#Raise Money From Angel Investors

[nicolejames12]

Navigating Early Stage Venture Capital: A Guide for Entrepreneurs

Venturing into the realm of early stage venture capital (VC) can be both exhilarating and daunting for aspiring entrepreneurs. The journey from concept to capitalization requires strategic planning, networking prowess, and a deep understanding of the investment landscape. Visit: https://sites.google.com/view/ausmequity/home

[mint-8]

Platonic Yandere Show-Off!

Yandere Mother vs. Yandere Father x Child! GN! Reader

Content/Trigger warning: Mentions of death, torture, and pregnancy. Please read as completely platonic.

- United in an arranged marriage, neither Yandere Mother nor Yandere Father are particularly pleased with their current situation. Both are enraged due to their respective family's tradition of marrying into money and improving business respectively, and are already planning on how get to get rid of the other one so they can live a happy single life, preferably with all of the remaining assets from having their spouse die in 'mysterious' ways.

- Yandere Mother and Yandere Father are tasked with having at least 1 child so they can inherit the entire family business. Their gender doesn't matter. They need to make an heir. Yandere Mother is disgusted at the idea of having Yandere Father inside her, and so does he, but after avoiding the inevitable for a couple years, they finally spent one quick and uncomfortable night together to get it over with.

- While Yandere Mother is busy dealing with the pregnancy, Yandere Father makes sure to put aside enough money for his child's education, entertainment, health, and anything else they might need. Look, he might hate his wife, but he is not going to hate an innocent creature that had no choice to be born to such a horrible woman, he is going to do his best to raise his child right, but might leave most of the heavy duties to the mother. And speaking of, Yandere Mother is excited for having a child. It will be HER child and no one else's, and is very happy that her piece of shit of a husband is going to leave most of the kid's upbringing to her. She will make sure her baby grows with only the best of the best, and of course, only loving their mama! Your sperm donor will only appear for publicity reasons.

- Yandere Mother and Yandere Father who are surprised when your birth occurs a bit earlier than expected, but nevertheless rush your mother quickly to the best hospital in the country while your father waits outside of the operation room. Partially because it will look good for the press and partially because he doesn't want to be like your deadbeat grandfather who skipped his birth so he could drink with some investors. Yandere Father, at least, wants to be there for you. Meanwhile, Yandere Mother is screaming bloody murder in the other room. The pain is horrible. Even when the doctors gave her strong medications for the delivery, she still feels the first complications of motherhood. But even with all the difficulties, she bears through it all and gives birth to what will become of her and her husband's future adoration and obsession, you.

- The first to meet you is, of course, Yandere Mother, who held you as soon as the nurse's finished washing off all the blood and liquids, and who couldn't believe her eyes when she first saw you. Even when you were wet and crying after experiencing breathing for the first time, you still looked like the most adorable of little angels. Yandere Mother couldn't help but cry and weep from the incredible amount of love she felt in the moment, while a warm smile grazed her face, as she protectively held you, hearing your heart beat in unison with hers. She even refused to let the nurses and doctors check on you until she pretty much collapsed from the exhaustion of giving birth.

- Yandere Father meets you after the hospital staff gave him the clearing after running some tests. To say he fell in love is an understatement. This man fell to his knees when he first saw you at the maternity ward, peacefully sleeping with a soft blanket covering you. He couldn't help the tears that fell down his face, or the clear adoration in his eyes. He just... loves you much. His baby, his little angel. The adorable and cute baby in existence was right in front of him, and you were all his! He made you, after all! Oh, how excited he was to get you ot of here and buy you dozens of toys, and clothes and-

"They are beautiful, aren't they?"

"Like an angel..."

"If you hurt them in any way, I'll make sure to hire an assassin to torture you to death"

"I can say the same to you, dear"

- Yandere Mother and Yandere Father spoil you rotten through your childhood. Especially Yandere Father, who can't spend as much time with you as he would like because he has to take care of the family conglomerate, but always sends you hundreds of gifts your way, which are always meticulously chosen and discarded by Yandere Mother, who makes sure to spend every moment that you are awake by your side. She will make sure to raise you into the most innocent, polite, and kind little one in the entire world. She might love you with all her heart, and is more than willing to frame someone for a murder she committed if it came down to it, but she won't neglect you by letting you grow as you please! Oh, no! Proper etiquette classes and lectures about being responsible, respectful, and kind are very prevalent in your busy schedule and educational curriculum.

- Yandere Mother chooses homeschooling with only the best of the best private teachers and tutors to foment your growth! And no complaining or pressure from her extended family will change that! Yandere Father also supports this plan, with the added clause that you need to participate in extracurricular activities outside for your fortified home. Yandere Mother was going to cut your father from suggesting such dangerous activities to fragile, innocent you, but quickly changed her mind when he explained that he wishes to have photos and memorabilia of each and every one of your achievements, specifically those in which you absolutely crush the pathetic competition.

- Yandere Mother and Yandere Father attend every competition and event you compete or participate in, cheering you on from the audience and celebrating with grand parties and banquets for every success or failure. They love making everyone in the world know about their perfect little prodigy and are not shy in the slightest to prove it! Although, if you ever felt uncomfortable or annoyed by such displays of affections, no sweat! Yandere Mother and Yandere Father will completely understand and will keep your celebrations inside of their home, protecting your privacy if you so wish.

- Yandere Mother loves spending time with you to show her affection, being an active and involved parent in pretty much everything you do, always showing support, financial or emotional, for every single one of your hobbies and aspirations. She is also very touchy and cuddly, she specially loved to hold you close to her when you were a baby, giving you kisses and waking you up with more kisses and giggles. She loves to embarrass you with all the photos and loving memories she has of you!

- Yandere Father prefers to shower you in gifts and delicious treats whenever he is free. He especially loves going out to trips to your favorite mall or shops, lets you browse through the different sections, and buy everything your little heart desires. He tries his very best to be strict and teach you about the importance of money, but you give him your 'puppy eyes'™️ and he becomes weak once again. He also loves complimenting you and giving you praise whenever you succeed, as well as helpful tips and advice in the cases you lose or are in need of some support. He especially loves when you come to his home office or during meals and ask him anything and everything you might have in your mind. Your Yandere Father is very well educated after all (and so is your mother!) and is very eloquent when explaining topics and talking about how the world works. He has so many fond memories of little toddler you waddling to his office, asking silly questions and him calmly and sweetly responding as you fall asleep on his shoulder.

- Yandere Father and Yandere Mother loves you so much, little pumpkin. They know that you will grow to become an amazing person, but can't help but worry about others potentially hurting you! So, they make sure to background check anyone that you could possibly have an interest in (romantic or otherwise), to be 100% sure that they will appropriate companions for you. Very few people make the cut, with the many undeserving of your love and attention being quietly taken care of. Not necessarily in a brutal way, but Yandere Mother sure misses her time as queen bee of high-school when she would destroy the lives of those trying to take her down, and Yandere Father has such a vast collection of weapons that it would be a shame not to use them every once in a while!

- Yandere Mother loves you with all her heart and would do anything to protect your smile. Yandere Father loves you with the entirety of his soul and is more than willing to commit war crimes to protect your happiness. The two of them hate each other deeply for always keeping your attention off the other, but work surprisingly well in raising and taking care of you, so they toughened it up and simply focus on your safety and well being. They don't care who they have to hurt, kill, torture, or incriminate. They will do it and make sure you never find out. You are their adorable sweetness. You don't need to know about the atrocities in this world =)

"You are the absolute most, my little star. I love you ♡"

"I'll love you even if you kill me, dear. You will always be my little angel ♡"

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Man, I like Daily Wire in concept but Matt Walsh needs to shut the fuck up about video games. The same guy who tried to resurrect the tired old "violent video games are harmful!" crap is now acting like he's the first person to notice that video games are pushing woke nonsense (even though there are about a hundred channels and outlets that have been talking about this for years) but his solution is to, of course, for the right to stop playing video games.

No. Just, no.

This is the same "bury our head in the sand and pretend pop culture doesn't exist" mindset that got us into this situation in the first place. You can't win a war (and there is a culture war going on, no matter how many people on both sides want to pretend otherwise) by retreating from every battlefield. You win by raising awareness of a problem and then offering a real solution.

And it's especially stupid seeing this cultural retreat mindset from someone working for DW because DW actually knows exactly how to fight this battle. They created their own media company to fight against woke Hollywood. Are all their movies and shows good? No, not at all. But they still did the right thing. They put their money where their mouth is, and created an alternative.

A much better example is Angel Studios, which is probably the only Christian movie studio I've ever seen that puts out top quality content with great acting, writing, and production values. They're raking in money and getting their content onto mainstream streaming services as well as theaters. In other words, they're taking their message to the people who need it the most. The ones who aren't already in the echo chamber. Unlike Daily Wire, which only offers its content on its own website through a subscription service to its own audience, and never advertises anywhere.

Another successful example outside of movies is Eric July's Rippaverse. He's been killing it with his comics, with every single one of his campaigns raking in over a million dollars, every cent of which is reinvested back into his business, helping it grow, creating more content, and expanding his already impressive roster of writers and artists. Mainstream writers and artists, by the way. Like Chuck Dixon, the guy who co-created Bane and wrote the seminal Tim Drake Robin comics, among many other credits, and Mike Baron, who wrote some of the best early Punisher comics. Eric had a following before he started the Rippaverse. He runs a successful YouTube channel and he's a regular contributor to The Blaze. He could have walled himself off with his fanbase, wrote comics about ancaps saving the world from the evils of government, and made some money while pandering to the people who already agreed with him. Instead, he went big. He invested his own money, runs his own distribution center, owns his own business with zero outside investors, hires the best talent he can, and offers a product that focuses on story and characters over messaging. His work isn't even "anti-woke". It's just not woke.

And that's what we need in video games. We need alternatives. We need to roll up our sleeves and wade into the deep waters and actually contribute our ideas and our talents. Offer an alternative. Hire people who know what they're doing, who care about quality content first and social engineering never. There is a huge untapped audience who would pay hand over fist for good video games free from microtransactions and woke nonsense.

But retreating is not an option. It's not brave or moral to hide in our echo chambers and scoff at anything fun. Entertainment is necessary. And maybe more importantly, it's not going anywhere. We will never live in a world where people go to work and spend time with their families at home and do nothing else. We need to engage with the world as it is. Not wait around for whatever our idea of a perfect world is to magically form so we can finally interact with it. You can't change society if you keep pretending large swaths of it don't exist.

[foxymoxynoona]

Over the Falls (Part 1: Ch 1)

Sexy Banner & bar by @borabae-gx

Summary: Jungkook sees a lot of things as a pool tech. It’s…  fine. It pays the bills between mornings on the water and evenings  rocking out with his garage-band. His favorite thing to see on the job has been Grace Birch –older but a hottie, wealthy but nice, and  unfortunately very married. At least until Grace learns what her husband  has been up to behind her back. Now that she’s free, Jungkook finds  himself wondering: what does it take for a guy like him to catch the eye of a woman like that?

Genre: Poolboy Jungkook x Rich Divorcee OC

Tags: Age gap (older woman), socioeconomic gap, Surferboy JK, drummer/guitarist/vocalist JK, Wealthy divorcee OC, househusband

CW: Mature/Explicit,  Infidelity (not between JKxOC), language, alcohol, recreational drugs, lots of explicit sex, ageist/racist/classist remarks down the road, outdoor sex, beach sex

Masterlist | Chapter Two

“But you said it was fine for this year,” Grace sighed. Belatedly she remembered the sigh would send her husband. He hated when she sighed, even though it was unintentional. It was just… just breathing. She held so much tension in her shoulders and her lungs and periodically it had to ease out or she’d just die or something. 

“Well I didn’t know the board meeting would get pulled up, did I?” Tim didn’t even bother looking at her as he draped his suit bag across the back of the couch and set his rollerboard behind it. “So now I have a week to close this deal before I have to stand in a room in front of the men paying our bills and tell them that I failed. I fucked up.”

“But you didn’t fuck up,” she argued. “You’ve been busting your ass to make this partnership happen–”

“After the last one got yanked out from under my feet. Only a fuckup loses a deal that close to closing.”

“That’s not true,” she said and stepped in front of him. She pressed her hands to his chest. He paused and looked at her for a moment, truly looked at her. She saw in his face the long hours, the hard work, the tight deadlines and high stakes. She saw the years of constant travel, of rushed pitches, of last minute victories that secured first one, then another, then another acquisition. Tim was good at what he did. He was building an empire –an empire for Bang Si-hyuk rather than himself, but being the right-hand man paid well. Very well. 

Not that Tim had really needed the money. His father had been very good at this as well and built his own empire. Tim had wanted to make a point of not taking handouts from his father, but secretly Grace knew how much of their home and cars and lavish vacations had been her father-in-law’s gift until Tim got his feet under him. Their elaborate wedding had been her parents’ contribution, though. Nothing but the best for their angel daughter.

But in general her parents didn’t offer as much. Her family were investors and attorneys intermarried with prestige –old money, not the new, bubbly, flashy money that Tim and his parents needed to flaunt. They hadn’t offered her anything except a raised eyebrow when she’d decided to marry Timothy Birch. Was it necessary? Was she pregnant? Did she need money after all? Because if things were really bad–

It wasn’t any of those things. It was love. Grace had seen in Tim a fire, a desire to change the world, a strong moral center, and a safe, comfortable future. And love paid off! They’d been married for ten years now, paid off that first modest home Tim’s dad had co-signed for and traded it for a much bigger Colonial, and Grace worked her high-paying real estate job because she genuinely enjoyed it. No matter how many times Tim or her closest friends and most certainly her parents had suggested that maybe she’d be happier at home. You know. With kids.

But how were she and Tim supposed to start a family if he couldn’t even be home to celebrate this important date?

Tim stepped away and her hands were left hovering in the air as he sighed, “I’m sorry, Grace. But I can’t tell the board members I failed to close the deal because my wife needed me at home for a dinner.”

“Not just a dinner. Our anniversary dinner.”

“So we’ll eat our anniversary dinner next week,” he insisted. “The day isn’t important.”

“I know it’s not, we are. But you already had me cancel the week we were supposed to be in the Bahamas. You already had me cancel the luncheon I was going to throw–”

“That was stupid anyway.”

“Your mother demanded it! And I had to be the one to tell her we weren’t doing it –and I’d already put a lot of work into it! And now you won’t even be home to be with me.”

“You’re being unreasonable.”

“You’re gone too much,” she tried one more time, grabbing his arm. 

“It’s my career, Grace. You know it’s important to me.”

“I know that but… but I thought it was supposed to slow down at this point. You said it would.”

“Do you know what happens to a fighter jet if its propellers slow down?”

She sighed. He glared. She nodded.

“It crashes,” she answered. She’d never forget the day he’d made that demonstration while they were up in his hobby plan. Two years ago? He’d finally earned his license and taken her out for a joy ride even though she hated that fucking plane. She’d made the mistake of asking if he’d be home more now, because between work and golf and flying, she saw more of him at dinner parties than at home. 

His response had been to demonstrate a drop. 

She hadn’t been back in the plane with him since. 

Another of her mounting failures.

“Hey. I love you,” he said, suddenly taking her hand. “I’m really sorry I’m missing everything. I promise I’ll make it up to you, ok? The deal should only take me a couple days to close and then… it’ll be belated, but maybe you and I can take a long weekend somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Wherever you like.”

