#wellness clinic
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webotixae · 5 months ago
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Thinking About Cosmetic Procedures for Anti-Aging? Read This First
Aging can be an emotional rollercoaster. Regardless of how many times we hear that “beauty is more than skin deep,” spotting those first fine lines and wrinkles can be disheartening. According to psychologist and registered dietitian Ellen Albertson, who works with women over 50 on body and appearance changes, “when we gaze into the mirror, we confront a version of ourselves we’re not always comfortable with.”
This sentiment shouldn’t be underestimated. Your appearance isn’t just about vanity; it’s how you present yourself to the world, and any discontentment you feel can impact everything from your mood to your confidence and willingness to engage socially.
One way to address the signs of ageing is through cosmetic procedures. But how do you know when these interventions are right for you, and how much is enough? Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you navigate such a decision.
Validate Your Feelings About Aging
It’s crucial to acknowledge that your feelings about ageing are valid. Worrying about how you look as you age isn’t trivial. It’s an excellent opportunity to delve deeper into what’s really bothering you.” Ignoring or suppressing these emotions won’t make them disappear.
Moreover, societal pressures can amplify these feelings. A 2017 qualitative study involving over 1,800 women aged 50 and above highlighted both the physical and psychological challenges of ageing. It’s more than just vanity — there are social injustices and unique hurdles that ageing individuals face, further complicating their experience.
Understand Common Procedures
As you consider cosmetic interventions, it’s helpful to familiarise yourself with the most common procedures. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons’ 2020 report, popular options include:
Facelifts and Chin Augmentations
Botulinum Toxin Type A (Botox)
Wrinkle Fillers, and Collagen Injections
Laser Skin Resurfacing
These treatments can help mitigate the visual effects of ageing, but they each come with their own set of promises and limitations. “New medicines and technologies can slow the ageing process and reduce wrinkles but nothing can completely stop the ageing process dictated by our DNA.” says Dr Shun, Founder of Kotobuki Clinic, one of the best Wellness and Aesthetic clinics in Dubai.
Ageing is a natural genetic transformation we have to deal with, it can’t be overpowered, by treatments like Botox for quick fix.
Weighing the Pros and Cons
Before moving forward with any treatment, it’s essential to have an open, honest conversation with professional medical practitioners. Consider these common reasons why some people opt out of procedures:
Cost
Time
Potential Side Effects
Desire for Natural Aging
Evaluate all aspects before making a choice.
Clarify Your Motivation
It’s important to understand your reasons for considering cosmetic procedures. Ask yourself:
Why am I doing this?
A 2015 pilot study revealed that women chose Botox primarily for self-confidence, not to please others. However, Albertson warns that you need to ensure it genuinely boosts your confidence and doesn’t leave you feeling like an imposter.
Can I handle potential complications?
Every procedure carries some risk, and recovery times can vary. Be honest about whether you are willing and able to manage these aspects.
Are my expectations realistic?
According to Dr. Elaine Kung, turning back the clock five to ten years is possible, but erasing every spot or wrinkle isn’t. Have realistic expectations about the outcome.
Is the process enjoyable?
If cosmetic treatments become more hassle than joy, it may be worth reconsidering. According to Dr Shun, when patients find it burdensome, it’s time to discuss alternative at-home treatments.
Home Remedies and Self-Care
If you decide against or stop cosmetic procedures, self-care remains an excellent alternative. Consider these tips:
At-Home Skincare
Use the Right Products. Products with Vitamin A (retinol) and Vitamins C and E for protecting against environmental damage.
Dietary Changes. Foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids (like salmon and walnuts) and antioxidants (like berries) can enhance skin health from the inside out.
LED Light Therapy. This can target wrinkles and age spots with professional advice on suitable devices.
Apply Sunscreen. Wear SPF 30 or higher daily and reapply every two hours to prevent sun damage.
Emotional Health
Aging can affect mental health, particularly for women. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that people aged 45 to 64 had the second-highest rate of depression symptoms in the United States in 2020, with women showing higher rates than men. Here are some strategies to support your emotional health while dealing with ageing:
Look Beyond Appearance
Shift your focus to qualities, hobbies, and aspects of your life that don’t revolve around your appearance. Albertson advises remembering that “looks are not the most important thing about you.” Fostering a well-rounded self-concept can mitigate feelings tied solely to physical changes.
Embrace Holistic Self-Care
Appearing with some grey hair and wrinkles doesn’t mean you feel older. Engage in activities that promote overall well-being:
Exercise: Choose physical activities that match your body’s capabilities and preferences.
Sleep: Ensure you get sufficient, quality sleep.
Hobbies: Invest time in fulfilling activities that can help enhance your sense of purpose and joy.
Stay Socially Connected
Maintaining social interactions is crucial as we age. A 2019 study found that 60-year-olds who frequently visited with friends were significantly less likely to develop dementia compared to those with fewer social interactions. Regular social engagement can also help maintain a positive outlook on life.
Curate Your Media Consumption
Be cautious of the unrealistic beauty standards often portrayed in media. Remember, celebrities on magazine covers and social media have access to extensive resources and editing tools. Instead, follow accounts that celebrate diverse, mature beauty, fostering a more realistic and positive perception of ageing.
Explore Your Emotions
Sometimes, concerns about ageing skin are just the surface of deeper emotional issues. Albertson notes that recognizing these feelings often involves confronting our mortality and self-comparisons to unrealistic ideals. Techniques like journaling can help explore and understand these underlying emotions.
Shift Your Perspective
Reframe your thoughts about ageing. For example, wrinkles can be seen as signs of a life filled with laughter and experiences. Albertson encourages viewing them as “expressions of a life well-lived.”
Seek Professional Help
If emotions about ageing significantly impact your daily life, consider consulting a therapist. Look for those specialising in ageing, body image, or body confidence to help navigate these feelings effectively.
Bottom Line
 Aging, it’s like that one houseguest who never leaves. Cosmetic touch-ups at Kotobuki Clinic, No.1 Wellness and Aesthetic Clinic in Dubai, can help manage the uninvited guest, but they won’t send it packing. Embracing your natural ageing might feel like choosing to live with that guest, finding harmony. Whether you choose to invite a few more laugh lines or not, focus on overall well-being. A chat with your friendly neighborhood healthcare pro or therapist can help. Good skincare, tasty eats, and a hearty laugh will have you ageing like a pro.
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betterlifecarolinas · 8 months ago
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Better Life Carolinas
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Step into a world of transformative wellness at Better Life Carolinas, where your journey to optimal health begins. Our comprehensive wellness clinic offers personalized programs designed to rejuvenate your mind, body, and spirit. Experience a holistic approach to well-being that combines cutting-edge medical technologies with the warmth and care of our dedicated team of experts.
At Better Life Carolinas, we prioritize your overall health by offering tailored solutions to address your unique needs. From advanced diagnostic testing to customized nutrition plans and lifestyle strategies, our services are designed to enhance your vitality and longevity. Imagine feeling more energized than ever before, achieving mental clarity like never before experienced, and optimizing every aspect of your health for a better life ahead.
Discover the difference that Better Life Carolinas can make in elevating your quality of life. Our compassionate practitioners are committed to guiding you on a path towards sustainable wellness goals that empower you to live fully and vibrantly. Embrace the opportunity for lasting transformation with our expert guidance and support at every step of the way. Uncover a renewed sense of well-being as you embark on this empowering journey towards improved health at Better Life Carolinas.
