#lonely dolly hours !!!

[belleinwonderland7]

The sunset bay

A place I did not go for comfort

I could have stayed forever

If not for the tragic incident which resulted in my past self resigning

-b

[dumbdollboy]

i’m so horny :(

[beatheprincess]

Is it love szn in the air ? Cus I'm feeling lonelier than usual :( these damn pervs arent helping

Gna try n be tinys nows. ♡

[hobicakess]

RED CHOPSTICKS | Min Yoongi

SUMMARY: Now everytime you see chopsticks, you'll think of him.

RATING: 18+  (i am not a babysitter, you are in control of what you consume.)

PAIRING: Yoongi x reader

Content Warning:  Violence, Cursing, Gangster Yoongi Thick reader, Cigarettes, Shooting threats, Blood, Chopsticks as a deadly weapon, Smut: Back shots, Choking, Ass slapping, Cigarettes, Readers body type is heavily mentioned, I suck at tags help

A/N: All this yoongi content is driving me insane and I'm a greedy whore so I wrote this little thing, please enjoy.

Chopping it up with your friends at a restaurant you found while roaming the streets, it was just a normal Saturday evening. You dropped your chopsticks in the leftover broth from your ramen, going to wipe your face with a random napkin when the ding of a new customer coming in caught everyone's attention.

The four men of great beauty and intimidating aura walk through lazily as they followed the lead of the long dark-haired man with pretty pale skin, dressed in a blue jacket, hands deep in his pockets as his tongue worked the inside of his mouth. He walked down the aisles until his presence loomed over you and your friends. 

Up close, you could see the long scar going up his cheek, as his eyes ogled you, then his gaze set on your lone pair of chopsticks.His pink tongue appeared as it ran along his lips.

“Using these doll?” 

Brows furrowing, you look up at him, but you are met with nothing but a gummy smirk as he slides the red sticks from your bowl, wiping the excess broth from it with the bottom of his white t-shirt. 

Blinking at him dumbly, you look down at the utensils. “What do you need them for?” his fingers lift your head up tilted in the direction of the stubby older man seated in the corner furthest from you obvious to his presence.

“Thanks dollface, I’ll take you out somewhere nicer soon” 

His attention turns to your friend group as he sends a wink, their way standing to his full height lazily walking over to said man. Watching his eyes widen in recognition, the conversion was short and looked heated, ending in the black-haired man shoving chopsticks deep into the older one's eye socket. 

Screams rang out through the establishment while everyone rushed outside as fighting between his men and others began. His laughter was loud as his intense gaze set back onto you. Blood splattered in his cheeks as he pointed at you. 

“Soon.” was all he said as he walked calmly through the chaos up the stairs. 

You gasp, looking to your left and seeing him, hair flowy and wet jeans ripped, his floral-designed shirt unbuttoned showing his white wife-beater. “It’s you” sounding breathless as he smirked at you with his own cigarette hanging from his lips. 

And find you he did, after weeks of looking over your shoulder in hopes that the man popped up randomly. You thought you were going crazy but the attraction to a cold-blooded murder? Was there? Remembering the way he worked with so much confidence and his face? The face of an angel and the actions of a devil.

Walking out of your job for a smoke break, you had the bud on your lips as you cursed at your lighter for being dead. “Need a light, dolly?”

Realizing you dropped yours, you cursed, “They aren't good for you anyways..” awkwardly laughing as he walked up to you, looming over you with a tilted head as he lit the stick, taking a puff, blowing it at you, causing you to cough.

“Cute.” eyes going over your body, you felt self-concussion, wiping your sweaty palms on your apron.

 “Let's get out of here” he says, this time blowing the smoke to the side. “Like now? I can’t just leave, I have a client coming in an hour.”  you frantically ramble off causing him to hum.

 “You've been waiting for me, haven't you? So let's go now.”

Your face fills with heat, palms turning red and clasping behind your back. “I just can't now, they're looking for a reason to fire me.” 

“Hmm well, I'll just shoot up the place for you when that happens.” Your eyes go wide. 

A hand gripping onto the front of his shirt. “Noo, that's not necessary.”

“I'm joking, doll, live a little”his shoulder-shaking in humor.

 “Hell I'll open a new salon and you'll be in charge or somethin'” Giggling, you shake your head, “You’d do that? I don’t even know your name.

“I go by Suga on the streets, but you call me Yoongi, you'll be saying it often” a gummy smirk flashed as his eyes fell low and dark.

“Oh really now?” 

You come to find out that Yoongi wasn't a man that didn't keep his word as he had you bent over his bed, one of his hands digging deep into your thick and meaty hips while the other pressed into your back, forcing you to keep your back into a deep arch, shoving your face into the pillow.

His hips snapping into your ass while all you could do is whine and cry his name as his perfectly curved cock slides through your wet gummy walls. “Fuckk baby, gripping me like you love me.” 

Yoongi's eyes so deeply fixated on the sight of your creamy brown pussy gripping his pale pink cock, sucking him in with the lewdest noises. The feeling of him fucking your guts becomes too much as you wiggle your way off some dick so you can breathe properly, but Mr.Min wasn't having none of it. 

“Dont fucking run, momma”. He smacked your ass, then his arm snaked under you to pull you up to his chest, spreading your thick brown thighs wider, feeling him deep in your stomach. 

 “Take it all like a good girl” ringed fingers gripping your neck, lips capturing yours. You squeal his name when you come, liquid coating both of your lower bodies. He groaned into your mouth, his other hand coming to your full breast squeezing tightly as his hips slowed and  stuttered from your vise grip on his dick. 

“Shit” he hissed, using all his willpower not to cum inside you as he pulled out comin on your pussy instead, he held you there for a second, breathing heavily together the pressed a kiss on your hickey-covered neck. 

When he loosened his grip on you, you fell forward and a tired whine left you as yoongi stood behind you and smacked your sore ass with a chuckle. Wiping you and himself down, he laid beside you with one arm wrapped around you while he held a cigarette in his other hand as you pressed your naked body on his side.

“Yoon” he smiled a bit at the nickname,humming,

“How come you got away with the chopstick thing?” 

“My brothers a cop”

Makes sense.

[georgiapeach30513]

With Your Touch, Part 8

Summary: There's some things that need to be discussed

Pairings: Lloyd Hansen x Reader

Rating: explicit

Warnings:  explicit language, explicit sexual content, D/s dynamics, teasing, fingering, degradation, praise kink, humiliation kink, toy play, slight voyeurism, unprotected sex, creampie, mentions of cum play, bit of breeding kink, mentions of spanking, 18+ ONLY

Word Count: 6.1K

Previous

Series Masterlist

Lloyd leans into Lyla’s bedroom, smiling at you unable to leave her. You don’t say anything, or even move, you just stare at the precious Lyla Bee. A soft smile turns your mouth up. So often you show your love for her. It isn’t something you have to do, it’s something you choose to do daily. It’s the sexiest thing you can do. You love an extension to him.

He’d have to make it official. Eventually give Lyla a sibling. He’s enjoying playing with your body, but he seriously can’t wait to see you swollen with him. To see you around your father and he understands the love that the two of you have. And he knows what a good girl that you are.

Lloyd fully intends on exploring your sweet obedient ways. He wants to push you to your limits, with your complete consent as well. “She’s so beautiful,” you coo down at your daughter. You don’t want anything in this world to ever harm her. If you could keep her this little you would. Freeze time so everything stays this sweet always.

It’s an odd thing to accept that she wants you to be her mom, but also Lloyd. There’s no way that you could love her any more than you do, even if you birthed her. You could spend hours just looking at her. Watching how her lips pucker up, and she even makes smacking noises with her mouth when she’s extra tired. She learns something new everyday, and you don’t want to miss a second of her life.

Lloyd walks up behind you, wrapping both arms around your front. He settles his chin on your shoulder to stare at this beautiful angel with you. “She really is. She’s spectacular.”

“I don’t think her wants her daddy to go back to work,” Lloyd knows exactly what you’re trying to pull. You’ve been laying it on thick all week about his returning to work.

“I think her mama is trying to guilt trip her daddy into not leaving.”

“But it’ll be lonely out here,” he doesn’t have to look at you to know that you're pouting. He doesn’t want to ignore your fears, but also doesn’t want to let you know that this is fully working on him. He’d almost choose to never go back. But you need boundaries. And he has no problem giving them to you, and also enforcing them.

He inhales swiftly, turning his head to kiss on your neck, “I’m going to make it a point to come home every night. Sometimes maybe every other night,” you groan, pushing your ass into his back, and your eyes go wide. His soft kiss turns to a nibble on your neck as he walks you out of her bedroom.

“Why are you hard?”

Groaning, he cups your covered mound, and you whimper. His hands are so large. You’ve had them in you. You still haven’t gotten used to that. Lloyd Hansen has been inside of you. Swimming inside of you. “Lloyd?” You whimper, and he drops his arms from around you, sitting on the couch with a plop, and you see his tightened jeans. “Lloyd!”

“Oh, shut up,” it’s playful, he grins at you. He rubs his hand over his bulge, smiling, “You know, when she goes to sleep, it’s time for mama and daddy to have fun,” the sinful bastard, “But first, we need to establish some boundaries.”

Your brow raises, while you look at him inquisitively, “Dolly, it’s just to make sure that I never take advantage of your trust. You have no idea the ways I want to play and use your body, but you have to give me permission.”

“You have it,” you earnestly answer. Your feet swish back and forth, eyes going glassy as you stare at him. Naturally going into a submissive state, Lloyd has a deep urge to destroy you like this. Just so he can lift you back up. He can’t take advantage of something your body naturally craves.

“You truly don’t understand. Sit,” listening immediately, Lloyd grins, “Good girl. You listen well,” you preen, leaning towards him. “You do well with praise. Noted,” he hums, staring over your body a moment. You’re so reactive to him. Sitting up straighter, and shoulders shimmying. That slight smile tickling the edges of your plump mouth.

“I have very distinct — needs,” that didn’t sound bad. “I haven’t done relationships, and I fear that I could be too much,” that could be putting it lightly. He’s extremely needy, and is prone to stress. He needs you to unwind.

“Why’s that?”

“There’s this bit of a humiliation mixed in with degradation that I enjoy,” inhaling sharply, you find yourself staring at the fabric of the couch. You didn’t know how to press him for more information. “Do you want to be my slut?” You tremble, but nod your head. “Why?”

“I’m just yours?”

“Just mine.”

“That’s why,” Lloyd smirks, “If I asked you to stop, would you?” He makes a weird noise with his mouth, looking up at you, “What does that mean?”

“Sometimes in intense sessions, you say stop because you feel it’s what you should say, but you desperately don’t want me to stop. Hence, the need for a safe word, and the need for me to read your body language. Safe word?”

You think long and hard. You know it needs to be something you wouldn’t normally say out loud. Something easy to remember, easy to say, easy for him to understand even if you whisper it. “Nightingale,” Lloyds eyes blink rapidly, and you’re afraid you said something wrong.

“It’s beautiful,” the smile that lights up your face has him feeling all fuzzy in his stomach. The way your body reacts to him is too addictive. You’re more dangerous than he ever thought about being, “The nightingale is often associated with Venus. I think that’s perfect for you.”

“What do you mean by humiliation?”

Lloyd hisses between his teeth. His hands drag up his thighs, that one is a bit more complicated, “When my fingers are buried so deep into your cunt, do you want me to tell you that you’re taking my fingers like my sloppy little slut?” You look just like a puppy. Nodding your head, and scooting closer to Lloyd. “Do you want me to make you clean up your mess with your tongue for my own enjoyment before I let you fuck yourself with my cock?”

Gulping you nod, “Yes.”

“What about what I mentioned last night? Put the toy version of my cock inside of you, pulling your panties up, and asking you to pour me some bourbon. Maybe ask you to get on your knees to wipe something out of the floor, and I can stare at that toy puckering out your lingerie while you crawl around?”

“My god, yes,” you’re such a slut. Maybe it’s a slut for him. Possibly a slut for the praise, but regardless, a slut. “Yes. I want to play with the little Lloyd toys.”

He chuckles. Reaching over to a drawer, and retrieves out the little toy. He’s bright pink. “Ooh! I want to call him LJ,” it didn’t take a genius to know why you wanted to call the toy that. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to behave, and listen. Stop pouting,” his voice is still soft, but the command is obvious. “I want you free use,” you furrow your brows, staring into his eyes. “Anytime I want you, I can use you. With discretion of course. I will never fully share you. I will never let another man look upon your body if you don’t want it. I-I,” he stutters, “I want you to explore your sexuality. If you want someone to join us, I would consider it, but everything is with your say so.”

“Wait another man in the bed with us?” he watches your face intently. Making note of how you’re not disgusted, you’re curious.

“Or woman,” you scrunch your nose up, shaking your head no, “It’s not that bad.”

“I just don’t want to share you.”

“I know you don’t, sweetheart. But sometimes we just have to get it in when we can, and if you’re dripping with my seed, you’ll just have to suck it up, even if people are around,” you are a peculiar and funny little thing. Trying to work out different scenarios. “Let’s say that there is a visitor here, and we’re in the middle of something. We finish up as much as we can. But maybe I can’t fully clean you up. I get off on knowing that you're soaked in my cum, while we have company.”

“Yes,” one simple word is all that he needs to hear. You are truly a slut for him. For wearing him. He reaches over towards you, tugging at the hem of your shirt, and you pull it off with so much enthusiasm. Lloyd leans over just a bit for an open mouth kiss on each nipple. Kissing and sucking on the tender flesh until they’re peaked and pebbled up.

“Take off your bottoms,” you listen. “Such an obedient little one. Now, turn around. I want you laying back on my thigh,” this time you don’t move as quickly. Stubbing up and pouting at him. Refusing to listen to his command, and he slaps at the side of your rear. “Behave, and do as I said, so I can play with you and LJ.”

You may huff, but you listen. Laying back on him, and he taps on your thighs to spread your legs wide open. “What other colors of the little Lloyds are there?”

He leans over your body, gazing intently at your split before he barely flicks your sensitive pearl, “One is blue, and the other is purple,” he is too enthralled in your clit, and you’re becoming too aroused to pay attention. “What are their names?”

“Umm…”

Waiting too long, he squeezes your bundle of nerves between his thumb and forefinger, causing you to arch your back in surprise, “What are their names?”

“L-L-Leonard,” that isn’t what he was expecting. “The blue one, he’s Leonard. The purple is — he’s,” you look down your body, watching as Lloyd plays with you. Comparing the thickness of his fingers to your body. But it’s not overtly sexual. He’s having fun exploring your folds. “His name is — Lennon.”

All L names. You would do that. “You do realize I could have you airtight without me ever being inside of you? I could have LJ in your tight little pussy, Leonard in your ass, and Lennon in your mouth. Watching you go dumb on three cocks that might be shaped like me, but they’re not. And then if you get extra desperate, I could push myself in your cunt. Right beside LJ. Do you think you can handle four of my cocks?”

“No,” he plunges a finger into your warmth, and you try To capture his eyes. He didn’t look disappointed, but he does seem less animated. You don’t like seeing him like that. You want him to look proud, “But I would try.”

“Such an eager little whore. That’s why I like you, you know. You would do anything to please me, wouldn’t you?” Breathlessly you answer him. Nodding your head as he dips another finger into your body. Having you spread out, naked, and vulnerable is his favorite. He’s fully clothed, but he gets to look at the work of art that is you.

Venturing deeper into your cunt, he watches your face with every small movement he makes. Learning what makes you tick, and what you enjoy. Listening to the change of your breathing, and the slight differences in your sounds. And then pulls out of you too soon. He caresses your lips with his fingers, making the pillows look glossy with your essence. And then his meaty fingers go into his mouth where he sucks off the rest of your honey, “Hmm, you taste so sweet.”

He licks his lips, reaching over to grab LJ, and brings it to your mouth, and you suck on him enthusiastically. Trying to show him how much of the toy you can take, but he pulls it out of your mouth, and lowers it to your entrance. Lloyd teases the toy around your hole, and without commandment, you spread out further. Angling your body for easier entrance. He slowly breeches through your walls.

His mouth falls open right along with yours as he studies your body opening up, and accommodating him, LJ. The sounds that your body makes is a symphony, ringing in your home. He becomes obsessed with you. Pushing and pulling out the hot pink toy. Your slick coats the fake version of him. Each push into you, he goes deeper.

Deeper.

Deeper still.

Until he can push it in balls deep, and he holds it there. You took every inch. Every thick veiny inch of the fake him. His free hand cups your breast, and he pinches on your swollen nipple. Perfect. You take him so well. While you may have your toys, he has you as his toy. The things he could do to you. It’s not even innately about sex with you as much as giving you pleasure. He finds pleasure in that.

You’re so reactionary to being filled with him that it nearly makes him weak thinking about you waddling around the house with this stupid dick inside of you. Have you get on all fours while you simulate backing up on him. God, your body is immaculate.

“Lloyd,” you pant out, looking between him, and the immobile toy. You need something else, and he’s not giving it to you. It’s both frustrating, and hot as fuck, and it confuses your brain, “Lloyd? Daddy?”

“Yes, baby?”

“I want to come.”

“You’re such a sweet girl. Can I just play with you?” Your body needs some release. It needs anything besides this torturous nothingness. “Why don’t you play with your clit, and let me just watch you get yourself off.”

His eyes look over to the clock, and he smiles. Still holding that stupid toy fully in you. The depth of it gives your belly a funny feeling. An ache you can’t explain. It doesn’t hurt, it’s not fully uncomfortable, but it is different. “Use both hands. Spread those lips far apart, and let me see that cute little swollen clit of yours.”

You follow his instructions. Letting him see the button before creating tight circles on your body. Your hips start to buck up as you imitate sex. Rocking on the couch just to make your tits bounce. Putting on a show for him so he will want to fuck you. Will want to at least let you come.

Your body climbs with pleasure, and you close your eyes. Envisioning that he is hovering over you. Pushing his length as deep as he can, and a lewd moan escapes your puckered lips. He feels so good deep in your body. He feels good with his weight over you. Filling you up with every inch of him, and with his load right in your belly. “Daddy, I’m so close.”

