#Survey Processing Service

[dataentryinc]

The Role of Data Quality in Survey Data Entry Success

Surveys act like a map to success for businesses and researchers. They help discover customers' preferences and trends, which in turn helps them develop strategies accordingly. To have a successful survey, not just the right questions matter; accurate data also plays an important role. Because even the most strategically curated survey fails when the data is inaccurate. Survey data entry services make it possible for you without any hassle.

Data quality ensures that the data is reliable and useful because, let’s face it, inaccurate data is useless. Let’s explore the reason behind it, why data quality is essential for survey success and how to crack the code to survey success with quality data.

Why Does Data Quality Matter?

Data quality means how well information is collected and most importantly they must fulfill the need of survey purpose. Here’s how high-quality data make the difference:

• Accuracy: If data is accurate it reflects reality. Otherwise, it doesn’t make any sense, it just misleads the researcher.

• Completeness: Missing information can leave your analysis incomplete. Just like in the puzzle, you need all the pieces; quality data helps to find all the missing pieces and complete the puzzle.

• Consistency: Responses must be aligned logically. Choosing both “satisfied” and “dissatisfied” can create confusion.

• Timeliness: Old and outdated data become irrelevant like last decade's fashion trends.

• Accessibility: Data must be organised so that it becomes easy to analyse.

Survey data entry service providers make sure that  these factors fall in place, and your survey becomes a gateway to success

The Price of Poor Data Quality

Picture a game night with your buddies. Everyone’s excited about the fun, but the instructions for the game are confusing, and some cards are missing. The fun will turn into frustration. Poor data quality causes chaos, it plays with trust and wastes resources.

Here’s what becomes the situation when there is poor data quality:

• Bad Decisions: Misleading data is like investing in a product that nobody cares about.

• Lost Resources: Surveys need your time, money and effort and if the data is poor quality all the resources go in vain.

• Bad Reputation: The worst thing that can happen is that stakeholders will lose trust in your insights if your data is flawed and inaccurate.

• Compliance Issues: In some cases, data errors can lead to legal issues.

Why Data Quality Powers Survey Success

Think of the survey as a recipe for your favourite dish. The quality of data will determine the taste of your dish and of course, you don’t want to get it ruined. So here’s how data quality creates a difference:

• Accurate Insights: If the data is high-quality, it reciprocates the respondents' voice, which can help make decisions.

• Efficiency: If data is clean, you can save time and effort for extensive cleanup.

• Trustworthiness: Consistent and accurate data build trust among stakeholders.

• Helpful Analysis: Quality data leads to effective analysis which opens gates for knowing hidden trends and opportunities.

Strategies to Ensure Data Quality in Surveys

• Well-curated Survey Design: It creates a foundation for good-quality data. Questions must be short, up-to-the-point, readable, and non-biased. If unsure about the questions, test with a small group before launching.

• Make use of Technology: Use features that decrease manual tasks. Add features like drop-down menus, multiple-choice questions, and character limits.

• Training for Team: By any chance, manual data entry is involved, train your team to understand the need for accuracy so that they easily spot the errors and fix them immediately.

• Regular Data Cleaning: Maintain a clean data sheet and avoid duplicates and any gaps or inconsistencies.

• Check-in Real-time: If you don’t want small errors to become big headaches. Monitor the survey as soon as responses come in.

Survey data entry service providers know the ins and outs of quality data for surveys and hence utilise all these strategies to ensure survey success.

The Domino Effect of Good Data Quality

The benefits of quality data are far beyond the survey itself. Picture it as making a building, if the base is not strong it will fall. But if the base is built with very good quality materials it will stand strong and beautiful.

In the same way, data quality works, smarter decisions will give quality data and better outcomes. Which in turn, fuels the future success of an organisation. If the survey is about customer experience or to forecast market trends the main hero is quality data.

The Future of Data Quality: Trends to Watch

Now you know the importance of data quality, why not make it a little easier with AI? It will do real-time analysis. Check out these emerging trends:

• AI-Driven Validation: Some machine learning models are being used to detect errors and solve them in real time.

• Integration Across Platforms: Data-sharing tools ensure consistency among all connected platforms.

• Focus on Data Privacy: You can’t avoid data security, AI tools adhere to privacy regulations like GDPR(General Data Protection Regulation) or CCPA (Central Consumer Protection Authority).

• Self-Correcting Systems: Advanced tools can now not just spot errors but also correct them without any manual interference and ensure reliability.

Investing in these advancements will prove beneficial to organisations in the long run.

Wrapping It All Up

Survey success isn’t just about asking the right questions it’s about getting the right answers. Data quality is the invisible force that ensures your efforts lead to meaningful insights, rather than wasted time and missteps. Survey data entry service providers design thoughtful surveys, using modern tools, and keeping data clean, so that the most basic survey into a golden chance for actionable insights.

Want your surveys to drive decisions that matter? Prioritize data quality and watch the magic unfold. The best insights are possible from the quality data, start refining yours today!

Source Link: https://latestbpoblog.blogspot.com/2025/01/the-role-of-data-quality-in-survey-data-entry-success.html

[streakeye]

10 Best Survey Analysis Software in 2025

The best survey tools of 2025 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar we spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

One of the most successful survey solutions around with over 40 million registered customers, Survey Monkey offers a comprehensive questionnaire building solution and metric analysis tools.

It allows those without any coding skills to create complex question sets and then process the responses easily and efficiently.

You can sign up for free and create a survey within minutes. However, you can’t access the data collected in CSV or Excel XLS until you’ve signed up for a paid option. And the price goes up more if you expect more than 1000 responses per month or want to use any of the sophisticated branching and pipeline features.

A number of pricing tiers are available, with Team Advantage being the cheapest. This allows control over survey sharing, team analysis, shared asset library, custom graphics, as well as easy data exporting.

The next tier, Team Premier, adds features such as benchmarks, industry tools, and multilingual surveys. The Enterprise plan offers extra security and compliance features, as well as admin management and migration as required.

1. Streakeye

Where other survey tools focus on how complicated a questionnaire can be, or how much data you can extract, Streakeye takes a wholly different approach.

Its focus is user interaction, believing that the way to get the best responses is to engage the end user and through that get better responses. The Typeform methodology appears to work well, getting on average four times the completion rate over what the industry considers standard.

Service begins with the Essentials package, which offers a basic range of features. Upgrade to the Professional plan and not only do you get up to 5,000 responses but also unlimited logic jumps as well as conversion tracking and HubSpot integration. However, if paid yearly the Professional plan is discounted.

Each of these is restricted to a single user, though Enterprise deals are available.

Visit Now : www.streakeye.com

2. Typeform

Where other survey tools focus on how complicated a questionnaire can be, or how much data you can extract, Typeform takes a wholly different approach.

Its focus is user interaction, believing that the way to get the best responses is to engage the end user and through that get better responses. The Typeform methodology appears to work well, getting on average four times the completion rate over what the industry considers standard.

Service begins with the Essentials package, which offers a basic range of features. Upgrade to the Professional plan and not only do you get up to 5,000 responses but also unlimited logic jumps as well as conversion tracking and HubSpot integration. However, if paid yearly the Professional plan is discounted.

Each of these is restricted to a single user, though Enterprise deals are available.

3. JotForm

JotForm is an online web and email survey building solution that aims to undercut Typeform while being even easier to use.

A coding-free solution that most marketing people should be able to master quickly and generate the leads or feedback that they need.

In the past 12 years, JotForm has built a customer base of 2 million regular customers, creating forms in 177 countries and 12 languages.

A Start plan is free to use, and offers up to 100 submissions, 100MB of online storage, as well as 5 forms and 1,000 form views. Paid plans - when paid yearly - start with the Bronze and increases monthly submissions to 1,000, and as well as cloud storage space to 1GB, as well as 25 forms and 10,000 views.

The Silver plan introduces HPIAA compliance as well as increasing views to 10,000, storage to 10GB, up to 100 forms, and unlimited views. The Gold plan increases submissions to 100,000, 100GB of storage, and unlimited forms and views.

4. Ask Nicely

AskNicely’s unique selling point is that it can collect live information based on the Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is an excellent way to gauge the strength of customer relationships for a business, and this tool was designed to track that dynamic.

It also integrates with many customer workflow options that include Salesforce, Hubspot, Slack, Zendesk, Mail Chimp and Zapier amongst many others.

With these connections, surveys can target specific customer groups, and their reaction to new products and services can be collected to present real-time to live dashboards.

AskNicely used to advertise plans that were expensive but packed with features - however, the website no longer displays pricing information and instead asks for potential customers to contact them directly for a quote.

5. Google Forms

Many business people don’t need anything exotic or complicated. Maybe a simple form to ask their customers if they enjoyed the last seminar and how to make it better is sufficient.

For them, the free to use Google Forms is a perfectly adequate tool that requires little skill or experience to use, and is available for free as a personal edition or as part of the G Suite for business platform.

Responses are stored automatically into Google Sheets, allowing them to be easily transferred to an Excel spreadsheet or a database later.

The key weakness of Google Forms is that unless recipients have a Google Account and are willing to log in with it, they can fill out a survey multiple times.

As it is free before you spend big, it might be worth seeing if it will do enough, or at least hint what bought product features you might want.

6. Formstack

Formstack is a good example of a survey product with a very wide remit. The online form tool allows the creation of sophisticated surveys and their responses to be data harvested. But it can also be used for straightforward customer feedback panels on websites and social media.

Many companies use it to process leads and analyze their rate of conversion by integrating it into other sales management solutions. It works with Mail Chimp to enable targeted information gathering and feedback from existing customer databases.

As a survey tool, it works well enough, though it doesn’t have the templates that some competitor products offer.

Costing has four levels; Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The Bronze package offers a single user solution with basic forms and no application integration. At the other end of this scale, the Platinum plan has a multi-user license with the scope for multiple forms and thousands of submissions per month.

[pejasurveying1]

The Importance of Quantity Surveying in Construction Projects

Discover how Quantity Surveying ensures cost control, contract compliance, and risk management in construction projects. From budgeting to dispute resolution, learn how expert QS services enhance project efficiency and financial stability. Contact PEJA Surveying today for tailored solutions.

[itesservices]

Unlock the true potential of your survey data with Damco impeccable survey data processing services. Our expert team employs cutting-edge techniques to organize, analyze, and interpret your survey data, providing actionable insights for informed decision-making. Visit us to discover how our meticulous approach ensures accuracy and efficiency in processing diverse survey data.

[moniquill]

Here is a brief summary of what is happening in Wikipedia right now:

In the last few years (3-4 years) the WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, which was originally created to improve the quality and coverage of native issues and native articles on wikipedia, has been hijacked by a small number of users with an extremist agenda. They have been working diligently over the last few years to change the definition of both what it means to be an Indigenous American and even what it means to be state and federally recognized.

The four or five key players (Mainly Editor Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, ARoseWolf, (now retired editor CorbieVreccan, Netherzone and Oncamera) who are part of the “Native American Articles Improvement Project” started implementing these changes slowly, but they started pursuing their goals aggressively after November 2023, when state-recognized tribes retained their voting rights in NCAI. Essentially, after the movement to delegitimize state-recognized tribes failed officially, the key players doubled down on altering and controlling the flow of information about Native Americans through Wikipedia.

The talk page of Lily Gladstone’s article has a relevant discussion here. Initially, the leaders of the WikiProject removed any reference to her being a “Native American Actress” and instead had her as “Self-identifying as Blackfoot” and “Self-identifying as Nez Perce” because her blood quantum was too low to be enrolled in either tribe.

You can see some of the discussion here:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lily_Gladstone

Eventually they relented and changed her category to being “Of Nez Perce Descent” but you can see in the discussion that they are referring to an article that these editors (Yuchitown, Bohemian Baltimore, and CorbieVreccan) themselves appeared to have mostly written and revised:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_identity_in_the_United_States

This statement is very much at odds with even the government’s description, as seen below;

The DOJ Office of Tribal Justice Office on their webpage “Frequently Asked Questions About Native American”, question “Who is an American Indian or Alaskan Native” states:

“As a general principle, an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a Tribe and/or the United States. No single federal or tribal criterion establishes a person's identity as an Indian. Government agencies use differing criteria to determine eligibility for programs and services. Tribes also have varying eligibility criteria for membership.”

In addition, “List” pages have been created on Wikipedia for federally and state recognized tribes. The Wikipedia “List” page for state-recognized tribes is inaccurate in its interpretation of state recognition and not supported by expert reliable sources--(1) Cohen’s Handbook of Federal Indian Law 2012 edition, (2) NCSL.org current stand on state recognition (not the archived list from 2017 which NCSL no longer supports), (3) Koenig & Stein’s paper “Federalism and the State Recognition of Native American Tribes: a survey of state-recognized tribes and state recognition processes across the United States” (both 2008 & updated 2013 in book “ Recognition, sovereignty struggles, and indigenous rights in the United States: A sourcebook”)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-recognized_tribes_in_the_United_States

State-recognized tribes who have received recognition through less formal but acceptable means have been moved from the Wikipedia list page on state-recognized tribes to the Wikipedia list page of unrecognized or self-identifying organizations.

The Wiki page "List of organizations that self-identify as Native American tribes", in particular, is being used to purposely defame legitimate Native American individuals who are members of the tribes/Native communities that are on this list. 

By the parameters set up on Wikipedia, only the colonizer’s governments can acknowledge who is Native American through either federal recognition or state recognition. If an individual is not a member of a federally or state-recognized tribe, then it is determined that they cannot be Native American and are, instead, considered “self-identifying” or only “a descendant of ...” (example Lily Gladstone). As a result, Native individuals are currently being tagged as “self-identifying” and their names are put on “list” pages that strongly imply they are “pretend” Indians.

These editors have indicated that they would like “self-identification” to be the default setting for any people who they deem do not fit within the parameters that they themselves created within Wikipedia.

Moreof, these editors are admin and senior editors within the Wikiproject Indigenous Peoples of North America, and are being called in specifically to weigh on Native Identity, and any project involving any Indigenous Group.

Any attempt to correct misinformation, add information, or change any of these articles is often met with being blocked, reported for various offenses, or reported for having a Conflict of Interest, whether or not that is actually applicable. They have use this strategically in many different pages for many different individuals and groups within the scope of their Wikiprojects.

While changing things in Wikipedia does not change the truth, it is a way to control how most people take in information, and thus they hope to manipulate the narrative to better suit their goals.

This is quick and messy but:

Here is a link to the google document with the other state recognized tribes (Including yours) that were edited by these editors. This is an incomplete list so far that only goes back to September 2023 but I am going to add to it. If you can add to your own part of this list, and send your complaints and information to the arbitrator committee (the email is below) with the involved editors, this will help our case.

The  more tribes who complain, and the more Wikipedia editors complain, the better our case will be. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YNDEjLTrrZ_mMIRCVxtvt69FwCYpJWKs71lBhWa5a9M/edit?usp=sharing

The place to make complaints on Wikipedia is oversight-en-wpwikipedia.org , and

arbcom-enwikimedia.org . It is most helpful to have an editing account on Wikipedia, because Yuchitown and the others will try to defend themselves using Wikipedia methodology and make anyone who confronts them look like the aggressor (see the other tribes who tried to fight back on Wikipedia I found).

The more people and tribes make complaints the more likely it is that this will work and we can rid ourselves of these monsters.

Some of the tribes I have spoken to are taking legal action against these editors. Any groups affected by their policies should also reach out to the news to make knowledge of this more widespread.

Thank you

- quoted with permission from an email sent by an associate of my tribe. Message me for their email address if you'd like to reach out to them.

[dataentryinc]

How Survey Data Processing Services Can Enhance Your Business

Survey data processing services can significantly improve your business in many ways, including the extraction of accurate data from the survey forms. Once the data is precisely collected from the forms, it helps in survey data processing with better quality of data and results in improved decision making process with the help of survey reports.

Survey data can be gathering in various forms, it can be a digital form or paper form, it can also be questionnaire or sometimes just the multiple choice questions. It becomes very crucial to collect the survey data from various forms and merge them into an easy to understand format.

As a survey data processing business, you need to collect accurate information and process the results to get insightful outcomes about the trends or choice of people for a particular product or service. In order to improve your business operations, you must get a professional team of data processing services to keep your survey data processing running smoothly with high efficiency. 

Improve Your Business Operations With Survey Data Processing Services

There are wide range of benefits offered by a data processing team, here are some of the advantages listed for your survey data processing business and how it can help in improving your business operations and ultimately grow your business efficiently.

Control The Data Quality Of Survey Forms:

The survey data collection can be performed in various formats, and there are some common data processing issues faced when entering the survey data. Hence, it is critical to get a standard quality of data but with the help of survey data processing services you can get a clean and clear data of survey forms in the most desired way and you can also control the level of quality. 

This will give you accurate and reliable data by removing the duplicate entries of they survey form, correcting any possible spelling mistakes and also deleting missing values in the most efficient manner. You will get a data that will make the processing easy and quick. 

Perform Advanced Data Analysis:

In order to perform survey data processing, it is essential to have various data analytical tools with most advanced features that make the results better. Data processing services also offer proven and tested analytical techniques to identify the current trends and patterns found in the survey forms and to extract the useful insights from the data collected that might not be visible by simply going through the data collected in forms.

You can also get the personalized reports from the survey data processing services as per your business needs. Get the useful insights to take actions on the information collected through surveys and improve your business service quality. 

Pocket-Friendly Option That Save On Time:

If your team is taking longer than expected time to complete the survey data processing work, it is better to get the process outsourced to professionals that offer affordable services. You can save on your operational time by outsourcing survey data processing services to experienced team and use the skills within your budget.

It will also save on your resources cost that takes longer time for processing the same survey forms in-house. You will be also saving on your workspace as there will be no hassle to store data in physical form and core team will be utilized in other important operations.

Enhance Your Decision Making Process:

As you get most accurate information from the survey forms and the insights are based on valid and precise processing work, you can take actionable decisions that are more detailed and fact based. It will help you in making strategies for business growth and planning the future projects for your surveys. 

Some surveys can give you real time data that helps you in finding the current trends of market and customer experience so that you can take immediate actions to grow your business. 

Improve Your Customer Satisfaction Ratio:

Once you get the real time data that helps you understand what your customers are looking for and what are the current market trends going on that attracts your customer base, you can make changes in your business operations accordingly. 

Improve your customer experience on the basis of survey data collected and get deep understanding of your customer preferences to make more customized solutions as per your customers taste and needs. 

You can use these insights in all of your marketing strategies and product or service designing process to enhance your business and elevate your business growth. 

