#so i’m in my Sleep Attire (underwear) and if the door was unlocked i would’ve SCREAMED

[hellfireeddiemunson]

bitches always are knocking on my bedroom door and then immediately trying to open it. I HAVENT EVEN GOTTEN TO TELL YOU COME IN OR NOT YET STOP THAT

[tintinwrites]

i dream too much | Frankie ‘Catfish’ Morales x Reader | Part One

A/N: Just wanted to say that this is going to be a mini series, probably around six parts!!

Rating: 18+

Warning: Fem!Reader. It says Frankie x Reader but it is also Santi x Reader as well (this is a pining fic, my hoes). No smut, but it gets close...a lime if you will goodbye I am Ancient. Naughty words. Frankie gets his heart broken. Everyone is just stupid.

Word count: 2,251, apparently!!

Summary: Frankie decides to tell you he loves you, but he finds you in bed with someone.

GIF credit: ^ Please let me know if you don’t want me using your GIF!!

Tags: Open!!

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Frankie wondered if he should’ve dressed up a little more, but you’d never been one to insist on fancy dress.

How many times had you laid on his chest in nothing but a T-shirt and shorts when he was just in a shirt and jeans?

Regardless, he pulled off his V-neck and replaced it with a button down shirt, though it was short-sleeved and covered in a niche print.

It was fancier than his normal attire and showed that this was important to him, that this was an occasion that mattered and he wanted to show you that this meant a lot. That he wasn’t just looking for a good time because you were his friend and you had tits.

God, the way he zoned out in front of the mirror for a couple moments just thinking about your breasts wasn’t the point.

The point was that he’d been in love with you since practically the day he met you; your smile, your laugh, the way you touched his arm, all your jokes that nearly had him weeping from laughter...he never stood a chance, did he?

At first, he tried to convince himself that it was just a little crush because you were pretty and you were sweet to him, but it seemed like he just fell for you more and more each day. Even years into your friendship now, he still found little things about you that turned him into a fucking dope.

He was so terrified to ruin your friendship that he just kept it as a horrible, gnawing, yearning secret until he just couldn’t take it anymore. Not only was it eating away at him to pretend he wasn’t completely in love with you, but he didn’t think it was fair to you that he was having thoughts like this when you considered your friendship to be innocent.

When he went on another date with another person in his attempts to find someone as a way to get over his feelings for you, he realized it was definitely time that he told you for both your and his sake.

You would probably turn him down which would be okay even if it hurt like hell. He just didn’t want to keep harboring the secret like this even if you didn’t feel the same way.

That part made him a little nervous, but then he would remember one of the reasons why he was in love with you; you always called him ‘sweet Frankie’, even had it as his name in your phone with a couple heart emojis with it, and that made him think that maybe…

Well, it gave him the courage to admit to you what he felt whether you returned those feelings or not.

He decided to buy a bouquet of your favorite flowers and then panicked that it was a stupid, lame idea to buy you flowers, but he stuck with it so he wouldn’t have wasted the money. They were pretty, they smelled nice, they were a lot like you and he figured it would be good to lead with that.

I bought these for you because they reminded me of you and I love you.

That was stupid and didn’t even sound like something he would say. He hadn’t told someone he loved them since he was in his twenties and they broke up when he was thirty, and he hadn’t exactly had a long term relationship since then.

Every line or speech he planned just didn’t sound right, so he was just going to say whatever came to mind so it could be natural.

He hesitated when he stepped off the elevator and approached the door to your apartment, quickly forcing himself to knock before he could get scared enough to walk away.

You needed to know. He needed to tell you everything.

There was no answer and he thought that he tried to talk to you when you weren’t home, but he tried the doorknob and found that it wasn’t locked. Maybe you were just showering or something.

He stepped inside and shut the door, and he was just about to call out to you so he wouldn’t scare you with his presence when he heard the distinct sound of your laughter.

It was coming from the bedroom so he thought instead that you were just watching television, setting the bouquet down on your coffee table as he made his way down the little hallway that led to your room.

The door was open and he started to say your name, but paused when he stepped on something and looked down with his brow furrowed to find your bra on the floor. And your favorite shirt. There was a pair of lacy panties right outside the door and he had to force his gaze away from it as he moved closer.

He worried that maybe he was encroaching on some...alone time and he stared at the floor until he realized that you weren’t alone.

A man’s moan had him immediately jerking his head up to see that you were underneath someone; lips pressing, legs tangling, his hands wandering over your hips and your thighs and one of your hands moving in an obvious way within the man’s underwear.

Frankie’s heart would’ve dropped even if it was some complete stranger you’d picked up in a bar, but this wasn’t a stranger. Pope, his best fucking friend, was currently reaching between your legs to touch you.

He didn’t tell Santi or any of the other guys about his feelings for you, fearing ridicule or that they would tell you, but that didn’t mean it didn’t kill him to see his own best friend on top of the woman he loved.

