#the antiquity of ever silence
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My high school did a yearly poetry recitation contest (Poetry Out Loud), so Oh Boy do I know some poems. My favorites are Ozymandias and "the world is about to end and my grandparents are in love," by Kara Jackson. Also in 8th grade we had a Poe unit and had a class contest to make the best music video of the Raven, so I still know a good chunk of that.
i hadn't heard of the kara jackson one! just read through it and enjoyed it, particularly these lines > 'grandma returns to her love like a hymn, marks it with a color. // when the world ends will it suck the earth of all its love? /will i go taking somebody’s hand, / my skin becoming their skin?'
#taking this as a challenge to see how much of ozymandias and the raven i can remember. no i'm not bored at work what gives you that idea#i bet ive got most of ozymandias. the raven may be a lost cause#i met a traveller from an antique land / who said: two vast and trunkless legs of stone / stand in the desert. near them on the sand /#half-sunk a shatter'd visage lies whose frown / and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command / tell that its sculptor well those passions read#...something or other i do not recall / the heart that mocked them and the heart that fed / and on the pedestal these words appear /#my name is ozymandias king of kings / look on my works ye mighty and despair /#nothing beside remains. round the decay / of that colossal wreck . something or other#the lone and level sands stretch far away#decay of that colossal wreck indeed (my memory for this poem)#oh well.#once upon a midnight dreary as i pondered weak and weary / over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore /#while i nodded nearly napping suddenly there came a rapping / as of someone gently tapping tapping at my chamber door /#tis some visitor i muttered tapping at my chamber door / only this and nothing more#?? (it's downhill from here)#ah distinctly i remember it was in the bleak december / and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor /#something?ly i sought the morrow / vainly had i sought to borrow / from my books surcease of sorrow / sorrow for the lost lenore /#for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels .name lenore / lost to me forevermore#(then there is another stanza; bird-infested word bonanza / which i used to know at some point but do not know anymore /)#something something something door. darkness there and nothing more#oh it's the 'silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain / thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never known before' bit#anyway. deep into that darkness peering something stood i hoping fearing / doubting?? dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before#but the silence was unbroken and the stillness gave no token / and the only word there spoken was the whispered word lenore#(more missing chunks)#oh i remember 'surely said i surely that is / something at my window lattice' because it's such a stupid rhyme#bird time bust time idk#ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore / tell me what thy lordly name is on the night's plutonian shore /#a billion more stanzas i dont remember. except for 'prophet!' said i 'thing of evil! prophet still if bird or devil!#whether tempter sent or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore /' etc. wait you can only add 30 tags to posts now?? i had more raven chunks#ask#anon
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they mean Everything To Me
#the wayhaven chronicles#twc book 3#twc book 3 spoilers#near the end but just in case#i have so many thoughts and moments that i want to talk about from M's route#just the concern and the worry and not really knowing where it's coming from#and getting so used to being in each other's presence#being emotionally open and vulnerable with each other#i love that there was the option at the antique store to just hold M's hand and stand there in silence and just exist together for#the brainrot is back and better than ever baby#twc m#twc mason#detective x mason#oc: jay batra#my screenshots
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could you do a batfam x oblivious reader who’s so close to finding out they’re a vigilante, but she doesn’t even know if that makes sense? like nightwing crawling in through the window when he thought she was asleep, only for her to be awake and go “wrong house?” not realizing it’s her boyfriend.. who thought she was asleep
this made me laugh. very good thinking brains y'all have
Masterlist
Oblivious
Dick Grayson
The sound of your window sliding open prompts you to look up from where you lie your head on the pillow. You can't seem to get to sleep and maybe it's a good thing— you grab for the lamp on the bedside table and raise it high over your head.
Climbing through the window, however, is not a common thief. It's Nightwing.
"What are you doing here?"
The vigilante freezes, slowly looking up to meet your eyes. "I was told there was domestic abuse occurring in this apartment," he says smoothly. "You have a boyfriend?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Where is he?"
You look over to Dick's spot on the bed and only just now do you realise it's empty. There's a note written on paper that reads, OUT TO GET FOOD.
"He's grocery shopping."
"Ah, wrong apartment, then. Sorry to bother you." The vigilante then ducks outside.
Jason Todd
A loud crash prompts you to wake up— far earlier than you're used to. The sun isn't even up yet. Glancing to the side of your bed, you forget Jason's out on a business trip, what ever his business is.
You carefully climb out of bed, creeping to the bedroom door and slowly pushing it open. In your living stands Red Hood himself, dismantling an assault rifle.
"What are you doing in my house?"
The vigilante whips his head around, frozen like a deer in headlights. There's a long few minutes of silence where the two of you stare at each other.
"Gun's not working. I'll be out in a minute, just need to fix it. My apologies."
"Oh," you say, shrugging your shoulders. "Stay safe, then."
Red Hood nods, watching you return to your bed with a quiet sigh.
Tim Drake
Waking up at your usual time and kissing Tim gently on the forehead, almost as a reward for sleeping.
After eating breakfast as quickly as you could, you were surprised to see Tim still asleep and give him another gentle kiss, this time on the nose.
You've only got half an hour until you have to go to work, so you rush to the bathroom to get ready.
The Red Robin suit is draped over the shower wall, unmistakeable.
In your bathroom.
"Tim?" You shout, forgetting your boyfriend's need to sleep. "Tim!"
"What?" he replies groggily, slowly getting out of bed.
"The Red Robin suit is in my bathroom."
"Oh, uh, he asked me to clean it for him. We're sort of like, friends. I guess. It's weird."
"You never told me that," you say.
"It's a recent thing. Sorry."
You shrug and get ready for work, ignoring the suit at is it hangs in your bathroom.
Damian Wayne
"Emergency at work," your boyfriend had said. He gets a lot of those, you think. "Be back in the morning. Maybe later."
Now, going to sleep late— towards midnight, where Damian would have already dragged you into bed— you realised you didn't have on of his shirts to sleep in.
When he wasn't with you to sleep, you always sleep in one of his shirts.
You begin scrummaging through his wardrobe— which you never do— only for a shirt. You find one, your favourite black one, and pull it out.
Underneath the shirt, revealed as you yank it from the drawer, is a katanna.
"Oh. Oh."
It's late. You're tired. You've got the shirt.
It's probably just an antique piece anyway. Rich people have all sorts of things.
#batfamily x reader#damian wayne x reader#batfam#jason todd x reader#dick grayson x reader#tim drake x reader
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Hi could I request an Anthony c wife reader fic where they are in a heated argument and Anthony accidentally says he regret marrying reader so she ends up giving him the silent treatment and just ignoring him so he can grovel for her forgiveness
regrets
(mean?) anthony bridgerton x wife, fem!reader
summary: anthony realises the importance of words
warnings: argument
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As you trudged down the antique staircase, you couldn’t help but ponder the lack of the presence of your husband recently. He was always locked away in his office and whenever you confronted him, he would always reply with: “I still have more work, Y/N.” After he said that, he would kick you out of his office. You were really missing Anthony currently and you longed for his touch, despite never really enjoying physical touch, you longed for his touch.
And so that is what led you to now, storming into his office, without even knocking. Anthony huffed quietly as he looked up to see you. He held his head in his hands as he stared back down at his pile of paperwork. “What?”, he asked blatantly as he eyed the paper. “Is that all you have to say to me?”, you asked bemusedly. “Yes. You stormed into my office whilst I am working.”, he justified. “Do you only care for your work and business?”, you asked with an upset expression.
“No, it is just so overwhelming sometimes. It is a requirement that I see to all of it as the Viscount.”, he responded as he shuffled in his chair. “Is it not a duty to spend some of your time in the presence of your wife?”, you asked as you focused on the elegant wooden desk, avoiding his intense eyes that often gave away his emotions. “I suppose so. I almost regret marrying.”, he confessed. You simply stared at him. Did he really regret marrying you? Why did he go through all of the effort of making your wedding perfect for you if he didn’t want to get married?
Silently, you forced your feet to carry you back into your bedroom which was fortunately not shared with Anthony. In the past, you would spend your sleepless nights in his room and he would go into yours if he burned for your passion. You slammed the door shut and locked it: to be certain that he would not enter your chambers. You needed to be alone.
It was safe to say that it was yet another sleepless night but he was not there to ease you through it. Amidst the sunlight of the rising sun, you hastily got ready for the day; you requested for your hair to be more simply styled today and your robes less detailed and delicate. Truth be told, you only asked your maids to do your hair gracefully for Anthony, you hated the process and you decided that you would not care about what he’d have to say about your robes: he didn’t need to acknowledge his wife anymore.
You sat at the table in silence whilst you ate breakfast with him opposite you, none of you making eye contact.
You sat on the sofa as you read in silence which felt unusual with out your updates to Anthony and his queries on where you had gotten up to.
You sat in the picturesque garden in silence.
It was not until dinner that Anthony broke the silence. “Y/N.”, he began as you pushed your food away from you like Anthony had you. “I do not know where to begin.”, he continued as he gazed across at you. “When I spoke such words, I did not realise they would be so harmful and impactful.”
You glanced up for a split second and saw the sparkle of sincerity in his eyes before going back to playing with your food. “I know that you will not ever truly forgive me for those unkind words but I hope you will at least know this: I did not mean it like that. In fact, I almost meant the opposite: I feel as though because I am the Viscount I am unable to take care of my wife and spend the needed time with her.”, he stated in one breath. “I almost feel pitiful for my wife: no one should be neglected simply because they are my wife. I just do not know how a woman could love me for I was not made to be a tender husband or a loving father. I was made to be the Viscount. Those are my duties. And so I thought to myself: you deserve so much better and so why should I bother when I cannot give what you require?”, he pleaded with a new sense of vulnerability in his eyes. You knew how hard it was for him to open up and for him to admit to this, you were proud of him.
“Anthony, you are the perfect husband (when you want to be).”, you mentioned teasingly. He let out a teary smile. “And I know that in the future you will be the most loving father to our children. You even admitting to feeling like such proves it.”, you responded as you slowly made your way over to his side of the table.
Once you had reached him, you carefully caressed his jawline as he gazed up at you whilst tears gently rolled down his cheeks. He placed his arms around your neck and pulled you down so he was able to passionately kiss you, conveying his love for you. As he pulled away, he cautiously grabbed your hand and guided you into his room. For the first time in weeks, you slept through the whole night.
#anthony bridgerton#anthony bridgerton x reader#anthony bridgerton x you#anthony bridgerton x female reader#anthony bridgerton imagine#anthony bridgerton one shot#bridgerton#bridgerton x reader#bridgerton imagine#bridgerton x y/n#bridgerton x you#bridgerton x female reader#fem!reader
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happy birthday toshi
ushijima wakatoshi hates rushing.
his hands graze your hips, as if you are a fragile, priceless antique. you’re wearing that pretty dress that he likes on you the best, with your lips all pouty and plump in lip gloss.
“toshi, we’re gonna be late for the dinner reservation,” you whine.
ushijima doesn’t say anything. he drinks in the sight of your glittering eyes staring up at him and your cheeks dusted in blush. you’re the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.
he takes his time to enjoy the sights and pulls you in gently. ushijima swallows the quiet huff you let out (he knows you’re not annoyed – you never are after he tells you how beautiful you look) by kissing you, dipping his head down and letting his eyes fall shut. when ushijima pulls away, his own lips are sticky and glossy.
your eyes are half-lidded. it takes you five seconds of dizzying silence for you to open them wide and stare up at him again.
“toshi!”
your eyebrows furrow. he smiles.
“we’ll be on time, i promise. just one more kiss?” ushijima asks.
he’s in a tailored suit that you want to unwrap button by button and touch him in places you can’t see. all six feet and three point nine inches of the most perfect man you’ve ever seen has his hands on your hips and wants to kiss you.
“okay,” you whisper.
ushijima lowers his head again, taking his time to kiss you soft and sweet. you make it to your dinner reservation five minutes late.
#ushijima wakatoshi x reader#ushijima x reader#hq ushijima#ushijima wakatoshi#ushijima wakatoshi fluff#ushijima fluff#hq fluff#hq x reader#ushijima x you#ushijima wakatoshi x you
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i. the radio's revival
The worst possible scenario just unfolded before Alastor's eyes—his beloved antique radio broke.
He stood in stunned silence, his usual jovial expression replaced by one of utter disbelief as the once-majestic device now lay in pieces, its intricate components scattered across the floor. With a heavy heart, he knelt beside the shattered remnants, his gloved fingers tracing the familiar contours with a sense of mourning.
It was a futile gesture, he knew, but he couldn’t help but feel a sense of loss for the part of himself that had been taken away with it. For Alastor, the radio was more than just a mere object; it was a piece of his identity. Each scratch, each dent held a story, a memory of a bygone era that now lay at ruins at his feet.
In that moment, he felt more vulnerable than ever before, stripped of the facade of invincibility he had carefully cultivated over decades. However, as he surveyed the damage, the vulnerability was quickly replaced by a flood of other emotions–anger, frustration, disappointment. How could something so precious, so irreplaceable, be lost in an instant?
The faint sound of shuffling feet then drew his attention. As he gazed up, one of the egg boys—those bumbling, loyal lackeys of Sir Pentious—timidly stepped forward with a sheepish expression.
“Uh, sorry about that, mister Radio Demon, sir. It was an accident,” the egg boy mumbled, his voice tinged with guilt.
Alastor's eye twitched in annoyance at the feeble excuse. Accidents were one thing, but this? This was inexcusable. His patience, already stretched thin, threatened to snap as he struggled to contain his frustration.
“Sorry?” Alastor repeated through gritted teeth. “Sorry won’t fix what’s been broken, now will it?”
The egg boys exchanged nervous glances, their carefree demeanor faltering under Alastor's withering gaze. “We didn't mean to, Mr. Alastor,” another one of them stammered.
Yet it was far too late for apologies. Alastor's frustration bubbled over like a pot ready to boil, and with a growl of irritation, his form began to shift. With each passing second, his horns extended, his body swelled in size, and his once elegant silhouette towered over the trembling egg boys like a vengeful deity.
The egg boys recoiled in terror, their eyes wide with horror as they watched Alastor's transformation unfold before them. In their panicked mind, they could only imagine the worst—that Alastor, in his fury, would devour them whole.
Just as their fear reached its peak, Sir Pentious burst onto the scene. Positioning himself between the egg boys and the Radio Demon, his voice rang out in a chorus of apologies.
“Mr. Alastor, sir, I must beg for your forgiveness on behalf of my hapless egg boys,” he pleaded desperately. “They meant no harm, I assure you. It was a mere accident, a foolish mistake!”
Alastor's gaze narrowed as he observed Sir Pentious. As the snake demon continued to shower him with apologies, Alastor suddenly remembered the reason they were all gathered here in the first place—a party, of all things. With a wry smile, he glanced around at the other residents of the hotel, noting the fear etched onto their faces. The sight of their unease might've amused him under different circumstances, but the loss of something so precious to him soured his mood.
With a shake of his head, he allowed his form to shrink back to its normal size. As his horns receded and his imposing presence diminished, he felt the tension ebb from his body, the anger gradually fading away.
But that didn’t mean that all was forgiven.
“What, pray tell, am I supposed to do with my broken radio now?” Alastor's voice dripped with barely contained frustration as he shot a piercing gaze at Sir Pentious.
Sir Pentious, visibly sweating under the weight of Alastor's glare, scrambled to offer a solution. “Ah, well, fear not,” he stuttered, his words coming out in a nervous rush. “I happen to know a mechanic—a fixer, if you will. Someone who can repair anything, no matter how... delicate.”
Alastor's eyebrow arched in skepticism, though a faint flicker of interest danced in his eyes. "Is that so?" he mused, a smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. He had his doubts about Sir Pentious' ability to deliver on such a promise, but at this point, he was willing to entertain any possibility.
“And where can I find this mechanic of yours?”
Following the instructions scribbled hastily on the back of a crumpled receipt, Alastor eventually found himself in the slums of Pentagram City. The narrow alleyways led him to what appeared to be a workshop, its exterior bearing the signs of neglect and decay. The windows were grimy, patches of paint flaked off the weathered walls, and the sign above the entrance barely hung on by a single rusty nail.
It was a far cry from the elegance he was accustomed to, and he couldn't help but feel a familiar surge of anger rising within him. This was the place that was supposed to hold the solution to his problem? The Radio Demon scoffed inwardly, doubting that anyone within these walls possessed the skill or expertise to repair something as delicate as his beloved radio.
Still, he pressed on. Pushing open the creaking door, he was met with a gust of stale air, tinged with the scent of oil and metal. Inside, the workshop was a scene of disarray. Tools lay scattered across workbenches, and half-finished projects cluttered every available surface. The walls were lined with shelves overflowing with spare parts, some of which appeared to be salvaged from long-forgotten machinery.
Alastor's lips curled into a disdainful sneer as he absorbed the surroundings. Then, his gaze fell upon the lone figure, hunched over a nearby table—you.
As he drew closer, you finally looked up, and to Alastor's surprise, you greeted him with a wide smile.
“Hi there! What can I do for you?”
Alastor's sneer deepened at the sight of the chipper mechanic, a stark contrast to the grim atmosphere of the workshop. He had half-expected to find someone as worn down and weathered as the building itself, yet here stood this bright-eyed individual, seemingly unfazed by the chaos around them.
Suppressing a sigh, Alastor straightened up, the edges of his grin faltering ever so slightly. “Good evening,” he began. “My name is Alastor, and I'm here because I was told you might be able to fix something for me.”
Your smile widened at his words, and you nodded eagerly. “Of course! What seems to be the problem?”
Alastor hesitated for a moment, eyeing you warily. He couldn't shake the feeling that entrusting his precious radio to you was a mistake. Yet, he had little choice in the matter.
“My antique radio is in need of repair,” Alastor explained, his tone guarded. “It's a delicate piece of machinery, and I require someone with the utmost skill to handle it.”
You listened intently as Alastor detailed the intricacies of his radio, nodding along with each word. Despite his cautious demeanor, you could sense the underlying concern in his voice. It was clear that this radio held great significance to him.
As he finished speaking, you gave him another nod. “I understand, Mr. Alastor,” you reassured him. “You won't be disappointed, I promise. Now, let's take a look at what you've got there.”
With that, you gestured for Alastor to follow you to your workbench, where he finally presented the fragmented piece of machinery. As you laid eyes on the broken radio, it became immediately apparent to you just how extensively damaged it was. Fractured casings, tangled wires, missing components–it was a daunting sight, yet you refrained from revealing the true severity of the damage to Alastor, not wanting to add to his distress. Instead, you maintained a composed demeanor as you turned to look at him with a confident grin.
“We'll get this sorted out, Mr. Alastor,” you assured him once more. “Leave it to me.”
Alastor felt a flicker of hope stir in his blackened heart at the prospect of having his radio fixed. Though a hint of doubt still lingered at the back of his mind, he nodded begrudgingly.
“Very well," he muttered. "Just... be careful with it.”
As Alastor stepped back, allowing you the space to work your magic, his eyes remained fixed on you with keen interest. He observed the fluidity of your movements, the subtle shifts in your expression. Whenever you encountered a challenge, your brows furrowed in concentration, and with each successful repair, a hint of satisfaction graced your lips. Alastor found himself unconsciously mirroring your expressions as he watched your steady hands diligently work to bring his beloved radio back to life.
And as time passed, so too did his initial skepticism begin to wane, replaced by a growing sense of admiration for your skill and expertise. There was something captivating about the way you worked, a sense of determination and passion that shone through with every meticulous movement.
At last, after what felt like an eternity, you made the final adjustment. With bated breath, you flicked the switch and awaited the outcome. The room fell into a tense silence, thick with anticipation. Then, suddenly, a burst of static erupted, followed by the unmistakable sound of music emanating from the speakers.
Alastor's eyes widened in disbelief as the once-silent device surged back to life. Your face lit up with a triumphant smile as you savored his reaction, a sense of pride swelling within you.
“There you go, Mr. Alastor,” you declared, extending the repaired radio toward him. “Good as new!”
As Alastor reached out to accept the radio from you, his fingers inadvertently brushed against yours in a fleeting moment of contact. In that instant, a jolt of electricity seemed to course through him, sending a distinct shiver down his spine.
It was a curious sensation, one that he couldn't quite place, yet it stirred something deep within him.
Even after withdrawing his hand, the feeling lingered, leaving Alastor perplexed. His gaze shifted from the repaired radio to your face, searching for any indication that you too had felt the same inexplicable energy pulse between you. However, your smile remained unchanged, oblivious to the tumult of emotions swirling within him.
“Thank you,” he finally murmured, his voice softer than usual, betraying a hint of sincerity that caught even him off guard. “You did a remarkable job.”
You beamed in response, your eyes alight with satisfaction at Alastor's words. “You're welcome,” you replied gently. “I'm glad I could be of help. And remember, if you ever need anything else, you know where to find me.”
Alastor offered a subtle nod of gratitude, though inwardly, he found himself oddly reluctant to leave. Nevertheless, he tucked the repaired radio under his arm and turned on his heel, heading towards the door. Stepping out into the dimly-lit street, he walked with deliberate steps. His thoughts drifted back to the moment his fingers brushed against yours, and despite his attempts to push the memory aside, his free hand instinctively flexed, fingers curling into a tight fist before relaxing once more.
This was going to be a problem.
part i / part ii
thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed<3
#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin hotel imagine#hazbin hotel#hazbin alastor#alastor x reader#alastor/reader#hazbin hotel alastor x reader#alastor#hazbin hotel fluff#part 2?
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No, the Popularity of Abstract Art is Not the Result of a CIA PsyOp
If you are unlucky enough to move around the internet these days and talk about art, you’ll find that many “First commenters” will hit you with what they see as some hard truth about your taste in art. Comments usually start with how modern art is “money laundering” always comically misunderstanding what that means. What they are saying is that, of course, rich people use investments as tax shelters and things like expensive antiques and art appraised at high prices to increase their net worth. Oh my god, I’ve been red-pilled. The rich getting richer? I have never heard of such a thing.
What is conveniently left out of this type of comment is that the same valuation and financial shenanigans occur with baseball cards, wine, vacation homes, guitars, and dozens of other things. It does indeed happen with art, but even the kind that the most conservative internet curator can appreciate. After all, Rembrandts are worth money too, you just don’t see many because he’s not making any more of them. The only appropriate response to these people who are, almost inevitably themselves, the worst artists you have ever seen, is silence. It would cruel to ask about their own art because there’s a danger they might actually enjoy such a truly novel experience.
When you are done shaking your head that you just subjected yourself to an argument about the venality of poor artists plotting to make their work valuable after they died, you can certainly then enjoy the accompanying felicity of the revelation they have saved to knock you off your feet: “Abstract art is a CIA PsyOp”
Here one must get ready either to type a lot or to simply say “Except factually” and go along your merry, abstract-art-loving way. But what are the facts? Unsurprisingly with things involving US government covert operations, the facts are not so clear.
Like everything on the internet, you are unlikely to find factual roots to the arguments about government conspiracies and modern art. The mere idea of it is enough to bring blossom for the “I’m not a sheep” crowd, some of whom believe that a gold toilet owning former president is a morally good, honest hard-working man of the people.
The roots of this contention come from a 1973 article in Artforum magazine, where art critic Max Kozloff wrote about post-war American painting in the context of the Cold War, centering around Irving Sandler’s book, The Triumph of American Painting (1970). Kozloff takes on more than just abstract expressionism in his article but condemns the “Self-congratulatory mood”of Sandler’s book and goes on to suggest the rise of abstract expressionism was a “Benevolent form of propaganda”. Kozoloff treads a difficult line here, asserting that abstraction was genuinely important to American art but that its luminaries, “have acquired their present blue-chip status partly through elements in their work that affirm our most recognizable norms and mores.”
While there were rumblings of agreements around Kozloff’s article of broad concerns, it did not give birth to an actual conspiracy theory at the time. The real public apprehension of this idea seems to mostly come from articles written by historian Frances Stonor Saunders in support of her book, “The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters” (New York, New Press, 2000). (I have not read this 525 page book, only excerpts).
The gist of Ms. Saunders argument is a tantalizing, but mostly unsupported, labyrinthine maze of back door funding and novelistic cloak and dagger deals. According to Saunders, the Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF), an anti-communist cultural organization founded in 1950, was behind the promotion of Abstract art as part of their effort to be opinion makers in the war against communism. In 1966 it was revealed that the CCF was funded by the CIA. Saunders says that the CCF financed a litany of art exhibitions including “The New American Painting” which toured Europe in the late 1950s. Some of this is true, but it’s difficult, if not impossible, to know the specifics.
Noted expert in abstract-expressionism, David Anfam said CIA presence was real. It was “a well-documented fact” that the CIA co-opted Abstract Expressionism in their propaganda war against Russia. “Even The New American Painting [exhibition] had some CIA funding behind it,” he says. But the reasons for this are not quite what the abstract art detractors might be looking for. After all, the CCF also funded the travel expenses for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and promoted Fodor’s travel guides. More than trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes, it was meant to showcase the freedom artists in the US. enjoyed. Or as Anfam goes on to say, “It’s a very shrewd and cynical strategy, because it showed that you could do whatever you liked in America.”
