#low cost self care

[soft-serve-soymilk]

Gaslighting? In MY household? It’s more likely than you think

[the-joy-of-knowledge]

25 Laws of power for women

Conceal your goals especially the ones that are appealing. Losing weight, reinventing yourself, marrying wealthy. Instead talk about your altruistic goals - to help children, invest in education, this will chase insecure people with vile intentions.

Do not give anyone your source of power: Was is a book that changed your life? a mentor? a movie? Never give up your secret to success. If forced to do say allude to God, the universe, the a random phenomenon

Use the patriarchy to your favor; we live in a world that is, only associate with men who have power, use that power for good.

Never appear too perfect but be selectively vulnerable when needed. Only share something that you will be comfortable saying. You might say “I forget my keys all the time,” “I don’t know how to perfectly park a car “. But never disclose something you are not comfortable with just because you are afraid of being perfect.

Maintain distance in relationships. Friends are the best and you need them. But if you feel that they are becoming too dependent, see them at your own will. But also the reverse could be the case. Your friend may keep a distance, and that is the way of life. You have got to move on from it.

Develop your own style that makes you unique, beautiful, and elegant. Avoid trying to fit in the crowd of people who claim to care less about their style yet have too many opinions about other women’s style

Avoid male friends at all cost, you will have male colleagues, male bosses, male acquaintances, business partners. Keep it that way. You do not want a Truman Capote divulging your secrets to the world. Do not keep a man who does not fit your standard.

You do not have to win at every game. Pick and choose what is best for you and leave room for others. And step down if you have attained that level of success, do not let the society do it for you.

Trust people but remember that we are all humans. So trust with discretion!

Confuse people with kindness; people are not always comfortable with beautiful and intelligent women. That power is too intimidating so confuse them by being genuinely generous, curious, kind, and passionate.

Keep your strong opinions to yourself.. if you support a movement, a way of life, do so silently.

We all have dirty laundry, wash them privately, don’t expose yourself. Remain silent when people try to attack you or shame you. Whatever is not confirmed is not true. You are the only one who knows all the truth about you.

Don’t attract pity or praise: People who pity you do not help you, in fact they might think that you are weak and could mock you at their annual gossipping meeting. And if you are doing things for the sake of praise you are wasting your time.

Choose yourself all the time; never put any one’s feelings above yours.

Trust your own intuition if you feel someone is being malicious towards you, giving you back handed compliments then you should let them go

Never speak bad of another woman. Do not lazy around gossipping. Keep your hands clean and your conscience clear.

Avoid women with low self esteem they will bring you down. For some reason they do not like seeing other women who are doing better than them

Be careful who you seek validation from. Not everyone needs to be pleased. If they are in no way capable of contributing to your life in the ways you prefer, then don’t ask them for their opinions or please them.

Do not compete with other women, if you do you are only putting them on a pedestal. You are making the the standard by which you measure your progress. If you do compete, begin digging your grave.

Do not give unsolicited advice, do not share the inner workings of your mind, If your mouth is very charitable you better start journaling.

Be well-rounded and interesting. It attracts people. It also keeps you busy because you are continually improving and learning. An idle mind is an easily subdued one.

Avoid women who want to live vicariously through you; they want to know who you know, shop where you shop, befriend who you befriend, wear what you wear.

Pay attention to the source of your discomfort; get rid of them. You tell them your dreams and they remind you of all your hindrances. They ask why are you dressed so fancy as though fancy isn’t subjective. They undermine you interests and goals. They will also be quick to bring you down because they are afraid of your potential.

Do not fear power or please power. When we see powerful people we try to hard to befriend them, to be close to them but you need to be comfortable without them. Don’t push yourself in the name of friendship, do not try too hard to be in their inner circle. Your independence of mind is the most important. Instead become a powerful woman, aloof to the presence of power but aware of its importance. Be an ingenious and intelligent and use your creativity to uplift yourself. When you do so it will be hard to ignore you. Even the powerful will become an ally.

Enjoy moments of solitude. Use that time to develop yourself, improve your body, learn new skills, create with your mind, read widely, become more elegant, then launch yourself.

Remember the most powerful women are the most intelligent. Inspired by Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power. Use at your discretion.

[metamatar]

some of you are being outflanked from the left by the jacobin. lol.

For many loyal Democrats, this will not compute. The Biden economy, party-loyal pundits have said over and over again, is tremendous — low unemployment, strong GDP growth, slowing inflation, a booming stock market — and anyone unhappy about it must simply be brainwashed. Out of view in this self-congratulatory hall of mirrors were the constant statistics that said otherwise: evictions up past pre-pandemic levels, record-high homelessness, cost-burdened renters at an all-time high, median household income lower than the last pre-pandemic year, inequality returning to pre-pandemic levels, and food insecurity and poverty growing by large double digits since 2021, including a historic spike in child poverty. Here’s another thing you might not have heard. Largely due to a trick of history, including the COVID-19 pandemic and a Democratic-controlled Congress, Trump was partly responsible for the creation of what the New York Times called “something akin to a European-style welfare state” in 2020 that reduced inequality and even helped some Americans improve their finances for a short spell — and under Biden, all of it went away. Sometimes that happened due to factors outside Biden’s control and sometimes because of his own decisions, but it always took place with little fight from the president, and it contributed to the ominous rise in hardship under his tenure. That meant not only adding to people’s already onerous monthly expenses — in one case in a self-imposed October surprise that made student loan repayment much more unforgiving for tens of millions of borrowers just before voting. It also saw twenty-five million people being thrown off their public health insurance, many of them in some of the battleground states Harris lost last night. Recall that one of Biden’s attack lines against Trump four years ago was that Trump was going to strip twenty million people of their health insurance. This might have been mitigated had the president passed the flagship policies on his agenda, helping people weather the storm of rising living costs. Those that he did enact he sometimes self-sabotaged. (...)

As a result, Harris’s run was a major downgrade from the 2020 Democratic effort. Biden’s never-passed ambitions to historically expand the social safety net became firmly relegated to distant memory, never to be revived; only the child tax credit and a modest expansion of Medicare benefits survived. The campaign combined a sharp rightward lurch on foreign policy and immigration with a handful of laudable populist proposals to ban price gouging and help out first-time homebuyers (while largely avoiding the national 5 percent rent cap that Biden desperately took on before dropping out and that had earlier made its way into the Democratic platform). Beyond the Medicare proposal and vague promises to protect and strengthen Obamacare, the idea of reforming the broken US health care system — one of Americans’ biggest and most anxiety-inducing costs — was almost entirely absent from the campaign. When voters in a Univision town hall came to Harris with their bleak personal stories of suffering under the health care system and asked how she would solve them, she could give them nothing, because her only real major health care policy was for those over sixty-five and already insured under Medicare.

[harryspet]

well kept [5] r. cameron

[warnings] dark!ceo!rafe x reader, size difference, billionaire!older!rafe, shy!reader with low self-esteem, reader is a person who stutters, boss x personal assistant, heavy abuse of power, emotional/mental manipulation, little editing, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK 18+

A/N: even longer chapter :)

word count: 5.3k

In which Rafe presents you with his plan for your future and you question the true cost of his offer.

well kept masterlist

You breathed easy for the first time in a long while. You laughed, smiled, and your heart beat at a normal pace. You sipped your drink not from nervousness but from a desire to truly enjoy yourself. The evening was about fun and connection, and you were determined to embrace it.

The week following your cabin trip had been a deep pit of depression. Your friends, concerned by your obvious distress, had insisted you join them for the weekend. They only saw the stress of work weighing on you, Rafe’s hidden bruises were invisible to them. You had opted for jeans and a crop top, deliberately avoiding a dress that might reveal the lingering marks of his anger. 

It was an act of rebellion to wear something Rafe hadn’t picked out but it was freeing. It was time you accepted that he didn’t own you 24/7, he had no right to you two days out of the week.

You bought your friends drinks, a part of the new perk that came with having salary. You liked treating them but every swipe of your card reminded you of all you were putting up with to get it. 

What Rafe did to you, he did out of selfishness, no one who cared for you truly could treat you like he did. You certainly weren’t a couple like everyone in Rafe’s close circle assumed you were. You didn’t know much about relationships or what real love looked like, but you were certain of one thing: whatever you had with Rafe would never evolve into something warm and tender enough to be labeled as love. You were reclaiming some normalcy. Or at least, that was what you hoped for. 

The three of you had decided to move the party back to your apartment at 2 AM, and the city lights flickered like stars in the darkened sky. Imani, with her arm securely interlocked with yours, clung to you, her presence both comforting and grounding amidst the night’s chaos.

You squeezed into the backseat, chatter and laughter from the evening buzzed in your ears. Angel was making smalltalk with the driver because that was just the type of person she was. Closest to the window, you checked your phone for the first time all night. Three messages from Rafe. Your heart started to beat in the rattled way it had been, pressing against your ribcage in a way that made you feel like you couldn’t breathe. 

Two images of you. Outfits you’d sent him. Along with a message. 

For Monday and Tuesday. - R.C. 

Sent at ten the night before. Imani leaned closer and you locked your phone, shoving it between your legs. 

“He’s really texting you? It’s Saturday.”

“Sunday now,” You tried to not sound rattled as you met her eyes.

“Like that makes a difference,” You expected her tone to be light given the vodka on her breath and silly pop songs playing on the radio, “No wonder you’re going crazy.”

“Crazy?” You laughed but it came out hollow, “Y-You guys thought I was sad and now I’m going crazy?”

“Yes,” She spoke matter-of-factly, “And it’s strange that you won’t tell us anything about him.”

“I don’t wanna talk about this,” You said, realizing she wasn’t going to drop it.  You wondered if this was her plan, to get you drunk and then pry out all the gossip about your new boss.

“I’m really worried, Y/N,” She said, “You don’t have to tell us everything but at least … let us help. We can help, I promise.”

Angel tuned into the conversation, realizing it had gone serious, “Yeah, my Mom and Dad are literally cops, Y/N. Just say the word-” 

“I promise it’s not that serious, Angel,” you said, shaking your head. The idea of involving the police felt almost laughable given the magnitude of Rafe’s wealth and influence. “I told you g-g-g-guys, he’s just a demanding asshole.”

“If it’s not that serious than why has he been over at our apartment? If you’re not sleeping together or not dating?”

“It’s complicated,” You spoke robotically. 

“We want to be there for you,” Angel added. You wanted to believe that. If you told them the truth, you’d have to explain why you hadn’t walked away yet. Rafe had given you every reason to quit and yet here you were. 

“You guys are there for me. I-I-I appreciate this night so much. I’ve just b-b-b-been letting work consume me. You guys have pulled me out of my fog. This next wwww-week will be better because I’m actually taking care of myself.”

It was an excuse, a way to rationalize why you hadn’t walked away from Rafe yet. You started to believe it, convincing yourself that things would get better just because you were trying to take care of yourself now.

“Just because he’s rich doesn’t mean he gets to have your body,” The world seemed to go quiet after Imani spoke those words. The music quieted and both you and Angel stared at her, the heavy silence enveloping the three of you. 

“She’s right, you know,” Angel said softly. 

How had she seen so clearly what you were trying to hide? Why were they prying into your life? You were an adult, after all. You should have the right to make your own decisions, however flawed they might seem to others. But their concern felt invasive, as if they were prying into a private struggle you were barely managing to keep under control.

Pity. 

Your best friends pitied you, “Oh, y-you’re not serious,” You smiled crazily, “He’s not …I’m nnn-n-not …you both have it so so wrong.”

They stared at you, trying to guage your reaction, but your heart and brain were going crazy. You couldn’t pick what emotion to convey because you were feeling all of them. 

“I’m drunk,” You rested your head back, “I’m so drunk.”

As the rideshare pulled up to your apartment building, you fumbled with your seatbelt, eager to escape the heavy conversation, “Y/N, we didn’t mean to upset you,” You heard Angel say at they followed you out of the car. 

“I’m okay. So okay.”

You wanted to hurry inside the lobby but felt a hand wrap around your arm, “Y/N,” Imani stopped you. 

You whipped your head around, panicked, “I’m fine. I sss-said I’m fine.”

“You boss’s car is parked over there.”

You followed her pointed finger, and your blood ran cold. There it was—Rafe’s sleek black car, parked conspicuously outside your building. “Wha—” you stammered, unable to process the sight of it, “Oh.”

“Why the fuck is he here?” Imani cursed. 

“I’ll meet you guys inside–”

“Go talk to him but we’re standing right here until you’re done,” Imani crossed her arms in front of her and gave you pointed look. 

“Angel,” You looked at you other friend, pleading. 

She shook her head, “We’re standing here, Y/N.”

“Fine,” You whispered. It was a quiet declaration of your frustration, a statement of your internal struggle. 

They didn’t trust you. You could take care of yourself. This would upset Rafe, you knew it would. You took a deep breath as you wandered towards the small parking lot beside your building. His bright truck lights shined against the brick of the building and you saw his arm resting outside the window, fingers drumming nervous on the frame. You pulled at your crop top, wanting to force it to be longer, as you got closer. 

“Y/N,” His voice cut through the night air with a sharp edge. 

Tonight, Rafe’s blue eyes were wild. Instead of the usual darkness you saw behind his pupils, you saw wildness. Dark circles under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights, and his other hand was busy rubbing worried circles over his buzzed haircut, a nervous habit you hadn’t seen before.

“Rafe, wh-what are you doing out here?” You dropped the formalities. It felt wrong to address him with respect, more than it usually did, when he was sitting outside of your apartment at two in the morning. 

He looked you over once, before his door opened, and he climbed out. Dressed in a polo and khaki shorts, he left his car running, before he was standing in front of you. Only a foot away and already you weren’t breathing correctly. He moved closer but you said, “You shouldn’t touch me.”

Hurt, confused, he gave you a look you hadn’t seen before, “Why not?”

You gestured as subtly as you could, to your two friend who were settled under the awning that hung over your apartment buildings entrance, “My roommates are waiting for me.”

Rafe’s jaw ticked, before his hands found his hips, “Right,” He nodded before he laughed, “Fuck, I’m sorry. I just feel crazy tonight, you know?”

Yes, you knew. Now your crazy was starting to feel like nothing compared to whatever was building inside of your boss. He was different tonight, younger, and out of control, “What are you doing out here?” You asked again, “It’s two in the mmm-morning.” 

“Yeah, I didn’t mean to show up like this. I just wanted to talk to you. I came earlier and you weren’t here and I … I started spiraling, you know? You’ve been out all night. I don’t like …I just felt fucking nervous.”

“Nervous b-because I went out with mmm-mmm-my friends?” Your words were cautious but you couldn’t help that your eyebrows raised in confusion. 

“I needed to see you.”

“You see me now,” You said, “What … what is it?”

Rafe took a breath, “I made a mistake at the cabin and I think, ever since then, you’ve been distant.”

You nodded as you tried to understand his meaning. He made a mistake when he spanked you with a belt, making two of his close acquaintances listen to you scream, and leaving you to cry yourself to sleep. The distance he now complained about was a direct result of his actions—a defense mechanism you’d put in place to protect yourself. And yet, here he was, expressing frustration over your response, as if your withdrawal was the real issue rather than his behavior.

“Rafe, honestly, this isn’t h-h-helping … I d-d-don’t know if I can handle this right now. I don’t know if I can be who you need me to be,” You took a step back and you were comforted by the fact that he couldn’t take a step towards you. He wouldn’t make a scene, not in front of your roommates. Maybe you could forgive their intrusiveness. 

Rafe seemed to tense at your words and you watched as his eyes wandered down the sidewalk towards your friends, “Okay, uhm …they say something to you?” His voice carried a note of suspicion, as if their presence was somehow a direct affront to him.

“They’re my friends,” you replied tersely, hoping that would be the end of it. Of course your friends had expressed their concerns about him. 

“Okay,” Rafe said, his voice edged with frustration. “I just … I’m here because I want to fix things.”

“C-Can we talk about it on Monday, please?” You asked, “I’ve been-”

“You’ve been drinking,” He filled in your words, more unamused than before, “It’s not safe, little girl like you, only your friends to protect you … there’s lots of bad, bad people in this city.” 

The way he said "little girl" stung. It wasn’t the first time he’d used it, but it felt more patronizing and condescending tonight.

“I can take care of myself,” you said firmly, taking another step back towards your building, trying to put more space between you and his imposing figure.

“Can you?” he taunted, the words heavy with mockery. “Alright, I’ll give you some space. You know what? Go ahead and take Monday off, you deserve it, sweetheart.” 

“Goodnight,” You said before you turned away from him. You jumped when you heard his truck door slam close but you didn’t look back. 

Your friends, witnessing the tense exchange from the corner of the awning, approached you with concern written on their faces. Angel reached out, placing a gentle hand on your arm. “Are you okay?” she asked, her voice soft but filled with worry.

“Fuck, that dude is crazy,” Imani said, “You have to quit. I’ll get another part time job. We both will while you look for something else. We’ll make it work.”

You should have cried in their arms, letting their comfort and love wash over you, but instead, all you felt was exhaustion and apathy. You didn’t have the energy to be comforted or to express your gratitude. Numb and drained, you trudged inside, your mind already longing for the softness of your pillow. Your friends followed quietly. 