“There you go, princess. You’re right there aren’t you?” Giving him a head nod, he takes his hand off the toy. Bringing both of them to your tits, and he tweaks, and pinches them. Watching as your swaying body creates the friction with the toy you needed. Sucking the hot pink rod into your body, and lifting up so it pulls out. Little desperate slut, “Such a needy little slut. You’re taking every inch of that pretty little cock. But…”

Lloyd doesn’t get to finish his sentence. His fingers let go of your tits, and he pulls your hands off your body. Keeping them spread so you can’t touch yourself, but your body still searches for movement. “Shh,” he says, but you’re too busy trying to jump over the edge of euphoria. “Dolly, don’t you hear the doorbell ringing?”

“What?” You halt. Listening with haggard breaths, and the doorbell rings again. “Lloyd, no!”

“Don’t pout. Just get dressed. Leave the dick inside of you,” you gawk at him. “I said what I said, Dolly. Dressed, with the dick still inside your body. “It’s just Ari. He arrives almost directly on the dot when I ask him.”

You sit up, starting to pull the wretched pink toy out of your body, and Lloyd tsks you. “I don’t want this in me when Ari is here.”

“Do you remember what we said just moments before?”

“Yeah, but you tricked me. You knew he was coming tonight.”

He actually rolls his eyes at you before grabbing your chin, “What’s your safe word?” You shake your head no, “Either say it, or put your fucking clothes on,” you stare at him a moment, unmoving. “Each second I count is how many spankings you’re getting. One,” you don’t dare move. You can be just as stubborn as him. “Two. Three. Four. Five.”

You cross your arms over your chest. Trying to ignore him. “Six. Seven.”

“Fine!” Your voice is a bit raised as you reach for your shorts. Leaving the panties in the floor, and hope they embarrass him. And you grab your shirt. Asshole. He sits there with his legs crossed looking awfully proud of himself. “Aren’t you going to open the door?” You ask him. He got too comfortable, and now you’re dressed, and still aching to find some release that is just right out of your grasp.

“Nope. You are,” your mouth falls open. “Go on, princess. Let daddy’s friend in. He’s been waiting on you to act like the good girl I know you are,” fucking tease. Standing up. You wince. Not in pain but because the movement sends an odd sense of pleasure through your body. “Ari’s waiting. Go on, waddle for me, baby.”

You aren’t going to waddle. You won’t give him the satisfaction. You’re going to walk very oddly, sure. But you hold your chin up high. Refusing to let him know you see his cocky little smile as you make your way to the front door. Smiling up at Ari as you open the door.

His eyes drift down your front with a smirk before he walks past you and into the living room. And you stand at the front door, trying to regulate your breathing. You aren’t going to let him see you struggle. “Sweetheart, Ari and I would like something to drink.”

The fucking asshole. This is so wrong, and still there’s that part of you that enjoys it way too much. A sexual secret that you and Lloyd share, while you have company. Knowing that Lloyd knows what is inside of you. Wonder how he’d feel if Ari knew. If Ari saw. You get the most devilish grin on your face. You didn’t care if people knew that Lloyd could destroy you with his dick. And Ari is bound to know all the sick twisted ways Lloyd gets off.

“Did you mean for her to answer the door with her nipples hard as a rock?” Ari motions his head toward the discarded panties on the floor. Lloyd would get you all worked up right before Ari came here. Edging is his favorite hobby.

“You should see my dick,” Ari rolls his eyes as he settles back into the couch, and then he makes a face of disgust before moving to the chair. “Why did you do that?”

“You’re on a couch with a hard on. Your girlfriend is walking around in short shorts, bra less, and nipples protruding. And that spot was warm,” chuckling, Lloyd pops his fingers into his mouth, moaning, “You’re truly sick. You know that?”

“Have you seen her?”

“I think you’ve seen enough of her,” Lloyd scoffs. His crystal eyes roam down the hall, trying to listen to hear what you’re doing. He hopes you’re fucking yourself. Knowing how frustrated you are, he hopes you’re doing something to get yourself off. He’ll watch the footage when Ari leaves.

“Lloyd, everyone is getting restless. You either need to take an extended break, and let me resume power, or come back. But the mercenaries need to know what’s going on. You can’t hole up here with your slut forever.”

“You’re not saying that in a derogatory way are you?” Ari shakes his head no. “I mean, she is my slut. She’s my girlfriend, Lyla’s mom, my future baby mama, future wife,” Ari clears his throat, “What?”

“That’s another thing. Someone got wind of Candy sniffing around. Me thinks she knows how much you’re worth, and either she’ll hold Lyla over yours and her head, or you’ll have to pay her off.”

“Write her a check,” Lloyd grunts suddenly. The idea of that woman coming and taking Lyla from you is sick. She didn’t even give her daughter a name!

“See the problem with women like her, she’ll always come back for more. You need it legally settled that you and Dolly are her parents. The lawyers are drawing up a petition for adoption. You know, it’ll need to be legal. She will come back.”

“Then I’ll put a bullet through her head,” he’s so annoying and ridiculous that Ari can’t even comprehend his little tyraid. “She won’t have our daughter. Lyla doesn’t even know her. Do you know who puts her to bed every night? Who bathes her every day? Pushes her in that stupid expensive pram? Goes to mommy and me classes for singing and yoga? Who is teaching her to walk? And who has been planning a first birthday party for her? Not some fucking whore who wasn’t worth the money I paid, and who poked fucking holes in the goddamn condoms.”

You flinch walking back into the living room. Getting an apology from both men. You take a deep breath, handing Ari’s bourbon on the rocks to him, and definitely not waddling to Lloyd to give him his. He pulls you nearly into his lap. Leaning you so far onto him, your ass is pointing towards Ari, and you playfully look towards him. He sees it. See the outline of Lloyd’s little dick inside of you.

His lips curve up into a devilish smile, and he raises his brows. Holding his cup up as if to cheers you, and you wiggle your as a bit. Smiling right back before Lloyd smacks over the protruding toy, and you lift up, moaning so loud that Ari chokes on his bourbon. Your face heats up with the most delightful embarrassment and you hide it in Lloyd’s chest.

“Stop looking,” he warns Ari, who still refuses to look away.

“Stop putting it out on a platter for me to stare at,” Lloyd is too fast. Reaching into your shorts, he tugs out the toy, and drops it onto the coffee table. Leaving Ari to stare at something besides yourself. Now it’s a hot pink replica of Lloyd’s cock, shining in the light, and soaked with your honey, and…

“I knew it,” he whispers more to you, even if Ari hears it. “Now that everyone can get their mind out of the fucking gutter. Dolly, Ari tells me we may have some issues with Lyla Bee’s birth mother. It seems she is pushing for leverage, and she’s using our daughter.”

You sit up immediately. Going into mama bear protective mode, despite the soaked dildo on the table. “She won’t take my daughter.”

“Ari doesn’t seem to think paying her off is enough.”

“It won’t be,” Ari raises his cup towards you. “No, it won’t. Women like her know that you would pay anything to keep our daughter with us. She’ll know your weak spot, our weak spot.”

“So she needs a bullet in her head,” that isn’t at all what you meant.

“No!” Ari bursts out laughing, but you’re serious. “I know what you do. But maybe — I think we need, I mean if you’re okay with it, but maybe we should do something legal. I mean what if I adopted her. If she’s legally mine there’s nothing that woman can do, right?”

“Thank you!” Ari raises his hands up, and looks at Lloyd, “She gets it. So, I’ll talk to the lawyers and get the ball rolling. We’ll tell them the address of Dolly and Lyla are to be held off as long as possible. You know you’ll have to go through a background check, and,” he grimaces, looking at the stupid forgotten toy again, “It’ll probably be easier if you’re married.”

“Oh,” you answer in surprise, looking up at Lloyd who remains emotionless. his control on his emotions can be frustrating, “That will be something we’ll have to discuss. But — whatever it takes. I need my daughter,” it’s amazing how quickly you accepted her as yours. With as much time as you spent with her, it just made sense. And now you also get to share her dad. “Is that why you came by?”

“Yeah. And Lloyd promised me a show of you fucking yourself with the dildo,” you’re stunned. Unable to look at either one of them, and Lloyd is no help. He’s completely frozen in place.

“Maybe next time.”

“I was only kidding. I know he has a weird little obsession with his dick, and his toys,” the toys of his dick, or you as the toy? You aren’t sure how Ari means, or if he means both. Doesn’t matter. “I’m sure I’m going to leave, and he will make you perform for him though, and I suppose he’ll want to look and see how wide your cunt is spread,” Lloyd clears his throat.

“Have the two of you watched a girl do that together?” Ari answers yes quickly, while Lloyd groans. “Oh. So you’re really close?” The two seem close. Possibly more than colleagues because who watches a girl masturbate with their best friend with them?

“We didn’t have sex with her at the same time. It was more or less entertainment, and you’re not a paid for show. Anyways,” leaning forward, he places the cup on the table before lifting himself up. “You two have fun with that conversation,” and he leaves.

You swallow deeply, keeping your eyes on LJ. Contemplating how you want to start this conversation. “Do you want to share me?”

“I want you to be happy, and I’ll do whatever experiences you want to keep you that way. If you don’t want Ari to see you riding the toy, or just playing with yourself, you don’t have to. It is not a requirement, and I’m perfectly satisfied with that. Your pleasure is my pleasure. I do enjoy watching you pleasure yourself. I enjoy staving off my own arousal to watch you get off. I like that desperate feeling when I finally sink into you.”

Inhaling deeply, you take off your shirt, and step out of your shorts. Grabbing up the dildo of Lloyd, you suction it to the floor, and stand over it. Keeping your eyes on Lloyd, and he scoots the table to the side, and leans back on the couch. Your knees slowly bend as you sink to the floor. You’re not performing. You’re just watching him. Seeing what it is he truly likes.

Getting to your knees, you hover over the nine inches that make up Lloyd before sinking over him. He stares so hard at the toy splitting you open. He doesn’t even touch himself. He just watches as you slowly bounce over it. “Would you want Ari to see me like this?”

“Would you want him to?” He answers a question with a question, so you pinch your nipples. Trying to make him squirm, but it does nothing.

“Possibly.”

“Then maybe,” infuriating. He can’t even fully answer.

“Would you would want Ari to fuck me?” Straight forward is the best way.

Lloyd sucks in a beat of air, “I’d prefer he didn’t.”

“Would you want Ari to watch you fuck me?”

“I wouldn’t mind it, but only if you wanted it, and were comfortable,” at least he’s being honest. Lloyd’s kink isn’t about sharing you. It’s about showing off what he has.

“Would you let Ari touch me, while you’re fucking me?”

“You know Ari is a bit of a cuck, right?” Your brow raises as you look at him. “Ari enjoys watching people have sex. He enjoys fingering a woman when she’s filled with cum so he can make a mess of her used hole. He enjoys writing on her body how much of a slut she is before he watches a man fucks a load into her. Or him. He doesn’t care who is getting fucked. He likes watching. He enjoys cleaning cum out of her pussy. He enjoys fucking women, and men fucking him. Ari enjoys the art of voyeurism that turns into participation. He enjoys the art and beauty of sex and pleasure. It’s not about love as much as it is about enjoyment. So tell me Dolly, do you want Ari to finger you while eating my cum out of your swollen pussy?”

You don’t know how to answer that. It’s so much information all at once. It’s raw and vulgar. It’s hot as fuck. But to have someone do that to you, you just don’t even know. It’s too much happening at once. Way too much. “You don’t have to answer now. But now that you understand Ari’s odd little choices in sex…”

“Have you ever fucked Ari?”

There’s a bit of a hesitation before Lloyd shakes his head, “No. It’s not like that. He participates, yes. But…”

“Your love has remained platonic?”

“I think you think he’s a third. Ari has no problems finding partners. But he enjoys the ways that I can degrade, humiliate, and praise a sub all at once. You couldn’t handle him,” you didn’t know what that meant, and you no longer have a desire to discuss Ari. You want Lloyd inside of you immediately.

“Fuck me,” he cocks up an eyebrow, smiling. “Fuck me like you love me,” he stands. Removing his shirt, and pulling down his pants and underwear at the same time. The pretty cock springs free as he walks out of his pants and towards you, and lifts you right off the toy, and onto his own cock. Wrapping your legs around his waist as he carries you into the bedroom.

He crawls the two of you onto the mattress, and lays you down gently. His body weight lowering on top of yours. Lloyd uses his nose to pet around your face. Smoothing his skin across the perimeter of your jaw, inhaling your scent as he lifts your arms above your head. Weaving his fingers in yours before he rolls himself in and out of you.

A steady rhythm of thrusting. He’s so soft and deliberate with his movements. Continuing to trace your face with his nose. Whispering your name, “I love you. We don’t have to invite anybody into our sex life. You’re more than enough. And I need you to understand that. If you don’t want Ari to ever see you in the position he did tonight, I need you to vocalize that, okay?”

“Okay,” you pant out. Arching your back to take more of him. You want him all over you.

“You can take all the time in the world to decide that. You can change your mind at any time,” the idea of Ari is exciting to him, but not necessary. Especially if it meant losing you. That is what mattered; you and Lyla. Not some kinky sex and cum play.

“I know,” he knows this is the worst time to try and get you to comprehend what could be a difficult sex life. But he isn’t lying. It isn’t a performance. You’re his obsession. Just you. You are more than enough for him. “What did you know earlier?” your chest heaves as you try and get the question out. “When you took LJ out of me.”

“You left your cream on the toy,” he laughs up against your neck. His mouth and hips are both a work of art, and the most sinful parts of him. “You got yourself off before you came back into the living room didn’t you?”

“Maybe,” he bites your neck, starting to suck on the skin hard. “You’re going to leave a mark!”

“Tell the truth,” he demands before sucking even harder. Sending every synapse in your brain into overdrive.

“Yes! Yes, I was leaning over the counter, and — and I was — I was — Lloyd!” He stops his movements, and you squeal. “Stop!”

“Then answer me.”

He starts a steady pace again, and then pounds into you so hard you see stars. His pace changes to slow, but rough jabbing movements, “I was just playing with my clit, and — and humping air. I was pretending it was you. Daddy!”

You’re wrecked. His movements are so slow, but they hit every right spot. Maybe it’s the blinding stabs into you that has every muscle in your body tightening up. He fucks into you so hard that the hairs on your body stands up, your toes curl, and your fingernails dig into his hands. You wish you could touch some other part of his body. You’re a goner.

Each thrust becomes harder. Deeper. Just. Right. There.

In. The. Perfect. Spot.

“Daddy!” Everything blurs. Lines disappear, and your body is numb with pleasure. Breathing so erratically as stars light up your vision. “Daddy!”

Jolting your body up the bed higher. Until your hands hit the head board, and he drops them. Slamming his hands above you, and he rockets himself into you. Pounding you so hard that your body lurches higher on the bed. Your head starts to knock against the padded board, and you start speaking in tongue to the heavens above as pleasure so deep in your body locks your bones into place.

Lloyd grunts, gritting his teeth as he remains pistoning into your clenching cunt. Your body is locked down, and this high lasts so long that you forget how to breathe. How to even be a human. Bright light floods into your mind, and then a loud, “Fuuuck,” before warmth spews inside of you, and your walls pulse around his cock. Milking him dry.

“My god, if you want me to marry you, I’d do it tomorrow,” you hum as he settles over you. He kisses around your neck. Using his fingers to trace the delicate lines on your neck and collarbone. Something is missing, and now he knows, “We’re going to have to fix this before I go back to work,” he still has to deal with The Verb, and your disgusting father. But he’s going to make sure everyone knows that you belong to someone. Even if you didn’t understand the significance, others would. He’s sure the neighbor down the street that stared at you when you dropped the keys to your car too long would understand exactly what it meant.

He had to make it be known that you were claimed, and unavailable. In every way possible. “Yeah, you’ve got a nasty little hickey on your neck.”

“What?” Your hand feels around your neck where he bit you. Thinking you could see with your eyes before you roll over on top of him. He sighs when he feels himself drip out of you. He doesn’t even care that you’re giving your own mark on him because you’re also grinding your greedy little twat on his stomach. You’re just as insatiable as him.

You nip on his creamy skin. Sucking and kissing over him. You want this ugly thing to last. Moving lower to give him another hickey. And another. If he’s going to leave you, you’re going to make sure everyone knows that he comes home to you. Home to fuck you. And home to his family.

You sit up on him, smiling at your handy work. “There. Now you can go back to work, and show everyone how you have a slut living with you.”

“Yeah yeah. Just keep grinding, and get yourself off on my stomach. I’ll walk around with this stupid thing if that makes you feel better. And I’ll worry about those seven spankings another day,” you forgot about that threat. But he didn’t.

In some weird way, you like knowing that he’ll walk around with red bruises all over his neck. Not that you didn’t trust him. It’s just fun to think that everyone knows he’s getting laid on a regular basis. That he can come home to his Dolly. Home to you. Home to your daughter. And his family.

And you have every intention of letting him use you.

Next

Masterlist

Taglist: @tis-thedamn-season @marveloustaylortot @pono-pura-vida @peaches1958 @seitmai

@smile1318 @andydrysdalerogers @cjand10 @midnightramyeoncravings @kmc1989

@pandaxnienke @theinheriteddutchess @rainydayandmondays @buckybarnesisdaddy @patzammit

@xoxo-ls @rebeccapineapple @slutforchrisjamalevans @marvel-wifey-86 @jesevans

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@saranghae012 @rogersbarber @tas-renee @kmm-fluv

[solitaryandwandering]

A Ramble: Love in the Big City Eps 3-4

Okay, so I finished this episode like half an hour ago and I am still processing. I am so impressed with this show's ability to showcase different shades of grief. I feel like I'll probably cry at the end of every section but it will feel completely different every time. Please do not expect anything less than a LONG ramble.

