#a way that moves others. enamored with the outside world. the central point of the conflict. has a childhood friend who cares more about

[funuya]

i kept joking about fire emblem while reading danmaca

[carmeloffie]

i don't know anything abt ur ocs :( so tell me the basic get-to-know-you/rundown of everyone! (or at least the main ones!)

Omg so at this point NO one knows anything about them this is the first time ive talked about them since the idea is fairly new!! so there really isn’t a central plot yet, it’s more follows the instability of Late Republican Ancient Rome from a firsthand account, but not one that actually was up close and personal with it, yk!

so the main characters are Titus Livius Florentius Decimus Virius Laurus, Cassia Faustilla, and Lollia Maia. One of them (Florentius) is super into the arts, poetry, philosophy, etc. I imagine he’s one of those guys that’s really enamored with Greek culture for whatever reason. I also think maybe his whole heart really isn’t in politics. He came from a family which held a lot of political power at that point, so he was kind of thrown into it whether he liked it or not. He’d probably be happier being a farmer-poet in some backwater province than a senator in Rome Proper TBH.

Moving on to the other one! his name is Decimus Virius Laurus. He’s like the polar opposite of Florentius. He's in politics because he wants to be and because he worked for it. He had a particularly illustrious military career, leading him to be elevated into a higher position in the political world. Not quite a novus homo, but from a family who hadn’t been of great importance in recent politics. Hes much more concerned with the worldly aspects of life than his counterpart, Florentius. He had such a well rounded military career not only because he was naturally good at actual fighting, but he also had a good mind for strategy. I don’t think he’s as far as Cato the Elder was in “preserve the old republic”-ism but I don’t think he’d be necessarily pro- the incoming autocracy. Strong sense of needing to preserve dignity and keep up appearances.

Since it’s ancient Rome, what’s more in character than being in a lavender marriage!! Florentius’s wife is also gay. I named her Cassia Faustilla <3 They have a mutual understanding and both have lovers outside of wedlock that they actually care for. But yeah enough about her love life omg… aside from being gay she also is thee most logical character out of the four main characters. You’ve got military intelligence one side, creative genius from the other, and Lollia’s really good with people but neither one of them is very good when it comes to straight oratory OR general common sense. She’s pretty much masterminding Florentius’s political career from the sidelines while also managing to keep up the appearance of Roman Matrona pretty well all things considered.

okay the other lesbian <3 love and light <3 so her name is Lollia Maia. Which is probably my favorite name of the 4 of them… she’s probably not originally from Rome the City, maybe she’s from a Roman family out in Macedonia. or somewhere. I like to think that she and Florentius are related by some means, which is how she was introduced to Cassia. Maybe he was on some military thing in whatever province she lived in and was like oh come stay at our house for a while! and in roman fashion she would be there for months but like. she just never left and has been there for well over the time expected. she’s just never going to leave. She’s the performing arts girlie <3 since she is so into it there’s no way she’d be normal about anything and she’d be so dramatic and fun. it would be silly!!! Plus I feel like charisma/public relations is the one area I've not covered already. so. thinking about it this group literally has all it needs to be really good at politics but they’re too busy being gay to do anything about it…

[pynkhues]

I’m sure you’ve already gotten a bunch of asks since Manny’s Crime King interview! I’m just like confused about him saying he’s enamored by her world but honestly like how is his different (besides his obvious commitment to the game) he lives in a nice loft, takes his kid to baseball, drives a fancy car, and plays tennis at the club. It’s not like he’s living the life of a thug. I guess I’m not getting the exact contrast of their worlds.

(Rest of my ask) I’m probably missing some obvious point here which is why I’m asking you lol helllppp

I do think Rio’s enamoured with Beth’s world, yes! I think that really boils down to the fact that while on paper Beth and Rio aren’t living dissimilar lives in terms of their roles as parents, and while they obviously now share parts of the criminal world, I do think the show is actually pretty specific in how it represents those worlds, particularly in terms of the masculine / feminine, and how a part of the curiosity around each other is in viewing one another as a key that both compliments their own world, while also unlocking the other’s one for them.

The gendering of spaces in storytelling – but particularly films and TV is, hilariously, a topic that I’m incredibly passionate about and have both written it a lot in my original work, and written about it a lot for magazines, journals and media sites (I’m actually writing an essay at the moment for a literary journal about LGBTQI cinema and how lesbian romances are highly domesticised [i.e. Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Handmaiden, The Favourite, The Kids are Alright] while gay romances are usually very pointedly about keeping away from domestic spaces, moving and traveling [i.e. Brokeback Mountain, The Talented Mr Ripley, Moonlight, Midnight Cowboy, even Call Me By Your Name is heavily focused on being Americans abroad aka away from home] but that all feels like a different story, haha).

Luckily for me, Good Girls is actually about as obsessed with the gendering of spaces as I am. It’s a major, major throughline throughout the show for many of the characters, but particularly Beth and Rio, and their intrigue with the other’s spaces – her interest in his powerful, highly masculine one, and his with her deceptively innocent, strongly feminine one – is really central to their intrigue with each other more broadly.

So to talk about this, we probably need a little bit of context.

(Under a cut because this is literally 4,000 words)

Gendering Spaces in Cinema

It’s probably not a surprise to anyone here, but places and spaces in stories are about as gendered – if not more gendered – as they are in daily life. In particular, cinema’s visual and textual language has historically been very clear:

The inside is female. The outside is male.

This concept has really been around since the beginning of cinema but became very popularised through Westerns in the late 1920s onwards, and really underlined by war films particularly during propaganda cinema in WWII. Men are outside, battling the elements and other men, claiming land, building outwards, while women are at home – either literally or figuratively (if they’re actually out at war, like in the utterly fabulous So Proudly We Hail!, they’re at the ‘home base’ as nurses) – building inwards. Men protect the home while women create it.

Westerns feature these images very potently and very literally. Almost every single western dating back to the 1910s will have some combination of these two shots:

a)       Woman at home, looking out into the wild:

b)      Man leaving home, stepping out into the wild:

(These two stills are from John Ford’s The Searchers which is generally regarded as one of the greatest Westerns of all time. It’s………very racist and misogynistic, as many were and still are, but in terms of technicality and visual language, it’s a very well-made film, albeit not one I enjoyed).

The purpose at the time, of course, was steeped in historic sexism and invested in maintaining that culture, particularly westerns and war films which are heavily devoted to ‘macho’ narratives. Women were passive, men were active, but these images really set the stage for how the ideas of ‘space’ continues to exist in cinema. A fact that’s bolstered by broader social discourses that still exist today – schools, grocery stores, laundromats are inherently ‘female’ spaces because they are seen as an extension of the home, while police stations, car dealerships, warehouses, are inherently ‘male’ spaces because they’re about work, protecting and providing for a home, and being pointedly outside of that domestic space aka ‘the wild’. It’s not an accident that the girls are robbing grocery stores and day spas, but I’ll get back to that, haha.

These ideas of gendered spaces underpin everything we watch, no matter the genre.

Sure, these ideas can be subverted to varying degrees of effectiveness (often it’s steeped in my least favourite trope – the ‘not like other girls’ heroine), but you can’t subvert a trope without actually acknowledging it exists. Sometimes these subversions are done brilliantly too – like in Legally Blonde which was not just about Elle existing in a space that was quintessentially coded as male, but embracing her femininity and womanhood within that space; and often brutally too in films like Winter’s Bone, Room and The Nightingale which all brutalise women in ‘male spaces’ while simultaneously weaponizing female spaces against them – usually the home. The lead character of Winter’s Bone is going to lose her house unless her absent father shows up in court, the lead character of Room creates a home that is simultaneously a sanctuary and a mockery of a sanctuary to try and protect her son from reality and survive, the lead character of The Nightingale has her home invaded, her husband and baby murdered, and is horrifically raped within that home.

Hometown Horror: a divergence

This is a slight aside to where I’m going with this overall, but please indulge me, haha. I’m a big fan of horrors and thrillers, which explore this in a really stark way. In that, the invasion of a home or a domestic space – whether by ghost, demon or serial killer, is, generally speaking, synonymous with the invasion of a woman’s body and the violation of her as a person.

Films that focus on a female survivor or a ‘final girl’ are very generally focused on the invasion of her home as much as it’s focused on the invasion of her body. Think The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby, Scream, The Babadook, Hereditary, The Conjuring, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Panic Room. The violation of a woman’s home is the invasion of her, because cinema relies on over 100 years of movies telling us that a house and the woman who lives in it are symbolically the same thing.

Horror films that focus on men are very rarely centred in the home. It’s men travelling, or men visiting a woman’s home, or men who’ve been taken. Think of the first Saw movie which takes place in a mysterious basement, Hostel which is at a hostel, Dawn of the Dead at a shopping mall, An American Werewolf in London while two men are on holiday, The Evil Dead is in a cabin, Get Out is at his girlfriend’s family home.

There are exceptions, of course! Family home invasion films like The Purge, Funny Games and The Strangers are rooted in the violation of that home, but still. You’ll generally find that it manifests differently narratively speaking for men and women. Rear Window too takes place entirely in a man’s apartment – but it’s interesting to note that most of the ‘horror’ comes from him spying on somebody else’s home – notably a woman’s, The Descent too is very much about women and is set during cave diving. Still! These are all exceptions, not the rule.

Good Girls and Gendered Spaces

Every single space in Good Girls is gendered. It’s actually one of the things I seriously love about the show because it’s thoughtfully done, and it is deliberate. We know it is, because they tell us explicitly in the writing multiple times. I mean – hell, think of Ruby telling us (well, telling Rio, haha) way back at the end of 1.04 when they’re selling him on the idea of washing cash through Cloud 9 – “Nobody thinks twice about a woman buying her husband a TV or new tires for the minivan.” A store like that is gendered, and Ruby’s reinforcing it by saying it’s a place women go to build a home. It hasn’t been weaponized yet - - but our girls know how to weaponize it. They’re playing on the fact that people think women’s spaces are effectively impotent, and they’re telling Rio – and us as an audience – that they’re going to exploit it.

This is an idea the show revisits frequently. Women’s spaces are – both in life and in storytelling – spaces that are viewed as passive because they are representative of women, and what the show is – I believe – very invested in, is showing how those spaces are fundamentally active. If you want a house to represent a woman – well, okay. Then you get to see what’s under the rug, y’know?

I’m going to come back to the home thread – because I really do think it’s very important, and I think the way the show depicts people in those spaces (and invading those spaces) is significant – but it’s not just homes that are looked at in this way. The show is very specific about having feminine spaces and masculine spaces, with only a few in between (and usually those in-between spaces are very specifically for Stan and Ruby, showing just how in-sync they are with each other and how much they operate within a shared space). Beyond the women’s homes, there are the kids’ schools, Fine & Frugal (very important here to note that Annie emasculates Boomer in what is an associated female space and that he retaliates by attempting to rape her in her own home aka not only another female space, but a space that is symbolically Annie, something he repeats later with Mary Pat – a violation on essentially every character, narrative and symbolic level, again), the waxing salon, Nancy’s day spa, Jane’s dance recital (and actually the physical object of the dubby – being a highly feminine object lost in a very masculine space), and already what we know of s3, with Ruby being at a nail salon and Beth being at a paper / card store.

The show also has very masculinized places – I’d argue Boland Motors is one of the biggest ones – very much about ‘boys and their toys’, which is why Beth pointedly feminising it when she takes over is so significant and symbolically indicative of Beth’s claiming of that space; but also spaces like the police station, the drug dealer’s house in 2.07, the hotel suite Boomer briefly occupies, even to an extent the church. When the girls are in these spaces, there’s a distinct feeling of encroaching on territory that isn’t theirs, or being in spaces that they don’t belong in. This is often done as a two-hander too – the police station and the church Ruby doesn’t belong in anymore, not necessarily as a woman, but as a criminal.

Nothing though, from a technical standpoint, is more masculine than the spaces that are shown to be Rio’s. From the warehouse spaces to the bar to his loft to his car, Rio’s ‘places’ are distinctly masculine and generally placed in direct contrast with Beth’s femininity. But I’ll come back to that point too.

Home, Identity and Invasion

Almost every female character on this show has a very defined domestic space, from Beth, Ruby and Annie, to Mary Pat, Marion and Nancy. These spaces are representative of not just who they are, but who they are as women, and really comes to routinely represent the interior lives of these characters. This is probably the clearest in 2.09 when Beth is uncharacteristically messy following Dean taking their kids, and in 2.06, when Beth and Dean switch roles, and Dean is incapable of maintaining that domestic space because it’s not his. But let’s not start there.

Let’s start with Annie.

Annie’s apartment is fun, feminine (but not overly so), youthful, sweet, and generally a bit of organized chaos. It’s often underequipped – there are several mentions of the pantry being understocked – but it’ll always do in a pinch. More than anything though, Annie’s apartment comes to life when her son is in it. She’s happiest when he’s there, and when he’s not, her loneliness drives her to pulling people into the space with her, whether that’s the electronics guy, Greg, or Noah.

This is particularly significant when Annie’s forming bonds with people. The show has symbolically relied very heavily on Annie’s moments of vulnerability and connection being grounded in her apartment or an extension of it – usually her car. There was her reconnecting with Greg over YouTube videos in s1, there was Nancy and her talking about pregnancy in 2.02, and there was Noah settling in across season 2. These are all substantial moments in terms of Annie’s interior life that are represented through her home – she lets them all in. Which is why it’s significant what people do when they are in. Particularly the show marrying Noah getting to know Annie while simultaneously rifling through her belongings, trying to know specific things about her.

This is only reiterated by Noah’s scenes with Sadie later in the season – always at home, reiterating just how much Noah’s invaded Annie’s life, how much he’s inside her, how much he’s using everything and everyone who’s important to her, and how much he’s a threat to all of that too.

Ruby and Stan are a little different. Ruby’s house is the only one that’s genuinely shared with somebody, and the show represents this across the board – Ruby and Stan wear similar colours, the house feels like theirs, and the parts of their worlds that are separate are still frequently pretty defined by each other (even when Ruby’s acting away form Stan, the show makes it clear that Stan’s at the forefront of her mind, and vice versa). This indicates their partnership, but the house really still is symbolically tied to Ruby. This is particularly represented by the effect of having Turner in the house, but, more than that, it’s underlined symbolically by Turner arresting Stan at home. If the home symbolically carries the meaning of the woman, Turner arresting Stan there is starkly about Turner taking Stan away from Ruby. That image would not hold the same weight if he was arrested at, say, the park or the police station, because the locations don’t hold the same meaning.

It’s also why there’s significance in Stan and Turner’s showdown narratively speaking happening at the police station. It needs to, because symbolically it should occupy a masculine-coded space, because that showdown isn’t just about who they are as people, but who they are as men.

Beth and Beth’s house is very, very different to Annie and Ruby’s, and holds a more substantial narrative and symbolic function. From the very first episode, the potential of losing her house is key to her arc, and key to her identity as a character.

Beth is a lot of things, but a recurring image with her as a character is that she is invested in projecting a dated idea of ‘perfect womanhood’, and, within that, actually pretty perfectly creates parts of it for herself. For Beth – as somebody who was a housewife for roughly twenty years – her house really is her in every sense of the word. Every threat to that house, every disruption, every wrinkle, every intrusion, every theft, every invitation is personal. Dean might have at least two rooms in the Boland House, but that space is Beth’s on almost every symbolic level. When people pop into it, it’s a direct invasion of her.

This is something that the show has revisited time and time again, particularly when it comes to Beth’s bedroom. When people want to be close to Beth, that’s where they go. Annie slept there across season one when she was vulnerable and lonely, despite Beth telling her to go home, Jane broke into Beth’s closet there when she felt she was being neglected, Dean’s constantly trying to sidle into it (and – pointedly – only really in it when they’re fighting and Beth is revealing something / letting him in on something – that they’re out of money, that she has Rio’s money, that she knows about his affairs). When Beth has been at her most vulnerable, she lets Ruby and Annie into it. That said, the only character who’s been explicitly invited into it has been Rio – significantly both in fantasy, and in the show’s reality.

It’s not just about inviting people in though – when she kicks somebody out of it, the act is loaded.

She’s not just pushing somebody out of a space, she’s pushing them out of her.

It’s not just her bedroom of course (although I do think that’s the most significant space on perhaps the whole show). Rio and Turner between them have regularly invaded Beth’s living room, dining room, her kitchen, her yard. These are often distinctly tied with her doing something domestic and / or distinctly feminine. She’s bringing groceries home, she’s baking, she’s trying on jewellery, she’s mothering her children. Symbolically, this is often when Rio and Turner both are at their most masculine and their most threatening, which just serves to underline the invasion of Beth’s space.

It’s not just the girls though, as I said above. Female domestic spaces on this show are significantly coded as belonging to women, even if they share those spaces. Think about Nancy and Greg’s house – which is Nancy’s space, not Greg’s, and throughout season 1, Annie was pitted as the outsider to that. She’s a smear of hair oil on Nancy’s perfect couch. It’s made all the starker when Nancy kicks Greg out, and when Annie helps Nancy give birth in that house – a distinctly female, intimate act, that not only operates as a significant feminization of that space, but also about Annie fighting for Nancy to let her in again.

These spaces all keep secrets for the women they belong to too – Mary Pat’s husband’s dead body, Boomer’s very much alive one – because, again, symbolically, they are these women.

Rio’s loft is a really interesting one to look at in this context, because not only is it hyper masculine, but the show underlines that it does not hold the same significance that the girls’ places have for them. Beth does not learn Rio by being inside him – something made stark through their game of twenty questions. In fact, being in Rio’s loft, in his space, only serves to point out how much Beth doesn’t know him. Not only that, but Beth’s inability to lose her house (which is really central to her arc) is paralleled exactly with how easily Rio can separate from his.

The domestic space is not male.

Rio exists outside of it.

Beth x Rio and the Feminine x Masculine

Rio and Beth are basically at polar opposites of the masculine / feminine spectrum, and it’s something that this show often casts in a really stark light through dialogue, visual language, character coding and symbolism.

Beth epitomizes the old archetype of femininity and the female world in a way that I don’t think Annie and Ruby do (although I do think Ruby does in some respects). This is coded into almost every part of her character – from her long history of domestic servitude and marital submission (letting Dean control their finances, not working, keeping the house, etc.) to her fertility (four children!) to the way she dresses in floral, bakes, to certain traits, namely her nurturing tendencies, overt empathy and guilt (not being able to kill Boomer). Even in terms of the casting – Christina is somebody who has a very distinctly feminine body.  

On the other hand, Rio, in many ways, epitomizes the old idea of masculinity and the masculine world. He’s coded that way almost as much as Beth is coded as feminine – he’s physically strong (beating up Dean, holding Beth up while they were having sex), assertive, dominant, capable and collected. That’s not even touching on the fact that the golden gun is incredibly phallic, haha.

The show loves to place Beth’s femininity in direct contrast with Rio’s masculinity in a way that it doesn’t do with the other girls or – in fact perhaps more notably – with Beth and Dean (if anything, Dean’s frequently emasculated around Beth, but that feels like a whole other thing, haha), and it does this frequently, and often even in the same shot.

Most notably, think of her pearls on the warehouse door handle:

Their cars parked side-by-side:

Her necklace, his gun:

Her light, his darkness:

Her floral, his solid colours:

Interestingly though, these things are very rarely in competition or combative (although occasionally they are – Rio trying to use her femaleness and his maleness / their sexuality to literally bend her over a table in 2.06 being the clearest example of that). Generally speaking, the show’s visual language though shows us how these things compliment each other. They occupy different gendered spaces, so they can ‘crime’ in different ways – Beth using the big box stores, the secret shoppers, robbing the day spa, are all things that are highly feminised, and give Rio by proxy access to a world he ordinarily wouldn’t (albeit it’s not always a world he’s interested in – like it wasn’t with the botox), and the reverse of that is that Rio gives Beth access to spaces that are highly masculinised and that she ordinarily wouldn’t have access to (again, not always a world she’s interested in either). It’s why when they’re working together, and acknowledging they have different departments, they actually become something really whole, comprehensive and effective.

It’s the exploration of this that I find really intriguing generally, and particularly a thread that I think is reiterated where Beth’s usually at her worst and her most ineffective when she’s trying to emulate Rio’s masculinity. We saw that at the end of 1.10 and the start of 2.01, and I think we saw it at the tail end of season 2 too. When Beth’s succeeding, she’s typically doing something that revels in the strength and power and the underestimation of femininity and female spaces, and turns places that are typically viewed as passive into active ones.

The Secret Shoppers (which worked briefly! And fell apart because she couldn’t handle Mary Pat. Notably almost every scene with them was inside Beth’s house):

The day spa heist:

The Boland Motors takeover / reclamation that focused on feminising the place:

Pretending to be somebody’s mum to get into the kids’ space (which would’ve worked if Beth and Ruby hadn’t started fighting):

Breaking into Rio’s loft:

Again, this is something that seems to be being teased out already in s3 with the paper store and the nail salon, and I’m sure we’ll see it coming up again and again beyond that.

But yes! Your question, haha. I think Rio is enamoured with the strong, feminine space and the untapped female world that Beth exists in, and the ways that she is actively capable of utilising her femininity and her womanness in a way that is completely impossible for him. She can manipulate these spaces – either those already female, or those she makes female aka Boland Motors – in ways that he can’t, and in a way that, at the end of the day, lines his pocket, in the same way that giving her access to his powerful, masculine world lines hers. It’s market development, y’know? But it’s also something that could be a true and successful partnership if they could stop, y’know, playing games and trying to kill each other, haha.

I think it’s worth noting here too that the show has shown us explicitly that Beth absolutely gets off on Rio being highly masculine, and while I think Rio absolutely gets off on Beth being a boss bitch too, it’s also important to note how he responds to her when she’s displaying vulnerability in a way often defined as very feminine – namely crying – and how that display of femininity not only affects him, but often makes him want to touch her (and more and more, follow through on touching her).

Basically I think they’re as obsessed with the contrast between the two of them as we are, haha.  

[caiuscassiuss]

Muse | Painter AU! Taeyong (M)

Description: “You are the apple of my eye, the stars in my sky; you are my muse, and most importantly, you are mine.”

Safe: In all ways, you have always played it safe, never taking risks. However, your stagnant world is shaken up when abstract painter Lee Taeyong propositions to you in the middle of an art galley.