It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt to see how enthusiastically you were enjoying him.

He’d been in love with you for years and Santi still beat him to you.

Not that it was a competition, not that you were a prize to be won, but...seeing the person he loved in the arms of someone he couldn’t even compare to was a bitter pill to take.

All he could do was stare in shock and disappointment, and there was a hollow ache that made it feel like someone was trying to push his chest right through his back.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?

Start telling you he loved you when Santi inevitably started fucking you? He couldn’t do that now, couldn’t tell you what he felt and humiliate and hurt you by awkwardly putting you on the spot when you were about to sleep with somebody else.

Once he was back in his right mind and realized he was impeding on a private moment and that his heart was sinking lower with each passing second, he knew he needed to leave. He would never tell you he’d been here and try to forget it himself.

That might have worked better if he didn’t step on your discarded underwear, slipping slightly since it was on the wood floor and stumbling into the wall. “Fuck!”

He heard a gasp and immediately looked to see that you had pushed Santi aside enough to see him, looking entirely mortified.

“Frankie?!” You hissed something to Santiago as you quickly shoved him off, grabbing the rumpled throw blanket from the foot of your bed to cover yourself.

Between your speed and Frankie’s respectfulness, he didn’t see more than a glimpse of you, but that didn’t stop him from blushing and sinking further against the wall in hopes that it would just swallow him and spit him out on another continent.

No such luck. He was still there, staring at the two of you. You were looking at him like a deer in headlights and Santi, though he covered the bulge in his underwear with a pillow, was grinning at him.

“You miss seeing my ass in the army showers or something, pendejo?” he teased since, yeah, Frankie would’ve gotten an eyeful of his ass if he’d just stood there silently.

“I was just...fuck, I was in the neighborhood and the door was unlocked…” He had a habit of taking off his hat and wringing it when he was anxious, but he only touched his hair when he reached up because he wanted to look good for you and hadn’t worn a hat.

“How much did you see?” Your question was practically squeaked out in embarrassment.

“Nothing.” Frankie was quick to reassure you, holding his hands up. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I should go.” His own embarrassment at his plans to tell you he loved you and at the two of you discovering he was there outweighed his pain for the moment, but he didn’t know how long it would. Both emotions made him want to run far, far away anyway.

“Oh, Frankie…” You started to get up and the way the blanket fell bared your hip to him and he—

“Don’t get up! I...I just stopped by because I was in the neighborhood, it’s not a big deal.” It was supposed to be a big deal. He supposed it still was, just not in the way he wanted.

He was supposed to tell you he loved you and he was supposed to be the one in your bed, but you’d chosen Santi before he could even get a chance.

He couldn’t help the jealousy that welled up in him; Santiago had always been handsome and charming where Frankie was average and too shy to go for half the things he wanted. He’d always looked up to him for that and now…

“Do you want some coffee?” you asked softly, looking guilty for the awkwardness of him witnessing such a moment.

With your offer was Santi’s hand rubbing your hip, trying to keep you in the mood despite the interruption, and you didn’t move away. Meaning you wanted to continue and Frankie was just a nuisance in that moment. “I’m good. I have, uh...a hip...appointment.”

He knew why he had hips on the brain, but his quick excuse just sounded silly to the two of you.

“You gettin’ old on me, ‘Fish?” Santi asked, eyebrows raised.

“Is everything okay?” The genuine concern in your voice made his chest squeeze, not any less in love with you than before even though he kind of hoped he would be.

“I mean...chiropractor appointment. I think I threw something out and I need, like...aligned and shit,” he mumbled, just wanting to leave as much as you two wanted to fuck.

“Oh, okay. Text me, let me know how it goes?” You smiled at him sweetly like you always seemed to do.

How could anyone be expected to not fall in love with you? He couldn’t even blame Santi for wanting you.

This was all probably just a hookup if he knew his friend, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell you now. Or ever. Not knowing that you wanted Santi first, imagining the sympathy in your eyes when you would tell him you didn’t feel the same way.

What was a few more years of pretending he didn’t love you to a man who’d already spent this long doing so?

Maybe this was the push he needed to move on from his feelings for you and give his dates an actual chance before deciding he didn’t like them because they weren’t you.

“Please fucking go, man.” Santi’s tone was desperate and meaningful, nodding towards you subtly as if to tell Frankie he was about to fuck you and needed alone time like he didn’t know.

“See you.” He hated the way the other man was just acting like they were two buddies in a bar and you were just some pair of pants Santi managed to flirt his way into.

He quickly turned and made his way down the hall, kicking off the panties that were still wrapped around the toe of his boot. He didn’t even remember the bouquet of flowers, just walked to the door and left as quickly as he possibly could.

Frankie had been broken up with a couple times in his life; middle school, high school, his one long term relationship that ended when he was thirty. But none of those even compared to this.

