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callmeelle22 · 3 years ago

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Blue Dream IX

Pairing: Iris West x Barry Allen

Rating: E

Chapter Word Count: 6, 258

Summary: A series of sporadic dates between Iris and Barry turn into something more, a story in its own making.

Chapter I: Primetime

Chapter II: It's Cool

Chapter III: Anything

Chapter IV: Comfortable

Chapter V: The Way

Chapter VI: Say Yes

Chapter VII: Brave

Chapter VIII: Blue Dream

Chapter IX: He Loves Me; Because she looks like a woman drowning in bliss, a woman draped in desire, the look of it hugging like a second skin. She looks like the way women might be described in romance novels, so satisfied she can’t think of anything other than being wrapped up in the man giving her the satisfaction. She looks like the woman in some fantasy or dream, ascending the clouds, spread out and open in an expanse of blue. She sings it in her head, you school me, give me things to think about; invite me, you ignite me, co-write me, you love me, you like me; incite me to chorus, at the same time that she sings out loud, “god, Bear, baby yes,” her eyes fluttering closed at only the very last minute. (Read below or on AO3 linked on the chapter.)

He Loves Me

You love me especially different every time

You keep me on my feet happily excited

By your cologne, your hands, your smile, your intelligence

You woo me, you court me, you tease me, you please me

You school me, give me some things to think about

Ignite me, you invite me, you co-write me, you love me, you like me

You incite me to chorus, ooh

She tells him she loves him on a Friday night.

A week later, and it's the first night in a long while that she doesn’t get to stay at home because Barry has asked if he can have her time tonight. He doesn’t give her any details, only tells her to come over to his place around 8 and to be prepared to stay over. He seems particularly animated, when he asks, and it makes Iris wonder why, if he’s got something planned or if it’s just that he’s happy he gets to spend the time with her, even if they’ve been around each other more than usual this week.

So, the entire day, she’s dizzy with excitement.

Her taping of Good Morning, Central City is mid-morning. The segment tapes live at 9:30, which gives her some time to down a cup of coffee or two to settle her nerves, and then carefully apply her makeup. She dresses in one of her favorite dresses, a long sleeved wrap dress in black with soft, pretty flowers printed on it and a pair of shoes that boost her confidence, tall black pumps with a gold heel and gold double chains around the ankle. The neck of the dress dips and the delicate material flirts with her lower thighs; she feels pretty in it, in a lighter, brighter way than she’s found herself feeling before. Her makeup is subtle, except for the dark maroon lip, and she’s had her hair blown out and it hangs in soft fingered out curls just past her shoulders. A small black bag is all she takes to keep her keys and cards and then she’s out the door.

WCCTV, the station that houses the studio, is a short drive away, tucked into a neighborhood that Iris doesn’t frequent. She isn’t sure what she was expecting of the station, but it’s a squat little building in an unimaginative cream and brick scheme that would look like any other commercial building if not for WCCTV printed in large blue letters on the building and the satellite dishes spaced intentionally around it.

A news producer meets her at the door, a thin young woman with thick red hair piled into a high ponytail who introduces herself as Katherine.

“We’re all excited to have you here,” the woman says, smiling as she leads Iris through a number of desk cubicles towards a back room. She recognizes a couple of the anchors from the station, who all look either intensely focused on their work or bored out of their minds.

“Thanks,” Iris says politely. “It is a little overwhelming here, though.”

Iris doesn’t love speaking in front of people, which is why she's firmly on the invisible side of her work, but she isn’t as nervous and she figures she could be. There’s that feeling in her belly she connects with nerves, but it’s slight; instead, she’s ready. This can change the trajectory of her blog, invite more viewers and more paying ads. It could invite more stories, people who see her and trust that she wants to do right by them and their lives. She’s practically giddy with the idea.

Katherine’s response is an easy grin. “I know it seems that way, but you’ll be fine. You look fabulous so that’s one concern out of the way. Plus, Alexa and James are phenomenal at getting people to open up at the same time that they project a sort of calmness. It's fascinating to watch and I can tell you’ll be great.”

“Thanks, Katherine. I really appreciate that.”

Iris is led back to a small room where the two anchors for Good Morning, Central City are standing with four other local internet stars. Alexa May is tall and blonde and exactly like what one thinks about when they think of a news anchor: pretty and personable on a killer black skirt suit, though Iris is a little surprised at the naturally kind gleam in her eyes. James Broderick is even taller, his dark hair styled to look windswept, his ice blue eyes looking constantly around the room, as if he’s always wondering where a new story might be.

Iris steps in to greet the other four guests. They include a short Somalian woman in a beautiful bright purple hijab who cooks and shares recipes on YouTube; a stocky white guy known for his skits on TikTok; a dark-skinned Black Instagram beauty guru; and a non-binary Mexican person who discusses true crimes on Snapchat ala Buzzfeed Unsolved. It’s an eclectic collection of people and Iris feels honored to be a part of this group. She’s watched all of their videos in some fashion, though she’s more partial to Aya, the home chef, and Nadine, the beauty grammer. Still, they each have large followings and to be included gives Iris such a sense of pride, that she’s a little drunk with the force of it.

“You guys ready?” Alexa’s strong voice pulls all of their attention immediately, and Iris passes one more look through the crew of them before locking eyes with Alexa and James.

She nods her assent.

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At 8, Iris pulls into Barry’s two-car driveway right next to his Jeep backed up into the drive as usual. The garage is open, though, and she takes that as an invitation to walk into the house, finding the kitchen door unlocked. She steps in and presses the button that closes the garage, locks the kitchen door behind her.

Her giddy mood has stuck with her.

The segment had been a quick fire round of questions and answers, with the hosts wanting to know how they all got started, what motivates them to do what they do, and the ups and downs of being in spaces of both influence and criticism. It’d been fascinating to hear the stories of the others, and afterward, they’d all exchanged contact information with the idea of collaborating on future projects.

After, she’d gone to lunch with her dad and Wally, who’d all but hinted at a watch party planned for the following night. She'd merely shaken her head at her family’s love of partying.

Now, she’s at Barry’s and she recognizes that tonight is going to be different. Because she knows that she’s going to say it. After the last part of her interview, where she’d all but explained to Alexa and James that she’d fallen in love with someone, she understands that there is no way that she can announce it on television and not tell the man himself.

It’s fairly dark in the house; there is a small light on above the stove. She continues through the quiet living room, a single table lamp lighting her path down his hallway. She pauses to pull her jacket off, tossing it over the arm of the sofa as she treks towards his room. That’s where she finds Barry, sitting in the large overstuffed chair in the corner near the window.

She takes a moment to look at him, in a pair of soft looking pajama pants and a simple white t-shirt, tattooed arm hooked behind his head as he sits wide-legged in the chair. His dark hair is only the slightest bit messy. Iris likes the look of the breadth of his shoulders, the bulge of his biceps, the print of his sex visible through the thin cotton of his pants. He’s not overtly sexy in the way that other men she’s dated have been, but there’s something about Barry, his eyes and his mouth and his length, that really gets to Iris.