Contact Us:
Better Life Carolinas
Address: 260 W Coleman Blvd., Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464, USA
Phone: (843) 737-2597
Website: https://betterlifecarolinas.com/
External Links:
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Wikidot
Buzzfeed
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dr-safeenas-wellness-wolrd · 10 months ago
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wepracticewellness · 11 months ago
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The Practice is one of the best health and wellness clinics in Jacksonville, FL for cutting-edge treatment. Book online or call us today!
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berryblogg · 1 year ago
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Throat Cancer: Understanding the Disease and Its Effects
Throat cancer Throat cancer is a serious condition that affects thousands of people around the world. It occurs when malignant cells develop in the tissues of the throat, including the voice box, vocal cords, tonsils, oropharynx, or hypopharynx. The effects of throat cancer can be devastating, impacting a person’s ability to speak, swallow, and even breathe properly. In this blog, we will delve…
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inkskinned · 5 months ago
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today i love the red metal crane in her long neck arching her body over the boston skyline, which means i am okay for a moment. when i am unwell, everything is a little ugly. i always tell myself look for the beauty but when it is bad, i will look at birds and sunsets and little ducklings and feel absolutely nothing.
when my brother got his puppy, i was in a deep depression. what kind of monster isn't affected by a puppy. i was gentle and kind to her - i just didn't have an emotional reaction. she's five now and i feel like i spend all of our interactions apologizing to her - i don't know why. i just didn't feel anything. how embarrassing. i feel like if i admit that, i'll seem cruel and jaded. it comes in waves. like, two months ago when i went out into the world - it was like that. life behind a pane of stormglass. a firework could go off over your head - nothing. like dead skin, no reaction. not to ice cream or rainbows or baby chickens. life foggy and uninteresting.
i love goslings again. i love their little webbed feet splayed over grass. i love good food and live music and long walks. i like puppies. i feel like some kind of my soul has been starved - i keep staring at everything with wide eyes, trying to burrow the sensation into my stomach. it's real. beauty is real. when it's bad again, remember this. i stop and smell the flowers, feeling cliche in the moment. i like the white-to-red ombre of my neighbor's roses. i like colorcoding and yoga and cold drinks. i try to pass my hands over every moment, feeling like i'm squeezing joy out of every instant. remember this. for the love of god, it's real - just remember this.
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calvinbryant · 2 years ago
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When considering whether or not to visit a wellness clinic, it is important to understand what to expect during your visit. When visiting a wellness clinic, you will likely be greeted by the staff and offered a drink or snack. You will then be taken through the clinic’s facilities and asked about your health concerns. The staff will typically ask you about your symptoms, history, and current medications. They will also ask about any stressors in your life and whether or not you have been diagnosed with any health conditions. If you are feeling comfortable with the clinic’s staff and program, you may choose to participate in one of its classes or workshops. These sessions can provide you with information on how to maintain good health and reduce symptoms related to your condition.      Visit https://ihplus.com
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killjoy-prince · 8 months ago
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House M.D. but it's when Wilson says House's name
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clownpulp · 4 months ago
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hiii know i havent posted much art here lately but i am once again disabled and very broke, looking for anyone who may want one of these semi-monochrome rendered bust sketches :] $25+ depending on detail, and i can always do larger pieces, color, etc !
dm here or email me [email protected]
ko-fi if you just want to help me out
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maybmila · 6 months ago
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One of their many, many, MANY bonding experiences with TOWW
Cw loud noise!
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taylortruther · 7 months ago
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must be very strange to have to perform your heartbreak. as authentic as the emotions are, to market them at all (do a photoshoot, decide on "promo")... it must be strange to reconcile that with your private life, the intimate details, at times
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webotixae · 6 months ago
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IV THERAPY VS TOPICAL TREATMENTS COMPARING SKIN WHITENING METHODS
Have you ever looked in the mirror. Wished for skin that's more even toned and radiant? Radiant skin is often linked to a fresh appearance, in the realm of skincare. Whether it's due to aging, sun damage, or skin conditions, achieving that perfect glow can sometimes feel like a goal.
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This blog will delve deeply into skin brightening methods. Compare two approaches; intravenous (IV) therapy and topical treatments. Tired of admiring others' flawless skin from afar? The aesthetic alchemists at Kotobuki, the best aesthetic clinic Dubai, are ready to unveil the path to your own complexion perfection.
Getting to Know the Basics
What is Skin Whitening?
In pursuit of a complexion, skin whitening - also known as skin lightening or brightening - involves procedures aimed at reducing melanin levels or pigmentation in the skin. This procedure can address concerns such as:
Hyperpigmentation
Age spots
Melasma
Uneven skin tone
The Competitors: IV Therapy vs Topical Treatments
IV Therapy: A Direct and Effective Approach
Process Overview
IV Therapy is a method that entails the introduction of substances such, as glutathione, vitamin C and other antioxidants that enhance skin radiance into the bloodstream through a route.
This technique guarantees that these beneficial components evade the system leading to increased absorption rates and immediate impact.
Main Advantages
Prompt Outcomes: Thanks to its delivery into the bloodstream IV therapy typically yields improvements, in skin brightness compared to using topical products.  
Higher Efficacy: Almost 100% of the infused nutrients are utilized by your body, making it a highly efficient method.
Overall Health Improvement: This method often includes components that promote detoxification and overall health, enhancing skin health from the inside out.
Considerations
Cost: IV Therapy is usually more expensive per session than buying topical treatments.
Need for Professional Setting: The procedure must be conducted in a controlled environment under medical supervision.
Frequency of Sessions: Regular sessions are necessary to maintain results, which can add to the overall cost and commitment.
Topical Treatments: Gradual and Accessible
How They Work:
Topical treatments involve applying creams, gels, or serums directly on the skin. These products contain active ingredients like hydroquinone, kojic acid, or arbutin that work to reduce melanin production gradually.
The active ingredients are absorbed through the skin layers affecting only targeted areas.
Main Advantages
Targeted Application: Enables direct application on hyperpigmented spots or overall skin, depending on the product.
Lower Initial Cost: Usually less expensive up-front than IV therapy and easily accessible.
Ease of Use: Can be used in the comfort of your home as part of a daily skincare routine.
Considerations
Slower Results: It typically takes longer to see visible changes because the active ingredients need time to penetrate the skin layers.
Variable Absorption: The effectiveness can be impacted by factors such as the skin’s permeability and the product's formulation.
Consistency Required: Regular and consistent application is crucial for seeing and maintaining results.
Personalization of Treatment
IV Therapy:
Offers a high degree of customization, as the cocktail can be tailored exactly to the client’s needs, taking into account their overall health, skin condition, and personal goals.
Topical Treatments:
Less customizable in instant terms, as they are mass-produced. However, a dermatologist can combine different products to suit an individual’s specific skin issues.
Pre-treatment skincare routine
Unlocking the full potential of advanced skincare treatments like IV therapy starts with diligent pre-treatment prep. Connect with the aesthetic masters by searching for "glutathione injections near me" and let us at Kotobuki Clinic guide you to complexion perfection.By preparing the skin ahead of a procedure, you help ensure optimal conditions for treatment and recovery. Here are specific guidelines tailored to prepare your skin for such treatments:
1. Consultation and Health Check
Professional Assessment: Schedule a consultation with your healthcare provider to assess your skin's condition and discuss any concerns.
Medical History: Inform the provider about your medical history, allergies, and any medications or supplements you are taking to avoid any adverse interactions or side effects.
2. Hydration
Water Intake: Increase your water intake several days prior to the treatment. Proper hydration helps the skin maintain its elasticity and resilience and promotes overall health, aiding recovery and treatment efficacy.
3. Dietary Adjustments
Healthy Diet: Focus on a diet rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals which can help strengthen the skin. Include foods like fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds.
