#but here are my thoughts however profound they may be | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rafesapologist · 3 months

Text

the set up — rafe cameron; part twenty two

summary: you've been one of the pogues since childhood, and your loyalty has always lied within your friend group, who is practically your family. when a threat by the name of rafe cameron begins to threaten the pogue's plans, they assign you to gain the trust of the dubious kook and keep an eye on what he's up to. however, now it's been six months since your friends set you up to spy on the kook prince himself, but what you didn't anticipate was to fall head over heels for the boy. your relationship had soon become inviolable shortly after your guys' first exchanges, much to your friends' dismay, and you two became practically inseperable. that was, until rafe discovers the truth.

warnings: angst, swearing, fighting

author's note: cue silver springs by fleetwood mac

"Y/N?"

Rafe's voice breaks through the haze of your tears. The mixture of surprise and pain tightens your chest as you look up to see him standing there, concern etched across his face.

For a moment, neither of you say anything. The weight of the past, the hurtful comments, and the unexpected encounter at the restaurant hangs in the air. Rafe takes a hesitant step closer, his eyes searching yours for any sign of what you're feeling. The silence stretches between you until he finally speaks, his voice gentle, "Are you okay?"

Your laughter is bitter, laced with the pain you've been trying to bury. "Why does it matter to you?" you retort, the words escaping your lips sharper than intended. The question hangs in the air, heavy with the weight of unspoken emotions.

Rafe's initial surprise is replaced by a somber expression as he responds, "I was just worried. What Topper said was harsh, and I didn't want you to be alone after that." His words carry a hint of remorse, as if he regrets the pain caused by the cruel banter at the table.

You meet Rafe's gaze, a mix of frustration and hurt in your eyes. "There's nothing Topper said that wasn't true, Rafe. I don't need your pity," you reply, your voice edged with bitterness.

He sighs, "You're still as stubborn as ever, Y/N." Rafe runs a hand through his buzzcut, his gaze heavy with regret. "Look, I'm not here to pity you. I just… I couldn't stand hearing that shit back there. You don't deserve that."

Your voice wavers as you admit, "This is all my fault, Rafe. Everything that happened, it's because of me." You hesitate, struggling to find the right words to explain the tangled mess of emotions within you.

Rafe's eyes soften as he takes a seat beside you on the cold pavement. "Y/N, it's not all on you. We both made mistakes." His voice is gentle, carrying the weight of shared history and pain.

A dry laugh escapes your lips as you shake your head. "We should've never been together, Rafe. It was a disaster waiting to happen." The weight of your own words hangs in the air, and you feel a mixture of bitterness and regret.

Rafe winces, the impact of your words hitting him like a sudden blow. His expression transforms into one of genuine sadness, and his eyes reflect the pain he feels. It's as if each word you uttered dug a little deeper, reopening wounds he thought were healing. His gaze, once hopeful, now reflects a mixture of pain and longing, as if he's grappling with the harsh reality of the situation. The sadness in his eyes is palpable, a silent plea for understanding, forgiveness, or perhaps just a glimmer of the connection you once shared.

Rafe's voice carries a gentle sincerity as he responds, "I don't regret being with you, Y/N. It was the most alive I've ever felt." His words hang in the air, laced with a vulnerability that echoes the depth of his emotions. The sincerity in his voice reflects a raw honesty, baring a glimpse into the profound impact your relationship had on him. Despite the hardships, his admission seems to convey a genuine appreciation for the moments you shared, no matter how fleeting or tumultuous they may have been.

Tears glisten in your eyes as you confess with a trembling lip, "You're the only person I've ever been in love with, Rafe." The weight of your words hangs heavy in the air, each syllable carrying the magnitude of your emotions. In that vulnerable moment, you lay bare your heart, expressing a depth of feeling that transcends the pain and turmoil that has defined your recent history. The admission is both a testament to the intensity of your connection with Rafe and a painful acknowledgment of the fractures that have now severed that bond.

Rafe's eyes flicker between your lips and eyes, his expression a mixture of longing and contemplation. The weight of your words hangs in the air, and for a moment, silence envelops you both. Finally, Rafe breaks the quiet with a raw admission, "I still think you were the love of my life, Y/N." His words carry a heaviness, echoing the profound impact you've had on his heart. The vulnerability in his gaze reveals the depth of his emotions, laying bare the scars left by your shared history.

Your voice trembles with vulnerability as you question Rafe, "Why didn't you call?" The ache of unanswered questions and lingering emotions permeates the air, and your eyes search his for an explanation, seeking closure in the midst of the pain.

"I... I felt like I had to let you go," he confesses, his gaze fixed on some distant point. "You wanted a lifestyle that I couldn't give you. I thought I was doing what was best for you, even if it hurt like hell."

You scoff, a mixture of anger and hurt in your voice. "So, what? You just decided I wasn't worth it? That I couldn't handle your world, your problems? Is that what you thought of me, Rafe?"

Rafe's jaw tightens, and he sighs. "No, Y/n, it's not like that. I thought I was doing the right thing for you. I didn't want you to get caught up in the mess I was in."

"You think leaving me alone made me happy, Rafe?" you retort, pulling away from the hug, wiping away your tears. "I needed you, not some grand gesture of 'figuring things out.' You abandoned me, and now you're telling me it's because you thought it would make me happy? That's just a messed-up excuse."

Rafe looks down, unable to meet your gaze. "I know I messed up. I should have communicated better, but I was dealing with my own demons. I thought I was doing what was best for you."

"You don't get to decide what's best for me, Rafe," you say, your voice quivering with a mix of anger and hurt. "And you certainly don't get to come back now acting like you're the hero trying to save the day. It's too late."

Rafe takes a deep breath, his shoulders slumping with the weight of the conversation. "You're right, Y/n. We both messed up, and we were on a destructive path. Maybe we needed this time apart to heal, or else we would've kept hurting each other."

You nod, acknowledging his words but not ready to fully accept them. The wounds are still fresh, and the pain runs deep. "Maybe," you say, your voice softer. "But that doesn't change what happened, Rafe. We can't go back and undo the past."

Your voice trembles as you ask, "Is she the one, then?"

Rafe's eyes search yours, and for a moment, you see a flicker of hesitation. "Sofia… she's different. It's not that simple, Y/n."

Your heart sinks, and you avert your gaze, focusing on the distant waves crashing against the shore nearby. "Different how?"

He takes a moment before responding, choosing his words carefully. "She's been there for me, Y/N. After everything fell apart, after I.. left, she was there. I wasn't in a good place, and she helped me get through some tough times."

The words sting, and you clench your fists, trying to contain the flood of emotions. "So, she's the one now," you state, more as a realization than a question.

