#red velvet is the antithesis of all she believes

[anonimea1y]

since we're in 2025 now and the most popular crk ship rn is toxic yaoi and one of the newest cookies is from the st. pastry order can we pleaaaase talk about pastryvelvet now?

[thedarksilkpen]

The Dance Macabre

Pairing: Astarion x Tav (reader) WC: 3,983 Summary: After the war against the Netherbrain, Astarion, in his new Ascended form, retook the palace of Cazador and made it his own. You've received an invitation from him to attend a party, after several years of silence from one another. Tags: dom/sub undertones, ascended astarion, choking, biting, from behind, female oral, in public, voyeurism, biting, i'm playing fast and loose with lore here NSFW

(Suggestions/pairings/spicy ideas or challenges are welcome!)

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if people enjoy this vibe/tone/sort of story i've cooked up here, i have plans to make this into a prequel longfic of "how did we get here".... if there's interest. just let me know!! or if i should change things.... anyway, enjoy and consume responsibly!!

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The grand ballroom of Astarion’s palace shimmers like a vision with the rising incense and smoke, a place where sin and elegance intertwine so seamlessly that it's impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins. Crystal chandeliers, dripping with enchanted black diamonds, hang from the vaulted ceiling, casting jagged, fractured light across the sea of gala attendees. The walls are lined with obsidian pillars, each etched with gold-leafed carvings of vampire legends and conquests—scenes of old, of monstrous kings and their trembling prey, of blood-drunk orgies masked beneath the pretense of high society. The polished floors reflect the spectacle in almost perfection, their onyx surfaces lined with intricate inlays of silver and garnet, except for the blank spaces where the vampires aught to be reflected.

You know what accepting this invitation means to him-- a night of coy words, tossed like barbs back and forth until one of you succumbs to the other. Just like it always was... always will be. Your eyes scan over the crowd of dancers again, taking in the scenery as you subtlety look for the estate's proprietor. A smile teases at the corner of your lips as you watch a pair of dancers cross the floor with each other. The man leads, his fangs at the neck of his petite partner-- she smiles as your eyes meet briefly and you look away, briefly embarrassed.

It didn’t always look like this.

You remember the decay that once festered in these walls, the filth that lingered like a disease, seeping into every crack of Cazador’s lair. The chandeliers were once smothered in dust and cobwebs that barely flickered with light and the ballroom had felt more like a tomb than a palatial dance hall. Back then, the scent of blood had been something rotten, suffocating, a stench of old death rather than indulgence. The quiet, the stillness, and the eerie absence of music-- the antithesis to how it appears before you now.

Most of all, you remember the silence.

Astarion has clearly taken great care in the renovations, sparing no expense. Every inch of the palace, from the grand halls to the smallest alcoves, bears his signature touch—opulence and decadence that border on excess. The manor has been restored to its former glory and beyond, transformed into a beacon of wealth and power that rivals the grandest estates in Baldur’s Gate, and perhaps even the Hells, if the rumors are to be believed.

Now, the palace thrums with life, or at least the closest thing to it.

Since Astarion took over the palace after his own ascension and victory over Cazador, the Ancunin palace has become somewhat reputable for throwing large, extravagant parties. The air is thick with decadence, heavy with rich perfumes and the unmistakable metallic tang of blood, interwoven so seamlessly that it almost feels like another scented luxury, something crafted to intoxicate. The once-stale air now swirls with movement, the soft rustling of silk and velvet brushing together as nobles and predators alike drift between conversations, between lovers, between prey. Wine goblets spill over with dark, ruby-red vintages, their scents laced with something far stronger than mere alcohol.

A memory comes back to you unbidden-- werewolves in the same room you're in now, and the splayed remains of the party-goers who had been caught off guard. Chaos, brutality, and the way Astarion had looked to you for guidance. The brutality is still there—Astarion has not stripped away the darkness of what they are—but there's a stark difference. There is choice, as twisted as it may be. A devotion that wasn’t there before. The way some of the thralls lean into their master’s hands, offering their blood as if it were worship rather than servitude.

A silent exchange.

Even the architecture has shifted. Your gaze drifts upward, toward the arched ceiling that had once loomed, heavy with shadows. You remember how it had felt like a cage, the dark stretching infinitely above, smothering. Now, that darkness remains, but it has been reshaped.

The ceiling is a masterpiece of illusion and power, woven through with magic you briefly consider attributing to the Wizard of Waterdeep. Stars twinkle above you, constellations stretching across the vast black expanse, an artificial night sky that seems impossibly deep, impossibly real. You watch them flicker, shifting subtly with the passage of time, and you wonder if Astarion had this crafted for himself—a reminder of the open sky he can never stand beneath again.

He has made this place his.

As soon as the thought of his presence occurs to you again, your eyes turn on instinct towards the front of the great hall.

Astarion sits upon a throne of polished obsidian and silver at the far end of the ballroom, the very throne Cazador once sat on, and his mere presence commands the attention of the room. It's as if all the opulence and grandeur of the palace were designed to draw every eye towards him, the apex predator in a den of wolves.

Your breath catches, just for a moment, as you allow yourself the luxury of observing him fully. Astarion lounges on his throne, every inch the indulgent monarch, reclined with a kind of casual elegance that you know is meticulously cultivated. His body is angled languidly, long limbs draped over the polished obsidian arms of the throne, legs crossed at the knee in an attitude of unbothered supremacy. His attire is deliberate: deep burgundy and raven-black silks hugging his lean frame like a lover's caress, embroidered with silver threads that gleam in the shifting candlelight, reminiscent of spider silk captured in moonlight.

When you first laid eyes on him, years ago, he’d been nothing more than a shadow—charming, deadly, and impossibly desperate for freedom, but empty. Now, he embodies power. Every movement, every carefully measured glance, every languid tilt of his head conveys confidence. His chin tilts upward, a small movement that somehow speaks volumes about his station—higher now than ever before, a place of power he’d earned in blood and shadow. His hands rest comfortably on the carved obsidian throne under him, fingertips idly tracing the polished contours as if the chair itself was merely another conquest.

There is something else, something subtler yet unmistakable—authority worn openly now, not just with pride but with true arrogance. His piercing eyes pass over the gathered guests like a predator surveying his hunting grounds. It’s this careful, calculating look—so familiar yet transformed—that draws heat to your cheeks. You had forgotten how easily he used to unravel you with just a glance.

Under Cazador, he’d been little more than an ornament—forced to perform, to charm, to flatter. Now, he is something else entirely. His power has bloomed into something tangible, an aura that emanates dominance and dark elegance in equal measure. The subtle curl at the corner of his mouth, both seductive and menacing, sends a shiver racing down your spine as you imagine how easily that mouth might reclaim yours, how quickly those hands might grip your hips and pull you into the shadows, back into his world.

Your eyes meet.

Even from here, beneath the fractured glitter of chandeliers, his crimson eyes hold yours, and the rest of the world seems to fall away beneath that gaze. His expression shifts, the carefully crafted mask of detached boredom momentarily giving way to something more raw—possessive hunger, sharpened by the passage of time and distance.

Slowly, he lifts a hand, elegant fingers beckoning you closer, a subtle movement loaded with expectation. You hesitate, the briefest pause as your pulse quickens, aware that every eye in the room has followed the silent command. There is no subtlety here, not now. He knows exactly what he’s doing—putting you on display, marking you as his chosen for the evening.

Unable—or perhaps unwilling—to resist, you cross the ballroom floor toward him, your gown whispering softly across polished stone. Each step feels heavier, charged with anticipation and the simmering promise of everything that could—and likely will—happen tonight. And when you reach the foot of the dais, he extends a hand once again, this time waiting for you to place yours in his grasp.

As you do, his fingers curl possessively around yours, grip firm yet deceptively gentle, thumb brushing over your pulse as he draws you toward him. Leaning forward slightly, he murmurs, just loud enough for you alone to hear, “Welcome back, my love. I’ve missed this game we play.”

You tilt your head up to meet his gaze, your voice just as soft and deliberate. “Careful, Astarion. You’re assuming you’ve already won.”

His answering smile is sharp and utterly devastating. “Oh, my sweet, the game ended the moment you walked through those doors.” Another flick of his hand and the attendants surrounding the dais of his throne part, whisper silent, leaving the two of you alone at the head of the room. He rises from his throne, and standing above you on the raised dais, he seems even taller, his presence overwhelming, his closeness dizzying.

His eyes sweep slowly down your form with calculated indulgence, taking their time, as if each curve, each subtle shift of your hips beneath the fabric of your gown, holds its own story for him to rediscover. He has always had a talent for reading you, interpreting the faintest shiver, the slightest hitch in your breathing. It was something you had loved—and cursed him for—in equal measure. Now, beneath the blazing intensity of his gaze, you feel yourself unraveling again.

“Come,” he commands quietly, not bothering to look back as he strides toward a nearby hall lined with towering marble arches and lit with amber candles that cast long, shifting shadows along the polished stone floor.

The message is clear—he expects you to follow, no hesitation, no doubt.

You could refuse, you think, for one wild heartbeat. You could turn back, retreat to the safety of the crowded ballroom, lose yourself among the murmurs and music, ignore the beckoning call of your shared past and the promise in his eyes.

But your body moves without conscious thought, already following him, drawn toward him as inevitably as tides toward the moon. You are at his side within moments, and without a word, he takes your arm, his grip both firm and gentle—utterly possessive. The heat of his palm bleeds through the delicate sleeve of your gown, his thumb tracing idle circles on your skin in a gesture so familiar it sparks memories of countless nights spent in candlelit tents, stolen kisses beneath the stars, whispered secrets in darkness.

Another world. Another crisis.

Another life.

Your mind turns back to the present and you study the corridor in front of you, your eyes struggling slightly to adjust to the dimness. The hallway is quieter, a muffled echo of the distant festivities, the music softening to a faint murmur as Astarion guides you to another door with a spiral staircase behind it. He climbs them with ease, his hand never leaving yours as you ascend.

Beyond them, moonlight filters through sheer curtains, the faint breeze carrying with it the cool, crisp scent of night-blooming jasmine and the subtle chill of distant mountains, teasing the sheer fabric gently, brushing against your skin like a lover's careful caress.

The balcony of the great hall.

You step out together onto the private terrace, suspended directly above the grand ballroom, opposite his throne. From here, you can see the spectacle below: the swirl of silk dresses and dark suits, dancers moving in rhythmic circles, blissfully unaware of the dangerous indulgence no doubt about to unfold just above their heads. The music rises like smoke from below, mingling with laughter and whispered secrets, creating an intoxicating haze that reeks of pomp and circumstance.

You lean against the railing of the balcony to watch the dancers below, startling only slightly when Astarion's hand lands on the small of your back and his body presses against you. “You love tempting fate, don’t you?” you tease softly, pulse racing as his lips trail along the curve of your throat from behind, nipping lightly at your skin. Fate had drawn you together once, and torn you asunder once more.

“Oh, darling, fate has nothing to do with it,” he purrs against your neck, his teeth grazing lightly along the line of your pulse, sending heat spiraling low in your stomach. “This is entirely by design.”

His hand skims down the front of your gown, pausing briefly to squeeze your breast, the fabric whispering over the hardening peak of your nipple as he continues downward until his palm presses flat against your lower stomach. He holds you like this, his other hand still on the small of your back, your bodies aligned in a tantalizing echo of the intimate nights that have played out between you so many times before. “You should know me well enough by now to expect a certain flair for... presentation,” he murmurs.

And there it is—the subtle, dangerous edge in his voice that you remember all too well.

With a gentle pressure, he guides you the slight distance forward until you’re bent over the balcony, the cold metal pressing into your hips. The sound of the ballroom swells up from beneath you, an odd blend of merriment and tension.