Feedback Integration In Survey Data Processing:

In order to get better and better, it is necessary to always keep on improving and evaluating the processes to find scope of improvements. If you want to grow your business continuously, you need to adapt feedback integration in your process and perform regular checks on the quality of data collected from the survey results.

Understand the market trends and keep an eye on competitors activities to take data-driven decision that can elevate your customer experience and overall business development.

If you want to grow your business in the upcoming years, outsource survey data processing services to experts that you can rely on for your data processing work. You can focus on your business expansion and your team can take the insights from survey data collected to form quality marketing strategies that lead your business in the competitive market. 

Invest in your business growth by saving on your operational cost with affordable service provider of your outsourced survey data processing. Leverage the benefits of advanced technology and tools along with experienced team and keep your survey processing hassle free!

Source Link: https://latestbpoblog.blogspot.com/2024/06/how-survey-data-processing-services-can-enhance-your-business.html

[pejasurveying1]

Comprehensive Bill of Quantities Services | Accurate Construction Cost Estimation - PEJA Surveying

Discover PEJA Surveying's expert Bill of Quantities services, essential for precise construction cost estimation and transparent tendering. From itemised materials to labour costs, we streamline budgeting and support equitable bidding. Our Quantity Surveyors ensure accuracy, cost control, and project success with tailored BoQ solutions.

[4chan]

Still standing

On the afternoon of April 14th, a hacker using a UK IP address exploited an out-of-date software package on one of 4chan's servers, via a bogus PDF upload. With this entry point, they were eventually able to gain access to one of 4chan's servers, including database access and access to our own administrative dashboard. The hacker spent several hours exfiltrating database tables and much of 4chan's source code. When they had finished downloading what they wanted, they began to vandalize 4chan at which point moderators became aware and 4chan's servers were halted, preventing further access.

Over the following days, 4chan's development team surveyed the damage, which to be frank, was catastrophic. While not all of our servers were breached, the most important one was, and it was due to simply not updating old operating systems and code in a timely fashion. Ultimately this problem was caused by having insufficient skilled man-hours available to update our code and infrastructure, and being starved of money for years by advertisers, payment providers, and service providers who had succumbed to external pressure campaigns.

We had begun a process of speccing new servers in late 2023. As many have suspected, until that time 4chan had been running on a set of servers purchased second-hand by moot a few weeks before his final Q&A, as prior to then we simply were not in a financial position to consider such a large purchase. Advertisers and payment providers willing to work with 4chan are rare, and are quickly pressured by activists into cancelling their services. Putting together the money for new equipment took nearly a decade.

In April of 2024 we had agreed on specs and began looking for possible suppliers. Money is always tight for us, and few companies were willing to sell us servers, so actually buying the hardware wasn’t a trivial problem. We managed to finalize a purchase in June, and had the new servers racked and online in July. Over the next few months we slowly moved functionality onto the new servers, but we had still been relying on the old servers for key functions. Everything about this process took much longer than intended, which is a recurring theme in this debacle. The free time that 4chan's development team had available to dedicate to 4chan was insufficient to update our software and infrastructure fast enough, and our luck ran out.

However, we have not been idle during our nearly two weeks of downtime. The server that was breached has been replaced, with the operating system and code updated to the latest versions. PDF uploads have been temporarily disabled on those boards that supported them, but they will be back in the near future. One slow but much beloved board, /f/ - Flash, will not be returning however, as there is no realistic way to prevent similar exploits using .swf files. We are bringing on additional volunteer developers to help keep up with the workload, and our team of volunteer janitors & moderators remains united despite the grievous violations some have suffered to their personal privacy.

4chan is back. No other website can replace it, or this community. No matter how hard it is, we are not giving up.

[yoongihan]

Services Rendered - BC - 1/3

pairing: escort chan x femreader

genre: smut, with little plot, a lot of talking, fluffy,

word count: ~ 10k

warnings: sex work, smut: pentrative safe sex, fingering (fem rec); a lot of kissing, older reader, chan goes by chris, use of 'baby' and 'yeonin' (don't ask, just writing him required all the endearments), the most ethical escort service ever; a little alcohol imbibed, but no one's drunk., some discussion of insecurities on both chris's and reader's parts. if i've missed something, let me know.

rating: 18+/M

summary: seeking a solution to your lack of experience, you assume the process will be business-like. you're entirely wrong.

a/n: vaguely based on the film Good Luck to You, Leo Grande. decided this couldn't be a one-shot they way it was going. so since the time frame is a weekend, they'll be another part for the second day, then perhaps an epilogue. thank you for the interest on the teaser. this is probably the softest sex worker au known to man.

Part One

The knock on the door startles you. It shouldn’t. You’ve known that he’ll be showing up at seven pm since you received the confirmation email; after the survey, the video interview, and the background check.

You look down at yourself at the knock, an immediate and instinctual check. There isn’t anything you can do in two seconds to change how you look, who you are; but the quick look is years and years of the world reminding you that you are not what the world wants. Which sometimes you can pride yourself on. But today, you can’t muster up that bravado.

But it’s been seconds since the first knock, so you hurry as the second rap sounds against the wood. You don’t look through the peephole because you’ll lose your nerve, and unless there are serious red flags with the person on the other side of the door, you are doing this.

It’s past time after all. 

You open the door, smile on your face even if it’s the fakest you’ve ever pasted on. 

The answering smile is far more sincere and confident than yours. And includes dimples. 

Oh god, they’d taken you seriously about often liking younger men. 

“Hi?” He starts when you don’t utter a word, shell-shocked. He says your name with a similar question mark at the end. 

“You have a beautiful smile.” You’re frozen, eyes sweeping up and down, taking in his casual air, amplified by the soft cardigan, shirt, and nice jeans. Then you actually hear what you’ve just said. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Um, please come in…Christopher?”

The confirmation email hadn’t given you a lot of details, but it did have his name. 

“Thank you and Chris is fine.” He’s still smiling as he walks in and you close the door behind. You watch him scan the room, taking in the couch, the view of the city beyond it. It’s the nicest hotel you’ve ever stayed in, but neutral territory had been recommended. “This is stunning.”

Your brain kicks back in, your eyes admiring the picture he made against the city lights. “You’re…your accent…Australian.”

He turns from taking in that spectacular view, his grin wider. “Good ear.” He sets his two bags, one messenger and one overnight (the implications of that second one sends another wave of anxiety through you) on the couch before seeing the two wine glasses on the coffee table. “Will you think less of me if I don’t drink?”

“Oh. No, not at all.” Your hands are clasped in front of you, like a caricature of an anxious woman. “There’s sodas in the minibar. Would you prefer me not to drink as well?”

He stands between the sofa and the window, eyes on you. “Will it help you relax?” He’s in profile, and you gaze at him, the strong nose, chin, and as you let your eyes travel down, the absolutely gorgeous ass.

You didn’t even know you had opinions about mens’ asses until this very moment. 

You cough a laugh, focusing back on his question. “Obvious huh?”

“It’s pointless of me to say not to be nervous, but I hope you know that you’re safe.”

You take a deep breath, walking over to the minibar and searching for two bottles of water. You force yourself to walk over to him, offering him one. 

“I know your company is reputable.”

He takes the water bottle from you, letting his fingers lightly touch yours. It’s nothing more than that, but you suspect it’s intentional. 

“It is. You did your research.” He tilts his head to the side, endearingly like he’s going to see you differently by just that change of angle. “Four months, wasn’t it?”

“You watched the interview?”

“Of course I did.”

If one of your hands wasn’t still holding a now sweating bottle of water, you would cover your face in embarrassment. You resist the impulse, just barely.

“Do you think I’d come here without doing my own research?” He’s amused, voice still warm with his accent and what you would normally categorize as fondness, but that’s impossible just meeting him seconds ago. 

“But I know nothing about you, just the company. They were very cryptic.”

“Well….isn’t that the fun of a date? The getting to know someone?” He gestures for you to sit on the couch before he untwists the cap and takes a swallow of water. He sits down once you do, leaving several feet between you. 

“Is that a better choice of word than assignation?”

He chuckles, pointing at me. “Smart. That was apparent pretty early on.” He seems completely at home even though you’ve been in the room since early afternoon, and are sitting with your back ramrod straight. “Didn’t even have to mention your job situation to know you’re smart.”

There is no natural segue into this, but you have to know. Even if he lies to you, you have to know. “Do you have a choice? I mean, do they assign you clients who fall under certain types, or do you have a quota?”

“You want to talk about my work?”

You take a breath, setting down the bottle on the table. “I guess not. I hope this isn’t horribly unwanted. I know it’s work for you, but I hope you–”

He shakes his head, immediately straightening up from his relaxed position, hand falling to your knee, not bare because you couldn’t see meeting him in a dress, even if that was encouraged for ‘heightened romance’ and ‘efficient disrobing’. Despite that you’re wearing a blue jumpsuit, his hand is so warm through the fabric. 

“This okay?” He nods to his hand placement. 

“You have carte blanche to touch me, Chris. I’ll tell you if I’m not okay with it.” That’s something you feel sure about at least.

His eyes widen and his smile grows. “Okay then. Same, by the way.”

There goes your confidence running out the door; that you can touch him in any way you want. 

“Back to your question. I chose you.”

“Excuse me?”

He laughs and gently squeezes your knee before drawing back. You’re somewhat befuddled by the simple touch and you remind yourself that you’re in for a lot more than that and to stop being so sensitive. 

“I watched your video, read your survey answers…and said yes.” He puts down the water bottle and leans forward a bit. “If no one had said yes, you wouldn’t have gotten that confirmation email.”

“You can choose?”

He nods.

“And you were okay with me?”

“Wow.”

You recognize it, the immediate words of chastisement that come when you say things like that, so you continue quickly. 

“I know, I know. I should be confident, right? Love myself, blah blah blah. I don’t hate myself. I just also know that I’ve never had someone interested in me enough to make me think that anyone would choose me.” 

He doesn’t say anything at first. And you realize you’ve just made this all the more awkward and put words into his mouth, which is highly presumptuous of you. 

“I’m sorry.” It’s easier to stare at the city lights than at him, no matter how beautiful he is. 

“Why?”

You look at him. “I…I was rude.”

“You were honest.”

You scoff. “That’s not usually a problem for me.”

“Good.”

You tuck your feet under you, leaning one elbow on the back of the sofa, eyeing him like he isn’t real.

He’s not. You’ve paid a lot of money for an illusion. 

“Really?”

“I like honesty.”

“Even if you’re playing a part for me?”

“You did not mention roleplay on that survey.” His smirk is delighted when you drop your gaze. “I’m not playing. Yes, I do what I do, but I’m going to be myself.”

“Even if all I want is so vanilla it barely qualifies for your line of work?”

He shakes his head. “Even if that’s all. But I don’t think that’s entirely true.” He reaches out, hand hovering over yours. “Okay?”

“Carte blanche.” You nod. You’re pretty sure you mentioned that you were touch-starved in the application process. 

He slots his fingers with yours, his focus on the meeting of your hands. “Do you want to talk about why I’m here?”

You wish you could say no, but that’s cowardly. And you do want to be brave. 

“That I’m a virgin and have so little understanding of sexual pleasure so I hired an expert to do what I can’t even do for myself?” your voice breaks and you hate yourself for it. 

“Why are you a virgin?” he asks. “Sex is not difficult to find if you really want to.”

“I said all this in my–”

“I’d like you to tell me anyway.” He doesn’t do more than hold your hand and his warmth, the lyrical quality of his voice seems to calm you just a touch. “Please?”

He has beautiful eyes. He probably knows that, and knows how to use them. But you can’t help but get lost in them when he says ‘please’ just like that. 

“I’m…I think or I thought that it should be something special, you know? I get that maybe I idealized it a bit much, growing up, eyes all starry with thoughts of romance and being intimate. But even recognizing that, I didn’t want to just…say yes to the drunken proposition at a bar. And…well, I’ve never been in a relationship, so being with someone I trusted wasn’t on the table either.”

“And why haven’t you been in a relationship?”

“It’s not just on me…the other person has to want to as well.” You’re beginning to sound like a petulant child and that’s not ideal. 

“You’re telling me no one wanted to?”

You stare at your combined hands. “If someone wanted to, I didn’t. If I wanted more than just a moment, he wasn’t interested.”

He says your name and you look up. You aren’t sure what he’s thinking, but it’s not pity in his eyes. That’s nice at least. 

“Why now? Why the company?”

“I’m…” You let out a heavy breath. “You saw my information. You know how old I am.”

“I do.”

“I’d like to know what an orgasm feels like before I get any older, because time seems to be running so fast and I’m frustrated that this part of life, of the human experience, is blocked from me.”

“It’s not.” He loosens his grip, turning your hand so it’s open, face-up, on your knee. He starts to trace along the lines there. “You can have an orgasm any time you want.”

“You think I haven’t tried?”

“What’s the problem?” There is no judgment in his tone, nothing but consideration. When you don’t immediately answer, he continues. “This wasn’t in your application or interview.”

“I get scared.”

To his credit, he doesn’t stop the light touching of your hand, even if admitting this feels like the quintessential ‘walking into your classroom naked’ nightmare. 

“Do you know why?”

You shrug, completely focused on the chaste and sweet brushes of skin on skin. “I haven’t been to therapy in a couple years, but I can speculate.”

He waits, a quirk of a smile when you don’t say anything. 

“I’ve probably built it up, in my head. Made it such a big deal that the anticipation is insurmountable. Or…I hate that it’ll just be me. That my first one will be on my own. I don’t know.” 

“Or societally-taught shame.”

You laugh. “Or that.”

He finally draws away after your hand feels thoroughly seduced. He leans back, waits before speaking. He doesn’t seem to rush anything, which is both nice and absolutely maddening. 

“Will it still be special if you’ve paid for it?”

That is the question, isn’t it?

“Maybe not. But at least, you’re contractually obligated to make sure I enjoy it, right? That seems pretty special after hearing everything from women I know about the men they sleep with.” The stories you’ve heard. It’s enough to question whether sex is even what you hope it might be. 

“And that’ll be enough?”

You want to reach out and touch him. Trace the lines of his face; the strong nose, the dimples, the curves of his eyebrows and lips. Touch the dark hair, wavy and messy that contrasts with the striking facial features. 

You could, you suppose. You paid for such access, right?

As beautiful as he is, as lovely as his voice is, and perhaps it’s because of those very things that you cannot be bold physically. Even if all you want is to be held. 

“I guess it has to be.”

He nods and opens his mouth to speak, but your stomach decides right then to make the most egregious sound. He laughs, a full session of giggling as you heat in mortification. He stands and offers his hand. 

“Let’s have dinner then?”

“Oh but.” How do you word this? “Is that good to do before–?” You’re an adult but you can’t for the life of you say ‘making love’ which isn’t even accurate. But ‘fucking’ feels incredibly crass.

He rubs his thumb over your knuckles. “You’ll need your energy, right?”

He’d know of course.

Some of the tension, the awkwardness, dissipates when you both look at the room service menu and order. Chris admits that spicy food is not his thing and you think it funny that this is the first thing you both have in common. 

“Do you…do you abstain from alcohol because of struggling with it?”

He has poured you a glass of the sparkling sweet stuff you’d picked up for yourself. You were pretty sure he wouldn’t like it, most men don’t or don’t admit that they do. The wine, like this entire experience, is for you. 

Your mind likes to tell you that you’re being selfish, but you’re choosing not to listen closely. 

He sets down the bottle before gesturing that you should sit again on the sofa while waiting for dinner. He waits until you sit before doing the same. You note mentally, in all capital letters, that he sits closer to you. 

“I generally don’t like it. Nor is it something I ever want to rely on…” He watches you take a sip and you find that a skill you tend to do well (drink something) is hindered by such an attentive gaze. You wipe your mouth quickly and set the glass down, looking away. “It’s my job. And I don’t want to do it with an inhibited mind.”

“Oh.”

“Can you do something for me?” he asks softly, reaching out once again to take your hand. You let him, hoping he will as successfully seduce this as he’d done with the other. 

“What?”

“When you have a thought, like you just did? Just tell me.”

“Without a filter?”

He grins, wide. “Absolutely without a filter.”

“Why?”

He chuckles and starts tracing the lines of your palm and fingers. “How am I going to get you to let go if I don’t know what is going on inside that head of yours?”

“I was hoping you’d just shut it down for me instead.”

It’s a glint. A quick, but potent change in his eyes. “Gotta know how it works before I render you senseless.”

His voice has changed too. No longer warm, but hot. No longer lyrical, but sharp. 

“It’s noisy,” you say slowly. “My brain rarely slows down or gets quiet. I went to a concert once, one I was super super excited about, and I kept telling myself to enjoy the moment, being present right then. But just telling myself that…”

“Means you weren’t. Present.”

You shake your head. “I’m going to overthink this.”

He nods. “Understood.” He lets his touch carry up the inside of your forearm and elbow. You shiver. He meets your eyes with a smirk. 

“How long have you been doing this? With the company?”

“A few years,” he says, fingers still lightly brushing your skin. “It’s not my only job. It’s just the better paying one.” 

“What else do you do?”

“Act. Or try to. I go to quite a few auditions, but the results aren’t great.” His lips twist as he thinks. “But I like it. I like the process of character work.”

“Do you do community theatre?”

“Some.” He grins. “You a theatre kid?”

“Once upon a time.”

He opens his mouth to say more, but there’s a knock at the door. “I’ll get it.”

“Oh but–”

He stands, hand out to keep you where you’re at. “It’s your weekend, right? Let me serve you.” The emphasis on ‘serve’ is left hanging as he goes to the door to retrieve dinner. You take a big gulp of your drink, unbidden images in your mind. You have no practical experience, but your imagination is as active as the rest of your brain. 

He returns with a large tray, setting down the dishes with ease.

“Worked in food service?”

“Who hasn’t?” He returns to the spot next to you and rests his hands on his knees. “You?”

“Food service? Yes. I was terrible at it.”

He laughs before removing the lids of each plate. He offers you one, silverware in his other hand. 

“Here you are, madam,” his grin is unburdened, very playful and bright. You could stare at it for hours. “Why were you terrible at it?”

You set your plate down, waiting for him to get his own food before you start. “Too many things to remember. And trying to interact with people like that? It was just…awkward. I'm decent with people, but for whatever reason, having to take their orders, bring them food and drink, figure out when is the appropriate time to bring them their check, just makes me awkward.” I shrug. “Also, murder on the feet.” You take a bite and chew, enjoying the flavors. 

“It really is. Which is why I prefer to do my work lying down.”

You can feel the immediate heat in your face at his words and he laughs so hard, he falls back on the couch. 

