#or even the basement coin laundry of my old building

[boyslugs]

yesterday was supposed to be laundry day cause i'm meeting my grandma today for lunch (today is when laundry would normally fall) but Cramps and Emotions wrecked me so i didn't go yesterday, which means i have to do laundry today or wait til next weekend. and theres no way i'm gonna be able to get to the laundromat, do a full wash/dry/fold, drop it all off at home, and be out the door again between now (9am-ish) and 11.30 (when the bus that gets me downtown for noon is). so i can either go after lunch (and miss the met gala red carpet livestream) or go next weekend... i think i'll just go next weekend, i don't have that much laundry anyways

i also have to go grocery shopping so like. that takes priority over laundry considering it's mostly socks and underwear and i have over a weeks worth still clean and folded... but i dont have bagels or other things i can eat gently with my lip piercing

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

Seen Part VI

“I can’t believe you have a laundry closet inside your apartment. You’re just so Uptown now,” Joe teased. He pitched in folding clothes and putting them on hangers with Mary Sue, clean laundry spread out across the bed, and another load spinning in the washer. “John and Angie don’t have this. They’re still going to Mom and Dad’s for dinner twice a week to do wash. Shit, Nanna D still hangs her clothes on a line in the basement because she doesn’t even have a dryer.”

“Did you go home to wash clothes...before? Or did you do coin laundry?”

“I had coin laundry available in the basement of the building, but I went home. Every quarter counts.”

“Oh I know it does. One of the decision makers on this place was the laundry closet. No quarters and no trips home either.”

“Mom asked if I was mad at her Wednesday. I told her you had this in your apartment…”

“Our apartment.”

“God I love hearing you say that.”

“Was that slip up intentional?”

“No. But maybe I’ll start doing that to hear you correct me more.” She pinched her face in phony aggravation. “So, I know you’re already doing Nanna’s on Sundays, but...”

“I love going to your Nanna’s. I really do. I love being there. I love eating with your family and Nanna’s food. I love the way her house smells…”

“It smells like...Nanna’s,” he chuckled. “It smells like food and furniture polish.”

“Well yeah. I love that. I love walking in and breathing it in. Just fill up my nose and lungs with ‘home.’”

“You like how it smells. Do...where else do you feel that way? You ever felt like that anywhere else?”

“That it’s home? No. I mean, here now. ‘Cause you’re here. But no other place feels like home. Well...maybe your parents’ house. But that’s it.”

“I mean that you like the way it smells. Bakeries and flower gardens obviously don’t count,” he amended.

“The art museum. Libraries. Used book stores.”

“Used book stores? Only used book stores?”

“Yeah. New book stores usually smell like coffee, which...eh. Plus used books smell better than new ones. Old ones smell better. There’s actually a chemical paper releases when it ages that...I’ll shut up now…” She bumbled a pair of socks and re-balled them up correctly.

“Don’t ever shut up. Finish it. I really wanna know now. I’m not even just…whatever.” Joe took eight hangers in one hand and hung them in the closet before returning to her.

“Placating me? Pacifying me?”

“The words are sexy. Seriously. I’m not even playing around. Yes. I’m not doing those things. I want you to educate me about old books and what makes them smell good.”

“Wood based paper releases something called lignin as it breaks down over time, and that’s really close to vanillin, which is obviously...y’know...vanilla. Like you bake with or make ice cream with, and so new books don’t have that yet. It doesn’t release until the paper ages. That’s why the older ones are better. Libraries and used book stores. They smell like...vanilla. And there’s a lot of comfort in that. I love walking into a place with a smell. Nanna’s house does smell like food and furniture polish. Because she makes things and nourishes everybody that comes over and she takes care of the real things, the things she’s kept from a long time ago, because she cares about them. That’s nice. Libraries and used book stores smell like people read and learned and loved those books. The art museum smells like that too. History and preservation of timeless beauty and creativity. You know. It smells like...the museum. It has its own...scent. Good, but it smells like something. Your mom and dad’s house smells like cut grass outside and fabric softener inside, and I always thought it was because your mom used a lot of softener in the wash, but it’s really because there’s just constantly wash going. That’s kinda awesome. That’s...home. ‘You can still come home when you need something. We’re still here for you.’ I love places that have a familiar smell that permeates the whole space and sort of defines it like that. My parents’ apartment doesn’t have a smell. Steven’s house didn’t have one. Rugby player’s house didn’t. The dorms didn’t have one. I mean, that’s good, I guess. It could smell like garbage or a sewer grate or something. I mean, those places were clean, at least mostly, but the lack of any kind of smell is weird. When a place smells like...something...like itself...like what’s inside it...it makes you want to stay or at least come back all the time. But places without a smell or with a strange, clinical ‘clean’ aroma to them are just...too sterile. Like a dentist’s office or something. No one wants to go back there. You go there because you have to. Or that fake, perfumey...like the make-up counters in department stores. It’s too much, and it’s almost assaulting, and you know it’s covering over everything real... God, Joey, tell me to shut up! You just...let me run on and on!”

“I like seeing you run. I like seeing where you go.” He leaned back against the edge of the bed and she closed the last drawer, finally cleared of chores until the next load finished. “Your apartment smells like the stuff you wash your hair with. And food and furniture polish. And fabric softener.” She closed her eyes in gratitude for him using her metaphor to tell her he felt like home in the apartment now, and he relished seeing her take hold of that realization. “Anyway, you think maybe we could go have dinner at my parents’ sometimes? That’s what I was gonna ask like...twenty minutes ago when I brought up that you already go to Nanna’s with me. I don’t wanna like...overwhelm you with my family, but I can tell my mom cares that I’m not doing laundry there anymore. Not because she misses the laundry.”

“Of course. If they want us, of course we’ll go. I’d love to go with you. Or you can go without me too if...”

“I don’t wanna go without you.” He reached out for her and intertwined their fingers again. “Mom and Dad don’t want me to come without you. I mean, that came out wrong, but you know what I meant.” He paused at her nod, thinking about how agreeable she’d been since their reunion, and troubled himself over it. “Am I ever gonna ask you for something you’re gonna say no to?”

“I dunno. You want me to say no?”

“Not exactly. Just...want you to know you can.”

“Oh I know I can. I’ve said a lot of no’s. But with you… You really like seeing me run?”

“Yes. Take off!” he laughed.

“OK in school, my adviser told me this thing from improv comedy to get over writer’s block, right? When your negative inner critic keeps telling you no, and you’re stalled, just deliberately switch the no to a ‘yes, and...’ instead. It’s how you get more. And better. ‘No’ only gets you less. So you only want less of things that hurt or defeat you. It’s actually rare that you want less. You tend to always want more, and that’s definitely what you want when you’ve been blocked for a while. More. Well, I’ve been blocked for a while, and I want more...you. More...love. So I’m doing Yes, Ands. I’ll only say no if I want less. If it’s hurting or defeating me. So...you ever gonna ask me to commit a felony or otherwise get arrested? Hurt somebody on purpose? Quit school or my career? Give up the new friends you just encouraged me to make? Stop talking to my brother? Cheat on you? Invest in a pyramid scheme? Do something that makes me need a lot of expensive medical intervention?”

“Of course not.”

“Then I’m getting a no on no’s. You aren’t ever going to ask me to do something I’d say no to.”

“That’s good to know.”

***

Joe, Ethan, and Will set up on Main and 9th again for a rare Saturday playing together. Will and Ethan both cracked their knuckles and played a few lazy flourishes on the keyboard and drum to warm up. Joe took a few deep breaths and worked the valves on his trumpet without putting it to his lips. He rolled his shoulders and rotated his neck from one shoulder to the other before saying, “Start with Sell Out?” to his friends. Before they could answer, a surly voice from the crowd on the street called, “Be careful here, folks. The trumpet player will steal your girlfriend.” It was Steven. Joe registered him immediately after Mary Sue’s stealthy identification the previous evening.

“No, man. Just your girlfriend,” Joe rapidly shot back, Ethan following up with a rimshot on the drum; perfect comedic timing.

Steven’s face turned red, and instead of accepting the loss, he doubled down. “You admit you stole my girlfriend then?”

“You don’t own people. How can I steal something from you that never belonged to you in the first place?” The question was rhetorical, but Steven boiled, searching for a snappy comeback anyway, and failed. “You left her downtown without a ride two weeks ago because she tipped us.” Will couldn’t resist adding an ominous piano riff from the first stanzas of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to the end of Joe’s last damning statement of fact. The minor drama had drawn a small, rapt crowd, and without playing a song, several passers-by had already dropped some money in the hat between Joe’s feet, tinkling with entertained laughter as they continued their evenings out. Steven opened his mouth to speak again, but Joe cut him off, this time with the trumpet. He took out his plunger mute and domed over any formed words with mournful wa-wa’s and nonsense notes of musical mockery, like the adult voices in a Peanuts cartoon. The crowd howled with laughter, and again, before a single song in the set list, earned them more cash in the hat.

“I saw you with her last night. I can’t believe she’s actually seeing...you. What could possibly possess her to wanna be with you?” Steven spat out his words, nearly literally foaming at the mouth with embarrassed furor.

“I see her. You still don’t. Your loss, man. That girl’s gonna be my wife.”

***

“There’s that red hot trumpet player from Main and 9th who I tricked into living with me,” Mary Sue claimed as Joe opened the apartment door and set to resetting all the locks. It was late, and she was in her baggy sweats and bunny slippers again, this time patiently expecting him, however.

“So your dipshit ex showed back up downtown tonight and tried to ‘interrupt our gig.’ I’m surprised he didn’t call you tattling and begging like a crybaby before I got home, honestly.”

She sat up to attention from a complaisant repose on the couch. “Are you serious?! What happened?! I hope you just ignored him because he doesn’t deserve any of your attention or energy…”

“We might have antagonized him a little.” Joe smirked with devilish joy that Mary Sue mirrored, even as she shook her head at him, bemused and scolding.

“It’s not for me, you know. He doesn’t care about me. That’s why he didn’t call me. He just wanted to try and humiliate you. Because he has zero humility in him. He’s shameless.”

“Oh I know he was trying to humiliate me and fuck up our night and maybe shoo us away from playing there at all again, but the shameless thing? Him having no humility? I mean, not disagreeing with you, but he definitely felt some shame today. Not for the shit he should be ashamed of, like leaving you downtown with no ride, or being a pretentious asshole who’s probably at least a little racist based on how he looked at Will, but...he did feel some. Because his evil plan backfired. Damn, he made us soooo much money. Ethan and me let Will take home most of the extra, but both of us still brought home about fifty tonight. Will wanted to ask him to come back again; he thinks we could call off all the money-making...’gigs.’ You infected all of us with that word now…” Joe had put away his trumpet, and stripped off his hoodie and stepped out of his shoes again, leaving himself in just jeans, a plain white tshirt, and thick work socks. He dropped himself down on the cushion next to her. She pulled the sock hat off his head, revealing his unkempt curly hair.

“I think your band should have a name and everything.”

“Will and Ethan and me? Should have a name? Dollar store lawn chairs on the street and Will’s the only one who can read music? We could call ourselves the Dollar Store Lawn Chairs.”

“I think that’s a kick ass name for a band.”

“Sure. Hire us out for weddings and bar mitzvahs and shit.”

“I’m serious, but ok. Laugh at me. That’s fine.”

“We did call off next weekend entirely. Like...it was THAT much money. Who knew a heckler could get you more tips?!”

“You think Steven’s gonna show up all the time now? I’m sorry, Joey…”

“No way. I think he’s had his fill of being part of the show.” He wound a covetous arm around her, prompting her to crawl into his lap. “Can I have a little kiss?” She nodded and pecked him on the lips. “Will you go to bed with me?” She nodded again.

“Will you sing to me?”

“When you kiss me, Heaven sighs. And though I close my eyes, I see La Vie En Rose...”

***

“Hey Nanna,” Joe murmured in secrecy. It was the first time that Sunday evening he managed to corral Nanna D away from the rest of the family for a private conversation.

“What’s the matter with My Joey?” his grandmother asked with concern. “You seem a little outta sorts. You should be walking on air with Mary Sue here three weeks in a row.”

“I guess I’m just nervous to talk to you tonight. About Mary Sue.”

“We love her, Joey. All of us do. We’re all glad she’s back with us. Are you...not...anymore?”

“Oh no, of course I’m...I couldn’t be any happier that she’s back. I just...I...” He huffed, frustrated with himself that it was so strangely hard to bring this up, when it’s all he wanted to do, and knew his family supported him. They always had. “Remember...remember when she was here back in high school? And you said...um...you said...you told me you didn’t wanna put any pressure on us, but that you thought...you could see...and Nonnina Maria’s ring was um…”

“Oh Joey!” she chirped with excitement.

“Ssssshhh!! Nanna! She’s just around the corner here,” Joe laughed.

“Well of course you can have the ring! Nonno and I promised it to you seven years ago. We meant that. Everyone...meant it.”

“I was worried maybe you and everyone else would think it was...too soon after…”

“It’s not too soon if you feel like you want to do it now. You didn’t want to after three years together with her before. It’s time now. The ring, though.” She shook her head and her expression dropped into doleful gloom, pulling Joe’s own face down into a concerned and discouraged frown. “Mary Sue has worked so hard to...she has...goals...expectations now for her life, as she should and… It’s not...it’s not much in the way of say...being appraised…if you...I’m sure Johnny and your dad and your Nonno and the rest of the family would give a little if you wanted to get her something more and better...”

“It’s the ring she’ll want, Nanna. It is more and better. To Mary Sue.”

***

“Smells like the movies in here,” Mary Sue giggled, entering the apartment. Joe had popped two bags of microwave popcorn before she got home. “Don’t lock up or take your coat and stuff off. I wanna take you out,” he said. He was wearing the nicest sweater (not hoodie) he owned over one of his two button-up collared shirts that weren’t flannel, and the wingtips. But still jeans. He’d pulled on a toque and grabbed gloves and a scarf, but didn’t put them on.

“My goodness, look at you!” she squealed.

“It’s not the suit, but...”

“It’s still pretty nice. Like an Abercrombie model, just with your shirt on,” she teased.

“Never been in that store in my life.” He closed his eyes and shook his head at her pestering.

“Unfortunately I have. The atmosphere is about eighty percent perfume. It’s gross. I clearly didn’t buy anything. The pictures on the walls though? Um...they were nice. And you...look niiiice.”

“Wanted you to see some effort.”

“I see it. I should go get ready, too, if...”

“You always look like you’re already on a date somewhere nice. Except when you’re home in the bunny slippers, which is kinda my favorite anyway. But we’re not even going… We can just go. No additional work needed on you, Rice Chex.”

“Dinner?”

“I packed us dinner.”

“Where is it?”

“In the truck.”

“Do I have time to hit the restroom first?”

“Yeah. Quickly. Don’t want dinner getting cold on us.”

He opened the truck’s passenger door for her and she climbed in next to a bucket of Guster’s chicken, a six pack of bottled Cheerwine (a specialty cherry soda that was one of Mary Sue’s favorite indulgences), and two gallon zip top bags of popcorn. She saw he’d taken the time to melt extra butter and drizzle it into the bags. “Now the truck also smells like popcorn. And fried chicken. What are you up to?”

“Taking my girl on a date.”

“We went out last weekend...”

“You went out with friends last weekend. Which you wouldn’t have done, either, if I wasn’t playing. You’ve seen me play. That’s not a date. That coffee shop doesn’t count either. Coming home to you every day is awesome, but it doesn’t count as a date...we haven’t really gone on a date since...a long time ago. And shit, even most of those were with Andy tagging along. So taking my girl out on a date.”

“To where?”

“Starlight.”

“You’re just gonna blow that entire fifty you made Saturday night?”

“No, we’re not going in. We’re gonna park in the alley across the street. And watch the movie from the roof of the truck. With no sound.”

She felt her eyes burn and get wet, but she steeled herself not to cry. “What movie’s playing?”

“Amadeus.”

He parked in his strategic spot, still there from their high school days, as was the drive-in theater, despite so many other changes in the past seven years. Starlight was now promoted the same way most of the downtown bars and pubs and cafes were; as more upscale than it really was. ‘Retro.’ ‘Classic.’ But really, it was the same worn drive-in that survived demolition and dwindling patrons with dwindling incomes by repackaging itself as trendy.

Joe pushed the mix tape he’d made from the classical AM radio station into the truck’s cassette deck. They ate chicken and climbed up onto the roof with the popcorn and the rest of the napkins and Cheerwine. The opening of Amadeus played soundlessly before them with a cobbled together, historically inaccurate soundtrack of more romantic classical selections. “I know it’s not right, but Mozart wasn’t a romantic composer, so the tape is all Beethoven and Chopin and Debussy. Lotsa soft piano. I know that’s your favorite.”

