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g1rlw1th0n33ye3 · 7 days

Text

When the sun goes down.

Summary ~ Aegon Targaryen II x reader ( no use of y/n cause noo) Aegon finds out something unexpected during his most recent visit to the street of silk.

Warnings- Dubious consent, Drunk sex, its Smut so like yuh know 🧍🏽‍♀️

Also, this is my first fic ever so be nice, please!! I had a day off and a bottle of pink Whitney so here we are! I hope you enjoy also Aegon isn't complete scum of the earth in this story because no that face to pretty for that bad writing and he's not married either Helena and Jace are married and the twins are Jace's kids instead of Aegon's for plot reasons ok enjoy my baby dolls and lemme know if you want a part two!! 🫡

The hour was late as Aegon made his way through the tunnels of Megors holdfast intent on getting to the street of silk as fast as he could he needed something to destress after another unbearably dreadful family dinner they'd been happening more frequently since Helena had given birth to another baby boy this one with bright white hair unlike the two twin babes heads full of brown curls like there father she had given birth to two years earlier it seems his mother has finally accepted that the delusional idea of annulling the marriage was no longer possible now the two sides would favor being intertwined whether she liked or not though her new urge for family dinners to try and bring the family together prove her delusion is not fully gone. Aegon thinks to himself as he slides himself past the guards. Dressed in his usual common clothes disguised for sneaking about so as not to raise any suspicion to the roaming gold cloaks he kept his hood placed high on his head to hide his white tresses as he bobbed and weaved through the huddles of small folk through the streets of flea bottom till he reached his favorite brothel on the street of silk though he hadn't frequented it in awhile a new brothel full of women from Essos had been keeping him otherwise occupied but tonight he wished to be in the place he called closest to home as he entered hood down looking a disheveled mess the madam had immediately come up to him ready to shoo him off till he took off his hood white hair flowing freely that she stopped in her place and instead ushered over the cupbearer and grabbed a glass of wine from the girls tray and holding it out for Aegon

" my prince we haven't been graced with your presence in some time what a pleasure what can i do for you this fine night my prince" the madam spoke with almost an unnerving smile Aegon looked about the room taking it all in before speaking to the madam "I don't know about a fine night but just keep sending pretty girls to fill my cup for me and I'm sure soon it will be " he said before grabbing the wine and making his way to the pile of pillows and blankets strown around a little make shift stage with a dancer atop as he settled down and began chugging his wine beginning to feel the effects of his drink the whole room starting to feel like a warm mix of colors when he finally gazes upon the dancer he's settled Infront of taking in her beautiful face and body adorned in jewels she looked strangely familiar like a face he new but hadn’t seen in a long time the longer he watched you move the more he feel like he was falling into a dream the way you danced around swirling silk scarves in every direction pulling him in that mixed with his cup of wine the bar maids made sure to never let empty he was sure he was in a dream now, he was suddenly snapped out of his trance when he saw you dismount your makeshift stage and make your way for the stairs that led to the back rooms where the girls slept men weren’t allowed back there cause that’s where many of the other girls left the children to sleep while they worked if he didn’t get to you now you he would be out of luck for the rest of the night, he quickly got up and moved as fast as his drunk limbs would carry himself to get to you before you slipped through his grasp “ you there stop “ he said somehow out of breath from simply getting up to cross the room .

Stopping in your place as you adjust your robe you had finished your final dance of the night and were ready to rest your tired legs on your bed when you hear some drunk fool calling out behind you surly following you to ask for a night of your company though your surprised when you turn and are instead met with a drunken prince falling over himself to get to you. “ My prince i was just about to retire to my chambers but i’d be happy to find you another to serve you for the night” you say forcing a smile on your face “ you look familiar have we met before though i don’t think i would have forgot a night with someone as enticing as you” he whispers the honey laced words to you as he comes closer you try to back up to keep a respectable distance but he’s right on your tale “ y…yes my prince we did spend a night together some three years ago i was much different looking then so it’s understandable your memory fails you and well you were also quiet drunk m’prince “ you reveal hoping it will get him off your back men rarely want the same thing twice in a place like this a shame “ a shame i can’t recall though it just gives us more reason to make new ones “ he’s says leaning in to whisper in your ear his warm breath the smelled of honeyed wined fanning your face words catching in your throat at the way he pressed his nose to the side or your face to breathe in your smell “ I’m sorry to disappoint M’ prince but i’m just a dancer now my company is unfortunately not for sale and the madam would be upset with me for taking client from her actual girls but id be happy to help you find one of them “ you feel him pull away at your words a grunge pained on his face “ I didn’t ask for some other girl i asked to spend my time with you and i don’t see the madam here making sure her costumers are tended to so why don’t we just keep it between us and i give you all this gold i have here one this sack and this here “ he says handing you a fully stuffed bag of gold dragons and the golden ring that adorned his middle finger your jaw particularly drops at the sight of all the gold “ for you just for you not the madam what she knows won’t hurt her and will certainly help you “ he says with a mischievous glint to his eyes you look back down at the small fortune he’s handed you it nearly enough to get you out of this dreadful city

“we can do whatever you want “ he speaks one more time trying to convince you a hopefull drunk sloppy smile painted on his face even you can’t deny is charming “ I… alright”

You led him down the stairs by the hand to your small chambers at the very end of the long hall that held all of you and all the other girls' rooms you quickly pulled him in and turned to lock the door to avoid any prying eyes though it was unlikely anybody would be around at this hour non of the other girls usually made it back to there chambers before the sunrise when you turned from the door you found him sat at the edge of your bed taking off his heavy boots and placing them to the side before getting up and beginning his exploration of your room " did you spend all that coin just to gaze upon my perfumes and lotions " you finally speak trying to break the tension, he chuckles to himself before speaking " Mayhaps I did i mean I did say we could do whatever you wanted so you tell me what I paid for " he says looking at you with that tempting smirk of his " Whatever you'd like to m' prince" you say as you remove your robe to be only left in your dancing clothes if they could even be called that it was two simple strips of silk one covering your breasts and one covering your bottom all connected with a strip of jewels to make a sheer dress. You watch as he watches you as you remove your robe before stalking over to you trapping you between the door and himself. The moment Aegon pinned you between the door and himself, the air crackled with an electric tension. His violet eyes gleamed with mischief as they took in the sight of you, draped in the delicate silk of your attire, expertly designed to entice. “Call me Aegon,” he said softly, his voice low and enticing. “There's no need for formality here, pretty girl.” You tilted your head slightly, a playful smile gracing your lips. “Aegon,” you replied, letting his name roll off your tongue with a hint of teasing. It felt daring, refreshing, in a world filled with whispers and expectations. “What do you want?” he asked, leaning in just a fraction closer, his breath warm against your skin. You could feel the weight of his presence, drawing you in like a moth to a flame. A smirk danced across your face as you countered, “What do you want, Aegon?” It was a bold question, not typically asked of a prince, but you had learned to navigate these encounters with a blend of charm and confidence. He paused, a glimmer of surprise flashing in his eyes. “I want to know you—beyond what I see in this place. For tonight, I want to escape the constraints of my title and be just a man in your presence.” Your heart raced at his words, intrigued by this unexpected vulnerability. “Then let’s embrace that freedom together,” you suggested, eager for an evening untethered from convention. With a swift, graceful movement, you stepped closer, the silk of your dress brushing against him. “I must admit, I don’t often get to entertain a prince,” you said, your voice rich with playful mischief. Aegon chuckled, clearly delighted by your banter. “I’m not like the others, I assure you.”

As the tense atmosphere thickened between you, you could feel your pulse quickening. Every heartbeat echoed the electric pull between you—a magnetic attraction that begged to be explored. “Can I…?” he began, hesitation lacing his voice as he searched your eyes for permission.You nodded, breath catching in your throat. “Please,” you whispered, excitement pooling in your stomach. Aegon leaned in, capturing your lips with his in a soft but eager kiss. The taste of him sent shivers racing through your body, igniting a flame of desire that radiated from your core. You melted against him, feeling his warmth envelop you as he deepened the kiss.His hands found your waist, fingers sliding under the silk of your dress, caressing your skin with a slow, tantalizing touch. You gasped into his mouth, a mixture of surprise and longing coursing through you.

“Beautiful ,” he murmured against your lips, his breath hot as he pulled back just enough to search your eyes. With a surge of confidence, you leaned in, kissing him again, more fervently this time, deepening the connection that was rapidly spiraling into something primal. You could feel his heartbeat racing alongside yours, the tension thickening in the space around you. As he kissed you, his hands traveled further up your sides, gripping your waist with a firm but gentle hold. You arched into him, yearning for more, your body responding instinctively. Aegon used the momentum to press you back against the wall, the solid surface grounding you as he pressed his body closer, molding you against him. “Do you want this?” he whispered, his lips brushing against your ear, igniting a rush of desire. “Yes,” you breathed, feeling the heat flush your cheeks. “I want you.” His gaze ignited with hunger at your words, and he captured your lips again, kissing you deeply, as if he were trying to consume you whole. “Let’s move to the bed,” he suggested, voice gravelly as he pulled back, clearing the space to carry you. Without waiting for an answer, he swept you off your feet, lifting you into his arms effortlessly. You gasped, your heart racing as he carried you to your simple bed draped in soft, inviting silks to seem more lavish . He gently laid you down on the mattress, hovering above you, his violet eyes burning with fervor. The anticipation making your body ache for his touch as Aegon slipped lower, trailing kisses along your body. He kissed down your neck, over your collarbone, and down to the swell of your breasts, but he didn’t stop there. His eyes darkened with desire as he made his way down your torso, his lips leaving a trail of fire in their wake. “Let me taste you,” he murmured, glancing up at you for permission. The intense anticipation made your breath hitch, and all you could do was nod, overwhelmed by the way he looked at you, like a man starved.

He nestled between your legs, and as he kissed the soft skin of your inner thigh, your body tingled with excitement. The heat of his breath against your most sensitive areas made you squirm, the anticipation driving you wild. With teasing slowness, Aegon’s mouth found your core. The moment his tongue made contact lapping t your senstive bud, a gasp escaped your throat. His tongue moved with a masterful grace, licking and swirling, expertly coaxing pleasure from you. “Oh, Aegon,” you moaned, your fingers tangling in his short curls as he pressed closer, the sensations building rapidly within you. He drank you in, sounds of your pleasure encouraging him, urging him to explore further. “Just like that,” you gasped, hips instinctively rocking against him. The pleasure he gave you was overwhelming, a wave of ecstasy that swept through you, threatening to consume you. He moved with determination, using his tongue to tease and tantalize, exploring every sensitive spot with the precision of a skilled lover. Each flick sent jolts of pleasure sparking through your body, pushing you closer to the edge. You could feel your breathing becoming erratic, each gentle stroke igniting an inferno deep inside you. “I’m so close,” you gasped, unable to restrain the sounds bubbling from deep within. Aegon heightened his pace, his mouth working you to the brink, the pressure building so exquisitely that you could hardly believe it. The world faded away, leaving only the two of you, lost in an intimate dance of pleasure. With a final surge of intensity, you cried out, your body arching as waves of bliss crashed over you, holding you captive in a sweet surrender. The sensation consumed you, leaving you breathless and blissfully spent. He emerged from between your thighs, a smug smile gracing his lips as he wiped them with the back of his hand. “You taste even better than I imagined,” he teased, his eyes sparkling with satisfaction. Now, with your body humming from pleasure, you pulled him in for a hungry kiss, tasting yourself on his lips. The heat between you flared back to life as your bodies tangled, the urgency of your connection surging once more. With renewed desire, you whispered, “Now I need you inside me.” His eyes darkened with longing at your words. “I can make that happen,” he replied, his fingers hastily shedding his trousers, to release his aching cock. He hastily positioned himself at your entrance, rubbing his leaking cock head over your weeping slit before slowly, achingly, pushing his cock inside you, breaking through the last barriers that kept you apart. You gasped, a mixture of pleasure and fullness consuming you as he filled you so completely. With a deep, primal urgency, he began to thrust, the rhythm of your bodies a perfect match. Each movement sent shockwaves of pleasure radiating through you, driving you both toward the brink. “Just like that,” you urged, feeling the tension within you build with every thrust. “Tell me how good it feels,” he demanded, his voice low and gravelly as he continued to drive into you, at a frantic pace

“It feels … uh soo good, Aegon i’m so close ,” you moaned, feeling your body tighten around him, welcoming him deeper. “ Me to sweet girl, me too “ he panted into your neck as he continued to pound into you cunt your sweet little sounds spurring him on the heat between you both intensified, and with one final thrust, you both reached your peak, aegon not bothering to pull out as his cock spent itself inside you continuing his thrusts till he could no longer handle it falling flat on top of your sweaty form cock still sheathed inside your cunt you can hear his panting breathes beginning to even out and him began to drift away to slumber your about to protest and tell him he’s crushing you and he can’t sleep here when he scoops you up flipping you both over so your rested on top of him instead head placed right over his heart the soft beating lulling you away to. Just one moment like this wouldn’t be so bad you think to yourself just a minute and you’ll wake him up and tell him he has to go but for now you will enjoy the warmth of his body and the soothing rhythm of his heart beat lulling you to bed.

The soft hues of morning light filtered through the curtains, casting a warm glow across the lavish room. You slowly stirred awake, wrapped in the comfort of the sheets, a sense of bliss enveloping you as memories of the previous night flooded your mind. Aegon lay beside you, his face relaxed in peaceful slumber, the warmth of his body a comforting presence.