“I’m sorry, I'm sorry. It’s such a bad joke, but your face.” He squeezes your knee again, before taking a bite of his own meal. When you don’t say anything, he swallows and looks back at you. “What? Cheesy jokes aren’t your thing?”

It’s the smile. The crinkling of his eyes and scrunch of his nose. 

You lean close to kiss his cheek. “I just wanted to do that,” you say softly before pulling back and trying to focus on your food. You can feel his gaze as you take a few more bites. You know your embarrassment is more than obvious if he’s looking at you. 

Finally after several seconds of silence, you make eye contact. 

He smiles once you do, not saying anything, but returning to his meal. You both concentrate on that, the conversation mostly paused for sustenance. He refills your glass, but you’re careful not to drink too much, recognizing that you are a lightweight and you want to remember whatever happens. 

“We can order dessert?” he prompts when each of your plates are more empty than full. 

You lift your glass. “Plenty of sweet right here.”

“Can I try?” He doesn’t go for the extra wine glass still on the low table. He reaches for yours. It’s familiar, the drinking after someone else. You know it’s dumb to focus on it as you hired him for sex, but as you watch him sip it and stare into nothing as he ponders if he likes it or not, you feel the intimacy. 

“Well?”

“I like it.” He hands the glass back. “Doesn’t taste like alcohol.”

“Which makes it dangerous and this should be the last for me.” You look back to your plate, not completely done, but you’re thinking too much again and you can’t stomach any more. 

He stands and starts to clean up, shaking his head the moment you move to join. 

“I’m not good with just…not doing anything.” 

“I can see that.” He doesn’t have to seem so amused. “Makes it fun.” 

Mock-annoyed, you take your glass and walk to the windows so you can take in the view. The sun has been set for at least an hour now, and the lights from the city buildings are plentiful. You take a few deep breaths, realizing that now dinner is done, there is nothing hindering the ‘just do it’ portion of the night.

You hope he’s okay with a lot of foreplay because you, in the little you know about your body, need a lot of build up.

The door opens and shuts with him setting out the dishes for hotel staff to retrieve and soon you hear him rustling through his bag. You turn to see him pull out a zipped pouch. He winks at you.

“Gonna brush my teeth?”

“Oh. Oh sure.”

He chuckles at your response, and you force yourself to look back out over the city. Then in an almost panic, you finish the last of your wine, set down the glass and hurry to your overnight bag by the king-sized bed. You dig through to find your own toiletry bag, and tug it out. He comes out of the bathroom, glances over to see you’re no longer by the window. 

“I thought…” You feel so stupid. “I’d do the same.”

He smiles and gestures toward the bathroom. You hurry past him and shut the door behind you. You regret looking in the mirror as your face is decidedly not a poker face. Your nerves show in your eyes, the swollenness of chewing on your lips, the sheen of perspiration on your skin. 

You wipe under your eyes as your makeup is smeary before quickly brushing your teeth. You soak one of the pristine white washcloths and twist it so it’s damp and not dripping. You press it lightly to your face, hoping the cool will calm you down. You fiddle with your necklace, pulling the clasp to the back of your neck as though that will make any difference in how you appear to him. 

When you open the door, he’s standing by the end of the bed, hands in his pockets, looking at the two books you have on the nightstand. He points to them before speaking.

“Planning on doing a lot of reading?” He’s teasing, and that helps you calm down a little bit.

“I can’t go anywhere without at least one book. Even if the chances of getting to read are slim to none.” You mirror his posture, sliding your hands into the pockets of your jumpsuit.

“You okay?” he asks, voice gentle.

“Theoretically? Absolutely.” Your tone does nothing to confirm your words.

“Wanna sit with me?” He sits at the end of the bed and pats the space next to him. You hesitate. “Or we can sit on the couch?”

Dumb, you are dumb. The bed is the obvious final destination, but for whatever reason, the couch feels safer right now. 

“Please. The couch.”

He gets up and walks over to where you are still standing. He slips his hand in yours. 

“Come on, yeonin,” he says as he leads you back to the couch. He tugs you down next to him and you sit stiffly, hand still in his, other hand on the edge of the cushion like you’re about to escape. You force yourself to take a deep breath. “That’s better.” 

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

You look at your hands entwined. His are, like the rest of him, really attractive; bigger than yours, veins prominent in the way that epitomizes sexy. 

“We don’t have to do anything tonight. We don’t have to do anything the entire time,” he reassures you, making you look up to his face. “This is for you. It can be on your timeline.”

“But…but if I don’t do it now…I don’t think I ever will.”

He lifts your hand to his lips, presses a kiss to your knuckles, causing you to stare at him. “I think you’re psyching yourself out.”

“Oh, I am absolutely doing that,” you agree. “I can’t seem to stop it.”

He purses his lips in thought, then draws your hand against them again. He has to hear the catch in your breathing because he smiles. 

“Let’s start with what you are comfortable with. What you’ve done previously. What you want to do. With me.” His voice drops at the end, and you feel it pulsate through your body. 

“Okay.”

He waits, patiently. You pull your hand out of his and turn toward him, trying to relax yourself enough that you don’t look primed to run away. You tuck one leg under you before taking his hand again. He smiles as you do, slotting his fingers with yours, watching you as you watch how your hand looks in his. 

“I like your hands,” you say softly.

“Yeah? Why?” 

You like how his voice doesn’t betray any judgement at your words, or offense. Just curiosity. When you meet his gaze, you can see the top of his cheeks are a little pink.

Is he blushing?

“Well, one, they’re very warm.” You laugh. “I like the way they’re shaped.” You trace his index finger as you continue. “I know masculinity and femininity are products of our society, but they’re very masculine.” You shrug before shivering.

“You cold?” he asks quickly, letting go of your hand to tug off his cardigan. He has it on your shoulders, pulling it closed, before you can even protest. His white t-shirt underneath stretches taut across his chest and shoulders, catching your attention for a good few seconds. 

“I…thank you,” you reply, burying yourself more in the soft fuzzy material. “I like this cardigan.”

“I thought you might.” He’s gone back to holding your hand, other arm propped against the back of the sofa. 

His words spark something. “Wait…do you pick your clothes based on your clients?”

He grins, leaning his head on his hand, eyes sparkling. “You really want me to talk about work?”

“Okay, I shouldn’t, but I’m really fascinated.”

“Well…yes. It’s a costume. Some clients want a type of escort who’s very put together, like in a suit.”

The image of him in a well-tailored suit pops into your head immediately. “I imagine you look stunning.”

The pink spreads in his cheeks and you are beyond amused that this man, with the job he has, could at all be embarrassed by something as simple as a compliment. 

“I…I have a few nice suits.” He clears his throat. “But dependent on what a client is looking for in an…encounter, dictates outfit as much as persona.”

“I wouldn’t have minded seeing you in a suit.”

He chuckles, squeezing your hand before letting it go and tapping a random rhythm on your leg. “I speculated, from your interview, the way you looked at the camera, that you probably prefer authenticity over any sort of glamour. Someone a bit more real.”

“And that’s a cardigan?”

“For me it is. I was grateful I didn’t have to use anything in my hair.” He laughs now and you reach to touch his hair instinctively, caught up in the coziness and comfort of him and the simple conversation. His hair is soft, without any hair product. You can feel his eyes on you as you let your fingers brush through the strands. 

“So…you’re telling me,” you ask, drawing back after another minute. “You are being yourself, right now?”

“As much as a person can be with someone they’ve just met. And hope to–” He looks up, searching for the word.

“To fuck?”

His eyes dart back to you. “Simply put. But I would like to imagine it’d be a bit nicer than that.” Neither of you say anything and you’re back to second-guessing yourself. “Hey,” he begins. “Come here.”

He takes both of your hands, pulling you so you are almost in his lap. He lets your hands fall to his shoulders, his own holding about the waist. The position means he’s looking up at you. 

His thighs are warm between your legs, his eyes accented by dark lashes. You draw one finger down the length of his nose. He scrunches it at your touch. 

“It’s big.”

You laugh at his self-deprecation and the underlying innuendo that was probably unmeant but who cares?

“It’s a very nice nose,” you reply, cheeky grin. He responds with his own smile. “It fits your face, so it works, right?”

“We all have our insecurities, right?”

You brush back his hair, thinking. “Some of us have so many it’s hard to see what’s not tainted in dislike.” 

His hands tighten at your waist. “Tell me something you like about yourself.”

“Oh my god, you sound like my college counselor, who had me write five good things for every bad thing I said about myself.”

His smile is softer and one hand slides up your back, under the cardigan. “I’m asking for just one.”

“As much as it gets me into trouble,” you state slowly, your own hands mapping the journey of his shoulders to his neck and back again. “I like that I’m honest. That’s my default.”

“Another.”

“You said just one.”

“I did, but I’m greedy. Another and it has to be shallow.”

“Shallow?”

“Your looks.”

You frown at him, but he’s so pretty like this, looking up at you like he has all the time in the world, that he’s not on the clock. That this entire experience isn’t funded by your savings account and a plan months in the making. 

“I…”

“You can do it.”

You slap his shoulder and he laughs. “Do not patronize me.”

“I’m not. I’m encouraging.”

“Please.”

“Another good thing, about you.” His hand that had slid up your back has now drifted down, resting right at the curve of your ass. 

“My eyes?”

“What about them?”

“God, you are my college counselor.”

His smile is unrepentant. 

“They’re nice.”

His expression morphs into mild annoyance. “They’re beautiful. I like the color. And how much they show. You’d be shit at poker.”

“I’ll have you know that I mask my feelings decently well in everyday life. I’m just tired.”

He nods. 

“You’re not going to ask me to say another nice thing, are you?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

You lean down slightly, lessening the distance between your faces. His eyes don’t flicker away. 

“Are you trying to distract me?”

“Maybe?”

“I like when you’re like this.”

“Like what?”

“Confident. It’s sexy.” His voice drops lower with these words and you belatedly realize that in your effort to evade having to say another nice thing about yourself, you’ve invaded his personal space (not that he looks like he’s bothered by it) and if this was a movie or any type of story, your next move would be to kiss him. 

Which means now you’re looking at his lips. They, like everything you’ve seen of him so far (oh my god, you are going to see all of him at some point if this experience is at all successful) are beautiful, perfectly-shaped, enticing. 

He says your name in the same low voice, a promised whisper. “Kiss me.”

You swallow nervously. “It’s been a minute.”

“All the reason to practice on me.”

He’s good at this. Softening a moment that feels like too much for you. Making you smile when you feel overwhelmed and doubtful.

“Use you?”

“Please.” His hand slips farther down and there’s no denying that he has moved to less than appropriate places. 

You let your eyes close as you cover the last bit of space between you and him, your lips touching his so lightly it feels like a wisp of a daydream. He doesn’t let you get away with it though. Hand cupping the back of your neck, he keeps you there, the kiss lengthening and lingering in a way that brings back the shivers you thought the cardigan had dispelled. 

When he draws back, your breathing is a bit labored. He caresses where his hands sit, neck and ass, watching you carefully. You expect him to say something, maybe about you needing some practice for sure, but he doesn’t. He just watches before moving back in.

“Open up, yeonin,” he whispers, and your lips part instinctively at his words. Eyes close and you feel his tongue trace the inside of your lips before sliding in to stroke yours. 

You whimper and his hand tightens its grip on your ass. You run your fingers through his hair before moving closer. It shouldn’t surprise you that he’s good at kissing…it’s probably a requirement of his job. But where so many can use their tongue to excess, he’s found the perfect balance of tongue, lips, and teeth.

When you decide to be a bit bold and nibble on his lower lip, his hand tightens, a sharp exhale. 

“Confident,” he murmurs against your mouth before leaving it to press kisses to your jaw line, down to your neck. There’s a light nip and you gasp, your own fingers digging into his shoulders. He squeezes the back of your neck gently. 

“Chris,” you breathe, and he draws back, looking up at you. His lips are swollen, pink and plump. The color high on his cheeks, his hair even more tousled. 

“What is it, baby,” he asks softly, the quiet of the hotel room overwhelming. Should you have put on music? Isn’t that often the precursor to a night like this? His kiss on your lips is quick and almost careless. “Stay with me. I can see you thinking too hard.”

You half-laugh, embarrassed, loosening your hands and starting to sit back on your heels practically. He holds you firm so you can’t put any distance. 

“Don’t. Don’t move away.” He rubs your back, soothing. “What is it?”

“I just…you’re right. I’m thinking again.”

He smiles, leaning in so your noses touch. “Kiss me again. You’re good at it.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” His smile widens when you swoop back in. He lets you lead, eager to taste him, eager to enjoy this moment without thinking it’ll end in minutes. You play with his hair, while he kisses you back, tongue curling with yours. It takes you a moment or three, realizing that his hold on your ass, tightens ever so much, ever so slowly closer until when you break from his lips to suck a mark on his neck, his hips buck right up against you. 

And you freeze. 

“Hey, hey,” he says, still in that soft soft voice. 

“Sorry, sorry,” you breathe. 

“Scared?” You’ve tucked your face into the curve of his neck, breathing him in, trying to relax. 

“It’s dumb. It…you feel good. It’s just…surprising. I’m sorry.”

He kisses the side of your head, the hand again rubbing circles on your back. “Don’t apologize.” He waits. “Look at me.”

You lift your head, your face burning with humiliation. He cups your face in his hand. 

“Your pace, okay? If you’ve never been with someone, it would be a little scary.” He holds your chin with his thumb and forefinger. “But if it worried you at all, I do want you.”

You take a deep breath, watching his face as though there might be something to tell you he isn’t being truthful. 

“You’re way too nice.”

He chuckles, kissing you softly. “I like being nice. I like being nice to you. I like listening to the sounds you make when you’re excited, how you move closer when turned on.” He stares at you with no shame. “I like that it’s me making you do those things.”

Your cheeks burn. 

“Come on,” he says, and without any sort of visual effort, he lifts you. You squeak, legs wrapping around his waist. He’s laughing at your shock, carrying you toward the bed. You can feel your breathing shorten as he lays you down with ease. He regards you, rubbing one hand on your thigh that starts to relax, his other against the mattress, so his entire weight isn’t on you. 

You stare up at him. 

“What are you thinking now?” 

“That I’m warm.”

His grin is infectious. “Probably ought to get rid of that cardigan.” He rolls to his side, gently tugging the garment off your shoulders, down your arms. You push yourself up so he can pull it from under you. You fall back, the bed bouncing. He waits for a second. 

“Still warm?” he asks, fingers tracing the buttons in front of your jumpsuit. His eyes flick to yours. “We still good?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not entirely convinced by that,” he teases, leaning to kiss you just as he undoes the top button. You focus on the feel of his mouth, the wet heat, even as it leaves your lips, trailing down to your neck and then the middle of your chest as he undoes the rest of the buttons. “Pretty,” he comments when your bra is revealed by the unbuttoning. He looks up at you through his lashes. 

“Pretty,” you repeat, tugging on the shoulder of his t-shirt. He laughs as he sits up and does the very attractive guy thing, of pulling it off from behind his neck. “Oh.”

He raises his eyebrows, looking down at his half-naked state. “I mean, I did have dinner, so…” There’s humor, but you hear the self-deprecation. 

It’s instinct, you sitting up and reaching out to touch him. “The ‘oh’ was pure admiration, Chris. Like, you are stunning.” Your hands trace down his arms. “I…it’s a little intimidating, honestly. I know that for your job…both jobs probably…you need to look perfect…but perfection is daunting.” You don’t think that your hands are boldly caressing his bare skin, until you feel the top of his jeans at your fingers. Your eyes widen and you pull away as though burnt.

He’s giggling, grabbing your hands and placing them back on his shoulders. “Carte blanche, remember. God, you’re cute.” He keeps his smile even when the giggles subside, carefully nudging your clothing off your shoulders. He draws one finger up the valley between your breasts. 

“I am not perfect-looking.”

He doesn’t look away from you, eyes heating at your bare skin, his hand resting on your arm. You start to pull away, fidget at the quiet and his lengthy perusal. His hand tightens, keeping you still. 

“Chris.”

His eyes move up to yours. “Stunning.”

You don’t believe him, why would you when he looks like he does? But there’s something in his gaze that makes you think he believes it, and in matters of whether or not someone is beautiful, it really is in the eye of the beholder, right?

And he is beholding, currently. 

It’s too much for you at this point, his acute focus on you, so you move in to kiss him again, more than happy to get back to the familiar. He returns kiss for kiss, and you fall backward into the mattress and pillows, his body on yours, a pleasant weight. When he leaves your lips this time, you think you’ll feel him against your neck, leaving marks; but the wet heat of his mouth encases your covered breast. The gasp you let out is barely audible, the sharp inhale of air. It sends a frisson through you, as his hand slips under the still open fabric covering your hips. The combinations of heat from his mouth and his hand overwhelms, and you can’t stop shuddering. You make some nonsensical sound when he proceeds to lavish the same attention on your other breast. The wet lace and satin scratches in the most indulgent way. 

“Do something for me?” he whispers, his breath chilling your damp skin. 

“What?”

“Since it’s new, use the stoplight system? Red means full stop. Yellow means a pause, perhaps take a break, and green means you’re good, not scared, not hurting.” His eyes zero into yours without flickering away.

You nod, breathless. “Okay. I…I can do that.”

“Cause I’m gonna touch you now, and you gotta tell me what works and what doesn’t.” He kisses your nose. His fingers sneak under your underwear, slowly like he believes you’re still skittish (you are, but you also want something down there). He’s so gentle, kissing you as he drags the pad of his finger along your entrance. “Color?” he says against your mouth.

“Huh?”

He lifts his head a bit more, smiling down at you. “What color?”

“Oh. Oh! Green.”

He chuckles, murmuring, “Cute,” before going back to kissing you. His thumb presses on your clit and your hips buck. “Easy,” he says, his other hand on your hip to hold you down. 

“Chris…that…that feels good.”

He does the same movement again, your hips try, but his hand is heavy to keep you steady. “That?”

You narrow your gaze, even though you’re quivering with his touch. “You’re making fun of me.”

He leans in, smile as wide as can be, dimples deep. His nose brushes yours. 

“Absolutely.” 

You raise up to meet his lips, fingers seeking his hair. He hums, his fingers playing with you, as though seeking the destination immediately isn’t the point. You trace down his neck to his shoulders and arms.

“You know,” you begin, gasping when he slides one finger into you. His smile is so arrogant. 

“You were saying?”

“I…” 

He circles your clit with the barest of touches, his other finger curling up inside. Your breath hitches.

“Breathe, baby. Yeonin, you’re okay, just breathe.” His gaze is soft on you as you can’t help but close your eyes tight as the liquid pull of pleasure grows. You feel like a band drawn tight, seconds away from breaking. You feel his lips on yours, careful before speaking. “Don’t be scared, just let go.”

