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#beautiful silk scarves

jrshawls48 · 1 month

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Wear this beautiful shawl with your beautiful dress from jrshawls . . Visit our site to know more: www.jrshawls.com

#viralchallage #shawls #beautiful #jrshawls #reels #instagram #@shop @instagram @jrshawls.official @design #pashmina #cashmere #scarf #scarves #scarves for women #shawl #silk scarf #wraps #handmade kashmiri shawls #ladakh

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stevenwmiller · 1 year

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Global finds @byrdeandtheb Litchfield County CT’s hair, art & beauty destination www.byrdeandtheb.com #byrdeandtheb #byrdeman #hair #art #beauty #litchfieldcounty #style #men #women #gift #holiday #shoplocal #photography #painting #handbag #silk #scarves https://www.instagram.com/p/CltLnUMrdSA/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#byrdeandtheb #byrdeman #hair #art #beauty #litchfieldcounty #style #men #women #gift #holiday #shoplocal #photography #painting #handbag #silk #scarves

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sexy-celestial · 1 year

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2023 is:

Regular facials, manis, pedis, massages, Brazilian waxes, lash lifts. Glowing skin. Glowy makeup. Fluffy curls. Microshaded brows. Laser hair removal. Perfect Rx Skincare. Veneers. Intoxicating perfumes. Shopping. Diamonds. Designer bags. Credit card rewards. International travel. Networking. Career certifications. Investing more. Brunch with the girls. Picnics. Farmers markets. Art galleries. Museums. Fresh flowers. Silk scarves. Big sunglasses. Beautiful lingerie. Silk robes. Receiving lots of gifts. Lots of sunlight. Hot yoga. Nature hikes. Tennis lessons. Green smoothies. Candles that smell expensive. Sleeping 8+ hours a night. Bubble baths. Studying foreign languages. Absorbing as much knowledge as I can. Book clubs. Pottery classes. Cooking with fresh herbs, vegetables, and spice. Champagne. Charcuterie & bruschetta. Gelato. Fresh bread. Ocean air. Hugging my loved ones. Pet cat. Giving lots of gifts. Journaling. Meditating. Gratitude. Volunteering. Donating to charity. Manners. Etiquette. Charisma. Therapy. Healthy boundaries. Radical personal responsibility. Positivity. Self care. Abundant love.

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itspuresilk · 2 years

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SILK SCARVES

Pure silk scarves in premium silk twill, fully printed on both sides, featuring hand-rolled edges. Delightful against the skin, can be creatively worn in multiple ways. Bold, colourful prints.

Explore more @ Itspuresilk

#silk scarves #silk scarf #puresilk #itspuresilk #Pavo pure silk Scarf #silk twill scarf #beautiful scarf #women scarfs #scarf for womens #scarf

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thatsexcpisces · 4 months

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Gifts to get the moon signs for Christmas 🎄🤍

°❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️ °❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️ °❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️

Aries moon: clothing and items for the gym and working out, bold accessories that make them stand out, hats, earrings, tickets or a class for their favorite activity or take them on any fun adventure, new car (if you wanna go big), fancy mirrors, watch, strong fragrance, trendy gadgets

Taurus moon: jewelry, luxuriously-presented items, something cozy and for the home, a spa day voucher, soft blanket, cute slippers, beauty products, skin and self care items

Gemini moon: cute journals to write down their thoughts, entertaining card/games (ex. cards against humanity), stationary, technology, thought-provoking gifts, their favorite book collections.

Cancer moon: cooking set, something sentimental and hand-made (ex. a scrapbook of all your memories together), a comfy robe to lounge in, recipe book, candles and stuff for the home

Leo moon: gifts related to their interests whether musical or hobbies in general. ex., if they love lana del rey get them a vinyl collection of her music or a poster of her. designer clothing, something extravagant and unique, tickets to their favorite musical or show.

Virgo moon: organized home planners, plants, cookbook, antiques, cleaning gadgets, home fragrances, books on getting organized and lifestyle advice, gift cards for home goods stores or their fav stores in general, maybe even get them a small pet to keep company!

Libra moon: designer handbags, books on fashion, good-quality perfumes, beauty items, fancy soaps, silk scarves or pajama sets, luxury brand shoes, fancy decorations for their living space

Scorpio moons: spiritual gifts, something personal from you, leather/ dark colored clothing, pampering gifts, marble items, brand sunglasses, ruled by Pluto; get them an elegant version of whatever they generally like; if they like gold jewelry, get them a carefully-selected box of fancy gold rings or something like that.

Sagittarius moons: gifts brought from a foreign country, something unique, plane tickets to a country they’ve always wanted to go to, travel picture book to record their journeys, good- quality camera, laptop, money, practical gifts

Capricorn moons: expensive things (I mean it’s a Capricorn moon here 💀), money in an envelope, gift cards to high-end stores, good chocolates, wine, and other specialty gourmet items, functional coffee machine, items to relieve stress (back-massager tool, etc), self-help books

Aquarius moons: technology, new phone, computer, Apple headphones, vintage record player, art materials, something no one else has, something related to their humanitarian or quirky interests, trivia games

Pisces moon: dream journal, thoughtful gifts, paintings, adult coloring books or stuff for arts and crafts, cute headphones, their favorite album and CD’s, something that encourages creativity, collection of bath salts and fragrances, meditation/yoga tools, locket necklace, fluffy blankets and pillows

Thank you for reading hope y’all have a good holiday! 🫶🎁🌟

°❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️ °❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌*:･❄️ °❆⛄⋆.ೃ࿔🦌

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theinnerunderrain · 3 months

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Turmoil at Sea [Yan!Merman x Fem!Reader]

Warnings/tags: Yandere themes, description of violence, I saw a video of orcas hunting and wanted to write something abt it, disturbing content.

"Marlin."

With a shaky voice, you called out to the merman lurking beneath the dark depths of the water. Your eyes danced wildly along the watery surface, desperately seeking a glimpse of him.

"Please come out. You're scaring me."

On hands and knees, you clung to the meager wooden surface that barely qualified as a makeshift raft, the sole lifeline between you and the vast expanse of the ocean. The survival itself was a stroke of fortune, remnants of a shipwreck etching haunting memories – cannon balls piercing through ship walls, the frantic cries of the crew in a desperate quest for safety.

"Marlin!"

You attempt once more, your voice rising in volume and gaining a sharper edge. Splashes of water collide with the raft, showering your bare ankles. The once elegant gown, worn for your birthday celebration, now serves as your sole source of warmth. Your left thigh is wrapped in makeshift bandages fashioned from scattered scarves found amidst the vast sea. Slowly edging toward the raft's edge, you strained to peer through the dense water veil, only to be met with an impenetrable darkness that revealed nothing but a faint reflection of yourself. With eyes reddened, pallid skin, and hair beginning to knot after enduring two weeks adrift at sea, your physical state mirrored the harshness of your oceanic ordeal. The scent that clung to you was a noxious blend of fish and seaweed, the very sustenance provided by the merman. Surprisingly, you marveled at your resilience, having somehow endured the consumption of raw, uncooked meat without succumbing to its potentially fatal consequences.

Abruptly, a hand emerged from beneath the water, prompting you to swiftly retreat to the safety of the raft's center. The owner of the hand revealed himself to be none other than the merman, Merlin, whose expression conveyed clear disdain. His hand extended, torso flat against the raft's surface, and intense ocean eyes locked onto you.

"..M..Marlin."

He remains unresponsive to the sound of your name, his long blue tails faintly visible as they linger within the water. After a moment of uninterrupted gaze, he finally speaks, his voice flowing like a smooth seam of silk, captivating in its beauty. The sunlight above did little to forsake his beauty; instead, it gracefully highlighted his features, casting an enchanting aura that rendered him majestic, akin to a water nymph.

"Do you truly despise me that much?"

"What..?"

A bitter laugh escapes him as he withdraws his hand, crossing his elbow to rest his chin against his forearm. His dark hair cascades down, lightly sticking to his chin, a subtle dampness lingering. One can't help but marvel at how a being like him manages to thrive in the frigid waters, contemplating the preservation of his skin and hair—unchanged and undamaged, a testament to their enduring beauty.

"You've proven yourself quite clever, manipulating me into scavenging for food. Quite the strategist, aren't you?"

"I do not understand.."

Your brows furrow slightly at his words, perplexed by the notion that you might be using him to scavenge for food. After all, it was he who volunteered to assist you, the one who rescued you from the wreckage and gently placed your body onto the raft. During the night of the celebration, you discerned his presence beneath the water, catching a fleeting glimpse of his exquisite tail. Despite your observation, your crewmates dismissed him as a mere swordfish or dolphin, oblivious to the captivating mystery that lingered beneath the waves.

"You're exploiting me for your survival, only to abandon me once other humans come to your rescue, aren't you?"

"Certainly not! Once I set foot on solid ground, I am determined to find every possible way to express my gratitude for your kindness."

He scoffed at your words, finding your naivety simultaneously endearing and tinged with folly. Your captivating gaze drew him in, becoming the sole reason Marlin chose to rescue you amidst the entire ordeal. Although not inherently fond of humans, he found solace in the radiant brightness and warmth emanating from your eyes—a quality seldom witnessed through the eyes of pirates or the sailors he had encountered along his journey.

"Do you genuinely think fellow humans would permit such a scenario? If anything, they'll likely exploit that pretext as justification to pursue and hunt me down."

You dismiss his words with a subtle shake of your head, lips forming a tight line as you attempt to speak over him, any method to reason with him.

""Don't worry. I'll reassure them that you pose no threat. I can even persuade my father to consider implementing legislation concerning the pursuit of seamen!"

"My dearest human, it's not as straightforward as it may seem. Even if your father possessed the authority to enforce such a rule, do you believe those who exploit my kind for gain would genuinely adhere to it?"

"B..but it truly is!"

"It is not."

""Marlin, if you assist me in finding my way home, I am prepared to fulfill any wish or desire you may have forsaken. I give you my word—I am willing to do anything."

Marlin fixed his gaze upon you, his laughter crackling as if your words were nothing more than a comedic jest. Your face flushed with embarrassment, the dignity befitting a lady tarnished and mocked amidst the vastness of the ocean. After a few moments, Marlin succeeded in stifling his laughter, pressing his head onto the wooden surface of the raft. He pushed himself up, grinning at you once more.

"Given your persistent stance and reluctance to reconsider, it appears you are determined to return to your modest homeland."

He inhales deeply, then eases himself off the raft, submerging more than half of his body in the sea. His head emerges as the sole visible part, and his long, dark hair ripples in the water, reminiscent of the seaweed depicted in the textbooks you frequently borrowed from the library.

"Well. You leave me with no other choice."

He gracefully plunges back into the water, his form seamlessly vanishing into the azure depths. Your fist tightens as you attempt to fathom his intent, but before clarity settles, he emerges near you. His tail propels a considerable amount of water, conjuring a substantial wave that gracefully cascades onto the raft, drenching everything. A surprised yelp escapes you as the water meets your palm, and you swiftly realize you're gradually sliding toward the edge.

You successfully maintain composure for most of the ordeal, believing his juvenile outburst had concluded. However, your apprehensions materialize as you witness him rapidly approaching, his tail propelling him through the water with increased speed. The waves generated this time are more substantial, causing the raft to sway significantly. As the waves hit and water infiltrates beneath the raft, your last semblance of remaining afloat teeters.

It's over.

A second scream escapes your throat as the waves crash around you. The raft, teetering slowly, slips from your grasp, and you plummet into the cold embrace of the ocean. The frigid water engulfs your senses as you struggle to stay afloat, the taste of salt seeping into your mouth and nose, inducing a stinging sensation. Despite the pain, your eyes stay open, but water bubbles cloud your vision, leaving you disoriented in the underwater turmoil.

"[First Name]."

