#ill still just rent my business law book

[3am-cheerios]

shoutout to my baby sib who saved me 100 bucks this semester and who knows how much in the future

[mauvecherie-writes]

The Bodyguard.

PAIRING: Guillermo Sollima x Black reader.

SUMMARY: In the midst of a gang war, you, the daughter of a cartel boss must be moved for your safety. Your father hired a bodyguard for you to protect you during the journey. You just never expected to ever fall for the man …

WARNING: NSFW*** angst, graphic violence, kidnapping, age-gap (over 21), sex.

WORD COUNT: 7.9K

NOTE: This was a piece that I wrote during my wattpad days. I had a massive crush on Benicio Del Toro and I still do, it’s just lowkey lol. I decided to upload this specifically for @anbanananna​. She keeps the flame going. PS: I wrote this a very long time ago so it is a bit cringe lmao, please spare me.

The birds chirped lovingly outside of her windows as she woke up that beautiful Saturday morning. The sun was high up in the sky and clear of any type of clouds. It instantly put her in high spirits as YN got ready for her day. She moved swiftly around her spacious bedroom as she moved from her bathroom to her closet to her vanity table. There was no reason whatsoever for YN to get so dressed up but she just felt like doing so. After putting her hair into a high ponytail, she grabbed her phone and left her room. Her spaghetti flower print summer dress flowed behind her as she walked down the stairs and headed towards the kitchen.

She could hear commotion from one wing of the house but she didn't want to bother herself with that. When she entered the kitchen she saw Ramon and his staff working on cooking breakfast but Jade did not feel like waiting. She sat at the kitchen islet and waited.

"Good morning Miss YN." Ramon greeted her.

"Good morning Ramon. What are you serving for breakfast?"

"Today it is going to be very simple, between pancakes and waffles."

"Easy choice. Can I have some waffles please?"

"With all of the toppings?"

"Extra maple syrup please." YN smiled at him before he left her. As she sat at the islet, she scrolled through her phone, replying to her friend's messages and her social media catching up on the latest gossip. As she did so, she didn't notice her father enter the room.

"Good morning mija." He greeted as he placed a kiss onto her forehead.

"Morning papa." She replied to him as he sat beside her.

"How are you feeling?" He asked her.

"I'm good. Just waiting on Ramon to make my breakfast. Theresa is coming by later to pick me up so we go hangout with our friends." YN told her father about her day.

"I need to talk to you before you leave."

"Okay papa."

After that, her father left her alone. She was a bit worried about what he wanted to talk about because most of the time, he would just tell her out front. Rafael Estes was her father.

Rafael Estes, the most feared and most powerful drug lord in Mexico was her father. Her mother was his favourite mistress. He never hid their relationship but when she got pregnant with YN, she left Mexico and moved to Brazil. They stayed there until nine years and her mother became ill. Rafael came to their rescue. He moved them back to Mexico and took care of her and her mother until she passed away five years later. YN wasn't his only child but she was the only one who still lived with him. She was twenty-two and she could have left already but she was too close to her father to just leave. She didn't want to take over his empire, that was up to her older brothers to deal with.

YN tried to live her life as normal as possible and that's why she kept her mother's surname. The two didn't even look alike but when they were standing next to each other,  you could see the relation. She did all the things girls her age do. She was enrolled into a private university and she had a group of friends and they all knew who her father was. To be honest it was kind of hard to hide because wherever she was, there were some guards around. They never shadowed her but they were always in the background of where she was except when she was at university.

When she finished her breakfast, she went to get her bag and when she entered the hallway leading to her father's office, it was littered with some of his workers. They all respectfully greeted as she passed by. Her father's office door was wide open so she just stepped in. She noticed a man standing in front of her father's desk. From the back she could tell that he was decked out in high tech gear. Instantly, her mind began to race.

"Papa." She spoke, causing both of the men's heads to face her. The first thing she noticed were his hazel eyes. Followed by his rugged, rough beard that was thicker around his pink lips than on his cheek bones. His black hair was pushed back in a messy kind of way that looked like he continuously ran his hand through it. She blushed when he smirked slightly.

She had been staring at him for a bit too long. "Mija sit down."

YN did as she was instructed. Her body was still nerved by the man standing behind her.

"You know I would have never called you in here if I didn't think the issue was serious." She nodded her head. "I never want to stress you with my business but I've been put in a position where I need to let you know some things."

"Is everything okay Papa?"

"Things will be baby. Right now I'm in the midst of a drug war with the Medellin cartel. It's getting a bit too dangerous so I'm going to have to make sure that you aren't caught in the crossfire." He said. "The man behind you is Guillermo Sollima and I've hired him to protect you as he takes somewhere safe."

"What about you?"

"I'll be okay."

"I can't lose you too."  YN felt like crying as the realisation began to sink in.

"And you won't mija. But I cannot in good conscience let you stay here knowing people are coming to look for me. I'd rather you bury me and I bury you if the time comes."

"Why can't you come with me?"

"Because these boys think they can run me away and take over my territory. As a good leader, I stick with my men no matter what it is." Rafael said. "The maids have already packed some of your clothes. You need to leave today ...."

Everything was so sudden and YN sat in the chair as she tried to come to terms with what she was being told. It was like everything was in slow motion. She didn't even know when she got out of the seat and found herself walking back to her room. She got dressed in something more comfortable and she kept her hair in her ponytail. She packed some reading books to keep herself entertained. She messaged her friends that they wouldn't be able to talk to her for a while and none of them questioned her and after she turned off her phone.

After an emotional goodbye with her father, she got into the car and they drove away. As she was sitting in the back as tears silently fell, Guillermo watched her through the rear view mirror.

"Everything will be alright." He spoke to her for the first time. She looked at him to find his striking hazel eyes already on her.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because you've got me."

.

And he was right. As they traveled through the length of Mexico towards its south border, there was no trouble. Well there was no trouble that ever came close to YN. Guillermo kept her well away from it. There were times that he would come back to where they were staying with cuts and bruises and she tended to them. Those were their bonding times. He wasn't much of a talker but when he did, she enjoyed hearing his voice. He told her stories of his endeavours across the globe as a service man for the CIA. He didn't hide the fact that he was a contracted assassin for them. He wasn't on any side of the law. He was on the side that paid him the most money. And her father had paid him in the millions to make sure that she got to his private island off the coast of South Argentina.

They were now in Brazil. YN spent most of her days with the locals in the market or in the little apartment they were renting out. They were only supposed to stay for a few days but it had been more than a week now. Guillermo told her that he was having a little bit of trouble with looking for transport but he was working on it. Even though he didn't tell her. but she had noticed that whenever she left the apartment, she had noticed that there were eyes that would watch over her.

Today, she didn't feel like leaving so when she woke up, she took a shower and cooked some breakfast. She looked towards Guillermo's room and she didn't hear anything. She didn't want to disturb him just in case he was in there sleeping. She placed his plate into the microwave and went to sit by the television. She was so engrossed in her show that she didn't hear the front door open and Guillermo stepped into the room.

"Morning YN." He spoke. Jade placed her plate onto the table and turned around.

"Morning G." She greeted him with a smile. But it quickly faltered when she saw him clutching onto his side. "What's wrong?"

"I got into a little fight. It's okay."

"You look hurt." YN rose to her feet and went towards him. He knew not to protest against her because she would just keep on persisting that she help until he let her. He sat down on the couch and as he gingerly took off his shirt, YN grabbed the first aid kit and came back to him.

"You've been in too many fights since we got here. That's not good Guillermo." She scolded him as she began to clean up his wound. It wasn't deep but it still drew a lot of blood.

"I'm sorry mama." He playfully replied. She looked at him through her lashes and those piercing hazel eyes were staring down at her. "Someone said something I didn't like and I just had to set them straight."

"What did they say?"

"You wouldn't want to know. It was disrespectful to you." After that they didn't speak any further until she fully cleaned and covered his wound.

"Well thank you for defending my honour." She told him as she lightly traced the now bandaged wound. Her fingers aimlessly began to trace his tattoo that was on the side of his torso.

"No problem." He mumbled softly. Her touch was affecting him in ways he couldn't explain. He didn't want to openly admit that he was attracted to her but in his mind he kept repeating that she was too young for him. YN didn't seem to care because there were times where they would mindlessly flirt and she seemed to always give in. He stopped the hand that was tracing his tattoo and her eyes averted back to his.

"I'm sorry." She whispered softly.

"It's okay." He told her. He didn't want to let go of her hand. It was so soft in his. She bit onto her lip when she noticed their closeness. Every part of her was telling her to close that gap and kiss him but she didn't want to make the first move.

They didn't need to speak as their bodies did the speaking for them. Guillermo placed his hand on her cheek and caressed her skin with the pad of his thumb. YN found herself shifting her position and sitting on the back of her legs to be closer to his face. She held onto his hand as she waited for him. But it looked like he was waiting for her to consent verbally.

"Please." She whispered softly. Guillermo finally closed the gap between the two and laid his lips onto hers. She didn't expect them to be so soft but they were. Like marshmallows. His mouth tasted like menthol with the slightest hint of nicotine. He held the back of her neck as his tongue invaded her mouth and it caused her to moan softly. Guillermo dominated over her and she found herself getting weak. Their breathing became heavier as their kiss intensified. She was still mindful of his wound but he didn't seem to care as he pulled her onto his lap causing her to gasp.

Without giving her room to breath, Guillermo deepened the kiss. He would nibble on her bottom lip, suck on her tongue and squeeze on her body. She felt like risking it all. Her thighs clenched as he slowed down the kisses. His  grip on her neck was still there as he kept her in place.

When he finally pulled away, her chest was heaving up and down as she tried to calm down. Her inner thigh was pressing against his length and she could feel it harden underneath her.

"Your breakfast." She was still struggling for breath as she laid her forehead against his. "Your breakfast is in the microwave." She mumbled as she blushed softly.

"Thank you." He replied, licking his lips, savouring her taste. She didn't want to move so she just stayed on his lap causing him to chuckle. YN squealed as he stood up and wrapped her legs around his waist. "Since you didn't want to move."

YN giggled as she placed her head in his neck. Their relationship had now reached other heights and she didn't want to change a thing.

Her bodyguard was now more than that .....

YN couldn't believe how beautiful Uruguay was. They were at the border of the country with Argentina. Being that Uruguay was a safer country, YN didn't need to hide her face or be cooped up in the apartment. For the two days, she had spent most of her time, getting supplies upon supplies, from canned foods to toiletries. Once they entered Argentina, they wouldn't stop travelling, only to get some sleep, a shower and hot food until they got to the south. The journey was going to be long but YN couldn't wait until she reached her father's island. She was now wearing her natural hair and had no false nails anymore. She also stopped wearing makeup and she felt so good.

Guillermo was sitting on the floor as he cleaned his weapons and packed his ammunition. Luckily enough, YN  had not been exposed to any type of gun fire but she knew that he had definitely killed some people for her protection because he often came back with bruised knuckles and a black eye a few times. Her growing attraction to him did not stop, it only intensified. He was leaning against the wall, dressed in a white vest top and his trousers. He was sharpening his knife when he finally looked up and smiled when he saw her looking at him. She was laid on her side on the couch in a soft flowing summer dress.

“Come here.” He said softly as he placed his weapons down and pushed them away at a good distance. YN got up from her seat and to where he was on the floor. She clutched on the sides of her dress as she lowered down onto his lap. Once she was situated, she wrapped her arms around his neck as his arms came to her neck.

"What's wrong mi amor?" He asked her as his thumbs caressed her back.

"I just wanted your touch." She replied as she pulled him up closer to her face which caused him to chuckle.

"All you had to do was ask baby." He mumbled as his lips tickled hers. YN bit onto her lip. No guy had ever made her feel the way Guillermo made her feel. So many times she had chucked it to the fact that they were in isolation together but the feelings she was getting for the man seemed far deeper. This man was risking his life for her protection. But it wasn't just a job anymore. He was doing this because he cared for her and he wanted to see her safe from danger. He knew that they were far from it but he could never be too sure with her father's enemies. The private island was heavily guarded and he knew getting her there she would be out of harm's way.

She dropped her head shyly onto his shoulder. Guillermo placed soft kisses on her skin. He hooked his finger onto the strap of her dress and brought it down. His beard tickled her skin but she enjoyed the feeling. His other hand began to inch her dress further up until his hand was underneath her dress and playing on the hemline of her underwear. YN bit onto her lip as she ran her hand through his hair.

"Please Guillermo." She asked him as she thrusted her hips forward softly onto his fingers. He placed his forehead onto hers as he pushed her underwear to the side and began to rub on her clit. She moaned as her eyes fluttered close.

“Tell me what you want love.” He whispered into her ear as he inched one finger into her.

“I want to feel all of you.” She whispered to him which caused him to groan softly. He pulled down the rest of her dress so that it pooled onto her waist. He leaned forward as he captured her lips. He nibbled onto her bottom lip as he entered his tongue into her mouth. She whimpered as he began to finger her at a steady pace. His fingers were skilled and she could quickly feel her orgasm rising. Guillermo tore his lips away from hers and popped her nipple into her mouth. He yearned for the moment that she would be like this in his arms. He focused on all of the love faces that she made. The tremble of her lips and the scrunch at the corner of her eyes. He loved seeing the way her lips would shape to make those sweet moans that he enjoyed hearing.

"I'm going to cum." She moaned as she grabbed onto the fabric of his shirt and rode his fingers faster. His fingers curled and pressed onto her spot and the other squeezed her ass. "Fuck!" YN cussed as her walls squeezed his fingers, trapping them inside of her. She cried out his name as she exploded all around his fingers. He pulled them out and she took his hand and began licking his fingers clean as she stared deeply into his eyes. It was then when she felt his hardened length underneath the softness of her thigh. Guillermo took his fingers out of her mouth and replaced them with his tongue. He moaned against her lips as the taste of her invaded his taste buds. He stood up with her in his arms and walked to the bedroom with their lips still in contact. When he laid her down, stripping her clothes, his lips and hands were never far from the sweet spots. Guillermo stopped for a while to strip his clothing. YN took in all of his scaring and thought that he was beautiful anyway. He got onto the bed and in between her legs. Facing her beautiful pink pussy budding like a rose, he leaned down and ran his tongue up from her slit to her clit and he did it over and over.

"Oh my god." YN moaned as her eyes closed and she fell onto the bed. Guillermo ate her out like he had not eaten in days. He would pay close attention to her clit, sucking into his mouth and slobbering onto it. He thrusted his tongue into her core and wiggled it. It was all too much for her but she didn't dare pull away from him. In fact, she kept his head in between her legs.

"Oh fuck!" She squealed as her legs shook from her impending orgasm. Her eyes were beginning to cross as her whole body convulsed. Without any warning, she came into his mouth. But he didn't stop. It deepened his hunger. He gripped her thighs and continued licking her. Her clit was extremely sensitive and he used that to his advantage.

She struggled for air as she tugged on his hair and the sheets.

"Baby." She breathlessly let out as her third orgasm was triggered.

"Let it all out sweetheart.” He groaned, biting onto her inner thigh as he replaced his tongue with his fingers. Even though her mouth was wide apart, no noise came out but her cream coated her fingers. Determined to draw another orgasm out of her, he got onto his knees and held one of her legs apart as he thrusted his fingers into her faster and faster.

"Oh shit!" She exclaimed. "Fuckkkk! Papi wait!" She gasped as the strong urge to pee gripped her.

"I'm gonna squirt." She told him and tried to push his hand away but he wrapped his arm around her throat and looked into her eyes.

"Cum." He demanded. YN's eyes rolled to the back of her head as she splashed onto his fingers.

"Yeah, that's it. Make a mess." He told her as her thighs shook in the aftermath. He slapped her pussy which caused her to whimper. He hovered above her and she placed her hands onto his neck and brought him down to capture his lips. She moaned as the scent of her essence filled her nostrils. He held onto the calves of her legs as he dropped his bottom half so that his length was rubbing against her opening before he slowly entered into her and began to thrust at a steady pace.

He swallowed all of her moans. She felt so good. She was extremely wet and gushy. Every time he thrusted into her and pulled out, her cream coated his length. He groaned as she squeezed him tightly.

“So fucking wet. You’re taking me so well Princess.” He groaned as he pecked her lips. His words were turning her on. Hearing him being so vocal about made her smile because he was usually so quiet to the outside world.

"Fuck me harder Daddy." YN told him as she looked up into his eyes. She smirked as she saw his eyes darken. He laid down so that their chests were pressed together. He wrapped his hands around neck from the front and the back as he pounded into her harder and harder. He completely took her breath away. She had no words but she panted and held onto his arms, digging her nails into his skin.

"Is this what you want?" He huskily mumbled into her ear and then nibbled on her earlobe. "Me fucking you deep and hard like this."

"Yes Daddy! It feels so fucking good." She exclaimed. YN couldn't take it anymore but she wasn't going to give up now. "You're so fucking deep, I love it."

Guillermo sucked and nibbled on her skin, leaving marks where his lips touched. Her hands reached out gripping onto the pillows as his hands ran into her hair gripped on it as he fucked her harder and harder.

His thrusts were becoming sloppier and sloppier.

"You're going to cum baby? I feel you throbbing inside of me." She moaned seductively which caused him to grunt. She ran her hands down his back and squeezed his ass as she kissed all over his face as she rolled her hips. "Please cum." She whispered into his ear. "Please cum for me."

That was all it took for him to pull out and let his seed paint her thighs. As he came down, she wiped away the evidence and collapsed back onto the bed, completely sedated. Guillermo laid down beside her and placed a kiss onto her cheek. She turned around and kissed him.

"We leave in the morning." He told her which caused her to nod her head and then slowly but surely fell asleep …

—

Six men were circulating the apartment. They were all ready to enter the building. No words were spoken and as they nodded to each other and then began to walk closer to the entrance.

Three soft knocks came to the door and then a note was slid through the bottom of the door. Guillermo picked up the note and read it. Even though he should be panicked, he didn't need to worry. He had already packed the car, all he needed to do was wake up YN and leave. He put the silencer on the gun and enters the bedroom.

"Princess, wake up. We need to go now." He whispered urgently. YN was a light sleeper so when she heard his voice she got and put on her shoes. They walked hand in hand out of the apartment. Guillermo kept her behind his body as they slowly descended down the stairs. Just as they turned a corner, they were faced with a man in a mask. Guillermo placed the nose of the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger. Effortlessly, he took out two other men.

They ran out of the car and he pushed her into the car.

"Hide." He told her. She nodded her head and laid on the floor of the cab of the truck.

Guillermo turned round and went back to the building. When he got back into the building. He found the rest of the men all standing there. He shot one of them through the back of his head which grabbed the other two's attention. One of them punched Guillermo's hand which caused him to drop his gun however he quickly recovered as he poked the man's throat with four fingers, breaking his larynx and crushing his windpipe. As the man struggled to breath, Guillermo bent down and grabbed his gun, shooting the man in the knee and as he fell, a bullet went through his forehead. From the corner of his eye, he saw the last man standing reach for his gun. Guillermo, being quicker, grabbed his knife and threw it. It hit him right into the chest and he collapsed. Guillermo walked up to the man and shot him in between the eyes and then pulled out his knife, wiping the blood on the dead body's clothes.

He walked back out into the car and knocked three times. "YN, it's me."

YN sat up and unlocked the door. Guillermo got in and sat in the driver's seat as YN made her way onto the passenger's seat. "Did you see anybody else?" He asked her.

"No." She replied. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." YN leaned forward and pecked his lips. "Let's get out of here."

Without anything further, Guillermo put the keys into the ignition and turned on the engine. As they drove away Jada interlinked her fingers Guillermo's as they drove away ….

A Year Later ...

YN had woken up that morning and felt like she needed a swim. But not in the pool in the backyard of the house, she wanted to be in the water of the ocean. She put on a simple black swimsuit and made her way out to the beach. It was still the dawn of day and the birds were chirping. She was finally at peace. After months of trying to escape the clutches of her father's rivals, she had finally arrived at the private island. There were a few locals who stayed on it to maintain the place and they had quickly become their friends.

She had become accustomed to the island life and preferred it more than anything. The only thing she didn't like was the fact that as soon she got there, her father demanded for Guillermo. He wanted him back in Mexico for another job. YN didn't want him to leave but she had no control over him because his contract was with her father and not her. They made love all day and all night before he left.

That was about seven months ago and YN missed him terribly. He would sneak phone calls to her quite frequently but it wasn't the same. She wanted to be in his presence. To feel him underneath her fingertips and to hear his voice first hand and not through a phone. Because she missed him, she started causing trouble for the personal security guards she's had since his departure. YN was on her fifth one and she didn't care for him. She would often run away from the home and disappear somewhere off the island for hours. This would cause her father to panic and she'd edge him on to fire them. None of them could match up to Guillermo so she saw no reason for them to stick around.

After her swim, the sun was now in the sky and she walked back to the house. The only people that lived there were her father, the staff and a few of the body guards. She knew that by this time, the house would be alive and buzzing with activity.

"YN!" Her father yelled from the living room as she entered through the kitchen door.

"Yes Dad?" She replied.

"Come here for a second darling."

She walked to the living room and before she could greet her father, she saw Guillermo sitting on the couch. He was leaning forward onto his knees with his fingers intertwined between them. She had to stop herself from running forward and jumping onto him.

"What's this?" She asked.

Her father sighed as he got up from his seat and approached her. "I know that on your journey here, you grew used to having Guillermo around and that it wasn't in my best interest to take him away from you when you had grown to trust him. I know you kept rebelling because you didn't like the other guards that I brought in for you. So I've asked for Guillermo to come back."

YN smiled softly. "Thank you." He kissed the side of her head.

"I'll leave you too to rekindle then. Breakfast will be in thirty minutes."

"Okay."

Once her father was out of sight and far away, Yn was quick on her feet to go to him. He embraced her into his arms and held her close. One hand was on the back of her head whilst the other secured around her waist.

"I missed you so much." She sobbed softly. His cologne engulfed her senses and it felt so good to be in his arms again. He pulled away, just enough to look into her eyes.

"I missed you too." He smiled softly which caused her to smile. "I wish I could kiss you right now." He mumbled. YN bit onto her lip as she felt the same.