Again, I just have to admire the direction - each part so far has felt completely distinct but not in big, showy ways. Part 1 of this show was a more traditional coming-of-age with warmer, brighter colors and more dynamic editing, camera movement/angles and blocking. I'll have to go back and study this more but it felt like there were more eye level and overhead shots, too. Part 2 is darker, slower, with more frequent use of stationary camera/static shots and wide angle shots. There were a couple of striking long takes as well. We linger in wide, empty spaces, forced to be still as we watch what unfolds.

Many of us talked about queer loneliness in the last episodes which is obviously going to be a present theme throughout the entirety of the show, but I was struck with how different the loneliness felt in these episodes. Especially in episode 4, as Young gets further entangled with Noh Young Soo, he becomes isolated in a way he wasn't in Part 1. Then, he was lonely but surrounded by people. In Part 2 he is removed from his community and so his loneliness is more starkly evident. The direction reinforces this by literally isolating him or keeping him at a visual distance. We don't get as many intimate close-ups as we do in episodes 1 and 2.

And again, I may be totally wrong, but I think we can actually see a kind of transition in style in the way episode 3 opens up. Episode 2 ends with the lighting on Young's face becoming gradually darker, then I believe the episode begins with a dolly shot moving backwards as we face Young running. It's a more active camera with movement within the frame. Yet, the colors are relatively muted and Young is looking down the barrel of the lens with an exhausted expression. It's distancing instead of inviting. After that unhurried shot we then cut to a grounded static shot where Young runs from one side of the frame to the other. From then on, I don't think we get very many, if any, moments of similar movement. Other dolly shots I can think of are when he's pushing his mom in a wheelchair - not exactly a high speed chase and still within the framework of a long take. There's certainly none of the quick editing from Part 1. The score is also way more melancholy.

Moving on, what these episodes really had me ruminating on was the concept of ownership. As queer people I think one of the reasons why Pride has become such a big part of our culture is because it gives us a space to own ourselves publicly in a way we often aren't able. We can't always show up as our full selves, with all our history, community connections, complex relationships with our identities, etc. Young is a cool character to watch because it seems at the beginning of the show that he is self-actualized, totally in charge of his queerness and integrated with his community (as Yeong Soo also believes). But of course, it is a lot more complicated for him (and for most of us). In these episodes we could see more of what he has (and continues to) sacrifice in an effort to own himself. It is in spite of people determined to steal his spirit. It is an active fight, one he feels helpless in the face of when he attempts to take his own life in episode 4. And that attempt is also, in a way, a claim he lays on his life. Only he owns it, only he gets to end it. I don't think that was his thought process obviously but it did strike me. It was also interesting to me how he attempted in the apartment he used to share with his best friend, a relationship he no longer has.

More broadly there was a lot going on in this section about how we approach taking ownership of our own experiences. How we shape them to fit in with a narrative we want to believe about ourselves and our lives or a narrative others would want for us. At the end of episode 4 Yeong Soo sends Young his observations on homosexuality (his way to distance himself and claim a different more "objective" or "correct" perspective of his own life). He literally tells Young he hopes his reshaping of their experiences would inform Young's future work. He is both refusing ownership and attempting to control Young's self-expression. In the entirety of their relationship he did much of the same, refusing to claim Young as his boyfriend in the way he wanted or recognize him as a full person while presuming he knew everything he needed to know about him and life in general. Young is restricted to the same experiences over and over, going out to eat the same foods, playing the same song, hiding himself away. Quite literally, his ability to experience everything he loves about life is stunted.

These episodes also had me reflecting on how we give up ownership or have it taken away. Young Soo treats Young as his dog, stifling his (and his own) identity and sense of freedom. He isolates Young from friends and community. What's devastating about their relationship is that Young wants some kind of ownership; he wants to belong to Young Soo and for him to belong to Young. At the very least, he wants recognition. But this becomes twisted up in Young Soo's self-hatred. Young Soo has elected to give up ownership of his identity in favor of a particular mold. He favors comfort and has chosen very specific things he can own and love as a part of his identity to replace genuine connection. Rather than own his feelings he observes others'; he tries to own Young and his experience, to live vicariously but also to shape him. He envies Young's ability to own himself and his sexuality but is afraid of it. He has dedicated himself so much to a particular picture of reality that he can't conceive of Young ever facing legitimate danger or opposition because of his sexuality. If he hates himself, it is only natural, an extension of the life he lives and who he is (a "macho" intellectual). He owns and then marinates in his negative experiences to validate his refusal to engage with a wider reality, one in which joy can exist in a homophobic society. Even in his attempts to own Young he fails because it is impossible for him to draw any closer to himself. Yeong Soo can't own someone who refuses to give himself up. He doesn't bother to get to know Young beyond his assumptions (he can "see right through him," after all). He strips self-ownership from Young in the same way he keeps it from himself.

And then there's Young's mom, who has fabricated and owned her own set of experiences in a similar way to Yeong Soo. She devotes herself to heterosexual and Christian ideals, believing that God and marriage are true north even as her own marriage fails. She claims ownership over her narrative and attempts to justify her approach in asking her son to believe in and own the same kind of life. When he threatens her sense of ownership over her own life (already threatened by her husband's infidelity) she scrambles to 'correct' him by sending him to (I'm assuming) conversion camp or some kind of psychiatric institution. In doing this she has cut Young off from owning his own life and experiences. She essentially makes it clear to him that his life is not his own. He is stealing from hers. And so, steals from his to prove a point. He gives up so much of his time to care for her but she doesn't acknowledge this at all, more focused on the ways in which he fails to give up parts of himself she's dissatisfied with. His mom writes Bible verses by hand, to ask her life to conform to what she has chosen for it. To her, ownership is absolute: one God, one true way. Even as she is aware she doesn't own her son's life.

How do we reclaim ourselves as others tell us to throw it all away? What do we do, as queer people, with what is forced on us? Do we choose to own our lives, our identities, or do we give up parts of ourselves to survive? At the end of episode 4, Young takes the manuscript Yeong Soo sent him and instead of recycling throws it in the trash. He tells his mom, "It's not my trash." I saw this as him choosing himself again. He does not have to carry self-hate as Yeong Soo does. He does not have to take the sum of his experiences and let them pile up in a corner of his mind. Yeong Soo treats Young as a possession and so does his mother - someone who exists for their benefit. But he doesn't - Young lives for himself. And isn't that so, so lonely?

Last thing, but this was the moment in the episode that first got me crying. When his friends show up at the hospital after his suicide attempt. Young's friends own themselves and their community and don't ask of anything else from him. They show up for him as who he is and allow him to repossess his community even as they are kept from him, on the other side of glass. Even as his mother looks on, disapproving. Their friendship may be more superficial but that doesn't make it any less meaningful.

If you actually read this whole thing, congratulations. I wasn't kidding when I said it was a ramble! I'm actually okay with waiting until next week for the new episodes this time, I don't know if I can handle much more waaahhh

[frost-queen]

HTTYD ~ Headcanon (Sis!Reader)

Requested by: anon Forever tag:@missmelodramatic, @merlin-dahlia, @alex--awesome--22 @elllie-does-the-posts, @floatlosers, @merlieve, @queen-of-books, @glimmering-darling-dolly@denkisclown, @wildieflower, @meyocoko, @bubblybrianna, @justanothercoco@subjecta13-thefangirl, @m-rae23, @harleyquinnswifeyfrfr, @swampthing07, @melsunshine

A/n: I started writing something, saw how little time I had so I whipped this up as it didn't require as much work as a full fic - sorry

Summary: You are Hiccup's little sister. How is the relationship with him and your dad? What is it like to be paired with Dagur? Being a dragon rider?

Hiccup ⚔️

You are a few years younger then him. Since Hiccup didn't have much friends, he considered you his best friend. lame For years it was just him and you cause he had no one else that wanted to be around.

When he met Toothless, you were the first to know. He even allowed you to meet him second. You were a bit scared in the beginning, but Toothless was very cautious around you. It didn't take you long to play games with Toothless where you chase after him.

Hiccup started to get popular resolting in kind of forgetting about you. His priority became his new friends. Specially Astrid. It pained you. You hated them for stealing your brother from you. Each thing you suggested to do with him, backfired. The same few rehearsed words coming out of his mouth. I have no time, i'm busy or ask someone else. It frustrated you so much, you went dragon searching for your own. Not caring how dangerous it was. Was it perhaps a cry for attention... maybe?

You had fallen down a pit. So much for dragon hunting Ha. Gobbler heard you after hours of yelling and crying. How embarrasing. He brought you straight to your dad. Where he surprise, surprise lectured you on the dangers of going alone. When Hiccup came back, he heard of your misfortune. It led to him visiting your room, asking how you were. It led to you shouting in tears at him how he was neglecting you. Hiccup felt guilty afterwards. He told you how he was never going to forget about you with a hug.

Chief's daughter 🛡️

Being the chief's daughter, you had a lot of restrictions. Lot's of don't do this and stay away from that. He secretly send Gobbler to keep an eye or as you like to call it spy on you.

Stoick was very protective over you. Being his only daughter, he felt the extra need to be protective. Any boy that came your way, he intimidated into leaving. People were at first afraid to be friends with you due to being Stoick's daughter. It were some very lonely first years till eventually your father eased his rules a bit up.

When dragons first came, he was still very cautious. Wanting you no where near it. Afterall one killed your mother. It took him a long time to entrust you with a dragon of your own. It was hard for him to let you go and accept that you aren't a little girl anymore.

Dragon riding 🔥

You knew from the first moment you saw them, it was your dragon. It was like something felt right. The dragon of your choice fits your personality purely. Almost identical, twins. Hiccup and Toothless had a great relationship which you envied. It took one stormy night for you and your dragon to truly come together. Your dragon had shielded you from the storm when the roof nearly came down.

After the storm, you had fallen asleep under the dragon's wing, snuggling to the body. From then it was as if you had one mind. Your dragon knew what you were thinking or expected by just one look. Soon you were almost an expert in flying. The harmony you had with your dragon was perfect. It made Hiccup's friends jealous... him too.

You quickly became an expert in flying, taking the lead on missions. You got them out of a lot of tricky situations. When you were older, you'd be given the opportunity to learn younglings how to fly their dragons.

Dagur ❤️

The first time you were paired with Dagur, you were so annoyed by him. So full of himself and egocentric. To be honest you hated and repulsed him. His interest in killing dragons was a huge red flag. Over time he got an interest in controlling dragons. Making him less full of hate, yet still very dumb and egocentric to you. Always trying to flirt with you in all the wrong ways. No way he was getting through that shield of yours ;)

After an almost fatal incident where Dagur saved you, you had a change of heart. Pop, there your heart went. The more he worked on himself, the more his silly flirts had an affect on you. Slowly you started to fall in love with him. At first you found yourself an idiot for doing so, but then you saw more of his personality it wasn't that big of a deal anymore. Dagur didn't seem surprised when you flirted back, yet screaming on the inside. You started to spend more time with him which led to a first kiss.

He vowed to devote his life to you. Your dad was happy when he told him you were a pair. Hiccup on the other hand, questioned your sanity. At first he thought you might have hit your head. Dagur needed to prove himself a lot to your brother. Eventually he'd accept him when Dagur asked for your hand.

----------------------------------------------------

Read more of my fics on my Masterlists!  

[detroitlib]

View of ornate metal bridge over canal on Belle Isle. Men and women in canoes travel on canal. Printed on front: "Canoeing at Belle Isle, Detroit, Mich." Handwritten on back: "9-12-07, See that these 8 postals go to these destinations, honey, please. Dear Beatrice: Here is where I spent many happy & pleasant hours this summer. When are you coming to see me, I'm so, I'm so sad & lonely since Walter left us. I gained 5# here in Clare but have lost 10 or more ... I came back. Will write next week. But in the meanwhile don't forget me. With love, Dollie." Printed on back: "Published for S.H. Knox & Co., made in Germany." Card is postmarked September 13, 1907.

Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library

[sadly-never-after]

Music in the EAH Universe and who listens to them Part 5.

This is just an excuse to try to make music puns and share music I think the characters would listen to. (Some of these are even canon by the books!) I don't even like a majority of these musicians but I am fully convinced of my choices here. I marked in colours the one that are canonically part of the EAH Universe.

Since Tumblr only allows 100 inline links for a post I have to make different parts.

Part 1 (Alistair, Apple, Ashlynn, Blondie, Briar, Bunny)

Part 2 (Cupid, Cedar, Cerise, Chase Courtly, Daring)

Part 3 (Darling, Dexter, Duchess, Farrah, Faybelle, Ginger)

Part 4 (Holly, Hopper, Humphrey, Hunter, Jillian, Justine)

Part 5 (Kitty, Lizzie, Maddie, Meeshell, Melody, Nina)

Part 6 (Poppy, Ramona, Raven, Rosabella, Sparrow, Tucker)

ᓚᘏᗢ ☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ Kitty Cheshire ✩° 𖦹｡⋆☽ ᗢᘏᓗ

Godmother, Godmother (Burning Pile, Oh Ana, Verbatim)

The Neverland Experience (Cult of Dionysus, Queen of White Lies, Your New Boyfriend)

Spellanie Martínez (Pity Party, Tag, You're It, Mad Hatter)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Hermit The Frog, Rootless, The Outsider)

Tailor Hall (You, Ruler of Everything, Turn the Lights Off)

♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛ Lizzie Hearts ♛ 🂱༺♥️༻🂱 ♛

Katy Fairy (Dark Horse, Hot N Cold, Teenage Dream)

Marina & the Diamond Cards (Lonely Hearts Club, I Love You But I Love Me More, Rootless)

Nixie (Your Best American Girl, Goodbye my Danish Sweetheart, First Love/Late Spring)

Yes, Yes, Yeses (Heads will roll, Shame and Fortune, Dragon Queen)

Lana d'Aulnoy (Without You, Dark Paradise, Chemtrails Over the Country Club)

☕ ׂ 𓈒 ⋆ ۪☆⋆｡𖦹°‧★🎩 Madeline Hatter 🎩★‧°𖦹｡⋆☆ ۪ ⋆ 𓈒 ׂ☕

Giantz (19-2000 - Soulchild Remix, Fire Coming out of the Monkey's Head, Pac-Man)

Plucky Tailor (Stout-Hearted Men, It Gets Better All The Time, Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing)

David Longbow (Under Pressure, Starman, Oh! You Pretty Things)

Of Wonderland (Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games, Lysergic Bliss, Peace To All Freaks)

Tailor Hall (Mucka Blucka, Banana Man, The Whole World and You)

𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼 Meeshell Mermaid 𓇼 ⋆.˚ 𓆉 𓆝 𓆡⋆.˚ 𓇼

FKA Witch (Water Me, Ultraviolet, Give Up)

Florence & the Mill (Swimming, Never Let Me Go, Mermaids)

Lana D'Aulnoy (Mariner's Apartment Complex, Video Games, High by the Beach)

Nixie (Come into the water, Pearl Diver, Valentine, Texas)

Reigning Spectre (Tornadoland, Us, Samson)

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮ Melody Piper ✮˚.⋆🐭⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

Giantz (Dare, Every Planet We Reach Is Dead, Tomorrow Comes Today)

N-Chant (Shoulda Known, Ball & Lead, Monday)

Lil' Swain (Forever, Annihilate, Mrs. Officer)

Twenty one King's Men (Message Man, Stressed Out, Guns for Hands)

Cage the Dragon (Trouble, Cigarette Daydreams, Telescope)

Tyler the Narrator (Earfquake, Corso, New Magic Wand)

🍄🦋🌸 Nina Thumbell 🍄🦋🌸

ABBA-cadabra (Chiquitita, I Have A Dream, Waterloo)

Dolly Charmton (Coat of Many Colors, Wildflowers, Love is like a Butterfly)

Elvis Princely (Burning Love, You're the Devil in Disguise, Hound Dog)

Ever After Authors (Best Day of My Life, We Happy Don't Worry, Daisies)

Joan Bard (The Night they drove Old Dixie down, Farewell, Angelina, Love is just a four-letter word)

You are trapped on an eight-hour long road trip with these guys and you have to give one of them the aux chord.

[poco-lovers]

HI YES I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR HEADCANONS 💛 !!! :DD <- Also a person who makes Headcanons

OKAY SO THREE PEOPLE ASKED FOR THEM AND I SHOULDVE ASKED IF ANYONE WANTED TO HEAR SPECIFIC ONES BUT ILL START WITH THE MAIN TWO YOU PROBABLY CAME HERE FOR

Edgar first! 🧣

He’s convinced himself his clear social anxiety is just another piece of evidence he’s cool and mysterious. He is not.

Edgar tried to vape once and coughed so hard his mom thought he was sick and took him to a doctor

He has an extreme amount of makeup knowledge and knew all the makeup guru drama, he was there when James Charles was outted

Has a hard time expressing himself truthfully because of his lack of social skills

Edgar’s scarf is an extension of his body but the scarf lacks a lot of his thought filters so it tends to act out how he feels or grabs for things he wants. It’s gotten him in trouble and embarrassed him, but is oddly good for complicated dance moves

Says he likes horror a lot but gore makes him feel queasy. He just thugs it out

He wants to come off as a scary guy but he just has slight anger issues and gets irritated easily

Edgar has tried (emphasis on TRIED) to learn some Spanish music for Poco. The best he’s gotten is La Cucaracha and Feliz Navidad, which is impressive given he failed Spanish 1 twice

He’s got a jealousy problem because Edgar thinks others offer more than he could and his few real friends might not want to stick around when they realize

Edgar’s outfits leave him overheating in the summer and cold in the winter

He really does love his mom, she’s his only direct family

Definitely had a demon/wolf/dragon fursona in middle school

Has Pop Drop Candy on multiple of his playlists

Poco second! 🎸

Poco started learning guitar when he was 4 with his dad, although his parents weren’t mariachis

Has an absolutely huge extended family and each of them know a different instrument. Family reunions are both crowded and loud. At some point everyone shows off their best song they know how to play, and if everyone goes one after another this can last over an hour

A band kid, went to band camp, but refuses to tell anyone anything about what went down there

He can’t technically sleep anymore as a skeleton, and gets really lonely during the nights. He misses being able to dream and turn his brain completely off, although he’s learned how to rest

Poco’s family are all humans, he died when he was 15 and miraculously came back after being buried next to Star Park

He’s mostly lost his sense of touch, and can’t feel things like heat or cold at all

A die hard optimist through and through

Says country music “isn’t that bad you guys, Dolly Parton is a national treasure”

Claims dying was actually a good thing because now he doesn’t have to deal with allergies anymore

Has a habit of being overly friendly with people at his concerts, which can sometimes cause hurt feelings because someone might think he’s trying to flirt when he’s not, or that he’s leaving his established friend group for a stranger

Poco is absolutely terrible at picking up on social queues

Let me know if you guys wanna see more and of who!! Also share any HCs with me and I might draw them! Doesn’t have to be either of these two nerds :3 I’m in a drawing mood heh!