Avoid Certain Substances: Reduce intake of substances that can dehydrate the body or cause blood thinning, such as alcohol and caffeine, a few days before the procedure.
4. Sun Protection
Minimize Sun Exposure: Avoiding excessive sun exposure helps prevent any additional skin sensitivity or damage.
Use Sunscreen: Apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen with SPF 30 or higher on a daily basis, regardless of whether it's sunny or cloudy.
5. Skin Care Regimen
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Gentle Cleansing: Use a mild cleanser that does not contain harsh detergents, which might strip the skin of its natural oils.
Moisturizing: Keep your skin hydrated with a good quality moisturizer suited to your skin type.
Avoid Harsh Treatments: Refrain from aggressive exfoliating, chemical peels, or anything that may irritate the skin for at least a week before treatment.
Discontinue Certain Products: Stop using products containing retinoids, high concentrations of vitamin C, and acids such as glycolic, salicylic, and benzoyl peroxide, as they can increase skin sensitivity.
6. Rest and Reduce Stress
Adequate Sleep: Ensure you get plenty of rest. Sleep aids in the repair and rejuvenation of skin cells.
Stress Management: Engage in stress-reducing activities such as yoga, meditation, or reading, as stress can impact your skin’s health and its ability to heal.
7. Avoiding Makeup
Clean Face: On the day of the treatment, avoid wearing makeup to the appointment. This reduces the risk of infection and allows the treatment to work on thoroughly clean skin.
By adhering to these guidelines, you prepare your skin optimally for skin whitening injection in Dubai (IV treatment) or other invasive procedures, enhancing the results and reducing the likelihood of complications. Always follow specific instructions provided by your healthcare provider, as they may have additional or customized recommendations based on your individual health and treatment plan.
Post-Treatment Skincare Routine
After undergoing glutathione Dubai injectable (IV therapy) or other intensive skincare treatments, proper post-treatment care is crucial to support the skin's healing, maintain the achieved results, and minimize potential side effects. Here are the key guidelines for effective post-treatment skincare:
Immediate Care at the Treatment Site
Avoid touching or irritating the injection site to prevent infection.
If advised by the practitioner, apply cold compresses to the treated area to reduce swelling or discomfort.
Hydration
Drink plenty of water to help your body process the IV fluids and support the skin's recovery.
Maintain high levels of hydration in the days following the treatment.
Sun Protection
Avoid direct sun exposure as the skin can be more sensitive post-treatment.
Apply a broad-spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher every day, even on cloudy days.
Wear protective clothing, hats, and seek shade when possible.
Gentle Skincare Routine
Use a gentle, non-irritating cleanser to cleanse the skin without disrupting the skin barrier.
Apply soothing, hydrating products containing ingredients like aloe vera, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide.
Avoid harsh exfoliants, retinoids, and products with high concentrations of active ingredients that may further irritate the skin.
Monitor for Reactions
Closely observe the treated area for any unusual reactions, such as excessive redness, swelling, or discomfort.
Contact your healthcare provider immediately if you experience any adverse reactions.
Healthy Diet
Consume a nutrient-rich diet that includes antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals to support the skin's healing and overall health.
Avoid foods and beverages that may dehydrate the body, such as alcohol and caffeine.
Follow-Up Appointments
Schedule follow-up appointments with your healthcare provider to monitor your progress and address any concerns.
Follow any additional instructions or adjustments to your post-treatment skincare routine as recommended by your provider.
By diligently following these post-treatment guidelines from the best aesthetic clinic in Dubai, you can help ensure the best possible outcomes, support the skin's recovery, and maintain the benefits achieved through the intensive treatment. Remember, the specific recommendations may vary depending on the type of treatment you have undergone, so always consult with your healthcare provider for personalized guidance.
Find Your Beautiful Skin
Which of IV therapy or topical treatments is preferable will ultimately depend on personal preference, lifestyle, and specific skin needs. Both methods have certain advantages and, when used correctly, may significantly lighten the complexion.
The best way to be sure you choose the right treatment is to talk to skincare professionals such as us, who are the best iv drip Dubai providers, who can enlighten you with tailored advice based on your specific skin type and condition. Why not let our experienced team guide you through your options with a customized skin assessment? We are here in Dubai for you Contact us, the best beauty clinic Dubai. 
Be brighter! Be confident!
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adustoflove · 9 months ago
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I've acquired this unique ability called completely losing all feelings for a person the moment we don't talk for a few days, then, gaining some of them back when we talk, then losing them again. Like I....don't know what's wrong with me or why that happens, but I would like it to stop.
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dr-safeenas-wellness-wolrd · 10 months ago
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Laser Therapy in Aesthetic Clinics: A Comprehensive Guide
Laser therapy has become a popular option in aesthetic clinics for various skin and wellness treatments. This non-invasive procedure employs focused laser beams to target specific tissues, providing numerous benefits with minimal discomfort and downtime.
Understanding Laser Therapy:
Laser therapy works by delivering concentrated light energy to the targeted area, stimulating cellular activity and promoting various therapeutic effects. The procedure is versatile, with applications ranging from skin rejuvenation and hair removal to treating vascular lesions and pigmentation issues.
Key Aspects of Laser Therapy:
Skin Rejuvenation: Laser therapy can address signs of aging, such as fine lines, wrinkles, and uneven skin tone. It promotes collagen production, leading to improved skin texture and elasticity.
Hair Removal: Laser technology effectively reduces unwanted hair by targeting hair follicles and inhibiting their growth. This provides a long-lasting solution compared to traditional hair removal methods.
Treatment of Vascular Lesions: Lasers can target and minimize the appearance of vascular lesions like spider veins and broken capillaries, enhancing overall skin appearance.
Pigmentation Correction: Laser therapy is utilized to address various pigmentation issues, such as sunspots and melasma, resulting in a more even complexion.
Choosing the Best Aesthetic Clinic in Dubai
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Why Choose Dr Safeena’s Women Wellness World:
Expertise: Dr. Safeena and her team bring extensive expertise in laser therapy and women’s wellness, ensuring a comprehensive and tailored approach to each patient.
Cutting-edge Technology: The clinic employs the latest laser technology, ensuring effective and safe treatments with optimal results.
Patient-Centric Approach: Dr. Safeena’s Women Wellness World prioritizes patient satisfaction, providing a supportive and comfortable environment throughout the treatment process.
In conclusion, laser therapy in aesthetic clinics, especially at renowned establishments like Dr Safeenas Women Wellness World, offers a promising avenue for individuals seeking effective and non-invasive solutions for various aesthetic concerns.
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pparacxosm · 7 days ago
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something borrowed
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(dearly beloved part 2: electric boogaloo ! ; tashi duncan x fem!childhood best friend!reader x patrick zweig ((x art donaldson?? a little?)); nonlinear narrative; playing fast and loose with tenses; where do i start; patrick and reader are their own trigger warning; tw pregnancy and childbirth; major major tw for talk of abortion; tw depression and antidepressant talk; cw breeding kink centric smut; more artashi wedding scenes; baby lily !! ; art donaldson #dadding out; grammy donaldson mentioned ! ; tw vomit again i’m so sorry lol; cw more menstrual talk; tw adultery but i mean come on; baby names; lasagna; we all have annie’s reblog to thank ((blame)) for this)
‘ JESUS: Judas—
JUDAS: You forgave Peter and bullshit Thomas—you knocked Paul of Tarsus off a horse—you raised Lazarus from the fuckin’ dead—but me? Me? Your “heart”? . . . What about me??!! What about me, Jesus?! Huh?! You just, you just—I made a mistake! And if that was wrong, then you should have told me! And if a broken heart wasn't sufficient reason to hang, THEN YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD ME THAT, TOO!