Rafe looks torn, conflicted by the complexity of the situation. "I don't know, Y/N. I care about her, but it's not that simple to replace what we had."

The pain is palpable, and you fight back tears. "I see," is all you manage to say, your voice barely above a whisper. The weight of the revelation hangs heavy in the air, and the silence between you stretches on, mirroring the vast expanse of the darkening parking lot.

You wipe your tears with the back of your hand, a mixture of frustration and sadness evident in your eyes. With a deep breath, you manage to steady yourself, brushing off the gravel from your clothes. Looking down at Rafe, you speak, your voice strained, "I'll leave you alone. It's clear you've moved on."

Rafe watches you rise to your feet, a pained expression on his face. "Y/n, it's not that simple. It's complicated, and—"

Cutting him off, you shake your head, not wanting to hear any more explanations. "Save it, Rafe. I can't keep doing this to myself. Do you have any idea how much pain I've been through since you left? I waited for months, hoping against hope that you'd call. But here I am, finding out that you've been busy with somebody else all this time."

Rafe scoffs, his expression a mixture of shock and hurt. He shakes his head, as if trying to dispel the weight of your words. "You think I haven't been hurting?" he retorts, his voice laced with frustration. "This decision wasn't easy for me either, especially after I found out what you did with JJ. I had to live with that."

Anger and hurt surge through you like a storm, and without thinking, you walk up to Rafe. Fueled by a mix of emotions, you shove him, your hands colliding with his chest. "Go to hell, Rafe!" you spit out, your voice a mixture of anger, betrayal, and a touch of lingering pain. The push is both a physical and emotional release, a manifestation of the pent-up frustration and heartache that have consumed you for months. The tears in your eyes threaten to spill over as you turn away, not wanting to witness the aftermath of your outburst.

The doors swing shut behind you, muffling the distant sounds of the restaurant. The cool evening air greets your flushed face as you storm off into the kitchen, leaving behind the remnants of a shattered encounter with Rafe. With swift, determined movements, you rip off your waist apron, the fabric protesting with each forceful tug, and hurl it to the ground.

The metallic clatter echoes in the confines of the kitchen, a sharp punctuation to the emotional turmoil brewing within. The kitchen staff casts furtive glances in your direction, sensing the storm of emotions you carry. As you reach for your tote bag, hands trembling, a bitter taste of tears lingers in your mouth.

Each item you retrieve from your bag feels like a lifeline, a small attempt to regain control in the midst of chaos. The rhythmic thud of your heart matches the intensity of the moment, a stark contrast to the bustling energy of the restaurant beyond those swinging doors.

With your belongings in hand, you take a moment to compose yourself. The cool tiles beneath your feet offer a fleeting sense of grounding, a brief sanctuary before reentering the outside world. The air seems charged with the residual tension of the encounter, a palpable reminder of the fractures that now mar the once-shared history.

The doors open before you, revealing the fading sunlight of the evening. As you step out, the weight of recent emotions clings to you like an invisible cloak. The discarded apron remains on the kitchen floor, a symbolic release from a life that once felt whole. The echoes of your footsteps resonate in tandem with the echoes of a fractured heart.

Rafe remains seated at the table, his posture a carefully crafted facade of nonchalance. He keeps his eyes fixed on the remnants of a meal that now feels like a distant memory, each bite a bitter reminder of the emotional turbulence that unfolded. The subtle clinks of cutlery against plates provide a rhythmic backdrop, a stark contrast to the chaos within.

His friends continue their chatter, oblivious to the storm raging within Rafe. He steals a furtive glance toward the kitchen doors, heart sinking at the realization of the pain he inadvertently caused. The sight of you storming out, shoulders heavy with the weight of unspoken words, lingers in his mind.

An uneasy tension settles in the air, a silent acknowledgment of the fractures in relationships that were once unbreakable. Rafe clutches his drink, the condensation from the glass doing little to quell the warmth spreading through his veins. A pang of regret tightens his chest as he grapples with the aftermath of the encounter.

The night unfolds around him, the ambient noise of the restaurant morphing into a distant hum. Rafe feigns engagement in the conversation, a masterful act to conceal the turmoil beneath the surface. Yet, with each passing moment, the weight of what transpired grows heavier, casting a shadow over the once carefree gathering.

As the evening wears on, Rafe wrestles with the internal conflict, his gaze occasionally drifting toward the kitchen doors, half-expecting you to reappear. The air is thick with the unspoken, a lingering tension that refuses to dissipate. In the midst of the restaurant's buzz, Rafe grapples with the consequences of his choices, uncertain of how to navigate the fractured landscape he finds himself in.

───────────────

The screams echoed in the confined space of your room, a cathartic release for the overwhelming emotions tearing at your insides. Clothes flew haphazardly, a chaotic dance of fabric and frustration. The once neatly organized closet transformed into a disarray of colors and textures, mirroring the chaos within your heart.

Each discarded garment seemed to carry memories, both beautiful and painful. The pile grew as you continued, an unintentional metaphor for the wreckage left in the wake of shattered love. The room bore witness to your unraveling, the air thick with the weight of unspoken words and unshed tears.

The act of tearing through your wardrobe became a physical manifestation of the emotional turmoil. Each discarded piece carried a story – a date night, a shared laugh, a stolen kiss – and with each memory, the pain deepened. The room bore witness to your silent battle, the walls absorbing the echoes of your distress.

As the last piece was added to the growing pile, you sank to the floor, surrounded by the remnants of a life that once felt whole. The room held a solemn stillness, interrupted only by the occasional hiccup of a sob. The disarray mirrored the storm raging within, a tangible representation of a heart in ruins.

Alone in the midst of the wreckage, you clutched at the fabric of a discarded shirt, the material soft against your trembling fingers. The room held the residue of your anguish, a silent witness to the unraveling of a love story.

You were sitting on the edge of your bed, surrounded by the remnants of your emotions scattered across the room. The pain in your chest was suffocating, and the thought of facing Rafe again felt unbearable. As the realization of your turmoil hit, you began to frantically pull your clothes out of the closet, creating a chaotic pile on the floor.

JJ's voice cut through the tumult as he knocked on the door, calling out your name. The concern in his tone made your heart ache even more. Swallowing hard, you wiped away a stray tear and mustered the strength to respond.

"I want to leave the cut, JJ," you admitted, your voice shaky and choked with emotion.

The door creaked open, and JJ stepped into the room. His eyes widened at the sight of your disarrayed belongings and the distress etched across your face. He moved closer, his hand gently resting on your shoulder.

"Leave the cut? Y/n, what do you mean?" JJ's words held a mix of surprise and worry.

You took a trembling breath, attempting to articulate the overwhelming emotions. "I… I can't stay here, JJ. Everything's falling apart, and I can't bear to be around it anymore."