“Someone might see,” you whisper breathlessly, protesting weakly as your legs seem to spread on their own. You arch your back, bending for him without even needing the order. The cool night air whispers across your bare thighs as your gown pools at your feet, your sex exposed to the open air and his hungry gaze.

“Let them,” he whispers, the words ghosting against your skin. “I want them to see who you belong to still, after all this time. How I rotted like a wound in your mind.” His hand slides between your thighs, fingers trailing lazily over your folds, collecting the slick wetness already gathering there. His hands grip your thighs through the fabric of your gown, gently but firmly guiding your legs apart. The delicate silk rides upward with each movement, revealing more of you to his hungry gaze.

Astarion grips the swell of your hip before pressing his lips against your inner thigh, slowly making his way upward. Each kiss, each scrape of his fangs, is maddeningly gentle yet deeply possessive, and by the time he reaches the apex of your thighs, your knees are trembling beneath his grasp. He bites you there, gently, tongue lapping at you until you shift towards him with a gentle yearning.

“Hold onto the railing,” he commands quietly, and the feeling of his breath against your most intimate area makes goosebumps erupt across your skin. You grip the cool railing of the balcony tightly, the contrast grounding you just enough as his tongue finally, mercifully, dips into your heated core. A moan escapes your lips, louder than you intend, mingling dangerously with the music below. The realization sends another thrill through you and your clit pulses with excitement.

Astarion's hands come to clap down on your ass, his fingertips digging into your skin, his mouth continuing its exploration. His tongue is liquid heat, skilled and relentless, lapping at you in slow, purposeful strokes that send shockwaves up your spine. The pressure of his palms against your cheeks shifts subtly, and you can't help but whimper in anticipation as his tongue delves deeper. Your back arches, hips canting toward his mouth, seeking more, even as you struggle to remind yourself of where you are-- and who can hear you.

“You taste divine,” he murmurs against your flesh, voice thick with desire. His fingers tighten on your hips as he feasts on you without restraint, tongue and lips working expertly, sending wave after wave of pleasure radiating through your body. Your hips roll back involuntarily, chasing his touch, needing more of his mouth, his warmth, his maddeningly skilled tongue. Astarion chuckles against you, lips curling up with a smile even as he delves deeper inside of you, his hands spreading you apart with ease. You can hear the soft slurping of his mouth against you, and your cheeks warm at the idea of anyone being able to hear what he’s doing.

His tongue curls around your clit, sucking it between his lips with a gentle tug before releasing it, only to begin again with a relentless, rhythmic pressure that leaves you gasping against the railing. One of his hands slips around your hip, fingertips tracing maddening circles against your entrance before slipping easily inside of you, your slickness making the sound lewd. The combination of his tongue and his fingers quickly tips you over the edge, the sensations coalescing, hot and urgent. Your knuckles go white around the railing, your breath hitching in your throat as you try to muffle the moans threatening to escape.

You’re not sure whether you’re praying to the Gods or cursing them as he pulls back, his lips releasing your clit and his fingers slipping out of you with a gentle noise, your body clenching around him on instinct. Astarion's chuckle is dark and teasing, his voice a low rumble against your skin. “Oh, my dear, we're just getting started.” His tongue traces the seam of your lips, lapping at your arousal. His teeth lightly graze your sensitive flesh, and you can't help but whimper as he continues his torturous exploration of you, his mouth and hands leaving no part of your body unclaimed.

Slow and tortuous...

Just as your relationship had once been.

After pulling another quiet, shaking orgasm from you Astarion rises, his lips glistening as he kisses you deeply, tasting of you. His hands quickly free himself from his pants, tangled laces pulled loose with expert fingers. You turn your head to look at him over your shoulder, your breath leaving you when you see him--

His hair is a mess, his eyes blown with barely controlled lust, cheeks flushed with blood-- your blood. He’s a mess and you’ve never seen someone look so beautiful. Your eyes drop from his face to where he’s holding himself, pumping his cock with his hand, running the head of it over your dripping cunt. “You want me to take you right here?” he asks, leaning over you, his hand braced beside yours on the balcony. Your eyes turn to where the ballroom continues to spin and twirl beneath you, none the wiser to what's going on above their heads.

"I'm not sure, I-"

"Pet... Your lips are saying something, and your body is telling me the opposite." His cocks drags deliciously slowly across your entrance, prodding gently and coaxing another shaking moan from you. "Say it. Speak." Astarion's hand glides up the exposed skin of your spine until he finds your throat, caressing you gently in one cold, lithe hand.

"Take me," you breathe, thighs quivering from arousal and the need to be filled.

He enters you with a quick thrust as he squeezes your throat hard, tugging your body back against his as he seats himself inside of you. You gasp, the sound echoing dangerously over the balcony’s edge, mingling with the music and laughter rising from below. Astarion’s smile grows sharp and satisfied as he begins to move, hips rocking deliberately, achingly slow, savoring the sensation of your body tightening around him. Your fingers grip the railing desperately as he fills you to the hilt, each movement of his hips drawing another stifled whimper from your lips as you struggle to maintain some semblance of control.

But control is the last thing you have now.

His hand on your neck is firm and unyielding, his thumb tracing the rapid flutter of your pulse as he pushes deeper, harder, his body angled to hit that spot inside of you that makes your vision blur with pleasure with each measured thrust. You can feel your body responding, tightening around him, aching for more, for him, in spite of yourself.

Astarion’s voice is a low, dangerous purr in your ear, his breath ghosting over your skin, “Don’t hold back, darling. I want to hear every delicious little sound you can’t help but make... You feel exquisite,” he practically growls, "So perfectly mine." The balcony railing bites gently into your thighs with every thrust, a constant reminder of the dizzying height, of the public decadence of your coupling. Each stroke pushes you higher, pleasure building like a storm beneath your skin. You squeeze your eyes shut against the sudden rush of vertigo, pushing in counter thrust to him.

“You’d love it, wouldn’t you?” he murmurs darkly, voice roughened by pleasure. “For all of them to look up and see their king claiming you, owning you—taking what’s always been mine.”

“Yes,” you admit breathlessly, head falling back as the sensations overwhelm you. “Gods, yes—” The confession slips out in a half-sob, half-moan, and Astarion’s grip on your throat tightens as he pulls back, the sudden emptiness making your body cry out for more. A gasp leaves you, desperation coming unbidden to your lips as your eyes fly open, lights dancing across your vision.

“Beg me to let them watch, then, darling.” He leans in, his teeth scraping dangerously over the exposed line of your throat. “Beg for them to see you writhe for me, to hear you moan my name as I *fuck* it out of you." The words are sharp, biting, dripping with a wicked desire that makes your knees tremble even more than the vertigo.

“Please,” you whisper, your voice thin and desperate, and you can feel Astarion smirk against your skin as he nips at your neck again. He pulls your body against him, his hands gripping your hips hard, and then he is slamming back into you with a ferocity that forces a strangled moan from your lips, your fingers white-knuckled on the railing as you struggle to stay upright. Astarion’s pace is relentless now, each thrust a claiming, a reminder of the power he holds over you.

His rhythm turns to self service, driving himself quickly to the brink. His hand slips between your bodies, thumb pressing insistently against your clit, teasing you relentlessly until your climax crashes through you, sharp and sudden and blinding. Your cries echo freely now, careless, a daring invitation to anyone who might glance upward.

His movements turn erratic, and Astarion’s fangs sink into your skin, drawing blood, the sharp pain blending with the overwhelming pleasure. His hips slam into you one final time, grinding deep, filling you with a sudden rush of heat that makes you shudder and clench, milking his cock with your cunt. His mouth is pressed to your neck, drinking from you as he rides the waves of his release, hips stuttering as he releases himself with a guttural groan of satisfaction-- an almost primal display of ownership.

The world spins around you as you cling to the railing, the music from below swelling in your ears, mingling with the thundering of your pulse, and for a moment, you can almost believe the entire universe exists for this—the two of you, suspended in a moment of raw, unbridled passion, a secret shared only with the stars. Your pulse throbs between your legs and your breath whistles through a painfully swelling throat, but you still whimper with loss when Astarion's cock slips from inside of you as he steps back.

His arms slide around your waist, tugging you back and up, away from the balcony. He nuzzles into your neck again, breathing you in deeply. “Gods, I’ve missed you...” he murmurs, his voice barely audible above the music, the sound of your heart beating still echoing in your ears.

But just yours.

[valleyof-goldenlilies]

The Fuss About the Christmas Gala - Modern! Rhaenyra Targaryen x Reader

Summary: Rhaenyra faces a small crisis regarding the planning of the Targaryen Corporation's gala.

Pairing: Modern! Rhaenyra Targaryen x Fem! Reader

Warnings: profanity, angst, slight talks of Rhaenyra self harming (biting her fingernails), fingering, lots of kissing, mentions of dom Rhaenyra, slight dom reader

Word Count: 2.3k words

A/N: hoe hoe hoe! a very merry late Christmas and Happy New Year in advance from me to you :) this is for all the Rhaenyra girlies out there! I hope you enjoy :)

lovely dividers credited to @firefly-graphics !

If there was one word that was the antithesis of Rhaenyra Targaryen right now, it would be the word calm. 

For two days now, you had watched your girlfriend rush about like a madman caught up in a whirlwind. Unsure of what to do, you usually just sat on the couch, concernedly sipping a glass of water as you watched your girlfriend work herself to death. 

Today was no different, and the stress had only multiplied by a dozen. Since the Targaryen Christmas Gala was this weekend, Rhaenyra was rushing around, calling up caterers, decorators, florists, to make sure that the weekend would go as perfectly as possible. 

“Ugh, those fucking dim-witted imbeciles!” Rhaenyra raged, slamming her phone down on the couch where you were sitting. You looked up from your work, concern furrowed in your brow, as Rhaenyra sank into the couch next to you and began ranting. “Can you believe that the caterers had to cancel at the last minute? Said something about having to attend to the President’s dinner party for all his cabinet at the fucking Red Keep!” Rhaenyra was positively vibrating with fury, and if her anger could sprout wings, she would have flown away by now, probably to kick the head of the caterers’ ass. 

“Nyra,” you tried to calm her, but she continued on with her tirade. “And the florists! No one can do their jobs right.” rhaenyra buried her face in a throw cushion, making a distressed noise. “I knew I should’ve accepted Alicent’s offer of connecting me to the florists she previously used at the other Targaryen events. But I’m just-” 

“I know,” you said, hands going to rub Rhaenyra’s shoulders soothingly. Rhaenyra’s dislike for her stepmother was legendary among your social circles, and with how bullheaded Rhaenyra was, you can’t say you were surprised when she vehemently turned down her stepmother’s offers of connecting Rhaenyra to her contacts, preferring to do it on her own. 

Rhaenyra’s anger soon turned into a crack in her voice, as she felt small tears slipping down her cheeks, seeping into the velvet of the throw cushion she was using to hide her face. She didn’t want you to see her like this. But the stress was really getting to her, and she soon broke, like a dam that had caved at long last. 

Mortification and sympathy immediately filled you when you heard your girlfriend’s strangled sob, as you moved to take her into your arms. “I just-” Rhaenyra choked out, “I wanted to do this on my own. To prove that I could. This is the first event that Father asked me to plan on my own as future CEO to Targaryen Corporations, and I’ve-” Rhaenyra sniffled noisily. The snot from her tears was getting into the blouse you were wearing, but you could care less, only continuing to stroke Rhaenyra’s silver-blonde locks, trying to mollify her. “I’ve screwed it up completely. I’m such a fuckup.” 

“You’re not a fuckup, Nyra,” you said softly, heart breaking as you watched her shoulders shake with sobs. “Don’t lie to me, Y/N,” Rhaenyra spat out, though the venom in her voice was weakened by how much she was crying. 

