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faveficarchive · 5 years ago

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Coup de Grace: Part 1

The Last of the International Dilettantes

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Mel/Janice

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: From the Author:

The fabulously ill-tempered archaeologist Janice Covington and Southern-Belle-in-Exile Melinda Pappas gradually discover the real truth at the heart of the Xena Scrolls, in a story that darkly plays with time and memory, loss and desire, and the nature of what is real and what is not.

The stars all seem motionless, embedded in the eternal vault; yet they must all

be in constant motion, since they rise and traverse the heavens with their

luminous bodies till they return to the far-off scene of their setting.

—Lucretius

1. Still Life with Assistant Professor

Cambridge, 1948

At precisely 12:19 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, 1948, after sitting on the back porch and consuming two meatloaf sandwiches, drinking half a beer, pondering the uneven lawn begging to be mowed as well as the rutted wood rot in the roof beams of the porch, thinking that she didn't want to go to Venice to some damned boring conference anyway, then wondering why she didn't want to go anywhere and would rather stay and home and paint the kitchen ceiling and pull weeds out of the garden and just watch her lover fall asleep in the sun, after all this fermentation of thought aided by the American institutions of beef and beer, Dr. Janice Covington, the restless, relentless archaeologist and world explorer, fully realized that she had been domesticated.

She exhaled, as if some intangible pseudo-virility within her had been deflated.

Then she burped, and this small, crude action comforted her.

Janice laid back on the porch, head pillowed on a forearm, ignoring the empty, yawning lawn chair—she could not tolerate being civilized any further. Smoke from her cigarette drifted up into the rafters of the back porch. Out, damned rot! she thought, scowling at the poor old beams. She had warned Mel about this, when they bought the house—that it was less sturdy than it looked. But its shabby genteel, struggling-academics-meet-haunted-house ambiance possessed great appeal to the Southerner, who reveled in a very regional penchant for the Gothic. Not to mention that the house, drafty in the winter, also possessed incessantly creaking floorboards and a regularly flooding basement. Nonetheless, Janice reluctantly admitted to herself that she liked the house. Oh, hell, I love it. It's ours. She sat up abruptly, as if the happy thought would strip it all away. I've been waiting for two years for the other shoe to drop.

She continually expected to wake up some morning in a leaky tent somewhere in the middle of nowhere: alone, on a site...lucid and miserable and no longer part of this living dream. Or she would wake to find a "Dear Jane" kinda letter propped against the sugar bowl (no, Mel would take grandma's sugar bowl with her. Against the toaster, maybe?) on the kitchen table : Dear Janice, I cannot go on any longer loving someone as short as you. I'm going back home to my fiancé, who was 6'4" in his stocking feet. You can keep the car. Love, Mel. Never mind the fact that the fiancé was now, most definitely, a former fiancé and married to another woman, and who kept sending Mel annoying photos of his newborn son, who had a strangely large head, like a mutant turnip....now there's someone who desperately needed the Pappas gene pool. But so far, practically every day, she woke to the smell of coffee, to Mel in the kitchen, loose hair spilling over a bathrobe, frowning over the newspaper. This world, I swear, she would drawl.

This world. When Janice was younger she kept a journal, in which she wrote about the things she was learning from her father. When she was 19 she finished one particular notebook with a litany of names—all the places she'd seen thus far. Under the dark canopy of night and tent, everything seethed with possibility, and she would recite the list in her mind: Hierakonpolis. Athens. Syria. Alexandria.

The litany kept her company, and for a long time it felt like her only friend. Through the holes in the old tent she would see stars.

Cairo. Rome. Istanbul. Thessalonika.

It had not occurred to her then to wonder if she was happy. Because everything had seemed possible. She looked around the yard. And the amazing thing was, it still felt that way.

Add Cambridge to the list.

*****

"Ah, my little Mad Dog. My poor, little, housebroken Mad Dog."

Upon murmuring this benediction, Paul Rosenberg leaned back into the soft leather chair at the study's desk, and put his feet up on it, ignoring Covington's entreaties about doing so. Janice was always so nervous in the study—which she considered Mel's room—as if she were in the tomb of Tutankhamen himself and fearing some ancient Carolinian curse, should objects be tampered with. Carefully, he stretched his long legs over the desk, avoiding the thick, vellum-paged notebook, covered with lines of Greek, and an English which, to him, was as indecipherable as the ancient language, given the florid, tangled serifs of the bold hand. He knew instantly it wasn't Janice's handwriting, having encountered her painstakingly neat printing while they worked at Neuschwanstein. The chair carried a faint whiff of Mel's perfume. He smiled and closed his eyes for a minute.

His brief, fluttery daydream of a certain leggy, blue-eyed brunette was disrupted by the disgruntled tones of a certain small blonde: "Hey, asshole."

Janice had lured him from his penniless life in New York to an equally penniless one in Boston, with the promise of a teaching post for him at the college. When this drunken promise failed to materialize (I would've known she was drunk on the phone if I hadn't been drinking myself!), he found music gigs in town, tutored here and there, and acted as Janice's Boy Friday, a position that dictated nothing much more than picking up her dry cleaning (skirts being an unfortunate fact of life for a female professor, even one as lowly as she) and trying to discern the fate of the scroll she viewed at Neuschwanstein at the end of the war. You've still got the military contacts, buddy boy, she had said to him. Paul opened his eyes and smiled broadly at Janice, a toothy grin crowding his ten o'clock shadow, his open madras shirt flapping in the breeze from the window, revealing a slightly yellowing white v-neck undershirt. "Yes, my little Mad Dog?"

"Stop calling me that," she snapped. He had been relentless about the nickname, ever since hearing Mel employ it in an equally teasing fashion one day, as she shipped Janice off to work: Mad Dog honey, y'all sure are pretty in that dress! Now she stood before him, scowling, hands settled along her hips, in blue jeans and a dirty white t-shirt. He suddenly wondered if she had seen A Streetcar Named Desire recently, or if Marlon Brando had taken butch lessons from her. "Whaddya got for me? You call that number down in Washington?"

"Ah. Well, I got stonewalled. That's what I got." He sighed, and toyed with a fountain pen from the desk. "I can't get the file. Sorry."

"You're kidding me. They won't even let you see a file?"

He shook his head. "I tell ya, I really ran up my phone bill trying to track it down. All I found out was that the scroll had been returned to the family of the owner before the war. Presumably the family that the lovely Fraulein Stoller bought it from. They live in Venice."

"Venice," Janice repeated dully.

"That mean something to you?"

"There's an international archaeology conference there next month." Then, to herself: "Damnit, I need a name, at least." He murmured, "That's a coincidence."

"I hate coincidences, Paul." She paced in front of him. "Who's the bigwig in charge of all this?" She felt a familiar burn in her gut: the excitement of the chase. Is it happening again? I've still got it, then?

"Some general named Fenton, in Washington. I spoke to a flunky in his office. We got to bullshitting about the war, and he was the one who told me the scroll is in Venice. But that's all he would tell me."

Janice stopped pacing. She stared at him. Another coincidence. "The general is Jeremiah Winston Fenton?" "None other." Paul glanced at her uneasily. "Why?" "I'll be damned. Mel knows him. He was an old friend of her father's."

"Old Dr. Pappas knew everyone, it seems."

"Comes in handy."

"I see. So...you think Melinda could sweet-talk him? Is that your plan?"

"No." Janice sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. "She hates him. Said he's a creepy old bastard."

"Somehow I can't hear her saying that," Paul noted wryly.

"Her exact words were, 'He's quite a terrible old man.' " She mimicked Mel's accent to perfection.

"That's pretty good, sweetheart. You sound just like her," he said admiringly.

"I get a lot of practice. But let me translate it into our lingo: He's a bastard. He put the moves on her, not long after her father died."

Paul shrugged. "Surely she's used to beating them off with a stick," he said, with forced carefulness. You don't want to be on that list of terrible men, do you, buddy? He was content just to be in Mel's orbit. Or so he believed. Given the strength of the relationship he witnessed between the two women, he knew he had very little choice in the matter.

"We're talking hours after Dr. Pappas's funeral," she snorted.

"Oh." He winced. "Lovely."

"Yeah. I don't want to put her through talkin' to that asshole again." Additionally, she was wary of using Mel's charms in this way, given the near disastrous results with Catherine Stoller. Near disaster? Okay, definite disaster. She was quiet for moment, but Paul didn't like the strange glint in her eye.

"Get the phone, will ya?"

*****

Paul's hand grew sweaty as he gripped the phone, and the business-like woman answered. "Melinda Pappas calling for General Fenton!" he barked into the receiver. Janice gave him a thumb's-up sign. He nodded, then handed her the phone. She made a great show of wiping her hand after touching the slimy receiver, but no sooner than she did, Paul could hear, from his close proximity, a deep male voice on the line.

"Why, General Fenton, is that you?" she began. Eerily, her voice had taken on the accent and cadences of her lover's. "Yes, it's me, Melinda. I know, it has been simply too long. Yes, yes, that is too true! So! How was your war?"

Paul rolled his eyes.

"Oh yes, I was abroad for a while, in England. I did so want to help the cause, and I was kept out of the WACs 'cause of my terrible nearsightedness." Janice giggled like a demented schoolgirl. "General, stop! Y'all are too much! My eyes do not look like sapphires! Well, maybe just a teeny bit, I suppose. You're so sweet. A summer sky? No, no one's ever told me that before! Well, now, I did have a purpose in callin' you…I've been so desperate for help. Yes, I am positively desperate!" Janice sat up straight, breathless as a Gene Tierney heroine. "You see, I have been continuin' the work of my Daddy—God rest his soul—and durin' the war I was fortunate enough to view a certain scroll at this lovely little castle in Germany—Neuschwanstein, yes. Now I'm sure you know, given how eee-fficient the military is, that it has been returned to its original owner, but I would so love to have a look at it again, so I need to contact the individual who is in possession of it. I had one of my manservants call your office earlier, to see if they would provide any information of their own free will—but I'll be darned if your Yankee bureaucracy didn't have me hog-tied! Yes sir, I bet you could just picture that: me, all tied up! What a sight! I was madder than a hornet's nest." A pause. More male rumbling. "Oh my, yes, you better believe it, sir! I do have a terrible temper. Why, just the other day I found one of the servants spit-polishing my silver! Usin' his disgusting saliva on the tea service that my great-grandaddy fought and died for, defendin' it from Sherman's fiends! I was so furious I could've cut off his balls and fed them to the hounds…" Janice's voice dropped menacingly. "They do so love the smell of blood, it arouses them for the hunt."

Paul conveyed a frantic plea to stay in character via a well-placed kick to the shin.

Janice grimaced, then cleared her throat. "Er, as I was saying, I would so love it if perhaps you could intervene…" Another pause. A bright smile lit up the archaeologist's face. "Oh General," she cooed seductively, "you are wonderful. I am entirely indebted to you. Uh-huh..." Janice picked up a fountain pen and scribbled down some information in the notebook in front of her. "Yes indeedy, I will call that lieutenant...and I certainly hope you read him the riot act!" Another pause. "No, I'm not living in South Carolina, or even in North Carolina anymore..." An unfortunate inspiration occurred. "Why, I'm livin' in New Orleans now! You sound as excited as I did when I moved here! Ah got together with a bunch of my old sorority sisters from Vanderbilt, and we all chipped in and bought a lovely old house down in the French Quarter. We call it the Rising Sun."

He buried his head in his hands.

"If you're ever down that way, well, you just try lookin' me up." Another peal of feminine tittering. "Oh, you're just awful! Uh-huh. Really? Well, red is my favorite color, you know…mmm-hmmmm. I would love to talk longer, General, but my manservant just brought in my mint julep and reminded me about gin rummy with the girls this afternoon. Why, yes…" she grinned at Paul. "He is a big strapping man, how did you know?"

Paul heard a loud click at the other end of the line. Janice looked at the phone in surprise. "Got him all worked up," she muttered.

He shook his head in pure disbelief. "You are out of your damn mind, Janice."

"That ain't no way to talk to a lady, mister."

"You're no lady, even when you're pretending to be one. And I tell you, if she ever finds out—"

Janice jammed a finger in his face. "She's not gonna find out unless you tell her, and if you do, I'll feed your balls to the hounds—"

"I'd like to see you try, butchling, 'cause we might as well face facts here—"

She grabbed his shirt, yanking him up out of the chair, knocking over the notebook.

"—you're pussywhipped!" he shouted gleefully.

Both parties felt a breeze from the study door, now opened by the woman who, indeed, without a single doubt, had them both pussywhipped. Mel stood in the doorway, her face slightly flushed from her brisk walk from the campus in the midday sun, carrying the leather satchel that once belonged to her father on her shoulder, and with a needless cardigan sweater draped over one forearm, poised like a waiter with a towel. Her pale, well-formed arms were bare in the summer dress she wore. Judging from the slightly dazed expression on her face, she either heard Paul's exclamation or was suffering a mild form of heat stroke.

"Hi," Mel greeted timidly, feeling as if she had interrupted some intimate scenario in a house that was not her own.

Both Paul and Janice mumbled hellos.

"Um..." Mel began, as she deposited both satchel and sweater on the study's couch.

Paul straightened his abused shirt. "Hey, didn't you tell me you guys got meatloaf?" Before Mel could affirm, he darted past and down the hallway into the kitchen.

Janice remained sitting, now cross-legged, on the desk, prompting a scowl of disapproval from her companion. The archaeologist jumped off the desk immediately, sending loose papers scattering in her wake, and inadvertently wounding the fountain pen, which proceeded to bleed blue ink all over the desk's blotter.

Mel sighed deeply.

"Sorry."

"This word—" Mel tried again. A parade of nervous tics commenced. First she nudged her glasses with a knuckle. Beneath the becoming blush, Janice could see the little linguistic wheels spinning in her lover's mind: Pussywhipped. Transitive verb. Pussy. Slang, obscene.... Then she scratched her cheek and tugged nervously on her ear.

The bullshit generator kicked in. "It's all part of the Mad Dog legend, baby. You know lots of things are said about me, and ah, this is one of those rumors...that, ah, I liked to abuse cats."

"I see," Mel responded, drawing an imaginary line in the carpet with the tip of her shoe, perhaps indicating a rapidly lowering threshold of nonsense. She took a step toward Janice. Who retreated with a much larger step of her own. "You know...dogs don't...like...cats..."

"If that is the case, then, wouldn't it have made more sense for Paul to call you a pussywhipper?" Mel said the word cautiously, as if afraid of mispronouncing it.

Oh, to hear that word rolling off that tongue. Language covered in honey. "Now Mel," Janice muttered, taking another backstep and colliding with a chair, "you know the intricacies of American slang cannot be easily dissected and understood fully without further research. There is also an arbitrary element at work, which we must take into account—"

"Good Lord, you are becoming an academic."

Janice gaped at her, hurt. "That was low!"

"My apologies, Assistant Professor Covington." Mel grinned at her; then, gradually, both the smile and the warm blush faded. "Did you sleep at all this morning?"

"Huh?" The archaeologist feigned ignorance. "Sure, once you were gone. You take up a lot of space." As do the nightmares in my head. "And you snore like an old man," she added softly.

The smile returned to Mel's face. "No one says you have to sleep with me."

"Actually, it's in the 'Rules for Pussywhippers' handbook. I must suffer for love."

"Perhaps," Mel suggested, "I should just ask Paul about this word. Hmmm?" She turned on her heel for the door. The little blonde panicked; she knew Paul would crack as soon as Mel took the meatloaf away from him. With a running leap, Janice jumped her, piggybacking effortlessly onto Mel's back. The Southerner oofed in surprise, then giggled, but bore the weight effortlessly, instinctively grabbing the legs that locked around her waist, and opting not to think about the dirty heels digging into her clothes. "Is this pussywhipping?" she asked in mock innocence. "Or a prelude to, perhaps?"

Janice laughed. "Will you stop for a minute?" She tightened her arms slightly around Mel's neck and shoulders.

"I will find out what that word means," the translator proclaimed.

"Of that I have no doubt. You're the most stubborn woman I ever did meet."

"You bring it out in me," accused Mel.

No snappy retorts came to Janice's mind. She was too close to the nape of Mel's neck, and inhaled her scent with the ferocity of a junkie. The roller coaster rush through her blood left her dazed and senseless, and resistant to sequential thought. "How's your Italian?" she mumbled into Mel's ear.

"What? Oh, just fine. It's sittin' in the back of my brain, with my French and my Latin, playin' backgammon. Why?"

"That's a surreal answer."

"Such a non-sequitur deserves it."

Janice kissed her cheek. Several times.

"Hmm. That's a better non-sequitur."

"Baby," the archaeologist purred, "we're going to Venice."

Mel craned her neck to look at Janice in surprise. "You changed your mind?" In previous discussions concerning the conference, Mel had taken Janice's lack of interest as a sign they would not be going. She had been surprisingly disappointed, wondering, with some amusement, if she herself were the one growing restless.

"Yeah."

"Why?"

Good question, wondered Janice. I just got caught up in the chase again. Figures as soon as I accept settling down, it starts up again. "Tell ya later," she replied as Paul stomped back into the room.

"Hey, you guys are out of—" he stopped, blinking in surprise at this playfulness. Simple horseplay, or Lesbian foreplay? I don't want to know, do I? Whatever it was, the obvious love made him feel about a dozen kinds of ambivalence.

But that happy look in Mel's eyes, and her big grin, seemed to override everything for him at that moment. "We're goin' to Venice," she blurted, like a kid, breathless, as she lugged Covington toward the door.

Paul managed a small, wry smile. "Send me a postcard," he said wistfully.

2. The Spell, Unbroken

Venice, 1948

For Jennifer Halliwell Davies, another trip to Venice was…another trip to Venice. The city was like a drowning woman, a dying dowager thrown on a reef: It was alive, though just barely, and as such did not interest her. She could not even remember how many times she had been in the city, let alone this particular palazzo, one of many built during the Renaissance by the powerful Cornaro family.

But there was one thing in Venice that interested her: a certain woman, who stood in the crowd milling in the courtyard below.

She'd had a premonition—well, not exactly that. She'd met a fellow in the hotel bar the night before, some poor anthropology professor from Harvard, who hit her up for as many vodkas as she was willing to buy. And when she discovered that the chap knew Janice Covington and had said that the esteemed archaeologist was attending the conference as well, Jenny would have stormed Moscow itself and raided Stalin's liquor cabinet just to keep him talking.

And there she was.

Jenny hid herself, allowing a large vase to provide her cover, as she stared at Janice through her fashionable turista binoculars.

Upon closer inspection through the looking glass, she noted that Janice wore a man's white oxford shirt, bright against her tanned arms, and it looked clean. Must've been laundry day yesterday. The pants were khaki, as they usually were, and the wild strawberry blonde tresses were twined carelessly into a messy braid. The only things missing were the leather jacket and the foul fedora, older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Perhaps the abomination passing as a millinery item had finally faced its overdue demise. Nonetheless, the good doctor looked quite prepared to lead an impromptu expedition into the most appalling of canals.

Despite the never-changing attire, she thought Janice looked different somehow. The small article she encountered almost a year ago in Archaeology magazine, about the so-called Xena Scrolls and Dr. Covington's role in their recovery, mentioned that she had served in the war—was that why Janice looked more mature?

The archaeologist was nodding politely at the older woman who had engaged her in conversation—whom Jenny recognized as a White Russian expatriate, just another international dilettante like herself. Her brows knitted in curiosity as she realized what was different: There was no impatient, angry scowl on Janice's face.

Jenny felt Linus's presence before he said anything—or, more accurately, she felt his mustache tickle her ear. "You were right," he burred.

She frowned, then lowered the binoculars. "Not totally useless, you know."

Linus smiled. "Never said you were, darling." His arm drew around her waist in an affectionate squeeze. "Aren't you going to go say hello to her?"

"Should I?" She tapped the lens of the binoculars irritably, then pushed away a loose strand of her blonde hair. "I suppose it's tempting."

"I'll leave it to you." Linus touched the knot of his green silk tie for the umpteenth time. Then he slicked back his dark brown hair with the damp palm of his hand, twitched his mustache to make sure it was in place, and allowed his hand wander back to the tie.