Genre: angst | fluff | humor WC: 18.8k Warnings: graphic smut (virginity loss, rough sex, oral sex, unprotected, 69, etc), profanity

    (A/N: I’m so sorry painter taeyong lowkey turned into pseudo sugar daddy taeyong. Also, there is a detailed notations list at the end noting my references.)

   You scrutinized the lines of various lengths and curvatures that made up the design of your organic building. Your trained eye could pick out the angles were all correct, every detail arithmetically precise, but the building simply didn’t invoke any sort of passion in you. The lines were exactly just that; lines. None of the functional utility of the drawing gave way to any sort of creativity. It was like staring at a paper you’ve written on for hours with invisible ink, only to realize that you’ve forgotten the point and nothing made sense because you didn’t have any way of reading it.    A sigh escapes your lips as you stand up from your stool, a satisfying “crack” resounding throughout the empty room when you stretch your poor back. You roll your head back in a circle, refreshing your eyes from the hours spent on staring at a piece of blue paper hung up on the angled drawing board. 1, 2, 3, you count as you extend your arms out to relieve the muscles from the lack of exertion of a few hours.    Panting after the stretch, you stare at the drawing again. No matter how hard you stared, the drawing desk could not turn into a dirt-stained pottery wheel, nor could the many rulers suddenly morph into chisels, worn with constant use. It was hopeless really, as hopeless as you actually managing to put together a comprehensive design for your architecture final.    Your phone vibrated on the side table and your eyes dart over to the screen. It lay in a halo of rulers and pencils, erasers dotting the surface of the table like water droplets while pencil sketches were interspersed haphazardly. A messy desk was the sign of a messy mind, after all; you just hoped it didn’t reflect in your work.    Olivia, one of your friends at the private arts college you both attended, informed you to “hurry the fuck up” and meet her at the quad. You frowned, not recalling the reason why, but ah-ing when the reason came to you. A famous artist, whom with Olivia was absolutely enamored, was delivering a speech in one of the lecture halls on campus and she wanted you to come along. It escaped your reasoning on why your presence was needed (You were an architect major. What use was an abstract painter’s advice to you?) but you agreed anyway, even if she was acting like some silly teenage girl attending a concert.    Sighing, you did your best to organize the pathetic mess on your workshop table and gave up as soon as you started. What was the point anyway? It was going to be a quick trip, after all. You gathered your essential things in your bag and strode determinedly out of the workshop and into the maze of hallways that made up the famed Parsons School of Design. The midday sun that greeted you outside was a welcome replacement for the fluorescent lighting in the workshop.    Your friend, in her signature monochrome ensemble, was tapping her foot impatiently as she shielded her eyes from the sun. A surge of envy and sadness rose up at the sight of her paint-splattered tote bag and her stained fingers. You admired Olivia for her braveness at pursuing her passion, but also grew green-eyed at the sort of tired joy in her eyes when she recounted her brush technique class. Sighing, you continued walking through the quad, feeling the sunlight warming your skin and melting away your worries. Her disgruntled expression turned even more sour when she caught sight of you moseying along, admiring the the greenery and architecture.    “This is no time for you to enjoy nature! We’ve got to get there soon and grab some front row seats before half of the damn campus floods in!” she lectures grabs your arm. You roll your eyes and increase your pace to keep up, and you both speed walk to the lecture hall.    The lecture hall of Parsons School of Design was the pride and joy of its students and alumni. Designed by one of the alumni of the architecture department, it was a huge, intimidating structure made out of glass and metal in the spirit of postmodern design. A dome made completely out of glass soared over the amphitheater-style seating surrounding a central stage, the signature blood-red banners of your college hanging in this way and that way. Usually used for special occasions, this hall wasn’t your run of the mill lecture hall but a bold statement of creativity.    Even after having attended the venue multiple times, you couldn’t help but be amazed at its sheer size and impressive design. However, the room was filled with loud chatter and buzz, teeming with students and staff.    “Look! Over there!” Olivia exclaimed and tugged you in the direction of the inner ring of seats. You were surprised she could even see over the mass of people with her short stature, and that there happened to be seats available in the huge crowd.    As soon as the pair of you took your seats, a hush swept over the audience. Chitchat is smothered with the blanket of silence and the echoes of conversation no longer reverb across the hall, only a sort of nervous buzz signifying anticipation.    “Good afternoon, everyone. Today is-” your headmaster droned on in a monotone voice.    “This old man needs to hurry the fuck up, my god!” Olivia grumbled, resting her chin on her palm.    You roll your eyes and your thoughts drift to other trivial things. Did you water your plants? Did you save the latest design model in your hard drive? Was the hot barista still working at-    Applause resounds around the lecture hall as your headmaster steps down from the stage and hands the microphone over to a man with sunset orange-red hair and a slender build. His stage presence was immediately more noticeable than your headmaster’s. Him in his black slacks and oxford shirt rolled to the sleeves attracted the crowd’s attention like bees to honey.    “Ehem.”    Olivia, beside you, squeals in delight while you slightly lean forward, intrigued by this man.    “As you may know, I am Lee Taeyong, an artist and alumni of Parsons,” he bows slightly and your classmates murmur about his Korean heritage.    “Today, I would like to talk about inspiration.”    He started pacing the stage, making rounds to address each part of the circular auditorium.    “Inspiration is something easy to find, yet rather hard to grasp. It’s difficult to wrestle with something you see or feel onto a canvas or block of clay that makes sense. But this is basic knowledge to all of you, right?” he grins and the crowd laughs.    As the speech continues, you can never take your eyes off the painter. Lee Taeyong seemed to embody the abstract art he was so famous for, his presence departing independently from the reality around him. It was almost like there was the crowd, the stage, and then him. He cut an alternate shape in the fabric of reality and somehow, and that drew your attention.    “However, inspiration is more than what helps me pick up my paintbrush at 2 am and to pay the bills; it is an energy that I have to constantly grapple with. Inspiration will drive you to your limits or bog you down like an anchor, it can either eat at your mind or push you towards your boundaries. It can consume you or it will be the one that feeds you.”    “Inspiration cannot be underestimated; it is just as much as an energy as the electricity that lights up this building and the kinetic energy in physics. Do not take it for granted; you are under its spell, after all.”    Taeyong’s lecture comes to an end and he bows, which shakes the whole hall out of its trance and into thunderous applause. Your classmates and many staff actually stand up to give this man a standing ovation, which rarely happens. Olivia, by your side, is still starstruck and tugged at your arm in excitement while you suddenly snap out of your daze. Even though you feel like the floor has been taken from beneath your feet, you regain the use of your limbs and get up to applaud.

   The air conditioning hits you in the face like a wrecking ball, and you shiver at the temperature change from outside to inside. You clutch the handles of your tote bag harder. No matter; the cold was endearing and you wouldn’t have it any other way. The art gallery on 18th street was your home away from home, a moment of reprieve from the stressful world of college. A usual college student’s hangout spot would be the coffee shop or even at the library but no; your place of rest and relaxation was within the walls of an art gallery.    You strolled through the various galleries, greeting each piece like an old friend. In a way, they were; when you moved out from your comfy suburbs, the only thing that reprieved you from your homesickness was the paintings on the wall or the sculptures on display.    When you crossover into another exhibition room, you pause momentarily in surprise. While you were expecting to see overhanging metal mobiles by Calder (1), instead, you were greeted by paintings of various sizes in gilded frames. They were painted with a muted color palette, drab and horribly realistic. There were landscapes of wheat or empty, desolate rooms, all of them showcased in moody lighting. The banner above you proclaimed these were the works of Andrew Wyeth, a larger than life black and white photo of him hanging imposingly over the installations.    A central piece draws your eyes to its canvas. It is a rather intimate piece; a woman in full nude sitting on a stool near a barn window, her bright skin contrasted by the darkness of the background surrounding her (2). It was gorgeous and you admire the mastery of detail put into the piece. As you continued to inspect the painting, a presence sidles closely beside you. You pay no mind to the person.    “Was he in love with her?” Your intense concentration on the painting in front of you is broken, and you turn your head towards the sound of the noise. The man on your left is not looking at you, rather, in the position, you were occupying a few seconds ago: transfixed by the painting. His glasses reflect in the studio lights and they highlight his unusually sharp features. He gives off an aura you couldn’t quite identify but are somehow familiar with.    “You are to assume I know of such artistic critique?” you ask bemusedly, cocking an eyebrow at this intriguing man.    He turns towards you, and your memory suddenly clicks together. You didn’t recognize him with the glasses, but the sharp jawline and distinct cheekbones, the ruffled hair and aristocratic nose- Lee Taeyong.    Taeyong’s mouth half pulls into a grin but he motions at your emblazoned tote bag.    “Parson’s?”    “Lee Taeyong! Oh, my, I certainly didn’t expect this.” The lights feel too bright and too warm when he scrutinizes your face with his intense, coal black eyes.    “Pleasure. And you are…?”    “Y/N L/N.”    His mouth pulls into some kind of half-smile for you and he turned back towards the painting.    “So?”    “I’m part of the architecture department,” you explain, bitterness seeping into your tone.    He raises his eyebrows.    “Either way; was Wyeth in love with his muse?”    Your brows furrow at this question. You think for a few seconds before carefully deciding on an answer. There was no telling what this man wanted anyway.    “I feel it was more of an aesthetic appreciation if anything. Nudity is not inherently sexual- Wyeth wanted to just invoke vulnerability through her nude body,” you speak decisively.    “Is there not some sort of love involved in spending time painting and scrutinizing every crevice of her body?” you shiver at the almost seductive tone in his voice, passionate and fiery. His tenor was the stuff of dark rooms and rumpled sheets, dying sunlight and lingering kisses.    Nevertheless, you huff and roll your eyes. “If you see it that way, sure. She was probably just a hired model.” (3)    Taeyong stays silent for a few seconds.    “Interesting,” he hummed.    You both stand, side by side looking at the dark painting.    “I hate to inform you, but my intentions on coming over here were not... purely to ask you about your interpretation of Wyeth.” Taeyong broke the silence.    “What were they, then?” you ask, intrigued,    “Your eyes are wonderful, you know,” Taeyong says abruptly.    “What.” you deadpan, confused at his sudden shift in tone.    “Your eyes are wonderful; I should love to paint them,” he speaks absentmindedly as if he were speaking to himself and not in conversation with another.    “Will you let me paint you?” He turns his smoldering eyes to you, boring into yours like a sucker-punch to the gut.    “I… excuse me?” you sputter, secretly wondering if this esteemed artist your friend so admired was high off of his ass.    “Will you let me paint you?” he draws out as if you were lacking in brain cells.    “Um… no? I don’t pose nude. Nor do I fancy myself a model.”    “You wouldn’t have to pose nude, y/n. You would serve more as… inspiration, rather than a real-life reference. You would be paid, if that helps,” Taeyong spoke quietly, beseeching you to heed his words.    “I’m afraid I don’t have much knowledge with this sort of thing, you know?”    Taeyongs sighs, and reaches into the inner coat pocket to retrieve something white and small. He offers the object, a vellum calling card, to your perusal. His name and contact information are engraved with silver ink and you hesitantly reach up to grab the card.    “Well, if you change your mind… you can contact me.” He brushes his thumb over your knuckles as he hands you the card, the way a cool breeze brushes upon your skin to refresh you from the hot summer air. His touch would seem unintentional if not for the suggestive smirk on his face. You blush slightly at the contact, and he retracts his hands and put them into his pockets.    “I bid you adieu.”    With a final grin, he sweeps out of the room, his presence still lingering like a miasma in the air.

   You slouch into the headboard of the rickety bed of your dorm room, cuddled up with blankets and hot chocolate. It was time to do some research because you were going to be safe.    You typed in “artist model”. All that came up with was a definition, so you decided to go another route. “Artist’s inspiration” brings about nothing relevant, and you pout, frustrated at the lack of information available. You ponder for a moment, the thunderstorm pounding at your window pane. Were you going to be his “muse”? You knew, vaguely, that the term was a loaded concept, subject to controversy and misconceptions. The way Taeyong described, you were acting more like a base for his artwork, something of an anchor for his creativity; a jumping board.    A crack of thunder jump-scares you, and you almost spill your hot chocolate onto your bedsheets. Sighing, you relinquish your grip on the mug and put it on your nightstand.    Throwing your hands up in exasperation, you power off your laptop and set aside on your desk. Today was simply not that day where you would come to a definite conclusion.

   “Say, Olivia, if you were suddenly propositioned by a man to be his model, would you accept?”    “Come again?!”    Her head of blonde hair whips back as she snaps her head towards you. The brushes she is washing in the sink are quickly discarded in favor of her freezing in shock, an amusingly shaken look on her face. You, however, are unperturbed and sit on the couch, staring at the TV display nonchalantly.    You look back at her, an eyebrow raised as her mouth gapes open stupidly in your direction.    “I’m not repeating that.”    Olivia unfreezes and turns off the tap, wiping her hands hurriedly on her jeans as she strides towards the living room of her apartment. Her pretty countenance is marred by furrowed brows, a mixture of confusion and impending alarm in her eyes. She settles into the couch, and unlike usual, she does not flop into it ungracefully but sits into it cautiously with her back ramrod straight.    “Y/n can you please explain?!” she asks.    You sigh and switch off the blaring TV and turn to her.    “An artist I recently met at a gallery asked me to “serve as inspiration for him”.”    At the sight of the doubt on her face, you explain more.    “No! Not like that. I’m not posing nude for him or anything like that, more like… inspiration of sorts.”    Olivia leans her chin onto her palm, deep in thought.    “Okay, who is it?”    You cringe. You knew this question was going to come up.    “... Lee Taeyong,” you whisper.    Olivia actually physically jumps off the couch and stands up.    “WHAT?!”     You cower away from her enthusiasm. Her hair crackles with excitement and her eyes are wide, but you are not surprised by her overzealous reaction.    “Erm… yeah?” you offer hesitantly.    “Oh my god, yes! You should totally do it! This is great, y/n! Do you know how many people would kill for this opportunity?” she ranted as she threw her hands up in the air. She paced the room in barely contained excitement, while you could only stare.    She calmed down after a while and sat back down. She exhaled then drew a palm over her face, and her face was fine.    “Okay, in all seriousness, I think it would be a great opportunity for you. Y/n… I love you so much, sweetheart, but you always play it so safe in your life.”    You frown and turn your head to the side. While you have known this practically all your life, it still hurts for it be said so raw and out in the open, like a cut wound exposed to the air.    “You never want to go out clubbing with the girls or flirt with some guys. Hell, you didn't even want to pursue scul-”    She shuts up when you cut your eyes towards her, a warning and angry gaze contained in them.    “...sorry. However, you get my point: you need to take risks more. Have fun, take a breather, and get out more! I think… I think this modeling opportunity might get you out of your shell, you know? You should go for it and… just be careful.”    You stay quiet for a while, contemplating over her words. Olivia was right, as much as you hated to admit it. It loathed you to go out of the apartment, no matter how much you yearned for excitement and the vibrancy of city life. Any romantic interest or advance was clinically clipped at the bud, because what if you got hurt? What if you couldn't concentrate on your studies? Safety meant no boys, no parties, no risky decisions. Safe was always...safe for you. But was “safe” good for you?    “... alright. I'll give it a try.”    Olivia squealed and dragged you off the couch, dancing you around in a bastardized version of the waltz. Peals of laughter rang out throughout the apartment as she dragged you into her excitement.

   The numbers of Taeyong’s number glow up from your screen, all ready to be dialed. You, on the other hand, were NOT ready and instead, eyed your phone like it was some sort of bomb that might explode.    Even if Olivia had convinced you at least try and see where it took you, you could not uphold to those promises when it came down to be. The effects of pressing the red little call icon on your phone screen would be… astronomical.     Would things change? Would they be the same? Would you still be the college student struggling to make ends meet? Or would you be something else entirely, something you couldn’t even fathom in your imagination? What would happen?    You know what? Fuck it.    You could do this.    A shiver of nervous anticipation wracked your body as the dialing tone rang through your empty apartment.    “Hello?” a husky tone spoke.    “Hi,” you whisper.    “Who is this?” Taeyong asks disinterestedly.    “It’s… it’s y/n. The girl you met at the gallery on 18th street?”    “Ah, y/n! Hello!” He exclaims, a complete roundabout from the cool detachment apparent in his tone earlier.    “Have you thought about my offer yet?” He asks.    “Erm, yes. I decided I… I’d like to take you up on it.”    There are a few moments of silence until Taeyong breathes out, “Delightful.” You unconsciously let out a breath you didn't know you were holding in. Your posture slumps back into the chair behind you from your hunched position over the table.    “Um… yeah.” You don't know quite what to say now.    He laughs, a rich delightful sound that rumbles through the phone line and stirs something in the pit of your stomach. You gulp as his amused chuckle does down.    “You are so cute. I'll text you the details of where we should meet up, alright?”    “Yes, of course.”    “I will see you later. Have a nice night.”    “You too. Goodbye.”    The line clicks off and it is almost like the aftermath of an explosion. You stare, dazed and shell-shocked, at the dark screen of your cell phone.    You really don’t know what you have gotten yourself into.

   Muted jazz music plays softly over the speakers of the cafe you are currently sitting at, and combined with the ambient lighting makes the place attractive indeed. It is one of the classier coffee cafes in New York, one slightly out of the price range of broke college students, so it is an oddity to see one sitting in one of the plush booths that the cafe provides; hence, why you probably stuck out like a sore thumb.    Your fingers fumble with the handle of the coffee mug in front of you as you check your phone repeatedly. You tug nervously at the collar of your shirt and look around the cafe discreetly.    Taeyong had texted you the address of this cafe with no explanation, except a time and a date. It was rather confusing at first; why did he want to meet up with your cafe? You’d think you’d be brought to some sort of studio or informal workplace, but here you were, humming along with the saxophone in a dimly lit cafe.    The display on your phone read 6:40, 10 minutes after when Taeyong had said he would meet you. Normally, you would just wait patiently, but the importance of whom you were meeting with and why had you on edge with anticipation, butterflies wreaking havoc in your stomach. You glanced down at your coffee mug; it was ¼ full, which meant you have been guzzling it down pretty quickly in nervousness. A sigh escapes your lips as you turn your attention towards the window.    You were on the fifth floor, so you had a bird’s-eye view of the pedestrians outside. People-watching was a habit of yours, albeit barely explored; it intrigued you to ponder what sort of lives the people passing you had. A woman near the corner caught your eye; she had perfectly coiffed hair and strode confidently through the mess of people with a briefcase and light overcoat. She looked like she might be a working woman, you mused, a yuppie; the sort of person your father dreamt for you to become.    A man with dyed orange hair ensnared your attention next, carrying a skateboard. While you could not see it from your vantage point, you knew he probably had some sort of Supreme-branded clothing on because of the neon yellow of his shirt and the flaming red color of his pants. People around him, particularly of the older generation, stared at him in disdain as he seemed to brush it off, not even acknowledging the world around him. You wished you could be like that; doing what you wanted, not caring about anyone wanted around you.    “Y/n?” a voice broke you out of your thoughts.    You turned your head and there was the man of the hour: Lee Taeyong.    He looked particularly dashing today, although unusually dressed. He wore a loose linen shirt tucked into some skinny jeans, his sunset red-orange hair kept in by a silk green bandana. The picture of a well-dressed, in-style millennial. Taeyong smiled a crooked grin at you and slid into the booth in the seat in front of you.    “How are you?” he asked.    “I’m doing fine myself, and you?”     “Rather well.”    The pair of you sat in silence for a few moments before he broke it.    “You must be wondering why I’ve summoned you to a cafe of all places, right? I can see it in your eyes,” he intoned.    You nod slowly.     “What I have found is that you can’t find the essence of a person while they are contorted on a podium in a studio. You can better express emotions and get a feel for the person better when you can explore all facets of them. What better to do that than to observe them in a natural environment?” Taeyong stares out the window into the crowded street.    He turns his gaze to you.    “Can I know more about you?”    “Erm, sure. What would you like to know?” you ask, unsure.    “Your social security number,” he deadpans, a cloying glint in his dark eyes.     You frown and then see the look in his eyes. Your countenance asks him: really?    Taeyong bursts out in laughter and you giggle along with him, discomfort at least a little bit gone.    “I’m joking, I’m joking. Hmm… perhaps the basic stuff?”    “That’s alright. Like what?”    “What do you like to do in your free time?”    “I… I like to watch Netflix. Um… I like to… cook? Yeah, I like to cook stuff like teriyaki chicken or stir-fry. Perhaps play around with clay or stone, if I have it on hand,” you list out.    “Sculpting? That’s rather fun. I used to do a bit of it before myself before I really got into painting. What do you like to sculpt?”    “People,” you reply immediately. “People.”    “Same as me then, hm? Are you trying to use me as a stepping stone for your career?” he asks playfully.    You laugh while he stares at you intensely as if he’s trying to commit the planes of your face to memory. Perhaps that’s what he meant by “observing”.    “Maybe I’m trying to secretly sabotage your art, so I can get a leg up. What about then, Taeyong, hm?” you tease.     He stares at you in surprise before he laughs, the sound carrying around the cafe and imprinting in your brain.    “Oh, you’re a delight, Y/n. Truly.”

   These meet-ups go along for a few more months, all in different locations. Taeyong never asks to meet up at a location you have already been to before. He takes you through the paths of Central Park, to the bustling chaos of Times Square, even taking you, in a rather memorable trip, to a show on Broadway. Every time you met up, he’s given you fifty dollars for your time. You accept it gratefully, albeit awkwardly.    You’ve exposed a lot of yourself to him now; he knows everything from where you were born, when you were born (he’s 6 years older than you), to your favorite type of frosting and even your hatred of small holes.     You often wonder what he is doing with this knowledge. He has never mentioned to you the progress of his artwork but you can see the paint smudges on his fingers or the rare smudge on his trousers when he visits you in a rush from his studio.    Taeyong, you think, is more artist than scientist; he adds different variables and he observes how you react. You are the proverbial rat in a glass box.    However, as bare as you are to him, he is as closed off to you.    Besides the basic knowledge of his occupation and age and whatnot, you never really got a read on him. Taeyong was like one of those Hanamaya puzzles you struggled with as a child, frustrated at the lack of progress unlocking the intertwined metal structures. Enigmatic, closed off; your regular Sherlock Holmes.     These thoughts ran through your head as you strolled along Battery Park. It was rather warm spring day, and you enjoyed the warm sunlight against your skin. The park was also surprisingly quiet, on such a nice day, but you weren’t complaining; comfortable silence was more conducive to stimulating conversation anyway.    Taeyong had bought you an ice cream that you had been ready to pay for despite your protests, citing “I remember when I was a broke college student. Just take the money, okay?”.    As ate your ice cream, you walked in slowly through the tree-lined path. You grew anxious and wanted to ask him a question, but your voice couldn’t formulate any sort of sound.    “Taeyong… I feel as if you know the bare fabric of me but I… know nothing of you,” you ask, uncharacteristically bold.    He pauses and looks at you, hands still stuffed in his pockets, an unreadable expression on his face.    “I’m Lee Taeyong, I paint, I like strawberry macaroons, and I hate dirty rooms. There’s not much to know about me, you see,” he says shortly as he walks ahead.    I don’t think that’s true, Mr. Lee.

