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reevesdriver · 4 months

Text

Over the Knee (NSFW)

Summary: John Dutton does not like being teased, much less by a woman half his age so when you disrespect him on his own land he has to take matters into his own hands, literally.

Requested by: @fdupdaydream 😏😏 (Sorry it took so long girl but thanks for your patience)

Word count: 1782

Character(s): John Dutton

Reader: Female reader

Warning(s): NSFW / 🔥🔥🔥 / Smut / Unprotected Sex / Daddy kink / Spanking / Brat reader / Outdoor sex /

Support me: Kofi

When Rip hired Teeter she had one condition, he had to hire you too. Much to his slight annoyance at hiring more ranch hands than he deemed necessary his judgement quickly changed when he saw you astride one of the wild horses John had asked him to tame some weeks ago.

"Told you she was good." Teeter said, a proud tone in her voice.

You hadn't expected to be given the job helping with taming the horses though you weren't exactly going to turn it down. You'd heard enough about the famous John Dutton to willingly accept spending months to years at his ranch regardless of your young age. Being in your mid twenties John was hesitant at allowing you to stay on his ranch but when Rip boasted about your performance with the wild horses John watched you with eager eyes.

"He's gonna kick you Jimmy." You said, watching the stallion buck. Within seconds the man was bent over in pain after the horses hoof collided with his stomach. "What did I just say." You throw your hands up in defeat.

"That'll teach you for tryna outsmart the horse tamer." Lloyd laughed before jumping over the fence to help Jimmy up. Meanwhile you'd already crossed the paddock and had a hold of the bridle trying to keep the horse still as Jimmy limped away.

As you pet the stallion along his neck John had made his way from his house down to the paddocks so he could find out what the shouting was. "Horse kicked Jimmy." Rip stated plainly when John approached him.

"Is he alright?"

"Think his pride is hurt more than anything." He replied and John laughed.

"I want to borrow her for a few hours if that's alright? Got some horses near the woods that Kayce thinks are worth taming, want to get her opinion on them."

"That's fine with me sir but you'll have to ask her." Rip replies then whistles in your direction. You were sat atop the saddle of the 'untameable horse', as Jimmy called him, and chatted to Teeter and Lloyd. When you look to Rip he motions you over with a wave and you quickly get the horse trotting to the other side of the paddock.

"Rip, Mr Dutton, how can I help?" You ask politely.

"Got a job for you." John says. "Need to borrow your expertise for a few hours."

"Sure thing, let me put this big guy back and I'll be all yours."

"Leave him, Jimmy can do it." Rip says stopping you. "Hey Jimmy, come put this horse away."

You laugh as Jimmys face drops when you dismount. Hopping over the fence you walk with John to his truck where he opens the passenger side door for you. "I don't need to grab anything from the bunkhouse do I?" You ask and climb up into the raised truck.

"No, we'll be there and back in a few hours, not unless there's anything you want to bring?"

"Nope, got everything I need." You reply and buckle your seatbelt when John closes the door, rounds the truck, and climbs into the drivers side. The drive down the main road from the Ranch was quiet for a few minutes until John spoke up. "You like working at the ranch?" He asks, tilting his head to you.

"I'm not really gonna say no when I'm in a car with the boss am I?" You laugh and he smiles.

"You can be honest with me darlin."

"Ooo darlin'." You repeat in a mocking tone. "Careful John you'll have people talking."

"Doubt it, I'm old enough to be your daddy." He says making you smirk.

"Mhmm Daddy." You say barely above a whisper with a smirk on your face which doesn't go unnoticed by John. He may be an older man but he heard what you said.

The truck fell into silence as you looked out of the window at the passing fields and trees, the radio played a quiet country song that lulled into another. John pulled down a dirt road and slowed to a stop putting the hand break on and turning off the ignition. "We're here." He said in the usual gruff tone and you slid your seatbelt off before jumping down from the truck.

You walk by his side to a gated portion of land where a few horses are galloping around near a tent. They stop and eye you quizzically before returning to run with one another. "I take it this is why you wanted me?" You say putting two and two together.

"Yeah, Kayce thinks they might be worth training but I want your opinion on them before we waste any time catching them." He opens the gate as he replies and ushers you through before shutting it behind him. You carefully walk onto the land trying not to scare the mare and her foal that has broken away from the small herd.

As you approach the mare with an open palm John heads to the small camp and takes a seat next to the un-lit fire. The foal walks up to you, it must be at least a month or two old and even though it hasn't had any human interaction, that you know of a least, it willingly walks past its mother and straight to you. You watch the mare with a nervous gaze incase she decides to charge as you pet her foal though after a minute or so she seems to be comfortable with your presence and approaches you too.

"That's a good girl." You say moving from petting the foal to its mother. You quickly look her over taking note of a few scratches on her legs that are poking out under the dirt and debris that had gathered from running in the fields and forests. She's toned but a little slimmer than normal and from the brief interaction she seems like a fairly easy horse to tame.

You stop petting her so you can join John at the camp. She turns with her foal and trots off down the field. "What do you think of her?" John asks as you approach the, now-lit, fire. You sit down in the little camping chair that's opposite. "I'd say she's worth taming, she looks strong but she needs fattening up a little more, same with that foal too."

"I'll let Kayce know when we get back, no reception out here. You want a drink?" He says motioning to the bottle oh Whiskey in his hand. You nodded and stood up, rounded the fire and joined him on the laid-out blanket that he was sat on. "Hold on, are you even old enough to drink?"

You laugh. "Yes I'm old enough now hand it over old man."

You reach for the bottle but he pulls it just out of range. "Enough with the old man, say it again and I'll have to take you over my knee." His voice is low and laced with a tinge of anger.

"Don't threaten me with a good time Mr Dutton." You say testing the waters. John was a very handsome man, everyone could see that and eve though he was double your age, if not more you were still heavily attracted to him. The way his large hands flexed against the reigns, how his presence alone changed the atmosphere in a room and his voice, that damn deep voice that massaged your ear drums every time he spoke drove you mad. "I doubt you'd be able to teach me a lesson, I am quite the handful...old man." You speak the last two words barely above a whisper.

You see the fire ignite in Johns eyes, dropping the bottle of Whiskey he grabs your wrist and pulls you across his lap. Lifting a leg from under you he rests his thigh against your lower back keeping you pinned down with your ass in the air. Before you can protest John raises his hand and slaps his heavy palm against your clothed asscheek. The denim offered no cushioning whatsoever as his hand collided with your backside three more times until John paused.

A moan had slipped from your lips when his hand connected with the curve of your ass for the fourth time. "You getting off on this?" He asks but doesn't need you to reply, he already knows the answer from the way you're squirming under his thigh, trying to grind your pussy over his knee in an attempt to cum.

In one switch motion John moves so he is behind you. He's about to speak out a command until he sees your hands move underneath you. You undo your belt and unbutton your jeans and John takes it from there. He pulls the clothes past your ass and down your thighs until they rest at the backs of your knees then he quickly works to undo his own jeans. As he fumbles with the buckle of his belt he looks around making sure that no-one is nearby and frees his hard cock.

Giving it a few tugs for good measure John lines himself up with your pussy and starts to slowly push in, relishing the way your cum coats his head and lubricates the shaft as he pushes deep inside until fully sheathed. "Fuck John, so good." You mumble. It had been months since you'd last got your leg over someone. Things had gotten a little hot and heavy in the bunkhouse with Ryan but that was quickly shut down when Lloyd and Rip entered drunk one night and you had to do a quick shuffle of shame to your own bunk.

But right now in this moment it didn't matter if you had fucked someone an hour prior, the way Johns cock filled your cunt was something that you'd never felt before. Your pussy felt like it was made just for him, it fit perfectly around his shaft as he pounded you into the blanket, his palm connecting with your bare ass every few seconds as he aimed to make both cheeks dark red.

Your walls squeeze around his cock as you cum. "That's it baby, cum for daddy." His voice is low but commanding as your thighs shake. After a few more thrusts John is pumping his seed deep inside of you, his thumbs dig into the deep red marks on your cheeks.

Coming down from your high you try to raise up from the blanket. "Fuck." You say in a whimpered tone. "I won't ever call you old man again." You rub at your ass cheeks and John laughs.

"At least you've learnt your lesson darlin'."

#mine #mywriting #John dutton #John Dutton x reader #John Dutton x female reader #John dutton smut #yellowstone #Yellowstone imagine #Kevin costner #Kevin Costner smut #Kevin costner x reader #Kevin costner imagine #Yellowstone John dutton

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dameronscopilot · 2 years

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dearest Dee,

it only seems right that since you’re filling my inbox with such sweet things, I come in for a little spice.

I would love to know what you think Kayce Dutton’s kinks are. as many as you’re willing to provide.

please and thank you. xo

Kayce Dutton's Kinks

Kayce Dutton x f!reader

NSFW 18+ content below the cut

OUTDOOR SEX - Ranch life means that you’re bound to spend quite a lot of time outdoors—be it in the fields, down by the water, or out in the woods. Either way, when Kayce wants you, he wants you. And for him, there’s no waiting until you both return to the house as the sun begins to dip below the horizon. No, the moment you begin to shuck off your top layers under the heat of the midday sun, a sheen of sweat across your shoulders, Kayce’s patience snaps. He’ll have you right there against a tree, holding you in his arms as he rocks his hips up into you, dragging his lips down the side of your neck.

ORAL SEX - This man will take advantage of any opportunity he gets to pleasure you with his mouth (and he’s damn good at it). Kayce loves the feeling of your fingers tangling in his hair as he laps broad strokes through your folds before thrusting his tongue into your mound until you’re a writhing, whining mess beneath the firm grip of his callused hands on your thighs. (Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that thing he does with his tongue sometimes? Darting it out over his bottom lip while he's smiling with teeth? Yeah.)

