#plus I’m getting my period so I feel sore

[king-mera]

Frustrated rn but there’s nothing I can do

[bittersw33t-lotus]

Surprise

Ghosting pt. 1

Simon “Ghost” Riley x Fem! Reader

Cw: swearing, unplanned pregnancy, mentions of abortion, angst, arguments, abandonment, younger Simon, story takes place when he’s 25 and you’re 23.

Part 2 here

“kids?”

“What about them?”

“Would you ever want any?”

It was yours and Simon your one year anniversary. It was nothing special, just some takeout and card games with a movie playing in the back. You don’t know how the conversation of your futures came to be but you both knew it had to be said at some point in your relationship. You asked what Simon planned to do once he got older and retired from the military. He asked you questions about your plans as you grew older. That’s when you decided to be the one to bring up the very question that tends to either strain or strengthen a relation, children.

“No. Hard pass. I don’t do well with them nor do I want any of my own.” He never meant to say it with such a rude tone but It didn’t bother you much. You knew that there was a deeper reason why with the way his brows furrowed and the tension in the shoulders. You wanted him to elaborate more but you decided against it.

“Yeah I’m not too keen on children. At least right now anyways.” You said placing down your card on the table as Simon continued to examine his cards to find a way to defeat you. He looked at you as you spoke your last words as you kept your eyes on your cards. You liked kids to a certain extent and wouldn’t mind one later on in your life as you settle down or just none at all. You tried not to let Simons words get to you, since you don’t mind a childless life, as long as you had Simon by your side, but sometimes there would be days where you felt lonely without Simon when he’s deployed to his job. There’s also days where you fear he’ll never come back home and you’d be left with nothing to remember him by but memories, pictures and his possessions. A kid would be something that not only would be a piece of him that breathes and moves but they would be the physical embodiment of yours and Simons’ love, something that would keep you two tied to each other.

As nice as a child with Simon would be, you respected his wishes and you would have to come to terms with it. It’ll just be you and Simon, growing old together in a little house on the far side of town where no one can bother you and it’ll just be you, your grumpy (eventual) husband and your animals to keep you company. Yeah, you could live with that.

Hopefully, if he doesn’t die on the job…

“It’ll just be the two of us and a bunch of animals.”

That’s how you’d thought it be. Until it wasn’t.

You sat there on your bed holding the white stick in your hand. The pink plus sign was burning your eyes. You could feel your stomach churning. What the hell were you gonna do? You were panicking. You had been throwing up the past few days, Simon suggested you’d go see a doctor worried you ate something bad or caught some stomach bug but you refused and said you’d be fine thinking it go away within a few days however more things surfaced on your body that caught your attention. You breast grew a cup bigger and felt sore as hell, you assumed it was due to your period, it was due to arrive in a week anyway but you still found it abnormal that your breast swelled up so much. When the week passed you figured it was delayed due to your little stomach bug but another week passed. That’s when the thoughts hit you. You couldn’t be right? There’s no way you could be pregnant. You and Simon were always careful.

That same day of realization you went to the drug store just to be sure. You brought three sticks and each one came out with the same pink plus sign appearing on the little box. What the hell were you gonna do? How were you going to tell Simon? Maybe you don’t. You can just get an abortion and get it over with. Well, maybe it’s best if you tell him either way. But the more you thought about the baby, the more harder it seemed for you to think about getting rid of it.

You never really made your decision on not having kids, you figured that when it happens it happens, but what about now? Simon doesn’t want a baby, but you’re pregnant with the child you created with the love of your life, Yours and Simons baby…

Tears prick your eyes as you stared at the stick. What are you going to do?

Simon was out drinking with his ‘comrades’ so you had some time to yourself before he came back. You needed to plan a time when you’d tell him. But you were beyond terrified. You know having this baby was putting your relationship with Simon at risk. But this was just as much of his doing as yours, but at the same time, your IUD should’ve prevented this from happening.

You tired to gain the courage in the past couple days since you’ve found out, to tell him but you never could. For days Simon could tell something was bothering you, and it wasn’t the sickness you had. It was something that was clouding your mind. He could see in your eyes that something was troubling you.

Simon had just returned to home from the bar, feeling dreadful about having to be deployed once again here in a couple of days, he doesn’t want to leave you. He hates it, he hated leaving you here all alone, he can’t be there to protect you, hold you and love you but his job makes it worth it if it means you get everything you deserve. Even if he isn’t around for long periods at a time.

As he walks into the house you greet him with a smile, he’s a little tipsy but just barely since he still had to drive home, he did enjoy his time with Price, Soap and Gaz though. Even if he didn’t outright admit it.

“How’d it go?” You asked him as you approach him with a small smile. You’re too nervous to give him his usual greeting kiss which made Simon’s suspicions of your worry confirmed.

“It was fine, not too shabby and the boys were okay as usual. I need to ask you something.” He said glancing your direction aa he looks into your eyes like he’s trying to read your mind, he cups your face gently as he approached you. He saw your body tense up, you tried to save yourself by quickly relaxing before Simon could see but it was too late, he already did. That was his que. “There’s something bothering you, I can see it. You know you can’t hide things from me and I understand you don’t wanna talk about it but at least let me help you the way you help me.”

Your throat grew dry, ‘Shit.’ You thought. You could feel your anxiety flow through your nerves as your hand began to tremble slightly. Your silence worried Simon. “Yn…” He called out but you stood silent.

‘It’s now or never, i can’t hide this forever, not when I start to show.” You thought, Simons hand gently rubbed your cheekbones which brought your attention back to him. Your teary gaze met his concerned ones. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry…” You quivered out. You tried to keep your composure but the hormones betrayed your body. “For what? What happened love?” He grew more worried as the tears rolled down your face. He wiped them away with his fingers as he cradled your face, as you both stare into the others gaze. “You promise you won’t be mad, I’m scared you’re gonna hate me, leave me and…” You whisper but Simon cuts you off as he leaned down to take your lips into a soft but passionate kiss, pulling away you look at him such vulnerability as you wrap your hands around Simons wrist gently. “I won’t.” He whispers back to you, his eyes filled with concern and love in his eyes. It makes your heart break thinking about what can happen next.

Your breath hitched before you inhaled and closed your eyes leaning into Simons touch. “I’m pregnant…” it was silent for a hot second. You felt his hands stiffen up but quickly relax as he looked a bit surprised. Your IUD should’ve been working, but he can’t blame you, there’s still a small chance.

“Have you made an appointment?” He asked after a long silence.

“For what?” You look up nervously, your guts telling you things were going downhill soon now, it’s too late you’ve already made up your mind.

“To get rid of it.” He asks you confused but something was telling him something else is going on. It was dead silence after that, you didn’t even need to say anything, the look in your eyes were enough to tell Simon what your intentions were. His hands were stiff it almost felt like a mannequins hands were placed on your face but then they were quickly snatched away from your grasp and face. You gasped lightly at the action. He took two long strides away from you, his eyes were slightly wide and had a blank look in them as he stared at you.

You wanted to call out to him but his eyes alone were enough to tell you that he was about to run. Your heart throbbed and your stomach began to churn again. More tears began to flow and obscure your vision. “Simon…” You called out to him, you refrained from walking towards him, terrified that one wrong move and he’d run and leave you in the dust. But it seemed to trigger him.

His eyebrows furrowed as his eyes began to show frustration. “No.” He shook his head as you sobbed. “Dammit yn I thought we established this. You promised!” He began to raise his voice, his fear coming to light. Not only was your relationship beginning to strain but you were planning to bring a child into this world. His child. All he could think about was his father and his family something he doesn’t want to experience or risk history to repeat itself.

“I’m sorry Simon but I never made a promise! But I truly didn’t mean for this to happened but it did and when I thought about having an abortion I couldn’t bear that thought of it. I know what we had in mind was to not have any kids but I can’t bring myself to get rid of our baby.”

“No we agreed that we’d have no kids, for Christ sake, I’m always at base and deployed. I can die and leave you to raise a baby alone. And I’m not ready to care for a baby, nor did I ever plan on having one.” He didn’t yell but his voice sounded distant like he was guarded. Like how he used to be when you first met him back in high school, stiff as a stone with years and layers of built up walls around him to keep anybody out from his heart and mind, a troubled Simon who was haunted by his abusive father wanting to save his mother and brother the ones who are now six feet under. One that took you years to slowly tear down and let him trust you with more than one few but big bumble in the road but in the end you never gave up on him and always stuck by his side. “I can’t do this.” He didn’t sound like your Simon anymore. He sounded like Ghost now. The Ghost he separated you from, the Ghost that was cold hearted and never cared about anything or anyone else but getting his priorities done and missions finished.

Your breath hitched. “What do you mean?” Your voice quivered. Ghost didn’t even bother to answer you he made his way to the bedroom. “Simon please!” You treaded after him, your anxiety surfacing again.

You walked into the bedroom to see him reaching into the closet and pulling out his bag, already packed with all the gears and items he needed for his deployment. Slumping the strap over his shoulder as you watched made your throat tighten.

It was nothing but silence the whole time as you watched Simon pack away a last minute items he’d need. You watched as he began to tie on his boots. “You’re right,” you finally spoke. Your voice soft as you tried not to let out a sob. “You don’t have to do this, you can keep doing what you do. I’ll keep the baby without you.” Simon just sat there listening to you as he kept his gaze glued to the ground. You couldn’t see what he was thinking with his Balaclava on now but you could see his fists clenched tightly. “I won’t make you go through this but just know, I still love you Simon, but I want this baby. You won’t hear from me asking you for anything at all. Just know once you walk out that door. I’ll be gone, unless you say something Simon...” you stand there staring at him hoping he’ll say something… anything. A sliver of wanting to be around at least or try to work something out but you know it’ll never come. He’s Simon, Ghost, he’s not, and may never be, mentally prepared nor does he have a lifestyle fit enough to raise a baby. Without a single noise Simon gets up and walks past you to the bedroom door, you watch his back, he doesn’t spare you a single glance before he walks out without another word.

After a few seconds, you hear his boots stomp down the stairs, the door opening and slamming shut. Your que to finally let all your sobbing out easing the pain in your throat. You sat on the floor holding your stomach. You were really on your own now. Just you and your baby.

You were lucky you managed to gain contact with your older sister, Stacy, she and her husband had welcomed you into their home with no hesitation, surprisingly. Granted you and your sister had some mending to do but it was mostly cause by your parents. Your mother had always founds way to turn you and your sister against one another when you two were younger. You both always fought and tried to better the other for praise of your mother she’d always compared one over the other, “Your sister is skinner than you,” “You eat like a pig, your sister eats better than you,” “your sister this” or “your sister that”. You mother always tried to make you two compete against the other that both physically and mentally damaged you both.

Your father never bothered with you two, you could never talk to him without every conversation ending in a some form of abuse or never in the right mindset being constantly high off his mind with drugs. But as you grew older you began to see the things your mother did to you and your sister but you never took the chance to make amends, your sister met her then boyfriend and ran away with him the first chance she got, you did the same when you met Simon.

“Are you alright?” She approaches you as you got out the car. The moment you came face to face with her you wrapped your arms around her shoulders and brushed into tears. “I’m sorry!” You cried out. “It’s okay.” She hushes you and cradled your head. “No it’s not, I should’ve talked to you, we should’ve made up long ago but I ran off…”

“And so did I!” She cut you off. “I was the one that ran off first, I was the one who left you in the dust for some guy that turned out to be a fraud. I chose a man over my own sister but I was too dumb to see it. We both made mistakes but now that we’re here, let’s take this chance to make it right.” She wiped your tears from your face. “Now tell me what wrong?” She asks you as you take a deep breath. “Simon left me.” You say, your sisters eyes widen in surprise and sympathy. “Well technically I left but we decided that we were through.”

“Why, what happened?” She asks you as she began to guide you to her house. As you make your way in you wipe your eyes as you think about the memory.

“I’m pregnant.” You start off, your sister is caught off guard and stunned, but she doesn’t speak and allows you to continue. “I found out not too long ago.”

You sister looks at you in shock. “Is that why… Simon…” she tries to ask, you know what she’s saying before you nod answering her question.

“Yeah, we’ve had the talk before. We agreed on no kids because he didn’t want any, me, I wasn’t too sure at the time but now, now I know, I do want this kid.” You say as you lay a hand on your stomach. “I don’t know what to do know. I told him and shit just went down hill. He made his choice and I made mine. I left home, he left because he’s currently on deployment but he’s made his choice not to be in the baby’s life. I gave him the choice to leave because I don’t want to force him into this since he never wanted any in the beginning.” You say, you sit on the soft couch as you both settled on conversing in the living room.

“He’s in the military?” She asks him a bit surprised, she’s still trying to process all this new information about your current situation and your now ex-boyfriend.

You nod your head and rub your eyes feeling the fatigue catch up to you from the past couple of days. You’ve nearly gotten a wink of sleep ever since Simon left, the past two days you were packing up all your things that you needed and wanted to take with you into your car, and you were stressing about where’d you go and be staying up until your Stacy, thankfully, responded back to you and offered you a place to stay at her house. “Yeah, he doesn’t tell me much about it. But from what I’ve seen every time he came back, it was always bad. He’d come home with bruises, sometimes wounds that sometimes looked to be fatal. It always scares me every time he goes, and I sometimes never know when he’ll be back, or if he’ll come back at all.” You explain to her. You leave out the part where he’d be a shell of himself, like a ghost possessing Simon, so unemotional, and you can never forget how scary it was seeing how empty his eyes looked sometimes.

Stacy looks at you, she’s processing all this and trying to her best to listen but she can tell that’s it’s a lot for her to take in. You don’t blame her, you two haven’t seen each other er for over five years, so there’s a lot of catching up to do. “I promise you I’ll only be here for a few months. I’ll find a place to stay for the baby and I before they’re born, we’ll be out of your hair soon.” You tell her quickly trying to reassure her that it’s only temporary and you’re not going to take advantage of your sister’s kindness and willing to help you out, you don’t wanna have the burden of having her worry about you and have a baby in the house. You’ve already become enough of a burden for Simon with the baby.

Stacy shakes her head and gently takes your hand and gently squeezes it. “Don’t worry about it. Take as much time as you need to get back on your feet. You got a kid to worry about now. And granted, it may be hard but I believe in you. You’re a strong woman, I know you can get through this, you always do. And even if you don’t, I’ll always be here to help you.” She says as she smiles at you fondly.

You feel so grateful for her. Your hormones have you all over the place both emotionally and physically. You’re on the verge of tears as you engulf Stacy into a hug once again. “Thanks Stac.” You say, your voice threatening to crack into a sob.

Stacy smiles at you and hugs you back. “Don’t thank me, you’re my little sister, family looks out for one another. Real family.”

꧁——————————꧂

Im debating if this series should have a twist to it. So stay tuned :)

[morganbritton132]

Oh geez this might be a double ask because my phone glitched out when I tried to send previously BUT just wanted to say that I love ur Steve has older siblings au

I also need to say that I shamelessly combined that au with ur post about Tommy knowing Steve the best. Just picturing Steve’s sibs zoning out when his mom lists what he can’t eat because they assume she’s just being difficult. Flash forward a few years and they accidentally poison Steve with like peanut butter cookies and are realllly lucky that Tommy was staying over that weekend and knows he’s allergic.

anyways thx for all ur writing!

I only got this ask once so we’re good! The Steve Has Older Siblings AU has kinda been on hold for a bit because Dustin is either the easiest or the hardest character to write and right now, he’s being difficult for me.

BUT! I love this.

I’m going to change it around a bit because I’m on this kick right now where Steve is allergic to aspirin. Also, with the way that Steve’s mom is written for this AU, she is negligent but protective of her son. I don’t think she’d allow peanut butter in the house if Steve was allergic.

She wouldn’t allow aspirin either but Richard insists that it’s the only thing that cures a migraine (hangover), and Steve’s eight. He doesn’t even like taking his Flintstone vitamins so she’s not concerned about him getting in the medicine cabinet.

It’s not common that Tommy stays over at Steve’s when they’re sick.

Typically his mom watches them at their house but she had to go wake up his grandma (“That doesn’t make any sense. Why can’t she set an alarm clock?”/”I dunno, Steve. That’s what Mommy said. She had to go to Granny’s wake.”) so Mrs. Harrington was babysitting them.

Mrs. Harrington isn’t very good at taking care of them. Tommy wouldn’t tell Steve that because it’ll make him sad, but his mom kinda sucks at this. She doesn’t even give them popsicles for their sore throats or kiss their foreheads to check their temperature. She just disappears for long periods of time to yell into the phone.

Tommy’s kinda happy when she has to go into the office because he thinks Claire might look after them, but she’s apparently studying in her room so Steve’s brothers are doing it.

Tommy secretly likes this better because Jason and Richie are very nice to him, and they tell him that he’s cooler than Steve. No one has ever said that before! Not even Carol and they got married under the jungle gym.

Tommy likes hanging out with them even if he feels icky today.

He is standing in the kitchen next to Steve, watching Richie cut a little orange pill in half with a knife. Richie keeps muttering under his breath about running out of the ‘liquid S H I T.’ Tommy thinks it’s funny that he said a bad word, but can’t laugh about it because he can see the bottle that the pill came out of and –

“I don’t think we take that,” He voices but Richie brushes him off. He says it’s like candy. Tommy has brothers too, so he knows that sometimes you gotta give in or they’ll rub your face into the carpet until you get rugburn, but, “I know but… but what if only I take it?”

“You take half,” Richie tells him. “Stevie over here takes the other half and then we’re right as rain. It reduces fever.”

“Yeah,” Jason adds from behind them. “So your brain doesn’t leak out your ears.”

Tommy looks over at Steve but he isn’t fully awake so there’s not much of a reaction there. Plus, he’s not a very good reader so Tommy’s not sure if he even knows what the bottle says. He tries again, ignoring Jason, “That’s not what Mrs. Harrington gave us earlier.”

“Yeah, I know. This is better.”

“Steve can’t take that,” Tommy tries again after he crunches the medicine between his teeth. He sticks out his tongue so Richie can see that it’s gone, and then adds, “Mommy gave that to him once and it made him really sick.”

“It did?” Steve croaks, snatching his hand back when Richie tries to hand him the pill. Richie tries to force the pill into his mouth but Steve presses his lips together. It makes his brother swear and gesture to Jason, and then Steve is snatched off his feet with a hand pinching his nose shut.

He struggles and Tommy wants to help but he – he also wants Richie and Jason to like him so, he doesn’t help. Steve gasps for breath and the pill goes in…and Steve is fine. He’s angry and out of breath, and his nose is still stuffy so he still kinda sounds like a frog but he’s not.. he’s not blue like last time.

Tommy thinks, oh. He thinks, cool.

Everything is fine for fifteen minutes and then Tommy is yelling out the door of Steve’s bedroom that they need help. Steve is breathing weird and – “and, I – I think he’s going to die!”

A lot of stuff happens at once. Claire leaves her room, Jason and Richie come up the stairs, and they all start yelling and blaming each other. No one really jumps into action until Tommy bursts into tears. Then it’s movement and car rides, and Tommy is sitting in the waiting room at the hospital without shoes on.

He doesn’t know how long they’ve been sitting there when Mr. and Mrs. Harrington rush into the room. The only thing he does know is that he’s never seen anybody look as angry as Mrs. Harrington did when she sees them.

She looks like she’s going to yell at them but Mr. Harrington grabs her by the arm and drags her to the reception desk. They disappear behind the white double doors that Steve went through.

It only makes Tommy cry harder.

[thedevilrisen]

Offensive In Our Own Ways.

jack hughes x fem!reader: Jack meets a girl in a bar whose got so pretty good comebacks.

word count: 0.5k

a/n: This is my first ever piece, I hope I did well! Constructive criticism is very welcome :D.

 CREEK. The sound of my bedroom door opening, followed by the light from the hallway spilling in was what pulled me away from the assignment I was so frantically editing for next week.

“Y/N-”

“no.”

“but-”

“I said no Tahlia.” 

“Just listen.” I sighed in defeat, I wasn’t going to be left alone long enough to finish this assignment if she didn’t get whatever spiel she had in store for me tonight off her chest early. 

“Go on then” I said, shutting my laptop.

“Okay, get ready, we are going to a new bar that opened tonight in 20 minutes.” she finished with a cheshire cat grin.

“Tahlia-”

“no.”

“but-”

“Get ready Y/N.” 

“You’re a pain in my ass, and please do remember that I know where you sleep.” she sheepishly grinned and nodded enthusiastically at me acknowledging my second remark. I groaned as my sore and cramped muscles cracked, popped and stretched back to their natural positions as I dragged my tired body over to my closet. “What to wear, what to wear.” I mumbled under my breath. Flicking through different options. Dress, not feeling it, plus it’s way to fucking cold for this. Skirt and corset top, fuck that. Down to the last dregs of my closet I found a pair of black straight jeans and a magenta elbow length blouse, perfect, that a pair of black combat boots, a few rings, necklace, nose ring and all of my pieces of jewelry for the various piercings in my ears and we are good to go. Pulling my waist length brunette hair out of its disheveled plait, I brushed it till it was presentable. Satisfied, I trudged over to my bedside table and grabbed my phone and anxiety remedy pastels and turned around to walk out of my room and down the stairs to be greeted by my three friends.

“There she is!” Tahlia exclaimed.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s go, I now have a dire need for alcohol.” If I'm supposed to deal with you lot of fuckwits for an extended period of time. Drunk Tahlia is enough to deal with by herself, now I’ve got two more on my radar. Great.

As we wandered down the driveway to the Uber all three girls were looking into a makeup-smudged handheld mirror one of them had in their purse and were stating how hot they looked and how they were definitely getting laid tonight. This continued all throughout the Uber ride to the club and right through the front door. 

“I’m going to get a drink. Stay out of trouble, and please for the love of god text me if you are leaving the club with someone else, plus make sure your location remains on so if need be, I can come find you.” There was no room for negotiation in my tone so the three girls nodded and promised to do so. With a tight lipped smile directed to them I took off in search of the bar, Tahlia hot on my heels.

Jack POV

“... Well done tonight boys, ‘m very proud of you and your efforts, couldn’t have done it without you.” Nico commended as he finished his ‘mandatory post game captains speech’. All the boys cheered and most took a swig of their drinks in response, I downed the last contents of my beer and looked down the bar to find the bartender to get another. I waved him down and ordered another beer,

“That's all for you mate?” he asked in a monotone voice. Someone could do with a drink themselves.

“Yep.” I responded in an equally dry tone, if the jackass wasn’t going to make an attempt to be sociable then nor was I. He rolled his eyes and walked off to hopefully get my drink. 

“Jack, come dance with us!” Dawson bellowed in my ear while he tugged half-heartedly on the back of my shirt sleeve.

“Don’t feel like it tonight. Get Nico, I’m sure he’d love to embarrass himself with you.” I recommended in a humorous tone. 

“Fine, your dancing next time then.” he countered

“I’ll look forward to it.” I responded albeit half-heartedly. The joyous bartender wandered back over with my beer in hand and placed it roughly on the bench in front of me with a barely grunt of acknowledgement before his eyes shot up behind me and plastered a sleazy smirk on his face. 

“Hey ladies, can I get anything for you?”

“I’ll have a martini and she’ll have..” silence followed and then some mumbling,”straight vodka.” 

“Alright girls, I’ll have them sorted out for you in a minute, just wait here.” he said through a smirk, “and don’t worry about paying, this one’s on me.”

“ Oh, you don’t have to do that!” One of the girls exclaimed. 

“Anything for a couple good lookin’ girls like yourselves.” he flirted back, a semi-enthusiastic smile on his face.

“Hear that Y/N he also thinks I’m hot!” One girl mumbled to the other, Y/N, pretty name I thought as I brought my beer to lips for a sip.

“Stop calling yourself hot Tahlia, the only thing you can turn on is the microwave.” the girl, Y/N bit back at the other girl. I suddenly regretted taking a sip of my beer as it was involuntarily snorted up my nose in response to this girl's pure bluntness toward her friend. Coughing and spluttering I wheezed out a sorry and looked down at the bar, intent on minding my own business. 

The bartender showed up at the perfect time handing both of the girls their drinks and while winking and handing over a napkin with a pen on top of it. “You’re both clearly interested, so I was wondering if I could grab your numbers?” The twat asked, flashing his best wink, talk about poor customer service.

“I’m sorry I’m going to have to decline.” Y/N replied politely.

“C’mon sweetheart you know that you can’t say no to someone like me.” he crooned.

“Y’know, you’re talking a lot of shit for someone with two perfectly good eyeballs, each would sell for around 16,000 dollars on the black market.” she replied in a matter of fact tone. The bartender's face went from cool, calm and collected, to absolutely petrified and scurrying away in about .5 seconds. 

“Y/N!, why would you say that! He was cute, and you’ve just ruined all my chances!” Tahlia huffed and stormed off. I heard a sigh and saw someone sitting down on the barstool next to me in my peripherals, I looked over and the girl sent me a small smile that I returned.

“Just so you know, if that were my friend I would’ve done the same. Not as.. Offensively,” I cringed at how I sounded. “But something along the same lines, though, I do have to admit, you being as blunt as you were was slightly humorous.” She smiled at that, her cheeks flushed red and the corners of her eyes wrinkled, cutie. 

“Thanks, I’m Y/N by the way and I think I’ve just royally pissed off my roommate.” We both laughed at that statement,

“I’m Jack, and I think you could be correct, she should forgive you though.” I responded hoping that could ease some of her concern.

“Fingers crossed Jack, fingers crossed.” She looked around, surveying the area, “What do you do for work?” She asked, turning back to me.

“I play hockey professionally, for the New Jersey Devils.” Her face lit up.

“Your Jack Hughes?” She asked excitedly.

“Yeah,” I responded, “What do you do for work?”

“Oh, I’m still a student.” She said with a smile.

“Cool what do you-”

“Y/N!”

“Oh God,” She mumbled. “Yes?” Two very drunk girls and her roommate from earlier approached us. Y/N’s eyes flick over both of the girls as she nods to herself, standing out of her seat to help hold up one of the girls, “I think it’s time to go home.” She announced. I couldn’t help feeling sad, I wanted to get to know this girl. 

“Hey Y/N, could I maybe get your number? We could get coffee sometime? Only if you want to though!” I rushed out not wanting to miss my chance.

“Sure Jack, one sec.” She responded, lowering her friend onto the stool she was previously sitting on. Grabbing the napkin and pen the bartender so conveniently left for us, she scribbled down some numbers followed by call me :D and slid it across the bench top to me. 

“Thanks, I’ll text you.” 

“I’ll look forward to it.” She smiled while picking her babbling friend off of the stool and turning around to help them drunkenly waddle out of the bar. I’ll look forward to it too. I smiled to myself, having something to be excited about besides hockey.

[girlboypersonthingy]

can I request a list of like green flags and red flags for each of the characters in voltron? btw I love your writing:)

Hello friendo, thank you sm! Thanks for the request, I adore this idea. Also…Sorry y’all, I was posting like every other day for two weeks and then I hopped off for like two months. Oof life is really life-ing rn. I honestly chose to write this prompt before a lot of other requests bc it seems like an easy and short thing to bust out quickly. I swear, I will get to the rest eventually 🩵 keep sending in requests if you’d like! And as always… ENJOY~

KEITH ❤️

Red Flags 🚩

TERRIBLE AT COMMUNICATING. We all know Keith is stubborn and easily overwhelmed with a short temper. He doesn’t really know how to talk to people without getting angry. He feels that bc he has a hard time explaining exactly what he means, people never understand him and that makes him mad.

Bro isn’t scared of anything…and that low key scares everyone else. Like…who isn’t afraid of anything? The whole team has tried sooooo hard to figure out what will get Keith to jump out of his skin and scream like a child but to no avail… Boy just doesn’t flinch, doesn’t care, couldn’t care less about bugs and rodents and clowns and heights or anything like that.

Wears his gloves in the shower sometimes. Like wtf ???

Green Flags ✅

Also bc he is not afraid of anything, boy will protect his friends/family/partner SO HARD. He will verbally AND physically tear someone apart just for looking at you the wrong way. Very protective and caring but in a good way ya know?

Actually very selfless and not self-centered in the slightest. Keith is very giving and helpful, despite his tough exterior, he’s very caring, observant and considerate. He’ll give the shirt off his back to someone in need. He’s always down to help others. Ugh Sweet heart ❤️‍🔥

Has a sick ass space wolf that will also protect you like COSMO IS A MAJOR PLUS OKAY BIG GREEN FLAG DOGGO

LANCE 💙

Red Flags 🚩

Obvi his biggest red flag is how flirty he is. Boy will flirt with anything that breaths and that can get really annoying sometimes and affect the rest of the team.

Jealous AS FUCK. Like the petty jealous type. Lance is the kind of guy to pretend he has a partner back home just bc some alien girl he was flirting with said she had a partner already. He’s like “OH YEAH? Wow cool me too, same same, yeah….” But homie’s ego is a bit sore now…

Lies a lot. Lance just panics sometimes and tells a lie. He knows it’s wrong and he always feels guilty after lying to someone but it always just slips out. His mouth moves faster than his brain most the time.

Green Flags ✅

THE BEST HUGGER/CUDDLER OMFGGGGGG. Lance is the best hugger and cuddle buddy ever, period, end of story, try to change my mind. His long arms always stretch fully around the recipient’s torso and he squeezes tight enough to make you feel warm but not smothered. Usually will rest his chin on the other person’s head if they’re short enough (so Pidge obvi).

Very aware of other’s moods/body language/tone of voice. Everyone thinks Lance is “the dumb one” but he’s actually very in tune with what’s going on in the moment, what’s going on around him. I think he can tell how others feel the second he sees them. Good intuition kinda thing. An empath for sure.

Very considerate and often remembers the little things about people. Does he remember what he learned in class just a couple days ago? Pffft heck no! Does he remember everyone’s birthday, every year and get them a very thoughtful gift? HELL YEAHH I LOVE THIS SWEET BOY OMFG 🩵

SHIRO 🖤

Red Flags 🚩

Honestly…idfk Shiro is so perf. Perfect baby boy all the way

Maybe he could seem too nice at first…? Like when someone is nice but ur like “are you for real? Or are you fake and evil and you’re hiding something?” I think Shiro could be perceived as being fake nice at first.

Omg I feel like Shiro is one of those “ oh no, that looks delicious but I can’t. I’m watching my carbs.” YOU KNOW SHIRO IS A GYM DUDE WHO COUNTS HIS CALORIES PLZ

Green Flags ✅

ALSO AN A+ HUGGER. Imagine those big ass arms holding you so softly and so close to his big, warm body. Omg so comforting, so relaxing. Often gives a gently squeeze just before letting go and pulling away. Ugh 😩❤️‍🔥

Literally the most trustworthy man in the universe. Will defend his friends, loved ones, and planet until the end of time. Shiro would die before revealing any secrets you’ve asked him to keep. The best person to vent to bc he’ll never tell another soul about it. He’s like a personal diary

Shiro is sooooo patient. Definitely the most patient one on the team. He really does take his own advice…ya know, patience yields focus 😌 very sweet, calm man. We love Shiro

PIDGE 💚

Red Flags 🚩

GIRL WILL WORK HERSELF TO DEATH PLZ GO CHECK UP ON HER, BRING HER FOOD AND WATER, GENTLY FORCE HER INTO BED SHE NEEDS SLEEP.

Lowkey kinda moody and can get snappy very easily. Pidge is a sweet heart and very smart and a good team player but she’s also stubborn and will yell to get her point across or make herself heard (she’s an Aries…what’d you expect?)

Sometimes very conceited and braggy about how smart she is. Like yeah Pidge, we know you’re a genius and you could code in your sleep. WE GET IT. UR SMART. GEEZ 😒

Green Flags ✅

Pidge is so baby. Yeah, she can get snappy and braggy sometimes but…SHES SO BABY PLZ FORGIVE HER. She’s just young and stressed okay? Give her a break. She’ll apologize eventually with puppy dog eyes and a soft voice and while she looks adorable, she is being sincere and really wants to resolve this.

Very loyal and determined. I mean look how hard she searched and fought for her dad and brother. She won’t stop for anything or anyone once she has her mind set. Pidge Will never leave you behind and will always turn back to help someone in need.

Androgynous royalty. Pidge is soooo chill about her gender and identity. We love a confident babe 🏳️‍🌈💚

HUNK 💛

Red Flags 🚩

Boy is too scared sometimes. I think Hunk has really bad anxiety and it’s not the anxiety that is the red flag, it’s how he copes with it…which he doesn’t. Hunk let’s his anxiety get the best if him sometimes…but he’s trying.

Honestly…does Hunk really have any other red flags??? Baby boy is so sweet idk 🤷🏻

Over eats to the point of getting sick sometimes…and never learns his lesson. (Me asf)

Green Flags ✅

THE SWEETEST MOST CONSIDERATE AND THOUGHTFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE OMFG WHAT A SWEET HEART 😩💛 honestly just a very good guy. We love Hunk.