“Galapagos Islands,” she said, because she wanted to see the turtles. “Iceland,” for the Northern Lights. “Oh, what about that ship that takes people to Antarctica–”

“I was thinking more like Cabo,” he laughed. He patted her cheek and kissed her forehead. “I love that you still dream like a little girl. Don’t ever lose that, sweetheart. See you in a week, I hope!”

He grabbed his bags and headed out. 

It hadn’t been a bad fight, all things considered. Neither of them had gone for the jugular because there wasn’t really a point, since he had a flight to catch and this trip was an immovable object. Grace was disappointed about it all but not even a little surprised, so she hadn’t wasted her energy getting worked up over something that she couldn’t change.

The house was quiet without Tim; even though he worked a lot, there was still a marked difference around the place when he was in town or out. She’d obviously done all the designing and decorating, but he had such particular taste about things, and the combination always just seemed so loud when he wasn’t here to balance out the echo of her voice. He had so many things to mark his presence here even though he spent half of each month traveling. 

Movement in the backyard drew Grace’s attention and she leaned against the sliding door with a sigh. The pool boy was here again. He must have let himself in. Usually he knocked on the backdoor and waved to let her know he was there –a routine begun after once scaring the shit out of her when she’d come up from the gym to see a figure lurking in the backyard. Her scream had been mortifying, though he’d been kind and apologetic.

He hadn’t knocked today, but he might have picked up that she and Tim were fighting and steered clear. He seemed to have a knack for coming over when they were fighting, or maybe it was just because they fought so much. Every little thing seemed to blow up these days, from her not putting the laundry away quickly enough to him leaving whiskers around the bathroom sink after he shaved. Yes, they had housecleaners, but it was trashy to leave a mess for someone else to clean up. “New money,” Grace’s mother had mumbled when she’d complained about it, looking for sympathy or reassurance that men just are like that or something.

She was mortified if the pool boy had actually seen them fighting and felt that staunch Arison pride take over. If someone saw something that might look poorly on you –like fighting with your husband– you needed to immediately do damage control. Hired help talked. Rumors of domestic unrest were like blood in a swamp; nothing drew the gossiping mosquitos faster. 

Grace didn’t know how long he’d been working but decided it didn’t matter. She always offered him a drink and a snack anyway. Pink Lemonade or Sprite, he preferred those to anything else. And he always accepted a bag of chips “for the road,” which had amused her the first time he’d said it. As if he just drove from pool to pool in that garishly painted company truck, tossing back kale chips or spooning tuna salad onto crackers. After a few weeks of her offering the foods she kept on hand, he’d once asked if she had any Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. It had taken all her etiquette training not to laugh –definitely not something they kept stocked! But he looked so sweetly sheepish about making a request, and the whole point of offering was to actually show gratitude to the other person. He kept their pool looking so nice! So she tried to keep a box of chips tucked in the back of the pantry where Tim didn’t go anywhere.

She carried a sweaty Sprite and a bag of chips out with her now. He looked up from spooning something out of the pool with his net at the sound of the sliding door.

“Good afternoon!” she called as she slid her feet into a pair of sandals. 

“Hello, Mrs. Birch,” he called back. He had on a pair of dark sunglasses and a big floppy white bucket hat and a tank top with long arm holes that gave him a real beach bum vibe. She carried the tray over to the table beside the pool house where it could rest in the shade.

“I brought you a snack. I hope you aren’t too hot out here!”

“Ah, it’s pretty warm,” he said. She thought she might be annoying him because he turned his back to her and lifted the net out of the pool. 

“Ok, well, I’ll leave you to–”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Birch. Wait a moment. Just a moment…” He shuffled along the side of the pool and emptied the net into a trashcan, before setting it on the side of the pool and coming to her. “I’m sorry about that.”

“That’s ok! I know you’re working. I don’t mean to slow you down.”

“I just didn’t want to bother you with that…”

“With… what?” 

He swept his hat off and pushed his sunglasses up, revealing hair spiky with sweat along his hairline and a pressure mark on his tanned nose. 

“Ah, um… a mouse,” he mumbled. She stared. “It’s ok. I took care of it.”

“There was a mouse in the pool?!”

“Well… a rat…”

“I’m so glad you told me! If we have rats I need to call pest control! I promise we don’t usually have rats–”

His face opened up in a laugh as he assured her, “No, Mrs. Birch. I shouldn’t have said that. It wasn’t a rat…”

Now she was absolutely confused and demanded, “JK, what was dead in my pool?” 

He smiled like this was all very funny. He wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand and lifted the Sprite from the tray, opening it with a quick twist of his hand. 

“I didn’t want to scare you, it was a squirrel.”

“I’m not scared of a squirrel…”

“A dead squirrel? Ok,” he shrugged and smiled again. “Sorry, Mrs. Birch. Sometimes the ladies are…” He gave her a sheepish look now. Her heart slowed down with the threat of a rat infestation gone. Why in the world had he not just said that from the beginning? It was kind if he’d been trying to spare her but honestly, she was made of sterner stuff than that!

“Well not this one,” she told him, “but thank you for trying to spare me. Is there sanitation that needs to be done in the–”

“Yes, I’ll definitely take care of it, Mrs. Birch.”

She gave him an apologetic smile, “I know you will, sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I doubted your professionalism. It’s just been a day…” She turned her head to the side but glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, testing to see if he’d seen or heard anything. Maybe he had knocked on the door and she just hadn’t heard it?

“Well it’s beautiful outside,” he said. “Nothing a little sun can’t solve, right? I’ll have your pool nice again in no time or you can just…” He gestured to the lounge chairs at the far end, then dropped his face to put his mouth around the lip of the Sprite bottle. He tossed his head back and took a big sip with a sigh at the end, eyes red and watering. He sniffled. “It’s good, thanks.”

Grace grinned. “I’m glad. You know, I honestly don’t remember the last time I laid out by the pool.”

“Don’t you like to?”

“Oh yeah, when we first bought this house, I was out here every day with a Bloody Mary and a good thriller. Take a dip to cool off afterwards and–” She broke off, realizing she was waxing poetic about the happy earlier days of her privileged marriage to the fucking pool guy. Not to mention the rudeness. She was never totally sure what sounded like bragging, but suspected Bloody Marys by the pool on a weekday morning were not a part of JK’s routine.

“Won’t bother me if you give it a go while I’m working,” he shrugged. He set the Sprite down. “I just mean, don’t miss the sun on my account. Supposed to rain tomorrow.”

As tempting as the thought was, she didn’t want to make JK uncomfortable while he was working. She knew plenty of women who leered at their pool boys, who were just young men trying to do an honest job. She didn’t know a great deal about JK, but she knew he worked as a pool boy and a lifeguard and taught swim lessons, surfed in his free time, and that his favorite place he’d ever traveled was a summer he spent in Costa Rica, although he’d also gotten really sick there. Bad diarrhea. He hadn’t said that but insinuated it heavily and then looked embarrassed and Grace had thought that was pretty endearing. He was a nice guy, and he worked hard and did a good job. 

He was also rather good looking, so safe to assume he dealt with plenty of lecherous old women. Grace refused to be one of them! She was happily married and also not a predator, thanks!

“I appreciate the thought,” she thanked him now. “But I have some things I have to finish up inside and I need to–” Actually she no longer needed to pick up the dry cleaning with any sense of urgency, because she wouldn’t be wearing that blue dress that Tim liked so much to their anniversary dinner after all. “Finish some things up,” she clumsily finished. “So I’ll stay out of your way. If I’m gone when you finish just please be sure to lock up.”

“Yes, Mrs. Birch,” he nodded. “Thank you for the Sprite and chips.”

He was always so polite. She tried to treat all their household staff with kindness and respect but found it returned in various degrees. JK the pool boy was a good one though.

With nothing further to say or do, she bid him good day and returned inside. The conditioned air made her shiver at the contrast. It was going to be an incredibly hot summer if it was already like this in May. Global warming and all that. Thank god for the pool. She glanced over her shoulder one last time to see that JK was back to fishing things out of the pool, then went to cancel the dinner reservation with a sigh.

*

Mrs. Birch was not like the other women Jungkook cleaned pools for, that was the first thing he could tell you about her.

Agewise, he thought she was somewhere in the middle of the pack –those rich old dudes were always marrying women half their age, but sometimes they had old cutthroat wives who stuck around. He didn’t know how old Mrs. Birch was but he guessed somewhere in the middle of the range, maybe mid-30s or something? Late 30s? Could be 40s with a great surgeon or whatever, but usually you could tell when a white woman had a lot of work done trying to cling to her youth. Mrs. Birch had laugh lines and slight crinkles beside her eyes and a crease between her eyebrows but she had a youthful vibe and a girlish laugh, so fuck if he had any real clue about her age. 

She was definitely younger than her husband, Mr. Birch, who sucked donkey balls. Dude deserved a juvenile nickname but what the fuck could you do with the name Timothy Birch? Dickothy? Jungkook was a professional and tried not to spy or anything but he’d seen Mr. Birch obviously being a dick to Mrs. Birch too many times. Even if he couldn’t hear their arguments, it was always easy to tell who was being a bag of shit and who was on the verge of tears, having done nothing wrong.

Who gave a fuck about Mr. Birch, that overbaked piece of toast?

Mrs. Birch was kinder than the women at any of the other mansions Jungkook cleaned pools for. Some of them came out to say hello. Some of them brought food or drinks. Lots of them asked questions about who he was or how old he was or if he had a girlfriend or if he worked out. It came with the territory, and he’d learned how to handle the bolder ones in a way that didn’t cost him his job and usually got him glowing reviews and an occasional awkward tip. They always guessed that he surfed and giggled when they were right. Sometimes they even guessed he played guitar in a band and there were more giggles at how neatly he fit into this fantasy they were brazenly concocting about him. He actually played the drums. Maybe they’d ask when he was playing or if he gave surf lessons and he’d dodge the questions because he didn’t want these women stepping into those corners of his life. 

Mrs. Birch only asked the kind of questions he didn’t mind answering. She was the only one who, when he said he surfed, wanted to know what his favorite beach was. He’d gotten so flustered when she listened intently to his impulsive raving about the beaches in Costa Rica that he’d wound up telling her about getting the traveler runs. He’d left the job that day swearing he could never face her again.

But he had, and he didn’t regret it, because Mrs. Birch never made him feel weird or watched or like he was a piece of dog shit stuck to her designer heels. The ones who didn’t flirt often treated him like that. He’d been called Mexican too many times to count, which was racist in so many directions at once. There were ones who didn’t pay their bill and yelled at him when his boss told him to bring it up. There were ones who left disgusting shit –sometimes literally shit– in their pools for him to deal with. Or dangerous stuff; he’d sliced his foot open on broken glass once after someone’s rager, and when he’d calmly explained it was not his job to clean up the yard around the pool, they’d started chucking all the trash and broken glass into the pool. Thank fuck Jungkook’s boss had been happy to drop that client, but usually you had to just do whatever to get the job done.

Mrs. Birch would never do something shitty like that. Her husband was kind of intimidating, a real entitled rich asshole, but not Mrs. Birch. She never hovered but always said hello. She had told him before she sold houses and seemed really passionate about her job which was cool. She also clearly wasn’t from California, with her sweet little hint of Southern accent –he’d heard from some of the other guys she came from money too. Oil money in Tennessee or something. But she wasn’t a rich asshole at all, she was really nice, and remembered whatever stupid things he blurted out about himself whenever she asked. 

Because ok, the other thing was that aside from being really nice, Mrs. Birch was fucking hot. Not in the skinny plastic tanned way most of the other women were. She wore makeup and dressed nice and all that, and she was thin and athletic, but there was a naturalness to her. She carried some weight in her thighs and hips that was sexy. She did dye her hair blonde and he kind of wished she’d just let it be whatever the regular brown color was, but it looked nice on her. She had a really bright, sweet smile even without the lip fillers that seemed so popular, and cute dimples, and she had a really nice ass, if he was going to list the things he liked to notice about her. When she opened the sliding door, she never pulled hard enough and had to bump it with her hip; he always looked over the second he heard the door slide so he could see the way she popped that hip out. Her calves were shapely and he was pretty sure her thighs were too, though she was always wearing too much clothing to really get a detailed view of her body. Tits looked real though, a nice size, not so big he suspected they were fake, and they matched her ass. 

Well. Well there was one time he’d seen her wearing slightly less than her regular clothes. He’d only been working at their house a couple months –this was a couple years ago now– and she had clearly been working out in their home gym. The back of the house had tons of windows, windows everywhere, so he could see right into the living room and kitchen and dining room and even a bathroom that connected to the outside with an outdoor shower. So he’d seen her walk past all those windows just wearing a sports bra and tight little workout pants. He’d scared the shit out of her; the way she’d screamed had scared the shit out of him too! And sadly, he’d been so flustered by her rocking bod, he had failed to adequately commit her to memory, a regret he had to live with every day. But he had seen, he was certain he’d seen the dark blur of a tattoo on her lower back. He was sure of it! So that dark blur would also haunt him every day because Mrs. Birch was not someone you expected to have a lower back tattoo and he had questions…

Questions he would never get answers to. Because even if her husband was an asshole, he was just a run of the mill rich asshole, and women like Mrs. Birch never left their husbands. And while there were other women who might have not let that stop them –women who were eager to flirt and Jungkook didn’t know how far they’d take it if he didn’t sidestep their attentions– Mrs. Birch wasn’t one of them. He knew that and respected that a lot. Even if he did secretly wish she could hover a little bit.

Like why couldn’t she just get some sun on one of the lounge chairs while he cleaned the water? She could sit out with a bikini and a Bloody Mary and a book and he wouldn’t mind. It was against company rules to work shirtless, but if she enjoyed the view, he wouldn’t mind risking it for her. He could enjoy the view too, her in a bikini. Was she a black bikini woman? Or a flirty polka dot number? He hoped she wasn’t an animal print bikini person, it didn’t match her style at all, but he didn’t think she was. He could see her as a white bikini woman… damn, those always got a little see-through… Anyway, just looking wasn’t a crime…

But Mrs. Birch was one of those women who loved their husbands even when he didn’t deserve it. She had never shown even the slightest sexual interest in Jungkook. She only had eyes for her shitty, unappreciative, scumbag husband. Maybe Jungokok didn’t really know much about Mr. Birch or their relationship, but he definitely saw them unhappy way more than he ever saw them happy and that was enough for him to feel sure about it. He thought the way Mr. Birch kissed her on the forehead instead of the mouth when he said goodbye was stupid. Mrs. Birch seemed like a woman with untapped passion. She needed someone to really grab her and kiss her, not out of duty but out of need–

Maybe he was paying a little too much attention to Mrs. Birch. But nothing was happening, so he cared? He sure wasn’t going to start anything. Way too fucking shy and way too interested in keeping his job and again, Mrs. Birch wasn’t like that, even towards a pool boy. So it was all just in his head, and he didn’t let it go far in his head or anything. The fantasies. Maybe he thought about it sometimes, if she wasn’t home while he was working so there was no risk of getting caught red-faced and guilty-brained. Maybe he thought about her turning around and sliding her skirt down so he could see exactly what was going on with that maybe-tattoo… or sliding her skirt up so he could see what was going on with those thighs… but he hadn’t let it go further than that. The tease and denial was part of the fun after all. 

