#secondhand hotels & resorts

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Toni Morrison and the Ghosts in the House

“Being a black woman writer is not a shallow place to write from,” Morrison says. “It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it.”Photograph by Richard Avedon for The New Yorker / © The Richard Avedon Foundation

From 2003: As an editor, author, and professor, Morrison has fostered a generation of black writers.

By Hilton Als October 19, 2003

No. 2245 Elyria Avenue in Lorain, Ohio, is a two-story frame house surrounded by look-alikes. Its small front porch is littered with the discards of former tenants: a banged-up bicycle wheel, a plastic patio chair, a garden hose. Most of its windows are boarded up. Behind the house, which is painted lettuce green, there’s a patch of weedy earth and a heap of rusting car parts. Seventy-two years ago, the novelist Toni Morrison was born here, in this small industrial town twenty-five miles west of Cleveland, which most citydwellers would consider “out there.” The air is redolent of nearby Lake Erie and new-mown grass.

From Morrison’s birthplace it’s a couple of miles to Broadway, where there’s a pizzeria, a bar with sagging seats, and a brown building that sells dingy and dilapidated secondhand furniture. This is the building Morrison imagined when she described the house of the doomed Breedlove family in her first novel, “The Bluest Eye”: “There is an abandoned store on the southeast corner of Broadway and Thirty-fifth Street in Lorain, Ohio,” she wrote. “It does not recede into its background of leaden sky, nor harmonize with the gray frame houses and black telephone poles around it. Rather, it foists itself on the eye of the passerby in a manner that is both irritating and melancholy. Visitors who drive to this tiny town wonder why it has not been torn down, while pedestrians, who are residents of the neighborhood, simply look away when they pass it.”

Love and disaster and all the other forms of human incident accumulate in Morrison’s fictional houses. In the boarding house where the heroine of Morrison’s second novel, “Sula,” lives, “there were rooms that had three doors, others that opened on the porch only and were inaccessible from any other part of the house; others that you could get to only by going through somebody’s bedroom.” This is the gothic, dreamlike structure in whose front yard Sula’s mother burns to death, “gesturing and bobbing like a sprung jack-in-the-box,” while Sula stands by watching, “not because she was paralyzed, but because she was interested.”

Morrison’s houses don’t just shelter human dramas; they have dramas of their own. “124 was spiteful,” she writes in the opening lines of “Beloved” (1987). “Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way.” Living and dead ghosts ramble through No. 124, chained to a history that claims its inhabitants. At the center of Morrison’s new novel, “Love,” is a deserted seaside hotel—a resort where, in happier times, blacks danced and socialized and swam without any white people complaining that they would contaminate the water—built by Bill Cosey, a legendary black entrepreneur, and haunted by his memory.

Morrison spends about half her time in a converted boathouse that overlooks the Hudson in Rockland County. The boathouse is a long, narrow, blue structure with white trim and large windows. A decade ago, when Morrison was in Princeton, where she teaches, it burned to the ground. Because it was a very cold winter, the water the firefighters used froze several important artifacts, including Morrison’s manuscripts. “But what they can’t save are little things that mean a lot, like your children’s report cards,” she told me, her eyes filling with tears. She shook her head and said, “Let’s not go there.”

We were in the third-floor parlor, furnished with overstuffed chairs covered in crisp gray linen, where we talked over the course of two days last summer. Sun streamed through the windows and a beautiful blue-toned abstract painting by the younger of her two sons, Slade, hung on the wall. As we chatted, Morrison wasn’t in the least distracted by the telephone ringing or the activities of her housekeeper or her secretary. She is known for her powers of concentration. When she is not writing or teaching, she likes to watch “Law & Order” and “Waking the Dead”—crime shows that offer what she described as “mild engagement with a satisfying structure of redemption.” She reads and rereads novels by Ruth Rendell and Martha Grimes.

Morrison had on a white shirt over a black leotard, black trousers, and a pair of high-heeled alligator sandals. Her long silver dreadlocks cascaded down her back and were gathered at the end by a silver clip. When she was mock-amazed by an insight, she flushed. Her light-brown eyes, with their perpetually listening or amused expression, are the eyes of a watcher—and of someone who is used to being watched. But if she is asked a question she doesn’t appreciate, a veil descends over her eyes, discontinuing the conversation. (When I tried to elicit her opinion about the novels of one of her contemporaries, she said, “I hear the movie is fab,” and turned away.) Morrison’s conversation, like her fiction, is conducted in high style. She underlines important points by making showy arabesques with her fingers in the air, and when she is amused she lets out a cry that’s followed by a fusillade of laughter.

“You know, my sister Lois was just here taking care of me,” she said. “I had a cataract removed in one eye. Suddenly, the world was so bright. And I looked at myself in the mirror and wondered, Who is that woman? When did she get to be that age? My doctor said, ‘You have been looking at yourself through the lens that they shoot Elizabeth Taylor through.’ I couldn’t stop wondering how I got to be this age.”

When “The Bluest Eye” was published, in 1970, Morrison was unknown and thirty-nine years old. The initial print run was modest: two thousand copies in hardcover. Now a first edition can fetch upward of six thousand dollars. In 2000, when “The Bluest Eye” became a selection for Oprah’s Book Club, Plume sold more than eight hundred thousand paperback copies. By then, Toni Morrison had become Toni Morrison—the first African-American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1993. Following “The Bluest Eye,” Morrison published seven more novels: “Sula” (1973), “Song of Solomon” (1977), “Tar Baby” (1981), “Beloved” (1987), “Jazz” (1992), “Paradise” (1998), and now “Love.” Morrison also wrote a critical study, “Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination” (1992), which, like all her novels since “Song of Solomon,” became a best-seller. She has edited several anthologies—about O.J., about the Clarence Thomas hearings—as well as collections of the writings of Huey P. Newton and James Baldwin. With her son Slade, she has co-authored a number of books for children. She wrote the book for a musical, “New Orleans” (1983); a play, “Dreaming Emmett” (1986), which reimagined the life and death of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year-old black boy who was murdered in Mississippi in 1955; a song cycle with the composer André Previn; and, most recently, an opera based on the life of Margaret Garner, the slave whose story inspired “Beloved.” She was an editor at Random House for nineteen years—she still reads the Times with pencil in hand, copy-editing as she goes—and has been the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Council of the Humanities at Princeton since 1989.

“I know it seems like a lot,” Morrison said. “But I really only do one thing. I read books. I teach books. I write books. I think about books. It’s one job.” What Morrison has managed to do with that job—and the criticism, pro and con, she has received for doing it—has made her one of the most widely written-about American authors of the past fifty years. (The latest study of her work, she told me, is a comparison of the vernacular in her novels and William Faulkner’s. “I don’t believe it,” I said. “Believe it,” she said, emphatically.) Morrison—required reading in high schools across the country—is almost always treated as a spokeswoman for her gender and her race. In a review of “Paradise,” Patricia Storace wrote, “Toni Morrison is relighting the angles from which we view American history, changing the very color of its shadows, showing whites what they look like in black mirrors. To read her work is to witness something unprecedented, an invitation to a literature to become what it has claimed to be, a truly American literature.” It’s a claim that her detractors would also make, to opposite effect.

“I’m already discredited, I’m already politicized, before I get out of the gate,” Morrison said. “I can accept the labels”—the adjectives like “black” and “female” that are often attached to her work—“because being a black woman writer is not a shallow place but a rich place to write from. It doesn’t limit my imagination; it expands it. It’s richer than being a white male writer because I know more and I’ve experienced more.”

Morrison also owns a home in Princeton, where nine years ago she founded the Princeton Atelier, a program that invites writers and performing artists to workshop student plays, stories, and music. (Last year, she brought in the poet Paul Muldoon as a co-director.) “I don’t write when I’m teaching,” she said. “Teaching is about taking things apart; writing is about putting things together.” She and her sons own an apartment building farther up the Hudson, which houses artists, and another building across the street from it, which her elder son Ford, an architect, is helping her remodel into a study and performance center. “My sister Lois said that the reason I buy all these houses is because we had to move so often as children,” Morrison said, laughing.

Morrison’s family—the Woffords—lived in at least six different apartments over the course of her childhood. One of them was set on fire by the landlord when the Woffords couldn’t pay the rent—four dollars a month. In those days, Toni, the second of four children (she had two brothers, now dead), was called Chloe Ardelia. Her parents, George and Ramah, like the Breedloves, were originally from the South (Ramah was born in Greenville, Alabama; George in Cartersville, Georgia). Like many transplanted Southerners, George worked at U.S. Steel, which was particularly active during the Second World War and attracted not only American blacks but also displaced Europeans: Poles, Greeks, and Italians.

Morrison describes her father as a perfectionist, someone who was proud of his work. “I remember my daddy taking me aside—this was when he worked as a welder—and telling me that he welded a perfect seam that day, and that after welding the perfect seam he put his initials on it,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Daddy, no one will ever see that.’ Sheets and sheets of siding would go over that, you know? And he said, ‘Yes, but I’ll know it’s there.’ ” George also worked odd jobs, washing cars and the like, after hours at U.S. Steel. Morrison remembers that he always had at least two other jobs.

Ramah, a devout member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was a homemaker. From the first, it was clear that Morrison was not made to follow in her footsteps. “I remember going outside to hang some clothes on the line,” she said. “And I held the pants up, I hooked them by the inside pockets. And whatever else I was doing, it was completely wrong. Then my mother or my grandmother came out and they just started to laugh, because I didn’t know how to hang up clothes.” Her parents seemed to have different expectations for her, anyway. “I developed a kind of individualism—apart from the family—that was very much involved in my own daydreaming, my own creativity, and my own reading. But primarily—and this has been true all my life—not really minding what other people said, just not minding.”

The Woffords told their children stories and sang songs. After dinner, their grandfather would sometimes take out his violin and everyone would dance. And no matter how many times Ramah told the ghost stories she had learned from her mother and her Auntie Bell in Alabama, Chloe always wanted to hear more. She used to say, “Mama, please tell the story about this or that,” her mother recalled in a 1982 interview with the Lorain Journal. “Finally I’d get tired of telling the stories over and over again. So I made up a new story.” Ramah’s stories sparked Morrison’s imagination. She fell in love with spoken language.

Morrison always lived, she said, “below or next to white people,” and the schools were integrated—stratification in Lorain was more economic than racial—but in the Wofford house there was an intense suspicion of white people. In a 1976 essay, Morrison recalled watching her father attack a white man he’d discovered lurking in their apartment building. “My father, distrusting every word and every gesture of every white man on earth, assumed that the white man who crept up the stairs one afternoon had come to molest his daughters and threw him down the stairs and then our tricycle after him. (I think my father was wrong, but considering what I have seen since, it may have been very healthy for me to have witnessed that as my first black-white encounter.)” I asked her about the story. “The man was a threat to us, we thought,” Morrison replied. “He scared us. I’m sure that man was drunk, you know, but the important thing was the notion that my father was a protector, and particularly against the white man. Seeing that physical confrontation with a white man and knowing that my father could win thrilled, excited, and pleased me. It made me know that it was possible to win.”

Morrison’s family was spread along a color spectrum. “My great-grandmother was very black, and because we were light-skinned blacks, she thought that we had been ‘tampered with,’ ” she said. “She found lighter-skinned blacks to be impure—which was the opposite of what the world was saying about skin color and the hierarchy of skin color. My father, who was light-skinned, also preferred darker-skinned blacks.” Morrison, who didn’t absorb her father’s racism, continues to grapple with these ideas and argue against their implications. In a television interview some years ago, she said that in art “there should be everything from Hasidic Jews to Walter Lippmann. Or, as I was telling a friend, there should be everything from reggae hair to Ralph Bunche. There should be an effort to strengthen the differences and keep them, so long as no one is punished for them.” Morrison addressed her great-grandmother’s notion of racial purity in “Paradise,” where it is the oppressive basis for a Utopian community formed by a group of dark blacks from the South.

As a child, Morrison read virtually everything, from drawing-room comedies to Theodore Dreiser, from Jane Austen to Richard Wright. She was compiling, in her head, a reading list to mine for inspiration. At Hawthorne Junior High School, she read “Huckleberry Finn” for the second time. “Fear and alarm are what I remember most about my first encounter” with it, she wrote several years ago. “My second reading of it, under the supervision of an English teacher in junior high school, was no less uncomfortable—rather more. It provoked a feeling I can only describe now as muffled rage, as though appreciation of the work required my complicity in and sanction of something shaming. Yet the satisfactions were great: riveting episodes of flight, of cunning; the convincing commentary on adult behavior, watchful and insouciant; the authority of a child’s voice in language cut for its renegade tongue and sharp intelligence. Nevertheless, for the second time, curling through the pleasure, clouding the narrative reward, was my original alarm, coupled now with a profoundly distasteful complicity.”

When she was twelve years old, Morrison converted to Catholicism, taking Anthony as her baptismal name, after St. Anthony. Her friends shortened it to Toni. In junior high, one of her teachers sent a note home to her mother: “You and your husband would be remiss in your duties if you do not see to it that this child goes to college.” Shortly before graduating from Lorain High School—where she was on the debating team, on the yearbook staff, and in the drama club (“I wanted to be a dancer, like Maria Tallchief”)—Morrison told her parents that she’d like to go to college. “I want to be surrounded by black intellectuals,” she said, and chose Howard University, in Washington, D.C. In support of her decision, George Wofford took a second union job, which was against the rules of U.S. Steel. In the Lorain Journal article, Ramah Wofford remembered that his supervisors found out and called him on it. “ ‘Well, you folks got me,’ ” Ramah recalled George’s telling them. “ ‘I am doing another job, but I’m doing it to send my daughter to college. I’m determined to send her and if I lose my job here, I’ll get another job and do the same.’ It was so quiet after George was done talking, you could have heard a pin drop. . . . And they let him stay and let him do both jobs.” To give her daughter pocket money, Ramah Wofford worked in the rest room of an amusement park, handing out towels. She sent the tips to her daughter with care packages of canned tuna, crackers, and sardines.

Morrison loved her classes at Howard, but she found the social climate stifling. In Washington in the late forties, the buses were still segregated and the black high schools were divided by skin tone, as in the Deep South. The system was replicated at Howard. “On campus itself, the students were very much involved in that ranking, and your skin gave you access to certain things,” Morrison said. “There was something called ‘the paper-bag test’—darker than the paper bag put you in one category, similar to the bag put you in another, and lighter was yet another and the most privileged category. I thought them to be idiotic preferences.” She was drawn to the drama department, which she felt was more interested in talent than in skin color, and toured the South with the Howard University Players. The itineraries were planned very carefully, but once in a while, because of inclement weather or a flat tire, the troupe would arrive in a town too late to check in to the “colored” motel. Then one of the professors would open the Yellow Pages and call the minister of the local Zion or Baptist church, and the players would be put up by members of the congregation. “There was something not just endearing but welcoming and restorative in the lives of those people,” she said. “I think the exchange between Irving Howe and Ralph Ellison is along those lines: Ralph Ellison said something nice about living in the South, and Irving Howe said, ‘Why would you want to live in such an evil place?’ Because all he was thinking about was rednecks. And Ralph Ellison said, ‘Black people live there.’ ”

After graduating from Howard, in 1953, she went on to Cornell, where she earned a master’s degree in American literature, writing a thesis titled “Virginia Woolf’s and William Faulkner’s Treatment of the Alienated.” What she saw in their work—“an effort to discover what pattern of existence is most conducive to honesty and self-knowledge, the prime requisites for living a significant life”—she emulated in her own life. She went back to Howard to teach, and Stokely Carmichael was one of her students. Around this time, she met and married Harold Morrison, a Jamaican-born architect. She joined a writing group, where the one rule was that you had to bring something to read every week. Among the writers in that group were the playwright and director Owen Dodson and his companion the painter Charles Sebree. At first, Morrison said, she brought in “all that old junk from high school.” Then she began writing a story about a little black girl, Pecola Breedlove, who wanted blue eyes.

“I wanted to take the name of Peola”—the “tragic mulatto” character from the 1934 movie “Imitation of Life”—“and play with it, turn it around,” Morrison said. When she was young, she said, “another little black girl and I were discussing whether there was a real God or not. I said there was, and she said there wasn’t and she had proof: she had prayed for, and not been given, blue eyes. I just remember listening to her and imagining her with blue eyes, and it was a grotesque thing. She had these high cheekbones and these great big slanted dark eyes, and all I remember thinking was that if she had blue eyes she would be horrible.”

When Morrison read the story to the writing group, Sebree turned to her and said, “You are a writer.”

In 1964, Morrison returned to Lorain. Her marriage had fallen apart and she had to determine how she was going to take care of her family—her son Ford was three years old and Slade was on the way. An ad in The New York Review of Books listed a position with L. W. Singer, a textbook division of Random House that was based in Syracuse. Morrison applied for and got the job. She took her babies (Slade was born in 1965) and moved East. She was thirty-four years old. In Syracuse, she didn’t care to socialize; instead, she returned to the story about the girl who wanted blue eyes and began to expand it. She wrote when she could—usually after the children went to sleep. And since she was the sole support for her children, she couldn’t sacrifice the real world for her art. “I stole time to write,” she said. “Writing was my other job—I always kept it over there, away from my ‘real’ work as an editor or teacher.” It took her five years to complete the book, because she enjoyed the process so much.

Holt, Rinehart & Winston published “The Bluest Eye” in 1970, with a picture of Morrison lying on her side against a white backdrop, her hair cut in an Afro. Taken at the moment when fashion met the counterculture—when Black was coöpted as Beautiful and soul-food recipes ran in fashion magazines next to images of Black Panther wives tying their heads up in bright fabric—the picture was the visual equivalent of the book: black, female, individualistic.

Set in Lorain at the end of the Depression, “The Bluest Eye” remains the most autobiographical of Morrison’s novels. In it, she focusses on the lives of little black girls—perhaps the least likely, least commercially viable story one could tell at the time. Morrison positioned the white world at the periphery; black life was at the center, and black females were at the center of that. Morrison wasn’t sentimental about the black community. Cholly Breedlove rapes his daughter Pecola because it is one of the few forms of power he has (“How dare she love him?” he thinks. “Hadn’t she any sense at all? What was he supposed to do about that? Return it? How? What could his calloused hands produce to make her smile?”); a group of children scapegoat her as her misfortune worsens (“All of us—all who knew her—felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness”); and three whores are her only source of tenderness (“Pecola loved them, visited them, and ran their errands. They, in turn, did not despise her”).

The writing, on the other hand, was lush, sensible-minded, and often hilarious. If Morrison had a distinctive style, it was in her rhythms: the leisurely pace of her storytelling. Clearly her writing had grown out of an oral tradition. Rather than confirm the reader’s sense of alienation by employing distancing techniques, Morrison coaxed the reader into believing the tale. She rooted her characters’ lives in something real—certainly in the minds of black readers.

This came at a time when the prevailing sensibility in most American novels was urban and male, an outgrowth of the political and personal concerns that Ellison and Bellow, Baldwin and Roth had developed living in predominantly black or Jewish neighborhoods. Morrison was different. She grew up in an integrated town in the heart of America. “The point was to really open a book that’s about black people, or by a black person, me or anybody,” she said. “In the sixties, most of the literature was understood by the critics as something sociological, a kind of revelation of the lives of these people. So there was a little apprehension, you know—Is it going to make me feel bad, is it going to make me feel good? I said, I’m going to make it as readable as I can, but I’m not going to pull any punches. I don’t have an agenda here.”

One of the few critics to embrace Morrison’s work was John Leonard, who wrote in the Times, “Miss Morrison exposes the negative of the Dick-and-Jane-and-Mother-and-Father-and-Dog-and-Cat photograph that appears in our reading primers and she does it with a prose so precise, so faithful to speech and so charged with pain and wonder that the novel becomes poetry. . . . ‘The Bluest Eye’ is also history, sociology, folklore, nightmare and music.”

The poet Sonia Sanchez, who taught “The Bluest Eye” in her classroom at Temple University, saw the book as an indictment of American culture. For Pecola, the descendant of slaves, to want the master’s blue eyes represents the “second generation of damage in America,” Sanchez told me. “For this woman, Toni Morrison, to write this, to show this to us—it was the possible death of a people right there, the death of a younger generation that had been so abused that there was really no hope. What Toni has done with her literature is that she has made us look up and see ourselves. She has authenticated us, and she has also said to America, in a sense, ‘Do you know what you did? But, in spite of what you did, here we is. We exist. Look at us.’ ”

“What was driving me to write was the silence—so many stories untold and unexamined. There was a wide vacuum in the literature,” Morrison said. “I was inspired by the silence and absences in the literature.” The story she told was a distinctly American one: complicated, crowded, eventful, told from the perspective of innocents. “I think of the voice of the novel as a kind of Greek chorus, one that comments on the action,” she once said. She was a social realist, like Dreiser, with the lyricism and storytelling genius of someone like Isak Dinesen.

In 1968, Morrison was transferred to New York to work in Random House’s scholastic division. She moved to Queens. (“I never lived in Manhattan,” she said. “I always wanted a garden.”) A couple of years later, Robert Bernstein, who was then the president of Random House, came across “The Bluest Eye” in a bookstore. “Is this the same woman who works in the scholastic division?” he asked Jason Epstein, then the editorial director of Random House. Morrison had been wanting to move into trade publishing, and went to see Robert Gottlieb, the editor-in-chief of Knopf, an imprint of Random House. Gottlieb recalled the interview: “I said, ‘I like you too much to hire you, because in order to hire you I have to feel free to fire you. But I’d love to publish your books.’ ” He became her editor, and Morrison got a job under Epstein as a trade editor at Random House.

At Random House, Morrison published Gayl Jones, Toni Cade Bambara, and Angela Davis, among others. She was responsible for “The Myth of Lesbianism,” one of the first studies of the subject from a major publisher, and “Giant Talk,” Quincy Troupe and Rainer Schulte’s anthology of Third World writing. Morrison gave me a copy of one of the first books she worked on, “Contemporary African Literature,” published in 1972, a groundbreaking collection that included work by Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Léopold-Sédar Senghor, and Athol Fugard. (For some of them, it was their first publication in America.) The book is lavishly illustrated, with many color photographs of African tribesmen and African landscapes. Showing me the table of contents, Morrison said, “What was I thinking? I thought if it was beautiful, people would buy it.” (Not many did.)

The women she worked with, in particular, became some of her closest friends. “Single women with children,” she said, when I asked her about that era. “If you had to finish writing something, they’d take your kids, or you’d sit with theirs. This was a network of women. They lived in Queens, in Harlem and Brooklyn, and you could rely on one another. If I made a little extra money on something—writing freelance—I’d send a check to Toni Cade with a note that said, ‘You have won the so-and-so grant,’ and so on. I remember Toni Cade coming to my house with groceries and cooking dinner. I hadn’t asked her.” The support was intellectual as well as practical. Sonia Sanchez told me, “I think we all looked up and saw that we were writing in different genres, but we were experiencing the same kinds of things, and saying similar kinds of things.” Their books formed a critical core that people began to see as the rebirth of black women’s fiction.

Before the late sixties, there was no real Black Studies curriculum in the academy—let alone a post-colonial-studies program or a feminist one. As an editor and author, Morrison, backed by the institutional power of Random House, provided the material for those discussions to begin. The advent of Black Studies undoubtedly helped Morrison, too: “It was the academic community that gave ‘The Bluest Eye’ its life,” she said. “People assigned it in class. Students bought the paperback.”

