#Talking to him to fund and how to structure an inclusive school

[atlafan]

a/n: A couple of weeks ago I saw a post about ex’s to lovers, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. So basically it’s a story about two people who ended things on a semi-good note, like nothing inherently bad happened between them, but they decided to break up. Sometimes people find their way back to each other, though. That’s what we have here. Harry is a tax attorney, a few years older than our MC, Blair Smith, who teaches jazzercise. (not proofread) PLEASE REBLOG IF YOU READ THIS AND LIKE IT, YALL WANTED ME TO KEEP POSTING FICS ON HERE, SO HERE YOU GO! PLEASE, IT TAKES TWO SECONDS! Check out my patreon for other excursive content.

Warnings: angst, fluff, smut (sub!Harry????), mentions of death, a funeral

Words: 17.8K

Pairing: Harry x OC (Blair Smith)

When Blair Smith became a Physical Education major in college, she never thought that would lead her to leasing a dance studio, and teaching jazzercise. It took her until she was twenty-five to really get it all together. She wasn’t mad about it, she actually enjoyed it more than she thought. She double minored in Dance and in Business Administration, she had never been so thankful to have overloaded herself in her life. She thought she would be teaching gym at the high school level, along with some health and nutrition classes, but when she did her practicum semester at a local high school near her college, she realized that working with younger students was not for her. None of them listened, none of them really wanted to be there, aside from the gym-class-heroes, and she couldn’t stand that the majority wouldn’t even change their clothes for class.

Blair wanted to make her own rules. Luckily, after presenting a well-thought-out business plan to her parents, she was able to get them to co-sign for a loan from the bank to lease a dance studio. She named her studio Just Dance because she offered different types and levels of jazzercise. Some involved use of weights, some involved a little more high intensity, and some involved a little yoga. She was grateful for the couple of marketing classes she took because she was able to really build her brand. She had an Instagram, Facebook Page, and a website. She had an online way to sign up for memberships, and she had daily drop-in prices.

It was easier than she thought to build her clientele. She had a great spot in the city, and there was a small parking lot out back behind the building. Most of her friends from school signed up, and helped her advertise. It was open to men and women, as opposed to a lot of jazzercise places that only offered classes to women. Even though Blair couldn’t afford to hire a second instructor, she was managing things just fine. She offered two early morning sessions, one lunch hour session, and three evening sessions. So, she had plenty of time to relax, stretch, and not over work her muscles. She was strategic about class offerings as well. She gave herself Sundays and Fridays off, since those seemed to be the days with the least amount of people signed up. Monday through Thursday, and Saturday, she made sure to stagger her lessons. For example, Mondays and Wednesdays were weights and yoga infused classes, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays were the high intensity days. Going into her fourth year doing this, she had it down to a science to say the least.

Business was always really good in January and February, when people were making their New Year’s resolutions, and during the summer months when people were trying to feel better about being in their bathing suits. Blair always preached positivity and inner health as the most important things. It was an inclusive space, which is exactly what she wanted it to be.

She liked working for herself. If she needed to run errands between classes, she could. If she wanted to take a nap in the middle of the day, she could. She didn’t have to answer to a single person. Her parents would sometimes ask questions, but mostly just to make sure Blair was making her loan payments on time. She had automatic withdrawals set up with the bank, so she didn’t even need to think about it. Yup, Blair had just about everything figured out, and she knew she was very lucky for that.

//

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Sullivan, we’ll get everything figured out for your son. Yes, he’s in very good hands with me. Alright, have a nice evening.” Harry hangs up his phone and sighs, rubbing at his temples to soothe the oncoming headache he could feel. It was another complicated trust fund case, but that was the job.

The Law Office of Styles and Associates was a tax attorney office. Harry specialized in cases that dealt with trusts, gifts, and various tax planning structures to reduce the burdens of income taxes and estate taxes, and he assisted in devising investment strategies. His undergraduate degree was in accounting, and he minored in pre-law. After that, he went to law school for three years and passed the bar. His father had been a tax attorney as well. Harry liked living the comfortable life he was able to live growing up thanks to his father, and he wanted the same for himself. Plus, he just enjoyed crunching numbers for people, so it was a win-win. Making nearly $150K a year wasn’t too shabby either.

“Hey, H, you ready to go?” John comes into Harry’s office.

“Yeah, just finished up for the day.” Harry stands up, puts his suit jacket back on, grabs his brief case, and heads out. “Kate, feel free to head home, I’m done for the day.” He tells his secretary on his way out.

“Thank you, Mr. Styles, have a nice weekend.” She smiles at him.

“Same to you.” He nods and keeps walking with John. “I feel terrible, she’s pregnant, you know? Her feet are the size of melons by the end of the day.”

“When’s her maternity leave start?” John asks as they enter the elevator.

“Not for a while, she’s only seven months along. She’s been trying to train some college intern to take her place while she’s gone, but no one’s as good as Kate.” Harry rolls her eyes. “Oh well, I’m happy for her. Her and husband have been trying to get pregnant for a while.”

Harry and John make their way to a bar downtown, one of their usual Friday evening spots. They usually met up with some of their other law-school buddies. It was also a great way to blow off steam from the week. Sometimes Harry would end up pulling a 60-hour week, so he thought he deserved to cut loose, and have a little fun with his friends. Maybe meet a pretty girl he could take back to her place and have a whole different kind of fun with her. Harry was a phenomenal attorney, but when it came to his personal life, well, if you looked up the definition of a playboy, his picture would be there. He fucked around, a lot, without a second thought. Actually, his only thought was to make sure he always had a condom. Harry never went bare back. The last thing he needed was someone claiming he was the father of their child, and suing him for child support. The only time he didn’t use a condom was when he was in a legitimate relationship a couple of years back.

He thought about her from time to time. He never met another girl like her, and there were times he really did miss her. The breakup wasn’t anything dramatic, the pair had just grown apart. Harry was in the process of taking over the practice for his father, and she…wasn’t quite ready to settle down. She wanted to work on her own career and make a name for herself. It hurt that she didn’t see him in her vision for the future, but he understood where she was coming from. She was a few years younger than him, and he didn’t want her to resent him for taking away her time to be young and have fun. So they ended it. Since her, he decided to have some fun himself with his friends.

//

Blair got the call right before her second morning class on Wednesday morning. She nearly collapsed on the floor in tears. Everyone rushed over to her. She had to cancel everything for the rest of the week, and her clients were more than understanding.

“How did it happen?” She asks her mother, Pam.

“He had a stroke, and…god, he just didn’t bounce back.” Pam uses a hankie to wipe her tears. “Most of everything should be all set, he was very specific, but…we’re going to need an attorney. Your father’s biggest fear is that his first wife would claim that she has a right to his pension, that she was promised money or something.”

“God, I hate her.” Blair grimaces. “All she’s ever cared about is making him miserable. She just wants money for her son. He’s not even Dad’s!”

“That’s why they got divorced! She cheated on him with his best friend and got knocked up. You can see how sticky this is going to get. I hate to ask, but…”

“I’ll go see him.” Blair sighs.

“I just think he might sympathize, maybe work the case pro bono. I’m not sure we could afford him otherwise.”

“Don’t worry about it, Mum, I’ll talk to him and figure it out. I’m not going to let Lora fuck everything up for you.”

//

Kate nearly choked on her water when she saw Blair walking towards her. She knew Harry had a meeting with a B. Smith. She should have known better.

“B-Blair, hi.” Kate says.

“Kate! Oh my goodness, you look incredible! You and Roger finally-“

“Yeah! I’m due in a couple more months.”

“That’s amazing, I’m so happy for you.” Blair smiles. “Um, I think I set up a meeting through an intern?”

“Yes.” Kate sighs. “I’m training her for when I go on maternity leave. Um, may I ask why you’re here to see Harry?”

“It’s strictly business. My…my father recently passed, and-“

“I’m so sorry.” Kate frowns. “He was always so nice.”

“Yeah, he was a good guy. Anyways, there’s a lot going on with his will and a trust he set up for my mom. Harry’s the only person I could think of when my mom said we’d need an attorney.”

“Of course.” Kate nods. “I’ll let him know you’re here.” Kate knocks on Harry’s door and opens it. “Mr. Styles?”

“Yes?”

“Your 2PM is here.”

“Ah, great.” Harry squints at his screen to check his calendar. “B. Smith? Why does that sound familiar?” He puckers his lips in thought.

“Um…it’s Blair.”

“Blair!” Harry stands up and bangs his knee in the process. “Why didn’t you tell me she was coming?!”

“I didn’t know! Maura answered when she called to set up the appointment.”

“Fuck.” Harry runs a hand through his hair. “How do I look? Is there anything in my teeth?”

“No, you��re fine. Just relax, I’m going to send her in.” Kate leaves his office and smiles at Blair. “He’s ready for you.”

“Thank you, Kate. We should catch up before the baby comes.”

“I’d like that. I miss going to your classes.”

Blair nods and goes into Harry’s office, closing the door behind her.

“Hi, Harry.”

“Hi.” He walks over to her, leaving about a foot of space between them. “To what do I owe the pleasure of seeing you?” Her bottom lip trembles, and his smile fades. “What’s wrong?” He asks softly.

“M…my Dad died.” She says, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He pulls her in for a hug so he can comfort her. “When’s the funeral? You know you could have just called me, you didn’t have to be so formal.”

“Actually, I did.” She sniffles and steps back from him. “I need an attorney, my mom and I do…only…we can’t really afford a good one.”

“Oh.” Harry nods. “Have a seat.” He gestures, and rounds his desk to sit back down in his own seat. “Is this about his ex-wife?”

“Unfortunately.” Blair rolls her eyes, and grabs a tissue off his desk. “My mom is scared she’s going to pull some fake paternity crap with her son, even though everyone knows he’s not my Dad’s. I think my mom just wants to be prepared for the inevitable shit storm Lora’s going to bring.”

“I don’t blame her.” Harry sighs and leans back in his chair. “I…haven’t taken a pro bono case yet this year. I could help that way.”

“Only if you really want to. I’m not asking for a handout, but I don’t trust anyone else to take care of me.” Blair blinks when she realizes what she’s said. “Us, I don’t trust anyone else to take care of us.”

“Right.” He leans forward. “I’d be happy to do it. Um, does your mom want to meet with me, or-“

“I think she’s sort of hoping I’ll take care of all the legal stuff. She’s grieving, you know?”

“So are you.” He frowns.

“You know me, I like to keep busy during these sorts of things. I can get a copy of the will, and the trust information over to you via email if that works, and then we can go from there?”

“Sure, yeah. My email’s still the same, um, and so is my phone number…”

“I still have your phone number.” She rolls her eyes.

“Then why didn’t you call me about this first? Why call and make an appointment?”

“I…I thought if I called…you’d think I was calling for something else.” She blushes. “I wanted you to know it was strictly business.”

“Blair, all you had to say was that your dad died. I could have been there for you. You live alone, all you do is work…your best friend is my cousin…do you and Riley even still talk?”

“Of course we do! Just because we broke up doesn’t mean that she and I did. I met you because of her, I was her friend first. It would be really shitty to stop talking to her because it didn’t work out with you.”

“Okay, Christ, calm down.” He shakes his head. “You’re as hot headed as ever, you know that?”

“I’m sorry, my father just died and I’m trying to keep it together!” Her eyes rim with tears again. “He’s never going to be able to walk down the aisle when I get married, he’s never going to meet his grandchildren, there are so many things…he was too young.” She sniffles.

“How did it happen?”

“He had a stroke, and didn’t recover.” She looks away.

“I’m so sorry.”

“I appreciate that, but that’s not going to being him back, so don’t be sorry. Just…help me with this.”

“I will, there’s no question about it.”

“Thank you, Harry.” She stands up. “I’ll email you.”

“Blair.” Harry stands up. “Look, if you need anything else, don’t be afraid to ask. If you need a friend…I’m here for you.”

“I have plenty of friends.” She sighs. “And no offense, but my friends don’t fuck a ton of women weekend after weekend and treat them like shit.” She smirks.

“I don’t do that.” His face flushes. “I just haven’t met someone I’ve really wanted to continue seeing, that’s all.”

“Harry.” Blair shakes her head as she chuckles. “Not that I ask, but Riley’s told me a few things. You two are close, and when she gets drunk she loves regaling me of your many escapades.”

“I’ll have to send her a very strongly worded text after you leave.” He rolls his eyes.

“Don’t get mad at her, it’s fine. I don’t really care.”

“You don’t?”

“No, why would I? It’s not me you’re fucking, so it doesn’t concern me.” She shrugs. “That’s the beauty of breaking up, Har, I don’t give a shit where you stick your dick at night.”

“Well, obviously you do if you won’t even let me be a friend to you, Blair.”

“I just…I don’t want us getting close again, alright? It’ll hurt when we end up parting way, and I don’t wanna go through that while also grieving my Dad. Can you understand that?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Don’t worry, we’ll get this all sorted out.” He smiles at her.

“Thank you. I need to go. I told my mom I’d be over to help her pack some things up. She sort of just wants to rip the band aid and put his clothes away.”

“If you need any help at all with any heavy lifting, call me.”

“Harry.” Blair sighs.

“I’ve got that nice SUV, I can help move stuff, that’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll talk to you soon.” She says, and out the door she goes. Kate waits a moment before coming into Harry’s office.

“Scotch?” Kate asks.

“Scotch.” Harry nods, and Kate goes over to his credenza to take out his good crystal and liquor to pour him a small glass.

“You’ll get through this.” She lifts her water bottle to cheers with him, and he downs the brown liquid.

//

Blair was back at work the following week. She needed the distraction. Lora had been eerily quiet. Maybe she didn’t know that Blair’s father passed, but as soon as the obituary hit the papers, she was sure that witch would be out and about to cause some trouble. At the end of Blair’s last Thursday class, she heard the sound of dress shoes on the hard wood. She turns to see Harry.

“You know there’s not supposed to be outside shoes in here. I just mopped.” She puts her hands on her hips and huffs at him.

“Yeah, I’m well aware of the rules. I used to be your best customer, remember?” He smirks. “Anyways, I looked over all the documents, I thought you might like to go over everything with me before the funeral, in case she shows up to cause trouble, you’ll have all the facts.”

“I need to, like, go home and shower…today was an intensive day, I’m soaked.”

“Perfect, I’ve got dinner in the car. We can go there, eat, and go over the documents.” He smiles.

“You’re such a weasel.” She chuckles. “But I’m too tired to argue with you. What did you pick up to eat?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“Nothing special.” He shrugs. “Just some dumpling curry from that Thai place we both like.”

“I take it back you’re not a weasel, you’re the devil.”

Harry drives over to Blair’s apartment. He didn’t have a key anymore so he had to wait for her. He follows her up to her apartment, and makes himself at home while she goes to take a shower. She hadn’t changed much, but he definitely noticed some different pictures on her bookshelves. They used to be littered with framed photos of them, and she had a ton of scrapbooks for the two of them, but those seemed to be missing now as well. He sighs while he plates up the food for the both of them, and opens up a bottle of wine while he waits. Blair comes out about ten minutes later with her hair wrapped up in a towel, and her long, plush, pink robe around her body. She sits down next to him at the island.

“Wine?” She questions, but picks up the glass to take a sip.

“It’s been a long day, to be honest with you. I’m gonna work from home to catch up on some sleep tomorrow since I don’t have any meetings.”

“You know I have Fridays off, we could have done this tomorrow.” She frowns.

“It’s okay, I figured you’d want everything now. The funeral’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Eat up, and then we can look at everything.”

“We can do both at the same time.”

“Does your nose still run like a leaky faucet when you eat spicy food?” He smirks, and she rolls her eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

“Thank you for picking this up.” She says as she takes a bite. “I haven’t had this in forever.”

“Me neither…I stopped going because I didn’t want to run into you there.”

“That’s why I stopped going. We should have divided up restaurants when we broke up.” She laughs, and takes another sip of wine. “Do you mind if I dry my hair when we’re done eating? I’ll get a-“

“You’ll get a headache if you don’t, I know the drill.” He takes a sip of his own wine, and eats a spoonful of rice.

“Stop remembering things about me.” She swats a hand at him.

“We were together for long enough, Blair, I can’t help it.”

“Yeah, well, quit throwing it in my face, okay? We’re not doing this to go for a stroll down memory lane.”

Harry knew he’d be waiting at least twenty minutes while Blair dried her hair. He walks around her living room, stretching his legs a bit. He was curious to see what she had filled her bookshelves with. There was a picture of her and Riley from their freshman year of college. Harry picks it up and smiles. Harry was in his first year of law-school when Riley and Blair were college freshmen. He didn’t meet Blair formally until their senior year, and he was in his first year working at his father’s firm. He was helping Riley move in after winter break, and Blair had already been there.

“Blair!” Riley exclaimed. “I missed you so much.” She threw her arms around her.

“I missed you too! I’m glad we both agreed to come back a week early.”

“Same here. This is my cousin, Harry. Harry, this is Blair.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Harry shook Blair’s hand.

“It’s nice to meet you too.” Her mouth had run dry. They held eye contact for a beat too long. “You’re in law school, right?”

“I finished last year, I’m actually working now. I’m a tax attorney.” He explains. “It’s my dad’s business.”

“And it’s super boring.” Riley rolled her eyes. “Har, could you bring everything in for me? I have a meeting with my advisor that I need to get to. We’re going over my practicum stuff.”

“Sure thing. We’re still getting dinner later, right?”

“Mhm, I shouldn’t be too long. Blair, you don’t mind if Harry hangs here for a bit, do you? You’re also welcome to come to dinner with us.”

“Sure, I don’t have a problem with it.” She shrugged.

“You’re the best. See you in a little while!”

“Is there a lot of stuff? I can help.” Blair said to Harry.

“Not a lot, no. But…I’ve never been here before, so if you could just show me upstairs, that would be great.”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

Harry brought Riley’s suitcase in, and Blair led him upstairs. She showed him Riley’s room.

“Is yours similar?” He asked.

“My room? Um, no…it’s a little different.” She swallowed. “Do you wanna see?”

“I’d love to.” He grinned, and followed her down the hall to her room. “Riley’s told me a lot about you over the years, but she failed to mention how insanely gorgeous you are.” He leaned against her wall after she closed her door.

“Well, she failed to mention how hot her cousin is, but I suppose that would be a weird thing to say about a family member.” She smirked. “How old are you, exactly?’

“I’m about to turn twenty-six, what about you?”

“I’m almost twenty-two…in May.”

“Not a huge age difference.” He walked towards her.

“Not at all.” She looked up at him with big eyes.

“Want me to kiss you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, all done.” Blair says, coming out with her all dry and pretty. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing, just saw this old picture of you and Riley.”

“God, we were babies then.” Blair smiles at the photo. “We took that on the day we met at orientation.” She looks at him. “Wanna sit on the couch?”

