#two women watered down into the roles of girlfriend and then tossed to the side

[euphoriabled]

⸻ ❝ Gilly, ❞ Harley says, a flicker of recognition crossing her features. ❝ How can ya' say somethin' like that, Gilda? You're so much more than Two-Face's little home maker. You're a real artist; you make things with your hands. Take a block o' somethin' and really ... transform it! ❞

Now Harley liked watercolor, and often found blood could be a real fun substitute, but Gilda? She wasn't just playing artist the way some girls play Barbies. She was the real deal. The fact that some deuce-bag was able to make her feel small pissed her off. How could she let him make her feel so ... so insignificant?

Her eyes widen. This must have been what Ivy felt.

❝ That statue you made o' my babies? It's the centerpiece of my table. Bud an' Lou never looked so mighty. It's like a ... whadaya call it? A family crest! Yeah, that's it. What'cha made for me? A king woulda' used it as his family's crest. That's how good you are, Gilda. ❞ She lowers her voice. ❝ You're the genuine article, Gilly-Pepper. If Harv can't see that? Well, he's a bigger idiot than I thought, and babe, it wasn't lookin' good to start with. You're so much more than a wife an' mother, but there'd be nothin' wrong with bein' one ... I know I used ta' dream of that life. Used t' think Mista' J would be waitin' at the aisle for me. ❞ 

A sad smile and a shake of her head; she hadn't thought of those days in a long time. She usually pushed those thoughts away. ❝ Used t' picture havin' B-Man tied up in the front row so he couldn't interrupt the ceremony ... and havin' my Quinntets as my Bride's-men. Ivy woulda' been my Maid of Honor. Course, she woulda' hated that ... I'm derailin' this. Point is: I've been in your shoes, Gil. You don't need 'im. You want 'im; crave 'im; pine for 'im, even. But you don't need 'im. You're strong enough. ❞

"Oh, no -- of course not, Harley!" Gilda is quick to respond, for she'd hate for her friend to feel unimportant. It had nothing to do with her, it really is all to do with Gilda herself. She's still working a lot out internally, still not quite sure how to open up since, very recently, there wasn't much of anyone around to open up to. Harvey was always working ... always ... working. "I just feel like ..." Gilda's eyes are pointed downward, staring holes into the tips of her toes, but with a sigh she finally looks up to meet Harley's eyes. "I feel like I wasn't made for much more than being a wife or a mother ... even though we never did get to that bit ..."

[phoneboxfairy]

A Dance of Stars Ch 2 (Undercover Dancer sequel fic)

(Read from the beginning on ao3 here - https://archiveofourown.org/works/22918666/chapters/55226749 Thanks again to @random-rave)  Lucy’s illustrious stint at Club B began the following Thursday night. She arrived at the club well before her set started, with Natsu even accompanying her to her dressing room. He figured she was nervous about her big debut and wanted to keep her company. She had no objections. Of course, since it was her first night, she only had one set, but she still felt the jitters coming on. Having Natsu there helped a lot. So she changed into a schoolgirl outfit: button shirt, pleated skirt, and thigh high stockings hiding a pink string bikini along with club standard high heels. She finished putting her hair up into ponytails and was working on makeup when she felt a familiar warmth. Natsu had wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her neck, comforting her racing mind with a dragon hug. “Natsu?” “I wanna kiss you...” “Hold on.” She smiled and finished applying her eyeshadow. Then she turned her head and smiled. “Go ahead, love.” His hands wandered before his mouth ever met hers. Warm hands squeezed soft boobs, made her gasp then giggle. “Naughty boy. That’s not a kiss.” “Duh, but I ain’t finished yet.” At long last he kissed her, delighting in the way she leaned into it and the soft sigh. For a few moments he was tempted to take it further, to slip a hand under her skirt for a little pre-set treat… but for once he refrained. He didn’t want to throw off her concentration on such a big night. After all, they were most certainly going to play once they got home. No need to rush. For now he was content kissing her. ...at least until a knock on the door claimed their attention. “Yo, Andromeda! Your set starts in five minutes. And Natsu!” “Whaaat!?” “Get your ass out here!” She clearly wasn’t giving him a choice. He treated Lucy to a kiss for luck, then reluctantly went to see what the hell Cana wanted. “Being engaged to a dancer gives you special perks, especially if you’re both friends with the owner’s girlfriend.” “Okay? And?” “And shut up and follow me if you want the best seat in the house for your woman’s show, that’s what.” “Oh!” Instant comprehension made his eyes light up. No way would he ever turn that down, not when he loved watching her dance. Needless to say that by the time Cana led him to a certain spot right in front of the stage Natsu’s eyes were sparkling in anticipation. The lights were low. The crowd murmured, something about not knowing what to expect with this new girl. Natsu couldn’t help smiling at that. He knew they were in for quite a treat. For that matter so was he… The music started, something smooth and jazzy with techno beats thrown in. “Give it up for our new celestial princess. Here’s Andromeda!” Cana’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker. A spotlight illuminated the stage. Lucy ascended and the crowd roared as she took a spin on the pole. “That’s my girl,” Natsu murmured, swelling with pride, love...and more than a little lust. He couldn’t, wouldn’t, keep his eyes off her. Not that anyone present could blame him. Her hips swayed with the music as she ran her hands over her top. She unbuttoned slowly, the look on her face cute, naughty, sexy as hell. When the top slipped off her shoulders she crossed her arms, squeezed, stroked over her little pink bikini. Whistles, wolf calls, and cheers were accompanied by bills being tossed to the stage. They’re eating it up. Good… Lucy smiled. She turned to face away from her captivated audience and grabbed the pole. She stuck her butt out a little bit. What started as more hip swaying soon became all-out twerking. When she reached back to lift her skirt with her free hand the audience went wild. “Hell yeah! Take it off, babygirl!” A certain familiar voice brought a bit of blush to her cheeks...although it was by no means an isolated request. Her fans wanted more. And Andromeda would do anything to make her fans happy. So she twerked her way out of the skirt, delighted by the positive feedback. Lots of cheering, lots of tips. Plus, she was having a lot of fun with this new role. Another pole spin, complete with spread eagle splits. Then she kicked her heels off and moved to the floor. She flirted and teased the crowd, and even accepted some pretty generous tips… although she did have to swat away a few over-friendly hands. See, Lucy had a mission. There was a reason she had wanted Natsu to be front and center for this, and she was going to enjoy using him as a living prop. She had the feeling he wouldn’t mind at all. She slithered to the edge of the stage, moved her leg, rubbed her foot against his thigh. Somehow he froze and blushed at the same time. Lucy couldn’t help giggling. “Want a dance?” His eyes widened and he nodded, not exactly trusting his voice. “Good...” Here she reached behind her neck and untied her bikini top. She tossed it right at her awestruck man then climbed into his lap. “Having fun?” Another nod. One hand dared to slip up to her waist, stroking her bare skin lovingly. “Very good...” Her dance continued. She rubbed against him in time with the music, pleased and flattered when she felt him stiffen against her leg. Her hands splayed over his chest as she nibbled his jawline and licked his neck. “Now, put me back on the stage.” No hesitation. He did what he was told. Then he did something that she hadn’t anticipated. He took a few bills from his pocket and slipped them into her garter, then flashed a fanged grin that sent a jolt of warm arousal right between her legs. From that point she focused her gaze on him. She got back to her feet and s l o w l y loosened her bottoms, letting the pink material hit the floor. The celestial princess was bare save for a tiny pair of panties straight from the spirit realm, panties that were transparent but covered her most intimate area with shimmering glitter. One last move, the same upside down splits maneuver from her audition piece. The crowd went ballistic, showering her with money and cheers. ~~~ Lucy was pretty shocked. Never would she have imagined, not in a million years, having the courage to strip for such a huge crowd. She certainly never expected such success on the first night. Natsu thought she was being ridiculous. “What’d you expect? We both know exactly how sexy you are.” They were home now, cuddling in the blissful haze of afterglow. “I just meant, you know, the cheering and all the tips...and speaking of tips, why’d you tip me?” “Wasn’t I supposed to?” “Huh? What do you mean?” “You’re supposed to tip if you enjoy the dance, yeah?” “Y..yeah that’s usually how it works.” “Then I don’t see the problem.” Cute grin as he kissed her nose. “You get to dance, I get to watch, and I can add to our wedding fund the only way I can right now.” “About that...I want to start training you. I’m sure Bacchus would let us borrow the stage Sunday before we open, if you want...” “Sounds good.” He kissed her nose again, then grinned when she let out a huge yawn. “For now, I think my star dancer needs some rest. Busy weekend ahead of us.” “Mm-hm, the first of many...” She snuggled into his arms. “Night-night, love...” “Sweet dreams, princess.” With that he rocked her to sleep. As his own eyes drifted close he couldn’t help realizing how lucky he was to call Lucy his girl, his woman, his future wife… ~~~ If Lucy’s initial success shocked her, the crowd’s reception the next two nights blew her mind. Each night saw a bigger crowd. It was almost like word was spreading and everyone wanted to see the hot new dancer at Club B. By Saturday night she had nearly a full house for each set, with men and women clamoring to see her moves. Natsu was in his usual spot in the front row, happy to serve as moral support as well as a living prop when the situation called for it. That’s not to say things were perfect. In fact, Lucy’s escalating popularity in such a short time caught the attention of a certain full-time dancer. Her name was Jenny, and she had been working at Club B long enough to become known as one of its star performers. Jenny was far from pleased that some newbie was stealing her thunder. Lucy had no idea. She was, after all, just there for a side gig. Saturday night. Lucy had finished her last set of the night, a naughty bunny girl number that drove the audience absolutely wild. She stepped backstage, slipped on a silky robe, took a long drink of water. Stripping was fun, but holy crap it was exhausting. She leaned against the wall, giving herself a few moments to relax. She was just about to turn and go to her dressing room when an unfamiliar voice caught her attention. "You're the new girl, right? Lucy, stage name Andromeda?" The voice was attached to a woman with ample curves, a petite waist, long blonde hair, and bright blue eyes. "Yeah, that's me. You must be Jenny." "Yes. My incredible reputation precedes me." Smug smile. "I happened to catch your routine. You've got some pretty good moves...for a rookie." “Thanks I...think?” Lucy knew damn well that this was a backhanded compliment. She also knew that Jenny was trouble. “You’re welcome to watch if you want. Maybe you’ll even learn something…” Nasty chuckle. Jenny whipped her hair back and swayed her way to the stage without giving Lucy another glance. Yeah, she’s trouble alright… So Lucy watched Club B’s star talent from a distance, and understood the other woman’s so-called incredible reputation. She was every bit as perfect as the girls she had studied, with an added dose of raunchiness that the crowds went nuts for. She flirted. She teased, straddling one customer then mimicking receiving oral from another. Jenny wasn’t the type of dancer content with leaving her panties on. She peeled her thong off, flung it into the thirsty crowd, and finished her performance stroking herself with her legs in the air. Lucy didn’t know whether to be impressed or revolted. Mostly she was shocked. The look Jenny flashed her as she left the stage wasn’t just smug. It was borderline mean. “You’ll never be one of us. Maybe you should just leave stripping to the real dancers, little girl.” Speechless, she could only stare back in shock as Jenny sauntered off to her dressing room. “Lucy! There you are! I was lookin’ all over for you.” Big smile as Natsu offered Lucy his hand. She took it, grateful for his presence, even more grateful when he pulled her into a warm hug. “Sorry about that, Natsu. I got a little distracted, that’s all.” “It’s alright, babygirl. Let’s get goin’.” Eventually she would tell him what had just happened...but not now. Now she wanted some quiet time with the love of her life. Some quiet among the chaos… ~~ “Ready to give it a try?” Lucy’s voice rang across the empty club. Natsu, who had been watching videos on a communications lacrima, looked up and grinned. “You bet. Let’s do this.” He joined her on the stage. “Follow my lead. Don’t walk. Strut. It’s all about confidence.” She demonstrated, he followed. “Good. Very good. Now start adding tricks. Crowds like flashy dances. Remember, you’re Draco, the celestial dragon. Worthy of the starry queen Andromeda. Now show me you’re worthy of that name...and your queen.” He nodded. She stood at the edge of the stage and watched. At first his brow was furrowed in concentration but his expression quickly became a dark sexy smile. Backflips. Handstands. Jump kicks. He even added bursts of flame magic as his confidence increased. Confidence that, this time around, was well placed. Oh, he was worthy, alright. “So...how was that?” “Amazing.” She walked over to him and hugged him. “Good job, Natsu.” “Thanks, Luce.” He kissed her, rested his forehead on hers. She sighed. “Say, are you feelin’ alright?” “Me? Y..yeah. I’m fine.” Here she bit her lip, glanced down at the ground. He definitely noticed. “You’re not fine. Something’s been botherin’ you since we left last night.” “How could you tell?” “I know you. You never just want to cuddle after dancing, not unless something’s wrong. Not that I mind cuddling.” Natsu put a hand on Lucy’s cheek. “Then I heard you crying in your sleep. That’s not like you at all. So what’s going on?” Lucy burst into tears, burying her head in Natsu’s shoulder. “Hold on. Let’s go somewhere private.” He scooped her up into his arms, carried her to her dressing room, and sat down on her couch.  She kept crying, although the flow of tears lessened a bit as Natsu stroked a hand through her hair. He didn’t say anything. He knew she would talk when she was ready. “...I met one of the other dancers last night. Jenny. She...said I was good for a rookie…” “That’s good, right?” “I thought so at first. Then I watched her set and she totally blew me out of the water. And then, when she finished dancing…” Sniffle. Natsu squeezed her shoulder. “She said...I could never be a real dancer. And maybe...maybe she’s right…? Maybe we’ll never earn enough for our goal...” “No, Luce. She’s wrong.” As he talked she felt the comforting warmth of his hands kneading her back and shoulders. So she snuggled closer. “Every time you’re on stage I can’t take my eyes off you. You’re always confident and sexy as hell, and everyone in that crowd knows it. You are a real dancer, no matter what some jealous brat thinks.” “You really think so…” “I know so.” Deep kiss. “Listen. Next time you feel like you’re not hot enough, remember I’m watching, and I’ll always think you’re sexy. Dance for me like you did on the undercover mission.” “Kinda like this?” There was a naughty sparkle in Lucy’s eyes as she peeled her top off. She licked her lips slowly and rocked against him, never breaking eye contact. “Mnh. Exactly like that, baby.” She giggled. Then she shimmied out of her yoga pants and tugged his shirt off. “Whoa. What are you up to?” Not that he was complaining, merely taken by surprise. “My first set is in three hours. I think we have plenty of time for some fun and a shower before I have to get ready. What do you think, Natsu?” “I think I love the way you think, Lucy…” Natsu took initiative. He shifted their positions so Lucy was on her back, then rested his forehead on hers. “Comfy?” “M-hm.” She kissed him, wrapping her legs around his waist mid-smooch. Kiss, caress. Lucy’s hands roamed then tugged his pants down. He growled. “Love it when you’re frisky.” Her only response was a giggle and another kiss, eager to enjoy being with him. They were just about to get properly hot and heavy when someone knocked on the door. “Hey Lucy, are you alright?” “Y-yeah, Cana. I’m fi-iiiiine.” A squeal as Natsu squeezed her nipple. She could have smacked him if it hadn’t felt so good. The doorknob rattled and panic briefly flared. “No no no don’t come in! We’re um…we just wanna be alone, that’s all.” “Ohhhh, I get it. Well, you two have fun alone.” “That’s the plan.” Natsu growled, grinning one of his devilish grins. He let his hands roam down to her waist. Adept fingers untied her panties, flung the garment across the room, then stroked over her sensitive pink skin. She mewled. "Natsu...please..." "Want more, babygirl?" He stroked a thumb over her clit. Shudder. She nodded. "Talk to me." His voice was a growl. "I need you inside me, Natsu. Fuck me. Now. Please." "Anything you want." He could never say no, not when her need was so evident in her voice, not when he could smell her arousal. And definitely not when she begged. He sank down into her. Gods, she was so soft, so warm, so wet. She arched her hips to meet his thrusts. Exhaled sharply. "Holy shit...ahh!" "Feels good." He didn't have words, too focused on fucking his woman. He set a pace, making sure to adjust his speed when she begged for more. She begged often. He had her pinned down, felt her nails dig into his back, felt her muscles clenching around his cock, milking him. Holy shit she was so close. For that matter so was he. He growled, grabbed her ass, started slamming into her. For a moment he wondered if he was going too hard, but that worry dissipated when he heard her moan. Sweet, sexy motivation. At long last, climax. It wasn't mutual but that didn't really matter. All that mattered, all they cared about, was enjoying laying together as the waves of passion crashed over them. Tender kisses and nose nuzzles accompanied sweet whispers of affection. "I love ya, Luce." "After all we've been through I should hope so." She ruffled his hair, rested her head on his shoulder. "I love you too, Natsu." For a while they just cuddled together. Then Natsu broke the silence. "Still want to shower?" "Yeah. I probably shouldn't be all sweaty for a performance." "I wouldn't mind." He nibbled her bottom lip, making her giggle. Without missing a beat he got up and scooped her into his arms. "Alright. Let's go." With that he carried her to the shower. Once the water was nice and warm they bathed together, washing away the evidence of their amorousness then taking a few moments to relax in one another’s arms. Soon enough it would be time for Lucy to get ready for her first set of the night. Soon enough she would have the crowd going wild for every move she made. But for right now she simply wanted to chill, to relax with her Natsu. Even if it was just for an hour or so, his presence alone made her happy…

