#What Is the Main Services of Wellness Center

[gukcnt]

BACK IN YOUR ARMS ⭒ JJK

in which jungkook returns from his military service to reunite with his girl, spending a passionate night filled with love and longing after their separation.

pairing — dom!jungkook x sub!femreader

genre — established relationship, reunion, military enlistment, long distance relationship, slice of life, angst, smut, fluff

warnings/tags — 18+, explicit smut, possessive!jungkook, soulmate vibes, hurt and comfort, longing, separation anxiety, love confessions, desperation, emotional intensity, heartbreak, lots of sex scenes, several orgasms, different positions, emotional sex, reunion sex, unprotected sex, creampie, oral sex (f. receiving), making out, hickies and marking, body worshipping, eating out, face riding, face sitting, tongue fucking, clit stimulation, cum swallowing, lots of breast play, nipple play, overstimulation, forced orgasms, pain from pleasure, dirty talk, praise kink, fingering, pussy inspection, hair fisting and pulling, oral sex (m. receiving), blowjob, deep throating, gagging and choking, face fucking, 69 position, mutual oral sex, rough sex, missionary, cum play, loving aftercare

wc — 7.3k

a/n — this one was requested by some of my lovies! I also decided to write this because our man just got discharged from the military and came home to us hehe, hope y'all enjoy this! <3

series m. list | main m. list

────୨ৎ────

The morning of jungkook's departure for his military service broke through, almost like the universe itself mourned for the separation.

You stood outside the recruitment center, the crowd around you full of chaos—families holding each other, lots of other recruits with their belongings looking sad and disliking the separation.

The air was thick with heavy grief.

And you could feel it press against your chest but all you could focus on was jungkook, your boyfriend, standing before you.

His presence intensifying all the emotions you were feeling.

His dark hair was slightly overgrown and messy from the restless passionate night you'd both spent.

His jaw was often set in a grumpy line when he faced the world.

To others he was almost unapproachable, a man who carried himself with intensity.

Pushing people away.

But with you he was completely different.

His dark eyes soften when they meet yours, filling with warmth that made your heart flutter, his smile—was yours alone.

A secret shared between you two.

To him you were his entire world, the one person who he could be himself with, who could unravel his distant personality and bring out the tender love he hid from everyone else.

Your hands tremble as you clutched his, fingers intertwining tightly.

A desperate attempt to hold onto him.

His hands were warm and calloused, his thumbs brushing over the backs of your hands in a slow, soothing motion.

As if he could take away the heartbreak inside you.

You leaned onto him, his scent enveloping you—clean male and his usual cologne.

It was a scent you were used to and it always surrounds you with safety and love, now it was a cruel reminder of what you were about to lose. His scent that will still linger in your clothes and your apartment once he's gone.

His absence undeniable.

“I don’t wanna go.” jungkook murmurs.

He leans down, pressing his forehead against yours, warm breath brushing over your lips.

The closeness was desperate.

He wished that he could stop time.

Plead for it.

His dark eyes search yours, filling with emotions—fear, love and anger at the separation none of you could stop.

“This is fucking torture, baby. I can’t do this… staying without you.”

Your throat tighten at his words, making it hard for you to swallow as tears welled in your eyes even though you promised him not to cry.

You could see the pain in his features, the way his brows furrowed and the way his lips trembled despite his efforts to stay strong for you.

“You’ll come back to me.” you whisper.

Voice quivering.

He lets out a shaky breath, hands moving to cup your face, thumbs brushing away the tears, his touch firm.

Grounding you.

Even though it felt like the world was crumbling around you.

“I promise, sweet girl. I’ll count every damn hour until I’m back holding you in my arms.”

His were were a vow

A lifeline.

You could hear the rumble of the bus in the distance, reminding you of the reality you both are going to face.

You looked at the other families clinging to each other for the last moment and everything was overwhelming for you, their sorrow matching your own.

“kookie…” you whimper.

Your fingers clutch the fabric of his shirt tightly, his heart pounding underneath your palm, a rhythm that seemed to increase now.

You press yourself closer as if you could mend your body to his, all while he's gripping your waist in such a tight grip it almost hurts, but it still wasn’t enough.

Like you could keep him from leaving.

“I’m scared. I’m so scared of what its gonna be like without you here.”

He pulled you into his arms, chin resting on the top of your head and you buried your face in his chest, inhaling his familiar scent.

Imprinting it in your memory.

“I’m scared too.” he admits.

His lips pressing on your cheek, voice raw and pained.

“I’m fucking terrified, baby, but you’re stronger than you think… you’re my brave girl and you’re gonna be okay, I’m going to be back before you even know it.”

“I’ll write to you every chance I get and call you whenever they let me. You're not losing me, you hear me? hmm?”

His words help with the ache in your chest and you tilted your head up, meeting his eyes, seeing the tears glistening in his eyes as well.

“Promise me you’ll be careful.” you breathe, shakily.

“I promise.” he said, fiercely.

His hands tightening on your face.

“I’ll come back to you… nothing’s gonna keep me away from you.”

The officer's voice came through, calling jungkook's name with an impatience that knotted your stomach, your knees getting weak as you clung to him.

Fingers digging harder into his chest, desperate to hold onto the moment.

“No, not yet please.” you beg.

His hand slides to your shoulders, gripping them.

“I don’t wanna let you go.”

His voice hoarse.

“Fuck, I’d give anything to stay here with you, to have you next to me...”

You sobbed as you buried your face in his chest again, his arms tightening around you, breath hitching as he pressed his lips to the top of your head.

“I love you.” you choked out.

Muffled in his chest, he holds you tightly, almost trying to anchor you to him.

“I love you more.” he says, fiercely.

He lifts your chin to meet his, eyes burning with a love so fierce.

That it stole your breath.

“You’re my only girl.”

His lips crash against yours, a kiss that was desperate, hungry and full of everything he couldn’t say.

His mouth was urgent, exploring everything and his minty taste fill your mouth.

An intimacy you’d shared so many times before.

His hands cup the back of your head, fingers tangling in your hair.

His hands cupped the back of your thighs, you got the gesture and jumped, causing him to pick you up.

Your legs wrapping around his waist as he pulls you closer.

The kiss was a moment of connection before the separation and he pours every ounce of love into it, your tears mixing with his as they fell.

Both of you tasting the salt of the tears.

His lips moving against yours spoke of the months apart, the nights that will be spent with longing for a love in the distance.

The officer called his name again, sharper this time and jungkook reluctantly pulled back, both your breaths ragged.

His eyes locked on yours, his hands lingering on your face, thumbs brushing over your cheeks one last time.

“Wait for me, love.”

His voice a growl.

“Always,” you promised.

“until I’m back in your arms”

He pressed one last kiss to your forehead, lips lingering and then he steps back, his hands slipping from yours, losing his touch.

It felt like a physical wound.

He grabbed his duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder, his jaw clench tightly and he looks at you one last time.

You waved, covering your lips to muffle the cry.

He turns, his tall and strong figure sulking down in sadness as he walks towards the gate.

Soon the crowd swallows him and you watched until he disappeared, your chest hurting beyond words.

You stood there long after he was gone, the coldness setting in your body, no longer receiving the warmth his presence provided.

You turn away from the center, steps slow, heart heavy.

The world already felt emptier without him.

۶ৎ

The months that followed were full of longing.

jungkook's military service was taking up all his time and the communication was very rare.

You sometimes wrote letters to each other, pouring your heart onto the paper.

The letters contained the simplest details of your life as you describe the weather, the new candles you bought or the way you wore his oversized shirts to bed.

To feel closer to him.

His letters back were hurried in his messy handwriting, but each word was so full of love and adoration.

“I miss your laugh.”

He wrote in one.

“I miss the way you scrunch your nose when you’re shy. I miss holding you… I can’t breathe without you.”

Phone calls were very occasional.

Only when he got a break but it was never enough.

His voice always heavy with tiredness.

“I’m counting the days,” he says.

“You’re the only thing keeping me sane here, baby.”

You'd cry after each call, clutching the phone to your chest, his voice breaking you more.

The apartment felt too big without him, the silence too loud, his scent still lingers everywhere, especially on his pillow that gave you company in his absence.

It was fading, you realized but you’d bury your face in it every night, chasing even the bits of his scent.

As you wait.

Counting the days, clinging to the promise of his return.

Your love for him the only thing keeping you tethered.

۶ৎ

The day of jungkook's discharge arrives.

For him the military enlistment was a place with tiring months—full of orders, work and a deep ache for the life he’d left behind.

Now, standing at the first day of his freedom, his heart raced with a single all consuming thought: you.

jungkook adjusted the strap of his duffel bag, scanning the crowd that had gathered.

Waiting for their own reunion.

But as jungkook's eyes raked over the faces, his chest tightened with a growing panic.

You weren’t there.

The one face he needed to see.

The one that had kept him awake at night was nowhere to be found.

You promised to be here.

In every letter, every phone call, you’d told him that you’ll be the first thing he sees once he comes back.

The memory of your voice was still in his mind.

“I’ll be there, jungkook. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”

He clung to those words but now, standing alone in the crowd of reunions, doubt came in.

Had something happened? were you hurt?

His fingers tightened around the strap of his bag as he forced himself to move forward, gaze darting left and right searching for your face and the way your eyes always seem to find his in a crowd.

Nothing.

He ran his hand through his hair, it was almost like a habit, one you'd always teased him about, saying he looked like a grumpy bunny when he did it.

You were his anchor.

His reason for enduring the sleepless nights, the training that sucked the soul out of him and the several days of separation

Without you here, it hurt him.

“Everything okay, soldier?”

A man that was with jungkook at the camp, another soldier he had a good interaction with.

“I don’t know…” jungkook admitted.

“My girl… she was supposed to be here.”

“Long time apart, huh? that’s alright, bet she’s waiting for you though... girls like to surprise you sometimes.” the man laughs.

jungkook forces a small smile.

“Yeah, maybe.” he whispers.

The man pats jungkook in the back before heading out.

jungkook decides to head out as well, knowing you are not here.

He approached closer to a cab, voice rough as he gave the address of your shared apartment.

The cab pulls away from the base.

He stared out the window as it was all familiar, he’d dreamed of this moment, returning back home.

Returning to you.

When the cab finally pulled up to the apartment, jungkook quickly came out, his heart hammering as his hands fumbled with the bills, paying the driver.

What if you weren’t there?

What if something had happened?

He slid the key into the lock, pushing the door open, stepping inside with urgency.

His duffel bag hits the ground.

It was quiet all over the apartment, your usual vanilla scent fills him, deepening the urge to see you.

You weren’t there.

“baby?” he calls out.

The stack of new books on the couch tightened his throat.

A reminder of the small promises left unfulfilled because of the separation.

He promised that he will listen to you read those aloud since he knew how much you loved reading novels and he loves hearing you read them to him just as much.

He finally reached the bedroom door, pushing it open, expecting you to be here.

He froze.

The sight before him stealing his breath.

There you were.

Laying on the bed, glowing with the slight sunlight from the window, the sheets on you did little to distract from the vision of you—naked and exposed.

Yet so breathtakingly beautiful.

All your curves exposed to him—the soft swell of your breasts and the curve of your hips, your hair down.

You look at him with wide eyes, full of shyness and also with longing that can be seen from the way your eyes glisten with tears.

Your eyes locked onto his, a flush on your cheeks, hands trembling slightly, betraying the nervous anticipation that was going through you.

Your nipples were hard, pebbled in the cool air and your legs were slightly parted.

A silent invitation that made his mouth go dry.

jungkook dropped to his knees beside the bed in front of you, his entire form filling with relief and desire.

His hands shook reaching for you, cupping your cheek as you closed your eyes, letting out a broken whimper at the feel of his touch after so long.

Your soft skin against his hand ached him with a fierce need.

Almost consuming him.

As his fingers trace your features, making sure that you were real and he wasn’t dreaming

His thumbs brushed away the tears that had gathered in your eyes, his own eyes watering.

“Fuck”

He breathes.

“Baby, you’re… you’re here.”

His eyes roam over you, drinking in every detail—your half lidded eyes, the way your breasts heaved with your shaky breaths.

Especially the way your lips part slightly, glistening with the faint trace of gloss.

His cock twitched in his uniform pants, the fabric suddenly too tight as he felt the heat through him.

He was hard, achingly so.

And the sight of you like this—waiting for him just as he’d dreamed—was taking up all the pent up frustrations and hunger he’d held back for months.

You sat up slightly, voice trembling with emotion.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

You whispered, eyes never leaving his.

“I read your letter, the one where you said… you wanted me waiting for you and I missed you, so I wanted to make it special.”

His heart clenched, his worry leaving him as he leans closer, forehead pressing against yours.

The scent of him immediately makes your heart race.

“I thought something happened to you.” he breathes.

A tear streamed down his face, mixing with yours and his grip on your face tightens as if making sure you were okay.

“I’m right here.” you croak.

Tears spilling down your cheek.

“I’m so sorry I scared you, koo.”

He shook his head, a guttural sound leaving his throat.

“Don’t apologize,”

“You’re here. You’re safe and that’s all that matters.”

His lips crashed against yours, no longer able to hold himself back, the kiss desperate, full of longing and relief after months apart.

His tongue slipped past your lips, tangling with yours, exploring all over.

That expressed exactly how much he missed you.

And how he won't ever let you go.

Your hands clutch at his uniform, bunching the fabric as you pulled him closer, needing to feel every inch of him.

His tongue coaxes out needy noises from you, making him groan in return, the sound sending a shiver down your spine.

His hands don’t stay still as they start roaming all over your body, tracing everywhere, his fingers trembling with the need to memorize you all over again.

He pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes intense.

“Waiting for me like this… my perfect girl.”

Your cheeks flush, a shy smile tugging at your lips despite the throb in your pussy.

“I wanna make you happy,” you whispered.

“I thought about you every day, kookie…”

He groans again, hands sliding down to your hips, gripping them as he pulls you closer to the edge of the bed.

“You have no idea what you do to me,” he growls.

“Seeing you like this… fuck, I’ve dreamt of this every night.”

You reach for him, fingers brushing against the hard planes of his chest through his uniform.

“I love you.” he whispers.

“I love you too.”

He kissed you again, softer this time but no less intense, lips moving against yours, hands sliding up to cup your face once again.

His hands slid down to your thighs, parting them gently and your breath hitched, body already responding to him.

Your pussy was wet, clit pulsing with need, the anticipation of his touch made you dizzy and he noticed.

He always does.

He takes in the sight of you before him.

Ready and waiting.

“Goddamn,” he murmurs.

“What am I gonna do with this girl?”

He leans down, lips brushing against your collarbone, leaving a trail of open mouthed kisses as his hands roam higher, cupping your breasts, weighing them.

His thumbs brush over your hard nipples, drawing a soft gasp from you.

You arched into his touch, hands clutching at his shoulders.

“jungkook…”

All the pleas and begs in his name alone.

jungkook stood, taking off his military uniform, discarding it on the floor, eyes never leaving yours.

His black undershirt strained against his muscular frame that was even broader now after months of working out and training in the military.

His dark eyes rake over your naked form sprawled across the sheets like an offering.

And he was about to devour you.

There was a faint sheen of sweat coating your body, breasts heaving from your pants as your thighs remained parted.

Just enough to reveal the glistening evidence of your arousal.

jungkook snarls, his cock pulsing painfully inside his uniform pants.

The sight of you—his sweet, shy girl, so vulnerable yet waiting for him—lights something primal in him.

His hands shook, reaching for the hem of his undershirt and he yanked the shirt over his head in one swift motion.

His chest full of hard muscles, abs even more prominent now and defined, glistening with sweat.

The tattoos were highlighted on his arm and his body also had scars from training.

All these only added to his rugged look.

“Fuck baby,” he rasped.

“Look at you…”

Your pussy clenched at the adoration in his voice as you shift on the bed, clutching the sheets, a teasing smile on your lips.

“I wanted to be pretty for you.” you croon.

His gaze softens for a moment, a flicker of tenderness breaking through the hunger.

“You’re always pretty,” he said.

“But this… this is fucking torture, I’ve been wanting this for months.”

He stepped closer, hands moving to the buckle of his belt, the metallic clink making your pulse race.

His fingers hurried as he unfastened his pants, shoving them down, only leaving his boxers on.

His bulge was very visible, a wet spot forming on the fabric from the precum beading out of him.

You press your thighs together at the sight of him, instinctively, a soft whimper escaping your lips.

jungkook noticed, lips curling into a smirk that was almost predatory.

“You want me, love?” he teased.

His voice rough.

He finally kicks off his pants and you can see his body, full of power and strength.

Such a stark difference compared to his body before.

And his cock twitched, watching you check him out like the way he was doing to you.

“Please… I need you.” you whisper.

He hums, the sound causing you goosebumps as he climbs onto the bed, his hands find your thighs, pulling you towards him.

Manhandling you.

You let out a squeak.

“Gonna make you feel good.” he husks.

Lips brushing your earlobe.

“I’m going to make up for every fucking day I couldn’t touch you.”

His hands slid up your sides, leaving heat trails in his wake. He paused at your breasts, cupping them and squeezing gently, thumbs rolling your nipples.

It sent a jolt straight to your core and you arched into him.

“jungkook…” You moan, softly.

His eyes locked on your breasts, thumbs continue circling the buds.

“These tits,” he grumbles.

“I’ve been thinking about them… so soft, so perfect.”

He pinched the nipples gently, flicking them and you let out a whine, hips bucking towards him.

He lowered his head, lips closing around one and you cried out, hands tangling in his short hair, tugging.

His mouth hot, sucking onto the sensitive bud and his tongue swirls with a fast pace that makes your toes curl.

You let out a broken moan, his teeth grazing lightly over your nipple.

“Oh god… jungkook”

He moved to your other breast, giving it the same attention, lips and tongue working in tandem.

His hand continues to knead the neglected one, pinching and tugging until you were writhing beneath him, bunching the sheets.

Your nipples swollen, glistening with his saliva and the sight seemed to drive him wild.

“mm… you’re so sensitive.”

A deep chuckle rumble from his chest, lips brushing your skin as he speaks.

You could feel the slickness pooling between your thighs, coating your folds.

Your lips remain parted, panting.

“Please.” you signed.

Your hands tugging at his hair.

“I need more…”

He smirks, tongue coming out to lick his bottom lip in a sensual way that has your eyes dilating.

“Oh, baby… I’m going to give you exactly what you want.”

His hands spread your thighs, as far as they would go, exposing your pussy to his hungry gaze.

The cool air against your heated skin makes you shiver, but the real shock came when his fingers brush against your soaked folds.

A grunt leaves his mouth, taking in your quivering pussy.

Your clit pulse harder under his gaze, his fingers sliding through your wetness, coating themselves in your slick.

He parts your folds, thumb brushing lightly over your clit.

“Oh!”

Your hips jerk upward.

“So fucking wet for me… you’ve been thinking of this, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” you admitted.

“Every night, koo, I touched myself thinking of you.”

His eyes flash with an animal need, he leans down, the smell of your arousal hitting him, making his nostrils flare.

“Good girl.” he hums.

His lips brushing your clit.

“Now let me take care of you the way you deserve.”

He didn’t tease for long.

His tongue lapped at your clit with slow strokes as you let out needy murmurs, thighs shaking.

He holds your legs apart tightly, almost bruising them in the process, something you don’t mind.

You'll look at the bruises later, admiring them.

His tongue circled your clit before his lips close around the throbbing nub, sucking hard and you cry out, hips thrusting against his mouth.

“Hahh, jungkook, mhmm—”

He focuses on your pussy, letting out growls of approval at your taste as he eats you out like a starved man.

He has been away from you for so long and all the overload need has turned him feral.

His tongue switched between different motions, from soft licks to sucks that made your vision blur.

He flattened his tongue, dragging it from your entrance to your clit, tasting every inch of you and you felt your orgasm building quickly.

Your hips rocked, chasing it, stomach knotting faster.

His hands grip your thighs and the sting of his nails digging into you only heightened your arousal.

You let out a shaky cry.

“Please don’t stop!”

You were only capable of begging and uttering his name.

He pulls back just enough to speak, lips glistening with your arousal, some dripping on his chin and the sight makes you look away in shame and embarrassment.

“Never.” he snarls.

He dove back in, tongue plunging into your entrance, fucking you with slow, deep thrusts that made you see stars.

He would alternate between fucking you with his tongue and sucking your clit.

It felt like a delicious torture.

You were a mess, couldn’t think straight as your body trembled.

Your hands found his hair again, tugging hard and he moaned against your pussy, the vibration pushing you closer to release.

He slid one hand up your thigh, fingers finding your entrance.

He teased you first, circling you with one finger, spreading your slickness all over your mound before pushing in slowly.

You gasped, clenching around his finger.

The intrusion almost felt foreign yet familiar after so long.

“So tight,” he huffs.

“I bet being away from you for so long made you tight all over again… gotta stretch this cunt for me.”

He added a second finger, stretching you and you yelped, head falling back against the pillow.

His fingers curled inside you to find that spot that makes you scream.

He pumped them slowly at first, his tongue still working your clit, sucking hard as his fingers fucked you.

You were in tears.

The dual sensation too much.

“Nghh, kookie!” you screamed.

Your body almost lifting off the bed as your orgasm crashed over you.

Your pussy pulsed around his fingers, clit throbbing against his tongue.

He didn’t stop.

His fingers pumping faster, his mouth sucking harder.

You sobbed, vision going white.

“jungkook, oh god, ahh—I’m coming!”

His tongue lapped up every drop of your release, groaning in approval as his fingers slowed but did not stop, drawing out your orgasm.

Until you were an oversensitive mess.

“That’s it,” he coaxed you.

“I missed this… you taste so good.”

You collapsed onto the bed, chest heaving with your pants, jungkook pulls out his fingers slowly, making you whimper.

He brought them to his lips, sucking them clean, his eyes never leaving yours.

The sight making your pussy clench again.

A fresh wave of arousal pooling between your thighs.

He crawls up your body, lips finding yours and you tasted yourself on his tongue, mixing with his saliva and you moaned into his mouth.

Your hands roaming his broad back, feeling the hard muscle under his skin.

“I missed you.” you whispered.

Voice hoarse from screaming

“I missed you too, sweet girl.”

His voice rough with emotion.

He kneels between your legs, taking off the only garment covering his body, his boxers slide down as he throws them somewhere in the room.

Your eyes were closed, body still trembling from the orgasm he'd just given you, trying to catch your breath.

Your nipples still ached from his earlier attention.

You open your eyes slightly to meet his, his pupils blown wide with lust as he looks down at you.

You inhale sharply as you look at his cock standing proudly and heavy, like a promise of what's about to come.

It was thick, veiny and the tip flushed, glistening with precum that beaded at the tip.

The sight of it made your mouth water, throat going dry.

Your clit pulse as well looking at his thrashing length and you fisted the sheets in need.

It was bigger than you remembered.

The months of absence made it seem almost intimidating, his throbbing cock proving how desperately he wanted you.

You sat up.

Reaching for him, fingers trembling as they wrapped around his cock.

You felt the hardness of him along with the throb as you started stroking him slowly, thumb brushing over the tip, spreading the precum and making him hiss, his hips jerking.

“Fuck, my love,” he grunts.

“Your hands...”

You licked your lips, meeting his eyes.

“I wanna taste you.” you purr.

Your voice was shy but still laced with a boldness that surprised even you.

His eyes almost turn pitch black, a growl rumbling from his chest.

“Then take me,” he urges.

“Suck my cock like you mean it.”

You didn’t hesitate.

Leaning forward, you press a soft kiss to the tip, tasting the saltiness reminding you of the past memories where he guided you in the way he likes.

You both knew each other's body like the back of your hands.

Knowing exactly how to please the other, knowing what makes the others eyes roll at the back of their heads.

His hands tangling in your hair, not pushing but guiding but still holding back to take things at your pace, which you understood from his hold.

You take him into your mouth, tongue swirling around the head as his heavy cock fill your mouth.

You sucked gently at first, lips sliding down his shaft tracing the vein that pulsed beneath.

“Oh god…”

He hissed, head falling back as you looked up at him to see his adam's apple bobbing with his gulp.

The sight made your thighs clench, bare giving you any relief.

“Always so fucking good at pleasing your man.”

You moaned around him at his praise, the vibration making his hips buck and you knew from his actions that he wanted you to take him deeper.

You took him as far as you could, throat constricting as you fought the urge to gag, eyes watering.

But determined.

Your hand wrap around the base, stroking what your mouth couldn’t reach as your other hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently.

Feeling their weight, his grip tightens in your hair.

“Just like that, baby,” he grits out.

“You’re gonna kill me.”

You pulled back slightly as your tongue swirls around the head again, sucking hard and his husky growls were driving you crazy.

Each sound sends a jolt to your core.

You could feel yourself getting wetter, aching for his touch.

Any friction.

You tried to ignore your needs and focused on bobbing your head, setting a rhythm, his cock twitching in your mouth, hips thrusting slightly.

And you hollowed your cheeks, sucking harder, wanting to drive him as wild as he'd driven you.

But jungkook wasn’t content to let you have all the control.

“I need to taste you again.” he scoffs.

His voice fill with urgency as he pulls you off his cock with a gentle tug, his hands guiding you to straddle his face with your back facing him.

Before you could react.

You gasp, clutching his muscled body as he positioned himself so his cock hovered over your mouth, the tip brushing your lips while his face settled between your thighs.

His breath hot against your pussy that was still dripping from your earlier release.

The sight of him—his cock so close—made your mouth water again and you didn’t waste any time reaching up and guiding his cock back into your mouth.

Sucking eagerly.

At the same time his tongue finds your pussy, you moaned around his cock, his lips closing around your clit, sucking gently and you bucked your hips.

Your body struggling to maintain the overwhelming sensation.

He groans against your pussy, the vibration sending shockwaves through you while you can’t keep up with sucking his cock.

Now moaning against it.

His tongue relentless as he teased the sensitive bud before sliding to your entrance, gathering the arousal there.

“Oh shit, ahmm—”

You gasp, his nose nudging your clit.

“I could drown in you.” he says.

Voice muffled.

You tried focusing on his cock and not on what a squirming mess he was driving you into, cock sliding deeper into your mouth as he thrusts gently.

Your tongue swirling as you stroke the base, sputtering, eyes watering.

Your arousal drips onto his tongue.

You were basically riding his nose now, his tongue curling inside you was too much and you were letting out choked whimpers and moans around his cock.

His hands held you open and the wet sounds of his mouth against your pussy mingled with the sounds of your mouth on his cock.

Creating a lewd music that fills the room.

“kookie,” you sob.

“You’re gonna make me come again… stop please.”

He doesn’t stop his tongue moving faster, fucking you deeper, his movements feral as you didn’t back down as well, even though your thighs were shaking.

You took him back into your mouth, sucking hard as you deep throated him and you gagged, stroking while his tongue and lips drove you closer.

You both were lost in each other, giving and taking in equal measure while he fucked your mouth and worshipped your pussy.

Controlling you in all ways.

You came first, body arching, your sobs muffled on his cock, tears leaving your eyes as he laps up every drop.

You pulled off his cock, body shaking uncontrollably.

Your orgasm left you weak but you didn’t stop pumping his cock and he groaned, thrusting harder into your mouth, chasing his release.

“Fuck, baby, I’m close.” he pants.

You knew he was near from the throb of his cock.

You let out a needy whine around him and the vibration was enough to push him over the edge, cum spilling into your mouth, coating your tongue.

You swallowed eagerly, savoring the taste of him, tongue working until he let out a growl.

His hand cupping the back of your head.

You collapse in his arms, his chest heaving as you both lay there for a moment catching your breath, your bodies still humming with the aftershocks.

He pecked your lips, giving you the taste of both of you.

“I’ve missed this… missed us.” he whispers.

You hum, eyes watering, fingers tracing the lines of his tattoos as his hand soon starts roaming your body again and you know this is only the beginning of the night.

The hunger between you far from sated.

You both craved more.

jungkook hovered above you and you still felt your release dripping down your thighs, pooling on the sheets.

He breathes hard, taking you in naked and spread out for him, breasts still rising and falling.

“I need you inside me.” you whimpered.

Your voice filled with need.

A low growl rumbles from his chest as he positions himself between your thighs, the bed creaking under his weight.

“I’m gonna give you everything, love.” he promised.

“Fuck you so good... make you feel how much I missed you.”

He grips his cock, hand wrapping around the base and rubbed the tip against your slick folds, teasing your clit with slow strokes.

You gasp under the pressure, cunt clenching in anticipation.