“Sure.” Harry grabs his briefcase and takes out all of the documents he needed to go over with Blair. “So, as you can see, your father set up a trust for you that you’ll get access to a year after his passing. That’s pretty standard. Your mother has a different sum of money that she’ll be able to access much sooner. There’s absolutely nothing in his will about Lora or her son. Even if she tries to contest it, there’s nothing in here that would indicate he was hiding anything. I looked over their divorce settlement as well, she stopped getting alimony when she remarried. She literally has no case. You and your mum can take a breather.”

“Oh, what a relief! Thank you, Harry. She’ll be able to let herself relax for the first time in a while.”

“Are you going to take any more time off from work?”

“Well, I’m closed Saturday, and I’m off Sunday, and I’m closed Monday as well. Then I’ll be back to it Tuesday.”

“You’re only giving yourself a long weekend?” He frowns.

“Harry, I can’t afford to keep closing. I make enough with the memberships, but I won’t be making the extra I do from the walk-ins.”

“Look, if you need some money-“

“Don’t you dare.” She stands up. “I don’t want your money, Harry, I never have, and I never will. I’m not your goddamn sugar baby!”

“I never said you were!” He says, standing up.

“But you used to make me feel like that all the time! You were always paying for every little thing. You never let me pay for a single thing. It was like you had zero confidence in me, even though I was running a successful business!”

“You were just starting out! All I wanted to do was help you, make it a little easier for you. You’re the one that went to their parents for loan help when I would have done it in a heartbeat! You crushed me.”

“We weren’t even living together, and you were ready to drop that amount of money on me?! That would have been so weird!”

“We were both working odd hours, and we had only been together a few months at that point, moving in would have been weird! A loan is totally different, I would have been investing in something great.”

“Well, I didn’t need your investment! We were together for nearly three years, Harry, what’s your excuse for not living together after all that time, hm?”

“I would have felt guilty. I was never home, I didn’t want you waiting up for me. It was easier when I could just come here and crawl into bed with you after a long day. And you always had to get up so much earlier than me. I thought…I thought it was better that we weren’t living together. You had never lived alone before, I wanted you to enjoy the freedom.”

“Was that it, or did you just want to keep your own?” She huffs, crossing her arms. “You know what, this fight is useless, it doesn’t matter because it’s not going to solve a single fucking thing. Thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it, but now that I know everything’s fine, you can go. If I need anything else from you down the line, I’ll reach out. I’m sure Lora will make a stink, and therefore I’ll need an attorney. But it’s all professional, Harry.”

“You’ve made that plenty clear already, thanks.” Harry packs up his things, and Blair walks him to the door. They look at each other. He just sighs and heads out the door.

Blair would be lying if she said that she didn’t miss Harry. They had a really special bond that was hard to find with just any one. All they did that first day they met was kiss, have a passionate make out, but that was it. Blair didn’t want to go too far with him in case Riley wasn’t comfortable with it. But Riley was overjoyed when Harry asked if she would mind if he asked Blair out on a date. It was a whirlwind from there.

He took her on some of the nicest dates she had ever been on. Most guys would take her out for coffee, maybe a movie if they could scrape the money together, but Harry took Blair out to nice restaurants, and to the movies that had lux levels. Not to mention his condo, god, she loved his condo. He liked that she kept things simple. Crockpot dinners at her place, watching TV curled up in her little full-sized bed, and clipping coupons together on Sunday mornings. That was where they had sex for the first time, in her little bed after their fifth date. He told her he loved her for the first time on the top of a Farris Wheel during the spring carnival her campus held, and she wasted no time saying it back. After that, a deeper trust formed between the two of them. One that not a lot of people would understand. Harry didn’t quite understand it himself since he was usually the one who was a little more dominant in bed, but with Blair…well, needless to say after a long week of working cases, his favorite thing was to come home, find her in his bedroom with some lingerie on, and letting her tie him to the bed posts for a little while. It was a release he didn’t even really know he needed. And with her, having been a college student about ready to graduate and enter the real world, it felt like so many things were out of control. Harry gave her that control back.

Harry wonders if that’s why they breakup seemed so much harder on him than her. It seemed like Blair was able to let go so easily. Yes, he started fucking around afterwards, but he just couldn’t get that same high from anyone else, nor did he trust some random girl at a bar to do the things for him that Blair once did. Blair was just better at hiding her emotions. She missed Harry, she’s missed him for a long time now. She cried for weeks, feeling this undeniable ache in her heart without him around. But, she had her studio to throw herself into, a brand to keep building. It was the perfect distraction, and even though she missed Harry, she didn’t hate being single for the first time in a while. For three years, Harry had been like her security blanket. The way she looked at it, every kid eventually stops sleeping with their security blanket at some point. It was time to be independent.  

//

The funeral was a graveside service. It was cloudy, but there wasn’t rain, which was probably the only upside Blair could think of. She was there, sitting next to her mother, other family members in the row behind them. Her mother was holding Blair’s hand, but this is one the few times Blair wished someone was there for her. Just as the service was about to get started, someone sat down next to her. She looks to her right and sees Harry, dressed in black from head to toe. He doesn’t say anything, he just puts his arm around her, and rubs his shoulder. He gives Blair’s mom a soft smile before sitting back in his seat.

“Harry…you weren’t supposed to come until afterwards…” Blair says.

“I know.” He looks at her. “I just wanted to be here for you.”

Harry gave Blair his extra tissues while she cried during the service. He held her the entire time, and stayed back once it was over. Then, he offered to drive Blair and Pam back to Pam’s home. Neither of them were in any condition to drive. There were a lot of people that came back to the house afterwards. Blair was able to calm down a bit, but her mother was really taking it hard.

“We don’t have to do this today.” Harry says to Blair.

“No, we should just rip the band aid. Then she can just…” Blair’s eyes widen when she sees Lora walk through the door. “Oh, you miserable cunt.” She says.

“What?” Harry asks, confused.

“Not you, Lora’s here.” Blair storms over to her. “What are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too.” Lora smiles. “I’m here to grieve the loss of my first husband.”

“You weren’t at the funeral.”

“I didn’t want to upset anyone.” Lora shrugs. “So…have you read the will yet? I think I should be in on that.”

“Lora.” Pam says when she walks over. “Alright, let’s get this over with.” Pam sighs, and has everyone follow her down the hall to the guest bedroom. Harry takes out the paperwork.

“There’s been-“ He starts, but he’s cut off.

“I’m sorry, but how is it legal if her boyfriend is reading the will?” Lora asks.

“We’re not together anymore. We haven’t been for a while. He’s here as our attorney, that’s it.” Blair says.

“Anyways, been a trust set up for Blair a little down the road. Everything else, including the house, has been left to Pamela Smith. There is no mention of anyone else’s name.”

“That can’t be right.” Lora scoffs. “I was promised-“

“He would have never left you anything.” Pam says. “And I’m sick of dealing with you. He’s gone, he’s left you nothing, you have no ties to us now. It’s clear as day that Derek is not his. He owed you absolutely nothing, you gold digging bitch.” Pam steps closer to Lora. “Now, get out of my house before I have you removed. I buried my husband today, I am in no mood to be fucked with.”

“Fine.” Lora says, turns on her heel and leaves.

“Way to go, Mum.” Blair gives her a high five. “I thought she’d put up more of a fight than that.”

“With your father maybe, but not with me. I’ve ripped her cheap extensions out more than once, and she knows I’ll do it again.” She takes take a deep breath. “I think I’m about ready to be done for the day. I need to lay down.”

“Do you want me to stay tonight?” Blair asks her.

“No, honey, thank you. Auntie Fay is staying, I’ll be alright.” She looks at Harry. “Harry, I can’t thank you enough for helping with all of this.”

“Don’t mention it. If there’s anything else I can do, anything at all, don’t be afraid to ask.”

“Drive Blair home.”

“Mum.”

Pam raises her hands in defense and leaves the room.

“I can drive you back if you want. I took an uber out here as it was.” Harry says, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“You’ve done enough for me today, it’s alright…I can make it back on my own. Riley’s flying back in from Chicago tomorrow and we’re gonna have a girl’s day, so-“

“Blair, I still have your keys in my pocket, I’m driving you.”

“I don’t need you to swoop in here and act like superman, Harry.” Her bottom lip trembles. “I know my dad’s not around to do it anymore, but-“

“Hey.” He takes her in his arms. “I wish I could take it all away, I really do. I wish you weren’t going through all of this, baby.”

“Harry.” She sighs heavily into his chest.

“Sorry.” He rests his chin on the top of her head. “Some habits are hard to break I guess.”

“Have you called anyone else baby in the last year?” She nuzzles in close to him.

“No.” He tilts her chin up to look at him. “I never could.”

“Okay, you can drive me home.” She sighs. “I’m about ready to pass out as it is.”

Blair takes a few minutes to say goodbye to the people still at the house before her and Harry get into her car. He keeps the music volume low, and her eyes start to droop. Harry can’t help but feel soft and warm knowing she was so easily able to fall asleep with him there still. She’d always fall asleep on long car rides.

“Blair.” Harry says, trying to wake her up. “We’re at your place, love.” She groans at him, and he sighs. “Are you really going to make me carry you up?” She groans again and he rolls his eyes. Blair would always pretend to be asleep so Harry would carry her inside. He unbuckles her, gets out, and opens her door to lift her out. “You’re killing me.” He grunts as he carries her to the front door. He keys in, and carries her up the stairs to her door. “I know you’re awake.” He says as he brings her to her bedroom.

“Mm, but you’re so strong and warm.” She mumbles.

“Okay.” He chuckles and lays her on her bed. “Are your pj’s still in the third drawer of your dresser.”

“Harry.” She sits up. “You don’t have to do all that…”

“I was just gonna grab you a shirt and get out of your hair.” He says innocently.

“God, I’m so confused.” She pinches the bridge of her nose.

“About what?” He grabs a bed shirt for her, and sits on the edge of her bed.

“I think I’m just feeling vulnerable, I don’t know.” She looks away from him. “I don’t want you to go.” She mutters, and then looks at him. “But I also don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“If you need me to stay as a friend, I can do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’d never leave you like this.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I was just gonna pretend to leave, and then crash on your couch.”

“Well, you don’t have to do that. Got a queen sized bed now, plenty of room.”

“I can see that.” He smiles. “There was nothing wrong with your old bed. It was kinda fun when we were practically sleeping on top of each other.”

“Yeah, but your bed was better for…well…never mind.” She clears her throat. “Um, I still have some of your old pajama pants in my drawer, you can wear those if you want.”

“I’m good with just boxers if that’s alright with you.”

“Oh, um sure.” She gets off the bed to stand up. “I’m just gonna go wash up and change.”

Harry nods and gets undressed. He goes over to her bathroom door to wait his turn. Blair’s eyes widen when she sees him standing there in his underwear.

“You don’t have a spare toothbrush, do you?”

“Um, you can use one of the extra heads I have for my electric brush.”

“Thanks.” He steps into the bathroom as she leaves to go back to her bedroom.

“Oh my god.” She says to herself. He had beefed up a bit. Harry was already sort of beefy, but he used to be leaner. Had he been getting a lot of protein? She shakes her head as she crawls into bed. Harry comes in shortly after and gets in on the other side. She turns her head to look at him. “Thank you, Harry.”

“You don’t have to thank me.” He looks at her. “I’d be a pretty shitty person to leave you in a time like this.”

“Yeah, but you could be catching tail at some bar with your friends.” She smirks at him.

“You make me sound like I’m promiscuous or something.” He chuckles and turns fully on his side towards her. She does the same. “It’s a stress reliever, and I always wrap it up. M’not doing anything wrong.”

“Do you, um, do what we used to do with any of these hookups?”

“No.” He smirks. “No, I don’t think I could ever trust someone in that way again even if I tried.” He chews his bottom lip. “What about you?”

“Harry, to be honest with you…I haven’t slept with anyone since we broke up.”

“Blair, that was a year ago.”

“I’m well aware.” She rolls her eyes.

“That’s a long fucking dry spell.”

“It’s not a dry spell, it’s a personal choice. I threw myself into the studio, I worked on choreographing a ton of new dances. I was building my brand, bringing in more clientele. Plus…anytime I’d use a dating app or go out with Riley to a bar…no one was ever you.”

“I know things seemed mutual and we didn’t end in some big blow up…but I was so hurt that we couldn’t make things work.” He reaches to tuck some hair behind her ear. “I thought we were going to be together forever.”

“So did I…but I don’t know if I was ready for something so long-term yet, which I know sounds stupid because three years is a long time to be with someone.”

“It’s not stupid. I would have felt the same at that age. It was sort of selfish of me to try to lock you down the way I was.”

“You weren’t being selfish for wanting to be with me, Harry.”

“You know, the last thing I expected when I helped Riley move in that semester was falling in love with her roommate. You just looked so cute that day.”

“You remember how I looked when we first met?”

“How could I forget? You were wearing these sweater leggings that had snow flakes on them, and you were wearing this oversized sweater that was hanging off your shoulder, and you kept trying to tug it back on. You seemed so flustered around me.”

“I was.” She laughs. “I thought for sure you just wanted to fuck me and then leave with the way you pushed me up against the wall when you kissed me.”

“Yeah, you nearly shit yourself at dinner afterwards. Poor Riley had no idea I frenched you for a solid thirty minutes.”

“My lips were so swollen, she had to have known. I was more in shock when you came by a week later to ask me out. God, you were so cute, you were waiting outside my apartment with hot apple cider, and I had such a shit day at my practicum. I was in dingy sweats too, and you still told me I looked beautiful.”

“And I meant it.”

“Then you said I looked tired, and right before I went off on you, you pulled me inside and said that you were going to make me dinner so I could go upstairs and take a long hot shower.”

“Mhm, made you spaghetti and meatballs.”

“And that really yummy homemade garlic bread.” She smiles.

“Then we cuddled up and watched Ratatouille.” He chuckles.

“I was so mad that you had never seen it! And then you ended up loving it.”

“It’s a great movie, honestly.” He says, smiling at her. “Best first date ever.”

“Yeah, it was. When I went to sleep that night I couldn’t believe that a real man wanted to be with me. I don’t think any of the guys I dated in college knew how to cook.”

“Pretty sure I did a good job making you forget about any other guy you had ever been with.” He smirks, and she nudges his shoulder.

“Maybe…maybe when I’m in a better mindset…we could talk about…I mean…I’ve been thinking about you a lot ever since we started talking again, sorry, I’m rambling.” She sighs. “I don’t want you to think that I wanna give things another shot because you’ve been helping me and my mom, but it’s been hard not to think about it…especially after today.” She blinks away a few tears. “I wasn’t expecting you to come to the service. Riley felt awful that she couldn’t be there, and I felt so alone, even being with my mom. You’re so selfless.” She pouts at him.

“I would love to talk about potentially getting back together. I…I don’t think I realized how much I missed you until you walked into my office. I thought I was out having the time of my life, but I wasn’t. Nobody could ever compare to you.”

“I think I just need some time to make sure I’m not…I’m not just feeling this way because you’re being so sweet to me when no one else is.”

“Take all the time you need.” He strokes her cheek. “M’gonna turn over now. If you just so happen to feel like spooning me, I promise not to question it.”

“Please, snuggling sounds like the perfect medicine after today. Assume the position, Styles.”

He chuckles and rolls onto his other side. Blair slots a leg between his, and wraps her arm around his stomach. They both sigh, and wiggle closer to one another. Blair hadn’t felt peace like this in quite some time, and neither had Harry.

//

Blair woke up in a fog the next morning. Her eyes still felt puffy and swollen from crying, and even though the clock read 10AM, she felt like she could stay in bed for at least two more hours. She remembers Harry staying and falling asleep with her, but he wasn’t there next to her now. Where he laid was still warm, so he couldn’t have left too long ago. When she smells coffee, she wakes up a bit more. There was a coffee cup from Dunkin’ on her side table, along with a small bag that she knew had to be a coffee cake muffin. She sits up and sees a note next to the casual breakfast.

Had to rush off to the office this morning. Got a call that one of my major clients passed, and his family is already fighting over the money. Had to time to run out and get you brekkie though! I’ll call you later. – H

Blair pouts at the note, and takes a sip of her coffee, which had cooled down just enough for her to sip it without burning her tongue. She texts Harry a quick “thank you” before diving into her muffin. This was his signature “sorry for not being there when you wake up” breakfast treat. There had been many mornings Blair had woken up alone after spending the night with him. It wasn’t because Harry liked scooting out, he just usually got pulled away due to something work related, and he knew that Blair liked being able to sleep in when she could on the weekends, especially when she was still in school. She never minded because she knew he was busy. She used to just lounge around for an hour or so in his large bed before getting up and making it. Then she’d take an indulgent bath in his Jacuzzi-tub. He’d usually get back to her sometime in the afternoon, and they would snuggle up to watch a movie before he brought her back to her apartment. It worked for them.

There were plenty of times Blair had to scoot early as well. When she was doing her practicum, she needed to be at the high school no later than 7AM, which sucked because at the time she was a major night owl. It’s taken her years of discipline to get herself to fall asleep at a reasonable time so she wouldn’t be so groggy and grumpy in the morning. That was something that Harry helped with as well. He told her about this sleepy time playlist on Spotify that he would listen to on the nights he needed to go to bed early. Blair had told him she couldn’t afford the premium membership and she didn’t want to be jolted awake by ads. So what did Harry do? He bought the subscription plan that allowed for two people to be on it, helped her shift her account, and even though she protested, he insisted. The music sounded like something a masseuse would put on, and it always put her right to sleep. Harry was a genius, at least Blair thought so.

“How do you always have an answer for everything?” She had cried to him on a particularly stressful evening. It was after she graduated, and she had just gotten her business up and running. She felt overwhelmed and scared. “You always stay so calm, it’s like you don’t even care!”

“I just know that this’ll pass, baby. You just graduated from college, you’re going through a major life change. You’ve had the same routine all your life, and now it’s completely different. In a few months things won’t feel as scary.” He smiled at her, and wrapped his arms around her mid-section. “Went through the same thing myself not too long ago. I promise, it gets a lot better. Your early twenties fucking suck.”

“Yeah? How are things looking in the world of mid to late twenties?” She pouted up at him.

“Well,” he moved some hair away from her face, “I’ve got an incredible girlfriend who loves me, and I just so happen to love her, and I’m feeling settled in mt job, and I have a great place to live, and oh! Finally stopped having stress dreams about missing a big exam. Can’t complain too much.”

“I…I’m gonna be really busy at the studio. I have to choreograph all these dances, and start advertising, and-“

“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” He tugged her along down the hall to his home office.

“Harry, I’m not in the mood to fuck in your office…” She said, and Harry chuckled.

“As much as I love it when you let me bend you over my desk, that’s not what this is about.” He took her inside and took out a few sheets of blank paper and some pens. He sat down and pulled her into her lap. “Alright, this used to help me all the time when I was super stressed, still does, actually.” She watched as he drew three large circles, and wrote CHOREOGRAPHY in one, SOCIAL MEDIA, in another, and BUDGET

in the last. “Alright, so these are some rather large cookies, wouldn’t you say?” He looked up at her, and she looked down at him and nodded. “Okay, so what are some ways we can take little bites out of these?”