[enkelimagnus]

Bread from the Earth 

Sweet Jewish Alec & Maryse fic, full of acceptance, love and tradition!

Read on AO3

It was rather unusual for Alec’s mom to ask him to come over early on Shabbat. Usually, when they had a family dinner, she would prepare everything herself while Magnus and him wrapped up with work and other weekly things before everyone gathered at the Lightwood home.

He didn’t exactly know why she’d asked him to take the afternoon off, but it was probably important. Maybe it had to do with the wedding preparations. Alec had proposed to Magnus a couple of weeks prior. He hadn’t expected his mother to be as excited about it as she actually had been. When he’d come out and started dating Magnus, she had been only partially accepting.

It had taken the three years of Magnus and Alec’s relationship for her to mellow enough that she excitedly hugged him when he showed her the ring he was planning to propose with. The ring hadn’t left Magnus’ finger since that quiet evening on the balcony of their apartment.

Alec rang at the door of Maryse’s house and heard his mother hurry behind the door. He grinned widely when she opened the door and hugged him tightly.

“Hey, mom,” he said happily, and hugged her back.

Maryse let go of him and closed the door. Alec slid off his coat and straightened his kippah. She led him into the kitchen.

On the counter had been gathered ingredients and a large mixing bowl. Maryse directed him to wash his hands and gave him an apron.

“You asked me to come early for a… cooking class?” He asked, surprised.

Maryse hummed, putting on her own apron and taking off her rings. “Well, yes and no. I asked you to come early so I could teach you to bake challah.”

Alec opened his mouth, then closed it. That was… unexpected.

“I know you’re not… the wife . You’re both men, etc. But I know Magnus cooks a lot more than you do and I thought… you’d like to be able to do that. Bake challah for shabbat. And I know you’re 27, and I should probably have taught you much earlier but I held onto the hope you’d have a jewish girlfriend and wife who would do it for way too long and now I just… I've been thinking about it a lot. I want you to have that. For you, as my son, as my family and… for the two of you.” Maryse rambled. “So… challah.”

Alec felt something warm gather inside of his heart. Challah was important. Challah was the bread of rest days and holidays and important dates. It was the bread that was passed down from generation to generation, usually from mother to daughter. He knew Magnus probably had his own recipe but…

There was something about making his mom’s challah for the two of them, for their home, that made Alec feel so emotional that he felt some tears sting his eyes. He felt ridiculous, tearing up because of some bread, but here it was.

“Oh, baby, don’t cry,” Maryse said softly, pulling her son close and holding him tightly.

Alec felt stupid to be this emotional about bread. But here he was. It was the acceptance. The acceptance that yes, Alec was going to get married, and he was going to get married to a man, and that, if Maryse wanted to pass down her challah recipe, she was going to have to teach him, not wait to teach his girlfriend/wife. And more than that, it was being part of a family. Of his family. Of the culture of his ancestors.

Alec had had trouble accepting his own identity. Though the community he was a part of was not entirely against queer people, it was still a mixed kind of support that had made him feel uncomfortable and off as he was growing up. There had been many times where he’d wondered whether he could be gay and Jewish, whether he could be part of his community and culture if he wasn’t straight.

With work, with love from Magnus and his siblings, and his synagogue, he’d managed it. He remembered the day he’d bought a rainbow kippah, as some sort of identity-affirming gesture to himself. He remembered the first Shabbat with Magnus, he remembered the first holidays with him, and how it felt right to be who he was.

His mom let go of him after a moment. “Come on. It’s not gonna bake itself.” She muttered, but there was an undeniable emotion to her voice.

“What do we need?” He asked, looking over the ingredients that were on the counter curiously.

Robert, Alec’s father and Maryse’s ex-husband, had been very traditional with gender roles. Izzy was always asked to help in the kitchen, set the table, help her mom, while Alec was never asked anything of the sort. He was a little out of bounds here.

“You can take a small bowl, put the yeast in, and some warm water. We need one envelope of the yeast, and around two tablespoons of water,” Maryse started. Alec got to it immediately. She watched over him as he did the simple task. “Good, good. We’ll keep an eye on it and see when it’ll be done with getting moist. Now, grab a skillet, and set it on moderate heat,” she instructed, grabbing small boxes from the counter and putting them next to the stove.

Alec did as instructed. He wasn’t the best of cooks, but this was important, and he wanted to get this right.

As the skillet was warming up, Maryse stood next to him. “Now, we’re going to toast the spices,” she explained. “When I was young, my mom used to give names to the spices, and I didn’t know why. When I asked, when I was older, I learned that the names were the names of the women before her who had passed down the recipe,” she smiled.

Alec smiled back, and looked at the little boxes. “Which ones do we put in?”

“I use sesame, caraway, cumin and anise, but I know some people who add poppy or coriander as well,” Maryse smiled. “We can either do my recipe perfectly, or you can add an ingredient, and make it yours.”