Maybe it was because you didn’t know he loved you or maybe he felt a sense of betrayal despite never admitting to Santi how he felt. Maybe he loved you more than he’d ever love anyone in his life and this made his yearning permanent.

All he knew was that this hurt like hell and he couldn’t believe he ever thought a fucking love confession was a good idea.

You could have your pick of anyone and this just proved it. Why the fuck would you even look twice at him when there were guys like Santi around?

Being so close with you was more than enough and he was almost happy that he didn’t ruin it now, trying to convince himself that the whole situation had saved his ass.

It probably was just a crush he’d been harboring since he met you and he was just reading into it too much.

But as he climbed into his truck, and shut the door, and let his head thump back against the seat, he knew that he loved you and that now he would never be able to do a damn thing about it.

[bentforkent]

waffles

spencer reid x female!reader

content warning: fluff, smut, spanking, daddy kink, dom/sub, bratty!reader, degradation, dom!spencer, sub!reader, also domestic soft spencer hehe 

(i promise not everything i write will be smut/kink, by the way lol)

word count: 2,025

in which you're pouting about spencer leaving for work, so he puts you in your place.

“spencer, shut up,” you mumble groggily, waking up to the sound of him speaking as if you weren’t sleeping right next to him. eyes still closed, you flop your arm across the bed to hit him gently, shocked to feel an empty bed. his side of the sheets are still warm, but the brief panic of being alone is enough to propel you into an upright position, rubbing your eyes open. spencer is leaning against the doorframe of your shared bedroom, chatting on the phone. when his eyes met yours, he grins and greets you in a short wave.

“okay, i’ll see you then.” spencer wraps up his phone call, maintaining eye contact with you. “good morning, lovey,” he addresses you for the first time as he slips his phone into his pants pocket. it’s then you notice he’s already dressed in his work attire. you feel underdressed, literally, in only a pair of underwear and a ratty old t-shirt. “how’d you sleep?”

he takes a seat on the edge of the bed as you crawl to meet him there. “good,” you hum, resting your head against his shoulder. “would’ve been better if someone didn’t hog all the sheets…again.” before he can answer, defending himself, your face situates into a pout and you continue. “i would be better right now if i didn’t think that you’re leaving for work soon.”

 it’s not fair, you think, that he always has to leave, especially on days when he looks so goddamn pretty. the sun is beginning to peek over the horizon and into your bedroom’s window, highlighting the highest points of spencer’s features. cheekbone connects to jaw connects to neck, and you’re desperate to unbutton his shirt and run your fingers across his clavicle.

spencer runs a hand through your hair in an attempt to smooth your unruly bedhead. “wheels up in an hour, baby.” you huff at this, and he shoots you a warning look before continuing, “i’ve got some time to kill before then, i can make you waffles?”

you’re not surprised by his sweet offer, but it fills you with warmth. as you’re considering it, spencer watches you intently. the air in the bedroom feels different than it usually does on days he’s leaving, and he has an inkling that it might be hard to leave today. you peer up at him through low eyelids, bottom lip puffed out more than usual, and he knows what’s coming out of your mouth next.

you rub your eyes. “yeah, waffles would be nice, daddy.”

spencer visibly deflates at the pet name, letting out a soft chuckle. “you’re gonna make it really difficult to leave today, bunny, you know that?” you knew. somewhere deep in your half-asleep brain, you had convinced yourself that if you were as bratty and clingy as possible, there was no way your boyfriend could get on that plane. 

spencer stands from the bed. you hold your arms up, desperate for him to carry you to the kitchen. you bat your eyelashes. instead of indulging you, he grips your chin gently, but with force. “i know what you’re doing, y/n,” he says in a low tone. the gravel of his voice suggests a no-nonsense attitude, but you’ve never been one to play by the rules. you take a split-second to make a decision that might sacrifice the homemade waffles. and then you stick your tongue out at spencer, a deep scowl on your face.

the simplicity of the action might go unnoticed to some, but to your attentive boyfriend, it’s the ultimate act of defiance. “i just don’t want you to leave!” you say petulantly, trying to pull your jaw out of his firm grip, squirming against him.

“you fucking brat,” he says simply, letting go of your face to redirect his grip to your wrists. he’s mad, pissed. he looks so beautiful as he pulls you up off of the bed harshly, a vein popping out of his forehead. you only see that vein when he’s angry or turned on, and you’re overwhelmed with the urge to smooth your fingers over it. “daddy offered to make you waffles before he left, and instead of being grateful, you decide to be selfish and pout.” you’re silent as he drags you out of the bedroom, still struggling against his grip. “you know i have to leave. it never changes. it will always be the same. and you can be a good girl about it, or you can be a brat. which one are you choosing today?” his voice is laced with frustration. he’s still got your wrists held in one of his strong hands and you can’t seem to get even one hand pulled out.