PRAISE (giving) - Kayce has a habit of complimenting you all the time, he just can’t help it. So naturally, this means that he also enjoys giving gratuitous amounts of praise in the bedroom, his teeth scraping against the shell of your ear as he tells you how well you’re taking him, his husky drawl crawling up your spine. And he loves to watch the way your mouth parts for him when he tilts your chin upward, his thumb pressing against your lower lip as he murmurs, “Good girl.”

DIRTY TALK - Praise isn’t the only talking that Kayce does during sex—there’s plenty more use for that accent of his. First and foremost, this man is a loving, doting partner that can leave your nerve endings tingling with the softest, most sensual lovemaking you’ve ever known in your life. But when the mood is right, he’s also got a filthy goddamn mouth. He knows exactly what to say to get you going, be it words muttered in your ear in public as he comes up behind you with his hands planted firmly on your waist, or the dirty things that fall from his lips as he’s fucking you senseless.

THIGH RIDING - There’s just something about the sight of you shamelessly riding one of his denim-clad thighs on the couch, in a chair, or up against a wall that just drives Kayce absolutely fucking crazy.

BREEDING - Regardless of whether the two of you actually intend to have children, be it safe sex or not, talking about it while he’s fucking you makes Kayce more than a little feral. Essentially, there’s a whole lot of creampies happening here. He can’t get enough of filling you up with his cum (and the sight of it dripping down your thighs afterward).

CLOTHES - The first time you waltzed into the bedroom wearing nothing but your underwear and one of Kayce’s shirts, he may or may not have lost his mind a little bit (and proceeded to fuck you into the mattress within moments). Needless to say, he loves the sight of you in his clothes.

SHOWER SEX - The warm intimacy of shower sex is unparalleled for Kayce, both of you soaking wet and plastered together as he slowly, lovingly takes you apart.

» KAYCE DUTTON MASTERLIST

#answers from the cockpit #copilot sleepover #kayce dutton #kayce dutton x reader #kayce dutton fanfiction #kayce dutton smut #yellowstone fanfiction #luke grimes fanfiction #kayce dutton x you #dee writes

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keep-the-wolves-close · 6 months

Text

Steady Heart

Chapter 34: Bridge Over Troubled Water

* Pairing: Slow-burn Kayce Dutton x OFC Stella Daniels

* Rating: M

* Warnings: NSFW, language, slight smut but mostly implied

* Word count: 4,528ish

I would love to give credits to @dameronscopilot and @deanscroissant for being sounding boards for me during this whole process, giving outsider insight, being cheerleaders, and allowing me to screech at them about things that have happened during the writing process. I seriously couldn't have gotten this far without y'all.

Author's note: I hope everyone is enjoying so far! I hope you love this chapter as well! My apologies for having y’all wait so long. I’ve been taking a much needed brain break lately. I’m slowly diving back in. There’s a detail in here, that I absolutely love, that I hope someone picks up on. 👀

Stella came down the hill to the pen they had Lucky separated in. She grabbed the lead rope for him and leaned on the fence and watched him walk around taking in everything. The sounds of the ranch were very new to him. It was a lot to take in. His nostrils flared every so often, and his ears were forward facing. He was definitely intrigued. The horse finally decided Stella was interesting enough to come stand by the fence.

She smiled affectionately at him. “Hey boy, you doin’ okay?” She held her hand out to him that held the lead rope. Lucky came a little closer to sniff at her hand and the rope, but still kept a good distance from her. She giggled. “You’re a smart one.” The crunch of footsteps in gravel grabbed her attention. She looked over her shoulder and saw that it was Kayce and his son.

“Finally decided to join us, huh?” She smirked at Kayce.

“Yeah, yeah.” Kayce easily fell back into his role of training with Stella. There was also an air of foreman about him this time. “You go on in and grab him, and I’ll go get the saddle. Tate you wait on the outside of the fence.” He directed both of them.

Stella and Tate scrunched their faces in annoyance in unison at being bossed around. As Kayce walked into the barn, Tate started to climb in between the rungs of the fence. “Ah ah. You heard your dad. I also say you can’t be in there with him yet.” Tate groaned. “I know, it’s not fair, but we gotta do this right. I had to do it with Abigail and she’s the best horse I could ask for. So it’s a lesson in patience for you right now.”

“I’d agree with her, son. Not much winning to be had here.” Kayce teased as he walked up with Tate’s saddle. He looked at Stella and put the saddle on the fence. “I thought you were gonna get a hold of him?”

Stella huffed. “I was keeping your son from going in there.” She opened the gate and went in slowly. Kayce closed it behind her. Lucky made his distrust known and backed away from the fence quickly. He parked himself in the farthest part of the pen and eyed her.

She placed herself in the center and let the lead rope touch the ground. She stood with her back to him and stared at the father and son.

Tate scrunched his face up. “What’re you doing? Shouldn’t you be going after him?”

“I’m waiting for him to come to me. Chasing him around is gonna do nothing except rile him up.” She smiled. “You remember what I said about that lesson in patience? This is part of it.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, you have to show him you trust him and he’ll start to trust you. The only way you can work with a horse is if that trust is there,” Stella explained softly. “That’s why my back is to him. It’s a vulnerable position for me, and I know at any point he could choose to hurt me, but I’m trusting him to not do that.”

“How do you get him to come to you then?”

“That’s the thing, Tate. Not only am I trusting him to not hurt me, I’m also telling him I’m safe to come to because I’m not pressuring him to do it.” A velvety warm nose touched the back of her neck. She moved and giggled lightly. Tate’s eyes lit up in wonder. Kayce smiled fondly at the interaction. He was taken back to when he and Stella worked on Abigail. He’d said the same exact words to her. Slowly she raised her arm up to touch Lucky’s face. He allowed her to grab his halter.

Stella turned around in gradual steps. Lucky flinched a couple times, but didn’t pull back from her. Now that she faced him, she carefully raised her hand that had the lead rope. Lucky looked at it like it was a snake. “I promise buddy, it’s just a rope. Smell it.” The horse nodded his head up and down a little bit, showing his personality. He leaned forward to sniff the rope.

When he didn’t spook at it, Stella moved and attached it to the rope halter. “Kace, I’m gonna walk him around for a minute before we saddle him up.”

“Whatever you say, boss lady.” He laughed at the glare she gave him.

As Stella walked Lucky around the pen slowly, she could hear Kayce talking to Tate in a low voice.

“See how gentle she’s being? She always approaches them like that, and I swear it makes them like her more than me.” Stella smiled softly at Kayce’s words. “Our old neighbor Sam would say it’s because she’s a woman, and they have quiet spirits.”

Stella defended herself. “I mean, I don’t know if I would describe it as quiet, but it’s safe. And the horses know that.”

“Then what do you do?” Tate asked.

“Then we start moving more naturally. Not aggressive, but not soft either.”

Stella brought Lucky back around to the front part of the pen. “I think we’re good now.”

Kayce nodded. “Alright son, stay on the outside.”

Stella held Lucky in place. Kayce softly sat the saddle on his back. He only flinched a little, but stood solid. She and Kayce locked eyes over top of the young horse.

She whispered, “you think he’s good?”

Tate yelled from the fence. “I wanna do it!”

Kayce gazed back at Stella, answering her silently. She knew the look meant “we’ll find out.” He said back to his son over his shoulder, “we’ll get you a chance, buddy. This takes a lot of practice.” He looked at Lucky and then at Stella. “Moment of truth.” He pulled one of the cinches on the saddle quickly.

Lucky bolted and Stella let go of the rope. They watched as he started broncoing. Kayce pushed him to move around the ring and get out his wild oats. Stella came to stand behind Kayce and watched as the horse circled them. After a couple passes, Lucky stopped and faced Kayce and Stella.

Kayce stepped forward with his hand out to the horse. “Woah.” Stella followed behind him as he continued to talk to Lucky. “That it? That all you got?” He stepped forward and Lucky allowed him to pet his nose. “You got a good mind, don’tcha?”

“I picked a good one.” Tate said proudly.

“You sure did, buddy.” Kayce smiled at his boy.

“He should probably pick all our horses from now on.” Stella laughed.

“I don’t know about that yet.” Kayce laughed with her. “Hey Stell?”

She turned to look at him. “Yeah?”

“I gotta get Tate to school. Would you mind finishing up with him here?”

“She wouldn’t mind at all.” Ryan interjected. “Would you, Stellee?” He fixed her to the spot with a look. Stella took in his tight shoulders and knew she was in trouble.

“Of course, cowboy. I’ll be here when you get back.” Kayce touched her arm as he walked by. She grabbed back at him while he passed her and watched the glare from her brother go ignored on Kayce’s part.

Ryan’s irritation turned to her. Rolling her eyes, she waved him in. “You hold him, I’ll get his saddle off.” He stomped over to her and took the rope from her. She side eyed him. “I can tell you’re pissed. You can talk to me all ya want, but don’t you dare scare this horse.”

“Are you fuckin’ around with him again?”

Stella reached for the cinch to undo the tightness Kayce had done up. “I’m not sure what we’re doing, Ryan. He saved me. He and Monica aren’t going back to each other. They’ve already decided that.” She paused when Lucky flinched. When he settled, she went for the cinch again. “I dunno. I’m trying to figure it out.”

Ryan pet Lucky’s nose to try and calm him. “I just don’t want you to get caught up in a bad situation.”

“I know.” She let the girth drop and slowly moved the saddle off of Lucky’s back. “Thanks buddy. Good job today.”

Her brother reached out to take the saddle from her. He walked it to the fence and placed it over the top. “Like you did with that brand. Tell me about it.”

“I was almost 18. Kayce had just found out Monica was pregnant with Tate. John wanted her to get rid of him and Kayce didn’t obey his order and the brand was his punishment.” Stella locked eyes with her brother. “The moment Monica knew she was pregnant, it wasn’t just about them anymore.”