JESUS: Don't you think . . . that if I knew that it would have changed your mind . . . that I would have?
Pause. ’
Stephen Adly Guirgis, ‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’
“Is it one of those ugly ones?”
You’re not special; you, too, hate hospitals. Not the least because your parents ralphed up all that cash for med school and you tanked like a castiron anchor. But there’s so much else to feel guilty for. You feel guilty for being alive while people are dying. You feel guilty for wanting to die while people are being born. You feel guilty, and nauseated, by this sickly visceral fume of birth and babyflesh, and the fact that you’re so upset.
You’d marked it on your calendar, is the thing.
March eleventh, Doomsday, the purge, the end times.
Tashi Duncan’s Caesarean section.
Timely and clinical, fittingly so. You’d bought a little beanie for the occasion. The beanie is soft and grey and pink. It has a cartoon flower embroidered on the side of it.
But then this is the spawn of Art and Tashi Donaldson. The baby is inherently desperate, and eager, in that order.
It’s February twentyeighth.
It’s probably for the best, you think, while you and Art are on either side of the hospital bed, and he’s grasping Tashi’s hand more tightly than she is holding his, even though she is the one whose innards are being shat out. You don’t believe she could take another scar.
You grimace as she crowns. Art is sobbing and sniffing. He looks at Tashi like he’s getting to watch God populate the world with greenery. It makes your mouth tug sharply to one side, and you close your eyes, briefly, escaping the bright white light.
You watch the papery sheets go redder and redder with every gush from the cavity of her torso.
The baby is not rosy pink so much as she is carmine. Before this, as an idea, she’s existed mostly in black and white. Aminocentesis results on a MacBook screen. The sonogram on their coffee table. The concrete wall of your abject jealousy. The living colour of her, it shocks you more than her glass-shattering screech.
Art holds the baby first, of course, since Tashi is somewhat incapacitated. You soothingly caress her damp hairline.
“What was that like?” you whisper, wincing down at her.
Tashi sheds a few tears and manages a smile that’s part relief and all agony. “Remember…” she croaks, “Remember when Tre fuckin’… like, roundhouse kicked you up the crotch?”
You blink, quirking your brows. Then you snort in surprise, grinning. “Oh my God, yeah,” you giggle. “When Yas and Matteo got that trampoline.”
Tashi nods weakly, her desiccated mouth twitching at the memory, her eyes shivering gently closed.
The baby is tiny against Art’s body, cradled so carefully in his arms. He’s counting all her toes and fingers.
“Hey there,” he murmurs to her, like they’re the only two people on this earth Tashi made. Then he sinks down onto the stool by Tashi’s head, and holds this tiny, beautiful thing out toward her. “Say hi to momma,” he says, his voice soft as gauze.
Tashi reaches out. Her hands are trembling but all of her is trembling; both you and Art tried to get her on the epidural, but fuck if she’s not stubborn. She crooks the tip of her index finger into the fleecy receiving blanket, pulling it down just a little so she can see the baby’s entire pink face.
The baby opens just one bleary eye, only halfway, but it’s enough for her to see you, for you to feel yourself being seen.
Tashi sobs and Art sobs and you wonder, momentarily, if her obstetrician can reach up the cavity of your body, too, and tug out your heart.
So, of course you hate hospitals, and of course you feel guilty. For many reasons. Chief among them being how, the very moment your dear, gutted friend conks out, you’ve stolen to the hall to ring her ex. And he’s asking you, hopeful, if her fucking newborn is one of those ugly ones.
You sigh into the receiver, shaking your head all solemn. You’re sure any passersby think you’re delivering horrific news. “She’s beautiful,” you confess sadly.
“Fuck!” Patrick says forcefully, like he’s just stubbed his toe.
You can hear the hum of the highway on his end of the line, and he’s definitely a bad enough driver that he shouldn’t be calling you right now, because you don’t want to be back here at his bedside when he’s in a fullbody cast after a nearfatal accident—and you would come to visit, actually, if he were in the hospital; maybe that’d just be the guilt again—but this is pretty urgent.
You frown, tucking your hand under your armpit and managing a smile at a passing couple cautiously rolling their precious trolley to the NICU. “They named her Lily.”
Patrick scoffs. “Those fucking assholes.”
“Right?”
You appreciate his company in your deplorable sorrow. There’s a special corner in the firescape for the two of you, but at least it’ll be the two of you.
“That’s a beautiful name for a baby girl,” he says, practically insulted.
You sigh again. “I know,” you pout.
They’d planned the wedding, as they did all other things, a bona fide team. A well oiled unit. Art and Tashi. A&T. Handing off tasks with practiced efficiency, like another one of her hyperintensive drills, wherein he would sooner keel over heaving than drop the ball. The wedding planner was effectively ornamental once they really got into it.
And they really got into it.
Tashi was one of those little girls who stuffed a stream of toilet paper in her ponytail and pictured the vinyl flooring of her home’s warmly lit passage as a ceremonial aisle on the Amalfi Coast at sunset. Here comes the bride, aluminium foil wedding band, ramshackle wildflower bouquet picked from the backyard, et cetera.
Most times, she’d have you play groom.
But you don’t internalise that too much. Because she had you play a lot of things. And sometimes she’d have their senile Mastiff Mutt, Franklin, play groom, too. Really, the most important part was her having you at all.
And, apparently, as a little boy, Art used to page obsessively back and forth through the decrepit scrapbook of his grandparents’ Peoria union, the pictures frayed and hued dandelion. So it’s great that they found each other, and so many dreams were coming true, and everything was fine. Everything was better.
You’d been happy she was happy, really, you had. You hate big endeavours in your name. If she’d married you, you’d have made her elope to Puerto Rico.
And now she was all sprawled three-ring binders, pen behind each ear, Game Face On. And Art was there, talking place settings in full sincerity, so yeah. It’s fine. Better, even.
She let him intercalate all the mawkish, ubercorny bullshit—the Fleetwood Mac, the garter toss, the pictures of his grandmother at the centrepiece of every table. Because they were a team and it was his wedding as much as hers. And you’d told her, too. You’d told her that she’s going to have a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit wedding to a mawkish, ubercorny bullshit guy. But she’d waved you off with a dismissively sentimental smile. I just want to marry him, she’d told you, which had felt like a million and one serrated spurns all over.
A getaway car, really? you’d deadpanned. Then, leaning closer to her phonescreen, eyes narrowing at their shared twodozenpage Pinterest board, incredulous and disgusted, Are the cans really necessary?
Apparently so.
You were standing at the foreshore, toes all grainy, shoes in hand, pistachiorose and Patrick Zweig on your tongue, your ass still seadamp. Art and Tashi pulled up in front of you, cans rattling, like a justmarried Lyft order.
When you climbed into the backseat, they were in the middle of sharing in dulcet laughter over something or the other. Something that did not concern you. Which was fine, and better, and the flower arrangements were spectacular. And, anyway, you’re busy trying not to get sand on this vintage carpet.
“Shouldn’t you two be honeymooning?”
Art looked back at you, his arm outstretched, wrist resting on the bend of the wheel. He gave you this smile you couldn’t discern, which most of his smiles were, and are. He blew a raspberry from his rubicund mouth and tsked.
“What, without you?” he scoffed, wry but playful, and you realised that, though he teased, and wanted you to know as much, his goodnature was sincere.
And your fingers twitched to wrap his seatbelt—because he was wearing the seatbelt—around his rosy throat five or six or seven times and tug hard.
Tashi threw her head back and laughed into the humidity of the night, of their wedding night.
Tashi squirmed in the leather passengerseat of the ivorycoloured 1960 Ford Thunderbird convertible.
