#this post provoked a primal fear inside of me

[proverbsss]

lion's den pt.2 (john tyler x reader) - nsfw

[read pt 1 here]

John Tyler, Tell Me Your Secrets

prompt(s): "Right there, that feels so good." [from this post]

notifs: john tyler is a bad bad man ; john's drugged and restrained reader, long-term ; in my mind this is cnc and i want people to consume media safely pls!! ; cutting clothes off with a blade, threats of bodily harm, John Tyler says 'jeepers' in a sexy way and this is the hill I will die on; explicitly AFAB reader; John objectifies you and defiles you in his thoughts; John says he loves you ; nipple play, vaginal fingering, penetrative sex, clit rubbing, breeding, talk of john's dick size, john's aroused by your spit and tears, i'm going to hell

terms used for reader: lady, girl, pretty slut, sweet girl, beautiful

“Someone didn’t wear anything underneath tonight,”

John is peppering your face and neck with kisses. Adrenaline, and maybe something else you can’t bring yourself to admit to, are sharpening your focus. His warm, strong hands, having pushed your shirt hastily up to your neck, his fingers are wandering your chest now, the fingers of one finding one of your tits.

Decisively, softly, John squeezes your soft flesh and his thumb grazes your nipple. Then. You let out a little whine and John crushes you to him, his free hand cradling your head, pressing your face to the neck of his patterned shirt. Nothing to his smell is descript, deodorant, laundry detergent.

“Taking notes, huh cutie? Trying to figure out how I got so close, so inside your life? I know it’s a lot,” Laying this fake-pity on heavily, he pinches harder and twists your nipple, thrusts against your thigh–and you’re suddenly twice as aware of every place his body is touching yours, of which limb is where, because you can feel–him.

He grinds on you like a horned up dog, barely noticeable movements that get a little faster, a little more insistent each time. ”Sorry, it’s just so, so good to see you. I'm more than a little excited…”

"What do you want from me?" You're saying, but it's hollow, robotic. "Please don't hurt me." You put on as brave, as fierce a face as you can, but with the cocktail of fear and whatever John’s drugged you in your bloodstream, it'd be a flat out lie to deny that he is making you wet.

Seriously wet. Sex of any sort hasn’t been something you have a lot of time for lately. Your body's only human and is under a chemical onslaught provoking these needy impulses to boot.

"I only hurt ladies when they ask me for it." He says. That's anything but reassuring, especially the way he speaks it as half-joke, half-threat. And especially as it's all he says before burying his face in your chest, somewhere between your neck and your breasts, that sensitive plane of your clavicle that no one ever seems to pay attention to.

Make that no one except John Tyler. He's tuned into every bit of feedback your body offers, thrilled at how you respond to his lips sucking, then biting, then lapping gingerly at every inch of your skin in front of him. He waited like a good boy, now he's basking in all this reward. "Are you going to?"

He asks, panting warm breaths in the narrow, sensitive canal between your breasts. He's freed both his hands now and is running them deliciously up your sides, smiling when he hits a spot that tickles or makes you squirm. You're so dizzy with conflicted emotion, with need for his mouth, his breath everywhere all at once, that you can't remember what he's asking.

John reads your thoughts. "Are you going to ask me to hurt you?"

Something primal and unsatisfied shakes loose inside of you and rather than answer in words a loud whine comes pleading out of you. Like before, but louder, more lost. Yes, your body cries out, please, anything you want.

"Yeah?" He mimics your neediness, condescension and want thick in his throat. "Is that what you need from me? That's why you closed the store by yourself? You wanted someone to come along and do this?" He's watching you the way a predator watches its next meal, happy to let the game go on, to keep you in suspense until he himself can't resist.

"Well I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” he murmurs into your chest, "you don't have to worry anymore." he leaves on you yet another frenzy of kisses, too adoring and sweet to be those of a man who’s tied you up and plans to…and plans to…

Curse his pretty, long-lashed puppy-dog eyes. Now he lifts his head, keeping those eyes pinned to yours, and takes one of your tits into his mouth. You squirm all the harder, to get away? To get more? But John has you now, and he lets go of teething your nipple to groan, "I hope you can forgive me for doing it this way. Knew you were meant for me. Fuck, these tits…" his teeth again find those sensitive little places on the bud of your nipple that shut off whatever sector of your brain remained functional. "You are so delicious. You know that, I hope."

He mirrors the placement of his mouth and a free hand so that the other nipple benefits from the ministrations of his mouth while the hand squeezes the one he's left wanting.

"Did you just say 'please?' Did you?" Did you? It spilled from your lips without even forming as a conscious thought. You can't speak. You can't think. All you know, have ever known, seems to be this craving for more and more of John. It's an eerie, seasick heat that charges your lust for him. It crashes and spikes over your invisible, almost entirely forgotten fear and resistance to all of this, which has sunken to the very bottom of your attention like a drowned sailor screaming out the last of their oxygen in vain. John's hypnotic voice draws you back up to the surface.

"Already begging. Boy did I get lucky." His ridiculously skillful tongue elicits a ridiculously wanton string of moans from you and now both of you are finding a rhythm grinding against each other. He comes back up for a kiss on your lips, puts all his weight into thrusting properly and says into your mouth, "Yes, oh God, yes, just like that. Right there, that feels so good."

He's shaking and you're shaking and the bed is creaking and you might get close to an orgasm just like this, inhibitions are so deep beneath your conscious mind they might as well have never been. "Pretty, pretty slut, you're mine now. Maybe I can't get you to admit it in words, but I'd bet anything I have that your pussy is soaked for me."

The friction of your clothed wetness and the cock twitching to burst free from his trousers is intense. That hunger pang to be full, to take his length inside you comes from deep down and when he stops in midair above you your hips wiggle involuntarily.

"I have to see. Have to feel," he talks more to himself. So quickly he is crawling back down the length of the bed, fingertips grazing the sides of your abdomen, digging into the tender dip where your lower belly ends and the waistband of your jeans, ever an obstacle, begins.

"Gonna have to leave these down around your ankles, cutie. Can't risk you kicking and struggling for the sake of untying these little legs. Lift up."

Dominant, borderline paternal in a way you could never admit or compromise to by the light of day, John's simple command hotwires a response out of you and almost without volition you lift your hips so that he can pull your jeans down your thighs, your shins, to your ankles.

"Jeepers, you're wet for me. I didn't doubt that you liked it, but this. This is very flattering, I could cum in my pants like a junior high schoolboy. Not going to, it would be a tragedy not to fuck you tonight. But I very much could. Gonna touch you now."

It's a statement, not a request, that prefaces John's dragging one firm, curious digit across the wet spot over your slit. Your hips, thighs, hell even your back and upper body are involved as you buck against the contact. More. You're desperate in a way that's totally foreign to you. Both of you sense a shift toward urgency.

The pretense of charm, if it was lingering, now drops darkly and abruptly out of John's demeanor. You can see gears click away in his head, later you'll know he was cementing a mental image of you as his property, was 'thingifying' you. "Gonna fucking ruin you. This cunt is so needy, it's killing me."

You drip, you know you do, at the sound of his words, and the hypersensitive feeling of John pulling your panties to the side to feel your wetness firsthand.

"Okay, these are in my way," he practically growls, pulling a small pocketknife from his trousers and sneaking a finger under one leg of your panties to safely cut them off. "I don't want you to bleed just yet, and I really don't want to lose a finger. But they're coming off."

In an instant, he's sliced through the waist of your underwear on one side, then matched the action on the other side, so like the petals of the most sinful flower, John pulls the torn cloth covering away from your pussy. You spread for him, again never making up your mind to do so beforehand, and squirm at the sensation of being fully on display for him.

He takes his hands off your pussy, dances featherlight touches across your thighs, that gorgeous junction where your hips end and tummy begins, the soft hill of your pelvic bone. “Almost. Ask me for it.”

Your cloudy eyes search his, finding stormy resolve and almost no trace of the gentleness that hangs around in his voice like a lure for unsuspecting prey.

“Come on. No free rides. Not for me, not for you. Ask me to touch you.”

You search your mind for the defiant nerve that wanted to say, to scream ‘no.’ But there’s nothing but a dull throb between your legs watching his pretty fingers waltz across your skin. “Um. Please,”

John’s nostrils flare. Well that’s not quite good enough. “Please ‘what’?” he sing-songs, toothy grin catching the light above you. His sharp teeth. You never had time to notice how fang-y they look.

You’ve also never had anyone make you beg in bed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say you liked it. Or…part of you did.

“Please John…your fingers…”

To make matters worse, he takes two digits into his mouth and sucks on them. He watches you enjoy the sight. Relishes the power.

“These?” he asks, performatively dorky, “where do you want them?”

You calculate a trillion possibilities. Thrashing your way out of these restraints like some superhuman adrenaline fiend. Giving into the dubious want hammering in your bloodstream. Kicking him in the groin–well, not that one, you can’t do that one. John pulls you out of the internal debate and shakes you pretty roughly by the shoulders. The fingers that went in his mouth are still wet on your shoulder. You wince.

“Nothing worth having comes easy, you slut. I’m not talking to myself anymore. Speak.”

“I want your fingers…in me, in my pussy, please.”