   Taeyong doesn’t text you for a few weeks.  As hard as you try, you cannot be unaffected.    You never really expected how much he has inserted himself into your daily life. He is in your thoughts when you sketch out the facade of an apartment building, and he is with you when you see the strawberry macaroons made in the bakery you always pass by when going to campus.    Did your words… scare him off? Were you perhaps… too forward with him? Did you cross some unspoken boundary as the subject of artistic inspiration? You look down to see that you have traced the same line over 3 times on your architectural sketch. A groan escapes your lips and you lean back in your chair, tossing the pencil haphazardly on the desk. Concentration escaped your grasp like a sand, pouring out of every crack and crevice even when you did your best to capture it. Evasive.    Like Lee Taeyong.    An even louder groan, a gross hybrid between a scream and a groan, escapes your lips and echoes around the empty room. There you go again, thinking about Lee fucking Taeyong.    The display of your phone lights up.    Meet me in the quad ~ TY    See. You were even hallucinating text messages from him.    You shake your head as you rub your temples back and for—    Wait, TY?    You scramble for your phone, which was (as usual) buried under a pile of pencil shavings and protractors. Fishing it out, you unlock the screen and hurriedly scroll through the messages.    It really was Lee Taeyong.    You stared helplessly at your uncompleted project and then back at your phone. Since you couldn’t concentrate anyway, you might as well try to relieve it by going to the source of your distraction.    You pick up your bag and wave goodbye to your very focused classmates, who merely grunt before going back to their boards. A quick walk led you to the square of carefully cultivated trees and flowers, all intentionally grown to create a relaxed and peaceful atmosphere. It also created a visual centerpiece for the school, the flora exploding in vibrant colors to create a gardener’s paradise.    You spot Taeyong’s languid posture draped in one of the many wrought-iron benches, a book held up in one hand and the other resting upon the armrest. You were surprised no one had recognized him, even with his conservatively-dyed black hair that he was sporting recently. Taeyong was one of the rare people whose presence was immediately palpable when you were in his vicinity, magnetic yet jarring.    “Phaedrus? (4) I should’ve known that’s the sort of philosophical nonsense you artists love to read.”    Taeyong turns his head towards you and mock-pouts.    “I’ll have you know that this here book was inspiration for one of my best pieces,” he defends, closing the book with a snap and straightening up.    “Ah, yes, let’s deify our inspiration if it makes money,” you reply sarcastically as you settle into the seat beside him.    “Indeed.”    He stands up and extends a hand towards you, at which you stare at as if he were offering you radioactive waste.    “Well, come on. You didn’t expect me to not do anything for a month, did you? I have something to show you.”     You take his hand hesitantly (surprisingly calloused for a painter) and allow him to pull yourself up. He places a hand upon the small of your back as he leads you to the iron gates of the entrance of the school. After a few short blocks, he guides you to the entrance of a covered entrance way of an imposing skyscraper. A doorman greets him imperiously and opens the glass door with a glove-covered hand and Taeyong nods at him as he steps through. You merely follow, confused as hell, but trusting enough of Taeyong to guide you through.    After going through the elevator, he unlocks a door on the 23rd floor and enters the room.    “Even though I am an abstract artist, the very definition of postmodernism, I still find I have a penchant for carved mahogany bookshelves and gilded mirrors. Irony at its best, hm?”    If you were to describe Lee Taeyong, it would not be ironic. Enigmatic, yes, but not dramatically ironic.    The large suite you stepped into did, indeed, contrast him very greatly. It smelled like old books and cologne, and the dark wood paneling gleamed in the warm lamplight. Rich jewel tones tastefully complimented the decorations, in the furniture or weaved into the carpet. It was like the backdrop of one of those period dramas you saw on TV, in the age where women wore corsets and men, cravats.    However, you only caught a glimpse of the apartment as he ushered you into a room. It was pitch black until he flicked on the lights.    The room you were in was an artist’s dream. There were shelves and displays full of brushes and paints, all organized except for a little part in the corner. Half-finished canvases were slumped like dolls in a dollhouse against the walls, some covered in sheets and some not.    What drew your attention, however, were the 3 easels proudly standing in the middle of the room. The triplet of them was covered in heavy sheets, containing mystery and intrigue.    “As you might’ve guessed, these things make up the “something” I wanted to show you,” Taeyong’s voice rang out from behind you as he shut the door. He led you to the middle and brushed past you to stand next to the paintings. He pulled the sheet off.    You couldn’t contain your gasp as you take in the masterpieces before you.    The leftmost painting was of a barely perceptible outline of a woman, painted in warm yellows, browns, and red. While very comfy, it gave off an almost confused quality, like it was as if the painter were given the face of a person to memorize in 30 seconds and then asked to paint what they remembered. There were details that were hazy, but the areas that weren't were well fleshed-out.    The one in the middle was a clearer impression of the woman, her laughing in the midst of yellows, dark blues, and forest greens. It was a little bit less distorted than the previous, at least her crinkled eyes and open mouth apparent but the rest… not so much.    The one on the right was immediately your favorite. The face of the woman was only defined by the lights of neon signs, painted roughly in haphazard strokes. It contrasted against a totally black background. The placement of strokes was so masterful, however, that you could perceive the glow of amazement in the woman’s eyes and the childish nativity that emanated from her delicate features.    “These… these are beautiful, Taeyong. Absolutely gorgeous. Wow.”    “You know these are of you, right?”    You shake out of your trance and turn quickly towards him.    “What?!”    He smiles his crooked little grin at you and motions to the paintings.    “The first one is at the cafe we first met at, remember? The second was you in Central Park on that wonderful day where I slipped into the dewy grass, leaving a sort of weird bodyprint on it. The third was at the Broadway show… where you took a million photos of the posters. Remember?”    “Of course I do,” you breathe out in amazement.    “I can’t believe such beautiful things were painted because of plain, old, ugly me. Wow, you must’ve had a lot work on your palette,” you laugh suddenly.    “Don’t say that,” he cuts in sharply, his tone dark and ominous. It causes a mysterious heat to rise over your skin and a shiver to race through your nerves, the hairs at the nape of your neck to stand on end.    “You should give yourself more credit, y/n. You are a beautiful girl and no one can tell you less.”    You stand on your tippy toes to engulf the painter into a tight embrace.    “Thank you,” you whisper into his shoulder.    He merely chuckles while rubbing your back with a tender hand, blazing a trail of heated nerves along the way.

   “2.5 million! Holy shit! Y/n, this is fucking crazy!” Olivia screamed at you while holding a tablet in her hands.    “I fucking know!” you scream back, huddled into a ball at the end of the couch.    Undecipherable screaming filled the apartment as Olivia shouted in amazement of the selling price of the 3 abstract portraits, while you just screamed in disbelief.    The 3 portraits of you had been put on the market last week, and it had already sold to an anonymous buyer for 2.5 million US dollars. Pictures of Taeyong looking dashing in a suit flashed across your news feed, him looking extremely proud as the auctioneer banged his gavel for the ostentatiously high closing bid.    At least you weren’t his failed inspiration, that was sure.

   “Congratulations on your piece, Taeyong. I’m honored to have been part of the creative process,” you smile shyly at him behind your wine glass.    The pair of you were sharing a nice dinner on the expansive balcony of his apartment in celebration of his grand success. The New York skyline was set against a haze of sunlight and dusk, a truly beautiful sight to consume along with the seafood noodles Taeyong had whipped up. It seemed that along with being a marvelous painter, he was a marvelous cook as well. Another facet in the gem that was Lee Taeyong.    “I couldn’t have done it without you, of course. You’re my muse now,” he chuckles as he wipes his mouth with a napkin.    You exhale heavily and stare into the contents of your wine glass. You sloshed the red liquid around, and it stained the sides of the cup momentarily before disappearing. You remember what your father had told you; if the wine stains the side of the glass, you know that it is a good vintage. Of course, Lee Taeyong would have the best.    “What’s the matter, y/n? Does something not agree with you? I can always make something else if you’d like—”    “No, no, it’s quite alright. It’s fantastic actually. It’s just some thoughts that are buzzing around in my head,” you wave off.    “Would you mind sharing?” Taeyong prods.    You smile bittersweetly at him.    “I’m actually quite jealous of you, you know.”    You push out from your seat, the soft satin of your evening dress brushing against your thighs like the caress of a lover when you walked towards the railing.    “What?”    “Jealous, Taeyong. Jealous. Like the green-eyed monster,” you reply, resting your elbows against the railing and staring at the skyline.    “Explain.”    You hear the clink of a glass being set down upon a table and him getting up.    “You were able to take the risk to pursue your dreams. I… was too cowardly.”    “What are your dreams, y/n?” Taeyong whispers into the breeze.    “Sculpting,” you laugh bitterly.    “My father— he was a doctor, you know — absolutely abhorred the idea of the fine arts. A very left-minded man, if you will. When he saw paintings or sculptures, he always scoffed at them. “How are these worth 1 million?” he said, “I wouldn’t pay a cent for these works of kindergarten art!”. As you can imagine, it didn’t endear him to the owners of the local art gallery. However I… I was his complete opposite. When I first got my hands on Play-doh… god. I wasn’t able to be separated from it! My mother told me I always cried when the can was taken away from me. Then I discovered clay and stone and so many other things to make my imagination become reality.”    “Of course, Dad knew of my hobby, but never considered it more than what he thought it was; merely a hobby. He expected me to put down my chisels in favor of books and math problems. I never wanted to.” You look down at your hands momentarily, which were tapping a random beat against the railing.    “When it came time to decide a career, I mustered up my courage and told him I wanted to be an artist. He took one look at me and laughed. “Stop joking, sweetheart. A career like engineering or IT would suit you better.” I… was devastated. But, surprisingly, he brought up the idea of being an architect. I agreed immediately, knowing it would bring me to Parson��s, the school I dreamed of attending ever since I knew what college was.”    You laughed again, bitterly, the sound being absorbed in the night air. “It’s torture here, really; I don’t know why I continue to tantalize myself with what I have wanted since I was 5, but am never really able to have. Call me sadistic, I guess.”    You can feel his heavy gaze on your back as you stare stoically off into the distance. He steps closer and closer until you can smell his musky cologne and aftershave. His hands wrap around your waist and bury his head in your hair.    He didn’t say anything.    You appreciated that.

   Soon enough, brief hugs turn into cheek and forehead kisses, lingering touches into hand-holding and affectionate cuddles. Taeyong can never seem to separate his hands from your waist nowadays, and you are always pressed into his side like a leech. No one says anything because no one sees anything.    Actually, you didn’t quite know what you were now. If you were to really put a label on it, it was a messy blur between a friendship and relationship. A kind of romantic purgatory. Even when he gave you kisses and held you affectionately, Taeyong never asked you to be his girlfriend. Not even a hint of a label or definition.    However, you wanted to be his. You wanted to be the one, his darling that he wined and dined. You wanted to be the one to relax him from the stress of life with soothing words and calming touches. You wanted to be the one that he woke up next morning in bed. You wanted to be his everything.    Alas, like some tragic Greek romance, it was probably never meant to be.    Even in the midst of this confusing haze of a relationship, Taeyong produced more and more phenomenal art inspired by you. You sometimes watched him paint each painting lovingly, stroke by stroke, on those rare days he let you into his art room. The mood of his art was... changing. You could see his abstract style shifting closer and closer into what was semi-impressionism until his portfolio was an eclectic mix of both. Of course, this subtle shift led to some outcry from critics, but his artistic reputation was still on the rise.    Today was one of those rare days Taeyong brought you to his studio. Darkening sunlight shone through the huge industrial windows, juxtaposed by the mahogany paneling and gold light fixtures. You sat in a chaise in the corner with his back to you as he stood, slathering hues of paint over a large canvas. He was painting the background first, it looked like, setting up the stage for a grandiose and show-stopping centerpiece that was sure to come around.    “Y/n? Can you come here for a moment?”    “Yes?” you said, padding across the floorboards in your socks.    He steps back from his painting and comes slightly behind you. “Can you look closer and tell me if you see any dark grey streaks on the background? I’m afraid some of my brushes were contaminated, as it’s supposed to be completely oil black.”    You frown but nonetheless, bent over a bit to inspect the painting. “No? Honestly, I don’t know how you expect me to see slight color variations, you’re the artist here—”    You are cut off as his arms wrap around your waist and bury his head in the crook of your neck. You jump a bit, surprised from the sudden embrace, but quickly adapt and melt back into him. The pads of his thumb attach itself to the slightly exposed skin of your belly, running smooth circles into your skin. Your hands come over the top of his and just stay there, while you close your eyes.    “I lied. I just wanted you to come over here so I could just hug you,” he whispered roughly yet mischievously in your ear, his breath causing the back of your neck to stand up.    “How utterly rude, you nefarious villain,” You murmur as a slight smile tugs at your lips.    He hums in agreement and the two of you bask in each other’s presences for a while before he breaks the silence.    “Man, have I been getting a lot of feedback about my art style for the past few weeks,” he chuckles and lifts his head off your shoulder. “To be honest, you make me want to… want to take my head out of the clouds. Why is imagination needed when you exist, when you are so human yet flawless? I’ve always loved painting the world the way it’s not, but you... you are the way it is, and it is perfect.”        You twist slightly in his hold with wide eyes. Did Taeyong really feel this way about you? Did he see you this way when he put brush to canvas? Were you his sane anchor of reality in his flighty imagination?    Even with these tumultuous thoughts bubbling around in your consciousness, you simply reached up and gave him a peck on his lips. Unexpectedly, he captured your lips with his a tiny bit roughly, causing you to jerk back a bit. He runs his tongue across the seam of your lips and you open it for him, unable to stop him. Taeyong isn’t rough, per say, but he was very persistent in his quest of kissing you, invading your mouth with his tongue and showing his complete dominance. You moan a bit into his kiss and you feel his lips curl up into a smirk.    Taeyong’s right hand cups your chin while his left one lands on your waist, pulling you closer into his hard body. You feel the taut muscles of his chest against your breasts and his warmth completely enveloping you, intoxicating you and making you all the more pliable to his ministrations. His hand moves up while his mouth moves down, his plump lips trailing open-mouthed kisses against your neck leaving a trail of goosebumps. His calloused hands lift up your tank top slightly and rub circles into your hips makes you shiver with delight while you press more insistently against him and thread your hands into his hair.    His lips trail down into the neckline of your top and suddenly top. Instead, Taeyong moves back up to hover his lips around your ear.    “Will you let me have you?” his voice whispers, a rough texture detectable in his voice.    You can’t respond, too caught up in the way his breath caresses your skin and how his hand has moved up to just below your bra cups.    “Say yes, please,” he whispers.    “Please,” he begs as his nimble fingertips play with the edge of your bra.    “Yes,” you breath out as you lean up into him and press his lips to yours.    Taeyong is not hesitant nor gentle when he kisses you now, it is demanding and powerful and dominant. His hands slip below your bra cups and rub your nipples with his thumbs, causing your eyes to flutter shut and as you whine pitifully into his mouth. He drops his hands and scoops you up, a surprised squeal leaving your lips as he strides powerfully down the hall.    He kicks his door open and carefully maneuvers you through the door frame, all the while still attacking your neck with nips and bites. The painter drops you into his bed and climbs in after you. You hurriedly remove your tank top so you could feel his touch and went to unclip your bra, but his hands suddenly tighten over yours and keep them in place. He forces eye contact with you, his eyes burning with a lusty smolder as you can only stare up at him with pleading eyes.    “Taey-- “    He shushes you with a finger against your lips. “I want to savor you.” One of his hands makes you release your bra clasp and replace it with his, unclasping it gently and helping you get it off your breasts.    Your shamelessness retracts for a moment in front of him and you cover your naked breasts with your arms, head turned away in embarrassment. Taeyong’s thumb and forefinger lift your embarrassed gaze to his.    “I want to see you,” Taeyong whispers gently.    Your arms lift slowly from your breasts to bare them to his piercing gaze.    “Absolutely gorgeous,” he whispers reverently, as if in awe.    One of his hands cup your right breasts and a small whine escapes your mouth, not used to man’s hand on such a covered area. He weighs it in his palm briefly and then dives in.    You feel his hot tongue laving over the sensitive skin, leaving traces everywhere but your areola.    “Taeyong,” you whine piteously.    “Say please, darling.” He says. You can feel the vibrations against your chests, your nipples hardening to a point where it is almost painful.    “Please.”    “Of course.” His tongue dives in right in and a burst of pleasure rack your body, causing you to rub your core against his thigh wantonly.    “Patience, darling, I said I would savor you.”    After heaping a sizeable amount of attention to your breasts, his mouth trails down your stomach and to the edge of your shorts. He roughly gets up and pulls off his loose linen shirt, revealing a surprisingly well-built body. Your eyes rake over his sharp collarbones to his defined pectorals and to his chiseled Apollo’s belt. You see a fine dusting of hairs working in tandem with his v-line to bring your eyes down to his bulge, which is pressing against the confines of his trousers. Moisture oozes out of your core as you slip off his belt while he takes off your shorts and panties.    Taeyong forces your legs apart until you are spread out for him to see. Breathing heavily, you see him fixated on the spot between your legs, his lips parted a little. He licks his lips and his right-hand reaches out to prod your entrance. You jump a little, not used to a man touching you tenderly in such a private spot. He prods, even more, pinching your folds and holding them apart while inserting a long finger.    Your head throws back while your spine bends backward, a long groan leaving your lips and filling the room. You don’t see him smirk, but you certainly feel him descend and settle his head between your legs.    The moment his tongue pokes at your clit, you yell out. It prods even more insistently and plays your core like a flute, his touches making you scream.    You can feel yourself reaching an orgasm when he inserts his fingers back in again into your pussy and when the pad of his index fingers hit a spot, ecstasy shoots through your body like a drug and juices flow out of your vagina like a flood.    Taeyong leans back up and he takes his liquid-soaked fingers to his mouth, sucking each one clean while smirking, causing your core to clench tightly. He takes off his trousers and his boxers, his erection popping out. It is a nice pink color but a bit red from strain and arousal, the tip oozing precum.    You lean a bit forward to grasp his manhood, your thumb stroking over his head. His head throws back in ecstasy while his grips on your soft thighs tighten to the point you think there will be bruises the next morning. He rips your hands off his cock while breathing heavily.    “There’s a time for everything, just not now, darling.”    You pout but retract your hands to your sides. He takes his cock and strokes it a bit, but pulls you up and sits you in his lap. You can feel his manhood pressing insistently against your thigh, so close to your entrance yet so far. You move his dick over your pussy, not quite putting it in, but grind down on it, twisting your hips back and forth. Taeyong grits his teeth and grips your hips hard, his hips bucking in pleasure at the contact with your pussy. You can feel the veined skin of his cock slide over your well-lubed folds, his head slightly pressing against your clit as your close your eyes in bliss. This goes on for a while, you moving back and forth while he rolls his hips into your vagina. Taeyong looks you straight in the eyes while he positions his cock slightly into your entrance.   “Do you want to go on?” he asks. You nod while biting your lips.   “I’m… I’m a-" you swallow and avert your eyes, "-virgin. Please… please be gentle, Tae,” you whisper, embarrassed at your lack of experience.   His eyes widen a bit, but a new light enters them, predatorial and hunger extremely apparent even to your inexperienced gaze.   “You can stop whenever you want, okay? Just tell me.”   Psh. Why would you want this little slice of heaven to end?   You slip your pussy over his dick and bottom out on his lap, both of you groaning into the silence of Taeyong’s bedroom. You rose up, left his tip in and then slowly dropped down. You rolled your hips over him while he left harsh hickeys all over your neck, little bursts of pain and pleasure to add to the all-consuming flame.   Taeyong ripped his lips away from your chest and shoves you down roughly into the bed.   “I said I would savor this, darling, but I can’t be patient any longer,” he growls as he looms imposingly over you. He spreads your legs even wider, and thrusts in powerfully, louder groans escaping your mouth. You wrap his legs around his waist and continues in the missionary position. He pistons in and out like a machine, every part of your vagina stimulated by his moving cock, and you can feel his buttocks flex powerfully.   He muffles your moans with his lips and roughly invades your mouth, tongue, and teeth everywhere. He pounds into you even harder, the headboard shaking and creaking under his powerful thrusts. His hips slam into your thighs producing a lewd noise of flesh on flesh throughout his bedroom. You can feel a wave of pleasure rising within you, and you moan even louder.   “Louder, darling,” he growls and then his cock hits the spot.   The wave of pleasure crests and then crashes back down and you nearly scream, you head bent heavenward while your back arches off the bed. Your walls contract around his dick sporadically while lifts you into a new position, never disconnecting from you, and fucks you through your orgasm, heightening the whole experience.   “Taeyong!” you scream, the new position allowing him to thrust deeper. Your mind is in a fog of pleasure and you can feel the pleasurable sting of overstimulation overtake you.   “Taeyong, fuck! I can’t take anymore!’ you cry as tears gather at the edge of your eyes, the bliss too much for your weak body.   “Hold on for me, darling, I’m nearly there.” Taeyong grits out as he thrusts harder and quicker.   Warm cum fills your pussy when you orgasm nearly at the same time, and he groans your name while you scream out his, writhing beneath his erratic thrusts. You can feel the cum dripping out of your pussy and onto his silk bed sheets. He slows down and collapses onto your chest, and the both of you breathe heavily.   Taeyong takes his cock out of your vagina, a stream of cum oozing out as he does so. You open your eyes to see him not tired, but eyes alight with lust as he grins ominously at you. His cock rubs against your entrance, while the aftershocks of pleasure rack your body.   “Get ready darling, you’re in for this all night.”