JJ's grip on your shoulder tightened, and he tried to reassure you. "Hey, hey, listen. Leaving the cut isn't the answer. We'll figure this out, okay? You're not alone in this."

Your head shook in despair as fresh tears spilled down your cheeks. "I can't face Rafe, JJ. Not after everything that happened today. It's too much."

JJ sighed, his thumb gently wiping away a tear from your cheek. "You don't have to face it alone, Y/n. We're a team, remember? Let me help you."

Through tear-streaked eyes, you confided in JJ about the pain that seemed to resurface with a vengeance. "I thought I'd be healed by now, JJ. I really did. But seeing Rafe again… it's like everything I felt the day he left came rushing back. I can't escape it, and I can't keep pretending like I'm okay."

JJ's expression softened as he listened, understanding the depth of your struggle. He pulled you into a comforting embrace, offering silent support. "Y/n, healing isn't always linear. It's okay to feel this way, and it's okay to take the time you need. You're not alone in this, and you don't have to carry the weight by yourself."

You rested against JJ, allowing his presence to provide a momentary reprieve from the storm of emotions raging within you. The road to healing was proving to be more challenging than you anticipated, but JJ's unwavering support offered a glimmer of hope in the darkness that surrounded you.

Tears streamed down your face as your head rested on JJ's shoulder. The weight of the pain, the memories, and the recent encounter with Rafe seemed almost unbearable. JJ held you close, offering a silent understanding that went beyond words. In that moment, the vulnerability you shared created a bond, a lifeline in the storm of emotions that threatened to engulf you. Together, in the embrace of a friend, you allowed the tears to flow, releasing some of the pent-up anguish that had been haunting you.

───────────────

Rafe pushed through the restaurant doors, the cool evening air hitting his face. His mind was a whirlwind of conflicting emotions – the encounter with you, the revelation of your pain, and the weight of his own regrets.

As he stepped onto the sidewalk, Sofia's voice reached him, calling out his name. He paused, glancing over his shoulder to find her catching up. Her expression was a mix of curiosity and concern.

"Hey, where are you going in such a hurry?" Sofia asked, her tone light but probing.

Rafe's jaw clenched, and he ran a hand through his hair. "Just need some air. I'll catch up with you later."

Sofia's eyes narrowed slightly, sensing that something was amiss. "Is everything okay? You seem off."

He sighed, attempting a reassuring smile. "It's nothing, really. Just some stuff on my mind. Don't worry about it."

She studied him for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. "Alright, but don't disappear on me, okay? We're supposed to be having a good time."

Rafe managed a nod before turning away, distancing himself from the chaos of the restaurant and the complexities that lingered within. Sofia watched him go, a flicker of concern in her eyes, but Rafe's focus was elsewhere – on the tumultuous emotions echoing in his chest and the haunting memories of the past.

As he walked into the night, he couldn't shake the image of your tear-streaked face from his mind. The pain etched in your eyes cut through him, a stark reminder of the consequences of choices made and the irreversible damage inflicted. Unbeknownst to both Rafe and you, the threads of fate continued to weave intricate patterns, bringing forth challenges, revelations, and the potential for healing.

In the quiet solitude of the night, Rafe found himself wandering aimlessly through the dimly lit streets. Each step felt heavy with the weight of the past, the memories of his time with you, and the recent revelation of your lingering pain. The distant hum of the ocean and the cool breeze offered little solace as he grappled with the turmoil within.

Lost in thought, Rafe's mind replayed the moments of your encounter at the restaurant. The pain in your eyes had struck a chord deep within him, resurrecting emotions he thought he had buried. He couldn't shake the haunting images of you in tears, the hurt evident in every line of your face.

As he walked, Rafe's footsteps led him to a familiar place – the beach. The rhythmic sound of crashing waves greeted him as he approached the shoreline. The moon cast a gentle glow on the water, creating a serene backdrop that contradicted the storm raging within him.

Rafe sank onto the sand, his hands digging into the cool grains beneath him. The weight of regret settled on his shoulders, the reality of the choices he'd made sinking in. The pain in your eyes, the words left unspoken – it all echoed in the stillness of the night.

The sound of footsteps approached from behind, and Rafe turned to find Topper and Kelce walking toward him. They exchanged glances, noting the troubled expression on Rafe's face.

Topper nudged him playfully. "Hey, man, what's eating you? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Rafe forced a half-hearted smile. "Just a lot on my mind, you know?"

Kelce raised an eyebrow. "Trouble in paradise? Sofia seemed pretty concerned back there."

Rafe's jaw tightened, and he clenched his fists in the sand. "It's complicated. Let's not get into it."

Topper and Kelce exchanged knowing glances, realizing that Rafe wasn't in the mood to share. The three of them sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts, the distant murmurs of the ocean providing a somber soundtrack to their contemplations.

After a prolonged pause, Topper spoke up. "Well, whatever it is, you've got us. We're your friends, man."

Rafe nodded, appreciating the sentiment. Despite the camaraderie, the weight of the unresolved emotions lingered. The complexities of the night had only deepened, and Rafe found himself caught in a web of conflicting feelings.

As they sat by the shore, the waves continued their relentless dance, a metaphor for the ebb and flow of the challenges ahead. Little did Rafe know that the night held more revelations and twists, setting the stage for a journey that would test the boundaries of love, forgiveness, and self-discovery.

taglist: @ellesalazar, @champomiel, @vadinaleme, @kys4-20, @gills-lounge, @allsmilesreally7, @sublimepenguinpeach-blog, @sp00ky-spr1te, @bibliophilewednesday, @haroldpotterson, @i-love-rafe, @ellesalazar, @calmoistorm, @abundantxadorations, @fals3-g0d, @gillybear17, @oiiviagrande, @hockeybabe87, @augustlikesdeath, @wpdailyminimeta, @palmwinemami, @loxleys-blog, @ikisscline, @flyestvenustrap, @ilovesteveharrngton, @ijustwanttoreadlols, @fastlovela, @wickedlovely121, @fals3-g0d, @givemylovetoall, @lucfics, @briefwinnerpersonaturtle, @maybankslover, @peachy4u2, @hockeybabe87

246 notes · View notes

antiporn-activist · 1 month

Text

I thought y'all should read this

I have a free trial to News+ so I copy-pasted it for you here. I don't think Jonathan Haidt would object to more people having this info.

Tumblr wouldn't let me post it until i removed all the links to Haidt's sources. You'll have to take my word that everything is sourced.

End the Phone-Based Childhood Now

The environment in which kids grow up today is hostile to human development.

By Jonathan Haidt

Something went suddenly and horribly wrong for adolescents in the early 2010s. By now you’ve likely seen the statistics: Rates of depression and anxiety in the United States—fairly stable in the 2000s—rose by more than 50 percent in many studies from 2010 to 2019. The suicide rate rose 48 percent for adolescents ages 10 to 19. For girls ages 10 to 14, it rose 131 percent.