She drags her eyes away from him and that’s when she suddenly notices the two gift-wrapped boxes sitting in the middle of his bed, the large bottle of wine and two glasses on his bedside table, a couple of pre-rolled joints sitting beside them too.

Iris steps further into the room, her heels heavy on his hardwood floors; the movement is enough to catch his attention and his head pops up, those sea-foam eyes glittering behind the wire frames of his glasses as he smiles up at her.

(And, Iris will realize later, her entire body floods with her affection for him, the feeling familiar in that the thought comes so much easier now, comes to her so smoothly that she doesn’t know how it’d once felt so difficult to get the words across.)

“Hey, beautiful,” he greets as he stands, unfolding his long frame from the chair. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“That’s okay,” she smiles at him as he comes to a stop in front of her. She naturally reaches out to wrap her arms around him, tightening them around his waist. His touch is automatic too, his big hands landing on her neck, thumbs trailing softly across the skin on her cheeks. She falls against him, his firmness and his warmth and the soft smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He leans down and kisses her, a peck and then another, and then a longer one, his tongue easing out to coax her open. He pulls back first, though slowly, and Iris chases after him. He obliges with another kiss, this one longer, wetter, Iris squeezing him to her.

“Hi,” she speaks, voice a little faint.

“Hey, beautiful” he repeats. He thumbs at her bottom lip, the tip of his finger tracing gently over the line of her mouth.

“What’s all this?” she asks, when she pulls away from him this time. She gazes around the room again, at how the only lights on are the bedside lamps and at the weed and wine waiting on one of those tables and the gifts sitting neatly on the bed.

“It’s a celebration,” he says with a wide smile. “Well, it’s your Friday night routine, just here. I got the wine and the weed, and Thai ordered out here for a bit later.” His smile dims a little, becomes unsure. “And I thought we could talk about your segment today; maybe actually watch it. I recorded it.”

“Really?” Iris’s eyes widen in slight surprise. “I know my dad and Wally did because we’re gonna have a watch party at dad’s place tomorrow. And probably Linda, but...”

“Of course I recorded it, baby.” Barry gives her an indulgent look. “I tried to watch some of it at work, but we got called out on a case before you came on. Then I thought it’d be better to wait to watch it with you.”

Iris doesn’t have a response other than to bite at her lip, eyes trained on him, the reality of his kindness rendering her momentarily speechless. Barry doesn’t acknowledge her silence; instead, he plants another firm kiss to her mouth and steps away from her, nodding at his bed.

“Is this all okay, though? Maybe you can open your gifts and then we can pour the wine and turn on your interview?”

Her smile is big. “Yeah, Barry, of course.”

She looks over at the sleekly wrapped presents before going to sit on the edge of his bed. She makes quick work of unclasping the buckle around her ankle, leaving her shoes strewn on the floor, and then she hops up into the middle of the bed, pulling the two boxes in front of her, her dress riding up to the top of her thighs.

One of the boxes is bigger than the other, though it’s lighter than the heavier one. They’re wrapped in shiny gold paper with dark blue bows sitting in the corner of each. She picks up the bigger present first, tearing through the paper. She recognizes the garment box and thumbs open the top. Nestled in white tissue paper is a pile of red silk, the material so soft and delicate it looks like waves on the cardboard.

“Bear?” she questions, picking up the folded clothing. It’s a nightgown and matching robe. The gown is almost like a dress she’d wear out, with thin straps and a split up the right side, except the fabric of it is so light, one can tell it’s only made to be seen by a lover. The feel of it in her hands is so nice and Iris knows that this isn’t like the inexpensive dresses she buys for herself.

“I thought that you could have one to keep over here sometimes,” he says when she catches his gaze. He looks a little bashful, cheeks slightly tinged pink. “I know that Friday night is largely your thing, but maybe every so often you can spend it with me.”

“And wear this?” Iris asks, her grin widening slowly.

Barry nods.

“I think that this is really a gift for you,” she says and he barks out a laugh.

“It is my favorite color.” He grins. “And I admit that when I saw it, the first thing I wondered was how it would look as I took it off of you.”

Iris rolls her eyes in jest. “Pervert.” She fingers the material again. “So you picked it out yourself? In a store?”

“You have no idea how embarrassing it is buying women’s lingerie. The sales lady kept making these innuendos and I thought I was gonna pass out, I was blushing so hard.”

“Oh, you poor thing,” Iris laughs as she reaches over and pinches his cheek. “You did good though. It’s so soft.”

Barry beams at her. “Can I get a kiss as a thanks?”

Iris shakes her head. “Not until I open this other one. I could hate it and then that would overshadow how much I like this nightgown.”

He snorts. “Even if you do hate it, I’ll still get to see you in the nightgown and, honestly, that’ll make my night.”

“Like I said: pervert.”

He just chuckles as she picks up the heavier box and claws at the paper on it. It looks like some sort of leather book, and once Iris pulls all of the paper off, it takes everything in her not to just start bawling right then and there. It’s the journal she’d seen at the fall festival, except in a pretty royal purple instead of the coral she’d picked up there; this one’s definitely a better choice. It has the rose gold edging that the other had and her name is stitched in that same color at the bottom right corner of the journal. She flips through it, fingering the heavy cream paper. Handwriting catches her attention and she turns to where Barry has written a message on the first page in small, scrawling script.

Iris,

I think I knew that I was falling for you during fall fest, when I saw you staring down at the notebook with such a look of reverence on your face. I could see in that moment how much you loved your craft. It made me curious about you, about someone who’s goal in life is to be the voice for those who can’t or simply won’t. And when I started to read your work, I saw your heart in everything you wrote, in every line that scrolled across my computer screen. I wanted to know that heart.

Now that I do, now that I’ve seen it firsthand: in the way that you touch me, in the way that you smile at me, in the way that you make me feel like every day is new story to experience, I want to be able to experience it for as long as you’ll let me. Because you are a lightning bolt, Iris, brilliant and electric. You are beautiful and tenacious and the single most fascinating person I’ve ever met.

So keep putting your heart into your stories, and I’ve no doubt that everyone who reads it will love it as much as I do.

Barry

“Barry,” she says, breathes really. She looks up at him, his expression nervous, his eyes tracking her. She feels the moisture pricking at the corners of hers and she blinks, letting the tears fall.

“Iris.” His voice is a little raw as she gazes up at him. “I’m sorry. Please don’t cry. I can…” he cuts himself off as he reaches for the journal. Iris swats at his hand and brings the notebook closer to her. “Iris?”

Another tear, and then another and then more, roll down over her cheeks and Barry stares at her, hand outstretched, mouth agape.

“Iris,” he tries again. Wordlessly, she places the journal back down in the box and then she crawls over to him, planting herself in his lap. She wraps herself around him, legs locking around his waist, arms crossing behind his neck. He closes his mouth, but his features are still twisted in turmoil. “Baby, please tell me why you’re crying.”