For what it’s worth, Saunders’s book was eviscerated in the Summer 2000 issue of Art Forum at the time of its publication. Robert Simon wrote:
“Saunders draws extensively on primary and secondary sources, focusing on the convoluted money trail as it twists through dummy corporations, front men, anonymous donors, and phony fund-raising events aimed at filling the CCF’s coffers. She makes lengthy forays into such topics as McCarthyism, the formation and operation of the CIA, the propaganda work of the Hollywood film industry, and New York cultural politics—from Partisan Review to MoMA to Abstract Expressionism. Yet what seems strangely absent from Saunders’s panoramic history, as if it were a minor detail or something too obvious to require discussion, is the cultural object itself: The complex specifics of the texts, exhibitions, intellectual gatherings, paintings, and performances of the culture war are largely left out of the story.”
Another problem with the book seems to be that Saunders is an historian but not an art historian. For me, I sensed an overtone of superiority in the tale she’s spinning and most assuredly from those that repeat its conclusion. The thinly veiled message of some is that if it were “Real art” it would not have had be part of this government subterfuge. The reality is very different. For one thing, most of us know it is simply not true that you can make people devoted to a type of art for 100 years that they would sensibly hate otherwise. Another issue is that it’s quite obvious none of the artists actually knew about any government interference if there was any. Pollock, Rothko, Gottlieb and Newmann were all either communists or anarchists. Hardly the group one would recruit the help the US government free the world of communism. Additionally, this narrow cold war timeline ignores a huge amount of abstract art that Jackson Pollock haters also revile and consider part of the same hijacking of high (Frankly, Greek, Roman, or Renaissance) culture. If you look at the highly abstract signature work of Piet Mondrian and observe the dates they were painted, you’ll see 1908, 1914, 1916. This is some of the art denigrated as a CIA PsyOP, 35 years before the CIA even thought about it. Modern art didn’t come from nowhere as many would have you believe to discredit its rise. There was Surrealism, Dada, Bauhaus, Russian futurism and a host of other movements that fueled it.
Generally, people like to argue. On the internet, “I don’t like this” is a weak statement that always must be replaced by “This is garbage” or my favorite, “This is fake.”
It’s hardly surprising that the more conservative factions of our society look for any government involvement in our lives to explain why things are not exactly as they wish them to be, given the (highly ironic) conservative government-blaming that blew up after Reagan. In addition, modern fascists have always had a love affair with the classical fantasy of Greece and Rome. Both Mussolini and Hitler used Greece and Rome as “Distant models” to address their uncertain national identity. The Nazis confiscated more than 5,000 works in German museums, presenting 650 of them in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art, 1937) show to demonstrate the perverted nature of modern art. It featured artists including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee, among others. The fear of art was real. It was the fear of ideas.
To a lot of people on the internet just the mentioning a “CIA program” is enough to get the cogs turning, but as with many things, the reality of CIA programs and government plots is often less than evidence of well planned coup.
The CIA reportedly spent 20 millions dollars on Operation Acoustic Kitty which intended to use cats to spy on the Kremlin and Soviet embassies. Microphones were planted on cats and plans were set in motion to get the cats to surreptitiously record important conversations. However, the CIA soon discovered that they were cats and not agreeable to any kind of regulation of their behavior.
As part of Operation Mongoose the CIA planned to undermine Castro's public image by putting thallium salts in his shoes, which would cause his beard to fall out, while he was on a trip outside Cuba. He was expected to leave his shoes outside his hotel room to be polished, at which point the salts would be administered. The plan was abandoned because Castro canceled the trip.
Regardless of your feelings on this subject or how much you believe abstract art benefited from government dollars, Saunders herself quotes in her book a CIA officer apparently involved in these “Long leash” influence operations. He says, “We wanted to unite all the people who were writers, who were musicians, who were artists, to demonstrate that the West and the United States was devoted to freedom of expression and to intellectual achievement, without any rigid barriers as to what you must write, and what you must say, and what you must do.” Hardly the Illuminati plot we were promised.
In 2016, Irving Sandler, author of the book that started Kozloff tirading in 1973, told Alastair Sooke of The Daily Telegraph, “There was absolutely no involvement of any government agency. I haven’t seen a single fact that indicates there was this kind of collusion. Surely, by now, something – anything – would have emerged. And isn’t it interesting that the federal government at the time considered Abstract Expressionism a Communist plot to undermine American society?”
This blog post contains information and quotes sourced from The Piper Played to Us All: Orchestrating the Cultural Cold War in the USA, Europe, and Latin America, Russell H. Bartley International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 14, No. 3 (Spring, 2001), pp. 571-619 (49 pages) https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20161004-was-modern-art-a-weapon-of-the-cia https://brill.com/view/journals/fasc/8/2/article-p127_127.xml?language=en https://www.guggenheim-bilbao.eus/en/learn/schools/teachers-guides/the-dark-side-of-classicism https://www.artforum.com/features/american-painting-during-the-cold-war-212902/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/modern-art-was-cia-weapon-1578808.html https://www.artforum.com/columns/frances-stonor-saunders-162391/ https://www.artforum.com/features/abstract-expressionism-weapon-of-the-cold-war-214234/ Mark Rothko and the Development of American Modernism 1938-1948 Jonathan Harris, Oxford Art Journal, Vol. 11, No. 1 (1988), pp. 40-50 (11 pages)
#mark rothko#markrothko#rothko#daily rothko#dailyrothko#abstract expressionism#modern art#abstraction#colorfield#ab ex#colorfield painting#mid century#CIA#pysop
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Gift // Viktor.
Viktor x gender neutral!reader.
Summary: You give Viktor a very special gift.
Fluff.
Swoooosh.
Viktor's brown fluffy hair flies as Jayce maneuvers with the prototype of their next Hextech tool. Swinging it around like it's weightless.
"Don't you want to give it a try, Vik?" Jayce asks between swings at the paler man, holding the hammer towards his direction at the end. Viktor's amber gaze looks at the thing up and down and shakes his head, he runs a lazy hand to brush his hair.
"I don't think I'll be able to lift it." Viktor mutters with a dry chuckle. Jayce laughs softly and nods. The small click of the door opening makes the two men look over.
"Is there any dangerous science thingy going on?" You ask as you peep your head inside. Jayce smirks at how fast Viktor takes his cane and stands up, a soft whine leaves him as he limps over to the door, opening it wider for you.
"No, miláčku." Viktor spoke softly, a faint smile adorning his tired face. You smiled and stepped inside, you were holding two bags. You pressed a soft kiss on the Zaunite's lips, making him feel weak at the knees immediately.
"Hello, boy genius." You whisper with a small smirk on your face, the pale man smiled widely, a soft pink blush adorning his cheeks, he whispered a greeting.
"Greetings, Jayce." You smiled as you greeted the taller man with a small wave who stood there fidgeting with the hammer, pretending not to be the third wheel the second you came in.
"Hey." Jayce nods his head, he puts the hammer down and starts walking away a little not-so discretely to escape the tenderness of you and Vitkor.
"Wait, wait!" You called, the taller man stopped and looked at you, Viktor tilts his head. You smiled and walked further inside.
"I know you two have been working hard, so I brought you a little something." You spoke softly, both men smiled and walked closer to you as you placed your bags on top of a free desk.
"For Jayce. I made some garlic bread because I know you liked it when you had dinner with us last time." You slice a small container to Jayce's side, the taller man smiled widely, his mouth watering.
"Thank you so much!" He spoke excitedly before leaving you and Viktor alone. You chuckled and looked over to your partner whose amber eyes try to peek inside the bag.
"First, some homemade cookies and sweet milk." You spoke softly, taking out the bottle and container. The pale man smiled and his cheeks got even redder, he opened the bottle and took a sip of the sweet milk, it felt so comforting on his empty stomach.
"And, I was practicing my crotchet and found a very peculiar pattern. I thought it was cute." You explain as you took something else out of the bag.
Viktor's golden eyes widen.
"I'm not sure if it's a hundred percent accurate to the real one." You giggled nervously as you showed the pink crotchet plushie to the inventor. He placed the bottle down, his pale hands taking the plushie like it was something so delicate. Like a baby or an antique.
"...Rio." He mumbled ever so softly as he stared at the chubby little thing. His fingers fiddled with the crochet anathenas, the tail. The Zaunite blinks a couple of times and looks back at you.
"It looks like Rio." He speaks a little louder, his voice laced with vulnerability. Your smile softens as you watch Viktor holding the plushie closer to his chest, you nodded.
The Zaunite holds the small creature close, his fingers caressing each crochet delicately.
"You have a great talent for these things, moje lásko." He speaks softly against the plushies head. You smiled softly, your eyes couldn't tear apart from this tender scene. You two stayed in a comfortable silence, Viktor roamed through the plushie, cuddling and whispering things in his native tongue.
He looked up at you, his amber eyes with a new shine you've never seen before.
"Does that mean you liked it?" You ask with a faint smirk. The Zaunite laughs and nods, he leans closer and presses a soft kiss on your forehead.
"I love it very much. It will never leave my side." He whispers softly. His stomach growls, breaking the tender moment. A soft giggle escapes your lips, making Vitkor smile wider. The sound of your laughter was always appreciated by him.
"I think you need those cookies, love." You mutter with a smirk, he nods with a chuckle.
"Eh- yes." He whispers with a soft red tint on his cheeks.
"And a nap." You add quickly, maybe he'll say yes this time. Viktor tries to argue but the soft plushie on his arms is compelling him to cuddle it.
"Also yes." He mumbles. You smile and take the cookie box and sweet milk, almost running towards the couch that lays in a corner of the lab. The inventor smiles softly, taking his cane and following behind you at a slower pace.
----------------------------------------------------------
Jayce footsteps approached the lab. It's been a little over an hour, he enjoyed the bread and was ready to return to his work with a clear mind.
He opened the door, made a few steps towards his desk before turning to his right, finding Viktor's desk empty. He looked around the lab before laying eyes on the couch.
Viktor was laying down, a blanket around his slender body, his head on your lap and eyes closed. The taller man spotted the chubby pink plushie on the Zaunite's arms.
His eyes fall on you, mindlessly stroking Viktor's head, your eyes on him, like you're trying to burn this image into your memory. Your head lifts when you hear Jayce's step closer, a soft warmth creeps on your cheeks.
The taller man laughed softly, he waved his hand trying to tell you that everything was alright. He stared at his peacefully asleep lab partner before turning around with silent steps, making his way out of the lab again.
If Viktor can nap with his partner then nothing stops him from looking for Mel.
A/N:(Request are open)Surprise supriseeeeeee. Hello, I have returned to the arcane fandom. I hope y'all enjoyed this little fic, it's been a while since I wrote for Viktor so I'm a little rusty.(Divider)
#viktor league of legends#viktor#viktor arcane#arcane viktor#viktor machine herald#viktor my beloved#viktor nation#viktor x reader#viktor arcane x reader#arcane x reader#arcane x you#the machine herald#machine herald x reader
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Please let us comfort C about their knee 😭 I'm seriously going to be angry if there's no option to beat the sh*t out of Alain when we see him in game 😡
I'm begging you for a fluff piece, they deserve it ❤️🙏
C’s dorm always felt quiet—as though the silence itself was holding its breath. even when music hummed low from the speakers, even when there was a mug of tea on the desk and a book abandoned on the bed, even when you were there. especially when you were there.
you hadn’t meant to stay this long—hadn’t meant to be here at all, really. but the night had bled into a soft comfort that made time meaningless, and C had let their guard down in that way they only ever did with you, trading their usual biting flippancy for something quieter. something fragile and hidden beneath layers of disdain that you’d spent years peeling back.
they were standing now, aiming to move toward the small kitchenette attached to the common area, their voice low as they asked, “do you want anything? tea? something else?”
“tea’s fine,” you said, leaning back against the wall, your legs curled beneath you on the bed. it was a simple enough exchange, a moment so ordinary it felt almost... domestic.
and then you saw it—the faint hitch in their step, the way their right leg dragged ever so slightly behind the left.
your heart thudded once, hard enough to make your ribs hurt.
“C,” you said, your voice louder than you meant it to be. they froze mid-step, their back to you, their shoulders taut as if bracing for a blow. “did you—did you fall or something?”
they didn’t turn around. for a moment, you thought they wouldn’t answer at all. then, slowly, they turned their head, their profile striking in the dim light. the shadows softened their face but did nothing to hide the tension in their jaw, the faint tremor in their hands as if you’d caught them doing something illegal.
“no,” they said finally, the word flat and hollow.
you sat up straighter. “then what—”
“it’s nothing,” they snapped, spinning to face you. their voice wasn’t loud, but it was harsh, each syllable flung like glass shards meant to keep you at a distance. their chalcedony green eyes burned, but the fire in them wasn’t the usual fury you’d come to expect from C. it was fear, raw and unfiltered.
“C…” you said again, softer this time, and that was what did it. their face crumpled, not quite enough to be called a collapse, but enough for you to see the exhaustion carved into their bones. they sat down heavily on the bed, their head bowed as if the weight of the moment were too much to bear.
“it’s nothing,” they repeated, but it sounded like a lie even to them.
“i don’t believe you.”
you waited, the silence stretching between you, brittle and acute. finally, they looked up at you, their face pale, their lips pressed into a thin line.
“my father,” they said, the words forced and clipped, as if they were prying them loose from their lungs with a metal wrench. “when i was little. he… he didn’t like that i accidentally broke a china plate from the kitchen while grabbing some food. apparently it was antique and one of its kind. believed i needed to be punished for being so careless.” they laughed bitterly. “he used a baseball bat to teach me a lesson.”
the air in the room shifted, stifling. you couldn’t speak, couldn’t fathom the kind of cruelty it would take to do something like that to a mere child. to C.
you swallowed hard, your throat tight. “let me see.”
they stared at you, their eyes wide and disbelieving. “what?”
“your knee,” you said, your voice steady despite the anger simmering beneath it. “please.”
for a moment, you thought they would refuse. they sat motionless, their hands clenched into fists at their sides, their breath coming shallow and uneven. then, slowly, they nodded.
C stood, their movements stiff and deliberate, and pushed the waistband of their pajama pants down far enough to reveal their knee. the act itself wasn’t sensual, wasn’t sexual; it was simply them letting you in, letting you see a piece of them they’d spent years hiding. but perhaps that knowledge made it all the more intimate.
your breath caught as your eyes fell on the fair, marble-like skin stretched over the joint. the shape of the knee was uneven, the bone obtruding out at odd angles where it had healed wrong. there were faint scars, pale and jagged, like ghostly reminders of the violence that had shaped them. the area around it was slightly swollen, the skin faintly discolored, a muted blue-gray hue that looked almost tender to the touch.
you reached out before you could think better of it, your fingers brushing lightly against the damaged skin. C flinched but didn’t pull away, their eyes locked on yours, their breath hitching as if the contact ached in ways that weren’t physical.
“good god,” you whispered, the word trembling on your lips.
C laughed, uncharacteristically nervous. “it’s not as bad as it looks.”
“it’s worse,” you said, and the anger in your voice shocked you both. but it wasn’t anger at them—it was at the man who had done this, the man who had taken a child and broken them in ways that could never fully be repaired.
without thinking, you leaned down and pressed your lips gently to their knee. the kiss was soft, reverent, more an act of devotion than anything else. C gasped, their hand flying to your hair, their fingers trembling as they threaded through it.
“what are you doing?” they whispered with a surprised look in their eyes.
“loving you,” you said simply, shutting them up.
see, childhood had been a knife stuck in C’s throat for the longest time, honed sharp by alain’s hands.
it was a knife that dulled with time but never stopped twisting. even now, years removed from that godforsaken house, from that evil man, they felt its cold atmosphere in every step they took, every chronic flare of pain in their knee when it rained or when they put too much pressure on their right leg, every stumble they hid behind a sharp tongue and a perfect façade.
vulnerability was a language they had unlearned as a child, carved out of them with every slap, every shout, every moment alain had twisted ‘love’ into something entirely unrecognizable.
and yet, here you were.
your lips pressed to their knee, the damaged joint that had never quite healed, and C felt like they were being slowly undone. the kiss was so gentle, so absurdly soft against the place they hated most about themself, that they thought they might break apart entirely.
no one kissed scars like this. no one kissed something so damningly ruined and made it holy.
C looked down at you, your face turned toward them like you belonged there, like you didn’t see the unflatteringly jutting angles of their bones or the bruises still hidden deep inside their soul which was wrapped in the rage that they inherited from their father.
you saw them. and in that moment, C wondered if you were the only reason they had managed to keep breathing through all the years of pain and silence.
they remembered the first time they laid eyes on you during middle school. you had been all fire and light, laughing with some friends, your smile so bright it had burned them. C, sitting alone at the back of the classroom, had felt a squeeze in their chest they couldn’t name. not yet.
at the time, it had felt like resentment—how dare you shine so freely when their world was filled with shadows which often made them taste the coppery taste of their own blood? how dare you be a star, so untouchable, so effortlessly seen?
but it wasn’t hatred, not really. they knew that now.
for years, they had convinced themselves that their fixation on you was because they wanted to outshine you, to prove they were your equal. they had fought you in every class, thrown snide remarks, done everything they could to make you notice them.
because the truth was, they would have torn the world apart just to make you look at them the way they looked at you.
and when you finally did—when your gaze settled on them, not with pity or contempt but with something startlingly like understanding—they had felt like they could truly breathe for the first time in their life.
now, as you knelt in front of them, your breath ghosting over their skin, C thought that maybe they had been living for you all along.
and it scared the fuck out of them.
because loving someone like this, needing someone like this, was just a brand new knife against their throat. and the most terrifying part of it all was that C’s heart didn’t mind it this time, not at all.
“tu es tutus,” you murmured, your lips brushing over the misshapen bone of their right knee. you’re safe.
they closed their eyes, their lips quirking up in a faint, almost disbelieving smile.
“amor meus, vita mea,” they said softly, their latin perfect, their voice unsteady. my love, my life.
you leaned into them, your forehead resting against their thigh, and they tilted their head back, their breath caught in a way that broke your heart.
C wasn’t a religious person. alain had beaten any notion of faith out of them long before they were old enough to properly understand it. but as they looked at you, they thought that maybe, just maybe, there was something divine about you.
my sweet starkid, they thought, god—or fate, or the universe, or whatever cruel, indifferent force that exists—must have made you just for me.
they reached out to you, their hand trembling slightly as it settled on the back of your neck. they pulled you closer, their lips pressing against your temple in a kiss so light it barely counted as one.
“stay,” they said, the word cracking slightly. it wasn’t a command though; it was a plea.
“i’m not going anywhere,” you replied, your voice steady and sure, and C thought that maybe, for the first time in their life, they believed it.
that really did hammer the nail in the proverbial coffin. you loved C unconditionally, so they lived.
#“i’m not going anywhere” LIAR LIAR LIAR#breaking C’s heart like alain broke their knee 😔#bonding activities with the in-laws ig#the actual scene will be a lot more lengthier and softer hehe#majority of it being C’s POV cause why tf not#if: the ballad of the young gods#interactive fiction#interactive novel#interactive story#twine wip#ro: c lacroix#ro scenarios
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Sweetening The Deal. (part 9.)
Summary: Teresa Schemmenti suffers from the consequences of her past while dealing with dementia and Kristin Marie reflects about the complex relationship between her mom and sister. Meanwhile, the redhead and you are in your own private paradise in Lake Como.
tags: @lifeismomentsyoucannotunderstand @lisaannwaltersbra @italianaidiota @kukikatt @dopenightmaretyphoon @schmentisgf @pitstopsapphic @jeridandridge @aliensuperst4rr
(this chapter is 5k words, but I promise that is worth it.)
Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Part 7. Part 8.
The Schemmentis estate was quieter than it had ever been before. The massive mansion, with its towering columns and intricate ironwork, seemed to hold its breath under the weight of time. The once-stately grandeur of the place now felt more like an imposing relic, a monument to an era long past. Dust motes swirled lazily in the light that escaped through the heavy curtains, casting shadows that seemed to stretch for miles. Every creaking floorboard and distant echo of silence told the story of forgotten years, of once-bustling rooms now swallowed by the weight of solitude. The scent of aged wood and leather lingered in the house, combined with the faint, musty smell of a property that had been left to rot at the edges.
The grand staircase, with its polished banister and spiraling ascent, was the heart of the mansion, but now it stood like a sentinel—silent, unyielding, and uninviting. It had once been a symbol of privilege and power, a place where the Schemmenti name had been proudly carried up to the highest floors, where the echoes of laughter and conversation had filled every hallway. Now, it was little more than a reminder of what had been lost. Melissa, the only decent member of the Schemmenti line, couldn’t help but feel the weight of it every time she looked at it—its grandeur mocking her as she tried to escape the suffocating legacy her family had left behind.
In the well furnitured living room, Teresa Schemmenti, the once-feared matriarch of the family, sat in her ornate armchair, which seemed far too large for her now. Her frail, shaking hands rested in her lap, the skin on her wrists thin and translucent, as if life had been drained from her body over the years. The chair itself, a fine piece of antique furniture with carvings of roses and vines, seemed out of place in the room—too elegant, too alive for the hollow shell of the woman who occupied it. Her posture was slumped, her back once proud and erect now curved with the weight of age and illness.
Her once cared short brown hair, carefully styled to frame her sharp features, now hung in disarray around her face, bangs falling out of place as though even her hair had begun to lose its battle against time. The icy, piercing eyes that had once intimidated businessmen, rivals, husbands and even her own children were now clouded and unfocused, betraying the mental fog that had long since taken hold of her. The sharpness, the venomous gleam that had made her a force to be reckoned with, was gone—replaced with confusion and vacant stares.
She didn’t recognize the faces of her eight children, nor did she remember the names of her last husband’s business partners—the people who had once kissed her rings and bowed to her will. The very ones who had once feared the power of the Schemmenti name now seemed like distant ghosts in her mind. But there was one thing that Teresa still clung to with surprising clarity—the taste of bitterness. It lingered in her mouth like an old wound, and she remembered it well. The resentment that had once fueled her, the sharp tongue that had torn people apart with a mere word—these memories refused to fade. They clung to her like a poison, an embittered truth she could never forget, no matter how much the rest of her mind deteriorated.
In a moment of clarity, she would sometimes try to speak, her words coming out garbled and confused, a jumbled mix of frustration and desperation. But more often than not, she would simply sit in silence, her hands trembling and her eyes far away, as though waiting for something—or someone—to remind her of who she had been. But no one did, and slowly, the mansion that had once been filled with her commanding presence felt more and more like a mausoleum.
Her caretaker, a soft-spoken woman named Elena, stood nearby, her posture tense with the weight of the responsibility she carried. The matriarch had been slipping further into the grip of her dementia, and the youngest did her best to keep the old woman calm, though it was often a losing battle. She adjusted the blanket over Teresa’s frail legs, trying to soothe her, but a sharp voice broke the silence.
“I know what you’re doing,” the eldest hissed, her eyes narrowing at her caretaker as she leaned forward, her trembling fingers gripping the armrest. “You think you can trick me, huh? You think I don’t know what’s going on?
Elena’s face was a mask of patience, but her lips tightened slightly. “Mrs. Schemmenti, you’re just feeling a bit confused today. It’s alright, I’m here with you.”
The gaze sharpened, even if it didn’t quite reach clarity. She blinked several times, as if trying to force her mind to settle into something more tangible, but the moment passed. “Where’s Melissa Ann? Where is that girl? I need to talk to her.”
Elena exhaled softly, glancing at the door. “Your daughter isn’t here right now, Mrs. Schemmenti. She’s probably at work, but she visited you weeks ago. See that flower over there?” she pointed to the coffee table. “Melissa brought it to you and held your hand while asking about your week.”
“No, no... She’s always gone,” Teresa mumbled, her voice quivering with hysteria. “Always gone, leaving me to rot in this damn chair!” She slammed her palm onto the armrest with surprising force for someone so frail, her eyes wild. “She’s hiding from me. What’s she hiding? What’s she been doing?”
The caretaker stepped closer, trying to calm her down before she could escalate further. But it was clear Teresa wasn’t listening. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” the old woman muttered under her breath, as if trying to convince herself, her hands clutching the arms of the chair tightly.
At that moment, the door to the sitting room creaked open. Teresa’s eyes snapped up, her expression full of expectation and longing, but it was Kristin Marie who stepped through the threshold, her heels clicking sharply against the marble floor.
“Ciao, Ma,” the blonde started, her tone heavy with the weight of her disapproval. She was younger than Melissa, but her presence felt equally commanding and terrifying. As she walked into the room, she took a long look at her mother before her eyes flicked to Elena. “How’s she today?”
The girl sighed, clearly relieved to see someone else taking charge. “She’s been upset, but it’s the usual. She’s confused.”
Kristin nodded curtly, then turned her focus entirely on Teresa, who was still muttering to herself, her frail hands twisting the fabric of her dress in agitation. “Ma, are you... okay?”
Brown eyes snapped to her daughter’s, recognition flickering in and out. “You—Kristin, right?” The voice held a sharp edge, but it was fleeting. "Where’s Melissa? Why is she always gone? I need to speak to her. Where is she? Tell me where she is!”
Kristin Marie’s lips pressed together, and for a moment, there was a flicker of irritation that passed through her expression before she masked it. “She’s not here, Ma. You’ve already asked that.”
Elena moved to ease the tension, but the blonde held up a hand. “Let her speak,” she interrupted. “Let’s see if she remembers anything.”
The Schemmentis matriarch’s eyes clouded again, her head tilting in confusion. “I don’t remember...I don’t... remember where my baby is. What did I do... wrong?”
Kristin’s gaze hardened, and she gave a glance that could’ve cut glass. “I just don’t get it. How did she end up like this? You’d think with all that business smarts she’d have been able to avoid this...”