[spoiledlucky]

I see a lot of caged cocks on here... with no owners lmao 💀 What's the point of being locked up? So you won't fap your lonely life away? So someone might potentially see the outline of your cage through your pants? So you can stammer and try and explain and feel absolutely humiliated at their disgusted stare? So you can leak around the hot metal and feel it grow tight and restrictive the more embarrassed you become? That's the best case scenario for you, beta. Unless you pay to play. Unless you spend each work week putting in extra hours to offer up to your Master. Unless you go out less, spend less, hoard every cent to give as tribute to the One who you know can give you what you really need... I know, beta. I know what your little caged cocklette needs. Not to be freed, not to be held. But to be seen for what it really is... a pathetic, limp, weak little clit.

It's time for a smaller cage, dolly.

[adore-laur]

BULLSEYE: PART TWO

— last part unfortunately due to lack of inspiration (ends on a cliffhanger btw)

| The Girl | 

Port ships stationed on choppy waters blare their horns outside Shyla's apartment window. The pane is coated with dispersed rain droplets from the thunderstorm that just faded. 

In the foyer, cardboard boxes stuffed to the brim collect dust as remaining possessions slowly trickle out of their previous positions and into them. The cupboard above the kitchen sink is now empty of hand-painted mugs and colorful bendy straws. Secondhand art pieces have been taken down from the plastered walls of her bedroom. Flowers once quenched in vases are now wilted and ready to be thrown away, the dying petals symbolizing the approaching absence of their caretaker. 

There's nothing else to be said or done. The moving truck will arrive tomorrow, and Shyla will finally detach herself from her poisonous living situation. No more nights being woken up by someone drunkenly stumbling through the front door. No more petty arguments over whose turn it is to wash the dishes, resulting in her doing the chore anyway. No more staring at the ceiling while her friends engage in plans she wasn't invited to. 

It's a fresh start. Onwards to greener grass. 

Perched on the windowsill, Shyla overlooks the gloomy scenery of her hometown. Dull roads, dull buildings, and even duller personalities; it's all so uninspiring to her. The city may look like a seaside harbor of dreams to tourists, but she has lived in the façade her whole life. She knows everyone will eventually become sick of the monotony. 

It seems like everyone has gotten sick of her. People are dwindling out of her life, and while most of the reasonings feel like her fault, she's still finding herself so lonely that she thinks she should've just kept her friends around to keep a tiny piece of her social life intact. Alas, she chose to distance herself from the only friends she had left. She doesn't feel too regretful since they never gave her the time of day. They probably aren't too affected by what happened. 

Shyla was habituated to being walked over like a doormat and thrown around like a rag doll. Emotional bruises from the mental abuse tainted her soul, and it led her to believe that she was completely blindsided by their spiteful ways of showing what she thought was friendship. Now, moving forward, she knows better than to ignore the warning signs. It's as if a switch flipped the night she called them after they left her stranded in an unfamiliar place. 

The flip switched because of Harry. When he told her to screw her friends when she wanted to say goodbye to them at the pub. When he told her he could clearly see how terribly they treated her. How unsettled he was when they left without her. How he tried to convince her to stay with him. It's worth wondering if things would be different if she hadn't said no. 

It doesn't help that Shyla has been failing miserably at not thinking about him. His dimpled smile. His gentle hands. His leather jacket she took off just so she could feel his warm skin as they danced to Dolly. She was convinced she'd forget about him as soon as she woke up in her bed, but he was the first thought clouding her mind before her eyes fluttered open. 

It's been over a week since she left Lurgashall. Her ex-friends are returning to Portsmouth tomorrow, and she'll only have to suffer one night with the girl she lives with before she officially moves out. Her belongings will be moved into a hotel room until she can find an affordable apartment. She would have stayed with her aunt, but she thinks she'd go insane being stuck in a house with a blood relative. It feels backwards to think that way, but her aunt isn't necessarily the most easygoing person. 

Lost in her thoughts, Shyla waits for the hours to pass by. The grey Monday skies make time move slower than usual. She can't think of anything else to do since most of everything is already packed, the hotel reservation is booked, and her body is ready to get the hell out of the apartment. 

A rhythmic knock on the front door halts her brooding. With a heavy sigh, she stands and walks over to the door, putting on a fake smile for the unexpected visitor. Briefly looking through the peephole, she's surprised to see the postman, Edgar, with a satchel full of mail slung over his shoulder. She unlocks the chain and cracks open the door, her mind scrambling at what could possibly be here for her, considering she already got her weekly mail from the lobby. 

"Delivery from... Lurgashall, West Sussex," Edgar says slowly, reading from the envelope. "Not sure where that is. There's no name, and I was told it's fragile, so I didn't want to just drop it in your parcel locker." 

Shyla feels her heart drop to her stomach. It can't be. But who else would write to her from a place she spent no more than a day in? Well, the three stooges are still there, but she knows for a fact that they would never go out of their way and send her something, especially a handwritten letter. 

Her mouth opens and closes as she attempts to speak through her jumbled thoughts about what it could be. "I—um, thanks. Thank you. I think I know who it's from. Have a nice day, Edgar." 

He waves goodbye and strolls down the hallway as Shyla closes the door and puts her back against it. The thick envelope feels like a metaphorical anchor in her hand, pulling her down until she slides to the floor. 

What she's holding has been touched by Harry. He pushed the lead onto the paper, sealed it, and sent it to her address. He thought of her. Shyla releases a breath she didn't realize she was holding and bravely glances down. She assumes he got her address when she wrote her information on the waiver the day she went horseback riding. The front of the envelope is blank except for the return address with no name and a horseshoe stamp in the top right corner. 

When she flips it over, she gasps and holds it against her chest as if she's in a period drama and just got a letter from her lover off at war. However, she feels her reaction is appropriate because a sketch is on the envelope's seal. It's a minimalistic style that resembles Harry's tattoo sketches of hands reaching out to touch one another. She doesn't know what it insinuates, but the mere fact that he had drawn it makes her shake with anticipation. 

Shyla inhales deeply before carefully ripping the seal open. She immediately sees something wrapped in bubble wrap, the cause of such a chunky envelope; it must be why Edgar said it was fragile. She takes it out and begins unwrapping it.

What lies in her palm is a pink dart. 

Shyla squeezes her eyes shut and leans her head against the door, the cold surface juxtaposing the blazing object between her fingers. Why must he pull her back in so easily with a simple gesture? How does he know how to make her feel things she hasn't even discovered yet? 

She opens her eyes and takes out the neatly folded paper inside the envelope. Skimming over the words, she notices Harry's handwriting is messy but eligible nonetheless. 

Shyla, 

I haven't heard from you since you left, and I can't help but feel that I'm the reason why. I hope you're doing well. Did you make it back to Portsmouth safely? Have you found another place to stay yet? 

Do you think of me like I've been thinking of you? 

Your name plays like a record in my head, falling from my lips with constant yearning. Your touch is engraved on my skin, leaving a burning, physical ache. I want to swim in the melted honey of your eyes. I long for one more taste of your lips. I need to hear the softness in which you speak your persuasive words. 

Please talk to me. Or if you never want to hear from me again, just tell me. Let me down gently, and I will try to move on. If not, you know where to find me. I will wait for you. 

Also, I believe we have a game of darts to finish. 

Yours regardless, 

Harry 

Shyla reads the words repeatedly until she can't make them out anymore due to tears blurring her vision. Why hasn't she called him? How could she think she could forget about a man with such a kind soul? She can't leave him hanging. He doesn't deserve that. 

She runs her fingers over the graphite like she did in his cabin with his sketches. He's the only one who has scratched deeper than the surface of who she is. He's the only one who has cared enough about how people treat her. He's the only one to have spoken up about it and convinced her to break away from that toxic part of her life she's been holding on to for far too long. 

She needs to see him again. 

After folding the letter, she rushes to grab her car keys and wallet. A trip to the post office will surely pass the time and help ease the ache clawing at her heart. 

—— 

| The Boy | 

Another shift at the ranch moves by like molasses since no reservations are booked for the day. Warbler birds chirp incessantly under the afternoon sun as the dusty roads absorb the heat. The room is stale, with dust particles floating around in the natural light. The wood floors creak with any sudden movement, and the papers tacked onto the wall flutter when the wind picks up, the front door propped open like always. 

Harry's father is in the outlying pasture next to the ranch, giving a customer an equestrian lesson. Harry was left to run the front desk by himself in case anyone comes by, but he doubts that will happen. It's Wednesday; he's sure everyone would rather be inside enjoying air conditioning on such a humid day. 

Sitting behind the counter, he twirls a pen between his fingers and wishes time would pass faster. It's muggy out, causing his forehead to sweat as he looks out the window for any sign of life to bring him a distraction. He'll usually bring his sketchbook, but on days with his father around, he wants to avoid him walking in on him drawing tattoo ideas. He can't imagine how he'd react. 

Harry is hungover. It's no surprise, though; he's been at the pub every night for the past week, always staying within the bar area in case the phone rings. He hasn't been playing darts, the memory of brown skin and soft whispers invading his mind to the point where even if he did play, he would be too distracted to do any good. A local always ends up having to drive him home. He then wakes up with a pounding headache and internally debates about not going to work so he doesn't snap at someone, especially his father. 

The cycle slowly demolishes any relish for life he has left in him. He can't sleep. When he manages to get a couple of hours, his dreams aren't pleasant anymore. Some nights, he doesn't even dream at all.         

When he's not at the pub or the ranch, he's in his cabin all alone. But he doesn't find solace in that loneliness anymore. Now, he just walks around aimlessly, trying to find something to numb his thoughts — drinking, sketching, reading. He'll read a sappy romance novel to try and feel anything, but the lovesick words on the pages only make him crave what he experienced with Shyla. 

After another uneventful hour of twiddling his thumbs and ignoring the magnitude of his unhappiness, Harry hears the postal truck stop at the mailbox by the front porch. He sputters his lips and walks out the door. It's probably bills or business forms his father takes care of. 

He opens the wooden flap and sees only one letter today. A small white envelope with pretty cursive written on the front stands out against the dark interior of the mailbox. He gently takes it out and brings it closer to his face. It has his name in the middle, and there's a sticker in the corner with an address from Portsmouth. Can it be…?

Harry has to kneel so he doesn't pass out from shock. She got his letter. She wrote back. 

He glances over his shoulder to ensure his father isn't lurking around before he tears the seal open. He removes and unfolds the creased paper inside, his eyes immediately taking in her delicate and slanted handwriting. It makes sense for it to look like that. 

The ink is bold against the white paper. Harry looks up at the sky and swallows harshly before reading the words that could either break his heart or make him the happiest man in Lurgashall. 

Harry, 

I got your letter and the dart. Stealing business property, are we? 

That's not the point. The point is that I want to see you again. I'm an idiot to think I could just ignore you. I'm sorry if it came across that I never wanted to speak to you again. I've been stressed and busy. 

To answer your question, I'm staying at a hotel until I find somewhere to live. As for your other question, I've also been thinking about you. I miss your hands. I miss how easy it is to talk to you. I miss dancing together. 

I'm in the middle of moving right now, but I should be situated by next week. If you'll have me, I'd love to come back to Lurgashall and meet somewhere. Does next Monday work for you? 

If so, get ready for me to kick your ass in darts. 

Love, 

Shyla 

Harry grips the letter like it's his life source, reading the words I want to see you again over and over until his eyes hurt from the closeness in which he's viewing the paper. He slams the mailbox shut and strides back into the ranch, stumbling behind the counter to take out several cardboard boxes kept under it. The junk gets tossed onto the floor and makes a clatter. He finally finds the box that stores envelopes, and he's never moved faster to grab one.

Shyla, 

Monday is perfect. Guess what? Karaoke night at the pub is on that day. It must be your psychology degree coming in handy. Wait... is that what psychology is? I left school at an early age, so go easy on me. Anyway, I'll wait for you at the pub at 9 PM. 

I'm glad you're moving to a new place. It'll be good for you. I can't wait to see you again.

Don't forget to bring your lucky pink dart. Otherwise, I'm not sure there will be any ass-kicking involved on your end. Please drive safely. 

Take care, 

Harry 

He sets the pen down and rests his forehead on the counter, breathing a disbelieving laugh. He shakes his head before standing straight and tucking the letter in the envelope. As he walks out the back door to the stables, he licks the seal and keeps his footsteps quiet. His father can't see him from where he is far out in the pasture, so Harry sneakily mounts his horse and rides to the village's post office to send the letter as soon as possible. No way is he waiting for the mail to come tomorrow. 

As he passes the pond and the willow tree's drooping branches, his heart feels like it's been healed by her simple words on a crinkly piece of paper. 

—— 

| The Girl | 

It's the following Monday, and Shyla is five minutes away from Lurgashall. She drives through the night to get to the pub. She had written back and said she'd meet him at his suggested time. 

Her suitcase and duffel bag are in the trunk, clunking against the interior as she drives on a bumpy stretch of road. The highways drastically transformed into vacant backroads surrounded by expansive fields. She doesn't know how long she'll be staying, so she packed a bunch of clothes and other essential items she might need. The boxes at her old apartment had been moved into a new complex in Portsmouth. She wasn't looking for anything fancy, just a simple one-bedroom place she could eventually make into her own.

Shyla turns down the volume of a Fleetwood Mac song playing through the car's speakers as she enters the pub's gravel parking lot. She gets hit with déjà vu when she remembers how excited she was to come last time, only to have the night end horribly. This time around, she's walking in by herself and will be around someone who listens and cares. 

Tonight, it'll just be her and Harry. 

He mentioned karaoke night in his letter, so she assumes it will be lively inside. Before opening the car door, she checks herself in the rear-view mirror to ensure she looks presentable. She's makeup-less just in case it's humid in the small room. She wears high-waisted jeans with a few rips and a grey crop top. 

Shyla takes a deep breath and mentally prepares herself to see him again. It's been about two weeks, and she wonders if things will be awkward between them. It's easy to write letters and prepare what you want to say beforehand, but when it's face-to-face, there's a hypercritical pressure to say the right thing.

After fixing her hair, she finally gains the courage to leave her car. She locks it and begins walking to the wooden door as her shoes crunch the gravel beneath them, and it's what she focuses on instead of the nervousness twisting her stomach into knots. She can hear muffled chatter and music that only gets louder when she finally opens the final barrier between her and Harry. 

Once she passes the threshold, she's instantly consumed with the same feeling she had the last time; overwhelmed but comfortably so. She has missed the ambiance of the pub even though she's only been to it once before. Everyone is too preoccupied with themselves to see her arrive, and she's thankful for the lack of perception the people here partake in. Her eyes dance around the room, searching for Harry, first looking at the dartboard in the corner to see if he's already playing a game. He's not there, so she looks behind the bar to see if he might be serving drinks tonight. 

As she scans the preoccupied stools for his curly head of hair, it doesn't even register in her mind that the music playing is coming from the karaoke stage set up in the back. She eventually homes in on a beautiful voice singing along to an instrumental.

Shyla stands on her tiptoes to look over the crowd of people in front of her. That voice is calling to her. She politely excuses herself several times while navigating through the bodies until she's at the front. Her breath catches in her throat when she finally has a clear view of the makeshift stage. 

Harry.

Her jaw drops in shock as she watches him. He sits on a stool, his legs spread casually, and holds a wired microphone in his hand while he sings along to the instrumental of "Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers. He wears see-through yellow sunglasses, a yellow graphic tee, and velvet brown pants. His face is screwed up as he vocalizes on top of the violins and smooth beat of the song, his voice the perfect mixture of raspy yet smooth. The way the notes and vibratos flow from his throat seems effortless. 

Shyla is awestruck. She can't stop looking at him. It's like they're the only two people in the room as everything else becomes static noise. A few pub patrons admire Harry along with her, while the rest discourse and drink elsewhere. She thinks she could listen to his voice for the rest of her life. She thinks Dolly Parton's voice is like honey, but Harry's is like a silky stream of liquid gold that melts and aligns in the crevices of her soul just right. 

Shyla's hand raises to her chest, feeling her heart pound strongly. Harry's voice fades as the song ends, and claps and whistles are thrown his way. She joins in, still not able to process what she just witnessed. Harry's hands come together in a silent gesture of gratitude before he bows his head shyly. His eyes rove the room until they land on hers. His body is frozen in the motion of getting off the stool, but then he blinks once and smiles wider than Shyla has ever seen. He offers a small wave before handing the microphone to the person next in line. He jerks his head toward the back door, and Shyla snaps out of her reverie, beginning to follow him out while wiping her sweaty palms against her jeans. 

Once outside, they stand facing each other under the red glow of the exit sign. No one is around except crickets chirping in the tall weeds growing around the pub. It's a little chilly, and Shyla shivers as she rubs her hands up and down her arms to create circulation. Harry holds up one finger as a signal to wait before returning inside. 

Shyla slaps her face several times while she waits, trying to remain calm. She can't believe it's happening. She looks at the streetlamps that illuminate the fields behind the pub and hopes everything goes well tonight. 

Moments later, Harry comes out holding his brown leather jacket. He hands it to her.

"Thank you. I didn't realize it would be this cold," Shyla says quietly as she engulfs her body in the garment. It smells like the cologne he wore when they played darts. 

"Yeah, it gets nippy here at night." He sets his sunglasses on the top of his head and sighs happily. "Hi. You're really here." 

Shyla giggles and admires his now clearly visible eyes. "I'm here. It's nice to see you again, Harry. You look really good." 