He asks this as he reaches up to wipe the tears from her cheeks. Everything in Iris seems like it’s settling now, even as the tears fall. Even clearer than before, she can read the story of them, like the book is in front of her, words bold and in technicolor. She can see the dream she’s living in, the vision of them laughing with each other and making love to each other, for days on end, one that plays out like a movie in front of her.

She tightens around him, trying to get as close as she can without crawling inside of him—she really wishes she could right now—and she sniffs, looking down at Barry through her wet lashes. She takes a deep breath. And then she tells him.

“I’m crying because I love you.”

Much like the last time they’d had this conversation, Barry’s body stiffens beneath her. He asks carefully, “And loving me makes you cry?”

She nods and Barry looks stricken. It’s what she needs to bring a modicum of levity to the moment and she huffs out a small laugh. “These aren’t sad tears, Barry.”

Iris can physically see him exhale, letting out a shaky breath. His shoulders lose their tension and he gives her a tentative smile. She returns it.

“For someone who always seems to know what I’m thinking, you completely missed the mark here.”

Barry shakes his head as Iris notes the flush climbing up his neck. “The tears threw me off.” He wipes at her face. “Please never do that again.”

She laughs. “I’ll do my best.”

Barry runs a hand down her back, over the fabric of the dress she’s wearing, and he grips her chin with his other thumb and forefinger, bringing her down so he can stare into her eyes.

“So you love me?” he wonders. His voice dips, lower like midnight walks on a beach in the fall or like early morning talks before coffee and reality ease in. He pulls the glasses from his face, folds them on the table beside them, and gives her all of his attention. She likes being surrounded by him like this, by the look of him and the smell of him and the feel of him. She stays wrapped around him like a koala and Barry holds on to her too, gripping her chin and pressing her to him with a wide palm to the small of her back.

“I do,” Iris nods. “Very much.”

Iris can see the joy brimming in his gaze. “Can you tell me?”

“Tell you?”

“What you love about me.”

Barry shifts so that he’s sitting more comfortably on the bed and she’s perched even closer in his lap, the crotch of her panties almost pressing against his belly. He pushed the boxes and wrapping better towards the edge of the bed.

“For example,” he says, and he lets go of her chin to touch his palm to her chest. His hand is warm through the fabric of her dress. “You know that I love this heart, how gracious and compassionate it is.” He reaches down and picks up on her hands, rubbing a thumb along her knuckles, along the rings that adorn her fingers. He brings it up to his mouth and presses a few tiny kisses along the pads of her fingertips. “I love these fingers, because it’s through your writing, your typing, that you show yourself, even when you can’t always physically or verbally.” He goes back to her face, his thumb caressing the middle of her bottom lip. “I love this mouth: the way that it smiles and laughs, the way that it purses when you’re annoyed, the way that it feels on my own.”

Iris can’t help it when she licks her lips, tongue swiping at Barry’s thumb. He makes a soft grunting sound.

“Tell me, Iris.”

She thinks back to the second night they’d been together, when he’d been hard inside of her and he’d asked her to tell him how he felt fucking into her. She decides that this is even harder, not because she doesn’t know, but because when she speaks it, it’s officially there, written out in the sky, heaven coming to collect on its bet.

“I love your tattoos,” she starts, tentatively. She unhooks one of her arms from around his neck and touches at the skin on his arm, tracing the outline of a white daisy. “I love that you did it as a way to remember your mother; I love that you were brave enough to put the iris on your heart, even when I wasn’t sure how to receive that.” She reaches up to trail her fingers along his brows. “I love your eyes. I love the look of them, the fact that I can’t actually name what color they are; I love the way you look at me, how you can tell my feelings by just watching me, how it seems like I’m the only one you see whenever we’re out together.” She lets a nail trace the outline of his mouth, dropping her hand to rest on the back of his neck. “I love your mouth too; the way you always say things that make me feel beautiful or smart or loved.” She licks her lips again. “Or make me blush, like when you’re saying those dirty things when you’re…”

Barry gives her a deep smirk, those eyes flashing in a way that makes Iris’s body clench. Her thighs close around him.

“Like me saying those dirty things when I’m…?”

She rocks her hips. “You know.”

“I do,” he nods, “but I want to hear you say it.” He grinds up into her. “When I’m what, baby?”

“When,” she licks her lips again, slower this time, buoyed by the way his eyes darken, “you fuck me.”

“Mmmm,” Barry groans and then his grin changes to something a little indecent, darker and dirtier. “You know what else I love?”

Iris shakes her head, though she thinks she does.

“I love the way you respond to me, when I’m saying those dirty things to you when I’m fucking you.”

Iris rocks her hips again and she knows that it’s an involuntary moment. Because, like always, she responds to him easily, fluidly, like they’ve become extensions of the other.

Barry fingers at the hem of her dress sitting around her thighs. “Take this off,” he demands. “I want to show you how you look.”

Even with her brows furrowed in confusion, she does what he says, pulling the dress up and over her head. She reveals to him her bra and panty set, a dark green that even she thinks makes her skin glow. He fingers the lace at the top of the cups of her bra, at the same piping along her hips.

“As pretty as this is,” he murmurs, “I want it gone too.”

She unhooks the bra first, staring back at him. She tosses the bra on the bed beside them, her breasts sitting heavy on her chest, nipples already pointing out at him, seeking him, his fingers or his tongue or the nip of his teeth.

He helps her off of him so that she can take her panties off. Then, instead of letting her climb back on top of him, however, he positions himself so that he’s facing the side of the bed. He pulls her to him and sits her so she is sitting between his open knees, her back to his chest.

This brings a different part of the room into focus. Iris has always paid more attention to the wall length window on the other side of the room, the one that Barry will open when they’re together sometimes, taunting her with the eyes she’s sure she’s seen peeking through their blinds and his. The bed sits on a platform facing front, a television mounted on the wall above a stand that holds his game consoles and a few other knick knacks. But on the other side, there’s a bookshelf, above which hangs a mirror. Of course Iris has known it was there, has looked into it as she’s done her makeup or straightened one of Barry’s stolen shirts on her. But it looks almost dangerous now, only in that she can only imagine what Barry has planned for it. In the mirror, she can see all of her. It’s not an extremely large mirror, but it spans the length of the bookshelf and it’s just high enough that, on the bed, Iris can see both of their bodies.

“Barry?” she questions as she looks over her shoulder at him.

“I know you like it when other people watch,” he says, and she almost rolls her eyes at the smug, laughing look on his face. “But I want you to watch you right now. To see yourself the way I do; to see why I felt so compelled to come to you that first night.”

Iris’s lips quirk up slightly. “I didn’t look like this the first night you saw me.”

“I’ve got a great imagination,” Barry winks.