You didn’t want teasing.

“Oh god, koo…” you huff.

Nails digging into his shoulder, he drags his cock through your slit, coating himself in your wetness.

Your pussy was swollen and ready.

The months of being apart have left you hypersensitive.

Even the slightest contact of his length sent sparks of pleasure through you.

You gave him pleading eyes, tears dropping.

He didn’t make you wait any longer, his own restraint fading and he pushed into you with a slow thrust, cock penetrating your pussy, inch by inch.

It was too much.

A delicious burn while your walls adjust for him, tightening further on him.

A cry of pain and pleasure leaves you.

He groaned, head falling to your shoulder as he bottoms out, cock buried to the hilt.

“Shit,”

“You’re so tight… so perfect around me.” he husks.

His cock pulsed inside you, hips rocking slowly at first, each thrust taking him deeper.

With each thrust of him, you let out “ohs” and clench the bedsheets.

“You like that, hm?” he asks.

“Like how my cock feels inside this little pussy?”

“Yes.” you sobbed.

Voice high and needy, hips rocking to meet his thrusts.

“Please don’t stop!”

He growls, his thrusts pick up their speed as his hips snap against yours.

The sound of skin slapping against skin filling the room.

His tip almost brushes your cervix, making you see stars behind your vision.

He grumbles, his eyes locked on where his cock disappears into your pussy, puffy folds stretched around him and the quivering nub just above it.

“Taking me so well like a good naughty girl” he tsks.

He leans down, plunging his tongue into your mouth while his tongue performed the same sex act that his cock was giving you.

You struggle to breathe, just mumbling expletives while scratching his back.

Your breasts bounce with each thrust and he noticed, his hand sliding up to cup one, fingers pinching and rolling your nipple.

He leans down, sucking onto one and you cry out, arching your back as your pussy clenches on him rhythmically.

You were drooling now, brows furrowed.

You were mindless, not capable of feeling anything but the pleasure he was igniting inside you.

“jungkook. jungkook. jungkook.”

You chanted his name, voice breaking.

You didn’t know if you wanted him to slow down or keep going, his thrusts relentless now, cock pounding you while his balls slap against your ass.

He fucks you like a man possessed.

His cock was hitting your g-spot with every stroke, you were screaming now, biting into the sheets to ground yourself.

“You’re gonna cum for me?” he rasps.

His hands slide down to rub your clit, fingers circling it in tight fast circles and the added stimulation was breaking you, pussy clenching around him so tightly.

He hissed.

His thrusts faltering slightly.

“Come on my cock, sweetheart… let me feel you.”

“Ahh, hnn I’m gonna—”

Your words were cut off with a scream that ends with a wail as your orgasm hit you.

Pussy spasming around his cock.

Your walls milking him with you release

Your body shook, nails digging on his back, almost drawing blood.

“Shh, that’s it.” he calms you.

Even though his voice was strained from chasing his release, thrusts growing harder.

He kisses you, swallowing your moans and cries as he fucked you through your orgasm and he finally came, his cum hot and thick, filling you with spurts and spurts of it.

He moans your name, hips jerking as he empties himself, gripping your hips tight.

“Mine,” he growls.

“All fucking mine.”

Your forehead meeting his, both your breaths shaky and you cling to him, body spent.

Both of you didn’t have the strength to separate the connection.

Your pussy still pulsing around his softening cock that was filling you, grounding you both in this moment.

You lay there tangled together.

Both your bodies slick with cum and yet the room was filled with love.

“Always only yours, jungkook”

You murmur before your eyes fall closed.

۶ৎ

The room was filled with the smell of sex and sweat from your earlier intimacy and the sheets completely damp beneath you both.

jungkook's chest rose and fell steadily against your back, arms encircling you, one hand laying possessively across your stomach.

His fingers tracing small patterns that sent shivers across your skin.

You shifted slightly, turning in his arms to face him and the movement drew a low groan from his throat, his eyes fluttering open to meet yours.

His eyes were heavy with exhaustion, no hunger, that was present just a few moments ago, lips swollen from hours of kissing and he was still sweaty all over.

And you knew you probably look worse but he looked at you like you were the most beautiful woman in the world.

He always does.

The sight of him so close and so real after months of absence almost felt unreal.

It was like a dream.

Him beside you.

“Still awake, baby?”

He rumbles as his lips curve into a soft, sleepy smile, only reserved for you.

He reaches out, brushing a strand of hair from your face, fingers lingering on your cheek.

“Couldn’t sleep.” you murmur.

Your voice was shy now, a contrast to the boldness of your earlier actions and you ducked under his gaze, pressing your face into the crook of his neck.

He chuckled deeply.

“Don’t leave me again…” you breathe.

All the earlier giggles faded as a seriousness took over you, eyes glistening.

His arms tighten around you, pulling you impossibly closer, his hard chest pressing against your bare breasts and your oversensitive nipples grazing him still sent jolts of sparks through you.

“I’m not going anywhere.” he said fiercely.

“Not now. Not ever. You're stuck with me, babygirl.”

He pecks your nose, the action precious.

“I’ve waited too fucking long to be here with you and I’m finally home.”

The word “home” hit you and your throat tightened.

You tilted your head up, kissing him as you both tasted the salt and arousal from earlier doings.

He brought one of your thighs up, wrapping it around his waist, branding himself in you.

jungkook pulls back, eyes searching yours.

“Every day in that lonely fucking place. I thought of you… you kept me going.”

His hand slid up to cup your face and you felt the tremor in his touch.

“I’d go through it again if it means I get to be here with you.”

۶ৎ

The night stretched on with several positions and lots of whispered love confessions.

“I love you.”

He’d said with every thrust.

“So fucking much”

Your hands clutched his, fingers intertwining.

As dawn crept through the curtains, you lay together, bodies spent but your hearts full.

jungkook held you close and you smiled, body aching but sated as you rested against him.

“I’m back in your arms,” he whispers.

“And I’m never leaving you again.”

The night had been a desperate, hungry reunion as you both made up for all the lost time.

And now as you drifted to sleep in his arms, the world outside faded, leaving only the two of you.

Bound by love

And a promise of forever.

────

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[ptergwen]

im not sure if you’ll see this😭 but can i have reader being like maddy from euphoria, confident, bad bitch, short skirts and she’s dating peter and they have this secret relationship cuz shes popular and hes not so they both go to a party and makes out in the restroom and comes out together and then flash is making fun of them and then she just kisses peter right in front of everyone (im so srry this is long but i hope u see this

out of sight, on his mind ‎♡‧₊˚

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w/c: ?

warnings: making out, suggestiveness, drinking, like one swear

a/n: oh i looooved this idea thank you very much for your service babes :D also don't forget to join my new taglist y'all i only got a couple of you so far & happy reading!

you down a shooter, gagging at the bitter taste of the alcohol. you giggle and stick the tiny bottle in your bra. you're dancing with a group of your friends. one of them takes your hand, the two of you moving to the beat of the music. peter watches you from across the room with the hint of a smile.

he wouldn't typically spend his friday night in the corner of a packed houseparty nursing a cup of jungle juice, but ned insisted they go. his best friend is determined they both up their social statuses this year. they're not too popular at midtown, with the exception of the academic decathlon team.

if people only knew peter was dating one of the most popular girls in school; you.

it was peter's idea to keep your relationship secret. you'd wanted to show him off, but he's too shy. you're always the center of attention, and peter parker doesn't do well with attention. he'd much rather admire you with everyone else in public and be yours in private.

"come on, peter! it's a party! shouldn't we be, like, dancing or something?"

"i don't know, ned. just... drink your juice."

ned takes a generous swig of his drink and cringes. peter chuckles, sipping from his cup.

"what's in jungle juice anyway?"

"um, everything i think. you might blackout if you have too much."

"dude, that's the goal."

you catch peter's eye again. you're holding your friend's arm that's wrapped around your shoulders, hips swaying. you shout along to the music with the rest of the girls in your group. you look so carefree, and so damn good.

the pink, strapless dress you're wearing is hugging your body in all the right places. your hair is styled to perfection, tiny gems dotted along your eyelids. your look is complete with a pair of knee high boots. peter loves your style. there's no way to describe it other than that it's you, who peter adores an insane amount. he wishes he could be as bold as you are.

peter's phone vibrates in his pocket; it's a text from you.

are u watching me?

before he even answers, you send another.

come to the bathroom

peter briefly locks eyes with you. you give him a mischievous smile before slipping away, making some excuse to your friends. he bites his lip to suppress his own grin.

"hey, ned? how about i go get us some refills?"

"bet! i’m gonna dance."

ned hands peter his cup and claps him on the shoulder, disappearing into the crowd. instead of refilling their drinks, peter makes his way to the bathroom. there's a few people waiting in line. knowing you, you've already claimed it from them. he knocks at the door. a hand reaches out and grabs at peter's flannel, pulling him inside.

"hi, baby."

your glossy lips capture peter's in a kiss. he instantly leans into it, but you pull back much to his dismay. his big brown eyes go even bigger.

"woah... hi."

you laugh softly.

"miss me?"

"seems like you missed me too."

"maybe."

you run a hand through peter's hair. his hands settle on your hips.

"sorry for watching you, couldn't help it. you look so pretty tonight."

"i always look pretty."

your tone is playful, but peter knows you mean it, and he couldn't agree more.

"whatcha been up to? you having fun?"

your manicured nails scratch lightly at peter's scalp. he practically purrs at the feeling.

"mm, just been hanging with ned. i don't really know anybody else."

"you know me."

"but you're with your friends."

"so?"

"so... you know i’m shy, princess."

you giggle.

"it's just 'cause you're not drunk enough, baby."

"oh yeah?"

peter's thumbs run up and down your sides, face only inches from yours. you retrieve the shooter from your bra. there's still at least half a shot left.

"open."

peter does as you say and opens his mouth. you take his chin between your fingers and tilt his head back, pouring the rest of the strong, sweet liquid down his throat. he swallows. you toss the bottle aside. peter gives you a look, one that says kiss me. you shake your head, smirking.

you want him to kiss you.

peter's lips smash into yours. his eagerness makes you giggle into the kiss. you grip the collar of his shirt in both hands, lips moving slowly against each other's. peter backs you against the door.

"did i already tell you how pretty you look?"

"mhm, but not enough."

"you're right. you're so pretty."

peter kisses down your neck, breathing in the scent of your perfume. you guide his lips back up to yours.

"you are too, y'know."

you peck peter's lips softly, letting your lips linger over his after, eyes searching his. they twinkle. you mesmerize him, truly mesmerize him. you kiss an awe-struck peter properly this time. he holds your waist, head tilted to deepen the kiss.

your make out session is rudely interrupted by someone knocking on the door.

"yeah, one second!" you answer. "let's get out of here."

peter groans and buries his face in your neck.

"but i don't want to. wanna keep kissing you."

"not here, baby."

"why not?"

he leaves more kisses on your neck. you coax peter away, laughing, his arms still wrapped tight around you.

"the line. wanna find somewhere else?"

peter perks up at that.

"okay, let's go."

you lead peter out of the bathroom. he follows, hand in yours. even though no one seems to pay any mind to the fact that you were in the bathroom together, peter can't help but blush. he doesn't make it out unscathed, though; none other than flash thompson notices him.

"penis parker, is that you?"

you stop walking, eyeing flash over your shoulder. peter lets out an exasperated sigh.

"what's up, flash?"

"you are."

peter looks down to see an obvious bulge in his jeans. his cheeks burn hotter, hand leaving yours to readjust himself. a few people turn around to look.

"y/n's a big step up from your imaginary girlfriend. where'd you say she was from again, canada?"

you narrow your eyes at flash, a hand wrapping around peter's bicep.

"do you know him?"

"yeah, we're... friends. sort of. we do academic decathlon together."

your gaze shifts to peter.

"friends?"

"oh yeah, we go way back. any friend of parker's is a friend of mine."

flash smirks at you. you look him up and down, face scrunched in disgust.

"ew."

more people are starting to watch the exchange. you glare at flash, who holds your gaze knowingly. peter can tell you're about to go into protective girlfriend mode. he squeezes your hand that's on his arm.

"anyways, just wanted to congratulate you on your first baddie," flash tells him. "try not to fumble."

before peter can process what's happening, your lips are on his, hands cupping his cheeks to keep him in place. maybe it's just because he's tipsy, but peter actually finds himself having the courage to kiss you back in front of everyone. you smile at this. he holds you by your waist, letting himself enjoy the kiss for a while longer.

peter's lips are puffy and covered in your gloss when you two pull apart. he draws you in closer to himself, giving you one more short kiss, then another. the two of you earn whistles and chatter from everyone watching. you giggle, thumbs caressing peter's cheeks and gaze meeting his.

there's something in his eyes that you haven't seen before; confidence. he might be shy, but not when it comes to you. not anymore.

you look over at flash smugly, his mouth dropped open.

"he won't."

tags (join my new taglist!)

@spidermans-gf @sacharinee

[irisintheafterglow]

touya todoroki completes community service hours at an aquarium.

your supervisors, understandably, were adamantly against having the convicted criminal anywhere near the facility, its staff, and its animals. however, after being reassured time and time again that he wouldn't be working in public areas, you were assigned to be his unofficial parole officer (or off-fish-er you called it) because of your hydrokinetic quirk. not only were you responsible for watching a criminal, you were also the first line of defense in case he decided to make the facility into a seafood boil.

you'd better be getting a stellar letter of recommendation after all this.

as luck would have it, word spread quickly among aquarium staff about the new volunteer and his...messy...history. you received many texts wishing you good luck and stating that you're in many people's prayers as if working with him would be a death sentence. but, to your surprise, your first day with touya is actually...not terrible.

"you're doing a nice job. you can cut them into larger chunks if you want," you recommend kindly as he slices pieces of shrimp and fish for the penguins and drops them into the gray bucket.

"don't want them to choke," he mumbles almost imperceptibly. from what you've heard about him, touya was physically incapable of shutting up and always had some snarky insult to mutter under his breath. the man you were working with, however, kept his thoughts to himself and only engaged you with curt acknowledgments of tasks. "these got bones in 'em still?"

"digestible ones, yeah," you confirm, a little confused about why he's so curious. he struck you as the type of guy to just work and finish his assignments with as little energy exertion as possible. but here he was, concerned for the animals' safety even when he hadn't even seen them yet. "we just need to cut them up because some of them try to swallow the big ones whole, and we don't need them blocking their throats."

"how many are there?"

"the penguins?" he hums in assent, never taking his eyes off the precise cuts on the food. "i think our colony is a few dozen, maybe twenty-two?"

"do they get along well?"

"some of them are a little feistier than others," you admit with a fond smile. "but the majority of them are really sweet. you'll see when you meet them."

"meet them?"

"you're not walking out with me, of course," you quickly correct. "my shift lead's gonna have my head on a stake if you so much as show a finger to the public." he nods, an odd sort of quiet falling between you two that was more awkward than the previous silence. if you knew any better, you would interpret his expression for disappointment. "there's one recovering from an illness backstage named peach. she gets fed on her own, but if there's some left over i can take you over there to feed her."

"it's fine. don't wanna bother your routine," he mutters with a shrug, but you catch the renewed glint in his eyes at the prospect of meeting one of the animals personally. after feeding the main colony and not-so-accidentally leaving a few treats at the bottom of the bucket, touya follows you through the back halls of the vet center to peach's holding area.

"be warned, she's one of the feisty ones," you caution him, carefully stepping into the plexiglass-enclosed space. he copies your motions exactly and you're surprised, again, from the great care he seems to take when interacting with the small penguin. "so, all you need to do is hand out the fish to her and let her take it in her beak."

"does she dislike new people?" he asks as peach aggressively inspects his shins, prodding them with her beak when touya tries to step away. "i don't think she likes me."

"it's the opposite, believe it or not; you're making her angry when you try to give her space like that," you reply with a stifled laugh.

"oh. i see." peach continues to slap touya with her fins and poke him until he gives her what she wants, a large chunk of fish straight from his hand. you kneel down next to him when he has a seat on the floor, his eyes curiously observing the spunky bird. "she always this sassy with you?"

"only when she gets jealous," you smile, running your hand over the top of her head. her eyes close in contentment before returning to touya's outstretched food offering. "what do you think?"

"about what?"

"do you think this arrangement is gonna be a nightmare for you?" he pauses and, for the millionth time that day, surprises you with how much thought he put into his actions.

"if everyone i meet is as easy as you and her," he says, gesturing to peach but speaking soft enough to make your cheeks heat, "i think i'll get by."

---

"peach duty today?"

"schedule got mixed around, so we'll be giving her dinner instead of lunch today," you reply and touya hums at your side, an answer that could be considered rude if you didn't already know he was a man of few words.

few words, that is, if he was speaking to anyone other than the animals. after a month of touya shadowing you, you could pick up on the little conversations he had with the different animals he took care of: asking the cownose rays to calm down during feeding time, warning the reef sharks that they might need braces if they keep losing so many teeth (he kept forgetting it was normal for them to lose that many teeth), quietly cheering on the day octopus as he breaks into a jar full of crabs.

"who've we got today?"

"took a hell of a lotta convincing, but my boss is letting you meet my best friend today," you inform him. touya walks in step beside you like he'd memorized the fishy-smelling back halls of the aquarium, barely sparing passing wary staff so much as a glance. you'd be intimidated, too, if he wasn't your partner; he was formidable in his favorite blue windbreaker with his hands stuffed casually in its pockets that subtly accented the lean muscle in his arms. not that you were paying much attention to his body, anyway.

"and who would that be?"

"her name is donna, but i call her mama donna." he follows you down a corridor he'd never taken before, toward the very back of the medical wing. "take that hall on the right and change into a wetsuit; i'll meet you back over here, okay?"

"why do i need to change?"

"well, because you're getting in the water with me."

shit.

it's the first time touya hesitates in a long time when you beckon him to join you in the shallow pool. you'd already summoned donna, who was much larger of an animal than he expected. you said she was an adult zebra shark, but all he could register is the tiny tank of brown sacks the size of his hand just outside the walls of the pool.

"i don't think it's the best--"

"get in the water, touya, or i'm gonna report you for insubordination," you interrupt, waist-deep in the water. you don't mean it, of course, but you did need a hand with donna if you were going to check on the status of her eggs.

"i shouldn't be in the water with her, 'specially if she's a mother."

"what, you got something against moms?" he flinches and you suddenly regret speaking so brashly, something about his reaction indicating that you'd hit a nerve. "sorry, that was insensitive--"

"i don't wanna hurt her if i..." his voice trails off and he looks down at his scarred hands, the tissue dark enough to almost match the color of his wetsuit. "it's better for everyone if i don't get close to her if she's vulnerable." you wait for him to look you dead in the eyes before answering.

"i wouldn't bring you to meet her if i didn't think you were ready, touya," you begin gently. "i don't think of you the same way as the rest of the staff because you've proven that you're different from the gossip."

"but what if i--"

"did you forget why i'm paired with you in the first place?" donna swims around you impatiently, nudging you with her nose while you continue to convince touya to get in the water. "i'm the only one on staff that can neutralize you, but i know i won't need to."

"how are you so sure?"

"because i hear you talk to them," you state simply, rubbing your hand on donna's nose as her tail splashes your upper body. "your little conversations tell me you care, even if i'm not allowed to be a part of them." you shoot him a wry smile and he finally scoffs, partly a chuckle and partly an exhale; he didn't realize he'd been holding his breath. "i'll drown you if you heat this water by even half a degree, so help me with donna and then we can go visit peach, yeah?"

---

you'd fallen into an unexpectedly fond partnership over the course of your six months of touya-duty. he was a pretty damn good listener, letting you boss him this way and that and only retaliating with a lighthearted eyeroll. on certain occasions, he would open up about his history, and you followed along intently. he insisted on doing the heavy lifting and opening every door for you, even if you weren't carrying anything. he remembered every animal by name and could tell apart the most similar looking creatures, pointing out their differences with an expression that screamed 'is it not obvious?' towards the end of his assignment, you both faced an unexpected surprise.

his family came to visit.

well, not all of his family, only the ones touya maintained somewhat of a relationship with. in the times he'd opened up, he briefly mentioned his now-graduated little brother, shoto, and the work he'd done to mend the tears between him, his mother, and his other siblings. you consider it a blessing that only his mother and siblings appear when you round the corner to the 'vip only' waiting area (from your talks, you'd also learned it'd be on sight if touya's retired father stepped on the property). he freezes when he sees his family as the guests who would be shadowing him, becoming uncharacteristically stiff as petrified wood.

"welcome, todoroki family. i'm so glad you could join us today," you greet with a polite smile. only when your hand gently settles on touya's shoulder, the reminder of your presence melting the chill in his veins, does the tension in his body dissipate. "touya? d'you wanna introduce me to your family?" he glances at you, your unwavering trust in him, and his eyes soften as he nods.

"yeah," he affirms quietly. "yeah, i can do that."

"doing great, partner," you whisper once you're acquainted with the family and on the move, heading toward the back halls of the tropical gallery. "i'll only talk if you need me to, today, because i want this to be about you and them."

"but you're not gonna leave me, right?"

"wouldn't dream of it," you reassure him, something in your heart stumbling when he gives you an easy smile. as the day goes on and touya guides his family through the back corridors of the facility, he's able to ramble about all the knowledge he'd acquired while working with you. at each exhibit, he points out every species with total accuracy and shares his favorite quirks about certain animals. you have a front-row seat for the way his eyes, usually so molten and intense, have a star-like quality to them when he talks about his new friends, the abalone and the otters and the sea bass. his family observes him in awe, and you catch his mother watching you watch him several times. touya ends the day by introducing peach, his self-proclaimed 'number one girl,' and helping his family with her nightly feeding. though all the todoroki siblings struck you as reserved when you first met them, their conversations were full of life as they walked ahead and you trailed behind with his mother.

"this suits him," rei states with a thoughtful smile.

"i'm biased, but i agree," you reply. she fixes you again with that curious stare, analyzing you. "do i have fish scales on my face?" she laughs and shakes her head.

"no, i'm just indebted to you for getting through to him." you blink, taken aback by her genuine response. "being with you makes him happy. i haven't seen him like this in a long while." she turns back to her children, walking in one raucous group and making plans to get dinner after his shift. "he doesn't talk with them like this often."

"i imagine it's all a mother would want after everything they've been through, if i may," you add and she hums in agreement.

"it is. it's also why, i hope you wouldn't mind," she trails off and her eyebrows pinch slightly, like she's thinking of something worrisome. "if he could stay here."

"of course. i've noticed that he has a knack for husbandry, so--"

"he wants to stay with you," she cuts in, her voice soft as powdered snow. "and i'd like him to stay with you, if it means we can see him more like--"

"this," you finish for her, gesturing to the pile of adult men wrestling each other just ahead, their sister shaking her head from afar. rei sighs, her smile turning sad.

"exactly." before you can give her your reply, touya has escaped his brothers and approached to steal you from his mother.

"if you take those double doors and turn left, you'll end up in the gift shop. wait there and we can get dinner once i'm off," he tells rei, taking her hand and squeezing it once. "i won't be long." she nods and joins her other children, leaving you alone with touya in front of the staff-only window of the sea lion pool. the fading afternoon light catches in the water's rippling and sends a soft beam of light across the cavern. the largest of the lions, boris, floats from below to observe you and touya standing in front of his tank.

"he moves like a slinky," touya states and you can't help but laugh.

"he does move like a slinky, you're right." you turn to him and find he's already looking back at you, not boris. "i loved meeting your family today," you offer in the silence that makes the heartbeat in your ears sound so much louder. "they're very sweet, especially your mother."

"what were you two talking about while we were away?"

"she wanted to show me baby photos," you tease and he gives his signature eyeroll. "but really," you inhale and steady yourself, "she was saying how much this suits you."

"i'd have to agree," he murmurs, his eyes glowing like dying embers. you're close enough to smell him, smoky and rich and only the slightest bit like fish. the proximity feels comforting, like home. "if...if you'd let me--"

"stay with me," you blurt. he blinks at you, the rosy color on the tips of his ears standing out against the bright white. "i-i want you to stay with me." you wait and the quiet stews, nothing moving except slinky-like boris in the water beside you. touya's reply is barely above a whisper.

"i want to stay with you." you release a shaky exhale and let your head fall forward against his chest, steadied by his arms securing themselves around your waist. your hands slide over his shoulders and rest at the nape of his neck, fiddling with the tuft of hair at its base. "please let me stay with you," he breathes in your ear. his arms flex as his grip tightens, like you'd turn to water if he held you too loosely. touya feels like his heart is rattling in his ribcage, bouncing around uncontrollably the longer he has you in his arms. he hasn't felt his chest ache like this before.

"yes, i want you to stay with me," you confirm and he melts into you, breathing you in like fresh oxygen.

"for how long?"

"as long as you'd let me," you answer honestly. the corner of his mouth turns upward in a teasing smirk.

"and if i said forever?"

"then i guess i'd have to oblige," you beam. your hands cup his face, tracing the seam of his scars, and your eyes flutter shut as his lips meet yours. it's careful, the first time he kisses you, and he's terrified you'd slip from his fingers. but you don't disappear, so he lets himself lace your fingers with his and drag you out to the rest of his loved ones, hand-in-hand and finally feeling like he can do something good.

if you enjoy my writing and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi! you can also check out my full masterlist here :)

[claramelooo]

Hey, my lovers! How are you guys? I hope you're good! As for me... I'm in my fertile period and that's why the chapters are so naughty and I won't say sorry for that!

Enjoy and hold your little hands for yourselves Lmao <3

MINORS MUST NOT INTERACT

Warning: +18, NSFW, ANGST, DEEP JEALOUSY

Paring: Mommy Wanda x Brat Fem Reader x Tough Natasha (don't get too excited about it)

Summary: You decide to take revenge on Wanda out of jealousy, you just didn't expect her to have the same plan as you.

Read here: Prologue | Part 1 - Predator | Part 2 - The Prey | Part 3 - On your Knees | Part 4 - The Spider | Part 5 - The Lamb | Part 6 - Pure Crimson | Part 7 - Dependece | Part 8 - Passion

VELVET CHAINS

Revenge

Wanda’s Sunday started early. The clock barely struck six in the morning, yet she was already up, moving through the house with the precision of a well-rehearsed orchestra. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the kitchen as she prepared toast for the twins, mentally checking off the day’s obligations. Sunday service was the week’s main event, and Wanda took her image—and that of the Maximoff family—very seriously.

Getting the boys ready was the first step. Tommy and Billy, still groggy, took turns complaining while Wanda, with unyielding patience, adjusted their shirts and straightened their ties. She made sure they looked impeccable: starched shirts, shining shoes. After all, they were the sons of the woman who led the choir. They had a reputation to uphold.

“Billy, stop messing with your collar. It’ll end up crooked,” she warned, raising a pointed finger at her son, who rolled his eyes but complied.

Vision was next. He entered the room with a restrained yawn, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt. Wanda was already prepared, holding two tie options. One was dark gray, sober and classic; the other, navy blue with small geometric details that conveyed seriousness without being overly rigid.

“This one.” She handed him the navy tie with firm decisiveness, her gaze assessing every detail as though deciding the fate of a delicate negotiation. “Serious but approachable. You know how people notice everything.”

Vision accepted without question, smiling at her with a hint of admiration. He knew Wanda had a special talent for these things, for controlling the atmosphere and ensuring everything was perfect.

But Wanda had her own preparations. Choosing her outfit was a different ritual, something more intimate, imbued with a kind of excitement she wouldn’t dare admit, even to herself. The Sunday dress had to convey purity, elegance, and a touch of authority. She settled on a navy-blue dress with lace accents, paired with discreet heels and pearl bracelets.

However, when she entered the bedroom to retrieve her outfit, she couldn’t help but smile at what she had laid out for you.

On the bed, your clothes were folded to perfection: a simple yet elegant dress fitting the occasion’s style. Beside them, meticulously arranged, were your undergarments. And placed dead center, almost like a calculated provocation, was a discreet, silent vibrator, still encased in its translucent silicone packaging.

Wanda stood still for a moment, her eyes fixed on the object. It was intentional, of course. Everything she did always was. The vibrator wasn’t just a provocation; it was a message.

“Remember who you belong to,” it screamed without words.

You entered the room seconds later, the sound of the door announcing your arrival. Your eyes fell on the bed and then on the vibrator. Your face flushed instantly, which only made Wanda’s smile widen, subtle but laden with intent.

“I thought you might need a little... encouragement,” Wanda remarked casually, adjusting the pearl necklace around her neck as though she were commenting on the weather.

