#mountain pomegranate
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n32_w1150 by Biodiversity Heritage Library Via Flickr: Dissertatio botanica de Gardenia Upsaliµ :Typis Johan. Edman ...,[1780] biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48680808
#Gardenia#Rubiaceae#Smithsonian Libraries#bhl:page=48680808#dc:identifier=https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48680808#botanical garden#taxonomy:binomial=gardenia gummifera#taxonomy:binomial=gardenia spinosa#taxonomy:binomial=gardenia scandens#flickr#gardenia gummifera#Catunaregam spinosa#mountain pomegranate#gardenia scandens#Benkara scandens#Benkara
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what draws you back to your country what draws you back to your land when i was a kid i told myself if i ever left iran i'd never go back 2 years into living in the UK i started looking at news on iran again 10 years in and i visited it for the first time again and today i heard an iranian mother talk in farsi to her child on the train to london the way my mother used to and i wanted to cry i wanted to ask her whether they're still cutting the mountaintops whether the lakes are still drying today i showed the person i was with pictures of waterfalls and palaces and forests and snow-white north something odd pulls me back with increasing force i can't ignore it ever again
#i just dont know how else to tell you everything !!! santoor from a different room the large family gathering the black tea with saffron#drank out of delicate glass and gold vessels cold marble on hot nights big stars big rivers big mountains#visible from busy tehran roads the ease of conversation tension eased by sarcasm tall tall cliffsides you drive by#rushing to put on headscarves before the head teacher comes in a rave by the base of damavand massive sun pastel purple skies#disjunct architecture trucks on road sides with fresh fruits pomegranates watermelons oranges everywhere#the smell of golpar on tangerines beautiful girls in tehran holding hands bautiful boys in kermanshah speaking kurdish the janky#cars on the verge of breakdown held together by love caspian sea lighting up in spring staying up into the morning on noruz#my friends uncle sang and played setar his son played the violin a little fear a lot of love remnants of something#grand carved into the cliffside everything feels bigger taller the landscape swallows you it smells like#illegally imported wine and orange blossoms and auntie's tahchin soaking your eyes in warm tea when youre sick#tomatoes and salt concrete and stone something mandmade and something raw new flag old resilience#the anger getting to us bruised eyes big grin all i know is the north i feel sorry my mother asks if id be okay#if they got a place in tajikistan we love each other enough dont we? when we look in the mirror we see each other. theres a love letter#across the border and it says I MISS YOU IM GLAD YOURE DOING BETTER itll never be the same im not okay with it at all there are no more#stars i miss jumping over big fires i miss our fireworks im sorry we cant be happy anymore everyone#leaves the mint and rosewater and sunlight for a reason.#it's not pride it's just generational regret
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@monmuses asked: (gestures that get me going) [ GRAB ] — sender playfully squeezes some stray pudge on receiver's belly + reverse (tanith to derren :3)
IT WAS ONLY AFTER Derren began to sleep with Tanith that he had noticed just how deeply warm she could feel.
Her being a naga, of course, it was readily apparent that she would have a harder time managing her own body temperature. However, there was something else the young man noticed– whenever she did properly get warm, her bodily temperature would come to last for a decent amount of time. This proved to be an advantage whenever the two embraced and otherwise kept each other close... no less, varying levels of fervor included.
Such was among the things he noticed, as he felt his eyes blink under the sunlight glittering through the blinds, one slow spring-weekend morning.
Owing to a night of deep indulgence and passion many hours prior... the two had easily fallen asleep, worn and satisfied from their course. The resultant heat they shared was enough to make them leave their blankets over their legs (and tail), upper bodies and torsos exposed to the open air of the bedroom.
Thankfully, given that it was well into spring now, the night had cooled them both... but not by too much– just barely, such that they both remained comfortable through their sleep. As Derren blinked further, raising a hand to clear out his eyes and scratch his bare chest, he first turned to his side, noticing the sleeping form of Tanith to his left.
Alas, they hadn't taken to wearing too much... at least, not after their escapades the previous night. He had only slipped on a pair of dark, navy-blue boxers— humble and sturdy enough, he supposed. Tanith, on the other hand, was wearing something a spot more elaborate: a loose-fitting garment of two parts, with one that draped over her chest, a slight ways down her upper torso, and another skirt that covered her own underclothes. Both were made of a thin and light material, too.
Past admiring his fellow naga's choice of clothes, his gaze trailed slightly downwards. Through the swerving silhouette of her massive, curled tail, he also took notice of her bare stomach. It was showing itself above the edge of the blanket...
It was more of a belly, really— its shape was slightly plump, even shapely... not to mention, per the blush fading into his cheeks yet, the significant amount of time he had spent giving it the sweet, earnest filling it quite deserved. And how he'd kissed it with such care, that warmth to her core...
—He sighed through those fresh memories, though unlike that night, his breaths never shuddered. He chastised himself lightly, shaking his head with a gentle grin, as he turned himself over, and got closer to Tanith.
He carefully, quietly, wrapped one arm over her shoulders, his legs meeting the base of her tail. His smile remaining yet still, a breath passing over his lips, he leaned into her a bit, placing his other hand upon her stomach. He let his palm smoothly rub over its soft surface, and he even noticed that it had a bit of pudge to it— he couldn't resist. Pushing his hand inwards, he playfully squeezed at her midriff in multiple places, feeling it cushion his grip, rubbing it in circles all the more, before moving around it to her lightly-scaled hips, and then back to her belly.
...and it was still quite warm, he'd noticed. Certainly cute, that was for sure.
#//coffee and tea: ic#//mountain air: rp#//shortcake and a drink: fluff#//juice on the side: orange#//pomegranate berry napoleon: derren and tanith#monmuses#(( tum indulgence 100 today#goodness me#||3c
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@monmuses asked: 🔥 ─ have an indoor picnic by the fireplace and/or christmas tree (tanith @ derren)
IT'S CHRISTMAS TIME || finished accepting, it's january lol
OF ALL THE THINGS Derren readily appreciated about Tanith's home, its lasting warmth was among the best. Put simply, there was something about being able to enjoy the rosy comfort of such a comfortable place as hers, without having to worry so much on the bitter cold often typical of that time of year.
...and of course, one of the few other things that could make that even better was food. With that in mind, the evening held a rather pleasant surprise for the young Cavalier. Tanith had made the bright suggestion of putting a spin on their usual dinner; rather than making a singular dish, they'd try their hand multiple smaller ones, more in the style of a picnic, and take the effort to enjoy it by the fireplace.
It didn't take all too long for the meal to be prepared— between salmon steaks with mushrooms and consommé, a beautifully-baked fennel al forno, and a rather decent attempt at french toast, things were stacking up for a lengthy and deliciously-spent evening... and those were only the ones that Derren put together.
After all the dishes were set, his and Tanith's both, he got around to placing a couple more cushions behind himself before carefully sitting down and leaning right back. He could already feel his smile warming up in time with his cheeks at the sight of such delightful food, the earnest heat of the fireplace... and with a nice, big stretch to top it all off, he felt more comfortable than he had been for days. It would have been an understatement to say that relaxation was the prime objective of the evening, and even then, they'd already aced it squarely.
Getting a couple plates and utensils ready, he soon saw Tanith approach as well, an eager fanged grin clear over her own face. One would say there was naught else to do but eat... but Derren wanted to be patient with her, waiting until she reclined near him before he so much as picked up his fork.
"Goodness, Tanith... those few hours really did pay off, did they," he sighed in relief, patting her shoulder in congratulations. Passing her plate over, he glanced from dish to dish, avid but admittedly undecided. "And to see it all look so good... I think this might take us a while to get through, unless you're not opposed to leftovers, eh?"
He loosed a bit of a teasing chuckle, at that. To be fair with that, though, he knew Tanith held a bit of an appetite...
#[ coffee and tea ] // ic.#[ mountain air ] // rp.#[ leathered edge ] // derren.#//pomegranate berry napoleon: derren and tanith#//shortcake and a drink: fluff#monmuses#(( foob time :D
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[Untitled Poetry 11/10/23]
I brew tea each time I see you
I let you try the flavors you don’t have
And pour the cups you hate down the drain
I taught you how to let it steep
And how to sweeten it
Sugar, honey, whipping cream
I showed you in my way
And this is how I love you
And you don’t need to say it back
The way your glasses fog up with the first sip
Is more than enough
#poetry#poems#untitled poetry#mountain lily#Is this how I say I love you#you don't have to say it back#tea#english breakfast#Pomegranate green tea is your favorite#~izzy🧁
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#JellyBelly #JellyBellyPomegranateCosmoCocktailClassicsCocktailMixer #JellyBellyMojitoCocktailClassicsCocktailMixer #JellyBellyPinaColadaCocktailClassicsCocktailMixer #MountainDewVoodew52023ZeroSugar #ZeroSugarDrinkReview #MountainDew #MountainDewReview#FlavoredCocktailMixerReview
I mixed the Jelly Belly Pomegranate Cosmo, Mojito, Pina Colada Cocktail Classics Cocktail Mixers and these were good.
This mix tasted like a light tasting mint, pineapple, and pomegranate taste but you had to stir it.
Without stir it it just tastes like pomegranate mint.
The cocktail mixes were lightly sweet tasting.
I mixed these cocktail mixes with the Voodew 5 Zero Sugar Mountain Dew and it was pretty good.
This tasted like a light mint, pineapple, cherry flavor but the pomegranate flavor is faint at the end.
This mix was lightly fizzy in texture.
This mix was lightly sweet tasting to me but had a film on the glass from the pina colada cocktail mix since it was thicker in texture with the Mojito and Pomegranate were water like in texture.
This was lightly sweet.
I would drink this again.
I mixed these cocktail mixes with the Coca-cola and it was pretty good.
This tasted like a light mint, pineapple coconut, cola but the pomegranate flavor is faint at the end.
This mix was lightly fizzy in texture.
This mix was lightly sweet tasting to me but had a film on the glass from the pina colada cocktail mix since it was thicker in texture with the Mojito and Pomegranate were water like in texture.
This had a light cola taste and didn't taste soapy.
This was lightly sweet.
I would drink this again.
I mixed these cocktail mixes with the Sunkist Zero Sugar and it was pretty good.
This tasted like a light pomegranate, pineapple, orange but the mint flavor is faint at the end.
This mix was lightly fizzy in texture.
This mix was lightly sweet tasting to me but had a film on the glass from the pina colada cocktail mix since it was thicker in texture with the Mojito and Pomegranate were water like in texture.
This mix didn't have a soapy aftertaste.
This was lightly sweet.
I would drink this again.
I mixed this with the Minute Maid zero sugar lemonade and it was pretty good.