Alec reached for the little containers, humming. He liked the idea of adding a spice and making it his own. He liked the idea that that spice could be his own, his family’s.

“What are the names for the ones you use? Are we using the Hebrew names or the secular ones?”

Maryse smiled. “I use the Hebrew ones. So, now that the pan is hot, I’m going to toss in the spices, starting from the oldest name to the more recent one.”

“What quantity?”

“Whatever seems right to you,” Maryse chuckled. “Not too much, not too little. Enough to warm you, and enough to be felt.”

Alec chuckled. “That’s a scary accurate method of measurement there, mom.”

Maryse gently tapped him on the shoulder and grabbed the cumin. “Cumin first. Your great-great-great grandmother, Ziva.”

Alec grabbed the container of cumin and put some in his hand, before gently tossing it into the skillet, muttering the name under his breath and committing it to memory. It was comforting.

“Next is the caraway. Your great-great-grandmother, Ganit.”

Alec followed the same motions. The cumin was starting to lightly roast on the skillet, and a sweet odor was coming out of it.

“Sesame. Your great-grandmother, Shirli,” Maryse added, and Alec kept going. “Then, the anis, and your grandmother. That’s Morasha.”

Alec finished with the anis and then reached for the coriander. “So. I want to add coriander. And… That’s gonna be for Zimra, for you,” he said softly and tossed the last seeds into the skillet. With a wooden spoon, he gently swished them around so they wouldn’t stick to the skillet too much.

Magnus liked coriander a lot. And it felt good to add his mom’s Hebrew name to the challah. In some sort of obscure and hard to explain way, it felt like Alec was connected to his family more than ever, understanding the line of women before him who had stood there and toasted seeds before baking them into challah bread for Shabbat.

As they became fragrant, Maryse took a bowl and he transferred the toasted seeds into it, and set the skillet to the side to cool down.

They combined flour, olive oil, honey and warm water into an electric mixer’s bowl and let it mix while they were cleaning up and preparing the rest. Maryse put on the radio and they both hummed and listened to music as they waited for the dough to become soft.

The electric mixer was probably not the most traditional method, but it was for sure the fastest and easiest, and Alec was not up for trying his hand at doing it without kitchen appliances yet. They added the yeast, some salt, and the toasted seeds, and Maryse pushed the mixer to a faster pace. Alec couldn’t help the child-like fascination that overcame him as he watched it all mix together and form a beautifully smooth dough.

“Give me your hands,” Maryse instructed and Alec put his hands forward. She poured a dollop of olive oil onto them. “Spread it over your hands. It will help us to retrieve the dough from the bowl, and it’s good for the skin.”

She let him transfer the dough to a large oiled bowl, cover it in plastic wrap, and let it sit in a corner of the room.

“Now, this can sit out for a while. Hour and a half, two hours, we just need it to double in size and we can keep going.”

They washed their hands, cleaned everything and tidied the kitchen.

When, hours later, after baking, and praying and repeating blessings, Alec bit into his first taste of the first challah loaf he’d ever made, under his mother’s loving gaze, he felt grounded in a way he’d never really felt before.

[heartyscoff]

Mega Slim Body Capsule Review - Get Attractive Figure Easily! Price in Philippines

The good news is you really don't have to overhaul your entire eating routine or live at the gym. Here are 85 evidence-based tips to help you lose weight and keep it off for good. Mega Slim Body, it might inspire the rest of your family to get healthier alongside you. Even as you follow intermittent fasting for weight loss, it is important to note that eating junk, or unhealthy food during the hours that you can eat will not lead to weight loss.

Enter your sex, weight, height, and activity levels. The calculator will tell you how many calories to eat per day to maintain your weight, lose weight, or lose weight fast.

One reason for this is that the diet does not necessarily teach techniques for healthful cooking or eating, and these techniques are essential for long-term weight maintenance. While the trans fats that are present in many fried and baked foods can raise cholesterol and cause health problems, a person’s body needs healthful unsaturated fats to function. Drinking water can help reduce appetite and make you burn more calories. Several studies show that water can help you lose weight.

Mega Slim Body Capsule Reviews revolution began and by the late '90s everyone looking to lose weight was afraid to eat bread. It’s true that a lot of “white foods”—white bread, white pasta, white rice—aren’t particularly nutritionally dense, but they fill you up fast and they often aren’t as bad as they’ve been made out to be.

As publisher and chief revenue officer at Glamour magazine, she was always entertaining clients, hosting them at breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Certain diseases also cause weight gain, Dr. O’Rahilly noted. They include hypothyroidism, Cushing’s syndrome and tumors of the hypothalamus. Content on this website is provided for information purposes only.

We don’t drink that much but life is for living - there’s no point getting to100 years old if every day is a struggle. Ivanecky You need the calories to maintain fitness and fuel your training. Empty calories in Alcohol do not contribute to ones training, or things high in sugar (combined with fat even worse.) Healthy fats are actually beneficial.

And your weight loss journey is often not a straight path. Your total calorie burn can be effected by a number of factors, including your weight, muscle mass, level of fitness and even the type of foods you choose.

Mega Slim Body Night Effect continued to show off his incredible six stone weight loss on Wednesday as he was pictured leaving the Global Radio studios. The 35-year-old reality star-turned-actress/singer put her slimmed down figure and transformative weight loss on full display, as she exited a CVS Pharmacy in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The Made In Chelsea star, 28, has spoken out about his girlfriend Zara's staggering two stone weight loss.

Vitamin deficiency and obstructions are some of the most dangerous side effects you may experience, as your digestive system might not be able to absorb nutrients as well as it used to. losing weight are usually more expensive in the U.S. as opposed to other countries like Mexico. So, if you really need the surgery, but do not want to go over your budget, consider medical institutions outside the United States. Not all bariatric surgeries have the same mechanism since some rely on making a pouch in the stomach, changing the route of the intestines, or both. Perhaps, the least invasive one of the bunch is the lap band.

The study was published online in Obesity, the flagship journal of The Obesity Society. This study is the only randomised clinical trial that has examined long-term cancer outcomes in an ILI focused on weight loss. Mega Slim Body Philippines is the deputy lifestyle director at Cosmopolitan, covering fitness, health, food, cocktails, home, and entertainment.

Low levels of cortisol may lead to poor appetite and weight loss. Another cause of unexplained weight loss is tuberculosis , a contagious condition that usually affects the lungs. It’s caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria. Weight loss and decreased appetite are major symptoms of TB, but the reasons aren’t fully understood. Mega Slim Body Ph also disrupts ghrelin, the hunger hormone, and leptin, the satiety hormone.

While there’s no doubt that switching up your diet and exercise routine are the two most important routes to losing 20 pounds, the amount you sleep could also play a role. One study in healthy men found that consuming 33 grams of insoluble fiber, which is commonly found in wheat and vegetables, was effective in decreasing both appetite and food intake . Another small study had similar findings, reporting that a diet rich in whole grains decreased both body weight and calorie intake compared to a diet focused on refined grains . Consuming high numbers of refined carbs has also been linked to increased body fat and weight gain.

Weight loss doesn't happen just by amping up your cardio and turning down every single dessert. Here, real women share the biggest motivators in their weight-loss journeys and the keys to actually achieving their health goals. You sip the antioxidant in sangiovese, but can resveratrol actually promote weight loss? Here's what you need to know about resveratrol supplements.

In a large study published in Journal of the American Dietetic Association, adolescents and children who declined breakfast had higher BMIs and waist circumferences than those who ate breakfast regularly. You're likely to make impulse purchases that could lead to weight gain. Mega Slim Body Where To Buy According to research published in JAMA, hungry shoppers purchased six high-calorie items in comparison to four purchased by those who were full. Toss in chopped apple, radish slices, water chestnuts, or toasted walnuts to get a satisfying crunch plus a boost of nutrition.

[cosmicmadwoman]

Adam and Eve Chapter 2: Bang Bang

Prologue. Chapter One.

Just a few things before I start, this is for sure one of the kinkiest things I’ve written (gun play) so if that makes anyone uncomfortable I so understand and there is no pressure to read. I will have a summary of what happened in this chapter at the begin of the next one so you can still follow the story without reading it. I am really stretching my limits with writing really dark characters so I’m giving it all I got. I have plans for worse stuff too hehe. Feedback is very encouraged!

Summary: Betty and Jughead go to meet the Serpents and add a new unexpected member to the gang.

Rated: Super M

Word Count: 3432

Jughead was disillusioned pretty quickly when Betty insisted they shower separately. She was deathly nervous, he could tell; and she just needed silence to soak in the steam and think of all the things she could do wrong in front of the Serpents. Number one, she could pull an Archie and waltz in like an All-American Boy Fighting for Justice. It amazed her how plainly he saw things, like a rookie cop on a crime show. Her and Archie had the privilege of growing up with parents that had nice jobs and lived in a nice neighborhood where people didn’t have to make a living being a shady character.

There was a sharp knock on the door, startling Betty and causing her to drop the shampoo bottle in her hands.

“Betty! Hurry up or I’m going to have to hop in there with you,” Jughead joked on the other side of the door. Her parents would be home soon and it would mean a lot less explaining if she could get Jughead and his florescent colored truck out of here. Betty made a quick rinse of her hair and left the water running for a quick transfer. She wrapped a plush towel around her body and slinked back to her room. Jughead is waiting for her on the bed sans shirt. He is trying to tease her. His arms are above his head, stretching out his lean chest and torso. Jughead’s pants are just low enough where Betty can see the beginning of his patch of black coarse hairs.

Betty swallowed, “Water is still running, better hop in quickly.”

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” Jughead murmured, not moving.

“You’re a boy, just wear what you did yesterday. Go,” Betty swatted him out of the room and went to her dresser and closet scouring her clothes. What could she wear that made her look more dangerous, but not like she was trying to hard?

The blonde opted for a simple pair of jeans, black Keds and a form fitting black V-neck. It was simple and she could easily blend in. Jughead came out with a pink towel wrapped loosely around his waist as he ran a hand through his wet locks. Betty was embarrassed to realize how long it took her to put together a lame outfit to meet a bunch of brutes.

“Is this okay?” Betty asked her boyfriend and she whirled in a Miss-America-type circle.

Jughead snickered, “They don’t care. You could wear a trash bag. I bet you’d look hot in a trash bag too.”

The boy proceeded to drop his towel like nothing and dried himself. Betty could never get over how absolutely gorgeous he was. His beauty marks and freckles mapped out his body leading Betty to the treasures hidden; his smug grin, angular jaw, broad shoulders, sharp hipbones… he was truly majestic. He pulled his clothes on from the night before and put the signature beanie over his wet hair. Lastly, he shrugged on his jacket and offered his arm to Betty like a gentlemanly escort.

“Shall we,” Jughead said with a lopsided grin.

“We shall.”

Betty was so eager to get this over with, she left her jacket inside and it caused her to shiver in the old pick up. She distracted herself by watching Jughead’s expression as he drove across the rocky back roads. He was impossibly stoic and showed no inflection of emotion. This was the Jughead FP warned her about; impenetrable and hard. He has nothing to worry about, they approached him. They want him to be a member of their family. However, there is probably always a part of him that fears the rejection he’s received from everyone in his life. They pull up to the biker bar and it looks relatively empty seeing as it is 11am. Jughead turns off the truck but doesn’t get out.