“Actually trumpet is my favorite. Loud or soft.”

“Yeah, there aren’t a lot of romantic classical trumpet pieces, though. And jazz would just be...way off for a movie about Mozart. I wanted to be not so far off it...ruined anything.”

“This is a long movie. How much music’s on that tape?”

“On that one? About two hours. We just get side one twice.” She leaned into him, her head on his shoulder. He took her hand and laced his fingers into hers. “I wanted to take you to a high school baseball game, and play you some 90s grunge, but it’s November. I’m lucky the drive-in is still open. They shut down for the winter December first.”

“Joe this is...perfect,” she dreamily sighed.

“I um...I got something for you.”

“There’s more? Than this? This is already…”

“There’s more. And I hope better.” He took off his gloves and fished the ring from his pocket, not letting go of her hand for more than the seconds it took to uncover his. “This was my great grandmother Maria Disibio’s ring. You can see it’s not a diamond. It wasn’t really designed to be an engagement ring. My great-grandfather Giuseppe had this ring made for her to mark their American success. They thought what they had here...was a success. Her family...her family didn’t want her to leave Italy with him. But she did. Obviously. And when she died, my great Aunt Lucia got her necklace, and great Uncle Poulo got the diamond ring. Nonno Gianni got this ring. Nanna...Nanna mentioned this ring to me when we were sixteen. She saw...she saw a lot then. And then you left, and...well, Johnny got married, but he told Nanna he couldn’t take this ring because I was supposed to have it. For you. It’s got history. It’s been passed down through generations of my family, and...well I wanna give it to you. So I guess I’m asking if you meant it when you said you were gonna marry the trumpet player.”

“Yeah. I meant it, Joey.”

“Yes, then?” She pulled the fingers of her left glove one at a time and slid if off her hand.

“Yes, AND.” He beamed at her and slid the ring down her finger. Neither of them were really surprised that it fit without adjustments. She stared at her left hand and he stared at her face, both ignoring the silent film scenes playing across the street as Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata played on the truck’s stereo. “I love you. I love this heirloom ring. I...shouldn’t even accept something so...priceless.”

“Yeah, you should. Yes, and...”

“Yes, and forever after this.” He drew her left hand to his lips to plant a kiss on that ring before kissing her mouth. “I love that you took me out tonight, Joey, but...I wanna go home.” She caressed his cheek and neck (the beard was growing back, which was fine with her...she loved his face regardless of how often he shaved).

“Me too.”

***

“Hey. Whatsamatter with my Rice Chex?” Joe sat down at the tiny dining table across from Mary Sue. She scowled at an open spiral notebook and an old solar calculator.

“Getting married costs a lot of money.”

“It definitely can. It doesn’t have to, though.”

“My parents can’t give us any money for...I mean...it’s all very Jane Austen, or some PBS period piece. I’m a dowry-less girl. Even if they had money, sometimes I think my mom wouldn’t give me any. And I counted your family and the friends I know about, plus guests, and maybe the same people who showed up to my high school graduation and it’s just a lot. Gotta rent a place...”

“Or have the reception at Mom and Dad’s. There’s enough parking on the street. There is for Christmas...”

“And all the food...”

“My family will make all the food...”

“And music...”

“Rice Chex, I’m IN a band. And I’m the mix tape MASTER. Come on, now...”

“And pictures...”

“We can pass around Mom’s fancy camera!” he laughed. “You still wanna do this, right?” he continued more seriously.

“Yes! But I don’t wanna just...spend here and then not get you a house to play the trumpet in. Or not spend here and seem like I don’t wanna have a nice wedding with you. Or make your family like...work all the time for it.”

“Look, you know if we paid a caterer, all the Disibios will pick the food to pieces, anyway. Especially Nanna D. My folks would wanna have the party at their house. They’ll just throw us an engagement party if they don’t get the wedding reception anyway. You know this. Ethan and Will have already had a discussion about playing at a ceremony for us. You’re calling it work; they’ll be insulted if you work around them.”

“Maybe we should just have your family come watch us get married at the courthouse. That really saves a lot.”

“I’ll do that and so will they if that’s really what you want. But I can’t believe you don’t wanna dance with me to La Vie En Rose.” He urged her from her seat into a dancer’s hold and sang the lyrics until they were dancing to only the matching instrumental music in their heads.

“I do want this. I want the dress and the flowers and all of that. But I want a future more. I want my someday. The good one.”

“We’ll find a way to get all of it. Maybe we’ll have to let the people who love us...do a little work. But we’ll find a way.”

“What if she wrecks everything, Joey?” She didn’t expand or provide any context for what she said, but Joe nevertheless knew she was referring to her mother.

“She won’t. We won’t let her.”

“I want my dad to walk me down an aisle. I want Andy to be there. But she’s...”

“I know.” He kissed her forehead and folded her into one of his patented cradling hugs. “We’re gonna get married.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, and you’re gonna dance with me as my wife in my parents’ back yard, or the kitchen I guess if it’s raining.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, and you’re gonna finish your thesis and get this great job teaching college.”

“Yes, and we’re gonna get that house. No shared walls. Off street parking.”

“Yes, and I’m gonna play you La Vie En Rose on the trumpet every single day, and not play on the street anymore.”

“Yes, and since you won’t be playing on Main and 9th, we’ll just have Will and Ethan over for a cookout or something to play together sometimes.”

“Yes.”

“Yes, and we’ll have a baby. Someday. Probably not as far off as it seems right now.”

“Yes, and our baby will grow up and get real music lessons. Read music. Read lotsa books. Love art and science and learning so much it will be hard for them to choose some kind of path to take.”

“Yes, and...” she stalled, and started to cry.

“Yes, and we’ll live happily ever after.”

“That’s the best Yes And.”

“You ever get blocked on a Yes And, I’ll be there with one. I’ll see a Yes And. I promise.”

“I promise too.”

[blankdblank]

Hobbit Soulmate Pt 44

“Ooh,” You said lifting a large package of bars of soap that were strawberry scented that with a smirk you added to your cart. To go with the strawberry shaped soap trays that were on clearance for the upcoming seasonal shift you’d grabbed all of allowing the worker to then grab the leaf shaped ones to go with the rest of the new home decor they were getting in. Ignoring your body’s ache at your lack of sleep on your first night in the new place until you’d curled up on the loveseat from your former sitting room now in your own living room watching tv until you dozed off a couple hours before dawn.

Bath mats and a fuzzy carpet soon to be shifted for new ones you had laid in your cart that would make for a fun walk home managing all this. Somehow some oversized towels were on the clearance aisle as well you added to the cart that would go well somewhere in your numerous bathrooms. In reaching for an odd mirror coated decoration you couldn’t make out its use your body flinched at Adrien’s voice saying. “You really went fire engine?” His eyes looking you over after you managed to catch the thing you’d hands had let go of then caught his eye finding a hint of surprise he’d frightened you. “You’re supposed to be going blonde soon. That’s going to make you pink now. Good job.”

“It washes out. Only lasts a couple weeks. Been sleeping on a towel to save my pillow. Keeps rubbing off.” You said looking down to the mirrored thing you put back in its spot then moved on luring him behind you.

“How many roles have you had on film?”

“Um, fifteen? Maybe, why?”

“And you really went and dropped four million on a house in New York. Must have gave you one hell of a payday on those films to make you think you were safe to drop that kind of coin.”

“Wasn’t four. And it’s not just my home. My dad’s here and my friend rents the basement apartment and my fiancé when he’s not working in England will be living with me as well. Not to mention future babies that wouldn’t have made it easy to keep by bed and a half apartment I just left. Plus I baby sit for my cousins.”

His brows furrowed in confusion moving to look you over as you eyed a wall of hangers for the best deal, “How can you have a half bedroom?”

“Well it might have been a closet, it did have shelves and bars in it, but it was big enough to fit just a bed inside, so that was my guest bed to go with my pull out in the sitting room if I had a guest while my dad was there.” A pack of single and combination hangers were added to your basket and he moved with you to the supply of hampers you grabbed four of.

“Why do you need four hampers?”

“Laundry chutes. Dad added them. Stairs to the basement aren’t the best for carrying hampers.” You caught his eye saying with a twirl of your finger, “Spiral steps.”

“And who would put spiral steps in a brownstone?”

You shrugged, “Someone obviously with more imagination than you, those steps are beautiful.” Looping back around again some bath salts were grabbed next to go with some exfoliating cream while he grabbed a new pair of nail clippers and shaving supplies coming back to your side when you chose a face wash with his eyes scanning over your cart glad he missed your choosing the period supplies you’d chosen. “Excited for New Zealand?” You asked luring his eyes back to your face.

“I’m always excited to travel to new places. Been a bit hard to reach Naomi though and hear about how she feels on all this.”

“She’s filming in Venice.” That parted his lips, “We are friends, you know, me her and her Mate Liev. She told me she had a dream role she’d been dying to audition for that’s why she dropped from Kong, to have her dream role. If you want I’ll email her to call you if you like. To confirm.”

“So you’re saying she’s fine with you taking over her role?”

“Everyone seems to be but you.” You answered, “Don’t worry, a lot of people have doubts on me at first. If not my size then my inexperience or silence.”

“Be more worried about that trip to the hospital if I was footing the bill.”

That had you giggle and shake your head, “Called Peter the day it happened. They’re all fine, glad I got through my show which was the real test for them.”

“What even happened? Stomach bug? You were carried to the hospital.”

“I had a cyst that burst. Mainly soreness some nausea and fever, swelling, if any, passes in a couple days.”

“Cyst,” he said and inched closer, “That like cancer? Tumors and all that?”

Shaking your head you smirked up at him, “No, I mean broadly they are growths that feed mainly off of organs but no, I don’t have cancer and it was my only cyst. Just decided to explode one day.”

“You have been checked for cancer? I had a grandma went out like that, it’s not good.”

“So did I, I get yearly checks. Dad makes sure we all do. Mom died when I was little, doctors couldn’t find out what from, just got sick and was gone the next day. Doctors said I was fine and could have stayed home but my Dad doesn’t risk it, even if it may worry some weak kneed Producers.”

“Seriously, just, one night?”

You nodded, “Something that went after her brain. Been a few new viruses that sound a bit like what I’ve been told about it. Maybe there’ll be an answer in the next decade, if it’s anything viral or genetic then we can check that route too.”

His eyes were fixed on you in his try to soak in just how terrifying that must have been in the moment and how hard it must have been to get past that to perform and deal with the press on it too. “That’s fucking terrifying.”

“Yup,” you replied with a nod, “Not as terrifying as some people have it. Sometimes you don’t get answers.”

“Sounds like something you hear at a sermon.”

“Obviously we’ve been sitting through different sermons.” You joked back moving on towards the registers ignoring the odd supply of only pink and brown towels left on the shelves you would look into finding more for the bathrooms later.

On the next register over he rang up his few items and made his way outside to see you with bags in the hampers propped on your hip and rug pressed to your side on the walk out of the building. Shaking his head he said, “Hey, where are you going?”

Turning your head you saw him behind his sports car he settled his bag into the open trunk, “Home,” you answered.

Flatly he huffed and said, “Put your stuff in the car before you get hit by one.”

“You know this is going to throw a wrench in your plan to loathe me for all eternity,” you teased and his brows dropped challengingly.

“Just get your stuff in here before I put you in the trunk.” He replied.

“I’m wearing you down,” you said walking to the trunk settling the hampers inside while he took the rug and eased it inside until it hit the backseat barrier he went inside the car to unlatch the seat to ease the rug in the rest of the way closing the trunk in your path to the passenger side.

Once inside he asked, “Where am I going?”

“Take the exit by that fake tree thing.” He looked you over and you said, “I don’t live on 4th and Broadway, it’s five blocks over.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Subway stop over. Not far, Dad liked me in lower Manhattan close to his friend.”

After backing out once the engine turned over he followed the direction and all the way to the stoop he drove, pulling up to park and get out helping to pop the trunk after the quiet drive where he focused on the chatter playing over the radio. “Thanks, for the ride.”

Carefully he eased the rug out that you took hold of hoisting the hampers back to your hip and he said, “You should buy a car.”

“I got a metro card.” You said earning a huff on your turn for your stoop.

Onto the curb you hopped and you turned hearing, “Hey Jaqi,” a smile eased across your lips in seeing Keanu on his path out of his place, the large rug in your arms had him hurry over shifting his gym bag to take hold of it, “I got that.”

“Thank you,” you giggled out to his spreading smile in his glad to help moment.

His head turned to Adrien who said in his move to plop into the car again, “Make her buy a car.”

Keanu glanced from the actor closing himself inside his car to you as you said, “One minute he’s giving me grief I bought this place now he’s ordering me to buy a car and pretending he doesn’t want to be my friend.”

Softly he chuckled walking with you up your stoop saying, “Hard not to be worried about your safety even just meeting you.”

You unlocked the door, “Cuz I’m short isn’t it?”

Again he chuckled walking through with you to the stairs where set the hampers down taking hold of the rug, “Perhaps. I’m gonna let you get to decorating again, supposed to meet some special trainer at the gym.”

“Ooh, sounds like fun.” You said settling the rug on the stairs to walk him out. “Thank you again.”

“No problem,” he said on the stoop, “Place looks nice so far. Glad to see it’s not rubble anymore, old guy didn’t know what he had.”

“Shouldn’t take long, just coats of paint for major changes we can think of still. If you’re still in town in the fall we might have it ready for a dinner party or something when I’m back in town from work.”

“I’ll be there,” he said with a smile.

“How long,” you said halting him on the first step, “did it take you to decorate your place?”

“Never really decorated,” he replied, “I think a home is meant to evolve as we do. Had swarms of decorators and magazines calling on my place when I got on the screen a little bit. Not my thing, if it’s not yours either just be you. Hard to find families so down to earth in this business.”

You nodded saying, “Hard to be an introvert when people know you have space out here. Everyone wants an invite.”

“They’ll learn. Should see the tabloids I get house hunting in the West Coast. Just wait it out and enjoy the fortress of solitude Superman.” That had you grin in his trot down the steps waving on his way to the gym and you turned back to seal yourself inside.

First the bags were left on the steps to lift the hampers you took down to the basement laying out each in place under the chutes to trot back up to grab the soap dishes and soap to spread through the spare bathrooms on each floor. Right up to the top floor where after you hung up your new hangers you used on some more of your clothes the tags were taken off the new towels you dropped down your laundry chute that you listened to smirking at each echoing plop of their landing in the new hamper. While Lee was off at the rehearsals for his new off-Broadway play and your dad was with your landlord and their friends on his floor for a card game to the nursery you went readying the paint cans for the quilt patches once the windows were opened.

Already you’d coated the walls with the silvery blue background and with finer brushes straddling the top of a folding ladder you sat painting your way down on each patch and quote. Richard was working and while back in Russia your grandparents had left you a message that the dress designers were already on the wedding dress your grandmother had taken fresh measurements to double check that they would have the proper ones confirming that your body hadn’t changed since they had made the last gowns for your premiers.

All more than eager to handle this special gown that by appearance alone could pass as another special premier gown to be a bigger surprise for the world when the photographs would be revealed, if you would let them. They knew your family and you since over the years and wouldn’t take it personally if you didn’t blast the wedding day, knowing that even if word did leak that you were married secretly you would share their name even without sharing the pictures. Something they had a great respect for your young self garnering more stout in the business while keeping your head on straight and respecting those who help you along the way no matter how big or small.

.

Towel shopping with Liv came next in a day trip through the final half of the build and installation of the new beds followed the next day by a trip with Jen L to one of her video shoots before she was set to leave town. Each day getting further painted throughout while settling the freshly washed towels and sheets for the guest beds you didn’t have company for yet. Once your platform bed frame with cushioned headboard was put together again in the now aired out bedroom and settled on top of a second rug matching the one you picked for your not yet bought seating section. Nightstands were situated with your aquarium lamp in place that for a moment you sighed taking a seat on your bed again hoping for a sign to somehow make this room feel more like Richard could have snuck in and left you something of his. All of this being what you had mainly picked with hopes it wouldn’t be despised later on when he did come to see all you’d done.

A few more second hand shop trips with your dad and some more pieces were added throughout the living and common rooms, including some cool footstools you would decide where to put later. Among that a cushioned chair to go with your desk you put in your living room on the top floor and a standing mirror you got a tapestry of a horse to coat it when you weren’t using it in your closet to keep from scaring yourself in the middle of the night. All making for fun trips in the van taxi’s for the bulkier items that one driver in particular took a bit of enjoyment seeing you and him chauffeuring each piece home as you got it seamlessly between the two of you. Actually making the spare beds was another task to help you wear yourself to sleep along with vacuuming the carpets putting the sound proof floors to good test. Always bringing your dad on his own sleepless tidying tasks into your path.