Even as the water filled your ears, a cold hand firmly gripped your torso, preventing you from descending deeper into the ocean's depths. Through your hazed vision, a pair of bright blue eyes and a mop of dark hair came into view, confirming that it was Marlin who held you.

"..N...No..!"

Your attempts to speak result in nothing but muffled cries, your struggle to wriggle free and rise toward the air and sunlight impeded by his unrelenting grip. Your body yielded to an inexplicable force, surrendering to his control like an underwater puppet. In a fleeting instant, a sensation of cold and softness grazed your lips. Uncertain in your disoriented state, you couldn't be sure if it was Marlin's lips pressing against yours, but the moment lingered in a haze of confusion.

As time slipped away, the diminishing air began to weigh on you, involuntarily coaxing your mouth open and allowing water to seep into your lungs. Your ears, now entirely filled with water, rendered Marlin's words muffled and distant.

Observing your distress, Marlin placed an additional hand on your stomach. His fingers, accompanied by sharp nails, delicately traced along your bare skin, adding an unsettling dimension to your already harrowing struggle. As the sands of time trickled away, you strained to discern the letters, your grasp on survival slipping through the narrowing hourglass.

The first letter being, "I". You could feel Marlin pulling you deeper into the ocean.

The second letter being, "L". The salt in your lungs were too much to bear.

The third letter being, "O". You can't see a single thing, your vision being nothing but complete darkness.

The fourth letter being "V". Oh God, you're going to die.

Before comprehension could settle, your body succumbed, surrendering to the relentless force of the deep. As your consciousness slipped away, the haunting echo of those unfinished letters lingered in the underwater silence.

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flightlessangelwings · 6 months

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Ktober 2023 Day 19- Somnophilia

Javi Gutierrez x gn!reader

Word count- 1k

Warnings- s.mut (18+ ONLY!), hj, bj, subby!Javi, restraints, slight overstim, hint at face sitting, no use of y/n

Notes- Oh this one was so fun to write! Another personal favorite of the month, cause we love a subby Javi!! Starting the fic under the cut cause we get right to it here lol! Prompt list made by me! Enjoy!

@flightlessangelwings-updates is myupdate blog so please follow that too and turn on post notifs to stay up to date on my new fics!

Javi groaned softly in his sleep as his dreams turned more intense. He dreamt you were jerking him off… and it felt so good. He writhed slightly as he practically felt your hand around his cock, pumping him and making him feel so good. Javi whispered your name as he started to teeter from the dream world and the waking one. And suddenly the two realms felt intertwined.

You smirked as you watched Javi squirm under your touch, careful not to wake him fully just yet. It had been a fantasy of yours to do this to him for a long time, and when Javi confessed that it was one of his ultimate desires, your heart flipped in your chest. You waited a few nights to actually do it, though, since you wanted to catch him more off guard but with the invitation still open.

Heat rushed through your veins when he murmured your name over and over again, and you couldn’t help but pump him faster. Your own needs could wait as you were too focused on him. Licking your lips, your eyes trailed down Javi’s naked form until they landed on his cock in your hand. It dripped with precum and it twitched when you twisted your wrist around the shaft.

Fuck, he looked delicious.

The time was right, you decided, and you let go of his cock and positioned yourself so that your mouth ghosted over the tip. In his sleep, Javi let out a soft whine, and you couldn’t fight the moan that escaped your lips. He looked so beautiful like this. Next time, you would have to take a picture.

As he settled back into sleep, you stuck your tongue out and gently licked the tip of his length in a teasingly light touch. He whimpered in his sleep as you wrapped your lips around him and took his entire cock into your mouth. You sucked hard with the intent of waking Javi up this time, and you shivered in anticipation as you waited to see his reaction to waking up in your mouth.

“Ay! Fuck! Corazon!” Javi moaned as his eyes shot open.

You hummed in satisfaction as you kept your eyes on Javi, but you never let go of his cock.

Javi tried to move, but he found he couldn’t. And, for just being awake a few seconds, he discovered his second surprise of the morning. You had bound him to the bed with silk scarves, his wrists tied to the head of the bed and his ankles to each post at the end. He was defenseless and helpless against you. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

He groaned your name as he dropped his head back onto the pillow.

“Morning, Javi,” you purred, breaking away from his cock with a pop, “Sleep well?” you asked in a tease.

“Not as well as I woke up, mi amor,” Javi murmured, his chest rising and falling with his heavy breaths. That explained the dream he had. But, reality was far better, and waking up with his cock inside your mouth was a more than welcome surprise. And it was hotter than he ever could have imagined, especially with your touch of tying him down.

You exhaled deeply with a smile, “Shall I continue, then?” you ran a single finger up his length, “My breakfast looked delicious, and I’m starving.”

“Ay dios mio,” Javi sighed with a short laugh, “You are too much, you know that corazon?” he lifted his head to meet your gaze, and both of you softened as you stared into each other’s eyes.

“You like it,” you cooed as you kissed the tip of his cock.

“That I do… Ohh…”

Without another word, you wrapped your lips around his cock again and bobbed your head up and down, savoring the taste of Javi first thing in the morning. He cried out as he strained against the binds, forgetting they were there for a moment. Javi bucked his hips into you as much as he could as you sucked at his cock.

“Fuck… Amor…”

Moving faster and sucking harder, you reached down and cupped Javi’s balls, determined to send him over the edge. His moans encouraged you as you hummed into him, the vibrations bringing new sensations. You darted your tongue along his shaft, pocking and lucking where you knew he was more sensitive.

“Amor… I’m…”

You sucked harder, taking Javi’s entire length into your mouth until it hit the back of your throat. Tears filled your eyes, but you didn’t care. You kept going until you got what you wanted. And within moments, Javi exploded into your mouth, spilling his seed down your throat as he cock twitched in your mouth. In his restraints, Javi writhed as he moaned loudly, spilling a string of praises as he did so.

Swallowing every last drop, you didn’t let up until you were sure he had no more to give. As much as you wanted to keep going, you decided to stop, not wanting to overdo it the first time you tried something new. With one last kiss to the tip of his cock, you pulled away with a deep gasp for air.

“Wow,” you breathed as you watched him come down from his high.

“That was incredible, corazon,” Javi panted as his eyes fluttered open.

You smiled brightly at Javi as you heaved yourself forward to lay overtop of him, taking his lips with your own. Javi immediately deepened the kiss, tasting himself on your tongue. His cock twitched slightly between your bodies, though he knew he was spent… at least for now.

“You’re incredible, Javi,” you whispered against his lips.

He hummed as he beamed up at you, his big beautiful eyes telling a story that words could never express. “I would like to return the favor, mi amor,” he waved his hands that still stayed bound above his head, “But I am still at your mercy here.”

You thought for a moment before you gave him a mischievous smirk, “I can think of a way you can still make it work,” you purred as you shimmied your body up his torso, hovering yourself over his face.

“Fuck yes,” Javi breathed as he licked his lips eagerly.

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grand-theft-carbohydrates · 4 months

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I wore the new coat you gave me every day, until it wasnt new any more. When the collar wore out, i had it replaced. When the elbows tore, i had them patched. by the end of it, the bottom of the coat had been re-hemmed so many times, rolled up upon itself again and again, that it became as short as an undershirt. My Third Brother saw it once, and teased me mercilessly for being such an unfashionable miser. I just laughed along. I couldn't explain. I didn't want to. You were always better at words than I was.

Here at our barracks, we have a custom of passing on our old clothes to the junior officers. Over the course of several years, favorite coats would slowly make its way down the ranks, and if it was fortunate enough to avoid getting lost or destroyed at the end of its distinguished service, the men would split it among themselves to make scarves, turbans, and kerchiefs. (once those small pieces were too far gone, they would be turned into cleaning rags). The old, green battle-coat that my Elder Brother gave me now decorates the brows of my fellow men. It gives me the same warm feeling of contentment to see it on them, as i had once felt wearing it.

I never parted with the new coat you gave me. I wore it until it was no longer new, and kept wearing it long after. If the men noticed, they made no comment. I kept it on under the clothes my Liege Lord and Elder Brother gave me. It started out as the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned, but strangely enough, I only grew fond of it after it became an unsightly mess of patchwork. More darn than silk. If you saw it now, you would have laughed, like you did last time. You might have tried to give me a replacement, and gone away looking so hurt and confused when i refused. You should know by now that i do not take gifts lightly.

One morning, several years after the day we last parted, the coat tore in my hands as i was putting it on. The fabric had become so thin. I folded it up, and kept it safe in my chest until evening. When the stars came out, I brought it out and laid it over the campfire, where the flames ate it up and the winds scattered the ashes far and wide.

————-

Oh boy, it is officially 1 AM and I am having many, many thoughts and feelings tonight about cao cao and guan yu. Notes under the cut.

So the story is inspired by something my mom told me once about clothes recycling in 70s China. She would get hand-me-down clothes from her big sister, once those were worn out, they would go to her little brother, after that, it would be used to patch other clothes, and once those wore out they would be used for rags. Quite a lifecycle. For much of human history, producing textiles was a expensive and time-consuming process, and it made me think about what people do with their old clothes doing the Han Dynasty. In the novel it’s mentioned several times that people would get rewarded old clothes from their superiors, so there is some precedence to this.

————

Cao cao: oh, woe is me, the most miserable man in existence! My love is totally unrequited. Yunchang cares naught for me!

Guan yu: ^

——

I use the translation “coat“ for 袍， there isn’t really a one to one English word, (although it’s often called a “heavy robe”). I’ve decided to go with “coat” to keep it more localized, and because I think “heavy robe” is clunky. Idk how to really explain it, the word robe denotes this very specific style of dress from outsiders perspective, in a way that doesn’t come naturally if you are a native speaker talking about your normal clothes. Vibes vs accuracy, FIGHT!

#san guo #my writing #guan yu/ cao cao #I was thinking to myself you know I ship them so hard but I’ve never written about them being intimate #And then I realized oh never mind this is like 10000 times gayer

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hairmetal666 · 9 months

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EDIT: ao3 should be back so you can read this now 😭😭

Robin rips the cream-colored polo out of Steve's hands. "Hey!" his surprise makes him shriek.

"Absolutely not." She jams the hanger back on the rack. "We're in a boutique in Paris. You are not buying a polo shirt here."

Steve pouts. "But it's my size."

"No. I'm putting my foot down." She stomps to get her point across. "C'mon, they have sunglasses in the back."

He leaves the shirt behind, allowing Robin to lead him towards the table of over-sized, dark-framed sunglasses.

She gets lost in trying them on, vamping in the little mirror, leaving him to card through a rack of silk scarves, until a case of vintage wrist watches by the register catches his eyes. He studies the them—Omega, Rolex, Cartier, Patek Philippe—bands of finely tooled leather and steel, inlaid with gold, silver, diamonds; things Steve could never afford for himself in a million years.

He's so lost in contemplating the fine jewelry and the state of his life, everything that will change once he gets home, that it takes him a second to register the increasing noise coming from outside. At first, it's excited voices exclaiming in rapid French, but it quickly becomes near-hysterical screaming.

Steve’s first impulse is to locate the danger, block Robin from whatever might be coming. Before he can move, though, the most beautiful man on the planet skids through the door, long, dark curls flowing behind him like they’re caught in their own breeze.

"Kiss me," the man says. His voice is deep and breathy, and he has the biggest, brownest eyes Steve has ever seen. He loses himself in them—they’re so dark he can see his reflection in their depths—and it takes too long for the words to register.

"What?" Steve mumbles.

This gorgeous guy—long limbed and slender, a cropped cut-off t-shirt showing acres of pale skin punctuated by dark swirls of tattoos—can’t have actually asked to kiss him. This is a lust-based hallucination, it has to be, because this guy has a belly-button ring and wears pants so tight they have to be cutting off his circulation.