The problem was not limited to the U.S.: Similar patterns emerged around the same time in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the Nordic countries, and beyond. By a variety of measures and in a variety of countries, the members of Generation Z (born in and after 1996) are suffering from anxiety, depression, self-harm, and related disorders at levels higher than any other generation for which we have data.

The decline in mental health is just one of many signs that something went awry. Loneliness and friendlessness among American teens began to surge around 2012. Academic achievement went down, too. According to “The Nation’s Report Card,” scores in reading and math began to decline for U.S. students after 2012, reversing decades of slow but generally steady increase. PISA, the major international measure of educational trends, shows that declines in math, reading, and science happened globally, also beginning in the early 2010s.

As the oldest members of Gen Z reach their late 20s, their troubles are carrying over into adulthood. Young adults are dating less, having less sex, and showing less interest in ever having children than prior generations. They are more likelyto live with their parents. They were less likely to get jobs as teens, and managers say they are harder to work with. Many of these trends began with earlier generations, but most of them accelerated with Gen Z.

Surveys show that members of Gen Z are shyer and more risk averse than previous generations, too, and risk aversion may make them less ambitious. In an interview last May, OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman and Stripe co-founder Patrick Collison noted that, for the first time since the 1970s, none of Silicon Valley’s preeminent entrepreneurs are under 30. “Something has really gone wrong,” Altman said. In a famously young industry, he was baffled by the sudden absence of great founders in their 20s.

Generations are not monolithic, of course. Many young people are flourishing. Taken as a whole, however, Gen Z is in poor mental health and is lagging behind previous generations on many important metrics. And if a generation is doing poorly––if it is more anxious and depressed and is starting families, careers, and important companies at a substantially lower rate than previous generations––then the sociological and economic consequences will be profound for the entire society.

What happened in the early 2010s that altered adolescent development and worsened mental health? Theories abound, but the fact that similar trends are found in many countries worldwide means that events and trends that are specific to the United States cannot be the main story.

I think the answer can be stated simply, although the underlying psychology is complex: Those were the years when adolescents in rich countries traded in their flip phones for smartphones and moved much more of their social lives online—particularly onto social-media platforms designed for virality and addiction. Once young people began carrying the entire internet in their pockets, available to them day and night, it altered their daily experiences and developmental pathways across the board. Friendship, dating, sexuality, exercise, sleep, academics, politics, family dynamics, identity—all were affected. Life changed rapidly for younger children, too, as they began to get access to their parents’ smartphones and, later, got their own iPads, laptops, and even smartphones during elementary school.

As a social psychologist who has long studied social and moral development, I have been involved in debates about the effects of digital technology for years. Typically, the scientific questions have been framed somewhat narrowly, to make them easier to address with data. For example, do adolescents who consume more social media have higher levels of depression? Does using a smartphone just before bedtime interfere with sleep? The answer to these questions is usually found to be yes, although the size of the relationship is often statistically small, which has led some researchers to conclude that these new technologies are not responsible for the gigantic increases in mental illness that began in the early 2010s.

But before we can evaluate the evidence on any one potential avenue of harm, we need to step back and ask a broader question: What is childhood––including adolescence––and how did it change when smartphones moved to the center of it? If we take a more holistic view of what childhood is and what young children, tweens, and teens need to do to mature into competent adults, the picture becomes much clearer. Smartphone-based life, it turns out, alters or interferes with a great number of developmental processes.

The intrusion of smartphones and social media are not the only changes that have deformed childhood. There’s an important backstory, beginning as long ago as the 1980s, when we started systematically depriving children and adolescents of freedom, unsupervised play, responsibility, and opportunities for risk taking, all of which promote competence, maturity, and mental health. But the change in childhood accelerated in the early 2010s, when an already independence-deprived generation was lured into a new virtual universe that seemed safe to parents but in fact is more dangerous, in many respects, than the physical world.

My claim is that the new phone-based childhood that took shape roughly 12 years ago is making young people sick and blocking their progress to flourishing in adulthood. We need a dramatic cultural correction, and we need it now.

1. The Decline of Play and Independence

Human brains are extraordinarily large compared with those of other primates, and human childhoods are extraordinarily long, too, to give those large brains time to wire up within a particular culture. A child’s brain is already 90 percent of its adult size by about age 6. The next 10 or 15 years are about learning norms and mastering skills—physical, analytical, creative, and social. As children and adolescents seek out experiences and practice a wide variety of behaviors, the synapses and neurons that are used frequently are retained while those that are used less often disappear. Neurons that fire together wire together, as brain researchers say.

Brain development is sometimes said to be “experience-expectant,” because specific parts of the brain show increased plasticity during periods of life when an animal’s brain can “expect” to have certain kinds of experiences. You can see this with baby geese, who will imprint on whatever mother-sized object moves in their vicinity just after they hatch. You can see it with human children, who are able to learn languages quickly and take on the local accent, but only through early puberty; after that, it’s hard to learn a language and sound like a native speaker. There is also some evidence of a sensitive period for cultural learning more generally. Japanese children who spent a few years in California in the 1970s came to feel “American” in their identity and ways of interacting only if they attended American schools for a few years between ages 9 and 15. If they left before age 9, there was no lasting impact. If they didn’t arrive until they were 15, it was too late; they didn’t come to feel American.

Human childhood is an extended cultural apprenticeship with different tasks at different ages all the way through puberty. Once we see it this way, we can identify factors that promote or impede the right kinds of learning at each age. For children of all ages, one of the most powerful drivers of learning is the strong motivation to play. Play is the work of childhood, and all young mammals have the same job: to wire up their brains by playing vigorously and often, practicing the moves and skills they’ll need as adults. Kittens will play-pounce on anything that looks like a mouse tail. Human children will play games such as tag and sharks and minnows, which let them practice both their predator skills and their escaping-from-predator skills. Adolescents will play sports with greater intensity, and will incorporate playfulness into their social interactions—flirting, teasing, and developing inside jokes that bond friends together. Hundreds of studies on young rats, monkeys, and humans show that young mammals want to play, need to play, and end up socially, cognitively, and emotionally impaired when they are deprived of play.

One crucial aspect of play is physical risk taking. Children and adolescents must take risks and fail—often—in environments in which failure is not very costly. This is how they extend their abilities, overcome their fears, learn to estimate risk, and learn to cooperate in order to take on larger challenges later. The ever-present possibility of getting hurt while running around, exploring, play-fighting, or getting into a real conflict with another group adds an element of thrill, and thrilling play appears to be the most effective kind for overcoming childhood anxieties and building social, emotional, and physical competence. The desire for risk and thrill increases in the teen years, when failure might carry more serious consequences. Children of all ages need to choose the risk they are ready for at a given moment. Young people who are deprived of opportunities for risk taking and independent exploration will, on average, develop into more anxious and risk-averse adults.