In order to get attention for her authors—publishers still thought that the ideal book buyer was a thirty-year-old Long Island woman, and reviewers would lump together books by Ishmael Reed and Angela Davis, along with children’s books, in a single article—Morrison decided to concentrate on one African-American text each season. She worked diligently. “I wanted to give back something,” she said. “I wasn’t marching. I didn’t go to anything. I didn’t join anything. But I could make sure there was a published record of those who did march and did put themselves on the line. And I didn’t want to fail my grandmother. I didn’t want to hear her say, ‘You went to college and this is all you thought up?’ ” She laughed. “Compared to what my family had gone through and what I felt was my responsibility, the corporation’s interest was way down on the list. I was not going to do anything that I thought was nutty or disrupt anything. I thought it was beneficial generally, just like I thought that the books were going to make them a lot of money!”

Morrison’s view of contemporary black literature transcended the limitations of the “down with honky” school of black nationalism popularized by writers like Eldridge Cleaver and George Jackson. She preferred to publish writers who had something to say about black American life that reflected its rich experience. In 1974, she put together “The Black Book,” a compendium of photographs, drawings, songs, letters, and other documents that charts black American history from slavery through Reconstruction to modern times. The book exercised a great influence over the way black anthropology was viewed.

At first, Random House resisted the idea of “The Black Book.” “It just looked to them like a disaster,” Morrison said. “Not so much in the way it was being put together, but because they didn’t know how to sell it. ‘Who is going to buy something called “The Black Book”?’ I had my mother on the cover—what were they talking about?” She wrote about the project in the February 2, 1974, issue of Black World: “So what was Black life like before it went on TV? . . . I spent the last 18 months trying to do a book that would show some of that. A genuine Black history book—one that simply recollected Black Life as lived. It has no ‘order,’ no chapters, no major themes. But it does have coherence and sinew. . . . I don’t know if it’s beautiful or not (it is elegant, however), but it is intelligent, it is profound, it is alive, it is visual, it is creative, it is complex, and it is ours.”

Despite all misgivings, the book garnered extraordinary reviews. Writing in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Alvin Beam said, “Editors, like novelists, have brain children—books they think up and bring to life without putting their own names on the title page. Mrs. Morrison has one of these in the stores now, and magazines and newsletters in the publishing trade are ecstatic, saying it will go like hotcakes.”

Morrison got a letter from a man in prison who had read the book. “Somebody had given him a copy, and he wrote to say thank you,” Morrison told me. “And then he said, ‘I need two more copies, because I need one to pass out to other people, and I need another one to throw up against the wall. And I need the one I have to hold close.’ So there were readers on, quote, ‘both sides of the street,’ which is the way they put it.” I recall buying “The Black Book” as a teen-ager and feeling as if I had been given a road map of the Brooklyn community where I lived at the time.

“Toni became not a black editor but the black editor,” a friend of hers told me. In 1975, D. Keith Mano, the “Book Watch” columnist for Esquire, devoted an entire article to Gayl Jones and her new book, “Corregidora,” but the piece was as much about Morrison as about Jones. “Toni Morrison is Gayl’s Svengali editor at Random House,” Mano wrote. “Toni is dynamic, witty, even boisterous in a good-humored way. And sharp. Very sharp. She often uses the pronoun I. She’ll say, ‘I published “Corregidora.” ’ . . . I suspect the title page of ‘Corregidora’ should read, ‘by Gayl Jones, as told to Toni Morrison.’ ” If Morrison had been a man or white, it seems unlikely that Mano would have noticed her championing of an author. Jones was uncommunicative and Morrison had books to sell. If a writer needed fussing, she fussed, and if not, not.

Morrison was a canny and tireless editor. “You can’t be a slouch in Toni’s presence,” the scholar Eugene Redmond told me. “Her favorite word is ‘wakeful.’ ” (She still gets up at 4 a.m. to work.) When she published the books of Henry Dumas—a little-known novelist and poet whose work was left fragmentary when he was murdered by a transit officer in the New York City subway in 1968, in a case of mistaken identity—she sent copies to Bill Cosby, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and all the major movie executives and television hosts. In a letter inviting people to read at a tribute to Dumas, she wrote, “He was brilliant. He was magnetic and he was an incredible artist. . . . We are determined to bring to the large community of Black artists and Black people in general this man’s work.”

The racial climate in the mid-seventies made it especially hard for Morrison to promote certain books—books that might be taken as too radical. Morrison remembered that the marketing department balked when she wanted to have a publication party in a club on 125th Street. No one from Random House came—it was rumored that someone in management had cautioned the staff about the danger—except the publicist and her assistant, who said it was the best party they’d ever been to. A couple of news crews showed up, however, and the party was on the evening news, giving the book hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of free publicity, by Morrison’s reckoning. Similarly, Morrison said, when she brought out Muhammad Ali’s autobiography, “The Greatest,” in 1976, all the department stores that were approached about hosting the book signing backed out, fearing riots and looting. When E. J. Korvette’s, the now defunct department store, agreed to host the signing, Morrison brought in members of the Nation of Islam, who came with their families, as peacekeepers. She also installed a white friend, a woman who worked in the sales department, to guard Ali. “You stand right next to Ali,” she said. “And when people come up and punch him—‘Hey, Champ!’—you stop them. Because he’s not going to say it ever, that it hurts when you get a thousand little taps. And when you think Ali is tired give him a baby to play with. He likes babies.” Two thousand people came to E. J. Korvette’s, on a rainy night, and, with the Brothers of the Nation of Islam milling around in the crowd, everything was serene and orderly.

Throughout the seventies, Morrison worked as a teacher at Yale, sunyPurchase, Bard, Rutgers, and suny Albany. “Random paid about ten cents, so Toni took on teaching jobs,” Jason Epstein recalled. In a 1998 interview, she said, “When I wanted a raise, in my employment world, they would give me a little woman’s raise and I would say, ‘No. This is really low.’ And they would say, ‘But,’ and I would say, ‘No, you don’t understand. You’re the head of the household. You know what you want. That’s what I want. I want that. I am on serious business now. This is not girl playing. This is not wife playing. This is serious business. I am the head of a household, and I must work to pay for my children.’ ”

“The Bluest Eye” had made the literary establishment take notice. In “Sula,” which was published three years later, Morrison’s little colored girls grew up and occupied a more completely rendered world. “The Bluest Eye” was divided by seasons; “Sula” was divided into years, stretching from 1919 to 1965. Again, the story is set in a small Ohio town, in a neighborhood called the Bottom. (“A joke. A nigger joke. That’s the way it got started.”) Sula Mae Peace, Morrison’s heroine, is the progeny of an eccentric household run by formidable women. She leaves the Bottom in order to reinvent herself. Morrison does not relay what Sula does when she ventures into the world, but her return is catastrophic. (The first sign of impending disaster is a plague of robins.) Her return also brings about a confrontation with her grandmother Eva—a parable of the New Negro Woman confronting the Old World.

At Eva’s house there were four dead robins on the walk. Sula stopped and with her toe pushed them into the bordering grass. . . . When Sula opened the door [Eva] raised her eyes and said, “I might have knowed them birds meant something. Where’s your coat?”  Sula threw herself on Eva’s bed. “The rest of my stuff will be on later.”  “I should hope so. Them little old furry tails ain’t going to do you no more good than they did the fox that was wearing them.”  “Don’t you say hello to nobody when you ain’t seen them for ten years?”  “If folks let somebody know where they is and when they coming, then other folks can get ready for them. If they don’t—if they just pop in all sudden like—then they got to take whatever mood they find.”  “How you been doing, Big Mamma?”  “Gettin’ by. Sweet of you to ask. You was quick enough when you wanted something. When you needed a little change or . . .”  “Don’t talk to me about how much you gave me, Big Mamma, and how much I owe you or none of that.”  “Oh? I ain’t supposed to mention it?”  “OK. Mention it.” Sula shrugged and turned over on her stomach, her buttocks toward Eva.  “You ain’t been in this house ten seconds and already you starting something.”  “Takes two, Big Mamma.”  “Well, don’t let your mouth start nothing that your ass can’t stand. When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.”  “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.” . . .  “Pus mouth! God’s going to strike you!”  “Which God? The one watched you burn Plum [Eva’s son]?”  “Don’t talk to me about no burning. You watched your own mamma. You crazy roach! You the one should have been burnt!”  “But I ain’t. Got that? I ain’t. Any more fires in this house, I’m lighting them!”

Where I come from, this dialogue doesn’t sound so much fictional as documentary; it could be about the women—sisters and cousins—who passed Morrison’s books on to me when I was growing up, women who didn’t know they were “marginal.”

Morrison’s interest was in spoken language, heightened and dramatized. (Bob Gottlieb told me that he was always inserting commas into Morrison’s sentences and she was always taking them out.) In describing her style, Morrison said, “I thought, Well, I’m going to drop ‘g’s where the black people dropped ‘g’s, and the white people on the same street in the same part of the state don’t. But there was a distinction in the language and it wasn’t in the spelling. It was someplace else.” Morrison went on, “Maybe it’s because African languages are so tonal, so that with the little shifts in pronunciation, the little shifts in placement, something else happens.

“I was just determined to take the language that for me was so powerfully metaphoric, economical, lunatic, and intelligent at the same time—just these short sentences or these developments of ideas that was the language of my family and neighbors and so on—and not make it exotic or comic or slumming.” Zora Neale Hurston, the nineteen-thirties novelist and folklorist, was an example, Morrison said, of a black writer who treated dialogue as a transcript to show white people how it really was in the Florida swamps. Morrison’s aim was different. “Street language is lyrical, plus it has this blend of the standard English and the sermonic, as well as the colloquial, you know—that is what I wanted to polish and show, and make it a literary vehicle,” Morrison said. (She has succeeded in this to the point of irritating some readers. James Wood, in a review of “Paradise” titled “The Color Purple,” wrote, “Morrison is so besotted with making poetry, with the lyrical dyeing of every moment, that she cannot grant characters their own words. . . . She seems to view her people as mere spokes of style, who exist to keep her lyricism in motion.”)

Situating herself inside the black world, Morrison undermined the myth of black cohesiveness. With whiteness offstage, or certainly right of center, she showed black people fighting with each other—murdering, raping, breaking up marriages, burning down houses. She also showed nurturing fathers who abide and the matriarchs who love them. Morrison revelled in the complications. “I didn’t want it to be a teaching tool for white people. I wanted it to be true—not from outside the culture, as a writer looking back at it,” she said. “I wanted it to come from inside the culture, and speak to people inside the culture. It was about a refusal to pander or distort or gain political points. I wanted to reveal and raise questions.” She is still raising questions: Bill Cosey, the deceased patriarch in “Love,” is both beneficent and evil, a guardian and a predator.

Doing so, Morrison broke ranks—particularly with black male writers such as Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka, who were taking an increasingly militant stance against racism. Their attitude descended from the realistic portraits of black resistance in the novels of Wright, Baldwin, and Ellison—who, Morrison believed, were writing for a white audience. “The title of Ralph Ellison’s book was ‘Invisible Man,’ ” Morrison said. “And the question for me was ‘Invisible to whom?’ Not to me.” Morrison refused to present an ideal or speak in unison, even if it meant she was perceived as a traitor. “There is that sense of firm loyalty for black people,” she said. “The question is always, Is this going to be useful for the race?”

“I really liked that book,” one black woman told Morrison after reading “The Bluest Eye.” “But I was frustrated and angry, because I didn’t want you to expose us in our lives.” Morrison replied, “Well, how can I reach you if I don’t expose it to the world?” Others, myself included, accused her of perpetuating rather than dismantling the myth of the indomitable black woman, long-suffering and oversexed. In a book about real and fictional black women, I wrote that the obsessive “man love” of Hannah, Sula’s mother, was a stereotype. (At the time, I didn’t see that Morrison’s decision to burn her to death was a moral condemnation, not a melodrama.) Morrison is used to being challenged and isn’t afraid to confront her critics. “I didn’t like what you wrote,” she said to me a few years ago. I was caught off guard, but she steered the conversation to another topic.

The reviews of “Sula”—like those of “The Bluest Eye”—were mixed. Writing in The Nation, the critic Jerry H. Bryant came closest to identifying the confusion: “Most of us have been conditioned to expect something else in black characters, especially black female characters—guiltless victims of brutal white men, yearning for a respectable life of middle-class security; whores driven to their profession by impossible conditions; housekeepers exhausted by their work for lazy white women. We do not expect to see a fierceness bordering on the demonic.”

After “Sula,” Bob Gottlieb advised Morrison to move on. “ ‘O.K.,’ I told her, ‘that’s perfect. As perfect as a sonnet,’ ” he recalled. “ ‘You’ve done that, you don’t have to do it again. Now you’re free to open up more.’ ” She followed his advice with “Song of Solomon,” a sprawling epic about a prosperous but tortured black family that drew comparisons to Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude.” As she turned her attention to history—taking on, in years to come, slavery, Reconstruction, the great migration, the Harlem Renaissance—writing began to occupy more of her time. “I went to Bob Bernstein twice,” she told me. “Once, when I saw a house I wanted to buy. I didn’t want to go through the whole black-woman thing—no man, no credit—and so I asked the company to get the mortgage for me. The second time was after ‘Tar Baby’ was published. I knew it was unorthodox, but I wanted to come into the office less. I was doing what the editors did—line editing—at home. It was such a waste of time to come in and drink coffee and gossip. So I started working one day a week. I’d get eighty letters done, stay until eight o’clock, but get my work done.”

Eventually, she resigned. “The job at Random House was a life raft for her,” Gottlieb recalled. “She had two sons and she was worried about losing that life preserver. After she published ‘Tar Baby,’ I said, ‘Toni, you can depend on your writing to support you.’ ”

Morrison remembered Gottlieb’s telling her, “O.K. You can write ‘writer’ on your tax returns.”

Morrison provokes complicated responses from her literary progeny. She is routinely placed on a pedestal and just as frequently knocked off it. Black writers alternately praise her and castigate her for not being everything at once. With the deaths of Wright and Baldwin, Morrison became both mother and father to black writers of my generation—a delicate situation. (It’s similar to the phenomenon James Baldwin noted in his essay on Richard Wright: “His work was an immense liberation and revelation for me. He became my ally and my witness, and alas! my father.”) She spoke through her characters when we wanted her to speak to us. With every book, she loomed larger, and gave us more opportunities to define ourselves against her. In 1978, “Song of Solomon” won the National Book Critics Circle Award, beating out Joan Didion’s “A Book of Common Prayer” and John Cheever’s “Falconer.” It was chosen as a main selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club—the first by a black since Wright’s “Native Son.” When “Tar Baby” came out, three years later, Morrison was on the cover of Newsweek, one of the first black women to appear on the cover of a national magazine since Zora Neale Hurston in 1943.

“Beloved,” too, was an instant sensation in 1987. It told the story of Margaret Garner, a runaway slave who murders her child rather than allow it to be captured. When “Beloved” failed to be nominated for a National Book Award (Pete Dexter’s “Paris Trout” won that year), forty-eight prominent black intellectuals and writers, including Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alice Walker, and Quincy Troupe, protested “against such oversight and harmful whimsy” in a statement that was printed in the Times Book Review. “Alive, we write this testament of thanks to you, dear Toni: alive, beloved and persevering, magical. . . . For all America, for all of American letters, you have advanced the moral and artistic standards by which we must measure the daring and the love of our national imagination and our collective intelligence as a people.” They contested the fact that Morrison had yet to be considered for a Pulitzer Prize. Later that year, “Beloved” did win a Pulitzer. Ralph Ellison, for one, disapproved of the special pleading. “Toni doesn’t need that kind of support, even though it was well intentioned,” he said.

“Beloved” ’s profile only got higher as time went by. The contrarian critic Stanley Crouch called it “protest pulp fiction” and complained that it idealized black behavior “to placate sentimental feminist ideology, and to make sure that the vision of black woman as the most scorned and rebuked of the victims doesn’t weaken.” He objected to its commerciality. “Were ‘Beloved’ adapted for television (which would suit the crass obviousness that wins out over Morrison’s literary gift at every significant turn) the trailer might go like this: ‘Meet Sethe, an ex-slave woman who harbors a deep and terrible secret that has brought terror into her home.’ ” (As it happened, it was adapted for film, with Oprah in the role of Sethe.)

Best-selling books, film adaptations, television talk-show appearances all increased Morrison’s celebrity and drew other famous people into her life. The actor Marlon Brando would phone to read her passages from her novels that he found particularly humorous. Oprah had her to dinner—on TV. By the time the film of “Beloved” was released, Morrison’s fame was inescapable. I recall walking along the West Side piers in Manhattan and hearing a Puerto Rican queen, defending one of her “children,” say to an opponent, “You want me to go ‘Beloved’ on your ass?”

Morrison’s critics reached their loudest pitch when she was awarded the Nobel Prize, in 1993, a year that Thomas Pynchon and Joyce Carol Oates had been favored to win. “I hope this prize inspires her to write better books,” Crouch said. Charles Johnson, a black novelist, called her writing “often offensive, harsh. Whites are portrayed badly. Men are. Black men are.” He said that she had been “the beneficiary of good will” and that her award was “a triumph of political correctness.” A piece in the Washington Post asked well-known American writers whom they would like to see receive the award. Erica Jong (whose choice, Doris Lessing, Jong described as “the wrong kind of African: white”) wrote, “I wish that Toni Morrison, a bedazzling writer and a great human being, had won her prize only for her excellence at stringing words together. But I am nevertheless delighted at her choice. . . . I suspect, however, that her prize was not motivated solely by artistic considerations. Why can’t art in itself be enough? Must we also use the artist as a token of progressivism?” The Nobel Committee said that Morrison “delves into the language itself, a language she wants to liberate from the fetters of race.” To this, one critic retorted that she has “erected an insistent awareness of race (and gender and whatever else may be the ‘identity’-defining trait du jour) as the defining feature of the self.”

“I have never competed with other people,” Morrison told me. “It just never occurred to me. I have to sort of work it up to understand what people are talking about when they complain about what this person did or that person shouldn’t do. There were several contenders from the U.S. that year, and my wish was that they would’ve all gotten it, so that I could be left alone. I only compete with myself, with my standards. How to do better the next time, how to work well.”

Near the end of one of our interviews last summer, Morrison took me on a tour of the house. Descending the staircase off the sitting room, we had a look at her office, with its two big desks stacked with paper and correspondence. Behind one desk was her assistant, John Hoppenthaler, a poet. Windows surrounded the room. “I don’t really write that much in here,” Morrison said. “Don’t look at it—it’s a mess.” She decided that she would pick some tomatoes for lunch. She is what she calls a “pot” gardener—she enjoys gardening on a small scale. The room below the office is where Morrison does her writing. It has a slate floor, a big wooden table—“It’s from Norway, not that I got it in Norway, and I’m sure the man who imported it overcharged for it, but I love all the grooves and cracks in it”—and a fully equipped kitchen. Sometimes she cooks Thanksgiving dinner for her family there (both sons are married, with children), but it’s a room meant for work. French doors lead out to a stretch of grass and the river beyond. Morrison got to work picking tomatoes off a small vine trained against a stone wall. Two tomatoes that did not meet her standards she chucked into the river. Then she led me inside to get back to work.

A previous version of this article misstated the length of time between Morrison winning the National Book Critics Circle Award and the publication of “Tar Baby,” and misstated the number of black women who appeared on the covers of national magazines between 1943 and 1981.

Published in the print edition of the October 27, 2003, issue, with the headline “Ghosts in the House.”

[cdt-toomi-vangrizzle]

Big Sky Part 2: Ennis —> Big Sky 

August 2 - August 5

From Lake Ennis, we started climbing into the Spanish Peaks. According to the University of Montana, no one is exactly sure why they are named the Spanish Peaks, but it is thought they could be named for Spanish prospectors who travelled north in search of gold (Thomas  Loco being the most famous— iykyk). The first day in the mountains was steady climbing without many views. It was cloudy and started raining in the evening. We camped with Danger Dave, Stupid Check, Double Check, No Chill, and Eye Roll. Owen had a slight headache and stomach ache, which we assumed was mild altitude sickness. We were camping at 8600 feet.

The next day, things started off overcast then turned into a light rain. We finally got into some pretty mountain meadows. Then we went down to a river and ate lots of huckleberries as we started to climb. The rain picked up and it got gradually colder. We climbed up to the top of a dramatic, rocky pass, which was 9740’. We were quite chilly (and Owen was having stomach issues) so we scurried down into the next valley. The wind picked up and we were desperate to find a lunch spot protected from the elements. Finally, we huddled behind a big tree. We layered almost all the way up (rain pants, puffies, rain coats) and had a hard time using our fingers. We boiled water for tea to warm ourselves up. After lunch, we descended into a mystical, mossy forest and walked with Danger Dave a while. Eventually we hit forest roads and then the highway. We walked down into the town of Big Sky. Some locals (including a guy from Jay/Montgomery VT) advised us on where to “stealth camp” down by the river. As we ate dinner, we saw a mother and child moose walk by!

There were about 15 miles of road walking that we wanted to knock out before meeting up with Liam, Julia, and E-Dawg (Julia’s boyfriend, Evan). We ran into 2 other Vermonters as we walked through town. The first woman, Kelly, was a construction flagged who used to live in Essex, but didn’t know any Rachts. We checked out the grocery store as we passed by. Outside of it, this woman Clara stopped us to ask what we were up to; she’d seen us and our packs yesterday as well. She declared, “You look like you need butter!” And proceeded to diagnose us with vitamin A deficiency. She insisted that we each pack out 1-2 hard boiled eggs to eat per day and even offered to boil them for us. There was NO telling this woman that we did not want to eat hard boiled eggs that had been sitting in our packs, so we told her that Liam and Julia would boil us some eggs when we met up with them. Finally Clara stopped lecturing us when I started talking to Lin, running the grocery, who used to live in Rutland. We got walking again and listened to some music. Owen continued not to feel well.

When we finished the road walk, we hitched back to town and went to the Big Sky Thrift Store, which was full of rich people ski resort gear marked at LOW prices. We bought wool clothes, more layers for the hike, and even a pair of brand new Solomon cross-country ski boots for Owen ($20!). We mailed home the stuff we wouldn’t carry, and it still ended up cheaper than how much we would spend to buy it secondhand in VT. Very exciting. From there, we went to our fancy hotel room at the Big Sky resort; Owen and Susan split it as a birthday present for my 30th. It was deluxe! We did laundry and got dinner. 

In the morning, I got up early to read in the hot tub outside. It was lovely. Then we had our complimentary breakfast. It was supposed to be a buffet but was menu order style; Owen expressed to the waitress that as hikers we’d been looking forward to the buffet for quantity. She told us to order as much as we liked for free. We sure did. It was delicious! Then we went back to the post office to mail ourselves resupplies ahead. Liam, Julia, and E-Dawg met us there to drive back to West Yellowstone. 

[motovoltin]

Navigate the Streets of India with Ease: Where to Buy the Best Electric Bicycle!

India's bustling streets and diverse terrains offer a unique travel experience, and what better way to explore this fascinating country than on an electric bicycle? With the ever-growing popularity of eco-friendly transportation options, electric bicycles have become a game-changer for navigating India's cities, towns, and countryside. In this article, we'll take you through a detailed journey of where to find the best electric bicycles to confidently navigate the streets of India with ease.

Navigate the Streets of India with Ease: Where to Buy the Best Electric Bicycle!