"Kiss me. Please?" the man asks again. The shouting from outside is louder now, people are crying, and Steve is sure that, this time, there's a definite note of desperation to his words.

This is a dream, for sure. There’s no way this breathtaking man is actually asking Steve for a kiss. Even so, Steve hears himself agreeing in a voice that doesn't sound anything like his own. The guy—the impossible, beautiful guy—smiles all gentle and soft, cupping the back of Steve's head in his large hand.

He's kissed a lot of people in his life. Like a lot. But nothing like this, not ever. Their mouths slot together, and he's expecting it to be chaste, and it is, but. Something electrical fizzes in his blood, goes straight to his brain, because his mouth is pressing harder and the man moans, grips Steve closer, pulls him until they crash against a clothes rack.

It's wanting and hot, but their tongues barley brush together before the embrace is broken. Steve wants; it infuses his blood stream, becomes a delicious ache in his lower abdomen.

"Thanks, sweetheart," the man whispers, pupils blown and eyes glassy. He brushes his thumb along Steve's cheek, then spins on his heel, disappearing out the door.

Steve can’t move, doesn’t think he remembers how to breathe, mouth still hanging open in bemused shock. What the fuck.

"STEVE," Robin screams.

He jumps, the noise stark in the quiet store and the now ringing silence outside, whatever commotion from earlier gone as though it had never been.

"Robin, what?" He snaps.

"Do you know who that was??"

His face flames crimson. "Uh. Just some guy?"

"Steeeve, dingus, you're hopeless."

"Who was it, then?"

"Oh, only Eddie Munson? The Eddie Munson, Billboard number one for sixteen weeks? First album sold out at stores around the world? Didn't you wonder what all that screaming was about?"

"Oh my god,” Steve says. Hand going up to touch his kiss reddened lips. “Oh my god."

Read the rest on ao3!

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve x eddie #fluff #romantic fluff #one night stand #light angst #happy ending #ao3 link #ao3 fic #Robin Buckley #chrissy cunningham #first kiss #getting together #falling in love

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jamdoughnutmagician · 4 months

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These Bonds That Tie Us. (Prince!Eddie x Knight!Reader) Smut

Basically this fic was only meant to be a filthy little blurb based on this text post, but it kind of got out of hand and I made it a little mushy-gushy (so idk what really happened there??)

Word Count:1,477

Warnings:Smut, 18+, Bondage, Dominant/Submissive themes (Slight Dom!Reader and Sub!Eddie), Cowgirl position, size kink, Oral Sex (F!Receiving) Nothing else that I can think of, but feel free to shoot me a message incase I missed something.

Masterlist Eddie Munson Masterlist

Eddie finds himself tied up by delicate silk scarves that bind his wrists to the bed’s frame. He lies sprawled across the wine red blankets on the bed, naked and completely at the mercy of the very pretty lady who stalked around his bed eyeing him up like he was a prize to be won.

It wasn’t that he was spoiled, at least that’s what Eddie thought of himself. Sure, being a prince came with certain privileges that the average person could only dream of, that he would only have to mention wanting something before it would appear within reaching distance of him, but that didn’t make him spoiled, did it?

Well, whatever Eddie thought of himself in this moment didn’t matter to her in the slightest. His knight in shining armour, who had sworn an oath to protect him at all costs. His sworn protector who lifted up her silver helmet to reveal the face of the most beautiful maiden that Eddie had ever had the delight to lay his sights on. No, his royal title meant nothing to her, she wanted nothing more than to have the crown prince trembling under her touch.

Her figure crawled up next to him on the bed, free of all her armour and under-garments as she leant closer to his body. Pecking her lips against the skin of his soft stomach, her tongue licks a stripe against the fuzzy trail that runs below his navel. He shivers under her touch.

“Look at you, such a needy little thing, aren’t you?” you chuckle, your eyes cast on his big brown ones. “All these people at your beck and call, ready to cater to your every last whim, if only they could see you now.” you smirk when you see how he tugs against the bonds that tie him, his hard cock laying stiff against stomach.

“Already so hard and I’ve barely touched you, my prince, you just can’t help it can you?” you tease him, watching as the scarlet flush rises up from his chest to his face, spreading out across his nose and cheeks in a rosy glow.

“Please..” he whines desperately, not even sure of what he was begging for, all he knew is that it wasn't enough. He longed for your touch, no matter how much had to beg for it.

“So nice of you to use your manners, my prince.” You purr, as your hand skates up his torso, your fingers tweaking each of his nipples with a gentle tug.

“Ah, please I just want to feel you…please I'll be good for you, I promise..” The plea falls from his pretty pink lips.

“I suppose I can indulge you this one time, your highness..” you quiet his pleas with a gentle kiss placed to his flushed cheek.

You settle yourself over his slim hips, each one of your thighs sat astride him whilst your hand reaches behind you to give a few firm tugs of his hard cock, swiping your thumb through the dripping pearl of pre-cum that threatened to spill from his tip.

Your slick hand glides up his cock once more, your thumb tracing the length of the prominent and pulsing vein that runs the length of him. You rise up on your knees just enough to tease the flushing head of his cock on your entrance, before slowly sinking down on him inch by inch until he’s as deep inside you as he can possibly be.

You look at him from underneath your lashes, looking at him where he lay so eager to place his hands on you, but the tugging of silk against his wrists forbids him.

He longed to take his hands and place them on to the soft curve of your hips, to feel your skin under his fingertips.

But with the way your eyes locked on to him, there was an unspoken understanding that his hands were bound to the bedposts at your request, he was no way in charge tonight. You were calling the shots tonight, not him.

You roll your hips in deliberate movements, shifting in a way that has his thick cock nudging so deeply inside you. Riding him with very little regard for his pleasure, and far more concerned with your own.

His dark eyes are trained on your figure, looking at how you take his cock so perfectly. How your body rises and falls with every salacious movement of your hips.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you my prince?” your voice purrs out in a tease, your hand reaching out to brush away the loose strands of hair that obscure his face. “No, you’re just my little play-thing. No better than a common whore.”

A heat blooms in his chest at your words. He wanted to protest, he wanted to deny it, but with the way your hips were circling him, he couldn’t help his shameless moans. He really was a common whore. Your common whore.

The way you were taking charge and just using him for your own pleasure had Eddie’s mind spinning, he was enjoying this more than he could ever imagine.

Time and time again he had been the one who had been in charge, but now with the roles reversed, he found himself happily surrendering his power to the feeling of being submissive.

You continued to rock your hips down on to his length, shamelessly moaning at the stretch of him inside you.

“You’re so big..” you whine breathlessly, taking your hand and placing it on your lower stomach. “Feel you right here.” Feeling the nudge of his cock bulging its way into your guts.

Eddie didn’t think it was possible for him to be more turned on than he already was, but hearing you say that, had his brain going fuzzy. He feels the knot in stomach tying itself ever tighter with every move you make, his sensitive cock just throbbing inside you.

“Please, Miss, I’m so close…Please, you feel so warm and wet and so fucking perfect.” he moans desperately.

You decide to take pity on him. His big brown eyes are glassy with unshed tears, from holding back his pleasure for so long.

It doesn’t take very much more than a few slow rolls of your hips before he’s spilling his release into you, pumping his hot load deep inside your warm cunt.

You untie his wrists, allowing him the time to come back down to earth, letting him come back to his senses as you pull yourself off him.

The steady flow of white drips from between your legs, as you eye him up once more.

“You know, my prince, it’s very rude of you to not allow me to finish, how about you come a little closer” you beckon him with a slender finger. “Put that mouth to use. Clean up the mess you’ve made, and make me come.” your voice low and sultry ringing out into the otherwise quiet bedroom.

With his wrists no longer tied he wastes no time in making his way towards you, hooking his arms around your thighs and attaching his lips to your swollen clit. His tongue works in precise circles, teasing your sensitive button. He begins to lap at your folds, tasting the combined mixture of both his and your essences on his tongue, moaning as he nuzzles his mouth into your warm cunt and his nose’s button tip nudges against your clit so deliciously .

Your fingers weave their way into his long dark curls, tangling into the softness as you eagerly urge him to where you want him most.

He takes your lead and slips two of his thick fingers into your wet centre, curling them inside you as he suckles your clit once more. Sucking it between his plump lips and pleasuring you to the best of his ability.

“Your pussy tastes so fuckin’ sweet…” he mumbles against you, his tongue continuing it’s quest to please you.

Suddenly it all feels like too much all at once, the feeling of his strong hands on your thighs, his tongue on your pussy and his nose nudging so perfectly against your clit that it had your thighs quivering against his head. Almost crushing him between your thighs as your orgasm rushes over you in a pulsing gush.

You come down from your high as you release your poor prince from your thighs, with a shuddering breath. Both of you are sweaty and exhausted from the late evening’s activities.

He comes closer to snuggle your body to his. His lithe muscles embracing your frame before placing a soft kiss to the crown of your head.

If only for tonight it was just the two of you together, away from the prying eyes of the crowd, you couldn’t be more happy in the arms of your beloved prince.

@slutty-thevampireslayer @penguinsandpotterheads @xxhellfirebunnyxx @seatnights @onegirlmanytales @mrsjellymunson @reidsbtch

#Eddie Munson x reader #Eddie Munson x reader smut #Eddie Munson smut #Eddie Munson fanfic #stranger things fanfiction #Eddie Munson blurbs #Eddie Munson imagines #Eddie Munson x female reader #Eddie Munson x female reader smut

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pedrito-friskito · 1 year

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I am a desperate little gremlin (who’s brain is refusing to go to sleep for some reason), politely asking for your Oberyn hcs? Or really any GoT hcs?

Thanks for always indulging in my nonsense <3

SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT SCOUT

I’m sorry for letting this sit in my askbox for so long, my hyperfixations drifted for a while 😭 BUT I’m back on my GoT bullshit (for now) with a few hcs for our favourite prince AND a little something spicy under the cut cuz I’m in a M O O D.

oberyn martell headcanons:

this man is SMART. like…we already know oberyn is well-spoken and witting and cunning (and a little too vengeful but that’s what fix-it fics are for) but he’s a sexy-level of intelligent. and he’s a bookworm!! he reads any and every book he can get his hands on, his head is full of historical facts and timelines and details of battles won and lost. he can recount full summers and winters and when his girls ask for a story late at night, when they can’t sleep, he’s more than happy to spin a tale that’s not far off from the colourful past.

he’s a hopeless romantic. yes, he’s a gigantic flirt and a devil between the sheets and yes, he has you wrapped around his finger in the blink of an eye, but he does it well. we’re talking flowers and gifts and poems delivered to your chambers in the middle of the night. walks through the water gardens and long conversation, not just winning you over with his generosity, but his personality, his admiration, his ambition. he falls for you just as hard as you fall for him.

dorne is beautiful, no denying, and I like to think that the sweet prince has many secret hiding places, mini oasis (oases? the english language is weird) with beautiful gardens he likes to tend to. he could spend hours amongst the greenery, the exotic fruits and the sound of birds. he enjoys the beautiful things, and finds solace wherever he can.

I was gonna say he’s adventurous in bed but….that pretty much goes without saying so I don’t think it counts as an hc 😂 (and see below…😏)

silk - oberyn martell x fem!reader

word count: 1.1k

warnings: light bondage, teasing, oberyn comes with his own warning, dirty talk, idk what the fuck this is and it’s unedited so HAVE FUN 💕

“Ah, ah, ah,” he purrs, the tip of his nose dragging along the stretch of your inner thigh. “Not yet, my love. You are doing so well for me.”

You can’t help the whine that falls from your lips, hips lifting to chase his slick lips. The ties around your wrists pull taut, the headboard behind you creaking with your movement. You can’t see him, but you can feel him, hands roving around your hips and over your stomach, fingers dancing along your skin as he kisses your skin, nips your flesh between his teeth.