It ramps up, the tension building and building, and you are gasping, opening your eyes to see that his gaze is resolute on you.  

When his second finger slips in, curling with the other, you shatter. 

He licks into your mouth, as you have no voice to make a sound. You’re only aware of the sensations; his tongue on yours, your fingers biting into the skin of his arms, how your legs tremble. 

How the quiet and ease flickers back into your brain after the quivers lessen, and the muscles ease. 

His fingers are still in you, still touching you and you shake your head. 

“Too much?”

“Yellow.”

He pulls his hand away, quietly adjusting your underwear. The hand that held your hip slides up to your stomach, warm and comforting. 

You take a deep breath, finding his eyes. “Wow.”

He laughs, falling down next to you, no longer propping himself up. If your face was hot with exertion and arousal earlier, it’s now hot with embarrassment. 

“That’s the best feedback I’ve gotten,” he says, his hand cupping your waist, so he can roll you toward him. 

“I doubt that.”

He leans in to kiss you quick. “How do you feel?”

“Both exhausted and energized. I think.”

“Sounds about right.” He rolls to his back, looking up at the ceiling. You push yourself to your elbows, unable to look away from him. He eventually glances over. “Yes?”

“That’s not it, is it?”

He snorts, trying not to laugh too loudly. “Not at all. But I thought you might want a break.”

Your gaze moves from his beautiful face to his arms. “I remember what I was going to say before you…”

“Before I…?”

“Shut up.”

He’s snickering. 

“I was going to say how it’s wrong that they only talk about curves in regards to women. Men have curves too.” You smooth your fingers along his arm, wrist to shoulder. “Just as beautiful.” 

His snickering fades. “Really?”

“Arms…jaw line.” You trace each as you speak. “Lips.” Which part when your finger makes contact. You meet his eyes for a second before hoping it’s an invitation, slip your finger in. His lips wrap around it, his teeth dragging against the pad of your finger. “Oh god.”

He smiles before sucking then releasing. He sits up, finger under your chin so you’re facing him. He kisses you lightly, before toying with the last button on your jumpsuit. “I think we should remove this.”

As much as you’d like to see more of him, completely baring yourself is something you haven’t done outside of your own bedroom, and in a doctor’s office. But you can do this. “Okay..if…” You gesture to his jeans. “Equality and all that.”

“For equality,” he teases, moving to stand at the end of the bed. You follow, reaching for the button on his jeans. “You want to?”

“Yes.” You focus on your fingers working properly, though you’re still a bit shaky from your…orgasm. At some point, you are going to have to process through that. His hands cover yours. “I can do it, I’m just a bit jumpy.”

You feel his lips on your forehead. “You know, we don’t have to do this tonight. I could just eat you out.”

Your head shoots up in surprise. He seems unbothered by how casually he talks about oral sex. 

“But you’re…” With your hands near and your attention at the fastening of his pants, his arousal is more than obvious. 

“Yes, I am.” He doesn’t let go of your hands, even as you undo the button and pull down the zipper. There’s a strain to his voice when your fingers unthinkingly brush him. There’s a twitch and you find yourself fascinated by it. “But this is easily dealt with if you want. You’re still a virgin, but you know what an orgasm feels like. So, we could just stop–”

“No,” you interrupt, looking up at him, letting your hand stroke him through his underwear. There’s another twitch, and his face tenses slightly. After being so completely undone by his touch, you want to ‘return the favor.’ See him undone. “Please?”

Your hands are bolder, tugging down his jeans so you can cup him easier. He breathes sharply through his nose, head dropping slightly. 

“You do not have to say please, I’m more than willing.”

You peer up at him. His eyes are half-mast, another edged inhale. You push down his jeans completely, letting him step out of them, kicking them away. He wears black boxer-briefs that are straining currently. You reach for them, but he wraps his hands around your wrists, halting you. 

“No?”

“Equality,” he says, the amusement back in his voice. 

Right, you still have your jumpsuit on, well, half on. 

He lets go, moving a step closer so you can feel his body heat, smell whatever fresh cologne he wears, heightening his natural scent. He slides his hands between your skin and the jumpsuit, hands so warm you shiver despite not being chilly. Your clothing falls, following the journey of his hands, hips to thighs to ankles. He’s at your feet, looking up at you; those eyes so dark, you can’t see the warm mahogany. 

You step out of the pile of fabric and he tosses it over the back of the chair several feet away. 

You are essentially without clothing, your underwear (hand-picked for this weekend as you figured you might as well try something pretty) covering enough, but not enough. If he senses this, he doesn’t indicate, walking back to you and cupping your face in his big hands, tipping your head up for a kiss. You welcome this, the heat of his mouth. It’s been only minutes since he’s kissed you, but you crave like an addict who’s going through withdrawal. 

Stroking his bare back has you humming against his lips (how could a back feel so good? But here you are). You can feel his smile, his tremble and goosebumps as the room isn’t exactly at temperature for as little as you two are wearing.

“Cold?” you ask softly. He pecks your lips before drawing back to make eye contact. His hands stay on your face, and you feel cherished, which a voice in your brain tells you is stupid as you’re paying this man and his company to make you feel like that. 

He’s a really good actor.

“A bit,” he replies to your question. He brushes his nose with yours. “I’ll grab a condom.”

Your eyes widen, but you nod, immediately colder when he lets go. He sits at the end of the bed, rummaging in his bag. You grab something out of yours, your face hot with embarrassment. He looks over at what you offer. 

“I…uh…did research and a friend recommended this.”

“Lube?” he asks, taking it and glancing at the label. “Okay.” He’s smiling at you, like you’re funny, which might be true even if you aren’t trying to be. 

You sit on the bed, in the middle, a bit at a loss now that you have nothing in your hands. “I would have bought condoms, but there’s so many kinds and sizes and I was worried I might offend you with getting the wrong size. I wouldn’t even know.”

He looks over his shoulder, still smiling. “Tends to be a required thing I bring.”

“Of course.”

He, having retrieved said prophylactic, crawls to where you’re sat (the bed is king-sized and it feels monstrously large). He sits next to you, cross-legged like you are. 

“Again, we don’t have to. I can get you off as much as you want without–”

“It’s weird,” you say, glancing at him. “Just talking about this. I’ve talked in theoreticals about sex my whole life and now, it’s just…it’s such a normal thing, right? Just this thing a lot of people do but I haven’t.” 

He bumps shoulders with you. 

“I’m sorry. I’m going off on a tangent again. I’m sure it’s annoying.”

He links his hand with yours, resting them on his knee. “I’m not annoyed. I like talking to you. And I want you to be comfortable and have a good time, not feel pressured or coerced in any way. We can talk all night.”

“No. I mean, that actually sounds like fun with you.”

His answering smile is brilliant.

“But…I want to. I’m just nervous.” You lift his hand, still wrapped around yours, to your lips. You meet his gaze. “I’m so glad you chose me.”

The fondness melts into something hotter in his eyes, pupils dilating. He eases you onto your back, kissing you softly, mouth at your mouth, then your neck and collarbone. You squirm, as he hovers over you, raising up to check on you. It’s criminal how good he looks, hair messy (from your hands), lips swollen (from your lips). He toys with the clasp of your bra, his fingers brushing the edges of your curves. 

“Can I?”

You nod, your breathing hindered by how easily he’s wound you up again, with only kisses. He undoes the clasp without difficulty, gently peeling off the lace from your breast, exposing them to his regard. 

With a glance at your face, another check in, he lowers to suck on one nipple, the feeling entirely different without fabric hindering. You hiss out his name, hands scrambling to grab his arms, something to ground you. His chuckles vibrate against your skin and you moan more wantonly than you believed you were capable of. He moves to your other breast, giving it the same treatment. Your fingers dig into his arms; you’ll leave marks.

You hope you leave some sort of impression on this man. 

Once he’s done twisting you up, he removes your bra, tossing it aside before snapping the band of your underwear, causing you to jolt.

“Okay?” he asks.

“Please. Yours too?” Your words aren’t more than whispers. He smirks, before shedding his and tugging down yours. You stare, openly and blatantly at his nudity. 

“I’m debating on telling you whether I’m average or not,” he teases, making you look away from his cock to his face. 

“Does it matter? Really?”

He shakes his head. “No.”

“I think you’re beautiful,” you say, prompted by the visual you have. 

His cheeks, already pink from arousal, deepen all the more and you laugh. He makes a face at you before moving back to kissing you. 

“Aren’t you just trouble,” he murmurs, slipping the foil packet into your hand. “Put it on?”

You push yourself back up to rip open the packet, and roll it on him. You don’t draw back, fascinated by the immense heat he radiates, how delicate the skin is, even under the latex. He twitches at your exploration. 

“It feels okay?”

“Feels great,” the words on a heavy exhale. He does, however, take your hand away, assisting you back onto the bed. “So…there’s a lot of ways to do this, and I would like to try them all with you, but this is probably the easiest for your first time.”

“Missionary?”

“A classic,” he jokes before his expression smoothes into something more serious. “You can tell me to stop at any time.”

“Green, yellow, red.”

“Exactly.” Moving himself, so he’s kneeling between your legs, he squeezes out the lube into his hands, warming it before sliding it onto his cock, and then to your cunt. You jump at the feel of it, but his hands haven’t forgotten how to play you and that build that you felt not that long ago, starts its climb yet again. 

“Chris,” you reach out for him, shuddering as he toys with your clit. He leans down so you can grab him, feel that smooth back. His mouth attaches to yours, as his fingers circle, press and increase the anticipation. You reach for him, wrapping your hand around his dick, intent because even with no experience, you clench; your body instinctively craving something to fill you. He curses at your touch. “No?”

“You’re good, baby. Hand feels good,” he reassures, lips and teeth sloppily moving against yours. “Still green?” You tense when you feel him at your entrance.

“Yes. Green, please.” You want so desperately. 

He pushes in, incrementally. “Breathe through it. You have to relax.” He’s watching you so carefully as he continues. You stare back, he seems blurry right now. The stretch is borderline painful, but you still want it. Your hand slides to his hip and then his ass, where you grip hard. 

“Color?” He seems so calm, but his voice is labored, tension coloring it. 

“Green.” Can he even hear you? You don’t know if you’ve even given voice or just mouthed it. “Fuck. I’m so full of you.”

He curses again. “You can’t say shit like that.”

You blink away some of the haze, to focus on him. Veins bulging in his neck, and arms. “I can’t?”

“I mean…” He takes a deep breath, expression softening slightly. “You feel so good, but I need to be careful with you.”

“I do?”

He laughs brokenly at how pleased you sound. “So fucking cute,” he mutters. “I’m gonna move, okay?”

“Okay.”

He pulls back, not as slowly, but still with patience you can’t fathom. The stroke, how he slides against your core is delicious and strange and wonderful. He pushes back in. 

“Feels good,” you sigh. 

He hums in response, repeating the motion before chuckling. Your eyes shoot open as he looks down at you. 

“What?”

“Helps if you move too.”

You’re already very hot from everything, but you can feel the blood rush to your face. He’s still giggling and moves to kiss you.

“You’re okay, I���m just giving you a few pointers. You can absolutely just lay there if you want. It’ll probably feel better though if you move.”

“I guess I’m a bit rubbish at this.”

“Nah, just learning.” He brushes his nose against yours. “No one is an expert their first time.” 

As you clench and try to find a rhythm with your hips that matches his, “I bet you were.”

He laughs, strained but joyous. “I definitely wasn’t.” He keeps himself propped up with one hand on the bed, but his other returns to your clit, the mere touch pushing that climb again. There’s a moment when your hips align and you just know you did it right, but it’s half a second and you find you’re off again, especially with his attention on your clit. 

“Chris,” you whine. 

“You can let go, yeonin. It’s fine.”

When you break, it’s different than the first time, not as intense, but lovely and shattering. The rolls through you, tremors and muscles relaxing. 

No wonder everyone does this. 

“Stay with me,” you hear him. You open your eyes to see that he’s still moving, his thrusts more erratic. You squeeze him, out of some instinct you didn’t know you had. He groans. “Yeah, that’s good.” You don’t feel like you have much strength after a second orgasm, but you roll your hips and clench as best you can as he speeds up. 

It’s fascinating to watch him climax, the tension in the neck veins, the jaw muscles tight, the furrow in his forehead. It’s a different kind of beauty, heightened by the knowledge that you, or your body at least, did that. He falls on top of you, his hands trying to keep his weight off, but you wrap yourself around him as he shudders from release. 

After several minutes, when it seems like his trembling has ceased, you nuzzle your face into the crook of his neck. “Color?” 

He chuckles. “Fucking green.” He kisses the top of your chest before lifting up to see you. “You?”

“That was really…yeah.”

He grins, boyish charm. “Good.” He stares at you for a few seconds. “You look a little sleepy.”

“Yeeeeah. Maybe.”

He laughs before rolling off and out of you. You wince at the loss. He disposes of the condom before tugging you off the bed. 

“Did we ruin the comforter?” you ask, standing but a bit wobbly. 

“Probably not,” he says, pulling the comforter off and onto the floor. He wraps an arm around you, at ease in his nakedness (your brain is foggy still and you just now are realizing how naked you are too). “Pajamas?”

“Yes…” you slur a little, exhaustion from all your nerves today, anticipation and worry catching up. He sits you down on the sheets before going into the bathroom. He returns with a wet washcloth. “Oh, I can…”

“Hush,” he admonishes, cleaning you up reverently. He tosses the washcloth on top of the discarded comforter and then goes to your bag and pulls out your faded t-shirt and soft flannel pants. 

“I…I have a…lingerie nightgown in there.”

He shakes his head, coming to kneel in front of you. He slides on the pants, then the t-shirt over your head. 

“Something comfortable. You can show me the nightgown tomorrow night.” He pulls back the sheets and gets you settled in. You curl to your side, eyes closed against the pillow. You hear him move around the room, the few lamps that were on turn off. It feels like seconds or days until he slides in next to you. He touches your side lightly, saying your name. 

“Hmm?” you reply, before reaching to grab his hand and wrap it around your middle. There’s a half-laugh. 

“Guess you like cuddling, too?”

You make an affirmative sound as he curves around you, his lips touching the back of your neck. You shiver and lace your fingers with his. 

“Chris?” you say a few minutes later, the threat of sleep looming.

“Yeah, baby?” 

“Thank you. I want to make sure I say it.” 

He doesn’t say anything, but kisses your shoulder. “You’re welcome, yeonin. I’ll see you in the morning.”

You can’t wait. 

---

part two

---

© yoongihan 2025. please do not steal, translate, repost, or whatever. stray kids belong to themselves and all idols used in this piece are just the inspiration for characters and do not in any way reflect the actual humans. 

[stillmonsterz]

be with her tonight

pairing: heeseung x reader

genre: smut

summary: every week, you go to the same coffee shop for their great service and wonderful drinks. but for some reason, the barista has always rubbed you the wrong way. he seems harmless, though.

contains: unprotected sex, rape, noncon, somnophilia, drug mentions, lying, swearing, johnny is there, mark is there, twitch mention

word count: 5.0k (unproofread)

---

Heeseung’s eyes were shifty, his hands trembling over the paper cups. He plucked one off, a grande, and started to prepare the same familiar order. Despite his quivering hands, Heeseung went through the motions of making the drink with the utmost of effort. A small splash of hot coffee dribbled from the spout onto his hand; he scarcely noticed the pain. 

He set the cup down on the counter and surveyed the small cafe where he worked. Patrons were settled into small wooden tables, the windows were bright, and succulents lined the windowsills. Heeseung tugged at the collar of his black button-up and adjusted his apron. His coworker, Sunghoon, noticed him and smirked. 

“Is she coming again today?” Sunghoon asked while he restocked the croissants in the pastry display.

It took a few seconds for Heeseung to process that Sunghoon was talking to him. “Huh?”

“That girl, what’s-her-name…” Sunghoon conspicuously slipped a small brownie bar into the pocket of his apron.

“Oh,” Heeseung said softly. “I dunno…” Of course you were coming today. You came here every Wednesday and Friday at 2:00 pm, during your lunch break. Your favorite coworker was off those two days, so you ate alone and got yourself a coffee and a pastry. You were coming today. Heeseung had to see you again. 

When 2:00 arrived and you hadn’t walked through the doors with your usual vivacity, Heeseung got nervous. He begrudgingly served some other people whose faces he couldn’t have recalled if he had been paid to do so. 

2:15 and Heeseung’s hands shook even more. Sunghoon was already glancing at him strangely, so Heeseung busied himself by wiping down the counter. Why weren’t you here? He only got to see you twice a week, so he savored the time where he got to drink in your face, to inhale your scent that percolated so harmoniously with the ubiquitous scent of coffee. 

As the second hand slipped to 4, a cold chill spread all over his body and he felt as though someone had forced him to swallow a handful of nails. They sat in his stomach, tearing apart the delicate lining, puncturing holes in his organs, ripping him apart from the inside. It was Wednesday. You were normally here by now. What had happened? 

The drink he had made you in advance was getting cold. 

Had you switched coffeeshops? Had you forgotten about him? What if you hated him? What if you had caught onto him?

Heeseung swallowed hard; he dug his jagged nails into the palms of his hand. “Sunghoon…” he began quietly, “I think I’m going to step outs-,”

The door opened and you stepped inside, waving at Heeseung. The nails melted away and were replaced by spoonfuls of honey, soothing his throat, filling him with golden light. 

“Hi,” you said, pulling your purse out of your wallet. You glanced over at the forgotten drink resting on the counter. “Oh, was that mine?”

“I’ll make you another one,” Heeseung said, far too quickly. He unceremoniously dumped the drink into the sink and started bustling about in the kitchen. Once he was facing away from you, a grin split across his face, and he had to restrain himself from giggling. You hadn’t forgotten him! You had come back. While he pulled himself together, Sunghoon input the order into the machine before wandering away, presumably to take care of more customers. Whatever. 

Heeseung lifted his head up to face you again.”The same as usual?”

You nodded and grinned. “Same as usual. You know me so well.”

If only you knew, Heeseung thought. “You were late today- I mean, you came in later than you, uh, normally, arrive, at the uh, here. Why?” Heeseung wasn’t known for his eloquence on a normal day, but you rendered his vocal cords obsolete, his frontal cortex inoperable. 

“Oh, well, had a long day at the office,” you said, tapping your card on the reader. “Another useless meeting from HR.”

Heeseung wished he had something clever to say, something that could win your heart, make you love him. Instead, all he could offer was, “That sucks.” He bit his lip and got another grande cup so he could remake your drink. 