Electric bicycles have revolutionized the way people travel in India. Combining the convenience of a bicycle with the assistance of an electric motor, these bikes are perfect for traversing the varied landscapes, from bustling urban centers to scenic rural areas. Whether you're a local resident or a curious traveler, here are the top places where you can purchase the best electric bicycles in India:

Table: Where to Buy the Best Electric Bicycle in India

Local Bicycle Shops: Local bicycle shops across India offer a wide range of electric bicycles. These shops…

Specialized Electric Bicycle Stores: Specialized stores exclusively catering to electric bicycles are emerging in major cities…

Online Retailers: Online platforms provide a plethora of electric bicycle options. Leading e-commerce websites…

Eco-Friendly Stores and Boutiques: Eco-conscious stores often feature premium electric bicycles that align with sustainable values…

Manufacturer Showrooms: Visiting manufacturer showrooms allows you to explore their latest electric bicycle models…

Adventure and Outdoor Equipment Stores: Stores focusing on adventure and outdoor equipment frequently stock electric bicycles suitable…

Bike Rental Shops: In tourist-centric areas, bike rental shops offer electric bicycles for convenient exploration…

Secondhand and Resale Markets: Exploring secondhand markets can unveil hidden gems of well-maintained electric bicycles…

Local Classifieds and Online Marketplaces: Online classified platforms feature listings from individuals selling their electric bicycles…

Eco-Tourism Resorts and Hotels: Certain eco-tourism resorts and hotels provide guests with electric bicycles to explore the…

City-Sponsored Programs: Some Indian cities have introduced initiatives where you can purchase electric bicycles…

Community Bicycle Flea Markets: Keep an eye out for community flea markets that occasionally feature electric bicycles…

Cycling Enthusiast Groups: Joining local cycling groups and forums can lead you to valuable insights about purchasing…

Electric Vehicle Expos Events and expos: focusing on electric vehicles often showcase the latest electric bicycle…

Campus Bike Share Programs: If you're a student, campus bike share programs might include electric bicycles as well…

Social Media Marketplace Groups: Facebook Groups and other social media platforms sometimes have marketplace groups…

Pop-Up Electric Bicycle Shops: Keep an eye out for pop-up shops and exhibitions that exclusively feature electric bicycles…

Collaborative Workspaces and Tech Parks: Certain collaborative workspaces and tech parks provide electric bicycles for commuting…

Sustainability and Green Living Events: Events centered around sustainability and green living often showcase eco-friendly modes…

Visit Electric Bicycle Factories: Exploring electric bicycle factories can provide insights into the manufacturing process…

Automotive Dealerships: Some automotive dealerships now include electric bicycles in their product offerings…

Bicycle Accessories Shops: Shops specializing in bicycle accessories might also carry a selection of electric bicycles…

Public Transportation Hubs: Certain public transportation hubs offer electric bicycles for the last mile of your journey…

Heritage and Cultural Centers: In some heritage and cultural centers, you can find electric bicycles for a unique exploration…

Local Artisan Workshops: Explore local artisan workshops that craft custom electric bicycles with a touch of uniqueness… FAQs about Buying Electric Bicycles in India:

Are electric bicycles legal in India? Yes, electric bicycles are legal in India. The government has defined specific guidelines for electric bicycles, categorizing them based on their power and speed capabilities. As long as the electric bicycle adheres to these guidelines, it is considered legal to use on Indian roads.

What is the average cost of an electric bicycle in India? The cost of an electric bicycle in India varies widely based on factors such as brand, features, battery capacity, and design. On average, you can find electric bicycles ranging from INR 20,000 to INR 50,000 or even more for premium models.

Do electric bicycles require a license or registration? No, you do not need a license or registration to operate an electric bicycle in India. Since electric bicycles fall within the defined power and speed limits, they are exempt from these requirements.

How far can an electric bicycle travel on a single charge? The range of an electric bicycle on a single charge depends on various factors, including the battery capacity, terrain, rider's weight, and speed. On average, electric bicycles in India can cover a range of 40 to 80 kilometers on a single charge.

What should I consider when buying an electric bicycle? When purchasing an electric bicycle, consider factors such as battery range, motor power, design, build quality, and after-sales service. It's also important to test ride the bicycle to ensure it meets your comfort and riding preferences.

Can I convert my existing bicycle into an electric bicycle? Yes, it's possible to convert a regular bicycle into an electric one using conversion kits available in the market. However, it's recommended to approach this with caution and choose high-quality kits to ensure safety and performance. Conclusion: Exploring the vibrant streets of India on an electric bicycle offers an exhilarating and eco-friendly way to soak in the country's beauty and culture. By understanding where to find the best electric bicycles, you can embark on memorable journeys while minimizing your carbon footprint. Whether you choose to purchase from local shops, specialized stores, or online platforms, India's electric bicycle market is brimming with options that cater to various preferences and budgets.

[secondhand-trash]

im a heathen and i dw u calling me out bc u know me too well or u can try it — but bar n lounge #14 bc its all abt frisky n risky with omi 🥰 whoever is on the other side and whats not u can go wild 😌✨ sank u bb 😘

Thank you for ordering from our bar & lounge, here is your order…

A/N: I feel the need to let people know that it’s actually bean who came up with this prompt when I was making the event post lmao

Pairing: Sakusa Kiyoomi x afab!reader

Warning: vagina penetration, unprotected sex

Word count: 920

14. against the door that connects to the room next door

Sakusa was just a little less than pissed off when he learnt that they have put him in a jointed room on the team trip that had been planned as a “thank you for your hard work” type reward.

He did not feel thanked at all when they couldn’t even get two separates room and settled to split a jointed one.

He clicked his tongue in displeasure when he saw the painfully obvious door. It was right next to the bed and impossible to ignore, a literal eyesore when he could vaguely hear the laughter and shouts from his teammates who were rooming together next door.

You, on the other hand, was just excited that you got to tag along and enjoy the fruits of his hard work. “It’s not that big of a deal,” you said, roughly twisting and shaking the knob, “look! It’s locked anyway.”

A loud crash came out from the other end and you jumped, taking your hand off the knob immediately. Sakusa eyed you with an upward lift of his eyebrows and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“You were saying?” he mused dryly.

“I remain that it would be fine,” you said as you took his hand, forcing him to release from his tensed posture. He rolled his eyes when you tugged him forward, getting on your tiptoes to bump your nose against his, “it’ll be just you and me, how long had it been since we last get to be around each other all day, hm?”

He sighed, nudging his forehead against yours, “fair...”

There was a yell from the other side, followed by the sound of slamming. Sakusa clicked his tongue and you giggled, pecking his jaw to bring his attention back to you. “We can always try to be louder than them if we can’t get them to quiet down.”

You had said it as a joke, you did not expect him to hold onto that way later when the sky outside darkened up.

He was probably, most definitely, getting back at you. That jerk, you chewed on your bottom lip as he hoisted you up, his hands digging into your ass as he pushed his hard cock deeper into you. He was rarely this patient when he was bottoming out of you, his curved tip pushing you open with every languid stroke as he fucked into you slowly, rhythmically.

Your chest pressed against his, your legs and arms wrapped tightly around his frame for dear life with his support being the only thing that stopped you from sliding off onto the floor, the door on your back growing slick from your sweat as you buried your moans and pants into his shoulder.

His breath was moist against your skin, the shape of his lips ghosting over the shell of your ear as he whispered. “I thought you wanted to be loud?” he asked, rolling his hips against you once more as he waited for an answer.

A whimper nearly slipped out of your lips when he pushed into you completely, the back of your hips resting snugly against his pelvis. Sakusa swallowed down a grunt at the feeling of your cunt clamping down on him, the throb of his cock inside of you making your toes curl at the close proximity. 

You would have love to cry out, to scream just the way you knew he liked you to. But he was mean enough to press you against the door that connected to the room next door before he stretched you out, the room where his teammates were staying and would probably hear you if walked past the locked door.

Even now, you could still hear them through the door behind your back, despite the fact that you were starting to care less and less when your boyfriend’s voice was so low and sultry in your ears.

“!”

A sudden thrust took you by surprise and he chuckled, he fucking chuckled when a sharp squeal ripped from the back of your throat at the sudden tension. The chills of pleasure sparked from your spine all the way to the tip of your toes and he seemed to be pleased when your body shuddered against his hold.

“No?” he mused, lifting your hips up until his crown was just nudging against your cunt.

Your hands clawed at the blade of his shoulders, the emptiness making you cry into the dent of his collarbone. His chest flexed as shaky breaths fanned against your hair, his skin burning under your equally hot face and you shook your head meekly.

You could swear that you let go of yourself then and there when he purred in your ear.

“Oh, darling...” the gravel of his voice seeped into your ear, sending tingles to your scalp with the tickle against the sensitive skin.

Sakusa was wildly pleased when you let out a loud moan the moment he slammed you down on his cock.

-

”(y/n) were you sick?” 

You blinked when a very concerned Bokuto stopped by your table at the breakfast buffet.

“No? Why would you ask?”

“Oh, that’s good!” he beamed, “I was just asking because I think I have heard some really heavy panting from your side of the room last night and I was wondering if you or Omiomi caught a fever or something...”

Sakusa snorted, and he pretended to wipe his lips clean when you sent him a sharp glare.

All while Bokuto was just confused, bless his heart.

[out-of-jams]

Gossip Girl

↠ Gossip Girl ↞ Part of my Bangtan Netflix series!

Every year, you and your seven childhood friends spend the holiday weekend together at Jin’s resort in the Alps. It’s always a good time: drinking, the occasional recreational drug, and the divulging of secrets. It’d been another routine, fun weekend with your friends.

Until one of you leaked everyone’s secrets to the city’s biggest gossip site. Should be easy to find out which one of you did it, right? Who was responsible for dragging everyone’s reputation into the dirt? Too bad no one could remember what had happened that weekend. Or so you all say.

Which one of eight, pretty little socialites spilled their ugly truths? Why, that’s a secret I’ll never tell.

                                           xoxo

                                     Gossip Girl

              Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

              Warnings/Genre: Mature themes. Socialite!au. Gossip Girl!au. Explicit language. Fluff. Angst. Backstabbing. Mystery. Drug use. Alcohol use. Light violence. Allusion to criminal activity. Friends to lovers.

              Word Count: 18.5k

A/N: Whew! This was a beast for me to write let me tell ya! But it's also my first one shot of this size and caliber. Well, and my first time writing smut too (cringe). Hopefully it turned out well.

All of my works are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission.

                               | | Masterlist | |

             Hey Upper-Eastsiders, Gossip Girl here: your one and only source into the scandalous lives of Manhattan’s elite. And do I have the biggest news ever. One of my many sources sent me something that I think you’d all like to see.

Not even the gentle hum of the elevator could drown out the sound of your rapidly beating heart. While you watched the golden lit numbers above the steel doors count up as you ascended, you couldn’t help the shaking of your hands. You had maybe fifteen more seconds to pull yourself together.

Your mascara coated eyelashes tickled your cheeks as you squeezed your eyes shut. One, two, three. That was all you gave yourself before you opened your eyes and stood up straight. The silk yellow ribbon tied around your neck threatened to strangle you to death, but you ignored it in favor of the elevator doors opening.

Cigar smoke. That was the first scent to assault your nose.  

Fuck.

Jin only smoked cigars when he was overly stressed and on the precipice of a meltdown. He always complained that they damaged his beauty. Like the tobacco would somehow come to life and mar his face. He always was overdramatic.

Now, however, you were almost tempted to steal one for yourself.

The deep vocal fry of Hoseok’s voice met your ears as you stepped out of the steel box. Heels clacking against the glossy wood finish of the penthouse of Jin’s hotel, you rounded the corner of the foyer. The fancy, grey bricked finish of the walls were normally familiar-- comforting. But now it chilled your veins with ice.

Standing at the bar in the living room, Namjoon was pouring himself a generous serving of scotch. His silver colored hair was glossy under the overhead lights. He must have just recently bleached it since it’d been honey blond just a day ago. Namjoon’s back was to you, but at your entrance he turned with a glass of liquor in hand.

Jin paused from where he was pacing a hole into the expensive persian rug he’d purchased last summer abroad. The pink jacket of his suit was discarded on top of the pool table and the long sleeves of his white button-up were rolled to his elbows. A fat, half-smoked cigar dangled from one of his slender hands, the other moving to push his dark hair away from his forehead. Jin’s normally grinning plump lips were pursed in irritation, nostrils flared.

From his seat on the long, orange colored couch, Hoseok halted his movements, his fingers halfway to his lips with an unlit joint. Most of the buttons on his light blue shirt were undone and the muscles of his pectorals were peaked through. And his own blazer was flung over the arm of the couch without care.

“Was it you?”

You didn’t even get to take another step before Jin was all over you. He never yelled at you, at least not in the way that he was now. And you couldn’t help your eyebrows from shooting up into your hairline in disbelief.

“Me? Seriously?” An unamused huff left your lips. “Why the hell would I expose myself?”

“She’s got a point.” Hoseok mumbled around the joint pressed between his heart-shaped lips. His eyes were downcast as he flicked open his 18 carat gold Dupont lighter and held it up to the end. The scent of marijuana mixed with cigar smoke with thick tension.

“So it wasn’t any of us.” Namjoon spoke up, knocking back an unhealthy amount of scotch.

“Who was it then?” Jin turned to Namjoon with fire blazing in his eyes. The ash from his cigar threatened to sprinkle onto the rug, but he didn’t notice. Or care.

“How the hell would I know?”

“Where’s everyone else?” You cut in before the frown lines in Namjoon’s forehead could deepen. WIth a click of your heels, you dropped your birkin purse onto the glass coffee table and sat down next to Hoseok, who offered you the joint and a sad, tiny smile. He should have expected for you to decline. You rarely partook.

The heat of secondhand smoke filled your lungs as Hoseok exhaled and your eyes searched over the stressed men in the room. Jin finally made his way back to the pool table and leaned against it with his forefinger and thumb pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Not here yet.”

Footsteps sounded from around the corner on the opposite side of the penthouse entrance. Through the smoky haze filling the room you could just make out the figure of a man that you would recognize almost anywhere.

With long, curly black hair and broad shoulders covered by a black cashmere shirt, Jungkook sauntered into the room with his customary swagger. Three silver hoops dangled from each ear and the heels of his designer black boots knocked against the floor as he approached. His doe-like eyes met yours and he faltered in his stride, golden ringed hand pushing his hair from his eyes.

Jungkook’s mouth parted like he had something to say, but stopped himself and settled for just giving you a silent head nod of greeting instead. You simply shot him a quick, closed mouth smile and grabbed the dangling joint from Hoseok’s hand. You didn’t usually participate. Didn’t normally take what Hoseok had to offer. But damn did you need it. Especially with what was to come.

The sound of the elevator dinging was a grateful distraction from the way Jungkook’s thighs strained against the fabric of his black slacks when he took a seat on the other couch. Everyone in the room looked up at the two men who rounded the corner. One short and the other taller: Jimin and Taehyung. Also known as the Dynamic Duo.

Taehyung had always been someone of ethereal beauty. With his blond hair and perfectly sculpted face, he’d graced more covers of magazines than you owned. His tall, slender figure was covered head-to-toe in nothing but Gucci as he crossed the room. The man’s normally bubbly, cute boxy smile was gone and replaced by a serious look that you’d never seen from him in all your years of friendship.

And at his side, Jimin possessed a beauty that rivaled your own. While Taehyung was handsome, Jimin was pretty. His light pink colored hair complimented his dainty features and made him look like a fairy with plush, kissable lips and tan skin. Even though he was the shortest of the men in your group, Jimin made up for it with his ability to catch and bag any woman he wanted. Or man. Whichever he was in the mood for.

“Well?” Taehyung’s deep baritone voice spoke up before anyone else could. His steps halted once he made it to the center of the room, though Jimin headed straight to the bar. “Who’s going to take responsibility for this? Which one of you did it?”

You’d never seen Taehyung so angry. Not even when Jungkook shaved half his head and eyebrows as a prank in middle school. But now, Taehyung was burning with heat, the steam from his anger mixing with the smoke intermingling in the air.

“Calm down.” Jin huffed. His dark eyes burned with authority while he puffed on his cigar, his teeth holding it in place like some kind of socialite mobster.

Though, you supposed, he kind of was in a way. Whether the people in the room agreed or not, Jin was the unspoken leader of Bangtan. Which, coincidentally, was the most powerful group of socialites in the city. Everyone turned to your group when they wanted juicy gossip, or for the next big fashion trend, or for a leg up the ladder of the elite. All eight of your families ran a different part of New York City, and since you were the next heirs, it fell to you to follow in your parent’s footsteps.

“Calm down?” Taehyung clenched his jaw in anger. “How the hell am I supposed to calm down when the whole fucking city knows that I--”

“Look, let’s just wait for everyone to get here before we start in on each other. Cool?” Namjoon, ever the peacemaker, spoke as he poured both himself and Jimin another full glass of scotch.

Namjoon wasn’t the biggest heavyweight when it came to alcohol, so you were a little concerned for his sobriety.

“Speaking of,” Hoseok leaned back against the couch and stretched his arms along the back. The warmth of his skin brushed against the back of your neck and you met his eyes as he turned to you. “Where’s Yoongi?”

All attention was on you, but all you could do was shrug. “No idea. He left early this morning and didn’t tell anyone where he was going.”

Hoseok’s eyebrows rose in surprise. Looked like you weren’t the only one wondering what the hell your brother was up to.

“Did anyone try calling him?” Jimin plopped down next to you on the couch so hard that it sent you bouncing into Hoseok’s side.  

The pink haired man ignored your annoyed glare in favor of topping off his glass and setting the bottle of liquor on the coffee table. Jimin’s sweet scented cologne mixed with the aroma of marijiauna in a dangerous cocktail of temptation.

“He said he’d be here.” Jin spared a glance down at the Rolex fixed to his wrist. “Though it better be soon.”

“In a hurry? You have other secrets you need to go sell?” Taehyung buried his hands deep inside the pockets of his Gucci slacks.

He’d yet to take a seat and continued to stand in the middle of the room like the center of attention he loved to be. His blond hair hung across his brow as he sent Jin a dangerous glare.

“Watch it.” With a growl, Jin pushed off the pool table and stalked closer to the blond.

“Why? You gonna send me away too?”

Your fingers found your temples in frustration. Fights would break out occasionally between the eight of you. It was normal. Expected, even. Given how long you’d known each other, the hard-headed determination that you all possessed sometimes got in the way of one another. Backstabbing would happen from time-to-time, sometimes purposeful and others not, but at the end of the day you’d always be there for one another. But selling each other out?

It was a whole different ball game now.

A sigh left your lips as you drowned out the bickering going on back and forth between Taehyung and Jin. Even though the older man liked to play at being a no-nonsense businessman, he was one of the most immature out of all of you.

Looking up from the rug underneath your heels, you just so happened to meet Jungkook’s stare. His lips were pressed together and his doe eyes shone with an emotion you couldn’t discern as he refused to break his gaze. Jungkook’s brows pushed together in an attempt to wordlessly communicate something with you. What that was exactly, you had no idea.

Your eyes dropped back down to the rug with pursed lips and the side of your body that still pressed against Hoseok’s simmered with heat. How did you get yourself into this situation?

Well.

                                   Two Hours Ago

“Time to wake up, Miss Min.”

The sound of metal rings being dragged across a curtain rod wretched you out of peaceful slumber. With your mind hovering halfway between the land of dreams and that of the living, you subconsciously turned away from the sunlight that suddenly beamed across your closed eyelids.

“Not now, Yoomin.” You words were slurred into the cool silk of your pillow. Snaking a hand out of the comforter wrapped around you like a burrito, your fingers searched your forehead blindly. Sometime throughout the night your sleeping mask had gotten pushed up and away from your eyes. “I was having the most wonderful dream. Now let me get back to it.”

Yoomin tutted her tongue somewhere behind you, not that you’d bother to look anyway. The older woman should have been used to your morning routine by now. She’d been working for your family ever since you were a baby and if you were being honest, she’d raised you more than your own mother.

“If you don’t get up now, Miss Min, you won’t get to your first day of the semester on time.” Yoomin scolded softly, voice lilting with her hard Korean accent.

“Five more minutes.”

Instead of granting your wish, Yoomin’s feet padded across the shag carpet in your bedroom and ripped the covers from your body. She ignored your grumbled moans of protest and tossed them somewhere you couldn’t easily reach.

“Breakfast is ready for you downstairs, Miss Min.” Even with the sleep mask covering your eyes, you could picture the woman’s stance: hands on hips and lips pursed. “Get ready and come down.”

“Ugh.” Once again, Yoomin paid no mind to your wordless plea and left the room, closing the door behind her. With a sigh, you tore your mask off and threw it somewhere on the other side of your king size bed.

The royal blue walls of your bedroom greeted you as you squinted against the sunlight. And silk sheets caressed your bare legs while you slowly sat up, fingers running through your tangled hair. The clock on your bedside table read that it was only 9 am and you took a moment to mourn the loss of sleep.

You’d gotten back home sometime late last night/early in the morning. The flight that you’d taken back from the Alps had been delayed due to severe weather conditions. Or whatever. Therefore, you’d only been able to squeeze in a few hours of sleep.

“I really should have taken Jin’s offer and used his private jet.” Your mumbles met no one’s ears but your own as you pulled back the door of your closet. Though, you supposed, it was your fault for wanting to take the latest possible flight back to New York.

Fingers pressing a button on the small remote in your hand blindly, you tilted your head to the side as the designer clothes hung up inside your walk-in closet rotated. Pops of color came and faded out of view while you debated what to wear for the day. Just because you were tired didn’t mean that you had to look it.

Well that, and you would be dragged to hell and back on Gossip Girl, the city’s biggest gossip site, if someone caught you looking less than your best.

Which would happen over your dead, decrypt body.

With a hum, you plucked a black and yellow versace dress from the rack, and grabbed a solid dark green overcoat and matching mustard yellow scarf and birkin bag. You only debated for a moment before grabbing a pair of fishnet tights and wandered into the ensuite bathroom.

The heated tiles were warm and welcoming against your bare feet. And as you showered, you couldn’t help but mentally go through your calendar for the day. It was Monday, which meant that you had a full day of classes and then afterwards you’d stop by Jin’s.

He was the oldest of your group, having four years on you and five on the youngest--Jungkook--so he’d already graduated college. Not that he really needed to, since Jin had been set to take over his father’s five star hotel chain since he was in his final year of high school. He had an older brother, Seokjoong, but he was so wrapped up in the party lifestyle that he’d disappeared into Europe ages ago. It was rumored that he’d cleaned out his bank account and changed his name right before going M.I.A.. No one had heard from him since.

And so, Jin was appointed the next heir of Kim Industries.

Lips pursed in a pout, you swiped on a final layer of lip gloss and fluffed your hair. Your reflection stared back at you in the floor length mirror as you gave yourself one last look over. With skin perfect and makeup flawless, you gave a one shouldered shrug of approval.

The stiletto heels of your mustard colored pumps clacked against the twisting marble steps of your high rise penthouse as you descended. It was quiet. Which wasn’t anything out of the ordinary in the Min household. So your arrival on the first floor went unnoticed by anyone but yourself.

Right at the bottom of the steps, across the row of red marble pillars, was your favorite sitting room. A healthy selection of fruits were spread across the knee-high table in the center of the room. But you ignored it in favor of the steaming china cup filled with coffee. The hot liquid hit the back of your throat as you plopped down onto one of the four plush couches.

Reaching across the table, you grabbed the newest Vogue magazine and flipped through it. “Yoomin!”

Your shout didn’t go unanswered for more than a few ticks of silence.