“‘That’s a good girl.” John smirks appreciatively. He drags his fingers down your shoulder, your upper arm, your forearm. “You’re so lucky you were specific, I might have had to play with your ass.”

You’re familiar enough with your own body to know that whenever anyone has even barely touched you there, they haven’t taken enough time for it to be enjoyable. So it’s a scary thought. As John meant it to be.

“Another time. For now…” His fingers continue their slow glide down your sides, the outside of your thighs. Then in a swift gesture, his hand drifts torturously above your pussy. His middle finger almost grazes your clit. “Tell me again.”

“I want your fingers in my pussy.”

That bottomless, hungry blackness comes into his expression again and he pushes that same middle finger inside your cunt. You gasp a bit as he strokes the tender heat he finds inside you, brushes little spots that make you want to buck against him and squirm away from him at the same time.

“Hello, beautiful. Do it. Fucking open up for me.” His encouragement flowers in your subconscious and your hips thrust toward more of that feeling. That fucking feeling. John lets you have your fun. His cock stiffens at the thought of your resistance dropping away. You grind your mind away on his one rough finger and he watches you like you're something to eat. Which you are, but that's for another time too. Because he's feeling fucking restless.

"Ah, if you're close, you have to tell me. You're not cumming on anything but me." he promises, and you believe it enough to stop thrusting in the direction of the sensation that feels so good, so everything. "Does that mean you're ready? Can you nod for me?"

You do. Just why you do is something you'll deal with by daylight, if you ever get out of this place. But it's an irretrievable truth now that you want to get fucked by him, to feel him. John's eyelashes flutter as he strips off his pants and underwear in a clumsy, reckless rush, and then he's back on top of you. His ankles touch where yours are tied up. And his length bumps wetly against your stomach.

That is...primally exciting and frightening all in one go. Your senses scream that there's no way you'll be able to take him even as John lines himself up with your entrance and starts to enter you.

Slowly. You're reminded suddenly of your heartbeat. It's not the kind of opening up that can be achieved in one sloppy, marginally satisfying stroke. John is stretching you beyond what you thought possible, and he's slow, but he isn't prepared to wait forever.

This is the law of balance, he thinks, smirking to himself as he watches the naked fear and want in your face. I scratch your back, you let me fuck your slutty cunt into oblivion.

You can’t hold him. You’ll come apart, the world is coming apart.

John lets go of a deep, deep sigh, cock still so unbearably deep inside you. “Mmmm. I know, I know, I’m a little big, you can take it, good-girl-good-girl…”

You haven’t spoken in 45 seconds to a minute. Some sense of the present seems to have left your eyes, dripped out through your cunt. A gorgeous silvery little teardrop is in the corner of your eye. Impulsively, gripping your wrists, John leans down and licks it. You wince away from the feeling.

John lets go of a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, tastes you on his tongue. 

“Please,” you whine meaninglessly. Please don’t hurt me. Please untie me. Please fuck me. Please let me go. Your desires are all confused.

“S’fucking good.” his hips move a little, he doesn’t even thrust on purpose. Just needs you. 

You let out a little cry. The pressure is immense. You’re wet, but he is so much bigger than anything or anyone you’ve ever taken inside. 

“Oh yes. More of that. Fucking give that to me,” he pants out, capturing your mouth in another enveloping kiss to swallow your sounds as he starts to move with a bit more intention. So much. 

The bed creaks under you as John finds a rhythm he enjoys that you're grateful isn't ripping you apart. You've never had this level of internal vertigo between pleasure and pain. Your vision is blinded white. And this isn't going to last long.

"You make me wanna be a better man," John laughs to himself, half-serious and half-mad with lust. "Fuck, I want to touch you more than anything. You'll cum if I rub your clit, I know you will."

You let out a loud moan as he fumbles a hand and finds a sensitive nub at the arch of your pussy. He's so distracted that initially all he does is lay a hand on you, deadweight, vaguely good but not nearly enough. You're so far gone that you try and fail to wrench your arms free and cover his hand with one of your own.

He entertains toying with you this way and not indulging what you so clearly want. But really, more stimulation is just going to make you gush. And that is something John Tyler needs to see and feel before he dies.

He reads you with his index and middle finger as he did before with his mouth, and attentive, filthy pitcher ears. You like a bit of circularity, and a little bit of pressure--so slippery now his hand slips off you now and again and he laughs, laughs. You watch him get lost in it and get rougher, and if there's any trace of fear left in you under his ministrations, you're climbing too high to be brought back down by it. You've heard people say their mind so empties, so fills up with pleasure that sex feels like the soul leaving the body. This must be your version of it.

Fate has it happen under the constricting body of big bad John Tyler, but there really is no time to worry about that. "Yeah. Good. Fuck." Even he's growing less eloquent.

Your walls clench down around him and release starts as an intense wave curling your toes. "Yeahfuck-cum-I'm gonna cum inside you. You know you want it. You know, you know, you know me--" he chants, a groan leaving his lips as you shake up apart and cum on his length. He spills his seed inside you, warm, sticky, satisfying, foreign.

"Oh..." You say, a small, animal noise having met the brink of your presence of mind and gone past. It sounds surprised, and sweet, and bruised, and fucking filthy.

"I love you, noisy girl. Fuck I love you," John sighs, collapsing over your body, his face in your neck. "Never fucking letting this go. Never never never..."

[paperanddice]

Among the most fearsome of the manifested dreams, this thing is a gigantic mass of flesh covered in mouths and eyes. It resembles the gibbering mouther, though far larger and more dangerous, and is nearly impossible to evade with its ability to bend reality to a degree and launch powerful bolts of force energy at those staying out of its reach. The reason for the incredible power of this particular dream has been discussed, with many theorizing that its unnatural existence speaks to a primal fear a great many creatures capable of dreaming have. With it being even more universal than other fears, it draws upon the nightmares of even more creatures to become a destructive force capable of bringing down even many dragons or razing entire towns.

In other settings, this may be a gibbering mass or a gibbering beast instead, an evolution of the gibbering mouther into a much worse threat. Originally from the Dreamblade Base Set. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as access to my premade adventures and other material I'm working on, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Unspeakable Freak Huge aberration, unaligned Armor Class 12 (natural armor) Hit Points 341 (22d12 + 198) Speed 40 ft., climb 20 ft. Str 22 (+6) Dex 6 (-2) Con 29 (+9) Int 6 (-2) Wis 15 (+2) Cha 23 (+6) Damage Immunities bludgeoning Damage Resistances acid, fire, piercing, poison Condition Immunities grappled, prone, restrained, stunned Senses passive Perception 12 Languages - Challenge 15 (13000 XP) Bend Geometry (Recharge 4-6). As a bonus action the unspeakable freak may choose one of the following options: • It can double its movement speeds and doesn't provoke opportunity attacks until the end of its turn. • It can move through other creatures and objects as if they were difficult terrain. If it ends its turn inside an object, it takes 16 (3d10) force damage and is forced to the nearest unoccupied space. • It can teleport 20 feet to an unoccupied space it can see. Actions Multiattack. The unspeakable freak makes three Tentacle attacks. It can replace one Tentacle attack with a Bite attack. Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 25 (3d12+6) piercing damage. Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 15 ft., one target. Hit: 19 (3d8+6) bludgeoning damage and the target is grappled (escape DC 19) and dragged up to 10 feet straight toward the freak. Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. Warp Bolt. Ranged Spell Attack: +11 to hit, range 120 ft., one target. Hit: 54 (12d8) force damage. Engulf. The freak makes one Tentacle attack and one Bite attack against a Medium or smaller creature it is grappling. If any of the attacks hits, the target is engulfed. The engulfed target is blinded, restrained, and unable to breath, and it must make a DC 19 Constitution saving throw at the start of each of the freak's turns, taking 44 (8d10) bludgeoning damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful save. If the freak moves, the engulfed target moves with it. The freak can have up to two creatures engulfed at a time.

13th Age

Unspeakable Freak  Huge 11th level troop [aberration]  Initiative: +10 Mouth Covered Tentacles +16 vs. AC (3 attacks) - 75 damage. Natural Even Hit: The target also takes 25 ongoing damage. Natural Odd Hit: The target is also stuck (save ends). Triple Hit: If all three tentacles hit during the same turn, the unspeakable freak can make an engulfing bulk attack against one of the targets during its next turn if it’s still engaged with the target. [Special Trigger] Engulfing Bulk +16 vs. PD - 150 damage and the unspeakable freak grabs the target. Until this grab ends, the target takes 50 ongoing damage and is weakened. R: Warp Bolt +16 vs. PD (one nearby or far away enemy) - 150 force damage. Natural 16+: The target is also stunned until the end of the unspeakable freak’s next turn. Disrespect Geometry: When the escalation die is even the unspeakable freak can choose one of the following effects: • It can move as a quick action until the end of its turn and automatically succeeds on disengage checks. • It can move through solid objects, but can’t end its movement inside of them. • As a quick action during this turn it can teleport to a nearby spot it can see. AC 24 PD 25 MD 21 HP 982

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous said: I didn’t know too much about the late British philosopher Sir Roger Scruton until I followed your superbly cultured blog. As an ivy league educated American reading your posts, I feel he is a breath of fresh air as a sane and cultured conservative intellectual. We don’t really have his kind over here where things are heavily polarized between left and right, and sadly, we are often uncivil in our discourse. Sir Roger Scruton talks a lot about beauty especially in art (as indeed you do too), so for Scruton why does beauty as an aesthetic matter in art? Why should we care?