“L-lover,” you stutter out, “Oberyn, please.”

He clucks his tongue at you now, and you can almost see the cat-like grin as he moves higher up the bed, adjusting the numerous pillows and blankets as he goes. His shoulder hooks beneath your knee, spreading you wider, putting you on display.

You’ve been at this for hours.

It was like a game of cat and mouse, from the moment you opened your eyes. Every corner you turned, he was there, a mischievous light in those dark eyes, hands twitching when you brushed past. You teased just as hard as he did, hovering too close when you poured him more wine, swishing your skirts just the right way when he walked by. The look in his gaze had become something more feral, more intimidating, but you were more than happy to play along.

The sun had barely fallen when he’d summoned you to his chambers, the balcony doors wide open to let the warm Dornish air fill the space. The prince stood at the ledge, a glass of wine in his hand, his chest bare, that thick golden chain he favoured dangling from his neck. He held something in his grip as he turned to you, dark coloured fabric that shone in the torchlight. Silk scarves; he’d brought you one back as a gift from his last journey to Essos.

His lips twitched into a grin as the door shut behind you, the lock clicking shut when you sank against the wood. “My prince?”

“Do you trust me, my love?” he called, head cocked to the side. He set the glass of wine down, took the silk between both hands, slipping the fabric between his knuckles, watching it move like water through his fingers. “Would you let me try something we haven’t tried before?”

You weren’t one to deny your prince.

First, he had slipped the silk over your eyes, a loose knot tied at the back of your head, enough to cover your eyes. Once it was fastened, he turned you to face him, palms cupping your shoulders, and leaned in slow. You could feel it, the shift in the air as he came closer. He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, then let his mouth drag across the silk, the fabric catching on his lips.

He caught your chin next, a knuckle knocked beneath it, tilting your face up, your head back. “My beauty,” he murmured, thumb rubbing at your bottom lip, spreading your saliva along the pad. “Oh, how I cannot wait to watch you come undone.”

Oberyn laid you out on the bed next, sweeping you into his arms and carrying you across the room. You squealed when he swept you off your feet, clinging to him as he held you, burying your nose in his neck.

“I would not let you fall, my love.”

My love. My beauty. The possessiveness had you keening, even before he’d even started to touch you.

You stretched out as he laid you down, legs shifting beneath the thin skirts of your shift. He moved with you, hovering over you, your arms still latched around his neck, knees knocking wide for his hips to slide between.

He kissed you hard, tongue tasting of wine as it dipped into your mouth. You moaned, and he drank the noise, humming in approval when you buried your fingers in his hair, wrapped the short strands around your knuckles. When your hands moved, trailing down his shoulders, he struck, reaching for your wrists, pulling them away from his body. He held both in one big hand, tugged your arms over your head. You followed his lead, your eyes fluttering against the silk as he rolled his hips into yours as he manoeuvred you, and then you felt it.

More silk, looped around your wrists, pulled just taut enough to keep you in place, keep your hands from roaming his body. You bit back your whine at the notion of not touching him while he tended to you, but it was quickly replaced with another moan as he tugged your shift aside, lowered his mouth to your chest and took your nipple between his teeth.

Slowly, he touched you. Every skim of his fingers was featherlight, every scrape of his teeth just this side of not enough. Wherever his fingers moved, your body reacted, muscles twitching and limbs lifting, trying to get closer, trying to get more.

But he wouldn’t give it.

It was nearly torturous, the way he was dragging out your pleasure. Most nights, he’d bring you to that peak multiple times, pulling noises from your throat you didn’t think yourself capable of. This was different, the way he made you beg, the way your body did it willingly. He dragged you straight up to the edge, then left you there, waited for you to relax, before starting over, back to the beginning, your heart racketing in your chest.

And it’s been hours.

“Oberyn,” you keen, and he brushes the backs of his knuckles against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. Every touch makes you twitch, and your spine arches when you feel his hot breath against your hotter core. “Please.”

“So sweet when you beg,” he murmurs, the feeling of his tongue flicking at your clit following a moment later. You gasp. “This pleasure, it feels incredible, does it not? I can see it, just below the surface of your skin. Like a fire, coming to life.” Another lick. “Though, I must admit, I do miss the feeling of your hands on me.”

“Let me—” you start, but you never get the words out completely. He licks at you, groaning into your very depths, every nerve in you sparking to life. Thick fingers spread you open, and even with the blindfold, you can feel his eyes on you, that heavy gaze raking over every inch of your body.

“Oh, my love,” he whispers, giving you another lick, the flat of his tongue a scorching heat that feels like it never ends. “We’re just getting started.”

#oberyn martell #my fics #silk #oberyn martell headcanons #oberyn martell smut #oberyn martell fic #oberyn martell x you #oberyn martell x reader

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sexy-celestial · 5 months

Text

2024 is:

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dirtytransmasc · 6 months

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Modest!Alicent:

There's also something Southern about it all. She's of Andal decent (pale) and from Oldtown (southernmost part of Westeros). Oldtowners like her should be covering up to protect themselves from the sun. It makes sense for modest dress and veils to be most prominent/popular there, out of the whole country.

yes yes yes this.

her modesty has so many layers in my mind, like

A) it's about her religion, it's about her faith and how she connects to and honors her gods.

B) it's about keeping some of herself, to herself, and those she trusts. it's about control. it's about feeling safe and clean and modest and safe from stares and touches and lust. it's about reclaiming even just a piece of herself for no one but her.

C) It's about holding onto a bit of her home, her mother, her house. it's about staying connected to Oldtown and the Vale and her people, her family. it's something she can give to her daughter, that her children can give to their children.

like it's layered and tragic and beautiful and it's so so her.

I think she loves going back to Oldtown, it's never as often as she would like, but she loves to go back and see all the women with veils and long skirts, out living their lives. she loves getting to go around and compliment other girls veils or intricate undergarments that covers their arms when it's too hot for long sleeves, it makes her feels young and home and safe again.

she finds an excuse to tour the market so she can bring home new veils, one's she picked, made by her people, the ones she wore when she was young.

its like a breath of fresh air.

she brings Helaena with her, and typically the boys and Criston join her, she places scarves and shawls over them, tickles them with the corners of silk scarves, lets them pick some for her.

even the men in Oldtown cover up more than those in Kings Landing do, so the boys ask to match with them, and they have a day spent out in the son like she had when she was young. she sees her daughter running in her long skirt, chasing after the boys, donned in high patterned socks and half rolled up sleeves, with some bug or another, veil flapping in the wind. she leans against Criston, who's making sure the wind doesn't blow her own veil away even though she's assured him time and time again she pins her veils very well. she watches her children live her childhood and its just so nice.

I just think she'd be so relieved to be able to take this little piece of her home back to the Keep.

#modesty #modest alicent hightower #modest!alicent hightower #house of the dragon #alicent hightower #hotd #aegon ii targaryen #pro team green #aegon targaryen #aemond targaryen #helaena targaryen #criston cole #pro alicent hightower #she's living her best life #turned into a little ficlet near the bottom cause I was just going with the flow #sorry this took so long. my brains been a mushy pile of useless lately lol

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johannestevans · 7 months

Text

Workplace Connections

Romance short. A junior secretary makes a friend at work, and some more besides.

10k, rated M, F/F. A young woman makes friends with one of the only male secretaries in her workplace. 1960s Manhattan, featuring lavender marriages, period queerness, misogyny, etc. Light-hearted age gap cheeriness.

Read on Patreon / / Read on Medium.

---

Elsa had considered herself lucky to work in an office like this one. A lot of the girls she went to college with went on to get fancy jobs in the city, but hers is almost certainly the fanciest – she works up so high in a Manhattan skyscraper, after all, and because the company trades in a lot of different materials, she gets nice perks on top of her pay packet.

Silk scarves, in May – she has different ones for every day of the week, made to match her different dresses; she likes to match her earrings to her hairpins, too, and colour them altogether.

It’s sort of expected of you in an office like this, to be well put together, to not just be capable and adept at typing, but… pretty. And Elsa might not be the prettiest girl in the world, but she’s pretty enough, especially the way she dresses, the way she puts her face on.

Some of the girls even ask her for fashion advice from time to time in the office, which is nice – not because she’s particularly on trend, but because she’s got such a good eye for colour and detail. A lot of them are trying to find husbands, want to get married to one of the executives or to a client, at this office or another.

There are handsome men in the office, she supposes – Elsa doesn’t know she’s ever had much of an eye for handsome men before seeing the details in their faces, their clothes.

Her boss, Mr Lockwood, would perhaps be handsome if he weren’t so cold and miserable all the time, was perhaps more handsome when he was a younger man – in any case, even the least attractive men in the office are balanced out by their secretaries. This is a sales office, after all: it’s all about marketability, at its core. She knows no one would want to hear all that feminist talk, but it’s about the status symbol of a beautiful woman on your desk, representing you – you’re selling her and she’s selling you, almost, an additional tactic.

Most of the men in the office have beautiful secretaries, anyway – Mr Garvey doesn’t. He’s a red-faced, unpleasant man, cold, and he disapproves of women so much you’d almost think he cared about the feminist angle too, but really, he just hated them, Elsa thought.

He’s never had a woman for his secretary, the girls say, and he absolutely won’t have one – his secretary is called Jasper, and he’s one of the only male secretaries Elsa knows. They’re more common in some industries than others, she’s heard.

Jasper is handsome, but in a plain, forgettable way – he has dark hair, thin pink lips that naturally turn to a frown when his face is resting, brown eyes. His eyelashes are lighter than the chestnut of his hair and eyebrows, and the golden tint in them catches the light at times.

He’s not a pretty face or a sweet voice or the phone, and some clients and coworkers are actually disappointed to work with his boss, make playful comments about how they’re missing out when they meet him instead of “one of the girls”. People mistake him for one of the executives, at times, which he shrugs off.

The other girls don’t always know how to deal with him, the rest of the secretarial pool. He’s one of the more senior and experienced of them, knows a few tricks of the trade, is extraordinarily capable – and if one of them asks for his voice, if they’re in a hurry and want to avoid flirting, or if they need to make a call and know that a woman calling won’t be taken seriously, Jasper will call up on their behalf, even read off a card if they want him to.

Not every day – not every week, even – but sometimes, he’ll do it.

“Happy to,” he always says. “What else am I for?”

Elsa’s having a bad day when she comes into the kitchenette frazzled and exhausted, sweating in her Wednesday dress and with a tear on the cuff of her blouse that her hands are shaking too much to fix – maybe from lack of sleep, or from too much coffee, or just anxiety.

Mr Lockwood’s been riding her hard today. He’s going to lose an account, he thinks, and he’s taking it out on her, keeps changing his mind about how he wants letters written, what tone to use, what calls to make. He’d just slammed his hand onto the desk beside her typewriter, demanding he get one in a different font set, and she’s got to go and get another before he comes back from lunch.

Jasper is sitting alone at the table, smoking a cigarette and idly paging through a magazine. It’s a woman’s magazine. All the magazines in the secretaries’ kitchenette are women’s magazines, and he never complains.

It’s a bit odd. He’s a bit off. Some of the girls think he might be wrong, somehow. Why else would a man take a job like this in an office like this one?

“Just you?” she asks. Her voice sounds thick from crying, and she stifles a sniffle, feels the snot thick in her nose.

“Anita’s birthday – most of the girls on the floor went out with her to Kiplings’. I expect you can still catch them up.”

She doesn’t say anything, pouring tea.

“Are you going to repair that tear?” he asks. He has a sort of cold, quiet voice – most of the men in the office are either warm and flirty, charismatic, or they bark and bluster. All of them are louder than Jasper is. He only ever puts more volume in his voice when he’s on the phone – ordinarily he speaks very quietly, deliberately.