“I haven’t finished yet,” your voice was chiding, but gently so. “A fuckup, absolutely not. Bullheaded? Stubborn? A little idiotic? Definitely so.” A choked laugh bubbled up in the midst of Rhaenyra’s tears, and you smiled at that, satisfied to have elicited a response apart from cursing or tears. 

“What do I do, my love?” Rhaenyra sniffled, her tone stained with despair. “How am I supposed to face Father tomorrow and tell him that the caterers and florists have both cancelled? I barely can keep the rest of the event’s logistics from spiralling out of control too.” Rhaenyra barked out a jagged laugh. “Seven Hells, the only thing I actually managed to get done was secure the venue and the musicians. He’s going to be so disappointed in me, isn’t he?” You hummed, softly curling a strand of Rhaenyra’s hair around your index finger. “You know, love, I did offer my help a few weeks ago. The offer still stands.” 

An exasperated sigh burst from Rhaenyra’s lips. “And I said no. I don’t need help…” Rhaenyra’s voice slowly trailed off, as the absurdity of words began to sink in. “Oh,” she spoke, voice sounding defeated.“I really am an idiot, aren’t I?’ 

“Oh, darling,” you spoke affectionately. “You are, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start amending that.” You kissed her on the forehead tenderly, wiping her tears away with your thumb. “Let me help you. Please, Nyra. You can’t keep insisting on doing everything yourself, you know.” Your voice was gentle, yet firm. “You need to let go of your pride. Capeesh?” 

Rhaenyra grumbled a little, but she melted under the warmth of your embrace. “Fine. Capeesh. But maybe hold back on bruising my ego, why don’t you?” You chuckled, kissing her on the lips. “How else am I supposed to get you to learn, dearest?” 

In all honesty, managing an event was definitely way harder than you imagined it was when you had offered your help. While the lack of a budget certainly helped, there were a lot of things the both of you had to consider. Such as the table seating arrangements, the order of the performances (who knew there would be so much fuss over whether the ballet-contemporary dance trope should come before or after the string quartet performance?), the approval of the various menus for guests with special dietary restrictions and the like. 

Rich people truly never ceased to amaze you with their elaborate whims and fancies. 

Even with your help, Rhaenyra still occasionally flew into anxious fits while the both of you were sorting out the details for the event, and you had to stop all work to comfort her when that happened. You also noticed her bitten off fingernails, an old childhood habit Rhaenyra was fond of doing. When confronted, Rhaenyra only sheepishly admitted that the stress often blinded her from doing anything else. 

While it made your blood boil that Rhaenyra was neglecting her own well-being for the sake of the godsforsaken gala, you also felt an uncomfortable, crawling sensation under your skin, and that little voice in your head, telling you that you were to blame for this whole mess. 

‘Why weren’t you more insistent on helping her out?’ it whispered, taunting. ‘How could you let your girlfriend stress herself to this point until she would mistreat herself?’ 

Still, you managed to wave the thoughts aside, wanting to just focus on Rhaenyra now. Gradually, as the plans for the gala became more and more concrete, Rhaenyra became noticeably more relaxed, the perpetual frown that was present on her lips slowly dissolving into a less tense expression. Although Rhaenyra still bristled at the thought of bringing in additional help, she reluctantly acquiesced when you mentioned asking Alicent, who was more experienced in hosting these events, to take a look at the event timeline. It was no easy feat for a Targaryen to set aside their pride, but you were very glad that Rhaenyra could. 

As the night of the Targaryen Christmas Gala rolled around, you were in Rhaenyra’s dressing room, lips pursed in concentration as you fastened the delicate clasp of Rhaenyra’s diamond festoon necklace around her neck. 

“Hey,” Rhaenyra said softly, looking at you through the mirror. “Mmm?” you hummed inquisitively, smiling widely as you finally managed to get the clasp buckled together. She grabbed your hands as she turned around, leaning her forehead on yours. “Thank you.” Love and gratitude laced her voice. You squeezed her hands in yours, leaning in to kiss your girlfriend on the lips. “It’ll be alright,” Rhaenyra felt a warm feeling seep into her muscles, extinguishing the tension she had been feeling all evening. “Don’t worry too much, hmm? It’s Christmas after all. Tis’ the season to be jolly, you know.” A light giggle burst from Rhaenyra’s lips, before she leaned in for another kiss. “I’ll do my best, love.” 

Hours had stretched on, and it seemed the gala was going swimmingly. Though Rhaenyra had roped you into attending the gala with her - her reasons being that you were her beloved girlfriend and that she wanted every single one of the Targaryen family’s business associates, as well as all her family to see that you were the woman she loved - she had been noticeably absent for some time now. 

Anxious footsteps thumped across the floor of the ballroom, as you politely manoeuvred past the gala’s attendees, trying to find the familiar figure clad in red. 

When you neared one of the endless amount of balconies in this massive building, you breathed out a sigh of relief when you caught a glimpse of white-blonde hair. Standing out at the terrace, surrounded by the night and glowing under the shimmer of a thousand stars, Rhaenyra leaned on the balcony balustrade, her back to the door, as you admired her from behind. 

“You look like a goddess from this view you know,” Rhaenyra smiled as she felt your arms encircle her waist, planting a soft kiss on her neck. “Oh no, you found me,” her tone was filled with teasing. She relaxed into your arms, seeking your warmth. “I found you,” Rhaenyra’s breathing grew heavier as you continued peppering kisses on her neck. “Why are you out here all by yourself, gorgeous? The party’s going well, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah, it is,” Rhaenyra sighed, tilting her head up to give you more access to her neck. “It just…still makes me a bit disappointed in myself, you know? That I couldn’t take charge of a simple event like this.” 

“You’re belittling yourself again, my darling,” you murmured, lips grazing along the sensitive curve of her shoulder. “This event is far from simple, and you know that. Besides, it’s alright to accept the help of others when you’re overwhelmed.” 

Rhaenyra closed her eyes, her hair falling into her face slightly as she cast her gaze downwards. “And I know. It’s just still hard to accept.” You purse your lips, wanting to comfort her somehow…

Rhaenyra felt her breath hitch as your fingers slowly made their way up her thighs, all while your lips still remained on her neck. “Where are those fingers going, hmm?” she murmured. 

“I just want to make you feel better, my dear.” You trailed your kisses to the top of her spine. Do I have your permission, love?” 

“Yes,” Rhaenyra breathed out, gripping the balcony railing tighter. “Fuck yes.” A wicked grin graced your face as she said that, as your fingers skillfully slid aside her panties, grazing them gently against Rhaenyra’s sweet spot. Her answering moan was a cry from the angels themselves. 

“Wet already, hmm?” You murmured, the pad of your finger collecting the wetness of her slit. Rhaenyra groaned, “That’s usually my line.” You smirked in response, fingers playing with her folds with deliberation. “I know you’re always on top, darling. But isn’t it nice to have me take charge for a change?” 

“Definitely no-” Rhaenyra had to bite her tongue as you plunged the first finger inside of her, pleasure coursing through her veins. “Oh, darling,” she moaned your name huskily as you added a second finger, beginning to move faster. A strangled cry rose from her throat as your thumb went to rub at her clit, her skin feeling feverish as she felt you tug off her furred shawl so that you could have access to her bare back. Your soft lips followed the curve of her spine, while your other hand went to trace patterns on her heated skin. 

“Dominance is a good look on me, isn’t it?” You teased, adding a third finger, curling it in a come hither motion. Rhaenyra felt like she was about to faint, as a familiar budding sensation in her abdomen began to bloom. “I should do it more often, love. Who knew you could be a pliant mess under all that tough exterior?” 

“Oh, you are so going to regret this later,” Rhaenyra growled, head already filled with the ideas she would do to punish you later when she got home. In response, you only rubbed her clit harder, making her let out a cry of needy pleasure. 

“Nah,” you smiled, not fazed in the least. “I don’t think I will, dear.” The speed of your fingers quickened, and Rhaenyra let out a final wanton moan as she came, legs turning weak. You had to grip on tightly to her waist with your other hand that wasn’t buried to the knuckle in her so that her knees wouldn’t give in then and there. 

“You okay, darling?” you asked teasingly, as your fingers gradually slowed their pace and you planted a kiss onto the crook of her shoulder. Rhaenyra narrowed her eyes, though her breathing was still unsteady after the orgasm she had. “Don’t act so smug just because you’re in charge for once. You’re going to get it when we get home, darling.” 

“I’m looking forward to it,” you continued challenging her with that teasing tone of yours, retracting your hand from under Rhaenyra’s skirts. “Do me a favour before that, and taste yourself, darling?” Rhaenyra looked a bit miffed at that, though in good spirit. Still, she gave in with a dramatic sigh, as you lifted your fingers to her lips, making her suck her essence off of them. A light moan burst from your lips at the sight, and you leaned in to kiss her, threading your fingers in her white-blonde locks to pull her closer to you. When she abruptly broke away, you frowned, thinking that you had done something wrong, but she only pointed up and said with a sort of childlike delight, “Look, it’s snowing, darling.” 

Caught off guard, you directed your gaze upwards, noting with wonder the white furls currently dancing in the sky. Rhaenyra laughed as a snowflake got caught in your eyelash and you let out a small yelp, flicking it off with her fingers. “Merry Christmas, darling,” Rhaenyra murmured, capturing your lips with hers again, her hand cupping your cheek. You smiled back, gazing adoringly into her eyes. “Merry Christmas, Nyra.”

let me know if you wish to be added to a general taglist for rhaenyra related works, or just my works in general in the comments or through this form! :) 

thank you for reading! if you liked it, likes, comments and reblogs are highly appreciated! merry late xmas guys 😘🎄

[outroshooky]

whatever in heaven | knj

⇢ genre: series; part three (mafia!au) (angst, fluff, smut)

⇢ pairing: kim namjoon x reader

⇢ word count: 5.8k

⇢ warnings: smut (soft d/s dynamics. grinding, oral [m receiving], brief use of the word daddy, marking, gentler dirty talk [praise]) angst (implied usage and mention of knives, nightmare), some fluff. this fic is a bit of a mind-fuck; there are darker themes here, so please read with caution.

⇢ a/n: i’m so excited for you guys to read the next installment of verses & vibes! a huge, huge thank you to my beta readers @sunkoos​ (go check out nas’s work!) and @hobiswitch​; an even bigger thank you to @guksheart​ for not only beta reading this fic but posting this for me because of laptop difficulties!

...which leads me into, unfortunately, some bad news. my laptop crashed permanently over the weekend and i may have lost all of my files. i’m working to get them back, but this also means i have to buy a new laptop. thus, verses and vibes (and my writing in general) may go on hiatus until i can figure out a way to keep writing and posting new content. more updates forthcoming— for now, enjoy whatever in heaven!

“i know not if i could have borne

 to see thy beauties fade;

 the night that follow’d such a morn

 had worn a deeper shade:

 thy day without a cloud hath pass’d,

 and thou wert lovely to the last,

 extinguish’d, not decay’d;

 as stars that shoot along the sky

 shine brightest as they fall from high.”

⤷ and thou art dead, as young and fair; lord byron (george gordon)

It is always the same in the beginning.

He is kneeling on a concrete floor that goes on as far as he can see, cold and callous against the skin that peeks from the stringy rips in his pajama pants. A single light flickers above his head, murky cream, faded with age. His arms are bound behind his back with braided rope, biting vengeance into his tender wrists. His exhalations wisp pale smoke, rushing from his lips to touch the folded legs of a woman sitting just out of the ring of wired lamplight.

The supports of the chair are metal; he momentarily ponders how her skin isn’t dotted with gooseflesh through the thin fabric of her dress, but her cherry-red heels catch the light in a way that has his breath hitching. Something in him presses to reach out to her but he can’t, straining against his bonds like a feral cat caged. He snarls, a gritting sound in the silence of the warehouse, and she hums something seductive in return.