“Yes, Miss Min?” The older woman appeared from somewhere else in the apartment, most likely the kitchen. Her long dark hair was pulled back into a low sitting french bun. A lacy black and white maid’s headband sat atop her hair that matched with the rest of her outfit. You weren’t really a huge fan of the whole ‘suppressed woman’ look, but Yoomin liked it for some odd reason.

With your lips pressed carefully to the porcelain cup in order to preserve your lipgloss, you eyed the woman over the rim. “Where’s my brother? Isn’t he usually forced out of his hidey-hole he calls a bed by now? Or is he still cooped up in the batcave?”

“Ah,” Yoomin folded her hands daintily in front of herself. “Mr. Min left earlier this morning. A few hours ago to be precise.”

Now that had your eyebrows shooting so far up into your hairline that you were surprised they didn’t take flight. Your brother wasn’t known for mornings. Or waking up any earlier than 2pm. He usually had to be forced out of bed if anyone needed him before that, which was a job that nobody wanted. While your brother was quite the softy deep down beneath his cold exterior, he wouldn’t hesitate to tear anyone apart who dared to rouse him from his precious slumber.

You lowered your teacup to your lap, the contents already drained. “Yoongi, up early? Being productive? Sounds suspicious. Did he leave to go back to Korea already and not tell me?”

“No, Mr. Min is still in the city. As for where he went, he didn’t say.” Yoomin wet her lips almost nervously and you narrowed your eyes at the action.

“Really, now?” The cup met the surface of the table. “He left and didn’t say a word? Just waltzed right out the door? Very unlike him.”

While Yoongi wasn’t very warm and receptive towards strangers, your brother had a soft spot for Yoomin. Her family had worked for yours for generations. In fact, she’d left everything behind in South Korea to join your family and immigrate to America. That’d all been years ago, before you were born.

Yoongi was three years older than you, so he’d been around one-years-old when your mother packed up and moved her fashion company from Seoul to Manhattan. Your father moved to Italy right after their divorce, and while you only got to see him during certain holidays and summer vacations, you were a daddy’s girl through and through.

Yoomin paused for a millisecond before responding. “Yes, Miss Min.”

“Ah!” You pointed an accusatory finger at the woman. “You hesitated! What do you know?”

“Nothing, Miss Min.” Yoomin bowed her head before glancing over her shoulder. “If you’ll please excuse me, your mother asked me to drop a few things off at her office.”

The woman disappeared before you could respond, the heels of her mary jane’s clacking against the floor. The ding of the elevator richoched, steel doors closing and leaving you alone in a place that held too much silence.

You’d barely had any time to ponder on the woman’s strange actions when the chirp of a text message rang from the pocket of your purse. Absentmindedly popping a grape into your mouth, you slid the device out and glanced at the text on the screen.

         E-girl blast #830: This just in: looks like if you take the Bang out of Bangtan, you get a very bad girl. Rumor has it that our High Rise Princess isn’t as innocent as she portrays herself to be. Someone should really change her name to High Rise Porn Star.

The blood in your veins froze, lungs stopped inhaling breath, stomach dropped down to the floor. With your mouth hanging open and eyes wide in complete and utter humiliation, the color drained from your face. Because there plastered for the whole world to see on Gossip GIrl’s website was a photograph of yourself. But not just any photo, no.  

It was of you, lying beneath the silver silk sheets of a bed. Your hair was flowing free across the pillow, side profile exposed. And you were obviously naked, only the important bits covered by the sheet. Eyes closed in sleep, you were completely oblivious to the person responsible for the photograph.

The room was familiar. You would have recognized where the photo was taken even if it wasn’t. It was in one of the various guest suites at Jin’s lodge in the Alps. Where you’d been less than twenty-four hours ago. Where that exact picture was taken.

But that wasn’t what caused panic to well in your throat.

                But who is the one responsible for the deflowering of our pretty little princess? Take a closer look and you tell me.

Right below that was another photograph. A cropped version of the first that showed an arm poking out from underneath the covers. It was zoomed in just enough to be able to make out the lump of another body in bed with you. Luckily, the identity of the man couldn’t be seen as he’d burried himself under the sheets like a gopher.

“Fuck.”

           But if you think that’s bad, wait until you hear the rest of what I have to say. Looks like Bangtan aren’t as bulletproof as they want you to think. Let’s move on to our Golden Boy, shall we?

The message continued on, but with the way your vision clouded with panic, you wouldn’t have been able to read it even if you tried. Who the hell sent in that photo to Gossip Girl? And how did they even get the picture in the first place?

Hands shaking, you almost didn’t look when another text message pinged on your phone. But thankfully, it wasn’t from Gossip Girl. With a shaky exhale, you read over the text.

     “It wasn’t me, I swear. You know I would never do that to you.”

Your thumbs hovered over the touchscreen keyboard, bottom lip caught between your teeth as you debated messaging back.

                          “Please believe me.”

The chance to respond disappeared as the phone in your manicured hands rang. You hesitated, not wanting to answer, but knowing you couldn’t ignore it either. Not if you didn’t want him to show up on your doorstep fuming. You blew air out of your mouth nervously and swiped accept.

“He--”

“Family meeting. Ditch your classes and get here now.”

                                   Present Time

“What’s with all the screaming?”

The voice drew you from your thoughts and all sound in the room cut off as heads snapped up in unison.

In the wide entrance of the living room dressed like he was fresh off the runway was your brother. Your heart stopped in your chest and you silently prayed for a bolt of lightning to strike you down. Yoongi was what you would call an overprotective older brother. He’d always held you up on some sort of pedestal with high expectations that you tried so hard to meet. And you really, really didn’t want to see how he would look at you from your new place on the ground.

Yoongi’s cat-like eyes surveyed the room almost lazily, like he couldn’t be bothered to be there. Whether or not he was affected by the leak as much as everyone else was impossible to tell. Or it would have been if you hadn’t been so close.  

The story that the aggressively bitten nails on his fingers told of his anxiety at the circumstances. His messily styled hair spoke of how he’d threaded his hands through the strands over and over again in an attempt to gather his bearings. And the rhythmic way he clenched his jaw let you know that he was trying to hold himself together.

You hadn’t seen Yoongi like that in a long time. Not since he broke the news to your mother that he had no desire to take over the company. That she should give it to you, the one who actually wanted it, so he could pursue his dream of becoming a music producer instead. Suffice to say, she hadn’t taken it well.

“Finally!” Jimin raised his glass in an alcoholic salute. The scotch splashed dangerously around the rim and you side-eyed the man. Hopefully he wasn’t already drunk off his ass. “Welcome to the party.”

“All sunshine and rainbows here.” Hoseok leaned over to dig around in the breast pocket of his blazer draped across the couch and pulled out another joint. He waved it towards your brother with a smile that lacked its usual warmth. “You’re gonna need this.”

Your eyes dropped to the coffee table when Yoongi’s stare flickered over to you ever so briefly. A coward you definitely were. If you couldn’t even look your brother in the eyes, how in the hell were you supposed to face the rest of the world?

“Alright, listen up.” Jin, finally free of his finished cigar, captured everyone’s attention like the charismatic man he was. His dark gaze met each and every eye in the room before he stuffed a hand in the pocket of his slacks and continued. “One of us here is a dirty, backstabbing scumbag--”

“How are we even sure it was one of us?” Jungkook’s voice finally filled the room, dark brows scrunched once again. With a flash of pink he wet his lips and he glanced around at everyone present.

“The secrets that were leaked to Gossip Girl,” Namjoon leaned against the back of one of the couches, scotch glass filled once again. At the rate he was drinking, he’d be passed out face down in less than an hour. “Were only told to the people in this room. Well...”

Namjoon paused and his eyes found yours. “All but one, at least. But that’s not important.”

Your cheeks heated under the heavy weight of your childhood friend’s stares.

“Or were you too high off your ass to realize?” Taehyung addressed Jungkook, thankfully tearing the attention from you. He crossed his legs from his new spot leaning against the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. With his head tilted to the side, he analyzed the youngest with a look that threatened retribution. “Maybe it was you.”

“Why would I expose myself?” The tip of Jungkook’s tongue poked the inside of his cheek roughly. “Or any one of you? It was probably you.”

“Me?” A sharp, humourless laugh bubbled past the blond man’s lips. “I could lose my job for this shit. How stupid do you think I am?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Jungkook raised an eyebrow at Taehyung condescendingly.

“Arguing isn’t going to solve anything.” Hoseok’s vocal fry spoke over the impending argument before it could start. His eyes were bloodshot and it made you wonder just how high he was. You couldn’t blame him. Not with what he was probably re-living due to the recent exposure.

“Oh really?” Taehyung turned his anger towards the man sitting at your side, lips pressed into a thin line. “This is all your fucking fault. You’re the one who thought it’d be a good idea to drug us.”

Hoseok flinched so hard that you were surprised no one else could feel it. He didn’t respond, instead choosing to cast his eyes down at the persian rug under his feet. The brunette hair that shifted across his forehead did little to hide his crumpled, guilted expression.

“Fuck off, Taehyung.” Junkook’s nostrils flared as he leaned forward in his seat, elbows braced against his knees like he had to physically hold himself back.

“I mean, Tae kind of has a point, as shitty as it is.” From your left came Jimin’s adolescent-esque deep voice. The pink haired man’s stare was captivated by the way the amber liquid in his glass swirled with a flick of his wrist.

“Pointing fingers right now isn’t going to solve anything.” Jin pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration.

“What do you suggest then, your royal highness?” No one commented on the sarcasm dripping from Taehyung’s tongue.

Instead, Jin stood tall and surveyed the room once again. “We’re going to sit here and go back over every single last detail of what occurred this past weekend. No one’s leaving until we figure out which one of us is the snake.”

He paused, face dark. “And you better pray to God that it isn’t you.”

You couldn’t stop your eyes from glancing at the man sitting near you. His own met yours and reflected the same fear that mixed a dangerous cocktail in the pit of your stomach.

“How will going over details help?” The question came from your brother. He’d been so quiet that you’d momentarily forgotten he was there.

He took a few steps further into the room, shedding his jacket along the way. Yoongi sat down in the empty seat next to Jungkook, who didn’t spare him a second glance.

“We weren’t all together the whole time.” Namjoon half-slurred. The scotch was heavy on his tongue, but you couldn’t really blame him either. “People who went off on their own have the highest probability of being the rat.”

“Okay then, let’s just go through everyone’s texts and emails. See who sent it in to Gossip Girl.” Jungkook leaned back into the couch with a shrug of nonchalance.

“Do you know how easy it is to delete a text or an email?” With a snort, Taehyung spoke slowly, like Jungkook was an invalid.

The youngest clenched his jaw in irritation. “Then we’ll just contact Gossip Girl and ask her.”

“You know she doesn’t reveal her sources.” Jimin murmured into his glass.

“I still don’t see how any of this will help.” Yoongi’s raised eyebrow disappeared underneath his blond bangs. The marijuana smoke from his exhale punctuated his words. “But whatever. The sooner we get this done the sooner I can leave.”

“Somewhere more important to be?” Taehyung crossed his arms across his chest.

Your brother looked unamused. “Unlike you, some of us actually work hard for a living.”

You could see the moment the anger behind Taehyung’s eyes burned deeper with rage. “Modeling is--”

“For fucks sake, shut up! You think you’re the only one with things to do?” Jin rolled his eyes and stepped between the two. Yoongi always knew which buttons to push to send someone right over the edge of self control. The eldest’s withering stare shifted over to a wavering Namjoon. “And stop drinking. You’ll be useless if you’re face down in a toilet.”

Jin’s sharp tone called everyone’s attention yet again as the elevator door dinged. From around the corner emerged one of the hotel’s many staff members. The suit wearing man pushed a large rolling whiteboard into the living room, the type that you usually only saw in crime television shows. The wheels squeaked lightly across the wood floor.

“There is fine.” Jin nodded at the staff member who disappeared with a bow of his head.

The eldest strode up to the board where it was situated in front of the room and picked up a black erase marker. He turned to the group as he uncapped it. “Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?”

                                Forty Hours Ago

“It’s cold.”

Turning to peer over your shoulder, you sent your brother a yeah, duh look. “We’re in the mountains in mid-December. What did you expect?”

From the roof of the resort, Yoongi stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to the private helicopter pad that Jin had installed years ago for easy travel. His icy blond hair was pushed back from his pale forehead with a black headband and his mouth was pursed in a cute pout. Though he’d deny its existence if you pointed it out.

The daegu accent that he’d picked up from his past two years living in South Korea stretched out his words into one long drag. “I hate the cold.”

It seemed that not even the thick Givenchy coat drowning his smaller frame could keep him warm. And the fuzzy earmuffs nestled in your hair couldn’t protect your ears from his complaints.

“The sooner we get inside, the sooner we can get warm.” Your own gloved fingers wrapped around the padded material on his upper arm. Yoongi followed after you without resistance, though the pout failed to fall from his face.

Behind the two of you, a handful of staff members descended the helicopter pad’s steps with you and your brother’s suitcases in hand. Luckily it wasn’t snowing, but the wind from on top of the resort was harsh and sharp. It turned your nose into a runny, red mess within minutes. Which was why you couldn’t disappear behind the metal roof door soon enough.

A sigh of relief left your lips at the feeling of heated air hitting your chilled skin. Yoongi’s own grunt sounded from behind you while your fingers hurried to unbutton your thermal coat. The heels of your boots clacked against the hotel’s floor as the two of you strut down the hallway.

The resort was completely empty, as it always was that time of the year. Not because there was a lack of patrons, but because Jin would block out the weekend so your group could reunite before tackling the New Year. At the end of the hall, your fingers pressed the button to call the elevator. Yoongi, red cheeked and sniffling, leaned against the wall beside the closed steel doors and sighed.

“Something wrong?” Your voice was quiet in the empty hall. It’d been a long time since you’d seen him. And while you still managed to call each other at least once a week, it felt like there was some sort of rift between you. An invisible wall that you weren’t sure how to breach.

“No.” Yoongi’s cat-like eyes squeezed shut around a yawn. “Just tired.”

The dark bags under his eyes were prominent. He’d taken a flight from Korea all the way to New York, just so he could join you on another flight and helicopter ride to the resort. Two years ago Yoongi had moved out of the country to pursue his dream of becoming a music producer. And he liked to hide his failures from you as much as he could, but the dejected way he’d sounded on the phone the past few months told you everything he couldn’t.

He was struggling to make a name for himself outside of your mother’s. Yoongi was crazy talented, but he’d chosen to forgo the connections and opportunities that your family name could bring him to start from the bottom. He wanted to build himself from the ground up to prove to himself that he could do it. That he didn’t need your mother to succeed.

Though you supposed that you couldn’t blame just him for the feeling of separation between the two of you. The secret that you withheld from him threatened to drown you with guilt.

The elevator ride was quick and silent. Yoongi leaned against the corner of the steel box with his head flopped back against the wall. You stood at the opposite end, the handles of your purse dangling lazily. The air was tense, yet barren.

With a ding, the doors slid open and the marble flooring of the obnoxiously large and flashy lobby greeted you.

Past the rose gold pillars and other elevators was a classy seating area. Leather couches formed around a roaring, lit fireplace. And behind that were floor to ceiling glass windows that overlooked the snow-capped mountains. Standing in front of the fireplace and roasting himself like a marshmallow was a familiar head of pink hair.

Jimin turned at the sound of your footsteps, bare collar bones poking out from the top of his unzippered ski-coat. His hair was dripping with melted snow and the usual golden hue of his skin was heated with pink. Jimin’s plump lips pulled back into a grin, flashing you his crooked front tooth.

“Hey! Look who finally decided to arrive!”

Hoseok’s brown hair poked out from underneath the thick wool blanket thrown over his head from his seat on one of the couches. You could tell that someone had managed to get the scaredy cat out onto the ski slopes by the pale complection of his skin. His snow boots were scattered on the floor around the couch haphazardly while his fluffy-socked feet were tucked underneath his thighs.  

“Sorry we’re late.” Yoongi spoke from behind you, though his tone didn’t sound very apologetic.

“You missed the whole first day!” Jimin complained as he approached with his arms outstretched. He enveloped you into his hold first, his damp hair brushing the top of your head and his warm breath ghosting your ear. “It’s been a while, Princess. Glad to see you.”

“You too, Jiminie.”

Your own arms wrapped around the man’s slim shoulders and his sweet smelling cologne cocooned your nose with a scent you could only call Jimin. He gave your waist one last squeeze before parting from you and moving over to your brother. Yoongi wrinkled his nose in disgust, but didn’t move away when Jimin crushed him in a hug of his own.

Jimin hadn’t been lying. It really had been a while since you’d last seen each other. Even though you were the same age, you went to university at Columbia in the city and Jimin spent his days performing on Broadway. You’d only get to see each other when he had a gap between shows, or during the holidays when everyone had breaks in their schedules.

“You look miserable.” You smirked down at Hoseok as you stood in front of him. The older man looked like a pathetic, soggy burrito wrapped in the blanket like that. He pouted up at you with his heart-shaped lips and dimples and warm brown eyes.

“You have no idea.” Hoseok replied with a sniffle of his red-tipped nose. His socked feet hit the floor as he stood, towering over you. “But it’s nice to see you.”

If you had to rate your friends based on hugs, Hoseok would be the winner without a doubt. Despite his cold fingers, the rest of him was warm, familiar, comforting. Not counting your brother (though you weren’t so sure nowadays), Hoseok was the one you were closest to. His bright personality and welcoming persona drew you to him like the ray of sunshine he was nicknamed after.

“I just saw you two days ago, Hobi.” Your humor filled words were muffled into his shoulder.

His shrug pulled you closer. “Two days too long, Princess.”  

With a snort and a roll of your eyes, you pushed him away playfully. “You’re lame.”

Hoseok stumbled back into the couch dramatically with a hand pressed against his chest. He shot you a fake wounded look. “Lame? Me? Ouch.”

“You’re both lame.” Jimin butt into the conversation, slithering his way between the two of you to stand back in front of the fireplace. Ignoring the pink haired man, Hoseok darted over to your brother with a squee! His socks skid across the floor as he lifted the blond in the air with a tight hug of greeting.  

Yoongi made a noise of annoyance, though the gummy smile that overtook his face told a different story. Hoseok was one of the only people who were capable of bringing out Yoongi’s playful side. While the two of them had their reunion, you busied yourself with plopping down on Hoseok’s abandoned couch.

“Where’s everyone else?” You asked Jimin. The heat of the fireplace brushed the thick padding of your coat and threatened to make you break out into a sweat. With a few practiced movements, you managed to shed your plaid printed coat and scarf, leaving you in a knee-length green sweater dress and black leggings.

“I--”

Like magic, the front doors of the lobby swung open, bringing with it a gust of cold bitter air and the trademarked ha-ha-ha! of Namjoon’s loud laughter. In stumbled the rest of the group: Jin, Namjoon, Taehyung, and Jungkook.

“Is it lunchtime yet?” The question came from Jungkook as he shook out the snow from his hair. A pair of ski-goggles were perched on top of his head, but he ignored it in favor of stripping his hands of gloves. The bottom of his boots tracked in snow like it was his job, but it wasn’t like he noticed.

“We just ate two hours ago!” Jin scolded the younger without heat. His honey colored skin was splotched with shades of red from the cold air. Though somehow it only seemed to accentuate his handsome, angelic features.

“Yeah, but I’m starving.”

“Still a pig, I see.” The group stopped in their tracks at the sound of Yoongi’s voice echoing in the lobby.

With a big, boxy grin, Taehyung yelled in excitement and sprinted across the floor of the lobby, his own blond hair dripping wet. “Yoongi!”

“You’re tracking snow everywhere!” Jin’s shout carried well beyond the lobby.

                                Present Time

“That was way before we even played that stupid drinking game.” Taehyung grumbled in annoyance. His eyes were glued to the whiteboard as Jin neatly wrote out the list of events. He was having each and every person go over what had happened from their own point of view. “So why do we have to go over all the boring shit?”

Jin turned to glare at the blond over his shoulder. “Because what I said goes.”

Taehyung simply raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? Well no one cares about this. Let’s just cut to the interesting bits.”

Before Jin could rip Taehyung to shreds with his heated scowl, Namjoon spoke around the rim of his glass of water. “I hate to agree, but I do.”

“Third.” Jungkook raised his hand in the air like a child in a school classroom.

“Fourth.” You finally spoke up, fingers toying with the cap of your bottle of San Pellegrino.

“Fifth.” Surprisingly, Jimin’s voice came out clear and uninfluenced by half the bottle of liquor he’d downed.

Yoongi just grunted his own agreement, eyes lidded with what looked to be exhaustion, but what you could tell was anxiety.

“Seriously?” Jin waved the marker in his hand around wildly. His eyes landed on Hoseok who just shrugged silently. He hadn’t spoken ever since Taehyung made that comment to him almost an hour ago. “Whatever. Fine. We’ll move on.”

The eldest took a swig out of his glass of scotch and turned back to the board. “We’ll start with the night of the game, then.”

                         Thirty-Two Hours Ago

“Okay, rules of the game.”

Namjoon stood in the center of the seating area with a shot glass full of tequila raised high above his head to gather attention. The eight of you were scattered around in a circle on the various couches and chaise lounge chairs in the sitting area of Jin’s room. It was long after the group of you hit the mountains for some intense snow tubing. And after you’d all headed back to your rooms to shower and get ready for dinner served by some michelin star chef that Jin staffed.

Now, with bellies full and body’s warm, you all sat around in your most comfortable clothes. Multiple bottles of alcohol were lined up on the bar in Jin’s room, but a handle of tequila was currently serving as centerpiece on the coffee table.

From your spot in the middle of the comfy couch, squished between Taehyung and Jimin, you had your own shot glass in hand. It’d recently been refilled, since the group took one together to start off the night. With fire seeping through your veins, you paid special attention to the words coming from Namjoon’s lips, even though you knew the rules of the game by heart. The crackle of the lit fireplace behind the other couch threatened to drown out his deep, raspy voice.

“The name of the game is Sip, Snitch, Spill, or otherwise known as Triple S. Starting from oldest to youngest,” Namjoon gestured to Jin with his shot glass, ignoring the tequila that spilled onto his fingers. He then turned in a slow circle clockwise. Everyone was sitting in age order.

Namjoon pointed at the empty beer bottle on the table. “The one who’s turn it is has to spin the bottle and whoever it lands on gets to choose the dare that the person who’s turn it is has to complete. If they opt out of completing the dare, then they have to spill a secret that no one here knows. But it can’t be something stupid that no one cares about; only top secret shit here. Each person only gets three seconds to decide which option to take.

“After that, everyone in the room gets the opportunity to snitch. If someone knows a secret about you that no one else does, they can snitch to the group and skip their turn. If you fail to take the dare, you have to take a shot. If someone snitches on you, then you have to take two shots.”

Everyone glanced at each other with mistrustful, playful eyes. While the game was fun, it was costly as well. Because in the world of the elite, nothing was more valuable than a secret.

“Do all here agree to the rules?” Namjoon raised a brow.

“Here, here!” The shouts of seven people filled the room and overpowered the music flowing from the surround sound speakers.

“Then let’s get messy.” A smirk lifted at the corner of Namjoon’s mouth as he finally took his seat on the other side of Hoseok.

“That sounds dirty. Let’s not.” Jin wrinkled his nose with a huff of amusement.

“What I think you meant to say was,” the comment came from Jimin as he unnecessarily knocked back a shot. “‘That sounds dirty. Let’s.’”