"If you don't stop fussing with that, I'm going to hang you with it," his wife hissed. "You're worse than a woman."

He raised a thick eyebrow. "I always thought you liked that about me," he parried pleasantly.

She smiled at the familiar retort. After almost ten years of marriage, the minutiae of their lives—the jokes, the jaunts, and the lovers, shared and not shared—flimsy on their own accord and meaningless when dissected, held them together more than any illusion of love or fidelity.

"You haven't seen her in over five years," her husband reminded her. "The spell is broken, is it not?"

She said nothing.

"You know what she's like." Linus prodded with the delicacy of a ham-handed surgeon. "Girl in every port...."

...and I was just lucky Alexandria was a stop on her itinerary.

"I would be surprised if she's here alone. And," he added, ignoring her homicidal glare, "Covington is an awful lot of bother. She breathes trouble like air."

Jenny turned her gray eyes to her husband. "That was part of her appeal, you idiot," she growled.

Linus rolled his eyes, unable to comprehend this. "Oh, righto. Forgot that bit. As I said, I'll leave it all to you, dear. If I should run into her first, I'll just tell her you're at Baden Baden with the masseuse again and you can remain up here, hiding."

He succeeded in making her laugh. His lines around his eyes crinkled as he grinned, and then softened as he grew serious.

"What?" she prompted.

"Don't get hurt, hmm?" He kissed her cheek, trotted down the stone steps leading into the garden, and she turned her attention, once again, to the woman in her sights. "And Jenny?" he called, turning around suddenly to face her again.

"What?" she shouted irritably.

"Don't give her any money!"

Oh, you cheap bastard. "Fine!" she retorted, as he melded into the crowd. With another sigh she put the small binoculars back in her purse, snapping the bag shut. I think I need another drink first. She lost herself for a few minutes, staring into the crowd. Linus wants to see her again. Wants her to come to Alexandria. What about what I want?

Jenny had to admit that she didn't have a clue about that.

Italian purring emanated from just beyond the open doors of the palazzo. She knew, even with her back to them, that it was Vittorio Frascati, who owned the palazzo. She did not know him well—she vaguely recalled being introduced to him once before the war—but the old man, scion of a prominent Venetian family and descendent of a doge, was high profile among the wealthy international set. And now he was oozing his lecherous charm on some hapless female. "Is it not the finest Cornaro in Venice?" he was murmuring.

Jenny turned around, just for a peek. She expected to see some tittering blonde barely out of university, but this one made her raise an eyebrow appreciatively; Vittorio did have taste after all, she marveled. The small, dapper man had linked arms with a tall, bespectacled black-haired beauty, who smiled at him graciously. Jenny wondered if the woman was the wife or mistress of a famous man, or even, perhaps, famous herself. Her clothes were impeccable: a silk blouse of deep blue, a darker matching skirt, both items flattering and elegant.

The woman nodded at the old man. "Grazi, Vittorio," the woman replied, honoring him in his native language. "You have been very generous with your time. And very helpful."

"And you have been generous to humor a babbling old man, Melinda." He squeezed her arm affectionately, then disengaged from her. "I hope you find what you are looking for." He kissed her hand, smiled, and returned indoors to maintain his Gatsby-like aloofness from his own party.

Jenny found herself alone—and exchanging smiles—with the beautiful woman, who looked faintly embarrassed to have been fawning, however subtly, over a wealthy and powerful man.

"He's quite a charmer," Jenny said to the woman.

"That he is," the woman agreed. Her low, indolent drawl was from the American South. She came closer to Jenny, and that was when the Englishwoman noticed that the stranger was about half a foot taller than she, almost as tall as her husband. "If I wanted to marry for money, he'd be the one," the Southerner added.

Jenny tried to stifle a grin. "You seem the type who would marry for love instead."

The woman smiled mysteriously and said nothing, but absently touched a ring on the smallest finger of her left hand. It was a silver ring, a nice complement to the expensive watch (Cartier) and the pearl earrings (real).

"I'm Jennifer Davies," she said, offering a hand.

The tall woman enfolded it in one of her own. "Melinda Pappas."

"Let me guess..."

"Hmmm?" Mel mused, raising an eyebrow.

"You're from Virginia!"

It was the "Guess the Accent" game. Mel was well acquainted with it; it had made the first few months of living in New England sheer hell. "Er, no, I'm afraid not."

"Tennessee?"

"No."

"Kentucky?"

"No."

"Definitely not Texas."

"Certainly not," Mel affirmed, a touch haughty.

"I'm afraid I've run out of Southern states," Jenny said, almost apologetic.

"South Carolina," Mel provided, the syllables languishing in her speech like Janice Covington on the sofa after one bourbon too many.

"Good heavens." Jenny paused. "Does each compass point have a Carolina?"

Mel laughed. "No. Just North and South."

"And what brings you to this party, this conference?"

"I'm a translator," Mel supplied succinctly.

"How fascinating. I barely stumble through English, let alone any other language. What have you been working on?"

"Well, it's a bit of an ongoing project. I'm translating a series of ancient writings, known as the Xena Scrolls."

For once Jenny was glad she wasn't drinking, for if she were, she would have choked. Then providence, divine and sadistic, threw a sunbeam down to highlight the silver ring on Mel's finger. Oh bloody hell.

"So," Jenny enunciated carefully, "you must know Dr. Covington."

***** Janice frowned in the general direction of the palazzo's great doors, wondering where Mel was. She scowled into the dregs of her wineglass, then returned her gaze to the house. Venetian architecture failed to impress her, and she had opted not to go on the impromptu house tour that Count Frascati offered to them. But she knew Mel's motivations were more than a desire to see the palazzo; the Southerner had hoped that the Count would know something about the Falconettos, the elusive, aristocratic family that had owned at least one scroll authored by Gabrielle of Poteidaia. So far all they knew of the family was that the patriarch had died at the end of the war and his son, his heir, could not be found.

The old maze of the city, though, intimidated her, and she frequently found herself getting lost whenever she was alone, tooling around the city with the ridiculous—and essentially useless—hand-drawn map that Mel had given her. "Don't get lost," Mel always said to her. And the archaeologist always scoffed at this: Lost? She, who could navigate all five boroughs of New York (even Staten Island!) with ease, who knew Alexandria and Cairo like the back of her hand, who, as an ambulance driver during the war, had the smallest streets of London and Paris committed to memory?

"Venice is a tricky city," Mel had said. "It's a changeling." She had paused dramatically, and if you aren't any kind of goddamn warrior you sure did inherit a sense of drama from that damn woman, Janice had thought to herself. "Kind of like the South," Mel then added, both wistful and mysterious.

This was typical. Whenever Mel liked anything, it reminded her of the South.

This is what I get for taking her up North, thought Janice, with a trickle of guilt. Endless nostalgia and romanticism.

Janice deposited the empty glass on a tray that sailed by, piloted by an overworked waiter. No sooner was it out of her hand than a fresh drink was thrust into her hand. "Hey!" she exclaimed, half-turning to berate the waiter.

Who was already gone. Standing in his place was Jennifer Davies.

Oh shit. Janice's sudden desire for Mel to be there was not because she wanted her lover to witness what could be a potentially ugly encounter, but because she knew that the ever-responsible Mel would, if nothing else, ensure a safe return to the hotel after Jenny had beaten her to a pulpy state of unconsciousness.

"Janice," she purred.

"Jesus," blurted the archaeologist.

"Not quite, love." The Englishwoman sipped at a glass of pinot grigio. "Almost didn't recognize you without the hat. And the jacket. You seem almost naked."

Janice rolled her shoulders nervously, then squared them, both gestures dying for the roguish finishing touch of a leather jacket. She studied Jenny. The Englishwoman was still lovely, with her mess of dark golden curls now tamed into a respectable looking bun, her gray eyes, usually mischievous, still possessing a lively glint. But what that glint meant now, Janice was not sure. All she felt was gratitude that Jenny was not enamored of firearms. "Good to see ya," Janice mumbled. Goddamnit, Mel, where are you?

"It's surprising to see you." Jenny swallowed. "I thought, for a while, you might be dead."

Is her hand shaking? "What?"

"Not long after the war I ran into Andrew Curran. He said he saw you in London, in '44. And they were sending you to the continent, right into the heart of it."

Janice remembered that. She also remembered he borrowed ten quid and never paid her back. Andrew was a writer, an old friend and ex-lover of Jenny's, and a RAF pilot during the war. "I'm glad Andrew made it."

Jenny ignored this. "I've spent five years wondering what's become of you."

Shit oh shit. Somehow an I’m sorry seemed pointless in the face of this weighty fact. "Guess I shoulda sent word."

"Perhaps. But eventually I knew you were all right: Your scrolls are making you well known." Jenny sipped the wine. "You have them all now?"

A tiny frown, and the familiar furrowing of her brow. "Not all of them. There are more."

"Really, Janice? Your translator thinks you're wrong." Jenny smiled, relishing the stunned look on her former lover's face, and tilted her head. Janice followed the direction of the motion. They were not difficult to spot, because they were both two of the tallest people at the party: Linus and Mel, together, talking.

Shit oh shit oh shit. "You've met Mel." Janice was, initially, too surprised to ignore the implications of what Jenny claimed Mel had said about the Scrolls. "Quite by accident. We started talking, and found out we had a mutual acquaintance in you, my pet. Then I introduced her to my charming husband, and they've been blathering about Mayan architecture for the past twenty minutes. Terribly dull. Oh Janice, don't glare at me like that. I'm not saying your little concubine is a bore. Actually, she's not so little, is she?"

"No, she's not," snapped the archaeologist.

Rather defensive, thought Jenny. "Not that it's a bad thing," she amended.

"It's not. I never have to worry about changing light bulbs or gettin' things from the top shelf in the pantry."

Always ready with the wisecrack, Janice. That hasn't changed. "At any rate, she's lovely, and very smart. Don't worry. I said nothing to her of our—shared past, and I'm sure Linus won't either."

"I'm not worried about that."

But Jenny could tell from the nervous clenching of the archaeologist's jaw, that this wasn't quite the given that it was declared to be. "To be frank, dear, I didn't think she was your type."

"If that's your polite way of sayin' she's out of my league, I know that." Janice glared at her.

"She's out of everybody's league, darling." Jenny said it lightly, but felt it deeply, miserably, in her bones. She would have been prepared to compete with a woman—or even a man—for Janice's affections, but not an Amazonian demigoddess. "They look good together," Jenny observed, as they both watched Linus and Mel. "My husband and your lover. Both so tall. Like some Nazi-Nietzschean super breeding couple." As she'd hoped, Janice did chuckle at that. Nice to see I can still make you laugh, if nothing else.

"And I thought I was pissed off about being short."

"I'm pissed off about a lot of things, love."

"Even after five years, baby?" Janice raised an eyebrow.

Jenny resisted the diminutive and what it stood for: an obvious attempt at being charmed. Unfortunately, as she stared into the green eyes and ached to kiss the lips, she realized it was working. "She wears a ring."

"Yeah," Janice grunted. "Is that a crime or something?"

"No. But it's the ultimate symbol of marriage, of commitment. Isn't it?"

The infamous Covington sneer of defiance made an appearance. "So suddenly you're an expert, since you're married yourself? You might as well wipe your ass with that piece of paper."

Ah, Janice, I have missed you. I needed to feel something, and you're it. Who else would talk to me like this, who would let the truth fly like that? She wanted to take Janice in her arms, and forgive her, and make all the promises that she knew she couldn't keep. Our mutual marriages appear to be in the way of that. Mine has always been flexible. But yours? She watched Janice watch Mel. This was also something new, this naked look, a vulnerability slowly crossing Covington's face, like a blind man negotiating an intersection.

"Just admit it. You're in love with her. And it's something bigger than anything you ever felt for me."

Janice closed her eyes. "Jenny, don't do this. Don't start." A little too late for that, big mouth, she chastised herself.

"I'm not starting anything. I'm finishing it." Jenny glared into her wine, watching the surface of the liquid spin like a hula hoop. "You left it a bit sloppy, a bit unfinished in Alexandria. Didn't you?"

Alexandria. It was the last time they had been together. Janice remembered little of it: Hazy golden blurs of fucking, of drinking. Of the haunting urge that built in her head to see Mel again, until it became so strong and desperate that she sold her mother's wedding ring just to get enough money to buy a plane ticket home. She had left Jenny without saying goodbye. She remembered sitting on the edge of the bed, money in her hand, watching Jenny sleep. And then moving, as if in a dream, for the door. "I guess I did," Janice replied softly. "I regret that." The musing tone gave to the words all the weight and substance of a feather. But it felt, to Janice, as if she were now a different person, someone not capable of that behavior. For she could never see herself doing that to Mel, ever again. Especially since I gave you a ring and I said I didn't need a ceremony or a church or a God. I don't need anything except you.

Jenny, of course, knew none of this, and even if she did, would have remained as impassively impressed as she was now. "A hell of an apology."

Okay, I tried noble, now I'm back to the bitch. "Well, what the fuck do you want from me?" snapped Janice.

She wanted to slap Janice hard—very, very hard. But instead, she opted for the humiliation of throwing wine in her face. The sudden violence of the gesture possessed the emotional impact she wanted, as she watched the archaeologist flinch, if only ever so slightly.

"Try to explain that to your dashing Southern belle," she said quietly.

*****

Inevitably, at any type of social gathering, Mel eventually reverted to wallflower status; she felt most happy quietly observing other guests.

Especially Janice. At the moment, however, the archaeologist was not visible from where she sat, on a stone bench, at the periphery of the crowd. But then Janice was walking quickly toward her, whistling tunelessly and betraying her nervous restlessness by tapping a clenched fist against her thigh.

Mel straightened in distress when she noticed the dampness of Janice's cheeks. Crying? she wondered. But once the small blonde sat down next to her she realized it was not the tracks of tears, but a sheen of white wine. Luminous clear drops were falling happily, willingly, into her cleavage.

"Oh, dear. And we were proceeding so nicely, without incident." Mel murmured. She handed her companion a clean yet wrinkled napkin.

Janice blotted her face dry.

"Could have been worse, I suppose," she added, discreetly checking for bloodstains or bruises.

"I suppose," echoed Janice with a sigh. "But white wine does possess a certain sting."

"Would you care to tell me what happened between you and Mrs. Davies?"

"Mrs. Davies?"

"She was the last person I saw you talking with. Did she do this?" Mel gestured at her lover's face.

"Ah, dear Mrs. Davies."

"Yes. What of Mrs. Davies?"

"This conversation is beginning to remind me of that crazy book you were trying to make me read."

The "crazy book" was by Gertrude Stein. What Mel found to be a fascinating exercise in the modern use of language had sent Janice scurrying for the comfort of her old friends Raymond Chandler and Dash Hammett.

"Don't change the subject, darling. Especially when it's about a woman who still seems to be in love with you."

"So you figured that out, huh?"

"Yes. I'm pretty good at decoding the obvious. You should have seen me when the Hindenburg blew up."

Mel had hoped to bring a smile to the that lovely face, but instead Janice frowned, wrapping the napkin around her fist, the white contrasting with her tanned hand, like a bandage. Like the gauze and cloth slapped on her during the war, like the handkerchief Harry gave her when she scraped her knuckles on rocks during an excavation in Macedonia. Four days later he was dead and all she had was his handkerchief, covered with her own blood, and his dreams, and his debts.

"I didn't know she'd be here," Janice admitted quietly.

"Of course not. But when...when were you with her?"

Janice continued to stare at her hand, watching the white cotton flutter as she wiggled her fingers within it. "Last time I saw her was in '43. It was one of those on again, off again things. I met both of them…" she exhaled, scowled in thought. "….oh, I think it was 1940. Harry called their set 'the international dilettantes.' They threw parties, they traveled, they nosed around on digs, acting all curious and trying to buy anything that struck their fancy. No one took them seriously. They were kind of on the fringe of things. In a way, so was I, but no one could say that I didn't do my time in the field, and that I wasn't serious about what I was doin'." She shot Mel a wry look. "I thought you were one of them, one of those types, when I first met you."

Mel shrugged. "Well, I guess I am.”

"No," teased Janice, "you're a debutante, not a dilettante, honey."

"Gosh, I do get those words mixed up in my pretty little head!" Mel drawled.

Janice laughed. "There's a lot in that pretty little head, I know. In fact, I've always thought you should be the one teaching, not me. I'm just a digger at heart. Anyway," Janice continued with a sigh, "we kept running into Jenny and Linus—Athens, Cairo, Syria, you name it. They were always around. Eventually we all became friends...and, with Jenny, more than that."

"And Linus? Did he know? Does he know?"

Janice snorted derisively. "Oh yeah. He knew all right. In fact, he gave me money for a couple of my digs. 'Cause I was fucking his wife and keeping her happy."

"This made him happy?" Mel frowned, confused.

"Linus and Jenny have what you might call a marriage in name only. He's nouveau riche, Canadian. His family was looking to make themselves classy by marrying off their dissolute son to a woman with background. Jenny's got the lineage, her father is a squire or something stupid like that...they have this big country house...but no cash flow. It's a perfect set-up. They're fond of each other, and for all I know they may actually fornicate with each other every once in a while, but usually they go their separate ways when it comes to companionship of that kind."

"Oh." Mel blinked, pondered something meaningful to say. "At least she's not a Nazi."

Janice laughed in amazement. "No, she's not. She's worse." Morosely she stared at the ground, then scrutinized Mel. "You're taking this awfully well," she accused.

"I don't see the point of getting upset over something that's already happened." Mel chewed her lip. How to convey reassurance, with an innocuous touch, what inept words cannot…whoever thought that language would fail me, of all people? Even now there were moments when she could not trust her body, her movements, as if any casual sign of affection would tell the world what she was, and what she felt. Her fingers twitched, she steadied her hand, and plucked at the khaki pant leg, gently, teasingly.

Janice looked at her.

"I don't care about that."

"Jesus, I do not deserve you. Damn this stupid thing. Why did we come to this party anyway?"

"It was your idea," Mel reminded her.

Janice made a pretense at scanning the crowd. "I thought we should get out. Some people might think fucking in a hotel room for a whole day is unhealthy."

"I wouldn’t take you to be one of those types, Janice."

"And I never thought you'd turn out to be a sex fiend with unlimited energy." Janice reached out and took the wineglass from the large hand, permitting her fingers a brief electric entanglement with Mel's own. "But you are, aren't you?"

Mel thought, for a moment, that Venice had just sunk another inch.

The archaeologist drained the glass. She swallowed. Her lips glittered, wet.

"Do you want to go back to the room?" Janice asked. She pressed the empty glass into Mel's hand. Her palm brushed along the knuckles curled loosely around the expensive Venetian stemware.

She took the soft smash of Vittorio's fine wineglass as a yes.

*****

In the sanctuary of their rooms at the Hotel Danieli, Jenny lit up a cigar in honor of Covington. She puffed furiously. Like to see that Southern ninny try to smoke one of these. The spiteful thought came too soon, as the smoke strangled her and she proceeded to hack violently. It's like tasting death.

Linus emerged from the large bathroom while unknotting his tie to find his wife sprawled, unladylike, on the couch, her skirt hitched up to dangerous heights and a cigar in her mouth. "You know," he began, "Byron called Venice 'Sodom on the Sea.' " He sat down next to her, draping a large hand on her bare thigh, not in the least tempted by the smooth skin. "So one would think, whatever your misfortunes with the lovely doctor, you would find a bit of...entertainment elsewhere." He squeezed her leg with gentle affection. "The night is still young."

She unfurled smoke at him in lieu of a response.

He coughed loudly. "Darling, put that foul thing out before we all go up in flames."

She dropped it in the half-empty champagne glass. It fizzled, just like all those hopes I had of being back in your bed, Janice.

Linus took her hand. "Look, I know it bloody hurts, but she's happy. Can't you tell?"

"Yes." She flopped against him and pressed her face in the dark soft night of his black jacket. No crying. Not yet. Not now. She took a deep breath, its jagged rhythm suggesting the inhalation of broken glass. It fucking feels like that, anyway. "She'll be coming to Alexandria?" The tiny pleading voice was almost lost against the breadth of his jacket.