Tuesday morning, your alarm didn’t wake you up. There was a pounding on your door before Imani stormed into your room. Heart racing, you lifted your head and checked your phone sitting on your side table. It was thirty minutes before your alarm was even supposed to go off, “What the-”

“Look!” Groggily, you sat up in your bed just as a crumpled white envelope was thrown at your chest. You held it up to the light trickling into your room from the window, and you easily saw red bold letters stamped across the top of the letter: EVICTION NOTICE. 

Without another thought, you ripped open the envelopement, “It’s probably a-a prank, Imani.”

“What is going on?” Angel stumbled into the room next, mouth full of foaming toothpaste. 

You held open the letter as you began to read carefully, “As per the terms of your lease agreement and in a-a-accordance with the state and local regulations, this letter serves as your official notice of eviction–”

“Fuck,” Imani cursed. 

“This decision has been mmmm-made in alignment with our current business strategy which includes renovating the apartment to increase its value and preparing the property for sale to a prospective buyer …”

“Someones buying our entire apartment building?” Angel asked, eyes wide with disbelief.

“This is fucked,” Imani added. 

You continued reading, “The termination for your lease w-w-w-will be affected sixty days from the date of this notice. Please ensure thhh-that you vacate the premises by this date …”

You read the letter over and over, trying to make sense of it. The signature at the bottom confirmed its legitimacy.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” Imani sat down on the edge of your bed, head in the palm of her hands, “They can’t do this. It’s illegal! Where are we supposed to go?”

“Sixty days from now is right before the holidays start,” Angel leaned in the doorway, her eyes starting to well with tears, “I can’t go back home.”

Imani shook her head, “This apartment is my home.”

Determined, you climbed out of bed, pulling on the work clothes you had pre-selected. You kicked off your fuzzy socks, removed your bonnet, and began fixing your braids into a messy bun. “I’m going into the office,” you said resolutely. “I w-w-w-work for a real estate company. Rafe will know what to do. They can’t just do this. If anyone knows how to get out of this, he will.”

The two girls exchanged glances, their concern palpable. “We don’t need his help,” Imani said firmly.

“I don’t think I want it,” Angel added quietly.

You stared at them, incredulous. “He c-can help. You don’t know him like I do.”

“Y/N, is this really smart?” Angel asked, her voice tinged with worry.

“I can’t believe you guys. Get out, I’m getting ready,” you snapped, frustration rising. “Get out, now!”

As they left the room, their worried faces lingered in your mind, but you were focused on finding a solution.

Despite drunkenly conveying your uncertainties about your position with Rafe a few nights before, that morning, you were the epitome of perfection.  You wore exactly what he had chosen for you: a light blue dress embellished with sparkling sequins, pockets, and a Peter Pan collar. You even spent more than ten minutes putting on your makeup that morning, you looked flawless, more effort than you’d ever put in before.

You recited his entire schedule with only a slight stutter, had a steaming cup of coffee waiting for him at his desk, and arranged for lunch from one of his favorite restaurants. You allowed him to wrap his hand around your waist, to lean down and bury his face in your neck, to inhale your scent and press a gentle kiss against your skin.

It was like nothing had changed. Seeing Rafe outside of your apartment that night was frightening, a reminder of the presence he now had in your life, but you’d never seen him look so … desperate. Rafe Cameron was desperate for you, of all people. It dawned on you that perhaps there was room for negotiation. At the cabin, you had vehemently resisted his behavior, and his reaction had been explosively violent. But now, with him admitting to a mistake and showing a rare glimpse of vulnerability, you realized you might possess more leverage than you had previously imagined.

You spent the first few hours at work hyping yourself up to bring up the eviction notice to Rafe. All of his morning meetings went well and he didn’t have the usual cloud of darkness that was constantly over his head. When there was finally a lull in the day, you finally told him the news you’d learned that morning. However, his reaction made your face fall into a frown that you didn’t have the strength to correct.

“I’m not sure what the problem is. Don’t I pay you enough to be able to afford your own apartment?”

“My friends …” you began, struggling to find the right words. Mentioning your friends was wrong. You knew how he felt about the voices of reason in your life. 

“Right, your friends. What would you have me do?” His words continued to be indifferent and detached, as if he could want you so bad, but care nothing about the lives that were closest to you, “Offer them jobs? Pay for them to live as well?”

“No, that’s nnn-not what I mean,” It felt like he was purposefully miscontruing your words, and in turn, your character. Of course you didn’t expect for him to take care of your friends. Not letting him take advantage of the sea of emotions you were feeling, you recited your problem clearly, “I just want to know if you have any advice. For handling the situation. Something that’s in our control as tenants.”

“You don’t have much power at all, as tenants. You’re subject to the decisions made by the property management and the owners,” Before the reality of his words fully sunk in, he sighed, continuing, “You could look at your lease agreement and read it thoroughly to find any clauses that protect you. You could consult with a lawyer though that would be a pricy right to go down. You could talk to your landlord and try to get an extension to find a new place. That’s where I would start, sweetheart.”

Rafe’s hands folded together, looking up at you, as a smile graced his face. You nodded, “Okay,” You were grateful for a straight answer, but admittedly, you thought he would offer a better solution, “What should we look for in the lease? What would protect us?”

“Anything about early termination, language about renovations or changes in property management. Stipulations about how much notice is required before evicting you. If the landlord has violated any of those terms, it could be grounds for negotiation.”

“Huh,” you nodded, your heart filling with a small bit of hope, despite how out of reach some of his suggestions felt, “O-Okay, thank you. Yeah, I’ll t-t-talk to my roommates about it.”

“If it were me, I would be make sure I focused on my own safety and well being. You can’t really help your friends if you’re out on the street with them.” 

His words, rude and smart like always, stung but you didn’t dwell on them, “Thanks for the advice, sir.” 

For the rest of the morning, you shuffled between tasks and scrolling through your lease agreement. You searched it for the keywords that Rafe at mentioned and when that search wasn’t fruitful, you started to read it top to bottom. Your landlord was only required to give you sixty days notice for an eviction. You found absolutely nothing about property management changes. Hours passed and as lunchtime approach, you were sufficiently frustrated. 

You brought Rafe his lunch as he sat through a lunch time meeting but you made your way to the breakroom quickly afterwards.

Imani had called you a few time so you returned it. You’d texted your groupchat about all the steps that Rafe had mentioned. Imani had replied that he was probably withholding information. You weren’t quite sure why that idea hadn’t crossed your mind. 

“Hey, I still haven’t found anything–”

“Cameron Development is the one purchasing the apartment building, Y/N.”

Your heart sank and you plopped down on the breakroom’s leather couch with a heavy sigh, “Shit,” You whispered. 

“Shit is an understatement,” She replied, “Y/N, I’m starting to think you need to be really careful. Maybe we should go to the police.”

He’d lied to your face, unabashedly. 

"We'll talk about it later, I promise," You spoke before you hung up, not giving her a chance to argue.

It was much too late for careful. You should’ve ran after your first conversation with him but now … you were effectively trapped. Rafe had sex with you even when you didn’t want to. He hurt you and you held him for comfort after you. It had been weeks since you’d even felt like yourself. 

You leaned back to stare at the ceiling and you didn’t move for the next thirty minutes. Eleanor was the one who came to find you after you’d gone missing, “Y/N, Rafe’s been looking for you. What are you doing?”

“Did you know?” You asked her solemnly, your voice felt broken. 

She came to sit beside you and you felt her place a hand on your shoulder as she leaned closer, “Topper told me they rushed the deal. Offered twice the asking price. Said it was horrible idea, completely financially irresponsible, but Rafe insisted. ”

“Wh-What should I do?” You turned your head towards her, tears in your eyes, “I-I’ve never had sss-someone feel this way about me b-but th-this feels wrong.”

“What should you do?” She repeated, “I think he loves you.”

“L-Love?” You seemed to choke on the words. 

From what you could tell, it didn’t seem that Rafe was capable of loving anyone, “What does your gut tell you?”

This entire time, your gut had been telling you one thing, “T-To run?”

Even now, you were so unsure of yourself, “Makes sense, he’s suffocating you.”

You sat up in your spot, “Should I go now? Leave all my stuff? He p-paid for it, anyways.”

“I don’t think this is the time,” She squeezed your shoulder gently, her eyes soft as they fixed on you, “If you run, he’ll drag you back to his mansion kicking and screaming. Rafe just made this grand gesture to display his power. A huge fuck you to all the people you care about. He’s desperate. This is your time to get what you want from him. Tell him, you’re not going to be his little sex secretary anymore or follow him to the mountains, unless he changes.” 

“Y-You think he can change?”

“I didn’t think so before,” Eleanor said, her voice firm. “But now, seeing how desperate he is, I believe he’ll do anything to keep you.”

You could barely admit to yourself that part of you wished what she was saying was true. The notion that Rafe might have feelings for you, even if expressed through flawed and controlling actions, was both intoxicating and unsettling. Maybe you could take the bad with the good if the good started to outweigh the bad. But Rafe’s bad was more than bad. His soft gestures were often accompanied by demands and manipulations. 

There was no pros and cons list to be made. You looked at your situation objectively, Eleanor’s words having finally forced you to. If you ran, he’d come after you. If you ran, you’d have nothing. No apartment or salary to support yourself. You longed for a relationship where you felt safe and cared for and you wanted to live in a world where your friends were also taken care of. 

“I hope you’re not handling your personal business during workhours,” Rafe had said when you finally returned to the office. 

Ironic, given all the personal things you two had done together in that very office. 

“I’m not the one who made it personal,” You spoke easily, smoothly. 

You made your way to your desk. Your words seemed to bothered him but you didn’t glance at him long enough to take in his reaction. 

“And how did I make it personal?” You flipped through your personal calendar, taking a pen and marking down all of Rafe’s scheduled social events. 

“It’s not g-g-going to work. Using my friends to threaten me.”

“Oh?” That single word was dripping with venom.

“Just makes me think even www-worse of you. And I-I already had a poor opinion.”

“Yeah?” You wanted to look at him but you kept your eyes focused down, “What makes you think I give a fuck about your opinion of me?"

“B-Because I drive you crazy. Because I’m the one person y-you want to control completely.”

“Maybe I wanted to make things easier for you. Maybe I know that you’ll outgrow your little friends soon and you need a push in the right direction. You have friends in higher places now, you know that?”

“Y-You don’t like that they tell me to quit. That they know sss-somethings wrong with you.”

“You’re wrong,” He shot back.

“You’ve done a good job b-because now I can’t leave without losing everything,” It took everything to keep your voice from breaking. Finally, you turned your heads toward him. You saw the way his chair was towards you, the way his grip was tight on the armrests of his chair.

“Maybe I’ve been selfish.”

You scoffed at that, “You’ve mmm-made it clear that you don’t care about my needs or mmm-my feelings.”

“I know your feelings, sweetheart. You wear them so clearly,” Rafe replied, you could see it in his face that he was trying to keep his tone subdued He leaned foreward slightly, eyes as intense as ever, “Tell me what needs I haven’t tended to. Let me fix things, yeah?”

His offered seemed genuine and exactly what you were hoping for, weren’t you? 

“You really want to fix things?”

“Yeah,” He said like the crimes he’d committed against you were something that could remedied, “I can’t change what I don’t know.”

“It’s not just about what you’ve done wrong. It’s a-about how you handle things from now on,” You started, choosing your words carefully, “It’s about allowing mmm-mmme to set boundaries and respecting them.”

“Boundaries?” His head twisted to the side like he wasn’t entirely familiar with the term, “There’s multiple?”

“First, I want you t-to do what you can to remedy this apartment situation. Then, I don’t want you to ever bring my friends into this again.”

“Fine, I’ll get them another apartment. I’ll even throw in free rent.”

“No,” You shook your head, “You own the building which means you let us stay. No renovations.”

“I made an investment. I have to make a profit–”

“I’m serious,” You countered, “Y-Y-You made your point. You have all the mmm-money in the world and we have nothing in comparison.”

Rafe sighed, fingers tapping against his leg, “Okay, they stay but you come to live with me.”

“What? Why?” It was another layer of control, not a solution. 

“Your friends will want nothing to do with me or my help. If you continue to work for me, they won’t want anything to do with you either. If you want to maintain those relationships, some space would be better. Let them see you happy and they’ll come to their senses about our relationship.”

The implication of his words was clear. He was offering you a way to keep your friends, but it came with the price of further entangling your life with his. It felt like a manipulative trade-off.  You thought about the way he had manipulated you before, using your friends as leverage, and it made you wary of his intentions.

“I won’t say yes right now,” You decided, “Sss-sss-since we’re talking about living situations. Next year, I want to stay in Charlotte.”

“That won’t work.”

What had Eleanor told you to do? Had she forgotten how stubborn he was? 

“Y-You’re asking me to move across the state with you. I-It’s t-t-t-to much. There will have to be another arrangement.”

“Hmm, I won’t say yes right now,” he repeated your wording with an edge of mockery. You scowled, feeling the frustration build up inside you.

“You just sss-said you wanted to fix things.”

“My intentions … my intentions are to leave the city and spend the next few years settling down. I’m getting to a certain age and I’ve been thinking about, you know, getting married and having kids. It feels like the right time,” The information is a shock to you, not the thought of Rafe wanting a wife and kids, but knowing immediately he was implying that you’d be filling that role, “It’s a beautiful area. I wouldn’t expect you to continue your role there. You’d fully be a stay-at home wife, you could pursue any hobbies you wanted, and of course you’d have access to even more money than I’ve been paying you.”

Rafe began to paint a picture of a gilded cage. On the surface, it was tempting: a life of comfort, stability, and freedom from financial worries. But the price was your independence and autonomy. The thought of becoming a stay-at-home wife, completely reliant on him and cut off from your own life in Charlotte, was suffocating.

“What if I d-d-don’t want that life? W-What if I want my own career?”

He hesitated, his gaze narrowing as he leaned back in his chair, “What career do you want? I’ll give it to you. You can do practically anything from home these days. If you want to spend the first years doing that, fine, I’m not expecting kids right away.”

You hadn’t realized it but your breath was starting to quicken. You placed a hand over your chest, all of that resolve you had going into the conversation starting to fade away, “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Rafe seemed to talk to himself, “Hey, hey, calm down.” 

Your breath came out in quick shallow breaths. Rafe’s proposal pressed down on you as the room started to spin. You felt his arms around you before you could fall from your chair, “Eleanor, I need you here,” You heard clearly. For the next moments, you could only hear their muffled talking. You remembered seeing both of them, panicked look on Eleanor’s face, a hand rubbing down your back. Rafe was talking to you, his eyes trained on you intently. You remembered a glass of water coming to your lips and you tilted your head back, welcoming the liquid, thinking it might quell the fire inside your mind. 

Though your thoughts still raced, the room’s spinning slowed down, and the you heard Rafe dsay, “It’ll help you feel better.”

He stayed with you, rubbing soothing circles into the skin of your thighs, “Thank you,” You whispered though you hated that you found comfort in his touch. A wave of drowsiness overcame you and despite your best efforts to stay alert, you felt yourself lean forward until you were fully in Rafe’s arms, “Rafe–”

“I’ve got you, sweetheart. Rest,” Rafe murmured, his voice soft and reassuring as he held you close.

This got too long, gonna have to make another part! Pls pls pls reblog and let me know your thoughts and predictions!

[vaspider]

Measure 110, or the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

So if y'all aren't local to Oregon, you may not have heard that the Oregon state legislature just voted to -- essentially -- gut Measure 110, the ballot measure which decriminalized all drug possession and use in the state. It turned all drug use into a citation instead, and the citation and fine could be waived by completing a health screening. The entire point of Measure 110 was replacing jail with health care and services to help people instead, and while I could probably write a very long side post on the imperfections of that approach, it was at the very least a move in the right direction after decades of the pathetic failure and absolutely racist mess that is the "War on Drugs."

You may hear this pointed to in coming years as a reason why we have to just throw people into jail for using drugs, because Measure 110 failed. And like... it did fail, kinda. Sorta. It failed in that it did not manage to fix everything immediately, and it created some new issues while also exposing older issues more sharply.

It also saved the state $40 million in court costs prosecuting low-level drug offenses, kept thousands of people whose literal only crime was putting a substance into the body of a consenting adult (themselves) out of jail, put at least one addiction services center in every county in the state, invested $300 million in addiction services, and an awful lot more. See the end of this post for more reading.

But where it failed, it failed because it wasn't supported. Police and advocacy groups both asked for specific tickets for this new class of offenses which had the phone number to call to go through the health screening and the information about how going through that health screening would make the ticket go away printed on it prominently - lawmakers declined to fund this. Governor Kotek budgeted $50K to train officers on how to handle these new citations and how to direct people to the treatment and housing supports, but lawmakers thought that training officers on this new law at all was a waste of money. Money moved extremely slowly out to the supports that were supposed to come into play to help people obtain treatment or get access to harm-reduction strategies. People freaked the fuck out about clean-needle outreach, fentanyl testing strip distribution, Narcan training, and other harm-reduction strategies.