“If I go in there, Betty, I can’t go back,” Jughead said, his voice crackling under the threat of tears. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his leather jacket.

“Do you want to?” Betty asked.

He smiled at her briefly and grabbed her hand. He knew what she meant, did he want to go back to be lonely and stepped all over? The Serpents could give him confidence, protection, and maybe lessons on how to defend himself. Jughead let go of her hand to reach for the door handle and stare at the entrance of the Whyte Wyrm. Betty soon joined him and they intertwined fingers walking up the rickety steps. The door was locked and Jughead rapped on it carefully. A little bald head peaked over the window and inspected them incredulously before opening the barndoors properly stolen from a farmer when the old doors were broken in an unsavory barfight.

“Hey, it’s FP’s boy and his little lady!” The short bald man yelled behind him with maybe a cockney accent?, presumably to the rest of the gang.

A mob of men came into view and Hack Saw, the man Jughead met that night at the trailer, stood in front of them all and ushered Jughead and Betty inside the quiet bar. He lead them to a large wooded room behind the bar. A little sheep dog named Hot Dog followed the group. The room had a huge long table in the center and chairs from different dining sets scattered around it. It looks like a hillbilly’s board room. The men take their seats and Jughead and Betty do the same. Betty took in her surroundings and felt completely out of place. Along the walls she saw several women standing and whsierping to each other. Was Betty supposed to stand off to the side like them? If Jughead was going through with being a Serpent, which he clearly was, she was not going to be a bystander like these ladies clearly were.

Hack Saw sat at the head of the table, clearly the new boss after FP’s incarceration. He clapped his hands together and leaned back on the back two legs of his chair.

“You know me. Bald guy who let you in Wally. Young guy with the acne is Wolf. I’m sure you saw him lurking around Southside High,” Hack Saw began the introduction. Wolf gave a skeptical nod in Jughead’s direction. “Guy with two different colored eyes is Tuck, long haired guy is Georgi and lastly, we got Jaq. He’s our Canadian connection. Behind us are our ladies.”

Jughead thought their introductions boiled them to singular beings and he wondered how he would be introduced by Hack Saw. Probably the kid with the hat. He nodded back at all of them. He wasn’t sure what to do with the information. Were they all going to be pals now, drinking beer, and playing poker?

“Alright, down to business. Wally is our weapons guy. Toss him his piece,” Hack Saw said.

Wally dug into a non-descript black bag under the table and slid a silver shining gun across to Jughead. He dug through again and passed him a green box full of bullets. Jughead stared at it, not removing his hands from his lap. He’d never seen a real gun in his life. He also had no idea that his dad would have one either, but it’s clear he did. What had his dad done?

“I don’t know how to use it,” Jughead said finally.

“Wally’ll help ya,” Hack Saw said. “Now boy, I’m putting you on bar deliveries with Wolf for the time being.”

“What does that entail?” Jughead asked.

Hack Saw quirked an eyebrow and looked back at a woman behind him, probably his wife by the look of her age and mom jeans.

“Entail means what does the task involve, sweetheart,” she replied in a scratchy voice.

“Oh yeah, what you gotta do is stalk the bars on the north side and swipe alcohol from their delivery trucks to supply the Whyte Wyrm. It’s easy we just need strong guys to lift the boxes quickly.”

Jughead didn’t realize he would go straight to work. He sort of thought he would get a free pass on that because of his Dad, but it seemed he was more replacing him as a body to run their business, whatever that may mean.

He hadn’t heard a peep from Betty the whole time and was considered she was mad at him for dragging her into this and as soon as this little meeting was through she was hitting the bricks and finding solace in the arms of their redhead friend. He doesn’t know why that thought popped into his head but he sure as hell didn’t like it. Jughead looked over at her and instead of seeing contempt, her eyes were darkened to a dark shade of green, almost like swamp water, and a weird twisted smile spread across her pink lips. She looked like a porcelain doll that just cracked her expression was eerie and wished to dive into the labyrinth of her brain.

“Do I get a gun?” Betty spoke up. Hack Saw and the rest of the gang looked literally blown away by Betty’s question as they all leaned back further in the chairs and even the silent women on the side gasped and whispered amongst each other.

“Like hell she does,” Hack Saw’s wife cut in, “I’ve been married to this bastard for 25 years and I ain’t got a gun.”

Hack Saw agreed, “We don’t give the girls their own guns. That’s just the roles. You gotta be a Serpent.”

Jughead was amongst the people who were aghast by her sudden determination to be a part of the whole situation.  “You don’t have to do this for me,” Jughead leaned over and pressed his lips to her ear.

“I’m not,” she said aloud. “If I must be a Serpent to get a gun, then make me a Serpent.”

“Betts—“ Jughead began, but Hack Saw cut off Betty’s boyfriend with a raised hand.

“These things ain’t toys, girl,” Hack Saw said to Betty, the first time he looked her the entire time she been at the Whyte Wyrm.

“They aren’t toys? You just gave one to Jughead and he’s never used one before. At least I’ve gone to a firing range with my dad,” Betty explained.

Jughead scuffed in his head. What can’t his perfect girlfriend do.

“Listen, girl, if you can hit three targets in three tries, I’ll you a gun,” Hack Saw snickered looking around at his gang mates. “I’ll set the targets.”

“Deal. And the name is Betty, not girl.”

Jughead was beyond amazed at the ferocity of his girlfriend and frankly, she had a pair of big balls. She was demanding a gun from a gang leader and putting up bets with him. There was a part of him that was incredibly turned on by her display of raw need for power but he didn’t want her to get caught up with this… but maybe he underestimated just how dark she was inside. He shuffled in seat as Betty took Jughead’s newly acquired gun and began to load the barrel with three bullets. She loaded it was such experienced precision. Betty was clearly confident. She spun the barrel back into place and smiled at Hack Saw, “Ready when you are.”

It started to rain outside as the Southside Serpents and their ladies watched as Hack Saw set up beer cans along the cars in the junkyard behind the Whyte Wyrm. They were placed in difficult places like high on a car hood that was stacked atop other cars, one on a bumper and one precariously perched in the broken window of an old mustang.

“The rules are you gotta hit all three with only three bullets. Gotta stand 25 feet back,” Hack Saw shouted to be heard of the sound of rain pounding on the rusted metal of the junkyard cars.

“Where are the headphones?” Betty asked innocently.

“Heh, girl, this isn’t the shooting range with your Daddy,” Hack Saw chuckled.

Betty decided not to dignify Hack Saw with correcting him—it was Betty not girl— because he was about to be embarrassed when Elizabeth Cooper became the first female Serpent. She steadied her hand and rose the piece at eye level and squinted. Her arms were outstretched as far as they could go and she felt the coolness of the metal trigger on her fingertips. She aimed at the can in the window first and blasted away, beaning it right in the middle. Over the loud pulsing in her head she could hear Hack Saw murmur something about beginner’s luck. She aimed again for the can on the top of the hood and the one on the bumper in quick succession quickly, shooting both down.

There was a deafening silence that was only overshadowed by the echoing of Betty’s gun shots. Not a single muscle of anyone moved until Jughead strolled up to his girlfriend and dipped her in his arms and kissed her until the breath in her body was sucked out of her. He released her and gave her a shit eating grin.

“Well, shit,” Hack Saw said as he began a slow clap. With the permission of the leader, the rest of the gang and their girls clapped for Betty. Even Hot Dog let out triumphant barks for her. “Presenting out first lady Serpent, Betty.”

A girl with purple hair came up to her, she looked around their age so she was most likely Wolf’s girlfriend and clapped giddily, “I want to make you your own jacket. It’ll be more form fitting and will look adorable on you!”

This meeting had gone better than Jughead had imagined, but nothing like he thought. Wally went inside and came out quickly with a gun and bullets for Betty. He looked at Jughead as he handed her the items, “I guess I don’t need to teach you to shoot boy, your girl here can do it for me.” Wally gave a friendly wink and joined Hack Saw who stood squarely by the edge of the junkyard.

“You can join your boy with deliveries,” Hack Saw told Betty. “Meeting is adjourned.”

Betty and Jughead grabbed their belongings and were silent until they climbed into the truck.

Jughead is the first to speak, “I want to fuck you so bad right now.”

Betty let out a fake gasp, “Jughead Jones, how forward of you!”

“What made you want a gun anyway?” Jughead asked as he shifted the truck into reverse and whipped out of the park and in the direction of the Riverdale Trailer Park.

“I don’t know… it was like this part of me deep in my stomach wanted to know what it would feel like to hold a gun in my hands, being a part of something so….” Betty’s voice trailed off trying to find the right word.

“Dark?” Jughead finished for her.

“Yeah… dark. When Wally gave that gun to you, I had these images in my mind of us… like… God this is so humiliating,” Betty gave an awkward laugh.

“It’s okay, Betty. I want to know,” Jughead urged her on with unbridled curiosity.

“I had this gross, but hot, fantasy of us in bed together, naked, running the heat of our just fired guns across each other’s bodies…” Betty looked at him and bit her lip. Her eyes were big and doe-y and Jughead was about to cream his skinny jeans.

“It’s not gross,” Jughead croaked out.

“There is something seriously wrong with me,” Betty said.

Jughead wrapped his arm around her, keeping one hand on the wheel and the other threaded through her damp ponytail. “No one is perfect. I love all of you.”

“Even the fucked parts?”

“Especially the fucked parts,” Jughead laughed and migrated his hand from Betty’s hair to the inseam of her jeans. He played with the frayed thread at the apex of her thighs. Her breath hitched and she felt the delicious burning in her chest. Her boyfriend firmly pressed his three fingers to her core and rubbed her clit over her jeans. Jughead could feel the heat pooling at her center. A low groan fell from Betty’s lips and the sound resounded throughout the truck. Jughead smirked and traveled up and unbutton her jeans to reach a hand inside.

“You’re driving,” Betty said breathlessly as Jughead’s slender fingers slipped into her silky folds. God, he loved being able to play with her whenever he wanted. He spent countless nights stroking himself begging for the chance to just see Betty do a split in her cheerleading skirt, and now he got to feel what was underneath that said skirt.

He pulled into the dirt of the driveway of his trailer and parked it one handed. He turned off the car and leapt from his seat to kiss Betty feverishly as he moved his fingers in and out of her dripping sex. Betty pulled away from Jughead’s sloppy kiss and stilled his digital thrusts by grasping his wrist.

“Did do something wrong?” Jughead asked with his eyes filled with genuine concern and regret before Betty even said something.

“Can we try it?” Betty’s voice was husky.

Jughead looked down and realized he hadn’t noticed that Betty had been gripping her gun the whole car ride.

“Today? Now?” Jughead asked.