Teresa’s confusion deepened. She looked at her daughter, a flicker of recognition crossing her face before fading. “Business?” she asked faintly. “What business?”
The blonde’s expression twisted with something less than sympathy. “Right. You don’t remember.” She sighed and crossed her arms, her eyes never leaving her mother. “I heard something. A rumor, actually,” Kristin said, her voice lowering as she stepped closer. “People are saying Melissa’s got herself a... sugar mommy situation going on. Some young girl—what’s her name, hmm? Doesn’t even know how to do the basics, apparently. That’s the gossip.”
The eldest blinked, her expression as blank as a piece of paper. “Melly...?”
“Yeah. I can’t believe it. What has she been doing with her life? First, she lets her mother fall apart, and now she’s... running around with some young woman. I heard all about it.”
Teresa’s head jerked back as though struck. “No... No, that’s not Melissa. She would never... She’s my daughter,” she muttered, her voice breaking.
Elena stepped forward quickly, concerned. “Mrs. Schemmenti, you’re getting upset. You need to relax.”
Brown eyes flashed with a sudden burst of clarity, or perhaps it was just anger. “No... she’s not like that. She is my daughter. She would never...”
But the moment passed as quickly as it had come, and her expression went blank again, the panic returning as she gripped her caretaker’s arm. “Where’s she? Where’s my Melissa? Where’s my baby?” she whimpered, the words almost indistinguishable as they came out in a helpless wail.
Kristin stood there, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold with cold detachment. She was used to this—used to the brokenness of her family, the way her mother’s mind slowly slipped further away, leaving behind nothing but the remnants of the woman who had once commanded so much respect. The fact that her sister wasn’t there didn’t surprise her; she’d always known that Melissa was the one who would eventually leave.
Elena took a deep breath, trying to soothe the fragile figure once more. “She’s coming back, Mrs. Schemmenti. She’s just not here right now.”
Kristin’s gaze was fixed with a certain hardness, her eyes sharp as she took in the scene before her. The contrast between the two women could not have been more stark. Her mother, Teresa, sat in her ornate armchair, her frail body swallowed by the heavy fabric, while the caretaker, stood nearby, a picture of quiet exhaustion, trying to hold the fragile thread of normalcy in place. It was an impossible task—no one could fix what had been shattered over the years. Not Elena, who had taken on the heavy responsibility of taking care of her, and certainly not Kristin herself, or any of her siblings. She had long since learned that some things couldn’t be mended, no matter how much you wished for them to be.
As Teresa whimpered softly, her frail hands shaking in her lap, the blonde’s eyes narrowed, her sharp mind turning over thoughts she had long buried. She watched as her mother’s eyes wandered around the room, her gaze flicking between her and the girl with a confusion that seemed to grow by the day. It was the kind of confusion that made the air heavy with the past—the kind that made Kristin wonder just how much of the woman sitting before her was truly still there.
Despite everything, there was something that made her stomach churn. For all the cruelty Teresa had shown Melissa over the years, there was something else now—something that couldn’t be ignored. The brunette, in her fragile state, seemed to be searching for something—someone. And that someone was Melissa. Despite the venomous words she had spat at her daughter throughout their lives, Teresa was now yearning for the one person she had so often pushed away.
It was almost as if she didn’t recognize how deeply the words she had said to the redhead had cut, how the sharp criticisms and disdain had driven a wedge between them that could never fully be repaired. In these moments of clarity, Teresa seemed to regret it all—the sharp remarks, the cold detachment, the times she had made Melissa feel less than. Now, with her mind fraying at the edges, all that remained was a deep and painful longing for the daughter who had once been her pride, her heir apparent, the one who carried the family name with such precision.
Yet even as that longing flickered in her eyes, there was no way to bridge the chasm between them. Melissa Ann Caterina Schemmenti was gone. And even if she were to return, Kristin Marie knew there would be no easy fix. The damage had been done long ago, and the years had made it only worse.
As the sound of Teresa’s whimpers filled the room, an air of helplessness seemed to hang over the estate. The bustling house, the meetings and dinners that once carried the weight of Schemmenti influence, was now still. The walls that had been filled with the loud voices of family members, the clinking of glasses, the sound of laughter, were now almost oppressive in their silence.
If the rumors about Melissa were true, if she had indeed become involved with someone younger, someone she was supporting financially—then there was far more at play here than just a simple scandal. A part of Kristin had always believed Melissa was trying to escape. Escape from the family, from the legacy, from the prison they had all been trapped in for so long. But now, as the thought of Melissa hiding away with this young woman stirred in her mind, a more unsettling question emerged. What if this wasn’t just about money? What if there was something deeper? Something that made her sister want to distance herself from everything that had once been her world.
And then there was the inevitable truth that no one dared to speak aloud: The moment Teresa passed, Melissa would be removed from the heart of the family. It was the unspoken agreement that had loomed over the estate for years, ever since the deep rift had opened between mother and daughter. She had already distanced herself from the family, choosing to carve out her own life far away from the Schemmenti legacy. But when Teresa died—if that day ever came—Melissa Schemmenti would be completely cut off.
Kristin Marie, though she resented her mother’s harshness, knew that this moment, this slow unraveling was only the beginning of something darker. And yet, the thought of the estate without Melissa at its center left a hollow ache in her chest. Despite everything—despite the bitterness and the years of bad blood—Melissa was still the last Schemmenti who carried any spark of what the family used to be. The estate, without her, would feel empty. Like a ghost of itself.
And as the woman looked back at her matriarch, who had slipped into another wave of confusion, her tears quietly falling, She couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t too late for a reconciliation, or if that was simply a fantasy too far gone to reach.
Meanwhile, the days passed in a blur of boxes, sorting, and new routines for you. The moving truck had come and gone again and again, leaving a trail of cardboard and plastic wrapping in its wake. Melissa’s penthouse, already filled with luxury and elegance, was now marked by the presence of your things—your clothes, your collection of books, a few framed photographs of family—you and your mother, and a small stack of your favorite records. It was strange, after almost months of living in her shadow, both physically and emotionally.
But now, you were here—permanently, it seemed—and it felt like a step into a new chapter. You stood in the bedroom that now belonged to you, folding clothes into the closet while Melissa supervised from the bed, flipping through her phone with a glass of wine in hand. Her robe hung loosely around her, and she hadn’t yet bothered to change from her earlier errands. Despite her busy schedule, she always made sure to be there, making decisions about where things would go, though she never overtly tried to control the process. She let you settle in on your own terms.
The scent of a lavender perfume lingered in the space, mixing with the fresh smell of new furniture and cardboard boxes. You glanced up from the clothes you were folding, the sight of her lounging so effortlessly beautiful in her silk robe catching your attention. Her auburn hair cascaded in loose waves, and her lips, painted a soft shade of pink, barely parted as she scrolled through her iphone. The glass of wine in her hand shimmered in the clear light, the clink of the ice cubes a gentle reminder of the evening that was settling in.
“Everything alright?“ she asked without looking up.
You nodded, trying to shake off the strange feeling of being an intruder in her space, even though the space was now yours too. The penthouse, with its sprawling windows and sleek furniture, had always been an embodiment of Melissa herself—elegant, sophisticated, and polished. It was surreal to be here, unpacking your life into her world, but it felt like it was meant to be.
“I think I’m almost done here,” you sigh, folding a pair of jeans and adding them to the closet. “How’s work going?”
The redheaded woman finally looked up from her phone, giving you a lazy smile. “Busy bullshit, as always.” She paused, taking a sip of the glass. “But I think I’m ready for the night. I’ll just need a shower, and we can order dinner. Then cuddle.”
You felt a flicker of excitement at the thought of being with her, just the two of you in the quiet of the penthouse. The idea of slipping into something more comfortable and enjoying her company felt like the escape you both needed from the busyness of moving and settling in.
“Sounds perfect,” you replied, glancing at her as she stretched lazily, her robe shifting to reveal a hint of her toned freckled legs.
Olive eyes sparkled. There was something comforting about the way she always seemed to look at you, like you were the most important person in the room, no matter who else was around. You had come to love that about her—her attention, her presence. It was intoxicating.
“Come here dolcezza,” she said suddenly, setting the wine glass aside on the nightstand.
You walked over to the bed, standing beside her. She reached for your hand, pulling you closer. Her fingers brushed against yours, warm and inviting, and for a moment, you could forget about the outside world. You were here, at this moment, with her.
Melissa looked up at you with a smirk that could melt steel. She pulled you down onto the bed beside her, the silk of her robe brushing against your arm. Her gaze traveled over your face, lingering just a beat too long, her hand never letting go of yours. “You know, thank goodness this moving business is done, we’ll finally be able to enjoy a little… peace.” She trailed her white nails along your forearm, her touch as light as a whisper.
“Peace, huh?” you replied, tilting your head at her, though your pulse quickened under her touch. “Is that what you’re calling our trip to Lake Como tomorrow? I heard peace and you don’t exactly go hand in hand.”
The older woman chuckled, leaning back on her elbows, the red robe slipping just enough to reveal a hint of her collarbone. “I prefer luxury, but sure, we’ll call it peace if that helps you sleep at night.”
“Luxury,” you repeated with a snort, leaning against the pillows. “You mean the private villa that belongs to you?”
“Don’t sound so surprised, bambina,” she drawled, her Philly accent curling around the word like a caress. “The Schemmentis have been dealing in real estate for years. Lake Como just happens to be a little... perk.”
“A perk. You’re insufferable.”
Melissa reached out, catching your chin between her fingers. “And yet, you’re still here,” she murmured, her eyes darkening with something you couldn’t quite name but felt all the same—a pull, magnetic and undeniable.
You swallowed hard, suddenly hyper-aware of the space—or lack thereof—between you. Her thumb brushed your jawline, and for a moment, all the stress of the day, the unpacking, the lingering awkwardness of moving into her world, disappeared. All you could think about was the way her lips parted ever so slightly, the way her green eyes locked on yours, unrelenting.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” she asked, feigning innocence.
“Like you’re thinking something inappropriate,” you sighed softly, though your body betrayed you, leaning closer to her without even realizing it.
Her fingers moved to your waist, pulling you just close enough for her breath to ghost against your mouth. ”Whatever.”
For a moment, the only sounds were the city hum beyond the penthouse windows and the distant clink of the wine glass on the nightstand. You wanted to kiss her, and you knew she wanted it too.
But then your lover pulled back with a groan, running a hand through her auburn waves. “Dammit, Y/N. If we start making out now, we’ll never finish packing.”
You laughed breathlessly, sitting up and shaking your head. “You’re the one who started this.”
“And I’m the one stopping it,” she finished, though the way her gaze flicked to your lips betrayed how difficult it was for her to stick to her own rule. “I promised myself I’d make you wait until we’re in Como.”
“Wait for what?”
Melissa rolled her eyes but smirked, standing from the bed and tying her robe tighter around her waist. “You’ll find out soon enough, cara mia. Now, finish packing before I change my mind.”
You couldn’t help but smile as you watched her head for the kitchen, the sway of her hips unmistakably deliberate. “This trip better be worth it,” you called after her.
She glanced back. “Oh, trust me, it will be.”
The drive from the airport to the villa was long, but the anticipation was enough to make the journey feel like it passed in an instant. As the car wound through the narrow streets of Lake Como, the view outside the window grew more breathtaking with each passing second. The rolling hills, dotted with lush greenery, eventually gave way to the shimmering expanse of the lake. It was beautiful beyond words, a place where time seemed to stand still.
The villa itself was tucked away, hidden from the road by a stretch of perfectly manicured trees. As the car pulled up, the grandeur of the place took you by surprise. Stone walls, ivy creeping along the sides, and windows that overlooked the sparkling lake gave it an air of timeless elegance. It was exactly what you imagined—luxurious and imposing, but warm in its own quiet way.
Melissa’s hand never left yours as you both stepped out of the car, her fingers curling around yours in a silent promise that this trip, this moment, was all for you two. The cool Italian air brushed against your skin, carrying the faint scent of the lake and the earth beneath it.
“Welcome to paradise,” the redhead announced with a grin, smooth as velvet. You looked at her, her pupils glinting with mischief, and nodded. The moment you stepped onto the grounds, you felt like you were in a dream.
The inside of the villa was just as stunning. High ceilings, exposed wooden beams, and a large, open kitchen that spilled into a cozy living area. The large glass doors opened out onto a terrace, where you could see the entire lake spread out before you, its surface shimmering in the afternoon sun.
After a brief tour, you and her dropped your bags in one of the bedrooms, but you didn’t waste time. You both knew what came next.
“Let’s jump in,” Melissa suggested, with excitement and something else—something more daring. You looked at her, surprised.
“Jump in?” you prompted, eyes widening.
“Into the lake, pretty girl,” she said with a smirk, already pulling off her jacket. She tossed it aside before turning toward the terrace, where a stone stairway led down to the water's edge. “Come on, let’s do it.”
You hesitated, but her body language was all the encouragement you needed. You followed her outside, your feet pressing into the warm stone as you made your way down. The water looked inviting, but you knew it would be a shock to the system once you jumped in.
When you reached the bottom of the stairs, you stopped for a moment, your heart thumping in your chest. The lake, though beautiful, had an undeniable depth to it, both literally and figuratively. It was vast, and the stillness of it felt almost... intimidating. But you couldn’t back out now.
“Ready?” she asked, standing at the edge of the dock with a mischievous grin on her face. Her body was already poised, her arms spread out in anticipation. You took a deep breath.
“Let’s do this,” you said, swallowing the lump in your throat, and stepped up beside her. You were no longer hesitant. This moment was too perfect to waste, and you weren’t going to let fear stop you from enjoying it.
The two of you took a quick glance at each other, silently agreeing. Without another word, Melissa leapt first, her body disappearing into the cool water below with a splash so loud it echoed through the air. The ripples spread across the surface, sending a chill through the air, but you followed almost immediately, throwing yourself into the lake after her.
The cold water enveloped you instantly, a shock to your system that stole your breath for a second. You surfaced, gasping for air as you wiped the droplets from your face. The redhead was already gigglin, her head breaking the surface not far from you. She tossed her wet hair back, looking every bit the beautiful, carefree woman you’d fallen in love with.
“See? Nothing to it. You okay, though?”
You looked at her, a laugh bubbling out of you as you felt the tension from the day, from the move, melt away in the cool embrace of the lake. “I think I’m fine,” you answer, taking in the beauty around you. “This is beautiful.”
The sound of your laughter echoed across the water, and Melissa swam closer, her body cutting through the lake with ease. She reached out, grabbing your hand and pulling you toward her. The closeness of her, her warmth even in the cold water, was everything you needed. You leaned into her, your bodies pressed together as you both floated for a while, the world fading around you.
Swollen lips were just inches from yours, and you felt the weight of the moment, heavy with desire and unspoken words. You could feel the pulse of attraction in the way your bodies moved together, and the heat that remained even though you were immersed in the cool water. It was like a slow dance in the most intimate sense—no rush, no words needed.
“I’ve wanted this. I’ve wanted you... here. With me. Like this.”
You could feel your heart racing again, not from the water, but from the weight of her words. You didn’t need anything else.
And then, as if there was no longer any reason to hold back, you kissed her with all the hunger in the world. The coolness of the water seemed to heighten everything—the touch of her mouth, the taste of her, the way she pulled you in just a little closer.
There was no past, no future. Just the here and now. You and Melissa Schemmenti, in the lake, in this perfect, stolen moment.
The lake stretched out before you, its serene surface reflecting the fading glow of the setting sun, but the redheaded woman’s mind was racing in an entirely different direction. Your body pressed so close to hers, the heat between you both, the way your breath hitched as your lips met hers—it was intoxicating. The cool water lapped against your skin, but all she could focus on was the fire burning inside her, an ache that pulsed through her with every subtle move of your body against hers.
As Melissa kissed you deeper, her hands gripping your waist underwater, she felt it—a gush in her own panties, unmistakable and entirely because of you. It caught her off guard for a moment, the intensity of her own arousal startling her.
She wanted you. Desperately. The villa was hers. The lake was hers. There was no one to hear you, no one to interrupt if she let herself give in. The thought of pressing you against the smooth stones at the water’s edge, of her hands sliding up your wet skin while her lips claimed every inch of you, sent another wave of heat through her. Her breath caught in her throat as she shifted her legs slightly, the damp fabric of her panties clinging to her in a way that made her bite back a moan.
The older woman pulled away from the kiss just enough to catch her breath, her green eyes dark and hooded as she gazed at you. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest, her body alive. The way your eyes lingered on her, heavy with want, only added fuel to the fire. She was barely keeping herself together, the intensity of her need for you threatening to overwhelm her.
Her sharp fingers traced down your back, lingering at the curve of your hips as she fought the urge to do more, to let her hands roam to places she knew would unravel you completely. The cool water did nothing to dampen the heat between you. Her thoughts betrayed her—flashes of you writhing against her, of her hands gripping your thighs while the water splashed around you, of the quiet, unrestrained moans and screams she wanted to pull from you.
She swallowed hard, trying to focus, but her body wasn’t letting her forget. She felt another gush of cum, the damp heat between her thighs now unbearable. Melissa clenched her jaw.
“You’re mine,” she murmured, her breath hot against your skin as her lips brushed against your ear. Her words carried more weight than you realized—she wasn’t just talking about you. She was thinking about the power you had over her, how you could make her lose herself entirely with just a look or a touch.
You smiled at her and Melissa could see it—the way your body shifted toward hers, the silent invitation written all over you. She wanted to take you right here, in this quiet sanctuary, where nothing else mattered but the two of you. But she held back, forcing herself to savor the moment, to let the tension build.
Her grip on your waist tightened slightly as she leaned in again, her lips brushing against yours, teasing, though every nerve in her body screamed for more. And though she didn’t say it out loud, the thought was there, burning in her mind: Soon. Very soon.
#melissa schemmenti x reader#melissa schemmenti x you#melissa schemmenti x y/n#lisa ann walter#melissa schemmenti#abbott elementary#abbott elementary fanfiction
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Like Lava.
18+ ONLY. MINORS DNI
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A/N: The idea for this fic was prompted by this post by the wonderful @twistedmelodies. This thought plagued my mind so much that I had to do something about it.
I suggest you listen to the song "My Name Is Human" by Highly Suspect while reading this.
Word count: 4.2K
Pairing: Jake x fem!reader
Warnings: NSFW 18+ONLY, graphic sexual content, oral (m! and f! receiving), protected penetrative sex, use of restraints.
Summary: A terrible day at work takes an unexpected turn when you decide to go to a bar to get a drink.
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The bar was still packed when you entered. Much to your dismay.
It was late and you were already overstimulated by the longest shift ever at work.
You thought that a hot shower could make you feel better but you clearly needed something stronger.
You needed a drink to help your brain finally relax and that place was the closest one to your house that could provide you one.
You didn't look anyone in the face there, you just made a beeline towards the bar and quickly got the attention of the bartender.
You asked for a whiskey neat and sat on a stool while you waited.
He placed the glass in front of you with a smile and turned to serve another customer.
You had just grabbed the drink and were ready to have a much needed gulp of liquor when a hand knocked against yours, making the drink spill over the bar top and the glass fall from your grasp.
The glass crashed onto the floor with a loud noise, sending shards everywhere and you shivered at the sound, feeling your anger flare.
You bit the inside of your cheek to try and make your anger subside but it didn't work.
You quickly turned around with your cheeks reddened and your nostrils flaring, ready to tell off whoever the culprit was, but those venomous words died on your tongue when you were met with sweet dark eyes and a heartstopping apologetic smile.
He started apologizing profusely, asking if you were hurt, if he had ruined your clothes and already flagging the bartender to buy you another drink.
“I'm so sorry, I'm very clumsy sometimes. I’m Jake, by the way” The stranger said, extending his hand for you to shake.
You introduced yourself too and took his hand in yours.
His skin was so soft and warm that you felt your icy demeanor starting to crack.
At that moment you finally took him in.
He was beautiful.
His hair was long and looked so soft you wanted to sink your hands in it. It was glowing beautifully in the low light of the room.
He was wearing a simple black shirt that was almost totally unbuttoned, and black jeans. Nothing too fancy, but what caught your eye the most were the antique-looking silver pendants he had around his neck and the many rings and bracelets on his fingers and wrists.
You were regretting coming to that place with every cell of your being before meeting his eyes.
But something told you to stay and let this handsome stranger buy you a drink.
~
An hour and two drinks later you were still chatting and laughing with him at the bar.
He was incredibly funny and smart and you chatted about anything and everything; time had flown in his company.
And on top of that, you would have listened to him talk to no end because his voice was so intense and warm that it made you melt every second more.
You told him everything that happened at work that day and he listened to you with interest.
Then he told you that he had a bad day too. He was a musician, a guitarist, and that day it seemed like he just couldn't focus on notes and riffs. He kept messing up to the point that his own bandmates had kicked him out of the studio and went on practicing without him. He was so irritated with himself that he had almost risked destroying his guitar against the wall.
A comfortable silence fell around you after a while, and you were slowly losing yourself into his eyes, when the bartender signaled to the customers still lingering around that the bar was closing soon.
You were a bit disconsolate that your time with him had eventually come to an end, but when your eyes met his again, you saw a glint there.
He cleared his throat and came closer to you.
“I'm going to be very direct, okay?” He said while trailing a knuckle down your cheek, with a featherlight touch that made your skin cover with goosebumps.
“If I'm overstepping just tell me and we can forget I even said a word. We can go back to being strangers and you won't see me again I promise. Or we can be friends and meet for another drink whenever you want” he whispered.
You felt his hot breath on your neck when he came even closer and a shiver ran down your spine.
“It's been a long day for us both, why don't we help each other unwind?” He whispered into your ear and your heart skipped a beat.
When his dark eyes met yours again, your mind went completely blank.
It was your heart talking when, a few seconds later, you answered him with a confidence you didn't know you possessed.
“Please, yes. Let's go to my place. It's ten minutes away from here” you said struggling to recognise your own voice.
The idea of having to wait ten minutes to feel him didn't really appeal to you but, thank God, he had a better solution.
“If you want, we could go to my place. It's just around the corner” he whispered onto your lips. His voice was like honey, so rich and voluptuous, that you felt drawn to him like a butterfly to the sweetest flower.
The need to feel him was increasing and your fingers were trembling when you grabbed your glass to finish your drink.
He closed his tab paying for your drinks too and then grasped your hand in his, leading you out of the bar.
Once outside, all you wanted to do was start running towards his house but he didn't immediately lead you there.
He stopped abruptly and turned around to face you.
His eyes bore holes into yours as he gently grasped your face between his warm hands.
You felt a tingle where his fingers were touching you and your cheeks heated immediately.
He leaned his forehead against yours and you felt his hot breath on your lips, before his voice graced your ears again.
“Do you really want this, love? I can walk you home if you don't.” He whispered gently, placing a strand of your hair behind your ear.
“Please, I do” you answered him in a sliver of voice.
“May I kiss you?” He whispered caressing your bottom lip with his thumb.
You nodded and his lips were on yours. A shiver ran down your spine at the softness of his mouth.
He sucked gently at your bottom lip and you moaned at the feeling. His lips tasted of the whisky he had been drinking all night.
When his tongue licked into your mouth, you felt dizzy, and you clawed onto his jacket, feeling the soft corduroy under your fingertips.
You needed him.
He broke the kiss and caressed your cheeks with a sweet smile on his plump lips.
There was a little wind that kept blowing strands of his hair in his eyes, but that couldn't hide the fire burning there.
“Let's go” He said, grasping your hand and leading you towards his house.
~
The moment you two entered, you ended up pressed against the cool wood of his door.
His lips were on your neck, sucking and biting the delicate skin while his hands gripped your hips.
Your hands sank in his hair and you moaned at the softness of it.
As he lost himself in your neck, biting, licking and sucking your skin, you took a look around his flat, despite struggling to keep your eyes open because of the pleasure coursing through your veins.
He lived in a cozy open space and, if he hadn't told you before that he was a guitarist, you would have guessed it the moment you entered.
There were many guitars hanging on the walls, one more beautiful than the other.
The place was in semi-darkness, the only light was coming from outside, casting a dim glow on everything.
Near a window there was a desk with papers scattered on top and under it. Many were crumpled and others just scribbled, effectively portraying the chaos plaguing his mind that had gotten him kicked out of band practice.
You tugged gently on his hair and guided his mouth to yours, moaning at the feeling of his warm tongue caressing yours.
He broke the kiss and turned you around by your hips so he was behind you and could guide you towards his bedroom.
There were a few more guitars there, two acoustics on their respective stands and an electric that was thrown on the floor without care.
It was still plugged into an amp and you suspected that was the one that had been almost destroyed against the wall because of Jake's temper.
The room was bathed in a soft golden glow provided by the vintage lava lamp on the nightstand. The orange bubbles rising and falling inside reverberated on the walls creating a cozy atmosphere.
The double bed was completely unmade, the white sheets were incredibly crumpled but looked so soft.
“Sorry for the general mess and for the unmade bed, angel, I didn't plan on having company tonight” he whispered onto your lips before sitting down on the bed with you.
You started kissing his neck and, when you nibbled at the tender skin right under his ear, a little moan escaped his lips.
That little sound elicited an uncontrollable fire in your heart. You wanted to hear more of those sounds, immediately.
He started fumbling with his phone and, a few seconds later, music started filtering into the room from a bluetooth speaker on a bookshelf full of trinkets of any kind.