I thank you for your very kind words about my blog which I fear is not worthy of such fulsome praise.

However one who is worthy of praise (or at least gratitude and appreciation at least) is the late Sir Roger Scruton. I have had the pleasure to have met him on a few informal occasions.

Most memorably, I once got invited to High Table dinner at Peterhouse, Cambridge, by a friend who was a junior Don there. This was just after I had finished my studies at Cambridge and rather than pursue my PhD I opted instead to join the British army as a combat pilot officer. And so I found out that Scruton was dining too. We had very pleasant drinks in the SCR before and after dinner. He was exceptionally generous and kind in his consideration of others; we all basked in the gentle warmth of his wit and wisdom.

I remember talking to him about Xanthippe, Socrate’s wife, because I had read his wickedly funny fictional satire. In the book he credits the much maligned Xanthippe with being the brains behind all of Socrates’ famous philosophical ideas (as espoused by Plato).

On other occasions I had seen Roger Scruton give the odd lecture in London or at some cultural forum.

Other than that, I’ve always admire both the man and many of his ideas from afar. I do take issue with some of his intellectual ideas which seem to be taken a tad too far (he think pre-Raphaelites were kitsch) but it’s impossible to dislike the man in person.

Indeed the Marxist philosopher G.A. Cohen reportedly once refused to teach a seminar with Scruton, although they later became very good friends. This is the gap between the personal and the public persona. In public he was reviled as hate figure by some of the more intolerant of the leftists who were trying to shut him down from speaking. But in private his academic peers, writers, and philosophers, regardless of their political beliefs, hugely respected him and took his ideas seriously - because only in private will they ever admit that much of what Scruton talks about has come to pass.

In many ways he was like C.S. Lewis - a pariah to the Oxbridge establishment. At Oxford many dons poo-pooed his children stories, and especially his Christian ideas of faith, culture, and morality, and felt he should have laid off the lay theology and stuck to his academic speciality of English Literature. But an Oxford friend, now a don, tells me that many dons read his theological works in private because much of what he wrote has become hugely relevant today.

Scruton was a man of parts, some of which seemed irreconcilable: barrister, aesthetician, distinguished professor of aesthetics. Outside of brief pit stops at Cambridge, Oxford, and St Andrews, he was mostly based out of Birkbeck College, London University, which had a tradition of a working-class intake and to whom Scruton was something of a popular figure. He was also an editor of the ultra-Conservative Salisbury Review, organist, and an enthusiastic fox hunter. In addition he wrote over 50 books on philosophy, art, music, politics, literature, culture, sexuality, and religion, as well as finding time to write novels and two operas. He was widely recognised for his services to philosophy, teaching and public education, receiving a knighthood in 2016.

He was exactly the type of polymath England didn’t know what to do with because we British do discourage such continental affectations and we prefer people to know their lane and stick to it. Above all we’re suspicious of polymaths because no one likes a show off. Scruton could be accused of a few things but he never perceived as a show off. He was a gentle, reserved, and shy man of kindly manners.

He was never politically ‘Conservative’, or tried not to be. Indeed he encouraged many to think about defining “a philosophy of conservatism” and not “a philosophy for the Conservative Party.” In defining his own thoughts, he positioned conservatism to relation to its historical rivals, liberalism and socialism. He wrote that liberalism was the product of the enlightenment, which viewed society as a contract and the state as a system for guaranteeing individual rights. While he saw socialism as the product of the industrial revolution, and an ideology which views society as an economic system and the state as a means of distributing social wealth.

Like another great English thinkers, Michael Oakeshott, he felt that conservatives leaned more towards liberalism then socialism, but argued that for conservatives, freedom should also entail responsibility, which in turn depends on public spirit and virtue. Many classical liberals would agree.

In fact, he criticised Thatcherism for “its inadequate emphasis on the civic virtues, such as self-sacrifice, duty, solidarity and service of others.” Scruton agreed with classical liberals in believing that markets are not necessarily expressions of selfishness and greed, but heavily scolded his fellow Conservatives for allowing themselves to be caricatured as leaving social problems to the market. Classical liberals could be criticised for the same neglect.

Perhaps his conservative philosophy was best summed up when he wrote “Liberals seek freedom, socialists equality, and conservatives responsibility. And, without responsibility, neither freedom nor equality have any lasting value.”

Scruton’s politics were undoubtedly linked to his philosophy, which was broadly Hegelian. He took the view that all of the most important aspects of life – truth (the perception of the world as it is), beauty (the creation and appreciation of things valued for their own sake), and self-realisation (the establishment by a person of a coherent, autonomous identity) – can be achieved only as part of a cultural community within which meaning, standards and values are validated. But he had a wide and deep understanding of the history of western philosophy as a whole, and some of his best philosophical work consisted of explaining much more clearly than is often the case how different schools of western philosophy relate to one another.

People today still forget how he was a beacon for many East European intellectuals living under Communist rule in the 1980s.  Scruton was deeply attached in belonging to a network of renowned Western scholars who were helping the political opposition in Eastern Europe. Their activity began in Czechoslovakia with the Jan Hus Foundation in 1980, supported by a broad spectrum of scholars from Jacques Derrida and Juergen Habermas to Roger Scruton and David Regan. Then came Poland, Hungary and later Romania. In Poland, Scruton co-founded the Jagiellonian Trust, a small but significant organisation. The other founders and active participants were Baroness Caroline Cox, Jessica Douglas-Home, Kathy Wilkes, Agnieszka Kołakowska, Dennis O’Keeffe, Timothy Garton Ash, and others.

Scruton had a particular sympathy for Prague and the Czech society, which bore fruit in the novel, Notes from Underground, which he wrote many years later. But his involvement in East European affairs was more than an emotional attachment.  He believed that Eastern Europe - despite the communist terror and aggressive social engineering - managed to preserve a sense of historical continuity and strong ties to European and national traditions, more unconscious than openly articulated, which made it even more valuable. For this reason, decades later, he warned his East European friends against joining the European Union, arguing that whatever was left of those ties will be demolished by the political and ideological bulldozer of European bureaucracy.

Anyway, digressions aside, onto to the heart of your question.

Art matters.

Let’s start from there. Regardless of your personal tastes or aesthetics as you stand before a painting, slip inside a photograph, run your hand along the length of a sculpture, or move your body to the arrangements spiraling out of the concert speakers…something very primary - and primal - is happening. And much of it sub-conscious. There’s an element of trust.

Political philosopher, Hannah Arendt, defined artworks as “thought things,” ideas given material form to inspire reflection and rumination. Dialogue. Sometimes even discomfort. Art has the ability to move us, both positively and negatively. So we know that art matters. But the question posed by modern philosophers such as Roger Scruton has been: how do we want it to affect us?

Are we happy with the direction art is taking? Namely, says, Scruton, away from seeking “higher virtues” such as beauty and craftmanship, and instead, towards novelty for novelty’s sake, provoking emotional response under the guise of socio-political discourse.

Why does beauty in art matter?  

Scruton asks us to wake up and start demanding something more from art other than disposable entertainment. “Through the pursuit of beauty,” suggests Scruton, “we shape the world as our own and come to understand our nature as spiritual beings. But art has turned its back on beauty and now we are surrounded by ugliness.” The great artists of the past, says Scruton, “were painfully aware that human life was full of care and suffering, but their remedy was beauty. The beautiful work of art brings consolation in sorrow and affirmation…It shows human life to be worthwhile.” But many modern artists, argues the philosopher, have become weary of this “sacred task” and replaced it with the “randomness” of art produced merely to gain notoriety and the result has been anywhere between kitsch to ugliness that ultimately leads to inward alienation and nihilistic despair.

The best way to understand Scruton’s idea of beauty in art and why it matters is to let him speak for himself. Click below on the video and watch a BBC documentary broadcast way back in 2009 that he did precisely on this subject, why beauty matters. It will not be a wasted hour but perhaps enrich and even enlighten your perspective on the importance of beauty in art.

So I’ll do my best to summarise the point Scruton is making in this documentary above.

Here goes.....

In his 2009 documentary “Why Beauty Matters”, Scruton argues that beauty is a universal human need that elevates us and gives meaning to life. He sees beauty as a value, as important as truth or goodness, that can offer “consolation in sorrow and affirmation in joy”, therefore showing human life to be worthwhile.

According to Scruton, beauty is being lost in our modern world, particularly in the fields of art and architecture.

I was raised in many different cultures from India, Pakistan, to China, Japan, Southern Africa, and the Middle East as well schooling in rural Britain and Switzerland. So coming home to London on frequent visits was often a confusing experience because of the mismatch of modern art and new architecture. In life and in art I have chosen to see the beauty in things, locating myself in Paris, where I am surrounded by beauty, and understand the impact it can have on the everyday.

Scruton’s disdain for modern art begins with Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. Originally a satirical piece designed to mock the world of art and the snobberies that go with it, it has come to mean that anything can be art and anyone can be an artist. A “cult of ugliness” was created where originality is placed above beauty and the idea became more important than the artwork itself. He argues that art became a joke, endorsed by critics, doing away with a need for skill, taste or creativity.

