#linked excerpts

[fettesans]

Top, screen capture from Material Witness OR A Liquid Cop, Ed Atkins, 2012. Watch (ubu is back btw). Bottom, Roman Signer, Wagen, 1998, 120 x 108 x 60 cm. Via.

--

The social dimension of pain is thus suppressed and repressed. Chronic pain, a pathological phenomenon of the burnout society, does not give rise to protest. In the neoliberal society, tiredness is apolitical. It is a tiredness-of-the-I, a symptom of the overstretching of the narcissistic subject of performance. Tiredness isolates us instead of binding us together into a We. I-tiredness must be distinguished from We-tiredness, which is the product of a community. I-tiredness is the best defence against revolution.

Byung-Chul Han, from The Palliative Society, 2021. Via.

--

Accelerationalism began life as the British cousin of the Californian philosophy of Extropianism, which also began in the early 1990s (as I wrote here). There’s a similar anarcho-libertarianism, hyper-capitalism, worship of new technology and expectation of a sudden leap beyond the human. But this wasn’t California, it was Coventry — and Accelerationism was much darker and more nihilistic than Californian transhumanism. After all, Land’s first book was called ‘Thirst for Annihilation’.

Land has said: ‘I have no interest in human liberation, or liberation of the human species. I’m interested in liberation of the means of production’. In other words, Accelerationism had nothing to do with expanding human potential. This was not Californian self-help. This was about liberating the machine from the human. Accelerationism aimed to push capitalism further and faster, until it’s just machines whirring round in a lifeless universe. Pure Fordism.

The CCRU grew out of cybernetics, and the sense that humans are agents in a world full of other agents — machines, ecosystems, DNA, perhaps demons as well. All these entities have desires. Machines have desires. Why foreground human desires and aspirations? The obvious answer is because we’re human. But that’s not enough for post-human philosophies. For Accelerationists, the aim is the liberation of What Technology Wants. Here’s a quote from a good write-up by Yuxi Lin at LessWrong:

our world, with its cars, finances, AI, and other industrial technologies, has a clear goal of its own: a future dominated by more upgraded versions of these technologies, with humans becoming extinct or irrelevant.

You can come across this idea in Californian transhumanism / Extropianism too. It’s humans’ glorious destiny to be supplanted by AI machines. But transhumanists typically imagine super-intelligent spiritual machines, far smarter than humans. It’s a worship of intelligence. With Accelerationism, at least in Land’s case, I get the feeling it’s more a misanthropic hatred of the human condition and a desire to annihilate consciousness and replace it with the machine. It’s philosophy as modish death-wish.

Jules Evans, from Accelerationism, amphetamine philosophy, and the Death Trip, January 21, 2023.

[fettesans]

Screen captures from Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justine Triet, 2023.

--

Back in 1991 when the book (Mirror Worlds: or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox...How It Will Happen and What It Will Mean) was first published, just over 1% of Americans were using the internet. But Gelernter claimed computing was about to revolutionize life on Earth. “This book describes an event that will happen someday soon,” he wrote in the opening line. “You will look into a computer screen and see reality. Some part of your world — the town you live in, the company you work for, your school system, the city hospital — will hang there in a sharp color image, abstract but recognizable, moving subtly in a thousand places.”

In essence, Gelernter believed that every aspect of life could soon be modeled in a parallel digital simulation. Everything happening in our lived reality would be tracked and monitored and fed into software “by a steady rush of new data pouring in through cables” to create a high-fidelity real-time digital representation of the world and all of its pulsing, swarming and sensuous qualities. This would be like Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse on steroids: our exact world, our very lives, all digital. And you could view, manipulate, experience and interact with this mirror world, like a child with a dollhouse. A dashboard for reality.

These “high-tech voodoo dolls,” as Gelernter described them, “will mark a new era in mankind’s relationship to the man-made world. They change that relationship; for good.” It would be possible, he believed, to not just monitor what was happening around the world, but also to predict what could happen — endless simulations of possible future events would be running inside the mirror world. We could prepare ourselves for any outcome — any future — in the physical world because we would know what was coming. (...)