“It does suck,” you said with a wry smile. “How’s your day been?”

You were asking him how his day was, too? Heeseung nearly dropped the cup as he pumped syrup inside of it, and he couldn’t stop the smile from creeping onto his face. “It’s been…good. Good. A little busy.”

“Well, busy is good,” you said. Then you cleared your throat. “Hey, I was going to come over on Saturday with a…friend of mine. What time do you think would be the best? You know, so it’s quiet?”

Heeseung carefully pressed the lid onto the cup, scrunching his nose as he thought. “Probably…I’d say 5 pm-ish? Most people don’t really want a coffee around that time.”

“Good to know,” you said, placing your wallet back into your purse. Heeseung admired how confident your motions were, and his eyes lingered on your hands. When his eyes flickered up to your face, he realized that you were looking at him. 

Desperate to seem like he wasn’t ogling you, he stammered out, “Y-your friend…does she work at the same, uh, place as you?”

“He actually works down at the insurance company, the one on Smithson?” you kept talking, but Heeseung couldn’t hear a word. His blood ran cold, and his vision went blurry. Him. He. You were going to have your date here? You must despise him. 

Heeseung thrust the cup in your direction. “Uh, enjoy,” he murmured, looking away from you.

“Thanks, Heeseung! You have yourself a good day,” you said brightly before leaving. 

Heeseung felt Sunghoon put a hand on his shoulder, heard him ask if Heeseung were okay. “I feel sick,” Heeseung whispered. “Could I step out for a bit?” Heeseung didn’t actually hear Sunghoon’s answer, but Heeseung was already leaving, stripping his apron and casting it aside someplace in the little break room. He tugged his worn leather jacket on and went outside. The sun stung his eyes so he lowered his gaze to the ground. Heeseung sat down on the concrete step leading into the back room and fished his lighter and cigarettes from his jacket pockets. 

He took a long drag as he tried to calm down, but it was difficult. Every time he thought about your date with some other guy, he started to feel strange. Beyond his initial panic and feelings of abandonment, there was something else nipping at him. A feeling he couldn’t quite place, but it was harsh and red and ragged. 

Heeseung wasn’t an idiot. He knew he wasn’t normal. He knew that his fascination with his pretty customer was irrational, and deep within his heart, he knew that you didn’t belong to him. Yet at the same time, Heeseung knew that you should belong to him. Already, he could read your emotions so well, and that was just after quick interactions twice a week for 3 and a half months. Heeseung would do anything for you, just so he could bask in your sweet glow. 

Normally, the world was cold and boring. Everything was predictable and trite. Heeseung couldn’t remember a time in his life where there had been any novelty. Talking to people wasn’t fun to him at all; navigating the labyrinthine social rules that others seemed to understand effortlessly just made him feel confused and worn. All throughout elementary school and middle school, even into high school, Heeseung had been ignored and ridiculed. He couldn’t decide which was worse. Even at his menial barista job, people purposefully averted his gaze. 

Not you, though. You had given him a bright smile and had even dropped money into the little tip jar. Most importantly, you had awarded him his first compliment. Despite his current misery, Heeseung smiled at the memory. You had sipped the coffee he had made you, your eyes had lit up like a little kid’s, and you had said, “You make great coffee, Heeseung.” When Heeseung had protested shyly, you had continued. “No, no, this is really good. You have a knack for this, you know.”

Heeseung took a long drag off of his cigarette as he sulked. Tears pinpricked his eyes at the thought of you disappearing from his life. Of course, he figured he could always spy on you at work (he had spent hours trying to find your LinkedIn based off of your first name), or maybe break into your house and hide under your bed (he had followed you home from work a few times.) but it just wouldn’t be the same. What made him happy was that you chose to come see him. There were a lot of cafes near your workplace, some even closer than Heeseung’s, but you came to his. Even if it wasn’t for his personality, you liked the coffee that he made. You chose him, but now you were choosing some other guy. And if this date went well, then you might disappear from his life.

Salty tears streamed down his sallow cheeks, and Heeseung swiped them away with his free hand. That feeling simmered within him, festering within him like rot. Angry. That’s what he was. Angry, upset, mad. 

Heeseung couldn’t let you disappear. He couldn’t let you go. 

He stubbed the cigarette out on the step and started coming up with ideas.

Then Heeseung smiled. 

– 

You pursed your lips in the mirror as you applied your red-tinted lip gloss. You had your coffee shop date at 5, and you wanted to look nice. The way you saw it, it was a win-win: you got to get a free coffee and pastry out of a guy, and you could finally subtly let Heeseung down without having to acknowledge his feelings for you at all.

It wasn’t hard to tell that Heeseung felt something for you. Ever since you had complimented his coffee, his dull eyes had developed a shine whenever he saw you. He always made your coffees with the utmost of care, which was one of the reasons why you kept coming back instead of going to another place. And, of course, you’d be lying if you said that his attention didn’t flatter you in some small way. Heeseung wasn’t necessarily unattractive. If he did something about his lank hair, stopped fidgeting so much, and could string together a sentence without stammering, he’d be passable. Even cute. That wasn’t the problem.

It was the same thing you had told your friend and workmate just before she had proposed the date idea. “He’s just…creepy,” you had told her over a shared Cobb salad. “Something about his eyes.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” she had said, snapping her fingers. “Like they’re empty, right?”

“Exactly,” you had said, relieved that she understood. “Empty. It freaks me out.”

Your friend took a bite of salad and dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “So stop getting coffee from there.”

“No can do,” you had replied. “Gotta take you there sometime. The coffee is amazing.”

“Okay, well, just tell him to back off.”

You frowned. “Technically, he’s never actually said he liked me or done anything or anything, so…”

“Subtly hint that you have a boyfriend?”

“I’m a bad hinter.”

Your friend groaned. “You suck, you know that?”

The two of you had hemmed and hawed over the dilemma before she had offered up a solution: Find a guy from the office, ask him out on a coffee date at that exact place, and make it seem like you were enjoying the date.

So now you were in your bathroom, tucking the front of your sweater into your skirt. As you were posing one last time, you got a text from your date, Mark. He had texted you a succinct “yooooo i’m pulling up 😬”, so you locked up your apartment and walked out. 

When you got to the coffee shop, you were initially worried about Heeseung’s reaction. He looked like a sad little deer when he got upset. You shook your head slightly to get those aberrant thoughts out. You were here to get him off your back, anyways. So that the creepy barista wouldn’t get any ideas and you could keep enjoying some of the best coffee in this part of downtown.

You needn’t have worried, though. Heeseung was kindly towards you and your date. He had even taken your coats at the door and hung them up on the coat rack at the front. He had plied you with pastries, and even stuttered out a, “T-take care of her, she’s a good one” to Mark. When you glanced at the counter, you could see Sunghoon smiling at Heeseung as he brought out refills of coffee and dusted extra powdered sugar onto delicate little desserts. 

Mark looked at you with glee as he dug into his second croiffle. “Nah, this place is dope,” he said, crumbs surrounding his lips. “I see why you come here every week.” You hadn’t bothered telling Mark about Heeseung. It seemed a bit cruel to use a guy  to get rid of another unsavory guy.

You reached out and rubbed some of the crumbs from his mouth, hoping that Heeseung would see you. “Yeah, it’s great. Maybe…” you lowered your voice and leaned in, “this could be our spot, you know?”

Mark gently reached out and took your hand. “Why were you wiping my nose, weirdo? Did I get crumbs up there?”

“Huh? I was wiping your mouth…” you reached out with your other hand to touch his mouth, but your arm started to feel a bit heavy. 

“You okay?” Mark frowned as his eyes scanned your face. 

You nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

“Drink a little more coffee,” he suggested. “It’ll make you alert and shit.”

As you sipped your drink again, you realized that the drowsiness wasn’t going away. Even though you had downed a whole grande latte, you felt like you were about to

–

You slumped over the table and Heeseung had to suppress his smile. This part had to be perfect. He called your name and strode over to the table. Mark was just sitting in his chair, frozen. “What happened?” Heeseung asked, trying to make himself sound worried. His naturally anxious tone actually helped him.

“N-nothing, she just…fell over,” Mark said, staring at you. “I dunno, she must have had a long work week. Or she’s anemic, women are always anemic.”

Heeseung made a show of checking your pulse on your wrist and on your neck. Getting to touch your velvety skin, and not just a quick brush of hands when he handed you a coffee cup, was exquisite. He could already feel himself getting hard, so he had to move fast. 

“I’ll take her to my place,” Heeseung said, already lifting you out of the chair. Mark quickly stood up, blocking Heeseung’s path. Heeseung bit back a groan. 

“Nah, shouldn’t I, you know, take her home? I know her from work,” Mark said, crossing his arms. He looked from Heeseung to you to Heeseung to you as though he were following a ping-pong match. 

Heeseung sighed and attempted to try using that wheedling, condescending tone some male customers had used on him sometimes. “No offense, but when normally, a pretty girl like this passes out on a date, it’s not because of a-anemia.” 

Mark stepped back, holding his hand to his heart. “Ay man, are you tryna say that I roofied her? I’m not like that!”

“Yeah, well…” Heeseung pushed past Mark, carrying you in his arms. “I don’t know you, do I?” Then he paused and turned around. “Tell you what. You give me your number, and after she gets a little more rest, I’ll call you so you can pick her up, okay?”

Mark nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah, yeah, sounds good, thanks.” He told Heeseung his number, and Heeseung carefully repeated the numbers in his head. “I think I’mma head home, thanks for the…hospitality.” Without his jacket, Mark stepped into the cold and ran to his car. 

As Heeseung was leaving, he called out to Sunghoon: “Cover me until I get her some medical help, okay?” Sunghoon gave him a curt nod, and Heeseung left the coffee shop. 

With some difficulty, he managed to get you buckled up in the front seat of his old clunker. Now that he was alone and no one could see him, Heeseung could finally smile. The way you were sitting here, all dolled up, it almost seemed like you and him were on a date. You were going on a drive together after a date at the coffee shop, and you would be going home with him. Heeseung carefully adjusted the car seat so that you were reclining, so it would look like you were just napping. 

“Carbs will do that,” Heeseung said sympathetically, rubbing your hand. “Make you tired. You should know better, baby. You come here all the time.” He stroked your warm, soft hand, and he ran his fingers along your sweet little cheeks. The hand that caressed your face slowly fell to your chin, then your neck. “You look so pretty. You always look pretty, of course, but you looked really pretty today. All for me.”

His hand slid all the way to your chest. Heeseung hesitated; he was risking everything, and he didn’t have much time to execute the rest of his plan. Just one kiss, he told himself, just one. Heeseung leaned in and pressed his lips to yours, ever so gently. It made him shudder, the sweet taste of chocolate lingering on your lips. He wanted to keep going, but he would have to wait. 

As Heeseung drove to his apartment, one hand rubbing your thigh, he congratulated himself on his ingenuity. It hadn’t been easy to coordinate this plan. 

–

First, he had had to figure out who you were cheating on him with. That wasn’t hard; you had foolishly Tweeted: “sooo excited for Saturday!” and “onyour_mark” had replied with a devil emoji. A cursory flick through his Twitter account offered Heeseung an informative, if not somewhat nauseating, look into Mark’s life. Heeseung found out that he worked the same hours as you, but he was on a separate floor. He lived with a Twitch streamer, Johnny “suhcondem” Suh, who streamed on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. As he scrolled through Johnny’s Twitter account, Heeeung found that Johnny had once complained about his fans sending them dildos, pizzas, and other “weird ass shit.” Perfect. 

After that, Heeseung had searched for Mark’s Instagram. Thankfully, Mark had posted a picture of his outfits in front of an open window. Utilizing a combination of Mark’s own descriptions of his neighborhood and Google Earth, Heeseung had found Mark and Johnny’s apartment complex within three hours of tireless searching. He could extrapolate the floor from the basic positioning of the tree, and after scouring Mark and Johnny’s social media accounts for more descriptions of their living space, he had narrowed their apartment to a potential unit. 

Now came the more difficult part. Using Tor browser, Heeseung was able to access a site where he could purchase some Rohypnol. It cost a pretty penny, but Heeseung wasn’t about to experiment with other roofies and potentially ruin his chances of having you. He ordered it on Wednesday, and on Friday he had two packages sitting in front of his door, one small and unmarked, the other a lettermail package. Heeseung used gloves to pick up the white package and take out the white box. He couldn’t have his fingerprints on it, after all. The other package held precious cargo: a used Papa John’s uniform with a pizza carrier.

Next, he had to plant evidence in Mark’s room. On Friday, he begged Sunghoon to cover his shift, citing violent diarrhea. Heeseung knew that Mark would be working, but Johnny would be streaming all day. Heeseung changed into the Papa John’s uniform, threw his jacket over it, ordered a meat lover’s pizza from Papa John’s, and drove a few blocks away from Mark’s apartment complex. No way was he going to risk people seeing his car. 

Heeseung placed the pizza inside of the carrier and headed to the apartment. He was nervous about getting inside, but thankfully an older couple let him inside. With a tremulous hand, Heeseung pressed the button for Mark’s floor. If he screwed this up, then Mark would get to have you. The thought alone spurred Heeseung on to keep going. 

He walked to Mark’s door and rang the doorbell. After a full, heart-wrenching minute, Johnny opened up and gave Heeseung a slow once-over. Johnny was wearing a baggy hoodie that said “I ATTENDED SUH CON AND I GOT THE LONG JOHN” with sweatpants. 

“Uh… meat lover’s pizza for Johnny?” Heeseung said tentatively. 

Johnny groaned. “Dumb ass chat gotta stop buying me pizzas,” he muttered.

“What was that?” Heeseung asked, shifting his weight between his feet. 

Johnny shook his head and waved dismissively. “Sorry man. I uh, I stream on Twitch, so a lot of my fans like to send me shit. I didn’t order this.”

“Oh,” Heeseung said contritely. “Well, I can’t exactly keep it…” 

“Why don’t you eat it?” Johnny asked, leaning his arm on the doorframe. 

“I’m vegan,” Heeseung lied. 

Johnny chuckled. “I can tell. You skinny skinny.”

Heeseung laughed awkwardly. “Right, yeah.” He shifted again, and he could feel sweat pooling under his armpits.

“What, you gotta piss?” Johnny gestured at Heeseung. “You’re dancing like you gotta go.”

“Oh, yeah,” Heeseung said, trying not to appear too eager .”I drank too much, uh, soylent.”

Johnny stared at Heeseung like he was an idiot. “Whatever. You can use the bathroom. Use the one in my buddy’s room, actually. Don’t need chat to hear someone piss.”

As Johnny stepped aside to allow Heeseung to enter, Heeseung fought to keep himself in check. The apartment was as sparsely decorated as a Twitch streamer and male office worker’s living space could be. Which is to say that the only notable decorations were Johnny’s streaming awards that were strewn on the walls and Mark’s bible on the living room table. 

“You can just put the pizza down there,” Johnny said, pointing at the kitchen counter which was already littered with a variety of take-out boxes and greasy bags. “Down the hall and to the right for Mark’s room. Make it quick. Mark gets weird when people go in there.” Johnny retired into his own room, and from the clattering noises he made, Heeseung figured that he was going back to streaming. As Heeseung hurried into Mark’s room he heard Johnny say, “Chat, you’ve been very, very bad…” 

The first thing Heeseung did was take some rubber gloves from his pocket and tug them on. Then he scoured Mark’s room to try and find condoms. They weren’t in the bathroom, they weren’t in his nightstand, and they weren’t under his bed. Heeseung searched desperately for them, before he found them behind his pillow, along with some lube. Just how much fucking does this guy do?

Heeseung inspected the box and was pleased to find that him and Mark were actually the same size: Mark used Trojan larges. Then Heeseung frowned: him and Mark were the same size. Heeseung had always been proud of his size, but now it didn’t feel so special. No matter, Heeseung thought as he removed a condom from the pack, I’m the one who’ll fuck her. He slipped the condom into his pocket and made a note to purchase the same brand of lube. Heeseung went into the bathroom and pulled out the flattened Rohypnol box from a Ziploc bag he had kept in his pocket. He placed it inside of Mark’s trash can and covered it up with some tissues he found in there. As Heeseung searched, he found a tissue coated in Mark’s dried semen. Couldn’t hurt to have it. Heeseung put it in a spare Ziploc and kept it for later. It was nasty, disgusting work, but it would pay off. 

Finally, Heeseung did actually use the bathroom. All this stress made him piss a river. 

When he left the apartment, Johnny didn’t even notice. Heeseung had actually done it. 

– 

Now Heeseung gently carried you into his apartment. It was still early, so thankful there weren’t a lot of people milling around. 

He laid you onto his bed, and your head hit the headboard as he lowered you. “Sorry,” Heeseung said apologetically. “I’m sorry, baby.” Heeseung kissed your forehead. He could wash your forehead, but for the next part, he figured he should put on some gloves. Rummaging around in his nightstand, he found more latex gloves and tugged them on. 

Now that he finally had you, he didn’t actually know what to do. Should he take off your clothes first, or his? He decides to disrobe first, so he could take his time with you. Quickly, Heeseung tossed off his work clothes, throwing them into his dirty laundry pile. His room was about as bare as Mark and Johnny’s living room had been, but once you were his, he would decorate it however you wanted. 

Heeseung forced himself to take his time as he popped your skirt buttons, one after the other. It was the kind of skirt that opened from the front, so when he was done, he could part the skirt off of you, admiring your panties. 

“You wore this just for me?” Heeseung asked softly. God, he wished he could touch you, skin on skin, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. He ran his finger along your clothed pussy, and he trembled from the white-hot flames he felt licking at his cock. Patience, he told himself. Patience. Your sweater came off next, and Heeseung folded it up into a neat square and set it to the side. 

Heeseung pulled the condom he had filched from Mark’s room onto his cock,wishing he could just go in raw. At least Mark used ribbed. Then, he got the lube from his nightstand and slicked his cock with it,making sure it wouldn’t be too hard to slide in.

 He couldn’t believe it. There you were, so pliant, so vulnerable, so his. Of course, now that he was hovering over you, he couldn’t deny the twinge of guilt he felt. As he tugged your panties down, he kept whispering apologies. “Sorry,” he said as his cockhead tapped your entrance. “I’m so sorry,” he said while marveling at the way his thick cock bulged your stomach. 

Heeseung moaned so loudly he thought for sure the neighbors would hear. But he didn’t care, even though he should. How could he care? He had never experienced anything like this. Your pussy was gripping him so tightly, its walls enveloping his cock so warmly, he couldn’t care about anything else. With some effort, he pulled out of you and drenched his cock with even more lube.

