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auroraluciferi · 4 years ago

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if anyone in this time of deep concern of his health is interested about what a worthless piece of shit Prince Philip is, here is a very brief list of 90 racist, sexist, and incredibly ignorant things the man has said in the last century:

1. "Ghastly." Prince Philip's opinion of Beijing, during a 1986 tour of China.

2. "Ghastly." Prince Philip's opinion of Stoke-on-Trent, as offered to the city's Labour MP Joan Walley at Buckingham Palace in 1997.

3. "Deaf? If you're near there, no wonder you are deaf." Said to a group of deaf children standing near a Caribbean steel drum band in 2000.

4. "If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes." To 21-year-old British student Simon Kerby during a visit to China in 1986.

5. "You managed not to get eaten then?" To a British student who had trekked in Papua New Guinea, during an official visit in 1998.

6. "You can't have been here that long – you haven't got a pot belly." To a British tourist during a tour of Budapest in Hungary. 1993.

7. "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?" Asked of a Scottish driving instructor in 1995.

8. "Damn fool question!" To BBC journalist Caroline Wyatt at a banquet at the Elysée Palace after she asked Queen Elizabeth if she was enjoying her stay in Paris in 2006.

9. "It looks as though it was put in by an Indian." The Prince's verdict of a fuse box during a tour of a Scottish factory in August 1999. He later clarified his comment: "I meant to say cowboys. "I just got my cowboys and Indians mixed up."

10. "People usually say that after a fire it is water damage that is the worst. We are still drying out Windsor Castle." To survivors of the Lockerbie bombings in 1993.

11. "We don't come here for our health. We can think of other ways of enjoying ourselves." During a trip to Canada in 1976.

12. "A few years ago, everybody was saying we must have more leisure, everyone's working too much. Now that everybody's got more leisure time they are complaining they are unemployed. People don't seem to make up their minds what they want." A man of the people shares insight into the recession that gripped Britain in 1981.

13. "British women can't cook." Winning the hearts of the Scottish Women's Institute in 1961.

14. "It was part of the fortunes of war. We didn't have counsellors rushing around every time somebody let off a gun, asking 'Are you all right - are you sure you don't have a ghastly problem?' You just got on with it!" On the issue of stress counselling for servicemen in a TV documentary marking the 50th Anniversary of V-J Day in 1995.

15. "What do you gargle with – pebbles?" To Tom Jones, after the Royal Variety Performance, 1969. He added the following day: "It is very difficult at all to see how it is possible to become immensely valuable by singing what I think are the most hideous songs."

16. "It's a vast waste of space." Philip entertained guests in 2000 at the reception of a new £18m British Embassy in Berlin, which the Queen had just opened.

17. "There's a lot of your family in tonight." After glancing at business chief Atul Patel's name badge during a 2009 Buckingham Palace reception for 400 influential British Indians to meet the Royal couple.

18. "If it has four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it." Said to a World Wildlife Fund meeting in 1986.

19. "You ARE a woman, aren't you?" To a woman in Kenya in 1984, after accepting a gift.

20. "Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now?" To a wheelchair-bound Susan Edwards, and her guide dog Natalie in 2002.

21. "Get me a beer. I don't care what kind it is, just get me a beer!" On being offered the finest Italian wines by PM Giuliano Amato at a dinner in Rome in 2000.

22. "I would like to go to Russia very much – although the bastards murdered half my family." In 1967, asked if he would like to visit the Soviet Union.

23. "If a cricketer, for instance, suddenly decided to go into a school and batter a lot of people to death with a cricket bat, which he could do very easily, I mean, are you going to ban cricket bats?" In a Radio 4 interview shortly after the Dunblane shootings in 1996. He said to the interviewer off-air afterwards: "That will really set the cat among the pigeons, won't it?"

24. "Oh, it's you that owns that ghastly car is it? We often see it when driving to Windsor Castle." To neighbour Elton John after hearing he had sold his Watford FC-themed Aston Martin in 2001.

25. "The problem with London is the tourists. They cause the congestion. If we could just stop the tourism, we could stop the congestion." At the opening of City Hall in 2002.

26. "A pissometer?" The Prince sees the renames the piezometer water gauge demonstrated by Australian farmer Steve Filelti in 2000.

27. "Don't feed your rabbits pawpaw fruit – it acts as a contraceptive. Then again, it might not work on rabbits." Giving advice to a Caribbean rabbit breeder in Anguilla in 1994.

28. "You must be out of your minds." To Solomon Islanders, on being told that their population growth was 5 per cent a year, in 1982.

29. "Young people are the same as they always were. They are just as ignorant." At the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards scheme.

30. "Your country is one of the most notorious centres of trading in endangered species." Accepting a conservation award in Thailand in 1991.

31. "Aren't most of you descended from pirates?" In the Cayman Islands, 1994.

32. "You bloody silly fool!" To an elderly car park attendant who made the mistake of not recognising him at Cambridge University in 1997.

33. "Oh! You are the people ruining the rivers and the environment." To three young employees of a Scottish fish farm at Holyrood Palace in 1999.

34. "If you travel as much as we do you appreciate the improvements in aircraft design of less noise and more comfort – provided you don't travel in something called economy class, which sounds ghastly." To the Aircraft Research Association in 2002.

35. "The French don't know how to cook breakfast." After a breakfast of bacon, eggs, smoked salmon, kedgeree, croissants and pain au chocolat – from Gallic chef Regis Crépy – in 2002.

36. "And what exotic part of the world do you come from?" Asked in 1999 of Tory politician Lord Taylor of Warwick, whose parents are Jamaican. He replied: "Birmingham."

37. "Oh no, I might catch some ghastly disease." On a visit to Australia in 1992, when asked if he wanted to stroke a koala bear.

38. "It doesn't look like much work goes on at this University." Overheard at Bristol University's engineering facility. It had been closed so that he and the Queen could officially open it in 2005.

39. "I wish he'd turn the microphone off!" The Prince expresses his opinion of Elton John's performance at the 73rd Royal Variety Show, 2001.

40. "Do you still throw spears at each other?" Prince Philip shocks Aboriginal leader William Brin at the Aboriginal Cultural Park in Queensland, 2002.

41. "Where's the Southern Comfort?" On being presented with a hamper of southern goods by the American ambassador in London in 1999.

42. "Were you here in the bad old days? ... That's why you can't read and write then!" To parents during a visit to Fir Vale Comprehensive School in Sheffield, which had suffered poor academic reputation.

43. "Ah you're the one who wrote the letter. So you can write then? Ha, ha! Well done." Meeting 14-year old George Barlow, whose invited to the Queen to visit Romford, Essex, in 2003.

44. "So who's on drugs here?... HE looks as if he's on drugs." To a 14-year-old member of a Bangladeshi youth club in 2002.

45. "You could do with losing a little bit of weight." To hopeful astronaut, 13-year-old Andrew Adams.

46. "You have mosquitoes. I have the Press." To the matron of a hospital in the Caribbean in 1966.

47. "The man who invented the red carpet needed his head examined." While hosts made effort to greet a state visit to Brazil, 1968.

48. "During the Blitz a lot of shops had their windows blown in and sometimes they put up notices saying, 'More open than usual.' I now declare this place more open than usual." Unveiling a plaque at the University of Hertfordshire's new Hatfield campus in November 2003.

49 . Philip: "Who are you?"

Simon Kelner: "I'm the editor-in-chief of The Independent, Sir."

Philip: "What are you doing here?"

Kelner: "You invited me."

Philip: "Well, you didn't have to come!"

An exchange at a press reception to mark the Golden Jubilee in 2002.

50. "No, I would probably end up spitting it out over everybody." Prince Philip declines the offer of some fish from Rick Stein's seafood deli in 2000.

51. "Any bloody fool can lay a wreath at the thingamy." Discussing his role in an interview with Jeremy Paxman.

52. "Holidays are curious things, aren't they? You send children to school to get them out of your hair. Then they come back and make life difficult for parents. That is why holidays are set so they are just about the limit of your endurance." At the opening of a school in 2000.

53. "People think there's a rigid class system here, but dukes have even been known to marry chorus girls. Some have even married Americans." In 2000.

54. "Can you tell the difference between them?" On being told by President Obama that he'd had breakfast with the leaders of the UK, China and Russia.

55. "I don't know how they are going to integrate in places like Glasgow and Sheffield." After meeting students from Brunei coming to Britain to study in 1998.

56. "Do people trip over you?" Meeting a wheelchair-bound nursing-home resident in 2002.

57. "That's a nice tie... Do you have any knickers in that material?" Discussing the tartan designed for the Papal visit with then-Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie last year.

58. "I have never been noticeably reticent about talking on subjects about which I know nothing." Addressing a group of industrialists in 1961.

59. "It's not a very big one, but at least it's dead and it took an awful lot of killing!" Speaking about a crocodile he shot in Gambia in 1957.

60. "Well, you didn't design your beard too well, did you? You really must try better with your beard." To a young fashion designer at a Buckingham Palace in 2009.

61. "So you're responsible for the kind of crap Channel Four produces!" Speaking to then chairman of the channel, Michael Bishop, in 1962.

62. "Dontopedalogy is the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practiced for a good many years." Address to the General Dental Council, quoted in Time in 1960.

63. "Tolerance is the one essential ingredient ... You can take it from me that the Queen has the quality of tolerance in abundance." Advice for a successful marriage in 1997.

64. "I never see any home cooking – all I get is fancy stuff." Commiserating about the standard of Buckingham Palace cuisine in 1962.

65. "I suppose I would get in a lot of trouble if I were to melt them down." On being shown Nottingham Forest FC's trophy collection in 1999.

66. "It makes you all look like Dracula's daughters!" To pupils at Queen Anne's School in Reading, who wear blood-red uniforms, in 1998.

67. "I don't think a prostitute is more moral than a wife, but they are doing the same thing." Dismissing claims that those who sell slaughtered meat have greater moral authority than those who participate in blood sports, in 1988.

68. "Ah, so this is feminist corner then." Joining a group of female Labour MPs, who were wearing name badges reading "Ms", at a Buckingham Palace drinks party in 2000.

69. "Cats kill far more birds than men. Why don't you have a slogan: 'Kill a cat and save a bird?'" On being told of a project to protect turtle doves in Anguilla in 1965.

70. "All money nowadays seems to be produced with a natural homing instinct for the Treasury." Bemoaning the rate of British tax in 1963.

71. "It is my invariable custom to say something flattering to begin with so that I shall be excused if by any chance I put my foot in it later on." Full marks for honesty, from a speech in 1956.

72. "Why don't you go and live in a hostel to save cash?" Asked of a penniless student.

73. "In education, if in nothing else, the Scotsman knows what is best for him. Indeed, only a Scotsman can really survive a Scottish education." Said when he was made Chancellor of Edinburgh University in November 1953.

74. "If it doesn't fart or eat hay, she isn't interested." Of his daughter, Princess Anne.

75. "They're not mating are they?" Spotting two robots bumping in to one another at the Science Museum in 2000.

76. "I must be in the only person in Britain glad to see the back of that plane." Philip did not approve of the noise Concorde made while flying over the Buckingham Palace.

77. "The only active sport, which I follow, is polo – and most of the work's done by the pony!" 1965

78. "It looks like a tart's bedroom." On seeing plans for the Duke and then Duchess of York's house at Sunninghill Park.

79. "Reichskanzler." Prince Philip used Hitler's title to address German chancellor Helmut Kohl during a speech in Hanover in 1997.

80. "We go into the red next year... I shall probably have to give up polo." Comment on US television in 1969 about the Royal Family's finances.

81. "Bugger the table plan, give me my dinner!" Showing his impatience to be fed at a dinner party in 2004.

82. "I thought it was against the law these days for a woman to solicit." Said to a woman solicitor.

83. "You're just a silly little Whitehall twit: you don't trust me and I don't trust you." Said to Sir Rennie Maudslay, Keeper of the Privy Purse, in the 1970s.

84. "What about Tom Jones? He's made a million and he's a bloody awful singer." Response to a comment at a small-business lunch about how difficult it is in Britain to get rich.

85. "This could only happen in a technical college." On getting stuck in a lift between two floors at the Heriot Watt University, 1958.

86. "I'd much rather have stayed in the Navy, frankly." When asked what he felt about his life in 1992.

87. "It looks like the kind of thing my daughter would bring back from her school art lessons" On being shown "primitive" Ethiopian art in 1965.

88. "You're not wearing mink knickers, are you?" Philip charms fashion writer Serena French at a World Wildlife Fund gathering in 1993.

89. "My son...er...owns them." On being asked on a Canadian tour whether he knew the Scilly Isles.

90. "Well, that's more than you know about anything else then." Speaking, a touch condescendingly, to Michael Buerk, after being told by the BBC newsreader that he did know about the Duke of Edinburgh's Gold Awards in 2004.

#uk #united kingdom #royal #royals #prince philip #queen elizabeth #meghan markle #prince harry #corruption #racism #sexism #monarchy #seriously #what planet do you live on

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sinceileftyoublog · 4 years ago

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Small Isles Interview: Filmless Music

Photo by Dustin Aksland

BY JORDAN MAINZER

It’s rare that you find a record with a genesis as specific as The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, the debut album from Small Isles. The new project of guitarist Jim Fairchild (Grandaddy, former Modest Mouse) and songwriter/composer Jacob Snider has its basis in film scoring. The catch? The films don’t exist. The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea is presented as an imaginary score to an imagined sequel to Ang Lee’s 1997 familial drama The Ice Storm, itself based on Rick Moody’s 1994 novel. And the band’s upcoming, unfinished EP, with strings arranged by Snider and recorded by collaborator Sienna Peck, is, according to the band, a distillation of the concept of the band, one that consciously combines film scoring motifs with traditional songwriting. In a way, you could say that Small Isles is music about film scoring as much as scores itself.

Fairchild and Snider hold the belief that film scores should hold their own as a piece of music independent of visuals, and on The Valley, The Mountains, The Sea, they announce themselves convincingly. Opening track “The Concept”--essentially the prototype for the band--combines vaguely harmonic deep bass sounds with pristine, echoing string plucks, and wordless vocals, building up like an Explosions in the Sky tune. Other tracks, too, juxtapose the ambient with recognizable structures. “Fort Wayne” shimmers atop a drum machine, while the vocal samples of “Maybe We Will” cut in and out among the beats and arpeggios. Each track also has a pristine sense of place, as much of the album was written while Fairchild was on tour with Modest Mouse, tracks like “Fort Wayne” and the washy, atonal “Lake Superior” started in those locations.

I spoke with Fairchild (calling from his home in Ojai, California” and Snider (calling from near Philadelphia) last week, a few days prior to the release of the album via AKP Recordings. (The album comes out on vinyl next month). Read our conversation below, edited for length and clarity, about the band’s artistic process, The Ice Storm, adapting the songs live, and what Small Isles has in common with Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour.

Since I Left You: You’ve called this record an imaginary score to an imaginary film. Did you think of the sequencing of the record in a narrative arc?

Jim Fairchild: Kind of, but honestly, there’s a sequence that originally existed, and I don’t remember what it was, and it would have been more aligned with what I pictured from the movie, but it didn’t work as well as a comprehensive piece of music. The last song on here, “The Plot to Take Clover”, that was earlier before. “Life at One”, the first single, really kicked off me and Jacob’s partnership. It was designed that way; it’s not the way the record plays out. I wrote all of the principle themes, the underpinnings of all the compositions, as an imagined score to some sort of a sequel to The Ice Storm. I don’t know exactly how it would play out with Rick Moody. The first one was really successful. I have this idea for a similar type of movie that takes place in contemporary California and all these cues I can use as a mood board. Like, let’s sit down and figure out what this palate is. Let’s write a movie around it. That’s what I was thinking.

SILY: You wrote a lot of this while on tour. Had you conceived of the idea before then and wrote while on tour because of your downtime, or was the downtime the launching point for the idea?

JF: I was totally inspired by the idea. I started some of the themes that popped up, but once the actual Ice Storm Ang Lee idea came to mind, it was really generative. It’s how a lot of this stuff works with me. It kind of floats around for a while, reaching out this way or that. Once the real kernel appears, it’s like, “That’s it!” It all happens pretty quickly. That was definitely the case with this. It was the real fine-tuning that’s the most time consuming. That’s what Jacob and I have experienced. The EP that we’re releasing later this year, basically how it’s worked so far is I send him a sequence of chords and basic rhythm, which happens pretty quickly. Then--and we’ve only done it on Zoom with the new EP, though it was the same with “Life at One”--there was this theme. Jacob came in, we were gonna write some other stuff. He came in with a mic and sang some stacked harmonies. Then it’s carving out all the other elements around that to make it.

These are unconventional compositions. They’re meant to accompany visual ideas. With that in mind, cues and scoring music doesn’t always work in recorded music, traditionally speaking. There’s all these lengths, sometimes time signatures shift, a melody might exist in an unconventional way to fit what’s happening visually. I really wanted to embrace that. With “Life at One”, Jacob did all this stuff, and there’s this really interesting sound I don’t know how to describe. He asked, “What are those over there?” [My partner Natasha Wheat] had made these ceramic bells for me, and that’s the most fun part about working with Jacob. A lot of the people who are trained as Jacob is--and I say this with great admiration for his abilities--are stuck in certain modalities. This is a perfect example. He looked at the bells and said, “Let’s do that.” He grabbed a drumstick and played the edge of these bells and processed them. That was a big feature in the composition of “Life at One”. This all happens very thematically and reflexively, but to then carve it up and get it to have purpose, meaning, ebb, and flow and make it work visually--that’s where the dirty shit happens. [laughs] I also look forward to when Jacob and I can be in person more. We’ve made a lot happen over the past 7 months, but it’s hard when you’re not in the same room. Plus, I’d like to show off. If he’s sitting right next to me, play some fast guitar...[laughs]

SILY: The title of the record refers to various aspects of topography, and there are song titles that refer to specific places, like “Fort Wayne” and “Lake Superior”. Do these aspects exist within the narrative of the film?

JF: “Lake Superior” and “Fort Wayne” were just started in those places, literally. I picture the Ang Lee movie--the new Ang Lee movie that is inevitably gonna take form because he’s gonna hear me and Jacob’s music and think, “You’re right, we gotta do this,”--in this zone a little bit east of Berkeley. It’s the West Coast equivalent of the Connecticut zone where The Ice Storm exists. It’s this affluent, green place. But the reason I chose to keep the others as titles is like, Fort Wayne, that’s pretty grand and has Batman implications. And Lake Superior, what a fucking great name for a lake, you know? I like the power of those, and if I were sitting down and writing a movie, those titles could be at least generative of a conversation.

SILY: What about the other song titles? What inspired them?

JF: “The Concept” is literally the concept for our band. The concept has expanded since then, but out of the ordinary--no sounds are out of the ordinary in modern production--but in the film scoring landscape, out of the ordinary, ambient, or textural sounds. But then big, beautiful melodies. Jacob’s voice. All that stuff. Synthesizing our two strengths. Jacob’s also a songwriter and makes amazing songs, but my background’s in bands, and so I treat our relationship as if it’s a band. Taking our two strengths. Jacob’s more conventionally trained, schooled, and knowledgeable than I am. He has a richer depth of knowledge in theory and orchestration. I can arrange that way, but he knows what’s going on. Mine is more reflexive--I don’t want to say auto-didactic because that’s kind of an arrogant term--but learning through mistakes. I think Jacob’s made fewer mistakes than I have.

SILY: What were all the instruments used on the record?

JF: There’s a lot of found stuff. 12-string guitar. I was writing it using this Rosewood Fender Stratocaster that Fender made for me. The 12-string is prominent on “Life At One”. There’s a piano Jacob played. There’s a lot of me coming up with drum beats. A lot of the initial stuff was in the box. I’d roll in my portable studio backstage, I’d have a guitar, Universal Audio space, whatever drums and synths I had.

SILY: What is your background in film scoring?

JF: I don’t have a specific background. From a very early age, I’ve been into film scores. I’d buy them starting when I was 15 or 16. CDs. Pretty obvious releases, but things like Danny Elfman’s Batman score, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Sort of getting into Jerry Goldsmith. Elfman, Morricone. I like some of the Bernard Hermann stuff. I started studying it from the way I study everything: figuring out chord sequences, the way the melodies work, to the degree I was able. In the early 2010s, I was making a lot of music that was getting licensed for TV. Once Modest Mouse really started touring [2015 album] Strangers to Ourselves, I let a lot of those pursuits wither a little bit. But I’d always longed for a collaboration. A lot of that stuff was done in a solitary way, so I felt very fortunate when Jacob and I met. He was into that idiom but has a range of skills I don’t have. We also really work well together. All the reflexive stuff that happens, the melodies, it’s easy for us to go back and forth and see what we’re into and where to keep going. Neither of us get upset when the other person isn’t feeling whatever the direction is.