"I feel the same way. We should go somewhere. I know a place."

"What time do you want to go?"

"After breakfast. I spend most of my time out of the house. Papa will know I'm with you so he won't question it much."

"That's fine with me."

YN stood on her tip toes and placed a kiss dangerously close onto the corner of his lips. Afterwards she ran away up to her room which caused him to chuckle. Guillermo truly missed her.

It was later on in the day after breakfast did YN and Guillermo leave the compound. They drove to an isolated spot far south from the house. YN directed Guillermo through the woods on a dirt road and eventually came off the road. The further they drove in, the clearer the sound of water became. Soon enough a small waterfall came into view.

"Wow." Guillermo mumbled.

"Beautiful right?" YN smiled as she looked at his awestruck face. She took off her seatbelt and opened the door. "Come on then."

Guillermo followed her action, getting out of the car and locking it behind him. He watched as she stripped down to her bikini and dived in. Her body surfaced and she pushed her hair away from her face.

"You're not going to join me?" She asked smiling whilst biting onto her bottom lip. He took off his shoes and rolled up the bottom part of his trousers. He sat on a rock on the edge of the natural pool and dipped his feet in.

"Come on. I want you in here with me." She said as she swam towards him and got in between his legs. He looked down at her. The water dripped down her chest, following the curve of her breast. He licked his lips as he smiled down at her. She placed her hands on his thighs, pushing herself up so that she was closer to his face. She pecked his lips once and then again, until it became a full blown make-out session. She placed her hands on his cheeks, loving the feel of his beard underneath her fingers.

"Come in with me." She mumbled against his lips. YN moved away from him as got up and began discarding his clothes. Once he had stripped down to his bare body, YN untied her bikini and threw it beside him. He entered the pool and pulled her close. YN wrapped her hands around his neck as he held onto her thighs and wrapped her legs around his waist. She placed her forehead on his as her hands played with his hair.

“I missed you.”

“I missed you too.”

"I don't want you to ever leave me." She mumbled as she looked into his light green eyes.

"I won't." His hand came to her upper torso as he steadied her for him to enter into her. YN gasped as she tightened her hold onto him. Her head fell onto his shoulder as she adjusted to his size and began to slowly move on him.

"I love you so much." He whispered. YN took his face into her hands and kissed him lovingly. Their lips moved against each other, moulding together perfectly. Nothing compared to how she made him feel .....

On their way back onto the compound, they could see commotion. People were frantically running around

"What's going on?" YN questioned, her voice coming out softly.

Before anything else could be said, someone came running towards them. Guillermo slowed down the car and rolled his window down.

“Sir! We've been ambushed!”

“By who?”

“I don't know but they've taken the house!”

A fun shot rang out and blood splashed onto Guillermo's face causing YN to scream at the unexpected event. The man fell onto the ground as blood came oozing out of his mouth. Without further thought, Guillermo put the Jeep into reverse.

"Baby." YN voiced worriedly as he drove off the main road that led to the compound.

"Everything is going to be okay. I got-." Halfway through his sentence, the side of the Jeep was struck on his side. The vehicle spun off the road and came to a crashing stop in the bushes. Guillermo has taken most of the impact. His head was slumped over the steering wheel as blood trickled down his face. YN sobbed as she took off her seatbelt and moved to check on him.

"Guillermo can you hear me?" She asked as she felt for his pulse. He groaned in response which meant that he was still coherent.

"I'm going to try and get you out okay?" She announced. As she reached over to unplug his seatbelt, her passenger door opened. She turned to face who the person was that had opened the door. For a second, she had thought someone had come to help. But that all changed when they harshly grabbed her and began to roughly pull her out of the car.

"NO! LET GO!" She screamed as she held onto the handle above the door and tried to kick the stranger. But he was too strong and because of the crash, she was quite weak. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" She screamed and continued to scream.

"WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? PLEASE!"

"GUILLERMO!" She cried for him as they dragged her out of the car.

Guillermo could hear her pleading screams and agonising cries. He tried to move but he couldn't. His eyes opened but things were blurred. He tried to call out to her but his speech came out slurred.

"YYY-NN. YN." His eyes stayed open long enough to see the mystery man throw her into the back of a van and drive away. That was all that he remembered before he gave into the pain and blacked out ....

Guillermo was loading his shot gun as he sat in his car. It was hidden in the bushes about half a mile away from the compound where they were keeping YN. After he woke up after passing out, he found out that the remaining Estes cartel had saved him from the wreckage and they had gotten a doctor to patch him up. Even though he was told to rest, he wasn't going to lay down until YN was back by his side.

So he went looking for answers. The streets weren't speaking to him as he was being nice. But he was running out of time and patience. After catching one of the members of the rival gang running his mouth about the ambush, Guillermo was able to torture the information of where they were keeping her.

Normally he would be at ease but he was being fuelled by rage. All sorts of images of them touching and hurting YN were blocking his vision. He placed the shotgun on the passenger seat and checked his assault rifle and his pistol. His knife was strapped safely onto his leg. Once he was ready, he opened the door and made sure that all of his weapons were on him before he left his car.

Two guards were patrolling the main gate of the compound. They were sitting in front of the black iron gate on some deck chairs sharing a blunt. Their guns were on their sides.

"Look at this bitch though. Her pussy is so good. All them fat lips be hugging my dick nice." One of the guards said as he was holding his phone showing his partner a picture of one of his many companions. The partner laughed as he let out a cloud of smoke.

"Can I get with her? I'm tryna see if your words hold weight."

"Ahaha! Of course you can man." He took the blunt from his partner and as he was putting his phone away, he caught sight of a figure walking towards them.

The first guard frowned. "Who the fuck is that?" He asked as he sat up straight with his eyes focused on the walking figure. The second guard followed the sight of his friend and saw the man.

"I don't know. We weren't expecting any visitors today." He said as he stood up and picked up his gun ready to shoot. It was pointed towards the figure.

"Hey!" Then the second guard shouted as he kept his gun up. "Hey! You're not allowed here!"

When they saw that the man wasn't slowing down, the first guard scrambled to his feet, grabbing his gun. But it was too late for any type of action from the men. A rocket was now flying towards them. Before they felt the impact of the rocket head, they screamed loudly. It was inevitable. The rocketed came into contact with the iron gate and exploded.

As the rocket exploded after making contact with the gate, he threw the rocket launcher onto the floor and he took his HK416 into his hands and began to survey the area through the eyepiece as he jumped over the burning bodies. Once he saw that the coast was clear, he walked through the courtyard and bust open through the front door.

YN could hear the commotion in the house. After the explosion echoed through the house she knew something was going down. She hoped that it was Guillermo coming for her but they were in the midst of the drug wars, it could be anyone from the rival gangs attacking the compound.

Her hands were tied behind her back and her mouth was duct taped so that she couldn't make any noise and bring attention to herself. As gunshots rang through the air, YN thought about how she could escape the predicament that she was in.

For the past three days, she had been weak because of the accident prior to being held captive. Now that her energy had been restored, she was able to see and think clearly. Her eyes darted around the room to look anything sharp that she could use to cut the ropes. And to her luck she found shards of broken glass on the floor just below the boarded up window.

"Bingo." She mumbled to herself as she sat up on the mattress. She got up and walked to the window. She then got down onto her knees and picked up the biggest and thickest piece that she could find. Using it as a knife, using the technique that Guillermo had taught her, she cut herself out of the ropes.

.

In the foyer of the mansion, Guillermo was going through the gang members like a warm knife cutting through butter. Whilst he had one man in a chokehold, he was fighting another who was trying to fight him with a knife. As the man swiped for his face, Guillermo ducked down and punched the man in the stomach. As he doubled down, Guillermo took his pistol from his side and shot him in the head. He then shot the man that was in his arms twice in the chest and let him fall to the ground.

As he was about to walk up the stairs, he felt a bullet hit his chest. His body fell to the floor and he groaned as he felt the pain of the bullet through his bulletproof vest. He turned his body so that he could see the feet of his shooter. He shot at his knees. The man screamed as he fell to the floor. Guillermo shot him through the forehead. He rolled around the corner as he took the bullet off from the vest. He took some deep calming breaths as he loaded his gun and took an assault rifle from a deceased body on the floor. He checked the magazine and saw that it was still quite full.

He could hear the shouting of the men as they looked for him. He heard them going up the stairs which was perfect for him. He quickly got up to his feet and ran behind them and began shooting. The bodies all fell to the floor but Guillermo was still on high alert so as he began to yell for YN, his gun was still high up in position as he looked around making sure that no one was coming for him.

"YN!" She heard her name being yelled. It took her a moment to register his voice. She sat up from her mattress and ran to the door and began to bang on it.

"Guillermo! Baby I'm in here." She screamed as she made as much noise as she could to draw attention to herself. She could hear his footsteps getting faster and louder.

"YN?" She heard his voice on the other side of the door.

"I'm in here. I can't get out." She said.

"There's a padlock on the door. Step back a bit, I'm going to shoot at it."

"Okay." She took a few steps back and she covered her ears as she heard the fast rounds of bullets hit the door. Soon after she heard him kick the door open. Without waiting, she ran and jumped into his arms and captured his lips. He groaned softly as he wrapped his hands around her torso and held her close. He pulled away and laid his forehead on hers looking down into her eyes.

"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" He asked as he placed his hands onto her face and looked for any type of bruising.

"I'm okay. They didn't do anything to me either than tie me up and put me in this room." She replied. "What about you?" YN asked as she noticed a black eye forming and that he was wincing a little bit.

"Don't worry about me." He gave her a small smile. "Let's get out of here." With that, he handed her his pistol and then took her hand into his.

As they made their way out, they scouted the rooms making sure that there was no one left. Guillermo walked into the kitchen and turned the gas stove on. Once they were outside and at a safe distance, Guillermo looked through the eyepiece to see his target of the stove through the window. He pulled the trigger and moments later, the house exploded.

They walked to the hidden spot where his truck was.

"How long did it take you to find me?" She asked him as they stood outside.

"Not long. It was just the journey that took long." He replied. He tucked her hair behind her ear. She truly wasn't harmed and that gave him so much relief. Just looking at her face he knew how much he loved this young woman. He didn't want to tell her but he had to. "I need to tell you something."

"What?" YN frowned slightly as her back straightened up in alertness.

"They got to your father." He said. There was no mincing of his words. From the beginning they had wanted her father. Even if they didn't get to him, they were going to get to him through her.

"What?" YN stumbled as tears began to cloud her vision.

"I'm so sorry." He whispered as he held her close.

"How?"

"Don't ask me to tell you.” He mumbled. YN buried her head into his chest as she cried for her father. He held her tight as her sobs vibrated through his chest. He wanted to take her pain away but this was something that she had to feel for her to heal. There was no way that he was going to tell her the gruesome details of what the gang did to her father. The details would scar her for life and he was not about to give her that trauma.

As she calmed down, he placed a kiss on the top of her head. She turned her head to the side whilst she was laying on his chest.

YN knew about the life that she was in but it didn't make it hurt any less. Her father had taken her in and loved her unconditionally. He loved all of his children equally and she never felt like he was neglectful. Even though he was ruthless in his business when it came to his family Rafael kept that personality in a box. The pain she felt of losing her father turned into anger.

"I'm going to kill them." She mumbled as she sniffed. "I'm going to kill them all."

Guillermo took her words in. He could hear the conviction in her voice. She meant what she said.

"And we will." he replied. He pulled away from their embrace and looked into her eyes. "I promise we will."

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt 136

136

It was getting harder and harder to talk to Keith. He didn’t hate or blame his boyfriend. Lance just missed him so much. Nothing felt the same. He should be happy. None of his family here knew he was a vampire, none of them knew he was the same Lance that left, only that they remembered “his father when he was a little boy”. The family was loud. Loud and loving, and religious. His Mami spent so much time with them that he regretted them not coming back sooner.

With Mami busy, it should have been easy to find a moment alone to talk to Keith. His mum spent more time with the family than at hotel now, meaning he’d scored one or two private conversations. He’d scored some serious alone time too, for a very... graphic call. Then... then everything started going wrong again. Keith wouldn’t be home for Christmas. He wouldn’t be home for New Years. He wouldn’t be home for a while now and Lance’s heart broke on the spot. Keith was so apologetic. So sad to tell him. Lance had called him to show him the beach down from the hotel, where dozens of tourists had flocked during their vacations. He’d “splurged”. Got a nice umbrella, a really nice big red towel, a good book, and called up Keith. He couldn’t blame Keith. Zarkon was pissed at Lotor. Lotor dropped contact when he’d gone home to face his father. Keith roped into the mission to find out what was going on. He’d promised to call when he could, but it wasn’t the same. Keith was always so tired. They barely talked a handful of minutes at a time, then he had to go completely silent.

Lance had gone back to the hotel room and cried. He couldn’t do much else. He’d put on a brave wobbly smile for Keith, but Keith was supposed to be back the next week. The conversation playing on loop in his mind like a torturous reminder of how far apart they were and that they seemed to be drifting apart further by the day. He was supposed to come back then come down to Cuba. Now he didn’t know where the fuck his boyfriend was, or when he’d be home again. He’d cried and cried so much that Mami had to get a lift back to the hotel from one the cousins. Holding him against her, she kissed his hair and hushed him until he was calm enough to talk to her.

He really shouldn’t be saying Mami spent all her time with the family. Not more than what was expected, and they’d had a lot of fun playing tourists and doing all the things tourists did that Mami was up for. A few people tried to fleece them, thinking them dumb tourists until Mami put them in their places. No one messed with his Mami, not when she was Cuban born and bread. They’d gone dancing. Picked the most expensive place they could for dinner. Eaten ice cream by the beach, as she told him about the first time his Papi taught Luis to surf on a long board. She’d told him so much of the stories about her and his dad. They’d gone driving, Mami talking about the trouble they used to get up to, visiting the farms where Jorge had worked and the family farm that was still being run by cousins. He loved how happy she was. It was like 50 years had been knocked off her life. He’d heard too much... like his father being good in bed, but seeing all these places again after so much time was amazing. And that Mami would remember something from so long ago... He took back wanting Coran to take them back home.

Seeing Keith couldn’t come back in time, Lance decided against going back for Christmas. His Mami had told the family that he was expecting his first children, and boy did the aunts fuss. They wanted to know everything about “Lance’s son”. Lance didn’t know if he lived up to all the hype, but he did remember to bring flowers and accept kisses... and weird hugs where they couldn’t feel his extending belly. They were touched he’d followed his father into law, leading to him being too smart more than once. Lies about a sun allergy and a bunch of allergies covered up when he was feeling ill. Mami had forced enough home remedies for morning sickness down his throat he literally feared what she’d come up with next. He missed his boyfriend with all his heart. And every day away without proper word, or any word, weighed on him so heavily he wasn’t sure how he’d ever lived without Keith. But spending this time with Mami and no fear felt good.

*

Parking in front of Lance’s house, Keith eyes the lights on the living room with fear and excitement... and a whole lot of happiness to be home again. Two months he’d been away from Lance. Two fucking bullshit months. He hadn’t been able to get hold of Lance for the last few weeks, after breaking his boyfriend’s heart it felt strained every time they talked face to face. Lance knew he couldn’t answer his phone, so he’d expected a flurry of messages and missed calls, like normal, when he’d come back from the ridiculousness. There’d been nothing. Well, not nothing, his boyfriend had texted a couple of times to say he loved him, but overall, he’d kind of been out of full contact from the 28th of December. He tried Lance’s phone as soon as the shit storm finally settled. He’d tried messaging him. He’d tried Lance’s personal phone and work phone. He’d tried his home phone. Shiro and Curtis were coming back next week. His idiot brother went and broke his arm. Matt and Rieva had already come back earlier... but their car wasn’t in the drive. He knew he’d hurt Lance by not being there, but it felt like a kick to the gut that his boyfriend hadn’t tried to reach out at all.

Taking an earlier, public, flight. He’d rented a car, then headed straight up to Garrison. He hadn’t even had a “Merry Christmas” in the slightest. Mami had to explain that Lance was resting, and not doing too well. His boyfriend barely got to talk to him the following day, pale and sleepy, while assuring him it was from mami’s latest idea on how to help with this morning sickness. He hated that he’d only been able to find 5 minutes of alone time to be with Lance.

Climbing out the car, Keith fixed his jacket up, hoping he didn’t look like he’d spent hours stuck on a place that had far too many people on it. He hoped Lance was there, and that nothing had gone wrong in his absence. Jogging up to the front door, Keith knocked. Hunk’s car was in the drive, but Lance’s wasn’t. He hoped that meant Lance’s car was being serviced. He was going crazy. He’d tried to think of what he’d said or done that could have driven Lance from him. He never wanted to be away that long. February had started just as he finally arrived back in Rome. He hadn’t seen Lance what felt like two years. No. Every day felt like two years. Matt delighted at teasing him over it. Fucking werewolves didn’t age like normal people. He wasn’t stupid. Two and half years human years was like one years worth of again for werewolves. It wasn’t fair.

Opening the door, Hunk stared at him. His friend looked like he’d seen better days too. He’d missed them. He hadn’t heard from them either in the last two weeks. Shuffling forward, Hunk wrapped his arms around Keith. It should have been a happy hug, yet Keith could feel there was more to it. Hugging Hunk back, he didn’t force him to tell him where Lance was. The sick feelings of fear and dread so damn heavy that he feared he’d throw up if he opened his mouth. Breaking the hug, Hunk let out a long breath

“Oh, man. It’s so good to see you back. Does Lance know you’re back? Does this means he’ll be coming back again?”

Again? He was missing something...

“Hun.-.. Holy Shit!”

Pidge came running from the living room, Keith catching her as she launched herself at him for a hug

“I can’t believe you’re back! When you missed the funeral I wasn’t sure you’d ever be coming back. Is Lance with you?”

Funeral? What funeral? And where was Lance? His confusion showed. Hunk looking pained

“You’d better come in, man. You’ve missed a lot”

A fine layer of dust covered most things in the house. There was evidence that Hunk and Pidge had tried to keep on top of the housework, but it was far cry from Lance’s standards. The house felt cold. Empty. Painfully abandoned as he followed Hunk into the kitchen. He had to know what was happening here. Lance’s house was warm and bright. Happy and safe. Not like this

“What’s going on? And what’s this about a funeral?”

Hunk sighed heavily as he went about getting the coffee pod into the machine. Pidge sitting herself on the kitchen counter, looking sad as she did

“You didn’t hear?”

Keith shook his head

“I’ve been trying to reach Lance but he hasn’t replied. I thought he’d be back here by now”

Pidge bit her lip, eyes getting wet behind her glasses. Hunk turning to him

“His mum died. They had the funeral three ago”

Keith staggered because he didn’t see that coming. Hunk came to his aid, taking him by the arm and pulling out Lance’s usual seat to sit him in

“What? When?”

“I think I was the...”

“On the sixth... Coran speed tracked things, helped get her home. He... went with him to the funeral. It was a nice service... His siblings tried to bar him from attending. We recorded it for him. We tried to go with him, but Coran took him away again. I guess because you guys still weren’t safe or something”

Did his mother know about Mami? She’d joined the mission at a different stage to him. Meeting with them when they were closer to Zarkon’s territory

“H-how?”

“In her sleep. Lance was with her, he still wouldn’t tell us where they went. They’d slept over, and she passed away in her sleep”

He couldn’t process it at all. Mami was amazing. She always, always bounced back. Hunk hugged him

“I know, man. I know you two were tight. I hoped Lance had gone to be with you, but I guess that wasn’t the case”

“Do... do you know where he is?”

Hunk shook his head

“He apologised and said he had some things he needed to do. Didn’t you see Coran?”

“Lance didn’t reply to my messages so I got the first flight back I could get on”

Pidge nodded at him

“We asked Coran if we could talk to him, but Lance said he needed space. We didn’t know if you’d broken up or not because he was back and you weren’t. I didn’t think you wouldn’t know”

“I... had no idea...”

Did this mean it was over? That Lance no longer wanted to be with him? How could Mami have passed away nearly... how... he couldn’t process not knowing. He had to go back to Platt. Coran had to tell him what the fuck was going on. There hadn’t even been a message left at headquarters. He didn’t get it

“We tried to figure out how to contact you, but my messages wouldn’t go through to your phone. I guess you must have been busy... Matt and Rieva came back home, but they went back up to Platt. I know Coran couldn’t tell us if Lance had left again, but I get the feeling he’s gone back where he’d been hiding out. He probably doesn’t know you’re back”

Keith pushed his chair back, Hunk stepped back

“What are you doing?”

“I’ll go talk to Coran. I’ll make him tell me where Lance is”

Lance... Keith hoped Lance was waiting for him wherever he was. He hoped his boyfriend still believed he was coming back to him. He’d seen how hurt all the near misses Mami gave him left him. He couldn’t believed he’d missed this... He never should have gone to fucking Rome. He felt wrong about doing it before he left and worse after

“Can we come?”

“I don’t think I’ll be very good company. I can’t... Mami... it’s not fair”

Pidge shook her head at him

“I don’t care. I’m sick of not knowing what’s going on. Lance really needs you right now and Coran has to talk to us properly if you’re back, that has to mean it’s safe”

Driving back to Platt, Keith couldn’t stop thinking about Lance. He didn’t call ahead because he didn’t want Coran to fob him off, or even worse, tell him that Lance didn’t want to see him. His mind was firmly on Lance every single moment until the elevator doors were opening and he had his arms full of Coran

“Oh, my boy. You are a sight for sore eyes”

Yay. Good for him

“Where the fuck is Lance?”

Direct. To the point. His words summed up the only thing that mattered

“Ah. Come with me”

Led to Coran’s office, Keith leaned against the door cutting off Coran’s means of escape. Coran sighing as he moved the papers on his desk away from Pidge and Hunk

“Sorry, about that. Sensitive data...”

“Coran!”

Okay. He was being rude and bossy, Coran wincing at his name

“Lance is Cuba”

Cuba. Keith could have punched himself in the face for not picking it. Mami wanted to go Cuba again, Lance had been talking about going with her. It made so much sense. The sand and the beach. The feel of the hotel room. The different rooms in the background and voices. Why Mami looked so happy. She’d looked younger too. Like she was free of a great burden... If she was going to pass away anywhere, she did where she had so much of her family. But he just... he couldn’t get his head around it

“What happened?”