Ryan’s mouth hung open. “Shit,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “Now whatever she chose to do with that pregnancy of her own choice, is none of my business. Nor do any of us hold room to judge that kind of choice that isn’t made lightly.” She slipped through the gate, her brother trailing behind her. She watched as he latched it behind them. “But I was not about to watch a crabby ass old man be selfish and destroy his son’s future, my best friend, just because he didn’t agree with them being so young or whatever his reasons were.”

They slowly walked along to the bunkhouse, Ryan took in everything she was saying along the way. “So, like I told you earlier. I pissed him off enough to brand me too. Because it wasn’t just about him and his princess attitude anymore.”

They got to the door of the bunkhouse and Ryan’s hand reached out to stop her. “I respect your reasons for standing up for your best friend, but my god you willingly put yourself through that?” He peeked at the scar popping out from her shirt.

“I did,” she nodded somberly. “And I would do it again in a heartbeat. It sucked, but my reasons were in the right place.”

“And you loved him.”

“Probably by that point, selfishly, yeah.” She could hear Kayce’s shout at her the night prior. “Because I fucking love you!”

“So is this something I should prepare myself for?”

Stella frowned. “What do you mean?”

Ryan looked around trying to find the right words. “You and Kayce changing pace and being together in a different sense than before.”

“Ry,” she sighed, “when I figure that out, you’ll know okay?”

He nodded. “Okay, now let’s go inside.”

“Wait, have you seen Rip?”

He pulled his lips together just like she did when something happened she didn’t want to talk about.

“Ryan, what happened? Did it have to do with Malcolm’s attack? Which by the way, why did no one tell me he went after Beth too!”

“I wanted you to worry about you for a change. Beth and Rip were fine. He’s been in the big house resting with her.” He stared at her, allowing the tough facade to slip for a moment and show her how truly frightened he had been. “I also was worried that you were gone when Kayce picked up your phone.”

Stella grabbed him in a tight hug. “I’m sorry, brub.” He returned the embrace just as tight. “I was fighting off more vomit. That’s why I handed the phone to him. I’m here, and that’s what matters. Dealing with taking lives, but I’m here.”

“We’ll make it through, sissy.” Stella’s eyes stung at his use of her childhood nickname. He pulled back and wiped the underside of her eyes with his thumbs. “Let’s go inside, yeah? There’s something we gotta take care of.” Ryan reached for the door and guided his little sister into the house.

As she stepped through the doorway, a chorus of happy birthday could be heard from every direction in the house. Stella stood in the kitchen flabbergasted. Lloyd, Jimmy, Colby, Jake, Ethan, Kayce and Jamie stood around the kitchen table. Sitting in the center of it was a plate of what looked like her favorite yellow cupcakes with chocolate icing and a few candles burning. She turned to her brother.

“Happy birthday, Stellee belly.” His eyes looked glassy as he called her another childhood name.

She launched forward and bear hugged Ryan so tight he thought he would pass out. “Thank you. It’s perfect.” She whispered. After being almost abducted or worse, and taking the lives of two people, the small gesture meant the world to her. She was grateful to still be here to experience the moment.

Kayce’s voice sounded over the commotion in the background. “Ryan had me tell Gator to make these for you this mornin’.”

Ryan let his sister go so she could mingle amongst everyone else. She made her rounds to everyone, giving them a hug and showing her gratitude.

“Blow these candles out so we can dig in!” Lloyd hurried her.

“Alright alright.” She walked up to the table and sucked in a big breath, but Jake stopped her. “What Jake?”

“Don’t forget to make a wish.” He said sheepishly.

Stella smiled. “Okay, Jake. Just for you, I will.” She closed her eyes and wished for everything she could think of in a 30 second span. She blew out the candles and everyone cheered. “Now dig in!”

She came to Jimmy as everyone else dug into the cupcakes. “You had a hand in this didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He smirked at her. Kayce sidled up next to them, and Jimmy grinned between them and backed away to give them a minute.

Kayce gazed at her fondly. “Hey, you.” He poked her arm.

Stella fixed her glasses and looked up at him. “Hey,” she giggled. “Thank you for helping my brother and Jimmy with their plan.” She wrapped him in a hug, which he stuttered to reciprocate. He wasn’t sure how to do this inconspicuously. “Just hug me, cowboy.” She whispered into his ear causing goosebumps to blossom along his neck. He slowly placed his arms around her waist. She let her head rest in the crook of his neck for a moment, pleased by the silence that overtook her mind by being in contact with him.

She pulled back a few inches. “And what happened to you having to take Tate to school?”

He shrugged his shoulders against her arms. “I lied. Grandpa took him today on his way into the office.”

“You shithead.” Stella smirked at him. “Now I’m gonna get me a cupcake.” She chuckled. He slowly let her go and watched her mosey over to the plate of dessert. A warm smile rooted itself across his cheeks. He wasn’t sure what the next steps were going to be, but he was grateful he could trek through them with her. He felt a presence on both sides of him. Looking right and left it was Ryan and Lloyd.

“You remember what I said? Don’t fuck up this time. Because Malcolm will be the least of your worries.” Ryan reiterated his warning from a few weeks ago. Lloyd’s bushy eyebrows rose at the confirmation that there was something going on between the two best friends. “This time around, I’ll have help.” Ryan nodded to Lloyd.

“10-4.” Kayce acknowledged.

A few hours went by and Ryan could tell his sister was tired. They all had hung around, played some poker, watched tv long into the evening; her want to hang out with the people she cared about was filled. He watched her sitting on the couch next to Jimmy. Stella had curled down into the couch and was half leaning on the latest wrangler. He reached across the table and tapped Kayce on the shoulder. He stopped talking to his brother long enough to glance over at Ryan.

Ryan motioned to Stella basically falling asleep sitting up. “You should get her to bed.”

Kayce stuttered for a moment at the permission granted from her brother, in front of his brother. He nodded and rose from his seat. Weaving his way in front of the couch, Kayce reached out and grabbed Stella’s hands.

She blinked owlishly. “Hmm?” Her eyebrows scrunched together.

“C’mon sugar. Let’s get you to bed.” Kayce tugged her hands to signal her get up.

“But can’t I stay here?” She bargained.

“No, Jamie took your bunk.”

Stella grumbled, not actually mad at Jamie, just mad she had to get up from the couch. She turned to everyone and they all watched her. “Thank y’all. I gotta remember to thank Gator. I’m gonna go to sleep for 48 hours now.” They shared a laugh.

Kayce went and grabbed her coat and she went to give her brother a hug. “I love you, but I gotta go to sleep.”

“You go, and I’ll see you in the morning.” He released her as Kayce came up behind her.

Kayce held out her jacket for her to slip her arms into the sleeves. She whispered, “thank you,” and zipped the dark green jacket.

“Let’s go.”

Behind them everyone wished them a good night and when the door closed Stella relished the heavy silence of the outside. She blinked hard a few times trying to wet her dry eyes. On a fence post nearby was a single crow that looked directly at her. She frowned at the unnerving feeling that hit her stomach. She was snapped back to the present by Kayce’s hand on her elbow.

“C’mon.” He directed her toward the lodge.

Walking through the door, Stella sighed and removed her jacket. Kayce took it from her and hung it up along with his. He hung up his hat and watched as she meandered through the kitchen to the bedroom. She took the two shirts off as she made it through the door. Kayce followed behind her and started to remove his clothes. Things were quiet and almost domestic.

Stella was caught in her head. Kayce said he loved her. She’d forgiven him last night. She was fine with his confession, but she needed to know where they stood. Were they just fucking around, or were they going to try for something more serious? Not knowing was bothering her, but she didn’t want to ask and scare him off.

Once in her underwear, she walked to the bathroom and took off her bra. She grabbed the white shirt she slept in and pulled it over her head. Quickly, she brushed her teeth trying to put off the inevitable.

Walking out of the bathroom, she paused in the door for a minute to look at Kayce as he pulled off his jeans and socks. He folded them up and put them on top of the dresser. He turned and spotted her watching him. Smiling at her, he stepped closer to her.

She allowed him to wrap his arms around her waist. He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss. “Happy birthday, sugar.” Stella put her hands on his chest and stayed quiet with her eyes closed. “What’s wrong?” He asked.

She opened her eyes again and angled her face up to look at him. “Nothin’. I’m just stuck in my head again.” She hated the passive lie as soon as it left her mouth.

“The other night?”

She’d let him think that. “Yeah. I guess the nighttime will bring it back for a while.”

“Well you’re safe here, with me. Let’s go to bed.” He gently guided her to the bed. She took off her glasses and set them on the side table, and hopped in. She crawled under the covers.

“Thank you, Kace,” she whispered. He opened his arm for her and she snuggled in tight against his side.

“Every time, sugar.” They both let out a breath and Kayce closed his eyes.

In the darkness, Stella couldn’t get her eyes to shut. At the bunkhouse, she’d been tired. After seeing that crow her mind exploded in all different directions. She wasn’t much for superstitions, but some of them she had seen proven. And a lone crow was usually a bad sign.

Kayce didn’t open his eyes, but he could feel that Stella was unsettled. She was tense against his side. He knew something was bothering her and it was more than the guys she killed.

He wondered if it was the situation between them. They hadn’t actually spoken about it. Both of them had a bad tendency to ignore the elephant in the room and just act like nothing happened. The talking didn’t come until it was dire straits, and that hadn’t turned out well for them in the recent past.

What were they? He didn’t know. He did know he wanted more with her. He just didn’t know what steps to take next. He hadn’t done this in a long while. Kayce realized he had started moving his hand up and down along her arm.

She traced patterns across his chest when she felt him move his hand. “I can’t sleep.” She mumbled against his shoulder.

“I can tell.”

“I’m sorry for keeping you up.”

“I’m only awake because I know something’s wrong. Just waitin’ for you to tell me.” He pulled her closer.

“I’m scared, Kayce.” She nuzzled into his shoulder further to hide from the heavy feeling.

“Scared of what?” When she didn’t answer and her breathing deepened, he almost thought she fell asleep. “You scared of Malcolm’s men, you mean?”