There was a collection of ancient ships in bottles, a wooden model pirate ship, many little succulents and what looked like antique rings and pendants amongst tons of well-loved books.
His lips on your collarbone brought you back to the task at hand.
He stood and prompted you to do the same. He removed his jacket and you started fumbling with the zipper of yours.
When you finally removed it, he kissed you again and moaned into your mouth when your hand sank in his hair, tugging lightly.
Your lips slowly started their descent from his mouth to his neck and lower.
His almost totally unbuttoned shirt allowed you to reach his collarbone and chest easily. His skin was incredibly soft and hot to the touch. He smelled divine, too.
You made quick work of the two last buttons of his shirt and it fell on the floor, joining his jacket and yours.
When your lips skimmed over his left nipple, another little strangled whimpery sound left his throat and you knew exactly what to do.
You dropped to your knees in front of him and his eyes almost rolled back into his skull at the sight.
You reached for the button of his trousers and he whimpered your name when you successfully freed him.
He was left just in his boxers in front of you, but the item did a poor job at concealing how much the situation was affecting him.
The golden glow of the lava lamp looked delicious on his skin. And you wanted to see all of him.
“You don't have to” he whispered, caressing your cheek, gently.
“But I want to” you answered him in a whisper, right before reaching for the elastic band of his boxers while keeping your eyes on his.
“Please, angel” he begged you when your fingers dipped inside and tugged at the fabric just a little, letting it snap right back with a sharp sound.
You finally peeled the black cotton off his toned thighs and you gasped when his member sprang free and slapped against his soft tummy.
Your mouth watered in an instant.
He looked deliciously needy, so the more you admired him the more impatient he got.
He caressed your lower lip with his thumb and he bit his own hard when you grasped his wrist and opened your mouth to let his digit rest on your tongue, just to torture him a little more.
You stroked his member a few times while sucking at his thumb.
When, finally, your tongue licked at his tip, a loud growl left his lips and both his hands sank into your hair.
You let his tip rest on your tongue for a moment and then you wrapped your lips around it, sucking gently and reveling in the sight of his abdomen contracting and his eyes squeezing shut.
His eyes met yours again immediately when your hands covered his, on both sides of your head and you motioned for him to move his hips forward and then backwards.
He cursed at the first thrust, and moaned when you encouraged him to just go on and fuck your mouth.
He did it gently, ensuring that you were ok and checking up on you every few thrusts.
Your hands didn't stop exploring his body. You started caressing his strong thighs feeling powerful at the sight of goosebumps covering his skin because of your touch. He sighed when your thumbs pressed into the delicate skin of his inner thighs and moaned your name out loud when your hands ended up on his ass, kneading his soft supple skin and prompting him to go a little harder if he wanted.
The song sounding through the speaker made you want him even more and the more you felt and watched him thrusting and groaning, the more your mouth watered for him, enhancing his sensations.
He had a tight grip on your hair and he kept arching his back at the feeling of your mouth around his cock.
Suddenly, he pulled out of your mouth and yanked you up to stand before him.
Get up off your knees girl
Stand face to face with your God
His eyes bore holes into yours as he admired your disheveled state. Your lips and chin were shining with your saliva and his precum and your hair was a mess because of the tight grip of his hands.
Before you knew it, his mouth was on yours, licking, sucking and biting at your lips with intense hunger, tasting himself in the process.
He grasped the hem of your dress and removed it from your body at lightning speed, leaving you just in your bra, panties and dark sheer tights.
It was your turn to gasp this time when his kisses followed a slow path from your neck to your tummy as he sank down on his knees before you. You were about to beg him, but a strangled whimper left your lips instead, when he pinched the waist of your thighs between his teeth and tugged downwards.
He quickly removed them with your help and you shivered before his hungry eyes.
His fingers skimmed over the elastic band of your simple cotton panties and your skin covered in goosebumps.
“Y-you don't have to” you whispered, diverting your eyes from his burning gaze and feeling shy and self-conscious all of a sudden.
“You are right. I don't have to. I need to.” He whispered, squeezing your hips and leaning forward to gently press his nose against your mound.
“Please, take them off for me, love” he whispered and you let your panties fall on the floor at his request.
His hands slowly caressed down your legs and prompted you to spread them a little wider.
“Good girl” he praised you with that deliciously raspy voice of his that got you melting.
When his warm breath made contact with your skin, your knees almost buckled, but it was when his tongue licked a broad stripe over you that you really feared that your legs wouldn't hold you upright.
You sank your nails into his shoulders when he started making out with your cunt and you realized that you were much closer than you thought.
It was almost embarrassing.
Your hands tangled in his hair and he groaned when you tugged at it without realizing.
The vibrations of his groan had you almost screaming his name out loud as your hips pressed against his mouth.
Two of his fingers started caressing your labia, collecting your increasing wetness, while his tongue spoiled your clit expertly.
He slowly slid a finger inside you and your mouth fell open, but no word came out. You felt your walls fluttering and contracting around it and were ready to beg him to add another and move them when he spoke.
“You are so tight, love. I can't wait to feel you around my cock.” he said and you moaned, sounding a little desperate.
“But first, I need you to make a mess all over my face. C'mon baby, cum for me” he begged you and curled his fingers sharply over and over again, making your knees feel like jelly.
The moment he sucked your clit into his mouth was when you knew he was going to get what he wanted.
You let go then, moaning his name and clinging onto his hair and shoulders for dear life.
His fingers kept moving at a soft rhythm and his mouth didn't cease its onslaught on your clit until you forcefully dragged him away from you to stand up in front of you.
He looked disheveled too, now, and absolutely drunk on your pussy. His eyes told you that he would have gone on and on at eating you out till morning if you hadn't stopped him.
Get up off your knees boy
Stand face to face with your God.
You didn't even leave him the time to catch his breath before you crashed your mouth to his hungrily, tasting yourself onto his luscious lips.
He wrapped his arms around your body and unclasped your bra, before pushing you on the bed and climbing on top of you without breaking the kiss.
The sheets felt incredibly soft and cool under your flushed skin.
He crawled on top of you and stole your breath away with another kiss, before opening the drawer of his nightstand and retrieving a condom.
You helped him put it on and then you grasped his shoulders and arched your back when you felt him sliding his tip along your slit.
You spread your legs even further and whispered his name on his lips.
His hands on either side of your head cradled your face before his hips started pressing against yours, allowing him to enter you slowly.
I'm ready for love, I'm ready for war
But I'm ready for more.
Your mouth fell open in a silent moan and you felt yourself clenching around him harshly.
He whimpered at the feeling and his face contorted in a pained expression.
His hips stopped and his voice echoed faintly into the room, needy and strained.
“Love, relax for me, please. Fuck, you are so tight. If you keep squeezing me like this, I'm going to cum” he begged you and you tried your best to relax, feeling his thumbs caressing your cheeks gently.
“Yeah, baby, just like this. Good girl” he praised you smiling.
His body was already covered in a thin layer of sweat and when, finally, he was pressed inside of you to the hilt, goosebumps covered his skin.
You couldn't make a sound. The feeling of being finally full slowly registering into your brain had you completely forgetting how to breathe properly.
“Breathe, baby” He had to remind you, leaning his forehead against yours and kissing your lips.
The first thrust had your legs wrapping around his hips and a strangled moan of his name leaving your lips.
Soon, he set a steady rhythm, pressing you into the matress with his strong hips and, with every thrust, you started feeling lighter and lighter. You had completely forgotten about your shitty day and, by the blissful look in his eyes, you were almost sure he had too.
The song had faded away long ago and now your bodies were dancing only on the symphony of the sounds of the shared pleasure you were experiencing.
You were both panting heavily and sweat caused your bodies to stick together. Drops of it were slowly trickling down his neck and suddenly you found yourself licking them away from his skin.
The sounds leaving his lips increased in volume and pitch the more he approached his high and were heavenly. You mentally thanked every entity in the universe for letting you find a man that wasn't afraid of being vocal in bed.
Hs hair kept tickling your face as it swayed back and forth with the rhythm of his trusting and was completely disheveled.
His skin glowed in the low flickering light of the lava lamp and you reveled in the sight of his face, scrunched up in utmost pleasure. You trailed a finger over the wrinkled bridge of his nose and he moaned your name.
As you started sucking and biting at the tender skin of his neck again, he did something that left you without words.
He grasped your wrists and pressed them together above your head on the bed so quickly that you almost didn't see it happen.
“Are you ok with this?” He whispered into your ear and cursed when you quickly nodded your head.
Then he maneuvered the little hair tie you were wearing on your wrist around his fingers so that it bound your wrists together, trapping you.
You gasped at the unexpected gesture.
His pupils were blown wide as he quickened his pace even more, squeezing your wrists in his hand, basking in the feeling pulsing through his cock and slowly losing his mind.
You both couldn't take your eyes away from the other, admiring as pleasure took hold of your bodies and minds every second more.
Finally, the orgasm hit you like a strong wave and brought him with you a few seconds after.
The room filled with moans and whimpers while the glow of a car passing by in the street illuminated his face as it scrunched up in pleasure. It was the most breathtaking sight you had ever experienced.
His eyes were screwed shut and his teeth bared before his mouth went slack with a loud moan, while you kept moaning his name, digging your heels into his lower back.
Then the room turned silent and the only sound filling the space was the heavy panting coming from your chests.
He let go of your wrists then, and gently kissed your reddened skin there, before slumping down on top of you and hiding his face in the crook of your neck.
He slid out of you but didn't move away.
When you finally recovered, your eyes fixated onto the ceiling, mesmerized by the fluctuating glow of the lava lamp, while you caressed his hair.
After a while, he placed a kiss on your lips and then stood with a groan and went towards what you assumed was his bathroom.
You got up too and started looking around for your clothes.
When he came back and noticed what you were doing, he looked a little taken aback. He came closer to you and grasped your hands in his, looking you straight in the eyes before speaking.
"You can stay if you want. I'd love it if you stayed, honestly” he whispered onto your lips and a smile spread on your face at his invitation.
After a quick shared shower, you fell asleep almost immediately, but all of a sudden you woke up to a dark room.
It took you a while to understand where you were exactly but when you did, a little smile spread on your face.
You turned around ready to wrap yourself into Jake's arms only to discover that his side of the bed was empty and cold.
A fait glow was coming from outside the room and, after a while, you decided to see what it was.
You stood, fixed the t-shirt he gave you around your body and silently padded out of the bedroom.
There he was, sitting at his desk, slightly hunched and scribbling away on a piece of paper with an acoustic guitar in his lap illuminated by the low light of the lava lamp that he had moved from the bedroom.
You were about to approach him silently but he must have felt your presence because he turned around and smiled, motioning you to join him.
He placed the guitar on the floor and patted his lap.
The moment your skin made contact with his again you felt your heart flutter.
“What are you doing?” You whispered.
“Writing. You got me inspired. And I think I finally fixed that song” He said, caressing your hip.
“Well, I'm happy to have been of help” you said, chuckling and leaning your head against his.
“You deserve a reward for it” he said, grasping your hips and placing you in front of him on the table with a glint in his eyes that told you that he wasn't even remotely done with you yet.
﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌
A/N: To those of you who need a visual reference of that moment...here it is 😉
Thank you for reading!
Taglist:
@gvfpal @sammyslappers @spark-my-nature @highladyofasgard @sparrowofthedawnsworld
More in the comments.
#greta van fleet#greta van fic#gvf fic#greta van smut#fanfic#jake kiszka#jake kiszka smut#jake gvf#jake kiszka x reader
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tears - opposites attract
this is kind of short but i was thinking about jongho and i had to write something about him. i’m working on requests and i should be finished with a few of them soon 🙂↕️🙂↕️
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mingi…
that bastard has stolen your werewolf from you. it’s just for today and hongjoong promised seonghwa that the two of them—and probably mingi as well—would be back in time for dinner. he promised he’d let san know to make dinner as usual, but as of yet he hasn’t stepped out of his greenhouse once. something about being on the ‘precipice of a breakthrough!’ is what he told you that morning when he slipped out of bed far earlier than you or hongjoong, although a breakthrough of what, you’re unsure.
the first part of the morning was spent with san, trailing him around the house as he tidied and cleaned. you’d asked him what he’d be doing on his day off the following week; he told you he didn’t know but it’s almost certain that he wouldn’t be going home. he mentioned the price of train tickets being too expensive, but with the way he bowed his head to hide his expression, you could tell there was something more going on. you didn’t push, just like you wouldn’t want san to push. instead you stand there in a sad silence as san dusts the mantle piece in the living room.
“did you know this house is haunted?” you break the silence as you cast your gaze across the rug in the centre of the room. you can almost hear the crying that comes hand in hand with your ghost, the sound becoming almost comforting the more you hear it. it sounds strange to say that; to admit that you take comfort from someone else’s misery, but it’s the truth. the sound of his quiet sniffles has become synonymous with friendship and love and affection.
san turns to you with an eyebrow raised.
“well i’d have to assume so,” he takes a moment to look around the room, gesturing to all the antiquities and grandiose, “all this shit is bound to carry a few spirits, right?” the dust cloth he carries brushes past your arm as he takes it back to the mantle; you brush the filthy residue away with a grumble. “i don’t really care as long as they don’t come into my room. i’m far too tired to be dealing with ghosts whenever i try to sleep.”
you giggle at the image of the tearful man standing at the foot of san’s bed, staring at the butler with wet eyes and a frown. if san could see him, you have no doubt he’d take pity on the poor creature. as it stands, the idea is simply that; an idea.
“he might be,” you shrug, “but you wouldn’t know. the further he gets from his pelt, the less visible he becomes.”
the thought breaks your heart a little now that you dwell on it. he could be anywhere at any time and you just wouldn’t know it; does he ever feel ignored? or trapped? to have the only love you’ve ever received confined to a single room must be tough. it’s like an ultimatum that neither of you had a say in. a cruel trick from the universe to punish him for his spirit remaining here so long after his death. perhaps he yearns to move on, to find reprieve from the loneliness that haunts the walls of this house just as he does. the very house that has become your freedom must feel like a prison for him.
you wonder for a moment how long he’s been dead for, but the thought seems to manifest itself as a lump in your throat. he told you in his own words that he’d never known love before, just as hongjoong said the rug had been a family heirloom. you dread to think how many generations it has been passed through, each of them bringing even more loneliness and sorrow to the bear.
it makes sense now, why he cries. at first you figured it might be pain, that perhaps he still feels the weapon that led to his death lodged in his heart. in a way you suppose it is pain, and you have no doubt that it’s in his heart, but just not in the way you expected.
with a sigh, you leave the butler’s side to take a seat on the rug. you want to be close to him right now, for your own benefit as much as his. even though you can’t see him right know, you know he’s right there beside you. the shiver that runs up your arm is enough to confirm that fact. you don’t wipe it away or hide from in, instead basking in that icy cold feeling that makes your goosebumps blossom like the flowers in seonghwa’s greenhouse. you hope he can see them and know that even when he can’t be seen, he can still be felt.
you hope he knows you could never ignore him.
#ateez x reader#ateez fanfic#ateez oneshot#ateez fluff#ateez scenarios#opposites attract universe#jongho x reader
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Dirty Work 1
Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.
This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.
Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.
Characters: Loki
Note: Outta left field.
As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.
Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)
I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖
The brick facade stares back at you. You have to keep from gaping in awe. You're not a sightseer, you're there to work. A job. Your first ever. A bit late, but better than never.
You stop at the gate and hike up your kit as you shove your hand in your pocket in a cramped search. You slide out the flip phone and pop the top, clicking through for the email. The cheap burner is all you could afford and you needed a cell to get any sort of employment. Even just to live, it seems.
You click on the agency's email. A concise list of instructions for your first day. Alone. Last week, you shadowed a woman named Florence as she took you through an east-side home, but this week, you're on your own and uptown. The property is much nicer than any you've been in before. The sort you gaze at longingly in passing. A true urban palace.
You follow the first point on the list, keying in the code awkwardly with spaced-out punches. The last beep triggers a buzz as the mechanism releases and you turn the haandle to let yourself through the iron gate. You close it, pushing it to make sure it catches. You look around at the greenery; expertly trimmed hedges and a stone bench, flowerbeds clustered artfully in all shades. A mini Versailles in the heart of the city. The owners must be very well-off.
You gulp as you follow the stonework of the winding path along the curved driveway. Your shoulder aches from the weight of your kit and your spine is still rigid from the tense bus ride. You approach the front door and stagger to an awkward halt as you check the screen again. In all caps; DO NOT USE THE FRONT DOOR. You peer up over the stone steps and give a nod. Of course the help should go through the back.
You circle around to the rear of the house, the scent of pollen and the freshly groomed hedges clouding around you. You find the door nestled beneath a net of ivy and key in the next code. The very modern security contrasts the antique veneer of the house. You step into the silence of the grand home and listen. You're not sure if you're alone. What do you do if you aren't? It might be awkward to wash someone's floor without an introduction.
You move to the next directive; cover shoes. You squint and suck your lower lip in. You see the small box on the corner table tucked beside the door. You stay on the mat as you pull on the plastic shoe covers. It makes sense. You don't want to track in another mess to clean.
Again, your breath flies away from you. Even just the back hallway is divine, or maybe you're just brutish. You're not very hard to impress with what you're used to. A job won't cure it, but it'll make it bearable.
The next point; gloves. Okay. At least it's straightforward. The owners must be very particular. Or germaphobic. You let your assumptions write a story as you advance into the house. The email directs you to a closet where you are permitted to hang your things and where a mop, broom, and vacuum await you amid other supplies too big for your bag. Next point…
You proceed inside, slowly. The instructions are written almost to guide your every step. You move down the hallway with duster, broom, vacuum, and finally the mop. You're sweating by the time you get to the first doorway. The kitchen. Despite your employ, the place is already near immaculate. The only sign of life is a single black mug beside the sink.
It's eerie as you cross the tile, investigating with your eyes, almost too afraid to touch. You're going to have to if you mean to do good work. You continue down the list, doing your best to be thorough. When you return to the hall you're caught in place by a thought. There are no family pictures. It adds to the emptiness of it all. There are portraits of famous landmarks and imitations of reknowned artworks, though you wouldn't be surprised if they were genuine. But no family.
Next point. A bathroom just diagonal from the kitchen, spacious with dark wood and shining gold. You leave it smelling with the sterile scent of the cleaner. Back in the hall, you pause to drink from the water bottle in your bag. You head back down the hall intent on your next task. An hour already.
Another large room; a dining room that opens into a sitting room with a large fireplace. It really is amazing. Your father won't believe how nice it is here. You don't have time to worry about convincing him as you dive into your work. It isn't difficult work but you want to do a good job. You get this knot in your stomach just think of your boss, Clara, telling you otherwise or going home with bad news.
You finish the sitting room and go back to get your water. You nearly finish it. You check the time again, then the list. You can refill before you continue. You go back to the kitchen and cross to the fridge, pressing your bottle to the lever beneath the filter. It'd be nice to have something like that at home. You listen the hum of the fridge as you fill your bottle.
"Ahem," the clearing of a throat startles you and you jump, splashing yourself with cold water as you spin to face a tall man. He stares at you imperiously from the doorway, his figure lithe as he holds his chin up in dissatisfaction. "And who said you could do that?"
"Um," you swallow and look at your water bottle, fingers numbed by the water, "sorry, sir, I ran out--"
"Clean up your mess and get back to work," his lilted accent slices into you.
"Sorry, sir--"
"Bullet number one, A," he says tersely.
You frown as you struggle to understand. You replace the cap on your bottle and fish in the pocket of your black pants. You take out the phone and check the email. 'Do not speak unless permitted.' Well, he spoke to you first. It's the only reason you said anything. You're not very chatty yourself.
You keep from repeating sorry again and dip your head down. You take the cloth tucked into your pocket and bend to sop up the water from the floor. You don't look at him as he looms and you exit the room, sidling past him in shame. Oh no, you hope he doesn't tell Clara.
You replace your bottle in your bag. You'll go without. You look at your phone again. You can do this. No more mistakes.
You march back down the hall and dare a glance into the kitchen as you pass. He's already gone. That must be Mr. Laufeyson, the owner noted in the job description. Is it just him? He doesn't seem very fond of others. Or just you. You're just a maid, after all.
🧹
Your father's apartment is in the south. The fence is crooked and missing slats and the grass is patchy and yellowed. The porch groans as you climb the steps and let yourself into his side of the duplex. Cigarette smoke greets you with a cough in your throat. You open the window he shut in your absence as the TV blares in the next room. He's on the couch, puffing tobacco into the air in gray swirls. The place is even grimmer after a day amid your client's spotless halls.
"Hey dad," you say as you stand just beside the couch, "how was your day?"
He grunts and offers nothing else. That's about what you get from him. The effort of just that noise sends him to hack and his wrist tangles in his oxygen tube as brings his hand up. He knocks ash from the end of his cigarette onto the floor.
"First day alone went well," you say as he settles, breathing loudly as he tries to steady his breaths. "Think I did pretty good."
"Oh, big whoop, got a job, at last," he sneers, "about time. What're you? Thirty-three?"
"Thirty," you correct him, but don't add that your birthday is coming up.
"Same difference," he croaks and sucks on the smoke until he's coughing once more.
You try not to let him defeat you. It's just the way he is. You brought home A's from school and he wondered why they weren't A+'s. And when you got accepted to college, he asked you who was gonna pay for it. And when you filled out an application at the drive-thru window, he asked you if you were going to be another deadbeat flipping burgers.
"What, they got you scrubbing floors?" He spits, "you don't do it for free or something?"
He looks around venomously. You do clean but you can't get the yellow stains out of the wall or the stench out of the carpet. You won't say so.
"Did you eat yet?"
"Can't be near the stove with this thing," he taps the top of the tank on the other side of the armrest. He's also not supposed to smoke near it. Or at all.
"I'll heat up the hamburger helper from last night."
"Fucking dog food," he barks.
You wince. You love your father but he's a very picky man. Things must be his way or no way at all.
"Might have a frozen pizza," you suggest.
"Cardboard," he mutters.
You stand, silent and helpless. There isn't much else left in the fridge.
"Could afford better if you'd got your ass up ten years ago," he buts out his smoke and just as quickly, opens the pack to slide out another.
"I tried..."
"Not hard enough, eh," He takes off the oxygen tube and leans away from the tank to light the next cigarette, "not hungry. All your talkin' spoiled my appetite."
You apologise and leave before you can annoy him further. You're not very hungry either. Just sore and tired. Your feet hurt from being on them all day and your eyelids droop lower with each blink. You climb the stairs and drag your feet into your bedroom and shut the door gently. Your father hates when you slam. You don't like it much yourself.
You fall into bed as the musty air clings in your nose. You close your eyes and roll onto your side. You sigh. You figure if you can handle your father, you can handle Mr. Laufeyson and his list.
🧹
Your next job is in the eastside. It's not as precise or overbearing. The instructions are standard; a list of the rooms that need cleaning and a tip left on the counter. The email says the family is out of town. How nice it must be to come home to a nice, clean house. You pad out the three-day week with two more home in the northwest suburbs. The money would be better if you could work a full week but so long on you're in your probation period, you only get part-time hours.
Your second week starts again in the north, outside the Laufeyson property. The codes are different but the list is the same. You begin your work diligently. This time, you ration your water, and pay special attention to each step. Once you're through this week, you get your first check. Dad should be happy about that.
As you get to the front room, a living room or what some might call den, you set first to dusting the ornaments on the high mantel. You find the more you do it, the work is almost soothing. It's simple and mindless. You admire the silver candlestick, careful not to loosen the tall candle placed in it.
"Shiny," the slither frightens you. You quickly replace the candlestick at the corner of the mantle and face that man; the presumed Mr. Laufeyson. "Somehow, I feel it wouldn't belong in wherever you call home."
You lower your eyes. Florence says most clients are friends but she warned you about these ones. Those who deride you and the work they don't want to do themselves.
"The previous one did think they were lovely," he muses as he struts forward, his long steps like a cat's, "too bad they were too big for her bag."
You flick your gaze back up and blanch. "Sir, I wouldn't--"
He tilts his head as his eyes flash dangerously. You snap your mouth shut and give an apologetic frown. You press a finger to your lips to say, I'll be quiet.
"She was chatty too. You girls always are."
You nod and listen. Your throat constricts as you wring the cloth in your hands. You think you might not be very forgiving if someone tried to steal from you either.
"But..." he looks at his watch, "you are quick."
The comment drips from his mouth as if it tastes bitter to him. It isn't quite praise, only a fact, but it isn't a reproach. He smirks and snickers.
"And you do look rather terrified. We're understood then."
You give another nod. You think you understand. You wouldn't think to steal but you can't blame him for putting down rules. You squint and your brow twitches as your ears tinge.
"Point one C," you whisper to yourself; 'Do not steal.'
He pauses as he goes to pivot on his heel. He lifts his chin and shifts as if he might look at you. He doesn't as he carries on to the door.
"You may refill your bottle once per shift," he pauses by the door, tapping the frame before he leaves you.
You stay stuck to the floor, wavering as you watch him go. He wasn't nice, but he didn't dismiss you either. You can stomach his disapproval if it means you still have work.