“Wanda... this is...” you began, but the words failed you.

“It’s appropriate, darling,” she interrupted, stepping closer to you. “Because even when we’re in the sanctuary, even when we’re surrounded by hymns and prayers... you shouldn’t forget who you belong to.”

Wanda reached out, holding your chin gently but firmly enough for you to feel her control.

“Now, go get dressed. I want you ready in fifteen minutes,” she instructed, her voice a low, authoritative whisper.

As you left the room, your face burning, Wanda turned back to the mirror, adjusting her necklace once more. Her expression was serene, but a shadow of dark satisfaction danced within her. There was something deeply gratifying in knowing that, even among prayers and sermons, your mind would never stray far from her.

The living room was impeccably tidy, a direct reflection of Wanda’s meticulous nature. Vision stood near the door, making final adjustments to the tie she had chosen. Tommy and Billy, seated on the couch, chattered about something only they found hilariously funny, filling the space with a lightheartedness that seemed to contrast with the growing tension Wanda felt.

She had her back to the stairs when she heard the soft sound of your footsteps descending, and immediately, something inside her stirred. Turning, she raised her eyes toward you — and for a moment, time seemed to stand still.

You looked stunning, as always, but there was something more in that moment. Wanda knew exactly what was hidden between your legs, knew the sensation you carried with every hesitant step, and, more than anything, she knew it was because of her. Her gaze slid almost imperceptibly over your body, lingering for just a fraction of a second longer than it should have on your legs before meeting your flushed face.

There was hunger in her eyes. A hunger she suppressed instantly, lifting her chin with the elegance that was almost her trademark. But the flame in Wanda’s eyes didn’t lie — and you felt it hit you like a blow.

“Wow, you look amazing!” Tommy exclaimed, jumping up from the couch to get a better look at you. “If you don’t get a boyfriend at church today, I’m giving up on humanity.”

“Tommy!” Billy rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back his laughter. “She doesn’t need a boyfriend. Women can be happy without men these days.”

You smiled, the blush on your cheeks deepening. “Thank you, boys. But I think I already have enough to worry about without having to think about... boyfriends.”

Vision’s soft laugh filled the room. “It’s good to stay focused, Y/n. Yale isn’t going to accept anything less than your best self.”

But Wanda didn’t laugh. She kept watching you, her dark, unwavering gaze fixed as she crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly, as if assessing every word you said and every movement the boys made.

“She’s right,” Wanda finally said, her voice calm but carrying a sharp note that drew everyone’s attention to her. “Boyfriends are distractions. Especially for someone with goals as important as Y/n’s.”

Her comment seemed to end the conversation, with Tommy and Billy suddenly shifting their focus to their shoes or their phones. But you felt the weight of Wanda’s stare, locked on you, as if daring you to entertain even the thought of shifting your focus away from her.

The tension was palpable. You knew the boys’ comments had irritated her. It wasn’t just jealousy—it was something deeper, something more possessive. Wanda hated the thought of you imagining yourself belonging to anyone else.

When Vision finally declared it was time to leave, Wanda moved with her usual elegance, but as she passed you, her hand subtly grazed your arm, her delicate nail lightly scratching your skin.

“You look beautiful, bunny,” she murmured so quietly that only you could hear.

Your heart raced as you followed the group out of the house, hyper-aware of every step, every sensation, and especially Wanda’s gaze burning into your back.

The church was steeped in reverent silence, the kind of heavy stillness that amplified every little sound. The pastor spoke with a firm yet calm voice, his words captivating the congregation. Occasional murmurs of agreement and the rustling of Bible pages were the only sounds accompanying his sermon on righteousness and devotion.

You sat next to Wanda, trying to maintain the impeccable posture she always demanded in moments like these. Your hands rested in your lap, fingers tightly interlaced in a futile attempt to mask the nervous energy bubbling beneath the surface. You were already uncomfortable—not just from the rising heat within you but from the constant awareness of what you carried between your legs.

And then, it happened.

The almost imperceptible hum of the vibrator roared in your ears, deafening despite your certainty that no one else in the church could hear it. The sensation was immediate, a wave of heat radiating from your core, spreading through your body and raising goosebumps on every inch of your skin.

You swallowed hard, eyes wide, but kept your gaze fixed on the pulpit, as though the sheer effort of appearing unaffected might save you. But your body was betraying you. A faint tremor ran through your legs, so subtle that only Wanda, sitting beside you, could notice.

She noticed.

Her fingers slid slowly across the wooden pew until they barely brushed against your hand. The touch was gentle, almost casual, but the deliberate pressure made your heart pound even harder. She knew.

You shifted slightly on the bench, searching for a position that might ease the intensity of the stimulation, but it only made things worse. The vibrator pressed against your most sensitive spot, and every movement amplified the pulsing vibrations. Your entire body felt ablaze.

“Shh…” Wanda whispered, so low that only you could hear. The tip of her fingers traced a slow, calming circle over the back of your hand—a gesture that, to others, appeared comforting, but to you, was an inescapable reminder of her control.

You were sweating now. Fine beads formed along your hairline, trailing down the back of your neck as you struggled to breathe deeply and steadily, but every vibration seemed to steal the air from your lungs.

Your knee trembled, and you pressed it against the pew to disguise it, but Wanda noticed. Always perceptive, she leaned in slightly, just enough to whisper once more: “Be a good girl for me, bunny.”

The words sent a shiver down your spine. You wanted to beg her to stop, to give you a moment of relief, but her calm gaze, fixed on the pastor, said it all. She had no intention of stopping. Not now.

Every second seemed to drag. The sermon, which you usually barely paid attention to, now felt interminable. Your body was so tense that your thighs ached from trying to contain the spasms. Shame burned on your face, but you couldn’t—dared not—make a single move that might give away what was happening.

When the pastor asked everyone to stand for prayer, your heart stopped for a moment. You could barely manage to get to your feet, your legs trembling as Wanda, with an almost imperceptible smile, took your hand and helped you up.

“Good girl,” she murmured again, and the vibrator finally stopped.

The relief was as intense as the torment, but you knew Wanda had won once more.

Wanda watched everything with a calm that was unsettling, almost impenetrable to anyone observing from the outside. While the pastor spoke about redemption and morality, her attention wasn’t on the sermon but on you—every small tremor, every ragged breath, every bead of sweat trailing down the side of your face. It was a sight that fascinated her in a dark, almost intoxicating way.

She was in control, and the control filled her with a shadowy pleasure that rivaled anything else she could feel. It wasn’t just the power to activate the vibrator pulsing between your legs or to dictate your submission in such a sacred and public space. It was the cruel satisfaction of watching you wrestle with yourself, seeing your body surrender while your mind begged for relief, for an end to the torment.

When your knee trembled, Wanda noticed before you even tried to hide it. A cold smile threatened to touch her lips, but she restrained it, maintaining the flawless mask of a devout wife and respectable mother. Even so, her eyes betrayed something deeper—a latent hunger, a predatory gleam that intensified with every sign of your suffering.

She adored the contrast.

You, so young, so vibrant, trying to be strong while slowly unraveling beside her. With every nervous adjustment you made on the pew, every breath you held in a futile attempt to conceal your vulnerability, Wanda felt a dark warmth grow in her chest. It was a dangerous mix of possession and cruelty, something she would never admit to anyone—not even herself.

But she knew.

The control she wielded over you was a secret shared only between the two of you, a bond she had forged and now held tightly. The mere fact that you couldn’t react, couldn’t scream or beg in that environment, made the experience all the more delightful for her. It was as if every one of your sighs, every drop of sweat, was a silent offering to the power she held over you.

When she whispered “Good girl” while helping you stand, Wanda couldn’t hide the malicious satisfaction that coursed through her. Seeing you on your feet, trembling, struggling against the weight of your own desire while everyone around remained blissfully unaware, was the confirmation of her victory.

She turned her gaze back to the pulpit, maintaining the serene façade, but inside, a dark and hungry part of her roared with pleasure. Knowing you had endured all of it for her, that your body responded so perfectly to her provocations, filled Wanda with an almost cruel satisfaction.

“You look beautiful like this,” she thought, catching a glimpse of the sheen of sweat on your forehead and the subtle tremor in your legs. “Beautiful in your fragility. Beautiful when you know you belong to me.”

When the sermon ended, Wanda held your hand firmly as they walked out of the church. To anyone watching, she was the picture of kindness and compassion—but inside, the dark pleasure still burned like an inextinguishable flame.

[...]

The midday heat made the glare from the pool water almost blinding, but nothing was more intense than the uncomfortable burning sensation in your chest. You were sitting in the shade with a glass of lemonade in your hands, but your attention was entirely on Wanda.

She was on the other side of the yard, next to Vision. Her laugh was light, almost musical, as she made a comment that drew laughter from Agnes and the other neighbors around her. Wanda seemed perfectly comfortable in her role as a devoted wife, the ideal woman: attentive, affectionate and… affectionate.

So affectionate that her fingers ran down Vision's arm in a way that made you squeeze the glass in your hands hard enough that the plastic rim threatened to crack.

You tried to look away, tried to focus on the blue sky or the unimportant conversations around you, but your eyes always returned to Wanda. She had a magnetic presence, as if the whole universe was conspiring so that you couldn't ignore her.

And then came the worst.

Vision leaned over Wanda, and she returned the gesture, smiling as she caressed his face with a delicacy you knew all too well. He said something low, inaudible, and Wanda let out a soft laugh before leaning over and pressing a kiss to his lips.

You clutched the glass in your hands. The anger and jealousy bubbling up in your stomach. Thoughts so bad and irrational running like a loop in your mind, you just wished you could disappear.

Agnes was a woman of Wanda's age, she seemed just as admirable. Both important women in the neighborhood and married to their respective husbands.

Agnes was the kind of woman who exuded charisma effortlessly. Her words were always carefully chosen, her laughter always at the right moment. She had an almost hypnotic charm, like Wanda, but in a different way - less subtle, more direct. You couldn't tell for sure what it was, but there was something about her that didn't seem to fit perfectly with the image of exemplary wife and neighbor that she projected.

She was standing by the pool, holding a glass of white wine, her lips painted an impeccable red that contrasted with the pearly shade of her teeth. Her dark eyes were expressive and shone with an energy that seemed to hide a secret or two. From time to time, she cast curious glances at you, but not in an uncomfortable way - at least, not at first.

As you watched Wanda and Vision once again exchanging falsely affectionate endearments, you noticed Agnes tilting her head, as if studying your reaction. When your eyes met, she smiled. It was a small, almost enigmatic smile, as if she could see something you didn't want to show.

“You look… thoughtful,” she commented, approaching with elegant steps. Her voice was soft, but there was a hint of something else - an insinuating tone that made your skin shiver slightly.

“Oh, I'm just tired,” you replied, forcing a smile as you tried to control the emotions boiling up inside you.

Agnes didn't look convinced. She sipped her wine, keeping her eyes fixed on you. “Tired of what? The party or… something else?”

The question made your throat tighten. You looked at her, trying to decipher the expression on her face. There was something about her that seemed to understand more than she should. Before you could answer, Wanda's voice cut through the air, clear and controlled as ever.

“Agnes, why don't you come and help Vision put more ice in his drinks? He insists on doing it anyway,” she said, laughing softly.

Agnes's smile widened, but she didn't seem in the slightest hurry to obey the invitation. “Of course, Wanda,” she replied, but not before casting one last glance at you, full of something that seemed both curious and… amused?

When she finally pulled away, you let out the breath you hadn't even realized you were holding.

But the discomfort only grew.

Wanda's jealousy was suffocating, but now it was mixed with a growing irritation towards Agnes. There was something about the way she spoke, as if she was always analyzing everything, dissecting the dynamics around her. And you hated to think that maybe she could see what you were trying to hide.

As Wanda continued to play her role as the perfect wife, a laugh echoing here and there, Agnes rejoined the group, now at Wanda's side. They seemed to be chatting animatedly, and suddenly, you noticed something that made you uneasy: the way Agnes' eyes slipped to Wanda when she thought no one was looking.

It was subtle, but you saw it.

Your heart squeezed, jealousy intensifying in waves. Vision wasn't enough. Now Agnes? What was so irresistible about Wanda that everyone around her seemed to want something more? And then, as if sensing your gaze, Wanda turned her head towards you again. This time, there was no disguise.

She held your gaze for a moment too long, her lips curving into a smile that seemed to be just for you. A smile that reminded you exactly who was in control.

You wanted to run. Run and cry like a baby. For a moment you even thought it would be better if you'd never left that stupid fucking convent. You looked up at the sky to try and stop the tears from falling.

No. You wouldn't cry.

You clenched your fists, feeling your nails dig into the palms of your hands. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Wanda had the power to dismantle you with a single glance, while she stood there, laughing and exchanging fake caresses with Vision, allowing Agnes or anyone else to approach her as if they were worthy of it.

What hurt most was not just the jealousy, but the frustration of knowing that, however much you wanted her, she would never be completely yours.

She had a life, an image to preserve. Vision was the exemplary husband. Agnes was the nosy but harmless friend. You? You were just a secret. A sin that she whispered to herself at night and pretended not to carry with her in the morning.

You took a deep breath, but the knot in your throat only seemed to tighten. Everything around you seemed to mock you. The sound of laughter, the clinking of wine glasses, the lively conversation that didn't include you. You needed to get out of there. Now.

Without saying a word, without looking at anyone, you placed the empty glass on the nearest table and walked quickly out of the yard. Every step felt heavy, as if the weight of your heart was anchored to your feet.

You stepped out onto the sidewalk, breathed in the fresh night air, but it didn't bring you the relief you were hoping for. Why did you subject yourself to this? Why did you still insist on getting hurt by someone who could never be yours?

Your cell phone vibrated in your pocket, and when you pulled it out, Yelena's name flashed on the screen. She had sent you a message earlier, asking if you were available to talk.

Yelena. Of course, she'd be there. She always was.

You started walking, without looking back, without even considering going back. Your mind was already made up. It didn't matter what Wanda thought or said afterwards. She was good at making you feel special, but she was also good at forgetting you when she didn't need you.

The walk to Yelena's house was quick, but it seemed to last forever. You thought of everything you wanted to say to her, but the words seemed blurred, lost amidst the whirlwind of emotions.

When you finally arrived and knocked on the door, it opened almost immediately. Yelena was barefoot, with messy hair and a surprised expression that was soon replaced by concern.

“Are you all right?” she asked, without even waiting for you to explain. You tried to answer, but your voice failed you.

The lump in your throat that you'd been holding in since the party finally loosened, and the tears began to flow. Without hesitation, Yelena pulled you in and wrapped you in a strong hug, which you hadn't even known you needed until that moment.

“Shh, it's okay. Tell me what happened,” she said, her voice low and reassuring.

But how could you explain? How could you tell her about the insane jealousy, the obsession, the forbidden love for Wanda? Yelena was your refuge, but would she be able to understand? Or worse, would she try to convince you to give up, to move on, when all you wanted was to sink even deeper into that destructive feeling?

She carried you by the hand to her room. Looking around, the room was so… Yelena-dark walls, 90s rock band posters pasted up, a desk with books lazily thrown on it. The place smelled of cigarettes, “nothing more Russian than that”, you thought with a chuckle.

“Okay, now talk. What happened?” She stared at you, sitting facing you on the sofa, her legs crossed and her eyes full of expectation and concern.

“I… I don't even know where to start.” Your voice came out shaky, almost a whisper. You pressed your hands against your knees, trying to calm the trembling that seemed to take over your body.

“Try, at least. You came here as if the world was falling down.” She leaned over, touching your hand gently. “And the way you are now, it feels like it's still falling.”

You took a deep breath, but the air didn't seem to fill your lungs. The words were stuck, as if admitting them out loud was a greater crime than carrying them inside you.

“It's her. It's always her. I can't…” Your voice failed, and you bit your lip hard, trying to hold back the tears that insisted on coming back.

“Wanda.” She said the name as a statement, unsurprisingly, but with a weight that made your heart sink even deeper.

“I know what you're going to say. That I should stay away. That it's wrong. That she'll never…” You stopped, the words breaking like glass in your throat.

With a laugh, the blonde continued: “I'm not going to say anything like that.” Her answer took you by surprise, and you finally raised your eyes to meet hers. There was something there-a mixture of understanding and pain that you couldn't interpret.

“You're not going?” Your voice was weak, hesitant.

“No. Because I know you already know all this, I'm sure.” She sighed, running a hand through her messy blonde hair. “But I also know that telling you to give up on her is like asking you to stop breathing. And I'm not going to be cruel like that.”

Her words were a relief, but at the same time, an even greater weight. Because it was true. You knew you were trapped, that this love was a trap you yourself had chosen to walk into.

“I wish… I wish I could hate her. I wanted to be able to look at her and feel anger, contempt, anything other than that.” You made a vague gesture, as if you could explain with your hands what words could not.

“But you can't. Because, somehow, she's managed to make you believe that her love is worth anything. Even if you never really have that love.”

You swallowed, feeling your throat burn.

“She doesn't love me. Not the way I love her.” The words were like knives coming out of your mouth, each one cutting deeper.

“And yet you're still here. Running after crumbs.” The silence that followed was deafening. You had no answer, because you knew she was right.

“What do I do, then?” Your voice was desperate, almost pleading.

“Do you want an answer from the young and irreverent Yelena or the centered and mature Yelena?” She asked, causing you to frown in confusion. And then she continued: “The irreverent Yelena says that we should introduce you to the night, take you to a loud party with drinks and good music. The centered Yelena says that I should welcome your tears with ice cream, hugs and silly movies.”

You looked at Yelena, still frowning, trying to process the options she had just given you. Party? You'd never been to a party before. You were the kind of person who preferred to spend a quiet evening reading a book or listening to music in your room. But now… the idea seemed to carry something extra.

“What if I choose the irreverent Yelena option?” Her voice came out hesitant, but there was a new sparkle in her eyes, a spark of curiosity and… something more.

Yelena flashed a wide grin, the kind of smile that made it seem like she was plotting something that probably wasn’t the best idea.

“Ah, Malysh… then let’s toss the tears aside and dress up to break hearts.”

You laughed, despite everything, and shook your head. But as you laughed, the idea began to take shape more clearly in your mind. Wanda. How would she react if she saw you at a party, surrounded by people, maybe dancing with someone? Would she be able to keep that cold control, the façade of the perfect wife? Or would it crack, even just a little?

Your smile slowly faded as you mulled over the thought. What if this was your chance? Not to hurt her—you would never do that intentionally. But to make her feel a fragment of what you felt every time you saw those touches and smiles meant for Vision.

“And... if I do this, do you think she’d notice?” You bit the corner of your lower lip, asking softly.

Yelena tilted her head to the side, her grin morphing into something more subtle, more analytical. “If ‘she’ is who I think it is... she wouldn’t just notice. She’d be livid. But the question isn’t whether she’ll notice. It’s whether you’re doing this for you or for her.”

You bit your lip again, looking away. It was a fair question but a hard one. The truth was, you didn’t know. Maybe it was for both reasons.

“Maybe I just need to remind myself that there’s a world outside... of her.”

Yelena nodded, her gaze fixed on yours, studying your expression like she was trying to decipher the layers of what you were feeling.

“If that’s what you want, I can help. But be warned: getting into this kind of game can spiral out of your control quickly.”

You pondered for a moment, but the decision was already made deep in your heart. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything. But the idea of ​​seeing Wanda react, of seeing that perfect facade crack, was irresistible.

“Take me to the party, Yelena.” Her mischievous grin returned in full force, and you felt a rush of adrenaline building within you.

For the first time, it felt like you were about to reclaim a fragment of power in a game that always seemed out of your hands.

[...]

The pounding music made the floor vibrate, and the air was thick with a suffocating mix of sweat, cheap perfume, and alcohol. You were already regretting agreeing to Yelena’s idea. The overstimulation was pushing you to the edge—every sound, every smell, every flashing light felt like a shove closer to your breaking point.

Leaning against a wall near the bar, you crossed your arms and stared at the drink in your hand, now warm and unappealing. Yelena, naturally, was in her element. She danced and laughed loudly, completely unbothered by the chaos around her.

Then, as if sensing your growing impatience, she appeared at your side, a sly grin tugging at her lips.

“Okay, clearly you’re not having fun. But don’t worry—I brought backup.”

You raised an eyebrow, ready to complain, but froze the moment you noticed the woman standing beside her. It was impossible not to notice. Natasha Romanoff had a presence that seemed to cut through the noise and chaos. Her gaze was sharp, cold, and piercing, like she was dissecting every detail about you in mere seconds.

“This is my sister, Natasha.”

Natasha inclined her head slightly in a wordless greeting—no handshake, no smile. Just a curt, weighty “Hi.”

You opened your mouth to respond, but no words came out. Natasha was intimidating, not just because of her stiff posture and unreadable expression, but because of the quiet authority she seemed to radiate.

“Nat,” Yelena continued with a grin, “this is my friend—the one I told you about.”

The redhead’s gaze didn’t waver as she spoke. “The shy one who ended up here out of pure stubbornness?”

The jab sent a flare of irritation through you. Your mood was already sour, and now she was treating you like some lost child?

“I might be a lot of things, but stubborn isn’t one of them.”

Natasha raised an eyebrow, the faintest hint of a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips before her neutral expression returned.

“Hmm. Debatable.”

Yelena laughed, clearly enjoying the tension crackling between the two of you. “Alright, I’m getting another drink. You two play nice, okay?”

Before you could protest, she disappeared into the crowd, leaving you alone with Natasha.

The silence between you was taut but not entirely uncomfortable. Natasha thrived in it, exuding a quiet control without needing to say a word. You, on the other hand, felt like a cornered animal, searching for a way out without showing weakness.

“So,” she said finally, her voice low and even, “what are you really doing here?”

You exhaled sharply, letting your shoulders relax as if surrendering to her scrutiny.

“Trying to forget someone.”

Natasha didn’t respond right away. She studied you with that sharp, unreadable gaze, like she was trying to unearth the truth buried in your words.

“Bad idea. If they’re important, it won’t work.”

“And who says I want it to?” you shot back.

Natasha tilted her head, her eyes narrowing as if reconsidering something. “Interesting. Usually, people come to parties like this to pretend they have control over their own lives. But you don’t seem like the type.”

Her statement was blunt, almost brutal, but there was something intriguing in the way she spoke. No fluff, no unnecessary niceties.

“And what does that say about me, then

“I’m still deciding.”

Despite the irritation still bubbling inside you, there was something about Natasha that held you captive. Maybe it was the fact that she seemed impervious to any kind of charm or pretense. There were no games here—at least not the obvious ones.

“And you? Did you come here to forget someone too?”

Natasha let out a low sound, maybe a laugh or just a long exhale. “No. I just came to make sure my sister doesn’t cause a catastrophe.”

Her answer pulled an unexpected laugh from you, and Natasha finally allowed a small, discreet smile to play at the corners of her mouth.

“Maybe you’re not as unbearable as I thought.”

Was it a compliment? A jab? You weren’t sure, but for the first time that night, you felt like maybe the party wasn’t so bad after all.

Later, you were tipsy from the alcohol. Your body felt light, and your laughter came easily... especially around Natasha. The redhead wasn’t so bad after all, always complimenting your eyes and how soft and shiny your hair looked.

You found out she was an important agent in a national security agency, though she wouldn’t reveal the name, saying it was “against the terms of her contract.”

You didn’t know what time it was, but you knew it was past 10 p.m. What about Wanda? Had she already put the twins to bed? Had she already made love to Vision in the same bed she’d fucked you in? The thought made you grip your glass tightly and tense your jaw.

You downed the shot and made a cute grimace.

“Hey, little girl... slow down.” Natasha gave you a calming look, making you snort and roll your eyes. “Sweetheart, watch your manners...” she warned.

“Fuck it, I wanna dance!” You jumped off the stool, which was a bit too high for your height, your feet dangling just above the floor as you swung them when you got anxious with your thoughts. Adorable—though Natasha would deny it until the end, obviously.

The redhead followed you onto the dance floor, momentarily forgetting about Yelena. The sway of your hips, brushing against hers, dared her to move in rhythm with you. The way you tossed your head made your hair bounce, sending its scent directly to her.

"Your hair smells like grapes," she murmured in your ear—her voice tinged with something almost distracted, like she was lost in the scent and the way your body moved. It made you turn to face her.

Her gaze was intense, but there was something else beneath it. Fear? Why?

Natasha seemed to snap back to reality, her posture stiffening as she masked her expression, retreating into her usual taciturn demeanor. “I… I’ll go find Yelena,” she said before walking away.

You nodded, watching her until she disappeared completely from sight. A few minutes later, you found Yelena sitting at the bar, chatting casually with the bartender.

“Hey, Yelly!” you called out, your voice bright and cheerful from the alcohol buzzing in your veins.

The blonde turned to look at you, her eyes scanning you up and down, clearly gauging just how drunk you were. “Y/n, please tell me you don’t get hangovers,” she said, closing her eyes in mock prayer.

“Yelly, your sister…” You started to speak, but before you could finish, a voice cut through the noise, freezing you in place.

“Y/n.”

That firm, authoritative tone made your heart stop for a moment.

You turned slowly, and there she was—Wanda. Impeccably dressed as always, but with an expression sharp enough to split the air. Her eyes were dark with fury, and her chin was slightly raised, a telltale sign of someone who either had control of the situation or was desperately trying to regain it.

“What are you doing here?”

You tried to respond, but the words were tangled in your mind. The alcohol wasn’t helping at all. Before you could form a coherent reply, Yelena stepped in.

“She’s having fun. You should try it sometime, Maximoff.”

The provocation was deliberate, and Wanda shot a venomous glare at the blonde.

“And you thought bringing her to a place like this, filling her up with alcohol, and letting her dance with strangers was a good idea?”

Yelena crossed her arms, puffing out her chest as if to intimidate Wanda—not that it worked.

“She’s an adult. She can make her own decisions.”

Wanda laughed—a sharp, incredulous sound laced with scorn. “Terrible decisions, clearly.”

You could feel the tension rising like a tide around you. You wanted to step in, but the words still wouldn’t come. Wanda took a step closer, now fully focused on Yelena, ignoring you for the moment.

“If you think you can toy with her like one of your one-night flings, you’re sorely mistaken.” Her eyes glinted dangerously.

Yelena didn’t back down, stepping forward to meet Wanda’s challenge. It was like a dance, both of them fighting for control, neither willing to give an inch.

“Do you even hear yourself? Who’s really toying with her here, Wanda?”

The answer made Wanda blink, just for a second, before her expression hardened again.

“I don't need to justify anything to you.” She said between breaths.

“You don't. But maybe you should to her.” Yelena shot back, pointing the glass of vodka in your direction.

Wanda's gaze returned to you, and your heart raced. She was furious, but there was something else in her eyes - a mixture of concern and possessiveness that seemed to struggle to hide behind the mask of anger.

“Let's go, Y/n.”

It was an order, not a request.

You hesitated, looking at Yelena, who just shrugged as if to say: It's up to you. But the weight of Wanda's gaze was overwhelming. You lowered your head, biting your lip and holding back the tears that threatened to fall.

“Okay...” You whispered softly, giving one last look to your friend who just nodded.

Walking out of the party, you felt your body being pushed into some dark place and hitting the corner of some sharp iron, making you squeal in pain. However, Wanda seemed to care much more about killing you with one look.

Wanda was standing in front of you, her breathing heavy and her eyes glowing with a mixture of anger and something darker. You instinctively backed away, but the metal spike in your back reminded you that there was nowhere to go.

“Do you realize what you did in there?” Her voice was low, but charged with fury. “Dancing, drinking, rubbing up against anyone who paid attention to you.”

“I was just… trying to have fun.” Your voice came out shaky, but you tried to keep it steady.

Wanda let out a dry, humorless laugh, taking a step towards you.

“Have fun?” The word came out as an insult. “With Yelena pushing drinks at you and Natasha looking at you like she's going to devour you? Is that what you call fun?”

“And what did you want me to do, Wanda?” The words escaped before you could stop yourself. “Sit at home, waiting for you to decide that I deserve some of your attention? Be content to watch you be the perfect wife while I run myself ragged inside?”

The intensity of the silence that followed was suffocating. Wanda stopped, her eyes narrowed, as if she were measuring the impact of your words. Finally, she took another step, her proximity taking your breath away.

“Watch your mouth, young lady.”

“Why?” You lifted your chin, tears starting to form in your eyes, but your voice was defiant. “The truth hurts, doesn't it? I love you, Wanda, but you only know how to play with me! Use me whenever you want and then go back to your perfect life with Vision!”