He plunged back inside of you and gripped your hips, admiring the way your tits jiggled as he fucked into you. As he took your pussy, it dawned on Heeseung that he wasn’t being very romantic about this. “Sorry,” he said, feeling like an idiot. Heeseung pulled out of you and used his gloved hands to put you in a more sensual position. He would just have to wash the places where your bodies touched. He put you on your side and crawled behind you, so that he was spooning you. 

He groped at your tits as he slid inside of you again. This much was much better. Ever since you had told him that you were going on a date, Heeseung had been edging himself for hours so he could last longer, just for you. He did it all for you.

Heeseung started going faster, pounding your cunt harshly. A part of him was sad that you wouldn’t remember this. No, you would wake up scared, wondering why Mark had done this to you. You wouldn’t even know that Heeseung had given you the most passionate fucking of your life. His headboard smacked against the wall as he pushed himself into you from behind. Using his gloved hand, he turned his face towards his. Your face looked so peaceful, and seeing it only made him go faster. The bed creaked as Heeseung relentlessly thrusted in you. He could feel you getting looser and wetter, accommodating his dick. 

Heeseung felt himself bottom out, hitting the firm muscle of your cervix. He couldn’t stop now. Heeseung gripped your tits, loosening his grip when he remembered that he could leave handprints, and thrust up and down. He could have spent all day in your pussy, but he didn’t have much time left. 

His balls smacked into your thighs as he felt his orgasm approaching. It was unlike any other orgasm he had had; he had never felt so in-tune with his body, and the sensation burned. Heeseung grunted and pulled out of you before he came inside the condom.  Heeseung rolled off of the bed and laid on his carpet, panting. 

Soon, he would get up, wash himself off, then wash you off. Then, he would call Mark and say that you weren’t waking up. While Mark drove to his place to get you, he would use the cum he had extracted from Mark’s tissue, wet it with water, and smear it in your pussy. As soon as Mark had gotten you, Heeseung would dispose of the used condom and wash his sheets. After half an hour, he would call Sunghoon and say that you and Mark had forgotten your coats. 

Undoubtedly, Sunghoon would find the bottle of roofies that Heeseung had planted in Mark’s jacket. 

Heeseung sighed, completely content. After this, you wouldn’t trust men again, let alone Mark. Except, of course, for the man who had taken you home, tried to take care of you, and had called the police on Mark, the man who had assaulted you. 

Heeseung couldn’t wait for you to wake up.

[piratefalls]

happy bucktommy anniversary everyone, here's a thing!

--

Given Tommy's time in the military and the nature of his current job, it comes as no surprise that he's learned to be a pretty patient person. There's been a lot of "hurry up and wait" in his life and he's just not the kind of guy to get frustrated quickly. Some mild irritation, yes, but never to the point where he'd make his feeling inconvenienced someone else's problem.

Stuck in traffic? It’s fine, we'll just leave earlier next time.

Behind someone at the grocery store who’s making exact change and can’t find a nickel? It’s fine, people have off days.

Video taking too long to buffer? It’s fine, he got through life just fine before the internet.

Jee throwing a tantrum one night when they’re babysitting? It’s fine, she’s tired, we’ll figure it out.

It balances out Buck's energy, helps him slow down in those moments where things just aren't happening fast enough, and it works. But, Buck discovers, Tommy does have one thing - just one - that never fails to Pac-Man its way through his patience in record time: the process of trying to reach a person when calling customer service.

They're at Buck's house and Tommy's repeatedly asked the automated voice on the other end of the line to connect him to an actual person. It's been 20 minutes and Buck's lost count of the number of times Tommy's said the word "representative". He's starting to wonder if he's going to hear that word echoing down the hall in the middle of the night like his own personal horror movie. He feels for Tommy, he really does, but he can't focus on anything other than the clench of Tommy's jaw and the way it makes the muscles in his neck pop. Tommy may be fighting for his life on the phone, but Buck's fighting the urge to cross the room and bite.

It's another five minutes before Tommy snaps completely. Buck can practically hear the way his phone creaks as his grip tightens and he growls, "Mother. Fucking. Customer. Service."

A bolt of arousal shoots down Buck's spine, and there's absolutely no way he's not jumping Tommy the second he hangs up. There's a long pause, and then:

"Please hold while we connect you to the next available representative."

Buck's practically sitting on his hands by the time it's over, account successfully closed and post-call customer service experience survey completed ("It's the principle of the thing, Evan, that was so fucking stupid") and he wastes no time pulling Tommy in by his shirt and all but throwing him on the couch before sinking to his knees.

"What -"

Buck looks up as he undoes Tommy's belt, pulling it through the loops. "To reward your perseverance. Or whatever."

Tommy quirks a brow, and Buck sighs. "You're hot and I wanna blow you about it. Any objections?"

"Not a one."

"That's what I thought."

After that the only word Buck hears coming from Tommy's mouth is his name.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing a main character who’s a bartender… except I’m a minor with zero experience on alcohol or bars/bartending etc

Do you have any resources that could help me out?

Thanks so much, I love your blog !!!

Writing Notes: Bartender

Bartender - specializes in the art of mixing and serving alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages in bars, restaurants, hotels, or other establishments.

In addition to mixing drinks, bartenders also play an important role in providing excellent customer service.

They engage with customers,

take drink orders,

suggest beverage options, and

create a welcoming and enjoyable atmosphere.

Bartenders must have good communication and interpersonal skills to interact with customers of diverse backgrounds and handle various situations that may arise during their shift.

They may also be responsible for managing the bar area,

ensuring cleanliness,

organizing supplies, and

handling cash transactions.

Types of Bartenders

There are various types of bartenders, each specializing in different areas of the hospitality industry. Here are a few common types:

Mixologists: Highly skilled bartenders who focus on creating innovative and artfully crafted cocktails. They have an extensive knowledge of ingredients, flavor combinations, and mixology techniques to design unique and visually appealing drinks.

Flair Bartenders: Known for their entertaining and acrobatic style of bartending. They incorporate flair techniques such as juggling bottles, performing tricks with bar tools, and creating visually captivating presentations while preparing drinks.

Craft Beer Bartenders: Have a deep understanding of the craft beer industry. They are familiar with various beer styles, brewing processes, and flavor profiles. They assist customers in selecting beers, provide recommendations, and may curate a rotating selection of craft beers on tap.

Tiki Bartenders: Specialize in crafting tropical and exotic cocktails associated with tiki culture. They are skilled in using unique ingredients, tropical fruits, and elaborate garnishes to create visually striking and flavorful drinks.

Hotel/Resort Bartenders: Cater to guests' needs, providing a range of beverages and maintaining high standards of customer service. They may specialize in classic cocktails, signature drinks, or be responsible for managing bars in various areas of the hotel.

Common Personality Traits of Bartenders

Based on a survey of 19,176 bartenders:

They are enterprising and conventional (according to the Holland Codes)

Bartenders tend to be predominantly enterprising individuals, which means that they are usually quite natural leaders who thrive at influencing and persuading others.

They also tend to be conventional, meaning that they are usually detail-oriented and organized, and like working in a structured environment.

They have high levels of extraversion and openness (according to the Big Five)

Bartenders score highly on extraversion, meaning that they rely on external stimuli to be happy, such as people or exciting surroundings.

They also tend to be high on the measure of openness, which means they are usually curious, imaginative, and value variety.

The Workplace

The workplace of a bartender can vary depending on the establishment they work in. Bartenders can be found in a range of settings, including:

bars,

pubs,

nightclubs,

hotels,

restaurants,

resorts, and even

cruise ships.

A typical bar environment consists of a well-equipped bar counter with a variety of spirits, mixers, and bar tools.

The bar area is usually designed to be functional and efficient, with shelves or cabinets to store bottles, refrigeration units for chilling beverages, and sinks for washing glassware.

Bartenders have access to a wide array of ingredients, garnishes, and utensils needed to prepare drinks.

The atmosphere within a bar can vary significantly.

Some establishments may have a lively and bustling atmosphere, especially during peak hours or on weekends, with music playing and customers engaged in conversations.

In contrast, other bars may have a more relaxed and intimate setting, catering to a specific clientele or offering a more sophisticated ambiance.

Bartenders often work as part of a team, collaborating with barbacks, servers, and other staff members to ensure smooth operations. Communication and coordination are essential, as they need to relay orders, share responsibilities, and support each other as needed.

Some previous related posts:

Cocktails ⚜ Literary & Hollywood Cocktails ⚜ Liqueurs

Mixology Tools & Popular Cocktails ⚜ Wine Terminology

Whiskey ⚜ Describing Intoxicated Customers

Words related to Drinking

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ More: References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

Glad to hear, thank you! Sounds like a challenge, but could be quite fun. Choose which of these details you would like to incorporate in your story. For more on the actual drinks, tools, other terms used, and possible behaviour of customers when they become intoxicated, I included some links to older posts. And you can find further information in the sources. All the best with your writing!

[genderkoolaid]

Translated with Google and edited for clarity

Transgender men in Mexico suffer the same type of violence as trans women, but they tend to remain silent and not report it due to gender stereotypes that impose the idea of ​​strength on men, LGBT rights activists agreed on Wednesday. Davien Gómez, a transgender man originally from Guadalajara (western Mexico), told EFE that this sector faces attitudes of devaluation in society, since many of them are in a process of gender transition in which their feminine features have not completely disappeared. “Since they are perceived as women from the start, they have this idea that they will always be women. There are [transmasculine people] that do not have a phallus, but that see themselves as cisgender men, so there is not so much of a problem as long as no one knows, but if they do not [pass as cis, they think,] "how can I consider you a man if you look like a woman?” he said. The activist from the Impulso Trans organization stated that this devaluation is present not only in front of acquaintances or in work and family environments, but also when trying to establish emotional relationships in person or on dating apps focused on the LGTBIQ+ community. Impulso Trans and the Existimos Foundation conducted a survey among trans men in various states of the country, in which they found that 80.2% of the participants have experienced discrimination and violence, but 9.9% of them do not know how to identify it. In the data released within the framework of the LGTBIQ+ Pride month, it stands out that 54.9% of transmasculine people experience violence in the family, 50% at school, 33.5% at work, 38.5% on the street and 34.6% when requesting a service in public institutions. Adrián Arellano, a trans man, told EFE that sometimes violence arises because people have an idea of ​​what it means to be a man, dictated by a heteronormative system in which only what is conceived as masculine is valid. “There are people who believe that all trans men want to have a beard and want to look 100% like a [cis] man, if we don't get to that point we continue to be treated as women,” he explained. Worse still, transgender people face verbal and physical violence because of their appearance or gender expression, attacks that extend to those who identify as non-binary, although transgender men tend not to report them, Gomez added. “It doesn't have the visibility that transfemicides have (...) there is a huge invisibility towards the trans male community and it is very strange that transmasculine people cannot say what happens to them because of this sexist idea that men have to put up with it or that nothing happens to them,” she said.

According to the survey conducted in early 2024, trans men who have experienced violence or discrimination do not file a complaint because they do not know how or where to do so (31.9%), because nothing will change (23.1%) or out of fear (19.2%). Izack Contreras, coordinator of Impulso Trans, told EFE that while it is common for trans men to remain silent out of machismo or to act tough, they also do so because they do not know how to recognize or differentiate violence. “We don't recognize violence, we don't know when I'm experiencing violence or discrimination and I don't know where to go or how to report it or what to do, in general. Add to that the fact that the justice system doesn't work, so we report it, but nothing happens,” she said. Of the survey participants, they found that in 6.6% of cases there was no change among those who dared to report, 3.8% of them were re-victimized, and in 2.2% of cases there was reparation of the damage. Based on these results, both organizations will launch a campaign to make the problems of the trans male community visible, “to make them aware of the violence they may experience, to inform them of the places to go if they are victims and to generate a culture of respect in different areas of society,” explained Contreras.

[marrowfrog00]

Austerity

Emperor Geta x Empress Reader

Rating: Explicit (minors DNI, 18+ only)

Summary: You are Geta's heavily pregnant Empress and shadow puppeteer of the Empire. You awake to find a secret meeting taking place behind your back and you take measures to keep it from happening again.

Word count: 3.6k

Warnings: Mentions of pregnancy and accompanying symptoms, duplicity, kidnapping/forced/arranged marriage, reader's culture of origin is disparaged, power imbalance, misogyny, mentions of destitution/poverty, class differences, loss of virginity recalled (with pain and blood - brief), pretty graphic mentions of smut, supernatural shit maybe kinda, mentions of witchcraft, not even a little historically accurate, i played fast and loose bc that is not the point of this, not proofread, lmk if I missed anything

A muggy wind carrying the light fragrance of bay laurel leaves disturbed the billowing curtains at the window of your opulent chambers. Your naked form stirred on the bed. You kept your eyes closed, distantly hoping that the disturbance to your sleep would be blessedly temporary. For your body ached perpetually with the life growing inside you and it seemed that no amount of sleep these days refreshed you. 

You deduced, after sleep continued to evade you, that it was not to be. You opened your eyes as you stretched on the bed. You then noticed the absence of your husband, who had retired with you, glancing to his side of the bed to see the swoops in the bedding where he’d slipped out some time in the night. 

You sat up, noticing the absence of light from the window. There was no citrusy hue lining the horizon to indicate daybreak. Just piercing blackness and the dance of the breeze through the curtains. 

You rubbed your growing belly, mentally scanning your body for the discomfort that had surely stirred you from sleep. “What is it now, my parasitic little prince?” you asked your belly. 

No reflux burned the column of your throat. Your nausea had disappeared some months ago, thank the gods. The pain in your back, though omnipresent, barely registered at the moment. Your sleep had been as bereft of dreams as the sky was of light. You did not hunger or thirst and you felt no irrepressible pregnancy horniness now. You were grateful for that, since your husband was not here to service you. 

It was then that you noticed something familiar. A point of blue light, as a sunbeam through a prism, dancing steadily against the far wall, beckoning you to notice. You knew this light well - it had visited you many times since your childhood. A quiet sentinel, gently drawing your attention. A guiding light in the truest sense of the word. 

Your eyes followed the wisp as it glided across the wall to the open window where it faded with no fanfare. You got the message and strode nude to the window and walked out onto your balcony. That same warm breeze kissed the loose tendrils of your flowing hair. 

Your eyes scanned over the scene before you. You surveyed the courtyard, the trees and flowers of the expansive gardens shrouded in oppressive darkness. Only the stark white of the colonnade that wrapped along the northern edge of this wing of this massive domus pierced the dark. And it was here that you saw what your little wisp companion was trying to signal to you. 

You saw a spotty procession of dimmed lamps blinking out briefly behind the columns before reappearing in your sights. Their destination was clear. The disembodied flames disappeared into a seldom-used antechamber where they would no doubt be headed for the atrium. This passageway was only used when one’s ingress into the domus was meant to be clandestine. 

What in the fresh fuck is this? you hissed into the darkness.  

You had no time to summon your most trusted maid to dress you. You wouldn’t want to disturb her if you could. So you opened your wardrobe and rooted around for the simplest garments you owned. You secured the maroon linen strophium over your swollen breasts and improvised the fabric of a stola into a subligar to cover your lower bits. You grabbed one of your husband’s ostentatious lounging robes and slipped it over your shoulders as you tore out the door of your cubiculum. 

Your stride was sure and unbreakable as you met the shocked gazes of the guards stationed along the halls. The more seasoned ones averted their gazes and dipped at the waist in acknowledgment as they gently asked after your wellbeing. 

You were sure that you looked a sight, your pregnant, barely dressed form marching through the corridors, hair untamed about your head. You were clearly not infirm, though, as evidenced by the speed of your march. You were pissed. 

“At ease,” you assured them here and there in a firm voice. “As you were.” You didn’t want to pick up a tail and you did not want to be prevented from reaching your destination. “Don’t mind me.”

As you neared the mouth of the atrium, one of the newer guards met your flickering gaze with wide eyes, his voice timid as he choked out, “Augusta?” He winced, clearly fearful that he’d gazed too long at you, unadorned. His eyes flicked to the ceiling. “Are you well?”

“Not as such, Miles,” you shot dryly. Your steps halted then as you slowly turned back to him. His gaze remained fixed on the ceiling as you approached to stand toe to toe with him. He stood stock still as you reached for his hip and slowly withdrew his sword. 

You gripped the hilt, testing its weight in your hands, appraising the blade. “I’ll return this presently,” you promised, disappearing into the atrium.

The soldier watched you leave. He blinked sharply at the large, horned shadow that seemed to slink along the wall behind you, willing the image away. He wondered to himself if his station in this unhinged empire was already beginning to erode his sanity. 

***

Geta leaned wearily on one of the armrests of his chair rubbing irritated circles into one of his temples with tented fingers. His gaze drifted along the assemblage of statesmen that stood in a semi-circle around him. The scowls of the gathered senators and merchants in the dimly lit atrium was a waking nightmare.

Marcus Acacius stood outside of the circle looking much as Geta himself felt. He was grateful to have an ally in his present misery.

Being peeled from his sleeping wife’s side in the wee hours to discuss that very wife was not only irritating but worrying. Shielding you from the growing vitriol of these men had become his singular occupation, disguised as statecraft. He’d hoped that impregnating you with his heir would calm the aristocratic unrest that now encroached on your very bedchamber. But as your belly grew, so did your brazenness. Your insistence that reason prevail across the empire, starting with the emperors, senate and gentry in the heart of Rome.

He wanted to tell himself that he’d done well at concealing your hand in the new sensibility that pervaded his inner sanctum. You rarely addressed the senate or the nobility, at least not in any formal way. But the second you had been brought to the palace from your rustic, far flung kingdom at the edge of the Empire, the very winds of Rome had shifted. And everyone could sense it, from priest to layman, from noble to slave. The writing was on the wall. The moment he’d declared his intention to take you for a wife, the changes were undeniable.

You’d witched Caracalla first. When Acacius brought you before the pair of them, flanked by filthy, gaunt soldiers that had been beset with inordinate misfortune on their way back from retrieving you from your kingom, you stood before them with bright eyes and healthy color in your face. There was no sign on your person of the pestilence and unseasonably bad weather that had followed the lot of you from your kingdom. Even Marcus, ever steadfast, had not been unaffected. But you, beautiful creature that you were, had weathered the misfortune just fine. Somehow.

Caracalla’s naive disposition made him ignore the obvious strangeness of you. He glommed onto you, demanding unbecoming amounts of private time with you even though the intention had always been for Geta to make you his wife. 

Geta had been sure at first that his brother had fucked you during your unauthorized tete-a-tetes, which he’d made every attempt to stop. But his brother, the sneaky little imp, always found you in your solitude. 