You were leaning over in between them from the back, straddling the armrest. And she watched Art turn his head and kiss you. His hand looked huge on the messy, delicate bone of your jaw. It felt cool and clammy, you remember. Tashi sucked in a breath. You two broke apart after a moment, laughing, your palm coming down on his forearm like he’d just made a joke.
“That,” you said, making a puerile face as he absently brushed a thumb over your cheek, “Was too far.”
Your eyes were still shining with tears.
Art nodded, grinning, slipping his hand from your face and running it through his sweaty shoresand hair. “Anything for you, baby, but maybe not that.”
Tashi was flushed and florid and tamping her thighs tighter together and she wanted you both to put your hands on her.
Her arm slunk across the centre console to press her palm into his chest. And she ran her nails along the tender skin of your inner arm. And Art looked back at you like he was asking for permission, which was the first time in a long time he’d done that. And probably the last time since. And you don’t know why you nodded, but you did.
He gave you another strange, cursory kiss on the corner of your mouth, then leaned across the centre console and nipped at Tashi’s earlobe. The whetted burst of pain sent a visible shiver through her bones. She bit her lip and sighed.
“Mrs Donaldson,” he’d murmured, all husky and low. His white buttonup was all sweatrumpled and unfurled. He looked handsome and disheveled like a fallen angel or those illustrations on the covers of erotic paperbacks.
You swallowed, overwhelmed by it all.
You pressed the seam of your lips to the skin where her neck met her shoulder and her lithe fingers encircled your wrist and guided it between her legs.
You and Art are friends—good friends, by now—but sometimes you feel more like business partners. Cofounders of Keeping Tashi Duncan Happy and Okay Inc.
So, when he cannot stomach all the vomit—so, so much fucking vomit—for all his earnest, anguished, tearful trying, he calls you. Because he and his hairtrigger loins can’t help her right now.
And you don’t tease, or berate, or say it should’ve been you.
And he doesn’t protest, or control freak, or remind you it wasn’t you, it was him.
He dips out to stock up on crackers and barley sugar sweets, and you stay with Tashi and stand sentry on emesis duty.
You hadn’t known that any one thing was capable of maiming her this way. Tashi Duncan, your impenetrable infanta. Fast to get up, faster, still, to dry her tears. But this baby is wringing her bone dry. She’s feeble, swollen, and practically debilitated.
You feel her spine shift as she shakes and heaves into the toilet. You hate her like this. At mercy to her bones.
You can’t help the archaic scorn. None of this, none of any of it, would’ve happened, had it been you. But it wasn’t.
You cradle Tashi’s feverish head in the bend of your knee. You thread your knuckles through her sweaty curls. You rub your fingers into her collar, tracing her bones where they have been swallowed by her plummy sallow skin. In college, you used to give each other lymphatic drainage massages.
You’re on Virginia Key Beach with T and her brothers, at the edge of the ocean. You’re, like, fourteen. Tevin’s mouth is a comically fluorescent shade of blue as he topes down a Slurpee. Tre hops over waves. Tre keeps saying the sharks will get you, they’ll smell it, blood in the water, blood in the water and Tevin keeps holding the Slurpee so high that the ultramarine of it obstructs the sun. And Tashi is yelling I’m not even on my fucking period! even though she is red and wet between her thighs, and give it to me, Tev, it’s mine, you took mine! as she reaches and reaches and reaches, unable to grasp what she wants.
There are some women unmoved by such trivialities as their own blood. Eightinch stilettos, eight months in. People will assume Tashi Duncan, pulchritude and powerhouse, to be one of these women.
But you’ll know better.
She’s so good at the tennis, ultimately, because she listens to her blood. She lets it move her. Lets it give her power. She is a mesmerising glass carafe of red.
But when it spills, it pours. When she breaks, she shatters.
Art Donaldson’s child writhes inside her, swills her blood. And you watch.
Patrick takes you home from the hospital. You were planning on sinking into the void of your couch while forking miserably into a whole tray of lasagna by yourself, but you feel bad. You feel guilty and lonely. So you invite him in.
You thunk your stoneware roaster on the granite of your peninsular countertop. He’s sat on a barstool and you’re standing across from him, and he wastes no time tucking in. You nudge at the broiled cheese with your fork.
You’re crying, which he doesn’t mind, but it’s a little distracting while he’s trying to eat, is all. He peers up at you, circumspect, as he chews.
You roll your eyes at him. “Please don’t make me cry alone,” you tell him.
He chews, swallows, licks some pasta from his gums. He rests the fork against the edge of the tray and dusts his hands off.
“I don’t cry,” he says, shrugging like it’s out of his hands. The corner of his mouth quirks up as you fix him with a sullen glare.
“I’ve seen you cry,” you say pointedly, dropping your own silverware.
He shrugs again. “Yeah,” he says, “One time. That was the only time I’ve ever cried. Ever.”
He has this way of saying things like he absolutely means them. This hamfisted sincerity, serrated deadpan. And, when you’re emotional like this, all husked and raw, it’s unfortunately an extremely effective way to make you laugh. His eyes gleam with victory as you duck your head and giggle wetly.
“You feel special?” he smirks.
You roll your eyes again, tears still trickling pools into the tender shadowed skin beneath your eyes. “I feel especially depressed,” you reply thickly.
He flits his eyes back and forth between the both of yours a few times. You’re reminded of the abject tedious torture of sitting through one of Art’s tennis games. “Are you really? Or are you just moping?” he asks you.
You reach into your pocket and pull out your little Effexor prescription vial, rattling it twice, and tossing it his way. It’s a sloppy underhand, but he catches it easily.
“Huh,” he muses, turning it between his fingertips. “That’s why you look so different? I thought you were just putting on sympathy weight.”
Your lips wobble, and your eyes burn and blur again, your throat swelling shut like fucking anaphylactic excoriation, and you catch your face with your hands and cry.
“Don’t be mean right now,” you blubber.
Patrick blinks, sobering with a smart, the humour seeping off his face and replacing itself with an almost comically disturbed frown.
“Okay, okay,” he says, his voice light with a culpable urgency reserved for a triggered, irate straitjacket patient. He reaches over the lasagna, the savoury brume warming his forearms, and he takes your wrists and peels your fingers from your eyes. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
You hiccup breathlessly. Your tears slithering down your cheeks in rills.
“I’m sorry,” says Patrick. He presses his thumbs into your pulsepoints, like he can quash your distress through your radial arteries. “You look hot, okay? Really, you do.”
For his part, he seems genuinely contrite, and utterly concerned, and he probably means it. He is rarely insincere, even when his tongue is in his cheek. But your sulky inner voice says he’s bargaining. How about I quit being an ass and you stop with the ugly crying and I can finish this pasta and hotfoot it out of here? But this is your house. And your pasta. And you think you should get to mourn his exgirlfriend’s womb, if you so choose.
You sob harder, shoulders quavering. His brows raise in quiet alarm when you wrest your arms from his fingers.
You snuffle and swallow. “Please stop,” you moan sadly.
Somewhere between the cake cutting—which walked that revolting, quintessentially Art and Tashi line between sweet and sexy; she daubed some frosting on his nose, he licked it off her finger—and your purloining of a slice or two for your and Patrick’s beachside bitchsesh, the speakers are thumping with ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’.
Everyone is wasted.
You don’t even mean to, but one of Art’s cousins, who is clearly eking out his fraternity days that have long since started mouldering, keeps ordering you shots from the open bar. And you keep downing them, one after the other. He’s wearing a practically lurid red polo that really errs on the ‘optional’ side of Black Tie Optional, but he has a really charming smile, the light glistering off the white of his teeth as you dance.