Betty just simply nodded. Jughead moved his body off hers and took the gun from his leather jacket and stared blankly at the piece of medal. Betty took the piece from him, making sure he still held it while she put the barrel in her mouth and sucked on it and licked the base like it was Jughead’s own cock. He automatically stiffened at the uncomfortable and confusing stirring in his pants as she made a show of caressing the gun with her mouth. The raven-haired boy left his mouth agape and Betty removed the gun from her mouth and got out of the car, heading from the trailer, and not waiting for Jughead to catch up. When his rigid body finally climbed the few steps to the trailer, he walked in on his girlfriend stripping her clothes. She was down to nothing but her pure white panties which she promptly slide out of. Wordlessly, Betty peeled the leather Serpent jacket off Jughead and wrapped herself in it. The leather swallowed her whole but she didn’t look lost in it. She looked found. If someone told him last year, or even last night; that he would have a naked Betty Cooper in nothing but a Serpent jacket and a gun in her hand waiting for him to fuck her he would’ve collapsed right there. But this was the reality before him and he was fucking hooked. Just the image of her dark eyes and sultry lips was addicting.

“Take me please, Juggie,” Betty sounded so innocent but looked anything but.

She laid back on the couch and spread her legs. Jughead stripped his shirt quickly and got his knees before his goddess and kissed her senselessly. His 16-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend what was happening and feels like he’s short circuiting. Betty undid his pants as he was busy leaving purple blossoms along her neck. His system was given an unearthly shock when Betty scraped the edge of the barrel across his hot and heavy chest. He took the piece from her and ran his tongue along it like she did before.

“Do you trust me?” Jughead asked. She could practically hear his heart hammering through his chest. “It’s not loaded, remember.”

Betty nodded unable to form words in the haze of uncharted debauchery.

“Tell me if this is too much,” Jughead whispered into the shell of her ear as he pressed the coolness of the metal into the heat of her sex. It is so dirty Betty practically cums right there. He leaves the gun inside her and is just mesmerized at the picture before him—a gun nestled into Betty’s vagina. He moved it in and out slightly before pulling it out and licking her drippings off the barrel.

“Fuck me,” Betty managed to say.

Jughead sat beside Betty and pulls in her onto his lap where she settles her sex on his manhood and bounces on him, both cumming so quickly just from the heat of it all they collapse into one another and just hold each other there.

“Who the hell are we?” Jughead whimpered into Betty’s ear.

“I have no idea,” she answered solemnly, half ashamed and half utterly satisfied.

[believe-that-you-can-my-friend]

10, 16, 24, 46

Thanks for requesting! Hope you like!  

10. “Trust me, I wish we werehaving sex instead.” 

“It’s creepy.”

“It’s…innovative.”

“No, Betty, it’s creepy;utterly and overwhelmingly chill rising.”

Gripping the glass of soda tighterinside his hand, Jughead moved an inch further behind Betty’s shoulder, herlose blonde curls ticking the tip of his nose as he rested a palm at the smallof her waist. They were firing hushed whispers back and forth all this timethat they were sulking by the rich red and mahogany decorated buffet table, examining the scene of female gushing and gibberish baby coos in front of them.

“Explain to me one more timehow your mom agreed on this birthday fiesta taking place in hell?” Jughead raised botheyebrows, eyeing his girlfriend’s profile, illuminated by the huge chandelierat the center of the gothic living area, now decorated with dark blue and bloody red ribbons.

“Polly wants the twins to havea normal childhood.” Betty quoted her sister for the hundredth time. “Thisincludes them getting to know all their grandparents; at least the ones thatare left and the ones that are not cold-blooded killers.” It had been a year and ahalf since the Jason Blossom case had been solved and even though everyone wasstill grieving, the twins’ birth had been a silver lightening mist thedarkness of it all.

“Having their first birthdayparty at Thornhill is highly beyond normal, if you ask me.” He returned insarcasm behind her, as always.

“When Cheryl puts something inmind, she rarely gives up.” Betty reminded him, shrugging a shoulder.

From her spot on the carpet,holding little Lizzie up, Poly announced that it was time for presents, makingall the guests around murmur in excitement. The new mother grabbed Betty’s andJughead’s first and smiled to the couple, the two teens sending a genuine grinback.

“When can we go?” Jughead’smurmured through his smiley teeth.

“Are you not having fun?” hisgirlfriend teased in fake disbelief, sending him an amused glare over hershoulder.

“Oh, as enjoyable as it iswatching two oblivious looking babies being tossed around while that great-grandmother from Hades is practicing witchcraft in the shadows,” Jugheadfrowned, sending a glance at nana Rose that was sitting by the fireplace “I’mreally ready to flee at any moment now.” He nodded in uneasiness, taking a sipfrom his drink and gulping loudly.

“That bad?” Betty bit her lipnot to laugh.

“Trust me, I wish we were having sex instead.” He threw in totalapathy.

“Wow…” Betty dragged the word.“The horror, indeed…” she teased him more at the luck of enthusiasm in histone regarding their love life.

He just shrugged, teasingsmirk dancing on his chapped lips.

“So what do you say?” hebrushed his chest against her back, the hand that was creeping on her waist,moving a little further down to play with the hem of her skirt on her hipbone. “Me,you, the backseat of the truck?” he proposed deliciously against her ear, smirkingwhen feeling her shiver lightly at his words and biting her lip.

“Jughead!” Alice Cooper’simposing voice made the couple jump and Jughead lash backwards a few feetaway from Betty in fear. “Come take some pictures of the moment.”

“Why did I agree on this?” hehissed in a groan and grabbed his professional camera from beside him on thetable, a birthday gift from his father that he quite enjoyed lately. Apart from beingBetty’s official boyfriend, he was responsible for capturing in film thatsickening lovely family gathering.

Betty laughed, giving him ashort but sweet peck on the lips. “You love me that’s why.” She beamed up athim and he just rolled his eyes, a blush coloring his cheeks and an equal happysmile tugging his lips upward. “Stop brooding; I promise you’ll have me nakedin that truck by the end of the night.” She winked and he snapped a pictureof her, while walking cockily to her family in front of them, sending her a slysmile full of promises before doing a character one-eighty in a blink, dropping to his knees and pulling faces to the birthday babies, appearing like he was the most mother-approved boyfriend material. If only they knew, Betty smirked foxily against her glass, feeling a blush creeping at her cheeks.

16.   “Please, don’t wear those jeans.”

“I thought women took longerto get ready.” Betty formed a teasing smile, plopping on the twin-sized bed onJughead’s old bedroom back at his dad’s trailer.

“Thank God our relationshipisn’t based on ridiculous gender roles then, little miss proud suffragette.” Heshouted from the bathroom in his own teasing tone of voice.

Betty rolled her eyes. “Whatis taking you so long anyway?”

“I couldn’t decide amongst mywide range of ‘smart casual’ options of attire.” His snarky voice travelledthrough the small hall, earning a laugh from Betty and FP that was enjoying afootball match in the living room.

“Ronnie just set thatetiquette to help us. It’s just a normal Friday night out at Pop’s but with her friendsfrom New York, no big deal.”  She statedwhile scanning the book Jughead had left open against his covers.

“Whatever. I’m ready to getthis over with.” He admitted with a sigh, lazy and squeaky footsteps bringinghim at the threshold of his bedroom.

“Finally.” Betty groanedplayfully, rolling over to get off the bed but stopping when looking at hisoutfit. “Oh no!” she formed a horrified expression. “Please, don’t wear those jeans.”

Upon seeing her reaction,Jughead’s face dropped. “Why not?”

“Just don’t.” Betty offeredvaguely. “We still have time for you to go change.”

“Um, that’s my only cleanpair?” he replied sheepishly. “Plus, I don’t see the deal breaker here.” Risinghis eyebrows in confusion, he buried his hands in the front pockets of thejeans in question.

“Maybe it’s the fact that youhave them since sophomore year?” she offered back with a cute grimace.

“So what?” Jughead continuedbeing clueless.

“So everything!” hisgirlfriend replied in exaggeration. “Juggie, they are too small.” She bit herlip not to laugh.

“No, they are fine.” He refusedwith a firm shake of his head.

“I’ve mended that back pocketmore times than I can remember.” She replied cleverly. “Plus, don’t get mestarted about how worn out they look.”

Jughead’s mouth opened inshock. “You don’t like my clothes?”

Betty rushed to correct him. “Idon’t like those jeans.” She nodded in confirmation. “I hate them, to behonest.” Her statement earned an offended gasp from the boy across her.

“I was wearing those jeanswhen I first kissed you.” He admitted in a small voice, examining the jeans andrunning a palm at the side of his thigh in thought. “I can’t just throw themaway.” He spat incredulously.

Betty smiled, standing up andwalking to him. “Well, as sweet as this is,” she took his face in her palms,caressing his cheeks lovingly “I promise you, you can still kiss me all youwant with a new pair of those.” She bopped her nose against his, Jugheadbouncing his head back to look at her concerned.

“Are they really that bad?” hefrowned defeated.

Betty tilted her head inthought, amusement painted on her pretty face. “Let’s just say that they’ll look better on JB at this point.”

“Geez, thanks a lot, babe.”Jughead sent her a side glance filled with offence.

“You’re welcome.” She laughed.“Now go get changed; put on those nice black ones you got.” She suggested witha smile and a caress to the end of his hair on the back of his neck.

He thought for a second beforeagreeing with a sigh. “What about my shirt?” he wondered, fisting the material ofhis flannel and looking at her with clueless boyish eyes.

“Oh, the shirt looks damn fine.” Betty colored the word withgirly appreciation before leaning in to whisper against his lips. “So fine thatmaybe I’ll get to take that off later tonight.”

24.   “The skirt is short on purpose.”

“You should come pick me up fromcheerleading practice more often.” Betty sighed against Jughead’s lips, fingersgripping the lapels of his denim jacket tighter and angling her head to deepentheir kiss. They were at the school parking lot inside FP’s truck, making outfor what seemed like hours now, relishing in the feeling that there were nomore killers threatening the calm of their small town.

“And you should wear thisuniform more often, period.” Jughead replied in a husky voice, his palm drawingentire maps at the extent of her long legs that were bare and sprawled over hislap, loving how smooth and shapely they felt under his wandering hand.

The girl giggled against his openedmouth, sliding even closer to his muscular chest. “I thought sensitive andtortured artists like you didn’t give a damn about silly stereotypical malefantasies.” She teased him, running a palm down the front of his S t-shirt.

Jughead tugged her lower lipbetween his teeth, groaning a little under her touch. “Some things areconsidered classic for a reason. And I’m not an alien; the fact that I don’tdrool like a jackass Bulldog over every scantily clad cheerleader doesn’t meanthat I don’t have dreams about mine.” He breathed deeply while attacking heragain, his bony fingers reaching the hem of her blue and gold skirt, as histongue kept twirling sensually against hers making Betty whine and mewl inexcitement. They had started testing the waters and exploring each other withevery chance they had, experiencing the fire of this new world of intimacy andleaving each other breathless and begging for more every time they were alonein the darkness of her room or the small space of his father’s truck.

“What kind of dreams do youhave about me, Juggie?” she whispered, fingers caressing down his jawline andhooded eyes connecting with his hazy ones.

“You don’t even wanna know.”He replied in the same tone, stealing a glance of her legs and licking his lipsinvoluntarily.

“Maybe I do.” She went onsensually, dropping some kisses against his neck that made him start pantingand throw his head back against the glass in pleasure, bony fingers slidingagainst the hair at the back of her scalp as her teeth started gettingdemanding and bruising. “Tell me.” He felt her breathing against his irritatedskin and he shivered, the fingers of his other hand gripping the side of herthigh.