Wanda didn't reply immediately. Her face hardened, anger flowing from her eyes like lava. Then, almost unexpectedly, she grabbed your chin firmly, forcing you to look at her.

“You're a spoiled brat,” she hissed, her sharp tone cutting through the air. “A selfish little girl who thinks the world revolves around her.”

You tried to wriggle out of her grip, but her gaze seemed to pin you in place.

Do you know what you need?” Her voice was lower now, almost a whisper. “A lesson. Someone to teach you to control that insolent mouth of yours and stop acting like you're the center of the universe.”

You swallowed, your heart beating wildly. There was something in the way she spoke, in the darkness of her eyes, that made you shiver.

“And you're going to be that person?” The question escaped your lips before you could think, defiant despite the tremor evident in your voice.

Wanda let go of you abruptly, as if the touch had burned her hand, her eyes blazing. The woman pulled your hair back, so violently that your head was taken with it.

“Attention. That's what you wanted, isn't it, little tramp?” Wanda turns you to face the wall while she still has a handful of your hair in her hand.

Wanda leaned towards you, moving closer until your faces were so close that you could feel the warmth emanating from her, along with the soft perfume that always accompanied her. Her heart seemed to be pounding in her ears, each pulse echoing like a drum.

“Do you want to know if I'm going to be that person?” Her voice was a whisper laden with something dark and irresistible. “Do you really want to test me, Y/n?”

You opened your mouth to reply, but couldn't make a sound. Before you could react, Wanda ran her fingers down the side of your face, tracing the outline of your jaw in such a delicate way that it seemed to completely contradict the brute force you had felt just a few minutes before.

“I should. I should teach you the difference between wanting and deserving. Because, honestly, you have no idea what you're asking for.” The words came out slowly, almost lazily, but loaded with a weight that made her legs weak, even though she was sitting down.

She pulled her fingers away from your face and held your chin firmly, forcing you to look into her eyes. They were dark, almost black, and there was an intensity there that made something in you freeze and boil at the same time.

“Do you think you're brave, teasing me like that? Playing with something you can't control? Little…” A smile curved her lips, but it was a cruel, predatory smile. “You have no idea what I can do to you.” Wanda rubbed against you, making you feel a roughness, something stiff in her pants.

Her hand went down to your neck, her fingers lightly touching the base of your throat. It wasn't a squeeze, but her mere presence there made you feel as if the air was being stolen.

“You know what the problem is?” She continued, leaning in even closer. “You think you can control this, but the truth is that you're already mine. Every thought that goes through your head, every time you try to challenge me, every part of your body-all of it already belongs to me, even if you won't admit it.”

She rubbed herself more and more, making her pussy feel gooey and sticky.

“I'm inside your head, your heart. Inside your skin, Y/n.” She laughed against your ear-as if it was silly of you to think you could change that.

You tried to say something, but her hand on your neck came up to cover your mouth, interrupting any words. Her smile widened, but her eyes were more serious than ever.

“Shhh… Don't say anything. Don't try to answer me. You've said enough, and look where it's gotten you.”

Slowly, Wanda pulled her hand away, but she didn't move from her spot, still close enough for the weight of her presence to be almost overwhelming.

“You want my attention, don't you? Well, congratulations. Now you have all of it. But I'm going to give you a warning, bunny…” She tilted her head, her eyes burning into his as she squeezed his neck. “If you keep challenging me, I promise you won't like what happens. Because when I lose control…” Squeezing, squeezing and squeezing. Wanda savored it when you ran out of air and gasped for it. “…no one will save you from me.”

You felt your panties being ripped brutally, and you bucked, already craving the woman's rough touch. The head of the belt caressed your entrance, like a kiss - or torture.

Lunch at Agnes' house should have been a simple distraction, a chance to sustain the Maximoff family's impeccable façade. Wanda knew how to play the role of devoted wife and loving mother to perfection. Vision at her side, always so polished, the twins running around the pool, laughing loudly, while she served drinks and exchanged cordial words with Agnes. A perfect picture of normality.

But you.

You were there, trying to disappear among the other guests, but

Wanda always found you. Her gaze had an unerring way of finding you, even when you didn't want it to. Especially when she didn't want to. The way you looked at her - full of something intense, something forbidden - made her burn from the inside out.

And then came the twins' innocent, or perhaps not so innocent, comments. They were sharp, as only children could be. “Y/n, you're so pretty. You'll get a boyfriend at church, I'm sure!”

Wanda froze for a moment, the glass of lemonade in her hand almost slipping. Their laughter seemed to echo in her ears, and then she looked at you. Her expression was a mixture of embarrassment and something else. Something that only Wanda seemed to see.

You blushed, stammered something to change the subject, but it didn't work. Wanda saw the discomfort, the hurt in your eyes, and something inside her clenched tightly. But it was different from what she had expected. It wasn't empathy. It wasn't compassion.

It was anger.

Anger at herself for wanting you in a way she shouldn't have. Anger at Vision, who seemed so oblivious to the storm roaring inside her. And, above all, anger at you. For being there. For feeling so much. For making her feel so much.

When you disappeared from the party without warning, Wanda tried to ignore it. She tried to convince herself that she didn't care. But the thought of you wandering around alone, your thoughts in turmoil, made her grit her teeth. Then, when night fell and you didn't show up for dinner, Wanda lost her patience.

She didn't have to ask where you were. She didn't have to search. A cold, sure intuition led her straight to you. Yelena. Of course it would be her.

The sound of loud music and laughter echoed through the night as Wanda parked her car in front of the club. She felt her chest tighten, the air in the car becoming heavy. Her hands were shaking slightly, but she wasn't sure if it was from anger or the anticipation of seeing you again - and bringing you back under her control.

As she entered, the atmosphere almost suffocated her. The smell of alcohol, the sweat of dancing bodies, and the throb of the bass in the speakers were oppressive. But it was the sight of you - in the middle of the dance floor, dancing with Natasha Romanoff - that really destroyed her.

The way you laughed, the way the light reflected off your hair, the closeness between you and the other woman… it was unbearable. Something feral and possessive grew inside her, darkening her vision.

Now with you here, in front of her. All Wanda wanted was to make you pay. Looking at your trembling, demanding body - already so ready for her… The woman releases you, stepping back and making you look at her with puppy dog eyes.

Wanda smiles darkly.

“Aren't you a precious little whore?” She asked herself. “Kneel.” You were so well trained by her, being her good girl.

“Suck my cock, make it juicy for you, little girl.” Wanda ran the base of the strap-on over your lips, making you open them slowly, taking the toy into your mouth, savoring the flavor.

“That’s right, honey…” It excited Wanda to see you like that, humiliated, subjugated, sucking the cum off your plastic cock after you disobeyed her.

Grabbing your head, the woman pushes it deeper into your throat, making you cough. “Shh… breathe through your nose, Dekta.” The excitement was all there. In commanding, directing your steps, humiliating you and then welcoming you.

“Stand up and turn around again. Face forward this time, as much as I love your ass, I need your eyes for myself.” Wanda said, already positioning the strap-on at your entrance, however she only introduced the toy when you said she could.

Arching your back and breathing hard as Wanda's cock stretched you wide, you murmured, "Mommy, harder!" Wanda's eyes, which had previously been filled with rage, shone with the definition of the purest, rawest desire.

"Oh, look at that… My little slut is showing her claws… She likes to be taken hard, huh? Fucked until that tight little pussy of yours is all swollen, huh?"

The woman began with the thrusts, making you delirious. She placed you on top of a table so that you could wrap your legs around her waist—loving this position.

You moaned loudly, crazy, and Wanda increased the intensity in response. "Scream! That's it, scream! Let everyone hear who you belong to… Yelena, Natasha… They're no one to you, they could never make you moan like that."

Wanda murmured unconsciously, crazy with desire. You howled when you felt Wanda's cock go deeper inside you.

"Yes, baby. Only mommy knows how to do it, right? Only mommy knows how to hit your hot, juicy spot, right?”

“Mo-mommy!” You gasped, feeling your legs tremble—announcing the strong orgasms you were going to have.

“Oh, do you think you deserve it, Dekta?” She asked, her mouth sucking on your neck. “After everything you’ve done…” Wanda dug her hands into your hips, leaving finger marks on your immaculate skin.

You whimpered, desperate.

“No, mommy! Don’t deny it, please! I can be good! I ca—” You cut yourself off in a strangled scream as you felt the woman’s index finger caress your clit, prolonging your orgasm.

“But I didn’t even deny anything…” She laughed, enjoying your desperation, “You’re such a smart bitch, aren’t you?” Wanda breathed. “Apologize… apologize to your mommy!”

“Yes! I’m sorry, mommy! I’m sorry! I'm a needy little slut who needs your attention all the time.” You said against her lips, grabbing the lower one and giving it delicious little bites, making her moan into your lips.

“Mine!” She squeezed your clit between her fingers, making you scream and burst into a strong orgasm. “Cum, sweet girl, cum on my cock.”

You trembled around her, throwing your head back, making it irresistible for Wanda not to bite the spot hard. When you returned to your natural state, Wanda gave you no rest—making you kneel again.

“I need something, Dekta…” She let out a shaky sigh, finally exposing her real needs. “Mommy's pussy is sore seeing her baby girl so naughty and needy, fix it now, Y/n.”

You were mesmerized by the way Wanda was rocking her hips in front of you—your excitement gradually building again.

You could smell the woman’s arousal in front of you, intoxicating you. Hungry, you attacked Wanda’s pussy—as if you were kissing her. Hearing the woman exasperate in approval, you continued to do it harder.

“A little more pressure, darling… Oh!” She exclaimed as you reached her burning point. With her eyes rolled back and a deep, guttural moan, Wanda came—having to sit down quickly because her legs were shaking.

You sat up and looked at each other—the insecurity still growing in your eyes at not knowing her thoughts.

“Let’s go, little one.” She said, her voice still hoarse. You followed her, of course—but no words were exchanged on the way home.

[…]

The hot water cascaded down, filling the bathroom with steam. The sound was soothing, drowning out the world outside. You sat in the bathtub, your knees pulled up to your chest, while Wanda gently washed your hair. Your eyes were downcast, avoiding hers, your face marked by the weariness of the turbulent night.

“Do you want to tell me what happened today? Last chance.” Her voice was low, without the harshness of before. She was calm now, and her tone sounded almost motherly, which only made the knot in your chest tighten more.

You hesitated, feeling her hand slide through the strands of your hair, her fingers methodical as she applied the shampoo. “I don’t know where to start,” you admitted, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Start with what bothered you,” she suggested, unhurriedly, her fingers still working gentle circles on your scalp.

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes to let yourself feel the comfort of her touch. “It was lunch. It was… you and Vision.” The confession came out shaky, and you hated how vulnerable it sounded.

“Me and Vision?” She paused for a moment, her hands stilling before returning to work. “What exactly?”

“I don’t know…” you began, trying to gather your thoughts. “I know he’s your husband. I know that. But I can’t…” Your voice trailed off, and you bit your lip, trying to stop the tears from falling. “I feel like I’m alone… here. Like a shadow. Something you use when you want, but that will never be enough for you.”

Wanda stopped washing your hair and knelt beside you, ignoring the hot water that was soaking your clothes. She took your face in her hands, forcing you to look at her. Her eyes were softer now, but they still held that intensity that always made your heart skip a beat.

“Look at me, Y/n.” The order was gentle but firm. You obeyed, even if reluctantly. “I never want to hear you say that again. Do you hear me?”

You blinked, surprised by the seriousness in her voice.

“Do you think I would do all that for just anyone? Do you think I would lose my control, risk everything, for something that meant nothing to me?“

But I—” you tried to argue, but she interrupted, her voice lower, almost a whisper now.

“You’re not something I use. You’re… my refuge. My chaos and my peace at the same time. And yes, I’m selfish. Because even though I know it’s wrong, I can’t let you go.”

Her words disarmed you, taking you completely by surprise. You’d never heard her speak like that before, so open, so raw.

“But Vision, the twins… They’re your life,” you whispered, doubt still heavy in your voice.

“I love my boys, I would die and kill for them… But they, all of them, are my responsibility,” she corrected, her eyes burning into yours. “You are my choice, understand?” You felt the tears start to run down your face, mixing with the water from the shower. Wanda wiped them away with her thumbs, never looking away.

“I know I can’t give you what you deserve,” she continued, her voice almost breaking. “But you need to know that, to me, you are not replaceable. You are unique. And I would do anything for you, darling.”

You wanted to believe her, wanted to hang on to every word, but the doubt still lingered. Wanda seemed to sense this, because she leaned in close, her lips touching your forehead.

“Stop thinking.” She whispered, “Let me be in charge of everything, darling. Mommy will take care of everything.” Wanda helped you up from the tub carefully, holding your hands tightly as if you were going to break at any moment.

The water was still falling, warm against your skin, but you felt the heat of her hands more. She turned off the tap, wrapped a towel around your body and, with infinite patience, began to dry the wet strands of your hair.

The silence between you was filled only by the sound of the fabric rubbing against your skin, a moment as intimate as anything else you had shared.

“Raise your arms,” she asked, with a softness that contrasted with the undeniable authority in her voice. You obeyed without question, letting her put on a light nightgown on you, which seemed too big, probably hers.

As soon as she finished, Wanda took you by the hand and led you to her room. The bed was impeccable, the room perfumed with the soft scent of lavender. You hesitated for a moment at the door, but Wanda, noticing, gave a light tug on your arm for you to follow.

She laid you down carefully, adjusting the blankets around you, and then sat on the edge of the bed, watching you as if she were checking every detail to make sure you were comfortable.

“Am I still going to be punished?” you asked softly, your voice filled with a mix of nervousness and anticipation.

Wanda’s smile was barely noticeable, but you saw it. She tilted her head, her fingers caressing your cheek with the same lightness as a feather.

“Without a doubt,” she replied, her tone soft but full of promise that made your heart race.

You swallowed hard, but before you could think of a response, Wanda lay down next to you, pulling you closer. Her arms wrapped around you, firm and protective, and she began to run her hand through your wet hair again, an almost hypnotic rhythm.

“Now, close your eyes for me, kitten,” she murmured, her lips close to your ear. You obeyed, feeling her warmth envelop you completely.

She began to rock you with slow, deliberate movements, small, gentle pats on your bottom, following the rhythm of your breathing. It was an unexpected gesture, but strangely comforting, and you felt your body begin to relax.

“You are mine, Y/n,” she said softly, as if she were speaking more to herself than to you. “And I will make you understand that, in every way possible.”

Your eyes grew heavy, the tiredness and the feeling of absolute security finally overcoming the tension of the day. The last thing you felt was Wanda’s comforting touch and the soft melody she hummed, almost imperceptibly, before falling into a deep, peaceful sleep.

In that moment, as she bathed you, Wanda felt her own anger melt away, transforming into something more tender, but equally selfish.

The care she offered you was not just out of compassion; it was confirmation that you were hers. Every touch, every soft word, was a way of reaffirming that dominance.

And as she rocked you, she felt a peace that almost frightened her.

There was something deeply comforting about seeing you so surrendered, so vulnerable. As if, in that moment, nothing else in the world mattered except you, there, in her arms.

But at the same time, Wanda knew that she still had a long way to go.

Because as she tucked you in, she was also making plans. Plans to show you, slowly and deliberately, that you would never need—nor should—seek comfort anywhere else.

~*~

Y/n don't cry, your mommy is here.

UREVISED CHAPTER

Tag List <3

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@indentity0018 @beggingonmykneesforher

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[astromeda22]

Astromeda's Best Career Astro Indicators

Since this was the most requested post on the poll with over half of voters asking for career indicators: let me get right into the good stuff!

I hope you'll like this post, follow if you want to see more!

༄˖°.💸.ೃ࿔👩🏻‍💻*:･

Your seasoned astrologer knows: as the world shifts into a more value-based society rather than time-based (cuz what is time anyways?) there's usually not just one single career you're meant to do in this lifetime. at least not 80% of us!

Even if you do just one single career from age 18-108, you might still find yourself evolving through other works which could be even charity or volunteer-based.

With that in mind, we should still look to our charts if faced with a career decision or any sort of change.

Astromeda's best indicators for your most successful, ideal, flourishing career

V E N U S

People often overlook Venus, but she's responsible for wealth and not just beauty. If you think about it, money flows towards beautiful things, beautiful people and beautiful experiences very easily.

Venus is also how you value yourself, your resources, and what you attract.

Two best things to look at is the aspects between venus and any planets, as well as any money asteroids conjunct/sextile/trine venus.

When Venus is strong or positively aspected, it often bestows natural magnetism for wealth, especially through relationships, beauty, creativity, and diplomacy.

Some examples:

If Venus is in the 2nd house, it suggests ease in attracting resources and making money through Venusian themes—art, beauty, fashion, social networking, or anything that harmonizes.

Venus in the 8th house may indicate wealth through inheritance, partnerships, or deep transformation—though it may come with emotional intensity.

Main Money asteroids I usually read venus with:

MONY 9777, FORTUNA 19, BANKS 13956

When your charge up your venus, you can make so much more!

S T E L L I U M S

Any stellium in your chart (3 planets+ in same house/sign) shows where your energy is highly potent. and potency equals ambition and eventually also mastery.

Some examples:

A 3H stellium? You could make money through communication, writing, teaching, or even podcasting.

A 6H stellium? You'd make money once you provide daily or structured value for people.

A 12H stellium often indicates karmic professions—think therapists, intuitives, or people working in hidden institutions like hospitals or retreats.

I C , D C

The MC gets all the career glory, but:

A planet conjunct the Imum Coeli (IC) on your 4th house cusp often influences the foundation of your career roots or family business karma. it shows, essentially, what makes you keep moving on and charging forward.

Some examples:

Sun on IC: Private leader. Wants to build a legacy. May shine working from home or in real estate/family biz.

Moon on IC: Strong pull to nurture. Ideal for healing careers, coaching, or family-centered entrepreneurship.

Venus on IC: Needs aesthetic security; could thrive in home design, beauty from home, or through family inheritance.

Saturn on IC: Had to grow up fast. Builds a strong, enduring career slowly and privately—often real estate, land, elder care.

Pluto on IC: Transforms pain into power—possibly a career in deep healing, trauma work, or something from family karma.

The Descendant (DC) which is your 7H cusp, shows what type of people you're designed to work with or for. A Mars conjunct the Descendant? You thrive in competitive, active partnerships—maybe in law, sales, or even combat sports.

Some examples:

Venus on DC: People love working with you. Great for careers in art, law, luxury, client services, or marriage therapy.

Mars on DC: Attracts competitive, high-drive collaborators. Can lead or be led. Great for entrepreneurial partnerships.

Jupiter on DC: Expands through alliances. Ideal for law, coaching, consulting—career luck comes through others.

Saturn on DC: Serious business partnerships. Great for long-term business deals, high-stakes negotiations.

Uranus on DC: Needs unconventional partnerships. Thrives in innovation, tech collabs, or disruptive business models.

1 1 T H H O U S E A C T I V I T Y

+ The 11th house is more than just friends—it's your networking venues, vision, and long-term goals. Strong placements here (especially Venus, Jupiter, or Saturn) can indicate career progress through social influence, visionary work, or community building.

Example:

Venus or Jupiter in 11th house help people become internet sensation or make money through online communities (even from behind the scenes - working online, setting up a store, managing a social media app)

Basically, The 11th house is like quantum wealth—you have to trust the network effect. What you give multiplies in unexpected places and comes back bigger than you planned.

༄˖°.💸.ೃ࿔👩🏻‍💻*:･

p.s. if you're here, I'm offering one free reading by the end of this week (august 7th at 23:59 EST) and you can still participate!

I hope you learned something new,

As always: comments are open for any questions!

Love, Astromeda

[perry-the-human-fanzine]

A FANZINE? A PERRY THE HUMAN FANZINE?!

Welcome to this first little intro to what this fanzine is going to be! Some things might change as we get organized, but for now, here are the main details—so exciting!

Non-profit. I have no idea how to use platforms like Kickstarter and similars, and I wouldn’t feel comfortable handling other people’s money. So this zine will be completely free, made purely for love and our monotremed muse.

For all audiences. No explicit content, at least in this first edition.

This is a Perryshmirtz-friendly zine. You don’t have to be a shipper to participate, and the content won’t focus on the pairing, but keep in mind that a large portion of the fandom centers their work around it. Respect and community are key.

If all goes well, sign-ups will begin on June 5th (baby, we are back), and there will be two checkpoints: June 21st for submitting the first part (don’t worry, this part is just basic info about your version of Human!Perry), and August 1st for submitting the rest (fanart and fanfics). The official release date of the complete zine is currently set for August 31st. PDF download links will be posted on this blog so that anyone interested can access it.

Fanart: Traditional or digital—it doesn’t matter. We want every Perry flavor we can get.

Fanfics: The saddest thing you’ve ever read? Perry on an actual day off? Write, write, write—we want to read it all.

Articles: We are people of culture.

Printable. On the other hand, the design will be print-friendly for home printers—for those who enjoy binding their own books—or even for print-on-demand services, as long as, of course, it's not for commercial use. It’ll be as accessible as we can make it.

English: This will be the official language. If it’s not your native language or you struggle with it (look at me), don’t worry—there are tons of tools online to help you, and you can even ask another participant for help.

This zine is open to suggestions, so if you have an idea you think is amazing… we’re all ears.

Spread the word! If you have friends outside Tumblr who have their own version of Perry, encourage them to join in. The more, the merrier!

Summer belongs to you! Remember, this is a fan project made by fans for fans, just for fun. If you have any doubts or run into issues during the process, don’t hesitate to reach out via blog messages, chat, or the Discord channel (which doesn’t exist yet, but will be the sing-up day). The main goal of this zine is to have fun.

[cindersnows]

the problem with mitsi (or as i like to call it. mitsogyny)

(context: this was written under a youtube video, which i'm sure most of us have at least seen pop up in our recommendeds, in response to many people taking criticism against the new episode. it has been edited a little to be more cohesive as a somewhat-essay)

ok, i wanted to write out a rant/essay/ramble/whatever sort of summarising the criticism against mitsi's plotline because a lot of the people here seem to be misunderstanding the fundamental issue that people have with it, including some of those people themselves.

first off, an analysis that i think tell both sides of the argument very well which i feel should be read before reading the essay: Mitsi: What Makes A Fridged Character (and why y'all are wrong about it) | an AvA essay by InksandPensblog. i will note: i don't care to discuss whether mitsi was fridged or not and that won't be of much importance in this post. the above link gives some insight into some of the fandom's criticism of mitsi and how she was "fridged", defining common tropes for examples. that's what's relevant to this post.

the main issue with mitsi, in my opinion, is less with the fact that mitsi's a girl and moreso the fact that she's one of the only female-coded character in the series, and that her character's main purpose was to further victim's own development. the other arguably female-coded character in the series is pink, who (like navy) only really exists to explain purple's motivations. i don't have much of an issue with that since they're not meant to be important or sympathised with at all. that's not their job in the story.

with mitsi, i've seen people point out that she has more character to her than just victim's love interest and supporter: she invents rocketcorp, she's smart, she's kind, innocent and helpful. narratively speaking, she shows other creations' relationships with their animators, parallels her innocence with victim's trauma, and introduces victim to the outernet (as most fans call the stick realm).

but most of this things imo are either stretches or invalid arguments. she's not really a 2/3-dimensional character in any way; her main character traits boil down to the fact that she likes to be in service of others with no nuance behind why she likes helping people. she hypes up victim for the villagers, she starts a company with him to share his talents with the world, and she helps him overcome his trauma from alan's torture. all of her main plot beats center around victim: and while technically the sticks are genderless and free to be interpreted however the viewer wants, alan and most of his team see all the main characters as male, and that subconciously affects how they're written. mitsi, the first major female-coded character, spends most of her storyline in service of victim, a character not written as female.

there's also the issue of her being victim's canonical love interest. i feel like this statement from alan is important to keep in mind (don't mind the sound effects and edits, this is the only isolated clip i can find at the moment). in particular:

"i just assume that [the ava/m characters] are just a bunch of bros]. i haven't thought of adding any female stick figures but i think it'd be good. i don't want to introduce any romance though, i don't want that to be a theme."

he seems to have changed his mind on that last part, which is fine, but the notable part for me is that he seems to associate female characters with romance from the getgo. before anyone misinterprets this, i'm not trying to call alan sexist or anything. but there's a common issue with women in stories being reduced to just a romantic partner for the male lead, and mitsi falls under this, with her entire character existing to serve victim. (not to mention people will make things about romance whether you like it or not. that's just basic fandom. search up grapeduo or chodark.) even her death is to put victim on the path of vengeance--- it doesn't need to happen to show the extent of tco and tdl's destruction, because that's already made pretty clear in ava s2 the flashback and the earlier scenes showing various characters escaping burning buildings. when you write a female-coded character whose only purpose is to serve a male character, you're contributing to sexist narratives.

a counter i see many people point out with the idea that she has no character is that she does have character traits, it's just that they're generic ones like "kind" and "innocent". the issue is that she has no flaws to counterpoint this; it's not that she didn't have enough screentime. in ava4 for example, we see tsc's flaws pretty clearly; they can be very mean when they want to, they're petty (albeit for a fair reason), they're a little impulsive. this is shown in 11 minutes (from the moment they come alive to the end of the video).

with mitsi meanwhile… she doesn't seem to have any flaws? she helps victim whenever she can. she's nice to all the villagers. her customers all like her and she's a great leader at rocket corp (to note, specifically as part of a pair with victim. they're a power couple, she's barely given credit for her work alone). she has 13 minutes of screentime, or 10 if you count from her waking up in the outernet. there's plenty of opportunities to show her having flaws; maybe she acts a little selfish during tdl and tco's attack, only wanting to help herself and agent smith, or maybe she overworks herself, or feels awkward at having too much attention (and that could also be why she redirects so much attention to victim, she's shy). you could argue that the episode needs to develop victim and agent smith too, but ava4 shows that's easy to do too: just a few seconds dedicated to showing rgyb fighting over who leaves first shows that they can be selfish and childish. it's very easy to insert a moment like that for mitsi.

it's a little disappointing when the first major female-coded character in ava is completely flawless, with no personality outside of being nice and helpful for others.

also, slightly unrelated, check out this quote from mitsi's plushie website: "her white featureless face seems to ooze mystery and feminine power all at the same time." her main character trait, as a woman, is being feminine. it's irritating as someone who's been raised a woman to see her reduced to just her gender. she feels more plastic than a person, like the concept of what a woman should be (perfect, kind, useful) and not an actual character/person.

i would expect more from the writing in the series seeing as it's not just an independent passion project anymore, and has multiple writers that all could've worked to flesh out mitsi, or at least get a sensitivity reader of sorts to point these issues out. it's extremely disappointing and i can understand why people were upset.

tldr: the problem isn't just that mitsi's a girl, or that she's nice or dating victim, it's that she's written in a misogynistic way.

[ak-vintage]

Wash & Fold

Pairing: Ezra x f!reader

Prompt: Two strangers discover they’ve been swapping items unknowingly through a communal space, each leaving an X in return until curiosity forces a meeting.

Summary: After discovering some unfamiliar clothes in your laundry (and losing some of your own in return), you begin exchanging messages with another resident in your apartment complex.

Word Count: 15.5K

Tags & Warnings: 18+ MDNI! Modern AU, unspecified age gap (Ezra is intended to be older, but use your own imagination on how much older), no use of Y/N, minimal descriptions of reader character, second-person POV, reader is getting over a recent breakup, mildly pervy Ezra, pleasure dom Ezra, SMUT (dry humping, vaginal fingering, squirting, biting, unprotected P in V sex, overstimulation, creampie, Ezra’s filthy yapping and filthy fucking).

Written for @jolapeno’s Dear-uary Epistolary Writing Challenge. Dividers by @saradika-graphics.

Read on AO3 | Main Masterlist

You have never considered yourself to be an especially domestic person.

Sure, you are a decent cook, but the handful of recipes you rotate between each week require little in the way of culinary skills. The ingredients are simple and cheap, the prep work is minimal, and the actual cooking involves nothing more than a couple of burners on the stovetop or perhaps a slow cooker if you’re feeling especially ambitious. The final products are always serviceable, but nothing more complex or skillful than what a college student might be able to achieve in their first apartment.