And at the end of the day, Measure 110 gets called a failure because it wasn't a silver bullet. Never mind that thousands of people are not sitting in jail right now for basically no fucking reason. Never mind that people have gotten treatment, harm has been reduced, overdoses have been prevented...

So, yeah. You'll probably start hearing this trotted out as proof that, well, we triiiied decriminalizing drugs, but look what happened in Portland! Well, what happened in Oregon is that we got set up to fail, and still didn't fail, just didn't totally succeed.

Measure 110 highlights, quoted directly from Prison Policy Initiative:

The Oregon Health Authority reported a 298% increase in people seeking screening for substance use disorders.

More than 370,000 naloxone doses have been distributed since 2022, and community organizations report more than 7,500 opioid overdose reversals since 2020.

Although overdose rates have increased around the country as more fentanyl has entered the drug supply, Oregon’s increase in overdoses has been similar to other states’ and actually less than neighboring Washington’s. A peer-reviewed study comparing overdose rates in Oregon with the rest of the country after the law went into effect found no link between Measure 110 and increased overdose rates.

There is no evidence that drug use rates in Oregon have increased. A cross-sectional survey of people who use drugs across eight counties in Oregon found that most had been using drugs for years; only 1.5% reported having started after Measure 110 went into effect.

There has been no increase in 911 calls in Oregon cities after Measure 110.

Measure 110 saves Oregonians millions. Oregon is expected to save $37 million between 2023-2025 if Measure 110 continues. This is because it costs up to $35,217 to arrest, adjudicate, incarcerate, and supervise a person taken into custody for a drug misdemeanor — and upwards of $60,000 for a felony. In contrast, treatment costs an average of $9,000 per person. The money saved by Measure 110 goes directly to state funding for addiction and recovery services.

There is no evidence that Measure 110 was associated with a rise in crime. In fact, crime in Oregon was 14% lower in 2023 than it was in 2020.

Further reading/sources:

[atyourmerci]

† Repent †

Read pt.2 here

†

Summary: You are sent off on a mission for 2 months. Abigail Anderson, the group leader, resents you for your sexuality until she gets drunk and ends up at your doorstep.

Warnings: smut, MDNI, alcohol usage, sub!abby, comphet!abby, brattop!reader, religion play, oral, fnv, tribbing, dirty talk yurrr, mentions of Owen so sorry, no use of y/n

A/N: Hey my horny sluts, this was very self indulgent fic. Definitely not for everyone but I wanted to play with this internal homophobia abby angle and through hella porn in it<3 hope you like it:)))

†

You were stationed off at a base camp for two months along with a group of WLF soldiers. This group was Issac’s top of the line, best fighters, engineers, and you accompanying as the best medic on line. The area was cased with scars and there was likely to be bloodshed. Issac couldn’t risk letting more than one medic for this long trip but there was no way he was sending a training med to work on his top of line children.

You knew most of the group well since you were always given the honor of fixing them. There were a few girls that kept you busy when there wasn’t a wound to heal. No one you’d keep around for long, you didn’t have the time to start relationships in this job, but a good fuck wasn’t beyond you. Days turned into long nights either stitching lesions or under the next sculpted woman that begged at your knees.

You were used to the attention, you were charming, beautiful, slightly bitchy, maybe a bit overzealous in your work but your forte was needed for these people. The men had attempted their shot with you, but everyone knew where you stood in the sheets. That’s why Abigail Anderson despised you.

It took you awhile to understand, from the moment she found out what you were doing in off hours she resented your lifestyle. Sure, she played it off by saying you were, ‘too distracted for your position’ or that ‘you got around’. Frankly you didn’t understand why she fucking cared. One day drunkenly her best friend Manny had said your ‘ways’ made her uncomfortable.

You knew she had been with her boyfriend Owen for a couple of years, and never left her room without her cross neckless- fuck she’d even shower with it on. That day in the open showers you had seen her look over at your naked body and return her hand to her cross gripping it tight with her eyes closed, leaving in a scoff. You just didn’t understand why her distain for you persisted- you thought it would space off once she got to know you.

After a couple months of backhanded comments, side eyes, and aggression you chose to just distance yourself from her at all costs. Maybe she had gotten the memo since she always requested your secondhand med to treat her, even knowing she wasn’t as suitable.

Once you found out shed be leading the mission for 2 months in close proximity you were blown. You asked Issac to switch you out for your secondhand- but he refused. After days of pestering him, he said he wouldn’t be changing his mind, Abby had asked for you specifically to accompany the mission. Why the fuck would she ask for you was beyond you, but you made it your agenda to fuck with her relentlessly for her decision.

You made sure to chose the room directly next to her so she could hear your sinful cries getting your back blown. leaving your white shirt un-buttoned low enough so your cleavage would spill out when you worked on her, blistering irritated grunts out of her. For someone so worked up about your lifestyle she always seemed to be watching your every move.

Watching you out of the corner of her eye change in the showers, walking out of her room just as you were heavy breathing lip locked with a girl making your way into sin. One time you were stitching a gash on her leg she gripped onto your hip in pain, her eyes trailed to your spilling cleavage before she snapped out of her haze saying, “uhhh- sorry its just painful there. Just fucking hurry up.” Knowing you had phased her you responded in a simple “mhm,” and continued working.

Maybe her morbid curiosity was at play, maybe she was just a fucking homo- but she’d never admit that to anyone and definitely not herself.

A month and a half in the base lagged by, there was only 2 weeks left of the painful glares and snarky comments left from your leader. The area had grown quiet for a while, most of the scars had retreated from your stay. Manny had made the decision for everyone to take the night off, set up a bonfire in the wooded areas behind the abandoned hotel, and get shitfaced on some homemade wine that was finally finished fermentation. It tasted like piss but was strangely intensely stronger than anything you had found in vacant bars.

Once the sun had fallen you were all seated around the roaring fire under the nigh sky. You had downed two glasses of piss wine and were already pretty spent. Abby was perched upon a log across the fire from you, in her usual dominating manspread and arms draped across her meaty thighs, on her fourth cup of sour. The sight was quite shocking- Abby never drank that much, something about the loss of control she didn’t like.

Her eyes were like lasers on you, usually she’d attempt to hide her ever glaring stare, maybe she was too intoxicated to care. All day she was on one, lashing out at people, throwing shit. She was always mildly aggressive, but you had never seen her to this extent.

The girl adorned behind you, pulling at your hips was probably the cause of her disapproving eyes, but this time felt harsher. You watch as she finishes off her glass and returns her eyes back to you with gritted teeth. “Manny hand me the wine,” she barks, her eyes never leaving you. Manny looks at her angered stare, crossing his eyes back to your direction and back to her, “Que pasa amiga, I think you’re good for now,” he says with a laugh.

“Just hand me the fucking wine,” she directs her attention to Manny- some people throw out ‘woahs’ and ‘damns’ at her attitude. Manny hands her the bottle with no reply. “Somebody needs to get fucked already,” you throw out with enough drunken confidence knowing it will rile her up. “Not everything can be fixed with sex, not that you’d understand,” she drives her eyes deeper into your own.

“Well, if I was having the sex you were having, I’d go celibate,” you say causing a guttural laugh from everyone, easing up the built tension.

“Whore,” she retorts.

“Awh someone’s mad her boyfriend can’t make her cum,” you give her a pout.

Her cheeks grow red in anger- maybe embarrassment since you didn’t have to take 2 looks at Owen to know he couldn’t please a women, especially not one of that stature. She darts up from her seat, all but a growl escaping her mouth. She grabs the half full bottle from Manny and takes off.

“What crawled up her ass?” You direct to Manny. He gives you eyes that speak louder than his mouth could utter in a way of ‘you’re the reason she’s so pissed off, you know that’. Maybe you had pushed her too far, but fuck did she deserve it. She deserved to get called on her bullshit for once- everyone just cowered down to her. Sure, she was tall, muscly, and heavily intimidating but you know how to drive the knife right into her.

You enjoyed riling her up, driving her to her very edge. Maybe it was the alcohol talking but you were hot at the sight of her aggression, the way the veins in her arm popped as she ripped the bottle out of Manny’s hand. You weren’t attracted to straight girls, especially not homophobic straights- but you thought of her. Every snarky remark, touching her skin in passings as you healed her danced in your mind.

You brushed off your thoughts, you were just drunk you told yourself. The fire had died down soon after Abby’s fit, everyone was either ready to retire to bed or fuck. You chose the latter with the touchy girl sitting behind you. She was a good one, never had to kick her out after you finished- she knew what you wanted.

You make your way back to the dingy hotel, hand and hand with the pretty brunette. By the time you had made it to your doorway the girl had you up against the door needily. Of course, you let it happen, you were waiting for Abby to conveniently walk out and watch you. She never came out; you were almost disappointed but persisted with the brunette. You made sure to exaggerate every moan, every sinful word, even unsuspectedly convinced her to fuck you against the wall you shared with Abby- just to make sure she would hear.

After orgasming twice, she was out the door, no awkward post-sex cuddling or talking, wasn’t your thing and she knew that. You lay your sleepy drunken head on your pillow ready to sleep. Within five minutes you heard Abby’s door slam shut, and a harsh knock on your door. You knew that you had pissed her off, your job was done so you ignored her calls and nuzzled back onto your pillow with a smirk.

Another knock slams your door, “I know you’re in there, open the door,” Abby huskily demands. You walk over to the door, wearing only your loose tank top and panties. You swing the door open to a disheveled Abby, heavy breathing, eyes half lidded, in a white wife pleaser and loose black sweats, cross necklace adorned by her collarbones. Her muscles looked as if they were pulsing, her abs etched through her shirt.

After seconds of intense glaring, she moves past you into your room without an invitation. “Abby what the hell could you possibly need right now…” you can smell the liquor reeking off her sweaty body, “how much have you had to drink” you say but she quickly cuts you off, “do you really think I cant fucking hear you in here with those- girls?” She says girls with a disgusted flare. “I know you can,” you retort with your arms crossed. “Why are you like that,” she says confused. “Like what Abby? Gay? You can say it- God wont strike you down for speaking it,” you shoot her a smug laugh. “You- you’re fucking insufferable,” she says drunkenly. “You walked into my room; you don’t have to be here.”

She walks up so close to your face you can feel her breath, the smell of sour laced. “I came here to tell you how you disgust me,” she says heavy breathed. “Is that so?” You pierce your eyes into hers, not giving into her intimidation. “Ye-yeah,” she falters at you standing your ground. Her eye contact directs down to your plush lips, she licks her own. You bite your bottom lip to drive into her.

“Why are you such a bitch?” She raises her eyes back to yours, this time glassier, gentler. “You’re mad you don’t scare me,” now you step closer to where you are exchanging each other’s breath. She responds wordlessly breathing heavier than before, lips parted as if she was waiting for something to come out. You stare up into her eyes dragging your bottom lip back into your mouth with your teeth. “Stop fucking doing that,” she demands not moving a muscle.

You give her an innocent pout, “I’m not doing anything Abigail, you can leave right now if you’re so uncomfortable,” trailing your eyes back and fourth from her lips to her eyes. “Give in to me,” Abby pleads almost submissively, her eyes looked like she could cry. “I’m not going to make this easy for you, if you want something take it,” you are eager at this point, still trying to keep your confidence intact.

She gives it a second, probably internally battling, in a huff she mutters “Fuck,” and grabs your face crashing your lips aggressively together. She took the breath out of you, kissing you like she needed it for survival. Both of you are too ravished to process reality. You grabbed aimlessly at her chest needing the friction of her warmth. She forces her tongue onto yours letting a moan escape her mouth. You were done for.

You pull her to your bed never leaving her lips, crashing over boxes and shoes but neither of you falter your embrace. You push her onto your bed, making your way on top of her. Before you can reattach your lips, she pushes a hand into your chest stopping you, “I- I’m not gay,” she says with weary eyes. You simply respond with “okay,” and reattempt to kiss her, she pushes you back again, “okay?” she questions. “Do you want me to me to stop?” You question back. She pulls you in ruggedly, so her mouth is against yours, needy again.

You pull back from her embrace, “I want to hear you say it Anderson,” she shakes her head like a child, like she couldn’t say it aloud. You start to get up from the bed when she pulls you back down grasp heavy and deprived, “jus- just do it, I- I want it.” “Good girl,” you reply and straddle on top of her causing whimpers to flow out of the husky blonde.

You move down to kiss on her neck, biting slightly then licking the wound. You can see her hand white knuckling her cross necklace, eyes shut. Through heavy moans she confesses, “Thi-s is- isn’t right…what you’re doing t- to me.” You smirk into her neck trailing your fingers down her arching chest, “just pretend I’m Owen,” knowing you’ll strike a chord at the mention of her boyfriend.

You go back to her collarbone nibbling and licking as you rise her shirt slowly, exposing her sweaty chiseled stomach. “You don’t fe- feel like him, he doesn’t touch me like this,” before she can finish your hand is under her shirt teasing at her nipple slowly. She throws her head back in a groan, unknowingly bucking her hips into you.

“I’m barely touching you Abby- he’s never done this to you,” you say not surprised, moving your free hand to grip her other nipple. She shakes her head at you in a pout. Seeing her like this, so unraveled and vulnerable made you pulse, you could feel your cunt pooling already.  

While you have her eye contact you move your head down to suck and lick circles around her soft pink nipple, her eyes barely open and mouth open panting. While sucking on her bud you trail your hand down to her sweats, teasing your fingertips at the waistband, but continue down to palm her covered pussy.

Her hips jolt up at your touch, “Jesus fuck me!” she yelps. “You say your prayers with that mouth, huh?” You jab, palming her cunt over layers of clothing. Her hips continue to rut against your hand, her hand continues to grip onto her cross for dear life, the other gripped down into your sheets. “Please… please take them off,” She begs you weary eyed. Since she was getting increasingly pathetic you drag down her sweaty pants to reveal grey boxers, a patch of wet pooled at her pussy. You lay kisses down her thighs and legs as you slowly unclothe her.

Once you pull them all the way down you meet your face at her cunt, wrapping your arms around her thick thighs, she couldn’t stop whimpering at your little touches. You place a slight kiss on her boxer clade cunt. “Fuckkkk,” she moans out. “If I eat your pretty pussy, are you going to repent after?” You say smirking at her desperation. “I- I have to, ke-ep going please,” she pants raising her cross to her heart. “Aren’t you a good little servant?” You drag down her soaked boxers.

You push your fingers into her soaked slit pushing it open to admire her. “You’re so fucking wet fuck,” you say gawking at the ‘straight’ girls mound, her slick running down her thighs. “a- are you going to use your fingers,” she asks in a pant. “We’ll get there,” you say smirking latching your tongue on her swollen clit. “oh my god,” she screams out at the feeling of your tongue against her.

You begin sucking and tracing crosses and circles on her clit that causes her back to arch her back and let go off her cross to grip into the sheets with both hands. “Fuck fuck fuck- you feel s’good fuck me fuck me,” she begins babbling. You start to tease her soaked hole with your finger that sent her hips bucking into your hand to force entry.

“So impatient Anderson,” you taunt her. “Ill do wh-whatever you want just please fuck me,” she begs you now cupping your face with her large veiny hands, her eyes droopy and pout on her lips. “Tell me how much you like getting fucked by a girl,” you pump just the tip of your pointer finger into her entrance. “You feel so good,” she says panting in desperation.

“Not good enough,” you say pulling out your fingertip. She whimpers feeling your retreat. “I- I worship you, yo- you feel so good Ill get on my knees and worship you please baby,” she looks like she’s nearing tears, but the pleading hits you deep in your core. You needed to see her fall apart just as much as she needed to feel it.

Without warning you plunge two fingers deep inside of her cushiony walls, sending her falling back into the sheets, her hands gripped into your scalp. You return back to her clit, watching her chest rise and fall in breath idly, sweat dripping down the creases of her abs. You hear as she mumbles prayer under her breath, maybe she was worshiping her god, maybe at this point you were her god.

You continued nonetheless; it didn’t matter at this point she had submitted pathetically to you. Your tongue laps at her creamy slit, your fingers coating in her slick. “I-m going to cum I- cant take that much longer,” she moans out shaking around your head.

You pull out of her abruptly making her whine out, sitting up on her elbows. “Not yet…” you say getting up taking off your soaked panties and returning to her. She watches you intently, her eyes grow at the sight of your cunt. “A-are you going to let me touch you?” She asks doe eyed. “No, I’m going to rub my cunt against yours, okay?” she sheepishly nods. “Gonna make sure you cum from just my pussy,” she whimpers at your words.

You nuzzle your cunt on top of hers in between her thighs. “You feel so good against me fuck,” she whines. You lazily drag your clit against her as moans now flow out your own mouth. She grips into your hip helping you grind into her, at the slight act of dominance causes you whimper into her raised thigh. “Fuck keep t-talking you sound so fucking good,” her mouth is wide open, beads of sweat on her legs mixing with your own. You feel as your slick combines with hers making a complete mess on your sheets.