Obvi his cooking skills!!! Can cook for any occasion, on any cooking surface, in any conditions. Can cook so many different dishes from so many rich cultures around the world! So talented. His food always hits.

THE ABSOLUTE BEST at cheering others up. Soooo funny and silly and kind and relatable. He tries so hard to brighten others’ days when they need it. Will stop what he’s doing just to go cheer up a friend or loved one and watch them smile again.

MATT 🧡

Red Flags 🚩

Interrupts A LOT. In any given conversation, he will interrupt and talk over someone else at least once every minute. Can get really annoying sometimes but in his defense, if he waits too long to speak up, he’ll just totally forget what he was gonna say.

Like Lance, I think Matt would be overly flirty and act like a Fuck boy sometimes. Like bro sit your nerd ass down, that person is SOOO out of your league plz chill.

Can not take anything seriously (unless it comes to his family or his or anyone else’s safety) but day to day, Matt makes so many dumb and inappropriate jokes at the worst times. Ugh ��

Green Flags ✅

Very brotherly to everyone he considers a friend or family. Protective, constantly checking up on others, making sure they have eaten, asking if they need anything from him. He cares a lot. Bonus points bc he’s a very good brother to his actual sibling too. Aww Pidge and Matt are sibling goals. 🥹

HOT AS FUCK NO MATTER HIS HAIR STYLE/LENGTH. You can fight me on this. Matt is gorg and so is his hair at every single moment throughout the show.

Extremely accepting and open minded. Matt treats everyone he meets equally and never seems phased when he meets others so different from himself. He may ask some questions for the sake of his own curiosity, but would never pass judgment on another person.

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Beneath Miles of Stone - Part fifteen - John Wick x Plus Size Fem Reader

Summary: John has been in prison for nine months. He’s content to stay if it means appeasing the high table and keeping peace between the owners of each continental. However, he meets someone who erases that willingness. Peace be dammed.

TW: blood ; near death experiences ; gore ; angst

The wake up period is sore - like a pleasant hangover even though she hasn’t had a drink in a while.

Because, now, there’s something else to be addicted to.

It’s gross, but she doesn’t brush her teeth. Just a little longer to keep the residual taste of him in her mouth so she knows that he’s real.

Michael is sitting at the kitchen table, dressed in business casual, reading something on his phone.

When she plops down across from him, lazy, pleasant smile carved into her face, he eyes her suspiciously.

“You seem relaxed,” Michael says, “that’s scary.”

“I-uh-had a good night.” Her throat is wickedly sore.

Michael taps his finger on his chin. “You’re not telling me what happened so I’m just gonna assume he fucked you on Wall Street.”

“He was actually kind of mad,” she says.

Michael rolls his eyes. “See, that’s stupid. He shouldn’t lead you on if he’s gonna get mad about little stuff like that.”

“Lead me on?” Her face scrunches up like she’s trying to get that thought out of her head.

“Sorry, wrong word.” Michael sighs. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.” His look of contemplation turns to a grin, which eases her some.

Now she’s thinking Michael sees something she doesn’t concerning this relationship - thing - despite him not knowing much about it to begin with. She wants to prod, but he’s already changing the subject.

“So, is he any good?” In a childish gesture that makes her laugh, he inserts his pointer finger into a hole created by his other hand.

“How do you know we had sex?”

Michael narrows his eyes. “Oh, have you not looked in the mirror?” His angelic features are positively devilish right now as he takes a sip of steaming coffee and points to her hair. “But, I have to commend him. Although this place does reek of man, at least he smells nice, unlike some of them.”

“He does smell nice,” she agrees, longing to bury her face in woodsy, smoked cologne and crisp soap.

“I’ll have to ask him what he wears if I ever meet him.” Michael bats his pretty eyelashes at her, and she gets the hint.

“I want you to meet him,” she nods, hopeful for it.

This is dangerous. Treacherous. Exciting. Insane. Her throat at the guillotine and her heart held at gun point. She doesn’t want Michael involved in the chaos of the situation, but she wants him to meet John so that someone else can affirm that he’s not her imaginary friend.

“I have to go to work and school, and then I’m going to the bar with the girls later, if you want to come.. With or without delicious-smelling gentleman caller.” Michael slurps the last of his coffee.

“Maybe.” She smiles softly, grateful for the invite and not wanting to hurt his feelings. “I have to go get groceries and I’ll see where my social battery is at after that.”

Michael nods, and she’s reminded of his understanding nature that makes her admire him so much. “If I give you some cash and a few things to pick up, could you?” Michael looks embarrassed, rubs his temples. “I keep meaning to go to the Whole Foods store, but I’m slacking. I’m so tired of fast food for dinner.”

She agrees. “I hear you on that. Of course I will.” It’s the least she can do for him, after all. He’s been putting up with her bullshit with upmost grace.

“Are you taking the subway?” Michael asks.

She nods.

He cringes like the subway is the worst thing he can imagine. “Why don’t we just wait until the weekend? I can drive us. Less dirt.”

She waves him off. “It’s fine, Michael.”

“Okay, okay,” he surrenders, putting both hands in the air. He promises to shoot her a text at some point with requested items, and then packs up to leave.

She needs to start putting together her own grocery list, so she grabs a pen and paper from her nightstand and begins rooting around the kitchen for missing items, trying to keep it narrow so she doesn’t have to lug too many bags around from train to train.

A thudding on the front door makes her jump.

The miasmic, powdery air that seeps into her apartment raises every goosebump on her skin and sets off primordial alarms in her brain.

John crumples on the doorframe, looking up at her through half-alive eyes, opens his mouth. “I told you you’d see me again.”

His papery voice barely makes it past his lips.

“Jesus Christ.” That’s all she can get out as she pushes herself under his armpit, ignores the sticky blood staining her sleep shirt, and lugs him inside.

Grunting in effort, she shoulders him onto the couch, body crumpling down into his, pulled by a limp, hefty arm.

“John, what the fuck.” She sits up, rubs at his cheeks and becomes that much more worried when she realizes that his skin is frigid.

He hums, unflappable smile taking up the last bit of energy he has, brushes her hair behind her ear with a clumsy, shivering hand. “Told you I’d come back,” he repeats, surprising her by still being able to form coherent sentences.

“I’m calling 911,” she tells him.

“No.” He shakes his head, motions to his chest. “Just lost some blood.”

“Some?” She hisses, eyes taking in his ruby soaked shirt and suit jacket.

He pats her cheek, can’t find the energy to respond.

She rips his jacket off of him, pressing and pulling his bulky frame, then decides fuck it and grabs scissors and tries to cut his dress shirt open. The damn scissors can’t even clip the start of his lapels, and she remembers Winston saying something about Kevlar, so she just rudely tears the rest of his clothes off until he’s completely bare from the waist up. Panting, throwing the sodden linen onto the floor, not even thinking about the stains that will inevitably transfer.

Tattoos that she didn’t notice before on his bare back, scars glistening waxen with sweat that collects inside the bruised muscle and tendon of his body.

Around his left upper bicep, she can see where the blood originates.

A piece of saturated, red cloth and a silvery blue tie wrapped to keep it in place.

“I need to fix this,” she tells him.

He swallows an answer, eyes closed, breath fast and short.

She slips on linoleum on her way to grab the first aid kit. Her knee hits the tile with a crack, and she ignores the pain. Limps back to him, rips his self made dressing off.

The hole just shy of one of the bulging veins in his arms oozes blood.

She tears a package of gauze open with her teeth, stuffs it in the wound.

John’s eyes roll open as he muffles a husky scream from the feeling of something foreign shoving into the fresh, tender opening in his body.

“I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” she tells him, fingers sticking more gauze inside, other hand holding it in place with enough pressure to indent his skin. “Did you get shot? You gotta get the bullet out. Fuck.” Her hand slips on plasma, tugging down on his moldable, raw flesh. She recovers but not before he lets out a dying huff of agony.

“Took it out,” he tells her through teeth, trying to stay still while she wraps rolls of white web around his arm.

“You need blood,” she says, eyes boring into his, pleading.

“Fine,” he says, hand trying to fumble with his pants pocket. She pushes him away and grabs his phone.

“Who?”

“Doc.”

She dials the number, presses it to her ear, doesn’t give the person answering time to breathe let alone speak. “Please,” she starts out with, “John Wick is bleeding out in my living room.”

His vision gets dark around the edges, and it’s okay, because this is a good way to die: Bloodletting with her hands on his chest, with her body pressed into his side. He’s not going anywhere without her right next to him. His mind sucks him into a vacuum where it doesn’t have to be this way. A space where she and he are happy. White picket fence. Dogs. Babies? Soft kisses and tickle fights instead of life or death combat. His rapid heart calms and slows. Her hand in his, the only thing he needs. Why he came here. The one person he wants to see before the real grim reaper begrudgingly steals their title back. Death rolls its eyes, clicks its tongue, bored with the Baba Yaga, about time.

Life fades, but he can hear her voice long after his chest stops moving, and he doesn’t deserve such kindness after the things he’s done, but he’ll gladly and selfishly take it.

———————————————

John immediately tries to sit when he wakes, or at least that’s what he imagines himself doing. It’s strange, being flat on your back when you just felt your feet hit the floor a second ago.

He’s hallucinating, then. Shivering, twitching. His eyes attempt to close, but behind them a silver train with white fire headlights rushes toward him at full speed, and they shoot back open right before it can eviscerate his body.

“He’s awake!” Calls a familiar voice that soothes despite the heightened pitch and anxious urgency.

He needs a little more to settle the rapid pound of his heart, so he reaches blindly for a handful of flesh.

She clasps his seeking fingers, puts her other hand on his forearm. Her skin feels like she’s threaded together by silk worms themselves.

His mouth puffs an indulgent sound.

“What’s his temperature?” As the world fizzes into focus like it’s a freezing seltzer being freshly poured into a glass, he makes out silhouettes of the Doc and her.

“96.6,” she says worriedly, pressing the tool to his forehead a second time just to make sure.

It’s strange, that her skin is warmer than his, and this temperature explains it.

“Right,” doc says, rolling a bright red bag of o negative under the heel of his hand to warm it up. “Give him the Benadryl.”

John feels a sharp pinch in his right bicep, watches her take the needle away, cap it, and then reaches for her hand again like a clingy, angry toddler.

She concedes, checks the tubing buried in his antecubital to make sure it’s still dripping while she rubs his wrist in a soothing way and shushes him.

He wants to smile and say something cheeky, but his body refuses to move save for the annoying, jumpy ants crawling under the skin of his hands, feet, and back.

He is bedded down under layers of thick blankets, wrapped tight. Her hip presses into his side.

He holds her fast, now refusing to let go.

“John.”

He imagines himself, a mere servant boy, falling at the feet of a generous and kind princess.

“Hmm?” He asks.

“It’s going to be okay. We’re giving you blood, and he” - she glances over at Doc, weary of what to call him as to not ruffle feathers - “the doctor stitched you up.”

He tries to say something, swears that he at least gets an okay out, but his pale lips stay closed.

“Two bags should be enough,” the doctor tells her, flicking the IV tubing. “I’d say one, but I have a few extras on hand today.”

She can’t tell if he’s joking or not, so she tries a smile and it must look weird on her distraught face. “Thank you.”

“He owes me money in the form of thanks,” Doc huffs, pushing sweaty black hair off his crinkled forehead. “You hear, John?”

John tries to nod, gets a little tilt of his chin out of the grueling effort.

“Getting clumsy and sloppy,” Doc mumbles, shaking his head as he turns his back to spike the other bag of blood.

“Let me do that,” she tells him.

The older man backs away and motions to his prep table, glad for the break. She tries to go over, but John keeps her there.

Let him do it, I’m paying him,  is what he wants to quip. He just grunts.

“John,” she tries to warn, but he’s not scared of her wrath in the slightest bit. He pulls her hand as close as his listless limb will allow, rests their fingers on top of the blanket mound over his chest.

The Doc chuckles, gets back to work. “Is he paying you?”

She’s too busy examining the bruised cuts on John’s face and the raw, purple skin on his knuckles to pick up on the joke. Her mouth pops open, astonished.

“No.”

John reminds himself to tell her how fucking precious she is when his jaw will unstick itself.

“Kidding,” the Doctor says, hanging the next bag of blood onto the portable metal pole.

“Oh, sorry.” She warms with the awkward tension. “Also, I’m sorry for the other day.” She nudges over her shoulder as if to snuff the past. “That was really stupid of me.”

The doctor rubs his beard. “I thought it was funny,” he shrugs.

John can barely move, but the glare he shoots is unmistakeable.

“And it’s fine,” Doc amends. “Rotten kids needed to get whipped. Heaven knows his father never took a belt to his behind.”

He walks back to his folding table and starts sticking the items left out from earlier into his bag. For an older man, his hands were deft and skilled as he sowed John, sterilized his equipment, and tucked it back into his tool case in one breath.

Once again, another person for her to envy.

Maybe she’s barking up the wrong tree by asking John to teach her to fight. Wouldn’t it be smarter to utilize her already established skills and have the doctor take her under his wing instead? Wouldn’t that be presumptuous and entitled, though? Hey, I’m John Wick’s fuckbuddy, I have no idea what’s going on, but I’d like to be your coworker because you seem important.

She watches his back and thinks hard, brows furrowing in thought.

A surprising, temperature neutral finger touches the side of her face.

John is trying to smile up at her. “Hey, honey.”

Thoughts of combat medicine left behind, she squeezes his shoulders in a timid hug and brushes the sticky hair off his forehead. “I thought you were dead.”

“I think I was,” John grimaces.

“No, you were breathing,” she tells him, squeezing his hand, contradicting her anxiety. “I swear.”

“I believe you.” His strength is seeping back inside his bloodstream through sterilized tubes, and, by the second, he can feel the haze of purgatory lift from him.

He opens and closes the fist not gripping her, testing his will.

“How you feeling?” She asks.

“Starting to get hot,” he admits, shifting his thawing toes under crushing blankets.

She takes three off, which still leaves him weighted down. He wants to laugh, imagining her tucking him in thoroughly with pounds of linen that could never compare to the shelter that she gives.

He kisses her fingertips, winces as they graze the superficial cut on his top lip.

“Let me fix that,” she asks, trying to pull away.

“Why‘re you always trying to get away from me,” he mumbles, letting her go.

She wants to ask him the same question, but grabs a wet wash cloth and a basin filled with warm water and starts cleaning his face off.

The doctor is sitting in one of her kitchen chairs that she dragged into her room for him, watching, checking his wrist for the time.

The caked blood fights against warm water. She avoids pressure and instead uses persistence to rub the grime off his face and neck. The water turns tepid and pink while the battle goes on.

The doctor comes over, unclamps John’s vein from one bag, and sticks the other into the port.

John’s teeth chatter while the cool blood pumps through his system.

She rubs his jaw to calm the motion, while her damper hand grabs one of the discarded blankets and puts it back on him.

He’s just now noticing that he’s lying in her bed, calves hanging off the end of the mattress. “How much blood is there?” He asks, afraid to know the answer.

“Inside your body, about 3 liters. Maybe a little less right now.” She eyes the last blood bag. “Outside, probably.. let’s say. A shit ton.” She grins at him.

“I’ll help you clean it,” he offers, apologetic, wide brown eyes enough to get him out of dry cleaning duty.

“Worry about being able to sit up first, tiger,” she says, running the rag over his forehead.

“We should talk, too,” he replies.

“Once again, your functionality is my main priority.”

It feels far too good - being her priority. He lets the idea carry him through otherwise frustrating silence.

“I have some Pink Peroxide,” Doc interrupts. “Will cost extra.”

John nods, looking over her shoulder at him.

“Pink peroxide?” She asks, also looking over her shoulder at him.

“Miracle for stains,” he explains. “Blood stains especially.”

She dabs John’s cheek. “Oh.”

Another temp check and he’s at 98.8, sweat dampening the layers of blanket. He squirms impatiently, attempts to push some covers off himself.

They don’t notice until he’s got half in a pile around his stomach.

Doc laughs as she scolds John.

“Stop it,” she says, rearranging bedding so that there’s only two blankets covering him. She tucks edges in. “You’re gonna get cold again.”

“Keep me warm,” he tells her, running his thumb over her cheek bone, trying to manually stimulate her lips into a smile.

She can’t help the crescent tilt of her mouth. “I think you gave him too much morphine.”

“Yeah,” Doc agrees, “he owes me extra for that, too.”

It might be the morphine, or it might be the fact that he was closer than he’d like to be to a dark, conscious-less void where he didn’t have her and it made him crave her that much more.

“I’m gonna go get you some water,” she tells John, patting his bicep. “Some toast and butter, too.”

She looks at him, expectantly.

After a minute, he seems confused. “Okay, that’s alright.”

“Uh, you have to let me go,” she says, biting her lip.

“Oh fuck,” he says casually, releasing her hand.

She goes to prepare him some things. The toast and butter, a few fresh strawberries leftover from Michael’s pie baking excursion, a tall glass of ice water. Some orange koolaid for immune boost and blood sugar raising. She grabs the jar of peanut butter and a knife, too, balances it on the plate with the food.

“What time is it, Doc?” John asks, yawning.

“Six PM,” the Doctor replies, glancing at his watch.

“I go in at ten.”

Doc examines the second blood bag. “It will be done by then.”

“I thought they missed my artery.”

She walks in, sets his plate and drinks down. “Here,” she says, prompting a glass straw to his lips. He sucks down water and gets Deja Vu from the first time he met her, remembers how sweet she was to think of his base human needs, forgets about Viggo.

“You thought right, but you bled an unusual amount.” This from Doc.

John asks, “Why?”

“Your blood is thin.” Doc shrugs, matter-of-a-fact. “I would need more tests to figure out why ”

She sits down on the mattress next to him. “You were on an oral anticoagulant - blood thinner - in the infirmary because of strict bed rest. Is that why?” She looks at Doc.

He smiles at her. “Ah, that could be it.”

John grins. Her pride is his. Smart, resourceful little companion. He wants to ruffle her hair.

But then, her head tucks down because she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be telling everyone that John’s an escaped convict. And then, she starts to feel like even when she’s doing something useful, she’s just fucking everything up more, as demonstrated by the past two days.

John watches curiously as her face contorts, wonders what’s going on in her head and wishes she would tell him so he doesn’t have to guess. Because his guess is something bad.

That should be worrying. The last time he cared enough to be in tune with someone’s feelings, he was trying to gauge how easy it would be to avoid them after putting a bullet in their boss’s head. In fact, the only time he’s trying to read someone, it’s for business rather than personal reasons.

He scares the thought into a locked cabinet of his brain, reminds his feelings that rational John needs to buy this woman a passport and get her into a witness protection program where he can’t find her - easily find her. Because, eventually, he will, but it might take some time - and time can birth so many unexpected things.

Blood finishes dripping as John sits up to scarf his toast. It’s whole wheat, soggy with butter, delicious. There’s no time for peanut butter.

She places a steady hand on his back for support, rubs gentle fingers into the knobs of his spine.

The blankets fall around his waist, alerting him to his completely bare body.

“Have you eaten today?” He asks her, munching on a strawberry.

“Did I get shot?” She fires back.

He raises an eyebrow.

“I will, I will,” she grumbles, “just let me make sure the injured party is good, first. This is simple video game survival stuff, John.”

“What kind of video games do you play?”

She rolls her eyes and hands him the frosty glass of koolaid. “Sharp-shooter. Just kidding, I don’t. But I haven’t lived in a box.”

The ability to make him chuckle with that dry, sarcastic wit comes with the downfall of jostling his stitches and shooting pain through his arm, into his neck, down his spine. He chokes on a giggle.

“Sorry, sorry,” she says, wanting to punch herself for humor at a time like this. She stabilizes him.

After the bag finishes, Doc takes it down and shoves it into his briefcase. He slips off his vinyl gloves, tucks them into a striped pocket, and places a  translucent bottle full of blue pills by her feet. “Make him take these.”

He puts a pressured dressing on the open area left by the IV, then points to the pill bottle on the floor. “Three times a day.”

She nods, diligent, so serious. John hides his amused grin around a gulp of water.

“Where are my pants?” John inquires. His eyes catch the shine of his belt just as he finishes the question. He starts to lean, but she stops him.

“That’s the million dollar question,” she jokes, then curses herself for trying to be funny again. “Hold on, I got it.”

She reaches over and drags his heavy trousers off the floor, hands them over.

He pulls three gold coins out of his pocket and hands them to the doctor.

“Saving them for the ferryman?” Doc asks, shoving them into his white coat pocket.

She bristles, the reference not lost on her.

John chews a strawberry, aloof eyebrow raised in response.

“Right,” Doc says, “I’m leaving. Be more careful. I think you’re distracted.” He eyes her for a moment, gaze almost judging - if she’s interpreting the stare right - and then takes his leave.

John rubs her cheek with his knuckles. “Don’t let him get in your head.”

She wretches her eyes from the spot where the doctor once was and looks up at John. “Are you distracted?”

He sighs. “Lately? Yeah.”

“Why?” She asks, folding her arms over her chest, looking up at him, pouting, seeming so strange and out of element while covered in his dried blood, and he decides that he’s the biggest asshole on planet earth for going about this in the wrong way despite having numerous chances to make it right.

“You.” Really? That’s what he can come up with? Years of etiquette training and he’s just a kid on the playground asking his crush to check the yes or no box. “I more than like you. I’m serious about it.” Melting into a puddle of biohazard would be better than sitting here burning with shame from the sheer stupidity of his words.

Despite his self-hatred, her eyes seem to glitter like she’s being dazzled and courted with lover’s poetry. “You do?” She whispers.

“I do.” He cups her face. “Which is why you need to get the hell away from me and never look back.”

“No,” she says.

“I thought so.” John licks his teeth.

“Are you disappointed?” She asks, still doubting his feelings despite this being the second time he’s admitted them.

“No.”

“So, what now?”

“I scare you away.”

“Try.” She raises her chin, defiant Pomeranian back in action.

Every time she opens her mouth, it’s a new emotion wrought upon his aching soul. He loves it - not even secretly.

He smiles to demonstrate his fondness for the attitude. “I don’t know how to do this.”

She starts to ask him what he means, but it would be useless because she already shares the sentiment. “God, me too.”

“Ask me something,” he starts.

“Why did you come here to die?”

“I didn’t.” He rethinks. “I did. I wasn’t thinking, I got sloppy, I didn’t know I had lost that much blood. I was dazed, and you’re the person I wanted. It was idiotic. I’m sorry.” He takes a breath, trying to organize his thoughts into words. “If I’m gonna die, I want to be beside you when it happens.”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, warmth filling her up. “Okay, well.” Her voice is quiet. She’s thinking about whether or not to believe him with part of her brain and beating herself with the other part for not trusting an honest man who’s shown her compassion and protection. She chews her lip. “That’s the main part. And now I don’t feel so bad about also being an idiot.” She swivels back. “Not that I think you’re an idiot. I don’t. You’re not an idiot. Actually, you’re one of the smartest people I know. Just that I don’t feel so alone.”

He tilts his head. He’s absolutely an idiot. Letting himself get shot on the first night back, for one, then, for two, letting his unoxygenated brain lead him, desperate, to her doorstep, despite the consequences. The biggest idiot alive. What she did was noble and misplaced, what he did was intentional and inconsiderate. Comparing their faults is what’s idiotic.

“Can’t you just talk?” She asks. “Your long silences and dark stares are killing me, here.”

“I’m bad at it,” he admits.

She gives him a full-fledged smile, finally. Irony is laced into her lips. “Haven’t you ever played show and tell?”

“I excelled at show,” he says, inching toward her face.

She inches back, although she is timid. “I can tell.”

He scoots over so that they are nose to nose, startling her with the sudden move. She can’t get the nervous laugh out before he steals it with his mouth.

She wonders how many coppery kisses are in her future, and hopes it’s a lot.

[icekingofhope]

so I decided since I am a fnaf veteran and also planning a fnaf rewrite I give my opinions on the games and such and explain why I like or hate the game.

fnaf 1 2 and 3: the reason why I love these three is because it feels like a perfect trilogy the mystery the intense setting just a chef kiss and yes I agree fnaf 3 isn’t the brightest but I don’t care cause it’s actually my top favorite fnaf game I love the character spring trap a lot he has always been my favorite and the story’s ending fits of how the ghost of the dead children decided to punish their murder by making him go threw what they go threw.

fnaf 4: now I don’t hate this game far from it actually it’s probably the scariest fnaf game I seen and plus the designs of the nightmares are cool! It just I wish it was executed abit better as it does have flaws to the story (like example what did fucking michael expect when he put his brother in the mouth of a animatronic what did he think was gonna happen)

FNAF WORLD: now it maybe not a horror game…but I do enjoy the chibi animatronics and they look adorable I would never play it but I’ll look at the gameplay or art time to time.

Sister location: this game was kinda meh to me and feels wasted potential and it being a prequel just kinda ruins the lore especially since the first game takes place in 1970s…and advance animatronics like that doesn’t make sense and plus I feel like it would have fit a lot better if it was like taken place after the three games and maybe if you wanna make it a prequel make the animatronics less advance and give it the aesthetic of that time period (and don’t make the ballerina animatronic sexualized when she is a animatronic for children (cause you can’t tell me she isn’t sue me-)

pizza simulator: I fucking hate this game cause to me it ruined five nights at Freddy the only good thing was the cool speech Henry gave I already stop being into five nights at Freddy from this cause it ruined it for me the mystery was gone it just felt like they were just milking the franchise now and I don’t get how people like it.

THE FNAF VR AR AND ULTIMATE CUSTOM NIGHT: this is similar to pizza simulator and it sucks cause like this could have been fixed if they were just not canon like fnaf world and just got entertainment.

SECURITY BREACH: this one made me the most disappointed cause I remember when I saw the trailer I was actually very excited and positive about the game and made my theories on the game of what’s gonna happen…but it just turned out as a shitty glitchy game and I will announce as the WORST five nights at Freddy’s games ever made.

it frustrated me how bad it was to like showing the trailers aren’t true to the game amazing voice actors replaced with bad ones (aka vanny) and the only think I like about this game is the animatronics (not their designs their ok but it feels weird to even like them cause they are made by a problematic artist but the idea names etc)

Gregory also feels like a annoying main character like I just want him to just shut up like to me he doesn’t sound like a kid he just sounds like a bad voice actor trying to imitate a child but with a sore throat.

and don’t get me started on Vanessa which could have been a separate character to vanny cause like I hated she turned out to be vanny (and I always found it strange she was the only human security guard I mean…for a big ass fucking place as security breach which is probably the biggest map of any fnaf game your telling me there isn’t more human security guards? Like I’m aware of the security bots but they barely do shit in the game)

it upsetted me when I first saw the game I was so excited for it like how I would have fix it maybe make it like similar to the incident the death of the 5 children make it start as a tutorial where your parents take you to Freddy fazbears with your friends you get a tutorial of how to run climb and such.

and like you meet vanny she tried to kill you and maybe try to make the animatronics interesting since they are taking ai animatronics who actually have feelings and emotions route make them like Trying to fight back their aggressive programming do something to make it interesting! you had the ball In your hands yet you just decided to throw it into a fucking cliff this includes ruin and into the pit which is bad too.

And it sucks cause like I don’t know what is gonna happen now like it feels like five nights at Freddy is the broken shell it once was…

now does this mean you should also hate it no you don’t have to hate any these games if you like them feel free to for me it just feels like fnaf was ruined to me with its books and bad sequels cause like sometimes it feels like Scott didn’t seem to know what he wanted for the game and it feels like he was making it up as he went a lot going with the most craziest and dumbest ideas.

but you can still love fnaf I still like it too but like I am not as much into it anymore (due to the fans being crazy with its ships etc ) although even if I do plan a fnaf rewrite it’s not to spite Scott or any fnaf fans i just wanna do it to reconnect to fnaf when it was at its prime and feel abit of nostalgia.

and despite my hate for how fnaf went but I am glad they still exist cause we got amazing fan made songs and people got into the franchise and not to mention they can be inspiring and also help popularize mascot horror which is one of my favorite type of horror!

now I wish I could explain how I hate it more (but I suck at fucking explaining) although I do highly suggest video which honestly explains the fall way better then I could ever can

Anyways that’s all please don’t attack me for my opinions and I hope you have a good day or night.

[faegoddessog]

  Fantasy Come True  Ch 8/8

Chapter 8  : Home... to our house

Chapter Warnings: Explicitly mature content, 18+ only, cramps, period sex (no blood), massage, fingering, slow fucking, Unprotected PiV (play safe ya'll) cock warming, public sex, 'can't be bothered to take your clothes off' fucking, hard and fast from behind, verbal abuse, breakup angst, Austin is just too fucking sweet to handle.

Series Summary: Breaking into the acting world has been a life long dream. It's been tough, plus your relationship with you partner has some struggles, but who doesn't have struggles. A new guy shows up to your improv classes who seems strangely familiar. He seems rather interested in you and you feel unusually comfortable around him, like he projects calm and reassurance. Once you realize who he really is, and what he really likes... it's game on. 

SERIES WARNING: Explicitly mature content, 18+ only,  here there be lemons.

A/N: This little gem is per request for the lovely and talented @purejasmine . It's been a collaborative project designed to meet her every Austin need as best I can. Here's to you darling! <clink> I hope ya'll enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed the creative process with parameters not wholly my own!!

Here is the Masterlist of this series.

Chapter 8:  Home… to our house.

When you both actually wake up,  you can’t believe it’s only Saturday. Austin makes you coffee and tea, then sets out a plate of non-breakfast for you both to nibble on and you get to work. You end up taping one your two scenes with Austin off screen, reading the opposing lines. Upon review, it is so good, better than what you originally had in mind.  

You help Austin with his project for a couple hours. He is already off script, just wanting to hone bits and pieces. You are amazed at how phenomenal he is. He shies away from the kissing scene. Telling you that if he starts kissing you… he’s not gonna stop.

“Plus, I can tell you are sore love,” he says, kissing you lightly on the forehead. 

 You insist that you aren’t exactly sore, just delicious twinges that remind you insistently of last nights’ activities. 

You finish eating the early dinner you ordered in, when the cramp hits, and all is made quite clear. Your eyes close and you blow out short breaths. 

“Are you Ok, Angel?” concern written on his face.

“Well that answers why I was so fucking horny last night.” you say almost to yourself.

“What? That wasn’t a product of me admitting I’m head over heels in love with you plus my extra sexy skills?” he says, only partly teasing. 

“Yes, for sure, and,” you frown, “I’m about to get my period. Fuck! “ you bend over in pain as another one hits.

“Princess,“ he rushes to you, rubbing your low back with a sure hand. “Will you let me take care of you? I have a tried and true method of making cramps go away. And I promise that blood doesn't bother me, that’s what showers are for, sweetheart.” 

Wow, this man is truly amazing. 

“I’m not bleeding yet, just cramping,” you say shaking your head, “but how are you real, my Austin, and not a dreamed up god of a man or an angel or something?” 

He just huffs out breath and shakes his head, closing his eyes. 

“C’mon, let's get you upstairs and into a hot bath.”

……..

Austin’s chest is so solid behind you, the lavender and chamomile oil scents drifting up from the tub are almost effortlessly relaxing. 

“It’s what I use when I just need to relax,” he had said as the drops hit the surface of the hot water with tiny plops. You had watched the oils spread in slick concentric rings in front of you in  the soft glow of the candles he lit before climbing in behind you.  

Now the fingers of his left hand play at being laced in between the fingers of yours, his thumb delicately stroking your own. His right hand gently pulls your head down against his shoulder, petting a stray hair away from your face and back into the hasty bun on the back of your head. You sigh, relaxing. 

Another cramp hits, you suck air in through your teeth, your body tensing.

“Oh hunny,” his right hand drifts to your abdomen, his palm going in gentle clockwise circles. His left rubbing against your hip and along your thigh. How does he know it’s so sore there? 

The cramp dissipates quickly as his hands touch you.  It’s fucking sorcery. 

You sit in companionable silence, Austin effectively petting the cramps away as they come. 

“Are you ready now?” he asks softly after about twenty minutes in the bath.

“There’s more?” you ask incredulously. 

“Of course, my Princess, I hate that you hurt, I want to do everything I can to help you.” 

“Austin, just you touching me has helped tremendously. Thank you.” “Well that is my plan,” his hands go to the sides of the oversized tub. Water drips off his gorgeous physique as he gets out. 

“‘I’ll be right back,” he says, wrapping a towel around himself.

He is gone for about ten minutes, doing… who knows what. You lay back in the tub that is strangely empty without him. You will never be able to take a bath without Austin again, this is simply the superior way to bathe, cramps or no.