She doesn’t know why, but him asking that is the straw that breaks the camel’s proverbial back – she bursts into tears, letting out a wail, burying her face in her hands.

“Oh, dear,” says Jasper in that toneless, detached way of his, and stubs out his cigarette.

Elsa’s grateful that Mr Lockwood had gone out to lunch with two of his partners, that there’s no chance of him coming to find her until at least three o’clock.

Jasper takes her gently, his palms gripping her upper arms, and guides her to sit. She watches powerlessly as he finishes pouring tea for her, putting in the sweetener she uses before she asks, and as she tries desperately to pull herself together, he opens up another drawer and pulls out the sewing kit.

It’s the communal one, and all the threads are put away messily, the needles shoved into one little cushion that’s smaller than a golf ball and splitting apart at the seams.

“My mother would tell you there’s never much point in crying over a man,” Jasper tells her as he scoots his chair closer and sinks down into it. She’s in parallel to him now, and she sniffles as he pushes the hem of her cuff up, sliding the needle through the fabric and smoothly beginning to sew it neatly together with surgical confidence.

“Have you done this before?” she asks.

“I take dictation and read fashion magazines,” he says mildly. “Is it such a stretch of the imagination that I also know how to sew open a tear in a woman’s sleeve?”

After a pause, because every retort she can think to that is too rude, she says, “I’m not crying over a man.”

“I suppose Mr Lockwood isn’t much of one,” says Jasper, and she laughs and cries at the same time, a shudder going through her.

“He thinks he’s going to lose the Sachs account.”

“He is. Roux Gold’s new brother-in-law owns a sawmill – family trumps a business connection every time.”

She hadn’t known that, and she stares into space as Jasper finishes sewing up the tear with a neat flourish of his wrist, trimming off the excess thread and then putting the needle back. She can barely see where he’s sewn it, the white thread matched to the fabric colour.

Mr Lockwood has been muttering angrily about deals and prices and inventory and logistics, and he’s never once mentioned that Roux Gold’s gotten married, or that it might impact his situation.

“He can’t keep it?” she asks.

“Not unless he marries into the family as well, no, but he has to appear to try. Just let it wash over you, Elsa. Let the man tantrum as he pleases.”

“It’s not a tantrum,” she manages to say, wiping her eyes, and Jasper nudges her tea toward her and she picks it up, drinking from it. It’s too hot. She swallows. “He’s stressed.”

Jasper stares at her blankly as he relights his cigarette. He can make his eyes go so dead, when he wants to.

“Don’t cry over a man, Elsabeth Lorne,” says Jasper quietly, “but don’t you go making excuses for one either. Least of all a substandard boss.”

“He isn’t—”

“Yes, he is. He’ll be gone by September anyway – the Sachs account is his third loss this quarter. I shouldn’t be surprised if he loses a few more in the meantime.”

“But it’s not his fault,” she hears herself say almost reflexively.

“The Sachs account isn’t, I’ll grant you,” says Jasper, tapping the butt of his cigarette and sprinkling ash into the tray. He has pretty hands, pale, with manicured fingernails with pink beds. “The others were. Weather the storm, as I told you. Once he’s gone, Eva will move you onto someone better – your work is very good, and Anja on Paul Vine’s desk is getting married in August. It might line up nicely that you take over his desk.”

“Mr Vine’s?” she asks. “But he’s so much higher up than Mr Lockwood.”

“And you’re a good secretary,” Jasper tells her in blunt, even tones, as if he’s irritated she would doubt it, or show any sort of modesty for her skill or position. “You’re neat, well-organised, keen. You’re very adept and highly adaptable – flexible.”

“But today I—”

“You’re crying today because you’ve been asked, I’m guessing very unreasonably, to do the impossible,” says Jasper. “When the impossible is expected of you, it’s hardly up to you to meet expectations. Understandable, as well, to have a bit of a cry.”

She looks down at her lap. “Why are you here?” she asks. “Why do you work here?”

“Is this your coy way of asking how much more money I make than you?”

“What? No!”

He chuckles softly, and she feels her cheeks burn as she stares at him, indignant, as if she’d ask that. As if she would.

“Why are you a secretary, I meant,” she mutters. “And part of the pool here. When you could be like one of the men.”

“Am I not one of the men?” he asks. His voice is very deliberate, just like everything about him is deliberate, but more so in this moment even than usual. Suddenly she feels very ashamed.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Of course you did.” He takes a drag from his cigarette, and offers her one from his case, which is made of brass and has roses carved into the metal. She shakes her head, and he clicks it shut. “It’s a sensible question. Why would I be a secretary when secretaries make so much less money than the men they serve? Why would I do women’s work when to do so is to invite mockery? Why would I drop myself in the midst of women rather than doing serious, men’s work?”

There’s something sardonic about how he says it, the words blistering with irony. She doesn’t know anyone alive who talks with such disdain for men as Jasper Hackett is right now – and it’s for them, Elsa thinks. He’s not angry at her for asking, just hates the question, hates the world that makes her ask it.

“I lack the stomach for masculinity,” he says, gesturing with one graceful hand, his cigarette a moving glow. “I don’t well-digest red meat, either.”

“You don’t like other men.”

“I suppose not.”

“Not even Mr Garvey?”

Jasper smiles at her.

Mr Garvey is the Chief of Accounts and one of the senior partners. He’s terrifying, so square it’s like they made him at the canning factory before they tailored his suits for him. Some of the girls joke that he wouldn’t let women in the building at all if he could.

“No one at all likes Mr Garvey, young lady,” says Jasper mildly. “Barring his wife, perhaps, and even her affections can’t be taken as given. But I do appreciate his severity, I suppose – one knows where one stands, no politics, no nonsense. No masculine posturing.”

Elsa is quiet, reaching up and touching the new stitching on her sleeve.

“Might I ask you a question now, or is this a one-sided interview?” Jasper asks, and she feels her brow furrow, her nose wrinkling slightly as she looks warily across the table at him. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet.”

“Have you brought something?”

“A salad.”

“Good.” The way he says it, it’s less like praise and more like a verbal check mark – he says it in the same tone he does after receiving an affirmative in a meeting. Brisk, business-like, in-motion.

“How did you tear your sleeve?”

“I caught it.”

“Obviously. On what?”

“One of the shelves in the stationery cupboard. There’s a loose nail.”

Jasper frowns, and as she watches, he takes a notebook out of his suit pocket and makes a note, probably to tell the janitor. “Are you certain you don’t want to catch the girls up to join them?” he asks as he writes it down.

“I’ll just cry more,” says Elsa. “It’ll embarrass me. Maybe later. Why don’t you go?”

“I’m not man enough for the men in this building,” Jasper says with a shrug. “But I’m too much of a man for a girls’ lunch.”

Elsa’s instinct is to argue with him, for some reason, or try to somehow comfort him, although she doesn’t really know what he needs comforting for. She doesn’t know what he means exactly by that, about not being man enough. He’s the one who’s become a secretary, who wants to sit outside the boardrooms and take dictation rather than be inside them making presentations, or going out to dinner with his coworkers, with the other men.

Maybe it’s the culture.

Some men don’t like it, she knows, the “culture” – they don’t like to drink or go out with girls because they’re already married, or shy, or disinterested. The men get to opt out of it, or go home to their wives, and leave.

She doesn’t get to opt out. None of them do, really.

She hates the way they look at her sometimes, the men in the office, hates the hungry stares and the up-and-down flickering looks, the hands on her back, her waist, touching her cheeks, her neck, playing with her hair. It’s not as if it’s just the men in the office – it’s the men in the world. She just works here.

She’s not Mr Lockwood’s type, and it feels, sometimes—

Well.

Sometimes, the way he snaps at her, the precise way he raises his voice, it feels like he’s angry at her for not being what he likes, for not being pretty in the way he enjoys, the way he would enjoy. It feels like he’s angry that he doesn’t want her, and blames her for it.

She goes on dates, sometimes. Some of the girls live for it, the dates with clients or with copywriters, with the accounts execs, with the accountants. They talk about it like it’s a game – she feels less like a player and more like a poker chip, bet and played on the table.

Jasper is one of the only men her age in the office – well, he’s a bit older, thirty-something, but not forty or fifty – where talking to him doesn’t feel like it might turn around on her, like it might become a date.

That’s why the girls think he’s off, maybe. It feels dishonest, like there’s a trap there, somehow.

“Does it make you—” Elsa starts, and then she stops herself, not wanting to speak out of turn, not when she already feels like she’s made things mortifying for herself, when Jasper’s seen her cry, and now that’s what he’ll think of her whenever he sees her, sees her work.

“Hmm?” he prompts her.

“Did you eat lunch?” she asks.

They say he doesn’t, sometimes. She’s heard the girls gossiping about it in the break room or in the corridors, that he’s just like them in some ways. That he skips meals, that he likes to keep trim – and he is that. He’s got sharp cheekbones, and you can tell when he’s been more stressed out than usual, because he eats fewer meals, because the hollows show more in his cheeks.

He smokes more. Eats less.

“Mr Garvey is in one of his moods,” says Jasper.

It’s not that she doesn’t get the connotation – she hears that it’s negative, just that Garvey has so many negative moods that it’s hard to narrow down the estimation.

“Do you ever cry at work?” she asks. It’s half a joke, but his smile is wry when he shows it.

“Not anymore,” he says evenly, seriously. “When I was young, I did, now and then. Younger than you, I mean – at twenty, twenty-one. When I started.”

“Right out of college?”

“Yes.”

“Did you go to a woman’s college, too?” She winces at the words as they come out of her mouth, but he laughs again, doesn’t seem offended. She likes his laugh – it’s throaty and has a hoarse quality to it, maybe from the cigarettes. It’s not as deep as some men’s, but it’s not high either. No one would ever mistake him for a woman on the phone.

“I went to a secretarial school, yes.”

“Was your class all girls?”

“Mostly.”

“Does Mr Garvey treat you like he’d treat a woman?”

“Spit on me and tell me not to spike my heels into his carpet? Only when I find him in a jubilant mood.”

It shocks a laugh out of her, one of her hands over her mouth. He’s starting another cigarette, tapping it on his case before lighting the cigarettes head to head.

“You’re terrible,” she says.

“I am,” Jasper agrees, catty and just a little smug. “And I don’t know. Mr Garvey is a passionate misogynist but his hatred of women is more to do with his religious nature. Men have sex with women – ergo, men see women, and think of sex. In Mr Garvey’s mind, the mere presence of a woman stirs men to distraction. He doesn’t want people to think of sex in the office.”

“Well, I don’t want people to think of sex in the office,” she mutters, and she lowers her voice as she says the word, almost whispers it. She looks behind her shoulder to see if anyone else is there, but it’s just them. She doesn’t know that she should engage him on these terms at all. He speaks bluntly about the subject in a way that makes her nervous.

“No,” Jasper agrees. “Nor I, really. But Mr Garvey’s methods aren’t fantastic, and in any case, without revealing myself as a feminist, Elsa, women are more than a reminder of sex on legs.” He trails off, gesturing broadly with his cigarette, and then says, “He doesn’t treat me like many of the other men treat you girls, no. He doesn’t pat me on the backside or flirt with me, or fuss over my appearance – doesn’t scream at me in the same way some people do their secretaries, or nitpick my work so. Kimberley says I’m one of our best clerks, but honestly, I’m middling.

“They might not like my company, Elsabeth, but because I’m a man, our esteemed coworkers assume I must be better at my job, particularly my figures and so forth. And because I’m a man, my work isn’t constantly interrupted with male attention and attempts at my seduction – or just the distraction of someone staring at me while I’m trying to get things done.”

She sips at her tea, digesting that for a moment. “I never thought about that,” she admits. “All the time it takes up. Obviously, I know it… But I never thought about it in terms of minutes.”