And after some weeks of you being in the city, Caracalla had changed, too. His pallid, sore-addled face became smooth and evenly-colored. The constant deadness behind his eyes had disappeared, replaced by a sharpness that one could almost mistake for wisdom. Even his hair had darkened, cutting through the pastiche of lasting, sickly boyhood that had followed the little fucker around for his whole life. His tantrums were almost non-existent and he had a new thirst for knowledge and joie-de-vivre. He never instigated fights with Geta anymore about the distribution of power. He seemed to have lost his thirst for the power of imperial rule altogether, choosing study and leisure time in the company of a solitary concubine and pet monkey. 

Eventually, Geta was able to get his hooks into you. In the days leading up to your wedding -which had been delayed pending senatorial deliberations about its diplomatic merit- Geta always knew your whereabouts. Nothing you did escaped his attention. 

On the wedding night, he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. In the solitude of your matrimonial cubiculum, he appraised your body, tortured by the thought that Caracalla may have gotten to you first. But when he peeled your gown and veil off, he saw something in your eyes that he’d never seen before. A fear. An apprehension. 

When he finally took you, it was clear that you had been untouched. He had been sure to make you plenty wet and to be very gentle with you. Not for your comfort, though, no. He only wanted to see if you would still have the telltale discomfort of first intercourse even when being treated with tender deference. His touch was whisper soft and still you bled and whimpered. Geta was satisfied that you had come to him a virgin, as advertised.

Of course your fuck-shyness was not to last. You two did have the embers of Venus's kiss burning steadily beneath your union. In fact, you confided to Geta during some pillow talk that you'd prayed to Venus on your journey to the city. You implored her to make you fall hopelessly in love with whomever had snared you into his imperial marriage contract. At the very least, you could hope that your cunt wouldn't snap closed at the sight of him.

And you spent a good long while learning one another's bodies and making one another insatiable. It was a wonder to Geta that it had taken so many moons for you to fall pregnant.

Once you'd settled into matrimony, you spent more time together in and out of bed and it quickly became apparent to Geta why his brother had been so taken with you.

You had a calming, sober whimsy despite the intensity often flared behind your eyes. You had a way of explaining your world view that was at once sophisticated yet unguarded and reachable. It was this that made Geta realize that you were witching him now.

His life had been mired in opulence and shades of vicarious glory. It was all he knew, and yet, when you spoke pretty words of egalitarianism and balance, it felt like he was crawling toward a hearth whose warmth he could once only dream of. He knew it wasn't his provenance of thought but he was so drunk on his love for you that he scarcely cared. You witch.

Besides which way, you made him see that if his head didn't end up on a pike, his son's would if the rumblings of rebellion were ignored. You were so clear-minded and measured in your appraisals.

He was pulled back into the present by a fleck of spittle on his cheek. One of the merchants was veering dangerously close to chastising him.

“Forgive me, Imperator, but the subsidies for women and children were one thing. Broadening comitia tributa elections amongst the plebian populace and the slaves, however is…”

Geta felt his eyes glaze over as they drifted to the columns on the far wall. Without Caracalla to blunt the proceedings with his impressive tantrums, Geta had been left to field endless complaints from these landed carcasses and he'd grown weary.

It was then that he saw your face. You could have been leagues away from him and he would have recognized the fire in your eyes. And that shadow that sometimes followed you, the ghastly, underworldly spectre that presided over you when you were cross. It wasn't just him. Many swore they'd seen it and its horns…

Geta straightened as you emerged from the shadows, his audience none the wiser. Except for Acacius. He saw him lift his chin in quiet acknowledgment of you. The General seemed to have a preternatural sense when you were near and roused.

Virgil may as well have been presiding over the scene as the old men tripped over themselves to oh so gently indict your character just as you stalked toward their turned backs.

“We know your Empress has enamored you with her primitive ways, and no man could blame you for being given to…to her-” 

“To her what, Senator?” 

The men turned at the sound of your dulcet yet resonant voice sounding off the walls of the atrium. It was startling given how soft spoken you were in public. Few had experienced the hidden power of your speaking voice.

The men took in your appearance. The wiser ones averted their gaze at your indecency. Geta himself was struck dumb, enraptured. 

Your tits, swollen with impending motherhood, were covered in a linen bandeau. In your haste to crash the proceedings, you had covered yourself from the hips down in a drape that was meant to give you an air of stateliness and modesty in your official capacity. But to see you in the robe that he once donned during orgies was what set his loins aflame now. The fabric listed carelessly from your shoulders. His balls felt suddenly heavy at the sight. 

You stood primly, your hands folded over the hilt of the sword tucked beneath your arm. Your expression was unreadable as it often was before strangers.

The Senator whose voice had been so strong before faltered.

“Augusta, you'll forgive my imprudence-”

“Will I?” you retorted.

Geta’s lips curled into a smirk.

You began pacing the floor beneath you, as though you were alone, lost in thought. He couldn't help but stalk you with his eyes. 

You were so heavy with his baby but he had seen insects pay their egg sacs more mind than you did your swollen belly. He didn't know if you were too stubborn to cradle and coddle your unborn babe or if you truly didn't give a fuck. But gods was it arousing. Even more so since he had put that baby in you.

“Do you know what my greatest shock was, coming to the heart of Rome from my primitive kingdom?” you spat.

Acacius watched you with the stoic but appraising gaze required of his battle-tested position, though no less intrigued than Geta.

The Senators and merchants kept quiet, trying to resist the urge to shuffle awkwardly.

“It wasn't the heat or the customs. It wasn't the intemperance. Nor was it the untold lost human potential seeping from the servants that are meant to service what I can only imagine are your incredibly disappointing cocks.”

Geta but his lip as he shot Acacius a twin sidelong glance of amusement tempered by nerves.

You were half naked. You were angry. You were pregnant. You had a sword. 

You untucked said sword and began thumbing the blade's edge as you pierced the assembly with your gaze. 

“It was the gnarled, emaciated limbs of children, babies inside these very city walls.” You pointed the sword at them, watching the faint light of the room dance along its polished blade. “The dispassion with which you all ignore the cries of their mothers begging on the street for their salvation.”

You looked at the loudmouth Senator then and beckoned him forth. There was sweat collecting on his brow. In fact, the air was somehow becoming ripe with the smell of collective fear.

The other Senators and merchants kept their breath stuffed in their lungs, the atmosphere around them pregnant with tension.

You flicked the blade down indicating that the Senator should bow before you. He obliged with no argument, just frightened, staccato breaths puncturing the air.

Acacius’ hands twitched at his sides. Under different circumstances, he would have drawn his sword to defend the Senator. But you held his allegiance. You had done since he'd helped kidnap you. He curled his fist at his side, trying to assuage the soldier's instincts etched on his psyche.

Geta was drunk. He'd never seen you quite like this in the flesh. Only in his mind's eye. And perhaps when you'd tried to shove your entire hand in his mouth while you rode his cock.

You stationed the point of the sword at the Senator’s groin. “My people knew what enough was. And I will spend my natural life imparting that knowledge to Rome.” 

Your words were akin to sedition, Geta knew. But if this was how you doled out justice, his heart's one wicked ventricle that carried the poison you hadn't managed to suck out would relish being the instrument of your reign. 

The Senator grunted as you slid the blade to his lower belly and pressed it in, just enough to nick him. A wretched sound echoed off the walls, making all the men cower. It was like the cacophony of a thousand locusts beating their wings on the winds of atrocity. The shadow of the underworld entity crawled up the wall, framing your diminutive form with perfect symmetry.

The horrible sound ceased suddenly, ushering in a silence accented by the shuddering breaths of all the men. Geta and Acacius were silent.

You withdrew the sword and cast your solemn eyes to the floor. “Leave your emperor and I in peace.” 

Your admonition was duly understood. The assembly skittered off, your Senator victim tripping over his toga in his haste to retreat.

You met Acacius' eyes then, giving him a tired smile. He returned it with a bow before striding calmly in the opposite direction.

You watched them all go, digging the sword into the marble for a moment before meeting Geta's gaze.

“Husband,” you said quietly. “Why didn't you wake me?” There was no anger in your voice. Just a soft note of melancholy.

Geta rose from his seat and approached you, taking you in once again. He could have choked on the whiplash. You had just terrified some of the highest ranked officials in Rome into submission. 

And yet you stood before him now, your eyes wide and shiny in all your bizarre glory. You were precious, adorable. He'd always thought so, even when you'd first arrived, a thorn in his side - a simple diplomatic maneuver gone horribly sideways.

He kissed your shoulder where his orgy robe had slipped off. He gently took the Centurion’s blade from your grasp, examining it with detached interest.

“You haven't completed a night of sleep in a fortnight,” he replied simply. “If I'd slit Ancharius up the middle by the end of tonight, I'd have told you over breakfast.”

“What a thing to say!” you chastised as he looped his arm around your waist, leading you back toward the hall.

Geta snickered and pressed a kiss to your head as you walked on, twiddling the sword in his hand. “Me? After that frightful display you just put on? Don't act like a shrinking violet now.”

You looped your arms around his middle as you made your way into the hallway from whence you came. Geta tossed the sword back to the guard, who caught it, trembling ever so slightly as he stood at attention again. 

“At ease,” you tossed over your shoulder.

You walked in companionable silence for a bit, the whispered acknowledgments of Centurions and crackling of torches in their sconces the only sounds to be heard.

Geta halted his steps then, turning you toward him. He cupped your face in one hand while he grazed your belly lovingly with his thumb.

The evening's events seemed to settle in on you both then as he embraced you, tilting your chin to kiss him softly.

He pulled away and regarded your pretty face for a moment before he spoke. “I can't remember me before you. That used to frighten me.”

Your gaze was soft as you looked up at him.

Once, you had thought that your love for him was manufactured by a need for survival and by your fevered supplications to Venus to force your heart to beat for him.

But every day that passed made you wonder if maybe you were meant to find one another. In this life and in the next.

”And now?” you wondered aloud.

He pressed his forehead to yours and sighed. “And now I could be made a freckle on your nose and be grateful for the proximity to you.” He rubbed his nose into yours to strengthen his point.

Your heart fluttered at the sentiment.

You took his hand and pulled him down the hall, further toward your room. 

“I love you,” you said. You didn't want to further belabour the point of his midnight meeting.

“I love you too, dearest.”

You swung your joined hands between you.

“I'm still keyed up from the attempted sedition. Will you tongue fuck me until I can sleep again?”

Geta tried in vain to suppress his smile. “Darling, I will tongue fuck you until my cock gets jealous and threatens to rebel.”

You shared a giggle over his jest as you made your way back to your empire of two.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Since the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip started, I have been reviewing British media and its everyday items, such as the newspaper, phone, posters, and TV channels that seep into the public’s consciousness. Without the critical tools and education to puncture through their framing, we become complicit and easily intimidated. Some media outlets have gone as far as spreading misinformation, which surely would have been considered a hate crime in other contexts. Both the Daily Telegraph and The Times chose this misinformation as the headline for their October 11th issues. Although some (not all!) of those newspapers have already retracted their original false claims, the damage has already been done.   The Guardian chose to adorn its main headline for October 12th with the words ‘Israelis suspended between fear, grief and foreboding.’ The Daily Mail selected ‘The King Calls Them Terrorists, Why Can’t the BBC?’ Marching to the same beat, the Daily Telegraph opted to plaster the Royals’ condemnation of Hamas on its front pages. Survey the pages of the newspapers, and the stories eliciting support and empathy for Israel abound, making it clear who the perpetrators are and that vengeance against them is justified. Meanwhile, the Palestinians are only evoked through the register of terrorism and violence. Even those headlines, which are shy in their coverage of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, intentionally omit the perpetrators: the Israeli army and state. They are designed to neglect the root and cause of the violence: Israeli settler colonialism. By settler colonialism, we mean the gradual transfer of European Jews to the land of Palestine, the coercive displacement and dispossession of the indigenous Palestinian population, and the imposition of a coordinated and sustainable system that turns this displacement into a continuous process.  Western media relies on racial, gendered, and colonial tropes to describe the atrocities in Palestine. It instrumentalizes white female faces to elicit support for Israel. Such a tactic simultaneously serves racism, patriarchy, and colonialism. It relies on notions of white female ‘innocence’ and ‘victimhood’ to justify the continuous erasure of Palestine. In a headline by the Daily Telegraph about a British IDF female soldier, below, we are shown a smiling white female soldier wearing military attire and a keffiyeh on her head. Neither the photograph nor the article questions why a British citizen is justified in enlisting in a settler army elsewhere, let alone the same army that is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. To the contrary, the article frames such enlisting as voluntary and dignified. These strategies bring to mind 9/11, Laura Bush, and the weaponization of white feminism in the service of imperialist and colonial expansion. Black and Brown feminist scholars and activists, including Lila Abu Lughod, bell hooks, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde amongst others, have long debunked and punctured through such strategies. It is this same white feminism that has been utilized by the media and governments to justify the intensification of Israeli brutality against the Palestinian residents of Gaza. 

[talonabraxas]

“Mystics are people who have a particularly vivid experience of the processes of the collective unconscious.” ― C.G.Jung

Mystic Prophets Talon Abraxas

BLOOD

Yea, specially that mortal man hath toiled for service of the gods, Who quickly hath brought near Mitra and Varuna to share his sacrificial gifts. Supreme in sovereign power, far-sighted, chiefs and kings, most swift to hear from far away. Both wondrously, set them in motion as with arms, in company with Surya's beams. The rapid messenger who runs before you, Mitra-Varuna, with iron head, swift to the draught. . . . The true red treasure they have sent, one only son born of the three. They, the immortal ones, never deceived, survey the families of mortal man.

Rig Veda, Hymn XC

In the hymns of the most ancient Vedas, Varuna is praised as the most lofty sovereign of the Three Worlds. As he breathed, so breathed forth into being the universe. As he ordained, so the stars and planets took their places in the firmament. It was he who caused the solar orb to shine forth. He opened out the boundless pathways for its radiant fire just as he hollowed out the channels on earth for the rivers that would flow by his command. It was said that no creature in the universe could wink without him, and his messengers beheld all worlds as they sped forth at his bidding. None other than Varuna instructed the Sage Vasishtha in the mysteries, but his secrets were not to be revealed to the foolish, and only those familiar with his realm could tap his hundred thousand remedies for evil and sin. For he was extolled as a barrier against falsehood and as one who seized transgressors with bonds and nooses and restored all who reached him to harmony and balance.

In later times Varuna's position in the Hindu pantheon of gods was reduced in importance, and his cosmic sovereignty was largely usurped by gods whose names became the focal points of the reverential awe felt by the vast streams of people that meandered and moulded the races of the Indian subcontinent. But the clues of Varuna's former greatness can be found in his continuing association with water, for water is the designation of space and, on earth, of the electric flow of the blood of life. This is why the ancients could claim that "it takes earth and water to create a human soul" and that blood was connected with the initial generative power of the gods. Thus the gods Brahmā, Adam-Jehovah and Mars are the 'red' gods who work for the purpose of human procreation. In the Hindu tradition Mars is Karthikeya, son of Shiva, who is "born of his sweat" (Shiva Gharmaja) and of the earth. He is the god of bloodshed (war) only as a secondary idea which flows out of a primary cause associated with the "shedding of blood in conception for the first time".

Spilt blood is the symbol of sacrifice, the most precious offering of all. Even in earthly battle or human conception there is an element of sacrifice which echoes the greater act of the gods. Among human beings the intuitive understanding of this truth has often been inverted in rituals, wherein men attempt to appease or curry favour with the gods by offering them the blood of living creatures, sacrificing upwards to encourage renewed sacrifice downwards in the form of rain, bountiful crops or material gains. One can recognize in this a persistent attempt to manipulate the laws of Nature for limited ends. Sacrifice by proxy is a grotesquely diluted form of magic. Involuntary death in battle or participation in conception is scarcely capable of mirroring the Divine Will operating through the fiery life-giving streams of the sun. The legendary Red Knight in the Arthurian tales provides a truer reflection of the idea, for his colour expresses the passionate will of one who has mastered both steed and monster. But it is through Perceval that the critical force of the heart comes to play a dominant part in the knight's quest. The very sword which he must find and wield is lodged in a slab of red marble afloat in the watery sea. He must grasp its power from the heart in order to slay the monsters (within) that lie between him and the Grail used by Christ to share with his Apostles his own blood. Faint but haunting traces of the Red Knight can be found in Thomas Hardy's reddleman, who wanders and watches and silently endures. From the labour of his trade he is red from head to foot and cast outside the circle of common human life. But his heart knows the truth that courses through others' lives and compassion is his guide in defining his part in the revelation of its complexities.

There is a language of the blood of which people speak but it is also held that blood speaks for itself. In its continual coursing through every crook and cranny of the body, the blood contributes to and takes from all parts of the whole. This, together with the fact that men have long conceived of the blood as bearing the essential impress of the conditions of countless ancestors, has caused many to believe that the blood was capable of revealing truth. Thus it was thought that the wounds of a murdered man would bleed afresh in the presence of the murderer. Sir Francis Bacon recorded that when King Richard (the Lion-Hearted) was made to stand before his father's (Henry 11's) corpse, the wounds bled and confirmed the suspicion of many that patricide had been committed. But a deeper and perhaps unconsciously held reason for the belief lies in the analogy, perceived since the most ancient times, between the sun and its rays and the heart and blood in living beings. The penetration into all parts of the living whole is represented in the Rig Veda as Varuna, and in man this is seen as that which will never accept a partial view of things but continually seek the Truth in which all conditions and perspectives can be accommodated. The wise have taught that "so long as man does not attain to the largeness of Varuna's truth, he is bound to the posts of the world sacrifice by the triple bonds of mind, life and body as a victim and is not free as a possessor and enjoyer".

Partial and skewed views of 'truth' cause one to be 'hot' or 'cold' blooded and to act in ways unworthy of human beings. Productive of the 'bad blood' which often arises between people, such views can result in a kind of cardiac arrest on the mental plane or in practices even as benighted as blood feuding or drinking the blood of one's fallen enemy. Behind the most abysmal acts of man's inhumanity often lies a superstitious awe of the power of blood. To drink another's is to steal his or her life-essence. To kill a member of an enemy clan is to 'get back the blood' and increase the power of one's own family. The term 'blood' is mentioned in the Bible more than five hundred times, a testimony to the centrality of its importance to what was initially a tribal religion. It is often spoken of as a covenant and in connection with atonement and sacrifice. In Christian as well as other cultures a sign of blood serves as a pact or seal, like that made between American Indians who cut their thumbs in order to release and mingle their blood and become 'blood brothers'. The example of the pact between Dr. Faustus and Mephistopheles has proved to be of enduring fascination to writers in the Christian world, where the use of blood in acts of necromancy has been as plentiful as in primitive cultures. The abhorrence and fear of menstrual blood is also universal, causing many people to observe remarkable rituals of avoidance during periods when it was necessary. Pliny referred to this cast-off blood as "a fatal poison, corrupting and decomposing . . . depriving seeds of their fecundity, destroying insects, blasting garden flowers and grasses, causing fruits to fall from branches [and] dulling razors".