Coran sighed again, rubbing at his face as he did

“I think it’s better if we discuss that alone...”

“Fuck off, he’s our best friend. He’s basically our family and you wouldn’t tell us anything”

Pidge was right. The gremlin cranky as heck. Hunk bold enough to add

“We barely got to see him at the funeral. We’ve tried talking to him but he hasn’t answered us”

“Yeah. You said we couldn’t know until it was safer. Keith’s home now. Why can’t you tell us what’s happening?!”

“Lance asked I talk to Keith when he came. He asked me to keep you both safe. I sincerely hated not being able to tell you Lance’s whereabouts. I can tell you he is safe. I did talk to him this morning. He decided to remain in Cuba until Keith returned”

Pidge crossed her arms

“You could have let us see him after the funeral”

“He was in no fit state. He was recovering. I did ask him stay, but he insisted that he needed to be in Cuba”

“Wait. You said he was “recovering” did something happen?”

“A small bleed. The loss of Miriam hit him hard. Stress and exhaustion coupled with the loss of his mother. He tried to brave it alone, but the poor boy wanted to go to Rome to be with you. I did try to contact you through the Blades, but was informed that you were currently on a mission and not accepting messages or calls”

Keith could murder. He could murder all day. He could murder all the people who thought he didn’t need to know this. Thank fuck he’d never set foot in there. He’d officially resigned. He’d only ever been back thanks to Lotor. He was officially retired from their registry and now out of the loop, outside of his mother, completely. Krolia understood. Then decided during all the shit happening that she had to go develop feelings for Kolivan which he’d never seen coming until he thought about how happier his mother had been in Platt, and wondered if she’d held everything inside of herself so “he wouldn’t have a reason to hate her”. Adults were complicated. His mum and Kolivan triply so. Okay. Maybe he liked his mother a whole lot more to the point where he was accepting he loved her. But Kolivan... he didn’t want to think about them... that... “doing the do”.

Sendak was dead, which was a good thing. The trouble was that they had different statements. Lance had admitted to killing Sendak, and asked for leniency towards Lotor as he was only trying to protect him. Mountains of briefings were had. Secret squirrel meetings behind closed door. Lotor left then they had to go find him...

“I quit. Them... again. Permanently this time. They asked me to resume my duties in Rome and I declined. Petty wankers”

“Yes, well. I was told about what eventuated. I can’t say I’m too happy over the method”

That was a conversation to have with Lance first. Then with Pidge and Hunk, if Matt and Rieva hadn’t first. Which reminded him

“Where are Matt and Rieva?”

“They wished to see Lance. As I couldn’t send them to see him, as per Lance’s request. I sent them down there on “holiday””

Great. They could have him know

“Did you tell him?”

“No. In all honesty I believe he only stayed in Cuba because he wanted to wait in a safe place until your return. He has missed you very much. He did leave you a letter here”

“When can I see him?”

“I’m on relatively good terms with save. A wonderful vampire runs it as a safe haven for those down there...”

Pidge held her hand up, telling Coran to stop

“What the heck is “Save”?”

“South American Vampire Enterprises”. We all know how the world perceives some countries, they look past this, and honestly the media is terrible at painting them in a bad light when they’re filled with such wonderful people. I’ve put them in contact with Lance. He’d been very cooperative and we talk each morning. I actually know her...”

Not another sex story. Keith couldn’t do it

“That’s not what I asked about. I asked when I can see my boyfriend”

“I was getting there. We used special permission with Miriam and Lance. There is only so much aid they can provide, however, I did inform her that you would be joining Lance once your work was completed. It may take a few hours to get things settled and permission. That’s why I was not able to send Matt and Rieva privately. I barely managed to get their tickets and visas processed. Your Blade status did allow access into most countries, but I went ahead with processing what I could of your visa when Matt and Rieva returned. I was most sad that you hadn’t contacted me”

He didn’t think about it. He was too busy trying to talk to Lance, and ignoring the fact he’d accidentally made friends with the werewolves. They still thought Lance was a bad arse killing machine fighting for good and some other bullshit like that. They hadn’t seen his damn nightmares

“Coran, when I can see Lance?”

“Tonight. I’ll make plans right away, tonight is the earliest I can do. Unfortunately for you, Pidge and Hunk, I can only send Keith as you two are not VOLTRON hunters. However, you are free to wait here until they return, though that will be up to Lance and Keith. Rieva and Matt will return next Monday”

Hunk looked to Pidge, Pidge then looked to Keith and nodded. Keith felt bad that they couldn’t come, Pidge seemed to read his mind

“He really needs you more than he needs us right now. When you find him, you have to swear you’ll call us and let us know that he’s okay. And you have to tell him we miss him and want him to come home already”

“I... I’m not going to rush him”

“You don’t need to. We just want him to know where not mad and we miss him. If he gets hurt on your watch, we will kick your arse”

“I feel like you guys should be there as much as I should”

“We already got to see him since you did. He loves us, but he’s waiting for you”

Keith looked to Coran, Coran smiling at him. Keith didn’t particularly feel this was a time to be smiling. He was still worried about this bleed, on top of if Matt and Rieva had helped Lance or simply upset him

“I’ll get right onto it. Here, this is from Lance, perhaps you should read it before you see him? He took the loss of Miriam very hard. I’m sorry we couldn’t contact you sooner about it. We would have pulled you out of your mission if you’d been here. I’m sorry for your loss”

Being stuck waiting for permission, the trio went up to the bookshop. Keith had never sat down in the bookshop before. The three of them sitting near the front window, Lance’s letter in Keith’s hands. He wanted to know what Lance was thinking, but he also wanted to hear everything from his boyfriend himself. Was there some goodbye in the letter? Had Lance not thought he’d ever return? How many times had he checked his phone for news, only to find nothing. He wanted to call him, but with Lance not answering his calls... and only his calls it seemed. Matt and Rieva were there. That was good. They could have fucking contacted him though. They knew the mission was wrapping up. God. He hoped they’d told Lance he was okay.

“Keith?”

Keith blinked, realising he was crying. Teardrops on the envelope of the letter

“Sorry... I was thinking about what Lance must have been going through”

Hunk nodded at him

“He’s all we’ve been thinking about too. Do you want us to go so you can read the letter alone?”

“No... I... should I read it?”

“Lance wrote it for you. He must have had a lot to say”

“I want to hear that from him. What if... what if he thought it was over?”

“Even if he did, he still waited for you... Did... did you guys have a fight?”

A fight would have been easier. They could have made up if they had. He would have pestered Lance into talking to him...

“No. It just got harder and harder to call... I’m sorry, I want to explain things to him first. So much happened that I don’t know where to begin... I haven’t... talked to him since the end of December... when I got back, he didn’t answer any of my calls or messages”

“I’m sure he just needed time, Bud. I think you should read what Lance wrote”

Pidge nodded her agreement

“Even if it’s hard or something you don’t want to read, he still wrote whatever it was that he was feeling and thinking...”

Keith looked at the envelope again

“I think... I think I’m going to wait until I see him. He can tell me off then”

“Are you sure? He did write it for you”

“Yeah. I’m not going to believe it’s over until he tells me himself”

“We’ve got hours by the seems of things, what do you want to now you’re back?”

He wanted to get up and pace. Start yelling. Demand Coran hurry up. If he could have driven to Cuba he probably would have

“Maybe you can fill me in on everything else I’ve missed?”

Pidge snorted

“Let’s go get coffee then. You’ve like, missed nothing”

[forged-through-trials]

Everything was in place to take down Audens Avidius. All that was left was to wait out until the morning, while keeping a look out to make sure nothing happened to Lorunk and Ruslan. That out of the way, it was time to rest and wait until morning.

On the trip back to the Market District, we passed through the Arboretum, and who should we run into on the way, but Thoronir; our mark for the scheming price-gougers Society of Concerned Merchants’ job. Well, I’m not exactly happy with Jensine right now, given the stunt she pulled, but hey, I figure it’s still worth looking into his operation. Trials: “Ho, you’re ‘Thoronir’, right? I hear you’re cleaning up right now. Might I ask about your inventory?” Thoronir: “What about my inventory?” Trials: “Where’s it come from?” Thoronir: “Well, that would be a trade secret. I can’t divulge how I pass the great savings on to you, now can I? “Just like a baker not revealing his best recipes, or a clothier guarding his best designs, or a butcher not revealing where he gets his meat from--” Trials: “I’m not sure about that last one. I feel like I’d be more comfortable knowing where my meat comes from.” Thoronir: “Suffice to say, my sources are quite reliable and low cost. That way, you walk out with a full coinpurse.” Trials: “...you’re a really happy businessman.” Thoronir: “Why shouldn’t I be happy? I’m making a killing. And it’s the kind of ‘killing’ where I don’t have to eat anyone.” Trials: “...wat?” Thoronir: “IDidn’tSayNuffin’.” Thoronir rushed off after that, vanishing into the dark of the night. But I gave chase, sneaking after him. He made for the Market District, and I followed him through, tailing him carefully.

It was close to midnight as Thoronir approached a garden somewhere behind Rindir’s Staffs and Edgar’s Discount Spells, and I followed after, hiding against a corner, as a blond Nord approached, and spoke with him. I leaned in as close as I could, and listened in. Thoronir: “That you, Agarmir?” Agarmir: “Shhhh! Not so loud. How many times have I told you that?” Thoronir: “Sorry, I am not used to this kind of meeting. It always makes me nervous.” Agarmir: “Well, just shut up and listen to me. The next shipment will be sooner than I expected. Just have the money ready.” Thoronir: “Same assortment of things? I mean, I have enough clothing for now.” Agarmir: “You take what I get! I get notice at the last second, and I have to jump on it. No time to be picky about it.” Thoronir: “Well, that Society is putting more pressure on me. So maybe we better cut back for now.” Agarmir: “You cut back now, and I’m going to take my business elsewhere. Or maybe pay a visit to that Jensine and tell her about your little scheme.” Thoronir: “Fine, you made your point. Contact me when you have the items, and we’ll meet again.” Agarmir: “Don’t worry, it will be very soon. Now get outta here.” Jeez, that was about the rudest transaction I’ve ever heard that didn’t involve me. We have some literal back-alley deals going on. Something shady is definitely going on here, or else why would Thoronir need to meet his contact in the middle oft he night? Agarmir was our next lead. As the source of Thoronir’s ultra-cheap wares, he’s the one to tail to discover what the nature of this shady business is. We gave chase after him, and followed him over toward the Talos Plaza District. There, he entered a house, presumably, his. Now, breaking into a place while the owner was there is a pretty dangerous move, so I gave him an hour to, hopefully, go to bed... only to find that he’d barred the door. Who the hell barricades their door when they’re at home? Is he expecting a zombie horde or something? So that was a bust. As long as Agarmir was home, there was no getting into his house. Out of options for the moment, Ruin and I retreated back to the Market District, renting our familiar room at the Merchant’s Inn and turning in for the night. The morning came, and it was time to check on Lorunk and Ruslan. Ruin and I rushed on over to the Temple District, and met up with the pair once they’d exited their houses. I explained my intentions to escort them, and followed to duo over into the Elven Gardens District, where they sought out Captain Hayn.

Ruslan: “We’d like to report a crime. Watch Captain Avidius stole all of our money while we were shopping in Jensine’s Merchandise.” Lorunk: “That’s right!” Itius Hayn: “I see. These are very serious charges. I’ll need you both to provide two witnesses to the crime.” Ruslan: “...but we are the witnesses.” Itius Hayn: “You can’t expect me to just take your word for it. If I did, something might actually get done in this city!” Trials: I leaped out from a corner and screamed. “Just do your job, jackass!” Itius Hayn: “Ugh, great. Internal Affairs will be on me like kitty-litter on a Khajiit. I’ll be filing paperwork for a week after this, but, fine!” Our two witnesses rushed home after that, but I tailed Hayn for the moment. I really wanted to see the moment when Avidius got what was coming to him.

Back in the Market District, that is exactly what went down. Itius Hayn: “Audens Avidius, you are under arrest for extortion and petty theft. Surrender peacefully and keep what little dignity you have left.” Avidius: “I’m surprised, Ititus. I didn’t think even you would stoop to arresting a fellow Captain.” Itius Hayn: “Only those who break the law.” Avidius: “Damn, and I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling lizards!” Trials: “Have fun in the dungeons, jerk-face!” Avidius: Increasingly unhinged. “Someday, I’ll get out, and when I do, you’ll pay! You’ll both pay!” Trials: I crossed my arms and smirked knowingly. “Take him away, boys.” Itius Hayn: “Hey! I give the orders here!” He turned to two generic guards. “Bake him away, toys.” Generic Guards: “...huh, what?” Itius Hayn: He flushed awkwardly. “...just do what the lizard says.”

It was late afternoon by then, so, feeling good about a day’s work well done, Ruin and I swaggered back on toward the Talos Plaza District, where we tried Agarmir’s door again. Success! This time it was unbarred. We gave a quick look around to make sure the coast was clear, and then broke in. Ruin: “Where did you learn to pick locks and break-and-enter this way?” Trials: “Ruin, Ruin, buddy, we’re not ‘breaking-and-entering’. We’re... investigating.” Ruin: “Without a warrant or probable cause?” Trials: I rolled my eyes at him. “Well, you can feel free to hang out here and find me two witnesses. I’ll just be in here, doing my job.” Ruin: “You know what? You’re right, that system is stupidly obtuse.” In, we went, and I zeroed in on the basement right away. I figured, it was more likely he was keeping shady stuff down there, than it was likely he was keeping stuff in his bedroom. Down in the basement, the place looked a sight; blood stains, clothes strewn about, and piles and piles of a mysterious powder, as well as muddied shoes and shovels all over the place. On a corner table lined with candles, I found a book labeled as “Macabre Manifest.” ...really strange name for a book. Points for the alliteration, but that’s pretty on-the-nose considering that I presume Agarmir is looking to hide his dirty-dealings.

The contents of the book confirmed what the title implied. Again, not sure why Agarmir wanted to advertise this. Was he worried he might forget what his business was all about? And indeed, the contents of the book revealed the ghoulish details of Agarmir’s business. If the big header at the beginning of the book that read “Recently Deceased” was anything to go by, it seemed the stock he was selling to Thoronir was obtain via grave-robbing! Huh, if he’s stealing from the dead, maybe he is worried about zombie hordes coming to exact their revenge after all. Ruin: He snorted, gritting his teeth. “Grave-robbing? How repulsive!” Trials: “...Ruin, we nick stuff off of dead people all the time.” Ruin: “There’s a vast difference between slaying a bandit in combat, looting the spoils, and robbing from the honored-dead.” Trials: “Really? Because the only difference I see is that robbing the ‘honored-dead’ means you’re messing with people who had money and/or connections.” Ruin: “I think it’s a bit more complicated than just that.” Trials: “I don’t think it is.” Ruin: “Well... we’ve been hired to prove Thoronir’s stock was ill-gotten, and even if this system doesn’t make a lot of sense, by their clown-shoes logic, Thoronir’s stock is indeed ill-gotten. We have what we need to get paid.” Trials: “...hmm, true enough, BUT, I don’t feel good about selling Thoronir up the river like that.” Ruin: “Why?” Trials: “Because Jensine’s a bint and I don’t like her face. “Besides, I have a hunch that Thoronir doesn’t know what’s going on. Let’s confront him and see how he reacts to this evidence.”

We jogged back over toward the Market District, burst into the Copious Coinpurse, and slammed the book down on Thoronir’s desk. Trials: “Hey, chief. We pinched this from Agarmir. It’s proof that the stock he’s been selling you is obtained via grave-robbing.” Thoronir: “Oh! A little ghoulish... but I do buy things from adventurers who take things from fallen enemies all the time!” Trials: I shrugged and rolled my eyes. “That’s what I said!” Ruin: He sighed and shook his head. “Sir, whether or not it makes sense, it is the law here in Cyrodiil, and is a capital offense here.” Trials: “...Ruin, why does grave-robbing carry the death-penalty, but necrophilia is only a five-hundred gold fine? I feel like that’s backwards!” Ruin: “...” He paled visibly. “How do you know that?” Trials: “I know a very strange Dark Elf over in Skingrad.” Ruin: “...” He sighed and groaned. “This place is weird.” Thoronir: He paled a little. “Well, if it’s so disreputable that I could get into serious hot-water for it, then you’ll have to put a stop to it at once. I’ll fully cooperate with your investigation, of course, provided you put in a good word for me.” Trials: I gave a friendly salute. “Absolutely. Now, can you tell us what Agarmir might be doing right now?” Thoronir: “He mentioned having ‘something important to do’ today. You don’t think he would dig up another... oh no, he wouldn’t. But I guess he has been! Oh my, what have I gotten myself into??” Trials: “Calm down. We’ll get him. We just need to know where to look.” Thoronir: “Well, assuming he’s still in the city, you’ll want to try Green Emperor Way. It’s the largest graveyard inside the city walls and the likeliest place for him to... uh... ‘do business’.” Trials: “...grave-robbing right under the Emperor’s nose? By the Nine, that sounds really dumb! How has it taken this long for anyone to figure out what he does??” Thoronir: “His beard emits pheromones. It’s the only logical answer.”

Ruin and I raced over to Green Emperor Way, and as we ran the circuit, looking for signs of Agarmir, we noticed the door to the “Trentius Family Mausoleum” was left ajar. Well, if Agarmir was going to roll out the red carpet for me, I was going to take it. We rushed in, and immediately found the Nord himself, and an armored accomplice, within. Agarmir: “I had a feeling you’d catch on sooner or later.” Trials: “We’ve literally never spoken before.” Ruin: “Maybe he also prepared this speech in advance?” Agarmir: “Oh, shut up, both of you! The door locked behind you as you entered, and I’m going to murder you both and chuck you into this unmarked grave.” Trials: “But, it is marked. It says ‘Trentius Family’ on it.” Ruin: “Do you think that, after he buries us alive, he’s going to dig us up and rob our things?” Trials: “See, if he were smart, he’d kill us first, then take our stuff, so that way it’s actually legal.” Agarmir: Increasingly Irate. “Are you two even paying attention?? I’m threatening to murder you!” Trials: “...since we’re in a mausoleum, is it still legal to loot him and his friend when we defeat them? Or would that be grave-robbing?” Ruin: “I do not know. Cyrodiil’s legal code makes no sense to me.” Trials: “Well, as long as there aren’t two witnesses, I think we’ll get off with a warning.” Agarmir: Grinding his teeth. “Stop ignoring me!” Trials: “Wanna go eat at the Feedbag after we’re done here?” Ruin: “You always choose the cheapest places. Why can’t we eat at the Tiber Septim Hotel?” Trials: I offered Ruin the Stink-Eye. “Well, well, lookit Mister Moneybags over here! Do I look like I’m made of Septims?” Ruin: “All I’m saying is; we’re going to be paid for this job, and we’ll only be in the city for a few more days. Let’s try somewhere new.” Agarmir: Deadpan. “You both are horse’s asses.” Trials: “Okay, okay, we’ll compromise and hit up Luther Broad’s Boarding House, deal?” Ruin: “Deal.” The fight was on... and over rather quickly. Turns out, when you show up to a sword-fight wearing your working clothes, you tend not to last very long. His backup lasted a little longer, but with two-on-one odds, we took him down quickly, too. Then, legal or not, I pinched their stuff, and left them for the guards to find and clean up. On the way out, I picked up the soil-stained shovel Agarmir had been using to dig up the Trentius Family plot. Given the... strained legality of all of this, the more evidence I had to prove Agarmir’s guilt, the better. We reported in to Thoronir once we were done, and presented him with Agarmir’ shovel as proof of his defeat. Thoronir: “Then we can at last rest. I feared had he somehow bested you, I’d be next. It’s fortunate that your skills exceeded his. “I’ve come to some decisions. I intend to donate all of the money I have made, as well as what is left of the stolen items, to the temple.” Trials: “That might square you with Arkay, but otherwise, you’re just lucky the guards in this town are super-duper lazy.” Thoronir: “I also want you to know that I had a long discussion with Jensine, and I have decided to join the Society.” Trials: “Bottom text.” Thoronir: “...” He rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, Jensine’s Society for Concerned Merchants.” Trials: I frowned and scowled at him. “Oh, so you’re selling out, huh?” Thoronir: “That’s capitalism, baby. The biggest sellout always wins! “But I realize you risked your life to give me a chance, and Thoronir never forgets things like that. Please, accept this ring... and store credit.” Trials: “...friggin’ smart-alleck.”

Hoping to get some kind of real payment out of this, we made for Jensine’s to offer my final report. Trials: “And that’s the whole story.” Jensine: “Oh yes, Thoronir spoke with me while you were out. He explained his intentions to donate to the local temple, and to join our Society, and fix prices with us buy and sell at a ‘fair’ price. “In return, the Society has decided not to press charges. His name will be absconded from the records of this crime.” Trials: “...” I set my hands on my hips. “Lady, you wouldn’t press charges against Audens Avidius, but you considered pressing them against Thoronir?” Jensine: “That was different. The first one was out of spite! While the second one--” Trials: “--Would have also been out of spite.” Jensine: “...” She scowled. “Just, shut up and take your gold!”

[reds-self-ships]

🔎 The Adventure of the Detection Club

Chapter 5: The Incident of the Red Pen

Table of Contents & Trigger Warnings

⚠ CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNING: Contains passing references to blood and the description of a crime scene.

The headquarters of The Detection Club, at a first glance, looked to be an ordinary rented office. Besides a handwritten sign that had been taped to the front door, there wasn’t any particular way of telling who, exactly, the office belonged to, nor the organisation that owned it.

The interior was also rather plain – a small office room, as was intended. There were several desks and chairs for members of the organisation to sit down and get on with their writing in a place where they were unlikely to face any kind of disturbance or distraction.

The desks had been moved out of the way temporarily for the small round wooden table that was meant to be the centre of the ceremony, covered partially with a burgundy-coloured tablecloth that was lined with a golden-coloured trim and tassels.

Only now that a significant amount of the cloth had been stained a shade of dark red with blood, and instead of the skull that was intended to serve as a pivotal point of the ceremony, all that was left sitting on the table was an outline made of white rope from where the body of Mr. Harris Thomas had been discovered the day before.