“Anyway.” Yoongi rolled his eyes and elbowed Jin in the ribs from his spot next to him on the love seat. “Start.”

The eldest hummed and rubbed at his chin dramatically as he eyed the empty beer bottle. Like he’d actually have a choice on who it landed on. Jin took his time leaning forward and grabbed the body of the bottle with three fingers, ignoring the groans of impatience coming from the circle. Finally, with a flick of his wrist, he spun it.

Around and around it went, the green of the glass glinting under the overhead lights. Everyone was at the edge of their seats, minds calculating what dare they’d make the elder do, as they waited for it to stop.

“Hah!” Hoseok cheered, doing a stupidly cute dance in his seat at the chances of being the first to give a dare. The leather chaise lounge he sat on made a sound of protest at his rapid movements. But he ignored it in favor of pointing a finger at Jin with a flourish. “I dare you to give Yoongi a lap dance!”

Ooooh!’s erupted from around the circle as each and every person screamed in excitement. Jin’s mouth dropped open in disbelief and he gaped at Hoseok with a look that said dude, seriously?

“Woo!” Jimin’s contagious giggle left his lips, eyes squeezed shut in amusement. “What a way to start.”

“I’m not drunk enough for that.” Jin knocked his shot back and grimaced at the taste. “I slept with my personal assistant last month. Then I fired her.”

“Wait, so if you were drunk enough then you’d do it?” Hoseok’s comment was rudely ignored by Jin.

“Linda?” Jungkook gaped at the older man from his place on the other lounge chair across from Hoseok. “Isn’t she in her late fifties?”

With a shrug of indifference, Jin poured himself another shot. “And?”

“Wow.” Taehyung tutted around the laughter that bubbled up his throat. “Did you really have to fire her though? That’s harsh.”

“She started to get feelings for me.” Jin shrugged yet again. “After I specifically told her not to.”

“Poor Linda.” With a shake of your head, you crossed one leg over the other. You could remember briefly meeting the woman once. She’d been kind yet carried a no-nonsense air about her, which made you wonder just how Jin had managed to bed her. Though you supposed he had his ways. He always did.

“Sometimes it’s hard to be this handsome.” The eldest’s unabashed response had everyone cringing as he broke out into his trademark windshield wiper laugh.

“Moving on.” Yoongi reached forward to spin the bottle without waiting for anyone’s attention. Everyone’s eyes were once again glued on the glass as it spun.

“Huh.” Namjoon hummed from his seat on the leather recliner next to Hoseok. The honey haired man steepled his fingers in front of his chin in thought.

“Why did it have to land on him?” Taehyung pouted. “He takes forever to decide.”

“I do not!” Though the seconds that ticked by into minutes told a different story.

It was clear the moment an invisible lightbulb went off over his head. The dimpled man jumped up from his chair and cleared the room to disappear around the corner into the kitchen. Before anyone could question what the hell he was doing, Namjoon reappeared back into the room with a gallon of skim milk and set it on the table in front of Yoongi.

“I dare you to chase every shot you take with a shot of milk.”

“Ew, what?” You stuck your tongue out in absolute disgust. Though it could barely be heard over the fake retching noises coming from the rest of the boys.

“What’s wrong with milk?” Jungkook asked innocently, causing everyone to shoot him a look.

Yoongi just stared at the gallon of milk thoughtfully before shrugging and knocking back his shot of tequila. The room watched on in shock as he then poured milk into the glass and swallowed that as well.

“Yoongi!” Jin pressed himself into the arm of the couch in an attempt to get as far away from your brother as possible. His handsome features were scrunched up in revolution. “You know you didn’t need to do that, right? Since you took the dare?”

With his gaze focused on refilling his shot glass with tequila, Yoongi’s face remained blank. “I’m not a bitch.”

“O-kay.” Hoseok dragged out the word with a grimace and slid forward on his chair to take his turn. “Let’s all just pretend we never saw that. Anyway.”

The game continued with Hoseok and Namjoon both taking dares. Hoseok had to strip down to his underwear and stand outside on the balcony for five whole minutes. He’d returned inside a shivering, pale mess. Jungkook had taken a ridiculous amount of pictures of him literally crying from the cold to hold over his head as blackmail at some later point in time.

Namjoon had been dared by Jin to order a bunch of lingerie to be delivered to his ex-girlfriend. That one had everyone begging him not to do it. Because unfortunately the last girl Namjoon had dated turned out to be a complete psychopath who stalked him for months on end after he dumped her. But the man just shrugged and stated, “I like them crazy.”

When it was Jimin’s turn, the pink haired man licked his lips in anticipation and spun the bottle. It didn’t turn very fast, just barely cleared two loops around the group before it pointed straight at you.

Jimin turned to you with a smile on his pretty lips. “Give me your best shot, Princess.”

Your own eyes narrowed at the challenge in his and you pursed your lips in thought. No way would you let him get off easily, especially not with the way he was looking at you. So with a smirk quirking your mouth, you spoke, “I dare you to call up your job right now and tell them you quit.”

Another round ooh!’s came from the group at your words and Jimin gaped at you in open mouthed disbelief. “Seriously?”

You gave Jimin a saccharine smile. Normally, you wouldn’t be so vindictive against him, but you were never one to turn down a challenge.

He knocked back his shot and slammed the glass down on the table with a glare directed at you. With a smack of his lips, Jimin begrudgingly addressed the group. “You know how I was able to join my broadway show after open auditions closed last year?”

Jimin’s eyes were glued to the table as everyone murmured their agreement. He was the only one out of your group who didn’t come from a successful family. Instead, he’d had to build both himself and his reputation from the ground up. It’d been hard on him, had taken a lot from him. But now, he starred in one of the most successful, famous broadway shows.

The silver rings on Jimin’s hand caught the light as he thumbed his plump bottom lip. His words came out hesitant, confession caught in his throat. “Yeah, well, I only got the spot because I slept with the director.”

“But you’re so talented!” Now you were the one staring in open mouthed shock. Never would you have expected that to come out of his mouth.

Jimin brushed off your comment and filled his shot glass once again. His words were murmured into the table. “They didn’t think so.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone took time to absorb the information. You weren’t kidding when you’d said that he was talented. You’d never seen someone who could dance as gracefully as he could or who could sing with the soft, unique voice that only Jimin possessed.

“Anyway,” he elbowed you gently and nodded at the bottle. “Your turn.”

The glass was cool under your fingers. You watched intently as around and around and around it went. There weren’t a lot of secrets that you had to hide from your group of friends. Usually, you were pretty transparent. Not only that, but you were the only one in Bangtan made a conscious effort to stay out of drama or scandals. Hence the nickname: High Rise Princess.

“Oh, no.” You groaned, throwing your head back against the couch. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that you had the worst luck ever. God, you hated that game.

“Well, well, well. How the turn tables.” Jimin threw an arm around your neck teasingly and pulled you into his side. His fingers rubbed at his chin menacingly as he stared at you out of the corner of his eye. The man didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “Let’s see.”

“This’ll be good.” Taehyung relaxed back against the arm of the couch with a smirk of his own.

The second you saw Jimin’s eyes flicker to the blond and the cheshire-cat-esque smile on his face widen, you knew you were in trouble. He gave your shoulder a squeeze before letting go and pushing you over to Taehyung. “Okay, Princess. For your dare, you have to make out with Taehyung for a minimum of thirty seconds.”

The room exploded  and you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. You were known for being “pure” or whatever bull they labeled you as and the fact that you’d never dated any of them, it was kind of a big deal.

“Jimin, what the fuck?” All attention went to Yoongi, who was staring Jimin down with a harsh scowl. He really was overprotective of you when it came to pretty much anything. And that included any and all men.

Jimin just shrugged, but didn’t appear very apologetic. “Sorry, man. But she doesn’t have to do it.”

“I’m not a bitch.” You echoed your brother’s words from earlier before turning to Taehyung. His eyebrows were raised into his hairline and his mouth was agape, but the look in his eyes shone with sudden interest. So you couldn’t help tilting your head to the side and challenging, “unless you are.”

Hoseok’s loud screech and Jin’s obnoxious windshield wiper laugh overpowered everyone else’s exclaims of surprised disbelief. The fact that you weren’t even drunk meant that you couldn’t blame your actions on the alcohol. If you were being honest, you were just tired of everyone looking at you as some kind of sexual pariah. Like you were incapable of being intimate with another person. Maybe it was because you’d all grown up together that they saw you that way, you weren’t sure. But you hated it.

It was suffocating to have to force yourself to be someone that you weren’t.

Plus, it didn’t hurt that Taehyung was one of the most beautiful men that you’d ever laid your eyes on.

“I don’t want to see this. I’m going to the bathroom” Your brother rose from his seat with one last glare shot at both Jimin and Taehyung. “Don’t make me kick your ass.”

The atmosphere after Yoongi disappeared was the kind of tension that you only felt when watching a car crash. Like you just couldn’t look away. Hoseok was on the edge of his seat with his jaw hanging open, Jimin was frozen in a state of excited incredulity, across from you Jin covered his eyes with his hands while he continued to laugh, and Namjoon--

“Come here, Princess.” Taehyung scooted closer to you on the couch and gently placed his hands on either of your cheeks.

His warmth seeped into you from his palms and the husky scent of his Dior cologne washed over you. Taehyung was a touchy person by nature, so it wasn’t like he hadn’t cuddled up to you on multiple occasions. But this time was different. Be it from the way his eyes were half-lidded with an emotion you’d never seen him direct at you, or for the way his voice dipped a few octaves deeper from his usual baritone.

“You can still back out.” The words were spoken softly, only for your ears. But his eyes flickered down to your lips when you murmured,

“Why? You scared?”

Without acknowledging Hoseok’s squawk, Taehyung huffed. He didn’t even give you a moment to prepare yourself before he closed the distance and his mouth was on yours.

His lips were both warm and soft. And despite the firm way his hands held you in place, Taehyung’s kiss was gentle. Just the right amount of pressure that bordered on tender and not enough. So when you pressed your lips harder to his to deepen the kiss, you felt the smirk that twitched at the corner of his mouth as he obliged.

The heat of a stare burned into the side of your face, but you brushed it off in favor of parting your mouth at Taehyung’s questioning lick to your bottom lip. His tongue met yours in a dance and you could taste the remnants of tequila on his breath as his fingers tangled in your hair. Your own hands remained still in your lap, but you couldn’t help but press closer at his urging.

“And that’s time!” Jimin’s voice sounded from somewhere behind you. “Thirty seconds are up!”

Whether he didn’t hear him or chose to ignore him, Taehyung crushed his lips harder to yours in a breath stealing kiss.

“Or not.”

With one last lingering press of his mouth, Taehyung caught your bottom lip and dragged it slowly between his teeth as he pulled away. His fingers left your hair and he sent you a flirtatious wink before casually leaning back to his side of the couch, taking his warmth with him. All while dragging his tongue across his kiss bruised lips.

You’d be lying if you said that you weren’t at least a little bit turned on. It was no wonder he had both men and women falling at his feet left and right.

“That was hot, not gonna lie.” Hoseok whistled, falling back against his chair. “But weird at the same time.”

“Agreed.” Nodded Namjoon slowly. The expression on his face was a mixed bag, stuck somewhere between horror and something else.

“It was okay.” You shrugged nonchalantly, facing back towards the coffee table once more. Out of the corner of your eye Taehyung snapped his head towards you so fast that you were briefly concerned for the muscles in his neck.

“Oka-”

“It’s your turn.” The cheeky smile you sent Taehyung’s way coaxed a hard laugh out of Jimin.

The petite man threw an arm over your shoulders once more and pulled you into his side. Though with the way he could barely hold himself up with his body shaking laughter, it was more like he was leaning on you than the other way around. “A few months apart and it’s like you’re a whole new person. Who are you, Princess?”

The game continued once your brother returned from the bathroom. He’d entered the room and eyed Taehyung with a look that would have any lesser man trembling in his seat. But Taehyung had just given him his cute, boxy smile and took his spin.

Around and around the bottle spun as everyone took their turn. But it was only a matter of time before Jin finally snapped.

“Alright, this is boring! Everyone’s just picking dare and I want some juicy gossip.” His head fell back against the couch with a dramatic sigh. And he took a moment to bask in the attention of everyone in the room before he turned his head, rosy cheek pressed against the couch to address Hoseok. “Go make us some stronger drinks or something. I’m barely buzzed.”

Hoseok simply raised an eyebrow, arm still extended to take his turn.

“Yeah, Hoseokie.” Jungkook mocked in a high pitched voice, lips pursed in a dramatic air kiss. “Go make us drinks.”

“Yah, brat!” Said man kicked a foot half heartedly at Jungkook, not that it would have dealt any damage anyway seeing how far apart they were sitting. “Maybe if you ask nicely I will.”

“Nevermind.” With a shrug, Jungkook leaned back in his seat, “I don’t want it that badly.”

“Please, Hobi. I’ll take literally anything other than tequila.” Namjoon sent his full shot glass a dirty look. He always had preferred dark liquor.

“Well since one of you knows how to use their manners.” That was it took to have Hoseok hopping out of his chair and sauntering around the corner to the kitchen with a shout over his shoulder. “No one play without me!”

“Make something strong!” Jin called after him, standing up himself. Brushing off everyone’s eyes on him, he straightened his shirt and stepped away from the couch. “Bathroom. Be right back.”

And then he made himself scarce as well.

“Well since everyone’s taking a break.” Jimin was staring down at the screen of his phone. You could just barely see a name flash across the screen as it vibrated in his hand. Standing, he gestured blindly to the front door. “I gotta take this.”

“Which booty call is it?” Namjoon wiggled his eyebrows at the petite man suggestively right before he exited the room. “Not that it’ll do any good out here. Unless they can teleport.”

“That would be a cool superpower.” The comment came from Jungkook, who was busying himself by playing some game on his phone. No one paid attention to the sound of the front door closing.

“Right?”

“You guys are lame.” Yoongi absentmindedly toyed with the milk jug on the floor with his foot, his attention taken up by whatever was on his phone.

He either felt your stare or you were just that predictable, because Yoongi looked up to  scrutinize you. His eyes narrowed and flashed over to Taehyung and back to you with an eyebrow raised. A silent, questioning what’s was that?

You only shook your head with a roll of your eyes and the protective anger simmering behind your brother’s eyes dimmed at your wordless, nothing, relax. It was a little relieving that even with the distance between the both of you, the ability to read each other’s mind was still there. And must have felt similar if the small smile at the corner of his mouth was any indication.

“Alright!” Hoseok’s loud voice filtered into the room as he rounded the corner with a tray held between both hands. Eight glasses filled with a yellow, bubbling liquid were balanced on top and you took a moment to silently pray for luck.There was a reason why Hoseok was always chosen to make drinks. And you wouldn’t make it out alive if you didn’t pace yourself.

“Wow, perfect timing.” From around the corner leading to the hallway emerged Jin. He eyed the suspicious looking drinks as he reclaimed his seat. “What’s in it?”

With a noise to seal everyone’s fate, the tray was placed on the table. Both Yoongi and Jungkook looked up from their phones and Namjoon paused to eye the glasses. Hoseok just shrugged. “No idea. There’s like--”

He halted his words and you could literally see the way mentally made calculations in his head. “Like five different types of alcohol in those? I think.”

“Better than tequila at least.” Namjoon shrugged and grabbed a glass for himself. He hesitated for a moment to sniff at the contents, like that would somehow help him discern what it was he was about to drink. And finally, he shrugged and took a tiny sip.

Everyone’s attention was on him as he tongued his lips and hummed. “Not bad. Kinda sweet actually.”

Namjoon’s conscensious was apparently all anyone else needed because you all reached forward to grab your own. But you couldn’t help but suspiciously eye the liquid in your cup first.

“Where’s Jimin?” Jin asked around a big swallow and an obnoxious smack of his lips.

“Taking a phone call.” Taehyung walked around Hoseok, who was still standing in front of the table, and reached for a dangerous cocktail. “He’ll probably be a while.”

“Should we wait then?” You asked.

“It wouldn’t be as fun without him.” Hoseok winked down at you. “Who knows what other secrets he has.”

“Messy.” Shaking his head, Jin snorted into his glass.

“Like you’re one to talk.” Jungkook stated nonchalantely, though the shit eating smirk on his lips told another story.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

You tuned out the bickering between the eldest and the youngest, especially when Taehyung joined in. Somehow they always managed to bring out the immature side of Jin, not that the mature side of the man appeared that often either. The alcohol was sweet, yet tangy on your tongue with an addictive aftertaste that chased away the bitter remnants of tequila. It was easy to drink more than intended with how difficult it was to percieve the alcohol content.

“Hey, Hoseok.” Namjoon’s raspy voice was almost drowned out by the yelling between the others. Both Hoseok and yourself looked over to the dimpled man, only to see him completely enraptured by the glass in his hands. Namjoon’s voice came out unsure, confused. “What did you put in this?”

“What?” Perplexed, Hoseok tilted his head. “I told you, like five--”

Namjoon cut him off with a small shake of his own head. “No. What did you put in this?”

“I don’t--”

“Did you drop acid in these?” Namjoon’s question caught the curiosity of the others in the room. Even Yoongi looked up from whatever he was reading on his phone.

Hoseok sent his drink a puzzled look. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Mouth agape, you stared up at the man with a look of disbelief. “How do you not know?”

By the wide-eyed look he shot your way, you could already garner a guess. And apparently so could everyone else.

“Have you been tripping this whole time?” Taehyung collapsed back onto his end of the couch laughing so hard that you were a little concerned for the liquid splashing at the rim of his cup.

“Uh.” How you all missed his dialated pupils were was incredible. Hoseok paused for a moment before whirling around to face Namjoon. “Wait, how would you even be feeling it this quick if I had? It’s been like ten minutes, it shouldn’t have hit if I did.”

“Yeah?” Namjoon was still staring incredulously at the almost empty glass clutched in his hand. “Then why is my cup looking at me right now?”

“Oh shit.”

“Oh shit is right!” The sudden panic that welled up in your chest surged to your throat as you waved your almost empty cup at Hoseok. “I just drank like all of this! What the hell am I supposed to do?”

Never in your life had you ever taken fucking acid. Maybe some marijuana here or there, but that was about the extent of your recreational drug experience. God, what the hell had you gotten yourself into?

“Not freak out, that’s for sure.” Taehyung wet his lips and raised his glass to you in a salute before knocking it back. His adam’s apple bobbed as he chugged the whole glass of alcohol in one go.

“Maybe you should go lay down.” From across the room your brother gave you a concerned once over. He was extremely calm given the circumstances. Then again he used to hang out with Hoseok the most so he’d probably actually partaken before. “Try and sleep it off before it hits.”

Slowly, you nodded in agreement, already rising from the couch. You were pretty positive that you were the only person in the room who hadn’t taken the drug. And the thought of experiencing LSD was enough to tighten your chest with panic. Maybe it would be best if you tried to sleep before it properly hit your system.

“I think that’s a good idea.”

“Wait.” Hoseok stumbled over to you and grabbed at your arm. Before you could process what was happening, he slipped a pen out of the pocket of his pants and glanced over at the clock hanging on the wall. The scratching of the pen against your skin caught your attention as Hoseok wrote out the time from ten minutes ago.

“What’s this for?”

“That’s the time you drank it. It’ll be important later just in case you don’t know when or where you are.” Ignoring your I’m sorry, what?, Hoseok looked up at you from underneath his lashes. “Since this is your first time, I need you to pay strict attention to what I’m about to say, Princess. Got it?”

All you could do was nod your head, mind too overrun by alarm. Hoseok paused for a moment to convey the importance of what he was about to say next.

“Three rules for being on acid. One, and this doesn’t really apply to this situation, but it’s important: cars are real, okay? Two: anything you want to try, do it from the ground first. And three: don’t trust everything you see.”

“Very imformative.” Came Namjoon’s sarcastic reply. “Would have been helpful ten minutes ago.”

Hoseok paid no heed to the comment, too busy looking you over with concern. “Do you want me to walk you to your room?”

How he was completely functional was mind-blowing to you. But then again, with the amount of pressure his parents put on him to take over a company that he didn’t want, you weren’t surprised by the frequency of how much he tried to make himself forget.

“I think I’ll be okay.” You reassured both Hoseok and the rest of the room with a small smile. Gratefully, no one commented on how forced it was.

The only thing you wanted to do was collapse in bed before it was too late. Besides, it wasn’t like you weren’t tired anyway. It’d been a long day.

“If you’re sure.” Hoseok flashed his dimples and the rest of the room bid you goodnight as you slipped from the room.

                               Present Time

“Why are you all staring at me?” You asked incredulously.

“Because you left early.” The capped end of the marker tapped against Jin’s cheek from where he stood in front of the almost filled whiteboard.

“And?”

“And.” Jin stared at you over the rim of his glass of scotch. “That makes you a suspect.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Gaping, you surveyed the rest of the room to find them all looking at you with various degrees of doubt.

From your side piped up Hoseok for the first time in hours and the hoarsness of his voice showed it. “Wait, wait, wait. She wasn’t the only one who left. Besides, wouldn’t that not make her a suspect since she wasn’t even there when we all told each other our secrets?”

His statement gave Jin pause.

Yoongi scrunched his eyebrows together in bewilderment at the statement. “Who else left?”

A moment of silence.

A quick intake of breath.

Hoseok turning to stare at you with wide eyes that knew too much. And it seemed like he wasn’t the only quick witted one in the room because Namjoon’s jaw dropped open in shock.

“I’m confused.” Jin pursed his lips in annoyance at the scene. “Explain.”

Hoseok just shook his head, scandalized. And upon seeing how Hoseok failed to explain, Namjoon took it upon himself to do the honors, ignoring your pleading eyes with an apologetic expression. The fucking traitor.

He cleared his throat, “One person left the room after her. Remember?”

Said person froze, eyes wide and breath stalling in his throat as all attention switched to him.

“Oh yeah.” Nodding, Jin turned his analysing gaze to the person in question. “Where did you go?”

You could literally see the moment that the cogs in your brother’s brain halted and the split second the realization slowly dawned on his face. The atmosphere in the room was thick with tension as your brother stood from the couch with absolute rage clouding his face. Fists clenched at his sides like he had to physically stop himself from exploding, Yoongi’s words were bitten out between his teeth.

“You fucked my sister?”

“I-” Jungkook sprang up from the couch, hands raised in surrender and doe eyes blown wide. The rest of the room was too busy staring on in shock (Taehyung), or in messy interest (Jimin), or open mouthed surprise (Jin) to step inbetween Jungkook and your brother. “It’s not what you think.”

Yoongi was seething, tonguing his cheek in a way that warned how close he was to snapping. “Not what I think.”

Jungkook nodded his head vigorously, shooting you a look begging for an assist. But you didn’t know what to say to stop it. And upon noticing your hesistation, Jungkook turned back to your brother and uttered a sentence that sealed his fate in the worst way possible.

“We’re not even dating!”

While Jungkook had enough muscle and strength to disuede a majority of people from trying to pick a fight with him, Yoongi was small and lithe, but strong in a way that most people wouldn’t expect. Your brother had been in many fights throughout the years; he used to hang around the wrong crowd growing up. He was rarely angry, his patience was almost never ending. But if you managed to push him over that line, well, everyone knew not to get on Yoongi’s bad side.

His face clouded, feet carrying him into Jungkook’s personal space. Yoongi’s voice was dangerous and words slow. “So you’re just using my sister for sex?”

Jungkook’s eyes widened even further with panic, but he didn’t step down, didn’t move out of your brother’s range. “That’s not--that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah? Then what did you mean?” Even you could tell that the question was rhetorical.