“a good girl,” you say, but your defiant tone contradicts your words. spencer finally frees your hands, taking a seat on the living room couch. you take the millisecond his hands aren’t on you to attempt a mad dash away from him and back to the bedroom, but his reflexes are too quick and he grabs your waist with enough force to bruise. you let out a loud whine, and spencer, having complete control, flips you over onto his lap, ass in the air.

you’re mumbling curse words under your breath, aware that your position means you’re in for a hell of a spanking. using one hand on the small of your back to keep you in your spot, spencer grabs your hair and lifts your head. “hey,” he whispers, gently, a change from his original tone. “i love you. red, yellow, or green?” he breaks his dominant facade to check in with you.

you grin. you love him so much. you’re dreading how much he’s going to wreck you, but you admit that you’re into it. “green, daddy. i love you too,” you answer in a similar soft tone.

he groans. “you’re gonna kill me, little one.” he rubs his hand over your ass, softly, then grips it forcefully. you let out a tiny sigh. spencer begins leaving stinging handprints along your backside, encouraged by your soft sniffles. he spanks with all of his strength, and mentally you count twenty before he stops. “you know why i’m spanking you, right baby?”

you nod in response. normally spencer would clock you for not using your words, but he recognizes that he’s working on a timeframe. in order to make it on time from your apartment to the airport, he’d have to leave in exactly 23 minutes, he calculates quickly.

“we’ll do ten more and then i’m done with you,” he concedes, and you’re pleasantly surprised by how easy he let you off. 30 feels like nothing, especially considering you had just tried to run from him. your elation is short-lived however, when you feel him moving underneath you. with your face pressed into the couch, you can’t see anything, but the sound of his belt buckle is unmistakable. spencer sees your back muscles tense upon hearing it, and lets out a chuckle. “you thought it was gonna be easy, princess?”

you know better than to try and squirm away from him, but it’s tempting to. he smooths his hand over his previous marks gently, trying to provide some comfort before he continues with his torture. “tell me your color,” he demands.

“daddy please—” you attempt to bargain with him, but he’s not having it.  

“tell me your color.”“it’s green, it’s green,” you rush out. you try to squeeze a plea in quickly. “daddy, not the belt please,” you whine, but before you can finish your cries spencer’s smacked your ass with the belt. your breath hitches and you choke out a sob.

“this is for being a bratty little girl,” he hits again, full force, and you’re bawling, tears soaking into your couch cushion. “you’ll feel this pain the whole time i’m gone and be reminded of daddy.” he pauses to wipe your eyes, then continues. the rhythmic smack of the leather against your skin is cathartic for spencer, and your sobs egg him on.

after another eight harsh smacks, he drops the belt, and plants multiple soft kisses on the curve of your ass down to your thighs. he sits you up in his lap and you wince at the pain, tears still pouring down your cheeks, chest heaving. “daddy’s little crybaby,” he murmurs, rubbing his thumb against your bottom lip. spencer looks at you for a long moment, then gives an unusual request. “can i take a picture of you?”

you nod with a sniffle, all of your violent crying rubbing your throat too raw to speak. you know you look so fucked out, and spencer hadn’t even touched you. his thumb is still perched on your pouted lip, and you gently pull it into your mouth, sucking softly as spencer fumbles for his phone. “you’re so pretty, love,” he tells you as he snaps a photo. “you’re a good girl, took your punishment so well.” you’re tired, and bury your head in his chest by way of responding. spencer checks his phone. ten minutes til he has to leave.

“love, i’ve got to leave soon, so let me put some lotion on you before then.” he picks you up, being mindful of your wounds, and carries you to the bedroom. he lays you down on your stomach and you look up at him adoringly.

“i love you, spencer,” you say, watching him rummage in the drawers for the lotion.

“i love you too,” he replies, rubbing the soothing cream onto your backside gently. “take it easy today, my love. i went hard on you.” you nod. “you did so good, though.”

you beam at his praise and steal a glance at his clock. “i’ll miss you,” you mumble, realizing your time together is almost up. spencer runs his hands through your hair, pulling it back into two loose braids quickly. he always braids your hair after a punishment, and it makes you feel like you’re glowing. no matter how rough he is, you’re always reminded of his true disposition by how gently he handles you afterwards.

“i’ll miss you more, my sweet sweet girl.” he presses a firm kiss to your lips then heads out of the bedroom.

“call every night! and promise you’ll be home!” you shout from the bed, hearing him pick up his keys.