#loki#dar loki#dark!loki#loki x reader#fic#dark fic#dark!fic#series#au#maid au#dirty work#marvel#avengers#thor
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Knick knacks
Pairing: Brian O'Conner x Fem reader
Description: Brian hides in your shop after running from the cops leading you to find him asleep the next morning
Brian knew if he didn't do something after then he would definitely be arrested leading to him picking the lock on a door and hiding in the storage room as he heard the sirens pass by until it was dead quiet. You walk in the shop as you did on a calm day like this starting off with cleaning around the shop and rearranging a few things around before going to the storage room to take out the trash stopping when you walk back in and notice a pair of shoes sticking out thinking they just have fallen out of one of the boxes until you notice them move feeling your heart stop when you slowly move a box to see a man asleep on the floor, instead of calling the cops you keep the storage room locked and opened the shop which passed by since you were only open half the day hearing the doorknob jingle as you counted money in the register leading to you unlocking and opening the door right before locking with the most vibrant and truly stunning blue eyes you had ever seen. "I'll be out no need to call-" you stop him by closing the door behind him and locking the front of the shop which makes him confused before handing him a drink and warmed up pizza from your fridge, "I didn't call the cops, I found you asleep in the storage room" he slowly eats in between bits of conversation and complete silence, "Nothing normal in here" you laugh a little as you sweep behind the counter taking the of hand comment as a strange compliment while dusting off a few shelves before he asked what the purpose of the knick knacks you sold were looking around with a fond smile as memories flood your mind, "My aunt use to own this as an antique store so I expanded it a bit and changed it into a thrift store with some knick knacks here and there" the conversation turned deeper while opening up to each other about yourselves and your lives learning that brian was was an undercover cop who was working on a case as a car stopped across the street. He looks and immediately tells you that he had to leave but not before exchanging numbers and asking you to dinner at your place the next day agreeing before he leaves from the storage room leaving you with a smile before finishing your small clean up and locking up, you hear your phone dinged as you plugged in your boom box to play music while you showered only to see a text from brian that said "Have knick knacks for you" you laugh as you responded and hopped in the shower wondering where things would lead between you and brian the next day and the impending future.
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ii. the radio's revival
It was odd. Ever since that chance encounter with the Radio Demon, he’s been gracing your doorstep more often than you had expected. You were just doing your job, after all, fixing that radio of his. But he seemed to interpret that as an invitation rather than the transaction that it was.
Whether he was cursed with inexplicable bad luck or if it was simply a series of coincidences, you couldn't say for sure, at least not in the beginning. But as the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months, and Alastor kept coming back, each time with a new contraption for you to fix, you couldn't help but come to a conclusion.
He was breaking things on purpose.
The sinister Radio Demon, with his daunting reputation and predatory grin, was breaking things on purpose. All for the sake of visiting your humble little workshop in the slums.
You couldn't decide whether to feel flattered or victimized. Hell, you couldn’t even begin to fathom what drew him back to your workshop time and again. Yet, as the routine continued, you also couldn’t deny that Alastor didn’t seem as terrifying as you once believed him to be. Gradually, you became accustomed to his presence. In fact, you even found yourself looking forward to his visits, often preparing a cup of coffee for him as you worked while he observed.
Today was no different. As you diligently worked on repairing an antique pocket watch, your attention kept drifting to the window, where sinners of all shapes and sizes strolled along the bustling street. Your keen eyes searched for a splash of red amidst the passersby, and your ears strained for the familiar sound of the bell above your door. Yet, neither sight nor sound came.
And as you affixed the final gears of the pocket watch into place, Alastor had yet to make an appearance. You glanced at the untouched, now-cold coffee cup, and despite your efforts to suppress it, disappointment began to seep into your heart.
Alastor strode through the dimly lit corridors of the hotel, his thoughts consumed by a singular objective: to find something–anything–that he could lay his hands on.
He knew it was silly. Preposterous even. For him, of all people, to resort to such childish behavior! But there was a restlessness gnawing at him, an insatiable craving for something he couldn’t quite name.
Ever since his fingers grazed against yours in that fleeting moment of contact, Alastor found himself haunted by the memory. It was as if a dormant ember had been reignited within him, sparking a firestorm of conflicting and inexplicable emotions. He couldn’t understand it, couldn’t fathom why a simple touch had stirred such chaos within his usually composed heart.
And frankly, he didn’t really care to dwell on it. To acknowledge the depth of his confusion would be to admit weakness, a notion he found utterly intolerable. Besides, there were more pressing matters at hand–like finding something to break, for instance.
Turning corner after corner, Alastor reached the hotel’s parlor, a space usually abuzz with activity. However, to his surprise, the room now seemed to be eerily deserted.
The armchairs sat empty, their plush cushions undisturbed by the weight of occupants. The grand piano stood silent in the corner, its keys untouched and gathering dust. Not even a whisper stirred the air, leaving the parlor feeling desolate and abandoned.
And then, he spotted it–the TV, perched precariously upon a nearby table. Alastor’s grin, stretched wide across his face, threatened to split his features in sheer delight. It was perfect–he had been itching for an opportunity to destroy that troublesome picture box, and this presented the ideal occasion.
Crossing the room with determination, Alastor's fingers curled around the edges of the TV, his excitement palpable as he prepared to deliver the final blow. But just as he lifted it off the table, a stern voice cut through the silence.
“Alastor!” Vaggie scolded. “How many times have I told you not to touch the TV?”
Alastor's grin remained firmly in place as he turned to face Vaggie, exchanging glances between her stern expression and the television in his grasp. Their eyes met for a fleeting moment, and then, without breaking eye contact, he slowly loosened his hold on the television, letting it drop to the ground with a resounding crash.
The impact shattered the screen, creating a spider web of cracks that spread in all directions, while the plastic casing splintered open with a loud snap. Vaggie's jaw dropped in disbelief as she stared at the wreckage before her, her eyes widening in shock. Alastor's grin only stretched further.
“Oops,” he said, his tone laced with mock innocence. “My hand must have slipped.”
The commotion of the shattered TV drew Charlie into the parlor like a magnet, her expression a mix of shock and dismay as she took in the scene before her.
“What in the–Alastor, what's gotten into you?” she exclaimed as she approached, her footsteps quickening as her eyes darted between the broken TV and the Radio Demon standing nearby. “You can't keep breaking everything in the hotel!”
Without missing a beat, Alastor's expression morphed into one of exaggerated shock and wounded innocence. His hand flew to his chest, fingers splaying out dramatically as if to emphasize the depth of his offense.
“My dear Charlie,” he exclaimed. “Accusing me of such vandalism! Why, I would never dream of causing harm to anything in our esteemed hotel!”
Charlie raised an incredulous eyebrow, clearly unimpressed by his theatrics. “Really? Because I distinctly remember you destroying the coffee machine just last week.”
A flicker of annoyance flashed across Alastor's face, quickly masked by his trademark grin. “Ah, well, accidents happen, my dear. Surely you can't hold that against me.”
Before Charlie could respond, Vaggie interjected with a pointed look. “And what about the toaster the week before that?”
“The toaster?” Alastor echoed, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he cast a sidelong glance at Vaggie’s direction. “Oh, that old thing was on its last legs anyways. I was merely putting it out of its misery!”
Charlie's sigh reverberated through the parlor, laden with frustration. Anyone within earshot could discern that even the seemingly infinite well of patience belonging to the Princess was beginning to run dry.
“Alastor,” she started, drawing a deep breath and folding her hands in front of her. “I know you mean well, but we can't have you breaking things every time you get bored.”
Alastor’s facade remained intact as he listened to Charlie’s lecture, although the subtle twitch of his ear betrayed the irritation that simmered beneath the surface. He had expected this reaction, of course; it was all too predictable. But that didn't make it any less tiresome.
“Oh, come now,” he responded as casually as he could. “You know me better than that. I'll have that pesky picture box fixed in a jiffy!”
“It's not just about fixing the TV, Alastor. We have enough trouble keeping this place together without you destroying hotel property whenever you feel like it.”
Suppressing an urge to roll his eyes at Charlie's admonishment, Alastor finally conceded, even as his pride bristled at the implication of recklessness. “Yes, yes, you’re right,” he said aloofly. “I’ll get this taken care of right away. You and Vaggie needn’t worry yourselves.”
With that, he gracefully knelt down beside the broken TV, his movements deliberate as he made a show of collecting the wreckage. Despite the situation, he couldn’t help but feel a twinge of amusement at the melodramatic nature of it all. It was almost comical how worked up everyone got over something as silly as a broken appliance. After all, what harm was a mere television set in the grand scheme of things?
Especially when its destruction served as a small price to pay for the chance to see the mechanic again.
Cradling the TV in his hands, Alastor straightened up and began to walk away, purposefully moving past Charlie and Vaggie before they could launch into any further lectures. Despite the disapproving glances he left in his wake, Alastor felt a sense of satisfaction wash over him–he had finally obtained his excuse.
“...and remember, if you ever need anything else, you know where to find me!”
The words slipped past your lips like a well-rehearsed speech as you bid farewell to the now-proud owner of the repaired pocket watch. Standing with your hands on your hips, you watched them depart, a swell of pride filling your heart as their delighted reaction replayed in your mind. It was always rewarding to see the joy on your customers' faces when you successfully restored something precious to them.
As they left, you turned your attention to the windows, where the dwindling daylight seeped through. It was getting late, you realized with a sigh.
With a sense of reluctance, you made your way toward the door. It was time to close up shop for the day, despite the lingering desire to stay open a little longer. As your hand reached for the lock, preparing to secure the entrance, a sudden commotion startled you.
The door swung open with such force that a rush of wind swept into the workshop, catching you off guard. Before you could react, you found yourself tumbling backward, landing unceremoniously on the floor.
“What the–” You began, lifting your gaze to confront the incredibly rude visitor. But your words caught in your throat as your eyes landed on Alastor, standing there framed in your doorway with a strained grin and a shattered TV gripped tightly in his hands.
“Alastor, what’s–” You started again, but in the next breath, Alastor suddenly dropped the TV, letting it fall to the floor with a careless thud.
In the blink of an eye, he closed the distance between you, rushing to your side with an urgency that left you dazed. “Goodness gracious, darling, are you alright?” He asked, eagerly extending a hand to assist you.
You felt a peculiar flutter in your chest as his gloved fingers gently enveloped yours, guiding you back to your feet. Despite the unexpected tumble, his touch was surprisingly tender, and you couldn’t help but be aware of the warmth that spread through your hand where it met his.
“It seems like you really need to work on your landing technique, my dear,” he then remarked amusedly. Yet beneath the jest, you detected a subtle tremor in his voice, and you couldn’t ignore the fact that he hadn’t released your hand yet.
As you looked up at him with furrowed brows, Alastor knew he should let go. He should, it was the rational thing to do, the expected response in this situation.
But his hand–it was on fire! Compared to the initial spark of electricity, whilst significant in its own right, this new sensation was simply overwhelming, threatening to unravel each delicate thread that wound the Radio Demon together.
Terrifying yet exhilarating, Alastor realized the immense power that such a simple gesture held over him. If he had known that such a dramatic entrance would grant him the privilege of holding your hand like this, he would've acted sooner. He would've found any excuse, any reason, to break down your door and claim your hand as his own long ago.
And at the same time, another thought crept into his mind, igniting a different kind of excitement altogether. He couldn't help but wonder about the myriad of other sensations your touch might elicit—sensations that surpassed mere hand-holding.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl as you stood there, the air crackling with tension. To say that you were confused would be an understatement. Alastor’s incessant visits, today’s sudden intrusion, the broken TV, his firm yet gentle hold–it was more than baffling.
Unable to bear the heaviness of it all, you dared to give his hand a light squeeze. “Uh, Alastor?” You ventured tentatively, offering him an easy smile. “You can let go now, you know.”
His response came almost immediately, but it wasn't what you had expected. “I know,” he said nonchalantly, tightening his grip instead of releasing it.
The smile faltered slightly on your lips as your confusion deepened. “Then… will you?”
“I don’t think so, my dear.”
“Why not?” You asked, the words escaping your lips before your thoughts could catch up.
Alastor's grip tightened again, his crimson gaze locking onto yours with an intensity that sent a shiver down your spine. “Because,” he began, his voice low and velvety. “I rather enjoy holding your hand.”
The simplicity of his answer caught you off guard. It was as if he were stating the most obvious fact in the world, with no need for further explanation. As you cast your gaze downward at your intertwined fingers, and then at the broken TV, lying in pieces by your door–that’s when the puzzle suddenly clicked into place.
“Oh…”
“Hmm?” Alastor hummed, his tone laced with genuine curiosity and a hint of amusement. As he waited for you to reply, he couldn't resist the temptation to let his thumb glide ever so gently against the back of your hand. The touch was feather-light, almost imperceptible, yet it sent a tingling sensation through your skin.
It drew your attention back to him, your unsure gaze meeting his intense one. For a moment, it seemed as if Alastor was extending a silent invitation for you to delve deeper, to peel back the layers of your interactions, to speak the words that hovered on the tip of your tongue.
And with a deep breath, you gathered your thoughts.
“I... I was just thinking,” you began, your voice steadier than you felt. “Do you... have feelings for me, Alastor?”
The question hung between you, heavy with uncertainty and vulnerability. You weren't sure what to expect, but you were desperate for some clarity.
“Feelings?” Alastor echoed after a pause, his demeanor carefully neutral as he attempted to evade the question. “Why, my dear, I have all sorts of feelings for you! Admiration, appreciation, curiosity–”
You couldn’t help but roll your eyes at his evasive answer, a sudden surge of frustration bubbling within you. “Alastor,” you interrupted, cutting through his attempt at deflection. “I'm not talking about admiration or appreciation. I'm talking about... romantic feelings.”
The ever-present grin on the Radio Demon’s face faltered visibly, his ears flattening against his head. It was clear he was uncomfortable–how could he not be? The very notion of romance, of allowing oneself to be vulnerable to another, disgusted him to his core. Alastor prided himself on his independence, his autonomy, and the idea of relinquishing even a fraction of that control was utterly repulsive.
But more than that, it was the sheer audacity of the question that left him reeling. How dare you suggest such a thing? Yet, as much as he wanted to dismiss you outright, a nagging voice at the back of his mind reminded him of his own hypocrisy. After all, he couldn't deny the frequency of his visits to your workshop, the way his heart quickened at the mere thought of seeing you, or the inexplicable desire to hold your hand just a moment longer.
But romantic feelings? Perish the thought! Love was a weakness, a sentiment reserved for fools, and it had no place in his world.
Alastor finally let out a forced laugh, attempting to brush off the seriousness of the conversation. “Now, now, my dear, let’s not get ahead of ourselves!” He said in between chuckles, each one more strained than the last. “I’m simply not one for such sentimental nonsense!”
Your frustration surged even further at his dismissive response, the sound of his laughter grating on your already frayed nerves. Holding up his hand, which still enveloped yours, you pressed on, determination burning in your eyes.
“Then what are we doing here?” You asked pointedly. Alastor’s gaze flickered down to your intertwined hands, his expression momentarily unreadable. But then, as if flicking a switch, he reverted to his nonchalant demeanor.
“We’re simply enjoying each other’s company, of course!” he replied enthusiastically, his thumb brushing against your hand again almost instinctively. “No need to overcomplicate things, hm?”
With a deep breath, you realized that you had reached your limit with Alastor. The frustration simmering within you had finally boiled over, and you had no interest in playing this game of his any longer.
Without a word, you tore your hand away from his grasp, a sharp movement that caused Alastor to visibly flinch. But you ignored his reaction as you focused on gathering the forgotten television set, its sharp edges digging into your skin as you collected the wreckage.
Straightening up, you returned to Alastor's side, purposefully avoiding any further contact with him as you extended the damaged device toward him. Your gaze was steady, unwavering, as you delivered your ultimatum.
“I'm closed, Alastor,” you declared firmly. “Come back when you're ready to be honest.”
part i / part ii
thank you for reading!! and thank you to everyone who left such nice comments on my last posts. i was very surprised<3
there will definitely be a third part to this story. also, @christinebloodwrittings requested to be tagged<3
#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin hotel imagine#hazbin hotel#hazbin alastor#alastor x reader#alastor/reader#hazbin hotel alastor x reader#alastor
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CRANBERRIES | jhs ft. jjk
pairing: boyfriend!hobi x berries!oc (feat. ex-boyfriend!jk and... hyeonwol)
genre: heavy smut, angst
word count: 18.4k
summary: the final breaking of the curse hurts, but pain brings fruit.
pinterest board: cranberries / taglist: join
warnings: physical violence, fight, daddy issues, alcohol consumption, smoking, thigh humping, female masturbation, use of a vibrator, squirting, multiple orgasms, oral sex (f. and m. receiving), raw sex, conception, fears of infertility, finger sucking
note: THE FINAL CHAPTER OF THE BERRIES SERIES WHAT. i can't breathe, i can't speak. i wrote the moment i woke up and it's now 4pm. ran out of cigs. :( i was so emotional as i was in this world with them and i love them. so much. i'm so excited for you to read this. i had iffy feelings about this series in the beginning, but that has changed. i love every chapter, every detail, every moment. and i think i did a good job. so, enjoy this. i poured my entire heart into this. my issues, personal experiences, everything. it means a lot to me. i love you, guys. i'm happy to give this to you after two long weeks! HAPPY READING.
side note: please, do check out the pinterest board. i'll add pics of every place oc and hobi have been. <3 SPAM MY INBOX. I NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS.
The sleep lines are paused shooting stars across his back. The dips and definition pools of refreshment for those dimmed lights and when you cross over the threshold with Hobi right behind you, with his finger hooked over the waistband of your ivory mini skirt, your own fingers gain feeling. Much to your dismay, they remember the sharpness of those lines, the stickiness of his sweat as his body boiled during any weather he slept through.
He must have been on the brink of awakening, for you didn’t wait long before he answered the door. His gray curtains are pulled in and Jungkook walks over them, invites in the light of the early afternoon. In your peripheral vision, you recognize that the easel, which holds the painting in all its glory, is right there on your left side, and you strain your eyes to remain fixed on his bare back, even as wrong as that is. Hobi’s word of advice regarding thinking twice before you look at the artwork are pink blossoms that begin to grow in your ribs, spreading down to your stomach—because whether you like it or not, the place you find yourself to be in used to be one of absolute safety.
It used to be your home, once upon a time.
Cold, cold home that only ever reached tepidity at best. It’s all you ever knew—as the home you grew up in with your parents invariably had the same temperature. The same energy, too, charged with silence, ignorance and very little care that seldom carried love.
Which brings a certain thought to the front of your head, just as Jungkook is bathed in light, arms extended as if he bore wings.
He never loved you.
Because if he did, then his home and the memories that are rushing in would feel the way Hobi feels.
And like Hobi carried the false beauty in his heart, in his life—in the form of the poetry book—you carried the false perception of safety. If Hobi wasn’t here, if the stability of his antique stature wasn’t a wall doused in rain-kissed humidity that you now feel your body gravitating towards, and even if his finger wasn’t hooked behind your skirt, you wouldn’t feel safe.
But on the other hand, softness coats Jungkook. Strange, strange softness that you haven’t seen in ages. Since the first days of your relationship, the first dates, the first kisses and touches, for everything you did with Jungkook was different each time, never the same until his life story shared with his childhood best friend ended on bad terms and the guy moved across the sea. It’s what triggered his mental issues that in the long run ended your story with him.
As it seems, Jungkook has been trying to write a sequel that was never meant to exist.
He bends over his coffee table and it is only now that you notice the clutter of crumpled tissues that he now picks up. Bile scratches your throat as needles prick it because it dawns on you fairly quickly what those issues served him for. A blanket is strewn over the backrest of his leather couch and a singular, flat pillow is propped against the armrest. He slept on it during the night; had a perfect view of the painting right across from him. And if your mind serves you well, he sent that picture in the middle of the night, in which he deliberately showed you that creating the message sexually thrilled him.
It’s not hard to pinpoint that he fist-fucked himself while looking at the painting. And by the number of tissues that he hides in his palms and throws away in the bin in the kitchen, it’s evident his gratification process took a long, long time.
You anticipate the bile pouring out of your throat again, but… it never comes. Oddly, it’s second-hand embarrassment that you sense swirling in the cranberry lumps of your bloodstream, its fumes drooping your pink blossoms, your veins thick and ghastly on your wrists. And while you should feel disgusted, for some reason you don’t.
The discovery added magnitude to the star of his softness, weightiness and substance. It made it more real, bigger. It envelops him, confusing your mind because the only way it allows you to remember him is through the pain he caused you, using the expression of his fury. He broke your heart. Degraded you. Handled you harshly. Threw away your vape. Made you lose the respect you had for him, the worship you carried in the back of your heart. This can’t be the same person, kissed by a good night’s sleep.
You don’t recognize him and you feel so out of place, standing in the middle of an obscure, amorphous dream that you’re trying to remember. A bizarre, uncanny feeling. You wish to run—as it lessens your form into that milky blue aura of smallness, but not in the way you like. Your body pleads to stand behind Hobi and clutch the back of his shirt in your fists while he steps in and makes order. But the energy around is too light, too gentle for a fight.
Which is why you’re not sure if it’s a good idea that Hobi should unfurl his plan here.
Hobi looks down at you as Jungkook answers his phone in the kitchen. You didn’t hear a thing due to the way you were lost in your thoughts and your confusion deepens as you regard the crooked furrow of his brow and the pinpricks of his pupils. Hobi wraps his arm low on your waist, tugging you flush to his side, kissing the plane of your head, lingering there for a second more as he inhales the natural scent of your hair. One you didn’t wash today, for he kept you busy. You fear he can smell your puke on you from earlier, despite the fact you almost sprayed the entirety of your vanilla perfume on yourself that you carry in your purse before you and him left together. You grow insecure, lessening furthermore.
“Do I stink?” you ask, hushedly, gazing up at him with intention, willing him to answer you truthfully. Hobi smiles down at you, tenderly, pleased with the hint of familiarity and normalcy in the middle of the battlefield. Inhaling your scent and touching you diminished the intensity of the bloodthirst in his eyes and you’re glad for it. You hope that he perceives the elephant in the room and doesn’t strike first, but knowing how smart he is, you trust that he will, if he hasn’t already.
Hobi doesn’t answer you. His smile falls as briskly as it appeared and his head swivels in the direction of the kitchen, features tight and startling. Your heart ceases its beat for a second before it speeds up, thumping painfully against your ribcage. What did Jungkook say over the phone? You weren’t paying attention.
He lets go of you and stomps over to the kitchen. His back faces you, bringing your consciousness into present time, shudders with long staccatos of breaths. He’s fuming. Concern crawls up your back, leaving goosebumps in its wake.
“So, that’s what you do? You traumatize my girlfriend while you have someone else on the side?” Hobi says, brusquely, placing his fists on his hips. “Does she know you paint degrading pictures of your ex in your spare time?”
A beat of silence. Your breath hitches in your throat.
Your blood freezes over and you don’t know how your legs take you over to Hobi, weak and tingling as they are. You can’t feel anything. Can’t feel your fingers as they hook over his back pocket, your inner child’s deepest wish infiltrating through reality.
Jungkook worries his bottom lip, his phone still held over his ear, and he exhales, shortly through his nose, dropping his gaze. “I’ll call you back.”
He throws the phone over the kitchen island, sliding his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants as he so often does, staring Hobi down.
There’s no doubt she heard it. Hobi said it loud enough.
Good.
Good of Hobi to take the ruination by its legs and launch it back at its creator. You change your mind by the shift of the energy, having foolishly forgotten the girl personification of the storm that you saw by Jungkook’s side in the museum. She has no idea how preoccupied he’s been with you, chasing you down ever since he laid his eyes on you after nearly a month. And you pity her. She doesn’t deserve this kind of unfair treatment, no matter the hostility she showed you and the fraction of the same emotion you felt towards her in return.
Jungkook had it coming, that’s what you’re sure of now—sowing the seeds of his downfall in your orchard. What he didn’t know was that by staying around, hurting not just you, but another vulnerable person at the same time, he would also reap its poisonous growth. You hope his hands are red and burning, pulling out the weeds and poison ivy.
He leans against the kitchen counter, the muscle of his pierced brow quivering with the onrush of anger. You find it so pathetic that you almost dryly snicker, backed by the continuous, fatherly act of Hobi standing up for you—your antique wall, the architecture of the old, Mediterranean times.
Strong and unwilling to break under pressure.
“My personal life is none of your business—”
“And mine is?” Hobi interrupts him, leaning forward due to the influence of his own anger and the sight is horrifying. If you were in Jungkook’s place, you’d be trembling like a sissy. Hobi laughs, scornfully, doing it for you and your heart rejoices. “You stalked my wife, touched her, painted that shitty—”
Wife.
“I didn’t stalk her,” Jungkook says, awfully calmly, as if he were bored, despite the tremor of his pierced brow that divulges the true face of his feelings. “Wife?” He laughs, humorlessly, and you bunch your fists, letting go of your private, personal link to Hobi. Even though you swore you wouldn’t raise them again when facing him, it’s all you want to do now for the way he mocked something so meaningful to you. Raise them and use them until they bruise.
The concern that hung over your back fades into a discomposure that slices over your skin with a blunt knife. Over and over, maddened by the incessant rampage to cause you pain, incited by his mockery. Won’t let up until blood pours out.
“Don’t talk over me, I wasn’t finished,” Hobi scolds and your second-hand embarrassment for the opponent doubles, abating your discomposure just like that.
The knife is lifted in the air, paused.
Jungkook’s jaw begins to tremble, disliking the easiness to Hobi’s overpowering tendencies, the way his stern words force him to become that aforementioned sissy that you’d be in his place. You think it suits him right.