“Baby I- I’m so close,” she whimpers gripping so deeply into your hip she was sure to bruise you. “Cum for me pretty girl, be a good girl and serve me,” you pant driving your eyes into the broken Abigail. She begins shaking at your words, falling apart beneath you. “fuck fuck fuck oh my fucking god i-m cu-mming ahhh,” she begins soaking your sheets. Of course, she was a fucking squirter.

You help her ride out her orgasm, gently rubbing down her thigh with your fingertips. “Wh- why is it so wet?” she rises groggily and confused. You giggle at her innocence, “you squirted dumbass, you’ve never done that before?” you cant help but grin up at her beauty and pure innocence. “No never, I’ve never even…you know…reached my peak with someone before,” you look into her eyes in pure shock gapping your mouth exaggeratedly.

“God I really would go celibate if I was you,” you giggle, and she gives you a slight smirk pulling you down on top of her. You circle your fingers across her chest, feeling her breath steady, she drags her fingers through your messy hair. “I’m not going to tell anyone Abby, this can be between us.” You say assuring her. “o-okay,” she responds sheepishly as if there was something else in her throat. Maybe she wanted to say it would never happen again, that her sexuality was intact after your night, maybe she wanted to say she wanted to leave Owen and linger on your skin forever, or maybe she began to repent.

[cyberl6ve]

𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐄𝐑! 𝐂𝐇𝐑𝐈𝐒 ─ 𝐅 𝐄 ! 𝐍

CHECK 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 FOR MORE!! (NSFW!!)

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

── .✦ : Y/N, in need of more weed, recalls her best friend Matt Sturniolo once mentioning that his brother, Chris, could help her restock. With Chris's number saved in her phone but never having met him, Y/N decides to reach out, stepping into an unexpected world linked to her friend’s mysterious brother.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · 𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐒𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐋 !! · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

⋆˙⟡ STORY CONTAINS MATURE CONTENT !! ⋆˙⟡

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

⊱ ۫ ׅ ✧ : 𝐈 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐈’𝐦 𝐝𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬, but I need more weed. I take out my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find the number for Chris Sturniolo, my best friend Matt's brother. I've never met Chris in person before, but I've heard enough stories from Matt to know he's trouble. Despite this, I send him a text message asking if he could sell me some weed.

“Hey, is this Chris?”

A few minutes later, I get a reply from him.

“Depends. Who's asking?”

I roll my eyes at his response, but I type back anyway.

“I’m one of Matt's friend. Y/N. I need to restock my supply, and I heard you could help me out.”

There’s a bit of a pause before he replies.

“Ah, Matt’s girl. Yeah, I can hook you up. Come by my place in an hour.”

An hour later, I find myself standing outside of Chris’s house, feeling a mix of nerves and excitement. I take a deep breath and ring the doorbell. A few moments later, the door swings open and I find myself face-to-face with Chris.

“Hey there,” he says, leaning against the doorway. “You must be Y/N.”

I nod, eyeing him up and down. He's wearing a plain black hoodie and a pair of jeans, his hair tousled in that carefree way that makes girls swoon. But I'm not about to let him see that I find him attractive.

As I look at him, it's impossible to ignore the similarities between him and Matt. They share the same colored hair, the same sharp features, the same easy smile. Matt had told me once that he was an identical triplet, and seeing Chris for the first time, I could believe it.

But the differences between them are obvious too. While Matt was always friendly and approachable, Chris exudes a confident charisma that's hard to ignore. It's like he knows he can get anything he wants, and he's not afraid to use it to his advantage.

He steps aside to let me in, and I walk past him into the house. “Make yourself at home,” he says, shutting the door behind us. “Can I get you anything to drink?” I shake my head, still trying to play it cool. “I'm good,” I say.

He looks at me for a moment, his eyes roaming over my body in a way that makes me feel both self-conscious and flattered at the same time.

“So, how much do you need?” he asks. “An eighth, a quarter, a whole ounce?” I shrug, trying to act like I don't care. “Whatever you've got,” I say.

He seems amused by my nonchalance. “You don't mess around, do you? I like that.” He grins and moves closer to me, leaning against the wall.

“How about an ounce? Does that sound alright?” he asks, his voice low and silky. Despite myself, I feel a flutter in my stomach at his proximity. “Yeah, an ounce is great,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “How much will that cost me?”

He smirks and crosses his arms across his chest. “Normally it would cost you $50, but since you're a first-time buyer it's on the house.”

I shake my head, trying to keep up the nonchalant act. “No, no, I can't let you give me a free ounce,” I say. “Let me pay you something at least.”

He grins and hands me the ounce, his fingers brushing against mine as he does. “Well, you can pay me in another way, if you're willing,” he says, his voice low and sultry.

I raise an eyebrow at his words, trying not to show how much they're affecting me. “And what way would that be?” I ask, playing along.

Without warning, he takes a step forward, closing the distance between us. His gaze locks with mine as he leans in, his lips hovering just inches from my own. “Maybe I can show you,” he says, his voice a low murmur.

He closes the gap between us, his lips meeting mine in a soft, but firm kiss. I find myself melting into him, my hands moving up to wrap around his neck as we kiss. He pulls me closer to him, his arms wrapping around my waist tightly.

He deepens the kiss, his tongue slipping into my mouth. I moan softly, pressing myself against him, feeling the heat of his body against mine. For a moment, all thoughts of being nonchalant fly out of my head as I lose myself in his embrace.

As the kiss deepens, I can't help but notice how different it is from any other kiss I've had before. His lips are firm and confident, yet tinged with a hint of gentleness that I can't quite place. It's like he knows exactly what he's doing, and he's using it to his advantage. He's a far better kisser than any of the guys I've dated in the past, and I find myself getting lost in the sensation of his mouth on mine.

He breaks the kiss, but only to move his attention to my neck. His lips trail down my jawline, his teeth nipping at my skin as he sucks lightly at my pulse point. I tilt my head back, exposing more of my neck to him, unable to stop myself from letting out a soft moan.

He grins against my skin, his hands moving to my hips as he continues his assault on my neck. He kisses and sucks at the sensitive skin, his tongue darting out every now and then to tease me. His fingers dig into my hips, pressing me against him tightly, and I can feel the heat of his body through our clothes.

He pulls back from my neck for a moment, looking up at me with a sly smile. “Jump,” he says, his voice a low command. Before I can protest, he taps my thighs, signaling me to jump.

Without thinking, I obey, jumping up and wrapping my legs around his waist. He catches me easily, his hands moving to support me under my thighs, holding me tightly against him.

He moves quickly toward the stairs, carrying me with ease. His hands grip my thighs tightly as he ascends the stairs, his strides purposeful and assured. I wrap my arms around his neck, my heart racing with a mix of excitement and nerves.

We reach the top of the stairs and he turns down the hallway, stopping in front of a door at the end. Without breaking stride, he pushes the door open and carries me inside, kicking it shut behind us.

The room is dimly lit, with a king-size bed in the center. He walks over to it, still holding me in his arms, and lowers me down onto the bed. I sink into the soft comforter, my heart racing as he hovers over me, his eyes roaming over my body.

He leans down, his body pressing against mine, his weight pinning me to the bed. He kisses me hungrily, his hands roaming over my body, tracing the curves of my hips and sides. I kiss him back just as eagerly, my fingers tangling in his hair as I arch up against him.

He breaks the kiss, his lips moving down to my neck again. His hands reach up to the hem of my shirt, pulling it up over my head, exposing my bare skin to him. I shiver as his fingers trace patterns on my stomach, his touch sending jolts of electricity racing through me.

He moves down, kissing and nipping at my collarbone, his hands moving to unclasp my bra. I arch into his touch, my breath coming in short gasps as he worships my body with his mouth. He lifts his head, his eyes meeting mine as he pulls the bra off and throws it aside.

His gaze wanders down, taking in the sight of my bare chest, his pupils dilating as he takes in the sight of me. He licks his lips, his hands roaming over me once again. He touches me like he owns me, like he has the right to, and I find myself craving more of his touch.

He kisses his way down my body, his lips moving over my breasts, his tongue swirling over my nipples, making me gasp and arch up against him.

Chris's lips continue to trail downwards, his hands moving to my waistband. With a gentle tug, he slowly pulls my pants down, revealing my underwear. His breath hitches as he takes in the sight, his desire growing stronger.

With my fingers grazing the hem of his black hoodie, I slowly help him take it off, revealing his toned chest beneath. I can't help but run my hands over his bare skin, my touch sending sparks through his body.

As the hoodie comes off, I take a moment to appreciate the sight before me. His muscles tense under my touch, and I can feel his breath hitch as I trace my fingers over his chest.

I get up from the bed, my eyes locked on his. Using all my strength, I pull him up, and we stand there for a moment before I reach for his pants. Slowly, I begin to undo them, the sound of the zipper filling the room.

His pants fall to the floor, leaving him in just his boxers. I push him gently onto the bed, making sure he lands with a soft thud. As he lies there, I kneel in front of him, my hands moving to the waistband of his Calvin Klein boxers.

With a gentle tug, I pull down his boxers, revealing his erection. My eyes widen at the sight, and I can't help but let out a soft moan. His cock is hard and pulsing, begging for attention.

“Mmm, look at you,” I whisper, my hot breath caressing his sensitive skin. “So hard and ready for me. Do you want my mouth on you, baby? Do you need me to suck that big, thick cock?”

“Fuck, yes,” he groans, his hips bucking up towards me involuntarily. “I need your mouth, baby. Suck my dick, make me cum on your tongue.” His words are dripping with lust, and I can feel his desire radiating off him in waves.

I waste no time, leaning in closer and taking his throbbing head into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it as I suck. He moans loudly, his hands moving to tangle in my hair as he thrusts his hips up, trying to get more of his cock into my mouth.

“Oh, shit, yeah...just like that,” he grunts, his breathing heavy and labored. His fingers tighten in my hair, pulling slightly as he rocks his hips against my face. “Oh fuck,” he whimpers, his legs shaking as I continue to suck him off. I can feel him getting closer and closer to the edge.

I pull back just enough to tease him, then sink back down, taking him all the way to the root. He cries out in pleasure, his hips bucking wildly. “Holy fuck, Ma,” he groans, starting to fuck my mouth, unable to control himself any longer.

He starts to thrust into me harder and faster, using my mouth like a personal fuck toy. I gag and choke as he plows into me, the headboard slamming against the wall with each powerful stroke. “Ah, fuck yeah, take it all!” he growls, his eyes blazing with raw animal lust.

With a roar of primal pleasure, he slams into me one final time, his cock erupting deep in my throat as he unleashes a torrent of hot, sticky cum. I feel it pulsing and spilling over my tongue, the salty taste of him filling my mouth.

As he finishes, he slowly pulls out, his softening cock slipping from my lips with a wet pop. Gasping for air, a string of saliva and his cum connecting my mouth to his spent erection. His chest heaves as he looks at me, his eyes still glazed with lust.

He picks me up effortlessly, his strength still present and impressive, and lays me onto the bed. He then kneels between my legs, spreading them open with ease. Without a word, he yanks off the last piece of my clothing, throwing it aside carelessly with a flick of his wrist.

He smirks at me from his dominant position, admiring the view before he leans in and takes a nipple into his mouth, sucking it hard and tugging at it with his teeth. He watches my reaction, gauging how rough or gentle he should be.

Encouraged by my reactions, he moves lower, kissing and nipping his way down my body. He settles between my legs, his hot breath tickling my sensitive flesh. Without further hesitation, he dives in, his tongue lapping at my pussy, eager to taste my arousal.

“Oh no you don't, Ma,” Chris murmurs, shaking his head when he sees me closing my legs instinctively. He gently pushes them open again, keeping them spread apart. “You're going to take it,” he commands, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Like this,” he says, before he dives back in, his tongue delving deep into my core. He laps at my pussy, sucking and flicking my clit with expert precision. I gasp and writhing under his ministrations, the pleasure building inside me with each passing second.

Chris continues to feast on me, his tongue never leaving my pussy. He eats me out with reckless abandon, making sure to hit all my sweet spots. My moans fill the room as I lose myself to the pleasure, my hips bucking against his face.

His tongue continues to work its magic, his fingers joining the fray. He slides one finger inside me, then two, stretching me open as he curls them upwards, finding the rough patch on the front wall of my pussy.

Once he finds that sensitive spot, Chris focuses his attention on it, rubbing and stroking it with his fingers. He sucks my clit between his lips, drawing it into his mouth and flicking the tip of his tongue against it. The pressure builds inside me, my orgasm just out of reach.

He wipes the back of his hand across his mouth, smirking at me. He stands up, pulling my legs up with him until my knees are by my chest.

“Oh my god...” I breathe, my eyes widening as I take in the sight before me. Chris stands tall, his erection jutting out proudly, thick and long. It's clear it's not going to fit, not without some serious effort on his part. “Look at me,” he growls, positioning his cock at the entrance of my pussy. I look down, taking in his length and girth. “It's not going to fit,”

“It'll fit,” Chris grins, seeing the look of apprehension on my face. “Just relax.” He uses his thumb to rub in circles on my clit, trying to distract me as he slowly starts to push in.

“Good girl,” Chris praises, feeling me start to relax around him. He takes it slow, inch by inch. “You're doing so well, baby. Just keep breathing, and when it hurts too much just tell me to stop.”

“That's it,” he says, his voice a low rumble as he sinks deeper inside me. “You're so tight, I can barely move.” He pauses, letting me adjust to his size. “Breathe through it. It'll get easier.”

“Atta girl,” Chris coos, his voice soothing. “Just like that. You're doing so good for me.” He slowly starts to fuck me again, inch by inch, watching my face as he does so. “You feel so fucking good, baby.”

Chris' thrusts start to get deeper and faster as he gets more into it. “You like that, baby? You like the way I feel inside you?” He starts to pound me harder, using one hand to grab at my breast and tweak my nipple.

Chris smirks at the look of pleasure on my face. “You like it when I fuck you like this, don't you, Ma?” He starts really pounding me then, hard and fast. His other hand grabs at my thigh, pulling it up so he can go even deeper.

I moan his name, unable to help myself as I feel pleasure building up inside me. “Chris,” I gasp, my voice breathy. He grins at the sound, loving the way it sounds coming from my lips. “You're so fucking hot when you say my name like that.”

I reach up and grab onto Chris' bicep, holding on for dear life as he continues to fuck me hard and fast. He grunts in approval, loving the way it feels having me hold onto him like that. “That's it, baby,” he growls. “Hold onto me.”

Chris pulls out of me, grabbing onto my hips as he turns me around. He positions me on all fours before thrusting back into me from behind. “Oh fuck,” I moan, feeling him fill me up once again. Chris starts to fuck me harder than before, using my hips for leverage.

Chris grabs my wrists, pushing my hands behind my back as he arches my back. I feel his cock throbbing deep inside me as he starts to pound into me harder. “Look at that ass,” he groans, his voice low and gravelly with lust. “So perfect for me.”

Chris takes advantage of my moan, thrusting harder and deeper into me. He knows he's found a weak spot and decides to milk it. “You like that, baby?” he taunts, smacking my ass hard. The combination of pleasure and a little pain sends me reeling.

Chris chuckles darkly at my breathy moan. “That's it, baby. Take it.” He continues to pound into me relentlessly, the bed creaking beneath us. I can feel his balls slapping against my clit with every thrust, sending jolts of pleasure through my body.

Chris smirks, enjoying the power he has over me. He picks up the pace even more, the bed shaking as he fucks me harder. “You're such a good little slut for me,” he growls, reaching around to rub my clit. “You love getting fucked like this, don't you?”

Chris leans over me, his breath hot against my ear. “Tell me what you want, baby. I'll give it to you.” I gasp, my hips bucking back against him. “You want my cock deeper? You want me to make you cum?”

“Yes, please,” I whimper, my voice strained with pleasure. “I need it... need you deeper.” Chris grunts, his hips snapping forward to oblige. He's so deep now, I can feel him touching my cervix with every thrust.

Chris's thrusts become erratic, the bed shaking beneath us. I can feel his cock swelling inside me, his balls drawing up as he prepares to cum. “Fuck, Ma,” he groans, driving into me one last time and stilling.

Chris pulls out with a wet pop, cum spilling out of me and onto his black sheets. He looks down at the mess with a satisfied smirk before leaning over me again. “Ride me,” he whispers, his voice husky with desire.

I straddle Chris's hips as he lies back, his cock hard and ready beneath me. I lift myself up and sink back down, grinding against him roughly. “Mmm, fuck yes,” he moans, grabbing my hips to meet my movements.

I line myself up with his cock, slowly lowering down onto him with a loud moan. He's so big, filling me up completely and stretching me deliciously. “Oh fuck,” I gasp as he reaches up to squeeze my breasts.

I start riding him, my hips moving in a slow, steady rhythm. Chris's hands are all over me, touching and caressing every inch of my skin. “That's it, baby,” he murmurs, his eyes dark with desire. “Ride my cock like a good girl.”

Chris's hands grip my hips tightly as I bounce on top of him, his cock hitting deep inside me with each thrust. “Oh fuck, you're so tight,” he groans, his eyes locked on mine. “Take it all, Ma, milk my cock dry.”