“Well there’s certainly not as many constables here now as there were yesterday,” remarked Redford, who was already busy scribbling notes down into his notebook.

“Probably because they’re preparing to wind down their investigation for now, seeing as that particularly bull-headed detective seems to have already made up his mind as to whom he suspects committed the crime,” said Sholmes as he sat down at a desk that had barely been touched.

He took the typewriter that had been left on-top of it and placed it on his lap, winding some paper into it and beginning to hammer away at the keys seemingly without any particular rhyme or reason.

“I guess it’s just a matter of proving otherwise in court tomorrow then,” said Ryunosuke with strengthened resolve. “With anything and everything that we can.”

“We know for certain that the body was discovered in this room,” said Susato, removing her own pocketbook from her kimono sleeve and quickly skimming her way through the pages. “And there wasn’t any sign of forced entry either, given that it was all but impossible to attempt to do so.”

“Exactly. The door itself looks as though it’s specially reinforced, and from what I can see—” Ryunosuke swung the front door of the office partially shut so that the side of the door could be clearly examined. “There’s no marks or anything from where someone could’ve tried to force the door open with a crowbar or anything like it. In fact; I’d say this room is built possibly as sturdy as a bank vault!”

“Well, good crime writers always appreciate their secrets being kept a secret until the very end or at least whenever it is actually necessary to reveal them,” said Redford, tapping the bottom of his chin with the end of his fountain pen. “I believe any crime novel would be difficult to appreciate any attempt to solve the mystery if each and every time the killer remained behind at the scene with a handwritten and signed confession ready to give to any police officer or prosecutor who might happen to be in the area at the time.”

“Well, I guess that’s true…” said Ryunosuke, “(Even if it would make our lives all easier, that is…) Er, would there happen to be anywhere that the killer, or the victim for that matter, might be able to hide?”

“Well if I remember rightly, I did check all three of our rooms before I locked up that day, because I always make a point of checking to be triply sure. Then again, I suppose that there’s no harm in checking it out, is there?”

“Wait a second…did you just say ‘three’ rooms?”

“Yes, three. There’s three rooms that make up our headquarters, and this is the first, and main room.” Redford pointed towards the back wall with two fingers. “In the back there, we have another office where we do all our official business in—keeping money, organising paperwork, welcoming any guests and whatever.

“And then over there we have a small storage room too. That’s where we keep records and such of our members, as well as any kind of equipment we’re not using at the moment. Both rooms are kept locked at all times when they’re not in use, and can be locked on the inside as well, should there be a need to.”

“In that case, might we check the other rooms as well? It might be an idea to double-check in case there’s anything that the police ended up missing something.”

“Be my guest. Given that this entire office is a crime scene at the moment, it’s not like I’d end up having a choice anyway, given that they have a warrant.”

One of the police constables appeared to have overheard the conversation, and approached the trio.

“If you want to go into the office or the store room then go on ahead. We’ve already collected the key from the suspect yesterday, and Detective Jones has left us with orders to keep the doors unlocked at all times until any further notice is sent.

“Oh excellent,” said Ryunosuke. “Thank you so mu—”

“—But! We’ll be keeping an eye on the lot of you and that suspicious red-headed young man too. If you so much as think of trying anything funny, I’ll—!”

“Yes, thank you very much, constable. We’ll keep all of that in mind whilst we’re in there, yes thank you very much, thank you for your assistance constable.”

Redford bundled his lawyer and the lawyer’s judicial assistant into the office and promptly shut the door behind him.

It was only when he had shut the office door behind him that Redford realised that something was wrong. “Wait a minute! I forgot about Mr. Sholmes!”

“Don’t worry,” said Susato. “Mr. Sholmes is usually good at handling all kinds of these situations.”

She pointed through the blinds on the window that looked out onto the main room, where that particular constable was now instead taking out all of his frustrations on Mr. Sholmes, who didn’t seem to be paying him any kind of attention whatsoever; Still playing around with the typewriter like a toddler who’d been given a new toy to play with.

“Well if you say so, Miss Mikotoba. Er, I’m not always so good with these kinds of formal situations. Would it be OK just to call you by your first name instead?”

“If it makes you more comfortable, then yes, you may,” said Susato with a bow.

“Oh, well, thank you very much. This is my, er, office. There’s not a lot to it, as you can see.”

The office, indeed, wasn’t much to look at. There was a faded black leather swivel chair with two, smaller, red leather chairs for any visitors to take a seat in. A number of editions of crime fiction novels, criminology textbooks and books on English and American law had been filed away onto a bookshelf.

Other than that, a recent Ordnance Survey map of London was framed in pride of place on the wall behind the desk.

“This is where everything is run from. Well, in the basic sense anyway. I mean, somebody has to pay for the rent, file the tax forms and keep everyone and everything in line with the club constitution. I suppose you’ll want to see any of our records or correspondence then?”

“Well, yes, if it’ll help—”

Ryunosuke didn’t get the chance to complete that sentence either before Redford sprang into action.

He approached the bookcase and carefully counted down and then along the rows of books, slightly easing out a copy of a book called The Incident of the Red Pen towards him.

A mechanism clicked and whirred into life, making the framed map of London gently rise up along the wall to reveal a large safe that had been built into the wall.

“O…Oh my!” exclaimed Susato.

“Red…what is this?” asked Ryunosuke.

“I believe most people call it a ‘safe’. I’ve told you already – we crime writers value and appreciate a good secret or twelve. It’s the only way to make sure that they’re kept in the most secure way humanly possible.”

Redford turned the combination dial on the shelf left, then right, then left again before turning the handle and swinging it open with a creak and a groan that sounded like that of a severely ill yak.

He removed a thick leather-bound ledger, a metal cash box and a cardboard folder from the safe and placed them onto the desk.

“Right. Shall we begin then, folks?”

[rustbeltjessie]

TRUST YR STUPID FUCKING HEART (a playlist)

[This playlist and accompanying text were made for Witchsong in March 2016. But Witchsong has since gone dark, and 8tracks, where the playlist was hosted, has also gone dark. I still love this playlist/piece, so I decided to post it here in its entirety, and round up links to the songs. (I tried to remake the playlist on Spotify but unfortunately a few of these tunes aren’t available there!)]

Lizzo - En Love

M.I.A. - Fire Fire

Little Esther - I’m A Bad, Bad Girl

The Last Shadow Puppets - Bad Habits

Rilo Kiley - Portions for Foxes

Worriers - Unwritten

Colleen Green - Whatever I Want

The I Don’t Cares - Just A Phase

Thurston Moore - Psychic Hearts

The Kills - Fuck the People

Pixies - The Holiday Song

Dum Dum Girls - There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

El Vy - Need A Friend

The Cars - Dangerous Type

The Make*Up - White Belts

The Mo-Dettes - White Mice

Thee Headcoatees - Ça Plane Pour Moi

Huggy Bear - Pansy Twist

Bikini Kill - I Like Fucking

Mika Miko - Sex Jazz

Dresden Dolls - Dirty Business

Screaming Females - Triumph

(+ a bonus track that isn’t on the playlist: Jolie Holland - Springtime Can Kill You)

It is springtime, and springtime can kill you (just like it did poor me). The light is clearer and hangs on longer in the sky each day, the birds are all singing riotous songs in the treetops. A few days ago, it was seventy degrees; I drank iced coffee and resisted the urge to cut the sleeves off all my t-shirts. It is springtime, and I am so damn restless I’m about ready to tear my skin off. I can’t focus on anything. I pick up a book, read a few pages, put it down again. I start a poem, write a few lines, quit. My notebooks are full of Jenny Holzer-esque truisms that I write in all caps. YOU WILL GET SO TIRED OF WEIGHING THE POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES. SOMETIMES YOU WILL BE READY TO SAY “FUCK IT” AND FOLLOW YR HEART. BE A DRUNKEN SLUT. STOP THINKING. IT’S SO TIRING. TRUST YR STUPID FUCKING HEART.

I just want to trust my stupid fucking heart. Or maybe I just want something that makes my stupid heart beat faster.

I am so tired of weighing the potential consequences. When I was younger, I usually leapt into things without caring what the result would be. (And now I can’t believe I didn’t put that Shivvers song on this playlist: when I was younger, when I was younger, when I was younger.) I went for what felt good, or even bad, as long as I was feeling something. As long as it made me feel alive. But there were enough adverse consequences that I began to grow afraid. I was often on the verge of eviction, because I did things like spending my rent money on road trips. I hurt people. I disappointed people. Friends and family started telling me that I was wasting my life.

…some might say that you and I have wasted our lives so far. Yes, we have had our hearts broken more than most. (We’ve broken some hearts, too.) We’ve had brushes with the law; and we’ve dealt with pregnancy scares and unemployment and spent many mornings too hungover to even move. But we have also experienced so much poetry, seen so much beauty, received so much love. We have had more fun in our short lives than most people ever get to have; so how could we ever consider it a waste?

-from something I wrote in 2006

Maybe I still want to waste my life, if wasting my life is what it takes to feel alive. To paraphrase Dazed & Confused, a movie I watched over and over when I felt those first reckless, restless stirrings in my teenage body: I need some good old, worthwhile, visceral experience. I want to go out into the wild, twisting night, want to take drugs, get laid, maybe get in a fight. Except I don’t do drugs anymore and I don’t get in fights anymore and no, I won’t spend all my rent money on a road trip. There are certain things I’m not willing to risk, and that’s for the best. But I am tired of worrying about what other people think; tired of not doing what I want to do because it might hurt or disappoint someone in my life. I don’t want to hurt anyone, of course not, but it’s my life and it’s springtime and my heart is saying go. I want to fuck. I want to dance. I want to smash it up. I want sudden intense connections with interesting strangers. I want to take long drives in search of coffee and trouble. (Remembering that spring so long ago when I drove the seven hours from Chicago to St. Louis just to get coffee at a Waffle House.) I want to rip my tights, walk along the train tracks, get my boots all covered in good mud. I want, I want, I want. No, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I am tired of not being myself. And I’m bad news, baby, I’m bad news.

I’m just a traveling girl with a wild mane of wavy red hair, holes in my tights, all my clothes smelling of smoke. I can roll a cigarette while driving down the freeway at eighty miles an hour. I can get drunk as shit and get two hours of sleep and drive from one town to another, then do it all again the next night. I can find my way anywhere. I can get lost anywhere.

-from something I wrote in 2007

I dye my hair red again every spring. No matter what other colors I might dye it the rest of the year, in spring I metamorphose back into a redhead. I was born with red hair but it faded to a drab brown when I hit puberty, some shitty twist of fate, so I became a bottle redhead. Red hair is fiery, brazen, witchy. (Redheads used to be burnt at the stake as witches, because it was believed they had magic powers.) Red is the color of anger and lust, love and rage. The color of blood and lipstick and my stupid, wildly beating heart. Girls like me are meant to have red hair.

It’s springtime, and I’m a wild redheaded girl for life. So take me out tonight. Take me anywhere, I don’t care, I don’t care. Take me to where the rough edges of the night meet the back alleys. Take me to the rooftops and fire escapes of your town. Take me to all-nite diners, where we can get coffee-buzzed and plot to take over the world. Let’s walk around. Let’s drive too fast on backroads. I don’t need your love, I just need a friend.

I still want all the same old dumb shit I’ve always wanted. Spontaneous adventures, crushes, mix tapes. Music I can feel in my guts, in my bones, whether it’s hip-hop or the punk rocks. Sneaky eyes and sleeveless t-shirts. Sex and danger. In the immortal words of Henry Rollins: I want to fuck on the floor and break shit. Yeah, I like fucking. I’m always restless, and next to wandering, sex is one of the few things that eases my restlessness. And I believe in the radical possibilities of pleasure, babe. I do, I do, I do.

I’ve lost some friends because I’ve failed to grow up properly. These friends used to be just like me (you fuckers used to be just like me), but they went straight. I don’t mean straight as in heterosexual, I mean straight as in normal. They became capital-G Grown Ups. They got advanced degrees and nine-to-fives and stopped making zines and got their tattoos removed. I’m an adult, too. I have a kid, and a writing career; I pay my bills instead of going on ill-advised road trips, I don’t go on benders or do drugs anymore. But I also haven’t given up crushes or adventure or art or punk; I’m still making zines and giving myself stick ’n’ poke tattoos. I’ve still got that steel-toed spark and that teenage j.d. twitch. Maybe they’re bitter because they thought growing up meant giving all that up.

We can have all of it! We can be mamas and healers and have love and morals and sweetness and good things in our lives, but we don’t have to give up the rest—we can also be wild punk rock goddesses of destruction and fuck and fight and drink and smoke and swear and make mad art, goddamnit!

-from something I wrote in 2013

I should’ve known something was up the last time I saw M.—before she decided she hated me, when I still thought we’d be friends for life—when she said: “I’m over Amanda Palmer. It’s not cute to tell young girls that it’s okay to be fucked-up.” That stunned me, because she was once a fucked-up girl, just like me. She and I used to listen to Dresden Dolls albums and talk about how eerily close to our own lives they were, how it was like AFP had looked into our souls and made songs out of them. But maybe that’s the other thing. It’s not just that M. and the others gave up their former passions. They also regret that they ever lived that way. They regret the days of chronic unemployment and ill-advised road trips, the crazy-mad love affairs, the all-nite diner marathons, the epic meals we made from what we found in dumpsters. And I don’t. No matter how I’ve changed, or how many of those things I don’t want anymore, I could never ever regret those days. They made me who I am, and they gave me so many stories to tell. To all the ones who thought they knew me best, a test to prove your prowess. Who was mine in ’99? I want last names, and current status.

No, I don’t want to wind up on the verge of eviction, or have my electricity shut off. I don’t want to hurt anyone. But it is springtime, and I am so tired of weighing the potential consequences. And I’m just a redheaded restless punk rock goddess of destruction for life, and I still want all that shit that makes my stupid, reckless heart beat faster. Loud music, caffeine, adventure, sex. If you’re like me, you’re feeling the same way. So:

WHO CARES WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK. STOP THINKING. IT’S SO TIRING. TRUST YR STUPID FUCKING HEART.

Get out, get out of your house.

[prorevenge]

The neighborhood remembers. The neighborhood punishes.

This is a story I've been sitting on for a few years now, and having discovered r/prorevenge a couple months ago, I decided it's finally time to let the world know what happened to a sociopath who dared to cross The Neighborhood.

To set the stage, I used to live in a big but not huge city, lets call it palmville. I lived near the corner of a dense suburb nestled between overstuffed apartment buildings, a river that smelled like diesel when at low tide, and two busy highways. I was a minority in this neighborhood and I caught a lot of heat for it, people didn't really like white people there, but enough of our neighbors were accepting of us that aside from a few disagreements between families and the beatings that came with them I didn't feel like I was in danger when leaving my home. It was a rough neighborhood, but it was my home, and it protected its own.

The Community Center was like a temple, and...lets call her A.M. was the priestess. In our neighborhood she was respected like a living deity, and her calm and understanding reflected her status. I never once saw her behave without a strong moral code.

And the final piece to set this stage, our former landlord. Short asian lady in all the stereotypical ways, kind and sweet. Our house was above my parent's pay grade and she knew it. She went out of her way to find house repair and maintenance jobs for tenants that were having money problems. She'd pay them by taking chunks out of their rent, often times a bit larger than how much the work they did was worth. Looking back, that was probably illegal, but that's irrelevant because she died. The circumstances surrounding her death were suspect, but none of the suspects play a part in this story so there's no need to go into detail on it.

Her sons, who wanted nothing to do with real-estate, took over the business. They couldn't make heads or tails of how she managed to float books with so much red in them and began dumping properties, ours was on that list. I harbor no ill-will towards them, and still wish them the best, but the guy who bought the house...enter the sociopath and today's victim.

This guy wasted no time in making our lives hell. His first action was to raise the rent. Apparently when the account changed hands, he was allowed to update the rent to modern pricing. We'd been there for several years and were paying below market even from the onset, so this was a huge blow by itself. The second blow came when he said that the rent had to be ready, in full, on the first of every month, no partial payments, no work to reduce it, no extensions. Full rent on the first of the month or an eviction notice on the second. This was hemorrhaging our savings, but we were surviving for the moment.

Meanwhile, A.M. had lobbied hard for the city to co-fund a revival project to renovate the entire aging suburb and she succeeded. One street at a time had conga lines of work trucks almost every day and people were getting old leaky pipes replaced, sinkholes in yards patched, fences repaired, paint renewed, it was an amazing thing, and an enticing thing for The Sociopath.

Being at the corner of the neighborhood, our house was on the last street on the list, and Sociopath wanted us out so he could relist the house after renovation. He never said this directly, but multiple conversations made his intent clear even for 10 year old me.

Random inspections, overhyping of minor problems with the house, even so far as trying to bring us up on completely false animal abuse charges because our cat was attacked by what we believe was a raccoon and he tried to claim we did it, yeah, because a vet can't figure out the difference between knife wounds and a mauling.

We read the writing on the wall and began preparations to move. We decided to move in with my oldest brother in a place I'll call banjoland. Most of us had moved except my other brother, who stayed behind because he still had a lot of social ties in Palmville and his new job meant if he cut corners, he could keep paying sociopath's inflated bills.

Well, despite his best efforts, he came up $20 short one month and sociopath jumped on it. he had 30 days. We made the 400 mile trip from Banjoland to Palmville to get the rest of our stuff and I can't say as I approved of my brother's living conditions, but I guess that's beside the point. The month passed rather uneventfully, I guess Sociopath figured he'd won so there was no need to burn the gas to drive out and gloat.

The neighborhood had learned what was going on and that was the first time I'd ever been back in that neighborhood where I didn't get a single callout, a single glare, a single racist remark. Everybody behaved reverently, it was kind of disturbing in all honesty, I guess people in lower incomes all know what eviction means and felt like I was having a bad enough time already.

Well, 20 days later he says it's time to leave. We still had a week left, but it didn't matter, we didn't have the money to try fighting it with a lawyer. A.M. descended from the heavens and bought us a couple extra days, but it was evident he really really wanted us out, possibly because the work trucks were now one street away.

The last time I ever saw the house I grew up in, workmen were throwing my childhood possessions into a large bin when we supposedly still had three days left to leave. Everything that follows is a collection of information I got through the grapevine and phone calls with people present at the events.

Immediately, Sociopath moved into the house himself. Why you may ask? People who owned the homes they were living in were getting the full cost of renovations comped by the city. He figured that by moving in himself, he'd be able to get this house he bought at liquidation price renovated for free and flip it.

A.M. was having none of it.

She explained to him that at the time the revival project was approved, that house was a rental lot, and they can't change the budget now. She then explained to him that the partial cost coverage that had been approved for the lot was in our name, not his, and he wasn't eligible for partial cost comping either.

He'd have to pay every penny himself, and since the entire neighborhood was getting a facelift, he was required to at least renovate the exterior, otherwise she'd see the house condemned as an eyesore or dilapidated or whatever the legal term is. He went really cheap on the renovations, basically put in new carpets and a coat of paint, this would later come to bite him in the ass.

He then began trying to sell the house in earnest. The neighborhood remembered what he'd done. There were vandalisms when nobody was there, and loud noises from the neighbors when people were there to look the house over, and anytime a prospective buyer asked around, they got the full stinkeye from anybody they talked to. They made sure he simply couldn't get that house sold at market value.

After three months of this, he lowered the listing price. Then a month later he lowered it again and finally got a bite. A.M. personally made sure he had to file every. single. piece. of paperwork before it changed hands. Every single part of the house had to be inspected thoroughly.

And that's when Karma herself caught up with him. In his hasty and cheap renovations, he'd somehow damaged the pipes.

Black. Mold.

A.M. remembered how he'd treated us and she decided to pay him back in kind. I never heard how exactly she pulled it off, but she managed to delay him getting the news about the black mold being discovered for several days, long enough that by time he did get the news he didn't have enough time left to try getting it cleaned or make a last ditch effort to save the house.

The house was condemned days later.

In their final act, A.M. and members of the neighborhood filed every single complaint and injunction they could and arranged for him to be compelled by the city to demolish the house immediately. A cost he had to pay out of his own pocket.

He tried to destroy a family and broke laws just to make some quick cash, and instead was left fighting a year long legal battle and ended up losing thousands.

The neighborhood remembers. The neighborhood punishes.

(source) story by (/u/TanyaSapien)

[thestraggletag]

Human Nature, Part One

AN: Happy Birthday to me! Here’s a fic I wrote to commemorate the day. Part two needs editing but will be along shortly. Enjoy!

Also can someone please write a better summary? This is an honest request. It can be my birthday present.

Rating: R

Summary: Warm Bodies AU. After the zombie apocalypse is averted it’s up to Belle French to rehabilitate a mostly-dead Mr Gold, against advice of the experts and the wishes of the entire town. As she struggles to fan the spark of humanity back into Mr Gold she fails to notice something else kindling between them.

It took months to get back to Storybrooke after the beginning of what was known as "the treatment" by which most of who'd been affected by the zombie-like virus slowly regained their humanity. It was slow-going, the process done with an overabundance of caution that nobody begrudged, taking into account what the years before had been like. The outbreak had lasted a little under five years, but it had seemed like months, and so much had changed in that time that life before seemed like a distant memory. The idea of just picking up where everyone left off was an impossible fantasy.

When Brisbane had been hit Belle, who'd been visiting relatives at the time, had been lucky enough to get evacuated to Hamilton Island, where the only undead she'd been close to where relatives of locals, who could not bear to put them down and so kept them locked away in the basement of the local pet shelter. Once word of the treatment reached them most of them had been successfully rehabilitated, and soon after that she'd made her way back to the mainland, to be of help where she could and find out news about her family and friends.

She'd first heard news of Storybrooke from Ruby, when internet access was restored. The town had taken a hit, like most, but efforts were underway to rehabilitate as many people as possible. She cried with her friend when she called her to tell her Granny had called her by her name. Speech was a big step in the treatment, and it was then that they both knew that Mrs Lucas was going to make it.