As I get older, I realize the value of stimulating multiple senses. I look forward to Jacob and I doing more of this stuff in collaboration with people. The Riley Thompson video for “Life At One” was him responding to a finished track, but in an ideal world, filmmakers would come to us and, in the way Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross work with David Fincher, where he says, “This is the concept for the new film,” and Jacob and I come back and say, “This is the sonic and melodic landscape we’re thinking of, and here are some character cues. Let’s take it from there.” I love being in conversation with people collaboratively and am attracted to the idea of it across media.

SILY: Do you think the idea that the music might not be responding to a finished film would make the score stand on its own more as a piece of music?

JF: The scores that I like totally stand on their own as music. When Morricone passed away, I read that John Zorn had a quote when they were hanging out in the late 80′s or early 90′s, Zorn said, “Don’t do it unless you’re thinking about what the soundtrack record is gonna be like.” The music needs to be cool enough to just be music.

SILY: Tell me about the album art.

JF: Natasha and I sold our place in Los Angeles last year and moved to Ojai. We thought it was a temporary transition, and now it’s somewhat permanent, because we bought a place here. We’ve been in this guesthouse next door since November. I like taking pictures at night with whatever ambient light [there is], so I took that picture from our place. I wanted there to be contrast with this technicolor paint and silver border on the upper and lower parts of the image. Homes are very interesting to me, and there’s a lot of that in The Ice Storm. There’s that shelf people look at from the outside and think, “It could be dilapidated, it could be beautiful.” People think of it as a thing. But there’s this whole other world that only exists inside of there. It’s always fascinating to me when walking by the place. Stories in the shell. I like the idea of a structure having implications. I don’t have an agenda for what those implications might be, but I like the idea that there could be implications there.

SILY: Jacob, when Jim came to you with this idea, how aware were you of The Ice Storm?

Jacob Snider: I had seen it. I don’t know if in our first meeting, it came up that specifically and clearly that this is where the music was going. In fact, it started more as a casual meeting of creative types. When I came over to Jim’s studio, he just showed me the latest thing he was working on without any huge idea behind it expressed to me in that moment. Jim might have been thinking it in that moment, but that day was more, “Alright, I’m working on something, what do you hear and is there something you think you could contribute to it?” It was really organic. Like Jim mentioned before, the best thing you can do when making something is show it to somebody else, because they’re gonna hear it in a different way or they might suggest something if you’re open to it. People can make amazing solitary music, but it will always be just their thing. You bring in someone else, there’s a different energy, a different perspective.

As it stands, I do love that film. It’s really haunting. Jim and I talked before that it’s not a movie you can watch every week. It’s heavy, and the themes are deep: family, loss, grief, betrayal. It’s a great one. I think it’s a movie that’s cinematic but also has a lot of depth. I think that’s what we’re going for with Small Isles. It has shades of film music but also shades of rock and roll and romantic string writing from the orchestral traditions. I think we’re trying to combine a few things at once, and we’re really curious how it starts to strike people and how some filmmakers respond to it.

SILY: Are you both generally Ang Lee fans?

JF: I haven’t devoured all of his work. There’s plenty I like. But I’m so in love with [The Ice Storm]. I was in love with the book before the movie came out. He treated it so beautifully. As high in the sky as it is for two nascent film composers to say, “I want to work with Ang Lee,” it’s very important to know where you want to go. It may take a long time to get there, but [it’s important] to have a place where you’re headed. That was definitely the case in the early Grandaddy days, and having watched [Modest Mouse lead singer] Isaac [Brock] for as long as I did, I think it was the case there, too. It may not be as specific knowing that I’m traveling in this direction, but that direction can totally change. There can be diversions that knock you off your course positively or negatively, but thinking about how beautifully he treated that material, that’s where I want to go.

SILY: How are you adapting Small Isles to a live performance?

JF: We’re gonna play at least some of this, maybe all of this live. I’m really looking forward to it. Jacob’s only on half this record, and the 5-song EP we’re releasing later this year, he’s on all of. That’s a straight-up 50/50 collaboration. I’m looking forward to the stuff Jacob didn’t contribute to on the record, hearing what he does with strings. We’re still figuring out how we’re gonna approach it. Jacob will be on keys and vocals, and I might sing a little bit. I’ll be on guitar. Our friend Sienna who Jacob went to school with, who’s doing the strings, we’re talking about having her lead a double string quartet. I would like to have a drummer doing some electronic drums and maybe a kit as well. I definitely don’t imagine we’ll totally nail it on night 1. There’s a lot of stuff we have to work out. There aren’t many antecedents in this zone, but something like Explosions in the Sky mixed with Johann Johannsson. I saw [the latter] in 2010 in San Francisco; there was a little bit of strings, various electronics, and he was on piano. That was a very striking performance. So the explosiveness of a big arena rock show with lots of subtleties and nuance that can come from strings and orchestral.

SILY: What else is next for Small Isles?

JF: We wanna finish this EP. I also really love the way a lot of rap and hip-hop people have gotten it right over the years. Using current listening habits and technology to get out as much music as possible. I definitely have the seeds for at least another EP behind this. Once we get this EP done--there’s just a little bit of tinkering to be done over the next month before going into the mixing stage--I want to make as much music as possible and release it. With the spirits of the world willing, I want to get off the ground live and collaborate with filmmakers, dancers, artists, people in the visual medium. I just love making music with Jacob and this type of music. I’d like to have a few releases a year. EP length [or] album length. I have a number of concepts written down. The seeds that Jacob and I have been playing with to make the EP. I was thinking about The Last Black Man in San Francisco when making this EP, and I’d love to collaborate with those filmmakers. Even just being in person, to tell Jacob, “What do you think of this sequence?” and have him respond without dealing with latency issues and dodgy DSL.

SILY: Anything you’ve been listening to, watching, or reading lately that’s caught your attention?

Jacob Snider: I’ve been listening to a lot of pop. I’ve been listening to the Olivia Rodrigo record [Sour]. I think there’s great writing on there, great production. Watching, I’ll just piggyback on The Last Black Man in San Francisco. It took me a while to finally see it, but I had a filmmaker friend tell me I had to, and I loved it. Also the other film Emile Mosseri did the score for, Kajillionaire, the Miranda July film. Reading-wise, I’m about to jump back into Louise Erdrich’s The Round House.

JF: I’ve been digging the Olivia record, too.

JS: There’s some cool strings on there too from the guy who does a lot of the strings for Portugal. The Man, [Paul Cartwright]. They created a string orchestra sound with just one guy layering violin and viola, which is really cool, and that’s what we’re doing with our collaborator Sienna Peck. There’s totally room for that now, the way the world has been so remote. We can’t put 16 players in a room right now due to public health restrictions, so let’s get one person. It’s really hard to do--you can be a great violinist and not be able to layer yourself in a way that makes it sound like a string orchestra. You have to change your position in the room, the way you’re playing slightly, pretend to be three different people sharing a stand. That’s what you’ll hear on the next record.

JF: I just got into How to Change Your Mind, the Michael Pollan book about psychedelics, which I really loved. I just started a book called The Magic Years, which is about child development. I have a three-and-a-half-year-old son, and I’m very fascinated by what’s going on in his brain and what makes him make the decisions he makes. Just how to be a better dad. I am always a religious reader of The New Yorker, every week it comes out. Natasha and I watched The Kids, a documentary [about the making of Larry Clark’s Kids]. When that movie came out, Grandaddy were skateboarders, so it was important to us. But even as a young kid, I felt that it was really exploitative, and the documentary verifies it. It’s heartbreaking. Larry Clark is a really derelict dude. Truly lecherous. But [The Kids] is a beautiful movie. We’ve been watching Los Espookys. I’m really excited about Vince Staples’ upcoming record. My friend Nik Freitas put out a new song. My musical diet’s gotten really regressive in a way because my son is very into the Super Furry Animals record Radiator. It’s all he wants to listen to in the car.

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tiesandtea · 4 years ago

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SUEDE: Style & Substances

Alternative Press, May 1997 (no. 106). Mag cover. Written by Dave Thompson. Archived here.

Suede Give Us A Glimmer...

Bleeding through the debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. Dave Thompson travels to London to discover why Suede are one of the few bands that matter in an age of stars who are "just like you."

Brett Anderson leans against an amplifier, hands in pocket, shoulders hunched. To his left, the rest of Suede are playing Fleetwood Mac's "Albatross"; to his right, a television crew is fiddling with camera angles. He wants a cigarette, but he never smokes this close to showtime. Instead, he swings a keychain and glowers into the monitors. It's rehearsal time in Studio Four, a theater-sized room as the BBC, and the only person who's enjoying himself is an increasingly rotund-looking Jools Holland. He's the host of this evening's show, and he's away in another room entirely.

Later...With Jools Holland is a British TV institution. Less than three years old, it has nevertheless sewn up a comfortable niche somewhere between the chart-conscious grooviness of Top of the Pops and the more indulgent pastures of MTV Unplugged. It's a showcase for bands to run through a handful of new songs, play a favorite or two and give a taste of their live prowess without boring the unconverted senseless. Boring themselves senseless, of course, is another matter entirely, and as Suede are counted into the third rehearsal of their opening song "Trash," you can almost sense the desperation in Anderson's face. Then the action starts, and he's utterly transformed. Though he's barely moving and scarcely singing, he's conveying an intensity that explodes from his very presence, drawing the most disinterested eyes in his direction. Even the soundmen look up from their meters, and the camera crew compete for his undying attention. If Anderson weren't a rock star, he'd make a great lunatic. But because he is a rock star...well, he's probably a lunatic anyway. You would be, too, in his shoes. If the 1990s have given us anything, it's the demystification of the rock star. From the boy-next-door Weezers to the angst-ridden whiners, the message is the same: I'm no different from you; I'm no better than you; and, of course, I'm just as screwed up as you. Enter, or more properly, re-enter Suede, with their third album, Coming Up (Columbia). And all that hard work reducing idols to idiots counts for nothing. Because Suede couldn't be "just like you" even if they wanted to. Bleeding through the "is he?/isn't he?" debate about vocalist Brett Anderson's sexuality and the "does he?/doesn't he?" of his rumored drug intake, the overall glamour with which society equates a fucked-up lifestyle drapes Suede like a second skin. The scent of teen spirit clings to them, the doomed romanticism of consumptive youth which peaked on their last album, 1994's Dog Man Star, and peeks through the stunning Coming Up. Suede deal in emotional extremes, from the A Clockwork Orange apocalypse of their "We Are The Pigs" video in which armed hooligans howl through a burning industrial landscape while Suede gaze down from giant video screens, to the incandescent loneliness of the current "Saturday Night" video, in which a London subway station is transformed into a rave to which the band have not been invited. The band's junkie chic is as apparent in the stoned immaculate presentation of their latest wasted-youth album-cover artwork, as it is in the gorgeously gaunt frame which Anderson angles for the television cameras. Add a live show that oozes subversive glamour; couple that with the fearless decadence of Anderson's greatest lyrics, and whether it's all an act or not, Suede are a walking advertisement for the joyful sins of sleaze. Backstage in the bowels of the BBC, Anderson sighs. He's heard all this before. "Yeah, you can look at it like that, but that's other people's interpretation of it, and that's their problem. You can't look at yourself through other people's eyes, then worry about what you say through their ears; you've got to have some self-belief in what you are." Which is, right now, the biggest thing on 10 legs. Across Europe and the Far East, Coming Up charted at No.1 and has already outsold both its predecessors. Three singles have kept the pot boiling ever since, and the current Suede line-up (their fifth on record since their 1990 "Be My God" 7-inch single debut) is their strongest yet. Like Brian Eno's departure from Roxy Music, founding guitarist Bernard Butler's exit did not so much rid the band of one creative spark, as open the door for the flowering of another. Anderson's unequivocal grasping of the reins, only partly aided by the recruitment of guitarist Richard Oakes, may have diluted Suede's overall sound, but it has sharpened their vision to a razor's edge. The further addition of keyboardist Neil Codling fills the gaps that teen maestro Oakes couldn't plug; the Simon Gilbert/Mat Osman rhythm section is a thunderous roar that never lets up; and Coming Up is unmistakably the sound of the same great band that recorded Dog Man Star. The difference is, Anderson affirms, they've stopped pissing around. "After Dog Man Star, everyone thought we were going to do an operetta or something like that. But you get things out of your system. We wanted to refocus the band, the fact that we were virtually starting again; we wanted to readjust the basics." And did it work? "You can't completely divorce yourself from your past. I haven't got the memory of a goldfish; I was aware that I'd made two albums before it. But it felt fresh, and it felt as though we were making the record away from a lot of the crap you have to deal with, away from the spotlight, which was great. Plus...", and here he gestures to new arrivals Codling and Oakes, "... there's less of an obsession with self-importance, which was definitely a change in the band. The last two albums were quite precious and self-important, and that can be good and that can be bad." Ah, preciousness. Plough through five years of Suede press and the buzzwords leap out: "superficial", "fake", "David Bowie" - three hollow sides to the same soulless coin. But most of the people who call Suede "pretentious" are the same ones who fancy the Spice Girls. And the closest those cynics get to class is the corridor outside the school room. "It does bother us a bit," says Anderson. "People always want to polarize bands into camps, and what I always find objectionable, even with journalists who are pro-Suede, is, they always want to write about us as an alternative to this good, honest musicianship going on elsewhere, which kind of implies that there isn't any good, honest musicianship going on within Suede." Anderson resents that implication, just as he resents the accusations of vanity that are flung at him with equal frequency - the two go hand in hand, after all. "People ask, 'Are you vain?' Hang on, let me turn the question around. If you were going to appear on television in front of five million people, you'd probably look in a mirror to see what you look like. You'll brush your hair and put a bit of make-up on because you don't want to look like a pig. Does that mean you're vain? I don't think it does. "Ninety-nine percent of my career thought is dedicated to thinking about music; a very tiny percentage is spent on image. I may go shopping once a month; but while I don't think we're the honest blokes down the pub, we're not kooky weirdos either. We're just what we are." A decent image, though, is still worth a thousand songs (ask Marilyn Manson), and if it's not their Englishness that holds Suede back in the U.S., then it has to be their appearance. They look weird. Catch the "Beautiful Ones" video: Codling apes the same abstracted pose of diffidence and boredom that once made a star of Sparks' Ron Mael; and Osman and Oakes look like they're trying to extinguish a particularly persistent cigarette end. Their singer is fey. Imagine Bryan Ferry if a stick insect stole his trousers. Their music is arty. And they come on like they're somehow special, so special that America poses little interest or challenge to Suede. Other bands make no secret of their desire to crack the country, nor do they hide their disgust when they fail. Suede, though, never seemed bothered. Past U.S. tours (three so far) have been languid affairs, barely publicized flirtations which almost gratefully acknowledge that as far as most people are concerned, Suede might as well be a lesbian performing artist. Anderson dictates the band's Stateside manifesto: "I don't give a shit." "Don't get me wrong: please don't portray us as some sort of anti-American thing, because we're not. But as far as America is concerned, you can talk about airplay and videos, but all it really boils down to is the fact that America doesn't like Suede. And I'm not going to knock it, if they don't like it, they don't like it." And what don't they like? Kurt Cobain had a tummy ache, and a nation felt his pain. Trent Reznor's dog died, and a nation held his hand. Brett Anderson wrote songs about holes in your arm ("The Living Dead") and pantomime horses ("Pantomime Horse"); he equates love with flyaway litter ("Trash"), and he's never been in rehab. "I hate that rehab shit! That's one place where America get really suckered, with those rehab rock bands. Let me explain what going into rehab means. It means you're cool because you used to do drugs, but now you're a good lad, and you're really '90s, so you want to give them up. But it's a complete excuse, and anybody who says it or does it is a complete careerist. I don't think the public shoulg go out and buy records by people whose record companies have told them to say they're going into rehab. You want to talk about fakes and falseness in the music business; I think this rehab rock thing is such a lot of dog shit." So you don't just say no? "I can't sit here and honestly say that drugs are bad for you, because I don't believe that, and I don't think anybody with a brain believes that." He elaborates: "Smoking a bit of pot and taking a bit of LSD can open a few barriers in your mind, although I certainly don't think taking smack, taking coke or taking crack does anything. I know I've taken drugs before and looked back on it and said, 'That's fucking crap; you should have got your act together and stopped taking them.' They just numb you and turn you into a wrong-thinking fucking idiot. "But that's the whole problem with drugs, isn't it? You can't say 'drugs' because there's so many different factes to it. 'It's an aid to creativity.' Well, some of it is, and some of it isn't. You can't paint everything with one brush." As for the veneer of glamour which Suede's own observations convey, the danger that, to quote the new album's "The Chemistry Between Us," "we are young and easily led," Anderson remains equally adamant. "There's no point in trying to filter things like 'Don't talk about this, don't talk about that.' Lots of times when I'm talking about drugs, I'm talking in a pedestrian context. I'm not trying to make it into a big deal; I talk about it like I'd talk about anything else that's in this room." And though he agrees there is a moral question, he also believes it's impossible to do much about it. "The only way you can set yourself up as something moral is in the broader sense, by not treating music as this completely throwaway, meaningless thing, and not treating the sentiments expressed in the music as completely throwaway, meaningless things. "That's where I see my position morally, someone who can write a love song and actually bring a degree of warmth to someone else. You can't act as censor in your words; you just have to be positive about what you're doing and see that making records that people love, that people cling to, and that help people through sticky patches in their lives is, at the end of the day, a positive thing to do. There's very few things I think that are positive in the world, but music is one of them." And that is that. In an age when a star is only as big as his last three videos, and most stars are as interesting as a line at the post office, Suede are three albums into a career that means more to more people than any of the bickering of Suede's petty, wormwood competitors; and certainly far more than the bitter, twisted harping of their detractors. Stars shine, shit stinks, and the lowest common denominator is nothing to be proud of. No one really wants to watch Hootie feed his blowfish, but Brett Anderson spends "Saturday Night" moping around on a subway train, and it's the best thing on MTV this year. Who cares what else he gets up to? Turning as he heads for the soundstage, Anderson won't be drawn. "My drugs of choice are ginseng and chamomile tea, but don't worry. I'm going into rehab soon."

#brett anderson #mat osman #simon gilbert #richard oakes #neil codling #suede #coming up month #coming up era

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bettysgay · 4 years ago

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An Amateur Review of The Prom (the movie)

Just finished this movie last night and...from James Corden acting as stereotypically gay as possible to Andrew Rannells dissing religion once again, there is quit a bit to unpack.

Let’s start with casting. I don’t usually have a problem with James Corden, but i have lost some respect. I in no way am saying that sexuality should stop someone from taking a role, but the amount of queer characters that are played by straight people is astonishing, and this performance only makes me think about this more. James Corden (Barry) seems to play two different parts; the flamboyant fashion lover and the heartbroken reject who just wanted a prom, but he never seems to be both at the same time. It’s just ridiculous.

Another flaw I found myself thinking about is how I never found an ounce of chemistry between Jo Ellen Pellman (Emma) and Ariana DeBose (Alyssa). I don’t think either of them are bad actors at all, just not meant to play a couple. I was expecting a back and forth dynamic between them, but it just felt like two high schoolers in their first production as the leads without a clue how to express those complex emotions as a couple.

Now, this movie had a pretty star studded cast, with Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman, Keegan-Micheal Key, Kerry Washington, Andrew Rannells, and Kevin Chamberlain (Bertram from Jessie??????). So with this cast, you would expect it to be as good as the live show? Incorrect. I am not a fan of the Broadway show The Prom, but from what I have heard, this movie does not capture the same magic it was made to. It’s not terrible, just not amazing. Sadly, gay shit, unlike i expected it to, could not save this one.

The one thing I can say was great is Andrew Rannells (Trent) singing about how so many religious people, specifically Christians, find bullshit reasons to hate queerness. I think he has a specific talent for pissing off religious people, because the number he does in this song is reminiscent of The Book Of Mormon (a truly offensive and fantastic musical). He is funny since the first scene he is seen in, and doesn’t have the same cheesy and, frankly, boring air about him that much of the cast has.

I wrote this before seeing more than a few sentences of a review, so if i said something incorrect or insulting, please tell me!