And—fuck it—he’s hot. And he’s looking at you like he wants to kiss you in the middle of this dance floor, grinding against you like you’re teenagers at a CYO dance.
The lights are scintillating technicolour and the music is so loud you can feel it in your rib cage and it doesn’t take long for the room to start spinning like the world’s trippiest ferris wheel.
Cody—or Connor, maybe—goes to the bathroom to piss, and you track down the newlyweds on the other side of the room. Tashi’s beautiful eyes, already aglow, light up even more when she sees you.
“Hi, baby!” She kind of has to yell over the music. God, it’s been a while since you’ve seen her let loose like this. Either of them, really. They’re having a great fucking time. The Happy Couple. It makes you feel sick. “You good?”
“I’m fucked up,” you smile blearily, because all of a sudden the room’s spinning has increased in velocity.
You fight the urge to grab for her hand for some fleeting sense of stability. Because, if you do, you’ll tackle her to the ground and kiss her until someone hauls you off.
And her husband’s right there.
“Me too,” says said husband. He is flushed in the face, grinning elatedly, his eyes drunkenly disfocused, Tashi’s glossy, nudepink lip-print on his cheek.
Tashi, as ever, seems appreciably more put-together than Art looks and you feel. All silken and nitid. Art’s holding her with the desperate adoration of someone who knows, in the far far end of his bevvied mind, what you’re thinking right now. You narrow your eyes at him. Then,
“Do you wanna dance?” you ask on a whim.
“Sure,” Art shrugs, a sloppy smile curving on his lips. And by now Tashi’s turned to exchange polite smalltalk with some or other extended family member, so he impishly adds, “Let me ask the missus.”
He and Tashi have a short conversation that you can’t quite hear, and then she’s pulling you in by the wrist to whisper in your ear,
“Don’t let him drink anymore, okay?”
She pecks a kiss onto your cheek before you have time to question this rule, but you know her well enough to know she’s also surreptitiously telling you to slow down. You spitefully nab another shot on your and Art’s way to the dance floor.
Art’s a good dancer. You would certainly not have pegged him as one, if asked. But when he’s twisting and moving his feet and putting his hands on your waist in a halfway facetious impression of a slow dance, you realise it’s true.
“Congratulations, by the way,” you shout when you get close enough to his ear. “Happy for you.”
He winces at your volume, raising his fingers to his ear and laughing and looking at you and shaking his head. “No you’re not.”
Patrick watches you sob for a few more moments before smacking his hand against the counter.
“Let’s make one,” he says, declaratively.
You snivel and sweep some tears away, looking up at him. “What?”
“Let’s make one,” he repeats, more urgently now, “If we make one right now, it’ll show up before the end of the year, and we can still weaponise it. Come on.”
He’s sliding off the stool and reaching across the counter to grab your hand and tow you out of the kitchen.
“Patrick,” you whine in demurral, stumbling after him.
But he pulls you along even harder, making a decisive path toward the hallway. “Come on!” he insists, “I’m serious.”
“You’re broke.”
Which is true. He’s been snipped off from the trust fund, which you’d thought was purely the stuff of Murdochian nightmares. But he whipped out his Chase Mobile app and showed you the negative balance to prove it. He’d rather bum it out than suit up and schmooze. So he’s not spoiled for funds right now, nor is he spoiled for wins, and you aren’t equipped with great confidence in a potential future as his baby mama.
“They’re pissed, they’re not cruel,” he tells you, effectively shoving you into your room and kicking off his shoes. “I’ll be back on the payroll with a kid on the docket, I promise. My mom would love it, actually. My sister just had a hysterectomy, this’ll be like a family miracle. You’ll have the child support of a Kardashian.”
He grabs your head and kisses you sloppily—he tastes like tomatoes—clumsily walking you back into the bed.
You think he’s too old to be fingering you the way he is. Rubbing your clit all clumsy, like a faulty button on an old remote. You’re a little sticky, but not enough for what he plans to do here. He sighs and leans back.
“This isn’t working,” he says, all pensive, sitting back on his heels. It’s a little difficult, though, to take him seriously, when his cock is on the front end of halfmast and still rising.
When Tashi first started seeing him, you remember her barrelling into your room all stiff and saucereyed and clamorous. As though a particularly warhankering pigeon had just been elected president, or an alien society had been discovered in the thick of the Amazon. But no. She held your shoulders and shook them wildly and yelled, I’m telling you, it’s fucking huge!
She made a point to you that she’d never be caught dead gushing about his dick to his face. She said it was important to humble him.
So you want to maintain that tradition.
And, anyway, it’s a big dick, not the cure to cancer. You don’t even know what he needs it all for. It’s probably all he has left. You can’t imagine it even gets him very far.
People have frontiers. Parameters. Limits. To their patience, to their bodies. Patrick used to kill the sprinting drills, back in school. He likes going end to end, reaching those limits. But once you start pissing someone off and/or ramming into their cervix, everything else is probably a nonstarter.
You sit up, drawing your knees to your chest. “Uh, yeah. It isn’t.”
“Well, is there something I can do? Should I act like her? Will that get you going?” He asks, but he doesn’t wait for your answer. He huffs and crosses his arms and imitates Tashi’s angry moue.
And his dick is still hard, harder now, so you splutter into laughter. You laugh really, really hard. Then he guides your legs back open and swipes his fingers between them again.
And he grins and says, “Bingo.”
You got really into Pilates for about a month or two mid last year. You’re starting to think you should have kept at it. Your knees are hooked over his shoulders, the undersides of your thighs pressed to his chest. Your hips ache, but it feels, regrettably, really fucking great otherwise.
It’s eminently uncomfortable, sure. For your part, it hasn’t really occurred to you to let a man fuck you raw. Your lingering childishness still recoils a bit at the very idea. And it feels strange, that gauche drag of skin on skin. You’d need to be really wet for this to be working, and that hilarious necessity makes you wetter in response, and then he’s slipping in and out and fucking you raw and he doesn’t even seem to be trying too hard.
He’s a little relieved. You’re letting this happen and taking it like a champ and your pussy’s deep enough to give him room to work.
So he does. Because he knows how. He knows how to work things from here.
He’s had more sex than you’ve attended pilates classes.
The thought of you, splayed and tensile across a reformer, gets him pretty hot. Very hot, actually, and he can tell because the surface of his skin is bloomed pink, and your fingers blench away from his shoulders like he’s caught aflame.
He knows by now how tremendously warm he runs in these moments. He usually asks about a girl’s AC before things get going.
Should he say that aloud, or will it piss you off?
You probably see your appending to the convoluted list of unfortunate holes to sheathe the great penis of Patrick Zweig as a little beneath you.
This is his chance to remind you that Tashi Duncan doesn’t go back on her word for just any heavy pair of balls.
He angles your hips to get deeper, experimenting with ways to evoke a reaction. He’s working you like you’re paying him.
You’re trying really hard not to say anything too nice about his dick. But he’s plunging hard and fast into you, rolling his hips with all the dexterity of fucking Magic Mike, and—well—you wouldn’t be able to, even if you wanted.
The words you’re saying are not in the dictionary. You’re sweating, panting, tugging a little mercilessly at his hair. Patrick bends your legs and hoists your pelvis. He can’t keep a trainer right now, but some adrenalinefueled strength is allowing him to support your body like it’s nothing. He wasn’t bluffing about you looking hot. He’s groping you all over with the ferocious depravity of a necrophile.
There’s some real blasphemous perversion slipping off his tongue. Ersatz porno shit that should be giving you early onset morning sickness, but he’s going all Daniel Day Lewis with it, and you’re kind of buying it.