“i‘ll call every night, lovey,” he calls back. the front door unlocks. his footsteps return to the bedroom, hastily. he wants to tell you this part in person. “i’ll be home, baby. promise. gonna be super safe.”

you beam at him from your spot on the bed and shoo him away, begging him not to be late.

spencer has early mornings with the BAU, so you doze back off with no guilt after he leaves. when you finally wake back up, ready to start your day, you’re met with three things. one: a dull, throbbing pain on your asscheeks. two: a growling stomach. and three: a text from spencer with a photo attached.

spence (9:16 am): look how pretty my girl is. i’m gonna miss your face.

the photo of you is mesmerizing. tears cling to your lashes, making them dark and droopy. your eyes are glazed over, staring at spencer behind the camera, rather than the lens. your cheeks are hollowed out around his thumb, and his other fingers are splayed against your jaw. you think you look tired. you think you look like you’ve been, well, spanked. but it fills you with butterflies knowing spencer thinks that you, even in your most vulnerable state, are pretty. he’s in awe of you, so you make an effort to be in awe of you too.

you (10:05): i miss u already spence :-(

you’re increasingly aware of how hungry you are, feeling a pang of regret that you didn’t opt into a nice, domestic morning with spencer making you waffles. maybe when he got home he would make you some, you thought. as if reading your mind, another text from spencer pings your phone.

spence (10:07): waffles when i get home, baby

you grin.

[spiderfan22]

DAY THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-SIX - 4/12/2020

“THE SUNDAY SERMON: A NEW ME FOR 2020” by DJS

Easter, a day for resurrections.  

As I approach the end of this blog, with only nine more entries to go, I thought it only fitting that we have a last visit with Edgar. Like all the other Sunday Sermons, this one was first written by hand, then typed up, with very little altered or edited during the process of transcribing. With Edgar, what you see is what you get, warts and all, and that extends to the creative process. So, while I won’t miss his despicable character, I will miss the freedom writing him granted me.  

Thanks, Edgar. Now fuck off.

---------------------

(Edgar’s apartment bedroom. A Saturday afternoon in May. There’s been an attempt made at better housekeeping. The bed, while not perfectly made, has at least been tidied up. And there’s a laundry basket full of CLEAN laundry waiting to be folded and put away. Signs like these. Right now the house is quiet; no one home. Hold for a moment, then we hear the apartment door being unlocked and someone coming in. Sounds of off-stage action: cabinet opening in the kitchen, running water, someone coming down the hall, approaching the door, which is ajar. Edgar comes in with a glass of water. He is 39 years old, red faced and sweating profusely, in workout attire. He stops just inside the room, chugs the water straight down, and finishes with a satisfied gasp. He sets the empty glass on the dresser next to another empty glass. Crossing the room towards the attached bath, he notices the audience for the first time and says:)

Hey. Just got back from a run. Five miles or something like that. I don’t have one of those apps on my phone that tells you, but my heart. I can feel it. Like it’s not going to stop. Which is a good thing, I guess, it’s what you want. But at the same time you have... (Kicks off his shoes.) It’s disconcerting. Like you don’t actually want to feel your heart have to put out all this effort, feeling like it’s working overtime, you just want this silent working system that you don’t ever even really notice; you only notice it when something’s wrong. (Retrieves his empty water glass, refills it from the bathroom sink, keeps talking.) Organs in general, we take them for granted, if nothing feels off then it must be all good, right? Then you get a weird pain in your side or your chest seems to clench or like there’s a little shock in there, or your knee will out of nowhere buckle that you get this kind of shock like “where did that come from?” I was feeling fine two seconds ago, now why suddenly does my knee hurt or I have this cramping in my side - Is it my kidneys? That’s where your kidneys are, right? ‘Do I need to go to the doctor?” Then you go to the doctor and you try to describe this mystery pain, like a sharpness in your whatever, only you can’t ever really do it justice explaining it – if only it could actually happen IN THE MOMENT when you’re with him, at the appointment, it just makes pinpointing anything or getting to a root cause almost feel like it’s impossible and you’re just wasting all of your time trying to diagnose this phantom thing/problem.

(He takes off his shirt, wipes under his arms with it. Tosses it across room into hamper.)

And yet what we never even seem to care about... are headaches. Actual physical pain INSIDE OUR HEADS, the brain that tells everything else what to do, the master controls if you will, if it goes you’re fucked. Well no one goes in for a headache, we just take those as doing business, pop a couple ibuprofen, it goes away and you don’t think about, till it happens again, and happens over and over again.  

(He goes into the bathroom and turns on the shower.)

The thing that really scares me though is brain aneurysms, because it just seems like there’s no way of stopping them, they’re unpreventable. If it’s gonna happen to you it’s gonna happen. One minute fine, the next Ow, I’m dead.  

(Takes off his shorts. Tosses them across room into hamper.)

You hear about it happening it always comes as a shock, (Sits on bed to remove his socks, picks at lint between toes.) unlike a heart attack or even strokes, those are lifestyle, and also not always a strict death sentence. But with aneurysms it’s just like there’s nothing you could, that anyone could – you're just unlucky. And it sucks.

(He rises, takes off his underwear, fully naked now. Tosses underwear but misses hamper this time, shrugs.)

I’m gonna hop in the shower. But don’t worry I think you’ll still probably be able to hear me in there. I’ll talk loud.

(Edgar gets into the shower. We can barely hear him over the streaming water, his voice cuts in and out.)