He comes back quickly with a huge warm fluffy towel that he must have pulled straight from the dryer. He wraps you in it, rubbing you head to toe. He leads you to the bed, where he has laid  out pillows and more towels ‘just in case”, he winks at you. You melt. Why does his wink turn  your bones to jello?

He positions you face down, with a pillow under your hips. You pussy is a little exposed, but the gentle pressure on your belly actually feels good. Another warm towel drapes over you. 

He gets massage oil out and kneels on the bed straddling your legs. Folding the towel out of the way, he starts with long slow strokes, spreading the oil over your hamstrings, buttocks and low back. His thumbs pull slightly at your crack, opening you up just a bit as he glides over your ass. His strong hands knead each of your legs up and down several times. His fingers and thumbs dig into your glutes and you can’t help but moan in pleasure. 

Normally, when you get massages, you try to keep your vocalizations to a minimum, but here you don’t feel shy about it at all, you want to let him know just how good it feels. He presses his knuckles into your low back, gliding along either side of your spine.

You groan.

 When he leans over you, his semi hard cock brushes against your butt cheeks. 

Sweet Mama Jones, that is a new sensation during a massage. What you hope is just your natural lube floods your insides, he feels so good. 

His hands slide from your back, over your ass, pulling your cheeks apart, his thumbs grazing your lips. He adds more oil to his hands, sliding them gently up and down your pussy lips. Then he starts all over again, backs of your thighs, glutes, low back, down to your crotch again. When he does it for a 3rd time, you open your legs for him in anticipation of his fingers on your pussy. 

“Now, my darling Angel,  I don’t want to make you hurt more, so if it does, just tell me to stop.” He is rubbing back and forth gently, fingertips barely circling your clit on the down stroke. 

“This isn’t about safe words or pushing you past some limit.” He slides a slow finger just barely inside you, every move is slow and gentle. It’s perfectly what you need right now, relaxation seeps into you. Your moans come out as low ‘mmmm’s and breathy ‘oh yeah’s. It just feels good. Who would’ve thought.  

“Don’t even worry about an orgasm, Princess,  just relax and let me make you feel good, my love.” He goes back to your glutes and your low back for a minute or two. 

Weirdly, his words are like the key clicking in the lock. His insistence of orgasm being irrelevant turns you on so much. As he nears your vulva again, your hips open up to him and you find your back arching in an attempt to convey what you want. Of course he notices and of course he gives it to you, gliding his oiled fingers against you. Afterall, this isn’t about teasing and taunting you, only about making you relax and feel good.

You turn your head, lifting your shoulders just a little. You can see him out of the corner of your eye, naked and kneeling over you. Even the fraction of him you can see is a turn on. 

“Austin baby, are you hard?” you ask in a quiet tone.

“Yes,” he simply says.

“Good. I need you in me, my Austin,”  you reach back and brush your fingertips against his knee. 

“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt you,” he sounds hesitant. 

“Yes I am, oh god yes,  please. Just go slow and be gentle,” you tone isn’t begging, more definitive. 

“Yes Ma’am.” The mattress bends under your legs as he walks his knees forward. He leans over you, his body making contact with yours, but holding himself up, not wanting to crush you. He moves his hips in a circle, his cock brushing against your buttocks. His hips lift and his shaft falls down between your legs and against your wetness.  Behind you, you hear a closed mouth moan. You reach both hands back and spread your cheeks apart for him. His tip is just at your entrance. 

“Ok my Princess, I’ll go slow, but if it hurts you gotta tell me. Remember, if you don’t cum it’s just fine, as long as you feel good.” He says in a deep voice just behind your ear. 

You nod. 

Then he pushes so slowly, not even all the way in and sits up a bit on his knees. The angle is perfect as it doesn’t put too much pressure on your uterus. Then the fucking magic begins. His thumbs rest on the joint between your back and hip and he starts massaging in ever widening circles. It is unreal how good it feels. He moves his cock slowly, deliberately in and out, but not deep. Thumbs digging in. He is a wizard and you are the subject of his marvelous spell.  You feel an insidious warmth spread through your pelvis, and after a little while, you snake your hand between you and the pillows. Rubbing gentle circles around your clit. 

You feel yourself pushed closer and closer until your orgasm spills up and out of you just as slow. An overflowing pitcher of endorphins spreading through your system like spilled milk. Your whole body shudders in joy.

“Better love?” he rubs up and down your back in long strokes. 

He pulls out as you roll over. You open your arms, wanting him close. 

“Oh god yes,” your whole body feels relaxed and happy as he settles down next to you. Cradling your head against his chest. 

“What about you?” you reach for his still hard cock, covered in your slick.  

“Oh this isn’t about me right now hun, I’m happy to make you feel better.” he intercepts your hand. 

“But that was amazing Austin, I’ve never had anyone do anything like that for me before. I want to repay you.” You lace your fingers through his hand.

“Another time my darling Princess, just rest now.” He kisses your forehead.  

You had never slept so soundly. 

Your flow starts the next morning as Austin feeds you breakfast.  It turns out to be the easiest period you’ve ever had.  

You decide not to work on the comedic scene, opting to wait until next time. When you tell Austin this, he smiles almost shyly at you. 

“I love it when you say next time,” his voice and eyes soft. “Oh yeah, that reminds me! Would you be interested in going to a party next Friday? I usually don’t go to them, but this is one of those big shindigs that I should probably be at, especially with my new project on the horizon.  If you aren’t ready, I totally understand.”

“I would freakin’ love to,” the idea of going out in the public eye on purpose with Austin is thrilling if a bit daunting, plus maybe you can do the whole rub elbows/ shake hands make deals  business deal thing. 

 “I have no idea what I’ll wear though, my closet is pretty mundane,” you say. 

“I believe I told you that I would take you shopping, plus I owe you panties. Are you feeling up to it today?” he asks.

Surprisingly, after all the … well… all the Austin, you are feeling really good, and your flow isn’t nearly as bad as it usually is. So you agree. 

He takes you to one of those fancy boutiques where they give you a private room and serve you drinks and bring you all the clothes to try on. It’s a little overwhelming at first, Austin orders you some sparkling water, knowing alcohol isn’t your jam.

Oh, and thank the lord for the body positive movement, everyone you meet is just so nice and supportive.  Austin is sitting on a little couch with a drink in his hand, smiling at how you are getting pampered. 

They whisk you away to a dressing room, trying to get the tea on you and Austin. You shrug and smile in an ‘I know but I’m not telling’ sort of way. Luckily they are cool and help you try on several things. A couple you feel comfortable enough to go out and show Austin. He nods, says you look nice. 

Then you step out of the dressing room in a white satin blouse with pearl buttons down the front. The deep V neck shows off the girls. It’s not quite scandalous, but enough that you feel sexy. The back yoke is non-existent and has, instead, black satin ribbons sewn at the neckline and the the top of the bra line creating stripes of ribbon, skin, ribbon skin. It’s tucked into a high waisted black tulip cut skirt that hits you at the knee. Just under the subtle offset downwards V in the waistline, the fabric is gathered and twisted at the front of the hip.  Which flows down into the positively libertine slit that peels back over your thigh. You were shocked at the overall effect of it in the  mirror of the dressing room, you would never have even dared to try this on, but the person helping you knew exactly what they were doing. As you step out, you know it's not just you when you see Austin’s breath catch. The subtle widening of his eyes, raising of his eye brow and nodding of his head as he tries to hide biting his lip.

“You look amazing, but how does it feel?” he asks. 

Fuck, how is he so perfect? 

You move around, sit down next to him, put your hand on the knee of his crossed legs,

“It’s actually good,” you say kind of surprisingly. The waist is not too tight when you sit, even the strappy heeled sandals are comfortable. 

The salesperson motions for you to stand. Austin watches your ass as you walk to the three way mirror. 

“This really fits you beautifully. And if we tailor the shirt right here,” they tuck the side seam together, “it’d really create that perfect curvy side silhouette with no rumples in the fabric.” 

“As long as it’s still comfortable, I’d love it,” you comment.

“Girl, I got you, contrary to popular belief, we can look amazing and be comfy at the same time,” they say with a wagging finger.

“We’ll take them,” says Austin quickly with a glimmer in his eye, “when will it be ready.” 

…

Austin drops you off at your apartment later that night. He is doing his best to hide his reluctance, hanging on to the hope that he can convince you to stay with him sooner rather than later. He is planning on picking you up on Friday morning to get your outfit for the party that night. 

It was really hard to walk into your apartment. Austin's words before you walked away from the car keep bounding around inside your head. “I may just keep you… so be ready Princess.” 

Your partner was right where you left him on the bed, playing video games. You wondered if he even moved, he gets so testy when he doesn’t see the sun. 

“Any luck?” he asked. 

“Yeah, we got one of the scenes taped, the other we’ll do later.”

“Only one? In three days? That's ridiculous . Why does everything always take you so long?” Clearly he hasn’t been outside or moved enough, that demon side of him is rearing its ugly head. 

“Yeah well that’s what it’s like-” You almost call him babe, but just… can’t. “Plus I had cramps.” 

“Oh no, well that sucks, so no banging for me huh?” he says, knowing you hate that term. 

Your “Nope,” has never been so multifaceted before. You shake your head, turn your back and walk to the kitchen. You realize you simply just can’t live like this anymore, you have seen the light and you won’t live in darkness. Something has to change and after more than a decade, it won’t be him. 

You spend the next few days mentally cataloging what you would pack and take with you.  It’s actually a nice escape, in between texts from Austin, which you actually changed to his right name. You find that, aside from your clothes and a few momentos from childhood and things that remind you of your mother, you don’t really want most of this stuff. You don’t want the old baggage anymore. You even pack up a few  things and take them to the thrift store. 

On Wednesday, you tell your partner that you will be gone starting on Friday probably all weekend.

“Again!? What are you cheating on me?” he asks, eyes narrowed. “It’s not cheating if it’s with Austin Butler,” you say with a genuine smile.

“Oh yes, of course… your perfect Auuuustin,” he teases cruelly, he's always pissy when you are on your period.  You don’t really care though, not anymore.   Because Austin is perfect, and he is yours.

You just shrug him off. 

“Whatever, weirdo. At least be sure to bring back some leftovers this time.” he says walking into the bedroom, unable to rile you.

‘Fat fucking chance,’ you think. 

You flash to Austin asking you to live with him. It’s feeling more and more tempting to just leave right now. 

‘And what about your security, your future safety?’ fucking practicality, ruining your adventurous  moment. 

…..

Austin hands the keys to the valet, then walks around to open your door. You step out to a myriad of flashes. If not for Austin’s smile at you and his fingers threaded through your own, you’d be terrified. You walk what feels a little like a gauntlet.  Austin has his game face on and yours is neutral like you guys talked about on the way over. 

“Don’t give them anything,” he had said. 

Paparazzi at the gate are yelling his name, asking who you are. You know, intellectually, that this is very mild, but it’s still a little intimidating. But you figure, if shy Austin can handle it, so can you. 

The party is in full swing, people with drinks everywhere in the big old Hollywood house. Austin clings to your hand like a lifeline at first. You aren't sure if it’s for you or for him. He relaxes as he greets people, and introduces you as his date. He is SO charming and somehow remembers everyone’s name and what they might be working on. It’s like he did homework for this party. 

You turn on all your own charm. You are chatting in an easy friendly way. It’s easy with Austin by your side, which he is, all night long. People are actually nice and welcoming. 

“I see why he likes you,” says a lady in your ear.

An official photographer is wandering around, taking pictures. You both pose for him, he asks your name. You give him your stage name. 

After an hour or so of rubbing elbows with people,  you both make your way out to the pool area. There is a big name DJ, people are dancing and drinking and some are high on… whatever. It’s loud and the energy is crazy. 

“I like this music, but it’s a little too much right now,” Austin yells in your ear. 

You notice an empty balcony off the end of the house and nod your head up that way. Austin follows your gaze and returns to your eyes with a little grin that says, “I like the way you think”. 

You covertly find your way up to the room that opens up onto this private balcony. 

You don’t notice, but Austin locks the door behind him. Inside, the music is muted, and the comparable quiet is a balm to both your ears. The room is set up to be an office. A big desk and book shelf and a couple comfy chairs fill the room. 

“You are amazing, Princess,” Austin gathers you in his arms, “It’s like you are made for this sort of thing.” 

“Thank you, darling,” you say, draping your arms around his neck, “But you, you make it look easy.” 

“I’m exhausted, too many people. I just need a little break to recharge.” His lips press to yours. The kiss starts out light, but gets deeper. A tell-tale firmness rises against your hips.

“You want to know why I like this skirt?” he looks down at you through half lidded eyes,”and why I wouldn’t let you wear any of the ten new pairs of panties I bought you?”

Your top teeth bite lightly at your bottom lip as you nod. You had been wondering when he was going to make this move, not that you know what it is. You had been expecting something in the car on the way over, but he had been the perfect gentleman all evening. Much to your throbbing pussy’s dismay. 

A most debauched  grin slides across his face. His hand traces a line up your exposed leg, right up the slit, triggering moisture to tingle inside you. Then as he pulls you closer, both hands slide around behind unclasping and unzipping your skirt.

“Austin…” you aren’t sure you are comfortable taking your clothes off here. 

“Trust me,” he says.

He grabs the waistband and twists the skirt back to front and rezips it.  The slit up your back side, barely covering your ass. 

“This was the first thing I wanted to do when I saw you in it,” he says, reaching around and sliding his hand up the slit again and under the fabric. His fingers play at the tuck of your ass. 

“C’mon,” he leads you out to the balcony. The railing is made of thick stone balusters that provide a modicum of privacy, from the waist down anyway. Only one side is open to the party below.  

“Here,” he guides you to lean forward against the balustrade, as though watching the revelry. The music is somewhat less loud here, the speakers aimed toward the center of the house. At least you can hear each other.  As you lean, the slit in your skirt slides up, your ass and pussy completely accessible to him from behind. The night is a little chilly, at least for LA. 

He cuddles you from the side, his right hand on your low back. He casually talks about the people down below, observing the human behavior while his hand slides down, rubbing your labia. 

“No big reaction now Princess, we can't let any stray onlookers know that your sweet pussy is all exposed for me back here,” he says with a smile.

You nod, your face as passive as you can make it as his fingers play at your cunt, spreading your wetness around. 

His other hand has worked his pants open, his tip just barely exposed.  

“Burrr,” he says in your ear.

“Need me to warm that for you?” you say casually. Your mind is buzzing with the idea of him inside you at such a public and potentially exposed place. 

“Oh I was hoping you’d pick up on that.” He slides in behind you, You spread your legs a little and the head of his cock rubs in your wet pussy. He leans over your back a little and points down at the crowd with a smile on his face. He is close to your ear as though he is just trying to be heard.  

“Slowly now baby, push back, open to me,” he is saying. His cock finds its way to your entrance, wet with excitement. 

Slowly he pushes in. God you want to flutter your eyelids, tilt your head back and moan he is stretching you so beautifully. But you just smile, your hands gripping the stone railing. Once he is deep in, you both stand up a bit, testing it out. He is so long it actually works. 

“Fuck you are warm, Princess,” he begins to sway a little to the music. His arms around you as though he is keeping you warm when it is actually the other way around. 

He gives you tiny little thrusts that reseat him inside you but that look just like dancing. He is driving you batty with this teasing, and you love it.  All you can do is clench your pussy down on him.

You stay that way for a couple of songs. Austin in you, holding you. Your head laid back on his shoulder. Your hands laced into his. It’s the most private of public moments. It’s sweet and sexy. As he sways back and forth, he is subtly shifting, pressing his hips into you nearly involuntarily. After a bit, he lets himself slip out of you and tucks himself back into his pants. 

You make a little sad mewling sound that you assume he doesn’t hear. But he does see the slight pout on your face that goes with it. 

“Wait ‘till I get you home,” he whispers in your ear, “I might just ruin that skirt.”  He gives you a little smile and a lift of his eyebrow before taking you back inside by the hand. 

You stayed for another hour or so. All the way home his hand is on your exposed thigh, painting small circles and lines on your inner thighs, dragging his fingers up and resettling his palm higher. Periodically he drags his pinky next to your labia, drawing a tiny line of wetness away and your breath from your body.  

You two don’t talk, he just drives and you just watch him. He is so damn beautiful, it makes you ache. Your fingers trace over the skin of his hand and wrist. Thoughts of his soon to be naked body on yours, his hands touching more than just your thigh, his scrumptious lips any and everywhere. These keep you licking and biting your lip. The sexual tension in the car is practically gelatinous by the time he pulls into the driveway.  

He parks a little haphazardly in the garage, gets out of the car and slams the door. Suddenly you are slightly worried that he might be mad, at what you don’t know. He whips open your door and offers you his trembling hand, nostrils flaring. 

“Austin, I -” he cuts you off short with a held up finger, tight lips and sizzling eyes that glance up and down your body. Oh… this is him trying to hold onto control…. Oh… oh my.

Without uttering a word, he pulls you with long strides through to the backyard.. 

Once you are next to the saltwater pool, by the patio table, he turns around abruptly to you. Shaking hands frame your face. 

“We started this outside, we’re finishing it outside,” he growls. 

You just nod, you are more turned on than you thought possible by his passionate fierceness. 

His lips take yours, his tongue insistent in your mouth.  

Your fingers are undoing the buttons on his dark blue button-down. His own do the same to the pearls on your blouse. You run your fingers in the hollow between his pecs, feeling the sprinkling of blonde hairs there. You kiss down his neck and chest to his nipples as his hands partially untuck your blouse. Your tongue plays with his nipple, thumb rubbing across the other,  as his fingers deftly undo the clasp of your bra.  You moan in pleasure against his skin as his hands rub along the skin of your bra line and cup your breasts.

“I love those fucking sounds,” he says low and intense. 

You look up at him, a whimper escapes you unbidden. He is towering over you in his heeled boots. The relative dark of the night casting shadows across his face. His fucking perfect face. 

He sits down on the edge of one of the patio chairs and pulls you forcibly between his legs. He doesn't bother to take your top all the way off, just pushes your loose bra up off your tits as he grasps them. 

His breath sounds a  deep, appreciative ‘ohhhh’ as he looks at your bountiful chest in his hands. Your roles reverse, as he raises his eyes to you now from below; lustful and libidinous. 

“These gorgeous tits have been teasing me all night long,” his voice is thick with desire,”Every time I looked at you, I wanted to rip your neckline open and suck on them.”

Then his mouth is wide on one breast, taking as much of your nipple and areola into his mouth as he can, his tongue lolling against you. 

Your fingers rake through his hair and drape around his neck. 

He pulls off with a low pop. His hand rolls your tightening, wet nub in his palm as he sucks the other side. 

Soft ‘ohhs’ and moans escape with your breath.  

He switches back and forth, flicking his tongue against your nipples one time, then sucking harder the next. Each new sensation sends new little jets of pleasure shooting from your tits to your pelvis and pushes more little moans from your mouth. You can feel your juices bubble from your pussy, lubing your inner thighs. 

He locks his wild eyes with yours and unzips the skirt slowly. It’s as though taking his time is the only way to control himself, to keep him from tearing it off you.  You assume he’s gonna slip it off, but instead, he turns it front to back again, leaving it undone this time so it rides high, your ass exposed. 

Even in the fervor of his desire, he raises an inquiring eyebrow up at you. 

“Yes,” you breathe out, nodding. Yes for what? You don’t know and you don’t care as long as it involves him. Austin can do anything he likes to you.

Abruptly you are bent over the patio table, the porcelain tile cool on your exposed breasts. You don’t remember him standing up. You hear the zipper of his fly. You arch your ass back and look invitingly over your shoulder at him. 

“Oh god Princess, I’ve needed you since the balcony,” his shirt hangs open between the edges of his suit jacket, framing his lean torso. His hand is in his boxers, pulling his cock out.

“Do it, my Austin,” you say back, just as needy.

He rubs his tip against your folds. 

“Oh my god you are so fucking wet,” he moans, brow knit together. He pushes his hardness deep in between your wet inner thighs, his tip against your clit. You smile as your thighs squeeze together. Yielding, for the moment to his deep hunger, he thrusts fast and sharp between your legs. Vocalizing in grunts. He quickly pulls away after a dozen or so, breathing through his mouth as though to control himself. 

You step your legs apart. Your ass is perfectly framed by the slit in your skirt. It’s what he has wanted since he saw you in the store last weekend. You shake your ass a little, inviting him to delve into you. 

He does. 

Soft open sounds lilt from him as he pushes in slow. In, in, in, as far as he can. His hips are smashed against your ass. FUCK he feels so damn good in you. Right at the end he gives a little extra thrust. You squeak, jerking a little against the table.  Then out  just as slow, both of you savoring every centimeter of contact. 

Once he is in deep again, he leans over your back,  unsteady fingers brush your hair aside and over your shoulder.

“You are so incredible, my gorgeous night goddess.” He pulls your chin around, your spine twisting to look at him. “Making me want you all night long in this slutty- little- skirt.” He stresses the last three words with thrusts.  His mouth is on yours as he pulls out half way and pushes in again with a little grunt before letting up. “You don’t know how much will power it took to just be in you earlier and not fuck you.” His left arm wraps around your shoulder. His hand splays over your sternum then pulls you more upright. His forefinger strokes lightly at the hollow of your throat. “I’m going to fuck you now though, hard.” 

You are caught like a fly in a web, a wet and willing sacrifice to his appetite.  

“Do you remember your word, Princess?” his voice sounds deliciously dangerous. 

You nod, not that you’ll need it. One hand wraps around his wrist, the other spreads on the cool porcelain. 

“Fuck me,” you say demandingly. You’ve needed him too, walking around with a wet pussy all night, making nice with industry people when all you wanted was a private spot and Austin.  

You can’t see the deviant smile that spreads across his face, but can hear it in his sinful chuckle. 

Then he is pounding into you from behind, pulling you onto him as much as he is fucking into you. It’s hard, it’s fast, it’s so wickedly good. Your tits are bouncing up and down. You give yourself over, completely at the mercy of his carnal desire, not anticipating an orgasm in this position.

“Oh fuck yes, so good, so tight, so mine,” his teeth are clenched next to your ear. 

His words make your head tilt back, mouth open, eyes closed. ‘His’.

His right hand dives between your legs, his thrusting motion giving rise to the perfect friction between the pads of his fingers and your soaked clit. 

You clench down on his cock. 

The squelchy wet sounds and the slap of his hips onto your ass make your closed eyelids flutter and an unexpected tightening starts in your pelvis. Not to mention his grunting ahhhs and groaning ohhhh’s  reverberating in your ear. “Yes, yes, fuck me hard, Austin,” you hear yourself almost whining. 

 He is, he does and he keeps doing it.

“Fuck yeah, That’s it,” he moans as he feels you get wetter as you get closer.

“Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah,” you chant as your fingers tighten on his arm. 

“That’s my girl,” he seethes in your ear, “Fuckin’ cream my cock baby, I need it, I want it all over me.” 

That’s it, the trigger, the button in this dirty little scene. You tighten, you shake , you cum screaming, knees buckling. You are held in the carnal web by his strong arm, impaled on his glorious cock. 

“OH yes, fuck fuck  FUUUUUCK!” he thrusts deep into you as you cum, filling you with his. 

You both are bent over the table, panting, his arms on either side of you holding himself up. After a minute of catching your collective breath,  you start giggling. You are just so high as he pulls out of you, dripping cum You turn around in his arms. His mouth is curled up in a smile. 

“What?” he giggles back. 

“I’m just…. happy… I’m happy,” you say more to yourself than him, “I’m so happy and so in love with you.” 

….

At a little lunch spot the next day, you deliberately order just what you’ll eat, no leftovers thank you very much. This kinda throws Austin off and he already seems pretty nervous. After you guys eat, Austin grabs your hands across the table and looks you in the eye. 

“Ok Princess, I’ve been thinking about it, and I have two , no three things to tell you.. Well… ask you. I’m hoping at least one of these will sway you.” 

You look at him a little confused. 

“About coming to live with me, that is,” he clarifies.

“Oh, ok,” your heart is about to burst, ‘please let this be good, please let it be enough,’ you think to yourself. 

“First is, in a couple weeks I am going to go shoot a small project. It's only gonna be less than a month, but I want you to come with me. I’d love your support and honestly, I don’t think I can go that long without seeing you,” he stops and looks at you hopefully. 

You are all in to go anywhere with him, but you were hoping for something more grand than this. Even if he got you a small acting role in the project that would be something. 

“Of course I’ll come,” is all you say.

“Ok, good. Second, and please don’t be mad at me,” he puts his hands out in supplication, ”I took the liberty of sending your tape to a couple people. They liked you and they want to see you, so, if you are willing, you have some call-back zoom calls on Monday.” He presses his lips together, eyes big and hopeful. 

“Oh wow,” you whisper, “really?” 

He nods. 

“Are you upset?” 

“What? No! No! That’s amazing! Of course  I”ll do the calls!” This was better, using connections to actually help you get your foot in the door. 

“And finally, I don’t just want to take care of you, I want you to be able to take care of yourself. So I’m offering you this, in your name.”  He hands you three flyers. They are houses for sale, two in Santa Monica, one in Brentwood, “I know how you like choices. So you get to choose and once you pick one, you can consider it your backup security. All three are awesome and ready to rent out.   We have appointments with my realtor buddy this afternoon.” His lip shakes, hoping to god you’ll like it, that it’s enough. 

You are floored, you expected… anything other than this. Even a wedding ring was more likely in your mind than a house. A place that was yours, that you could rent out or you could live there if, god forbid, something went wrong? Plus the possibility of an acting job on TOP of that? Your practical mind is chewing it over quickly, trying to find a loophole. Staying with Austin, having an income, owning a home, being loved like you’ve never been loved before. 

You are standing up, wait... when did you do that? 

“Austin, take me back home, right now,” you say in a sort of shocked voice. 

He’s stricken and confused. “But Princess, don’t you see. It would be in your name, yours free and clear.  You can rent it out as an income stream, and it’s…. it’s … yours… and  jobs and security. You’re safe…with me. Please,” his voice fades, eyes pleading with you.

You blink as he talks, yes you understand… why is he…?

“No,” you say assuredly, you see his heart drop in his chest. Oh shit, you are making a mess of this.  You shake your head to clear it. 

“No, no,  I mean home. Take me home to our house. I need to make love to you right now because you are amazing. Austin, you are my Fantasy come True, I am all in from this second on. I will never leave you, never stray, always be here for you and will treat you like my King and I know now that you will always treat me like your Queen. I love you so much I may burst.” 

You don’t really remember the drive home.

Austin barely makes it into the driveway before he throws the car in park and runs to open your door. He reaches into his pocket and hands you a set of keys and ushers you to the front door. When you unlock the door, he swoops you up and carries you inside. Jesus his muscles aren’t just for show. 

He sets you on the stairs. 

“We can change anything you want, Princess. This is your castle too now. If you want a room to be yours for things or if you need something special, let’s do it.” “Austin, my love, the only thing I want right now is you.” 

He kisses you into oblivion. You practically rip his clothes off in the foyer. He lets you.

You don’t even make it to the bedroom or the couch for that matter. He takes you right there on the stairs, with the front door wide open. He is sweet and loving, his hips moving like a dolphin on the water against your own.

You keep repeating “My Austin, my love,” while looking into his ocean eyes.  It’s slow and sensual and it means everything to you. 

….

Austin takes you to the apartment you had shared with your partner,  to get your things the next day. You tell  Austin he had better wait in the car. He is unhappy about it, leaning against the hood, watching intently, worried for your safety. Thank god you had thought about this already. You walk in, with boxes. Your partner is sucked into his game. 

“Damit, I thought you’d be longer, I'm at a good part,” he says. He hates when you interrupt his gaming. Well, he won’t have to worry about that anymore. 

You drop an InNOut Burger bag next to him. He pauses his game, looks at you and snatches it up. “Is that it? Didn’t Auuuustin take you somewhere better?” he smirks, opening the bag. 

You decide not to answer as he goes back to his game, stuffing the burger in his mouth. You just start packing and see if he’ll notice. You get your clothes  and the box in the closet that might as well be a shrine to your mom. A few of your favorite little items around the house. You carry them out to the landing, Austin is there, unable to stay away, and wordlessly starts taking them to the car. 

“Finally getting rid of your junk?” your partner says as you walk back in for the last box. 

“No, I’m leaving,” you say calmly, turning towards the door. I mean, in a way you ARE getting rid of your junk.

“What?” he says, looking in the closet at your empty half. “Oh, are you?” his voice is dripping with animosity. “Ok sure, go, you’ll be back before nightfall. You’ll never be able to survive the big bad world.” He follows you out the door, mocking you.  “What, do you think you’ll actually meet Austin Butler and he’ll save you? Ha!” 

Austin steps up from the landing to take the box from you. He looks menacingly at your former partner, but says nothing. 

“Yes, yes he has,” you say, turning back. 

“What, did you hire a look-a-like or something?” he can’t quite wrap his head around what he is seeing. “That is pathetic, Ok you made your point, get back in here and I’ll forgive you.” 

“No, it really is me and no, I don’t believe she will,” Austin says quietly, gripping the box, his knuckles going white.  

“I told you, you never believed me,” you shrug, “in fact you actually never listened to anything I had to say unless it was about whatever thing you were fixated on at the time. I told you I needed romance, that I needed to be loved hard, loved fully, loved lovingly.”

“And you think he loves you?” he says incredulously. 

“Yeah,” Austin's voice reverberates behind you, “cuz he does.”

Your hand reaches out to touch Austin in an effort to both calm him and say ‘don’t worry, I got this’. Besides, there are  things  that you’ve been waiting far too long  to say out loud. 

“Yes, he does.” you repeat, taking a shaky breath. “I need someone who is willing to comfort me and who actually finds joy in making me feel better, and to feel good about myself.  Even you have said that you thought Austin would be a better partner for me than you are. Now you can take comfort in the fact that you were right. Austin cares about my feelings and what’s on my mind. He WANTS me, all of me and he loves when I shine.“ 

You smile, realizing how easy this actually is. You had been dreading the end for so long, avoiding even thinking about it. Placating your partner time and time again in fear of it, under his threat of it. But now that it’s here, it’s so simple.  

“I told you I needed these things and you just didn’t deliver. I realize now that you can’t deliver. So I’m done with your narcissism, with your supposed demons, with your total lack of empathy. I truly hope that you figure out how to be happy. But it’s not my job anymore. Goodbye.” 

“You were shit at making me happy,“ he yells at you as you turn away, motioning Austin to leave. Austins holds his ground, practically growling at the words he hears. 

“Yeah” you look over your shoulder,” because only YOU can choose to make yourself happy. And I’m making MY choice now.”  Austin nods, glad you stood up for yourself, and turns. You follow Austin toward the gate. 

“You are delusional and worthless! She is worthless!!” he yells out the open door at you both.

Austin just can’t stand by and let him insult you like this. Just before the gate, he stops in front of you.  His back expands in a deep breath, he puts the box down in front of him very deliberately. He turns around, staring down your former partner. You trust Austin, but you are ready to intervene if needed. Your former partner takes a step back, seeing the look in Austin’s eyes. 

“She isn’t worthless,” his tone is even and metered. He refuses to be brought down to this man’s  level, “Just because you couldn't respect her enough to keep her doesn’t mean she is worthless. She is amazing. She deserves all the love, support, and kindness I can give her, which is a hell of a lot more than you’ve done for her.  You… you are just a sad man who refuses to choose help.” 

With that, he turns, picks up the box and walks away. You turn with him. 

You don’t look back. Ever. 

…..

Epilogue

Austin helped you get  your foot in the door of the Hollywood machine. It lead to several acting jobs and because of Austin, you got to pick and choose the ones that really spoke to you, the ones that challenged you. It wasn’t long after you had really settled into acting that Austin  asked for your input about a show that he was producing.  Once he heard your ideas, he offered you the position of co-producer. You ended up realizing that producing was also one of your passions. You liked being in charge and making decisions.  You had an eye for talent and a mind that handled money well. So you and Austin started producing things together. You loved working with him in any way. You still did a lot of acting as well, because it had wormed its way into your blood. 

When Austin proposed, he had rented a little villa in the south of France, with a beautiful view of the coast. He kept going on and on about how much he loved this place, how he needed to visit every year just to reset.  He had cooked up a marvelous meal, complete with a delicious and  proper dark chocolate mousse.

The first taste of that thick creaminess coating your taste buds was just right. The strong dark chocolate flavor, the subtle bitterness, the light sweetness, all really grabbed the attention of your slutty taste buds. Your eyes closed as you moaned and savored  it. 

Then Austin had a big spoonful in front of your mouth, nodding for you to take.  You wrapped your lips around the spoon as he opened his mouth, like feeding a baby. 

That was when you felt it, a hard…. Ring? 

You pulled it out of your mouth and looked up to see him on his knee next to the table. Holding another one in a blue box. He knows how much you like choices. 