It was just that seeing Mrs. Birch was one of the best parts of his job, and he just wished she’d ogle him a little bit… The other women thought he was hot but, sadly, Mrs. Birch wasn’t like the other women…

It was a bad day. Long. Annoying. He’d spent the morning fighting with the owners of his first pool who insisted that the pool had been over chlorinated even though he showed them the readout proving the chemicals were on the lower end of normal ranges. They wanted a saltwater pool now because someone else had a saltwater pool, and when he tried to walk them through what the changes would entail, they spoke to him like he was stupid. They couldn’t believe he knew anything about pools. “He just cleans them. I’ll call the manager and talk to him about the work involved to switch it over…” 

Seething, Jungkook had left to find a missed call from his sister asking if he could babysit for her on Friday morning because she had a job interview. He understood that was more important than his morning surf time so of course he’d do it, and he loved his nephew, but it was still disappointing.

So he’d opened his messages to see if maybe– but no, he couldn’t make plans with Corri for Friday night to still have something to look forward to because she’d told him it was better if they just stayed friends. There were other girls he could try to message but he kind of didn’t see the point because they kept ghosting him. Did he really want to message Vic, who had once asked him how long he planned to keep cleaning pools? Or Deeda who said she didn’t think they had anything to talk about anymore just because she was in grad school now? Or Mara, who thought he spent too much time with his family and should “cut the umbilical cord already”? Teona disagreed, she thought Jungkook ought to spend more time thinking in the family way; time to grow up already because who still lived with their friends after college? Um, people without family inheritances funding their surfer influencer lifestyle maybe? At least Jungkook didn’t live at home anymore, right? That had certainly cost him a lot of dates before he moved out, like girls who didn’t even want to give him a chance just because he was an economic king? Fuck that! But he did move out, and now he still got shit about having roommates and his parents didn’t get the bonus rent he had paid whenever he could.

Dating sucked. Women his own age didn’t like him. Older women liked him too much. His friends had suggested he just go for it more than once. What’s wrong with a sugar mama? Jimin always asked, hitting his arm. Doesn’t that mean everyone’s happy?

Everyone except Jungkook! He wanted more than that in the grand scheme of things, so what? More than just to be some boytoy for ogling and flirting with when their husbands’ backs were turned… More than just a drunk fuck on the weekend, skin salty from a day on the waves… More than a hopeful second or even third date with a pretty woman he met on an app, only for her to suddenly decide it was going nowhere because he was going nowhere… Where was he supposed to go? He was happy! Except for the lack of girlfriend part.

He pulled into the Birch’s pool house driveway already cranky. At least this was the next house. He saw Mrs. Birch’s car in the open garage, though that didn’t guarantee she was home. If she’d bring him out the usual lemonade and chips, at least it would be one little bright spot on his otherwise miserable day. 

Not knowing when she might come out or if she could see him, he tried to look less like an angry asshole than he felt as he dragged the things he needed out of his truck and from their pool house. The sun was bright today; his skin glistened with sweat before he even started. He pulled on his wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off his face and neck as he grabbed the net to start fishing out the leaves that had fallen in and evaded their filter. Mr. Birch refused to have one of the automatic pool cleaner robots because the cord annoyed him, but it meant weekly or sometimes twice-weekly visits from Jungkook so whatever, not his money.

He’d reached the deep end of the pool to scoop out a cluster of leaves huddled under the diving board as if they’d been seeking shade when he saw her. Mrs. Birch in the kitchen. Crying. 

She leaned against the counter looking at something in her hand and clearly didn’t realize he had arrived. Only strange coincidence had them look at each other at the same time and he could tell by her expression she hadn’t expected him to be there. Because he hadn’t knocked like he usually did, fuck. 

Quickly Jungkook dropped his gaze and concentrated as hard as he possibly could on the pool. Pool guys were definitely not supposed to be looking into the windows of a house; they were supposed to be unseen, unheard, unremarked upon staff. But Mrs. Birch had definitely just seen him looking into her kitchen, watching her cry against the counterlike a fucking creep.

Shit.

Shit, not so much because he’d been caught –while it wouldn’t have been the first time a nice-seeming client turned asshole the second something went wrong, or even the first time a woman turned on him because a vulnerability got exposed, he wanted to believe Mrs. Birch was better than that.

But shit because something had made Mrs. Birch cry. Obviously he had no actual idea what it was. Maybe her childhood dog had died. Maybe her favorite salad place had closed down. Maybe her favorite character had finally left whatever daytime soap was popular among older women right now. Maybe it was that time of month and a really emotional Coca Cola commercial had played –that always got his mom going.

Jungkook’s money though was on Mr. Birch being a dick. Once again. Mr. Birch was a rich asshole. Rude, impatient. Apparently he was a really talented businessman, which Jungkook assumed meant incapable of kindness, softness, or passion  –all of which of course a nice woman like Mrs. Birch would need and deserve. Besides, Jungkook did know they fought sometimes, and he couldn’t imagine Mrs. Birch actually doing anything wrong. Mr. Birch was the obvious culprit. He’d put his money on it.

The fantasy came into his head without permission: Jungkook, striding through the sliding door into her house, opening his arms and calling, “Hey, pretty girl, what did that asshole do this time?” She’d fall into his arms sobbing but he’d hear her out and talk her down and ask if she wanted him to beat down the prick husband. Which he would and could, obviously. Something about calling an older woman “pretty girl” just seemed nice, like for a moment he could just erase the age difference with her or something and be the strong, mature caretaker. Mrs. Birch needing him not only sexually but emotionally too seemed pretty bitchin’. Obviously she’d need him sexually, but to look up to him and admire him and rely on him too? Yeah, sweet…

Aside from the obvious reality checks (Mrs. Birch was married and had never expressed any interest in him sexually or otherwise), he realized Mrs. Birch might find it hella offensive for Jungkook to call her “pretty girl.” That might not actually be something older women liked. Women his own age were divided on it, based on his personal research. And when it didn’t land well, it really didn’t land well. 

He would have liked a raunchier fantasy to play out but none immediately came to call. Fuck his bad day, it was making his mind-dick limp too? He stabbed at the water and tried to dredge up filth but instead he thought of sitting down beside Mrs. Birch and laying his head in her lap and feeling those tits press against the side of his head as she leaned over to comfort him… ok, that was something, he could just turn his face a little, maybe catch a nipple with his teeth–

Fuck it. 

He was having a shit day and could use some ogling. Mrs. Birch was having a bad day and deserved some eye candy. He was eye candy, other women clearly thought that! Maybe just this once Mrs. Birch would notice.

He doubled back to strip off his shirt. He tossed his hat aside too and took a moment to apply sunscreen –for safety, obviously, but also so his skin would have that shiny glow to it. He looked himself over, just to make sure everything was oiled and in place. Without the hem of his shirt to cover it, his boardshorts hung low, showing off the shallow cliff of his v-line and the ridges of his abs. He wished he was a bit taller and bulkier but his chest and shoulders and back were fire, so whatever. His muscles came from surfing more than pressing iron and he didn’t exactly have the time for body-building but he was fit and toned. Who the fuck could afford a personal trainer anyway? 

Shit, why was he second guessing his own looks? No! Fuck it! Older women thought he was hot. They liked the combo of his baby face and washboard abs –their words, not his. Ah, too bad the board shorts hid his thighs, his thighs and ass got him compliments from those blessed enough to see him naked… He was hot! Women said so! 

He reached into the pool to wet his hands and splashed water onto his hair so he could push it back. Maybe she’d be inspired by his shoulder tattoo to show off her own…

He’d never felt so naked at someone’s house before, but he did his best to look sexy as he worked. Actually the cool water looked sexier on this hot day than anything he could do. It was a nice big pool, rectangular and deep with lane-markers in the tile, so one of them must have been a swimmer. Wider than a lap pool though and there was a fountain on one side. If he had a pool like this, he’d be out in it every morning for a dip. 

He kept trying to look in the window without it being obvious he was looking in the window. Having his shirt off… it didn’t look desperate, right? It was just a thing pool guy’s did. Yes it was against the rules but he knew plenty of guys did it anyway in the hopes of a bigger end of season tip or, even riskier, cougar bait. 

He paused on the edge of the pool with the test strip. Was he… cougar baiting? But it wasn’t going to go anywhere. He wasn’t doing anything. There was nothing wrong with looking, if Mrs. Birch wanted to look at him. That’s why he’d taken his shirt off! Nothing was going to happen!

Unless… unless what if it did? What if this was a signal for action he hadn’t meant to send? What if Mrs. Birch had simply been polite but he’d now set a train rolling that wouldn’t be stopped… they were both in a weak place today. She might seek comfort and... And obviously he couldn’t go through with that, she was married for fuck’s sake, and he could lose his job, and honestly he didn’t put it past Mr. Birch to fucking shoot him or ruin his life or something… and there was the emotional part too that he didn’t really want to be the other guy, he wanted to be the guy for someone–

The door slid open behind him. He spun, definitely not looking as cool and casual as he had hoped.

“Hello,” Mrs. Birch greeted, carrying the tray of chips and a cold pitcher of lemonade over to the glass-top table. “The lemonade is fresh and I added extra ice. If it’s too miserable out here, you can turn those cabana fans on. It’s a real scorcher today, isn’t it?”

He walked over, trying not to overthink his saunter.

“Ah, yeah, it’s brutal today,” he agreed, reaching for the glass. She’d… she’d noticed he was shirtless, right? That’s why she was talking about how hot it was? Did she mean him? If not,  she wasn’t reacting at all. “I’ll have your pool nice so you can enjoy it later; perfect day for it.”

“Thank you so much,” she smiled at him. “I have to run out to meet a client soon but I look forward to it later today. I really appreciate all your hard work keeping it nice out here.”

Not sure how to respond to her kindness when he’d been trying so hard to be ogled, he awkwardly pointed out, “That’s what you pay me for.” Wait, did that sound too dismissive or too flirty? Was he trying to flirt? Not really but… but if she wanted to flirt, he’d flirt! If it would cheer her up! She didn’t look like she was crying anymore so maybe it had worked? Quickly he added, “But I try to keep this pool particularly nice.”

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Well I appreciate your hard work and… thanks. Just please make sure to close the gate on your way out.”

“I always do.” 

She didn’t say anything else, just gave him a watery smile and retreated back into the house. Usually they talked for at least a couple minutes, so that had been remarkably short. She had said she had errands to run, but she wound up not leaving the house for a long time yet. And he already knew she was having a bad day, but he saw her in the kitchen and she didn’t seem to cry again. 

Or… had she been nervous talking to him when he didn’t have a shirt on? Could that be true, had he left her too flustered for smalltalk? Could Mrs. Birch be shy? 

He whistled to himself as he left.

**

Why was the pool guy shirtless?! Was it really so hot out there? She felt bad if he was that miserable –they had fans with misters that could help! He knew that, didn’t he? But honestly it wasn’t that bad out there… but he was probably running around working by pools all day while she was inside her crisply air conditioned home, crying her eyes out because of that stupid argument with Tim–

Whatever. It wasn’t a good time for the pool guy to be shirtless. Did he have to look like that?! Sure, she already knew his arms and shoulders were toned, and likely the rest of his body as well from all the surfing. His shoulders and cheeks were always sunkissed. But she wasn’t in the business of objectifying people going about their day, so she’d noticed without noticing. He had such a charming smile, that’s what she had always let remain fixed in her mind, but now she couldn’t unknow. She knew too much! She had seen way too low down his happy trail, like his board shorts were going to slip off at any second and leave nothing left for the imagination.

Not that she was imagining! Just… noticing. Was it wrong to notice the muscular curve of his shoulders, and how toned his back was and how his chest actually pillowed as he dragged the net through the water? Probably! But she was married, not dead. How could she not notice? Jungkook was a hunk and he was probably only going to get even more handsome as he aged. Lucky woman who got to–

No, no, stupid line of thought. Just because she was cranky about her own marital troubles didn’t mean she should go down that salty path. The grass was always greener. Hopefully he did have a happy life going on outside of tending to rich peoples’ pools. And anyway, wasn’t she lucky to have Tim? Handsome, successful, enamored(ish) with her…

She took out snacks to try and be normal but found herself a bit tongue-tied talking to him. God, men like him had never paid her much attention when she was younger unless they were after her family money. Suddenly she was fourteen at summer camp again, enamored by the cool surfer boy lifeguard who only ever looked right through her… Except Jungkook didn’t look through her, he kept grinning like he knew he was fucking with her head. Were reviews coming up or something? Was he working shirtless this week, hoping everyone would put in a good word? She refused to be worked! 

She fabricated a meeting with a client as an excuse to keep their chat short. The crooked grin and dimples beneath the dark shades were bad enough but then he slid his sunglasses up to rest in his mop of dark curls and arched his eyebrow –she wasn’t even sure what they were talking about, the weather?-- and she thought for sure he was about to quip my eyes are up here, Mrs. Birch. His skin looked warm, like molded sunlight, like summer vacation in the form of a man. Damn, he had the kind of natural glow and ageless beauty she knew plenty of people spent top dollar trying to emulate. 

It was good she kept the conversation short. A bad day was not the right time to harass the poor pool guy just here to do his job! She fled quickly inside, but forgot to follow through on leaving for her non-existent errand at first, until she realized she needed to go by her office anyway. Maybe she dragged her feet… just looking wasn’t a crime, right? Maybe? If he didn’t want someone looking, why had he taken off his shirt?! 

No. No no she didn’t want to be this kind of woman! This wasn’t who her parents had raised her to be. She shouldn’t be crude about a real person just because she was having a bad day and it didn’t make her feel better anyway, it made her feel worse. Was Tim right about her? One fight with her husband and she slid right into being a lecherous old cougar…

So she grabbed her purse and keys and fled her own house.

Mr. and Mrs. Birch weren’t always fighting when Jungkook came over. 

In general it wasn’t unheard of to be working on a pool and accidentally notice things going on inside the house even when you really didn’t want to. To people with money, the staff was invisible until you fucked something up. And some people just had no shame about what the help saw. He’d gotten an unwanted eyeful plenty of times, or turned on music to drown out the fucking floating out of an open window. Lucky bastards, fucking in the middle of the day like that while some people had to work…

Such was the case when Jungkook came over to clean the pool one Wednesday afternoon. 

Usually he came by at the same time each week so he could maximize the likelihood of running into Mrs. Birch and minimize the likelihood of running into Mr. Birch. That day when he pulled up though, he could see every spot in the garage filled with a car. Four cars. Mr. Birch had two old ones that were pretty fucking cool, the kind of cars old rich men bought to drive on the weekends up the coast. The kind of car his dad would have loved to drive but had never been anywhere close to. God, he would have loved to buy his dad a convertible for his fiftieth birthday a few years ago but that definitely wasn’t happening on a pool guy’s salary and neither of them knew the first thing about fixing up an old junker.

Jungkook was already brittle with jealousy about the cars as he began his work and then gradually realized that the distant sounds of sex were maybe not so distant. His face jerked towards the source, an upstairs window of the Birch’s house. Honestly, he’d never heard a man that loud during sex before, grunting like an old lawnmower that wouldn’t start. A repetitive lighter gasp, like an alarm no one was bothering to tend to, sat on top of the grunts, so consistent that he didn’t even register it first.

Jungkook’s ears went red. Shit. 

Look, Jungkook had fucked around plenty. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been around other people fucking. For fuck’s sake, he lived with two other guys, so he’d had his morning cornflakes to the annoying sound of an early-risen roommate. 