Human childhood and adolescence evolved outdoors, in a physical world full of dangers and opportunities. Its central activities––play, exploration, and intense socializing––were largely unsupervised by adults, allowing children to make their own choices, resolve their own conflicts, and take care of one another. Shared adventures and shared adversity bound young people together into strong friendship clusters within which they mastered the social dynamics of small groups, which prepared them to master bigger challenges and larger groups later on.

And then we changed childhood.

The changes started slowly in the late 1970s and ’80s, before the arrival of the internet, as many parents in the U.S. grew fearful that their children would be harmed or abducted if left unsupervised. Such crimes have always been extremely rare, but they loomed larger in parents’ minds thanks in part to rising levels of street crime combined with the arrival of cable TV, which enabled round-the-clock coverage of missing-children cases. A general decline in social capital––the degree to which people knew and trusted their neighbors and institutions––exacerbated parental fears. Meanwhile, rising competition for college admissions encouraged more intensive forms of parenting. In the 1990s, American parents began pulling their children indoors or insisting that afternoons be spent in adult-run enrichment activities. Free play, independent exploration, and teen-hangout time declined.

In recent decades, seeing unchaperoned children outdoors has become so novel that when one is spotted in the wild, some adults feel it is their duty to call the police. In 2015, the Pew Research Center found that parents, on average, believed that children should be at least 10 years old to play unsupervised in front of their house, and that kids should be 14 before being allowed to go unsupervised to a public park. Most of these same parents had enjoyed joyous and unsupervised outdoor play by the age of 7 or 8.

2. The Virtual World Arrives in Two Waves

The internet, which now dominates the lives of young people, arrived in two waves of linked technologies. The first one did little harm to Millennials. The second one swallowed Gen Z whole.

The first wave came ashore in the 1990s with the arrival of dial-up internet access, which made personal computers good for something beyond word processing and basic games. By 2003, 55 percent of American households had a computer with (slow) internet access. Rates of adolescent depression, loneliness, and other measures of poor mental health did not rise in this first wave. If anything, they went down a bit. Millennial teens (born 1981 through 1995), who were the first to go through puberty with access to the internet, were psychologically healthier and happier, on average, than their older siblings or parents in Generation X (born 1965 through 1980).

The second wave began to rise in the 2000s, though its full force didn’t hit until the early 2010s. It began rather innocently with the introduction of social-media platforms that helped people connect with their friends. Posting and sharing content became much easier with sites such as Friendster (launched in 2003), Myspace (2003), and Facebook (2004).

Teens embraced social media soon after it came out, but the time they could spend on these sites was limited in those early years because the sites could only be accessed from a computer, often the family computer in the living room. Young people couldn’t access social media (and the rest of the internet) from the school bus, during class time, or while hanging out with friends outdoors. Many teens in the early-to-mid-2000s had cellphones, but these were basic phones (many of them flip phones) that had no internet access. Typing on them was difficult––they had only number keys. Basic phones were tools that helped Millennials meet up with one another in person or talk with each other one-on-one. I have seen no evidence to suggest that basic cellphones harmed the mental health of Millennials.

It was not until the introduction of the iPhone (2007), the App Store (2008), and high-speed internet (which reached 50 percent of American homes in 2007)—and the corresponding pivot to mobile made by many providers of social media, video games, and porn—that it became possible for adolescents to spend nearly every waking moment online. The extraordinary synergy among these innovations was what powered the second technological wave. In 2011, only 23 percent of teens had a smartphone. By 2015, that number had risen to 73 percent, and a quarter of teens said they were online “almost constantly.” Their younger siblings in elementary school didn’t usually have their own smartphones, but after its release in 2010, the iPad quickly became a staple of young children’s daily lives. It was in this brief period, from 2010 to 2015, that childhood in America (and many other countries) was rewired into a form that was more sedentary, solitary, virtual, and incompatible with healthy human development.

3. Techno-optimism and the Birth of the Phone-Based Childhood

The phone-based childhood created by that second wave—including not just smartphones themselves, but all manner of internet-connected devices, such as tablets, laptops, video-game consoles, and smartwatches—arrived near the end of a period of enormous optimism about digital technology. The internet came into our lives in the mid-1990s, soon after the fall of the Soviet Union. By the end of that decade, it was widely thought that the web would be an ally of democracy and a slayer of tyrants. When people are connected to each other, and to all the information in the world, how could any dictator keep them down?

In the 2000s, Silicon Valley and its world-changing inventions were a source of pride and excitement in America. Smart and ambitious young people around the world wanted to move to the West Coast to be part of the digital revolution. Tech-company founders such as Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin were lauded as gods, or at least as modern Prometheans, bringing humans godlike powers. The Arab Spring bloomed in 2011 with the help of decentralized social platforms, including Twitter and Facebook. When pundits and entrepreneurs talked about the power of social media to transform society, it didn’t sound like a dark prophecy.

You have to put yourself back in this heady time to understand why adults acquiesced so readily to the rapid transformation of childhood. Many parents had concerns, even then, about what their children were doing online, especially because of the internet’s ability to put children in contact with strangers. But there was also a lot of excitement about the upsides of this new digital world. If computers and the internet were the vanguards of progress, and if young people––widely referred to as “digital natives”––were going to live their lives entwined with these technologies, then why not give them a head start? I remember how exciting it was to see my 2-year-old son master the touch-and-swipe interface of my first iPhone in 2008. I thought I could see his neurons being woven together faster as a result of the stimulation it brought to his brain, compared to the passivity of watching television or the slowness of building a block tower. I thought I could see his future job prospects improving.

Touchscreen devices were also a godsend for harried parents. Many of us discovered that we could have peace at a restaurant, on a long car trip, or at home while making dinner or replying to emails if we just gave our children what they most wanted: our smartphones and tablets. We saw that everyone else was doing it and figured it must be okay.

It was the same for older children, desperate to join their friends on social-media platforms, where the minimum age to open an account was set by law to 13, even though no research had been done to establish the safety of these products for minors. Because the platforms did nothing (and still do nothing) to verify the stated age of new-account applicants, any 10-year-old could open multiple accounts without parental permission or knowledge, and many did. Facebook and later Instagram became places where many sixth and seventh graders were hanging out and socializing. If parents did find out about these accounts, it was too late. Nobody wanted their child to be isolated and alone, so parents rarely forced their children to shut down their accounts.

We had no idea what we were doing.