Duchamp’s argument was that the value of any object lies solely in what each individual assigns it, and thus, anything can be declared “art,” and anyone an artist.

But is there something wrong with the idea that everything is art and everyone an artist? If we celebrate the democratic ideals of all citizens being equal and therefore their input having equal value, doesn’t Duchamp’s assertion make sense?

Who’s to say, after all, what constitutes beauty?

This resonated with me in particular and brought to mind when Scruton meets the artist Michael Craig-Martin and asks him about how Duchamp’s urinal first made him feel. Martin is best known for his work “An Oak Tree” which is a glass of water on a shelf, with text beside it explaining why it is an oak tree. Martin argues that Duchamp captures the imagination and that art is an art because we think of it as such.

When I first saw “An Oak Tree” I was confused and felt perhaps I didn’t have the intellect to understand it. When I would later question it with friends who worked in the art auction and gallery world, the response was always “You just don’t get it,” which became a common defence. To me, it was reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen’s short tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, about two weavers who promise an emperor a new suit of clothes that they say is invisible to those who are unfit for their positions, stupid or incompetent. In reality, they make no clothes at all.

Scruton argues that the consumerist culture has been the catalyst for this change in modern art. We are always being sold something, through advertisements that feed our appetite for stuff, adverts try to be brash and outrageous to catch our attention. Art mimics advertising as artists attempt to create brands, the product that they sell is themselves. The more shocking and outrageous the artwork, the more attention it receives. Scruton is particularly disturbed by Piero Manzoni’s artwork “Artist’s Shit” which consists of 90 tin cans filled with the artist’s excrement.

Moreover the true aesthetic value, the beauty, has vanished in modern works that are selling for millions of dollars. In such works, by artists like Rothko, Franz Kline, Damien Hirst, and Tracey Emin, the beauty has been replaced by discourse. The lofty ideals of beauty are replaced by a social essay, however well intentioned.

A common argument for modern art is that it is reflecting modern life in all of its disorder and ugliness. Scruton suggests that great art has always shown the real in the light of the ideal and that in doing so it is transfigured.

A great painting does not necessarily have a beautiful subject matter, but it is made beautiful through the artist’s interpretation of it. Rembrandt shows this with his portraits of crinkly old women and men or the compassion and kindness of which Velazquez paints the dwarfs in the Spanish court. Modern art often takes the literal subject matter and misses the creative act. Scruton expresses this point using the comparison of Tracey Emin’s artwork ‘My Bed’ and a painting by Delacroix of the artist’s bed.

The subject matters are the same. The unmade beds in all of their sordid disdain. Delacroix brings beauty to a thing that lacks it through the considered artistry of his interpretation and by doing so, places a blessing on his own emotional chaos. Emin shares the ugliness that the bed shows by using the literal bed. According to Emin, it is art because she says that it is so.

Philosophers argued that through the pursuit of beauty, we shape the world as our home. Traditional architecture places beauty before utility, with ornate decorative details and proportions that satisfy our need for harmony. It reminds us that we have more than just practical needs but moral and spiritual needs too. Oscar Wilde said “All art is absolutely useless,” intended as praise by placing art above utility and on a level with love, friendship, and worship. These are not necessarily useful but are needed.

We have all experienced the feeling when we see something beautiful. To be transported by beauty, from the ordinary world to, as Scruton calls it, “the illuminated sphere of contemplation.” It is as if we feel the presence of a higher world. Since the beginning of western civilisation, poets and philosophers have seen the experience of beauty as a calling to the divine.

According to Scruton, Plato described beauty as a cosmic force flowing through us in the form of sexual desire. He separated the divine from sexuality through the distinction between love and lust. To lust is to take for oneself, whereas to love is to give. Platonic love removes lust and invites us to engage with it spiritually and not physically. As Plato says, “Beauty is a visitor from another world. We can do nothing with it save contemplate its pure radiance.”

Scruton makes the prescient point that art and beauty were traditionally aligned in religious works of art. Science impacted religion and created a spiritual vacuum. People began to look to nature for beauty, and there was a shift from religious works of art to paintings of landscapes and human life.

In today’s world of art and architecture, beauty is looked upon as a thing of the past with disdain. Scruton believes his vision of beauty gives meaning to the world and saves us from meaningless routines to take us to a place of higher contemplation. In this I think Scruton encourages us not to take revenge on reality by expressing its ugliness, but to return to where the real and the ideal may still exist in harmony “consoling our sorrows and amplifying our joys.”

Scruton believes when you train any of your senses you are privy to a heightened world. The artist sees beauty everywhere and they are able to draw that beauty out to show to others. One finds the most beauty in nature, and nature the best catalyst for creativity. The Tonalist painter George Inness advised artists to paint their emotional response to their subject, so that the viewer may hope to feel it too.

It must be said that Scruton’s views regarding art and beauty are not popular with the modern art crowd and their postmodern advocates. Having written several books on aesthetics, Scruton has developed a largely metaphysical aspect to understanding standards of art and beauty.

Throughout this documentary (and indeed his many books and articles), Scruton display a bias towards ‘high’ art, evidenced by a majority of his examples as well as his dismissal of much modern art. However on everyday beauty, there is much space for Scruton to challenge his own categories and extend his discussion to include examples from popular culture, such as in music, graphic design, and film. Omitting ‘low art’ in the discussion of beauty could lead one to conclude that beauty is not there.

It is here I would part ways with Scruton. I think there is beauty to be found in so called low art of car design, popular music or cinema for example - here I’m thinking of a Ferrari 250 GTO,  jazz, or the films of Bergman, Bresson, or Kurosawa (among others) come to mind. Scruton gives short thrift to such 20th century art forms which should not be discounted when we talk of beauty. It’s hard to argue with Jean-Luc Godard for instance when he once said of French film pioneering director, Robert Bresson, “He is the French cinema, as Dostoevsky is the Russian novel and Mozart is German music.”

Overall though I believe Scruton does enough to leave us to ponder ourselves on the importance of beauty in the arts and our lives, including fine arts, music, and architecture. I think he succeeds in illuminating the poverty, dehumanisation and fraud of modernist and post-modernist cynicism, reductionism and nihilism. Scruton is rightly prescient in pointing the centrality of human aspiration and the longing for truth in both life and art.

In this he is correct in showing that goodness and beauty are universal and fundamentally important; and that the value of anything is not utilitarian and without meaning (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s claim that “All art is absolutely useless.”). Human beings are not purposeless material objects for mechanistic manipulation by others, and civil society itself depends upon a cultural consensus that beauty is real and every person should be respected with compassion as having dignity and nobility with very real spiritual needs to encounter and be transformed and uplifted by beauty.

Thanks for your question.

[littlefreya]

The Way to Hell - Part 11

Synopsis: Post Mi6, Alternate Canon. August escapes Ethan Hunt with his face intact and is currently the most dangerous man alive. Unwilling to back down from his murderous agenda, he plots to continue where he stopped, unaware of the trained assassin who is sent to bring him down.

Chapters:  Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10| Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Completed.

Pairing: August Walker x OFC (Ingvild)

Word count: 6.2k

Warnings:  Explicit smut, violence, gore, cutting, angst, manhandling, choking, foul language, bondage, breath play, unprotected sex. 

A/N: Assuming my usual panic attack positions! Ok, so there are about 2 chapters left and I fear this story is about to conclude... 😰 This chapter put me through an emotional turmoill! Many thanks for my editor and muse @agniavateira, @yespolkadotkitty for the cover art and @dancingwendigo and @wondersofdreaming who’re helping me through my panic attacks and providing tips

Please comment, review and reblog.  💖

*No permission is given for reposting my work, copying it or parts of the source material and claiming it as your own*

Title: Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me

Pearly tendrils of light shine through the creases of his lids, waking him from a dreamless sleep. A mixture of iron and dream-like mellowness tugs at his nose, like death and fresh roses. It’s so close he can nearly taste it on his parched tongue. Swallowing the scorching dryness in his throat, the fallen man attempts to move but a leaden warmth defies him, hugging softly onto his upper torso and embracing him in the foreign fog of solace. 

A delicate heartbeat murmurs against his, so frail it virtually feels as if it melted into his own ribs. 

As if she dissolved into him.

Cold sweat layers his forehead. Snapping frantically he shoves the girl off of him, curling against the headboard with a crazed neurotic look on his face as if he was touched by a blaze of blistering fire. 

“What the fuck do you want!?” August yells, his voice hoarse and cracked. His glare shoots through her across the small bedroom, his mind rapidly trying to grasp any recollection of the messy chamber. This location is strange to him; the walls feel like they’re closing in, withdrawing the air from his lungs in a place that seems like a warzone. The light-carpeted floor is soiled by a long path of the darkest red, the trail leading back to them.  

The porcelain valkyrie is pushed to the edge of the bed, seemingly like a rare mythological creature. Her long hair drapes her face like a dark veil, pierced by two shiny diamonds that glimpse through, imbued with naivety. Still drowsy, she tries to collect her own senses, rubbing her heavy forehead and releasing a soft groan.

“Relax, stop shouting.” she pleads with lids half shut. Her slender arms spread in the air, suggesting a peace treaty. 