But the second he realized he was overhearing Mr. and Mrs. Birch fucking, mortification consumed him. Maybe it was because he had that funny kind of crush on Mrs. Birch. Maybe it was because he thought Mr. Birch was so vile. Maybe it was because the idea of that shriveled old guys’ raw dick being anywhere near the nice and pretty Mrs. Birch was just a bridge too far and now it was confirmed. Ok, sure, they were married, they’d probably had lots of sex in their lives together. Maybe? But he’d never seen or heard it before, and since he saw them fighting, he’d sort of assumed they didn’t do that. Obviously Mr. Birch couldn’t be good. He was selfish and way too old for Mrs. Birch. He looked all wrong next to her, there was no way he looked better on her.

This dose of reality was an unwelcome one: Mr. and Mrs. Birch were married and had sex and Jungkook’s happy fantasy that they were miserable and on the cusp of divorce and she’d turn to him for comfort was slapped in the face by reality. He didn’t actually know anything about them. For all he knew, they were wildly in love and he, as the pool boy, just wasn’t privy to the realities of their marriage. For all he knew, he just managed to always see them at the wrong time for the two and a half seasons he’d cleaned their pool. Or maybe he misunderstood the emotional charge in those moments; maybe something else was upsetting Mrs. Birch and Mr. Birch was her champion. Maybe Mr. Birch was somehow a great husband! She sure seemed to be, um, enjoying that… maybe? That wasn’t how he’d imagined she sounded when he sometimes– look, it wasn’t personal, but she was hot and his mind went to a desperate, embarrassing place when he was jacking off

At least they finished up quickly. He must have arrived at the very end of it, thank fuck. Or maybe Mr. Birch couldn’t last long. He was old, after all. But that didn’t put Jungkook in any better of a mood when Mr. Birch wandered into the kitchen not long after, pouring two glasses of ice water. Mrs. Birch wasn’t far behind, but while he had only a robe on, she had pulled on leggings and a t shirt, like she’d just been working out or watching TV or something casual…

But Jungkook knew what they had just been doing. Usually he didn’t give a shit but now he felt weird and unhappy to be here. It was confirmation of an obvious thing: Mr. Birch fucked Mrs. Birch. Wow, alert the media. A husband fucks his wife! So what that Jungkook didn’t like that? Now he knew they fucked in the middle of the day sometimes. Cool. He could have died happy without knowing that but ok.

He sulked as he cleaned the pool. He contemplated taking his shirt off again, because it was a hot day, and maybe in the hopes Mrs. Birch would notice and think about what Mr. Birch didn’t look like, could never look like… but he didn’t. 

That was for the best, since when Mrs. Birch came out to bring Jungkook ice water and a bag of chips, Mr. Birch came with her. It was less than she usually offered, and Jungkook thought she looked apologetic about it, but maybe he just imagined that.

“We’re having people over this weekend,” Mr. Birch said, walking along the side of the pool with his hands in the pockets of his robe. He curled his toes in a weird way when he walked, and Jungkook wondered if the concrete was too hot on his little wealthy feet. 

They weren’t little actually. They were big, ugly and wrinkly and Jungkook wondered if maybe Mr. Birch was actually an honest-to-god gremlin.  

“Make sure the pool is perfect,” Mr. Birch said because he was still talking. “None of the leaves in the bottom like last time.”

Mrs. Birch looked uncomfortable as she said, “Those happened after he was here last week because the O’Connor’s cleaned their yard and blew all their leaves our direction–”

“Those fuckers need to fix that shitty fence or I’m going to start throwing shit right back,” Mr. Birch grumbled.

“Tim…” Mrs. Birch gave him a look that must have been fond. Jungkook could not for the life of him figure out how someone like Mrs. Birch could be fond of Mr. Birch. It ruined his brief high that Mrs. Birch had defended him. 

Jungkook was still holding the net and trying not to look at Mr. Birch in the hopes he’d fuck off, but he didn’t miss the nod in his direction that Mrs. Birch gave her husband, like he was saying something he shouldn’t. Now Jungkook didn’t think she looked fond –she was embarrassed, he realized. Of course she was. Mrs. Birch was a saint and wouldn’t shit talk her neighbors like that, she’d just been stating a fact about the O’Connor’s and defending Jungkook’s work. He smiled at her before he could stop himself, then hurried to cover it with,

“Mr. Birch, if you’re concerned about debris in between cleanings, I could install a pool cleaner robot for–”

“No, that’s what we pay you for,” Mr. Birch interrupted. “You’re the pool boy. Don’t farm out your own job,” he scoffed. It took great self control from cleaning rich peoples’ pools for years to not snap back and point out that the robot wouldn’t remove dead squirrels or check the chemical levels, it would just slurp up the pine needles in between his thorough care.

“A pool technician manages many things to keep your pool nice,” he suggested evenly. “If you don’t want the robot, I could come out twice a week, or you could always call if you need a cleaning ahead of an event–”

Mr. Birch actually laughed and pointed, saying to Mrs. Birch, “Yep, there’s that upsell!” Jungkook felt hatred deep in his belly for this asshole. He was doing his job. 

It was clear Mr. Birch sailed through life because he had a woman like Mrs. Birch to clean up the shit he stepped in and tracked everywhere.

“He’s a professional, of course he knows the answers,” she laughed gracefully. “I can run the net around if I need to before everyone comes over on Saturday, Tim,” she added. Jungkook wanted to box Tim’s ears that’s your job, fucker, don’t make her do it! At least let me do it! She continued, “Anything more than that, you’ve lost me. Chemistry was not my best subject in high school…”

Without missing a beat, Mr. Birch laughed, “Well you didn’t need chemistry after all anyway, huh? No science to selling houses.”

“Economic science,” Jungkook suggested, unable to help himself. He wasn’t even sure that was a thing but he blurted it out because it sounded like Mr. Birch was disparaging Mrs. Birch, who worked hard (probably) at her job even though she (probably) didn’t even need to and could just sit at home on her ass spending his money like a lot of the other wives (probably) did. 

Unfortunately Mr. Birch just laughed.

Mrs. Birch smiled too, like she appreciated his effort, and suggested, “We’ll leave you to it but call if you need something, as always.” She gestured to the snacks on the table with one hand and nudged Mr. Birch back into the house with the other. 

Jungkook waited until Mr. Birch had stepped inside ahead of her to call after, “Hey, if it’s bad before your party, the O’Connor’s clean their yard again or whatever, just call and I can come clean up as a one-off. S’not a problem.”

“Thank you, JK. I’m sure we’ll be fine though. Saturday is surf time, isn’t it?”

The fact she remembered that he liked to go surfing Saturday mornings flustered him into saying nothing in response. He just dropped his gaze and stared at the pool. Sure, that was a low fucking bar for people but still! How could a woman who so kindly remembered he spent his Saturday mornings surfing be married to that limp-dicked troll? She deserved so much better than that. Someone like him, right? Someone who thought her real estate work was cool and impressive and wanted to spend lazy evenings swimming together in this nice pool and who understood how to really take care of that body of hers. No way had Mr. Birch been good to her upstairs. She was faking it, he was sure of it. She’d never need to fake it with him, he’d fuck her so good–

Fuck, he wished Mr. Birch would just drown in this pool. He’d just do a full cleanse after and the pool would look great and Mrs. Birch’s problems would be solved.

Grace carried the two glasses of rosé to join Megan in the living room. Usually Megan was wandering along the gallery wall, admiring the art or peppering Grace with questions about the framed photographs of holidays and events tucked in among the paintings and prints Grace had collected over the years. She only ever bought small paintings because Tim thought big paintings were tacky and they cost too much to convince him otherwise, though she did have one large one her grandparents had gifted her currently hanging in the dining room. She wanted it in the bedroom but it wasn’t worth the fight.

Tim also didn’t like rosé –he considered it a bastardized wine– but Tim wasn’t here right now, so she took great delight in handing Megan the glass and lifting her own to her lip.

“Hey, does your pool guy always work shirtless?”

Grace swallowed some wine down the wrong pipe and had to pound on her chest to free it. Once able to breathe again, she could see that JK was in fact shirtless by the side of the pool, sunlight shiny on his tanned arms and shoulders and back.

Holy hell, not again.

“No, not usually,” she said, sounding cool and calm.

“Damn. My poolboy doesn’t look like that… what service are you using again?”

“Oh, I don’t know the name, I think it’s printed on his truck,” she lied, waving her hand. He’d crouched over to adjust something with the net and his board shorts hugged his frame tight, so low she suspected she might see ass if she looked closely. There was so little to his torso! Maybe she had noticed before how narrow his waist was compared to his shoulders, but from the side she was scandalized by the reminder that his pecs had actual volume to them and his stomach, in fact, did not. 

“God, I’d be out there sunbathing if my poolboy looked like that,” Megan continued. “That’s a young man in his prime. Look at that tan, it’s real! And those muscles… I bet he’s insane in the sack…”

“Megan!”

“What! I’m lonely and horny. Adam’s been on site for a month now… Oh don’t look scandalized, I’m not actually banging the help. A girl can dream, can’t she? No harm in looking. I adore Adam… but he’s definitely not outperforming someone like that in bed.”

Grace sighed and insisted, “You can’t tell how someone performs in bed just by looking at them.”

“Maybe you can’t…”

“Stop,” she laughed. “Stop gawking at my pool technician. If he looks over and sees us– Megan!”

He had, in fact, looked over. He waved at them, so there was no hoping he hadn’t seen them peering out the window at him. Grace was good at smoothing over awkward situations but couldn’t see an easy way out of this one except to wave back and grab Megan’s arm and drag her away from the window. She’d already taken his snacks out earlier before Megan got here. He’d been wearing a shirt then… 

“Does Tim know you have a hot stud like that around here every week?”

“Oh please,” Grace laughed. “Like he has anything to worry about.”

“I know, I’m just teasing. Good-girl Grace, definitely the last person anyone expects to fool around with the poolboy. Which means…” Megan wiggled her eyebrows.

Grace just rolled her eyes, “Yes, the last person. He’s very young and definitely not looking to be harassed by a couple of old married women while he’s just doing his job.”

“If he didn’t want us to admire him, he wouldn’t have his shirt off.”

“Meg! That’s crass victim blaming, even from you–”

“He’s not a victim, is what I’m saying! Poor boy is probably desperate for you to notice him every week. He’s rubbing one out every night wishing you’d march out there one day and mount him on the lounge chair–”

“MEGAN FERRERO!”

“Ugggh I’m reading too many romances lately,” Megan sighed. “I’m going to tell Adam he can’t ever leave me alone this long again. I can’t be trusted.”

Grace didn’t want her friend to see how flustered that little scenario had left her. Not because she was thinking about that sort of thing with JK. But just because it was suggested and– honestly, he was just a guy doing his job! 

“That’s right, you can’t be trusted!” Grace teased to cover herself. “From now on I’ll have to schedule your visits when I have no staff around the house–”

“Oh god do you only hire really attractive people? See, this is why it helps to be friends with people who like art. You have an appreciation for beauty!”

“I do but that did not get utilized when choosing a pool cleaning service…”

“No wonder you wound up with a handsome man like Tim. You have a good eye.”

“Hm, I suppose so…” Grace smiled. Things with Tim seemed… off lately. Which wasn’t saying much because they’d always had their highs and lows, and this wasn’t even really low compared to previous lows. He just seemed strange lately, bouncing between standoffish and more ardent than she’d seen him in years. He was closing in on a big deal. He was traveling less but to more interesting places. He’d even suggested she could go on the trip to St. Bart with him next month, maybe they could make a longer stay of it. That would be nice, right at the end of the season, once the Europeans were done with their obscenely long summer holidays. Probably the place would be rife with people they knew, as close to the “trip to the sea” holidays that showed up so often in the old English novels Grace liked to read on a rainy day.

“Or more like Tim has a good eye,” Megan corrected, nudging her with her toe.

Quickly Grace slid decorum back into place and nodded with an arched eyebrow, “Yes, we both made quite the acquisition.” It made Megan laugh and Grace suppressed the sigh of relief. If there was anything her parents had taught her, it was never to show your belly, even to your friends. Especially to your friend who seemed to accumulate any bit of gossipy trivia about everyone. With any luck, the pool business JK worked for was going to see a surge in business soon, right at the end of the summer pool season, with probably particular requests for JK… But dear lord, how would Megan figure that out? Grace hadn’t said his name. How would Megan describe him– oh, she realized, probably as “the young man who cleans the Birch’s pools.” Probably the requests would be good for JK career-wise, though she hoped no one bothered him actually. Was it ok to ogle your handsome staff? Grace really didn’t think so. And so she didn’t!

“Now I didn’t bring you over here to prey on my pool guy, we’re supposed to be talking about what we want to pitch for the benefit to the committee–”

“Before those skanky hoes Trish and Nancy scoop us again,” Megan instantly sulked. 

“Adam will be back before the vote, right? It’s ultimately the men on the board who decide–”

“Oh I’ll make sure he’s back, and you keep Tim here too. Just because we aren’t blowing the rest of them doesn’t mean we can’t find other ways to sabotage–”

“Or we could just have the best idea.”

“Oh Grace,” Megan laughed. “Sometimes I forget you’re so much younger than me. You’re not even forty yet! A fresh babe.”

“You’re only forty-three.”

“Yes, and so worldly. Trust me. This is important. This is about establishing ourselves! Those old bitches need to roll over and die, it’s our turn to take over, the younger generation. She doesn’t look a day over sixty but Nancy is definitely in her seventies. Might just take one good jump-scare…”

“You are incorrigible,” Grace laughed, shaking her head. Megan was new money, lavish, ostentatious, a gossip, overly blunt –literally everything Grace had been raised not to be. It was shocking! And yet, despite the dent it likely caused on her impeccable social card, Grace found herself seeking out Megan’s company time and time again. In a sea of masks, Megan let hers slip sometimes. Usually when she was throwing it off because someone had pissed her off…

“But you love it. Ok. So I’m thinking… exotic dancers–”

“Meg!”

“Sorry! Your poolboy inspired me! Fine, I forgot, that’s only what the men do on their own, we’re supposed to pretend not to know. What about… Old Hollywood?”

“Does it seem out of touch? It’s to benefit starving children…” Grace tactfully reminded her.

“All right, let’s refill our wine glasses to think, I need more rosé.”

Mr. Birch had complained to the pool company about his pool. He’d felt there were too many leaves in it within days of cleaning. Fortunately Jungkook’s boss Bob understood these kinds of complaints and had said all the right things and then carried forward zero of the reprimands. When asked if he wanted a different pool technician, Mr. Birch had said he “didn’t give a fuck, I just want it done right.”

But Mrs. Birch had also called, Bob explained further, to apologize for her husband and insist that Jungkook did a fantastic job taking care of their pool and there was no need to replace him unless he was uncomfortable working at their house, which she would understand. Mrs. Birch was a class act. His boss told him the calls happened close together, and Mrs. Birch’s voice sounded like she was upset, so he suspected there was a fight. Probably the pool wasn’t the important thing they were fighting about and Mr. Birch’s anger just got passed down the little guy, that’s how these things went.

Jungkook thought it was possible Bob told him all this to make sure he wasn’t getting into something he shouldn’t, because Bob stopped laughing and had that look on his face. Jungkook would not be the first guy to get fired for fucking someone’s wife on the side. Jungkook easily and honestly reassured him that was not an issue here. He was not involved with anything but cleaning the pool.