“You shamed my—” Hobi points to his heart, like Jungkook did last night when he bared his feelings for you and your throat dries, unbelief peculiarly setting your discomposure free at the rightful turning of tables. “Wife for moving on with her life, for becoming the person she needed to become without you controlling her. Sent her a picture of your dick while you were at it, belittling her, using sex to lure her back to you as if she wasn’t smart, as if she wasn’t mine. You did all that and you think you’re gonna come out of this unscathed? Let your girlfriend see what you’ve done. What, you were going to hide that painting under your bed like a little bitch?”
It’s Hobi who laughs now, the sound full of that same mockery Jungkook used to inflict pain. You wrap a hand around his arm, coming over to stand side by side with him, sliding your hand down to his, needing it and not being afraid of it. Not to his palm, but over the back of his hand, slipping your fingers through his. And together you clench that singular fist, stronger.
You thought all your life that you were stupid. Your own Father bashed you for it every chance he had; you, yourself, hated your being for it with all your might. Thought it was the root of the curse over your life, made strong by your bad decisions, bad actions, bad footfalls. Learning that Hobi doesn’t regard you as such cuts that majority of your life away from you. He binds up your wounds, cleaning them. And the fact he put two and two together apropos the meaning of the painting, the reason behind the punishment, using your recitation of the bizarre poem is a kiss to make the boo-boo better.
You weep, silently. Your love for Hobi trickles out of your tear ducts, doesn’t touch your makeup, doesn’t steal the attention of the two males away from each other. It dips into your ribcage through your chest, sprucing them until they can breathe again and fill your lungs with sweetened, poetic air, with a will to live on, reminding you that you have a future ahead of you that is beautiful and bereft of the curse and all you’ve ever known.
And you wash that breath, purposefully, over the bare skin of Hobi’s warmth. Remind him, too, as you press your lips over it. He squeezes yours and his united fist, hearing you.
Lifting your gaze, Jungkook crosses his arms over his chest, devoid of those sleep lines. His biceps bulge, but it does nothing to you. Hobi’s fixing of your dignity, heart and life has taken care of that, all via that sonnet of his that he spat in Jungkook’s face, one that contorts in envy upon seeing your intertwined hand with Hobi’s. He nibbles on his bottom lip, eyes wetting, but the following words he says sting as if his face never wore those softened emotions. And the discomposure returns in the form of a colossal spider on your back. A slimy, heavy, breathing spider.
You cringe, tensing your muscles, nuzzling your body deeper into Hobi’s arm. It only menaces your vivaciousness, but the fluff on your body stands on end, nonetheless.
“She came here to look at the painting. I don’t know what you’re doing here,” he mutters, crossing his leg. Double protection. He’s stuck in a peril—feels vulnerable and threatened, just like Hobi said. “She likes being spanked, being punished. That’s why she’s here.”
It takes two seconds for Hobi to release your hand and slap him like the little bitch he is. A fatherly discipline, that hard swoop of the back of his hand, a new line indenting his carmine face, one belonging to the ring on Hobi’s middle finger. Absolutely humiliating, that act you are a witness to—but you don’t feel a slither of pity for him. The joy from your heart springs to your eyes and you feel yourself blinking unorthodoxly—more briskly, serenely, femininely.
The spider jumps off your back, afraid of Hobi. You sigh in relief, willing strength into your knees as they signify their giving out on you, boneless as they are.
And Jungkook is afraid, too, once he recuperates from the hit, straightening, but not facing the king. His mouth rounds as if he were on the verge of crying, and maybe he is. He focuses on stalling the natural flow of his emotions, his pride forbidding him from being weak, even as he’s getting hit like a teenage boy.
But Hobi makes him look at him. He grabs his face, repeating the motion of last night; squeezing his cheeks until his knuckles turn white, although this time Jungkook doesn’t moan in pain. He scrambles the last of that pride of his, threading it into the stiflement of his reaction.
“Are you that dumb that you forgot about what I told you that would happen if I heard those words come out of your mouth again?” he seethes in his face. Jungkook sucks in quick breaths, a caged animal, furious. “You degraded her again. You’re asking for it at this point.” He slaps him again, harder this time, still with the back of his hand. Doesn’t give him time to shake it off. Grabs him in the same way. “I’ll let you know that those words you read in that little message? That probably made your dick hard? Those were my words, boy. I came here to break that painting, but I changed my mind. I want your girlfriend to see the work of your hands.”
Hobi told him the true story while he omitted the detail he could’ve used to inflict further pain on him. He could’ve said that he told you to write that message after he was done fucking your trauma out of you. He could’ve rubbed that in his face and you wouldn’t mind.
But he didn’t.
He respects you. Protects your dignity. Doesn’t need to flaunt his private life with you; isn’t insecure to do something like that. And along with joy, he installs something within you that you lacked all your life.
A respect, a high regard and an expensive love for yourself.
You stand straighter, all of a sudden.
Jungkook looks at you. A rawness of pain daubs his even softer eyes, but you recognize that it’s all pretense, a manipulation technique that you see right through. You lift your chin higher, interlocking your hands behind your back. A powerful, feminine stance. His eyes descend to your pride in the middle of your breasts, drench as he mumbles something your way that you can’t comprehend due to the way Hobi squeezes his cheeks harder, that moan of pain slipping through, at last.
You smile, sensing the end of this chapter. You can see the door to it, wide open, Hobi standing by it, gripping the doorknob. And he shuts it with his following words.
“Don’t even look at her. It’s over. The little game you’re playing? You lost,” Hobi says and lets him go. Jungkook grumbles, baring his teeth, his hand shaking as he lifts it to his jaw as if to rub away the pain, but he changes his mind at the last minute. Doesn’t want to show his weakness. His hand falls, flaccidly, to the side. Throws Hobi’s way a dirty look that makes you laugh.
“It’s over,” you intone along, lips stretched in a glinting grin, the crown of your victory. You’re the queen to your king. Jungkook gazes at you with a puppy’s sadness, for a mere second before Hobi pushes his head away from your direction with a poke of his fingers. His inhales are sharp and thunderous and you think he’d be a perfect match to his companion, that is if he were a good guy, deserving of her.
“Did you even see the painting?” he hushes out, head still turned towards the windows, and the redness on his face inflames in vibrancy, darkening. Why he thinks he needs to keep fighting, in spite of the way Hobi overthrew him, is beyond you. His head slowly swivels back to face you and tears cloud his eyes. It inspires no pity in you, no curiosity to look behind you at the painting. “I made the background an imitation of Monet’s waterlilies. The green ones, the ones you’ve always liked. Does that mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that I still care—”
“No,” you interrupt him and you bask in it, inhale the power. Your pink blossoms grow in abundance, becoming a collection of beauty and strength that will live on forever, never to wither. “I didn’t look at the painting and I refuse to because I don’t care.”
You open your mouth to continue, but he outruns you.
“So, you lied to me? Why are you here, then?”
The wheels seem to whirr in his brain, at last.
“My husband and I came here to make one thing clear,” you explain and you flick your eyes to Hobi just in time to catch him smiling at you, fondly, his loving pride bursting through his own pools. “It’s over. You’re not gonna bother me anymore; you’re not gonna text me, call me. In fact—” You pull out your phone out of your front pocket and unlock it, tapping on Jungkook’s contact and blocking him, deleting the number right away. “You can’t anymore.” You smile, satisfied with your decision. “I live a happy life without you and it’s going to stay that way.”
Jungkook’s posture slouches and he wrinkles his brows, mouth agape, downturned. “Husband? What the fuck is this?”
You only lift your hand in the air, for Hobi to take, dismissing him once and for all. “Let’s go.”
You take a step back as Hobi rushes to you in a comical, endearing way, a huge smile engraving crinkles by his glimmering, pearlescent eyes. He takes your hand and when you look at Jungkook one last time to say goodbye to him, he whimpers like a wounded animal.
Your heart constricts, not touched by pity, but by discomfort. It’s time to leave; you don’t want to be here anymore.
Hobi leads you towards the door and you follow him, but Jungkook’s final words halt your footsteps. Hobi’s too.
“I can be like him and better when he drops you. Don’t forget that.”
You frown at him, your mouth pressed in a tight line. “There’s no when to me and you. I never want to see you again. Goodbye, Jungkook.”
He mewls, the final kick to his bruised body and you leave.
You leave his life for good.
The air of the afternoon’s breath is floral. You thought the clouds would’ve smothered the last remains of the summer, but it is still, most strangely, in full bloom. You feel hot in Hobi’s linen shirt and the sun is scorching hot, balmy and paradisiacal on your bare thighs, though you wish you hadn’t worn your Nike’s. Your toes are asking for some sand, for the pecks of sea waves and the entanglement of seaweed around them like tropical adornment of toe rings.
You met the girl, the personification of storm, behind the door to his apartment. She was about to rack her knuckles on the wood like you did, but Hobi opened the door for her. Her breath hitched in her throat, hard and heavy like the wind during that storm she resembles so much, and you felt bad for her. So much that you told her to leave him, unabashedly and plainly, and didn’t stick around to hear her response.
But you did hear muffled sounds of vocal violence and you prayed, for the first time in your life, to someone in the sky, who has always been a witness to your curse and never did a thing about it, to guide her to break that painting in two.
Not for your healing, not at all. But for the curse to be unleashed on him, turned to him and fixed on him.
You’re not ashamed to carry such evil in your heart. You know, full well, that it will dull overtime. Your mother would’ve rebuked you, told you to forgive your enemies and wish them well, but bricking up your heart for him to feel safe is something she would never understand. Because if she did, she wouldn’t share the same home with your Father. And if she did, you would’ve never ended up with a guy like Jungkook that was the raw epitome of him.
It’s a good thing she’ll never learn of your secret. She never met Jungkook but she looks at his face every day, and you’re not so sure if the idea of introducing Hobi to her is pleasant. You sense the time you find yourself to be in is meant to be a solitary one, spent in a bubble with your husband, and there’s nothing you want more.
You and Hobi, alone.
For a little while before a little creature comes along.
The mountain peak is awaiting—you feel it profoundly in your bones.
Hobi opens the door to his car for you, places a hand on the edge of his vehicle so you don’t hurt your head as you sit down—like he did on your first date. But he doesn’t close the door and walk over to the driver’s seat. No, he straddles you. Pushes your seat back a little in order for you to have a perfect and comfortable view of him. You sputter out your giggles, felicitously confused by his actions, and when he props his hands by your head, his smile quivering in effort to not laugh along with you, your giggles rise in volume.
And then his gaze deepens on you, lessening the pitch. Seriousness shrouds the energy, your little giggles ringing, faintly, and you press your thighs together between his legs.
“I’m not fucking you here,” you whisper, the sound full of humor, your eyes feignedly widened, but Hobi is deep in thought, his imaginary wings furling and unfurling in the spaciousness of his car.
“How do you feel?” he asks, steeped in that earnest, warm and lightweight solemnity. It feels like home. That question, too.
You relax, your expression of joy fading into a comfortable silence and you take a moment to focus on what you’re feeling right now.
A graze of the pink blossoms on the inside of your ribs. Relief, a wave sloshing over them. Freedom, the sunlight that heats up that body of water. Joy—a full rainbow of joy after a century-long rainfall.
And you tell him.
“I feel free. Happy. I feel happy, Hobi.”
He smiles, fondly, that blush rolling over his cheeks like it always does. And you love him, irrevocably. You love him, you love him, you love him.
He did this, your God. It’s the creation of his clean hands.
And as he kisses the tip of your nose, you thank him with the same earnestness he brought in.
And you mean it. You would’ve died, had he not found you. You would’ve died, had you not taken him to that museum. You think about what your life would’ve looked like if you never suggested that place, but your mind stumbles upon a dead end. You can’t—there’s nothingness up ahead.
It was meant to happen this way. Along with the pain, the tears, the scars. If it never ached this much, it wouldn’t matter; it wouldn’t have the gravity, the substance, the meaning. It would’ve been plain and it wouldn’t change your life so devastatingly, so beautifully.
You wouldn’t have wings and neither would he.
You kiss him right back on that slender nose of his and much to your surprise, he gives his voice over to your heart.
“I love you,” he confesses, the pearls in his eyes wetting, and he cradles your face. Your heart stops and then beats differently—in a way you never heard it sing before. “Is it too soon to say that?”
Another surprise comes. A tear trickles down your cheek, a happy, elated, small rivulet that cleanses the last, difficult events that just ended. Down your cheek that stretches and aches, blissfully, as you smile up at him.
“Is it too soon to say that I love you, too?”
The song melts into another poetic stanza and Hobi kisses you. But he smiles as well, so the kiss is full of clashing of teeth and sudden hunger to express the fulfillment of that love. You and him try and try again until your lips mold into his and the hard kiss, filled with passion, respect and devotion, splits the curse in two.
Now the residue, the smithereens only need to be fucked out of you.
Hobi will do a good job, no doubt.
“Let’s celebrate.”
Hobi was eyeing a bottle of soju in a market nearby his house, but settled eventually for a bottle of spirits that he’s now popping open and drinking right from the lip of the tall, glass container. He’s sat on the ground of your bedroom, back propped against your bed, the bottle between his outstretched legs as he watches you strip out of the combination of yours and his clothes. A blackberry vape might be in your hand, the fume curling around the curds of cranberries that your blood still consists of, but a pack of cigarettes lies crooked on your bedding.
You told Hobi you needed something stronger after that happened. And he brushed a wisp of your hair away from your face and said he’d willingly have a cigarette with you as he still felt adrenaline coursing through his smooth bloodstream. Bought a pack of gold Davidoff’s for you, the ones you shared with him that you used to smoke until…
You haven’t voiced your panic, though. Not in the market, not in the car, not right now as you’re standing in front of your closet, searching for a lounging outfit to wear, similarly like Hobi did back at his house a few hours ago. Jungkook forbade you from smoking. Hated the sight of it. Hated it even more when you switched to vapes. And as you recollect his anger whenever he saw you with it, you can’t believe you let him do it. Can’t believe you stopped smoking just to please him.
And you can’t believe Hobi bought you a pack. With his own money, by his own will. To please you.
You should be feeling happy right now, but the panic… it stands behind you, the silhouette of Jungkook’s form, waiting for you to take that cigarette between your fingers and place it between your lips, daring you, taunting you, waiting for the right moment to strike, to rebuke, to untether its anger. It’s what keeps you planted on your feet, whisking your eyes up and down along the corner of your closet, where your comfortable clothes are neatly folded.
You’re afraid to turn around. Afraid to see Jungkook there—
“Come here.”
Hobi’s voice. Not Jungkook’s.
“I need to get dressed,” you say, softly, staring down a pink wisp of your sleep shorts.
You hear the sloshing of alcohol in the bottle. Hobi must be taking another sip.
“You don’t, really.”
You laugh through your nose.
“I don’t want to get pregnant here.”
Hobi lets out the same sound, making a smile curl on your mouth. “Come here, pup.”
It’s the gentleness sunk within his intonation that is a force of the same nature that turns your body around. Hobi is staring at you as if he were looking up at an angel—those pearlescent eyes of his bright and swimming, but not prematurely under the influence of the alcohol. They’re swimming with love.
You used to be an angel. Now you’re you.
And Jungkook isn’t standing there; Jungkook is gone.
You walk over to him with ease, the panic dispersing and flying out your wide open window, your rosy curtains guiding it out. You sit on his outstretched thighs and as your bum plops down, you take off his green beanie. Run your fingers through his hair, fluffing them. Cradle his face to your naked bosom as you inhale him, tracing patterns on his scalp.
Hobi begins to purr and you melt, becoming a liquid form of you, making his hands shine in the ever undying stark sunlight as he wraps his arms around your torso, tightly.
You’re not going anywhere, the act says.
This is what deserves to be painted, you muse.
Listening to him emit that sound, your heart notices the absence of Luna and it craves her, awfully missing her. And the more you receive it through your ears and it settles within the chambers of your softened muscle, you realize that you’re holding her in the form of a human.
He’s so much like her. You recollect the way he tilted his head into your touch, join it to the memory of how she did it when you petted her head for the first time. And you test him—withdraw to pat his cheek and he does it. Leans into your touch, lingering there as you cup him.
He’s a God and a kitty. And you love him.
Hobi reaches for the bottle of vodka. Takes a sip as he locks his gaze with yours. Your hand slackens at the sight, dropping to the crook between his neck and his firm shoulder, and you can’t hold it. Like your limb, your eyes descend to the way his mouth is wrapped around the rim of the bottle, to the bottle of his throat as he swallows and doesn’t make a face. Lift back up to catch a glint bouncing off his wet lips and abruptly, you want a taste of that heady sting of your own.
He can read you, and fairly well—because he drinks again, but this time he doesn’t swallow. No, he pushes your head to his in one swift, brazen motion. Parts your lips by tugging your chin down with only his thumb while he cups your cheek and, sitting up so he can once again take advantage of the size difference, he pours the pungent liquid beyond the arc of your mouth. Remains there, a breath away. It seems as though he wants to feel you swallow, wants to inhale that sharp scent of the alcohol; wants to sense in his bones that principle of him giving it to you in a profound, private way.
And you swallow it, fixing your attention on the burn coursing down your throat, softened by his saliva. This—this was your first drink, a safe occurrence, watched over by your Father. The ones you had before in your past life didn’t have a sliver of the magnitude that you feel suffusing your lungs. This is your first life with him.
“That was so hot.”
You agree with him, liquid heat pooling low in your core, and you need that cigarette. And his dick impaling you as you take that deep, heavy drag that you haven’t inhaled in months.
And most peculiarly, there’s no panic, nor fear, as you snatch that pack of cigarettes from your bedding behind his head and look for the little flap that will help you open it. Hobi lifts his hand from your cheek, though, and steals it from you—finding the flap with ease and opening it as if he spent the last decade faithfully smoking.
Your panties are ruined, just like that.
Drenched when he pops the butt of the cigarette between his wet lips, rummaging in his pocket for the pink lighter that he got you along with the pack.
Soaking when he lights it up for you, blows the first smoke into your mouth, pecks you softly, and places the butt between your lips.
But he doesn’t place his hand back on your face—he keeps his thumb and forefinger on the body of the cigarette, the burning tip facing him, holding it for you as you take a drag. The thick smoke billows around his palm, milky blue in the golden light, and as soon as its heaviness caresses your lungs and you exhale it into the air, he returns the cigarette back to its original place. Puffs it one more time before he lets you have it, coughing a little, blowing the fume onto your bare breasts, lips opened halfway in a tiny circle. The warmth tickles and your body naturally curls forward in reaction, your arms pushing your breasts together. Hobi makes a sound that is a godly synthesis of a coo and a moan, uttered from his weakening grin, eyes gliding over your squished breasts.
Eyes that never darken when regarding your nakedness; eyes that remain full of that celestial, sea-kissed light.
Do they have the ocean in heaven? He must know, for he’d been formed by it.
And you want to be stuffed full in it.
Hobi must like the sight he sees because he takes a finger and drives it down the right side of your body. From your clavicle, down to your breast, your stiffened nipple that he stops at, pinching it, heightening the pressure until you squeak, the pool bursting in your core. At that sound, he continues on his path down your stomach and you let him feel the contraction of your muscles there as your body reacts to his touch. He ends his venture at the waistband of your panties and he tugs it towards himself, peeking inside.
“Someone’s wet,” he comments and you cough, embarrassingly, caught off guard, as you take a drag of your cigarette, not expecting him to say that. Hobi smirks and the growing moistness on that fabric becomes uncomfortable. He rubs your back, helping your lungs to quiet down, the waistband snapping back making you jump—and incredibly horny.
He steals the lung burner and you love it, your obsession with it construed by his apparent need to smoke in this heavily sexually-charged situation. You wonder if he’s holding himself back from breeding you right here and there.
He could, if you wanted him to do it here—all things are settled, after all. But you don’t. You don’t want to reach the peak in your bedroom, where Jungkook has been so many times.
You want it to happen at a place, where his footfalls never ventured.
“Someone’s wet from watching their man smoke,” you flirt, looking at him through your lashes, hips instinctually drawing closer to his crotch and beginning their dance. Back and forth, the rhythm of the sea.
“Don’t do that or I’ll fuck you,” he threatens, flicking his eyes to the rising peak of the cigarette ash and he bores them into yours with a challenge. “Be a good pup and get me an ashtray, please.”
Please?
Yes, Daddy.
Ashtray? No.
That would mean going to the kitchen and flipping it upside down in search of it. You stand up to your feet, your wetness flowing down your inner thighs with the movement, and you fetch the empty glass from your bedside table, lonesome and dust-scattered. You can’t really remember the last time you put it there.
Sitting back down, you straddle his thigh as you hold the glass for him to flick the ash there. And once he does, you start to move back to your original position, but he stops you.
“Stay here,” he says, enveloping an arm around your waist. “Ride it. Make a mess for me.”
You don’t hesitate to do so, your body begs you for a release, weakened yet enlivened by his command. But the question of why he doesn’t want to fuck you bothers you and you decide to voice it out, willfully. Unafraid, safe, comfortable.
You roll your hips forward on his thigh, which he flexes for you. The curves of his toned muscles hit the right spot and you throw your head back, using his throat for support, mewling little sounds that make him bite his lip, abandon his cigarette, let it fall into the cup that he forces away from your grip and sets it down. The smoke still billows out, twirling around your form, magnificently.
“Why don’t you wanna fuck me?”
Hobi sucks in a breath, leaning his head back against the mattress, hands following the movement of your hips. Drunk not on the alcohol, but on you.
“Because I’ve been nonstop fucking you and I don’t want your little pussy to be sore,” he says, truthfully, adding vigor to your dance with his words, even if he doesn’t realize it. “Which is why I want you to use me like this when you need me.” He breathes, raggedly, and you’re dazed. “And because—” He fists the front of your panties, squeezing the fabric between your folds, stimulating your clit with the pressure. “The next time I fuck you, we’re making a baby.” You cry out, your pleasure heightened, and, meeting your thrust, he slides the knuckles of his fingers down to your clit, letting you ride them, letting himself feel the swollenness, softness and wetness of your flesh. He moans along with you—the feeling divine. “You said you didn’t want it here. Tell me where.”
You can’t. Your orgasm quickens as do your grinding motions and you can’t see, you can’t speak, you squeeze your eyes shut—
“No, pup.” He stretches the fabric towards himself, essentially moving his hand away, and pushing your stomach back, your hips rolled forward, pussy throbbing and dripping in the air. You pant, gripping his hair at the crown of his head, eyes flung open, yet lidded. Terribly, terribly lidded. Sultry, dreamy, mesmeric. Despite the fact he ripped your orgasm away. “You don’t come unless you tell me where.”
He holds you in place, immobilizing you. You try to grind on him again, but to no avail. You expect him to click his tongue at your brattiness, but he doesn’t.
He does something else entirely.
“Take your time. I know. That was really intense.”
It’s a stark contrast to the restraint he has you in—your slowly sobering brain makes a note of that, only to dip back into the stupefying pool of your arousal.
And you whine, electrified by the pleasure that comes from all directions, that pushes forcibly against your neediness, heightening it.
You can’t take your time. You can’t tell him right now. You need to come.
“I can’t, Hobi.” Your breath shudders. “I can’t—”
“Breathe,” he rasps and you can see the way your neediness affects him, his chest heaving with almost identical staccatos, as though he was zapped with the delight he gets from it. His pupils are so dilated as his eyes melt into yours, a black pearl, but still enveloped by light. Cheeks flushed, mouth wet. The scent of patchouli, cigarettes and vodka, the remote corner of heaven.
You try to breathe, fluidly, as you take it in and Hobi helps you. Breathes with you, steadies the cadence of your recuperation. Doesn’t stop until he’s assured that your lungs are calm. And as a reward, he lets your panties slap back against your pussy, coaxing a moan out of you.
Doesn’t remove his hand from your hip, though.
A quid pro quo.
All right.
“I don’t want to get pregnant here. Not in Seoul, not in Korea,” you start, your lungs in a perfect rhythm. Hobi’s eyes enlarge as he listens, fingers spreading over your bum, just holding you there, squeezing the flesh every once in a while. The gesture soothes you, blesses you with tenderness that helps you continue with your words. “I want you to take me overseas, where I’ve never been.”
He hums, nodding, thinking for a mere moment, his eyes distracted on your belly button. And when he lifts them, he smiles. “Any particular place in mind?”
The country slips off your tongue, naturally, on its own, and you think that’s the one. Your heart spoke it, so it must be the place. You haven’t given much thought prior to it, just knew you didn’t want to conceive a child on this soil that remembers nothing but your pain and anguish. You held this within the chambers of your heart before you met Hobi—and way before you met Jungkook. And you figure that in the process it acknowledged itself with Hobi, studied his face, learned the ins and outs of his heart in such a short time, it riddled out the place, where the curse is meant to be broken in.
Once and for all.
“Turkey.”
You’ve seen the videos. Seen the dramas. The pictures. It met you and kept meeting you throughout your life, but you never gave much meaning to it. And now you perceive why.
You reckon that’s how life works. And it feels nice—to get to know life, to get to know its mercifulness.
“That’s a beautiful place, pup,” he whispers, taking his hands off of your body and cradling your face, pulling you closer and kissing you, lingering there for two, three, four seconds more. Your heart jumps, delighted to be validated, and you feel like weeping happily.
“You’ve been there before?” you ask, the wetness of your eyes gracing it with a glint that very seldom finds your usually saddened pools.
This is it.
This is it.
“I’ve had business meetings with Turkish companies that do their job well. Good people, good atmosphere.” Hobi smiles, reminiscing on something private and his cheeks warm.
You wish, intimately, that he would tell you everything.