It is a dark heat that kindles in the pit of Namjoon’s stomach when he realizes he is staring at temptation herself, clothed in cherry pumps and scarlet lipstick. She is the antithesis of everything he should have and yet, yet—

He craves her more and more with every second that goes past. He doesn’t need to see her face to know that she is hauntingly beautiful, a devil crafted from memory, sent from hell to tempt him in all the ways she knew how. The blooming lust in his veins climbs with viney fingers straight to his brain, his head spinning, flying high; he barely knows what to believe. Somehow, she’s pulling on the strings of his thoughts, a marionette and his master dancing on the brink. One wrong string and the puppet collapses in a heap of cloth and kindling.

He groans, the sound of frustration and need echoing on and on in the dim room. She laughs velvet rich, sickeningly sweet. He wishes he could rend the binds from his arms, crawl to her, worship her the way she deserves; he shuffles forward an inch, two—

A plain black combat knife skitters to a stop in front of him, twirling once before coming to rest, just grazing his left kneecap. Resting potential against the crook of his leg, and he sucks in a breath when he feels the chilled edge level against the puckered scar on his knee.

She doesn’t speak, but Namjoon knows exactly what she means to say.

Thoughts clamor at the base of his skull, hissing seduction like a writhing mass of coiled snakes snapping for attention. They strike at one another, seeking dominion, and he’s nearly consumed by the din. A choice, cut out for him by the hands of fate, burned in the ashes of every decision he’s ever made. It boils down to this, to him and her and everything in between.

At one pellucid flicker of insanity, his hands are freed.

The ropes fall frayed to the floor and he straightens, rubbing at the burn in his forearms, rolling his neck to loosen the strain. His eyes flicker to her mass in the darkness, the shape of her just touched by the faintest tendrils of light. She is just out of reach, but so close, so far when her head tilts, a hint of fascination. He is mortal, she is eternal— a man reduced at the end of the day, stripped of money and power and the demons that lick at his heels. Greed is his master, but she is his, coveted in the secrecy of this cushioned nightmare.

He knows though, in the deepest reaches of his twisted soul, that only one of them will leave the warehouse alive.

In this horrible, shattered husk of reality, only one of them is destined to live.

And somehow, the choice has fallen to him.

Pick up the knife. Pick it up, feel it in your hands, smooth and weighted, perfectly balanced. Everything you’ve ever wanted is in the palm of your hands. Make the right choice. Do it for me, baby. For me.

Namjoon is pitted against his own self-preservation, warped desires clamoring for attention, needy yet sick. Needy, he is so fucking needy, but for what? Anticipation itches the back of his neck; he can barely think when the handle melds into the curve of his palm with such a sinful fit. The metal glints promise of things yet to come, but when he tilts the blade towards himself, he sees only the industrial struts that crosshatch the ceiling, the dust that hovers thick in the clogged, choking air. Emptiness and fulfillment, hand in hand, only a breath away.

You know what the answer is, Kim Namjoon. Do it. Do it for me.

Does he know? He must know, deep in the recesses of his bones. Deep inside the fucked-up mind of his, playing tricks on him; a trickster, what trickster? The last of his sanity is threatening to drip, melting like liquid wax onto the cool, callous cement. It’s bubbling in his hands, pouring through the gaps between his fingers, but when he shakes his head, a mad dog, it solidifies molten silver, black titanium.

Do it for me.

Do it for her.

He must.

Namjoon’s eyes flicker to her calf, following the silk of her skin to the hem of her saccharine dress; it flutters scarlet just out of reach. He’s on his knees now; there’s something pulling at him, some indeterminable force dragging him through the floor. The blade slips; the knife twists in his hands as he falls forward, and—

The air rushes out of Namjoon’s lungs as he writhes himself awake, mouth agape in an silent scream. He’s wheezing with the first rush of oxygen into his lungs, his lips swollen with gnashing of teeth as he twists away from the warmth settled next to him in the sea of rippling sheets, curling in on himself.

“Namjoon, are you alright?”

The broken man lifts his head, taking in the naked form upright in bed beside him, hair awry, concern bleeding every word.

It’s you.

He’s safe.

Indeed, Namjoon has had many dreams, but none quite like this one.

It is as if the very breath was sucked from Namjoon’s lungs when he first wrested himself awake in a cold sweat. Control is something he craves, something he owns save the late night hours when it is ripped from his hands by the sick desires of his own brain, playing tricks on him. He exercises his grip on every minutiae of his life, but when his eyes flutter shut and his conscience takes hold, it wraps a silken tie around his thoughts and begs him to pay attention.

You’re calling his name in a voice burdened by drowsiness. He knows you were awoken because of him but he can’t seem to think, to do anything else but sit here in this bed, in these rippling creamy sheets, and feel his lungs fill, empty. Fill, empty.

“Namjoon, love, breathe with me, okay?”

Breathing. Breathing is all he has been reduced to, a creature of the night with oxygen in his lungs and demons in his head.

You take his hand in your own, feels the slim digits trembling against your skin. You rub gentle circles into his knuckles and it somehow grounds him in the midst of the chaos, the overwhelming flood conjured from his worst nightmares. He watches as you carefully trace every crooked angle of his fingers with your own.

It is this simple motion that produces new thoughts, a mental clamor not of his own demise but for his own safety, the protection that he seeks. You are so much more than the sum of your parts: you are safety in the midst of a den of ruby-eyed cobras simply begging for a chance to strike. He’s never thought of anybody the way he thinks of you; there is no one else who comes close to you, and that’s saying a lot when it comes to his line of work.

“Namjoon, you’re safe, okay? You’re safe with me. We’re in our bedroom. You’re still the head of the most feared crime ring in the country. Nothing has changed. Yoongi is just outside the door; I’m right here. Nothing has changed, baby. You’re safe.”

Your words are warm against his skin, dotted with the press of lips to his temple, his cheek. You’re burning up against him, sweat beading at the roots of his hair, the silver strands falling low into his eyes. Somehow, the heat only serves to make him cooler, and he’s nestling into your arms before his mind catches up to his body. He’s safe. Somehow, in the roaring din of his mind, he is safe. His demons won’t follow him here, locked outside the door, palms scrabbling at the windows. The windows. Namjoon’s eyes flick to the glass and find the shades drawn, blocking out the ambient light that hovers thick on the other side. Bulletproof, he insisted, and for good reason. But Yoongi would have called if there was a problem, and he’s got Seokjin at the front gate, and it begins to seep in, sweet relief, that he truly is safe.

He is cradled to you like a child, a position compromising for a man of his stature, but he knows you won’t judge. Your hand trails from his thigh to his hip, his ribs to his shoulders, and your fingers nest in his hair, gently scratching his scalp. Lord knows he won’t be able to close his eyes until daylight breaks over the dark oak floor of your shared bedroom, but he hums and noses at your neck. You smell like sage and lavender with a touch of his own cologne, a memory of last night, and he inhales deeply, tries to savor the muskiness.

“You’re okay baby, I promise.” A kiss to his temple, another grounding touch. “I’m not going anywhere. I love you; you’re safe right here with me. Just let me love you, okay baby?”

Love. Love, a concept Namjoon knew better by verbal parry than by any real, tangible memory. It was wielded by a father he barely knew, an absent mother who preferred the company of socialites to the company of her own son. It was really a wonder he found it in him to love at all, really; he’d assumed he’d leave such an emotion to those who built a life out of a 9-5 day and mediocre sex. He’d been proven wrong, however, when you came along— you, once a high-profile escort in the dirty underworld he’d built for himself, proved yourself a worthy companion when you stayed beyond his guttural moans and dirty secrets. It was in fact, a moment like this when he realized he quite enjoyed your company, and there was something more to it than just a good fuck, an easy pussy.

You were the closest thing to real love he’d ever experienced, a home to come back to that wasn’t a prowling security team and a clean gun barrel. He’d exposed the grittiest parts of himself to you, the most private secrets and still you came back for more. You were just as fucked up as he was, really, and that was his favorite thing about you. You’d killed for him and he knew you’d kill again, and that was, very plainly, the matter of things.

Plus, that mouth made him see the stars more times than he’d willingly brag about at the poker table.

He presses a kiss to your shoulder, exposed through the lip of your shirt (his shirt, actually). It’s a careful kiss, chaste for him. Your fingers rub comfort into the base of his skull and he swears he could purr, an alley cat sleek and pleasured.

“You doing okay, Joonie?” Your eyes tell him everything he needs to know and he nods, unsure if he trusts himself to speak. Fear still gnaws at his bones, muted terror of a red-heeled succubus and a silver blade that gleams in the lamplight. Somehow though, you know, scraping the blunt of your fingernails against his roots. “You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to. I’m here regardless of that, you know me.”

Namjoon noses the column of your neck in reply, folding his sizeable frame until it molds against yours. Some things he’d never let the boys know about, but some things, he thinks, they knew about already. He is hard and cold and calculated yet soft and warm and comforting, a living contradiction unto himself; you’d never believe it if you hadn’t seen it yourself. A complexity of men who prefers to live by the simplest of rules, but you’d learned long ago not to try to understand something that was fucked-up from the start. Some things in this world were just fucked up, and that was the way they were meant to be.

Neither of you know how long you sit there, adrift in messy sheets, dry eyes gritty with the lateness of the hour. Your hand weaves through Namjoon’s hair as the vines around his heart flex, their thorny stems unraveling. He stopped shaking minutes before, but if you know anything about him, the internal tremors never cease, not outside of the safety of this bedroom, impossible with the life he lives.

He stirs a little, murmurs your name against your neck, his lips brushing bare skin and the small freckle that dots just above your collarbone. There’s something so intimate, so human about it, screaming vulnerability that hangs open and aching in the silence. His hands slide smooth across the breadth of your back, your waist, palms settling atop your thighs as he draws back slowly, slowly.

There’s a question in his eyes, one you meet with your own.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He hesitates.

“Namjoon…”

He swallows, tilts his head, steals a kiss. “I’m sorry.” Then another.

With the third you’re pulling away, chest steady, finger to his lips. “Namjoon, you’re not thinking clearly. We can’t do this right now—”

“Says who?” He is breathless with the thought. “I wanna make you feel good, baby. You deserve that.”

The sweetest words wrap themselves around the breadth of your bones, melting between the gaps. He’s always been so good with his tongue.

“Namjoon, I wanna make you feel good too, but not when you’re like this.” You shake your head. “Not when you’re waking up screaming about death and knives and all sorts of horrible things.”

His hands brush your curves. “If this bed is an ocean, I wanna drown in you.”

“Joonie…”

It’s so easy to work at you, the sharper edges that he can dissect piece by piece. He knows exactly how far to push, what little to say to reel you in hook, line, and sinker. “Just go with it baby, alright? Just trust me.”

It’s easy to fall into Namjoon, collapsing every time as he folds around you. His head tilts to the side as he leans in, his nose brushing your own. He tastes like mint toothpaste and something uniquely him, an element you can never place but when he’s exposing the most vulnerable parts of himself to you like this. His mouth moves easy against yours, just tender lips, warm kisses. His hand smoothes up your spine to cradle your neck, thumb brushing at the nape, the soft hairs that tickle the back of his hand. “Just relax baby, relax.”

Once more. “Joonie, are you sure you’re okay with this?”

He nods. “I want this.”

He’s never been one for kissing but tonight he craves it, the simplicity of two mouths and hands that fit themselves perfectly against the curves and the edges. Musk curls under your nose as your eyelids flutter shut, dusting the apples of your cheeks a pinkish hue. Your hands meet his chest, burning with heat through the oversized Grateful Dead shirt he wears to bed with you, and they slide to his shoulders when he slips an arm underneath you to tug you closer.