You’re a reluctant cleaner, as well. Your dishes tend to pile in the sink for days before you work up the gumption to scrub them, and you’re embarrassed to admit to the amount of time you have gone without vacuuming your carpets or mopping your kitchen floor. When you make plans to have friends over – or god forbid a date – you often have been guilty of racing around your apartment at the last possible minute, frantically cleaning things that ought to have been cleaned ages ago. It seems the potential shame of someone else thinking you lived in a messy home is the only motivator strong enough to get you into gear.

But there is perhaps one domestic task in which you find genuine joy. Laundry.

You love the ritual of it – the simple satisfaction of sorting, the methodical, repetitive action of folding, the tidy little piles of underwear and socks and pajamas and jeans spread out over the surface of your bed as you worked. You love watching the way your dresser goes from barren to pleasingly full as the soft drone of your current audiobook or a favorite podcast drifts through your headphones. You even love the scent of your detergent – it’s a small luxury, but you notice it every time you open your closet, and it never fails to make you smile.

Every Sunday morning, the routine is the same, and with it comes a meditative calm that always helps you center and reset yourself for the coming week. You’ve found yourself leaning on the consistency, the predictability of it all even moreso in recent weeks, which is why when you encounter a peculiar piece of clothing mixed in with your clean laundry, still warm from the dryer downstairs, you almost toss the thing straight into the garbage.

It's a large men’s sock – charcoal gray, crew length, and heavily worn. It sports two holes, one in the toe and one in the heel, and the knit fabric has pilled so intensely that from far away, it almost looks speckled. A ragged piece of clothing if you’ve ever seen one and nothing like anything in your own wardrobe. Instantly, you presume it must be his.

The mere thought of him leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you eye the offending sock with reproach. Eight months of your life wasted on a man who could never seem to remember your takeout order, who called your master’s degree cute, who always had some new excuse to not introduce you to the gaggle of fellow finance bros constantly blowing up his phone and filling his evenings with cocktail hours and “networking events.”

Looking back on it now, you can be more honest with yourself about all the things you had ignored in the moment – all the little red flags that might have been passable on their own but combined with everything else painted a picture of a man who saw you as a convenience rather than a privilege, a little something to be kept on the side, held at arm’s length until he grew bored of you and moved on. And he had moved on, in the tritest way possible – with an intern from his office named Kyleigh.

You are eager to do the same, to pack the lackluster memories of him away in a box and shove that box so far into the back of your mind that you forget it even exists. This sock, sticking out bizarrely in the basket of soft creams and delicate blushes that you favor, has derailed those efforts. You’ve been doing so well avoiding thoughts of him.

You toss it into the paper grocery bag you have tucked into the corner of your bedroom, the one containing the handful of little things you’ve found around your apartment in the three weeks since his departure that you know belong to him. A blue silk tie. A bulky black phone charger that is incompatible with your phone model. A half-used tube of plain, unflavored Chapstick. A dogeared copy of Atomic Habits. And now this sock.

You have no idea how it ended up in your hamper in the first place, but it hardly matters, you decide. You refuse to let the thought of it – or the man it belongs to – darken your peaceful morning any longer. You’ll get the bag of stuff back to him at some point. Until then, he’ll simply have to make do with a missing sock.

What begins as a singular sock, however, quickly becomes more as over the next several weeks, you continue to discover foreign items of clothing in your laundry.

First, another sock, this one navy blue and even more worn than the first, the fabric loose and shapeless with time. Then, a pair of maroon men’s athletic shorts with frayed, raw hems around the legs and worn-out elastic at the waist. A ribbed undershirt in age-patinaed white comes next, and then finally, a true treasure – the softest, most perfectly worn-in gray t-shirt. It is oversized (for you, anyway) and pure cotton, stretched and softened with countless washes and wears so that it pools like butter in your hands, and for the first time, it occurs to you that there is no way that these mysterious items of clothing are relics of your relationship that you had simply missed on your first pass through your apartment to gather his things. Your ex, for one, had had many flaws, but hanging on to shabby, hole-riddled clothing that was nearly falling apart was not one of them. And for another thing, you feel certain that you would have known if your ex had owned a t-shirt like this one while you were together. If he had, you would have stolen it for yourself a long time ago.

For lack of something better to do with them, the navy sock, basketball shorts, and undershirt all make their way into the paper bag anyway. The t-shirt, however, gets folded neatly and added to your pajama drawer. Some poor man in your apartment building may be missing it now, but in a building with over a hundred units and only one basement laundry facility, you cannot imagine the complexities of attempting to reunite it with its owner.

His loss will simply have to be your gain.

The week following the fortuitous discovery of the most perfect t-shirt known to man, you encounter another disruption to your sacred routine, though this time, rather than a mysterious item of clothing somehow joining your basket, it comes in the form of a hand-written note.

The laundry facility in your apartment complex is nothing to speak of, and for as much as you enjoy this particular chore, you prefer to spend as little time in the dingy, windowless room as you can manage. Two rows of stainless steel, coin-operated washers abut each other down the center of the linoleum-tiled square, while matching dryers stack two high and six wide against the far wall. The air there is stuffy, warm and humid and smelling strongly of bleach, and the constant hum and rumble of the machines is almost more than the noise cancelling in your headphones can handle.

Typically, you don’t choose to linger – you grab your favorite washers as quickly as you can manage, and you set a timer on your phone for the duration of the wash so you can return to your apartment to wait out the cycle. Today, however, as you are slotting your collection of quarters into your machines, something out of place catches your eye.

Stuck to the wall of dryers is a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearly ripped from a spiralbound notebook and scribbled on in haste. You cock your head at the sight, frowning. You’re certain it must have been left by a fellow resident, for any messages from the complex’s management would have at least been typed and printed out.

Internally, you roll  your eyes – how often had a passive aggressive note left in a common area actually resulted in changed behavior? You came across them on occasion, in the mail room or in the lounge or in one of the elevators, and whatever it was the poster was disgruntled about only ever seemed to worsen after that. Still, once you have your washers going, you can’t help but approach the dryers to get a better look at the curious thing.

Your suspicions are quickly confirmed – it is from another tenant, written in a tight, hurried scrawl in dry, patchy blue ink and taped to the steel face of one of the dryers with a raggedly-torn piece of masking tape. It reads:

You find yourself quirking a puzzled smile as you read, the corners of your lips curling up at the writer’s flowery word choice. It’s almost comically formal for something clearly written in a rush, and the juxtaposition of the courtly language with the humble, jagged-edged notebook paper sparks your intrigue. Of course, there’s also the matter of the handful of mysterious garments you have been collecting. You can’t help but wonder whether this…loquacious neighbor of yours is the owner of the scruffy clothing items slowly collecting dust in the corner of your bedroom.

That would be another odd comparison, you think. That someone so meticulous with their words should be so careless with their clothing. You suppose you shouldn’t judge – perhaps he simply cannot afford to replace his things when they wear through. But still, you can’t reconcile the image you have created in your mind of the author of this note with the unkempt man who owns the clothes that keep ending up in your laundry.

It might be worth responding if only to satisfy your growing curiosity.

When you return to the laundry room to move your clothes from the washers to the dryers, you bring with you a bright pink, oversized sticky note from your favorite stationary set and attach it to the wrinkled piece of notebook paper.

Your curiosity drives you back down into the laundry room the next day.

It’s rare for you to deviate from your routine like this, but there’s something that feels almost fantastical about this nameless, faceless exchange. The author of that note might be someone you have encountered a thousand times without ever knowing.

The thought inspires your imagination, makes you think of fairytales and fate and all kinds of other childish things. Perhaps you have crossed paths with this stranger – with their funny, fanciful language and their unkempt presentation – in the mail room or in the elevator or outside the leasing office. You trade courteous hellos and the occasional polite smile with your neighbors when you see them, but you have never intentionally sought any of them out before. This person could be anyone, and that has you making your way back to the basement long before your next planned laundry day.

The moment you enter the stuffy, grimy little room, your eyes go straight for the wall of dryers where the last note was left. A smile splits your face almost immediately. The note from yesterday is gone, as is your bright pink reply. In their place, another torn piece of notebook paper has been left, this time stuck to the face of the dryer with a clear strip of packing tape. More secure, more intentional, like whoever had left it had intended for it to be able to stick in place for a long time even in the humid, poorly-ventilated space.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in anticipation, you’re thankful to be the only person in the room as you eagerly dart over to read it.

In the same hurried penmanship as the previous note, this one reads:

A rush of satisfaction floods you as you read. This is the mysterious owner of the clothes you’ve been finding! You must have a washer or dryer preference in common, you think, if his belongings continue to be mixed in with yours. You can see how it could happen, particularly if he was in a rush. A dark colored sock left in the bottom of the drum or stuck to the side after a spin cycle wasn’t unheard of.

Perhaps you ought to do a better job of checking your machines before blindly dumping your clothes in…

You also feel confident now that this is, in fact, a man that you’re dealing with, which makes his choice of vocabulary all the more intriguing. Not that there is anything especially feminine about his choice of words, but more that the men you find yourself spending time with tend to get their intellectual stimulation from manosphere podcasts and YouTube comedians. This man writes like a scholar, like a patron of the arts, like a Regency-era lordling. It is as refreshing as it is puzzling, and the sparkling prose combined with the mystery of the whole thing has you feeling rather enchanted.

And, perhaps the greatest victory of all, is that E makes no mention whatsoever of your new favorite t-shirt. The thin, buttery-soft thing has become a staple of your loungewear collection over the last few weeks. The way it falls over your skin so perfectly, the way it wraps itself around you like a friend – you can’t imagine parting with it now. Thankfully, it sounds like you won’t have to.

Pulling your pink pad of sticky notes out of your bag, you excitedly pen your reply.

Several more days pass before your now-daily trips to the laundry room finally bear fruit.

It’s Saturday morning, and rather than finding a new piece of crinkled notebook paper in place of the old, instead you find that someone has written on your pink sticky note, adding their own message to the bottom of the scrap of stationary. You recognize the handwriting immediately, though it’s even more irregular than usual. Scribbled in the lower right corner of the note, it reads:

In cramped, halting, angular strokes, a phone number has been added to the bottom of the note – even smaller than the words he somehow managed to fit on the same sheet of paper as your own. But by some miracle, with a squint and a turn of your head, you’re able to read it, and you pull your phone out of your pocket to quickly save it in your contacts.

laundry neighbor🧦, you call him in your address book with a smirk, and you decide to shoot him a text when you arrive back at your apartment. In the meantime, however, you are quick to yank both of the old notes off of the dryer, crumple them up into a ball, and toss them into the nearby garbage can.

As you catch the elevator back to your floor, you can’t help but wonder about the kind of man who was perfectly comfortable leaving his personal phone number in a public space for anyone to read and do with as they chose, but who drew the line at retrieving a small stack of holey, threadbare clothes from the same public space. You can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to steal the things that you had inadvertently collected from this man over the last several weeks; in fact, you feel confident that if you had ever seen them there while doing your own washing, you wouldn’t have spared them a second thought.

If anything, you think, if they had been left there long enough, I might have taken the liberty of throwing them in the trash.

Still, you suppose there’s no accounting for taste. And E had admitted to being superstitious about the shorts in particular, so perhaps this strange man was simply a creature of habit, one who did not part with such things easily.

A creature of habit who keeps strange hours and writes like someone from a different century. No matter how much you try, you simply cannot make heads or tails of this mysterious man.

Several hours pass before you receive a reply from the enigmatic E. You’re preparing to settle in for the night, a book and a glass of wine in hand, when your phone vibrates in the pocket of your pajama pants. Digging it out, you quirk a curious smile at what you see.

hi e! saw your response to my note about your clothes. when would be a good time for us to meet up so i can get those back to you? Ah! Good morning, little bird! I suppose I should say good evening, though it is my morning. Apologies for the delayed reply. As I mentioned, I keep odd hours. I would be available to meet with you tonight after my shift, if you are amenable? I typically return home around 4 in the morning.

You make no attempt to smother the incredulous laugh that bubbles up in your chest as his suggestion. What kind of person tried to make plans for 4:00 in the morning? You couldn’t imagine dragging yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to meet with a stranger just to hand off a couple socks. Shaking your head, you’re quick to type out a reply.

4 am??? 😳 you weren’t kidding, those are some weird hours 😅 sorry dude i will def be asleep at 4 😪 how about this time tomorrow? if you work nights, would you be awake then?

Three bouncing dots appear at the bottom of the screen, flashing in and out of existence a handful of times before his message finally coalesces.

An astute observation and suggestion. Ordinarily, yes, I would. But unfortunately, I have already agreed to an extended shift tomorrow to cover for a colleague.

A frown knits across your brow, your thumb tapping against the edge of your wine glass as you ponder your options. In your mind, you run through your schedule for the week, matching it up against what little  you know of E’s availability. It’s a challenging fit. A brief flash of irritation passes through you at the strange man’s stubbornness. If only he would allow you to simply leave the clothes in the laundry room – then he could collect them at his leisure, and the issue would resolve itself.

However, as you begin to type up precisely that suggestion (with no small amount of snark), you find yourself pausing.

If you leave the clothes for him to pick up on his own, you may never have the opportunity to meet him, to finally put a face and a voice to the person behind the notes. As it stands, you don’t even know this man’s name, but this odd little exchange easily has become the most entertaining thing to happen to you in a long time. It’s been a nice distraction from the absence of your ex, strangely making you feel a little less alone.

Drawing your lower lip between your teeth in contemplation, you delete the message you had been typing and compose another one instead.

You would put the ball in his court, put the responsibility on him to coordinate a plan for you to connect. The moment the message marks as delivered, you see those bouncing dots appear again. His reply is quick, as though he had been waiting on the other end of the line the whole time you deliberated. The thought has a strange warmth settling in your chest, blooming in your cheeks.

ok no worries. you wanna just text me whenever you’re free and we’ll see when our schedules line up? i’m pretty flexible but it sounds like we might work opposite hours 😅 Indeed, a common occurrence, I’m afraid, but such is the life of a bartender. But yes, I will be in touch. I appreciate you looking after my things until we can arrange a meeting! I am in your debt for your patience.

Your flush deepens at the compliment, and you cannot fight the grin that tugs at your lips. Flatterer, you think to yourself.

not a problem! we’ll make it work eventually 😊

Not ten seconds passes, and then:

Looking forward to it, little bird. Enjoy the rest of your evening. you too 😊 have a good shift

Good morning, little bird! The sun is rising, and I am preparing to retire. Do you perhaps wish to meet in the lobby before then? I’m unsure of your schedule, but I know many of the other tenants are departing for work at this time. sorry e 🙁 I left about 20 min ago, got a workout class on monday mornings. sleep well!

Thoughts of the man who has ostensibly become your pen pal linger at the back of your mind throughout your work day. It’s been a while since you received a “good morning” text from anyone, though you are quick to scold yourself for the little flutter that thought sets off in your stomach.

You think of the appalling collection of socks and lounge clothes, now removed from the bag of your ex’s belongings and taking pride of place on your kitchen counter, right next to the entrance to your apartment. That, truly, is all you know about him, you remind yourself – that he wears socks with holes in them and shorts with no elastic and undershirts with pit and neck stains. Not exactly the most appealing prospect.

Not that there ought to be anything appealing about him. He could be barely out of school. He could be an old man. He could be married. If his glittering prose and flattering pet names have charmed you, then you have no one but yourself and your own fanciful imagination to blame.

Of course, none of these musings stop you from shooting off a quick text to him on your way home from work.

hey! i’m headed home now, you awake? could meet up downstairs in 15?

To your disappointment, your message remains unread for several more hours. It isn’t until you’re queueing up your third episode of your favorite syndicated reality show, wrapped in a blanket and cradling a late-night bowl of ice cream in your lap, that you receive a response.

Apologies once again, birdie. By the time I noticed your message, I was already in the car. Thank you for keeping in contact – your diligence for a neighbor you do not even know is admirable. lol i try 🤷‍♀️ 😊

The next time you hear from E, it is early in the morning. You’re barely awake, eyes still bleary as you prepare yourself a cup of coffee, and the notification that greets you when you open your phone for the first time is two new messages from him, sent a couple hours ago.

I am certain you will not see this until morning, but be cautious using the northeast elevator tomorrow. It is making the most bizarre noise, and the door is rather sluggish on opening. Just now, I was nearly unable to fit through to exit the car when I reached my floor. I have informed maintenance, but I am sure you know as well as I how long it takes that old codger to get anything done. If it is not blocked for use by the time you leave tomorrow, I would suggest waiting until the other is available.

Your chest warms at the consideration, that he would have such a harrowing experience and think to warn you against it. Fully awake now, you thumb a reply and send it off, hoping he sees it when he wakes tonight for his shift.

omg thanks for the heads up! glad you’re okay and didn’t get stuck!

Later, after safely making your way downstairs and over to the parking deck, you cannot seem to stop yourself from sending another.

there is an out of service sign on it now, thank god! have a good sleep e!

[Attached: JPG] fyi reno crew in the lobby today. idk if you have your car in the deck but you may wanna take the side exit and walk around. the workers gave me a dirty look for walking on the unsealed floor lol Awful rude of them. You couldn’t have known. If management didn’t want tenants in the lobby today, perhaps they ought to have put up proper signage. Thank you for the message, birdie. I will do as you suggested. I hope you had a pleasant day at work. …what is it that you do for a living, if you don’t mind my asking? i’m a librarian 🤓 📚 !!! Forgive my ineloquence. I was unaware I have been corresponding with a scholar! lmao says the man who writes like someone out of an austen novel I will take that as a compliment! Do you enjoy it? the way you talk or being a librarian? 😉 Clever girl. 😏 Both. Either. yes very much! to both 😇 and how do you know i’m a girl? all you know for sure is we live in the same building. i could be anyone 👀 The way you speak is decidedly feminine, though you’re right, I should not make such assumptions. I apologize if I have offended you. No disrespect was intended. 😂 you’re fine, just giving you a hard time. you assumed correctly anyway how about you? do you enjoy what you do? It certainly is not my first choice of occupation, but it pays enough for me to make my way through the world, which is a privilege in itself. It also helps that I am quite good at it, if I do say so myself. lol nothing wrong with knowing yourself! what would be your first choice? if not bartending? I would be an academic. I do love books. well if you ever find yourself awake during normal business hours you’re welcome at the library anytime. we have a few of those 😉 Cheeky bird.

Things continue in this vein for several more days – courteous, neighborly messages about things happening around the complex that turn into brief, companionable conversations. Missed offers to meet, incompatible schedules, sleep and work and fitness classes and plans with friends somehow always seeming to come at the worst possible moments. You find yourself equal parts aggravated and entertained by what has turned into a never-ending game of phone tag with someone who you still, somehow, have never met. It wasn’t exactly what you had signed up for when you responded to the bedraggled little note in the laundry room, but you couldn’t say you were disappointed at how things had turned out.

At this point, the novelty of the clothes taking up space on your kitchen counter has faded, the little pile melting into the background and simply becoming part of your daily scenery, and every time you see E’s moniker and the little sock emoji come across your phone screen, you can’t help but smile. It’s been the best distraction you could have asked for, though a part of you knows that such a sentiment is leaning further away from whimsical and more toward delusional.

Perhaps that’s why when the charming, fresh-faced barista at your favorite coffee shop finally works up the gumption to ask for your number, you give it to him.

Perhaps that’s why when that same barista asks you out for dinner and drinks, you agree.

Little bird, I have tremendous news! The coworker whose shift I covered a while back has offered to return the favor. I am available this evening to collect my laundry from you. When would be best for us to meet? oh e i’m sorry ☹️ this would have been a great night for it too! but i actually have a date. i’ll be gone most of the evening. I see. Not to worry, birdie. I hope you enjoy yourself. thanks 😊 i hope so too lol

You’re nothing but a lump of dry mouth and regret the next morning when the cheerful little buzz of your phone draws you out from under the downy refuge of your blankets. Your curtains are pulled tight, though a bit of the late morning sunshine still manages to spill through the gaps around the window frame, and you frown at it venomously as though your stare could will the light to dampen itself in spite of the idyllic weather.

Dragging the brightness of your phone screen all the way down, you open your notifications with a grumble.

How do you fare this morning? [Attached: GIF] Haha! That well? Not the pleasant evening you were hoping for, little bird? date was boring he was so boring drank too much trying to make it fun Ah, I see. In my experience, a good breakfast and an electrolyte-boosting beverage would do you well.

You glance over at your bedside table where two bottles of pale blue liquid sit, leaving rings of condensation on the painted wood surface. One is half empty, the other still unopened.

doordashed a couple bottles of gatorade. too hungover to make breakfast.

Less than 30 seconds later, another notification appears at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1982 paid you $20 “🍳🥓🥞” Order yourself the “Farmer’s Combo” from the diner on 35th. Have them add cheddar to the scrambled eggs. You will not regret it.

Ezra.

His name is Ezra.

Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, forcing the fog from your throbbing head, you tap out your reply as quickly as you can manage.

omg you did not have to do that Perhaps not, but you deserve nothing less after such a lackluster experience.

The unexpected generosity has you melting, as does the sweetness of his words. After the disappointment of your first foray back into the dating world, such kindness from a total stranger was equally surprising and moving. It makes you want to share it all with him, to explain in detail all of the various ways in which the barista had been a terrible choice. His stilted manner, his excessive fondness for vodka Redbulls, his awkward sense of humor…

ugh you can say that again he sucked so bad e omg idk why i said yes to him in the first place

His sloppy mouth, his grabby hands, his clumsy fingers, his complete lack of interest in making sure you came…

The way he had completely and utterly failed to keep quiet as he stumbled out the door in the middle of the night.

def should not have brought him home

You pause for a moment, the words of your most recent message staring back at you from your phone screen as though taunting you. The blush rising in your cheeks is enough to make your blankets feel suddenly stifling, and your stomach drops at the realization that E – Ezra, your neighbor, a man you have never met but on whom you are quickly developing a bit of a schoolgirl crush – is going to read it. The two of you have never discussed anything like this before. Even in your little occasional flirtations, there has never been even the suggestion of anything sexual.

This unknown stranger really does not need to know anything about your sex life, you decide.

However, just as you are about to recall the message, you watch in horror as the “delivered” status flips to “read.”

A wave of nerves floods your system, pushing out the last of the grogginess still clouding your mind, and try as you might, you can think of no excuse you could spin, no joke you could tell.

shit was hoping you hadn’t read that yet Alas, little bird. There is no need to be embarrassed. sorry idk why i’m trying to gossip w/ you like one of my girlfriends. plz forget i said anything i don’t wanna make this any weirder

For a handful of long, tense moments, your message remains unanswered. You watch, vaguely nauseous, as the three bouncing dots appear, then disappear, then reappear again. After a breathlessly long time of no typing at all, another notification pops up at the top of your screen.

Venmo: @Ezra-1984 paid you $5 “☕” Add a latte to your order from the diner. I find that everything looks a bit brighter after a good cup of coffee. Even a night of disappointing congress.

Your cheeks flare to life once again, the flush reaching from the tips of your ears down your neck to your chest. “Congress,” he called it. What a classy, delicate word for the sweaty, inept fumbling you had experienced last night in this very bed.

Which reminds you. You need to wash your sheets.

💀💀💀 thank you e 🙈💗

[Attached: JPG] holy shit this food is incredible. it’s bringing me back to life. also 10/10 recommendation on the eggs and the latte. you’re the best e, thank you You’re most welcome, little bird. Be gentle with yourself today. i will 🤗

any chance i could grab you before you go to work tonight? feeling much more human, got your clothes all ready to go by the door I have underestimated you, birdie. I must stop doing that. I did not assume you would have any interest in social interaction today given the state you were in this morning. I am already at the bar. ah ok no worries i really will get your clothes back to you, e. i promise. I know you will, sweetheart. I trust you.

You feel a bit crazed as you dig through the drawers of your dresser, rummaging through the neatly folded piles of clothing with such frustrated carelessness that you know you’re going to have to reorganize it all later. It isn’t like you to misplace something like this – you’re meticulous about your clothes, far more so than you are in any other area of your life (except perhaps your work). The idea of anything just up and disappearing from your wardrobe is unheard of.

Perhaps, if it were anything else, it wouldn’t bother you so much. Perhaps, if tomorrow was any other day, you wouldn’t mind choosing something else to wear. But it does, and you do.

You have another date tomorrow night.

Not a repeat of the disastrous liaison with the barista, thank god, but a friend of a friend, someone you encountered occasionally at parties or bars who often offered to buy you drinks and smiled at you a little too long to be strictly friendly. You had never taken his flirtations especially seriously, but after the unmitigated failure that was your last attempt at getting back into the dating scene, your ego admittedly is feeling a bit bruised. It makes you willing to give him a real shot. Even if it winds up being underwhelming, you feel certain that anything would be better than the fucking barista.

Which means that you need those god-forsaken panties.

They’re your favorites – the cheeky, lacy, baby pink pair that stretched over your skin so softly, that framed the globes of your ass so delicately you couldn’t help but feel every inch a woman in them.

Pulling them on over your hips is a one-way ticket to feeling your sexiest, most feminine self, and you can’t imagine going on a first date without them to boost your confidence. And you just washed them – they should be right at the top of the pile, nestled precisely in your top dresser drawer, exactly where they belong. And yet…they aren’t.

Collapsing onto your bed in an aggravated heap, you tug your phone out of the pocket of your lounge shorts. Opening your messages, you tap on your conversation with E and fire off a quick text before you can think better of it. The flush that follows arrives not far behind, part of you a bit mortified at what you’re about to ask your faceless neighbor. But you’re desperate, and you know he will help you if he can.

i have a longshot of a question for you Please, shoot! did you happen to do laundry last night? I did, indeed! Why do you ask? did you use the same washers and dryers you normally do? I always use the same machines. You’ve got me terribly curious now, little bird. What’s this about? would you mind checking your dried clothes for me? i seem to be the one missing something this time. i know the chances of them ending up with you are slim but i had to at least ask lol Of course, hold on a beat.

A few tense, nerve-wracking minutes pass as you stare at your phone, tapping your foot anxiously, chewing on your lower lip as you wait. You doubt he has them. What would be the chances? Your apartment building has over a hundred units – there was no way with all of the other residents whose faces you had never seen, whose names you did not know, that E had been the one to use the same machines directly after you.

And yet…what if he had?

What if your favorite panties are currently tangled in his laundry basket, all mixed up with his well-loved shirts and shorts and jeans and socks? What if he goes to check for them, and the little flash of baby pink peeks out at him from between the grays and the navys and the olive greens, all feminine and delicate and sweet?

What if this mysterious man, who calls you his “little bird” and who has managed to thoroughly charm you over notes and texts and money for coffee, was about to catch a glimpse of your underwear for the first time, and you’re not even there to see his face when he does?

[Attached: JPG] You wouldn’t happen to be missing these delicious little things, would you, birdie?

And there they are – draped over a calloused palm, dangling from thick, long, achingly masculine fingers. The blushing pink color of the lacy fabric contrasts stunningly with his tanned skin, and although you wouldn’t describe yourself as being particularly petite, the size of his hand somehow manages to make them look delicate in his grip.

The flush in your cheeks spreads instantly, making your ears burn, your chest feel tight and hot. Low in your abdomen, something stirs, something that had woken a handful of other times before – like when he had called you a “clever girl” or a “cheeky bird.” You had wondered then – what this man looked like, what he sounded like, whether he was as attractive in reality as you pictured him in your mind. Even without seeing his face, you feel now you know with certainty. You don’t have to wonder anymore.

Anyone with hands like that would turn your head. Knowing they were attached to someone who spoke to you like someone out of a regency-era novel is the final straw.

omg e Am I to take that as a yes? yeah those are mine 💀🙈 Are you at home, by chance?

You frown, your heartrate picking up as it beats a tattoo against the insides of your ribs.

yeah i’m here. why? Well, I am clearly in the building, as well. I will be for the rest of the evening. Would you be amenable to coming over? I would happily come to you if you would prefer, but I would understand if you wish for your precise unit number to remain unknown.

Oh, god.

You take a deep, steadying breath and will your hands not to shake at the sudden wave of nerves twisting your belly into knots. He wants to meet you. Finally. And right now.

ok. yeah i’ll come to you if that’s okay Of course. I’m in apartment 802. Come on over whenever you’re ready.

The frown between your brows deepens. 802? You’re in unit 902. Is it possible…

Has E been directly beneath you this entire time? Is it possible that not only does he share a building with you, but he is your downstairs neighbor?

wait. 802??? …yes?

He is. E – Ezra, your correct yourself (if you’re going to meet the man, you ought to be able to call him by his name) – lives directly below you. At least you know precisely how to get to him, you muse as you type out your response.

ok just making sure. be there in 10.