“Mmmm, yes... so deep,” I moan, my head thrown back as Chris's cock fills me up. He's hitting all the right spots, making me whimper with pleasure. “Harder, Chris, please... I need it harder.”

Chris's hands grip my hips even tighter, pulling me down onto his cock over and over again. I can feel myself getting closer and closer to the edge, my moans growing louder and more desperate. “Fuck, yes... you're gonna make me cum,”

I lean forward, my breasts pressing against Chris's chest as I ride him harder and faster. My nails dig into his skin as I hold on for support, my body trembling with the force of my movements. “Don't stop, please... I'm so close,” I pant, my voice ragged with need.

Chris's hips slam up into me, meeting my own thrusts as we race towards the finish line together. His hands are all over me, touching and caressing every inch of my skin. “Cum for me, baby... cum all over my cock,”

Still buried deep inside me, Chris suddenly flips us over, pinning me beneath him as he continues to thrust into me relentlessly. “C’mon I know you can keep going, baby... don't even think about catching your breath,” he growls, his eyes dark with lust.

Chris reaches down, grabbing hold of my wrists and pinning them firmly above my head as he pounds into me relentlessly. The feeling of being completely at his mercy only adds to the intensity of my pleasure, and I moan loudly, arching my back as he fucks me hard and fast.

“Please, Chris, don't stop... I need this, need you,” I plead, my voice desperate and breathless. I'm completely at his mercy, unable to move my hands or break free from his grip as he continues to take me with a force that's almost brutal. “More, harder...”

The chain around Chris's neck keeps hitting against his chest as he pounds into me, adding an extra layer of stimulation that has me begging and moaning loud enough to wake the dead. “Fuck me, baby, fuck me harder!”

With a primal snarl, Chris redoubles his efforts, slamming into me with a force that makes the bed creak and the headboard hit the wall. The chain around his neck clanks rhythmically against his skin as he takes me with a raw, animal intensity. “You like that, slut?”

The filthy words only spur him on, and Chris fucks me with reckless abandon, the chain hitting a staccato beat against his chest. I'm completely lost in the sensations, my mind fogged with pleasure as I scream his name over and over again.

With a sudden surge of power, Chris releases my wrist and pushes down on my stomach, forcing me to arch my back even more as he continues to thrust into me with wild abandon. The added pressure has me seeing stars, my orgasm building to a crescendo. “Yes, yes, yes... just like that!”

As I feel my climax approaching, I reach up and grab the chain around Chris's neck, pulling him down into a searing kiss. Our tongues dance wildly together as he continues to pound into me, the chain clanking against my breasts with each powerful thrust.

As our kiss deepens, I moan into Chris's mouth, the sheer intensity of our joining overwhelming me. “This is crazy... we just met and now I'm fucking you,” I pant against his lips, the words barely coherent in my lust-fogged brain.

Chris pulls back, his eyes blazing with a feral intensity as he gazes down at me. “You're mine now, Y/N,” he growls, his voice rough with desire. “I'm going to fuck you every way I can, whenever I want.”

“You're going to be my personal plaything, Ma,” Chris continues, his words dripping with dark promise. “I'll use your tight little cunt whenever I please, make you scream my name until your throat is raw. You'll be addicted to my cock, craving it morning, noon, and night.”

I can feel my orgasm building once again as Chris talks dirty to me, his words fueling the fire burning inside of me. “Do you like that, baby?” he asks, his tone taunting and dominant. “Do you like the thought of being my personal fucktoy?”

“Yes, Chris,” I cry out, arching my back as he hits a particularly sensitive spot inside of me. “I'm your fucktoy, your slut, your dirty little secret. Do whatever you want with me, I'm yours.”

“I bet Matt hasn't even gotten to fuck this tight cunt,” Chris taunts, a smirk on his face as he thrusts into me, hitting me deeper and harder. “Tell me, Y/N, have you ever let him fuck you like this?”

I moan loudly, my voice high and needy, “No, just you. Nobody else has been inside me like this.” Chris chuckles darkly, the sound vibrating against my skin. “I guess I'm the luckiest person then, getting to claim this sweet little cunt all to myself.”

“Yes, Chris, yes!” I moan, my voice breathless with pleasure. Chris smirks, thrusting deeper into me. “Look at you letting me fuck the shit out of you for payment for an ounce of weed. You're such a dirty little slut.”

Chris leans down, whispering in my ear as he continues to thrust into me. “You like that, Ma? You like the way I fuck you hard and slow, making you take every inch? Fuck, you're so sexy, so perfect.”

Chris lets out a deep, guttural groan as my nails dig into his back. As if unable to resist, he leans down and starts leaving bite marks along the sensitive skin of my neck. I gasp at the sudden flash of pain, followed by an even more intense wave of pleasure.

Chris' thrusts become erratic, and I can feel him tensing up as he reaches his climax. “Fuck, I'm gonna cum,” he growls in my ear.

I moan out his name, “Chris!”, as the intense pleasure overtakes me, my vision blurring and stars exploding behind my eyelids. Chris' thrusts become frantic, his cock pulsing inside me as he fills me with his hot cum.

Chris collapses on top of me, both of us gasping for air as the aftershocks of our orgasms ripple through our bodies. He nuzzles into my neck, his hot breath sending shivers down my spine. “That was incredible, baby,” he murmurs, his voice husky with satisfaction.

“I bet you do that with every girl who comes here to buy from you,” I say, trying to catch my breath. Chris chuckles, a low, intimate sound. “You're the first, actually,” he admits, his fingers trailing down my side. “Let's keep it that way” I said, looking down at him.

Chris smirks, leaning in to capture my lips in a searing kiss. His tongue dances with mine, the taste of sweat and sex filling my mouth. As we break apart, he whispers, “I'll make sure of it.”

Chris slowly pulls out of me, a satisfied smile on his face as he admires the sight of my naked body, covered in the marks of our passionate encounter. He reaches over to his nightstand, grabbing his phone and angling it to capture the perfect shot. “Damn, you're beautiful like this,”

“Chris!” I protest, cover my chest with my arms as he snaps a photo. He chuckles, setting the phone down and hovering over me, his eyes full of desire. He pulls me into a kiss, his hand sliding down to rest on my thigh possessively.

Chris trails his lips down my neck, pressing kisses to the bite marks he left earlier. I arch my back, a moan escaping my lips as he touches me again. “I won't show anyone, I promise,” he murmurs against my skin. “Just a little reminder of this moment.”

Authors Note: Sorry this took so long, literally fell asleep twice typing this but thank you for 100 followers!! Hope you all are having a good day/night <3 (might turn this into a book who knows🤷)

© CYBERL6VE

[hug-your-face]

Insight today while washing the lettuce and thinking of my friend who doesn't want to vote.

They are an otherwise intelligent, responsible, generous person, who appears to be socially conscious. They have worked hard and long for their position in their profession. They express concern for the planet. They get twitchy if you use too many paper towels.

But they don’t want to vote for Biden for reasons, and quote "doesn't like the whole system where the parties take turns swinging things back and forth" unquote.

I have been dumbstruck at their attitude for about two months now. I've been thrashing back and forth trying to reconcile this person I love with their attitude:

If you care abt the planet enough to conserve paper towels, don’t you care enough to stop a Repub administration from raping the land?

If you don’t like how things can swing back and forth, don't you want an administration that's going to work to shore up, rather than dismantle, more lasting democratic systems of governance?

If you understand the value of the long game, why are you only satisfied with instant results from a single election rather than viewing that election as a single move in an ongoing process?

The insight came to me as I used an extra set of paper towels to dry my lettuce:

These people are not motivated by outcomes. They are motivated by how their choices make them FEEL.

Not how the outcomes of their choices will make them feel. But how the action associated with their choices makes them feel.

In terms of outcomes for the environment, saving paper towels doesn't do shit compared to pushing for restrictions on oil companies. But using half a paper towel is an instant dopamine hit: "Ahhh, I am caring for Mother Earth. I care. I am a good person. Ahh yes that's the stuff."

This model fits for voting too. We know that The Only Votes That Count Are Those Cast. We know that Dems Go Where The Votes Are Not Where The Votes Aren't. We know that voting in every election, every time, in numbers, is a very low-effort way to contribute to moving the Overton window farther left.

But in the moment, for people who are motivated by how their action associated with their choice makes them feel... the absolute best move for their dopamine supply is to abstain: "I am NOT supporting an old fart; I am NOT supporting genocide; I am Challenging The System; I am a good person. Ahh yes, that's the stuff."

At the time, when I challenged my friend on their position, they held up their hands and said "look, I'm not saying I have any answers, I'm just saying I don’t like how the system works."

They didn't like how participating in the system made them FEEL in the moment.

For those of us who think this is madness, hey, we aren't off the hook entirely. We are basing our choices and actions off of outcomes, true. But there's probably a feeling/dopamine component in there too. "I am holding my nose and voting Blue; I am doing my part to actually affect the future even if I hate some things abt my choice; I am a good person. Ahh yes, that's the stuff."

So maybe the difference isn't in the motivation (my feelings and self-image) but in what motivates us (my action vs the outcome of my action).

I don't have an answer to the question at this time and this post is already long enough. But I'll think on it. And I invite you to do so as well:

For these people (who seem to be a sizable part of the population), how to outweigh the choice where their action preserves their self-image, doesn't cost them dopamine for having to take a "bad" action, and maybe even gives them a happy boost for "not being part of a flawed system?"

For these people, how to help them connect more to the outcome?

Off the cuff, I can't think of any means other than cognitive-behavioral therapy. :/

EDIT: Apparently there's a term for this and it's called Emotivism -- ethics isn't abt effects but abt feelings.

[sepublic]

Thinking of how the Titan showed Luz the first glyph, Light, because she was kind to his son and listened to him, made him feel like his interests mattered when so many others overlooked the little guy and didn’t care about people like him. He didn’t force Luz to painstakingly find it on her own, as Philip did; The Titan freely gave this to her.

Then the second glyph, Ice, comes when Luz takes the moment to listen to the Titan; To say that she’ll learn on his terms, she’ll respect his body and work with him. Luz paid attention to the unheard son, and now the parent, speaking with and not for him as Philip did.

She gets the Plant glyph afterwards by continuing to follow that principle and give his son fun and company...

And the final glyph, Fire? Wing it like Witches is a major epiphany for Luz’s development, where it really hits her that she can’t drag her friends around in her attempts to play out certain beloved tropes and story beats she grew up on; In particular, this episode was about her desire to be the underdog hero, dragging Willow into relatively high-stakes consequences for a Grudgby match she did not ask for.

Sound familiar? I wonder if the Titan was low key afraid of Luz following in Philip’s steps, recognized that similar hero complex... Even if Luz was nowhere near as evil as Belos, well. Philip started off from somewhere, he didn’t begin as a genocidal dictator with countless sins to his name, he built his way up. Maybe the Titan is just being paranoid, Luz is so young after all! But in the end, he hid one final glyph from Philip because of his need for control, and it was admittedly Luz who jeopardized this precaution by giving Philip the Light spell.

Yet in Wing it like Witches, Luz really matures when she steps up and takes responsibility for her recklessness, for subsuming Willow’s problem and low key making it about herself, and what she decides for the group. Luz takes the full consequences of the stakes she set up so neither Willow nor Gus have to, and it’s this mature gesture of self-awareness that prompts them to reciprocate and forgive Luz.

So I wonder if THAT moment was what solidified to the Titan that yes, I really can trust this child. This human, the first after centuries of another who has been desecrating my corpse, bastardizing my name; She truly didn’t know any better, and meant well, teaching Philip the Titan’s last glyph. The first few glyphs were like little gifts, but giving Luz the last one meant she had full access to all of the Titan’s magic, so long as she experimented with glyph combos. And the Titan felt safe to entrust her with something he barred from Philip, because why?

Because Luz got over that fatal flaw of Philip’s; The desire to be the hero at any cost. That proved she wouldn’t follow in his footsteps, she diverged at a crucial point, and it meant she’d never become another Belos. They both worked and studied for the glyphs, but what mattered was the compassion that Luz had, and it was her kindness that began her discovery of glyphs. The Titan could trust his final glyph to her, Fire... But as he’d find out, it wasn’t even his final gift to Luz, either.

There really is this recurring arc of hesitancy from the Titan; Someone who was used, betrayed, and taken advantage of. And knew how easy it was for the same to happen to his son. So to see the little ways in which he opens up, recognizes Luz’s kindness and maturity and responds to each step in her growth... It’s like someone learning to trust again, realizing they’ve really found a friend after all. It’s no wonder Luz is treated like an old friend by the Titan, because she is one, and it makes his final gift and farewell to her all the more impactful.

On a lighter note! I’m just imagining the Titan figuring out how to show Luz the Fire glyph, after deciding he’ll do just that. I keep thinking of him watching Luz in the Grudgby game, cheering her on and giving Luz support by illuminating his last glyph in Boscha’s fire; “Here kid, take this!” It’s such a relatively casual and silly moment too, because the Titan isn’t obsessed with the theatrics and drama of godhood.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Housing is a labor issue

There's a reason Reagan declared war on unions before he declared war on everything else – environmental protection, health care, consumer rights, financial regulation. Unions are how working people fight for a better world for all of us. They're how everyday people come together to resist oligarchy, extraction and exploitation.

Take the 2019 LA teachers' strike. As Jane McAlevey writes in A Collective Bargain, the LA teachers didn't just win higher pay for their members! They also demanded (and got) an end to immigration sweeps of parents waiting for their kids at the school gate; a guarantee of green space near every public school in the city; and on-site immigration counselors in LA schools:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/23/a-collective-bargain/

Unionization is enjoying an historic renaissance. The Hot Labor Summer transitioned to an Eternal Labor September, and it's still going strong, with UAW president Shawn Fain celebrating his members victory over the Big Three automakers by calling for a 2028 general strike:

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/uaw-general-strike-no-class

The rising labor movement has powerful allies in the Biden Administration. NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo is systematically gutting the "union avoidance" playbook. She's banned the use of temp-work app blacklists that force workers to cross picket lines:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/30/computer-says-scab/#instawork

She's changed the penalty for bosses who violate labor law during union drives. It used to be the boss would pay a fine, which was an easy price to pay in exchange for killing your workers' union. Now, the penalty is automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

And while the law doesn't allow Abruzzo to impose a contract on companies that refuse to bargain their unions, she's set to force those companies to honor other employers' union contracts until they agree to a contract with their own workers:

https://onlabor.org/gc-abruzzo-just-asked-the-nlrb-to-overturn-ex-cell-o-heres-why-that-matters/

She's also nuking TRAPs, the deals that force workers to repay their employers for their "training expenses" if they have the audacity to quit and get a better job somewhere else:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/14/prop-22-never-again/#norms-code-laws-markets

(As with every aspect of the Biden White House, its labor policy is contradictory and self-defeating, with other Biden appointees working to smash worker power, including when Biden broke the railworkers' strike:)

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/18/co-determination/#now-make-me-do-it

A surging labor movement opens up all kinds of possibilities for a better world. Writing for the Law and Political Economy Project, UNITE Here attorney Zoe Tucker makes the case for unions as a way out of America's brutal housing crisis:

https://lpeproject.org/blog/why-unions-should-join-the-housing-fight/

She describes how low-waged LA hotel workers have been pushed out of neighborhoods close to their jobs, with UNITE Here members commuting three hours in each direction, starting their work-days at 3AM in order to clock in on time:

https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1669088899769987079

UNITE Here members are striking against 50 hotels in LA and Orange County, and their demands include significant cost-of-living raises. But more money won't give them back the time they give up to those bruising daily commutes. For that, unions need to make housing itself a demand.

As Tucker writes, most workers are tenants and vice-versa. What's more, bad landlords are apt to be bad bosses, too. Stepan Kazaryan, the same guy who owns the strip club whose conditions were so bad that it prompted the creation of Equity Strippers NoHo, the first strippers' union in a generation, is also a shitty landlord whose tenants went on a rent-strike:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/20/the-missing-links/#plunderphonics

So it was only natural that Kazaryan's tenants walked the picket line with the Equity Stripper Noho workers:

https://twitter.com/glendaletenants/status/1733290276599570736?s=46

While scumbag bosses/evil landlords like Kazaryan deal out misery retail, one apartment building at a time, the wholesale destruction of workers' lives comes from private equity giants who are the most prolific source of TRAPs, robo-scabbing apps, illegal union busting, and indefinite contract delays – and these are the very same PE firms that are buying up millions of single-family homes and turning them into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/08/wall-street-landlords/#the-new-slumlords

Tucker's point is that when a worker clocks out of their bad job, commutes home for three hours, and gets back to their black-mold-saturated, overpriced apartment to find a notice of a new junk fee (like a surcharge for paying your rent in cash, by check, or by direct payment), they're fighting the very same corporations.