Her fingers tapped his chest. “I mean yeah. I’m worried they’ll come back and take all of us from each other.”

“But?”

“But I’m also scared of this.” She turned and laid part way on his chest to be able to look at him. He raised his hand and brushed her hair out of her face, cupping her cheek. She leaned into his hand. “I want this, but it also comes with territory I don’t know how to navigate.”

“I don’t know how to either.” He gazed affectionately at her. “But I know if we put our heads together, we can make it.”

Stella leaned her chin on his chest. “You really think so? We’re not forcing something that shouldn’t happen?”

“We won’t know unless we actually try, instead of hooking up and then acting like nothing happened.”

She laughed. “We seem to do that, don't we?”

“So you know what that means?”

She raised her head. “Enlighten me.”

“That means if either of us have doubts, or something is wrong, we gotta talk about it. Maybe not at the moment, but later that day. Before we go to sleep. We can’t hide things from each other.”

“Okay, I think I can manage that. Can you?”

“Yes.”

Stella felt her cheeks heat up in the dark. “Would it kill the moment right now if I asked a question?”

“Should I be worried?”

“Not really, but how’s this gonna work? In general, with Monica, explaining it to Tate? She’s probably gonna wanna beat the shit out of me. She already thought we were moving on together the other day when she dropped Tate off.”

“It’ll be fine. I think once she comes to terms, she’ll be glad it’s someone she knows I’m safe with and Tate is safe with.” He rearranged to get comfy. “And Monica and I will have to sit down with Tate and explain the situation about how me and his mom aren’t together anymore, but still there together for him.” He rubbed her arm. “Then we’ll cross the bridge of whatever is happening here.”

Stella nodded. “Makes sense. Don’t wanna overwhelm him.” She chewed on her bottom lip while she thought about his statement of ‘whatever is happening here.’

“What is happening here? I don’t want my feelings to blind me like last time.”

Kayce lifted himself up onto his elbows and made sure he had her focus. “I know I wanna be more than just your best friend. You and I both know we’re more than that now. What do you want outta this?”

Propping herself on her forearms, she stared at him thinking hard. Since she was nearsighted, he was actually in focus for her. She observed every line of worry or happiness, every freckle that she’d memorized years ago. Her chest swelled with emotion and her bottom lip trembled. With a huge breath she took the plunge.

“I’ve wanted you to be more than my best friend since I was 15,” she softly verbalized while looking down at his brand. Her hands shook against his chest, afraid of the consequences from her confession. “When you saved me for the first time, any chance anyone else had flew right out the window,” she whispered.

He lifted her chin. “How come you never said anything?” She tried to look back down and he held her head in place. “Look at me while you tell me. It’s okay.”

Stella shrugged. “I was younger than you, and I didn’t have any experience with it at the time. There was no way a 17 year old wanted anything to do with a 15 year old. And the thought of you saying no, killed me inside. So I figured I would watch from the sidelines and be happy if you were happy.” She finally looked him in the eyes. “And by the time I built up any sort of courage, you and Monica had started talking.” She let out a huff of a chuckle.

“I wish you would have said something.”

“Don’t wish that, Kace. You got your wonderful son from my lack of confidence.” She smiled softly at him. “And plus we’re here now, if that’s what you mean to try. I want us both to quit hiding from each other. To see who we really are.”

“I think I can get on board with that.”

“Those are some big shoes for us to fill, cowboy.”

Kayce reached up to hold her face again, but this time pulled her closer. He touched his forehead to hers, and whispered against her lips, “I have faith in us, sugar,” and enveloped her in a kiss that she felt down to her toes.

Stella sighed allowing her mind to be open to experience these emotions presently. She had an idea of what they both wanted, and that made her feel free. She had a partner in crime that would have her back with whatever changes came along the way.

He moved onto his side and propped a leg up, pulling her leg up over his. Reaching down between them, he pulled his cock out of his boxer briefs. She quickly shimmied her boy shorts off. “Shoulda done this before, genius,” she puffed out a laugh at Kayce’s poor planning. Once she settled he jerked himself a couple times and dipped into her waiting cunt.

“Oh,” Stella huffed out at the change in fullness.

“Look at me.” Kayce brushed her hair back. She opened her eyes and she locked onto his. The feeling that swelled in her chest was overpowering. She let out a whimper as she clenched around him. “We’ve got this.”

“Keep me safe, Kayce.” She requested for the second time. Not only for her body, but her heart.

“Always.”

They started to slowly grind against one another, chasing a familiar high but somehow this one was different. It was slow and explorative, like they were getting to know each other all over again.

#yellowstone #kayce dutton #yellowstonetv #luke grimes #ian bohen #ryan #kayce dutton fan fiction #yellowstone fanfic #yellowstone fanfiction #kayce dutton fanfic

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onlydevilsleft · 2 years

Note

"You know have any idea Lee is? I need to talk with him, it's important." (Miranda Dutton for Rip)

@hcllfireandhclywater

His patience had been tested a good dozen times already today, so why not make it a baker's dozen? Miranda wasn't just any asshole, though; she was Lee's wife and it meant he respected the Hell out of her just like he respected everyone that born with the Dutton name. Had to be just as strong and bat-shit to marry one of them... "Whatever you need Lee for better be important..." He wasn't trying to be rude or insolent. "Last I saw he was 'round the pasture 14. Got a couple pregnant mamas out there. Thought they may be comin' soon."

#ic #muse | rip #hcllfireandhclywater | miranda dutton #⸶ mother forgive us for our sins ;; we know not what we do ⸷ | asks

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theloniousbach · 4 months

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LIVESTREAM: VIJAY IYER with Harish Raghavan and Jeremy Dutton with special guest Milena Casado, SMOKE JAZZ CLUB, 8 JUNE 2024, 9 pm set

VIJAY IYER is an important, fascinating player and my second show at Jazz St Louis, but I have tended to respect rather than like him. He has important albums with Linda May Han Oh and Tyshawn Sorey which I gave only cursory listens. But those albums were what this show’s material was drawn from, except for a very nice Monk tune that worked with Iyer’s own and different discordances and rhythmic spikiness. I shall be listening to those albums next.

But the Monk, of course I can’t name it, was the right reintroduction to his aesthetic and I carried his sense of drive and groundedness into the rest of the gig. Players of his ilk often come across as cerebral and he does have a PhD for a dissertation on embodied cognition. I get it, an intellectual who wants to understand in his/her head the intelligence they know is in the body. This time around he exhibited the complexity of the physicality of his music. Monk is good for that—and I remember how Epistrophy grounded one of the suites he played in that Jazz St Louis show.

He didn’t announce tunes except for the next to last one, Kite, which doesn’t appear, like the Monk, to be on the albums he said he was going to feature—and there were segues/shifts, more distinct than I remember from the swirl of that earlier show. Or the opener gave me a vocabulary to appreciate the emotional landscape which was by turns lyrical, riffy, gentle, and vamping, sometimes around the same theme.

After the Monk, Milena Casado joined on trumpet and fluegelhorn. She was in St Louis for Teri-Lyn Carrington’s New Standard’s run. I had tickets for it but was traveling to the Galapagos and had to content myself with the Thursday night stream. She has real promise, though I found her on a knife edge of patience and tentativeness, potential maturity and uncertainty. She and Iyer conversed in uneven phrases at one point that was highly sophisticated, but he also was way too quiet at other times.

Now, Iyer is a power player with lots going on from his hands, so powerful that Harish Raghavan, whom I’ve seen be too big for some trio contexts, was put to good service. Drummer Jeremy Dutton was not flashy, simply subtle and making a difference.

Appropriately though it was Iyer who commanded attention with real smarts fully embodied, what he discovered in that dissertation has been put to good use with the footnotes and literature reviews left on the shelf. Would that all our dissertations mattered as much.

#concert review #jazz #smoke jazz club #livestream #2024

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tascha-schwarz · 3 years

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Imagine… John Dutton comforting you after you tell him Beth doesn’t like you

Standing on the porch in the gray of twilight, a little chilled in cold November air, you enjoyed one of the last evenings that still preserved impressive beauty of local landscapes. A few more days, and nothing would be left of this fairytale picture but gloom and dampness. So sad. Of course, the reason for your sadness laid deeper than grieving over a change of seasons. It was all due to the riot in your soul, which made you oversensitive about the surrounding, and these dark clouds on the horizon seemed so untimely.

You were waiting for John, you missed him so much during the day. You believed that once you found yourself in his strong arms, dissolved in his warmth, all the bad thoughts would wear away.

The sun has already gone down. John’s been absent for too long. Your eyes were on the road.

Finally, headlights appeared in the distance, and your heart speeded up. As the truck approached, you recognized the silhouette of John’s pickup. You felt relieved that he was back at last and at the same time excited to see him.

While John was parking, you stepped off the porch, wrapping yourself in the flaps of your jacket.

John smiled when he saw you. So much warmth in his gaze, so much tenderness. All your problems seemed to fade into thin air. Smiling in return, you slowly walked towards him.

“Hello, my dear,” John drew you into his embrace and you crossed your arms on his back, resting your head on his shoulder and closing your eyes with a peaceful sigh. There was no place on Earth you’d feel safer.

“I missed you so much,” you whispered, snuggling into his chest, so that your words blurred into indistinct mumble, but he understood you perfectly. John kissed the top of your head, inhaling the scent of your hair. You made him so happy.

He pulled away a little to look you in the eyes, but something in your expression set him alert.

“Is everything fine? You look upset.”

“It’s fine,” you smiled softly, grateful for his advertency. It touched your heart that he always noticed even the slightest change in your mood. But you didn’t want to bother him. “I’m just glad that you’re finally home. I hate it when you leave for the whole day.”

John had no doubt you were glad to see him, had no doubt you hated it when he left, but he didn’t believe everything was fine. He frowned.

“Let it out.”

Keeping back the truth was useless – he caught you. You respected him too much to try his patience, so you resigned you’d have to confess.