The tenstion of an impending fight finally spurred you to stand up and stumble a few steps closer to the pair, voice pleading. “Yoongi.”

He turned to glance at you from over his shoulder with furious cat-like eyes and hackles bristled. His stare froze you in your tracks, but you continued on regardless. “It’s fine.”

“Fine.” Yoongi’s tone was blank before he rounded on you. “How long?”

There was nothing that would ever make you feel as small as the way he was looking at you right then. Like he didn’t know who you were, like he was staring into the face of a stranger. Your voice was tiny. “A few months.”

Your brother nodded his head, lips tight. “So you’ve been going behind my back, lying to me, for months?”

He rounded back on Jungkook. “You’ve been fucking my sister for months?”

Again, the question was rhetorical, but apparently Jungkook missed the way you quickly shook your head at him to keep his mouth shut. “I--yes?”

You knew it was coming and yet you we still taken by surprise.

A crack rang heavy in the air as Yoongi’s fist impacted Jungkook’s face. He stumbled back with a hand flying to grasp at the pain you knew was radiating through his jaw. But Jungkook didn’t hit back, didn’t give your brother the fight that he was looking for. He just stood there, palm pressed to his face and eyes rooted to the floor. You couldn’t make out his expression by the way his long hair fell in front of his face like a curtain.

Yoongi, however, looked far from satisfied.

By the was his back tensed, you knew that he was going to go for seconds, and probably thirds, maybe even fourths. Until he felt like Jungkook had paid enough retribution for him to stop. And that, it seemed, was where Jin drew the line.

“Yoongi.” Jin’s voice was almost hesitant. Even the elder man knew that your brother was on a very short fuse and didn’t want to be on the recieving end of the backlash.

Yoongi’s attention flickered over to Jin for a split second and that was all it took for the elder man to step forward. “Kick his ass later, I don’t care. But now isn’t the time; we have bigger fish to fry.”

There was a long, tense filled silence where no one dared to move. Jin just stood his ground, gaze holding your brother’s and refusing to back down. And whether or not that's what broke the fight apart, you weren’t sure. But with one last hostile glare at Jungkook, Yoongi turned on his heel and brushed past you without a second glance.

“Do what the fuck you want.”

The balcony door slammed shut so hard you flinched.

“That was..,” Taehyung let out a low whistle, shaking his head at Jungkook first and then you. With a wiggle of his eyebrows, he smirked. “Didn’t know you had it in you, Princess. Congrats on finally losing your innocence.”

You weren’t one to pick a fight with anybody, didn’t like confrontation. But all of the stress made you snap. “Shut your fucking mouth, Taehyung.”

From the corner of your eye, Jimin sipped at his scotch with eyes flitting back and forth between you and the blond to watch the drama unfold. There was a pause in the air before Namjoon filled it. “Let’s just finish what we came here to do.”

His words went in one ear and out the other, your attention focused more on the figure of your brother slumped over the balcony railing. Your feet carried you across the room before you could second guess yourself. The handle of the sliding door was cold against your palm as you slid it open. And the sudden breeze that hit your face was biting.

Cigarette smoke.

Yoongi hadn’t smoked cigarettes since he was in highschool. You didn’t even know where he got one. Guilt sank heavily in your stomach at being the catalyst to the habit he’d spent so long trying to kick.

Not even the noise of city life could cover the sound of your heart beating a tattoo into your rib cage. Yoongi didn’t move, didn’t even turn to look at you when you stood next to him. He just continued to stare down at the people below who covered the streets like ants. A lit cigarette dangled in his hand over the railing, white smoke disappearing into the sky. You let the quiet stretch for a few moments longer in order to gauge his anger. And when he failed to acknowledge your presense, you spoke.

“I wanted to tell you.” The words that left your lips were carried by the wind, but you knew he heard them anyway by the way his jaw clenched in your periphrial. A deep breath, and then, “But I was afraid.”

Whatever he thought you were going to say must not have been that because he angled his head to look at you. But you kept your vision trained on the cars passing far below. The silence he responded with urged you to continue.

“I didn’t want you to look at me the way you are now.”

Yoongi rubbed the end of his cigarette against the railing to extinguish it. And finally, his deep voice broke the bubble that encased the two of you. “You thought I’d be disappointed.”

Leave it to him to be able to dig right to the root of your problems with barely any information. He was called a genuis for a reason, you supposed.

A huff of dry laughter passed your lips. “Which you are.”

“Only because you hid it from me.”

His response had you turning to look over at him. Yoongi was staring at a spot on the building across from you without seeing it, jaw sharp and cheeks already turning red in the winter air. It was a testiment to his anger that he was even enduring it in the first place.

“You really think I’d be disappointed in you for being an adult? You must not know me as well as I thought then.”

He turned, brown eyes meeting your own like a mirror. People always used to say that the two of you looked alike, could pass as twins even. “I don’t want to hear the details of your...business, but I thought you’d at least trust me enough to confide in me that you’re in love with him.”

Yoongi’s words took you aback and you gaped at him in shock. “How did you know?”

He simply raised an eyebrow with a silent really? “It’s pretty obvious.”

“Seriously?” You spluttered, spit catching in your throat. Had you really been that obvious? Talk about embarassing.

He sighed. “I think the only person who hasn’t realized is him.”

Groaning, you buried your face in your hands. “Do you think anyone would notice if I just jumped over the railing right now?”

Yoongi hummed, not even trying to hide his amusement. “I don’t think Jin would want to have to fill out that kind of paperwork.”

“He’ll live. Might even thank me for the free publicity.”

A snort left your brother before he sobered and leaned his elbows on the railing. A comforting pause and then, “I got signed to a record label.”

“What?” You twisted to the side to stare him down as he nervously ran a hand through his blond hair. “As a producer?”

Yoongi’s eyes met your again, most likely trying to gauge your reaction to what he was going to say next. Whatever he found must have satisfied him. “As an artist.”

“Yoongi.”

He broke eye contact to once again stare down at the tiny dots below. “That’s where I was this morning. I was signing my contract.”

Your hands came up to grasp onto the arm closest to you and you squeezed to gain his attention. “That’s so great, Yoongi! I know you used to rap back in the day, but I didn’t know you still did. I’m so proud of you. You’re going to be so amazing!”

A gummy smile finally found its way onto his face as he looked at you with masked excitement. “Yeah?”

“Seriously, Yoongs.” You nodded your head with rapid quickness, a grin revealing your teeth. “I want the first copy of your album. And it better be signed too.”

Yoongi hissed through his teeth. “You’ll have to pay a premium for that, sorry.”

Your hand slapped the covered meat of his arm and your laughter that intermingled with his broke through the invisible wall between you. “Aish. Cheapskate.”

His lips parted, most likely to shoot off a sarcastic response, but the sliding of the balcony door interrupted. Both of you turned to look over at Namjoon standing in the entryway. His face was taut with an emotion you couldn’t discern, but with the way raised voices spilled from the open door answered your unasked question. You exchanged glances with Yoongi before trailing after him as he brushed past Namjoon.

Everyone was standing now, attention trained on the way Taehyung once again stood in the center of the room. He glanced up from the phone in his hand at the entrance of you and Yoongi, his other stuffed deep in the pocket of his slacks. The air he carried was haughty, knowing. And he greeted you with a raise of his brows.

“Well, now that we’re all present, let’s get this out of the way, shall we?”

“What’s going on?” Your feet came to a halt as you slid in to stand next to Hoseok and your brother. The former gave you a tiny smile at seeing the tenstion between you and Yoongi gone.

“What’s going on,” Taehyung waved his phone in the air like a token. “Is that while you two were off settling your differences, I got a text.”

“Congratulations.” Yoongi deadpanned, but the model ignored him in favor of continuing.

“I think you’ll be interested in what I have to say.” Taehyung shrugged and barreled on without waiting for a response. “Because you see, while you all were too busy playing Clue, I got into contact with my cousin earlier this morning. You know, the one who works for my mother’s magazine company?

“Anyway, as you all probably aren’t aware of, my cousin used to do some side work with the government in cybersecurity. And wouldn’t you know, Gossip Girl isn’t as untouchable as she thinks.”

“Oh, shit.” Namjoon’s eyes widened as he came to the same conclusion that was slowly starting to dawn on everyone else.

“Oh shit is right.” Taehyung nodded. “My cousin found a backdoor past her firewall and straight into the heart of her most coveted possession.”

The man paused, like a movie villian right before a grand reveal. “Her sources.”

“And?” Jin tossed the dry eraser he still held in his hand onto the coffee table imaptiently.

“And wouldn’t you know,” once again, Taehyung waved his phone back and forth in the air like the cat that caught the canary. “At exactly 3:32 this morning, she got an email from a recipient by the name of...”

“I swear to god, stop playing games Taehyung.” Yoongi huffed out in annoyance at the dramatics the other man was playing at.

“So impatient.” Taehyung tutted, arrogant stare meeting everyone else’s before he finally opened his mouth and dropped the bombshell.

“Park Jimin.”

Said man stared open mouthed at the man in shock, unable to formulate a proper response over all the shouts of anger. Jimin threw his hands up in surrender and backed up until his calves hit the side of the couch. “What? No--I--it wasn’t me, I swear!”

“Yeah?” Taehyung stepped into his personal space and shoved his phone under his nose. “Then explain the evidence.”

“I--”

“You were the only one who wasn’t drugged that night.” The blond continued, bulldozing over Jimin’s high-pitched voice. “You were the only one sober who was present when the rest of us confided our private affairs. And--”

His finger jab into the smaller man’s chest. “You’re the only one who had something to gain from ratting us out.”

“Gain what, exactly?” Jin’s voice was steel, broad shoulders straightened with a quiet rage that honestly scared you.

“Oh, you didn’t know?” Taehyung glanced at Jin from over his shoulder before digging his finger into Jimin’s chest harder. “He was offered a large sum of money to take us all down.”

“By who?” This time the question came from Namjoon, who’s expression was clouded over with a mix of betrayal and the want for retribution. He had the most to lose out of all of you from the leak afterall.

“That’s a good question.” The model rounded back on a wide-eyed Jimin. “Who indeed.”

“Look,” Jimin liked his lips anxiously under the weight of everyone’s simmering fury. “They offered, but I refused--”

“Who?” Jin stalked over to the petite man, the air around him dangerous.

“I-I don’t know.” Jimin stammered. “They were anonymous. But I swear I didn’t--”

He didn’t even get to finish his sentence before Jin fisted the front of his shirt and shook him hard. You could hear his teeth rattle from feet away. “You little fucking rat.

“I want you to listen, and listen very carefully.” The elder man’s voice was sharp, syllables carefully annunciated. And with a flex of the muscles in his bicep he threw Jimin from his grip so hard that the smaller man stumbled to the floor. “You have twenty-four hours to get the fuck out of my city before I do something that I’ll regret.”

From his place sprawled out on the floor, Jimin’s pleas to be heard went ignored.

“And if I ever catch wind of you stepping even a toe over the state line, it’s over for you.” Everyone in the room knew that Jin’s threat wasn’t to be taken lightly; he’d follow through on his word. “Now get the fuck out of my hotel and pray that I never see your face again.”

Jimin’s eyes quickly flitting back and forth between the seven of you as if trying to find someone to take up for him, to plead his case. And when his gaze met yours, you broke eye contact, choosing to stare at the rug under your feet instead. The feeling that churned your gut was heavy as your heart slowly hardened towards a man who you couldn’t even look at anymore. Who you were once able to call a best friend.

The heels of Jimin’s shoes scuffed the floor as he slowly stood, lips parting to give one final parting blow. “You really shouldn’t trust everything you hear.”

And then he was gone.

Betrayal tested bitter on your tongue.

                               Six Hours Later

The sound of the elevator door opening halted you in your tracks with one foot on the staircase leading up. Out from within the confines of the steel box stepped a familiar head of dark hair and your heart stopped in your chest before picking up speed.

“What are you doing here?” Your lips parted at the object held tight in one of his hands, the pop of color catching your eye. “And with those.”

“I--” Jungkook licked his lips and threaded his free hand through his locks. The nervous look on his face was something you hadn’t seen aimed at you before and it caused a feeling you didn’t want to acknowledge to well up in your chest.

He stepped further into your apartment, his all black outfit standing out against the bright interior. You hadn’t seen him since everyone left Jin’s earlier. He’d departed so fast that you hadn’t been able to apologize for the way Yoongi punched him. And now there he was, fidgeting in the middle of your foyer.

“I wanted to talk.” Jungkook’s voice caressed your ears.

“Okay.” You nodded slowly, stepping down from the stairs and gesturing to the sitting room across from you. He trailed behind as you entered and sat down on one of the couches. But instead of sitting somewhere else, he plopped down right next to you. The paper in his ringed hand crinkled around the two dozen roses it contained.

Jungkook hesitated for a moment before shyly extending the bouquet out for you to take. Your fingers brused against his as you slowly accepted them from his grasp. “I got these for you.”

You completely and utterly failed at hiding your smile and chose to bury your nose into the soft petals to distract yourself from the anxious way he played with his hands. Sweet, they smelled sweet. “What’s the occasion?”

Never had he ever done something like that before. Jungkook and romance wasn’t something that went together in your expierience. And there it was again, that feeling that you chose not to name.

“Y/N.”

The seriousness in his voice had your head jerking upwards. He was staring down, fiddling with one of the rings on his fingers. “I think we should stop.”

Your stomach dropped to the floor and your mouth went numb around the response you forced yourself to give. “Stop?”

Jungkook’s gaze lifted to meet your blank stare and he nodded slowly. “Stop hooking up.”

You were thankful that he didn’t comment on how small your voice sounded. “Why?”

“Because,” his fingers grabbed at yours gently and you couldn’t help but drop your eyes to the way he intertwined them. “I don’t want to hook up with you anymore.”

His grip on you tightened when you tried to pull away, his other hand lifting your chin until you looked at him again. Jungkook’s lips were parted, two prominent front teeth displayed. “I want to date you.”

A pause.

A sharp intake of breath and the tightening of fingers. “I’m sorry, what?”

Now he definitely looked nervous. Jungkook’s words came out quickly, like he was afraid you’d stop him before he could get them all out. “I’ve been in love with you for years, Y/N. And I thought that maybe if you hooked up with me, you’d fall for me too. But I...I don’t want to lose you because I took too long.”

All you could do was stare open-mouthed and bug eyed. And the longer you took, the more Jungkook started to fidget. “Look, please just say something.”

“You’re an idiot.” He flinched at the deadpan tone in your voice. “I’ve been in love with you for the longest time.”

“Really?” Hope filled his voice and he leaned closer, both hands capturing yours. “Seriously?”

Giddy, you grinned so hard your cheeks hurt under the strain. “Yes, really.”

“Can I--can I kiss you?” With a shy nod, you let Jungkook’s hands come up to gently cradle your cheeks.

It was different, the way his mouth captured yours. Instead of the fierce desire he usually kissed you with, this time it was slow, gentle. And god his lips were soft and your heart rate skyrocketed at the love that showed through the way he pressed against you.

“Don’t make me kick your ass.”

The deep voice of your brother had you and Jungkook pushing away from each other like teenagers caught by their parents. And both of your necks snapped over to see Yoongi walking past the entryway to the sitting room. A teasing smirk was aimed your way as he continued on his path to the elevator.

“Mind your business!” Your shout was met with Yoongi’s high-pitched giggle.

                            Eighteen Hours Later

      Well, UpperEast Siders, did you enjoy the story? Because I sure did. Oh, and what’s this? Looks like not even a dark scandal can force Bangtan out of the light.

Laughter rang loud through the busy resturant and all eyes turned at the sound. But the seven of you paid no mind to the stares.

“A toast.” Jin stood in the middle of the half circle you all formed around the bar, a glass of bubbly champagne raised high. “To lifelong friendship.”

         Spotted: Manhattan’s King. But can he really be crowned royalty when his throne was built on the steps of family betrayal? I’d say just ask his brother, but, well, be careful or you might just disappear too.

“And,” Namjoon raised his own glass into the air, golden liquid catching the light. “To trust.”

          Oh, and what’s this? I wonder, how will our lovely God of Destruction talk his way out of jail time? Tell me, do they teach you how to get away with embezzlement in law school?

Hoseok’s dimples came out to play around his own bright smile. “Don’t forget loyalty.”

          It’s a surprise that Manhattan’s Sunshine is even able to stand underneath the weight of a dead body. And if the allegations are true? Well, stay away from drugs, kids.

“And love.” The addition came shyly from your lips as you gazed warmly up at the man to your side. Jungkook’s lips pressed fondly to your forehead.

            If anyone needs help passing their SAT’s, make sure to hit up our Golden Boy. Surely he’ll get you a passing grade if the price is high enough.

“To success.” Yoongi smiled and raised his glass in a salute, skin glowing.

            Can a Genius really be a genius if he has to buy his way to a degree? Someone’s money should have gone towards a tutor instead.

The sound of seven glasses clinking together overpowered the other voices in the room. “Here, here!”

             Everything appears to have gone back to normal ever since our resident Pretty Boy was outed as a little tattletale.

It was raining.

Water pelted the top of his umbrella, the soft plop-plop-plop blending into the noise of city life. People bustled around him, but he didn’t pay it any mind. No, instead his focus was rooted to one spot, one person who he could see through the glass windows of the resturant. One person who’s profile he would recognize anywhere.

He watched, silent, as the man threw his head back in laughter that ghosted his ears. And either he felt the stare burning into the side of his face, or he was expecting him to be there. Because with a turn of the neck, brown eyes met brown. And the tension was palpable on his tongue even through the walls that separated them.

             Out with the old and in with the new, that’s what I always say. Oh, and one last thing:

A haughty smirk turned up the corners of Taehyung’s lips and Jimin watched with narrowed eyes as the blond man raised his glass of champagne in a silent salute.

  You really shouldn’t trust everything you hear.

                                         xoxo,

                                    Gossip Girl

[cupidmarwani-archive]

What My Body Wants (Reesker)

Summary: Ava starts over somewhere new and falls for a beautiful surfer girl. (May turn into a series)

WC: ~2k

Warnings: little smut, weed 

Ava’s always liked to people watch, and doing it at the beach has an appeal much different than when she lived in the big city. There isn’t as much stress, speed and sadness here; most everyone is happy to be here, smiling with their families or friends, or enjoying themselves alone just as Ava does. They pick up shells and rocks, surf in the waves. One of them is endlessly confident and bold, riding huge waves until they break and then getting back on her board. Long, dark curls blow in the wind, even wet. She seems good at it, as far as Ava knows. She doesn’t know much about surfing.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” the bartender of the little shack she sits at says. It’s almost reminiscent of a hotel resort. She’s on her third brightly colored cocktail, barely tipsy but pleasantly buzzed as she watches.

“Excuse me?”

He smiles wryly and gets a beer for the customer who just ordered beside her. “Don’t get your hopes up for Sarah. She’ll give you a good time for a night or two, but nothing more.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“I could see it on your face.”

She takes another sip of her booze and watches Sarah walk back to the shore, wetsuit clinging to every curve of her body and a lazy smile on her face as she approaches. She’s coming to the bar. Ava averts her gaze and pretends not to have been watching as the woman sets down her board leans against the bar, right next to her. The bartender hands her a pale yellow backpack rife with pins.

“Thanks, Mikey.” She rifles through the small pocket for an altoid tin, which turns out to hold a joint and a lighter. Alright then. It is California, she supposes, and everyone around here tends to smoke. Why would this woman be any different? As she takes a slow drag, Sarah looks at Ava with assessing, critical eyes. “And you are?”

“Ava.”

After a moment’s consideration, Sarah holds the joint out to her. In the past, Ava never would have accepted, but this is a new life in a new place, so she accepts. Even if it makes her cough. But at least that has Sarah laughing, and Ava feels a bit better when she passes it back and returns to her much more acceptable cocktail. There’s a part of her that wonders if she could convince Sarah to come home with her for even a single night’s company. Something to hold herself together in the loneliness that’s been killing her since she left Chicago.

The aroma, musky and heavy, of the smoke sticks around them until a breeze comes to coax some away, but all Ava can think about is the surety of Sarah’s voice as she flirts with another woman at the bar, and the nagging sense of jealousy beginning to overwhelm her. She wants to be wanted like that, pleaded for in the bow of Sarah’s soft pink lips. Whether or not she’ll be permitted, she craves that attention.

She makes it a good portion of the way through her cocktail before Sarah turns back toward her, puffing out smoke through her nose and smiling at her slightly. Hip jutting out, leaning against the bar. Watching slow with warm eyes, curls that blow a little in the wind. She seems like a model, someone in a swimsuit ad or the front cover of a magazine.

“You’re new around here,” she says. Her lips turn upward into a half-smile, predatory in a way when she leans in close. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“I’ve been here all week.”

Sarah hums, dropping what’s left of her joint in Ava’s drink. Ava should be mad, given how expensive drinks can be and how there was some left, but she’s too distracted by Sarah’s unwavering confidence. No one else would be able to do that. Just her. She’s still struck silent, like the quietest mouse as Sarah reaches into her backpack and produces a little notepad, filled with sketches that flick past too quickly for her to see, and rips out a paper to write a phone number on. 

“If you’re bored, I can show you around,” she offers, handing Ava the paper. “I know the best restaurants and bars. And other things.”

Ava tilts her head. “Other things?”

“I’d be happy to show you later tonight.”

Just like that, she’s walking away, carrying her backpack and her board, and there’s a part of Ava that feels so very much like a deer cuaght in the headlights, still trying to catch her brain up with everything that just happened and realizing that she has the chance to be that woman who Sarah wanted. She can lay in a bed and be close to another person despite how hard that’s been in her life, especially recently, and it will be peaceful yet fiery. Hot and cold. Perfect. Already she’s dreaming of the capabilities of those hands.

“I’d like to close my tab,” she finally gets out, and hands the bartender her card. 

For the majority of the afternoon, she lazes about in her little home. It’s not much. A kitchen, a small living room that houses her secondhand couch, a bedroom crammed with a mattress on the floor and a full dresser, the curtains shut but window perpetually stuck open that she doesn’t know how to fix. The bathroom has a broken sink, so she washes her hands in the shower. The toilet doesn’t work from time to time. But it’s what she can afford, so she deals with it. 

She doesn’t message Sarah until shortly before dinner time, not wanting to seem to desperate, risk blowing what chance she has for some sort of closeness here. She can’t deny herself this human contact she has craved since she arrived. Almost immediately, Sarah responds, telling her to meet her at the beachfront bar, and they’ll go from there. It’s a short enough walk not hail a cab, so Ava takes a moment to fluff her short hair, apply chapstick, and retie her shoelaces. It only takes a few minutes to get back there, but Sarah is already waiting, dressed in shorts and a baggy tee shirt with the sleeves cut off as she leans against a well polished, pale blue Vespa. 

“Thought I’d give you a ride to this little diner in town,” Sarah says, climbing onto the bike and balancing her feet on the ground once she lifts the kickstand. “Just hold onto me, you’ll be fine.”

Ava’s a bit nervous, especially without a helmet, but this is a sleepy, calm town, and she’s more concerned with the thought of holding onto Sarah while they go to get dinner together. So she joins her, wraps her arms around her waist and gets a whiff of fruity shampoo. This is a movie scene, a gift of imagination, and she’s alive, truly alive as the wind pushes her hair out of her face and she’s struck with the urge to kiss the tanned, exposed skin of Sarah’s neck. She very nearly does it. But first, they slow to a stop, and then she’s helped off the bike to get into the diner. It’s quaint. Small. The windows washing out bright light and the smell of comfort food approaching them, much more enticing than the faint hint of smoke still on Sarah’s hands and breath.