You couldn’t help but smile, feeling a mix of affection and excitement. Last night had been a whirlwind of passion and connection—something you hadn’t anticipated when you first saw him. Stretching slightly, you turned to him, admiring the way the morning light danced on his features. But as the reality sank in, urgency washed over you; you had to get Aegon out of here before anyone else in the brothel woke up. “Aegon!” you whispered urgently, gently shaking his shoulder. Before he could fully process your words, the door flung open with a loud bang, and an adorable little girl burst into the room. She had bright, tousled white hair and wide, lilac eyes that darted around, filled with a mix of anxiety and determination. “Mama!” she called, her voice filled with sweet yet panicked urgency. The sight of her jolted both you and Aegon wide awake. He shot upright, confusion etched on his face as he took in the scene before him. “Who is that?” Aegon asked, his voice laced with shock, turning from you to the little girl. You felt your heart race. “Anya, honey, what are you doing here?” you asked, trying to maintain a calm demeanor. “I woke up and couldn’t find you!” she said, her tone shifting as she caught sight of Aegon. “Who’s he, Mama?” Aegon’s brow furrowed as he took in Anya's features, realizing that she had the same bright white hair and lilac eyes as him . “Anya?” he murmured, a sense of recognition dawning on him as he thought out every possibility of who the girls father could be but Daemon hadn’t been to kings landing in Five years since jace’s wedding and this girl couldn’t be older then three, aemond was to preoccupied with his old bat to be fathering bastards and there was no way his father was visiting the street of silk in his declining health there was only one answer . “Is… is she mine?” You felt the weight of the unsaid truth crush you. “….Yes,” you confirmed, your voice barely above a whisper. “But this isn't the right time to discuss it. Aegon, you need to leave!” His expression shifted from shock to something deeper—fear mixed with a desperate need for understanding. “Leave? I can’t just leave without knowing the truth! Three years ago… that night—” he stumbled over his words, his hands clenching into fists, eyes wide with anxiety. “Is she really…? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Mama, why is he scared?” Anya asked innocently, her small hand gripping the edge of your dress, sensing the rising tension.

“Aegon,” you urged, feeling panic swell within you. “Please, I promise I’ll explain everything, but not here. She shouldn’t hear this right now.”

But Aegon wasn’t backing down. “I can’t just disappear, not when I might actually have a daughter. What if I never get to know her?”

Your mind raced, torn between the instinct to protect Anya and Aegon's desperate plea for answers. Anya looked up at Aegon, her bright eyes shining with curiosity. “You look like me!” she said, a huge grin spreading across her face. “You have my hair and eyes!”

Aegon knelt down, his expression softening as he glanced at her. “You’re right,” he said, the fear in his voice giving way to wonder. “You’re beautiful, just like your mama.”

A wave of emotions washed over you as you watched them together. The reality of this moment settled heavily in your chest. “Aegon, if you’re going to be in her life you have to do what best for her and right now isn’t the time to put this all on her give me a day or two to talk to her then you guys can meet properly” you say trying to give him something “ Alright he says two days I'll be back “ he says not looking away from your daughters face before trapping her in a hug you can see the tears in his eye as he grabs his cloak and shoes layed about the room so he can go not forgetting to leave you the sack of coin and all the rings on his hands before he leaves before you can protest he speaks “ For anything you and her need I'll be back i promise “ he goes to close the door and leave you before turning back around to speak once more “ Goodbye Anya it was a pleasure to meet “ you can here him holding back tears as he speaks only going when Anya waved him off with a toothy grin and a bye bye “ He was nice mama” Anya says when he’s finally gone you smile at her words coming down to her level to meet her bright lilac orbs “ Yes.. yes he was sweet girl now should we get something to break our fast “ you say reaching out for her little hand.

#hotd #house of the dragon #ageon targaryen #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon targaryen smut #hotd x reader #aegon the second #aegon ii #game of thrones #aegon targaryen ii x reader #aegon targaryen ii smut

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assortedseaglass · 10 months

Text

Talk Refined - Chapter One

Michael Gavey x Reader

[Masterlist]

Summary: When Michael Gavey unwittingly insults a fellow Oxford student, they enter into a game of intellectual cat and mouse.

Content Warnings (this chapter in bold): Language, Smut, Saltburn Spoilers

Pool was never your forte. Truth be told, you were more of a darts girl. There was something though, in the soft click of the balls knocking together and the damp thunk of them landing in the pocket that scratched an itch on your over-worked mind.

Hilary term was coming to an end, and with it brought the dread that your extended essay title had been submitted. ‘“For the sake of some colour;” women as decoration, in response to Turner’s High Street, Oxford (1810)””. No going back now.

You’d escaped the January madness that had descended on your best friend, Esme. Like most other courses, she had exams at the start of the new year and spent her days in the library and nights in the pub. Much like now, come to think of it.

“You’re up,” you called to your friend as you missed potting a red. “Esme!”

“Sorry! Sorry,” she shimmied between the pool table and a few pub patrons, taking her cue in hand and leaning over the felt green. Click, thunk. A yellow sank into the corner pocket.

“Who were you talking to?” You indicated a man in his early twenties, eyeing up Esme’s backside as she leant over the table to reach another yellow.

“Bartender,” she missed the ball and passed the cue back over the table. You took it and swiftly potted a red. “Nice one. Just borrowing this,” she lit her cigarette with a metal lighter. When she was done, she tossed it back to the bartender and he winked.

The two of you’d met at a humanities and arts, inter-college social less than two weeks into your first term. Dress as your subject and be ready for a night of frivolity even Elagabalus couldn’t imagine. You’d found some of silk scarves in a charity shop, bought cheap pearls from Primark and gone as the Girl with a Pearl Earring. Outside the Blenheim was where you first spotted her. Dressed in a bedsheet draped as a peplos, she had climbed a lamppost and was swigging wine straight from the bottle. That is a girl I want to be friends with, you’d thought, and promptly beelined for her and begged for the bottle.

“You doing philosophy?” You asked after chugging the cheap merlot.

“Classics. And you, I’m guessing history-”

“History of art, yeah.”

The next morning, you’d woken in her dorm room at Brasenose, the autumn sunlight blinding and your breath smelling as if something had crawled inside you and died there. Esme didn’t mind. Her mouth was stained red from the wine and a hickey the size of Brazil adorned her neck. You’d been inseparable ever since.

“Bollocks,” you missed potting a red and, as Esme swept to grab to pool cue, the pub erupted in song.

“RUBY RUBY RUBY RUBY!”

“Ahah ahah ahaaaaaaaah!” Esme sang the refrain in your ear as she twirled you round, the cue discarded on the table.

“DO YA DO YA DO YA DO YA!?”

“Fuck’s sake,” It was hard not to smile despite your best efforts. You felt like a twat but no-one was looking at you. All were too busy singing to notice the two tipsy girls dancing by the pool table. In any case, the only person whose opinion mattered to you was the one spinning you in her arms. One wayward spin and bumped you into the pool table. Giggling, you opened your arms to be embraced once more-

“Oh shit,” Esme whispered hastily, suddenly standing straight and flattening her hair. “Got any lip gloss?”

“Erm,” you patted your pockets. “No sorry.”

“Damn,”

“Who’ve you seen?” you smirked, standing by your best friend’s shoulder and following her line of sight. Well, it could have been any number of students in the packed pub. There were some rugby lads, double polos with both collars popped. Pretty boy Felix Catton and his posse of poshos. It could have even been that girl Eleanor, now greeting a friend at the bar. Esme and Eleanor hooked up at the Brasenose Christmas party. Esme said it was “unexpected” and “not her usual flavour”, but you’d met her once after tutorial, and the way she looked at her tutor’s bottom as it wiggled down the corridor in her Peacock’s pencil skirt was not one of envy. “Well?” You asked impatiently. “Who is it?”

“There, blue check shirt, dark hair.” Esme pointed at the bar where such a man was standing. Two pints of lager in hand, he turned and seemed to look around the pub. “Cute, isn’t he? He’s at Brasenose too, doing English I think.”

“Oh right.” As a Wadham girl, you had never seen this boy before. You supposed he was quite good-looking, in a boy-next-door sort of way. You thought perhaps he would be bonny, were it not for the solemn expression on his face. He meandered through the crowd to a small table at which sat another boy.

The two were starkly different. Where Esme’s boy was dark haired, the other was fair. Esme’s boy was stocky, but even sat down the other was gangly, and while Esme’s boy clearly wasn’t an avid reader of Esquire, the blond boy looked like he’d rolled around Oxfam’s bargain bin in total darkness and worn whatever stuck; a pair of baggy cargo shorts pulled up far too high and cinched tightly with a black belt, a pair of Merrell trainers and a novelty tshirt. THIS IS HOW I ROLL. Below the wording was an anagram and equation.

If it weren’t for the middle-aged glasses and frankly atrocious haircut, he’d be quite good looking too. Two Oxford virgins; Trinny and Susannah’s wet dream.

“What’s his name then?”

“Oliver, I think.” Esme was licking her lips and fussing with her bangles.

“You look great,” you swatted at her hand. “And the other one?”

“No idea. They’re always hanging around together. Oliver,” she said his name with some uncertainty. “Oliver never says anything, the other one’s always talking a mile a minute but I haven’t really seen him about. Doesn’t go to any parties.”

“Him and the girl with-”

“Agoraphobia.” You said in unison. The characters of Esme’s college were more vivid to you now than those in a Dickens novel.

“I bet he does maths,”

“I told you, he does English.”

“No,” you tut. “The other one.”

“I reckon it’s physics.”

“Put a pint on it?”

“You’re on,” Esme smacked your hip. “Come on, there’s a table by the bar.”

Following the plume of her cigarette smoke, Esme led you to the sticky wooden table and ordered you a pint of Thatchers. She, a pint of Stella. At the table beside you both, Maybe Oliver and The Other One were talking quickly. Well, the maths-slash-physics boy was. Maybe Oliver was staring distractedly towards the other end of the pub. You looked over your shoulder. Felix Catton was settling down with another round of beers, his stupid eyebrow piercing gleaming in the low pub lights.

“Swap with me,” Esme whispered.

“What?”

“Swap with me so I can look at Oliver.”

You sighed and stood up, shuffling round the table to sit parallel to Oliver. Esme smiled at him as she sat down and he smiled back. When she giggled, you kicked her under the table. Now across from maths-slash-physics, you could see him clearly.

This close, you stood by your assessment that he could have been handsome. His light eyes were framed by not just those hideous glasses but thick, dark lashes. He had a jawline and cheekbones that would make Agyness Deyn jealous. His lips, though strangely curved were plump, and he had a distracting habit of frequently wetting them. But there was something so distinctly and undefinably creepy about him. He talked like a snake, quickly with hissed “s”s and “t”s. You noticed with unease that he barely blinked as he watched for any minutia in his friend’s reaction, and he moved with an almost jerky stiffness. All elbows and angles. This strange combination of beautiful and revolting made him impossible to ignore. Like catching yourself in the mirror after dying your hair. A strange feeling of the uncanny.

He caught your eye, sensing you staring at him, and you quickly glanced at Esme. Shit. She’d been talking to you about something.

“-of course, it’s easy to compare the Iliad and the Aeneid, but really they’re very different.”

Aha. She was trying to impress, hoping Maybe Oliver would hear. “Oh yes?” You leant forward on your arm and wiggled your eyebrows at her. “Tell me more.”

Esme was clearly delighted that you’d cottoned on to her plan. Brushing her hair from her shoulders and leaning forward too, she continued. “Well, you have to start with the language. One is Greek and one is Latin. Now, we go through this in linguistics. Everyone has to get up to speed with their Greek and Latin so we’re all on the same level-”

You giggled and she kicked you under the table. Esme knew you already knew this and didn’t care. You knew that Esme was just showboating. When you kicked her back she got the giggles and glanced at Maybe Oliver. His eyes were still trained on the back of the pub, and she sighed, taking a gulp of beer. In perfect symmetry, you drank your cider and in the lull you admired the lengths your friend went to flirt with a seemingly average boy.

“-Jameson spends the whole time staring at her tits, completely ignoring the fact she can barely do her times tables.”

Esme choked a little on her drink and your eyebrows shot upwards with barely contained glee. This was far more interesting. You and Esme watched each other, communing telepathically about the intriguing conversation between the boys next to you.

“-times tables, Oliver!”

“Told you it was maths!” You whispered at Esme. Without a word, she got up with a smile to buy you another pint.

“-just fuck off and do history of art, love, save us all the trouble!”

You stilled in your seat, cider halfway to your lips. Did he just-? You ran the sentence over in your mind. “Fuck off and do history of art, love, save us all the trouble.” It wasn’t the first time you’d encountered snobbery about your selected study. Friends from school deemed it “hoity-toity,” and even your parents had worried about your career prospects.

“But what can you actually do with a history of art degree?”

You’d thought Oxford would be different. Surrounded by other young minds, eager for knowledge and an appreciation of the world around them, freshly opened up like your first bottle of champagne; long-awaited, exciting and with a little bit of bite. Just for the adults.

“Excuse me?” Your heart was pounding in your chest as you leant over a little and smiled at the pair of boys. You were proud of your subject but that eagerness to prove its, and your, worth was impossible to ignore. Oliver and Maths Boy looked at you. “Do you,” you cleared your throat. “What’s wrong with history of art?”

The gangly boy scoffed and turned rigidly in his chair to face you. Like most other nerds, you’d expected him to shy away from anyone outside of his carefully selected circle. This boy, however, seemed to take up an enormous space in your mind. He was confident. Already taken aback by his vicious comment, that threw you even more.

“What’s wrong with it? It’s an easy option that’s become an elitist haven for the middle class.” He pushed his glasses up his long nose with a bony finger. “You ever met any of those ‘students’?” He put air quotes around that last word and you flinched, neck bristling with anger. You doubt he’d have noticed if you put your top over your head and did the Cupid Shuffle; he continued as if nothing happened.

“Load of public-school wankers spouting their useless opinions on aristocrats lounging about in gilded frames, just so they can justify getting a job in daddy’s gallery. It’s an irrelevant, niche subject for people who think their view of the world is superior to us mere plebs’.”

“Michael,” Oliver murmured. He turned to you, not quite looking you in the eye. “Sorry-”

“Here’s your pint,” Esme placed another Thatchers before you. Both you and “Michael” ignored your friends.