You settle atop the apexes of his thighs, legs folding around him as he gazes up at you. The utmost adoration he has for you, written in the stars and in two hearts that beat as one, rattling against their cages with a need for closer, closer, closer. Fear melts underneath practiced fingertips and patience; he’ll be damned if he doesn’t return the favor. His eyes, usually tawny and mellow, burn blacker than charcoal but sweeter than syrup, running with emotion. It’s evident in every brush of his hands against your bare skin when his fingertips edge under the hem of your shorts, the gleam in his eye that warns of everything that is about to come. One hand supports your back as the other squeezes your thigh, and you can’t help but smirk down at him with the easy smile that tugs at his own kiss-bitten lips.

You aren’t smirking, however, when he leans in and nips a bite at your neck, teasing with his teeth, making you whimper and whine atop him. His tongue pokes between his lips, assuaging the pain, and your own mouth falls open as your fingers clench at his shoulders, nails sliding a lazy path along his spine. He licks once at the bite, then once more until he’s satisfied with the petaled violet that blossoms across the breadth of your throat. He nibbles a matching purple rose on the other side; you can feel the smile on his lips when your mouth shamelessly tips open and you stutter out his name.

“Hm, what is it?” When he draws back, you moan a singular complaint. “What do you want, love? I’ll give you anything you want.”

“W-Wanna make you feel good,” you pant, eyes fluttering. “Wanna make you feel so good.”

“I wanna make you feel good too, baby. Let’s just focus on the now, yeah?” Namjoon’s hand squeezes your thigh but you’re already pressing your body flush to his, kneeling over him. You cup his face and he strokes your wrist lightly, the most tentative of touches, thanking god that somehow, in the midst of the lion’s den, you’d found him. He had you and he knew he could trust you, trust the smell of your shampoo and the heat of your skin. “Focus on me.”

You lean down to kiss him, brushing his cheekbones, tangling your hands in his hair, but apparently, Namjoon had other plans. His lips graze your own, trailing the edge of your jaw to pepper the lightest kisses at your ear and move lower, lower. When his mouth lavishes the column of your neck with the utmost pleasure, you can’t help but feel your core ache, the purest whines permeating the thick air as you beg. He’s definitely hard now, weight against the inside of your thigh, and the temptation— no, the need to grind down on him sparked the fuzziest pleasures in your mind, the most sinful ideas.

“Please Joonie, please feels so good, please, w-wanna—”

When Namjoon mouths wet at the shell of your ear you writhe, losing control with each second that slips between your fingers like sand. His lips burn fire against your already heated skin, sizzling and crackling like a live wire under his touch. You hiss and he growls deep in the back of his throat, continues his ministrations.

“I forgot how much you liked that,” he breathes shakily.

“You’re so fucking hot,” you gasp, releasing your iron grasp on his roots. Luckily he’s unfazed; damn lucky you to be with someone who actually enjoyed their fair share of kinkiness. “So fucking hot and you’re so thick, I can feel it—”

When you grind down on him, pressing yourself onto the growing bulge in his slacks and swiveling your hips with practiced ease, he groans feverishly. With every brush of the head of his cock, he’s harder than before, memory weighty in the palm of his hand. He chokes on the breath in his lungs, his nails blunt on your back, and he moans once in content. Feels so fucking good.

“God, baby, you’re gonna ruin me like this,” Namjoon chuckles.

“Maybe that’s the intention,” you trill.

“Fuck.” The word lies heavy in the air, heavy on his bated breath.

You smirk, sinful seduction in his ear. “And what if I did this?”

As his eyebrows furrow, you ease yourself onto his thighs, so strong and sinewy. Your fingertips slip down his shoulders, trace every muscle that strains under his loose sleep shirt. Beneath the fabric is the coiled power of a lethal creature, a tiger poised to devour his prey. And he is utterly wrapped around your finger, letting his head tip back against the headboard with a  sigh. He’s lost in your touches, an angel fallen from heaven, no idea which way is up or down.

You rub circles into his hip bones; he twists under you. Practically begging with his gasps, knowing what awaits him. Your fingers toy with the hem of his boxers and he’s hissing between his teeth. “Baby…”

You hum a response, press a kiss to the shell of his ear.

“Please…”

“Oh Namjoon,” you coo. “You’re a mess, baby.”

He is. Hair sticking to his forehead, sweat gleaming at his temple; he’s a model for destruction, the dirtiest of kinds. Hips arching underneath you, and there’s a wet spot that stains the fabric. He smiles somehow, teeth flashing in the low light. “All for you.”

You withdraw, spit into your palm. “Then you get all of me.”

Your hand slips beneath the waistband of his boxers, finds his cock, thick and hard. At the first stroke, lazy and full, he can’t stop the raspy grunt that leaves his throat. “Shit, baby. Feels so good.” When you lower your head to mouth at him over his sweats he practically writhes, begging, needy. So unlike him, but a welcome change to see him falling apart, falling apart over you. The fabric is soaked with saliva and dotted with a pearl of cum, a carnal work of art.

You rub slowly down his length, thumbing the swollen head leaking his seed. It’s messy and wet and he’s moaning and it’s all worth it, worth it to see him wrecked like this. His balls are heavy in your palm; when your eyes flutter up to meet his, wide and expectant, Namjoon hisses. That sound enough jolts burning heat between your thighs, twisting devilishly in your stomach. “B-Babygirl?”

There’s question in the word, question that makes you pause. You moan against his clothed cock; he chokes on his words.

“Can I make you feel good too?”

A sloppy kiss pressed to his member. “Later, okay? I wanna focus on you right now, Joonie.”

His hand strokes through your hair, flyaway, disheveled. “You’re so good to me. So fucking good—” He chokes on the downstroke, fingers tightening out of reflex. “Want you so bad.”

You press. “How bad? Bad enough to want my mouth?”

“Shit, your mouth,” he whines. “Want your mouth, want you—”

“Joonie,” you murmur.

His heartbeat resounds like gunfire in the ringing silence.

“Lift.”

He lifts his hips as you tug, pulling his sweats down to his thighs, the fabric ridged underneath your perch. His cock falls free, standing slightly crooked against his still-clothed abdomen, rippling with tension. It twitches under the heat of your gaze, steadily seeping liquid bliss, and your mouth waters at the thought. It’s been so long since you took him like this; when it’ll happen again, who’s to say.

You pepper kisses along his thighs just to hear him whimper, feel the predator writhe in his own constraints. His hands burn their own trails along the curves of your body, spreading heat in their wake as you cave to your own desire, slipping a hand between your thighs when you take him in your mouth with practiced ease. He’s firm under your fingertips, lithe and sleek and powerful in all the right ways, but he falls apart when it comes to you, crumbles like rock under the breath of the tidal wave. He grunts sin from between gritted teeth but whines complaint when you pull back to tease, to draw things out. He’s gentle in his touches but firm in his demands, even through the cottony billows of his neediness.

“I-I’m close,” Namjoon stutters, skin crimson from lavished attention. There’s saliva smeared down your chin and tears twinkle liquid starlight on your lashes, but you’ve never felt more electrified, burning up at the seams for him. From the heated confines of your throat you withdraw his cock with a firm touch at the base, his fingers running through your mussed locks.

“Where do you want to cum, baby?”

He squirms. “Fuck. Wherever you’ll take m-me—” He shudders, ribs heaving. Your fallen angel, shattering under your touch. “Oh shit, I’m gonna cum for you, babygirl.”

“Cum for me, angel. Cum for me...” you murmur, gaze level with his own as you wrap your lips around his member.

“Gonna cum for you, fuck—”

“Daddy.”

The cavernous heat of your mouth is a slick warmth, so wet and warm and utterly divine. He loses himself in it, lets himself go, pushing towards that edge of no return, riding the crest of the wave as it rolls faster, harder, heavier. “‘M gonna fucking cum. Oh god, fuck, shit, babygirl, I’m cumming, I’m—”

A drawn out groan fills the air, raspy and thick and throaty as he thrusts into your mouth once, twice, spills over. He’s bitter on your tongue, acrid but you take it, swallow it all. It’s worth it to see the pleasure overtake him, to see him let go of every capacity and capability to fall drowning, dizzy. Whatever in heaven, above or below, he’s tumbling headlong into it, collapsing into himself like a burning star falling from the cosmos.

He’s the first to break the silence that falls, withdrawing himself and tucking his softening cock back in his sweats with a remarkable amount of composition for a man who’d just seen the very sparks of the universe behind closed eyelids. He chuckles breathless, bated. “Fucking hell, angel.”

You try to speak but merely croak at first, throat grating dry. He hushes you soothingly, easing you back on the pillows now soaked with sweat. “Let me get you some water, yeah? Just stay here for now.”

You whine a complaint— shouldn’t you be taking care of him?— but he’s insistent and already on his feet, legs shaky as he heads towards the bathroom. There’s a pang in your chest watching him go, the reality of the situation settling in, and vulnerability flowers in your heart.

The tap squeaks; the faucet runs. Room temperature water, not too hot but not too cold to soothe the burn in your esophagus. He knows you better than anyone, knows how to take care of you when you fail to take care of yourself, life spent always on the run. You’re the one holding him when his nightmares consume him, the steel that he draws from his belt to wield before him, the ultimate weapon. Yin and yang, black and white, blooming nebula and neutron star. The water turns off, a grating complaint.

It’s been too long; you’ve delayed too much. Play to his fantasy; he has no idea what’s coming.

“If the water’s not enough, I can send Yoongi for some tea— oh.”

Oh.

You are no longer prostrate, the limp rag doll exhausted from her play. No, you are stretched out on the bed, ass up on your hands and knees, silver glinting between your teeth as a pair of handcuffs dangles in the air. You are looking at him with fire smouldering deep in your eyes, blazing a burning glare straight through him.

The predator has become the prey.

“Daddy,” you purr, right on cue. “Come here.”

It’s automatic, the way Namjoon moves towards you, glass forgotten on the nearby dresser. He’s completely transfixed, fascinated by the possibilities, and when he reaches the end of the bed, you stop him with one outstretched foot, bare with the lateness of the hour. “Turn around.”

He’s so submissive, so compliant simply by the force of his own surprise. It’s hard to keep going, hard to push through the adrenaline thrumming through your blood, the underlying current that threatens to sweep you away, too. But you mustn’t listen, mustn’t feel.

“Hands behind your back, Joonie, baby.”

He’s perfect, perfectly whole in the way he follows each command that falls from your lips like silk spun thread. He surrenders himself so willingly to you, it stings raw.

You rise to your feet, level with the back of him. Your fingers make quick work of the cuffs and with a firm click, the deed is done.

With a tender motion that surprises even you considering the brevity of the situation, you wrap your arms around your torso, bury your face in his skin, inhale his scent. Amber and citrus. Musk and spice. Whole contradictions that somehow manage to summarize him perfectly. You whisper against his spine like it’s a secret. “I’m so sorry.”

“What, baby?”

You can feel his heartbeat against your cheek, thudding rapid with excitement, wonder at what lies ahead of him. Guilt roars its ugly head and you beat it back with double the force.

You stiffen, step away from him. Four years you’d waited to formulate these words, to hear them drop from your lips, plummeting on high. Four years and now the moment is here, and you swallow past the lump in your sore throat.

“Kim Namjoon, you are under arrest for charges of extortion, murder, murder-for-hire, drug possession, and arms trafficking. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you…”

“...Do you understand the rights I have just read to you? With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?”

You’re sitting in the open door of a police cruiser, more specifically a SWAT cruiser, an aluminum blanket wrapped around your bare shoulders. The air is warm, but you can’t stop shivering.

Seokjin paces fifteen feet away from you, ever more handsome in his suit and tie. Hoseok is finishing his interview of the conclusion, anticlimactic for the better. Yoongi’s legs dangle from the open doors of one of the ambulances called when your colleagues expected the worst. Thankfully, no casualties had occurred but a sprained ankle, a fight between one of your fellow law enforcement officers and that guy that manned the back gate. Everyone can go home, rest easy.