It’s a lot, in the day. It’s more than minutes, in the day – it’s an hour, at least. Multiple, probably.

“I’m relatively invisible, of course,” he adds. “Being noticed, observed, in one thing in small doses, but a stressor when constant.”

She doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask, “Do you ever feel like a zoo animal, or perhaps a farm animal up on the butcher’s block?” because, she supposes, he knows enough that he doesn’t have to.

“I wish I could be invisible,” she says. She’s astonished by the weight of the envy in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I’d hide you if I could.” He taps a little more ash from the head of his cigarette. “What made you choose secretarial work as your profession?”

She thinks about the question for a moment, wonders how honest she should be. That’s the thing about working in an office like this one. You’re meant to be honest, but not too honest.

When people ask, “How are you?” they don’t really want to know – you’re meant to make the right small talk, and talk about things without really talking about things, talking around them instead. It’s the same thing about who you are. What you’re meant to say, how you’re meant to behave.

Dressing as neatly as she does, as perfectly, is as close to being invisible as she can get – because she never has a detail out of place, and because she keeps her clothes in uniform, men don’t have anything new to comment on. She feels an additional surge of gratitude for Jasper fixing her sleeve.

“You can be honest,” Jasper says.

People usually mean it as a trap when they say a thing like that in this building – no one can really be honest in sales, unless the honesty is cover for a lie. Somehow, it feels different with him. She feels a sort of kinship with him.

“I could make more money here than in a factory,” she says. “Much more.” It’s true, and she regularly says it, and often it makes people laugh, but Jasper doesn’t. He nods his head in understanding.

“Much more,” he echoes.

“I took a typing course in high school. My English teacher said I’d be good, streamlined the process for me.”

“That was why you went?”

“I think so,” she says quietly. “I just didn’t really know what to do. More school was easy – I was good at school. And then I came out east with a girl from home, we got a place together. I work here – she works across town.”

“In sales?”

“In insurance. She says it’s a better office to find a husband in, that the men are less flighty, more reliable.”

“One can count on an insurance man to be risk-aware and sensible with his investments, I suppose.”

“How will you find a wife?” she asks, and he glances up from where he was looking at the tabletop, his eyebrows raising slightly. “I mean, would you— would you marry another secretary? Meet someone here at work, like we do? Or…?”

“You don’t listen to the office gossip, do you?” he asks. “Or you do, but you don’t understand it, exactly. Not sure why it matters, nor where it comes from, what spurs it on, what turns those wheels. Why ever does it matter so much, what they talk about? Why do they treat it with such gravity, these little faux pas, the arguments, the seemingly insignificant remarks?”

Her stomach flips, and she’s aware that her expression has crumpled.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he says softly, getting to his feet. “It’s not my intention to bait you or to be cruel to you. I’m not looking for a wife, young lady.”

“You’re, um…” She trails off. She’s heard people joke about it. Laugh about it. Not about Jasper, just— Just in general.

“You’re that way?” she ends up asking.

“I’m already married,” says Jasper. Her gaze drops to his hands, looking for a wedding ring she knows isn’t there. In response to her dropping eyes, he pulls out a chain from under his shirt, a ring shining on it, and says, “I don’t wear a wrist watch either.”

She swallows hard around the lump in her throat, suddenly so embarrassed she feels she could burst into tears, and he pulls his shirt forward by the tie, dropping the chain and ring back under his collar.

“Oh,” she says. “I’m— I’m so sorry, Mr Hackett, for, for saying—”

Jasper smiles at her, and steps out of the room.

* * *

Elsa doesn’t understand why he’s never mentioned it to the girls. She’s heard them say it, heard them call him a single man or joke about what he’d be looking for in a wife. Anja had once joked that he was probably hoping some man will mistake him for a girl and take him home as a bride.

All the girls had laughed and then gone hushed and quiet, but some of them had giggled for ages afterward, kept nudging each other and tittering when he went by.

“It’s illegal for a reason,” Joanie Eames had said at the bar. “Like having sex with farm animals.”

Elsa doesn’t know that it’s exactly the same, but she knows it’s wrong, that it’s a depravity of the worst sort, that those sorts of people are dangerous, ugly inside. She feels bad for thinking Jasper might be one of them, for letting herself assume, for saying it. She’s lucky he was so unmoved by it, that he just found it funny.

They used to tease her at school about it, for being the way she is – too literal, too naïve. “Don’t you know anything?” used to ring in her ears on the walk home, she’d heard it so often.

“He’s married, you know,” she says the next time Anja says it after Jasper had come into the break room to pin a note about typewriter repair policy on the board, her talking about how lightly he walked in his loafers.

He wears Oxfords, anyway, not loafers.

“What?”

The girls all go quiet, staring at her, and Anja felt like she’d been spot lit – she was normally in the background, in amongst the crowd of them, not looked at or stared at like she’s being stared at now.

“Jasper Hackett,” she says. “He’s married. He just wears his ring on a chain.”

“Why would he do that?” demands Anja, looking suddenly angry, little pink marks appearing at the tops of her cheeks, because she never has a full blush. “How do you know?”

“Oh, he just mentioned it,” says Elsa, trying to sound casual. “He doesn’t wear a watch, either.”

She wonders if she shouldn’t have said anything, because at the end of the day when Jasper comes out of Mr Garvey’s office and there’s six of them all crowded together, Anja calls him out.

“Hey, Jasper!” she says in that sweet, bubbly voice she has.

“Something I can help you with, dear?” asks Jasper in an even sweeter voice than hers is, so fine and cutting you could probably use it like those wires they cut ham with.

Anja falters, blinking. “I just wanted to ask,” she says. “What’s your wife called?”

Jasper smiles, and it’s a very polite smile, his eyes flittering over the group of them. His gaze locks with Elsa’s for a second, and she almost mouths, “Sorry,” but doesn’t.

“Linda,” he says lightly.

“You don’t have a picture of her on your desk,” Anja says.

“I don’t, I’ve never cared for cluttering a workspace,” Jasper says. “In any case, I well recall what she looks like, I don’t need a reminder. I see her very often.”

Anja doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so Joanie asks, “What’s she like?”

“She’s tall, two inches taller than me, in fact. She has a beautiful head of hair, a lovely chestnut shade – not like mine, it’s got a shine to it, a bit more red. She’s a very impassioned speaker, an academic. She’s a research assistant over at City College.”

He waits for a few seconds, his expression anticipant, one eyebrow raised, until Joanie says – sort of impotently, “She sounds lovely.”

Jasper says, “She is! Night night, girls,” and moves off down the corridor.

“He walks like a woman,” Anja remarks once he’s out of earshot.

Elsa doesn’t know that he does, but he does walk gracefully, with a kind of flow. Maybe he is light in his Oxfords. She isn’t sure exactly what that means.

* * *

Jasper, some weeks later, comes by Elsa’s desk just before lunchtime, and says, “Would you like to join my wife and I for dinner this evening?”

She stares up at him, her fingers hovering over her keyboard.

“She keeps a kosher kitchen, if that makes the offer more appealing.”

“I haven’t been keeping kosher since I left home,” she admits guiltily. “But that sounds nice. Should I bring anything?”

“Just your fine self and a smile. The smile isn’t even mandatory, if it’s hard to keep up.”

She’s in a bad mood by the end of the day, feeling maudlin and sorry for herself – Mr Lockwood had actually shouted at her, had screamed so loudly that the walls had rattled, and only because she’d asked which Mr Smith he wanted something sending to, because he hadn’t been clear.

All the girls have been so nice to her all day, have been a bit gentler than usual and more sympathetic – several of them regularly refer to Mr Lockwood as a short straw, and they say she’s good to be so patient with him.

Jasper is just covering his typewriter as she goes up to his desk, and Mr Garvey steps out of his office, where Jasper stands to help him on with his coat.

Mr Garvey gives Elsa an ireful look, and she’s in such a poor mood she just stares back at him.

It’s beginning to rain outside, and Mr Garvey surprises Elsa by asking Jasper in gruff tones, “Do you want me to drive you two to the station?”

“No, thank you, Mr Garvey, I have an umbrella. Safe home.”

Garvey mutters something incomprehensible and stalks out.

“Come,” Jasper tells her as he pulls on his own coat and belts it shut over his suit. “I’m only a few stops away, on the same line, and it’s not too much of a walk.”

“Do we have to pick anything up?”

“There’s a bakery across the street from us, but that’s more a siren call than anything.”

“It must be hard,” Elsa says as they step into the lift. “With both of you working – to get groceries and so on.”

“Lina works four days a week, which does help,” Jasper says. “But yes, we’re often reliant on friends to fit some things into the schedule.”

He calls the lift operator by name when they leave, who bids them good night, and Elsa walks beside him into the street and follows his lead toward the subway.

“How long have you been married?”

“Ten years next November.”

“Ten years… You got married young?”

“Twenty-seven isn’t so young.”

“You’re thirty-seven!?”

Jasper blinks, and she looks away, because not only was he surprised, but several people had looked over.

“I thought you were— Well. I didn’t know you were so old.”

“So old,” Jasper repeats, huffing out a soft laugh. “Kind of you to say.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ve made my peace with my youthful features – I looked damn neat pre-pubescent in my early twenties. You’re twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three next month. I feel old.”

“Do you indeed? Why’s that?”

“All the girls are right out of school.”

“Ah. Not world-weariness, just comparison.”

She doesn’t normally ride this line of the subway, and she sits beside Jasper and looks at all the different people, careful not to keep her gaze on anybody for too long. She wants to look without being looked at, without being talked to. No one talks to her – at one point, a man glances over at her and she shifts immediately, wondering if he’s going to come over as his glance becomes a stare and he keeps concentrated on her.

She can feel the weight of his eyes on her face, feel them come down to her body, and in her periphery she sees him shift on his feet—

Jasper leans toward her and starts talking about something Jackie Kennedy said on the radio as if resuming a conversation, and she’s so surprised she doesn’t even realise the man has got up and left until they’re at their stop and they both stand to their feet.

“How do you know to do that?” she asks as they walk up the steps and into the street again. There’s no line at the bakery, and Jasper points out some pastries, buys them and a loaf of bread as well.

“Do what?” he asks.

“You do it with the girls at work sometimes too,” she says. “One of the guys will be flirting with her, and you’ll distract him, or ask if she’ll go and do something for you. Or you’ll just stand in the way and he just… won’t.”

“Men respect other men in a way they don’t women,” says Jasper. “My experience of that is diluted for the sort of man I am, granted, but I’m still a man. Linda and I met in a similar situation – we rode the same train, men were always bothering her. I started standing in the way.”

“So you could marry her instead,” she says with a slight challenge in her voice, and he laughs as he takes the package from the baker, thanking him in Yiddish – the whole conversation was. It’s been a while. She never hears it at work, maybe the occasional “oy”, but nothing else.

It’s not classy enough for the men in the office, the big clients.

“Believe it or not, we knew each other three years before all that. We talked on the train sometimes, and then she used to invite me to parties, and I’d go along with her. One morning, she said she was tired of her roommates bickering with her. She said we should get married.”

Elsabeth stares at him, at the faint smile on his face as they cross the street.

“She did?”

“Oh, yes. I thought she was joking, but she had a whole presentation prepared and she laid it out. A very strong public speaker, my wife, even when her public amounts to one easily convinced man.”

“So you got married then?”

“A few months after our discussion. We’ve been living her since, and we have two cats together. You’re not allergic, are you?”

“No, no. What about children?”

“Oh, we haven’t got room for that,” Jasper says casually. “My mother-in-law gifted us a bassinet, but it doesn’t go unused. Ido and Noam barely share it already without fighting an infant for space as well.”

Elsa thinks about this for a moment. She’s never really imagined being nearly forty and not having children at all. It’s always felt like there’s a sort of ticking clock on her life, until she has to give it over to a man’s children – children that have to be hers as well, but they never really feel like that in her head.