He shrugged. "The invitation was proffered to both of them. You can lead a horse to water…."

"…but she'll end up drinking bourbon anyway." Jenny sighed and sat up. She stared at the ceiling, then at her husband. Time to ask the tricky question. "Lye, this really has nothing to do with me, does it?"

His standard trick, in attempting to look innocent, was widening his dark eyes.

"Why do you want Janice in Alexandria?" she asked slowly, knowing she would get the answer he always gave, the answer that, in his so-called line of work, he couldn't help but give her.

He smiled. "You know what I'm going to say…"

"Say it anyway."

He rubbed his chin. "I need to keep an eye on her."

*****

Mel had decided that they should never leave the hotel room. Because she was both deliciously happy, yet deeply mortified. What kind of looks might they get when they dared to leave the sanctuary of the room again? If this were a room in the Bible Belt, we might get away with saying we were holding a small revivalist meeting or something. I could even throw in a hallelujah. For, if the proverbial fly on the wall were, say, a blind nun, this creature would have been most impressed by the Christian devotion of Dr. Covington, as she chanted "Jesus" over and over again, so lovingly, so frequently, so breathlessly. The repetition had indeed made Mel downright nervous, triggering dormant Methodist tendencies, and distracting from the extremely pleasant task of servicing the good doctor. Blasphemy upon blasphemy. I really am going to hell...if I still believe in that. Her quasi-theological ruminations derailed as Janice climaxed, blonde head slamming back into a soft, fat pillow, with one final cry for Christ. Her mouth glistened, as if she had swallowed stars, and her eyes were dazed, unfocused, and happy.

Mel decided that hell was worth this.

"Keeps getting better and better," mumbled Janice, before rolling on her stomach and falling into a light slumber. Mel indulged a bad habit and sprawled practically on top of her, cheek against shoulder blade, hips to butt. She was on the precipice of sleep herself when the soft growl of Janice's voice reverberated against her.

"I was a shit." The words were almost smothered by the pillow to which they were addressed.

Mel could not see her face. "What?"

"With Jenny. I was a shit."

Her hand swept down and felt the scars along Janice's thigh, then the resultant shudder that the touch brought, one of desire or remembrance, she did not know. She wondered if Janice herself knew. "I don't care." The words tumbled out of her mouth. It was true. It also appeared cruel somehow. She wondered, ever so briefly, why she didn't. Love, the great blind spot.

"You should."

"Why?"

"The last time I was with her…I could think of nothing but you." Janice whispered this, sighed, then stretched, the action rippling her body.

Mel rode the current of flesh. "Am I too heavy for you?"

"No. Don't move." And she added, almost shyly, "I like it."

Some emotion caught Mel by desperate surprise, a nameless, rootless anxiety, and she knew now Janice's own fear of having it all taken away, of the dream dissolved. She thought of the other woman who, in this city, at this moment, also loved Janice Covington. If fate were crueler, she wouldn't be here now. Usually, Mel possessed a powerful ability to find common ground with others; empathy had caught up with her at last.

"I love you anyway," she said.

3. Lucky

Cambridge, 1949

Dr. James Snyder sat at his desk, focusing a passionate amount of attention on his pen. He twirled it in his fingers, aligned it with the stack of papers in front of him, picked it up again. "You don't think she'll bring a gun, do you?" he muttered, half-joking.

The Dean, sitting on a worn leather couch near his desk, only smiled.

"Of course, you've heard the rumors…."

"Hmm," was the Dean’s noncommittal reply.

"…she killed an entire Nazi patrol single-handedly. Didn't she get some sort of commendation? And I have a colleague at the University of Texas who said that she pistol-whipped him."

The Dean pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Oh, dear." This response did little to assuage Snyder. "I'm relatively certain that Dr. Covington is capable of behaving herself, Snyder. We've had no incidents in the two years she's been on staff." Just a rash of infatuated coeds, he thought.

Nonetheless, when the door opened and the small woman, wearing dark trousers and a rumpled khaki shirt, strode into his office without being formally invited, Snyder felt his palms go clammy and every muscle in his back knot itself. He was not comforted either by the tall woman who lingered shyly near the door. Great, she's brought a second. He only knew of Melinda Pappas via her rising professional reputation, but wrongly assumed that the translator was as ill-tempered as her companion.

"Hiya, Snyder," Janice said as she flopped in the chair facing his desk. She nodded at the Dean, who sat at her left. “Old man."

The Dean grinned, amused. "Hello, Janice."

The archaeologist craned her neck to gaze back at Mel. "Join the party, Stretch."

Mel rolled her eyes, and reluctantly approached. She was not faculty and enjoyed no special status, despite tutoring and being a regular denizen of the library, and thus felt uncomfortable at being privy to matters among the staff. Even if it they were about the Scrolls. But Janice had insisted that she attend the meeting. You're my partner, Janice had said. And, she thought as she took the seat next to Covington, I really like the sound of that.

"Hullo, Miss Pappas," Snyder said.

"Hello, Dr. Snyder. How are you?"

"Oh, just fine." He smiled at the polite, blue-eyed beauty. "Stretch, huh?"

"Mmm."

"Didn't know folks call you that."

"They don't," Mel replied firmly. She flicked a sidelong glare at Janice, who shrugged.

Snyder blinked. "Oh."

A stake was now driven through the heart of casual conversation.

Janice cleared her throat. "Why are we here, Snyder? I assume it has to do with the dating of the Scrolls."

"Correct, Dr. Covington. Er, the results of the carbon dating are in."

"And?" Janice prodded impatiently.

"Well, it is a little later than you initially thought."

The archaeologist shrugged. "They were damn difficult to date. That's why I was so broad on time period."

"I quite understand. In general, that's the safest, most practical route. But now with the advent of radiocarbon dating, we can be much more accurate. Statistical probability is the basis in calculating the half-life of C-14, but no one can really predict the rate of decay, and a standard deviation exists in every case, which is—"

"Snyder, I don't need a goddamn lecture on the process, okay? Just tell me what you found."

The befuddled and frightened academic mumbled something which sounded like "churlish beans in sentry." In fact, this was precisely what he said. For within the great roaming recesses of his mind he thought that perhaps Covington would be satisfied with this response, would smile, shake his hand, declare him a genius, perhaps even buy him a drink.

Instead, her gaze cut him like a diamond on glass. She straightened from her lounging, relaxed position. He saw her flex her hands and became utterly convinced that even her fingernails possessed muscles. "Come again?" she requested smoothly.

Snyder swallowed, thought a quick prayer and a farewell to his wife. "The early sixteenth century."

Another silence dropped, like a theater curtain after a botched performance.

Until it was broken by Janice. "Are you shitting me?"

"Calm down, Janice," the Dean urged.

The only thing that kept Janice from jumping up was the sudden warm hand that, mindless of their location and the parties present, gave her leg a comforting squeeze. She looked quickly at Mel, whose stunned expression nonetheless betrayed the assurance of the gesture. "There has got to be a mistake," Janice snapped. Mel nodded numbly. "This is still a very new procedure. Someone made a mistake."

It was now Snyder's turn to be riled. "No mistakes can be made in this process. I checked the results several times. I dated several pieces of parchment."

Janice stood up and began pacing. "But the typology of the instruments—the scroll casing, the stiles—it all fit in with the time period."

"The stratigraphy confirmed this?" asked the Dean.

"Yes! Do you know how far down I had to go? They were in a tomb, for Christ's sake!"

"Those artifacts—the scroll case and the writing tools—did date well within the time frame you assigned," Snyder agreed. "As did some of the pottery you brought from the same location. But it's the actual scrolls themselves that do not: the paper."

"So this was all a ruse. They're fakes." Helpless, inconsolable for the moment, Janice leaned against the windowsill. It was the only thing that kept her standing.

"Or very cunning duplicates of the originals," Mel added softly.

The Dean smiled. He didn't know Covington's partner well, but what he knew, he liked.

But before he could pursue this line of thought, Snyder threw in, "Oh, who cares how real they are!" The women and the Dean stared at him. "They're a fascinating discovery! Somebody was clever enough to write in ancient Greek, use the proper materials to make them look like ancient scrolls, found a case somewhere, then buried them for posterity, thinking they played a massive joke on the world. You know, like that MacPherson fellow, who invented Ossian."

"Or they are copies of the original scrolls, which are still missing, as Miss Pappas proposed," the Dean added. "What do you think, Dr. Covington?"

Janice's fury was spent for the time being, otherwise the hand pressed against the cool windowpane of Snyder's office would've been bloodied by shattered glass. "I don't know what to think," she whispered.

"I know what I think," the Dean retorted. "I think you're lucky."

Janice shot him a curious yet homicidal glance.

"Your father spent his entire professional life looking for those scrolls. Yet you, barely thirty, made this discovery, and in a war zone, no less. They may not be the real thing. But they're a damned sight closer—and more interesting—than anything Harry Covington found."

"Watch what you say about my father, old man," Janice grunted.

"Janice." Mel sounded the warning.

"My father laid the foundation for me to find what I did. He did thirty goddamn years of legwork chasing after these. If he hadn't died when he did, he would've found them." She drew a breath to refuel her fury. "If you want me off the faculty now, fine. I don't give a damn. I didn't have much of a reputation before I came here. It doesn't matter to me. So I'll resign."

Alarmed, Mel stood up. "No. Wait a minute—" She exchanged a look with her lover.

How much of the bravado was shock, and wounded pride? Janice's desire for legitimacy—for someone to take her work seriously—was very much a part of why she accepted the position at the university. It complemented her wish, however seemingly tenuous at times, for a stable life.

"That isn't what I want," the Dean replied quietly. "I want you to find the real scrolls."

"You believe they exist," Janice stated warily.

"I believe that if they do exist, you'll find them. And if this is, as Snyder suggests, some kind of fantastic fraud, you'll find that out as well."

"All for the greater glory of the old alma mater, eh?"

Once again, the Dean proffered his smug smile. "Anything you uncover would benefit the university, as long as you are under its auspices. And as far as I'm concerned, you are." The older man stood up. "Let's give you a year to come up with something. I know that doesn't seem like much time, but if, at the end of that year, you give me enough reason to continue the search, I'll extend the expedition. After you spend a semester in the classroom, of course."

The Dean extended his hand for Janice to shake. She stared at him suspiciously.

"Don't be a bad sport, Covington. I'm giving you an opportunity to do what you do best. And you're damned good at it, I know that. Have a proposal on my desk in six weeks."

Her hands remained idly on her hips.

He chuckled and withdrew his hand. "I look forward to seeing what you'll do." He winked and picked up his walking stick, and a hat. "I'll get my money's worth out of you, my girl." He nodded at Snyder and Mel. "Dr. Snyder, Miss Pappas, good day."

Janice was staring into space. "Money's worth?" she mumbled. Her gaze snapped to the doorway where the Dean had departed. She stomped over to the door, flung it open, and shouted down the hallway at his retreating form: "You already get your money's worth out of me, you old sonofabitch! Do you know how goddamn low my salary is? You're wringing me dry, you cheap bastard!" She drew in another breath with which to launch another tirade, relented, growled, and stormed down the hallway after slamming the door.

Mel yanked her glasses off her face with a groan and massaged her temples.

Snyder gave her a timid look. "She really doesn't want tenure, does she?"

*****

The odd, arrhythmic typing of Mildred, the department secretary, was punctuated by the strange thwaps emerging from one of the offices nearby. She paused in her task, wondering when the noise would cease, and if the perpetuator would notice that her typing had stopped, but the angry sounds continued. She sighed, and took a cigarette out of the pack she kept in her top desk drawer. She was halfway through the cigarette, and pecking halfheartedly at the letter in the typewriter, when Mel arrived.

The stout middle-aged woman exchanged a look with the Southerner. "You want the bourbon?" Mildred asked. She hadn't the chance to ask Janice if the professor wanted the emergency bottle of hooch—the little archaeologist had barreled past her with such speed and anger.

Mel shook her head. "I don't think letting her drink will help in this instance."

"Actually, I meant for you."

The translator laughed so faintly that it was barely an exhale of breath. "Ah, no, I don't think so." A finger stemmed the tide of her eyeglasses, sliding down her nose.

"If I hear screams I'll call the police," Mildred remarked as Mel entered the sanctum sanctorum.

The lack of time spent in the office was reflected in its bare décor; the assistant professor was rarely in it except to brood and meet the occasional student. Pieces of wood—representing two and a half years' worth of grading midterms, finals, papers, and resisting the advances of romantically deluded students—were scattered on the floor, along with the woman responsible for them and the large, cracked dent in the side of the desk. Janice smoked a cigarette and regarded the pile of tinder, as if a merry little act of arson would cap her day.

"Paul Bunyan," Mel said. She half-leaned, half-sat along the desk.

"Get me an ax, then, so I can destroy it properly." A baseball bat, which lay beside her, worked well when she grew tired of kicking the desk, but a sharp object would be ever so more pleasing.

"You're very lucky the dean likes you, honey."

"Lucky!" Janice exploded. "You're as bad as he is." She pushed at the woodpile with the toe of her boot. "I should have let Kleinman keep them," she said softly.

"No, you shouldn't have," Mel countered. "They may not be the Scrolls, but they are still Gabrielle's words. And as such they are sacred."

Janice ignored this. "Why does it seem impossible to get to point B from point A?" she mused. "I thought I was already there. Thought I had them." Thought I had it all. She looked at Mel, who had her arms crossed and was staring into space, thoughtfully. I am incomplete without you, but I'm incomplete without them as well.

"Zeno," Mel muttered absently.

"Huh?"

"One of his paradoxes—about how all motion is impossible. You recall—?"

"Oh. Yeah." Janice, in reality, had totally forgotten anything to do with Zeno, or much of anything she was forced to read as an undergraduate. "Is there really a Gabrielle or a Xena? Are we so sure that these just weren't stories our fathers created? They fed us these legends, these make-believe stories. We ate it all up. We were kids. And then it seeped into our subconscious, these myths. They're universal. A shared hallucination."

"I never suspected you were a Jungian, Janice."

"Are we descendants of heroes and bards, or forgers and pranksters?"

Mel's lips tightened, set in their familiar stubborn grimace. "You deny what you know to be true."

"Do I?"

"You have the dreams."

Janice said nothing. How long did you think she would say nothing, would wordlessly hold you after you wake up screaming? How long would she politely ask you how you've been sleeping, and settle for your half-hearted lies?

"Will you sit there and tell me that those nightmares you have…that they're just about the war? Can you tell me that?"

The dreams were about the war, at the very least. What her mind refused during the day, what it would not acknowledge, her body whispered in the ragged gossamer of scars: This happened to you. And then the brain would finally rebel, subconsciously.

More recently, they were tenacious—and they went further than ever, extending into a darker past: Lying in snow, stomach bathed in blood, daylight faltering around her, in the blue glow of a winter world devoid of sun. She looks at her hand, watches it fall...onto a plank of wood, where it is bound by a Roman soldier. And what was too horrible to contemplate, too awful to bear, was that she doesn’t die alone. There is a broken body next to hers.

Yet you managed to smile for me. I still remember the first time you smiled at me—really, truly smiled. It was hesitant, shy, belying the reputation of the warrior and the coldness of your eyes. This piece of you—so fallible, so human, you gave to me. The stupid, stubborn farm girl who followed you.

"Hey." It was Mel's soft drawl, snapping the spell. The chill she experienced every time after the dream was aroused once again, and the hairs on her arms stood, stiff in fright. Until Mel smoothed them, rubbing warmth with her palms.

Janice swallowed, stood up. She simmered, paced. Mel sighed inwardly, and waited for the inevitable.

"Goddammit!" she screamed, and kicked the desk once again. More chips of wood spiraled from the desk, like gymnasts executing backflips.

Mildred is calling the police.

A finger, not as callused as it was once when they first met, was thrust at the translator. "It may be all fine and well for you to hear fucking little voices inside your head, but not me, baby! Not me!"

Or maybe she is finishing off the last of that bourbon.

"I thought that I really accomplished something: I found the Xena Scrolls. They were real—or so I believed. And then, I thought, just maybe, I could have a simple life. Where I could just be myself. Not the descendent of some naïve brat who changed personal philosophies like underwear. Not the daughter of some obsessed grave-robbing bastard carrying on the crazy family legacy. I wanted it all normal." She regarded Mel thoughtfully. "You made me want that. Just a house. A steady job. And a girl who loves me."

“I know,” Mel said softly. “I’ve wanted the same thing.” She paused. “Come here.” Janice hesitated in the face of the gentle order, remembering the same words in different circumstances: The first time they made love, when she had stood, fixed in the doorway, neither resisting nor giving in, afraid to take the leap into the bedroom, until Mel, sitting on the bed, had uttered those two words. She had felt as if she were opening up Pandora's box, propelled by an unknown energy and motion, by fatal curiosity. And she felt that way again, now. Afraid of what you'll find.

She permitted herself to be held, to let Mel prop her chin upon her head. And afraid of what you’ll lose. She had lost Harry to this search—even before he died.

The blue of the dream was the abyss and the salvation at once, beribboned together.

Mel pulled back and looked at her. And the blue of these eyes? "Weeks ago you were excited at the prospect that there were still scrolls out there to be found."

"That was when I thought they were real."

"They are real."

Janice said nothing, frowned, let Mel's thumb press a temporary cleft in her chin.

"It'll be you and me, under the stars," she said.

As it has been always been.

"How bad can that be?"

Janice did not know. They hugged again, she placed her head against Mel's shoulder, and for the moment she could ignore the chill of the dream and could draw upon the strength of Mel's words. She loved the certain, the tangible, the sure thing. Now she gave herself over to words not written down, belief neither felt nor seen, and a love that, more often than not, she did not understand, nor felt she deserved.

#xena #xena warrior princess #mel/janice #mel/janice fanfiction #author: vivian darkbloom #mature #fanfiction #femslash

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pixiealtaira · 6 years ago

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Checking It Twice

Hummel Holidays day 19: shopping 2016

pairing: Kadam of course...

“What do you want for Christmas, Adam?” Kurt called from the kitchen as he was making lunch one afternoon.

“It’s August. I haven’t thought about it.”

“Can you think about it so I can finish my shopping list? I mean I know I’ll have to add some things closer to Christmas, but I’d like my main shopping done by the start of October.”

“You’re doing your Christmas shopping now?” Adam asked.

Kurt snorted. He came out and stood next to where Adam had been working on a paper.

“I started my Christmas shopping for this Christmas on the 26th of December last Christmas.” Kurt said. “I get better deals this way. In May, I found 80 dollar cashmere scarves on sale for 6 bucks…men’s scarves. They also had hats and gloves, good gloves, on sale as well. And 90 dollar women’s basic longer length cable knit sweaters in nice solid colors…for 2 bucks. No snags or holes or anything…just out of season. But Carole doesn’t care and neither do most girls I know, so those were a great find. And I got the Kitchen aid mixer Carole’s been wanting…for 1/3 the price because the color is now out of fashion.”

“Well, there are some board games I’d like to get…and I’ve been wanting to pick up my cello again but I need lessons and haven’t gotten around to getting those. And my cello won’t be getting here until Christmas when it comes with my family. Oh…my family will be here, so tickets to things we could do.”

“Your family will be here?” Kurt said quietly.

“Yes. Remember, I asked if you were staying so you could meet them?”

Kurt nodded.

“I think I thought you meant over Skype or something. I need names and likes and lists, Adam. I need lists! Who will be here? Who is staying in England? Sizes? Colors they look good in? Allergies? Kids? Kids will need presents under the tree.” Kurt was sounding more and more frantic as he went on.

“Darling, Hush now!” Adam said.

Kurt stopped and breathed deeply.

“It’s just…I have to make a good impression, Adam. I love you…and if they don’t like me, then what?” Kurt asked.

Adam smiled and pulled Kurt down to him, kissing him deeply before pulling back and kissing Kurt’s nose. “I would tell them all where to go. I love you and my family’s opinion won’t change that. Got it?”

Kurt nodded. “Got it.”