   Bright sunlight greets you when you wake up, tangled naked beneath silk sheets. You can feel that the spot beneath your legs is sore, but your muscles are relaxed and your mind is satisfied. Taeyong had certainly had it in for you all night, taking you in so many positions and bringing you to release countless times.    It was a good night.    Unfortunately, the man who made it so wasn’t snoring on the bed covers beside you, only rumpled sheets left in his wake. You can smell his cologne in the air and on your skin, but also the stench of sex and lust.    You stretch and get up from the bed, putting on your tank and bra, slipping on your underwear and shorts as you open the door. There is a faint strain of music emanating from one of the rooms down the hall, so you follow the tune. As you get closer, you can decipher a woman warbling sweetly with a roughness from an old-fashioned gramophone.    You silently click open the cold gold handle and peek in through the door. You see Taeyong with his back turned to you, a palette stained with the colors of the rainbow in his left hand and a scrubber brush in his right. He is clad in loose beige trousers and a coal black shirt hanging from his shoulders, while completely focused on the painting in front of him.    You sidle in beside him and speak up.    “I should’ve known you’d be painting, even after such a… late night.”    He jumps a bit but then turns to you. You can now see his black shirt is half unbuttoned, his chest bared out for the world (mostly you and the walls) to see.    Taeyong sighs, sets down his tools and wraps his arms around your waist. He buries his head in your honest-to-god rat nest of hair, and stays there for a few moments, savoring your presence.    “When passion meets inspiration, obsession is born,” he murmurs.    “Where did you get that quote from?” you ask curiously.    “Heard it from… somewhere, I forget,” Taeyong says.    “Probably from one of your artsy-fartsy philosophy books” you shoot back.    Taeyong snorts. “How ironic, hm? I preach and lecture masses people how inspiration can easily become your obsession, only for me to become the heretic to my word. Only for you, darling. Only for you.”    Taeyong rests his chin on your head while you lean back into his arms. You take the time to observe the piece he implies is his obsession, the thing that stomped on his beliefs and scattered them to the wind. You instantly recognize it is startlingly different from his previous works of art.    Of course, there is his dark background and signature jewel tones but it is a lot less jarring than you are used to. That being said there is no lack of passion or skill in this piece, but it is noticeably less abstract and a bit more... realistic?    There is a shoulders-up shot of a woman with her eyes closed, her head leaning into a palm while she is (presumably) naked.  The woman is fleshed out in full detail with a jumbled haze of colors surrounding her, making her the central point in the painting. Your eyes travel from her wispy eyelashes to the tilted nose, to the curve in her slightly parted tinted lips—    Wait a minute.    Your eyebrows knit together as you recognize the arched brows and cheekbones, the lip corners and hell, even the slight mole on the collarbone.    That woman is you.    Your head snaps towards Taeyong in surprise, whom you find is gently smiling at you.    “What do you think?”    You detach yourself from his warm embrace and step closer to the painting.    “You may hear this way too much, but it’s beautiful,” you whisper reverently in awe. Your hand comes up to brush over the surface of the painting, but stops and falls back to your side, afraid that you could mess up the painting.    “Art imitates life, darling,” Taeyong purred.    A blush effused into your cheeks like a dye. Vivid memories flash in your mind’s eye of beads of sweat rolling down the bridge of Taeyong’s aristocratic nose and jawline, eyes closed in ecstasy, and pleasure pleasure pleasure—    You snap back to reality before you could get any more caught up from last night’s tryst, but unfortunately, Taeyong has noticed and wore a shit-eating grin on his chiseled features. The painter stepped closer to you and you could faintly smell his cologne and something that was all too masculine, and he stared down with you with those intense eyes that pulled you in in the first place.    “Would you like me to show you where?”

   17 million ~ TY    You stare at your bright phone screen with bleary eyes, lids half-opened and trying to stay up. You had forgotten to turn off your phone for the night and the text notification startled you into consciousness at 2am. Your pleasant dreams about passing the architecture final were interrupted crudely.    17 million? What does he mean— wait, holy shit!    Your eyes, now completely free of fatigue, widen in surprise as you sit up and unlock your phone. The search engine you used quickly brings up a multitude of articles, but the some of the top headlines read “Lee Taeyong Sells Painting For $17 Million” and “You Won’t Believe What This Simplistic Painting Sold For!” You click on the Art Newspaper article and scroll through the click bait ads and epilepsy-inducing graphics to get to the main article.

  Lee Taeyong, 27 years-old Korean painter, is smiling in the midst of thunderous applause as the final bang of the auctioneer’s gavel signifies his astounding sale. This morning, 12 am EST, his recent portrait of a woman dubbed “Sense and Sensuality” sold for a whopping $17 million USD at the New York Sotheby’s Auction House (5). This is his highest-ever sale yet, and the future is looking bright for this talented young man.

   Congratulations! You type with a growing smile on your face.    Coming over in 10 to celebrate ~ TY    What?    The sheets tangle around your feet as you nearly trip out of your bed in order to get ready. A muffled thump resounds around your bedroom as you heavily land on the floor. You cringe, hoping the grumpy couple downstairs don’t wake up from it.        You should’ve expected this, as eccentric as Taeyong was. It was no surprise he was spontaneous.    You flick the lights on and grab a bra from your drawer. You snap it on while impressively combing your hair, then change into some leggings and old t-shirt because, hell, if Taeyong wanted to see you at 2am when he had to deal with 2am Y/N.    The bronze knocker pounds on your door and you bolt out of your bedroom to get it. A quick look into the peephole shows you gleaming black hair, reminding you of the way ink looked in a bottle.    Taeyong, still in his crisp black-tie suit, is standing in your dimly-lit hallway beaming holding a bouquet of flowers in his right hand.    “Hey.” His eyes look tired but are sparkling with vitality.    You leap into his arms and he holds you tightly, rocking you back and fourth. You murmur congratulations into his shoulder and he hums back, content in your cuddling. The pair of you stay in the dim light of your apartment hallway, your door half open and probably wasting your valuable air conditioner, however, you couldn’t care less: all that mattered was the man in your arms.    “Taeyong… I’m so proud of you. You deserved this so much,” you lean back and look into his eyes, a smile tugging at your lips.    The painter smiled his usual enigmatic twitch of the lips that you loved so much and leaned forward into to pull you into a deep kiss. His hands pulled you in closer to his body and the smell of his cologne was more prevalent than ever, intoxicating your senses to the point that if there were a fire alarm in the hallway, you would still be kissing his delicious lips.    “I couldn’t have done it without you, you know,” he whispers against your lips.    You roll your eyes and swat him on the shoulder.    “Oh, psh! It was 100 percent you, I was just kinda... there. A spectator to greatness and all. You don’t have to butter me up, you know?” you laugh as you lead him into the apartment.    He mumbles something you can’t hear as you are locking the door, and you turn around to face him.    “What?”    “Nothing, nothing. Just remembering something.” Taeyong casually deflects, as he tosses his suit jacket onto your kitchen chairs.    “You wanna celebrate? I can put on a movie and make food,” you ask as you clean the mess of your room.    “I’d love to.” The artist loosens his tie and chucks it in the general direction of his suit jacket, then partly unbuttons his oxford shirt until you can see the chiseled expanse of his chest.    “Cool beans.”

   The movie ended, and the credits rolled, leaving your living room blanketed in darkness and the two of you sit in silence.    “Hey… y/n?” Taeyong sounds unusually hesitant, unlike his normally suave and composed persona. You can feel his hands finger with the buttons on his shirt while he strokes your side unconsciously.    “Mmm?” you mumble, half-asleep.    “You… Do you wanna move in with me?”    This completely unexpected statement jolts you into awareness, and you look at his face in shock. Your eyes scan his face in the poor light of your living room, and of what you can see, he is dead serious.    “I- What?”    “Do you want to move in with me? Like, stay in my house?” he enunciates slowly, so alike to your first face-to-face encounter with him, like he was speaking to an idiot. However, you can see his face slightly turning red and his eyes averting downwards to his lap.    A moment lapsed in complete silence while you tried to process the implications of his statement and he tried to calm the butterflies in his stomach.    It was a stupid idea, he thought to himself sourly, too much, too soon, I should just apolo—    “Sure,” you contemplate thoughtfully.    “Yes? You want to move in with me? Live with me? If it’s too soon for you, you don’t have to—”    “I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t mean it Tae. Yes, I want to move in with you and live with you. I don’t think it’s too fast.” You stroked his cheek.    “Good,” Taeyong huffs. After a beat, his lips crack into a smirk and he leans in closer.    “I think we can celebrate even more now, no?” he whispers while fumbling with the waistband of your shorts.    You giggled in delight while swooping into to kiss him.

   The two of you collapse in bed, a few weeks later, exhausted from your activities. This particular round was initiated after he caught you trying on lingerie in his bathroom when you thought he wouldn’t be home for a while. He fucked you against the counter, the full-length mirror in your closet, and then finally ending up on his bed. You sighed in delight. What this man could do with his hips was heavenly.    You looked up at the ceiling of his bedroom, where he had decorated it with murals of beautiful angels and clouds. It was just like the Vatican, where the murals had lent an ethereal feeling to the church and made you think you were in a plane above reality. The few weeks in Taeyong’s company had been absolute bliss.  You had moved out of your apartment, moved your stuff into Taeyong’s apartment, and you stayed. He would’ve let you stay for free, but you insisted on paying at least a set fraction of the rent. He gave you the price of the rent to calculate upon, but you think he had lied and lowered it deliberately. Either way: it was heaven, like the murals painted on his ceilings.    “That… That was great, Taeyong,” you pant, naked chest heaving up and down in exhaustion.    “Mmm, yeah. I loved it,” he said, voice muffled by burying his head into the valley of your chest.    “Night, Tae,” you whisper as you doze off.    “Night, y/n,” he says quietly, and you can hear that he has one foot in fairyland right now.    As you consciousness dims and fades, you can still here Taeyong mumbling something. You listen closer.    “I love your body, Y/N.”    Somehow, that doesn’t sit well in your stomach. At all.

   A notification from one of the news sites you followed popped up on your phone.    Who is Lee Taeyong’s Muse?     You raise a brow at the message but quickly opened it up. Who is Lee Taeyong’s Muse? It said in bright blue, bold letters. A picture of the painting he created the morning the two of you first had sex was below the painting.

   Lee Taeyong, 27, recently has been finding major success among the cutthroat world of fine art. His most recent painting selling for 17 million USD, his artworks have been plastered on every major news site (including this one!) and has been the point of critical acclaim for their intimacy, skill, and emotion. Even after his shocking change of artistic style from completely abstract to pseudo-traditionalist, critics alike have been clamoring for his work. However, each one of his most recent paintings from the past year or so has had one thing in common: a beautiful, doe-eyed lady.

   Yes, most might be able to dismiss as an insignificant part but dear reader, it is the most important. From the painting “Broadway” to “Sense”, a similar lady has been depicted in all of them. She has been the center point of all his works. His earliest paintings of her were a triplet of paintings, her countenance growing more and more detailed with each successive work. The latest painting of her with her eyes closed and half-naked has been by far the most sensual one.

   We, at this site, have suspected from the intimate nature of his works that Taeyong has a muse: a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. While there has been no reports of an official girlfriend or lover, the editors of this site figure the mysterious Korean painter has a significant other. Each painting of her in successive order has been noticed to have showed the progress of their relationship from friends to intimate lovers. His lauded attention to detail and depiction of emotion definitely comes from the heart, his heavy attraction to his lover.

   However, the subject of muses have been a long and controversial one. Cries of abused and neglected muses have been major headlines in the art world, and acclaimed artists being accused of sexually and emotionally mistreating their muses. Alas, many muses have had terrible ends like the beautiful Camille Claudel and the famous sculptor Auguste Rodin (6), in which Rodin dumped Camille and Camille went insane. Will Taeyong’s muse be his Gala to his Dalí (7), his Floge to his Klimt (8)? One thing’s for certain: this mystery muse will either make or break his career.

   You stared numbly at the lit screen, which grew dark and powered off as you stopped interacting with the screen.    Was... was Taeyong using you?    A range of emotions besieged your tired mind.    Doubt was the first wave, followed by a cavalry of Worry charging through your rather pathetic moat of logic. Hurt came up hard and quick to your flank and mercilessly attacked your mental stronghold, puncturing holes in your defense and riddling your conscious.    Heart pounding, you typed in the password quickly and searched up “muse”. Countless articles popped up before you. You adjusted your searches accordingly and therein, you found your grail. However, with each passing article, you grew more horrified. Nobuyoshi Araki and Kaori (9), Picasso and Gilot (10), Bertolucci and Schneider (11)— each one more terrifying than the last. While you were not sexually abused or beaten like some of the poor victims of the past few centuries, the message was clear: Taeyong was using you for his art, and his art only.

   The tea kettle whistled as you busy yourself making your breakfast on the beautiful marble countertops of Taeyong’s kitchen. The late morning sun was out and about, the birds were chirping, and you were all alone.    It wasn’t as if this were an unusual occurrence; for the past few weeks, you rarely woke to see Taeyong sleeping next to you. He came back for a night, fucked you, and left in the morning. Sometimes the empty side of his bed was warm to the touch, and others, his lingering warmth was lone gone- either way, you were left to get ready for class alone, eat breakfast alone, and leave the house alone.    You fully understood why, though. The price of Taeyong’s explosive popularity led to him having to be out and about, whether for interviews or exhibition openings or banquets. It was better than having no work at all, at least, yet Taeyong’s face was plastered everywhere, and sometimes you thought the tabloids knew more about his life than you, his… whatever you were.    A jolt of pain jerks you out of your thoughts, and you yelp and jump back. Your finger had touched the end of your frying pan, and imprinted on the tip of your index fingertip was a bright red mark.    A hiss of pain escapes your mouth which quickly sucked at the tip of your finger, while you turned off the burner. Damn, it stung like hell!    Well, at least the eggs were done.    The plush, mahogany chair of the breakfast table squeaked as you pulled it back, and plopped you in your oversized t-shirt in the chair. The sencha tea bag, which had been steeped in the cup for a few minutes, was quickly retracted and you took a long sip of it.    You dialed up Olivia on facetime, who was sure to already be at school and in some secluded corner painting. A few rings led to Olivia, in newly dyed blue and purple hair, answering her phone with the camera angle at an awkward position.    “I don’t think I really want to see the inside of your nostrils, Livy. No one does, really.”    She stuck out her tongue and snorted.    “Bitch, the boys be paying to see my face, much less my nostrils. No one wants to see your ugly ass face!” Olivia drawled while she turned her attention to her painting.    “Taeyong does. In fact, people pay millions to get a piece!” you snark back.    Olivia drops her paintbrush into a water cup and pouts at her phone screen.    “...fine. Speaking of, how is Mister Big D--”    “OLIVIA!” you shout, almost choking on your eggs.    “Oh fine, fine! Either way, how is he?”    “We’re… we’re doing fine,” you happy smile slowly turns into a frown, and you look down into your tea. You stir the tea a bit and see the minuscule tea leaves swirl around like a  mini tornado.    “It doesn’t sound fine, though,” Olivia raises an eyebrow.    “I… you’re right. I really don’t know anymore, Olivia,” you sigh and look away from the phone screen. Your eyes catch sight of the pristine living room, the late morning sun streaming beautiful rays through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The TV was as pitch black as the night, the comforter you brought in, untouched, and the pillows, fluffed. All lifeless.    “Oh, sweetie. I’ve been suspecting this for weeks,” Olivia says sympathetically as she dabbles some oil onto the canvas. She sets down the sponge and turns her full attention to you, her brows furrowed.    “It’s just that… Taeyong isn’t around here anymore. When he’s gone, I’m here, and when he’s here, I’m gone. I haven’t seen him in weeks!” you shout, and your fork clatters down on your plate.    “Wow, okay, chill. Y/n. Breathe. Have you at least tried to meet up with him for a date or whatever?”    You pout. “Yes, but he’s always busy or has to cancel. Sometimes, we do manage to make our schedules fit together and everything’s fine, but still!”    “ I really wish I could help, y/n. Really.” Olivia says sympathetically.    You burrow your face into your hands while tears sting at your eyes. Muffled sobs escape your lips while tears finally escape from your eyes. Your breakfast lay beside you cold and uneaten.    “I-I don’t k-know anymore. I-I saw a news article this morning and my mind went crazy and maybe I’m being paranoid or a butthurt bitch but I think he’s using me and-” you sob.    “Oh, sweetie,” all playful insults and snarky wit were gone from Olivia’s tone as she tried to keep you company from miles away in a cold, dark, and dusty penthouse.

   You couldn’t do this anymore.    Gone were the days Taeyong and you would wake up and bed and have another round and eat breakfast together, the days he would take you out to the city and watch an indie band in the local coffee shop, or the days he would bring to art openings. It just stopped.    There were days you woke up in bed alone, after Taeyong pounded you into the mattress the night before, feeling used. Like some dime and dozen whore out of the red light district. Who were you, anymore? What use were you anymore? What did you mean to Taeyong?    School went by, albeit slowly. You passed your architecture final and were in your 2nd year of college. You did pretty decently in the class at least, but the course and the rigor made you more miserable as the months went by. The novelty of your compliance to your father’s wishes wore off and made you wish to escape.    Taeyong, your degree, and emotional distress just made you break down one day. Right in the middle Taeyong’s hallway after class ended. No warning whatsoever. After piecing yourself back together and getting your fatigued and pathetic self into the bed, you started to think.    This was hell.    Olivia warned you weeks and weeks ago, begging you to let go of the artist no matter how much he admired him. She had lost all respect for him and quickly threw away the posters of his paintings she had had before Taeyong met you, completely ignored him when you were with him and her, and ripped up her thesis paper about his artwork. She even offered you refuge from the older man, pleading for you to stay in her apartment to get away from him.    You were done.

   Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.    The keypad clicked open and in walked Lee Taeyong into his apartment. Still clad in a suit, the artist had returned back to his apartment from his negotiations with a famous gallery to display his artwork. A long and arduous meeting, it had lasted way longer than the handsome man expected, and he had finally wrangled out a successful deal. His works would be displayed for a year at the famed Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea.    It was his dream since he was a young, starving art student living paycheck to paycheck in a studio apartment, who could barely speak English and was 7000 miles away from his family.    But why was he so unhappy?    He shut the door and sighed. He loosened his necktie and threw his wine-red blazer onto the coat rack, then ruffled his hair as he walked through the foyer.       He felt bad for leaving you constantly like this. He just kept getting called on and pulled away constantly to the point where he sometimes forgot that there was a woman waiting for him back home. He tried to make it up with nights of passionate sex, pounding you into the mattress and making you cum several times in succession. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken you out somewhere… was it a month ago? A month and a half?    “Y/n?”    No response.    “...Y/n?”    He walked through the halls but there was something... off about his house. He couldn’t smell your scent of peaches of cream strongly, only faintly, like you were long gone. It looked… emptier. Dustier.    Darker.    “Y/N!”    A rising sense of panic surged up and seized Taeyong’s heart beating back and forth. Ba-bump ba bump ba bump. In vain, he tried to calm his mind, his rationale fruitlessly trying to withhold judgment, yet it seemed his heart was going to beat right out of his chest.    It isn’t true, it isn’t true, it isn’t true—    His vision narrowed as he ripped through his house. Every room in the vast apartment suite is empty. He threw open the kitchen cupboard. Your handmade coffee mug from one of the pottery students in Pearson’s isn’t there. He nearly tripped over the ottoman. Your ridiculous throw blanket with cartoon corgis plastered all over it is absent from his leather sectional. He pounds against the floorboards of the hallway, Your subway pass isn’t in the bowl in the hall.    It seems like his loosened tie was choking him as he ran to the end of the hall, your bedroom. He slammed open the door, the doorstop only barely preventing it from hitting and damaging the wood-paneled walls. Taeyong’s carpet muffled his frantic footsteps. The french doors with its billowing curtains were thrown open, but you weren’t on the balcony, lounging on the patio chair or couch reading a book.    The marble bathroom he loved to fuck you in and take long baths in while sipping decades-old wine was deserted. Your combs and products were gone, and the J’Adore Dior perfume he bought you when you were passing by Neiman Marcus sat on the counter, lonely.    Incoherent nonsense escaped his lips as he slid open the large, walk-in closet doors. The other half of the closet you and him had organized together, him grumbling when he had to push his clothes back, was simply abandoned. Wire hangers hanging on the pole, absent of the soft clothes that smelled like peaches and cream.    He clutched his chest through his shirt, and leaned on the dressing table in the middle of the closet, his breaths coming out in staccato, short and sharp. She couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this, she couldn’t do this to me—    A scrap of paper caught his attention out of his peripheral vision. With trembling hands, he scooped it up and held it to his pale face.    I don’t think I can do this anymore, Taeyong. Thank you.