"I love you so much more than I could ever begin to put into words, my Princess,” he had said, “I want to spend every single day of my life trying to show you how much, my darling. A lifetime with you will never be enough, but it's a start, my beautiful Angel."

You had cried. He had cried when you said yes. You made love to him then and there. There might have been some mousse involved. 

You had wanted to send your former partner an invitation to the wedding, wanting to be kind and thoughtful.  But Austin had pointed out that even though you felt like it was an olive branch, it seemed more like adding insult to injury. 

“I know that if my girl was stolen away by someone that could give her everything I couldn't,” rebutted Austin, “I’d be pissed to get a wedding invitation. I’d feel like they were rubbing it in my face. And I don’t want a scene at our wedding.” Austin and you discussed it a bit and eventually both of you agreed that it was best not to invite your former partner.

You honeymooned in Japan. He knew you had always wanted to go and booked a beautiful Ryokan with a private onsen.  The food was amazing, your slutty tastebuds were not disappointed. 

Your wedding gift to him was the Villa he had proposed in. You had bought it with the rental money from your house in Santa Monica that you had saved.  You didn’t need that kind of assurance anymore, you truly had all that you had ever wanted and more. 

Fin

I hope you have enjoyed Fantasy Come True. Thanks again to @purejasmine for the request and the massive amounts of input. Working with you and becoming your friend has been a joy. Thank you for trusting me.

<3 @FaeGoddessog

[geekfanficwriter]

Caught Somewhere in Time- Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader Part 16/?

Summary: You end up in the 80s, 20 years earlier than it should be luckily a certain metalhead is about to make your time in the 80s much easier. Words: 3.9k Warnings: angst, just very, very angsty

Part 15 Part 17

Masterlist

21st March 1986

 

You groan as your alarm goes off, reaching over and hitting the top of it to turn it off as Eddie wraps his arms around you tighter, his eyes half open.

‘Babe, we have to get up.’ You tell him, not making any effort to move yourself.

‘Do we?’ Eddie whines, a cheeky grin crossing his face.

‘Yes, it’s the last day of school before spring break and the finale of your DnD game.’ You try to bribe him with the prospect of DnD in hopes he’ll get up.

‘Yes, I know that but you what’s also happening today? A pep rally first period. Do you really want to go to that?’ His eyes are probably open now, looking down at you in a sweet way that makes his heart melt.

‘It doesn’t matter, we have to go.’ You tell him, trying to sit up but Eddie squeezes you preventing you from getting up.

‘Or we sleep in and go in second period instead? I mean do you really want to hear about school spirit? What a bunch of cheerleaders chant?’ 

‘I know you want to watch cheerleaders.’ You smirk at him.

‘Nope, the only person I want to see in a short skirt is you.’ He kisses you on the top of your head and you sighed. You really didn’t want to get out of bed. You were comfortable and warm, plus you liked being cuddled up with Eddie.

‘Fine, but we’re only staying in for another hour, then we have to get up.’ You threaten but you lean up to kiss him on the lips afterwards.

‘I promise, although maybe we don’t have to go back to sleep?’ Eddie says, flipping you over so you were on your back and he was hovering on top of you.

‘You are insatiable.’ You roll your eyes but Eddie smiles at you, with a cheeky grin. You lean up and press a kiss to his lips, placing your hands in his hair, loving the feeling of it under your fingers. You were excited about spring break tomorrow and getting to spend two full weeks just Eddie and you.

 

You had a migraine from hell. It had come on some time before lunch but now as you and Robin were walking to lunch it was complete agony. You could hardly see from the pain. Robin was talking to you but you weren’t listening to a word she was saying, your head too sore. 

‘Robin, I’m sorry but I can’t hear a word you’re saying. My head is killing me.’ You tell her, rubbing the sides of your head.

‘Oh sorry. I was just telling you that I’m tired of listening to Steve talk about his dates.’ She tells you and you nod along.

‘Who even is he dating currently?’ You laugh slightly then cringe, the feeling making the pain worse.

‘God knows. I don’t listen when he tells me.’ She laughs as she pushes the door to the cafeteria open. You look over at the Hellfire Table and let out a groan.

‘I do not have the energy for that boy today.’ You say looking at Eddie who’s stood on top of the table, giving some sort of speech.

‘I don’t know how you ever have the energy for that boy but good luck.’ Robin gives you a pat on the back, walking over to sit with her own friends while you head over to your own table, sitting down next to Gareth.

‘What’s he ranting about?’ You whisper over to Gareth as Eddie runs about.

‘Forced conformity.’ Gareth whispers back as Eddie plops down next to you. Dustin starts speaking up and suggests Eddie postpone the campaign as Lucas can’t make it. You let out a groan, knowing Eddie isn’t going to be happy with that. 

‘Eddie calm down.’ You mumble as he rants but he doesn’t seem to hear you, too focused on Mike and Dustin so instead you put your head on the table and place your hands over your head not paying attention. Blocking out the light from around you seems to help slightly with your headache but your head is still pounding.

‘Babe.’ Eddie says shaking your shoulder and you glance up at him. ‘You alright?’

‘No, I have a migraine from hell.’ You whine.

‘I can take you home if you want.’ You nod and Eddie stands up, grabbing your back alongside all his stuff and leading you out of the cafeteria. You head outside and over to his van, climbing inside and closing your eyes once you're sat comfortably in the passenger seat.

‘So you’ll never guess who came up to me this morning asking for drugs?’ Eddie speaks and you hum in response to let him know you’re listening. ‘Chrissy fucking Cunningham.’ He lets out and laughs and you open your eyes, glancing over at him.

‘Chrissy Cunningham? The school’s golden child? Are you sure she’s not just hitting on you?’ You snort out.

‘That’s funny, babe.’ He replies sarcastically.

‘Why wouldn’t she like you. You do have the nicest eyes in Hawkins.’ You smile over at him.

‘Second nicest. You take that prize. When you’re not squinting in pain of course.’ He reaches over and grips your leg, giving it a squeeze as you place your hand over the top of his. 

You drive the rest of the way in silence, and pretty soon Eddie’s van was parked out the front of your trailer.

‘Right, I’m going to go back but you take care of yourself and I’ll come by after Hellfire with some dinner. How does that sound?’ Eddie says, smiling over at you.

‘Yeah that sounds great but you stay safe too. Especially with Chrissy.’ You lean over and give him a kiss before climbing out of the car and heading into your trailer. You dump your back on the floor and head through to your room, stripping down to your underwear and top, not bothering to get dressed before you climb into bed, pretty quickly falling asleep.

 

22nd March 1986

 

You woke up to a loud knocking on your door. You blinked awake and rolled over looking at the alarm clock. You sat up, realising it was morning and frowned with confusion. Eddie was meant to come over in the evening to check in on you so where was he? The banging at your door came again and you slid out of bed, grabbing a pair of sweatpants off the floor and slipping them on. You head to the door and open it to see Max standing there.

‘Max, what are you doing here?’ You asked with confusion until you looked behind her, seeing what looked like the entire Hawkins PD gathered around Eddie’s trailer as Wayne sat on a nearby bench, smoking a cigarette, looking stressed. You breathe out Eddie’s name and try to run over to his trailer but Max stops you.

‘Don’t. I saw Chrissy go into his trailer last night and I don’t know what happened but I think she’s dead.’ Your eyes widened, a million thoughts going through your head. Why was Chrissy at Eddie’s? Where was Eddie? Was he even alive? What if he was dead? 

‘Eddie wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.’ Max raised her eyebrows at you and you gave her a glare.

‘Look I don’t know what happened but it was weird all the lights started flickering and then I heard a scream and saw Eddie drive off but it felt like it could be…’ Max trailed off and your eyes widened.

‘It could be related to the Upside Down.’ You were freaked out. ‘We need to find Eddie, give me 10 minutes and I’ll be ready to go.’ You shut your trailer door and ran inside, quickly having a shower and pulling on some clothes. You threw your door open and Max was still standing outside. You gestured over to your car and you both climbed in. 

You drove around to find both Nancy and Lucas but neither of them was home so you headed over to Dustin who thankfully was home. Dustin was completely on your side and also believed that Eddie was innocent. You were incredibly relieved that Dustin agreed with you and once Max had explained what she saw all three of you left Dustin’s to go find Eddie.

‘We should go to Family Video, and see what Steve and Robin think.’ Dustin said and you nodded.

‘Yeah, plus we can use the phone’s there to call around, see if anyone has seen Eddie.’ You know the best course of action was to see if any of the other Corroded Coffin members had seen him. You made your way over to Hawkin’s Main Street, pulling up outside Family Video. All three of you jumped out of the car and you told the other two to go ahead and fill in Steve and Robin. Meanwhile, you head over to a nearby deli, you hadn’t eaten all of yesterday and you were starving. You quickly order a sandwich for yourself, and then think again, grabbing two more, one for yourself for dinner and one for Eddie once you found him.

You shoved the sandwiches into your bag and headed over to Family Video where the other’s all gathered around. 

‘Y/N, please tell me you know where Reefer Rick lives?’ Dustin yells slamming down the phone as you walk in.

‘Nope, never been there. Eddie wanted to keep me far away from him.’ You sighed, swinging over the counter and pulling your sandwich out of your bag, starting to eat it.

‘Great friends your boyfriend keeps.’ Steve replies sarcastically and you glare at him. You were not wanting to deal with Steve’s comments today.

‘Do we even have a last name?’ Dustin asks and you shrug.

‘Bet the cops know the last name.’ Steve mumbles and you turn to look at him.

‘What?’ You all turn to look at him.

‘I mean, listen, if this Reefer Rick is actually a drug dealer, I guarantee you he’s been busted at some point. Means he’s in the system.’ Steve shrugs and you look at him like he’s an idiot.

‘The cops? Really, Steve? What's your suggestion?’ Dustin replies looking at Steve the same way you were.

‘I think they should be filled in on what we know, what’s going on?’ At this point, you’re about ready to jump across the counter and hit Steve. How could he say that?

‘You think Eddie’s guilty, don’t you?’ 

‘I believe in innocent until proven guilty, all that constitutional shit. I just, you know, don’t think we can rule it out.’

‘Eddie wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t.’ You shook your head. 

‘You don’t know that, Y/N.’ 

‘No! I do. All you know about Eddie is the bullshit you’ve heard around town. I actually know him and he could never do that. He has a heart of gold and the idea of ever hurting anyone could never cross his mind. How dare you act like I don’t know the man I love? The man I’ve spent every day with for the last two years. If you ever imply that again, I’ll fucking kill you.’ You were yelling at this point, tears streaming down your face and you spoke.

‘Hey, Y/N. Calm down.’ Robin wrapped you in a hug and you cried in her arms for a moment. All you wanted was to know if Eddie was safe, to make sure he was okay.

‘Okay, maybe you can help us instead of upsetting people Steve?’ Dustin says as you tried to compose yourself.

‘Hey, someone has to attend to the customers?’ Steve asks.

‘Especially if they’re babes, right?’ Robin winks, making you laugh slightly.

‘Hey, not fair. Okay? I attend to all customers equally, babes and non-babes alike. We’ve got a very big section in here. It can be super overwhelming for people.’ Steve defends himself as if he wasn’t just always flirting with customers.

‘Yeah, it can be.’ Robin says her eyes lighting up as she scoots over to the computer.

‘Please tell me you’re having one of your genius ideas, Robin.’ You say as she types Rick into the computer. You look through all the Ricks until you figure out which one is most likely to be Reefer Rick.

Once you have the address you drive out to hopefully where Rick lives in Steve’s car. 

By the time you arrive, it’s dark outside and you all started to look around the outside of the house. You screamed Eddie’s name but got no response until Max pointed out that there was a boat house around the back. You all headed into the boathouse and started looking around, hoping that Eddie was there.

‘What are you doing?’ Dustin asked as Steve poked a tarp with an oar.

‘He might be in there.’ Steve says continuing to poke the tarp.

‘And your plan is what? Kill him with an oar?’ You asked sarcastically.

‘Look someone was here.’ Max says pointing out a bunch of fast food wrappers.

‘Maybe he heard us? Got spooked and ran?’ Robin suggested.

‘Don’t worry. Steve will get him with his oar.’ Dustin replied sarcastically.

‘I know you think you’re being funny but considering everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times, personally, I don’t find it funny in the slight-‘ Steve is cut off by a form flying at him. You’re terrified at first until you realise it’s Eddie, holding a bottle to his throat.

‘Eddie!’ Dustin yells and Eddie glances over at him. ‘It’s me, Dustin.’

‘Eddie, babe.’ You say moving close to him with your hands outstretched. ‘That’s Steve? He’s my best friend, remember? He’s not going to hurt you.’ You talk calmly and quietly but the look of terror on Eddie’s face breaks your heart and you feel tears welling in your eyes.

‘Steve, drop the oar.’ You tell him and he does. 

‘What are you doing here?’ Eddie says cautiously.

‘We’re here to help you. Come on, you know Dustin and Robin’s one of my closest friends and Max is our neighbour.’ You still manage to keep the calm tone in your voice even though you’re just about to completely break down.

‘Eddie, we’re on your side.’ Dustin adds on. ‘I swear of my mother.’ Eddie looks between you all for a moment before letting go of Steve and moving towards you wrapping his arms around you tightly.

‘Thank god, you’re safe.’ You mumble as you hug him back, tighter than you’ve ever hugged him before. You start crying as you hug him, the true fear of the last day catching up with you.

‘I was so worried about you.’ Eddie mumbled. ‘I wanted to come back for you but I was so scared.’ Eddie pulled away slightly and you realised he was also crying. You leaned up and wiped his tears away, comforting him as you did. 

‘Eddie, we want to know what happened.’ Dustin asked carefully, trying not to interrupt but needing to know.

‘You won’t believe me.’ Eddie shakes his head. It’s only at that moment that you realise Eddie is still gripping the broken bottle, his hand shaking with fear. You reach down and wrap your hand around his, running your thumb over the back, trying to calm him down.

‘Try us.’ Dustin says and Eddie looks between you all before nodding. He moves over to sit down, not letting go of you. You sit down with him as he curls up against you. You comfort him as he tries to figure out what to say.

‘Her body just, like, lifted up into the air and, she just like, hung there, in the air and her bones started to snap and her eyes, man. It was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling. I didn’t know what to do so I ran away. I left her there.’ Eddie explained a look that was a mix of fear and guilt on his face. ‘You all think I’m crazy, right?’

‘No. We don’t think you’re crazy.’ Dustin tells him as you stroke Eddie’s hair.

‘Don’t bullshit me, man! I know how this sounds.’ Eddie yells making you stop the motion of your hand for a moment.

‘We believe you. Look what I’m about to tell you might be a little… difficult to take. You know how people say Hawkins is cursed? They’re not way off. There’s another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins and sometimes it bleeds into ours.’ Dustin explains to Eddie who now looks much more confused than before.

‘Like ghosts and shit?’ Eddie asks, trying to understand what he was saying.

‘There are some things worse than ghosts.’ Dustin says before asking Eddie some questions about what he saw. Eddie explains that she seemed to be in some sort of trance and Dustin seems to have some sort of realisation. He explains that he thinks it may be Vecna doing this and you blinked. Of course, you knew who Vecna was, even if you hadn’t played Eddie’s most recent campaign you’d be there during the organisation and planning of every session. You knew everything there was to know about Vecna, at least the fictional version. After you had all agreed that this was clearly something to do with the Upside Down, the other’s all promised to come back tomorrow to give Eddie some food and started to make their way out.

‘I’ll see you, tomorrow, babe.’ Eddie tells you, letting go of you. You shake your head and frown at him.

‘I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying here with you.’ You tell him. There was no way you were leaving him, plus you realised that you now had to tell him the truth whether you wanted to or not. Eddie looked like he was considering protesting for a moment but instead didn’t, seeing the look of determination in your eyes and to be honest he didn’t want to be away from you either.

Once all the others went away, you and Eddie sat in silence. You didn’t want to offload on Eddie currently, especially while he was clearly still processing everything. You get up and head over to your back, grabbing the sandwich you had bought and handing it to Eddie who thanks you.

‘How do you know about all this?’ Eddie eventually asked and you let out a deep breath, realising it was now time to tell him everything.

‘Because I’ve thought monsters from this other place, the Upside Down, before.’ You admit looking down, not wanting to see his face as he realised you’d been keeping something from him.

‘When? Why didn’t you tell me?’ Eddie asks, there seems to be more concern in his voice than anger which relaxes you slightly.

‘Once the day I arrived in Hawkins, once in October two years ago during that argument we had and once last summer when I was gone for a few days. I wanted to tell you, I did but I knew you’d want to get involved and try and protect me and I couldn’t let that happen because if something happened to you, I don’t know what I do.’ 

‘You don’t think I feel that way? You don’t think it was terrifying to me for you to go missing and now I found out you could’ve died? Been killed by these monsters?’ Eddie yelled and you felt incredibly guilty. Of course, you’d considered that this would be terrifying for him. That’s why you’d kept it secret.

‘I know but I’m one of the only people who can actually fight them.’

‘And why’s that? You’re just a normal eighteen-year-old, you’re not made to fight monsters.’ Eddie argued and you gulped, realising it was now time to tell him everything.

‘Eddie, I haven’t been completely honest with you.’

‘Well, obviously I figured that out.’ You could hear the anger in his voice and you couldn’t look at him.

‘Eddie, when I was 14, I wasn’t sent to a behaviour camp. I was kidnapped and taken to a facility where they ran experiments on people with powers. People like me.’ You finally muster the courage to glance at Eddie who looks completely baffled at what you’ve just told him.

‘What do you mean powers?’ 

‘Exactly what you think. I have powers. I can control fire, earth, air and water… and I can also time travel.’ You make a flame appear above your hand to prove to Eddie that you weren’t lying, you were telling the truth.

‘Why were you so hesitant to tell me you can time travel?’ Eddie asks picking up on your tone.

‘That’s the final thing, I need to tell you.’ You think for a moment trying to figure out how to word your final confession. ‘Eddie, I was born in 1987, when I was kidnapped it was 2001 and I managed to somehow travel back to 1982.’ 

‘So nothing you’ve told me about yourself is true? Everything is a lie.’ Eddie spits at you.

‘No, everything else I’ve told you is true. I promise, all the stuff about my family, my past, it’s all true.’

‘Why would I believe that? I don’t know who you are.’ 

‘You do. I’m still me.’ You beg him, tears running down your face now. You knew this was going to happen which is why you kept it secret. Even if you shouldn’t have. Even if it was all your fault that Eddie was mad at you.

‘No, I don’t. The girl I knew understood what it was like to be abandoned by her parents. She was someone who I could relate to and was the same as me. Now I learn that’s all bullshit.’ You don’t know what to say. He was completely right. You had pretended to understand his past when you couldn’t. You knew that your parents were probably terrified when you went missing and would spend every moment searching for you. You shouldn’t have lied but how do you explain the truth to someone when the truth was so unbelievable.

‘Get out, Y/N. Leave me alone. Or better yet, fuck off back to 2001 or whatever year you said you’re from.’ There was venom dripping off Eddie’s every word. You had never seen him this angry, never. It broke your heart to see him in so much pain and it hurt, even more, knowing you’re the one who caused it.

‘I made a promise I would never abandon you and I know my word doesn’t mean shit but I plan on keeping that promise. But I’ll give you some time alone right now.’ You try to keep your voice even but it does break as you speak. You open up the door to the boat house, heading outside into the cool summer air. You walk over to the back door of Rick’s house and try to open it but see it’s locked. You stretch out your hand and slowly push the air around the door towards the lock, creating pressure until you hear a loud crack and the door swings open. You head inside the house, and sitting down on the couch, finally starting to sob as you do.

—————

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[themistressdomme]

Mommy… I’m so tired.

I started my period this morning, and I’ve had a horrible day. I’m so sore and shaky and groggy. Plus, I have a choir concert this Sunday… and my choir/the MC is going to have to deadname me because my parents are probably coming, they weren’t supposed to be. I’m just. I wanna cry. I wanna be held. I hate this.

-🤟🏻

Oh, darling, I'm so sorry to hear that. C'mere, I'll give you a big hug and many cuddles.

Periods suck so much, I'm sorry 😞 They really can throw off your entire day.

I'm sorry to hear that you're going to be deadnamed. Oh god, that really is terrible, love. You can cry, you're allowed to feel sad and upset and frustrated and even angry at this situation. I'll hold you close, darling, put your head on Mommy's chest and just let it all out, okay? I'll give you soft head kisses and whisper that you're so valid, your gender identity is valid, and so is your name. I'll remind you that the shittiness doesn't last forever, and that your chosen family and friends love you so much for you who you are. I'll hold you tight, if you want, so your nervous system can get a little bit of regulating. I'll stroke your back slowly as I whisper to you, "You're going to get through this. It's going to be okay. I'm right here, darling."

I know you've heard it a thousand times, but it will get better, angel. And I am so, so sorry you're in this circumstance 😞

Could I please ask your pronouns, darling? xx

🤟🏻

[the-farmers-rabbit]

Sick Season with Mason

Hi!! This is going to be like a master post for me so it will be long but it’s something I like to help with.

To start, I’m going to give background as to Why i’m qualified for what i’m talking about. I’m currently (as of december 2022) 18 years old. It’s my first year of uni and i’m living in a dorm after 18 years at home. In elementary school, my little body had a tendency to get super sick for long periods of time until I got on allergy meds. It was just seasonal stuff that turned into sinus infections and stuff like that. It would keep me home for weeks at a time which is no good for a kid. 

Flash forward to high school. Before and after covid (it hit in my junior year), I would have a tendency to get sick for months at a time. Not super sick, none of it ever warranted an ER trip or being in a hospital. But I would have a cough that would just. stick with me. for month long periods of time and it would only go away once I got antibiotics.

Now, I’m in college and it’s most of the same. I’ve realized that I might have some immunodeficiencies (my mother has a fucked up immune system but the other way around, so it’s not unlikely for me) and I’ve been out on my own for a bit now so! Here are some tips for when you get sick/how to keep from getting sick.

This covers colds, coughing, sore throats, and fevers. Really any thing that isn’t stomach bugs. So don’t come at me for not having that stuff (not that you all would, just wanting to tell y’all)

Fluids/Food 

Water. I always have a water bottle by my bed for this reason. In case i wake up with cotton mouth or just need water. it’s right there. 

Gatorade! for when i’m actually sick, i have a pack of gatorade in my dorm. it keeps my blood sugar from getting super low if i don’t have the energy to eat, it gives me something to run on, and it’s hydrating

apple juice. i use the little boxes of it cus my brain likes those, but just a juice in general is good. all this boils down to is keeping yourself hydrated. very important when sick/trying to avoid getting sick

Yogurt! If you’re on antibiotics, you need to get the good bio back. I really like the activia yogurt drinks. they’re really tasty and really good for me. Plus, if you have a sore throat, dairy coats it and makes it hurt so much less

Medications

Ibuprofen. so this one might be obvious. It isn’t a cure all! But it works wonders for a lot of things. Fevers, aches, sore throats. It will reduce a fever, and i always keep some by my bed for that reason

-Fevers; if you don’t take care of them quick, you could have serious issues. I mean it. Your brain is overheating. You won’t be able to think straight and you will feel awful. keep stuff that will break them near by just in case.

-Signs of a fever!: Cold, but the room isn’t cold, sweaty even though you’re freezing, shaky, foggy head. and when in doubt, take your temperature. 

Vitamins. I don’t like the pill vitamins. They’re big and icky. So, I take gummy vitamins. Yes i’m an adult, I take gummy vitamins. So? I use the brand Smarty Pants. I get them at target. They’re not icky, they’re fairly cheap, and they’re good. They have childrens and adults. get ‘em

Sleep aids. Olly Sleep Gummies are what I use. When I’m sick and just. can’t relax? Melatonin gummies. Olly is good because it’s not Just melatonin, it’s also some other junk. They also don’t taste that bad.

Self Care/Comfort

Sleep. Just like the sleep aids, when you’re sick or getting sick, sleep is so very important. Weighted blankets are a great help. If you’re coughing a lot, prop yourself up so you don’t have a coughing fit in the middle of the night. Cold compress for fevers, and fans to keep you comfy. Sleep is the best cure, and be sure you get it

Showering. I don’t care if you prefer baths. If you are sick and it is in your sinuses, take a shower. sit down (if it’s not too grody wherever you are) and just let the hot water hit you. The steam loosens mucus and you can dislodge it a lot easier

Humidifier!!!! PLEASE MAN. It’s a life saver. I got mine at target. It was like $30 and takes up about 1.5 cubic feet. If i have a stuffy nose or a sore throat or both, i turn that on, go to sleep, and wake up with neither. it is a god send. 

Brush your teeth. I know you feel gross. But go and brush your teeth. And if you can’t, floss and use mouth wash. Do something that cleans the gunk in your mouth. You will feel better after, I promise

Heating pads. Mine was 15 bucks at kroger. I use it every damn day. On my lap, as a blanket, on my shoulders, back, tummy. Any and everything. Heat relaxes the muscles, and warmth is also nice. I’d recommend one that has an auto turn off so you can sleep with it. But if not, just get one.

Gem Face Roller. Ok. let me explain. I don’t use this for skin care. I use it for headaches. it’s cold (and if it’s quartz, it will just. be cold. on it’s own), i can put light pressure on what hurts. I can use it on sore necks too.

Lanolin. It’s meant for nursing mothers for chapped nipples but it’s so good for chapped lips. And when you’re sick, that usually happens and you usually need help with it. So, lanolin. Also at target

Icepack. Either like a bag, or a gel. Don’t get one of the hard ones that are meant for food. Get one that is Made for the body. For when you’re overheating, or you’re achey or. whatever. Ice. Helps

thermometer!!! So you can see if you have a fever or not! I keep mine on hand and it gives me peace of mind. Got it at walgreens when i stopped to get my ice pack. Like 15 bucks, again. Keep yourself from worrying too much

ok so that’s probably it for now but i hope it helps! I’ll add on if I think of something, love you guys, good luck out there

[jodilin65]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 1997 I don’t have too much to say now. I’m just hanging out doing the usual. Tom said it’s OK for me to cry, but what will help him is to see that I don’t blow up in a bad way (feel like dying), but I don’t know. I’m doing well so far and my rag is 8 or 9 days away. So, we’ll see how I am emotionally, which is fine so far. My boobs are barely sore and the pre-cramps have yet to start. I’m sure they will, though, in another 4-5 days.

A part of me believes he’ll cum more often, but it’ll take quite a while. Another part of me doesn’t feel he’ll cum more often. It’s hard to believe he will, but since that’s what I said about him ever cumming, we’ll see. Pregnancy is still just such a fantasy and just one big dream. If it weren’t meant to be just a dream in the first place, it would’ve happened by now and not been just a dream as long as it has been.

Those damn little birds! I made the mistake of putting seeds into their bird feeders and now they won’t buzz off. I quit feeding them, but they still try stealing my bird’s seeds.

Later…

Now I weigh 106. And all for eating just a little more today than I did yesterday. I still wouldn’t be surprised if 106 was the new faithful number. Meanwhile, I’ve usually weighed 104 for the last several months. I haven’t even weighed 100 or lower for about 8 months and it seems like the possibility of returning to 100 or lower is getting slimmer and slimmer. Well, there have been times when I’ve lost weight without even trying. Maybe that’ll happen again, but I don’t see it. Plus, I am now in my 30s.

I’ve been taking Benadryl at night to help keep my schedule as steady as possible till after next Thursday. Just 6 more days do I have to try and hope I don’t wake up before 2 PM. I got up at 9 AM today.

I wonder if next door will return for the weekend. I hope not, cuz I know neither of them works on weekends and if they’re there, that ups the potential for parties. They’ve never partied on a weekday or weeknight if I’m remembering correctly. Still, if they’re gonna always be like they’ve been since last October, then I hope they’re here as long as we are. This seems unrealistic, though, and too good to be true.

I wonder why God’s been so good to me lately as far as other people’s noise goes. Cuz I’m sterile? I doubt it. I’ve been sterile all my life and God’s never been the least bit sorry about it, either. He knew exactly what he was doing and why the day he set me up to be exposed to DES.

Anyway, as much as I wish those two dogs would get shot or disappear, that’s all you really hear around here these days.

The trailer across the street hasn’t been here for a while, so they’ll return any time now and we’ll see what they do.

Gizzy’s asleep now on his wheel.

I think I felt the first light pangs of pre-cramps. I tried to sense out what my next period will be like and I did get a vision. It’ll be light. Lighter than it should be and lighter than most women’s periods, but I don’t know how light. I definitely won’t spot, though, and it won’t be heavy. I still probably won’t even need a big pad. Just liners. It used to be that I’d need big pads for a day or two.

I’m pretty sure Rugg will tell me the water is just life and age, but I sure hope to hell I’m okay and that this will be a one-time visit.

Sandy and Jen’s birthdays are on the 4th and 5th. I’ll call there on the 4th. I hope they’re all doing okay.

Later…

I suppose right now you could say I’m bored shitless. Maybe I ought to go read my library book.

Just thought I’d jot down a few lines till my popcorn is done. The microwave is just a few feet away from my work table.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1997 It looks like there’s still no one next door. For the last 2-3 days, I don’t think even just she’s been there, cuz I haven’t seen any lights on at night. I love it, though, and once again, I hope it’s this way in the summer, too. And, that it stays that way till we move. I know that’s asking a wee bit too much, though, cuz there’s bound to be a few more turnovers by the time we move.

So far, my talking daily about my wanting a kid and knowing I can never have one, is not helping him get off more often. It’s only been a few days, though, so hopefully soon enough it’ll work and not be one of those things he just thinks will work.

The weather was gorgeous today. In the upper 70s. It’s to be that way for a few days. I called Tammy to rub it in a bit. I washed a load of my clothes, hung them out to dry, and made spaghetti. I also did some proofreading. I spoke with Andy yesterday and got my email today from Marla. I guess Kim will call or write again soon.

Am I ever gonna hear from Anna and Harry? I wonder. She’s gonna be busy now what with taxes coming up.

As for Paula, who knows where she is? I still doubt the ditz has any clue as to how to get a hold of me. I’m sure she lost anything that had my address or number written on it. Or the kid destroyed it.

I guess that either at the end of this week or the beginning of next, I’ll get the package my parents are sending.

I’ve had the spat that me and my folks had a while back on my mind every once in a while, and I came to my final decision about that. I told them in a letter I began to them that I can’t stop them from exaggerating, lying or discussing our business with others, but I also can’t have a one-sided relationship with them. You don’t tell adults what to do and I don’t do shows for anyone, I do me. I’m me and that’s it. I told them that from now on, we’re all gonna say what we’ve got to or want to say and that it’s up to each other how we’ll deal with it. I did tell them, however, that I do have a degree of love and respect for them, therefore, I will make an effort to watch what I say and use my best judgment, but only cuz that’s what I want to do. Not cuz they ordered me to do so. No one tells me how to be, what to say, or what to do, and if they’ve got a problem with that, tough shit!!! This is how it’s gonna be from now on. They have to meet me halfway or it’s no way at all.

It’s a shame, though, that at this age they haven’t changed much. I have seen them change in some ways, but it’s a shame that they’re so selfish, insensitive, inconsiderate, and not very understanding. Like I said, I don’t know what drives them for sure, be it low self-esteem, low tolerance, jealousy, etc.

I do know that Mom didn’t like any kind of attention directed towards me over anything I could do or anything I knew, cuz then she’d feel like she was lacking the attention. She was also one for being the center of attention. I used to be like that somewhat myself when I was younger, due to the attention I lacked and she used to get on my case about it. It wasn’t too often that I tried to make myself the center of attention, and it wasn’t too often she’d get on my case about it, but looking back, I can see that she did that cuz she was seeing a little bit of her in me and that probably scared her.

In certain ways, she hated it when we kids were like her, cuz it was an embarrassing reminder to her of how she was/is, but in other ways, she wanted us to be just like her or lower than her.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 1997 OK, time to come clean. Yes, all the shit I’ve said about no longer wanting a kid is bullshit. I thought it’d help me. Especially in light of what happened with Larry, but I’m only kidding myself by saying I don’t want a child. I may have my fears, doubts, and worries about a child, know I’d be forever fat and tired, but there isn’t anything I want more, other than to be with Tom forever. I had tried to convince myself, though, that I didn’t want a kid, cuz I still don’t see how that’s possible and allowable by God, but Tom was right; you can’t convince yourself of something you don’t believe.

Tom and I had a talk last night that I think really may help us both. We made a deal with each other as far as what to do on our part to help us both. My part is to not deny I want a kid and to talk about it as much as I need to, so as not to end up bottling it up till I get so angry, frustrated, and upset that I feel like I just want to drop dead. He said if I do this, it’ll help him cum more often. I warned him, though, that if I spoke about it as often as it was on my mind, that could easily be a daily thing. He said it’s no problem. It’s no problem if I talk about it and even if we disagree, but when I blow up from holding it in, that creates problems. This way I won’t appear so negative and get all emotional, cuz it does take up less of our time to talk about it in a stable mood, than for him to calm me down out of a fit about it.