Unions who defend their workers' right to shelter do every tenant a service. A coalition of LA unions succeeded in passing Measure ULA, which uses a surcharge on real estate transactions over $5m to fund "the largest municipal housing program in the country":

https://unitedtohousela.com/app/uploads/2022/05/LA_City_Affordable_Housing_Petition_H.pdf

LA unions are fighting for rules to limit Airbnbs and other platforms that transform the city's rental stock into illegal, unlicensed hotels:

https://upgo.lab.mcgill.ca/publication/strs-in-los-angeles-2022/Wachsmuth_LA_2022.pdf

And the hotel workers organized under UNITE Here are fighting their own employers: the hoteliers who are aggressively buying up residences, evicting their long-term tenants, tearing down the building and putting up a luxury hotel. They got LA council to pass a law requiring hotels to build new housing to replace any residences they displace:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-11-28/airbnb-operators-would-need-police-permit-in-l-a-under-proposed-law

UNITE Here is bargaining for a per-room hotel surcharge to fund housing specifically for hotel workers, so the people who change the sheets and clean the toilets don't have to waste six hours a day commuting to do so.

Labor unions and tenant unions have a long history of collaboration in the USA. NYC's first housing coop was midwifed by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America in 1927. The Penn South coop was created by the International Ladies Garment Workers’ Union. The 1949 Federal Housing Act passed after American unions pushed hard for it:

http://www.peterdreier.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Labors-Love-Lost.pdf

It goes both ways. Strong unions can create sound housing – and precarious housing makes unions weaker. Remember during the Hollywood writers' strike, when an anonymous studio ghoul told the press the plans was to "allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses?"

Vienna has the most successful housing in any major city in the world. It's the city where people of every income and background live in comfort without being rent-burdened and without worry about eviction, mold, or leaks. That's the legacy of Red Vienna, the Austrian period of Social Democratic Workers' Party rule and built vast tracts of high-quality public housing. The system was so robust that it rebounded after World War II and continues to this day:

https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/

Today, the rest of the world is mired in a terrible housing crisis. It's not merely that the rent's too damned high (though it is) – housing precarity is driving dangerous political instability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

Turning the human necessity of shelter into a market commodity is a failure. The economic orthodoxy that insists that public housing, rent control, and high-density zoning will lead to less housing has failed. rent control works:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/16/mortgages-are-rent-control/#housing-is-a-human-right-not-an-asset

Leaving housing to the market only produces losers. If you have the bad luck to invest everything you have into a home in a city that contracts, you're wiped out. If you have the bad luck into invest everything into a home in a "superstar city" where prices go up, you also lose, because your city becomes uninhabitable and your children can't afford to live there:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/27/lethal-dysfunction/#yimby

A strong labor movement is the best chance we have for breaking the housing deadlock. And housing is just for starters. Labor is the key to opening every frozen-in-place dysfunction. Take care work: the aging, increasingly chronically ill American population is being tortured and murdered by private equity hospices, long-term care facilities and health services that have been rolled up by the same private equity firms that destroyed work and housing:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

In her interview with Capital & Main's Jessica Goodheart, National Domestic Workers Alliance president Ai-jen Poo describes how making things better for care workers will make things better for everyone:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-12-13-labor-leader-ai-jen-poo-interview/

Care work is a "triple dignity investment": first, it makes life better for the worker (most often a woman of color), then, it allows family members of people who need care to move into higher paid work; and of course, it makes life better for people who need care: "It delivers human potential and agency. It delivers a future workforce. It delivers quality of life."

The failure to fund care work is a massive driver of inequality. America's sole federal public provision for care is Medicaid, which only kicks in after a family it totally impoverished. Funding care with tax increases polls high with both Democrats and Republicans, making it good politics:

https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/7/voters-support-investing-in-the-care-economy

Congress stripped many of the care provisions from Build Back Better, missing a chance for an "unprecedented, transformational investment in care." But the administrative agencies picked up where Congress failed, following a detailed executive order that identifies existing, previously unused powers to improve care in America. The EO "expands access to care, supports family caregivers and improves wages and conditions for the workforce":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2023/04/18/executive-order-on-increasing-access-to-high-quality-care-and-supporting-caregivers/

States are also filling the void. Washington just created a long-term care benefit:

https://apnews.com/article/washington-long-term-care-tax-disability-cb54b04b025223dbdba7199db1d254e4

New Mexicans passed a ballot initiative that establishes permanent funding for child care:

https://www.cwla.org/new-mexico-votes-for-child-care/

New York care workers won a $3/hour across the board raise:

https://inequality.org/great-divide/new-york-budget-fair-pay-home-care/

The fight is being led by women of color, and they're kicking ass – and they're doing it through their unions. Worker power is the foundation that we build a better world upon, and it's surging.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/13/i-want-a-roof-over-my-head/#and-bread-on-the-table

[redwinewhiteroses]

What are your future spouse's qualities? 🧡💛🧡👰🤵👼

Masterlist

Purple butterfly

First of all I'm seeing your fs is a social butterfly. Very very outgoing, radiant and lively. They might feel really content with themselves so they reflect this warm peaceful celebratory joy into the world. They might nurture and foster connections with people from a very genuine place in their hearts often times celebrating people and their loved ones.

Your fs might be a very strong and resilient person. They will put up a good fight to defend their loved ones. They might also be protective of you and your children and will defend you like a warrior. Your fs will face challenges head on and will be really courageous. They will always stand up for what they believe in.

Your fs might be highly skilled and a master manifestor. They get what they want and they possess the power to create what they want. They might be charismatic and will really stand out in a crowd. They might be skilled at multiple different things, could be a jack of all trades and will most definitely be good at all those things.

They are very well put together and will have a commanding presence. They must be super confident about themselves. They might value  and respect people and will demand to be treated the same way. Your fs could be a CEO or an entrepreneur.

Your fs might be very intellectual. They have a strong sense of self and not easily swayed by things. They might not be emotional as much, definitely more inclined to logical thinking. They might really value honest and clear communication. Honesty could be a priority to them. They might have a zest for life. A hardworker, creative and analytical could be some of their most prominent qualities. Your fs could be well accomplished in life and could be quite independent on their own. Could uphold positions of power and definitely commands a lot of respect from others.

Random messages : Enchanting, Ask and you will have it, I'm sorry, Wit and humor/Gemini/Sagittarius, Forest retreat, Soul's desire, Mystic, It's always you, Hope for something more, Going with the flow, Try again, Forgive and forget

Vibes they give off : Harvey Specter from Suits

Blue butterfly

Your fs could be a bit of a loner. They would fight for what they want even if they are the last one standing. Might have a win at all costs attitude. On the downside they will be quite cold and people could resent them sometimes. They might be a bit aggressive and get involved in conflicts easily. They could possess a sharp intellect and see things through. They might make enemies or get on the bad side of people. They could be a bit manipulative and will try to have the last word on anything and everything. Could be a fighter and a tough cookie. They could go by the motto 'Never back down, Never give up' .

Your fs is very introspective and will be on a constant journey of self discovery. They might seek a deeper meaning in life. They might be disatisfied with the circumstances of their life and will try to reinvent themselves and will desire to find more authentic experiences in life. They might not be driven by material rewards but rather value experiences and constant evolution beyond the material realm.

Your fs could be a bit restless and impatient. They might be facing delays and obstacles in creating their desired reality. They could face a few setbacks in life which will create a sense of disappointment in themselves.

Your fs might struggle to give and receive care and affection to some degree. They have this inner turmoil which restricts their nurturing side. They might be dealing with mental health struggles or stress might be a major theme in their life. They might be a bit possessive and act from a place of low self esteem. They could struggle with issues related to self worth and lack of purpose.

This might just be a major theme in their life during a significant time frame in their life. Nothing is set in stone. This is the current energies of your fs. This is not a final verdict. Remember life goes on constantly, redefining things and situations day by day. So have hope that things will get better eventually.

Random messages : Light hair, Yes, Sail the seas, I want to control/Mars/Aries/Charge, Love, Damsel in distress, Wait for me, Ill will, Love is light

Vibes they give off : Professor Snape from HP

Green butterfly

Your fs might have a difficulty of letting go of things that no longer serve them. They could hold on to the past and resist change. They might display feelings of nostalgia, regret and fear the uncertain. They could hold onto things for their emotional significance and memories. They could reminisce about their childhood often and may have an emotional attachment to their past due to some reason. Your fs can be someone who thinks they were born in the wrong generation. They might love vintage stuff and lifestyles from a different era. They could feel a bit out of place in the dynamics of the present world. They might have an interest in history, archaeology or philosophy. For some of you, your fs could be a librarian, anthropologist or a historian. They could be a bit restless and indecisive. They could be prone to overthinking and running in circles.

They could possess strong traditional values and beliefs. They could be a mentor, a teacher, professor, a guide or a coach. They can have some outdated beliefs as well. They could hold onto long-held traditions and practices to the point they will resist evolving. They could be a bit impractical and stubborn. They could be a conservative person, maybe religious, wise and emotionally stable. They might be well respected among people and seen as a dependable figure. They could even be a religious leader. They can be significantly older than you or very mature beyond their age. They have a love for traditions. They consider courting, marriage and commitment very seriously. They value stability, practicality and has a strong moral compass and will hold people accountable. They value morals, good intentions and values. They might have an ethnic background or might have some special cultural practices. They could be from generational wealth, true old money. They really do have some unique structure in their life kinda like old, refined, antique and of deep value. They might drive a vintage car. For some your fs could even be living in a mansion or has an estate.

Your fs might be recovering from a heartbreak, a past sorrow or pain. Maybe they lost someone who was quite influential in his life like a grandparent, a teacher or a parent figure. Maybe that's the reason of your fs looking back into the past. They have newfound strength and overcoming emotional pain. Your fs's emotional journey is marked by a gradual release of sorrow and an embrace of healing and growth. They could be a counselor, therapist or even a writer. People might be inspired by your fs's journey of overcoming pain and past hurts. Your fs could be inspiring people to be stronger by sharing their story or personal experiences. They may be guiding others to overcome emotional conflicts.

Your fs might have a zest for life. They can be incredibly passionate about life. They can be lively and active. They're passionate, optimistic and might take risks and have a thrill for life. They possess leadership qualities and a strong desire for actions. They are assertive and takes initiative. They might lead your relationship and I'm seeing wise leadership. They'll believe in traditional gender roles and will provide emotional security and material stability in the relationship. Your fs respects you and loves you in a gentle but passionate way.

Random messages : Cute romance, Sweet kiss, No way, Running with the wolves, Sour cream, Say something, You are on the right path, Aphrodite, I'm wondering why, Harmonious, Diabolical, Fruitfulness

Vibes they give off :

Thomas Shelby from Peaky Blinders

Edward Cullen from Twilight

Red butterfly

Your fs might be a really strong individual. Definitely good looking and charismatic. Will most likely have a commanding presence. We got two kings here and the magician. Your fs will defend their loved ones like a warrior. They will face challenges head on and won't fear fighting for what they truly believe in.

Your fs might be a bit closed off at first. They can have their guard up. They might also not see their truest potential. I think they underestimate themselves constantly and might feel trapped by their own mental chains. They tend to feed their own mental limitations. But I think they are capable of more, they just don't see that for themselves.

Your fs might motivate people around them. They will encourage you with words of affirmation all the time. They definitely have a strong sense of self assurance and will be in control. They can be tall and charismatic and extremely good looking. Might have a great sex appeal. They are very driven (might have high libido) courageous and passionate. They have a warm hearted nature. For some of you guys, your fs can be a CEO, entrepreneur, self-accomplished businessman, creative director or an authoritative figure.

Your fs might be fiercely competitive. They like to test their own limits. Might enjoy dangerous hobbies and martial arts. They might enjoy physical fights or activities that require strength and endurance. They might be really good in bed if you know what I mean. They can go for a few rounds at a time without getting tired. Extremely passionate and strong. They can be quite passionate in arguments as well so it's better to solve problems without delay. They might like competing with others and they thrive in competitive environments. Your fs will be in the spotlight and they stand out in any crowd. They could a sportsperson for some you guys.

Your fs is highly skilled in many things. They are really creative. Might be good with their hands. They will be a very well put together person. Will have a good sense of style and a knack for aesthetics.

Your fs can be mature and have a zest for life. They are passionate about living life you know. They might enjoy hiking, vacations and experiencing new things. Your fs is really really wealthy and abundant. They might be successful or even famous. They have a lot of achievements under their belt. They are incredibly protective of their loved ones and have a strong sense of responsibility towards them. They are secure in themselves and people can easily rely on them. They might build a lasting legacy with you. They could be working in finance or real estate.

You guys could have a lavish wedding and you also might live in a beautiful home. Your marriage will be stable and quite passionate.

Random messages : Christmas time, Haphazard, Miraculous, Count to three, Eat up, Love and care, Why do you avoid me?, What do you want?, It's easier when you sleep

Vibes they give off : Christian Grey from Fifty Shades

Nick from My fault

Thanks for joining me!

[froody]

please help my scruggly cat

Tommy, Tumblr micro-celebrity famous for featuring/being the muse for hit posts such as ‘father is…evil?’ and ‘my cat can tell when I’m sad and instinctively bites my toes’ and ‘frustrating each other is our love language’ needs a little financial support. Please consider donating to my ko-fi or buying something from my teespring store.

Tommy was diagnosed with diabetes earlier this year under dramatic circumstances that involved a week long intensive care vet stay. She has stomatitis (an inflammation of the gums and mucus membranes) that she was on steroids for and the steroids may have damaged her pancreas. Since her diagnosis we’ve had a hard time controlling her blood sugar. Her insulin dose goes up and up. The vet thinks she has a good chance of stabilizing, that diabetic cats can and do live long, healthy and happy lives. She’s only 5. Her 6th birthday is later this month. She’s fighting. She wants to live.

Each insulin vial costs $160. Her prescription cat food is $35 for a 4 pound bag. She’s also on gabapentin for her pain and neuropathy and she’ll probably need another course of antibiotics. She currently goes to the vet every two weeks and the cost of that varies immensely. Basically, she’s a much more expensive cat than she was before and the cost of living for me has risen as well. It’s not an immediate emergency but we need funds. I’m disabled, I have an autoimmune disease that attacks my colon, I have a hard time working outside of the home or even at all because my health fluctuates and my energy levels are low. I’m trying so desperately to get better but for now I’m living in my mom’s house and sponging off my loved ones and tapping into my meager savings.

I know what you’re thinking, the thing people always comment on donation posts about pets, “if you can’t afford to care for your cat, why do you still have your cat?” and as biting as that question is, I know it’s a valid one and I’ve thought about it myself. I still have her because I need her and she needs me. She’s like my soulmate animal. We met when I was 16 and she was about 4 weeks old. There was no way I could have known we’d both be struggling sick moneypits in 5 years. I’m trying to give her the best life I can and she’s trying to give me her best self. I’m her person. I’m home 24/7 so we’re so used to having each other. She brings me immense joy and I know she’s brought a lot of other people joy. If you’re one of those people, please consider giving a couple of dollars. If you can’t afford to, that’s fine. Thank you for reading anyway.

TL;DR: cat sick. I’m sick. please help.

[pin-k-ink]

BENEATH THE SURFACE ⋆✦⋆ urahara kisuke ft. hirako shinji

synopsis ➸ you’ve forgotten all about the lover you once had, memories of hirako erased as if they never existed. urahara, the man entrusted with your care, doesn’t feel an ounce of guilt for falling for you—or for keeping you close, far from the past you can’t remember and the man who still lingers in it

tags ➸ posséssive and obsèssive behavior, references to past traùma/memory loss, implications of infídelity, mastúrbation (m & f), dúb-con, fingèring, bitíng, making out, unprotècted sèx, bégging, dìrty talking, manhàndling, creàmpie, it’s pretty vanilla actually

wc ➸ 5.7k

"Oi, Kisuke." Yoruichi's tone was dry with the barest hints of mild exasperation as she spoke up suddenly beside him. "You're starin' again, old man."

Urahara blinked himself from his heated reverie, lips quirking at the familiar teasing rebuke. He didn't even try denying her accusation, letting his gaze linger a moment longer on the scene unfolding across the courtyard.

You danced and darted between Jinta and Ururu, laughter ringing out clear and sweet as you narrowly dodged whatever silly game was unfolding. The simple domesticity of it all shouldn't have twisted something primal and restless inside Urahara's gut as it did. But watching the sunlight gild your features, the wind toying with loose strands of your hair...it summoned forth hungrier, more wretched yearnings.

"Can you blame me?" he sighed, finally tearing his eyes away with obvious reluctance. "The sight is certainly a tempting one."

Yoruichi snorted indelicately. "Don't try that innocent bullshit with me, Kisuke. I know exactly what kind of thoughts you've been entertaining lately." Turning towards him fully, her voice took on a slightly lower register tinged with something almost like concern. "Thoughts you shouldn't fool yourself into thinkin' are harmless little fantasies, either..."

Urahara's grip tightened fractionally on his cup as the images she conjured battered the inside of his skull with uncanny clarity. Flashes of Hirako and the love he held for you in his heart, the adoration and tenderness he freely bestowed upon you. The way you'd so easily fall into his arms, the softness in your smile whenever he came around.

They were a matched set of thunder and lightning then - all explosive passion and white-hot desire detonated with blissful recklessness in those waning hours before Aizen's machinations finally tore both your worlds asunder.