The dream of a digital twin is to bypass the averages and biases and develop a personalized and predictive form of healthcare that is built around a person’s specific physiology and pathology rather than vaguely representative historical data. “The idea [of the virtual human] starts from the premise that modern medicine isn’t really that modern in scientific terms,” Peter Coveney, a computer scientist and coauthor of “Virtual You” (2023), told me over Zoom. Coveney worked on a project to digitally twin the entire 60,000-mile-long circulatory system of a deceased South Korean woman named Yoon-Sun who had donated her body to science. Cross-sections were taken from her frozen cadaver to help trace the network of vessels, arteries, veins and capillaries. Once mapped, they created a digital simulation of how her blood flowed by feeding 200,000 lines of code into a supercomputer.

Joe Zadeh, from A Digital Twin Might Just Save Your Life - Digital twins offer humankind the ability to command virtual replicas of forests, oil fields, cities, supply chains — and even, maybe one day, our very bodies, for Noéma, March 21, 2024.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

[luthienne]

from South Africa's genocide case against Israel before the International Court of Justice [ID'd]

[hypokeimena]

In recent years, there has been a rush on the internet to supply image descriptions and to call out those who don’t. This may be an example of community accountability at work, but it’s striking to observe that those doing the most fierce calling out or correcting are sighted people. Such efforts are largely self-defeating. I cannot count the times I’ve stopped reading a video transcript because it started with a dense word picture. Even if a description is short and well done, I often wish there were no description at all. Get to the point, already! How ironic that striving after access can actually create a barrier. When I pointed this out during one of my seminars, a participant made us all laugh by doing a parody: “Mary is wearing a green, blue, and red striped shirt; every fourth stripe also has a purple dot the size of a pea in it, and there are forty-seven stripes—”

“You’re killing me,” I said. “I can’t take any more of that!”

Now serious, she said it was clear to her that none of that stuff about Mary’s clothes mattered, at least if her clothes weren’t the point. What mattered most about the image was that Mary was holding her diploma and smiling. “But,” she wondered, “do I say, Mary has a huge smile on her face as she shows her diploma or Mary has an exuberant smile or showing her teeth in a smile and her eyes are crinkled at the edges?”

It’s simple. Mary has a huge smile on her face is the best one. It’s the don’t-second-guess-yourself option. My thinking around this issue is enriched by the philosopher Brian Massumi’s concept of “esqueness.” He exemplifies it by discussing a kid who plays a tiger:

One look at a tiger, however fleeting and incomplete, whether it be in the zoo or in a book or in a film or video, and presto! the child is tigerized… The perception itself is a vital gesture. The child immediately sets about, not imitating the tiger’s substantial form as he saw it, but rather giving it life—giving it more life. The child plays the tiger in situations in which the child has never seen a tiger. More than that, it plays the tiger in situations no tiger has ever seen, in which no earthly tiger has ever set paw.

Just as the child and an actual tiger are not one bit alike, the words Mary has a huge smile on her face have nothing in common with the picture of Mary holding her diploma. Yet the tiger announces something to the world, its essence, and a kid can become tiger-ized and be tiger-esque, their every act shouting, I am a tiger. The picture of Mary at her graduation is shouting something, and the words Mary has a huge smile on her face are also shouting something. It is at the level beyond each actuality, in the swirl that each stirs up, that the two meet.