“Like a checklist for each?”

“Sort of, yeah.” He drew a few stems from each circle. “Almost like a backwards flow chart.”

“Is this what you do with your clients when they ask for financial advice?”

“Sometimes.” He nodded. “But more importantly, I want to help my girlfriend who is insanely frazzled. I hate when people try to be problem solvers…so hope you don’t think that’s what I’m trying to do…”

“No.” She shook her head. “This is great. I think if I have it all laid out in front of me…and can check certain things off…take smaller bites, like you said, I can handle things better.” She grabbed a pen and started writing, and making more stems, color coding a few of them. “My parents are gonna help cover the loan payments for the first year so I can save up, and start paying off my student loans.” She chewed her bottom lip. “And I can set aside some time in the mornings to do the social media stuff, and use the afternoons for choreography…evenings I can work on my website.”

“Just think of how sweet it’ll all taste by the time you finish.” He smiled up at her, and she leaned in to peck his lips.

“I love you, Harry, thank you.”

“I love you too, baby.” He kissed her again, ever so tenderly and soft. “Don’t let this stuff build up, you know you can talk to me about anything.”

“I just feel like my problems are so trivial, like, there are people that are starving, and I’m crying about being overwhelmed.”

“Your feelings are valid, don’t compare it to what someone else might be going through.”

“Do you think, um, could you just hold me for a bit?” It was so rare for Blair to be this vulnerable. Usually she was the one to hold Harry, but once in a while she just really needed him.

“Of course.” He shifted in his seat to cradle her to his chest. He was so warm and inviting, he always made Blair feel safe.

Blair sighs, and shakes herself from the memory. She couldn’t bask in the good times and act as if there weren’t also bad times. Although…there really weren’t that many bad times. She finishes up her muffin and gets out of bed. She grimaced when she saw herself in her bathroom mirror, and decided a long, hot shower would do her some good. She didn’t have the energy to wash her hair, so she grabs a scrunchie to put it up in a bun on the top of her head. As the warm water cascades over her body, she can’t help but continue to let her mind wander to other old memories.

“Harry! I told you I’d be five minutes.” Blair whispered to Harry as he entered the bathroom. He locked the door behind him and smirked. “Riley’s home! Just down the hall sleeping.” Harry pulled back the shower door, and walked into it with her. All he did was put a finger up to his lips.

“Then we’ll need to be quiet.” He whispered to her, ghosting his lips over hers.

“I…I’ve never had sex in the shower before. I always heard it wasn’t as cracked up as it looks in the movies.”

“That’s because people try too hard to do it full on.” He stepped into the water, getting his hair wet, and then moves her so she’s pressed up against the wall. He knelt in front of her, and looked up at her wet body. “Can I make you feel good, baby?”

“Y-yes.”

He grinned, and lifted one of her legs over his shoulder.

“Now, you need to stay quiet.” He pressed his lips to one of her hip bones, and kissed across her pelvis. “So, if it gets to be too much, just suck on your fingers or something, pull my hair, whatever you need to do.” She watched as his eyes darkened when he licked over her clit. His tongue moved to her slit and licked up. He moaned, letting his eyes flutter closed before looking back up at her. “You have no idea how fucking good you taste.”

“Blair!” Riley exclaims as she comes into the apartment. Blair’s taken from her thoughts just as she was whimpering out Harry’s name.

“I’m in the shower!” Blair yells back, and finishes cleaning herself up. She meets Riley out in the living room once she’s thrown some sweats on. “Hi.”

“Oh, god, I’m so sorry I couldn’t be there.” Riley wraps her arms around her friend.

“You couldn’t have known.” Blair hugs her back. “A month in Chicago, I can’t wait to hear all about it.” They let go of each other.

“Are you sure you wanna talk about all that?”

“Yeah, I need the distraction.”

“Alright. I brought coffee and doughnuts.” Riley smiles.

“Thank you, but I might save that for later. I had coffee and a muffin earlier…um, Harry spent the night last night.” Blair blushes as they both move to sit on the couch.

“Holy shit! Pleas don’t tell me you called him for a booty call.” Riley frowns.

“No, it was nothing like that. I told you he was helping with all of the legal stuff…he ended up coming to the funeral unannounced. He was there for me…he drove me home and I asked him to stay. We just slept, and he was gone before I woke up because of a work thing.”

“Ah, and he brought you the old comfort breakfast to make up for it.” Riley shakes her head. “Well, I’m glad he was there for you. I always hoped you would become friends at some point after you broke up.”

“I don’t think I realized how much I missed him. I’ve been so independent for the last year, it felt kind of nice to lean on him for a change.”

“Do you think you wanna get back together?”

“I don’t know…I was definitely feeling something yesterday, even this morning, but I don’t know if it’s because I’m just sad and vulnerable, or if it’s because I really wanna give it a second go. I don’t really know what would be different this time. He still works crazy hours, and-“

“He’s dialed back a lot.” Riley cuts him off. “Ever since he’s taken over, and once he really got settled into it, he hasn’t been working himself to the bone like he was. Are there still some sixty-hour weeks? Sometimes, but not like he was, I swear.”

“He didn’t seem to think we still spoke…so that made me think you weren’t as close with him…”

“I don’t hang out with him as much…I speak with his friend John quite a bit, though.” Riley blushes.

“Speak to or fuck?” Blair smirks.

“Don’t. If Harry knew I was messing around with one of his boys, god, I don’t even wanna think about it.”

“Oh, so he can go out with your friend, but you can’t go out with his?”

“John and I aren’t going out. We just…meet up to fuck sometimes, but we both still hookup with other people. I mean, I’m sure he slept with his share of people while I was away.”

“Did you?”

“There were a couple of people I let take me back to my hotel, yeah.” Riley nods. “Don’t say anything to Harry, okay?”

“Christ, I’m not his best friend all of a sudden. I think I was just emotional last night. I doubt we’ll even-“

There’s a jingle of keys, and then Harry’s entering the apartment. He freezes when he sees Riley.

“Hey! You’re back.” He smiles at his cousin. “How was Chicago?”

“Windy.” Riley says. “But fun, I made a ton of sales.”

“That’s great.” Harry sets the keys on the kitchen counter and then comes further into the living area. “How are you this morning?” He asks Blair.

“I’m okay, um, thanks for breakfast.”

“Yeah, of course, sorry I had to skip out. Uh, I just came back to see how you were, but I can see your girl’s day has started, so I’ll head out.”

“You can stay, Har, we were just gonna paint our nails, nothing you haven’t done with us before.” Riley says. “You don’t mind, right, Blair?”

“S-sure, you can stay, Harry…if you want to.”

“I’d love to stay.” He comes over and sits down on Blair’s other side. “Nothing like giving you a Styles sandwich to make you feel better.” He smirks. “Alright, Riles, what colors did you bring?”

The three ended up having a great day together. It felt like old times. They painted their nails, ordered Chinese, and watched Mystic Pizza. Riley was starting to get tired, so she left around six. The jet lag was catching up with her. So it was just Harry and Blair sitting on the couch watching Wall-E.

“Do you remember the first time we watched this?” Harry asks her a few minutes in.

“Mhm.” Blair smiles without looking at him. “It was that weekend we went away Hampton Beach, and it rained in the evening, so instead of being annoyed, we got all cozy and watched this.”

“After…” He looks at her, a smirk growing on his face.

“Harry.” She rolls her eyes.

“Come on, what did we do just before settling in to watch this adorable film?”

Blair sighs, but gives in, “We made hot fudge sundaes, and, um, I let you lay me on the counter and lick chocolate sauce and whipped cream off my body.” She swallows. “Then I did the same to you. We made a mess of the Air BnB.”

“We cleaned it up. Then we got into that big, comfy bed and just vegged out. Think this is one of my favorite Pixar films that you showed me.”

“You really liked Cars too.” Blair chuckles.

“Yeah, I did. That was a good one.” Harry leans back on the couch, crossing his arms behind his head.

“You don’t need to do this, you know?”

“Do what, love?” He says without looking at her, eyes focused on the screen.

“Babysit me.” She mutters.

“S’not what I’m doing.” He scoffs. “I’m enjoying spending time with you, Blair.” He looks at her. “And I’m worried about you, but I’m not babysitting you.” He puts his hand on her knee and gives it a squeeze before taking it away. “Just relax, yeah?”

“Thanks.” She pauses for a moment. “Harry…would you be taking care of me like this if you had a new girlfriend?” Her eyes start to well up with tears. “Because-“

“Why are you asking a what if like that?” He reaches to wipe her tears with his thumbs. “At the risk of sounding totally lame…I was sort of just waiting on you. Sort of hoping you’d wanna get back together at some point. I tried dating, but it’s like I told you…no one was ever you.”

“So you just kept fucking strangers?” She was so confused.

“It was all meaningless. I figured if you were out there living your life, then I should do the same.” He shrugs.

“Harry, I know you think we broke up because you thought I needed time to be young or whatever, but I wasn’t out there fucking a ton of different people. I just…I don’t know, I wanted to be on my own.”

“And I understood that, as much as it upset me. What was I going to do, beg you to stay my girlfriend?” He moves a bit closer to her. “If we were to get back together, what would you want to be different? Obviously things stopped working…”

“It’s not that they stopped working, I just…I think I just grew up a little bit. You gave me plenty of room for it, but I just sort of realized that there were other things I wanted to do and I didn’t wanna be totally tied down. If we were to get back together, I wouldn’t want you paying for things all the time, or thinking you need to fix all of my problems. Sometimes I just want someone to listen without making suggestions, you know?”

“I didn’t even realize I was doing that.” He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I know you always meant well, and you were just trying to help in your own way.” She gives him a reassuring smile. “It didn’t always bother me, but sometimes it did. I wasn’t perfect either, I know how closed off I could get.” She furrows her brows. “I’ve been trying to work on that. I added the yoga into my routines…so that’s been helping. You sort of inspired that.”

“I should start my membership back up.”

“Yeah…it would be nice to see you in class again.”

“Remember when I started coming on Tuesday evenings, and then we’d go to the Thai place for dinner afterwards?”

“Mhm, and then you’d take us back to your place, and set up a bath for us.” She sighs dreamily. “And then you’d massage my calves for me, ugh, I always loved that.”

“Couldn’t have my baby being sore the next morning, could I?” He pouts playfully at her, and she giggles.

“You were always so good to me.” Her face was only a few inches from his now.

“Fucking worshiped you.” His lips ghost over hers, and she whimpers.

“Kiss me, Harry.”

His lips slot over hers immediately, and cups her cheeks to pull her even closer. He sucks on her bottom lip, and she whimpers again. Blair tugs on Harry’s shirt, and then pushes his back to the couch. She moves to straddle him, and he wraps his arms around her body. They’re both grabbing at different parts of one another, and she shifts so she’s only straddling one of his thighs, rolling her hips down onto it. Harry groans, and starts kissing on her neck. She gets a fist full of his hair, and yanks his head back.

“Harry, I don’t think this is a good idea.” She admits. “I mean…we haven’t agreed to anything. I think we should take this slow, don’t you?”

“You just told me to kiss you, and then you climbed into my lap.” He smirks, and she starts laughing.

“Yeah.” She grips his chin with her other hand. “You’re always good at doing exactly what I say.”

“Always.” He agrees. “If you’re not planning on having your way with me then you should get off. You’re only gonna rile me up, and I’ve not done anything to deserve that.”

“No, I suppose you deserve a reward instead of a punishment.” She presses her forehead to his and lets her hands fall to his shoulders. She sighs heavily and then looks at him again. “I need a little more time. I wanna make sure that this really makes sense. The last thing I wanna do is hurt you again.”

“I don’t want you to feel hurt either.” He squeezes her hips. “I wanna give you the time, Blair, but you’ve also had a year to sort your feelings. You either wanna do this or you don’t.”

“I really hate it when you’re right.” She huffs. “But I know what you’re saying.”

“How about this…why don’t we go out Saturday night? We could go on a date, and see how it feels.”

“Why not Friday?”

“Because you work early on Saturday mornings, darling, and you’re just going to be getting back to it again.” He tucks some hair behind her hear. “Can’t have you being sleepy.”

“You’re so sweet.” She smiles. “Okay, yeah, I’d like that. Um, did you want to just go out for dinner?”

“If that’s what you wanna do, baby. I’m down for whatever.”

“I haven’t been to that grill we used to go to all the time in forever. Feel like I could go for a really good burger.”

“Alright, we’ll go to Benson’s. I’ll pick you up around six, how’s that sound?”

“I think it sounds like a date.”

//

On Wednesday evening, much to Blair’s surprise, Harry walked into one of her evening classes with Riley. Riley had a cheeky smile on her face, and Blair just shook her head at the two of them. It had been ages since Harry had been to one of her classes, and he had picked a yoga day.

“Good evening, everyone!” Blair says once everyone gets there. “We’re gonna start off with our warm up, and then get in to it. We’ll work a little with the weights, and then we’ll cool down with the yoga like always. Does everyone have their weights?” She hears a collective yes. “Alright!” She hops up onto the small stage and gets the music playing.

When the class is over, a few people hang back to talk to Blair. Riley would usually grab a quick bite with her after class. A guy was talking to her now.

“Hey, who is that?” Harry asks Riley as they clean up their stations.

“Hm? Oh, that’s Rich, he has a thing for Blair.” Riley rolls her eyes. “He refuses to take a hint. The second he found out she was single he was all over her. She’s nice to him, but she doesn’t like him back.”

Harry narrows his eyes, and reads Blair’s body language like a book. Her arms were crossed, and she was casually trying to step away from Rich.

“I’ll get him to leave her alone.” Harry says.

“Harry, don’t.” Riley grabs his wrist. “She can handle herself.”

“I know she can, but she looks so uncomfortable. What if they were left alone here, and he tried something. He needs to know she has some backup.” Harry walks over to the two, and Blair can’t help but smirk because she knows exactly why Harry’s walking over. “Hey, sorry to interrupt, but we should get going if we want to make trivia night.”

“Right! Yeah, sorry, Rich, I need to get the studio cleaned up so I can head out.” Blair was thankful. Harry was always good at coming up with excuses for them to leave places early. Usually it was because he needed to get her home so she could fuck him, obviously now that wasn’t the case.

“Oh…alright, well, I’ll see you next week. Have a good night.” Rich looks Harry up and down before leaving.

“Thank you.” Blair sighs. “He’s a nice guy, but I’m not interested.”

“Obviously.” Harry scoffs. “Have fun with Riley.”

“You don’t wanna come with?”

“Nah, I need to get home. I have some stuff I need to do before tomorrow. Still on for Saturday?”

“Mhm.” She nods with a smile.

“Good.” He kisses her cheek. “I’ll call you Friday.”

Harry leaves and Riley helps Blair cleanup before they head out to a Panera for dinner.

“So, you two are going out on Saturday?” Riley asks her when they sit down with their food.

“Yeah, it’s sort of like a first date. I wanna make sure things feel really right with us. I have a feeling we’ll get back together officially, though.”

“Yeah? What makes you think that?” Riley smirks.

“Well…we kissed on Sunday night when he was still over. It was a really good kiss too, it was familiar, but there was still that, like, passion, you know?”

“I would love it if you got back together. I never really liked the other people he dated, and I was so excited when you both got together. He’s like the brother I never had, and I want him with someone that really cares about him. I never doubted that with you. You guys got together at a weird time in your life where you were sort of at different places. Now…well, now you might mesh better. You grew up a lot during the time you were together, I know that was tough on you both.”

“Yeah, it was.” Blair sighs, and bites into her piece of bread. “I feel like I could handle things better now. He’s been there for me during so many tough times, he’s seen me…at my absolute worst, and still loved me through all of it. I can’t wrap my head around him turning into such a playboy.”

“I couldn’t believe it myself, but I honestly don’t think he really knew how to deal with not having you around, and then…I don’t know.” Riley shakes her head. “He always wrapped it up, that’s what John told me, anyways.”

“He mentioned that to me too.” Blair rolls her eyes. “I’m not going to hold anything against him, we weren’t together. I don’t have the right to judge him about it.”

“He only wanted you, B.” Riley smiles.

“I really have missed him.” Blair smiles. “I’m really looking forward to going out with him Saturday night.” She bites her bottom lip. “Wanna come with me to Victoria’s Secret during the day? I think I should pick out something new…”

“Yeah! I’ve got a coupon to go there, actually. I need some new undies.”

“Oh, yay! We haven’t been shopping in forever.”

“I know! I hope I’m not on the road for an entire month like that again. It got old real quick.”

//

On Friday, Harry was in his office wrapping some things up, going over some paperwork. Then he looked over his calendar for Monday, just to see what meetings he had, and if he needed to do anything over the weekend.

“Mr. Styles?” Kiley, the intern training with Kate comes into his office.

“Miss Stewart, what can I do you for?” He asks, giving her his full attention. She pouts slightly at him.

“You can just call me Kiley…you call Kate by her first name.”

“I’ve known Kate for quite some time, Miss Stewart.”

“Well, we’ll get to know each other pretty well once she’s on maternity…right?”

“Most likely.” He nods. “Did you need something?”

“Yes, sorry.” She pulls a paper out of her bag. “Um, I just need you to sign off on the hours I worked this week since Kate left early. I forgot to ask her before she stepped out for her doctor’s appointment.”

“Oh, sure.” He gestures for the paper. “They’re really on you guys about the hours, huh?”

“Yeah.” She sighs. “I don’t mind, though, because I have to write a paper explaining what I did, so having an account of that will be helpful.” She shrugs. Harry hums his response as he signs the paper and hands it back to her. “Thank you…any fun plans for the weekend?”

“Just laying low tonight. I’ve got a date tomorrow, though.” He smiles.

“Oh! That’s nice.” She smiles. “Did you just meet someone?”

“No.” He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Might be starting over with my ex, which I’m pretty excited about since I’m still hopelessly in love with her.”

“Well in that case, I hope it goes super well.” She beams at him.

“Thank you, Kiley.” Her smile widens at him even more. “Feel free to head out, enjoy your weekend.”

“Thank you, Mr. Styles. I expect a full report of your date on Monday morning.”

Harry chuckles and nods as she leaves. Just when he thought his door was going to close, John enters.

“Wrap it buddy boy, we gotta meet the guys soon.”

“About that…I’m going to skip out on tonight.”

“Seriously? Why?” John frowns.

“I…I have a date tomorrow night with Blair, and-“

“You can’t be serious.” John rolls his eyes and sits down. “Why would you even entertain the idea of getting back together with her?”

“Because she seems ready for a relationship again. I still love her, and I think she still loves me. There’s still a chemistry between us, physically, so we’re going to Benson’s for a burger tomorrow to see if everything else is still there.”

“So that means you can’t come out for guy’s night?”

“You know as well as I do that guy’s night never stays guy’s night. I don’t want to be tempted by anything that could fuck me over. Besides, it wouldn’t kill me to stay in for a change. There’s a book I’ve been meaning to get back to. I wouldn’t mind just taking it easy, you guys have a good time without me.” Harry smiles at his friend. “It’s nothing personal…”

“I know.” John sighs. “You’re just fun, that’s all…” John looks down at his phone and smirks.