This was smooth in texture.
This tasted like a pineapple coconut, pomegranate, with a light mint taste at the end lemonade.
This lemonade mix didn't burn my throat or make me cough which is a good thing.
This had film on the glass from the pina colada mix.
This mix was lightly sweet to me.
I would drink this mix again.
I mixed this with the Canada Dry zero sugar ginger ale and it was pretty good.
This was smooth in texture.
This tasted like a pineapple coconut, pomegranate, with a light mint taste at the end ginger ale
This ginger ale mix was lightly fizzy.
This had film on the glass from the pina colada mix.
This mix was lightly sweet to me.
I would drink this mix again.
I mixed only the pina colada and the pomegranate since I don't have anymore mojito with the sparkling ice raspberry lemonade zero sugar.
It was pretty good.
This was smooth in texture but had film from the pina colada.
This tasted like a pineapple, pomegranate, with a light raspberry taste with a lemon at the end.
The lemonade taste wasn't burn like acid in flavor like minute maid lemonade has that makes you cough.
This lemonade mix was lightly fizzy.
This mix was lightly sweet to me.
I would drink this mix again.
I mixed only the pina colada and the pomegranate since I don't have anymore mojito with the Kroger Big K Cola zero sugar.
It was pretty good.
This was smooth in texture but had film from the pina colada.
This tasted like a pineapple, pomegranate, with a light cola at the end.
This cola mix was lightly fizzy.
This mix was lightly sweet to me.
I would drink this mix again.
#Jelly Belly#Jelly Belly Pomegranate Cosmo Cocktail Classics Cocktail Mixer#Jelly Belly Mojito Cocktail Classics Cocktail Mixer#Jelly Belly Pina Colada Cocktail Classics Cocktail Mixer#Mountain Dew Voodew 5 2023 ZeroSugar#Zero Sugar Drink Review#Mountain Dew#Mountain Dew Review#Flavored Cocktail Mixer Review
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for no particular reason, i feel like pomegranate seeds are very popular snacks in gondor
#between the mountains and the sea#i had my first Real pomegranate seeds today#(as opposed to the juice)#and 1) my kitchen looked like a murder scene#and 2) i have no idea how in the greek myths persephone only ate 4; my roommate and i were eating them by the handfuls
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Дорога попід горами. Туреччина
Далі мій шлях пролягав по долині поміж неймовірно гарними горами.
Тут в цей час квітнула ромашка.
І саме починав квітнути гранат.
Підтримати ЗСУ
#український пост#українською#український tumblr#український блог#подорож#туризм#дорога#гори#ромашка#гранат#долина#квіти#туреччина#фотографія#tourism#travel#turkey#mountains#chamomile#pomegranate#flover#photography
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WHEN IT CAME to concerns about heat, Derren also made sure to watch outside temperatures. Working at a mountain valley had its quirks, after all, between tight accessibility and decent exposure to snow and ice.
It was for that same reason, though, that he was still getting used to suburban life. No mountain-hiking gear or supplies— just him and a comfortable set of layers, between himself and the air. Yet still, knowing that things got as cool as they did out here still proved surprising to him...
"...and quite a record that is, isn't it," he nodded back. "Still— if you ever do want to find that out sometime, you'd best have a jacket on, right? At least it didn't look dangerous this morning..."
As opposed to heaters, or at least those alone, he had more than enough experience starting fires. As novel as it was to be able to camp in the forests and clearings his workplace offered him, a fire was never so adjustable. It was good to pack lotion, what with dry skin and hands amid such rough and unabated heat.
Appliances like heaters were adjustable. Fit for comfort, and more useful in a home. Though the Prongs Building had at least a couple, as did his parents' urban abode... this was different. If being close to Tanith like this was anything like what she suggested— an aura of gentle, radiating heat that fostered companionship with such ease—
...he was sure he would like it. He nestled himself a little further into her curling tail, bliss seeping through an utterly relaxed breath that yet cooled his mug of tea.
"Seeing you circled around one would look... so cute... not to mention lying back with you, just a ways from one," he answered. "We'd better pick one that looks nice, huh. I'm sure there's some that have good colors, if there's a nice price range..."
This was the only weakness she truly had when it came to nature itself. Even if she kept herself warm, the cold always seemed to slip into her skin without warning. She kept her blanket around her shoulders, rubbing her arms to keep some kind of warmth to keep her company. That, and Derren always knew how to make her feel much better.
"A world record," she chuckled. "It's the longest I've survived the autumn weather. Who knows how long I'd last when winter comes?"
Tanith always wanted a little personal heater - a space heater, specifically. It would've been so much nicer to be able to be warm like most mammals, but it was unfortunate. For now, she kept to his warmth, wanting to wrap herself up next to him for some of that love.
"I could make do with one of those space heaters," she said. "With the little handles, y'know? It'd work if it could just sit on my tail, hehe."
#[ coffee and tea ] // ic.#[ mountain air ] // rp.#[ shortcake and a drink ] // fluff.#[ leathered edge ] // derren.#[ pomegranate berry napoleon ] // derren and tanith.#monmuses#(( autumn season fluff in the middle of 102° F your honor#as requested
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bury me beneath the basswood tree
pairing: ghost/soap/reader [12k]
rating: 18+ only. minors don’t interact.
tags: non-con sex, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, size kink, forced fellatio, forced cunnilingus, impact play, brief watersports, double penetration in two holes, forced breeding, implied hybrid/shifter au
Needing time away from her humdrum life at home, she ventures into the woodland for respite. Little does she know, straying into that cabin in the woods will be the worst—or best—decision she’ll ever make. Depending on who you ask.
all my thanks to @/ohbo-ohno! thank you for being the best beta reader and sitting through my abhorrent typos <3
AO3 MIRROR
The mountain’s breadth of trees and foliage are written with prose.
It’s repetitive. Mind-numbing. She’s already passed this necrosed tree stump five times before. On the sixth circle, she treks through the undergrowth like it’s curdled milk, the tiny scythes of branches whispering against her arms and slicing her open the same way thumbs tear into oranges.
Dehydration crystallises like sediment in her mouth. It makes her bones heavy, bending against her flesh as if they’re groceries about to tear through a plastic bag. The balls of her feet are calcified, her thighs chafed. They rub against her threadbare jeans the same way a match reacts with red phosphorus to produce a flame. It burns, and so do her muscles. They feel moth-eaten and spent. Hung out to dry.
The stench of damp soil and sugar maple impairs her like an opiate. The peal of idle birdsongs grate against her ears. She’s sick of it—she’s been here for three days—and already, she’s sick of it.
She tries her phone again. It’s unresponsive, no signal. She unfurls her map but it’s mottled with rainwater and mud. Her lungs feel dry, pruney, as the dew drops slipping off fern plants seem to replicate the tears thawing in her eyes.
Evening mist hangs over the ground, and the sky turns red-bottomed as it progresses into nightfall. It’s as if the mountain is sentient. Nocturnal. Stirring from a torpor once the sun sets and awakening all that lives within it.
A sob wracks her ribs. It has the same effect of a bullet, ricocheting. She keeps moving even though she doesn’t know where she’s going. She believes that should she continue walking, nothing will be able to catch her. Not the spindly tree branches that take the shape of arms or serpentine shrubbery. She won’t give the mountain any time to fossilise her, if only she keeps moving.
Her movements are clumsy though. Her eyesight is hindered by panicked tears, turning everything shapeless and blurry. She keeps tripping and skinning her knees like the hide of a pomegranate, her flesh peeling back to show the red pulp of her innards.
It was a rashly undertaken lapse of judgement that brought her here. To a conscious mountain that lives and breathes and feels her fear. It was her heart, empty, carved out and replaced by brutal loneliness. Her friends back home are heedless and her parents are never satisfied with what she does. She figured that if none of them would listen, the woodlands would.
And listen, they did.
When she cries out, the wind howls. When she changes her direction, pivoting on her heel, the soil rumbles. She sees things—a shadow spotting her vision, not composed of matter—peeking from behind a tree trunk before quickly slipping away. She witlessly calls out, asking if anyone’s there, and is met with the forest's silent presentiment. She feels the stark pressure of piercing eyes sprawling down her dewy neck, sweeping over her body.
The longer she spends lost, the more she sinks into Appalachia.
It pulls her down like molasses. Like she’s an innocent fly trapped in glue. Soon, she knows there’s no hope. She knows her scent is written into the bark of trees—supple, sugary. A treat for whichever predator finds her first.
A brown bear, swinging its claws at her until her entrails are threadbare and striated. A snake, injecting venom in her blood. A bobcat if she’s lucky. It would be a quick death—sinking its loose jowls into either side of her neck until it snaps and she goes slack.
She’s apt to let go. She’s keen to yield to the alluring call of the woodland to let go, to fall to the forest floor and sit there until she rots. Until the roots worm into her breathing wounds and branches start growing out of her mouth. The urge to stop moving and become one with the mountain is suddenly cogent, leaves no margin of doubt. It comes with the promise of eternal respite and divine mercy. She’s about to find a cliff to jump off of, but before she can, something catches her attention.
A plume of smoke curling in the air.
Whorls of slate-grey soot thinning and disappearing into the sky. She looks for the source and follows it blindly, shouldering past pine needles and hawthorn and all but sobbing as a cabin comes into view. It’s made of wood and the tufts of wildflower that sprout from its thin fissures. It looks neglected and eaten by the elements. Its vaulted roof is stained by the off-white assault of bird droppings, discoloured by acid rain. Some of the windows look covered with dewy newspaper, but still, she knows it can’t be vacant. The smoke undulating from the chimney tells her that.
She staggers onto the porch. Her fist rasps against the door, clippings of wood burying itself into her skinned knuckles as she wildly knocks. Silence. Not even the leaves flutter against each other. Fleetingly, a stint of panic seizes her. What if nobody’s home? But she’s twisting the knob and pushing herself inside anyway, dropping her bag to the floor with a thump, stepping inside.
The cabin makes for a liminal space, smelling of sawdust and pine. There’s a layer of dust on every surface, making the air thick. All the furniture is carved from wood and a couple taxidermied deers are mantled above the stone fireplace, looking more like warnings than decoration. The pelt of a black bear is unfurled across the floor, and a few trinkets are strewn around—a bookshelf of spine-cracked novels, dead plants hanging from the ceiling beams. A mountain of used cigarettes, but strangely, no ashtray.
There’s everything but picture frames. Nothing she can use to humanise the cabin nor the people supposedly living in it.
She guides herself to the kitchen by feeling the walls. There’s a piped stove in the corner and cast iron tools hanging above the counter. Her stomach bubbles, and immediately, she starts scouring for food.