The next few minutes are spent in a flurry – brushing your teeth, fluffing your hair, refreshing your perfume, and confirming that you haven’t accumulated any unknown stains on your favorite oversized gray t-shirt or your shorts. You contemplate briefly whether you should change your clothes before making your way down to Ezra’s apartment, but ultimately you decide against it. Your lounge clothes are cute, and wouldn’t it be odd, you think, to show up on his doorstep looking like you felt the need to dress up for something when he knows your routine enough by now to know that you wouldn’t be leaving the complex today?

As you tuck your bare feet into your favorite pair of slides, you consider that you might be overthinking things.

It takes you another minute to gather your phone, your keys, and the small stack of his clothes that you are embarrassed to note has started to collect a fine layer of dust. The sight serves as a stark reminder of what this really is, all it has ever really been – a neighbor doing a favor for another neighbor. The return of items lost, even though the loss was weeks ago now. That is all your acquaintance with Ezra really is, at the end of the day. It’s friendly, but it is also impersonal.

These reminders to yourself ring hollow in your mind as you make your way to the stairwell. You don’t believe them, and you can’t help but hope that Ezra won’t, either.

The man that answers the door of apartment 802 looks both exactly like and nothing like you pictured.

He opens the door with confidence, an open and charming smile splitting his face the moment he lays eyes on you. He takes you in with a sweep of his dark, soulful eyes, tanned skin crinkling at their corners as he grins, and nothing could have prepared you for the way your heart begins to race as you do the same. Fuck, he is so handsome. Wild, dark brown hair, shorter on the sides and back than on the top, sticking up every which way with a single shock of blonde directly over his right eye. A prominent, Romanesque nose perched over a pair of full, soft-looking lips. Patchy, scruffy facial hair. A thin, pale scar twisting across his left cheek.

He looks like a creative, like a scoundrel – an artist or an activist or a rebellious academic who refuses to play by the rules. Precisely your type, you think, heat pooling low in your belly.

As you take in his attire, it immediately becomes apparent that the clothes you hold in your hands are an excellent representation of the rest of his wardrobe. He’s barefoot, a pair of navy-blue athletic shorts hanging low and loose on his narrow hips, and the black t-shirt that stretches snugly across his impossibly broad chest is heavily faded with many washes and sports several tiny holes along the seams.

Another hole, this one much larger than the rest, reveals itself as he shifts to rest his arm high against the doorframe. Leaning over you with casual self-assurance, the man tracks the way your gaze immediately darts to his underarm with the move. You can see the thick, dark hair of his armpit through the gap in the fabric, and the strangely intimate sight almost instantly brings a flush to your cheeks.

“Well, now,” he croons, slow and long and with an accent that flusters you even more. “Either you’ve found yourself on the wrong doorstep, or you must be the mysterious little bird that’s been chirping so sweetly in my ear every day for the last month.” He drops his grip on the old brass doorknob and extends his hand to you. It’s the same hand that had been photographed holding your panties mere minutes before – big, broad-palmed, calloused. “Name’s Ezra. What’s yours, birdie?”

You accept the handshake with minimal hesitation, offering him your name in return. “I’m, uh. I’m glad we could finally make this work,” you stammer. “I was kind of starting to feel like I had taken your stuff hostage.” 

To that, Ezra chuckles, and the warm rasp of the sound settles itself somewhere beneath your navel. “Your willingness to be so flexible and communicative is deeply appreciated,” he drawls. “I’m sure most people in your position wouldn’t have been so accommodating.”

The earnestness of his words has you feeling almost bashful as you quickly reassure him, “Oh, I didn’t mind, really. You were the one who had to go without your stuff for this long. It was the least I could do.”

“See, that is precisely what I mean. Sweet as sugar and twice as lovely.” The man winks, offering you another charismatic smile, and you can’t smother the flustered chuckle that bubbles up in your chest.

There is a moment then when the two of you stand in silence – just the span of a heartbeat where you look at each other through the archway of his apartment door, him inside, you outside, each of you sizing up the other, quietly putting a face to all of the little pleasantries you’ve exchanged over the past weeks. That moment stretches, becomes two, and you watch as something akin to a blush, the first vulnerability he has displayed thus far, blooms across the tips of his ears.

Just before the quiet begins to edge into awkwardness, Ezra claps his hands and steps back away from the doorframe, sweeping his arms in a wide, beckoning gesture.

“Well, let us not delay any longer, shall we?” he says brightly. “Come, birdie, step inside, and I’ll retrieve your own garments which have gone astray.”

You hesitate only a moment before accepting his invitation, and as you cross the threshold, he closes the door behind you. You think that perhaps the sound of the knob catching in its place ought to make you nervous – after all, you have never really met this man before today and now here you are, alone with him in his home. But instead, the way your pulse picks up speed feels more like anticipation than fear.

As you hover in the narrow entryway, you notice that the floorplan of his unit is perfectly identical to yours. The open kitchen, the modest living room, the short hallway down which you knew you would find a single bedroom and bathroom. You’ve never been inside another unit in this building before, and it feels almost surreal as you take in a space that bears so many resemblances to your own while still very clearly being inhabited by someone else.

Ezra seems oblivious to your observations. Instead, he is all business as he retreats without preamble down the hallway toward his bedroom. You stare after him, confused for an instant as to why he would just leave you alone, but then you realize –

Your panties are in his bedroom.

Trying desperately to distract yourself from that brain-melting thought, you allow yourself to glance around the place. Your first impression is of the almost overwhelming number of plants that take up the living space. You recognize a few – snake plants and ZZ plants in mismatched pots on every available flat surface, spider plants and pothos dangling from macrame hangers in front of the windows, a lush monstera taking up most of the western corner, a fiddle-leaf fig standing sentinel by the sliding glass door. The rest you couldn’t even begin to guess at, but the overall effect is one of a vibrant oasis of greenery, and you can’t help but be impressed.

“Wow, you have so many plants!” you gasp, wandering deeper into the apartment as you marvel at your surroundings.

Ezra’s voice is muffled as he replies from the bedroom, “Indeed. This side of the building gets such abundant sunshine during the day, but I don’t often have the opportunity to enjoy it. It somehow feels less wasteful to know that another living thing is reaping the benefits.”

“Huh. Never thought about it like that.” You feel a charmed smile tugging at your mouth. “Maybe I should get a few.”

His decorating taste is clearly eclectic, almost every item found in the dusty labyrinth of a thrift store or at an estate sale. There’s a vintage sofa in burnt orange corduroy that has plainly seen better days, a cracked leather armchair that looks like it once belonged in the study of some wealthy professor, and an overflowing bookshelf stuffed to the brim with books of all sizes and levels of wear. Butted up against the kitchen island is a little 1960s dining table with a single chair, the surface of which is littered with several abandoned, half-drunk cups of coffee. You also can’t help but smirk as you notice the chunky green ashtray on the coffee table in the very center of the living room with a partially-smoked joint resting in the middle.

“It’s quite a rewarding past time. I would encourage anyone with the time and the interest to try their hand at plant guardianship.” He emerges from the bedroom as he speaks, the smallest scrap of pale pink lace visible in the clench of his right fist. “Does your dwelling get light such as this?” he asks, gesturing at the tall windows, the sliding door leading out onto the balcony, the streaming sunlight painting the room a pale gold.

The question jerks you back to the present, reminds you why you’re here and of the strange coincidence you had discovered just before coming down to meet him.

“Actually… You know, it’s funny. Mine is almost exactly the same.”

Ezra quirks a dark, prominent brow at you, his expression pleasantly interested. “Is that so?”

“It’s, uh. Actually why I wanted to verify your unit number.” You rub the back of your neck, suddenly feeling strangely self-conscious. “I’m in 902.”

The man goes still at your confession, and the look of intrigue on his face shifts to a frown. He’s quiet for a moment, pursing his lips, before echoing, “…902?”

You nod. “Yeah. I’m directly above you.” Pointing to the white, spackled surface over your heads, you add, “My floor is your ceiling.”

A pause, and then a slow, creeping grin spreads across his roguish face, warping the thin white scar across his cheek. His dark eyes shine with something like awe as he murmurs, “Fascinating.”

“I know! What are the chances, right?”

“You are the unfortunate neighbor who has such abysmal luck with men.”

All good humor leaves your body then, and you find yourself blinking dumbly back him. His unexpected words hang in the air for a moment, and as you take a deep breath, you manage to stammer, “…What?”

Ezra’s grin transforms into something closer to a smirk, a knowing gleam darkening his gaze. “There was a man a while back, a frequent visitor. I could hear the weight of his footsteps often.” With slow, even steps, he approaches you, closing the distance between you with every word he drawls. “And sometimes, on the weekends, I would be woken from my sleep during the day to the sound of your bedframe squeaking and scraping across the floor, directly above me. You put on quite the performance for him, all those little cries and moans.” His words have the gentle flush you’ve worn since he opened the door flaring to life once again, and you fight the urge to cover your cheeks with your palms, to hide your eyes from his.

“Did he ever figure out that they were all fabricated?” he rasps, leaning into your space as he comes to stand before you. He whispers the question like something asked in the strictest confidence, like the two of you are gossiping together over a bottle of wine or a pot of tea. It’s ingratiating as much as it is humiliating, and the casual intimacy is enough to have your stomach clenching in your abdomen.

“I-I don’t know what you mean.” Your words lack conviction even to your own ears. You have never been a skilled liar, but this attempt is truly abysmal.

Deep wrinkles form between Ezra’s brows as he frowns at you, his tone taking on the soft timbre of reproach. “Oh, come now, little bird. I know the difference between manufactured pleasure and the real thing. Now, the unfortunate boy you drunkenly brought back to your domicile a few nights ago, the one that you said, and I quote, ‘sucked so bad.’ You didn’t even attempt such a performance for him, though if I recall, he was rather loud.” He looks you up and down, that perceptive gaze tracing from the top for your head to the tips of your toes and back again. “And it’s no wonder you did not find your rapture with him, birdie, he lacked all sense of rhythm.”

Involuntarily, you are thrown back to that regrettable night – the awkward barista’s sharp, angular body hovering over you, his too-wet kisses, his grabby, wandering hands, his irregular thrusts, the barely-lukewarm interest all of it inspired…

You do cover your cheeks then, spinning on your heel to break his all-too-discerning stare. “Oh…my god.”

But Ezra is undeterred. He continues, “When we conversed the next morning, I did think it an odd coincidence that you should describe such an underwhelming night when I knew for certain my upstairs neighbor had had much the same experience. Imagine my surprise to learn that it was not a coincidence at all.”

Swallowing thickly, you shake your head, as though the motion might erase the last few moments and somehow bring you back to a time when you did not know that this man – your neighbor, your friend, the person you have been casually crushing on in spite of never having seen him before today – has not only been hearing you have sex for the last several months but also has known all this time that it was bad sex. Somehow that little detail makes it all the more appalling, though you aren’t certain you could explain how.

“This is mortifying,” you mutter, almost to yourself, the words coming out smothered and strange as you slip your fingers over your eyes, palms pressing against your mouth.

Before you manage to disappear into yourself, however, a large, warm, calloused hand wraps itself around one of your wrists and draws your hand away from your face.

“Nonsense, birdie, nothing at all to be embarrassed about.” His voice is low and gentle as he bids you to look at him. “If anyone ought to feel any humiliation in this scenario, it ought to be those incompetent fools granted the unparalleled privilege of getting the share the bed of a kind, intelligent, and heart-stoppingly beautiful young woman such as yourself.”

Your brows draw upward in surprise, and you drop both your hands, thoroughly disarmed and taken aback by his words. “T-Thank you, E. You’re sweet.”

Shifting on his feet, the man inches just that little bit closer to you, enough that you can feel the warmth radiating off of him, enough that you’re overwhelmed by the scent of him. Something woodsy and green, deep and fresh and colored with an inescapable undertone of sweat. You think it ought to be repellant, being this close to a strange man who undeniably smells like he didn’t bother to put any deodorant on this morning, but instead, it just makes you feel a little weak in the knees.

 Ezra smells like a man, like a sweaty man in the middle of a dense, evergreen forest, and it makes some primal part of you, deep inside, ache and throb and want.

You startle softly as he gently takes ahold of your chin between his thumb and forefinger, the touch pulling you out of your reverie and forcing you to meet his eyes. God, his skin is so warm, his dark brown eyes so beautiful and earnest. You couldn’t look away even if you wanted to.

“Far as I can tell,” he croons, his accent elongating and softening his words in a way that has your heartbeat stuttering, “it’s been a tragically long time since you were properly satisfied. And that’s just a cryin’ shame.”

With the most delicate pressure, he slowly, tenderly tugs your chin forward and upward. You can feel his breath on your cheek, on your lips, hot and damp and smelling of spearmint. The sensation has your eyelids flagging, your mouth parting. He’s so close now, a hairsbreadth away. You wonder what his stubble will feel like, whether it will leave friction burns on the tender skin of your jaw.

You’ve never slept with a man with facial hair before, you think to yourself. Would he leave those same burns under your breasts, on the insides of your thighs, too?

The moment the thought crosses your mind, you rip yourself out of his grip with a gasp, practically throwing yourself backward and colliding with the edge of the coffee table. The edge catches against the backs of your calves, and you stumble, rattling the ash tray and sending the half-smoked joint rolling across the table.  

“Birdie! Are you – ”

You brush off his concern, retreat to the kitchen in a flurry of excuses.

You don’t know this man, you remind yourself, willing your heartbeat to stop racing, the space between your thighs to stop throbbing. Prior to five minutes ago, you had never even seen his face, and you were about to kiss him? And not only that, but you’re already thinking about fucking him?

Sure, the E you knew was kind. Intelligent, well-mannered, thoughtful. Wickedly funny. All things you looked for in a potential partner. But was all of that real? Was this man – Ezra – the same man you thought you knew?

He follows you into the kitchen, handsome face pinched with contrition, dark eyes wide and shining. “I apologize if I – ”

But you do not let him finish. Instead, you gather up the little pile of clothes you had brought for him and thrust them in his direction. “Here – your clothes,” you say hurriedly, avoiding his eyes. “All the socks, the undershirt, and the shorts. So if I could just get my – ”

This time, it is Ezra who cuts you off. “Your lacy little unmentionables?”

He opens his fist, and you watch as your favorite pair of panties tumbles from his grip and dangles tantalizingly in mid-air, his thick index finger threaded through the gusset.

Abandoning his stack of laundry on the kitchen counter, you lunge for them, but he sees you coming a mile away. He yanks them out of your reach before your fingers can close around them, like a child on the playground teasing another with a coveted toy, and you stare at him incredulously.

“Ah, ah,” he tsks, his smile placid, almost smug as he watches your frustration and embarrassment grow. “You know, until I saw you on my doorstep, I wasn’t certain, but now that you’re here, I’m afraid there’s one more thing I’m going to need if you want these delightful delicates back.”

Unsure whether to blame your pounding pulse on anger, humiliation, or arousal, you can do nothing but blink back at him. “What?”

“Your shirt,” he specifies, gesturing to the oversized gray t-shirt currently draped over your frame. “Or, perhaps more accurately, my shirt.”

“This is my shirt,” you snap venomously. You are certain now – it’s anger. It has to be. The audacity of this man –

But Ezra is unperturbed, unmoved by your vitriol. His tone is calm and matter-of-fact as he replies, “No, little bird, it’s mine. Lost about the same time as the rest of articles you recovered from the laundry facility.”

You shake your head in confusion. “But…you never mentioned – in your notes, you always just said – ”

“I know, that it is true, but I was mistaken.” He glances down at the pair of underwear in his hand, allowing the intricate fabric to slip between his fingers and pool in his palm as he speaks. “You see, the shirt you’re wearing is not one I reached for often. It’s even older than those shorts you’ve been looking after for me. It took me well over a week to notice that it had disappeared from my wardrobe, as well.” His eyes flick back up to yours, dark lashes lowering as he studies you. “By that time, you had already established which of my items you had in your possession. It never occurred to me to ask if you had the shirt, as well.”

Your jaw works, mouth opening and closing as you struggle with how to respond. You think back to the day you found this shirt, tangled up in one of your bath towels fresh from the dryer, the same day you had found the sweat-stained undershirt. You couldn’t believe your luck, couldn’t believe the soft, perfectly-aged flawlessness of it – the way it had caressed your skin, the way it draped so effortlessly over your shoulders and skimmed your curves so delicately. It had never once occurred to you that this shirt might have been owned by the same person as the undershirt that had clearly seen better days.

“But… This is my favorite shirt,” you murmur despondently, all the fight leaving you as you run your fingertips over the hem.

Ezra’s gaze follows your touch, tracing across the edge of the shirt with an almost feverish gleam. “I can see why,” he rasps, his tongue coming out to wet his plush lower lip. “It is…enchanting on you. But I really must insist. You see, if I allow you to keep it, I will be plagued for the rest of my days by thoughts of you in this shirt – my shirt. And it will surely drive me mad.”

Your eyes snap to his, and for the first time, you feel as though you are able to glimpse a sliver of the man beneath the fanciful language and the slovenly clothes and the cluttered, eclectic apartment. Ezra has an edge to him, a ferocity he keeps well-hidden, but as he allows himself to take you in, you can see it – something animalistic, something raw and ragged and hungry. You watch as his hand clenches tightly around your panties, his thumb rubbing possessively over the little satin bow on the front, and all at once, the anger and embarrassment warring in your chest falls away, leaving only burning need in its wake.

You had never felt anything like this – this crackling electricity, this smoldering desire – with your ex. And certainly never with that worthless barista. This feels primal, a dangerous compliment to the silliness of the swooning, blushing infatuation you had felt for him before today.

How were you supposed to stand strong, to not give in to him when you had fascination, affection, and lust all working against you?

Did it really matter that you had never seen his face until this afternoon?

You’re certain that your conflict must be showing on your face because Ezra looks ready to charge across the kitchen and throw you up onto the kitchen counter at a single word from you. He’s twitchy and eager, his fingers spasming down by his sides, his fist clenching around your panties so hard you can see his knuckles turning pale.

“Come on now, birdie,” he urges, the stretch of silence almost seeming to cause him physical pain. “Have mercy on an old man and hand it over.”

His words have you swallowing thickly, a wave of heat flooding your chest and spreading to the apex of your thighs. You shift on your feet, pressing  your thighs together in an unconscious search for friction, but he spots it – of course, he does. You watch as a muscle in his jaw jumps at the sight, his nostrils flaring as though to catch a whiff of your scent, and god, there’s that animal again – that feral savagery that you never would have known he possessed if you hadn’t coaxed it out of him. He’s beautiful like this, you think, just on the ragged edge of his self-control; it is that look that has you crossing your arms over your chest and drawing your t-shirt up and over your head.

The man blinks heavily, releasing a long, shuddering breath as you hold the shirt out to him by its collar. You dangle it from your fingertips, just as he had your panties, and he looks on with burning eyes as you let it drop to the floor in a puddle of gray cotton.

“Gods above, girl, look at you.”

You have no more words to describe the look on Ezra’s face. He looks enraptured, like a man in thrall, and you resist the urge to cover yourself. Your plain cotton bralette is easily one of the least glamorous underthings in your collection, but with the way he drinks in your figure, you would think that you had just revealed the most intricate, salacious piece of lingerie the man had ever seen. It makes you feel beautiful, powerful, and in control for the first time since you stepped through his door.

“Happy now?” you ask, your voice coming out weaker, breathier than you had intended. Your words are confident, almost taunting, but your tone betrays that you are just as affected by this game you’re playing as he is.

The smallest hint of a smile quirks the corner of his mouth. “I am, indeed. And yet now I fear I will find myself plagued by thoughts of another subject but a…similar flavor.”

With one last sweep of his gaze, the look like a caress as it trails across your body, he takes a step forward, then another, then another. When he finally stands no more than a handful of inches from you, he crouches down and scoops the abandoned shirt off the tiled kitchen floor. Heart in your throat, pulse in your pussy, you watch as he slowly rises back to his full height, brings the shirt to his face, and inhales.

“Goddammit,” he growls, eyes falling shut as he breathes in the soft fabric. “Smell so sweet, little bird. And it’s still warm.”

Your stomach bottoms out at that, the desperation in his voice like a drug that has your knees weakening beneath you. You’re so wet now; you can feel it slicking your panties, dampening your little cotton shorts.

“Ezra.” It spills softly from your mouth like a plea, unbidden and unashamed, and he nods slowly, eyes still closed, as though drinking in the sound of your need like water. 

“I do so enjoy the sound of my name on your lips,” he admits. He makes no attempt to hide his own hunger anymore, and it calls to the one in you, stoked so confidently and carefully by his words. “Would you like me to see if I can make you say it again?”

Ezra kisses like a man starved. You’ve never experienced a need like his, the heat and the urgency of it a physical thing, dragging its silvered claws along your nerve endings, leaving you with no choice but to melt into him as he ravages your mouth. Desperation drips from his tongue past your lips, radiates from his hands into the very marrow of your bones. There’s something almost unhinged in the way he grips back of your neck, the way he runs his fingers through your hair, the way he eats at your mouth with a decadence that has you whimpering. It’s terrifying and thrilling in equal measure – that he could have such an effect on you so immediately.

He had lamented how long it had been since you had been “properly satisfied.” From the way he touches you, you wonder if he ever has.

“Gods, birdie,” he groans, dragging his mouth across the edge of your jaw to your ear, catching the soft little lobe between his teeth. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. What divinity is responsible for bringing you to my doorstep?”

You can do nothing but sigh in reply, the heat of his breath on your neck sending sparkling shivers down your spine. You cling to him tighter, dig your nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, and he groans at the dull bite of them embedding themselves in the ropey muscles of his shoulders.

“Hnng – the delicate little bird has claws.” He drops both hands to your ass with a smack, each one taking a broad palmful of your cheeks, and grips you so hard you can feel your pussy lips start to spread with them. Your face burns as you realize that he almost certainly can feel your heat on his fingertips – he’s mere inches from the core of you, the only thing separating his touch from your cunt the thin, damp layers of your shorts and panties.

“You should know…” he murmurs into the soft, vulnerable patch of skin behind your ear. “I am going to wring every. last. ounce. of pleasure out of you. I want to savor every drop of it. And if you even think about attempting to placate me with one of those fake little cries I know you favor, I can assure you, I will know, and I will not stand for it. Do you understand?”

You nod, sliding your fingers up into his dark, unruly hair. “Yes. Yes, I understand.”

The scruff of his beard scrapes along your neck as he grins. “Atta girl. Now. Hold on tight.” And with little warning, Ezra slips his hands down to the underside of your ass cheeks and lifts you into the air. You let out a little yelp, your legs wrapping around his waist on instinct alone, and the hum of his laughter sings in your veins as he carries you to the bedroom.

“There she is. That’s what you needed, isn’t it?”

“Ezra…!”

“Fuck, sweet girl, I know. Keep on grinding for me. Keep going ‘til I say so.”

He has you on his lap, knees on either side of his hips as you straddle him in the center of his bed. His torso is propped up on an abundant pile of pillows stacked artlessly against the wall behind him, and his hands haven’t left your tits in countless minutes. He has no headboard, you notice absently, just a thin photo-realistic tapestry depicting a moss-covered forest hanging at the head of the bed, but as off-putting as you would find that under normal circumstances, in this moment, you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Feels so good,” you whimper, head thrown back, eyes drifting shut, hips working, working, working over the sizeable bulge pressing insistently against your cunt through the fabric of your clothes. He’s so hard beneath you, and his hands – his broad, thick, calloused hands – are performing magic on your nipples.

He had long since pulled down the flimsy cups of your bralette, allowing the soft swell of your breasts to spill over the tops, and after drawing the tips of them into achingly hard points with his tongue, he has contented himself with endlessly rubbing, pinching, and tugging at them while you grind against him. The constant stimulation is driving you insane – every caress of his thumb is like a crackling arm of lightning arcing down your nerve endings to your slick, swollen clit, and every thrust of your hips has the leaking head of his cock catching on that clit, and god damn, you’ve never come just from dry humping before, but you feel dangerously close to doing so right here in this near-stranger’s bed, all over his lap.

And Ezra knows it, too. With a smug, filthy smirk, he nods slowly, encouragingly. “Yeah, it does. Can feel you soaking me through my shorts.”

You pant, leaning back to brace your palms on his knees behind you, shifting your angle, seeking more of his hardness. The moan that leaves your mouth as you find the perfect position would be embarrassing if you weren’t so far gone. As it is, it barely even registers. “Oh my god, oh my god – ”

Your neighbor shakes his head, tongue darting out to wet his lips as he traps each of your nipples between his thumbs and forefingers and squeezes, making your hips judder. “No god here, baby. Goddess, maybe. Never seen anything that made me believe in the almighty quite so much as you.”

His praise sends a wave of heat through you, and you can feel sweat starting to bloom along your hairline, under your breasts, in the creases of your thighs. Fuck, your legs are burning, your hips are sore from being spread so wide over him, and god, why won’t he just fuck you already?!

“Ezra, please – ”

“You can come like this, birdie.” His voice is low, strained and rasping but somehow steady. “Come just like this, and then I’m all yours.”

And he’s right – it doesn’t take much longer for it all to become just too much. His torturous attentions on your tits, the low, rich, rasping drawl of his encouragements, the impossibly hard and thick length of him pressing so perfectly against your dripping pussy – all of it stokes the flames in your belly, winds that coil deep inside. In the end, all it takes the wet drag of his tongue against your neck and a whispered “let go, little bird, I got you” in your ear, and you are gone.

Ezra’s hand comes up to cup the side of your face as you come down, his thumb stroking your cheek with surprising tenderness as you whimper and sigh and shake under his grip. “There she is,” he croons, all gentle warmth. “How’d that feel?”

All you can manage in reply is a weak nod. You list forward, seeking his mouth with your own, and you feel him grin into the kiss as you slot your lips against his.

“Fuck, E, please?” you murmur, fingers finding the short, wild strands of hair at the base of his skull and tugging gently.

“Please?” He echoes the word into your mouth, his breath hot on your face as he traces the tip of his prominent nose along yours. His eyes are heavy-lidded, his pupils blown wide, but they shine with good humor just the same. “Please what, baby?”

“Fuck me.” You sound petulant, demanding, almost childlike to your own ears.

With a warm chuckle, his slick tongue darts out to flick playfully at the seam of your open, panting mouth. “Soon. Very soon.”

“I dare not admit to how many times I thought about this. It would surely ruin your good opinion of me.”

You can barely string together enough brain cells to process Ezra’s words, let alone form a coherent response.

You’ve shed the remainder of your clothes, as has he, and you’ve traded places now – your reclined torso supported by the pile of pillows against the wall while your neighbor kneels on the mattress between your spread legs. He pumps his cock – even thicker than you had guessed, flushed ruddy and dripping pearls of precum – with one hand, while the other busies itself between your legs. The stretch of his first two fingers is incredible, the gentle, focused swirl of his thumb on your clit only adding to the sensation. It’s so delicious you can’t keep still, your hips grinding and thrusting to meet his touch.  

Eyes fluttering with overwhelm, weak little moans dropping from your open mouth, you stammer, “Y-You thought about this?”

He nods, that blonde shock of hair over his right eye bobbing with the motion. “I did, indeed. Couldn’t help myself, gods forgive me.” His dark, burning gaze remains focused on your cunt, intent on not missing a moment of the way his fingers glisten with your wetness. The intensity of that stare makes you tremble. “From that very first missive I found in the laundry facility. That…precious pink stationary, with the strawberries around the outside. It smelled sweet. Damn near drove myself mad thinking about it.”

Fuck, his fingers – they keep dragging against something inside you – something along the front wall of your pussy, something you know exists but have never found a partner who was interested in seeking it out. The feeling is foreign but completely spine-melting, a pleasure so deep and round and full that you can barely keep your eyes from slipping shut.

“I wondered what you might look like, what you might sound like. I wondered if you got as much satisfaction from our correspondence as I did. I wondered whether you enjoyed it when I dared to flirt, even if it was just a little bit.” His gaze flicks up to yours briefly, his hand still working his cock, his fingers still buried in your wetness. “Did you, little bird? Did you like when I flirted with you?”

You nod, blinking heavily as you try to hold his eye contact. “Yes,” you sigh, the sound coming out high-pitched and whining. “I did, I liked it.”

“And what about now? Do you like this? Do you like how I toy with your captivating little cunt?”

You moan and nod again. “I do, yes, E, fuck.”