"She remembers nothing of it now," Urahara murmured, aiming for nonchalance yet unable to quite disguise the bitter undercurrent of self-reproach lacing his tone. "Seems rather pointless to linger on twisted ghosts, don't you think?"

Yoruichi's lips curved in a slow, knowing smile utterly devoid of genuine amusement. "Don't feed me that weak shit, Kisuke," she chided, voice pitching low with quiet intensity. "You were the one who watched Shinji agonize over wiping away every scrap of memory she had left - even if it meant erasing their entire history from her mind forever..."

Unconsciously, Urahara's body thrummed in recognition at the visceral reminder, gut twisting hotly with guilt and lingering scraps of disbelief. Even now, decades after Hirako had appeared at his doorstep with you cradled limply against his chest - frail and wracked with hollow, gut-wrenching sobs - the memory still brought bile scorching up Urahara's throat.

"I can't...I don't have the strength to face her disgust or heartbreak if she remembers what happened," Hirako had choked out in a ravaged, trembling rasp that night under the dying throes of that summer moon. "What Aizen stole from her - from us... So please, Kisuke...wipe it all clean. Every scrap, no matter what it costs. For both our sakes."

The weight of your pliant, broken form pressed against Urahara's chest as Hirako relinquished his hold still haunted with searing clarity. More so than even the glittering sheen of anguished tears streaking your savior's anguished features - for amidst the storm of mutual devastation swirling between them, something deeper and more terrible had already begun unspooling inside Urahara's viscera.

An ember of wretched temptation he could scarcely bring himself to acknowledge even now, years after he'd set about systematically erasing your beloved from your memories at Hirako's request through shard after shard of scorching finality.

"She was everything to him, ya know?" Yoruichi continued, eyes gone hazy and distant as she no doubt dredged up her own recollections. "Shinji's light in all that darkness - the peace that kept him grounded while still being wild enough to match his passion step for step..."

Those words were nothing Urahara hadn't confessed to himself under the waning light of too many evenings, drowning in memories that weren't even truly his to indulge. He recalled with perfect clarity the way your eyes used to blaze so radiantly whenever Hirako strode into any space you occupied - luminous and unchecked adoration seemingly etched into every indrawn breath.

And Hirako, in turn, looked upon you as though his entire existence could be charted across the map of your satin skin and contours. A starved man kept alive solely by the reverence and hunger glowing from within your entwined embraces, that unwavering belief and camaraderie more sustaining than any physical fulfillment.

"It's why I've long suspected you kept her close here, all these years," Yoruichi continued in a softer tone, undercurrent of poignant understanding resonating between them. "It was never entirely noble sentiments or promises sworn to poor Shinji, was it Kisuke? At least, not wholly..."

Heaving a weighted sigh, Urahara let the truth slip free of its carefully erected cage at last through parted lips he could no longer fully control. "You know me far too well for your own good, Yoruichi..."

His gaze strayed inexorably back towards your radiant silhouette still dancing along the engawa in the fading daylight's warm glow. Laughter and innocent joys seemed to saturate every molecule of air you disturbed with your movements, leaving a sparkling luminescence shimmering like mirage in the wake of your passage.

"I kept her close because she made things less unbearable - " Urahara paused, searching for the words to encapsulate the sublime, impossible truth he often lay awake drowning in night after night. "After all the years spent in the dark, she was a reminder that not everything's a complete waste. When things started getting rough, it was enough to see her and remember there's still something out there worth holding on to."

Yoruichi remained silent for a long, suspended beat, absorbing the weight of his admission with that glittering, astute gaze that saw far too deeply into Urahara's tattered depths. When she spoke again, it was with a wry, almost wistful humor undercutting the latent concern.

"I get it now. The infamous Kisuke Urahara - disgraced Soul Society prodigy, princeling turned exile, humble candy merchant to the masses - secretly harboring an obsession for the shining embodiment of purity and innocence itself. Doesn't get much more blasphemous than that, eh?"

Her rich laughter rang out across the engawa, a playful yet unsubtle warning shot across Urahara's bow to finish airing his regrets before their charged nature compounded any further. He raised his cup back to his lips, allowing the scalding liquid to linger on his tongue for a fleeting moment of grounding respite before finally uttering his most damning truth:

"Maybe so... but the real sin is that I don't regret my obsession at all anymore, Yoruichi," he said, almost casually. "I know exactly what lines I've crossed, spending every moment wanting something I can never really have..."

The confession hung heavily in the air, laced with an undercurrent of unapologetic yearning that even Yoruichi seemed to pick up on. Urahara didn't bother masking the weight of his stare as it tracked back over to where you laughed and played carefree in the courtyard.

Because as much as he might want to deny it, Urahara knew he wasn't alone in succumbing to the forbidden temptations simmering between you both. No, he'd caught the lingering heat of your curious gazes far too many times to claim ignorance any longer.

Like that morning last week when you'd padded sleepily into the kitchen, hair mussed from slumber and yukata hanging loosely to expose tantalizing glimpses of bare skin. You hadn't noticed Urahara seated at the table initially, too busy stretching your lithe frame with a contented sigh that made his breath hitch audibly.

When you'd finally spotted him, a pretty blush had crept across your cheeks - though you made no move to cover yourself. Instead, your lips had curved into that secret little smile Urahara felt like he alone was privy to lately. Holding his heated stare, you'd quirked one delicate eyebrow in silent challenge before very deliberately dragging your gaze down the length of his seated form with clear appraisal.

"Good morning, Kisuke," you'd purred, the low timbre of your voice hitting him like a physical caress. "You're up awfully early."

He'd swallowed thickly, fighting not to let his eyes linger too brazenly on the tantalizing glimpses of thigh and cleavage peeking through the loose folds of your robe. "Couldn't sleep," he'd rasped out, silently damning how rough his own voice had emerged.

Your smile had only widened at that, eyes glittering with undisguised feminine satisfaction as you'd sauntered closer until the heady scent of your skin and subtle jasmine perfume filled his senses dizzyingly. Leaning across the table, you'd trailed one finger along the rim of his cold tea cup with blatant suggestion.

"Maybe I can help...relax you, Kisuke?"

The molten promise in your tone had very nearly undone him right then and there. But before Urahara could fully formulate a response - whether capitulation or restraint, he still didn't know - Jinta came barreling into the kitchen with his usual graceless racket. You'd straightened casually, as if that heated moment had never even happened, leaving Urahara to stew in his own frustrated arousal as the morning carried on.

Encounters like that were rapidly becoming the norm rather than a rare occurrence. Any shred of plausible deniability faded after Urahara stumbled across you touching yourself in the vacant training room one evening after most of the others had turned in for the night.

The sight of you splayed out wantonly, cheeks flushed and fingers buried knuckle-deep in the slick, welcoming heat of your own cunt...it had stolen what little breath remained in Urahara's lungs. He'd stood frozen, utterly incapable of tearing his eyes away from the mesmerizing display you'd unintentionally offered like the most obscene gift.

When your back finally arched in a perfect bow and those tantalizing lips fell open on a keening cry, Urahara had retreated with mortifying swiftness. But not before he was utterly certain you'd caught sight of his transfixed silhouette in the doorway, hand already working urgently to relieve his aching cock straining against his hakama.

Nights like that rapidly blurred together into an endless cycle of torment and stolen pleasure for Urahara. He lost count of how many times he'd spilled in his own hand after being subjected to another teasing display on your part, or the number of times he'd been forced to excuse himself when the need became too overwhelming.

Yet amidst each delirious high, an undercurrent of guilt and forbidden temptation gnawed with increasing ferocity. Because he knew they were not alone in basking in these heated transgressions, were they?

No, Urahara had caught the first whispers of Hirako's scorching reiatsu brushing against his senses far too frequently lately to claim pure coincidence. At first, he tried convincing himself it was just his guilty conscience manifesting in shockwaves of paranoia and self-loathing.

But then he'd turn a street corner or duck through one of the market stalls while accompanying you...only to catch a glimpse of tousled blonde locks before disappearing like a mirage.

Hirako was watching you. Lurking nearby while unable to fully tear himself away from the most important person in his world. Drawn like a man in the desert to the only source of water that could quench his thirst or deliver his demise in equal measure - because in witnessing Urahara's ultimate damnation, he would either find salvation or destruction.

The knowledge that his one of his oldest acquaintances still clung to whatever tattered scraps of you remained twisted Urahara's gut with scorching guilt. Yet rather than deterring his treacherous thoughts and urges, the forbidden element merely stoked them into an inferno of carnal heat.

Some wretched, masochistic part of him craved for Hirako to see how thoroughly he'd become undone by the radiant presence fate had bestowed into his care. To bear witness to every ounce of depraved worship Urahara was no longer capable of denying as he debased himself in reverent prostration before your intoxicating light.

Perhaps only then, when Hirako had been forced to consume every moment through his own haunted gaze, could Urahara find the absolution and release his blackened soul so voraciously yearned for. Because being the one to irrevocably desecrate that which was most sacred to your former lover would be the ultimate unforgivable sin he'd carry into whatever scorched afterlife fate deigned fit for wretches like him...

Urahara's steps slowed as he neared the entrance to the shop, senses picking up on a distantly familiar reiatsu signature just beyond the threshold. His grip tightened fractionally on the small bundle of provisions he'd ventured out to procure.

Hirako. Here again so soon after his last fleeting visitation.

Steeling himself, Urahara shunted his reiatsu down to virtually nonexistent levels and ghosted closer, every instinct sharpened to a razored edge. He slipped around the back entrance in utter silence, masking his presence entirely as he moved to observe unseen.

The soft cadence of your melodic laughter caressed his ears first, effortlessly guiding his focus through the open receiving area towards the source. Urahara felt his breath stall as his gaze finally found you seated on the engawa, radiant and at ease - and not alone.

Hirako knelt across from you, cocksure grin softening the hard angles of his face in a way Urahara hadn't witnessed in nearly a century. His old acquaintance's expression held terrible, wistful vulnerability as he drank in the simple sight of you animatedly chatting and smiling during what seemed a perfectly mundane conversation between friends.

Only those hauntingly familiar gestures and tender inflections betrayed Hirako's longing to anyone who understood their secret language from before the cataclysm. He leaned in unconsciously whenever you laughed, lips parting in silent rapture simply from your unbridled mirth washing over him. Fingertips traced idle, seemingly innocent patterns along the polished wood in movements Urahara knew were unconscious echoes of past intimacies once mapped across satin expanses with utmost reverence.

Yet despite all the visceral undercurrents simmering around Hirako's unguarded display, you appeared utterly oblivious - conversing and beaming at him as if thoroughly charmed by the roguish yet disarming company of one of Urahara's old contacts.

Urahara's jaw clenched hard enough to creak as a knot of primal possession twisted through his rioting gut. He should retreat, maintain his silent vigil from the shadows rather than infringing upon this rare, fraught reunion transpiring right before his unworthy gaze.

But something kept his feet rooted, compelled him inexorably closer until he could clearly make out the hushed cadences of your voices mingling in the tranquil evening.

"—such a delight as always, Miss [Y/N]," Hirako was murmuring in that velvety timbre that carried equal facets of seduction and soul-scouring guilt through every syllable. "Though I can't help but wonder why a fresh blossom like yourself insists on remainin' around something as tarnished as this shop?"

You laughed again - that high, windchime peal of uncorrupted joy that scorched Urahara's very marrow whenever he had the privilege of basking in it. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that very same question?"

"Ah, touché my dear," Hirako chuckled, fingers drifting infinitesimally closer across the polished wood until they brushed the elegant swell of your hand with clear intent. "Though I think I know why I'll never be capable of straying far from this place for long..."

The lingering curl of suggestion in those final words made Urahara's hackles raise despite himself. Hatred and possessiveness tore through him in equal, blinding measure as he watched Hirako slant closer, knuckles tracing along the vulnerable underside of your forearm in familiar, intimate patterns clearly etched into memory.

Yet you remained oblivious, simply smiling that gentle, open smile that belonged solely to Urahara in his most ravenous late-night indulgences. "Well whatever reasons keep you returning, you're always a most welcome sight around here. Kisuke enjoys your visits."

The words were ostensibly innocent, but they still landed like a slap of ice water against Urahara's reeling senses. You turned then, as if sensing the sudden shift in his turbulent mood through whatever subconscious thread still bound you to the indelible scars carved into his very soul.

When your luminous gazes crashed across the fractal distances, Urahara felt every ounce of fevered possessiveness and unearned claim to your radiance flash to visceral life behind his irises. He stared at you with unguarded, ravenous hunger - every fracture and violation harbored between his anguished conscience fully exposed in that unraveling moment.

You blinked at him, lovely features creasing momentarily in soft bewilderment at the raw intensity searing from his veiled stance. Then you smiled once more in that devastating, oblivious manner and raised your free hand in a beckoning wave Urahara felt sear straight through to his very foundations.

"Kisuke!" Your sweet tones rang out bright and clear, each lilting note bleeding resonantly into every crevice of the shouten. "Welcome back! You'll never guess who's just dropped by to pay us a visit..."

Neither of you noticed Hirako's full-body stillness as he absorbed the seismic shift of your attention now centered solely upon the ravaged creature your luminescence had chosen to orbit so mercilessly. Yet before your plush lips could impart the name unnecessary to voice aloud, Hirako was already smoothly rising to his feet.

"I ought to be going, actually," he rasped, the fractured rasp of his voice a deafening clamor against the oppressive silence now smothering the engawa. "Thank you kindly for the hospitality, Miss [Y/N]. As always, you are a true beacon in the gathering gloom..."

Hirako dipped into a flourishing bow reeking of archaic Seireitei formality and melancholy in equal measure. Then he straightened and aimed a loaded look in Urahara's direction, piercing through the veil of shadows as if capable of discerning every venomous temptation and violation now inexorably etched into his brother's shredded conscience with lurid permanence.

It felt as if hours passed suspended in that deadlocked confrontation between Urahara's rapacious yearning and Hirako's haunted resignation. Until finally, the stoic spell shattered and his oldest comrade turned his wizened, ruined features back to where you'd risen to greet him with usual gentle adieu.

"Goodnight, [Y/N]," Hirako murmured, shouldering past you carelessly as Urahara watched with bated breath. "Sweet dreams..."

Before you could respond or offer whatever brightly confused reply bubbled to your lips, Hirako took full advantage of your proximity to invade it unforgivably. In that moment, Urahara knew he was bearing witness to far more than a simple exchange between former lovers and trusted comrade. He watched, utterly transfixed, as Hirako nuzzled his face with intimate, liquid grace against that same succulent patch of bare skin Urahara knew to be one of your most sensitive erogenous zones.

It was a snatched, desperate movement executed with all the flayed desperation and regret of a dying man reaching out for succor one final time before surrendering to oblivion. Yet despite the furor searing Urahara's nerves raw from within, he remained utterly paralyzed in the wake of Hirako's final silent transgression against them both.

He could taste the bitterness of old, visceral jealousy on the back of his tongue - instincts he thought long buried threatening to lash free. This man knew you in ways Urahara could only fantasize about. Had tasted the divine ambrosia of your surrender and caressed every supple inch in the secret shadows of lovemaking. Owned parts of you utterly that Hirako clearly still mourned the loss of despite the veil of amnesia cloaking your interactions.

You startled of course, cheeks flushing becomingly as you stared at his retreating form in soft, bewildered surprise. Only when Hirako's wasting presence faded to a haunting echo once more did you finally turn your trembling features back towards the immovable specter of Urahara's presence lurking nearby.

"Well!" you huffed out in a shaky, affected chuckle of faint mortification. Your fingertips ghosted along the curve of your jaw in an apologetic caress that made Urahara's gorge rise violently. "That was rather...forward of him, wouldn't you say Kisuke?"

Urahara allowed himself to fully emerge from the concealing shadows then, immolating you beneath the full, ravenous intensity of his regard as he slowly prowled across the engawa like a predator seeking what rightful tribute it had been denied far too long...

"Oh, I'd say that and so much more, my dear," he rasped out in a tone husky and choked by a maelstrom of molten rage and desire too long denied its due. "So very, very much more to unpack from that little...reunion, wouldn't you agree?"

Your eyes widened further at the vibrant, corrosive inflections lacing his words. But Urahara barely registered your pretty bewilderment, too consumed by the righteous fury and twisted lust scorching a path towards his prey at long last.

"He comes by often, doesn't he?"

The seething accusation emerged from Urahara's lips before rational thought could intervene or exercise any semblance of restraint. His strides ate up the remaining distance across the engawa, movements tight and predatory in a way that had you instinctively retreating until your back met the unforgiving wall.

You stared up at him with those luminous, perpetually innocent eyes blown wide in clear bewilderment. "Well...Hirako-san has been visiting more frequently as of late, yes. He's an old friend of yours after all, isn't he Kisuke?"

Any other night, that reminder of your blatant naivete regarding Hirako's true reasons for lingering might have cooled Urahara's vengeful ardor back to a simmer. But tonight, spurred by his withering jealousy and volcanic need, your coy deflections only stoked the inferno raging through his marrow hotter.

"Friend?" He all but spat the word, allowing his reiatsu to flare in a barely restrained surge of crimson hostility. "You really wish to play such games after that display from the man, my dear?"