She had to wait a long time for flights to be restored, and by then things were mostly under control. She'd heard from Ruby and others that Storybrooke was a sort of success story unlike any other, with all services restored, schools open and a rehabilitation rate that defied expectations, and a lot of it was attributed to the iron will of Madam Mayor and the security efforts of the Town Sheriff. Quite the formidable power couple, according to Ruby. She thought their love story surrounding their shared son was very cute, as far as apocalyptic tales went.

And though she had thought at first that Ruby's boundless optimism in the face of Granny's recovery was prompting her to paint a rather misleading picture of how things were back home when she finally made it back to town she had to admit it looked as good as she'd described. There were some signs of destruction, some roadblocks that were still only half-cleared and half the buildings seemed to be in the process of repair but there was an air of orderly normality that she hadn't seen in other places. Ruby had been there to pick her up from the bus stop, squealing and hugging her for the longest time before commenting on her silver-streaked hair, telling her she loved it.

"You can totally get hair dye, the pharmacy is up and running again- no idea how Mayor Mills did it but it's almost completely restocked, she must have made some interesting calls to well-connected people- but I kinda dig the look. Goes with your more angular features."

It was a nice spin on things, as if her thinner body and grey hair were audacious fashion choices and not the product of hunger and stress. The upbeat attitude was decidedly contagious, specially once she saw that her beloved library was mostly undamaged. Boarded up still, and a little worse for wear on the outside, but the inside was just as she had left it. She commented on it to Granny as the woman forced a second helping of pie on her. For someone who had undergone the treatment she didn't really look it, with the exception of a slight stiffness to her movements.

"I'm glad the town council moved so quickly to board it up."

"They had nothing to do with it. It was Gold and his crew, mainly that huge mammoth of a man that worked for him, Dove. Did it by themselves, with the help of Marco."

Though Granny's tone was as gruff and as acid as it always was when she talked of the pawnbroker Belle felt a pleasant warmth bloom in her. She'd always had a soft spot for the Scotsman, something she knew was a bit of an unpopular opinion in Storybrooke. He had always had a smile and a polite comment or two for her whenever she saw her, was a staunch ally of the library in town council meetings and was keen on chatting about a book when he returned it, which he always did in person. Once or twice they’d sat together when Granny’s was too full and his was the only table with spare seats. People had warned her after the first time they’d shared a cup of tea in public that she was better off staying as far away from possible from him, but she had refused to comply, specially when she caught the bias in a lot of the stories, like the one Ashley Boyd spun, about Mr Gold cruelly charging interest for the rent of a meager little flat after having been “a little bit late” on the rent. She was never specific about how late till Belle asked, and she reluctantly admitted it was over two months, even past the grace period contemplated on the rental agreement.

“Still, who threatens to evict a young couple with a newborn baby and nowhere to go?”

Ashley was also always careful not to mention her father-in-law, well-off and with more than enough room in his house to host his only son and his wife for a lengthy period of time. Belle could see how her tale of woe lost a little of the dramatic edge with the addition of those pesky details. So she had carried on being friendly with the pawnbroker, even if it made people look at her funny and sometimes whisper behind her back. Just one of the many things that made her strange in the little town, along with her accent and habit of reading in the strangest of moments and places. She hadn’t cared.

“That was so kind of him. I must go over to his house and thank him.”

She hadn’t seen the Scotsman around since her return, but she’d assumed he was busy either with repairs to his home or perhaps the shop, or even trying to restore order to his many properties. He was a fastidious landlord and considering his nature she imagined he’d be one of those people eager to set the world to rights, to restore order.

“You haven’t told her?”

Granny looked at Ruby reproachfully, though she tried to shrug it off. The old woman sighed, not-quite managing to roll her eyes.

“He was amongst the people infected during a breach a couple of years ago. We’ve been told he’s in treatment, but not responding well. It doesn’t quite work on everyone, as you know.”

It felt impossible, at first. Mr Gold was such a vital part of Storybrooke that it made no sense for the town to be still standing without him. He was also so strong, despite his short stature and his reliance on a cane to walk, that it made no sense to think that even the outbreak could’ve gotten to him. He was the sort of man she would expect to survive the apocalypse, if not thrive in it.

It wasn’t until a couple of days later, when she overheard Katherine Knight talk about “visiting Freddie” that she gave more thought about Mr Gold’s situation. Frederick Knight, Katherine’s husband, was amongst the people still being treated and it had not occurred to her that visits to those infected were not only possible, but desirable. It was human contact, after all, the key to guide those afflicted back to their humanity. Contact and communication with loved ones, with people near and dear, was even better, capable of speeding up the process. And she was sure that, though not close, Mr Gold had considered her a friend. She certainly knew him enough to be of help, and she couldn’t imagine people would much object to her taking him off their hands for a couple of hours a day.

It was with a sinking heart that she learned that, though the treatment of the infected was officially managed by the local hospital, the actual efforts were overseen by Mother Superior and her gaggle of nuns, all of which had survived the apocalyptic events. They had done so mostly because the good Mother had ordered the convent’s doors to be bolted at the first sign of trouble. The sisters had spent the entire apocalypse safe behind the tall walls of the convent, living off the produce from the gardens and closing their ears to the pleas for help from outside.

It was no wonder Mother Superior had decided to offer the services of her little lambs when hands were needed to treat the infected once it was discovered this could be done. It was a way to change the narrative, to erase whatever ill-feelings there remained in town regarding the nuns. It was also a way to position herself in a place of power and relevance, one she relished with little subtlety, it seemed to her. She was practically goading when she turned Belle away, telling her Mr Gold was unfit to receive visits of any kind, and that she could give her no further information.

The rumours she heard were not encouraging. People whispered about Mr Gold lashing out against anybody that dared approach him, about him savagely attacking orderlies and snapping out of restraints with a brute force surprising even in an infected. Too violent to be cured, people said, a beast on the outside as he’d always been on the inside. So thin and haggard, in such a state of rot, that he was practically a boney. The town seemed quite content to do nothing about it, so she decided in the end to take the matter to the mayor. Regina Mills was the closest thing Mr Gold had to family. They’d known each other since she was a baby- there were some unsavoury stories about the pawnbroker and Regina’s mother, but nothing anyone could corroborate- and though they usually bickered they seemed to have a certain respect and fondness for each other, at least from what she’d been able to see.

To her credit Regina did seem to share her concerns regarding Mr Gold- Hell, even Sheriff Swan, not his biggest fan, seemed sympathetic- but didn’t think much could be done about it.

“I wish I could tell you Mother Superior or the orderlies at the hospital were exaggerating, Miss French, but I’ve been to see Mr Gold. Even restrained he was quite violent, and my presence seemed to agitate him more than help him. I believe everything that could be done for him is being done. He’s simply… not responding as he should. I am told it happens.”

She seemed to be honestly contrite, which gave her the opening she needed to convince her to demand the hospital let her visit. It took a while, and some back and forth, but she was finally given permission, though begrudgingly, by Dr Whale and Mother Superior. She was full of cautious optimism that morning, joining Mary Margaret Nolan in the hospital entrance lobby to wait for visiting hours to start, listening intently as the schoolteacher told her that she was hopeful her husband would be released soon, given his progress.

Her enthusiasm waned somewhat when Mary Margaret was ushered along a brightly-lit corridor and she in turn was escorted to a key-coded door that led to the basement, and taken down a flight of stairs into a dark hall, where a clearly-recovering orderly was mopping the floors. She was told to go to the “cell at the end”, a phrase that did away with the rest of her cheerfulness. The air down there was damp and stale, and mold grew on certain areas along the walls and in corners. The floor was solid concrete, with an abundance of thin, spidery cracks, and there were heavy metal doors to her left, with small covered windows slots further down that remained shut, but likely was meant for trays.

She found him when she peered into the third door, though it was difficult to see him at first because the cell was unlit but for the light that shone from a small barred window high above and he was in a shadowy corner, standing still. It was only when her eyes adjusted to the darkness that she began to make out his silhouette, and later more and more details. In many ways it was easy to recognise him: custom suit, slightly-uneven gait, favouring one leg clearly over the other, and shaggy hair a tad too long to be respectable. At the same time, however, the man in the cell looked like a complete stranger: rail-thin, with his trousers torn and his suit jacket in tatters. He wasn’t even wearing a tie, something she’d never seen Mr Gold without. The eyes, however, were the most striking difference: clouded over, almost milky-white, dull and unfocused.

“Oh, Mr Gold…”

The living corpse seemed to shudder, head tilting back to sniff the air. She braced herself for anything, any sudden movement or anything that could remotely be construed as violent, but nothing happened. There was definitely something different, though, an awareness that hadn’t been there before. He could certainly smell her, she knew that, and had likely heard her loud and clear- infected tended to have their sense of smell and hearing heightened, even while their organs and muscles deteriorated. So he knew she was there, but did not attack her, did not seem interesting in doing her harm. The way it seemed there wasn’t anything inherently aggressive or incurable about him, he simply had been left alone to rot.

If no one was gonna do anything about it she would.

She decided the best way to establish any sort of relationship was through something she knew Mr Gold enjoyed. She set aside several afternoons a week to sit down on the hard concrete floor next to Mr Gold’s door and read him, choosing books from his favourite authors and genres. She started with Borges, which he had often checked out, and Irvine Welsh, along with some Cortázar and Verne. She would sneak in, unsure whether Mother Superior wouldn’t try to stop her if she knew what she was trying to do, and spend hours reading and drinking tea. Sometimes Ruby would sneak her something to eat- she had decided early on that she needed at least one person who knew where she was going and what she was doing just in case, specially when it became clear no one went to the basement except her. No nuns, no doctors, no one. People were literally waiting for Mr Gold to turn to dust, too squeamish to outright put a bullet in his brain and be done with it but in no real rush to see him recover either.

Spite became a motivator during those afternoons were things didn’t seem to be progressing and it looked like she was wasting her time. Mr Gold would like that, she thought privately. She felt an odd sort of camaraderie when she thought about sticking it to the nuns, about the expression on Mother Superior’s face if she succeeded. She told him about that, and about the progress being made around town. At some point she started calling him by his first name- Ramsay, a confession he made when she’d playfully teased him about having “R. Gold” as the name on his library card- thinking it might spark something.

She would feed him too, whatever large chunks of raw meat she could get from Granny, who she suspected was well aware of what she was doing but said nothing. She was fully cured, herself, with minimal sequels, but her experience seemed to have made her empathetic to Mr Gold’s plight. She had retained some of the incredible sense of hearing she’d enjoyed while undead. It wasn’t unheard of for people to keep a trait or two from their sickness, though it was rare. In some cases the infection had cause certain irreparable changes to their physiognomy, specially in those further gone.

Fortunately for Belle Mr Gold enjoyed the raw meat, though she never saw him eat it. She’d leave it before heading back to the library and it’d be gone in the morning, tray licked clean but Mr Gold back in his corner. It was a relief, somewhat, to see him lose some of his boney appearance, though he was still rail-thin, little more than skin and bones.

Her first big break happened during an ordinary afternoon, while she sat and read to him something by Horacio Quiroga. Mr Gold rather liked the dark short stories, and though some people might have thought them inappropriate reading material for a recovering zombie Belle disagreed, thinking that anything that might elicit a response from Mr Gold, any response at all, was worth trying.

It was while she was nearing the end of The Feather Pillow that she heard a shuffling and later a thump right on the other side of the door. Tentatively she knocked on the metal door, barely containing a happy laugh when something on the other side knocked back, slow but surely. It was the first time that Mr Gold acknowledged her at all and thought it was a small thing it felt like something monumental. It put a smile on her face so bright Ruby teased her about it for weeks, and prompted her to take a leap of faith one afternoon and open the latch that kept the small window on the door covered. There was no glass to further separate them so she was able to tentatively slip her hand through the opening.

“Come here, Ramsay. Come on, you know me. It’s okay.”

Mr Gold did perk up somewhat, and later dragged himself across the room. She forced herself not to flinch as he leaned forward, his nose almost brushing her skin as he breathed in deeply, hesitantly at first but pressing closer when something about the scent seemed to catch his attention or spark something in him. He never made a move to bite so for the longest time Belle just stood there, on her tippy-toes to be able to pass most of her arm through the opening, fighting the urge to pull back. Her fear gave way to cautionary optimism and later awe at the way Mr Gold practically rubbed his entire face against her hand, as if the notion of skin to skin contact was some sort of miracle. He breathed her deeply now, big lungfuls of her scent, nose pressed tightly against her palm or the underside of her wrist, his expression almost desperate. He made a sort of whining noise when she was forced to pull her arm back, and followed her hand until he physically couldn’t anymore.

She cried later that night, back in the safety of her library, away from prying eyes, part out of sheer relief and part out of anger and sadness at the thought that Mr Gold had been left to rot not because he was beyond help, but rather because it was so convenient. So many people had been given second chances once the rebuilding had started, people who had committed questionable or even downright despicable acts during the apocalypse. Ruby had warned her at the beginning about some, like Keith Nott and Greg Aston, who had taken to the chaos of the past years like ducks to water, had grown unruly and dangerous. She had heard only half-stories, mostly from Ruby, mostly things no one could prove or cared to now that the human race had another chance and the population was in dire need of able-bodied men to rebuild and reproduce. If Storybrooke was ready to embrace lowlifes like those they would have to get used to having Mr Gold back, and she’d call out anyone who dared fight her on that on their hypocrisy.

From then on it became routine to let him smell her. Mr Gold seemed to look forward to it, being sure to stay close to the door and letting out a growly sort of purr when she reached out to him. He was also eager to let himself be stroked and his hair petted, which took a bit of getting used to but to her made sense. Mr Gold had always avoided contact as a rule. Though he sometimes tended to invade people’s personal space as a tactic to put them ill at ease, he usually skirted human touch. She’d had occasion to make a study of it,  back before the apocalypse, down to how Mr Gold almost always wore gloves on rent day and avoided passing anything hand to hand. She had noticed that once he got familiar with her he let his guard down a bit and sometimes allowed casual touches, fingers brushing over a book exchanging hands, things of that nature. But he’d always shied away from further contact.

Belle had long ago come to the conclusion that he must have been very touch-starved, given how little actual skin to skin contact he seemed to experience day to day. She had seen him flex his fingers often, his hands and entire body full of nervous energy, of a sort of yearning for what he denied himself. Now, stripped of all human pretenses, without the need to protect himself from others, he was seeking out that which he needed like he hadn’t allowed himself before. She told him over and over that it was alright, that he was allowed to want and seek affection, that she would never use it against him or otherwise harm him with the knowledge. She hoped it would stick on the back of his mind, so he wouldn’t be embarrassed when he was himself again, or wary of her.

She hadn’t expected it to feel so… powerful. So heady, to have someone like Mr Gold, who always seemed larger-than-life, lean on her so trustingly, so eagerly. To have a creature capable of immense feats of strength, of untold violence, purr under her touch like a kitten. She’d always wanted to do it, to reach out and give some sort of comfort to Mr Gold, a little bit of the affection he was sorely missing. It was precisely why she told herself to be cautious and not rush into things, given her impulsive nature. If she botched things now, if she lost her progress or got into a situation she couldn’t handle, Mr Gold might never recover. She was sure any excuse would be enough for people to demand he be “put out of his misery”. She couldn’t afford mistakes or miscalculations.

So she took things slow, and kept things close to the chest. Best no one knew of her progress until she could get Mr Gold talking a little, enough to prove without a shadow of a doubt that he was on the mend, and that killing him would be killing a human being and not some well-dressed boney. So she went about her day as normal as possible, helping set the town to rights, cleaning the library, helping Dove with the community garden that grew on some land belonging to Mr Gold and that was still a vital source of a lot of produce the town consumed, though the normal flow of goods and services was slowly being re established across the estate. Dove was an attentive gardener and the work was strangely soothing. She set her afternoons aside for Mr Gold, though, reluctant to miss a day and cause a potential regression. And it helped her too, helped her deal with what she’d lived through, the peace and companionship she found in the basement of the hospital, with Mr Gold. In the hope that sparked in her every time she caught a glimpse of his eyes and they looked less cloudy and more focused, more alive.

She was so focused on those things, so eager to escape to her afternoon trysts, that she forgot to pay proper attention to her surroundings. It was night when she left the hospital, later than she’d realised, but nothing seemed amiss at first. Even after she heard something she didn’t immediately panic. The Rabbit Hole was close to the hospital, and people were still getting celebratory drunk in honour of the ending of the apocalypse. Sheriff Swan was good about keeping things controlled, all things considered. 

It wasn’t until they were almost upon her that she noticed them, staggering around shouting at her, some slurred lewd proposition that made her walk faster, but nothing else. When she chanced a glance back she felt the first true jolt of fear, recognising easily the tall, lanky man as Gregory Aston, which made the other man following her his buddy Keith. Greg had made some advances before the apocalypse, which she hadn’t returned, much to his displeasure. But back then they had both lived in a society with strict rules that limited whatever he might have wanted to do when he was rejected. Now he strutted around Storybrooke getting into fights and using his brute strength to get whatever he wanted, having grown used to the more violent times of the apocalypse, when his fighting ability had given him a position of prominence. Keith, on the other hand, had thrived in the smuggling business, specially of drugs, and was still active. Emma was a competent sheriff but the problems of a town like Storybrooke in the post-apocalypse were many, and the resources of the sheriff’s office were limited.

Being the stupid sort of drug dealer one would’ve expected from Keith he often tested his merchandise and shared it with close pals, which included Greg. Belle could see it the closer they got to her, the tell-tale signs of a person under the influence of more than just alcohol.

“Hey, Belle, wait up, we wanna talk to you!”

She began to seriously consider her options. The library was too far away, and it was too late for Granny’s to be open. The station was close by, but the sheriff was doing rounds so no one would be there. It seemed safer to go back to the hospital, where there was bound to be at least a couple of nurses on their night shift.

“Hey, you frigid bitch, I know you can hear us!”

Running probably was ill-advised, but at some point Belle couldn’t fight her instincts anymore. The relief she felt when she burst through the doors of the hospital was short-lived. The reception area was deserted, and access to the rest of the hospital seemed to be blocked, a precaution typical of the days of the apocalypse that people seemed to still be keeping. Frantically she went to the one door she knew the combination to, but when she tried to close it behind her it was wrenched from her grasp, either by Greg or Keith, she didn’t bother to look. Someone grabbed her arm when she raced down the stairs, but years of surviving in a high-stress environment had given her sharp reflexes that helped her pull herself free.

“There’s nowhere to run, sweetheart. We promise we’ll be nice, we just want to be nice to you, Belle.”

She didn’t know when she made the decision. It was in a split second, more instinctual than anything else. Mr Gold’s cell was bolted from the outside but not locked, she’d noticed that from the beginning. She’d been tempted to open the door so many times, but she’d restrained herself. But now adrenaline was rushing through her and the survival instinct that had kept her alive through hell on Earth moved her to make a quick decision, to seek out safety. Without pausing to second-guess herself she unbolted the door, pushing her way inside and closing it behind her.

“Got ourselves a room, how nice.”

“Hope there’s a bed inside!”

It was dark inside the cell. The only light came from the corridor and was too faint to reach inside. Belle knew she was not alone in the room but she could not hear or see Mr Gold. The infected got very good at being quiet and staying out of sight, like the best of predators, which wasn’t an altogether-reassuring thought. Greg and Keith stumbled inside the room, uncoordinated and sluggish from drink and whatever else they’d consumed, and Belle stepped back, seeking who she knew was there.

“Now, Belle, this doesn’t need to be bad. Ugly. We can… can treat you right. Make it good. We’re nice guys.”

Greg had always said that. Belle was sure that, against all odds, he believed it. Even as he clamped a hand around her arm, with enough force to make her wrist hurt, to make her cry out in pain and fight to wrench herself free. Even as Keith laughed next to him, clumsily pawing at his belt. There was a second of all-consuming fear, the kind that paralysed the muscles and made it difficult to breathe. Then there was a growl and she felt rather than saw an arm wrap around her waist and pull her backwards. Another arm went across her chest, securing her against something solid behind her.

“Holy fuck, what the-?”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The sheer terror in both men’s eyes was almost amusing, if it weren’t for the fact that Belle felt the same. Mr Gold’s face was next to hers, snarling, teeth bared in a clear warning. She wanted to say something, so that he’d recognise her as a friend, let himself be soothed, perhaps, but nothing came out. Greg and Keith scrambled backwards, fighting to be the first ones out the door, bolting it behind them for good measure before running away, the sound of their footsteps eventually fading into nothing. They weren’t going to look for help, she knew it. Too messy for them, too dangerous. They’d left her alone, perhaps even hoping Mr Gold would take care of her so she wouldn’t go telling tales and for a moment her anger overcame her fear, so thoroughly that she didn’t notice Gold’s head move, his nose coming to press against her neck. He took a deep, audible breath and Belle froze again, part of her bracing herself for a bite. But none came, Mr Gold seemingly content to scent her. Slowly Belle felt fear drain out of her, allowing her to somewhat compose herself.

“It’s just me, Ramsay, Belle. You know  me, don’t you?”

He made a purring sound, the one  she’d grown so used to, and loosened his hold on her, not a drop of aggression on him. Belle tentatively petted his hair, excited now to be able to look at him so closely, to notice the very slight tint of pink on his cheeks and the slight warmth of his skin, signs of his recovering humanity. He, likewise, seemed curious about her, hands hovering near her, as if asking for permission to touch, to explore. And though he didn’t dare grab her again he had no problems pressing his nose close to whatever part of her he could reach. He spent long minutes scenting her hair, fingers ghosting over it, as if delighted by the feel of it. Fascinated and intrigued she let him proceed, allowing him to sniff at her forehead, down her neck and over her torso. It was strangely endearing, or at least until he pressed firmly against the juncture of her thighs, taking a deep breath in an attempt to scent her through her underwear and cotton shorts. 

“No!”

She pushed against his shoulders and he scrambled away, clearly feeling chastised by her tone and actions. He looked confused, as if unaware of whatever he’d done wrong, and whatever offence she might have felt a moment ago went up in smoke. Slowly, so as to not spook him, she sat down in the cot next to him and turned his face so they’d make eye-contact.

“Hey, Ramsey, I’m sorry. You didn’t know. It’s okay, Ramsey, I’m not mad.”

Something sparked in his eyes, and he tilted his head to the side, brow furrowing.