There’s three barrels by the door, and upon popping them open, the stench of brine sprays her in the face. It’s fish with a crust of salt, preserved. In the other barrel is meat buried in shelled corn, and fermented poultry in the last barrel.
It’s all raw and bloody. She steps back, gagging, turning her attention to the shelves that line the faraway wall. Jars of pickled cucumber and carrots. Garlic braids hanging from the edge. Rusty milk churns nestled in the corner.
There’s a galvanised tub full of ice on the floor. She digs through it and almost moans at the jars of jam. She untwists one, sticks her fingers in it, and wipes it clean with her tongue and teeth. It’s tart and tangy but it’s food, sticking to the walls of her stomach, satiating her. And once she starts she can’t stop. She goes back to the wall and finds a stained jar, fishing out a handful of fermented cabbage, stuffing it in her mouth, her face tightly puckering at the sharp sourness.
The juice of the food goes spilling past her lips, sluicing down her chest. It sticks to the chasm between her tits and mixes with sweat, making her shirt cling to her skin, revealing the barest outline of her nipples. She’s so engrossed in keeling over the counter and stuffing her face that she doesn’t even notice the pointed shift in atmosphere. The deer outside stopping their rutting, the trill of birds ceasing. The leaves stilling, as if holding their breaths to hide. Thick, silvery clouds nestling together and eclipsing the sun, casting a thin overcast over the woodland, darkening the already-dim surroundings.
She’s too preoccupied to recognise the tell-tale croak of the door swinging open. It’s tinny, but bullied by the sound of her smacking on marinated cabbage. She doesn’t notice the dull, throbbing footfalls. Pays no heed to the stench of blood invading her senses because she believes it’s coming from her dry, leathery lips that split open as she widens her mouth to fit the cabbage inside.
It’s only when the room darkens, a box-shaped shadow sweeping over her vision, does her blood run cold. She freezes with a handful of vegetable raised halfway to her lips, the brine rolling off a cabbage leaf like it’s an awning, dropping to the floor—drip, drip, drip—the rapid succession of shedding liquid hitting the floor sounds similar to the beating of her heart against her fickle, feeble ribs.
The saline spray in her mouth gets soaked up by her tongue, making it puffy, too big for her mouth. She turns around clemently—treating the shadow like a wild animal—no sudden movements. She goes rigid.
It can’t be human.
It’s huge. Bigger than anything she’s ever seen before. Sweeping shoulders, broad thighs. Its neck is bent uncannily because it’s too big to fit in the doorway. Its chest rises heavily like a bull.
She tries to find a face, and when she does, the blood is drained from her.
It just makes her feel… uncomfortable. Its face is the poor imitation of a human, as if someone tried drawing one from memory but scarcely failed. Failed to capture the humanity, the animation, leaving it looking like a half-convincing resemblance. Its tapetum lucidum glows yellow, burning in the thin mist of moonlight that penetrates the newspaper sticking to the windows.
It stares blankly at her. The hair on her arms stick up, a bead of sweat slices down her neck.
“I’m sorry…”
The creature raises an arm and pulls on a hanging bead-chain, tugging on the light, which is simply a naked bulb in the middle of the kitchen. The kindle is weak but does more than the delicate moonlight. Just barely illuminates its face. His face.
She tries not to let her fear show. Tries not to preen under his depthless eyes, the mean twine of his lips. His hair that seems to have been shaved too closely to his scalp, if the nicks and small cuts on the shells of his ears are anything to go by.
He grumbles an idle prusten. He rolls his elbows back—his shoulder blades unfurling like folded wings—and twists his thick neck.
“What’re you doin’ in my home?”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, her words stifled around a wad of cabbage. “I– I’ve been lost for three days. I came up for a hike but lost my way and I saw your cabin and I’m sorry, but I’m just so hungry and–”
A deep, guttural voice peals from the living room.
“Simon!” It says. “Where should I chuck the deer? It’s too big for the livin’ room.”
The aforementioned Simon, she presumes, doesn’t answer the unobserved voice. He keeps his eyes on her, face twisted into a puckered, mean mug.
A string of footsteps precede the face that appears behind Simon’s shoulder. A rounder, ruddier face. A salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes so blue they glow like bioluminescence.
Johnny acts surprised as if Simon hadn’t smelled her from miles away. Her honeyed scent roiling off of her, curling into the air and thinning between the trees. Her sweat pooling in the gusset of her panties, raw and pungent.
He’s purposely coy. It’s written into the furrow of his brows and the caper of his cupid lips but the girl is too disoriented to catch on. She looks at him and beseeches, but almost faints at the deer hanging limply over his shoulder. He holds it like it weighs nothing—a sack of sprouting potatoes.
He coos. “Who’s this?”
“Lost bird,” Simon grunts. “Found her diggin’ through our food.”
“Oh, poor lassie,” Johnny hums. More so to Simon than the girl, which makes her squirm. “She didnae mean any harm, Simon. She’s just hungry… tha’ right, lass? Are ye hurt?”
She stutters out a nod, gesturing to how her jeans cling to her knees, sun-bleached and darkened with blood. She rolls her shirt over her ribcage, showing them her wounded torso. How her skin sticks to her bones.
Johnny bristles.
“The lass needs a place to stay, Simon,” he whispers. “And she’s hurt. Bleeding.”
They talk of her as if she’s advertised merchandise in a magazine catalogue. She squirms.
Simon turns to look at her. The depression in her cheeks due to her hunger and the split skin of her mouth. The pert curve of her breasts. The desperate look in her eyes.
He grumbles, looks over his shoulder at Johnny. “I’ll start the fire. You take the deer out back and drain it ‘fore it hardens.”
“Aye,” Johnny says. He thumps away in clunky boots and a thin t-shirt and jeans. The deer sways with his gait and disappears behind the screen door when he steps outside.
She redirects her attention to Simon, who’s already looking at her. More specifically, at her pulsing neck. His jowls are slightly unfastened, his pupils blown out and eclipsing his irises.
Presentiment settles in her stomach. She blanches.
Suddenly, Simon is grunting and gripping her arm, heedless towards her whimper of fear and fleeting stint of resistance. His nails are sharp, digging sickle-shaped impressions into her arm. He drags her down the hallway and into another room—a bathroom—and tugs the flickering light on. It lacks sheen, barely illuminates the room from its moss-covered nooks to the tiled floor caked with crusted dirt.
(The lightbulb is so dull. It doesn’t reach the farthest corner of the bathroom where the radiator is placed. The radiator bathed in black, hidden beneath the lip of shadows, so she isn’t able to see the forgotten handcuff hanging limply from one of the pipes.)
Simon works his heavy body around the bathroom. He leans over the clawfoot tub—which he dwarfs—and twists open the spigot, watching as brown-coloured water slowly ripens into something clear, gushing out of the faucet. He stuffs a plastic plug into the rust-ringed drain.
He straightens back into his full height. All-encompassing, panoramic. Simon is so impossibly large that it’s a wonder he has so much muscle packed under his skin. Rustic, hard thighs. A shirt that bends against his arms, about to snap.
“Take a bath,” he commands. “Get y’rself cleaned up.”
Simon shoulders past her and ducks to exit the bathroom. There’s no door separating it from the rest of the house, but a multitude of beads hanging above the threshold to imitate one. She keeps her eyes trailed on it while she strips—peeling off her jeans, pulling her shirt over her head. Rolling down her panties and consciously hiding them beneath her other clothes.
She clutches the lip of the bathtub for leverage and dips her toes into the water. Immediately, she melts. The hot water swallows her foot and travels like a spool of thread to the rest of her, weaving itself into her wounds, licking her open like the first thaw of spring.
She submerges herself fully, bringing her knees to her chest. Her neck hoists backward and into the water, soaking all the grit and dirt knotted into her hair. It’s like plying through syrup as she lifts an arm, retrieving a homespun bar of soap, clutching it to test her grip. There’s coily hair knotted into it and sticking to the dried bubbles. She brings it up to her nose, sniffing. Hesitates before rubbing it into her skin and around her throbbing wounds.
The water idly sloshes as she cleans herself. It’s a hollow sound, amplified by the echoey room. She trails her hand below her waist, slipping her sudsy fingers between her lips and stroking, rubbing herself clean.
Beneath the tinny sounds of water surrounding her like a petticoat, something else peals out. Something like a whine. Her fingers cramp above her warm cunt and she goes taut. She turns her head to the threshold of the bathroom and nearly screams but her throat puckers before she can, blocking it, her mouth hanging open in a soundless screech instead.
It’s Johnny. He stands in the middle of the hallway, peering into the bathroom and staring at her, half-obscured by the bead curtains. He looks like a sit-and-wait predator like this—silent and unassuming, if not for his blindingly-white smile shining through the curtain like strobes of sunlight breaking past trees. He steps inside now that he’s been spotted, and that causes ice to lick her organs—she sinks her breasts below the water’s surface, squeezing her thighs together. She bristles as Johnny strides impossibly close, the lip of the tub cutting into his thighs.
He stinks of sweat and iron and wood. His t-shirt clings to his skin, darkened with deer blood, outlining the barest hint of his bulky chest.
He grins. “Brought ye some clean clothes.”
“Oh. I… thank you,” she mumbles. “You can leave it on the toilet if you don’t mind?”
Johnny sets it down. A folded flannel and a pair of sweatpants. He idles a little longer, still smiling, before leaving the bathroom. She counts the minutes in her head and tries to find the right time to leave the tub, outstretching her hand for the towel once it comes to her. But the towel is just scarcely out of reach. The terrycloth grazes her fingertips, teasing her. It’s like it was methodically placed there. Bait at the end of a fish hook to ply her out of the water and stick her ass in the air, reaching over to grip the cloth and tug it over her breasts, stepping out of the tub.
Her eyes stay locked on the crude door while she changes. She buttons the flannel up to her neck and takes heed of the pointed absence of any undergarments, slipping her legs into the gauzy sweatpants, tying them at her waist.
Johnny bursts in as if on cue. He’s still slick with blood, his mohawk odd-angled, spun-thread and matted to his head with sweat. His cheeks bulge around another grin.
“Too big for ye, is it?” He pants. “Might as well take it off. Might trip and hurt yerself again. Wouldn’t want that happenin’, right honey?”
Johnny shortens the space between them in one stride. His fingers, thick and jaded, are already fumbling around the knot she tied, pulling it out of its bow and letting the sweatpants fall, pooling into a crimp around her ankles.
The flannel is big enough to reach her thighs. Still, she clenches her fingers around the hem and tugs it lower, preening under Johnny’s smouldering gaze. It’s almost paradoxical how it works—his eyes are icy blue, yet they have the same effect as basaltic molten. Burning hot. He’s fixated on her skinned knees, gnawing on his bottom lip.