Ignoring his statement,

(but not the way her heart fills with love for him, the kind that sits heavy in her chest, bold and open; the kind that stays strong in her belly, flipping and fluttering and always present; the kind that dips low in her sex, warm and wet and wanting)

Iris turns back to the mirror and catalogs what she sees: her naked body cocooned in his fully clothed one; her brown eyes bright with anticipation, his darkened with barely disguised lust. There are still traces of her lipstick on her full mouth, and some of it is on Barry too, a look that shouldn’t be as arousing as it is. The fabric of his clothes are so soft on her bare skin, and the warmth of the heat through the room only serves to heighten her desire. Barry moves her hands, throws them over either side of his thighs, and uses his to open her legs; the move puts her even more on display, the gold necklace she’s been wearing all day nestled in between her breasts, her belly taut, the pinkish brown lips of her pussy already slick.

Barry circles a hand gently around her throat at the same time that he palms the inside of one of her thighs, holding her open, rubbing gently at her skin.

“I’ve never seen anyone as beautiful as you,” Barry says to her, whispers it, his voice soft in her ear. “I admit I was drunk that first night, but I saw you and it was like, like the entire world came into focus. I think my body knew I would love you before the rest of me could even deny it. And, by some miracle, I got you to take me home with you.”

He touches her lightly on her neck and then moves down, the tips of his fingers feeling on her breasts until he circles a nipple. She gasps, the sound more like a low moan, and Barry smiles at it.

“You were so responsive,” he explains. “I’ve never seen anything like the way you respond to me; it’s so electrifying, baby.”

He circles one nipple with the rough pad of his fingers, pinches at it until it fully hardens, the action almost painful in that she needs more. He moves to the other nipple, does the same thing, and Iris grinds her hips, hoping to move the hand still gliding on her thigh closer to where she always wants him.

“It can be the slightest touch,” he continues, running his nails down the space between her breasts. She proves his point, whimpering a little as he glides down to her belly, and then up again, adding a finger as he goes down once more, and then up. It should not feel like this, such an innocuous move. But he’s right; she’s so responsive to him. This ghost of a touch, just the barest hint of his fingers on her, and she’s heated, her thighs quaking, her sex fluttering.

“Barry,” she sighs, catching her gaze through the mirror. He licks those pink lips, eyes honed in on her, and in that moment, she sees that it is mutual. However true it is that she so easily reacts to him, he is not unaffected. He is, just as much as she is, the truth of it right there in his wrecked countenance: the burning gray of his eyes, the pink flush of his cheeks, the colorful bunch of the tattoos on his arm as he holds her tight.

“I’m in love with this pussy, too,” he mumbles into her neck, his pale hands moving to grip her thighs. The sight of it is a touch obscene, his lightly tanned skin on the umber of hers, his long fingers pressing into her flesh. He doesn’t touch her sex, not right away. Instead, he squeezes her thighs before repeating his pattern of running his fingers up and down, up and down again.

“Look at it,” Barry groans, and she watches his gaze go down to her before she looks at herself. She knows her own body, but Iris has never looked at herself like this, has never spread her legs in front of a mirror when her lips were wet like this, flushed red like this, puckered open as if begging for the stretch of his cock.

“Look at how pretty you are, baby.” His voice sounds like music to her. “Look at how slick you get for me; how open you get for me.”

“Bear,” Iris moans.

He chuckles. “I know. I wanna fuck you right now too.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“Because I’m not finished playing.”

Iris gripes at that, throwing her head back on his shoulder and canting her hips toward his hand.

“No, be a good girl for me, Iris.” Those nimble fingers inch toward the middle of her. “Be a good girl and keep looking while I finish playing.”

He waits until she looks back at the mirror and then he starts. That first touch to her sends electricity coursing through her. He swipes a finger straight up the middle of her slit and she jerks, followed quickly by a limb-loosening moan when Barry sucks the digit in his mouth.

“I love the taste of it,” Barry says.

He reaches back down again, uses his index and ring fingers to hold her open and then dips his middle finger into her. He fucks that finger into her slowly, rubbing against her walls as if he’s trying to memorize the feel of her, gathering the slick of her on that finger.

“I love the feel of it.”

He shifts to use all three of those fingers, dipping them in her wet and rubbing them over her. This is where he finds his rhythm. Iris catches, and this time holds, the sight of them in the glass. Her hair is a curly mess, the strands hanging loose and tangled around her head. Her lips are swollen from how often she keeps tugging the bottom one between her teeth, her chest heaving as she prays for release. In all of that, Iris swears she’s glowing, eyes darkened and alight, her entire body lit with pleasure, bringing out the honeyed undertones in her skin. She looks raw. She looks fucked. She looks like a woman who sings out whenever she can, you woo me, you court me, you tease me, you please me.

And Barry holds on to her, fingers moving a little erratically, going between fucking his fingers into her and massaging her swollen clit with his wet fingers. All of it is, a lot, the way his fingers look slicker and slicker until she’s dripping down onto his wrists, the way that their different skin colors seem to matter right now only in how erotic the contrast looks right now.

“Come, baby,” Barry says. “And watch yourself.”

She does, watches herself as she comes, watches Barry watch her as she does. And it’s as beautiful as he says. Because she looks like a woman drowning in bliss, a woman draped in desire, the look of it hugging like a second skin. She looks like the way women might be described in romance novels, so satisfied she can’t think of anything other than being wrapped up in the man giving her the satisfaction. She looks like the woman in some fantasy or dream, ascending the clouds, spread out and open in an expanse of blue. She sings it in her head, you school me, give me things to think about; invite me, you ignite me, co-write me, you love me, you like me; incite me to chorus, at the same time that she sings out loud, “god, Bear, baby yes,” her eyes fluttering closed at only the very last minute.

“I love you,” Barry tells her, after, as she blinks through the haze of her orgasm.

With low, shaky limbs, she turns around, crawling on top of him and pulling him out of his sweatpants only enough that she can slide down the length of his dick. He stretches her, even as wet as she is, her cream coating him. Then he wraps his arms around her, pulling her down to him, all the way until there is only the ocean blue shade of his eyes filling her gaze, so different from the molten whiskey of hers, though nothing in Iris doubts that the same expression shines in both of them: that of a craving for this to last until the last breath shudders from their bodies, that of the love that she hopes makes that dream come true.

“I love you too, Barry.”

And this time, they only watch each other, reading each other, their climax hurtling toward them with the sort of rugged elegance that has always accompanied her idea of love. It’s bliss, la, la, la; da, da, da; do, do, do.

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“So Iris, tell me,” Alexa May starts. Iris inclines her head as she awaits Alexa’s question, the other woman’s gaze kind and curious. “Are any of the stories on your blog particularly personal to you?” James Broderick nods his head at the question.

“Well, they’re all personal to me,” Iris tells her with a side grin. “But I assume you’re asking if one of the stories I’ve written is particular to my life?”

“Exactly,” Alexa gives her her own smirk.

Iris shakes her head, pauses for a minute as she decides how much she wants to say on a widespread television

“None of them are,” she says, carefully. “But I’m working on one.”

Both Alexa and James’s blue eyes light with interest.

“Oh really?” James questions.