Another couple sets of dishes and glasses were added to the mix to be washed and put away to accommodate any guests outnumbering the dishes you did have. Relaxing days to the scattered bits of sleep you had in this restless transition came between the magazine spread and a shoot for pictures including the rest of the cast for the Little Mermaid show in a special book of art to build more money for the charity. Along with a third for Julliard rounding up former students of yours, Lee and Tracy’s year like prior years to give a sort of progress report also for books to build up money for the school. Funds from which partly would go towards students like yourself that was on scholarships to attend, which would be noted in your bio.

.

Pop up baby beds and some toys had the cameramen outside doubling to record your so called ‘Baby Fever’ that a purchase of some diapers and wipes the day prior had set off. Two simple trips and now the press had a new explanation for the home purchase that had stunned them on size alone for your tiny self. Living with your dad and Lee, two notoriously tall men in their own rights, had hinted maybe the space was spent on ceiling height rather than the jaw dropping room count real estate moguls had estimated on by the lot size. But now, through the cameras you trotted across the curb on a couple trips moving your purchases from taxi to your stoop and back again until the same smiling driver had ensured you had it all before heading off with cash in hand with a chuckle to your third thank you for his patience.

One question through a sea of shouted questions had you glance at the asking bolero and Hawaiian shirt clad man, “Jaqi, what about King Kong?”

“What about King Kong?” You asked hoisting up the bags you’d move up to the door after having taken two of the pop up beds leaving the second set on the bottom steps still.

“If you’re planning for a baby won’t that ruin the filming? Or are you dropping out to be a mom?”

In a stunning giggle from you the crowd fell silent watching your trot up and down again to lift the second set of baby beds and say, “I’m not pregnant, I am however baby sitting a few days. Tons of big beds upstairs, but toddlers do tend to roll time to time.” The chatter picked up again to your second giggle, “Careful ride home guys, smells like rain.” That had them looking up to the clear sky confusing them while you shuffled the boxes and bags into the mudroom blocking view farther in soon gone behind the locked door. The weather comment had proven to be right as within an hour the sky darkened and the storm from Brooklyn had moved in to your part of town making good use of your shutters you latched fully to just have your lamplight and the sleep welcoming sound of the rain.

Through the nursery you settled the pop up beds and stashed the diapers and wipes in the empty cubies alongside the blankets and few other supplies you might need. The music box from Canada had been added as well out of reach for any baby. The final play area downstairs in the living room was last and enough to make your dad smile on his way down from watching the game in his living room. “When is Lily dropping her Hector off?” He asked seeing you back from adding some diapers and changing supplies to the bathroom near the kitchen to not have to climb three floors to get to them if needed.

“Should be soon. She’s got that flight at two. But that’s figuring in her time to apologize and insist she didn’t mean to burden me with her child and puppy on a two week ahead notice.”

Lowly he chuckled, “Her husband’s a pilot and she’s finishing her degree and interning at a great law firm, what’s to apologize for we’re family.”

“Apparently she’s spoiling my youth and stealing my free time with her toddler and dog. What she’s told me so far.”

“How many beds did you get?”

“Four, but they’re pretty big, like a crib tent mixture, pop right up and have a cushioned mattress inside so they’re not on a cot. It’s not the tallest one but it’ll save the painful teeter over the side wall for me. Be nice and comfy for them. You are okay with this?”

Smiling at you he settled beside you on the couch, “We are baby and dog testing the house, Hector will have his three cousins drop by tomorrow and we will see if the roof holds. It’s four toddlers, I could manage that in my sleep, so could you. Even the dogs should be good, got the latch fixed on the doggy door so they can come in and out as they please.”

“They were out of changing tables.”

“Old towels will do fine.” In a glance over your face he asked, “How did you get into touch with Kim again?”

That had you let out a breath, “Well, first month in Julliard I had a firefighter in the market shopping stop and called out Kim. When he came closer he said he was sorry thought I was someone’s wife he knew from a fundraiser that summer, said it was crazy how much we looked alike. Few months later there was a woman who stopped me on the street asking if I was Kim again. Every few months I’d hear the name again till I told another fireman to tell Kim Jaqi said hi.” That made him smirk and chuckle to himself. “And it sort of went back and forth, Kim says hi, George says hi.” You wet your lips feeling the sting of the loss of that kind man you barely had time to know as part of your family. “She had some work that brought her from Jersey, hair styling convention I think, something like that. I was out with one of the Queens who saw my doppelganger across the diner. Walked over asking if she was Kim, we sat and had lunch, helped her up after, she was pretty tip-able carrying her triplets still.”

“And she’s getting the restraining order tomorrow?”

“Yes, first thing. Said she could come stay tonight, her train is coming in pretty late, cheaper rates and less crowded for the stroller and for her dog.”

“I can imagine,” he rumbled looping his arm around your back guiding you into his chest, “And her in-laws haven’t bothered you?”

“Only saw them the once when they came to town hearing about the convention thing. Let her crash at mine when the line was down for repair delaying her ticket back. Called my lawyer to see if there was a good custody lawyer for her and George. Seemed to have it handled till he passed and now they’ve been pitching a fit since the triplets were born and hearing she’s got more on the way. Apparently they think their money will win them the babies cuz she’s on her own.”

“We’ll move her in here if we have to. Keep her from those goons.”

“Well, lawyers all say it’s very good for her, she has steady work on that morning Jersey show and they give great leave apparently and will welcome her back and the babies for their daycare center there after the birth. Been supportive. Just needed some good representation to startle their country club asshole.”

Again he chuckled in your settle more into his side, “Well I can only imagine who your lawyer picked and for how hard he slams for you I’m glad Kim has that on her side. Been nice to hear my cousin’s family was still safe when you found her. Now I get to meet his youngest grandbabies he would have loved.”

“I still can’t get over his parents, I mean, he gets lung cancer from the firehouse and helping with the Towers and they just try to swoop in like this. You know I think she was less stunned than I was on the whole suit until we heard the lawyer was going Pro Bono because of George. Told him I’d foot the bill but it just had him so enraged by what my lawyer told me. Even more so after having spoken to her just over the phone hearing how on edge this has put her.”

“I can’t imagine you wouldn’t find people with personal ties to the people lost in every corner of this city. Even further through the volunteer responders. For now though, we have Hector, Clover, Cleo,”

“And Oliver.”

“Wow,”

“Yes,” you giggled out, “the only boy name to match the girls’ exactly was Clem, which would have been Clementine, but he kept his legs crossed little jokester. But I love Oliver as a name, so cute, and Clover too.”

“Yes, Cleo is more regal hint to it.”

Brakes squeaked outside and you both got up and hurried to the door at the taxi there. Under the large umbrella hung by the door on the coat hook there you went down through the open front doors to meet her under the dry cover for you to accept the napping toddler out of her arms and the diaper bag she brought next followed by a larger bag your dad took. “Jaqi I can’t thank you and apologize enough.” From the floor in front of her feet the beagle there hopped out eager to be out of the car following the leash that your dad had accepted along with another bag the dog knew to have his food inside it.

“Now now, you go and kill at that business trip and leave me Moon Pie and the boy. Honestly you’d think I was the Goblin King or something to keep my nephew away so long.” Easing out her smile watching him nestle more against your chest glad he’d be safe for this last minute trip.

Your dad settled the second bag she offered in his grip saying, “Go and have a break we’ll watch the little guy for you, see you Tuesday.”

She nodded saying, “Packed tons of clothes and diapers and,” she said handing over a lunch box, “This should have enough milk for the two days.”

You shouldered that bag saying, “Have a safe flight.”

She nodded and gave you both one last reluctant goodbye glance. “Thank you.” Then shut the door eyeing her son as the taxi drove off and your waving turn. The curious puppy turned beside your dad’s foot to head inside. Up the steps you went ensuring the puppy wasn’t being rushed, and once locked inside he was let off the leash to sniff around the main floor. Keeping hold of the napping boy you walked deeper inside and settled with him still in your grip for a hushed film as your dad handled putting the milk in the fridge and arranging the spare bottles and jars of food she was introducing to his diet after setting the bags on the floor of the living room. The dog food was added to the pantry and bowls were set down, one filled with water as the beagle was out on the patio having passed through the doggy door your dad showed him he had use of.

.

Back against the pillows on the couch you slept with Hector still in your arms until a waking whine ended your rain triggered nap. Before you could blink yourself awake your dad had claimed hold of the boy he said, “Let’s check your diaper and get you a bottle little man.”

Uncurling your legs he had covered you saw Lee on his way into view from his staircase post shower returned from his rehearsal eyeing the baby and dog now stretching mid yawn on the carpet at your feet. “Ah, so the invasion begins.”

Softly you chuckled at his puzzled watch of your dad re-securing the diaper he undid confirming it was still clean then on his belly and butt portion of the diaper used a marker to write an H. Again the diaper was covered by the comfy pants he eased up again to hoist the grumbling boy up to his chest saying, “All clean, now, bottle time. Just warmed it for you.”

He left the room and Lee pointed to his back making you say, “You write the initial on the diaper so you can tell the difference. Or like my aunt you get temporary tattoos for their ankles or backs.”

“It’s just four babies, can’t you color code them to be easier?”

Again you giggled standing up to stretch, “Clearly you don’t have streakers in your family. Some of my cousins used to be naked to the diaper if you turned your back too long on them.”

“Huh,” he muttered and came closer eyeing the toys you had picked, “You went all out. What’s in the bags?”

“Lily packed us tons for Hector. How was your rehearsal?”

“Really good. Getting there. You didn’t go shopping in this did you?”

“Nope, beat the rain.”

It didn’t take long for your dad to be back feeding Hector from a bottle. Starting the distracting conversation that bled back to the kitchen for you to help him whip up a dinner that once across the table Lee watched the toddler in his high chair patting the table with his hands amusedly to your trot to the taxi that honked to let you know Kim needed help getting out. With a grin ignoring the rain down the stoop you went once boots were slipped on heading for the back door you opened seeing Kim, your taller twin, beside the child carrier holding Cleo with Oliver and Clover on her lap. “Let me get these munchkins for you.” The black Belgian Sheepdog behind the stroller popped his head up at your voice and squirmed his way around the stroller to hop out beside you. “Hey Big Papa.”

Into your chest you accepted the two six month olds that grumbled on your turning trot back to the stoop to hurry inside as your dad extended a hand to help the exhausted four month pregnant mother out to her feet. “Head on in.” He said with one hand taking hold of the folded triple seat stroller, bag of dog supplies and the child carrier with Cleo in it. Once turned however he saw her there with hold of the bags for her and the triplets and smiled guiding her to the stoop as the already paid driver shut the door to your dad’s thanks and readied to drive off again. “Come on in Dear.” He said and with him she walked in front of him in a slow pace to ensure her footing in the slick steps. Her tension in seeing the wet stairs relaxing at his arm with Cleo’s carrier resting against her back for some spare support until she was in the mud room and he set down the stroller and the carrier to help her out of her shoes. With Cleo’s carrier inside he kept his hand on her back guiding her in, “Let’s get some food in you.”

She nodded walking with him through the again locked up house she admired along the way to where she found you smiling settling her eldest duo into their high chairs with pecks on their cheeks. Both soon joined by their sister. In a glance between you both Lee’s brain registered the height as the only real difference between you, much like with Lily he’d meet in a couple days, other than the bruised mark on her finger for the loss of her Mate seen in her fixing the clip in her hair, except for the pregnant belly of course. “Lee,”

“Kim,” she replied shaking his offered hand and thanked him for the seat he eased out for her she lowered into. Her eyes shifted to her dog and Lily’s that both settled down against the wall to keep watch over their babies while your dad added Big Papa’s bowls and food beside Moon Pie’s.

With a grin you moved to bring the food over saying, “Now, a few helpings of this and I’ll pour you a nice bath.” Though you paused asking, “You don’t have trouble getting out of a bath do you?”

“No,” she chuckled out, “Not yet. These two aren’t nearly as troublesome as the triplets.”

“Well I got some nice bath salts and bubbles for you with mangoes and peach scents,” you said to your dad taking her overnight and diaper bag he took upstairs. “And a nice plushy robe and slippers too if you want to lounge and pretend you’re in a spa.”

That had her chuckle again, “No trouble with that. Don’t really lounge too much, but the bath will be nice might help to be calming, before tomorrow. Thank you for agreeing to watch them I don’t know how long it will take.”

“No need for thanks,” you said taking the container of milk bottles for her triplets you both added to the fridge and brought over to the stove to warm up with a bottle for Hector who was turned around watching you. Lee finished by bringing out the drinks and once the bottle was warmed helped to keep Hector from dropping his bottle and watched you feed two of the purple eyed raven curl sporting triplets while your dad fed the last upon his return asking her about her week and the trip from New Jersey on the train. All the way until you had managed to eat a bit then head up to start her bath and then help her up to the bathroom connected to the one with the bunk beds on the babies’ floor.

“So this is the baby floor, or will be when you guys aren’t visiting. The nursery is across the hall. You have a nice choice of four queens in there and let’s get you something to change into.” Softly she gasped eyeing the beds she was choosing from with her bag on one of them she opened to gather her clothes she brought into the warm bathroom settling them on the counter watching you add the salts and bubbles to the nearly full bath.

“Jaqi, this is too much.”

“Oh it is not. I do the same for my Mate all the time. He loves to soak too.” You shut off the water and turned to face her saying, “Robe is on the back of the door, slippers are in the pocket, take your time, we got the babies you get some rest alright?” She nodded with tears bubbling in her eyes and folded into your offered hug, “You take care of five babies and Big Papa all day. Let us take care of you a bit for once. So soak up and then cuddle up for bed. If you need anything just give us a shout.”

She nodded and you left her there closing the door to let her soak up her pampering relaxation session before a much needed early night in. Once fed and changed the four didn’t take long to start nodding off and up they were carried to the nursery snuggled into their own cribs covered with soft blankets. Each nestling deeper into sleep at your move to turn on the music box in your glimpse of Kim sneaking in for a glance of the nursery now with actual babies inside of it after an empty inspection of it earlier at her body’s refusal to sleep until they were in bed. Another hug was traded and then she went to test the beds that once spread out helped her to drop off to sleep herself until her alarm clock on the steps would wake her.

Pt 45

[harrysbubba]

Laundry

A/N: this goes from cute to absolute filth ;)

Summary:

* [Y/N] and Harry have some fun in the laundry room at 4am in the morning.

Warnings: pure smut

---

“Shit.”

[Y/N]’s eyes snapped open, mind and body now fully awake and she remembered something she was supposed to do before she fell asleep. Peacefully resting beside her was Harry, his lips slightly parted and hair fallen over his face. [Y/N] gently rolled over to check the time – 4:03am. She groaned and felt that irritating irk of responsibility that she needed to take care of before the morning.

Tomorrow is her graduation and she had everything planned out carefully. Before falling asleep with Harry while watching a movie, she had thrown her outfit in the washing machine and was supposed to take it out and dry it once it was finished. Trying not to disturb Harry, she sits up then slowly makes her way off the bed. Harry stirs slightly as [Y/N] is putting on her shoes. His tired eyes are squinting at her as he props his body on the side of his arm.

         “What’re y’doin’ baby?” Harry asked her in a groggy voice and shifts his hair out of his eyes.

         “Left my clothes in the washing machine and need to go dry them so I’m gonna go do them now, go back to sleep.” [Y/N] said to him.

         “Now? It’s…four in the morning.” Harry looks over at the beside clock to check the time.

         “I know but I need them dry before six at least – takes a while.” She replied.

         “M’coming with you.” Harry pulls the warm blankets off his half naked body and slides into some grey sweatpants and chucks on his own Harry Styles merchandise black hoodie on.

         “What? No, it’s okay I can-“

         “M’not letting you go down to that dodgy laundry room by yourself.” Harry insisted.

[Y/N] huffed and just stopped there. There wasn’t any point in arguing with him and she didn’t really have the energy to. Taking her damp clothes in one hand, the two leave [Y/N]’s dorm and walk downstairs to the basement of the building. Harry was right – it was quite dodgy. There was no carpet on the floor except the cold grey concrete, no windows or sunlight, and one terrible light which dangled from the ceiling that made the entire room dim and eerie.

[Y/N] opens up the dryer, throws her clothes in before inserting a few coins then closing the lid and setting the timer. There was no point in going back upstairs, neither of them could be bothered anyways. [Y/N] hoists herself onto the clothes folding bench as Harry lazily walks over to her and stands between her legs. She wraps her arms around him as he does the same around her waist. The two of them stay like this for a bit, just soaking up each other’s comfort and warmth, and almost falling asleep again due to the humidity in the basement. With his hands still on her body Harry shifts himself so that he is able to steal a kiss from [Y/N].

         “Love you.” Harry sings out of nowhere.