#The Prom #The Prom reviews #James Corden #Musicals #Broadway #Andrew rennells #The book of mormon

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illneverrecover · 6 years ago

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the point of no return | kth (m)

➛pairing: Kim Taehyung / reader ➛summary: Just when your evening out has gone to complete shit, you stumble - quite literally - into the cutest man walking the cutest dog, who manages to turn it all around. Or, alternatively - how drunkenly losing your debit card on your quest for nachos lands you the best lay of your life. ➛genre: starting out musician!AU. humor, smut, fluff. the trifecta. ➛word count: 10,896 (oof.) ➛rating: explicit/mature ➛warnings: alcohol use, cursing, oral (male & female receiving), unprotected sex, fingering, spanking, slight over-stimulation, dirty talk, multiple orgasms, creampie, very minor cum play, brief mention of the word ‘sir’, relatively vanilla considering I wrote it. ➛notes:��Welp. We all knew this was going to happen, right? I can only scream about the man in the tags for so long before the thirst is going to come out. This whole idea started from watching Tae & Yeontan’s V-Live with @quinnkoo and @jimins-ass-eater and saying, “damn, imagine seeing him walking his dog at 1 am.” To which they replied, “Oh god, you'd probably be drunk and without your debit card or something. He'd pity you and help you home.” They aren’t wrong. I also want to give a quick shoutout to those above ladies and the lovely @serensama who encouraged me to write this and post it, hyping me the whole way. Love you, beeches. ➛song: Magnets - Disclosure ft. Lorde

This was the worst date of your life.

Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a date. What had started off as a girls night with your best friends had quickly turned into them pairing off shortly after entering the bar and leaving you all by your lonesome to try and finagle an extra shot in your vodka seltzer for free.

Those bitches.

You couldn’t be mad at them, truly. A quick glance showed that Suzu had managed to have a full cutie wrapped around her finger in a round booth near the bar, her big brown eyes batting at him innocently as he whispered a sweet something in her ear. You snorted when you heard her pull a fake-but-I-want-to-bone-you laugh, leaning forward to place a hand a little high on his thick thighs. Good for her, she deserves to get some.

Next to her, Serena had a sleepy young man practically eating out of the palm of her hand, which was nothing new, truly. She always managed to have some victim within her grasp, and though this one looked shy, he also looked seconds away from dropping to the floor and licking her boot if she asked.

Usually that would leave you with Quinn, the two of you notorious for sipping drinks and judging the patrons of whatever fine establishment you had ended up at, but she was occupied with Mr. Thigh’s friend. Her back turned towards Suzu, she had a playful narrow in her eyes, leaning into a tall brunette who’s baby face hid a wicked smirk at whatever snark she was throwing his way.

That was how you found yourself alone, trying – and failing – to ignore what must’ve been the fourth in the Drunk Man Squad. He had followed when you snuck off to the bar, abandoning the table of love birds, and hadn’t stopped pestering with shitty pick up lines and not so subtle glances at your chest.

He wasn’t bad, you supposed, but he also wasn’t great. The sleeze rolled off of him in waves, and the way he kept smirking like he had the biggest dick in the room had your eyes practically rolling into the back of your skull. You weren’t drunk nor horny enough for his antics, which was truly saying a lot.

“So, what’s a pretty thing like you drink?”

“Vodka. A lot of it.” Sipping the dregs of your glass, you raised and wiggled it to show your interest in another, smiling when the bartender seemed to read your mind. The man next to you chuckled, leaning forward until his sticky breath was ghosting on your ear, making you want to gag.

“What’s your name, sexy?”

“Not Interested.” you give him a tight smile, the faux politeness dripping from your voice. Turning back towards the bar, you hope he’s smarter than he looks and will leave you in your quest to not feel your face, however he proves you wrong moments later.

“I’m Trent.”

“Neat.” Your drink couldn’t get in your hands fast enough, the minute the cool glass slid towards your waiting palm you had already lifted it to your lips, gulping down the burning liquid.

You could feel his eyes on you as you drank, your skin practically crawling in disgust as he looked you up and down. Ugh, what a perv . It was like he had taken a special class in order to be the douche bag of your nightmares, and for a moment, you thought about interrupting your friends’ quest for dick just so you could escape.

“Come on, baby. We could have some fun. I guarantee I’d show you a good time,” he sneered, his hands reaching out to grab your hips. The only thing this loser could guarantee is that you’d be ending the evening with your good friend Mr. Hitachi, and that was something you could do without having to ever see his dick in the flesh. With reflexes faster than should be possible after the amount of liquor you’ve had, you stepped out of his reach, back pressing to the bar.

Sighing, you finished your drink, slamming the glass onto the bar top without bothering to turn away from Trevor or whatever his name was in front of you. He wasn’t going to take the hint, was he? Eyeing your friends, you weighed your options. You could stay, entertain this creep who clearly wouldn’t be leaving you alone as long as his friends were trying to get with yours. Maybe get a few free drinks, do a little grinding before slipping away, feigning a need to puke to ensure he wouldn’t follow you. But that seemed like too much effort, and truly, nothing sounded better than some nachos and a drunk Netflix binge in the comfort of your own bed.

Friendship Code had established that no one was allowed to leave without notifying the others, but seeing as Suzu had her tongue halfway down Mr. Thigh’s throat, Serena was draped across his friend like a lounge singer, and Quinn looked like she was either going to straddle or arm wrestle the remaining man into submission - you had a feeling they wouldn’t miss you. You could just send them a text once you were free of Douche Bag’s glare, and let them know where you were.

Now, just to get rid of the perv in front of you.

Pulling the best smile you were able to fake after 4 vodka seltzers, you batted your eyes at the man, letting your voice dip low.

“Tront, was it?”

“No, it’s Trent, actu-“

“Listen, I bet you could definitely show me a good time,” you purred, using your best Jessica Rabbit voice. “But I need more to drink first, for sure, and I left my purse at the table with your friends. Be a dear and grab it for me? Then we can figure out a plan..” you let your words trail off, hoping he had enough brain cells to at least pick up on what you were alluding to.

His eyes widened, pupils darkening with lust as he gave you a sneer. “Sure thing, baby. I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

You waited til his back was turned, his form maneuvering through the swarms of bodies before you swiveled and high tailed it towards the door, not sparing a look back. Luckily it wasn’t too far from the bar, and it was easy to ignore the shouts of what could’ve been Trout shouting ‘baby’ the minute the cool night air hit your skin.

You kept your pace up as you rounded the block, wanting to make sure there was enough distance between you and the club in case he decided to chase you, only allowing yourself to slow when you were sure he wouldn’t be able to find you.

Sighing in relief, you reach for your clutch, pulling out your cell phone to send a quick message to the group text with your friends. You let them know you were safe and headed home, and then sent enough eggplant emojis that you were sure their dates for the evening wouldn’t be able to miss them.

Chuckling at your obvious wit, you kept walking towards the nearest 7/11, nachos the only thing on your vodka soaked brain. Drunk you always needed a snack before bed, and she had the most excellent of palettes that demanded faux neon cheese more often than not. It wasn’t until you had your sights set on cheese dispenser that you realized one fatal mistake in your escape plan.

Your debit card.

“Fuck!” reaching in your clutch, you fumble to feel the piece of plastic that even drunk you was aware wouldn’t be found, seeing as how you had decided to leave an open tab at the bar the minute your friends had saddled up to the men at that booth.

This is exactly why you couldn’t have nice things.

Eyeing the nachos one last time, you turned to leave the store, dejected, soul leaving your body. Not only could you not go back to get your card, lest you run into Traz again, but now you couldn’t even lick fake cheese off your fingers in bed. All in all, this was still probably the worst date of your life.

Barely looking as you leave the store, you pull your phone from your bag once more, scanning through the apps for Uber to take your sad ass home. Tapping on the icon, you had a moment of realization yet again when you tapped the car sharing app and were prompted with a log in request – reminding you that you had never actually set up an account. Between Serena, Quinn and Suzu, there had never really been a need, considering they were usually more responsible and therefore the ones always calling rides for you during your nights out.

“Fuck!” stomping your foot, you look around, glazed eyes looking for any signs that would indicate where exactly you had wandered in your dumb bitch quest for nachos. You’re pretty sure your apartment is only several blocks away from here to the left, but you aren’t positive - everything is dark and nothing looks the same and god damnit, if that fucking dick weasel hadn’t ruined your evening-

It was while you were turning and looking around frantically like a lunatic in the middle of the sidewalk that you walked into something hard, your balance easily thrown off thanks to the alcohol in your system, causing you to fall. You braced for a hard impact with cement, a soft squeal leaving your lips as you landed on something decidedly more human than sidewalk.

Laying for a moment, you try to regain your senses when you hear a small bark, a fluffy tan and brown ball coming into your vision.

“A puppy! Oh my god! Hi handsome!” cooing, you reach out to encourage the dog, giggling when it was close enough for you to touch. “Aren’t you the cutest thing ever, huh! Who’s a good boy?”

A deep rumble vibrated under your chest. “I would say since I caught your fall, that I’d be the good boy, but I guess it’s debatable.”

Squinting, you look down at the source of the low drawl, eyes widening when you realized you weren’t on the ground, but in fact laying on top of a very attractive, very annoyed man.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even realize- I just-“ shuffling, you roll onto your side before jumping to stand up, swaying slightly as the equilibrium readjusted.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He stood, brushing some errant dirt off his hands. It wasn’t until he was standing before you that you truly could admire his beauty – and fuck, was he beautiful. The stranger was tall, towering over you with broad shoulders and a lean musculature that made your mouth water. His hair was colored a bright red, obviously unnatural but flattering all the same, tucked underneath a backwards black cap. He was dressed rather simply, in sweatpants and an oversized hoodie, and yet somehow he looked like he belonged on a runway despite it. He was so fucking good looking it made you a bit mad, your eyes narrowing.

A small yip pulled your attention back to the black and tan fluff ball at your feet, and your anger at the demigod before you was temporarily forgotten. Leaning down, you cooed at the pup, a hand out to accept any affection coming your way.

“Hi! What’s your name cutie, huh?”

“It’s Taehyung.”

Eyes widening, you gasped playfully before running your fingers through the dogs fur, scratching behind his ears. “Hi, Taehyung! You are such a good boy, aren’t you? The best pup, the strongest-“

A low laugh stole your concentration, and your eyes flicked to the golden man before you once more. “No, my name is Taehyung. His name is Yeontan. I call him Tannie.”

At his name, the pup jumped up on his hind legs, his upper body leaning on your shins in a polite request to be scooped up – which you promptly conceded to. “Tannie! I knew that. I could tell because I’m your mother.” Nuzzling into his fur, you sighed, feeling bliss holding the tiny Pomeranian.

“Uh, excuse me…. Mother?”

“Well, yes, obviously. See how much he loves me? A son always recognizes his mother.” Yeontan yipped in response, moving to lick your face. Hazy eyes moved to glare at Taehyung, an eyebrow raising. Infuriatingly, he just grinned, hands slipping into the pockets of his hoodie. “Am I allowed to get the name of the mother of my dog?”

You pout at him for a moment longer, stroking the dog in what you hoped looked like a sophisticated way. “I’m offended you don’t already know it, but yes, you can.” Giving him your name, you reach out a hand, startling at the size of the palm that wraps around yours. His hand was warm, and so soft, and you found yourself holding on for a moment too long before realizing how awkward you were being.

Shuffling, he dropped your hand. “Well, ah, if you’re okay, we really ought to be going,” he pulled a phone out, glancing at the time before groaning. “We don’t have much time left before we have to head back.”

Groaning, you looked into the small dogs eyes, placing a gentle kiss on his nose. “I’m sorry we have to separate so soon, Tannie. One day, your father and I will work out a better custody arrangement, but until then…” placing the dog back on the ground, you gave him one last pat before standing up straight. “Remember that your mother loves you.”

You could feel the heat of Taehyung’s gaze on your form, the way he took in your tight black dress and ankle boots and dark, smudged mascara. His expression was unreadable, but when he finally met your eyes, the heat couldn’t be missed – even in your inebriated state.

“Are you… drunk?” he murmured, the bass of his voice lilting slightly in concern. You scoffed in a poor attempt to ignore his questioning, but a quick glance at his face told you that he was genuine in his concern.

“No.”

He raised a brow, glare unwavering.

“Okay, maybe a little bit. But that’s not the problem! The real problem is that I left my debit card at the bar in an attempt to escape a total asshat who couldn’t take no for an answer, and now I don’t have any money to get my garbage nachos, and I never bothered to sign up for Uber so I can’t get a ride, and now I have to somehow walk back to my apartment, which I think is this way, but-“

“Whoa, slow down. You don’t have your debit card?” You nodded, bottom lip pulled between your teeth. “I forgot it at the bar when I made my great escape. Sad, right? I could be eating nachos right now .”

His dark brown eyes danced with amusement, a grin pulling at his plump lips. Fuck, his smile was attractive, and you had to fight back the desire to tell him so. What gave him the right to be this good looking? And with a cute dog? It should be illegal.

Nodding, he regarded his phone again, glancing in the direction you had pointed. “I’m sorry for your loss – I can only imagine just how good those nachos would be right about now.”

“Thank you for your condolences.”

“However, I can’t in good conscious let you walk home alone at this time of night. Would you mind if Tannie and I walk you?” he steps closer to you, and when the dog follows suit, he smiles at you once more.

You pretend to weigh your options for a moment, not wanting to seem like a total moron, but ultimately knowing you could trust him. The drunk version of you wasn’t always the best at making choices (as the blackjack dealer at the casino one city over could attest to), but there was something about Taehyung – something beyond the good looks and boxy grins – that told you that he could be trusted, that he was a good person.

“I would love for my son and his father to walk me home.”

It only took about a block for the liquor to start thrumming in your veins, your buzzed state intensifying with the exercise. No words had been exchanged since you started your trek, and the silence was deafening.

“So, why are you walking your dog at 1 am anyway?”

Side eyeing the man next to you, you don’t miss the nervous chuckle he gives. “Uh, well, I’m pretty busy during the days, with work and stuff, so it’s hard to get out. I have to kind of keep a low profile anyway, so… we came up with a compromise. Midnight walks are when we get our bonding time.” He looked down at the small dog fondly, eyes bright.

“Ah, yes. I see. So you’re a vampire.”

“What? No, I’m not a vampire. It’s just easier to be out at night-“

“That sounds like something a vampire would say.”

Taehyung groaned then, his eyes rolling back in his head which made you giggle, your body hunching forward. Laughing, you stumbled slightly at a divot in the concrete, anticipating biting the dust yet again until you felt him grab your left arm, looping it through his own to steady you.

“So, my turn to ask a question,” his deep baritone startled you, the proximity of his skin on yours suddenly very apparent. “Why are you escaping bar creeps by yourself? Were you alone?”

Shaking your head, you sighed. “No, I was out with my friends, but they ended up meeting a group of guys, and one of them wasn’t paired off, so he thought that something between us was a given.” Groaning at the memory, you lean your head on his broad shoulder for a moment, before straightening. You don’t know him like this, why are you acting like this?

“Anyway, I didn’t want to interrupt their quest for some good dick, however girl code only allows for so many shitty pick up lines and glances at my tits before its within my legal right to tell him to fuck off.” You could feel him looking at you, but kept your eyes trained on your feet, ensuring they were still moving properly. “Except he didn’t listen, so I had to go full ninja mode.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that,” the sternness in his voice surprises you, and you glance up at him. “Some guys are assholes. They need to learn to take a hint.”

“Amen, sister.” You nodded, raising your free fist into the air in salute.

He tugged your arm, effectively pulling you closer to his body as he laughed full heartedly, eyes crinkling into half moons. The sound was infectious; the authenticity in his actions making you beam with pride that you had pleased him, and soon you were giggling along, leaning into him as well.

There was something to say about how easy it was to talk to Taehyung, how safe and relaxed you felt in his presence. While this may have been a shittiest date you’ve ever been on, it was turning into a solid way to end the evening.

“My turn again!” smirking, you nudge into his hip. “So besides being an immortal vampire on the search for the finest blood, which you’re totally not going to kill me for later-“

“I told you, I’m not a vampire-“

“Just admit you want my blood and go.”

“I don’t even know your blood type!”

“It’s B positive,” you said seductively, arching a brow.

Taehyung scoffed, eyes rolling. “Ask your question already, woman.”

“What kind of work do you do?”

It was then he told you about his band; him and the six other men that he considered brothers who were in an up and coming group. He avoided all your taunts of him being a Rockstar, stating that they hadn’t quite ‘made it’ yet, but were gaining a following – hence why he needed to avoid prying eyes.

“It’s not just for me – it’s for them too. I love making music, but I mostly love doing it with my best friends. I don’t want to risk a scandal or accidentally giving a spoiler or something just because I’m caught off guard.”

Nodding, you fell silent, admiring the passion that leaked into his voice when he spoke of his craft and his friends. “That’s really great, Taehyung. I know you guys will do well.”

You continued prodding, asking a million questions about his bandmates and what he would name the song he wrote for you (and scoffing at his suggestion of ‘Garbage Nachos’), when you realized you had been walking for quite some time, your building coming into view a block away.

Taehyung had noticed your silence and peered down, head tilting in a silent question. “Are we close?”

“Yup, my building’s just right over there.”

You started to walk forward, arm still linked with his, when his sudden stillness had you stuttering to a stop, yanked back by his arm.

“Uh, why are we stopped?”

“Don’t ask me, ask him,”

Looking down, you see that Yeontan had stopped walking; instead he was plopped happily in the middle of the sidewalk, pink tongue flopped out of his mouth as he panted heavily. He stared at you both for a moment longer before laying down, laying his head on his front paws.

“Is he… why is he laying down?”

A deep groan left the man beside you. “Ugh – little shit – he does this when he gets too tired. He just refuses to walk.” He stomped his foot, looking both ways before releasing your arm to pull his phone out of his pocket once more, sighing. “We walked longer than we normally do and must’ve hit his limit already. He’ll never walk back at this point.”

Glancing at Taehyung, you noticed the irritation crinkling his brow, the nervous way he chewed his plump lip. “I’m sorry, that was totally my fault. You didn’t have to walk me home-“

“Yes, I did. Don’t worry about it, it’s not your fault that my dog is a spoiled brat.” Tugging at the leash, he tried to see if he could get the dog to move, but was promptly ignored. “I could carry him, but that’s a long walk and he’s heavier than he looks. I could call one of the guys, but it’s late and we have early practice tomorrow – they would kill me.” At that, Taehyung looked over at your building, before meeting your eyes, a question lingering in his chocolate gaze.

You felt that this was a moment – the precipice of a moment – one that depending on how you answered, was going to change the outcome of your evening greatly. The point of no return. The tension was a bubble surrounding you both, and it took you several seconds of observation before you recognized what it was.

The buzz of liquor was wearing off, and realized you were left with two choices. 1. You could invite Taehyung up. Offer to let them stay with you while Tannie rested and regained energy for the trek home. Eat something or watch Netflix or whatever . There was an obvious chemistry between you two, and this would give you the option to figure out what the hell it meant. Or, 2. You could act like you didn’t notice the way he was looking at you, play stupid, and watch him leave. While not knowing him for long, you knew he wasn’t the type to push any agenda. If you didn’t invite him in, he would figure out a way and go.

Did you really want him to go?

It only took losing yourself into his gaze for a second longer before you knew the answer.

“You could… I mean, do you want to come up? Hang out while Tannie rests? I don’t have any plans tomorrow, I can stay up and hang until you feel like you can walk back or call someone?” chewing your lip, you look down, unable to stand looking into his eyes for a second longer.

Face burning, you shuffled in the silence before peering up at him once more. He looked practically predatory, a feral grin pulling at his lips. The sudden change in expression startled you – and excited you more than you care to admit – before it was slipping away, a friendly boxy smile taking its place. “Really? Yeah, that would be great! We’d really appreciate it.”

The heat of that gaze still lingered, flustering you for a moment before you returned his grin. “That sounds like something a vampire who was just invited in to someone’s home would say.”

The awkward tension leading him into your apartment disappeared when he saw your massive movie collection, practically dropping Tannie like a sack of potatoes to lean in front of it.

“You have every Studio Ghibli movie? And all these horror movies…” he gasped in awe. “One Piece?! You like anime?” he clutched his chest, eyes shining in admiration. “You’re a girl after my own heart.”

Chuckling, you kicked off your shoes, rubbing your aching feet. “I’m about to be a girl after some nachos. It won’t be the same as the blessed 7/11 version, but a bitch can try.” Moving to the kitchen, you start pulling the ingredients onto the counter, turning on the oven. “What about you, are you hungry? Make yourself at home, by the way.”