“You think it’s irrelevant?” You took a swig of cider without taking your eyes off him. Angry little prick, this fella. You knew the like; maths, physics, economics, law. The students were all the same. Thinking they were better than everyone else because they could swan off into the sunset with £40k job straight out of uni and reap the benefits that the arts provided them without any need to know better. The designer clothes and fast cars, the beautiful buildings they worked in, the nails on the woman ripping open the condom wrapper…

“What’s irrelevant?” Esme said brightly. She held out her hand for Oliver. “Esme, hi.”

“Oliver-”

“History of art, apparently.” You said haughtily.

“Ouch. Who said that?” Esme sat down beside you, still smiling at Oliver.

“Michael.”

“Who’s Michael?”

“Michael Gavey.” The man in question announced himself by extending a long arm in Esme’s direction. She shook his with slight shock and raised her eyebrows at Oliver. He lowered his head in shame.

“Our girl here’s a history of art student.” Esme patted your hand. If you, Esme and Oliver expected this to soften Michael, it didn’t work.

“Ah,” he smiled, mirth lighting his eyes. “That’s why you’re so tetchy. Which school was it then? Cheltenham? Roedean?”

“She went to state comp actually,” Ever your champion, Esme came to your defence.

“Scholarship student?” Michael sneered.

“No,” you rebuffed quickly.

“What’s wrong with that? Me and Oliver here are.”

“Nothing You were the one trying to get me to say it was.”

Michael smiled with satisfaction and an awkward silence fell between the four of you. The clink of glasses and drunken chatter continued around you. This wasn’t the first charged student encounter that had happened in this pub, nor would it be the last.

“I suppose you think maths is superior?” You folded your arms and raised an eyebrow. A challenge. Prove it then.

“Of course it is,”

It was your turn to scoff. “Why can’t there be room for both?”

“There is room for both. Mathematics is just more important.”

“Jesus,” Oliver rubbed his hands over his face.

“Mathematics is the foundation for everything. The modern world as we know it wouldn’t exist without it. Technology, healthcare, finance, governance, everything. It prevents chaos. Without mathematics, society would collapse.” He fidgeted in his chair to turn more vividly towards you, his hands excitedly grasping for something in front of him that didn’t exist. Maths, probably. “We create predictions and complex design systems so that life as we know it can exist, and continue to exist.”

He looked at you as though you should have been impressed. You supposed his excitement was quite sweet. In truth, you knew maths was important. History of art student though you were, you weren’t an idiot. You were at one of the world’s top universities for God’s sake.

“But what’s the point of existing if there’s nothing to enjoy? To live for?”

“Pardon?” What had he expected? For you to roll over and kiss his feet? Take him round the back of the pub for a quick knee tremble? “Oh yes, Michael, tell me more about Fermat’s conjecture! More! More!”

“Art is what makes life worth living for. Its history helps us understand politics, religions, societies and peoples of the past.”

“All that from staring at a Bruegels?” Michael looked at Oliver with a laugh, hoping for back up. Oliver was tearing up a beer mat.

“Yes!”

“Well, it’s never done anything for me.”

His arrogance and ignorance was astounding. This final comment was the drop that sent you overflowing with exasperation. “Yes it has,” you snapped. Michael glared at you. “Aside from what I literally just said, art has done everything for you. Take today for example.”

At this, Michael sat forward. He couldn’t resist a reasoned argument with concrete evidence.

“You woke up this morning at Brasenose, is it?” He nodded. “At Brasenose, in a dorm with Carol Vorderman posters on the walls, posters designed by graphic designers who studied art. Those posters line the walls of a building almost five hundred years old. From barely known architects to Powell and Moya, each added to its history with their extensive understanding of art and beauty. For some reason you then got up and decided to put on that God awful tshirt which, although many would believe otherwise, was designed to be aesthetically pleasing or visually arresting. The latter it certainly is. There you go. Art.” You were on a role.

“I’m assuming you had lectures or tutorial today? The book you read? The covers were made by, you guessed it, artists. You came here with Oliver and decided to get a craft beer because you’re a pretentious prick, and got the darker of the two because, and I agree with you here, the label is prettier. You’re gonna go home in an hour or two when you’ve had one too many pints and ogled that pretty girl at the bar,” you pointed at Eleanor. “Whose thong caught your eye above her low rises. Fashion? That’s art by the way and extremely influential on society ‘as we know it’.” You quoted him back and loved the way his lips quirked into a tight line.

“And thinking of her and her pretty thong, you’ll whack out ZOO mag and whack out a swift one over some big-titted page three girl in a pair of lace knickers that were designed by someone with a fashion degree. Art.”

Esme and Oliver stared at you. A manic, self-satisfied smile was plastered on your face, and when you downed your pint to cool down from the warmth that outpouring had exerted, Oliver actually smiled. Michael said nothing. Did nothing. He was entirely, utterly unreadable. You wanted to smack him.

He glanced from you to Esme, to Oliver and at last to his pint. Like you had done, he picked it up, finish it in three gulps and placed it back on the table. “Oh, sweet baby Jesus.” What the fuck was he talking about? He spoke to his friend as if you and Esme had ceased to exist. “Going for a slash. Get me another pint please, Oliver? Thanks.” He stood from his chair, unfurling like a stick insect, and made purposefully for the gents’.

Your mouth fell open. Esme chuckled nervously. “He’s a charmer,” she said to Oliver.

“Yeah, ‘scuse,” he muttered, shuffling awkwardly to the bar.

You both sat in your chairs, baffled silence befalling of you. “Well, no double dates for us then.” Esme said.

You laughed. “No date for you fullstop.”

“Yeah,” Esme glanced at the bar where Oliver was now waving at someone. You watched as he made his way over to Felix Catton and his friends. “Bit dull, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Oliver sat down as the rest of the posho’s table cheered. “Though if he’s friends with Felix Catton…?”

“Didn’t realise you were so shallow?” Esme teased.

“I’m not! But the parties, Esme, the parties!”

“I know, I know, I’ll remember that Christmas one forever. Oh God, here he comes,” Esme shrank in her seat. Michael was weaving through the crowd back towards the table.

“Why isn’t he going to sit with Felix and Oliver?” You whispered. “He better not be coming back here.”

You and Esme watched as his approached slowed, faltering when he noticed Oliver and his pint were missing. He glanced around, looking at his feet as if to find Oliver on the floor. It was painful. Watching the realisation dawn on his face. You and Esme knew it before he did.

A hand raised in the air; he had spotted Oliver at Felix’s table. You watched, with pity and embarrassment, as Michael waved and Oliver turned away.

“Shit,” Esme said.

Hand moving to push up his glasses, Michael, with head hung low, left.

“Shit,” Esme said again. “Bet you feel like a bitch for shouting at him now.”

And despite his pomp and arrogance, his cynicism and creepiness, you really did feel awful.

Notes: The amount of research I did for this was wholly unnecessary. Added some links because 2006/2007 was quite a place. The script hit me like a fucking train. It says, “Back with Michael: CRUSHED.”

Many thanks to @thecruel for their help with the transcript of the Saltburn pub scene, and to @ewanmitchellcrumbs for the Michael Gavey inspo, your headcanons are always spot on.

Tags: @lexwolfhale* @theoneeyedprince @lovebittenbyevans @fan-goddess @ellrond @very-straight-blog @arcielee @tsujifreya @liv-cole @myfandomprompts @annoyingkittydetective* @elizarbell @solisarium @thekinslayersswordhand @nightdiamond8663* @slowlysparklyninja* @kate-to-the-ki @bellaisasleep @xxxkat3xxx @lacebvnny @moonriseoverkyoto @ewanmitchellcrumbs @moonlightfoxx @pendragora @aemonds-holy-milk @st-eve-barnes @sapphire-writes @babyblue711 @targaryenrealnessdarling @slytherincursebreaker @bottlesandbarricades @valeskafics @anjelicawrites @exitpursuedbyavulcan @barbieaemond @chattylurker @itbmojojoejo @humanpurposes @cyeco13 @heimtathurs @in-a-mountain-pool

*could not tag

#ewan mitchell #michael gavey #michael gavey x reader #saltburn #saltburn 2023 #ewan mitchell x reader #emerald fennell

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nitewrighter · 1 year

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I finished season 1 of Yellowjackets last night and watched the little Blu-Ray extra where all the cast are talking about their favorite scenes they filmed, and Jasmin Savoy-Brown said her favorite scene was Taissa's hair-cutting scene because Taissa took a lot of pride in her femininity and blackness through her hair, and this was represented in the fact that her character was continuing to tie her hair up in silk scarves at night for months after the crash. But then I realized that the cloths covering up Van's face were surprisingly long and brightly colored compared to a lot of the scraps of cloth being used by the girls around the camp.

After cutting off all her own hair, Taissa used her scarves to cover up Van's scars while they were healing.

#Taissa x Van #yellowjackets #taivan

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qofdisaster1111 · 6 months

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,,Being the only female in what was basically a boys’ club must have been difficult for her. Miraculously, she didn’t compensate by becoming hard or quarrelsome. She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelled like hyacinth and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvelous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem.”~ TSH

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wintersllove · 7 months

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𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐲

“Being the only female in what was basically a boys’ club must have been difficult for her. Miraculously, she didn’t compensate by becoming hard or quarrelsome. She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelled like hyacinth and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvelous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem.“ - Donna Tartt, The Secret History

#camilla macaulay #the secret history #donna tartt #dark academia #richard papen #henry winter #francis abernathy #charles macaulay #bunny corcoran #dark coquette #dollette #dark academia moodboard #light academia #aesthetic #moodboard

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daichiduskdrop · 1 year

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˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚⋆·˚ ༘ *𝙎𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙖𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙡 ⋆·˚ ༘ *ੈ✩‧₊˚

Chapter 21

Pairing: BTS Ot7 X fem! reader

Genre: A/B/O AU, Fluff, Angst, Strangers to lovers,

Warnings: none!

Words: 3390

Taglist: @thelilbutifulthings @ilovemoneymorethenmen @singukieee @cherrysainttt @felicityroth @mageprincess7 @lucis-noctiana @danielle143 @osakis-gf @girl-nahh @vintageoldfashion @neverthefirstchoice @juju-227592 @silentreadersthings @i-have-no-life-charlie @everyonehatesshani @iamkookiesforyou @dragons-flare @fangirl125reader @roseidol @frieschan @popcatx0 @liz67900 @exfolitae

⋆·˚ ༘ *ੈ✩‧₊˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ✩‧₊˚⋆·˚ ༘ *

„And what about Barbie? The movie came out not too long ago; have you seen it yet?” Yuki asked, his voice airy and happy.

The short boy held tight on to Moonsik's hand, pulling the older beta after himself. He could already smell the comfort the Omega Store brought him.

„No, not yet, have you?” You asked, looking up at him. He shook his head. „No, I haven't. We were supposed to go with the pack, but we had been quite busy, so it didn't work out yet."

You could hear just the slightest disappointment in his voice, but it didn't take too long for him to brighten up.

„We will go soon; don't worry, baby.” Moonsik spoke calmly, ruffling up the already messy hair Yuki had.

And so, you all entered the store, where many high-quality beddings of all different sizes and patterns were neatly stocked on the tall shelves.

The omega led the way right away, pulling his mate along and mumbling something about the new silk line of sheets. While their pack certainly wasn't poor; the beta realised well that they still had to keep up with a budget set earlier, but there was no harm in looking around.

He would make sure to keep their own omega in check, though, making sure he wouldn't go overboard with things. Of course he would let him get new things for his nest; who was he to say no?

„Princess, where would you like to go first?” You looked back at the alpha, his smile soft. He couldn't help but coo to himself at you; you looked precious.

You really were, though, for them anyway.

Taking a few short steps towards you, Jimin's soft hands went around your cheeks, gently giggling at how squishy and soft they were. You were adorable.

„How about we look at the blankets first?” Pulling you from his younger packmate, Hobi took your hand in his, your other palm still in the packalpha's.

Leading you towards the large quilt, duvet, and blanket section, there were much too many to choose from. Ranging from all different sizes and prints, there were cheaper ones and also more pricey ones from the more luxurious line, which the alphas were quite interested in.

Looking over at the tall, folded fabrics first, you couldn't help but brush your fingers over a brown and white wool throw. It had a few threads cut neatly at the end, reminding you of pretty scarves.

„Come here, look at this one bunbun! It's so soft; here, baby, touch it!” The youngest alpha gasped out, picking up the carefully folded item before he skipped over to the three of you.

Setting your hands free, you gingerly ran your palm over the clean white duvet; the fabric was truly soft and nice to touch. Squeezing it softly, you could tell it was filled with feathers, therefore it would be expensive.

You hummed gently, nodding to Jungkook. It certainly was soft; that was true. Beaming at you, the alpha happily placed it back before he selected a much bigger size in a plastic, scent-free packaging.

Your eyes widened a little bit, not realising that Jungkook would just like that decide to take something to buy, solemnly based on your small smile and nod.

„What-? N-no, you ca-can't just-” You whispered out, shocked to your core. You noticed the price tag; it was over a million ₩ for god's sake! That was way too much on a simple duvet, plus you already had one too!

The man turned to you after placing the package into a cart pushed by Yoongi. „What do you mean, honeybun? Don't you want to have your own little nest?” He walked back over to you, bending to look closer at your face.

His eyes seemed so big and sweet, pulling at your heart strings. You suddenly felt shy, looking away.

„...I don't ne-nest, oppa." You whined out, having the packmate's closest by turning to look at you, hearing your soft distress. Pulling you to himself quickly, Jungkook lightly rubbed your back, scenting you a bit.

„I know sweet bunny, I know. But I think you should maybe try a little; you're such a good girl for alphas aren't you? When was the last time you did?” He asked, being mindful not to be too loud.

There weren't that many people in the store, but still, they wanted to avoid any commotion if possible. You looked away again, Hobi's fingers gently running through your hair to calm you down further.