August scowls, his airflow becoming short and quickened. He lets a hand rave over his chest with panic, finding it bare and sticky with dry blood and sweat. A clean bandage is wrapped around his left pectoral and crossed tightly around one shoulder. While the aching sting still bites into the wounded muscle, his energy has slightly renewed, as well as his sanity. 

Or so he believes. 

Making another hasty survey of the room, he finds his belt and armed holster scattered on the floor. He makes a dash for it, immediately aiming the gun in Ingvild’s direction, refusing to fall to whatever game this may be.  

She stares at him motionless, remaining seated with her knees folded and her feet nestled below her behind. “Feels nice doesn’t it?” she provokes, her lips breaking into a faint grin as if the muscles of her face are still learning the concept of smiling. “To wake up with your tits out.”

Looking back at her unamused, his hand waves the gun. A glower shadows his face, painting deep lines in his forehead. The attempt to greet her with an onslaught of insults results in nothing but a painful wheeze as his throat sears. 

“Don’t move,” Ingvild commands lightly and climbs off the bed, completely ignoring the click of the gun and August’s arm that follows her every movement. Her legs nearly float through as she moves gracefully, rushing to the bathroom nearby. She grabs a glass and fills it from the tap before quickly returning to sit on the bed, offering the tall glass to August.

Wary of her peace offering, he hesitates, scanning her for any signs of wickedness and finding none. Something else glints through her big irises instead. The deep lines that dot those beautiful greys seem so brittle, immersed in emotion he can’t define or recognize at all. 

It makes him feel attacked.

Snatching the glass violently, he swallows its content in one gulp, feeling a thirst he never sensed in his entire existence. He places the glass on the nightstand, slamming it so harshly it shatters.  

Ingvild peers at the light sparkling onto the broken shards and averts her eyes back to August’s profoundly ragged face. He glares with blazes of fury, evidently less than inclined to trust her despite her efforts to make amends, and the fact that she nursed him through a stormy night. 

It pricks her heart, more than it ever did when she tried to gain Liam’s affection.

“I could have killed you at least three times in your sleep,” she murmurs and then pauses, attempting to smirk again. “You should really lay off the snacks, I nearly fainted trying to get you to the bed.”

Unphased, he carefully gauges her appearance. Soft, pale light shines through the window, showering her skin with a mellow haze as she sits holding a hand over her forearm, squeezing it nervously. Her glance is filled with rain clouds, the cynicism and the hatred he grew so accustomed to is untraceable. 

A piece inside her shifted, deeming her fragile all of the sudden. In his heart of tar and stone, he knows she speaks the truth, yet the spirit of vengeance won’t let go. Bile rises in his throat, fingers twitching as the constant hunger to touch her prickles his skin. The woman is a natural prey to him, making his mouth salivate. It’s enough to see her defenceless to make him want to gnaw fresh cavities in her flesh. 

But something else boils in his veins. More than just a primal need.

“Why can’t you just let me be?” he asks sharply, teeth gritted and jaw strained tightly. A slight tremor runs through his bones, his body dominated by anger and despair. 

“You came here,” she answers, staring fearlessly between the barrel and his furious gaze. A small frown forms between her eyebrows, the grey clouds inside her lustrous eyes beginning to take wind. “You wanted to retaliate.”

Fragments of the other night begin to slice into the black matter of his brain: her tears, her lips moving slowly, whispering his own words of a vendetta in her angelic voice. 

Like a dream, nebulous and virginal, how beautiful she was surrendering her will to his. 

‘Fight it! She betrayed you.’

“Oh trust me, princess, I still very much want to see you die.” he retorts, the gun beginning to feel heavy in his hand. He reaches to hold his own wrist, giving a fierce glare. “You should have ended it, darling.”

“Yes, I should’ve killed you,” she agrees, her lower lip slightly quivering as she looks at him with desperation. Her chest begins to heave through the cleavage of her top, the same tarnished one she wore that night. It still smells like his sweat. His musk is so stubborn it lingers. 

“I should be a good girl, for Liam, for Icarus. But I have so many thoughts going through my head over and over again, splitting my mind in half. I don’t want to do this anymore, I don’t want to kill for them, I don’t want to kill you. It hurts.”

Shuffling in a swift movement, she crawls toward him, her muscles flexing inward. Her slick manoeuvres remind him of a majestic feline. August’s pupils dilate as the lines of her face sharpen in his sight and the warmth of her body returns to caress him like a pleasant autumn breeze.

Ingvild reaches her slender arm for his wrist fearlessly before he can even muster any protest. Ignoring the gun aimed at her throat, she forces his palm flat onto her chest and inhales sharply. Her heart thunders against his touch, making his own beat accelerate.  

“Right here,” she says, gazing deeply into his eyes as if trying to enchant him. “I have killed close to 470 people since I was 14. I don’t remember their faces, but I do know I never felt this before, not for any of them.”

The azure ocean in August’s eyes gushes with alarming gusts. The scarce physical contact ignited a spark inside him, driving him to withdraw his hand aggressively, putting down the flame before it begins to spread again. 

“What do you want? What do you think this is?” he asks furiously, boring a frenzied look into her eyes. He feels a certain heat rising in his chest. He reasons with himself that it’s just the gunshot wound festering, burning his lungs to cinders.

“I want you,” she answers, her gaze dropping to his lips, admiring the fine shape. A sharp cupid’s bow hidden beneath the coarse hair of his thick moustache. Her hands dream of stroking his sculptured jaw and feel the bristle of his untamed stubble. 

“I want to follow you on your mission.”    

‘She is lying. Don’t trust her, remember what happened the last time you’ve placed your faith in a woman?’

August’s nostrils flare, his mind scouring frantically, bargaining for a reason why she would be different. Twice he spared her, his murderous will weakened by her manipulative spells, clawed by whatever it was she had on him. The voice in his head warns him gravely, yet the fact that here he is, still alive by her merciful hand spikes his doubts, meddling with his thoughts the way only she could do. 

Ever since she stepped into his life he’s been spiralling into a cataclysm. Something that he always gripped with zeal was no longer in his control.  

Leaning closer, he narrows his eyes with spite. The muscle of his jaw contracts, clenching tightly. He grazes the cold barrel of the gun against the supple skin of her cheek. “Why should I trust you?” he spits out, tracing her face further with the hard, crude metal.  “You think that because I broke you in, I actually care about you?”

Ingvild studies his face, not showing any sign of fear as she nods to herself. “You need proof.”

The young woman looks around her, searching for something in the room thoughtfully. Her eyes rest on the nightstand beside August and she leans to it, brushing her entire figure against his broad body for a split second as she reaches for the broken glass. 

“What do you think you’re doing, princess?” he asks cautiously, his eyes following her every move.  He crooks his eyebrow as she sits in front of him with her legs bunched beneath her bottom. Displaying her left arm with her elbow resting on one knee and her palm facing upward, she presses the shard against her wrist. 

August frowns in a mixture of confusion and agitation, alarm bells ringing at the back of his head. Yet no rational thought makes it to his mind as he watches the glass tear through her skin. 

Silence befalls the room. Abruptly so quiet he can hear the buzz of the electric cords running through the walls. Even her breath pauses as her right hand drops the shard on the bed, her eyes remaining poised, darting onto his. Overcome with disbelief he wonders if she actually did it, scrutinizing her flesh which seems intact.  

Suddenly, a spout of blood emerges through her open wrist. 

Dark red liquor licks down her arm, sensually dripping onto her worn jeans and pooling onto the blanket. August’s heart stirs with shock, yet he attempts to force his emotions away. 

“What the hell do you think you are doing?!” 

Keeping her sight on his, Ingvild remains still, not flinching a muscle as the blood pumps out of her severed artery. The pain is excruciating yet the chants in her mind continue to tell her to hold her groans inside. 

‘Show no weakness, prove your strength.’

“You want loyalty.”

“Won’t mean a thing if you’re dead,” he answers coldly, waiting for her to stop the blood, to show any fear or regret. The thick liquid continues to flow down her arm, tarnishing her porcelain skin that begins to turn paler as the blood drains from her body. He gathers the torture must be unbearable yet she won’t even make a whimper.

‘What is she waiting for?’

“I’m not going to save you,” August warns. 

Ingvild shrugs lightly, trying not to move her arm too much. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll die one way or another, by your hand or Icarus’. At least this gives me a choice.”

The drops staining the bed sound like rain tapping against a window ledge, heavy and dull.

August’s brows knit together, his eyes running back and forth between her arm and her face, watching her lips turning light blue, triggering disturbing memories in his mind. “What on earth does that mean?” Heavy frown lines paint his forehead as he recalls her words before she shot him. 

“I have to kill you.” 

“You’re a slave?” he reckons, looking at the colour vanishing from her face as she nods. “How very disappointing, Ingvild.”

“A tool, controlled by men whom I’ve never seen to manipulate the world and sustain the old order, as you wrote in your manifesto.” she shuts her eyes for a mere second, trying to push back the throbbing twinge in her vein as her body screams with panic. 

“They stole my freedom…” she pauses, finding it suddenly hard to speak. “They stole me... what did they take from you?”

“It’s none of your business,” he snaps, aware of how her voice slows down along with her breath. He swears he can hear her heartbeat getting louder as if begging to be rescued. 