I always had the feeling that this year would either be full of nightmares (one of them including a doctor confirming my sterility), or it would turn out to be the great year I felt it’d be. If it does turn out great, I hope that it’ll include us finding out I’m pregnant.

Also, this may sound funny, but I always believed that if a kid were meant to be, I’d be around 32 years old and the first year that did pop into my head was 1997. Of course, I don’t have to remind you what Robin says about it. She wholeheartedly agrees with Tom. Tom said that at the end of February, which will be right before my appointment, he’d like us to get a home pregnancy test. He says this way we’ll know if I stand anywhere different than I ever have before. He said he doesn’t mean to make me angry, of course, and he’s not saying it’ll be positive for sure, but we can at least experiment with it, get to know it and how it works and its accuracy rates, etc. Rugg will at least know we’re trying, too, cuz she’s no doubt gonna ask me about possible pregnancy just like the nurse did when I go in there griping about water.

So, how do I feel about the pregnancy test? I have mixed emotions, naturally. My heart hopes it’s positive ASAP and we both want a child really bad, but my head and logic tell me that I’m just fantasizing and dreaming and that it isn’t meant to be. Like I said, though, it’s OK to dream. That’s what dreams are for. Nonetheless, I still hope he’s right about my being OK, but my mind does go back to that dream, though. Could it be a premonition? Or was it just a dream? Oh, I hope it was just a dream, but something’s nagging me in my gut as if to say, Beware! Keep out of Never Never Land. This is a dream of reality.

Yeah, well, unless a doctor does confirm my worst fears and unless Rugg tells me I need my parts stripped, I’ll remain in Never Never Land. Hell, I’ve been most of my life, anyway. It’s just that God delivering us the final blow to our dreams and snatching all hope away and finalizing it in some way seems just his style. It’s just like something he’d do to me. He’s always had a problem when it came to the things I wanted most and with my choice of occupations.

God, just give us a break, will you? Lighten up. Be fair for once!

Anyway, I just know deep down that this will be the year I either conceive or my belief becomes more evident than ever before. I’d just want to die if I turned out to be as right as I’ve always been so far. There’d just be no use in sticking around on this earth and I’d feel like I denied and took away so much from Tom. I am not gonna continue to live my life according to God’s standards and his rules and his way. I am not gonna be what he wants me to be and live my life for him. I’m going to live my life for Tom and I and not settle. If I were a settler, I would be a housekeeper for sure and I’d still be with people like Brenda.

I thought about Larry’s dying and looked at it in a new light. OK, what happened was tragic and they’ll all have to live with it forever, but they did have 16 wonderful years with him. I wonder, if they had to do it all again and knew they could have just 16 years with him, would they? Or would they not have had him? Maybe knowing they had those 16 wonderful years with him helps them to deal with their loss of him. And their belief (especially Sandy’s) that he’s now in a better place, which I hope is true. In other words, I realize that I can’t keep worrying about the what-ifs. If God’s gonna kill any child we could have whether it was unborn or born, he’s gonna do it then. Meanwhile, I guess it’s silly to worry about that possibility. Nothing in this world’s guaranteed. Nothing but my love for my husband.

Evie’s gonna have her baby any minute now. Now I know she told me she and David didn’t want or plan their kids, but I’m so glad they’re having children. I hear they’re a bit goofy, but it’s just so nice to see parents like them. It’s quite refreshing after knowing that 80% of today’s parents are either doped up or killing people if they’re not beating, molesting, or cutting down their kids left and right. I mean, there’s no comparing guinea pigs and rabbits to kids, but my animals piss me off at times and get on my nerves. I yell at them or remove what they’re using to drive me nuts for a while, but I couldn’t imagine beating the holy shit out of even them or cutting them down, if they could understand more words than no, get down, come here, their names, and also, my kissing them and the sound of the refrigerator or plastic.

Well, I just hope all works out. We plan to have more fun and I plan to keep talking and he plans to have that method help him fire more. I just hope my worst fears never get confirmed by either time or a doctor’s word. Even if I feared that all my life, nothing in my past, present, or future could make me more depressed than having that nightmare be realized like never before, other than if anything happened to Tom. My life would be a hell of a lot more “over” than it could ever be with a child.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1997 Tom brought home good news about his mom yesterday. She did not have a stroke or anything serious. Just a bad arthritis attack, but she’ll be fine. At least, I hope she will be.

Tom gets more surprising by the minute. I really thought sex would be out of the question yesterday, due to his mother and his not getting as much sleep, but we screwed and got their cages cleaned. It’s still very hard to believe, though, that Tom will surprise me with cumming more than twice a week. Time will tell, but if he did, that’d probably take him years to do. It took him years to even cum in the first place.

Got a letter from Kim yesterday and she sure did tell me something weird. That her boyfriend’s girlfriend was on the pill, not trying to get pregnant, and just found out she was 5 months pregnant. OK, she obviously forgot her pill at one point, God does give babies to those who don’t try to conceive/want to conceive, but she just found out at 5 months? Didn’t she have any symptoms? Didn’t she gain weight, feel movements, puke, or miss enough periods?

I may no longer want a kid after what happened with Larry and with God’s way of having this world be so filled with violence and injustice, but still, does God ever give kids to those who want, plan, and try for them?

Kim also enclosed a Bob letter. It was a very short note saying how he’s oh so devastated that she and I dumped him. Also, my dumping him was very hard on him, but a piece of cake compared to her dumping him. Yeah, I believe that one. Then he goes on and on crying and praying for death. Sorry, Bob. You’re an asshole, a geek, a pervert, and a stupid loser. Therefore, you’re going to live a very long life. God will see to that. God loves you dearly.

Gizzy looked so cute the other day when he held a piece of popcorn (which was bigger than his head) in his tiny hands and ate it.

Later…

Tom’s in bed now, so I’ll just mention a few things, and then go read my book. I didn’t like the second book of Dean Koontz’s, so now I’m reading the last one I’ve got.

Next door never did come in last night. It still appears that they don’t have a pattern as to when they’re there and when they’re not there. I just hope they continue to not be around here and there.

If there is one good thing that 1997 has brought, it’s more sex. At least for now, it’s been that way.

I told Tom that I’d rather be bored than have bad things going on and I’d rather be dead than have my old life back or be without him, but this water/metabolism crap still makes me wonder. I called and asked Dr. R’s nurse if she had any suggestions. She said no and that I’d better see Gloria Rugg and see if it’s connected to my period. She too, seems to think there may be a connection. She mentioned something about hormones but doesn’t know for sure, saying Gloria’s the one who’s up with that. She first said, “You’re not pregnant obviously.” Obviously not, but I still wonder what the hell it could be. I think I may have read or heard that DES can affect hormones and that’s another reason why we can’t conceive or why we miscarry, as well as due to the tissue being all inflamed, but I don’t know for sure. I just hope that Gloria can help me and that this isn’t gonna turn into multiple appointments. I hope it’s just a case of me needing a water pill to set my system straight. I’ll die if I need surgery or if something serious has gone wrong. That’d be just the thing God would do to me, too, to really punish me and piss me off. I’ve been under the knife enough.

Of course, I have mixed emotions about possibly needing a hysterectomy. I mean, I’m already sterile, don’t want a child anymore, so I can live just fine without my parts and it’d be nice to not have periods, but then I have to go through the hassles of surgery, recovery and meds. Anyway, the appointment will be on March 5th. I just hope to hell it’s just one appointment and that everything’s OK and that this problem is solvable. Why do I have the feeling that that’s asking for too much? I still wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if I had to have 3 appointments and that I have all this water just because. I still don’t know if God’s ready to have my parts stripped out of me or if he ever will. That way he can still put me under a spot attack if he wants to.

I still think it’s Tom’s cum. It’s ironic that this all began as soon as he started cumming. I think my body just doesn’t take well to it and rejects it. It’s just like how some people can take and tolerate certain drugs, well, his cum fouled up my whole system.

Another thing that has this water really annoying me is how I have to wake up to pee every goddamn night. Sometimes even more than once.

My only logical guess as to what it could be is the same - age, metabolism, and God. I still worry and wonder about it, although it seems logical that nothing serious is wrong. I’d have to have more symptoms and problems if something was wrong than just water retention.

I’ve been thinking about that dream again. Could it be a sign of something bad to come? Is it not only telling me I need not worry about ever being in Larry and Sandy’s shoes but that there is a significant problem?

Later…

Took two dumps, only ate one granola bar and some popcorn along with a Slim-Fast shake, water, and coffee, and guess what? I still weigh 104. Aaarrrggghhh!

MONDAY, JANUARY 27, 1997 Just as I said it would, the phone did ring with that expected call. Tom just brought Mom to the doctor’s, cuz her leg and hip are troubling her. I hope she’s gonna be OK. Our families have had enough shit.

And I thought this year was gonna be great?! Who the hell was I kidding? My good vibe is gone, too, and if this whole year doesn’t suck, then I hope it’s a carbon copy of 1992. Then in 5 months, things would be great. Or at least better.

Mary and Dave caught Stinky, but I still don’t know if we’re getting him. We’ll see.

We had a visitor yesterday for a minute. I opened the screen door so that the birds could get the seeds that were wedged in the doorway. I held the screen door open with their bucket, but their bucket’s rather light now, cuz they don’t have much seed feed left. So, they were cleaning up the doorway and came in just a few inches into the carpet, when the bucket let go and the door bopped one of them in the back room. He stood in the middle of the room for a few seconds, glanced around curiously, then flew out, as I held the screen door open and motioned and told him to get out. Thank God these birds know me quite well, or else the bird would’ve panicked and bounced off of these walls and ceilings like crazy.

I guess next door did come in sometime last night. I heard a voice, I think, but I definitely heard them leave at 6:45 this morning. There was no music, but once again I heard about 3 doors slam shut, so he either put stuff in the car or they all left.

Last night I had quite a dream. I know this wasn’t just any old dream, either. It’s got to have meant something. Somehow, I just know it did. Well, in the dream, I guess I went to see a doctor. Don’t know why, though, but two male doctors were talking to each other. It was obvious that it was about me and that it wasn’t good. So, then it seemed that their nurse drove me home and I begged her to tell me what they were talking about. She first made me promise that I wouldn’t tell the doctors she told me anything and to act like I was to hear it first from them. Then she told me, I was right, I truly am sterile and nothing can be done about it. My reaction wasn’t that I was sad or angry. Not even shocked. I just basically had an I-knew-it attitude for a few seconds, and then I woke up.

I think that this was a dream sent by God and that it’s his way of letting me know I need not worry. He will take care of me and it’s not like he has to always make sure he’s available to protect me when Tom and I have sex. This is a preset thing that God took care of before I was born, so I’m wasting my time worrying. I do, though, at times, cuz that’s just my nature. That, along with the other reasons I mentioned.

Anyway, now that we’re in the storm again, I just have to sit back, and hope we can get through this and that it isn’t that bad or serious till the temporary eye of the storm rolls around again. I have a feeling, though, that this isn’t it. There’s more to this storm. The eye isn’t close yet.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 26, 1997 Got up a couple of hours ago and now I’m just relaxing. There’s not much to do now. I did get my email from Marla. All’s well with her.

I’m making fish sticks right now in the deep fryer. I have to wait for the thing to heat up. Then, they’ll cook up in just a few minutes.

I guess next door never returned yesterday. I peeked a little while ago. There’s no car there.

Tom said that the ceremony was nice.

When he first came home, he surprised me. It was the first time he just came home and initiated sex, without winding down first, cuz he hates to drive. The part that didn’t surprise me was that he didn’t get hard enough to get in there. So, even if I weren’t sterile, yesterday’s minimal shot couldn’t do shit. He still says he could get off two days in a row. Well, I haven’t seen that yet. What’s he waiting for? We’ll see what happens today if we have sex, but my guess is that he won’t get off again till the beginning of February. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant surprise that I didn’t expect and I hope today will be another pleasant day.

It’s relaxing, but tense at the same time, as I wait in the eye of the storm. The phone’s gonna ring any minute now and someone will be hurt, sick, or dead. It’s scary. All I can do, though, is wait. Wait till the next bout of trouble comes. When something breaks that either takes lots of money to fix or lots of time to fix if it isn’t something wrong with a person.

There is a possibility that we may be getting a hamster. Mary and Dave are getting dwarf hamsters and they’re smaller than Gizzy. That’s small! So, they want a special cage for them and to give one of their 3 hamsters away, but the one they wanted to give away, escaped. So, Tom said Mary said it’s my fault. He heard them mentioning this, and then he ran away. Well, I hope they find him (Stinky), cuz if they do, I’ll gladly take him and then Gizzy can have a roommate, too.

I called my parents yesterday and besides pictures, she’s also mailing a wooden rabbit that Larry carved in his grandfather’s cellar a few weeks ago. The pictures are of the two Larrys and Jen from when they were down in Florida about a month ago. I asked if they had any of Sandy. Ma said she’d look.

So, I let my folks know we’re fine, Bunny’s now 6 pounds, and we finally caught Gizzy.

Tom has a serious hearing problem. He asked me, “Who carved a rabbit in an attic?”

Now I wish I didn’t destroy the pictures of Larry and his family I had back when all that shit went down in ‘86, but I have no regrets about ditching Jenny C’s pictures.

Later…

This is just too damn weird. After I fell asleep, I got up twice for a long pee. Meanwhile, I shit twice, haven’t eaten that much at all and now I’m 105. What the fuck is going on?! This is so fucking frustrating. I’ve got to see a doctor soon.

Later…

Yup, God did it again. Who got hurt? Well, Tom pulled a back muscle while trying to access the leak problem. He’s OK, though, and he could even have sex. This is where God’s good side came out - I knew that DES or not, God would be with me and make sure he didn’t get off and he didn’t. Especially since he just did yesterday.

I am a worrywart. So sometimes I do worry. In spite of the DES and God’s plan to make sure I never have a child, I sometimes worry. What if God did slip up? What if, due to his busy schedule, he forgot to protect me? Well, I suppose he’d just kill it, but I’d hope he’d do that long before I even had a chance to suspect I was pregnant if he screwed up for some reason. I still believe that God does and can make mistakes and that he is not always fair. So, even though I do really know deep down I’m immune to pregnancy, so to speak, I still fear he’ll be unfair to me and make the mistake of letting me conceive. He has been plenty unfair to me in the past, but that was different. I guess you can’t really compare getting pregnant with the shit he let my folks do to me, the places he let me into, the people he’s sent my way, etc.

Anyway, I’m glad I’ve come to be content with the idea of a kid being just a thought and an on-and-off dream. That’s what dreams are for. Dreams are what make us human and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that it’s OK to think, wonder, and dream. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call it a dream anymore, any more than I would with the singing, but you understand.

I don’t always know if I should worry or remind myself that there’s no way I’ll ever conceive, so don’t worry. Guess I’ll always do a little of both.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1997 We had fun a little while ago. I had a nice big strong orgasm. I told God that I knew he was on my side about me not having a kid, so please don’t let him cum. Well, he did, but it was a very small amount, and realistically, I know I’m safe. His heart was racing and he said he didn’t get his money’s worth, so he asked for a half-hour break. I knew he was spent, though, and when a half-hour was up, he had fallen asleep, but that’s OK. He’s right on schedule, though. It’s been exactly two weeks since he’s cum.

The Jeep’s next door now. They better not carry on with their old shit today. The last thing I want to do is go back to being all stressed out at bedtime, wondering if they’ll wake me up. Well, if I’m remembering correctly, they haven’t woken me up since August and if they do, I will take care of it.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It hit 72º and the warmer weather sort of stirs my nerves about the freeloaders. They’re hot weather people and as we get closer to March and April, I fear those obnoxious ball games will start up, along with some parties. Also, from March to October, he may be there daily. I still don’t know if his constant absence is a seasonal work thing or them not getting along.

Later…

Tom’s mom just called. She wanted to know how I was doing. I told her I was doing better and that I used the little booklet she gave me to copy in my songs. I also thanked her for the offer to fly me to New England.

She mentioned something about a sewing room being put in their honor (hers and dad's), cuz they helped make/give clothes to needy children. I knew about this, cuz Tom had told me. There’s to be a ceremony today. Why didn’t Tom mention going to it today? She said not to wake him up if he was asleep and he still was asleep. She said to ask him, though, if he gets up if he’ll call Evelyn and see if she wants to go.

Should I wake him up or not? Maybe I will if he isn’t up by 10:00.

Tom read my songs. He said he likes some and some he doesn’t like. He said that overall, he feels they’re too negative, but of course, I see them as very realistic and how I truly feel.

Also, Andy says that Fran’s still harassing Donna’s old grandmother every handful of months in Springfield. Still? He really doesn’t get it or take no for an answer, huh? Still the same old Fran. Fran, who is full of delusions, as we all know, believes Donna loves him and that she needs him. I always knew Fran was a desperate sucker, but I never thought, until I learned the hard way with that bogus Sabrina character, that he’d badger someone long distance. If I’d known he’d try to get to Donna, as far away as she is, I’d never have given out the number. I don’t know, though, if it was me or Andy who gave it out, but Donna really irks me when according to Andy, she said it was his problem. Wrong. It’s Fran’s problem. I told him to tell Donna, I’m sorry she’s upset, I’m sorry her grandmother’s upset and all freaked out, but if it’s such a bother to her grandmother, why doesn’t she either have the phone company trace it or change her number? I mean, Andy gave her all the suggestions that we could think of, so if they don’t want to take our advice, or do something to help themselves, that’s not our problem.

I called information to see if I could get Fran’s number to give it to them to call him, but as I figured, he’s unlisted. Then I tried Fahey. They’re the foster parents that Fran’s still in touch with and where he has his mail sent every few months when he moves, but they too, are unlisted. This is probably due to wanting to avoid and not have to deal with all those who’d call complaining about Fran.

Then again, if Donna or Andy (cuz I sure as hell wouldn’t do it and I’ll never care to) was to write to them or call them, that’d just egg Fran on even more. Fran doesn’t take no for an answer and doesn’t give up, but the more you react, the more he’ll harass someone. Also, if you complain about someone (especially an adult) to their parents or someone they know, that’ll make things worse (I should know!).

Once again, I can’t believe he’s only called me once since I last told him to fuck off for good, and according to my journals, that was in December of 1994. You’d think that for every call he made to the grandmother, he’d make 10 to me. He has to have lost my number and can’t remember my married name. Thank God, though, but this has definitely got to be the only reason he hasn’t called me in two years. What luck I’ve had, though. He must’ve moved at least 6 times over the last few years, so how he can remember the woman’s number and not the last name amazes me. Yup, I know he lost my number and can’t remember my last name, cuz if he could remember that, he’d call everyone listed in Phoenix with my last name.

Well, at least that lady’s got one thing on her side and that’s that Fran only has a phone for a few months here and there. As soon as he rings his bill up, calling 900#s, he’ll be without a phone for a while. I just hope that if he does call here, and if one of us does answer, it’s not Tom. He just doesn’t know that you don’t always have to be polite to everyone in the world. Therefore, he’ll be too kind and not just hang up immediately on him, which could very likely encourage him to call more. If he has my number and remembers my name, the only thing I can think of stopping him from calling is his belief (a true one, too) that I’ll just hang right up on him or his fear of the cops contacting him. I think the cops did talk to him when the Sabrina bullshit went down.

Later…

I just wish I knew what was the best thing to do. Part of me says not to wake Tom up, cuz he didn’t mention the ceremony. The other part thinks that maybe he forgot and really does want to go. I’m not sure.

It’s still hard to believe that Larry’s dead. I’m not going through the emotions I’m going through about it, anymore, even though my feelings and beliefs about it will never change, but at this point, it’s like it didn’t happen. It’s like it was all just a bad dream. It’s so hard to believe. Tom’s mom said maybe his life would’ve been horrible. Well, we’ll never know now, but I don’t see how it could’ve been. I wish I could know for sure that for some bizarre reason, yes, his life would’ve been horrible. That way, it’d be a bit easier knowing he’s dead.

Well, they still haven’t left next door, but they are going to come and go at least once. I’ve never known them to be home all day and not go out at least once. There were times last summer when he’d come and go several times a day. He’d leave 3 times, so that was 6 times a day I had to listen to his shit.

They must’ve come in quietly last night, cuz Tom didn’t mention anything about them this morning when I got up.

Guess I’ll go do some reading now.

Later…

I did wake Tom up at 10 AM and we’re both glad I did, cuz he did want to go and he’s there now.

Next door left and I didn’t even know it. I had last seen the Jeep at just after 10:30, then when I looked within the next hour, it was gone. Cool. Now, I just have to hope they don’t come storming in, but we’ll see.

I’m still thinking of making an appointment to see if I can get this water off me. I really believe it’s a case of both water and a metabolism that’s quit on me. I don’t even lose weight in my sleep anymore like I used to. At the beginning of the day, I used to weigh about 2-4 lbs. less than I did at the end of my day.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 24, 1997 Got up at 1 AM and the night sure has been off to a weird start. I felt absolutely freezing, so I turned up the heat and drank some coffee, figuring that’d warm me up. When I was still freezing and when the thermostat read 80º, I took my temperature out of curiosity. It read 97.5. Then I was still cold, so I bundled up in my waterbed for a while, got up, and still felt cold. Not quite as cold as before, but still cold. I took my temperature again, figuring it’d still be the same, but this time, it said 98.8. So, either I’m screwed up or the thermometer is, cuz I shouldn’t be cold due to the heat blaring in here. I also shouldn’t be above normal, either, cuz I’m not sick or infected.

I decided I’d change my wallpaper and screensaver weekly, instead of biweekly. I don’t have the patience to go biweekly.

I talked to Tammy yesterday. She wasn’t too thrilled with Mom and Dad because they just took off for Florida without even telling her. She said she was worried for two days, not knowing if something was wrong. That was rude of them.

So, after helping Lisa with her Spanish homework, I called down to FL. It was about 4 PM ET. Gene answered, Teresa’s husband. He said he’d let them know I called and then I asked him if he knew which daughter this was. Then he said, “Well, this isn’t Tammy.” See? We don’t have the same voice, as Tom insists we do.

Later, while we were asleep, they left a message earlier at 8:30 their time. Actually, they left Tom the message, as if I didn’t exist, except for when she said she’d talk to us “guys” some other time. It was a weird message. At first, it sounded like Dad hung up the other phone. Then mom says, “Hi Tom, this is your mother-in-law,” etc. Then, in the end, I could’ve sworn Dad yelled out either, “Hi Tom,” or “Bye Tom.”

Tom made a peculiar comment yesterday. It was peculiar, even though he’s said this before and it usually ends up not meaning much. He said I better be in shape to screw this weekend. What went through his mind when he said that? A tease? Something good? Something negative? He knows I’m around mid-cycle now, so what’s he trying to do in his mind? Does he think he’s gonna tease me by implying there’ll be lots of sex when there won’t be? Or does he still have his absurd belief that I can conceive and think that that’s just what he’s gonna make happen, no ifs, ands or buts? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see what he does, but it shouldn’t be too long from now, till I can tell if he knows more of what I’m thinking and feeling than what I may say.

Personally? Even though I have not a damn thing to fear or worry about, and even though I love to have fun, I hope he doesn’t get off Saturday or Sunday. Knowing I’m safe and will be taken care of, regardless of what Tom does this weekend or any other time, is enough for me.

I’m not trying to find a “proper path/destiny” at this time, like it or not, I realize that I am on the right path at this moment. If I weren’t, God wouldn’t have me here, doing what I’m doing. So, if he wants me to change courses and be a housekeeper or do some kind of job, he’ll lead me to it. Just as he did with the dancing, with Tom, among other things. I’m right where I’m supposed to be and it can’t not be OK with God, or else I wouldn’t be here. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that you can’t make a path for yourself, choose a fate or make a fate happen, or avoid a fate or a path. This is what I mean when I say not all choices are up to us. People don’t make careers, for example. They do and they don’t. Gloria didn’t make herself get into the music business. God set that up. Then she took it from there and worked her way up to where she is now from the starting point that God initially put her at.

I finished copying my songs into the journal Ma gave me. Tom says he wants to read them. I’ve made some changes/revisions.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 1997 Marla sent me another message. We sure can relate to one another in lots of ways. We just don’t agree on how much we make our own choices. She thinks we make our own choices about everything. I think we make our own choices about some things.

She told me that she had been stressing out, trying to get pregnant to no avail. Then, when she made the appointment to see a doctor, she was pregnant. She said she thinks that seeing a doctor took the stress off her, and allowed her to relax so she could conceive. Yeah, well, now that I’m much more relaxed than ever, as far as that goes, that doesn’t mean God’s gonna stop doing what’s right and I don’t want him to stop doing what’s right. I no longer care to have the responsibilities, the burdens, the what-ifs, the fears, the doubts, concerning a child, be any more than just a thought. I’m not going to have a child, a child I can’t handle in the first place, only to see it become a victim of this world and God, while there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, but stand by and watch helplessly.

We may screw this morning and I hope to hell he empties himself out, cuz we’re approaching that dangerous time. If he gets it all out this morning, it’ll be safe, cuz it’ll be too soon. Then, there’ll be no way he can shoot off again, as soon as 2-3 days, when I’ll be in that time frame. He needs 2-4 weeks before he can do it again. Deep down, I know that I still have nothing to worry about. I know God will take care of me. If there is any good in God, it’s that he knows to make sure I don’t conceive, whether I’m ovulating or not. He knows what’s right for me. He knows what’s best for me. In some cases, anyway, and this is surely one of them. So, even though, I’ve let my guard down, and don’t feel so desperate to conceive, I’ll still be safe and taken care of. Fate must remain fate, no matter how we feel, think, or believe. And no matter what we say or do.

I rescheduled Nielsen for February 6th, and I’m gonna tell you one thing for sure, and that’s that if I can’t make this appointment - fuck it. I shall take that as a sign telling me I don’t need to go and I don’t have any problems with the ear. I think I keep it clean enough, too.

I can’t believe this mouse. How can he keep running and running on his wheel? I mean, it’s like he’s a machine and not alive. How can his heart, lungs, and muscles take it?

I called Larry yesterday just to say hello and see how they were doing. He says he’s gonna try to return to work. I told him not to push it. It seems too soon for him to be going back to work. I hope he’s talking about this as much as he needs to and isn’t planning on drowning his sorrows in work. I wonder if he’ll drown his sorrows in something worse than work. Something like booze. I hope not.

Andy left a message saying that his mother saw it on the news and read about it in the paper and he said she gave her condolences to me. That’s nice. She asked Andy if my folks came up for the funeral. Amazingly, she didn’t know Larry was in touch with us again or even if I knew about this.

I’m sure even that asshole Michelle L knows all about it. I’m sure lots of people remembered the last name when they heard it. Not just cuz they may know Larry, but cuz of their run-ins and past dealings with me. I’m sure Jenny C knew about it, somehow, within hours of the accident (remember, though, I don’t consider it just an “accident” but a curse). I know Massachusetts and its surrounding states are small and that the cities and towns are small compared to cities like Phoenix, New York City, and L.A. But how do people always seem to know what’s going on with people? People they haven’t seen or heard from for years and who they’re not connected with in any way? When I got in trouble in Deerfield, it was in the Greenfield paper, the nearest biggest city. Well, it must’ve been in the Springfield papers too, although I didn’t think it would’ve been. Larry and Jen C knew all about that when that shit went down and even that bitch Joyce in the Carabetta office knew. As far as I knew and still know, no one that ever knew or that knows me knows Joyce. Yet, when I called and harassed her, she not only recognized my voice which she hadn’t heard in years, she knew about the trouble in S Deerfield. So, my guess is that she, Jenny, and Larry read it from the Springfield paper, not heard it by word of mouth. Shit, if I got a traffic ticket out here, I’ll bet my family in MA, CT, and FL would know, along with people like Jenny C, aunts, uncles, even distant cousins, and Joyce!

I still wouldn’t be the least bit surprised, if my parents had used their money and persuasiveness to get someone I was associated with (like Nervous, for example) to report to my parents all my happenings. I wouldn’t put it past them. That’s something they would do. Hell, for all I know, they could be getting reports from Tom, either by mail, phone or even Tammy’s computer. He still could’ve really held back his cumming up till last July, due to my folk’s mouths, and believe me, it wouldn’t have taken much. I doubt this or that he’d be reading my journals, he says he’s too busy to read them, and I think they’d bore him, but who knows for sure? Well, I decided long ago, that I’ve still got to keep going and do what I have to do, and not worry about people’s or life’s possibilities. I worry enough about other people and if I worry too much, I’ll never be me and live for me.

Later…

Oh, fuck! My temp’s up. This must be what Marla meant when she said it rises quickly at that time. It was below normal yesterday but now it’s above normal.

My fears are jumping back and forth. One minute I tell myself that God gives babies to those who don’t want them or that are too fucked up for them, but he didn’t do that to me 10 years ago, so why worry? Right? He’ll keep taking care of me and doing what’s right and not change fate, right? I’m not gonna tell Tom how I truly feel (unless he reads it for himself), cuz that’d only start a cycle of ridiculous problems and events. First of all, I know he can live with or without a child, but I don’t want him getting all upset, taking it personally or putting a guilt trip on me by denying me sex. I still enjoy our fun. Also, he may want to put one of our bodies through the unnecessary, pain, hassles and side effects of some kind of birth control, when we don’t even need it. Between God and the DES, I’m sure that if anything forms, it’ll be taken away before even a few weeks.

I’m sorry, but just like with the singing, I’d rather sit and dream/wonder about a child and what it all would’ve been like. I’m not gonna take on something I can’t handle, get sick and maybe lose my husband, too. I’m also not gonna have him and the kid go somewhere, then find cops at my door telling me they were killed by some crazed drunk driver or something. There will be no child and if I’ve reached my destiny and this is it - fine. I’ll take this over the past in a heartbeat.

Later…

We just screwed and as usual, he didn’t get off. God really is looking out for me.

Well, I’d write more, but I’m all written out.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22, 1997 Just sent and got a message from Marla. She agreed that not many people would give a mouse a second chance, so she’s nicknamed him “cat,” since he’s on his second life.

She still says she hopes someday I’ll break out of the God-lets-me, God-gives-me, God-hurts-me mode, and understand that we make our own choices, but hey, I can’t help my feelings/beliefs. I still think not all choices are ours and that some of us have more control over our lives than others. I can choose what I eat, what I wear, what music I listen to, but for example, Tom and I didn’t choose to find each other. Therefore, I believe we were fated to meet. That meeting was God’s choice. Then it was our choice whether or not to do something about that meeting. Not all choices can we expand on, though. If God sterilized me, this doesn’t mean I’d have the choice of unsterilizing me, if I wanted to and believed that that was a wise idea.

She worries that I don’t look at the good in life, but believe me, I do. It’s just hard to focus on at times when things get that rough. She worries about my ability to handle things and my having someone to talk to. I don’t have a choice but to handle things and I’ve got Tom, Andy, her, and a few others to talk to.

She thanked me for the nice compliments from her “new little sister.” This is cuz I told her she was like a big sister to me, just like Andy’s like a brother, and how I appreciate her listening to me and her responses. Her posts are full of intelligence and understanding, with a good balance of a sense of humor. Especially when she said, “I got my period. God must be punishing me. (ONLY KIDDING!!!)”

I had to laugh my ass off when she said that one should be in shape during pregnancy for an easier delivery. How the hell can you be in shape during pregnancy? That’s the best way to get as out of shape as possible, cuz it does make you fat and you need that fat to provide extra nutrition for the baby. Most women still can’t lose weight after delivery, either, cuz that’s different than losing weight for other reasons, what with the way the ligaments and other things get so stretched out.

Why do she and Tom still think I’m gonna have a kid? You know how my feelings are on that subject now, and come on! It’s 1997. We’ve been together since 1993. If I wasn’t sterile, how would I conceive with my crazy schedule and with a man who’s cumming 1-3 times a month, and who needs 5 hours of free time with nothing going on, which is a very rare occasion? That’s how I know it isn’t meant to be, whether or not I want it. It’d have to be pure fate for me to conceive. God would have to have made sure that in the days of his not cumming, one made it up there and stood up there if he really wanted that for us and that’s just what he’d have done. Or made sure we hit it right between now and last July, so if we have hit it right, God’s making sure he knocks it out of me. Well, once again, after seeing Larry and Sandy go through what they’re going through, he can knock it out of me all he wants. I don’t ever want to have to go through that, and I know we would’ve had fate been different, cuz like I said, extraordinary, unusual and all that shit loves me and my family.

Marla also said it was a good feeling to be there for me and she’s glad our chats help. She says she’s amazed we’ve come this far. Me too. I’d have thought she’d have always hated me or not cared either way. She never hated me. She hates my mother, but I understand. I hate her most of the time, too.