         “I love you too.” [Y/N] replies with a laugh.

         “Look so pretty when you’re sleepy.” He comments and swipes a strand of her hair out of her eyes.

         “You’re such a sap Styles.” [Y/N] playfully nudges his shoulder with her hand.

         “Heeeey, don’t push me.” Harry whines like a child.

         “I swear your five years old.” [Y/N] rolls her eyes with smile on her face.

         “Did you just roll your eyes at me?” Harry gasped. [Y/N] had a slight hint of innocence on her face, as Harry backs away from her and crosses his arms.

         “Nooo come back! You’re warm!” She cries.

Harry just stood his ground and turned his head the other way. The couple were always so childish together and thank god they could relate to each other as well because none of their friends understood any of their humour whatsoever. Just about every time they had a friend outing or a dinner, it would always be them two either minding their own business or on their own buzz. Nobody could really understand them, but that’s what made them jealous because they had a relationship like no other.

         “Nope, staying right where I am.” Harry huffed, readjusting his arms that were still crossed over his chest.

[Y/N] thought about how she could get him back over here and there was one protruding idea that miraculously popped up in her brain. However, it was risky. She didn’t know who might come down or if there were any security camera’s. But her eyes scanned all four corners of the room and there were no cameras to her satisfaction. So she decided to proceed with her idea, regardless of who might walk in even though it was four in the morning. She spread her legs a little bit wider than they were before, the hem of her pyjama shorts riding up her thigh as Harry took in a very strong notice.

         “Please baby.” [Y/N] whines at him

Harry just about went cold in the face when he realised what she was up to. Except he just stood there and allowed her to torture him like that. He intently watches her every single move, her hands shifting from resting on the sides of the bench to sliding down her body and into her shorts and in between her underwear. The situation was completely in [Y/N]’s hands and Harry still refrained himself from giving into her temptations. Her head leans back as she starts to rub small circles against her clit, swallowing hard as the pleasure slowly but gradually starts to build up.

To Harry, this particular state of [Y/N] urged him to go over to her, rip her panties off and take her right there and then. But Harry started to play this out to his advantage. Within the next few minutes, he knew that she would want him to touch her, knowing that her hands aren’t as good as his. Harry was able to work [Y/N] in ways that nobody had ever before. He knew her body like the back of his hand. But to turn the situation around, Harry stood there just watching and waiting for her to beg for him, only then, and if she was lucky, Harry would give in.  

[Y/N]’s breathing became heavier, uneven and a lot hotter. Harry’s name dripping from her lips quietly as she became painfully close to her orgasm. He became just as needy for her, growing harder in his pants had shown it.

         “Oh god – fuck.” [Y/N]’s breath hitched in her throat, the pleasure just about making her spill over the edge until she stopped suddenly.

         “Harry can you…” Trying to regain a stable breathing pattern back, [Y/N] can barely ask Harry for what she truly wants.

         “Can I what baby?” Harry teases her.

         “D-Do something please.” [Y/N] begs. There was a split second before he nearly caved into her request, until Harry came up with a brilliant idea.  

         “Got a better idea – hop off.” Harry says to her.

She trusts his method, jumps off the bench like Harry asked her to as she’s guided back over to the driers. His hands find [Y/N]’s waist, twirling her around as her back is pressed against the drier. Meanwhile Harry’s hot breath is wavering over her neck before he plunges his mouth straight over her skin. It’s a slight form of relief of her sexual frustration, but [Y/N] wanted way more than what Harry was giving to her. Caught up in the prominent thought of wanting Harry touch her badly, his hands dip from her waist to under her thighs, hoisting her up onto the rattling dryer. She was taken by surprise at Harry’s actions, but she gradually understood what he was trying to achieve.

The vibrations of the dryer rattled the lower half of [Y/N]’s body. It was a new sensation, but she learned quick to love it.

         “Now, what d’you want me to do kitten?” Harry asks [Y/N] intently, hands rubbing her thighs.

         “Want your mouth, please Harry.” [Y/N] pleaded for him.

         “Go’head take your shorts off f’me pet.” Harry instructed her.

She complies with his demand and slowly peels them off, leaving herself in just her panties. Harry just about drools over her because of how much he loved her body. Every square inch he wanted to kiss and love on even more the next day. [Y/N] places her shorts to the side and does the same with her worry about someone coming in. Using both of his hands, he pulls [Y/N] closer to the edge of the dryer, but not too much that she wasn’t able to feel the vibrations of the dryer.

As she’s close enough, Harry moves her hands from the small of her back, to her hips giving them a squeeze then slides her panties off. But before Harry wants to please his Missus, he plants more kisses on her neck, making his way across her jaw then meeting her soft lips. Slowly but surely, Harry moves on and succumbs to [Y/N]’s desires.

She props both of her hands behind her for support as Harry kisses her entrance. A hiss escapes her mouth as Harry licks one warm individual stripe up her slit. She hated being teased, but Harry could make it fun and exciting when needed. However at this given rate, [Y/N] just wanted to feel that sweet euphoric release.

Harry starts to become more consistent with his tongue, eating her out like he was deprived of it for weeks. The drier beneath [Y/N]’s body started to take its toll, aiding Harry to help her get to the absolute best orgasm possible. It’s constant vibration shooting through her as she could feel herself coming undone by the second.

         “Baby.” [Y/N] moans quietly, at first.

Harry breaks away momentarily, lifting up his index finger, slowly pushing it inside [Y/N] with ease. Her chest rises as her breath is hitched again, taken away by such a simple pleasure. After a few slow pumps Harry, brings his finger to his mouth and licks off her juices before inserting - now two fingers.

         “Oh my god - yes!” [Y/N] cries in pleasure.

He dips back down into her, flicking his tongue in all different directions over her clit and at the same time, fucking her with his fingers. Times like these is where [Y/N] was so grateful at how skilful Harry was with his mouth, and of course he had other talents that could make her scream.

         “What d’ya say pet?” Harry looks up at her, writhing tremendously on top of the dryer.

         “T-Thank you Harry.” She says breathlessly.

         “S’more like it, gonna make you feel so good princess.” Harry swears by what he says and [Y/N] knows from experience. If Harry says he going to make her cum hard - he will make her cum hard.

         “Fuck, Harry please I’m gonna cum!” She latches a fistful of Harrys curly hair as he relentlessly pumps his fingers in and out of her and licking over and over again on her clit.

          “Yes!” [Y/N] cries out one final time as her orgasm bubbles over.

[Y/N]’s thighs were shaking around Harry’s head, not showing her any mercy in stopping.  She cupped her mouth to restrain herself from screaming because that’s what her desire was. [Y/N] felt so overstimulated that it was rolling into another high, but her body could only take so much pleasure. Her body was rocked by a powerful surge of euphoria and bliss, as her silent orgasm came to a sweet end.

Harry slowly pumped his fingers to try and slow everything down for her. He knew she would’ve been pretty tired, so he detached himself from her before sucking on both of his fingers to get taste her. Still trembling on top of the dryer, the machine below her whirls and the mechanical ruckus dies down.

         “Oh...my god.” She pants in disbelief.

         “So pretty when you cum darling.” Harry grabs her panties from the other dryer, sliding the back up her legs followed by her shorts as she shimmies into them.

         “S’pecially on my face.” He added.

         “Haaarrrryyyyy.” She whines in embarrassment, covering her face with her hands.

         “S’true pet, not even gonna ask if you like the dryer.” Harry said with a smug look.

[phantomoftruth]

An Aspiring Coven Shares the Coin: Quinn’s Flip

The third and final flip is finished! It was a tough project, but I had a lot of fun doing this! It’s been good practice with developing habits and working on bits each day. This is actually the longest thing I’ve worked on in a while, with the three parts together coming in at just under 5.5K words

I would like to do more with these monster girls in the future, especially since I didn’t really get the chance to show off all their stuff yet, and I could realistically see each of these girls getting their own little section as well if I wanted to keep going.

If you would be interested in seeing more of that, please, send me asks or messages, I’d love to hear from you! In addition, one thing I could use for stories like that is interesting victims to give me some extra ideas, so feel free to send me little character ideas you might like to see get preyed upon by some monster ladies :D. 

Read the first part right here

Read the second part right here

NOTICE AGAIN, THIS SEGMENT RAN +1600 WORDS, SO PLEASE CLICK BELOW TO READ THE ACTUAL THING.

EDIT: As always, credit for the coin goes to bigboobiesthatwrite

“Shouldn’t you just-”

“I VOTE DICK!” Both Janice and Quinn turned as Nessa cried out. Loudly. She was currently sitting in a frog squat, pickling some alien cucumber that had burst itself out of the growing garden that was Janice’s dorm room with her syrupy snatch. Each bounce of grey-green hips made Nessa’s overripe ass slap against the floor. As Janice’s room was on the third floor of the building, things were shuddering a bit.

Janice spoke up again, voice full of authority, and Quinn swiveled her head back to face her. “Going out now means the coin is here. I’m not leaving the coin alone, and there’s no way in Hell it’s leaving this room before the flips are done. And given that getting Nessa out of here isn’t really happening right now without people freaking, going out to play means bringing people back here. People you’d have to get fast. People that would be in the same place as the coin. It’d be a nightmare to make it work.”

Quinn looked back and forth between Nessa and Janice, one masturbating in a growing garden and tall grasses, the other tall enough that she had to look up to see more than her stomach, and ultimately let out a sigh. “I guess you’re right.” Her face immediately brightened up, however, transfixed with a smile. “That gives me an idea though! Here, give me the coin, I’ll do my flip right now.” After being passed the coin, Quinn played with it, expertly running it along her jointed doll-fingers.

So clearly, this,” she said, while wildly waving her free hand at Janice’s overgrown dorm room. The motion caught Nessa’s attention, and she pulled herself off the fat greenery she was fucking with a gooey plop. “This isn’t going to work for us. We’re magic. We’re monsters. We need a home base. A hunting ground. A lair. That’s what I’m gonna flip for!” Fixing her posture, standing straight as she could, pale arm fully outstretched, Quinn readied the coin to flip.

“Hey coin, here’s my flip. If heads, make this whole school our domain, us running the show and everyone accepting us and our benevolent rule. If tails, then give us a lair, for the three of us that we share together, where we can really live like monsters.” She flipped, and the coin rang slightly as it spun before Quinn caught it out of the air, slapping it on the back of her hand with a clack.

It was tails.

The effect was immediate. Janice’s dorm room faded away, becoming indistinct before vanishing completely. There was a single moment where the coven of monsters stood suspended in a colorless, soundless void, then reality resumed, rebuilding itself around their new location, their lair.

The sounds of society were gone with the campus, giving way to the music of a lonely, midnight wilderness. The lake was quiet, but the forest was alive with bugs and birds and frogs and things that weren’t quite what they used to be since Nessa made it her pleasure garden paradise. The forest was not the same either, invaded by a wild legion of strange fruits, vivid fungus, and unnamed plant life that only accelerated it’s transformation into a wet, fragrant swamp. But it was a pretty playground, and hard for a human to just stumble through,  Of course, a little magic helped with that. There was even a grotto Nessa loved to use for a bit of extra privacy, and plenty of room in the depth of the lake.

Though she preferred the swamp and starlight, even Nessa couldn’t deny their manor was right where it belonged, in the heart of the swamp, looking over the lake, complete with secret underwater tunnel. The one she’d used to meet up with her coven sisters in the foyer they were standing in now. It was old and musty and spooky, but the mood was just right, all faded and elegant, with fancy stone floors and lots of double doors that made it easy to move around. Not to mention the big dramatic staircase in the center for the second floor. There weren’t any lights, and it wasn’t like they needed them, but there were debates about getting internet going somehow. Well, Quinn wanted it anyway.

New memories formed as the coin’s magic shaped the house to match it as a monster’s lair. Janice claimed the master bedroom on the second floor, less because of any kind of leadership and more to have a room and bed that accommodated her statuesque frame. It being connected to a study certainly didn’t hurt though, and evidence of her practice and experiments in magic and witchcraft came into existence at the same time as the memories of those experiments. The kitchen and the space outside as well showed signs of experiments, with the kitchen becoming a makeshift lab, and a large cauldron resting over the ashes of a wood fire outside. And then there was the library, still bearing a few weathered books yellowed with age and damp. It wasn’t haunted yet, but Janice was working on it, along with filling those shelves herself.

Quinn’s bedroom was smaller, but as sleep wasn’t really a thing for her anymore, with anything approaching rest just being collapsing into a creepy doll-slump, she didn’t mind. Especially given the rest of the house was more or less hers to romp around in. There was a studio that quickly crowded with her projects. Costumes and mixes of pigments, accessories and even puppets dangled from stings from the ceilings. The ground floor hard a large, ruined ballroom, complete with an aging stage. With her and Janice working on it though, she was sure they could come up with something enchanted~. There was even a little gallery with enough room for sculptures, not to mention paintings on the wall. It wasn’t originally her thing, but she was just bursting with energy now, and it gave a little variety over just costume work all the time.

Several sets of stairs going down were peppered into existence around the house, leading to a stony basement layer. Rooms for servants, humble even before time wore away at the few bits there, came into being, along with a cellar and places where the former inhabitants would have worked and lived, doing laundry, a second kitchen, and cunning slits for ventilation that endured. It was fairing fairly well considering the encroaching swampiness consuming the forest, with a bit of dankness that made it feel like a dungeon.

The coin’s magic moved like a tide, pulling away from the newly formed lair, taking root in the three monsters as it set about completing Quinn’s wish for the three to live like monsters. The former college friends were stunned, unawares as the magic dug deep, transforming them all in will and soul to match their new bodies.

Quinn felt her sight expanding, her spirit flying as though it were freed from gravity as her human grip on reality loosened and fell away. She was innocent, and careless, as only the Fae could be. Everything in the world was for her amusement, and boredom the only sin left. She understood now, mortality was something that could just be brushed away, just a thing that happened on the stage. Play. it was all an endless play, with the world as the setting and all the people in it hers to take and change and trick and terrify, outlets for her arts and crafts, pets for her fancies. Fear and awe were the bare minimums she was due.

Nessa quivered as her self melted, touching at something massive and countless and primordial. She was fucking the earth. She was the earth. She was life, wet, squirming life that was around before humans were a blink. They were just another kind of animal to embrace. Whatever taboos she had dissolved. All that mattered was her breeding, her pleasure, her flesh, her children, whether by adoption or birth, until they covered the whole earth. Everything would be green and quivering and alive, and they’d all eat and fuck and breed and birth and sleep and be reborn to doll it all again and again and again and again and again forever and ever until her blood was the one blood and everything was one again, united again in an everlasting dance of life.

Janice felt her hair embracing her body as the darkness that had changed her body before seeped down, staining her soul with haggish wickness and sadistic pleasure. The weight she had felt when blessed with that forbidden knowledge was gone. It wasn’t a burden, but something to embrace. Power. Power was something to revel in. Whether her flexing, steely muscles, her towering black-skinned body, or the witchcraft that suffused her with knowledge forbidden to mortals, power was a delight. And the only thing better than being powerful, was using that power. Not bullying the weak. No, that wasn’t quite right. To deprive others. Yesssssssss. Just the thought of it made her sex clench. To take everything they were, and leave them with nothing. To taunt them, toy with them, twist them about and humiliate them. Drink them down to the dregs until they were dull-eyed little dredges that would debase themselves to lose even more. Her black tongue slid across her sharp teeth, as her face split with a wicked grin as she took control of her hair, teasing herself to her new, sadistic desires.

At last, the magic completed, the coin vanished, leaving the three monsters with their new lair, new minds, and new lives, all thoughts of the coin gone.

Quinn giggled and straightened her dress.

Nessa slobbered, fresh growth growing from her needy body.

Janice picked at her claws, and looked at the former college girls, full of evil intent as she leaned forward.

“The night is still young. NOW, what shall we do for fun~?”

[rthomasin]

The New Apartment

I layer the bare walls with artwork and print-outs and photographs. I cover the poorly sewn, brown polyester pillows on the couch and chairs with mismatching pillow covers, one with a tropical bird, another made of a dark red imitation silk, yet another in linen with crude blue patterns. I place small porcelain animal figurines on the wooden coffee table, and small pots with plastic flowers on the kitchen table and counter. I stick decorative magnet clips on the refrigerator alongside a magnetic calendar, each month a new cheerful watercolor illustration with stylized birds and flowers. I arrange, and rearrange, and remove, and put back. Yet there is an unbearable newness to everything that can’t be expelled with decorations or rearrangement of furniture. 