He stood, looking at the couch like he was determining just how comfortable it’d be to stretch across it, before he headed towards you, tall frame looming in the entryway. “And you can cook? Stop, it’s too much,” he groaned, a pained expression on his face as his continued to clutch at his heart.

“If you call melting cheese and black beans on top of tortilla chips cooking then yes, yes I cook, I am practically Rachael Ray. Be impressed,” pulling out a baking sheet, you assemble the concoction. “Now, like a true masterpiece, this will take time. Want to watch something on Netflix while we wait?”

It was only after consuming two plates of nachos and one La Croix (you) and one glass of half flat Dr. Pepper from the back of your fridge (Taehyung) that you both sighed, completely satiated, before leaning back onto the couch. You had changed into a cozy pair of sleep shorts and an oversized hoodie, unable to take another second of your strapless bra, and with your belly full and the booze almost completely out of your system, you found your eyes growing heavy in the dim lights of the room.

A sudden shift had a warm arm wrapping around your shoulders, and it was then you remembered your guest; the tall drink of man you were snuggling closer to despite your nacho breath. Sneaking side glances at him, he looked completely at ease – legs manspread wide, body slouched into the back of the couch, neutral interest at whatever baking show was blasting from the television. He had taken off his snapback, allowing the full glory of his bright red hair to shine, sticking up errantly after being compressed all day. His chest was broader than you expected under his hoodie, and his sweatpants seemed to be snug in all the right places. He was effortlessly gorgeous, doing nothing other than breathing, and yet the sight of him had you practically salivating.

You wanted him.

Any errant signs of sleepiness disappeared as white hot electricity took its place, your veins singing with desire that was pooling at your core. Shifting your legs, you subtly rubbed your thighs together, hoping he wouldn’t notice how desperate you became from a hand on your shoulder. God, it was pathetic how needy you were.

Scanning the room, you eyed Yeontan still curled up and sleeping soundly on your recliner, showing no inclination he’d want to move any time soon. Groaning internally, you attempted to calm your raging hormones, poorly focusing on the screen in front of you.

Calm down, hot rod. You’re such a horny bastard. He hasn’t even done anything, shown any sign he’s into you-

Sometime during your mental berating, Taehyung had turned to face you, peering down with a knowing smirk on his face. You must’ve been staring, the realization causing blood to rise in your cheeks as he gave you a smug look. “See something you like?” he murmured, raising an eyebrow. When you didn’t answer, he leaned closer, his warm breath now ghosting your face. “I’d love to know what you’re thinking about right now.”

God, he didn’t really want to know your thoughts. Because then he’d have to hear how you were thinking about how unfairly attractive he is, and how you want to bite his neck until it was littered with bruises, and how you’re pretty sure he’s packing the biggest dick you’ve ever laid eyes on, if his sweatpants bulge was anything to go by.

Swallowing thickly, you closed your eyes for a moment, summoning the remaining liquid courage that was left. “I was thinking that everyone on this baking show is fucking awful. I mean, I get that’s the premise, but holy shit.” Licking your lips, you met his deep gaze, inhaling a breath, willing your voice to be steady. Time to embrace the point of no return. “And.. I was thinking I’d much rather be kissing you.”

It was like saying the words aloud had summoned the action out of thin air, his lips suddenly on yours and pressing fervently into your mouth. He was soft, impossibly soft, and yet the movement against your pout had you aching, needing more. Your hands moved on their own accord, sliding up his arms until they were wrapped around his neck, fingers tugging at the errant cherry locks at the nape. He moaned at the sensation, and the deep vibration of his voice causing a flood of arousal to pool low in your belly, fueling an already raging inferno.

It was you who traced the seam of his lips with your tongue pressing into his mouth when he groaned in pleasure, seeking to taste every last drop of him. It was like the more he gave you, the more it suddenly became not enough – the desire for him burning too hot for you to take. You needed him, needed him closer, needed him inside-

A small yip from the corner of the room is what brought you back to yourself, a subtle reminder of exactly why Taehyung had agreed to follow you up to your apartment in the first place.

Reluctantly, you release his lips, a whine leaving you at the unwanted – but necessary action. “Taehyung, I… I shouldn’t have done that, I’m so sorry-“

“Do you want to stop?”

Your eyes lethargically open to meet his gaze, to study his expression. His pupils were blown wide with hunger, his lips reddened and wet; chest heaving as he filled his lungs with the air they had been lacking during the course of your make out. He didn’t look like someone who wasn’t enjoying himself, and yet-

“Fuck no, I don’t want to stop. But I don’t want you to do something you don’t want.”

“Look at me. Do I look like the kind of guy who doesn’t want you?”

His hands rise to rest on your jaw, tracing the line delicately before smoothing down the expanse of your throat. Skin tingling in his wake, you forced yourself to breathe. “I don’t know, you tell me.”

“Look at me.” He repeated, this time the words were more of a demand and less of a request, the timber of his voice dropping impossibly low. “I want you. And I think you’ve made it clear you want me, too.” He quirked a brow, the question implied. “So say the words, and I’m yours.”

“Taehyung, I want you, please.”

You’d be an idiot to say anything else.

His mouth was back on yours before the words were completely passed your lips, his arms reaching to pull you into his lap prior to returning to their place on your cheeks, pressing you closer. He led the kiss this time, his tongue hungrily searching your own, a groan rumbling low in satisfaction when it met its mark.

A squeeze around your waist was the only warning he gave before he was rising from the couch, his lips continuing to claim your own as he fumbled about the room. “Bedroom?” he whispered, pulling your bottom lip between his teeth.

“Last door on the right,”

The sounds of things falling as your bodies bumped into them registered in your mind, but were forgotten just as quickly. All you could think about was Taehyung, and the way he felt on your skin, the way he tasted, the way his muscles rippled as your legs pressed around his trim waist.

Kicking open the door, he placed you back on solid ground, his mischievous mouth leaving yours to press kisses to your jawline, your pulse point, your neck. A involuntary whine left your throat when he found the sensitive spot nestled at the bottom slope into your shoulder, his teeth marking it as his own. “You taste so good, baby,” he murmured, his assault on the thin skin continuing until you were sure it’d bruise. Despite his task, he didn’t miss the way you shivered at the affectionate moniker.

He moved forward, lips never straying from your skin until the back of your knees met the bed. Laying you down onto the mattress, he slowly climbed his way on top of you, arms coming to cage you against him. Grabbing his neck, you force his kisses back against your mouth, sucking and biting his pout softly. He chuckled, leaning just out of your reach. “You like to be in charge, don’t you? I could tell the minute you opened that smart mouth.”

A thumb pulled at your lip, your body arching up into him to get some sort of relief from the pulsating arousal dripping from your core. “Well I hate to break it to you, but now – you listen to me.” He growled, staring down at you like he was going to eat you whole. The intensity of his gaze made you squirm, but he was relentless, seemingly needing you to respond.

A nod didn’t see to appease him, his fingers continuing to ghost over your lips, chocolate eyes not leaving your own. You knew he wanted you to say it, and fuck – you were just desperate enough for him to do it.

Choking back the sarcasm you wanted to use, you groan. “Yes, sir.”

He grinned, leaning forward to join your mouths, murmuring against your plush pout. “Good girl.”

His tongue was back in your mouth, hands traveling from your throat to your collar bones, shifting around your heaving breasts to toy with the hem of your sweatshirt. His kisses only paused long enough to rid you of the garment before joining your skin again, traveling down to the hollow of your throat, the swelling skin of your breast, leaving violet blooms in his wake. You were writhing, full of need, your hands grasping desperately at his shirt until he took the hint and shifted it over his head.

Leaning back, he traced the outline of each nipple, moving slow until he could palm each breast, squeezing slightly. “You’re so beautiful, baby,” He sighed, molten gaze focused on the sight of his hands full of you. “I’ve been thinking about how these would feel since I felt them against my chest earlier.” Thumbs pinched and rolled the tender buds, causing you to keen loudly before he smoothed the hurt, lips coming to pull one peak into his mouth.

His tongue swirled against you, fingers alternating their pinching and pulling until you were whimpering. “Tae, please,” you cried, a hand coming to tangle in his cherry locks, tugging at the roots. He chuckled low against your skin, a devils glare given as he looked up at you. “Shhh, I’ll give you what you want. Let me enjoy this,”

It took all your will power to bite back the smart remark threatening to spill over, instead pulling your bottom lip between your teeth. He was making you crazy with need, taking his sweet time in his torture of your body, and you weren’t sure you’d survive his exploration of you.

A lick down your abdomen signaled his ascent, hands trailing behind to yank at your shorts and panties, pulling them down your legs in one quick movement. Bare before him, he admired your form, hands smoothing up and down your thighs, pulling and grasping at the flesh of your hips. “God damn, you’re fucking sexy. I bet you taste as good as you look.”

Putting a finger in his mouth, you watched helplessly as he suckled the digit, pulling away once It was drenched in his salvia. Electricity raced through your veins when he made sudden contact with your throbbing center, dragging up your slit and pressing against your clit. A loud moan of his name had him grinning, leaning back down until you could feel his warm breath against your cunt. “Is this where you want me?” at your affirmative hum, he nuzzled closer, his tongue darting out to lick a stripe up your sopping core. His movements were slow, skilled, tracing a delicate pattern into your folds until he found the bundle of nerves at the apex. Wrapping his lips around it, he suckled gently, applying pressure until you were crying out for him.

He had you so worked up at this point that it wouldn’t have taken much longer to set you over the edge, his palms keeping you spread as his wicked tongue lashed against your heat. Your hips were undulating against him, hands pulling and tugging his hair as you held him closer. “Fuck, I’m so close, Tae,” your eyes rolled back, another moan leaving you. He grunted against you, the vibrations making you shiver. Letting go of your clit with a lewd pop, his fingers trailed up and down your slit, his eyes boring into your own.

“Tell me what you want.”

“I want to cum, please-”

“No. Tell me what you want to do to me. Tell me all the ways you want me to wreck you. And if I like what I hear, you get to cum.”

A frustrated groan leaves you as your feel your orgasm ebb away, his answering chuckle making you want to scream. His mouth reattaches to your needy bud, a single long digit sliding home inside your welcoming walls. Breath hitching as he slowly began to pump in and out, he looks up at your expectantly.

“Come on, baby. I want to hear you. What do you want?” His voice was honeyed; the sweetest poison.

Sensing another losing battle, you screw your eyes shut, licking your lips. “I want you to use that insanely dangerous and talented tongue to make me cum,” you shudder, moaning lowly as he continued his ministrations. Sucking in more air, you continue. “And then I want to taste you on my tongue, have your cock in my mouth so I can show you how good I can take it.” Taehyung moaned against your center as you spoke, his hips pressing into the mattress. His reaction fueled your desire, and you wanted more. “I can take you deep, want to feel you in my t-throat,” a particularly harsh swipe at your clit had you stuttering, a second finger joining the first, focus waning on your task. “And then I want you to fuck me until I can’t remember anything but your name. I want you to ruin me.”

A shrill cry left your lips as his efforts doubled, vision blurring with tears as you felt the band in your belly tighten. He had you right on the brink, and you wanted to go over the edge so badly. His fingers were pumping into you wildly, curling to hit that spot that made you see stars, unable to continue forming coherent sentences at his assault. Pulling his mouth away, he growled against you. “Well when you say it like that…” you could feel him smirking against your overheated sex. “Fuck yes, baby. I’ll give it to you. Now cum for me.”

The second his lips suctioned back to your throbbing clit you slipped over the edge into orgasm, the white hot band snapping and blooming from your nerves. Moans tore from your throat, a cacophony of his name and the wet sounds of his fingers fucking you through your high the only sounds in the room. He murmured praises against you, his free hand smoothing circles into your flesh until you came back down, chest heaving. When he was sure it had ended he pulled his fingers out, licking them clean before crawling back over your body. “So fucking good. You are amazing.”

Mouths joining again, he grasped you tight to roll over, switching your positions until you were now straddled on top of his golden torso. Your hands explored the expanse of him; lean muscles beneath flawless skin, smooth under your fingertips. Shifting your hips, you pressed your dripping heat against his strained erection still painfully hidden in his sweats, lapping up his deliciously low moans he pressed into your mouth. The friction of his pants against your sensitive flesh had you whining, your lips finally leaving his own to trail messily down his jaw, his neck. “Taehyung,” you rasp, hands fumbling with the elastic at his waist. “Please, I wanna feel you, wanna taste you.”

“Shit. Yes, baby.” Large hands join your own in pulling off the remaining offensive clothing between you, leaving him bare to your greedy eyes. He immediately grabbed for your hips once more, pressing harshly into the skin to grind against you. “You going to show me what you can do with that wicked mouth?”

You could feel the grin in his voice, and you looked up at him from your descent down his chest, smirking at the saliva and reddened marks - twin pairs to the ones he placed on you - that were left in your wake. Moaning an affirmative, you continued on your task, tasting every inch of skin you could manage. It was the tender the way he looked at you, the feel of his hands smoothing the hair back from your face, the small whines that left the base of his throat that affected you; the desire to impress him fueling you to carry on.

His cock was now within your grasp, the impressive length flat against his belly. The tip was reddened, precum dripping and calling you to it - a call you answered willingly. Without using your hands, you traced the slit with the end of your tongue, swirling the tip to gather the arousal there and drink it in. A deep moan and harsh tug of your hair was your reward, and you continued a track towards his base before going back to the head, repeating your course several times slowly. A yank of your head had you yelping as he raised you away from him until his darkened gaze met your own. “No teasing. Or do I need to remind you who is in charge here?”

Before you could answer he released his harsh hold, your head dropping back to his engorged length. Grabbing him at the base, you poised your mouth above him, eyes meeting his before you made your decline. Unwavering from the eye contact, you lowered until his cock rested on the bed of your tongue, engulfing his length until he was seated deep, tears stinging at your eyes. “Good girl,” he murmured, his hands finding purchase in your hair once more. Taehyung started pulling gently, guiding you up and down his cock at his own pace, moans spilling from his mouth as you took him deeper into your throat with each pass.

His thickness had your jaw aching immediately, but lust was a powerful motivator, and you wanted him to remember this feeling long after you had finished. Mentally prepping yourself, you allowed him to inch further with your next slide down his shaft, pausing once your nose was tickling at the skin of his taut abdomen. Looking up to make sure his eyes were on you, you merely blinked before swallowing around him, a cry tearing from his chest.

“Fuck, baby. Feels so good. Taking me so well, so perfect,” he cooed, his eyes falling from your own to roll back into his head. Stifling your grin, you increased your pace, tongue swirling to savor every drop from his tip before dipping back down again, repeating the action again and again until tears pooled at the corner of your eyes. He was practically panting and writhing beneath you, and nothing gave you more satisfaction than seeing this beautiful man coming undone thanks to your meticulous ministrations.

Suckling at his head, you pulled off with a lewd pop, replacing your mouth with your hand easily due to the saliva coating his length. Your free hand moved to his balls, tugging them gently until he grunted his pleasure, chest heaving. “You look so good all fucked out like this, Taehyung.” you hummed, hazy eyes peering up at him.

“You’re dangerous, too dangerous for your own good,” he chuckled, the sound quickly turning into a choked groan after a particularly pressured squeeze around his length. Your lips had just returned to his fevered skin, open mouth kisses trailing up his length before he was using his grasp on your hair to pull you away, confusion etching your brows. “But the only one who’s supposed to be all fucked out here is you.”

Sitting up, he pulled until you were on your knees face to face with him, giving you an opportunity to truly appreciate his current state. A light sheen of sweat was glistening on his chest and forehead, his plump lips kiss-swollen and cherry red, matching his mussed locks. Even now, his beauty had your breath seizing in your lungs.

His large palms came to rest on your jaw, thumb stroking your cheeks reverently before he kissed you again, tongue seeking yours immediately. Your growing need turned you desperate, lips entangling sloppily, the taste of your release still lingering as you licked into his mouth. He pulled away with a grunt, forehead leaning against yours as he gazed at you tenderly. “Hands and knees, baby. I’m going to make you feel so good.”

Shifting below him, you leaned on your forearms until your ass was perched in the air, wet cunt fully on display. A deep growl left his chest at the sight, a hand coming down to slap the flesh presented to him, causing you to yelp. “You’re such a fucking tease, aren’t you?” Another slap resounded in the room, leaving a reddened mark in its wake. “So sexy, and all for me.”

Hips swaying, you taunted him further, the feel of his blunt head toying at your entrance making you whine out. “Taehyung, please, I need to feel you.” He hummed thoughtfully, continuing the slow drag of his cock against your dripping core. He seemed content in teasing you, enjoying the way you jumped when he brushed your sensitive clit before diving down to catch at your ready hole.

“You still want me to ruin you, baby?” he murmured, his free palm kneading your cheek while he continued his torture. You were practically mewling, nothing but a needy mess, blind to anything but the intense desire to be filled. “Yes, yes. I want it, please.”

He cursed under his breath, muttering his agreeance with a sweet kiss on the dip of your spine before you felt the bed shift, his hand leaving your skin momentarily. At your questioning whine, he quickly reassured you. “Don’t worry, I’m just looking for a condom, do you happen to-?”

Turning your head, your arm reached to pull him back, waiting until he focused back on you. “I’m on the pill, and I’m clean. J-Just need you inside me, please?” Licking your lips, you rested back down against your arms, wide eyes still boring into his own.

He seemed frozen for a moment before he positioned himself against your sopping cunt once more, sliding his cock to saturate in your arousal. He stuttered, a low moan leaving his lips and sending a shiver down your spine as his palms returned to the flesh of your ass. “God, I think I’m in love with you.” He chuckled, groaning as he started to slide inside of you. “Such a dirty, dangerous girl.”

His descent into you was slow, your walls slowly adjusting to his girth to welcome him deeper. He hummed when his hips were pressed flush against your own, hands moving to slide up to your hips, your back, your neck. “Fuck, you’re so tight.”

“Move, Tae. I need you to mov-”

An urgent thrust cut off your words, a gasp tearing from your throat instead. You felt unbelievably full, the slight sting from the stretch quickly ebbing into a low hum of pleasure, one that radiated down to your toes. Eye closing on instinct, you could feel every inch pulse against your sensitive walls, each of his glides torturously slow. You needed him harder, faster - you needed to fall apart against him.

Opening your mouth to demand just that, his hips finally start to pick up the pace, lips moving to press sloppy wet kisses on your spine. “Baby, you feel so good. I don’t think I’m gonna - fuck - last very long.” he groaned, a free hand coming down to slap a cheek of your as before grasping it tightly.

“Me either, Tae. F-Faster, please.”

Taehyung moaned loudly at how needy your request was, how sweet you sounded when you were crying out just for him. His thrusts started coming at a rapid speed, his cock slamming home harder each time until the slapping sound of skin was echoing throughout the room. You felt the white hot band of your impending orgasm pull tighter, hands furling into the sheets. You wanted to drag your nails down his skin, to destroy him the way he was destroying you, but his current hold on your body prevented any movement.

As if reading your mind, Taehyung slowed, hissing as he pulled himself out of your welcoming heat. Keening at the loss, you turn to look a him, his answering grin meeting you with another errant slap to your ass.

“Turn around, baby. I want to see your face as you cum. I want to see you all fucked out and ruined for me.”

You shuddered. “Fuck, Tae. And you think I’m dangerous?” you could feel the rush of wetness at his words, body already turning and following his directions without a second thought.

The demon of a man just smirked, licking his lips as he positioned himself against your weeping core. Grabbing your knees, he folded them back into your chest before sliding home, the deep whine leaving his chest the perfect harmony to your own. Arms caging you in, his face was inches from your own as he started pumping into you, dark eyes taking in each expression of pleasure on your face, each whimper and moan from your throat. A particularly angled thrust had you crying out a garbled form of his name, and it was then he knew he found what he had been looking for.

“You’re so beautiful, baby. You look so good underneath me, taking my cock so well. You going to cum again for me?” he murmured against your neck, his thumb coming down to swipe an assault against your throbbing clit.

Nodding, your eyes screw shut, hands wrapping around his back to pull him closer, half moon imprints digging into the golden flesh. Hips never faltering, his fingers increased pressure, your pleasure building closer to a precipice. Blubbering loudly, uncontrollably, you knew your edge was near.

“I’m gonna c-cum, Tae-”

Lips crashing against your own, you were silenced by the overtaking of his mouth, his tongue seeking yours and stealing your breath. Your cries increased in pitch, the build in your lower gut ready to spill at any moment, and yet he continued to swallow each moan, to fuck into you until your vision was hazy.