   You pulled the corgi patterned blanket around you and sipped some hot chocolate, while Olivia was retrieving the cheese Pringles from her pantry. You clicked on the television and scrolled what to watch on Netflix.    “Hey, Livy!”    “What!” she shouted from the back of the kitchen.    “Can we watch the Purge?!” you yelled as you read through the description.    “The fuck! NO!” Olivia said as she walked back in her penguin onesie into the living room.    “I’m the one who’s suffering from a break-up, bitch! I get to choose the movie and I want to scream my ass off!”    “Y/n, I don’t think that’s what you’re supposed to do after a breakup? Aren’t you supposed to watch the Notebook while in tears and a tub of ice cream in your hands?” she questions as she plops down on the couch.    You look around exaggeratedly. “The Notebook? Nope, watching the Purge. Tears? Already cried out. Ice cream? I think fuck not, I want cheesy Pringles.” “Fine, fine. Whatever.” Olivia grumbles as she stuffs several cheese pringles into her mouth.    The day you had turned up on Olivia’s doorstep, bags in hand and tears streaming from red-rimmed eyes, she had graciously allowed you to stay with her. Days and days were spent with you crying in her arms, probably going through 3 tissue boxes and ice cream tubs. You were absolutely devastated after packing up and abandoning Taeyong, wondering if it was the right thing to do and if you were a horrible person for doing so.    Olivia dismissed your worries, stating you were totally in the rights and proclaimed “good riddance!” while stomping on a Polaroid of you and Taeyong at Hyde Park.    You were still devastated of course, even after several weeks. The ache in your heart wouldn’t go away no matter how many tubs of ice cream you stuffed down your throat, and a permanent frown was always fixed in place. You missed the red-haired man with all your soul, even if you abandoned him with no warning and quite callously. You blocked his number, his email, his social media, everything you could think of to completely cut him out of your life. Photos of him were trashed and the gifts given to you by him were still in the apartment.    But at the very least, from this complete purge and detox of your life, came something that you had always wanted to do but never could do.    You switched degrees.   You woke up one day and said, fuck it, and went to the administration to completely switch departments.    Yes, it was extremely sudden. Uncharacteristically sudden of you, the girl who was afraid to go out with her friends on a school night. Too sudden of the girl that was afraid to skip class and skive off with her friends. Maybe it wasn’t the best decision to make such an important decision on the fly, but at this point, you didn’t care. You wanted to live the way you wanted, the way you needed, and all fucks that were given were thrown carelessly to the wind.   Soon enough, you were transferred into the appropriate classes to obtain a degree in Fine Arts, even taking some classes with Olivia. Your parents were understandably furious, shouting at you over the phone for wasting their money and wrecking your future. Your father, after a long rant that lasted almost 30 minutes, spitefully told you he wasn’t going to support this “destructive behavior” and wouldn’t pay for your next semesters. While you were sad that you and your parent’s relationship would probably be strained for the next few years, you were the happiest you could remember being. The royalties from Taeyong’s paintings you earned could pay your tuition a few times over, so you were stable. You finally could do what you wanted.    But Taeyong.    Your thoughts drifted to the letter you had received from a professor that afternoon previous.

   “Y/n! Could you stay back for a moment?” Professor Andrews called out as the rest of the class shuffled out of the classroom.    You head popped up like a deer in headlights, eyes wide.    “Uh, yes?”    You removed the hood from your head and navigated through your fellow classmates to the teaching podium, where your art history professor was standing imperiously.    Was something wrong? Were your papers not good enough, because you transferred in so late?    Your hands patted down your errant hair and straightened your sweatpants. You swallowed nervously. Professor Andrew was notorious for her strict grading, many people failing and flunking out of the class because of the numerous red marks all over their papers and tests.    “Professor Andrews?” you hesitantly ask as you stand in front of the podium.    “Y/n, just the girl I wanted to see.”    She stepped down from the podium in impossible sky-high heels to stand before you. She smiled, her black hair streaked with gray pulled back in a tight bun and it softened her face. You nervously smiled back.    “A prized former student of mine asked me to give this to you. He begged many of his contacts at Parsons to deliver this directly into your hands but alas, I was the only contact who had you in my class.”        She produced a white envelope from her desk and put it in your hands. From the feel of the paper, it was soft; made of vellum.    Vellum.    The material of the calling card offered to you by… that man was vellum, and who else would deliver you a card made from the expensive material?    “Uh, professor, I’m afraid— “    Professor Andrews grasped my hands with her wrinkled palms and look me directly into my eyes. Her normally piercing gaze that could bring a student to tears was soft and concerned, unfamiliar to you.    “Y/n, I am not supposed to interfere but… he looked so gaunt when he came to me. The sparkle was gone from his eyes, his bravado diminished into a shell of what it was, his tone so tired and beaten down. Especially with his indefinite hiatus—”    “What?” Your head snapped up from the envelope in shock.    Your professor furrowed her brows. “You didn’t know? He announced an indefinite hiatus around the time you first transferred in. He said that no more art would be produced until he decided to become active again.”    “I didn’t know…” you murmured as you stroked your thumb over the envelope.    “I don’t know what sort of relationship the two of you had, as it’s not my business, but whatever it was, he needed you. Desperately.”

   You had only opened it when you came home from school. A polaroid of a painting that you could barely discern placed in a dark room. One message was written on the back.    Please tell me what I did wrong.    What were you supposed to do with that?    In the movie, the doorbell was wrung by the Polite Leader beseeching the Sandins to let them release their prey to hunt.    Should you respond to him? Should you completely ignore him? Which one would be more beneficial to your health?    If you didn’t respond to him, the ache in your heart would forever be there. You would be scarred from men forever because the man who took your virginity broke your heart and used you like a toy. You would never know his side of the story.    But, if you responded to him, you would at least know his side. Have some redemption. Perhaps get in a slap. Maybe you would have a chance to stop the ache in your heart.    Well, if you were brave enough the change degrees, you sure as hell could confront your ex-... whatever he was. Lover? Boyfriend?    You would do this.    “Olivia, I’m going to do something really quickly,” you said as you removed your self from the tangle of food and pillows.    “What!” She squawked. It seemed the Purgers had broken into the house already. “Bitch, you wanted to see this stupid movie and I ain’t seeing it alone!”    “And you can survive for the full minute that I will vacate this room,” as your rushed into the guest bedroom to retrieve your phone.    You scrolled down your recents and found Taeyong’s number. With trembling fingers, you unblocked his number and texted him.    927 New Haven Apartment Complex. Apartment 507. Tuesday at 6 PM.    2 days from now, Olivia was going to be out of the apartment for Thanksgiving Break with her family in South Carolina. You, with the way things were with your father, decided it wouldn’t be the best decision to go home so you decided to stay home Within a minute, a message bubble popped up.    Thank you. I’ll be there. ~ TY

   You tapped your foot impatiently as you sat at the breakfast table of Olivia’s apartment. Looking out the window, you saw a drizzle of rain wash over the foliage below and heard the usual sounds of the city. With the weather like this, you couldn’t blame Taeyong for being at least a bit late.    5:50. It read on the electronic clock in the kitchen. The house was empty, with Olivia bidding you adieu yesterday to visit her family.    You had gotten ready an hour before, you were so nervous. At least 4 outfits were tried on, scrutinized, and then thrown to the ground before deciding the 5th outfit was adequate. The dress was too formal, the sweatshirt too casual, but the skinny jeans and t-shirt combo was perfect. See, you didn’t want to look too desperate when Taeyong came in, in fact, you were trying to be standoffish—    Knock knock knock.    Your heart beat a stamp into your ribs, while the feeling in the pit of your stomach roiled. Your hand clasped the doorknob, unlocked, and swung it open.    Taeyong, in his great glory, stood there. Just seeing the eyes that made you fall in love made your heart stutter, just a tiny bit.    However, Prof. Andrews was not wrong. Taeyong still retained his classical good looks, all sharp lines, and angles, but those lines were sharper and those angles were deeper. He looked gaunt and pale, and dressed in a black button-up it contrasted to his skin so greatly it made him look even paler. There were shadows under his eyes, but his eyes were still smoldering. Still as enigmatic as always.    “Taeyong. Come in,” you regained what little dignity you had left and graciously let him in through the door. He nodded silently and slipped off his glossy black Gucci loafers and took your lead into the kitchen.    “Do you want something to drink? Water? Tea?” you asked as you leaned against the counter and crossed your arms.    “No, I’m fine. Thank you,” Taeyong murmured as he sat uncomfortably in his chair.    An awkward silence prevailed as you stood in each other’s presence as the first time in months. Heavy, tense silence grew between the two of you as you fumbled with a knick-knack on the counter and his eyes darted nervously around. It had been far too long, but the way he sat there banished the feeling of something missing from your mind.    “I thought you were on hiatus?” you said, and waved around the Polaroid of the painting.    “I am. I just said no paintings were being released, that’s all; not that I couldn’t paint anything,” Taeyong sighed.    “Ah.”    Another heavy silence.    Annoyed by the lack of action, you harshly slammed the knick-knack onto the counter. Taeyong didn’t jump, but his eyes darted to you far too fast to be casual.    “Well, Lee Taeyong? Why are you in this apartment?” you sarcastically shot at him.    “I wanted to ask why you left me. Humor me; let me into that infuriating brain of yours, Y/n.”    “I think I already made it clear when I vacated the apartment, Lee Taeyong. I even left a note. Or were you far too busy with your obligations to remember that?” you venomously spat.    “Stop calling me that! We’re not fucking strangers!” Taeyong suddenly shouted, scooting back his chair suddenly. His fists were balled up and he had an awful look of fury on his face.    “What? Lee Taeyong? Well, I call you that because we might as well be!” you shout back.    “Damn it, Y/n! Why the fuck did you leave me, huh? Was I not good enough for you? Was I not rich enough for you? Hell, did I not fuck good enough for you?” Taeyong snapped at you, gripping the table tops so hard his knuckles turned white.    “You must one cocky son of a bitch to think I wanted you for your fucking money or your dick! I left because I know nothing about you!”    “What are you talking about?! I shared my home with you—”    “Shut up, Taeyong! I fucking trusted you with my dreams and hopes and life but you gave nothing of yourself to me! I confided in you, I told you about my past and my present, and I bared my soul and body to you! While you, always the goddamn unfathomable and ambiguous Lee Taeyong, gave me nothing of you! Zero! Zilch! Nada! I don’t know what I am to you! What was I supposed to think, y- you bastard?” you voice cracked, as you stared up at his eyes.    “Y-you” your voice broke and turned hoarse “y-you treated me like a toy. You took my virginity. You only called me over to fuck— I felt I was a whore. You gave me the best nights of my life, but you left me scarred for the rest of my nights.    His silence wrung as heavily in your ears as his shouting did. It wrung in your ears like a siren while, he could only look at you with an inscrutable expression of his face, like he couldn’t figure out whether to get angry or cry.    “Get out, Taeyong. Go use someone else to make money off of. Go be dishonest somewhere else.” You spit out and close your eyes. Your back turned to him at you stare at the textured cream wall, desperately not trying to burst out bawling.    “No.”     You spin around on your heel to yell at him some more, but Taeyong appears at your back few inches away from you, far too close for comfort. His inscrutable expression morphed into something that looked like determination, and his smoldering eyes held you in place as he wrapped his arms around your waist. Your mouth drops open in shock at his audacity before he leans his forehead to yours and sighs.    “My name is Lee Taeyong.” he started out quietly, eyes closed as if in prayer. “I am 27. I’m from Seoul, South Korea. I like to paint, I love macarons, and I hate dirty rooms. But you already know that. I am Lee Taeyong. I never really got along with my mother, perhaps that’s the reason I’m doing so bad with you.” He laughed bitterly. “She raised me to close off myself to others, not ever to trust a female. But I can’t blame her for… for my behavior. I am scared of the people who judge me, even though I am an artist and am constantly judged by the public, critics still make me want to put down my paints.”     “I came to the US when I was 19, on scholarship to Parsons. I didn’t know English very well at all, and I struggled to communicate with those around me, and I chose to delve into my craft even deeper. You… inspired me, and remember my speech at Parsons? I didn’t know how true it was until you entered my life. I didn’t know to what extent inspiration turned into obsession, how intensive it went. I’m not using you just to make money; you genuinely make my heart lighter and make me feel things I haven’t ever felt, and these things were hard to communicate. I did the best way I could, by painting you just the way I see you, but I think I didn’t get through to you.”    “I didn’t mean to make you feel like some on-call whore. I thought… I thought I could make up my absences with time spent in bed with you. That my missing days from home could be covered up by a few drawn-out orgasms. Guess it didn’t work, because you aren’t at home. With me. In my studio. In our kitchen. In our bed.” Taeyong lifted his forehead from yours and buried in your hair. He took a deep breath, comforted and saddened all at once at the familiar smell of peaches-and-cream that still plagued his memories like a ghost. The smell that he could faintly smell in the shower that he tried to scrub off until his skin turned red.    “But most importantly, the thing that you should know about me, in all my bumbling attempts to make you mine, is that I… I care for you. Fuck, I love you, and I’m so goddamn sorry I drove you away from our home. Please tell me it isn’t too late, because I’m sorry for everything I’ve done to make you feel used and unwanted. Please.”    His tone, cracked and anguished and interwoven with sadness, wrenched at your heart. He sounded so desperate, so unlike his usual suave baritone that it felt like you were listening to a song and the track skipped ahead a few beats and now all the singing was off-beat.    His mysterious nature, that you thought was permanently affixed to his character, was slowly crumbling around you. The days where you thought the gleam in his eyes was an enigmatic sparkle of that he knew something that you didn’t were gone; you could see that sparkle was of passion and affection, and a million other things in the universe that was all for you.    You didn’t realize you were crying until you could feel the wet button up of Taeyong was pressing into your cheek. Taeyong was making little shushing noises, stroking your back and whispering comforting things into your things.    “I… It’s not too late,” you whisper.    Taeyong’s head snapped up to meet your gaze, mouth partly open in shock. You smiled through your tears and stroked his cheek. You stood on your tippy-toes and gave him a kiss on his cheek, while he stood stutteringly still.    “It’s… it’s my fault too. I didn’t say anything, didn’t try to talk to you about my problems, or rather, didn’t try hard enough. I should’ve at least tried to work this out, instead of sulking about my problems like some child, before walking out of our house. I’m so sorry too, I was so rash and didn’t even let you have a chance to know what you did wrong,” you said while holding his hands.    Taeyong’s face split into a genuine smile, and dipped his head into a deep kiss, pressing you even closer to him. You missed this so much, a part of you that came together, and you responded two-fold, tilting your head to deepen the lip-lock. You gasped as his tongue entered your lips and you moaned softly, running your hands over his broad shoulders. He disengaged from lip-lock and trailed kisses all over your face. Over your brows, over your temples, over the bridge of your nose, everywhere. You giggled, ticklish from the sensation and his lips pulled up into a smirk. The hands you were using to run over his chest wandered to the lapel of his shirt, and tugged. Your hands played with the buttons before Taeyong released you suddenly.    “What?” you pouted, biting your lip and looking at him coquettishly.    His eyes darkened even further before a growl escaped his lips.    “Don’t test me Y/n, we can’t have it now. Later.”    “Why not now? Don’t you want me?”    “I do, fuck, I want to pound you until the mattress breaks, but I don’t wanna introduce sex into our relationship too soon. I don’t want to rush this like last time,” Taeyong says, stroking your fingers.    “Well, if what you said before about not wanting to fuck and chuck is true, I don’t mind it. In fact, I want it.” You take your hands out of his hold and “accidentally” brush it across his rising erection.    “Y/n,” he growls warningly, but you toss caution to the wind and push the palm of your hand into his slacks.    “Please?”    His lips curl up into a menacing smile, and he pushes you to the counter.    “If you want it, well, I live to serve,”    He tugs on your shirt, and assists in alleviating you of your shirt. You keep your lips on him, furiously making out with him. The artist pushes down your skinny jeans, his fingers brushing over your skin teasingly, soaking your panties clear through.    Once he rises up, his eyes darken even more as he scans your body, clad in just a bra and tiny panties while looking up at him with wide eyes. Licking his lips, he leans down and laves at your collarbone enticingly, while you throw your head back in ecstasy. Taeyong’s fingers pull down the cups of your bra, his thumbs rubbing circles on your aeolas making the tips of your breasts even stiffer.    “Mmph!” you moan, one hand covering your mouth while the other one is propped up to support you.    Taeyong scoops you up in his arms while you squeal.    “Which door?”    “The… the first one on the right,” you panted, barely able to talk while kissing him.    He manages to get the door open with you in his arms (an impressive feat) and throws you down on the bed. He rips off his black button up, showcasing his impressive chest that you missed, and loosens his belt.    You lean forward quickly and get back on your knees, pulling down his pants and pulling his cock out his briefs. Turgid and thick, it was exactly how you remembered. You stroked him a bit, while he threw his head back while clutching your shoulders tightly, and your mouth curled up into a cat-like grin. While rubbing the pre-cum over his head, Taeyong interrupted you.    “Y/n, I want to go down you. You can get my dick later,” Taeyong huffs as he rips your hand away from his cock.    “But I want it now, Tae. Can’t we do 69?” you asked while playing the straps of your bra.    “...fine.” Taeyong relents and helps you remove your bra and panties.    He gets down on the bed, while you climb over him and position your core directly on his face. You get eye-level with his pulsating cock and the hard tips of your breast rub his pectorals, stimulating quite nicely.    As soon as your fingers touched his cock, Taeyong sinful tongue poked at the entrance to your pussy. You unintentionally squeezed harder, and he moaned breathily, his hot breath on your vagina. Since Taeyong was rubbing his tongue over your entrance, but never entering, you decided to amp it up a notch.    You opened your lips over his dick, poking your tongue out, but only touching him slightly. He moaned, and you left little licks and kisses over his erection, fleeting touches that made his cock even harder. Taeyong seemed to get annoyed, and just fully inserted his tongue into your pussy. You whined and ground your core into his face, mouth leaving his dick momentarily and it hitting your cheeks you put your head down.    As Taeyong finally got out his hands to touch your clit, you put the length of his in his throat. You could feel the fine tremor of his thighs on your chest, and you alternated between hard and soft suction. However, you could barely think as his tongue moved in patterns on your clit, his fingers pistoning in and out. As his tongue touched your clit and his fingers touched a spot, you clenched hard and felt yourself release. You decided to speed up your handjob, and Taeyong explodes over your hand, streams of white come covering your pumping hand and slightly splattering you in the face.    The two of you rest there for a while before Taeyong’s dick rises a bit. You giggled, and you felt Taeyong lift you up from your position and putting you on your back on the bed. He loomed over you, and you clenched your thighs together to stop your juices from getting everywhere, but he wrenched them open and inserted himself between them.    “You ready, Y/n?”    “Absolutely,” you panted, a bit more wantonly than you would’ve liked.    His lips curled up in that smirk that made you fall in love with him, and he wasted no time in putting himself in.    The two of you groaned from the friction, not used to the pleasurable feelings running through your veins and in your hearts from the past few months. It felt like a homecoming, however cheesy it was, because him, here, with you, made you feel at ease.    Lubricated as you were, he set a gentle yet fast pace, slamming into you and making the bed frame rock. You didn’t know where to put your hands, one moment it was clutched tightly at sheets, and the other it was scratching down Taeyong’s back. He clenched his teeth and rocked into you faster, his biceps bulging with the effort. You every inch and crevice of his dick in your pussy, fitting perfectly with the contour of your walls.    “Taeyong!” you moan, absolutely overwhelmed by the intense pleasure and the emotional homecoming.    “Be my lover. Be my girlfriend. Be mine,” Taeyong gasped as his hips slammed into yours, creating a lewd slapping noise throughout the bedroom.    “My home… our home feels darker without you. It misses you. I miss you,” he continues.    “Say yes, darling.”    ��YES!” you nearly screech out, delirious from the pleasure Taeyong was inflicting upon you. Your pussy clenched tightly around his veiny cock and released its juices. Taeyong let out an involuntarily moan and explodes, cum releases in spurts in your vagina. The two of you collapse, feeling as if a nova exploded in the room.    When your breathing as calmed down, and the aftershocks of pleasure slowly fade away, you stroke his hair.    “I think I love you,” you muse, as your fingers run through his soft black hair.    He lifts his head from your chest and smiles at you, pressing a little kiss on your collarbone.    “You’re gonna move with back in with me, right? I didn’t say that without purpose,” Taeyong murmurs, fingers drawing lines over your sensitive skin.    “I will as long as you promise me that we’ll work on communication together.”    “My darling, I would do anything for my muse.”

   The panoramic television Taeyong bought was humming softly in the background, announcing the news of Taeyong’s comeback from hiatus. The adorable corgi the two of you bought was jumping around the living room, your stupid corgi-covered throw blanket settled onto the couch once again.    You scan the small portrait of your likeness as Taeyong cradles you with his body, his head upon your shoulder and arms resting comfortably around your waist. You unconsciously lean back into him, luxuriating in his warmth and familiarity. You reluctantly break from his hold as you circle around the piece, reverent of its attention to detail and intimate vulnerability expressed in the piece. The golden plate near the base caught your eye, gleaming in the dying sunlight.    Raison D’etre.    Purpose for Existence.    Your head quickly snapped up towards his gaze and you stumbled back. 3 tiny words had the effect of a grenade, catching you off guard and leaving you in shell-shock. Just 3 tiny words made you feel like a sonic boom had swept through Taeyong’s studio and you, the unfortunate bystander, were left deafened and dazed. 3 tiny words.    “You… do you not go too far, Taeyong?”    His eyes contain a maelstrom intensive feelings. Love, passion, obsession were all rendered just as clearly with his gaze as with his oils or paints.    “Do I?”

(A/N: this a piece i have been on for a long ass time, so it is one of the best pieces i have ever written in my entire career lmao. i hope you enjoyed it as i did writing it! please like, reblog, and comment!)

Notations:

(1) Alexander Calder, an American sculptor who is best known for his innovative mobiles that embrace chance in their aesthetic and his monumental public sculptures. 

(2) Lovers- Wyeth (1981) - Part of the Helga Pictures, 240 paintings of Helga Testorf (Andrew Wyeth’s Muse and Mistress)

(3) The woman in the picture, Helga Testorf, was not a hired model. Wyeth, while married, embarked on a tempestuous affair with her and created 240 paintings.

(4) Phaedrus is a dialogue between Plato's protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus. The central theme of this dialogue is Eros. The problem of love serves as the provocation for the speeches, the content of the speeches and the reflection upon speech as a whole.

(5) Sotheby’s Auction House (NY)- One of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewelry, real estate, and collectibles. It’s a big, big deal TY’s painting was sold there.

(6) Camille Claudel was the pupil of Auguste Rodin, a famous sculptor, and she eventually became his mistress. Auguste promised to leave his wife for Camille but that never happened. She went insane and was committed to a mental asylum, while Rodin went on to become an acclaimed artist. There are many doubts on how much Camille contributed to his most famous sculptures like The Thinker (because women as sculptors was unthinkable for the time).

(7) Salvador and Gala Dalí. Gala was married when she met surrealist oil painter Salvador Dalí (who painted The Persistence of Time), and immediately left her husband to be with Salvador. Gala was Salvador’s ultimate muse- he deified her in his paintings. The surrealist movement is often noted for its expression of the human subconscious and dream-state, exploring human desires and wild fantasy. For Dalí to imagine Gala in his dreams, he was extremely obsessed with her (even though she was a gold-digger and abusive).

(8) Gustav Klimt and Emilie Flöge. Gustav, who painted The Kiss, was lifelong partners with Emilie yet there was no proved romantic relationship between them. However, Gustav painted Emilie in The Kiss and many other works, leading many to believe they were romantically involved.