Alexa leans toward her, crossing her slim legs and settling her elbows on her thighs. “Is it a love story?”

“It is,” Iris laughs softly. “It’s a story still being written, so I don’t want to give too much away. But I can tell you that it’s about two people who’ve found something neither had been particularly expecting. It’s about two people who’ve struggled to find acceptance in different ways, to fight through the pain they’ve experienced. It’s about two people who feel into each other’s lives in one of the easiest ways possible, like puzzle pieces clicking or locks being secured or some other metaphor for two people who just… fall into place.” There’s a round of sweet chuckles from Alexa and some of the other guests. “Most importantly, though, it’s about two people who’ve stumbled right into something out of a storybook, something that can only be described as love.”

There is a pause. And then Alexa sighs. “God, that’s beautiful.”

Iris presses a hand to her heart, trying to keep in the surge of emotion that floods through her in that moment.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “So are we.”

“And there you have it, viewers,” James says, pulling the attention away. “Keep a lookout for that love story on What a Life You’ve Lived. Thank you all so much for watching. We’ll be right back.”

You're different and special

You're different and special in every way imaginable

You love me from my hair follicles to my toenails

You got me feeling like the breeze, easy and free and lovely and new

Oh when you touch me I just can't control it

When you touch me, I just can't hold it

The emotion inside of me, I can feel it

#westallen fanfiction #strangers to lovers #iris west #barry x iris #barry allen

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itshistoryyall · 5 years ago

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Part Two: Well, We’re Here Now

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Here, we have to start with what we can recognize as a proverbial snowball rolling down a hill. Essentially, we have the Catholic church establishing a precedent for getting rid of people who were problematic for them by placing some trumped up charges on them, executing them in a way that makes an example for others whilst simultaneously encapsulating the attention of the commoners, and then carrying on as if they had every justification for making a scene like your mom at a restaurant when they bring out the food and it’s cooler than expected. You can only imagine the out of control spiral into unadulterated chaos that followed, and that, my friends, is known to history as the European Witch Trials (ßthe snowball that is now much larger than when it began rolling at the top of that hill). A few quick notes before we power through this—at this time we can see a multitude of “assassination conspiracies” popping up against one king or another, against the Pope, or against high ranking church officials/the nobility. A bishop is executed for heresy and attempted assassination of Pope John XXII via sorcery, others were arrested with similar charges attached to the very public executions, and ultimately you start to see sorcery, idolatry, and heresy all becoming somewhat synonymous. A few decades later, as we near the central part of the 1300’s, we see the Black Death beginning to rear its ugly head and as fears, tensions, and misinformation mount, people start seeing conspiracies everywhere they look. In 1340 when people start getting grossly sick and some inquisitions start popping up. Spearheaded by the Church, the united heresy combat forces (henceforth known as UHCF—I just came up with that it’s not, like, a term historians use) went out and, as Jesus commanded,

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” Matthew 28:19-20 (King James Version).

You know what that means (*insert eyebrow waggle here*), of course, they set out to rid the world of anything deemed “heresy” by the Church and that, most certainly, was up for personal interpretation. The reason we hear about these inquisitions getting such a bad rap is because people were genuinely afraid that any action they took might be mistaken for heresy, and without a clear definition of what that entailed they were most certainly right to be afraid. It’s important to highlight a bit of “Inquisition Era” timeline here—in and around 1100 the Catholic Church had, by its own definitions, all but eliminated heresy (whatever that actually means, we may never know), and they did so predominately without harm to those who stood accused. This “era of peace,” we’ll call it, ended around the 12th century when we start to see a spread of some opposing Christian ideas that were not specifically Catholic, and that couldn’t be tolerated. To nip that in the bud, we had some inquisitions come around checking things out. This process usually included, but was not limited to questioning, interrogation, arrest, imprisonment, and torture.

As a general rule, torture was, at least, publicly frowned on in Europe while other countries typically had a death sentence for heretics. As previously mentioned, in the 12th century that all changed when a tiny little papal bull, similar to a public decree, was issued by the not-at-all ironically christened Pope Innocent IV (I, quite frankly, can NOT believe that there were three others prior to this pope who were also called “Innocent” it’s just so god damn pretentious that it physically makes my skin crawl…I digress). The bull allowed torture in 1252, and by 1256 inquisitors who used this form of extracting information were promised absolution by the Church. So, to recap, we have this widespread knowledge of public executions of some of the most prominent figures in the medieval world (like that one guy in charge of the Knights Templar that predicted the deaths of a king and a pope in a non-awkward way that had no bearing on whether or not people believed in the supernatural, I’m sure), the establishment of an anti-heretic police force with little to no oversight and the ability to torture folks at will, and panicked people afraid that if the plague didn’t take them the inquisitors surely would.

To make matters worse, a new papal bull (pesky, those public decrees, I’ll tell ya..) issued around 1450 verified that witchcraft, heresy and a religious group called the Cathars were one in the same which gave them license to prosecute them as heretics or witches without just cause. Without going into too much detail about this, it’s important for you to know that the Cathars called themselves, “the good Christians,” and celebrated a twin deities that represented the God portrayed in the Old Testament, and the other represented the God of Judaism who was a bit synonymous with Satan, or either fathered, seduced, or created Satan (it’s a bit confusing, but that’s what happens when intolerant Christians try and convert believers of other religions to Christianity by way of removing what they originally believed and then replacing it with a more favorable and sort of similar Christian Approved™ bible story—i.e. pagan Ireland, Scotland, or literally any pagan religion in history). You should also know, Cathars essentially saw gender as meaningless and believed in the idea of reincarnation between genders which rendered normal gender roles and other “gender exclusive ideas” as basically useless to them. You can draw your own conclusions about why a male-dominated medieval world run by a religion known for its historical mistreatment of women, wouldn’t have received this idea well.

To reign this all in a bit, we’ve only moved a few centuries away from the establishment of Thomas Aquinas’ rules when we hit a milestone in the 15th century. Occasionally, the Church holds councils to decide on, debate, or discuss church matters, and one such event took place from 1431-1437 called the Council of Basel. Some historians suggest that while a bunch of old men were sitting together talking about stuff for six years that they may have gossiped amongst themselves (as silly men are want to do), and that this may explain the correlating witch trials that coincided with these same dates. It is only about 300 miles from where the council was held and the location of the first trial so you can see how this conclusion is easily drawn. AND NOW WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, it’s time to talk about our first round of witch trials.

The Valais witch trials named so because of its location in Valais in one of the oldest ecclesiastical territories that lies in the southern part of the country separating the Pennine Alps and the Bernese Alps. This region was French and German speaking and that’s important because the German word for witch is hexen, which is where we get the idea of a witch’s hex today, and although we can see an occasional and sporadic burning of witches throughout the 15th century, this marked the first time we see a large-scale systematic persecution for peoples accused of witchcraft/sorcery. It’s also important to point out the lack of accounts that we have during this time period, in part this is due to a general hatred for inquisitors who were in charge of keeping records, and later when the accusations included less heresy and more witchcraft we often see occasions of inquisitors being attacked and records being sabotaged or altogether destroyed. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t blame them, but it makes this part of history a bit more difficult to sus out, and a lot left up to really good detective work or wherever your imagination can take you (this is basically my favorite part). So, that was a long-winded way of saying, a lot of this next part is gonna be me doing my best to make this make sense, and to draw concise and enlightening conclusions that you can read and hopefully learn from (I know I am!).