“Shall we go inside?”

“And you tell me everything,” he insisted.

You remained in your jacket when you entered the house. Only now you realized how much you froze.

“God. How long have you been standing there?” John started rubbing your hands.

His care brought you to tears sometimes. You couldn’t help smiling as he tried to warm you up. Seeing his focused face, you felt warmth spreading through your body, this warmth arose right from inside your heart reaching your soul while your hands – to John’s displeasure – still remained cold.

“So, what happened while I was gone?” he set you down on the sofa by the fireplace and took a seat beside you, half a turn, to be able to look you in the eyes – they can’t lie.

“It started much earlier, John,” you admitted. “From that very day I suppose, when you introduced me to Beth. She doesn’t like me.”

“But just today she told me the opposite,” smiling softly, John took your hand in supportive gesture.

His words surprised you. This morning you had an unpleasant conversation with his daughter.

“She said she approved my choice,” John couldn’t take his eyes off you, admiring how beautiful you were. “Of course, you should understand that I don’t give a shit whether she approves you or not,” he grinned, stroking your cheek, “it’s not the issue that needs her opinion. But I’m sure she spoke sincerely. I know my daughter. But I also know how intolerable she can be.”

“Oh yes, she can!” you felt easier at heart.

“What did she tell you?” John frowned again.

“It’s the little things. Anyway, it wasn’t pleasant.”

“You should’ve told me. I would remind her where’s her place.”

You shook your head.

“I don’t want to cause a conflict between you and your daughter. Please don’t tell Beth, I beg you, John!”

“Come here,” John sank on the backrest pulling you to himself. You laid your head on his shoulder and relaxed in his arms. You wished you could sit like this forever.

John’s lips touched your forehead. You felt his breath on your face. “I’ll talk to her.”

He met your worried look with a soft smile. “No conflicts, sweetheart, I promise,” he gently caressed your temple.

John leaned in a little more, and all your troubles dispelled in a kiss. His hot palm on your neck, his fingers in your hair. He was so close, and you knew he was on your side. All thoughts left your head, only delightful sensation of his lips on yours remained and pleasant little flutter inside which followed with it.

#john dutton #john dutton x reader #yellowstone #kevin costner

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whisperedfury · 3 years

Photo

Megara Character Parallels, aka queer coded mean girls

Heather Chandler (Heathers) A Mean Girl. Vain and selfish - likes to be in control and will ruin you if you cross her. Very little patience for stupidity, killer one-liners. Honestly just an Icon   “Did you have a brain tumor for breakfast? First you ask if you can be red, knowing that I’m always red.”

Theo Crain (The Haunting of Hill House) Literally the Worst at feelings. “A clenched fist with hair”. Says fuck way too much, also thinks she can fix everything. Has one (1) emotional outpouring per year.  “And I’m just floating in this ocean of nothing, and I wonder if this is it, if this is what death is, just out there in the darkness, just darkness and numbness and alone, and I wondered if that’s what she felt and that’s what mom feels, and its just numb and nothing and alone.”

Amy Elliot-Dunne (Gone Girl) Vengeful and cold. Playing the long game and probably has at least three plans to frame you for something. Knows how to craft herself into what people want and expect. Old Testament God vengeance. “You are a man. You are an average, lazy, boring, cowardly, woman-fearing man. Without me, that's what you would have kept on being, ad nauseam. But I made you into something. You were the best man you've ever been with me. And you know it. The only time in your life you've ever liked yourself was pretending to be someone I might like.”

Rosa Diaz (Brooklyn 99) Unknowable (TM), Actually a very supportive friend, knows most people’s secrets. Always armed. “You can’t let other people’s opinions get in the way of what you want, especially because other people suck.”

Josh Lyman (The West Wing) Human Disaster with a brilliant political mind, works in a constant state of panic. Repressed tragedy and trauma. “He goes through every day worried that somebody he likes is going to die and its going to be his fault. What do you think makes him walk so fast?” “President Bartlett’s a good man. He’s got a good heart. He doesn’t hold grudges. That’s what he pays me for”

Azula (Avatar the Last Airbender) Child soldier energy, repressing trauma through perfectionism. Low key about to breakdown at any given moment. Competitive sibling relationship that can get violent. Has absolutely had a crisis and cut her own bangs before. Coup by girlbossing. “Don’t flatter yourself. You were never even a player.”

Margo Hanson (The Magicians) THATS MY HIGH KING. Willing to do whatever it takes to keep her power. Loves very few people but would literally go to the ends of the earth to save them (wow how tragic that season four ended with episode 10?) A manipulative cunt. “But he didn’t tell you that the world makes you choose. You can be one of the smart ones or one of the pretty ones or even a strong one. But...try to be all three...you better learn to smile and shut up... Because the second you’re you, the second…” “I’m loud, pissed off, it's ‘what a bitch.’ ‘what a slut’ ‘who the fuck does she think she is?’” “So you never give them a chance. You hit first. And anyone dumb enough to hit back soon finds that there’s no hurting you, sheathed in all that hard, glossy armor.”

Beth Dutton (Yellowstone) Burn it all down to defend your home. Quite literally does not have a limit of what she’d do to protect those she loves. Desperate to prove herself to parental figures. “I subscribe to Neitzsche’s thoughts on right and wrong. He was a German philosopher who died of syphilis after he corn-holed some prostitute, so not exactly a life to model yours after, but his thoughts on right and wrong, good and evil... Which were: there’s no such thing. That, I believe. I believe in loving with your whole soul and destroying anything that wants to kill what you love. That’s it. That’s all there is.”

#brought a knife to a gun fight | muse #call it what you want to | about #ok need to stop messing w this and post #under the cut bc Long

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dk-thrive · 3 years

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Recovery is like that scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore walks down a darkened alley lighting lampposts along the way.

I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape. Instead, the world may become something worth paying attention to. The rewards of finding and maintaining balance are neither immediate nor permanent. They require patience and maintenance. We must be willing to move forward despite being uncertain of what lies ahead. We must have faith that actions today that seem to have no impact in the present moment are in fact accumulating in a positive direction, which will be revealed to us only at some unknown time in the future. Healthy practices happen day by day. My patient Maria said to me, “Recovery is like that scene in Harry Potter when Dumbledore walks down a darkened alley lighting lampposts along the way. Only when he gets to the end of the alley and stops to look back does he see the whole alley illuminated, the light of his progress.”

— Anna Lembke, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton, August 24, 2021)

#Anna Lembke #run away #fear #uncertain #anxiety #recovery #addiction #addict #Harry Potter #Dumbledore

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chiseler · 4 years

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Harry Stephen Keeler: The Paper Blackener of Bagdad on the Lakes

Marry a moustachioed alcoholic and erstwhile magician to a Welsh-American beauty shortly before the World’s Columbian Exposition. When their son is born, widow the mother. Widow her again—twice. Put her in charge of a boarding house for vaudevillians. Make her son a prankster and give him a degree in electrical engineering. Bake him in the Kankakee mental asylum for a year. The result: the one and only Harry Stephen Keeler.

Keeler (1890-1967) was, in his own words, one of the most obsessive “paper-blackeners” ever to inhabit Chicago—“London of the West, Bagdad on the Lakes.” In this regard he is not wholly unlike Henry Darger, the janitor and outsider artist who spent his life a few blocks away creating the 15,000-page chronicle of the Vivian Girls. One difference is that Keeler got published.

When he was out of the asylum and working as a steel mill electrician, Keeler started frenetically punching away at his L. C. Smith, turning out surprise-twist short stories and, soon, complicated serial mysteries in a whimsical vein. He also landed a job as editor of 10 Story Book, a pulp featuring humorous tales and half-naked girls. With Find the Clock (Dutton, 1927), he achieved U.S. hardback publication. Keeler was to publish 37 volumes with Dutton until he exhausted his publishers’ patience in 1942. He published 48 books with the British publisher Ward Lock (1929-53), nine with the fourth-rate Phoenix Press (1943-48), and a dozen or so further novels written directly for Spanish or Portuguese translation at $50 a pop, in addition to several manuscripts that never saw the light of day.

That’s a story of decline—and even at the early peak of his mild popularity, Keeler struggled to sell more than a few thousand copies of his novels. The Great Depression was part of the problem, but so was Keeler’s prose. Over the course of the ’30s, Keeler transmuted his early style—convoluted “webwork” plots and somewhat Victorian diction—into screwball concoctions where the narrator and characters sink into morasses of dialect and ludicrous phraseology, as the reader is challenged to sift through layers of implausible interpretation to uncove an even more implausible solution. Ignoring the pleas of his editors, HSK churned out huge, multivolume creations that tried his readers’ brains and now seem boldly postmodern, as if they had been dreamed up by Pynchon or Oulipo. To mention a few:

The Box from Japan (1932) is set in 1942 and runs to over 700,000 words, with extensive digressions on intercontinental 3-D television, a Nicaraguan canal, and the Japanese emperor’s love of Virginia ham.

The Marceau Case and X. Jones of Scotland Yard (1936) are “documented novels” that consist of newspaper stories, telegrams, photos (including one of a topless woman and one of Keeler himself), astronomical charts, cartoons, a Bible verse, two ten-page long footnotes, and much more. The premise is a twist on “locked room” mysteries: a man was strangled on an open croquet lawn, with only a few small footprints in his immediate vicinity. Was he garroted by a Lilliputian in an autogyro? The case is given a three-dimensional solution by an American in the first volume, and a four-dimensional solution by an Englishman in the second.

The Mysterious Mr. I and The Chameleon (1938-39) trace the Chicago peregrinations of a narrator who keeps us and everyone around him guessing as he switches identities no fewer than fifty times (once posing as a professor of philosophy who provides yet another solution to the Marceau case).

The Man with the Magic Eardrums (1939) is an all-night dialogue between two mysterious characters who discuss interracial marriage, telephone technology, and a laundry list of other Keelerian obsessions. It was followed by three sequels.