Pulling away, he spoke the next words against your kiss swollen mouth. “Cum, baby. Let me know who’s making you feel this good, like you promised. Be a good girl.” His fingers moved to pinch the bundle of nerves, a low growl vibrating his chest against your own.

It was with his next thrust against the tender spot of your walls that had you shouting out his name, orgasm slamming into you until your eyes rolled back. Taehyung worked you through the high, his hips rolling and grinding into yours until you were messy, nails leaving an angry trail down the skin of his back.

"So good,” your voice was hoarse, shallow. The aftershocks of your climax had you sensitive and raw, walls still fluttering weakly against his length. You could feel his thrusts start to stutter, his moans spilling from him in a continuous stream. “Cum for me, Tae. Need to feel you fill me up.” you croaked, eyes finally opening to stare into his own.

He cursed, whimpering loudly before kissing you again, teeth biting at your bottom lip. He choked out a warning of his impending end before finally spilling inside of you, murmurs of your name pressed into your throat as he rolled his hips through his release. You revealed in its warmth, and after a few more lazy strokes he was collapsing on top of you, cock snuggly resting inside your core.

Heavy breaths were the only sound for the next few moments, a content hum leaving Taehyung’s throat as you raised a hand to stroke lazily through his fiery locks. Your body was sated, thrumming with a calming glow that had every muscle relaxing and your eyes drooping shut.

Unsure of how much time had passed, you startled when you felt him pull out slowly, his cum spilling from your core. Whining at the loss, you pout, reaching out for him. “Where are you going? Come back.”

He chuckled, body leaning over yours once more. “Just going to clean up baby, don’t worry.” You watch as his eyes look down at the mess he made of you, his sleepy grin now turning dark as he eyed his release dripping down your thighs. Long digits swiped through the milky substance, his heavy lidded gaze setting your skin ablaze before he pushed it back inside your abused walls, a small squeak leaving your lips. “Keep that where it belongs.”

Just as quickly as he had entered you he was pulling out, asking for directions to the bathroom like he didn’t just wreck you as you continued to lie boneless on the bed. You must’ve fallen asleep again, because you woke to him wiping your tender sex clean, pulling your body upright to slip a t-shirt over your naked form. Allowing yourself to flop back down on the bed, you peered up at him, tilting your head at the look of contemplation maring his handsome face.

“Are you getting into bed or what?” Sliding over, you pulled the covers back and pat the spot beside you. “I hate to break it to you, but after I’m given mind blowing orgasms, I demand cuddles for at least the next 1-2 hours, but preferably through the night. I’m needy like that.”

A boxy grin had his eyes sparkling, his laugh making your heart squeeze in your chest. “Well, you’re in luck, because it just so happens that giving beautiful women mind blowing orgasms makes me want to cuddle as well.”

Sliding into the bed beside you, he wiggled you into his arms, your head nestling perfectly in the crook of his neck, his hands finding purchase on your waist and nape. He started playing with the hair there idly, causing you to melt against him.

“You just want to get closer to me so you can check out all the marks you left.” sighing, you breathed in his scent, eyes closing once more.

“What can I say? I love how they look on you, seeing you all marked up for me.” Chuckling, he closed his eyes, drinking in the warmth of your small form pressed so tightly against his own, wondering if you could hear just how fast his heart was beating. Silence enveloped you both, the sounds of your breathing and the soft whirring of the fan above lulling you into sleep.

“That sounds like something a vampire would say.”

“Go to sleep, woman.”

You weren’t sure what woke you first - the sun streaming blindingly through your open curtains, beaming directly into your retinas, or the lack of warmth pressed to your side. Yawning, you stretched, toes cracking as the soreness between your legs let itself be known. Images from last night came pouring back in front of your eyes, cheeks heating with the memories of all the things you had done - and that you had allowed to be done to you. Not that you regretted a single minute; Taehyung’s handsome face and charming laugh making your heart and thighs squeeze simultaneously.

A quick survey of the room proved you were alone, and you felt your stomach sink. Did he… leave? The thought made you sicker than it should’ve, considering the reality of the fact you had only spent a single night - hell, a few hours - together. You couldn’t blame him if he had decided to go, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t hoping for more.

Sitting up, you slide off the mattress to head to the bathroom, your bladder threatening to explode if you didn’t empty it immediately. Damn you, La Croix. Flicking on the light, you see that you’re wearing an oversized white shirt that skimmed the top of your thighs, one that had a hint of Taehyung’s scent lingering on it. Before you could ponder it further, a crash from the kitchen had you jumping, a deep “Fuck!” whispered frantically causing your pulse to race.

Darting into the kitchen, you find a shirtless Taehyung rubbing at his scalp, a scowl knitting his eyebrows together. Yeontan was panting happily at his feet, seemingly ignorant to his owners pain. “Ugh, did I wake you? Sorry, I hit my head on the cabinet. Good morning, by the way.”

“Jesus, Taehyung. You scared me so bad I almost pissed myself. Actually, I still might.”

“Kinky. I didn’t know you were into that.” Grinning at your rolling eyes, he reached out to smooth circles on your shoulders. “Sorry for scaring you.” His eyes piercing into you knowingly, seeing too much. “Did you think I had left?”

Embarrassment coursed through your veins, your hand fisting into the bottom of your - his - shirt. “I, uh, well - yeah, when I woke up alone, I thought maybe…”

His answering smile was nothing short of dazzling as he lessened the space between you. “I was trying to surprise you. With breakfast. But it turns out all you have in this place is the ingredients for nachos, vodka, approximately two slices of lunch meat, and coffee. I gave Tannie the lunch meat.” At the sound of his name, the pup let out a gleeful bark.

Giggling, you wrapped your arms around his waist, pulling him closer so you could nuzzle into his chest. “Sounds like a cop out to me. Total lack of imagination. Breakfast vodka is a thing.”

“That sounds made up.” You felt his lips press into your crown, a small gesture that had your heart racing giddily. “You seemed like a coffee person though, so I think I managed to make that.”

Another yip at your feet pulled your attention back to the small dog, sliding out of Taehyung’s embrace to scoop him into your arms. “I am a coffee person, thank you.”

Taehyung’s smile was obnoxiously wide as he took in the sight of you cuddling Yeontan, the soft cooing and kisses making the pup preen in your embrace. He moved away to grab a mug before leaning against the counter, pouring the steaming liquid slowly. “You’re spoiling him, by the way.”

“He is my son and I’m allowed to spoil him, thank you.” Accepting the cup as he handed it to you, you took a long sip, sighing as the heat hit your belly. Looking up to him, you notice he was watching you, eyes lingering on your legs. “You don’t want any?”

“No, I’m not a big coffee drinker-”

A loud shrill echoed in the kitchen, Taehyung’s eyes widening as he began to pat the pockets of his sweatpants in search of the culprit. Pulling the phone out, he tapped a few buttons to silence it, eyes landing on your own sheepishly.

Setting down both your coffee and son, you lean into him once again. He was like a magnet, always pulling you in. “So… is that your ride?” your voice was low, as if you spoke softer you could hide the disappointment at the thought of him leaving so soon.

A hand gently grasped your chin, tilting your face until you had to meet his softened gaze. “It is. My bandmate, Hoseok, texted me earlier to remind me we have a band meeting soon, so he offered to come pick us up.”

Lithe fingers stroked at the bone of your jaw, and you had to fight the instinct to lean into his touch. “Ah, okay. I understand. Important business, and whatnot.” you stammered, giving him a watery smile. “I’ll just go get changed so you can take your shirt back-”

“I don’t want it back.”

Raising a brow, you tilted your head mockingly. “You going to go like that? Kind of unfair to all the mere mortals, but do you.”

His deep laugh echoed in the small room, his other hand cupping your face until his lips were ghosting over your own. “I have a sweatshirt. Plus, I like the idea of you wearing it when we all go to brunch later.”

Breath catching, you snap your eyes to meet his own, playful mischief dancing in the warm chocolate as he leaned in to press a chaste yet lingering kiss to your lips. Forehead resting against yours, his thumbs skimmed along your jaw. “Does that… sound okay?”

For the first time, it was Taehyung who seemed nervous, unsure but anticipating - hoping - that you’d agree to see him again. The idea that he felt the same way had butterflies dancing in your stomach, grin pulling at the corner of your mouth until it was bright enough to match his own. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

He giggled before his mouth was pressing fervent kisses against yours again, reluctantly stopping when his phone chimed again, bringing him back down to earth. “Good. Give me your number, and I’ll text you and let you know when we’re on our way to pick you up. Should be about an hour or so.”

After exchanging the information and confirming a time (and a few more heated kisses, interrupted by Hoseok calling to threaten to chop off Taehyung’s balls if he didn’t get down there right now ), he was dressed and standing in the doorway, Yeontan tucked gently into his arms. “Thanks again for letting us stay here. I had a great time.” the sly smirk on his face giving away his meaning.

“Of course. My home is always open to my son and his father.” Leaning forward, you gave Tannie’s small nose one last kiss. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yup. Don’t forget to wear my shirt.” His large palm reached out to skim the exposed skin of your upper thigh, causing you to shiver involuntarily. “I wish you could go just like this, but it’s probably wise to wear pants of some sort in public, especially around my friends.”

“Why? What if one of them is rich? I have a lifestyle to maintain, Taehyung.”

A low growl was your only warning before he leaning in, careful not to squish Yeontan between your bodies as he nipped at your bottom lip, your body heating instantly in response. “Firstly, garbage nachos aren’t a lifestyle. Secondly, I don’t care. Sorry baby, you’re mine now.”

As quickly as he had approached, he was now in the hall, devious grin still painted on his face as he slowly backed towards the stairs. “Plus, I still have yet to taste this blood you’ve been bragging about.”

He pulled the door shut then, escaping halfway down the hall before you could shout your reply, though your cry of “I KNEW IT!” was loud enough to be heard through the walls, causing Taehyung to throw his head back as he laughed deeply.

Flinging yourself against the closed door, you let the embarrassingly wide grin overtake your face. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t the worst date of your life.

#taehyung smut #taehyung x reader #bts smut #taehyung scenario #taehyung fanfic #bts fanfic #bts scenario #overly affectionate demon #kim taehyung #taehyung #bts #my writing #fic: tponr #fic: the point of no return #k-pop garbage can #bts v #btsbookclub

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or-ng-c-ss-dy · 5 years ago

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unbecoming

wrote another fic. have some heel gentleman’s club, doing gentleman’s club things. like making out and being drunk.

it’s got some angst because the best friends break up.

rated m/nsfw.

it’s on ao3 too, if you have an account, you can read it there

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Orange was drunk, that much was obvious. Swaying back and forth, leaning heavily against Chuck as they sat together in the locker room. He passed the half-empty bottle of Kentucky Gentleman back to Chuck, managing to slosh the cheap whiskey over both of their fingers.

“You know that we still have a match tonight, right?” Chuck asked after taking a deep drink from the mouth of the bottle.

Orange shrugged and a part of Chuck registered that their lips were touching the same place on the bottle, a sloppy indirect kiss in some ways. He had tracked the way Orange’s tongue ran over the rim, pink enough in his swimming eyes that he couldn’t help but stare.

“Fuck it.” Orange slurred out, far too late to be a response to Chuck’s question.

He could only laugh, putting the bottle up to Orange’s mouth in a silent question. Orange leaned back in response, head tipping back into Chuck’s lap as his feet came up to rest on the bench. Chuck’s knuckles were white as he fed Kentucky Gentleman to Orange, watching the way his throat bobbed as he drank, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of shitty whiskey.

“You were always drunk during our matches back in the day,” Chuck said, and it sounded fond as he sunk fingers into blond hair, short fingernails rubbing over his scalp in a way that had Orange shivering in his lap,”we were unstoppable.”

They definitely weren’t, but he certainly felt unstoppable with Orange at his side. After what Trent did to them, it was easy to sink back into their old ways. The deal was sweetened with a pliant Orange Cassidy practically purring in his lap.

Trent had gotten a taste for those singles matches, leaving him and Orange behind as he decided to go on his own. It pissed him off and it pissed Orange off, who knew him less than Chuck did, but knew that their friendship meant a hell of a lot to Chuck.

Trent made him want to be good. And, now that he was climbing the singles ranks by himself, Chuck couldn’t find it in himself to be good anymore.

It was easy to bring Orange over to his side, there was no doubt in his mind that Orange would follow without even needing to be coaxed. No matter how hard they tried to be good, they weren’t good people. It had been simmering, beneath the hugs and the ringside antics, the cracks had started to show.

They weren’t the Best Friends, not anymore. Hell, maybe they never were, no matter how Trent still looked at him like they were still fine or some bullshit like that. Or like what they used to have mattered after the dust settled, like he needed Trent or some bullshit like that.

He had the heavy, warm weight of a drunk Orange in his lap, nuzzling up to his crotch, he didn’t need Trent. They were the Gentleman’s Club now, had a new song and everything, pyro and shit. It was badass too, made them look like they were a threat.

And they were a threat. Who knew that plying Orange with alcohol like he used to back in the day would make him as lethal as it used to be, keeping him at a healthy buzz was enough to wake him up.

His fingers skated up Orange’s shirt as he planned his revenge against Trent, sliding over his toned stomach almost absentmindedly. He figured that he couldn’t commit literal, actual murder, but he was planning on hurting him regardless. Trent still hadn’t accepted his challenge though, no matter how many times he offered it.

PAC once hurt someone that Kenny Omega cared about to get him into a fight but...well...Trent really had no one those days. He used to have Orange, he used to have him, but now Chuck and Orange only had each other while Trent was all alone.

A part of him wondered if he would even come if he hurt Orange. If he broke that pretty face, made him bleed. Chuck carded his fingers through Orange’s hair, returning the bottle to his lips yet again. His eyes fluttered behind shut eyelids, lashes quivering. He was flushed and shaking in Chuck’s lap, one eyelid cracking open to look at him with an unfocused blue eye.

“Chuck…” He mumbled when Chuck finally pulled the bottle away from his lips.

Chuck’s eyes tracked a stray droplet, setting the bottle aside to drag his thumb over it. He pressed it against Orange’s lips until he parted them, letting Chuck push it into his mouth. The tongue that ran over his thumb was hot and wet, making him shiver and groan softly.

“Good,” he said, voice soft and breathy, “what’s up, babe?”

A part of him thought that he might tug Orange over, fuck up into that hot little mouth right there in the locker room. He was half-hard from watching him tongue fuck the end of the bottle, and he wasn’t too drunk to get it up like Orange probably was. Probably wouldn’t have been the first time that the AEW locker rooms had seen that sort of action, and Orange was certainly drunk enough to go along with it.

“Y’think Trent misses us?” Orange asked, slurring his words and effectively killing the mood.

Chuck scowled, finger tightening in his hair hard enough to make Orange hiss softly.

“Who cares?” He said, snatching the bottle up again.

He pressed it against Orange’s lips, forcing him to drink more despite the green-ish tinge to his skin. Anything to shut the asshole up, even if it was going to make him sick before their match. They could use it to their advantage if he puked all over the canvas anyway, it would be a hell of a surprise. A gross one, but it could work. Kind of like how Orange used to spit orange juice at people back in the day.

Nah, that’d be a little too gross. His nose wrinkled at the thought of it and he pulled the bottle away from Orange to take a swig of it himself.

The idea of the orange juice, though, that had some merit.

“You ever think about bringing back the juice?” Chuck asked after a few moments, hand moving from Orange’s hair to curl his fingers lightly around his throat. “Nah. It’s a DQ.”

Chuck laughed at that, grinning broadly down at Orange. His thumb stroked over a bruise on the column of his neck, one that he had left a few nights back. Neither of them bothered to hide the marks they left on each other’s skin, they didn’t care enough to be shy about the new angle of their relationship.

“You think I’d let them DQ us? I’d take care of the ref while you do your thing, don’t worry about that.”

Orange seemed to consider it. Either that, or it took a little too long to process from how wasted he was.

“Can I put some vodka in it?” He said and Chuck laughed, squeezing slightly around his throat. “Of course. Just remember to spit it, don’t just suck it all down in the middle of the match.”

They were better off without Trent, he just...got in the way. So it was better, a haze of alcohol and yellow overhead lighting blurring his vision of Orange’s handsome face in his lap. A fuzz of a halo around him, but neither of them were anything close to angels.

Still, he looked like he could’ve been one at some point. But they were never good, and that was the problem with trying to play as anything close to morally upstanding.

Chuck leaned down at the same time Orange moved up, licking the taste of cheap whiskey and cheaper orange juice out of his mouth. It was a filthy kiss, his hand still on Orange’s neck and the sound of people clearing their throats around them. Like their opinions mattered or something, he slipped Orange some extra tongue because of it, pulling him up by the throat to straddle his lap.

He let himself get lost in the kiss and the way Orange’s body felt against his, cupping his hip with the hand that wasn’t still resting on his neck. Orange’s own hands moved over his body, one sliding into his hair, the other on his shoulder.

A startled, familiar gasp cut through the silence of the locker room. Chuck cracked an eye open to look in the flushed face of Trent. He moved his hand down and cupped Orange’s ass, letting a smirk spread across his lips. Orange moaned into his mouth, oblivious to the new person watching them. He coaxed Orange into grinding against him, feeling the beginnings of a very hard-fought erection stirring in Orange’s jeans.

Trent looked like he was at a loss for words, face flushed as he tried to look at anything but the show they were putting on. Chuck tucked his hand in Orange’s back pocket, sliding him down to sit on the bulge at the front of his trousers, grinding up against his ass.

“What do you want?” He said, breaking the kiss.

Orange let out a soft whine, like he was going to tell Chuck exactly what he wanted him to do, until he noticed that Chuck was looking over his shoulder. Instead, he tucked his face into Chuck’s shoulder and began to mouth at his neck, looking to leave some matching bruises. Trent looked more than a little lost, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth, like he had forgotten why he had come to see them.

“You’re...uh. You’re on next, you need to go.” He said, not meeting his eyes. “Guess we’ll have to pick this up later then,” Chuck said in response, drawing his hand back and letting it crack against Orange’s ass, “c’mon, babe, let’s go kick some ass.”

Orange slid out of his lap, tucking himself under Chuck’s arm as he stood. It was mostly to hold himself up, partially for the closeness as he eyed Trent over his shades with a slight sneer on his face.

Standing across from Trent, he could remember what had happened as clear as day. When Trent decided that he had taken things too far, when the match ended and Chuck just kept going.

It hadn’t been his fault. They had gone after Orange, had put him out, made him bleed. It was just retribution, especially when they went after Trent next. Proud and Powerful were ruthless, they couldn’t stand up against them if they just sat to the side and let them do whatever the hell they wanted.

Chuck ended up with the pin, but it didn’t matter. Not when he had caught the sight of Orange’s battered little face, bleeding all over his shirt and jacket. The hours he’d spend trying to get the blood out, they wouldn’t be worth it if Chuck just stood aside and did nothing.

What the fuck was he supposed to do? What kind of best friend would he be if he just let them beat the shit out of Trent and Orange without stopping them?

And, if the only way they were going to respond was through violence? So be it.

He still remembered the way it felt to have Trent pull him off of Ortiz right before his boot made contact with his nose, robbed of the chance to see that violent red splatter everywhere. Robbed of his chance for revenge for Orange, he turned and pushed Trent back.

Chuck knew that he wasn’t fine, but...but seeing Trent across the room? It brought it all back, and he reached for the bottle that they left on the bench to take a deep swig of it, throwing his free arm over Orange’s shoulder and dragging him in even closer.

Orange hung off of him, seemingly uncaring as he lazily reached for the bottle. Chuck let him take it, eyes still on Trent because he really was at a loss for words. A small part of him wanted to forgive Trent, a larger part knew that Trent didn’t think he needed to be forgiven. That Chuck had been the one to fuck up, and that was why they couldn’t say anything.

They could say what the other wanted to hear. Or they could just move on without each other, a part of each other’s lives that were in the past. But Chuck still wanted his revenge, and he frowned, pushing past Trent.

“Chuck, I-” Trent started, cutting himself off when Orange pushed the bottle into his hands. “Save it for when I kick your ass in the ring.” Chuck sneered, shouldering past him.

They left him in the locker room, cradling the now-fully-empty bottle of Kentucky Gentleman. He couldn’t stop to think about consequences or closure or even revenge, although that was always on his mind.

He’d get his revenge. But, first, they had a match to win.