After Seokjin’s interview is yours, and you realize by the time Hoseok is asking the last question that you don’t remember a single word of what you’ve said. Elite agents taking down the biggest crime boss in the country are not supposed to feel so empathetic, so broken. Guilty. Regretful.

Four years, the longest and most dramatic chase of your career. Justice fell, a swift hammer; you’d saved the day once again, added another face to the chalkboard in your sterile office a thousand miles away. You’d won. Hadn’t you?

There’s a faraway look in your eyes that Hoseok somehow understands, a glimmer of something more than success. He straddles the age gap between the members of the team, incorporating Jeongguk’s youthfulness with his elders’ experience, the glue of it all handed the most important task. He calls your name. “You’ve been out of it the entire time I’ve been interviewing you. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing.”

But there’s no bite to the words, no whet of passion. They fall flat below the crackle of radios, the mist that reflects red and blue through the evergreen trees scraping the stars winking high above.

Hoseok puts his pen and clipboard aside. “Hey,” he says. The kindness in his tone pierces daggers through your heart. You somehow would’ve been more comfortable if he had yelled at you. “You did the right thing. He hurt a lot of people. Killed many more, and did so without remorse.”

That’s what you think, you want to scream. Because to you, he is some foreign criminal, far removed from any last dregs of humanity. He is a monster and a crook and a fiend, twisted into something unrecognizable, but you didn’t see what I saw. Did you see the warmth in his eyes when he rolled over and buried himself in my arms all those mornings in bed? Did you see the way he saved those dogs about to be euthanized in a shelter, because those pups reminded him of how he used to feel, staring death in the eyes every day? Did you see the way he loved me?

Hoseok pats your shoulder. “I’ll put in a month and a half of vacation time for you when we get home. Lord knows you’ve earned it. And we can rest tonight, rest for the first time in a while. We’ve got a nice hotel an hour away from here, top floor. We’re not done flushing out the rest of his boys, but that can wait for now. We can handle that on our own; they’re scattered all over the continent anyways. It’ll take time.” He picks up his supplies, turns to move on to Yoongi. The look in the elder man’s eyes, the special ops agent thinks, is exactly the same as your own. What had you two seen in that hellhole?

You tuck the blanket tighter around yourself and nod once. It’s the most you can do.

Hoseok smiles, but it’s not quite the beaming, sunshine-filled glow he usually carries about himself. “You did good work and I’m proud of you. Get some sleep, agent.”

Sleep does not come for a long, long time.

When it does, it eats away behind your eyelids, filling your mind with visions of a man adrift in an ocean of bedsheets, rocking on the waves of an endless concrete floor that goes for miles and miles, whispering promises of things to come that never would be.

Kim Namjoon is sentenced to life in prison for six counts of murder, fifteen counts of extortion, three counts of murder-for-hire, six counts of drug trafficking, three counts of arms trafficking, and two counts of drug possession.

He never makes it to see his twenty-sixth birthday.

[despotsuggestion]

The Proposal - A Short Story

"What a dusty old room." The King tapped his bearded chin.

"Well. It is not ever used," replied Despot, who ran a hand along the red velvet curtain. The trace of her fingers left a trail of dust, which Despot examined closely. "During my reign, it has not been used once."

"Oh, no?" replied the King. 

"Well, I am usually the one doing the courting, not the one being courted. Hence my fascination at your offer, sir." 

The woman rounded about toward the man. She rested her arms on the velvet-lined throne that she was meant to sit in, and gripped her hands together, black eyes flashing. The King sat in an identical chair opposite her. His eyes were grayer, Despot noticed. 

"I am very honest and open about my proclivities." The woman began. "Most souls know I prefer women, so most men do not even dare court me. Yet, you, knowing this," She tapped her smiling lips, humored. "You asked anyway. You know I am going to say no, yes?"

"I know." 

"And yet…"

"Here I am." 

“...Fascinating.”

Despot quickly bounced into the chair, and immediately leaned forward. "You know I am not attracted to you. I am repulsed by men."

"Yes. And I am not attracted to you, lady." 

"So, this is a political marriage."

"No," The King leaned back. "This is not a political offer." 

More fascination glared in Despot's eye. "Then...why ask?"

The King breathed out a chuckle. "You have the excitement of a schoolgirl."

"Well, sir, you must know: I am quite drunk right now." Despot scratched at her nose, and sniffed. "So, currently, I am feeling a drunken mix of wonder and disgust. Much like a schoolgirl."

"You're drunk? It is but…" The King strained to turn and look over his shoulder at the clock. "Why...it is but ten and thirty in the morning!"

"Mmmhmm...this is normal for me." Despot leaned back into the chair, which produced a thick cloud of dust. "I have not been truly sober for...at least...a decade and a half."

The king sneezed loudly. "Pardon me…" he removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his nose. As he did so, his brows furrowed worriedly and his eyes settled on Despot. "You live a very sad life, my lady." 

"Oh, it is sad. Tragic. Too long to get into now." 

"I see. I am sorry for you." 

"I do not care." Despot looked around the Courting Chamber. Red and dusty, she thought to herself. It had never been used, and for good reason. Men and women were usually smart enough to stay away. Sure, Despot heard arrogant nobleman talk about her proclivities at balls, and brag at their prowess of intimacy directly to Despot herself, but she knew these were all the braggadocious rantings of men with intense self-esteem problems. She paid them no mind. But this man, this man was not like that. He was, for one, stupid enough to propose marriage to her. That, in itself, was bravery and foolishness. Second, he was...old, for lack of a better word. His hair was all salt, and his skin was drooping. He couldn't be younger than fifty or sixty. Finally, he was not arrogant. No, not really, Despot concluded. He was a good man. She had heard of his efforts of kindness and goodness in his kingdom. Of course, Despot thought they were wasteful and futile. 

But, among the kindness, there was something...sad about him. Despot had expected whatever men, or women, who proposed to her to be those same braggarts at the balls, but this man was different. She would humor him. Afterwards, she would execute him. Of course she would. She would not risk this conversation hearing other ears.

"I know you do not care." The King replied. "I have heard much about you." 

Despot rested her hand on her chin. "Have you, now? What, pray tell, have you heard?"

"Well, for one, your proclivities--"

"Obviously, yes--"

"Towards a sad wit."

"...Oh…?" That was unexpected. "Explain, sir."

"You are renowned, lady, for your barbed tongue. And I have lived long enough to know that a barbed tongue comes from years of sadness, and years of isolation."

"You are not going to solve either of those things." Despot interrupted.

"I do not intend to. I know I cannot. I lost that ability years ago, and it would be futile to try it on you." 

"This is correct." Despot replied. "Again, then, I must ask you. why are you here?"

The old King sighed. "Truth be told, I don't think I fully know myself. I sent the proposal on almost a whim."

"Almost a whim?" 

"I do nothing solely on a whim. I think many steps before I do most things. But this...I did not think much ahead for this. I...I am a very sick man, my lady."

"Sick in the mind?" Despot furrowed her brows. 

"No. Sick in the body. I have always been sick in the body. Since I was a boy, I possessed a constitution most weak." 

Despot cocked a brow. What does any of this have to do with your proposal?

"I thought, wrongly, as I grew older I would grow healthier. I have not." The King smiled pleasantly. "And now...I am in great, constant pain. I think I'm dying."

"Why, pray tell, should I care?" Despot replied, absentmindedly picking at her nails. 

"I am not asking you to, lady. I know you don't. And, I didn't come here to weep my problems to you. This is just part of the reason I am here. Because, very soon, I won't be able to...I won't be able to see anyone. I will be dead."

Despot's eyes narrowed, and shifted to meet the King's. "This still does not answer why you proposed to me." 

"It was the easiest way to meet you in private. I know of your country's courting custom. I know that nobody can hear us."

"...Are you going to try to kill me, King?" A defensive smirk crept onto Despot's lips. 

"Certainly not." The King chuckled once more, cracking Despot's defenses just a bit. "I am a decrepit, old man, lady. I would die trying."

"Yes. You would."

"No, I am not here to kill you. I...just wanted to talk with you. Before I didn't get the chance to."

"But...why?" Despot's tone grew more heated. "Usually, people try to isolate me so they can kill me. Or, if they are not trying to kill me, then they are trying to form alliances. But, you said yourself that this is not for politics. So, why are we here, now, talking?" 

The King sighed, feeling the pressure in the room rising. "Believe me, your Majesty, I am not here to cause tension. I am here because...well...have you ever had an idol?"

"An idol?" "Yes. Someone you look up to, someone who you admire, someone who inspires you." 

"...No."

The King outright laughed. "I guessed as much. You are a proud woman."

"I have good reason to be. I am very skilled."

"Yes, I am well aware. That is why...in some strange way…" the King smiled, twirling his thumbs. He looked up at Despot. "You inspire me."

"...What." Despot said, flatly. 

"I cannot help it. I find you to be an inspiration!" 

"But...but...I am not someone to emulate, King." Despot gripped the sides of the chair. 

"No, no, many of your actions are utterly monstrous. I do not admire those. But...your wit. Your confidence. I must say...these are things I admire greatly."

"You are...a good man, King. I have heard of your kindness. You are known for your kindness in the same way I am known for my cruelty. How can you admire me when I and my actions are the very antithesis of you and yours?"

"Again, I cannot help it!" The King chuckled and shrugged. "You are...my idol!"

Despot's mind raced. How...was this possible? Despot made it her mission to be feared, she had not expected anyone to...admire her.

"This...is not love? You do fear me?"

"Oh, no, this is not love. I am very afraid of you. But a large part of me cannot avoid seeing things in you that I wish to emulate."

"Such...as…?"

"Your wit. Your skill. Your strength. Your obstinancy. Your--"

"Enough!" Despot called, sharply. "Enough. I...enough." She shook her head, and rubbed her brows. "So. This...is why you are here." 

"...Part of it." The King replied. Despot looked up at him. 

"Part of it? What is the other part?" 

The King sighed once more, but Despot could feel that this sigh was sadder than the others. "I know of your ways."

"My ways."

"Yes. I assumed that...after I proposed to you, you would execute me. After all, nobody can hear what has been said in this room. That would reduce your power.

"...You are correct." 

"I know." The King flashed a smile. There was nothing malicious in it, and this disturbed Despot greatly. 

"It is easier to be loved than hated, you know."

Despot narrowed her eyes.

"Ah, there it is. I know I cannot change your mind. Nevertheless, I assumed you were going to have me executed after this. And, well…"

Despot leaned back, realizing. "You want to die."

"I want to die. Yes. This is true. I am suffering greatly."

"And you knew I would kill you if you proposed to me."

"I assumed so. I am glad to know I am right in my assumption." 

Despot swallowed hard. "And before you died...you wanted to...meet your idol. Me."

The old King smiled gently. "This is all...correct."

Despot sighed, averting her gaze from the old man. "You are a strange man, sir. I was not...expecting this to...happen this way, I must admit. I was expecting more bravado. More braggadocio. I can meet that in battle. I can use my wits against that. But -- since you are going to die, I might as well say it -- kindness is something I do not know how to fight. I only know how to kill it." 

"And, I must admit, it is strange to see my words have shaken you so, lady. I did not mean for them to. I know now I am going to die, am I not?"

Despot rose from her chair. She walked around to the back of it, and once again leaned against it, arms resting on the back of it, and hands clasped, now white. She looked into the eyes of the sick King before her.

"I do not accept your proposal." 

"I understand, my lady." 

"Guard," Despot called, eyes still on the sick King. "Execute this man immediately."

"Yes, my lady." The Guard called back. 

The King was led out of the room. 

For the first time in many years, Despot fell sober.

[graceandfamily]

Rita Gam: “My friend Grace Kelly”

A style icon who favoured old sweaters, the Hollywood star-turned-princess was full of paradoxes, friend and fellow actress Rita Gam tells Nick Miller.