The exhausting, quasilunatic plots of HSK’s novels are larded with gems of Keelerian writing: awkward, preposterous, and hilarious. The laughter is always uncertain, though, because you are never sure just how much of the effect is intentional. (I have come to believe that most of it is.) Contemporary Keelerite Edward Bolman has recently started tweeting some of these gems (twitter.com/harryskeeler). Here’s a small selection.

“I—I thank you, Governor,” he said with dignity, “on behalf of the Great Science of Mathematics and Joe the Duck.”

For all’s not gold that glitters; and everything that makes an inky black aqueous solution isn’t the pure oxyrhodomate salt of platinum.

“I—I don’t want any women,” Joe managed to ejaculate.

Real estate law oozed out from all over him.

“I’d like to be Hong’s gold watch in his pocket—but able to listen, like as if it were my own ear—yeah, a gold ear-shaped listening watch.”

“Nuts!” exploded Monk Onderko. “Bull,” came from Pox in the rear.

His conscience was invariably an amoeba hypertrophied to the size of behemoth and capering about, centipedal with a hundred elephant legs!

Unlikely as it may seem, Keeler got a small taste of Hollywood in 1934, when Monogram Studios put out two films based on his Sing Sing Nights. In the movie of that name, three murder suspects are tested by a lie detector. (In the novel, the three men shot their victim nearly but not quite simultaneously—so two of them are guilty of no more than pumping a bullet into a corpse. One shooter espouses the theory that racism will eventually be overcome thanks to interbreeding, plastic surgery, and international air travel. None of this makes it into the film.) In The Mysterious Mr. Wong, a film based on a story told by one of the characters in Keeler’s Sing Sing Nights, Bela Lugosi plays Wong, a tepidly creepy Oriental who is stalked by a feebly wisecracking reporter. These movies have some interest as period pieces, but retain little of the distinctive Keeler touch. Extensive research has not supported Keeler’s claim that Sing Sing Nights inspired yet a third film, titled The Gorilla’s Brain.

Nearly forgotten by the end of his life, Keeler has experienced a small posthumous revival thanks to the Internet (which he would have adored). The Harry Stephen Keeler Society, founded in 1997, publishes a newsletter. All of Keeler’s books can be printed on demand by Ramble House. In 2005, McSweeney’s republished the 1934 novel The Riddle of the Traveling Skull. Keeler’s confessed fans include Neil Gaiman and Roger Ebert. Now we await a truly Keelerian film—a movie that somehow captures the erudite, juvenile, loquacious, gleefully unrealistic world of a Harry Stephen Keeler novel.

by Richard Polt

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notxjustxstories · 5 years

Note

Mattie Crocker for wbw!

B A S I C S

full name: mattie millicent crocker

gender: cis girl

sexuality: aro gay

pronouns: she/her

O T H E R S

family: duke crocker (father), millie dutton

birthplace: haven, maine

job: student

phobias: driving in the rain

guilty pleasures: shrimp

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: true neutral

sins - lust/greed/gluttony/sloth/pride/envy/wrath

virtues - chastity/charity/diligence/humility/kindness/patience/justice

T H I S - O R - T H A T

extrovert

disorganized

open-minded

anxious

agreeable

reckless

impatient

outspoken

leader

empathetic

pessimistic

modern

hard-working

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: n/a

ot3: n/a

brotp: duke

notp: literally any adult in the show

#squirrel answers #ask games #mattie crocker #mattie crocker asks #witchofinterest #mattie crocker headcanon #wbw

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keep-the-wolves-close · 1 year

Text

Steady Heart

Chapter 2: Deep Stays Down

Pairing: Slow-burn Kayce Dutton × OFC Stella Daniels

Rating: M? (Still figuring out the rating system) (might eventually be M anyhow)

Warnings: Grief, panic, language because I mean let's be honest we've all seen the show lol

Word count: 2,710

Gif credit goes to @bodybebangin (I totally can’t remember if there’s a way to transfer the gif to my post with your profile link on mobile.) Edit I figured it out and I’ll remember for the next time!

Authors Note: Thank you everyone for the interest in my first chapter! Here we are with chapter two! I hope you all like this one too! I had to split chapter 2 into two so technically there’s an extra chapter. So I think I’ll post this early 😂.

I would love to give credits to @dameronscopilot for being a sounding board for me during this whole process, giving outsider insight, a cheerleader, and allowing me to screech at her about things that have happened during the writing process. I seriously couldn’t have gotten this far. 💛

Stella tossed the covers of the bunk back. She reached for her glasses and her phone. It was around 8:30 in the morning. She wasn’t too late, but later than she had planned. Late by ranch standards, for sure. Thankfully no one was in the bunkhouse at the time so she had free reign of the bathroom.

She came out fully dressed and ready for the day. She saw all the men out the kitchen window. ‘All of them, except one.’ She blinked rapidly and air rushed up from her lungs. It was like that thought had just sucker punched her right in the gut. The nausea came back, her fingertips and cheeks went numb. No one came for her. More so, Lee wasn’t barging in, telling her to “Get your ass up and let’s get a move on! You’re holdin’ me up, lil’ bit!” He let her get away with much more than he probably should have.

Leaning forward against the sink, she looked down and tried to catch her breath, open mouthed and salivating. She tried to convince herself to not vomit. ‘In through your nose, out through your mouth girl.’ A groan escaped her. Her eyes welled up and she sank to the floor against the sink cabinets.

Stella slammed her fist on the floor. “Fuck!” She screamed in anguish. Partly regretting hitting the floor so hard, but most of it aimed at the loss of a coworker. A friend. The thought of never seeing him again, never hearing him giving her a hard time about his brother, about how she did something with a particular horse? It hit her like a freight train. One thought after the other. There was an empty crater made by the absence of Lee. One which she didn’t even realize would be there.

She hiccupped and hyperventilated while the tears streamed down her round cheeks. Stella tried to remind herself not to pass out. She could hear Lee's voice, right after she had gotten bucked really hard for the first time. “Big breaths kid. Big breaths.” Her face contorted into sorrow. She gulped air for a minute. Slowly, but surely, her breathing came back to a better rhythm.

Standing carefully, she ran the cold water in the sink. Stella splashed her face and held the cold water around her eyes. She didn’t need to be super swollen and red going out there. Ryan would immediately sniff it out.

Fixing her hair into a bun, she closed the bunkhouse door behind her. Before she had her meltdown, she had seen from the window that John and Rip had brought out Kayce’s horse. She definitely wanted to go and watch; that horse was about to give everyone a run for their money. He listened great for Kayce though. There was something kindred between the two that she noticed yesterday. She didn’t think John would have the patience for him for long.

“Hey Rip, Mr. Dutton.” She smiled at them.

“Hey kid.”

She rolled her eyes at the foreman while laughing. “You do realize I’m 26 now and not 14?”

“Don’t do that to me, Stella-belle.” Rip pleaded playfully.

Stella jested. “What? Make you feel old?”

John grinned at Stella. “If it makes him feel old, then I feel ancient, little girl.”

“Well you do look pretty rusty with that horse, sir.” She joked because of the show the stallion put on while she walked up.

“Oh you think you can do better?” John challenged her.

“I mean, your oldest and youngest did teach me almost everything I know.”

“And who do you think they learned it from?”

“Lloyd.” Stella giggled and hopped up and over the fence. She wiped her hands on her pants. “Let me take a crack at him.”

She handed her glasses to John and said, “Don’t get your dusty fingerprints all up on my lenses, sir.” He chuckled and stepped back to the fence where Rip stood.

“You should invest in contacts, dear.” John joked. He didn’t leave the pen, just in case she needed someone to grab her out. He knew his son’s best friend could be a little reckless when it came to the horses. Lee had seen fit to mention that to him.

“My glasses treat me just fine, thank you.” She pivoted back to the mustang.

“Whoa Tank.” She said softly and outstretched her hand to him. He looked to her, but then at John behind her. He let out a short snort and stomped his front foot.

“Mr. Dutton, no offense, but get out of the pen please.” She could hear him as he shuffled his way out.

He leaned over to Rip and said quietly, “Excuse me, just getting kicked out of my own arena.” They shared a chuckle at her determination.

“I can hear y’all by the way.” She smirked over her shoulder at them. “I work with the rest of these horses nearly every day, so let me try to do my thing.”

Stella stepped forward carefully. “Is that better, bud?” He nickered gently at her, partially satisfied. She chuckled at him. “Just like Kayce,” she said softly.

She clucked twice. “Come here boy.” The stallion took his time as he decided whether or not she was going to betray his trust. Just like she would with Kayce, she let him come to her. Which, he finally broke and decided she was interesting enough.

In her outstretched hand, he placed his muzzle. She began to pet him on his velvety soft nose and forehead. Once she felt that he was comfortable and he wasn’t giving a negative reaction, she started to mess around with his saddle; giving him gentle shoulder pats every so often. She just wanted to be extra sure that if the stud tried to toss her, she would have as much control as possible.

She got close to his ear and said gently, “okay, Tank. You ready to show these boys what we’re made of?” The horse chuffed just a tiny bit, just loud enough that she could hear him. She patted his chest and placed her foot in the stirrup. Stella gauged his reaction and he made it seem like she could proceed. She scrunched her eyebrows in suspicion and gripped the horn, stepping up into the saddle. She didn’t want to pull on his back harder than she needed and piss him off even more.

She sat deep in her seat and took a deep breath. She kept the reins loose, they were split reins anyhow, and her legs soft on his sides. Her heels low to keep her center of gravity. Stella could feel the stallion’s mind brewing. She brought his head up because she didn’t want him to go between his knees.

“Well I’ll be damned,” John muttered.

“Why do you think Lee and I gave her the position to work beside him with the horses, sir?”

“It’s okay, boy. You’re doing gre— shit!” Stella grabbed the horn tight and pulled her legs close because Tank took off in a flying leap.