It’s thoughts like this that’ve made me think differently about my life, sort of reevaluating. It was time I guess. I don’t know, I got divorced five years ago, about five years ago and it wasn’t really... But I had let myself go so long before that that when I eventually moved out and started living on my own again my basic functioning was just... Well, it was just very basic. Work, sleep, eat, watch TV, the only real entertainment – try to get laid. I’d meet women try to convince them to go out with me. You find the right kind of woman, she’s lonely, depressed, doesn’t have a lot of self-esteem. She works in a dentist office, she works long hours, she doesn’t care too much about how those free hours are spent, she goes home, she immediately changes out of her work whatever, she microwaves a meal or does something easy like salad, parks herself on the couch. I take the bus to work so this is the kind of woman I’d come across, sitting next to, ask how her day was – always at the end of the day too, never the start, never before work, because despite us knowing better we still, people still get this irrational feeling of hope that today’s gonna be better, or different at least – combined with the fact that everyone just woke up, they’re still tired and not really conducive to conversation that early in the morning – but what was I saying? You ask how their day was – or you don’t. Instead you say something like “Long day huh?” implying that you already know they had a shitty day and you are in fact commiserating cause you had a shitty day too. It’s something you can agree on.

Hold on. I got some soap in my eye.  

Hate that.

(Pause as he rinses it out.)

...to agree on. A basis to start a conversation in the first place, familiarity. Also gives you a chance to gauge their attraction. In my experience if a woman’s not interested she’ll let you know right away, and it’s rarely subtle. It’s not explicit but it’s rarely subtle. It can be the difference between a smirk and a shrug, but when you see it, you know. And I give up right away. I don’t waste my time. Or theirs. Plus if you think about being a woman – and ladies, I know I’m preaching to the converted here but – if you think what it must be like to get hit on all the time, or even just stared at. That’s one of the big problems by the way -

(The shower turns off. Edgar gets out, starts to dry himself with a towel that was hanging on the back of the door.)

If a guy sees a woman look at him, and linger for even a second, even just hesitate, we assume maybe there’s an interest. Because in our minds, if the shoe was on the other foot and we’re staring at some girl we obviously find her attractive and are thinking about sleeping with her. It’s like that thing they’re always saying, a study or something they did that says men think about sex every seven seconds or some crazy number like that, basically all the time. Which I don’t know if it’s true or not, the frequency but, if we do look at you, if we are staring, then it’s pretty much forgone that yes, we are thinking that, we’re thinking about what you would be like in bed, if you’re a slut, if you’d do certain things, if you’d let us cum on your face, or swallow, even better swallow, we look at your butt as you walk away, in your yoga pants and how they really make things prominent, leave little to the imagination, and how that can’t be an accident, and all we want to do is get you on the nearest surface and just get behind you on all fours and pull your hair, we wonder if you like to have your hair pulled, or be bit, or slapped, or choked, and if we really work you up good if you’ll call us Daddy, really striking vivid scenarios pop into our heads in an instant, none faster than the simplest basic most important question: Would I sleep with this woman Yes or No?

The answer is almost invariably yes.

(Pause. Then he rehangs the towel on the back of the door. Edgar puts toothpaste on his toothbrush, looks in the mirror and brushes his teeth.)

I started brushing my teeth in the shower but forgot. I hate when I do that. I made it part of my routine but I guess you guys distracted me. (Spits in sink, rinses toothbrush.) Dental health. I hadn’t been to the dentist in close to ten years when I finally booked an appointment two months ago. I’d brush about once every couple days before that. It wasn’t good and I have no excuse. So the night before I was supposed to go in I thought I should at least floss, get whatever, you know, any big chunks of stuff that’ve might got lodged.

Jesus Christ, the blood. Like my mouth just started, my gums started bleeding like as soon as the floss touched them, like it was razor wire. And I closed my mouth I could taste that irony blood taste and swished around and spit into the sink – you would’ve thought I’d just been in a fight and got my ass kicked. Just spitting up blood. Well, I warned the dentist the next day before he even went near me; “My gums might be a little sensitive doc, so just be warned.” Turns out I only had a couple cavities, a couple fillings, miraculously. Go figure. Just a man with a good set of choppers I guess.

(He goes through the laundry basket of clean clothes, finds socks, underwear, etc.)

But it was all part of my plan to start turning things around in my life. (Putting on underwear.) I realized what I think are a couple of very important things. The first was I only have one body. So I better take care of it, cause it’s gonna have to last me awhile.

And just so you’re not under any delusion, as much as these might sound like New Years’ resolutions but I didn’t come around to most of this stuff until February.

(He sits on the bed to put on his socks.)