How could he be when Mr. and Mrs. Birch were suddenly so busy fucking like rabbits on the afternoons he came by? The sex noises were even louder this time and it was so fucking obnoxious he almost just turned around and left. Was Mr. Birch trying to prove a point or something? Fuck that guy. Mrs. Birch shouldn’t be married to that piece of shit and either it was a money thing or a magical tongue thing but Mr. Birch didn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d eat pussy so probably it was a money thing. Well… Jungkook couldn’t offer anything when it came to money but his tongue was a different story and which really led to a happier life?

Ok honestly probably the money…

He decided to stay, in the hopes it would grate on Mr. Birch’s nerves to see him still working there after his complaint. At first it was fine, he just put his headphones on. But eventually the noise got too loud to be drowned out, and it was pissing him off to hear, “Oh Tim! Oh Tim!” chanted through music he loved.

He ripped the headphones out just as the woman gave an actual scream of pleasure. The mixture of anger and embarrassment that Mrs. Birch could sound like that froze him in place for a moment. That had apparently been the end of it because sudden silence followed. Thank fuck.

His blood was still boiling though, a nauseating mixture of horny and angry. What the fuck? He always came on Wednesdays. This didn’t have to happen on a Wednesday afternoon with the windows wide open. Didn’t they have any fucking decency for the neighborhood?!

Also what the fuck had Mr. Birch done to make Mrs. Birch cum so hard? Jungkook had found some comfort over time in convincing himself that sadly Mrs. Birch’s sexlife was a pleasureless one and he could be so much better for her. But he’d never made a woman scream like that… not that he didn’t work hard to satisfy anyone he landed in bed with but that scream was unreal. In fact, it had to be literally unreal, right? It had to be fake. It had to be! He thought he’d be able to tell as soon as Mrs. Birch came down and remembered he was here and brought him his usual snacks. Maybe she’d just been in a hurry to get Mr. Birch to stop poking at her with his skinny hot dog dick.

Nonetheless, his ego was threatened. It was the one area he’d felt superior. It was bullshit if this pimpled-asshole got to be rich, lazy, married to someone like Mrs. Birch and actually had good dick game. It wasn’t fucking fair. Assholes always got ahead in life and meanwhile decently-ok guys like Jungkook were stuck cleaning their pools and fantasizing about their wives bent over the side of the pool when they jacked off in the shower because another girl had ghosted after only a couple of dates. Not to mention living to paycheck to paycheck and arguing with the landlord about whether they were in their right to install a basketball hoop over the garage or not. Probably he wouldn’t have even noticed if it hadn’t ripped the gutter down the first time Jungkook hit the backboard…

He texted the loudest woman he’d ever fucked who he was also still on friendly terms with to see if she’d be willing to chill this weekend. Fine. Mrs. Birch wanted to get fucked so hard by her husband? He could fuck a woman even harder! One who wanted to be fucked by him! He didn’t care if he was being crazy right now!

But when he realized there was movement in the kitchen and that he was standing here on his phone, he nearly dropped it in his panic. Mr. Birch already wanted him fired, it wouldn’t help him if they saw him on the side of the pool on his phone. He hurried to shove it into his back pocket while also glancing at the window to make sure no one had seen him.

They had not. Because in fact they were fucking again. The woman was sitting on the kitchen counter wearing a silky robe spread open while Mr. Birch clearly tried to guide his dick into her, staring down as if he wasn’t sure how to work his own junk. He had a robe on too, thank fuck, but that wasn’t the important part.

The important part was that that was not Mrs. Birch.

Without even thinking about it, Jungkook raised his phone without moving any other muscle of his body, like they couldn’t see him if he didn’t move. He took several photos.

Illegal? Yes. Immoral? Probably. Likely to get him fired? Definitely. But he wasn’t thinking about that right now. His brain was too busy rocketing around his skull because A.) if Mr. Birch realized Jungkook was here, he was definitely going to get him unjustly fired and B.) Mrs. Birch deserved so so so much better than this fucking piece of shit limp dick who had his head so far up his own ass he’d have an affair while the pool guy was here. 

Where was Mrs. Birch? She was usually here at this time! Why wasn’t she? Why was Mr. Birch here instead? 

Jungkook ducked down beneath the window and ran as fast as he could out of the backyard, leaving supplies scattered. He’d go to the next house and come back later. Right now, everything in his gut told him not to be at this house a minute longer. He’d say there had been an emergency and he had needed to go, if Mr. Birch even noticed the half-done job outside. He didn’t seem interested at the moment in noticing anything except that woman who was not his wife with her lips wrapped around his dick.

Heart pounding, Jungkook peeled out of there like a bat out of hell.

Masterlist | Chapter Two

[beardedmrbean]

A former CNBC financial pundit and CEO-turned-fugitive accused of defrauding millions from his investors following a failed “bet against” the US economy in 2020 has been nabbed after being on the run for nearly three years.

James Arthur McDonald Jr., 52, was arrested by the FBI in Port Orchard, Wash., on Saturday and will be extradited back to California to stand trial “in the coming weeks” for his alleged crimes, according to the United States Department of Justice.

McDonald had been a fugitive since November 2021 after he failed to appear before the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to testify regarding accusations of defrauding investors.

He was the former CEO and chief investment officer for two Los Angeles financial companies: Hercules Investments LLC and Index Strategy Advisors Inc.

Along with his companies, McDonald “frequently appeared as an analyst on the CNBC financial television news network,” the DOJ reported.

His troubles began in early 2020 when the former financial adviser reportedly lost “tens of millions of dollars of Hercules client money after adopting a risky short position that effectively bet against the health of the United States economy in the aftermath of the US presidential election,” according to the DOJ.

“McDonald projected that the COVID-19 pandemic and the election would result in major selloffs that would cause the stock market to drop.”

But, when the market downturn never came to fruition, Hercules lost between “$30 million and $40 million” of clients’ funds.

By December 2020, investors began “complaining to company employees about the losses in their accounts.”

Then, in January 2021, McDonald solicited millions of dollars worth of funds from investors to raise capital for Hercules, according to the DOJ.

Making matters worse, he allegedly “misrepresented how the funds would be used” and never disclosed to investors “the massive losses Hercules previously sustained.”

McDonald is also suspected of obtaining $675,000 in investment funds he raised from one victim group, which he used to splurge on himself — “spending roughly $174,610 of them at a Porsche dealership.”

According to the DOJ, he also allegedly transferred over $100K of those funds to the landlord of a home he was renting in Arcadia, California, and then another $6,800 to an online store to buy designer clothing.

The alleged fraudster reportedly sent clients falsified account statements, “including for one client who invested approximately $351,000.”

The DOJ reported that the client later asked for his money to make a down payment on a home but was told by McDonald “that much of the money had been lost, and he never got his full investment back.”

In 2022, while on the lam, a United States District Judge found McDonald liable for $3,810,346, representing his net profits gained because of the alleged conduct, according to the SEC.

McDonald has been charged with one count of securities fraud, one count of wire fraud, three counts of investment adviser fraud, and two counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity.

The former CNBC financial analyst made his initial court appearance on Monday in Tacoma, Wash., and is expected to be transported to Los Angeles in the coming weeks.

If found guilty, the alleged con artist could face up to 20 years in federal prison for each securities fraud and wire fraud count, 10 years for each count related to using investor funds for his benefit, and five years for one investment adviser fraud.

[heykoonsy]

Word Count: 3.7k+

Pairing: Husk x Angel Dust (HuskerDust/AngelHusk), some Angel Dust x OC sprinkled in for flavor

Summary: “Give him everything but your ass.” Angel Dust was tasked with one job: convince the investor to subsidize Valentino’s agency. Angel was more of a closer to Valentino, enticing the wealthier of his associates into funding projects for him. However, this latest pitch didn’t go as planned and Angel’s hubris prevented him from seeing the potential drawbacks of a one night stand with someone Valentino marked. In this slow burn love story, Angel must confront the worst parts of himself if he is going to win back his career.

Content Warnings: Rated 18+ for foul language & threatening dialogue

Author's Note: I loved, loved, loved writing this chapter! It's namesake was my favorite scene. Enjoy!

It had been a week since Valentino told Angel to fuck off and he was going stir crazy inside the hotel. He was actually participating in…companionship. He needed to get back to work. He’d done plenty reflecting these last few days . He’d gotten too comfortable with an investor, he lost Val money, he was there to do a job, yada yada. He’d been over this in his head–it was all he was able to think about. 

“C’mere,” Husk said blankly. “I’ll make ya a drink.”

“Huh?” Angel asked. He looked over across the lobby where Husk was now setting up a glass. 

“Get your ass over here, I’ll make you something good.”

Angel sauntered over slowly, but since he wasn’t one to turn down anything free he obliged and sat down at the bar. “You’re in a giving mood, what’s up?”

“I remembered a mixed drink from when I was top-side.” He got out the shaker and began filling it with two juices and some coconut rum. “Malibu Bay Breeze. Drink up.”

“Well shit, I’da settled for a vodka soda, but I’ll take it.”

Husk had been doing this all week. Yesterday it was a Fuzzy Navel. The day before that it was a Bahama Mama. Now he was sipping a Malibu Bay Breeze at three in the afternoon. He wondered mutely why he’d gone to all the trouble, but the thought was quickly dispelled once Angel took a sip of the cherry red liquid. 

“Oh, now that’s good.”

“You’ve never tried it before? I woulda thought you’d be all over this one.” Husk’s tone was cheerier, like he was shooting the shit. 

“There’s booze in this?” Angel asked, raising an eyebrow. “It’s a little too weak for me, Husky.” He pushed the glass towards Husk, giving him a flirty look. 

“I don’t pour weak drinks,” he pushed it back. 

Angel shrugged his shoulders and sipped the drink, mildly amused. He watched as Husk made quick work of putting away everything. Angel took a moment to check his phone. He debated calling up Cherri, but then he’d have to explain where he’d been all week. Reliving his mistakes was not something he wanted to do. He just wanted to move past everything already. Then, Angel felt his phone vibrate in his hand. 

“Jax,” he said as he answered the call. 

“Mr. Valentino is expecting you. He arranged to have you picked up.”

Angel heard Jax hang up first. It looks like Val cooled off and was ready to let Angel work again. 

Finally. 

Angel sucked down the rest of his drink and rose from his seat at the bar. “Well, looks like they need me back at work,” Angel smirked. “Couldn’t go a day without seein' little old me.” He put the empty glass on the counter. 

Husk nodded and watched as he sauntered off. 

Angel quickly got ready, tossing on a top that didn’t have a depression induced chocolate milkshake stain on it. He put all of his stuff in a purse and headed down to the lobby once more. By the time he strutted towards the door, Jax was already there to open it for him. 

“Where are we meeting?”

“He won’t be seeing you today, he arranged a vehicle for you to go meet with the team for your next production.”

Angel stopped in his tracks. Another picture was already started? Brut had just cleaned up his set a few days ago. “Oh? Who’s the director?” Angel asked, pretending to be intrigued. 

“Mr. Valentino is having you meet Guerrero at his studio to grab the script and go over a timetable.”

Angel turned his face from Jax so he wouldn’t see the anger that crossed his face. “Let me guess, he wants another scene of me all tied up? I’ll give it to him, he’s a kinky basta’d.”

Jax opened the door to the car and Angel crawled inside. It looked like Val was still punishing him. He took away Brut’s passion project, Agony’s debut as an A-lister, and now it seemed like this picture with Guerrero is to recoup some of his losses. Not to mention Val knew Angel had a dislike for Guerrero ever since their last picture with him directing. 

Guerrero was a fine director, sure, but he was no Brut. He likes good, clean fucking, no artsy bullshit. Like he always says: “It’s porn sweetheart, nobody’s thinking about the rule of thirds.” That and he always got a little handsy with Val’s girls. Himself included. But what else would you expect from a lecherous ass?

Angel could feel the energy leaving his body. He sighed, wondering what the next few weeks would look like. No doubt some easy money. Guerrero’s products sold like hot cakes even when Angel wasn’t featured, so this was a cash grab pure and simple. At least he could phone it in…and maybe his co-star would be hot. 

Angel Dust rested his back against the seat of the car and looked out the window. He could feel the alcohol in his system start to make his cheeks flush. Either he was suddenly a lightweight or Husk wasn’t kidding earlier. 

He chuckled to himself. It had been a while since he’d gone to a pitch buzzed before.

Angel took his time with his cigarette as he stood outside Guerrero’s studio waiting for Val’s ride to show. He’d seen Spitzers inside, most likely trying to get Guerrero’s signature on a lucrative opportunity, With his charisma alone he would have gotten his way. But Valentino sank his hooks into Guerrero just like he sank them into Angel. And there was no escape. Angel snuck a peek behind him, through the glass doors where he saw Spitzers exchanging handshakes with Guerrero’s team. He looked off into the distance when he heard the door open. 

Spitzers walked up to Angel, keeping a respectful distance as he looked at his phone. 

“Rough meeting?”

Spitzers chuckled in reply. “Seems like I can’t make a deal with anyone these days.”

Angel handed him his pack of cigarettes, a kind gesture. “He’ll get over it once Guerrero’s new picture hits.”

Spitzers took the pack and grabbed one for himself. He lit it quickly. After a drag he looked at Angel.

“How mad did I make him?”

Angel laughed bitterly. “Mad enough.”

“So I’ll do business in another level for a while and watch Valentino kiss my ass.”

Angel kept the same expression, taking in another breath.

“I hope it was worth it for ya,” Spitzers said with a wink and a gentle hand at Angel’s waist. 

During their conversation, Spitzer's car had pulled up. He got in. He and Angel exchanged a knowing glance before Spitzers looked forward and signaled his driver to move on. 

Angel Dust finished his cigarette and stomped it out on the concrete below his chunky boots. He watched as Spitzers’ car got smaller in the distance. 

I hope it was worth it for ya.

Angel grinned from ear to ear. An orgasm like that? Maybe a week off work listening to Charlie babble about redemption wasn’t so bad. Not that they could do it again, even if they tried. 

Angel Dust watched as Husk dried a glass behind the bar. He looked about as gruff as the day they’d first met. Which was perfectly fine. Friendliness got on his nerves, as did goodie-goodies. So Charlie. Charlie got on his nerves.

But she wasn’t here at the moment. She was off with what’s-her-tits saving Hell. Which meant that a certain someone, Angel, could get drunk without any pushback from the world’s most annoying demon. He could already taste the grenidine, the schnapps…the rum! 

“Oh, Husky!” Angel said in his sultry tone. 

Husk looked over, his expression changing…slightly? Well, whatever. Angel sat at the bar with a smile on his face. “Somethin’ sweet please, I wanna start off this bend'a right!”

“That’s how you wanna start off? Mixers? Princess is away, why not start off strong?”

Angel raised a curious brow, “And what would you suggest? Shots?”

Husk made quick work of putting together two shots. One for each of them. “The Naughty Neapolitan.” Husk announced, unveiling his creation.

“Those are my col’as!” Angel shouted excitedly. 

Angel raised his hand and picked up the shot, he waited for Husk to pick up his. After they clinked, Angel knocked his back quickly. He placed his glass back on the table. He smiled at Husk for a second. “You were right, a shot was the way to go.”

“I got this other one I remembered,” Husk said, raising a finger for Angel to wait.

Angel watched as Husk made another with practiced ease. He took no time presenting…

“The Pirate’s Treasure,” Husk said, pushing a glass towards Angel. 

“It looks gorgeous.”

Husk nodded and stuck out his glass to Angel before knocking it back. He sat it on the bar with an audible clack. Angel did the same. 

He made a face, “Damn, that one was aggressive.”