“Grab a pencil…and some paper.” Adam said, pushing Kurt up again. He waited until Kurt was back with a notebook and pulled Kurt into his lap fully. “Now, number one…everyone is flying in so not a lot of things or a lot of big things. I’d tell you nothing at all, but I know you my dear…and that would not happen.”

“Hey!”

“Can you actually convince me otherwise?”

Kurt shook his head.

“I thought not. Number two...you, my love, are helping me entertain them for TWO WEEKS…consider that.”

Kurt nodded.

“And finally…my family already adores you because I believe you hang the moon and the stars and that the sun revolves around you. You wouldn’t need to get them anything. However…my family are such huge tourists. Seriously…get them all New York things and everyone would be happy. Anything with New York splattered across it.”

Kurt glared at Adam, who laughed.

“You can glare at me now…but when the littles are looking at you asking for a New York bottle opener…you’ll see.”

“Bottle opener?” Kurt asked.

Adam nodded. “It had an apple on it. Their mother intervened…it was pokey.”

Kurt laughed.

“So…who will be here?”

“My mother and father, my grandparents, and two of three siblings and their families. Ava is the only one who will not be able to make it.” Adam said.

“Ava is the one closest in age to you, right?” Kurt asked.

“Yes, she is taking classes during the winter break. She is two years younger than me.”

“Close to my age, then?”

Adam nodded. “Emily is four years older than me and she has three kids. Twins, Piper and Philippa and Thor. Thor is about a year and half…and the twins turn four in January. Her husband is Ashton. Paul is seven years older than me. He has Evelyn who is seven and Joselyn who is five. They are from his first marriage. His current wife is Pansy. She brought with her Luke. He is seven as well. They have Briar, who is maybe 6 months…but I don’t think even that old…and they’ve been married three months.”

“Is Paul’s first wife in the picture?”

“No. They were divorced when she died though…and the girls hadn’t even lived with her alone. She died here in the states from a drug overdose. She left Paul only a few months after Joselyn was born…just took off one day. There is actually a wife between the girls’ mum and Pansy…but they didn’t have kids.”

“What do the kids like?”

“Evelyn loves to read. She asked for those American Girls books? I don’t know what they are…”

“Historical fiction. They have dolls, too. They wear period clothing, sort of.”

“Anyway…she is fascinated with those. Last I knew, all Joselyn liked was swords. I’ll have to ask my mum if her tastes have broadened. Luke hates everything. Piper and Philippa I have no idea about other than Philippa will only wear yellows and purples and black and jeans. Piper wears everything. Not a clue about Thor…they were here last December but Thor was not even sitting up on his own yet. He is no longer bald. That I do know. I’m not sure I’ve even seen more than one picture of Briar…and that was right after she was born. Pansy is high maintenance. Paul is just high strung…that one needs a real vacation. Ashton’s a bit of a snob and Emily is just….Emily.”

“What ever does that mean?”

“She would say that she is forgettable. She isn’t very good at anything or very bad at anything. She isn’t ugly or beautiful. Just is just average in all she does. Emily manages…she manages her family and mom and dad and the grandparents and clubs and community gatherings and parties and events. And she organizes. A bit like you in that area. I bet she has her shopping nearly done as well.”

Kurt nodded and wrote down notes of everything Adam had told him.

“I suppose it is good that I have Black Friday between now and your family visiting. Now…about your folks and grandparents…those might even be more important that your siblings and their kids.”

“My Nan is a bit…chipper. Much to chipper for her own good or anyone else’s really. Da says she was always that way and people had just best get used to it and don’t ever make her cry because it breaks everyone’s hearts until she is cheery again. She likes chocolate, but not American so don’t go with that. She likes warm and soft and fizzy things and paints and scrapbooks in an elaborate fashion. Pops likes gardening and has a small professional photography business. He takes photos of people’s pets. Rarely people. My father is of course a barrister and plays in the symphony orchestra. Da likes darts and would like to go bowling while here and also try out laser tag.”

Kurt chuckled.

“My mum likes quilting and singing, but she does neither very well. She is good at cooking and works at a local bakery. She wants to be that Duff cake guy when she grows up…her words not mine. She is an avid reader and will read pretty much anything. Her father is a retired professor and taught anthropology. He specialized in the Romans. Her mother taught as well, in primary school to the littlest ones. She likes Darts and is a card shark. They go gambling at least twice a year somewhere and my grandmother almost always comes home with more than they went with.”

Kurt smiled.

“They sound nice.”

“They sound a wee bit nuts, because they are. But they already adore you and will love you completely before they go home…and then drag you with us on next summer’s excursion. Mother wants to go to a rodeo…and all the grandparents want to see some of the more famous national parks. They’ve been saving for years and years.”

Kurt laughed.

“I’ve never been to any of them. It could be fun.”

“We’ll have to hike with youngsters and buy souvenirs.”

“We should see if my dad and Carole want to go to, if your family still likes me at the end of the two weeks. He’s always wanted to go to Mount Rushmore and Yellowstone.”

Adam beamed. “That would be wonderful.”

“So…will you help me with the shopping for them?”

“Of course, love. I actually adore shopping with you.”

Kurt beamed. “Now, what do you want for Christmas?”

Adam laughed.

“You, and a stocking full of goodies just for us and a hide away to play with them for a week…but that will have to wait for after Christmas…so…all I want for Christmas is you.” Adam sang the last bit to Kurt.

Kurt groaned. “Cheesy, my dear heart. Now you are getting socks and underwear.”

Adam pulled Kurt in for more kissing. “Don’t care if I have you, too. Is lunch done? Or rather…can lunch be postponed until…oh…a few hours from now…after we have retired to the bed for playtime and then come back out?”

Kurt smiled. “I was just making sandwiches and they can be put in the fridge. Let me up and I’ll meet you in the bedroom. We should have a more in depth discussion about what you’d like in your stocking after all.”

Adam released Kurt and watched as he sauntered to the kitchen. He saved his paper and raced to the bedroom…he had a few examples of things he’d like in his stocking to find before Kurt joined him.

#glee fanfic #kadam #hummelholidays

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katymacsupernatural · 6 years ago

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Stories to Awaken Terror Part 8: The Lottery

Dean Winchester x Reader

2600 Words

Story Summary: As a couple of kids read a scary book, Sam, Dean and Y/N live those scary tales. Will they be able to figure out what’s causing the hunts before it’s too late?

Catch Up Here: Masterpost

Sitting in the back next to Cas, you were almost giddy with excitement. Sure, you had just gone through a horrible time with that creepy baby, but you had finally received some good news. The torment was almost over, and soon you would be free of those kids and that evil book. Free to finally have a relationship with Dean.

“You seem happy,” Cas spoke up finally, smiling over at you.

“That’s because this is almost over! You found the kids, and we’ll get rid of the book, and we can go back to our normal lives.”

“Y/N, I don’t think it will be that simple,” Cas answered. “That book is very powerful, and why would it be warded against Angels? I think the worst is yet to come.”

“Dude, Cas!” Dean exclaimed. “A little positive outlook, okay?”

“I was just telling the truth. We all want this to be done, but it’s going to be hard.”

“It’s alright Cas, I know that. I’m just excited that we finally have a lead,” you mumbled, even though your good mood had vanished. “I’m just ready for the day this book isn’t hanging over our heads anymore!”

“We’re about an hour outside of…,” Dean started. “Wait, where are we? This isn’t the road we were just on.”

“What do you mean?” You asked as Sam woke up.

“You weren’t paying attention, were you? We were on a four-lane road back there. This is only two! And it’s heading right into a creepy looking forest!”

“The book must have realized we were close. Trapping us in another story, trying to keep us off of its trail,” Sam said in the middle of his yawn. “I wonder what we’re facing this time.”

“At least all four of us are together,” you piped up. “And with an Angel maybe it won’t be as bad. I mean, anything can’t be as freaky as that baby.”

“I have to agree with Y/N. That baby was freaking,” Dean said, just as a small town came into view. With huge forests surround it, the town seemed secluded and antique. The buildings were all old fashioned, and Dean’s Impala had to be one of the newest cars on the street.

“What is this place?” You asked, staring at the women wearing sundresses, while the men were dressed in suits.

“It’s called Burkesville,” Sam read the sign as Dean slowed the Impala down. Coasting down main street, you could see the banners and sashes proclaiming the Annual Lottery Festival.

“A Lottery Festival? I wonder what that is?” You asked as Dean came to the end of the street. Nothing but trees in front of you.

“I really don’t want to find out,” Dean grumbled, turning the Impala around, heading back the way you had come. “Let’s get out of here, and find that highway again.

But as you came to the only way out of town, big wooden barricades were placed on the road, stopping anyone from entering, or anyone from leaving.

A man in his thirties, wearing a grey tweed suit and a black hat came walking over, leaning down to talk to Dean. “I don’t think we’ve seen you around here before.”

“We’re lost,” Dean spoke quickly. “We need to get back on the road as quick as we can. We have people waiting for us to arrive. Tonight.”

“I’m sorry, but nobody’s going anywhere tonight. It’s Festival time! The whole city shuts down. It’s a pretty big affair.”

“Where’s a hotel?” Dean grumbled, even though you could see him trying to figure out a way around the barricades. But he didn’t want to cause a scene.”

“We have a nice little homey place right there. Tell them Paul sent ya,” he told Dean, pointing to the right of him. “Get settled in, and then come to Main Street. And it isn’t really an invitation, it’s a must. If you don’t show, the Sheriff will be more than willing to guide you there himself.”

“Oh, we’ll be there alright,” Dean assured the man before pulling away. Driving the short distance to the hotel, he turned to face you.

“I don’t like this place,” he said what you were all thinking. “Cas, can you move those barricades?”

“I can try. I’ll need to get close though.”

Vanishing from the car, you watched as he reappeared next to the barricades. His face full of concentration, seconds ticked by, but nothing happened. Before you knew it he was back beside you. “They are warded. Powerfully so. No one is leaving until those are removed.”

“What is going on with this place? And what’s so important about that Festival?” Sam asked as you all climbed out of the car.

“Let’s get ourselves a room, and see what we can pull up on the internet,” Dean suggested.

It was only moments later that the four of you were crammed into a small room, the only one the place had left. With a pull out couch and two doubles, it was more than enough room. You just hoped that you wouldn’t have to stay there very long.

Sam pulled out his laptop, frowning when he attempted to connect to the internet. “There’s no internet here. Nothing.”

Checking your phone, you could feel your heart beat growing faster. “No cell reception either. I’m really not liking this!”

Just then an alarm sounded through the town, much like an air raid from the wars. “I guess it’s time,” Cas said, peering out the window. “I’ve never been to a festival before. I wonder what it’s going to be like.”

“Well, if the blocked road and the siren are any indications, I don’t think it’s going to be very good,” Dean said, tucking his gun into his jeans as Sam followed suit.

Once all of you were as full of weapons as you could be, you began the trek up to Main Street. Joining the throngs of people dressed fancier than you, excited mumbling feeling the air.

At the beginning of the street were tables where people were being searched. Items like cell phones and pocket knives were being left behind, and you turned quickly to Dean. “Dean, we’re going to get caught!”

“What the hell is going on?” He asked.

“Let’s hide them here, that way they’re closer than the Impala,” Sam suggested, nodding to a couple of old boxes forgotten in the alley.

“I don’t like this,” Dean muttered, leaving behind his special gun before you once again joined the crowds. After the quick pat down, you were given a white slip of paper, forced to write down your name before it was dropped into an old metal bowl.

Once clear of the entry area, you saw that it really looked like a festival. Booths were set up on both sides of the street, filled with food and items for sale. Dancing was held at the far end, along with tables and a microphone.

“What do we do now?” You asked as Dean wrapped his arm around you.

“We join in and keep an eye out for anything strange.”

Sam and Cas stayed off to one side of the street, their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. You stayed with Dean, chuckling when he bought both of you a pie on a stick. “This has to be the best invention ever!” He exclaimed before taking a huge bite.

“You amaze me,” you told him. “How you can be so excited about something like pie on a stick while we’re facing another stupid hunt.”

“You got to enjoy the little things,” he answered. “Like having a pie on a stick, and you by my side.”

Smiling up at him, you were distracted by a bell ringing by the dance floor. “Gather around!” A pepper haired man exclaimed into the microphone. People complied, and soon a huge gathering crowded the dance floor, some still sitting at tables.

“Tonight we honor the tradition past down for hundreds of years!” He started as the crowds grew quieter and more sullen. It was weird, how suddenly everyone seemed so nervous, and you glanced up at Dean in alarm. “We honor this tradition with this Festival. Because in times of sadness, there need to be thoughts of better times as well.”

People stayed quiet, and you could see Mother’s pulling their kids tight to them, husband’s holding their wives close. Looks of horror and trepidation filling ever face.

“As you, all know, or most of you. We have a tradition. This village stays safe. Stays out of harm’s way, year after year. Because we appease the Gods who gave it to us!”

“Oh shit,” Dean muttered as Cas and Sam pushed their way to stand behind you.

“Every year we put all of our names into this bowl. It doesn’t matter how influential you are. If you’re new in town, or if you’re a Mother or a Father. We’re all the same in this bowl, a name. A sacrifice to appease the Gods.”

“Dean, what are we going to do?” Sam asked, whispering between the two of you.

“I have no idea,” Dean answered as the Mayor reached in, pulling out a little white piece of paper.

“I don’t know whose name I’ve pulled out. But whoever it might belong to, know this. That you are doing this for the good of all the people that you see here. That you will be moving on to bigger, better things!”

Your heart beating furiously, you watched as he slowly opened the folded white paper, almost coming to a stop as he read the name. “Dean Winchester!” He called out, all of you freezing in horror. “Dean, don’t be shy!! I think you’re one of our visitors, but you’ll be revered just as much as anyone else!”

Before Dean could even move, a couple of big burly men came racing through, grasping his arms and pulling him to the front of the crowd. “The Gods will definitely be happy with this strong specimen!” The Mayor called out as the rest of the crowd breathed a sigh of relief.

You stood there, frozen by fear as they tied Dean to a post. Other men began passing out rocks to the crowd. Huge, heavy rocks that were meant to be thrown at Dean. Turning quickly, you saw that Cas was gone. “Sam, what are we going to do?”

“Cas went to get our guns,” Sam whispered. “We’ll get Dean off of there, and try to figure a way out of this town!”

Just then you could hear the trees rustling loudly behind Dean, the crowd taking a step back. “Cas needs to hurry,” you muttered, as a couple of huge, dark dogs came growling out of the trees, their eyes glowing red.

“Oh ancient ones, we have your sacrifice!” The Mayor called out, and the crowds pulled their arms back, ready to throw the rocks at Dean.

“Zach, what are you doing?” Sophia asked, waking up to see her brother standing next to her bed, the evil book in his hands. His eyes almost glowed in the dark, his smile creepy.

“I’ve been reading, but the book says it needs you too,” he spoke up, turning on her bedside light.

“Zach, it’s just a book! It can’t talk to you!” She tried to tell him, but he reached out, grasping her neck and squeezing tight.

“Don’t you dare say that! This isn’t just a book and you know that. This book is magical, and if we finish it, it promises to take care of us for the rest of our life!”

He released her then, and she took deep gulping breaths. Zach began reading, about an old town, hellhounds and a lottery that picked someone to be a sacrifice. It all sounded scary to her, but nothing was as scary as the life she was currently living.

“I’ve got the guns, but they won’t work on those hellhounds,” Cas said, appearing right behind you as the Mayor began the countdown, the hounds growling low.

“Hellhounds? But we can’t see hellhounds without our special glasses!” Sam argued.

“That’s what they are! Now, how are we going to stop this?” Cas asked, handing you a gun as the Mayor got dangerously close to one.

“The only way I can think of,” you told him. Aiming the gun, you pulled the trigger, hitting your target easily. The mayor stopped counting, glancing down at his chest in shock. You had just knicked him on the shoulder, enough to hurt, but not enough to kill. But it had done its job, stopping the counting, and Dean was free, for a moment at least.

“No!” The crowd cried, a couple of men throwing their stones anyways, and you watched in horror as they collided with Dean, hitting him in the chest, one brushing across his temple.

“No!” You screamed, trying to push your way through, trying to get to Dean before they did any more damage.

“You must stop this!” Cas screamed, standing in front of Dean, his hands out, turning all the rocks to ash. “These aren’t Gods! They are the pets of Demons. You have been tricked all this time!”

“But it’s the only thing we’ve ever known,” the Mayor answered. “Every year we give a sacrifice. Every year that means they won’t kill us. But if we don’t give them this man, what will happen to us?”

By this time you had reached Dean, and you quickly untied him, wincing at the bruises already covering him. “Cas, go get the special knives from the Impala while we stall!”

Cas vanished, much to the crowd's amazement. “That is an Angel. Would an Angel steer you wrong?” You asked, ignoring the sarcastic laugh Dean let out as Sam came to stand beside you, letting Dean lean against him. “Those are evil, and they have been controlling you for too long! It needs to stop!”

Just then the hell hounds came snarling up to you, snapping their jaws, drooling a foul, sulferish scent. Cas reappeared, tossing you a knife, keeping one for himself. With Sam keeping Dean behind you, you faced off with the hellhound as Cas did the same.

It jumped you, knocking you off your feet, but giving you an advantage as you drove the knife deep into its belly. Screaming loudly, it fell limp on top of you as Cas fought off the other one, killing it instantly. “You’re free!” You exclaimed. “Free to live, to leave. Whatever you choose! But don’t get sucked into something like this again!”

With those parting words, you led the way as Sam pulled Dean with him, back to the Impala. Cas went in, grabbing your belongings while Sam laid Dean in the back seat. “I would heal him, but the frequent trips have drained me,” Cas explained.

“I think he’ll be okay. Sore, but okay,” you answered, taking out the first aid kit, washing away the blood on his face. Dean had passed out as soon as he was in the car, and you knew that was a good thing. It gave you a chance to clean him up, and a chance for Sam to get you as far away from this place as possible. Hopefully towards where the book was before you had to go through another crazy situation.

Dean/Jensen Tags:@acreativelydifferentlove @a-girl-who-loves-disney @akshi8278 @anokhi07 @aubreystilinski @bebravekeeponfighting @bobasheebaby @brindz30 @colette2537 @crusadedean @darthshreydar @dean-winchesters-bacon @deanwinchesters-impala67 @haelyn @horsegirly99 @ikeneasul11 @imascio08 @its-not-a-tulpa @just-another-winchester @lady-phoenix-of-tardis @librarygeekery @mlovesstories @msimpala67 @love-charmer-sketch @michirutenshi @pisces-cutie @ria132love @ruprecht0420 @shadowhunter7 @sizzlingbearpolice @sleep-silent-angel @sortaathief @superseejay721517 @thegrungequeer @thewinchestergirl1208 @torn-and-frayed @wonderfulworldofwinchester

STAT Tags: @joseyrw @suckystoryteller @salt-n-burn-em-all @wingedcatninja @waywardbaby97 @waywardnerd67 @horsegirly99 @profoundly-bitchy-collection @jae-sch @sociopathtime @depressed-moose-78 @sophiebobzz @oreosatmidnight @librarygeekery @winchesterxtwo @asirammm @itsmerighthere @squirrelnotsam @karmamariejoy @linki-locks11 @xthelittlethings @incredibly-sarcastic-url @alwayskeepfightingkaz-2y5 @imascio08 @deansbabygirl01 @deansgirl215 @sasquatch5 @kay18115 @gh0stgurl @quackerstheduck663057 @photos-by-16 @idk-wtf-is-happening @pheonyxstorm @fandom-queen-of-wonderland @bunnybaby121115 @thegrungequeer @monkeymcpoopoo

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#stories to awaken terror #dean winchester x reader #supernatural x reader #supernatural reader insert #katy writes #supernatural series #dean winchester series #dean winchester fanfiction #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural #fanfiction

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babypaulchen · 7 years ago

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hey guys I wrote this stupid thing where Feeling B era Paul and Schneider drunkenly cuddle ok here it is bye

Title: Touch Starved

Words: 3428

Rating: G

Summary: Paul has had an unfulfilled desire for physical affection. Who can he turn to for satisfying that certain need? Definitely not Flake or Aljoscha. Schneider? Maybe. But unlikely.