“It’s mostly about you in that tinyskirt.” He choked on his words, eyes darting down to catch a glimpse of herexpression and decide whether or not to continue. Upon seeing her green orbsdilated with desire and her lips bee-stung and dark red from his kisses, hewent on in a raspy, sexy voice. “And nothing more.”

He watched her bit her lip,bringing a thump to free it before caressing the abused skin, making her lipspart in wonder, the action making his mind go spiraling in dark imaginativeplaces. “You know, the skirt is short onpurpose.” She teased in a low whisper, taking his hand that was resting onher thigh in hers and guiding it further under her skirt, the pads of hisfingers touching the lace of her tiny panties and making his Adam’s apple bopat the nervous excitement that was building up at the tip of his stomach. “Menot wearing the uniform’s boy shorts? Again, on purpose.” She leaned to whisper in his ear before licking hisearlobe and moaning slightly as the feeling of his fingers traveling up to thewaistline of her underwear.

His own lips went to herear and ghosted for a minute there before starting a sinful dance incoordination with his fingers. “I’m gonna dream about you again tonight. Butfirst, I’m gonna show you what my dream will be about.”

46.   “Babe, I need you to stop kissing me and letme do my jo-OH my God!”

“Juggie, are you done with thechapter?” Betty’s voice travelled down the hallway of their apartment beforeher bare feet brought her to her husband’s study, her five month pregnant bellymaking an appearance at the door seconds before her.

Barely looking up and sendingher a tiny smile, Jughead’s typing fingers never stopped their marathon on thekeys of his laptop. “In a minute.” He murmured, drowned in his world ofingenious plots and murder mysteries.

“I want you to come cuddlewith me.” She pouted ever so lightly, one of Jughead’s flannels dancing justbelow her behind with every step she took towards him on the desk. She roundedhis chair and laced her arms around his neck from behind, making him huff achuckle at how more demanding she had gotten during those five months.

“Go lay down, stardust. Ipromise you, I’ll be next to you right away.” He kissed the back of her palm lovinglybefore going back to typing.

“You’ve been inside this roomall day now. And I’ve missed you. Bad.”She colored the word with a tiny moan, leaning to scatter light kisses againsthis cheek, ear, neck, her palms caressing the front of his chest over his greyt-shirt. Pregnant hormones and all, she wanted him 24/7 in every and eachsituation they were in.

“You are distracting me andthis is going to take me longer to finish.” He pointed out in his usual smartassvoice, his eyes fluttering a tad at the sensation of her soft lips against hisskin.

“Juggie, when was the lasttime we had fun in this room?” a deep sigh left her lips before they landed onthe sensitive spot behind his ear, nibbling the skin there, as her hands creptunder the hem of his t-shirt, fingers brushing over his collarbones and diggingat the top of his bare chest, making him shiver.

Her husband could feel hiseyes roll inside his skull at her words and the images of them multiple timeson top of that very desk, his office chair, the couch next to the door, against the door. Blinking a few timesto regain sanity, he brushed his fingertips over her forearm to stop her fromcontinuing. “Babe, I need you to stopkissing me and let me do my jo-OH my God!” his husky words of sexual hazeand warning turned louder in alarm as he left something poking his side frombehind. “Were you seriously going to try tickling me right now?” he threw heran incredulous side glance over his shoulder.

“I was not—” she paused indisbelief herself “did you feel that too?” she loosened her hold of him,standing a little more straight up, lips pushed together in thought.

“Yeah, I did…” he turnedaround in his chair to face her, eyes scanning her in concern upon seeing herdrop her hands to rub the sides of her round stomach. “Is everything alright?”he lashed forward to place a palm against one of hers.

“I think maybe-OH!” Betty’swords cut midsentence as she jumped, palms going to the center of her bellywhere she felt the force of a fierce kick, green eyes round and in the verge oftears upon looking down at her husband in glee.

“Is he…?” following her palms,Jughead tried to utter the words but the confirmation of another kick stoppedhim as he watched in bewilderment the plaid material of his shirt stretch underhis slayed fingers.

“Our son is kicking, Juggie.”Betty confirmed his own thoughts in a high pitched sob, happy tears streamingdown her glowing face, before taking her husband’s hand in hers and guidingit against her skin to the place their son was communicating with them forthe first time. “You are asking for daddy’s attention too, aren’t you, lovebug,huh?” she laughed despite her salty tears, biting her lip to prevent her facefrom breaking from immense love and joy upon seeing Jughead teared up too,leaning to place a fierce and loving kiss against her belly.

“Hey there, little man, I’myour daddy… And you will always have my devoted love and attention, no need toworry about that…”

2k followers little prompts

[firstjustgoin]

Other Women’s Boyfriends I’ve Loved

2003

When Georgia first tells me that she has a boyfriend, it’s between the last two stalls in the girl’s bathroom. I can only see her shoes dangling through the crack in the stalls, her gold high-tops and rainbow socks with the scalloped edges that I’ve always wanted but knew I could never pull off.

I think she’s telling me now, between pees, because she doesn’t want to see my face, or maybe she doesn’t want me to see her’s –– how the dark reds must have crept up her cheeks and into the curves of her ears.

“He’s super cool. Nothing like you think he’ll be like because, you know––” She’s referring to his tendency to wear his pants belted right below his butt, with Christmas or Halloween-themed boxers ballooning out above them or how he carries a skateboard with him everywhere but never rides it. “Yeah, okay,” I say but inside I’m thinking bitch. It’s not a word I’ve used out loud yet but it’s been used on me: just once in sixth grade when Johanna was waiting behind me to drink from the water fountain and I took too long or something so she shout-whispered bitch loud enough for the whole hallway to hear and start cackling.

The toilet flushes and then the door next to me creaks open and I realize that I’ve been just sitting here not saying anything for thirty seconds, maybe longer. I pull up my striped pink and white leggings over a pair of My Little Pony underwear I won’t even wear to sleepovers just in case anybody sees. Georgia’s layering on cotton candy lipgloss and making intense eye contact with herself in the mirror when I leave the stall so I just wash my hands quickly and mutter, “See you at passing” and let the bathroom door swing closed behind me.

Zack starts hanging with us at lunch, once or twice a week and it’s the first time I’ve ever eaten with a boy so I never knew how disgusting their eating habits were. He brings over two or three slices of sausage pizza and then drowns each slice with what he calls “special sauce”: a combination of ranch dressing, ketchup, and mayo. It makes me want to barf into my tuna sandwich, but Georgia –– a girl who forced me to have British tea parties until we were 11 –– just sits next to him, twirling her hair and laughing at all of his dumb jokes.

The first time I hear him tell her that he loves her is after school by the bike racks. We’re waiting for the bus and he’s just fiddling with the wheels of the skateboard I’ve still never seen him ride. We’re about to board the bus and all of a sudden they’re making out right in front of me –– their thick, messy tongues jousting between gaping, open mouths –– and then when they finally pull apart he looks right at her and says, “I love you, Georgie.” Bitch, bitch, bitch, I think all the way home until it doesn’t even sound like a word anymore.

They break-up and get back together more times than we have pop quizzes in math class. During one of their off times, Zack turns to me during the one class we have together and says, “Damn, what do you think Mr. Carlson did over the weekend? He looks like he got eaten and puked out by my cat.” I’m kind of shocked that Zack’s talking to me at all, especially since he just walked past me rubbing the shoulders of his sobbing ex-girlfriend less than an hour ago. But when I look at Mr. Carlson, I break out into a fit of laughter. His hair is moving in a million directions like it’s been electrocuted, his eyes are shining red, and his collared shirt is crinkled up too. He looks exactly like cat puke.

Zack starts laughing too and before we know it Mr. Carlson is standing right next to us saying, “Is there something you’d like to share with the class, folks?” and we shake our heads back and forth as hard as we can and say, “No sir” while biting the insides of our cheeks to keep from laughing again.

After that, we’re always laughing about something during 6th period History class. When Georgia tells me that they’re back together I say, “Yay! That’s awesome!” but I’m still thinking bitch like a metronome in my head, this time because I’m not even sure if she deserves him. He’s got dark green eyes and one of the few kids our age who’s managed to nearly escape puberty without any pimples or acne scars. He starts showing up in my dreams, laughing and smiling with his eyes looking right at me.

It’s almost Christmas vacation and Georgia and I are sitting in her kitchen looking at Florida Keys guidebooks in preparation for the family vacation I’m tagging along to.

“Hey, Nell,” she says quietly, her eyes still glued to the page about sea life off the Florida coast.

“Yeah?” I say, my mouth half-full of Cheerios.

“What if I told you that Zack’s gonna come with us? To Florida? That wouldn’t be weird, right?”

Wouldn’t be weird, right? I can’t say anything else but no so I shake my head and say, “no” when what I really mean is Yes, bitch, it would be weird and I hate you for even asking.

But I don’t say that, I don’t say anything not then and not for the whole four days we’re lying on the beach crisping up like toast left too long in the oven. I don’t say anything because Georgia’s weaving her fingers in his and sharing virgin mango daiquiris with the same curly straw and whispering “I love you” and rubbing up against each other when they think I’ve already fallen asleep.

2007

Emmanuel leans back in his chair while Ms. Neusen is looking the other way and whispers to me, “Hey, you got a piece of gum I can cop?”

I giggle nervously and fumble through my backpack looking for a loose stick of gum that isn’t coated with the crumby leftovers of the many extra large bags of Doritos I’ve been stuffing in my face in the car before pulling into my driveway. I find a clean stick and hand it to him wordlessly, afraid to make eye contact for fear that my face will erupt in a firework of pink hues.

When I finally get the courage to look up at him, he’s unwrapping the stick of gum, eyeing it with his dark brown eyes nestled below thick black eyebrows. He pops it in his mouth so casually like he’s doing a commercial for Trident. He turns back to me and smiles wide and says in a light singsong, “Nell rocks my world” to nobody but me.

I’m sprung.

I trace his full name into the tops of my desks during every class. Emmanuel David Díaz. I actually look forward to 1st period English. I toss and turn in my sleep on Sunday nights, imagining how he’ll saunter through the doorway into our class the next morning, his shaggy brown hair waving behind him like a cape.

You might not think to look at him, the quarterback of the football team, always surrounded by a hive of boys with small heads and large biceps, but he has real thoughts and feelings and maybe it’s because I’m currently living in a cesspool primarily devoid of both those things, but it makes me love him even harder.

Usually it starts real quiet and then builds. A quick nod and a “hey” when he slides into his desk next to mine. Ms. Neusen will say or do something ridiculous –– like attempt to use household appliances as metaphors for Romeo and Juliet –– and we’ll cover our mouths to mute the laughter and turn to each other with eyes wide.

“You think she practiced this one in the mirror this morning?” I say.

“Maybe to her husband over breakfast?” He says.

“I’m sure the dog had to sit through at least one rehearsal,” I say, before the giggles become too intense. I cover my face with my hand and turn away. He can’t see me like this.

Too sprung.

I’m an A student, honors English, but when I’m slouching in the back of Ms. Neusen’s first-period English Lit class with Emmanuel, I’m the class clown. Second and Third quarter report cards bewilder my parents. Turns in above average papers always on time, but does not know when to stop socializing in class. Smart but often insubordinate.