My last apartment was built in the 1960s, with weather-beaten flooring, cheaply made doors and cupboards in wood that broke off in strips, tiles covered in grout, small, dingy passageways from which mice would emerge. The window in the bedroom was painted shut, yet still leaked water whenever it rained, so that I would one morning awake and place my bare feet down into a pool of water. Over time the walls cracked from as the building shifted, lines forming across the white paint like diverging roads on a map. The AstroTurfed deck had in decades past surely been a bright and healthy green, but had become to accumulate moss and grime that couldn’t be mowed or swept away. During fierce storms pieces of the decks would break off, sometimes entire panels falling off onto the patchy grass below, until eventually the rental company had them demolished altogether. The bathroom was so cramped that a bath mat wouldn’t fit on the floor. The shower head was heavily rusted to the point no wrench could pry it from the wall, and the water that streamed from it was like a cup of water being weakly poured by an unknown hand, the water varying in temperature wildly. Grime built up in the corners of the tub where the water didn’t reach, and silverfish had long colonized the linoleum floor. The coin-operated laundry machine was in the basement, the floor covered in chipped paint, it’s exposed patches encrusted with dirt and dust. 

My new apartment is ten years old, with fully functional windows, a large bathroom with ample sink space, and a pale sand colored carpet. There is a dishwasher, a luxury I’ve never had before, and an in-unit washer and dryer. The oven doesn’t emit a strange chemical smell when turned on, and my cat doesn’t stare fixated at holes in the wall, waiting for small creatures to emerge. When I clean the countertops, they glean, and the walls are free from cracks. And yet there is an emanation that gives the air in the apartment a strange, leaden feeling when you breath it in. Even the objects I brought with me seem to have become foreign, meaningless objects that no longer belong to me.

The drywall is thin, the voices of others carrying out of their own apartments and into the one in which I reside, the ventriloquism of their voices making it seem as though they’re in the room with me, bodiless ghosts. In the corner of the main room, to the right of the table, is an angry, bitter ghost. His violent rage seems to burst out of his mouth in the form of curses, bubbling like carbon dioxide released from pressure. The ghosts in the bathroom are of a man and a woman, and their banal domesticity feels uncomfortably intimate as it echoes through my mirror, their voices in my ear as I brush my teeth and rinse my face. I turn on the grumbling exhaust fan above the shower whenever I enter the room, drowning out their voices with the roaring motor. I draw the blinds, turn on multiple white noise machines that saturate the air with the whirr of fans and the humming of rain, and tiptoe silently through the rooms, afraid of hearing something private, afraid of haunting someone else with my own existence.

[gaitsinwind]

千年時光的幽靈-古羅馬龐貝城 The Apparition in a thousand years - Pompei,An Old Roman Town.

結束今年羅馬市居留的短暫時光，雖然仍然意留未盡，但初次見面留些遺憾，有待來日再續前緣，因此飯店check out之後，半月內不會再回羅馬了，連同行李往中央車站(Roma Termini)去。義大利火車有時會誤點，台灣人一定會討厭這樣，我也滿討厭看板出現還有幾分鐘，但是登車月台號碼就是不顯示出來，還得發呆等月台顯示，我們的台鐵服務和效率其實很好呢。 After my sojourn in Roma,I checked out from my hotel to Roma Termini(central station) heading to my next destination,even not completely fulfilling my savor for Roma,but leaving some uncontented mind was good for my re-visit in near future.Nonetheless,I wouldn't come back in a half of a month. Trains in Italy might delay,which I thought Taiwanese would dislike somehow.I also didn't like to stare at the schedule screen waiting for my platform number to show.As to the time punctuality of public transportation,I thought our Taiwan Trains working very nice to some extent in this part.

義大利火車國內(國際)線可以下載APP - [ Trenit! ]，很好用，可以提早買票、比價、車次、和時間等，如果時間上像我一樣很有彈性，隨時可以撿到比較便宜的價錢，對未確定行程的安排很有用。 There's an App,which is very useful ,Trenit !. You can make price comparison,buy tickets,get the information of trains,and transporting time,etc.If your time is flexible like mine,you might luckily pick up a very cheap ticket price.It is very convenient for travellers to arrange unsettled schedules.

建議下載手機版。I recommend that downloading to your mobile.

龐貝城離拿坡里市不遠，火車是從羅馬坐到拿坡里站，然後在車站寄放行李後，我只拿了一個隨身的小背包，就往地下室去轉乘區間火車Circumvesuviana，直接到龐貝站，下車後走不到十分鐘就到龐貝門口了。 Pompeii is not far from Napoli.I took a train from Roma Termini to Napoli station,and left my luggage at the cloak room.I only brought me with a small bag,and then went directly down to the escalator to the local train station( Circumvesuviana)at basement,from where I took a connecting train to Pompeii station.It only took me another 10 minutes' walk from Pompeii station to the entrance of the ruins.

羅馬中央車站內部Views inside Roma Termini

高速火車-紅箭 High-speed train,red arrow.

窗戶看出去好樣一幅畫一樣的美麗，世間的景色總是在不經意中突現出來。The window frame made it a beautiful picture.I thought beautiful sights always could stand out in a casual way.Amazing isn’t it?

可充電座位，不過要先買好轉換插頭，記得在義大利可在市區直接買，2元多歐元就有，不要被騙了。The seats are equipped with electricity charging devices,but you need to have a changable adaptor.You can buy one directly at stores in city(Roma),about 2 Euros more.Don’t be scammed.

到拿坡里車站了，是大站。Arrived at Napoli Station,it was a large station.

寄放行李前面不遠處有模型展示櫃，因為太精細，所以多看了一些時候。I spent some time in appreciating this miniature ,for it was made deliberately.

走手扶電梯下去地下樓層。Took the escalator down to the underground floor.

順著指示標誌Circumvesuviana去搭區間火車，有點距離。Follow the sign of "Circumvesuviana" to the local train station.The distance wasn’t short.

拿坡里站的大商場，趕車的人不要進來逛。There’s a large shopping mall at Napoli station on the way to local train station.If you are in a hurry,do not come in.

買好票，看好月台等，這區間火車站的月台數很少，我記得好像是3號月台等車，下樓梯前有大看板，照著指示就可以。Buy your ticket,and then go down to this platform waiting for your train to come.I remembered it’s platform 3,or you can find the sign by the stair before you going down to this level.

很擠，竟有人在表演音樂，不要太高興，演完，他們會一個一個上前來收錢，喜歡就給吧，我是覺得很不妥，我在這車廂裡，不禁心裡提高了防備，請小心扒手。It’s crowded,and I was surprised to see some people playing music instruments on board.However,there’s no need to cheer,for they would come up to collect money after they’d done.I felt uneasy though.In a crowded coach like this,I couldn’t help but raise up my guard and pay attention to pocket lifters.

售票亭前面有另外寄放行李的地方，也有電子置物櫃可用，若不想在龐貝過夜，大件行李最好不要隨身帶著，因為龐貝公園是個被保留下來的古城鎮，別說人家不會讓你帶行李進去，要滿城亂逛啊，就算背包也會嫌重的。 門票有包含園區地圖，可按圖遊玩，或隨意。 There's an cloak room in front of ticket booth,where you can leave your luggages there,and there are also electric lockers nearby.If you don't want to sleep over in Pompeii town,then don't bring with your large luggages coming here.Besides,they won't let you bring in large luggages or heavy bags inside while touring around this old ruins.They are additional burden you shouldn't carry with. The ticket comes with a map so that you are able to follow the map or just tour around casually.

票價明細 The fee and its details.

左邊往上走會經過"航海門"(Porta Marina)，乾掉的護城河上是豪華浴場，有三溫暖和冷、熱池，古時候要進城，都會在進去前先梳洗乾淨，這在其他羅馬城鎮的遺跡也很常見，當然也很容易成風月場所。The Gate of Porta Marina is in the left.The moat was dry out already,for how long I don’t know.The bath house in this photo is in the center.In old times,it was common thing to wash and tidy yourself before passing through the gate.It can be proven by other relics in Roman times too.and of course,sauna or bath houses were easily became sensual occasions.

浴場裡的風月圖，古人日常活靈活現的生活，宛若千年幽魂再現， 回頭細數紅塵千萬事。The sensual pictures on the wall of the bath house,which depicted people’s daily life,like an apparition came to live telling us the living activities that happened 2 thousand years ago.

浴場牆上的口交圖。The oral sex painted on the wall of the bath house.

古時就有階梯瀑布的裝潢。It was an artificial cascade,very chic and elegant.

洗澡時窗外護城河風景也滿怡人，古時很會享受，地板和牆壁是瓷磚，這間是三溫暖，怎麼整個概念一點都不覺得很老?人類到底是怎麼回事?The view of the moat from windows looked absolutely fantastic.The floor and walls were covered with tiles,which made me feel so fabulous and wonder quite a lot,how come were ancient people living like modern people’s lifestyle in some way.God,this one was a suana.

熱水池的地下有熱水通道進來。The pool equipped with hot water channel.

今日已沒有功能的護城河床。The moat that has no any function at present time.

城門(航海門)的入口。The gate of Porta Marina.

航海門旁邊的小文物展示館，感覺沒什麼東西陳列。The displaying object from the small museum beside Porta Marina.I didn’t see many though.

主街道兩旁民房。由於每戶都有標誌了號碼，可以參照地圖慢慢逛，只是範圍有點大，腳步可以稍微加快一點，大部分的人來這裡喜歡依照考古團隊所編號碼，一一訪尋比較具有特色的人家，進而想像還原古羅馬帝國時期，百姓人們生活的樣子，龐貝城在西元79年因為蘇維威火山的爆發，整個城鎮被火山灰所掩蓋，當我們今日漫遊其中，猶如傾聽龐貝城千年的幽魂泣訴，細說當年往事一般。

The houses by the main street.Each house had been marked with a number that could be found on your map.Just that the area is quite large,you might need to speed up.Most people came here,who liked to seek houses with special characteristics with the references of archaeological numbers on houses,so that they could imagine further what ancient Romans’ lifestyle was in Pompeii.

Pompeii was overwhelmed by volcanic ashes,dued to the eruption of Mt.Vesuvius in A.D.79.Today,when people walked around in it,which almost like listening to its very own sad stories from a thousand years’ town Ghost.

石板路，鞋子不好，走久了會痛。The stone-plated roads were not easy for tourists’ feet.

宮殿，這地方古時是作為商業交易和制定法律議會的地方，場中的青銅雕像是90年代加上去的現代藝術。Basilica,where was used as a site of trading and conferences of making laws,etc.These bronze statues were added up in the late 90s.

龐貝廣場和旁邊的阿波羅(太陽神)神廟，但你會看不出來，都剩石柱、石牆、石墩，有些沒感覺。The Forum and the Temple of Apollo,which you might be able to recognize with what’s left,stone columns,walls,and stumps/bases.I felt a little barren.

穀物倉庫的文物，是想說大家是有很多願望要許嗎?我在想如果在歐洲，我在地上潑一攤水，搞不好就有人會丟錢給我，哈哈。The Forum Granary.God~people, do people have a lot of wishes to make everyday?I was thinking, when in Europe,if I splashed water on the ground,it would be possible that people throw me coins as well??hahahaha.crazy.

街角一隅,A corner in some street.

廚房流理檯。The kitchen counter.

每條街上隨時出現公共水池，以便民宅飲用和防火，這個上頭有匹狼造型。There was a public waterpool like this one on every street in ancient Roman,for drinking and helping contain fire.This one has a wolf head on it.

好人家的庭院或中庭都有水池，門口都還鋪磁磚呢，兩旁牆壁也都有彩繪，非常費工，這可是2000多年前的房子啊。Good families usually set up a pool in the middle of courtyard or in the garden.You can see there were paintings on either side of the walls,and the floor at the entrance was covered with tiles too.It took a lot of money and efforts to build a house like this,and houses like this one were common things 2000 years ago. 

小型噴泉之家，當時是有錢人家，後花園的雕像據稱是漁夫，中庭花園牆壁都有壁畫。 Casa della Fontana Piccolo ，a wealthy family.The small statue in the courtyard garden was a fisherman.The walls of the house were covered by paintings too.

街道景觀 The street view.

維納斯壁畫。The mural of Venus in somebody’s garden.

雙子座α星之家，整修中沒開放。Casa dei Dioscuri,Under construction,not open to public.

農牧神之家 Casa del Fauno

女音樂家的房子，花園中的雕像是希臘神話中的酒神之父- 塞列努斯 ，森林之神。House of Marcus Lucretius,The center statue,Silenus,a Greek God,the father of God of Wines.This house belonged to a female musician,because her name was found on her room’s wall.

烤麵包爐之家。 Casa del Forno

洗衣紡 。The fullonica of Stephanus，where clothes were laundried.

餐廳，其上有祭祀財神的壁畫，西方古代人竟然這麼早也像我們在店裡會拜土地公或財神，真是不可思議。The Restaurant.There was a mural that depicted the God of business.Ancient Romans worshipped and prayed for Gods of fortune inside their shops like us in Asia,which made me feel incredible.I was amazed.

果園之家，特徵是壁畫以橙樹等果樹為主題，古時候的人都直接在牆壁塗上灰泥，整平後直接上畫，以前的人沒想到用貼的?The House of Orchard,the characteristics is the paintings on the walls were orange trees and other fruit trees as the main theme.They flatened the walls with wet lime muds,and then painted on directly.I wondered,why didn’t old Romans think of using wallpapers instead? hahaha.

黃金丘比特之家 ，名字來自壁畫中一個黃金飾盤上的小天使，如果葡萄長滿花園水道上面藤架， 這間花園我就會覺得最美 。Casa degli Amorini Dorati ，the name of “House of Golden Jupiter” came from a picture on wall,a golden plate with little angels.If the scaffolds along the waterway were full of grape vines,then I think this garden would be the most beautiful one in Pompeii.

龐貝競技場 我去過更好的競技場，這間雖然保存和修復良好，但我必須抓緊時間，所以不想進去了。 Anfiteatro di Pompei, I’ve been to many more excellent colosium than this one.In order to catch with my schedule ,I then passed it without going inside.

競技場過來會到另一出入口，但是我的被包寄在前面，所以要繞另一條路線回去拿，再從原來進來的地方出去。This is another exit of the ruins,but I needed to detour back to the original entrance when I came in,in order to take back my bag in the electric locker.

天氣很好呢，雖然漸暗，我非常喜歡這種樹，義大利非常多這種地中海屬松樹，Mediterranean Pine Trees  ，生得非常的高，怕有6、7樓高吧，遠望上去一整排向撐開的雨傘，好有特色，是屬於羅馬的特色。 Umbrella Pine trees, Today’s weather was very good,even though it’s getting dark.I love this kind of trees very much.Italy has a lot of this type of Mediterranean Pine Trees,which can grow as tall as 6,7 floors high.I watched them from afar,they looked like a row of open umbrellas. 

龐貝健身館，古時是訓練選手的地方，不過我聽到得比較有顏色，聽說也是社會高層獵豔所在，古時在羅馬帝國，有權勢的人會"包養"俊秀和年紀相對年輕的運動員。Palestra Grande， A sports training center ,but what I’d heard was stories with a little of sensuality.This center was also for people with high social status came to pick up young and handsome atheletes as their fostered “sons”.

龐貝健身館展出的文物， 雅房示意圖 The layout of a Roman room,displayed at the Palestra Grande.

古時用的銀器器皿。The silverwares in Roman times.

大劇場Teatro Grande

從劇場高處走下去，旁邊就是四面門廊 Quadriportico  ，再走樓梯上去就是多祿神廟Doric Temple. Going down the stairs,I reached the Quadriportico,where was beside The Teatro Grande,and then I kept walking up the stairs,which attached to the Doric Temple uphill on the other side.

暮色中來到接近入門的維納斯神廟遺址，不過都已經毀壞，看不出什麼，倒是黃昏景色美麗。I approached to the ruins of Venus Temple in the dusk,where was close to the entrance.Venus Temple was so davastated that I couldn’t make out anything,but the view of sunsetting was pretty.

再會了，千古幽情龐貝城，我得要在門口歸還語音導覽，還要趕火車直到下一站，希望今晚入住飯店時間不會太晚。Good-bye,Pompeii,the town with a thousand years’ reminiscence. I had to hand back my audio curator to the entrance,and I also had a train to catch later.I hoped it wouldn’t be too late when checking in my next hotel.

~ End,Mar,2017~

Note: 完整照片組，請查閱我臉書連結。For whole photo sets,please click below links.

https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693356184292688 https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693358530959120 https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693359814292325 https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693360970958876 https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693362360958737 https://www.facebook.com/trevor.chang.587/posts/1693362777625362

[nightmare-afton-cosplay]

Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State

monkeybusinessimages/iStock

In 2017, with a baby on the way, Lia LoBello Reynolds and Colin Reynolds realized staying in the city wasn’t feasible and commuting to and from the suburbs each day wasn’t a life they wanted. The couple got new jobs in Pennsylvania and bought a home in a small town 27 miles west of Philadelphia.