Due to the age difference, just like with Larry and even Tammy, she wasn’t around too much. I don’t even remember her babysitting me.

Gizzy’s still adjusting well. He’s scampering away on his wheel right now. He’s still not too thrilled when I stick my hand in the cage and am gonna wait a little longer for that. He may never want to be picked up, other than in a box or that round clear ball. Mice never like people, just the things they get from them. They’re too stupid to love people like guinea pigs and rabbits can and do. When I stick my hands in the cage, he scurries around in a wild frenzy. I did let him run around in his ball the other day and he enjoyed that very much.

I talked to Tammy yesterday. They’re putting off Lisa’s birthday party till the weekend. She says the funeral went very nicely and that Ma’s taking Larry to the doctor. I hope he’ll be OK. I guess my folks are leaving this weekend. Don’t know for sure. I hope I get that article and pictures soon enough.

I told my parents of Tom’s mom’s very generous offer to fly me there if need be. They said they’d have done the same, too, if need be.

I finished the book Intensity, which was filled with just that. I’ve got two more Koontz books to read and will be starting the second one shortly.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 1997 Will Andy ever stop calling me every day? I mean, I appreciate his concern for me, he is like family to me, but how many times can I tell him that I’m feeling much better now and that I really prefer chatting on the phone every few days? Every day is just too much. I’m either too busy or just don’t feel like spending 1-3 hours on the phone.

He offered to take me to Denny’s earlier. He said he couldn’t afford to treat me, but his offer was nice, even though I didn’t feel like going and we didn’t have much extra cash ourselves.

Like I told him, I’ve been feeling much better over the last few days, although my beliefs and feelings about God and this world haven’t changed and they never will. I’ve definitely gone from shock to sadness to anger to rage to numbness. It’s all so hard to believe still.

Yesterday, Larry, Sandy, and Jen should’ve gotten their flowers. We sent them right to their house.

Yesterday was also the funeral and now that he’s in the ground, I hope that the rest of their lives is nothing but peace and happiness. Tom says it was an extraordinary incident, but the extraordinary has a way of touching me and my family like you wouldn’t believe. It’s like the whole family always has been and always will be cursed and unusual.

I’m going to get a hold of Lisa as soon as I can since I didn’t get to wish her a happy birthday.

I’ll also type up a letter to Kim, who should be back from Florida now, and tell her what’s happened, as well as about Gizzy.

Speaking of Gizzy, Tom got him some food that’s especially for mice, and a little pink water bottle in a holder I’ve never seen before. It’s one you put inside glass tanks. He also got him a nesting pad to claw and gnaw on and a pretty pink wheel, that’s about 6” wide. This mouse absolutely loves it! He’s been going and going non-stop. He spends 90% of his time on it.

As I mentioned, I had put my journals into plain old boring, easy-to-read fonts, cuz they’re more complete and easier to deal with. However, in my grouped journals, I changed them to different colors: blue, magenta, cyan, red, dark blue, dark green, dark red, black, and purple. That way, when I’m skimming through them, I’ll know when I’m changing journals, as the colors change. I didn’t change their single-file colors.

According to Tom, at 2 PM, while I was asleep, the freeloader based in. He said it was reasonable for being during the daytime, but if it had been at night, I might say it’d be too loud. Well, I might say that if they’re up to their old shit again, I’ll be putting an abrupt halt to it. What’s weird about it, though, is that if it was really them he heard, they had to have left again quietly, cuz there’s no car there now.

Anyway, as I’ve said a million times, sex is when he wants it. Fine, but what about last night? We had several hours of being up at the same time. So, I asked him so I could understand him and point out the fact that there are plenty of opportunities that he doesn’t take. So, he explained to me that it wasn’t cuz of me, but that he felt uncomfortable in light of the death. I understand and I told him so. That’s where we’re a bit different, but neither of us would or could change the other. When the shit hits the fan, I like to do stuff I enjoy to keep me distracted and balance out happiness/enjoyment and just keep on living. He, on the other hand, puts aside the things he enjoys till he feels better.

He also knows how I feel about fate and that it’d be silly of me to try to make things happen or not make things happen when fate is fate. In other words, I won’t worry about trying to avoid sex at certain times. I have nothing to worry about, but maybe spot attacks. I doubt it, though, cuz if that were the case, why hasn’t it happened again? I think my body’s back to the way it normally is and how it was before he began cumming.

Tom did say he wanted to have fun in the morning. Fine with me. Once again, it’s so nice not to have to drop down on my knees and beg God to please keep me safe. He’ll take care of me. He’ll make sure no babies are conceived. And once again, it’s amazing seeing how Larry’s “extraordinary” situation has helped. To know we’ll never have to have a chance to go through that does wonders for me. It’s weird how one person’s tragedy can be another’s ticket to making something much easier for them to live with. It almost makes me feel guilty. Well, it’s not that this event has made my child desire go away, but it sure as hell has made it easier than hell to know I’ll never have one.

While I hope to hell no bad things happen (what a joke, huh?), I find myself also hoping no good things happen, either, cuz that’d make me feel guilty, too. Pretend I could get pregnant. And I did. Imagine how Larry and the rest of my family would feel? They’d no doubt be like, how dare you! How dare you suck up the joy of this new life when your brother and his family just lost someone. Tom disagrees with this, though, saying they’d want good things to happen. Well, it’s true that other people have a right to live, and life must go on.

Later…

I can’t believe I forgot to write about my talk with Larry. He called last night. They’re back home now. Naturally, he sounded tired and out of it, but wasn’t crying or blaming himself to me. I let him know I love him and am thinking of him and his family and am so very sorry this happened.

To my surprise but pleasure, he even said it was 3º at that moment as if to say he could use my laugh to cheer him up. I tried to give him the laugh he loves so much and believe me, he needs all the help and cheering up he can get right now, but it was quite half-assed. I tried, though, for his sake. I’m sure he understands that in light of the situation, it wasn’t easy for me.

I also spoke to Sandy who said to just pray for him and that she hopes he’s in a better place. She said she wanted him to be remembered and how he really had a zest for life.

Lastly, I spoke to Jen and that’s it.

They all sound like they’re hanging in there and doing better. As best as anyone can do under the circumstances. The funeral will be at about 8:30 today and Dad should be on his way there now. He should arrive at Bradley Airport just after the funeral. Then sometime over the weekend, I believe, Dad and Mom will drive back home and Teresa will fly home if she hasn’t done so already.

Today’s Lisa’s birthday. What a bum way for a 14-year-old to have to spend her birthday; at her cousin’s funeral.

MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 1997 Tom’s mom gave me a small, paperback journal with about 60 pages in it. She got it from the Diabetes Association, and she doesn’t need it, cuz she already has something to keep track of her diabetes.

After thinking about it, I decided I’d use this journal for the 29 songs I currently have. That includes the one I just wrote, a song called He Was Only Sixteen.

I spoke to my mother yesterday She told me that she drove straight to E. Longmeadow. That night, she was to stay at Boo and Max’s house, but in the midst of the -10º, she said it was, the boiler conked out. So the neighbors did their best to fix it to no avail. Therefore, she ended up in a motel in Enfield, CT. She didn’t check in till 2:45 AM. I don’t know why she didn’t stay at Larry’s house. Maybe she felt she’d be in the way there.

She wanted to stress to me that I was not being left out. I told her I understood that perfectly well, that I know she’s pretty busy, and that we’re not always here or available to answer the phone.

This is pretty much all she told me, but here’s something good. Remember the picture frame she sent? It matches two of the journals she sent with the stamps on them. She had told me to leave that frame empty, saying that there was a reason for it. Well, she’s gonna be sending pictures of Larry. I believe the pictures will be of the whole family and I hope so. She also says she’s sending the newspaper article on this tragedy. So, one of my wishes will be granted. I can’t see Larry, but I can now have a picture.

Thank God the pigs didn’t take a cruel turn by bringing Larry up on charges. We all know he’s an excellent driver and there’s no way this could’ve been his fault, or that he’d have been drinking or on drugs. He wouldn’t risk his son’s life, nor his own ass and business.

Andy’s been a wonderful support, as well as Tom. Always concerned about me and willing and wanting to hear anything I’ve had to say. Even Marla left me quite a post saying she felt for me and his family. However, she told me not to blame anyone/anything, just like Tom did, and said it was just an “accident.” Well, I disagree, but that’s OK.

I’m starting to feel somewhat better, although this is something that no one ever fully gets over and becomes “OK” with. Tom had told me that if we “pretend” I’m right about the sterility, that if I just accept how I feel, and don’t try to change my feelings, I’ll be able to live with it a whole lot easier. This doesn’t make much sense to me and I don’t agree with this. I think that the only thing that can help me live with it is looking at the negs of having a child and keeping in mind the fact that God kills young, innocent children with great potential and lives.

Like I said, I may take a child if that kind of fantasy and miracle happened, but no more will I ever take any measures to fight/obtain this impossibility. Anyone else may say it would be best to avoid this from happening, and this is easy for me to tell myself, but I know I need not worry. God has taken care of it. So, there’s no sense in avoiding sex during the right times, but I’d prefer to. It’s like with guns; even if you know it’s not loaded, you still shouldn’t point it at anyone. Well, in the past, I’d have pointed that gun. Now, I see no sense in even doing that. That’s just going against God, asking for more trouble, and all I can see is us losing any such miracle.

It’s both depressing and scary. The depressing part is when things are stagnant and empty and boringly still. The scary part is when the shit hits the fan. Who will die next? What will break next? Who will be hurt next? Who will get sick next? If it’s not a case of nothing going on and feeling like the world’s come to a complete standstill, someone’s in trouble of some kind. Or something is.

Now, onto better things.

Yesterday, Tom cleaned the bathroom sink too, with stuff that normally gags me out. He did a great job and it’s sparkling white.

He also made a dice game similar to the one I downloaded and had for a very brief time. Some games you download only operate for a short time unless you pay for them.

Lastly, he also found a few more pieces of info on Norah on AOL. She’s a vegetarian, she was in an episode of a series called The Hitchhiker last August, she’s read a book on tape, and there are some nude pictures of her. We can’t get these pictures just yet, though, cuz they’re in pay areas. He says, though, we can find them elsewhere for free. He also found info that I’d already stumbled across.

BOA was kind enough to give him tomorrow off cuz of the death, even though we’re not going back east and they know it’s back east. He’ll still be paid, too.

Now, here’s the best news, since this horrible thing started. And believe me, this excitement sure is a pleasant break from all the shock, sadness, anger and numbness I’ve felt these last few days.

Last night I was in the kitchen when I heard something rattling around the oven. Yup, it was Gizzy, who first came to our house two weeks ago. As I was opening the grill to see if I could see him, he darted out, ran behind the refrigerator, then scuttled behind the washer. So I set up the trap that Mary gave us.

The trap is a narrow tube that’s about 6” long. It’s in a slight V-shape. You put cheese in the back of it and set the door open, which is like a tent. It goes straight out, like a carport, with legs that go straight down. The end where the cheese is, is elevated. Then, once the mouse goes in, and goes to the back of it, the front lifts up, the door shuts and the legs that held the door up, slip under the tube and catch shut. This way, they’re trapped, but still alive.

After we trapped him, which to my amazement, didn’t take long at all, we put him into the bomb tank. This aquarium’s walls are about a foot and a half tall, but boy can he jump! He can make it just about to the top and he sure is a fast one. Small rodents love to climb and jump.

The phone’s ringing now. It’s got to be Andy at this hour and I wish he wouldn’t call me every night. I’m just not the phoneaholic I used to be, and I told him that.

Anyway, we found a small box for Gizzy to use as a burrow since they love that. I put a little bit of lettuce, carrots, pellets, paper, and even birdseed in. I even put a cap from a jar in with water and the ball they run around in. He’s eaten and even got some drinks. He does a lot of climbing around, on his box, on the ball and he climbs around the screen I put on top, too. His tiny toes go right through the screen, so he can enjoy a good climb, belly up, and get good exercise, but he can’t chew his way through it.

His tail is longer than his body. The mice I had were a bit bigger, too. Including the tail, he’s about 4 or 5 inches and will probably grow another inch. He’s a cute little one and he’s a grayish brown.

Tom and I researched the lifespan and it varies from 18 months to 2 years.

He’s quickly going from a terrified wild mouse to a calmer, braver pet. I still haven’t picked him up yet. I want to give him more time to get used to me, though I doubt he’ll ever let me handle him. I did have him running around in the ball, which he loved, and we’re gonna get him a wheel to run on when we can. That, he’ll really love, as do the smaller rodents. When he was in his box, I poured him out into the ball, put the lid on it, and let him run around in the kitchen. He’s still so small, and with him just being by himself, he can’t run around on the carpet so easily. At first, he was constantly jumping, and I told myself that I’d let him go if he didn’t settle in but now he’s much braver. He doesn’t always scamper into his box when I loom up over the cage. There have been times when he’s been out and about and I’ve put my hand against the cage, tapped it, and he just stood and stared at me, rather than tried to run.

I have quite the array of rodents now - a rabbit, a guinea pig, and a mouse, although a rabbit isn't technically a rodent.

I’m trying to work on 3 different things.

To keep in mind that while our marriage may be a full-time thing, our sex lives will always be a part-time thing. Part of marrying Tom meant marrying someone with a lower drive than myself, even though he denies this. Also, what with the way the shit continually hits the fan, we don’t have a choice. Also, sex is only when he wants it. That’s how it’s always been and always will be. He definitely prefers to be the one to do the initiating.

To turn inward and to talk less. I still feel some of the stuff I have to say is upsetting to him and that he can’t understand certain things I say and feel too well.

To only ask something of him once, then to just let him do or not do something about it.

His pickup-after-me and his reposition-things-after-me are just too much of an obsession with him to get him to break it. All I ask is that he says he doesn’t want to do something I may ask of him. Not say he will or that he’ll try if he really doesn’t want to. At least he’s gotten better. He’s way neater and organized, compared to when we first met. I don’t know how long the back room will stay as neat as it is, though. We’ll see. I don’t really understand this obsession of his. Maybe it’s just cuz he’s a man and men do like to be taken care of, picked up after, neatened up after, pampered, and served by women. I just wish he’d want to be served in bed more often. Especially during the times I’m hornier, which is pretty much every other couple of weeks. Once again, though, better not to aim that gun, even though it’s unloaded.

Well, here’s what I think, even though Tom has a way of pulling surprises at times. I’d say that he won’t want sex during those likelier times. He saw how much easier my last PMS was compared to my usual PMS ordeals, what with my not having to worry about God being up to his old tricks and having to be made to deal with some weird period or whatever. I think he’s going to remember this and want to give me a break, so to speak, for a while. I think he also still knows my fears and doubts about what a child could bring, and that losing Larry is so fresh in my mind. We don’t need to lose someone else, whether they’re unborn, a child, or an adult, and I hope it’ll be a long time before another person we love goes. I doubt that, but it won’t be our unborn or born child. So, with him knowing these fears and thoughts play on my mind, he shouldn’t touch me around the end of this week and the beginning of next. If he does, he should be nervous about the idea of cumming. No, it’s not like I want one of us to get fixed, cuz that’d be silly, putting sterility over sterility. That’s like giving a perm to a person with curly hair. If he touches me at those times, no, I won’t fight him, cuz I don’t want to upset him or have him take it personally and I still know there’s nothing to worry about.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 18, 1997 Now that sorrow and depression have turned to sheer, utter rage. I could probably beat the shit out of just about anybody right now. No matter how big they were, I could toss them around like they were a rag doll. And I mean with my bare hands, too. I want to take someone like O. J. Simpson, who doesn’t deserve to live, and with my bare hands, I want to slowly torture him till I finish him off.

I wish God would appear to me in human form, so he could tell me why he did this, among all the other BS he does, and let me have him face to face, but the murdering wimp could and would never do such a thing.

We all know that, unlike the rest of my body, my hands are very weak. They’ve got the strength of an 8-year-old. Yet when I squeezed Tom’s hand to show him how furious I was, I hurt his hand. For this, I feel so very very bad. I did this to a great guy who deserves to live more than most of the human population. He said it’s OK, he understands but I feel terribly guilty and mad at myself. I had no idea I could or would do this and harm him in any way.

I’m so mad right now that when I heard a car door outside, I was hoping it was next door and that they’d blast their music and give me the slightest reason and excuse to pounce on them like a bobcat. Well, there was no music, and what with these houses being so close, it may not have been them. It could’ve been across the street. There still is no car over there and as far as I know, there hasn’t been for just over a week.

I wish everyone who’d ever done me wrong was here right now. My uncles, people like Donna A, Barb D, and Barb I. There’s more, too, and I can think of at least 20 people. Boy, would I have a field day with them, and boy, would they be shocked beyond belief. I’d slam their heads into the wall, kick them, punch them, throw them.

Tom said I’m running away from this whole mess. I am? Since when is admitting how you feel and discussing it running away from it? Then he said that this isn’t the way to feel. It’s not? Last I knew, there was no wrong emotion. Some sicko with a fancy for children, well, that’s wrong. Some God or devil killing a 16-year-old with a bright future and who could’ve done or had anything is wrong.

Well, even though Tom and I don’t see eye to eye about Larry dying, he’s been a wonderful support and for that, I am ever so grateful. He knows I need to get it out and deal with it my way. Not what others think may be the best way. I need to go on with my life. On with my hobbies and yes, on with sex. No one’s stupid here. We all know I’d take a child, despite the happiness, surprise, fears, and doubts it’d bring, but I know not to expect that.

I also told my dad that if he needed anyone to bitch to about this ordeal, to please call me.

There’s something else that burns me up about this. If we had had a child who was killed, my parents never would’ve come out here. Not by ground, not by air. To us, if we were even communicating, they’d just say that these things happen. To themselves, they’d say it’s all for the better, both for the kid’s sake and for mine.

I’m also very sad that I still don’t have any pictures of either Larry, Sandy or Jen. Even sadder that I never got to see him. My folks have seen him a few times, Tammy’s seen him once, but I haven’t seen him since he was about 7 years old.

As far as when to call and talk to Larry and the others, Tammy suggested I try calling their house in Feeding Hills tomorrow. Maybe they’ll be back sometime tomorrow. I was worried that they’d think I didn’t care, but Tammy and others gave Larry and the rest my condolences and they know my heart goes out to them.

Later…

Naturally, I’ve let Andy know about this miserable situation. I’ve also left Marla messages.

And I thought 1997 was to be great? Who the fuck was I kidding?! It was nothing but pure old-fashioned wishful thinking. This year will be either worse or no better than any other year. Especially the last few.

What the fuck is going on out there right now? It sounds like a horde of people are slamming car doors right now.

Anyway, where was my fucking 6th sense when I needed it? Why didn’t I have any vibes? I was totally caught off guard, without warning. When Tammy called, I knew something was wrong. It was in her voice. I thought it was gonna have to do with Bill, though. Something within her household only. In the quietude of the wee hours of the 16th, there was no omen. No sense. No feeling. The air did not smell of despair. There was no feeling of any doom.

I’ve been smoking so much. Smoke permeates this whole house, but I couldn’t care less. I just keep puffing away. I feel I don’t care whether I live or die.

Speaking of death, I wonder who will be next? Is God gonna rotate back and forth between Tom’s family and mine? Is he gonna kill us off one by one? Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to die? Why is God so full of murderous hate? Only those who are also murderous and hateful, who live like God, with no guilt, remorse, conscience, fear or limits, get respected by God. They get long, healthy lives. They can have anything they want.

Why?!?!

FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 1997 I have some very tragic news. First, though, I’ll go in order of events so I don’t get sidetracked and sound confusing.

Once again, no one’s been next door. Not him, anyway, but there are lights on over there at night. He was only there last Friday. It’s now Friday again; beware of the freeloaders. However, his constant absence has really taken the edge off of me. Especially when I go to bed.

I haven’t heard that little mutt across the way, either, but due to my schedule, it’s too soon to tell whether or not they gave a shit and did something about it.

Andy was over last night from about 10 PM to 3 AM. I did a couple of loads of laundry for him. First, he sat and chatted with Tom and me. He brought some candy and a necklace for me that he didn’t want.

After Tom left for work, he went on AOL to research Stevie. Watching him, with no real computer experience, was quite amusing. He had to hold the mouse with his right hand and use his left hand to click the left button. He was so shaky. At one point he asked me where the R on the keyboard was. I never noticed it was chipped and looked like a P before. I never look when I type. Overall, he did pretty well. He didn’t need me to bail him out of jams he’d get into too much. He was quite fascinated by the computer and how I could see when Marla came online, so I could zap her an instant message. At one point, while I was typing to her, he goes, “Oh my God! Look how fast you can type. You’re like a bionic typist.”

I told him that if he did straightforward typing for years and typed up over 100 journals, he’d be typing really fast, too.

Marla mentioned something about a virus on her work computer, and of course, I know nothing of those such things, so I told her that Tom would be off Friday and Saturday night and to call him then.

After Andy was done with the computer, we sat at the kitchen table with coffee and talked.

The next day, Tom and I went to the library in the evening. I returned the Laura books. I just couldn’t get into them. I got 3 more Dean Koontz books.

Now for my shitty

Later…

I was interrupted last night when Tammy called to give me the final news of this horrible tragedy that’s just happened. I’ll just get right to the point. Then I’ll take it from there.

During the early morning hours of the 16th, God killed my nephew Larry. He and Big Larry were driving on I-91 in Longmeadow, when Big Larry, who had been sick for a couple of months with the same lung problems I had back there went into a coughing fit, blacked out, and lost control of the truck, which rolled off the side of the road.

Big Larry was thrown from the truck and only received minor head injuries. He had to have some stitches but is OK. Little Larry was crushed in the cabin of the truck, I believe, and received massive internal injuries, as well as to the head. His pelvis was crushed. They tried to operate, and they removed his spleen. However, if he had lived, he’d have been a vegetable. He lost consciousness right away and never regained consciousness. He died less than 24 hours after the accident.

Big Larry was discharged from the hospital and last I knew he was at his in-law’s place in East Longmeadow with Sandy and Jennifer.

My sister, who has been my main informant through all of this, was also at the hospital and in East Longmeadow.

Yesterday, my mother’s friend Teresa drove Mom up to E. Longmeadow and they just arrived a few hours ago. Dad will be flying in on Monday.

The funeral will be held on Monday, and Dad will just miss it, cuz that’s the quickest he can get tickets and an open flight. This long holiday weekend has the flights really booked up. Teresa’s husband will be staying at their place with the dogs and he’s got someone to tend to the store. They’ll be having a Christian burial and Dad gave me the address of the funeral home, so we can send flowers there. I guess he’ll be buried in E. Longmeadow.

Anyway, if I’ve got this straight (and none of us may ever know for sure), big Larry never lost consciousness when the accident occurred. He had to have remained somewhat with it, cuz he called Florida to tell Mom and Dad what had happened. Then he was admitted.

Later…

Tammy just called. At this point, mom’s staying at Boo and Max’s house in Longmeadow, even though they’re in Florida. Tammy will be at her own house in CT, but for the next several days she’ll be driving into MA. From what I gather, Larry, Sandy and Jenny are still in E. Longmeadow.

Under the circumstances, she and Sandy embraced and got along fine. This is the first time they’ve seen each other in about 10 years. Maybe more. It seems like it always takes someone’s dying to unite family members.

Jenny’s been hysterical, afraid of losing others, which is perfectly understandable.

Larry’s been inconsolable, according to Tammy, which is also very understandable. He keeps blaming himself, saying, “I murdered my son.” We all know that this isn’t true, though, and that if there was anything Larry could’ve done to avoid this tragedy, he would’ve in a heartbeat.

I guess I was wrong when I said little Larry never knew what hit them. I guess that right after the accident, when he knew they were in serious trouble, he had said, “I love you, Daddy.” Then he went into a coma. This happened at 3 AM on the 16th, then he died at 2 AM on the 17th. Why he was out at that hour on a school night, beats me, but from what I hear, that was a common thing.

This is pretty much all I know at this time. Tom and I will be sending flowers to the funeral home on Monday.

Tom’s mom made the most generous and sweetest offer, which was to give us the money to fly there. Tom couldn’t, though, cuz people are using the next couple of weeks for vacation and he couldn’t get the time off from work. Only if it had been parents, grandparents, siblings or his children.

I asked both Dad and Tammy if they felt I was needed and if it was proper for me to fly in, but they said no. There’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. All we can do is hope that in time, whether or not Larry stops blaming himself, and I hope he does, Larry will be able to move on. I believe he will be able to and I have faith in his strength too. Sandy and Jenny need him and he needs them.

I don’t know what will become of the trucking co. I don’t know if Larry will ever want to see a truck again, drive a truck again, or if he’ll continue on with the business, knowing that that’s what Larry would have wanted.

I sure had mixed emotions about flying there. I want nothing more right now than to see my family and put my arms around my big brother and his family, but once again, there’s nothing I or anyone can do. You also know how I feel about the idea of going back to New England. All those bad memories. That whole stinking place with many more curses than I could ever endure out here, just waiting to chew me up and spit me out. That climate, so cold or humid.

This whole ordeal sure has brought a slew of emotions going through my mind. The grief over losing Larry. The grief for what the hell that family must be feeling and going through. My rage towards God and his shitty, mean, cruel and unfair ways. My anger and hatred for God and his ways with this world in general, have only increased, while my anger and hatred for how he’s dealt with me have decreased. As sad, as crazy, as infuriating, and as unfair as this ordeal is, it has made my sterility easier to accept than ever before. Knowing that we’ll never have to go through this kind of grief, can only make the way I am and fate easier to deal with. For if God had allowed me to become pregnant, he’d only have killed it for sure, sometime between when I was carrying it and when it was still just a child. This is all on top of how I don’t deserve it and couldn’t handle it and would’ve been a terrible mother, whose marriage would’ve been ruined or terribly strained.

How dare God kill my nephew, though! That kid was Larry’s whole life. Why did God have to kill this young boy who had the sky as his limit and potential? He could’ve had anything he wanted, been anything he wanted. Meanwhile, he’s left me alive and brought me back from the brink of death a few times. Me. Me, who has no life and no future. Me, who’s lived her life, reached her peak, can’t go no further. Me, who has no destiny or purpose. It’s just so sick. It’s just so unfair. He was only 16.

I suppose everyone else must be feeling how I’ve been feeling. That this is just a nightmare they’re gonna all wake up from. This is one of those things you hear about happening to other people’s families. Not ours. From 3000 miles away, I can feel their tears. Feel their grief and their loss and their shock. I can hear their cries.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 1997 I know I haven’t written much. Here’s a brief rundown of things that have been going on. I’ll expand on them some other time.

We went to the library where I got some books on the life of Laura Ingalls and a Dean Koontz book.

I also checked AOL for web pages on Charlie’s Angels and more.

Andy will be over tonight at 10:00 to do his laundry and to research AOL for Stevie stuff.

Anyway, I’m now on the Slim-Fast diet plan. A shake for breakfast, a shake for lunch, and a reasonable dinner. I can have up to 3 reasonable snacks too, but I’m gonna try to avoid those.

Thinking I was having more of a period and more water coming off of me, turned out to be wishful thinking. Yes, I had somewhat more of a period than I did last month, but this water retention is just absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention the fact that my metabolism has seemed to have retired. For a couple of days, I weighed more after most of my period had gone through than I did prior to ragging. I’m still left with a huge water belly and even my tits never lost all their soreness like they usually do. So, if I have no luck with this plan I’m on, then yes, it’s time to see a doctor to see if there’s a reason for all this and if there’s anything I can do. I have a feeling, though, that this is one of the classic examples of something I have no control over. I think this is just another one of those things that God controls and not me, where he does what he sees fit with my body, and to hell with what I think, feel, or want.

I’m still trying to change my way of thinking and believing and trying to look for signs that say God’s just looking out for me, not trying to punish/hurt me. For example, back when I used to think the responsibility of a child would be good for me and seemed like something I should have/do, I never looked at it differently. Now, I see that that’s not the case. I may be an undeserving person still but take Evie, for example, who’s gonna have her baby any time now. Now that’s someone who deserves a baby and who can handle it and who really can benefit from the responsibility a child brings. She doesn’t have bad lungs, she can keep a schedule and she can work consistently. I see now, that a child wouldn’t have helped stabilize me, it would’ve killed me for sure. For I do not only not deserve it; I could never handle it and I believe more so now than ever that yes, God’s just protecting me and our marriage. He wasn’t denying me something good; he was denying me something dangerous. I can’t and won’t speak for others, but for me, he’ll do whatever he can to make sure I don’t get dished out something I can’t deal with. Even if I do have to deal with something for a while that nearly kills me and drives me out of my mind as the NHA did.

I still do fear God and am angry with him over how he deals with the world in general, but I’m not as angry with him for the way he’s dealt with me. I just hope that this “I don’t care” attitude, which I’ve been slowly evolving into, continues. It’s what I wanted for a long time and it’s easier this way. The more I couldn’t care less about what happens or doesn’t happen to me or my life, the less I feel angry or hurt when something does or doesn’t happen. I just want to be as dreamless and as goalless and as carefree as possible. To hell with ever going to a doctor, no matter how I feel. That would be going against God in a big way and asking for trouble. That’s also something that’s wrong and that I don’t deserve, as well as a hopeless thing to do.

At least I can trust God to continue to take care of me. If I’m not as sterile as I believe I am, he’ll make sure we never hit it right. Then my life can go on being easier and safer if you catch my drift. Meanwhile, there’s no point in trying to change Tom of his beliefs or to try to convince him of anything. His beliefs are of no apparent harm to us. Also, as time goes on, and he sees we’re still childless year after year, I can’t see how that would hurt or anger him in any way. He’s never been the sore loser that I had been and that I’m trying to never be again. If he can’t get something he wants, he deals with it and accepts it with such amazing strength and moves on without a problem.

I called Larry’s house and he wasn’t there. This is why I began trying to reach him a few days ago. I called him at work. The other Larry answered, saying he was in a meeting. He said Tammy called too, 10 minutes ago. I told him not to worry, since we already spoke and since I know he got my card.

Like I started to say earlier, I checked out AOL for Charlie’s Angels info. I printed out a few pictures and put them into Journal 125. In case I didn’t mention this before - Charlie’s Angels was a huge hit series in the 70s. It ran from 1976-1981. I didn’t care for the angels that replaced the original 3, but I liked Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith. However, I really, really liked Kate Jackson. It was a series about 3 sexy detectives and she was definitely the best.

I also was able to find a picture of Norah, too. These pictures printed out shitty, but it was fun playing detective and seeing what I could find, anyway.

I just tried going onto AOL to see if I got any mail from Marla and it said it was temporarily down, to please try again in 15 minutes. That’s what they said 15 minutes ago.

We went to the library Monday morning and it looks like I may have a second favorite author. Dean Koontz. I may have read one other book of his that was turned into a movie, but I’m not sure. Anyway, in two days, I read a 305-page book of his and it was great. Better than even some of John Saul’s books. The ending was a bit abrupt, though. It kind of left me hanging, wondering what was to happen. Usually, there’s some kind of epilogue, giving you some kind of idea of what may happen in the future.

Tom cleaned the tub, which I noticed when I went to take a shower. It looks beautiful and now I’m sure I can keep up on it from here on out. What did he use on it, though, that didn’t have any harsh fumes, which would’ve woken me up for sure?

MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 1997 I absolutely don’t fucking believe this! The back room is leaking like hell! I thought this was supposed to be old news. Now I’m wondering if he ever really knew what he was doing when he worked on the roof, or if he was just showing off. I know how smart Tom is, so what happened? Well, I’m sure it had nothing to do with him.

Tom left me a message saying he’s very sorry this has happened, he’s sorry he was wrong about what he had thought was the source of the leak. He also says he understands I think we’re cursed and that it’s compensation for the good things that have happened, but to please not be so negative and have an I-told-you-so kind of attitude. He says this problem needs to be solved and he may have to tear down a section of the ceiling to locate where the leak is originating.

It’s originating from God. But why? I thought God and I were on better terms since I changed my way of thinking and my attitude about having a kid. I learned to see the good of not having a child. I learned to see that all along he was only protecting me and looking out for me, so why? Why must he harass us? Why can’t he just leave us alone? Why does it have to be one thing after another? How could God be so mean after all the hard work Tom put into doing the roof? What does he want from us? He knows we can’t do anything he doesn’t want us doing and that includes hitting it right and me ending up pregnant. I even agreed to help miss it and to go along with God and do right by him, so what did we do now? Is that what I get for agreeing to go along with fate, accept it, and live with it? Is this not only compensation due to us getting Tom into a better shift with more money but is it cuz Tom believes differently than me? Is it cuz he refuses to see things the way I see them and to go along with God? Isn’t one of us going along with God enough? Either way, we can’t fight God and win, so what the hell’s going on?! Why does God hate us so much and want to continually pick at us? We just want to get on with our lives and I, at least, agreed to not fight God and I know that I must live life according to God’s wishes and standards.