So, what do we know here? We know that the main record of these trials comes from a guy named Johannes Fründ of Lucerne who was a Swiss clerk of the court, and his account is thought to be the, I won’t say accurate, but more likely only usable document to have an account of these events, though, severely lacking as they were written in the middle of the trials and with only 17 years before they ended. The trials began in the southern French-speaking part of Valais and then spread to the northern German-speaking part where we see a following expansion into the French and Swiss Alps, Savoy, and further into the valleys of Switzerland. It took place a solid fifty years before the witch trials started in Europe, and while the total number of victims is still unknown to us, the estimated death toll is an estimated 400 total men and women. When these accusations began to take place, the duchy of Savoy was recovering from a tumultuous civil war between the noble clans, and in August of 1428, seven delegates representing the districts in Valais insisted that the authorities investigate some supposed instances of witchcraft. If three or more people accused someone of witchcraft or sorcery they were to be arrested, questioned, and made to confess. At a time when torture practices were acceptable forms of interrogation you can see how that might have inspired a few people to confess to being witches without much prompting, but those who refused to do so were tortured until they did. What we know about the victims is that they were more likely women than men, but a significant portion of men were also executed, they were all peasants that were not specifically described as well-educated, but some were. Very few of their names were recorded, and they were not likely elderly as most of them withstood immense torture before they died.

The victims were accused of quite an array of magical experiences including flying, invisibility, removing an illness from one person and issuing it to another, curses, lycanthropy, conspiracy to deprive Christianity of its power, and the most famously known, conspiring with the Devil. These pacts that the witches supposedly entered into with the Devil included trading their souls, paying him taxes, renouncing Christianity, and halting all confession or church-going in exchange for supernatural abilities or an education in the magical arts. Those accused of these crimes were tied to a ladder with a bag of gunpowder hung around their necks, and a wooden crucifix in their arms and then burned alive, others were decapitated first, and even more were tortured to death but were nonetheless burned at the stake for good measure. Now here is where we can see a bit of a conspiracy emerge. Recall from earlier, my mentioning that clergy and nobles alike used witchcraft as an excuse to get rid of people, and just ruminate on that as I tell you that the property of these deceased and accused only passed to their families if they could swear that they were unaware of the sorcery. If they could not prove that, then the land passed to the noble who paid for the execution of these accused. I don’t know about you, but sounds sus to me. This particular genocide is unique to other witch trials in that almost as many men were executed as women, and that leads me to believe a few things: first, that the men were landowners and the nobility wanted the land they were on (would love if a map was available to see this progression, but alas, it has been lost to the sands of time), and two, this wasn’t about gender, but more about the crybaby nobles who were upset that they lost some things during the recent civil war and needed a hobby. It’s not a good look, and it certainly wasn’t without its consequences.

#witches #witch trials #inquisition #medieval europe #itshistoryyall #history #valais #switzerland #valais witch trials #part two #covid-19 #coronavirus #what day is it #social distancing

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

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Boxing's Al Bernstein is Getting Back to His Vegas Lounge Singer Roots

Al Bernstein has been boxing’s foremost commentator for three generations. He began calling fights for the nascent ESPN in 1980. At the time, boxing was the network’s biggest draw. and though Bernstein, a former newspaper man, was interested in covering other sports, the die had been cast. He had prominent ringside roles throughout boxing’s Golden Age of the 80s middleweights. He watched the relative nadir of the sport’s meandering slog through the late 90s and aughts and is still around now, analyzing the action through what he thinks could be another Golden Age.

With his resume, you��d be excused for only knowing Bernstein as The Boxing Guy. But to fans of jazz and “The Great American Songbook” living in Las Vegas, he is also known as a singer. I sat down with Bernstein over breakfast in Brooklyn just prior to a recent Showtime Saturday Night Fights gig at The Barclays Center. We talked about boxing, and even though he said he’s not the kind of guy to “sit down and ramble on about myself”—and I believed him—I got him to talk about music: how he got started as a singer, why he stopped, and the path that led him back to the stage.

His Vegas singing career began thanks to boxing.

“I was very frustrated at ESPN," he said. "They weren’t letting me do other sports. I’d covered the NFL Draft, I’d done some college basketball. They weren’t so anxious to have me do other things."

"Around 1987 (before Marvin Hagler fought Sugar Ray Leonard) I was having dinner with some executives at Caesars Palace. Just before that Barry McGuigan had fought at Caesars. And his father, who was a pub singer in Ireland, had done a couple nights at the Olympic Lounge at Caesars where he sang Irish tunes and it was great. It was a gathering place for people. So one of the execs says, ‘Don’t you sing?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I like to sing.’ And he said, ‘You gotta do what Barry McGuigan’s dad did.’ I said, ‘Okay.’

And so Bernstein went from ESPN commentator to Vegas lounge act.

"I didn’t have a band, I didn’t have an act, I had nothing. I had done some music in Chicago when I was younger but really nothing. And now I’m doing Caesars Palace as my first thing. I was too stupid to say no.”

Bernstein got a band and an act together and played three nights in the Olympic Lounge leading up to the highly anticipated Hagler/Leonard fight, also taking place at Caesar’s.

“I did it and it went well. I look out and I see all these famous people out there and I thought what the hell did I get myself into. It was standards and some pop. I have very eclectic taste. It was really good, really fun.”

I asked him if he thought it was a way to diversify himself personally since ESPN wasn’t letting him do it professionally.

“Yeah. I said, you know what I’m gonna do something else. And I really love music. If I’m well known enough to get a job then I should do it.”

Bernstein did several of these shows leading up to big bouts at Caesars over the next couple years. He loved it and wanted to keep doing it but because he was still doing 40-plus fights a year on ESPN, he couldn’t rehearse and couldn’t have a full time band. He wanted to keep performing so he and his writing partner Tony Rome put together a hybrid music/Q&A/monologue performance called The Boxing Party. The show included 5 or 6 original songs about sports. These songs would make up the bulk of Bernstein’s first album 1988’s “My Very Own Songs.”

By then he had moved full time to Vegas and was performing The Boxing Party all around town at Caesars and other venues like Mandalay Bay and the Riviera. It was a hit. Bernstein would continue performing throughout the early 90s and put out a second record in 1996 leading up to his coverage of the Olympics called “Let The Games Begin.” But then performances became more sporadic; the time between each stretching longer. Until, as he puts it, “The music went away.”

“I parted ways with the gentleman I was writing with and I didn’t want to use his music because I felt like that wasn’t fair. There were also some other things, but I don’t know. I just got away from music.”