"You're absolutely beautiful," he says, gazing across her face and body. "I didn't know if you'd actually come back." 

"I know. I'm so sorry I didn't call or write—" 

"Shy," he interrupts softly. "I understand, okay? I didn't know you were busy with moving, so I just stupidly assumed you were done with me. You were going through shit and needed some time for yourself. Don't worry about it." 

"Well, I'm glad you wrote to me. Otherwise, I would've thought you were done with me too." 

"Why would you think that?" He steps closer and cradles Shyla's cheeks, tilting her head up. "You haven't left my mind. I've been feeling miserable about how we left things." 

"Same here," she says. "Can we… maybe go to your cabin to talk more? Only if it's okay with you. It's just that it's cold, and someone could see us and—" 

Harry's mouth is on hers instantly, stopping her nervous rambling. Shyla melts into him just as he pulls back too quickly for her liking, her bottom lip snapping back in place. Her gaze darts between his eyes as he rubs his thumb along her cheek. 

"Sorry. I should've asked—" 

Shyla cuts him off, this time with her lips against his. Harry hums lowly as his brows furrow, tilting her head more for better access. He kisses her deeply, and Shyla's hands crawl under his shirt to feel his warm, soft skin under her fingertips. They graze the trail of coarse hair under his belly button, causing his stomach to twitch and then relax. She switches to kissing his top lip and notices that there's not as much hair above it since the last time she saw him. 

They finally run out of breath and part. Shyla removes her greedy hand from under his shirt, and Harry removes his hands from her cheeks. 

"Let's go to my place," he whispers, his mouth glistening. 

"Yes," she replies pleadingly. "I can drive us. I have my luggage in my car, and we can listen to music on the way. There's actually a song I wanted to introduce you to." 

Harry smiles. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's hope you're better at steering a car than a horse." 

Shyla playfully scrunches her nose at him before they both start walking around the pub to get to her car. The headlights flash as she presses the unlock button, and she gets in the driver's seat. Harry smoothly slides into the passenger side. She twists the key in the ignition, and her Bluetooth automatically connects and plays a song. They both jolt at the loud volume, and Shyla embarrassingly turns it down before grabbing her phone to scroll through her playlist. In her peripheral, she sees Harry reach over to buckle her seatbelt while she finds the song. 

"So, I know you like Dolly Parton and Shania Twain. Country isn't my favorite genre, but for some reason, women artists just hit different, you know?"

Harry leans his elbow on the console and nods with an intrigued expression. 

"There's this one song that I've loved since I was a kid," she continues. "Like, it's one of the first memories I can remember with my mom because she would always play it in the car. It's called "This Kiss" by Faith Hill, and it's one of the best songs ever created." 

"The name rings a bell. Play it. Let's see if the lyrics come back to me." 

Shyla excitedly shifts in her seat and presses play before reversing out of the parking lot. She turns the volume up and grooves her head to the beginning instrumental, smiling when Harry does the same. She begins singing as she drives along the empty roads. 

When the euphoric chorus hits, she shouts the lyrics. Something about being around Harry brings out fortuitous bursts of confidence. 

"This kiss, this kiss!" Harry joins in as they both point at each other. "Unstoppable!" 

When the key change comes, they're at a stop sign with no one else on the streets. They lean their heads against the headrests and look at each other during the final chorus. Harry grabs Shyla's face, squishing her cheeks and mouthing the lyrics with his lips brushing against hers. 

She doesn't want to keep driving; she wants to stay in this moment forever. 

They continue singing all the way to his cabin. Harry gives her directions, and the song ends just as she slows down on his long driveway weaving through the woods. She parks under the balcony and shuts the car off, the absence of music creating a deafening silence. She turns to Harry and notices the rings on his fingers. His hands are incredibly attractive.

She shakes her head to eliminate the dangerous thought as Harry says, "I'll grab your stuff. You can go inside and get comfortable. The door is unlocked."

"Oh, thank you. Sorry if they're heavy. I didn't know how much to pack." 

"Not to brag, but I can carry a sixty-pound saddle with one hand. I think I'll be able to handle it," Harry teases while stepping out of the car.

She scoffs lightheartedly and begins walking up the stairs to the balcony. She gets hit with a second wave of déjà vu when she passes the jacuzzi, her skin growing hot when she recalls what they did in it. She'll never look at one the same way again.

Making her way through the door and turning the light switch on, Shyla smiles at the immediate comfort she receives from his home. It makes her feel safe. Harry eventually comes in with her suitcase rolling behind him and her duffel bag slung on his shoulder. 

"I'm so tired," Shyla says as she flops on his couch. 

"Well, my bed is more comfortable," he replies, walking up the stairs to his loft. "Please shut the lights off before you come up." 

She doesn't hesitate to slip her shoes off and set his leather jacket on the arm of the couch. Shyla hasn't been in his room yet, and Harry seems to be inviting her, so she smiles giddily and follows him. 

The string lights wrapped around the railing make the room more visible as Shyla takes in his quilted blanket-covered bed. There's one window in the middle of the back wall and a wooden bathtub in the corner. She also notices that he has an intricately carved dresser with a retro record player and a stack of vinyl on it. 

"I picked some out for us before you got here, but if you're too tired, we don't have to dance tonight," Harry says, folding the quilt back. 

"I think it'd be good for us to get some sleep," Shyla replies while sitting on his bed. 

"Agreed. Um, I can… take the couch," he mumbles as he begins searching through the drawers. 

"Why?" Did she misread the situation? Or is he just being a gentleman? 

"I-I just didn't know if you'd be comfortable sleeping together. It's been two weeks and—" 

"Harry, I rode your thigh the night I met you," she says boldly. "I wouldn't come all this way just to be away from you." 

His hands tighten around the shirt he picked out. "Really?" 

She pats the bed and scoots over so she's closer to the wall. "Yes. Come over here." 

"Okay," he murmurs while taking off his shoes. "I don't even wear a shirt to bed, so I don't know why I'm looking for one. I got nervous." He rubs his forehead and puts the garment back in the top drawer before shutting it. 

"Don't be nervous. We've got time to reacquaint ourselves." 

"Right." Harry shuts the lights off and climbs into bed, taking his shirt off. "Are you going to sleep in those clothes?" 

"If I get up to change, I'll lose my tiredness." 

"Wow. Sleeping in jeans is when you know you've hit rock bottom," he says as he slides under the covers. He takes his pants off before turning on his side to face her. 

"If rock bottom is here, then I don't want to leave," she mumbles against his pillow. 

It's silent for a brief moment before he whispers, "Please be here when I wake up."

Her eyes search for him in the dark. "I promise. Goodnight, Harry. Sweet dreams." 

He inches closer to place a blind kiss on her face. "Night, Shy." 

—— 

| The Boy | 

There's a heavy knocking on the door downstairs. Why is it so loud? What time is it? Is it part of a residual dream?

Harry grumbles and squints his eyes against the sunlight beaming through the window. He feels something resting against his chest, and when he looks down, he sees Shyla's cheek pressed against where his heart is. Slow breaths leave her parted lips as she sleeps peacefully.

A relieved sigh escapes him. Thank goodness she didn't leave. 

She apparently can't hear the knocking, and since he doesn't want it to wake her up, he gently slides out from under her to confront whoever it is. He tucks her in, closes the curtains, and then puts on his pants from yesterday. Heading downstairs with soft footsteps, he yawns as he walks toward the persistent pounding. 

When he opens the door, he comes face-to-face with his father. He looks angrier than usual. Maybe because— oh, fuck. He completely forgot he had work today. 

"I expect a phenomenal excuse, boy," says his father. Harry instinctively shrinks into himself. "You were supposed to be at work an hour ago. It's seven already." 

There's no way he can tell him about Shyla. He can't know she's here with him, sleeping in his bed. His father would go berserk. 

"I got really drunk last night and passed out here. I forgot to set my alarm," he lies, scratching his head. 

"That's the best you've got? I can easily count how many times you've come to work hungover. Why is today the day you don't feel up to it, huh? For heaven's sake, you—" 

"Dad," he says with a groan. He really doesn't want to deal with his explosive nature this early. "It won't happen again. I'll come right now, okay? I'll work overtime today." 

His father shakes his head disappointedly. "You're lucky there's no one waiting for a tour. Get a move on. Otherwise, you're not getting paid today." 

Harry nods and rubs his tired eyes. "Okay. Give me ten minutes." 

"You probably reek of whiskey. Take a shower and fix your piss-poor mood." 

He has to bite his tongue so as not to talk back. He wants to tell him that if he just drove him to work, he'd be there faster. Alas, his father has never been a logical man. 

Without another word, his father slams the door shut, shaking the picture frames on the walls. Harry chews on the inside of his cheek to stop the irritation from taking over his body. He kicks the door before making some coffee. 

While it's brewing, he returns to the loft to check on Shyla. She's still lying down, but her eyes are now open. She must have heard everything. 

"Shyla, I'm so sorry," he murmurs as he finds an outfit. "I forgot I have work this morning, and now my father's pissed." 

She smiles and sits up against the headboard. "That's okay. Sorry for distracting you." 

"It's not your fault at all." He glances back at her tired eyes as he jumps into a pair of blue jeans. He then throws on a plain white shirt and shoves his feet into his boots.

"Still. It's our first day together again, and you have to leave." 

"That's on me. I should've had you come when I wasn't working, but it was karaoke night, and I wanted to see you as soon as possible. I feel terrible." 

"Hey, don't worry about it." Shyla sits at the edge of the bed. "I can stay here, right?" 

He sits beside her and admires how the morning sun strikes her skin. "Of course. You can make yourself something to eat. And, um, I've got books and records you can look through," he says meekly, hoping his cabin doesn't appear dull. 

"I'm sure I'll find something. Just know I'll be here when you get back." 

"Okay. I'll try to get out of working overtime. I'm sure it won't be too busy today.

She nods. "I'll walk you out." 

He watches her stretch, her shirt riding up to show a sliver of smooth skin. Then they go downstairs, Harry grabbing his filled coffee mug before he opens the front door. They lean against the frame and face each other. 

Harry clears his throat and says, "You should pick out some records for us to dance to tonight."

"I'd like that." Shyla runs a hand through her hair. "Have a good shift, okay? Don't let your father get in your head." 

"I won't." He gives her a soft smile and moves closer. "Maybe we can go to the pub and finish that game of darts." 

She wraps her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek sweetly. "That sounds perfect. I'll see you soon." 

He blushes and looks at the ground. Should he kiss her? Maybe a hug would be safer? He's overthinking everything. 

"Bye," he blurts. 

"Bye, Harry." 

He exhales and decides to just go for it. Slowly, he places his palm on her cheek just as Shyla looks up at him with those brown eyes that melt him. He kisses her. It's an innocent kiss, nothing more than a long caress of her bottom lip. After breaking away, he rests his forehead against hers, and they both smile like fools. 

He leaves with one last kiss before heading out. Walking down the driveway, he feels elated, knowing he gets more time with her when he arrives home. 

—— 

| The Boy & The Girl | 

Shyla spends the next eight hours getting acquainted with Harry's cabin. She observes every nook and cranny, not in a nosy way, but just because she genuinely wants to see everything that makes him who he is. She still doesn't know much about him and plans to ask him questions tonight without distractions. 

It's now four in the evening, and the sun still shines through the gaps of the tall pine trees outside. She made breakfast and lunch, looked through his book collection, and picked out some records. Now, she sits on his couch and waits for him. The sun will set soon, and she's looking forward to going to the pub later so they can finish their game of darts. 

Just as she's about to skim another book, she hears what sounds like hooves walking on gravel outside the windows she opened earlier. She goes to the one by the front door and sees Harry riding a horse as he chews on a Twizzler—not just any horse, but the same one she rode when she went horseback riding. 

Harry smirks at her confused expression. He also notices that she's changed out of her clothes from last night and into leggings and a white low-cut top with a string halter around her neck. He pulls back on the reigns and steadily dismounts Quake. He decided to bring the horse Shyla would be most comfortable with, not wanting to scare her by bringing his stallion.

Shyla walks over to them with uneasy steps, and he beckons her closer. "Uber's here," he says, grabbing Quake's purple bridle and guiding him toward her. 

"I think Lurgashall should have a horse and carriage ride share company," Shyla says as she timidly pets Quake. 

He laughs. "Let's ride to the pub." 

Shyla quirks an eyebrow. "What do you mean ride?" 

"On Quake. I mean, I did bring him all the way here. He told me he likes you." 

She pretends to mull it over as Harry drapes his arms around her shoulders and brings her in for a hug. He whispers, "You can hold onto me the entire time. I won't let you get hurt. Let's go inside and get ready, yeah?" 

Shyla nods and returns to the cabin as Harry ties Quake to a post. He then follows her to his loft, wiping sweat off his neck with his shirt. He sees Shyla place her suitcase on the bed, stuffed with many garments.

"Why don't you pick out an outfit for me to wear tonight?" he murmurs as he squeezes her upper arms. 

"Are we dressing casually or formally for our incredibly serious dart competition?"

"Hmm... we should be fancy. Did you pack anything like that?" 

"I might have brought a dress," she says, pressing her ass back against him. When she moves away, she hears his dissatisfied sigh. It's fun riling him up.

"Well, while you get ready, I'm going to give Quake a snack." Harry points to his dresser full of outfits, ranging from tattered sweatshirts to crisp button-ups. "Pick out anything you want. Make it good." 

Shyla hums an affirmation as he heads down the stairs. She begins sifting through his drawers, going through shorts, boxers, and different shades of jeans. When she gets to the bottom drawer, she moves some frayed sweaters around and stumbles upon something unlike his other clothing: a black leather jacket and pants. 

She touches the textured material, removes it from the drawer, and places it on his bed. She could never be confident enough to wear leather, but she has a feeling Harry could pull it off. Where could he have possibly worn this before? It almost looks unused. 

When Harry returns, he stops when he sees what Shyla laid out for him. He clears his throat and slowly walks toward the bed. 

"That's what you want me to wear?" he asks, picking up the pristine jacket. 

"Yes," she says hesitantly. "Is it too much? I can find something else if—" 

"Shyla." Her mouth snaps shut at his low tone. "You want me to wear this with no shirt on underneath and my tits out for everyone to see? Are you sure you can handle that?" 

She swallows and nods her head. "You look really good in leather." 

"Yeah? Leather it is, then." 

He begins taking off his clothes, and Shyla distracts herself by looking through her bag to find the dress she packed. She pulls out her black suede heels and silver slip dress she brought in case they went anywhere fancy. The hem falls to her mid-thigh, and the scooped neckline is loose around her cleavage. Before she zips her bag, she remembers that she brought the pink dart with her. It's in the mesh pocket of her bag, and she slyly takes it without him seeing it and puts it in her bra. She then goes to the bathroom to change. 

Once her dress and shoes are on, Shyla splashes her face with cold water and wanders toward his bookcase while she waits, her fingers running along the spines. She still needs to look through all of them. Based on the titles and covers, many of them seem to be in the romance genre, and it tugs at her heartstrings knowing that Harry reads such vulnerable stories in his cabin all alone. 

While reading the back of a book titled Emma, she suddenly hears heavy footsteps descending the stairs, the heels clicking against the wood. When she turns around, she gasps at the sight before her. 

Harry is in his full leather get-up, which fits him perfectly. He has on black heeled dress shoes to match. But most shocking to Shyla is his hair; it's been pushed back from his face, with no curls hanging over his forehead or a significant part down the middle. 

"Ready?" he asks with a smile as he tugs the lapels of his jacket. 

"Holy shit, you look hot," she says, ogling every inch of him. 

He admires her outfit, his tongue running across his teeth. "You look breathtaking. Trying to get me off my A-game tonight?" 

She shrugs playfully and grabs her phone as Harry leads them out the front door. He unties Quake and keeps the rope secure through his belt loops, then mounts him, careful not to rip or ruin his leather. He waves Shyla over. She ambles to Quake. He offers his hand so she can balance more easily, then watches her lift her leg over to sit behind him on the saddle. 

Shyla's hands immediately circle around his waist under his jacket and rest on his exposed stomach. Harry turns his head to smile at her, leaning in for a quick kiss before gently kicking Quake to get him to start trekking down the driveway. 

"This is actually really nice." 

"Atta girl." Harry reaches his hand back to squeeze her thigh. "Wasn't so bad, huh?" 

"As long as we don't start galloping. Don't even try to be funny," Shyla warns, grabbing his hand on her leg. 

A comfortable silence persists throughout the journey. There's no need to talk when the nature around them is a beautiful point of interest. Shyla never feels like she has to fill in empty conversations with Harry since being in each other's presence is enough. 

After about ten minutes, they arrive at the pub. Harry stops Quake around the back of the building and ties him to the fence post. He usually asks for a clean bucket to bring fresh water out for him during the night. He swings his leg over to dismount, then helps Shyla off with his hands on her waist. 

"Ready to lose?" Harry teases in her ear as he interlocks their fingers and guides her through the back door.

"You have to go easy on me. Dumb down your skills so it's a fair game." 

"What happened to being so confident about kicking my ass?"

"I wasn't serious," she mumbles with a small smile as they walk toward the familiar dart board in the corner. No one is playing, and only a few locals are in the room. Some eat appetizers at the bar, and others sit at tables, talking and enjoying the music. 

"I may or may not have told everyone that I needed the dartboard for tonight," he tells her as he grabs chalk to write their names. It doesn't go unnoticed that he writes 'Shy' on the board.

Shyla comes behind him and whispers, "I brought the pink dart." 

Harry tilts his head to look at her, glancing down at her lips. "Best get to using it," he says lowly, jerking his chin to the dart board. 

Shyla smirks and reaches inside the cups of her bra. Harry's eyes trail downwards, and they watch her every move. He inhales sharply when her cleavage is exposed, and she walks behind the white line before he can say anything. 

"Are we playing 305 again?" 

"Yes. Wait, no. Huh? You mean 301?" 

"What? I swear it was 305." Shyla confusedly shakes her head as she tries to replicate the professional stance Harry showed her last time. "Maybe I was thinking of Pitbull. You know, Mr. 305." 