I hate God. I really really do. He is nothing but an evil motherfucker. Something up there is, anyway.

Well, at least one thing went my way. I was thinking last night how it was a hell of a first for me not to need any Ibuprofen and to have such a super light period and only need liners. A few days ago, Tom had said that I still may spot, even if we don’t do anything. Well, I don’t know if he was joking or serious, but he was almost right. I was in between spots and a light period. I decided last night that if I didn’t have a full flow, I’d make an appointment for a PAP and to see if I could find out why my periods were so light and why I am retaining all this water. You see, God is going to have to at least try to meet me halfway occasionally and I decided that if I must have all my periods, which is fine, then I want them to be normal. Not these half-assed things that keep me a water balloon and I really think the water’s connected to the light periods. However, I woke up with a full flow and needed an Ibuprofen, so that’s good. Some of the water’s come off, too. Not as much as I’d like, but it’s better than nothing.

Later…

Tom just got up and is eating now. I made a deal with him and told him that if I promised not to bitch about the roof, will he at least consider my theory and belief? He said he’s not saying that I’m wrong or right or that he’s wrong or right, but that whether it’s a curse or not, it needs to be fixed. Yeah, it does, but if it’s a curse, can we ever drive it away so we have fewer problems and fewer things to fix?

Also, I still believe it’s too scary for Tom to consider the possibility that I may be right about the curse, God’s intentions for us, and my sterility. He just doesn’t want to believe this, but in time, he’ll have no choice. Still, though, he may deny it was a curse or cuz of God and say it was just cuz things turned out that way.

Yesterday, I was curious to check out the history of Little House on the Prairie and the whole story behind Laura Ingalls and her family. There was tons of information. It was like - wow! I even printed out a list of all the 204 episodes, which contained a brief write-up about them. See? That’s how many episodes each series would do back then. Not just 10-20 of them.

I’m also gonna check and see what kind of sites they’ve got on Charlie’s Angels.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12, 1997 Well, I sure do have some interesting things to update on, as some of my birds spy on me from the window above me.

First of all, Tom finally cleaned the back room yesterday. That makes about 6 times, between the two of us. It looks great and I made him promise not to trash it yet again, but we’ll see.

We screwed yesterday and we both got off.

He agreed that the reason I had such an easy PMS was due to not having to worry about spot attacks or any other weird occurrences, even if they didn’t necessarily mean something was wrong. Once again, each period gets lighter and I retain more water. This one’s so very light and I haven’t even needed any Ibuprofen yet, this time around. I think I’ll soon be making a PAP appointment, not for an exam and to ask about conceiving, but for an exam and to ask why each one gets lighter and why I’m so watery before, during, and after my periods and see what they suggest.

Yesterday was a fun and productive day between sex, Chinese food, and getting the back room done.

Upon Tom and I discussing our families, I realized a sad, but true fact. If I died, what would my parents do? Flip a coin to decide who gets to go to my funeral and who gets to stay back to tend to the store and their dogs?

Speaking of coins, Ma gave us, as well as Mary and David, some old coins that Dad had collected. They’re not worth much, but they will be someday. I don’t know if we’re gonna keep them or what? That’s up to Tom.

It’s still been very quiet next door. I did notice the Jeep had finally returned at around 3 PM last Friday, but I haven’t heard any music. I don’t think the Jeep has been there at all since yesterday. The way they’ve been is a total dream come true, even if most of my wishes granted aren’t the ones I desperately wanted most.

We spoke to Tammy yesterday cuz she left us a message. Her computer CD-ROM went out, so it’s being fixed and she’ll be without it for a few weeks. Yuck! She also had a question for Tom about a friend’s computer.

I asked her what she’d been up to and her response was, “I’ve been fucking plowing!”

Ha! Ha! She says they got 6” of snow.

Then, I figured I’d better start trying to get a hold of Larry to wish him a happy birthday, but he was out, as usual. I spoke to Jenny and Sandy. Sandy said he was in PA picking up a couple of new trucks. At first, I was thoroughly confused and asked if he cut himself in half and drove the trucks back that way. Then Sandy informed me that he took a couple of drivers down with him.

I told Sandy I called for two reasons. One was to start trying to reach Larry to wish him a happy birthday and the other was to rub in the nicer weather here. She was like, “Shut up! From now on don’t call me till May.”

I told her, though, that we’ve had some chilly days, too. It’s really a dull and dismal day out there now. She wouldn’t tell me the temperature there, but she did say it was under 30°. They didn’t get the kind of snow Tammy got.

I told Sandy about the mouse we had had in here and I thought she’d be all freaked out about it, but she says she’s a major animal rights activist.

She burst out laughing when I told her all about how I botched up the pie I had tried making when I was sick. She says Larry still talks about the pie he dropped all over their living room floor.

Anyway, I think I’ve remembered everything Sandy and I discussed.

Later…

I got in touch with Larry. I told him I had been pretty confused at first, about how he was getting the trucks back from PA. He said he went down himself, drove one truck 10 miles, then ran back and got the other, but got sick of that cuz it was -20°. Naturally, that was my cue to burst out laughing.

I told him about the pie incident too, and then he was impersonating Tammy (all her medical problems).

He’s been sick for a month and a half. He says he had to take antibiotics and that he may have had bronchitis or walking pneumonia.

I spoke to Andy yesterday, too, following a pretty confusing and funny incident. He asked me to tape his outgoing message, so I did. Then he called to ask if I put it on his machine, too. No, I told him, but he played his messages and it was there, too. Then I realized what had happened. After I taped his outgoing message, I thought I had hung up before his machine could record anything, but as I went to play back his message to make sure it came out OK, it got picked up on his machine.

I just realized something. I think I forgot to mention that the last time Andy was here with Michelle, they brought a couple of things. Michelle had a rolled-up funny note she wrote with a few orange lollipops taped to it. The note was a bore, though, cuz the paper was all crinkled up, making it harder to read and her handwriting wasn’t that great.

Also, Andy brought over a coat from Laura. It’s a nice colorful coat that’s good for this time of year. Especially at night and in the mornings.

Later on, I’ll get into the Laura Ingalls site I checked out on AOL.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1997 It’s so cute watching Bunny play with Piggy. They still like to clean each other, too. Piggy doesn’t like it, though, when Bunny tramples him. Piggy has calmed down quite a bit due to his age, whereas Bunny, who’s just a baby, even though he’s gotten so big and weighs about 4 pounds, is quite playful.

This is so weird (yet I love it), but there’s still no one next door. Where are they? Well, I hope they stay away, but I also hope they don’t move, seeing how quiet they’ve been over the last few months. A part of me wonders if they did split, but why would they do that and leave their stuff here? Maybe they got in trouble or something, but I haven’t seen or heard anyone else coming to check on the house, so who knows? They could simply both be on vacation and be visiting someone. I picture these people to be originally from someplace like Chicago or L.A. Something tells me more like Chicago.

Right on time. Here go those fucking dogs. Obviously, they hear the people in the house get up at this time (which seems like the time to get up with a house full of little kids and a daycare business to run), then they go off cuz they want to be fed.

I think I figured out why this has been the easiest PMS, as far as the emotional part goes, in quite a while. It’s cuz between the last period and this one, he didn’t get off. So now I don’t have to worry about a possible spot attack or some other kind of weird incident playing on my mind. It’s probably mostly a subconscious thing, but there’s nothing that can be in the back of my mind to worry me this month. Before, I’d just never quite know what I was in for. I could only be sure of not getting pregnant, but as for any other weird happenings, abnormal or not, I just never knew.

I never thought I’d say this, but a part of me wishes he’d just go back to not cumming. Sometimes we get something we’ve wanted, then wish we could go right back to the way it was before. No, I don’t wish to go back to MA or back to being alone, but his not cumming really takes a load of stress and worry off me. Maybe he has gone back to not cumming. We screwed again yesterday and he didn’t get off. We did it on his bed and he didn’t have the energy to do it on his bed, cuz it’s harder. On the waterbed, the water helps him to move back and forth a lot easier. It takes half the work off of him. Meanwhile, a 39-year-old trying to bump it in and out on a very hard bed, that’s pure hell on him.

No dorky "tail" on my ass. As you know, I’ve had this very small piece of hair that was just slightly past the crack of my ass. Meanwhile, the rest of it was about 3” shorter and it looked pretty stupid. It was so uneven, so I took 2” of that long piece off and now it looks much more even. Still uneven, but not nearly as uneven as it was before. I’m not gonna say anything to Tom, cuz I want to see if he notices it. It’ll take a month or two for it to return to where it was, but at least it’ll look healthier and even. It seems like my sides haven’t been growing much, but hopefully it only seemed that way due to that clump of hair being a few inches longer. Hopefully, once the very back that I just trimmed returns to where it was, I’ll notice that the sides will be even with it, too. If God forbid, the back returns to where it was and the sides stay where they are - fine. I’m not gonna hack the tail again.

Anyway, my hair is in much healthier condition than it was for a few years there. Those end treatments really have made a difference.

Maybe someone is next door after all. I just peeked out the window and cuz there’s barely any sunlight yet, I can see a light on over there. Maybe she’s been there, but not him. Then why haven’t I heard her come and go? Why haven’t I heard a car pull up to get her and drop her off? Boy, she’s gotta really have someone willing and able to deal with picking her up and dropping her off, what with the fact that she’s got no car. Imagine living in a house with no car. She could walk to a bus stop, but that’d be a real pain for her to haul her kid along and you’re talking about a 10-minute walk. Then she’d have to bus it to wherever she leaves the kid all day, then to her place of work.

Could the light just have been left on, if they’re both gone, for security? I don���t think so, cuz I would’ve seen the light from the back room, so I’d say she’s been there and he hasn’t been there. Guess he’s either in trouble, working elsewhere, or just not getting along with her.

Now here’s some really cool computer news. Well, those Gloria pictures, as well as one of Norah’s, have been set up so I can use them as either wallpaper or a screen saver. It is so awesome! I have two picked out now. I used to have these pictures, as a matter of fact. I junked one of them like a fool when I first came here and the other ended up being dumped courtesy of my mother.

Well, the birds ran out of seeds yesterday and Tom picked them up some more this morning, so since they’re up now, I’ll go feed them.

Hello There,

I don’t know your name, but my name is Susan and I’m a nearby neighbor.

First of all, I’d like to say I’m sorry for your loss and I hope you’re getting along OK.

I’d like to ask a favor, though, if I may, about the dog tied up to the trailer. Well, don’t get me wrong, I love animals, but is there any way you could please lessen the barking? Some of those in my household are working nights and need to sleep in the days. I hope you understand how it is.

Take care and hope you had a nice holiday season.

Sincerely, Susan Reynolds

That you just read, is the note I stuck in the mailbox of the house with that trailer dog, which has started up again.

The “I’m sorry for your loss” part of it is due to him losing his mother. Gloria, that woman behind us, who came to see us when we had our tag sale, said that that’s what the case is, anyway.

This dog’s bark is so totally obnoxious and they are so cruel, too. Once again, how can they hear themselves think? I thought I heard voices, as I approached their mailbox slot, but once again, how can they talk to each other over that shrill of a bark? Geez! Anyway, I know it won’t do a damn bit of good, but I just had to do something and feel like I tried. The good thing about it is that if they don’t give a shit about the dog or my complaint, and I don’t expect them to, that trailer and that dog are in perfect easy access. It’s right on the street. So, if they want to sleep at night in peace, and I know they sleep in that trailer, they better think about it. Also, anyone can just walk right up to the dog and snatch it (I wish they would) or do something to it. Well, maybe the fact that the trailer and the dog aren’t in an enclosed area and anyone can get to them without being seen, or without them being able to do anything about it in time, will help get something done about the little pipsqueak of a dog, but I know better. I’m gonna have to do something myself.

Maybe the reason why they don’t have the dog in the yard is cuz there’s already a dog there and maybe they’d attack each other. That leaves shutting it up in the trailer or taking it into the house and all hell would break loose if someone in Arizona actually had to bring their dog into their house. That’s a no-no out here.

If I knew it wouldn’t bite me and that if I could release it from its leash, it’d run away, that’d be great, but I ain’t getting near that dog. Not without a gun and I don’t have one. I don’t want to hurt the dog, I just want them to shut it up. If it takes threats to the dog and the trailer and maybe an egg or two to the trailer itself, then I just may have to do that, but I hope not and I don’t want to. If I were seen doing anything, who knows what they might try doing to our house. Well, we do live in a world where most people don’t care about their pets and where more than most don’t give a shit about their neighbors. I’d say that there were only about 3% of the neighbors I’ve ever had who cared and wanted to get along without bothering anyone, as well as not being bothered by anyone.

I’m just about 99% sure they didn’t see me deliver them their note. All their front windows have tin foil in them and I don’t think their open side windows matter, cuz it’d just look like I was walking from or to anywhere in that area. Besides, I think they were absorbed in themselves and chatting to really think twice about seeing me walking down the street. From their front sidewalk, though, they couldn’t have seen me. Only on the street. Well, if they figure out who I am, then they do, but I suppose I’d prefer to be unknown.

Also, I think I did hear a car door shortly after 7:00 from next door. Then when I checked again, I don’t think I saw any lights, so someone is picking up her and the kid.

Later…

Yeah! The trailer just left. Now all I have to listen to for now is those other two dogs and there’s nothing that can be done about them. All I can do is hope they die, or someone else kills them, or that the owners realize how cruel they’ve been to their dogs, as well as how rude they’ve been to their neighbors, but that’ll never happen.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 1997 Well, I don’t have much to say at this time. Just that there still hasn’t been anyone next door that I can see of, so that’s just great.

I also haven’t heard anything from that trailer.

I cleaned the hell out of this place today since it really needed it. It just wasn’t something I was able to do for a while cuz of how we were sick.

I also made Tom up a list of all the Gloria pictures I want to have as screen savers and wallpaper on my desktop.

I started adding whatever I could think of to our list, which we’re soon gonna revise, of all the stuff we’d like to buy and do.

Tom had gotten a jar of nuts (he hates nuts) from work during the holiday season. It was a pretty triangular glass jar, too, so I put my different colored beads in them in order and it looks really neat, with all the pretty layers of colors.

Well, I guess that’s it unless you want to count Robin telling me that 1997 will be the best year of my life. I think that 1992, 1993 and 1994 were the best, even though they had their problems, too. She says, though, that 1997 will have fewer problems, I have no idea what I’m in for and it’s to be way more exciting and better than I could ever imagine. She says there are about 3 or 4 events that’ll be happening that won’t be any kind of settlement, either. She says I’ll be totally thrilled about them.

Oh, please! I mean, we’re both feeling better overall and happier about having more money and time together, but how much more can happen? What could possibly happen that’ll make this year so wonderful? Will we win the lottery? I don’t expect it to be a bad year, but how great can it get? I’ve lived my life and have basically done the things I wanted to do that were possible for me to do, so what more could I expect or ask for? I don’t expect to be off the cigarettes and on a normal schedule. We won’t be moving this year. Once again, we’ll just have to wait and see, but I really think it’s a little late for any kind of serious or grand changes. Well, if it’s an actionless year, I’ll take that over a chaotic year.

I conquered a fear of mine and did something earlier that I had never done before. I did laundry in the dark. I still shined a flashlight around, though, to make sure there were no spiders that I could see. I got all the sheets and blankets washed, now that we’re better, and I dusted, vacuumed, and cleaned the bathroom. Tomorrow I’ll do the kitchen appliances.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1997 Tom and I went to Osco Drug at 2 AM. It sure felt weird being out with him at that hour. It’s been a long time since we were out that late.

Anyway, I picked up b-day cards for Lisa, Larry, Sandy, Jen and Andy.

I got the fans on now cuz the dogs are gonna start their shit any second now. Also, that huge motorhome is here now like they are half the time, so I expect that squeaking thing’s gonna bark, too.

Come to think of it, why haven’t I heard that dog? They’ve been here at least every 2-3 weeks for a few days, but I don’t think I’ve heard that dog for a while. They just got that dog, though, within the last 6 months or so, so why would they not have it? Maybe it drove them crazy, too.

No freeloaders next door. In fact, I’m not even sure if she and the kids have been there since Sunday. If I’ve got this right, they’re usually there Wednesday - Sunday. At least to sleep, anyway.

We screwed earlier and he didn’t get off. Guess he either didn’t miss sex very much or I was out of practice and not up to my usual standards.

Very faint, but noticeable pre-cramps have set in. I hope this each-period-since-last-July-being-lighter streak ends. If this period’s lighter than my last one, it’ll barely be a period at all. Then I can really be backed up with water.

Yes, I think I will mark my charts with those 3 things: the dates of my rag, when I’m mid-cycle, and when he gets off. I’m only mid-cycle and ragging once a month, but what with the way he rarely cums, it won’t be a hassle to keep track of.

My cold is just about gone now!

TUESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1997 I still feel like I did yesterday and I’d say that yesterday and today have been the worst of the cold. My lungs and throat have been fine, but my nose has been really freaked out. My whole head, actually, has been stuffy and it feels like my head is so heavy and I’ve got that feeling where it feels like my whole head is swimming. My ear is clogged up and sounds are so much softer, yet louder sounding. I even had to maximize the bass on my stereo in order to be able to stand it and you know I hate bass.

When I first got up I sneezed my way through waking up and showering, but since then my nose has settled down. I used that nasal spray and put a new nasal strip on. At least the air quality isn’t as bad. We haven’t heard of any pollution advisories being in effect, and I think there may have been some wind and rain, so that’ll clean the air up.

Neither of us has seen Gizzy since that time we both saw him book from the living room towards the bedrooms, but I’d think he was still here and alive.

I’ve had the aquarium on its side with 5 pellets in it and there are still 5 pellets in it, so he hasn’t been eating those. The reason why I put them there is that I was hoping he’d go for the pellets, then I could tip the cage right side up and trap him. Then, I’d either keep him in an old birdcage I saw out in the storeroom that’s off of the patio or let him go. I think that there are big enough cracks in the back door for him to get out. Those huge spiders have gotten in that way and he’s about the same size. He’s just a baby mouse that’s about an inch or two long. However, he may be too stupid to try getting out that way. He did try it a couple of times the first night I saw him, but then when I went to open the door and left it that way for a while, he didn’t leave, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

Tom has been wonderful at helping me through this cold. It sure beats being all alone like I used to be back east, dealing with colds that were way worse than this, and having no one who gave a shit or who could deal with it.

I’ll be getting Tom up at 1:30, cuz he’ll be going in at 4 AM.

Later…

Tom got up a few times cuz his belly was acting up. I know he’s not intimidated by work, responsibility or people and that he gets along with people very well, but I wonder if it could be a case of new job jitters? He said it’s possible since he’s only human. Now that takes a hell of a guy to be able to admit that. Like I said, there’s a bad kind of macho and a good kind of macho.

At least he could succeed in just about every job possible, whereas I’m warier of people cuz I don’t like or trust them, think they may play with my head, and don’t get along with most people. That’s cuz I’m either too different or they always have some kind of problem with me. They think I’m a defensive bitch, but that’s OK. It’s true, for the most part. You could say it’s mutual. What was I - somewhere in my early 20s when I basically thumbed my nose at the general population, deciding I was too good for most people?

He did his list for April. I highly doubt it, but since I knew there was at least a slim chance he could’ve peeked at mine, I held the envelope up to the light and I saw: You are pregnant or…

Let me guess, after the “or” comes “are about to be.”

That’s cheating, in a sense. He’s so determined to be right in some kind of way about that, that that’s probably why he stuck that in there, but that makes no sense and doesn’t count. I mean, you’re either pregnant or you’re not pregnant. There’s no “on your way to being pregnant.” Maybe if you have a date with Invitro or something, but other than that, you either are or aren’t. Anyway, as far as he’s been concerned, since early ‘94, I’ve either been pregnant or on my way to being pregnant.

I think I also saw “I love you.”

How sweet. At least he knew when he wrote that, that he had to be right on at least one of the things he wrote, huh?

Later…

To continue on with the list I mentioned earlier. I did mine a few days ago, folded it up and put it in an envelope. Then, I told him to do his and put it in the envelope (without looking at mine) and seal it up and I’d put it in the file box.

A tiny bit of me suspects he could’ve checked out mine, cuz of the way he told me not to peek and open the envelope. Sometimes it can be human nature to tell a person not to do something they’re not supposed to do, that you’re not supposed to do, either, but that you may have done. I think that once I see his list in April, I’ll be able to tell if he checked mine out or not. It depends on how opposite from mine his list is. He has a way of being quite an opposite doer/sayer for the most part. It depends on what it’s about. If I say we should kill those wearing green shirts, he’s not gonna agree with me, but if I say something about somebody seeming mellow, for example, he’ll probably say he thought they were high-strung.

As I was going through my journal groups and adding their years, the different fonts finally got on my nerves and I made them all into a basic and simple font. From here on out, though, I can use weird fonts, cuz then I can see, as I type along, which fonts are complete and which aren’t. I have a pretty good idea of which ones are more complete, but if I’ve used the degree sign for say, number 77, I may forget that the degree sign’s there, and change it to a font that doesn’t have that. So, I may use some harder-to-read fonts, but for the most part, it’d be easier if I used those that weren’t too fancy. I can save those for letters.

I forgot to mention that I tried calling Paula a couple of days ago and her phone’s disconnected. I guess she did move, but why hasn’t it been turned on at her new place? It looks like she owed some money on it and lost her phone. She’s a lot like Fran was. She has a phone on and off. Since she hasn’t called me, I’d say there’s a good chance she lost my number. A ditz like that could easily lose someone’s number. Especially when they’re moving. As for her writing to me? If she’s got the address, she probably is too stupid to do so and doesn’t have the time. I don’t know how well she can read in the first place. She may not be very literate. I’d say she did get the letter, cuz it was never returned to me, but she may have lost that, too, and can’t remember my last name or his first name to look us up in the Phoenix directory. I tried to get a number on that friend of hers on Liberty Street she mentioned, but there’s no listing. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, but if I can’t talk to her again or for a long time, at least I got to chat with her a few times after not being able to for 6 years.

Later…

If only those damn dogs would disappear. You hear them on and off all day in the winter and on and off all night in the summer. Why hasn’t someone done something about it? I can’t believe no one has. I know I’m not the only one who can’t stand to listen to them. They probably tried calling someone and got the same run around I did and didn’t want to bother with the hassles and with not being able to be anonymous about it. Well, at least they can’t wake me up and I can use music or fans to deal with them.

God’s been really good to me as far as next door goes. He’s not home every day, but when he has been, I haven’t heard any music. My guess, at this time, although Tom says there doesn’t have to be a reason, is that he did blow his speakers and doesn’t have the money for new ones now. I hope it’s not just a seasonal thing, as far as him not being there as much. I still wouldn’t be surprised if they came alive again once or twice a month from around April to September, but maybe it’s not just his work that’s keeping him away more often. Maybe they’re not getting along.

Anyway, my nerves have really really eased up as far as their shit goes and now I can even go to bed without fearing or wondering if I’ll be able to sleep. I can’t believe, though, that they only woke me up a few times since they arrived last March. Yes, they’ve been the best ones to be next door since I’ve been here and if they stay like this, I hope they never move. It’s when they calm down and shut up, though, that they do move, but I hope not. If they go back to ever playing their music at a volume that can be heard 5 blocks away, well, then that’ll be a whole different story. I also hope there are hardly ever any loud 6-hour parties, too.

Bunny has a game he plays with me. Most of the time I walk by the end of the cage when I either come from the kitchen or go into it, he runs to the end of the cage for his nose to be patted. It’s so cute.

Kim called earlier and she didn’t even recognize my voice. I told her I had a cold and that while I could breathe, my nose was still stuffy. I’m only hearing at half a volume still, too. She says she’s dumped Bob, but we’ll see. She says she’s not gonna tell him something like she’s moved to Florida, then have me write and say I heard she was killed. She says she wrote to him just over a month ago and that’ll be it. She says that if I tell him she was killed, he’ll kill himself. I doubt that. We thought he’d kill himself or be killed in jail and he’s still alive.

He sent her 10 stamps. That’s really pushy. I mean, he really is trying to get her into writing to him, huh? At least she gets free stamps out of it.

Kim still feels he’s innocent, but I don’t. Not with his mouth. I know that most guys that talk sex all the time are sluts, but he did say he had a kid and I know there’s no such thing as a childless child molester.

Kim also says she thinks she’s got a cold coming on, too. That sucks. She will be going on her annual Florida trip, though, to see her brother and her grandmother.

I’ve been wondering more and more about Paula losing her son and almost losing her other son. What really could’ve happened? She says it was her sister that called DYS on her. Well, seeing how much the court really favors biology over the child’s best interest, I’d say something big had to have gone down. She says someone suspected he (Robert) was being molested and that she doesn’t know if this happened for sure or who could’ve done so if it did, but I think I know what really happened. I know Paula’s violent streak. I’ve seen her constantly yell at that kid and even slap him really good a few times and I think she beat up on him and the sister (as well as others, probably), saw bruises on him. She was constantly telling Justin during our phone conversations that she was gonna punch him in the mouth if he hit her or didn’t settle down. I hate to say this, but here’s the making of a couple of classic lunatics. I mean, those boys are definitely gonna be so very likely to grow up violent and hating women.

I haven’t had any pre-cramps yet, but they should be well on their way. Hopefully, I won’t be a basket case soon, though, but I’d still say I’ve been feeling much better mentally on an overall basis.

MONDAY, JANUARY 6, 1997 Well, here’s the third day of this cold. Once again, it’s still a fairly easy cold and I’m still able to be up and doing the usual, but yesterday was a bitch. I couldn’t sleep due to my nose running like hell and that was making me depressed and frustrated and I was really wired out.

Then Tom started mentioning nasal sprays and I just laughed cuz those have never worked worth shit for me. Anyway, they have new ones now and I’m glad he let me let him talk me into getting a nasal spray, cuz it really helped a lot so I could finally get to sleep.

I forgot to mention before that his ma gave me a really cute calendar. It’s got drawings of cats and dogs and she thought I might want to try to draw some of them. We’ll see, but lately I haven’t felt like doing much of anything, since colds really drain you. I’ve basically just been at the computer, writing and listening to music. Today, though, I am gonna try my best to get as much of this place cleaned as I can. If I dust, vacuum and air this place out, it should help.

Tom and I both saw the mouse, which I call Gizzy. He was in the living room and then he ran for the bedrooms, but I haven’t seen him since. He hasn’t eaten any of the pellets, so how is he surviving? I’m amazed he hasn’t starved yet.

Well, I just can’t think of anything else to say at this time, so maybe I’ll go do some drawing, work on copying in Andy’s journal stuff or continue putting the years in by each of the entry dates on the computer version journals.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 1997 Still no getting online and I probably won’t be able to for a while yet. It’s Saturday night, so there’s a lot of traffic. I have AOL brought up and on my title bar, so I can keep trying here and there.

Andy says he wants to come over sometime to look around for stuff on Stevie on the web.

Oh, great. I mean, I don’t mind him coming over and I’d like for him to visit more often, but I hope this doesn’t become a regular thing. I also hope he’s not constantly asking me, look up this, look up that, cuz then if I can’t find something, I’ve got to bug Tom and I think he has enough shit going on.

Tom says he feels better physically and is psyched about his schedule and feels that’ll really improve our lives. Well, we’ll see. The question is if it does improve our lives - for how long? How long can he go without being sick? Without being tired a lot of the time or having some kind of injury?

He mentioned missing sex and wants that whenever we can find the time for it, but I don’t know. I still don’t like the idea of a part-time sex life, but perhaps it’s better than nothing and I should just take it. Yes, it can cause problems between us, and who knows if I’ll spot again and have to deal with that shit, but it’ll make him happy, so that’s something to think about. Also, I have been adapting to sex in waves over the last year or so, and sex in waves is what this relationship has always been about and always will be about. Well, I told him I agree to have sex here and there, cuz I know it’s what he wants and that it’ll make him happy.

He also says he still wants a kid and that it won’t take a toll on us, etc. We can handle it, he says. Well, here’s where he’s got a problem cuz I can’t give him a child whether I wanted to or not.

He says he’s gonna do up his list for April 1st and that he’s gonna be right on every one this time. Sorry hun, but there’s not a chance in hell of that happening. I know for a fact that I’ll be right on every single one I wrote down. The only one I could possibly be wrong on, but I highly doubt it, is the improved financial situation and that’s cuz every time you get more money, something comes up or breaks, and that money you got goes to that. He says there’ll be extra money for fun stuff and if one of us needs new shoes or something, we won’t have to wait on it. I hope this is true and I think it just may be. As for the other 5 things I saw, though, there’s no way I’ll be on a normal schedule, not smoking, pregnant, or get up the guts to see a doctor when I’m right about not being pregnant, or that he’ll be cumming more than 3 times a month. That’s just totally impossible. There might be a month occasionally where he gets off 4-5 times, but that’s it. All else I said is inevitable and etched in stone, but that’s good, except for the smoking and the schedule.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1997 Believe it or not, I have a cold now (it feels so weird to be able to say, “Believe it or not!”). So, I’ll write as much as I can. I’ll be pausing here and there to see if I can get onto AOL. I tried to log in a few times and it was busy. I have stuff I’m gonna look up for Tom, as well as stuff for myself.

It was yesterday that I first began feeling a little off. It’s part of the plan, though, and God knows it. He still doesn’t want us to have much time together, no matter how we think or feel. Next, Tom will be sick all over again, and there’ll be one thing after another. The only good thing about it is, is that we’ll have more time to deal with one thing after another going wrong, due to how he’ll have more free time cuz of his new schedule.

I revised my list for what I see happening from now till April 1st to the following:

I’ll still have a crazy schedule.

I’ll still be smoking.

Our financial situation has improved and will continue to.

You’ll still only cum 1-3 times a mos.

I won’t be pregnant.

I won’t go to a doctor (too chicken to).

Later…

Still no getting through to AOL. Speaking of AOL, I have some pretty cool news about that. Well, Andy and Michelle came over last night, so that was the first time I met Michelle (she’s between plain and cute, but she’s pretty heavy). The computer was on, so she went to look up some actress at a site I never thought to look in. So, I then did that with Gloria, Linda and Norah. I didn’t find any new info on Norah, but I found an awesome web page on Gloria that had all kinds of beautiful pictures. There were 6 photo galleries, so I downloaded about 24 out of the 30 or so pics and printed them out in different sizes. I have some in my journals and some bigger ones in a photo album. I put them in those protective sleeves, as I did with some of my drawings. I also checked out Linda’s web page and that was pretty nice too, but the pictures weren’t nearly as nice as Gloria’s. Tom says he thinks that that’s not Gloria’s only web page. Yeah, I believe that. Unfortunately, they don’t group things together very well and since everything’s so scattered, you just have to hope you can find all of whatever you’re looking for.

My parents called last night. Ma’s right when she said everyone was sick. It seems like the whole country’s sick. Larry gave one of his drivers Christmas off, so he did a delivery to Miami and stopped at their place with the kids along the way. He’s still sick and the kids are, too. At first I asked myself why the kids would go if they were sick, but the answer is probably so they could spend time with Larry. Larry’s so busy so much of the time that he’s hardly ever home. Larry and Sandy are both very devoted to their kids, but Larry’s also a workaholic and probably doesn’t want to spend too much time around Sandy.

Anyway, as I was talking to my folks along with Tom, I saw something on my leg and said, “Oh shit.” I thought it was a baby bee and kept trying to kill it by swatting at it, but it just seemed to come back to life and resurrect itself every time it looked like it was dead. Ma was laughing, no doubt cuz it was me and not her who had to deal with that. She hates bugs, too. Anyway, the thing turned out to be a rather humongous ant.

My parents also said the bingo marathon sucked. They said it was too long, the food sucked and they didn’t win. They wish they’d gone to a party they were invited to, instead. So, that makes 4 people whose New Year’s Eve sucked.

We had an interesting houseguest yesterday that I noticed after he went to bed. We’ve got a mouse hanging around here. I saw it dart by a few different times last night. It’s such a cute little thing, too! Then I didn’t see it for several hours before going to bed, which I did at around 7 AM. I haven’t seen it today yet, either, so maybe it found its way back out.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3, 1997 Just worked out for the second day in a row.

Earlier, I typed up letters to Larry, Kim and Anne and Harry. I sent one out to my parents yesterday.

Now that Tom’s getting better, what’s the new crisis? He accidentally forgot to write in an ATM withdrawal he made, so now we’ll be tight till the 15th. At least we won’t be for months.

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2, 1997 Geez! What a great start to the New Year. The waterbed heater went on the fritz, but he fixed it. Now the page-down key is getting stuck on me.

I wonder if ‘97 will be like ‘92? The first half of ‘92 sucked, then it got great.

No action next door yesterday, so that’s just fine.