“But I am bleeding for you.” she provokes, offering a small weak chuckle. Feeling the euphoria creeping to her mind. “You should tell me your plans like villains do in the movies. I’m dying anyway.”

August snarls. Shaking his head, his eyes hold a rageful ocean, washed with concern. The image of her dying corpse lying beneath him flashes into his memory. A dead angel in the snow, lips frozen in time. He should have left her there in the frozen lake. But for a split second, she was Lacey and then she wasn’t. 

As she slowly dives into her own death, he still wonders why he couldn’t let her drown.

‘For fuck’s sake.’

Ingvild closes her eyes accepting the shadows that seduce her to join them, the pain dwindling as her body gives in. But she’s quickly pulled back by August who holds her hand, covering the bleeding slit with his tattered shirt and pressing into it. His voice comes as distant thunder, vibrating gently in her ears before words begin to make sense again.  

“Hold it up, like this,” he commands her, folding her arm and fisting her wrist tightly. “Where are the bandages?”

Ingvild tilts her chin, her sleepy eyes gesturing onto her bag on the floor where a pristine white pack of badges lies. 

“Keep the pressure on,” he orders her again. His voice is calm as if once again he follows protocols. Yet something stirred, hiding within the silent sea of his eyes which snap at her for a split second. 

They’re tainted by fear. 

Ingvild watches with hushed admiration as he hurries to grab the bandage and returns to her. A small wrinkle rests between his brow, focusing intently on wrapping her open wound. He makes such a beautiful, neat work dressing her injury, she almost feels sorry for making a mess out of his.    

“Have I proved myself?” she taunts, peeking at him through her lashes while he makes work of tying the dressing tightly at her wrist. His elegant hands wrap a piece of medical duct tape around the bandages, twirling the long thick bands ceremonially as if they were silk ribbons.

His stern gaze rests upon her face, noting every flake of her long lashes, watching the different colours shift like thick liquid as daylight breaks onto her glassy irises. Awe plays with the strings in his chest, mesmerized by the innocence in her that refuses to die even after he desecrated her. 

The craving in him seethes. Like a thirsty man in the desert who stumbles onto an oasis.    

‘You can’t let her go, can’t let her slip between your fingers.’

With her wrist still in his grasp, he allows himself to stroke a thumb over the white cotton of the bandage, brushing the suppleness of her skin.

“This is not the devotion I need from you, princess.”

Ingvild flinches like a scared animal, shivering at the foreign tenderness of his touch. No one ever touched her with kindness. Soft, feather-like caresses embark further up her milky skin, making her moan at the pleasant new sensation. Light and careful, his fingers ascend to her neck and press around her chin.  

“Angel,” August murmurs, low and sonorous. His bulky body looms closer, whilst the grip around her jaw becomes tense, drawing her closer until his lips are a mere inch away from hers. “Do you want to be devoted to me?”

“Yes,” she answers, voice still lingering either by blood loss or the passion that begins to cloud her mind.

Consoled by her answer, a small growl builds in the pit of August’s diaphragm, accompanied by a lustful grin that edges his chiselled face. 

“Then show me your devotion.”

“No…” she protests lightly, finally breaking into a true little smile that glints brightly in her eyes. The radiance almost makes him want to take it from her by force. “I’m not a toy.” 

August smirk widens at her response, exposing his sharp fangs that beam at the faint hint of rosy hues that circles her cheeks. 

“Did I stutter?” Authority paints his voice, his grip putting pressure on her nape and pressing her chin up with the pad of his thumb. The patience in him wears thin, greed weaving in his gut yet he vows to hold back as much as possible, unwilling to tear down her wings. 

She must submit freely.

Fallen by his power, she watches the darkness pour into his eyes, his lips pulling apart slightly, anticipating the moment when he can steal the air from her lungs and nibble into the plumpness of her lips. Whatever strength in her wanes, bending to his will. She meekly takes his lips into hers, suckling him above and below, feeling the rough graze of his moustache. 

It’s nothing like the violent kiss they shared in the pit, yet something in her quickly awakens: a hunger like no other, turning the kiss more demanding. Like fire spreading, their tongues quickly engulf each other, dancing feverishly. August’s growl vibrates all the way down her sternum, his hands roaming down to grope every patch of skin. 

A mewl of protest breaks from her as he leaves her lips, followed by a deep sigh as he begins to kiss down her throat. The scruff of his coarse facial hair makes her blood rush and her heart pumps with exhilaration, nearly halting from the bliss of his touch.

“I want everything.” August blurts out, tugging her shirt over her head and then biting her breasts over her bra. The canvas of her skin is tainted by deep-grey and purple shades. Flicking the clasp of her bra, he wonders briefly which were from their fight and which formed as he fucked her so aggressively. He feels nothing but pride in knowing he will make new ones right now. Brand her as he claims her his own. 

Sharp teeth sink into her tender breasts, coaxing yips of pain, marking her with wet little cavities while his fingers fiddle with her jeans, urgently huddling it down her legs along with her underwear. Impassioned, she shifts from her position, kicking away the last remnants of her clothes. The chill air tickles her wet flesh, making her exhale with ghastly need. More wolf than a man, August leans back, his torso layered with sweat that glistens of the dark fur of his torso. The fabric of his trousers is stretched painfully over the massive bulge and mindlessly she reaches out to feel him, kneading the outlines of his erection through his pants. 

‘Fuck, her touch...’ 

Fervent groans tremor through his sinew as she squeezes him harder. She frees him from his trousers, running a hand up and down his shaft, astounded by his vastness and the correlation of smooth velvet skin over rock-hard muscle. 

Still sore, the pounding heat of need rocks at the centre of her cunt, possessing her into swaying her perky breasts against his cock. Pearly beads of precum exude from the tip, coating the erected peaks of her nipples.

“Fuck!” August pants and swallows hard, as the battle over his self-control drains him. Patience has always been his virtue in bed, his power over women. Release in control by sodomy that inflicted true pleasure. 

But not with her. She strings different tunes, singing seductive hymns to the animal in him. 

He wants her. He needs her. He must have all of her.  

‘I deserve her.’

Drawing back against the headboard, his hands snap at her hip, lifting her with ease to stand on her knees right above his cock. Ingvild nibbles at her bottom lip, her eyes falling onto his hardened shaft which lies heavily against his abs. 

If not for all the injuries she caused him, the large man’s Adonis-like form would have looked like a renaissance statue cut out of marble. 

“Come here,” he commands, removing one hand from her to seize the base of his huge cock which towers with glory amidst the dark bundles of curls. “Take me in”

A stream of arousal rushes inside her, making her quiver as she lowers her soaked crease onto his erection ever so gingerly. Cries of overwhelm break from her lips. His girth splits her apart, whilst his wolf-like glares bore into hers with the triumph of conquest. 

Every push stretches her wider, forcing her body to succumb and accept him despite the painful effort. August is too big, his vastness tears whatever innocence is left to her, and he is not even fully within.

Shivering, she halts, hearing August’s snarl of protest when realizing she has her nails cleaving crescent-marks on his pumped shoulders.  

“All the way in, angel,” he commands, and then bucks his hips into her and snaps her down onto his pulsating shaft, giving no notice to the scream she lets out as he sears her. 

He drives himself in until her ass slams onto his thick thighs. She can feel his hot flinching cock buried within the dark pit of her gut while his sack strains against her clenched cavern. 

“Good girl.” August praises, pressing her against his chest as they both pant and groan in harmony. Calls of pleasure and cries of pain mingle into a sinful symphony.

But suddenly he stills, and his hand snaps at her neck. Thumb pressing at her artery, he makes a small thrust, causing her to whine as little sparks kindle in her cunt. 

“August, please.” she whimpers, trying to ride him to ease the aching despair that boils in her cunt. He fills her to the hilt yet gives no friction but the thundering throb of his thick veins. 

“Devotion.” he replies, his free arm fishing for the leather belt perched on the floor. With one determined wring of his wrist,he wraps it around her neck, giving her a nice little collar with a leash made of the thick strap. 

His finger brushes up and down the leather erotically, staring at the girl’s hazy grey orbs to see if he can find a drop of protest.   

Instead, she presses her hands on his furry torso and desperately begins to mount him with teetering gasps. The noose tightens with the sway of her body yet the tension and the grind within is far too agonizing to stay still; the need to have him sunken in her depth of her soul defies any will to breathe.

August gapes his mouth with awe, groaning loudly as he feels her drenched cunt gripping around. She’s impossibly tight, his fresh little flower, crying out so hopelessly as if it hurts, as if being fucked by his large cock is so pleasurably unbearable yet her life depends on it.

“Poor little tight cunt,” he taunts, urging her to fall faster back on his thighs while bucking his hips into her with deep slams. “you missed this?” he asks with a groan, tying the strap around his fist and pulling her closer to meet his hooded gaze, “You missed me fucking you, angel?”

Unable to make more than strangled sobs, she nods with glassy eyes, feeling the squeeze around her arteries while her cunt convulses and blazes with ecstasy. Flames bloom in the pit of her womb, every assault of his cock inside her pushes the heat further through her nerves. Desperate, she is reduced to nothing but her pursuit of forgotten euphoria. 