"Right. Mr. Worldwide and all that," he says from his place next to the dartboard. He then smiles mischievously. "Elbow bent, dale." 

She furrows her eyebrows and tries not to laugh. "What did you just say?" 

"Isn't that what Pitbull says? It means darling, right?" 

Did he fuck that up? Why is she laughing? He was just trying to be romantic. 

Shyla snorts. "No, it doesn't. It means give it or go ahead, Harry. Querida means darling." She bends her elbow and brings the dart up to her line of sight. "Also, please move. I don't want to accidentally hit you." 

"I trust you, darling." He smoothly recovers from the embarrassment as he fully leans against the board and crosses his ankles, making Shyla more worried that she might hit him. 

"You have a death wish speaking to me like that when I'm trying to focus." Shyla places weight on her front foot and snaps her wrist forward to throw the dart. It hits the six on the right side of the board, and she pouts at the low number. Harry shakes his head in faux disappointment as he writes her score down. 

"You distracted me! You can't just stand next to the board looking like that and expect me to do well." 

"Switch." Harry dismisses the compliment and gestures for them to trade places. Shyla stands next to the board as he places himself behind the line. While he stances up, she decides to delve into some teasing. 

When Harry glances at her, she slightly lifts the hem of her dress, exposing bare brown skin that he can't get enough of. He clears his throat and looks back at the board, focusing on the bullseye. He closes one eye and throws the dart. 

He scoffs when it lands on the seventeen. She's going to pay for that. 

"Aw, that's too bad," Shyla says sarcastically. She sways her hips as she walks over to the digital jukebox against the opposite wall and types in a song she wants to play. 

"My Kind of Lady" by Supertramp starts, and Shyla shimmies her way back to Harry. They both forget about their ongoing game and join each other to dance. She can't get over how he looks in his outfit, his stomach muscles flexing with each sway and his tattoos looking more tempting than usual. 

Harry dips her when the saxophone solo plays and kisses her neck before smoothly bringing her back up to his chest. They dance in their little corner of the pub, not caring who's watching. It's just like Shyla felt yesterday when Harry was singing karaoke: in their bubble, feeling like the only ones in the world. 

They eventually got back to finishing the game. Harry won by a mile. Shyla told him that she didn't want to drink tonight when he offered to buy shots, and he agreed because he thought back to when she left and how he drowned himself in whiskey every night until he passed out. He's sick of alcohol, and he also doesn't want to have Shyla be a part of riding a horse drunk. 

A little after seven, the pub got crowded, and they decided to leave. Harry told Shyla on the way back that they didn't need to bring Quake back to the stables because he has his own area around the back of his cabin for the nights, and he's too drunk to go to the ranch. Shyla and Harry walk inside after he's tied up and given water and hay. Harry flicks the light switch on, illuminating the safe space he can now share with Shyla. 

"Did you pick out something for us to listen to?" he asks as they head up to his loft. 

"I did," she replies while taking her heels off. "Can we dance some more? I'm not tired yet." 

He nods and smiles, walking to the small record player on his dresser. He sees that she's picked out two of his vinyls when he was at work. He looks through them, finding Super Trouper by ABBA and Eat to the Beat by Blondie. 

"What should we start with?" He glances back and admires how much shorter she is without her heels. 

"Something slow. After that, I want to play you a song I listened to when I was younger." 

"Of course." He steps out of the way so she can play a record. "Show me all the music you like. It's one of the best ways to get to know someone." 

Shyla's face heats as she takes the ABBA record out and places it on the turntable. "Um, I don't know how to make it play a specific song." 

He stands beside her. "This one is ancient, so you have to do it manually. What song did you want?" 

"Track four, please," she says shyly. 

Harry kneels and gently sets the needle against the specific groove. It scratches before a slow, sultry electric guitar crepitates through. He stands and smiles when he recognizes the song: "Andante, Andante." 

Shyla closes the distance between them and repeats the intimate action she did when they first danced. She takes off his black leather jacket and leaves his inked upper half exposed, then wraps her arms around his waist as Harry cradles her head into his chest with both hands. He thinks he could hold her forever in his loft, skin igniting like a never-ending flame. He has never felt this content, her soft breathing synchronizing with his own, their bodies swaying.

"Do you work tomorrow?" Shyla asks against his collarbone, feeling his heart beat melodically. 

He moves one of his hands to run his knuckles up and down her spine. "I have the next two days off. Did you have something you wanted to do?" 

"I don't know. You'll have to show me around Lurgashall." 

"I'd be happy to, Shy. We'll think of something." He clears his throat before asking the question he's wanted to know the answer to since she arrived: "How long are you going to stay?" How long are you willing to stay?

Shyla's breath hitches as she looks at him. "I'm honestly not sure. I just wanted to see you. Do you need me gone by a certain time?" 

"No, you can stay however long you'd like," he says with a kiss on her forehead. "I just don't know if you'd want to stay for a while. I know you have a new apartment and everything, but... shit, I don't know what I'm saying. I want you around." 

"I want to be around you too. We can talk about it tomorrow, though. Let's just dance for now." 

They continue slow dancing. Harry hopes she'll stay longer than a day, but he fears she'll become bored of the place—or worse, bored of him. 

When the song fades, Shyla pulls away to put the other record on to show Harry the song she mentioned. She removes the sleeve and black vinyl, takes the needle off the record, and puts it back where it belongs. 

"Let me teach you how to play something," Harry says.

"Okay. Track four." She laughs softly and sets the record on the turntable. "Again." 

"They're the best, in my opinion. Track four on Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album is "Rhiannon." It's such a good fuckin' song." 

"We should dance to that album tomorrow." 

"Absolutely," he says without hesitation. Anyway, what we'll do is raise the cue lever so we can move the arm." He grabs Shyla's hand and moves it to where it's needed. She raises the lever, and the arm picks up, hovering in the air. "Skipping tracks on vinyl can cause them to be scratched, but I'll let it slide for you." 

He pinches her hip, then maneuvers her hand to where he assumes the fourth track is. There's a loud crackle before the beginning of Blondie's instrumental "Shayla" starts. 

Shyla smiles at the nostalgia that suddenly hits her. "You know how I love Blondie? When I was younger, I pretended my name was Shayla to act like this song was about me." 

Harry rolls his lips inward to hold his laughter but eventually sputters a breathy chuckle at her confession. 

"Stop laughing!" she says, playfully hitting his arm. 

He captures her hand and pulls her back into his chest. "No, it's cute. It can't be worse than pretending songs I don't even relate to are about me. I used to dream about being Rosanna or Fernando. How incredible would it be to leave such an impact on someone that they write an entire song about missing you." 

Shyla laughs as they twirl around his loft. "I can't believe you can sing and didn't tell me." 

He shrugs, wanting to avoid further flattery. "Mediocre at best." 

"I think you're fantastic at it. You could be a star one day." 

"I don't know if singing in front of twenty people in a rundown pub would get me anywhere." 

"You won't get anywhere with that pessimistic attitude." 

Harry just shakes his head with a grin and leans in for a kiss. Shyla hums into his mouth, feeling his warm lips envelop her own. His kisses, she's come to realize, are always led with purpose. They're never too often and surprise her when she least expects it. So delicate and addictive, leaving her wanting more. 

He leans back just enough so their lips brush against one another. He stares into her eyes, drowning in her brown irises that lighten every time she smiles. 

"Let me paint your nails," Shyla whispers. 

His eyebrows furrow at the sudden topic change. "What?" 

"I brought some nail polish. We can listen to more music, and I can paint your nails." 

"My father would kill me." 

"We can take it off before you go to work. Screw your dad. Do something for yourself." 

Harry tosses the idea around in his head. He can't say no when she looks at him with such promise. Her eyes could persuade him to do anything. "Okay," he says eventually. "Just make sure it'll come off easily." 

"Have you ever painted your nails before?" 

"No." Is he missing out? Should he have painted his nails before? He's never seen anyone in town partake in it. 

Shyla pats the bed and leans over the edge to unzip her duffel bag. "Then I'm glad to be your first. Come sit by me." 

She digs until she finds the six bottles of nail polish she packed in a small makeup pouch. Harry sits beside her and nervously wipes his sweaty palms against the sheets. He wants to slap himself to get the image of his father's face out of his head. He needs to stop worrying about doing things that he wouldn't like. He has over a hundred tattoos; polish on his nails is nothing. 

"What color do you want?" Shyla asks, splaying the bottles across her palms. 

"Um, I don't know what would look good on me." He's been so used to wearing neutral colors that he doesn't know where to start. 

"How about smiley faces. Kind of like that yellow shirt you were wearing earlier." 

He shrugs, knowing she can make anything look good on him if the outfit she picked out is any indication. "Sure. Whatever you want." 

Shyla starts shaking the yellow and black bottles to stir the polish, then motions for Harry's hand. She takes his right one when he slowly extends it. She can tell he's hesitant because of his father, but she would never force him to do anything he's uncomfortable with. 

"Are you sure this is okay?" She rubs her thumb along his knuckles to soothe his noticeable anxiety. "You don't have to. I won't be upset." 

"It's fine. My father never really sees me outside of work." Harry awkwardly clears his throat. 

She just nods and begins applying the first coat on his thumb. His nails are surprisingly clean, considering he works at a ranch. "I'm sorry for saying this, but your father's a dick," she tells him, moving to paint his pointer finger. 

Harry laughs through his nose. "You hit the bullseye with that assumption. Shame you couldn't hit an actual one at the pub." 

She scoffs and sits crosslegged next to him for a more accessible angle. "Excuse me? Where did that come from? I insult your father, and then you insult me?" 

"I'm joking, Shy. You're right; he's a total dick. I don't know how my mother dealt with him for all those years." 

When she finishes another nail, Harry mimics her position so they face each other. They both fall into silence when his mother is mentioned. Shyla doesn't want to pry. 

However, Harry feels the need to jump over that hurdle since he's falling for Shyla and knows that if he doesn't open up soon, she'll slip right through his fingers. 

"She passed away from a stroke," he says, keeping his eyes focused on the strokes of the tiny brush. "It happened out of nowhere. One day, she was completely fine, and the next, she was on a stretcher. She was already gone when they got to the hospital." He swallows roughly and rubs at his throat with his free hand to stop the pain from crawling up his throat. 

"She chewed tobacco and smoked cigarettes," he continues in a thick voice. "She started when I was probably around seven or eight. It was every day, too. Just an awful addiction that eventually caught up to her, you know? I should've expected it to happen, but the thing with death is that you never see it coming. Anyway, it flipped my world upside down. One day, I woke up and didn't have a mother anymore." 

Shyla stops and stares at him with sorrowful eyes. Unfortunately, she can relate, but she keeps quiet and lets him proceed.

"I still talk to her. When I get lonely, I sit in bed or in the bathtub and talk to her about everything. Mostly about how my own father acts like he despises me." 

"Do you really feel like he hates you, or is he just projecting his repressed emotions onto you?" 

Harry lets out a humorless laugh. "God, I can't even tell anymore. He's always been strict and closed off since I was young, but ever since my mother passed, he's been unbearable to be around. It's like he sucks the life out of everyone." 

"He wasn't very friendly when I met him," Shyla confesses. When we went to the stables, he told us if you were cranky, we should let him know so he could talk to you." 

Harry's eyebrows raise. "Sounds about right. He thinks I've got anger issues. I don't, at least not anymore. I was barely hanging on the first couple of years without my mother. I didn't want to see anybody or go anywhere. I was eighteen and had just moved into this cabin because I couldn't handle living with my father during all of that. It may sound cruel to just leave him to grieve by himself, but he's stubborn and would probably tell me to fuck off if I had tried to comfort him." 

Shyla nods understandingly as she puts the last coat of polish on his delicate pinky. She then screws the cap on and brings Harry's hands up to her mouth so she can blow on his fingernails. 

"I'm sorry," she whispers. That's never easy, especially when you're eighteen and still trying to figure out life and expect to rely on your parents. I hope you're okay now. It's normal to still have those days where you want to cry over something that happened long ago. I still do." 

"I'm doing well," he says with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. What about you?" 

Shyla opens the black nail polish to apply smiley faces over the yellow. Focusing on the tiny details, she exhales, thinking about where to start. 

"I haven't told anyone this since I went to therapy ages ago. I still cry over my parents. It's funny because I can't even remember how I felt as a kid when they died. I think I blocked it all out. I mean, I couldn't even tie my own shoes yet. I had no grasp on emotions or death. I was four when my grandma picked me up from daycare and told me that they had been in an accident. All I know is that it wasn't fun growing up and not having my parents there to teach me things." 

She sighs and pinches her eyes shut for a second. "For some reason, at the time, it didn't really affect me until I got older. Like, twelve or thirteen was when I started getting really angsty, for lack of better words. Everything caught up to me, and it crushed me that I didn't have a mom or dad to watch me grow up." 

"Did you have any other family?" 

"I stayed with my grandma for about five years before she passed away. Then, I moved in with my aunt until I was about nineteen. Almost ten years of living with her was a journey, to say the least. She's not bad, just stagnant. Never really let me go out of the house to do things. She was trying to keep me safe, but it got old. Then, I finally went to university and found what I wanted to do there. I realized I loved psychology, and I'm hoping to get my degree within the next year. 

Harry watches Shyla finish the last smiley face on his thumb before setting the polish back in her bag. 

"Come here." He pulls her into his lap, careful not to smudge the polish, wrapping his arms around her body. "I can't even begin to fathom what that was like. I'm so sorry you had to grow up like that. I'm always here to listen, okay?" 

"I know." She hugs him back. "I'll always listen to you too. It's so easy with you. I would have never imagined I'd be talking about this after so long of keeping it inside." 

"I never had anyone to talk to until you came here." Harry's voice wavers before he swallows. There's something about you that makes me want to live differently, not be afraid of being vulnerable." 

Shyla melts at his confession. "Tell me something else." 

"Like what?" 

"Like... your tattoos. You have so many. There has to be stories behind each one." 

"Pick one out, and I'll tell you."

Shyla smiles as her eyes rove over his exposed skin, trying to find one that intrigues her the most. They're all so specific; she has no idea what they could symbolize. 

"The one behind your ear. I just noticed it. Your hair is usually covering it." 

Harry tilts his head to the side so she can see it better. "It's an orchid. My mom and I would pick them by the creek during summer. I have a lot of little tattoos that remind me of her." 

Shyla admires the minimalistic black ink of the flower along the curve of his ear. "Did you sketch it yourself?" 

He nods. "I went out to the creek one day and brought my sketchbook. I did all sorts of flower styles, big and small. I decided on it behind my ear because she would always kiss me there before I went to bed." 

She feels tears build in her waterline as her fingers trace the lines of the tattoo. "It's so beautiful." 

"Thank you," he says, tilting his head back toward her. "I tattooed it myself in the bathroom mirror." 

"Is it difficult to tattoo yourself?" Shyla can't imagine the skill needed to permanently ink something on your skin. 

"It gets easier with practice. I have a few on my arm that are rubbish from when I first started." 

"Did they hurt?" 

Harry tenses and clears his throat. "Depends. The ones above my knees hurt a bit." 

"Oh. I don't have any, so I wouldn't know. I'm too scared of the pain." 

"It's not a bad pain," he mumbles, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. 

"What?" 

"It's... not a bad pain," he admits sheepishly. "Sometimes it feels really good." 

"Seriously?" she asks with shock. "How? It's literally a needle going through your skin!" 

"Pain kink, Shyla." He doesn't want to awkwardly beat around the bush anymore. He might as well just get it out of the way. 

She gapes at him, absorbing the simple yet complex words he just spoke. "Pain kink. Cool. Hey, listen, that's your thing. I don't find feeling like I'm being stabbed to be pleasurable, but I won't judge you for it. You can do whatever—" 

"Tattoo me," he interrupts. 

"Excuse me? Are the fumes from the polish going to your head? Harry, don't you need a literal license to do that?" 

"How many more times do I have to say I trust you, Shy? C'mon, I'll teach you. You can do a small one." 

Shyla mulls over everything that could go wrong. Her hands would shake, and she could do a disastrous job. She's not particularly proficient at art, so anything she'd draw would no doubt end up looking like a shitty elementary school art project. She also doesn't want to hurt him, but that's obviously been punted out of the equation, given what he just admitted. 

She sighs, realizing she has to live a little more. There's nothing wrong with doing something out of her comfort zone, especially with Harry. "Okay. You trust me, and I trust you. But don't be upset when it looks like the scum of the earth." 

Harry fondly kisses her cheek and then pats her hip to remove her from his lap. "Thank you. Follow me. I've got my own makeshift studio around back." 

He picks her up bridal style, not wanting her bare feet to step on anything that could be a hazard in the grass outside. He carefully goes downstairs and kicks the back door open with the toe of his boot. Out there, which is an area Shyla has yet to explore, is a lovely, open lawn with a wooden picnic table and a couple of chairs in front of a fire pit. However, what catches her eye is a covered wagon she's seen on Western TV shows before, just like the ones oxen or cattle pull. 

The canvas material lights up when Harry flicks a hidden switch. He strides toward the three steps that lead up the open doorway, setting Shyla down in the process. 

When she walks inside first, her eyes don't know where to land. There's a wooden table at the back with scattered tattoo supplies—ink containers, cotton balls, a half-empty bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a pair of black surgical gloves. She immediately takes note of the daunting tattoo gun, the metal shining under the low light and intimidating her greatly. 

"It's nothing fancy, but it's just for me," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "And now you. No one else knows about this." 

"I hope you'll invite me in here again after the terrible job I'm about to do," she says self-consciously under her breath. 

"Oh, shut it," he murmurs in a fun-loving tone. He brushes past her and organizes the space a little before taking a new pair of surgical gloves and dangling them tauntingly in front of her. A wicked smirk grows on his face. 

The pit of Shyla's stomach churns at the thought of inking Harry's skin with no experience whatsoever. She blows out a nervous breath and takes the thin gloves from him, stalling by putting them on very slowly. Harry opens a black ink bottle and removes new, sterilized needles from a package. 