“Maybe you’ll meet up with that girl you see on the regular. Seems like she just texted you.”

“Maybe she did.” John nods.

“How come you don’t just date her? I’ve watched you turn down other girls to go meet up with her a dozen times.”

“It’s a little complicated. She travels a lot for work, we’re both just looking for someone familiar to hookup with right now.”

“Guess that makes sense.” Harry shrugs. “You’re pretty busy yourself”

“Exactly, so when’s around I see her more, and when she’s gone, I see other people. She does the same. We’re pretty open about it.”

“Good.” Harry smiles. “Have a beer for me tonight, yeah?”

“Alright.” John sighs and stands up. “Have fun with Blair, I guess.”

“You could sound a little more enthused.”

“I’ll be enthused if she doesn’t string you along.”

“She never strung me along.” Harry shakes his head. “We were a great team.”

“Seems like you were always doing everything for her.”

“No, she did plenty for me.”

“Babe?! I picked up a pizza!” Blair shouted as she entered Harry’s place, putting her key in the bowl by the door. “Baby?!” He wasn’t in the kitchen like she thought he’d be. She set the pizza down on the counter and walked down the hall to his home office. Her jaw dropped when she saw him knuckling at his eyes. “Harry, are you crying?” She asked softly.

“Blair.” He said, almost surprised. “Hi, I lost track of time, I’m sorry. Let’s eat.” He stood up, but she went over to him and urged him to sit.

“What happened, what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing, baby.”

“It’s not nothing if you’re crying. Talk to me.”

“I’m just really stressed.” His voice cracked. “I was looking forward to taking over for my dad, but there’s so much other shit that’s been added to my plate that he didn’t really prepare me for. Now he’s down in Florida living it up with my mum, and I can’t even talk to him about it because I don’t want him to be disappointed in me. He’s trusting me with everything.”

“That’s a lot.” She wipes=d his tears away. “I’m so sorry you’re feeling like this.” She chewed on her bottom lip. “Is…is there anything I can do to help? Anything I can do to help take your mind off things for a bit? I brought pizza…”

“Um…yeah, I think there is something you could do for me, but it doesn’t involve food.” He stood and took her hand, leading her out to the living room. They both sat down. “Sometimes when we’re having sex…I let you take the lead, have you noticed that?”

“A little.” She shrugged. “I mean, I like that you’re not super dominating, it makes me feel safe.”

“Right, but before you I wasn’t really like that. I was always in control, but with you…I feel really safe too. So safe…that I’m able to just let everything else slip away when we’re doing what we do.”

“What are you saying exactly?”

“I…I sometimes I think I want you to really be in control. I’m not saying all the time, but I have to be in control of so many things, and I think it would be nice to not.”

“Okay, so I could ride you more if you want.”

“Well, that would be nice.” He smirked. “But I’m talking more like…like maybe you could blindfold me once in a while, or you could cuff me to the bed?” His was flushed with embarrassment. Her eyes widened as she finally started to understand what he was trying to say. “I’ve totally freaked you out, haven’t I? I know that stuff isn’t for everyone. I was just thinking we’ve been together a while now-“

“Harry, calm down.” She smiled, squeezing his hand. “I think it’s kind of hot that you wanna explore some different things.”

“You do?”

“Mhm.” She nodded. “I…just don’t ask me to, like, whip you or anything. I don’t think I could hurt you.”

“No, I’m not looking for pain.” He chuckled. “I just…wanna clear my head sometimes, that’s all.”

“Okay, I think I could be into that. You know how much I love all your ties, I’d love to tie you up with them.” She grinned, and he groaned softly.

“What do you say we leave the pizza for later, and we head into the bedroom to explore a little bit?”

“I say we’re in for a fantastic weekend.”

“Whatever you say man.” John says. “See you Monday.” John leaves Harry’s office, and Harry sighs. He never told anyone about what he and Blair did, it was no one’s business. He certainly wasn’t going to let it slip now.

//

At around 10AM Saturday morning, Blair picked up Riley so they could go shopping. Riley had bags under her eyes, and a fresh hickey on her neck. Blair’s mouth fell open the second Riley got in the car.

“Don’t.” Riley mumbles.

“I didn’t say anything.” Blair chuckles.

“But I know what you’re thinking.”

“Did you meet up with John last night?”

“Yeah, I guess Harry didn’t feel like going out last night, so I met up with him at some bar, and then he came back with me to my place.”

“Oh shit, is still there?”

“No, he left at, like, seven.” Riley rolls her eyes. “But not before he fucked me again.” She shakes her head. “We’ve fucked so many times, I don’t know how he’s not sick of me yet, or how I’m not sick of him.”

“Maybe it’s a sign you two should be more.” Blair smirks.

“I mean, we’re basically just in an open relationship, that’s the way I look at it anyways.” She shrugs. “We were up most of the night.” She yawns loudly.

“You could have stayed home.” Blair frowns as she keeps her eyes on the road.

“No, it’s okay, I wanted to go shopping with you.”

The girls make their way to a Victoria’s Secret, and start shopping around. Just as Riley hoped, there was an underwear sale. Blair indulged in it as well. Nothing wrong with getting some new undies to replace some old ones.

“Oh, these are cute!” Blair says, holding up a cheeky pair of panties.

“Yeah! I’ve been way more into the lace cheeky bottoms instead of thongs lately.”

“Me too! It’s way more comfortable. To be honest, I wear boxers a lot around my apartment. They’re more breathable than athletic shorts, and they don’t ride up.”

“Of course men have more comfortable underwear than us.” Riley sighs heavily. “Oh! Look at these white ones! Can never have too many white pairs.”

“Snag me a pair, please.”

Once the girls are done picking out their underwear, and a couple of bras that were two $50 (yes, way overpriced, but necessary), they head to the part of the store where the lingerie was.

“What are you looking for exactly?” Riley asks as she looks over some babydoll nighties.

“I don’t know, nothing crazy, but if things go well tonight, which I think they will, I wanna surprise him with something fun.”

“You’d really jump into bed with him right away?” There was no judgement in Riley’s voice, more so surprise.

“I mean…I know he’s your cousin and all, but he’s pretty hard to resist, Riles. He had me wrapped around his finger from the second we met.”

“Fair enough.” Riley shrugs. “I might try one of these on…surprise John one of these nights.”

The girls giggle as they pick out different things. Blair ends up finding a black lace bralette and matching panties that she thinks will work well under an outfit. The only thing was the bralette didn’t have any support, like, at all, but she was able to adjust the straps on it a bit to give her a slight lift.

“God, I wish I danced as a kid.” Blair huffs as she leaves the dressing room to meet Riley out at the register line.

“Why?”

“Because then maybe I wouldn’t have these fucking honkers on my chest. I’d love to be able to wear a bralette without worrying. My boobs are so saggy, I look like a granny when I don’t have the proper support.”

“You’re being dramatic.” Riley chuckles.

“Easy for you to say, Miss B Cup.”

“Hey, I’d kill to have boobs like yours. I always feel like mine are too small. I have to wear pushups all the time. Besides, your boobs are not saggy, they just sit a little lower on your chest.”

“When I really started dancing I thought they’d get smaller since I was working out all the time, but nope. The worst part is, it’s all right here.” She lifts her arm slightly and rubs just under her armpit. “I’m only a C, but I feel like a double D sometimes when I put a bra on, it takes all the side boob to the front.” Blair puts her things up on the counter, and Riley goes to the next register.

“Find everything okay?” The girl behind the register asks.

“Mhm.” Blair smiles. “I have some coupons too.” She takes her phone out so the girl can scan the barcodes on Blair’s screen.

“Oh, that’s a good one! Took off 25% of your total.” The girl puts everything into a bag for Blair, and she heads out with Riley.

“So, when will John get to see that babydoll?” Blair smirks at Riley.

“When I feel like he deserves it.” Riley grins. “If he invites me over tonight, I might bring it with me.”

“Do you usually see him two nights in a row?”

“Sometimes, but not often. I think he missed me a little since I was gone for so long. Kinda missed him too. He told me he’d call me later today.” She shrugs.

The girls grab a quick lunch before heading home. Blair didn’t want to eat anything too heavy since she was going to be eating out for dinner, so she just had a salad. She spent some time doing some social media work for her business, and then spent some time putting a new dance together. Her customers had been asking for some more throwbacks, so she was crafting some choreography to a couple of Ricky Martin songs. They could be used for the high intensity days. She always recorded herself so she could go back later to review the steps.

When she was done she was drenched in sweat, so she hops into the shower to freshen up. She sort of ends up pampering herself a bit. She shaved her legs, so she massaged some lotion into them, and used some cocoa butter on her thighs because she liked the way it smelled. After that, she grabbed her electric razor to trip her bikini line, having exfoliated first in the shower, so she was plenty smooth where she wanted to be. She spritzes some perfume into the air and walks through it, then she gets to work on her hair. She had been sporting a shoulder length look lately. Her hair used to be really long in college, but in recent years she had been keeping it a tad shorter. It was up in a braid or bun most days, but she decides to wear it down tonight. She puts on some makeup, and then goes through her closet to find something to wear over her new lingerie. She decides on a pair of black jeans that could easily be word with some booties. She pulls on a blush pink tank top and a tan cardigan to complete the look. You could just see the lace top of the bralette, and she sort of liked that look. Her phone goes off just as she’s putting some lipstick on.

“Hello?” She answers brightly.

“Hey, baby, I’m downstairs.”

“Okay, be down in a sec!” She throws some makeup remover wipes into her bag, and a spare toothbrush, then she heads out. Again, she didn’t quite know what would happen tonight, but she wanted to be prepared. Harry was standing outside his car. He smiles when he sees her.

“Hi.” He says, and opens the car door for her.

“Hi, thanks.” She smiles back and gets inside. They head towards Benson’s, being silent in the car at first. “How was your week?” She asks him.

“Good, had a pretty good workout Wednesday.” He grins, looking at her for a moment before looking back at the road. It makes Blair giggle. “Work wasn’t too stressful for a change, although I’m getting anxious about Kate going on maternity leave.”

“Is the intern no good?”

“No, she just doesn’t have a lot of experience. She’ll get the hang of it.” He shrugs. “How was your week, how are you feeling?”

“I’m okay. I spoke with my mom last night, she’s doing alright. My aunt’s been staying with her, so that’s good.”

“Do you think she’ll sell the house?”

“Nah, she likes where she lives, but I think she’s going to paint and change a few things so it doesn’t feel like such a ghost town, you know?”

“Makes sense.” Harry nods. “I know I’ve offered a ton, but if she needs any help with anything, don’t be afraid to ask. I can hold my own with a paintbrush.”

“Thank you, Harry, that’s very sweet.” She gives his shoulder a squeeze. “It was really nice having you in class Wednesday.” She says shyly.

“Yeah? Would you be opposed if I started coming regularly again?”

“Not at all, I’d really like it, actually.” She smiles. “It…it made it easier to wait to see you tonight.” She blushes, and he reaches for one of her hands. He brings it to his lips to kiss her knuckles.

“You’re cute.” He tells her, resting their hands on the console, not letting go at all.

They get to Benson’s, and get seated in a booth. Harry hesitates for a moment, desperately wanting to sit next to her, but he thinks that might be too much too soon, so he sits across from her. She gives him a funny look.

“What?” He asks.

“Nothing…you’re just far away. You usually sit next to me.”

“I didn’t know if you wanted me to.”

“I want you to.” Harry smiles, stands back up, and slides in next to her. She hooks her arms around his and rests her cheek on his shoulder. “Much better.” She sighs. He kisses the top of her head, and a waitress comes over.

“Evening, folks, are you expecting anyone else?” She asks.

“No, love, it’s just us.” Harry says to her, squinting at her nametag. “Becky, is it?”

“Y-yes.” She clears her throat. “Can I get you started with any drinks or appetizers?”

“Definitely two waters.” Blair begins. “And I’ll have a vodka-tonic, please.”

“I’ll have the same.” Harry says. “Do you want an app?” He asks Blair.

“No, I think just the burger will be good.”

“Right, think we’re ready to order dinner.” Harry says to Becky.

“Great! What can I get you?”

“I’ll have the turkey burger with cheddar cheese and sautéed mushrooms.” Blair says.

“And I’ll have veggie burger with avocado.” Harry says.

“Sounds good, I’ll be right back with your drinks.” Becky says, taking their menus before walking away.

“Just a veggie burger?” Blair asks Harry.

“Yeah, I’ve been craving a good one lately, and they make the best here.”

“Very true.” She nods. Becky comes back over with the drinks, and sets them on the table. “So…do anything fun last night?”

“I stayed in.” Harry says, before taking a sip of his drink. “Got caught up on a book I’ve been reading, watched a little TV, nothing special.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t go out with your friends. Isn’t Friday usually your guy’s night?”

“Yeah, I just felt like skipping last night.” He shrugs. “What about you, what did you do?”

“I ran errands all day, and then went to bed early so I could get up for my early classes this morning. Then Riley and I went shopping, and then I did some work at my place. Got ready to go out with you.” She shrugs.

“What does Riley have to say about all this?”

“She’s happy that we’re entertaining the idea of getting back together.” Blair chuckles and sips her drink. “Did you tell anyone we were going out tonight?”

“Mentioned it to my intern…and to John. He wasn’t so enthused.” Harry rolls his eyes.

“He’s never liked me, and I literally have no idea why.”

“Think he was just jealous that I snagged someone as gorgeous and bright as you.” Harry grins. “You know, when we first got together a ton of people gave me shit because you were still in school.”

“I was in my last semester, and I was twenty-one, it wasn’t like I was a child.” Blair scoffs.

“That’s what I said! It wasn’t like I was looking for someone younger than me, it just happened.”

“We just clicked right away, nothing wrong with that.” She inches a little closer to him, her ankle hooking around his under the table.

“Not at all.” His lips graze over hers, but their food is brought over to the table before they can really kiss.

They both giggle and dig into their food, each moaning out at the taste. They continue to talk about things, catching each other on the last year that they weren’t in one another’s lives. It felt easy and natural.

“I don’t wanna be too forward, but would you like to come back to mine when we’re done?” Harry asks.

“I’d like that.” She nods. “Got any sweets at home?”

“Mhm, I’ve got those chewy chocolate chip cookies you like so much.”

“This night just keeps getting better and better.” She smiles. When the check comes, they both reach for it.

“Blair, let go of the check.”

“No, I wanna pay for dinner.”

“I insist, let me pay.”

“Harry, I don’t want you always paying for everything, come on.”

“Fine, can we at least split it?”

“Ugh, fine.” She slaps her card down and so does he.

“So fucking irritating when you do that.” He huffs.

“No, what’s irritating is that you think I can’t pay for stuff.”

“That’s not what this is! I just like paying for our dates, it’s gentlemanly.”

“Yeah, well, it makes me feel like shit.” Becky comes to grabs the cards, and tells them she’ll be right back. “I’m doing well for myself now, I want things to be more equal. I’m not with you for your money.”

“I know you’re not, baby…I just…I can’t help that I wanna spoil you rotten.” He presses his forehead to hers, and she sighs before pecking his lips quickly.

“There are plenty of other ways you can do that, Harry.”

“Am I gonna have the chance?” Becky comes back with their cards, and they both sign their slips before sliding out of the booth. She takes his hand in hers as they walk out.

“Yes.” She says as they both get into the car. “I…I think wanna see where this goes with you, babe. I feel like I’m really ready for you now…”

“That means the world to me, Blair.” Her bottom lip starts to quiver, and he frowns. “Hey, why are you crying?” He reaches to caress her cheek.

“I just can’t believe you basically were waiting for me all this time.” She sniffles. “I feel so shitty. And I feel even shittier because I’m jealous of all the other people you slept with that we weren’t together.”

“Baby.” Harry sighs. “I was so in love with you, still am, none of them meant anything. I’m sorry you feel hurt by it. You don’t need to worry about it now, though, I’m all yours.” Her hand grips the collar of his shirt and she tugs him close to her, only a few centimeters apart.

“Mine.” She says, eyes darkening before her lips crash against his. She nips and sucks at his bottom lip as his hands cup her cheeks, trying to get even closer.

“Fuck.” He breathes, putting his keys in the ignition. “Need to get you home.” He pulls onto the street, and zips them home. His hand grips her thigh the entire time, squeezing it occasionally.

“Thought of you last weekend in the shower.” She says, shifting on her side a little. “Thought of the first time we had sex in the shower.” Her breath is on his ear now, and she nibbles on his lobe.

“Blair.” He warns, but she keeps going, kissing on his neck.

“Made me feel so good, always make me feel good.”

“Blair, I’m going to crash the car, just sit patiently, please.” She sits back normally in her seat. “Thank you.” He sighs. “So, you really thought of me?”

“It was hard not to with you leaving me breakfast.” She pouts at him. “So sweet of you, and I haven’t had a chance to even reward you for being so good to me.”

“You’re still into all that?” He asks cautiously.

“Only for you…do you still like it?”

“Only if it’s you. I told you I didn’t do that with anyone else.”

“You still trust me enough?”

“Course I do, baby.” He reaches for her hand to intertwine their fingers. He drives a little faster to his place, and they finally reach it. “Gonna take care of you first, and then you can do me, alright?”

“Whatever you want, babe.”

They get up to his place, somehow keeping their hands to themselves in the elevator. Before she knows it, Harry’s slamming Blair against the wall of his front hallway, attacking her neck with his lips.

“Gonna mark you up.” He says as he sucks on her skin. “Then everyone will know you’re taken again.”

She whimpers as her response, and pushes his head further into her neck. She wiggles out of her cardigan, and wraps her arms around his neck.

“Jump.” He grunts into her ear, and she does so, wrapping her legs around his waist so he can carry her to his bedroom. He sets her down on the bed, letting her get her shoes off. He does the same before kneeing onto the bed. She takes her tank top off, and his mouth waters at the sight of the bralette. “Christ.” He breathes as he gropes her supple breasts. “Missed these.” He sucks on her nipple through the lace, and her head rolls back. He does the same to the other one, getting it nice and pebbled. One of his hands slides down between her legs and he whimpers. “Need to get these off you, that okay?”

“Mhm, yeah, please.”

He undoes her button and zipper, yanking the jeans off of her. His eyes widen when he sees the matching panties.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Blair. Are these new?”

“Yeah, bought them today, just for you.” She props herself up on her elbows. “Wouldn’t mind you taking them off, though.”

Harry nearly growls as he tugs them down her legs. His hands slide up and down her smooth skin, having missed the feeling of her skin on his. He spreads her legs apart, and starts leaving open mouthed kisses on her inner thighs, sucking some nasty bruises into them. Blair clutches at his blankets and grits her teeth while he has his fun marking her up.

“Can I?” He asks, looking up at her. “Can I taste you?”

“Yes, of course you can.” She reaches forward to push his hair back, and he smiles at her before licking up her slit.

