now is queer? That’s what I thought I was.”

“Turns out you’re actually just a lesbian.”

“Jesus Christ.” I muttered, hiding my face against Geri’s back.

“Yeah, no, that’s exactly it.” Geri laughed.

“Have you got a picture of August?” I asked, voice quiet.

“Sure.” Geri said, and fished her phone off the table. She flicked through her photos and eventually decided on one of the two of them together. It was a selfie, both of their faces filling the screen so I had no idea where they were. They weren’t dressed up or anything. Hell, they could’ve even been at one of Milly’s gymnastics events. But Geri wasn’t wrong - August was a very beautiful woman. An oval face and big green eyes, wild red hair and freckles right the way across her cheeks and nose. Her lips were small but plump, a well-defined cupid’s bow under a little round nose.

“Oh yeah, I get it.” I laughed. “She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah, no wonder you were so keen to get her out her knickers.” Zara agreed. “So, did you have sex in the car? On the bonnet? Against the car? In the bushes?”

“All of the above?” I suggested.

Geri was laughing again and it was lovely to hear. “Er, against the car, mostly. It was very confusing because we were very hot even though it was very cold outside.”

“You saucy cow.”

“Do you feel better?” I asked, resting my chin on Geri’s shoulder again.

“I do, actually. I’ve been keeping this to myself for a long time and it’s nice to be able to talk about it in a positive way. To some degree, at least. I do feel guilty about how it happened. I just also wanted to wait until me and Owen had reached an agreement.”

“That’s fair. What is your agreement?”

“He’ll be moving out, and the kids will go to him every Wednesday and every other weekend. It’s a scary time for them. I don’t know if they’re old enough to be mad at me for it.”

“I don’t wanna say that’s not gonna happen eventually, because it would be a lie.” Zara said, serious for the first time all evening. “But then when they’re adults they probably will understand. Sexuality is a difficult thing to grasp when you’re a child. It shouldn’t be, it should just be what it is.”

“Do you think my sexuality and the impact it’s had on us as a family will reflect on how they see me in the future? Do you think they’ll… I don’t know, will it turn them into, you know, something bad?”

“Are you trying to ask me if I think your actions now will cause your children to become homophobic when they understand what’s happened?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m asking.”

“As long as you continue to raise them the way you have been now, you know, brilliantly and with a good moral compass, then no I don’t. I think they’ll be amazing people.”

It had never occurred to me that something like that would happen. That children might be negatively affected by their parent’s coming out later on in their life. I desperately hoped that wouldn’t happen, not to Geri or anyone. She was an amazing mum, regardless of what was going on with her romantic life. Whenever her children came to realise what had happened, I hoped they would understand.

I felt rough the next morning. We drank a lot. After an evening of revelations we decided to clean up with Geri’s alcohol purchases and dance around the living room with music from our childhood blaring out of every possible speaker. It was nice to be that drunk and that free with my friends again like we were teenagers in a field with illegally-bought booze, and it was the perfect temporary distraction.

I’d fallen asleep on Geri’s sofa the long way, and Zara had passed out on the short edge. Her feet were hanging off the end and she was using my ankle as a cushion. That couldn’t be comfortable. Geri woke us up by opening all the windows in the house and boiling the kettle at the same time as she put on the coffee machine that sounded like an alien spaceship.

“Just because she’s gay now, doesn’t mean she can be a loud bitch.” Zara grumbled, rolling onto her front.

I lightly kicked her. “Don’t be nasty.”

We were fed an absolute feast by Geri that morning - a full English breakfast and all the extra trimmings you could ever think of. I felt fat by the time I was finished.

“Floss,” Geri pulled me to one side before I left to go home and shower.

“Yes, mate?”

“Did you know about… you know, before last night?”

I looked outside the open front door. Zara was already inside Mickey’s car. “Yeah, I did. I overheard you fighting at Ruby’s birthday party.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because you obviously weren’t ready to talk about it, and it’s not my secret to discuss, with you or anyone else. I wanted to wait until you were ready and do it on your terms.”

Geri looked at me for a long time, and then she wrapped herself around me in the tightest hug we’d shared for a long time. “You’re a really fucking good friend. I hope you know that, mate.”

“Thank you. And so are you.” I pulled back and held her face. “Don’t let your guilt eat you up, please. Having kids is hard, but they love you and they’ll understand. Whether it be when they’re older or right away. You don’t need to be worried about anything else.”