By Nick Miller (March 11, 2012)

'THEY used to have stories. Today we don't have stories as good as that,'' says Rita Gam, 84-year-old star from Hollywood's golden age, sitting upright and respectable in her New York apartment as she remembers past roles. ''Even though some of them were B pictures they were terrific - nice stories, interesting.''

There would be a girl, well-bred but independent, glamorous, beautiful, stylish, make-up and clothes just so, admired, feisty. There would be complications, arguments, wit and danger and romance, and then the frame misty as she falls into the arms of a moustached older man, or a prince, then a wedding, a happy-ever-after or a tragic twist.

(Above: Rita Gam and Grace Kelly in 1956)

But I'm not there to hear that story. I'm there to talk to Gam about her close friend, Grace Kelly. We're inside a 100-year-old block in midtown, with an ornate facade, a concierge and that old New York attitude, in an apartment decorated with movie posters from Hollywood's prime.

It must be frustrating for such a successful film, TV and stage actress to be constantly interviewed about her best friend. But Gam only once looks at the absence of a watch on her wrist, saying: ''I've got another five minutes of talking about Grace in me and that's it.''

(Above: Rita Gam at 84)

I show her a book, Grace Kelly: Style Icon, published to accompany an exhibition curated by London's V&A museum and soon to open in Bendigo.

''Oh, this is very Grace,'' she says of the cover, from a 1955 Cosmopolitan shoot at the height of Kelly's movie career.

But when she flicks through the pages, her eyes are drawn to a casual Kelly on the streets of Manhattan, the Empire State Building over her shoulder, her clothes smart but demure.

''That's what she wore a lot,'' Gam says. ''Skirts and shirts. She was not much of a 'lunch girl', who would go to lunch and dress up.''

(Above: Gam [back row, third from left] at the wedding of Kelly and Prince Rainer of Monaco in 1956)

This is Grace Kelly: Style Icon (it says so on the cover). Adored by the public, sought-after by designers. Still the touchstone reference for the Oscars red carpet; the woman who bridged the golden age of movies and the modern era - the first modern celebrity, a Princess Diana-come-January Jones.

But talking to Gam, a more complex version of Kelly emerges. ''She was not a fashionista in any way,'' Gam insists. ''You've got to separate what was created by the studio system, which was a make-believe image of a goddess.''

(Above: Rainer and Kelly with children Caroline and Albert at Princess Stephanie's christening in 1965)

The Kelly that Gam knew exploited, then transcended - but never embodied - the public role that the Hollywood machine decreed for the leading ladies it owned.

Her life was a dance between image and reality, PR confections and real-life fairytales. Yes, she did marry a prince; but their first meeting was a contrived magazine publicity stunt. Yes, she was a fashion icon, but her private dress sense was conservative and her palace closets were packed with old sweaters.

KELLY and Gam met in New York in the early '50s as hard-working young TV actors and models. Pittsburgh-born Gam was married to a young director, Sidney Lumet, and Grace was the daughter of a well-to-do Philadelphia family (her father an Olympic medal-winning rower and construction millionaire), determined to make her own life in the performing arts, and succeeding at it.

They met on the sound stage of a show called Danger. ''She was playing some villainess or other - she was very cute,'' Gam recalls. ''We were introduced by Sidney. He said, 'Oh Rita, this is Grace. Grace Kelly, this is Rita.' 'How do you do?' ''

It was not a movie-star moment. ''She was a very nice girl - she could have been a kindergarten teacher. She had scrubbed clean, sympathetic looks. It's just when the camera hit her she became absolute magic.''

Others noticed, too. John Ford cast her in her first movie role after seeing a screen test and exclaiming: ''This dame has breeding, quality and class … I want to make a colour test of her - I'll bet she'll knock us on our ass!''

Gam and Kelly signed with MGM and became close friends when Gam moved to Los Angeles a year or so later. She had been put up at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

''I was very uncomfortable [there],'' she says. ''I was a woman alone, and if I sat in the lobby I would get hit on, and I was lonely. I would be calling New York and Sidney all of the time.''

At the suggestion of her agent, she called Kelly, who was on the cusp of fame as Rear Window, her second movie with Alfred Hitchcock, was finishing filming. Kelly was lonely too, having left behind in New York her on-and-off paramour, European designer Oleg Cassini.

''I called Grace and she said, 'Oh come for tea today', which I did. She was living with Prudy Wise, her secretary, a girl from the south. It was just a one-bedroom Hollywood apartment in the Hollywood flats. I don't know, we were just having tea and she said, 'Well, why don't you move in with us? Three is as good as two is as good as one.'

''So we did, I moved into her flat and it was rather fun, it was like we were sorority girls.''

In those days, Hollywood was ''a party town'' and ''pretty wide open'', Gam says, in suggestive but decorous tones. ''We would get hit on by industry wolves.

''I remember once, [Kelly] had a little gold Chevrolet, a couple of years older than was current, and [an acquaintance] said, 'Oh we'll send a car for you'. His name was Charlie Feldman, he was a big agent, and I said, 'Grace they're going to send a car for us'. I was on the telephone, and she said: 'No, tell them we'll drive ourselves.' I said: 'Oh, OK.'

''Well of course she was smart, we were in control of our destiny. We left that 'party' of four - two gentlemen, Charlie and his South American friend - and drove safely home down the Hollywood hills. [Kelly] was really much more wise than I was.''

It's a recurring theme as Gam remembers Kelly - a smart girl becoming a smart businesswoman who saw through the Hollywood machine and was fearless about imposing her own demands on it - in fashion as much as anything else.

''Basically, she was suburban in her tastes,'' Gam remembers. ''[Even as a princess] she had closets full of old tweed skirts that she hadn't worn in years, and many many blouses that had long since seen their day, and tonnes of sweaters that were well-washed and well-worn.

''She didn't have any particular style sense, I don't think. I think she addressed that as an actress. She didn't read a lot about fashion. [She relied on] not friends but professionals.''

Kelly befriended and relied on the studios' top designers. But she kept one eye on the result. In her first leading role (Dial M for Murder), even as she was learning how to act on film, she overruled Hitchcock on a costume decision, telling him that if her character got up in the middle of the night to answer the phone, she wouldn't bother putting a big velvet robe over her nightgown. She also had a fight with the make-up man who she thought was putting too much rouge on her. ''After that, I had his confidence as far as wardrobe was concerned, and he gave me a very great deal of liberty in what I wore in his next two pictures,'' Kelly said.

If style means anything, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it. ''The subtlety of Grace's sexuality - her elegant sexiness - appealed to me,'' Hitchcock told his biographer. ''Grace conveyed much more sex than the average movie sexpot. With Grace you had to find it out, you had to discover it. Everybody wants a new leading lady but there aren't many of them around. There are a lot of leading women, but not enough leading ladies.''

Of their first meeting, Cassini later wrote: ''I saw her only in profile. I saw the utter perfection of her nose, the long elegant neck, the silky diaphanous blonde hair. She wore a black velvet two-piece, very demure, with a full skirt and a little white Peter Pan collar.

''Later, when she stood, I saw that she had a pleasing figure, tall, about five-foot-eight, good broad shoulders, subtle curves and long legs - a very aristocratic girl, not the sort you simply called for a date.''

The Hollywood system marketed her as the antithesis of Marilyn Monroe, whom Fox had recently discovered, feeding magazines lines that drew Grace as the all-American dream, a fine but approachable noblewoman who men wanted but women would also want to be: respectable, white-gloved, fine-bred and pretty. When Marilyn Monroe was asked what she wore to bed she replied ''Chanel No 5''. When Grace was asked, she replied: ''I think it's nobody's business what I wear to bed.'' Article after article punned on her first name.

Grace found it all amusing. But she told her biographer that this ''respectable'' image of Hollywood felt unreal, when the reality too often was ''full of men and women whose lives were confused and full of pain. To outsiders it looked like a glamorous life, but really it was not.'' After her Academy Award for best actress (tellingly, for her role in The Country Girl, in which she played ''a woman who had been married 10 years and lost interest in clothes, herself, everything'') she turned down most of the roles she was offered. The pressure and grind of Hollywood left her exhausted and disillusioned.

But she was also setting the mould for the modern movie star, taking control of her own PR from the studio. For Photoplay magazine she invited a photographer to take unprecedented candid shots of her and her sister on holiday in the Caribbean, in casual clothes and away from the studio's platoon of retouchers. The photographer Howell Conant wrote: ''You trusted Grace's beauty, you knew it wasn't built from clothes and make-up … [it was] natural, unpretentious.''

And then came her prince. Paris Match magazine set up a photo shoot of her with Prince Rainier of Monaco, as a promotion for its Cannes coverage. Gam recalls that the dress Kelly wore for the occasion she considers her biggest fashion faux pas. ''She would make jokes about it.''

Months later, Rainier arrived in New York. ''She called me, and she said, 'Come up for drinks on Thursday, I want you meet my prince.' I thought she meant her newest boyfriend and indeed it was her prince,'' Gam remembers. ''When I first met him … I wasn't blown over - you know, it wasn't Clark Gable, he was just a nice guy. He wasn't handsome, he was short and dumpy - [but] he was fun, he was well-educated, he had a good, funny British sense of humour, and he was intelligent, so I mean, what's not to like? And rich.''

''She was romantic, she would go with somebody for a long time and she was looking for the perfect person. And she fell in love with Rainier and that was that. She just allowed the romance of the times to sweep her away.''

This was the ultimate fairytale - the lavish royal wedding, the palace life in Monaco, dressed by designers.

And then there was the reality. More than 1600 reporters and photographers (more than covered World War II) turned the wedding into a mob scene. ''After the honeymoon she [and] Rainier slept for two days. It was exhausting and it took [them] a long time to recover from it,'' Gam, who was a bridesmaid, remembers.

''She didn't have a clue [what she was in for],'' says Gam of what followed for Kelly. The royal family forbade her from making any more films, which devastated Kelly. But Kelly was resourceful, playing the new role of princess in the same way as she had approached her movie career.

She switched from Hollywood's designers to the cream of the European fashion houses, and took to the kind of roles that princesses perform - benefits and balls, and patron of the arts.

''I don't think Grace changed from the minute I met her to the day she died,'' Gam says. ''She had an extraordinary PR sense and she had a strong sense of who she was and what she wanted to say. She allowed herself to be used by the talented fashion people of the time. And she enjoyed it. [But] I certainly don't think of clothes [when I think of her]. I think of friendship, I think of a loyal good friend, and somebody with a lovely voice and lovely face.

''You know, I see her very clearly, even though it's 35-odd years since she's gone.'' (Kelly died in a car crash in 1982.) ''She had a very strong presence … Everyone should have a friend like that.''

Grace Kelly encapsulated the latter part of Hollywood's golden age. At least, that's the legend, that's what people say. ''And well they should,'' says Gam. After all, it's a good story.

Grace Kelly: Style Icon is curated and organised by the V&A Museum, London, and the Grimaldi Forum Monaco. The exhibition will run from today to June 17 at the Bendigo Art Gallery.

[homepictures]

How Simple Decorating Tips Home Can Increase Your Profit! | simple decorating tips home

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“I’ve appear to acknowledge why bodies alpha decorating the day afterwards Thanksgiving,” says artist Iantha Carley of Silver Spring, Maryland. “It’s a lot of assignment to cull off for a actual abbreviate aeon of time.”

Here are six account from Carley on how to abduction the anniversary spirit at home, afterwards spending a abundant accord of time or money.

• Stick to a simple but blithe blush palette. Choose one or two blithe emphasis colors (or two shades in the aforementioned blush family, such as red and pink) and acquisition simple agency to tie them in with your absolute decor. You can achieve this with ribbons, winter flowers, ambrosial candles, blooming pillows, comfortable blankets and Christmas stockings. For red and blooming traditionalists, Carley suggests accumulation altered hues in the aforementioned blush families, such as abysmal bittersweet and chartreuse, rather than blooming red and hunter green, for an elevated, avant-garde look.