The desperation in your voice makes Ezra smile. “She’s so pretty, sweetheart. So soft and juicy, spilling down my fingers like a ripe little peach in the middle of summer.” He pulls his fingers from you then, and you yelp in protest, your hands flying to his wrist to try to drag him back inside you. But he brushes off your grip like a harmless pest. Instead, he sticks out his tongue and drags his pointer and middle finger across it, leaving a trail of your milky slickness across his tastebuds. “Sticky. Sweet. Rich,” he groans, eyelids dropping closed, losing himself in the taste of you for a moment. “Full to bursting.”

He seems to remember himself, to finally hear your pleas of protest, and it takes him no more than half a beat to slip his fingers back inside you once again. “I want one more moment of ecstasy from you, birdie,” he growls, and you feel your deepest muscles clench down around him at the sound. “Let me watch you fall one more time, and then I will give you this cock.”

You nod again, your head bobbling on your neck as weakly as a newborn’s, and the grin he gives you in return in positively filthy.

“Excellent.”

The stroke of his fingers changes then, no more drugging, hypnotic in and out, no more tender swirl around your over-sensitive bundle of nerves. Instead, he starts to press on that soft, spongy, elusive spot deep within you, the pressure strong and insistent. Your back arches at the sensation, your hands flying out to grip onto his bare, freckled shoulders to hold yourself steady, but even the heat of his skin under your fingers isn’t enough to ground you. Instead, all you can do is drop little rhythmic moans synched with the motion of his hand. He jacks his wrist up and down, quick and firm and unrelenting, his fingertips pressing releasing pressing releasing pressing releasing, and slowly, steadily, something begins to build in you.

It’s searing hot and molten, pooling in your abdomen and leaking into your bloodstream. Your chest flushes, then you neck, then your face, and you swear your limbs are going numb as the pressure below your navel ratchets higher and higher.

“Ez-Ezra,” you whine. “That feels – I – ”

Somewhere at the edges of your awareness, you can sense him nodding, can feel the heat of his stare as he watches you. “I know, I know. Don’t fret now. You can give in to it. Feels good to surrender.”

A bolt of adrenaline rushes through you as that pressure morphs, transforms into the sudden, immediate, and desperate need to pee. The feeling mortifies you, and you shy away from it immediately, hips squirming away from his touch as you try not to embarrass yourself in front of this man you just met, but before you can get far, Ezra abandons his grip on his cock and instead uses that hand to push down hard on your lower stomach, holding you in place.

“Ah! Ezra!”

“Don’t fight your rapture, girl,” he rumbles. “Give me all that sweet nectar.”

Your orgasm hits you like a freight train.

It bowls you over, knocking the wind from your lungs, robbing the voice from your throat, and you can’t even manage to cry out as that dam inside you breaks and you flood his hand. Liquid gushes from you with such force that you can hear it hit his forearm, his knees, his bedsheets. He groans deep in his chest, resonant and victorious, but it sounds far away to you, like you’ve dunked your head underwater or filled your ear canals with cotton fluff. You’re so lost to your own ecstasy, you can hardly be bothered to acknowledge him, but still his miraculous fingers fuck you through the throes of it.

As you drift back to awareness, as your eyes blink open, you find that your nails have left deep, blood-red crescents in the tanned skin of his shoulders, and Ezra is gazing at you with something like pride shining in his dark eyes.

Your throat is dry and hoarse as you stutter, “I didn’t know – I’ve never – ”

“That’s my girl,” he whispers, dropping a surprisingly tender kiss to the very tip of your nose. “Lie back now. I’ve got one last trick up my sleeve.”

“Shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

He’s so deep inside you now, thick and long and throbbing, and tears are starting to gather at the corners of your eyes from the stretch and the force of him. He has your knees hooked over his shoulders, your hands braced against the bare wall above you to keep your head from bumping into it, and between your legs, Ezra pants and sweats and grinds his teeth as he pounds into you with enough force to rock the bedframe.

“In all my time…on this green earth…never felt anything like you, birdie. What did this old man…ever do…to deserves something so sweet? So…soft. So wet. So fucking…tight, goddammit, sweetheart – ”

From the moment he slipped inside you, he hasn’t shut up. Not that you want him to, but you’ve never had a bed partner be quite so vocal before. You think it might take some getting used to, though if what you’ve experienced with him so far is anything to go off of, you feel confident that it would be worth it for the orgasms alone. This man treats your pleasure like it’s his, like he gets just as much out of watching you fall apart as you do experiencing it. It’s intoxicating, making you want to deliver for him just as badly as he clearly wants to for you.

Your pussy feels swollen and almost achy, your clit throbbing with the paired sensations of pain and pleasure with every grind of his pubic bone against yours. You’re exhausted, your vision hazy, your mouth parched, your hips sore. If he manages to make you come even one more time, you think you might actually pass out.

And yet, you fight to keep your eyelids open, to keep your gaze on him. Your cunt still drools for him in spite of your overwhelm, and you’re gripped with the bone-deep need to stay the course. You want to make him feel as good as he makes you feel. You want to be good for him.

He deserves it, you think. He deserves everything you can offer him and more.

“All those theatrical moans, those high-pitched cries,” he continues, voice dropping to a husky growl as he drags the tip of his nose along the soft, supple skin of your calf. “Where are they now, little bird, eh? Turns out when someone really fucks you right, you go almost totally quiet. Isn’t that so?”

You gasp out a soft, strained, “Mm hm.”

Ezra’s teeth flash as he grins, sweat dripping from his brow, slicking down both blonde and brown hair to the surface of his forehead. “I know, baby. Dick so good, you can’t even make a sound.”

He shifts slightly, bearing the weight of his upper body on one hand instead two as the other delicately brushes  your wild hair out of your face. You’re sure you’re a sight, all folded up like this under him, drenched in your own sweat and his, your hair tangled and your eyes fighting not to cross in pleasure.

“Thought about you so many times, birdie. Thought about the girl that made those sounds, too,” he confesses. He’s breathing heavily, his pace never slowing, never stopping. You can feel the flex of his abdomen as he thrusts, can feel the delectable friction of the tip of his cock against your tender G-spot. “What cosmic alignment…what turn of fortune…that you and that girl should be one and the same.”

“E-Ezra. It’s – it’s so – ”

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” His fingertips are so gentle against your cheek, a spine-melting contrast to the rough, powerful, insistent way he pounds into your body. Fuck, his cock is so good – you clench down around him involuntarily, the weight and the girth and the heft of him pressing so perfectly against every swollen, over-worked nerve ending within you. “But I told you – every last drop, remember? And you’ve still got one more to give me. I can feel it.”

On instinct, you shake your head, a whine bubbling up in your throat as your vision starts to blur. “Can’t – it’s too much – ”

“You can.” Ezra’s voice is breathless but firm, leaving no room for negotiation.

“But – ”

He groans your name then, and the sound of it on his lips forces your eyes open once more. “I can feel this precious little pussy clamping down on me. She’s speaking to me, baby. She wants to come, doesn’t she? One more time? She wants to squirt her delicious nectar all over me, I can tell.”  

You have no more brain power left to formulate a response. A weak, whining “fuck” is all you can manage.

“It’s all right, little bird.” The wicked smirk on his face is audible in his voice. “You don’t have to say a thing. I can do all the talking for now – you just relax.”

Before long, that pressure returns – that weighty, swollen, urgent sensation low in your abdomen, the one that makes you seize up on instinct, one of your hands flying to his hip as though to push him away. But you are entirely too weak and overwhelmed to have much of an effect. Instead, Ezra just nods knowingly and chuckles.

“Right there? Is that what this pussy needs to give up her treasures?” He holds steady, hitting the exact same spot over and over and over, and you can’t help but whimper through clenched teeth. “Breathe, birdie. Breathe deep and let go.”

You’re too far gone to even consider disobeying.

You do as he says – dropping your jaw, drawing a deep, soothing breath into your lungs, feeling your belly rise with it, feeling your diaphragm stretch, and like magic, all of the resistant tension in your hips and core releases, and you’re coming.

You’re thighs-trembling, neck-straining, hands-clenching, cunt-gushing coming. Your mouth open on a silent scream, you ride the tidal wave with half-awareness, barely hearing Ezra’s babbled praises, barely feeling the vital grip of his fingers around your hips, barely sensing the bloom of warmth deep inside you as he fills you with his cum. The only sensation that breaks through it all is the sharp pinch of his teeth biting into the soft flesh of your inner thigh. But you don’t mind – you think you might actually relish the bruise that is sure to come later.

The world is hazy as you come down – the late afternoon sun streaming through Ezra’s window casts long shadows across the bed, and you notice belatedly that the two of you have cast every single pillow and blanket onto the floor during your tryst. You shiver as the sweat between you begins to cool, and for the first time, you start to feel the sopping wet mess you have made of his fitted sheet as it sticks to you unpleasantly. You hope he has a waterproof mattress cover underneath it – otherwise, he is in for a very expensive steam cleaning bill.

Even in your growing discomfort, however, you cannot bring yourself to move. Every muscle in your body feels wrung out; every joint feels weak and wobbly. And your mind – your mind is blissfully, delightfully blank. You smile faintly, allowing your fingertips to trail leisurely over your chest, your stomach, your hips. You are entirely sated, and it is glorious.

Ezra, for his part, appears to feel the same. He braces himself over you with lax, rounded shoulders, his head hanging loose on his neck, his eyes closed, silent at last. His softening cock still rests inside you, but you don’t mind it – he’s warm, and you’re starting to chill. Not for the first time, you’re struck by how beautiful he is. So much more so than you ever could have imagined when you first responded to that crinkled little note in the laundry room.

When he finally withdraws from you, he lets out a soft, rasping groan, and between your legs, you feel the slick warmth of his cum dripping out of your swollen, sensitive hole. You catch him watching it for a moment, a faint smile lifting the corner of his mouth, before he collapses onto the bed next to you with a sigh.

“Well, birdie,” he quips after a moment of satisfied silence, “I suppose I have some more laundry to do, eh?”

His words surprise a laugh from you, the motion forcing even more of his cum to slip down between your ass cheeks. “Yeah, I think that might be a good idea,” you say with a tired smile, turning on your side to face him. “I can help, if you want.”

His grin broadens, and he shoots you a cheeky, crinkle-eyed wink. “No need, sweetheart. I know how to clean up my own messes.”

It’s hours later when your phone vibrates on your night stand, pulling you from your shallow, restless sleep. The time reads nearly midnight, but you rub the grit from your eyes anyway as you scan the message lighting up the screen.

The next time I fuck you, little bird, you’re wearing those lacy panties.

A delicious thrill trips down your spine at Ezra’s words. Drawing your lower lip between your teeth, you thumb a quick reply.

🤭 on one condition i want to wear the tshirt too 😜 Oh, you mean MY t-shirt? no MY tshirt 😇

[criminalyapping]

pull you in, it's alright

the pitt masterlist main masterlist

pairing: melissa king x f!reader

a/n: her <3 wuh luh wuh time and happy pride

this might come as a surprise but i think dr king is my favorite pitt character. i love her sm

inspired by/title from sofia by clairo

warnings: talking about pittfest, talking about the ramifications of working in healthcare

"Call your loved ones now if you need to," Dr. Robby says to the group of hospital personnel, "I can guarantee you cell service will soon be overwhelmed."

Mel feels a mix of fear and anxiety wash over her. On her first day in the ED, and she gets a mass casualty event; just her luck.

Taking her attendings' advice to heart, she quickly pulls her phone out of her pocket and dials the number of Becca's day center. She speaks quickly arranging a later pick-up time, and assures Becca that she will be there to get her when she's done.

She hangs up with a sigh, seeing the others around her still on the phone.

Before she can think too much more about it, she dials your number as well.

"Hi, Mel!" you greet as you pick up the phone.

"Hi," she greets.

"What's up, how is your first shift going? Are you done already?" you ask, checking the time.

"Um-" Mel says into the phone. She pauses, clearing her throat. "Yeah, it's going good. I just, we're going into emergency protocols for a mass shooter and, they gave us time to- call people, and I," she pauses.

You stay silent, waiting for her to finish her thought.

"I called Becca's center but I wanted to talk to you, too." she says.

"I'm glad you did," you say into the phone. "Are you going to be okay?" you ask her.

"Yeah, yeah," Mel assures, picking at the skin around her thumb. "Listen, I um, I have to go, but, thank you."

"Any time," you say warmly, "Will you call me later? When you and Becca get home?" you ask.

"Yeah," Mel agrees, "I don't know what time, though." she warns.

"I'll stay up," you implore, "please?"

"Yeah, I'll call you." Mel agrees.

"Okay. You've got this, Mel." you tell her.

"Thanks," she smiles, looking up and seeing the hospital staff congregating once again. "Talk to you later," she bids goodbye.

"Talk to you later." you agree, hanging up the phone.

You turn on your ringer and place the phone on your kitchen counter, already waiting for her call.

You had met Mel during her time at the VA, when you came to visit your grandfather. Mel joined in on a few Uno games with you and him during his admission, and as he was discharged, you asked if she would ever want to do something together.

You weren't explicitly flirting, moreso testing the waters and seeing how she would react to it. You weren't blind, Mel is stunning, but you had seen her care for your grandfather, her earnestness in which she approached life, and you knew that you wanted her in your life; in whatever way she would have you.

Mel had stuttered, eyes glancing around the room as she battled between wanting to know you and feeling restricted by her professionalism.

"Yeah, yeah," she had finally said, throwing a smile your way and entering her phone number into your contacts.

You and Mel had formed a fast friendship, based on mutual interest in the others' lives and a genuine desire to spend time together.

You think that Mel might be the best person you've ever known. Not in a loud, watch-me-be-good way, something much softer. Mel is selfless, determined, kind - nice without strings, and sincere in each and every interaction with others.

You're in a very special spot in your friendship with Mel. Those precious moments between friendship and love. You're not in a rush to change anything, but you can feel the simmering tension in the small moments you share with her.

You feel it when she rests her head on your shoulder, hair down after work and tickling your arm. You feel it when she laughs, loud and unabashed before covering her mouth with a hand. You feel it when your hugs linger just a bit too long, and when she pulls back and looks at your face as if to memorize your features.

Knowing that she thought of you when prompted to call her people gave you a warm feeling.

You go about your Friday night business, eating dinner and relaxing, all while unable to stop thinking about how Mel is doing.

You get a call at about 9:45, while invested on your latest read on the couch.

"Hey," you greet after scrambling to pick up the phone.

"Hi," Mel sighs into the phone.

"How are you?" you ask her.

"Good, yeah," she tells you. "I'm about to go pick up Becca. What are the odds she still wants to get dinner?" she jokes.

"Ohh, I think it's pretty high," you laugh.

Mel chuckles into the phone, but doesn't say anything else.

"How did tonight go?" you ask her gently.

"Fine," Mel says, her voice cracking around the word. "I'm, um, I'm not sure I want to talk about it."

"Okay," you agree softly. "What can I do for you?" you ask.

"Just this," she breathes into the phone.

"So easy to please," you tease, pulling a laugh out of Mel.

Mel bids you goodbye as she approaches Becca's center, promising to see you in a few days when she has some off days.

Mel comes over on Wednesday after you get home from work, being her first day off since she started on Friday.

You open the door, smiling as you give her room to step into your apartment.

As soon as her shoes are toed off, you throw your arms around her in a big hug. She stumbles back a step, laughing as she returns your embrace.

"Hi," you greet, pulling back slightly to see her, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," she says in her low tone. "Did you finish your book?" she asks.

"Nooooo," you admit, "I still have a few chapters left."

Mel smiles, moving further into your space and leaning against your kitchen counter.

"How has the emergency room been?" you ask her.

"Do you want to take a walk?" she asks,

That is Mel-speak for she wants to talk, but she wants something else to do simultaneously.

"Yeah," you agree, moving to put your shoes on as Mel does the same.

You're both silent as you step out of your door and take off towards the park a few blocks away from your apartment.

"It's been good," she starts. "I really like the people, and I've already gotten to do a bunch of stuff I've never done."

You glance over at her, the evening sun filtering through her hair and illuminating her profile.

"That's awesome," you tell her, "It sounds like you're gonna become an even better doctor."

"Yeah, it's awesome," she agrees, although her tone betrays that she doesn't believe it.

You stay silent, walking beside her as you let her piece together her thoughts.

"It's just, it's been hard." she finally says, voice cracking.

"There's, um, there's a lot of people. And I can't stop thinking about them?" she says with her tone indicating a question, as if she was asking you if that was odd. "It's the worst day of their lives, for some of them, and I see," she pauses, still walking, and takes a deep breath. "I see a lot of them. A lot of people having the worst day of their lives. It's very, uh, different from the VA."

"It is," you agree. "You're feeling out of your depth." you reflect.

"Kind of?" she agrees.

"Do you want to hear what I think?" you ask.

"Yeah," she says, shooting you a smile.

"I think that having someone like you there on the worst day of my life would help." you tell her genuinely. "It's obvious that you care a lot, Mel, and having someone who cares probably helps more than you know."

Mel smiles, quickly wiping away a tear that had fallen from her eye.

"Thank you," she says quietly. Mel looks like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. "I think you might be biased, though," she laughs.

"What do you mean?" you giggle.

"I mean," she blushes, "of course you would want me there."

You cackle out a laugh at her statement.

"What, am I wrong?" she asks, returning your laugh.

"No, no, you're not wrong." you tell her. "You're very special to me." you say.

"Yeah?" Mel asks.

"Yeah," you tell her earnestly.

Mel smiles again, but her expression is tinged with a hint of confusion.

You continue walking, both bathed in the evening sunlight. You breathe in the fresh smell of the park and feel the warmth of the sun on you skin.

Mel steps in front of you, making you screech to a hault suddenly.

"Am I..." she starts, looking nervous. "What's, um, what's happening?" she asks. "Am I reading all of this wrong?" she asks.

"No, Mel, not at all." you tell her with a gentle smile.

Mel gently shakes her head, a disbelieving smile and expression taking over her face.

"What," she starts, clearing her throat, "what are we... doing?" she asks haltingly.

You think for a moment. Before responding, you reach down and take Mel's hand in your own, lacing your fingers together.

"I don't know," you say thoughtfully, "I just want you." you tell her simply.

Mel's wide eyes dart around the surroundings, never quite stopping on your face.

She surges forward, catching you off guard as she presses her lips to yours in a clumsy kiss.

Just as fast as she was there, she had pulled away.

"Sorry, sorry," she apologized.

Instead of responding to her - frankly very silly - apology, you kiss her again. Her hands cup either side of your neck, her thumbs brushing against your jaw.

You kiss, just a soft press of her lips to yours, until the grins taking over your faces stop you.

Neither of you say anything as the kiss ends. You don't have to.

[ivesambrose]

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 🥂

1. 2. 3.

Do I dare ask how 2023 has been for y'all?

Pick the image you feel the most pull towards or have been seeing around you a lot, if you feel drawn towards multiple, so be it. 🤍

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at Ivesambrose@gmail.com

Personal services

Winter Specials

Thank you for the tip 🌹

𝓟𝓲𝓬𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮 1

Your central theme is rising from the ashes. You're in the process of the most intense metamorphosis yet. A new dawn, a new day, a new life.

You'll feel empowered, passionate and obsessive about your pursuits. You'll allow the old skin to be ripped off of you and you'll no longer be scared to be you.

This year brings you connections, admires, collaborations, unions both in personal and proffesional life.

There's a certain duality in you that you haven't explored yet, but you will in the coming months.

You'll have good health for the most part compared to the previous year. Your family will be taken care of. The hope and assurance you may have lacked from them will come through. It will feel warm and refreshing. (Goes for chosen family too)

Romantically, you may be focused on your career or just living your life a lot. But someone might want to build a legacy or long term relationship with you.

If you're already coupled, the focus goes to building what you have and looking after domestic affairs and see things bloom.

Proffesionally, you will have your most successful and blessed year. Money shouldn't be a problem and even if it seems like it, your needs will always be met and you'll still have more.

Some of you might enjoy ghe fruits of your labour extensively. This goes for the ones who work solo or run their own business etc

Academically, you might feel a bit disinterested. Might move out from your home or change subjects. Take up something completely new. Might face your fears and push through but make it a point to follow your inner calling for the most part.

Themes centered around relationships and partnerships are significant this year as well opportunities coming out of the blue that call you to heed your intuition and step out of your comfort zone or limiting mindsets, that will inevitably lead to travel, progress and new experiences.

Make the best of this year, it'll feel like you're finally on the journey you've been preparing yourself for all this time.

𝓟𝓲𝓬𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮 2

Your central theme is using your emotions as your guiding force, using it as fuel and not seeing it as weakness. Quieting your mind so you can listen to your instincts more. Healing from things you don't speak of, that you've felt have persistently held you back from your potential and finally taking the lead. You'll feel like the main character in your life finally, instead of seeing everything through the lens of a side character no one remembers.

You'll feel motivated to follow what makes your heart happy. You may be faced with choices a lot this year, a lot of this or that in several aspects of your life. Trust yourself to make the right decisions.

You'll be learning about your mind and body this year, so incase you go through ups and downs in your health you'll be able to manage it but also guide others too.

Romantically, you might as well get your happy ending. I see that you're mostly focused on the complete picture. Not bothered with what is going on in between too much. So you'll get what you're manifesting eitherway.

Proffesionally, a rebirth or evolution will take place. Something new that will grow overtime. You'll be driven about it. So success will be imminent.

Success in academics as well, feeling proud of your achievements.

Themes around revolution, personal development, healing generational trauma, humanitarism, technology as well being open to the unknown will also be prevalent this year.

Learn to make amends and embrace the breakthroughs this year has to offer you.

𝓟𝓲𝓬𝓽𝓾𝓻𝓮 3

Your central theme is related to wealth, inheritance, change of lifestyle, receiving help, building a legacy and feeling more secure. Some of you will see a success or change they did not see coming, it was hidden for the longest time.

Some of you may even be leaving poverty behind for a more financially secure life.

You'll find yourself blooming, physically especially. A glow up in your looks and quality of being is going to be imminent. Focus on health, beauty, food, routine etc as well. A lot of you will be experiencing vivid dreams, strange synchronicities etc too will be learning about esoteric subjects, occult or the subconscious mind a lot. You'll also be receiving success and recognition or you might be building your steps towards it that will eventually pay off in the long run.

You'll feel like this old self or image of you has died. You may even mourn it for some time but will feel more powerful, confident and self assured once you're past that.

Romantically, you'll be feeling desirable and might attract a lot of suitors. Your self concept will improve exponentially, so will your standards. So nothing less than what you want. Your intuition will be at all time high. Fear no one and nothing. Some of you might also be moving to a new house too or might end up owning something in your name.

Proffesionally, although you might deal with competition you won't be too worried. You know your skills, you'll have your resources, your work will speak for it self and you will stand out.

Friendship, community, discoveries and gains are also some of the themes surrounding you this year.

Let your imagination create for you. You'll soon realize there's so much power in allowing yourself to receive what you desire by simply being instead of doing too much.

[ashloremystic]

Poll Results are in!

Read the Fine Print

Date with a Werewolf

Part 1 here

It had been weeks since you downloaded that stupid DRD and your excitement had all but dies out. You had just gotten home from work and was pouring yourself a nice heafty glass of wine when your phone pinged not once but twice.

You put the bottle down and grabbed for your phone, expecting it to be nothing of importance. Unlocking your phone you froze.

You have 2 notifications!

Both are from DRD and the other from Sensational Simulations. Quickly you opened them.

Dear y/n

Your request had been accepted. Emrys has provided his availability, and Sensational Simulations will be contacting you shortly with a schedule. Once you select your preferred meeting date, a contract will be emailed to you. Please read carefully and sign.

We sincerely hope that your match goes well and you consider using our services again soon.

Enjoy!

DRD Associate

The next email as stated, was a calendar with dates and the earliest possible one was tonight at 10pm.. the next being a week away! That just wouldn't do.

Excitement filled your gut as you looked at the time. Sensational was about 45 minutes away. It was only 8:13…”I can make this work if I get ready now.”

So you clicked on today's date. Another ping sounded and you groaned. “shit I forgot about the contract.” You opened the email and it was FIFTEEN PAGES! There was no way you would get through all of them and manage to look decent in time.

So you did what any desperate women going to meet some strange monster would do…Skimmed thru it and signed. You even added a few hearts after one to give off the illusion you read them. Surely you can look back through them later. Right?

_____

You pulled up to the front for Sensational Simulations around 9:48 pm after checking that they had Valet parking. How you managed not to get a ticket was beyond you but Hey! At least you looked good.

The place was just as beautiful as you remembered before. The entrance and a huge modern open floor plan and busy with the buzz of other clients chatting amongst each other.

In the center of the room was a receptionist desk where a blonde woman with cherry red lipstick waved you over. You smiled nervously at her and made your way over.

“Welcome to Sensational Simulations y/n! I am Olivia and I will be your host today.” Her voice was very trained almost computer like.”

“Hi.” you replied, feeling the nerves in your gut turn to butterflies.

“So we've received your contracts, and everything is already settled. All there is to do now is take you to your location.”

“Sounds good. Any kind of payments on my part?"

She shook her head. "All taken care of." She looked down at the stuff you held. I'll take your phone and things to lock away in a safe during your stay."

“wait why can't I have my phone?”

“It can interfere with the Simulations sometimes. So to be safe we lock them away. But no need to worry. Each host is readily available in case there are any emergencies.”

“Are there usually any?”

“Very rarely. Follow me.”

You were escorted by Olivia to the main elevators. “Each floor is its own world. Some have multiple patrons in them or are rented out for certain blocks of time. Your's however has been rented for 24 hours. So there is no rush or anyone to…ruin the mood."

“24 hours is a long time for a date isn't it?” You asked as you thought about having to work tomorrow. You also couldn't wait to fill your coworker in.

Oliva smiled at you. “Some people book slots for extended days at a time. It’s part of the experience..No distractions from the outside world to break the illusion that the app puts in place. Its why its becoming so popular now. We will have to open a second location soon.”

“I had no clue. Thats amazing!.” You said as the elevator stopped finally.”

A breeze softly drifted through the closed doors before you. Smelling slightly earthy.

“This room is one of our newest and most realistic. The reviews have been great so far.” She swept a key card.

The doors opened and your mouth hit the floor. It was like stepping into a whole new world. You were in the middle of a forest. The sounds of insects and the wind through the trees made it feel so life-like. Even the dirt on the ground looked real.

“Wow!.”

“Nice isn't it?”

“yes! How amazing.”

“Well this is where we part ways.”

“okay thank you.”

“Enjoy.” She said as she scanned her key card on the door. “Ill be around if you need me.”

Once inside the door and the wall behind you faded leaving only miles of forest. You went to press your hand on the wall to reassure you that this was just a room but there was nothing but air there instead. How?

“That's not alarming at all.” You mumbled as you turned and started to follow the trail deeper into the trees. Even though it was dark out. The full moon above lit the path well enough for you to follow.

This was a date right? So maybe there was a cabin nearby. Maybe a picnic or something like that. You always wanted to have a cabin getaway in the fall. This could be it.

The Trail was thinning. You were not wearing the right shoes for a deep woods hike….Did the contract possibly say something about wearing comfortable shoes? Maybe it had information on what kind of “monster” You were meeting too. Probably shouldn’t have rushed through it.

Just as you reached the end of the trail, a howl sounded in the distance answering your inner thoughts. Your monster was infact…A Werewolf.

But shouldn't he be ….you know…In human shaped? How were the two of you going to talk or share dinner?

Rustling came from a nearby brush behind you. Hoping that the howl you heard was just part of the simulation, you turned around to inspected the sound. What you saw instead startled a scream of terror out of you.

Rising from the bushes was a giant creature caught between the shape of a man and part wolf. Like a B rated movie shift gone wrong..Without a second thought you turned and ran….Bad Idea!

The thing behind you howled its hunting song and gave chase.

Surly there had to be an emergency button somewhere right? you wondered as you tripped and stumbled on raised roots and rock. Your shoes making it harder for you to gain ground. Dirt now stained your dress and you were pretty sure your ankle was sprained.

“Olivia!” You screamed hoping she would put a stop to this chase. But you were answered with silence.

Something furry and twice your size landed on you, You screamed as the two of you crashed into the soil below, halting your escape. You struggled to get free as a mouth closed around your thigh and pulled you to it. Its teeth leaving marks on your skin.

Your underwear was then torn away and you're eyes went wide as a new panic settled in. Just what the hell was he going to do to you? You surely didn’t sign up for this! Not with this….Thing!

“No! Wait…Help…Someone! I didn't agree to this!!”