He licks and sucks all around her folds before working his tongue around her clit, sucking on it briefly before bringing his thumb to it. He licks into her center, making her mewl as he essentially just makes out sloppily with the area.

“Yes, fuck.” Her hands rake through his hair. “Feels so good, Harry.” She grinds against his face, and he moans against her. “Harry, fingers, please, use your fingers.” She whines.

He lifts his head from her, and reaches his hand up to her so she can suck on his fingers. She does so happily, and then he slips two fingers inside her. She gasps and lets her body go slack against the bed.

“Baby, shit, you’re so fucking tight, does it hurt?”

“No, feels so god, m’so wet.”

“I know, you’re dripping.” He pulls his fingers out and sucks on them, moaning again before slipping them back inside to the knuckle.

“R-right there.” She whimpers. Her mouth was open, body writhing under his, having not been touched by another man in almost a year, her body was reacting on overdrive. Her back was arching, and she was pushing her head further into the mattress. “Harry, Harry!” She screams as she comes around his fingers, and he fucks her through it, sucking on her clit to prolong it. As she starts to come down he sits up, and starts taking his shirt off. “Fuck, I’m gonna give it to you so good.” She sits up and watches he takes his clothes off. She takes her bralette off, and tosses it on the floor.

“How do you want me?”

“That depends…um…what would you like me to do? Like, how…how hard do you wanna go tonight?”

“I wanna be able to touch you since it’s been so long, and I wanna be able to look at you.”

“Alright, so we can just keep it sweet and easy, save the rest for another time.”

“Yeah…work back up to it.”

“Get on your back, m’gonna ride you.”

Harry gets himself situated, sitting up against the headboard. Blair raises an eyebrow at him.

“Just wanna be as close as possible tonight, baby.”

“Okay.” She smiles, and gets herself on his lap.

“Are you still on the pill?”

“Mhm, are you okay to not use a condom?”

“Definitely don’t want to. Need feel you.”

“Need to feel you too.”

She grips his hard cock, giving it a few pumps before she guides it inside herself. Her mouth falls open as she feels him stretch her out. Harry looks down and watches as she swallows him whole. They both moan out once he’s full inside her. Her fingernails dig into his shoulders as she gets adjusted to him. His hands squeeze at her hips and ass.

“Shit, Harry.” She presses her forehead to his. “Missed you so much.”

“Missed you too.” He cups her cheeks and kisses her as she starts to slowly rock on and off him. His tongue slips into her mouth, and she grips at his back as she kisses him back. “You feel so fucking good.” He says before biting her bottom lip, sucking on it.

She whimpers and moves herself a little faster on him. She grinds herself against him, feeling the friction on her clit start to form. His arms wrap around her back, his fingers digging into her skin.

“Move with me.” She says into his ear before nibbling on it.

He groans as he starts to thrust up into her. She starts to bounce up and down him, moving his hands to her hips. He watches as her breasts bounce in front of his face, and he leans in to kiss and suck on them. Her head rolls back with pleasure. She wanted to feel his tongue all over her. She brings two fingers to his mouth, and he takes them in quickly. He looks up at her as he sucks on them, swirling his tongue around them, and nipping at the pads of them. She takes them away to rub at her clit.

He growls, and moves to pin her on her back, surprising her completely. He was never like this in bed with her. She looks up at him with wide eyes as he throws one of her legs over his shoulder, and replaces her fingers with his own. She groans at his touch. He was driving himself in so much deeper and she could barely handle it.

“Okay?” He asks her, panting slightly.

“Mhm, it’s good, so good.” One of her hands goes to the back of his neck, pulling him down for a sloppy kiss. They breathe each other in and out once they both start panting. “Harry, fuck, I’m so close.” She squeezes around him and he bites down on her shoulder.

“Blair.” He moans into her ear. “Can I come inside you?”

“Yes! Fuck, yes, please!” She screams as she’s coming again, feeling even more turned on when she feels Harry’s hot come start to fill her up. She grinds her hips towards his trying to make her orgasm last as long as possible. “Love it when you fill me up, feels so good.” She says as she continues to squeeze around him.

He slots his mouth over hers as they both start to come down. Their tongues mold together as they kiss lazily. He’s slow to pull out, but he was too sensitive to stay inside her any longer. She squeezes her legs closed to try to not make a mess. Harry scoops Blair up quickly bridal style to carry her to the bathroom, setting her down gently on the toilet, and leaving her to do her business. When she walks out of the bathroom, he’s laying on his bed in a fresh pair of boxers with a dreamy smile on his face. She climbs onto the bed and lays in between his legs, resting her head on his tummy. She buries her face into his soft skin while he starts to card through her mussed up hair.

“So…we’re really back together?” He asks after a few moment of peaceful silence. She looks up at him with a smile on her face.

“Yeah, I really wanna be your girlfriend again.”

“You have no idea how happy I feel right now.” He continues to play with her hair as she sets her head back down.

“You’ve never really taken control like that before…I kinda liked it.” She peers up at him again, grinning. “Maybe I should see what being the sub feels like sometime.”

“Oh, baby, I don’t know if I could switch like that. Don’t think I’d get much pleasure in making you wait for things. Think I’d give in the second you asked for something.” He chuckles.

“You’re so cute, Harry, but I understand what you’re saying. I don’t mind being the one to do that stuff when you really need it, babe.” She moves further up his body so she can be closer to his face. “Do you think in a bit when you’re ready to go again we could…bring out some of your ties?”

“Feel like I’m already bloating back up, fuck.” He groans, and kisses her.

“You know what I’ve really missed doing with you?” She says, moving her lips to the shell of his ear.

“What, baby?”

“Fucking that tight hole of yours.” She says lowly, and he whimpers.

“Yes.” He breathes, and she looks at him. “Still have everything, it just hasn’t been used in a while.”

“Would you really wanna get into all of that tonight? I mean, I’m game if you are…you seemed hesitant before.”

“I just wanted to feel really close with you before, but now that we’ve got that out of our system I’m definitely up for it.” He pecks her lips. “We’ve got the rest of the weekend to do all we want.”

“Mmm, and the weekend after that, and the weekend after that, and maybe sometimes during the middle of the week. Oh! Remember when I used to come to your office at work, and I’d let you bend me over your desk, god, that was always so hot.”

“Or that time we screwed in that bathroom at your studio?” His smile was incredibly mischievous.

“Or the times you sit me up on the counter in your kitchen and fuck me?”

“Or the time you bent me over my own desk her here?”

“I think it’s time we make some new memories.” She says, getting off of him, and extending her hand out to him for him to follow.

“Couldn’t agree with you more.”

Blair leads them inside Harry’s walk in closet where he kept his box of toys. It was still in the same spot as always. She pops the lid off and they both smile at each other.

“How long do you think I could edge you for?” She asks him.

“Um, I should be okay to go for a while since I already came.”

“Excellent.” She picks up a cock ring, the kind that vibrates. “We’ve got a lot of time to make up for.”

[fourdaysofrain]

Butterflies and Dahlias

Summary: Tony helps Peter with his crush on MJ. 

(Just a little fluff to help those of us going into midterm season!)

Read on AO3

Peter had been texting someone on his phone since the moment he set his bag down in the lab. Not that Tony minded, he was too busy with his current project: restoring his dad’s old radio. It normally sat on his nightstand, but recently it had taken to playing random stations from Norway a few hours before sunrise. Tony wanted to blame Thor, but it was more likely a side-effect of a past upgrade gone wrong. Whatever the issue was, Pepper was not a fan. That meant Tony had to fix it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Peter look up from his phone and glance out the window of the compound’s lab. He squinted a bit at the sun shining into his eyes.

“MJ says that commuting to your workplace is an example of economic privilege,” he said, apropos of nothing.

“Yeah?” Tony looked up from his desk to assess the teen across the room from him. “Why’s that?”

“It’s something about how it makes you need enough money to buy a car, and the ability to pay for gas, and free time, I think?” Realizing that Peter was just rambling in his excitable teenager way, Tony turned back to his desk and continued to work on fiddling with the radio. ”‘Cause you need to be able to have time to commute instead of like, take care of your kids or something. I told her that Happy drove me here.”

“She sounds like a peach. What else does she say?” Tony replied distractedly, searching for the right size screwdriver.

“She also says that me wearing Ben’s old work shoes is closer to the original spirit of Doc Martens than the people at our school who buy them new.” Peter put his phone down on the table and started moving his hands in time with his words. ”She told me the history of them, it’s really interesting!”

The damn screw was such a weird size. “Is it?”

“Yeah, ‘cause it’s like, they were the working class of the 50s and 60s’ work shoes, and then the workers’ children would get them as hand me downs, and that’s the generation that started rock music and all that, so they have a rebellious history.” Peter jumped up to sit on a nearby table and continued to talk excitedly. ”She also told me about the racial history of a bunch of music genres. Did you know salsa music has a lot of African influence? I never knew that! It’s something about the syncopated beat structure, I don’t know.”

“Tell me about it,” Tony said mindlessly. He finally found the right size screwdriver and successfully started to reattach the back panel of the radio.

“Even the definition of syncopation is ‘the disturbance to the normal pulse of meter.’ Like, what’s the normal meter then? Whatever a bunch of old European white guys decided on?”

Tony noticed the lull in the conversation and gave a quick, “Mhmm.”

“There’s just so much whitewashing in our culture! Like, so much.” Peter paused for just a second to quickly check his phone. ”I really should be more aware of that stuff, especially because Queens is so diverse. And Spider-Man’s trying to be inclusive of everyone.”

“Is he now?” Tony asked, his attention still on the radio in front of him.

Peter nodded as he continued to speak. “I worry that I come off as too white savior-y when I’m saving people, but I brought up Spider-Man being white to MJ and she said she thinks he’s doing pretty good. So, it can’t be that bad, right?”

Tony finally dragged his attention away from his desk and looked over at Peter. He looked a little deranged, with his hair askew and cheeks slightly flushed.  

“This MJ gal,” Tony said, pointing at Peter with the screwdriver. ”You like her?”

“What?” Peter’s mouth stayed partly open, his train of thought evidently derailed by Tony’s question.

“You like MJ.”

Peter laughed nervously and ran a hand through his hair. “No! I mean like, yeah, I like her, she’s one of my friends. But like, like like her?”

Tony leveled him with a steady look. “Do you?”

There were a few beats of silence as Peter leaned back until he was laying down on the table and looking upwards. Tony could hear his sigh from across the room.

“I think I like MJ,” he said, staring desolately at the ceiling.

Tony took off his tinted glasses and set them carefully on his desk. “Hey, good for you.”

“No, what?” Peter pushed himself up from his position until he could make nervous eye contact with Tony. “This is bad!”

“C’mon, kid, brighten up! You’re 16, the world is your oyster, and so on and so forth.” Tony waited for a reaction from Peter, but none came. “Have I told you about when I knew I was in love with Pepper?”

Tony had always held his cards close to his chest when it came to his personal life, so Peter perked up at the prospect of learning more about him.

“When’d you know?” he asked.

“Besides seeing her after I got the new ticker,” Tony said, tapping his shirt where his scars from the arc reactor were with the screwdriver he still held. “There was a night after I got it removed, nothing special about it, where I just looked at her and knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her.”

Peter rested his head in his hands. “Why that night?”

Tony looked off into the distance and smiled, lost in thought. “I had just given her a necklace that was made with the shrapnel they yanked out of my heart. I’m not normally big on romance, so that sealed the deal for me.”

“Just like that?” Peter asked. “It just took a necklace?”

“It wasn’t just a necklace, it was a…” Tony trailed off as he searched for the right words, waving the screwdriver in lazy circles near his ear. “It was a culmination of years of tension.”

Peter scrunched his nose. “Gross.”

“It’s not gross, it’s romantic.” Tony sniffed and set the screwdriver back on his desk. “You’ll get it when you’re older.”

There was just a moment of silence before Peter started talking again.

“So,” Peter said, starting to swing his legs off the side of the table, “I need to buy her a necklace, then.”

“It’s not about the necklace, kid.” Tony waved away the remaining holograms and gave Peter his full attention. ”It’s about what it represents.”

Peter sighed and fell back onto the table. “I don’t have any shrapnel in my heart, man.”

“What’s something, anything, she’s told you about that you can make lovey-dovey?” Tony asked, barely holding back an eye-roll.

“I don’t know.” Suddenly, he lifts his head up and looks at Tony. “Wait, she mentioned the Black Dahlia murder the other day, that’s a flower, right?”

“That’s a flower,” he confirmed, pointing at Peter. “What can you do with that?”

Tony waited while Peter thought.

After a few seconds, Peter cringed and smiled awkwardly before saying, “I can get her a necklace of a black dahlia?”

Tony ran his hand through his hair. This kid. He sighed, then clapped his hands together.

“Alright, kid. If you’re going to do this, you’re doing it right.” He pulled his phone out and started tapping as he rambled. ”I know a great glassworker in Italy who can fix you up with something real quick. I’ll cover the cost and shipping, of course.” He ignored Peter’s muffled squawk of surprise. ”Unless you want to get it yourself, in which case I can loan you a private jet. Or, just make a healthy donation to fund a field trip for your AcaDec team to go to Europe--”

Peter cut him off by waving his hands. “Woah, woah, woah! Mr. Stark! Italy? We’re going to MoMA next week, I can’t go to Europe!”

“Alright, I hear you. No Europe.” Tony clicked his phone off and slid it back into his pocket. He saw the forlorn look on Peter’s face and tilted his head towards him. “Look, kid. You like her. Just be your normal dorky self. Don’t pretend to be anyone you’re not.”

Peter sighed and shoved his fingers into his hair. “Mr. Stark, I spend half my free time pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“Oh, kid.” Tony couldn’t hold back a chuckle at the sight of Peter unraveling over a girl. “You want the easy way?”

Peter jerked his head up to look at Tony. “Yes, please.”

Tony could see the desperation in his eyes. Oh, to be a teenager again.

“There is no easy way,” Tony said as he slid his tinted glasses back on. “Get used to it now.”

Peter groaned and laid back down on the table, hitting the back of his head on the surface a few times for good measure.  

Tag List: @ironfamjam @addi-is-amazing @mysterio-is-a-little-bitch @wellplacedbanana @night0seven @unfathomable-universe​ @bibbidi-bobbity-booyah @spideynamu

[arcticdementor]

When I saw him, he was outside Payne Whitney. Nothing about the tall, gray façade suggests it is the university gym, unless there is a new trend of contractors housing athletics departments in Gothic cathedrals. You wouldn’t guess by looking at the frosted glass panes and arches that the third floor hosts the world’s largest suspended indoor swimming pool. It is a work of art, like the rest of Yale’s buildings.

Marcus was smoking by a bench, his face jaundiced from three packs that day. This is atypical for Yale students—most abstain from smoking. There was no reason for him to smoke so much, just as there was no reason for me to ride around campus on a blue Razor scooter. But Yale students tend to have such quirks. His suit-jacket was dusty and smelled of sweat—he didn’t mind lifting weights in a dress shirt and trousers if that meant more time to read Nietzsche alone at the bar.

When I hugged him, he felt skeletal. I asked if he had eaten today. He assured me that his earthly requirements were limited—no need for anything other than alcohol and cigarettes. “I can buy you a sandwich.” He refused. I insisted. A nice one. Bacon and egg. Or steak and cheese. I was testy now. “GHeav is right there. I’ll be back in six minutes.”

He turned his face towards me, warm with friendliness—and with one sentence, he changed our relationship forever.

“You know I’m rich, right?”

“What?”

“You know I have a trust fund, right? I can buy my own sandwich if I wanted it.”

This is the moment when after three years of friendship, Marcus sat down and told me his life story. His cottages in Norway. Sneaking into the family study. Learning about the cost of hardwoods and hearing his boorish, critical father sulk in 5-star hotel rooms.

Marcus did not act this way out of anxiety, grief, stress, or because he had nobody to tell him his habits will kill him. He lived as a starving writer not out of necessity, but for the aesthetic. Out of some desire to imitate the Bohemian 19th century writers. Out of artistry. Style. Intentional choice.

…

This is a story about an institution and an elite that have lost themselves.

…

Over the past decade, elite colleges have been staging grounds for what Matthew Yglesias has termed the Great Awokening. Dozens of scandals have illustrated a stifling new ideological orthodoxy that is trickling down into the rest of society through HR departments, corporations, churches, foundations, and activist organizations. The nation is becoming polarized and its parts disconnected. The right is evil, and the left is stupid. Or is it the other way around?

The campus “free speech” debate is just a side-effect. So are debates about “diversity” and “inclusion.” The real problems run much deeper. The real problems start with Marcus and me, and the masks we wear for each other.

…

Based on statistics from the class of 2013, approximately 2% of students hailed from the lowest income quintile, while 69% came from the top 20%. How did those poor students fare after graduation? Around 2% of students at Yale move from the bottom to the top quintile. In other words, nearly all of them. You show up poor, and you leave rich. Going to an Ivy League school may be the fastest way to join the upper class.

But this low number of 2% surprised me because when I was at Yale, everybody kept talking about how broke they were.

…

Poor people—actually poor people—don’t talk this way. They tend to stay under the radar because they don’t know the rules of the game. But I bought it—at least when I was a freshman. If they were constantly announcing how broke they were, my assumption was that they must have even less money than I do.

This turned out to be wrong. The reality was that they were invariably from the upper-middle and upper classes. I know this because they eventually told me, like Marcus did. But there were tells. These students didn’t act the way my friends and I did growing up. They didn’t know how much pens or flights or cars were supposed to cost. They couldn’t tell when a restaurant was a good deal.

Pretending to be poor is a lot easier than pretending to be rich—just because there are so many different ways to be poor. But there are still small quirks you have to get right. Social class doesn’t just influence how you walk and talk; it influences how you interact with others. The stereotype is that poor people are improper—but sometimes it is the opposite. They try to do things as they think they are meant to be done. Spending a hundred hours building bat wings for a Halloween costume. Renting a limo for their child’s prom.

But lying about anything is tricky—you risk being found out—so what were these people trying to accomplish by acting broke? And this raises the broader question: why pretend to be of a social class you are not?

…

What about the regular rich? Not the children of billionaires, but the children of millionaires. The common impulse is to emulate the people one or two levels above you—so they might also act poorer than they are. But whereas the super-rich learned purposeful discretion from their parents at weekly dinner table meetings, the regular rich did not. They learned it through mimicry—and with varying degrees of success. The less sophisticated copycats end up brazenly proclaiming that they are “broke” and “upper-middle class.”

For some people, this isn’t an act; they actually believe this. After all, they do seem poor when compared to the hyper-rich. They can’t afford spontaneous Spring Break trips to private Bali islands. They see their prep-school classmates’ Facebook photos and realize that they are one, or maybe two, pegs down from that, and so they use the term “upper-middle class” without really knowing what this term refers to. They have no idea how the actual upper-middle class, the middle class, or the poor really live. Those students never went to their prep school, so for all intents and purposes, they do not exist. Like Krasnoyarsk, Siberia—we know it exists. We can find it on a map. But we don’t need to concern ourselves with it. Often, this is what the real poor are to rich people—they are a theoretical construct that exist somewhere else.