The fervent flames lick up her spine, darkness whispering in her mind. Yet she leans back, letting the noose devoid the oxygen to her heart and brain as her body falls lost into a delirium.

August feels her pussy tensing around his cock as the belt halts her airflow; through the heated waves of pleasure, an alarm blares. “Careful,” he rasps, reaching his fist to her throat to replace the belt and pulling her until her chest grinds into his own. “Don’t damage what’s mine!”

Her reply is a cracked wheeze, her body jolting as he fucks her into a punishing rhythm. Hot and burning, stoking inside her, balls thudding and battering her hole, the chant of their wet skin colliding in a violent dance accompanies the chaotic symphony of their moans. His angel latches onto him, wrapping tighter and tighter as her body accepts his offering of rage, sucking and milking him dry.

August pulls her face against his, fingers flexing around her jugular, lips grazing her own and then hovering to rob her of her feeble exhales. 

“You want to breathe?” he snarls.

Ingvild nods, feeling the storm of fire about to erupt inside her. Her canal gripping him so tightly she can feel every tendon and ridges of him grazing her walls. Tears well in her raincloud eyes, her heart shrinking as she feels him, all of him, consuming her with his existence.

“Then come for me, angel.” 

With his words, she arches back, letting the fire implode in her loins and sweep her into a rapture so intense her entire body shakes around him. All she can feel is August, filing her soul, seeping in deeper than her thoughts. 

Tears spring down her cheeks, emotions and pleasure whirl at her heart at once.

“August!”

Hearing his name on her lips spikes the savage spirits within. Reduced to a beast, he takes hold of her hips, flipping her over and riding between her thighs. His hands pin her down by the neck and he ravages her through her climax. He can feel the flinch of his cock, swelling larger inside her narrow space. The innocence of her essence devours him. All the hate and pain diminishes and for a brief moment, he is allowed into heaven, feeling nothing but bliss in his chest. His shouts of pleasure echo into the room, his body jerking into her as the hot, white ribbons of his thick seed sprout into her womb.

Falling down to earth is always the hardest part.

Taking a hard swallow, he leans his sweaty forehead against hers, rolling it slowly and listening to the silent hisses from her mouth. Still basking in the afterglow of his orgasm, he pulls himself to his elbows fighting the spasm in his muscles and their will to collapse. His brow suddenly crumples at her sight: her eyes shine with a wide spectrum of emotions that glisten sadly down her temples. Shivering sobs escape from quivering lips, trying to find words that never make it to her tongue. 

August observes her carefully, removing his grip from her neck gingerly and reaching out a thumb to dry her tears. The crystals in her eyes were broken to dozens of many pieces that reflected the light back in various shades. A look of a lost child that carries an oddly familiar sensation, something that makes him cold and warm, as if Ingvild is inside his blood and he is inside hers. 

They had killed each other after all and then brought one another’s hearts to beat again. In his twisted mind, it made for a more profound intimacy than sex.

“Easy, babygirl.” he speaks unusually compassionate, dipping a finger in the wetness beneath her eyes and then slips it into his mouth, tasting the salt onto his tongue. “That was intense for you, wasn’t it?”

She nods silently, the emotional release tingling through her aortae, making her skin prickle with goosebumps. She never felt like this: whole, vulnerable, and belonging. She never felt anything at all, all her life. Her body tries to control the jitters in her muscles yet her body seems suddenly inexplicably cold.   

“Sh... it’s okay,” August whispers, capturing her lips into a chaste comforting kiss. “I’ve got you.” he murmurs and allows his lips to trail lower, pressing soft butterfly kisses over every patch of skin and bone, descending through the plains of her naked flesh, tasting the mixture of their sweat. His fingers find the large crescent scar in her lower abdomen, tracing the withering stitches in a sick memory of their first night together.

He feels no remorse. Had he changed his action, she wouldn’t have been his right now.  

Ingvild finally manages to release a sound, moaning with exhaustion as she eases into his care, her lungs and heart catching up when her body begins to float. With whatever strength left in him, August holds her the way a groom holds his bride, and carries her in his firm arms. 

~*~

The bath is filled hot near to the brim. Mountains of foam edge onto the water, looking like fluffy little clouds. This bathroom is not as nearly as luxurious as the one he had in Bergen. It’s painfully plain, like something out of an 80’s film, yet right now it looks like the most outrageous, spoiling delight. 

Sitting on the stone, his hand whirls the water, testing the heat before stepping in.   

“Come here,” he beckons, reaching toward Ingvild to join him as he sits down, releasing a deep sigh of relief as the hot water soothes the pain. The bath is hardly big enough for a man of his size, his knees buck up, peeking above the water. 

Ingvild takes his hand, stepping to sit at the spot between his thighs, making sure not to wet the bandages on her wrists. August’s arms guide her to melt back against his broad chest carefully, avoiding friction with the gunshot wound that begins to ache more and more as the last of the endorphins dwindle. He breaks into a small groan and lands his chin atop her head while glaring into the water with rising concern.  

“They will come for us.” Ingvild finally manages to find words, her voice still husky as her jugular strains. “Once they know you’re not dead, they’ll hunt us. We need to move, fast.”

August weighs her words. He muses over the sacrifice she made, and for whom? The man who stabbed her and nearly left her to float in a frozen lake? ‘She chose, you didn’t force her.’

 Indeed, it was her free will that brought her to him.  

“We should,” he answers, rinsing some water onto her torso and rubbing her forearms clean. “Just relax now, you won’t do me good all broken.”

“You care about me,” she teases, a small smile creeping on her lips.

“We will make for my safe house from here, and then we can take the train to Manchester,” he answers, ignoring her comment.

Ingvild catches some foam in her palm, squeezing the dissolving material between her fingers lightly and then blows it with the weak airflow that comes from her lungs. Little specks of bubbles fly into the bath. August watches them with her silently.    

“For the plutonium,” she utters.

“Yes.”

Tilting his head slightly, he looks down to see if there is any disgust or fear shadowing her face, yet finds none. The girl continues forming little abstract shapes in the dwindling white hills, twirling her fingernails on the tiny bubbles. The edge of her spine peeks between the thick strands of her hair, while hues of purple, nearly black, hug her nape. The girl is forbearing, enduring as she was taught; he wonders if it’s to please him, or if it pleases her as well.

Cupping water in his hands, he begins to wash her skin, pouring onto the back of her neck and her shoulders. He brushes his fingers through the brown waves of her hair while she leans her head back and closes her eyes.

It’s as if years of tension peel off from her, uncovering truths she fought to hide. August was right, and so was Liam; no one ever loved her. But now in the arms of a monster, she suddenly senses what she imagines would be care and affection. His touch is no longer clinical and it feels as if vines are growing onto her limbs, twirling around her and pulling her to become one with him. 

In her mind, she can’t help but start picking into the not-so-distant past, recalling being his hostage and the conversations they had when they still hated one another. The anguish that resonates in his eyes didn’t speak of hatred individually toward the world, the specks of brown held a fair amount toward himself as well.

“What did Sloane do?” she asks curiously. “In Bergen, you mentioned she did something to you.” 

She feels August’s sudden halt, his long digits entangled in her hair, pulling slightly while his chest sinks inward. His inhale takes into a heavy suction and his nostrils flare. He didn’t think of Lacey since he woke in Ingvild’s arms. 

“She tricked me.” his eyes focus onto nothing and his fingers resume their course through Ingvild’s wet strands. He becomes slightly agitated, unlacing the small knots that formed at the edge with force. “She suspected me and never liked me- for a reason, of course. She knew someone was distributing secrets and weapons beneath her nose, so she sent a spy. In my case, it was my partner.”

“A woman,” Ingvild continues, the realization hitting her softly. “Lacey.”

Her name on Ingvild’s tongue sends a shiver creeping from the base of his spine. 

“Yes,” he answers dryly and clenches his jaw. “We were partners for months. She got close. She... was loyal, she understood me or so I thought, but then I found out, she wasn’t.”

Ingvild hears the shift in his tone again, in their reflection on the water she sees him staring forward with grim shades painting his eyes. The corners of his lips tugged down as he broods.

“It sounds like you loved her.”

August remains silent, giving no answer. It resonates in her right away - betrayal burnt hotter than the wound itself. In their carnal twist, August burned her, but it wasn’t her carnal devotion he sought for. 

“Where is she now?” 

“Dead.” he answers, releasing a deep sigh of silent rage, not even bothering to shy from the truth this time. Ingvild was bred into a world of monsters; she breathed them, she killed them and he was just another beast for her to slay. Yet she chose to stroke her hand on his snout regardless of what she knew.

“I killed her.” 

In his mind Lacey walks away, her blue heels tapping on the floor, echoing before she gives him one last glance. She turns away, her golden curls dulled by the lack of light as she vanishes into a mist of smoke and shadow. 

Ingvild feels a slight relief at the thought of Lacey being dead, for some reason she can’t explain to herself.  August returns his gaze to her again, removing his hands from her hair. His hand wraps around her jaw, pressing her head to look into his piercing glare. He looks for fear but finds none.

“Try to rest,” he commands and then wraps his arms around her possessively. “Long days are ahead.”  

“Will you read me your manifesto?”