Fucking come-slut… fuckin’— fuck… gonna breed you… gonna put a baby in you.
You’re audibly wet. The air around you grows practically mephitic. You’re losing your fucking mind. If this shit falls flat, and he can’t get you pregnant tonight, and you dump and block him and never want to speak to him again, he at least hopes you remember this for a long time.
And—you know what—fuck it if that wasn’t memorable enough, he thinks, feeling his cock twitch as he slooshes molten litres into you. Because he’s pulling out, flipping you over, and hiking up your hips. Maybe this’ll be.
He fucks you, he comes in you. A lot. He needs a second to replenish.
You steal to the kitchen. Your inner thighs are chafed and viscid. You cover the lasagna dish and cache it away, and take a second to scoff at some vapidly controversial Twitter thread. You yelp when you feel his arms around you again, lifting you off the tile and carrying you back to the bedroom.
Patrick’s never really thought too hard about his come. It’s an ancillary deluge. A mess to clean most often. Maybe he’s considered meliorating his diet when someone’s gleaned a taste and gagged.
But right now it’s serving a purpose. And he is, among other things, relieved for that, too. He’s not gonna sit around and mourn this while it happens and ask you if you’d really have his child. He’d rather look you in your beautiful, milky pussy than a gift horse in the mouth.
He refuses to waste a drop of himself. He makes sure to coat your insides with it.
He lies sheathed inside you for many minutes after he comes, gripping your hips harshly to him, groaning like this were the real orgasm.
Afterwards, he holds your knees to his chest and lifts your ass and presses his palm to your cunt as if sealing an entrance, making sure nothing escapes. He’s trying to give his guys a fighting chance.
You were, at first—as in, after two or three rounds—a little amused by this stupid, elaborate routine. Something out of an old maid’s pastel mommy blog. You were amused, and frankly weirded out, by what seemed like a laughable lack of dignity on his part.
Now—now you’re feeling aroused by it. Because being aroused disrupts the dumb ritual and kind of annoys him.
When he is holding your knees up and your cunt twitches, he rolls his eyes.
“You already got off,” he chuckles, shaking his head. He sounds a bit spent, too. He’s usually flaked out by now, in his actual customary postcome routine. “Just stay still for a second.”
The fact that he doesn’t want you to come makes you almost desperately want to. He holds his palm over your cunt but he offers no friction.
The simple touch is enough, though. You can find your own internal rhythm.
Your head falls back against the pillow.
“Oh fuck.”
And maybe you’re being particularly loud and lewd in this moment, while he’s trying to be serious, and get something done. Because you’re still doing this longcon in calling his bluff. You don’t think he knows what he wants.
You don’t want to believe that you two are really so bitter as to start a life out of spleen.
You still don’t know if he knows whether or not he actually likes you.
“What the fuck?” he laughs, “I said don’t.” He squeezes your cunt like he wants to tear flesh from bone, trying to render you still again.
But it only makes you moan louder.
“Oh, fuck, that’s so good,” you mewl indecently, smirking a bit, because you’re joking, but you also sort of mean it, “It feels so good having your come inside me, I can already feel your little fuckass kid crawling around in there. He’ll grow up loving bagels, I just know it.”
These taunts are supposed to disgust him or hurt his feelings or simply turn him off, and Patrick does sort of look like wants to throttle you. Because he’s tired and a little grumpy and he knows you’re not letting him stay the night. But a part of him has always found you funny. So he just ends up getting hard again. Your crude, glib moaning brings him to such a pitch of want that he yanks you into his lap and fucks you roughly, gripping your jaw.
And you grin as he brings your head close. You feel it’s some kind of victory.
Even though you’re just prolonging this dumb, bitter, unfulfilling farce. Making sure there’s more of him inside you.
You two should not be parents.
By the eighth or ninth round, he starts getting conversational.
“I was one of those babies that never shut up,” he tells you, fucking up into you in cowgirl. He grunts and makes a thoughtful face. “Colic? Is that what it’s called? Yeah, I think I was a colicky baby.”
You make a face down at him. “I thought you said you’ve never cried,” you pant, rocking your hips back and forth.
He rolls his eyes again.
“Yeah, obviously I was lying. I cry all the fucking time.”
You consider this, your hips stilling, your palms resting against his hairy hotplate chest.
“Over what?” you ask, “Tashi?”
He blinks, scowling a bit, like he thinks you’re making fun. Then his grips your hips and starts to move you on his dick again. He doesn’t answer. Your pussy feels warm and raw.
Geez, how long have you two been at this?
He asks, absently, about baby names.
“I thought every girl had, like, a whole fucking list of them,” he says, pushing his semen back into your used cunt with his long fingers.
You don’t entertain that presumptuous conversation, but you don’t underestimate his commitment, either.
He’s back the next day, and the next, like clocking into a shift. He brings supplies. Sliced pineapple, fresh honey, ground cinnamon, cough syrup, two boxes of ClearBlue.
“I read acupuncture helps too,” he says.
“Absolutely not,” you say, but you let him feed you baby aspirin while you ride him in reverse on your couch watching Selling Sunset.
He feigns disinterest, but keeps tilting to look past your shoulder whenever the arguments start riling up.
“Ugh, Nicole’s a bitch,” he mutters.
Then he grunts and comes inside you, grasping your hips to sink you down and hold you still.
Her name, for the better or worse part of the first and second trimesters, was actually Stella.
Art’s grandma used to love that Philip Sidney poem, and Pam’s favourite film is Streetcar. It’s just that Tashi got sick of the name, and all other things, at a stage. So it didn’t stick.
They were oscillating between Lily and Rooney towards the end, and only made the final call when they saw her.
But, for a while there, she was Stella.
Stella’s craving peanuts, Stella’s the size of a rutabaga, Stella’s a kicker. And, boy, was she.
She’d ram her foetal feet into Tashi’s ribs over and over like she was on a treadmill. Which Tashi was starting to think of as karmic consequence for all the times she’d have Art doing cardio until he fainted.
You crouch down between her knees, resting your head against the amorphous motion of her distended stomach.
“Hey hey, Stella girl,” you whisper, “You wanna stop giving your mom a hard time?”
Tashi chokes out a wounded laugh from above you.
“That’s how Art talks to her.”
“Ugh, don’t ruin it,” you frown, moving to stand up.
But she sticks her leg out to halt you, grabbing your hand and tugging you back down, shifting her hips and spreading her thighs further apart.
You never could resist her sweet face when it was all crumpled up in asking. Because she got all soft and wet, like a flower caught in a gale.
She looks even softer now, over the horizon of her bloated body.
You gently tug her cotton shorts down and put your mouth on her and Stella stills.
“One more,” you say anxiously, eyebrows knitted in concern as Patrick sighs and unboxes a another pregnancy test—the fifth one—and you quaff down another glass of water to get your bladder teeming, because no way.
No way, right?
You’ve been taking him raw at all angles, and swigging shots of cough syrup, and weaning off the antidepressants, but no way.
“I don’t know what you thought was gonna happen,” he calls from beyond the bathroom door as you’re pissing on stick number six.
It’s just that you don’t feel anything.
You think you should be feeling more.
You think of Tashi, writhing and groaning like a bullet victim, miserably clutching her turgid body. You think of newborn Lily, her cottonsoft, tiny eye peeling open and seeing you. Deep steeped coffee, gleaming in the sterile light. Tashi’s eye. Tashi’s hair. Tashi’s baby. That tender absorption, that vivid creation.
If this kid is taking nothing from you, it’s gonna come out all Patrick. And—just—you don’t have the bandwidth to contend with such a prospect right now.