(from Against Access, by John Lee Clark - link in notes)

[thedaselcor]

Love Arthur as gay, love Arthur as bi/pansexual, but may I present... Arthur as fundamentally Merlinsexual: His whole life, Arthur had thought that he would marry for his kingdom. He’d never been especially interested in women, but he assumed that it was normal and, since he had to marry for Camelot anyway, that it really didn’t matter. Then Merlin kissed him, and he kissed Merlin back. And the kiss was passionate and feverish, and it spent several minutes getting more passionate and feverish before he’d been able to pull himself away. And something about it ignited the bond he’d shared with Merlin since the day he’d had Merlin imprisoned and he’d refused to back down. That spark… 

[fettesans]

The film is about the relations of vision and power arising from the act of producing images. The first section of THE CAMERA: JE is terrifying even though it is the most straightforwardly didactic part of the film. The spectator stares at photo models as they have their pictures taken and are given instructions about how to pose. The anxiety we see on the face and body of the model (mirroring our role as spectator) exemplifies this fear of not being held in our position of spectator. It is as if we were watching ourselves being photographed, as if the screen we’re watching is photographing us. – Constance Penley

--

It’s worth noting that the second “he” has always felt himself to be post-feminine. Here I’ll define as feminine the set of rhythms, norms and cultural expectations arising either directly or indirectly from the possession of a biology broadly and historically agreed upon to be female. Menstruation is one example of this, as is childbirth. Being penetrated is another, which is supposed to connote submissiveness, accommodation and the ability to be possessed. The female biology’s replication of nature’s rhythms is often linked with “women’s intuition,” a kind of a priori knowing about the natural world that ends up reinforcing the idea of women as “elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots,” as Ursula K. Le Guin once noted.

And of course another norm of the feminine is scrutiny, which is a form of possession: the relentless scrutiny of one’s ass and breasts, the endless considerations over whether one has lost or gained weight, the debates over one’s fuckability often followed in short order by attempts to fuck, both consensual and not. If it is feminine to be seen and known in these ways—especially against one’s will—then being stealth ensures one’s status as post-feminine. Sure, maybe it’s Shy’s burden to have been saddled with the feminine at birth, but if he plays his cards right, he can perform a kind of disappearing act: instead of alighting on him and scrutinizing his body and perhaps even making a rude comment along the lines of You just need the dyke fucked out of you, honey, the hardware store guy’s eyes can instead just pass over Shy, register him as nothing more than a small and squeaky-voiced man, a little oddity mercifully beneath consideration. This is perhaps why the semantic collapse feels so important to us, or at least why it felt so important to me. No, trans men must also be men, because if you claim we’re not, then you’re sending me right back to the hell I came from.

“We should not be surprised or opposed when the category of women expands to include trans women,” said Judith Butler in 2021, just over thirty years after Gender Trouble’s 1990 publication. “And since we are also in the business of imagining alternate futures of masculinity, we should be prepared and even joyous to see what trans men are doing with the category of ‘men.’” By now, Butler’s ideas have achieved such cultural prominence that undergraduates who would likely side-eye me if I assigned so much as five pages of Gender Trouble’s impassable prose now write gender is a performance, and I am always performing in their Discord bios, while Ph.D. students retweet photos of Butler’s effigy burned in São Paulo: How do you say “TERFs are embarrassing” in Portuguese??? Though Butler is the widely acknowledged superstar, it’s happened to Lauren Berlant, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Jack Halberstam, Lee Edelman and more than a few others: you publish a book of queer theory with an academic press to get tenure in an English department in 1999, and fifteen years later Laverne Cox quotes a more-than-slightly askew version of its thesis back at you in an episode of Orange Is the New Black. Or in Butler’s case, young adults quote sugar-high misconstruals of their work to each other on TikTok and Tumblr and Art Fight, exchanging theories of gender and embodiment as readily as they do sketches of their favorite anime characters. If you feel like a boy, then you are one. Gender roles are forced on us by the patriarchy. Being born in the wrong body doesn’t make you any less right.

Rafael Frumkin, from Performance Trouble - Gender and the pursuit of happiness, for The Point, February 4, 2025.

The Camera: Je or La Camera: I (1977), dir. Babette Mangolte

[opencommunion]

"The Global North’s political economy relies on the oppression of the Global South in general and of Palestine in particular.

As academic and writer Patrick Higgins noted in late October: 'We’re seeing a blow against the US-led world system. Since, really post-World War II, but especially post-1970 or so, Israel has been the linchpin, the basket into which most of the American chips are put, in order to sustain broader control of West Asia.'