(6, 7, 8)- They say behind every great man is a great woman. The women mentioned above were crucial to each man’s success and artistic style. Each artist and his muse had a different sort of relationship, so that is why the newspaper mused on what type of relationship TY and Y/N had.

(9)- Nobuyoshi Araki and Kaori: Nobuyoshi Araki’s long-time model KaoRi has publicly accused the renowned Japanese photographer of misleading her into working without a contract, distributing pictures of her around the world without her knowledge or consent, and failing to compensate her fairly for her time or for her her role in Araki’s work. They weren’t lovers.

(10) Picasso and Gilot. Gilot had 2 children with Picasso and left, infuriating the famous Cubist painter who painted Guernica and The Old Guitarist.

(11) (TW) Bernado Bertolucci and Schneider. Bertolucci, an acclaimed film maker, was accused by actress Schneider for including a rape scene that wasn’t in the original script of the 1972 film Last Tango in Paris. Schneider was raped by her fellow actor Marlon Brando and the tears in the scene were real.

(9, 10 ,11)- These examples of horrible, abusive relationships between artists and their muses causes Y/N some worry, leading her to believe dear TY is using her.

[socialjusticeartshare]

Three Years After Family Separation, Her Son Is Back. But Her Life Is Not.

Many of the migrant families separated under the Trump administration’s most controversial immigration policy have been reunited. But some are still struggling.

Leticia Peren waiting for her son, Yovany, at La Guardia Airport in February. They had been separated after crossing the U.S. border together.

When Leticia Peren bid her 15-year-old son, Yovany, good night in a Texas Border Patrol station three years ago, he was still small enough that she, standing less than five feet tall, reached down a little when she placed her hand on his shoulder and urged him to rest.

Earlier that night, the two of them had concluded their long journey from Guatemala by walking for hours in the whistling desert wind, losing sight of their own feet in mud that felt like quicksand. The Border Patrol agents who apprehended them outside of Presidio, Texas, placed them in separate cells. Exhausted, Ms. Peren fell into a deep sleep, but woke up to a new nightmare.

Yovany was gone, sent to a shelter in Arizona. Ms. Peren had no money and no lawyer. When she next saw him, more than two years had passed.

At the time of their reunification, Yovany was the last remaining child in custody who the federal government considered eligible to be released. The bonds broken during their 26 months apart — when Ms. Peren was a voice on the phone more than 1,500 miles away, as Yovany made new friends, went to a new school, learned to live without her — have been slow to regrow.

By the time they were reunited, her son had matured into a young man, taller than her and with a deepening voice, one he could use to hold a conversation in English. Ms. Peren, frantic during the time it took to get him back, had lost some of her hair and developed a condition that, when triggered by stress, caused her face to sag on one side.

Years after the mass separations of migrant families spurred a national outcry because of the trauma they caused, much of the public outrage over the policy eased as thousands of parents and children were eventually reunited.

Ms. Peren’s son became a young man while they were apart.

Sunita Viswanath welcomed Ms. Peren to her Brooklyn home.

But for families like Ms. Peren’s, swept up by the Trump administration’s most widely debated attempt to deter immigration, the story did not end when the policy did.

To some degree, Ms. Peren and her son are lucky. They are being sponsored by an affluent family who took them into their spacious house in a well-heeled Brooklyn neighborhood. Volunteer groups have acted as informal social workers, tracking down doctors to provide free medical care and answering crisis phone calls at any hour.

But such groups are running short of resources now.

“Everybody’s tapped out emotionally, financially, caseload wise,” said Julie Schwietert Collazo, the director of one such group, Immigrant Families Together. “The need is kind of endless. There are cases where I’ve called so many people and nobody will help me.”

Ms. Peren, who is from Guatemala, read papers for her asylum case.

And it is sometimes confounding to Ms. Peren that she could feel so troubled in the home where she and Yovany are living, with its fancy appliances and art from around the world. Her childhood home in Guatemala had a dirt floor surrounded in part by chicken wire rather than exterior walls.

When she was 8, her mother sent her away to do domestic work in the homes of wealthier Guatemalan families who could afford to feed her.

At 16, Ms. Peren fell in love with a boy her age whose home she worked in. But the boy’s family rejected her because she was poor, uneducated and Indigenous. After Yovany was born, she continued working with her baby strapped to her back as she dusted, swept and mopped until on the verge of collapse.

“I would say to him, I’m your dad, I’m your mom, I’m your brother, I’m your sister, I’m your friend,” she said. “We’ve always been together, the two of us.”

Love Letter: Your weekly dose of real stories that examine the highs, lows and woes of relationships.

But by the end of 2015, the lawlessness in her city was starting to intensify. Gang members were urging Yovany, then in middle school, to join their ranks. At one point, she said, a man held a gun to her head and threatened to kill Yovany if she did not come up with several thousand quetzales a month, which she did not have.

The mass separation of migrant families had spurred an outcry.

Yovany was moved out of a Border Patrol station in Texas where Ms. Peren was detained.

She decided to move north rather than risk what might happen next. Word of the family separations at the American border, which had only just begun, had not made its way to most of Central America.

After Yovany was taken from a Border Patrol station cell overnight, Ms. Peren spent seven months trying to figure out how to get him back. Finally, seeing no other option, she agreed to her own deportation, believing she could fight more effectively if she were free.

After her release, she and Yovany kept in touch regularly through WhatsApp messages. Ms. Peren did not want her son to know how much she was suffering. Yovany did not want to tell her that his life was improving.

After spending about nine months in a children’s shelter in Arizona that he called the saddest place he had ever been, Yovany had been released to a foster family in Texas that welcomed him warmly. The parents gave him a tablet computer, which he used to film music videos with the other Central American boys living in the home. Yovany bonded with the couple’s 3-year-old son and helped to take care of him. A couple of times, the family floated the idea of adopting him, but Ms. Peren shut it down immediately.

Ms. Peren celebrating mass in Brooklyn.

In March 2019, lawyers who were soliciting support for separated families made a presentation in a Hindu ashram in Queens, which Sunita Viswanath, an Indian-born human rights activist, occasionally attended. She and her husband, Stephan Shaw, figured that their large home, where they often housed multicultural artists and other activists passing through New York, could easily accommodate a mother and child.

They agreed to take full financial responsibility for Ms. Peren if she were allowed back into the United States to be reunited with Yovany.

The night before Ms. Peren arrived in New York, more than two years after her first journey to the United States, Mr. Shaw spent hours on Duolingo practicing his halting Spanish. He was the only one in his family with any knowledge of the language.

Sitting in their living room with a reporter, Mr. Shaw and Ms. Viswanath, along with her parents and two of the couple’s sons, greeted Ms. Peren with big smiles. She looked at them nervously as her lawyers translated the family’s questions:

How was your flight? Are you tired? Hungry?

Lawyers for the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project in New York solicited support for separated families.

Her new room is the first Ms. Peren has not had to share.

They sat down to a meal of Indian food, which Ms. Peren had never seen before. She pushed the food around on her plate. Ms. Viswanath asked if she would be taking a citizenship test soon. Ms. Peren’s lawyers explained that such a possibility was years away. Her asylum case, a first step, had not even begun.

Ms. Peren said good night and settled into her room: the first in her life that she had not had to share. But she felt so lonely and unable to communicate that she cried herself to sleep.

Without a job, Ms. Peren fell into a familiar role as a house cleaner while she waited for the government to approve her son’s release. The family discouraged her, but she insisted that the scrubbing and dusting was calming, and that she had nothing else to do.

After nearly a month of waiting for Yovany, she met his flight at La Guardia Airport, but their relationship did not immediately fall back into place. Standing at the gate to greet him, Ms. Peren burst into tears and hugged him fiercely. But then they both recoiled a little. As they walked to baggage claim to retrieve Yovany’s things, they did not make eye contact. In the car on the way home, he video-chatted with the friends he had left behind in Texas.

Ms. Peren reunited with Yovany after years of keeping in touch through WhatsApp.

Yovany’s presence eased any tension in the home as he lapped up the affection of the host family. Ms. Viswanath began tutoring him in reading. Her parents grew enamored of him because he did chores without asking. Yovany beamed on the brink of tears one afternoon when, after he had announced that he wanted to become a filmmaker, Mr. Shaw gave him a hand-me-down Canon camera. Their 12-year-old son, Satya, started teaching him to play piano.

Establishing relationships outside the home proved more difficult. Yovany tried to reconnect with some of the children he had met in detention, who had since moved to New York, but they lived in immigrant enclaves in Queens and the Bronx, and worked when they were not in high school.

Yovany had been living with a foster family in Texas.

He also spent several months in an Arizona children’s shelter.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the household quarantined together for a few months, after which Mr. Shaw, Ms. Viswanath and their son decamped to their second home in New Mexico. Ms. Viswanath’s parents eventually joined them, but Ms. Peren and Yovany had to stay in New York as a condition of their pending immigration cases.

Mr. Shaw and Ms. Viswanath made arrangements for Ms. Schwietert Collazo’s organization, Immigrant Families Together, to deliver groceries weekly, and left enough money for anything extra Ms. Peren might need. There were a few weeks when the groceries could not be delivered, but Ms. Peren did not want to ask for more money. She was ashamed that she had been reliant on the family for so long.

Ms. Peren pointing to the Statue of Liberty from the Brooklyn Bridge.

She stormed out of the house one afternoon and walked down the street at a frantic clip, asking anyone who appeared to speak Spanish if they knew where she could find a job. Most, she said, looked at her like she was crazy.

A Peruvian woman told her about a Hasidic neighborhood where she could line up for work cleaning houses, but warned that she would have to compete against others who spoke English. The first several times, Ms. Peren went home empty-handed. Eventually, she began getting work at least one day a week.

“It’s something,” she said one recent evening, “But I don’t feel any closer to being able to be independent.”

Ms. Peren’s host family went to New Mexico during the pandemic, but she was unable to leave New York.

Ms. Peren walking to her job as a house cleaner.

In some ways, Ms. Peren said, her life is much better than before. She and Yovany have warmed to each other again. They laugh and stay up late at night talking.

But even now, they keep the conversation light, not yet ready to share everything, or listen to an honest account of the more than two years they spent apart.

Ms. Peren says she has come to understand that being reunited with her son did not restore the bonds they once shared. Instead, she said, they are different people in a new place, building a relationship that is, in some ways, just beginning.

Being reunited has not restored the bonds Ms. Peren once shared with her son.

Article Source

[themoneybuff-blog]

A postcard from Europe: A mid-journey update on my travels

Greetings from Prague! I'm just over halfway through my European vacation, so I thought it'd be fun to share some of my adventures and to take a glimpse at the financial side of this journey. This trip is unusual for me because I'm traveling with a party of six. My cousin Duane has terminal cancer and wanted to see some more of the world while he still can. A few family members decided to join him. We're exploring Christmas markets as a group.

For the most part, Duane's health has been fine over the past two weeks. He tells me that he's felt great lately, and he's hopeful he has more life left in him than the doctors say. (Who knows? Maybe he and I can squeeze in another trip before his time on this Earth expires.) That said, he did have to take a short rest yesterday because he became dizzy and disoriented as we strolled the cobblestone streets of Prague. He's obviously not feeling 100%. Our group doesn't have a set agenda. We're merely moving from city to city, exploring the Christmas markets and other touristy delights. Often when I travel, I'm a traveler not a tourist. Right now, I'm a tourist. I wouldn't want to do this every trip, but I'm fine with it at the moment. General Impressions So far, we've been we've been to Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. I liked Vienna. I loved Budapest. But after 24 hours here, I'm ambivalent about Prague. I didn't like it at first, but the city is growing on me. I think one problem is our location. In the first two cities, we were a mile or two outside the downtown core. We stayed in residential neighborhoods. (In both cases, we were relatively close to university areas too, but that was pure chance.) We were directly across from metro stations each time, so it was easy to get where we wanted to go. Here in Prague, however, we're staying in the downtown core, which means we're immersed in the tourists. (Yes, I realize that we ourselves are tourists and thus part of the problem.) There's no escaping the crowds and commercialism because of our location. This is an interesting lesson to learn for the future: Stay close to downtown in popular cities but not in the downtown. If you're close to a transit station, it's plenty convenient to get where you want. The Christmas markets have been festive and fun. They remind me of Portland's Saturday Market, a craft market held every weekend in my home city. Vendors erect small stalls where they sell either food or wares. A lot of the stuff being sold at the Christmas markets is the same from stall to stall ornaments, winter clothing, jewelry, souvenirs but occasionally there are vendors with unusual items, such as cookie stamps, wooden toys, and hand-forged knives.

I'm more interested in the food stalls. In each individual city, these huts are similar to each other. But the food offered varies from city to city. Vienna food stalls sold wieners (wiener literally means Viennese), wurst, spaetzle, baked potatoes, toast with cheese, and roasted chestnuts. The drink vendors sold hot punch and glhwein. (Glhwein is mulled wine. It's very popular in Vienna.)Budapest food stalls sold paprika sausages Hungarians love their paprika! and pig knuckles and delicious goulash. The drink vendors also sold mulled wine and a variety of punch.Prague food stalls sell chimney cakes, fire-roasted ham, toasted cheese (with jam), and a sort of potato-onion dumpling dish. Here they sell mulled wine too, but they also sell hot mead and cold pilsner. (Pilsner comes from Bavaria, and it's available everywhere. I like the Czech word for beer pivo and I enjoy asking for it at the market: Pivo, prosm.)

The one factor our group failed to consider was the cold. Actually, we considered itbut not enough. We prepared for Oregon cold, not central European cold. (It didn't help that Duane emailed us from Paris to say that the weather wasn't as cold as we'd feared.) We all brought warm clothes, but each of us has had a turn getting chilled to the bone. One night in Vienna, I was the coldest I've ever been in my life. While the rest of the crew enjoyed ice skating, I made a brisk one-mile walk back to the flat so that I could take a hot bath. Everyone else has been equally cold at some point. I'm a little worried about Switzerland. The forecast low for when Duane and I arrive in St Moritz tomorrow night is -25 celsius (-13 fahrenheit). Holy cats!

Financial Considerations While I'm not pinching pennies on this trip, I'm doing my best not to be profligate either. It's interesting to see how my travel habits have changed over the past decade. I used to spend a lot to buy a lot. Now, I buy very little. What I do buy is mostly food. During my first trips to Europe almost a decade ago, I was very much a tourist as opposed to a traveler. I wanted to go to the tourist spots and to buy tourist goods. I talked to every tout. My compulsion to buy was very very strong. Even in 2010, after writing Get Rich Slowly for nearly five years, I had some bad habits with money when I traveled. I remember when my ex-wife and I landed in Venice, the first stop on our three-week tour of Europe in autumn 2010, I found a funky used bookstore. I bought fifteen pounds of books on the first day of our trip. I had to carry that weight with me for the next twenty days. On this trip, I've bought little despite spending hours and hours and hours in markets. (If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say I've spent sixty hours in Christmas markets. I've bought nothing but food. And glhwein.) In Vienna, I bought a t-shirt as a souvenir, and I bought a Christmas gift for my niece.In Budapest, I bought some warmer clothes and a Christmas gift for my ex-wife.I've bought nothing so far in Prague, although I expect to purchase a gift for Kim before we move on. We're spending little on transportation (aside from connections to various cities). We walk a lot about ten miles per day and we take advantage of the fantastic transit systems in each city. We're on our feet over twelve hours each day. As a train nut, I enjoy riding the subway. I was particularly enamored with the Budapest metro system. The stations are beautiful, especially the old M1 (opened in 1896, it's the oldest electrified underground in Europe) and the new M4 (whose stations feel like sets from a science-fiction film). We're not paying much for lodging either. Instead of spending $150 or $200 per night per couple on hotels (for a total of $450 to $600 per night), we're renting rooms through Airbnb. This costs us between $75 and $150 per night for the group. That's a huge savings!

Plus, renting flats gives us a tiny taste of what it's like to live as a local. For instance, my cousins have had to adjust to the idea that Europeans don't use clothes dryers; they use drying racks. The light switches and outlets are different. The instructions on appliances aren't in English. And here in Prague, our shower sprung a leak so we couldn't use it for a couple of days. (And our internet connection doesn't work, so I'm currently eating breakfast in a coffee shop so I can publish this article.) Our food expenses are hit and miss. Left to my own devices, I'd eat restaurant meals now and then but not often. When I travel, I like to buy a few groceries bread, meat, cheese, fruit, juice to keep in my room for breakfast and snacks. I grab a quick lunch in the afternoon, then maybe eat a sit-down dinner featuring local cuisine. This is relatively cost-effective. My cousins like eggs for breakfast, though, and they need their coffee. We're frequently starting the day in restaurants. (They can't always find their eggs, though, because egg breakfasts are much less common in Europe.) We frequently snack or lunch at the Christmas markets, which is less expensive than visiting restaurants, but our dinners are always restaurant meals. One big factor in our finances is currency exchange. Most places took credit cards in Vienna but not the stalls in the Christmas markets. In Budapest, most places did not accept credit cards. In Prague, it seems to be variable. As a result, we have to carry cash. Not every source of cash is created equal. Here's an example: We landed in Prague late in the evening. We needed some cash to buy tickets for transit (and to grab some food), so I offered myself up as sacrificial lamb at the airport. I was carrying 137 U.S. dollars, which I exchanged for roughly 2340 Czech crowns. The exchange rate was something like 1 to 19.2. Yesterday morning, my cousins pulled money from a bank ATM. They got an exchange rate of roughly 1 to 22.4. In other words, the airport cash exchange milked me for an extra 10%, which is a terrible deal. Lesson: When possible, never exchange money at the airport. (To be fair, I knew this already. In this case, though, I didn't have a choice. We needed some cash, so I sacrificed about $14 to get it.)

Meeting the Money Bosses I've had a lot of fun on this trip so far. I'm traveling in a very different way because I'm not the one deciding where we go when. My cousins are directing the decisions, and that's fine. It allows me to see how other people travel and what their priorities are. All the same, I do hope to return to these cities in the future to do some J.D. travel. My favorite city of the three so far has been Budapest and by a wide margin. I loved the history, I loved the culture, I loved the food, I loved the people. I have no doubt that I'll return for a more leisurely visit in the future (possibly as soon as August or October, the next two times I'll visit Europe). I feel like every vacation offers certain highlights that become the core memories I carry with me. Midway through this trip, I've enjoyed three five-star highlights, each of which was in Budapest. The Labyrinth One day, we walked across the Cable Bridge from Pest (on the east side of the Danube) to Buda (on the west side). We boarded a bus to the top of the hill, where we visited Fisherman's Bastion, which offers a stunning view of the city. (Click this image to view a larger version.)

The weather was sunny, clear, and cold. We ducked inside a coffee shop for a few minutes. When we emerged, it was pouring rain. There had been no indication (or forecast) that rain was imminent, so we were unprepared as was everyone else, tourist and local alike. We took refuge in the nearby labyrinth, a network of natural underground caves that, over the centuries, had been expanded by local residents. We toured the labyrinth for nearly an hour while we waited for the rain to subside. It was amazing! (But take my rave review with a grain of salt. I love caves. I visit them whenever I can. Others in our group were less impressed. Online reviews are mixed.) I enjoyed the caves themselves, of course, but also the history. The real-life Dracula Vlad the Impaler was supposedly imprisoned in the labyrinth for an entire year. Also, there's a section of the tunnels that's completely dark. It's pitch black. For maybe 50 meters, you make your way by feel. (There's a rope attached to the wall, if you want it.) So fun! Fun with Ferenc When we arrived in Budapest, we walked a mile from the train station to our flat. As we were puzzling out the intercom system, a man stepped up to me. Are you J.D. Roth? he asked. I was surprised. Yes, I said. He handed me a bottle of wine and an envelope with my name on it. My name is Ferenc. I read your blog, he said. Turns out, he had determined where we'd be staying based on an Airbnb screencap I shared a few weeks ago. He'd spent two hours parked in front of the flat, waiting for us to arrive. He gave us a warm welcome and some tips about his city. Here's a photo of me and Ferenc. I like this because it shows me carrying all of my luggage at the end of our walk. (You can't really see my backpack, though.) This is how I travel:

Later, I wrote to thank Ferenc. Thanks for greeting us. Do you want to grab coffee or beer? I asked. Sure! he said. I have to work all day today. Later, my son has a soccer game, then I have dinner with friends. But I could meet you at 23:30. I'm no longer a night owl plus I've had bad jet lag on this trip so this normally would be a no-go. But hey! This was a once in a lifetime experience, right? Ferenc picked me up in his Mini Cooper at 23:30. As we sped through the streets of Budapest looking at the beautiful lights, he told me about the history of Hungary and about daily life in Budapest. He drove me to his favorite viewpoints so that I could snap photographs. Then, when we were finished sightseeing, he took me to a ruin bar named Szimpla Kert, which was started by one of his friends from high school. Ruin bars are exactly what they sound like. They're pubs that have been built in hollow, decaying buildings. Instead of remodeling these spaces, as we would in the U.S., the Hungarians have left them in a state of decay. Inside, they've added bars and stages and dance floors and other pub amenities. They are very, very popular among Europeans.