The passionate quality of the colour red pervades the symbolism of blood, and the vital character of blood informs the significance of the colour red. Among most people of the earth red symbolizes blood and indicates health, courage, fertility, growth and life itself. Chromatically, the colour red represents the end of a series which begins with sunlight and the colour yellow. The intermediate stage is expressed in the green colour so dominant in vegetable life, and with the movement from yellow an increase of iron marks the progressive involvement of light and electricity in matter. The advent of the colour red, then, symbolically represents the furthest extent of sacrifice from the ethereal to the material realm, and blood itself becomes a pulsating reminder of that profoundly archetypal process. More than one hundred thousand times a day, the human heart (pumping more than two thousand gallons or tens of millions of gallons in a lifetime) reminds us of this. The blood rushes out of the heart, travelling about one foot every second, following the same laws that apply to ground water flowing through the layers of the earth or electricity flowing from the sun through the vastitudes of space. Just as doubling the pressure doubles the flow and doubling the resistance halves the flow of water, so too these factors modify the flow of electricity and blood.

From its entrance into the right ventricle from the veins to its exit from the left ventricle into the arteries, the passage of blood requires two-and-a-half seconds when the body is at rest, and one second or so when it is being exercised. The heart's beating drives it into the narrowest capillaries, forcing the exchange of oxygen for the dead weight of carbon dioxide seventy times a minute. Its passage is swift and powerful despite the fact that only a little more than half of its constitution is liquid. Many of its more solid substances float in a rich sea of hormones, vitamins, enzymes and proteins that are found in the plasma which, composed largely of water, is the blood's solvent. Plasma contains compounds uncannily like those of the ancient Cambrian seas that covered most of the globe over five hundred million years ago. It was from these seas that life forms first emerged. The first single-celled residents had circulatory systems as vast as the ocean itself. Oxygen diffused effortlessly into the cells, and, just as easily, the seas absorbed the wastes. The evolution of forms from more ethereal types involved a collective participation in breath and circulation. The higher sparks of conscious intelligence waited in abeyance while this vast process of generalized physical exchange took place. The forms would evolve for millennia, becoming increasingly complex and inwardly oriented while they waited for a vesture capable of reflecting the individuating mind.

When the correct form evolved, it possessed an individual circulatory system similar to that of other animals, but one whose rhythm and pattern of movement, relative to its centre, reflected a cosmic design. As this microcosmic form evolved, the blood that gave it life developed various specialized factors associated with race and long chains of causation hidden in the forgotten complexities of man's past. Human blood groups with their various factors bear a simple one-to-one correspondence with the genes that are transmitted each generation. These are constant within individuals and not influenced by environment or diet or any other external factor. Two parents both carrying the M factor will unavoidably produce a child having the M factor, whilst one type A blood parent together with another type B blood parent may produce a type A or B or AB child. But there are over sixty different factors and four major blood types known in the world, and the chance of two people being identical in regard to all of them is astronomically improbable. There are what have been called human 'blood prints', which are as unique as fingerprints and characterize an aspect of a particular individual, a particular karma which speaks, as the blood can speak, of the history and condition of the indwelling soul whose body it sustains.

Great movements of human beings, unknown to history, can be charted by the geographical increase and decrease of blood factors. The fact that blood type A is frequently found in western Japan (opposite Korea) and diminishes as one moves towards Hokkaido corresponds with a movement of mainland people onto an archipelago once completely populated by another and much older race of people. Some races possess blood factors which others do not possess at all, and some instances of their occurrence seem to be part of a crazy-quilt design that does not readily fit in with broader patterns of migration. Much mystery continues to surround the study of man's physical ancestry and the complexities of all the meanderings and matings that have produced the billions of bodies of the dead and the living. An old English proverb has it that "all blood is alike ancient" and there is much truth in this saying. The blood of our forgotten ancestors is as vast as time extended back along the ages to the shores of the primordial Cambrian seas. The hot and cold blood, the bad blood, the blood of sacrifice, that of the heart's wisdom and that of life's passions flows down along those infinitely tangled courses of animal and human history to circulate in myriad combinations through the bodies of the living. But it is the human ancestors, forgotten and remembered, who have impressed it greatly with the stamp of their lives, for the blood of animals is little marked by hopes or perversions. Man can affect the quality of blood and its circulation through thought and cause it to run as a pure river of sacrifice or as a stream clogged with impurities. Oddly, it is in man's treatment of animals that he has often muddied his nature most foully. This is particularly true in regard to vivisection and blood sports. Oscar Wilde once referred to the institution of fox hunting as "the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable", a witticism which points to the cruelty as well as the absurdity of such a practice. The hostility and fear towards humans that pervade the animal kingdom is a sad result of the actions of human ancestors who lived millennia ago as well as only yesterday. As folk belief would have it, "the blood itself never forgets where it has been".

The primary function of human blood is to supply oxygen daily to the sixty trillion cells in the body. Besides this it transports food, wastes and hormonal messengers. It cools when there is overheating of the system and warms when it is cold, and it destroys alien invaders while at the same time mending and repairing its own vessels. Blood maintains the balance of Nature and homeostasis in man. It is the medium through which the continual re-establishment of this balance takes place and it thus binds the internal nature harmoniously to the world outside. The pressure of the systemic circulation is originated by the heart as the blood is pumped into the large arteries. From there it courses to smaller arteries and arterioles which control the flow to the tissue. From the arterioles it passes through the metarterioles to the sphincter valves, and thence into the capillaries, which radiate out in minutely distinguished dendritic fans resembling great coral fans along some exotic submarine reef. The oxygen and food brought to the capillaries pass through their walls and enter the interstitial fluid that surrounds all of the body's cells and then into the cells themselves. As this occurs, the carbon dioxide and other waste material in the cells leave and cross over into the blood in the capillaries in an exchange which causes the blood, which then makes its return journey through the venules and veins to the heart, to take on a dark purple colouration.

The blood, passing through the heart, then enters into the pulmonary phase of its circulation. It is 'breathless' as it comes along the right and left pulmonary arteries leading to the lungs. There it courses along arteries that divide into smaller and smaller vessels, threading for hundreds of miles around and about the millions of tiny air sacs called alveoli which form the respiratory membranes of the lungs. Molecules of oxygen diffuse through the tiny membranes of the alveoli into the blood in a homeostatic response resulting in the equalization of pressure. At any one time the three ounces of blood in the lungs are distributed throughout this network so thinly and evenly that the oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange can take place in a quarter of a second. Air is drawn into the lungs in concert with the blood rising from the heart, and they meet in perfect timing at the tiny membrane stations where diffusion takes place.

Excessive carbon dioxide in the blood causes the breathing and heartbeat to quicken in order to flush it out. Another regulating factor is dictated by the need of tissues and the subsequent signals carried in the blood which cause the arteries and veins of various sizes to contract or dilate. The passageways contain nerves connected to the vaso-motor centre in the brain, which then signals the nerve fibres to secrete a vaso-constrictor or dilating agent. Like the systole and diastole of the heart, the quickness of the breath, the pressure of the blood as it flows and the rate of the exchanges during the phases of circulation, so too, the vessels through which the blood passes reflect a universal centrifugal and centripetal rhythm to which all forms of life, like revolving wheels within wheels, continually adjust themselves.

The Sun is the heart of the Solar World (System) and its brain is hidden behind the (visible) Sun. From thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve-centre of the great body . . .

The Secret Doctrine, i 541

If the plasma in blood is its solvent, the red blood cells endow it with its 'functional essence', carrying, as they do, ninety-nine percent of the oxygen distributed throughout the body. Constituting only forty-five percent of the blood, the red blood cells are, nonetheless, the most abundant cells in the body. They are sturdy and highly flexible sacs that can squeeze through the narrowest passages without rupturing. Like plasma, they are partly composed of water, but their characteristic constituent (which gives blood its crimson colour) is haemoglobin, which they possess in so highly concentrated a form that it is almost crystallized. In addition to the transport of oxygen, blood has the power to heal. Unlike any other fabric, it can seal rent tissue, magically making its own thread to weave the torn parts together again. The fibrous threads literally 'weave themselves into being' at the site of an injury. Tiny platelets rush to a cut or rupture and swell into sticky, irregular shapes to create plugs as backup, and if their abilities to seal the wound are inadequate, they signal for the clotting process to begin. So dependable is the blood's complex electrochemical potential that the signals are continually and faithfully transmitted, releasing the exact chemicals capable of adjusting and mending countless times within a human life. It is only in rare circumstances that the system fails to respond, the most publicized of these being the effects caused by the condition known as haemophilia, which term, in a sort of cruel irony, means love of blood'. One of Queen Victoria's everlasting claims to fame lies in the fact that she transmitted this disease to a good many of the crowned heads of Europe and Russia.

Another important element in blood is composed of a small but active army of white blood cells (leucocytes), whose job it is to engulf, swallow, 'explode', break down, digest and neutralize any parasites or viruses that invade the system. Their production in the bone marrow and lymph glands immediately increases upon such an intrusion, and a devouring horde is released to engage 'the enemy'. They pull themselves along the capillary walls like foot-soldiers, their tiny pseudopods stretching out with each step as they advance along and through the tissue. Billions may perish in an all out battle but, with the assistance of the antibodies which destroy particular antigens they have latched onto, they are usually victorious. But the 'army' of leucocytes must always serve the greater function of the blood. If, abnormally swollen with power, they multiply and accumulate unnaturally, they can clog the body's arteries and prevent the bone marrow from producing vital red blood cells. Such an army out of control can result in tragic diseases such as leukaemia or lupus.

They were going to look at war, the red animal – war, the blood-swollen god.

The Red Badge of Courage

STEPHEN CRANE

The god of war reigns in the Iron Age. Forgotten is his primary role associated with ideational sacrifice. His distorted and crippled image is red with lust for conquest and yet can preside over a disease that strips the body of its life-bearing crimson cells. The causes and result of an age whose hallmarks are greed and selfishness are often deceptive in their outward appearances. Iron lies at the very 'heart' of the blood's functional essence. It is the 'soul' or 'jewel' that rests in the centre of haemoglobin molecules responsible for the continual oxidation of the body's cells. As always, the body shows its 'wisdom' by producing this vital substance in the protected surrounds of bone marrow (largely that of the skull, ribs and spine). When tissue in the body runs short of oxygen, a messenger hormone called erythropoietin ('one who makes blood') travels to the marrow, where it signals a 'primitive' cell to come out of its dormancy and to begin to grow and produce red blood cells. Haemoglobin molecules multiply within them until a saturation point is reached and the nucleus of the cells is released in an act of self-sterilization demonstrative of the blood's sacrificial character. Looking like a pinched disc, the red blood cell will live one hundred and twenty days and then die, forming part of the waste to be transported out of the body. Like the biblical creation of the world, the time required for the production of the cells is six days, but with no rest on the seventh!

Once produced, each red blood cell contains two hundred and seventy million haemoglobin molecules, each of which loads oxygen at the surface of the lungs and unloads it precisely when and where needed. The molecules are made up of four chains of amino acids which form little tangled wheels circling single atoms of iron at their centres. Sheltered in the rings of the chains (made up of hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon), the iron is heavily involved in interacting with them (especially the nitrogen). This dissipates its attraction for the individual oxygen molecules which will attach themselves to the iron, so that the binding is only a temporary one and the oxygen is easily released at its destination.

And if our blood alone Will melt this iron earth, Take it. It is well spent Easing a saviour's birth.

CECIL DAY LEWIS

The iron binds only temporarily but it must have the power to do so. The earth may be a magnet, dark as iron, which we must melt away to let the spirit shine forth, but have not those who daily greet the sun called it Great Magnet? Just as the spectrum, passing from yellow through green to red, corresponds with an increase of iron, so too does the sun, passing from its hidden spiritual essence to the manifest orb in our solar system. Therefore, iron, in its physical form, owes its power to magnetize both matter and mind to an essential spiritual magnetism which (along with Fohatic electricity) lies at the heart of the substratum of being. It is a central actor in the centripetal and centrifugal pulsation that takes place in the spiritual, astral and physical realms. This is why the god Varuna, who set in motion Surya's beams and gave the "true red treasure", is called Iron-Headed' and identified with Hephaestus of the iron forge.

Like little suns in the centres of wheels of planets, the four iron atoms preside over the world of the red blood cell. The elements they work with are the four fundamental building blocks of all manifest life: hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and carbon. In occult terms, these provide the basis for the Tetrad, which combines within itself all the materials from which cosmos is produced. From the magnetic point in the centre of the boundless Circle, to the Duad and the Triad, the One is ultimately involved in the Tetrad, whose symbol is the fourth or visible sun as well as the four tiny iron atoms in the haemoglobin molecule. In the macrocosmic process the astral realm lies between the noumenal Tetraktys and the phenomenal Tetrad. At this level it is Akashic, whilst in its lower expression it corresponds with the linga sharira of the phenomenal world and its chemical analogue, nitrogen. One perceives the significance of the iron atom's involvement with nitrogen, which acts to dissipate the binding of oxygen to it. For on the gross material level oxygen represents prana and must be free to fly out from the little sun' and carry out its vital role in the sacrifice of life.

Someone once asked H.P. Blavatsky if prana was produced by the lives' of the human body. She responded that the opposite was true, that prana was the parent of the lives'. She asked the enquirer to imagine the body as a sponge submerged in water. The water inside the sponge would be prana, whilst that all around it would be Jiva. When the sponge is removed from the water, it dries up (dies) and loses prana. She went on to explain that every principle is a differentiation of Jiva, but the life motion in each is prana, without which there would be no kama. Prana wakes the kamic germs to life; it makes all desires vital and living. Thus the Great Breath which breathes out the universes exudes the vital Jivas which course through the electrical channels of ethereal space and ultimately bring life to the very air we take into our lungs.

The vessels within the human organism are channels for prana as it continually informs the body. Jiva becomes prana when a child is born and first begins to breathe, enabling the divine life-spark to become an individual spiritual presence. Entering the blood as oxygen, it causes it to become bright red, thus bringing the solar spark to its ultimate expression on the spectrum. A delightful myth in the Puranas explains how this came about through the Sage Vasishtha, who requested the sun to come to Satya Loka. Surya said that if he left his place, the whole world would be destroyed. So the Rishi offered to put his red cloth in the place of the sun's disc, and it is this that we now see in the sky. So also, the golden streams of Fohatic electricity which inform ethereal space become red within the body of living creatures. The vast ocean of Jiva finds an analogue in the plasma of the blood, which bears in its currents the ghostly remnants of dead cells much like the bhuts that float in the astral realm. Like the ancient Cambrian seas, it is an archaic matrix in which the individuating solar design gradually incarnated.

Man is the pivot where the Great Breath which breathes out is breathed in. The little suns' of iron then magnetize it before ^breathing it out', so to speak, into the microcosm of the body. At this point, the Red God Karthikeya reigns, for his is the kingdom of the manifest world. Worshipped as Murugan, Subramania or Mars, he is the hope of those who court fertility and the champion of those in whom rajas predominates. But he is born of the 'sweat' of his father, Shiva, who, beyond the limits of form, precipitated out watery globules (worlds) much in the fashion that the 'primitive' cell within the marrow would come to be activated to produce red blood cells in man. It is these globules which are the realm of the 'red sun', the red son and offspring of the Highest Spiritual Will.

In this way, the 'interior work' of the Spiritual Sun manifests forth. The 'sweat' of Shiva, transmitted by his fleet-footed son, becomes the vital fluid that circulates through our solar system. Every year the blood of the visible sun passes through its auricles and ventricles before washing the lungs' and passing into the arteries and veins of the system to complete an eleven-year cycle. This is a reflection in a very limited time of much vaster cycles pertaining to the third and second and most Spiritual Sun. In man the cycle requires a tiny fraction of solar time but it is, in essence, the same cycle of circulation, demonstrating more powerfully than any other physiological pattern man's position as microcosm of the macrocosm. On earth the solar cave of the heart, in which the Buddha of sacrifice resides, lies in the mountain peaks. It is from these heights that the sacrificial streams of blood (water) course forth to bring life to the waiting world. They stream along endless canals and cross over interstitial seas to be returned to the lungs of the atmosphere and recleansed. But it is the heart centres in the world which keep the waters flowing. If it were not for their conscious participation in the whole sacrifice of life, there would not be adequate canals to carry its fruits, and they would sink in the chaos of the great seas long before reaching other shores where the needy wait and hope.

Without the conscious participation of those who make of their existence a heart centre, the 'cells' of the world could not be adequately nourished and the global body would begin to dry up like the dying sponge when it is denied its life-giving environment. Living in the world, we are not submerged in the waters of Jiva, and we are dependent upon the extension and maintenance of channels capable of spreading the spiritual currents with which man's immortal soul is enlivened and encouraged to incarnate. These rivers of Truth are brought to us by those who act as extensions of the Rays which stream forth as the Jivas emanated by their Logoic Solar Source. The Great Lord Shiva is all these Jivas combined, and those who attempt to diffuse their spiritual sparks in the world are followers of his example. They sacrifice through their 'sweat' that which they have garnered through the innermost penetration of the heart and brain. Those who follow these Rays will eventually move towards their heavenly prototype until they are drawn into the highest Ray of the Sun.

Varuna guides them because he is the Ether of Divine Truth that leads from the fiery Son to the Invisible Father beyond. He strikes down evil and delivers from illusion, like a vast sea in which all is ultimately purified or thrown up. Much like the leucocytes which engulf and destroy invaders into a harmoniously operating system, Varuna ensnares and demolishes the "Sons of Darkness [who] serve self-will and ignorance". But those who seek after Truth through sacrifice are delivered from bondage to sin, like a calf released from the rope or a victim set free from the slaying-post. From within their highest spiritual centres (shielded by the skull, the ribs and the spine), such seekers tune their most sensitive receptors to catch the signal of the erythropoietin, the call of humanity's spiritual needs. They watch and listen and willingly give forth the living blood of Truth on whose vast sea they have set their course.

Do not pass that long sought cup Away from my parched lips. Too great the pain that filled it up, Too sweet its ruby sips.