Tags: • Fluff • Platonic Cuddling • Drunkenness • Drunken Flirting

AO3

---------

Paul isn't positive, but he's pretty sure he read, or heard, somewhere that physical touch is a necessity. Not necessarily sex. Just the touch of another person. Isn't that how the phrase “touch starved” came to be? A person can be starved for touch, right? Starved for an affection found only in physical connection.

It's really not that hard to hook up with the women in their community, as Aljoscha had proven and boasted about many times, though that isn't what Paul is looking for. While touching a woman is nice, he doesn't feel like dealing with the hassle of women. Additionally, there's a deeper layer of intimacy in a touch that isn't tainted by the desire for more. A touch that's only given for the sake of sharing affection. Paul doesn't have an intimate relationship like that with any woman—well, maybe Nikki, but he really doubts she would want to. Touch isn't something that really happens between them anymore. He's not in the mood to just lay with some stranger, either; that isn't fulfilling.

So now, he's stumped. Running through the list of people he would be completely at ease sharing this intimacy with reduces it to a very short number: there's Flake, maybe Aljoscha, Nikki, and Schneider. There is Zimmermann, who Paul, of course, is good friends with as well, but he's not the type to do such a thing, either.

Flake is too bony and awkward—Paul is looking for a comfortable answer to his problem. Not one that will give him puncture wounds from particularly sharp elbows and shoulders. And the more Paul thinks about suggesting this to Aljoscha, the more he dislikes the mere concept of doing so. There's Nikki, who he is not going to ask, so that leaves Schneider. Who, more or less, tries to avoid spending too much time with him, if possible. Paul doubts he would be enthusiastic.

So now, a week since this desire arose, he sits with frustration in a semi-ring consisting of himself, Flake, Aljoscha, Schneider, and beer. Frustration because, even if drunk, he is still pestered by this gnawing need for physical affection. Considering how he is, he's attempted sneaking some in by throwing an arm around Flake's shoulders, or grabbing Schneider's hand amongst their drunken rambles to jokingly play with it—which he always shies away from by pulling his hand back as politely as he can manage. Aljoscha is touchy by nature, so Paul realistically could mess around with him as much as he would like, but again, it's not quite the same feeling considering it's Aljoscha, who is twice his age and doesn't shower nearly enough.

To his left, Flake sits cross legged atop the mound of blankets with his sleeves rolled up, hands gesturing in demonstration as he goes on about some story. Paul's thought process had drifted off, and thus, his attention, but he's caught enough to determine it's about him and his other group of friends fucking around on the beach, or something. Paul is frankly getting bored of all the conversation, even if it's an activity he usually enjoys—he excels at shooting the shit. But now, he's just getting sleepy and cranky because he hasn't figured out a solution to his starvation yet.

Rather than insert himself into the chatting like he tends to, Paul just nurses at his thousandth beer until it's completely consumed. He firmly plants the empty bottle into the circle of many and then with very little grace, he rises unsteadily onto his feet, earning glances from the other three—Flake stops mid-sentence.

“I'm gonna go pass out now,” Paul announces in a slur, with a lackluster salute of two fingers towards the others, “Don't have too much fun without me.”

Panning his gaze across the faces of his bandmates, he sees a smirk on Aljoscha's face, a frown on Flake's, and nothing on Schneider's. He's just staring at him past his wavy bangs which fall just slightly into his blue eyes.

“Drink's hitting you hard now?” Aljoscha teases with a toothy, shark-like grin. Paul waves his hand sluggishly, dismissively, and says with squinting eyes and a strained smile, “I'm holding it like a champ.”

“Uh, sleep well, then, I guess,” Flake speaks up, “Remember we have to leave tomorrow at ten.”

“Got it,” Paul remarks with two thumbs up and a following point of both index fingers, before he turns to begin towards the open doorway of the bedroom. He stumbles over a pillow and nearly topples over with his hands reflexively shooting out; from his peripheral vision, he sees Schneider shift towards him, maybe with concern, but Paul manages to regain his balance without bodily harm, his cheeks warming. Aljoscha cackles and calls out teasingly, “Take it slow, don't hurt yourself!”

Embarrassed, Paul says nothing and just stumbles away, ignoring the other man. The journey to the bedroom is short, albeit difficult. The unsteadiness in his feet and the swimming of his surroundings becomes much more apparent now that he's standing. Shit. He really has to lay down.

Once he steps inside the bedroom, he immediately drops onto the mattresses cluttering the floor. He moans into the haphazard blankets strewn across the mattresses. Then, after ten seconds of laying there limply, he shuffles higher up onto the mattresses so his feet aren't against the cold, hard floor.

There, he wraps blankets around himself until he's sufficiently cocooned, with his head sticking out of the roll of blankets. His blonde ponytail is becoming unraveled into a messy explosion around his hairline—a few locks cling to his lips with his saliva. The blankets smell like dust joined by the faint scent of sweat, but it's familiar and comforting. He nuzzles into the pillows and sighs heavily. His head is still spinning, but at least he's not at risk by being on his feet.

Distantly, he hears Aljoscha's piercing laughter and Schneider's low, smooth voice. Something clenches and aches in Paul's chest. Maybe he's feeling left out and unwanted, but then again, he's just drunk and lonely. He huffs into the pillows and then buries his head underneath the blankets, as an attempt to muffle their voices. It works just a little.

Either way, he ends up passing out after five minutes, which consisted of him laying there motionlessly, sprawled out with his high ponytail sticking out from within the cocoon.

Sometime later, he's jerked from his slumber rather abruptly from being shaken. He jolts reflexively, startled, and twists over in his mess of blankets to look at the culprit with disgruntled annoyance. It's Schneider. He's looking at Paul with his lips pressed in a line, his brow slightly furrowed. As usual, his wavy, sun-bleached locks surround his slender face in a burst of hair. His cheeks are pink—supposedly from their previous drinking. He's kneeling on the mattress beside Paul; wearing an oversized sweater colored an ugly dark green, joined by old jeans. Eying him, Paul can't help but think he has god awful fashion taste.

“What?” Paul finally grumbles as he lifts a hand to sleepily rub at an eye. He runs his other hand up over his forehead, sweeping back his wild blonde locks that have escaped from the confines of his ponytail. Schneider sweeps his gaze over the mattresses as he says lowly, “You're laying horizontally across the beds. Move over.”

“Oh,” Paul mumbles, glancing around to realize that is indeed the truth. As he wiggles over to give the other man some space, he blinks heavily and realizes just how awful he feels—he has a headache, his mouth is dry, and his eyes are burning. Of course Schneider had to wake him up. He tries to mask his irritation as he gets comfortable on a separate mattress, vertically this time. He bundles up in his cocoon again, and then splats into the pillows. After a moment of stillness, he shifts onto his side, back to the other man.

Behind him, he hears Schneider unzip and remove his jeans, which are then thrown onto the other side of the room. Paul wonders if Flake and Aljoscha are still out there, drinking away. He's also curious what time it is—but the answers are unable to be obtained without having to move, so they will have to remain unanswered. On one of the other mattresses, Paul hears Schneider getting situated under some blankets himself.

Then, the room falls silent. Paul exhales deeply and clears his mind to welcome sleep.

At least, for half a minute. After laying in silence for thirty seconds, Schneider speaks up, his low, slurring voice breaking that quietness.

“You seemed distant earlier,” he says, as an invitation to explanation. Paul lays quietly for a moment, surprised, and then he feels vaguely impatient. He just wants to sleep. He doesn't want to talk about his feelings. Especially not with Schneider. Sometimes, he gets the impression Schneider doesn't care too much for him.

“I just want to know if you're doing alright,” Schneider continues in a low murmur, after he's given no response. Paul is actually surprised. Schneider is always awkward when it came to sentimental conversations—which is why they never have them. Paul debates what to say. Should he blow it off, or be honest? Does it really matter? God, he's too lethargic for this right now. He's in-between slightly drunk and hungover at the moment.

“Just feeling lonely,” Paul mumbles, “Not a big deal.”

“Why?” Schneider asks quietly, persistently, “I thought we were having fun.”

“It's not—I don't mean—Ugh,” Paul begins with exasperation, and then brings a hand up to rub at his eyes. He moves to sit up a little with a strained expression. Propping up on his elbows, he peeks over at Schneider who is watching him with his head on a pillow.

“Tonight was fine,” Paul continues, biting nervously at the inside of his cheek as he contemplates what to say. Reaching up, he scratches at the back of his head under blonde locks as he continues reluctantly, pensively, “I mean... You know when you get in those moods where you just want to like... I don't know. Hug someone? Because you're feeling affectionate. Or maybe you just want a hug.”

He drops his hand atop the blankets and looks at Schneider with a slight embarrassed grimace. Schneider's brow is furrowed, his glassy blue eyes searching Paul's face.

“I guess?” he replies with uncertainty, voice sluggish from intoxication, “I don't feel that often.”

Paul nods.

“Well, that's what I mean. I wasn't in the best mood today because I felt distant from everyone, y'know? And, well... It's not like the three of you are very inclined to express physical affection. So, whatever. Like I said, it's not a big deal. I'll get over it.”

“Do you not have some girl to do that with?” Schneider asks bluntly, bewildered. Paul huffs and then lays back down, eyes training up on the ceiling. He crosses his arms across his chest and says flatly, “It's different. With a girl, there's always the pressure of something more, right? I don't want that.”

“So you mean... Just platonic affection with a friend. You're lacking that, so it's making you feel lonely.”

“It sounds fucking stupid when you say it, but yeah.”

“You know you could just ask for a hug. Or something.”

Paul turns his head and stares at the other man with a lack of amusement on his face. Schneider arches a brow and stares back at him. With his voice devoid of emotion, Paul remarks blankly, asking, “If I had gone up to you without explanation and said 'hey, Schneider, can I have a hug?', do you really think you would've said yes?”

After a pause, Schneider manages the slightest amused smile.

“Probably not. I would've directed you towards Aljoscha.”

“Exactly. And Aljoscha would've just teased me.”

Silence reclaims the bedroom once again. Schneider watches him with calm, contemplative eyes, his wavy locks obscuring parts of his face. Paul refocuses his gaze on the ceiling. There are cracks dispersed throughout its surface, the paint chipping in places. The window behind them is casting a soft glow of moonlight into the room, illuminating it just well enough for Paul to take notice of such things. Considering the lengthy silence, Paul figures that's the end of their discussion, so he just pulls his blankets up higher and gets comfortable for slumber once more.

Though, of course, that isn't the end of it, because it seems like Schneider's current agenda is to keep Paul from getting his much needed rest.

“Well, do you want a hug now?” Schneider asks in a lowered voice. Paul pauses and then glances over at him. Schneider is now propped up on an elbow, a subtly uncertain expression on his flushed face—his eyes are almost timid, his lips in a strained line. Paul nearly laughs. He's so bad at this kind of thing. But regardless, it also serves to fluster Paul. He and Schneider have only hugged once, on the occasion of Schneider's birthday, which had been very brief.

“Um. You don't have to. It's not a big deal,” Paul says with warm cheeks, followed by a light laugh. Schneider then moves to sit up, pushing aside his blankets. Paul watches with his heart beginning to pound, his face heating up considerably. Schneider shifts closer on his knees, across the joined mattresses.

“Well, now I do have to,” he says with the slightest smile on his thin lips, his eyes mischievous, “It's become a big deal.”

“Because of you!” Paul complains weakly, with flushed cheeks. Schneider's smile extends into a grin—his dimples appear. It lights up his face and it has Paul staring in silent appreciation. Schneider joins him on the mattress, kneeling beside him. Then without hesitance, he brings his arms around him, even if Paul is not completely prepared yet—he's still propped up on his elbows. Paul stiffens at first, unsure what to do or say (Oh God, this is so weird, and Schneider is being nice and affectionate for once, and he's warm, and he smells like beer and his cologne, and holy shit why am I smelling him?).

Paul scrambles to recover his composure. He laughs shakily and says, “I can't hug you back, I'm not sitting up! If I try, I'll just fall onto my back.”

“So?” Schneider remarks, and then pulls away to purposefully plant his hands against Paul's chest, to push him onto his back. His head meets the pillows, his hair a wild mess around his face. Paul blinks and looks up at him with surprise. Schneider is still grinning, all shark-like, his vibrant blue eyes alive with amusement. Paul has seen this version of drunk Schneider a few times before. His typical shyness disappears, and then he's all talk and laughter. Heart racing, Paul stares up at him speechlessly. His hair is messy and cute, surrounding his flushed, smiling face. His cheeks are noticeably freckled and tinted a ruddy red. Why does he suddenly look like an angel?

Abruptly, without warning, Schneider shifts closer and then flops down on top of him with his hands squeezing Paul's sides—laughing lowly while he does, as an attempt to play it off as a joke. Paul grunts from the sudden additional weight, jerking his hands up to grab onto Schneider's biceps. Paul growls and complains with his stomach flipping, “This isn't how people hug, you dick! Don't crush me!”

Schneider giggling has Paul swallowing hard and staring at him with astonishment. Schneider adjusts himself so he's not laying haphazardly on top of him; instead, he shifts to lay on his side beside Paul, drawing his arms around him in a laughable attempt to form some kind of embrace. It just ends up awkward, but at least he's trying. Paul isn't sure what to do. Turning to face him might be too much, but he can't exactly return it if Schneider is laying beside him.

“Why are you just laying there? I thought you wanted this,” Schneider says, his grin fading. With his gaze shyly trained down on Schneider's arm draped across his midsection, Paul huffs and mumbles, “How am I supposed to hug you back if you're laying beside me?”

Silently, Schneider contemplates for a second. Then he begins pulling at Paul, with his hand tucking under his side. Paul glances up to meet his gaze—he's laying with his face much too close to his own. Paul nearly recoils, but he manages to repress the urge. He shifts away slightly, though Schneider is pulling him closer, so it's not like it makes a difference.

“Turn to face me, you idiot,” Schneider says, without force. Paul presses his lips together and stares down between their bodies as he shifts to do so; he moves onto his side, so they're facing each other. As Schneider scoots closer, tightening his arms around him, Paul accidentally lets out a flustered noise, which has Schneider laughing again. Paul's face is on fire. He moves so he's a little lower than Schneider, so he can rest his head comfortably against the bed and not right in front of Schneider's face.

They end up in an excessively intimate embrace—this isn't what Paul had in mind. He was expecting, maybe, just a hug that lasts longer than three seconds, but this is just overboard. He considers backing off, but Schneider is now silent and still, laying close enough that their knees touch, with his arms resting limply around Paul.

And then Paul recalls he's not exactly wearing any pants, which makes this worse. Despite that, Paul reluctantly reaches over to drape his arm around Schneider in return. Schneider doesn't move, or say anything. Paul is quickly becoming overwhelmed. His face is burning up, and his heart is pounding. Again, he can smell Schneider. He also has a great view of his throat, and his clavicle that peeks out from the collar of his sweater, considering their respective heights.

But, even if he is mildly uncomfortable, Paul is still enjoying it, to a degree. Schneider is warm and soft, if a little bit bony in some places. His embrace isn't stiff or anything—Paul blames it on the alcohol. He's laying compliantly in his arms, motionless save for his slow breathing that expands and deflates his ribcage under Paul's arm. Thankfully, they can't see each other's faces. Paul would be far too embarrassed to let this last if that were the case.

Staring at Schneider's collarbone, Paul isn't sure what to say or do. The embrace has lasted maybe two minutes now, with no words spoken. It's nice, definitely, but also—this is so unlike Schneider. Though Paul isn't complaining, just bewildered.

Finally, after laying in each other's arms for a few minutes, Schneider leans back just enough to meet Paul's wide-eyed gaze. He's smiling faintly, his eyes sleepy and lidded. His curly hair is surrounding his face prettily—and getting in his eyes, like usual. Paul stares with a warm face. He doesn't know what to say. He's completely thrown off from all of this.

Schneider begins to lean in again. Though this time, startling Paul, he plants a bashful, drunken kiss to his forehead in a firm peck. Paul's mind becomes astonished static. Schneider draws back again, to search his shocked expression.

“Goodnight, Paul,” he says with a slight, teasing smile, searching in Paul's embarrassed eyes as he murmurs, almost jokingly, “I hope you don't feel lonely anymore.”

Then he shifts away, out from underneath Paul's arm. Face burning up, Paul opens his mouth, speechless, and then closes it again. He watches the other man slide back into his own bed, his face turned away from Paul's gaze. Schneider gets situated underneath the blankets again. Now all Paul can see of him is his explosion of curly locks peeking out from the blankets.

For a moment, Paul just stares at the back of his head with his heart racing and stomach flipping. He suddenly feels overheated from his flustered state, but also cold, now that Schneider's warmth is missing. Swallowing hard, Paul drops his gaze to the blankets tangled around his own legs. Reaching out, he grabs them and pulls them back over himself. He flops down into his pillows and stares at Schneider for a moment longer, before closing his eyes. He lets out a breath and then buries his face into the blankets, embarrassed. But, he also feels content and... Happy.

Shit.

#ive never posted my rammstein fic on tumblr before im emb arrassed #Rammstein #Paul Landers #Christoph Schneider #text #fics #mine

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theerased · 7 years ago

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Mercurial

mercurial / adjective 1. characterized by rapid and unpredictable changeableness of mood 2. having qualities of eloquence, ingenuity, or thievishness attributed to the god Mercury or to the planet Mercury

Finding my way into telling a story is always the most difficult part. Getting into someone else’s headspace, determining their actions and thoughts relative to extraordinary circumstances, that’s what someone in my line of work needs to sit down and do. Once I’ve got a concept in my head, I can usually let it run wild. It’s something going on in the background processes of my brain—stray thoughts about characters or plot points lead to notes on my phone that somehow connect to an overall narrative. Eventually I’ll let it pour out, but it’s very slow going. This isn’t the greatest way for a writer to put out work. Completing something takes years, patience, and dedication to getting it right.

That also means a writer without a lot of published material.

That probably sounds bad. Writing for me isn’t about creating easily digestible plots and characters that can be sold to the masses. Selling is low in the list of priorities. No, writing is a compulsion—it’s something I have to do. It’s part art and part therapy. So I guess the problem is in putting it all together.

Let’s flashback to 1996. I was a sophomore in high school deeply infatuated with a senior, trying to make sense of the world. I suffered, and still suffer, from severe anxiety and depression, and had a penchant for putting words together about my dreams, my friends, and the social order in which I found myself. I wrote a short story and submitted it to the school’s annual literary magazine. The story was called “Nausea” – a reference to Jean-Paul Sartre that no one got – about a high school boy who attempted suicide because of a girl, because he couldn’t vocalize his feelings, because the world was just too painful. That boy’s name was Alex Graves.

Alex became a way for me to cope—to fictionalize my experiences and desires. He’d act out in ways that I never could due to my anxiety. In some short stories, he was meek at the mercy of the world around him. In others, he was a terrible antichrist, bent on burning the society that plagued him. He wasn’t a consistent figure except that he was me.

When I began going to college in 1999, I started writing a manuscript that took another seven years to complete, centering on Alex Graves. I commuted an hour back and forth to school, which wasn’t great—it left me isolated and lonelier than ever before, at a time when I should’ve been socializing and trying new things. In this manuscript, I concocted Alex going through a Network-like scenario. He’d have a nervous breakdown as a DJ for the college radio station. Instead of getting him the help he needs, it would springboard to notoriety and fame. Eventually, he would wake up to find his girlfriend dead beside him (very Sid Vicious) and be convicted of her murder, even though, of course, he didn’t do it. I called the manuscript The Union Forever, a reference to Citizen Kane.

It was terrible.

Once it was finished, somewhere around 2006, it was a gigantic tome the length of Moby Dick. Trying to reread the early section from when I was a disconnected 18 year old was nigh impossible. How could I get it edited into something manageable, let alone, get it published? Everything I’d been working toward seemed out of reach, the last seven years of work wasted. The story of Alex Graves was my great failure.