It is not uncommon for people to be pulled away from their passions. Things happen in life that demand, or at least appear to demand, your full attention at the cost of something else. Enough time can pass that the old enthusiast becomes unfamiliar. A face you used to know, but just can’t place. But life also has a way of jarring you back into it. Life did this to Bernstein, though he prefaces the story with, “I don’t want to make this sound too introspective.”

“My wife Connie is a cancer survivor. She had stage IV breast cancer. We’ve had our twists and turns. You need something in your life that is nourishing. For me riding (Bernstein’s first extracurricular activity while at ESPN was the rodeo, but that’s for a different article) was always nourishing. I’m not a religious person but that was my religion. That, and I loved music. I got away from it, I thought about it a lot. I could never figure out a way to do it, and to enjoy it. It sounds crazy but they intertwine.

A couple years back my horse got sick and had to be put down. It was very sad. This was going on at the same time as my wife’s health problems. I couldn’t justify getting another horse and spending all that time. So for a few years there was a hole in my life.

We were out with my friend Clint Holmes and his wife was performing. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you sit in with her?’ He knew I used to sing and I said, ‘Ehh…. okay.’ So I sat in with her, did a couple tunes and I said to myself ‘Why am I not doing this? What’s wrong with me? So I got on it. And in the last year and a half I’ve really dug back into the music.”

I comment that music is unique to people because it can expand to fit nearly any size or shaped void that may exist in someone’s life.

“It really does. It’s meant to do that to people that listen to it and it’s meant to do that to people that execute it.”

Bernstein calls himself “the third best singer in his family.” His wife Connie was a performing singer for many years as part of a sibling duo called The Rocco Sisters and his 18 year old son, Wes, is a singer/songwriter. Despite that status he has taken to performing again on a somewhat regular basis.

He’s a frequent co-host of Kenny Davidsen’s show at the Tuscany, a spot he calls, “A really great Las Vegas room.” Judging by the website, the Tuscany’s old school, just-off-the-strip vibe suits his style. Davidsen’s MO is letting his co-hosts branch out into different styles (or in this case, vocations) than they’re used to. Getting people out of their comfort zones can chill even the most seasoned of acts but Bernstein’s approach to the show is similar to that of a workman middleweight with a good chin.

“I enjoy it. I try and do it well. I try not to embarrass myself. I stick to the material I know I can sing,” he says.

His version of Desperado is proof of his fight plan. The Eagles are one of Bernstein’s favorite groups and he delivers it with a combination of its original plaintive dustiness and his own Great Las Vegas Room Mojo. Bernstein is going to continue following music and its ability to fill out and brighten the corners of an already full life. The Tuscany gigs are making him feel like it might be time to return to his headlining roots.

“I’m edging towards the point where I’m going to start (putting on shows). I’ve got a couple different ideas that I’d like to put together. One is called ‘Al Bernstein Pays Tribute To The Champions…Of The Great American Songbook’ and the other is called ‘Going The Distance With Al Bernstein,’ which is going to be a combination of video from my career along with songs that fit the narrative. I think that will be the one that’s done more easily somewhere. I’ve even got a lot of good stories from the older shows that I can incorporate.”

Bernstein is not pursuing music to escape boxing, or change his image. Boxing, singing, riding, and family are all part of his persona and he’s not using one to distance himself from any of the others.

While he’s planning these shows, the International Boxing Hall of Famer is still ringside for every edition of Showtime Saturday Night Fights and all of their Pay Per View broadcasts. While we were talking about boxing he called 2017 “the best year of boxing that he has broadcast in 37 years, and the best year for boxing overall in that span,” and it didn’t strike me as hyperbole. The riveting fighthe would analyze two nights later in Brooklyn between Jarrett Hurd and Austin Trout would only burnish that proclamation.

As Bernstein takes on yet another new beginning, the only melancholy moment in our entire breakfast was about an ending. He’s sad that the band Heart has broken up. He pauses after we talk about it. He can imagine what they’ll be missing.

Boxing's Al Bernstein is Getting Back to His Vegas Lounge Singer Roots published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years ago

Text

Boxing’s Al Bernstein is Getting Back to His Vegas Lounge Singer Roots

With his resume, you’d be excused for only knowing Bernstein as The Boxing Guy. But to fans of jazz and “The Great American Songbook” living in Las Vegas, he is also known as a singer. I sat down with Bernstein over breakfast in Brooklyn just prior to a recent Showtime Saturday Night Fights gig at The Barclays Center. We talked about boxing, and even though he said he’s not the kind of guy to “sit down and ramble on about myself”—and I believed him—I got him to talk about music: how he got started as a singer, why he stopped, and the path that led him back to the stage.

His Vegas singing career began thanks to boxing.

“I was very frustrated at ESPN,” he said. “They weren’t letting me do other sports. I’d covered the NFL Draft, I’d done some college basketball. They weren’t so anxious to have me do other things.”

“Around 1987 (before Marvin Hagler fought Sugar Ray Leonard) I was having dinner with some executives at Caesars Palace. Just before that Barry McGuigan had fought at Caesars. And his father, who was a pub singer in Ireland, had done a couple nights at the Olympic Lounge at Caesars where he sang Irish tunes and it was great. It was a gathering place for people. So one of the execs says, ‘Don’t you sing?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, I like to sing.’ And he said, ‘You gotta do what Barry McGuigan’s dad did.’ I said, ‘Okay.’

And so Bernstein went from ESPN commentator to Vegas lounge act.

“I didn’t have a band, I didn’t have an act, I had nothing. I had done some music in Chicago when I was younger but really nothing. And now I’m doing Caesars Palace as my first thing. I was too stupid to say no.”

Bernstein got a band and an act together and played three nights in the Olympic Lounge leading up to the highly anticipated Hagler/Leonard fight, also taking place at Caesar’s.

I asked him if he thought it was a way to diversify himself personally since ESPN wasn’t letting him do it professionally.

“Yeah. I said, you know what I’m gonna do something else. And I really love music. If I’m well known enough to get a job then I should do it.”

I comment that music is unique to people because it can expand to fit nearly any size or shaped void that may exist in someone’s life.

“It really does. It’s meant to do that to people that listen to it and it’s meant to do that to people that execute it.”

“I enjoy it. I try and do it well. I try not to embarrass myself. I stick to the material I know I can sing,” he says.

Boxing’s Al Bernstein is Getting Back to His Vegas Lounge Singer Roots syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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dietcoachesofamerica · 7 years ago

Link

(images courtesy Mark Warnke/Men's Health)

The following men not only wanted to shape up, they took action and made their ambitions a reality.

Take a look at how they shifted their habits to improve their lives for years to come.

How Christopher Jacob lost 38 pounds in 4 years

After his wife had a heart attack in 2012 at age 45, Christopher Jacob knew they both had to make a change.

The father of three from Saudi Arabia had high cholesterol, and feared he was on a similar path.

Jacob and his wife both vowed to take shaping up seriously to ensure they would be around to support their kids for decades to come.