“R-r-r-r…” With a jolt, Belle realised he was trying to speak. It was more of a growl than anything else, but there seemed to be a purpose to it, a desire to shape it into something. “R-r-rum.”

He splayed a hand against his chest and repeated the word. Belle understood at once what he was trying to say.

“Yes, yes, that’s right. You’re Ramsay, that’s your name. Ramsay.”

She said it slowly, over and over again, delighting in the way he focused on her lips as they shaped out the word. He couldn’t quite repeat it, not entirely at least, but he recognised it without a doubt as his name, the first concrete proof that he could not only understand speech but that he had also recovered a sense of self, and at least partial access to his memories. He also seemed to realise it was a momentous occasion, his lips curling up into a shadow of a smile, looking more like Mr Gold than ever.

Knowing that certainly Ruby or Dove would report her missing tomorrow and that this would be an obvious place to check out, seeing as to how Emma and Regina suspected of her near-constant visits, she settled down to wait, lying down on the cot so her face was close to Mr Gold- Rum, now, in her mind- who was still on the floor, looking at her. She talked to him as one of her hands combed through his tangled hair, told him about Dove and how he was taking care of everything for him, about how the Library was ready for re-opening and how things were slowly returning to normal. There was an understanding in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, as if one more of many veiled had been lifted and he could see the world more clear now than before.

She didn’t recall falling asleep, but she must have at some point. When she awoke there was no panic, even when she registered the grey walls of the cell and the thin, hospital-issue mattress beneath her. Rum was next to her, sitting on the floor leaning against the cot and watching her from beneath a curtain of shaggy hair. It was, she was sure, longer than it had been weeks ago, another sign of his blossoming humanity to add to her list.

“Good morning, Rum.”

She pulled herself to a sitting position, looking around her. Now that there was slight coming into the room from the small window in a corner she could see the room properly, and winced at the signs of decay and disrepair. Surely it couldn’t be conductive to his recovery for him to be locked up in a place like that. She would need to try and convince Regina to do something about it, if she could somehow get the woman to the cell so she could see with her own eyes that Rum was on the mend, and certainly not a danger to anyone.

It was while she contemplated how to go about it all that she heard faint sounds, and later the murmur of voices. Someone shouted her name, desperately- Ruby, it sounded like- followed by others. Rum tensed up beside her, scrambling to stand between her and the door. She was about to try and calm him down when she was startled by the cell door being violently yanked open, Sheriff Swan stepping into the room with her revolver up and aimed squarely at the Scotsman’s head. Behind her Belle could see Ruby, David Nolan- who acted sometimes as Deputy Sheriff, and the major herself.

“No, wait!”

Thankfully for her Rum was a short man, so getting in front of him guaranteed Emma would be unable to shoot him in the head. It didn’t make her drop her stance, though, specially when she saw Rum grab her from behind and snarl. 

“Belle, what the fuck? Get out of the way!”

“No, you don’t understand. It’s okay. I’m okay. He’s not gonna hurt me. He’s not aggressive.”

She knew how ridiculous she sounded like, with Rum behind her, teeth bared and hands digging into her skin to the point where she had to admit hurt a little, but it was important that they understood.

“He… he’s on the mend. He just thinks you’re threatening me. Just… just stand down. He’ll relax.”

She wasn’t sure he would, but it was worth a try. Emma, to her credit, didn’t dismiss her words, and obviously noticed Rum was making no move to bite or otherwise attack her. She lowered her firearm and relaxed her posture, and little by little Belle felt Rum do the same behind her, though he kept one of his hands curled protectively on her shoulder, as if ready to yank her back at the first sign of trouble. She took advantage of the tentative peace to recount the events of last night, trying to be as detailed as possible. Though she got some sceptic looks she could see that at least Emma and Regina were considering part of what she was saying, particularly regarding Keith and Greg. When it came to Rum, however, the general consensus seemed to be that Belle was likely being a bit too optimistic, and there weren’t enough grounds to challenge the authority of Mother Superior regarding Mr Gold’s situation.

“No, you’re not listening to me. He’s on the mend. He knows who he is, he has memories. Look at him. At the colour of his skin, at his eyes. He’s better. He knows who I am, I’m sure.”

She stared at Emma, hard, as if daring the blonde to contradict her, to pat her on the head and tell her she was mistaken, confused, seeing things that weren’t there. To her surprise she felt Rum’s hand on her shoulder tighten.

“B-B-B-Be-Belle.”

It was more of a croak than anything, but there was no mistaking what he’d just said. Everyone froze in place and things were deadly quiet for a second or two. Belle could have sworn that when she chanced a glance at Rum there was something of the familiar Mr Gold smirk about him, the satisfied, smug look he often got after striking a deal or getting the better of people. Finally, after what felt like forever, Regina spoke.

“I can’t wait to see the look on Mother Superior’s face when I tell her this.”

Rum’s progress seemed to accelerate after that, though his vocabulary remained reduced. But his understanding of speech and his communication skills evolved immensely, and there was a constant awareness now of what was going on around him and a spark of intelligence that hadn’t been there before.. The major, likewise, was determined to make her own progress and before the week was out she managed to arrange a review of Mr Gold’s case with Dr Whale and Dr Hopper, against the express wishes of Mother Superior. Both reports were as positive as Belle could’ve hoped for, with Dr Hopper encouraging Mr Gold be moved to his own house for the remainder of his recovery, which was usually the next step once patients had developed enough understanding of the world around them.

Belle and Dove worked tirelessly to put Mr Gold’s house to rights, or as close to it as possible. Dove had boarded it up after Mr Gold had been infected, so it was quite the job to open it up again and clean it, but the inside was mostly well-preserved. All around Storybrooke news of the imminent release of the pawnbroker spread around fast, and the reception was more than a little chilly. No one dare take it up personally with Belle- apparently the first idiot to even insinuate something like that had had a pickaxe nearly flung at them by Leroy- but people definitely gave her hostile looks and were otherwise very vocal about how much better things would’ve been if Mr Gold had simply… faded away. It was disgusting and she was grateful that those closest to her seemed to be on the same page.

It was nighttime when Rum was officially discharged. He’d been already moved to a regular hospital room a day before in preparation and to administer any final tests and such. Afterwards they left him sitting in the hallway, which was where she found him. He visibly perked when he saw her, lips curling into that adorable half-smile that she remembered from years ago. He lurched forward towards her, which made her notice his limp was more pronounced than before. Infected people gained strength and agility due to the changes in their bodies, which could also strengthen injured bones and muscle. The more Rum’s body returned to its natural state the more his old injury reasserted itself. It was a strange sort of positive sign.

Thankfully the streets were deserted, like she’d hoped when she’d suggested Rum be released at night. They walked slowly, him leaning slightly against her for balance, looking around with unabashed hunger. He breathed in deeply, scenting the air, silently reveling in his freedom. Certain buildings and sights seemed to catch his attention, his eyes lingering on the diner, the library and specially on his pawnshop. When they finally got to the edge of town and he spotted his house he visibly moved faster, tugging her along and paying little attention to his dragging right leg as he all but sprinted towards it. His movements were still very wooden and stiff but the progress was astounding. 

The house was dimly lit, electricity still being strictly rationed, but Rum seemed to want to explore everything at once, at least until something seemed to occur to him and he darted awkwardly up the stairs. When she followed him she found him in his ensuite bathroom, shower already on. He was struggling to take his tattered clothes off, which was no easy feat given his current lack of dexterity. Belle helped him take his jacket off, trying not to smile at his slightly abashed look. What was left of his shirt was partly stuck to his undershirt and skin by grime and blood. It took ten minutes and a pair of scissors to peel the fabric off him safely. His torso was littered in half-healing bite marks and scratches and when she gently touched a couple of them he sighed, pressing his forehead against hers.

“I’m-m-m okay.” She didn’t realise until he tried to console her that she was crying. “Ev-v-v-very-thing is o-k-k-ay.”

His brogue was so thick it was difficult to understand him, and his voice was still raspy and harsh form disuse but the gentleness with which he sought to reassure her made his words soft as butter. She helped him out of the rest of his clothing, leaving his boxers on when it became clear he was not keen on the idea of having her remove them. She rummaged his walk-in closet for a pair of pants, fresh underwear and a t-shirt and left him to shower in peace. Afterwards- thankfully, dressing up had been easier for him than stripping down- she sat him down in front of a mirror and trimmed his hair at his request, pleased at the results. Showered and properly groomed Rum was looking more like himself than ever.

When she brought up the idea that she might stay the night- Dove had prepared a room for her just in case- he looked painfully relieved and agreed vigorously, not letting her out of his sight until she slipped into her own room, leaving the door ajar behind her. He shuffled into the room that she’d pointed out was his and laid on the bed, feeling a strange burning in his eyes, and a heaviness that he didn’t recognise at first. Minutes later he was asleep.

[bystreetlight]

I almost wasn’t going to do this this year because December completely caught me by surprise and I’ve been saaaah busy at work and then got sick and it all seemed like too much effort…but some traditions must be maintained! So for the HUGE numbers of people who care about my year, here you go!

1. What did you do in 2018 that you hadn’t done before? Built a garden bed? I honestly can’t think of anything! Was it really that pedestrian?

2. Did anyone close to you give birth? A few people at various workplaces but no one particularly close!

3. Did anyone close to you die? No, thankfully.

4. Did you travel? Where did you go? Best holiday memory? Just the usual random trips to Mildura to see the family, and a weekend in Bendigo for White Night Bendigo! Nothing very exciting this year!

5. Best thing you bought? All the stuff I bought from Glossier. And a 5x magnifying LED makeup mirror. Although given how much time I now spend staring at my face and obsessing over my hugely magnified flaws, that’s also the worst thing I bought, so…

6. Where did most of your money go? Replacing the kitchen ceiling in the Mildura house…the mortgage…rent…moving house… 😴😴

7. What do you wish you had done more of? I don’t know, I think I found a good balance this year. Plenty of doing things, plenty of not doing things…just the way I like it!

8. What do you wish you had done less of? Slumping on the couch with bad posture? I feel like my neck hurt for most of this year.

9. What kept you sane? Having my license and being able to drive myself places whenever I like!! I can’t believe it took me so long.

10. What drove you mad? The fact that it took 3 weeks for the internet to get connected when we moved house and I had to call iiNet about 47 times to chase it up 😩

11. What made you celebrate? Finally finding a perfect place to move to! Having all our clothes in one place!!! NSW winning the State of Origin! 

12. What made you sad? Liverpool losing the Champions League final. I still can’t even think about it.

13. How was your birthday this year and how old did you turn? I honestly don’t remember the day?!? I guess I went to work? We had dinner at Lee Ho Fook but not on the actual day… Anyway, must have been a ripper!! I turned 34.

14. What political issue stirred you the most this year? The state election. Lol, who have I become.

15. Were you in love in 2018? Sure was! 😍

16. What would you like to have in 2019 that you didn’t have this year? An overseas holiday, which I will in April!!!!

17. What date(s) from 2018 will be etched in your memory and why? November 24 – election day. For one reason or another it felt like I was counting down to it all year!

18. What song will remind you of 2018? One Kiss. And Allez Allez Allez.

19. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My new year’s resolution this year was to get a skin check, and generally stay on top of my health, as well as see an accountant, and I did all the things! Next year…I don’t know? I have to make a will, but that’s a pretty depressing new year’s resolution hahaha.

20. Did you suffer illness or injury? I had a couple of hayfever/sinus-y situations, but nothing major.

21. Compared to this time last year, are you: i. happier or sadder? Happier! ii. thinner or fatter? About the same iii. richer or poorer? I’m in less debt to the bank, so richer!? Lol.

22. How will you be spending Christmas? Christmas lunch at the in-laws, and then probably doing nothing on Boxing Day. I’m working through this year so it will be very low key!

24. What was your favourite TV program? The Americans (RIP), The Pacific: In the Wake of Captain Cook, The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Superstore.

25. What was the best book you read? The Road to Jonestown. I still think about it months after I finished it. And I loved The Robber Bride.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Roosevelt.

27. What did you want and get? More time with my family. Although be careful what you wish for as they say hahah 🙈

28. What did you want and not get? Better hair? I think that’s just wishful thinking tbh.

29. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2018? Comfort first. I honestly think when I wasn’t at work I was in tracksuit pants for most of this year, and I am 100% fine with that.

30. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Sam Neill, Indya Moore.

31. Biggest achievement this year? Not getting any driving infringements hahaha.

32. Biggest disappointment this year? Scott Morrison.

33. What is the one thing that would have made you more satisfied? Some more time off. I worked A LOT this year.

34. Best new person you met this year? This question gets harder every year hahah. At a certain point, you just…stop meeting new people, and that’s fine!!

35. A valuable life lesson you learnt this year? I always thought those talking GPS devices were stupid but they’re actually very helpful and reassuring when you’re driving somewhere new and you have no fucking idea where you’re going 😂

[askbarnum]

How many jobs have you had and what were they?

Almost more than I can count at this stage of my life.

When I was a boy I was training to become a tailor like myfather, less from passion than from lack of options. I’d refer to that as my firstjob because my father would pay me an apprentices wage from the age of eight.

I sold newspapers for a while after his death, then appliedto work for the railroad. While often rather grueling physical labor andmindless jobs like laying track, that work spawned many smaller jobs such as engineering,sign painting, cleaning, cooking, even train driving as I reached manhood.

When I finally left the railroad I was determined to set upmy own business. I started out running my own lottery, it worked fantasticallyfor a few years and I even managed to put down a deposit to rent an apartment inthe city. Unfortunately new laws got passed and gambling was made illegal, thusmy business crumbled. I used what I had left to start up a book store. It was areal struggle at first and there were more than a few weeks where I was goingwithout food in order to get the business off the ground. Turns out not as manypeople are big readers of adventure stories and unusual reads as I was hoping,the rival bookstore across the street which only sold popular classics quicklydrove me into the ground. I managed to  gather together the stock I had left and startup a market stall selling odd books, pencils and pencil cases.

Eventually I scraped together enough to start running againso I started up a general store for the neighborhood. I was living on thepoorer side of town and there was no-where local to buy conveniences. That businessran well enough for me to start building my savings again. Eventually Igathered enough to buy a wedding ring, a modest one. After getting married Imanaged to save enough to start renting in a less dangerous area, couldn’t haveCharity living in the neighborhood I’d been staying in. I had a lot ofunfortunate experiences in that neighborhood which I’d never wish upon her.

After moving the rent was a lot higher and my small businesswas no longer covering the costs. The night I came home and Charity pretendedshe felt ill because there was only enough food left for one of us was thenight I realized I had to figure something else out.

I got into the auctioning trade for a while trying to sellthe left over stock from my shop, it didn’t pay extraordinarily well but it wasenough. Unfortunately I may have been caught pocketing items I shouldn’t havebeen. That was the end of that career.

Lets see, next was real estate. I managed to bluff my waythrough an interview, over the years I’ve picked up a few skills in the art offaking an education. Selling property was interesting for a while but my liescaught up with me.

I set up my own newspaper. That went well for a while, thenI may have written something…somewhat inappropriate about some of the nuns fromthe local church and wound up in jail for a few months. That was the end of theBarnum Herald of Freedom.

Then Charity became pregnant. It was thrilling of course, we’dbeen talking about having a child. Unfortunately it was a little unplanned andhappened at an unfortunate time in my career…or lack of.

Already struggling with money and worried about the further expenditurethat comes with raising a baby, I realized with great remorse that perhaps itwas time to give up my dreams of being something great, and to instead settlefor a reliable job.

Unfortunately as I found out, most ‘reliable’ jobs aren’tquite as reliable as you think.

I worked as a stable hand, got fired three days in fortalking back to the master of the house. He was a nasty piece of work.

I worked as a cleaner in a bakery. Place burned down twoweeks later.

I worked in a library, left that job after being told I wastoo loud.

I was a carriage driver. Crashed. Fired.

I was a builder. Couldn’t follow the plans, had my ownbetter ideas. Fired.

Grave digger. Stayed a little too late one night and fell inone of the graves in the dark. Never been a fan of small dark spaces. Quit. Can’tface graveyards even in the daytime anymore.

Funeral Director. Apparently people don’t want glitter attheir family’s funerals. I thought it would cheer things up. Fired.

Chimney Sweep. Didn’t make it through day one, shoulders toobroad to fit up the chimneys.

Lathmaker. Turned the wheel too quickly and someone choppedtheir hand off. Still don’t think it was my fault that they couldn’t keep up.Fired.

Quarryman. Again, small dark spaces. Wasn’t ideal. Made itthrough a few weeks, quit after being lost in a tunnel for five hours and then vomitingon another man’s shoes when I was found. Not my proudest moment.

Worked in a flour mill. Invented a grinder which would haveworked three times more productively than their outdated one. It broke and theydidn’t appreciate my contribution. Fired.

Window cleaner. Couldn’t make enough money, quit.

Pet groomer. Bad reviews after I shaved someones dog bald.Company went bust.

Furniture maker. Made it for a few months then got fired forgoing against the plans and making new furniture. Apparently they didn’tappreciate initiative thinking.

House painter. Learned I was colorblind after apparently paintingsomeone’s house red instead of green. Fired.

Barber. Fired for injuring someone.

Blacksmith. Company shut down.

Coal merchant. Staff reductions.

Marble engraver. Fired for breaking something.

Servant. Fired for talking back.

Stock dealer. Fired after losing the company a lot of money.

Accountant. Let go after letting curiosity get the better ofme and looking at files I shouldn’t have looked at.

Accounting Clerk. Company went bust when a typhoon sank alltheir ships.

Then I opened my museum, not an instant success.

Finally we come to the circus. Thankfully so far the longestI’ve managed to hold down a job. Just goes to show that sometimes you have tofail an unholy amount of times to succeed, have to weed through every unbearablejob until one day you find the perfect one.

[mrthoughtbubbles]

Dreams

It took me a while to have my own dreams of the future, mainly because I always think about my anxiety, mental illness, and all, but it’s better late than never. My long-term goal is to be a real estate investor. I want to buy houses and rent it to people. It’s kinda like the small money lending I did a couple of years ago so that I’ll have a steady stream of income. The only problem I see right now would be the fact that I’ll need a lot of money, like a couple of million pesos, to start that… Yes, I could just get a loan and proceed with my plans, but I don’t want to take any loans, mainly because if you forget to pay at least once, they’ll get your property, or something like that…

My second dream in order to achieve my first dream would be to be a passive investor in index funds. I want to emulate what was written in the book that my brother-in-law told me to read. I don’t read a lot of books, mainly because I’m only good at listening to information rather than reading it, but if I really want to learn something, I try my best to absorb what I can about the topic at hand. The book states that it would be really hard to beat the market, and it would be very costly and very time-consuming to actively manage your stocks. On the other hand, Index funds are cheaper when it comes to costs, not very time-consuming, like checking it quarterly, and you’ll still get what the market gets.

The problems I have with it right now would be the amount needed to enter the foreign markets, like S&P 500 index, for example… I would really like to enter the American or European markets, but my brother-in-law says that there’s a requirement to get into those markets, and he said that he, himself, still can’t enter those markets… The other problem would be the fact that this strategy would only work if I have a stable source of income to get the money needed to invest into, which I don’t have…

For now, I would like to invest some of my money in REITs, or Real Estate Investment Trusts, due to the dividends they give, but I would also like to invest in other stuff. I need to research more on where to invest my money on...

For my third dream, I would like to start a business, but I still don’t know what business I would like to enter, and I don’t have a lot of money to start one either… I wish it was easy to think of a good business that someone wouldn’t be able to copy… (it’s common here for people to copy your ideas…I don’t know if you can consider that as crab mentality...) I understand that it’ll take some time before the said business would be profitable. It’s also hard to start a business right now due to the pandemic...So, I’ll use the time right now to think of a good business.

For my dream business, I would like to have a business that is passively making me money or letting my money do all the work for me. It’s not that I’m lazy or anything. I just don’t trust myself in handling stuff…Back then, I wouldn’t sleep until I get the work done. But when I reached college, there were a lot of days wherein I would only get 1-2 hours of sleep because of my obsession to understand the topics and to keep-up with my peers… ( I wasn’t good in calculus and in programming…) Now-a-days, I can’t do that anymore, so I had to resort to letting money do all the work for me...

Yes, you can consider the family business of baking cakes, which started last year, as a business, but I want to have other businesses or other sources of income… All our income in our small family business went straight to our investments in the stock market. Business is kinda slow now-a-days...

They say that if one wants to dream, dream of something big, like having a big house, a sports car, or other extravagant items… Maybe my dream is way too small compared to other people’s dreams. My dream may be reachable, but I want to have a clear roadmap on how I'll do something, and I tend to move goalposts when I’m near my goal… I understand that moving goalposts only leads to frustration, but I just can't sit well when I don’t do it…

[moodsmithmedia]

Lies, the Universe & Mad Men

In this short lived blog I’ve lied to you. Our relationship just started and I’m already out here telling you mistruths...I owe you an apology. It wasn’t a malicious one, but the size of the lie was monumental. This outright falsehood has become engrained into our culture and belief system without any evidence supporting it, like a religion or other dogmatic belief system. Worse yet, there’s probably more evidence against it that people blindly ignore to avoid the cold, decidedly inconvenient truth (I believe in climate change but in this instance there’s no pun intended). So before anything else let me say I’m sorry. I’ve never wanted to be the kind of person who tells these kinds of lies, certainly not to myself. So here goes...

The universe doesn’t conspire to grant wishes. It doesn’t value spunk. It doesn’t reward the consistent. This seems overwhelmingly negative but it shouldn’t be. The universe does a lot of things! It’s constantly creating fusion reactors that churn out the very atoms of which you’re made. Those atoms come together to form the air you breathe, the mountains you might climb, the brushstrokes of a masterpiece that moves you to tears and the blood that blushes the skin of your loved one’s face when you say just the right thing. That’s not even close to a fraction of it. Anything that you could possibly observe, so much of which is absurdly beautiful, is a process of or within the universe. But what the universe doesn’t do is consider your feelings or desires. It just doesn’t happen. And you should stop thinking that it does. And you should stop filling people with the false hope that it will.