You only have ONE body, so you better take care of it. That meant actually putting some thought into things, planning, which has never been my forte. Eating, how do you eat, what do you eat, when do you eat it, how do you prepare it. Well, you plan every day, every meal. You make lunches to take the next day, you actually plan ahead. You make a grocery list for God’s sake and you go to the store and you buy what’s on it. You don’t stop at the deli counter and impulse buy fried chicken just because it’d be easier than making dinner tonight. You don’t let yourself do that. It’s overcoming a lot of weakness really. You’re tired, it’s after work, so you indulge yourself. You have the money so you indulge yourself. And why not? It’s not like you’re some expert chef anyway. When you can get takeout - you can just order a pizza. But that hour you spend waiting for it to get delivered, that’s what they throw in your face, like “think about what you could’ve done in that hour, think of all the stuff you could’ve made, better for you too and probably would’ve spent less money than ordering Dominos again.” And it took me a while to realize that yes, those people are assholes who should mind their own business, but they’re also NOT WRONG. Because it’s about discipline.

(He stands up, then comes downstage a little towards the audience.)

You think that guy you see running every morning when you walk out to your car does it cause he just loves the fresh air? You think he wants to get up at 7:30 and spend an hour in the freezing cold, his chest feeling like it’s going to explode out his – thighs rubbing together, itching – because that’s his true passion in life? Of course not. But he knows it’s good for him. He knows if he does it every day, if he builds it into his schedule every day, occupying the same space of time, that he has to hold himself to -

Because discipline a lot of us just don’t have. As a trait, I mean, you’re rare to just be born with it. Why so many people suffer from procrastination – it's not ingrained. Most of us, most humans, are just basically lazy. Or not lazy, but we like being content, we don’t need to go out of the way to tax ourselves. That’s our default. So you live 20, 30 years by that model and effecting any real change becomes close to impossible. I had the same outlook. If I’m already at this point, if I’ve reached it, well it’s essentially too late. And what’s more I can keep going just like this and eek out another 20 or 30 years, and be relatively happy, and enjoy life, eat whatever I want, sleep with people that don’t find me too disgusting, and I them, embrace an increasing limited mobility, and most of all, any symptoms, any alarm bells I might perceive, ignore them, pretend nothing is off or wrong or happening. And I thought, this is a life at peace, even of acceptance. Very zen or however they describe it.

Why rock the boat?

(A moment where Edgar lets that thought percolate. Then:)

Then I had this weird – it was like pinching, a pinching in my left armpit. Out of nowhere. It went on for about a minute. I was just sitting on the couch eating dinner. Corndogs, from the deli at Safeway. I was pretty hungry so it was three corndogs that night. I remember even being full after the second one, full but I knew it would still taste good, you know, and I’d already – I'd bit into it, so might as well... And I was chewing off the hard gristly bit of dough at the bottom of the stick when the pinching started. It was in my armpit but I could feel so clearly that it connected right directly to my heart. Like I said it lasted about a minute. I rubbed at the spot where it hurt and it just sort of went away. I breathed. I mean I took a breath. Heart seemed fine. Then I reached out for the can of Barq’s root beer I was drinking and it was as I was going for it that my hand just STOPPED. NO. No I thought.

No, don’t drink that. No it’s poison. You’re killing yourself. BEEN killing yourself. You put that stuff, ingest that, it’s gonna flow right through your veins, sticky pop mess coursing through your whole body, replacing your blood, gumming up the whole works. Is that what you want? Huh? You’re a fucking asshole, must be fucking retarded to have put that shit in your body thirty fucking years or more. You’ve had a death wish since age seven. I mean THREE FUCKING CORNDOGS? You’re not at the county fair! Don’t you want to live to see fifty?! This isn’t a special occasion you gluttonous fuck! There’s a REASON they WARN AGAINST this shit IN THE BIBLE!

(Pause.)

I threw it out. Everything – not just the soda, practically everything in my fridge and cupboards. Snacks, chips, cookies, Oreos, Double Stuffed Oreos, the freezer, frozen pizzas, Snickers ice cream bars, Ben and Jerry’s - filled up three garbage bags and straight to the dumpster. I was like I was possessed, in fact I never felt or experienced anything like that in my life, just total resolution. Resolve? I don’t know. I don’t, but it felt GOOD. I even put on music. Eye of the Tiger. A little trite, but hey! Discipline, motivation, discipline, motivation: it’s a cycle. But one where you keep actual rewards to a minimum.

(He puts on a pair of nice pants, along with a belt.)

I started with water. Building block of life, right? How many glasses are you supposed to drink a day, like eight? I was a few short. Try zero. Zero glasses a day, I was drinking no water. I think, you know, I really must’ve had hated myself.

(He goes into the bathroom to apply deodorant.)

‘Nother crazy thing about water, think about it – is there A) any beverage better for your than plain old water? And B) anything more plentiful and at the same time less expensive? Water’s cheap cheap cheap, practically free - and it’s the best fucking shit you can put in you. (Fixes his hair in the mirror; not an elaborate process.) So I got a water bottle and just started carrying it with me everywhere. Work, water bottle, it gets empty, you immediately refill it. Home, same thing. That bottle becomes like a tether to me, my constant companion. Till I forgot it on the bus one day a couple weeks ago. But by that point it didn’t matter, I’d trained myself. More n’ that, I’d broken myself of the habit of craving all that other stuff. Pop, juice, even coffee – cept every other Friday on payday when I treat myself to a latte. Well it’s ice coffee now as it’s starting to get warmer.