“You don’t want any?”

“Not particularly, no. Parenthood isn’t for everybody.”

“Isn’t it?” she almost asks, but he’s leading her inside, and the question evaporates on her tongue as they step into the house and he eases off his shoes before he takes off his coat, so she copies him.

Linda isn’t home yet, the two of them alone in the house together.

She feels kind of stiff and uncertain, keeping her distance from Jasper as they hang up their hats and coats, as he steps through the living room and into the kitchen, beginning to wash his hands.

Ido and Noam are sitting either end of a shelf with their tails hanging down like bookends, peering at her.

“Where’s your wife?” Elsa asks, hearing the slight quaver in her voice as she walks toward the cats and reaches out her hand to one, letting it sniff her fingers. They’re both huge, fierce-looking animals, muscular with dark, shaggy coats and strong facial features. They’re almost dog-sized really, and she’s surprised the shelf doesn’t creak under their weight.

“On her way home, I’d hope,” Jasper calls from the kitchen. “Linda is less punctual than I am, I’m afraid – timeliness is not one of her virtues.”

She wonders if she’s made a mistake, coming to Jasper Hackett’s apartment, to a man’s apartment, alone with him. No one even knows she’s here except for the cats, and maybe Mr Garvey, and Mr Garvey hates women – would he even care if something happened to her? Would he even notice? It could be his wife doesn’t even know. It could be that he doesn’t even have a wife, that Linda’s made up and she’s here, in a man’s flat, alone, just them.

Her heart is beating faster in her chest.

She turns to look around the rest of the flat, and she feels a bit more nervous when she looks and looks and doesn’t see photographs of the two of them together, just art on the walls, and a lot of books.

Her mouth is dry as she steps into the middle of the living room to look into the kitchen without stepping closer. As she looks, she sees that Jasper has stripped off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, that he’s chopping vegetables.

Elsa’s never seen a man cook before outside of a restaurant, and the knife moves fast, his movements neat and easy, well-practised and at-home with what he’s doing. She feels sick about it, the grip he has on the knife, the fact that he’s not even looking at her.

“Um,” she starts, her mouth dry. She feels a little faint. “Mr Hackett?”

“Goodness, girl, don’t call me that. Jasper is fine. Sorry, would you like a drink? There’s tea and coffee, a few cordials – let me get this mise-en-place finished, and I can make up some lemonade for you.” The wooden noises of the knife on the block keep sounding, and she wrings her hands in front of her belly, rehearsing excuses to leave on her tongue.

And then the door opens behind her and she lets out the breath she was holding, feels her body sag.

It tightens up again when the woman in question walks in, nudging the door closed behind her with her hip so she doesn’t have to put her bags down, and Elsa realises that Jasper Hackett is married to the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen.

Linda Hackett is an Amazon – when Jasper said she was tall, she hadn’t taken into account the idea that she would still wear high heels. Jasper is just under six feet tall, but Linda is past that. In her heels, she must be six feet and two. She has thick cascades of gently curling chestnut hair, warm in colour with golden red undertones and a healthy shine, deep red lips, dark eyes. She wears pants, yellow-beige plaid with her sleeveless blouse tucked into them, a cardigan around her shoulders and held in place with a chain.

“Ah,” she says when she lays eyes on Elsa. “You’re here, good.”

Elsabeth’s tongue feels frozen in her mouth, and she can’t make it work, can’t make herself say anything.

“You said she was shy,” Linda remarks to Jasper, and presses a bag of groceries into Elsa’s arms. “Unpack these.”

For some reason, Elsa’s cheeks blossom in a blush, and she obediently takes the bag, stumbling into the kitchen and setting it down on the counter. It’s a small kitchen, so she ends up back to back with Jasper as she unpacks it – some frozen things, some fruit, rather than things they’re eating tonight.

“How was work?” asks Jasper.

“I’m thinking of murdering one of the adjunct professors,” says Linda casually, leaning in so that Jasper can kiss her cheek, which he does without looking away from the vegetables he’s chopping.

“Only one?” Jasper asks in reply, and Elsa looks at the two of them side by side, at how Linda leans back against the kitchen counter and stands beside him as he chops, swiping a piece of bell pepper to chew and swallow. They look incredible, side-by-side like this – Jasper looks far more handsome, beside his wife, than he does on his own right. They sort of complement each other. “Elsabeth Lorne, meet Linda Hackett,” says Jasper.

“Hi,” Elsa croaks out, her voice breaking on the word.

Linda’s laugh is low and deep – her voice isn’t hoarse, but it has a resonance a lot of women’s don’t have, and it’s naturally far louder than her husband’s is.

“How was work for you?” asks Linda. Her shoulder gently nudges against Jasper’s, but her gaze is locked with Elsa’s. Her arms are crossed under her chest, and it’s— distracting.

“Sam is on a new blood pressure medication. He’s nervous about it – it’s making him quite antsy.”

“Taking it out on you?”

“No more than usual. He offered us a lift, actually, but I declined. I didn’t want poor Elsa here to receive the full force of his personality in such a small space.”

“Mr Garvey?” asks Elsa.

“He can be really lovely outside of the office,” says Linda.

“Really?”

“No.” She smiles as she says it, shifting her arms. She hasn’t got a low neckline, her blouse buttoned up to the neck, but even under the cardigan, Elsa can see how significant her chest is, how big her breasts are. It makes sense, with what a big woman she is, her broad shoulders and her tall frame, that her chest should be in proportion, but…

She feels like some sort of pervert for noticing, her lips quivering, the tops of her ears feeling hot as well as her cheeks.

Linda is lighting a cigarette, and before she takes a drag of it, she holds it to Jasper’s lips, letting him take a drag as he keeps prepping.

“He’s a prickly personality, even in the home,” says Linda. Her fingernails aren’t painted, but they’re beautifully manicured and buffed to a pink shine like Jasper’s are – she’s got quite short fingernails for a woman, doesn’t wear lacquer or have pointed nails. She probably types a lot herself at work. “God knows we’ve had our share of furious arguments over dinner here, Sam and I. But he means well, which is more than most.”

“What do you argue over?” Elsa asks.

Before Linda can answer, Jasper says, “Those two fight over everything. If Linda said the sky was blue, Sam Garvey would be about ready to insist it was green.”

“He’s an awful prick,” says Linda, then chuckles. “I miss him when I don’t see him for a while.”

Elsa’s laugh is breathless, nervous. She doesn’t know any women like Linda, she doesn’t think. Women who smoke like she does, or are so tall, or who call people pricks so easily and so confidently like it’s nothing at all.

“How do you find the work?” she asks Elsa. “Jasper says you two have been chatting recently, that your boss is a bit of an ass?”

“Mr Lockwood,” says Elsa quietly, folding up one of the brown paper bags. “He’s, um… He’s an angry man. He loses his temper a lot.”

“Some men would be happy typing their own letters,” Linda says dryly, tapping her cigarette into an ashtray. “But then they wouldn’t have a secretary as a punching bag. Do you like the work, your boss aside?”

“I like typewriters,” says Elsa.

“Oh?”

“My father is a watchmaker,” Elsa says. “He repairs them back home – watches, clocks. When I started typing at school, he bought some to take apart, to learn to repair, so he could show me. He wanted to make sure I knew how.”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” says Linda softly. Her lips are beautiful when she pouts them out. “So, you can repair them?”

“Yeah, actually, I can repair them okay,” says Elsa. “Especially older models, you know, ones from the forties and earlier – my school actually had a bunch of different models in case people were working at small businesses. The ones at work are newer models, and they’re more accessible for small repairs, less so for deeper mechanical work. Typewriters these days are made to be transported more, so the casements are heavier and more fixed, but that makes their guts less accessible too.”

“Are you excited about the new typewriter ball?” asks Jasper, and Elsa laughs, nodding her head.

“What’s that?” asks Linda, raising her eyebrows and leaning back to look at Jasper. As he swipes the vegetables from the chopping board into a roasting tin, he turns to Elsa can see his face too.

“IBM have released this new typewriter with a ball that all the letters are embossed on,” Jasper says, gesturing with his hands. “Instead of having individual hammers that strike the ribbon, you know, with those layers of bars and hammers like an organ, the ball rotates and moves to be struck by one hammer instead.”

“You can take out the whole ball to clean it at once,” says Elsa, “and that means one typewriter can easily have a bunch of typefaces, because you can just swap out the ball.”

“Oh, look at that smile,” says Linda softly. Her lips are shifted into a smile of her own. She’d been walking closer to get the chicken out of the fridge, and as Elsa stands there Linda holds her cigarette between her lips and reaches out to brush her knuckles over the side of Elsa’s cheek. It’s only a delicate touch, but it’s such a rush Elsa feels dizzy with it.

Once the chicken’s in the oven, Linda and Elsa go into the living room while Jasper makes lemonade, and when Elsa sits down on the sofa, Ido and Noam come over to sniff at her legs and then hop up to sit with her. They’re both heavy, dense animals, and they purr like engines.

“Hi, baby,” says Linda, gripping the larger of the two – Ido – and lifting him up into her lap. Elsa stares at the way he goes limp in her arms, letting her hold him like a baby and rock him in her arms, her thumb rubbing against his thick, tufted chest.

“So, um, Jasper says you’re a research assistant?”

“That’s right, I work in biochemistry – I study metabolism, effectively, the ways in which people digest different things, how quickly, and so on.”

“That’s interesting,” says Elsa, which must ring false, because Linda chuckles.

“It is to me,” she says, rocking Ido, who is looking up at her lovingly, his eyes half-closed. Noam has his big face mashed into Elsa’s belly, and is kneading at the blankets either side of them. “I love my work, I just wish it wasn’t… Ah, you know.”

“It’s hard?”

“I work with men.”

Elsa sighs, and nods her head. “I, um… On the train, Jasper stopped a man from talking to me. Like, he noticed, before he said anything or came over.”

“He’s good at that,” says Linda. “Men like Jasper are a real relief.”

“There are other men like him?”

“There’s a few knocking about.”

“Maybe I should try to find one,” Elsa says quietly, and Linda tilts her head as she looks at her, easing Ido down in her arms. He stays laid on his back, his back legs together like a bunny’s, pressing up on the underside of one of Linda’s boobs, which makes her laugh.

“I hate it when he does that, he knows it,” she says, rubbing the thick fur on his belly. “He just likes to push on it, I think – Noam’s worse, he’ll pad up to me and use his forehead to push one of them up as if he’ll find treasure underneath. It’s a bit like lifting weights for him, I suppose.”

Elsa giggles, covering her mouth, and she shakes her head, scratching Noam under his ears.

“Do you find Jasper handsome?” Linda asks.

“Sure,” says Elsa.

“No, I mean…” Linda starts, and then exhales, smiling at her kindly. “Physically, is he the sort of man you like?”

“Well, most men look the same, really,” says Elsa, and when Linda raises her eyebrows, she wonders if it’s the wrong thing to have said, if it’s not right. “Um. Sorry. I don’t mean anything bad by it. I just mean— Men aren’t like women, right? We all look different.”

“We do,” Linda allows.

“I just— All the men in the office, they get their hair cut at the same places, they wear the same suits, have similar coats. They try to look the same – we all try to look different. Beautiful.”

“You don’t think men can be beautiful?”

“Handsome, maybe,” says Elsa. “I’m not— I’m not saying I… Sorry. I think I’ve said something odd.”

“You haven’t,” says Linda. “Sometimes girls at work will talk about men, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen. It feels like they’re speaking a foreign language sometimes.”

Elsa rubs the top of Noam’s head, between his ears.

“Fools, all of them,” says Jasper as he comes back into the room. “It’s like they don’t even see Marlon Brando.”