4. The High Cost of a Phone-Based Childhood

In Walden, his 1854 reflection on simple living, Henry David Thoreau wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of … life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” It’s an elegant formulation of what economists would later call the opportunity cost of any choice—all of the things you can no longer do with your money and time once you’ve committed them to something else. So it’s important that we grasp just how much of a young person’s day is now taken up by their devices.

The numbers are hard to believe. The most recent Gallup data show that American teens spend about five hours a day just on social-media platforms (including watching videos on TikTok and YouTube). Add in all the other phone- and screen-based activities, and the number rises to somewhere between seven and nine hours a day, on average. The numbers are even higher in single-parent and low-income families, and among Black, Hispanic, and Native American families.

In Thoreau’s terms, how much of life is exchanged for all this screen time? Arguably, most of it. Everything else in an adolescent’s day must get squeezed down or eliminated entirely to make room for the vast amount of content that is consumed, and for the hundreds of “friends,” “followers,” and other network connections that must be serviced with texts, posts, comments, likes, snaps, and direct messages. I recently surveyed my students at NYU, and most of them reported that the very first thing they do when they open their eyes in the morning is check their texts, direct messages, and social-media feeds. It’s also the last thing they do before they close their eyes at night. And it’s a lot of what they do in between.

The amount of time that adolescents spend sleeping declined in the early 2010s, and many studies tie sleep loss directly to the use of devices around bedtime, particularly when they’re used to scroll through social media. Exercise declined, too, which is unfortunate because exercise, like sleep, improves both mental and physical health. Book reading has been declining for decades, pushed aside by digital alternatives, but the decline, like so much else, sped up in the early 2010s. With passive entertainment always available, adolescent minds likely wander less than they used to; contemplation and imagination might be placed on the list of things winnowed down or crowded out.

But perhaps the most devastating cost of the new phone-based childhood was the collapse of time spent interacting with other people face-to-face. A study of how Americans spend their time found that, before 2010, young people (ages 15 to 24) reported spending far more time with their friends (about two hours a day, on average, not counting time together at school) than did older people (who spent just 30 to 60 minutes with friends). Time with friends began decreasing for young people in the 2000s, but the drop accelerated in the 2010s, while it barely changed for older people. By 2019, young people’s time with friends had dropped to just 67 minutes a day. It turns out that Gen Z had been socially distancing for many years and had mostly completed the project by the time COVID-19 struck.

You might question the importance of this decline. After all, isn’t much of this online time spent interacting with friends through texting, social media, and multiplayer video games? Isn’t that just as good?

Some of it surely is, and virtual interactions offer unique benefits too, especially for young people who are geographically or socially isolated. But in general, the virtual world lacks many of the features that make human interactions in the real world nutritious, as we might say, for physical, social, and emotional development. In particular, real-world relationships and social interactions are characterized by four features—typical for hundreds of thousands of years—that online interactions either distort or erase.

First, real-world interactions are embodied, meaning that we use our hands and facial expressions to communicate, and we learn to respond to the body language of others. Virtual interactions, in contrast, mostly rely on language alone. No matter how many emojis are offered as compensation, the elimination of communication channels for which we have eons of evolutionary programming is likely to produce adults who are less comfortable and less skilled at interacting in person.

Second, real-world interactions are synchronous; they happen at the same time. As a result, we learn subtle cues about timing and conversational turn taking. Synchronous interactions make us feel closer to the other person because that’s what getting “in sync” does. Texts, posts, and many other virtual interactions lack synchrony. There is less real laughter, more room for misinterpretation, and more stress after a comment that gets no immediate response.

Third, real-world interactions primarily involve one‐to‐one communication, or sometimes one-to-several. But many virtual communications are broadcast to a potentially huge audience. Online, each person can engage in dozens of asynchronous interactions in parallel, which interferes with the depth achieved in all of them. The sender’s motivations are different, too: With a large audience, one’s reputation is always on the line; an error or poor performance can damage social standing with large numbers of peers. These communications thus tend to be more performative and anxiety-inducing than one-to-one conversations.

Finally, real-world interactions usually take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit, so people are strongly motivated to invest in relationships and repair rifts when they happen. But in many virtual networks, people can easily block others or quit when they are displeased. Relationships within such networks are usually more disposable.

These unsatisfying and anxiety-producing features of life online should be recognizable to most adults. Online interactions can bring out antisocial behavior that people would never display in their offline communities. But if life online takes a toll on adults, just imagine what it does to adolescents in the early years of puberty, when their “experience expectant” brains are rewiring based on feedback from their social interactions.

Kids going through puberty online are likely to experience far more social comparison, self-consciousness, public shaming, and chronic anxiety than adolescents in previous generations, which could potentially set developing brains into a habitual state of defensiveness. The brain contains systems that are specialized for approach (when opportunities beckon) and withdrawal (when threats appear or seem likely). People can be in what we might call “discover mode” or “defend mode” at any moment, but generally not both. The two systems together form a mechanism for quickly adapting to changing conditions, like a thermostat that can activate either a heating system or a cooling system as the temperature fluctuates. Some people’s internal thermostats are generally set to discover mode, and they flip into defend mode only when clear threats arise. These people tend to see the world as full of opportunities. They are happier and less anxious. Other people’s internal thermostats are generally set to defend mode, and they flip into discover mode only when they feel unusually safe. They tend to see the world as full of threats and are more prone to anxiety and depressive disorders.

A simple way to understand the differences between Gen Z and previous generations is that people born in and after 1996 have internal thermostats that were shifted toward defend mode. This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting “safe spaces” and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to “microaggressions” and sometimes claimed that words were “violence.” These trends mystified those of us in older generations at the time, but in hindsight, it all makes sense. Gen Z students found words, ideas, and ambiguous social encounters more threatening than had previous generations of students because we had fundamentally altered their psychological development.

5. So Many Harms

The debate around adolescents’ use of smartphones and social media typically revolves around mental health, and understandably so. But the harms that have resulted from transforming childhood so suddenly and heedlessly go far beyondmental health. I’ve touched on some of them—social awkwardness, reduced self-confidence, and a more sedentary childhood. Here are three additional harms.

Fragmented Attention, Disrupted Learning

Staying on task while sitting at a computer is hard enough for an adult with a fully developed prefrontal cortex. It is far more difficult for adolescents in front of their laptop trying to do homework. They are probably less intrinsically motivated to stay on task. They’re certainly less able, given their undeveloped prefrontal cortex, and hence it’s easy for any company with an app to lure them away with an offer of social validation or entertainment. Their phones are pinging constantly—one study found that the typical adolescent now gets 237 notifications a day, roughly 15 every waking hour. Sustained attention is essential for doing almost anything big, creative, or valuable, yet young people find their attention chopped up into little bits by notifications offering the possibility of high-pleasure, low-effort digital experiences.