In 2007, I started writing a story called The Erased, leaving Alex behind in favor of a nameless narrator living in a science fiction dystopia inspired by the Nine Inch Nails Year Zero alternate reality game and the works of Philip K. Dick. I know, I know—I wear my inspirations on my sleeve. Very #onbrand. By the time it was finished in 2011, The Erased had become a work I was proud of. Maybe I could be a genre author. Over the last several years, self-publishing e-books had come into fashion—I could go the route of traditional publishing, sure, but there was something so attractive about the DIY, full control method of self-publishing. I decided to ask another author friend to edit the book, and I released it myself using Amazon and Smashwords.

Reviews of The Erased were positive, but some readers found it jarring to jump from one narrator to the next from chapter to chapter when each was speaking in the first person. George R.R. Martin mitigated this problem by using limited third person narration for each of his point of view characters—each chapter identified by an identified POV character. I’ve always been more comfortable in the first person, if only because it feels that much more personal. (I’m also not nearly as good a writer as George, but that’s beside the point.)

What should I do next? I was published. I had a work out there in the world. People were actually reading my words.

There was that terrible manuscript, sitting on the shelf, still bothering me.

I started to write a story about the aftermath of a prison riot, where a high-profile inmate just vanished. Could’ve been an escape, a breakout, or he could’ve just been murdered. I decided the inmate was named Alex Graves.

This time, I’d approach Alex’s story from the outside and maybe from multiple vantage points. I put the words to paper and suddenly had something. I was following the track of three narrators—the reporter investigating the riot/disappearance, a spy who may have been responsible, and Alex himself, who had morphed into a Billy Pilgrim kind of character. Billy, in Slaughterhouse Five, was infamously unstuck in time; Alex would be unstuck in reality. What would your life be like if you could jump around into different versions of yourself? Which one would be the real one, if there were a real one? And what if you could inflict those versions on the world?

Still, something wasn’t quite clicking the way it did with The Erased. Jumping from point of view to point of view was still jarring, but seemed narratively necessary. What if I separated each point of view out? Told one line of the story, then went to another, then another, and eventually came back around to the first? This seemed like a unique way to tell the story, which also changed my method of writing it—instead of working chapter to chapter, I’d follow one storyline to a stopping point, then return to another. I also felt more comfortable in points of view that were not Alex—Betsy on a hero’s journey or Berlin as a Wile E. Coyote figure. The whole point of the story was to get into other people’s heads, because they were different versions of me. That eventually led to the conclusion of the story, where multiple people see alternate versions of their lives.

And each perspective could be a different genre. You could follow the detective thread of Tyrrell Garrett, the spy thread of Mr. Berlin, the science fiction thread of Alex Graves, or the grounded protest thread of Betsy. It was all an experiment in storytelling—see how they all connect, how they interact with one another, and how their combined story impacts the world.

The title of the series came from something Alex kept saying about how he experienced reality. “I am mercury,” he said, “I am my own hyperfiction.” It meant that his identity was fluid from moment to moment, that he could construct his identity to match the circumstances he found himself in, which is something we all do everyday. And it’s definitely something an author needs to do in telling stories believably from other points of view.

We’re living in a world where objective truth is less and less important than one’s own point of view. One’s subjective experience has become the end all, be all, as though each of us lives in our own little echo chamber snow globe. We could despair at this, or we could channel our frustration into something creative. The job of the author is to help the reader into someone else’s shoes, to enact our own empathy on to others. Perhaps the lack of empathy and rise of solipsism is the fault of storytellers relying too much on the familiar instead of venturing into unknown worlds and helping others step into unknown shoes.

I’m hoping the future is filled with writers who can look past their own four walls and walk through them, for the betterment of their readers and themselves. That was what I had to do to turn the rotten old manuscript into something new.

#i am mercury #self publishing #independent author #writing #amwriting #afterword

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barberjourney-blog · 7 years ago

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Let’s start from the beginning...

Well here goes. My first attempt at blogging. That is, unless you count the occasional snarky comment on Facebook or that week in college I tried to do Xanga. Why a blog you might ask? Well, I’ve always considered myself a better communicator through the written word. I come from a family of writers. My sister is an editor for a publishing company. My mom’s list of published works include short stories, magazine articles, and children’s Sunday School curriculum. Even my dad has been known to pen a witty sonnet (usually on the topic of what he cooked for dinner or an embellished fishing trip story). So I guess writing is a family tradition. And although I haven’t practiced the skill in quite a while, it’s always been something I’ve rather enjoyed. I think it’s the organization that I like. Sometimes when I speak, my words get ahead of my thoughts, but not so with writing. Writing is more controlled. I’m able to key a thought, then read it and process it. If I don’t like what I’ve said, that backspace click is just a few finger strokes up.

I’m one paragraph in and already rambling. Forgive me. Let’s get to the point of this thing.

If you’ve followed my Instagram over the last couple of years, you may have noticed a trend in my posts. I’ve visited a lot of barbershops over the last 2 years. A LOT. I‘ve lost count of the exact number a while back, but I’d estimate I’ve seen 20+ shops over the last 12 months. I’ve visited shops in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, Birmingham, Huntsville, Tuscaloosa, and Gulf Shores just to name a few. Now, I’m not talking about the salon where your mom goes. Or Sports Clips. I’m talking about the good old fashioned men’s barbershop. The kind of shop maybe you’ve only seen in movies. Men sitting around the shop discussing sports, politics, family, and life. Maybe some good tunes on the radio and the aroma of a hot cup of joe wafting through the air. And a skilled, seasoned barber honing his craft at the chair. His hands are surgical and his gift with the clippers, comb, and shears are a unique combination of skill and art.

These shops fascinate me! I love the freedom men feel at these places. The freedom to unwind, be themselves, and speak their minds. I I love the way a good hair cut makes me feel. Confident and put together. I love the nostalgia I feel while I’m there. Reminiscent of a different time when the world was smaller, things moved slower, and people cared about each other. I guess you could say I love everything about them.

A few shops I’ve visited, researched, and loved over the last 2 years...

Greasy Hands Barbershop - Florence, AL

The Commodore Tonsorial Parlor - Atlanta, GA

Scout’s Barbershop - Nashville, TN

Shed Barber & Supply - Austin, TX

Let’s hit pause here and rewind the tape a little (for those of you 18 and under reading this, ask your parents what rewind the tape means). In 2008, Shannon and I moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham and almost immediately began attending The Church at Brookhills. We knew after the first week the Lord was moving in this church and He was going to move within us as well if we got onboard. We joined the church, got plugged into a small group (more on that later), and began “doing life” with the faith family there. The pastor was a skinny, jeans wearing, shirt untucked, blonde guy who looked more like a fraternity brother we’d seen in Tuscaloosa than a pastor of a “mega church”. His name was David Platt and he would change my life forever.

I hope at some point on this blog to dive deeper into my own faith story, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll be succinct. Christ became my Savior at the age of 16, but there was very little spiritual growth until my early 20’s. That is, until we joined The Church at Brookhills. The Lord used this church, my small group, and David Platt to completely transform what I knew, or thought I knew, about surrendering my life to Christ.

Let me preach a second here.

Every day, I am made more and more aware of the “cultural Christianity” that surrounds me. Especially here in the deep south, asking someone if they’re a Christian is like asking them if they drink sweet tea. Well, yes of course. So many of our churches have preached the easiness of salvation and that all you have to do is “say this prayer, ask Jesus into your heart, and believe.” And that’s true. Sort of. The Bible is very clear that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13). However, where I think many have dropped the ball is on the aftermath. I’ve “accepted” Christ. Now what? Pastor David now famously quoted this in one of his sermons during our time at Brookhills:

“Accept Him? Do we really think Jesus needs our acceptance? Don’t we need Him? Jesus is no longer one to be accepted or invited in but one who is infinitely worthy of our immediate and total surrender.”

Surrender? What does that mean? David would say “giving the Lord a blank check with your life.” My new beloved pastor, Jamey Pruett, calls it “putting your yes on the table.” I like both analogies, but what do they really mean? This is where I feel many of us have missed the mark. This point, this crucial element for salvation is not being explained and driven home through discipleship in many churches. If Christ is your Savior, the Bible says you are a new creation. The old is gone and the new has come (1 Corinthians 5:17). And this “new creation” now has a new responsibility. Jesus cannot only be a “personal Lord and Savior”, but rather He is a Savior to whom we must completely submit and surrender control of our lives. “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Or as we sing from the old Baptist Hymnal, “Wherever He leads, I’ll go.” And He asks us to do something very specific with that surrendering: make His name known among the nations. The Great Commission. Spread the Gospel. He’s not just your personal savior. He’s a savior worth living for. And if necessary, dying for.

At this point you may be asking yourself “what in the name of Paul Mitchell does this all have to do with barbershops?” If you’ve read this far, stay with me. I promise I’m getting there.

In 2010, Pastor David began preaching through a sermon series at Brookhills entitled “Radical”. He would also publish a New York Times best seller similarly themed and titled “Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream.” This series and book ruined me. For the better. Let me just give you a few quotes from the book and I think you’ll get the gist:

“Radical obedience to Christ is not easy. It’s not comfort, not health, not wealth, and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risk finds its reward in Christ. And he is more than enough for us.”

“We are settling for a Christianity that revolves around catering to ourselves when the central message of Christianity is actually about abandoning ourselves.”

“But then I realized there is never going to be a day when I stand before God and He looks at me and says, ‘I wish you would have kept more for yourself.’ I’m confident that God will take care of me.”

I read this book back to back with another book from a teacher and author who has also had an enormous impact on my life: John Piper. His book was called “Don’t Waste Your Life”. Let me also give you a quote from this book that has both challenged me and haunted me all at the same time:

“Three weeks ago, we got word at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards had both been killed in Cameroon. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon.

The brakes give way, over the cliff they go, and they’re gone — killed instantly.

And I asked my people: was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ — two decades after almost all their American counterparts have retired to throw their lives away on trifles in Florida or New Mexico. No. That is not a tragedy. That is a glory.

I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is. “Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their thirty foot trawler, playing softball and collecting shells.”

That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!”

Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.”

I have spent countless hours and sleepless nights pondering that thought: How do I keep from wasting my life?

The Lord used my pastor, my small group, and these books to help me process and understand something I somehow had missed over the course of my “church kid” life. I was not saved from my sin to live a selfish, care free life filled with comforts, trivial pursuits, and “stuff”. I was saved because the Father loved me infinitely and perfectly. And He wanted to me share this good news, this Gospel: that He loved the world enough to send His only Son as a ransom for sinners. Plain and simple. That was my purpose in life. That was my purpose for being created. To make the name of Jesus known far and wide.

I’ve struggled over the years to know exactly what that’s supposed to look like. I’m a big believer in the Lord’s sovereignty and that He calls us to different jobs, different cities, different friends, etc for seasons where He expects us to do His work. But I’ve found myself questioning over the years, should I be doing more? If my life is truly being lived in complete submission to Christ, should I be working in vocational ministry? Should I go to seminary? Should I be on staff at a church? Should I work for a nonprofit ministry? Let me share with you what I believe the Lord has been teaching me through this season of questioning and searching.

The Lord certainly uses vocational ministers to do His work. They are “called”, gifted, and uniquely led by the Holy Spirit to spread the Gospel. But God also uses “regular people” to do His work. Vocational ministry is not the calling for every believer. The gospel of Jesus Christ is spread every day by doctors, policemen, receptionists, construction workers, school teachers, and business professionals. It’s part of the beauty of this Christian life. The Lord in His goodness equips and uses all of His children to advance the kingdom.

We’ve certainly taken the scenic route in this post, but we’re almost home.

The Lord has given me a vision for how I can serve Him and advance the Gospel in my community. Before you go and get Pentecostal on me, not that kind of vision. I was not struck with a blinding light, nor did I hear a voice from Heaven. Rather, He gave me comprehension. An understanding of who I am, what I’m passionate about, how He has gifted me, how He has equipped me, and how He wants me to use these things to serve Him:

I believe the Lord is calling me to open a business. Specifically, a barbershop.

I could write another lengthy post on how the Lord has affirmed this to me over the last several months and I certainly plan to dive deeper into that at another time. For now, I’ll give you just a couple of insights on how I’ve come to this conclusion:

1.) Me: Who am I? Who has the Lord created me to be? How has He gifted me? I can answer that in a few sentences. I have been created as an extremely relational person. Relationships and people matter to me. A lot. I thrive on being around other people. I “come to life” you might say. I need meaningful friendships and conversation. When I go through seasons where my relationships are strained or stale, it changes me. I am at my best – my truest self – when I am in the fellowship and community of people I love.

Additionally, the Lord has given me the spiritual gifts of mercy and hospitality. Mercy – the ability to empathize with others. To be a listening ear. To care for and about people. Hospitality – hosting others in your space and creating a welcoming environment. Opening your home (or place of business) to others and shepherding them.

Practically, I have nearly 15 years’ experience in customer service and managing businesses. I understand the logistics that factor into running a successful business. And I love it. The job just suits me. Engaging customers and employees in conversations, listening to them, helping them solve a problem: the basic job description embodies who I am.

2.) Community: Shannon and I moved to Arab for the purpose of living close to family and raising our children in the same kind of small town environment in which we were raised. The Lord had greater plans. We have fallen deeply in love with our church and our community. We feel like we belong here. And because we are certain this is where the Lord has planted us, I want to serve my community well. This business will be my base of operations from where I can invest in our community.

I heard a friend from college, Tim Milner, speak at a missions conference at our church last year. Tim is now a pastor in Huntsville and I though I can’t recall the entirety of his sermon, one point from his message spoke to me. Screamed at me might be a better way of putting it: As Christians, let’s not be so focused on reaching the Nations that we forget about our brothers and sisters down the street who need Christ. My Brookhills background had saturated me with an urgency for international missions, but the Lord spoke to me that night during Tim’s message and began softening my heart to the spiritual needs of the people of Arab. I love them and I want to create a business that attends to both their physical and spiritual needs.

This post has gone much longer than I intended and I fear I may already lost some future readers, but I wanted to thoroughly explain my vision and my heart as best I could. I promise I will try to be more concise with future posts. So let me wrap it up. The goal of this blog, for those of you who care to follow, is to create a space where you can come alongside me in this journey. I am confident that the Lord has set me on this path, but that doesn’t mean I have all the answers. I desperately covet your prayers and wisdom as I strive to be faithful and obedient in this. Here are a few specific areas I would ask for your prayers:

- Pray that the Lord would give me great wisdom as I explore the best avenue for barber training.

- Pray that the Lord’s timing would be clear and that all logistics would fall into place according to His plan, not mine.

- Pray the Lord would begin working in the heart of someone or multiple someones to serve alongside me in this venture.

- Pray that I would continue to pray and cling to Proverbs 19:1. “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”

- Pray that I would love my wife and children well and show them Jesus through this season of change.

- Pray that ultimately Christ would receive all the glory and His name be exalted in all of this.

Thankful for each of you. More to come soon…

Drew

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daggerzine · 7 years ago

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From Lifeboat, Tackle Box and beyond, Greg “Skeggie” Kendall spills the beans….

I had met Greg “Skeggie” Kendall as a person before I even knew about his music. Sort of. He was road managing The Chills when I saw them in about 1989/1990 or so. I was backstage doing an interview with The Chills’ Martin Phillipps (for my zine, DAGGER) and Skeggie brought him a big salad (not “the big salad” like on Seinfeld but a big salad nonetheless) and faked this posh British accent when he put it down in front of Martin and stated, “Your dinner sir.” I laughed and Skeggie and I chatted bit that evening. He seemed like a real friendly, jovial type, completely unlike some other road managers types I had met throughout the years.

So I’d already missed the boat on his band Lifeboat though I’d heard of them and was sure I’d heard some Lifeboat songs. Then missed his next band, Tackle Box until my pal Jeremy Grites told me I had to hear them which was in the late 90’s or maybe 2000. I picked up copies of those cds, On and Grand Hotel (both released in 1993, if I have my story straight, and both on the Rockville label. They also released “The Wheat Penny Single” 7” the same year on Rockville. Fun fact: his rhythm section on those records, Brian Dunton and Sean King Devlin went on to work with Mary Timony in Helium) and both are filled with the kind of at times loud/ at times soft rock music that too many people missed but really should have heard. As you’ll read below he’s done plenty of other stuff, musically speaking.

You know here at DAGGER I like to dig a little deeper, go for some more obscure folks to interview and it was on a whim that I’d reached out to Skeggie to see if he might want to answer a few questions. Thankfully he did and by reading below you’ll learn about the long strange trip that Mr. Greg Kendall has been on all these years. Long live Skeggie!

John Surrette (Boy's Life), Peter Buck (REM), Skeg Kendall (Lifeboat) 1986, at The Rat in Boston, MA (photo by Paul Robicheau)

Where were you born? Did you grow up in the Boston area?

I was born in Norwalk, CT. In the three years following, my family moved to as many states: from Norwalk to Santa Barbara, CA.; Santa Barbara to Red Hook, in upstate NY; Red Hook to Huntsville, AL. I mostly grew up in Huntsville, but our family did weird satellite missions to other places for awkward fragments of school years. There was half of third grade in Atlantic Beach on Long Island, and before that, a 1968 Cocoa Beach summer at the Del-Ray Motel that stretched beyond the first day of school because my father worked for the space program at Cape Canaveral. Eight months for eighth grade in Gaithersburg, MD, then washing up in Middletown, RI in 1973. So, to answer your question, no, I did not grow up in the Boston area. I moved there in 1981, when I was 21.

Do you remember the first record you ever bought?

I was lucky to have an older brother who was way into music, so I was exposed to scads of great music from very early on. Simply, AM top forty radio WAS my childhood. I tried, but didn’t buy the first record I wanted to buy. There are many tales of the infamous Columbia Record Club. Our family returned from a vacation in what, 1968?, to find a package at our front door I’d ordered from the back of a magazine. “The Birds, The Bees, and The Monkees” is the one I remember. My parents were pissed and had to undo the bad deal and returned that record and the other two that were delivered. I eventually bought that album, and of course loved it. The Monkees are the best band ever.

When did you first pick up an instrument? Was it a guitar?

5 years old. Ukulele. Soon after, the guitar. Cat gut string. My first gig was in kindergarten in Huntsville singing “My Old Kentucky Home” with my brother and sister. There are some uncomfortable lyrics in that tune for three little kids to be singing in 1965 Alabama. (It was only recently that I discovered the origin and intent of the song. Interesting history.)

Lifeboat in 1985, the Living Room in Providence RI

Was Tackle Box your first band? If not tell us about bands prior to it.

Lots of bands before Tackle Box. That was like 1992-93. It’s hard to list the catalogue without supplying background in order to provide fun context. You gotta understand that back in the day we were in the middle of the suburban punk rock expansion explosion, jumping off of what we were gleaning from the CBGB’s scene of the late 1970s and the Detroit thing of MC5 and the Stooges, and also Blue Oyster Cult’s early stuff, not to mention most importantly Lou Reed. I worked backward from “Rock n Roll Animal” to the Velvet Underground in 1975-76. It was mind-blowing. It’s impossible to encapsulate in a brief answer. I moved into the upstairs of a nightclub in Newport RI in 1978. I lived there for two years. I was like 18 and 19 years old. I saw a load of wild shit, ingested a ton of drugs, and had a lot of fun. Johnny Thunders was a regular. I hung out with Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee, J.B. Hutto, and Max Romeo. I held court with Carl Perkins. I played regularly with Jonathan Richman, Mission of Burma, Human Sexual Response, and The Neighborhoods. What else can I say, except that I’m sure there’s a bunch of cool stuff that I can’t remember, plus can’t believe I don’t have Hep C or some other nasty affliction. Our band, Bob Lawton’s Boots —look it up—we were there from the git-go of punk rock. Just sayin’.

Tell us about seeing bands in Boston the 80’s? With the amount of amazing talent there back then you must have had some magical nights!

Yes. Some great nights were involved. “Magical” is a good adjective. I moved to Boston in 1981. It was an exciting time in local music to be there. “Magical” because one had to invent one’s scene if you didn’t dovetail easily into an existing one. A Boston rock scene was in full play, with the ‘Hoods, Mission Burma, Lyres, Neats, Del Fuegos, etc, etc., but to bust into that world required stamina and songs, particularly if you were in a jangly pop band like mine —Arms Akimbo, which became Lifeboat. We had much more in common with the North Carolina and Georgia music scenes than the grittier Boston sound. We had to work hard to prove ourselves, and we pretty much did. That band broke up in 1987.