“Simon’s got the fire goin’,” he says. “Let’s go get yer wounds cleaned too, aye?”
Johnny’s walking out before she can blink. She follows after him, flustered, stumbling into the living room lit by a dulcet fire. Simon’s kneeled beside it, sticking his hand in to adjust a lopsided stock of wood, unaffected by the flames that eat away his arm hair. Johnny takes the girl by the scruff of her neck, guiding her to a hand-crafted chair placed conscientiously in front of the fireplace. He presses on her—the sensitive divot between her shoulder and her neck—and pushes her into the seat, unzipping a first-aid kit.
Johnny takes her feet and pulls them into his lap. The angle makes her flannel hitch up, exposing her bare cunt to the hot embers of the fireplace, and the equally hot embers of Simon’s prying eyes. She squeaks and covers herself, averting her gaze as Simon’s stare darkens into the colour of midnight splash hanging over the sky.
“You’ll feel a wee sting,” Johnny warns. He rips the corner off a rag and drenches it in vodka, poising it over her flayed knees. “Should probably give my hand a squeeze or somethin’, ye ken? To lessen the burn, o’ course.”
She hesitates but slips her hand around Johnny’s all-encompassing one, her fingers barely meeting whilst wrapped around his palm. She winces when the ethanol meets her wound, shooting through her veins, and tries recoiling into herself.
But the amplitude of her pain swells, and her muscles girdle.
It’s Simon’s massive hand splitting itself across her thigh that keeps her pinned to the chair. His fingers bite rivets into her skin, the pinch overriding the sting of her tissue soaking up the alcohol.
“Stay still when he tells you to,” he grumbles. “Otherwise it’ll hurt.”
She wriggles uncomfortably. Tries not to flinch when the rag meets her knees again and burns her wound. Simon’s hand doesn’t leave her thigh until he’s throwing another block of wood into the fireplace.
Johnny hums. “So, what’re you doin’ up here? Religious retreat? Mental health?”
She smacks her lips, unsure if she should answer that. She chances a glance towards Simon and bristles because for some reason, she just knows that if she lies, somehow, he’d tell.
“Um. Just stepping away from home, I suppose,” she mumbles. “Friends. Family.”
“Oh. They dinnae care about you?”
She flinches. Not because of the vodka against her skin, but Johnny’s implications.
“No,” she says. Her words are so fickle, so distorted by misery that not even she believes it. “They do care about me. I just needed space.”
He nods. Slowly, his eyebrows press together. “I don’t remember much of my family. It’s a wee bit odd. Can’t say if they liked me or not…”
Simon squeezes the back of his neck. “Enough of tha’. Pay attention.”
Johnny makes a sound like he’s humiliated. It’s only when he unrolls a spool of gauze, wrapping it around her kneecaps, is he afforded mercy when Simon changes the topic.
“Where’s the bird gonna sleep?”
“We’ve still got a cot in the root cellar, aye?” Johnny replies. “For hurricanes and tha’. Figured she wouldn’t mind it there. Wouldn’t ye, lass?”
Clemently, she shakes her head.
Simon grunts. He stands up, towering over them both. “The deer’s there, Johnny. What kind of hosts would tha’ make us? Puttin’ her up with a corpse?”
Johnny blushes as if he’s been scolded. His bottom lip curls out, petulant, a waspish colour flooding his cheeks.
“Aye…” he grumbles. “Tha’s right. The livin’ room, then?”
The girl is sitting, her head oscillating between the two men like a pendulum as they talk.
“No,” Simon says. “We’ll move the cot to our room.”
Johnny nods. He scratches his stubble, pretending to think. “It’s important we keep an eye on her wounds, too.”
“Exactly,” Simon says, petting Johnny’s head. “Smart boy.”
He clicks his tongue and Johnny shoots up, scurrying out of the living room to retrieve the aforementioned cot. Muffled sounds peal out from the root cellar below them. Johnny comes stumbling back up in mere minutes with a rickety cot fitted under his armpit and disappears into a dark room.
“Best get to sleep before it’s too late,” Simon splays his hand over the small of her back. “Y’must be tired.”
She submits to Simon’s touch, letting him guide her through the cabin and into the darkest room lit only by a lone oil lamp.
Johnny is finishing up the cot when Simon releases her. He drapes a cable-knit blanket over the surface, fluffing up a pillow. She doesn’t point out how close it is to their bed, the lip of her cot almost touching their rickety mattress.
“Fair warnin’ lass,” Johnny begins, peeling off his shirt, kittening into bed. “Simon snores quite a bit. Dinnae be feart to smack his gob if he gets too loud, aye?”
She stiffly nods. She climbs into the cot and bunches the blanket around her, making a conscious effort to hide her bare legs. Simon crawls between them, the mattress sinking with his weight, and throws their whisper-thin blanket over his legs.
Darkness penetrates the room when he blows the lamp out. The only smoulder is the silvery glow of moonlight invading the curtains and the reflective light in Simon’s eyes.
He sits up impossibly straight, staring at her like a cryptid caught on a trail cam. It causes discomfort to congeal under her flesh, but slowly, the longer she looks, a bristle of sleepiness lays hold of her. She closes her eyes and falls into limbo. Her breaths thinning into a short, even pattern.
———
She’s between the threshold of awake and sleep when she hears it.
She can’t tell if it’s a dream or the amplified sounds of Appalachia. She feels as if she’s underwater or stuck in syrup, able to hear the rushing brook of her blood against her ears but unable to distinguish the sounds around her.
There’s a grunt. And a moan. The wail of the bed next to her snapping then creasing. Heavy breathing. Sprinting hearts.
Her head is so muddled she can’t register anything. Her mind tells her that the violent slapping of skin against skin is the crack of thunder. That the strangled whimpers are the call of a cottontail.
“Right there, Johnny?” A voice asks. “Takin’ my big cock so fuckin’ well. Greedy lil’ bitch, you are.”
A long, drawn-out whine chases after it. A choked-out scream as if something hurts, succeeded by a wet squelch.
“Look at ‘er,” that voice jeers. “Think she’d take it? Better than you? Think she’d bleed all over it like– fuck… how I smelt it on her?”
The other voice—broken in, wispy—chokes on a response. It sounds a little stifled, as if speaking through something shoved in its mouth.
“No… nae better than me,” it mumbles. “Nae better than me…”
It’s like she’s drowning in purgatory. She can’t move, can’t speak. She’s caught in a phantasmagorical limbo between reality and fantasy. She can feel the serpentine hands of something with no material existence wrap around her and stain her slick with sweat, sweeping over the space between her legs, licking a wetness up her pussy.
A dewy sound peals out. It’s a predator loosening its jowls, stringy and frothy, flaying its lips to bare its teeth. A rumbling roar rips out of its throat, animalistic. She can hear the popping of teeth sinking into flesh. The dull sound of skin breaking.
“Ah!” A squeal. “Simon, tha’– it hurts.”
She feels a vortex in her belly, an ache in her clit.
It’s like she resurfaces the water. All at once, she hears clearly. It’s a lone word whispered in a guttural cadence so close that she swears it’s mumbled against the hot hull of her ear.
“Good.”
———
She wakes the next morning with her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and a damp heat between her legs.
Sunlight filters through the gauzy curtains, hitting the bed next to her. The bed is starkly empty she notes, as she crawls out of her cot and pops the stiff muscles in her back, stretching.
She pokes her head out of the bedroom and tiptoes around the cabin as if avoiding a barrage of landmines. There’s a downward force in her bladder that tells her she’s been in torpor for the better half of the morning, and a heavy crust in her eyes that shifts when she blinks. She finds her way to the bathroom and shucks the flannel over her hips, lowering herself on the toilet seat, emptying herself.
It’s the only stint of respite. The closest thing she can get to calm since losing her way in the mountain three days ago. She relishes in the idle birdsongs outside and the sound of overnight frost melting into the dew that slips off tree leaves, pitter-pattering to the ground. Listens to the stream of her pee peter out, and the ruffle of folding fabric as she tosses the flannel back over her thighs. She listens to the–
“How’d ye sleep, pretty girl?”
She flinches at the gruff voice. It’s written with sleep, barely lucid under a Scottish lilt. Her hands freeze under the running water of the tap as she watches Johnny waltz inside the bathroom, shucking his pants to his thighs and pulling out his cock, pissing in the toilet.
She’s stiff. Fixed to the cold clay tiles of the floor, unable to be bent. She tries not to let her eyes wander, tries to block out the chubby mass of muscle swinging between his legs.
“Oh…” her words are stifled by shock. “F-fine. I slept fine. Thank you again for opening your house to me.” She thinks back to last night—the whimpering, the croaking—and rashly decides to tack on, “But I did hear some weird noises. I could have been dreaming though.”
Johnny chuckles. “...Aye, it’s almost matin’ season ‘round these parts. I think you’ll be hearin’ more of that. It’s best to ignore it.”
Her body girdles when he sways his cock, shaking away the liquid on the tip. He stuffs himself back into his pants and pulls the flush, grinning.
“Bet you’re still hungry. Simon’s wrappin’ up breakfast. Let’s go.”
He pats her bum and makes her squeak. He grips the hem of her flannel and reels it around his knuckles like a leash, tugging her into the dining area—which is more of a nook nestled into the living room—and pulls out a seat.
“Hope ye fancy porridge,” Johnny chuckles. He splits his palm across the top of her head, pushing her into the chair.
She huffs and hoists her neck up, grimacing at the acrid scent of animal hide burning against the base of a cast iron pan. It takes a conscious effort to not crinkle her nose in disgust.
Simon ducks as he emerges from the kitchen threshold. He wields two bowls of food. One for her and the other for Johnny. She takes heed of how—despite his stature—Simon doesn’t have anything to eat.
However it’s a cursory thought, because she’s quickly pulling her lips into a weak smile and examining the bowl in front of her. Food is a generous word, since it looks more like coagulated milk than porridge and smells sour. Simon places a chipped plate of bacon alongside it. It’s curled because it’s overcooked, crusted with charcoal.
She swallows as Simon takes a seat next to her. Johnny, on the other side of her.
“Looks delicious,” she hums. She turns to Simon, “Are you… not eating?”
He picks an off-white tendon from his canine tooth, flicking it away.
He answers in a rigid tenor. “Don’t hurt your head over me. You eat your food.”
She marginally shrinks into herself, embarrassment licking up her spine. She feels like a chided puppy, but perhaps that’s the sentiment.