I walked home and had the longest, coldest shower I could tolerate. It was unbearably warm again, so when I redressed, I chose the thinnest t-shirt I owned and a pair of denim shorts. Before I left to collect Ruby I tidied up a bit, putting her room in order since she’d left it in such a mess while spending so much time in there. I also put a load of washing on so it’d be ready to hang out and dry when I came back.

When I got to the house on The Square that wasn’t a square, Bongo was the first one to greet me. He seemed less excitable than usual even though he was licking my hand and all up my arm. But he was whining a little.

“Good morning my handsome boy.” I fussed him, more than I usually would in the hopes of cheering him up. “What’s going on, aye? What’s going on? Why’re you crying?”

“He’s been like it all morning, I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” My mother said, appearing from the kitchen.

How odd. I picked him up and cradled him like a baby, his big dopey eyes staring up at me. “What’s happening, aye? What’s got you so down?”

I put him down after a minute of cooing and kisses, and went to hover in the kitchen while my mother did the washing up. “What’s Ruby been like?”

“I haven’t seen her. As soon as she got here yesterday she went straight up to that room and she hasn’t been down since.”

I sighed. “Has she eaten?”

“Nope. Called her down for dinner and breakfast. Nothing. Not a peep.”

“Great. Our conversation yesterday was clearly a waste of time.”

“What did you talk about?”

“It was more shouting than talking. I told her she needed to snap out of whatever this bollocks is and she just kept calling me a liar. I told her about Harry and she said I’m choosing him over her. It’s been, like, two or three weeks, I don’t know how that’s even possible.”

“She’s just being dramatic.”

I sighed again, heavier. “I’ll go and get her, take her out your hair.”

I trudged my way up the stairs, and Bongo followed right behind me, still whimpering. I knocked on Ruby’s door and pushed it open, “Ruby?”

I looked around, expecting to see her on her bed, or in it. But she wasn’t.

“Ruby?” I asked again, peering around the door. 

She wasn’t in there. All her school bags and her uniform were on the floor next to Bongo’s bed, but there was no sign of my daughter in this room.

I tried the bathroom next, since that was logically the next place to go looking. But she wasn’t in there, either.

I called her name again, “Where are you?”

I tried my room, wondering if maybe she wanted to sleep in my bed for a change, but that was as it always was. I tried my parent’s room after that, but that room was also empty.

“Ruby?!”

I suddenly felt very sober.

I ran downstairs and into the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” My mother asked, irritated.

“Mamá, ella no está aquí.” Mum, she’s not here, I said breathlessly.

“¿Qué quieres decir con que ella no está aquí?” What do you mean, she's not here?

“¡Quiero decir que Ruby no está aquí! ¡Ella se ha ido!” I mean she’s not here! She’s gone!

The colour drained from my mother’s face.

“Did you check on her before you went to bed?” I asked, and I was panicking. A lot. “Mum?!”

“No, I was still angry with her…”

“And Dad? Did he check? Where is he?”

“He’s gone golfing… but he went alone, I watched him leave.”

“Mamá…” I started crying. “¿Por qué no la miraste antes de irte a la cama?” Why didn’t you check on her before you went to bed? “I know you’re angry and upset but she’s seven years old, Mum! She’s a child! You put your ego aside for shit like this, she’s a baby! She doesn’t know any better!”

“Florence, I’m sorry.”

“Call Dad and tell him to come home.” I said, already leaving.

“Where are you going?!”

“Where the fuck do you think I’m going?!”

I ran, yes ran, back to the house to see if Ruby managed to get home and I’d just missed her. I tore the place up - I undid all my cleaning work and looked through every room in my house to see if she was there, but she wasn’t.

I started knocking on all the doors in the close to see if they’d seen her, but no one had.

“Have you checked the field?” One neighbour asked me. He was a bit of a recluse but he’d always been nice to us. At Christmas he always gave me a bottle of wine and Ruby a chocolate selection. He used to be in the army - he had a trained dog.

I looked out at the field between the houses and I felt sick. “No, I haven’t.”

“You keep knocking on doors, I’ll take Denny out into the field, okay?”

“Thank you,” I blubbered around my tears.

“Do you have something of hers the dog can sniff?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

I ran back to the house and found a teddy from her bed, then left it with him. “Take it with you. If you find her before me I want her to have something familiar.”

The neighbour nodded, and I carried on down the close with my knocking. By the time I reached the end of the road no one had seen her. Not a single person. Wherever Ruby was, she hadn’t come home.

More coming soon!