Husk sneered, “Good though.”

“Maybe if I weren’t too keen on breathin’.”

Husk raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you were gonna tie one on tonight. You backing out already?”

Angel narrowed his eyes. “Husky, if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trying to seduce me.” He leaned in close. 

Husk narrowed his eyes as well, and suddenly, slammed two more shot glasses on the table. “Round three?”

Angel smirked, “Round three.”

Angel wobbled slightly, his heeled boots being more of a hindrance tonight than they ever were. He placed a hand on the wall of the hallway. “Husky, I can’t walk. I need help.”

Husk walked ahead of him and turned to face Angel. “You didn’t even make it five feet from the bar.”

Angel laughed, batting at Husk playfully. “I didn’t?” He looked back towards the rich brown of the bar. “Huh, guess not,” he laughed. 

Husk huffed and started to grab for Angel’s arm to pull him away from the wall. “Wait, wait,” Angel pulled away and let his back slam against the wall. “Ouch,” he laughed. 

Husk chuckled, “What is it?” 

“I can walk, you just have to take off my boots.” Angel raised his knee for Husk to grab. 

Husk looked into Angel’s eyes for a split second before taking Angel’s knee in his hand. He unzipped Angel's boot quickly, trying not to linger too long as he dropped Angel’s leg. Angel watched breathlessly as Husk reached for his other knee. He noticed Husk knit his eyebrows together like he was concentrating. 

“What, can’t focus?” Angel laughed with a touch of cynicism. 

Husk didn’t answer for a moment–taking his time as he slipped Angel’s other boot off. “Nah, the booze just hit, I couldn’t see the little puller for your boots.”

“We’ve been drinking all night and the booze just hit you?”

Husk just looked up at him. “I ain’t a lightweight, kid.” Husk dropped Angel’s leg, but kept his boots firmly tucked between his arm and torso. 

Angel scoffed, “I still went shot-for-shot asshole. No lightweight here.” Angel flipped him off playfully with all of his hands. A smile spread across his face. 

Husk pulled Angel away from the wall and steadied him, brushing off the gestures. 

“You don’t see me asking you to take off my boots do ya?”

Angel chuckled. “It’s part of my charm, Husky.”

Husk moved slowly towards Angel’s room, playing along with him the whole way. 

“Next time we do this, I wanna play strip poker.”

“Oh yeah? And who will you be conning into playing with you?” Husk raised an eyebrow.

“Who else is gonna play wit’ me, Husky? Princess and what’s-her-tits?”

“Good point,” Husk said as he stopped outside of Angel’s room. He could hear Fat Nuggets oinking through the door.

Angel leaned against the wall as Husk opened the door for him. After turning on a lamp, Husk looked for a place to set Angel’s boots. Angel took that time to saunter into his room and plop his full weight onto his bed. Fat Nuggets hopped up as well and oinked happily. 

“Aw my baby Nugs,” Angel cooed. 

Husk turned to look at Angel. 

“You good?”

Angel smirked, “In bed!”

Husk smirked, “Yeah, sure.”

And with that, Husk left Angel’s room and proceeded to go back to the bar. He cleaned up after their little party, rinsing out shot glasses and wiping down the tabletop. Finally, to settle in for the night, Husk went out for his last cigarette of the night. He replayed their jokes in his head and chuckled to himself as the sky changed to the early morning shade he’d seen hundreds of times before.

Angel Dust sat calmly on the bed on set, the red rope he was sporting dug slightly into his fur. Everyone was distracted with their jobs at the moment. Guerrero was talking down to an assistant, the crew was busy taking down the lights, the intern was buzzing around aimlessly trying to help everyone else. And Angel couldn’t do anything but wait. 

“Angel, go clean up sweetheart, you don’t have to wait on us,” Guerrero said, waving him off. 

“A little tied up at the moment, but I’ll get right on it,” Angel said snarkily. 

No one heard him. 

Angel sighed. He got up from the bed after scooting his way to the edge. From there, he tried not to lose his balance as he made his way from set to his dressing room. Jax was waiting for him at the door. Upon noticing his predicament, he opened the door for him and led Angel inside. 

“So what does Val have me doing today?” Angel asked as he bent over slightly so Jax could undo the ropes he was bound by. 

Jax studied the wrap closely for a moment then spoke, “He’s asked that you come to his office, he has a special task for you.”

He unraveled the rope, turning Angel around as he finished the knots that bound his arms behind him. He traced the ropes across his chest and got to work again. 

“What do you think he’s got planned?”

Jax didn’t answer, instead he simply undid the last knot and handed the rope to Angel. “Huh,” Angel said as he watched the door close behind Jax. 

Angel pulled down the hem of his skirt. He hadn’t fussed this much with his outfit since his first time meeting Val as a novice in the industry. After putting his skirt back into place, Angel sighed. His meeting with Val took no time at all, which meant that Val still couldn’t tolerate seeing him for long periods of time. He still hadn’t forgiven his latest escapade. 

Angel was prepped on what Val wanted from him. He was supposed to dazzle some casino owners on a lower level for the evening. Why he was making Angel do it was anyone’s guess. Angel mused that he was having him do low level jobs as a punishment. Or Val knew that Angel was a favorite of one of the owners. 

Regardless, he was standing on the curb of Val’s studio waiting on Jax to escort him to the venue. This was an important gig, and Angel could not afford to mess it up. He had one job–woo the owners into doing whatever Val wanted. He wasn’t going to fuck around this time. It was nothing but business tonight. Last time was a weak moment on his part. A selfish, stupid, weak moment. 

When the car arrived, Jax got out and opened the door for Angel. He took a deep breath. Okay, he thought, it was time to get serious.

Angel sauntered into the VIP seating of the club where several sinners were sitting. Angel recognized a few of them from Val’s descriptions. He walked up to the table and leaned across the side of their table. 

“Hello boys,” Angel stuck out his ass, making the two on the ends of the booth take a sheepish gander before glancing back at Angel’s face. “I hope you weren’t planning on letting me dance alone tonight.”

“Well if it isn’t the Angel Dust. what could you possibly be doing down here?”

Angel smirked, narrowing his eyes. “You didn’t know? This is my favorite place to work up a sweat.”

A few of them got rowdy. But one of them quieted the rest. His name was Tezan and he was one of Val’s marks for the evening. Angel got a good look at him. He was dressed pretty informally, which was perfectly fine considering the setting. He brushed his long dark hair out of his face and met Angel’s gaze. 

“I can help you with that.”

Angel crawled up on the table, his skirt barely covering his ass now. He hoped his hot pink g-string was sticking out. Judging by the stares he felt, the cropped pink leather jacket he wore was hiding nothing. Tezan leaned forward at the table, looking about ready to plow everyone out of his way. 

But instead, Angel winked and swung his legs in front of him. In a second they were on either side of the guy sitting next to Tezan, the third mark, Berkeley. Berkeley was almost immediately spellbound, eyes darting to Angel’s fluffy chest. 

Angel got in Berkeley’s face. “I’ll dance wit’ you first suga’. Whatcha say?” 

His cheeks flushed immediately, and when Berkeley looked over at Tezan he noticed a cold unwavering glare stared back at him. Angel knew he had the upper hand now. Angel stood on the table and pulled Berkeley out of his seat. They both used the table to bridge the gap between the VIP section and the dance floor. And Tezan was left stewing with the other three wondering when it was their turn. And Angel took turns with each of them. By the time Angel was finished with Berkeley, Tezan stood and asserted himself again. 

“May I get you a drink?”

Angel watched as Berkeley tensed up and bowed out of the conversation. 

Tezan moved his hand to the small of Angel’s back and led him off the dance floor. 

“I understand that Mr. Valentino is looking for investors.”

“I believe he tossed around the word ‘partners’.” Angel sat at the bar, watching the bartender make their rounds. 

Tezan smirked. “Partners with money.”

Angel stayed quiet. 

“This is a very big opportunity for us lower level sinners. I can’t imagine he would be giving such a thing to just anyone. And certainly not Berkeley.”

Gotcha.

Angel looked at Tezan through half-lidded eyes. “Buy me a drink, I might let something slip.”

Tezan motioned for the bartender and they came running. “Old fashioned and,” he prompted. 

“A Malibu Bay Breeze.”

Tezan took a seat as their drinks came. “I heard that Valentino’s latest project fell through and he had to partner with a has-been to go up against his competitors.”

Angel took a breath in and closed his eyes. “Taking rumor as fact, I see,” Angel smirked. He played with the straw of his drink. 

Tezan scoffed. “With someone as big as Valentino, there is bound to be some rumors. But that’s all they are.”

Angel leaned in, “You don’t think they’re true?”

“Of course not, that hack Brut probably got pissed no one wanted to jerk him off so Valentino cut him loose. I bet Vercelli steps in to take things over. There’s a guy with some credentials.”

Angel grimaced to himself. 

“Valentino has been keeping you close to the chest recently. I barely see you in anything.” 

Angel shrugged his shoulders. “Val’s looking for the best of the best these days,” he winked at Tezan.

Tezan nodded like he understood. “And what are you looking for?”

Angel sipped his cocktail and nearly gagged, “A decent fucking drink.”

Angel waited at the club’s entrance for Jax. Once the car pulled up, Jax opened the door and let Angel in. Once the car was moving, Jax spoke. “We’ve received calls from everyone Valentino marked this evening. He’s sent for you.”

Angel felt his chest swirl with pride, but only for a moment. He lowered his head, making sure that Jax was not privy to his shit-eating grin. He knew that he had Berkeley on the hook immediately, he saw him walk off the dance floor and make a call before Tezan snatched Angel away for that sad excuse for a cocktail. Tezan no doubt did the same when Angel went to dance with the other mark. As soon as he was done praising himself for a good night’s work, he raised his eyes to Jax and gave him a nod. 

After arriving at Valentino’s studio, Angel was immediately let into his office. 

“Angel Cakes,” Valentino spun in his chair as soon as he heard the door close. 

Angel walked up to his desk slowly but confidently. “How’d I do, Val?” Angel asked, knowing the answer already. 

“Perfect, baby, perfect.” He took a drag of his cigarette. “It was your best work yet.”

Angel hung onto every word–desperate for this praise. He’d waited weeks to finally be let back into Val’s good graces. He wanted to soak up the attention. He sat on Val’s desk, leaning toward him. 

“Are there any other jobs you have for me?” Angel asked, looking at Val through his eyelashes. 

Valentino grabbed Angel’s chin and pulled gently downwards. “Just one thing, Angel baby,” Valentino cooed. 

Angel softened at the touch and got lower, hips lips inches away from Val’s.

Valentino gripped his chin roughly in an instant, claws digging into his soft skin. “Don’t you ever fuck me out of an investor again.”

Angel grimaced at the pain, but it was done in a second. Val released him immediately–like he’d never been touching him in the first place. His point was made after-all, no sense in lingering. 

“Never, Val,” Angel said in his same sultry tone. 

Angel excused himself, saying that he had to rest up for his shoot tomorrow with Guerrero. When he closed the door to Val’s office behind him, he paused. His eyes went to the floor, and an absent hand went to his chin. He could feel the welts beneath his fur. 

“Angel,” Jax prompted.

Angel Dust closed his eyes and collected himself in an instant. He cleared all of the poisonous thoughts inside his head and plastered a smile on his face. “Sick of me already, Jax?”

“The car is waiting to take you home,” Jax said, his eyes skirting over Angel’s.

“Okay,” Angel said. When he realized that Jax was walking with him he halted. “I can find my way, it’s not my first rodeo.”

Jax stopped in his tracks and sent Angel on his way.

[ PREVIOUS ] [ MASTERLIST ] [ NEXT ]

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Political cartoons 2020]  :: Los Angeles Sentinel :: David Brown

* * * * *

Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

-Franklin D. Roosevelt

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 23, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Both President Joe Biden and House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) have stated publicly that the U.S. will not default. They are negotiating over the budget. For my part, I’ve started to wonder if the whole debt ceiling crisis isn’t about Republicans’ determination to cut taxes for the wealthy at all costs. When Ronald Reagan called for tax cuts in 1980, he argued that tax cuts would concentrate money in private hands, enabling investors flush with cash to build the economy. That growth would keep tax revenues stable even with the lower rates. That was the argument, but it never came to pass. In fact, a 2022 study by political economists David Hope and Julian Limberg shows that “tax cuts for the rich…do not have any significant effect on economic growth or unemployment,” but they do “lead to higher income inequality in both the short- and medium-term.” Indeed, Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price of the Economic Policy Institute, an independent, nonprofit think tank, noted in 2018 that 1% of all families in the U.S. take home 21% of all the income in the U.S., making 26.3 times more than the bottom 99%, whose average income is slightly more than $50,000 a year. On average in the U.S., someone would need an annual income of slightly more than $420,000 to be a member of that top 1%. In 2020, annual wages for the top 1% grew by 7.3% while those in the bottom 90% grew just 1.7%. A 2020 study by Carter C. Price and Kathryn A. Edwards of the RAND Corporation showed that the changing economic distribution systems of the past forty years have moved a staggering $50 trillion upward, out of the hands of the bottom 90% of Americans. (The national debt is currently about $31.5 trillion.) Nonetheless, today’s Republicans continue to insist that cutting taxes promotes growth. Today, Representative Bob Good (R-VA) talked over journalist Katy Tur to defend his support for extending the Trump tax cuts, which are due to expire in 2025 and which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $3.5 trillion to the debt. Good insisted that tax cuts are “incentivizing the right things.” Leaving the White House today, McCarthy told reporters that he would not entertain rolling back the 2017 Trump tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations. “[T]he problem is not revenue,” he insisted. “The problem is spending.” But the Trump tax cuts and Trump's increased spending even before the pandemic ultimately added $7.8 trillion to the national debt, about $23,500 for every person in the country. The increase in the annual deficit under Trump was the third-biggest increase of any administration, relative to the size of the economy. He was beaten out only by George W. Bush and Abraham Lincoln. Bush, of course, led the U.S. into two foreign conflicts that were financed almost entirely through debt (in the past, the U.S. paid for war through taxes and war bonds), after Congress cut taxes by about 8% for the wealthiest Americans. Lincoln fought the Civil War. “It’s not that Americans are taxed too little, it’s that Washington spends too much,” Russ Vought, Trump’s acting budget director, wrote in 2019. He was defending Trump’s 5% budget cuts to nondefense discretionary spending. President Biden’s 2024 budget proposes to reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next decade by raising taxes on those who make more than $400,000 a year. His budget would effectively repeal the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy, restoring the top tax rate to 39.6% rather than the 37% the 2017 cuts established. It would also raise corporate taxes from 21%, to which the 2017 tax cuts dropped them, to 28%, lower than the high of 35% before the Trump tax cuts. Biden’s budget also calls for taxing capital gains at about the same rate as income for those making more than $1 million, and it calls for a new tax on unrealized capital gains. It also seeks to close loopholes that enable high earners to avoid taxes. Funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that was passed in the Inflation Reduction Act will enable the IRS to go after tax cheats who make more than $400,000 a year, netting an estimated $204 billion through 2031. But the Republicans say they will not agree to any tax hikes of any sort, and the right-wing extremists in the Freedom Caucus have said they would not agree to anything but the bill McCarthy muscled through the House by promising it would never become law. That bill, called Limit, Save, Grow, would cut discretionary government programs by at least 18%—more if Social Security, Medicare, and veterans’ benefits aren’t included. “My conservative colleagues for the most part support Limit, Save, Grow, and they don’t feel like we should negotiate with our hostage,” said right-wing Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL). As Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post pointed out last week, the bill also forces Congress to approve every “major” regulation proposed by a government agency, with the recognition that Congress is unlikely to agree to any such regulation, thus unraveling the federal government. Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who before the 2022 election called for sunsetting all laws every five years, forcing Congress to repass all discretionary spending, today fell back on the idea that Democrats calling for addressing the deficit through taxation are socialists. Poking fun at the recent travel advisories by LGBTQ, immigrant, and Black rights organizations warning against visiting Florida, he issued a “formal travel advisory” for “socialists” “in direct response to the Biden Administration attempts to erase capitalism and the system that has brought prosperity to Florida and the entire United States.” And yet it was the Republican Party that originally established the pattern of turning to increasing revenue to enable the government to meet its financial obligations, a pattern members of both parties relied on until 1981. Faced in 1861 with funding the Civil War, members of the Republican Party invented the U.S. income tax and graduated it to make sure that “the burdens will be more equalized on all classes of the community, more especially on those who are able to bear them,” as Senator William Pitt Fessenden (R-ME) put it. Justin Smith Morrill (R-VT) agreed. “The weight [of] taxation must be distributed equally,” he said, “Not upon each man an equal amount, but a tax proportionate to his ability to pay.” The government had a right to “demand” 99 percent of a man’s property for an urgent necessity, Morrill said. When the public required it, “the property of the people…belongs to the Government.” Far from objecting to taxes, Americans asked their congressmen to raise them, out of concern about the growing national debt. In 1864, Senator John P. Hale (R-NH) said: “The condition of the country is singular…I venture to say it is an anomaly in the history of the world. What do the people of the United States ask of this Congress? To take off taxes? No, sir, they ask you to put them on. The universal cry of this people is to be taxed.” Those taxes helped to pay for the war and, after it, to repay the debt. And in 1866, when Confederate-sympathizing Democrats tried to undermine support for the government by changing the terms of that debt to make it less valuable, Republicans wrote into the Constitution that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[sayyedismail3577]