This historical reality places a profound obligation on those in the Global North who would seek to be in solidarity to seriously consider what strategies and tactics Palestinians are calling for in the struggle for liberation, sovereignty and safety.

Such calls to action do not include that we opine on Palestinians’ methods of resistance.

They do include that we understand the history and actuality of that resistance, do all we can to stop the ongoing provision of arms to the occupation, engage in boycott, divestment and sanctions, and fight back against the criminalization of those who support Palestine’s liberation from Zionist settler colonialism.

As Virginia Tech’s Bikrum Gill exhorted: 'Show no fear, no surrender, as you oppose those who support the US-Israeli genocide of Palestinians. Bring your institutions to crisis if their functioning requires silence or complicity.'"

[bsof-maarav]

"[L]ate last month Rutgers required its RAs, whose job is to supervise students living in on-campus housing, to participate in a “bystander intervention” course aimed at training them to identify antisemitism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia. Several of the RAs, however, abruptly left the session after a Jewish speaker explained that Hamas’s antisemitism and desire to destroy the world’s only Jewish state precipitated the Oct. 7 massacre, which resulted in the largest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the Holocaust.

The paper added that the RAs took issue with the program’s citing a definition of antisemitism offered by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). After walking out, they reportedly contacted Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which proceeded to author, on the RAs’ behalf, a series of Instagram posts denouncing the antisemitism trainings as racist and upholding white supremacy.

"The mandated training program organized by the Office of Residence Life requires RAs to learn about DEI, restorative justice, community engagement, and more — all of these are inspired by Indigenous practices meant to unpack systems of white supremacy,” SJP said. “On the contrary, this specific session worked to perpetuate Zionism, racism, and white supremacy.”

SJP’s post included comments from the RAs who involved them in the controversy. One of them, who claimed to be Jewish, said, “I am tired of the word antisemitism being used to talk over genocide, I am tired of antisemitism being inflated.” The RA added, “I fear that when the Nazis and radicals come once again for the Jews that no one will believe us … it will be your fault.”

Another who took issue with the Israeli nationality of one of the course’s presenters said, “One of the facilitators even identified as ‘Israeli’ and made mention of this multiple times. He justified his authority on the topic by citing his 12 plus years spent in ’48 Palestine, going so far as to call ‘Israel’ [sic] a ‘beautiful land.'”

A milieu of extreme anti-Zionism at the school has resulted in at least one death threat against the life of a Jewish student since Oct. 7. In November, a local news outlet reported, freshman Matthew Skorny, 19, called for the murder of a fraternity member he identified as an Israeli, saying on the popular social media forum YikYak, “To all the pro-Palestinian ralliers [sic] … Go kill him.”

Similar incidents at Rutgers have occured frequently. In the past few years, the school’s AEPi fraternity house has been vandalized three times. In one incident, in April 2022, on the last day of the Jewish holiday of Passover, a caravan of participants from a SJP rally drove there, shouting antisemitic slurs and spitting in the direction of fraternity members. Four days later, before Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, the house was egged during a 24-hour reading of the names of Holocaust victims.

In March, the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce launched an investigation of Rutgers’ handling of antisemitism, responding to complaints that it has, for years, allowed an open season of hate against Jewish students."

[tetzoro]

꒰ ❤︎ ﹒ 𝓢𝔀𝓮𝓮𝓽 𝓢𝓸𝓵𝓪𝓬𝓮 ﹒ 𓂃 a kiss filled with fervor, desperation seeping into both of your tired bones as you melt into one another, fused and forged by the fruits of battle. being able to hold you in his arms like this, steal all the breath from your lungs eases him like nothing else. for you were with him, you were safe, you were alive.

thank you so much @purpurregen ! i’m absolutely obsessed :’)

[fettesans]

The picture is in our eye, Lacan states, but we do not see ourselves in it. Yet, we constantly show ourselves to the gaze of the other, meaning we live within the frame of the Other’s looking at us. His friend Merleau-Ponty, he says, wants to reach back to an original moment where we are closer to the world of flesh, where we are not plagued and seduced by this virtual split. But there is no such ground for Lacan. There is only the Real, which is a moment when what is out of frame shatters us, like this fisherman’s joke, or the father’s nightmare, or getting stabbed in the back. (...)