He bounced them both around for the longest 10 seconds of Stella’s life. He tried to flip them, but she loosened her legs and pulled his head sharp into the inside lead causing him to lose momentum. She could hear Lee screaming at her in her head to get him on the inside and get his head back from him. The stud took a step to the side to gain balance. Tank made his displeasure known as he hollered and tried to toss her more times than she could count.

Stella flexed his neck and made him move forward. She, at the very least, wanted to get him to listen to her. There was a lot of work she was going to have to put in with this one. ‘Of course Lee left me the difficult one.’ She kept pushing him forward in long strides around the arena and finally he ground to a halt with an agitated squeal. They were both breathing heavily, but she refused to let him catch her off guard again. She flexed the inside rein again.

“Come on Tank, work with me here.” He tried to step on the outside lead to get away from her direction, but she brought him back in. He allowed her to trot him over to the two man audience they had. At least she had thought it was just Rip and Mr. Dutton. Everyone else from the bunkhouse had joined in to watch the free rodeo.

Lloyd looked proud. “We could make you a rodeo queen yet, little bit.”

Stella let out a full belly laugh. “Oh my god, Lloyd. Hell no. I like where my spine is. I’ll be just fine without the buckle.”

She stopped in front of John and he passed her glasses over to her. “He’s got a lot of work ahead of him, but I really don’t think anyone but Kayce is gonna be able to do anything with him. Or at least have him agreeable. This is absolutely your son’s horse, sir.” She got down and gave Tank a few good pats on his shoulder.

John and Stella shared a look of understanding and she put her glasses back on. They both knew exactly what she meant about Tank being Kayce’s. More so, Kayce being Tank’s. She breathed a chuckle through her nose and handed the reins over to Rip.

“I’ll keep trying with him tomorrow. I’ll talk to Kayce about him if you want me to?” She offered.

She watched Rip walk off and holler out, “Jimmy! Saddle up! We’ll make you a cowboy, yet.” Bless that man for what they were about to do to him.

“Yeah Stella. You do that for me.” John directed her.

She sent a text to Kayce. Hey, you got a minute to talk about that horse of yours? When she brought her eyes back up from her phone, she almost choked at the sight before her. Jimmy was now duck taped to Tank and being given explicit directions by Rip. Stella wandered over to her brother and Colby. She heard them placing bets on the horse or Jimmy.

“That horse has a name, ya know.”

“And what would that be, little bit?” Colby asked sarcastically.

She bit back. “His name is Tank if you would have paid attention at all.” She came to occupy the space between the bro-buds and Mr. Dutton and Rip.

“Do I detect some defensiveness?” Ryan goaded her.

Stella leaned forward on the fence and placed her foot up on a rung. “I never said I wasn’t gonna put money on the horse. I just want you to use his name, is all. Respect him and he’ll respect you. Maybe.” She cracked a smile. “I put $20 on Tank.” John let out a gruff chuckle from her right hand side. “I expect both of you to pay up too.” She joked to her bosses.

Ryan hissed through his teeth at her as Rip and John guffawed at her challenge. “Stella Lee!”

“What?” She bounced her shoulders. “Alls fair. Isn’t that right, gentlemen?” She focused on Jimmy and the horse, bouncing around just like she and John had been not long before. She felt for the poor kid because they were so rough on him, but he needed to harden up some.

Silence overtook her. This is where she would have been standing while watching Lee in the pen. Ryan glanced over at his sister when he realized she had gone silent.

He leaned toward her. “You okay?”

“I will be.” She murmured back. She didn’t have the energy to get into it.

Ryan questioned quietly. “Lee?” She confirmed silently. He sighed and placed an arm around her. “We’ll get through this, Stellee. I promise.”

Her phone buzzed in the back pocket of her jeans. Pulling it out, she glanced at the message preview. If you mean my father’s horse, I guess I got some time.

She replied. You want me to call you?

“Hey, I’ll be right back. I might gotta make a phone call.” Stella announced to the men as she removed herself from under her brother's arm. She figured the barn would be the closest and quietest place. Jamie was just walking up as she made her exit, and she acknowledged him in a quick greeting.

In through the side door she went. She figured she could say hi to her baby at the same time. Abigail made a happy noise at her arrival. Stella caressed her muzzle fondly. “Come on girl, back up.” She clucked twice and gently pushed her muzzle and the bay roan moved backward. Opening the stall door, she moved inside to the cleanest part and made herself comfortable on the floor to wait for Kayce’s approval to call.

She heard movement from the front of the barn. Her eyebrows pulled together. It was past morning turnout, and it wasn’t feed time, so no one should really be in here. She went to move back out into the hallway when she faintly heard John talking to Jamie.

“Did they identify Kayce?” John asked. Stella tilted her head quizzically and stopped moving. What did they mean, “identify Kayce”?

Jamie answered. “Not yet.”

“Who are the agents we’re talking about?” John asked.

“It’s, uh, Tom Reynolds and Aaron McReary.” Jamie offered up.

John pursed his lips in contemplation. “Reynolds I can deal with. I don’t know this McReary.”

“Yeah, he lives in the south end of the valley. Word is he likes his religion.”

“As in “won’t tell a lie” likes it?”

“Yeah, that would be my guess.” Jamie exhaled heavily.

“Find out where he goes to church. Anything else?” John thought twice. “Anything else? You said there were a few.”

Jamie sighed. “The medical examiners report. You’re not gonna like it.”

“Who else has seen the report?” As John questioned his second oldest son, Stella leaned forward to try and peek out the bars of the stall.

“The only ones who have seen it, want it to change.”

“Then it’ll change.” John started walking in her direction. Stella withdrew from the bars and bent down in the front corner to avoid being seen.

“It means they’re doctors. Which means they took an oath and it wasn’t to you. No matter what we do the photographs won’t change. The body won’t change. It’ll tell the same story to anybody who looks.” Jamie started to raise his voice.

“The body is buried, Jamie. Relax.”

“Yeah, but when they see the report…”

Abigail chose the most inopportune time to snort loudly. Stella squeezed her eyes shut, fixed her glasses, and put her hand on the underside of Abigail’s stomach. She tried to convince her to be quiet.

“When they see the report what?”

“When they see –,” John spoke over Jamie.

“–You think I’m just gonna let them dig up my son?”

“When they see the report they’re not gonna ask, they’re just gonna do it, dad.”

“Don’t say it –,”

“–I think–,”

“–Don’t say it –,”

“–I think we should beat them to it.”

“Don't even think it!”

Stella could hear things getting heated. She wanted to know, but also didn’t. She looked at the stall window that faced the one back paddock for the horses. Silently she thanked God for her girl having one of the few rooms with a VIP view. She gave Abigail a pat and tried to quietly climb out the window. She accidentally leaned back against the open section and it bounced against the barn. She grimaced as her feet dropped to the ground semi-gracefully. She thought she was in the clear as she took off. Unbeknownst to Stella, John had heard the noise from Abigail’s stall on his way out.

She was gonna have to go around the barn the long way to avoid running into John. She made an immediate left to wrap back around and texted Kayce. Actually, can I just meet you at your house?

There was only a few minutes in between messages. Yeah, that’s fine with us. Stella thanked God above and darted to her car. She didn’t catch John as he peeked around the corner and watched her race off.

Comments, thoughts, commentary, and asks are welcome! Just please be gentle lol. 🤓

#kayce dutton #luke grimes #ian bohen #kayce dutton fan fiction #ian bohen : ryan #yellowstone fanfic #yellowstone fanfiction #SH chapter two #yellowstonetv

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inclineto · 5 years

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Books, September - October 2019

So the thing about a 3 canto/night Faerie Queene quota is that it sure does cut into the rest of your reading, while leaving you with an appetite for frivolity and no patience for bad style. But anyway...

Hither Page - Cat Sebastian [Look, there’s a charming but thoroughly implausible romance, post-war rationing, some murder, and a vicar. You’re either here for this sort of thing or you’re not. (I was there for it.)]

Gaywyck - Vincent Virga [There...is a lot going on here. But, astoundingly, slightly less incest than I expected!]

Waisted - Randy Susan Meyers

The Wild Places - Robert Macfarlane [”These are creatures, you realise, that live by voices inaudible to you.”]

The Ghost Clause - Howard Norman *

Maritime: New and Selected Poems - Ian Stephen [dnf]

Rabbits for Food - Binnie Kirschenbaum [So, how’s your depression right now? not so great? then maybe skip this - or, who knows, maybe now is exactly the time for someone else’s horrifyingly funny, horrifyingly realistic breakdown]

Sincerely, Harriet - Sarah W. Searle

Time Song: Searching for Doggerland - Julia Blackburn, with drawings by Enrique Brinkmann

By Demons Possessed - P.C. Hodgell [I’ve missed two or possibly three books in this series: I’m not sure and I don’t regret it and that probably means nothing good. But God Stalk is great! God Stalk is early 80s fantasy at its very weird best. Read that.]

To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett

Akin - Emma Donoghue

We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea - Arthur Ransome

Margaret the First - Danielle Dutton * [In paper this time, and with absolute delight]

Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland - Sarah Moss

Social Creature - Tara Isabella Burton [Let us be glad we do not aspire to be young, rich, pretty, and well-photographed in New York. I’m truly unsure whether I was hate-reading this or not, but damn did I want to know what would happen next...which I suppose is exactly the point of being or watching bright young things.]

Any Old Diamonds - KJ Charles [I liked this more on the reread, but Jerry’s still too damn verbose]

Inconspicous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have - Tatiana Schlossberg - [You probably knew you had it. Speaking of impacts, this book has used up the world’s entire supply of perky parenthetical asides and now there are none for the rest of us. Bummer. (Spoiler alert: I’m lying!)]

An Unseen Attraction - KJ Charles [Figured I’d see whether I thought better of this one on the reread, too - and it’s...fine. It’s fine.]