#my writing #otp: gentleman's club

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marvelousmatt · 6 years ago

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Toast star Matt Berry: 'Nobody wants to hear about my psychic wound'

Stuart Jeffries

The comedy actor with the fruity voice has ditched the electric sex pants and taken up sleuthing – in a filthy Victorian version of The Sweeney. And he’s planning another Toast

When Matt Berry was a little boy growing up in Bedford, his parents left an organ in his bedroom one night. Not a severed ear or a still-beating heart, but the kind with a keyboard. “They never said anything,” says Berry. “There was no explanation, no lessons, just me and the organ.”

In short order, he had mastered the keyboard, then the guitar, and soon his big goal as a teenager was to emulate multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield. “I read that he was 17 when he made Tubular Bells. I thought, ‘I’m 14 – better get a move on.’ That’s what led me to buy a secondhand bass guitar and a four-track recorder.”

This isn’t what I expected at all, the revelations of a self-taught polymath. I’d hoped to conduct this interview from two open-top sightseeing buses. Berry would be on one and I’d shout questions through a megaphone from the other. This would have been a reprise of the bus-off between his most famous creation, the eponymous thespian lothario from TV comedy Toast of London, and that character’s turtle-necked nemesis, Ray Purchase. “Everyone in London knows your wife’s a prostitute,” shouted Toast . “You take that back, Toast,” retorted Purchase.

Instead, we’re reclining on a leather sofa in a Soho club. Berry is sipping Diet Coke. Again, this is intolerable. The 45-year-old should be importuning waitresses, channelling the role of Douglas Renholm, the lecherous boss he played in The IT Crowd, running about shouting: “God damn these electric sex pants!” Or he could even be drinking the bar dry, like his latest TV incarnation: mutton-chopped, one-eyebrowed, foul-mouthed Victorian detective, Rabbit.

But, no, Berry’s detailing his teenage recording techniques in a hushed voice. He is amiable but, and there’s no easy way to say this, shy and sartorially uninteresting. Yet I’m grateful for the organ story since it gives a rare insight into Berry’s past. He scarcely mentions his upbringing or private life in interviews. “I’m a clown,” he says. “That’s what everybody wants me to be. Nobody wants to hear about my ‘psychic wound’. Nobody wants me to be their life coach.”

What nonsense. Matt Berry Was My Life Coach – what a movie that would be. But he has a point. If we knew the dreary truth about Berry, that would ruin the fantasy. We want to imagine him as Toast, flatsharing with a similarly bitter thesp. As for psychic wounds, well, we inch closer to one when Berry tells me about his first day at Nottingham Trent University. It was there he studied contemporary art and dreamed of becoming a painter.

“A lecturer stood up and said, ‘Here are six paintings. Which is the odd one out?’ Then he pointed to one and said, ‘It’s this one. Because it’s the last painting I ever did.’ I admired him for saying that. It was an epiphany for me. I realised I didn’t want to make the mistake of getting a proper job. I wanted to do art for ever.”

It didn’t quite work out that way. After graduating, he made for London and slipped into miserable positions in telesales before landing a job at the London Dungeon. He was paid £178 a week to play a judge in the morning and Jack the Ripper in the afternoon. “It wasn’t Rada, but you learned how to get the story right and not to fluff your lines.”

Then, in around 1999, he met Noel Fielding. Like Berry, the Bake-Off host and funnyman has art chops and no formal training in acting. They clicked and Fielding invited Berry to perform some songs at Islington’s Hen and Chickens pub. “I was doing serial-killer confessionals in song: ‘This is where they bodies are buried!’ I thought they were funny.”

On the same bill were Richard Ayoade and Matthew Holness, who persuaded Berry to star in their parody of 80s horror TV, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. Full of dodgy acting, choppy editing and flawed storylines, all of them deliberate, the show aired on Channel 4 in 2004, giving us the first taste of the rich, fruity voice that has become Berry’s trademark.

Since then, he hasn’t stopped. He paints, acts and has released six studio albums, even writing – with Ayoade – a satirical rock opera called AD/BC. Music, he says, is the most important outlet for his creativity. “I dream about music, never comedy.” How? “Well, I dream of guitars – different kinds of guitar.”

Earlier this year, Berry starred as Michael Squeamish, a know-nothing TV hack, in a mockumentary called The Road to Brexit, co-written with longtime collaborator Arthur Mathews. “I thought it was funny, a breathing space from the madness.” Did researching it change the way you vote? He laughs, by way of an answer. “I don’t want to say.” Why? “Because I don’t want to be anybody’s life coach.” Again with the life coach.

And now there’s Year of the Rabbit, a Channel 4 show starting next week in which Berry plays a liver-ruining detective battling Victorian London’s parade of nonces, ponces, top-hatted tossers, pre-pubescent narks and post-menopausal booze slingers. Rabbit (his sister is called Weasel, his brother Leopard) is a swearing virtuoso. Legend has it, I tell Berry, that sellers at London’s Billingsgate market could swear 20 minutes straight without repetition. We have lost that art: now swearing is reduced to Gordon Ramsay effing and jeffing on autopilot on Kitchen Nightmares.

“That verbal creativity is what I like about Rabbit” says Berry. “There’s a lot of my dad in the role. He has that dry deprecatory wit. If I was going to do something stupid, he’d say, ‘Oh, going to do that, are you?’ I wanted to capture that British deflationary way of speaking.”

Rabbit is assisted by rookie Wilbur Strauss, a Cambridge criminology graduate played by Freddie Fox, and his adoptive daughter Mabel Wisbech, portrayed by the droll Susan Wokoma, who is striving to break Victorian policing’s glass ceiling. Together this threesome fight a losing battle against crime. “It’s the Victorian Sweeney,” says Berry. How would he know? Berry for many years didn’t have a TV. “Well, I was too young to watch The Sweeney when it was first on, but I caught up with it fairly recently. I’ve become quite obsessed.”

Berry wants Year of the Rabbit to echo Only Fools and Horses, John Sullivan’s classic London sitcom, in one respect. “It has a working-class warmth that you don’t often see convincingly elsewhere. I got it from my dad and my grandmother – that warmth and fondness coming through in sarcasm.

“In Year of the Rabbit, I wanted to get the rookie-cop-and-old-hand cliche done and dusted fast. We’ve seen that a million times. What I wanted to get to was the sense of the three of them looking out for each other – even as they rip the crap out of each other.”

One lovely moment has Rabbit explaining his beat. “This city is a rat eating its own babies, babies made of shit, and once it eats its own shit babies, it shits them out again, and then it noshes them, and that goes on and on until the sun turns cold and the sea goes back into the sky.” Which is of course exactly the sort of briefing Met boss Cressida Dick wishes she could make.

Year of the Rabbit could be the unexpected comedy delight of 2019. Equally welcome news is the fact that Berry is planning a fourth series of Toast of London. He’s just not sure when he’ll have time to write it. For three and a half months a year, he’s now contracted to live and work in the US, filming What We Do In the Shadows, the comedy horror series about four vampires rooming together in New York.

Why play Toast again? “Because he’s the anti-me. I wrote him because I met so many actors who are utterly vicious about other actors – always frustrated, bitter and cynical. I’m not. I’m doing all the things I ever wanted. More than I ever imagined. I never dreamed of being a comedian. I never imagined I’d be a clown. There aren’t enough hours in the day. But otherwise I’m living the life I wanted.”

What about doing voices for ads? Surely they’ve made you rich but not creatively fulfilled? He laughs. “I’m amazed I still get the work.” Why? “I thought I’d satirised the job into oblivion as Toast. But that only made them want me more. Weird.”

• Year of the Rabbit begins on Channel 4 on 10 June.

#Matt Berry #year of the rabbit #toast of london

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chicgeekgirl89 · 6 years ago

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Arachnophobia: Chapter 1

A/N: I wrote for not-my-fandom again. I think I’m like...in now. Whoops. Sonny whump inside!

“Shit!” Sonny said in surprise and then, “Fuck!” as his second boot landed deeply in the mud beside his first. Within seconds he was up to his knees. “What the—“

There was a crunch behind him and he threw out a hand in warning, craning his neck around as far as he could since his legs refused to do anything except sink. “Wait! Hold up! Don’t come down here!”

Clay’s face appeared first, weapon drawn, his eyes narrow with concern. It took him a second to realize what he was seeing but when he did his face split into a wide grin. “Don’t you say a word,” Sonny warned as he tried to wade back toward him to no avail. He nearly face planted and it took every bit of core strength he had to keep himself upright. “God damn it!”

“You a little stuck there buddy?” Clay said.

“Will you quit smirking and get me out of here?”

There was more rustling and Jason and the rest of the team appeared through the trees. “Careful boys!” Clay said. “We’ve got a situation here.”

“Sonny, we can’t take you anywhere,” Ray said with a laugh.

“I am not the only one who didn’t know there was a mud hole through these trees!” Sonny said. He was nearly up to his hips at this point. “I just happened to be the only one brave enough to go first. So you’re welcome that you’re not all down in this mess with me.”

“You know people pay a lot of money for stuff like this,” Jason said.

“Yeah it naturally exfoliates your skin,” Trent said.

When they all looked at him he shrugged. “What? I listen to the women in my life.”

“You mean your mother?” Brock said with a snicker.

“Would you all shut the fuck up and get me out of here!” Sonny snarled as he sank another inch.

“All right, all right.” Jason took a few steps closer and then braced himself, reaching for Sonny’s arm. “One, two, three!”

In the end it took all of them hauling his sorry ass up the slope to free him from his muddy prison. “I fucking hate the rainforest,” Sonny gasped when he was finally lying on solid ground again.

They’d been in Brazil for a week hunting down someone on Mandy’s wanted list. It was the rainy season, hell it was probably always the rainy season, and they’d spent a good deal of their time hiking up and down the rainforest. It was a recon only mission and it had all gone exactly according to plan, meaning mood on the way out was fairly high, even if they did have to walk practically half the country to reach the exfil site. Apparently setting a chopper down in the rainforest was kind of a big no no.

“Yeah well it obviously hates you right back buddy,” Jason said, slapping his shoulder. “Up and at ‘em boys. We’ve got another six miles to cover today.”

Six miles in his sodden, muddy gear. Perfect. Sonny tried to wipe some of it off but the stuff clung to him like glue. “Of all the damn places in the world, we’ve got to end up traipsing through the jungle,” he grumbled as they walked.

“If we were in the desert you’d be complaining about the sand,” Clay said.

“You know for a guy who knew what he was signing up for when he joined the team you seem awfully surprised that it’s not always a vacation,” Ray told him.

“I’m just saying would it be so bad to have a mission that took us somewhere that the nature didn’t want to kill us faster than the baddies?” Sonny asked.

“And where exactly would that be?” Trent replied. “I don’t think they authorize too many covert ops in the Bahamas.”

“I said somewhere the nature wouldn’t kill us,” Sonny shot back. “They have sharks in the Bahamas. Do you know how many--”

“All right, enough,” Jason said. “The next time they authorize a mission to Boise you can head it up. Until then, quit whining and walk faster. Emma’s got some kind of recital thing coming up and if I miss it I’m going to have to add another award to my Worst Father of the Year collection.”

By the time dusk arrived they were more than ready to set up camp. Everyone was tired and just wanted to get some sleep before their final hike out in the morning.

Sonny collapsed onto a fallen tree and began unlacing his boots. “Oh Sonny no!” Trent groaned and everyone else joined in the protest.

“Hey! I’ve got mud squashing between my toes. I ain’t walking out of here tomorrow with half the rainforest in my boots!” he said.

“Well at least sit downwind,” Ray told him as they began breaking into their MRE’s.

Sonny glared at him and went back to trying to remove some of the mud and debris from his gear. It was pointless, but if he kept his boots off all night at least they’d be a little drier in the morning.

“I’ll take first watch,” Brock offered.

Sonny knew he was as eager to get home as Jason. The length of their mission and hike through the jungle with who-knew-what kind of animals hanging around meant the furriest member of their team had stayed home. Brock was missing him something fierce, even if he’d never admit it, and Sonny was too. There was something comforting about having the dog’s presence with them. Without him it felt like somebody was missing from the team.

“You took first watch last night,” Jason said. “Clay’ll do it tonight.”

“Fine with me,” Clay said, shoveling in another bite of his dinner as if it was Texas BBQ rather than flavorless cardboard.

“No falling asleep on the job there kid,” Sonny said. “If you let a jaguar eat me I’ll kill you.”

“It would take one bite of you and spit it right back out,” Brock said.

“Hey, out of this group I am obviously a jaguar’s first choice. It ain’t going for Clay’s skinny ass. That’s not going to get him very far.”

“I don’t know I think Jason looks like a pretty juicy jaguar steak,” Ray said with a grin.

“Nah, he’s way too tough,” Trent said.

“You all keep this up and I’ll feed you to a jaguar,” Jason chastened them, leaning back against a tree and closing his eyes.

One by one Sonny listened to his brothers fall asleep. After so many years together it was easy to know who had nodded off. Trent snored like a lumberjack. Jason breathed like Darth Vader. Ray tossed and turned. Brock, who was typically a pretty quiet guy, muttered things. And Clay, always Mr. Go, go, go, got so still they sometimes wondered if he was breathing.

Sonny settled against his pack, staring up at the canopy above. His skin itched and his shoulders were stiff from carrying their gear. But honestly, for all his complaints, he wouldn’t trade this for anything. Traveling the world with his brothers and blowing shit up along the way was the stuff eight-year-old Sonny had only dreamed of.

“Kinda pretty isn’t it?” Clay asked.

“If ya like trees,” Sonny said.

“Keep an eye out for snakes,” Brock said, his hat pulled down low over his face. “Drop down from the trees and wrap you up before you even know what happened.”

Sonny stared at him. Brock was a pretty serious guy, which meant you never knew when he was pulling a fast one. “Now why’d you have to go and put that thought in my head? How am I supposed to sleep knowing that there’s tree snakes up there waiting to dive bomb me?”

“With your eyes closed,” Trent said. “Shut up.”

Despite Sonny’s worries he must have drifted off at some point because the next thing he knew Ray was shaking his shoulder. “Come on. Time to move.”

Sunlight had barely started filtering through the canopy. The others were already up gathering their gear. “What’d you guys have breakfast without me?”

“Tried to wake you three times,” Clay said. “Thought about just leaving you here to live with the monkeys but Ray said it was too much paperwork.”

“Ha ha.” Sonny stretched, his shoulders and neck popping after a long night of sleeping on the ground. “You’d better watch out young Jedi or I might just let a croc get you on our way out of here.”

“Sonny!” Jason said. “Let’s go!”

Sonny shoved his left foot into his stiff, dirty boot and pulled the laces tight. His right foot went in next and almost immediately he felt a sharp pain in his ankle. “Ow! What the—ow!!” Something stabbed him a second time and he quickly withdrew his foot.

He turned the boot over and banged it on the ground. A spider the size of his hand skittered out and slipped away through the undergrowth. “What the hell is wrong with this place?” Sonny asked as he jammed his foot back inside. The others had already started making tracks.

“Sonny let’s go man,” Clay said, disappearing through the trees.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m coming. Just had a spider the size of Mount Everest in my boot but sure, leave me behind. It’s fine.”

He caught up easily even with stabbing pain in his ankle. Damn thing probably jabbed him with its giant pincers or legs or antennae or whatever the hell spiders had.

“Don’t you even start with me Jason Hayes,” Ray was saying from the front of the pack. “You know you’re the worst golfer on this team.”

“You’re not particularly good yourself there Ray,” Sonny said. He shivered as goose bumps ran up and down his spine. “If I recall, last time we went out you ended up owing some pretty big dollars to the course for that golf cart you put a dent in.”

“That was Clay’s fault and you know it,” Ray said.

“I was just testing to see if your SEAL focus could stay intact even on the green,” Clay said with a cocky grin.

“Yeah how was your focus in the sand trap? Did you feel right at home there?” Jason asked.

“Just like being back in country,” Clay said.

Sonny laughed with the rest of them and then paused to adjust his boot again. Now there was a burning sensation spreading down his foot into his toes. What in the hell?

He limped a few more steps and stumbled. Clay caught his shoulder. “Careful there buddy. Don’t need a repeat of yesterday.”

Sweat dripped down his neck. He pulled at his collar. Even in the early hours of the morning the jungle was like being inside a wet paper bag.

“So what’s Emma doing at this recital?” Trent asked.

“Some song. I don’t know. Something by Lady Gaga maybe? Isn’t that who the kids are into?” Jason said.

“I say we get Sonny dressed up in that meat suit and then see how Cerb likes it,” Clay teased.

Sonny’s throat seemed strangely tight. He blinked, tried to clear the sweat out of his eyes as pain shot up his whole leg. He reached out a hand to steady himself against a tree and then found himself sinking down onto a stump.

“What are you doing?” Clay asked.

“I gotta take my boot off,” he said, trembling fingers reaching for his laces. It felt like someone was stabbing him repeatedly and he needed to fix it NOW.

“Sonny what’s up?” Ray said.

“I can’t,” he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, “I can’t get it off!”

“Well then just leave it and come on!” Ray said.

Sonny shook his head, his breath coming out in short gasps. Clay rolled his eyes. “All right Cinderella.” He knelt and grabbed hold of the boot. Sonny had to grip the stump he was sitting on and bite his tongue to keep from yelling as the pain reached a new level of excruciating.

“What the hell?” Clay asked when it didn’t budge.

“Come on Clay, Jay’s not gonna wait for us,” Ray said.

“It won’t come off,” he said in confusion.

“What?”

“Guys,” Sonny took a breath and gritted his teeth. He’d tolerated a lot of pain in his life, he’d been blown to hell, shot, stabbed, but nothing compared to this. “I need you to get it off. Now.”

“Okay, all right, relax,” Ray said calmly. “Jay!”

The rest of the team stopped and turned around. Jason spread his hands. “What the hell are you three doing?”

“I can’t get his boot off,” Clay said.

Jason stared at him. “His boot? Why are you taking his boot off?” he looked at Sonny. “Why are you taking your boot off?”

“Jason, I swear to you, there is a god damn red hot poker in there and I need it off now,” Sonny said. He felt something akin to panic rising in him as the pain continued to increase. It was making his chest tight, his breath wheezing in and out like he’d run a marathon.

“Well just pull it off!” Jason said.

“I think his foot is swollen or something,” Clay said. “It won’t come off.”

“We could cut it,” Ray suggested.

“We still have two hours to hike. What’s he going to walk out of here with one boot on?” Jason asked.

“Sonny can you put weight on it?” Trent asked. “Whatever’s going on we can’t fix it until we get out of here anyway.”

His hands were shaking and he felt dizzy. “I can try.”

Clay and Trent helped him up and the instant he put weight on it he let out a howl and went to his knees.

“All right, all right sit down,” Trent said, pushing him back onto the stump. He looked up at Jason. “I think it’s gotta come off.”

Jason nodded grudgingly. The small part of Sonny that wasn’t in excruciating pain felt guilty for holding everybody up but he was in true agony and didn’t think he could move even if he tried.

Brock handed Trent his knife and the medic carefully began to slit the laces. Every movement caused a flare of pain. “Oh my god Trent,” Sonny said. “Just rip the damn thing off if you have to!”

Trent didn’t even spare him a glance, just kept working steadily away until he was finally able to ease the ruined shoe off.

Sonny thought he would feel instant relief but as Trent peeled his sock back alarm slammed through him. His entire foot was red and swollen with two distinct sets of puncture marks along his ankle. “What the fuck is that?” he asked in a shaky voice.

“Looks like a bite,” Trent said turning his ankle back and forth. “When did this happen?”

“I uh, maybe it was the spider that was inside my boot this morning?” Sonny said. His heart was starting to flutter uncomfortably inside his chest.

“A spider? How big? What did it look like?”

Even in the worst agony of his life Sonny spared a half second to glower at him. “Like a fucking big spider Trent.”

Trent rolled his eyes and continued his inspection. “Looks like an allergic reaction. Not much I can do. Long as it doesn’t spread you should be fine.” Privately he was a little worried about how quickly Sonny’s foot had blown up, but with no good medical help for several miles the only thing to do was keep on. He smeared antibiotic cream over the punctures and made Sonny take a couple Benadryl then nodded to Jason. “We’re good to go.”

Jason and Clay hauled Sonny to his feet. “Oh god,” he croaked as his vision blurred. His stomach turned and he swallowed hard, trying not to vomit.

“Tough it out Sonny, come on,” Jason demanded as they began to walk. He sounded harsh but Sonny knew him well enough to pick up on the subtle note of concern. If Jason was worried he must be in deep shit.

The next hour was the most miserable experience in Sonny’s recent memory. His foot burned like it was on fire. Sweat dripped down his face, stinging his eyes, and breathing seemed almost impossible. His stomach churned in his belly and was accompanied by stabbing pains there as well. His heart was beating so loudly he could feel it in every part of his body. He wondered idly if the others could hear it as they dragged him along.