“Every single character in Shakespeare’s plays are insubordinate,” I say to my mom when she corners me in the kitchen while buttering my toast, “She really doesn’t give us very good role models.”

“Honey,” my mom sighs, her face stuck somewhere halfway between disappointment and bemusement, “Most of the characters in Shakespeare’s plays end up dead. I don’t think she’s trying to give you role models.”

I don’t tell her it’s because of a boy, the boy; the boy who has been taking up major real estate in my poetry journals for the last seven months and counting, the longest a boy has ever taken up residence there.

Cuz that boy can make a hill look like a giant mountain

he can make a flower look like a room filled with roses

like the sunshine has just come out after the storm.

When we’re exchanging jokes at the back of the classroom, it feels like we are levitating in a world without gravity, without reality. But then the bell rings and my stomach drops because I know what’s waiting for us right outside this door.

Leaning up against the lockers –– black choker around her neck, dark eyeliner painting her face, wearing a short black jean skirt –– is Louisa, Emmanuel’s girlfriend. She smiles when she sees him, wraps her long thin arms around his neck and plants a thick, wet kiss on his lips. His hands travel from her back down to her ass and I stand there for a few seconds too long, unable to remove my eyes from her tiny, little ass.

Louisa and Emmanuel are the couple everyone loves to spin stories about, no matter how true or false they are.

“I heard she went down on him in his mom’s Escalade on the side of the highway.”

“I heard they had sex in Conor’s dad’s pool after everybody passed out.”

“But she’s been fingering that foreign exchange student in the girl’s locker room during gym class.”

I stumble upon these glimmers of gossip like a peek into a portal to a world I can’t understand -– Escalades, oral sex, kegs, pool parties –– all of it pieces of him I never see in the back of Ms. Neusen’s 1st period English class. I can visualize this world only because of how I actually spend my Friday nights: cuddled up with Marisa and Ryan in The OC or Blair and Serena on Gossip Girl. When I imagine Louisa and Emmanuel having sex in a pool, it’s a villa overlooking the Pacific Ocean. When I imagine Louisa fingering a foreign exchange student, it’s in the coat check room at the Met Gala.

But when I’m sitting in the back of the class with him, I don’t tell him that’s how I spend my Friday and Saturday and Sunday nights. I don’t tell him that I line my eyes with black charcoal every morning only to rub it off before walking outside or how I listen to The Pussycat Dolls more than the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I slouch and chew contraband gum and laugh at all of his jokes, trying to cultivate that illusive low-maintenance personality that will make him realize that I see deep into his soul in a way none of his slutty girlfriends ever will.

2011

Wyatt and I met a couple years back at Freshman orientation, a hopelessly awkward time when everyone’s pretending they’ve had more sex and gotten drunker and have more cool friends from high school than they actually do.

Wyatt didn’t have any time for that shit, which I respected though couldn’t exactly emulate. He was part of a pack of boys, wild and rabid, on the hunt for frat parties they could get into and I had developed a bit of a reputation for sneaking into them. Total fluke. After a hot streak, my luck dried up and they went off wandering for the next party hopper to whom they could affix themselves.

But Wyatt stayed. On Friday nights when the rest of the dorm floor ventured off to find upperclassmen to buy them booze, we climbed up through the dense forested hillside next to campus and smoked weed, talking about the end of the world. It wasn’t imminent or anything, but when you’re a college freshman, riddled with anxious energy to know more than you do, talking about the end seemed fitting.

We’d stay up there until all the was left at the bottom of the bowl was ash and the early morning fog started descending from the sky. Then we’d stumble back down the hill grabbing blindly for branches when we tripped over tree roots and rocks.

After those first few months of college where you cling to whoever’s close by, we found ourselves flung to the opposite sides of campus: me staying up in bio labs late into the night instead of getting high and him jamming in underground shows in whatever band he was in that month. I’d get the occasional last-minute text invite for a while until even those dried up and then we’d nod to each other in the library and chat about whatever professor was killing us that semester, but never broached the subject of the inevitable apocalypse or even the destruction of the coral reefs.

We’ve reconnected recently, now that we’ve got a mutual group of friends who all get together to do improv together. I still can’t believe I’m in a college improv group given how much it used to scare the shit out of me in high school. Whenever I’m up on stage with the spotlights staring coldly back at me and I hear someone yell, “Give me a random word!” I freeze up and think for a second that I’m fifteen and part of some cruel practical joke.

After a big showcase event, we find ourselves squished together on a fraying, floral couch with god knows how many substances soaking into its cushions. Someone passes me a joint and we just turn to each other and start laughing and fall right back into it again.

“You read the story about the bees?” He says, his mouth turned downward but the creases along the edges of his green eyes betraying the laughter bubbling up.

“Oh yeah, fucking scary shit. And how about North Korea’s nukes?” “Fuck, I know. People are saying with what’s-his-face dead now that we might be able to intervene but I don’t know.”

“I know!” And we both crack up. He’s still the only person I know who can talk about worldwide nuclear warfare while laughing.

“Hey, babe!” I hear from across the room. It’s Margot, Wyatt’s girlfriend, who is cool as hell and made a big name for herself on campus recently for her feminist photography. She even got a cover of her period blood-stained underwear and bushy underarms on the front cover of a campus zine, much to the chagrin of the Board of Trustees. She ambles over to us and sits down on his lap, her long, hairy legs draping over mine.

“Hey Nell,” she says, “How’s the night? You killed it up on stage today.” I smile and squeeze her hand, “Oh I don’t know about that,” I say, pausing to exhibit proper modesty, “I think the whole team kicked ass.”

“Can I borrow Wy for a sec?” She asks as she pulls him up and towards the beer pong table. “I need him to do a celebrity shot.” I gesture a “go ahead” motion with my hands and watch and she leads him away.

Two lost games of flip cup and a chugging contest later, the whole world’s spinning, making me feel like one foot’s walking up a flight of stairs while the other foot’s trying to walk down. I rest my head on the side of the couch and after what I think is just a second, Wyatt’s leaning over me, shaking my shoulders and whispering, “Hey, Nell! Nell! You okay?”

I groan and try to sit up. The lights are dimmed and the room’s empty besides us, just littered with a bunch of crumpled red solo cups and PBR cans. “Er, yeah, I was just –– just sleeping it off a bit. But I’m feeling, just, uh, fine.”

He sits on the couch next to me and pulls my legs over his lap. “Yeah, you seem just, uh, fine to me,” he smiles and starts to rub my calves.

“Hey, Wyatt?” “Yes?”

“Is the world ending?” He laughs. “No, I don’t think it is yet. Though, if it was,” he pauses for a second and looks at me with his eyes suddenly wide and mischievous, “what would you want to do?” His hand is crawling up my leg towards the edge of my skirt. My heart’s pounding against the bone and for a second I think about pushing his hand away but the couch is so deep and soft and his hand feels like fire against my skin. I don’t push him away; I pull him in.

His tongue slips into my mouth at the same moment as his finger enters me and I want to say that I’m still drunk, but I don’t feel the alcohol anymore, just the buzz of synapses flying. I unbuckle his belt with one hand and plunge my hand onto his dick, hard and ready.

It’s not until he’s inside me that I realize that music’s still playing from speakers in the other room. I hear a man’s voice crooning and it takes me a second to realize who’s singing. John fucking Mayer. I can’t help it, I burst out laughing.

“Um. Yes?” He says while he rocks back and forth above me.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It’s just that ––” I think about trying to explain: the years I spent lying alone on my bed in my childhood bedroom, staring at the ceiling and imagining myself into the lives of my classmates. It was Heavier Things, it was Room for Squares that set the score for those interminable, pimpled years where my brain didn’t fit my body and my body did not fit my life.

But there’s a boy inside me and so I don’t say any of that. I just shake my head and mumble, “Ugh, tequila” and pull him closer and deeper.

When we’re done, he buttons up his pants as I clasp my bra, not needing to say a word. As I’m about to walk out, he grabs my hand and kisses me on the lips, barely a peck, and I shuffle the rest of the way home wondering what the fuck just happened.

The next time I see him is at a party a couple weekends after, in a black lit basement with a hanging beer pong table and a bar glued with beer bottle caps. College chic. I’m there with a group of other friends and I don’t even know he’s going to be playing, but there he is in the corner with his bass, hair falling in front of his face. My heart starts beating fast and I feel it in every part of my body. I stare shamelessly, waiting for him to look up and catch my eye.

Then I see her: Margot, standing to the side closest to him, staring too. She’s mouthing every word to this shitty college basement faux-rock and bouncing along with the bass. My heart’s beating like crazy now, but instead it feels like it’s crawling up my throat trying to escape.

When the music ends, I watch her step across wires and over speakers to get to him, her hands sliding into his back pockets and he kisses her, his hands covering both of her cheeks. I back into the corner of the room where the black light doesn’t hit and sink into the sticky concrete floor, feeling nothing but emptiness now buzzing inside me.

2017

The first time Paul and I speak, it’s with our backs on sticky linoleum floors of a fourth grade classroom, scraping gum off the undersides of the desks.

The janitorial staff is on strike again, and instead of offering to meet their demands, the superintendent's office has decided to initiate the adult version of chore charts for an already precarious teachers’ union. It’s mine and Paul’s turn to scrape the gum off the desks and it’s a duty I hold with the same amount of honor and responsibility as cleaning the errant pee off the bathroom floors in the kindergarten wing.

“This is karma, huh,” he says to me from under a desk in the next row.

“I’m sorry?”

“You know, for all of the gum I shoved under my desks when I was a snotty kid.” He rolls out from under the desk and I do the same, surprised to see a tall man in his early 30s with a full head of hair in front of me. Most teachers in this school are either 24-year-old white women straight out of education school or octogenarians.

“I’m Paul, by the way,” he reaches out his hand to shake mine, but changes directions mid-course. “I suppose this isn’t the best circumstance for a handshake.”

“I suppose not,” I say, and offer an awkward fist bump instead. “Oh, I’ve clearly been hanging around too many fifth graders.”

He laughs and reveals two rows of perfectly straight, white teeth. His mouth looks like the white picket fences lining the bougie part of town I sometimes drive through after work, just to remind myself to get the hell out of this town before I settle for a house barricaded by the suburban sprawl cliché.

“You new to Deer Park?” I ask, lamely, knowing the answer already as he begins to nod.

“Started last week, brought me in just in time for this rousing array of household chores. Left behind a cushy programming job for this too, can you believe it? But now I’m the newest intrepid Computers teacher, determined to make a difference by teaching third graders how to type 20 words a minute.”  

“Have you seen a third grader recently? They can type 100 words a minute as long as it’s on Snapchat.”

“Oh god, we’re really old aren’t we?” He smiles again and this time his rows of pearly teeth reflect off the fluorescence in the room, shining like tiny moons.

We go from scraping gum after school to eating lunch in the teacher's lounge every day, talking about the latest murder podcast we’re listening to and quietly snickering while Brenda, the school librarian, stands in front of the refrigerator smelling her brand-new turkey sandwich only to decide it might have mold or salmonella or something and throwing it out.