(He crosses to closet, opens it, and spends about a minute trying to pick out the right shirt.)

So water’s one thing, the first item on my hit list. But I gotta eat better in general. Problem is I hate cooking. I even hate people cooking for me; I mean in a domestic setting, not at a restaurant or takeout or something. It’s just the waiting thing, having to wait.

(Edgar selects a shirt, but stands there bare chested for a while longer.)

Thanksgiving, you know? That’s a bad example because the whole point is you make this big meal – not that I ever, that I was ever responsible – but it takes all day. But by the end of it you’re just starving. And no amount of peanut butter on celery or black olives is going to satisfy you when you want to be eating stuffing and mashed potatoes and gravy. It was the damn turkey, if you didn’t have to wait for anything else -

But I get the same feeling now. Impatience. Are we there yet?  

(He starts to put on his shirt, then stops.)

I had a couple girlfriends tried to make this really special, like candlelight, tablecloth, dinner for me, and all I can remember about it is sitting on the couch, my stomach continuously growling, just getting more and more irritated. Like did she have to make the pasta from hand? Make her own bread? Because I’m not going to be able to tell the difference so really what’s the - (Pulls shirt over his head.) But the point, as we all know, is to impress you – endear themselves, herself, to you. Because as, again, we all know, the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach for some reason.  

And for all the women in the audience let me disabuse you of that notion right now. And it’s not what you’re thinking either – sex. It’s not sex. Sex is like dessert, not to mix my food metaphors. It’s good, great even, but you also don’t need it every night, it CAN, and probably SHOULD, remain this special thing, if possible. Sex is not the way to a man’s heart, no. The way to a man’s heart is Obedience.

(Long pause.)

I know how that sounds, like some caveman bullshit, but hear me out, ok? We just... There’s a time and a place for everything. Most things anyway – and the woman who understands, who gets that theory, who can just let shit lie, that you can just sit with, the ability to just sit with something, not forever but just, for the time being... This is who’s going to get the man.  

Does that make sense? I know I’ve gotten off topic but -

And it’s only in recent years that I’ve come to this crystalizing... you know, just very clear and straightforward conclusions about What I Want, What I Need out of life.

And if you’re thinking “Well good luck finding it, her, a woman who’ll just shut up you’re not even have to telling her to” - yeah I know that already, thanks, I know it’s gonna be a challenge, cause I haven’t found her yet.

(Short pause.)

Also you’re really oversimplifying my point if you think that. Because I’ll admit men are just as bad as women – or close – about the whole just shutting up thing. Because it’s about communication styles. Love languages, right? This may surprise and startle our Viewers out there – but I fully subscribe to ALL that shit. For instance, I can’t take a compliment to save my fucking life. I physically tense up. But Acts of Service – you flip my laundry or fill up the gas tank – and I am yours. On my hands and knees baby. Just how you like it.

(Edgar winks, then gestures like it was just a joke. He puts on his shoes.)

But Acts of Service; yes. And recognizing that in other people, getting to know and learn what works best for them. It’s like a key, it don’t all work in the same lock. We are mysteries, even onto ourselves.

That’s what this year’s been about so far for me. Making sense of shit. Prioritizing. What do I want. What kind of life -

Who do I want to be?

(He grabs his phone and his wallet. Then his keys.)

I have a date tonight.  

I been going out a couple times a week, on dates, different women.

Thirty-nine’s not too old to be on Tinder... (Grins, lots of teeth.) Right?

I tell you one thing, I am seeing a difference. I can see the change; it’s tangible. In the past month and a half, since I started working out in earnest, I’ve dropped over 30 pounds, mostly from the gut region. I’m down under 200 again. It’s frickin crazy. All this improvement is such a short time. You gotta be proud of that too, personally, cause no one else is really gonna give a fuck. No one really cares about you bettering yourself. I don’t. I mean if you wanta eat a box of Krispy Kreams once a day then by all means. If you wanna stay up late every night deprive yourself of a good night’s sleep, your choice. We’re responsible to ourselves ultimately. And God I guess. But what does He give a fuck whether you binge Mickey D’s every night or starve yourself to death like Ghandi? He doesn’t. So you shouldn’t either.

Stay out of other people’s business is the hardest lesson some people have to learn. For others it just comes natural.

(Edgar does a final check in the bathroom mirror: hair, teeth, etc.)

Don’t care. Or try not to care too much at least.

(He nods, satisfied with his appearance. Then he turns off the bathroom light and crosses to the door. He stops just before exiting. He smiles hugely, proud.)

I’m in the best shape of my life.

(Edgar leaves. We hear the door slam off. Blackout.)