„I don't know...” You whispered out, truly not sure. It was quite a long time, for sure. You had definitely brought some nesting materials for your grandfather's funeral, but since they carried a lot of your family's scents, you must have stopped using them soon after.

You heard Hoseok sigh out a bit. They weren't angry or disappointed at you; they would never, but still, it wasn't too healthy, worrying them to their very core.

While nesting was a quite usual act for omega's to do, it also always placed them in a very vulnerable position. A nest was only to be touched and entered after the omega's approval, and until then it was a forbidden fruit.

Not everyone understood that well, and a lot of them could end up scarred and too worried to build a nest for the rest of their lives.

It was a very important thing to do so, not just a silly tradition to use for heats and ruts. It ran in the people's blood, provided a safe spot for the pack's future pups if possible, and was therefore the most guarded spot of all pack houses.

Not only did it hold their littlest babies, it would much more likely hold their precious omega, which needed to be protected and guarded at all times.

And if not built from time to time on natural instincts, it could only mean that the person would end up more stressed and worried over time, leading to possible health issues.

Now that the pack has started the courting process with you, they have realised that it would be a rather good idea to get a separate room with the solemn purpose of a nest, hopefully made by you.

And so, as they were preparing to start the den, the other guest room they had would soon be transformed into one. They would still need to buy quite a few things, and so this stop at the store was a helpful start.

They might not get everything right away, but it would be a good thing to look around for now. And to especially take note of the things you like and what isn't up your alley.

„It's okay, peaches. You can always try again, hm? Alphas will always keep you safe, baby; don't worry.” Jin smiled softly at you, also pulling you to his chest for a beat or two.

„...Thank you, oppa." You mumbled out, your cheek squished up against his body. He chuckled softly at you, gently petting your hair before he pulled away.

„How about we take a look at the bed posts?” You nodded gratefully, gladly letting the alpha pull you after himself, a few of them trailing after you.

The large open section was filled with beds of all different sizes and shapes. Showcasing the mattress options and the many duvets, pillows, and covers, it held many different types.

And so you all looked around for a few minutes, walking through the wooden posts and the metal ones too. You always wanted to have a very cosy room to nest in, but considering how cramped your apartment was, it never looked that way; the room was only messy.

You weren't too sure about what the packmates would be interested in having their den look like; there were many styles, and each pack had a much different one.

While some enjoyed the bright and light room and the colourful sheets with many patterns, others preferred having a more casual look with posters or mirrors hung up.

You didn't really get to see any proper dens in your life, but you always enjoyed the more sleepy-looking ones—dark, comfortable sheets that just made you sleepy looking at them.

„We haven't measured the room yet, but which one do you like the best?" The packalpha asked, bended over to be face-to-face with you. His warm palms were at the arms of your pink coat, gently running over the fabric comfortingly.

It was quite a big store with many scents, and while the facemasks helped with being overwhelmed, the alphas were still on a constant watch over you entering a sudden drop.

You looked back over the many options. You weren't too sure exactly what you liked the most. There were simpler solid wood ones with a bed base only, and then a few of the much more complicated-looking ones, with the four posters, those were definitely meant to feed into the more natural instincts of many omegas.

You also really liked the look of the platform bed frames; the mattress is simply placed over the step of wood. It looked sleek and timeless.

You shrugged your shoulders, having the alpha softly pull you to himself once again. He could tell you were overwhelmed by the many options, sighing gently.

„It's okay, sweetheart. Do you prefer the wooden or metal ones, pup? We can go from there. Alpha will help you baby.” He smiled softly at you, encouraging you to make a much simpler decision.

„...I think I like the w-wood better." You said, your chin resting over the alpha's collarbone. He smiled widely, his dimples showing. You couldn't see them, though, with the mask covering it all up.

„Good job, sweetie. And what shape do you like the best?” He continued encouraging you. There were quite a few styles of beds you could choose from, with the circular ones being more traditional.

You never truly liked those; you always felt like something was a bit too cramped, and it looked awkward in the room too, if not placed with the utmost detail.

„M-maybe the normal rectangular? I'm not sure." You said. You did not want to offend anyone. He might love the other styles, for all you know.

„It's okay, pup. Thank you for telling me, baby, Alpha is very proud of his good girl.” Namjoon said calmly, knuckles running over the skin of your cheek.

Soon after the packalpha led you around the rest of the store, a few pillows, duvets, bedsheets, and other small things like new towels and sleeping mists filled up the large cart.

You held onto Namjoon's hand tightly the whole time you visited the store, only occasionally letting go to touch a few of the comforting fabrics.

„Kitty, come look here. What do you think?” Yoongi called out gently at the very end of the long row while you and a few of the alphas lingered at the front, looking over the blankets on display.

You walked over quickly, curious to see what had the alpha call out for your attention. While Yoongi held the cart most of the shopping spree, he didn't make much move to have you touch everything he found nice, letting you look around yourself first.

Instead, he just plucked the things he thought you might like right in the cart, hoping you would like them just as much as he did. He might have been one of the most quiet ones the entire time there, but for sure was one of the alphas that chose the most things for you.

With you coming closer, his arm outstretched lightly, your hand taken in his own right away. He smiled a little to himself, hiding it cleverly behind his own facemask.

Infront of him was a tidy row of a few plushies. They weren't the regular stuffed animal type, cleverly designed especially for more clingy and touch starved omegas that might have some hard times from time to time.

Placed in a plastic sealed box with a one always unboxed for the customers to touch and take a closer look at, there were many colours and types of animals, like soft pink rabbits, bears with fun outfits on, elephants and puppies, foxes or even dragons of all sizes and colours.

You had only a few toys growing up, and soft animals you could sleep with were always your favourite. You didn't have any now, unfortunately, but these weren't just a simple toy to cuddle with, no, these held a much better purpose.

As it was quite unusual for omegas to work, it was normal for them to stay back at the packhouse most of the time. Typically, another packmate would stay to keep them company, mostly to calm the rest of the pack not present down from the constant worry.

But sometimes, it wasn't possible to stay with them and everyone was required for their own arrands.

While the pack would most likely try and come back home as soon as possible, not comfortable with leaving the omegas fully by themselves, it would be quite usually nerve wracking and usually scary for the weakest second genders.

A well scented pillow or a blanket could help, but not all materials held in the smell for long enough, not working greatly.

And so a few companies started making smaller pillows and stuffed animals, that carried a special patch of fabric that would be practically drenched in the packmembers scent and wouldn't let go of it for a long time.

The items would be sold quite frequently, more and more packs using them to help from creating any stressful situations for their little ones, making more stores sell such, a giant trend settling.

You never had a thing like this, there was really no use for it with you, but you heard about them a few years ago. You liked the idea of having one though.

„Hm baby? What about the cat, it's pretty cute...” the alpha mumbled, the black fluffy cat with pretty eyes, one yellow and one green and light pink ears looked adorable for sure. It had a white tip on its tail, and was pretty big too.

„Hyung, that's not a cat that's like... A panther or something, that's too scary. Look honey, they have such a cute rabbit, don't you want one? You are my baby bunny, and it also kinda looks like Kooky too, how about that one?”

The youngest alpha hopped over, taking the pink bunny in his arms, showing you. It looked quite fluffy, and had long floppy ears that were just as long as it torso. With the special fabric to be placed into its paw, it would surely be more than nice.

„I think the puppy is much cuter princess, don't listen to silly Kookie. Do you want this one my most precious?" Jimin asked, holding the larger dog in his hands.

It was grey and white, each limb and part of its body a different colour, with a big oval nose and large black eyes. The large ears only added to the cuteness; they were quite bigger than its own legs.

You smiled softly, patting the animal. It was very sweet, warming you up on the inside.

„But babycheeks, look at the tiger; it's so soft! And it's a snow tiger too; that means it's extra speci-”" Taehyung said, letting you run your fingers over the white stripey animal. It was very comfortable to touch, for sure.

„You guys, stop. Let her choose whatever she likes the most; which one is the best pup?” Namjoon asked, pulling you gently closer to himself.

To be truthful, he was eyeing the wolf plush on the higher shelf himself.

You looked over the many options, reaching for the one that caught your eye from the very beginning. You couldn't bring yourself to decide which one you liked better exactly; you were not sure of your decision.

Reaching for the lamb, you pulled out the plastic box, holding it close to yourself. Still looking over at the different-coloured one, Seokjin was quick to notice, taking it out for you too.

„You want both cubs? That's okay, they are adorable.” He was quick to calm you down, taking the box from your arms and placing it carefully at the very top of the cart.

And so, with those in, the alphas made sure to quickly praise your choice before you were all on your way to check out—the black lamb and the white lamb paid for first.

Taking them for you, you and Hobi stood near the check-out, looking over the two comfort companions the pack had decided to get for you.

”...the scent spot is then placed in the sown pocket; it's closed off with velcro so it won't fall out. There will instruction manual in the box too; don't worry.” The man said as he scanned the many items the alphas have chosen for you today.

„Okay, thank you very much.” The eldest alpha replied, thankful that the clerk could answer the few questions he had regarding the scent animal.

„No problem; you can always stop by and we will help with any issues.” The man answered, not really paying attention to what Jin was saying.

Thanking him softly, he paid, the few other alphas carrying the bigger bags. With Moonsik and Yuki already waiting for your group by the entrance, the beta carried a much smaller bag himself.

„It was so sweet to meet you!” Yuki said happily, glad to make a new friend—an omega at that.

You nodded yourself, smiling widely. You haven't made such a nice friend in a long time, and you were beaming with excitement.

„We have to go back home now, but we will go out together again, right?” You nodded happily, typing in the omega's number, and a few of the packmembers saved Moonsik's and Yuki's numbers too.

„Yes, I would love to!” You happily answered, linking your pinkie with his for a sealed promise. You wanted to hang out with the omega much more often; you two had already made a few plans for movies and shows you would like to watch together.

And so, soon, the pair waved you goodbye, walking off towards the main exit of the mall. „We still need to buy a few things, baby peaches; let's go see some other shops.” Jin said, smiling gently at you and linking your finger with his.

It didn't take too long before most of the men dispersed into a few different directions, making sure to say proper goodbyes to you and letting you know exactly where they would be.

With Jin, and Hobi having to go grocery shopping, Jungkook wanting to check out the game store, and a few other things too, Jimin and Taehyung went on towards the few clothing boutiques, sneakily checking your shoe size this morning, happy to buy you more clothes.

And so, Yoongi and Namjoon took a hand each, Namjoon carrying a bag from the bedding store himself. They both decided to take you around a few stores they liked the best.

The first stop was the book store. While it wasn't the biggest, the packalpha had already started planning a trip to the biggest in Seoul with you soon, it had a nice selection and therefore had the alpha hooked on checking it out.

It was well lit, with a few smaller sections upfront showcasing the new bestsellers and a larger proper row of many filled-up bookshelves in the back of the store.

„What type of books do you like the best?" He asked you, leaning towards you to hear you better. You liked to read; you always did, but with school hours, you didn't always have as much time for it as you hoped you would.

„Maybe the m-more psychological ones? With a deeper thought...” You whispered, looking up at the man. He smiled softly at you, his chin going over the top of your head in a calming motion.

„What a good choice, sweetheart. Alpha will go look for a few you might like; how 'bout that?” He asked, his thumb running over your knuckles.

You nodded shyly, smiling. Namjoon stood back up tall, patting your back gently before he went on through the book sections he had in mind. There were already a few good picks he remembered liking.

„Let's see what they have, hm, little kitty?”

⋆·˚ ༘ *ੈ✩‧₊˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ✩‧₊˚⋆·˚ ༘ *

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katakosmos · 1 month

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hello primcess talk to me about rosier twins/macaulay twins parallel. and also the incest. lots and lots of incest.

you sent me this ask so casually, i imploded and wrote an essay about it. love you 🤲

so, i would like to start with pandora, because for me she is the reincarnation of camilla. i must admit that pandora started to take shape in my head after reading the secret history, so they have many similarities. what immediately struck me about camilla was her mysteriousness; because we know nothing about her except for what richard tells us, and he focuses particularly on her physical appearance.

"Being the only female in what was basically a boys’ club, must have been difficult for her. Miraculously, she didn’t compensate by becoming hard or quarrelsome. She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelled like hyacinth, and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvellous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem. In many ways she was as cool and competent as Henry; tough minded, and solitary in her habits, and in many ways as aloof."

one aspect that camilla definitely has in common with pandora is her being apparently sweet, angelic and delicate. even if camilla is more often described as almost masculine (because she's very similar to her brother) it's clear that both she and those around her are well aware of her femininity. she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem. her being a woman masks her true nature (which is what, in the end, makes her part of that group, a boy's club); but, while camilla's femininity is perceived as natural and spontaneous, the femininity that pandora transmits is enormously forced.

she uses her beauty and the desire she inspires in those around her with great subtlety and cruelty. not only does her femininity change the perception others have of her and hide her true identity: she wants to appear the opposite of what she actually is. she has very long hair, she only wears skirts and dresses (no one has ever seen her in pants, except evan), she also wears makeup, smiles often and acts all sweet. and yet, she has a strong personality and a very sharp mind, even if it isn't at all evident.

another difference is that camilla seems to simply exist in the group, and she has a secondary/background role (fuck you richard). instead it's impossible to ignore the presence of pandora in the group formed by her, regulus, barty and evan. she's the center of it, the most important element: the boys would give their life for her without thinking twice. she's pampered and protected by everyone, even if the only one who completely falls into her trap is barty (a perfect richard) who sees her only as a beautiful girl to have the worst fantasies about.

her central role depends heavily on evan. he's objectively the most mysterious and interesting person in the group (a sort of henry) and, even if he voluntarily prefers to close himself off and leave the role of protagonists to his friends, he builds the group dynamics.

i can't imagine evan completely as charles, but one thing they definitely have in common is violence and the desire for obsessive control and possession over their twin. charles's anger develops as a result of bunny's murder, throughout the book he's described as mostly calm. i've already talked about it, but for me evan has been a victim of a constant need for violence all his life, and he suffocates it until he simply explodes. however, if he finds himself in stressful situations like charles, he's also unmanageable. he controls his anger as he controls every aspect of his life, including his sister (and, being so close, pandora is often a victim of his mood swings).