“I just couldn’t imagine being on a train for three hours of my life every day just because I want to work in a city I couldn’t afford to live in,” said Colin Reynolds, a 34-year-old who works in digital marketing.

Reynolds isn’t alone. According to recent data from the US Census Bureau, more people are leaving the state of New York. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Empire State lost 180,306 people and gained only 131,746 new residents. A difference of 48,560 abandoned New York — the biggest decrease of any state in the U.S.

The problem is especially acute upstate where 42 out of 50 counties have seen a population decrease since 2010.

“Much more needs to be done to improve the basic climate for economic growth” upstate, said E.J. McMahon, the Research Director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany. “It’s just not dynamic enough to hold more of its people.”

In New York City, the population is still growing, with the number of people living in the city increasing by nearly half a million from 2010 to 2017, but more and more people are moving away. In 2017, roughly 131 people left the metropolitan area each day, compared with 43 in 2014.

“The thought is, ‘I like it but I can’t afford it here and it’s hard,’” McMahon said of the driving force behind people leaving.

Here, former and soon-to-be former New Yorkers reveal why …

‘We were burnt out by New York City’

After moving to the city from Ohio in her early 20s, Victoria Libertore, 43, always thought she was a lifelong New Yorker. But her wife, Jennifer Koltun, had been wanting to leave for years.

“I was so burnt out on New York, it seems to have gotten noisier and dirty,” said Koltun, 57, also a native New Yorker. “I needed a lifestyle change, warmer climate and a more laid-back environment.”

In 2015, the couple, who lived in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, took a trip to Los Angeles, where they have many friends, and Libertore was surprised by how charmed she was by the palm trees, the friendly people and the old Hollywood history. She wasn’t quite ready to leave New York, but they started to plan for it.

In 2017, Koltun, who oversees operations for an IT leasing company based in Manhattan, told her boss she wanted to move to California. He was surprisingly receptive to it, and she spent a year automating the business so that she’d be able to relocate and work from home.

They finally made the move a few weeks ago, renting a three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in Monrovia, a small city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, about a half-hour’s drive from downtown LA.

Before they started house-hunting, they made a list of everything they wanted, from a back yard and a soaking tub to central air and a sliding barn door somewhere in the home. They found a luxuriously renovated 1922 bungalow that had 21 out of the 23 things they wanted, everything — even the barn door — except a pool and a refrigerator, which they had to purchase. They pay $3,000 a month for the 1,500-square-foot home, $170 more than they paid for a 1,067-square-foot loft near the Brooklyn Navy Yards with coin laundry in the basement and window units for A/C.

“It was loud, it was noisy, we lived by the BQE,” said Koltun, who loves that she now lives by a beautiful public course for golfing, a passion she wasn’t able to pursue in Kings County.

“I will say [our old] building was full of a lot of amazing people,” said Libertore. “Tattoo artists, film people, painters … that vibrancy was wonderful.”

The couple estimated that their expenses will be roughly the same as those they had in New York, but their quality of life already seems much higher.

“New York is like no other place. That boldness, that intensity, the grittiness,” said Libertore. But “life doesn’t have to be so hard.”

‘I can’t find any jobs upstate’

Upstate’s population is especially dwindling, and some of the most severe losses have occurred in Broome County, situated on the border with Pennsylvania.

Mike Gehm, 38, was born and raised in the county and currently lives in Binghamton, but he said it’s time to get out. He and his fiancée, 26, an overnight stocker at Walmart, and 5-year-old daughter are planning to move south in about a month’s time.

“We finally made the decision to just say, ‘the heck with it’ and go,” said Gehm, who plans to move to Lexington, Kentucky, or a smaller town in West Virginia — areas he has selected based on school ratings, cost of living, jobs and landscape.

He previously worked in construction but has been a stay-at-home dad for the past year, in part because he’s lacked opportunities to work outside the home.

“Jobs are limited around here … It’s hard for me to find [one],” said Gehm, who plans on working in construction or retail once he moves. The minimum wage will be lower down south — $7.25 an hour in Kentucky and $8.75 in West Virginia, compared with $11.10 in New York state — but Gehm thinks the lower cost of living will more than make up for potentially lower earnings.

“I’m dropping $250 a month on electric,” he said. “Everything is an outrageous price for us [up here].”

They currently pay about $750 per month rent on a two-bedroom trailer. Down south, Gehm estimated that they’ll be able to get a four-bedroom house for $400 to $500 per month.

Ultimately, the move is about providing a better life for his young daughter. A milder climate will allow her more time outdoors, and Gehm worries about the levels of radon — a naturally occurring gas that can cause lung cancer — in the area. He also hasn’t been thrilled with the local kindergarten and says schools are rated better where they’re headed.

“The biggest thing to me is school systems up here. They need to do better,” he said.

While moving will mean being a nine-plus hour drive from family, Gehm said part of the appeal is making a fresh start somewhere new.

He said: “We want to make it on our own.”

‘We didn’t want to have kids in the city’

Colin and his wife Lia LoBello Reynolds, 38, knew they didn’t want to raise a family in the city, so when they found out she was pregnant in July 2017, moving was on their mind.

Conveniently, that same month they were both offered jobs by a multinational Malvern, Pennsylvania.-based manufacturing company that was a client of Lia’s, who works in communications and was at an agency at the time.

“That was sort of like the universe aligning for us,” said Colin.

They moved to Pennsylvania in December 2017, first renting an apartment in Phoenixville and then buying a four-bedroom home in Glen Mills, a town about 27 miles west of Philadelphia with a population just under 20,000. Their mortgage is $4,000 a month, just $200 more than they were paying for their apartment in the Financial District, which had one bedroom that lacked a door.

They both took roughly 30 percent pay cuts with the move but say with a lower cost of living, lower taxes and potential bonuses, they are still coming out ahead.

They love having a big backyard for their dog and plenty of space to play indoors and out for their 9-month-old son, but living in a relatively sleepy town has been an adjustment.

“It’s quiet,” they both said with a chuckle.

“Our last apartment, if you craned your neck a little bit, you could see the World Trade Center right out our window,” Lia continued. “Now you make two rights out of our development and you see an Arabian horse farm. It could not be more different.”

After living in New York City for 14 years, Lia finds the single-lane country roads and unlit streets a bit unnerving and insisted they get an alarm system, though the area is quite safe.

“Lia could walk around Alphabet City at 3 in the morning and not blink an eye, but we are in a house and it’s dark out and we are alone and she’s, like, freaking out,” said Colin.

Their commute is relatively easy, a 25-minute drive they make together, and their office is all about work-life balance. Everyone tends to commute and leave around 4 p.m. to avoid traffic, which is nice, though Colin misses grabbing drinks after work with colleagues. They both lament how easy it was to socialize when they lived in Manhattan.

“We’re still kind of working on making friends,” said Colin.

Lia noted that she has to make more of a conscious effort to stay up on what’s in and out, something that seemed to occur naturally riding the subway and walking around New York City.

“You don’t pick up as much,” she said. “Whatever the next trend is, I’m going to be reading about it instead of seeing it.”

But overall, they are happy with the move and their new life.

“In New York, people live to work. Out here, it’s really work to live,” said Lia. “There’s something really nice about it.”

The post Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/people-leaving-new-york-state/

[thederailedtrain]

The Magic Shop: Lost And Found [One]

Half a year of working at Vestibulum Venenatis and Kira was still discovering new things about it. It’s not like the shop was a terribly large building, but it held more than a few secrets. The warded off section in the store room that once held Cedric’s grimoire, the protective sigils drawn under the corners of the carpet and the first dollar Cedric made, hiding under Old Reliable. (It was a silver coin minted in the days when the city was still called New Amsterdam and it took weeks of begging before Cedric let Kira see it.)

But those were all little things. Details of the shop Cedric had purposely hidden. How Kira had missed the giant goddamn basement was beyond her.

To be fair, Kira never really had a reason to go down there. No one did. It was absolutely bare, save for a broom Cedric had apparently forgotten under the stairs back in the eighties. Actually, it bore an eerie similarity to the basement they’d found the vampire coven in on Kira’s first Otherworld mission. Then again, it also looked a lot like the basement Toni and Violet had trapped Kira and Cedric in several months ago. Maybe all basements on the lower east side looked the same and Kira just didn’t know because the basement of her building was converted into a laundry room.

Those eerie similarities only kept her distracted for so long. Magic lessons with Salazar were completely different than magic lessons with Cedric. They required so much more of her concentration. Not that Kira didn’t put forward all of her focus when she was with Cedric, it was just everything about training with Salazar required more effort. He didn’t hold back nearly as much as Cedric did, and his ability to command magical spells was a lot stronger than Cedric’s.

At one point, their sparring got so intense that Kira wondered if they’d bring the shop down on their heads. Even Toni spoke up about it. Having a Harbinger hanging around the shop was uncomfortable at first, to say the least, but Kira was surprised by how quickly she was able to accept it. Feeling that dark magic presence pop in and out of her perception still made her jump, but the anxiety didn’t linger. Maybe it was because Kira had grown so accustomed to Toni’s presence in their months of meeting across the battlefield, or maybe it was because she always knew it would come down to something like this.

Whatever the case, Toni was more or less a permanent fixture at their shop now. While Cedric seemed less than enthused by her presence, Kira was arguably dealing with her more often. Over the last few days, she’d more or less formed a one woman peanut gallery for Kira’s lessons on neutral magic.

“Well, shit, Mr. Warden,” Toni commented with a laugh, just after Kira’s face had a very close brush with one of Salazar’s spells. “Looks like you’re just as bad at holding back as you are at matching your socks.”

Salazar’s brow was knitted in concentration as he stared down at his feet. Oh, Toni was right, Kira realized brushing a speck of blood off the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Well, I suppose you’re not wrong,” Salazar shrugged. “But only about the socks. I could hold back more, I just choose not to. Where would the lesson be in that?”

“There isn’t gonna be a lesson if Kira’s, you know, dead,” Toni deadpanned, indicating to a panting Kira.

The aforementioned witch shook her head, too busy working to draw breaths to respond right away. “I’m fine,” She insisted, bouncing back and forth between her feet like a boxer stepping into the ring. Kira even motioned for another hit from Salazar to prove her point. “Come on, one more. I’ve got it this time.”

Far from being convinced, Kira’s response actually appeared to persuade Salazar more than Toni’s earlier argument. “Actually…” Salazar trailed off, hand moving to his bearded chin in thought. Then he pointed at Kira several times, stepping forwards as he spoke. “Perhaps trying to teach neutral magic by defending against neutral magic may not be the wisest method.” He turned back to Toni, now pointing at her. “You- Toni, how about you take over for me? I want to see how Kira does against some chaos magic for a change.” When both women just gaped at him - Toni in what looked like disgust and Kira in bold faced shock - Salazar changed tactics. “Please?”

The sigh Toni huffed was impressively sarcastic, even for her. “Only because you asked so kindly,” She muttered, pushing off the wall she’d been using as her front row seat to the training disaster show. By the time she made it to the spot Salazar had once occupied, the Warden was already standing behind Kira. “Alright,” Toni called. “Now what?”

Salazar placed a hand on Kira’s shoulder. “Just watch this first one, alright?” He asked. Once he got a nod from her, he called out to Toni. “Alright, hit us with your best shot and I’ll try to neutralize it. Your most chaotic magic, if you would.” And back to Kira. “But don’t watch me this time. I want you to pay attention to the way Toni casts her spell.”

Alright, seemed simple enough. Kira wasn’t sure why she was paying attention to the witch without the neutral magic, but why not?

“One chaos spell, extra chaos, coming right up,” Toni called, already beginning to sway back and forth.

Then she began to move her arms and hands together, weaving around each other as the dark smoke as purple smoke began to pour from her fingers. In an instant, all the smoke constricted to her fingertips, and suddenly she was unleashing it.

The spell sailed right for Salazar and Kira, but he was ready for it. His magic lit up the room, dissolving the smoke before it reached him and Kira. Of course, Kira was too focused on Toni to see how he’d built such an effective defense so quickly.

But before she could complain about that, Salazar cut her off. “Now, what did you notice about Toni’s spell?” He asked. “Particularly in the way she cast it?”

“I dunno,” Kira shrugged her shoulders. “Seemed kinda showy, I guess.”

“Good! And do you know why it was so, as you said, showy?” Salazar went on. When Kira shook her head, Salazar looked like he was trying to hold back a sigh. At least it wasn’t that disappointed cello teacher stare Cedric had. He looked to Toni for answers instead. “And do you know why you used those movements to build your spell?”

Toni just threw her hands up. “The hell if I know. I just kinda...do it? You know, subconsciously. I don’t really think about it.”

“Exactly!” Salazar pointed excitedly. “It’s instinctual.” His attention turned back to Kira, but she didn’t really follow. “One thing I’ve noticed about the way you cast spells is that you don’t really use the same kind of preparation other witches do. You tend to just throw your magic forwards. With a lot of purpose, mind you. That instinct hasn’t been fostered within you.”

Instinct, right. Kira barked a single, harsh laugh. “You should meet my aunt,” She muttered, rolling her eyes. “Remember when I said I’m a shit psychic? Apparently it’s got something to do with my utter lack of intuition.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t saying there was anything wrong with the way you cast spells,” Salazar corrected himself. “It’s just a different style is all. The style you use became popular in the western Otherworld community during the nineteenth century I believe, but you’ll have to ask Cedric the specifics on that one. That’s right around the time exhibition dueling started becoming established as a form of entertainment at high society Otherworld gatherings. Duels are frowned upon these days, but the style had some staying power.”

“So what’s the difference? That one’s faster and one’s flashier?” Kira guessed, which only led to Salazar shaking his head a second time.

“Not entirely,” He explained. “While it’s true that the western dueling style is quicker-” Salazar held up a hand, then threw it outwards, fire forming along his palm and instantly rolling outwards to strike the closest wall. “The traditional methods produce a stronger result.” This time, Salazar let his hand move through the air in a zig-zag pattern before slicing through the air. Instead of a burst of fire, this one ignited a wave the collided with the far wall enough to echo through the basement.

“Holy shit,” Kira muttered. She stared at the still burning slash in the concrete in awe. If just those five seconds of build up led to such a big difference…

“I don’t mean to state the obvious, but there’s a real obvious drawback to using this style too,” Toni cut in. Kira nearly jumped at how close she was standing. She’d been too absorbed in Salazar’s demonstration to even notice Toni walk on over. The former Harbinger looked up at Kira. “You can’t really defend while you’re charging up for these kinds of spells.”

Okay, yeah. That was definitely a problem. But it also made sense why her preferred style made a better weapon in dueling. It would make it easy to take out an opponent while they were still building their own spell.

“Toni is...not wrong. Again,” Salazar relented after a few seconds. He even sighed about it. “This style of spellcasting takes more concentration. It relies on drawing from the ambient magical energies surrounding you, which can be difficult to sense. Duel-style casting requires less concentration, but draws entirely from your own power, so it tires the witch out more quickly. There are pluses and minuses to each form.”

“Then teach me the traditional style,” Kira suggested; no, demanded. “There’s gonna be occasions where one might be better suited than the other.” Halfway through her last sentence, a realization played in Kira’s mind. Of course. “And since the traditional casting style works with ambient magical energies, then it’s better suited for neutral magic, isn’t it?”

Salazar’s lips quirked upwards and Kira found herself mirroring that grin. “Looks like Cedric had good reason to brag about you at all those Council meetings,” He said. Kira definitely didn’t miss Toni pretending to gag in the background. She just chose to ignore it. “This is the form of spell casting I want you to use for those neutral magic spells - particularly for dismantling spells that have already been put in place.”

So time to practice it was. Several minutes later, Kira found herself staring down Toni from across the basement once more. It was a challenge to remember everything Salazar had just thrown at her. First, watch Toni while she gathered her spell and try to read her movements. Those would tell her what kind of spell Toni was preparing to throw her way. Then come up with a spell to deconstruct whatever Toni came up with.

While Toni finished her casting, Kira had to begin her own. Seek out the ambient magic floating around the room and pull in in for herself. However, she had to be careful which energies she was pulling in and how much of her own magic she was using. Then she just needed to finish the casting before Toni’s spell made it to her.

This was her fourth attempt to take on the same spell - a basic blast of dark magic that the Harbingers were particularly fond of. Not usually very potent, but the chaos magic infused in it meant the effect of each spell was unique.

When this spell came flying at her, Kira was only halfway through the casting. The basement might have been longer lengthwise, but that still didn’t give Kira much time to prepare. Kira threw her hands up, shield only half-cocked. There was a split second where the smoke dissipated that Kira almost felt like she’d finally made some progress...only for tiny embers of magic made it through her flimsy spell and splatter against her skin. The only thing Kira could liken the feeling to was hundreds of fire ants crawling across her arms, biting her skin.