August looks down on her face once more, wondering for a moment if this is another hallucination. A terrible thought crosses his mind and his heart flinches; what if in these moments he’s actually bleeding to his death in the pit, his mind playing tricks as he breathes his last breath?

But the softness and warmth of her body feels more vivid than ever. Stronger than the doubt that creeps into his mind. 

“There has never been peace without first a great suffering. The greater the suffering, the greater the peace. As mankind is drawn to his self-destruction like a moth to the candle...” he chants, accompanied by Ingvild who also recites his words in her gentle voice. 

_________________________________________________

disclaimer: I don’t own Mission Impossible and August Walker

[giuliamay-blog1]

WHERE IS ALICE? Or how you can avoid abusive (sexual) situations, manipulation and crossing boundaries.

The blog article “Signs of possible manipulation or (sexual) abuse” touched a lot of men and women around the world. I am very grateful and deeply touched by the many courageous and openhearted reactions. So I thank you all deeply. <3

So many good questions where asked. Why do men/women get abused? - Why do men/women keep defending abusers? - Are victims somehow responsible for the abuse? - Why even “warned” of the possible abuse men/women still put themselves at risk? - Why are victims not speaking their truth, speaking up? - Why are victims not honest with themselves about the abuse? - How do abusers get away with their doings? - Who am I, that I have been abused? - Why some men and women never encounter abusive situations and others do? - Who am I, if I feel I could cross borders and become an abuser? - Why me?

It is clear that most of the abuse happens during private sessions - not always - but in most cases. The abuse goes from manipulations, intimidation, to inappropriate touching, sexual actions of all kinds and physical and energetic penetration. Mostly with a men in the abuser role and a women in the victim role. Because this covers the majority of the testimonials, I will mainly elaborate on this. But I am aware that this is not complete. So I apologise for the shortcomings in my advocacy for a more secure environment for all who are seeking healing.

I do not agree with the general opinion that victims are just helpless poor women that need to be protected and men are evil abusers that need to be punished. The act of abuse needs both roles to be present at the scene of abuse. I always felt rebellious to the idea that only abusers are to blame and victims are unfortunate powerless subjects.

Abusive acts are often the result of a complex chain of events. And in a way a desperate way of life to get out of a circle of destructive behaviour and encounters. Because there is rightly a severe judgement over abuse and this is expressed towards men I first want to say this: I have a deep love for men and I feel that we have to protect them too - when we address the theme of abuse - most men are as heartbroken over this matter as women. So I do not want to condemn and bash men in this article again into a collective guilt - I see that men are standing up and do extreme efforts to evolve to beautiful, strong, conscious and loving warriors. So guys, I love you for all these efforts with all my heart <3

Many people suggested to create a platform to list abusers. Or to create a manifest of good behaviour for practitioners. But I have never seen that regulations in whatever form had the power to prevent abuse or to empower change. They create a false sense of security. It contributes to the conviction that we have to control abusers to keep victims safe. I believe that taking responsibility for your own experiences in life and to learn to protect yourself is much more powerful. To take responsibility for your own integrity and to feel totally capable to make your own rightful and sane judgements to keep you safe and sane.

• RAISE YOUR IMMATURE FEMININE SIDE •

It is so important not to identify with being a victim or an abuser, because it is never “you”. If it would be who you are, you could never change it. So it is “behaviour” and behaviour can be changed. Being victimised as a child forces you to choose a preferred role in life: the victim role or the abuser role. Men tend to develop the abuser role and women de victim role. But this is not always the case. Women can be abusers too at the same time, other moments, with other people. The opposite is the case of men too - abusers can be victims too. As I see it, victimhood is the expression of the immature feminine side and abusive behaviour is the expression of the immature male side. And as we all know by now - we have all a feminine and a male inside of us. So when you find yourself in the victim role, you know that you have to work on your immature feminine side.

Abusers are totally not attracted to a mature person, it is an incredible powerful protection to grow up. They are scared to death of maturity. They wil do everything to avoid mature people - they know they wil be exposed. It wil not work. No games to be played. The abuser is living in an immature male state he cannot cope with a the mature feminine nor male. And the opposite is also true: A mature person wil not feel much animo to engage with an immature person. And in terms of behaviour: mature behaviour has no acts that end up in abuse. Abuse simply does not exist in the world of maturity. So growing up is the greatest gift you can give yourself in life and the world. This wil effect your life in many more ways then just avoiding possible abuse.

There are a lot of women out there with deep wounds, trauma and daddy issues feeling very attracted to daddy like teachers or practitioners. But even if the abuser is in an parent role with a client or student he is expressing immature behaviour - playing the parent role to an other adult is simply immature behaviour. Parenting is only justified in an parent/child relationship.

No, you do not have to go trough a long period of growing to learn mature behaviour. See the list below with the characteristics of mature and immature behaviour and memorise it, post-it on your bathroom mirror, your computer, everywhere so you can see it and just correct yourself when you find yourself behaving immature. It is simple - it works fast - you wil love it.

IMMATURE FEMININE • you do not take full responsibility for your life • you blame others • you have collusions and you gossip • you do not speak your truth • you are a victim • you are needy • you have girl fantasies • you are double minded • you have hidden agenda’s • you are passive aggressive • you are pleasing, seducing • you are provoking • you are lacking boundaries • you are lazy • you are distorting and neurotic • you are manipulative • you are entitled about your rights • you have sex for power or love.

MATURE FEMININE • you are honest and humble • you are blissful • you have an open and loving heart • you are forgiving • you are magnetic and receiving • you act with tenderness and love • you are compassionate • you have empathy for others • you accept life • you can let go • you are joyful • you are intuitive and creative • you are devoted • you take accountability and responsibility • you have sex for intimacy and healing.

• FINDING A MATURE PRACTITIONER/TEACHER •

First of all - check in very honestly with your own motives and longings. How genuine are they? Are you looking for attention? Are you seductive? Do you go to a private session dressed up as for a date? Are you looking for a good looking, famous or daddy like healer because you want to test if he would be attracted to you? Do you need him for other things then just healing?

If you go to a practitioner to see if you can seduce him and put all your sexuality on the plate - then you are a (passive) sexual predator too. So be very honest with yourself. Are you the little girl that seduces a men to feed her insecurities or a woman that seeks genuinely for healing? You have to own your little girl shit and never go out to manipulate a man. This part is your responsibility and will contribute as much to a good session as the maturity of the healer.

A mature healer wil not try to entangle his energy with yours. He does not lean forward to try to enter your energy. There is no staring or eye gazing. He does not lose himself in you. He treats you like any other women. He wil ask you what you want and wil never suggest treatment for his own pleasure. He does not try to convince you to do other things, then what you ask for. If you are naked or not makes no difference for him. He wil listen to what to have to say, but he wil not engage in a father or girl-friend like conversation with you.

He is compassionate and present. He wil not compliment you, tell you you are special, beautiful or attractive. The setting is professional. He is not naked, unless you both agreed he can do your session naked. It is all about you and your healing. You can openly ask questions and he answers in very clear answers. You pay for your sessions (free sessions give the false impression to be less formal). He has dealt with his mother issues and is not an angry nor frustrated men. Do not take any little boy shit neither.

IMMATURE MALE • he is overly responsible • he is judgemental • he is controlling • he is projecting • he is dominating • he is arrogant • he is shaming others • he is taking ownership over things that are not his • he is excluding others • he is avoiding responsibility • he is making excuses • he is aggressive • he is making mixed messages • he is making you insecure • he is making you needy • he is seducing you • he is competitive • he is cerebral, argumentative • he is making you feel special • he is having sex to dominate, release stress.

MATURE MALE • he is grounded • he is patient • he knows boundaries • he is authentic • he is creating safety • he is aware and conscious • he is communicating openly and with clarity • he is guided by intuition • he is including • he is present • he is intelligent • he is very clear about himself • he is responding • he is responsible for his acts and being • he worships • he has sex to attend higher levels of consciousness.

• PEER PRESSURE •

A lot of the testimonials mentioned peer pressure as the reason why women overruled their primal intuition not to engage. Wanting to belong to a group, having the same experiences as other women, fearing to miss out something special, proving you are ready for it, that you are better then the other women, wanting to be special, all of these emotions can be so strong that you put yourself at risk. So know that the only one who knows what is good for you is you. And the only reason to go to healer is to heal. You do it for you.

There are always warnings signs. Your body knows. But in our society we love to believe that all is good and save. That is why so many of us tend to overrule our first warning signs. When you ask people after having a abusive experience they always tell that they had somehow a bad feeling about it and that they mentally overruled that instinct. So always stay with your primal feeling. Trust your own Devine wisdom and do not care about what others do or say if your feeling is no.

• LEARN TO SAY NO •

If you find yourself in a situation that is out of control and that will damage you, know that you can step out at all times. Say no. Just leave. If you have to scream, fight. Have no shame - just do whatever needed to stop it and go.

Saying no is something we are conditioned not to do. Most of us find it difficult and embarrassing. When you have been abused as a child your ability to say no has been totally overruled and often you have no idea that saying no and walking away is even an option. You never have to explain why - just do. This is very empowering. Saying no is not an unloving act - in the contrary - it is an act of love.

I know these advices will not ban abuse out of the world - but if you pay attention they will help you and others.

Thank you for sharing.

Love Giulia <3