(speaking of mood swings, i realize i often portray evan as a horrible person, but when he's not going crazy he's honestly kind and good, especially with pandora. he loves her with all his heart, and this deep feeling often causes uncontrollable emotions like desire and possession. but caring for pandora is the most natural thing for him. like charles: he hurts camilla several times, but when she gets hurt at the lake he's so scared that he can't even help her ← thanks beth for reminding me of this).

now, one thing that certainly shines through in the incestuous relationship of the macaulay twins is coercion. it seems to us, and it's probably the truth, that camilla is forced by charles to indulge his desires. instead, i believe there was a long period in the lives of the rosier twins where they both started an incestuous relationship voluntarily. evan and pandora grew up in an almost unapproachable environment and, during their teen years, they always detached themselves from everyone. they knew romantic love, but there was no one else they could pour it on other than their own twin.

i've talked about this a bit here, but i like to think that pandora and evan hated the idea of growing up and changing. and this was a start of their twincest, the inability to accept a more detached and healthy type of relationship.

charles doesn't seem to care about the unhealthy nature of his relationship with his sister, and it's something he shares with evan. while camilla realizes it right away, pandora takes a while but there's a moment when she too realizes she wants a different life. and both of them, even if they start to please their brothers under constraint, don't suffer so much because they're forced, but because they're ashamed of it. they are ashamed of being trapped in an incestuous relationship: they are not scared of their siblings' behavior, but they are madly afraid that the people around them might know what is really going on.

despite the love they feel for their twins, both camilla and pandora eventually decide to take their lives into their own hands and run away, without looking back. and they both manage to get what they want, even if it's fleeting, temporary.

in conclusion, this is so confusing (and it's more of a comparison than a parallel). i could say so much more if only i had a copy of this book, because fun fact: when i read the secret history, i bought it and annotated it as a birthday present for one of my friends, so i don't own a single copy of that book.

if anyone reading this has anything to say or add, please share it with me 😣😣

btw: you don't know what i would do to know the story from camilla's point of view...

#i have ABSOLUTELY not done evan justice here #but on tumblr i can't describe him as i'd like cause he's an extremely complicated character in my head #i'm trying to do this in my fic and decoding evan's personality is taking me chapters and chapters #so you'll have to wait to get a clearer view of him LMAO #pandora though... i love writing about her (she's literally my muse) and in fact i'm quite satisfied with her analysis #evan rosier #pandora rosier #rosier twins #rosier family #the secret history #charles macaulay #camilla macaulay

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sexy-celestial · 11 months

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2024 is:

Regular facials, manis, pedis, massages, Brazilian waxes, lash lifts. Glowing skin. Glowy makeup. Fluffy curls. Microshaded brows. Laser hair removal. Perfect Rx Skincare. Veneers. Intoxicating perfumes. Shopping. Diamonds. Designer bags. Credit card rewards. International travel. Networking. Career certifications. Investing more. Brunch with the girls. Picnics. Farmers markets. Art galleries. Museums. Fresh flowers. Silk scarves. Big sunglasses. Beautiful lingerie. Silk robes. Receiving lots of gifts. Lots of sunlight. Hot yoga. Nature hikes. Tennis lessons. Green smoothies. Candles that smell expensive. Sleeping 8+ hours a night. Bubble baths. Studying foreign languages. Absorbing as much knowledge as I can. Book clubs. Pottery classes. Cooking with fresh herbs, vegetables, and spice. Champagne. Charcuterie & bruschetta. Gelato. Fresh bread. Ocean air. Hugging my loved ones. Pet cat. Giving lots of gifts. Journaling. Meditating. Gratitude. Volunteering. Donating to charity. Manners. Etiquette. Charisma. Therapy. Healthy boundaries. Radical personal responsibility. Positivity. Self care. Abundant love.

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johannestevans · 1 year

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Workplace Connections

Romance short. A junior secretary makes a friend at work, and some more besides.

10k, rated M, F/F. A young woman makes friends with one of the only male secretaries in her workplace. 1960s Manhattan, featuring lavender marriages, period queerness, misogyny, etc. Light-hearted age gap cheeriness.

Read on Patreon / / Read on Medium.

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Elsa had considered herself lucky to work in an office like this one. A lot of the girls she went to college with went on to get fancy jobs in the city, but hers is almost certainly the fanciest – she works up so high in a Manhattan skyscraper, after all, and because the company trades in a lot of different materials, she gets nice perks on top of her pay packet.

Silk scarves, in May – she has different ones for every day of the week, made to match her different dresses; she likes to match her earrings to her hairpins, too, and colour them altogether.

It’s sort of expected of you in an office like this, to be well put together, to not just be capable and adept at typing, but… pretty. And Elsa might not be the prettiest girl in the world, but she’s pretty enough, especially the way she dresses, the way she puts her face on.

Some of the girls even ask her for fashion advice from time to time in the office, which is nice – not because she’s particularly on trend, but because she’s got such a good eye for colour and detail. A lot of them are trying to find husbands, want to get married to one of the executives or to a client, at this office or another.

There are handsome men in the office, she supposes – Elsa doesn’t know she’s ever had much of an eye for handsome men before seeing the details in their faces, their clothes.

Her boss, Mr Lockwood, would perhaps be handsome if he weren’t so cold and miserable all the time, was perhaps more handsome when he was a younger man – in any case, even the least attractive men in the office are balanced out by their secretaries. This is a sales office, after all: it’s all about marketability, at its core. She knows no one would want to hear all that feminist talk, but it’s about the status symbol of a beautiful woman on your desk, representing you – you’re selling her and she’s selling you, almost, an additional tactic.

Most of the men in the office have beautiful secretaries, anyway – Mr Garvey doesn’t. He’s a red-faced, unpleasant man, cold, and he disapproves of women so much you’d almost think he cared about the feminist angle too, but really, he just hated them, Elsa thought.

He’s never had a woman for his secretary, the girls say, and he absolutely won’t have one – his secretary is called Jasper, and he’s one of the only male secretaries Elsa knows. They’re more common in some industries than others, she’s heard.

Jasper is handsome, but in a plain, forgettable way – he has dark hair, thin pink lips that naturally turn to a frown when his face is resting, brown eyes. His eyelashes are lighter than the chestnut of his hair and eyebrows, and the golden tint in them catches the light at times.

He’s not a pretty face or a sweet voice or the phone, and some clients and coworkers are actually disappointed to work with his boss, make playful comments about how they’re missing out when they meet him instead of “one of the girls”. People mistake him for one of the executives, at times, which he shrugs off.

The other girls don’t always know how to deal with him, the rest of the secretarial pool. He’s one of the more senior and experienced of them, knows a few tricks of the trade, is extraordinarily capable – and if one of them asks for his voice, if they’re in a hurry and want to avoid flirting, or if they need to make a call and know that a woman calling won’t be taken seriously, Jasper will call up on their behalf, even read off a card if they want him to.

Not every day – not every week, even – but sometimes, he’ll do it.

“Happy to,” he always says. “What else am I for?”

Elsa’s having a bad day when she comes into the kitchenette frazzled and exhausted, sweating in her Wednesday dress and with a tear on the cuff of her blouse that her hands are shaking too much to fix – maybe from lack of sleep, or from too much coffee, or just anxiety.

Mr Lockwood’s been riding her hard today. He’s going to lose an account, he thinks, and he’s taking it out on her, keeps changing his mind about how he wants letters written, what tone to use, what calls to make. He’d just slammed his hand onto the desk beside her typewriter, demanding he get one in a different font set, and she’s got to go and get another before he comes back from lunch.

Jasper is sitting alone at the table, smoking a cigarette and idly paging through a magazine. It’s a woman’s magazine. All the magazines in the secretaries’ kitchenette are women’s magazines, and he never complains.

It’s a bit odd. He’s a bit off. Some of the girls think he might be wrong, somehow. Why else would a man take a job like this in an office like this one?

“Just you?” she asks. Her voice sounds thick from crying, and she stifles a sniffle, feels the snot thick in her nose.

“Anita’s birthday – most of the girls on the floor went out with her to Kiplings’. I expect you can still catch them up.”

She doesn’t say anything, pouring tea.

“Are you going to repair that tear?” he asks. He has a sort of cold, quiet voice – most of the men in the office are either warm and flirty, charismatic, or they bark and bluster. All of them are louder than Jasper is. He only ever puts more volume in his voice when he’s on the phone – ordinarily he speaks very quietly, deliberately.

She doesn’t know why, but him asking that is the straw that breaks the camel’s proverbial back – she bursts into tears, letting out a wail, burying her face in her hands.

“Oh, dear,” says Jasper in that toneless, detached way of his, and stubs out his cigarette.

Elsa’s grateful that Mr Lockwood had gone out to lunch with two of his partners, that there’s no chance of him coming to find her until at least three o’clock.

Jasper takes her gently, his palms gripping her upper arms, and guides her to sit. She watches powerlessly as he finishes pouring tea for her, putting in the sweetener she uses before she asks, and as she tries desperately to pull herself together, he opens up another drawer and pulls out the sewing kit.

It’s the communal one, and all the threads are put away messily, the needles shoved into one little cushion that’s smaller than a golf ball and splitting apart at the seams.

“My mother would tell you there’s never much point in crying over a man,” Jasper tells her as he scoots his chair closer and sinks down into it. She’s in parallel to him now, and she sniffles as he pushes the hem of her cuff up, sliding the needle through the fabric and smoothly beginning to sew it neatly together with surgical confidence.

“Have you done this before?” she asks.

“I take dictation and read fashion magazines,” he says mildly. “Is it such a stretch of the imagination that I also know how to sew open a tear in a woman’s sleeve?”

After a pause, because every retort she can think to that is too rude, she says, “I’m not crying over a man.”

“I suppose Mr Lockwood isn’t much of one,” says Jasper, and she laughs and cries at the same time, a shudder going through her.

“He thinks he’s going to lose the Sachs account.”

“He is. Roux Gold’s new brother-in-law owns a sawmill – family trumps a business connection every time.”

She hadn’t known that, and she stares into space as Jasper finishes sewing up the tear with a neat flourish of his wrist, trimming off the excess thread and then putting the needle back. She can barely see where he’s sewn it, the white thread matched to the fabric colour.

Mr Lockwood has been muttering angrily about deals and prices and inventory and logistics, and he’s never once mentioned that Roux Gold’s gotten married, or that it might impact his situation.

“He can’t keep it?” she asks.

“Not unless he marries into the family as well, no, but he has to appear to try. Just let it wash over you, Elsa. Let the man tantrum as he pleases.”

“It’s not a tantrum,” she manages to say, wiping her eyes, and Jasper nudges her tea toward her and she picks it up, drinking from it. It’s too hot. She swallows. “He’s stressed.”

Jasper stares at her blankly as he relights his cigarette. He can make his eyes go so dead, when he wants to.

“Don’t cry over a man, Elsabeth Lorne,” says Jasper quietly, “but don’t you go making excuses for one either. Least of all a substandard boss.”

“He isn’t—”

“Yes, he is. He’ll be gone by September anyway – the Sachs account is his third loss this quarter. I shouldn’t be surprised if he loses a few more in the meantime.”

“But it’s not his fault,” she hears herself say almost reflexively.

“The Sachs account isn’t, I’ll grant you,” says Jasper, tapping the butt of his cigarette and sprinkling ash into the tray. He has pretty hands, pale, with manicured fingernails with pink beds. “The others were. Weather the storm, as I told you. Once he’s gone, Eva will move you onto someone better – your work is very good, and Anja on Paul Vine’s desk is getting married in August. It might line up nicely that you take over his desk.”

“Mr Vine’s?” she asks. “But he’s so much higher up than Mr Lockwood.”

“And you’re a good secretary,” Jasper tells her in blunt, even tones, as if he’s irritated she would doubt it, or show any sort of modesty for her skill or position. “You’re neat, well-organised, keen. You’re very adept and highly adaptable – flexible.”

“But today I—”

“You’re crying today because you’ve been asked, I’m guessing very unreasonably, to do the impossible,” says Jasper. “When the impossible is expected of you, it’s hardly up to you to meet expectations. Understandable, as well, to have a bit of a cry.”

She looks down at her lap. “Why are you here?” she asks. “Why do you work here?”

“Is this your coy way of asking how much more money I make than you?”

“What? No!”

He chuckles softly, and she feels her cheeks burn as she stares at him, indignant, as if she’d ask that. As if she would.

“Why are you a secretary, I meant,” she mutters. “And part of the pool here. When you could be like one of the men.”

“Am I not one of the men?” he asks. His voice is very deliberate, just like everything about him is deliberate, but more so in this moment even than usual. Suddenly she feels very ashamed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did.” He takes a drag from his cigarette, and offers her one from his case, which is made of brass and has roses carved into the metal. She shakes her head, and he clicks it shut. “It’s a sensible question. Why would I be a secretary when secretaries make so much less money than the men they serve? Why would I do women’s work when to do so is to invite mockery? Why would I drop myself in the midst of women rather than doing serious, men’s work?”

There’s something sardonic about how he says it, the words blistering with irony. She doesn’t know anyone alive who talks with such disdain for men as Jasper Hackett is right now – and it’s for them, Elsa thinks. He’s not angry at her for asking, just hates the question, hates the world that makes her ask it.

“I lack the stomach for masculinity,” he says, gesturing with one graceful hand, his cigarette a moving glow. “I don’t well-digest red meat, either.”

“You don’t like other men.”

“I suppose not.”

“Not even Mr Garvey?”

Jasper smiles at her.