Tackle Box on Oct 2014 at The Middle East, Cambridge MA (Photo by Johnny Anguish)

How did Tackle Box come about?

The Brothers Kendall were a thing after Lifeboat’s varied successes and failures. My brother Bobby and I wrote a bunch of songs and played a bunch of gigs in 1988-89, maybe 90? I don’t know. We made a record for Bar None with Peter Holsapple from the dBs that never came out, mostly because the record sucked, (through no fault of Peter’s). But, tell you what, I loved that band. We made some music I’m quite proud of. The core of that band became Tackle Box. Shawn Devlin is an amazing drummer I’ve been playing with since the Newport days; Mike Leahy is a genius guitarist (he’s played with Juliana Hatfield, Buffalo Tom, and Pell Mell, among others); and bassist Brian Dunton, (with Devlin, the original Helium rhythm section) are great to work with.

When I (briefly) met you back then you were a tour manager for The Chills. Had you been making your living doing that? If so what other bands did you tour manage?

Wow! Where/when did we meet? That was a goofy gig. If anyone ever asks you, “Hey, should I consider a cross-country tour that requires road managing, driving the van, being the sole roadie and — get this—opening solo act?,” you’re answer should be, “No, definitely don’t do that.”

I also went out as a roadie for the bands Big Dipper, The Feelies, and for the longest stretch, Throwing Muses. I love all of them, very much. So many tales to tell.

How did the deal with Rockville Records come about? Who ran that label (I only knew about Homestead back then).

Jeff Pachman signed us. It just happened I guess because he heard our songs and liked us. I honestly don’t know any other reason.

When/ why did Tackle Box end? Did you have any bands after that?

We all got busy with other stuff, and honestly I was becoming ambivalent about what had started to feel like asking people if they liked me through music. After all those years, I guess hit sort of a mental roadblock. I had a new family, with back-to-back sons, and that had an impact I’m sure on my commitment to touring and other time-consuming aspects of being in a band. But I found a new musical outlet when I fell into scoring film. Doug Macmillan from the band the Connells introduced me to director John Schultz, who enlisted me to write songs for his film Bandwagon, and then asked me to score it. The film screened and was bought at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival, which eventually led me to score Schultz’s 1998 Drive Me Crazy for 20th Century Fox. It was a fun, exciting and satisfying time, despite the steep learning curve.

Who are some of your favorite current bands or musicians?

My son’s projects are what I’d like to talk about.

DJ Lucas https://soundcloud.com/djlucasma

Weird Dane https://soundcloud.com/weirddane

They’ve got a whole lot stuff going on. Their collective, called Dark World, is knee-deep in music making, video projects and fashion design.

Care to tell us your top 10 desert island discs?

It’s hard to get it down to ten, but let’s go with…

Velvet Underground (self-titled third album)

Velvet Underground “Loaded”

New York Dolls “New York Dolls”

New York Dolls “Too Much Too Soon”

Jean Jacques Perry “The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound Of Jean Jacques Perry”

Yo La Tengo “I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One”

Joni Mitchell “Blue”

Chet Baker “ Let’s Get Lost”

David Bowie “Hunky Dory”

Brian Eno “Music For Airports”

(Plus any and all releases from Gram Parsons)

Tell us about the reunion gig that Tackle Box recently played. Will there be more?

That was super-fun. I hope for more. I love those guys, and I think we rock real nice together. We fell into playing together as if we hadn’t taken over twenty years off.

What is it that you do now? Something in the film industry?

From 2002-2012, my wife Connie White and I booked documentary films into cinemas as Balcony Releasing. We distributed over twenty films in that period. Currently, I’m working with my wife’s company Balcony Booking. She’s the film buyer for eighteen independent art houses and three film festivals.

Check out our new site here: https://www.balconyfilm.com/

Skeg behind a Rhodes in Bellows Falls, VT

Any closing comment? Final thoughts? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask?

It’s been a long and interesting trip, including my recent graduation from college in May 2016. With all that music stuff going on, I completely forgot to go to college, so I entered in 2012, and graduated four years later from UMass Amherst with a self-designed BA in Historical New England Documentary Studies.

Also, I’m about to embark on a new musical adventure— or I should say, a potential adventure. I’m going to Raleigh, NC to hang with my buddy Doug MacMillan from the Connells. If it works out, we’re thinking about planning a two-hander that explores the odd lives we’ve led in the music business, including stories and songs in a fun and reflective show. We’ll see. I hope it happens. I love those Connells songs.

BONUS QUESTION: Did you ever hear from Mark Lindsay about the song “Mark Lindsay’s Ponytail?”

I have a signed copy from Mark Lindsay of the Tackle Box “Wheat Penny” single that has “Ponytail” on the B-side. He says he liked it. I’m proud to say that one of my songs, “Eeenie Meenie Miney Moe,” originally recorded with Tuffskins, (a fun post-Tackle Box mini-project) was rehearsed by the fantastic Los Straitjackets with vocals by Mark Lindsay for consideration on an album. Alas, a release was not to be. But still, that feels really good, and the song was eventually recorded and released as a single by Rochester, NY garage-rockers Ian and the Aztecs. So, all’s well, that ends well.

www.balconyfilm.com

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miggy-figgy · 8 years ago

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Rossy De Palma Rossy de Palma, born in Palma de Mallorca, was originally a singer and dancer before being discovered by filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar in 1986. He cast her in roles based on her unique appearance which are best described as a Picasso come-to-life. In 1988, Rossy de Palma broke the rules of beauty when she starred in Pedro Almodóvar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and became a model and muse for designers like Jean-Paul Gaultier and Thierry Mugler. Her status as an iconic fashion face was further cemented with her role in Robert Altman’s 1994 satirical fashion film Prêt-à-Porter. Today, she is a theater actress, charity spokesperson for the Ghanian Charity, OrphanAid Africa, and the face of luxury fashion ad campaigns. Some of the roles you’ve played in Almodóvar films include talk show host, drug dealer, a daughter trapped in a small town living with a hysterical mother, a snobby woman from Madrid, and now, in Julieta you play a malicious housekeeper who doesn’t know much of the world outside her own. You’ve been one of the most consistent Chica Almodóvar in the director’s filmography. Why do you think he always comes back to you? Well, not always. Out of 20 movies, I’ve only been in seven. It’s a pleasure to work with him. I mold myself well, and he knows that with me, he can do whatever he wants. I’m devoted to him and that has its advantages because he knows that I’m effective. I’ll give him whatever he wants. Do you remember the first time you met Pedro Almodóvar? Of course. Legend has it that we met in a bar. But, we met during the years of the Movida Madrileña. I had just arrived to the capital from Mallorca with my music group, Peor Imposible and he used to come to our shows. By that time he was already an underground legend. He had just wrapped What Have I Done to Deserve This? and was beginning to work on Matador. He was casting for that film, but I couldn’t make it because I had a concert in Alicante that same day. He was starting to nag me and I decided to play hard to get. I was going to seduce him from afar. He used to come to a bar I was working at, the King Creole and offered me a small role in Law of Desire. He asked me “Would you like to?” and I responded “Yes, yes; I couldn’t make it to the Matador casting” and he replied, “Ok, well, let’s go.”He was very happy with me. He wanted to portray who I was in Law of Desire. I did my own hair and makeup; I didn’t allow wardrobe to touch my look. I wanted to immortalize who I was aesthetically at that time. I played a TV journalist; but since I was dressed as myself, I didn’t feel like an actress. But, then, when he wrote me the part of Antonio Banderas’ snobby girlfriend in Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown it was much more fun because that was the first time I worked as an actual actress. Did you work in any other movies between Law of Desire and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown? No. In the beginning of my career I only worked with Pedro because I was also focused on my music project. Later on, I started working in more films, but in Italy. I haven’t really worked much in Spain until recently. In Spain I only worked with Pedro. Did you want to be an actress when you were a young girl? I’ve been an actress from an early age because I acted differently around each person. I noticed that you had to become a different person. I was conscious that you needed to have a different psychology for each person in order to unite each of your complexities. I was also aware of the simulacra of things. I’ve always felt more of an artist than an actress. I like to keep various creative channels open. I would say that poetry was my first love. The Dadaist poets opened up this whole new dimension of thinking that made me aware that there was another world out there waiting for me. I recently worked in a performance called Residencia de Amor that deals with that: how art helps you survive and how therapeutic it is. Think of it as being the ugly ducking and suddenly you leave, and in this new world you are a Disney character. Tapping into that place of my consciousness without knowing that there was another world waiting for me really cheered me up. Then, also, you need to have music, art and all sorts of things that lift you in order to live another kind of reality because real life is tough. Have you always been connected to your voice within? Yes. I’ve always been connected to that spirit that we all have inside. In fact, I’m very rational; but everything I do creatively I do it from my unconsciousness. I like to surprise myself and see things as if they were the first time I saw them. When I have to interpret a character, I don’t like to prepare and study for it. I like to come from stillness. I welcome and work with accidents and errors. It enriches your life. You can’t think that you can control everything. You can’t control anything. No, you can’t. I don’t believe in that vanity that some artists who think they are creators. No. I believe that everything comes from a collective unconsciousness and when we allow ourselves to be receptive we become vehicles for it but we are not the protagonists. We can’t think, “Oh, I’m going to sit down and write a song.” No. That song came to you from the thousands of influences you have. You are a vehicle for art. I don’t believe in painters who are so self-deprecating. I prefer the humility behind being receptors and we are vehicles for creativity. We’re all artists. Julieta is a great film. His female characters continue to be his strongest suit. Yes. Isn’t this music very 90s? (Forever Young plays in the background) My partner says that time does not exist. My daughter tells me, “Mom, you’re so lucky to have lived in the 80s!” Yes, she’s right. No one can take those memories from me; but especially to have survived that decade, because so many didn’t make it. If it wasn’t drugs, it was AIDS and also the road. In those days the roads in Spain were awful; many fellow musicians like Tino Casal died in tragic car accidents. OD’s, AIDS and the road. Madre mía. All pathways. (Both laugh) And how did you make it? I was very mature in the 80s. I was in my 20s. My adolescence was in my 30s. I was serious in my 20s. All of my friends were getting high and I was everyone’s mother. I protected my friends. I was “homeless” but I had a daily planner. Pedro was always mesmerized by this; “look at her, she’s so organized!” Maybe it’s because you’re a Virgo. Yes, I am. Perhaps it’s that. But I had also moved from Mallorca to Madrid. I left behind my teenage brother and he needed me. My mother was hustling through the market in order to save enough money to send me 3000 pesetas [about $20] in a money order each month. It was so little and it was all she could. With that in mind, I knew I wasn’t there to waste time. I had to pave my road and if not, I went back home. I couldn’t distract myself. I was very clear with my intention. I also didn’t like drugs. Only weed. I don’t like drugs that affect my mindset and take me to other realities because the reality that we live in is already rough enough and psychedelic itself to take me somewhere else. I mean, back in the day we tried everything but weed, the relaxing kind. Sativa’s great but I’m more of an Indica girl. I didn’t get hooked to anything because I wanted to work and build. Let’s be realistic there is no money when you are starting out in music; so even when I worked at bars, I was a bad cocktail waitress because I wanted my patrons to stop drinking. They drank, and drank, and drank. I would tell them, “listen buddy, you just had one…” and the bar owners would come and tell me “This is not Alcoholic Anonymous, you’re here to sell drinks. Be cool. Don’t be such a…” Don’t be so conscious… “Don’t be such a good girl…” I love playing evil characters but in life I’m such a good person. I’m a softy and I’m very sentimental. You know what I mean? That’s my personality. In theatre I like to play the bad girl because I compensate for being so good in real life. How do you channel it? Your character in Julieta is so malicious. You can’t judge a character because if not, you wouldn’t be able to interpret them. In an interview with Almodóvar, they ask him how can he create such evil characters and he says that he humanizes them. He starts living with the characters; what they eat? What kind of music they like? Yes. Yes. You have to humanize. I already told you that I like playing with the subconscious. I am so at ease to work with Pedro. First of all, he re-enacts exactly what he wants. You have to be careful not to copy him nor imitate him too much because if not, then you look like you’re imitating Pedro. You have to take it to your turf. But, he will do what he wants you to do. Down to a T. He’s very precise. He knows what he wants. And then you’re at ease because he’s moving you around and if you slip he will say, “No, no I don’t want you standing there.” He’s also obsessed with the tone of voice. “This word is too low. Higher…; This one went too high, I want it lower…,” “This one went too low, I want it higher.” Or “You’re dropping your voice.” Obsessed. He has an ear that works for him and it’s impressive what he can do with it. I let go. I surrender to him. Anyone would. You’d be surprised… Some can’t do it because they don’t have the consciousness to process that Almodóvar is directing them. The important thing is to flow. Absolutely flow. You have to be at ease. Almodóvar is directing you. He will be precise. Really, you just got to play… We played a lot with this character because the newcomers, Adriana Ugarte (who plays the younger version of Julieta) and Daniel Grao (who plays Xoan, Julieta’s partner) had never worked with him. Before each take, he’d tell me, “Now, don’t tell them anything but when I scream ACTION! You come in expelling and shouting random things like “You don’t have a bathing suit? Well, I have a pair of old bragas that you could use.” They didn’t know what to do. Dumbfounded, they’d ask, “Is this going in?” They didn’t know what was going on! We had so much fun. Even though there was a seriousness in the character, when we were filming we had a lot of fun.”

What’s the thing you like the most about New York? It’s that thing I was telling you. That the distance between you and yourself is the shortest one. It’s great to know yourself here. No one looks at you. Everybody minds his or her business. There is a connection between you and your inner self that’s very important to know in order to evolve as a person. To get to know yourself and who you are. I almost moved here before I had my kids, moved to Paris and destiny took me somewhere else. But I almost did it with my friend Dorothy who lives here. We almost bought a townhouse. Back then they were so cheap.

Back to Julieta, it is a movie that touches your core. It leaves an emotional well. It’s hard to swallow. Three or four days after seeing it you’re getting flashbacks. It’s the kind of movie that leaves a scar. Sort of an echo… don’t you think? A few days go by and boom, another flash. I left in a state of shock. I had to drive after seeing it and I was so worried to be on the road; because the film left me a bit loopy. I was distraught.

It makes you think. The silence. The secrets. All that is dragged down due to miscommunication. But, it’s a movie that you have to let it breathe. Like in the beginning when you see that red creature and you don’t know what it is just to find out that it’s her breathing through the red nightgown. Everything goes in… smoothly. There’s no need to time stamp “three years earlier” or “two days later”. Everything flows. Time just comes in by itself.

Through her hairstyles. Well, that towel seen is marvelous. Reading that scene in the script was already a gem. I’d think, “what a beautiful transition”. You were excited by reading it. And the ending, which I can’t talk about you’re like “oh my God” A bit shaken. The way he moves the camera. You need to let it breathe…

Everyone somehow, someway sympathizes with Julieta. We’ve all gone through those moments of silence, assuming situations and changing your life in order to carry on. Or people who never speak again. It’s what Pedro would tell us in order to understand where he was coming from. Try to investigate what makes two people stop loving themselves. They stop communicating. They can’t look at themselves in the same way. They begin to have secrets. A black hole comes between them.

They say that it’s because you didn’t give the other what he or she wanted. Who knows? Each relationship is unique. I think the root (of couples separating) is misunderstandings. It’s a chain of consequences of misunderstandings and people take it personally when some things shouldn’t be a certain way. And then each one starts to victimize themselves and they start a competition of who suffers the most. Right?

And they don’t sit down to think. “Wait a minute. My partner is suffering too.” Yep. And then you can’t get close. I am dealing with things in personal life where I cannot tolerate to have my arm twisted any longer. It’s now not a question of “I don’t want to be dominated because I was once a super softy that always ended up forgiving everyone and now I am at a moment in my life where I can’t have relationships that fail me. Know what I’m saying? Even if they are family and people who I’ve loved for years I cannot give them that power any longer. It’s like “enough is enough”. Not even God can fail me now. Anything that drives you forward, yes. Everything that, as the French would say”, baton dans la rue, clipping your wings… I don’t want that.

Even if I adore you; I can’t give you that power. Sometimes if you don’t get to that point it’s like you can’t ever go back but it’s not about that. You need to seal things. Let the other know that you need your space. It’s more of a male to female dominance, patriarchal thing. I’m in another moment of my life. I finally learned to love myself. Just recently, really. To really love myself.

Me too. And now I can’t lose any of this gained momentum. I don’t want anything that fails nor hurts me. And if you have to re-enforce yourself, you do. You put on an emotional corset, tighten that shell and “nobody gonna come in there. No more, darling.” No more. That’s it. It’s a way of loving yourself without stopping to love other people; of course.

Of course. You have to learn to love yourself. Of course. I think you really have to learn to love yourself before you can really experiment love from others and let yourself be loved. If you don’t love yourself the right way, no one will. I’m sorry. It’s the truth.

And especially in an industry like this one. I’ve always been an outsider in every industry. I’m free and willing; I’m everywhere but I’m not anchored anywhere. I like that thing of not belonging. I’m not compromised to any political party. I’m an individualist and an anarchist. I cut it. I eat it. I don’t know… a little bit of freedom… Just having to answer to one person; yourself.

I’m going through a very similar process. You see yourself through what I’ve been going through. How old are you?

Thirty-three. You’re so young, that’s good! Well, look… it’s better to go through it now than when you’re my age. I’ve taken longer. But the important thing is to make it. I may be 52 but I feel like a young girl.

You need to keep your spirit young. Absolutely! Curiosity is fresh and although we’ve all suffered and everything; my innocence is still very fresh.

It’s in your eyes… …of a child. Yes, yes. I can’t stop being a little girl. When we’re children, that’s when we’re more authentic, when we really get to be our genuine selves. You can’t ever lose that. Ok?

It’s so challenging to live in a world that doesn’t want us to be our true selves. They want us like cattle; all the same. That’s why you always have to rebel.

How did you start? I mean, let’s start with my nose… Would you like some? How about a nose and a half! Although, it did help me hide that part of me that was more complex, no one could really see me and they just focused on my aesthetic.

I meant to ask you about that. Talking about my nose is cliché, but we can talk about it if you like. Beauty is so relative. What is really beautiful is nature; flowers… How can there be evil in the world when we have flowers? A thing as beautiful as flowers. Published in the February 2017 issue of Iris Covet Book. Photography by Sophy Holland | Styling by René Garza | Art Direction by Louis Liu

#rossy de palma #pedro almodovar #almodovar #chica almodovar #spain #actress #interview #iris covet book #icon #muse #sophy holland #rene garza #marc sifuentes #louis liu #miguel figueroa #miggy figgy #life #self love

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teencenterspl · 8 years ago

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All American Boys

Authors: Jason Reynolds & Brenden Keily

ABOUT: In this book co-written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Keily the #blacklivesmatter movement is confronted directly and intensely. Quinn and Rashad go to a heavily populated high school and have some acquaintances in common, but don’t float in the same circles. Rashad is a black teen trying to keep his dad off of his back about “turning out” like his older brother Spoony, who by the way is dependable, has a steady job and girlfriend in law school, but in his dad’s opinion “looks” the wrong way, i.e. dreadlocks, over-sized shirts, baggy jeans… Rashad joined the junior ROTC program at his school to appease his dad who is more than proud of his own past military and law enforcement service. Quinn is the oldest son of “Ma” who was windowed by the war in Afghanistan. After his father dies, Paul Galluzzo, the older brother of Guzzo, Quinn’s best friend, takes Quinn under his protections and tries to act as a proxy for Quinn’s father. Paul Galluzzo joins the local police force and a banal event involving Rashad, that Quinn witnesses, instantly escalates into a catastrophic situation.