When she opens her lips and raises the spoon to her mouth, her flannel curls like a wisp of hair off her shoulder, baring her bruised albeit supple skin. She hastily pulls the sleeve back up.
She speaks around the stale porridge and her rising apprehension. “Uh, do you have my clothes from yesterday?” She asks, squirming as her sweat glues the back of her thighs to the chair, sticky. “It’s just, uh, they fit me better.”
“Oh,” Johnny blinks, “o’ course.”
She watches him stand up and slip through the backdoor. He walks towards a clothesline hitched between two trees and retrieves her clothes, returning with them tucked under his arm.
“Here ye go sweetheart,” he grins, setting them on her lap. Petting her head.
She slowly peels through her clothes. Her fingertips drag against her threadbare jeans, her overripe shirt, but never touch the sweat-imbued gauze of something more… intimate. Her maw tenses around the hot porridge.
“Where are my… um…” she lowers her voice even though it’s redundant—Johnny is leaned in close, practically huffing against her ear, sniffing her neck. “... Undergarments?”
Johnny tilts his head, puckering his lips in confusion. He’s written with the innocence of a puppy—whether it’s real or fabricated, she can’t tell. The words have begun bleeding together, blotchy and unintelligible.
“Panties, ye mean?” He laughs. “Ye never had any of those.”
She swallows thickly.
“No, I… I did. I wouldn’t go hiking without–”
“Ye must be goin’ crazy, lass,” Johnny says. “This was all you gave me. Nae panties.”
He stares at her with large, intercosmic, unassuming eyes. His gaze flickers towards Simon. It’s so fleeting that she almost misses it. The sweep of his blue irises widening, eclipsed by his pupils. She tenses. Omniscience hits her like a brick.
Her tongue goes heavy in her mouth, melting her words. The porridge turns frothy in her gut, nausea sticking to her organs and presentiment curdling in the air. She tightens her throat around a gag.
“... When can you drive me into town?”
Johnny reaches over and grips her thigh. He digs divots into her flesh like a fish hook caught in a flayed gill.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as ye want, pretty. There’s nae rush.”
She feels bile crawl up her throat.
“Oh, well, I just don’t want to overstay my welc–”
“He’s excited to play host,” Simon growls. His words are marked by firm determination, leaving no room for objection. He leans over the table, his wifebeater clinging to his muscle, his wiry chest hair pressing against the soft cotton. “We rarely get visitors ‘round here and he’ll be upset if you leave. Y’wanna make him upset?”
Finally, warnings blare like strobe lights in her mind. She fidgets in her seat, sweating, shooting a cursory glance to the backdoor. Calculating her chances of survival should she break through the mesh and make a run for it.
“O-of course not. Not after everything you’ve done for me,” she stutters, feeling a bead of sweat travel down her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for asking.”
Simon settles back in his seat. Johnny, too, frowning around his porridge.
“Good,” Simon grunts meanly. “Now shut your gob an’ eat.”
She clemently chews away at her breakfast, preening under their smouldering gazes. Throughout her polishing off her bowl, she’s reminded Simon doesn’t have one. It’s unseemly for a man so sturdy to not be eating, but as Simon’s lips peel back, sated while he watches her take her final bite, she spots a spray of red liquid washing the spire of his fang tooth, glistening in the sunlight.
“How’d you like tha’, pretty?” Johnny asks. He collapses whatever thoughts—whatever inklings—begin to seize her about Simon as he smiles and their bowls, disappearing into the kitchen.
Right away, Simon is hooking his foot behind a leg of her chair, using it to pull her closer.
He’s centimetres away from her face when he says, “How ‘bout you start pullin’ your weight?”
Her eyes flicker up to see Simon hovering over her. He’s dewy with sweat, big and burly and drifting above her like the closet-dwelling monster from everyone’s childhood.
“You’ve caused enough trouble in my home,” he continues. “Ate a lot of our produce. It’s time you make up for tha’.”
She resists the urge to snarl. She doesn’t even want to be here yet Simon is insisting she fill her role—whatever that role may be.
But as she hoists her neck up at him, she gets skittish and looks away, her tongue knotting. She knows it isn’t smart to upset Simon again. He’s a beefy man with sharp canines and vertical pupils, with more hair sprouting from his forearms than what’s considered normal. A man who expels deep tonal flutters instead of regular breaths. Who—despite his size—can’t ever be heard approaching.
So she smiles instead, asking, “What is it you need help with?”
“Floors need scrubbin’.”
He shoves a rag in her hand and holds out a bucket of sudsy water she hadn’t noticed before.
“Kitchen, livin’ room… just get to work.”
The water sloshes over the lip of the bucket when he sets it down. Simon stands to his full height and stalks out of the room, leaving her alone with her multitude of thoughts.
Slowly, she stands up. She hauls the water bucket to the middle of the living room and is starkly reminded of her strength—or lack thereof. Simon had picked the bucket up so naturally, but with the weak tendons lacing her arms, she struggles. It doesn’t help that her vision is still spotty.
She lowers to her knees, wincing at the chord of pain beneath her bandages. She awkwardly drenches the rag in the water and wrings it dry, poising herself above the floor, working the rag into the floorboards.
She tenses when Johnny walks back in. He’s behind her. Unlike with Simon, she can feel him creeping up. She can feel his eyes on the lips of her pussy where her flannel hitches up while she’s bent over, scrubbing the floors.
Her cheeks burn. She blindly reaches behind her to tug the hem down, covering her warm cunt.
Johnny chuckles. “This is wha’ Simon has you doin’ out here?”
She looks over her shoulder, her skin prickling when she sees an axe in his hand.
“We’re goin’ to the yard to chop some wood,” he says, “but I see you’re already busy bein’ our bonnie housewife.”
She stutters. That operative word, housewife, burns a hole in the snail-shaped cochlea of her ear. “No, Simon j-just asked me to. He asked me to.”
“I know, sweetie,” Johnny replies. He squats next to her and rubs her back in slow circles, trying to hike up her flannel again. “Simon’s just takin’ the piss. He’s a meanie like tha’.”
She tries shouldering him away but Johnny only holds her tighter. Simon reappears in the doorway, watching with his arms crossed.
Johnny clears his throat. “Thought we’d spend time in the yard today. Doesn’t tha’ sound sweet?”
She looks at Simon who’s already looking at her through hooded, brutish eyes. She realizes that her autonomy is divested—that she has no choice but to follow what they say because something is very, very wrong here.
Perhaps this is what the mountain had warned her of. In all of its howling and breathing, the branches gripping her and the delirium written into her psyche, maybe, it was all a warning.
She hangs her head. “Mhm… sounds great.”
She has no time to process what’s happening before he’s folding his hand into the cavity of her armpit and dragging her up and out of the door, into the backyard.
It’s more of a cleared grove than a yard. Dead tree stumps litter the small expanse, grass the colour of ripe lemons because it’s been seared down. There’s a block of wood sitting on a stump, split down the middle. Sun-bleached clothes hanging over the clothesline.
“Y’can watch here,” Johnny says, gesturing to one of the tree stumps. “We’ve got to chop wood for dinner tonight.”
He pulls her down on the makeshift seat, finally letting her go. And just as Johnny pivots, slamming the spire of the axe into the block of wood, she sees him scrunch his nose as he sniffs his hand, drinking in the sweat from her armpit. It goes up his nose and through his nasal cavity, making him quiver as if her sweat is an opiate. Disgust slams into her, sinking in her stomach and settling there like sediment. She doesn’t even notice Simon walking out of the cabin and reaching for the axe, raising it over his head, until the resounding sound of wood snapping peals out, and she’s jumping in her skin.
“No need to be feart,” Johnny laughs. “Just his usual routine.”
She watches Simon work. He looks like a beast on its hind legs like this—impossibly large and splayed out with his arms over his head, growling whenever he brings the axe down on the tree stump, splitting it in two. Sweat burns through his wifebeater and turns the fabric translucent, revealing the barest outline of his chest. His chest hairs are matted with sweat, his sinews straining with each chop of wood. His face is curled meanly into itself, his trimmed hair nicked in different places from at-home shaving and washed with sweat.
Every time he brings the axe down on the wood, expelling a guttural groan, something stirs in her. He does it with such force, such strength, it makes her wary. He fractures the wood along the grain without so much of a blink, without any stifling in his muscle.
All those horror films she watches alone—when her friends say they’re too busy to join, when they lead her on after planning a get-together that doesn’t come to fruition—finally catch up to her, sowing the thought in her head that if she stays, she’ll become the tree stump. Impotent beneath Simon’s hacking and eclipsed by his behemoth-like body.
Her missing panties. Johnny’s sticky hands. Simon’s less-than-human behaviour. It all slams into her like whiplash.
Her fear rears its head as a rashly undertaken announcement tumbling out of her mouth.
“I have to pee.”
She ignores the way Johnny perks up, as if that activated something in his brain. His ocular vein goes large, rapt, his pupils blowing out as he looks at her and then her navel where her bladder sits, suddenly grinning.
“I can come with–”
“I’ll go in the woods,” she says. “Behind a bush or something, okay?”
Simon grunts. It’s a deep prusten sound as he splits another block of wood. Johnny pouts but lets her go, watching with those imploring eyes as she disappears behind some foliage.
It’s now or never, she decides.
She makes sure she’s concealed by the flowering of a tree before speeding up her walk. She moves like an unoiled machine, rusty, as her walk ripens into a run.
She doesn’t know where she’s running. She doesn’t know how far the nearest town is or how to find the trail she lost herself on, but she knows she needs to get far away from here.
The woodland is labyrinthine. Everything looks the same. She hopes she isn’t sprinting deeper into the heart of Appalachia and straight into her new grave, but still, she doesn’t stop running. Not until her lungs wilt into themselves and turn pruney, not until her heartbeat plateaus.
It’s as if she’s working against a rip current. She feels as if a part of herself is already woven into the woodland soil, feels herself written into the rotting, wet trees. It’s like she’s treading water instead of sprinting. And it’s like a supernova has erupted in her ankle as it gets caught under a root, sending her face first into the dirt.
She reorients as quickly as she can. She raises to her feet but winces at the flaring nerves in her foot, and looks around for a stick she can use as a crutch.
But something else catches her attention.
A dog-eared paper taped to a Basswood tree. It’s been eaten by the elements, mottled, barely hanging on. She steps closer and reads the blocky letters across the front, her blood running cold in her engorged vessels.
MISSING PERSON
Fleetingly, hope seizes her, but she soon remembers nobody back home is heedful enough to report her missing, let alone realize she’s missing in the first place. Additionally, the year suggests that the flyer is three years old. Her eyes slink down, trailing over what’s still intact.