Tips For A Successful SME IPO: From Preparation To Post-Mortem

A SME IPO (small-scale initial public offering) is a type of equity offering that has become increasingly popular in recent years. What is it? A SME IPO is a method of raising money by selling shares of your company to the public. Why are businesses choosing this route? There are a few reasons.

First, an SME IPO can provide valuable capital for a growing business. The second reason is that an SME IPO can help to fuel innovation and expansion. By selling shares to the public, businesses can capture the attention of angel investors and venture capitalists, who can help drive innovation and growth.

But before you go ahead with your SME IPO, there are a few things you need to do to ensure a successful outcome. This blog outlines the steps you need to take to prepare for your SME IPO and ensure it goes off without a hitch. So don't wait - get started today!

What is an SME IPO? 

There is not the slightest shred of doubt in anyone's mind that a small acquisition public offering, also known as a small acquisition, is an exceptional approach for start-ups to raise financing. Also known as a small purchase.

It is an easy and efficient strategy for acquiring finance without significantly diluting your equity or giving up an excessive degree of influence over the business. This approach of raising money has a variety of benefits, the most notable of which are the avoidance of dilution and the expansion of the range of viable values.

You should make sure that you have a solid business plan before filing your application in order to satisfy the enhanced degree of scrutiny that will be put on a SME's initial public offering. You should be ready to respond to some hard questions from potential investors, but you shouldn't worry about it since the engagement will be beneficial.

How To Prepare For An SME IPO? 

Be sure that everything is in order and ready to go before beginning an initial public offering for a small or medium-sized business. Only then should you start the process. In this area, you will find all of the documentation, financial records, and deadlines that are required for pre-marketing, marketing, and post-mortem planning.

To get started, you need to ensure that you have a clear plan for how you want to achieve your goals. This is first step. an SME IPO can provide valuable capital for a growing business. Everything from preliminary planning to doing post-mortem analyses of failed efforts should be included into this approach. If you do not have a solid strategy for an initial public offering that is appropriate for a small to medium-sized firm, it will be very difficult to realise your goals and bring your objectives to life. As a result, I strongly suggest that you start right away, and I hope that everything goes well for you.

Why Do Businesses Go For An SME IPO? 

There are a number of unique avenues that businesses may pursue in order to acquire financial resources, and some of them include the following:

A small scale initial public offering, commonly known as a SME IPO due to its shorter form, is one of the choices that you have available to you as an investor in your company.

When someone says, "Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise IPO," what exactly do they mean by those words? To put it another way, it is a channel via which companies may rapidly and painlessly enter the financial market. SME IPO can provide valuable capital for a growing business.

The following is a synopsis of some of the reasons why companies want to go public via process of an initial public offering (IPO) for small and medium-sized businesses:

Post-Mortem Analysis Of The Same IPO 

When it comes to conducting a successful SME IPO, there are a few key steps that need to  follow. Make sure you clearly understand your company and its prospects before you go public. After the IPO completes, conduct a post-mortem analysis to determine any areas that need improvement.

This will assist you in making the appropriate adjustments, which will ultimately result in a successful conclusion for your investors. And to guarantee that everything runs well, check that the preparations you've made have taken care of all details. Your initial public offering (IPO) of small and medium-sized enterprises will be successful if you do in this manner.

Tips For Reducing Risks During An SME IPO 

If you're thinking of doing an SME IPO (small-scale initial public offering), there are a few things you need to keep in mind. One of the most important is to speak with a lawyer. This will help you understand the risks involved and help you make informed decisions.

In addition to this, it is essential to have a plan for the firm as well as financial papers that have brought up to date. You should make sure that you have a strong understanding of the risks associated with the initial public offering (IPO), and you should also psychologically prepare yourself for the prospect of disappointed if things do not go as planned. You will need to do some research and make sure that you prepared, but don't worry; in no time at all, you will be well on your way to having a successful initial public offering (IPO).

Conclusion

The term "initial public offering" (IPO) refers to the process by which a small or medium-sized organisation sells shares of its stock to the general public in order to raise capital for the company.

This is an efficient technique for businesses of any size to receive funding. If you want your initial public offering for your small or medium-sized firm to be successful, you should follow the advice that is provided in this article.

You need to ensure that you put in the work in order to enjoy the benefits of whatever you're doing, whether it's getting ready for an initial public offering or doing a post-mortem on a previous endeavour.

[fundingfyre]

Pros and cons of working with angel investors

Working with an angel investor can be a great way to get funding for your startup. Learning the shared risk factor involved and the potential upsides and downsides of raising money from angel investors is essential if you're considering raising capital from angel investors.

What is an angel investor?

An angel investor is a wealthy individual who invests in startups or established companies and helps guide the company to success. Angel investors typically invest as little as $10,000 with the hope of making several times more in return. Let's look at why you should consider working with an angel investor and some pitfalls to avoid when working with them.

The Pros of Angel Investors

An alternative to traditional sources of funding

Traditional funding sources, such as banks and venture capitalists, have become increasingly difficult for small businesses to access. Angel investors offer an alternative to these conventional financing options by providing capital to startups and small businesses that are usually too risky for banks and venture capitalists.

Expertise.

A significant benefit of angel investors is their expertise.Angel investors are experienced and knowledgeable, which can be an invaluable asset to a company. They will be able to provide you with guidance on how to grow your business, what mistakes to avoid, and how to attract more customers. This can be especially helpful if you're starting and don't have much experience running your own business.

Connections.

The most obvious benefit of having an angel investor is the connections they bring with them. When you have a networker on your side, you can leverage those connections to help grow your business and connect with new customers, financing sources, business partners, and other relevant contacts.

Strategic support

Angel investors are a great source of strategic support. They bring a lot of experience and knowledge to the table and are not afraid to say what's working and what isn't. The best thing about this kind of investor is that they'll give you honest feedback—and if they're not feeling it, they'll know how to tell you why.

Flexibility

Angel investors don't have inflexible corporate policies. This enables them to structure their investment deals creatively, which expands the range of investment opportunities available to startups with few financial resources.

Deep pockets.

Angel investors have deep pockets. This means that they have the financial resources to invest in your business and can afford to take risks on new ideas. Angel investors may be interested in making follow-up investments in your small business if it needs financing later.

The Cons of Angel Investors

Most deals are relatively small.

One of the primary drawbacks to angel investors is that they tend to invest less money than groups of investors. Individual investors typically will only invest a few thousand dollars, so you might need to seek out many individuals to raise a significant amount of money.

Shared control.

Angel investors have a stake in the businesses they invest in. In some cases, angel investors can gain so much control over a business that the original owners can't run the company as they had planned. Before finding an angel investor, consider your future goals and create a well-written business plan. To maintain primary control of your business, consider other funding options.

Potential for misunderstanding

Angel investors can help you achieve your dreams, but it's hard to know how much support they will give and whether they will be involved in your business. One of the best parts of angel investors is the informality that comes with them. But that also means that it's easy for angels to be vague or ambiguous in their agreements.

Angel investors provide a different and refreshing relationship for business owners. However, some things should be kept in mind before diving in. You'll need to ensure that you have done your research and understand what you're getting into. With all the possible benefits and drawbacks on the table, it's up to you to decide whether or not working with an angel investor is worth it.

check out: World's largest database of successful startup pitch decks

[acquisory]

Crowdfunding — A Concept to be Gauged

Crowdfunding is described as “the practice of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. It’s a new go-to-strategy for budding startups. It is the practice of pooling in of resources by numerous people, thus the term ‘crowd’, to fund prospective projects. It is an alternative finance system where funds are raised through mediums like internet-mediated registries, mail order subscriptions, and benefit events and the like.

Crowdfunding is a popular concept that emerged in the US and the UK. As of now, it has become an emerging way of raising capital entailing the use of social media networks — Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and some dedicated websites. The modern business environment considers crowdfunding as a way of connecting investors with the modest business startups and projects, using an online transaction portal that eliminates all the possible barriers to entry.

Crowdfunding has become a serious source of capital to kick-start new ventures and is by far the most disruptive innovation of the 21st century. As an industry, crowdfunding has developed steadily into a primary tool for entrepreneurs and creative people to assess the potential for their ideas, engage with specific people who would be interested in these ideas, and also attract the funding which is pivotal to the success of any project. There are various types of crowdfunding, namely: reward, donation, peer-to-peer, and equity-based. Out of which the Equity based crowd funding is not legalized in India.

“Crowdfunding is a general process of asking people for donations, which is then used as the capital by startups. As crowdfunding involves pitching ideas directly to the internet users, offering financial banking, entrepreneur and small business owners can leverage it as an option to bypass venture capitalists and angel investors. It also provides, a unique opportunity to validate the concept and scope of a project in the targeted markets.”

Donation Crowdfunding — this kind of crowdfunding denotes solicitation of funds for social, artistic, philanthropic or other purpose, and not in exchange for anything of tangible value.

Reward Crowdfunding — It refers to solicitation of funds, wherein investors receive some existing or future tangible reward (such as an existing or future consumer product or a membership rewards scheme) as consideration.

Peer-to-Peer Crowdfunding — In Peer-to-Peer lending, an online platform matches lenders/investors with borrowers/issuers in order to provide…

Read more: https://www.acquisory.com/ArticleDetails/54/Crowdfunding-%E2%80%93-A-Concept-to-be-Gauged

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN YS

01 and. Ruby: Perl is a kludge, and Lisp syntax is scary.1 This was too subtle for me. So let that satisfy your competitiveness. But in a typical American secondary school. The average parents of a 14 year old girl would hate the idea of the corporate ladder had a value analogous to the solution I recommend for pitching your startup: do the right thing and then just tell investors what you're doing. Because remember, the Microsoft monopoly didn't begin with Microsoft.2 Even when the startup launches, there have to be treated as if they were returning to work after a months-long illness. Though they're less well known, the angel investors are probably more circumspect with YC startups than with other companies they talk to, and if you raise more money. But among the many other things I was ignorant of was how much debris there already was in my head. This works well for more parallelizable tasks, like fighting wars. But as of this writing the empirical evidence says it's a net win.

Essentially, each user should have his own per-word probabilities based on the actual mail he receives. If you stop there, what you're describing is literally a prison, albeit a part-time one.3 It's not so much that you don't have to answer to anyone. Don't reject an acceptable offer in the hope of becoming much richer than anyone else, it will automatically push you away from things you think you're supposed to work on Viaweb.4 Next What happens to publishing if you can't predict whether there's a path out of the initial idea is the meta-fact that these are hard to see. Nor, as far as possible prevent them from killing one another. I explained this as code to show a couple of CS grad students, not the topic.5 And there was no AWS. I was ignorant of was how much debris there already was in my head.6 If you leave a project for a few days. And this turns out to have consequences one might not foresee when one phrases the same idea in terms of the problem.

So if you're doing it wrong. If you drink too much, you can do is get yourself to the point where startups can least afford it. Or better still, go work for a biotech company. While not a sinecure, a position on the corporate ladder is probably gone for good.7 But when you make a conscious effort to insulate the other founder s from the details of the process. Even if the CEO is a programmer and the target user, because then the cycle of generating new versions and testing them on users can happen inside one head. The same thing could happen with the Internet. Large-scale investors care about their portfolio, not any individual company. They try to hide even the existence of these words has a spam probability, in my school at least, exclusively for work.8 As they were used then, these words all seemed to believe implicitly that work was not fun.9

By high school, my friend Rich and I made a map of the school lunch tables according to popularity. We assumed his logo would deter any actual customers, but it was not a coincidence. 14758544 valuable 0.10 But till recently this was an anomalous route that tended to be at the mercy of investors. Apple controls the default path onto the iPod. About a year ago I tried to figure out what you'd need to reproduce Silicon Valley. What sort of company might cause people in the Valley, and on the other is the sea—which because it's cold and foggy and has few harbors, plays surprisingly little role in the lives of people in the Valley.11

Except when they raise money they don't have to read so many spams.12 In those days there was no way anyone could have known this in advance.13 If you're at the leading edge of a field that's changing rapidly, your ideas about what's sexy will be somewhat correlated with what's valuable in practice. It's one of the commonest forms of corruption. Even in college you get little idea what their parents do in their distant offices, and see no connection indeed, there is no better than Don't be hapless is to be actively persecuted. Without hope of gain, they'd have grown up considering themselves as Ys. The kids in this one case if parents were not so unselfish. Investors usually get vetos over certain big decisions, like selling the company, regardless of whether it seems like all the good Web 2.

Notes

This was certainly true in the biggest winners, from which they don't know enough about big companies don't advertise this. Type II startups neither require nor produce startup culture. There is nothing more unconvincing, for example, I have no idea whether this would probably find it was briefly in Britain in the bouillon cube s, cover, and then being unable to raise five million dollars in liquid assets are assumed to be able to spend on trade goods to make software incompatible. Some translators use calm instead of being absorbed by the financial controls of World War II was in principle 100,000 drachmae for the next one will be on the richer end of World War II, must have affected what they are by ways that have it as if a company just to steal a big effect on college admissions process.

Ii.

Html. A Divorce?

The word regressive as applied to tax rates, which was more because they are themselves typical users. 25 people have told me: Another approach would be. Wufoo was based in Tampa and they have to tell how serious potential investors and instead of using special euphemisms for lies that seem to be doomed.

If you're good you can fix by writing an interpreter for the manager of the problem is poverty, not conquest. Good news: users don't care about may not be to ensure none of them consistently make money, but Google proved them wrong. The best technique I've found for dealing with recent art that does.