Mr Garvey is the Chief of Accounts and one of the senior partners. He’s terrifying, so square it’s like they made him at the canning factory before they tailored his suits for him. Some of the girls joke that he wouldn’t let women in the building at all if he could.

“No one at all likes Mr Garvey, young lady,” says Jasper mildly. “Barring his wife, perhaps, and even her affections can’t be taken as given. But I do appreciate his severity, I suppose – one knows where one stands, no politics, no nonsense. No masculine posturing.”

Elsa is quiet, reaching up and touching the new stitching on her sleeve.

“Might I ask you a question now, or is this a one-sided interview?” Jasper asks, and she feels her brow furrow, her nose wrinkling slightly as she looks warily across the table at him. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you brought something?”

“A salad.”

“Good.” The way he says it, it’s less like praise and more like a verbal check mark – he says it in the same tone he does after receiving an affirmative in a meeting. Brisk, business-like, in-motion.

“How did you tear your sleeve?”

“I caught it.”

“Obviously. On what?”

“One of the shelves in the stationery cupboard. There’s a loose nail.”

Jasper frowns, and as she watches, he takes a notebook out of his suit pocket and makes a note, probably to tell the janitor. “Are you certain you don’t want to catch the girls up to join them?” he asks as he writes it down.

“I’ll just cry more,” says Elsa. “It’ll embarrass me. Maybe later. Why don’t you go?”

“I’m not man enough for the men in this building,” Jasper says with a shrug. “But I’m too much of a man for a girls’ lunch.”

Elsa’s instinct is to argue with him, for some reason, or try to somehow comfort him, although she doesn’t really know what he needs comforting for. She doesn’t know what he means exactly by that, about not being man enough. He’s the one who’s become a secretary, who wants to sit outside the boardrooms and take dictation rather than be inside them making presentations, or going out to dinner with his coworkers, with the other men.

Maybe it’s the culture.

Some men don’t like it, she knows, the “culture” – they don’t like to drink or go out with girls because they’re already married, or shy, or disinterested. The men get to opt out of it, or go home to their wives, and leave.

She doesn’t get to opt out. None of them do, really.

She hates the way they look at her sometimes, the men in the office, hates the hungry stares and the up-and-down flickering looks, the hands on her back, her waist, touching her cheeks, her neck, playing with her hair. It’s not as if it’s just the men in the office – it’s the men in the world. She just works here.

She’s not Mr Lockwood’s type, and it feels, sometimes—

Well.

Sometimes, the way he snaps at her, the precise way he raises his voice, it feels like he’s angry at her for not being what he likes, for not being pretty in the way he enjoys, the way he would enjoy. It feels like he’s angry that he doesn’t want her, and blames her for it.

She goes on dates, sometimes. Some of the girls live for it, the dates with clients or with copywriters, with the accounts execs, with the accountants. They talk about it like it’s a game – she feels less like a player and more like a poker chip, bet and played on the table.

Jasper is one of the only men her age in the office – well, he’s a bit older, thirty-something, but not forty or fifty – where talking to him doesn’t feel like it might turn around on her, like it might become a date.

That’s why the girls think he’s off, maybe. It feels dishonest, like there’s a trap there, somehow.

“Does it make you—” Elsa starts, and then she stops herself, not wanting to speak out of turn, not when she already feels like she’s made things mortifying for herself, when Jasper’s seen her cry, and now that’s what he’ll think of her whenever he sees her, sees her work.

“Hmm?” he prompts her.

“Did you eat lunch?” she asks.

They say he doesn’t, sometimes. She’s heard the girls gossiping about it in the break room or in the corridors, that he’s just like them in some ways. That he skips meals, that he likes to keep trim – and he is that. He’s got sharp cheekbones, and you can tell when he’s been more stressed out than usual, because he eats fewer meals, because the hollows show more in his cheeks.

He smokes more. Eats less.

“Mr Garvey is in one of his moods,” says Jasper.

It’s not that she doesn’t get the connotation – she hears that it’s negative, just that Garvey has so many negative moods that it’s hard to narrow down the estimation.

“Do you ever cry at work?” she asks. It’s half a joke, but his smile is wry when he shows it.

“Not anymore,” he says evenly, seriously. “When I was young, I did, now and then. Younger than you, I mean – at twenty, twenty-one. When I started.”

“Right out of college?”

“Yes.”

“Did you go to a woman’s college, too?” She winces at the words as they come out of her mouth, but he laughs again, doesn’t seem offended. She likes his laugh – it’s throaty and has a hoarse quality to it, maybe from the cigarettes. It’s not as deep as some men’s, but it’s not high either. No one would ever mistake him for a woman on the phone.

“I went to a secretarial school, yes.”

“Was your class all girls?”

“Mostly.”

“Does Mr Garvey treat you like he’d treat a woman?”

“Spit on me and tell me not to spike my heels into his carpet? Only when I find him in a jubilant mood.”

It shocks a laugh out of her, one of her hands over her mouth. He’s starting another cigarette, tapping it on his case before lighting the cigarettes head to head.

“You’re terrible,” she says.

“I am,” Jasper agrees, catty and just a little smug. “And I don’t know. Mr Garvey is a passionate misogynist but his hatred of women is more to do with his religious nature. Men have sex with women – ergo, men see women, and think of sex. In Mr Garvey’s mind, the mere presence of a woman stirs men to distraction. He doesn’t want people to think of sex in the office.”

“Well, I don’t want people to think of sex in the office,” she mutters, and she lowers her voice as she says the word, almost whispers it. She looks behind her shoulder to see if anyone else is there, but it’s just them. She doesn’t know that she should engage him on these terms at all. He speaks bluntly about the subject in a way that makes her nervous.

“No,” Jasper agrees. “Nor I, really. But Mr Garvey’s methods aren’t fantastic, and in any case, without revealing myself as a feminist, Elsa, women are more than a reminder of sex on legs.” He trails off, gesturing broadly with his cigarette, and then says, “He doesn’t treat me like many of the other men treat you girls, no. He doesn’t pat me on the backside or flirt with me, or fuss over my appearance – doesn’t scream at me in the same way some people do their secretaries, or nitpick my work so. Kimberley says I’m one of our best clerks, but honestly, I’m middling.

“They might not like my company, Elsabeth, but because I’m a man, our esteemed coworkers assume I must be better at my job, particularly my figures and so forth. And because I’m a man, my work isn’t constantly interrupted with male attention and attempts at my seduction – or just the distraction of someone staring at me while I’m trying to get things done.”

She sips at her tea, digesting that for a moment. “I never thought about that,” she admits. “All the time it takes up. Obviously, I know it… But I never thought about it in terms of minutes.”

It’s a lot, in the day. It’s more than minutes, in the day – it’s an hour, at least. Multiple, probably.

“I’m relatively invisible, of course,” he adds. “Being noticed, observed, in one thing in small doses, but a stressor when constant.”

She doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask, “Do you ever feel like a zoo animal, or perhaps a farm animal up on the butcher’s block?” because, she supposes, he knows enough that he doesn’t have to.

“I wish I could be invisible,” she says. She’s astonished by the weight of the envy in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’d hide you if I could.” He taps a little more ash from the head of his cigarette. “What made you choose secretarial work as your profession?”

She thinks about the question for a moment, wonders how honest she should be. That’s the thing about working in an office like this one. You’re meant to be honest, but not too honest.

When people ask, “How are you?” they don’t really want to know – you’re meant to make the right small talk, and talk about things without really talking about things, talking around them instead. It’s the same thing about who you are. What you’re meant to say, how you’re meant to behave.

Dressing as neatly as she does, as perfectly, is as close to being invisible as she can get – because she never has a detail out of place, and because she keeps her clothes in uniform, men don’t have anything new to comment on. She feels an additional surge of gratitude for Jasper fixing her sleeve.

“You can be honest,” Jasper says.

People usually mean it as a trap when they say a thing like that in this building – no one can really be honest in sales, unless the honesty is cover for a lie. Somehow, it feels different with him. She feels a sort of kinship with him.

“I could make more money here than in a factory,” she says. “Much more.” It’s true, and she regularly says it, and often it makes people laugh, but Jasper doesn’t. He nods his head in understanding.

“Much more,” he echoes.

“I took a typing course in high school. My English teacher said I’d be good, streamlined the process for me.”

“That was why you went?”

“I think so,” she says quietly. “I just didn’t really know what to do. More school was easy – I was good at school. And then I came out east with a girl from home, we got a place together. I work here – she works across town.”

“In sales?”

“In insurance. She says it’s a better office to find a husband in, that the men are less flighty, more reliable.”

“One can count on an insurance man to be risk-aware and sensible with his investments, I suppose.”

“How will you find a wife?” she asks, and he glances up from where he was looking at the tabletop, his eyebrows raising slightly. “I mean, would you— would you marry another secretary? Meet someone here at work, like we do? Or…?”

“You don’t listen to the office gossip, do you?” he asks. “Or you do, but you don’t understand it, exactly. Not sure why it matters, nor where it comes from, what spurs it on, what turns those wheels. Why ever does it matter so much, what they talk about? Why do they treat it with such gravity, these little faux pas, the arguments, the seemingly insignificant remarks?”

Her stomach flips, and she’s aware that her expression has crumpled.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he says softly, getting to his feet. “It’s not my intention to bait you or to be cruel to you. I’m not looking for a wife, young lady.”

“You’re, um…” She trails off. She’s heard people joke about it. Laugh about it. Not about Jasper, just— Just in general.

“You’re that way?” she ends up asking.

“I’m already married,” says Jasper. Her gaze drops to his hands, looking for a wedding ring she knows isn’t there. In response to her dropping eyes, he pulls out a chain from under his shirt, a ring shining on it, and says, “I don’t wear a wrist watch either.”

She swallows hard around the lump in her throat, suddenly so embarrassed she feels she could burst into tears, and he pulls his shirt forward by the tie, dropping the chain and ring back under his collar.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m— I’m so sorry, Mr Hackett, for, for saying—”

Jasper smiles at her, and steps out of the room.

* * *

Elsa doesn’t understand why he’s never mentioned it to the girls. She’s heard them say it, heard them call him a single man or joke about what he’d be looking for in a wife. Anja had once joked that he was probably hoping some man will mistake him for a girl and take him home as a bride.

All the girls had laughed and then gone hushed and quiet, but some of them had giggled for ages afterward, kept nudging each other and tittering when he went by.

“It’s illegal for a reason,” Joanie Eames had said at the bar. “Like having sex with farm animals.”

Elsa doesn’t know that it’s exactly the same, but she knows it’s wrong, that it’s a depravity of the worst sort, that those sorts of people are dangerous, ugly inside. She feels bad for thinking Jasper might be one of them, for letting herself assume, for saying it. She’s lucky he was so unmoved by it, that he just found it funny.

They used to tease her at school about it, for being the way she is – too literal, too naïve. “Don’t you know anything?” used to ring in her ears on the walk home, she’d heard it so often.

“He’s married, you know,” she says the next time Anja says it after Jasper had come into the break room to pin a note about typewriter repair policy on the board, her talking about how lightly he walked in his loafers.

He wears Oxfords, anyway, not loafers.

“What?”

The girls all go quiet, staring at her, and Anja felt like she’d been spot lit – she was normally in the background, in amongst the crowd of them, not looked at or stared at like she’s being stared at now.

“Jasper Hackett,” she says. “He’s married. He just wears his ring on a chain.”

“Why would he do that?” demands Anja, looking suddenly angry, little pink marks appearing at the tops of her cheeks, because she never has a full blush. “How do you know?”

“Oh, he just mentioned it,” says Elsa, trying to sound casual. “He doesn’t wear a watch, either.”

She wonders if she shouldn’t have said anything, because at the end of the day when Jasper comes out of Mr Garvey’s office and there’s six of them all crowded together, Anja calls him out.

“Hey, Jasper!” she says in that sweet, bubbly voice she has.

“Something I can help you with, dear?” asks Jasper in an even sweeter voice than hers is, so fine and cutting you could probably use it like those wires they cut ham with.

Anja falters, blinking. “I just wanted to ask,” she says. “What’s your wife called?”

Jasper smiles, and it’s a very polite smile, his eyes flittering over the group of them. His gaze locks with Elsa’s for a second, and she almost mouths, “Sorry,” but doesn’t.

“Linda,” he says lightly.

“You don’t have a picture of her on your desk,” Anja says.

“I don’t, I’ve never cared for cluttering a workspace,” Jasper says. “In any case, I well recall what she looks like, I don’t need a reminder. I see her very often.”

Anja doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Joanie asks, “What’s she like?”

“She’s tall, two inches taller than me, in fact. She has a beautiful head of hair, a lovely chestnut shade – not like mine, it’s got a shine to it, a bit more red. She’s a very impassioned speaker, an academic. She’s a research assistant over at City College.”

He waits for a few seconds, his expression anticipant, one eyebrow raised, until Joanie says – sort of impotently, “She sounds lovely.”

Jasper says, “She is! Night night, girls,” and moves off down the corridor.

“He walks like a woman,” Anja remarks once he’s out of earshot.

Elsa doesn’t know that he does, but he does walk gracefully, with a kind of flow. Maybe he is light in his Oxfords. She isn’t sure exactly what that means.

* * *

Jasper, some weeks later, comes by Elsa’s desk just before lunchtime, and says, “Would you like to join my wife and I for dinner this evening?”

She stares up at him, her fingers hovering over her keyboard.

“She keeps a kosher kitchen, if that makes the offer more appealing.”

“I haven’t been keeping kosher since I left home,” she admits guiltily. “But that sounds nice. Should I bring anything?”

“Just your fine self and a smile. The smile isn’t even mandatory, if it’s hard to keep up.”

She’s in a bad mood by the end of the day, feeling maudlin and sorry for herself – Mr Lockwood had actually shouted at her, had screamed so loudly that the walls had rattled, and only because she’d asked which Mr Smith he wanted something sending to, because he hadn’t been clear.