LAST SEEN: CLIFF TRAIL
$3,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION
Foreboding clings to her flesh. She quivers, her knees weakening.
FIRST NAME: J-
The tail-end of it is smeared, the ink bleeding and thinning into the paper. It’s unintelligible, so she trails her gaze lower, heeding the victim’s last name instead.
MACTAVISH.
“Sweetie!” Peals out from behind her before she can read any more. “What’re you doin’ all the way here? Had me and Simon thinkin’ ye ran away or something. Hah.”
Johnny hurries close and swallows her flinch with a tight hug. He frowns at the flyer.
“Why’re you readin’ this silly stuff?” He asks. He tears it off the tree and crumples it up, tossing it away. “That shite gives y’nightmares.”
“Johnny, I–”
“You went pee?” Johnny asks. Nearly makes her screech when he dips his hand low and cups her cunt, feeling around for any dregs of liquid. He buries his fingers unnecessarily deep between her puffy lips, blindly massaging.
“No…” he clicks his tongue. “No. You didn’t. Did ye lie to us? It dinnae matter, sweetie. Here. Do it here, pretty. I’ll wait.”
She musters whatever pluck she has left to shake her head.
However her spine is fickle. All it takes is Johnny glowering, his eyes darkening, his pout upending and curling into something meaner, to force her back into submission.
“Simon’s already angry ye pulled this stunt, sweetie,” he says. “I’m helpin’ you out.”
A tear escapes her. It rolls down her gaunt cheek like the dew that dribbles down trees. She’s quickly crying, expelling howls that burn her energy. She trembles as she squats to the forest floor and pushes pee out of her. She sniffles as she stands back up and lets the liquid sluice down her thighs.
“Good girl,” Johnny hums. “You’re so much sweeter when ye listen, ye ken?”
She sobs into her palms, her ribs so brittle they rattle together. Johnny coos vacantly at her, rubbing her all over the same way one rubs stone fruit to test their ripeness, and croons at her swelling ankle.
“See what happens when you’re naughty?” He asks, picking her up, carrying her close to his chest. “Let’s get you home, honey. These woods are no place for a bird like you.”
She hates how she curls into him. It’s her repressed underbelly fighting its way to the surface because the accumulation of neglectful family and friends has soured her, carving a chasm in her heart that forces her body to respond to Johnny’s affections. He’s a warm body for her, a pair of listening ears. It’s scraps, but it’s more than she’s ever gotten.
They make it back to the cabin in what feels like minutes. Simon’s waiting next to the door with his arms tightly crossed, his face meanly pinched. He growls like a provoked animal. He hovers like an executioner. He’s the living antonym of light at the end of the tunnel, huffing like a bull as Johnny carries her inside.
“How about you rest?” Johnny asks. He sets her down on her cot and pulls the blanket to her quivering chin, tucking her in. “Want some tea? What kind do you fancy?”
She purses her lips, trembling. Johnny sentimentally hums as if he’s sorry. As if he isn’t a part of her plight. Her piercing fear and deep-seated fatigue.
“Garden mint…” he says to himself. “I’ll be right back, bonnie.”
He disappears and returns a few minutes later with a cup dwarfed in his hand. Steam curls over the rim, thinning into the barren bedroom. He tilts it into her mouth, nursing her.
With every sip she feels herself slip more and more back into the familiar territory of limbo. Her eyelids become heavy, her cognizance slackening.
She peels her tongue off her gums to muster a whisper. It’s so weak. Barely audible.
“I wanna go… home…”
Johnny croons. He cups her cheek. “Honey, those people dinnae care about you. Not how me and Simon do. This can be your home.”
He raises the cup to her mouth again, stifling any protests on her tongue.
She hiccups around the drink, her eyes warm and wet.
That’s how she falls asleep.
With hypnotic tea invading her bloodstream, turning her eyelids heavy. Turning her helpless.
———
She wakes with a start.
It’s a crack of thunder that had stirred her, she realizes, instead of the enigmatic sounds of bed springs snapping.
The bedroom is dark and bathed in midnight light. She can barely see anything, save for the barest outline of Johnny in the bed next to her. When lightning strikes, illuminating the sky with a blinding impact crack, she’s able to see the swell of his body beneath his sheets and the shadow of his spun-thread hair. His chest rising and falling steadily.
She’s caked with sweat. Her perspiration soaks her flannel and makes it cling to her flesh, which is flared up as if she rolled in a pile of poison ivy. Her mind is so cluttered she almost folds over as she stands up, testing the grip of her toes on the wooden floor, testing her ability to balance herself.
She’s in limbo. A border space between heaven and hell, awaiting her execution. That’s how it feels as she tiptoes her way out of the room, reaching for an oil lamp, holding it out in front of her.
It’s almost worse like this. A weak flame that barely illuminates her peripheral. She fears that should she turn too fast, an aberration will materialize from the margins of her view and tear her to ribbons.
At this point, she supposes that’s a kinder fate.
She slips into a pair of large boots because she can’t find her hiking shoes anywhere. She opens the door and pokes her head out, immediately met with the spray of rainwater on her face, the wind running through her ropes of neglected hair.
Sheets of heavy rain fall from the awning, creating another divide that keeps her trapped inside the cabin. She steps onto the porch, listening for any incongruous noises. Even if there were any, they would be bullied under the assault of rainfall. She can’t hear her own thoughts like this, can’t formulate a plan to get away from here once and for all.
So of course she doesn’t hear the floorboards settle behind her. Of course, she doesn’t hear the heavy drumming of feet closing in on her.
She doesn’t heed the body behind her until Johnny is sniffing up her neck and snuffing out the oil lamp, laying hold of her in a grudging grip.
“You just dinnae listen, do you?”
He takes her by the scruff of her neck and pulls her back into the cabin, knocking the lamp out of her grip. It falls to the floor and flares into a crash, louder than the rain. Almost louder than her sprinting heart and the blood rushing to her ears.
She wrestles against his grip. “Fuck you both—you sick fucks!”
She almost vomits when her insults make Johnny moan, his cock fattening against her back in a crude Pavlovian response. Each time she struggles against him, his grip tightens. It reminds her of the mountain itself. The more she tries escaping its soporific arms, the deeper it drags her down. It’s fruitless for her to fight it—the whistle of the branches, the tight sinews of Johnny’s grip.
He swings his arm around her neck, pinning her against his chest in a headlock. Her lungs stutter and her eyes turn dewy, her deep-seated fear ripening into paralyzing terror.
A web of lightning shatters the sky, and she almost dies right there.
It’s Simon but worse. A mutation gone wrong. A changeling, perhaps. He’s squeezed inside the threshold, breathing wildly. His wifebeater is torn in different places across his body, split around tufts of fur. Fur that is matted with thick ichor, wiry and sprouting from the spot behind his ears.
Another flash of lightning ignites the cabin, revealing the shaggy coat of hair on his chest. The sheet of fat over his stomach that flutters when he puffs, growling under his breath. He clenches his jaw because he can’t clench his hands, because his thick fingers have turned into claws, sharp spires covered in gore.
Simon snarls. Blood and spit drip from his bloodied teeth as if he’s a rabid animal with a limp maw. He rolls his shoulders and cracks the cartilage in his neck, the sound pealing out so loudly, it’s more like the popping of bubble wrap in rapid succession.
She can barely see him through her tear-filled eyes. It’s the epilogue to her life as he strides in close, biting his talons into her hips and drawing out blood. A snarl of satisfaction escapes him when he smells it—her blood, sweet, albeit stale due to her dehydration.
“Anyone ever told you you’re an ungrateful mutt?” He growls. “I give you food to eat an’ clothes on your back but here you are, tryin’ to sod off.”
Her cheeks dimple when he grabs her jaw. She opens her mouth to protest, but her grievances get smothered beneath Simon’s claws. He stuffs his fingers down her mouth, stunting her complaints. She gags and coughs around the taste of metal and mire crusted under his claws, bile shooting up her throat.
“Dogs don’t talk,” he tuts.
He hoists his arm back and she puckers, preparing for an attack. However, instead of her cheek, Simon’s hand slices against her shirt. He tears her flannel into ribbons, making the fabric slide off her like water from a milk bath.
She stands naked, her skin pocked with fear. She shivers despite being pressed between Simon’s furry chest and Johnny’s warm arms.
“‘Bout time someone taught you some manners,” Simon mumbles. “I was in the middle of my dinner you know? Fuckin’ rude to interrupt.”
She blanches when she sees a limp coyote behind him, splayed out on the porch. She recognizes it as the orpiment-coloured fur to the hair flossed between Simon’s teeth.
She screams as he wrestles her from Johnny’s grip, pulling her towards the bedroom. Simon throws her onto the stiff mattress, her spine shuddering from the impact. She tries covering herself, tries wrapping her arms around her body, but Simon is having none of that.
He pounces, taking her hips and pinning them to the bed. He hovers over her, rainwater dripping from his broken nose, impossibly large as he makes up her whole world. Simon swallows her entire view, leaving her with no chances of escape.
Her gaze flutters down to the chub outlined by his sweatpants and decides she’s left with no chances of survival, either.
She flails her legs as Simon slithers low, flattening his nose against her cunt. She lets out a protracted cry as he hitches his lungs and inhales, breathing in the musk of her bare cunt. The sweat stuck between her fuzzy hair, the sticky arousal that spreads as he forces her legs open.
Simon hisses. It rides the ruck of his throat, expelled from his nose. It’s not in any capacity a human sound. It seems more like a bear flaring its nostrils, poised for attack.
Johnny notices the confusion between her eyebrows because he’s leaning in and murmuring against the shell of her ear, licking it.
“Remember wha’ I said about matin’ season, kitty?”
Johnny leans away, leaving it at that. Equivocal and cryptic and calcified into the furrows of her brain. She isn’t allowed to wade in her confusion though because Simon’s tongue is lolling out, sweeping a fat stripe over her pussy.
It’s like the first thaw of spring. Simon licks her open, spreads her out on his tongue. She can’t help the immediate warmth that courses through her, swathing her in silk.
She cries out. Her back bends off the mattress when Simon pulls her lips into his mouth to suck.
She looks to Johnny for help. She twists herself and tries reaching out, tries crawling off the mattress, but Simon is gripping her ankle and popping the gauze of her bandage with his claws, pulling her back down, wrapping his lips around her engorged clit.
Johnny’s face doesn’t show contrition, but is pinched in jealousy. He watches with a fat mass growing in his sweatpants.
She splits her hand over Simon’s shaved head, using the cauliflowered shell of his ear to try pulling him off of her. That only makes him growl, the vibrations quavering up her spine, his claws digging into her flesh.