The monster behind you halted as a tune sounded. “Your contract has no limits. No violations have occurred or been detected.” Olivia's too cheery voice sounded. “You may proceed” Very fucking helpful Olivia!!!

Understanding that, the wolf still holding you down, lowered his head behind you and ran a very big and textured tongue through your folds. You gasped in shock at the friction against your sensitive flesh. It's width ensuring nothing went untouched. Every single hole.

You moaned again as it came back to lick again and again until you were a whimpering mess trying not to submit. Each time, your willpower and fight lessened and left you soaking wet. Especially when he started to fuck your tight hole with it. That was a new experience in itself.

It was like nothing you've ever felt before and even though his tongue didn't go deep, it still had you rocking your hips now begging for release instead of escape.

Sensing your approaching orgasm. The wolf pulled his tongue out and went back to focusing on your clit. Lapping away still holding you as you thrashed and jerked against the overwhelming sensation till you couldn't take it anymore.

You screamed as you came. The sound echoing through the forest as Emrys kept at the bulb a little longer. Enjoying the sounds you made for him as you struggled to evade it. You couldnt. You were at his mercy and he was going to prove it.

His tongue slowed and did one last long lick as he crawled up the length of your body. His partly shifted hands pulled your hips up and before you know it….You were being pressed into. His huge cock stretching you and going deeper than any regular man had ever managed.

Your eyes rolled to the back of your head as he pounded into you with no restraint from behind. Moaning as he massaged the walls deep inside you. His breath thick and hot on the back of your neck as sweat…or his saliva, dripped on to it. You were so lost in your pleasure you didn't care.

You were just trying to find your own rhythm. Wiggling your hips slightly, you pushed back. Squeezing as you did so earning yourself a deep throaty moan that sounded more man than wolf grunts now.

He thrusts started to change after a moment and before you knew it you were rolled on to your back legs amost pressed into your shoulders as he tried to bury himself deeper inside you…Then you felt a different pressure…What was that…It felt thicker...harder.

Emrys jerked his hips and howled as you cried out at the sudden pain from something slipping inside of you. Locking your bodies together and sending you into an instant orgasm that brought the stars in the sky above much closer. He thrusted a few more times limited by what felt like a knot till he himself came as well.

“Fuck” He growled now mostly human. His gray eyes hooded from being drunk on pleasure. “That was amazing.”

“Chasing a helpless woman in the woods and taking advantage of her?” You asked teasingly. You were far from mad now…you didn't even think you were afraid either come to think of it. You had never been fucked so good before.

“It was part of my package. You should have read that in your contract.” His deep voice said as he leaned down and kissed your neck softly. “I've always wanted to fuck a prey as the wolf….maybe next I will shift all the way.”

“Next?”

“Yes my prey…You're now mine until our time is up, and I plan to use that to my full advantage."

Your gut tightened with anticipation and slight fear. "But I need to work in the morning. So I should probably go soon."

"Olivia read term 34 page 7"

A tune chimed in.

"Attendee must stay for the full duration of the event or until they are released from said obligation. Each event duration will be in 24 hour incerment. That of which the Attendee is at the full disposal of the contract holder."

Your mouth fell open.

"And did y/n agree to this term." Emrys asked

"Yes."

"Thanks Olivia."

"My pleasure."

Grey eyes looked into yours..."You know.."He thrusted slightly his body still attached to yours. "You really should read what you sign."

No Shit..

Which explains how you ended up spending the next 24 hours as a werewolf's test sex toy...

Thanks for Voting!! Hope you all like it.

Next up Dragon

[thetruthwilloutsworld]

EXCLUSIVE: Outlander star Sam Heughan will star as the murderous tyrant in Macbeth, marking his debut with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he tells Deadline that returning to the stage for the first time in 12 years "is the drug I'm looking for."

The actor, who has cropped his locks for the role, says it's "exciting" to be treading the boards again now that filming is compete on the eighth and final season of the time-traveling drama Outlander, in which he plays the the dashingly charming Jamie Fraser who finds true love with Claire, played by Caitríona Balfe.

During our conversation, Heughan suggested that Starz will show season 8 of Outlander "towards next year." The prequel series Outlander: Blood of My Blood premieres on August 8, "so I feel it'd probably be out next year," he reveals.

Macbeth, to be directed by Daniel Raggett, will begin performances at RCS' The Other Place studio venue in Stratford-upon-Avon on October 9, running through December 6.

Lia Williams, the distinguished, classically trained thespian, will play Lady Macbeth. She's also a prominent presence on TV, having appeared as Wallis Simpson in The Crown and as Isabel Kirby, the duplicitous MI6 British intelligence service deputy chief of staff in Peacock's hit The Day of the Jackal.

"I was looking for something that would really excite me. I've been doing Outlander for 11 years, and obviously it was brilliant, but I wanted something else,” says Heughan. "And I went to the RSC to see Edward II there, and I just felt that buzz. I sat in the auditorium and I felt that excitement, sort of the churn in my stomach as the lights went down and I was like, 'Yeah, this is the drug I'm looking for.' And it's terrifying. And I think that's a good thing to be scared again."

The last time Heughan was on stage was in Batman Live, where he played the Caped Crusader in uncomfortably snug tights.

He says the show "was not quite Shakespeare or the RSC, but it was an international tour going all around from the whole of UK and Europe to the U.S. We did Las Vegas, we played in Bueno Aires and the O2 in London hanging upside down, wearing PVC."

Merrily, he quips: "I dunno, maybe there'll be a bit of that in Macbeth as well. You never know."

Completing work on the Outlander series presented the perfect opportunity for the actor to return to his stage roots.

"I think that's it," he agrees.

The actor trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, now called the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. "I did a classical theater training, and I built my career on theater. That's what I did way before I got any sort of TV jobs and trying to support myself in Scottish theater and then in London as well.

And it's obviously a dream. I remember just going full circle like, going back to the very first show I ever did in youth theater. I was an extra on the main stage of the Royal Lyceum theatre in Edinburgh in a production of Macbeth. And for me it's The Scottish Play [for superstitious reasons, thespians often refer to Macbeth by that title] obviously, but it's a play that's super-exciting. It's one of his shortest. It's bloody. It's got some incredible writing and some really fascinating character at the center of it. And I just remember being in the library as a drama student, reading books about various famous actors playing that role."

Heughan remembers seeing Adrian Noble's RSC production of the play touring Scotland with Derek Jacobi in the title role "and just being in awe of them and dreaming that one day I'd be there."

The closest he got was playing the roles of Malcolm, a soldier and a "murderer" as the program note lists it, opposite Liam Brennan as the Thane who would be king, in a production that played the Royal Lyceum and Nottingham Playhouse in 2008, directed by Lucy Pitman-Wallace.

As a student, he watched the video version of Patrick Stewart essaying the once loyal and valiant general-turned-treasonous killer of a king in director Rupert Goold's celebrated production that played the West End and Broadway.

Importantly, he watched the thrilling filmed adaptation of Macbeth starring Ian McKellen and Judi Dench. In 1976, Trevor Nunn had directed the play for the RSC at The Other Place, and it's now regarded as one of the greatest productions of The Scottish Play ever staged.

"The last people to do [Macbeth] in that theatre wwere Ian McKellen and Judi Dench," Heughan observes, "so we're very lucky."

There will be ghosts in that house, I suggest.

Heughan laughs but says in all seriousness: "There will be, and I hope we can draw upon their talent and their expertise."

The tragedy of Macbeth is that, upon hearing the three witches' prophecy that he would become King of Scotland, he becomes tyrannical and, with his wife's help, he murders the monarch who stands in his way. But is his missus to blame, or, I ask Heughan, am I being kind to Macbeth?

"What's so great about Shakespeare," he says brightly, "is that it can be read in many different ways and portrayed in different ways.

And you could say, 'Well, it's always been in him and he's an evil man and he wanted to do this.'

Or you could say that he is on this path that he's been set on by some supernatural powers or it's his ambition. Or in my case, I think perhaps it might be more that he loves someone so much and he wants to fulfill her ambition as well. But it's about making one decision and then the consequences of that, and he just can't get out of it and takes it way too far. But yeah, I mean, obviously he starts down this slippery slope and can't stop it and goes really far with it, but it's super-fascinating. I mean, we haven't started rehearsals yet, but we'll be looking at what is it that drives him and all of the superstition around it as well."

In terms of wrongheaded, misguided polices, I mention, mischievously, if the White House might be a suitable location for the play to be set.

"Yeah, again, I think it's the beauty of Shakespeare is you can always draw parallels, and that's why it's still so popular now. You can look at any country or anything that's going on anywhere and see that in the wrong hands, power corrupts. I mean, he really does shut everyone down and start to destroy anyone that can pose a threat to him. So yeah, I won't be playing it with a ginger wig or in a suit."

Or an overlong blue tie, I add wickedly.

"Well, you never know. Maybe I will," he responds wryly.

Actually, Heughan and Williams have had discussions with director Raggett about where to set it.

"We've been talking about lots of different ways of portraying it and whether that's, I feel, been done before. But you could set it the conflict in Ukraine or on the Russian border or whatever, or you could set it, as you suggested, in America right now. It could be kind of set anywhere. So we haven't fully decided, but I think we know which direction we're going."

We chatted during a break from a table read of the text. Just before our meeting in London, he got stopped by three Spanish tourists "and they were excited. I'm surprised they recognized me," he says, laughing, "because I've shaved my head for the role."

Explaining his rationale for the new look, Heughan says, "It's also about a new skin and a new me and new beginnings and shedding a bit of Jamie Fraser, though he was a wig as well. But I think it's an interesting look. Certainly I'm getting used to it."

When he saw Raggett's production of Edward II starring Daniel Evans, who's also the RSC's co-artistic director with Tamara Harvey, he says that he felt "that excitement and that fear that got me into theater and made me an actor in the first place. And I think that's what I want to do with this play. I want people to come to see Macbeth and be properly scared."

Working on Outlander for 11years, he says, "dominated" his life. "It becomes your life a hundred percent. And in some ways that's fantastic, and I've been very lucky. I've obviously been able to do some movies and TV shows and things, but it does define you and it also dictates where you live and what time you have and where you are in the world physically and where your energy goes. So this is really cool. It's a chance for me to sort of, I don't know, find out who I am again or where I was and see what the next step is. And it feels like home already going into Stratford-upon-Avon. ... It feels familiar and walking onto the stage and soaking that up. So it's a part of myself that I've perhaps had forgotten about."

Also, he adds that he feels proud as a native of Scotland to be playing a role that's associated with the country of his birth.

He's thrilled that the cast is "predominantly all Scottish actors." There's a great pool of talent in Scotland, he boasts, "and a great vibrancy and energy," adding, "I'm so excited to have this little bit of Scotland in Stratford-upon-Avon flying our flag."

Heughan also has announcements planned for his Sassenach Spirits brand. Perhaps he'll gift wrap a few bottles as first-night gifts for his cast mates.

There's also sadness with moving on from Outlander. He had lunch with Balfe last week. "It was so lovely to see her. She's obviously in London as well, and so we're all very, very close still and we're always sending each other messages and stuff. So that's, I guess, one of the great parts of our show. We really have this lovely friendship now, and I'm sure that we'll follow each other in subsequent years."

And he misses the crew too. "They're not just crew, they're family, they're friends now."

There's talk, he notes, of them doing Comic-Con "to sort of celebrate the prequel show."

And he's not ruling out the possibility of an Outlander one-off TV special in the future.

"Who knows?" he chuckles. "Who knows? I know they did that with Downton Abbey and others. So you never know. Maybe the ginger wig is still around somewhere."

Article 2 June 2025

[nasa]

Let's Explore a Metal-Rich Asteroid 🤘

Between Mars and Jupiter, there lies a unique, metal-rich asteroid named Psyche. Psyche’s special because it looks like it is part or all of the metallic interior of a planetesimal—an early planetary building block of our solar system. For the first time, we have the chance to visit a planetary core and possibly learn more about the turbulent history that created terrestrial planets.

Here are six things to know about the mission that’s a journey into the past: Psyche.

1. Psyche could help us learn more about the origins of our solar system.

After studying data from Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists believe that Psyche collided with other large bodies in space and lost its outer rocky shell. This leads scientists to think that Psyche could have a metal-rich interior, which is a building block of a rocky planet. Since we can’t pierce the core of rocky planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our home planet, Earth, Psyche offers us a window into how other planets are formed.

2. Psyche might be different than other objects in the solar system.

Rocks on Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Earth contain iron oxides. From afar, Psyche doesn’t seem to feature these chemical compounds, so it might have a different history of formation than other planets.

If the Psyche asteroid is leftover material from a planetary formation, scientists are excited to learn about the similarities and differences from other rocky planets. The asteroid might instead prove to be a never-before-seen solar system object. Either way, we’re prepared for the possibility of the unexpected!

3. Three science instruments and a gravity science investigation will be aboard the spacecraft.

The three instruments aboard will be a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager. Here’s what each of them will do:

Magnetometer: Detect evidence of a magnetic field, which will tell us whether the asteroid formed from a planetary body

Gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer: Help us figure out what chemical elements Psyche is made of, and how it was formed

Multispectral imager: Gather and share information about the topography and mineral composition of Psyche

The gravity science investigation will allow scientists to determine the asteroid’s rotation, mass, and gravity field and to gain insight into the interior by analyzing the radio waves it communicates with. Then, scientists can measure how Psyche affects the spacecraft’s orbit.

4. The Psyche spacecraft will use a super-efficient propulsion system.

Psyche’s solar electric propulsion system harnesses energy from large solar arrays that convert sunlight into electricity, creating thrust. For the first time ever, we will be using Hall-effect thrusters in deep space.

5. This mission runs on collaboration.

To make this mission happen, we work together with universities, and industry and NASA to draw in resources and expertise.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission and is responsible for system engineering, integration, and mission operations, while NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program manages launch operations and procured the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Working with Arizona State University (ASU) offers opportunities for students to train as future instrument or mission leads. Mission leader and Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton is also based at ASU.

Finally, Maxar Technologies is a key commercial participant and delivered the main body of the spacecraft, as well as most of its engineering hardware systems.

6. You can be a part of the journey.

Everyone can find activities to get involved on the mission’s webpage. There's an annual internship to interpret the mission, capstone courses for undergraduate projects, and age-appropriate lessons, craft projects, and videos.

You can join us for a virtual launch experience, and, of course, you can watch the launch with us on Oct. 12, 2023, at 10:16 a.m. EDT!

For official news on the mission, follow us on social media and check out NASA’s and ASU’s Psyche websites.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Story Plot

Plot - is what happens in a story.

Every story is made up of both events and characters.

A story happens because a pattern is interrupted.

If you are writing about a day that is like any other day, it is most likely a routine, not a story.

A Strong Plot

Centered on one moment—an interruption of a pattern, a turning point, or an action—that raises a dramatic question, which must be answered throughout the course of the story. This is also known as plot A.

Every element of the plot—each scene, each line—exists in service of answering that question. There are myriad plot devices that can bolster the main story; these are considered subplots.

7 Types of Plots

The nature of the dramatic question informs the plot and what kind of story it will be. Are the characters threatened by something external or internal? What genre will the story be?

Tragedy

Your main character should undergo a major change of fortune — almost always from good to bad, happy to sad.

Tragic characters have to suffer.

Comedy

Even though your characters have defects, their defects should never wind up being painful or destructive.

Comic characters make it through unscathed.

Hero’s Journey

The hero of a story must undergo two things:

Recognition and reversal of a situation.

Something has to happen from the outside that inspires the hero in a way that he/she didn’t realize before.

Then he has to undertake a quest to solve the situation.

Rags to Riches

Remember Cinderella? The classic fairy tale follows a simple rags-to-riches plot:

the protagonist is downtrodden, impoverished, or otherwise struggling, and through a series of events—either magical, like in Cinderella, or more realistic, like in Great Expectations — achieves success.

This type of plot often features a happy ending.

Rebirth

The rebirth style of plot follows a character’s transformation from bad to good.

The character will frequently have a tragic past that informs their current negative view of life, however, a series of events (usually set in motion by the protagonist or a narrator) will help them see the light.

See: Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, or the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.

Overcoming the Monster

Otherwise known as the good versus evil plot, this type of story features a protagonist (good) fighting an antagonist (evil).

The protagonist can be a singular character or a group united in their mission.

The antagonist is generally a big, bad evil (like Darth Vader in Star Wars) who continuously throws obstacles in the protagonist’s way—until the final battle.

Voyage & Return

This plot is a simple point A to point B and back to point A plot.

The protagonist sets off on a journey, only to return to his or her starting point having gained wisdom and experience (and sometimes treasure too).

Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist is a beloved contemporary illustration of this plot.

How to Outline a Story Plot: Three-Act Structure

Beginning

The beginning of your novel has to accomplish a lot.

It must introduce the hero, the villain, and the world of the story, as well as the story’s dramatic question, and it must do this with enough energy to grab your reader’s interest right away.

A prologue can be useful for seizing the reader’s attention.

Middle

Your job during the middle of the story is to make the hero’s quest as difficult as possible so that at every moment it seems less likely that the hero will triumph.

You must raise the stakes along the way and create obstacles of ever-increasing intensity while keeping your eye firmly fixed on your conclusion.

The different plot points can include the basic plot, plus various subplots.

The main plot of a story always has to build up to the resolution.

End

The end of your story answers the dramatic question, which already has your ending hidden within it.

For example, if your question is:

Will Ahab catch the whale?

Then your story’s finale will be the moment when he does.

Often, tension evaporates in the middle of a novel, so it’s a good idea to write your ending first. It may not be perfect, and you can always change it later, but it’s useful to know the climax to which your characters are headed.

Having that destination will help you stay focused during the “middle muddle.”

Freytag’s Pyramid

German novelist Gustav Freytag expanded on Aristotle’s concept of plot by adding 2 additional components to the beginning, middle, and end:

Rising action and falling action.

Freytag���s dramatic arc, also known as Freytag’s Pyramid, includes the following:

Exposition. This is the beginning of the story.

Rising action. Once the story has begun, it is important to create tension by raising the stakes. You must raise the stakes along the way and create obstacles of ever-increasing intensity while keeping your eye firmly fixed on your conclusion.

Climax (middle). The pinnacle of your plot.

Falling action. The falling action occurs after the climax but before the end. Falling action frequently depicts the protagonist dealing with the consequences or fallout of the climax. The falling action is when the protagonist ties up loose ends and heads toward the conclusion. It is also referred to as the denouement.

Resolution. This is the end of the story.

Source ⚜ The 3-Act Structure: History & Elements ⚜ A Guide More References: Plot ⚜ Character ⚜ Worldbuilding ⚜ Writing Notes

[julietcpulet]

Jinshi’s Importance to the Plot

Ironically people who want to say it’s misogyny that makes fans elevate Jinshi in Apothecary Diaries beyond female characters do much the same from a sexist point of view of devaluing his character as a male.

I’ve said this before but while Maomao is the main character, she wouldn’t be able to do much of what she does without Jinshi. A fact she is well aware of and doesn’t begrudge. He introduced her to Gyokuyou which is how she became integral to the rear palace, she used his status on multiple occasions to help her grant access where she wouldn’t have been able to go otherwise and she even tells Lishu to ask him about her problem as she knows she cannot help directly without his assistance. He even helped her get back to the rear palace after she basically got herself fired by bringing her in as a maid and paying off her debt at the Verdigris House. Jinshi is the shadow behind Maomao that helps move her character through the story. People love to comment “they grow / propel each other” which I’m aware of and agree but this is about people’s dislike and devaluing of Jinshi in the narrative specifically. If he weren’t there Maomao’s story would feel incomplete.

As for other women in the series, they too benefit from Jinshi which again shows his permanence to the narrative vs their transience and less integral nature to the story as whole. Shisui for example, while important to the Shi clan plot, was only able to have impact at the final part of her story because of Jinshi’s kindness. He could’ve killed her when he discovered the gun was a fake, as she said overpowering her would’ve easy. Instead he listens to her, watches her whole performance play out and takes on the knowledge of the Shi clan and guilt of the previous Emperor for her. He promises the children will be safe and her sister and is the only one who seems to understand the meaning behind her dramatic death. Without him there would’ve liked been more bloodshed and she wouldn’t have had what little redemption she did manage at the end.

Gyokuyou is also a prominent female character who relies on Jinshi. In the rear palace she trusts him to protect her from the schemes of the other women and to care for her child. Afterwards when she is Empress she has to hope he will not unseat her own son in a succession bid. She’s also the one who puts much stress on him by putting pressure on Maomao to return to her service and expecting him to continually deny having her as a wife because of the discomfort it will cause the Empire. Without his continual denial of his own wishes while still fulfilling his own duties for the Empire, Gyokuyou would’ve been put into many difficult positions a long time ago but he has tried as much as he can to respect and protect even her no matter the political issues between their stations.

There are more female examples than this but my point here is that while Apothecary Diaries certainly does not have one-dimensional female characters, it does not have flat male characters either. So saying that just because Apothecary Diaries simply has more female characters means that Jinshi must be less relevant is underestimating just why he has been the central male figure for all of the light novels, features as Maomao’s love interest and basically holds the place as secondary main character.

His plot may not always take center stage but the difficulties of him being Crown Prince have been an undercurrent since novel 1, from his identity to now what position he’ll take in the future. Expanding arcs that even Maomao is involved in at the periphery play into what will happen with the Empire and the succession which Jinshi has been at the center of since the beginning.

People can dislike it, they can want to ship whatever is not canon but as a character himself, Jinshi is important and irreplaceable to the Apothecary Diaries world. You can like Jinshi and still appreciate the female characters while knowing that many of the female characters simply do not take up the of narrative space he does. It is not misogynistic to say so. However, to deny his place in the story as a male and elevate the women’s just because they are female regardless of the actual contribution of the character is sexist. You can enjoy both without saying that the women have to be better because they’re female. Because they’re not even on the same level in the narrative. Where Shisui appears for 4 novels out of 14 so far and even Gyokuou may appear for a few chapters and be a background figure overall, among other women, Jinshi is only behind Maomao herself in being integral to the driving narrative.

It’s not wrong for people to like and appreciate a character who is literally helping make the plot what it is, that is actually what they’re meant to do. The problem here is people who are unwilling to recognize that just because a character is male does not mean they cannot contribute to a plotline as much as a female character, have as much depth and be featured more than other female characters in the plot without it being any kind of hidden misogyny or meaning other than they enjoy the characters how they’re written.

[jmdbjk]

Jimin's exhibit: The Truth Untold, in New York City.

My first glimpse of NYC:

We calculated carefully and figured we had time to spare to get to our 7:30 p.m. reservation at Antoya... but we didn't take into consideration New York traffic from LaGuardia. A trip that should have taken about 30 minutes ate up 2 hours of time but finally, we made our way into Manhattan.

Our hotel was one street over from the Empire State Building and in Koreatown. When we made the hotel reservations, we were unaware of that fact. Thanks, Universe!

We made it to Antoya just in time. I had requested the special table and they acknowledged that but it’s on the third floor which is usually for large parties or special events. In any case they weren’t seating any one on the third floor at the time but they happily chatted about Jimin and Jungkook being finished with their military service while showing us to our table on the second floor. The food was delicious and service was fast and efficient.

Then we hit Koreatown and had a taste of tanghulu, mochi donuts and Tous les Jours, the South Korean cafe chain. Highly recommend the egg tarts (Not pictured).

We shopped at the little shops and at the Korean Market.

The next day we headed to Lower Manhattan and the Financial District.

We were early so we wandered around, got some coffee, looked for bagels but didn't find any.

FINALLY, we entered Jimin's exhibit. We all received our gifts and I promptly confiscated all the photocards.

My traveling companions are not Army but they were very interested in everything in the exhibit so I happily explained what everything was. Any excuse to talk about Jimin, right? Jimin's handwritten notes impressed them (I love his English handwriting). My companions also were impressed with the Set Me Free Pt. 2 MV that played on a wall opposite this one covered in photos of Jimin in one of the small rooms. The photos were huge and amazing. All of them.

The main thing I wanted to see and the whole point of this trip were Jimin's clothes. The fabrics of the suits I touched (yes I know, DO NOT TOUCH! but I did anyway), the fabrics were very fine and supple. I'm assuming wool. The leathers so soft. My traveling companion suggested I sniff the clothes. So I did. She really gets me, you know? They smelled fresh from the dry cleaners and not like Jimin's sweat. Oh well. Jimin probably doesn't stink anyway. Of course he doesn't, what am I even saying? ANYWAY.

I stood next to one of the mannequins standing on the floor and was able to tell that, with shoes on, Jimin would tower over me. Judging the size of the jackets, he is bigger in the body than I thought he'd be. Tall and lanky. And yes, his waist is very small.

I was particularly interested in the leather jacket from the Who MV. I can't believe I saw that with my own eyeballs. And Jimin had it on his body and danced in it. And I touched it...the jacket I mean. Don't tell anybody.

Some other visitors and I were tempted to sit in (mannequin) Jimin's lap here but we abided by the rules.

All of his awards were so cool to see! The MAMA award is a very impressive little trophy. Of course the Billboard award was front and center.

The Hybe staff were lovely. The female staff were stunningly gorgeous women.

It was a small exhibit but I'm so happy I was able to see it. The messages left by Armys in the previous weeks were wonderful to see. We were not able to leave a message. At least I didn't see where we could.

Next up was Times Square. What a hot mess. BUT! I saw the Times Square TSX stage where Jungkook performed and wow it is much closer to the street than I thought it would be. ITS SO CLOSE.

Popped into the Line Friends store: couldn't find anything I wanted. I was disappointed.

We moved on to Rockefeller Center and witnessed a wedding of all things, happening in the middle of everyone out on the plaza. Then we went to the end of the block to St. Patrick's Cathedral where they were just finishing up another wedding while tourists streamed in from off the street. It was weird. But what a beautiful church.

The next day was The Museum of Natural History and then into Central Park. The Museum of Natural History has great bones. Ha. Lots of them. Lots and lots and lots. Bones everywhere. Yes, this is the same museum in the movie Night at the Museum. All the critters were in their displays waiting for night time.

The day was getting kinda hot for a stroll through Central Park but we did it anyway because damn, I'm not going all the way to NYC and not go to Central Park.

From one end to the other, we exited Central Park and headed to the Tiffany Landmark store a few blocks away.

The 20-story high stack of Louis Vuitton trunks was surprising:

The Tiffany Landmark store was gorgeous and the people there were so incredibly nice. And ugh, yes, that is a Tiffany's box in that pic with Jimin's photocards. Yes, I splurged. The HardWear collection micro link bracelet jumped out at me from the glass case and begged me to take it home. So I did. Willpower. What's that?

That wasn't on my bingo card but here we are. I will cherish it forever.

Things we ate other than the aforementioned Korean food and snacks: Joe's Pizza. Liberty Bagels. Dim sum. The hoity-toity-est meal we had was lunch at the Museum of Nat History. Go figure. I had a tuna sandwich (not made with canned tuna) and a purple flower lemonade. Fan-cehhh. (that's smartass for fancy).

Other things we saw: Ground Zero. Incidentally, Spotify's offices are right there. We saw the Statue of Liberty from Battery Park and the Brooklyn Bridge when we headed back to our hotel. I have so many more photos of Jimin's exhibit and the trip overall but only so many photos are allowed in a post here on Tumblr.

Things we did not get to see: Grand Central Station. The inside of Macy's Herald Square even though we stayed right across the street from it. We had important business.... SORRY. We didn't see the charging bull statue at the New York Stock Exchange either. We couldn't find the thing.

But the numbers were numbering for this trip: Level 7 was where I parked my car at the airport. Row 7 was my seat on the plane. Our rooms were on the 13th floor at the hotel. Sadly, I did not get room 1310. I don't think there were that many rooms on the floor anyway. But I could have had 1306! Oh well.

Other takeaways from this trip: Taxi drivers and NYC traffic is no joke. I recommend Uber all the way. You can even get the same taxi you hail off the street for half the cost through Uber. We ventured down to the subway but it is too complicated and risky for noob first-timers especially when you have to be somewhere on time. But if you are there for a length of time it would be well worth learning how to use it because it's less than $3 USD per ride.

Uber Eats was quick and convenient. We were very tired Saturday evening and our Joe's Pizza arrived in 15 minutes after ordering. I don't know how they did that so quickly.

And then it was time to head home on my airplane, airplane....everyday above the clouds.... are those otters!?

No! It's a squirrel!

Or is it Koya?

I was never good at cloud shapes. I think I see Shooky back there...and RJ...definitely it's RJ...