Envy, jealousy, ambition are incited by the gaze and there must be a renunciation of some kind. Invidia, envy, comes from videre in Latin, to see. “It is to this register of the eye as made desperate by the gaze that we must go if we are to grasp the taming, civilizing and fascinating power of the function of a picture,” Lacan writes. This is what painting asks of the gaze: to throw itself down. “If a bird were to paint would it not be by letting fall its feathers, a snake by casting off its scales, a tree by letting fall its leaves?” To see at the place of this fall.

Jamieson Webster, from I’ll See You There, for The Brooklyn Rail, May 2023.

Teorema (1968) // dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini

Caught Looking (1991) // dir. Constantine Giannaris

[fettesans]

Top, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Gallery Gazing Ball (DSCF1919), 2024, Archival pigment print, Artwork: 24 × 18 in (61 × 45.5 cm), Framed: 24 1/4 × 18 1/4 in (61.5 × 46.5 cm). From the solo exhibition Trance, at Bortolami, on view January 10 - March 1, 2025. Via. Bottom, Tony Oursler, The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Never Seen, 1995, Sofa, mannequin and video, projection, colour and sound, dimensions variable. Via.

--

With the advent of psychoanalysis, the mirror image became primarily associated with the process of identity formation and, in particular, with fundamental psychological distinctions such as the self and the other, or the conscious and the unconscious. Among the most notable examples in psychoanalytic theory is Lacan’s mirror stage, describing the process whereby the child recognizes his/her body image in the mirror, thus developing a sense of self and ideal wholeness but also, when looking back at its flesh-and-blood self, a crisis of imperfection and fragmentation. For Freud, a mirror image forming a double always conjures up the notion of death, which is why we experience the sight of our double uncanny. Through doubling, the subject perceives him/herself as decomposed and sees his/her counterpart as a threat. “There is nothing more uncanny,” writes Heinrich Heine, “than seeing one’s face accidentally in a mirror by moonlight”.

Petra Eckhard, from Chronotopes of the Uncanny: Time and Space in Postmodern New York Novels. Paul Auster's »City of Glass« and Toni Morrison's »Jazz«, 2011. Via.

[dontforgetukraine]

"The idea of pacifism, like many other concepts, has been perverted by the Kremlin, suggesting that the victim who refuses to be murdered or subjugated holds the key to “conflict resolution.” Even if we set aside the idea of punishing the aggressor to prevent future violence, we must be honest: the power to ‘stop the killings’ is not with the victim. For a long time, I have subscribed to the noble idea of not questioning people’s motives, but now I am a committed consequentialist. If you parrot Kremlin talking points and call for peace while conveniently forgetting to name the aggressor, I presume you are carrying Moscow’s water, wittingly or not. In times of war, the burden of proof must shift; one’s motives deserve to be questioned if one’s words or actions serve an inherently evil cause."

—Andrew Chakhoyan, academic director at the University of Amsterdam

Source: ‘Russians at War’ and the price of our willful ignorance

[bonchobrick]

Duke and Danny bestie fic im co-authoring with some cool people for Patrol Partners! :D

A fic where Duke knows a lot about Gotham’s new problem, ghosts. The Waynes think the worst and assume he’s had some terrible experience with ghosts in the past (in reality is just very happy to talk about his best friends culture and doesnt realize how odd it is that he knows all this stuff)

Or

Duke is pretty much just vibing, the bats are having a meltdown, and Danny is having a blast!

—-

Then Duke pops the question

“So, what are you guys researching?” He asks raising a brow to the papers littered all over the room

Collectively the entire room groans as Duke absentmindedly picks up a paper on the table with the failed, static over-run image.