“They serve breakfast all day. I’d recommend something sweet.”

It feels like a double entendre, even if Ava can’t quite figure out why, but that doesn’t matter when Sarah’s hand is firm on her lower back, guiding her inside and holding the door for her. It’s respectful, but just provocative enough to make her blush. No one made her feel like this before she came here. It’s just Sarah, who has seemingly put her under a spell in the few hours she’s known her. Ava has always had a weak spot for beautiful women. 

The hostess greets Sarah warmly, bites her bottom lip until she notices Ava and her face falls. An ex? She doesn’t find out, because the hostess is stiffly polite as she leads them to comfortable booth in the back corner, hands Ava a menu, and backs away. Every word on the menu seems handwritten, although it must have been copied from an original, and she has the feeling that this diner is a home to many. And now, it is hers for the evening with Sarah watching her and reaching for the sugar packets, showing off the definition of her muscles when they flex.

“I like my tea sweeter than they make it,” she explains.

Ava just nods and scans over the menu before deciding on the french toast. It reminds her childhood and an unabashed happiness and innocence with every single sunday morning breakfast her father prepared for her. It was sweet and soft in those days, with sunlit kitchen counters. French toast is full of good memories, and she would love to add Sarah to the list, so much so that she stumbles over her words when she orders.

It makes Sarah laugh a little, as she gets pancakes for herself. They don’t talk much, but there’s an ease to the companionship when Sarah is smily and bright, telling Ava how beautiful she is and some of the town or diner’s history between silences filled with sipping water or tea. It’s peaceful, but tense with the promise of what they’ll do afterward. Ava’s almost unable to believe that it’s happening.

Until, of course, her food arrives and it’s every bit as sweet and dreamy as she remembers, fluffy and warm and perfect in her mouth. She can’t help a sound of satisfaction, pure bliuss, and her cheeks quickly flush with the look it earns her from Sarah. Smoldering with a base human want so much deeper than nearly anything else.

“Sorry,” she says.

Sarah shakes her head. “Don’t be.”

She’s still blushing as she continues to eat, all the way until Sarah orders them a sundae to share, complete with two cherries, whipped cream, and hot fudge to make it the sort of thing seen in movies and advertisements. And the first spoonful, held in Sarah’s steady hand, is for her. She closes her lips around the metal, letting the cream melt on her tongue, and makes eye contact when she leans away. It’s the boldest she’s been in a while. It works, however, and Sarah’s eyes lock on the movement before she takes a bite for herself and they put the two separate spoons to use. She’s practically bouncing in her seat with anticipation.

“After this,” Sarah says when the dishes are cleared, pulling cash out of her wallet for the bill, “come home with me? I’ll make it worth your while.”

It’s all Ava’s wanted since she’s laid eyes on her. She certainly can’t say no. Instead, she nods and follows Sarah back to the bike, clings to her on the ride to a much nicer house than Ava’s and finds herself pushed against the door the second they’re inside with soft lips on hers.

She grabs Sarah’s waist, digging her fingers into the soft, warm skin and slipping her hands underneath the tee shirt. Sarah is soft in lot of ways now, in the feel of her body against Ava’s and the palm currently hitching under Ava’s thigh to position her as she pleases. Both legs around Sarah’s waist, suddenly, and lost in the most heated kisses as she’s carried to a bed and set down, covered with a lithe body that’s all the more stunning as Sarah undresses herself.

Ava quickly catches up, kicking off her shorts and panties in hopes of getting touched sooner. Cared for sooner. She needs this. And Sarah clearly knows what she’s doing when she starts kissing down Ava’s stomach, pushes two slim fingers between her folds and makes circles around her clit. It’s not much. But it’s everything. She lets her head fall back on the pillows and grabs at the sheets.

The rest of the night is quite honestly a blur, of being held and fucked and kissed and cared for by someone who knows their way around her body like it’s the thousandth time and not the first, and come morning, she’s looking forward to more. Except Sarah is already gone, and the note by the bed says to lock the door on the way out.

[iridessence]

Are you rich?

Okay lmaoooo loaded question that will need some unpacking. 

Short answer: Not at all. “Rich” is subjective, but in any case if you (or a person from a finance background) took note of my life’s expenses versus my income on and off paper, it would be clear that I am nowhere near rich at all. I’m just very resourceful, creative and selective about what I show/curate online.

Long answer: I have been low to low-ish income for years (part of why I am so resourceful) and in 2017/2018 I worked an office job for under $15/hr which is not much if you live in a major city like me, but thankfully I have no dependents I must support nor any serious medical debt. I left the job because it was a hellish soul-suck.

I was savvy when I had steady income. now I’m living off savings and before COVID, I was supplementing with income from burlesque and modeling gigs, and help from my mom here or there. Right around the time I planned to return to the 9-5 workforce was when Covid hit, it’s left the world in financial shambles so I’m biding my time until it’s safe and I’ve been looking for jobs, outside of a few paid influencer opportunities here and there. in the meantime, personal loans, government assistance, selling some of my stuff I don’t use on depop and whatever my mom helps me out with, keep me afloat.

Not that it has to be public knowledge but when my father passed away in 2017, I got a little bit of insurance money which had been supplemental. It bumped me up to about the equivalent of someone working an actual livable wage (meaning NOT the minimum) in Chicago for about a year and a half, and ultimately came at the expense of, well, my father being dead. It basically meant that I could pay all of my bills, donate a little bit to help others when needed, buy some new (but still cheaper) clothes, finance a few costumes for burlesque (more expensive but still i did a lot of the work/research to make them a fraction of what they would cost if made by others) and put away a little bit to travel/wine & dine on a budget which I did here and there, not rich. Since sometime in 2019 the remainder of my savings ended up being used mainly for rent and such.

While I don’t think people should be straight up asking questions like this to strangers, I personally do want to be transparent because I don’t want people to think they absolutely have to be rich to enjoy a certain kind of aesthetic lifestyle for a moment here and there. Sure— if you’re not rich, it’s not luxurious most of the time and it’s more difficult, taking more planning and thought, but it’s not entirely impossible.

Some examples on how else I save money. These are some helpful guidelines, but I understand it may not be applicable for everyone's situation:

I have dietary restrictions anyway so I make a lot of my own food at home, I rarely get takeout or eat out.

I use a little bit of extra gas money to go to more affordable grocery stores and try to buy in bulk/on sale items.

I fixed up my space as much as I can but I do live in a somewhat rundown building where rent is not the highest for the amount of space there is.

most of my furniture and appliances, even a few electronics, and other things that populate my home are secondhand. I try to get a lot of things that are safe to get used, second hand.

i save a lot on toiletries and personal care products because my hair regimen is mainly coconut oil, leave-in and water. due to protective styling, I shampoo/condition less than average for most people as washing more frequently did  not give me the results I was looking for.  in regard to hygiene I use a lot of natural items, i mostly use apple cider vinegar in lieu of soap (the main perk of having sensitive skin that doesn’t like detergents lmao) and coconut oil or whipped Shea butter for skin moisturizing, Much of the stuff is not fancy and you can usually get it at a grocery store for cheap. The only skincare products i use aside from coconut oil is retinol serum and rose aloe spray which i buy a couple times a year for <$30

I typically only style myself hair and makeup wise, mainly use palettes that if name brand, were gifted, or they were drugstore and wholesale prices.

When i would go out for a "fancy night out," i most likely pregamed at home or a friend’s with free/cheap booze, and took a short uber or public transportation to a fancy-looking destination and only bought one or two drinks/appetizers there and tipped accordingly. Looking fabulous is the bulk of it and the fun part, but I’m certainly not on a bottle service budget.

When I travel for any destination, especially burlesque, I’ve tried to save on out of town housing by staying with family/friends, trusted community members, long-standing and/or trusted mutuals from tumblr/Instagram and as a last resort, a HomeAway booking. Hotels cost a lot and I’d rather have an opportunity to get to know someone who operates in the same circles I do if possible.

[zarbakht-bilal]

Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let’s go!

Before reading, turn on this lovely and light travelling music as we are going to the country where love is in the air, where the magic flows with water and where fragrance is diffused in the air. Yes, we are going to France ❤ This will make you drift onto the adventure road. Enjoy! 🙂

  Todays Schedule:

Exploring top 14 exotic towns and villages in France.

TOP 14 EXOTIC TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN FRANCE:

On our today’s scheduled list, we have to chalk out fourteen must-to-go places in France. So, Lets began!

1. Les Plus Beaux Villages de France:

Les Plus Beaux Villages have more to offer beyond a pretty façade. In addition to being beautiful, a village must have at least 2 national heritage sites, have less than 2000 inhabitants, and show a strong plan for welcoming tourists while retaining the original character of the site. Beautiful vintage streets and retro architecture is the speciality of this village.

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2. Castelnaud, Occitanie:

Built on a rocky outcrop in the heart of the Périgord Noir, the Château de Castelnaud offers a magnificent panoramic view over the Dordogne Valley. Founded in the 12th century, it is a perfect example of a medieval fortress. Today, the Château houses an important collection of weapons and armour. Along the bastion, the most powerful siege machines from the Middle Ages have been recreated and placed in attack positions. Castelnaud has a strong architecture and forts. It still holds the mist of medieval ages.

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  3. Yvoire village, France:

A flower haven! Yvoire is a classic medieval village with a pop of colour. Summers here are both inquisitive and enchanting. And don’t fail to visit the Garden of Five Senses. This garden will tickle all your senses as you get lost in thousands of flowers, fruits and mazes. Enter at your own pace for an amazing sensory experience. Yvoire was originally a fishing village, not surprising given how close it is to Lake Geneva.

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  4. Èze Village, Nice, France:

Completely surrounded with a stone wall, the village has only one entrance/exit. Medieval streets, rooftops, courtyards, wells, create a sense of mystique and mystery. It is best to come here in the spring. And if you arrive in the morning, it almost does not find people, and can, as Nietzsche once, enjoy the peace and quiet. And, despite the fact that in the village are a large number of art galleries and shops, not know about it, and many Frenchmen, not to mention the tourists, they still prefer to Cannes and Saint Tropez. You can get here by car and by bus number 82 and 112 from Nice.

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  5. The village of St. Paul de Vence, France:

Medieval walls encircle narrow streets and capture the heritage of more than a thousand years. Picking out the marks of history, either alone or with a guide, is to enter into the soul of Saint-Paul de Vence. The fountain at the heart of the village fills St-Paul’s medieval vaults with music. The village is an open-air gallery with artists at work in their studios and staging exciting exhibitions.  A painting hung in the morning can find a home before evening falls… if it captures the heart of a visitor. Savour wine produced in Saint-Paul, stroll around the ramparts, enjoy a drink on a terrace… happy to have found a place where life is still so sweet.

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  6. Bayeux, France:

The northern French town of Bayeux is best known for the eponymous tapestry that depicts the 11th-century Norman Conquest. You can see it, of course, on display at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum. The cloth’s original home was the Bayeux Cathedral, which still towers over the area, looking a bit like a Gothic wedding cake. Inside you’ll find beautifully detailed murals and haunting crypts. Bayeux makes an excellent jumping off point to tour nearby historic sites.

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  7. Roussillon, Cote d’Azur:

One of the most impressive villages in France, Roussillon is a countryside dream. You’ll quickly notice the famous red cliffs and ochre quarries. The clear blue Provencal sky and the shades of yellow, brown and red (and everything in between) illuminate this magical village. Once you set foot in Roussillon, you’ll instantly be taken it by its atmosphere and charm. You can hike, or hire a mountain bike to see the village up close. And on your travels, stop to take a look at the arts and crafts, galleries, restaurants or any ongoing festivals (usually in the summer months).

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  8. Honfleur, Normandy:

Colourful and bursting with life, it’s hard to remember that Honfleur was originally built with the sole purpose of trading. As the years have progressed, this seaside town is now famed for attracting impressionist painters. You can see the art up close among the museums and modern galleries dotted around the town. Honfleur is both cultural and wealthy – a fact magnified by the yachts surrounding Vieux Bassin (the heart of the port), and the rows upon rows of high-rise home packed tightly together. Moving with the tide, this town is now dedicated to tourism so you can choose from an enticing selection of arty hotels, shops, restaurants and more.

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  9. Domme, Dordogne:

This picturesque village in the south occupies a splendid position high above the Dordogne River. Honey coloured streets, warm welcoming locals and pretty views to match – need I say more? One thing you should know before visiting is that this village has an intriguing cave system that sits underneath the main square. These caves were used to shelter locals during the war, but today, it’s open for tourists and residents alike to admire the beautiful formations. At the end of your visit, a lift will take you to a remarkable viewpoint overlooking the Dordogne valley. It’s a special sight for sure, and you like many visitors won’t help but fall head over heels for Domme. People say that the best view is in Domme.

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  10. Ploumanac’h, Brittany:

Oh, this pink granite coast is a budding photographers delight. The colours of blush pink perfectly compliment the sound of the waves gently crashing on the rocks. You’ll seldom find this sight anywhere else in the world. This quaint seaside village is the definition of calm. Families and nomads should aim to tick this hidden gem of their bucket lists – beaches for days, heavenly coastal walks, and bird watching are within arms reach. But please don’t visit expecting the high life, even during midsummer, Ploumanac’h remains a pleasantly sleepy little place.

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  11. St-Guilhem-le-Désert, Languedoc:

On the banks of the Herault gorg, you’ll find St-Guilhem-le-Désert. Medieval personality, this village is surrounded by cliffs and oak trees. Beautiful views will be everywhere you turn in this UNESCO gem. With a little exploration, you’ll find the amber stone houses that have stood the test of time, Renaissance-style windows, an ancient tower and of course the grand focus, Abbaye de Gellone.  The church is so beautiful, but above all, you can feel the history through the walls. Like other French religious buildings, the abbey was vandalised by Protestants during the Reformation. But still, it remains intact which further adds to its charm.

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  12. St-Tropez, Côte d’Azur:

At the heart of the French Riviera is the gorgeous St. Tropez. Famed in songs and notorious spray tans, you’ll quickly learn why this is one of the most famous resorts in Europe. The Med is truly bluer here, so top up your tan, join the locals in a game of boules or explore the cobblestones streets. We don’t need to sell this seaside town; if you’re after days spent poolside, an eclectic mix of shopping and historical charms then this is the place for you. And if you’re dying to experience a taste of the high life, you can celeb-spot on popular Nikki Beach.

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  13. L’Isle sur la Sorgue, Provence:

If you’re looking to experience the scenery of a bygone time, L’Isle sur la Sorgue is one of those places that one has to see. The ebb of greenery and the reflection of the water shining from the several canals is simply superb. Known as the ‘island city’, antique lovers and art collectors will be gifted with more than 300 secondhand shops. You’re more than guaranteed to leave with a steal! The antique fairs during Easter have gained a worldwide reputation, so much so that more than 500 antique dealers come to show off their gems. This is the best place for antique lovers as it offers a wide range of classical antiquity and vintage showpieces. It is paradise away from paradise.

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14. Chamonix, Rhone-Alpes:

This snowtopia quickly gained its fame through its proximity to Mont Blanc. But little do many know that these mountain views are as lovely all year round. Chamonix is great for skiers, hikers, thrill seekers and anyone with a love for picturesque views. The talk about this town being extreme is true -, especially as a sports oasis. But if you haven’t got the adrenaline pumping through your veins, don’t worry, many come to admire the views, the shopping and the gastronomic atmosphere. It is the best place for those who believe in magic. A perfect fairytale indeed!

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      Well, folks, that’s a wrap on the best towns and villages in France! But the fun doesn’t end here. In the next part, we will be exploring best restaurants and eatables in France. Suggestions are open for the followers from France. Much Love ❤

  sources: https://www.saint-pauldevence.com,  https://www.tripadvisor.com,  http://castelnaud.com/en/,  https://cheeseweb.eu,  https://www.oliverstravels.com.

                                                                    The Traveller’s Notebook- Exploring France. Campervan here everyone! Snacks? Water bottles? Blankets? Sleeping bags? Umbrellas? Firecrackers? Paints and canvas? Notebooks? Camera? Let's go!

[snneha091]

BENEFITS OF EXPENSE MANAGEMENT AUTOMATION

With automated expense reporting, most companies can enhance their productivity and maintain a closer eye on your provider's secondhand marginal price -- employee business expenses. Even in the event that you have closely controlled constraints on corporate charge card balances, keeping tabs on what may be a significant hassle.

 Research demonstrates that calculating one expenditure report costs on average 58. If your company has 10 employees off on business trips to help it submit investment reports, mathematically, you are paying almost $600 to process your accounts.

 Automation Eliminates Paper Work and Manual Reporting

There is absolutely no requirement to maintain a paper listing of all or spend hours editing and creating spreadsheets with formulas. Your employees need to keep tabs on these newspaper receipts to list expenses, and the fund team needed to undergo all of the paper work to check every thing and accept the cost reports. This does take some time and leaves loads of room for mistake. Even when your team submits perfect expenditure reports, then the fund team can make mistakes when shifting information from the recorder into the travel expense management system.

 Automation eliminates paper work because when an investment management process is set up, employees can catch their receipts together with their telephones, then upload them into the trouble stage using a cell program. From that point, they are able to very quickly compile all of it in a cost account and apply direct into the fund section.

 Even if one was created, the finance section could trace it back into where it happened, that will be hard to complete with newspaper records.

 Sticking into a automated investment management solution boosts both reimbursement and approval. With the manual procedure, fund accountants and managers spend a whole lot of time analyzing every expenditure report and moving tasks in 1 approver into still another that induces delayed compensation. When an organization of employees who've only came back from the business trip, your fund team is going to wind up getting a pile of envelopes packed with receipts in their desks at the close of your afternoon. Afterward, they are going to need to check on to be certain each receipt is valid by checking it against the policy. Should they put a few of the envelopes off for a couple of days, or inadvertently forget a reception, then the employee's settlement is wrong.

 Using an automatic system to deal with the approval procedure, once an approver has approved the accounts, the duty automatically would go into another approver based on who's advised to finish their portion of this procedure. Once the concessions are gathered, the fund manager can inspection and repay the cost easily.

 Whenever you count on manual procedures, you are making it much easier for employees to perpetrate expense theft. It will be likely to submit exactly the exact same reception double, and around up mileage expenses.

 A simple solution to rid of your company of expenditure fraud would be always to automate travel investment administration.

 Using customized workflows, you do not just streamline efforts but also increase overall efficacy since you're able to establish a double inspection procedure, therefore there is one or more additional inspection following the approver inspections it prior to devoting the cost, but ensuring all expense reimbursements are accurate and valid.

 Increased Spend Visibility

Manual investment direction isn't simply time-consuming, however in addition, it makes it tricky to possess real-time visibility in your own expenses. Though you're able to use the spreadsheets and reports, that data can be obsolete by the time you analyze it. Accounting applications can automatically generate accounts, however minus present expenditure information, such a thing you are derived out of it's not going to offer an entirely accurate picture about everything exactly the organization's fiscal situation resembles. Even when your bookkeeping crews move through everything on a weekly basis and then develop a record, that really isn't enough to produce informed and quick decisions.

 Most cost effective management methods give a thorough library of record options out of excursions, expenses, to policy offenses, reimbursements, and much more. It's possible to utilize the policy violators are accountable to ascertain the employees that are often submitting business travel expenses beyond one's own policy. Beyond making conclusions fast, these accounts make it a lot easier for the fund and traveling organizations to interact to narrow down the top sellers for airline travel and hotel stays. In this manner, your staffing staff may work to negotiate a much better price for financial economies.

 Without proper expense management applications set up it might be tricky to enforce investment policies, making maintaining compliance almost hopeless. Once many different expenses start arriving, it's hard for that fund team to be certain that the expenditures are appropriately enter into the menu. They'd need to manually affirm each investment against the traveling expenditure policy. Not just that but processing expenses additionally permits out-of-policy trades to slide through, which means that you are paying employees to doing something they aren't designed to.

 It's possible to customize the full procedure therefore that which is in accord with your institution's travel policy. The machine will automatically inform approvers of employee expenses which violate the traveling policy, while they occur. This permits your team to assess for compliance and accept or deny expense asserts in real-time, with only a couple clicks.

 Additionally, it is a fantastic way to coach your team to what they could and cannot spend, and also the accepted sellers they are able to spend with. When a member of staff attempts to submit an investment that is out the resort, meal allowance, or will be differently isn't allowed by the policy, then they'll certainly be advised and also the policy is hauled instantly and always. As time passes, the employees learn that the policy and fundamentally change their behavior.

 Employing investment management automation, the ordinary company may decrease processing costs and time by 40 to 60 percent, with all the investment investing for itself in six to 12 weeks. In a typical business, the stage may:

 Reduce expenditure report contest time from 3-5 to 18 minutes.

Reduce balances payable processing period from 22 to 5 full minutes.

Reduce expenditure admissions turnaround period from 2 weeks to 3 times.

Decrease the time necessary to build a cost report by 75 percent.

With applications like a service (SaaS) management application, that which can be obtained in the online connection and remains up-to-date in real-time. As the most obvious advantage could be that the resource savings at the investment processing jobs, there is also the advantage of financial benefits within the audit and investigation procedure.

 Using a clearer vision to exactly what your own employees and spending and at which, you're going to be better equipped to test and manage your spend, finding financial benefits where you could have otherwise left money on the dining table.

 Expense management automation can be just a tactical solution which gives your company a competitive advantage in contrast to organizations which do not utilize it. You'll get a grip on entire spending ensure policy compliance, and reduce processing costs, and boost employee productivity.

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Swimming coach Kit Munn is a self-confessed tomboy. The 28-year-old was shell shocked when her close friend invited her to be her bridesmaid. 'Val's the typical girly girl. Imagine a princess, complete with frills and tiaras, that's Val. We were as different as night and day. But I was determined not to let this stand in the way of my good friend having a lovely wedding. So I sent her good vibes and words of encouragement regularly. I even watched '27 Dresses' to get an idea of what to do. I gritted my teeth and attended her gown fitting session, and went flower shopping with her. The wedding went beautifully and at the end of it all, I told Val 'Ok, if I see another frill, I will throw up,' and we had a good laugh. I'm glad I managed to make my good friend so happy.' lala marie prom dresses, 'Is This Eternal, or Is This Transient'? WATCH: #LA Video 8: Why You Shouldn't Believe in Strangers

Sofitel Singapore Sentosa Resort & Spa has undergone rebranding and major refurbishments in the past year, to unveil the newest wedding venues and solemnisation spaces on the idyllic isle of Sentosa. The 5-star luxury hotel has been rejuvenated with Sofitel's distinctive French flair through a bold and elegant style inspired by the iconic Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris accessories for formal dress. Designed to blend Parisienne gardens with lush local flora, the new, artful d'cor breathes fresh life into Sentosa's first resort. Floral motifs, coloured marble, and contemporary furnishings all combine to bring Sofitel's 'art de vivre' experience to the resort. The lobby welcomes you with a stunning bespoke light installation and bold pink hues, into an idyllic resort blooming with French luxury and tropical elegance. We exchanged our jsweddenladress20107 vows in an open courtyard space with a lovely arch above our heads and rose petals under our feet. Despite the heat, we exchanged our own vows with humor as well as a few tears. After the tea ceremony, we went with our wedding party for a rickshaw joy-ride around the streets of Penang for some unique photo-ops. During this time, the guests were treated to an open bar serving classic cocktails by our guest Japanese and Singaporean bartenders who flew in just for this. Another treat for them was a hawker who served freshly made Penang-only snacks called Apom, as well as a table of French petit-fours created by a French baker.