Think about the sheer complexity and time that it takes for all of existence to allow for a set of circumstances to randomly play out. If you’re still thinking that the universe has an interest in your success, your concept of it is still too small and self interested. The observable universe is so big it would take light 13+ BILLION years to cross from one side of the universe to the next. Let’s say there’s an intelligent civilization at one edge of the universe. If they broadcasted a message from their end of the universe to a different civilization on the other side of it, the second civilization wouldn’t receive that message for billions of years. Billions of years! For comparison, humanity is only a couple hundred thousand years old. “They say you die twice, once when you stop breathing and the second, a bit later on, when somebody mentions your name for the last time.” Anyone around when that message was sent could have lived and died twice, thousands of times over before that message was received.

Civilization. Ours is massive and getting bigger. At the time of this writing there are about 7.7 billion of us and there’s speculation that we could top 11 billion by the end of the century. All of us, on one planet with finite resources and an economic system built on the concept of infinite growth. There’s got to be competing interests that necessitate a “loser”. 

Have you ever watched the Olympics? The Men’s 100m is one of the most fascinating sporting events. It’s not simply a display of strength, there’s an artistry required to lower your times past a certain threshold. But before each race, as the competitors get into their blocks, each one of them genuflects. This has never not confused me. Seriously. I get it. But only one person can win! I think the most generous interpretation of it is that they’re all praying for the best race they have within themselves. I can understand and relate to the idea of being the best version of yourself regardless of the outcome. But who competes without the desire to win? Don’t we actually think that competition without that “killer instinct” to win is just a prerequisite for losing?

Imagine there are civilizations all throughout the cosmos with resource distribution complexity issues roughly equal to our own. Can you really imagine that the universe is out here taking a particular interest in each individual, securing them the things they truly want? That’s just not practical. So instead we imagine that the universe is only doing this service for the people who “truly want something”. But the universe is constantly doing, indiscriminately. This very second the ocean is reclaiming the island nation of the Maldives. Their buildings, their economy, their way of life. Depending on whether or not there is another country or group of countries willing to have them, the ocean could potentially reclaim the people of the Maldives too. Clearly the culture of the Maldives hasn’t sufficiently valued not drowning in its list of things they truly want.

What do you truly want? Is it money? Cars? Women? Is it something more wholesome, like children? A career that fulfills you? A person to see you for who you are and still accept you? What about something that seems more fundamental? Not passing away painfully in some natural disaster or terrorist attack? A life free of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse? To be unburdened by addiction or to have the will power to triumph over it? Or is it simply a job that you don’t particularly want but desperately need in order to earn a living for yourself and your family? The questions should bear out the point, but for the sake of being explicit it simply isn’t possible that the people these things don’t work out for didn’t want it enough. Looking at it the opposite way makes it even more clear. Things work out all the time for people who are indifferent to those opportunities. And it fosters some kind of morbid elitism to really believe that.

Paulo Coelho wrote an inspiring piece of fiction and people treat it as if he wrote a modern bible illuminating the path toward a purposeful life for those who make themselves available to it. The Alchemist got endorsements from celebrities, like Oprah, claiming they connected with the spirit of intention in the development of their careers. They speak to the truth of how the universe works when you want something badly enough. This is deeply offensive to the legacy of artists who weren’t sufficiently appreciated in their time and had to die to be taken seriously. Johann Sebastian Bach wasn’t recognized as a composer while he was alive, instead only viewed as a competent organist. The author of Moby Dick only earned $10,000 from his writing over the course of his life. Van Gogh killed himself, a consequence of mental illness and depression over a lack of success.

So I lied to you but really I lied to me. I, in good faith, regurgitated lies told to me in good faith. Different from the televangelists asking for your rent money for tithes so they can purchase mansions and private jets, I wasn’t encouraged to purchase The Alchemist for a percentage of my monthly income to witness my dreams come true. It was given to me. Gifted to me, at a dark time in my life in the hopes that it would spark belief in myself at a time when I needed it. But the principal message of the book is a fantasy. The universe doesn’t know my name, doesn’t value my ambitions and will move on, business as usual, if you or I, died in the street cold and alone. That only became more clear as the dark time that I received The Alchemist in only got darker. How badly I want what I want matters only to me and a bit less so to those that love me but, fairly, have their own ambitions to be weary of.

This talk of dark times reminds me about another stunning fact about the universe worth pondering. The standard mode of existence in the universe is actually dark and cold. It just happens to be the case that the laws of physics, at this particular moment in the life of the universe, facilitate the creation of stars which warm and illuminate incalculably large swaths of the heavens. 

Paulo Coelho’s book took the onus of facilitating your destiny out of your hands and into the hands of a nameless, faceless, benevolent space fairy. While beautiful fiction, this is just an outright diffusion of responsibility. But there is a truth to be told about the universe. It not warm and fuzzy. It won’t make you feel taken care of. It might frighten you, depending on your openness to being challenged. As I write this, I’m not feeling particularly open to challenge. But it returns control of the ride that is your life from a figment of Coelho’s imagination to you, an undeniably real person. Make of it what you will...

“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with that indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” - Stanley Kubrick

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

I

n the year since President Trump pulled off his stunning upset of Hillary Clinton, Democrats have blamed the result on all kinds of factors: James Comey’s letter, Russian hackers, voter suppression, Jill Stein’s candidacy and depressed African-American turnout, to name a few. The truth? In an election decided by fractions of percentage points, it’s easy to call just about anything a difference-maker.

But none of that gets at the heart of why so many people who cast a ballot for former president Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 — and who saw Trump as unqualified to be president — nonetheless voted for him. Although it’s far from a microcosm of the nation, there’s one place that I believe illustrates what happened in 2016 better than anything else.

In a nation increasingly composed of landslide counties — places that voted for one side or the other by at least 20 percentage points — Howard County, Iowa (population 9,332), stands out as the only one of America’s 3,141 counties that voted by more than 20 percentage points for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016. Democrats can’t credibly blame Howard County’s enormous 41-point swing in just four years on a last-minute letter to Congress, voter ID laws or Russia-sponsored Facebook ads.

Howard County, about 150 miles northeast of Des Moines along the state’s border with Minnesota, is 98 percent white. Only 13 percent of residents age 25 and over hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Median household income in the county in 2015 was $49,869. The largest employers in Cresco, the county seat, include the Donaldson Company, an air filter manufacturer whose local workers belong to the United Auto Workers union, and Featherlite, which makes aluminum livestock and utility trailers.

Barack Obama speaks to members of the United Auto Workers union during a presidential campaign stop in Dubuque, Iowa, in 2007.

AP IMAGES

Contrary to the “Trump Country” stereotype, Howard County isn’t drowning in manufacturing job losses, high unemployment or an opioid crisis. In fact, its unemployment rate the month before the election was just 2.9 percent. The main gripe? Stagnant wages — and a gnawing feeling that people have been working harder and for longer hours while other parts of the country reaped much bigger rewards during the recovery from the Great Recession.

“When Trump said, ‘What the hell do you have to lose?’ a lot more people heard it than just African-Americans,” said Pat Murray, a Democrat who worked 29 years as a press brake operator at Donaldson and now serves on the Howard County Board of Supervisors. “Our wages have been stagnant, and our insurance has gone backwards,” he told me, citing the union-sponsored health plan’s surging deductibles. “We work 50, 60 hours a week because there’s no one to hire.”

“[Obama] saved us from another Great Depression, but it never really got back to the working class,” said Murray, who calls himself “as anti-Trump as they come” but says Clinton’s campaign took places like Howard County for granted in the November election. “The average Joe Blow isn’t hung up on the stock market. Democrats always say we’re going to fight for the working people. The last few elections, we haven’t shown that at all.”

Howard County, Iowa, encompasses a number of small towns like Lime Springs (left), Cresco (center) and Chester.

Bill Whittaker / Jon Roanhaus / Bobak Ha’Eri

Autopsies of the Clinton campaign frequently cite her inattention to Michigan and Wisconsin as a cause of her loss. But her failure to connect in places like Howard County probably had less to do with which states she visited — after all, she spent plenty of time in Iowa — and more to do with her image and message.

Clinton came to be seen as establishment and dishonest in a year when a plurality of voters wanted change. But in a baffling display of obliviousness, she spent much of the fall jetting between big-city rallies, which were often followed by closed-door, high-dollar fundraisers. She spent precious little time making her economic case before people in midsize cities or small towns like Cresco. And even though she outspent Trump $6.5 million to $2.2 million on Iowa’s airwaves, her ads were more about Trump’s antics than about how she would raise voters’ wages or how Trump might lower them — effectively ceding that ground to Trump’s utopian jobs promises and inescapable slogan.

Neil Shaffer, a farmer and watershed conservation official who chairs the county GOP, credits Trump with flipping the party’s script on trade. “We’re skeptical of career politicians,” he said, likening Trump’s outsider appeal in the so-called Driftless Region to that of former-wrestler-turned-Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura. “For however many years, Democrats and union leaders denounced NAFTA. All of a sudden, you had a Republican candidate saying that it’s all for big business. The average working person said, ‘Hey, here’s someone who’s not going by the party book, he’s breaking the mold.'”

As for Clinton? “She was elitist, was what I kept hearing,” said Laura Hubka, a Navy veteran and ultrasound technician who chaired the county’s Democratic party and knocked on doors for Clinton. “We’re a blue-collar town.”

Voters in Iowa show their support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump during the 2016 election.

GETTY IMAGES

Last month, Hubka resigned her post as chair and published a scathing blog post about Democrats’ aloofness to voters in places like Howard County and the party’s failure to come to grips with the election result. “Can we just stop and admit we’re part of the problem?” she vented to me. “People who were longtime supporters didn’t want to hear what we had to say anymore.”

Holly Rasmussen was one of those who had reached a breaking point. An Obama voter, Rasmussen cited the way that ill-tailored new federal rules applied to her tiny Cresco cosmetology school as a driving factor in her defection to Trump. “Honestly, when we founded the school, I got to teach. But the last few years, I had to spend all day in my office because I’ve had to file campus crime reports,” she said. “And if we had two people who didn’t repay their loans out of the eight students we had, [the Department of Education] made it tougher for us to get financial aid. Because of the regulations, we had to close. Now, we’re just a salon and spa.”

So why did Rasmussen vote for Obama and Trump? “Just to shake up Washington, to be honest. We’ve been in a rut for so long. People here don’t want to be multi-gajillionaires. They just want to get paid a decent wage,” she said, noting that her 2016 choice “might have been different” had Bernie Sanders won the nomination.

Howard County wasn’t always a train wreck for Clinton. Ironically, in the epic 2008 Democratic primary campaign, Clinton ran as the candidate of labor and small-town America, rallying union halls, downing whiskey and beer for the cameras, and blasting Obama’s speeches as “elitist and out of touch.” She came in third place statewide and only carried 22 of Iowa’s 99 counties in that year’s caucuses. But Howard was one of the 22 she won.

By 2016, however, Howard County morphed into Sanders territory. The Vermont senator struck a nerve with his calls for a working-class revolution and his attacks on Clinton’s Wall Street ties and shifting rhetoric on the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

“I was shocked. I didn’t think a person would show up for Bernie,” said Murray, who chaired his precinct’s caucus. “But when I showed up, it was full of Bernie people.”

One such Bernie-crat was Mike Bigley, who spent 30 years as a Donaldson machinist and worked his way up from shop steward to president of UAW Local 120.1 “I liked his ideas on healthcare and free tuition,” said Bigley. “On caucus night, we had a majority for Bernie. Some of the union guys thought Clinton did crooked stuff to win [the nomination]. You hear a lot of things around the factory floor.”

“The Bernie people thought Hillary stole it,” concedes Murray, who said those voters’ distrust of Clinton carried over to November. “I’d say probably two-thirds of them went to Trump,” Murray said. Bigley, a self-described die-hard Democrat, said he wasn’t among them.

A Clinton supporter, left, and the candidate herself in Iowa in 2016.

GETTY IMAGES

By the fall, anti-Clinton fervor in the community had reached a crescendo. The week before the election, emboldened Trump supporters took out a full-page newspaper ad and rented out the historic, city-owned Cresco Theatre and Opera House — a long-ago vaudeville haunt — for screenings of conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s documentary “Hillary’s America” and the Benghazi film “13 Hours.” To Democrats’ dismay, the theater was packed.

For years to come, pundits and political scientists will debate whether working-class white voters’ sharp turn towards Trump had more to do with economic or racial resentment. Incidentally, despite its nearly all-white population, Howard County occupies a unique place in the history of America’s attitudes on race.

Riceville, on the western edge of Howard County, happens to be where, in 1968, elementary school teacher Jane Elliott pioneered the famous “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” classroom exercise that’s still used in diversity training courses today. Elliott’s exercise caused an uproar in the tiny town, made her an outcast in the teacher’s lounge and even resulted in violence and racial epithets aimed at her family. Now 83 and living a few miles down the road in Osage, Elliott told me she blames Trump’s election on a backlash against “eight years of a black man in the White House.”

But neither Howard County’s party chairs nor its left-leaning labor leaders cited racial resentment as a driving force behind the community’s seismic shift to Trump in 2016. “That pail doesn’t hold water,” said Shaffer, the GOP chairman, who eagerly points out that the county voted overwhelmingly for the nation’s first African-American president — twice.

The idea that voters who previously cast a ballot for Obama could not have been motivated, at least in part, by race when they made their 2016 choice has been disputed extensively in academic studies. But in my conversations with Howard County voters of both parties, the common thread of support for Obama and for Trump was resounding: anti-elitism.

Presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to speak at an Iowa campaign event in 2016.

GETTY IMAGES

Democrats’ next path to 270 Electoral College votes may not run through Iowa. After all, Trump prevailed by a slightly larger margin in the Hawkeye State than he did in Texas. But Democrats don’t have the luxury of simply writing off voters like the ones they lost in Howard County.

If Democrats want to retake the House in 2018, they’ll need to win congressional districts like Iowa’s 1st, which includes Howard County.2 The 1st District narrowly re-elected rough-around-the-edges GOP Rep. Rod Blum last November. More importantly, Howard County’s Trump-curious Democrats have countless analogs in states that will decide the 2020 election: not just in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, but in Minnesota and Maine as well.

One year later, Rasmussen, the cosmetology school owner who previously voted for Obama, doesn’t have “massive regrets” about her vote for Trump. “For the most part, he’s doing a good job. I wish sometimes he’d stifle his Twitter account, but I’m not surprised by any of it. If you watched it, that’s kind of how he was,” she shrugged.

To rebuild lost trust and win support, future Democrats face the twin challenges of, first, persuading voters that Trump is on track to negatively affect their livelihoods and, second, reclaiming the mantle of working-class hero that every successful Democratic nominee has embraced since vaudeville ruled the stage at the Cresco Theatre.

“My dad told me, ‘You’ll never be rich enough to be a true-blue Republican,’” Bigley recalled. “Now there’s too much darn money in politics, on both sides.” His advice to his party? “Get out here in the sticks and roll around with us common folks for a week or two.”

[focusontheeasternlightning-blog]

Bad Things That Happened to New Believers Are Satan’s Temptations

By Titie, United States

I welcomed the Lord’s return.

Since I was little, I had followed my mom in her belief in the Lord Jesus and had enjoyed bounteous grace from Him. After I grew up, blessed by the Lord, I was successful in my career and my family was happy. I was so grateful for everything the Lord had bestowed upon me that I actively attended gatherings and ardently pursued.

At a gathering in the summer of 2003, two brothers testified about Almighty God’s kingdom gospel to me. They fellowshiped with me about various aspects of the truth, such as the purpose of God’s six-thousand-year management plan, the three stages of God’s work, and the significance of God’s name. When they fellowshiped about the scripture: “For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation” (Luke 17:24–25), I realized that the Lord Jesus has become flesh once again and expressed the truth in the image of the Son of man, doing the work of judgment beginning with God’s family; He is condemned and rejected by the pastors and elders in the religious world. This reminded me that the pastor and elders told us to guard against Eastern Lightning at every gathering, stopping brothers and sisters from investigating Almighty God’s work of the last days. It was just like how the Roman government and the Pharisees condemned and rejected the Lord Jesus when He came to carry out His work. This exactly fulfills the words: “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” At that time, I felt brightened within and confirmed from my heart that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. At the end of the gathering, the brother gave me a copy of The Scroll Opened by the Lamb and told me that this book is the personal utterances of the Christ of the last days and that I should read God’s words more in my spare time. On my way home, I was very happy, thinking, “In my lifetime, I am able to welcome the Lord’s return. This is truly my blessing and special favor! I will properly follow Almighty God.”

Afterward, I eagerly read God’s words whenever I had time, feeling these words were so good. Through reading Almighty God’s words, I understood many mysteries in the Bible I didn’t understand in the past, my heart becoming more and more brightened. Just when I was enjoying the bountiful supply of God’s words, Satan’s temptations suddenly befell me.

Temptations befell me.

One morning, just after my husband got up, his waist suddenly hurt so badly that he couldn’t stand straight. Unable to work, he could only lie in bed. Seeing his pained expression, I felt distressed and bewildered, “He was fine yesterday. How could he become like this today?” Then I called my parents-in-law, asking them to take my husband to the hospital. Only a few days later, my daughter, who was always very healthy, got a cough and had a high fever all of a sudden. I iced her forehead constantly and gave her cough medicine, but neither worked. She was still running a high temperature and had a sore throat. I had to take her to the hospital to get an infusion. Seeing that my little daughter kept crying when the doctor gave her the injection, I got saddened but couldn’t do anything to help her.

Misfortunes never come single. The brisk business in my clothing store suddenly went south and the daily profit wasn’t enough to cover the rent. I couldn’t help worrying, “My business has been bothering me, and after getting back home, I have to look after my sick husband and daughter. What if things go on like this?” Pained and weak, I thought, “Why have I encountered so many unfortunate things? Why did God not protect me? Could it be that I put my faith in the wrong place? Before I accepted God’s new work, everything in my life went smoothly: My family was at peace; the business in my store was brisk and whatever I stocked sold well. How come things are like this now?” I was loaded down with these problems. Unable to quiet my heart, I read God’s words perfunctorily. Then, I prayed to God silently in my heart, “Oh Almighty God! Since I accepted Your new work, why do I still encounter these calamities? My husband and daughter both are ill, and my business is bad. I can’t feel Your grace and blessings. Oh God! What’s going on? I don’t understand Your will. Please lead me.”

God’s words resolved my confusion.

At a gathering, I told my sisters about what happened to me. Hearing my words, a sister said to me, “The reason why we encounter these unfavorable matters is because of Satan’s disturbance. Satan is hostile to God and it is unwilling to see people return before God and obtain His eternal salvation. So, Satan uses various ways to interfere and prevent us from accepting the true way. Only when we see through Satan’s schemes can we not be deceived by it.” Then, the sister read one passage of God’s words to me: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God.” After reading God’s words, the sister fellowshiped with me, saying, “Outwardly, your husband and kid suddenly get ill and your business goes south, but actually, it is a spiritual battle; it’s Satan’s wager with God. Today, God’s coming to do the work of judgment in the last days is to save us mankind from Satan’s dark influence, so that we can live under God’s care and blessing. However, Satan is unwilling to let us worship and obey God. So, when God saves us, it trails along behind Him and uses all kinds of methods to tempt and disturb us, doing its best to prevent us from returning before God. For example, Satan targets and attacks our weak points. It makes our family lose peace so that we would fall into its temptation and mistakenly think that we encounter these matters because we put our faith in the wrong place. Its purpose is to cause us to doubt God, deny God and finally refuse God’s salvation and miss the extremely rare chance to be saved. In fact, everything God does in us human is love and salvation; only Satan harms us like this. Yet these matters we encounter are sanctioned by God. God permitting Satan to do so is to make us recognize its evil essence and see clearly the ugliness of Satan that uses various methods to disturb us and stop us from coming before God and obtaining His salvation. Meanwhile, God uses Satan’s obstacle and disturbance to test whether or not we truly follow Him; if we truly believe in God, no matter how Satan disturbs us, we will stand witness for God relying on our faith.”

After listening to the sister’s fellowship, I suddenly realized: These calamities I am encountering are in fact Satan’s disturbance, and it wants to use these to prevent me from accepting the true way. Its motive is too vicious! At the same time, I also understood this: Everyone who accepts God’s new work has to experience the spiritual battle. God’s permitting Satan to tempt me is to make me see through its schemes and know its evil substance so that I can finally stand witness for Him. God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s schemes. After coming back home, I prayed to God, “Oh Almighty God! It turns out that these unhappy situations I encounter are Satan’s disturbances. Oh God! Now I know it is Satan’s scheme. I’m willing to stand witness and won’t forsake You. May You guide me and give me faith.”

I saw through Satan’s schemes.

After my prayer, the emotions I had restrained for so long were a little released. However, after a period of time, the business in my store was still stagnant; sometimes the profit even couldn’t cover the rent. Therefore, I was very distressed, thinking, “Every month, besides our high daily expenses, we not only have to pay the rent but also have to repay the housing loan. We can barely live on my husband’s salary. What if this keeps up?” Unconsciously, I again fell into Satan’s trap. My confidence in God started to ebb away and I felt very weak in my spirit.Right as I was perplexed, I saw a passage of God’s words: “What you pursue is to be able to gain peace after believing in God—for your children to be free from illness, for your husband to have a good job, for your son to find a good wife, for your daughter to find a decent husband, for your oxen and horses to plough the land well, for a year of good weather for your crops. This is what you seek. Your pursuit is only to live in comfort, for no accidents to befall your family, for the winds to pass you by, for your face to be untouched by grit, for your family’s crops to not be flooded, for you to be unaffected by any disaster, to live in God’s embrace, to live in a cozy nest. A coward such as you, who always pursues the flesh—do you have a heart, do you have a spirit? Are you not a beast? I give you the true way without asking for anything in return, yet you do not pursue. Are you one of those who believe in God?”