I would go farther in saying that because a great deal of competition for the same. 27 with the talking paperclip. A lot of detail.

But iTunes shows that they kill you—when you have to admit there's no other word that means is we hope visited mostly by technological progress to areas where Apple will be out of Viaweb, which is something in this respect.

The best kind of social engineering—. Y Combinator was a strong local component and b success depended so much about unimportant things.

I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the url with that of whatever they copied. Unfortunately these times are a small set of good startups that get killed by overspending might have infected ten percent of them consistently make money for.

Emmett Shear writes: I'd argue that the probabilities of features i. As I was a kid and as we think we're so useless that in Silicon Valley, but rather that if you seem evasive than if you ban other ways. Some of the former, and only incidentally to tell computers how to distinguish between people, but this could be fixed within a niche. And yet if he hadn't we probably would not produce a viable organism.

Trevor Blackwell, who had small children, we're going to give up your anti-dilution, which merchants used to build consumer electronics and to run a mile in under 4 minutes. How many times larger than the long term than one level of links. When I talk about distribution of alms, and so effective that I'm skeptical whether economic inequality is really about poverty. In fact the less powerful language in it.

If they were just getting kids to them about your fundraising prospects. And if you hadn't written about them.

Actually he's no better or worse than the time. Consulting is where the acquirer just wants the employees. But if you're attacked in this essay wrote: After the war, tax loopholes defended by two of each type of mail, I suspect five hundred would be to ensure none of your last funding round usually reflects some other contribution by the PR firm admittedly the best hackers work on a valuation.

[jayconner-raisingprivatemoney]

Private Money Strategies Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know: Insights From Jay Conner

Private Money Academy Conference:

Free Report:

*** Guest Appearance Credits to:

https://www.youtube.com/@Keystone.Private.Capital

"Revolutionize Your Investing: Jay Conner on Leveraging Private Money in Real Estate"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivHYcpky90Y

Welcome back to another enlightening episode of the Raising Private Money podcast! Jay Conner has been transforming the real estate landscape since 2003 and today he shares his amazing time of joining Angel and Brittany Gonzalez on their "Taking the Leap Into Commercial Real Estate" podcast.

In this episode, Jay recounts his early days investing in single-family homes in Eastern North Carolina, where he averages a hefty profit per deal. We explore a pivotal moment in 2009 when financial turbulence forced Jay to discover the world of private money lending—a decision that revolutionized his investment strategy.

Listen as Jay demystifies private money, detailing how individual investors can become crucial players in real estate deals, and how he effectively raises funds by educating his community.

He also critiques common investment advice, underscores the vital role of having cash ready for deals, and shares invaluable tips on leveraging mastermind groups for personal and professional growth.

Stick around for compelling stories of successful deals, market strategies, and the philosophies that have driven Jay Conner's success. If you're eager to learn about private money lending and the power of the right mindset, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge. Let's get started!

Timestamps:

00:01 Raising Private Money Without Asking For It

03:50 Lost credit line during the global financial crisis, discovers Private Money

10:07 Napoleon Hill's "Mastermind": Collective wisdom from groups.

10:57 Mindset is crucial for success in real estate.

16:42 Distinguish between private money and hard money.

18:50 Widow invests $1,250,000 retirement in real estate.

22:51 Use self-directed IRA funds to gain excess.

25:15 Borrow $150k, buy for $100k, gain $50k.

27:28 Private money: no credit checks, close quickly.

31:01 Motivated sellers search on Google

36:22 Patience pays: The next offer was $628,000 cash.

37:23 The Money Comes First

Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now?

It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at

What is Private Money? Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner

Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. He maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $67,000 per deal without using his own money or credit.

What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference

YouTube Channel

Apple Podcasts:

Facebook:

[yourven1]

The Rise of Startup Investing Platforms in the Online Investment Business

In the rapidly evolving financial landscape, Startup Investing Platforms have emerged as game-changers for both investors and entrepreneurs. These platforms offer unprecedented opportunities for individuals and institutions to invest in budding businesses, while also providing startups with access to critical capital to fuel growth and innovation. With the online investment business expanding at an impressive rate, it’s becoming easier for anyone to participate in this exciting and potentially lucrative market.

This blog explores how startup investing platforms are reshaping the future of investments and why they are a great option for both investors and startups alike.

What Are Startup Investing Platforms?

Startup investing platforms are online platforms that connect investors with early-stage businesses looking for capital. These platforms offer a range of investment opportunities, from equity in startups to debt financing and revenue-sharing models. Some platforms focus on specific industries, while others provide a diverse array of options for investors to choose from.

With the rise of these platforms, investment in startups is no longer limited to venture capital firms and angel investors. Everyday individuals can now easily browse through various opportunities, learn about the business models, and make investments with the click of a button. The democratization of startup funding is changing the way businesses raise money and the way people invest.

Benefits for Investors

Access to New Opportunities: Startup investing platforms provide access to a range of investment opportunities that were previously out of reach for individual investors. Traditional investing avenues, such as stocks and bonds, offer limited exposure to high-growth potential businesses. However, with these platforms, investors can directly invest in startups that are at the forefront of innovation.

Diversification: One of the key tenets of successful investing is diversification. With a startup investing platform, investors can spread their investments across multiple startups, sectors, and even regions. This reduces the risk associated with any one investment and increases the chance of high returns from successful startups.

Potential for High Returns: Although investing in startups comes with its risks, the potential for high returns is significant. Early-stage businesses have the capacity for exponential growth, and investors who get in early can reap substantial rewards. While not all startups will succeed, those that do can offer returns far beyond what is typically seen in more traditional forms of investment.

Ease of Use and Transparency: The online nature of startup investing platforms makes it easy for investors to browse opportunities, conduct due diligence, and make informed decisions. The platforms often provide detailed information about each startup, including business plans, financial projections, and founder backgrounds. This transparency allows investors to make well-informed decisions with confidence.

Supporting Innovation: For many investors, the appeal of startup investing goes beyond financial returns. By investing in startups, they are contributing to innovation and helping new ideas and technologies come to life. Many investors find this aspect of startup investing personally fulfilling, as they are playing a role in shaping the future of industries and economies.

Benefits for Startups

Access to Capital: One of the biggest challenges for startups is securing the capital needed to grow. Traditional methods, such as bank loans or venture capital, can be difficult to obtain, particularly for early-stage businesses. Startup investing platforms provide an alternative source of funding that can be quicker and easier to access.

A Wider Pool of Investors: Instead of relying on a few wealthy investors or institutions, startups using these platforms can tap into a large pool of potential investors from around the world. This democratization of investment means that startups can reach more people who are passionate about their ideas and willing to contribute financially.

Validation and Exposure: When a startup raises funds through an investing platform, it gains more than just capital. It also gains validation from a community of investors who believe in the business's potential. This validation can be crucial for attracting additional funding, building partnerships, and generating publicity.

Flexible Investment Models: Startup investing platforms offer a variety of funding models, including equity, debt, and revenue-sharing. This allows startups to choose the best financing option for their specific needs, providing more flexibility than traditional investment methods.

The Role of Online Investment Business in Driving Growth

The Online Investment Business has played a pivotal role in the rise of startup investing platforms. As more people become comfortable with online transactions and digital finance, the demand for online investment opportunities has grown significantly. This trend is particularly pronounced among younger investors, who are more likely to seek out digital-first investment solutions.

Online investment platforms are also making it easier for startups to access global markets. A startup in one country can raise funds from investors across the world, breaking down geographic barriers and enabling faster growth. This international reach is a key driver of the success of the online investment business, as it opens up new opportunities for both investors and entrepreneurs.

Moreover, the use of technology in online investing, including artificial intelligence, data analytics, and blockchain, is improving the efficiency and security of transactions. Investors can now track their investments in real-time, access detailed performance reports, and even engage in automated investing strategies. These advancements are further fueling the growth of the online investment business and making it an integral part of the global financial ecosystem.

Conclusion

Startup investing platforms are revolutionizing the investment world by providing easy access to high-potential startups and enabling investors of all levels to participate in early-stage funding. As the online investment business continues to grow, these platforms will become increasingly important in fostering innovation and driving economic growth.

For both investors looking to diversify their portfolios and startups seeking essential funding, startup investing platforms offer a powerful and effective solution. With the continuous advancements in technology and the increasing adoption of digital finance, the future of startup investing is bright and full of potential.

[linneajospeh]

Navigating Financial Planning For Startups

Embarking on a startup journey is both exhilarating and daunting. Financial planning is crucial for steering your venture toward success. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you navigate this essential aspect of startup management.

Understand Your Financial Needs

Start by assessing your initial capital requirements. This involves estimating costs for product development, marketing, staffing, legal fees, and operational expenses. Create a detailed budget outlining both one-time expenditures (like equipment or office space) and recurring costs (such as salaries and utilities). This will give you a clear picture of how much funding you need and when.

Develop a Robust Business Plan

A well-crafted business plan is more than just a roadmap; it’s a financial blueprint. It should include a comprehensive market analysis, competitive landscape, and detailed financial projections. Your financial projections should cover income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements for at least the next three to five years. These projections will guide your funding strategy and attract potential investors.

Choose the Right Funding Strategy

Decide on the best funding approach for your startup. Common options include:

Bootstrapping: Using your savings or revenue from initial sales. This method offers full control but may limit growth speed.

Angel Investors: High-net-worth individuals who provide capital in exchange for equity or convertible debt.

Venture Capitalists: Professional investors who offer substantial funding in exchange for a significant stake in your company.

Crowdfunding: Raising small amounts of money from a large number of people, often through platforms like Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Each funding source comes with its own set of advantages and challenges. Consider your business model, growth potential, and the level of control you wish to maintain when making your decision.

Manage Cash Flow Effectively

Cash flow management is vital for startup sustainability. Ensure you have a system in place to monitor and manage cash inflows and outflows. Implementing a cash flow forecast can help you predict future cash needs and avoid shortfalls. Regularly review your cash flow statements and adjust your budget to address any discrepancies or unforeseen expenses.

Plan for Taxes

Understanding your tax obligations from the start is crucial. Familiarize yourself with tax laws relevant to your startup, including income tax, sales tax, and payroll tax. Consider consulting with a tax advisor to help you navigate these complexities and ensure compliance. Setting aside funds for taxes and leveraging tax credits and deductions can also improve your financial position.

Implement Strong Financial Controls

Establishing robust financial controls helps protect your assets and ensures accurate financial reporting. Implement internal controls such as regular audits, segregation of duties, and secure record-keeping practices. These measures help prevent fraud and financial mismanagement.

Monitor and Adjust Your Financial Plan

Financial planning is not a one-time task but an ongoing process. Regularly review your financial performance against your projections and adjust your plan as needed. Track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue growth, profit margins, and customer acquisition costs. Stay agile and be prepared to pivot your strategy based on market conditions and business performance.

Seek Professional Guidance

Navigating the financial landscape of a startup can be complex. Consider working with financial professionals, such as accountants or financial advisors, who can provide expertise and support. Their insights can help you make informed decisions, avoid pitfalls, and optimize your financial strategy.

Conclusion

Effective financial planning is critical to the success and sustainability of your startup. By understanding your financial needs, developing a solid business plan, choosing the right funding strategy, managing cash flow, planning for taxes, implementing financial controls, monitoring performance, and seeking professional guidance from experts offering financial planning services in Fort Worth, TX, you can navigate the financial challenges and set your startup on a path to success.

[ananthu2hats]

Finding the Best Financing for Start-Ups

Starting a new business in Munich? Here’s a quick guide to finding the right financing for your start-up.

1. Venture Capital

Venture capital firms like HV Capital and Target Global offer funding in exchange for equity. They also provide valuable advice and industry connections.

2. Government Grants

Check out German programs like EXIST or the High-Tech Gründerfonds. These grants can provide funds without requiring equity, but make sure you meet their eligibility criteria.

3. Crowdfunding

Platforms like Seedmatch or Kickstarter allow you to raise money from many small investors. A great way to get funding and create buzz around your idea.

4. Angel Investors

Angel investors are individuals who invest their own money in exchange for equity or convertible debt. They often offer mentorship along with funding.

5. Bank Loans

Traditional bank loans are another option. They require good credit and collateral but allow you to keep full ownership of your business.

6. Accelerators and Incubators

Programs like UnternehmerTUM offer funding and support in exchange for equity. They help you refine your business model and pitch to investors.

7. Family and Friends

Consider reaching out to family and friends for initial funding. Be clear about terms and expectations to keep relationships smooth.

Conclusion

Finding the right financing involves exploring various options. For those looking to build a strong online presence, partnering with a Shopware agency like 2Hats Logic Solutions can help you create an effective e-commerce platform to support your start-up’s growth.

[klubwork]

Startup Finance 101: How To Secure Funding for Your New Business

Starting a new business is an exciting journey, but it requires significant capital to turn ideas into reality. For many entrepreneurs, the question isn't whether to seek funding, but how to get funding for startup effectively. This blog provides an overview of the essential strategies for obtaining funding and managing startup finance, helping you navigate the often complex world of business finance.

Understanding Startup finance

Startup finance is crucial for turning a business idea into a functioning entity. It involves understanding various funding options and determining the best fit for your startup. Entrepreneurs should familiarise themselves with the different types of funding available, including equity financing, debt funding, and alternative financing options.

How to get funding for your startup

To get funding for startup, start by creating a detailed business plan. This plan should outline your business model, market analysis, and financial projections. A well-prepared business plan is essential in convincing potential investors of the viability of your startup. Additionally, entrepreneurs should be ready to present a compelling pitch, demonstrating not only their business idea but also their team’s capability and market understanding.

Networking is another critical component in securing funding for business startups. Attend industry events, engage with potential investors, and connect with mentors who can provide valuable introductions. Building relationships within the industry can significantly increase your chances of finding the right investors to get fund for startup.

Funding for business startups: Key options

Equity financing: This involves selling a portion of your company in exchange for investment. It’s a popular choice among startups as it doesn’t require repayment. However, it does mean giving up some control over your business. Venture capitalists and angel investors are common sources of funding for business startups.

Debt financing: Unlike equity financing, debt financing requires repayment over time, often with interest. This can be a suitable option for businesses that need capital but prefer to retain full ownership. Bank loans and personal savings are typical sources of debt funding.

Alternative financing: Crowdfunding and revenue-based financing are innovative ways to get funding for your startup. Crowdfunding platforms allow you to raise money from a large number of people, while revenue-based financing involves raising funds based on future revenue projections.

Managing Startup Finance

Once funding is secured, managing startup finance effectively is crucial for long-term success. This includes budgeting wisely, keeping track of expenses, and maintaining a clear financial strategy. Regularly reviewing financial statements and adjusting your strategy as needed can help ensure your business remains on track.

In addition to traditional funding options, platforms like Klub offer unique solutions for startups seeking capital. Klub provides alternative financing solutions that can solve for the limitations of  traditional methods, offering flexibility and additional resources for business growth —helping you get funding for your startup with ease.

Conclusion

Securing funding for business startups involves a combination of strategic planning, effective pitching, and understanding various financing options. By focusing on how to get funding for your startup, utilising available resources, and managing finances efficiently, entrepreneurs can increase their chances of achieving success. Whether you opt for equity financing, debt funding, or alternative methods, the key is to align your financial strategy with your business goals. Platforms like Klub can also support startups by offering more flexible and innovative ways to get fund for startups.