Stephanie says:

Technically, this book was written in late 2015, but its theme is one that is ALWAYS relevant and should be read about, and openly discussed. Rashad and Quinn are both reasonably happy teenagers, who like many of us, would rather keep their heads low and live their lives, but they are both put in a scenario that forces them to open their eyes and see, really see, even if they can’t process or understand what it is they are witnessing. Now, they have to decide whether to be active or passive. I loved how the authors used the connections to the military as an abstract purifier, or an exonerator of antagonism. Before the #blacklivesmatter movement some viewed law enforcement in a similar manner. Reynolds and Keily force us to ask ourselves WHAT is All American and WHO is All American? This book will ask you to conjure a mental image of an “all American boy”, and you might be surprised by what your mind visualizes. I kept getting goose-bumps while I was reading this and I am getting them now as I’m writing about this extremely affecting story. I can’t recommend this book enough. You don’t need to be an activist to have insight and understanding, but the temptation will be there.

The Smell of Other People’s Houses

by Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

ABOUT: In Alaska, 1970, being a teenager here isn’t like being a teenager anywhere else. Ruth has a secret that she can’t hide forever. Dora wonders if she can ever truly escape where she comes from, even when good luck strikes. Alyce is trying to reconcile her desire to dance, with the life she’s always known on her family’s fishing boat. Hank and his brothers decide it’s safer to run away than to stay home—until one of them ends up in terrible danger. Four very different lives are about to become entangled.

Stephanie Says: I fell in love with this book when I first read the title. Smells always induce nostalgic feelings. Usually, when I read a book I don’t experience it with all my senses. This book made me feel as if I were a by-stander in all the scenes, experiencing all the smells and tactility that the characters were. I love when stories have a way of weaving the individual stories within them together displaying an impressive tapestry at the end. That is the way this book made me feel, as if I were watching beauty being created before my eyes. My mushy feelings aside, I never knew that there was so much contention about Alaska transitioning from a territory to a state. The backdrops for many characters in this story begin in 1958 when many Alaskans were fighting against statehood. This novel perfectly reminds me that struggle begets grace.

The Serpent King

By Jeff Zentner

ABOUT: Dillard Early is a very recognizable name in Forrestville, Tennessee. His father, Dillard Early, Jr. and his grandfather, Dillard Early, Sr. made quite the impression upon their small town. Dill, as he goes by, is constantly trying to avoid the stigma of his name while also completing his senior year in high school. His only two friends, Travis and Lydia have very different lives, although they still have problems of their own. Lydia, who is “internet famous” for a fashion blog she runs Dollywould is trying to reconcile the space between the two worlds she resides in: 1) the mega interesting world of young fashionistas who shop ivy league colleges and attend fashion weeks in New York and 2) Forrestville, Tennessee, where she was born and raised and her only two REAL friends, Travis and Dill, are destined to continue their lives in the sad, pathetic town that she believes they are all better than. Travis is choosing to escape the troubles of his reality by becoming completely engrossed in a book series called Bloodfall. He wears a necklace with a dragon charm and carries a staff everywhere Lydia will allow it. They all know their lives are going to change soon. How they cope with the changes approaching will determine their futures.

Stephanie says: This book really challenged some realities for me. First, I am also from a small town outside of Nashville, Tennessee, so the proximity of where this story takes place to where my hometown is caused me to devour this book. I knew all the references that were unique to Tennessee: the way he described the light on a September afternoon, or the style of homes on a rural street, or even East Nashville’s cluttered coolness. What was so affecting to me though was the way Mr. Zentner approached place and questioned how it defines you, or if it does. Dill and Travis both feel their destinies are defined by Forrestville. Lydia, on the other hand feels that Forrestville is the only thing keeping her from her destiny. I think everyone can relate to one of these two feelings, maybe both of them. Each character is trying to carry their individual burden their small town has bestowed upon them. Lydia wants more for Dill and Travis then they want for themselves, but how could she possibly know what life was really like for either of them? I absolutely LOVED this book. There are only a few books in my memory that have stuck with me so deeply. The characters in The Serpent King will embed themselves in your brain and you won’t be able to shake them.

The Last True Love Story

by Brendan Kiely

ABOUT: The point of living is learning how to love. That’s what Gpa says. To Hendrix and Corrina, both seventeen but otherwise alike only in their loneliness, that sounds like another line from a pop song that tries to promise kids that life doesn’t actually suck. Okay, so: love. Sure. The thing about Corrina—her adoptive parents are suffocating, trying to mold her into someone acceptable, predictable, like them. She’s a musician, itching for any chance to escape, become the person she really wants to be. Whoever that is. And Hendrix, he’s cool. Kind of a poet, but also kind of lost. His dad is dead and his mom is married to her job. Gpa is his only real family, but he’s fading fast from Alzheimer’s. Looking for any way to help the man who raised him, Hendrix has made Gpa an impossible promise—that he’ll get him back east to the hill where he first kissed his wife, before his illness wipes away all memory of her. One hot July night, Hendrix and Corrina decide to risk everything. They steal a car, spring Gpa from his assisted living facility, stuff Old Humper the dog into the back seat, and take off on a cross-country odyssey from LA to NY. With their parents, Gpa’s doctors, and the police all hot on their heels, Hendrix and Corrina set off to discover for themselves if what Gpa says is true—that the only stories that last are love stories. (from publisher)

Stephanie Says: If you are a music junky this book will speak to your soul; even if you aren’t the rich story that emerges from these broken characters will draw you into this story. Teddy, Gpa and Corrina are all extremely lonely. Teddy because his father is dead and his mother travels for work a lot, so he is left alone most of the time, Gpa because he has Alzheimer’s and is losing the company of his memories, and Corrina because she longs to know about her biological parents and life in Guatemala, where she was adopted from as a baby.

I love Kiely’s descriptions of the very specific places Teddy, Gpa and Corrina stopped at while trekking across America. From his detail I knew this must have been a trip Kiely himself once took. I also loved that he put two sensitive and thoughtful teenagers in the roles of caregiver for an Alzheimer’s patient. They made him feel safe and often played music from his younger life that inspired memories of his late wife.

The ending was a surprise to me and I was glad that is didn’t turn out the way I predicted. I encourage all readers to be sure to read his acknowledgements at the end.

#smith public library #wylie tx #best of 2016 #staff picks #ya books #your next great read

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dippedanddripped · 5 years ago

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Earlier this summer, Simon Porte Jacquemus brought his tenth-anniversary fashion show to the middle of a lavender field in Provence. He cheekily titled the collection “Le Coup de Soleil,” or “The Sunburn,” and sent out bottles of branded sunscreen in the invitation. A 1,600-foot-long bright-fuchsia runway was cut through rows of flowers, streaking across the groomed hillside like a neon highlighter. If you search #provence on Instagram, you will find 3.4 million photos of basically the same field, but without the hyperreal pink, which was inspired by both an iPad painting by David Hockney and the work of artists Christo and Jeanne Claude. The effect was FOMO-gasmic on social media — an enchanted image of France by an adorable young French designer who embodies the beguiling ideal of a carefree and well-tanned garçon.

Summer is at the heart of Jacquemus, the designer and his brand. As a child, he was nicknamed Mr. Sun, and this anniversary show was timed to what is still called “cruise” season. And it was you’d-better-not-be-wearing-much hot: On the day of the show, it was over 90 degrees without a cloud in the sky. Models were falling. Cell service was scarce. Same for bottled water, briefly. Celebrities like Emily Ratajkowski, editors like Emmanuelle Alt of French Vogue, and the designer’s entire extended family were all given more sunscreen and parasols upon arrival. Actually, wait a minute … Where is la grand-mère de Jacquemus? Someone forgot to pick her up. The show started about an hour late, just as the sun began to fade.

“It was really like Fyre Festival,” Jacquemus told me afterward with a laugh. “But only for, like, ten minutes.” His skin was the color of a baguette, and his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a bountiful patch of chest hair. “Everyone was like, ‘Ahhh!’ But me, I was like —” He theatrically inhaled and exhaled. “I went for a walk in the lavender.” Later that night, pizza and bottomless rosé were served, and he danced under the stars with his boyfriend, Marco Maestri, who looks rather a lot like him and is the brother of the French rugby player Yoann Maestri, half-naked star of the recent Jacquemus menswear campaign.

Better to not think too much about how this glorious heat wave was also evidence of climate change. “Sun in your face, sun in your face, sun in your face,” the designer told me, clapping his hands like a windup toy for emphasis. “I’ve been like this since the beginning. I’m not doing, like, an end-of-the-world show.”

Jacquemus, 29, was raised in the village of Mallemort — population around 6,000 — not far from here. He likes to say that his barefoot country upbringing instilled in him a sense of “naïveté.” He uses that word a lot. Even his Instagram bio — he has 1.4 million followers and was a Tumblr native before that — reads like it was written by a 10-year-old: “My name is Simon Porte Jacquemus, I love blue and white, stripes, sun, fruit, life, poetry, Marseille, and the ’80s.”

Critics sometimes roll their eyes: He’s been called both “pretentious” and a “bumpkin,” strong on pithy branding but short on craft. The Financial Times recently mulled whether Jacquemus should be better thought of as a designer or an influencer and decided maybe he’s … both, and that’s very right-now of him. Certainly, he’s a person who makes fashion for influencers, including Kylie Jenner and Hailey Bieber, formerly Hailey Baldwin. (A recent campaign was done in collaboration with the Instagram-famous artist of louche, yet somehow innocent, self-display Chloe Wise.) However much it is part of his authentic self, or just the discipline of a young man raised on the mantra of having a “personal brand,” his social-media optimism is what sets him and his clothing apart. He doesn’t take things too seriously, or seem to suffer for his art. Even in person, he’ll tell you how he’s “realizing his dreams.” How he’s “very in love.” And how his “only goal,” in work and in life, is “being ’app-ee.”

His parents were farmers — his mother specializing in carrots, his father spinach. But Jacquemus was clearly too charming, too ambitious, and too cute for the non-hashtag version of life on the farm. (He was cast in a Carambar’s-candy campaign as a kid, and Karl Lagerfeld once called him “rather pretty” on the subject of his work.) Instead, Jacquemus dreamed of glamour, obsessing over French cinema and studying copies of Italian Vogue. At the age of 8, he wrote a letter to Jean Paul Gaultier asking to be his stylist, arguing that it would make for good press. On weekends, Jacquemus sold vegetables on the side of the road. He learned to spot tourists from Paris, who were his frequent customers. It’s a lesson he’s held onto.

Soon he made his way to the city to attend the École Supérieure des Arts et Techniques de la Mode, at 18, in 2008. He quickly learned that the Parisian woman didn’t seem to enjoy herself much. “I was like, Okay, not at all,” Jacquemus remembers, scrunching his nose. “Not. At. All. They don’t have the smile. I have no interest in people who don’t have a smile.” Maybe his mission has been to change that.

A Jacquemus micro-bag. Photo: Moda Operandi/Courtesy of Jacquemus

Three days before the Jacquemus anniversary show in Provence, a gaggle of casually dressed employees could be found laughing and smoking cigarettes outside his new studio on Rue de Monceau in Paris. He moved to the new location from Canal Saint-Martin a few weeks earlier in June — coincidentally on his late mother’s birthday, which he only realized the morning of.

The door to the Jacquemus operation is a classic French blue but more teal than others on the block. I entered to find a lemon tree thriving inside the large white atrium. The secretary also had one on his desk and fondled it like a stress ball. Jacquemus was upstairs in the middle of a model fitting and excused himself to hit play on a pop-lullaby soundtrack via his iPhone. Sunlight poured in through large windows, bouncing off his gold jewelry as he gestured with his large, thick fingers. Did I mention he has blue eyes?

“I didn’t choose this location; I had a crush on the location,” he tells me with a grin. “I visited, and I saw all the little balconies and the garden, and I was like: This is not Paris.” When I ask him if the grand staircase and high ceilings give his operation gravitas, he scoffs. “No! Lightness!”

Over the past few years, Jacquemus has doubled his staff from 30 to 60. Almost everyone, he says, has remained since the beginning, including his ex-roommate, Fabien Joubert, who now serves as the brand’s commercial director. Sales have doubled every year since 2017 as well and are supposedlyon track to hit $20 million by the end of 2019.

Things are going so well that rumors of Jacquemus being acquired by a larger conglomerate, like Puig or LVMH, circulate every so often, along with theories of a secret backer. But when I ask about them, he maintains he’s still independent and is “not looking” for any investors, or for that matter looking to helm a bigger label (there was also a rumor he was being considered for Celine). It’s possible no one is knocking on his door, or he’s been passed up for other, more experienced names. But Jacquemus seems focused on keeping it in the family. “If you want to do everything sincerely, how can you leave your own building?” he asks. “It’s not about more, more, more. My generation is going to take care of themselves.” When things get stressful, he does karaoke: “Any song by Céline Dion,” he tells me.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t let his brand slip sometimes: He admits that “there’s always something melancholic about my work.” But he wouldn’t go into it.

Because Jacquemus refuses outside help, the company is still a relatively scrappy operation — one that used to fulfill orders to its 300-something global retailers “quite late within the delivery window, which commercially is not ideal,” a forgiving Moda Operandi buyer told me. Runway producer Alexandre de Betak explained that they kept the budget for his anniversary show “exceptionally small.” His team spent the weekend before clearing the wheat and lavender fields themselves, and there was “absolutely no plan B” to account for bad weather.

“If the creativity of the way we show is good enough, then it’s fine that we’re far away, at the wrong time, with a very small audience, because it will go viral,” de Betak added. “I think that’s what happened with the show in Provence.”

“There’s an expression in France, saying that you put the donkey before … Uh, no, you put the donkey after … Do you know this?” Jacquemus asks.

The cart before the horse?

Something like that. “I always think that way,” he continues. “For me, it was the ten-year anniversary, so it was important to say loudly: I have a big house, and it’s Jacquemus. It’s not anything else, and I own it. I’m here.”

The spring 2020 ready-to-wear-collection show in a lavender field in the south of France. Photo: Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images

One month into his first semester at fashion school, Jacquemus’s mother, Valérie, died in a car accident. He dropped out shortly thereafter and started his own line. Jacquemus was her maiden name. “I didn’t want to waste time,” he said later of the choice. “I wasn’t learning anything there anyway.”

Jacquemus paid a curtain-maker €100 to sew his first piece, staging a fake “protest” outside Dior on Avenue Montaigne during Paris Fashion Week for his debut show. He always had an instinct for a media stunt. “French people love striking,” he told the press. “Strike uniforms are so sexy!”

By 2012, he’d worked his way onto the official Paris Fashion Week calendar, one of the youngest designers ever to do so. His breakout show took place in a swimming pool. Critics were charmed by the “innocent,” “playful,” almost panderingly French aesthetic of his early collections. Phrases like J’AIME LA VIE were printed over pictures of sailboats. “I remember him telling me: ‘I’m a daytime designer,’ ” recalled Clara Cornet, who is now a creative director at Galeries Lafayette (where he recently opened his own lemon-themed café, Citron). “There are nighttime designers, and I am daytime.”

To fund his collections, which were minimal simply because that’s what the budget allowed, Jacquemus got a job working as a sales assistant at the Comme des Garçons store on Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Adrian Joffe, Rei Kawakubo’s partner in business and life, became a supporter, stocking the brand at Dover Street Market after only a few seasons. “He charmed me,” Joffe said in an email. “I was so impressed with his vision and his conviction.”

Working at Comme allowed Jacquemus to support himself. He also calls the experience his “real school.” To start, he learned who Kawakubo was. (Thanks, Google.) He also internalized what he calls the “Rei Kawakubo spirit,” which is “following something forever, like a line.” In other words, sticking to your guns, even if those guns spew rainbows. He also discovered that affordable products, like Comme des Garçons: Play T-shirts and wallets, can fund more “arty” endeavors. One of Jacquemus’s first hits, for example, was a simple red, white, and blue T-shirt from the fall 2014 collection. He also tried his hand at more intellectual projects, dressing women up like paper dolls, as Kawakubo did in 2012, but the results were less avant-garde and more arts-and-crafts.

Despite his connection to Joffe, and his growing circle of French “It” girls like DJ Clara 3000 and Jeanne Damas, Jacquemus still felt like an outsider. “I don’t have a lot of friends in fashion,” he says. “From the beginning, I was by myself and doing it a bit by my own rules.”

In 2015, Jacquemus won the LVMH “Special Jury Prize” for emerging talent — a stamp of approval from fashion’s ultimate insiders as well as the source of a €150,000 check and a yearlong mentorship. Because he had no formal training, his adviser, Sophie Brocart, suggested that he invest in staff members with “technical expertise” and take on the role of CEO, or face of the brand, himself. Most designers his age aren’t up for that. Even if he didn’t graduate at the top of his class from Central Saint Martins, Jacquemus did have “the right personality, vision, and charisma” to succeed, in Brocart’s opinion.

With seasoned tailors now on his team, the Jacquemus silhouette came into focus. His deconstructed suiting, for example, now looked like it was falling apart on purpose. Following a strong spring 2016 show, The Business of Fashion dubbed Jacquemus the “hottest young designer in Paris.” He was no longer “just cute or French, or a sensation,” as Jacquemus himself put it. Better yet, he was making money.

Gradually, Jacquemus evolved his aesthetic. The arty Comme des Garçons influences began being edited out. For spring 2017, he returned to the sunny, Spanish-influenced style of his youth — lace blouses, straw hats, matador shoulders, and corseted waists — inspired by the flirty theatricality of Christian Lacroix’s ’80s haute couture. The following collection imagined what it would look like if a Parisian girl fell in love with what he’d referred to as a southern “gypsy.”

After he found a photograph of his mother wearing a headscarf, ceramic earrings, and a wrap skirt, the Jacquemus woman we know today, or “La Bomba,” suddenly came to life. For starters, you could actually see her. Instead of oversize blazers, she wore droopy button-up shirts that exposed her breasts and itty-bitty, skintight knits over her long, tan legs. Spring 2018 marked a return to his roots, but instead of Charlotte Gainsbourg, his muse was his own DNA. “She was sexy,” Jacquemus told Vogue of his mother, recalling the “village beauty” who was always smiling. Pretty soon, he became known as the guy who calls his mom “sexy” — but is there anything more French than that?

Skimpy summer collections like “La Bomba” have doubled in revenue each year, but the success of that particular season also had to do with its introduction of playfully scaled accessories. To balance out gigantic straw hats the size of a Hula-Hoop, Jacquemus designed miniature leather bags, shrinking a style from the previous season down to a crossbody that measured just two and a half inches tall and four wide. “People were like, ‘Simon, it’s never going to sell; you can just put some cards and keys in it,’ ” the designer recalls. “I was like, ‘Mmm, I’m sure it’s going to sell. It’s too cute and too viral not to.’ ”

He was right. Le Chiquito was snatched up by Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Kim Kardashian at $520 a pop, and handbags now account for more than 30 percent of revenues. (Its pleasures are hard to explain, or maybe justify, but — full disclosure — I own one, and love it. Not only does it free me from the tyranny of stuff, but holding its cute little handle gives you the same pleasure zap as looking at a lavender field through a tiny phone screen.)

Le Petit Chiquito’s even-tinier spawn, Le Micro Chiquito, which debuted in February at the size of a binder clip for $258, is selling out as well, despite the fact that you can’t put anything in it. “If you don’t consider it a bag, consider it jewelry, you know?,” the designer said this summer, tossing it over his shoulder with one finger. Memes abound.

Last year, Jacquemus teased his followers with rumors of a #newjob, but the big reveal turned out to be menswear. His first collection, shown at a beach in Marseille, was a hunky answer to La Bomba. Titled Le Gadjo, which, he explained, is local slang describing a type of tourist: “He’s a bad-taste guy, but he’s cute.” Similarly, his show in the lavender field had a second level you might not notice, referencing the tourists he used to sell vegetables to when he was young, with clever cosplay of farmer chic. Models in loud floral prints sported fake tan lines and corn-on-the-cob key chains in the style of people who clumsily overcompensate for being visitors by dressing a “bit too much where they are,” as he puts it. Expect to see this look in your feed. So many people are posing naked on beaches underneath one of his La Bomba giant straw hats that the manufacturer ran out of straw.

This is his insight, his particular genius. He knows we’re all posing, hoping for a hashtag selfie in the sun.

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