“Will you tell me about them when we get there?”
Hobi nods, pecking your chin. “Yes, and then I’ll fill you up.”
You grin as he lingers there beneath you, eyes so bright and big, becoming crinkly at the corners once he reciprocates the grin. He kisses the front column of your next, tasting the layer of sweat that has enveloped it during your oh so evident neediness and you dip your head in your pool of arousal all over again—as soon as he withdraws and slaps your thigh, signaling you to hump his thigh.
You can’t wait to get knocked up. Hope time passes quickly, transforms into a substance that lifts you up and carries you all the way to Turkey, mercifully, kindly.
It’s this notion that you focus on as your hips begin to roll forwards and backwards on his thigh, but this time, as Hobi watches you with intention, he pulls your drenched panties to your side, his hand coming over to your bum and doing the same thing there, so the fabric doesn’t get in the way.
You kiss him for it, hungrily, licking over his tongue, and he moans into your mouth, the sound traveling down your body until it roots in your clit, where it spreads and drums a hymn for your feminine titillation.
And the feeling is divine—the sparks of pleasure that shoot up your core while your bare pussy rubs against the fabric of his pants, darkening it ever so quickly with your wetness. The feeling that he enjoys it, even more so when he voices it out.
“This is what it does to me,” he murmurs so terribly close to your puffed lips, grasping your hand and leading it to the place between his outstretched legs that he speaks of. He presses it against his painfully hard imprint and your fingers automatically wrap around it as much as they can, as if they recognize it’s their own toy. “To see you get turned on like this. To watch you use me because of it. I’m crazy for you—”
His phone rings in his pocket and your heart stops—as do your motions.
And you fear, rottenly, that it’s Jungkook who’s calling him. That he somehow found his number and is back at it again, clutching the curse like a sword in his hand. Ready to ruin, ready to devastate.
The feeling paralyzes you enough that it dries up your pool of arousal and you can’t blink, you can’t breathe, you can’t move. Your mouth parts, but no breaths come out.
At the sliver of freedom and joy—
“Jung Hoseok speaking,” Hobi answers the phone, the device slender and way bigger than his monumental hand, gazing into your eyes. Unblinking, too.
He listens to the other side spilling information in and once you catch his mouth flattening, those dimples gouging something unpleasant onto the smooth surface above his top lip and the brightness in his eyes dimming ever so slightly, the cranberries of your blood crumble, uncomfortably, beneath the skin of your forearms.
You pull your hand away from his crotch, slipping out of his grasp. He stops you before you get up on your feet, holding your strayed hand as he listens some more.
It can’t be Jungkook.
Hobi wouldn’t listen to a word he said and that phone would’ve long been flung across the room, if it were him.
You sigh a breath of relief, your body relaxing and slouching. You run a hand through your hair, gripping it at the back of your head to will some feeling into your muscles—as there’s nothing to fear.
It’s over.
It’s fucking over.
No ruination. No devastation. No impending curse about to absorb your life.
Nothing.
“I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate your work and thought, but allow me to remind you that it’s Sunday and I don’t work on Sundays, neither do my employees—”
Oh, the big bad boss.
The person on the other side interrupts him and Hobi scrunches his brows, mouth parting at the disrespect. Then, a smirk crawls over his mouth and he rolls his eyes, directing that smile towards you as the brightness in his eyes blossoms back. Playfully, he rolls his eyes again now that he knows he’s got your attention—and silently, he mimics the words the other person is saying, mocking them.
You laugh, softly, your relief expanding in you and shifting you back into your comfort zone. Hobi’s eyes widen and, using his intertwined hand with yours, he presses his index finger to his lips to signal to you to be quiet.
And he shouldn’t have done that.
He refreshes your pool.
And he seems to be aware of it by the way his countenance grows serious. It does something to you—the way he’s listening, working essentially, while being attentive to your feelings and state of mind. It’s attractive, the splitting of his attention. And you don’t have to rock your hips first—he encourages you to do it by curtly nodding his head at your hips, untwining from your hand and guiding your pelvis to dance again.
Not for him.
For you.
And the pleasure is much bigger this time around.
You can’t stifle your noises.
“That sounds absolutely great,” he says, quickly, in order to camouflage the volume of your delight as you hump his thigh faster, more vigorously, your breasts bouncing and slapping against each other. Hobi watches them with a deep furrow of his brows and his bottom lip caged between his teeth. Tortured, absolutely tortured.
It only urges you on—and you find yourself in a vapor of horniness.
“Yes, Da—”
He clamps your mouth shut with his hand, your moan caught in his palm. That act alone drives you prematurely to the peak of your orgasm and you know, you know, that if your clit rubs against his toned, clothed thigh just once, you’ll be coming all over him.
But Hobi manhandles you, pushes you down, gently, onto the floor.
You’d think he was angry with you, hadn’t he smiled at you—and your vapor thickens, your hormones fucking with your brain. Hovering above you, he grips your throat, merely holds you there without any pressure, and he kisses the tip of your nose.
He fucking kisses the tip of your nose.
Your pool leaks onto the floor.
“Be quiet,” he mouths and does it again, more prominently, to make sure you understand what he’s voicelessly saying to you. “Yes, I have about five employees in that department who would be willing to work on that. Very diligent and dedicated. One of the best people I’ve ever had under me.”
He cringes, realizing the wrong string of words he used in that silence, and you burst out into laughter—one he has to silence by clamping your mouth shut again, looking away to focus on a fixed point somewhere in your bedroom while smiling himself.
And you get his attention right back at you when you lick his palm. You expected him to be repulsed by it, but his eyes enlarge and his mouth falls agape as strange feelings wash over him. Then, he ruts against nothing and plunges two of his fingers, index and middle, into your mouth.
Your slick is warm as it trickles down your flesh and onto the floor; your body hot all over from the situation, the secrecy, his dominance and his fingers alone. His eyes deepen when they slide over your full mouth and you can see, even through your thick vapor, the way he’s swallowing down his growls. He strokes your tongue, barely, softly, plunging them further until he hits the spot that makes you gag. It sobers him quite rapidly, the sound. Swearing—still voicelessly—he starts to pull out his fingers, but you wrap your hands around his wrist, keeping him there as you suck on those long, slender digits, focusing on not making a sound.
His eyes lid, heavily, at your diligence.
“Three months, you said?” He tugs his fingers out, that anger evident, but not towards you—towards the other person. And he lets it out by ripping your panties away from your body in a blink of an eye. “Can we make that two?” He caresses the silky skin of your mound with his knuckles, without venturing downwards, and you shudder, needing him there. “Rub your clit,” he mouths and you gasp, even though you don’t know why. You’re so overwhelmed by the respect he emanates, horny and sensitive that any word he’d throw your way would make you react this way. You feel like a schoolgirl; small, submissive, breedable. And you want to please him, make him proud, do as he says. But you don’t share the same hastiness as him—because before you can get to the end of your thought process, he takes your hand and places it on your pussy.
He must be getting the same thrill out of it.
You rub your clit, obeying him, and watching him watch the work of your fingers as you twirl them on that swollen, little flesh—it’s nothing you ever experienced before. Your pleasure quickens, as hasty as Hobi to get you to your peak, and you have to lift your fingers in order to not come quick, your lungs heaving, your mouth letting out short breaths that make him absolutely feral.
“Oh, pup,” he mouths, the wrinkles on his forehead divulging the depth of his torment and pleasure from the sight. “Good job. So good. Yes.” He nods, encouraging you—and you almost come right then and there, but you lift your fingers just in time. Fists clenched, you throw your head back, frustrated but pleasured just the same. And you can’t take it anymore.
Neither can he.
He runs his hand down the middle of your body, stopping at your thigh, wrapping your leg around his torso.
“If you can’t make that work in two months, then we have nothing to talk about,” he bites, panting, but he hides it well, his voice untouched by it. Firmness and respect coats it, strengthens it, gives a new instrument to the hymn of your clit. “I have things to do and places to be outside of Korea and I can’t afford to be held back by three months. I’m sure I can find business partners who’d be able to make everything work in just one—”
Seething, he leans over, grabbing your vibrator. He turns up the intensity, the sound growing louder and louder and you shriek, soundlessly.
You’re going to explode if he uses that on your tortured clit—
“Apologizes for the noise.” Hobi spits on your clit, the long string of his saliva plopping onto your flesh, making you quiver and moan, quietly. “There’s construction work outside. I guess you’re not the only one working on a Sunday.”
The bitterness, the snide comment—you feel like screaming, in the most delicious, exhilarating way. And you do, when Hobi places the vibrator down on your needy clit.
He moves it, rapidly, from side to side while he’s still talking on the phone, but his words are a blur that you fail to understand, your whole being fixed and concentrated on the adrenaline blended with fireworks of intense pleasure that create an orchestra of passion. His imaginary wings unfurl and beat in the air, opulent and dusky black. His eyes never falter their hypnosis as they bore into yours, coaxing your orgasm out of you, while his mouth keeps silently telling you to be quiet, praising you to motivate you.
And you do explode.
In his face when he explains something you can’t comprehend.
And you come again when he takes a deep breath, stopping short in the middle of his sentence, shocked, zestful, wet and ecstatic. You sprinkle his chin and his neck, ruin, most beautifully, his polo shirt and devastate, even more so, his pants.
And he’s grinning, so awfully pleased.
Lifts the vibrator. Doesn’t turn it off.
“I’m sorry. I’m getting an important call from a family member, who comes first on days such as these. Please, don’t hesitate to contact my secretary and make an appointment with me. We will discuss further on the matter. Have a nice day.”
And he’s smart.
Ending the call, he turns off the vibrator and tosses both things sideways. Props both arms beside each of your shoulders. And the flush that was stifled during the entirety of the work phone call now peeks through the surface, the petals of roses licking across his skin. Your own flush promenades hand in hand with him in this close proximity, your golden aura, gained from your exquisite orgasm, bathing you in holiness.
And you still can’t speak, tongue-tied.
He sweeps away your flyaways matted to your glistening forehead, brushing his knuckles down your face. And when he reaches your jaw, he cups your chin and kisses you, tenderly. Gives you a hundred more. Little, hungry, yet pure kisses.
“What did we just do?” He laughs, softly, in disbelief, shaking his head. You laugh along with him, your still lingering and heightened vapor causing you to nearly levitate underneath him.
He kisses you again, deeper this time, more slowly. Your nectar gets smeared on your cheek from his with each voracious movement of his mouth, his head. And it’s an element that makes this become real for you. That helps you fathom that you just experienced an adventurous event that wasn’t a part of the curse—that was good, through and through.
And it’s yours.
No one else’s.
And he makes it even better when he shares the details of his phone call with you. Lifting you up and carrying you into the shower, he tells you of the way the “motherfucker” tried to keep him from breeding you for three months. Was cocky enough to promise him he won’t find a better business partner to work on a project that Hobi’s been passionate about for weeks—a way to get older children better education in schools in terms of things that aren’t normally taught: surviving skills, basic medical skills, cooking skills and life skills regarding various of things that they will need during and after high school. His organization also offers a form of preschool and elementary babysitting, therapy, library, game activities, singing, dancing, language learning—anything to keep those kids busy and away from their phones. It’s a place of rest, a place of safety and comfort and Hobi works hard to maintain that.
The guy offered his premises and means of educational materials, even though Hobi makes do just fine—but it wouldn’t be available for at least three months. He explained that he needed them for the semester, wanted to elevate his ways, which is why he sent out a word.
He told you all this while washing you clean in the steamy, hot shower. And it wasn’t until a week later that you found out the guy truly wasn’t able to make it happen sooner, but upon talking with him in person, Hobi was so satisfied with him and his work ethic, that he was willing to risk it. What he didn’t tell him over the phone was that he specializes in a group of orphaned children, homeless, and those who live in children’s homes. And Hobi’s mind was blown, his heart moved and softened, enough to shake his hand and start working on this renewed, expanded project. He put the kids that weren’t his first—and you fell in love with him deeper than you ever had before.
And it wasn’t until spring came about and the first heat waves of the sun caressed your skin that he booked the flight, paid for a luxurious hotel resort in Antalya, paid for your mani, pedi, your Shein order and shopping sprees in malls, where he found you the simple dress he was apparently going to marry you in, and held your hand the entire way there. It took half a year to fulfill his longing and his biggest dream—and half a year to break your curse. You spent it visiting him in the office to bring him snacks, eye patches and face masks, distracted him with quick fucks, strip-teases, blow jobs underneath the table while he kept his suit on, smeared makeup and lipstick on his face and collar whenever you were in the mood to make out with him.
It took such a long time, but you didn’t mind at all—because at night, you and him would pretend. Hobi didn’t want you to get on birth control; cared enough for your well-being by not wanting to confuse your body for a few months. Settled for the play of pretending—for condoms and nutting inside, going through the motion that there’s no latex preventing his longing from erupting. And during the day, you got to know him on a more meaningful, profound level.
He loves to dance. Has danced with you in the living room on multiple occasions. Slow dancing, bachata, lambada. He wasn’t shy; enjoyed every minute of it and you watched him shine like the heart-shaped sunlight he is. You found the core of him, like a seed within a cherry, when you had your arms locked behind the nape of his neck and he led your hips into the rhythm of the sensual song.
He loves children because he was loved right as a child himself. Wants to pass that on. Wants the kids to know that love exists, no matter what they’ve done. You broke down when he shared that with you and wished a place, like his organization provides, existed in your forlorn girlhood.
Maybe you wouldn’t have been so broken. So prone to bad decisions, imbecility. So liable to the poisonous kisses of curses, to their tempting touches and their manipulative sounds of sweet nothing.
Hobi had given you a promise ring right after he told you that there was to be a long waiting period for the baby. And when the time came and spring opened their buds of flowers, Hobi proposed to you. A grandiose diamond ring on your finger; plane tickets and more wons that you ever held in your hand, safely tucked in a white envelope. That’s how he announced it to you. And he didn’t get on his knee on the beach, where you glued your heart together.
Not in Seoul, not on the island of Jeju.
He proved his devotion to you and his irrevocable love for you amidst the surrounding mountains in Juwangsan national park by the Yongchu waterfall, five hours away from Seoul. Scraped his leisure pants because for a while you were paralyzed before you burst into tears and started running around, your first reaction of shock dispersing and turning into a holy euphoria you never experienced before. He laughed as did many people who were witness to the engagement, his hands that still held the ring box shaking as the audience clapped and cried along with you. Your white, linen dress billowed in the warm, spring-breathed wind, but you didn’t care much for it—because when you gained feeling in your muscles and your hunger to kiss him overpowered you, you stole and drew all of his patchouli-filled breath.
You made it yours as he became yours, too, eternally.
And when you gave him your yes, the mountains glorified yours and his love, exalted your unified souls, worshiped your hearts that beat for one another. Sang the praises of your unborn child.
You inhaled it, with gratitude and great importance, and it swirled within you even as you continued on your hike. Even as you visited the Daejeonsa Temple, where you spent the most time, dwelling in that thankfulness. You took in the beauty of the greenery, fresh air and mountains differently, more thoroughly and tremendously because you sensed they were there for you. Flaunted their earnest opulence and fervency for your happiness, for they knew you were looking back.
Life gained feeling, too.
And Hobi wouldn’t stop fondling your ring while he held your hand.
It’s what he does now as he presses the hotel room card against the device by the doorknob, a half month later. And it’s not lightness that is intertwined in his shoulders, but immense heaviness. Your flight was delayed by two hours and you waited another two hours for your luggage. Hobi didn't have to say a thing—it was written all over his countenance and figure, the weight of his perturbation. From his solemn look, tense features, lack of speech to his slouched shoulders, slightly shaking hands and deep breaths.
You don’t want to poke the beast, but you do want to pet it—make it feel better. Because despite the misfortunes, you don’t consider them setbacks or ruination. You are here, with him, engaged and about to get filled with his baby. No troubles can take that away from you and they can try as hard as they want.
You are about to carry his berry baby, conceived from the orchard he built in you, in the middle of Antalya, Turkey.
Nothing could be better than this.
Thinking about it, it paints a smile on your face. Hobi plants your suitcases on your king-sized bed, paying very little attention to the swan, made out of towels, sitting prettily in the middle of it, surrounded by rose petals, the ones that live beneath his skin so joyously and most comfortably. Feeling pity for him, because you know why he feels the way he does, you take his arms and slink through them, hugging his torso from behind, nuzzling your face in his oversized shirt-clad back that he wore for the first time in your presence.
Hobi? Oversized clothes? Strangely, it works, even though you’re so used to his suits, his well-fitted classic clothes that accentuate his buff figure.
He sighs, running his hands down your sides like he always does. You kiss his spine, without fear as you chose to wear zero makeup for the flight, but then he clasps your hands in his—right there in the center of his chest—and you swoon, tender and in love, appreciating the gesture, even though he’s done it many times before.
It’ll never get old.
“I can’t breathe in this room,” he murmurs, sighing a little louder this time around, and you furrow your brows, a wisp of worry curling in your gut.
You’re about to let go and open the balcony doors to let some fresh air in, but Hobi acts faster. He swivels halfway, takes one step back with you, and turns on the air conditioning. Waits a little bit, stares at a fixed point on the ceiling—only to discover that it’s not working.
Hobi punches the wall, startling you.
“Hobi?” you call out his name, the wisp fading into a strong wind that moves your organs to and fro.
He pinches his forehead, seething, and your instinct is to put a stop to it. You take his hands, notice they’re trembling, and the wind is knocked out of you.
Trembling hands… What are they portraying? Anger? Anxiety?
You sit him down on the bed, coming to stand in between his legs, and you cradle his face. Even the muscles in it quiver. Feebly, but they’re there. Pity constricts your heart.
“What’s going on?” you ask, searching for his eyes, and when he meets you halfway, there’s unbelief that paints a murky landscape across his darkened pools. The brightness is dimmed. Your heart laments it.
“Everything is going to shit. I wanted this to be perfect for you, but the air conditioning isn’t working. We waited for hours at the airport—”
You kiss his forehead, silencing him, and you linger there, even as you reassure him. “I’m so happy to be here with you that I couldn’t even give two shits about that.”
The unbelief deepens and you figure he expected you to be as disappointed and as cranky as him. He doesn’t understand that the time you’d been graced with, the absence of your ex and the opportunity to be in a place your heart had quietly dreamed of conquers any obstacles that have tried to get in your way.
You can’t be shaken.
Not anymore.
“We’re not at the airport anymore, we’re here. You can make a call to the reception and they will send a guy to fix it. It’s already perfect because I’m about to hear your English, first of all. And second of all, you’re gonna—” Your tone lowers to a whisper, “—breed me. Do unspeakable things to me here. Are we gonna fuck in the ocean? Oh, my god. I want that so bad. We can go to the beach at sunset with very few people around and you can nut in me. We’ll have a sea baby.”
This time, his sigh is dusted with relief and he slides your thighs over his, making you sit on his lap. The brightness in his eyes begins to flicker, shining through the murkiness, making its way back, and you’re happy to see it—relieved just the same. Though, you note something else, something new appearing in those pools.
The moon. Night-caressed pearls. The waves of the turbulent, passionate sea at midnight as they wash out that terrible landscape.
The same moon he carved into your thigh on your first date. The same moon that you hope will be lining your skin once he smothers you in his longing.
“I’m so grateful to have you. I’m so grateful to have you as my wife. No one compares to you,” Hobi says, the moonlit pearls in his eyes wet as he’s overcome with emotion. He rests his head on your bosom, hugging you tight. “I love you, pup.”
You bury your face in his silkily soft hair, reveling in the fresh undercut he got for this baby-making vacation. He purrs, happily, like a kitten, when you gently scrape your long acrylics upon that gritty surface.
“I love you, too.”
It’s time for dinner by the time you both come out of the shower, sharing one humongous towel. You push him down onto the bed and massage his back, helping him unwind on a deeper level—until his body is light and soaring, his eyes drowsy and lidded. Arm shading the lower half of his face, he studies the way you make love to your body by lathering it in shea butter lotion, then dressing it in a skin-tight, pale green, sleeveless dress with a slit in the back, its hem almost reaching your ankles. You put on some Aretha Franklin and open your clear makeup bag, reciprocating the eye contact in the mirror in front of the bed as you squirt foundation on your flushed cheeks.
You didn’t realize he was watching you.
“No panties, no bra?” he asks, his tongue dry as he licks his lips, still naked, glistening in the sundown from your lotion. Your eyes wander to his lower regions and find him hard.
You smile, tapping in your foundation with your beauty blender.
“I made the mistake of accidentally ordering extra small instead of small, so it’s tight on my body,” you explain your lack of underwear, your mouth ends quivering as he just keeps looking at you with bottomless devotion. “So I don’t want any panty lines or straps.”
“I think that’s no mistake,” he says, his hand gripping his shaft for a moment before it relaxes, concealing his weakness for you. “I’m gonna rip it off of you with ease once your belly’s full. And I’m gonna make it fuller.”
You bite your lip, blending your concealer, feral. “Careful, or no dinner for you.”
Hobi chuckles, his body twitching, and you sink your teeth deeper into the pillow of your bottom lip. “Why?”
Cream bronzer—you suck in your cheeks, making him suck in a breath. “If you keep talking, we’re skipping dinner and I’ll force you to make good on that promise.”
He scoffs, the sound full of humor. “There’s no forcing when it comes to you.”
You put on cream blush for nothing as your own natural blush resurfaces under that layer of makeup. “Your game will never not get to me, Hobi.”
He hums in response, a tinge of embarrassment coloring that sound, and you coo, finishing your make-up with a thin eyeliner, mascara, brows and a brown lipstick. You brush out your hair, letting it cascade down your back. Put on some gold hoop earrings. Spray on your perfume. Crawl over Hobi’s lap to show yourself to him.
“What do you think?”
He fails to cup himself now that he’s turned on his back, with how long he is, and you pry his hand away, kissing his palm, marking it with that brown shade.
“Beautiful,” he breathes out and your smile aches. “I’m gonna fight anyone who looks at you tonight.”
You laugh, softly, leaning over to plant that same mark in the middle of his chest—just like he marked you all those months ago. “No need to fight for me. Are you gonna get dressed?”
His shyness comes through, his flush reaching his neck and collarbones, and you salivate.
“I’m hard,” he says, nearly pathetically, and you coo, endeared by him. Grasp him with your left hand, purposefully, and his eyes flick to your ring, moaning. “Oh, pup.”
“What are we gonna do with you? I just put on my lipstick,” you whine, pouting feignedly, and Hobi whimpers, enveloping your hand with his fist, leading you to fuck him in a fast rhythm, the left over lotion on your palm making it slick and easy.
“Just lick my tip and stroke me like that,” he croaks out and you feel your folds soak with your nectar. You were fine with him marinating your makeup, but this is better. “You don’t have to suck it. Just lick it with that tongue of yours, pup.”
You swear, moaning, darting out your tongue and kitten licking the ridge of his head like he asked, twisting your wrist as much as he lets you in the deathly grasp he has over your hand.
“That’s it, baby. You know how to do it. You’re my smart girl. My smart wife,” he praises, throwing his head back as he takes the pleasure you give him, going as far as hollowing out your cheeks on that sensitive part of him, despite the fact he told you that you didn’t have to. He groans, deeply, lifting his shoulders from the bed and gripping your hair, his hand trembling all over again. “Fuck, you make it so hard for me not to fuck your mouth.”
You moan around him and he pulls you away from his cock and smashes his mouth against yours, kissing you so devastatingly ravagedly that you can’t breathe and you grow slack in his hold, sinking onto your knees on the floor.
He holds your face as he lets you go, your foundation and lipstick smeared all over his chin, lips and cupid’s bow. You gasp at the sight, gulping.
“I’m sorry, pup. You’re gonna have to redo your makeup. I couldn’t help it. You’re just so good,” he apologizes and you can see it on his face, how serious he is about it. “You deserve to be kissed like that. Hm, you’re such a good pup for me.”
You mewl, missing his lips already, and you quicken your pace around him. He lets you, matching you, and his sounds rise in volume.
“I’m gonna come so quick for you, just because you look so good like this.”
You hiccup, squeezing him. “Like what?”
He hums, licking his lips, tasting your girlishness, and he grins, lopsidedly. “So pretty on your knees for your husband with your makeup ruined, knowing he did it because you sucked him so well.”
The third person. You die—you die a beautiful death.
“Oh, fuck, Daddy.”
“Yeah, baby. I know. So good. Like always with you.”
And you come back to life.
You moan, giving him your all through your motions, sucking him, licking him, going even as far as taking his balls into your mouth, spreading your noises all over them, divulging how much you love that part of him. And he warns you before he comes. Doesn’t want to ruin your dress. And you watch as he spurts his cum all over his stomach while you milk it out of him—bedazzled, in love, fucked out and absolutely mesmerized.
And you rub his cum into his skin in the way you’ve noticed he likes to do on yours. Dig a grave for all the negative things he had to go through because of you and for you. You didn’t do that all those months ago, focused as you were on forgetting. But now that you’re healed from it and so is he, you dig that grave deep. Throw in his rightful anger, your ex, the painting. Sweep the soil back over it. And never look at it again.
He thanks you for taking care of him. Tells you that it was all because of how beautiful you are. Cleans the little you left behind of his own nectar while you fix your makeup. Dresses himself in black pants and a shirt that makes you laugh so hard that your stomach hurts.
A black and white shirt with a pattern of condoms.
“What?” he asks, but laughs along with you. “We’re saying goodbye to condoms once and for all, pup.”