Urahara closed what little distance remained between your bodies in one measured roll of his hips - inescapably caging you between the solid brand of his torso and the sturdy barrier at your back. You actually flinched at the sudden, aggressive proximity as understanding started to glimmer behind your lovely eyes.

"Kisuke, I-I'm not sure why you're suddenly so upset..." You swallowed thickly, chest rising and falling in rapid pants as he drank in every shaky inhale with ravenous focus. "I...Hirako-san was simply bidding me goodnight as a gentleman would! If he was being too forward, I didn't intend—"

Whatever half-hearted denial you were about to utter dissolved into a breathless moan as Urahara slanted his mouth over yours in a punishing, all-consuming slant. His tongue demanded entry with no quarter for hesitation, claiming the honeyed recesses of your mouth with merciless possession.

He felt you immediately attempt to squirm away, startled and overwhelmed by the intensity of his onslaught. But with a growl of rebuke, Urahara simply crowded closer until the solid cage of his thighs had your lithe form trapped utterly in his scorching orbit.

One work-calloused palm shot up to seize your jaw in an unforgiving clamp when you still tried to twist away. Urahara enforced his unyielding claim with wicked intention until your struggles dissolved into the first shuddering capitulations of surrender.

When he at last showed mercy and broke away, you stared up at him with lips swollen and gaze already hazed by lingering shock and dizzying arousal he'd awakened so abruptly inside you. You started to speak his name again - a desperate attempt at regaining some thread of clarity.

But Urahara quickly silenced your plea by trailing the pad of his thumb over your trembling lower lip in a lazy, suggestive caress. "Don't speak, my sweet. Not when we both know whatever excuses you're so desperately looking for will only stain those pretty lips with shameless little lies."

He relished the way your eyes widened at the uncharacteristically seductive taunt, drinking in your shock like the finest sake as he continued to abuse your kiss-bruised lips lasciviously. Urahara canted his hips into yours in an insistent grind, smirking darkly at your choked whimper of blended dismay and aching need.

"You want this, don't you?" he rasped against the sensitive curve of your throat, stubble grazing in deliciously rough friction. "An opportunity to confess your hidden desires... to finally give in to what’s been slowly taking over that fake purity you hold on to."

His leisurely path of scorching kisses and swirling friction trailed lower with each lush syllable spilling past his taunting mouth. By the time Urahara's tongue dipped into the enticing hollow between your collarbones, you were shuddering with unbridled desperation against the brand of his body.

"K-Kisuke," you whimpered out in a broken, needy keen that stoked his ravenous desires into an inferno. "Please...I don't know what's gotten into you, but—!"

Whatever pathetic entreaty or deflection lingered on your tongue withered into mere shattered static as Urahara's questing fingertips boldly sought out the blazing apex of your thighs beneath your skirt. You cried out at the first searing friction, back arching against the unforgiving shoji screen in thoughtless abandon.

"I think you know exactly what's gotten into me, angel," Urahara growled against the soft swell of your breast now spilling so enticingly from its lacy confines. "You've been too lost in your endless little act to truly see what you've been unraveling all this time..."

With expert dexterity, his calloused fingers sought out your molten, soaked core. Urahara delighted in the ragged cry that burst from your pretty lips at the blunt invasion, hips already writhing against the possessive curl of his finger in a desperate search of more blissful friction.

"Look at how wet you are for me," he cooed, dragging the pad of his thumb across your slick, pulsing nub. You moaned at the friction, head lolling back against the wall with lips parted in wanton invitation. "Even as you try to deny what you've wanted for so long now...you're dripping all over my hand, aren't you, sweet girl?"

Urahara chuckled darkly, adding another thick digit to his wicked torture and drinking in the wanton cry that erupted from your throat. He knew he ought to show some small measure of mercy for how utterly debauched and wrecked you already looked after just a few scant moments of his carnal attentions. But he couldn't resist continuing to torment you, especially when he'd been forced to endure watching you fall apart beneath the tender touch of another for so long now.

"I'll ask again: you want this, don't you, my dear?" Urahara murmured, tone silken and lethal as he crooked his fingers inside you and watched your eyelids flutter shut with pleasure. "You want me, don't you? To finally take and fuck and possess what you've been denying us both for so long."

He punctuated his final declaration with a punishing thrust of his fingers - curling and seeking out your most sensitive spot until your thighs trembled and breathless pleas spilled from your lips. You were so close, and yet still struggling against the truth you'd never be able to escape any longer.

"Answer me, angel," Urahara hissed, sinking his teeth into the fluttering pulse of your throat in a mark he intended to linger long after this heated interlude. "I'll stop if you don't admit how badly you want this. How you've been dreaming of feeling my cock filling you, splitting you open until there's no going back..."

"Oh gods, Kisuke, please," you cried out, voice fracturing as he pressed even closer and let you feel the thick, straining heat of his erection digging into the soft give of your belly. "Yes, yes, I want it. I want you, please just take me already. I need—!"

That was all the affirmation Urahara needed. He surged forward and slanted his mouth over yours, swallowing your moans of pleasure and relief with the same possessive ferocity he intended to brand into your every cell and sense memory.

In the span of a heartbeat, Urahara was yanking down your underwear and freeing his throbbing cock from the confines of his hakama. You keened into the bruising crush of his mouth, hands tangling in his sandy locks as he lined himself up at your drenched entrance.

The first, blinding thrust stole what little breath you had left, forcing your walls to stretch and accommodate his thick, pulsing girth. Urahara swallowed your strangled cries of bliss with a feral snarl of his own, hips canting forward until he'd fully sheathed himself inside the tight clutch of your quivering heat.

"You feel even better than I dreamed, my love," he rasped against the salty curve of your neck, pausing just long enough for you to adjust before his hips bucked up again with merciless intention.

Urahara didn't allow a moment of reprieve, setting a punishing pace as his hands grasped your plush thighs and hiked them high around his waist. The angle allowed him to fuck you even deeper, spearing his pulsing cock into the molten recesses of your cunt and watching the ecstasy play across your features.

"Fuck, fuck, Kisuke, please," you cried, hands scrabbling for purchase against the unforgiving plane of his broad shoulders. Your hips rocked up into his punishing thrusts, the sinful slide of his cock filling you to the hilt over and over again sending stars bursting behind your eyes. "It's so good, gods, you're so deep, please, don't stop!"

Urahara's lips twisted into a predatory smirk, and he slowed his ruthless pace just enough to draw a breathless whimper from your kiss-bruised lips. His gaze devoured the way you were staring up at him, so utterly lost in the throes of pleasure and desire he'd brought you to with such wicked skill.

"You're so tight around me, angel," he cooed, rolling his hips against the slick, molten grasp of your cunt and drinking in the needy cry that tore from your lips. "I'm not sure how much longer I can hold on...but you've been such a good girl, taking my cock like this. Tell me, are you close, sweet girl?"

He punctuated his filthy question by dipping his hand between the rocking crush of your bodies, fingertips ghosting along your soaked, aching sex before finding the sensitive nub of your clit. The breathless cry that tore from your throat nearly undid him, hips bucking into your own once more as he watched your face contort in sheer rapture.

"Y-Yes, I'm close," you gasped, eyelids fluttering open as your hands grasped his biceps with white-knuckled desperation. "Kisuke, please, I'm s-so close, please, I'm right there, don't stop—"

Whatever incoherent plea was tumbling past your kiss-bruised lips melted into a ragged scream of pleasure as Urahara sank his teeth into the supple flesh of your neck and fucked his hips up into your own one last time. You came apart in the span of a heartbeat, cunt clenching and milking his throbbing length until the blinding coil of his release unraveled.

Urahara's climax crashed through him with the force of a tsunami, and he snarled out his release in a choked curse. He continued to buck up into the clutching warmth of your core, fucking his cum deep inside you until every last drop was spent and he collapsed against the shuddering give of your breasts.

Your heart hammered wildly against his ear as Urahara struggled to regain some semblance of control and sanity. He listened to your breathing gradually return to normal, fingers idly stroking your hips in a soothing caress even as his own reiatsu still rippled with the vestiges of his possessive rage.

When he finally mustered the willpower to lift his head from its comfortable perch, the sight of your face stole whatever withering remnants of jealousy and ire lingered within him. Your features were still flushed with the fading heat of pleasure and exertion, and you blinked up at him with the same trusting, dazed innocence that had always drawn him in like a moth to a flame.

"I'm sorry if I was too rough, my dear," Urahara murmured, the pad of his thumb ghosting along the faint indentations his teeth had left on your neck. "I didn't mean to hurt you, but I suppose my jealousy got the best of me..."

You frowned slightly, clearly confused by his words and the apology lingering just beyond them. But the soft, breathy sigh of contentment that slipped past your lips soon banished any lingering doubts.

"It's alright, Kisuke," you soothed, reaching up to gently card your fingers through his sweat-dampened locks. "I'm not sure what came over you, but I didn't mind. Not in the least..."

Urahara hummed a vague sound of approval, burying his nose against the hollow of your throat and inhaling the intoxicating scent of your skin and the lingering hint of his own release. A dark thrill went through him at the reminder that his cum was now dripping from between your thighs, painting the softness of your skin with his claiming mark.

"That's a relief," he mused, nipping at the sensitive skin just above the curve of your breast. "Because I intend to fuck you again the second we're back in my bedroom, and then once more in the morning before Tessai and the kids arrive."

You moaned softly at his blunt admission, hips bucking up against the insistent grind of his cock still buried deep inside you. Urahara smirked, allowing himself a few moments of indulgent pleasure as he drank in the way your eyelashes fluttered against your cheeks.

"But… can we sleep a bit first?" You yawned, voice soft and already beginning to slip away towards the beckoning embrace of unconsciousness. It was only then that Urahara noticed the fatigue lines bracketing your eyes, and he couldn't help but press a tender kiss against your forehead.

"Of course, my love," he whispered, gathering your pliant form in his arms and carrying you towards the safety and shelter of his bedroom. "We have plenty of time now to indulge every wicked fantasy you've ever harbored. There's no need to rush..."

Urahara smirked as your breath began to even out and slow into the steady cadence of slumber. He was looking forward to the morning already, and everything that awaited him once you awoke.

Just as he was about to follow you into blissful sleep, however, his ears picked up on one last, murmured confession slipping past your lips.

"Love you, Shinji…"

[socialistexan]

So, obviously the moral and humanitarian arguments around the very obviously monstrous and fascist policy of mass deportation of 25 million "illegal" immigrants (there are a little over 11 million undocumented and in the US right now) aren't working, so we might have to talk about the only thing American voters seem to even care about anymore: how much will it cost. Not cost in humanity. Not what it costs to our collective souls. The pure Benjamins of it all, the monetary cost.

The low estimate I saw for the cost of mass deportation if they "only" deported 1,000,000 immigrants a year (about the population of Atlanta and Kansas City COMBINED) is $1,000,000,000,000 over 10 years.

1 trillion dollars. From the Party that constantly harps on the deficit and debt so often that "but what is (x Democratic law) going to cost?" is basically a political meme. We could fund those "crazy radical" programs like child care, free school lunches, building schools and roads, and debt forgiveness and then some. We could fund head start something like 80 times over.

It would make ICE the largest agency in the Federal government. It's more people a year than the entire Federal prison population.

I am already morally against this legislation, I don't need convincing, but this needs to be plastered on every single news station until maybe people snap out of whatever spell they're under.

60%+ of the country supports this legislation, by the way, including over 30% of self-reported Democratic voters.

Maybe the US is beyond redemption, I don't even know anymore.

[hoursofreading]

I would like to think that if Tom Cruise or Mark Wahlberg read Anne Helen Peterson’s article, they would be appalled to be listed as men who do not like women. I would like to think that concern and self-reflection would flood their system upon hearing the news. That they would rush out shoe-less like Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning in their haste to ask the women in their lives if they are feeling heard and respected. That Tom and Mark would immediately seek to course correct and improve, bubbling with urgency to change their ways and start listening to women. But the unfortunate truth is… successful men have little reason to care if they are perceived as someone who likes women. How they treat women has little to no effect on a man’s career, monetary success, popularity or reputation. There was no penalty to Brad Pitt’s career when it came out that he hit Angelina Jolie on that plane. Tom Cruise still remains the highest paid actor in the world despite the gross, creepy ways he controlled and treated all three of his wives. David Beckham is hailed as good guy father of the century despite the numerous times he’s been caught cheating. The sad truth is that men don’t NEED to like or respect women to successfully walk through the world. Not at all. In men’s daily lives- in their jobs, in their church, in their friend groups- social capital is gained solely through other men. So they often don’t care if women feel disrespected by them. They care if men respect them. And the price of gaining mens’ respect often comes at the cost of disrespecting women. And I’m not talking about sexual predators. Our standard for who we call good men is astonishingly low (basically anyone who is not abusing women, but sometimes even then). Men get to proudly wear that title of “good” man WHILE not respecting women, not listening to women, not liking women. Treating women like an equal is not a requirement for being a good man.

The men who like women and the men who don't. Yes we can tell.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

So what about a genius hero x street smart villain, maybe hero is a little awkward from being in the lab all the time but villain makes up for it by being able to pick up on hero’s body language? Kinda alone the lines of “they didn’t correct you to insult you, they were trying to be helpful”?

"Can you walk?"

"Y-yes, of course," the hero answered. But the villain wasn't fooled that easily. Obviously, they noticed the white-knuckled grip and the pale face. They noticed the unsteady gaze and the shaking hand. The five coffee mugs.

"I didn't bring you here to work yourself to death," the villain said. they crossed their arms in front of their chest, attempting to sound soothing.

It could be quite challenging to guess the hero's feelings. Kidnapping someone to work for them wasn't exactly...a promise for good cooperation. It wasn't ideal either but the villain barely knew what an Erlenmeyer flask was and they really needed the hero to research the disease.

"Being careless could cost you your life. This is pretty dangerous. If this virus can kill people with superpowers, I don't want to know what it can do to us."

"The average human immune system can destroy the virus, don't worry," the hero said. They closed their eyes and took in a deep breath. "People with superpowers are flawed, though. Their bodies need to come up with a lot of energy to conjure superpowers. Specialized cells create a nearly independent system on their own. But, you know, some parts of the body - of the vessel - don't get as much energy as they need. Organs are important, so...immune system it is. That's why a bunch of kids with superpowers die. There is barely any information on it yet, though."

"Do you need more...specimen?"

"No. No, I..." The hero pressed a palm against their temple. They looked angry, they looked frustrated. The villain supposed not getting proper sleep for days was an explanation for that.

"Okay, that's enough, I think."

"I am fine," the hero insisted.

"You are not fine." The villain took a step towards them. "I know you are working on this so you can find a way to kill supervillains, not superheroes. But right now the only person you are close to killing is yourself."

"What would you know about my work? I am fine, I am doing amazing."

The villain reached out to touch the hero's shoulder but the hero slapped their hand away weakly.

They knew the hero wasn't...particularly good with other people. Especially, when it came to work. For the most part, the villain understood why but they could barely understand why they insisted on working hard enough to forget basic self-care. It seemed like brilliance demanded stubborness.

"You're right. I don't know much about your work, but I do know a lot about behaviour. And your behaviour is unacceptable."

"Unacceptable? How dare-"

The villain grabbed their chin, shutting up the hero. They took a step forward, forcing the hero to press their lower back into the table.

The proximity surprised even the villain - they hadn't realised the hero was this close to the table.

And this close to the villain.

"Alright, listen," the villain said. Their voice was dangerously low. "Right now, I am your boss and you will do as I say. If I tell you to rest, you will rest. If I tell you to eat, you will eat. I don't care if you want to work 20 hours a day or if you want to finish one more test. I decide how much you work, got it?"

The villain's fingers dug into the hero's cheeks softly and they smiled when the hero frowned at that.

"You don't want me to start threatening you, do you?"

The hero rolled their eyes and then they just stared at the villain. Stared with those curious and tired eyes, as if the villain was another experiment they were interested in.

"You're actually quite adorable," the villain said. They squeezed the hero's cheeks again for good measure. "You can have my bed."

The villain let go of them and the hero blinked a few times. A soft blush decorated their face. And for some strange reason, the villain felt really warm and...satisfied inside.

"What about you?" the hero asked.

"I will take the couch."

"Absolutely not. Do you know how many bacteria colonies are on a couch?" They turned away from the villain and slowly started cleaning their workplace with shaky hands.

"Believe me, I will survive."

"Fine." The hero shrugged. "Your funeral."

"You're making this up, aren't ya?" The hero turned towards the villain again and even their ears had turned red.

"Do I look like I would lie about that sort of stuff?" they asked but they didn't meet the villain's eyes. It was quite funny but the villain didn't know if it was supposed to be a joke.

Usually, the hero only acted sassy when someone criticised their work, when they got annoyed or when they got embarrassed.

The villain guessed the latter was happening.

But whatever was the catalyst, it seemed like the hero was willing to rest and that was all the villain truly wanted.

"Ah, screw it." The villain waved with their hand, still smiling. "My bed is big enough for two, anyway."

"It, uh, better be."