It even happens in the classroom. Studies confirm that when students have access to their phones during class time, they use them, especially for texting and checking social media, and their grades and learning suffer. This might explain why benchmark test scores began to decline in the U.S. and around the world in the early 2010s—well before the pandemic hit.

Addiction and Social Withdrawal

The neural basis of behavioral addiction to social media or video games is not exactly the same as chemical addiction to cocaine or opioids. Nonetheless, they all involve abnormally heavy and sustained activation of dopamine neurons and reward pathways. Over time, the brain adapts to these high levels of dopamine; when the child is not engaged in digital activity, their brain doesn’t have enough dopamine, and the child experiences withdrawal symptoms. These generally include anxiety, insomnia, and intense irritability. Kids with these kinds of behavioral addictions often become surly and aggressive, and withdraw from their families into their bedrooms and devices.

Social-media and gaming platforms were designed to hook users. How successful are they? How many kids suffer from digital addictions?

The main addiction risks for boys seem to be video games and porn. “Internet gaming disorder,” which was added to the main diagnosis manual of psychiatry in 2013 as a condition for further study, describes “significant impairment or distress” in several aspects of life, along with many hallmarks of addiction, including an inability to reduce usage despite attempts to do so. Estimates for the prevalence of IGD range from 7 to 15 percent among adolescent boys and young men. As for porn, a nationally representative survey of American adults published in 2019 found that 7 percent of American men agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “I am addicted to pornography”—and the rates were higher for the youngest men.

Girls have much lower rates of addiction to video games and porn, but they use social media more intensely than boys do. A study of teens in 29 nations found that between 5 and 15 percent of adolescents engage in what is called “problematic social media use,” which includes symptoms such as preoccupation, withdrawal symptoms, neglect of other areas of life, and lying to parents and friends about time spent on social media. That study did not break down results by gender, but many others have found that rates of “problematic use” are higher for girls.

I don’t want to overstate the risks: Most teens do not become addicted to their phones and video games. But across multiple studies and across genders, rates of problematic use come out in the ballpark of 5 to 15 percent. Is there any other consumer product that parents would let their children use relatively freely if they knew that something like one in 10 kids would end up with a pattern of habitual and compulsive use that disrupted various domains of life and looked a lot like an addiction?

The Decay of Wisdom and the Loss of Meaning

During that crucial sensitive period for cultural learning, from roughly ages 9 through 15, we should be especially thoughtful about who is socializing our children for adulthood. Instead, that’s when most kids get their first smartphone and sign themselves up (with or without parental permission) to consume rivers of content from random strangers. Much of that content is produced by other adolescents, in blocks of a few minutes or a few seconds.

This rerouting of enculturating content has created a generation that is largely cut off from older generations and, to some extent, from the accumulated wisdom of humankind, including knowledge about how to live a flourishing life. Adolescents spend less time steeped in their local or national culture. They are coming of age in a confusing, placeless, ahistorical maelstrom of 30-second stories curated by algorithms designed to mesmerize them. Without solid knowledge of the past and the filtering of good ideas from bad––a process that plays out over many generations––young people will be more prone to believe whatever terrible ideas become popular around them, which might explain why videos showing young people reacting positively to Osama bin Laden’s thoughts about America were trending on TikTok last fall.

All this is made worse by the fact that so much of digital public life is an unending supply of micro dramas about somebody somewhere in our country of 340 million people who did something that can fuel an outrage cycle, only to be pushed aside by the next. It doesn’t add up to anything and leaves behind only a distorted sense of human nature and affairs.

When our public life becomes fragmented, ephemeral, and incomprehensible, it is a recipe for anomie, or normlessness. The great French sociologist Émile Durkheim showed long ago that a society that fails to bind its people together with some shared sense of sacredness and common respect for rules and norms is not a society of great individual freedom; it is, rather, a place where disoriented individuals have difficulty setting goals and exerting themselves to achieve them. Durkheim argued that anomie was a major driver of suicide rates in European countries. Modern scholars continue to draw on his work to understand suicide rates today.

Durkheim’s observations are crucial for understanding what happened in the early 2010s. A long-running survey of American teens found that, from 1990 to 2010, high-school seniors became slightly less likely to agree with statements such as “Life often feels meaningless.” But as soon as they adopted a phone-based life and many began to live in the whirlpool of social media, where no stability can be found, every measure of despair increased. From 2010 to 2019, the number who agreed that their lives felt “meaningless” increased by about 70 percent, to more than one in five.

6. Young People Don’t Like Their Phone-Based Lives

How can I be confident that the epidemic of adolescent mental illness was kicked off by the arrival of the phone-based childhood? Skeptics point to other events as possible culprits, including the 2008 global financial crisis, global warming, the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting and the subsequent active-shooter drills, rising academic pressures, and the opioid epidemic. But while these events might have been contributing factors in some countries, none can explain both the timing and international scope of the disaster.

An additional source of evidence comes from Gen Z itself. With all the talk of regulating social media, raising age limits, and getting phones out of schools, you might expect to find many members of Gen Z writing and speaking out in opposition. I’ve looked for such arguments and found hardly any. In contrast, many young adults tell stories of devastation.

Freya India, a 24-year-old British essayist who writes about girls, explains how social-media sites carry girls off to unhealthy places: “It seems like your child is simply watching some makeup tutorials, following some mental health influencers, or experimenting with their identity. But let me tell you: they are on a conveyor belt to someplace bad. Whatever insecurity or vulnerability they are struggling with, they will be pushed further and further into it.” She continues:

Gen Z were the guinea pigs in this uncontrolled global social experiment. We were the first to have our vulnerabilities and insecurities fed into a machine that magnified and refracted them back at us, all the time, before we had any sense of who we were. We didn’t just grow up with algorithms. They raised us. They rearranged our faces. Shaped our identities. Convinced us we were sick.

Rikki Schlott, a 23-year-old American journalist and co-author of The Canceling of the American Mind, writes,

"The day-to-day life of a typical teen or tween today would be unrecognizable to someone who came of age before the smartphone arrived. Zoomers are spending an average of 9 hours daily in this screen-time doom loop—desperate to forget the gaping holes they’re bleeding out of, even if just for … 9 hours a day. Uncomfortable silence could be time to ponder why they’re so miserable in the first place. Drowning it out with algorithmic white noise is far easier."

A 27-year-old man who spent his adolescent years addicted (his word) to video games and pornography sent me this reflection on what that did to him:

I missed out on a lot of stuff in life—a lot of socialization. I feel the effects now: meeting new people, talking to people. I feel that my interactions are not as smooth and fluid as I want. My knowledge of the world (geography, politics, etc.) is lacking. I didn’t spend time having conversations or learning about sports. I often feel like a hollow operating system.