“We don't know!” Steph bemoans frustrated

Tim starts, “There are new entities–”

“Creatures.” Bruce corrects

Tim casts a piercing glance at his father, “I am pretty sure those are entities. Eye witness reports state that they look fairly human-like–”

Bruce challenges him right back, “Eye witness reports were also very likely to be unfactual, they seemed partially intoxicated. It’s more likely they are some kind of mutated animal.”

His son’s teeth grit, “Even so we still can’t rule out–”

“Oh right, the ghosts are back in town,” Duke's comments, gaze absorbed in the static image

Silence drowns the room as their weary eyes blink at Duke, processing what he had just said.

Then it clicks

“R-repeat that?” Tim stares intensely at Duke

“Um, the ghosts are back? That's what these are.” Duke nervously replies confused, “It’s been a bit since they visited Gotham

Tim opens and closes his mouth, immensely struggling to find any words to say. It seems like the rest of his family is fairing no better, some of them letting out noises of surprise and shock with others trying to hear if they heard that sentence right.

“There used to be ghosts in Gotham?” Bruce says incredulously

“Yeah?” Duke tilts his head, “I mean they don’t like living here with the corrupt ectoplasm but I’m friends with a few ghosts?”

Jason springs on him with wide eyes, “What are ghosts like, personality-wise?”

Duke thinks and responds with the first thought that comes to mind, “Fickle, they can be super friendly or super destructive. They do whatever they’re in the mood to.”

“Are they aggressive?”

“Sure? Sometimes?” Duke blinks at them bewildered before a petty smile crosses his lips, “They can be, hmm, commanding.”

Dicks eyes turn cold and protective, “What–”

“Listen guys,” Duke backs away from the discussion going with his internal task list in mind, “I gotta go wrap up putting together all my documents for my topic on my science fair project so uh, see-ya!”

The second youngest bounces out of the cave and the rest of the family stare dumbstruck at him.

New entities (ghosts?) pop up in Gotham + Duke describes them as fickle and commanding =

Duke is being made to do things for Ghosts who can be kind and cruel which =

= Duke is being bullied by Ghosts?!

Not on their Bat-watch!

Damian is already sharpening his ‘not murder tools’, Tim has sprung into research on the bat computer and the rest of the family have already dipped into Gotham ready to search for these perps!

Paranoid Family #1 will help Duke’s ghost problem starting now!

( pssst heres the fic :)

[fettesans]

Nada, Amore Disperato, 1983

--

The capacitive touchscreen is a mystifying veil over the rational kernel of the computer. To touch a touchscreen is an oxymoron: you believe you are tapping a button but you are feeling nothing at all. What is feeling is the screen, abrim with energy and sensors. In fact, the screen touches you.  The human body is electrically conductive because we are filled with fluid, and our cells filled with conductive ions. So a layer of conductive material is placed upon a screen, which generates an electrical field. When your finger approaches, this electrical field is drawn upward to touch your own. The screen’s highly sensitive capacitors read this disruption in its own field: capacitive coupling. The device’s processor analyzes the location of your gesture on the screen. It then decides how to react to you.

Touchscreens proliferated with the introduction of the Apple iPhone in 2007. The iPhone revolutionized the technology industry and subsequently the world, as Marx predicted. People now spend more time than they ever have before engaging in labor and economic exchange through smartphone apps. Such apps are designed to supercharge any person’s ability to participate in the economy, operate as a small business, purchase and sell commodities, or labor to produce data, content, and attention. This quantitative leap causes qualitative transformations in the social fabric, dialectically rippling outwards from Silicon Valley to the far reaches of wireless networks. The smartphone reorganizes social relations, disrupts and re-creates new modes of production, and exploits and dehumanizes “users” across the globe. Flusser says it best: “the hands have become redundant and can atrophy. This is not true, however, of the fingertips. On the contrary: They have become the most important organs of the body”.