The Faerie Queene - Edmund Spenser ***

Caprice and Rondo - Dorothy Dunnett

Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary - Pamela Dean

#books 2019 #books practical and pleasurable #the faerie queene! i spent all of october reading the entire freaking faerie queene!

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smolbeandrabbles · 5 years

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7 Deadly Sins / 7 Heavenly Virtues: REQUESTS OPEN!

I know. It’s been at least 3 weeks since I first suggested I might be opening requests. Well, friends. We are finally at that point!

7 Deadly Sins: Lust / Gluttony / Greed / Sloth / Wrath / Envy / Pride

7 Heavenly Virtues: Chastity / Temperance / Charity / Diligence / Patience / Gratitude / Humility

As this is my first ever request opening I’m only going to do one fic for each. Please read the rules, if I get a request that does not follow the rules I’m simply going to send you back here...!!

Rules:

1. Sins/Virtues are done on a first come first served basis. However, as I anticipate some to be asked for more than once I will keep ideas to fic at another point in time. 2. If you want Smut... Tell me what you want, I’ll do what I do... If I just can’t do it, please understand...

3. x Reader requests only. Sorry..! 4. Because I'm going to do this first come first serve you're probably gonna need to give me at least 2 sins/virtues... (you don’t have to!) As long as you got an idea you go for it! Give them to me in preference order... 5. I’m flexible. It is your choice how you decide to send me sins/virtues. You can send me the plot / a line / a lyric...

Be as (un) specific as you like but I can’t promise my own ideas aren’t going to be poured in there. Request how you want - Message Me / Ask Me... Whatever! 6. 1 request per Sin/Virtue, making 14 total. I will write for any of the listed Mendo characters more than once. It’s all up to you guys to be creative!!!

7. Just cuz its a sin doesn’t mean it needs to be a sin... just because its a virtue doesn’t mean it has to be... virtuous... 😏

Up to you guys. I like the prospect of writing you 7 Sinful Mendos vs 7 Soft Mendos

Acceptable Mendo’s:

Talos (Captain Marvel) / Director Keller (Captain Marvel) Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood) Nolan Sorrento (Ready Player One) Andrew ‘Pope’ Cody (Animal Kingdom) Robin Van Der Hook (The Place Beyond The Pines) Kyle Sullivan (Guns For Hire) Martin (Untogether) John Daggett (The Dark Knight Rises) Gerry (Mississippi Grind) Dave (Lost River) Phil Beckman (Knowing) Kev Madden (Idiot Box) Anders Harris (The Land of Steady Habits) Emmett Dutton (Australia) Malcolm Bench (Vertical Limit) Fraser (Black Sea) Ned (Beautiful Kate) Daniel “Danny” Clark (The Big Steal) Orson Krennic (Rogue One) Danny Rayburn (Bloodline)

@3134045126 @stcphstrange @beany-ben @mfolcore @sufferthesea @alotofrandomfangirling @p-and-pen @shantellorraine @waytoplantann @happyskywhale

#Ben Mendelsohn #Nervy about putting him as a tag. But...#Alas here we are #Linzi Writes Requests #Linzi Opens Requests #THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HAS BEEN SO VERY HELPFUL OVER MY WILL I / WON'T I #I hope it's worth it!!!!

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griffinequestrian · 5 years

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Heels Down Mag: Hawley Bennett-Awad - Olympic Level Grit

By Justine Griffin for Heels Down Mag

From once-in-a-lifetime wins on the podium and jaunts around the most prestigious cross-country courses in the world, to the sobering heartbreak of injuries, Hawley Bennett-Awad has experienced it all.The 42-year-old Canadian eventer is a two-time Pan American Games and two-time Olympic Games contender. She’s rocketed around for Canada at two World Equestrian Games.

She’s tasted sweet victory before and knows how crushing it feels to be sidelined with a broken bone or to have her top Advanced-level horse pulled out from under her. But long before she set her sights on becoming one of the best event riders for her home country, she learned that to get what she wanted, she was going to have to work harder than anybody else.

“I’ve had lots of people tell me I couldn’t do it and that I wouldn’t make anything of myself,” Hawley says. “That lit a fire in me. I set out, and I’ve proved a lot of people wrong. Hard work and determination pays off.”

In 2014, the owners of Hawley’s longtime four-star mount, Gin & Juice, chose to part ways and seek another professional ride for the veteran 14-year-old Thoroughbred. The decision shocked the eventing world, as Hawley had ridden the bay mare to much success over their 10-year career together, which included nine CCI4* competitions during that time frame.

But Hawley came back aboard a new fleet of horses, again at the top level of the sport. The rise and falls throughout her storied career detail the grit and resolve she’s developed not only as a rider, but also as a person. It also shows just a glimpse into Hawley’s character: instead of fading into the background and accepting defeat, Hawley taught herself how to take a hit, learn from it, and come back stronger.

‘Just a girl from Langley’

Hawley grew up riding in Langley, British Columbia, a suburban town outside of Vancouver, where she rode in the 4-H Horse Club and the local Pony Club chapter. Like most pony-obsessed girls, Hawley dreamed early on of one day riding in the Olympics.

She didn’t take a formal riding lesson until she was almost 18 years old. Instead she rode horses on a local hobby farm, and her mother was the one who taught her how to ride in those early days.

“I used to do the jumpers. But the first time I tried cross-country, I was addicted. Going into the start box and leaving the start box, that adrenaline rush is just amazing,” she describes.

Despite her humble beginnings, Hawley was on the fast track to rise the levels of the sport. She began to ride seriously in the show jumping arena, but by 16, she had competed through Training level on her Arabian gelding, Ibn. Not long after, Hawley’s first life-changing partnership would begin when she took on a four-year-old off-track Canadian Thoroughbred gelding, Livingstone. It was her mom Gerry, who was recently divorced from Hawley’s father at the time, who bought the horse for her.

“My mom stepped up to the challenge to buy Hank (Livingstone). He wasn’t that expensive of a horse, but my parents were getting divorced and she re-mortgaged the house,” Hawley explains. “She made every sacrifice to help me chase my goals and dreams.”

Within four years, Hawley took the bay gelding to a fourth place finish at the North American Young Riders’ Championship.By 2003, Hawley headed to the Dominican Republic to be a part of the silver medal-winning team at the Pan American Eventing Championships. The following year, her childhood dream came true when she rode Livingstone at the Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.

“I’m in this dream world where all of my heroes, all the people who I look up to, I’m literally watching them ride. It was a little surreal,” Hawley says of her time competing internationally for Canada at the level of legends like Andrew Nicholson, Mark Todd and Mary King.

In 2005, Hawley and Livingstone placed 15th at the FEI World Cup Final in Sweden and in 2007, they completed the Badminton CCI4* for the first time to cap off what was truly a Cinderella story.

Over the next decade, Hawley would produce and compete a slew of talented horses, continuing her reign at the top level on Gin & Juice. It was aboard this mare that Hawley would make history as a member of the silver medal team for Canada at the World Equestrian Games in 2010, and make a return trip to the Olympic Games in 2012.

“She’s taught me patience. She’s the feistiest horse I’ve ever had to ride. But hard work and perseverance pays off,” Hawley explains. “There were many low times when I’ve been like, ‘why am I doing this?’ But she’s a blast to ride.”

After Gin & Juice left Hawley at the end of 2014, she took a few years to invest in young horses and rebuild her fleet. Despite this blow, Hawley kept on with new goals in sight. She competed mostly at the one-star and two-star level, until she made a comeback in 2016 on a new and exciting upper-level prospect.

“I’m only doing eventing because someone told me I couldn’t do it. I’m a fighter and yes, I’m a little stubborn. But I’m also very realistic about what I do,” she says.

New Beginnings

It started with a phone call from Hawley’s coach and mentor, veteran event rider Buck Davidson.

“Jollybo is for sale. This is your horse,” is what Hawley recalls him saying back in 2016. “I was like, ‘that’s great but I have no money to buy her.’”

Jollybo, a 15-year-old British Sport Horse mare, was formerly campaigned up to the three-star level by English rider, Justine Dutton. Buck convinced Hawley to take a trip out to Pennsylvania to see the powerhouse bay mare.

That summer Hawley and Jollybo finished third at Rebecca Farm in the CCI3* even though Hawley says she hadn’t jumped an Advanced-level fence since the World Equestrian Games in 2014.

“By fence two, I was like, ‘OK, we can do this,’” Hawley remembers. “She hasn’t put a foot wrong since.”

Jollybo brought Hawley back into the top levels of the sport. The pair have competed at the Land Rover Kentucky Three-Day Event twice since then, among many other upper level events. And while Hawley still has competitive goals, including dreams of just one more trip to WEG or the Olympics in her, she says her perspective is evolving.

“I’ve been doing this a long time now, and I’ve had some injuries. I don’t want to be 70 and still…” her voice fades as she considers her next words. Hawley says her outlook changed after her father passed away two years ago. “That was a big wake up call for me.”

“I’m very passionate still, but there are other things in my life now. I love my friends and family, but I only go home twice a year. I have a brand new niece and my mom is getting older. If my mom wants to go on a four-day holiday, I want to be able to go with her,” she explains, noting how thankful she is to her husband, Gamal, and all his support over the years, too. “It would be nice to spend time with my family because they’ve always been very forgiving and supportive.”

She enjoys other aspects of the sport and her business, outside of campaigning events, much more these days. Like bringing along young horses, which she sees as a big focus of her career through the next five years or so. And continuing to coach riders and host clinics. Hawley says she’d love to have the chance to coach a team one day.

“I’m old enough and I’ve done enough,” she says. “If I get to go again, awesome. But it’s not the end all, be all, anymore.”

#Hawley Bennett #Gin & Juice #gin and juice #three day eventing #eventing #horse #horses #horse back riding #Olympics #Olympic Games #Pan American Games #Pan Ams #rolex #rolex three day event #LRK3DE #Land Rover Kentucky Three Day event #Heels Down Magazine #Heels Down Mag #equestrian

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