It took a second for Kira to react, and then she was jumping nearly a foot in the air. She pressed her lips together as she tried to suppress the stupid noise that was attempting to crawl it’s way out of her throat. She still wound up making a few muffled, pained grunts anyway. Nope, this was actually way worse than the first couple attempts, which had only knocked her off her feet.

“Are you okay?” Salazar asked immediately, alternating between glancing at Kira and glaring at Toni.

The latter only put up her hands as if to say, ‘Hey, it’s chaos magic, how was I supposed to know it would do that?’ Which, to be fair, she really didn’t.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Kira said, relaxing her gritted jaw. The pain was already beginning to subside, and it didn’t look like the spell would be leaving any marks behind. All good signs. She looked back up at Toni and got into position. “Again.”

“Actually,” Salazar drawled, stepping in front of Kira. “This would be a good opportunity to point something out. Kira, how do you perceive your neutral magic?”

Now that was a question Kira wasn’t sure she knew the answer to. Neutral magic was neutral magic. It stopped certain magics from affecting her the way they could other people and made it easier for her to dismantle spells than it would for other witches.

“Like a barrier, I guess,” Kira shrugged, face screwing up in concentration. “A shield with a couple extra added benefits.”

“Ahh, then that’s your first misconception,” Salazar pointed at nothing in particular, like he was finally connecting the dots. “Most people I’ve come across guess that neutral magic is just the opposite of chaos magic, but that isn’t it at all.”

That was news to Kira. “It’s not?” She muttered, a little lamely. “Not like, um, chaos and order?”

Given the way the Guardians of Mixba’al and the Harbingers had been positioning themselves, she’d always assumed that there was some sort of balance there. That they were like two great opposing forces. Given the way Toni’s eyebrows were arching, her guess wasn’t so far off of Kira’s. And no matter what defenses she put up, Kira knew Toni was more invested in this discussion than she let on.

“Neutral magic is certainly not order,” Salazar gave a hearty laugh. “There is no such thing as decreasing energy in a system. Magic may defy certain laws humans have set in place, but it cannot defy the laws written into the universe. I may have just missed the definition of entropy, but I lived through enough discoveries in physics to follow them closely. For fun.” Well, Salazar definitely had a different definition of fun than Kira did.

“So if it’s not cancelling out other magic, then what is neutral magic anyway?” Kira made a face, puzzling through all this new information Salazar had just thrown at her. The science definitely wasn’t helping make this any easier.

“The simplest explanation I can come up with is that it’s the equivalent of arming yourself with a magical jackhammer,” Salazar explained. “The ability to weave your magic into preexisting magics until they break apart. Increasing the energy of the system much like chaos magic. Perhaps that’s why we’re so commonly pitted against one another; not because of how dissimilar we are, but how alike our power is instead.”

Well that certainly changed things. Not everything, but enough of it to matter. “Again,” Kira said, a new confidence in her voice.

Confidence she didn’t get the chance to prove. Before Toni could even begin prepping a spell, the sound of footsteps descending the steps made everyone come to a halt. Cedric didn’t even bother with a smile or a hello, just a nod in each witch’s direction.

“Gus is back from the lab,” He explained by way of greeting. “Meeting begins in five.”

Toni shrugged and headed for the steps while Salazar turned to place a hand on Kira’s shoulder. The way he beamed made pride begin to well in Kira’s chest. It wasn’t like the pride she felt whenever Cedric complimented her. Besides, he gave so many compliments when he was flirting with her anyway. This felt harder won, and she was all the more victorious for it.

Salazar didn’t need to say anything to let her know what that touch meant. He only had to nod and Kira pressed her lips tight to keep from showing too many teeth when she smiled back. And with that he was off, following after Toni.

That left Cedric and Kira in the basement. Together. Alone.

He was staring at her with an odd look on his face. One Kira was sure she’d seen on him before, though she wasn’t sure where. It was also the first time Cedric had looked at her directly for this long in what felt like weeks. Kira had to bite her lip with the effort it took not to mention that out loud.

Instead, she settled for a simple, droning, “What?”

“It’s nothing,” Cedric said, a little too quickly for it to really be nothing. He seemed to notice this too, his face faulting for a second before he looked up the stairs. Nope, it really was just the two of them in there. “Just...you seem to be getting along with Salazar plenty well.”

And that’s when Kira figured it out. Villa Berulia, that’s where Kira had seen this look last. It was the same look Cedric had been wearing on the way back to the bathrooms with Kira during her date with Ray.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Kira asked before she could stop herself. It wasn’t really a question she needed the answer to. The answer was as plain as the panic on Cedric’s face.

“I’m not jealous of Salazar,” Cedric was doing a really poor job of not laughing in embarrassment, but to his credit, he only stumbled once in that sentence. The next one was a lot more composed. “I supposed I’m just surprised. You two have gotten close very quickly.”

Kira shook her head as she stepped up to where Cedric was waiting at the bottom step. “I’m going to stop you right there,” She looked him dead in the eye. “It’s not like that at all. We just have a lot in common and he’s a very good teacher. And I definitely don’t feel the same way about him that I-” Do about you, but those words were never going to leave Kira’s lips. Looked like they didn’t need to. Cedric’s stare was just as wide-eyed as Kira’s. Shit, she needed to cover for this quickly. “Besides, he’s gonna be married soon. And he’s, like, four times my age. That’s just weird.”

Just like that, the tension was gone. Cedric laughed and it was only then that Kira caught what she’d said. She had a pretty good guess as to what the next thing out of Cedric’s mouth was going to be. “And I’m nearly fifty times yours,” He smirked. “What do you think of me?”

Most of the time Kira nearly forgot just how old Cedric was. He played it off so well. But then there were these moments - a lot more lately, which might’ve been due to their worsening situation or the fact that Kira could just read him better now - that Kira remembered just how much he must’ve seen in his time on Earth. It was reflected back in his eyes. Now wasn’t one of those times. Cedric’s eyes were twinkling like they hadn’t in ages. It lit up his whole face in a way that burned into the space behind Kira’s lids. But she didn’t mind this image of Cedric sticking in her mind. This is how she wanted to remember his face.

And as for what she thought of him.

Oh, this was a trap and Kira knew it. There was no way she could tell him that she didn’t think he was too old for her without him taking it the wrong way. And there was no way she could tell him that he wasn’t without also telling in the truth.

So she just opted for roll of her eyes and a droll, “Alright, knock it off. Do we have a meeting or not?”

[gillespialfredoe01806ld]

Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State

monkeybusinessimages/iStock

In 2017, with a baby on the way, Lia LoBello Reynolds and Colin Reynolds realized staying in the city wasn’t feasible and commuting to and from the suburbs each day wasn’t a life they wanted. The couple got new jobs in Pennsylvania and bought a home in a small town 27 miles west of Philadelphia.

“I just couldn’t imagine being on a train for three hours of my life every day just because I want to work in a city I couldn’t afford to live in,” said Colin Reynolds, a 34-year-old who works in digital marketing.

Reynolds isn’t alone. According to recent data from the US Census Bureau, more people are leaving the state of New York. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Empire State lost 180,306 people and gained only 131,746 new residents. A difference of 48,560 abandoned New York — the biggest decrease of any state in the U.S.

The problem is especially acute upstate where 42 out of 50 counties have seen a population decrease since 2010.

“Much more needs to be done to improve the basic climate for economic growth” upstate, said E.J. McMahon, the Research Director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany. “It’s just not dynamic enough to hold more of its people.”

In New York City, the population is still growing, with the number of people living in the city increasing by nearly half a million from 2010 to 2017, but more and more people are moving away. In 2017, roughly 131 people left the metropolitan area each day, compared with 43 in 2014.

“The thought is, ‘I like it but I can’t afford it here and it’s hard,’” McMahon said of the driving force behind people leaving.

Here, former and soon-to-be former New Yorkers reveal why …

‘We were burnt out by New York City’

After moving to the city from Ohio in her early 20s, Victoria Libertore, 43, always thought she was a lifelong New Yorker. But her wife, Jennifer Koltun, had been wanting to leave for years.

“I was so burnt out on New York, it seems to have gotten noisier and dirty,” said Koltun, 57, also a native New Yorker. “I needed a lifestyle change, warmer climate and a more laid-back environment.”

In 2015, the couple, who lived in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, took a trip to Los Angeles, where they have many friends, and Libertore was surprised by how charmed she was by the palm trees, the friendly people and the old Hollywood history. She wasn’t quite ready to leave New York, but they started to plan for it.

In 2017, Koltun, who oversees operations for an IT leasing company based in Manhattan, told her boss she wanted to move to California. He was surprisingly receptive to it, and she spent a year automating the business so that she’d be able to relocate and work from home.

They finally made the move a few weeks ago, renting a three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in Monrovia, a small city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, about a half-hour’s drive from downtown LA.

Before they started house-hunting, they made a list of everything they wanted, from a back yard and a soaking tub to central air and a sliding barn door somewhere in the home. They found a luxuriously renovated 1922 bungalow that had 21 out of the 23 things they wanted, everything — even the barn door — except a pool and a refrigerator, which they had to purchase. They pay $3,000 a month for the 1,500-square-foot home, $170 more than they paid for a 1,067-square-foot loft near the Brooklyn Navy Yards with coin laundry in the basement and window units for A/C.

“It was loud, it was noisy, we lived by the BQE,” said Koltun, who loves that she now lives by a beautiful public course for golfing, a passion she wasn’t able to pursue in Kings County.

“I will say [our old] building was full of a lot of amazing people,” said Libertore. “Tattoo artists, film people, painters … that vibrancy was wonderful.”

The couple estimated that their expenses will be roughly the same as those they had in New York, but their quality of life already seems much higher.

“New York is like no other place. That boldness, that intensity, the grittiness,” said Libertore. But “life doesn’t have to be so hard.”

‘I can’t find any jobs upstate’

Upstate’s population is especially dwindling, and some of the most severe losses have occurred in Broome County, situated on the border with Pennsylvania.

Mike Gehm, 38, was born and raised in the county and currently lives in Binghamton, but he said it’s time to get out. He and his fiancée, 26, an overnight stocker at Walmart, and 5-year-old daughter are planning to move south in about a month’s time.

“We finally made the decision to just say, ‘the heck with it’ and go,” said Gehm, who plans to move to Lexington, Kentucky, or a smaller town in West Virginia — areas he has selected based on school ratings, cost of living, jobs and landscape.

He previously worked in construction but has been a stay-at-home dad for the past year, in part because he’s lacked opportunities to work outside the home.

“Jobs are limited around here … It’s hard for me to find [one],” said Gehm, who plans on working in construction or retail once he moves. The minimum wage will be lower down south — $7.25 an hour in Kentucky and $8.75 in West Virginia, compared with $11.10 in New York state — but Gehm thinks the lower cost of living will more than make up for potentially lower earnings.

“I’m dropping $250 a month on electric,” he said. “Everything is an outrageous price for us [up here].”

They currently pay about $750 per month rent on a two-bedroom trailer. Down south, Gehm estimated that they’ll be able to get a four-bedroom house for $400 to $500 per month.

Ultimately, the move is about providing a better life for his young daughter. A milder climate will allow her more time outdoors, and Gehm worries about the levels of radon — a naturally occurring gas that can cause lung cancer — in the area. He also hasn’t been thrilled with the local kindergarten and says schools are rated better where they’re headed.

“The biggest thing to me is school systems up here. They need to do better,” he said.

While moving will mean being a nine-plus hour drive from family, Gehm said part of the appeal is making a fresh start somewhere new.

He said: “We want to make it on our own.”

‘We didn’t want to have kids in the city’

Colin and his wife Lia LoBello Reynolds, 38, knew they didn’t want to raise a family in the city, so when they found out she was pregnant in July 2017, moving was on their mind.

Conveniently, that same month they were both offered jobs by a multinational Malvern, Pennsylvania.-based manufacturing company that was a client of Lia’s, who works in communications and was at an agency at the time.

“That was sort of like the universe aligning for us,” said Colin.

They moved to Pennsylvania in December 2017, first renting an apartment in Phoenixville and then buying a four-bedroom home in Glen Mills, a town about 27 miles west of Philadelphia with a population just under 20,000. Their mortgage is $4,000 a month, just $200 more than they were paying for their apartment in the Financial District, which had one bedroom that lacked a door.

They both took roughly 30 percent pay cuts with the move but say with a lower cost of living, lower taxes and potential bonuses, they are still coming out ahead.

They love having a big backyard for their dog and plenty of space to play indoors and out for their 9-month-old son, but living in a relatively sleepy town has been an adjustment.

“It’s quiet,” they both said with a chuckle.

“Our last apartment, if you craned your neck a little bit, you could see the World Trade Center right out our window,” Lia continued. “Now you make two rights out of our development and you see an Arabian horse farm. It could not be more different.”

After living in New York City for 14 years, Lia finds the single-lane country roads and unlit streets a bit unnerving and insisted they get an alarm system, though the area is quite safe.

“Lia could walk around Alphabet City at 3 in the morning and not blink an eye, but we are in a house and it’s dark out and we are alone and she’s, like, freaking out,” said Colin.

Their commute is relatively easy, a 25-minute drive they make together, and their office is all about work-life balance. Everyone tends to commute and leave around 4 p.m. to avoid traffic, which is nice, though Colin misses grabbing drinks after work with colleagues. They both lament how easy it was to socialize when they lived in Manhattan.

“We’re still kind of working on making friends,” said Colin.

Lia noted that she has to make more of a conscious effort to stay up on what’s in and out, something that seemed to occur naturally riding the subway and walking around New York City.

“You don’t pick up as much,” she said. “Whatever the next trend is, I’m going to be reading about it instead of seeing it.”

But overall, they are happy with the move and their new life.

“In New York, people live to work. Out here, it’s really work to live,” said Lia. “There’s something really nice about it.”

The post Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from DIYS http://bit.ly/2sDEm9q

[davidoespailla]

Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State

monkeybusinessimages/iStock

In 2017, with a baby on the way, Lia LoBello Reynolds and Colin Reynolds realized staying in the city wasn’t feasible and commuting to and from the suburbs each day wasn’t a life they wanted. The couple got new jobs in Pennsylvania and bought a home in a small town 27 miles west of Philadelphia.

“I just couldn’t imagine being on a train for three hours of my life every day just because I want to work in a city I couldn’t afford to live in,” said Colin Reynolds, a 34-year-old who works in digital marketing.

Reynolds isn’t alone. According to recent data from the US Census Bureau, more people are leaving the state of New York. Between July 2017 and July 2018, the Empire State lost 180,306 people and gained only 131,746 new residents. A difference of 48,560 abandoned New York — the biggest decrease of any state in the U.S.

The problem is especially acute upstate where 42 out of 50 counties have seen a population decrease since 2010.

“Much more needs to be done to improve the basic climate for economic growth” upstate, said E.J. McMahon, the Research Director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a conservative think tank based in Albany. “It’s just not dynamic enough to hold more of its people.”

In New York City, the population is still growing, with the number of people living in the city increasing by nearly half a million from 2010 to 2017, but more and more people are moving away. In 2017, roughly 131 people left the metropolitan area each day, compared with 43 in 2014.

“The thought is, ‘I like it but I can’t afford it here and it’s hard,’” McMahon said of the driving force behind people leaving.

Here, former and soon-to-be former New Yorkers reveal why …

‘We were burnt out by New York City’

After moving to the city from Ohio in her early 20s, Victoria Libertore, 43, always thought she was a lifelong New Yorker. But her wife, Jennifer Koltun, had been wanting to leave for years.

“I was so burnt out on New York, it seems to have gotten noisier and dirty,” said Koltun, 57, also a native New Yorker. “I needed a lifestyle change, warmer climate and a more laid-back environment.”

In 2015, the couple, who lived in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, took a trip to Los Angeles, where they have many friends, and Libertore was surprised by how charmed she was by the palm trees, the friendly people and the old Hollywood history. She wasn’t quite ready to leave New York, but they started to plan for it.

In 2017, Koltun, who oversees operations for an IT leasing company based in Manhattan, told her boss she wanted to move to California. He was surprisingly receptive to it, and she spent a year automating the business so that she’d be able to relocate and work from home.

They finally made the move a few weeks ago, renting a three-bedroom, two-bath bungalow in Monrovia, a small city in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, about a half-hour’s drive from downtown LA.

Before they started house-hunting, they made a list of everything they wanted, from a back yard and a soaking tub to central air and a sliding barn door somewhere in the home. They found a luxuriously renovated 1922 bungalow that had 21 out of the 23 things they wanted, everything — even the barn door — except a pool and a refrigerator, which they had to purchase. They pay $3,000 a month for the 1,500-square-foot home, $170 more than they paid for a 1,067-square-foot loft near the Brooklyn Navy Yards with coin laundry in the basement and window units for A/C.