They made it another fifteen minutes before Sonny felt his knees give out. “Whoa!” Clay said, taking on his full weight.

“Trent,” Sonny gasped, “something ain’t right.”

“All right let’s get him down,” Jason ordered.

Clay and Brock helped lower him to the ground. Clay shoved his pack underneath as a makeshift pillow while Trent appeared directly above Sonny’s head. “What’s going on? Talk to me Sonny.”

“I can’t uh, I can’t breathe,” Sonny said gasping for air. It felt like his heart was going to explode out of his chest if he didn’t die of asphyxiation first.

“Let’s get his gear off,” Trent ordered, his fingers already stripping off anything he could reach. Clay helped and in short order they had him stripped to his undershirt and pants.

“TOC this is Bravo One we have a situation here,” Jason said into his radio.

“I—“ Sonny tried to speak but his stomach cramped violently and everything that he’d eaten in the last twenty-four hours came right back up.

“Whoa! Get him on his side!” Trent yelled.

Sonny choked and retched until there was nothing left and then the guys rolled him unceremoniously onto his back. Trent reached for his wrist and began taking his pulse with one hand while he shoved a syringe at Brock with the other. “Open this,” he ordered.

Sonny’s head was swimming and he was having a hard time following what was happening. “Trent—“ he rasped.

“I’m right here Sonny. You’re going to be fine.” But Trent’s face said he was worried. “Tell me what you’re feeling.”

“’m dizzy,” Sonny said, closing his eyes as Brock returned the needle. “And my chest is—“

His whole body seized.

#SEAL Team #Sonny Quinn #Sonny Whump #Arachnophobia #Brazil #Spiders #Poison #Venom #Jason Hayes #Clay Spenser #Trent Sawyer #Ray Perry #Brock Reynolds #SEAL Team CBS #SEAL Team Fanfiction #Sonny Quinn Fanfiction

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nemesesengine · 6 years ago

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Interview with Fear of Water

It's been quite a while since I wrote an article here. Fact of the matter is, for the longest time I was afraid that I was falling out of love with music. In today's cesspool of djenty 0-0-0-1s, bro-metal and achy breaky heart related subject matter, I started to feel suffocated, desperately reeling towards that windowsill, clawing at it to get a breath of fresh air. Originality had become a dying art. All hope was gone.

UNTIL I stumbled upon this crazy talented guy here on instagram @fearofwater

[Subject : Dave Perry]

[Designation : Drums/Vocals/Guitars]

I was searching for Sevendust covers one day to inspire doing one of my own, and what was awaiting me was the FRESHEST take of their acoustic song 'Bonfire' off of Time Travelers & Bonfires. People usually cover a song note for note, with a last minute vocal melody change towards the end, but this - This was... HEAVY. Groovy. Yet melodic. There was a Clint Lowery PRS as a weapon of choice in the thumbnail, so I knew this guy was serious about his shit.

"What the fuck?" I muttered, as I played it.

And from the moment the crunch kicked in, it hit me like a flying brick to the face. Instant K.O, ladies and gentlemen!

I tried getting up, but the man was owning every instrument in there. There's a MEAN solo in there too... I'll post an embedded video down below shortly, but in that moment I KNEW that I had to talk to this guy. He made this song his own, and his work was the shot in the arms I was looking for.

I recently got to sit down with him and have a chat.

So what got you into music and how long have you been doing it for?

I had extensive bouts of sickness and infection from birth which caused long term damage on my hearing and other aspects of my health. Several surgeries, a dozen medications and years of speech therapy helped me finally get back to somewhat normal but from a development standpoint, I was years behind kids my age. I struggled greatly with all my academics, any form of memorization and even a large amount of motor skill related tasks. I have always gravitated towards music, even when I was clinically deaf due to my illness as a child. My family has VHS tapes of baby Dave sitting next to giant speakers because I could feel the vibrations of Genesis, The Stones and Springsteen. Once I regained my hearing, I would OBSESSIVELY listen to any and everything, actually gravitating towards jazz early on. That being said, I had zero musical abilities or talent.

I tried out for band in 4th grade, I wanted to play sax so damn bad. In my mind, that instrument was the epitome of cool. My try out on a plastic recorder was beyond horrible, so the band director relegated me to the percussion section. It quickly became clear that drums were for the rejects that wanted to be in band but couldn’t hang with the other performers.

At first I was biter but I quickly discovered Nirvana, Metallica and NIN. I quickly understood that rock doesn’t live without drums and I became dedicated to embracing this instrument. I struggled for two years, had absolutely zero ambidexterity. I felt like a marionette and I couldn’t clip the strings. I tried and tried to no avail.

Then in the spring of 1996, I very vividly remember listening to Load by Metallica, specifically Ain’t my Bitch. I was listening to the song over and over, air drumming on my lap during a multi-hour car ride when I felt a very distinct “pop” in my head. All the sudden I felt like the strings were finally clipped and I finally achieved ambidexterity. Over the next year, everything fell in to place: my academic drastically improved, my memory came back out of nowhere and I became obsessed with drums. From that point on, I knew that music was going to be an integral part of my life so I dedicated the vast majority of my free time to learning as many instruments and music as possible. 24 years later I’m still going.

What was the first song you ever learnt?

Ohhhh....good question. On drums it was In Bloom by Nirvana. That intro/hook drum fill was my absolute favorite. On guitar, probably anything/everything on SMASH by Offspring.

Most people spend the better part of their years learning one instrument, but you're pretty much a one-man-band. What was the driving force behind learning more than one trade?

Going back to my first answer, I came to the understanding that I had unlocked this skill set and I needed to explore it as much as I can. I’m still learning new things every year. My mom’s side of the family has been incredibly musical for several generations so I’m starting with a good tool kit.

(Embedded below is Dave's kickass cover to Sevendust's 'Bonfire')

What's your go-to song when you pick up the guitar or sit behind the kit?

Drums: March of the Pigs by NIN. It was the first “complex” beat I ever learned. The idea of playing in 5/4 initially blew my mind but once I got it, I couldn’t stop.

Guitar: Sad but True by Metallica. It will forever be the ultimate metal song to me.

Your biggest inspiration?

A three way tie between Trent Reznor, Dave Grohl and Clint Lowery. They are all multi-instrumentalists that are great people who have maintained a strong career through changing genres and tough times (addiction, loss, legal battles, etc.)

What's your fondest musical memory?

That “pop” in 1996 was pretty damn magical. In recent history, it was playing to a sold out crowd opening up for Pop Evil last year in Wisconsin. The crowd energy was electric and that feeling is addictive!

As a casual bedroom guitarist myself, I feel like very often we reach plateaus and don't even realize it - After doing music for so long, how do you think one can assess their skills?

I think it’s important to always be trying new things, especially if you’re uncomfortable with it: new styles, new tubings, new instruments, writing original when you’ve only done covers. If you’re really struggling, then that’s a benchmark for that moment but now you have a goal, set your sights and push through.

Are you happy with where the rock scene is currently at? How do you think we can make it better?

Yes and no. The music industry as a whole will never be the same with the advent of streaming and stealing music. It has made an already unlikely career a near impossibility for most. That being said, newer tools allow for more casual musicians to get their music in front of people they never could have otherwise. Specifically Rock: it’s still a live in several different genres. I know my generation will keep it alive as long as we can.

If you were stuck on an island indefinitely, what one album would you take with you?

Assuming I have a device on which I can play said album? 😊 The Colour and the Shape by Foo Fighters. It’s a masterpiece.

Who's one lesser known musician you think people should know about?

Danny Schmitz (from Milwaukee, lives in NYC). He has a killer band, Lost in a Name, and is also a stellar solo artist & producer. The man can shred and we’ve collaborated on a few songs that you can hear at www.facebook.com/TheFearOfWater

And what does the future hold for Dave Perry? Any closing words?

A metric shit ton of music! You will be able to find four albums of Fear of Water music on all major steaming and download sites over the next couple of months. I also have several new videos that I’ll be publishing on YouTube and Facebook this winter as well. 🤘🏼🤘🏼

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howaminotinthestrokesyet · 4 years ago

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Behind The Album: Broken

In September 1992, Nine Inch Nails released its first extended play or EP through TVT Records. This acted as the follow up to Pretty Hate Machine released three years previously. The record saw the band change from a heavily infused synth pop sound to a much heavier metal sound. After the success of Pretty Hate Machine, TVT Records put heavy pressure on Reznor to create a similar album with singles the label could release. CEO Steve Gottlieb stuck his heels in the ground and insisted that Reznor release something just like Pretty Hate Machine or they would not release it. The singer resisted and asked the TVT to terminate his contract citing restrictions on his creative control, but the record company refused. He then fought with the label over their ongoing interference with every part of his intellectual property or his music. Throughout this project, Reznor called it a wide variety of things in order to avoid any legal issues with TVT Records. For this reason, the EP was recorded in six different studios in a variety of places. In the end, Trent was eventually released from his contract allowing him to sign with Interscope Records. He would say this about the entire situation. “We made it very clear we were not doing another record for TVT. But they made it pretty clear they weren't ready to sell. So I felt like, well, I've finally got this thing going but it's dead. Flood and I had to record Broken under a different band name, because if TVT found out we were recording, they could confiscate all our shit and release it. Jimmy Iovine got involved with Interscope, and we kind of got slave-traded. It wasn't my doing. I didn't know anything about Interscope. And I was real pissed off at him at first because it was going from one bad situation to potentially another one…”

As recording began, the Nine Inch Nails front man brought in Flood once again to work on “Wish,” “Last,” and “Gave Up.” He would use a number of pseudonyms when working on this project, so the executives at TVT Records were none the wiser. Looking back, he had this to say about the sound he was going for on the record. “Broken [...] had a lot of the super-thick chunk sound, and almost every guitar sound on that record was [tapes consisting of] me playing through an old Zoom pedal and then going direct into Digidesign's TurboSynth [software in a Macintosh computer]. Then I used a couple of key ingredients to make it [be heard as being] unlike any 'real' sound." Reznor’s’s dog Masie also participated on it as he used his dog’s barking and a recorded moment when the canine bit engineer Sean Beavan on the track “Physical.” One can hear the engineer yell “owww” Sadly, the dog would die three years later during The Self-Destruct tour after a fall from a balcony. Recording took place all over the country in studios in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and Miami. In September 1992, he took the finished record to Interscope Records, which they accepted as the first release from their label.

Broken has a much heavier sound, which comes from a strong influence inspired by bands like Ministry and Godflesh. These groups were seen as the major contributors to industrial metal at the time. Reznor would say that his hope for the listener was to “make their ears a little scratchy” with the music. The lyrics take aim at society at large with many references to alienation, angst, and struggles over being dependent on society, while at the same time controlled by it. Broken also saw Reznor start to use profanity selectively as heard in“Wish” where he uses f*** three times throughout the course of the song. He would use a couple of samples on the album that never got credited including David Bowie’s “It’s No Game” and the film, The Empire Strikes Back. You really could not get away with that in today’s music world and commercially release it. For most CD copies of the EP, Reznor included 91 one second silent tracks followed by two bonus tracks including the song “Physical” originally recorded by Adam Ant. In 1995, the singer would perform the track live with Ant on two consecutive nights. On the second night, Ant thanked Reznor for allowing him to sing with “the best fucking band in the world.” The other bonus track came in the song “Suck”, which Reznor had sung on a year earlier for the band, Pigface. This version was radically different than the original in tempo and feel.

Critical reception to Broken remained mostly positive with most critics noting the major change to an industrial metal heaviness. Danny Scott writing for Select had this to say about it. “It’s loud and it'll rip your stinkin' head from your shoulders if you so much as breathe without permission." New Musical Express noted that Reznor was no longer following any other band, but instead had carved out his own unique niche within the genre. Peter Kane of Q observed that the drums represented the equivalent of going to the dentist. The Baltimore Sun Review stated that Broken was “everything industrial music should be.” Making Music probably said it best when they wrote, “It’s an intensely vicious and shocking 30 minutes.” The EP would go on to be certified platinum in 1992, despite the fact that Nine Inch Nails offered up no tour to support it. The first single came in the song “Happiness in Slavery,” which included a very explicit video, where performance artist Bob Flanagan could be seen being eventually raped and killed through the course of the music. MTV banned it outright, which significantly slowed the popularity of the single. For the second single “Wish,” Reznor produced a video that merely acted as a live show clip. He would go on to win a Grammy for the song for Best Metal Performance. He would later say in a joke about his grave. “Reznor: Died. Said 'Fist Fuck', Won a Grammy." The video for “Happiness in Slavery” did air a few times successfully despite being banned around the world. One program called Raw Time represented a public access show in Austin, Texas, who would air it at 3 AM one morning to a mostly positive reaction. A film by the same name Broken would be released personally through Trent Reznor, but not commercially because he did not want it to be confused with the EP. This movie shall be looked at later in this book in the article on the videography and films of Nine Inch Nails.

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just-one-string-in-a-silent-sea · 7 years ago

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Pete Dunne x Reader (Perfect)

Pairing: Pete Dunne x Reader

A/N: This wasn’t requested or anything but I think Pete is a real hottie and I thought of this so here it is. Not gonna write the accent, you guys can imagine it. Hope you like it!

Word Count: 2,210 (I’m sorry, I just loved writing this)

Pete Dunne was an asshole. A temperamental, angry, downright unstoppable bruiserweight asshole with a motivation that was sometimes terrifying. He was rough around the edges, strong, tough, manly. An intimidating figure to say the least. Maybe that’s why no one but Trent and Tyler ever really talked to him. Maybe it was why he didn’t talk to anyone either.

And then there was you.

And before you, Pete had never known anyone like you.

You were small, happy, kind, sweet. Always smiling, always willing to lend an ear when anyone needed to talk. He hadn’t met you before that night when they’d had a match in London, and since he hadn’t slept at all the night before, Tyler had told Pete that he desperately needed to put on some makeup, and Pete would be damned before he put the shit on himself.

So, when he was sure everyone else had already been done, and then another 20 minutes for good measure, Pete trudged towards the makeup rooms, praying to whoever the fuck was listening that no one would see the big bad bruiser getting his manly makeup done.

But, luckily for him, like always, the makeup artists had high tailed themselves out, something that made him sneer. Each night as soon as the roster was done, the hair and makeup squadron literally disappeared, heading to their homes or the bars, out to have their own lives.

But, when he stepped across the threshold of the empty makeup room, he found that it wasn’t so empty.

A girl sat on the stool next to a vanity, holding what looked to be a stage jacket, and sewing it. She was singing to herself, something about good guys hiding away, and he examined her, not saying anything.

She was short. Much shorter than him, definitely not over 5’3”. She looked to be of average weight, and her (h/l) (h/c) hair was hanging over her face, not letting him see much of her face.

She had one leg crossed over the other, the jacket resting on top, and he noticed the long-sleeved T-shirt with a bear on it, and he couldn’t help but smile at the fact she was wearing his merch.

She was still singing to herself, and when she picked up the jacket to apparently examine it, she nearly fell off the stool when she saw him.

“Jesus Christ!” She gasped, catching herself next to the stool and standing. He cocked his head, hearing her obvious American accent, and he pushed himself off the doorframe and into the room a few steps.

The girl was gathering her composure, her cheeks flaming red with embarrassment.

She set the jacket on the stool and brushed her yoga pants off, finally looking at him.

“Whatcha need? Don’t think I’ve ever seen the Pete Dunne in the makeup room.”

Anyone else, Pete would’ve broken their jaw, man or woman, but this girl, he smiled.

Her voice reminded him of a harp. The twang in her voice made him want to hear more. She had (e/c) eyes. He liked them.

“Yeah, yeah,” He said, allowing himself to smirk at her, and the smile she gave him back made his chest feel warm.

What the hell? Why wasn’t he being an asshole? What was wrong with him?

“I’m guessing you want me to cover up the bags under your eyes?”

He nodded, “Tyler said it’s pretty bad.”

She nodded, “He didn’t lie. Come sit down over here, I’ll have you all fixed up in no time. You want your hair done too?”

Before Pete could sneer and make a nasty comment, he heard his own voice, “Do you think it needs done? I didn’t look at it before I left the hotel.”

She shook her head, “Personally I think your hair always looks great, so no, I don’t think so.”

He smiled, “Thanks.”

She clicked the lights of the vanity on, making Pete blink, but he quickly turned his head to focus on the girl again, “You new, love?”

Love? What the fuck was wrong with him?

She blushed, “Yeah, is it that easy to tell?”

He shrugged, “Most of them just leave once they’re done doing the makeup for everybody. Usually leave the rookies here in case anyone needs touchups.”

She smiled softly, “Well, I stay here because I choose to, honestly. I don’t know how they can all leave, I love to watch the matches. But, since I volunteer to stay here, I kinda get elected to do touchups as well.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her as she started to dig through her makeup case, “Isn’t that a lotta work to do by yourself?”

She nodded, “Yeah, but you know what they say. If you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

“So you like it?”

“Oh yeah,” He could see her eyes light up as she started to apply makeup to his cheeks, “It’s wonderful to be here doing all these amazing people’s makeup for the whole world to see on TV, isn’t it amazing?” She gushed, and he almost smiled, almost.

He shrugged, “It’s a crazy ride.”

She nodded, “I’ll say.”

“What were you sewing?” He asked, looking over at the jacket.

“Oh, just one of my jackets, I-“ She stopped for a second, but before he could look at her, she caught herself, “Fell. Fell in the parking lot.”

He had a feeling she wasn’t telling the truth, but being as he’d only just met her, he understood why she wouldn’t be being totally honest with him. Especially since he was so intimidating.

“I’m a big fan,” she mumbled, breaking the silence, and he nodded, looking at her to smirk.

“Thank you love, glad you like me.”

He saw her blush, and allowed himself to smile toothlessly as she finished him.

“Well,” She said, putting the makeup down, “You’re all done, if you’d like to sneak out of the room again.”

He stood, brushing himself off and looking at himself in the mirror before looking back at her, “Thank you….I’m so sorry love I didn’t get your name,” he said, almost sheepishly.

Sheepish? Get yourself together Pete, Jesus Christ.

She beamed up at him, “(Y/N),”

He quirked his eyebrow, “(Y/N) from America, the makeup artist who Pete Dunne allowed to come near him.”

She giggled, “Yeah, I guess I am aren’t I.”

He nodded, “Hey, (Y/N), mind if I take your number?”

She beamed and blushed a little, “Of course, here ya go,”

And then, in all her American glory, she plucked a red lipstick from the box, wrote her number on his arm, and then plopped the makeup back in the box, and disappeared out of the makeup room, and Pete was left looking at his inner arm, wondering what it was about this girl who made him smile instead of wanting to kill her.

The months went on, and Pete Dunne grew more and more close to the American baby doll he liked to think of as the Beauty to his beast. He learned more about her each night they were together. He came to see her after the makeup was done, and he went to see her after every match. He offered her rides back to her home most nights, but she always refused, taking cabs.

The months grew colder, but Pete’s heart was doing a complete 180 from what the temperature was doing outside.

He was falling for this sweet little American, and he knew it. He was sighing to himself one night, walking down the hallway towards her makeup room like always. He found himself smiling, looking forward to seeing her. She would most likely be sewing his jacket for him, singing some American rock song to herself and she would grin when she saw him, waving and her eyes would twinkle like they always did. And he would walk over to her makeup chair and sit down to talk to her about anything and everything.

He pushed the makeup room door open, but she wasn’t where he expected her to be. Not where she normally was. Instead, she was in her chair, the lights of her vanity turned on. She was facing the mirror, doing her makeup, and he knew something was wrong.

(Y/N) never wore makeup, despite the irony of it.

He didn’t move, not wanting to alert her of his presence, and he squinted, looking closer. It was nearly unnoticeable, but he could see it. He noticed everything about you, he prided himself on it.

She had a black eye.

“What the fuck is that?!” He exclaimed, making her whirl around, and he could see her gulp. She dropped the makeup and brush she was holding as Pete stalked towards her.

He grabbed her chin, gently but firmly, making her look up at him, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

He sneered, pissed, “Take it off. Take it all off. I want to see it.”

She gulped, and he released her, looking at her expectantly as she slowly pulled out a makeup remover and slowly, almost robotically removed all her makeup.

It seemed like it took ages, and Pete just stood there, arms crossed fuming.

He knew she had a boyfriend, but god forbid Pete find her scumbag boyfriend now, the devil wouldn’t hurt him as bad as Pete would.

She stood in front of him now, wiped clean, and he looked at her.