She folds her arms over her face, sobbing. Simon’s tongue is wet and hot against her pussy, lapping between her soft folds, slurping her juices. She flushes at how wet she is. At how pleasure leaks through the cracks in her resolve and spreads all over her, reducing her to a panting mess.
Simon releases her clit with a pop. He raises to his knees, towering over her, and now she’s unsure if his glistening chin is because of the rainwater outside or her arousal.
“Hold her down, Johnny.”
Her heart drums against her chest. Johnny crawls onto the bed and kneels behind her head. He pins her wrists down with his kneecaps, keeping her from squirming.
“Will ye let me put my cock in ‘er mouth?” Johnny asks. “Simon, will you–”
“Shut it,” Simon snaps. He shoves down his sweatpants, his cock springing out. All of her nerves bristle like rope, her heart sputtering to a stop.
Simon’s cock is fat and heavy. It droops between his thighs, drooling with precum. It’s stiff but hangs because he’s so large, the engorged tip angling downward, his balls plump, ruddy.
He chokes his hand around it, tugging it. Her throat closes in on itself but her legs instinctively peel apart. Her puffy lips spread open and she flushes at the sticky sound, hoisting her neck back to look at Johnny.
He has his cock out too, pumping it. He grins when they lock eyes and smacks his dick against her cheek. Johnny presses his cockhead into the corner of her mouth, using it to tilt her lips into a repugnant curl. It’s reminiscent of a smile, but it isn’t one.
She wails.
They both make up her beginning and end. They trap her between themselves, leaving her with no escape. Simon at her feet, Johnny at her head. Each of the men are more intimidating than the other, both inspiring fear in her feeble heart. Both inspiring unwanted arousal between her legs.
Simon slaps his flaring tip against her clit. She mewls and hates herself for bucking her hips into him. She’s dew-skinned as Simon pushes her knees to her ears, thumbing her clit.
He deeply inhales.
His chest expands, tugging at the steel-wool hair felted against his big chest. He quivers as he expels his breath, his mating call, and finally feeds her his cock, pushing past her first ring of muscle.
Her body tries curling in on itself like a Venus flytrap, but Johnny is quicker. He bites his fingers into her wrists and pins her to the mattress, keeping her still while Simon stuffs himself deeper. Johnny kisses her tears away while he does it. It’s oxymoronic and it’s betrayal—a Judas kiss—while he wraps his lips around sweet encouragement against her cheeks.
“Got so much fight in ye, sweetie,” he whispers. “Just stop strugglin’ and it’ll feel good.”
Simon leans over her, his cock slipping deeper into her warm cunt. The blood and saliva from his maw drips onto her chest, the blood is so fresh there’s still steam, hitting her like scythes.
Johnny’s getting restless. He watches raptly as Simon starts slamming his hips into her. Johnny ruts against the chafe of her brittle hair and hopes it will give him satisfaction by proxy, but it does little to offset the ache in his balls. His lip warbles.
“Simon, please,” a voice crack, “can I put my cock in ‘er mouth?”
“Fine,” Simon growls. His hips are piston-paced against the girl’s skin, unrelenting and uncaring to how her nails scratch striated lines down his chest in her struggle. “Just stop interruptin’ us.”
Her jaw cramps when Johnny cups her chin. He puppets it open and forces his fingers down. They’re caked with dirt as he swirls them over her tongue, coaxing up the warm spit from the furrow of her throat to be used as a natural lube.
The only mercy she gets is the stint of time between Johnny pulling his fingers out and gripping his dick, laying it on her tongue. He forces her lips apart with the tip of his cock, smearing himself all over her.
“So pretty like this sweetheart,” he hums. “Simon smelt it on ye. Hundreds of klicks away. How sweet y’are.”
She doesn’t have the energy to decipher that. Most of it is being wrung on trying to fight the two men off, but it’s fruitless. Johnny is already slipping into her mouth, and her cunt is already stretched around Simon’s plump cock.
Johnny starts pumping in and out, his cock embroidering a burn in the hinges of her jaw.
She lies there limply, but as Johnny’s wiry hair meets her nose, she realizes there’s one thing she can do. In her thrashing, she undertakes the lapse of judgement to clamp her teeth together, sinking them into Johnny.
He yells and pulls himself out. Johnny wraps a hand around himself, squeezing, placating the sting. A warm wash of tears twine his eyelashes together, long and babydoll-like. He looks to Simon, preening, imploring.
“She bit me.”
Simon slows his hips, only scarcely so. Only enough for her to fill her lungs halfway before he’s dragging himself out agonizingly slow, burying himself back inside.
His eyes, hungry, flutter down to her. His lips wind back, revealing his sharp fangs. He snickers.
“Now you’ve pissed him off, hm? Dumb girl. This is why puppies need owners.”
He pinches her clit, softly tweaking it between the pads of his fingers. He looks at Johnny and condescendingly smirks.
“C’mere, boy. If she won’t suck you off, why not take a go at her other hole?”
She tenses. Fear washes over her like a rip current, all the way down to her ass that squeezes in protest. Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly. She can’t even see Johnny’s blinding grin through her cloudy eyes as brine tracks down her cheeks, mixing with her sweat.
She whimpers. “No–“
A palm whistles through the air, exploding into a crack of thunder as it breaks against the skin of her cheek.
She lapses into silence. Little hiccups escape her while she peers up at Simon, sniffling.
“Yes,” he says.
He grips her by her hips and flips her over. This way, Simon’s on his back and she’s on top of him, his cock digging deeper. The position is etched with a degree of intimacy that causes heat to pool in her belly—she can feel his hot breath fanning over her face, she can see his feline-like eyes better.
She almost jumps out of her skin when Johnny presses his fingers into her ass, trying to break her in. He thumbs at the puckered muscle, chuckling when it tries squirming away from him.
“Cute little thing,” he says. “She ever been fucked?”
The way she sobs when Johnny forces his forefinger inside gives him his answer. He almost comes right there. At the sound of her slick lubing her up, at the sound of her being torn open like a stone fruit and her pitiful cries for mercy.
“Stop…”
“Stop?” Johnny repeats, “Sweetie, if I stop it’ll hurt when I fuck you. Ye need prep, silly.”
That only wracks her ribs harder. The patrionizing lilt in his voice, the way he pats her bum like she’s nothing but a dumb puppy. Johnny sinks another finger in, knuckle-deep, and curls himself into the walls of her ass, massaging it.
Simon starts thrusting again. He takes one of her tits in his mouth and tongues at her nipple, snapping his hips into her. It only adds more pressure to her other hole, the one being fingered open by Johnny.
“Y’think she’s ready, sweetie?” Johnny asks. He slaps his cock against her hole, teasing her. “I think she’s fuckin’ hungry. Look at ‘er winkin’ back at me.”
Johnny collects the saliva moulded into his gums and sputters out a wad of spit, wetting her tight asshole. He presses his cockhead against her opening, pushing himself inside.
She buckles, doubling over. Her cheek falls on Simon’s chest, chafing against his coarse hair. She’s never felt so full. Folded between the men and being fed two big cocks, left with no space to breathe. She isn’t given respite. No mercy. No time for her to stretch around their cocks.
Johnny splits his hand across the divot where her spine begins and shoves her into Simon. Her jaw hangs loose, her lips parted dumbly, her drool trickling onto Simon’s chest. She’s limp. Letting them have her way with her. Letting them brand her with their fingers digging sickle-shaped scratches into her skin. Letting them break her open with each of their jackhammering thrusts, letting their pants of encouragement and degradation swirl around her like whistles from the woodland, causing goosebumps to arise and her head to pound.
“Do ye feel it, Simon?” Johnny pants. “Is it comin’ on?”
His words sprawl by like a lazy river in her mind. Desultory, like lukewarm water. They don’t click into the empty chasm of her cognizance until something else happens. Something inhuman. Something that has her choking on the raw bile that scratches her throat and the spit coaxed into the rivets of her tongue by Johnny’s assaulting fingers.
Simon’s ramming gets shaved into stunted thrusts. It isn’t due to a loss of energy, but is due to something else keeping him from slipping out. A balloon pushing against the walls of her pussy, swelling inside her. It isn’t fat but is chubby enough for her to feel it, flutter around it.
The knot snarled into Simon’s cock plugs her up. She can’t pull herself off him because it’s puffed up past her cunt, keeping her stuck on top of him. It doesn’t help that Johnny keeps slamming his hips into her, riling the thin skin that separates her cunt from her ass, bending it to the shape of Simon’s cock.
Johnny gasps. “I’m close– shite, I’m close.”
She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is too. She feels her nerves begin to fray at their edges, her stomach wearing thin. Johnny slips his hand low and blindly sweeps at her clit, nibbling on the husk of her ear.
He only gets three more pumps in until he’s emptying his balls in her ass. He grabs her hair when he comes, puppetting her head back so her mouth falls open and he can spit inside. His thrusts are slow and deep and peter into something calm, his cock softening inside her. Johnny grins.
“Say thank you, kitty.”
It crosses her tongue as an unintelligible mumble. She can’t speak properly with Simon’s cock still in her.
Johnny chuckles at that. He wraps his arms around her and pinches her nipples. Twisting them, pulling them.
Simon’s so big beneath her, lounging like a bear. He fucks into her, his thrusts curtailing into sloppy snaps of his hips.
“He’s close, bonnie,” Johnny says. “Kiss ‘im when he comes. It’s what he likes.”
Finally, Simon’s knot unravels, his thick ropes of come sticking to her walls. He makes sure that the warm come dressing her is so deep, it’ll have no choice but to take.
Her body betrays her when it crests and crashes into her orgasm. She’s flashbanged with blinding light, gushing out an off-white liquid that coats Simon’s thighs. It seizes her so deeply it hurts, the panoramic pleasure. An orgasm that makes her brain melt, makes her feel otherworldly.
Belatedly, she remembers Johnny’s order. She leans down to kiss Simon, her lips leathery against his. She only wants a modest peck—something to sate Johnny—but she can’t pull away because her bottom lip is caught between Simon’s teeth, pinched, and being sapped of its blood.
He laps it up before letting her go.
He slips his softening cock out but keeps his come inside her with two fingers, his claws having retracted.
He huffs like a bull. He presses his heavy paw into her abused cunt, palming it. He reeks with a carnal musk, the aftertaste of his rut heavy in the air.
Suddenly, it all makes sense to her.
Simon is the crux of all cautionary tales. The mountains aren’t sworn off because of rabid raccoons or feral fishers but because of something eldritch, whose reputation and folklore precedes any proof of its existence. Whatever Simon is, it can’t be put into words or into anything material, so he’s condensed into the urban legends that have haunted the woods for centuries. The stories that keep hikers off needle-covered paths and unmarked trees and make them carry crucifixes in lieu of bear spray.