“The man looks like a thumb,” says Linda, and Jasper scoffs.

“With lips like peaches,” he says.

Elsa feels herself blink, and she stares at the three glasses as Jasper starts pouring fresh lemonade for them, the ice clinking in each one.

“You think he has nice lips?”

“Jasper thinks Marlon Brando has nice everything,” says Linda.

Elsa doesn’t know what to make of it, exactly, because at the same time, Linda reaches out with one foot and rubs against the side of Jasper’s ankle, making him jump and shove his wife in the arm, laughing. “Horrid woman,” he calls her.

“We were just discussing what Elsabeth here might like in a husband,” Linda says, and Elsa looks at Jasper as he leans back in one of the armchairs, crossing one ankle over the other.

“We can introduce you to some people,” says Jasper.

“Men like you,” says Elsa, haltingly.

Jasper looks at her over his glass, wearing his face in that blank, neutral way he does. “Men like Marlon Brando,” he says evenly. “So the rumours say.”

Elsa looks between the two of them, tries to get a handle on it, tries to understand, really understand. “Really?”

“One hears whispers.”

“So you’re— You two are…” She looks to Linda. “You married him so that people wouldn’t know? And you know that people are— Is that why you know how women feel? Because you, because you’re… Are you and Mr Garvey—”

“Slow down,” Jasper says when Linda hiccups. “Take a breath.” He breathes in demonstratively, inhaling very slowly, and Elsa copies him automatically before taking a few gulps of her lemonade.

“It’s alright,” Linda murmurs, and she strokes over the back of Elsa’s neck, making her shudder. It’s… Nice, though. It’s nice.

“Mr Garvey is not of my inclination, no,” says Jasper. “His father was – it’s made him astonishingly liberal in this area and this one alone.”

“Why would you tell me? Isn’t it illegal? What if I told somebody?” She feels nervous, uncertain, overwhelmed by it, by the weight of the knowledge.

“What if you did?” asks Jasper, raising his eyebrows. “What evidence do you have?”

Noam puts his front paws up on Jasper’s knees, and Jasper picks him up under the armpits, cradling him against his chest so that Noam can shove his face into Jasper’s neck and purr loudly there.

“Why would I want to marry a man like you?” asks Elsa.

Jasper shrugs. “For the same reasons Linda did, I suppose. A man is a useful shield, if you want one – you’re still young, though. I wouldn’t worry about it just yet, if it’s not a priority for you.”

“A husband, a cooperative one, can mean more independence,” says Linda. “Less harassment, albeit only slightly.”

Elsa looks at her, at her beautiful hair, at the cat sprawled in her lap. “Only slightly?”

“He wears his ring on a chain – I wear mine very obviously,” says Linda, waving one hand and showing its glint. “They still come sniffing around, inviting me places, wanting to put their hands on me.”

Jasper sighs longingly, blinking his pretty eyelashes and looking jokingly wistful, and then breaks into laughter when Linda kicks him in the shin.

“No, it’s awful,” he agrees abruptly, dropping the joking expression. “Would that you could have an all-female chemistry department.”

It’s now Linda’s turn to sigh wistfully, and Jasper affectionately pats her knee. They really look a picture like this, across from each other, both of them with their matching cats. They match one another, they really do.

“Why would you trust me?” Elsa asks.

“Why wouldn’t I?” asks Jasper. “You’re a sweet girl, Elsabeth. Kind, caring.”

“Isn’t it wrong?” she asks.

Jasper shrugs his shoulders. “Isn’t everything about the world we live in?”

Elsa hesitates, uncertain what to say.

“Would you like to play cards?” asks Linda.

That’s what they do.

* * *

It’s astoundingly easy to play with the two of them, to relax into the experience and just chat over cards and the cats. She doesn’t play cards much – the girls always want to just drink and talk and sing and dance, and that’s nice in its own way, but different to this.

She wonders if he’s ignoring it, what these people are, if that makes her awful, for ignoring it, except she isn’t, exactly. The idea of it, of Jasper being… that way. The fact that the girls were right all along, joking about it, thinking about it, knowing it.

They knew what he was just by looking at him, talking to him – is that why Jasper was so unaffected by it when she’d asked outright, even though a lot of men would be furious to be asked, would go into a rage at even the implication.

Shouldn’t she hate it? Shouldn’t she be angry, or disgusted? People say it’s disgusting, that it’s awful, but Jasper is the same now as he has been. He’s witty, gentle, soft-spoken. She wonders what he’s like, when he’s with men who are like him, if he’s the same, or somehow different.

“Let me go check on the chicken,” Jasper says, getting to his feet – both of the cats must know that word, because they follow after him with their tails up high and straight, cheerful, and he laughs as they weave around and through his ankles.

“Do you sleep in the same bed?” asks Elsa. Her voice comes out very quiet, in little more than a whisper.

“We do,” Linda says. “It’s lovely in winter – he gives off heat like a furnace.”

“What’s it… like? The— I’ve never…”

“Had sex?” asks Linda.

Elsa nods. “I’ve never even kissed a boy,” she breathes out. She’s thought about it. She’s heard people talk about it in movies, she’s heard the girls talk about it, about the actual act, and it’s never seemed… She doesn’t know that she likes the idea of being so intimate.

It’s like when the girls talk about men who are attractive, when they talk about Paul Newman and how handsome he is, when they talk about kissing men. Anita was talking about how it makes her feel when her fiancé puts his hand on her waist, how it makes her heart flutter.

Elsa’s never felt that.

“We don’t,” says Linda. “Jasper and I. We’re quite comfortable with each other’s bodies, we see each other naked, help each other dress. Jasper broke his leg a few years ago, and I helped him in the shower a lot, so we’re used to bathing together.”

“I can’t imagine it,” says Elsa. “Being close to a man like that.”

“And to a woman?” Linda asks.

Elsa’s breath arrests in her throat. “Did, um— Did your husband bring me home… for you?”

Linda slowly shakes her head. “He thought you might be like us, had his suspicions,” she says. “But we have friends, Elsa – I was serious when I said I could find someone like him to match you up with. A man inclined like Jasper, if you’re inclined… like me.”

“How do I know?” asks Elsa. “That I am?”

Linda looks at her with her dark eyes, and then she slides closer on the sofa, until their knees brush against each other, and Elsa hears a little noise come out of her own mouth, a shock running through her.

“May I?” asks Linda, and Elsa doesn’t know what she means exactly, is hypnotised by the gesture of one of Linda’s hands, so she just dumbly nods her head, dizzied, drawn in.

Linda cleans closer, and Elsa breathes in the scent of her perfume.

It’s far, far subtler than anything they wear at work – she finds it too sickly sometimes, the scents the other girls wear, too overwhelming, but this is nice. It’s sweet, but there’s a muskiness to it, a depth.

Then Linda is kissing her, and Elsa feels like she might die.

Linda’s lips are plump and soft and so, so warm against hers, the movement gentle, and Elsa feels full up with her – with the scent of her perfume and her shampoo too, with the warmth of her mouth and the lemonade taste lingering on her lips, Linda’s fingers delicately resting on her thigh. Linda’s chest is brushing against hers, and Elsa can feel the weight of them, the weight of—

“Oh, God,” she whispers, almost whimpers, and Linda’s laugh as a curl of smoke through it, so that Elsa feels hot and burning all over.

“Would—” Linda starts, and Elsa feels horribly rude because she cuts her off, but she just craves more, crushes their lips together in another hungry kiss, and this time Linda opens her mouth and they kiss each other more deeply, their tongues sliding against each other, and ohGodit’sthebestthingintheworld—

Linda cups her cheek, tilting her head to kiss her deeper, controlling it, and Elsa’s hands scramble for her, to grab at her – she squeezes one of Linda’s thighs, her head spinning with how muscular they are, how strong she must be. She’s got broad shoulders and strong arms and strong legs, and Elsa’s head spins with questions, wondering if she cycles, or if she rides horses, or if she does archery, somehow, and is some sort of warrior goddess like Wonder Woman, and—

Their lips make a smacking noise when Linda draws back.

“Is that what it feels like?” Elsa asks urgently. “When people kiss men?”

Linda laughs at her, stroking her cheek with her thumb. “It’s what Jasper feels, maybe. I’ve never enjoyed it much.”

Elsa is breathing heavily, sweat on her skin under her clothes, burning on the back of her neck. She wonders if she’s as red all over as she feels – if she’s as red as all that, she must be glowing like a beacon.

“Can I, um,” she starts, her hands trembling with anticipation. “Can I touch them?”

“Touch what?”

“Your… bosoms?”

Linda sniggers, and Elsa laughs helplessly, at herself, at the absurdity of the situation, at the intensity of her own swirling emotions, the feeling that she’s balanced on the head of a pin with a storm swirling around her. Linda takes her gently by the wrists and puts her hands on her breasts, and they’re so, so warm, and so soft, and so big, and—

“They’re magnificent, aren’t they?” Jasper asks. “A wonderful pillow my wife makes, too.”

“I’m so glad I make good furniture for you,” snarks Linda witheringly, and Elsa slowly cups her chest from underneath, feeling how heavy her breasts are – Linda’s brassiere is made of a more reinforced fabric than hers, she thinks. Maybe that’s why she’s so muscular, just so that the weight doesn’t hurt her back as much. She knows some of the girls have difficulty getting a brassiere that supports them well, that if you have a big chest, it can hurt your posture, your neck, your shoulders.

“The cat pushes these up?” she asks, weighing them between her palms like she’s two halves of a scale, and even knowing that some of the weight is being taken by Linda’s bra, they’re heavy.

“They’re very strong boys,” says Linda.

“Wow,” Elsa whispers.

“You love them now,” says Jasper mildly. “Wait until one of them smacks you in the face in the heat of the moment.”

Elsa does think about that for a second, feeling like her brain is short-circuiting somehow, that there must be steam or perhaps smoke rising up from her ears. What’s Linda’s skin like, underneath her cardigan, her blouse, her bra? Her— Her nipples?

“You are just cute as a button,” Linda murmurs. “Jasper, do you mind if we…?”

Elsa looks over when Linda trails off – Jasper is already pulling his coat on. Elsa keeps struggling to remember that he’s there. “The timer is set for an hour,” he says mildly. “I’ll drop in on Evan for forty-five minutes or so. You two… explore.”

“Sorry,” says Elsa reflexively.

“Sorry?” repeats Linda, raising her eyebrows. “Don’t be sorry.”

“Darling, what would you even have to be sorry for? Look at that smile on your face.” Jasper puts one hand on his hip, looking over at the two of them. “I did know this was a possibility.”

Elsa bites the inside of her lip, looking at Linda’s amused expression, at the affection in it. She feels searingly hot on the inside, and warm – not just between her legs, but also in the core of her, a spiritual warmth, beyond the physical. It feels, somehow, like something inside her has slotted into place, has become complete where it wasn’t before. She is smiling, she realises, her lips curved naturally into the crescent of it.

“Only forty-five minutes?” she asks, and Linda and Jasper both laugh.

“Only to take the chicken out,” says Jasper over his shoulder as he goes to the door. He’s wearing a pocket watch, she realises – no wrist watch, still. “I know from experience that Linda won’t hear the alarm.”

“Not all of us can be domestic goddesses,” Linda says dryly.

“Happy to play the Parvati to your Shiva, my dear,” he says, and winks before he closes the door behind him.

“Is it okay?” Elsa asks as the door shuts closed. “I don’t want you to think that I, that I’m treating you like a man would.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Linda murmurs, “I’m not remotely worried about that. Why don’t we kiss again, hm? Slower this ti—”

Elsa cuts her off again, and she swallows Linda’s answering laughter as the older woman curls her fingers through her hair and pulls her closer for more.

(They don’t hear the timer. Jasper teases them about it for weeks.)

FIN.

#musings #original fiction #romance #lesbians

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