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• Bring in all things balmy and cozy. Carley suggests afire wood-scented candles and application warm, dim lighting. For a beyond makeover, alter your failing linens with beefy textures, such as knits and velvets, and accumulate bleed bandy blankets to accumulate guests warm. Consider rearranging your appliance to face your Christmas timberline or broiler to actualize a balmy and affable acquisition atom for winter entertaining.

• Put your added ornaments to adequate use. Instead of abstraction them all on your timberline or packing them abroad indefinitely, Carley recommends agreement spare, bright-colored assurance and bulbs in bright blow glasses and apothecary jars of altered heights about the house. She additionally suggests stacking added agleam and bright ornaments in a bowl, block angle or confined bowl with boughs of evergreen, ache cones and white cord lights for a simple centerpiece. Appetite an accessible and adorning anniversary window treatment? Attach a faux blooming album to the top of your window breadth and tie added ornaments to it with award in capricious lengths.

• Stock and appearance your cooler station. With parties ample this time of year, it’s a adequate abstraction to accept your bar barrow actually abounding with all the merrymaking essentials. For Carley, that agency outfitting her bar with all the capacity bare to accomplish her husband’s signature Boulevardier cocktail. If you appetite to booty your adornment a footfall further, appearance your bar breadth with faux snow, sparkly straws and blithe glassware. If there’s allowance to spare, set out bowls of melancholia cocktail garnishes or snacks, such as gumdrops or miniature bonbon canes.

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• Incorporate natural, ambrosial greenery. Carley suggests adorning your anniversary table with a array of boxwood cuttings, beloved sprigs and fresh-cut white hydrangeas to add texture, blush and fragrance. You can additionally attach beginning holly and magnolia leaves to napkin rings or abode cards for a blooming and adult touch. Don’t accept time for a attributes walk? Set the affection with a Frasier fir-scented candle.

In an alternating world, we’d ability our Advent calendars and hand-knit our timberline skirts. But for those of us who don’t accept the time, patience, absorption or energy, store-bought decorations and faux greenery are altogether acceptable.

“We afresh switched to an bogus tree, afterwards accepting several issues with allergies, and I actually adulation it,” Carley says. “And now, the bogus copse accept gotten so adequate that it’s absolutely adamantine to acquaint that it’s not real.”

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You can calmly dress up your stairway balustrade or chandelier with a simple, store-bought album and, if time allows, braid in ribbons. For a claimed touch, adhere it beyond a doorway, mantel or bookshelf and beautify it with anniversary cards and photographs. You can advancement store-bought wreaths with a new bow or boner them up with accustomed greenery (e.g., eucalyptus and thistle) and beginning citrus (e.g., lemons, limes and oranges) with blooming floral wire.

In a hurry? Grab a poinsettia at your bazaar and bandy its tin antithesis wrapping for an adorable pot or agriculturalist for an accessible emphasis or hostess gift.

– Megan McDonough, Washington Post

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INTERVIEW WILL I GET A TICKET?

A Conversation About Life After Vogue With Lucinda Chambers

by Anja Aronowsky Cronberg

WE MEET AT A cosy private club in West London, the sort of hangout popular with fashion professionals who believe in the semblance of bohemia. For thirty-six years she’s been working at British Vogue, twenty-five of those as the magazine’s fashion director, but not long before we meet the fashion press has been full of headlines announcing her departure. We order lattes, and I’m struck by how candid she is.

A month and a half ago I was fired from Vogue. It took them three minutes to do it. No one in the building knew it was going to happen. The management and the editor I’ve worked with for twenty-five years had no idea. Nor did HR. Even the chairman told me he didn’t know it was going to happen. No one knew, except the man who did it – the new editor. Afterwards I walked out and ran into the publisher. ‘Oh Lucinda! How are you?’ I told him I’d just been fired. He said, ‘Outrageous! Ridiculous! Crazy!’ I phoned my lawyer; she asked me what I wanted to do about it. I told her I wanted to write a letter to my colleagues to tell them that Edward [Enninful] decided to let me go. And to say how proud I am to have worked at Vogue for as long as I did, to thank them for being such brilliant colleagues. My lawyer said sure, but don’t tell HR. They wouldn’t have wanted me to send it.

Later I was having lunch with an old friend who had just been fired from Sotheby’s. She said to me, ‘Lucinda, will you please stop telling people that you’ve been fired.’ I asked her why – it’s nothing I’m ashamed of. She told me, ‘If you keep talking about it, then thatbecomes the story. The story should be that you’ve had the most incredible career for over thirty years. The story shouldn’t be that you’ve been fired. Don’t muck up the story.’ But I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be the person who puts on a brave face and tells everyone, ‘Oh, I decided to leave the company,’ when everyone knows you were really fired. There’s too much smoke and mirrors in the industry as it is. And anyway, I didn’t leave. I was fired.

Fashion can chew you up and spit you out. I worked with a brilliant designer when I was at Marni – Paulo Melim Andersson. I adored him. He was challenging, but highly intelligent. Fragile, like a lot of creative people. We had our ups and downs, but he stayed with us for seven years. Then Chloé came along. The CEO at the time asked my advice about Paulo and I told him, ‘Paulo is great, but you have to know that he won’t turn the brand around for you in a season or even two. You’ve got to give him time, and surround him by the right people.’ ‘Absolutely, absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ll do that.’ Three seasons later Paulo was out. They didn’t give him time, and he never got his people. I felt so sad for Paulo. If you want good results, you have to support people. You don’t get the best out of anyone by making them feel insecure or nervous. Ultimately, that way of treating people is only about control. If you make someone feel nervous, you’ve got them. But in my view, you’ve got them in the wrong way. You’ve got them in a state of anxiety. I’m thinking of one fashion editor in particular: it’s his modus operandi. He will wrong-foot you and wrong-foot you, and have everyone going, ‘Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.’

You’re not allowed to fail in fashion – especially in this age of social media, when everything is about leading a successful, amazing life. Nobody today is allowed to fail, instead the prospect causes anxiety and terror. But why can’t we celebrate failure? After all, it helps us grow and develop. I’m not ashamed of what happened to me. If my shoots were really crappy… Oh I know they weren’t all good – some were crappy. The June cover with Alexa Chung in a stupid Michael Kors T-shirt iscrap. He’s a big advertiser so I knew why I had to do it. I knew it was cheesy when I was doing it, and I did it anyway. Ok, whatever. But there were others… There were others that were great.

In fashion people take you on your own estimation of yourself – that’s just a given. You can walk into a room feeling pumped up and confident, and if you radiate that the industry will believe in what you project. If, on the other hand, you appear vulnerable you won’t be seen as a winner. I remember a long time ago, when I was on maternity leave, Vogue employed a new fashion editor. When I met with my editor after having had my baby, she told me about her. She said, ‘Oh Lucinda, I’ve employed someone and she looked fantastic. She was wearing a red velvet dress and a pair of Wellington boots to the interview.’ This was twenty years ago. She went on, ‘She’s never done a shoot before. But she’s absolutely beautiful and so confident. I just fell in love with the way she looked.’ And I went, ‘Ok, ok. Let’s give her a go.’ She was a terrible stylist. Just terrible. But in fashion you can go far if you look fantastic and confident – no one wants to be the one to say ‘… but they’re crap.’ Honestly Anja, you can go quite far just with that. Fashion is full of anxious people. No one wants to be the one missing out.

Fashion moves like a shoal of fish; it’s cyclical and reactionary. Nobody can stay relevant for a lifetime – you always have peaks and troughs. The problem is that people are greedy. They think, ‘It worked then, we’ve got to make it work now.’ But fashion is an alchemy: it’s the right person at the right company at the right time. Creativity is a really hard thing to quantify and harness. The rise of the high street has put new expectations on big companies like LVMH. Businessmen are trying to get their creatives to behave in a businesslike way; everyone wants more and more, faster and faster. Big companies demand so much more from their designers – we’ve seen the casualties. It’s really hard. Those designers are going to have drink problems, they’re going to have drug problems. They’re going to have nervous breakdowns. It’s too much to ask a designer to do eight, or in some cases sixteen, collections a year. The designers do it, but they do it badly – and then they’re out. They fail in a very public way. How do you then get the confidence to say I will go back in and do it again?

The most authentic company I ever worked for is Marni. We didn’t advertise, and what we showed on the catwalk we always produced. We never wanted to be ‘in fashion.’ If you bought a skirt twenty years ago, you can still wear it today. We never changed the goalposts. Our shows were about empowering women. We always treated our models beautifully and had incredible diversity in the company: my team was half boys, half girls, all different nationalities. It was very transparent, but when the company was sold everything changed. The Castiglionis were naïve. They sold sixty percent of the company, thinking that the new owner would respect what they had built. I never understood why they sold it to Renzo Rosso of all people. He is the antithesis of everything Marni stood for. The antithesis. When Consuelo left, I remember thinking why not give the design task to someone from the team? It would have been a reflection of how fashion is created today, and it worked for Gucci – Alessandro Michele had been at the brand forever before becoming the creative director. I talked to Renzo and he agreed, but then at the last minute he changed his mind. He brought Francesco Risso onboard, who had nothing to do with the company. Before Marni, he did celebrity dressing at Prada. He’d never done a show, he’d never run a team. But he knows Anna Wintour. And who is Renzo Rosso enthralled by? Anna Wintour. The last womenswear collection at Marni was a disaster; it had terrible reviews. The show was appalling. I heard the cost to produce it was two-and-a-half times what we used to spend, and it sold fifty percent less. A lot of American buyers didn’t even bother to turn up. Marni is no more. It saddens me, but then I remind myself that from the ashes something new can emerge.

When Vetements came on the scene, what they were doing felt very new. At that particular time, it wasn’t what anyone else was doing. And when I saw the last Balenciaga show… Okay, you could say it’s a bit Margiela or a bit this or that, but honestly I was really really really excited. You know what was smart about it? It was the scale – you saw this tiny model emerge and it took forever for her to get close to the audience. It built up expectation. Everything was thought through: the casting, the music, the space. Everything. And I loved how we were all seated: so far from each other, it all felt anonymous. Normally at a fashion show, everyone looks at each other – who wears what, who sits where. ‘Oh, she’s got the new Céline shoes.’ But here you felt as if you were on your own. It was a new feeling.

Fashion shows are all about expectation and anxiety. We’re all on display. It’s theatre. I’m fifty-seven and I know that when the shows come around in September I will feel vulnerable. Will I still get a ticket? Where will I sit? I haven’t had to think about those things for twenty-five years. Most people who leave Vogue end up feeling that they’re lesser than, and the fact is that you’re never bigger than the company you work for. But I have a new idea now, and if it comes off maybe I won’t be feeling so vulnerable after all. We’ll have to wait and see.

There are very few fashion magazines that make you feel empowered. Most leave you totally anxiety-ridden, for not having the right kind of dinner party, setting the table in the right kind of way or meeting the right kind of people. Truth be told, I haven’t read Vogue in years. Maybe I was too close to it after working there for so long, but I never felt I led a Vogue-y kind of life. The clothes are just irrelevant for most people – so ridiculously expensive. What magazines want today is the latest, the exclusive. It’s a shame that magazines have lost the authority they once had. They’ve stopped being useful. In fashion we are always trying to make people buy something they don’t need. We don’t need any more bags, shirts or shoes. So we cajole, bully or encourage people into continue buying. I know glossy magazines are meant to be aspirational, but why not be both useful and aspirational? That’s the kind of fashion magazine I’d like to see.

Lucinda Chambers served as fashion director of British Vogue for 25 years.

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s Editor-in-Chief and Founder.