She doesn’t even realize she’s softly sobbing. It feels like that’s all she does these days.
Johnny hugs her as if he hadn’t taken a part of her dignity.
He kisses her, kittening into her so that Simon is able to wrap his arms around them both, hugging them.
The calm that lolls after the storm only bruises her further. They act so normal after they’ve stripped her of everything. Johnny massaging her thighs, Simon igniting a cigarette between his lips.
“Will you ever let me go?” She mumbles against Simon’s chest.
He exhales the smoke. “Go where, love? You came into my house, remember?”
Johnny won’t stop kissing her. He’s a pest that’s attached itself to her dewy flesh, trying to lick her clean. Simon curls his fingers in her and makes sure that’s where his come stays.
Simon takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not like anyone back home would miss you, anyhow.”
———
She watches with a smile on her face as Johnny roasts the flank of a moose on a homemade grill and as Simon chops some more firewood.
She lounges in a chair, swathed in her caribou-hide coat. Winter is at its height, laying a skin of pillowy snow across the mountain.
The cubs wriggle in her lap, pawing at the loose tendrils of her hair and trying to pinch her nose.
“Lookin’ so pretty today, mama,” Johnny hums. She giggles when he kisses her, scratching at the cubs’ bellies.
“Ain’t she bonnie?” Johnny turns around and prompts Simon, “Our wee looker.”
Simon pauses his wood chopping and nods. He grips the hem of his lumberman’s jacket and raises it to his forehead to wipe his sweat away, revealing his chest and his hair that disappears into the waistband of his jeans. The cubs yip when he resumes his chopping, splitting a tree stump in two.
She grins.
She loves her family. Her providers and the offspring of their seed. She loves the cubs’ fine hair rubbing against her cheek when they jump on the bed to wake them up in the mornings, their blunt fangs biting her when they’re hungry, and the tiny chines on their back where their sharp spine will eventually grow in, just like Simon’s.
Briefly, she tries to remember her other family. The one that came before this one. But all that encompasses her mind is a supermassive black hole in place of memories. For some reason she can’t delineate them. The face of her father is blurry and the features of her mother fit together like a crudely sewn patchwork quilt.
She doesn’t remember much of her family. It’s kind of weird. She can’t remember if they liked her or not.
But she knows that doesn’t matter. Not when she has doting men around her and their litter hanging off her hips, another one currently swelling under her belly.
She pays no heed to the missing person posters taped to the fringes of the mountain that look eerily similar to her. Not to the K-9’s that try tracking scents but fail because she’s written with Simon and Johnny’s musk. She ignores the odd helicopter passing through each month, scarcely flying past their ramshackle cabin.
None of it matters because she knows she’s where she needs to be.
#simon riley x reader#ghost x reader#cod x reader#johnny mactavish x reader#soap/reader#soap mactavish x reader#soapghost x reader#ghost/reader#simon ghost riley#simon riley#cod mw2#simon ghost x reader#soap x reader#ghoap x reader#orion writing#soap writing#ghost writing#ghoap writing
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Breakfast of champions at the city library.
#energy drink#energy drinks#5 hour energy#mountain dew#mtn dew energy#pomegranate blue burst#cherry lime lift
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@monmuses, continued from here.
Derren could feel a sunny grin alight upon his face, though seeing his fellow lamia get all flustered made him feel a little heat in his cheeks, too. Even then, he dared not deny that there was beauty to be found in a smile as clear as the ones she could carry.
"W-Well, it's nice to see you be able to show off your good mood, isn't it? And, I mean... it's not like I mind seeing your fangs in there. I'd argue they're c– cuter, that way..."
Welp, time for him to become another blushing mess. Commence a nervous chuckle, no less shared with Tanith.
#[ coffee and tea ] // ic.#[ mountain air ] // rp.#[ leathered edge ] // derren.#//pomegranate berry napoleon: derren and tanith#monmuses#(( WAIT#THIS IS THE 2000th POST??#H UH
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As a kid in Hebrew School, I learned that my classmates would have apples and honey and round challah at Rosh Hashanah to bring in the New Year, and that was pretty much it when it came to food traditions. But at home, it was a different story.
As an Iranian Jew, Rosh Hashanah was an elaborate affair. We’d gather the extended family together for the first two nights of the holiday, the first at my parents’ house, the second at my aunt’s. Dining tables, coffee tables, and folding tables would be lined up to make one long dinner table, covered with tablecloths to accommodate a good 20 or so family members. The table would be spread with platter after platter: mountains of saffron-laced basmati rice, crispy tahdig, and flavorful stews — maybe a deep green stew of celery and lots of herbs, or a tomato-based eggplant stew, tangy with unripe grapes.
But before dinner, we’d (mostly) pause the loud chatter — a lively mix of Persian and English — for a full Sephardic Rosh Hashanah seder. Yes, there were apples and honey. But we’d also have dates, beets, pomegranate seeds, slow-cooked black-eyed peas and beef tongue, Persian leeks, and fried zucchini, each with a symbolic meaning and a blessing for the coming year.
This date upside-down cake takes the dates from my family’s Rosh Hashanah seder and pairs them with the two fragrant ingredients found in so many Persian sweets: cardamom and rosewater. The cake’s batter uses buttermilk for a bit of tang and goes easy on the sugar to provide some balance for the topping: a super sweet combination of velvety dates in a rich butter caramel. It’s a moist and aromatic dessert that pairs perfectly with a glass of amber-colored Persian tea.
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Illumi’s s/o gets an abortion while she was on the run. After being locked up for long, when she found her chance to escape, she took it. She was forced into this by Illumi, she doesn’t want to be a mother. What she didn’t know was his family prized those in having coloring like Silva & Killua. Illumi finds out by chance, that the abortion took that away from him, and his family.
Yes.
Warnings: dark content, past rape, future rape, abuse, mentions of child abuse, abortion, forced pregnancy
/|\^._.^/|\ /|\^._.^/|\ /|\^._.^/|\ /|\^._.^/|\ /|\^._.^/|\ /|\^._.^/|\
He’s pissed when you run away, how dare you? You think you can get away from him after all he’s don’t for you, making sure you fed, clothed, bathed and dry at all times?
He is even more mad you ran away with his soon to be heir, it doesn’t matter to him he had to force himself on you to conceive it, it just matters he’s gonna have one
So when he finds you no longer pregnant and with no baby in sight, he just about beats the life out of you for what you’ve done
He drags you back to the mountain his family’s manor is on talking about how he hopes it was worth it because you’ll never see the light of day again and how he can just fuck another baby into you the whole way there
He brings you all the way to the basement and throws you in one of the rooms they use for prisoners and traitors which you now are
Your gonna get beat and starved for a few days before he jumps on the task of getting you pregnant again
©rotten-pomegranate- All rights reserved, don’t steal, translate, copy, plagiarize, claim my work as your own or post it on other platforms.
#hxh#hunter x hunter#illumi x you#illumi x reader smut#illumi is everything#illumi headcanons#illumi x reader#hxh illumi#illumi hxh#yandere illumi#illumi zoldyck#illumi#illumi x reader breeding#yandere illumi x pregnant reader#illumi x pregnant reader
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Facts about Greek Myths?
There are a great many figures in Greek myth and they can be hard to keep track of, so here is a quick guide to which is which:
Ajax- Warrior who invented detergent.
Antigone- Funeral enthusiast who invented civil disobedience.
Atlas- First winner of the Olympic strong titan competition.
Bellerophon- Plot point in Mission Impossible 2.
Cerberus- 7 headed dog tragically born with only 3 heads.
Charon- Lead rower for Styx.
Cratus- God of strength, but not THAT god of strength.
Cyclops- Inventor of the monocle.
Daedalus- Inventor of the Labyrinth, and thus of David Bowie.
Dionysus- Drank 24/7 but very responsibly never drove.
Eris- Goddess of fighting with each other.
Eros- God of doing something else with each other.
Euronymous- God of Mayhem.
Fates- Least creatively named destiny gods ever.
Hera- Goddess of marriage yet only Zeus's third wife.
Hylia- Goddess of triangles and disjointed timelines.
Icarus- God of disappointing ones father.
Io- Space captain and epic 3D short film, still not on blu-ray.
Jocasta- Originator of Jo Mama jokes, mother of Oedipus.
Leda- Swan enthusiast and feathery-fandom originator.
Medea- Even worse mom than Jocasta.
Medusa- Inventor of reptile-safe shampoo.
Megaclite- LOL her name is "Megaclite." Pronounced like "Clitty."
Narcissus- Basically Trump.
Odysseus- Sailor who refused to ask for directions.
Orpheus- Inventor of impatiently checking the download bar.
Ouranos- Spelling that could've avoided a lot of planet butt jokes.
Pallas- Inventor of weird looking cats.
Persephone- Pomegranate fan, looked like Monica Bellucci.
Prometheus- Stupid fucking movie, especially for using some of H.R. Giger's original designs then putting them up next to a fucking plain white squid. Also let's make the space jockey a tall guy in a suit. How did Scott think that was a good idea? Fuck that shit and double fuck Covenant for somehow doing even fucking worse.
Rhode- Sea nymph yet not technically an island.
Siren- Inverse groupie.
Sisyphus- Limp Biscuit fan who never stopped rolling.
Tantalus- I'll tell you in a minute...
Thanatos- God of dying as easily as snapping your fingers.
Zeus- When the earth was still flat and the clouds made of fire, and mountains stretched up to the sky, sometimes higher- Folks roamed the earth like big rolling kegs. They had two sets of arms, they had two sets of legs. They had two faces peering out of one giant head so they could watch all around them as they talked and they read. And they never knew nothing of love. It was before the origin of love. There were three sexes then: One that looked like two men glued up back to back, called the children of the sun. Similar in shape and girth were the children of the earth. They looked like two girls rolled up in one. The children of the moon were like a fork shoved on a spoon, they were part sun, part earth- Part daughter, part son. Now the gods grew quite scared of our strength and defiance and Thor said, "I'm gonna kill them all with my hammer, like I killed the giants." And Zeus said, "No, you better let me use my lightening like scissors, like I cut the legs off the whales, and dinosaurs into lizards." Then he grabbed up some bolts and he let out a laugh, and said, "I'll split them right down the middle. Gonna cut them right up in half." And then storm clouds gathered above into great balls of fire, and fire shot down from the sky in bolts like shining blades of a knife and it ripped right through the flesh of the children of the sun and the moon and the earth. If you want the rest, see Hedwig and the Angry Inch cuz this is taking way longer to type than I expected.
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