Despite a work schedule packed with travel as a director of human resources, Jacob made exercise a priority. While traveling, he would pick out his hotels based on the workout facilities, searching for options with either a pool to swim in or a gym to lift in.

Jacob would also follow along with fat-loss workout videos from Mens Health Fitness Director BJ Gaddour, C.S.C.S., to add variety and blast calories. (Gaddour just launched his newest and most intense fat-burning workout program ever with Mens Health, MetaShred Extreme.)

He also reigned in his calorie count to about 1,500 to 2,000 per day, using the app MyFitnessPal to track his intake. On days when he overdid it, he worked off the extra calories at the gym.

The 44 year old got off his cholesterol medication in January 2015 and has been off it ever since. The same motivating factor that pushed him to take action in the first place continues to drive him to keep the weight off today: His kids.

I am a family man, Jacob says. And I would like to see my kids grow, influence them in any means possible, and have an impact on their livesso that when the time comes to let them go, I know that I have taught them well.

How Ted Gibson lost 45 pounds in 6 months

The sexiest women in the world want Ted Gibson. Angelina Jolie, Jessica Chastain, Anne Hathaway, and other A-listers line up for himfor haircuts, at a price of $1,500 a pop.

Related: The 100 Hottest Women Of All Time

But while New Yorks top hairstylist was busy growing his salon empire, his girth grew too.

I just wasnt exercising as much as I had been before, says Gibson, 50. And the weight slowly crept on.

As a 64, 200-pound ultralean bodybuilder in the early 1990s, Gibson had always been a naturally big, muscular guy.

But last January I hit 280, he says. I had less energy and my back hurt. I wanted to look amazing for my impending 50th birthday.

So Mens Health paired Gibson with Vinny Brandstadter of Peak Performance, a New York City gym just around the corner from his salon, and Mens Health nutrition advisor Mike Roussell, Ph.D.

Roussell worked to sneak healthy tweaks into Gibsons diet that wouldnt affect his overall lifestyle. He helped Gibson find healthy meals at each of the restaurants where his staff orders lunch every day.

Along with making key changes to his diet, Gibson hit the gym three days a week. Gibson did aerobic intervals that built his endurance and hour-long circuits that burned between 500 to 700 calories.

Related: The Lifting Technique That Flattens Your Belly

He admits he was nervous to not be the big guy anymore.

But Im now at 235 pounds, says Gibson. This is the best Ive felt in a long time. I have a lot more energy, my back doesnt hurt, and Im getting a lot of compliments.

How Yosef Herzog lost 50 pounds in 5 months

Yosef Herzog played sports in high school and college. But once he graduated, his structured workouts fell apart. Aside from intramural sports and some pickup basketball games in Manhattan, he rarely stepped foot in the gym.

The weight crept up on him. At 231 pounds, he began experiencing back pain and was out of breath after tying his shoes.

After trying to develop healthier habits and losing motivation after a couple weeks, Herzog signed up for the gym at his office.

His evaluation session didnt seem that tough: Lunges, planks, and pushups. But 20 minutes in, Herzog lost his lunchtwice.

I wouldnt say I was in Chris Farley territory, but I was definitely in bad shape, says Herzog.

He began alternating cardio and strength training, six days a week.

Herzog also cleaned up his diet. He swapped oatmeal in for his usual breakfast bagel, salad in for subs, and Mexican-style chicken and beans in for burgers.

In less than half a year, he weighed 181 pounds and needed new clothes. The fitter I got, he says, the more confident I felt.

How Bryan Hodgins lost 190 pounds in 2 years

From age 2, Bryan Hodgins had been overweightbut a lot changed for him at 17, when he got a job at a local grocery store.

Hodgins started in the heat of August 2014walking over a mile to get to the store where hed push carts and help customers pack their groceries. He weighed about 380 pounds at the time.

Related: Why Some People Sweat More Than Others

At first, Hodgins didnt think those 7-hour shifts had any impact on his body.

I didnt notice any difference, he says. I had family and people I work with, over the course of a year and a half that I was [at the store], tell me, Youve lost weight. And you know, I never believed them.

A little less than a year later after he started working at the grocery store, he was helping his family move and weigh metal at a scrap yard. On a whim, Hodgins decided to hop on one of the scalesand was floored by the result.

I can still remember the number as clear as day as being 247 pounds, Hodgins says.

He had lost about 140 pounds.

Even though the weight loss was accidental, the significant amount of pounds hed dropped really began to sink in.

When you see a number that low, from what youve started at, you get a sense of accomplishment, he says. And so I tried eating better.

Hodgins began incorporating more protein-rich foods like chicken and eggs and eliminating packaged sweets and salty snacks.

He also started working out with a friend from work.

They made me do mountain-climbers and pushups and situps, Hodgins says. They kicked my ass when it came down to it.

Now down to 190 pounds, Hodgins is studying to be a paramedic. He hopes to eventually enlist as a combat medical technician in the armed forces.

How Mark Warnke lost 53 pounds in 4 months

Mark Warnke had just booked tickets to propose to his girlfriend on the beach when she ended the relationship.

Warnke was devastated. But in the aftermath of his breakup, he decided it was the perfect time to take control of his life.

He started in the kitchen.

Warnke switched out his frozen meals and canned soups with chicken breast and fresh vegetables that he could throw on the grill Sunday night and eat for the rest of the week.

In the past, Warnke had tried trends like cutting carbs and diet pills, but nothing worked better than eating whole foods.

He also started doing bodyweight workouts on the Mens Health website.

Soon Warnke was able to put his heartburn medication away and after only a month of his new training regimen, Warnke had to go out and buy all new pants.

He was down 53 pounds total four months after the breakup.

But if you ask Warnke, he didnt lose the weight to spite his ex-girlfriend.

It wasnt an, Im going to show her, he says. It was an Im going to be the best person I can be.

How Jake Galicia lost 86 pounds in 2.5 years

When Jake Galicias blood test results came in, he was shocked to find out he had high blood sugar and lipid levels. At 29, Galicia thought he was too young to be on the borderline for metabolic diseases like diabetes.

Galicia had always been on the heavier sideat the time he was 247 poundsbut the new father could not stand the idea that his condition might someday stop him from watching his toddler grow up.

In February 2012, Galicia started a low-carb diet full of protein and vegetables.

Despite working sporadic shifts at an insurance company, Galicia made it a priority to squeeze in workouts.

Galicia would exercise anytime between the early morning and midnight, depending on when his shift fell that daybut he always made time.

Initially hed hit the gym to run on the treadmill or complete circuit workouts. But as the fat began melting off, he started incorporating strength training into his workouts to gain muscle.

And those odd hours at the gym were well spent. Galicia eventually shed 10 inches from his waist.

Now 33 years old, he says perseverance was key to his weight-loss success.

No matter how hard it may seem, you have to finish your workout, he says. This is how your body exceeds its known limits, preparing you to face more difficult physical tasks.

This article originally appeared on MensHealth.com.