Shyla sits in one of two rolling chairs and watches him assemble the tattoo gun with ease. Then he takes a piece of gum from a stray packet on the table, setting it on his tongue as he loads the canister with ink. His jaw flexes with each chew, and she's transfixed by his expertise. 

"Start thinking of something to ink on me," he says, plopping down in the chair beside her. 

Shyla tilts her head and brainstorms what she could permanently tattoo on Harry's beautiful skin. Everything she's coming up with seems too embarrassing to say aloud; a horse that would most likely look like an entirely different animal, a lyric that would definitely be illegible, a dart that would... hold on a second. A dart! That couldn't be too hard, right? 

"Um, a dart? Maybe? You probably already have that somewhere on you." 

"I don't, actually. That's perfect. A tiny, simple one that you can do freehand." 

Shyla's eyes widen. Freehand? She doesn't even think she could do it if Harry guided her hand the entire time. 

"Where do you want it?" she asks apprehensively, rolling her chair closer to him. 

Harry shrugs. "Wherever. I don't care." 

"Okay, how about somewhere on your wrist?" She points to his left one, observing the other tattoos there — an anchor, a clover, and a lock. "I can do something tiny near your other ones." 

"Wherever you want, Shy," he reiterates softly. 

Readily setting his left wrist on the table, he opens the rubbing alcohol and splashes a couple of drops onto a cotton ball. He then sterilizes his entire wrist so whatever patch of skin she picks is safe to prick with a needle. 

"All right. It'll be so tiny. Microscopic, even. And simplistic." Shyla swallows thickly, her hands sweating under the tight gloves. "That's what I'm comfortable with." 

Harry offers her a hopeful smile, then turns the tattoo gun on, its loud buzzing instantly filling the confined space. "Hold your hand around the canister," he instructs, grabbing her hand and maneuvering it to the correct position. "Rest it diagonally against my skin and push down so the needle goes through. Not too deep, but still, make sure it's in there. My skin should resist when you pull it out. Only go a few centimeters before taking it out and continuing." 

Shyla exhales slowly and focuses on an empty patch of skin where she can tattoo the dart. 

"Hey," he says over the buzzing. "It'll be fine. I'll help wipe any excess ink off. If you need me to step in, just let me know, okay?"

She nods and leans forward to shift the gun closer to his wrist. She stretches his skin until it's taut, delicately tracing a short line with the needle. She pulls back quickly and looks at Harry with anxiousness wavering in her gaze. 

He laughs and wipes the liquid ink off, then squeezes her knee. "Keep going," he says hoarsely, feeling the pain rush through his bloodstream. "Stick the needle in for a bit longer. It feels good to me, I promise."

Shyla shifts in her seat and clenches her thighs together. Harry's eyes flutter shut as he comfortably leans back. She goes back at it, then realizes she has no clue how to draw a dart by memory. She wings it, pressing the needle down once again and creating an amateur triangle above the line she drew to represent the tip of a dart. 

When she lingers just a little too long, Harry can't subdue the groan of pleasure that crawls its way up his throat. He blinks up at the wagon covering, his pupils dilating from the addictive pain. 

Shyla thinks his groan is caused by her hurting him, so she removes the needle and blurts, "Sorry! I'm almost—" 

"Keep going," he says, patting her thigh in encouragement. "Please, baby." 

Baby. He's too worked up to notice what he just uttered, but Shyla notices, and she wants to get this goddamn tattoo done so they can head back to his cabin and fuck the tension away. She finishes it by adding two minuscule lines coming out of the straight line. It looks like a toddler did it, but she doesn't care. Harry is so tense, jaw tightened as he chews his gum, and her heart is pounding. 

Harry exhales when she manages to shut the gun off by herself. He lazily wipes the excess ink off, then swiftly pulls her into his lap. He grabs the aftercare ointment and rips the cap off with his teeth before applying a layer over his new tattoo. He then tears some plastic wrap off and hurriedly covers the area, finishing it with gauze. 

He'll clean up later. Right now, he needs Shyla. 

She straddles his legs and takes the gloves off, feeling his cock already hard underneath the leather. He groans again, this time from the pressure of her core against him. The dress she's wearing bunches up around her hips, her underwear entirely exposed. She begins rocking against him as his bandaged wrist pushes on her lower back to guide her, and any movement from his wrist causes a burst of pleasurable pain to shoot throughout his arm. 

"Cabin," he commands gruffly as he lifts her and walks out of the wagon. He blindly shuts the light off, then makes a beeline through the back door and straight up to his loft. 

He gently tosses her on the bed and crawls between her legs, his forearms beside her. "Is this okay?" he asks, his mouth resting against her spread legs. 

"Yes," she whines, sitting up to take her dress off. 

Harry helps lift it over her head, then tosses it over the edge of the bed. Her strapless bra and underwear remain, and he takes his time, leaving kisses up her thighs. He presses his nose into the damp spot forming on her underwear, placing an open-mouthed kiss over it. He moans at the taste of her arousal through the thin fabric before gripping his hands around her upper thighs as Shyla arches her back on the bed. 

"Be a good girl and stay still," he says while looking up. He sees her eyebrows furrowed, silently begging for him to give her what she wants. 

"Rip them off. I don't care, just please," she says, grabbing a fistful of his hair. She pulls it, hoping that his love for pain isn't just with tattoos. 

His reaction to her eagerness and the pulling has him biting marks into her thigh. He then kneels to remove her underwear down her legs. She's already dripping down her entrance, so Harry reaches into the nightstand drawer to grab one of the condoms that he stored up when he found out she was going to visit. He felt some shame about it, especially when the cashier gave him a knowing look as if to say: It's about time. 

Harry gets off the bed to pull his leather pants and boxers down, then takes his shoes off. He opens the package and rolls the condom over his length, moving to crawl over her body. He notices that Shyla has taken her bra off as he lines up with her entrance and swallows his nerves down. 

"Before you ask, I want to do this. I trust you, H." 

The nickname makes him whimper, and his cock throbs. He takes his right hand down to it and guides it up and down Shyla's wetness, getting her used to the feeling. He looks at her one more time to ensure she's ready, and when she nods in a frenzied way, he pushes his tip in. He opens his mouth at the tightness, morning at how well she fits. Like she was made for him. He pushes in slowly until he's all the way in. Shyla gasps at the way he fills her, clenching around him as he thrusts in steady, long movements. His left hand holds onto the top of the headboard, and his other slips under her waist. 

"You feel amazing," he mumbles in the crook of her neck. The bed creaks with each thrust, Shyla's first moan leaving her mouth when he hits deep. 

"I can feel you... right here," she says, touching her lower stomach. She can quite literally see and feel his cock nudging the skin there from how deep he's going. 

"Yeah?" He spurs her on, continuing to thrust in extensive motions through her tight walls. 

He doesn't think he'll last long, not having been intimate with someone in so long, but he wants to make it worth it for her. Shyla lifts her hips to meet his, placing her arms around his neck. She whispers breathy moans in his ear, and Harry is getting close to his climax just from her sounds alone. 

"I'm close," he says through kisses on her neck. 

"Let me be on top." He doesn't dispute this, simply flipping over so that he's on his back. Kiss me. I'm almost there." 

Harry kisses her, quieting her moans as she unravels. She grinds on top of him, holding his shoulders tightly. Harry comes when she clenches around him, his hips stuttering as he rides it out with quick thrusts. He spills into the condom, and his face grows red at how quickly he lets go. Shyla orgasms with him, lifting her hips off him when she gets sensitive. They're both breathing heavily as he rolls the condom off and disposes of it. His hand rests on his stomach, and Shyla flops next to him.  

Eventually, Harry sits up and opens the window to allow the summer breeze in. 

Just as he gets comfortable in his bed again, a sudden and startling noise comes from downstairs. He and Shyla freeze and stare at each other with confused expressions. He holds his pointer finger up, mutely telling Shyla to stay put, then quickly slips into his boxers and a random pair of jeans before slowly walking down the stairs. Shyla covers herself with his sheets and watches from afar, her heart hammering from the unexpected interruption. 

Harry cautiously stops on the middle step when the noise becomes clearer. There's raucous knocking on the front door, and it sounds like the person on the other side is furious. 

—— 

[the-huldras-back]

On the Boardwalk, On the Shore

Had this on a reblog on another blog that got censored almost immediately, so I decided to start a whole new blog for my writing about it! Anyways I was really gripped by the idea of mermaids transforming like salmon do in the wild.

Aluya’hicetya, A mermaid in her youth, was a darling girl in that time of her life when her kind felt the draw to rebel, swimming up to the surface to breathe the fresh, warm sea air. The old ones in her pod said it was good in moderation to keep parasites out of the skin, and the older ones said that they shouldn’t stray far from the deep waters, or entertain themselves with humans. “It’s not like the old days,” They’d say. “You can’t just sink a ship in a terrible rage like you used to.” But what none of them were willing to discuss, even in the safety and comfort of their warm undersea vents, were the consequences of letting lonely girls wander too close to the shore.

It was nothing so pedestrian as a simple kidnapping, one of those old stories of selkies captured by longshoremen or boys catching a fish bound to grant you a wish. The danger never came from the shore, but inside of the young who sat under dazzling human lights, listening to snippets of conversation on the wind. Some argued that the sea air could turn young merfolk strange, making them unrecognizable to their pods. 

Of course, Merfolk were dangerous to humans too. In the old days, plenty of sea creatures made easy meals out of the stupid and the unlucky, and there was no taboo against eating them, but most avoided it unless they were desperate. Search parties churning up their water and threatening their limbs with boat propellers were bad for the community, so in these days, only the witches made a habit of disappearing juicy morsels from the shore.

Aluya, though initially thinking about whether the stray boogie-boarder might make a good snack despite the warnings, was instead haunted by the sound wafting out over the chatter of folks on the boardwalk, resting in near invisibility on the rocks in the dark and listening to these strange beings with their strange chatter. Human tongues came easily to Merfolk, the pink muscles in their mouths just as capable of English as the haunting sounds in the deep. So one night after many years of listening and watching, there came a sound that made her heart ache, and she crept dangerously close to listen. 

Aluya was no stranger to the machines humans used to play what they called music, the sick, crunchy, compressed garbage that offended the ears and drowned out the voice, but this was different. She started to recognize it from her perch on the rocks, hidden by the blindingly yellow lights up on the pier. It always went the same way: “Can you play Sweet Child of Mine?” “Do you know ‘House of the Rising Sun’? The Dolly Parton one!” “Hey girl, you know any Nirvana?” 

Then the music would kick up. Slow at first, then with more confidence, a small rechargeable amp carrying the sound over the waves. Human technology was as impressive as old, deep magics to her, the way small sounds became large in their hands. It was startling at first, Aluya foolishly trying to match the keening with her own throat, forgetting she was being sneaky and that her song couldn’t respond to the call without water for her to speak into. Her kind didn’t have throats made to communicate above the waves. It made her red with embarrassment, but then she sat and listened for hours on the rocks, haunted by the clear tones of quality steel cords and even better chords. 

It took weeks of watching and listening on the rocks before she found who it belonged to, a young woman who walked the long way through the dark once the boardwalk closed, late into the night. Rough-looking and ragged, the scraggly musician was all bones, slinking like a stray cat through the night back to a small cottage by the sea. The ancient detritus of lures and netting in the bay outside the house told Aluya everything she needed to know. A pang in her chest, like the long prelude to a heart attack.A fisherman’s daughter’s daughter’s daughter, whiling away her hours on the earth by the sea, playing songs for money. It made her heart ache in a way that she didn’t expect. 

It wasn’t about rebelling anymore, she didn’t think. The night air wasn’t so great for its own sake. Instead, she would leave her pod in the afternoons when the sun on the waves made her impossible to see before posting up on a rock, sitting to listen, then escorting her home, all without any real plan or ability to reason out why she was doing it.

Her family and friends were quick to question her of course, but Aluya simply claimed the warm night air helped with an itch in her deep blue scales, and that she was rebelling, Mom. That seemed to satisfy her initially worried parents, and she felt so clever, sneaking off to listen and learn. Before long, Aluya knew every tune this strange girl knew, memorized them and their particular keenings like she would the voice of a friendly acquaintance. She followed along as well, with the snippets of people listening on the boardwalk or the girl’s own lilting tones when she deigned to do more than play the instrument. In this way, she learned her favorites, like Dokken, Whitesnake, and Genesis, and the ache in her chest grew with each passing evening.

Her dreams, though, weren’t of the usual mermaid things like salty fish and slippery eels and whatever else a mermaid might dream of. They were strange and dark, her inner eye drawn towards a cold, dark void in the shadows cast by instinct and the whispering of old, low voices. They grew harder to ignore, night after night, and as she listened, she learned things.

On waking, Aluya would find that she had spent her night's sleep swimming, or carving things into the walls of her grotto, or floating in the deepest, coldest part of her room, hot and irritable from bad sleep. All of this she could put up with, but the ache in her chest, like there was something she was missing out on, made her so jealous she could bite down on her tongue, that was the part that galled. It was miserable but became so much worse when she started to notice changes. 

Small crevices she had swum through since she was a guppy suddenly got tight, and she had to wriggle to get through. Some of her blue scales had started to flake off, and only in the yellow lights of the distant boardwalk could she see that new ones were growing in, a deep and vibrant pink that worried her. Her teeth! How could she forget. Mermaids had jaws of teeth made to fillet fish bones and suck down meat without choking, but what she’d worried were cracks or damage were instead obviously the smallest of serrations, appearing across her mouth in growing numbers each time she woke. 

Looking into her reflection in old glass and the family’s scavenged standing mirror, she was different. Pink all over where it mattered, when all the family’s scales were a deep blue, colors that would hide her within moments of swimming away, muscle and growth all over, so she towered and loomed in her own home, and a more powerful jaw, her muscles developing quickly to let her crush bone rather than work the meat off of it. She looked completely feral.

And magic! Mermaids didn’t do magic, she’d always been taught, only witches in the cold deep did, to warm themselves and bring storms down on disrespectful ships. She’d never heard of what made someone a witch, but now she understood as she carved on the walls of her grotto awake, using heavy metal fishhooks from the shore to scrape esoterica she barely understood and felt compelled to perform. With each dream, the old voices taught her a new trick or cantrip, and her family grew more worried, clearly on the edge of bringing up her changes but unable to bring themselves to do so until Aluya was towering over them, having grown at least a foot in a few short months, deep pink scales growing in where she used to have her mother’s blue. 

It wouldn’t be too much longer before they withdrew from her, giving only distant but polite answers to her questions about dinner and the weather topside, watching with disapproving eyes when she slinked out into the wider ocean to visit her musician and rest atop the sharp black rocks. 

Aluya knew the feeling she was experiencing, after feeling it tear at her guts for months now, all through the spring and into the hot, hot summer. Laying on rocks still warm from the sun, Aluya was absolutely certain that she was lovesick, and that it was causing the strange changes. She was becoming a witch, one of the feared merfolk whose strange ways and instinctive knowledge of the magic of their leviathan ancestors made them outcast from good and decent oceanic society. She’d grown too preoccupied to care though, finding freedom in her newfound size and strength. When it wasn’t worrying Ayula, she found it exhilarating that she seemed to be stronger and faster than before, able to kill and eat much larger, richer prey for her supper, even the mighty tuna unable to evade her in her new, monstrous state. She’d eat this rich food and feel it turn in her stomach, unable to fill the hole in her with food, and something even stranger happened to her as she listened to all those old rock songs on the pier. 

Opening her mouth, Ayula found she could speak! Some new adaptation with the change meant that as those chords wafted out into the air, she could catch them and sing along in time, even if only to herself, her deep, husky voice stirring from deep in her aching chest, crooning out her Void-laced tune across the night air, giggling to herself when her bewitched notes stunned animals on the shore or drunken beachgoers. Before long, she was testing herself, seeing how long she could leave someone spellbound on the shore, siren song keeping them in a stupor. She knew she was pushing it when that music kicked up on the boardwalk and she just couldn’t help herself, following along with her beloved’s clever fingers. 

“Yesterday, and days before. Sun is cold, and rain is hard. I know…” Her voice left an entire group spellbound, all of them still like deer in headlights around the fire they’d built up next to the water, a dozen humans all trapped in her spell till she let them go. It felt powerful and right, like she could sing them all into the sea for her next meal. But there was only one girl she wanted, and her song couldn’t beat out the cry of a steel guitar.

That was when she began to feel the most miraculous transformation coming along, the whispers growing urgent in her dreams as she rested now in a shipwreck, the old metal hull of a tugboat caked in occult symbols, fetishes made by instinct making her sleep more lucid, easier to remember the words of the tutors in her blood. That was when she learned the greatest, most taboo of mer magic. 

Ayula waited though, afraid and frightened for the first time since her transformation began, until she couldn’t stand it for another night longer, putting on the things she’d need. Human clothes and human things, pilfered from the water. She dragged them ashore, and as she left the safety of the sea foam, getting covered in scratchy sand, her tail started to disappear, melting like it had never been there, and then she was just a tall, wet teenager, quickly changing under the pier. Dressed in shorts and a shirt that barely fit her powerful frame, Ayula recognized in the mirror of a nearby jeep that she could pass for human, just so long as she didn’t make a habit of showing off her recessed gills or big, razor-sharp smile. She tied her long hair back, shuddering at the sensation of being dry for the first time in her life, and then headed up the stairs next to the boardwalk, ready to use her newfound voice to make her feelings known, one request at a time. 

Peering down at her beloved, Ayula reached into her pocket and took out a mason jar of quarters she’d found and dried on the rocks for weeks now, counting out five dollars' worth of change, before dumping the sum into the guitar case in front of the blonde woman, stunned and shy now despite her monstrous size and ability by her beloved’s lovely, fair features, and asked in a halting voice, “C-could you, um, well… Do you know any Dokken?” She knew that was one of the girl’s favorites, and her smile made all of Ayula’s transformations worth it.

[lpdwillwrite4coffee]

Okay y'all. This is the story of how I owe $17,000 to the guy who propositioned me during family night at a local brewery and now I'm committed to bringing sensible wine options to his house for Thanksgiving.