THE RISK YOU TAKE: Buying safety equipment like helmets from thrift stores seems harmless, but all you know about that helmet is what you're looking at and not what it's actually experienced high low prom dresses 2020. The potential risk you take is that the helmet could have withstood impact and was donated to the thrift store after being replaced by its former owner with a new and therefore safer helmet burlington dresses. The former owners of safety equipment usually won't remember that their equipment has been used and abused and is therefore not safe to donate, which is why the chances of finding helmets for sale secondhand remains likely despite a general understanding of their average lifespan 9 Tips on Wedding Dresses Shopping From An Experienced Bride's Guide. You May Also Like: Blog Archives - cheap purple evening dresses&cheap and ... Evening Gowns – cheapelegantdresses&cheapballgowns Tulle Fabric Prom Long Dress because a pre-owned wedding dress is *%^%$3 now... flower girl dresses — Leave them to cool for 10 minutes or so ...

[secondhand-trash]

hi this is a bar order can i have mr miya.o dicking me down in public @ the infinity pool tyvm 🥰

Thank you for ordering from our bar & lounge, here is your order…

A/N: currently typing with a sore arm…😌

Pairing: Miya Osamu x afab!reader

Warning: vaginal penetration, public sex, pool sex, unprotected sex

Word count: 1007

9. in the pool

The blinding city lights were just within reach as you looked out from the top floor of the hotel, where they had brilliant came up with the idea of turning the whole floor into a massive infinity pool. It was like being at the top of the world and in some sense, you were, as the illuminated highways lit up into lines and lines weaving into the webs of the city below your feet. You couldn’t see stars in the city, but the moon’s pale glow could suffice. The water broke off at the edge of the tower, seemingly endless as the dark sky painted its colours onto the water. The pool lit up in lights after the night has come, shades of pink and orange shining through the water into an ambiguous warmth through the ripples.

The view was stunning, but you were far too distracted to enjoy it.

Your fingers gripped onto the glass barrier, biting your lips to stop yourself from making any noises. The water splashed around your waist each time Osamu’s hips snapped up, rocking your chest forward as the tip of his cock bumped against your weak spot. Your bikini bottom was messily tugged aside, the elastic stuck uncomfortably between the cheeks of your ass and rubbing against your skin each time he bottomed out inside of you. The pool water swallowed the sounds of his balls slapping against your backside but you could still feel it vividly on your skin, together with the currents that swirled around you as he thrust up.

“Ha- uh,” you panted as you tried to speak, your voice coming out more as a broken whimper than the demand you had thought it would be, “Samu.. hurry up, what if there are people- ah!”

Your back arched instinctively when he buried his length inside of you, his base sitting snugly against your sloppy cunt as he pressed his chest onto your back. His hands snaked from your hips up the sides of your waist before mean-spiritedly groping your tits, giving the mounds a light squeeze before slipping under the bra cup. “There’s not gonna be people coming to the pool this late,” he chuckled at the soft whine he managed to pull out of you when his fingers gave your nipples a light pinch, flicking the stiff peaks as he licked a wet stripe up the shell of your ear, “isn’t that why we’re here now?”

Droplets of water rolled down from his chest and onto the dip of your spine, his firm chest spasming behind you with each exhale. A sharp mewl ripped from the back of your throat when he rolled his hips, dragging his fat cock out of your sensitive walls before shoving all the way in without a warning. He laughed lowly when you bit down on your lips immediately after letting slip, the vibrations ringing against your body as he stayed closed to you. Your legs felt wobbly when he only seemed to grow bigger and harder inside of you, the throb between your legs making your skin burn. “But if you do want me to hurry up,” he purred, sending chills to your core when his hand traveled from your stomach and disappearing into the band of your swimsuit, “then you gotta work harder? Hm?”

Your body jolted forward when he pressed down on your clit, hanging against the edge of the pool. You could barely open your eyes as the numbing pleasures coming from your back and your front became too much to handle. Your toes curled against the tiles as his fingers rubbed at the engorged bud, your pussy fluttering at the intensity all while feeling like he was shattering you into pieces with his pistons. The water splashed around you loudly and your head grew light from the confusing messages of shame and arousal that came from getting fucked into oblivion at somewhere so public. Osamu grunted when you clamped down around him, his other arm sitting under your chest to hold you steady. 

“Fuck- ah! Samu...” 

He groaned at the squeak of your voice. “You close, baby? Gonna cum all over my cock?”

“Yes yes... oh fuck-” you panted, your voice breaking when he flicked your clit.

His growls sent shivers down your spine as he grunted in your ear, the hot air making you whimper as he commanded, “look down.”

The entire city was in your view when you forced your eyes open, and you could not have felt more exposed as all the lights witnessed you growing closer and closer to the edge of falling apart. The only thing between you and the miles ahead was the water and the thin glass, and the lights turned into white dots in your vision when waves of pleasure rippled through you as he kept his speed up.

“You squeeze on me so hard when I tell you to open your eyes,” he moaned, your orgasm riding out on his cock as he continued to ram into you, “gotta take you out and fuck you outside more then-”

He groaned when you tightened around him at the suggestion, burying himself deep inside of you as the knot in the bottom of his stomach finally exploded.

You sighed in content when hot ropes of his cum filled you up, the heat contrasting the chilly nighttime breeze around you. 

You stood there at the edge of the pool as you tried to regain your breaths, his chest pressing firmly behind you as he panted against your shoulder. He only slid out of you when he had grown limp inside of you, fixing the crotch of your swimsuit to cover your abused hole. The stickiness threatened to leak out and you pressed your thighs together to stop it from pooling in your bikini, holding back a whimper when you still felt so full after he pulled out.

A moment has passed before he spoke again, “can I take that as a yes?”

He laughed wolfishly when you slapped his arm.

[pkstudiosindia]

’50s diner meets ’90s coffee shop at South Press on Chapman Highway – Knoxville News Sentinel

Featured Post in Water Filter India dot com - Water Filter India

Ali James, Shopper News Published Eight:03 a.m. ET Oct. 1, 2020

CLOSE

Catch a 90s coffee shop vibe at South Press

Knoxville News Sentinel

Joslynn Fish labored at Cracker Barrel for 17 years, then at an upscale restaurant earlier than she misplaced her job in March and utilized for greater than 20 positions.

“I have given good hospitality for $2.13 per hour for over 20 years,” stated Fish. “COVID is horrendous, but it stopped my life and allowed me to think about what I could do if I didn’t have to go and serve tables.”

Fish determined to open South Press, a group coffee shop, and focus her enterprise mannequin round ideas she feels passionately about: making a secure, welcoming area, recycling, native artwork and produce.

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“I don’t drink alcohol, so when I looked around, social, queer spaces are all bars, but if you are in recovery or underage or your hours don’t allow for hanging out until 2 a.m. there wasn’t an option where alcohol isn’t the center of the room,” Fish stated.

The shop at 3715 Chapman Highway was a magnificence shop for 30 years and belonged to a pal’s grandmother, in line with Fish. “When I looked in the windows I could see it full of people laughing and connecting,” she stated of the constructing that was a Cash Mango earlier than it sat empty for 5 years. She was first attracted by the regional Marble City pink marble flooring which may be present in solely three models within the previous Parkway Hotel.

After signing the lease, Fish spent 4 hours scraping giant stickers off the home windows, tearing down the workplace partitions, sweeping and mopping. Then, daily for the final two months, she has labored 10-hour days on one undertaking or one other.

“South Press is for everybody, it’s not just a queer space, everyone is welcome,” she stated. “It is a safe space you can come to when you don’t want to be alone, but you don’t have to be social, you can pick up a book.”

Locally sourced  

South Press’s handcrafted drink menu consists of domestically sourced coffee for French press, filter and espresso drinks and Italian cream sodas. Customers also can buy cereal, native pastries and doughnuts, customized tea blends, native honey and Cruze Farm milk.

Joslynn Fish proudly shows her eclectic coffee cup assortment at her new shop, South Press. Sept. 24, 2020. (Photo: Ali James/Shopper News)

“I’m not cooking anything in the shop, but in the afternoon I may have chicken salad sandwich croissants and salads in Mason jars that I make ahead of time,” she stated.

Supporting farmers in Knox, Sevier and Cocke counties will enable Fish to serve the freshest potential elements.

A ’90s coffee shop environment   

“I purchased everything second hand on purpose, in an attempt to recycle, repurpose, reuse, and upcycle as much as possible,” stated Fish. “Everything in the shop, with the exception of the doorknobs and the coffee presses, have been purchased secondhand or donated. Even the blue paint is from the Habitat for Humanity store.”

Musical devices and a report participant with vinyl can be found for purchasers to play at South Press. Sept. 24, 2020. (Photo: Ali James/Shopper News)

South Press will depart only a small carbon footprint.

“We have no single-use plastic or paper cups; most people already have a to-go coffee cup or reusable water bottle,” stated Fish. “If you forgot your cup you can purchase one at cost and your coffee will be free that day. If you have your cup but haven’t washed it, I’ll wash it for you.”

The group backyard close by has already requested the coffee grounds, and Sustainable Future Center has been promised the compostable meals.

Despite some surprising bills, Fish has managed to stretch her funds with private financial savings, with out resorting to loans or grants. “I feel like it would be terribly insensitive to ask people to give me money,” she stated, opting to ask for the donation of unused gadgets as a substitute. When she couldn’t stretch the funds for a brand new coffee grinder, a pal raised over the quantity she wanted.

All of South Press has been adorned and furnished with donated gadgets. Sept. 24, 2020. (Photo: Ali James/Shopper News)

South Press has been stuffed with cupboards of board video games, artwork provides and musical devices to play, or clients can spin some vinyl on the report participant.

South Press shall be open Eight a.m.-Eight p.m. daily and closed on Sundays. “It will be a performance venue for standup comedy, poetry, and small shows, once it is safe again,” stated Fish. “I’m not having a grand opening; it’s a 650-square-foot area, so personally I don’t really feel it’s accountable to ask folks to collect in giant teams. But I’m able to have folks within the area.

“I’ve failed at many issues, however at the top of the day if I can’t do that I’ve already completed one thing that no trans lady has completed in Knoxville,” stated Fish. “Nobody that talks or looks like me runs their own business.”

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[gerischaffer50-blog]

An Easy Guide to Resort Door Locks

Locks have been made use of because the start of time. They have progressed throughout centuries. The first digital keycard lock has been patented by Tor Sornes in 1975 as well as it is from right here that a new market for programmable locks opened up as well as the possibility for a variety of methods for verification escalated. Since after that, electronic lock technology has just become much more reliable such as the hotel door locks by A/C.

The resort market has actually been utilizing door locks because creation. Nevertheless, as the hardware is expensive, a lot of resorts wait on many years before they update the door locks. But, this absence of innovativeness with regards to locks is what prevents visitors from experiencing a seamless online check-in. Basic changes require to be made if the resort wants to distribute tricks to visitors immediately. Smart Key, Salto, and the like are several of the most secondhand key card innovations which a bulk of hotel chains make use of. Magnetic vital cards are most typically used. There are also RFID and also NFC cards which are easy to use for guests. With the right PMS, establishing a keyless door lock system could not be as tough. As an example, AIR CONDITIONER uses some of the most effective door opening up remedies around which can be quickly incorporated with a clever hotel PMS. It gives the team with the ultimate remedy to cut the tricks directly from the PMS. The leading makers of digital resort essential cards locks and locks are incorporated by AIR CONDITIONER. Mobile Keys Locks have progressed from being isolated to being adjoined. The future is Smartphone and that is why there has been a button to mobile keys in the current years. Although, magnetic crucial cards continue to be used as the main key for hotel doors, numerous chains have begun to experiment with space tricks for Smartphones. Smaller hotel groups had initial adopted the innovation and hotel door lock for sale Aloft is called among the very first adopters as early as 2014. Marriot and also Hilton have likewise done the same, whereas, Hyatt is planning on creating an app. Study shows that a majority of guests would choose a Mobile phone trick instead of a typical one. Nevertheless, there are complicated combinations that require to be dealt with first. Price effectiveness is essential to be successful. Open Trick as an example has actually provided a solution which needs visitors to download the cost-free application and also use it for worldwide access as well as offers financial degree protection to the space. Conclusion There are other smart device alternatives that are likewise available such as the Sesame door lock which is a brilliant option for residences and also hotels. It retro fits best around the deadbolt locks as well as is unbelievably simple to install. Near Field Communication (NFC) is used by the majority of the mobile crucial remedies for resorts. Both android and also Apple have their very own alternatives. NFC is used by android, while Apples utilizes a Bluetooth Low Power Modern technology that is built on the open-standard Bluetooth. Thus, there are both standard and also modern-day alternatives for resort door locks. In case you cherished this article in addition to you want to get guidance concerning ACSLocks generously stop by the web site.

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The Bedbug Capital of the U.S.: Do You Live There?

SementsovaLesia/iStock

Of all of the pest infestations someone can have, bedbugs are one of the worst. The bloodsuckers often live in mattresses and couches, and wait until someone lies down to attack-leaving red, itchy bumps and welts in their wake. And get ridding of them isn't easy or cheap.

So which cities have the biggest bedbug problem? For the third year in a row, the Baltimore metropolitan area (which includes the city and surrounding suburbs) topped the list, according to a recent report from pest control company Orkin. In addition, searches on Google for “bed bugs” in the metro shot up 42% from May to October-and spiked 78% in October.

The study was based on the number of bedbug treatments Orkin performed in each metro from Dec. 1, 2017, through Nov. 30, 2018. The company has 400 nationwide locations.

“Bedbugs are the No. 1 urban pest in many cities today,” Chelle Hartzer, an Orkin entomologist, said in a statement. “They are master hitchhikers, so no one is immune. Sanitation has nothing to do with prevention: from public transit to five-star resorts, bedbugs have been and can be found everywhere humans are.”

The creepy-crawlies hitch rides on just about anything-luggage and purses, coats, secondhand furniture, etc.-and make their way into homes everywhere. Then they reproduce, with females laying two to five eggs a day.

“With people going back and forth between hotels and homes, you get a hitchhiker on your suitcase and you bring that back into your home,” Hartzer tells realtor.com®. “Or your kids have a sleepover and bring one home.”

She recommends folks check their hotel or guest rooms thoroughly before bunking down. It can be tough to spot the tiny terrorists, as they're about the size of an apple seed and don't tend to come out during the day. But telltale signs of a bedbug infestation are black or rust-brown spots on or below sheets and mattresses, and teeny, tiny shells on the floor or in the bed.

When travelers return home, they should leave their bags by the entryways to their homes-far away from their bedrooms. That's only until they wash and dry their clothes on high heat (which kill the bugs) and then can inspect the empty bags for bugs.

If that doesn't work and folks discover the icky critters, they should put their clothing, bed linens, towels, curtains, and stuffed animals through the dryer to kill any pests nesting in them. They should also call in the professionals, says Hartzer. The company will make recommendations on what steps to take next, depending on the severity of the infestation.

The top 10 metros for bedbug treatments:

Baltimore, MD

Washington, DC

Chicago, IL

Los Angeles, CA

Columbus, OH

New York City, NY

Cincinnati, OH

Detroit, MI

Atlanta, GA

Philadelphia, PA

The post The Bedbug Capital of the U.S.: Do You Live There? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

[nightmare-afton-cosplay]

The Bedbug Capital of the U.S.: Do You Live There?

SementsovaLesia/iStock

Of all of the pest infestations someone can have, bedbugs are one of the worst. The bloodsuckers often live in mattresses and couches, and wait until someone lies down to attack—leaving red, itchy bumps and welts in their wake. And get ridding of them isn’t easy or cheap.

So which cities have the biggest bedbug problem? For the third year in a row, the Baltimore metropolitan area (which includes the city and surrounding suburbs) topped the list, according to a recent report from pest control company Orkin. In addition, searches on Google for “bed bugs” in the metro shot up 42% from May to October—and spiked 78% in October.

The study was based on the number of bedbug treatments Orkin performed in each metro from Dec. 1, 2017, through Nov. 30, 2018. The company has 400 nationwide locations.

“Bedbugs are the No. 1 urban pest in many cities today,” Chelle Hartzer, an Orkin entomologist, said in a statement. “They are master hitchhikers, so no one is immune. Sanitation has nothing to do with prevention: from public transit to five-star resorts, bedbugs have been and can be found everywhere humans are.”

The creepy-crawlies hitch rides on just about anything—luggage and purses, coats, secondhand furniture, etc.—and make their way into homes everywhere. Then they reproduce, with females laying two to five eggs a day.

“With people going back and forth between hotels and homes, you get a hitchhiker on your suitcase and you bring that back into your home,” Hartzer tells realtor.com®. “Or your kids have a sleepover and bring one home.”

She recommends folks check their hotel or guest rooms thoroughly before bunking down. It can be tough to spot the tiny terrorists, as they’re about the size of an apple seed and don’t tend to come out during the day. But telltale signs of a bedbug infestation are black or rust-brown spots on or below sheets and mattresses, and teeny, tiny shells on the floor or in the bed.

When travelers return home, they should leave their bags by the entryways to their homes—far away from their bedrooms. That’s only until they wash and dry their clothes on high heat (which kill the bugs) and then can inspect the empty bags for bugs.

If that doesn’t work and folks discover the icky critters, they should put their clothing, bed linens, towels, curtains, and stuffed animals through the dryer to kill any pests nesting in them. They should also call in the professionals, says Hartzer. The company will make recommendations on what steps to take next, depending on the severity of the infestation.

The top 10 metros for bedbug treatments:

Baltimore, MD

Washington, DC

Chicago, IL

Los Angeles, CA

Columbus, OH

New York City, NY

Cincinnati, OH

Detroit, MI

Atlanta, GA

Philadelphia, PA

The post The Bedbug Capital of the U.S.: Do You Live There? appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com®.

from https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/bedbug-capital-of-us-is-baltimore/

[hannahwayward-blog]

A Long Weekend in Bangalore: Like India, But Not

I arrived in Bangalore on Thursday afternoon, both sad to leave Kolkata and relieved to escape the intense heat. Of course, on the day I left, it finally started to really rain, and my flight was delayed because the runway was flooding as a result of a torrential downpour. Bangalore greeted me sunny and cool, by comparison - it was around 80 degrees when I landed - and Arune picked me up from the airport and drove me back to his house.

I had visited Arune and his family once before, spending a weekend in Bangalore during DukeEngage, but they had since moved to a new apartment that really was more resort than flat. Each room had floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on a sea of palm trees: their home is situated next to a protected forest. White walls and white-tiled floors contrast with the brown wood window frames and the bright green outside. Porches flank the east and west ends of the flat, which is on the third floor of their building, and the weather is so nice that they can leave the glass doors slid open year-round. The entire fourth floor is a terrace, which Arune told me is the most frequented “room” in the house. A rooftop pool, complete with waterfall, sits between two seating areas - one high and in the sun, the other lower and covered with a projector screen and coffee table. The terrace also has a bar and a small kitchen, making it the ideal location for hosting. Needless to say, after five nights in a dingy hotel room and six days sweating my way through Kolkata, this terrace was the closest to heaven I’d ever been, and it was here I spent the largest part of my long weekend in Bangalore.

Thursday evening we sat outside and drank and reminisced, ordering pizza for dinner, and I called it an early night after playing a few games of Trivial Pursuit and Bananagrams. On Friday, Arune and I made a deal that  we would alternate between one cultural outing for one bar, so after getting a haircut (Arune) and a pedicure (me) at UB City Mall, we grabbed lunch and drinks with Arune’s friend Abhimanyu at a Mexican restaurant before walking to our first cultural event. Tasveer is a small, local photography gallery, which had an exhibition in which a fashion photographer had recreated famous paintings. When Abhi and I had had our fill (Arune was done long before we were), we went to a nearby biergarten for a drink. This was the place I’d gotten food poisoning during my last visit, so I steered clear of the food but had one of their in-house brews. At Abhi’s recommendation, we next went to two secondhand bookshops, where I had to keep myself from buying everything (again, thank goodness for my pack). We ended our day out watching the sunset at Ebony, a restaurant on the 13th floor of a building from which I had a great view of the city of Bangalore.

We headed home, stopping quickly at Abhi’s house, which was full of beautiful antiques, and Abhi promised to take me to the antique store while I was in Bangalore. Once back at Arune’s, we ordered (lamb) burgers and hot dogs for dinner, stuffed ourselves, and then headed out to Sly Granny, a local bar, joined by Jess, a Duke senior who’s interning in Bangalore this summer. At Sly Granny, we were joined by many of Arune’s friends, and drank and danced until last call (which came at 1:00!?!) then took Ubers back to Arune’s. A group of 10 or so of us sat on the terrace until 5:00 AM, which is apparently not uncommon, and I slept exceedingly late on Saturday.

On Saturday evening, Arune and his family were hosting the Duke send-off party for the three incoming freshman and five incoming graduate students from Bangalore. We spent the day on the terrace, doing equal parts prepping and vegging. The 40 or so guests began to arrive around 6:00, and we chatted and hosted and wined and dined them until everyone trickled out around 9:00 (which surprised the caterers, who told Arune’s mom they weren’t used to leaving her house before midnight!). After this, Arune’s friends came over and joined us on the terrace, where we once again sat until an ungodly hour of the morning, listening to music and discussing books and doing more drinking and dancing.

I didn’t let myself sleep as late on Sunday, since Arune’s friend Abhi was going to make good on his promise to take me to Balajee’s antique shop. After a breakfast of toast and tea, my preferred combo while in Bangalore, I met up with Abhi and we went down to the shop. It was the first time since arriving in Bangalore that I truly felt like I was in India. Once more, old buildings leaned inward over narrow streets and vendors lined the sidewalks. We spent over an hour in Balajee’s, where I saw armor that had been worn by a German during World War I, a gorgeous beaded handbag from the 1960s, a photograph of Einstein and Nehru, and countless other odds and eccentricities dating from years and centuries back. As Balajee closed up shop to go to the cinema, Abhi and I walked through the busy streets and to the local market. On the way, I bought a coconut and drank fresh coconut water while we made our way through the throngs of people. The market was selling every fresh fruit and vegetable imaginable, with a flower market at its center. We ambled around here before going back to Arune’s, where we ordered biryani and milkshakes and sat in the sunshine that had finally appeared after a rainy morning.

Sunday evening was dedicated to games - we played Bananagrams, Trivial Pursuit, and Cards Against Humanity, then ended the evening with Blackjack on the terrace, joined by some of Arune’s cousins. It was another late night, which is part of what made it so hard to leave on Monday morning. While I was there, Arune and I realized that it had been eight years exactly since we received our freshman year dorm assignments. In London at the beginning of my trip and in Bangalore I was lucky enough to be hosted by friends I made in that dorm, and the weekend before my trip began I spent at the beach with friends from there as well. Arune and I talked a lot about how lucky we all are to have a friend group that’s more like family. After six days in Kolkata mostly alone, it was a welcome change to be around other people, but it was made even better by the fact that it was time spent with one of my first and dearest college friends and his family, who, like him, are aggressively hospitable. I was sad to leave the beautiful weather and their beautiful flat, but saddest to leave the comfort of being in a fun, happy home that reminds me of mine, some thousands of miles across the world. However, I was leaving this family to spend time with my own, and flew from Bangalore to Kochi to spend time with my sister - posts to come!