My favorite part about being a teacher, besides the sweet perks, is the continual realization that the young, hip teachers I had growing up were all rushing home after a hellish day in the classroom to drink a bottle of wine or smoke a joint or have crazy sex with a stranger. It’s comforting to know that teachers have been defying stereotypes for generations just as much as the more adventurous chosen careers of my college friends, who are all investigative reporters and backpackers and third-year residents.

While everyone else at our quarterly appreciation parties (a half-hearted attempt from the administration to thank us for not striking) is shoving baby photos into each other’s faces and complaining about their IRA accounts, Paul and I sneak out to the playground and pull a few long drags off a joint one of us has in our pockets while taking turns pushing each other on the swings, feeling almost light enough to be seven again.

He’s the only one I can say these kids are the fucking worst to and he knows to read the love I have for them underneath the frustration. Other teachers just let their mouths hang open in disgust and whisper, “you shouldn’t say such things” like they are duchesses in Victorian England, the purveyors of decorum.

But something’s been off about Paul in the last couple days. We’ll be sitting at the corner table in the lounge and I’ll be telling him about one of my fifth grader’s writing a story about his sister having sex, and nothing. He’s a blank stare.

“You okay?” I ask, but he just shakes his head quickly and stands up, making up some excuse about prepping for next period.

Last week, we were both on lunch duty and I swear I saw him just mindlessly eat some leftover french fries off a kid’s tray, his eyes never leaving some indeterminate place on the wall.

When I finally get him alone, I circle around the elephant-sized silence in the room, and finally just blurt out all in one breath, “So what’s going on? You seem a billion light years away these days.”

He nods, not betraying even a glimpse of his teeth. “I’m sorry, Nell. It’s been a week from hell.” He sucks in a huge, heavy breath. “We were at the doctor last week. Actually, four fucking doctors, all more clueless than the last.”

My brain’s turns off slightly at the first mention of we, a pronoun I usually try to ignore coming from him. We means him and his girlfriend, nearly fiancé, once he saves up enough cash to buy the engagement ring. The older female teachers love chatting him up to ask about what kind of proposal he’s going to do and I spend about as much of that time talking about how expensive proposals and weddings are an archaic symbol of a sexist society.

I think my face is showing the proper amount of concern, though, because he keeps talking. “They, well the last two doctors who finally got a good read of her test results, think it’s cancer. Fuck I just, I can’t deal with her having cancer. ” He pauses there and finally looks up from his twitching hands at me, and I’m at a near loss.

“Shit. That’s so scary, I’m so sorry. That’s the fucking worst,” I say. “What happens next?” I’ve watched my mom navigate grieving people my entire life like a master. She’s an empathy machine, always knowing exactly the right questions to ask and the right amount of sadness to express personally. I did not accrue those skills. I hide in bathrooms at funerals, stuff too many hors d’oeuvres into my mouth and just say weakly, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry” if I have to speak the grieving person directly, while thinking what good is I’m sorry when someone they love is fucking dead? What good is an apology in the face of death?

For someone who spends so much of her time thinking about death and how life on earth will end, I am remarkably inept at dealing with actual, in-your-face death or dying. Paul knows this; we’ve talked about this a million times, but here he is telling me that the woman he wants to spend the rest of his life with has tumors literally growing inside of her and I can’t do anything but throw these weak-ass apologies in his face.

I don’t talk about murder with him anymore and he doesn’t either. During lunch, he’ll call home to check in on his girlfriend and I’ll watch Brenda sniff and sniff each corner of her sandwich while sliding further and further into my chair. When we do eat together, I test the waters with what kinds of conversation topics he can stomach.

“You hear about that conspiracy with the dogs Vulture posted this morning?” I ask. “It’s actually crazy; there was this huge investigative piece that came out about the town across the river that’s literally taking people’s dogs and bringing them to a kill shelter.“

Paul’s sipping a diet coke and nods, “Yeah, Jenna was texting me about this today. She thinks we shouldn’t even let our dogs go outside anymore in case they come by our neighborhood.” Jenna’s losing her hair, I see it on the cuffs of Paul’s jeans. Thick clumps of dyed red hair wrapping around him like chains.

I’ve gone too dark; I try to pivot back. “You missed it the other day, Frieda brought her dog in for her parent-teacher conferences and it shit all over the Hendersons. They had a field day, talking about suing the school or something for damages. I don’t know who I hate more: rich people or fucking dogs.”

“I can’t believe you don’t like dogs. There’s something seriously broken about you,” Paul says, laughing. “Sometimes I think our dogs are like the biggest thing in my life right now.”

I’m walking out of school the next day and I see him sitting on the benches in front of the bus stop, his tie pulled out and hair all mussed up. I’m about to head over to check in on him until I hear him whisper yelling on the phone.

“I’m sorry, I know it’s all unimaginably worse for you, but you’ve gotta understand the position you’re putting me in,” he’s saying, his perfect moon teeth gritted so tight, I’m surprised I can understand a word coming out of his mouth.

Picking a fight with a cancer patient. Classy, Paul.

“I’m about to come home, can’t we just talk about this there? I’m just exhausted is all. Today, a kid puked on my shoes. And like a fucking maniac he just wiped off his mouth and kept typing.”

I lean awkwardly against the bike racks and pretend to flip through Facebook, a skill I’ve perfected after a year-long teaching gig with 11th graders. High Schoolers can ingest social media while listening in on their friends’ conversations like master multi-taskers.

“I’m trying. I just don’t feel like you’re hearing me at all. I’ve got nine hours a day in this sinkhole of a school and then I come home and it’s just ––” He puts his hand up to his eyes like he’s about to cry and I think about walking back into the school, awash with shame over witnessing this moment of naked sadness.

It feels like a minute passes while we’re both suspended in silence.

Then he snaps. “Fucking great. See ya.” He pushes his finger hard to his touch screen and slams his phone into the briefcase beside him on the bench.

I begin ambling down the steps, pretending I just walked out of school while still aimlessly refreshing Facebook every few seconds.

He looks up at me with bloodshot eyes.

“Oh hey, Paul. What’s up?” I say with the same amount of nonchalance as a rocket launcher.

He shakes his head but says nothing. I reach out my fingers to touch his shoulder but curl them back to my palm.

I look back and forth quickly to the edges of the empty parking lot. It’s Friday afternoon and everyone’s long since run off to their respective cocoons. “Wanna get high?” I ask and he smiles for the first time in what seems like a long time and follows me to our cars, parked side by side in the abandoned parking lot.

We sit on a bench off the highway for an hour smoking and saying almost nothing at all. It’s 78 degrees and humid for late spring, but my whole body is shivering like every hair on my arms and neck is being pulled separately, invisibly. I drive the rest of the way home with our last interaction playing on repeat in my head: his swollen eyes staring into mine, his body leaning towards me until finally, smiling faintly, he just says, “Thank you, Nell” and then drives away. Maybe I’m stoned, but it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to a man in my life and I can’t shake the electricity from my veins.

The next morning I awake before sunrise, just as the warm glow peeks out from above the horizon. I run through my neighborhood, my legs feeling powerful and assured, watching as the first lights flicker on in living rooms and dogs bark to be taken out for a walk. I can’t remember the last time I’ve been up to watch the first moments of a stranger’s daily routine; to watch them brush the sleep from the corners of their eyes through filtered light, the muted yawns while slouching against the kitchen counter watching the coffee drip, drip, drip through the percolator.

When I started teaching, at a school as far up in Bronx as you can get without being in Yonkers, I would roll out of bed like a knot of hair and bad breath and clumpy mascara. I lived in a six bedroom loft in Bushwick at the time, where the walls didn’t quite reach the ceilings and I could hear my roommates tripping over shoes in the hallway at 3:00 am with random people they’d met at bar, followed by low moans and the creaks of bedsprings long into the night. I was young enough at the tie that I could delude myself into thinking that I wasn’t gentrifying Bushwick; I was hovering there like a spectre until I could jet out of its muggy concrete streets and back into a land that made sense –– upstate maybe or out west, a place that aimless twenty somethings settled into like sand on a layer of glue.

I would catch the L at Wilson and take it across the bridge to Union Square at the same time as the street vendors and morning TV crews, all of us staring at nothing across subways and in empty platforms, imagining ourselves into other lives. Then I’d catch the 4 up to Woodlawn just as most of my students would be eating breakfast, willing myself into waking up in time to teach a class on To Kill a Mockingbird or All Quiet on the Western Front, or whatever unrelatable lesson plan I had been assigned to teach that day.

One year and I was burned out, pushed out of the Bronx and New York City altogether by my own incompetence and inability to mold my life to the thrum of the city while expecting it to mold itself to me. A classic New York failure story. I moved out the next summer with a teaching degree and a year of trauma under my belt and $250 in my savings account.

I teach fifth grade in the burbs now at a school with a compost heap and an annual gala planned by their Parent Teacher Association with literary themed cocktails. Tequila Mockingbird, the moms order at the bar and laugh and laugh and laugh. The same moms who storm into my classroom during parent-teacher meetings to demand I structure my lessons around Tommy’s learning style. He really prefers to meditate while learning math, I’m sure that won’t trouble you.

After five years, teaching here has settled into this one-note, tasteless, perfectly straight road leading nowhere. Until I met Paul under the desks, smelling like Bubblicious and Old Spice.

I can’t fully explain what this sense of closeness is with a man whose life I just hover around, but it’s addicting. I want him to know me without having to risk an emotional investment; I want to know him without worrying about his attachments to the world outside of me.

I don’t tell my friends any of this. I let Paul float like a fantasy coloring my living reality. During the day, I watch him from across the playground, chasing kids across the blacktop with his arms flailing wildly. But at night, he is the person who infects my thoughts just as I’ve released conscious control while falling asleep, the one who sneaks into my dreams and smiles 32 moons.

On Monday, Paul comes in and he looks like a new man, his face aglow and doing everything but literally whistling as he saunters down the hallway. I wait until lunch and corner him in the teacher’s lounge. “You look happy. Anything in particular?”

He whirls towards me and for a second I think he’s going to lift me up in the air or something he’s got so much energy. “I proposed,” he says, his eyes sparkling.

“You what?” I say, forgetting to be cool or calm or collected or all of the other things I imagine a Cosmopolitan article titled “10 Tips & Tricks for Reacting to When the Man You Thought You Loved Gets Engaged” might suggest.

“I proposed, Nell. Jenna said yes. We’re getting married! Obviously, it’s going to be crazy. We trying to do it by the end of the summer, you know, while she’s still got energy and before the next round of chemo, but we’re doing it. Oh my god, I can’t believe we’re doing it.” This is the most I’ve ever seen him talk, except when he’s high and talking about the history of astronomical discovery or something else I thought he only talked about with me. I know better now.

“Holy shit, dude. That’s incredible. How incredible! What an incredible thing.” Does he notice that I’m repeating myself because my brain’s buffering and can’t move past it? “I’m so happy for you,” I say, hoping that he can’t hear the flatness of my voice from his perch in the clouds.

I can’t look at him, the joy radiating from him, the love he sees beyond the walls of this elementary school, the future he sees with a woman who might not make it past the next teacher appreciation party. I hate how much I hate a woman whose body is literally crumbling inside her but whenever I think about the love she’s taken from him, I can only think bitch, bitch, bitch like a metronome in head.