Our tale begins like most do - panic crying in the living room while my house floods. Because of a freak polar vortex like day in February, my old drafty house and the rust bucket of a boiler in the cellar created a horrific one-two punch that ended in me nearly freezing to death in my own home and almost all of my heating pipes cracking and leaking, flooding my first floor and basement. It was terrifying, beyond stressful, and most importantly to this story, expensive.

After 2 and a half months of living in a hotel, battling insurance companies, daily anxiety attacks, and having 4 grand of insurance money stolen by my bipolar, narcissistic mother, I hit my absolute fucking limit. Friends of mine who are much better off financially than I have ever been in my life offered to help me out of the dark, lonely, and cold hole I'd wound up in. Three text messages and a lot of tears later, I was in possession of a check for $17,000 and had an official start date for construction. Praise Dolly.

A hop, skip, and a jump through time and we're now in July. I'm paying my friends back in monthly installments and trying not to crumble from the knowledge that it will take me 4 or 5 years of consistent payments to get out from under this loan. But at least I have heat. It's the little things I guess.

My friend, let's call him Mitch, and his wife, who unfortunately shares my name but for this we'll call her Lucette, are kindly checking in on me and inviting me to coffee/dinner/drinks to hang out. Things seem like they're back on track to being normal.

Lucette gets a new job that requires a ton of travel, so I don't see her as much as I do Mitch, but that doesn't bother me, as Lucette and I were never particularly close and spending more than an hour of time with her makes me feel like a dirt poor 19 year old who showed up to a nice dinner party in paint stained jeans and a ripped band tee. We are not energetic or socioeconomic equals.

One weekend, Mitch and I get drinks just to catch up, and he tells me that him and Lucette have made the decision to try out ENM (ethical non-monogamy). They've been married for 7 years, have had a bit of a dry spell due to pandemic close proximity, and there's just the general vibe that they want to try new things. I get it! And I'm encouraging. Life is too short for bad sex, I tell him, and he's thankful I'm not judging them. We have a good laugh about it all - particularly the bit about them seeing my profile on Feeld, as they have one too - and after another beer, I go home.

This is probably the part of the movie where the music changes, warning the viewer that some event is looming and possibly dangerous for our protagonist. If only life had such a soundtrack I could hear.

Throughout the summer and into September Mitch and I see more of each other and I take notice of the uptick in chill weekend day drinking and texts. Nothing about it feels off or motivated by anything other than being bored and wanting to hang out with a friend. And because I know about his ENM journey, I think there's the appeal there of getting to speak freely to someone who won't wrinkle their nose and make jokes about bringing pineapples to neighborhood BBQs. In a stunning change of mental pace, I don't overanalyze it. Perhaps this was a mistake.

One morning I wake up a text from Mitch cancelling plans. I'm secretly thrilled - I didn't want to shower that day anyway. But I can also tell something has gone horribly wrong on his end, but he doesn't say what, so I just "yeah, sure, let me know when you're free next" my way out of the conversation.

When we do talk next, he tells me why he cancelled. Lucette cheated on Mitch during a work trip. They'd established rules within their ENM arrangement that she broke. And she broke them loudly, multiple times, and with her iPad still logged in and left on the kitchen counter in full view of Mitch. Horrible words are said, declarations of 'the best sex of her life' are sent to several group chats, pictures are seen. It's bad.

Mitch is unwell. I comfort him as best as I can and he tells me that he and Lucette aren't pulling the divorce lever yet, but he's still heartbroken and scared he's going to lose his marriage. I feel awful for him. I offer to buy him another beer. He shows me the texts he saw. It's officially A Lot.

From that day on, I become his "my wife cheated on me with the guy she told me not to worry about" therapist friend who he can unload on and get sympathetic words in return. I've been imprinted on by the depressed baby bird hatched by infidelity and low self-esteem. It's not the first time, and I'm certain it won't be the last.

Tell me, how's that soundtrack only you, the audience, can hear? I bet it's tense and full of cello.

A few weeks later, I get a head cold. It's not the end of the world but it's annoying. I'm fevered, stuffy, exhausted, and I have not a drop of soup or broth in my home. Mitch sees my Instagram story about being sick and offers to bring me soup. "Aww, that's so nice of you, thank you." "Of course! I'll go get it and be right over." "Awesome! Just text me when you drop it off." Thirty minutes later my doorbell rings. My dogs bark their heads off. I'm a little annoyed. The bell rings again. I see Mitch's car in my driveway. I mutter to myself about why he didn't just leave it on the steps as I go to the door. I look disgusting and I'm flushed with a solid 100.2 fever, but I guess I'm having face time with Mitch now. I open the door and he hands over the soup almost immediately, but with an odd look on his face. I thank him and ask what I owe, but he refuses for me to pay him back. I thank him again. He doesn't make a move to leave. I tell him I'd invite him in but.... *gestures widely to the PJs I've worn for 3 days in a row and the broken capillaries in my nose and the dogs still barking behind the second entryway door* He smiles awkwardly and says it's okay. He still doesn't leave. "So... how are you, Mitch?" His shoulders slump. "I'm not doing great."

Ah. There it is. Mystery solved. My time has been bought with soup and he's lingering to collect on it. So I lean on my door, sniff back a disgusting level of mucus, and brace myself for whatever is about to be said. Turns out, Lucette couldn't stop texting the Best Sex Ever guy and possibly is fixated on him due to some weird aging hot girl nonsense. Mitch tells me he and Lucette are separating. She's sleeping in her home office. The mess got messier. I tell him I'm so incredibly sorry, this is awful, etc etc etc. He stays for 20 minutes to tell me all of this and get as much of a pep talk as I can muster while trying not to sneeze directly in his eyes.

In the interim, I've gotten several strangely loaded texts from Lucette, telling me she's glad Mitch has me and that she knows he values my friendship and advice on things. Alexa, play "She Knows." But I keep things as vague as possible, because I don't want to shove myself even more in the middle. I didn't choose to be imprinted on, but I can choose not to encourage a more permanent bond. Call me a wildlife rehabilitation center.

Being sick takes me out of commission for a while, and I have to reschedule multiple things, including getting beer with Mitch. That doesn't deter him from messaging me of course, but I don't see him for a couple weeks. When I'm feeling better, I tell him we should check out a brewery we've never been to before and we set a day.

This is probably the part when the audience yells as the protagonist not to go. Don't get in the car. Stay home.

Ah, to not be a participant in the narrative.

I get to the brewery and immediately I notice 2 things: 1, it's family Sunday Funday, and 2, the vibes around Mitch are........uncomfy. I turn into a socially anxious motormouth. I can't stop talking about literally everything that doesn't matter, including the child at the table next to us playing a solo game of Uno and the 80's music playlist. I order my beer and finally force myself to chill tf out. Maybe I've picked up on a vibe that has nothing to do with me. Maybe he's just feeling weird. Maybe I'm just insane. All of these options are valid.

Halfway thru our drinks, Mitch brings up the odd texts from Lucette. "I think I know why she was being weird with you." "Oh? Why?" I sip my beer and wait. He says, "So, back when Lucette and I decided to open up our marriage, we had a discussion about who we'd see ourselves dating..."

Hey audience, how's that music crescendo?

I blink. Mitch gestures with his beer. "And obviously, your name was at the top of my list."

And because I'm the definition of smooth, I practically shout, "REALLY???" so loudly 5 people turn around and look at me. Mitch doesn't even look away from me. Instead, he stares deeper into my eyes and asks, "Do you ever see that becoming a possibility?"

Me. Dating Mitch. After months of supporting him through a painful, messy separation that hasn't even really become official. After knowing way too much about his sex life. After all the sad boy memes and depressed 1am texts he's sent. After being forced to read his angry, sexually charged break up poetry in front of him 2 beers in at the bar.

AFTER I HAD TO BORROW $17,000 FROM HIM AND LUCETTE.

I verbally flounder for a painfully long 12 seconds while watching that little girl beat herself with another Uno Reverse card, and finally land on a gentle but firm rejection of the idea. I don't have a chance to mentally process all the messed up parts to this messed up puzzle in the moment but when I get home it starts to click.

They had that conversation in the spring. Around the time that I had to borrow the money in the first place. And while I don't have proof, I can almost guarantee that Lucette vetoed Mitch's suggestion of bringing me into their situation, and now that they're breaking up, he feels like he can take a swing at it (pun? unintended?)

Which means that every single interaction, every single conversation and hang out, every single dollar bill I borrowed is colored with the knowledge I now possess which is that Mitch, for however long, has wanted to fuck me. He's wanted to fuck me so. Goddamn. Bad.

Audience, I bet you're the star at your optometrist's office with all that 20/20 vision. I'm honestly jealous.

No wonder Lucette was sending probing texts with the energy of "I know you know, and now you know I know." No wonder Mitch attached himself to me like a duckling trying to cross a busy road. No wonder both of them were so earnestly checking on me when I first moved back into my house. NO WONDER MY SUBCONSCIOUS MIND HAD BEEN SCREAMING "YOU'RE IN DANGER GIRL" FOR WEEKS.

And before ALL of this, Mitch had organized Thanksgiving at his house since Lucette would be out of town, and one of his friends created a list of what people can bring. I signed up for wine, since it means I don't have to cook. And when this entire thing came to a head, I started to write an "I'm bailing" text to Mitch. But before I could pull that trigger, our mutual friend messaged me to say how happy she is that I'll be there and that she's missed me.

So now, after finding out that Mitch has wanted to get his dick in me for months (if not longer) without even considering the power imbalance of me owing him SEVENTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, I have to pick out a sensible red and white wine and show up at his house at 2pm on Thursday.

Audience. Reader. Friends. I am.... stressed. And in serious debt.

And apparently hot enough to possibly instigate an argument between spouses.

Cue the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving song. This year I'm grateful for autonomy and friends willing to come up with a code word in case I need to escape quickly.

[normanbased]

i wanna watch more tony movies, i’ve seen psycho already, but what do you reccomend? i like older movies ( 1970s and under )

thx! 😎

There are a ton of good ones but here are my favourites:

- The Matchmaker (1958): if you’ve ever seen Hello Dolly! It’s based on the same play so all the characters and plot points are essentially the same. It’s super silly and cute and it’s not too long so it’s a fun little quick watch. I’ve seen it like 5 times it’s just so easy to watch AND Robert Morse is in it <333 my original babygirl little freak of a man.

- Fear Strikes Out (1957): BASEBALL MOVIE!! But also like, a pretty good film about parental pressure and expectations and anxiety. Tony does a really good job. BIG trigger warning for electroshock therapy though, since it can be kind of disturbing all things considered.

- The Trial (1962): I absolutely love this movie, it has the same vibes as like, a really weird dream you’d have. It’s based on a Franz Kafka book about a man who’s charged with essentially the crime of existing. There’s some pretty compelling arguments for the “crime” being that Josef K. is gay, and it’s a good theory to keep your eye out for when looking at the symbolism of the film.

- Psycho II (1983): I’m not even joking right now, Psycho II is legitimately a good movie. It has different vibes from the original obviously but it’s just… it had absolutely no right being as good as it is.

- The Tin Star (1957): A silly little western where Tony’s character is trying (and failing) to be a sheriff. Tony’s favourite genre was westerns and he always wanted to be in them. Another western he was in is The Lonely Man which came out the same year.

- There are a few civil war films he’s been in as well, The Fool Killer (1965) which is about a kid running away from his abusive folks, and Friendly Persuasion (1957) which I haven’t seen yet but is apparently good.

- ABC Stage 67’s Evening Primrose (1966): Its a short television musical but its really good. Sometimes I forget that Tony is actually capable of singing pretty damn well.

- Mahogany (1973): I just watched this one yesterday but man, I really enjoyed it so I’m throwing my recommendation of it into the ring as well.

- Goodbye Again (1961): One of a few films that I can only describe as “Tony’s Milf Hunter Era”. Another one would be Phaedra (1962). I like them I think I’ve seen them a couple of times now.

- Is Paris Burning? (1966): Tony is NOT in this movie for very long but it’s genuinely a really good war movie if you’re into those sorts of genres. It’s like 2 and a half hours long but I’d probably watch it again. Other war movies Tony was in include stuff like Catch-22 (1970) where, again, he’s not a main character, but his performances are super cute and the film itself is a classic.

Those are all the ones I’d recommend!! There are still some other good ones and a bunch I still haven’t seen, but those are my favourites :]]

[ohhkaty]

Record collecting is an expensive hobby but it also honestly brings me so much joy. There’s still so much I want to buy and will buy (tbh) but I keep going to record sales and not remembering what I own and almost buying doubles of the same album, so that’s why this list exists. But I also saw folks publishing their lists earlier and I love seeing what people have in their collections (truly I’d love to see yours if you wanted to post it!) If you ever want to talk records or music I’m your gal ♡ 

A Abba - Super Trouper - Voulez Vous - Greatest Hits Vol. 2 The Animals - The Best Of The Animals Arcade fire - Everything Now Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams Aqua - Aquarium

B Bleachers  - Bleachers MTV Unplugged  - Take the sadness out of Saturday night  Beyonce - Lemonade - Renaissance Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever  Barenaked ladies  - Original Hits  Bo Burnham - Inside  Bob Seger - Stranger In Town Billy Joel - 52 Street - The Stranger - Glass Houses - An Innocent Man The Beatles - Help - Yesterday and Today - Abbey Road  - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

C Carly Rae Jepsen - Dedicated - The Loneliest Time Cat Stevens -Tea for the Tillerman Creedence Clearwater Revival - Chronicle Vol. 1 Cheap Trick - At Budokan

D Dirty Honey  - Dirty Honey Dodie  - build a problem  Dua Lipa - Future Nostalgia  Dee Gees - Hail Satin  David Bowie - Legacy (The Very Best Of David Bowie) Dolly Parton  - Greatest Hits  Diana Ross - Swept Away - Summer 

E Elvis Presley  - The Essential Elvis  Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong - Ella and Louis  Etta James  - At Last  Edith Piaf  - The great Edith Piaf  Elton John - Greatest Hits  - Greatest Hits Vol. 2  - Captain Fantastic  - Honky Château  - Here and There 

F Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes  Florence and the Machine  - Lungs  - Dance Fever  Frank Ocean  - Channel Orange (yes this is a boot) Fun  - Some Nights  Fleetwood Mac - Rumours - Tango In The Night - The Dance

G Greta Van Fleet  - From the Fires  - Anthem of the Peaceful Army  - The Battle at Garden’s Gate  George Ezra  - Gold rush kid  Grateful Dead  - American beauty Genesis  - Invisible touch  The Guess Who - The Best Of The Guess Who 

H Haim - Forever EP - Days Are Gone - Something To Tell You - Women in Music III Harry Styles - Harry Styles  - Fine Line - Harry’s House Hozier - Hozier - Wasteland, Baby! Hall & Oates - Rock 'n Soul Part 1

J Jill Barber - Chances Jeff Goldblum and The Mildred Snitzer Orchestra - The Capitol Studios Sessions Jeff Lynne’s ELO - Alone In The Universe Joni Mitchell - Blue Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced Janis Joplin - Greatest Hits - Pearl Jefferson Airplane -Surrealistic Pillow Jethro Tull - Stand Up Janet Jackson - Control 

K Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour - Star-Crossed  Khruangbin and Leon Bridges - Texas Sun - Texas Moon Kate bush - Hounds Of Love Kansas - Leftoverture

L Lorde - Melodrama - Solar Power The Lumineers - The Lumineers - Cleopatra Lizzo -Coconut Oil - Cuz I Love You Lauryn Hill - The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill Lana Del Rey - Born To Die Led Zeppelin - In Through The Out Door 

M Maggie Rogers - Surrender Mother Mother - Dance And Cry Mumford and Sons - Wilder Mind Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion Matty Matheson - A Cookbook (yes this is a real cookbook, it comes with a zine!) Marina And The Diamonds -Electra Heart Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs: The Minnie Riperton Anthology Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell Mr mister - Welcome To The Real World 

N Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats - Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats The National - Boxer Nico - Chelsea Girl Neil Young - Harvest Moon Neil Diamond - Live At The Troubadour 

O Orville Peck - Pony - Show Pony Orla Gartland - Women on the Internet Olivia Rodrigo  - Sour 

P Phoebe Bridgers - Stranger in the Alps  Paramore  - After Laughter  Prince - Purple rain  The Mamas & the Papas - The Papas & the Mamas The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta Paul Simon - There Goes Rhyming Simon - Graceland  Pat Benatar - Crimes of Passions 

Q Queen - Greatest Hits

R The Regrettes - Feel Your Feelings Fool - How Do You Love - Further Joy Ramones  - Ramones 

S The Sheepdogs  - Live At Lees  Spice Girls  - Spice  The Strokes  - Angles 

The Struts  - Strange Days 

Silk Sonic  - An Evening with Silk Sonic 

Simon and Garfunkel  - Bridge Over Troubled Water 

T Taylor swift  - Lover  - Folklore  - Evermore  - Midnights  Trixie Mattel  - Two Birds/One Stone - Barbara  Twin shadow  - Eclipse  - Twin Shadow Tears for fears  - Songs From The Big Chair  Toto - Toto IV Toronto  - Get It On Credit  Talking Heads  - Remain in light 

W Whitney Houston - Whitney  - Whitney Houston 

Y Yola - Walk Through The Fire - Stand For Myself Years and Years - Palo Santo

Z The Zombies - Odessey and Oracle - Oddities and Orcales  

123 The 1975 - The 1975 - Being Funny In A Foreign Language

Movie Soundtracks - Labyrinth - The Virgin Suicides - Eternal Sunshine of - School Of Rock - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Promising Young Women - Josie and the Pussycats  - Almost Famous -Rocky Horror Picture Show - Up - Space Jam  - Little Shop of Horrors  - Grease - Saturday Night Fever - Xanadu  - Ghostbusters - St. Elmo’s Fire

Television Soundtracks - The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina - Stranger Things Vol 1/2 - Stranger Things Vol 3 - Euphoria Season 2 - Steven Universe 

Musicals - In the Heights - Hair