He drives you to the clinic every time. Every single time. One night, you rouse sharply from a morbid dream punctuated by the squall of wailing children. You call him. It’s 2 AM. He answers, and comes over, and drives you to the clinic, and tries not to nod off as you’re filling out the medical paperwork for the dozenth time. He also tries not to express any overt reaction to you changing your mind again.
Is it a kindness, to tease a man with the brutal decimation of his unborn progeny? No, of course not. His mum’s already preemptively enrolled the thing into a fancy German daycare.
But you hate that he’s given you an ultimatum and put it inside you. That’s the worst place, in relation to you, for an ultimatum to be.
If you tell Tashi, either he’s in, or you’re out. And those aren’t really odds you’re keen on rolling.
There are all sorts of ways to be a shitty friend. You opt for evasive gambits via claims of hectic work schedules and immovable errands. Any retching you do is that of guilt. You’re loathe to lie to her, to house this wretched zygote, to stay away. But she used to be able to tell when you’d changed your shampoo. She’d sniff him on you, in you, in a second. She’d just know. And she shouldn’t. She can’t. And if you could just unearth this presentient betrayal and toss it in a petri dish, she doesn’t have to.
You don’t know what matters more.
He drives you to the clinic. Teary teenaged girls, redcapped pickets out front. The receptionist knows you two by name by now.
Patrick slumps beside you. He’s still slogging through the first chapter of Last Child in the Woods. He’s pretty sure he’s never sat and read an actual, physical book to completion before in his life. But he’s too easily abstracted for Audible. So he’s working on it.
You’re groaning frustratedly and thunking the clipboard repeatedly against your skull. He absently slips a hand over your forehead, shielding the next few collisions before you huff and drop the board and turn to face him. He looks at you askance.
“You can change your mind,” he shrugs. Again, he generously omits.
You scoff at him, incredulous and a little irked. “I’m not gonna change my mind,” you grumble.
He shrugs again. “Okay.”
He knows what it’s like to have a mother in sackcloth and ashes. To be less of a son than a sentient thing of regret with little arms and legs. To not know what to do with that, or yourself. He wouldn’t do that to a kid.
You watch him thumb through Richard Louv for a few more moments.
Then, “You’re probably sick of me, aren’t you?”
He smiles a bit before schooling it stoic, slowly lowering the book and fixing you with this wry but incongruously tender look. “Of course I am,” he tells you.
“Get mad at me, then.”
He smiles again.
He knows what that’s like, too. Dad mad at mom. Stilted five course dinner. Dad telling him and Saskia what a goddamn headache mom is on the drive to school. Of course he’s sick of you, he’s always sick of you. But he likes you. And his head feels fine.
He turns back to the book, shrugging.
“Can’t,” he says simply.
You feel for baby Lily. She’ll never be able to get away with anything.
It’s Art who sniffs it on you, in you.
Tashi’s asleep upstairs when, after a fortnight and a bit, you rally up the guts to come over. Art opens the door and looks surprised for mere moments, and there is perhaps a flicker of concern, but then he smiles. And there’s only very mild ire there. The rest is fatigue and goodnature.
“Hello, stranger,” he smirks, turning to filch a set of keys from the marble catchall in the foyer. He is wheeling Lily out in the thirteenhundred dollar stroller he had lost six nights of sleep picking out. “You coming?”
So now you’re on a walk.
Lily lays on her soft belly in the stroller. The walls around her are a breathable mesh, and she fights to hoist her head and gawp at passing trees. This is, apparently, the only way she’ll do tummy time.
“And the only time she gets any sleep,” Art adds, jutting a finger over his shoulder in the general direction of their home down the street.
Lily’s wearing a ruffly lavender romper. Her skin is a healthy shade of linen and her hair is dark. Her fists have tiny moony fingernails that—when you comment how, Her nails are long. Like, sharp—Art explains how he keeps trying to cut them with a pair of tiny silver scissors. But they make Tashi nervous, their sharpness and its proximity to Lily’s fleshy hands.
“She said she wants her to get a grip on the world,” Art chuckles.
You snort, and you have to skip a bit to keep up with his brisk strides. “Oh, that’s definitely what she said,” you confirm.
Lily tosses and turns a bit in the strollerbed. She gurgles an impressive spit bubble, by Art’s standards. Most things she does are probably impressive to him, quite frankly. He tells you how, the other morning, she had thrown up breakfast onto his shoulder with such verve and accuracy that they’re already talking tennis lessons.
“Oh God,” you grimace. Not at the story, but at the memory of his nauseous pallor in the throes of Tashi’s own gravid sickness. “How’s that been for you?”
Art flashes a selfdeprecating simper. “I’m managing.”
When she casts her little coral taglet security blanket curbside, Lily scrunches up her face, grasping, gearing up for the Big Scream. Art sighs and says, “No, please?” as he stops to pick it up and give it back to her, and his arm, when he sticks it in, blooms with little ruddy strings as she claws at him.
He looks more than a little surprised she isn’t crying.
Apparently, in that meantime, you had jutted your fingers into the cot and offered her a pinky as a peace offering. Versailles-style, like you’ll be punished later.
But he seems content with how she’s chewing you and figures you guys can stop here, for a bit, beneath these treemottled springtime sunbeams. In the garden of the home in front of which you’re standing, huge orange bougainvillea loll their petaltongues in the breeze.
“I just…” Art flounders for his words, then scoffs a not unkind, but vaguely embittered, sort of laugh, shutting his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Why him?”
You groan. “Don’t ask.”
“How is he?”
“He’s—” you waver, then shake your head, before finishing, “Ugh.”
“Patrick’s ‘ugh’? Patrick? Wow. Should we call all the outlets? I mean, that’s never happened before. Patrick. Ugh. You’re blowing my mind.”
You snort, and Lily laughs, and Art informs you that that is a very hard reaction to glean. And he rubs his temples, because all the wails sort of tremor at that same migrainous pitch. No matter if they’re amused or rabidly apoplectic. But you can enjoy it, the laughter.
“Can you just tell her for me?” you frown helplessly up at him.
That flicker in his tired eyes that wants to agree is purely paternal, but he sighs and shakes his head. “You know I can’t.”
He’s genuinely sympathetic.
“She’ll forgive you,” he tells you. You roll your eyes and hang your head, kicking piteously at the wheel of the stroller. He intercepts your foot with his, lightly shoving it away before bending to search for your gaze. “Hey,” he says, “She really will.”
You huff. “She’s never had to.”
You instinctively press your fingers into your womb, through your shirt. You feel the strange sensation of something starting to swell beneath the flesh.
“You’ll be a good mom,” says Art.
It’s a small relief, for you, to feel your face screw into its shut-the-fuck-up-Art expression. It’s something you know how to feel, a well trodden path. Maybe, once they drop you like a bad habit, he’ll still send you those furtive pictures he likes to take of Tashi sleeping. And you and Patrick can dualmasturbate to them, pretending your swollen belly isn’t in the way.
What you like about them, all three of them, is that they have all always loved you so simply. Tashi is severe, and Patrick is flippant, and Art is occasionally insincere. But they each care about you, to varying degrees, in their own ways. And they do so without reservation, even when you’ve been an ass.
You think that’s how you’re supposed to love your child.
You should probably figure out how he does it in the next five to ten seconds.
You ask, “What makes you say that?”
And his eyes flick down to where Lily is still gumming your knuckle like a dog with a bone, then back up to you, and he gives you one of those smiles. Your face screws. Shut the fuck up Art. Then, he tells you, “You love harder than you give yourself credit for.”
Lily gags around your pinky.
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berryblogg · 2 years ago
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"11 Effective Strategies for Combating Fatigue Syndrome"
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