You blush, terribly. He leaves the top buttons undone, letting all eyes see the way you marked him with your brown lipstick.
And he gets stared down at dinner. Cares very little, as smitten as he is with you—can’t lay his eyes off you as you walk, even as you eat and drink your Turkish tea, as you sway your body to the live, foreign music while your cigarette smoke dances along with you. Can’t stop touching you either—has to have his hand on you under all circumstances. On your forearm, the back of your hand, your knee or your thigh under the table.
Your belly, after all that food.
“I’m gonna marry you,” he says after a long moment of balmy silence. The spring wind, drifting from the palm trees, chilly ever so faintly, brushes your hair away from your face, caressing so coolly your freshly washed body, and you’re obsessed with the feeling. With his reminder that he’s gonna marry you. With him. With the fact you’re here with him.
There’s no other place you’d rather be.
“I know,” you intone, shyly, grinning, so terribly happy that its sparks detonate on your face, your thumb mindlessly playing with your ring. “I feel at home here.”
He seems to be touched by that. But you didn’t understand the gravity of his words.
Not until later.
Two strong cocktails in, the night falls. The musicians gather their instruments to leave, but Hobi, with a mind of his own, pulls you up to your feet to dance with you to the song of that balmy, restful silence. And the ardent dance, filled with twirls and sways, catches the eye of one of the musicians. An elderly man, with ebony hair, mustache and tender wetness in his eyes, picks up his decades-loved violin from its case and starts playing a song unheard by the night. A song made, intimately and privately, from his own gentle, but kindled heart for you and Hobi. The fervid song, tied with the fire of a passion shared between a husband and wife, moves you to tears and once the man sees them, he weeps along with you.
With your face pressed against Hobi’s, he barely leads you in the dance as you still ever so slightly to listen to that expression of love and marriage, paying your full attention to it. And if there ever were any forgotten crumbs of cranberries in your blood, the man’s mastery and Hobi’s touch smooth it out, completely. Order it, wordlessly, to swim out of your tear ducts.
The man ends the song and you and Hobi clap for him, bowing in all respect and sincerity. He sends you a heartfelt kiss and a thumbs up Hobi’s way, pointing at his shirt and you wave him goodbye, laughing.
No need for words.
All was said.
And Hobi senses it, a changed man. Because when you walk up to your hotel room and he sets you down on the bed—he doesn’t rip your dress away from you like he promised he would. No, he takes his time, revealing your skin little by little, kissing and licking every inch that opens for him. He’s that embodied passion and he unravels himself on your body, sucking on your perked nipple as he holds the rim of your dress beneath your breasts. Sighing, humming. Circling the tip of his tongue around that sensitive trigger. Your moans echo around the spaciousness of the room and he answers each and every one of them with his own.
“Do you want it now? On your first night here?” he asks, pools whisked to yours, grazing your nub with his teeth. You cry out, spreading your legs as far as the tightness of your dress lets you while Hobi’s body compresses them down with his weight.
You want it every night, every day until you have to return back to Korea. Want to be so full of his nectar that you’ll still feel it, even at home.
“I want us to try every day,” you say, stroking his hair, shuddering as he rolls his tongue up and down on that nipple of yours, nuzzling his face in your breast as he sucks it. Makes your brain malfunction a little bit. “Do you think they sell pregnancy tests in that little shop? I should’ve brought some from home.”
Hobi grows serious, popping your nub free. His puffy lips search for yours, enveloping them in a deep kiss. And he spreads tiny kisses on your cheek and jaw as he responds. “We can say fuck it and take that test when we get home.”
The same seriousness closes down upon you. “What if we fail? What if there’s something wrong with me that I don’t know about?”
He cradles your face, his thumb fondling your skin, your black eyelashes, sturdier than they usually are due to your mascara. “You’re young, you’re healthy. You have nothing to worry about. I’m older. What if my swimmers are blind, hm?”
Your eyes wet at the thought, but a sweet reminder seizes you—the softness you saw wrapping around him when he told you about the renewal of his work project, the amount of poor children without parents or homes that have won over his heart. And your answer is ready on the tip of your tongue.
“There’s always the children from your work. We can adopt. As many as we want.”
Hobi looks into your eyes, deeply, for a long time. And you don’t catch the drenching of his pools, nor the tender glint, the wetness of the pearls. No, you catch a single rivulet trickling down on each of his cheeks, plopping down onto your chest. The hard sucking in of his breath due to that softness swathing him all over again. The tremble of his lip. The petting of his hand over your hair as he exudes gratefulness.
“I love you, you know that?” he whimpers and you burst, your own tears dripping down the sides of your face as you take him in. The raw, compassionate and humane version of him that only few, selected people are allowed to see. You, his mom, his dad, his sister and… little Luna. And you sob, your whole body warm from the amount of love that boils in you for him. “You’re my good little pup. I love you so much.”
“I love you,” you whisper, your voice broken owing to the intensity of your feelings. Hobi kisses your neck and your hand brushes down his back, scattered with myriads of condoms. Try to feel for his wings. Want them as sensitive as his heart. “Your swimmers aren’t blind. They have 20/20 vision.”
Your little joke causes him to chuckle, adorably, and he makes that sound travel down your throat as soon as he kisses you again. Slowly, carefully—as if engraving the shape and the feel of your lips deeply into his brain, into his system that he will give to you. You want more of him, the intangible things as well as the tangible ones. All of him, all that put his being together; all that helps him get up in the morning and lay his head down at night.
And it invigorates you, the knowledge that you will get just that—once he fills you up with his nectar and his swimmers find you, perfectly. Yours and his berry baby will grow amidst the orchard he will continue to take care of; and you will have him.
Eternally.
Beyond death. Beyond the end of time.
You will have him—and you will have a little him as well.
“I want you,” you whisper onto his lips, perking up your breasts for him by squishing them together and he sees you, sees what you’re doing and he licks your nipple again, both of them at the same time in fact, torturously slowly, humming. “And I want a little you.”
Lifting his head to kiss you, nastily, he groans. The smack of yours and his mouth, the ridding of your dress—still slow, still sensual. He studies your body for a moment, shuddering, full of longing for him and his nectar, ready for him with the way it’s glistening in sweat and arousal. And he sighs, differently this time.
The sound is coated with as much longing as your body is.
You love being looked at by him; love the knowledge that he’s looking at something that’s his. Always been his to transform, make new, clean and heal. Always been his to love.
And he kisses his pathway down your tummy as if he thought about the same thing, his hands following every inch of your skin, fondling the places he kissed, licked and sucked. Not hard enough to create a mark, but lovingly enough to moisten you even more, to make your heart swell—and something else, too.
He stops at your navel. Squishes the lower belly fat, biting it as he coos—and you can feel how much he loves that part of you; always has. Because of that, there’s no insecurity tightening your lungs or worrying your brain. Only balminess, the sound of cicadas, the dance of the palm trees as the wind blows through it, the faraway sea sloshing upon shore and his noises caked with yearning—for you, for the baby.
“Our baby is going to live right here,” he says, as if he was coming to terms with it, now that he’s about to make it happen, and you soften, running your hand through the tufts of his windswept hair. “It’s going to grow and feel our love. Feel how much I love him or her. How much you do.”
You nod, a liquified softness. “Do you want a boy or a girl?”
He gazes at you through his lashes and butterflies zap your stomach. “I want a baby that looks like you.”
Your heart, too.
“So, a girl?”
He rubs his face in your tummy, breathing evenly against it. “Even a boy can have your features. Your hair. Your hands.” He takes it, the one closest to him, and drifts his fingers through yours. “I want to hold their hand and know I’m holding yours. And I want to give them the love I have for you.”
A film flashes through your mind. A little boy, sitting on a sofa next to resting Hobi, watching TV while his Daddy absentmindedly plays with his small fingers, kissing them, biting them playfully to make him growl in that adorable way. The same little boy growing into a young man, having been watered by the love Hobi has for you and the new, fatherly love he gained for him. One that does not cease even as he’s older.
A boy, a man loved by his Father—ceaselessly.
Something you never had, but your child will.
You don’t realize you’re crying until Hobi wipes your tears away. Your heart thumps so rapidly against your chest that you believe it could poke through the flesh.
And you fall for him, all over again.
“That’s the most beautiful thing you ever said to me,” you whisper, high on your heightened feelings for him, high on him. “Besides, ‘will you marry me?’”
Hobi smiles. Moves you so your head reclines on the pillows, knocking towel swan off the bed, making you giggle. And he sits on his legs, clutching your waist, thumb rubbing circles on your tummy, squished and overspilling in your position as you wrap your own legs around him.
Comfortable, safe, elated.
“Two days from now, I want you to wear that dress I bought you,” he says, his smile blossoming wider and your lips mimic the same movement for some reason, despite the fact your brows furrow in confusion.
“What dress?”
He slides his hands up your highs. “The white one. The one I told you I was gonna marry you in.”
A soft gasp leaves your lips and a mist of tears thicken in your waterline, understanding what he’s saying. “Are we—?”
“Yes, pup.” A stream, not a rivulet, cascades down his cheeks and you break, you break beautifully and happily. “We’re getting married in two days. I prepared everything. Your parents and mine are flying in. I paid for their plane tickets. A small wedding with the closest. My sister slapped me when I offered to pay for hers—”
An alarm rings loudly in your sternum and you don’t think before you voice it out. Hasty in a way you don’t like, but it’s due to a certain fear that you feel expanding throughout your body.
“What did my Dad say?”
Hobi’s smile doesn’t fade and it spurs a fragment of ease to shoot down your form.
“Your Dad gave me his blessing.”
A brand new shrub begins to grow in your orchard. The final one. A shrub of goji berries, healing, beneficial to your Father complex, the very means that will treat your scar caused from it, rejuvenate the skin that bears his ignorance, lack of love, care and attention.
And you can’t breathe.
Hobi lays the front of his body against yours, propping his chin against your chest, holding the side of your face in his hand, tracing your shock and unbelief with his thumb.
“He looked at me as if he wanted to kill me, but once he heard that I mean well with you and that I make good money at my job—actually, once he heard that I work with children, his whole demeanor changed—”
“He loves children,” you blurt out, your vision unfocusing. “He just doesn’t love me because I grew up. It’s some kind of block in his body, I don’t know.”
Hobi pauses for a moment, thinking about your words, his thumb now tracing your lost eyes—your eyelids, your eyelashes.
Your Father played with you when you were a little girl. Took you on walks around the city. Bought you McDonalds. Taught you how to count money when you were struggling, unsure if you had enough from the paper Wons he gave you. But once the sadness of your girlhood absorbed your life, his presence in it shifted and moved away.
And never returned.
“He does love you, he just doesn’t know how to express it. That’s what I sensed,” he whispers, his hand descending to your neck, and you wonder if he feels the twigs of those goji berries underneath that skin—that quickly they grow. “If he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t have listened to a word I said. He wouldn’t have asked me if there’s anything I needed from him in terms of the wedding. And he wasn’t mad about the fact that it would be non-traditional and in Turkey, though your mom insisted she’d wear a hanbok anyways.”
You’re so overwhelmed that you can’t speak, the notion that your Father always knew you strayed away from your heritage and preferred the West sneaking into your heart. He accepted it; and he accepted Hobi.
You reach within yourself, pluck a goji berry and feed it to the emptiness that lived within you for too long. And you do it again and again—until there’s no hollowness that eats at your insides.
You’re whole.
“Thank you for telling me,” you murmur, brushing your knuckles down his cheek and Hobi leans into your touch like he always does. “That healed me. I can’t wait to marry you.”
Hobi mirrors your softness and kisses you with it. And it’s now that the dip of the scar in your skin replenishes—through each and every moment of his mouth against yours and through his shifting to the place between your legs once you coyly ask for him there. He eats you as if he were starving, and it has great meaning to you—the fact it’s someone you love that is consuming you and not your emptiness anymore. Your feet slide across the pattern of the condoms on his back and it quickens your orgasm in the middle of his sucking and finger-fucking, all owing to the fact that Hobi made order in your life; healed your Father’s complex and now is preparing you to impregnate you, only to marry you two days later.
You come so hard that you don’t sprinkle him, but drench him whole, your nectar painting him in glimmering light that becomes holy in the moonlight that streaks through the balcony.
He heaves, ferally, kissing your clit over and over again—so hard that he’s essentially sucking it and you cry out in overstimulation.
“Taught you how to squirt, didn’t I?” he growls, hovering above you as the drops of your nectar pitter-patter on your chest and within your shyness due to his words, you’re ready for him.
He did teach you that. Since the fateful day of his work phone call, before and during which you edged yourself so painfully that when he pleasured you with your vibrator, you exploded just the same, you aren’t able to have dry orgasms. He has triggered something within you, using his businessman voice and respect, that rains for him and it has changed your sexuality once and for all.
“You did,” you try because of your shyness, your hands instinctively popping the button of his pants open, and Hobi hums, wiping his face clean and pushing his soaked fingers inside your mouth.
You didn’t expect it and the loud moan that slips out of your throat comes as a surprise to you. Hobi’s length twitches beneath your hands and twitches again when you suck on his fingers, just as loudly.
“I love it when you squirt for me, but pray to God, pup, that you don’t squirt around my dick because I’m not pulling out, you hear me?” he rasps, his voice deep and solemn, causing your walls to clench tightly and your heat to reach a boiling temperature. Your hand, mindlessly, slinks to your pussy to rub your clit and he tips his head, noticing it. “Move your hand.” You do, your heart bouncing in your ribcage. Hobi begins to thumb your clit and you writhe your body against the mattress, following each circle with your hips, the pleasure faint but so good. “Do you think you can hold your orgasms for me once I fuck you, hm?”
You whimper, regarding the idea impossible, knowing how well he does it. Impossible and rapturous. “No.”
He chuckles. Stops his circles. Lets you use his thumb. “I’ll make you, then. I can stop anytime.”
You roll your eyes back, his dominance-tinged words better than the stimulation of your clit. “Can you?” you bite back, playfully, your shyness vanishing.
Hobi bites his lip, intoxicated by your new confidence. Pins your hands above your head, leaning his weight on them. Brushes his lips against yours. “Don’t go bratty on me now. Don’t do it to the baby.”
You choke out a curse and Hobi digs his half-moons into your forearms. The moonlight anoints them, purifying the atmosphere.
“I’ll be good for the baby,” you whisper, curling your hips to feel more of his manhood, eager for it. “And good for you.”
Hobi growls, kissing the skin beneath your jawline just once. “A good what?”
You know what he wants you to say and your eagerness lengthens. “A good pup.”
Shifting so he can hold both of your wrists in his singular fist, he glides the tip of his cock along your feminine flesh—up and down, up and down.
“That’s it. A good Mommy for the baby and a good pup for me.”
He buries himself in your heat and it’s the breaking of the curse upon your life, for the intention is there. The final installment to your healing of your Father’s complex because you’re not a little girl anymore, walking in the withering forest of your saddened girlhood.
You’re a tender woman and you’re being made love to.
There’s respect to the languid and dionysian movements of his love, no matter the hardness he uses. A breath is choked out of you and he inhales it, letting your hands free to cradle your neck, pressing his forehead against yours as he moans. Your mouth is parted and Hobi plays with your tongue without closing down his lips on yours, which causes you to mark your nails down his lats. Goosebumps decorate his skin at the feeling and he speeds up, beckoning out your whiny noises as you take it.
His cock, the healing, the respect, the love.
“I love you,” he murmurs, consuming your noises as soon as he kisses you. Doesn’t stop ramming into you. “I love you, my pup. You’re my life.”
You cry out and he rips the coil of your orgasm by filling you to the hilt and lingering there, stimulating your clit by giving you fast, little strokes that makes his mound rub against it. And the orgasm overtakes you, your whole body limp and delighted as the heavenly pressure courses down every nerve ending, spreading that healing, respect and love, sealing it there.
“God, that was beautiful,” Hobi comments, stunned by the explosion of your pleasure, and he begins to give you long, hard strokes that empty out your brain and try to push out your sudden guilt for coming when he wanted you to hold back your orgasm.
“Oh my God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
“No, pup,” he groans, the muscles around his eyes tightening as he pants. “You’re good. Just keep coming for me. I was only kidding, pup.”
He takes your nipple in his mouth, his back strong and monumental and you sink your nails into it, marking him with the same half-moons, blushing, joyful. Hobi returns to your neck, your jaw and lips and you whine at the principle of him returning.
The feeling of it is so enormous that you come again.
“Yes, pup, that’s it. Come for your Daddy. So pretty, yes. I’m so close. I’m right there with you. Gonna make you a Mommy.”
The words that are true, at last. Not a pretense.
And then he’s fast, fucking you into the bed. Changing his mind at the last minute and lifting your hips into the air, slamming into you so hard that you have to hold onto his forearms, scattering your half-moons there and you take it all, ravenous, yet tender as you are. The squelching noises, his growls melting into soft mewls as you squeeze around him and it’s him who can’t take it.
Who can’t take the distance.
Who places your hips back down and eats your mouth, plunging his tongue inside while keeping up his rhythm. Never once faltering, nor wavering. He kneads your breast, sucks on your lip, bites it. Holds you by your throat, pushing his thumb inside your parted mouth and you have a feeling, amidst the haziness of your mind, that’s your trigger. One of them, at least.
“Suck on it.”
You clamp down on his length, obeying. Your orgasm inches closer, your fourth one of the night.
“Good pup,” he husks, closing his eyes for a split second, slowing down, rolling motions. “Are you ready to become a Mommy for our baby? Daddy’s so close.”
The sound that leaves you is of such a desperate kind that he grunts, delighting in it. Buries himself inside you to the hilt, stopping there, giving you tiny strokes that scramble your brain, plays with the haziness. Your arousal and your yearning is so raging and feverish that the pain of his tip osculating your cervix feels divine. And all you can think about is how it’s going to widen over time for yours and his baby.
“Yes, yes, please. I want it. Give it to me, please, please, please,” you beg, your lungs and your pulse quickening, muscles taut and Hobi moans in a way you’ve never heard him before.
The longing at its peak, sensitive, delicate and frail—yet he still remains as strong and monumental as he is. His Achilles’ heel has been struck and he begins to twitch inside you.
“Oh my God, pup, I’m coming so hard for you.” Long strokes, whimpers. “Are you gonna take it like the good little wife you are?” The ultimate hard thrust—the blooming of his longing, your agreement, and it’s happening. He comes. “Fuck, fuck, yes. It’s all yours. It’s all yours, pup.”
He paints you anew with the warmth of his nectar, fucking it deeply into you. And the title you utter is not one construed out of your lack, but it’s a crowning of his new role.
“Daddy.”
The final breaking of the curse.
The conclusion.
He continues to ram into you, softly, his thumb finding your clit—and it’s over.
Everything.
You step into a new life with him while you’re still connected and he keeps coming for you, his swimmers antsy and desirous to find your egg. And crossing the threshold, you come—devastatingly intensely, your body trembling and his mirroring the same shakes while he gives you the last of his all and a kiss that lasts a lifetime.
A clean slate, a clean heart, a clean body.
A clean life.
An orchard, brimming with fullness and ripeness.
Ready for your berry baby.
He looks at you for a long time, then, grinning so widely that you can sense the entirety of his joyful heart in it. His eyes wet and his smile softens as the gravity of what just happened washes over him. You feel the same process collapsing over you, splendidly, and you think that you and him must have become one.
“We did it,” he whispers, a tear pouring down his cheek and another one following.
You nod, your cheeks stained with the same tears. “We did it.”
And the newness of your life and being feels natural—just as though it has been there the whole time.
On the day of your wedding, bright early in the morning—after Hobi woke you up with his sensual The Weeknd playlist and ate you out so calamitously that you had to give it back to him by riding him into oblivion—you sit down for breakfast and discover something about him that almost makes you call it off.
Hobi put strawberry jam on his butter toast with scrambled eggs.
The Turkish sun envelops him bewitchingly, makes his tanned skin glow in its light as he enjoys, provocatively, every bite of his strange breakfast, focusing all of his attention on it. His eyes never leave it and his mouth smacks so loudly that it as irks you as it makes you laugh.
Your unbelief towards that combination is so strong that it took you some time before you could speak up.
“What the fuck, Hobi?”
His eyes flick in your direction, innocently, cheeks full and squirrel-like, layered in sweat. His hands hold a half of the toast, despite the fact you and him just sat down. Does he really enjoy it that much? He inhaled it.
“What?” he asks, mouth full, and you chuckle.
“Jam and eggs?”
He swallows, making a sound that divulges just how much he loved that bite. “Pup, it’s so good.”
You widen your eyes. “I’m not marrying you today,” you say, but you don’t mean it. You’d marry him even if he forced that abnormal toast down your throat.
He’s not one bit perplexed by your sentence. Stares you down as he runs his tongue over his teeth, mouth closed. “Be quiet.”
Heat comes apart in your body and you blush, squeezing your thighs together under the table.
“How could a combination of eggs and jam be good?” you ask, standing your ground, despite your feelings.
Hobi smiles. “One time I accidentally put sugar instead of salt on my scrambled eggs and it changed my life forever.”
Your eyes might pop out of your sockets. “What?”
He laughs, extends his hand towards your face. The sweetened, yet buttery smell of the toast hits your nostrils and your repulsion towards it dissolves. “Try it.”
You don’t trust it, though. “I’d rather die.”
He tightens his lips. “Be quiet and take a bite.”
Taken aback, your instincts win and you don’t realize your head is leaning towards the toast until your teeth sink into the crunchy tastiness. You take a small bite and thoroughly chew, the mixture of sweetness and a little bit of saltiness, wrapped around the crispiness of the toast and the slight mushiness of the eggs creating something metaphysical in your mouth.
Hobi watches you with a proud, lopsided grin. Knows you like it before you say it.
“What the fuck?”
He bursts into laughter and lets you have it, places it on your plate before devouring his second one, your liking for it elevating his.
And you devour it just the same.
“Life changing, isn’t it?” he intones, smacking his mouth in all the pleasure of the world. “Expect this kind of breakfast every morning when we get home. After I eat out your little pussy.”
You choke on it and hide your feverish face in your hands, your stomach doing somersaults. “Oh my God, Hobi.”
He laughs again, tenderly, and the sound travels all the way to Cappadocia, where he marries you at sundown.
On the rooftop of a cave hotel, overlooking an immeasurable amount of kaleidoscopic hot air balloons that magnetically travel to the heat of the orange sun, the mountains and volcanic peaks darkened by its overpowering magnificence. It encourages the sleepy walk of camels and tightens the hearts of the witnesses below and the hearts of your parents, parents in law and Hobi’s sister.
The simple dress Hobi bought you ripples in the compassionate late afternoon wind. Silky, pearlescent like his eyes in a certain light, caressing your tanned skin. So very akin to the one you wore on your first date with him, but longer, sleek, homeric in its significance.
And he matches you, all white, in his tuxedo, a stark contrast against his bronze skin and black hair, a wispy strand softly being blown sideways from his forehead by the wind. He holds his tears back in the same way he holds your hand—with all his might. And you do the same.
You share your vows.
He shares his, intertwined with the first poem you recited for him.
“I’ll carry your heart with me ‘til my last day on this Earth and I will fear no fate because you are my fate.”
Through your tears, you can see the way he’s stifling his habit of saying your pet name. And when he catches your quivering smile, he breaks into more tears.
And when you proclaim that you do take him as your husband and when he proclaims that he takes you as his wife, your tears conjoin as do your souls in a kiss that makes the mountains quake. The heat of the Turkish sun perpetuates the act of love.
The audience cheers.
Your Father weeps.
And you believe no sadness, no ruination will ever come close to you again.
You and Hobi celebrate. Dance throughout the night to foreign, passionate music that your heart seems to know. Fly in a hot air balloon, where he gets drunk and kisses you until your lips get numb.
Almost throws up all the dark liquor he drank once he sees how high from the ground he is.
And you can’t stop laughing.
Not as he takes you to the Valley of Love the next day to look at penis-shaped rock formations that nature apparently formed out of the blue.
Not as you give birth nine months later and he makes his sound effects as you push out his child.
A baby boy that has your hair, your hands, your mouth and your chin—and a whole lot of Hobi’s pearlescent eyes and slender nose. A delectable, heavenly concoction.
And certainly not as you take the five-year old boy to the Yongchu waterfall, where his Father proposed to you, and he starts sputtering out uncontrollable giggles when Hobi tells him that you ran around when he popped the question and precisely, with utmost detail, shows him how.
On your way back, when little Hyeonwol’s legs hurt and drowsiness weighs him down, he surveys the mountain peak, transfixed by it. You and Hobi notice it at the same time and share a look that could never be described through any poetry, through any beauty of words, not even the ordinary kind.
And it’s automatic, a silent, collective and simultaneous decision to break Hyeonwol’s spell by kissing each of his cheek.
The dream came true.
All dreams have, even those undreamed.
And you believe that even as you grow old with Hobi, you’ll never stop laughing.
You’ll never stop eating strawberry jam toasts with scrambled eggs with him.
With Hyeonwol, too.
And you'll never stop feeding the berry boy the fruits from the orchard that Hobi continues to take care of within you.
HYEONWOL — HYE-ON-WOL
賢월
Meaning: worthy moon
This name is given to a worthy person who is as precious as the moon.
𓂃 ౨ৎ LOVE-KISSED BABIES: @tkslovechild, @jjk7k, @parkinglot-nights, @bethvar, @Sexytholland, @yoongibaybee, @crystaleah,@fennecnco, @lil-kpopstan.
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