…

In another instance, I was privately discussing with a professor the pros and cons of a Food Stamp reform proposal. After some analysis, I commented on my own experience with the program. His response was complete shock. “You don’t really mean you were on welfare. You just mean you were supported by your parents, right?”

In a world of masks and façades, it is hard to convey the truth.

And this is how I ended up offering a sandwich to a man with hundreds of millions in a foreign bank account.

…

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with haphazard and sometimes warped class signaling. But if you put on a façade for long enough, you end up forgetting that it is a façade. The rich and powerful actually start believing that they are neither of those things. They actually start believing that there is not much difference in status and resources between themselves and the upper-middle class, the middle class—and eventually, between themselves and the actual poor. They forget that they have certain privileges and duties that others do not. They forget that the inside joke was just a joke all along.

…

When these kids grow up, they end up at conferences where everybody lifts their champagne glasses to speeches about how we all need to “tear down the Man!” How we need to usurp conventional power structures.

You hear about these events. They sound good. It’s important to think about how to improve the world. But when you look around at the men and women in their suits and dresses, with their happy, hopeful expressions, you notice that these are the exact same people with the power—they are the Man supposedly causing all those problems that they are giving feel-good speeches about. They are the kids from Harvard-Westlake who never realized they were themselves the elite. They are the people with power who fail to comprehend the meaning of that power. They are abdicating responsibility, and they don’t even know it.

…

There is another reason why people might pretend to be poor. This reason is much more serious than fitting in or avoiding hitmen. The rich and powerful are expected to take responsibility for things, and blamed when they go wrong.

“Check your privilege.” Just about every college student has heard this phrase since 2013. What it means is evasive. But like most memes that strike a chord with people—there is some point to it. The rich have privileges. They therefore also have responsibilities. The responsibilities are not always so fun.

…

Would you want to be the strongest man in the village right at the moment when you failed to use that strength properly and the village is dying and rivals are out for blood? Or would you rather be the average person, eating the normal amount of food, without being hated?

But that was just a thought experiment. Those are people in crises—in a hunter-gatherer village at war. We live in America. Certainly things are different during a stable, prosperous period, in a technologically advanced society. Would you want to be exceptional then?

Not necessarily. The elite are faced with certain hard burdens.

The elite are expected—by everyone else, and by each other—to use their power to make sure society works properly. That is, they are expected to rule benevolently. The reason they are expected to do this is that if they don’t, nobody else can or will. The middle class and the poor do not have the powers and privileges that the rich and elite do, and cannot afford the necessary personal risks. But without active correction towards health and order, society fails.

…

In times of political uncertainty, when things are not going well, elites face more scrutiny, and more internal pressure to find people to blame—whether rightly, or as scapegoats. It becomes a bigger liability to be openly elite.

Further, such times are themselves caused by political dysfunction among the elite, when elite institutions forget how to listen to reason (or have decided not to) and forget how to coordinate towards benevolent rule.

At elite conferences, they wonder how to regain trust, or otherwise deal with the rising atmosphere of populist discontent. They acknowledge that something is deeply wrong. But they dare not lay the blame at their own feet, caused by their own overreaches and dysfunction. Anyone who did would immediately be under suspicion. No longer one of us, but one of them. So, those who might otherwise lead the difficult but necessary elite self-critique instead keep their mouths shut, or they say the wrong thing without ideological, psychological, and social preparation for the consequences and get cast out. Only the true believers incapable of self-critique, the incompetent, and the cynics, remain as voices in the public forum. They talk in circles, never quite able to correct course and come to any new conclusions, except the need to double down on current ideological practices.

…

They say that the recent scandals at Yale had to do with racial and social justice. I don’t think that’s what it was really about. When looking at one or two scandals, it’s easy to buy the story that it is just students organizing and using their rights of free speech and assembly to protest what they see as injustices perpetrated by the university. But when looking at all of the scandals together, another narrative starts to emerge.

And that narrative is much closer to this: members of the ruling class are not sure what to do with themselves—and they are not even sure they want to rule.

…

When people think of universities, they think of their local state school, or else Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. And when they think about Yale, it is often when they are reading about a president, a Supreme Court justice, or the editor of The New Yorker. That’s because Yale graduates play no small part in running the world. It is the school the elite want to send their kids to. It is the school the lower classes assume their kids will never go to.

…

What happens when a school with this position is embarrassed about its role as an international trendsetter? What if instead of doing the hard work to set the tone for responsible rule, it abdicates that responsibility?

…

But the appearance of bottom-up protest politics is always a bit of a false narrative.  It would be one thing if the students were polled and a majority said they wanted the name changed, or some other process was used. At least the university could say that it was making decisions based on some objective democratic process, and wasn’t just being pushed around. But this is not what happened. No polls were taken. There was no authoritative process. The school said no for a few months, then caved. If the school were actually confident in its position to resist, it could have easily pushed back on the protests. Instead, it folded on demands from a small number of students willing to make noise. Either the university administrators are spectacularly spineless, or the protests just provided a convenient impetus and excuse to do something they already wanted. We can look at several more incidents and notice a similar trend.

…

What do all of these events have in common? Some had student support. Some did not. Some started as public outrage taken to the street. Some were completely internal. What they had in common was an administration and student body coordinated around an ideology that continually mutated to ensure moral entrepreneurship and a continued supply of purges, as new forms of human behavior or commonplace descriptors became off-limits. Some of this energy was genuine, some cynical.

These were not kids protesting the Vietnam war, or graduate students mobilizing for better pay and medical care. Nobody would have had a gun shoved into their arms and sent across the world if Yale had not fired the professors. Nobody would have lost money if they did not change “Master.” In fact—Yale lost money on these changes in the form of alumni donations and administrative time. Meetings, committees, redone paperwork, and brand new “head of college” plaques. These changes were neither meant to save lives, nor to save money.

But what was the point of it all?

…

Thousands of hours of human effort and labor. And for what? What was it for?

If you ask supporters, they will tell you the cost does not matter so much, because this is about creating an ideal world. Of course the professor should be fired—how dare she stand against the minority student organizations? Of course it’s okay that the Yelp reviews were published—she should never have written them. Of course names should be changed if they hint at or honor the wrong ideology. What does preserving history matter if history is racist? The university is handling things according to its proper ideals of empathy and inclusion.

In short, their point was that this was all to help poor people. Immigrants. People whose parents are from distant, impoverished lands. People of color. Changing “Master,” firing the dean, and firing professors was all for this.

Except this did so little to actually help any of these people that this could not possibly have been the main motivation.

None of this was actually to their benefit, except for the few activists willing to invest time and energy into the game. It is not easy to stay up-to-date with the new, ever-more complex rules about what you are allowed to say to qualify as the bare minimum of sociable and sane. It is cognitively and socially demanding. I had to not just study psychology and computer science, but I had to stay up-to-date with the latest PhD-level critical theory just to have conversations.

…

If words like “Master” are deemed offensive based on questionable linguistic or historical standards, then this means other words and phrases can become offensive at a moment’s notice. Under these rules, only people in the upper ranks who receive constant updates can learn what is acceptable. Everybody else will be left behind.

The people best positioned for this are professors at elite universities. They are ingrained in the culture that makes up these social rules. They get weekly or even daily updates, but even they cannot keep up.

…

A cynical observer might conclude that this is all just revolution as usual; a small clique of agitators seizing more and more power, and purging their enemies by virtue of their superior internal solidarity, a bold and demanding ideology, lukewarm popular moral support, and no real organized opposition. In some ways, that is what’s going on. They have the bold ideology, the ambient support, and no real opposition.

But importantly, they don’t have internal coordination by any means other than adherence to the ideology itself. Even members of the clique are never really safe. Anyone who contradicts the latest consensus version of the constantly mutating ideology, even if they have worked to its benefit or are otherwise obviously on side, gets purged. If you don’t keep up, you get purged.

It doesn’t matter that the ideology is abusive to its own constituents and allies, or that it doesn’t really even serve its formal beneficiaries. All that matters is this: for everyone who gets purged for a slight infraction, there are dozens who learn from this example never to stand up to the ideology, dozens who learn that they can attack with impunity if they use the ideology to do it, and dozens who are vaguely convinced by its rhetoric to be supportive of the next purge. So, on it goes.

This is the nature of coordination via ideology. If you’re organizing out of some common interest, you can have lively debates about what to do, how things work, who’s right and wrong, and even core aspects of your intellectual paradigm. But if your only standard for membership in your power coalition is detailed adherence to your ideology, as is increasingly true for membership in elite circles, then it becomes very hard to correct mistakes, or switch to a different paradigm.

And this helps explain much of the quagmire American elites are stuck in: being unable to speak outside of the current ideology, the only choice is to double down on a failing paradigm. These failures lead to lower elite morale, resulting in the class identity crisis which afflicts so many at Yale. Ironically, the result is an expression of that ideology which is increasingly rigid on ever more minute points of belief and conduct.

…

What is the point of this new ideology? This ideology is filled with inconsistencies and contradictions, because it is not really about ideological rigor. Among other things, it is an elaborate containment system for the theoretical and practical discontent generated by the failures of the system, an absolution from guilt, and a new form of class signaling. Before, to signal you were in the fashionable and powerful crowd, you would show off your country club membership, refined manners, or Gucci handbags. Now, you show how woke you are. To reinforce their new form of structural power, people dismiss the idea that they even have the older, more legible forms of status. They find any reverse-privilege points they can, and if they are cis-white-men, they pose as allies. On an institutional level, the old ways of legitimizing power are gone, and the new motto is this: diversity is legitimacy.

There is a deep comedy to this sort of signaling. Only around 2% of the student body was in the bottom 20% of American society, and yet extremely wealthy Singaporean students who had spent just a few years in America marched in the street and referred to themselves as “people of color.” People’s experiences were ignored when they volunteered information that countered the main narrative, because the surface-level debate wasn’t the point. The point was to signal that you were with the program. Only a select and secret group of student “leaders”—who were already savvy enough to engage comfortably with hierarchy—were invited in to chat with administrators.

Shouting from the rooftops that “They aren’t doing enough!” is much easier than following any traditional system of elite social norms and duties, let alone carefully re-engineering that system to reestablish order in a time of growing crisis.

…

But there is more to selling out that nobody talks about. These jobs are the dream jobs of the middle class. They’re not supposed to be jobs for the sons and daughters of millionaires and billionaires—these kids don’t actually need the money. They want independence from their parents and proof that they can make it on their own—and prestigious work experience—but they have wealth acquired through generations that they can always fall back on. These people are generally as harmless as the middle class—which is to say completely harmless. They keep to themselves. They quietly grow their bank accounts and their 401ks. And just like the real middle class, they don’t want to risk their next promotion through being too outspoken. They have virtually no political power. This mindset is best encapsulated by: “I’ll go with the program. Please leave me alone to be comfortable and quietly make money.”

They effectively become middle class, because there is no longer any socially esteemed notion of upper class. They have a base of power, of f-you money, that they could use to become something greater than just another office worker or businessperson. But there is no script for that, no institutional or ideological support. What would it even mean to be an esteemed, blue-blooded aristocrat in 2019? So they take the easy and safe way.

How else do Yale students give up their responsibility?

They go in the other direction. These are the people who call themselves idealists and say they want to save the world. They feel the weight of responsibility from their social status—but they don’t know how to process and integrate this responsibility into their lives properly. Traditionally, structurally well-organized elite institutions would absorb and direct this benevolent impulse to useful purpose. But our traditional institutions have decayed and lost their credibility, so these idealists start looking for alternatives, and start signalling dissociation from those now-disreputable class markers.

…

Who is winning? This question is an important one. Yale administrators had lofty goals. In an attempt to placate their own biases, the administrators and faculty forgot that they are the ones who are supposed to be teaching. Instead of expelling or suspending the small number of people actively undermining the student body and university as a whole, the university does nothing, or actively accelerates the process. The professors are the ones who leave. The radical clique feels emboldened.

Now we can begin to understand the real problem at Yale. It is not free speech—and it is not non-inclusivity. The standards of reality, and the standards of morality not based solely on being woke, are ousted. That’s because the conventional standards of elite morality, based on responsible use of power—actually responsible, not just a convenient feeling of doing good—are much harder, and based on the very self-consciousness that everyone is trying to avoid.

…

The result is an institution increasingly unable to carry out its own mission, as tuition rises to pay for more administrators, and ideological drama makes it harder and harder to actually teach. And now we are back at the original question. What was the point of Yale? What was the point of going to Yale? What is the point of elite institutions?

Is the point of Yale to promote the humanities and knowledge of the West that is hard to learn anywhere else? This is not the full mission. Donald Kagan and Lee Bass’s year-long history of the West program was cut, due to faculty protesting that it was not multicultural enough, despite having large interest and $20 million in funding.

Is Yale’s vision a futuristic, technocratic university? Is the university divesting from the liberal arts for the purpose of committing to the technology of the future? This isn’t the case, either. Computer science enrollment has increased significantly in the past decade. But Yale’s computer science department is lagging behind other schools. The university has taken steps towards improving the department, but in general shows no signs of a visionary commitment to expanding tech or significantly expanding professorships.

…

Maybe the university has lost every purpose other than giving students a social environment in which to party. If the students aren’t educated or visionary, at least they’re networking and hedonically satisfied.

Except they’re not. It would be one thing if they were happy—but even this is not true. They don’t know what is expected of them, or what they should aspire to be. The lack of expectations creates nihilistic tendencies and existential crises. In 2018, around one quarter of Yale undergraduates said they sought mental health counseling. One quarter of Yale students took the “Happiness and the Good Life” course in 2018 in an attempt to find answers. Students are demanding more mental health resources. A new wellness space was created with bean-bag chairs and colored walls. But the real sources of unhappiness are more systemic. They are rooted in uncertainty about the future.

If Yale students are uncertain about the future and their role in it, what does that say about the rest of society?

…

So what if Yale, and Yale students, are abdicating responsibility? We can all just send our kids to Harvard, or MIT, or move to California and go to a state school. I heard UC Berkeley is pretty good.

But the problems present at Yale are present at every other university, and schools outside of the United States look to elite American universities as role models. If things are broken at elite universities, things are broken, period.

…

Yale is supposed to be using its power and reputation to set standards for excellence, but instead it is abandoning its responsibilities and getting embroiled in controversy after controversy. Yale is not special in this regard—other colleges are also often embroiled in controversies. But the controversies of top colleges matter most because they determine what is acceptable for everybody else.

And what’s happening at Yale reflects a crisis in America’s broader governing class. Unable to effectively respond to the challenges facing them, they instead try to bail out of their own class. The result is an ideology which acts as an escape raft, allowing some of the most privileged young people in the country to present themselves as devoid of power. Institutions like Yale, once meant to direct people in how to use their position for the greater good, are systematically undermined—a vicious cycle which ultimately erodes the country as a whole.

Segments of this class engage in risk-averse managerialism, while others take advantage of the glut to disrupt things and expand personal power. The broader population becomes caught up in these conflicts as these actors attempt to build power bases and mobilize against each other. And like Yale, it seems a safe bet that things will continue and even accelerate until some new vision and stable, non-ideological set of coordination mechanisms are able to establish hegemony and become a new ground for real cooperation.

[pankajchavan]

What can we learn from COVID19 situation? Reflecting on the different forms of the divide in the education space

As a response (someone may say it was merely 'a reaction') to the COVID 19 situation, the shift from the face-to-face to online teaching was very evident. It was experienced very differently by the different stakeholders of the education space such as students, teachers, schools and colleges, parents, government etc. 

In the process, where online teaching-learning became the most discussed thing, the issue of the Digital Divide surfaced very prominently, which almost used to reside at the bottom and largely remain invisible. 

I would say people overlooked many forms of the divide which existed in many different ways over decades, out of which digital divide is just one among them. In the light of such pandemic, people started talking about the related issues such as accessibility to devices, internet connectivity etc. concerning different sections of the society and how this is causing a digital divide between the rural and urban schools and between students from low-income and high-income families. 

May be due to this, suddenly everywhere the terms such as REIMAGINING education, REINVENTING education, and RELOOKING at education started popping up, through which most of the people think the issues such as digital divide and others can be resolved. 

But, this is not something new, there are many such issues that we have consistently faced, but they always got unnoticed due to one or the other reasons. And, those issues cannot be solved by the patchwork approach that we are trying to use at different levels and in various capacities. The problem is very fundamental, the core of which lies in the structure that different set of people have created around us over the decades and are still creating. There are many ongoing issues such as equity, inclusivity etc. in the education space, which someone may claim gets addressed by the acts like Right to Education (RTE) etc. But, I think it's a high time to think beyond such acts and hard-hit the more fundamental issues and the associated structures. There are many examples which highlight the various forms of the divide, some of which I have briefly mentioned in the coming paragraphs.

If we talk about the standard school curriculum set by the state or central boards, the curriculum always appears to be more urbanized. There is always a wide gap between the school curriculum and the realities of rural life. There is less emphasis on the development of curriculum and teaching-learning strategies relevant to the local context in which the school is located. The school curriculum provides little opportunities to encourage the different perspectives about the local problems and craft thoughtful solutions for them. 

But, there are not many explicitly visible efforts which take into account the various factors such as the importance of the local context of the rural school children, the link between the school and the community etc. 

Apart from the routine teacher training programs, what efforts are directed towards training teachers for enabling them to contextualize the learning and leverage the local experiences of the rural school students to make the curriculum more relevant to them? The students who are studying in urban schools are mostly non-first-generation learners, whereas, in rural schools, the students are mostly first-generation learners. But, still, the curriculum that we offer to both set of students is uniform, and there is no difference in the approach towards those students. 

Doesn't it create a divide among urban and rural school kids? Doesn't it make the education non-inclusive for the rural school children?

      Recently, there was news about the fees hike of IITs and NITs, which resulted in students’ strikes but at the same time received support from some sections of the society. The decision was taken back but the same issue will pop-up again sometime in the near future for sure. The fees hike can be justified in different ways, but the real question is with such decisions whether the poor will have access to quality higher education. 

Already, for underprivileged higher education has become a costly affair and almost a non-achievable dream for many due to the fat fees structures of the public higher education institutes.

Even if a student from an underprivileged background cracks JEE with his efforts and dedication, the next big problem which stands in front of him is the huge fees he has to pay to get admission into one of the top public institutions in India. And, it's not only about tuition fees; the cost of living is also involved as he might have to live in a different city. Someone will suggest that such underprivileged but talented students can get a loan from banks for higher education. But, such education loan based higher education has its challenges. 

Is there awareness about the educational loans for higher education in the underprivileged sections? Are there publicly available clear guidelines or instructions to the underprivileged about how to get an educational loan? All these questions have their root in the structure.