Kat Kitay, from The Dialectic of Doomscrolling, June 24, 2024.

Nada - Amore Disperato

[crystaltrainwrecks]

‘Soundwave lay curled around the slumbering form of Shockwave, his engines giving an occasional, rumbling snore that vibrated through their back struts and against Soundwave’s chassis.

It was nice.

Warm as Soundwave nuzzled his mask against the back of Shockwave’s neck.

But, as all things did, the peace came to a shattering halt at the arrival of Starscream.’

I would like to thank @wavewavethoughtsonly for inadvertently giving me the inspiration for this little fic 😂🙏🏻

It was actually really nice having a shorter, purely fluffy fic to work on. And I’d love to do one for Dinobot X Optimus Primal from Beast Wars at somepoint! Soooooo I’ll be keeping that in my back pocket for the next time i take a break to write some more fluffy drabbles 👀

Hope yall have a lovely day! 😁🩵

[dahliaparton]

i’ll drive you home, you drive me crazy

another installment of the Tornado Warnings series ~ Rafe x Kiara

tags: established relationship, breeding kink, dubious consent (mild but it’s questionable for sure), dirty talk, possessive behavior ~ full tags on ao3

☆ COMPLETED ONESHOT ☆ 6500 words ☆

an excerpt:

“God damn, Kie – all this mess just from sucking some dick?” He pulls back from their kiss to look at her, ready to mock her again just to see more of that cute, embarrassed flush already staining her cheeks, but her next sentence pulls him up short.

“Yeah, well… I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m ovulating, so…”

At those words, Rafe experiences some sort of system failure, his synapses firing off all at once in a manic, frenzied glitch – and then not at all. His mind is replaced by a blank screen and a static-y hum: an error has occurred.

He reboots, coming back to life a few moments later with a groan and a shake of his head, opening eyes he hadn’t realized he’d shut to find Kiara’s face still inches from his, looking at him with concern, her brow furrowed.

His hand is still cupped against her cunt, middle finger nestled along her clit. With intention, he moves his fingertip against her and watches with a savage satisfaction as the small crease between her brows smooths out, her mouth dropping open on a barely audible gasp.

He clicks his tongue in false sympathy, continuing to rub her in small, teasing circles where she’s most sensitive. “Poor baby. That’s why you’re so wet, huh? My girl needs attention?”

“Not your –” Her protests are cut off as she bites her bottom lip against a moan and he’s captivated momentarily by the way her sharp little teeth sink into the plush, pink skin. “Not your girl, Rafe.”

He ignores that.

“Sensitive, too, yeah? It usually takes a little more work for me to get you moaning. I’m barely touching you, Kie.”

The words are sugary-sharp, a mocking edge to them, and he’d almost feel bad if it weren’t for the way he can feel her react to it, clenching her thighs around his hand and squirming against him as she remains straddling him in the front seat.

“Is that part of you ovulating? This little cunt’s all oversensitive and needy?” Rafe leans into her as he murmurs the words, bringing his mouth to the curve between her shoulder and neck. The singular scent of her skin and traces of her perfume fill his nose. It’s like he’s got a sick Pavlovian response to it at this point, the smell of ripe, red fruit and vanilla going straight to his cock.

Kiara nods and makes a sound of agreement, lolling her head to the opposite side so he has more room to trail open-mouthed kisses along her neck.

At the same moment that he sinks his teeth into the exposed skin of her throat, he thrusts a finger inside her.

The feel of her cunt is enough to make his eyes roll back – she’s scorching hot, and so god damn wet he can feel it trickling out around his knuckle.

She whines his name as he finds the patch of nerves against her front wall that’s guaranteed to have her coming fast. On any given day, Rafe’s confident he can get her off expeditiously – it’s not cocky if it’s true, he loves to remind her.

But right now, tonight, she’s so worked up he thinks she’ll come with just a dozen and a half more strokes of one single finger shoved inside her and the edges of his teeth working a surreptitious bruise into the side of her neck.

Read the whole story on ao3!