I had money dreams last night, and as I said, money’s one of the predominant vibes I have for ‘97.

I still wonder why God let Tom cum on my birthday when my feelings about having a child were different? Could it be cuz I called that meeting line and he still favors bad things mostly? I don’t know about that, cuz I really didn’t do anything bad. Just played with people’s heads and he didn’t really reward me for waking up Springfield for all those years, either. He took away my sleep for doing that, so no, he definitely doesn’t reward me for doing wrong. Most others, yes, but not me.

I also got curious, despite the fact that I don’t want a child anymore, and I researched some stuff. You ovulate the exact same number of days (14) before your period, regardless of when your period is. From what I could see, he didn’t get off when I would end up ragging 14 days later. Just that first time he did. I get it. God’s looking out for me by keeping his appetite/cumming low and making sure we always miss it, rather than put me through the hassles of a problem occurring where I’d need surgery. That’s cool, but it’d still be nice to not have to deal with periods. I figure I have about 300 more periods to go before they stop, so, my question is this. Will God always make sure we miss it? I mean, I know and trust that he’ll always protect us and keep us from hitting it right, but it’s scary at times. I mean God is such a busy person, so what if he forgets? I guess that’s silly of me. He’s supposed to be able to do anything.

I thought about telling Tom I no longer wanted a child and all the reasons why, but what’s the point? I realized that there was no need to explain something to him that wasn’t a threat in the first place. If I didn’t trust and know God was making sure that a child wouldn’t happen, then I’d have to tell him and then we’d have to figure out what the best method of birth control was for us.

Remember how last summer we both made a list of stuff we did or didn’t see happening over a 3-month period of time? Well, we’re doing that again, and here’s my list of predictions for April 1st, as well as a condensed breakdown of the predictions:

I’ll still have a crazy schedule.

I’ll still be smoking.

Our financial situation will have improved and will continue to improve.

I’m not sure if I’ll be working or if we’ll have lost weight.

You’ll still be cumming only about 1-3 times a mos.

I still won’t be able to conceive and we will both become OK with this as we realize that it’d be both unfair to us and to a kid for us to have one with the way our lives are full of one thing after another. I will have chickened out of seeing a doctor, out of fear of what God would do to us for rebelling against him. Due to both our desire for a child petering out, you will not encourage me to see a doctor and tell me not to be so superstitious. We will also realize the toll a child would take on us and our lives and when we remember my ear, my asthma, your colds, and so much more, it’ll smother our desire for a child all the more, so we’ll both not want this taking a toll on our lives, time and health or income. Cuz a child is so very much not meant to be - we are blessed by God with the fact that we’ll never need to deal with the hassles and side effects of any kind of birth control.

I will still have a crazy schedule.

I will still be smoking.

We will be better off financially.

We will continue to be better off financially.

You’ll still cum 1-3 times a mos.

I won’t be pregnant.

I won’t go to a doctor.

I’ll be OK with not having a child.

You’ll be OK with not having a child.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1997 Phoenix, AZ Age 31

Well, 1997 came in in a rather shitty way, thanks to Mr. Melodramatic, who just has to take out how he feels on me. Hey, I’m sorry he’s so sick all the time and tired and aching, etc. But it’s not my fault he feels as he does and there’s no need or excuse for him to take it out on me.

Less than a minute before the ball was to drop, the tape ended. I was gonna restart the recorder but said nah. Then, just as it was getting real close to dropping and just as “the window” was starting to open, he had to reach across me, distracting my view of the TV and the premonitions I may have seen, to hit it recording. So I told him, no, it was fine as it was. Then he jumps up and back into his chair, rubs his hands against his head furiously, and it was just such a childish, emotional thing. I mean, can’t he listen?

So, I got all pissed off and right after the ball dropped, I left the room. A few minutes later, he comes in turning it into an attack on me, telling me I’m yelling at him every day, he’s put up with me for years, and my asthma and ear, I was blaming him for being sick, etc. He did say he was sorry he didn’t listen and that he had no idea what was happening.

I told him I was sorry he’s sick and I understood that he didn’t know I was starting to have flashes of future visions, but that I’m sick of his taking his colds out on me. Also, I never blamed him for being sick, but that’s his way of lashing back at me. He can’t just say he’s sorry. He has to blame me for some bogus thing, carry on so dramatically, and try putting a guilt trip on me, all cuz I got mad at him cuz he wouldn’t listen.

Yeah, well, I can tell you this. I get more and more psyched that God blessed me and loved me enough to give me this built-in birth control system. He couldn’t handle a kid any more than I could. He’s too tired, he’s too sick and he won’t have to put up with any more shit than I can help. If he thinks the ear and asthma are too much to deal with, how did he ever expect to deal with me being pregnant and having a kid? I think he’s just getting too old to deal with certain things and his body obviously has a low tolerance for some things, as well as a higher one.

Anyway, I still have that good feeling about ‘97, but it’s not too strong. I’ve had years start off shitty (like with 1992) to get better as it got farther along, but truthfully, I see nothing changing this year. I think everything will be the same as it has been lately, with the exception of his shift change, more money, and some new things here and there. I certainly can’t see myself working, and I know there’ll be no kid, but thank God!!!!!

I’m sorry I spent so much time being angry at God. Yes, I still think there’s too much unfairness in this world that God should control or help or whatever, but the more time goes by, the more I see he was only protecting me and doing me a favor. And Tom, too. And what makes me all the luckier, is that I didn’t have to have an unwanted child first, and then have to deal with the hassles and side effects of some kind of protection. There are enough other women out there who like me, do not desire a child, think they won’t get pregnant, and then end up with a child they never wanted only to get on some kind of protection when it is too late. Then, unlike me, they have to live through their childbearing years with the hassles and side effects that come with that.

Also, when the New Year rang in, I went out back and could hear firecrackers and people cheering.

Someone had Christmas lights wrapped around their palm tree a little ways down and it looked really pretty.

So, I hope that ‘97 brings enough peace, health, and happiness to this household. After all we’ve been through, it’s time for that.

Later…

I talked to Andy for a while. For more than a while, actually, since he keeps going on and on about Quinn and Laura. I don’t mind listening to him, though, at all.

While he’s definitely changed for the better over the last few years, there are still hints of the old Andy there. I guess we all have traits that are set for life within us. What I mean by this is that he went on and on bitching about how he and Laura had a fight like he used to bitch to Brenda and a million other people about our fights. He still confronted the source first, though, and told Laura how he felt, so that’s good. A lot of the time, he wouldn’t even come to me first in the past. I’d find out from someone else that he had a bone to pick with me. I would tell him to be careful whom he told what to. Not cuz I’d give a shit what they thought, but cuz of what they could do to me with the knowledge. People can use certain things they know about you against you. For example, if a neighbor knows you don’t like heavy metal music, and gets pissed at you, wouldn’t they be likely to blast heavy music then? If you’re interested in meeting someone and they know someone who knows about your not-too-cool background, well, then…

I think I know just what Tom’s cum smells like. I thought that if I ever got the chance to smell it, it’d smell like bleach, but it’s a weird odor I can’t even begin to describe. I remember back when he had his own room and how it’d stink in there, so I finally asked to wash his sheets. The sheets he said he washed regularly that I believe were really on the bed for many months before they were washed. After he came, though, I think I remember the room smelling like that. So, I just did his sheets, which were put on his bed last Saturday, cuz I noticed that smell and now it’s gone. So he can have fun while he’s sick, huh? I guess it’s easier for him to do himself, rather than go through the motions of screwing me at his age and with being sick.

As much as there are a million things I love about Tom, he still has a few traits that really piss me off. He told me he has no regrets about dealing with my ear and other stuff, even if it was tiring on him, but he felt that I couldn’t deal with his being sick. Yes, it’s true. I do admit I’ve been a lousy wife and nurse and I haven’t done shit to make him better. All I’ve done is suggest cold stuff, seeing a doctor, and I’ve made him some hot chocolate. I made kugel (spelling?) for the first time last night, too, which came out good. He had some, too.

I did tell Tom, though, don’t come to me, as he did a couple of nights ago, and tell me what a wonderful wife I’ve been and how great a job I’ve done at taking care of him and helping him through his colds when we both know it’s bullshit. I don’t like the casual lies. An example of that is his pickup-after-me obsession. I walked up to their cage and found their water bowl in the middle of it and not at the end and out of their way. So I asked him if he knew about it and he said he saw the water was empty, filled it, and then put it back in the same dent in the sawdust made by the bowl. Now, unless Bunny moved it, that is quite an obvious and casual lie and Tom knows that all a person has to do is just deny something they’re accused or asked about and what else can one do? Just not believe them.

I can’t even ask him for little things like to please not get crumbs on his chair in the living room. They end up on his chest and he stands up and then they fall off here, there, and everywhere. And I can’t even ask him to stop getting crumbs on the keyboard and mouse pad, cuz that’s such a big deal, too. He can’t even do that and what pisses me off even more is that he says he tries his best. Well, I’m sorry, but he’s much too intelligent to not be able to do this. And then I’m even more pissed off at the fact that he can’t just come out and tell the truth and tell me he doesn’t want to do what I asked of him. I hate it when someone says they’ll do something they don’t want to do, rather than just tell me they don’t want to do it. We all have our quirks and obsessions, so why he has to deny/hide this, beats me.

I feel pretty bad for Andy. Guess that new dealer didn’t work out, so now he’s still running to Quinn for weed. He’s still having a hard time getting over him. I told him that we all go through different phases in our lives and I think he knows that dreams are for the dreamer and that reality is for the living.

At least I can say that as far as my life goes, I’ve never felt better in a long time. It’s so nice to be “dreamless” for a change. I can handle things I think about a lot or imagine a lot or think I might like to do or that may be nice, but it is such a relief not to have to be burdened and tortured with a constant desire that’s impossible to act on and make real, 24/7. The anger, the depression, the frustration, was just too damn much. I thought it’d never let me go and out of its vice-like grip for a while there. I must’ve done something right along the way that God really agreed with, for him to let me off the hook and get out of doing my so-called womanly duty.

Anyway, Tom agreed to call a doctor if he gets sick again, and until and if I see differently, I know that after he’s better for a few days, he’s just gonna get sick all over again. He’s exposed to a lot of sick people at work and Ryan was sick at Christmas. How rude of him. He knew he was sick, yet he had to stand over Tom at the computer and breathe all over him. I still can’t believe I haven’t been sick yet, but God help me if I do get sick, cuz guess who may very well be paying me back?! He says he doesn’t lash out at those who lash out at him or give them what he got from them, but I never believed that for the most part, either. Once again, though, all he has to do is deny that. That way there’s no having to deal with my reaction and then he can keep on denying whatever, too.

He’s watching TV now and I’ve just been staying the hell away from him. I don’t want any bullshit now.

I can see, though, more and more what a shitty mother I’d have made if God wasn’t looking out for me. I’d be terrible at taking care of it if it were well, let alone sick. I wouldn’t even know what to do with the thing.

Later…

Everyone’s sick! Tom’s mom is sick, too. He says he thinks he had a cold and then got hit with the flu. That happens, but after this, what will he be hit with? I know God may have a lot of love for us and things to bless us with, but all must be balanced out, and he does like to give us one thing after another to have to deal with.

He just offered to play a few card games which he won all of. So that was nice and now he’s in bed.

I feel like I’m forgetting to write about something else I had in mind, but can’t remember it at this time.

[twatkcox]

[#2023]

2022 feels kind of strange, especially in the first few months. I don’t know why, but something tells me that everything is bound to get back to normal very soon.

Anyway, I managed to publish 16 posts this year compared to 6 posts from the previous year. Well, I didn’t feel like writing much, mostly due to my extreme case of procrastination along with a slight case of depression and writer’s block, but hopefully I can get my mind (and my life) back on track once again.

All right, time for me to share some of the highlights for 2022:

The year begins with an incredibly cold spell, with a lot of people suffering from coughs, colds, and/or fever. Even I caught all three of them. I was sick for a couple of days, and my sore throat and itchy cough persisted for more than a week. Worse, there was a shortage of paracetamol and other medicines for coughs and colds at the time, so it took us a while to stock up on some medicine. Luckily, we all recovered within a two-week period.

I find myself watching a lot of YouTube videos compared to the previous years I’ve been online. This is becoming a habit now, and I think I’ll probably spend at least an hour per day just to watch some videos from various YouTubers and channels.

I gradually returned to blogging after a long period of inactivity. Anyway, I published TWATKcox’s 9th anniversary post more than a week after the supposed target date. It features the things I want to do before I turn 40. I was trying to be realistic on this one, knowing that I’m gonna have a hard time fulfilling each one of them before the decade ends.

The Otaku Diaries on TWATKcox-WP will primarily feature select topics, whereas its Tumblr counterpart will handle the rest, including anime and manga reviews. So far, I’ve never written anything for the series, but I’m already working on some of them.

Earlier this year, I discovered something awesome and a potential addition to my extensive playlist, a musical project called Ginger Root, fronted by Cameron Lew.  Ever since I stumbled upon one of their songs (Loretta), I immediately become hooked by their music, which is kind of reminiscent of the Japanese city pop genre. I also loved some of their retro-styled music videos as well.

A day after April Fools’ Day (I don’t celebrate that joke holiday, thank you very much), I paid a visit to my favorite hangout spot (Lagro, Quezon City) for the first time in more than two years, and discovered two new hangout places: Daily Grind Cafe DGC, the one I visited that day, and Drip’n Cafe which I visited a few months later. Both are located near my high school, and I’m really delighted that I’ve got additional choices for my weekend rituals, which I haven’t done in such a long time. Their offerings (especially their coffee drinks) are quite pricey, so I’ll probably reserve these for special occasions (such as holidays), or when I can splurge a lot of money without breaking the bank.

Come to think of it, I was wondering what happened to Jits Cafe, one of the milk tea/coffee shop that I frequented since 2015. During my previous visits to the newly opened coffee shop beside it, they are closed. Either they just happened to closed early (even though it’s only 4:00 PM when I got there) or they’re actually closed on that day. I’ve yet to check the dessert shop though.

At the beginning of May, the Xiaomi Mi A1 suddenly had a problem right after charging it. The phone simply wouldn’t boot to Android and recovery ROM upon rebooting, and I had a hard time figuring out how to retrieve the photos (particularly some pics from my then recent visit to Lagro, which I, unfortunately, never get to back up prior to the malfunction). I don’t know if I’ll ever get to save the photos, but I’m hoping I could recover some of it.

As the Mi A1 is slightly damaged (the SIM card/Micro SD tray is damaged and the screen is slightly raised, revealing the LED inside), my brother got me a new phone, a Motorola Moto G 5G Plus, a mid-range smartphone with a bigger battery, larger internal storage, and slightly longer screen. I initially had a hard time adjusting at first, but I got used to it, especially the finger sensor on the power button (right side). Anyway, as for the Mi A1, I’m still trying to figure out how to flash a custom ROM to it so I can finally begin retrieving the photos on that device.

In June, I managed to publish the lengthy 350th post special, Twenty Years With The Machine: From 9x to 11, which records my personal experiences with different desktop PCs, a laptop PC, and most of the Windows OS (from Windows 95 to Windows 11, but skipping Windows 2000 and Windows 8.1 for some reason).

By the beginning of July, the 2TB Seagate Backup Plus external hard drive showed signs of failure. This is where I used to store most of my files when the PC’s old hard drive failed back in 2018. Luckily I managed to transferred some of the files to a new external hard drive, a 5TB Western Digital My Passport, bought during the Lazada 7.7 sale. As of this writing, I’m still in the process of backing up the entire contents of the PC’s hard drive.

By the end of that same month, the UPS (uninterruptable power supply) showed signs of failure as well, as it can no longer power my desktop PC. So I’m back to using the AVR (automatic voltage regulator) for the time being, with a possibility of unexpected interruptions during power interruptions. It was eventually replaced by a new one by the end of September.

On September 17th, I finally get to visit the Manila International Book Fair for the first time since 2019, as well as the largest IKEA store at the Mall Of Asia Complex. It also marks my first mall-hopping trip for the first time since the pandemic.

I celebrated my 32nd birthday at home with a feast: Marugame Udon’s rice bowl meals for lunch (I had katsu curry), North Park’s braised noodles, fried rice, and spicy calamares (can’t recall what we exactly ordered) for dinner, and Kumori’s strawberry hanjuku cheesecake for my birthday cake (all of these are delivered via Grab Food). That was the most expensive birthday feast ever, but I really enjoyed it so much.

I joined Mastodon last November, though it is quite a spur-of-the-moment thing as I have no plans of leaving Twitter yet (probably never will). You know, just in case Elon Musk (the microblogging site’s new owner) did some irreparable damage to Twitter and would end up like Friendster, Multiply, and Myspace (the latter one is still active, but... meh). I love Twitter (I still do), but I wished he would focus on improving the site’s interface, not ruining it.

I’m expected to upgrade and update almost everything, from my wardrobe (some new clothes, and probably a new pair of glasses), to my bed (with a new bed frame). Also, I decide to clean my room and reorganize some of the stuff.

As much as I wanted to have a booster shot before the year ends, I’d rather wait for an appropriate vaccine, preferably the one I was inoculated with (AstraZeneca, in case you’re wondering).

For the first time, as part of the accounting firm’s first ever Christmas Party, I had fun with bowling together with the rest of the employees and a couple of interns. We had a buffet lunch afterward.

I get to spend Christmas with my mom for the second time since the pandemic, and I manage to buy a new pair of embroidered ninja socks. I haven’t been successful in buying new pairs of black slacks, which are a very crucial part of my wardrobe.

As usual, I’m not feeling up to posting my upcoming plans for 2023 due to various uncertainties. But I’m so looking forward to celebrating TWATKcox’s tenth anniversary, as well as attending the upcoming Pinoy Otaku Festival 2023: Shizen at Robinsons Novaliches and the Manila International Book Fair 2023 at the SMX Convention Center (Mall Of Asia Complex). Hopefully, I can update my wardrobe in time so I can finally go out in style once again.

The year 2022 may have brought some significant changes in my life, but I’m still miserable as hell like in the previous two years. My life is still plagued with self-doubt, anxiety, and some conflicts, but I’m trying my best to remain as optimistic as possible. Will 2023 finally put an end to this kind of misery I’m having? I really hoped so. I mean, I deserve something better after almost three years of dealing with this stupid pandemic. ‘Nuff said.

Now that the New Year celebrations are over, it’s time to live up to your New Year’s resolutions, whatever you’re aiming to achieve for this year. All right, watch out for TWATKcox’s upcoming tenth anniversary post later this month, and probably some notable posts for this year as well.

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[mamaestapa]

Heartbeat|| Smallville!Clark Kent x reader

summary: you’ve been feeling a bit under the weather lately, however you thought nothing of it. until one day you’re sitting in Clark’s office at the daily planet when your superhuman husband hears a heartbeat, and it doesn’t belong to you…

pairing: smallville!clark kent x reader

warnings: pregnant reader and lots of fluff

“Y/n, I need you to write this article for me about- hey are you okay?”

You lifted your head off of your desk, rubbing your face with your hands. You took a deep breath, opening your eyes. You were greeted by a frowning Lois Lane.

You smiled softly, “Yeah, I’m okay.”

She placed the folder in her hands on your desk. “Well you don’t look okay.”

“It’s just a headache, Lois.”

She nodded, “Alright. Well, if you need anything, you know where to find me.”

You smiled, “Thank you.”

She returned the smile before walking back to her desk. You sighed, rubbing your aching temples. You’ve felt absolutely awful for the past week. Between the headaches, mood swings, constant nausea—especially in the morning, and sore boobs, you’ve felt miserable. You brushed it off as PMS symptoms since you were expecting to get your monthly period soon.

As you were looking through the folder full of information for the article Lois had brought you, you noticed someone had placed a coffee down on your desk. You moved your attention from the folder to whoever brought you the coffee.

“Well thank you Mr. Kent.”

“You’re welcome Mrs. Kent.” Your husband replied, his beautiful smile widening across his face.

“Lois told me you had a headache, so I thought i’d bring you some coffee. Figured caffeine might help.”

You smiled, “Have you ever been told that you’re the best husband ever?”

Clark shrugged, “A few times,” he smiled, “but I thought she was kidding.”

“Well she must be crazy if she’s kidding.”

You puckered your lips up at him, he chuckled as he leaned down to plant a sweet kiss to your lips.

“Thank you for the coffee, my love.”

He stroked your cheek softly, “You’re welcome. Hopefully it’ll help your head. I’ll see you later, sweetheart.”

You wave goodbye as he walked back into his office. You looked at the coffee cup, hesitantly picking it up. You weren’t sure why, but something inside of you told you not to drink the coffee.

“If you’re not gonna drink that, I will.” Lois chuckled, sitting down on the edge of your desk.

You sighed, “I want to, it’s just something is telling me I shouldn’t.”

“Hey, don’t count calories sweetie. You and Smallville have been married for what, a year now? You don’t have to worry about fitting into your wedding dress anymore. Drink all the coffee you want.”

You nodded, laughing lightly, “That’s not why. Then again, I’m not a hundred percent sure why though.

Lois chuckled, crossing her arms, “I’m sure it won’t hurt, just try it. It might help your head, you could be caffeine deprived.”

Lois had a point. You always did feel off when you hadn’t had any caffeine throughout the day. You picked up the coffee and took a sip of the hot liquid. It was your favorite, a Y/F/C/B (your favorite coffee beverage lol).

As soon as you swallowed your coffee, you felt the urge for it to come right back up. You placed the cup down on your desk as your hands flew over your mouth. You bolted up out of your chair and ran to the bathroom. Lois frowned, following you into the bathroom. You instantly threw yourself toward the toilet, throwing up the little contests left in your stomach. Lois held your hair back and rubbed your back as you threw up.

“Jeez, Y/n. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re pregnant.”

You groaned into the bowl, spitting out your saliva.

“Very funny Lois.”

She chuckled, “I’m just saying. I’ve heard some stories…plus have you seen your husband? I mean you could just look at him and get pregnant!”

There was no way you were pregnant.

You lifted your head from the bowl and gave Lois your best RBF.

“Sorry.” She grimaced.

“It’s okay. You do have a point…” you trailed off, biting your lip as you thought about Clark.

You were one lucky lady…in more ways than one ;)

Lois let go of you hair and stood up. She put her hands on her hips as she watched you stand up to look at yourself in the mirror. She gently placed a hand on your shoulder, giving you a sympathetic smile.

“Are you okay?”

You nodded, “Yeah, Im okay now. I think I might just have a bug or something. That coffee was just the cherry on top that made my body have enough of whatever is going on.”

“Okay,” she nodded, “Well, I’m going to go get you some water. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

You smiled, “Thank you Lois.”

“Of course.”

Lois walked out of the bathroom, leaving you alone. She walked down the hallway towards the main room of the Daily Planet where all the desks were. As she walked into the main room, she ran right into Clark Kent himself.

“Woah, sorry about that Clark.”

“It’s alright,” he smiled. His smile quickly turned into a look of confusion though, “Hey, have you seen Y/n anywhere?”

“I’m actually getting water for her right now.” Lois spoke walking towards a mini fridge that sat near her desk that was full of bottled water.

“Okay? Well, where is she?” Clark asked.

“The bathroom.”

“Is she okay? Why does she need water-.”

Lois sighed heavily, placing a hand on the worrisome mans shoulder, “Don’t worry Smallville, she is now. She was throwing up though.”

“Throwing up!?” Clark’s expression grew even more worried.

Lois just chuckled as she walked back down the hallway back towards the bathroom. Clark followed right behind her. Once Lois reached the door she turned to face Clark.

She sighed, “Did you not hear what I said? She’s okay now.”

Clark gulped, his face still full of worry.

Lois rolled her eyes, “Stop worrying so much, Clark. She’s a human. She gets sick, it happens. Come on, you know that. Haven’t you had a little stomach bug before?”

Clark went to speak but he quickly closed his mouth. He never had a “little stomach bug” before. Kryptonians don’t get sick like humans do.

Lois smiled smugly, “Thought so. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to give this water to your wife. I’m sure she desperately needs it.”

Clark nodded, “Okay.” Before Lois could walk into the bathroom, Clark stopped her.

“By the way, could you tell her to see me in my office when she’s up to it, please?

“Sure thing, Kent.”

Clark smiled softly, “Thanks Lois.”

She smiled at him before disappearing behind the bathroom door. Clark sighed in defeat, walking back to his office. Even with Lois’ reassurance, he was still worried about you. While you do get sick, it’s not often that you’re sick for as long as you have been.

Lois walked back into the bathroom handing you the bottle of water. You smiled taking it from her. As soon as you had the water in your hand, you screwed the top off and took a swig, swishing it around in your mouth to rid your taste buds of the lingering taste of vomit. Once you spit the water out, you took a sip, careful not to drink too much.

“Sorry it took so long, your husband stopped me in the hall.”

“It’s alright, don’t apologize.” You smiled.

“Speaking of your husband, Clark is worried sick about you. He told me to ask you to come see him in his office when you’re feeling better.”

You frowned. It pained you knowing your sweet husband was so concerned about you and your health.

“I’ll go see him right now.” You smiled. You gave Lois a quick hug before walking out of the bathroom.

“Have fun in there Y/n, but not too much fun!” She called out as you walked down the hall.

You laughed, “Cant make any promises!”

You rubbed your hands on your skirt as you got closer to the office marked CLARK KENT. You knocked on the door, waiting for Clark’s approval for you to come into his office.

“Come in!” He called.

You turned the knob and walked into his office, greeting him with a smile.

“Mr. Kent. I heard you wanted to see me.”

He cleared his throat, “Ah, Mrs. Kent. Yes I did.”

You locked the door and walked over to his desk. He stood from his chair and walked around from behind his desk. As soon as he got close enough, he wrapped his arms around you, softly rubbing your back. You laid your head against his chest, humming at the comfort and familiarity that was Clark’s muscular middle.

He pulled away, holding your hands in his. His brows furrowed with worry.

“Lois told me you got sick.”

“I did, but i’m okay now. Don’t worry about me, Clark.”

You gently stroked his cheek. He blushed at the gesture. Even though you and Clark have been together for many years, you’re still able to make him flustered.

“I think it’s just a little bug, that’s all.” You reassured him.

He nodded, “Okay. Hopefully you’ll feel better soon. I hate to see you sick.” He frowned, rubbing the top of your hand with his thumb.

He let go of your hands and pulled a chair over to the front of his desk for you to sit in. You smiled at him and sat down in the chair. He walked back over to his and sat down. Clark could sense that something seemed a bit off in the room. However, he couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

“So,” you breathed out, “any new interesting articles?”

Clark shook his head, picking up a folder, “Not really. Just this,” he read off the headline of an article, “Locals share their favorite activities to do in Metropolis.”

You laughed, “Oh wow, so interesting!”

Clark chuckled, “Very.”

You and Clark both smiled. You had an idea for an article pop into your head just then, so you decided to tell Clark about what you had in mind. As you were talking, your superhuman husband was too busy trying to figure out what was throwing the vibe in the room off. It wasn’t that it was bad, it was just different. He did, however, make sure to nod along and make little comments about what you seemed to be so enthused about. Clark tuned out your voice for just a bit so he could focus and use his super-hearing ability. He wanted to make sure there was nothing in the room that could harm you, or that there was nothing wrong with you.

Clark could hear the sound of people outside of his office talking, Chloe stapling papers, a man talking on the phone, and Lois smacking her bubble gum. He had to focus even harder to hear what was going on inside of his office only. He had tuned you out completely now, but you were too occupied to notice at the moment. Once Clark was focused enough, he could hear the sound of his clock ticking as each second passed, his printer clicking as it stayed on, and his favorite sound in the world, your heartbeat.

Your heartbeat sounded perfectly normal to him. Just as Clark was about to “turn off” his super-hearing and focus on you, another sound caught his attention. It was the same whooshing sound of your heartbeat, only faster and a bit quieter. He furrowed his brows in confusion. You must have noticed him.

“Clark, what’s wrong?”

He held his hand up, signaling for you to be quiet, “Just wait, Y/n/n.”

You cocked your head to the side, confusion and worry spreading across your face as Clark’s face contorted into a look of concentration. It was then that you realized he was using his super-hearing. For what exactly? You had no idea.

Clark heard your heartbeat first, then the second heartbeat like sound filled his ear. He focused for a bit, trying to figure out what in his office could mimic the sound of a human heartbeat. After listening to the sound for a few seconds, he soon realized the second heartbeat was coming from you. He shook himself out of his concentration, looking at his wife.

“What is it Clark?”

He shook his head, “I-I don’t know. It almost sounds like there’s another heartbeat in the room?”

You giggled, “Well, I mean, humans do have heartbeats so…”

“This was different. It was a lot faster, but quieter. It was also coming from you.”

“I don’t, I don’t understand?”

“Maybe it’s crazy, but I swear I heard two heartbeats coming from inside of you.” Clark said, sounding unsure of himself.

You’re face went pale as you felt your heart drop to your stomach. There was no way…Well, maybe there was. Okay, there definitely was a chance you could be pregnant.

You gulped, “Clark?”

He hummed.

“Can I see your calendar real quick?”

He nodded, taking the calendar off of his wall and handing it to you. Your eyes scanned over the dates on the calendar. You made a mental note each month when you were supposed to get your period, and sure enough, you were four days late. It all makes sense now. The nausea and vomiting, headaches, sore boobs, sensitive smell, late period, and a second heartbeat, weren’t symptoms of a bug, but a baby.

You were pregnant with Clark’s child. You felt tears well up in your eyes at the thought.

“Y/n? Are you alright?” Clark asked, standing up from his chair and kneeling in front of you.

You nodded, giving Clark a teary smile, “I am more than alright.”

“Then why are you crying, beautiful?”

You sniffled and grabbed his large hand, holding it in yours. You tried to say something to him, but no words would come out of your mouth. You gently placed his hand on your tummy. You put both of your hands over his hand, a smile on your face. You watched as a smile of realization grew on Clark’s face. He wanted to see for himself that you were indeed pregnant before saying anything. Clark used his x-ray vision and sure enough, there was a very tiny baby growing inside of you. Clark’s eyes grew watery as he grinned at you.

“We’re having a baby.”

You nodded vigorously, excitement and nerves flowing through your body. “Yes Clark. We’re having a baby.”

He stood from the ground, gently pulling you out of the chair you sat in. He pulled you into his embrace and squeezed you gently, so that he wouldn’t hurt you or the baby. Your grins never leaving your faces as you hugged each other. Clark pulled away, putting his forehead against yours.

“I love you, Y/n.” He kissed your forehead, “so much. Thank you for everything you have given me.He looked down at his hand, a smile on his face as he thought about the baby. You and Clark had talked about kids in the past, but you two didn’t think anything would happen since you’re biologically a human and he’s, well, he’s biologically an alien. But in your eyes, Clark Kent was a human.

You smiled, giving him a peck on the lips, “I love you too, Clark. I should be the one thanking you though. Without you I wouldn’t have this.” You held up your left hand, showing him your beautiful, diamond wedding ring. “And I certainly wouldn’t have,” you grabbed his hand, placing it on your still flat stomach, “this.”

Clark smiled warmly at you.

“This is wonderful, Y/n.”

“It is isn’t it? I never thought we’d have kids Clark.”

He shook his head, “Me neither, but I’m so glad we are. My mom will be so excited.”

You laughed, “Yes she will. You know who else will be excited?”

He hummed.

“Lois.” You smiled.

Clark rolled his eyes, chuckling, “Oh great, I cant wait to hear the amount of Smallville jokes that will come out of her mouth.”

You laughed, knowing Clark was right. Lois always had a sarcastic comment to make, especially when it came to Clark. You and Clark just stood there in each other’s arms until Clark kneeled down in front of you so he was eye level with your stomach. He placed his hands on either side of your hips, and looked up at you with a warm smile before directing his attention back to your baby.

“Hi baby Kent, it’s your daddy. I’m sure you can’t hear me yet, you’re still pretty tiny. But who knows? If you have some of my powers then maybe you can hear me. I just wanted to let you know that your mom and I are so excited, and we can’t wait to meet you. I love you.” He kissed your tummy softly before standing up from his kneeling position.

“And I love you.” he smiled, kissing your lips. You wrapped your arms around his neck as you kissed him back.

Yours and Clark’s life is going to change forever in about 8 months, but you both couldn’t wait to start this new chapter in your lives.

A/N: hi everyone!! just wanted to say thank you so much for all the love and support you’ve shown me on my imagines!! it is GREATLY appreciated<3 i’ll be posting some more clark kent (smallville of course) imagines in the near future, so stay tuned! i have so many ideas for him lol. also, as you have most likely realized, i’m not much of a multi-fandom writer anymore, so i apologize. smallville is my current obsession, plus, there is not enough smallville/tom wellings clark kent imagines on this app, so i thought i’d write some :) if you’re reading this, i hope you are doing well<3