Moreover, even if a student gets an educational loan, they are in debt when they graduate. There can be a logical argument that the students when they graduate from the top institutions in India like IITs, NITs, IIITs etc. gets a highly paid job, and they can easily repay their loans. Someone may also talk about the scholarships that the students from underprivileged background get from the government. But, the problem is not only that. The entire structure makes this journey challenging for the students from the underprivileged background. Though the students are talented and hardworking, if they don't get the proper support structure to prepare for and crack the exams like JEE, they cannot succeed like their privileged counterparts. The government schools and colleges which such students attend definitely does not have the capability as well as bandwidth to provide the level of support structure required to prepare for such exams which decides students' future in higher education. Contrary to that the students from the privileged background gets a good support structure by paying 2-3 lacs to the JEE coaching classes. But, poor families are not in a position to pay this much money to the coaching classes. Still, no one think about or dare to talk about the whole coaching class business due to which the talent from certain sections of the society is getting underrepresented from years. 

Doesn't it create a divide among students from privileged and underprivileged backgrounds? Doesn't it make the opportunities more inequitable for the underprivileged students? Where is equity among students of different socio-economical background? 

But, we have never explicitly discussed about such divide publicly, we never questioned our governments about such divide, we never questioned our governments about why there is a need of a parallel education system of coaching classes when we already have schools and colleges in place. We blindly followed a herd mentality that if my kid has to get a quality higher education then I have to enroll him into a coaching class and pay huge money for that. Because of such mentality, the lower middle class parents struggle a lot to manage funds for their children's coaching and higher education fees. Whereas, for the lower class and working class parents it sadly remains a non-achievable task.

If we want to REIMAGINE or REINVENT something, then it has to be the blindly accepted structure. We should seek answers for some questions such as:

How can we provide equal opportunities in terms of quality education to the entire community? How to make higher education inclusive for students from weaker economic sections? What should be our approach towards the first generation learners in schools and higher education?

In my opinion, if we don't pay attention to these questions, then future may not look decent where only privileged background students will get a quality higher education, while the poor students will be deprived of the same, resulting into the increase in the divide further.

[loudlytransparenttrash]

This Week Within Our Colleges: Part 7

An Evergreen State College biology professor was targeted by vitriolic and aggressive student protests against him after he refused to leave campus during a no-whites day. It was a day in which white people were told to stay away from campus so students of color could have a safe space to unite and commiserate. Typically nonwhite students and faculty at Evergreen State leave campus to show how valuable they are and the whites stay on campus to be indoctrinated in “anti-racism workshops and seminars” but this year it was reversed, black students instead stayed to learn about their oppression and victimhood in a non-white safe space. Videos of these protests show a bunch of mostly white students yelling at this white professor for not leaving campus on the no-whites day. Things have quickly escalated. Yesterday Weinstein was forced to hold class off-campus because police say they cannot protect him. Making matters worse, social justice warriors are targeting students who support the professor, threatening to dox anyone who filmed abuse against the professor as they cornered him in the campus hallway and yelled at him and called him names.

Western Washington University hosted a workshop that aims to “reduce the impact of white privilege on social and academic relations,” according to campus officials. White privilege is not based in “biology, but only as social constructs historically designed to privilege ‘white’ people over all others,” (someone please talk to him about how Asian Americans are doing better than any other race combined.) Part of its Campus Equity and Inclusion Forums, the event at the public university is designed for faculty, staff and students, who will use presentations, interactive exercises and facilitated discussions to learn “how to reduce the expression and effects of white privilege.”

A feminist student group recently filed a lawsuit against the University of Mary Washington that alleges the college failed “to protect them from a sexually hostile school environment.” Members of the group Feminists United at the University of Mary Washington filed the lawsuit against the university, alleging the university violated the 14th Amendment when they did not take sufficient action against offensive speech on social media app, Yik Yak. Feminists United claims that by not shutting down Yik Yak on school Wi-Fi, the university fostered a sexually hostile environment, failing to “protect the Plaintiffs from effects” of the offensive yaks.

Hunter College will offer students an “Abolition of Whiteness” course this fall to discuss how “white supremacy and violence” influence individual identity. The course, taught by Women and Gender Studies Professor Jennifer Gaboury, is cross-listed for both her department and the Political Science Department. The course is an “overview of whiteness studies in the United States” and “We’ll be examining how whiteness and/or white supremacy and violence is intertwined with conceptions of gender, race, sexuality, class, body ability, nationality, and age,” the description says. 

A University of Chicago student organization has released a list of nearly 50 demands calling for the creation of at least six separate racially-themed academic departments. A coalition of student groups known as “UChicago United” has called for the establishment of a “Race and Ethnic Studies Department,” a “Black Studies Academic Department,” an “African Studies Department,” a “Caribbean Studies Department,” an “Asian American Studies Program,” plus a “Center for African and Caribbean Studies” and a “Latinx Affairs Office,” all of which would exist independently but receive funding from the university. The ultimatum also asks for a set of “university-funded and run cultural houses, specifically a Black House, a Latinx House, and an Asian House,” before turning its attention to the school’s core curriculum, demanding “a new ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ graduation requirement” that would be “primarily focused on any US-centric structural oppression, such as race, gender, and sexuality.” Additionally, the document twice calls for “the creation of a pre-orientation program specifically for incoming students of color,” which would “ease the transition to the university’s campus climate and academic demands.” Finally, the set of demands concludes with specific requests for illegal immigrant students, asking for an increase in the “recruitment and admission” of “undocumented Latinx students,” as well as “full financial, legal, and mental health resources” for such students.

The University of Oregon spent $23,400 to create a report used to determine whether the public university should rename two campus buildings to ease racial tensions. The report was commissioned after the UO Black Student Task Force demanded administrators rename the two buildings. The university paid three historians a total of $23,400 to compile a collective assessment of “racial views” of the men the buildings are named after. As a result of the review, the university renamed Dunn Hall to Cedar Hall and the university has promised it will again be changed to be named after “a man or woman whose life exemplifies the characteristics of racial diversity and inclusion.” Matthew Deady, a founding father of the University of Oregon and the state, as well as a federal judge, the university says, while holding racist views early on, he became more progressive as he got older, and made decisions that defended marginalized communities as a judge. That’s what ultimately spared his name.

What are most students crying about today - not including whiteness and microaggressions? Fees. Well, DePaul University is hiking student fees to finance a scholarship fund for illegal immigrant students. Students approved a campus-wide student government referendum, spearheaded by the Undocumented Vincentians and Allies student group, that calls for quarterly increase in the Student Activity Fee to fund the scholarship program. This still wasn’t enough. They want DePaul to commit to providing $100 for every $1 raised to support illegal immigrants. On top of that, the group wants “sanctuary” from immigration enforcement and subsidized healthcare and housing for illegal immigrants, all provided at the school’s expense.

As you guys have most likely already heard, Eric Clanton, a professor at Diablo Valley College in California, has been arrested in connection with a vicious attack at a pro-Trump rally in Berkeley last month. Clanton brutally assaulted three individuals with a U-shaped bicycle lock as part of Antifa’s cowardly savagery. After the clip of the assault went viral, internet forums identified the attacker as Eric Clanton but police now believe that Clanton bludgeoned several other Trump supporters too. Clanton’s primary academic interests were “the prison system” and “restorative justice from an anti-authoritarian perspective.” Ironically, he is now locked up and is being held on a $200,000 bail with charges of assault with a deadly weapon and assault causing great bodily injury.

Students and faculty stormed the Orange Coast College administration building Monday to protest the release of public records that reveal hostility toward conservative students by multiple professors and demanded that the administration end its “neutrality” on political issues by removing the College Republicans from campus. The protest formed in opposition to the OCC College Republicans chapter who provided the school with evidence that professors were calling Trump’s election an act of terrorism and that conservative students were being targeted and banned from places to preserve a “safe space.” Students, faculty, and union leaders rallied on campus to echo the hostility toward the CRs, chanting, "No Hate, No KKK, No Fascist USA!” and demanding that administrators to “get that club out of our face.” All because they exposed the truth about the hostility by faculty members towards conservative students.

A California State University-Los Angeles professor is organizing a week-long “Youth Activist Camp” this summer through the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter. Professor Anthony J. Ratcliff is the organizer of “Youth Activist Camp and Resistance Space 2017,” a “Black youth-centered resistance space” which promises to teach black children as young as 10 “strategies for organizing social justice campaigns” and “direct action tactics” to fight against racism. In the fall, Ratcliff will teach “Black Political Economy,” in which students will learn about the role of “government policy in relation to racial discrimination and inequality” and become empowered by learning about “social justice in the Black experience.”

At a Dartmouth College event, Linda Sarsour deflected a question about her professed desire to mutilate the genitalia of her political opponents by mocking the questioner for being a “young white man.” The question was aimed at a tweet she made in which she attacks two critics of female genital mutilation and expresses a desire to “take their vaginas away” as they “don’t deserve to be women.” After a long pause, Sarsour disregards the question and pretended like she never made the tweet, instead pointing out to the audience that the student is a “white man” and is not impacted by the discussion, asking why the student is even present as the audience laughs and cheers. 

A Chinese exchange student was selected to deliver a speech at the University of Maryland's commencement ceremony, but they instantly regretted their decision when she angered the leftist students by praising the "fresh air" in America. During her address, student Shuping Yang recalled her first experiences of the “fresh air” in America, comparing it to the air quality back home that often required her to wear “one of my five face masks.” She went on to extend the analogy to the climate of intellectual freedom that she found on campus, saying at the University of Maryland she breathed “the fresh air of free speech.” “I have learned that the right to freely express oneself is sacred in America,” she continued, reminding her peers that “democracy and free speech should not be taken for granted” and calling it “worth fighting for.” Some of Yang’s classmates became enraged and published a video response in which they mock her and demanded an apology from the school. Yang faced even harsher backlash from social media users, some of whom even suggested that she’s the shame of China and called her trash, (I can so relate!) 

The student government at Lawrence University has rejected a proposed "Students for Free Thought" group, just days after it hosted a film screening that some students found "triggering" because it endorsed free speech. Student Sabrina Conteh outlined her objections to the film, which features comedians discussing the difficulty of performing on politically correct college campuses. She called the comedy “sloppy white supremacist propaganda,” the attendees “white terrorists on training wheels” and claimed that she was asked to leave the event after being “verbally assaulted” by a white male when he told her to shut up after she kept disrupting the film. 

Princeton University professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor used her (his? her?) recent commencement address at Hampshire College to blast President Trump as a “racist, sexist megalomaniac,” to cheers and applause from the audience. “The President of the United States, the most powerful politician in the world, is a racist, sexist megalomaniac. It’s not a benign observation, but has meant tragic consequences for many people in our country, from raids in the communities of undocumented immigrants to his disparaging of refugees in search of freedom and respite.” She eventually cut herself off, saying, “This list could continue but suffice to say that Donald Trump has fulfilled the campaign promises of a campaign organized and built upon racism, corporatism, and militarism.” Concluding on what she clearly intended as an optimistic note, Taylor told the graduating class that if we can win against slavery, the eight-hour workday, and the right to vote, we can win against Trump. 

[deniseyallen]

On Senate Floor, Portman Urges the Senate to End Government Shutdowns for Good

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) delivered remarks on the Senate floor urging the Senate to support his End Government Shutdowns Act to permanently prevent the federal government from shutting down. The bill now has 28 cosponsors.  Portman has made clear he will strongly push for its inclusion in any final government funding bill over the next few weeks.  

“Let’s do something good for the people we represent but at the same time, let’s find the will to include in this package legislation that ends these government shutdowns. While it is still fresh in our minds as to what happened these last several weeks, let’s be sure that having gone through this bitter experience, the longest shutdown in history, we don’t let people down. Instead we make sure that we do not let this moment pass and indeed stop these government shutdowns once and for all,” said Portman. 

Transcript of his remarks can be found below and a video can be found here.

   “As most people are painfully aware, we just came through a 35-day government shutdown. It didn’t work for anybody. I’m here today to talk about a very simple way to keep these shutdowns from happening in the future, and I’m also here to talk a little how it fits into the broader discussion that we’re having. What I’m not suggesting is that we somehow leave the border security issue aside. It is a very important issue. We have to address it. The president has presented a reasonable plan. His plan is actually to rely on the experts to determine what kind of barriers ought to be along the border. His funding of $5.7 billion that he talks about for these barriers will fund the top 10 priorities of what the experts are saying, which is the Customs and Border Protection border security improvement plan. I think that makes sense, along with many other things. 

“A structure alone, a barrier alone is not enough. You have to have cameras, you have to have ways to see who’s coming and you have to have ways to respond to it with more border patrol, you have to have more technology. He also has more drones in his proposal. He has screening at the ports of entry to be able to stop some of these drugs from coming into our communities, the cocaine, the crystal meth, the heroin, most of which is coming from Mexico. So I think it’s a good plan. I think we should provide him help on this plan because we have a true crisis at the border no matter how you measure it, whether it’s in terms of the drugs, in terms of people coming over or if it’s in terms of the human trafficking that’s occurring according to the experts. But let’s do it the right way. Let’s do it through experts. Let’s not do it because the politicians say it’s the right thing to do. Let’s do it because the experts on the border say it is and let’s put the right kind of barriers in place. That’s what I see in the president’s plan. 

“He also is talking about working with Democrats on some immigration priorities they’ve had over the years. For the last 10 years, there are Democrats who have talked about these young people who came here as children through no fault of their own. The president has said he’d like to give them more certainty as part of this plan. Let’s take him up on that. Why would we miss this opportunity? It’s a good idea. It’s the right thing from a policy perspective and by providing that kind of help to those DACA recipients, those now young people who are working, who are in school, who run our military, I think we can actually also get some Democrats to be helpful to provide more border security at the same time we’re helping those who are here who are deserving of that help. 

“The president has also proposed to help people who come from 10 different countries around the world to be able to ensure they can stay here with some certainty for another few years. These are people who are in the so-called TPS Program, Temporary Protective Status Program.  Ten countries where there’s war, famine, natural disaster, issues where you don’t want to send those people back. They’re working and the work authorization is what this is about. A lot of employers here are eager to have them stay and be able to continue to work for some period of time. So certainty for those individuals, tens of thousands of whom live in some states where there are two Democrat senators, states like Maryland or states like Virginia where those senators have been stalwarts, have been advocates for being sure there’s more certainty for these individuals. It seems to me we have a good combination here. Let’s get it done. The conferees are talking right now. 

“But in the meantime, let’s not go back to a government shutdown. It’s not going to help us get to a solution. In fact, I would argue it’s not only not leverage on behalf of the president or any of us, it actually works the other way. Because when you have the government shut down, everybody loses. I’m hearing from senators on both sides of the aisle that they’re fed up with these shutdowns. There’s now a building bipartisan consensus that we need to end government shutdowns. I’m encouraged because I’m also hearing from around the country about this. There’s a bipartisan consensus among individuals about it. 

“There is an interesting poll out today that will give you a sense of this, people were given three options. What if these talks break down, they were asked. Should we do one of three things? Should we shut down the government again? Should we turn to a national emergency that the president has been talking about as a possible option? Or should we not do either of those first two but rather do the default which is to have a continuing resolution, the spending from last year continue? Guess what? Only 9 percent of those polled wanted another government shutdown. Ninety-one percent said ‘no, let’s not go back there.’ I call that a consensus. So I think it’s time for us to take action here in the United States Congress to say let’s stop this. And by the way, people feel this way because they get it. They know these shutdowns are a hardship for federal employees who are furloughed or forced to go to work without being paid. It’s a hardship for small businesses that couldn’t get government work paid for, work that they had done. It’s a hardship to taxpayers who want good taxpayer services like having a national park open or having food inspections or having their IRS hotline that we pay for as taxpayers open. 

“Of course, I heard from a lot of constituents in Ohio during the last 35 days. I heard from a TSA officer in Cincinnati who, like most people I represent, lives paycheck to paycheck. He told me he could not sleep at night. Why? Because he had never missed a mortgage payment. He had to miss one because he lost two paychecks. I heard about a butcher shop. I actually went to visit it in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s a new butcher shop, just opened. It’s got an interesting mission, a deli and butcher shop in a low-income neighborhood. They want to provide fresh, relatively inexpensive but quality, healthy food for this neighborhood. It’s needed. It’s one of these areas -- you heard the food desert where in some areas, particularly in inner cities, sometimes there’s not good, healthy food anywhere. Well, this little butcher shop was excited about offering it. But guess what? Because of the shutdown, they couldn’t get the required federal permission to be able to accept food stamps. So they had their opening and everything was great but they couldn’t complete their mission. Their mission was to help these people be able to have better food. 

“I heard from others as well. I heard from our federal prosecutors in Ohio. I do a lot of work in trying to push back against the opioid issue, the heroin, fentanyl, the fact that we have these drug rings in Ohio and elsewhere that are causing so much harm. These prosecutors said they couldn’t pursue those cases. One said we can’t pay informants during the shutdown. Think about that. So we’re slowing down our prosecution of human trafficking, of opioids, of rape, of so many horrible issues that we want to address. Can’t do it during a shutdown as effectively because again the funds aren’t there to pursue these investigations. 

“I heard from Ohio craft beer breweries. These are small businesses in Ohio. I’m told there are about 65 new ones in the last couple of years in Ohio. It’s a big deal. Probably in your state, too. These are great businesses. They have not been able to expand over the last several weeks during this 35-day shutdown or to introduce new products, which is absolutely essential to their revenue stream. They come out every season with a new product to be able to continue to get folks to drink these craft beers. But they needed a permit from the federal government to do that. So they couldn’t introduce any new products. By the way, I talked to one of them today and they told me they still, because we’ve been trying to help them, they still can’t get the necessary federal permits and licenses to be able to do this. Why? Because the federal government office is so backed up because of the shutdown. So here we are almost a week after the shutdown but really still in shutdown for the purposes of these small businesses. 

“I heard from the young men and women of the United States Coast Guard because in Ohio we have Lake Erie. We have Coast Guard stations. And we have a lot of great patriots who have been struggling financially as they worked for no pay. By the way, they were determined to do their duty. And I applaud their patriotism. And I applaud the patriotism of all the federal workers who showed up without getting paid and did their duty and were proud to do their duty. A lot of these folks missed two paychecks but they didn’t miss a beat. And we appreciate them. 

“So in addition to the impact the shutdown has had on these federal employees and their families, it’s also had a real impact on our economy. And we should pay attention to that. The Congressional Budget Office just released a report on Monday estimating the economic impacts that the shutdown had on our economy. Remember, this was just a partial shutdown. Most of the funding for defense, as an example, we had appropriated but 25 percent we had not. But this is what happened. When paychecks didn’t flow into the economy, when furloughed federal workers can’t perform needed services but are paid after the fact anyway and when there are sudden disruptions for federal contractors and other businesses who rely on timely payment from these agencies, it has a real impact and taxpayers are worse off. The partial shutdown reduced GDP by $11 billion in the first term, $8 billion in the first quarter of this year, $3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2018. Fortunately, the agency expects an offsetting increase in economic activity now that the government has reopened and federal employees are receiving back pay. But over the long term, CBO estimates that $3 billion will never be recovered in our economy. So it even has an economic impact for all of us. And that goes to jobs and wages, economic growth. 