Ferenc and I stayed out until nearly 03:00, drinking beer and chatting about life in our respective countries. (Naturally, much our talk revolved around personal finance.) To me, this experience is what travel is all about. It's not the Christmas markets that I love (although those are fun), nor the cathedrals nor the castles. It's connecting with real people and real life. A Morning with Vica

The next morning, I was up early. At 09:30, I met another GRS reader for coffee. Vica is a landscape architect who lives near Budapest's main train station. She is warm and funny and engaging. As we sat in the basement coffeehouse, she told me about life in Hungary and about her goals for the future. She shared the places she loves to travel around Budapest. When I complained about how cold I was, she volunteered to take me to a shop where I could buy a couple of quality items at reasonable prices. As we walked to our destination, she gave me a tour of the city. As a landscape architect, Vica seems fascinated by urban design. It was interesting to see things through her eyes. While we talked, she helped me understand more about the Hungarian language, which is quite difficult for native English speakers. Vica and I spent more than four hours walking across Budapest, and I enjoyed every minute of it. As I said, when I remember this trip in the future, it's my time with her and Ferenc that will come to mind first and foremost. I'm eager to meet up with other readers on this adventure. On Sunday, Matthias will join me and Duane for our ride on the Glacier Express across the Swiss Alps. I also have invitations to visit readers in Cologne and Luxembourg, although I'm still uncertain whether I'll be able to make those connections work. I hope to! Final Thoughts I've been in Europe for eleven days now, and I have nine days left on this trip. Four of my cousins fly home tomorrow morning. At that time, Duane and I branch off for adventures of our own. First, we'll fly to Switzerland to take the train ride through the Alps. All told, it'll take us three days of travel just to enjoy that eight hour trip. We'll spend very little time actually seeing Switzerland. On the surface, that's ludicrous. But because Duane and I both enjoy the process of travel, it's actually a worthwhile excursion. Plus, Matthias will join us with a bottle of whisky!Next, we'll spend a couple of days in Strasbourg, France, the ancestral homeland of the Roth family. Yes, we know there was just a shooting in Strasbourg that left three people dead. No, we're not worried. We were aware of the potential for terrorist attacks before we left for this journey and it didn't dissuade us. (I refuse to make fear-based decisions.) If anything, we feel that Strasbourg will now be safer than before. (True story: During the precise moment of the 2017 London Bridge attack, I was traveling on a subway train underneath the site. People were confused why the train bypassed the station. It became very clear later.)Finally, Duane will branch off to Munich and I willI don't know. I have three days and no plans. I have those invitations to visit GRS readers in both Cologne and Luxembourg. The offers are tempting. But I haven't yet seen anything of Germany, so I might simply make my way to Berlin (from which my final flight departs early on the 23rd). We'll see. As always, this travel has given me perspective on my life back home at Portland. It's made me more mindful of my daily habits and routines, made me think about the things I need to change in order to become a better version of me. I always find it fascinating the way comparing how I normally live to how others live in different countries can be such a transformative experience. Until I get home, this site will continue to host guest articles from some of my favorite people. I hope that you're finding them worthwhile. After Christmas, things will return to normal around here. Until then, I hope you're all staying healthy and growing wealthy. Happy holidays!

My biggest mistake on this trip? I grew a beard because I thought it would keep me warm. I always have a mustache and goatee, but I keep them relatively short. Now I have a full beard and I hate it. It itches. It makes me appear 69 instead of 49. And it gets in the way of my food and beer. There's a barber just outside our flat here in Prague. Once I publish this article, I may ask them to shave me.

Author: J.D. Roth In 2006, J.D. founded Get Rich Slowly to document his quest to get out of debt. Over time, he learned how to save and how to invest. Today, he's managed to reach early retirement! He wants to help you master your money and your life. No scams. No gimmicks. Just smart money advice to help you reach your goals. https://www.getrichslowly.org/postcard-from-europe/

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Horror in Shadow: CAT PEOPLE Turns 75

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/horror-shadow-cat-people-turns-75/

Horror in Shadow: CAT PEOPLE Turns 75

When we think of classic horror — real vintage, black and white horror of the 30s and 40s, we don’t often think scary. We think of the Universal Monsters. Deservedly lauded and beloved as those films are, they aren’t particularly frightening. Universal’s horror output was revolutionary, heavy on atmosphere, brimming with brilliant themes and bold character studies. But their monsters were so in your face, the primary effect was more disturbing than chilling.

Having been raised on the Universal Monster films, I never expected a horror film from the 40’s to genuinely scare me. I love Universal Horror, and the silent horror before. I love campy 50’s horror and the technicolor dreams of Hammer Horror. But in my mind, these are all about the glorious atmosphere. As a young horror fan, I always assumed truly scary horror began in the 60’s and came to full fruition in the 70’s. All that changed when I saw Cat People (1942).

To be specific, I saw a clip of Cat People. I was a teenage film nerd, turning on TCM after school as I often did. The channel was between features, and so I tuned in smack in the middle of a featurette about sound design. They were highlighting the scene in which Alice is swimming in her apartment’s basement pool.

The clip was short, not even the entire sequence. But I was terrified. The scene thrilled me in a way I expected from modern horror, but this was a film from 1942! I had to find out more. I immediately looked into the film and became enamored with the work of horror producer Val Lewton, whose filmography under RKO in the 40’s paved the way for modern horror.

December 6th marks the 75th anniversary of Cat People’s release. This film stands as a significant moment in the history of horror, and the first film and most famous film of Lewton’s brilliant career in the genre.

  Unexpected Beginnings

Producer and horror visionary Val Lewton.

Val Lewton was a novelist and screenwriter working in Hollywood when RKO studios picked him to head a new horror unit in 1942. RKO saw how Universal was raking it in with their horror films, and wanted to see if they could repeat that success on a shoestring budget.

Lewton was tasked with producing films under three rules; 1. Each film would cost less than $150,000, 2. Each film would run under 75 minutes, 3. Each film would be built around studio provided, focus grouped titles.

Lewton took these potentially limiting parameters and produced incredibly smart, scary, and innovative horror. Cat People had a B-Movie title and a budget of just $134,000. But it is a revolutionary piece of horror film-making with scares that still hold up to this day.

  Hidden in Shadow

In fact, Cat People is a unique example of a true genre maker. The way it builds tension and delivers scares directly influenced some of the most iconic modern horror films. Cat People also created tropes still in use in the best horror today.

Lewton made Cat People with his three time collaborator, director Jaques Tourner. Tourner would go on to direct film noir, and he imbued that genre’s signature style into the horror he made with Lewton. Cat People uses shadow, darkness and light to incredible effect.

Unlike the German Expressionist influences that ruled Universal Horror, Lewton’s films never felt fantastical or dreamlike. Rather, like film noir, they remained very grounded in the real world. But it’s a real world filled with shadows and darkness. Terrifying things hide just on the edges of everyday life, unseen, but threatening to seep into our world.

This base believe-ability is essential to what makes Cat People and the other films produced by Lewton so frightening. By making his films about average people in the contemporary world (the 1940’s, at the time), Lewton gave the sense that horror could befall anyone. It’s difficult to watch Frankenstein (1931) and imagine it’s events occurring in your own life. But Lewton’s films never offer that removal. This is the first major way Cat People paved the way for modern horror.

  The Curse of the Past

Cat People follows Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a Serbian immigrant and fashion designer living in New York. While sketching a black panther in the Central Park Zoo, she meets Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), an engineer. They begin dating, and Oliver falls hard for her. Irena has her quirks, however. She is obsessed with legends surrounding her home village in Serbia. According to the stories, the village population turned to witchcraft during the medieval period, only to be killed by King John of Serbia. But a portion of the population escaped to the mountains, and their descendants survived.

Strange events surround Irena. Oliver buys her a kitten for a present, but the previously friendly animal becomes frightened and vicious the moment it sees her. When they visit the pet shop to return the kitten, the animals all screech in terror and rage at the site of Irena.

Oliver eventually proposes to Irena. To celebrate their wedding, they dine with friends at a Serbian restaurant. Snow falls beautifully outside, and the scene is festive and cozy. But a strange woman with cat-like features keeps staring at the table. In the middle of the revelry, she approaches and calls Irena “moya sestra,” before leaving. Irena, clearly shaken, explains it is Serbian for “my sister.”

The slow burn creepiness at work in the first act of Cat People is central to the style of Lewton’s films, and a significant influence on modern horror. The horror renaissance of the 60’s and 70’s was heavily built on the same structure. A succession of small, eerie events set the scene and build tension. The tension itself serves as the primary driving force that makes the eventual horror so effective.

  Buses and Basements

After their marriage, Irena refuses any physical intimacy with her husband. It soon becomes clear that she believes she bears the curse of her village. She fears that passionate feelings or love, lust or rage could transform her into a deadly cat creature.

Oliver is concerned and compels his wife to begin seeing a psychiatrist. However, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway) doesn’t seem too concerned with Irena’s well being. His attitude toward her is patronizing and predatory.

Meanwhile, Oliver, frustrated with the stress of his wife’s apparent mental illness, begins to grow closer to his coworker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph). Irena discovers her husband’s betrayal, and Alice begins to sense something not quite human is stalking her.

Alice is the center of Cat People’s two most famous, and influential, sequences. The first of which birthed a technique that’s become an iconic horror trope.

Alice is walking home alone at night through Central Park. We see Irena begin to follow her. Each woman moves in and out of shadow, the sound of Irena’s heels clicking on the pavement as she follows her rival.

Finally, Irena moves into shadow, and the sound of her shoes stops. She doesn’t emerge. Alice becomes suddenly uneasy. She glances back at the dark and empty street behind her. Frightened, she begins to run. The camera closes up on her panicked face as a soft growl begins to emerge from behind her.  The growl builds to a sudden hiss — that turns out to be the breaks of a bus pulling up to the stop. Alice, and the audience, jump at the sound, only to be relieved that its source is entirely harmless. But as Alice boards the bus, she glances warily at the rustling bushes behind her.

The technique of foreboding tension building to a harmless jump scare is well known to horror fans as a “cat scare.” The name derives from the frequent culprit behind the false fright being a noisy feline. The cat version has been overused to the point of parody, but the general structure of tension moving into a harmless jump scare to relieve the tension is still widely used. It’s simply a very effective way to create fear.

But before it was known as a “cat scare,” this trope was called a “Lewton Bus.” That’s because its trailblazing, and probably first use, was during this scene in Cat People. Lewton would use similar scares throughout his horror filmography, but this very effective example is also his first.

The other most iconic and influential scene comes later in the film. Alice is taking a nighttime swim in her apartment’s basement pool. She turns off the lights and prepares to leave, when a mysterious growling sound on the stairwell frightens her. Panicked, she jumps back into the pool for safety. As she glances around her, we see nothing but the moving shadows cast by the illuminated pool in the darkened room. A foreboding growl seems to move around the pool, but Alice and the viewer cannot see the creature from which it’s coming. Some of the shadows move in ways that seem independent of the water.

The scene is drawn out, bringing the viewer to the same precipice of panic as Alice. Finally, the growl becomes a vicious snarl and Alice begins to scream for help. The camera cuts to various dark corners of the room and ceiling as we hear Alice’s screams echo — a chilling effect. Finally, a human and seemingly harmless Irena turns on the light and asks “What is the matter?” It’s one of the scariest scenes in classic horror, and we never see anything but shadow.

  The Horror of the Unseen

Much of the genius of the horror in Lewton’s films originated with budget constraints. The extremely low budget of Cat People couldn’t afford the dramatic special effects and makeup that would be required to show the creature. But this limitation actually worked well with Lewton’s idea of horror.

Lewton was an early proponent of the idea that what the audience can’t see is always scarier than what they can. In this way he welcomed his budget constraints as an opportunity to create horror that he believed would be far more effective than the Universal approach. His “less is more” approach pioneered techniques that made films like Jaws and Halloween work as well as they do.

If you haven’t explored Val Lewton’s filmography, Cat People is the perfect place to start.  It demonstrates Lewton’s creativity — showing the innovation he could bring out of limitations. It’s short, smart, atmospheric, and frightening. If scary is something you don’t normally expect out of vintage horror, I suggest you give Lewton’s films a try. You may find yourself surprised by how much they haunt you.

[hollywoodx4]

Sticking with the Schuylers (10)

In this part HAMLIZA GOES ON THEIR FIRST DATE. There is no chill here. Even I, the author, am excited as if I have no idea what direction everything is going. I’m trash, it’s fine.

If you haven’t you should totally give this AU a chance. I mean, I think it’s alright. Plus it’s Hamliza so really just do it. 

1  2  3  4  5  6   7   8   9

6:45 PM

               Pacing outside of her door, he counts the minutes as they tick past on the clock on his phone. He lifts it again check how much time has passed.

               6:46 PM

               He sighs.

               Elizabeth is perched on the edge of the couch, tap-tap-tapping her heel-clad feet against the hardwood flooring. She fiddles with the hem on her navy blue dress. She adjusts her tights. Then she makes her way to the kitchenette, trailing back and forth as the sound of heels on hardwood resonates against the walls of the otherwise silent apartment. Her heart races.

Ten sunflowers in a vase on her kitchenette counter.

               One in his hand.

               She opens the door and he hides behind the flower, almost, bashful face covered by its gentle, blissful beauty. And when she takes it from his outstretched hand she reveals his smile, his eyes.

               He greets her with a voice that’s soft, and a bit clumsy; he trips over his words and repeats himself twice but finally makes it from ‘hello’ to ‘you look beautiful.’ It makes her blush.

               They walk. The sun is just setting and the city air is crisp with a breath of autumn that warms her heart as her fingers chill. He offers her his arm and she links hers around it, timid at first before he cracks a joke about a passing bicyclist and she leans into his shoulder, chuckling with the sound of bells. She smells like citrus and sunshine and she radiates warmth from her smile. She doesn’t feel familiar but the way she melts into him is comfort and security and hope, and suddenly Alexander feels like he can do anything he’s ever dreamed as long as she’s by his side.

               They make small talk about the things they haven’t yet learned about each other-he used to play baseball with the kids in his foster home until he broke a car window and wasn’t allowed back. This gets her laughing so hard they have to stop so she can catch her breath; the way he tells the story is so fast-paced and he uses voices so she can practically hear the cracking of the car window. And, in turn, see the absolute inability his body seems to have for any sport at all. (He hopes he can tell more stories to make her laugh like that again.)

               Eliza desperately wants a cat but wouldn’t want it to be lonely when she’s gone during the day. That, and she’s afraid it’ll destroy the array of houseplants and succulents she likes to keep around her place. She’d like to name it after one of her most favored characters in literature-Lydia Bennett, from Pride and Prejudice. (She’s read it at least fifty times now-her copy is worn and tattered and kept in her bag at all times). Lydia reminds her of Peggy, she says with a warmhearted turn of the lips. But there’s something to be said about a character described most often as wild and reckless; she’s always thought there was more to her story, and how unfair it is that there isn’t. (When she was thirteen she’d taken to writing lists about it-pages and pages, until she’d come up with something she now considered to be true.) She shrugs her shoulders upon the admittance-it was sort of a dorky thing to do-but he smiles.

               How wonderful, he thinks, that at thirteen she’d taken time to create an entire world for a character who’d fallen to the subplot of someone else’s story. Because she felt the character deserved more.

               He takes her to a restaurant she’s never heard of but the line ends up being so long that they walk right past it. It throws him but she’s shaking her head; reassuring, calming. Still smiling. Instead they order hot dogs with too many condiments from a street cart and a man with a thick black mustache and walk through central park, trying not to make a mess of themselves. Condiments spill. She laughs. They go through at least twenty napkins. His heart doubles in size.

               They sit on the ground in the middle of Central Park and watch the people passing by. It’s still light enough where there’s lingering groups of people, weaving in and out of each other and catching the last bit of sunlight while they can. His hands ache to pull out the pen and miniature Moleskin he keeps in his pocket but they’re holding hers, so instead the words he’s meant to transfer to paper come tumbling out of his mouth instead-in paragraphs and broken-up phrases of thought that he’s sure he could have turned into something much more beautiful-more eloquent and worthy of her.

               But she listens, only breaking eye contact to look down when a blush creeps its way to her cheeks-like the crawling of a vine up a warm and well-loved brownstone-and thanks him with a hasty kiss on the cheek. She pulls away quickly and almost embarrassed, unsure of the reaction she’s going to receive. But he can still feel the warmth of her lips on his cheek when his eyes lower to them, a silent request for permission, and she lets her head nod slightly before moving to close the gap he’s shrunken.

               It’s brief-warmth on warmth in the middle of the crisp autumn air. Her lips are soft against his and he’s welcomed back into the realm of citrus and sunshine-and although they’ve both just eaten hot dogs the taste of vanilla lingers on his lips when she pulls away. It’s rather quick, and she apologizes in fifty-or-so words that come tumbling out all at once, but it’s not a bad thing.

               “I just-we’re in a very public place, and I was thinking about how much I don’t want the general public-and then my father right after that-to ruin such a good night. I’m so sorry, it’s not your fault, it’s just,”

               “Whoa, slow down.” Alex backs up then, raising himself from the grass before holding his hand out for her. She accepts it and stands, keeping hold of his hand. “I get it, and I appreciate it. The whole public image thing…”

               “It’s a lot.”

               “Yeah.” They haven’t yet moved from their spot, Eliza still holding on to his hand. It’s a quiet moment; the steady stream of passersby has thinned out at this point, the park left to those like Alex and Eliza, relishing the last moments of the night. And she’s still blushing, drawing in a shaky breath and scanning their surroundings before leaning back in to connect their lips once more. She stretches the moment out as long as she’s sure she can, letting her hands raise to meet his cheeks as he pulls her in by her hips. But all too soon she’s pulling away again, and then there’s her smile. It’s one that almost hurts her she’s so happy, cheeks reddened and lifted as she takes hold of his hand once more.

               “I really like you.” His voice is low and full of the warmth that has radiated his body from her kiss, her smile. And then he chuckles in spite of himself, suddenly feeling both completely enamored and very jittery-nervous, despite the fact that Elizabeth was the one who’d initiated the kiss, and the date. There’s still a part of his mind that’s badgering him; ‘she doesn’t like you…she’s not interested…she just wants to be your friend…’ but then they’re walking again and she’s leaning into him, sighing as she holds his arm.

               “I really like you, too. In case you couldn’t tell.”

[eprocurenet1]

What A Home Care Agency Can Do For You

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Photography is a noteworthy capacity plot that contains more than just depiction, view or charm taking pictures. Commonly particular and amateurish picture takers may bolster exact assortments of photography more than others. Albeit a specialist picture taker may perhaps work in photojournalism, an untalented may be for the most part entranced in huge photography.

Catching pictures can be as easy as situating the photographic camera, clicking and wanting noteworthy turns out. A great deal of occupants catch pictures right now, this strategy may be incongruent: now and again it works and once in a while it doesn't.

Things being what they are, which sort of photography do you need? Here is a far reaching rundown of the sorts of photography:

Portrayal Photography-Documental photos educate stories with pictures. The significant divergence among photojournalism and portrayal photography is that portrayal photography is bound to give as a past portrayal of a political or friendly period though photojournalism speaks to a particular possibility or event.

Photojournalism-Even however untalented may ended into this part of information lacking of appropriate arrangement, photojournalism is habitually confined to capable. One reason photojournalism is as often as possible achieved by specialists is that calm photojournalists must be certain that their shots maintain the dependability of the one of a kind view. Senior Home Care Oakland

Photojournalism involves the picture taker to catch basically the fundamentals: no alteration or misrepresentation of the picture is permitted. Photojournalism pictures are as often as possible persuasive pictures that indict the spectator with the data topic. Cognizing how to acquire determined shots to decipher the remarkable sensation is every now and again found basically during the time of execution and comprehension.

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Submerged Photography-Subsurface photography is often in work by scuba jumpers. Then again, the cost of scuba plunging, connected with much of the time sumptuous and ungainly undersea picture making device, makes this one of the less continuous styles of taking pictures. Moreover, if an incompetent has the device and the scuba information, enthralling shots beneath the surface can be troublesome, as scuba wellbeing glasses are exaggerated and twist the picture taker's representation.

[andrewdburton]

A postcard from Europe: A mid-journey update on my travels

Greetings from Prague! I'm just over halfway through my European vacation, so I thought it'd be fun to share some of my adventures and to take a glimpse at the financial side of this journey.

This trip is unusual for me because I'm traveling with a party of six. My cousin Duane has terminal cancer and wanted to see some more of the world while he still can. A few family members decided to join him. We're exploring Christmas markets as a group.

For the most part, Duane's health has been fine over the past two weeks. He tells me that he's felt great lately, and he's hopeful he has more life left in him than the doctors say. (Who knows? Maybe he and I can squeeze in another trip before his time on this Earth expires.) That said, he did have to take a short rest yesterday because he became dizzy and disoriented as we strolled the cobblestone streets of Prague. He's obviously not feeling 100%.

Our group doesn't have a set agenda. We're merely moving from city to city, exploring the Christmas markets and other touristy delights. Often when I travel, I'm a traveler not a tourist. Right now, I'm a tourist. I wouldn't want to do this every trip, but I'm fine with it at the moment.

General Impressions

So far, we've been we've been to Vienna, Budapest, and Prague. I liked Vienna. I loved Budapest. But after 24 hours here, I'm ambivalent about Prague. I didn't like it at first, but the city is growing on me. I think one problem is our location.

In the first two cities, we were a mile or two outside the downtown core. We stayed in residential neighborhoods. (In both cases, we were relatively close to university areas too, but that was pure chance.) We were directly across from metro stations each time, so it was easy to get where we wanted to go.

Here in Prague, however, we're staying in the downtown core, which means we're immersed in the tourists. (Yes, I realize that we ourselves are tourists and thus part of the problem.) There's no escaping the crowds and commercialism because of our location. This is an interesting lesson to learn for the future: Stay close to downtown in popular cities but not in the downtown. If you're close to a transit station, it's plenty convenient to get where you want.

The Christmas markets have been festive and fun. They remind me of Portland's Saturday Market, a craft market held every weekend in my home city. Vendors erect small stalls where they sell either food or wares.

A lot of the stuff being sold at the Christmas markets is the same from stall to stall — ornaments, winter clothing, jewelry, souvenirs — but occasionally there are vendors with unusual items, such as cookie stamps, wooden toys, and hand-forged knives.

I'm more interested in the food stalls. In each individual city, these “huts” are similar to each other. But the food offered varies from city to city.

Vienna food stalls sold wieners (“wiener” literally means “Viennese”), wurst, spaetzle, baked potatoes, toast with cheese, and roasted chestnuts. The drink vendors sold hot punch and glühwein. (Glühwein is mulled wine. It's very popular in Vienna.)

Budapest food stalls sold paprika sausages — Hungarians love their paprika! — and pig knuckles and delicious goulash. The drink vendors also sold mulled wine and a variety of punch.

Prague food stalls sell chimney cakes, fire-roasted ham, toasted cheese (with jam), and a sort of potato-onion dumpling dish. Here they sell mulled wine too, but they also sell hot mead and cold pilsner. (Pilsner comes from Bavaria, and it's available everywhere. I like the Czech word for beer — “pivo” — and I enjoy asking for it at the market: “Pivo, prosím.”)

The one factor our group failed to consider was the cold. Actually, we considered it…but not enough. We prepared for Oregon cold, not central European cold. (It didn't help that Duane emailed us from Paris to say that the weather wasn't as cold as we'd feared.)

We all brought warm clothes, but each of us has had a turn getting chilled to the bone. One night in Vienna, I was the coldest I've ever been in my life. While the rest of the crew enjoyed ice skating, I made a brisk one-mile walk back to the flat so that I could take a hot bath. Everyone else has been equally cold at some point.