All the girls have been so nice to her all day, have been a bit gentler than usual and more sympathetic – several of them regularly refer to Mr Lockwood as a short straw, and they say she’s good to be so patient with him.

Jasper is just covering his typewriter as she goes up to his desk, and Mr Garvey steps out of his office, where Jasper stands to help him on with his coat.

Mr Garvey gives Elsa an ireful look, and she’s in such a poor mood she just stares back at him.

It’s beginning to rain outside, and Mr Garvey surprises Elsa by asking Jasper in gruff tones, “Do you want me to drive you two to the station?”

“No, thank you, Mr Garvey, I have an umbrella. Safe home.”

Garvey mutters something incomprehensible and stalks out.

“Come,” Jasper tells her as he pulls on his own coat and belts it shut over his suit. “I’m only a few stops away, on the same line, and it’s not too much of a walk.”

“Do we have to pick anything up?”

“There’s a bakery across the street from us, but that’s more a siren call than anything.”

“It must be hard,” Elsa says as they step into the lift. “With both of you working – to get groceries and so on.”

“Lina works four days a week, which does help,” Jasper says. “But yes, we’re often reliant on friends to fit some things into the schedule.”

He calls the lift operator by name when they leave, who bids them good night, and Elsa walks beside him into the street and follows his lead toward the subway.

“How long have you been married?”

“Ten years next November.”

“Ten years… You got married young?”

“Twenty-seven isn’t so young.”

“You’re thirty-seven!?”

Jasper blinks, and she looks away, because not only was he surprised, but several people had looked over.

“I thought you were— Well. I didn’t know you were so old.”

“So old,” Jasper repeats, huffing out a soft laugh. “Kind of you to say.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ve made my peace with my youthful features – I looked damn neat pre-pubescent in my early twenties. You’re twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three next month. I feel old.”

“Do you indeed? Why’s that?”

“All the girls are right out of school.”

“Ah. Not world-weariness, just comparison.”

She doesn’t normally ride this line of the subway, and she sits beside Jasper and looks at all the different people, careful not to keep her gaze on anybody for too long. She wants to look without being looked at, without being talked to. No one talks to her – at one point, a man glances over at her and she shifts immediately, wondering if he’s going to come over as his glance becomes a stare and he keeps concentrated on her.

She can feel the weight of his eyes on her face, feel them come down to her body, and in her periphery she sees him shift on his feet—

Jasper leans toward her and starts talking about something Jackie Kennedy said on the radio as if resuming a conversation, and she’s so surprised she doesn’t even realise the man has got up and left until they’re at their stop and they both stand to their feet.

“How do you know to do that?” she asks as they walk up the steps and into the street again. There’s no line at the bakery, and Jasper points out some pastries, buys them and a loaf of bread as well.

“Do what?” he asks.

“You do it with the girls at work sometimes too,” she says. “One of the guys will be flirting with her, and you’ll distract him, or ask if she’ll go and do something for you. Or you’ll just stand in the way and he just… won’t.”

“Men respect other men in a way they don’t women,” says Jasper. “My experience of that is diluted for the sort of man I am, granted, but I’m still a man. Linda and I met in a similar situation – we rode the same train, men were always bothering her. I started standing in the way.”

“So you could marry her instead,” she says with a slight challenge in her voice, and he laughs as he takes the package from the baker, thanking him in Yiddish – the whole conversation was. It’s been a while. She never hears it at work, maybe the occasional “oy”, but nothing else.

It’s not classy enough for the men in the office, the big clients.

“Believe it or not, we knew each other three years before all that. We talked on the train sometimes, and then she used to invite me to parties, and I’d go along with her. One morning, she said she was tired of her roommates bickering with her. She said we should get married.”

Elsabeth stares at him, at the faint smile on his face as they cross the street.

“She did?”

“Oh, yes. I thought she was joking, but she had a whole presentation prepared and she laid it out. A very strong public speaker, my wife, even when her public amounts to one easily convinced man.”

“So you got married then?”

“A few months after our discussion. We’ve been living her since, and we have two cats together. You’re not allergic, are you?”

“No, no. What about children?”

“Oh, we haven’t got room for that,” Jasper says casually. “My mother-in-law gifted us a bassinet, but it doesn’t go unused. Ido and Noam barely share it already without fighting an infant for space as well.”

Elsa thinks about this for a moment. She’s never really imagined being nearly forty and not having children at all. It’s always felt like there’s a sort of ticking clock on her life, until she has to give it over to a man’s children – children that have to be hers as well, but they never really feel like that in her head.

“You don’t want any?”

“Not particularly, no. Parenthood isn’t for everybody.”

“Isn’t it?” she almost asks, but he’s leading her inside, and the question evaporates on her tongue as they step into the house and he eases off his shoes before he takes off his coat, so she copies him.

Linda isn’t home yet, the two of them alone in the house together.

She feels kind of stiff and uncertain, keeping her distance from Jasper as they hang up their hats and coats, as he steps through the living room and into the kitchen, beginning to wash his hands.

Ido and Noam are sitting either end of a shelf with their tails hanging down like bookends, peering at her.

“Where’s your wife?” Elsa asks, hearing the slight quaver in her voice as she walks toward the cats and reaches out her hand to one, letting it sniff her fingers. They’re both huge, fierce-looking animals, muscular with dark, shaggy coats and strong facial features. They’re almost dog-sized really, and she’s surprised the shelf doesn’t creak under their weight.

“On her way home, I’d hope,” Jasper calls from the kitchen. “Linda is less punctual than I am, I’m afraid – timeliness is not one of her virtues.”

She wonders if she’s made a mistake, coming to Jasper Hackett’s apartment, to a man’s apartment, alone with him. No one even knows she’s here except for the cats, and maybe Mr Garvey, and Mr Garvey hates women – would he even care if something happened to her? Would he even notice? It could be his wife doesn’t even know. It could be that he doesn’t even have a wife, that Linda’s made up and she’s here, in a man’s flat, alone, just them.

Her heart is beating faster in her chest.

She turns to look around the rest of the flat, and she feels a bit more nervous when she looks and looks and doesn’t see photographs of the two of them together, just art on the walls, and a lot of books.

Her mouth is dry as she steps into the middle of the living room to look into the kitchen without stepping closer. As she looks, she sees that Jasper has stripped off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, that he’s chopping vegetables.

Elsa’s never seen a man cook before outside of a restaurant, and the knife moves fast, his movements neat and easy, well-practised and at-home with what he’s doing. She feels sick about it, the grip he has on the knife, the fact that he’s not even looking at her.

“Um,” she starts, her mouth dry. She feels a little faint. “Mr Hackett?”

“Goodness, girl, don’t call me that. Jasper is fine. Sorry, would you like a drink? There’s tea and coffee, a few cordials – let me get this mise-en-place finished, and I can make up some lemonade for you.” The wooden noises of the knife on the block keep sounding, and she wrings her hands in front of her belly, rehearsing excuses to leave on her tongue.

And then the door opens behind her and she lets out the breath she was holding, feels her body sag.

It tightens up again when the woman in question walks in, nudging the door closed behind her with her hip so she doesn’t have to put her bags down, and Elsa realises that Jasper Hackett is married to the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen.

Linda Hackett is an Amazon – when Jasper said she was tall, she hadn’t taken into account the idea that she would still wear high heels. Jasper is just under six feet tall, but Linda is past that. In her heels, she must be six feet and two. She has thick cascades of gently curling chestnut hair, warm in colour with golden red undertones and a healthy shine, deep red lips, dark eyes. She wears pants, yellow-beige plaid with her sleeveless blouse tucked into them, a cardigan around her shoulders and held in place with a chain.

“Ah,” she says when she lays eyes on Elsa. “You’re here, good.”

Elsabeth’s tongue feels frozen in her mouth, and she can’t make it work, can’t make herself say anything.

“You said she was shy,” Linda remarks to Jasper, and presses a bag of groceries into Elsa’s arms. “Unpack these.”

For some reason, Elsa’s cheeks blossom in a blush, and she obediently takes the bag, stumbling into the kitchen and setting it down on the counter. It’s a small kitchen, so she ends up back to back with Jasper as she unpacks it – some frozen things, some fruit, rather than things they’re eating tonight.

“How was work?” asks Jasper.

“I’m thinking of murdering one of the adjunct professors,” says Linda casually, leaning in so that Jasper can kiss her cheek, which he does without looking away from the vegetables he’s chopping.

“Only one?” Jasper asks in reply, and Elsa looks at the two of them side by side, at how Linda leans back against the kitchen counter and stands beside him as he chops, swiping a piece of bell pepper to chew and swallow. They look incredible, side-by-side like this – Jasper looks far more handsome, beside his wife, than he does on his own right. They sort of complement each other. “Elsabeth Lorne, meet Linda Hackett,” says Jasper.

“Hi,” Elsa croaks out, her voice breaking on the word.

Linda’s laugh is low and deep – her voice isn’t hoarse, but it has a resonance a lot of women’s don’t have, and it’s naturally far louder than her husband’s is.

“How was work for you?” asks Linda. Her shoulder gently nudges against Jasper’s, but her gaze is locked with Elsa’s. Her arms are crossed under her chest, and it’s— distracting.

“Sam is on a new blood pressure medication. He’s nervous about it – it’s making him quite antsy.”

“Taking it out on you?”

“No more than usual. He offered us a lift, actually, but I declined. I didn’t want poor Elsa here to receive the full force of his personality in such a small space.”

“Mr Garvey?” asks Elsa.

“He can be really lovely outside of the office,” says Linda.

“Really?”

“No.” She smiles as she says it, shifting her arms. She hasn’t got a low neckline, her blouse buttoned up to the neck, but even under the cardigan, Elsa can see how significant her chest is, how big her breasts are. It makes sense, with what a big woman she is, her broad shoulders and her tall frame, that her chest should be in proportion, but…

She feels like some sort of pervert for noticing, her lips quivering, the tops of her ears feeling hot as well as her cheeks.

Linda is lighting a cigarette, and before she takes a drag of it, she holds it to Jasper’s lips, letting him take a drag as he keeps prepping.

“He’s a prickly personality, even in the home,” says Linda. Her fingernails aren’t painted, but they’re beautifully manicured and buffed to a pink shine like Jasper’s are – she’s got quite short fingernails for a woman, doesn’t wear lacquer or have pointed nails. She probably types a lot herself at work. “God knows we’ve had our share of furious arguments over dinner here, Sam and I. But he means well, which is more than most.”

“What do you argue over?” Elsa asks.

Before Linda can answer, Jasper says, “Those two fight over everything. If Linda said the sky was blue, Sam Garvey would be about ready to insist it was green.”

“He’s an awful prick,” says Linda, then chuckles. “I miss him when I don’t see him for a while.”

Elsa’s laugh is breathless, nervous. She doesn’t know any women like Linda, she doesn’t think. Women who smoke like she does, or are so tall, or who call people pricks so easily and so confidently like it’s nothing at all.

“How do you find the work?” she asks Elsa. “Jasper says you two have been chatting recently, that your boss is a bit of an ass?”

“Mr Lockwood,” says Elsa quietly, folding up one of the brown paper bags. “He’s, um… He’s an angry man. He loses his temper a lot.”

“Some men would be happy typing their own letters,” Linda says dryly, tapping her cigarette into an ashtray. “But then they wouldn’t have a secretary as a punching bag. Do you like the work, your boss aside?”

“I like typewriters,” says Elsa.

“Oh?”

“My father is a watchmaker,” Elsa says. “He repairs them back home – watches, clocks. When I started typing at school, he bought some to take apart, to learn to repair, so he could show me. He wanted to make sure I knew how.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” says Linda softly. Her lips are beautiful when she pouts them out. “So, you can repair them?”

“Yeah, actually, I can repair them okay,” says Elsa. “Especially older models, you know, ones from the forties and earlier – my school actually had a bunch of different models in case people were working at small businesses. The ones at work are newer models, and they’re more accessible for small repairs, less so for deeper mechanical work. Typewriters these days are made to be transported more, so the casements are heavier and more fixed, but that makes their guts less accessible too.”

“Are you excited about the new typewriter ball?” asks Jasper, and Elsa laughs, nodding her head.

“What’s that?” asks Linda, raising her eyebrows and leaning back to look at Jasper. As he swipes the vegetables from the chopping board into a roasting tin, he turns to Elsa can see his face too.

“IBM have released this new typewriter with a ball that all the letters are embossed on,” Jasper says, gesturing with his hands. “Instead of having individual hammers that strike the ribbon, you know, with those layers of bars and hammers like an organ, the ball rotates and moves to be struck by one hammer instead.”

“You can take out the whole ball to clean it at once,” says Elsa, “and that means one typewriter can easily have a bunch of typefaces, because you can just swap out the ball.”

“Oh, look at that smile,” says Linda softly. Her lips are shifted into a smile of her own. She’d been walking closer to get the chicken out of the fridge, and as Elsa stands there Linda holds her cigarette between her lips and reaches out to brush her knuckles over the side of Elsa’s cheek. It’s only a delicate touch, but it’s such a rush Elsa feels dizzy with it.

Once the chicken’s in the oven, Linda and Elsa go into the living room while Jasper makes lemonade, and when Elsa sits down on the sofa, Ido and Noam come over to sniff at her legs and then hop up to sit with her. They’re both heavy, dense animals, and they purr like engines.

“Hi, baby,” says Linda, gripping the larger of the two – Ido – and lifting him up into her lap. Elsa stares at the way he goes limp in her arms, letting her hold him like a baby and rock him in her arms, her thumb rubbing against his thick, tufted chest.

“So, um, Jasper says you’re a research assistant?”

“That’s right, I work in biochemistry – I study metabolism, effectively, the ways in which people digest different things, how quickly, and so on.”

“That’s interesting,” says Elsa, which must ring false, because Linda chuckles.