Through the revelation of God’s words, I realized that my perspective of believing in God was wrong. I thought as long as I believed in God, He would give me peace and grace and I wouldn’t encounter any unhappy situation. When my family was not at peace and I couldn’t afford the rent, I complained against God and doubted His work. I regarded God as an object that I could make demands of. God is the Creator while I’m only a created being; worshiping and obeying God is the law of heaven for me. God became flesh twice to work to save us and has provided for us selflessly without claiming anything from us, while in my belief in God I blindly made demands of Him. I was so unreasonable. Was I at all like a true believer? In the past, I thought I believed in God sincerely, because since I was little I had believed in the Lord, and I also accepted God’s new work. However, today, faced with the fact, I had to admit that my belief in God was only to gain blessings and grace. I was really unworthy of God’s salvation! “Now Satan is taking advantage of my intention of gaining blessings to disturb me, and to make me shun and deny God, and thereby to cause me to betray God due to not gaining grace. Satan is too evil. If I’m weak and passive and complain against God, am I not falling for Satan’s scheme?” At this thought, I had the will to betray Satan and satisfy God. “No matter what environment I encounter, I am willing to rely on God to experience it and never complain against or doubt Him again.” I thought of God’s words, “Any and all things, living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear according to God’s thoughts. This is how God rules over all things.” “Yeah, everything in the universe is determined by God, and changes according to His thoughts. No matter how savage Satan is, it is also under God’s feet. Whether or not I can afford the rent and whether or not my husband and daughter can recover are in God’s hands. I should look upon God and entrust these to God.” At that time, I was no more restrained by these matters.

God showed His deeds.

Thank God! When I was willing to obey, something miraculous happened. My daughter gradually recovered from her fever and cough, and my husband’s waist slowly got better after treatment; my business also picked up. I couldn’t help giving thanks to God in my heart. If it hadn’t been for God’s protection and the timely guidance of His words, I would have fallen for Satan’s schemes and thus have lost God’s salvation.

After experiencing the spiritual battle, I saw Satan’s meanness and evilness and turned around my wrong perspective of believing in God. Instead of seeking blessings and welfare of the flesh, we believers in God should seek truth and grasp God’s will from all people, events, and things we experience based on a belief that God holds sovereignty over everything; at the same time, we should get to know ourselves through the revelation of God’s words and finally achieve changes in our dispositions and live out the likeness of a real man. Only thus can we be said to believe in God. Just as God’s words say, “True faith in God means experiencing the words and work of God based on a belief that God holds sovereignty over all things. So you shall be freed of your corrupt disposition, shall fulfill the desire of God, and shall come to know God. Only through such a journey can you be said to believe in God.” Thank God! All the glory be to God!

[queermequeeryou]

II.

Blanca was finishing her cigarette while walking down the street to a place where her taxi was waiting. She wanted to stop and lead her steps back to her burlesque club. This young woman has made her heart beat quicker and she had to breath deeply to relax the inner heat. She was terrified. It was the third time in her life and she kissed a woman. Previously, it was on stage. She recalled that as she was going back home. Everybody was impressed by how much passion she was able to create but the truth was that she desired the actress she was kissing. It was almost twenty years ago, shortly after meeting Eduardo. Blanca did not know what was happening in her and she wanted to forget. Actress was straight and she did no realized the interest so it never came further. Second time, she was already married. Happy on the surface, she buried everything in hard work she focused on. She was forty than, the other woman was a year older, very elegant and feminine as well. They met in the club once and started flirting. She got herself carried away and it ended in a bedroom. In the morning, she got depressed and panicked. After she got home, Eduardo accused her of cheating because she did not come back for the night. Certainly, he was thinking she did it with a man. He was furious and beat her with rage, afterwards he raped her for the first time. She lied in bed for a week before she got back to work. Eduardo was very caring during that time, giving her food and behaving like she was ill. Blanca though she deserved this pain for letting her engage in a sinful behaviour. Accepting her sexual orientation was never easy, she could not do it. Her parents were homophobic. She remembered one time when she was about seven, walking with parents to have ice cream. They saw two gays holding hands on the bench. Her mother looked at them in disgust.  “Look how repulsive are they. Society is being destroyed by perversion” she said out loud. “There is a kid there! Go away, faggots!” shouted her father and the gays went quickly away. She remembered the rage in her father’s voice and how afraid of him she was. She recalled her mother’s disgust. She did not want to disappoint them, to be hated this way. This thing has stayed in her and every time she engaged in a kiss with a woman she heard these words again. Her father passed away because he had a stroke, her mother she was not visiting regularly, she was living in a small village with her younger sister, also widowed. Blanca tried to avoid her mother in her adult life. She gave her too much pain and also she could not look her straight in the eyes. Blanca hoped they did not know but for years, the first question she heard when she was actually seeing with her was “how are you and Eduardo?”. Yes, her parents have always loved Eduardo despite him being eleven years older than their daughter. They believed he was able to put her on the right path, control whenever she was in their opinion unable to get on well on her own. They respected him and very often it was Eduardo who initiated trips to his in-laws and Blanca was agreeing because she did not see other choice. Tonight, she hoped it did not take her much more time  and her husband will not have any complaints. She wanted to cry but stopped herself. She had to look perfectly strong in the presence of other people. When she got home Eduardo was sitting in his armchair, reading a book in big glasses, wearing a robe. Blanca felt afraid for a moment unsure if he was not waiting for her angry. Also she hoped he will not be forcing her to have sex tonight.  “Good evening, love” he said with no particular emotions in it. “How’s work?” He was not even looking at her, just into the book. It was probably a good sign. “Very well. I am glad that the girls fulfilled the expectations” she replied in a cold tone, like usually with everybody. She realized long ago that being afraid was rising his doubts. “We had two new ones tonight, is that correct?” he put off his glasses and looked at her carefully. “Yes, indeed. They were great. I ordered them for the next week as well” she said while taking off her high heels and putting them on the shelf. “Perfect” he nodded. “Perfect. Tired, huh?”  She looked at him trying to not show she was scared of him. “Yes, a little. You know, this atmosphere always gets me in a mood for sleep. I dream of having a shower and just passing out. It was a long week, also theatre” she said hoping it will sound convincing. “I understand. You work a lot. I mean, you are always like this but sometimes it is better to calm down a bit. Come on, relax with me” he said putting his book on the table.  That was what she was worried about. He wanted her to sit on his lap so she did it with no word. He started kissing her. It was disgusting, he smelt of cigarettes and alcohol. She felt he was already getting hard. Maybe it will be quick and she will be lucky tonight if she will not protest. She closed her eyes pressing them hard. “Look at me!” he bit her cheek. “I want to…” Suddenly he stopped kissing her and started to cough heavily.  “Fuck that!” he said pushing her away and tried to stop it. She fell on the floor but stood up quickly.  “Fucking cigarettes, they give people no pleasure in this life” he stopped coughing finally but he went quickly to the toiled and vomited.  Blanca was still not able to recollect herself. She was sitting on the sofa with her legs close to the face and shivering. If he would come to her like that, she will kill him. When he got back he looked exhausted. “Let’s just go to sleep, I’m fucking tired” he said with no dedication. “I will have a shower and I will come” she replied trying to force herself to get up but she did it when he nodded and went to the bedroom leaving her alone, in peace at last. When the water was drifting on her body, she cried.

*

In the morning, Blanca woke up very early and ordered a taxi to the theatre. They had a meeting focused on a new play they were about to play in - “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen adaptation. They were to discuss the cast and schedule of the rehearsals. Those days, Eduardo was not very involved in the work. He spent most of the times at home or with his old friends. He was usually still asleep when she was leaving their huge apartment. At the theatre, she looked through the documents, assuring herself if all the formalities are fulfilled, if they have no rent to pay or other expanses. Back in the days Eduardo was more into that but he quickly became bored and focused on artistic side of their business more. Currently, he seemed to have no interest in anything, It was Blanca who kept the projects intact. She was at work very early, the sun has just got up but she used to arrive like that often, especially if Eduardo was at home for the night. She drank a cup coffee, too preoccupied to it anything. At eight o’clock, her actors arrived. She has had everything planned but she decided to start differently. She greeted everybody in a sharp tone and asked one person for a short talk in private. It was Carlota Morales, one of the young actresses just after school, she was from Madrid, had wealthy parents and dreamed of a great career in acting. “I asked you here because I want to inform you that we no longer want to collaborate with you”. Carlota was shocked and almost started to cry. She loved that theatre. “But may I ask why? Have I done something wrong? Are you not satisfied with my acting?” she almost shouted with despair. Blanca gave her a tissue. “Get yourself together. You had three months of a chance here. You are not bad, we do not hire actors who do something wrong at a first place. Although, I am not that much impressed to offer you a longer contract” her answer was sharp, cold, with no empathy. Carlota wiped her tears with the tissue she got. “Now, pack your things and leave. We have to start preparing for a new play now and you’re not going to perform in it” she said looking at Carlota leaving the room. “It was good to cooperate with you, I think you have a career coming if you’re going to treat it really seriously. The last sentence she added more quiet and when Carlota turned back to look at her she switched her gaze towards the documents on the table.

*

When she got back to the staff, she was very hard on them, she shouted, she was telling them they were doing the first tryout of the scenes all wrong. At the end of the day she told them to really think on what they want from life, theatre and this play because tomorrow they were about to start a hard work and like that every week for five months and then, the premiere. No excuses - she added and lit a cigarette as the actors were leaving the theatre after a day of practice. She exhaled a smoke with pleasure. This worked, thank god.

*

When she got out of work she got a call. It was Eduardo. “How’s work?” he asked without any greeting. “Well. We got everything prepared for the rehearsals, starting tomorrow” she sounded tired. “I thought about that and I thought we have to relax a bit. How about going to your mother tomorrow after the rehearsals and staying for few days?” Blanca knew him perfectly, he was not asking, he was demanding. Even his tone said that but she decided to resist this time. She inhaled and exhaled her cigarette. “I have a meeting with a new dancer tonight. She’s completely different than everything else we’ve seen at clubs like that and I want to try and invest in her” she was not completely sure about what was she doing but she felt tempted to try anyway. She had a plan but it was quite crazy. “Huh. You got me intrigued. I hoped we can spend the time tonight together as we were interrupted but you know what, I probably need to rest anyway and business is business. Just don’t come back too late and you need to tell me about everything tomorrow on our way to your mother” Eduardo was really interested in what it all was about. They finished talking and Blanca went back to the theatre to refresh herself and redo make-up. She got better lingerie there, just in case so she changed it. Then, she poured herself two martinis while smoking again. It was already cold outside. She decided to go to a gay bar. Blanca was a little bit fizzy already, she wanted to have an excuse but fighting did not seem like a method at all. She ordered a taxi and gave the address few numbers further. She walked the remaining distance. She was wearing a hat just in case somebody would see her. She took it down and put on the counter where she sat getting lots of attention. Some butch, about forty-something caught her gaze. She seemed quite resembling this young woman from the other night, the one that electricized her. Blanca did not gave up looking. The butch sat next to her. “First time in here?” she asked flirtatiously. “Just order me a drink” replied Blanca sharply and took off her gloves which caught butch’s interest. “You have beautiful hands” the butch said touching them delicately. “Yours seem very strong” replied Blanca when they were massaging each others fingers and palms, looking cautiously at them. “I’m a butch, I have to be strong. So my hands” she said and ordered drinks. That did not last long time, they flirted, finished martini and vodka which was followed by butch’s delicate kisses. “May I invite you to my place now?” asked the butch. “I thought you will never ask” replied Blanca and got up. Before they went she got closer to the woman who was sitting on a high, bar chair and kissed her standing also touching her down there or just softly tipping that part to make her more aroused. She was already wanting that so it was not necessary but it could make it all even better. Blanca wanted to have really strong satisfaction from that as she knew the next time might not be quick and she was about to go with Eduardo to mother for the weekend. She had to compensate.

*

It was so good to be touched by a woman after all those years. It felt even better than the first time and Blanca was wondering if it was the break or maybe  she preferred masculine women after all. When she finished, the lady smiled to her and got up to get dressed.“We won’t see each other again, will we?” asked the butch.“Thank you for the pleasure” said Blanca and kissed the woman goodbye.When she went home, Eduardo was fortunately asleep. She took a shower, read a book for few minutes - “Postdramatic theatre” by Hans-Thies Lehmann. It was a reread for her. She fell asleep calm and relaxed and it was strange to her. A thought came through her mind that the next time could come quicker than she initially planned. Not getting caught and mistreated by Eduardo afterwards was different. She did not feel guilty now. It was a strange but refreshing new feeling. She was able to shut her parents’ voices. She was able to get away with her husband’s rage. She just had to prepare everything properly next time.

[comebeforegod]

Bad Things That Happened to New Believers Are Satan’s Temptations

By Titie, United States

I welcomed the Lord’s return.

Since I was little, I had followed my mom in her belief in the Lord Jesus and had enjoyed bounteous grace from Him. After I grew up, blessed by the Lord, I was successful in my career and my family was happy. I was so grateful for everything the Lord had bestowed upon me that I actively attended gatherings and ardently pursued.

At a gathering in the summer of 2003, two brothers testified about Almighty God’s kingdom gospel to me. They fellowshiped with me about various aspects of the truth, such as the purpose of God’s six-thousand-year management plan, the three stages of God’s work, and the significance of God’s name. When they fellowshiped about the scripture: “For as the lightning, that lightens out of the one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day. But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation” (Luke 17:24–25), I realized that the Lord Jesus has become flesh once again and expressed the truth in the image of the Son of man, doing the work of judgment beginning with God’s family; He is condemned and rejected by the pastors and elders in the religious world. This reminded me that the pastor and elders told us to guard against Eastern Lightning at every gathering, stopping brothers and sisters from investigating Almighty God’s work of the last days. It was just like how the Roman government and the Pharisees condemned and rejected the Lord Jesus when He came to carry out His work. This exactly fulfills the words: “But first must he suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” At that time, I felt brightened within and confirmed from my heart that Almighty God is the return of the Lord Jesus. At the end of the gathering, the brother gave me a copy of The Scroll Opened by the Lamb and told me that this book is the personal utterances of the Christ of the last days and that I should read God’s words more in my spare time. On my way home, I was very happy, thinking, “In my lifetime, I am able to welcome the Lord’s return. This is truly my blessing and special favor! I will properly follow Almighty God.”

Afterward, I eagerly read God’s words whenever I had time, feeling these words were so good. Through reading Almighty God’s words, I understood many mysteries in the Bible I didn’t understand in the past, my heart becoming more and more brightened. Just when I was enjoying the bountiful supply of God’s words, Satan’s temptations suddenly befell me.

Temptations befell me.

One morning, just after my husband got up, his waist suddenly hurt so badly that he couldn’t stand straight. Unable to work, he could only lie in bed. Seeing his pained expression, I felt distressed and bewildered, “He was fine yesterday. How could he become like this today?” Then I called my parents-in-law, asking them to take my husband to the hospital. Only a few days later, my daughter, who was always very healthy, got a cough and had a high fever all of a sudden. I iced her forehead constantly and gave her cough medicine, but neither worked. She was still running a high temperature and had a sore throat. I had to take her to the hospital to get an infusion. Seeing that my little daughter kept crying when the doctor gave her the injection, I got saddened but couldn’t do anything to help her.

Misfortunes never come single. The brisk business in my clothing store suddenly went south and the daily profit wasn’t enough to cover the rent. I couldn’t help worrying, “My business has been bothering me, and after getting back home, I have to look after my sick husband and daughter. What if things go on like this?” Pained and weak, I thought, “Why have I encountered so many unfortunate things? Why did God not protect me? Could it be that I put my faith in the wrong place? Before I accepted God’s new work, everything in my life went smoothly: My family was at peace; the business in my store was brisk and whatever I stocked sold well. How come things are like this now?” I was loaded down with these problems. Unable to quiet my heart, I read God’s words perfunctorily. Then, I prayed to God silently in my heart, “Oh Almighty God! Since I accepted Your new work, why do I still encounter these calamities? My husband and daughter both are ill, and my business is bad. I can’t feel Your grace and blessings. Oh God! What’s going on? I don’t understand Your will. Please lead me.”

God’s words resolved my confusion.

At a gathering, I told my sisters about what happened to me. Hearing my words, a sister said to me, “The reason why we encounter these unfavorable matters is because of Satan’s disturbance. Satan is hostile to God and it is unwilling to see people return before God and obtain His eternal salvation. So, Satan uses various ways to interfere and prevent us from accepting the true way. Only when we see through Satan’s schemes can we not be deceived by it.” Then, the sister read one passage of God’s words to me: “In every step of work that God does within people, externally it appears to be interactions between people, as if born of human arrangements, or from human interference. But behind the scenes, every step of work, and everything that happens, is a wager made by Satan before God, and requires people to stand firm in their testimony to God.” After reading God’s words, the sister fellowshiped with me, saying, “Outwardly, your husband and kid suddenly get ill and your business goes south, but actually, it is a spiritual battle; it’s Satan’s wager with God. Today, God’s coming to do the work of judgment in the last days is to save us mankind from Satan’s dark influence, so that we can live under God’s care and blessing. However, Satan is unwilling to let us worship and obey God. So, when God saves us, it trails along behind Him and uses all kinds of methods to tempt and disturb us, doing its best to prevent us from returning before God. For example, Satan targets and attacks our weak points. It makes our family lose peace so that we would fall into its temptation and mistakenly think that we encounter these matters because we put our faith in the wrong place. Its purpose is to cause us to doubt God, deny God and finally refuse God’s salvation and miss the extremely rare chance to be saved. In fact, everything God does in us human is love and salvation; only Satan harms us like this. Yet these matters we encounter are sanctioned by God. God permitting Satan to do so is to make us recognize its evil essence and see clearly the ugliness of Satan that uses various methods to disturb us and stop us from coming before God and obtaining His salvation. Meanwhile, God uses Satan’s obstacle and disturbance to test whether or not we truly follow Him; if we truly believe in God, no matter how Satan disturbs us, we will stand witness for God relying on our faith.”

After listening to the sister’s fellowship, I suddenly realized: These calamities I am encountering are in fact Satan’s disturbance, and it wants to use these to prevent me from accepting the true way. Its motive is too vicious! At the same time, I also understood this: Everyone who accepts God’s new work has to experience the spiritual battle. God’s permitting Satan to tempt me is to make me see through its schemes and know its evil substance so that I can finally stand witness for Him. God’s wisdom is exercised based on Satan’s schemes. After coming back home, I prayed to God, “Oh Almighty God! It turns out that these unhappy situations I encounter are Satan’s disturbances. Oh God! Now I know it is Satan’s scheme. I’m willing to stand witness and won’t forsake You. May You guide me and give me faith.”

I saw through Satan’s schemes.

After my prayer, the emotions I had restrained for so long were a little released. However, after a period of time, the business in my store was still stagnant; sometimes the profit even couldn’t cover the rent. Therefore, I was very distressed, thinking, “Every month, besides our high daily expenses, we not only have to pay the rent but also have to repay the housing loan. We can barely live on my husband’s salary. What if this keeps up?” Unconsciously, I again fell into Satan’s trap. My confidence in God started to ebb away and I felt very weak in my spirit.Right as I was perplexed, I saw a passage of God’s words: “What you pursue is to be able to gain peace after believing in God—for your children to be free from illness, for your husband to have a good job, for your son to find a good wife, for your daughter to find a decent husband, for your oxen and horses to plough the land well, for a year of good weather for your crops. This is what you seek. Your pursuit is only to live in comfort, for no accidents to befall your family, for the winds to pass you by, for your face to be untouched by grit, for your family’s crops to not be flooded, for you to be unaffected by any disaster, to live in God’s embrace, to live in a cozy nest. A coward such as you, who always pursues the flesh—do you have a heart, do you have a spirit? Are you not a beast? I give you the true way without asking for anything in return, yet you do not pursue. Are you one of those who believe in God?”

Through the revelation of God’s words, I realized that my perspective of believing in God was wrong. I thought as long as I believed in God, He would give me peace and grace and I wouldn’t encounter any unhappy situation. When my family was not at peace and I couldn’t afford the rent, I complained against God and doubted His work. I regarded God as an object that I could make demands of. God is the Creator while I’m only a created being; worshiping and obeying God is the law of heaven for me. God became flesh twice to work to save us and has provided for us selflessly without claiming anything from us, while in my belief in God I blindly made demands of Him. I was so unreasonable. Was I at all like a true believer? In the past, I thought I believed in God sincerely, because since I was little I had believed in the Lord, and I also accepted God’s new work. However, today, faced with the fact, I had to admit that my belief in God was only to gain blessings and grace. I was really unworthy of God’s salvation! “Now Satan is taking advantage of my intention of gaining blessings to disturb me, and to make me shun and deny God, and thereby to cause me to betray God due to not gaining grace. Satan is too evil. If I’m weak and passive and complain against God, am I not falling for Satan’s scheme?” At this thought, I had the will to betray Satan and satisfy God. “No matter what environment I encounter, I am willing to rely on God to experience it and never complain against or doubt Him again.” I thought of God’s words, “Any and all things, living or dead, will shift, change, renew, and disappear according to God’s thoughts. This is how God rules over all things.” “Yeah, everything in the universe is determined by God, and changes according to His thoughts. No matter how savage Satan is, it is also under God’s feet. Whether or not I can afford the rent and whether or not my husband and daughter can recover are in God’s hands. I should look upon God and entrust these to God.” At that time, I was no more restrained by these matters.

God showed His deeds.

Thank God! When I was willing to obey, something miraculous happened. My daughter gradually recovered from her fever and cough, and my husband’s waist slowly got better after treatment; my business also picked up. I couldn’t help giving thanks to God in my heart. If it hadn’t been for God’s protection and the timely guidance of His words, I would have fallen for Satan’s schemes and thus have lost God’s salvation.

After experiencing the spiritual battle, I saw Satan’s meanness and evilness and turned around my wrong perspective of believing in God. Instead of seeking blessings and welfare of the flesh, we believers in God should seek truth and grasp God’s will from all people, events, and things we experience based on a belief that God holds sovereignty over everything; at the same time, we should get to know ourselves through the revelation of God’s words and finally achieve changes in our dispositions and live out the likeness of a real man. Only thus can we be said to believe in God. Just as God’s words say, “True faith in God means experiencing the words and work of God based on a belief that God holds sovereignty over all things. So you shall be freed of your corrupt disposition, shall fulfill the desire of God, and shall come to know God. Only through such a journey can you be said to believe in God.” Thank God! All the glory be to God!