I'm a little worried about Switzerland. The forecast low for when Duane and I arrive in St Moritz tomorrow night is -25 celsius (-13 fahrenheit). Holy cats!

Financial Considerations

While I'm not pinching pennies on this trip, I'm doing my best not to be profligate either. It's interesting to see how my travel habits have changed over the past decade. I used to spend a lot to buy a lot. Now, I buy very little. What I do buy is mostly food.

During my first trips to Europe almost a decade ago, I was very much a tourist as opposed to a traveler. I wanted to go to the tourist spots and to buy tourist goods. I talked to every tout. My compulsion to buy was very very strong.

Even in 2010, after writing Get Rich Slowly for nearly five years, I had some bad habits with money when I traveled. I remember when my ex-wife and I landed in Venice, the first stop on our three-week tour of Europe in autumn 2010, I found a funky used bookstore. I bought fifteen pounds of books on the first day of our trip. I had to carry that weight with me for the next twenty days.

On this trip, I've bought little despite spending hours and hours and hours in markets.

In Vienna, I bought a t-shirt as a souvenir, and I bought a Christmas gift for my niece.

In Budapest, I bought some warmer clothes and a Christmas gift for my ex-wife.

I've bought nothing so far in Prague, although I expect to purchase a gift for Kim before we move on.

We're spending little on transportation (aside from connections to various cities). We walk a lot — about ten miles per day — and we take advantage of the fantastic transit systems in each city. We're on our feet over twelve hours each day.

As a train nut, I enjoy riding the subway. I was particularly enamored with the Budapest metro system. The stations are beautiful, especially the old M1 (opened in 1896, it's the oldest electrified underground in Europe) and the new M4 (whose stations feel like sets from a science-fiction film).

We're not paying much for lodging either. Instead of spending $150 or $200 per night per couple on hotels (for a total of $450 to $600 per night), we're renting rooms through Airbnb. This costs us between $75 and $150 per night for the group. That's a huge savings!

Plus, renting flats gives us a tiny taste of what it's like to live as a local.

For instance, my cousins have had to adjust to the idea that Europeans don't use clothes dryers; they use drying racks. The light switches and outlets are different. The instructions on appliances aren't in English. And here in Prague, our shower sprung a leak so we couldn't use it for a couple of days. (And our internet connection doesn't work, so I'm currently eating breakfast in a coffee shop so I can publish this article.)

Our food expenses are hit and miss. Left to my own devices, I'd eat restaurant meals now and then but not often. When I travel, I like to buy a few groceries — bread, meat, cheese, fruit, juice — to keep in my room for breakfast and snacks. I grab a quick lunch in the afternoon, then maybe eat a sit-down dinner featuring local cuisine. This is relatively cost-effective.

My cousins like eggs for breakfast, though, and they need their coffee. We're frequently starting the day in restaurants. (They can't always find their eggs, though, because egg breakfasts are much less common in Europe.) We frequently snack or lunch at the Christmas markets, which is less expensive than visiting restaurants, but our dinners are always restaurant meals.

One big factor in our finances is currency exchange. Most places took credit cards in Vienna but not the stalls in the Christmas markets. In Budapest, most places did not accept credit cards. In Prague, it seems to be variable. As a result, we have to carry cash.

Not every source of cash is created equal.

Here's an example: We landed in Prague late in the evening. We needed some cash to buy tickets for transit (and to grab some food), so I offered myself up as sacrificial lamb at the airport. I was carrying 137 U.S. dollars, which I exchanged for roughly 2340 Czech crowns. The exchange rate was something like 1 to 19.2.

Yesterday morning, my cousins pulled money from a bank ATM. They got an exchange rate of roughly 1 to 22.4.

In other words, the airport cash exchange milked me for an extra 10%, which is a terrible deal. Lesson: When possible, never exchange money at the airport. (To be fair, I knew this already. In this case, though, I didn't have a choice. We needed some cash, so I sacrificed about $14 to get it.)

Meeting the Money Bosses

I've had a lot of fun on this trip so far. I'm traveling in a very different way because I'm not the one deciding where we go when. My cousins are directing the decisions, and that's fine. It allows me to see how other people travel and what their priorities are. All the same, I do hope to return to these cities in the future to do some “J.D. travel”.

My favorite city of the three so far has been Budapest — and by a wide margin. I loved the history, I loved the culture, I loved the food, I loved the people. I have no doubt that I'll return for a more leisurely visit in the future (possibly as soon as August or October, the next two times I'll visit Europe).

I feel like every vacation offers certain highlights that become the core memories I carry with me. Midway through this trip, I've enjoyed three five-star highlights, each of which was in Budapest.

The Labyrinth

One day, we walked across the Cable Bridge from Pest (on the east side of the Danube) to Buda (on the west side). We boarded a bus to the top of the hill, where we visited Fisherman's Bastion, which offers a stunning view of the city. (Click this image to view a larger version.)

The weather was sunny, clear, and cold. We ducked inside a coffee shop for a few minutes. When we emerged, it was pouring rain. There had been no indication (or forecast) that rain was imminent, so we were unprepared — as was everyone else, tourist and local alike.

We took refuge in the nearby labyrinth, a network of natural underground caves that, over the centuries, had been expanded by local residents. We toured the labyrinth for nearly an hour while we waited for the rain to subside. It was amazing! (But take my rave review with a grain of salt. I love caves. I visit them whenever I can. Others in our group were less impressed. Online reviews are mixed.)

I enjoyed the caves themselves, of course, but also the history. The real-life Dracula — Vlad the Impaler — was supposedly imprisoned in the labyrinth for an entire year. Also, there's a section of the tunnels that's completely dark. It's pitch black. For maybe 50 meters, you make your way by feel. (There's a rope attached to the wall, if you want it.) So fun!

Fun with Ferenc

When we arrived in Budapest, we walked a mile from the train station to our flat. As we were puzzling out the intercom system, a man stepped up to me. “Are you J.D. Roth?” he asked.

I was surprised. “Yes,” I said. He handed me a bottle of wine and an envelope with my name on it.

“My name is Ferenc. I read your blog,” he said. Turns out, he had determined where we'd be staying based on an Airbnb screencap I shared a few weeks ago. He'd spent two hours parked in front of the flat, waiting for us to arrive. He gave us a warm welcome and some tips about his city.

Here's a photo of me and Ferenc. I like this because it shows me carrying all of my luggage at the end of our walk. (You can't really see my backpack, though.) This is how I travel:

Later, I wrote to thank Ferenc. “Thanks for greeting us. Do you want to grab coffee or beer?” I asked.

“Sure!” he said. “I have to work all day today. Later, my son has a soccer game, then I have dinner with friends. But I could meet you at 23:30.” I'm no longer a night owl — plus I've had bad jet lag on this trip — so this normally would be a no-go. But hey! This was a once in a lifetime experience, right?

Ferenc picked me up in his Mini Cooper at 23:30. As we sped through the streets of Budapest looking at the beautiful lights, he told me about the history of Hungary and about daily life in Budapest. He drove me to his favorite viewpoints so that I could snap photographs. Then, when we were finished sightseeing, he took me to a “ruin bar” named Szimpla Kert, which was started by one of his friends from high school.

Ruin bars are exactly what they sound like. They're pubs that have been built in hollow, decaying buildings. Instead of remodeling these spaces, as we would in the U.S., the Hungarians have left them in a state of decay. Inside, they've added bars and stages and dance floors and other pub amenities. They are very, very popular among Europeans.

Ferenc and I stayed out until nearly 03:00, drinking beer and chatting about life in our respective countries. (Naturally, much our talk revolved around personal finance.) To me, this experience is what travel is all about. It's not the Christmas markets that I love (although those are fun), nor the cathedrals nor the castles. It's connecting with real people and real life.

A Morning with Vica

The next morning, I was up early. At 09:30, I met another GRS reader for coffee.

Vica is a landscape architect who lives near Budapest's main train station. She is warm and funny and engaging. As we sat in the basement coffeehouse, she told me about life in Hungary and about her goals for the future. She shared the places she loves to travel around Budapest.

When I complained about how cold I was, she volunteered to take me to a shop where I could buy a couple of quality items at reasonable prices. As we walked to our destination, she gave me a tour of the city. As a landscape architect, Vica seems fascinated by urban design. It was interesting to see things through her eyes. While we talked, she helped me understand more about the Hungarian language, which is quite difficult for native English speakers.

Vica and I spent more than four hours walking across Budapest, and I enjoyed every minute of it. As I said, when I remember this trip in the future, it's my time with her and Ferenc that will come to mind first and foremost.

I'm eager to meet up with other readers on this adventure. On Sunday, Matthias will join me and Duane for our ride on the Glacier Express across the Swiss Alps. I also have invitations to visit readers in Cologne and Luxembourg, although I'm still uncertain whether I'll be able to make those connections work. I hope to!

Final Thoughts

I've been in Europe for eleven days now, and I have nine days left on this trip. Four of my cousins fly home tomorrow morning. At that time, Duane and I branch off for adventures of our own.

First, we'll fly to Switzerland to take the train ride through the Alps. All told, it'll take us three days of travel just to enjoy that eight hour trip. We'll spend very little time actually seeing Switzerland. On the surface, that's ludicrous. But because Duane and I both enjoy the process of travel, it's actually a worthwhile excursion. Plus, Matthias will join us with a bottle of whisky!

Next, we'll spend a couple of days in Strasbourg, France, the ancestral homeland of the Roth family. Yes, we know there was just a shooting in Strasbourg that left three people dead. No, we're not worried. We were aware of the potential for terrorist attacks before we left for this journey and it didn't dissuade us. (I refuse to make fear-based decisions.) If anything, we feel that Strasbourg will now be safer than before. (True story: During the precise moment of the 2017 London Bridge attack, I was traveling on a subway train underneath the site. People were confused why the train bypassed the station. It became very clear later.)

Finally, Duane will branch off to Munich and I will…I don't know. I have three days and no plans. I have those invitations to visit GRS readers in both Cologne and Luxembourg. The offers are tempting. But I haven't yet seen anything of Germany, so I might simply make my way to Berlin (from which my final flight departs early on the 23rd). We'll see.

As always, this travel has given me perspective on my life back home at Portland. It's made me more mindful of my daily habits and routines, made me think about the things I need to change in order to become a better version of me. I always find it fascinating the way comparing how I normally live to how others live in different countries can be such a transformative experience.

Until I get home, this site will continue to host guest articles from some of my favorite people. I hope that you're finding them worthwhile. After Christmas, things will return to normal around here. Until then, I hope you're all staying healthy and growing wealthy. Happy holidays!

My biggest mistake on this trip? I grew a beard because I thought it would keep me warm. I always have a mustache and goatee, but I keep them relatively short. Now I have a full beard and I hate it. It itches. It makes me appear 69 instead of 49. And it gets in the way of my food and beer. There's a barber just outside our flat here in Prague. Once I publish this article, I may ask them to shave me.

The post A postcard from Europe: A mid-journey update on my travels appeared first on Get Rich Slowly.

from Finance https://www.getrichslowly.org/postcard-from-europe/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[eprocurenet1]

Super Vectorizer automatically converts PNG files

People catch pictures for a great deal of thought processes, grouping from over-sentimental motivations to very advantageous nerves. Catching pictures may potentially be a masterful structure, a nuclear family leisure activity in any case a past commitment. In like manner, gazing at pictures keeps us in contact with the past occasions, proceeds with us taught of happenings in addition grants us to esteem inventiveness. png to svg converter

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Photojournalism involves the picture taker to catch basically the fundamentals: no alteration or misrepresentation of the picture is permitted. Photojournalism pictures are as often as possible persuasive pictures that indict the spectator with the data topic. Cognizing how to acquire determined shots to decipher the remarkable sensation is every now and again found basically during the time of execution and comprehension.

Large scale Photography-Macro-photography recognized the subject field of photography wherein pictures are caught at close up scope. At the point when restricted to focal point men with improved and rich mechanical assembly, full scale photography is as of now uncomplicated for incompetent to incorporate through advanced cameras by methods for large scale condition. Full scale photography topics may contain arthropods, plants life, just as the outside of a woven pullover in any case some substance where close-up taking photographs uncovered engaging informations.

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Smaller scale Photography-Microphotography utilizes committed cameras and magnifiers to enthrall pictures of colossally modest articles. Most of usage of microphotography is better reasonable for the orderly mankind. For example, microphotography is practiced in branches of knowledge as changed as regular way of thinking, ecological science and therapeutic science.

Advertising Photography-It's since photography plays out a significant job in showcasing, a great deal of master picture takers devote their callings to promoting photography. The require for sole and recognizable promoting proliferation implies the photographic artist may work with various types of taking pictures, just as large scale photography and magnificence photography.

Excellence Photography-Beauty photography, some of the time misidentified with erotic entertainment, may be horny and titillating aside from it isn't obscene. On the other hand of fixating on bareness or rough stances, fabulousness photography searches out to hold onto its topic in suggestive stances that offer accentuation to ebbs and flows and shades. As the name involves, the target of magnificence photography is to decipher the good example in a hair-raising splendor. Accordingly, heaps of allure shots bear prodding, unexplained and amiable natures. 

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Creative Photography-Imaginative photography can hold an expansive determination of topics. Though a characteristic world picture taker may utilize undersea taking photos to produce a craftsmanship show dependent on marine life, a portrayal photographic artist's diversion may quality highly contrasting innovative depiction. By and large cases, the shoots ought to have aesthetic centrality to be view as masterful creation. png to svg

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Submerged Photography-Subsurface photography is often in work by scuba jumpers. Then again, the cost of scuba plunging, connected with much of the time sumptuous and ungainly undersea picture making device, makes this one of the less continuous styles of taking pictures. Moreover, if an incompetent has the device and the scuba information, enthralling shots beneath the surface can be troublesome, as scuba wellbeing glasses are exaggerated and twist the picture taker's representation.

[nightmareonfilmstreet]

Horror in Shadow: CAT PEOPLE Turns 75

New Post has been published on https://nofspodcast.com/horror-shadow-cat-people-turns-75/

Horror in Shadow: CAT PEOPLE Turns 75

When we think of classic horror — real vintage, black and white horror of the 30s and 40s, we don’t often think scary. We think of the Universal Monsters. Deservedly lauded and beloved as those films are, they aren’t particularly frightening. Universal’s horror output was revolutionary, heavy on atmosphere, brimming with brilliant themes and bold character studies. But their monsters were so in your face, the primary effect was more disturbing than chilling.

Having been raised on the Universal Monster films, I never expected a horror film from the 40’s to genuinely scare me. I love Universal Horror, and the silent horror before. I love campy 50’s horror and the technicolor dreams of Hammer Horror. But in my mind, these are all about the glorious atmosphere. As a young horror fan, I always assumed truly scary horror began in the 60’s and came to full fruition in the 70’s. All that changed when I saw Cat People (1942).

To be specific, I saw a clip of Cat People. I was a teenage film nerd, turning on TCM after school as I often did. The channel was between features, and so I tuned in smack in the middle of a featurette about sound design. They were highlighting the scene in which Alice is swimming in her apartment’s basement pool.

The clip was short, not even the entire sequence. But I was terrified. The scene thrilled me in a way I expected from modern horror, but this was a film from 1942! I had to find out more. I immediately looked into the film and became enamored with the work of horror producer Val Lewton, whose filmography under RKO in the 40’s paved the way for modern horror.

December 6th marks the 75th anniversary of Cat People’s release. This film stands as a significant moment in the history of horror, and the first film and most famous film of Lewton’s brilliant career in the genre.

  Unexpected Beginnings

Producer and horror visionary Val Lewton.

Val Lewton was a novelist and screenwriter working in Hollywood when RKO studios picked him to head a new horror unit in 1942. RKO saw how Universal was raking it in with their horror films, and wanted to see if they could repeat that success on a shoestring budget.

Lewton was tasked with producing films under three rules; 1. Each film would cost less than $150,000, 2. Each film would run under 75 minutes, 3. Each film would be built around studio provided, focus grouped titles.

Lewton took these potentially limiting parameters and produced incredibly smart, scary, and innovative horror. Cat People had a B-Movie title and a budget of just $134,000. But it is a revolutionary piece of horror film-making with scares that still hold up to this day.

  Hidden in Shadow

In fact, Cat People is a unique example of a true genre maker. The way it builds tension and delivers scares directly influenced some of the most iconic modern horror films. Cat People also created tropes still in use in the best horror today.

Lewton made Cat People with his three time collaborator, director Jaques Tourner. Tourner would go on to direct film noir, and he imbued that genre’s signature style into the horror he made with Lewton. Cat People uses shadow, darkness and light to incredible effect.

Unlike the German Expressionist influences that ruled Universal Horror, Lewton’s films never felt fantastical or dreamlike. Rather, like film noir, they remained very grounded in the real world. But it’s a real world filled with shadows and darkness. Terrifying things hide just on the edges of everyday life, unseen, but threatening to seep into our world.

This base believe-ability is essential to what makes Cat People and the other films produced by Lewton so frightening. By making his films about average people in the contemporary world (the 1940’s, at the time), Lewton gave the sense that horror could befall anyone. It’s difficult to watch Frankenstein (1931) and imagine it’s events occurring in your own life. But Lewton’s films never offer that removal. This is the first major way Cat People paved the way for modern horror.

  The Curse of the Past

Cat People follows Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), a Serbian immigrant and fashion designer living in New York. While sketching a black panther in the Central Park Zoo, she meets Oliver Reed (Kent Smith), an engineer. They begin dating, and Oliver falls hard for her. Irena has her quirks, however. She is obsessed with legends surrounding her home village in Serbia. According to the stories, the village population turned to witchcraft during the medieval period, only to be killed by King John of Serbia. But a portion of the population escaped to the mountains, and their descendants survived.

Strange events surround Irena. Oliver buys her a kitten for a present, but the previously friendly animal becomes frightened and vicious the moment it sees her. When they visit the pet shop to return the kitten, the animals all screech in terror and rage at the site of Irena.

Oliver eventually proposes to Irena. To celebrate their wedding, they dine with friends at a Serbian restaurant. Snow falls beautifully outside, and the scene is festive and cozy. But a strange woman with cat-like features keeps staring at the table. In the middle of the revelry, she approaches and calls Irena “moya sestra,” before leaving. Irena, clearly shaken, explains it is Serbian for “my sister.”

The slow burn creepiness at work in the first act of Cat People is central to the style of Lewton’s films, and a significant influence on modern horror. The horror renaissance of the 60’s and 70’s was heavily built on the same structure. A succession of small, eerie events set the scene and build tension. The tension itself serves as the primary driving force that makes the eventual horror so effective.

  Buses and Basements

After their marriage, Irena refuses any physical intimacy with her husband. It soon becomes clear that she believes she bears the curse of her village. She fears that passionate feelings or love, lust or rage could transform her into a deadly cat creature.

Oliver is concerned and compels his wife to begin seeing a psychiatrist. However, Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway) doesn’t seem too concerned with Irena’s well being. His attitude toward her is patronizing and predatory.

Meanwhile, Oliver, frustrated with the stress of his wife’s apparent mental illness, begins to grow closer to his coworker, Alice Moore (Jane Randolph). Irena discovers her husband’s betrayal, and Alice begins to sense something not quite human is stalking her.

Alice is the center of Cat People’s two most famous, and influential, sequences. The first of which birthed a technique that’s become an iconic horror trope.

Alice is walking home alone at night through Central Park. We see Irena begin to follow her. Each woman moves in and out of shadow, the sound of Irena’s heels clicking on the pavement as she follows her rival.

Finally, Irena moves into shadow, and the sound of her shoes stops. She doesn’t emerge. Alice becomes suddenly uneasy. She glances back at the dark and empty street behind her. Frightened, she begins to run. The camera closes up on her panicked face as a soft growl begins to emerge from behind her.  The growl builds to a sudden hiss — that turns out to be the breaks of a bus pulling up to the stop. Alice, and the audience, jump at the sound, only to be relieved that its source is entirely harmless. But as Alice boards the bus, she glances warily at the rustling bushes behind her.

The technique of foreboding tension building to a harmless jump scare is well known to horror fans as a “cat scare.” The name derives from the frequent culprit behind the false fright being a noisy feline. The cat version has been overused to the point of parody, but the general structure of tension moving into a harmless jump scare to relieve the tension is still widely used. It’s simply a very effective way to create fear.

But before it was known as a “cat scare,” this trope was called a “Lewton Bus.” That’s because its trailblazing, and probably first use, was during this scene in Cat People. Lewton would use similar scares throughout his horror filmography, but this very effective example is also his first.

The other most iconic and influential scene comes later in the film. Alice is taking a nighttime swim in her apartment’s basement pool. She turns off the lights and prepares to leave, when a mysterious growling sound on the stairwell frightens her. Panicked, she jumps back into the pool for safety. As she glances around her, we see nothing but the moving shadows cast by the illuminated pool in the darkened room. A foreboding growl seems to move around the pool, but Alice and the viewer cannot see the creature from which it’s coming. Some of the shadows move in ways that seem independent of the water.

The scene is drawn out, bringing the viewer to the same precipice of panic as Alice. Finally, the growl becomes a vicious snarl and Alice begins to scream for help. The camera cuts to various dark corners of the room and ceiling as we hear Alice’s screams echo — a chilling effect. Finally, a human and seemingly harmless Irena turns on the light and asks “What is the matter?” It’s one of the scariest scenes in classic horror, and we never see anything but shadow.

  The Horror of the Unseen

Much of the genius of the horror in Lewton’s films originated with budget constraints. The extremely low budget of Cat People couldn’t afford the dramatic special effects and makeup that would be required to show the creature. But this limitation actually worked well with Lewton’s idea of horror.

Lewton was an early proponent of the idea that what the audience can’t see is always scarier than what they can. In this way he welcomed his budget constraints as an opportunity to create horror that he believed would be far more effective than the Universal approach. His “less is more” approach pioneered techniques that made films like Jaws and Halloween work as well as they do.

If you haven’t explored Val Lewton’s filmography, Cat People is the perfect place to start.  It demonstrates Lewton’s creativity — showing the innovation he could bring out of limitations. It’s short, smart, atmospheric, and frightening. If scary is something you don’t normally expect out of vintage horror, I suggest you give Lewton’s films a try. You may find yourself surprised by how much they haunt you.