“It is to me,” she says, rocking Ido, who is looking up at her lovingly, his eyes half-closed. Noam has his big face mashed into Elsa’s belly, and is kneading at the blankets either side of them. “I love my work, I just wish it wasn’t… Ah, you know.”

“It’s hard?”

“I work with men.”

Elsa sighs, and nods her head. “I, um… On the train, Jasper stopped a man from talking to me. Like, he noticed, before he said anything or came over.”

“He’s good at that,” says Linda. “Men like Jasper are a real relief.”

“There are other men like him?”

“There’s a few knocking about.”

“Maybe I should try to find one,” Elsa says quietly, and Linda tilts her head as she looks at her, easing Ido down in her arms. He stays laid on his back, his back legs together like a bunny’s, pressing up on the underside of one of Linda’s boobs, which makes her laugh.

“I hate it when he does that, he knows it,” she says, rubbing the thick fur on his belly. “He just likes to push on it, I think – Noam’s worse, he’ll pad up to me and use his forehead to push one of them up as if he’ll find treasure underneath. It’s a bit like lifting weights for him, I suppose.”

Elsa giggles, covering her mouth, and she shakes her head, scratching Noam under his ears.

“Do you find Jasper handsome?” Linda asks.

“Sure,” says Elsa.

“No, I mean…” Linda starts, and then exhales, smiling at her kindly. “Physically, is he the sort of man you like?”

“Well, most men look the same, really,” says Elsa, and when Linda raises her eyebrows, she wonders if it’s the wrong thing to have said, if it’s not right. “Um. Sorry. I don’t mean anything bad by it. I just mean— Men aren’t like women, right? We all look different.”

“We do,” Linda allows.

“I just— All the men in the office, they get their hair cut at the same places, they wear the same suits, have similar coats. They try to look the same – we all try to look different. Beautiful.”

“You don’t think men can be beautiful?”

“Handsome, maybe,” says Elsa. “I’m not— I’m not saying I… Sorry. I think I’ve said something odd.”

“You haven’t,” says Linda. “Sometimes girls at work will talk about men, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen. It feels like they’re speaking a foreign language sometimes.”

Elsa rubs the top of Noam’s head, between his ears.

“Fools, all of them,” says Jasper as he comes back into the room. “It’s like they don’t even see Marlon Brando.”

“The man looks like a thumb,” says Linda, and Jasper scoffs.

“With lips like peaches,” he says.

Elsa feels herself blink, and she stares at the three glasses as Jasper starts pouring fresh lemonade for them, the ice clinking in each one.

“You think he has nice lips?”

“Jasper thinks Marlon Brando has nice everything,” says Linda.

Elsa doesn’t know what to make of it, exactly, because at the same time, Linda reaches out with one foot and rubs against the side of Jasper’s ankle, making him jump and shove his wife in the arm, laughing. “Horrid woman,” he calls her.

“We were just discussing what Elsabeth here might like in a husband,” Linda says, and Elsa looks at Jasper as he leans back in one of the armchairs, crossing one ankle over the other.

“We can introduce you to some people,” says Jasper.

“Men like you,” says Elsa, haltingly.

Jasper looks at her over his glass, wearing his face in that blank, neutral way he does. “Men like Marlon Brando,” he says evenly. “So the rumours say.”

Elsa looks between the two of them, tries to get a handle on it, tries to understand, really understand. “Really?”

“One hears whispers.”

“So you’re— You two are…” She looks to Linda. “You married him so that people wouldn’t know? And you know that people are— Is that why you know how women feel? Because you, because you’re… Are you and Mr Garvey—”

“Slow down,” Jasper says when Linda hiccups. “Take a breath.” He breathes in demonstratively, inhaling very slowly, and Elsa copies him automatically before taking a few gulps of her lemonade.

“It’s alright,” Linda murmurs, and she strokes over the back of Elsa’s neck, making her shudder. It’s… Nice, though. It’s nice.

“Mr Garvey is not of my inclination, no,” says Jasper. “His father was – it’s made him astonishingly liberal in this area and this one alone.”

“Why would you tell me? Isn’t it illegal? What if I told somebody?” She feels nervous, uncertain, overwhelmed by it, by the weight of the knowledge.

“What if you did?” asks Jasper, raising his eyebrows. “What evidence do you have?”

Noam puts his front paws up on Jasper’s knees, and Jasper picks him up under the armpits, cradling him against his chest so that Noam can shove his face into Jasper’s neck and purr loudly there.

“Why would I want to marry a man like you?” asks Elsa.

Jasper shrugs. “For the same reasons Linda did, I suppose. A man is a useful shield, if you want one – you’re still young, though. I wouldn’t worry about it just yet, if it’s not a priority for you.”

“A husband, a cooperative one, can mean more independence,” says Linda. “Less harassment, albeit only slightly.”

Elsa looks at her, at her beautiful hair, at the cat sprawled in her lap. “Only slightly?”

“He wears his ring on a chain – I wear mine very obviously,” says Linda, waving one hand and showing its glint. “They still come sniffing around, inviting me places, wanting to put their hands on me.”

Jasper sighs longingly, blinking his pretty eyelashes and looking jokingly wistful, and then breaks into laughter when Linda kicks him in the shin.

“No, it’s awful,” he agrees abruptly, dropping the joking expression. “Would that you could have an all-female chemistry department.”

It’s now Linda’s turn to sigh wistfully, and Jasper affectionately pats her knee. They really look a picture like this, across from each other, both of them with their matching cats. They match one another, they really do.

“Why would you trust me?” Elsa asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?” asks Jasper. “You’re a sweet girl, Elsabeth. Kind, caring.”

“Isn’t it wrong?” she asks.

Jasper shrugs his shoulders. “Isn’t everything about the world we live in?”

Elsa hesitates, uncertain what to say.

“Would you like to play cards?” asks Linda.

That’s what they do.

* * *

It’s astoundingly easy to play with the two of them, to relax into the experience and just chat over cards and the cats. She doesn’t play cards much – the girls always want to just drink and talk and sing and dance, and that’s nice in its own way, but different to this.

She wonders if he’s ignoring it, what these people are, if that makes her awful, for ignoring it, except she isn’t, exactly. The idea of it, of Jasper being… that way. The fact that the girls were right all along, joking about it, thinking about it, knowing it.

They knew what he was just by looking at him, talking to him – is that why Jasper was so unaffected by it when she’d asked outright, even though a lot of men would be furious to be asked, would go into a rage at even the implication.

Shouldn’t she hate it? Shouldn’t she be angry, or disgusted? People say it’s disgusting, that it’s awful, but Jasper is the same now as he has been. He’s witty, gentle, soft-spoken. She wonders what he’s like, when he’s with men who are like him, if he’s the same, or somehow different.

“Let me go check on the chicken,” Jasper says, getting to his feet – both of the cats must know that word, because they follow after him with their tails up high and straight, cheerful, and he laughs as they weave around and through his ankles.

“Do you sleep in the same bed?” asks Elsa. Her voice comes out very quiet, in little more than a whisper.

“We do,” Linda says. “It’s lovely in winter – he gives off heat like a furnace.”

“What’s it… like? The— I’ve never…”

“Had sex?” asks Linda.

Elsa nods. “I’ve never even kissed a boy,” she breathes out. She’s thought about it. She’s heard people talk about it in movies, she’s heard the girls talk about it, about the actual act, and it’s never seemed… She doesn’t know that she likes the idea of being so intimate.

It’s like when the girls talk about men who are attractive, when they talk about Paul Newman and how handsome he is, when they talk about kissing men. Anita was talking about how it makes her feel when her fiancé puts his hand on her waist, how it makes her heart flutter.

Elsa’s never felt that.

“We don’t,” says Linda. “Jasper and I. We’re quite comfortable with each other’s bodies, we see each other naked, help each other dress. Jasper broke his leg a few years ago, and I helped him in the shower a lot, so we’re used to bathing together.”

“I can’t imagine it,” says Elsa. “Being close to a man like that.”

“And to a woman?” Linda asks.

Elsa’s breath arrests in her throat. “Did, um— Did your husband bring me home… for you?”

Linda slowly shakes her head. “He thought you might be like us, had his suspicions,” she says. “But we have friends, Elsa – I was serious when I said I could find someone like him to match you up with. A man inclined like Jasper, if you’re inclined… like me.”

“How do I know?” asks Elsa. “That I am?”

Linda looks at her with her dark eyes, and then she slides closer on the sofa, until their knees brush against each other, and Elsa hears a little noise come out of her own mouth, a shock running through her.

“May I?” asks Linda, and Elsa doesn’t know what she means exactly, is hypnotised by the gesture of one of Linda’s hands, so she just dumbly nods her head, dizzied, drawn in.

Linda cleans closer, and Elsa breathes in the scent of her perfume.

It’s far, far subtler than anything they wear at work – she finds it too sickly sometimes, the scents the other girls wear, too overwhelming, but this is nice. It’s sweet, but there’s a muskiness to it, a depth.

Then Linda is kissing her, and Elsa feels like she might die.

Linda’s lips are plump and soft and so, so warm against hers, the movement gentle, and Elsa feels full up with her – with the scent of her perfume and her shampoo too, with the warmth of her mouth and the lemonade taste lingering on her lips, Linda’s fingers delicately resting on her thigh. Linda’s chest is brushing against hers, and Elsa can feel the weight of them, the weight of—

“Oh, God,” she whispers, almost whimpers, and Linda’s laugh as a curl of smoke through it, so that Elsa feels hot and burning all over.

“Would—” Linda starts, and Elsa feels horribly rude because she cuts her off, but she just craves more, crushes their lips together in another hungry kiss, and this time Linda opens her mouth and they kiss each other more deeply, their tongues sliding against each other, and ohGodit’sthebestthingintheworld—

Linda cups her cheek, tilting her head to kiss her deeper, controlling it, and Elsa’s hands scramble for her, to grab at her – she squeezes one of Linda’s thighs, her head spinning with how muscular they are, how strong she must be. She’s got broad shoulders and strong arms and strong legs, and Elsa’s head spins with questions, wondering if she cycles, or if she rides horses, or if she does archery, somehow, and is some sort of warrior goddess like Wonder Woman, and—

Their lips make a smacking noise when Linda draws back.

“Is that what it feels like?” Elsa asks urgently. “When people kiss men?”

Linda laughs at her, stroking her cheek with her thumb. “It’s what Jasper feels, maybe. I’ve never enjoyed it much.”

Elsa is breathing heavily, sweat on her skin under her clothes, burning on the back of her neck. She wonders if she’s as red all over as she feels – if she’s as red as all that, she must be glowing like a beacon.

“Can I, um,” she starts, her hands trembling with anticipation. “Can I touch them?”

“Touch what?”

“Your… bosoms?”

Linda sniggers, and Elsa laughs helplessly, at herself, at the absurdity of the situation, at the intensity of her own swirling emotions, the feeling that she’s balanced on the head of a pin with a storm swirling around her. Linda takes her gently by the wrists and puts her hands on her breasts, and they’re so, so warm, and so soft, and so big, and—

“They’re magnificent, aren’t they?” Jasper asks. “A wonderful pillow my wife makes, too.”

“I’m so glad I make good furniture for you,” snarks Linda witheringly, and Elsa slowly cups her chest from underneath, feeling how heavy her breasts are – Linda’s brassiere is made of a more reinforced fabric than hers, she thinks. Maybe that’s why she’s so muscular, just so that the weight doesn’t hurt her back as much. She knows some of the girls have difficulty getting a brassiere that supports them well, that if you have a big chest, it can hurt your posture, your neck, your shoulders.

“The cat pushes these up?” she asks, weighing them between her palms like she’s two halves of a scale, and even knowing that some of the weight is being taken by Linda’s bra, they’re heavy.

“They’re very strong boys,” says Linda.

“Wow,” Elsa whispers.

“You love them now,” says Jasper mildly. “Wait until one of them smacks you in the face in the heat of the moment.”

Elsa does think about that for a second, feeling like her brain is short-circuiting somehow, that there must be steam or perhaps smoke rising up from her ears. What’s Linda’s skin like, underneath her cardigan, her blouse, her bra? Her— Her nipples?

“You are just cute as a button,” Linda murmurs. “Jasper, do you mind if we…?”

Elsa looks over when Linda trails off – Jasper is already pulling his coat on. Elsa keeps struggling to remember that he’s there. “The timer is set for an hour,” he says mildly. “I’ll drop in on Evan for forty-five minutes or so. You two… explore.”

“Sorry,” says Elsa reflexively.

“Sorry?” repeats Linda, raising her eyebrows. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Darling, what would you even have to be sorry for? Look at that smile on your face.” Jasper puts one hand on his hip, looking over at the two of them. “I did know this was a possibility.”

Elsa bites the inside of her lip, looking at Linda’s amused expression, at the affection in it. She feels searingly hot on the inside, and warm – not just between her legs, but also in the core of her, a spiritual warmth, beyond the physical. It feels, somehow, like something inside her has slotted into place, has become complete where it wasn’t before. She is smiling, she realises, her lips curved naturally into the crescent of it.

“Only forty-five minutes?” she asks, and Linda and Jasper both laugh.

“Only to take the chicken out,” says Jasper over his shoulder as he goes to the door. He’s wearing a pocket watch, she realises – no wrist watch, still. “I know from experience that Linda won’t hear the alarm.”

“Not all of us can be domestic goddesses,” Linda says dryly.

“Happy to play the Parvati to your Shiva, my dear,” he says, and winks before he closes the door behind him.

“Is it okay?” Elsa asks as the door shuts closed. “I don’t want you to think that I, that I’m treating you like a man would.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Linda murmurs, “I’m not remotely worried about that. Why don’t we kiss again, hm? Slower this ti—”

Elsa cuts her off again, and she swallows Linda’s answering laughter as the older woman curls her fingers through her hair and pulls her closer for more.

(They don’t hear the timer. Jasper teases them about it for weeks.)

FIN.

#musings #original fiction #romance #lesbians

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