“It was loud, it was noisy, we lived by the BQE,” said Koltun, who loves that she now lives by a beautiful public course for golfing, a passion she wasn’t able to pursue in Kings County.

“I will say [our old] building was full of a lot of amazing people,” said Libertore. “Tattoo artists, film people, painters … that vibrancy was wonderful.”

The couple estimated that their expenses will be roughly the same as those they had in New York, but their quality of life already seems much higher.

“New York is like no other place. That boldness, that intensity, the grittiness,” said Libertore. But “life doesn’t have to be so hard.”

‘I can’t find any jobs upstate’

Upstate’s population is especially dwindling, and some of the most severe losses have occurred in Broome County, situated on the border with Pennsylvania.

Mike Gehm, 38, was born and raised in the county and currently lives in Binghamton, but he said it’s time to get out. He and his fiancée, 26, an overnight stocker at Walmart, and 5-year-old daughter are planning to move south in about a month’s time.

“We finally made the decision to just say, ‘the heck with it’ and go,” said Gehm, who plans to move to Lexington, Kentucky, or a smaller town in West Virginia — areas he has selected based on school ratings, cost of living, jobs and landscape.

He previously worked in construction but has been a stay-at-home dad for the past year, in part because he’s lacked opportunities to work outside the home.

“Jobs are limited around here … It’s hard for me to find [one],” said Gehm, who plans on working in construction or retail once he moves. The minimum wage will be lower down south — $7.25 an hour in Kentucky and $8.75 in West Virginia, compared with $11.10 in New York state — but Gehm thinks the lower cost of living will more than make up for potentially lower earnings.

“I’m dropping $250 a month on electric,” he said. “Everything is an outrageous price for us [up here].”

They currently pay about $750 per month rent on a two-bedroom trailer. Down south, Gehm estimated that they’ll be able to get a four-bedroom house for $400 to $500 per month.

Ultimately, the move is about providing a better life for his young daughter. A milder climate will allow her more time outdoors, and Gehm worries about the levels of radon — a naturally occurring gas that can cause lung cancer — in the area. He also hasn’t been thrilled with the local kindergarten and says schools are rated better where they’re headed.

“The biggest thing to me is school systems up here. They need to do better,” he said.

While moving will mean being a nine-plus hour drive from family, Gehm said part of the appeal is making a fresh start somewhere new.

He said: “We want to make it on our own.”

‘We didn’t want to have kids in the city’

Colin and his wife Lia LoBello Reynolds, 38, knew they didn’t want to raise a family in the city, so when they found out she was pregnant in July 2017, moving was on their mind.

Conveniently, that same month they were both offered jobs by a multinational Malvern, Pennsylvania.-based manufacturing company that was a client of Lia’s, who works in communications and was at an agency at the time.

“That was sort of like the universe aligning for us,” said Colin.

They moved to Pennsylvania in December 2017, first renting an apartment in Phoenixville and then buying a four-bedroom home in Glen Mills, a town about 27 miles west of Philadelphia with a population just under 20,000. Their mortgage is $4,000 a month, just $200 more than they were paying for their apartment in the Financial District, which had one bedroom that lacked a door.

They both took roughly 30 percent pay cuts with the move but say with a lower cost of living, lower taxes and potential bonuses, they are still coming out ahead.

They love having a big backyard for their dog and plenty of space to play indoors and out for their 9-month-old son, but living in a relatively sleepy town has been an adjustment.

“It’s quiet,” they both said with a chuckle.

“Our last apartment, if you craned your neck a little bit, you could see the World Trade Center right out our window,” Lia continued. “Now you make two rights out of our development and you see an Arabian horse farm. It could not be more different.”

After living in New York City for 14 years, Lia finds the single-lane country roads and unlit streets a bit unnerving and insisted they get an alarm system, though the area is quite safe.

“Lia could walk around Alphabet City at 3 in the morning and not blink an eye, but we are in a house and it’s dark out and we are alone and she’s, like, freaking out,” said Colin.

Their commute is relatively easy, a 25-minute drive they make together, and their office is all about work-life balance. Everyone tends to commute and leave around 4 p.m. to avoid traffic, which is nice, though Colin misses grabbing drinks after work with colleagues. They both lament how easy it was to socialize when they lived in Manhattan.

“We’re still kind of working on making friends,” said Colin.

Lia noted that she has to make more of a conscious effort to stay up on what’s in and out, something that seemed to occur naturally riding the subway and walking around New York City.

“You don’t pick up as much,” she said. “Whatever the next trend is, I’m going to be reading about it instead of seeing it.”

But overall, they are happy with the move and their new life.

“In New York, people live to work. Out here, it’s really work to live,” said Lia. “There’s something really nice about it.”

The post Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

Why More People Are Leaving New York Than Any Other State

[mindthump]

Riding a Time Capsule to Apartment 8G http://ift.tt/2AJrQeZ

Below the indicator box, where a modern elevator just has blank space, is the black-handled mechanism that drives the elevator. It’s called a control switch. In Mr. Rivera’s elevator, the switchworks are hidden within a weathered-bronze Frisbee-shaped cover bearing the logo of Haughton Elevators. (Haughton’s competitors included Gurney, Watson, Otis and A.B. See. Only Otis still exists.)

As Mr. Rivera throws the handle to the left, a swiveling contact bar inside the cover opens one circuit and closes another. This sends two electrical messages to a control panel in the basement: to power up the motor, and make it spin forward. The motor pulls the cables that lift the car.

Riding in an old manual elevator makes you realize how boringly quiet today’s elevators are. An old elevator makes a sort of music: the reassuring low hum of the motor, the gentle creaks of turning wheels, the click as each floor goes by, the jingle of the gate closing, like parting a bead curtain or sifting a pile of coins. The only jarring note in Mr. Rivera’s elevator is the call buzzer. It sounds like the wrong answer on a game show.

One of Mr. Rivera’s colleagues, Peter Gari, said he could identify certain residents by the buzz — long or short, or a double hit. “Some people buzz and then a couple of minutes later they buzz again. You get to the floor and they tell you, ‘I’m running late.’ Not my problem, wake up earlier.”

Over the decades, 47 Plaza Street has made concessions to modernity. The elevator signals are now routed through a computer in the basement. And since about 1993, the elevators have been what is called “self-leveling.” Mr. Rivera demonstrated what this means. “I get to 11, 11½…” He let go of the handle and the car glided to a halt at the 12th floor. “It stops by itself. How beautiful!”

Photo

230 West 39th Street renovated its elevators cosmetically but left the ancient manual control system intact.

When Otis developed the self-leveling elevator in 1917, it was a big deal. James Montgomery Flagg made a film the next year called “The Good Sport” in which the hero invents a self-leveling elevator and receives a $100,000 check. “Your invention is a boon to humanity!” says the owner of the Social Uplift Elevator Co. “Ladies and gentlemen — No more ‘Watch your step’ — This is the first elevator that ever stopped even with the floor.”

The technology spread slowly. Very slowly, in some cases: There are still many elevators in the city that are not self-leveling and must be landed precisely, kind of like a plane.

“I was terrible when I first started,” said Mike Merille, who has operated an elevator at 890 Broadway, home of the American Ballet Theater and the Ballet Tech dance school, since 2001. “But it’s muscle memory by now. I don’t even look.”

In the 1930s, a series of strikes and strike threats by elevator operators led bosses to respond with threats of their own. “Building owners fear that any substantial increases in wages for service employees will force them to install labor-saving devices, which will result in a large displacement of labor,” The Times reported in 1935. Elevator operators in those days worked up to 72 hours a week for as little as 30 cents an hour, equivalent to about $5.60 an hour today. (Now they make around $24 an hour.)

Push-button elevators had actually been around since the 1890s, but were not practical for larger buildings. They were slow. Initially they could make only one stop per trip. Later, they could make multiple stops, but only in the order the buttons were pressed.

Photo

Brian Naidoo pilots the elevator at 518 West 26th Street, a former factory filled with galleries.

It took until 1950 for Otis to perfect a push-button system smart enough to handle the traffic and shifting demands for service over the course of the day in a multi-elevator building. The company’s Autotronic system, Otis boasted in advertisements, “minimizes the human element” and “gives tenants a sprightly feeling of independence.”

The elevator man’s fate was sealed.

Almost.

Sixty-five years later, the human element still has its fans. At 47 Plaza Street West, on that same morning in early November, Mr. Rivera opened his elevator door and Bob Rubin got on.

“How you doing, Ramon?” he asked.

“I’ve had my ups and downs,” Mr. Rivera replied.

“I’ve never heard that one before,” Mr. Rubin said.

In the kitchen of the apartment he has lived in for 41 years, Mr. Rubin, a construction lawyer, expounded on his love for the elevators.

“What intrigues me about them is a kind of elegant simplicity,” he said. He fetched a stovetop espresso maker known as a moka pot. “This thing,” he said, “makes a better cup of coffee than that one,” and he pointed to the Keurig on the counter.

Photo

Clockwise from top left: The annunciator at 33 West 67th Street. The switch handle at 35 Pierrepont Street in Brooklyn. A Gurney elevator switch in Brooklyn. The inner gate in an elevator at 41 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Mr. Rubin does not lock his apartment door. He has found the elevator men to be paragons of trustworthiness. “They know everything that’s going on in the building, but none of them has ever been a gossip to the best of my knowledge,” he said. “There is just an exceptional level of discretion.”

Discretion is sometimes called for, said Mr. Gari, Mr. Rivera’s counterpart at the north elevator that day.

“Sheeee, woohoo!” said Mr. Gari. “Boy, through the years, oh, yeah.”

“At my old job” — he used to work an elevator on Park Avenue — “sometimes people would ask, ‘Is my spouse home? And when did they get in?’ Home or not home, I’d say yes or no. But as far as when, I’d say, ‘I don’t remember, you can ask them.’”

Visitors must be carefully screened. “One time we had a process server show a gun to me and Ramon,” Mr. Gari said. “He asks, ‘Is so-and-so home?’ He showed me a badge. I called up on the intercom, no one answered, I told him, ‘They’re not there.’ He wanted me to take him up there. I said no. He said, ‘I’m the law, you’re obstructing justice,’ and he shows this gun. Ramon is like, what are you going to do, shoot me?”

Not everyone is charmed by the old elevators. “I’d lean toward push-a-button, convenience, quickness,” said Brian Kramer, a member of the co-op board at the Kenilworth on Central Park West, which has had some difficult conversations in recent years about upgrading the elevators. When there is only one doorman on duty, he has to somehow keep an eye on the door while running the elevator. “It’s tricky,” Mr. Kramer said.

Two doors down from Mr. Rivera’s building, at 39 Plaza Street West, a resident who would not let her name be published for fear of reprisals from the co-op board voiced exasperation. “If you want to go down to the laundry, it’s six trips, and someone has to take you up and down,” she said. “And the elevator regularly breaks down. It’s beautiful but it’s past its usefulness. It needs constant maintenance.”

Photo

Vladimir Gerasimovski says the 113-year-old elevator he operates at 33 West 67th Street in Manhattan runs “better than the new ones.”

Many old manual elevators are maintained by McGlynn Hays and Co., a 117-year-old concern that claims to be one of only two service companies in the city that has its own machine shop, on West 47th Street. Sooner or later, every moving part on an elevator needs an overhaul, said the company’s president, Gerard Carlucci.

“There’s relay failure, the pins wear out, the housing, the contacts wear out, the carbons wear out, the car switch — same thing,” he said. “The traveling cables, they get brittle over years. The door locks, door contacts — everything wears out. They’re opened a million times. The machines have made five million trips if you think about it. What do we make now that runs for a hundred years?”

At Mr. Rivera’s building, Mr. Mehl, the manager, said he did not foresee the elevators getting replaced anytime soon. This cheers Mr. Rivera, who has not lost enthusiasm for his job at an age when most men are retired or dead. “I love it,” he said, “because I go up and down. I don’t go only down. I’ve been doing it for 35 years. Oh, yes. That’s why I’m still here.”

Mr. Rivera switches elevators halfway through his shift. After lunch, the mail comes and he brings it down the basement to sort it. He is continually interrupted — every time someone buzzes, he has to run back upstairs. This time of year, the process can take hours. “Garbage, garbage, this is all garbage,” Mr. Rivera murmured as he filled cubbyholes with holiday catalogs.

At 3 p.m., the afternoon elevator man, Felix Mina, came on to spell Mr. Rivera and finish the mail. After Mr. Rivera changed out of his uniform, Mr. Mina brought him back up. “Until tomorrow,” he said. “Bye, Ramon.” Mr. Mina closed the elevator door. From within came the sound of the scissor gate creaking and then clicking into place, and the car descending.

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Dirty Laundry

First draft of little vignette I've been working out in my head: I live in an appartment building with 3 floors of 4 appartments each. On the ground floor there's a door leading down a set of stairs to a laundry room in the basement. It's a cramped, little room with just a couple coin operated washers and dryers each, concrete walls and floors, and a bare ceiling on which you can see the support beams of the floor above. When I get around to doing my laundry, I often find myself there late at night, when there's nothing to distract me. Usually nobody is there as late as I am. And yet, a few days ago, I was there around 2:00am, and I ran into one of my neighbors. I'd talked to this girl a few times, as  she and her roommate like to order pizza from the place I work at. As I came down the stairs, I saw her looking frantically all over the floor, as well as inside of the washing machines. Her eyes were wide open. She was so preoccupied in her search that she didnt notice I was there until I set my laundry hamper down on the floor. She jolted up, and looked terribly frightened by my unexpected presence, and then seemed to try to collect herself. She put three quarters into one of the washing machines and dissappeared up the stairs. I put in my laundry and went back to my second story room, a little confused by the incident. The next night, I was in my room playing some PC games when I thought I heard arguing from the street. At first I thought I was just hearing things and tried to ignore it but no, something was definitely going on out there. I peeked through my blinds to see one of my neighbors, a bald man, in front of our building, naked except for a pair of socks, smoking a cigarette. A young woman was trying to talk to him. I couldn't tell if they knew each other. "Are you gonna stay here?" she asked him, but he didn't respond. "It doesn't seem like you know what I'm saying. Alright, just stay there." I was so caught off guard by what I was seeing that I had to question if I really was seeing it, and if this was in fact a normal occurrence. I felt like I had to tell somebody, so I texted my best friend about it, but got no response. I was just confused, I didn't know if this was a dangerous situation or what. My best guess was the guy took too much of something, but I couldn't see if his pupils were dilated from my room. I sure as hell wasn't going to go down and try and figure this one out though. And so I just watched as he finished his cigarette and continued to stand outside, staring in the direction of the street, until a dispatch car arrived and a couple of policemen tentatively approached him. The man appeared to have no reaction to them speaking to him or even touching him. Eventually an ambulance arrived. Whatever the cause for this bizarre display, the police apparently decided the situation was a medical issue rather than a legal one. That night I couldn't shake off the feeling that the bald man's strange behavior last night had some connection to pizza girl's freakout the night before. What connection it was though, I couldn't piece together. My reason told me that these two weird incidents just happened so close to each other by chance. But the conviction was taking hold of me that the events were linked somehow. Just what was she looking so desperately for? I went down to the laundry room under the pretense that I'd put on new sheets and wash the old ones, but I wanted to scope the place out, to discover the secret I felt had to be there in that basement room. I felt guilty for some reason, and I felt paranoid that I'd run into pizza girl. But nobody was there. I looked all over the floors and in around all the machines but I didn't notice anything unusual. I decided I was being ridiculous, probably still not thinking too straight from all the rum I drank a couple nights ago. I went to bed. Ran into pizza girl this morning. Its been a snowy day so I was scraping the frost and snow off of my car's windows. She was sitting in her car by herself listening to music but not going anywhere.  She looked terribly sick, or anxious. She looked like she'd been crying. It bothered me a little. I know I had no reason to think this, but I felt like at some point she had to have seen our neighbor, and it had upset her. So get this, it's Friday night as I'm writing this, or Saturday morning, I guess. I drove 5-11pm, and the other roommate at the girl's appartment placed an order. When I found out I hoped that maybe I'd get a chance to talk to pizza girl. As the other girl was getting cash for a tip I asked her where her roommate was. She said she thought she was in her room the last she knew, so she knocked on the door. "Samantha, you want pizza? The guy's here. Samantha?" She opened the door. Inside I could see that this girl had these ornate tapestries all over her walls. It was an impressive collection. She had a bowl full of what appeared to be mud set on a table for some reason. Her window was open. Her roommate gasped, apparently assuming she'd jumped from the window. We went to it and looked out. There was nothing but pristine snow on the ground below.