“So some of that lost economic impact, of course, also means less revenue. Is it significant in terms of the overall revenue of the federal government? Some would say no. It is less tax revenue to the federal government. For example, the aviation industry was hit particularly hard by the shutdown. The FAA was subject to a shutdown and many of my constituents expressed concerns about aviation safety. We heard about the long delays at some of the airports. That has economic impact. I would tell you airlines such as Delta Airlines, Southwest Airlines reported they had lost tens of millions of dollars in revenue in January so this is over and above the CBO estimate I was talking about. Delta about $25 million. Southwest between $10 and 15 million. These lost earnings have decreased federal tax revenues of course to the government. So CBO didn’t put a price on that but in fact it’s even worse than CBO estimates because of the budgetary impacts that lead to some of these revenue impacts as well. Bottom line is the lower economic growth and the disruptions for federal employees ultimately cost taxpayers more than if Congress had just passed these appropriations bills on time when we hadn’t gotten into the shutdown. 

“It doesn’t have to be this way. And again that’s why I’m working to ensure we don’t go there again. In every Congress for the last five Congresses since I was elected in 2010, I’ve introduced legislation called the End Government Shutdowns Act. I was involved with this when I was on the House side and in government for President Bush and now I’m involved with it here because I just think these shutdowns make no sense. I’ve introduced it under Republican and Democratic presidents. I’ve introduced it under Republican and Democratic control of the House and the Senate. So this is not a political issue to me. This is a good government issue. The bill is very simple. Common-sense steps that would continue funding from the previous year for any appropriation bill that’s not done and when there’s a continuing resolution as there is now, whenever that continuing resolution expires. You just continue the funding from the previous year. Some have called that an auto CR but instead of shutting down, government at least continues to operate. A CR is not the ultimate answer what we really want to do is get this place, get Congress to actually do its work and pass the individual appropriations bills. That’s how you reform government. That’s how you ensure there’s some certainty and predictability, particularly at the Department of Defense where they worry a lot about that. 

“My bill also says after the first 120 days, four months, there’s a one percent across-the-board reduction in spending to get people to the table. You know, so that appropriators who like to spend money actually have some incentive to not just continue the CR. I think that’s important. We then reduce it by one percent every 90 days thereafter if Congress doesn’t get its act together and put these bills together. So I think this will help not just to stop shutdowns but also to keep us from having perpetual continuing resolutions. Only through passing these individual bills can we do our constitutional duty. And it is our duty. By the way, some Democrats have said they’re not wild about the one percent cut across-the-board after four months. And they have said somehow Republicans would like that better than us. I just don’t agree with that. I will tell you, 54 percent of the spending in this category is defense spending. Not security spending which is more than that but 54 percent of it, more than half is defense spending. It is Republicans on this side of the aisle who talk every year and have accomplished -- we have accomplished increasing defense spending. We’re not going to want to cut defense spending. By the same token some on the other side will feel strongly about their priorities and some of us have other priorities as well. We all have priorities. This is not meant to be an uneven balance. It’s meant to be fair, one percent across the board for everything. So my hope is that we can pass this legislation. 

“We’ve now got 28 cosponsors in the United States Senate, more than half of the Republicans are on this bill. We have the opportunity to actually move this forward I hope in this current negotiation over the border I talked about and over the immigration policies I talked about. Let’s do it. The other side of the Capitol, my friend Troy Balderson, a Republican Representative from Ohio and a Democrat Jeff Van Drew from New Jersey have introduced this bill. Introduced it last week. Now we have a companion bill that is bipartisan in the House as well. You’ve heard Speaker Pelosi say she’s against shutdowns and Chuck Schumer, the leader over here for the Democrats say he’s against shutdowns. You’ve heard a lot of our leadership say they’re against shutdowns. This might be something we can actually get together on and do something about it. My hope is we can move forward. 

“I hope we can put a common-sense bill in place that doesn’t allow us to fall back into another one of these painful government shutdowns. It’s not good for anybody. Let’s do forge a bipartisan agreement on this funding. We’re not that far apart as I said earlier. Let’s be sure we have border security. Let’s deal with some of these lingering immigration issues where the president has extended the olive branch. Let’s do something good for the people we represent but at the same time, let’s find the will to include in this package legislation that ends these government shutdowns. While it is still fresh in our minds as to what happened these last several weeks, let’s be sure that having gone through this bitter experience, the longest shutdown in history, we don’t let people down. Instead we make sure that we do not let this moment pass and indeed stop these government shutdowns once and for all.” 

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from Rob Portman http://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ContentRecord_id=89F67BA6-D438-4568-A3B0-1AB08B38B765

[newssplashy]

In this interview, we talk to Wong about the eFounders initiative, Alibaba’s long term plans for Africa, and the future of financial technology (fintech) on the continent.

“When Jack Ma first visited Africa in 2017, he saw a continent facing many of the same challenges that Alibaba had managed to overcome in the last 20 years in China,” Brian Wong, vice president of Global Initiatives at Alibaba, tells Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa.

As a Special Advisor to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Mr Ma recognised the need to empower young entrepreneurs with ideas and practical knowledge from some of China’s most innovative businesses. This, he believed, could accelerate the development of inclusive ecommerce platforms and provide markets around Africa with an entirely different approach to enabling entrepreneurs, small businesses, youth, women and more, all with the objective to provide access to prosperity for all.

Thus, the eFounders Initiative was born. In this interview, we talk to Wong about the initiative, Alibaba’s long term plans for Africa, and the future of financial technology (fintech) on the continent. The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity. Enjoy.

Business Insider (BI): What is Alibaba's long-term outlook in Africa, using the eFounders Initiative as a starting point?

Brian Wong (BW): As with other regions outside of China, Alibaba’s expansion strategy is one of ‘inclusive development.’ The company seeks to work with local partners who share our values and understand local markets. By partnering with local platforms in Africa and elsewhere, we believe we can better enable SMEs and create a more inclusive globalized trading network.

The eFounders Fellowship is a two-week course for entrepreneurial founders in developing countries who are operating open, platform-based businesses in the ecommerce, logistics, big data, and tourism sectors. The program provides first-hand exposure to and learning about ecommerce innovations from China and around the world that enabled growth and a more inclusive development model for all.

The course consists of a structured series of classroom workshops, lectures, meetings with business leaders, team building exercises, site visits and a business hackathon at Alibaba Group Headquarters in Hangzhou with site visits to other cities in China.

 Upon graduation from the program, fellows make a 2-year commitment for how they will apply their learnings from their course to transform their businesses and make a positive impact on their societies.

We also invite ecosystem partners from local venture capital and incubators to observe during program and to participate in the hackathon portion in order to engage them and to work with Alibaba to provide the necessary support to the fellows during the subsequent two years.

BI: What are some of the most interesting revelations you have from the program so far?

BW: Along with our partners at UNCTAD, we check in with fellows every 3 months to see how they’re doing and how we can help. We completed our six-month calls with Class 1 from Africa last month and found that many fellows have taken insights from the fellowship and made major, successful changes to their businesses. Three examples: Eston Kimani, Jessica Anuna, and Adetayo Bamiduro.

Eston Kimani is a Kenyan entrepreneur. Since the course, he has been getting more involved in helping entrepreneurs think through their business and raise money for their startups. He started a personal blog to share my knowledge as an entrepreneur at www.estonkimani.com and has about 3000 readers. He is also considering becoming an angel investor in some startups and has committed to one already.

Eston started building a unified pan-African payments platform for consumers. This new startup was inspired almost completely by Alibaba, then set in motion by a trip that Alibaba organized with Eston and his co-founders to PayTM in India.

He tells me that the fellowship in Hangzhou is why he’s doing it. Seeing what Alipay has done in China was very inspiring. I realized how essential a payments platform is. If not for our trip to PayTM, we would not be having this conversation.”

Jessica Anuna is a Nigeria entrepreneur who runs Klasha, a fast fashion ecommerce platform that connects Chinese manufacturers to young consumers in Nigeria. Klasha strives to be West Africa’s largest fast fashion e-commerce retailer for 20-something-year-old women. Klasha seeks to be the leading provider of affordable, in-season clothing and to make access to apparel and accessories easy for consumers in West Africa starting with Nigeria.

Partly due to insights gained during the fellowship, as well as the mentorship of Gary from Aliexpress, Jessica managed to secure funding and a spot in TechStars Dubai. In addition, she’s leveraging introductions made by UNCTAD to address regulatory hurdles in West Africa (for example it is cheaper to ship from China to Nigeria than it is to ship from Nigeria to Ghana, right next door).

 Adetayo Bamiduro is the co-founder of Metro Africa Xpress (MAX), a Nigerian startup that provides safe and affordable motorcycle-taxis with over 25,000 consumers and businesses, playing a market leader role in providing online motorcycle-taxis and deliveries with motors. There are 12 million informal drivers in Nigeria, MAX gives them free training, where these informal drivers are able to get licenses and afford decent and safe life without bribing the policemen. They gained averagely three times more than usual.

There is an informal driver union made up with criminals, there are 12 million informal drivers in Nigeria and 1 person dying every 20 mins because of unlicensed and untrained drivers. MAX spoke to the union but they showed no interest in new tech, hence Adetayo decided that MAX will bring these drivers on board and train them for free. Once they pass through the training and get licenses, they won’t be stopped and harassed by the police anymore.

Adetayo is hugely inspired by Alibaba’s eFounders Fellowship, he later came to China again, and visited China Mobility Companies in Shenzhen to imported electric motors to Nigeria. He will launch hybrid motorcycles in his company to reduce pollution, and use the censors of electric motor to save data.

Alibaba teaches him the importance of “people”, after the trip, he focuses on training the untrained drivers and investing upfront on it, Alibaba has spent a lot to help merchants online, to Adetayo, he want to invest more to help drivers to build powerful business.

BI: What are your general thoughts on the state of fintech in Africa?

BW: We are not experts in Africa and we do not pretend to offer fellows country-specific knowledge on fintech or any other industry in Africa. Our inclusive development model, including the eFounders Fellowship is an effort to share our experience in China with entrepreneurs in Africa who can combine these insights with their own expertise to create platforms optimized for local markets.

Our initiatives in Africa are consistent with Alibaba’s original mission. Alibaba is a platform-based business whose mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere by connecting SMEs around the world. Enabling platforms in other countries strengthens this worldwide network and “grows the pie” for all, rather than fighting over the same pie. The more open, platform-based businesses there are in the world – the more opportunities there will be for all players (including Alibaba), and the more partnerships will be possible in the long term.

That being said, Fintech holds incredible promise in Africa. Offering efficient financial services to underserved populations creates a world of possibilities. Looking at the size and demographics of the African market, there is a lot of potential here. It is likely that the traditional banking model as we know it will not be the main method of accessing financial services for a majority of the population. Rather, mobile devices will be the key channel by which most will engage and transact in payments, savings and investments.

BI: What do you think we are doing right (in FinTech)?

BW: Judging by our experiences with fellows who operate FinTech businesses in Africa, we can see that African Fintech businesses are taking elements of successful systems from around the world, but creating something that is uniquely African. It is important that Fintech products understand and reflect the markets they operate in, which is why we believe so strongly in partnerships rather than traditional expansion.

 BI: And where do you see us still falling short?

BW: Launching new technology ventures in the developing world is challenging. In Africa, as in China, entrepreneurs face daunting challenges like a lack of physical Internet infrastructure, restrictive government regulations, lack of engineering talent and a host of others. Our fellows are facing these challenges because they understand that challenges are where opportunity ultimately lies.

BI: How can Alibaba play a role in helping African fintech startups/companies deal with some of those shortcomings?

BW: Alibaba Business School is committed to helping African companies overcome these challenges by sharing how Alibaba overcame similar challenges over the course of our development. Between the eFounders Fellowship and our New Economy Workshop for policymakers, we believe that key examples, case studies, and best practices can help create the environment necessary for innovative ventures to succeed.

BI: Where are your projections for fintech in Africa in 10-15 years?

BW: Alibaba Business School is not an authority on African fintech, but we hope that we will see something that resembles the rise of fintech in China over the last 20 years. By solving consumer problems, building trust and championing financial inclusion, new African business – fintech and otherwise – can provide access to prosperity for all.

via Latest Nigerian News Online-Nigerian News,World Newspaper

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: The Future Seen Through a Fragmented Past

If Edward McPherson were a filmmaker instead of a writer, The History of the Future might begin with a sublime wide-angle shot — panning the length of an empty desert highway somewhere deep in West Texas — before zooming out to show the desiccated, veritable no-man’s-lands where the first nuclear bomb tests forever burned a hole into the United States’ collective psyche. Old black and white army newsreel footage of the blossoming mushroom clouds would be next; then fast-forward to the ruins and citywide aftermath of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks in New York. Abraham Zapruder’s iconic vintage 8mm Kodachrome footage of president John F. Kennedy’s assassination could fill in between clips of the television show Dallas — famous for its season-ending cliffhanger in which the character J.R. is shot, parodied with great success in The Simpsons episode “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” — before arriving, finally, at Civil War nostalgia. (McPherson was named after an ancestor born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, who became a major deputy of the Commission of Revenue in 1863 under Abraham Lincoln, after serving from 1859 to 1863 as a congressman.)

Edward McPherson (photo by Carly Ann Faye, courtesy Coffee House Press)

The History of the Future is a collection of essays on American history. These essays go down easily enough individually within their native habitat of the magazine — two appeared in Paris Review Daily, two others in Catapult and the American Scholar respectively; McPherson has also written for the New York Times Magazine — but they do not cohere meaningfully as a book. It would be much more resonant and engaging to read in 2017 if it were less ambitious in its scope – for example, the nation-wide, road-trip-style ramble of “Private streets, racism, and the St. Louis World’s Fair; fracking for oil and digging for dinosaurs in North Dakota boomtowns” — but more ambitious in its form and message. The latter half of the excerpt above sounds more like a description of an apocalyptic vacation package than the summary of the contents of a book of essays.

A chapter dedicated to fracking is among the more urgent and timely inclusions. “The idea of fracking isn’t new,” McPherson writes, “just improved upon.” He goes on to explain the process in detail, along with the history of its development. He also paints a bleak picture of a North Dakota town slowly ruined by its’ “booming” energy industry:

Next door is the No Place Bar, which welcomes bikers and today has a pink-and-black baby stroller abandoned out front. On the side of the Salvation Army, across a small parking lot, someone has put up a giant billboard of the Ten Commandments.

Between 2008 and 2012, the number of cases of gonorrhea in the western half of the state rose 72 percent. Chlamydia was up 240 percent.

One o’clock in the afternoon and there’s a guy sleeping in the shade of a stunted tree outside the train station. The landscaping smells of urine. In the small waiting room, a TV plays loudly as a train scrapes down the tracks.

All the essays are marked by such jump-cut-like paragraph breaks and present tense narration, which, at times, is weirdly reminiscent of the poet Frank O’Hara’s “I do this, I do that,” but without O’Hara’s lyricism. McPherson’s investigative reporting involves walking around, looking at things, talking to people, and then selecting a sequence of factoids to fill in the gaps amid his reflections. The History of the Future might instead feature more oral history and interviews with those countless Americans who can’t afford to do things like vacation. A variety of voices and opinions beyond that of the author’s, as well as photographs à la Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, would enhance the argument, while decreasing the personal anecdotes and awkward math and statistics would clarify the writing and open up the possibility of a moral.

The ostensible bringing together of “…place, past and future…the popular, the personal, and the political,” as Rebecca Traister blurbs on the dust jacket, results in a literary kitchen sink in which no event or issue appears more important, relevant or newsworthy than any other, with so many proper nouns bobbing up through the non-fiction narrative. When the author highlights facts about segregated housing in St. Louis, right after relating that Judy Garland was forever imprinted upon his imagination after he watched the film Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), he’s not journalistically plumbing the depths of how, what, where, when and why these two phenomena relate to each other, to reveal something about certain questionable systems of power at work, and what to do about them. He’s juxtaposing them to produce a kind of “info-tainment” dramatics. The author seems more interested in simply holding the readers’ attention for as many pages as possible, when he might instead be identifying the perpetrators of this segregation — maybe greedy real estate developers, politicians who divert funding away from public schools, organized crime — and what is the history of their actions, and what do the people on the receiving end of it all have to say. It is also probably true, for instance, that Hollywood would like to ignore the real plight of the citizens that live in the towns depicted in their make-believe films.

In the St. Louis essay “Open Ye Gates, Swing Wide Ye Portals!” McPherson does quick work of highlighting the many ironies and contrasts inherent in the city’s national identity, as it devolved from hosting the World’s Fair over a century ago to being a contender for “worst ghetto in America” today, according to YouTube. Most ominous about this essay, especially if we are supposed to register it as a political commentary, is its ending. McPherson considers the iconic archway as a metaphor for the city, as he allegorizes its struggles:

The arch has no keystone; the north and south legs are of equal length. You’re either on one side or the other. Arches, it should be noted, hold themselves up: they rise on their own weight, they compress — higher pieces push down and out on those below. Some five hundred tons of pressure where needed to pry the legs apart to install the final four-foot pieces. That’s why the windows are so small: to preserve the structural integrity.

Is McPherson comparing the arch to the monumental and ultimately unfair and oppressive social structures that determine life in our cities, where the rich live in gated communities “push[ing] down and out on those below”? The arch sways some eighteen inches, he adds, like a chain or a gate, when the wind blows. In its presence one worries that it might fall down. McPherson confesses that he finds the arch beautiful, and that “the balance is an illusion.” He adds that “the fact does not comfort him,” alluding to how both the arch and cities are, in effect, held together by “forces great and unseen,” laws of physics and systematic social oppression.

The history of America in general is one of constant race and class oppression, environmental pollution, political corruption and murder. The future promises only more of the same, we read; McPherson opines, while on the set of a new season of Dallas, that we are “watching history being endlessly repeated” and we are complicit. The book is full of “Aha!” moments in which McPherson acknowledges his own complicity. “Fantasizing about the end is a way of sidestepping responsibility,” he writes, “of overlooking the problems, or systems of inequality, that we might actually be contributing to.” This is part of an essay entitled “Three Minutes To Midnight.” Its title is a reference to the Doomsday clock, and the conviction, currently held by a number of scientists and thinkers, that we are now closer to Doomsday — the proverbial midnight — than ever before, at least since the height of the Cold War in 1953. Just short of fantasizing, McPherson lists myriad apocalyptic scenarios: nuclear war, superbugs, climate change, solar flares, bees dying or killer asteroids.

“Three Minutes to Midnight” ends with the author’s somber consideration: “Is that the true final tragedy — to be trapped in our private visions of history?” If he is saying there is no way to escape complicity in America, maybe he’s right, but who wants to read another book about that, especially if the book contains no new ideas for a better possible future, despite the horrors of our history?

The History of the Future (2017) is published by Coffee House Press and is available from Amazon and other online booksellers.

The post The Future Seen Through a Fragmented Past appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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