“Clothes too.”

She froze, looking at him in terror, but he still glared.

She relented, slowly, painfully slowly pulling off her shirt to stand before him in a sports bra.

He dropped his arms, and started to look at her, starting at her waist and going up from there.

Her ribs were horribly bruised, and there were older ones on her back. Her arms had fingerprints old and new. He moved up to her neck, where a handprint was, and her black eye was swollen.

“P-Pete…?”

He met her eyes, “What.” He bit out, mentally punching himself for snarling when she flinched.

“You…You’re shaking…”

“Of course I’m fucking shaking (Y/N) why the fuck wouldn’t I be!?” He snarled, his arms throwing outwards, but he froze when she dropped to her knees, protecting her head.

How had he never noticed before? The way she jerked when he touched her, the way she always seemed terrified when he was angry.

Pete stood for a moment, taking it all in, before he sunk to his knees too.

He pulled her into him gently, trying not to hurt her as she sobbed into her hands, “I-I-I’m so sorry Pete I’m so sorry…I never meant for this to happen he just…I’m so s-so scared please don’t yell.”

Pete felt his heart actually break a little bit, as he squeezed her harder, she wrapped her arms around his neck sobbing into his chest, and he kissed the top of her head.

“(Y/N), Love, listen to me.”

She sniffled, “Y-y-yeah?”

“Listen, Baby, you’re gonna come stay with me, okay? That’s what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna let me drive you to that fucking scum bag’s apartment, and I am going to go inside and get as much of your shit as I can get, and we will go back to my house, okay?”

“W-w-why?”

“Don’t be daft, (Y/N). You will never, and I mean never ever see that fucking disgusting human being again, do you understand me?”

“Y-Y-Yes Pete I understand…wh-why are you doing this for m-m-me though?”

Pete gripped her chin gently, making her look up at him, but only for a second because her eyes shut again when he pressed his lips to hers.

His lips were soft but firm and gentle but she could feel him holding himself back. She ran her hands down his huge biceps before snaking around his waist and he tangled his hands in her hair, sighing into the kiss. She tasted like strawberries and butterscotch and home, and he couldn’t get enough of it. She smelled like she always did, butterscotch and pumpkin.

“God,” He whispered between kisses when they kept taking breaths, “You,” Kiss, “Are,” Kiss, “So,” Kiss, “Perfect.”

She whimpered into the kiss, pressing her body against his, and he splayed one hand on the small of her back, and rested the other against her cheek, kissing and kissing and kissing. She was his drug. If he wasn’t hooked before, he was now.

Finally, though it wasn’t enough, they parted, and panting, Pete rested his forehead against hers, “I love you, (Y/N), I love you. I’ve loved you since you did my makeup all those months again. I love you. Let me take care of you, please. Let me be better than he was. Let me be yours.”

“Oh Pete,” she murmured, kissing him again, “I’ve been waiting for you to say that for so long…please rescue me. I love you.”

And Pete kissed her again, and his heart felt warm inside.

Maybe he wasn’t such an asshole after all.

#wwe imagine #wwe imagines #pete dunne #pete dunne imagine #pete dunne x reader

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howyoutalktostrangers · 4 years ago

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“This is how you talk to strangers”

by Will Johnson, originally published in Prairiefire

I’ve been reading the King James Bible lately. I like it so far. Sometimes I sit cross-legged on my roof, smoking cigarettes and flipping through Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy. I haven’t even made it to the New Testament. My favorite book so far is Ecclesiastes. Here’s this guy Solomon with nine hundred wives who can’t even sort his shit out. Everything is meaningless. It’s pretty bleak stuff. Actually, that’s what Hemingway named The Sun Also Rises after, a passage from Ecclesiastes. I read that book about three times a year. If those two were alive, I bet they would be fun to drink with. It would be one of those nights where you end up flipping over a table for no reason. The kind of night where you wake up the next morning and you feel totally humiliated in front of no one but yourself.

I grew up in Labrador City, the Iron Ore Capital of Canada. I was a pretty happy kid, actually. My mother loved us and my father made enough money, which is more or less all you need when you’re little. One day I was sitting on this pier with my two older brothers and this seagull started to pick on a smaller one. It pecked at it viciously and fluffed up its feathers and squawked. We all rooted for the smaller gull, even though it was destined to lose over and over again. My brothers kept throwing them French fries to fight over. Eventually the smaller bird just flew away. I don’t know why I remember that.

Isn’t the mind terrible?

I never knew how isolated I was until I left. The first time I drove into Toronto I felt like someone was sitting on my face. So many people everywhere. I’ve done a lot of traveling in the last few years—Chicago, New York, Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Whitehorse, Vancouver, Tofino—but I never really get used to it. Walking on a sidewalk is a contact sport. In the bar everyone looks like a Viking except for me. I didn’t know how I was ever supposed to meet a girl. Shit, I don’t know how anyone ever meets anyone. It seems so illogical. I dare you to go three or four days without talking to anyone. Consider it a spiritual exercise that leads you nowhere worthwhile. Drive around to random cities, listen to On The Road on audiotape, smoke cigarettes and start thinking about everything that’s wrong with you. Seriously, try it. See what you think.

A few years ago I was walking around Charlottetown, just hating my life, and I was looking at this KFC sign. I thought wow, someone’s responsible for making that. I could never make anything nearly as beautiful. If everyone in the world had my drive, we would be living like hobos. I can’t even parallel park.

The greatest moment in life is when a woman lifts her hips, just slightly, to let you pull off her pants. Like this is really happening to me. The second greatest moment is when your car is all packed with everything you own, and you know you’ve got a lot of driving ahead of you, but at the other end is a job. Last year I was sleeping on my brother’s couch and I had been drunk for an entire month. It was time to move on—I was starting to get the distinct impression that his girlfriend didn’t like me very much. As I was pulling out of the driveway my brother ran after me, and when he came up to me in the street I thought he would say something like it’s been good or good luck with the job, man but instead he just wanted to bum a smoke. I gave him my whole pack because I had no idea when I would see him again. He punched me in the shoulder and it was the first time in a long time anyone had touched me.

I got a job as a sports reporter in the Yukon. Every day I go out to these sporting events. Baseball games and track meets and hockey tournaments. I take pictures and I interview people and I doubt they even really notice. I’m just some guy with a tape recorder and they don’t know anything about me. Their bodies are terrifying. They wear tight spandex or bathing suits and they look superhuman. Most of the time I just want to ask them why? Or maybe how? They drink protein shakes and they bike a hundred kilometers a day or they hike to beautiful places I’ll never see. They’re so fucking healthy it gives me the shakes. I covered a 3-day canoe and kayak race, and this guy told me he wears a catheter so he doesn’t have to stop to pee. I wrote a story about it and thought this is it, the end of journalism as we know it. But no one reads the newspaper anyway. And if they do, nobody cares about the fucking sports section.

My favorite song is “Take it Easy” by the Eagles. One time I listened to it fifty times in a row, while I was driving through the Rocky Mountains. I never get sick of it.

I’m terrified of death. Nobody likes it, sure, but sometimes I sit at my desk at work and all of the sudden my fingers don’t work and I can’t function. No matter how much I hate breathing, I don’t think I could ever convince myself to die. Because I don’t know what’s next. My older brother Trent is religious, and he worked for years as a youth pastor at this church out West. That seemed to make him feel better about things, but none of that ever rubbed off on me. Sometimes I think I’ll end up as one of those empty-eyed senior citizens relegated to their wheelchairs. I’ll have friendly foreign nurses that feed me yogurt and give me drugs. They’ll push me to the window so I can look outside. That sounds pretty good to me.

This guy at the newspaper told me to watch Cool Hand Luke. So I did. Firstly, I don’t think there has ever been a more sublimely beautiful human specimen than Paul Newman. His eyes look supernatural. Secondly—damn, is that movie depressing. Not because he dies. More because I’m never going to be that cool. Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand. I wish I had that attitude. When Luke’s getting the shit kicked out of him by Dragline, he never gives up. He just keeps swinging. One punch and I would be curled in the fetal position, probably peeing my pants and begging him to stop. I really am useless. Believe me. I’m incapable of honest labour. Most of the time I feel lucky I wasn’t born fifty years ago during any of the big wars. I would have been drafted right away and I wouldn’t have lasted a week. I watch these war movies like Saving Private Ryan and I thank an imaginary God that I’ve never had to pick up a gun. My greatest hardship in life has been living on cereal for a week. Or running out of clean laundry.

My second favorite song is “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers.

I met this girl Megan in the steam room at the pool. She was doing yoga on the tiled floor with a pool mat and I was trying not to be a creep. But she was contorting her body into these ridiculous positions that made her muscles bulge and flatten in strange places. I watched the rivulets of sweat. They drew jagged lines down her stomach and dripped off the end of her nose. Sometimes I would wait, holding my breath, while one dangled. Her face was pink and the blond hair that escaped from her ponytail would stick to her forehead and cheeks. She had these elaborate flower tattoos that encircled her arms, purple and yellow and red. The vines were ropy and twisted in chaotic patterns behind the petals. We were the only two people in the steam room but I’m pretty sure she didn’t even know I was there. Her eyes were closed and she took the most relaxed, sensual breaths. It was beautiful. Finally I said something. I asked her if there were any good yoga places in town. Her eyes fluttered open. I said I’d always wanted to learn about yoga, which is probably the biggest lie I told that day. She looked at me, squirted some water into her mouth, and smiled. She said yeah, I teach twice a week at a studio in Whitehorse. You should come out.

Every now and then I realize I have a mother. My mother is a nice lady. And she loves me. If she really knew how I was living my life, I think she would have a heart attack. She’s proud of me for getting a job, but she doesn’t really know me anymore. I wish she did.

My attempts at yoga were pitiful. I spent the whole time wishing I could smoke a cigarette. I’ve never been so uncomfortable in my life. But afterwards, after I had a shower and rolled up my brand new yoga mat, Megan asked me if I wanted to go for beer. I though to myself this is it, this is how you talk to strangers and I said sure, yeah. We walked through the snow to the bar. We sat for two hours and whenever I said something funny she would touch my leg under the table. We bought a six-pack from off sales and walked down to the Yukon River. It was starting to get cold. She told me a bunch of personal shit about her life, but really I wasn’t listening to her words. I was watching the way she laughed, the way she moved her hands, the way her breath hung in a cloud and slowly drifted away.

I was covering this downhill bike race later that week when I broke my collarbone. It was my own fault. I was perched on the side of the trail taking photos, and I was trying to get a follow-focus shot. But everything kept coming out blurry. It was muddy and I was hung over, and as I whipped my camera along with the motion of a passing biker I fell down this embankment. It fucking hurt. I mean, I tumbled and rolled and knocked my head against a tree root. I’m lucky I didn’t break my goddamn spine. My publisher was annoyed and the paper was short-staffed, but it meant I got to sit at home and drink for a few weeks. I felt like Bukowski.

I often fantasize about being productive. I see people jogging around Whitehorse or going grocery shopping and I wonder where they get the energy. One day I want to write a novel, but I can barely convince myself to walk to the gas station for cigarettes. The first time I read The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson I was so relieved. I’m not the only one. I mean, it’s not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky but here’s a person who thinks the world is as absurd and terrifying as I do, and he can actually write something half-decent. When I’m bored I Google stories about Thompson. I rented a documentary about Gonzo journalism from the library. One day I read his suicide note, just because I was curious what was going through his head when he pulled the trigger. Apparently they published it in Rolling Stone. The title keeps repeating in my head, like a mantra: Football season is over.

Megan came over a few times while I was convalescing. She made me a meatloaf and I ate it for every meal, three days in a row. I felt awkward around her. I tried to hide my empties and clean up my house before she showed up, but I didn’t have a phone so most of the time she just appeared unannounced. She was usually in a yoga outfit or her karate clothes. I sat on the couch with her one day and I asked her about the tattoos on her forearms. She looked really sad for a moment, and then she pulled the skin tight in places to show me her scars. They were methodical, horizontal stripes. I wanted to die for a long time, she said. But I didn’t want anybody to know.

By the time my collarbone healed, it was starting to get dark. It scared the shit out of me. Don’t listen to the people who live here. The Yukon is a scary place in the winter. The snow blankets everything and it’s freezing cold and all of a sudden leaving the house is like living in a Jack London short story. Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well. The reporters made fun of me when I showed up to work wearing a parka, but I needed that fur against my face while I smoked cigarettes in the parking lot. Megan was starting to sleep over, and I liked watching her muscular back rise and fall while she snored. I couldn’t believe I’d convinced someone to sleep in my bed.

She showed up at my house crying one night. I tried to talk to her but she just cried into my chest for ten minutes. Finally, when I asked her what was wrong, she said its nothing, you’ll think its stupid. I told her no, of course I won’t think it’s stupid and then she drew her head back and looked at me. There was a huge pink pimple between her eyebrows. I have a bindi, she said. I have a fucking bindi. I usually tuned her out when she started talking about all that eastern mysticism stuff. She tried to convince me to read the Bhagavad Gītā but it just stayed on my bedside table. Whenever she talked about her spiritual beliefs it sounded like she was regurgitating these antiquated phrases she had learned in yoga school, or wherever. I didn’t want to seem insensitive, though, so I listened. She told me she was scared the universe was telling her something. She said the universe gave me a bindi to send me a message.

My favorite poem for a long time was Invictus by William Earnest Henley. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. But then Clint Eastwood took the title and turned it into a goddamn rugby movie.

I was covering this karate competition one weekend when a guy came up and shook my hand. I didn’t recognize him. He said his name was Eiji Matsumoto, and told me he was Megan’s karate instructor. What a cool name. She’s a very gifted student, he said. I nodded like this was something I had given some thought. I realized that we had been dating for months and I had never seen her fight. I had abandoned yoga after a second try. It made me feel like a bad person, knowing there was this huge part of her life I didn’t know anything about. This guy Eiji was easily a foot taller than me. He looked like he could lift me up and break me in half over his knee. He had the most luscious brown skin and beautiful dark eyes. It made my balls shrivel up into little prunes. Suddenly I wanted to shave.

It was a Thursday morning when I crashed my car. My windshield wipers weren’t working and I was trying to light a cigarette and all of a sudden this truck was stopped in front of me and I swerved off the road. I remember hurtling along. The whole car was shaking and I was wrenching the wheel around like a goddamn child playing with a video game and then I was upside down. One of my windows shattered and glass was everywhere and then everything stopped. All I could see was white, stretching out as far as I could see. People were calling out to me hey, hey are you all right in there? Are you okay? I thought about that bible verse where Jesus says he’ll come like a thief in the night. Some blood was drooling up my nose and I realized I was suspended over the ground, held by my seatbelt. I don’t know where my cigarette ended up.

My older brother Trent was arrested a few years ago. They found child pornography on his computer, and there were rumors he even molested some kids at the church he worked at. I didn’t know how to respond to that information. I still don’t.

For a week after that Megan drove me to work and back. She seemed really impatient, so I tried to spend time with my friend from the newspaper. We sat in the bar and drank too many beers. He kept saying embarrassing things to the waitress, and then we started arguing about Hemingway. He was saying Hemingway would drink beer and I told him no, Hemingway liked drinking Mojitos and bagged wine. We did some whiskey shots and then went out in the snow for a bit. I wanted to go down to the Yukon River, but my friend said it was too cold. We finally wandered into this dingy pub on Fourth Street, and the first thing I saw was Megan. She was sitting with her back to me, having dinner with Eiji. Eiji Matsumoto. My friend said what’s wrong and I said nothing, let’s just get out of here.

Whenever I’m feeling sorry for myself, I think do you know how old the universe is?

My father called me around that time. My mother was in the hospital in Winnipeg and he wanted to buy me a plane ticket. We don’t know how serious it is, he said, but she would like you to be there. I told him I would need a couple of days to arrange things with work, and he said that would be okay. I thought about Hemingway and Thompson, each of them perched over their shotguns. It seems cruel that not everyone gets to choose when they’ll die. My father told me my brother was already driving out from Edmonton with his girlfriend. The others were coming out from Halifax. He told me my mother had been sick for a while, but he didn’t want to worry me. I wandered around the twilight streets and I tried not to think about how fucking scared I was of everything. Relax – this won’t hurt.

You don’t really know much about yourself until you try to share space with a woman. Megan complained about crumbs on the counter, my unmade bed and how I always left empty packs of cigarettes everywhere. She kept pestering me to quit, and even convinced me to try the nicotine patch. She played this weird, mystical music and she meditated in our living room when I wanted to watch TV. I felt like Neal Cassady, always hiding things from his wife. I hadn’t brought up seeing her with Eiji because I didn’t want to be that guy. I’m not the jealous type. I kind of liked to see her angry, though. She never seemed like she was in control of her actions, and her moods would jackknife back and forth. One night, while we were having sex, she slapped me. Then she slapped me again. It turned me on so much she just kept slapping me until she was clawing at my chest and pulling my hair. The only ones for me are the mad ones.

I often wonder what would have happened if I never saw Eiji kiss my girlfriend. It was midday and they were coming out of a sushi place on Main Street. I had just bought a magazine and I was standing across the street smoking a cigarette when they emerged, pulling on their jackets. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips. It looked like a goddamn coffee commercial, like there should be music playing or something. I don’t remember crossing the street. I don’t even remember what I screamed at him. Maybe I took a swing, maybe I didn’t. All I remember was the way he looked as he reared back and kicked me square in the sternum. I flew backwards like you see in movies. My lungs felt like they were going to collapse. I was laying on my back on the sidewalk, struggling to breathe and panting when he leaned over me. Football season is over. I looked up at him and Megan while I lay there in the slush. I think I need to go to the hospital, I said. I think I’m really hurt. Help me.

I got drunk on the plane to Winnipeg. They just kept bringing me gin and tonics. I brought the King James Bible with me, but it was starting to lose my interest. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away. The New Testament sounds too much like those corny televangelists. I’m not too keen on Jesus, either. But there’s a poetry there, like Shakespeare. By the time we touched down the words were starting to mix together on the page. When the stewardess came to check our seatbelts I held out my empty cup. One more?

My father picked me up from the airport. It was the first time I noticed the deep wrinkles around his eyes. His handshake almost crushed my fingers. We drove through the grey streets for nearly an hour before we got to the hospital. I asked him if Trent was going to be there, and he reminded me that Trent was in prison and probably would be for a long time. We barely spoke after that. I didn’t even really recognize him anymore, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. Neither did he, I guess. What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. He led me up the stairs, someone gave me a coffee, and then I was standing in the room with her. Machines were beeping at me and she looked so small. I came to the side of my mother’s bed and her eyes fluttered open. It’s you, she said. It’s my son.

You can’t go long in the Yukon without hearing a Robert Service poem. They’ve got him painted on walls. They teach him in elementary schools. Sometimes you’ll walk into a bookstore and someone will be reciting his poems over the loudspeakers. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men that moil for gold. The first time I visited Dawson City, I went to the bank where he used to work. It’s right on the main drag, just a stone’s throw from the river, this saggy, dilapidated eyesore. One night I saw kids break into it to get drunk. I peeked in the windows and inside it looks like a warzone. There are spider webs clinging to the heaps of garbage on the floor. I hear there’s talk of restoring it, maybe building a heritage site, but chances are they’ll just eventually tear it down.

My mother reached out to me with these wrinkled hands. A long tube trailed out from her wrist. She touched my face and then she held my neck. I thought she might cry, but she didn’t. I leaned down and kissed her. She smelled like cleaning products. I wanted to tell her all my stories. I wanted her to pull me into her lap and rock me while I fell asleep. I thought about this time, when I was a little kid. My brothers had gone on a trip with my father and left me home sick for the weekend. She took me to the new shopping mall in Labrador City to see a movie. Afterwards we walked through these towering empty halls like we were in a cathedral. She bought me a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and a cinnamon bun. She told me this is our little secret. Don’t tell your brothers or they’ll be jealous. On the way home I fell asleep in the passenger seat.

Do you know how old the universe is?

My mother was discharged a few days later. I went back to work. Megan had already moved her stuff out of my basement suite. The snow was starting to melt, finally. Most days I sat at my desk and listed to John Prine or Willie Nelson. I stood on the sidelines of soccer games. I took pictures of people playing hockey. It cost me an entire paycheck to get my car fixed, so for two weeks I ate nothing but microwave popcorn and scrambled eggs. The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its place where it rises. On the weekends I walked down to the Yukon River and watched the ice slide into the water. One afternoon a giant chunk tumbled down the riverbank.

It flowed slowly downstream until I couldn’t see it anymore.

The Literary Goon

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