Or consider what Facebook found in a research project involving focus groups of young people, revealed in 2021 by the whistleblower Frances Haugen: “Teens blame Instagram for increases in the rates of anxiety and depression among teens,” an internal document said. “This reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups.”

7. Collective-Action Problems

Social-media companies such as Meta, TikTok, and Snap are often compared to tobacco companies, but that’s not really fair to the tobacco industry. It’s true that companies in both industries marketed harmful products to children and tweaked their products for maximum customer retention (that is, addiction), but there’s a big difference: Teens could and did choose, in large numbers, not to smoke. Even at the peak of teen cigarette use, in 1997, nearly two-thirds of high-school students did not smoke.

Social media, in contrast, applies a lot more pressure on nonusers, at a much younger age and in a more insidious way. Once a few students in any middle school lie about their age and open accounts at age 11 or 12, they start posting photos and comments about themselves and other students. Drama ensues. The pressure on everyone else to join becomes intense. Even a girl who knows, consciously, that Instagram can foster beauty obsession, anxiety, and eating disorders might sooner take those risks than accept the seeming certainty of being out of the loop, clueless, and excluded. And indeed, if she resists while most of her classmates do not, she might, in fact, be marginalized, which puts her at risk for anxiety and depression, though via a different pathway than the one taken by those who use social media heavily. In this way, social media accomplishes a remarkable feat: It even harms adolescents who do not use it.

A recent study led by the University of Chicago economist Leonardo Bursztyn captured the dynamics of the social-media trap precisely. The researchers recruited more than 1,000 college students and asked them how much they’d need to be paid to deactivate their accounts on either Instagram or TikTok for four weeks. That’s a standard economist’s question to try to compute the net value of a product to society. On average, students said they’d need to be paid roughly $50 ($59 for TikTok, $47 for Instagram) to deactivate whichever platform they were asked about. Then the experimenters told the students that they were going to try to get most of the others in their school to deactivate that same platform, offering to pay them to do so as well, and asked, Now how much would you have to be paid to deactivate, if most others did so? The answer, on average, was less than zero. In each case, most students were willing to pay to have that happen.

Social media is all about network effects. Most students are only on it because everyone else is too. Most of them would prefer that nobody be on these platforms. Later in the study, students were asked directly, “Would you prefer to live in a world without Instagram [or TikTok]?” A majority of students said yes––58 percent for each app.

This is the textbook definition of what social scientists call a collective-action problem. It’s what happens when a group would be better off if everyone in the group took a particular action, but each actor is deterred from acting, because unless the others do the same, the personal cost outweighs the benefit. Fishermen considering limiting their catch to avoid wiping out the local fish population are caught in this same kind of trap. If no one else does it too, they just lose profit.

Cigarettes trapped individual smokers with a biological addiction. Social media has trapped an entire generation in a collective-action problem. Early app developers deliberately and knowingly exploited the psychological weaknesses and insecurities of young people to pressure them to consume a product that, upon reflection, many wish they could use less, or not at all.

8. Four Norms to Break Four Traps

Young people and their parents are stuck in at least four collective-action traps. Each is hard to escape for an individual family, but escape becomes much easier if families, schools, and communities coordinate and act together. Here are four norms that would roll back the phone-based childhood. I believe that any community that adopts all four will see substantial improvements in youth mental health within two years.

No smartphones before high school

The trap here is that each child thinks they need a smartphone because “everyone else” has one, and many parents give in because they don’t want their child to feel excluded. But if no one else had a smartphone—or even if, say, only half of the child’s sixth-grade class had one—parents would feel more comfortable providing a basic flip phone (or no phone at all). Delaying round-the-clock internet access until ninth grade (around age 14) as a national or community norm would help to protect adolescents during the very vulnerable first few years of puberty. According to a 2022 British study, these are the years when social-media use is most correlated with poor mental health. Family policies about tablets, laptops, and video-game consoles should be aligned with smartphone restrictions to prevent overuse of other screen activities.

No social media before 16

The trap here, as with smartphones, is that each adolescent feels a strong need to open accounts on TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and other platforms primarily because that’s where most of their peers are posting and gossiping. But if the majority of adolescents were not on these accounts until they were 16, families and adolescents could more easily resist the pressure to sign up. The delay would not mean that kids younger than 16 could never watch videos on TikTok or YouTube—only that they could not open accounts, give away their data, post their own content, and let algorithms get to know them and their preferences.

Phone‐free schools

Most schools claim that they ban phones, but this usually just means that students aren’t supposed to take their phone out of their pocket during class. Research shows that most students do use their phones during class time. They also use them during lunchtime, free periods, and breaks between classes––times when students could and should be interacting with their classmates face-to-face. The only way to get students’ minds off their phones during the school day is to require all students to put their phones (and other devices that can send or receive texts) into a phone locker or locked pouch at the start of the day. Schools that have gone phone-free always seem to report that it has improved the culture, making students more attentive in class and more interactive with one another. Published studies back them up.

More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world

Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed when they were young, even though rates of homicide, drunk driving, and other physical threats to children are way down in recent decades. Part of the fear comes from the fact that parents look at each other to determine what is normal and therefore safe, and they see few examples of families acting as if a 9-year-old can be trusted to walk to a store without a chaperone. But if many parents started sending their children out to play or run errands, then the norms of what is safe and accepted would change quickly. So would ideas about what constitutes “good parenting.” And if more parents trusted their children with more responsibility––for example, by asking their kids to do more to help out, or to care for others––then the pervasive sense of uselessness now found in surveys of high-school students might begin to dissipate.

It would be a mistake to overlook this fourth norm. If parents don’t replace screen time with real-world experiences involving friends and independent activity, then banning devices will feel like deprivation, not the opening up of a world of opportunities.

The main reason why the phone-based childhood is so harmful is because it pushes aside everything else. Smartphones are experience blockers. Our ultimate goal should not be to remove screens entirely, nor should it be to return childhood to exactly the way it was in 1960. Rather, it should be to create a version of childhood and adolescence that keeps young people anchored in the real world while flourishing in the digital age.

9. What Are We Waiting For?

An essential function of government is to solve collective-action problems. Congress could solve or help solve the ones I’ve highlighted—for instance, by raising the age of “internet adulthood” to 16 and requiring tech companies to keep underage children off their sites.

In recent decades, however, Congress has not been good at addressing public concerns when the solutions would displease a powerful and deep-pocketed industry. Governors and state legislators have been much more effective, and their successes might let us evaluate how well various reforms work. But the bottom line is that to change norms, we’re going to need to do most of the work ourselves, in neighborhood groups, schools, and other communities.

There are now hundreds of organizations––most of them started by mothers who saw what smartphones had done to their children––that are working to roll back the phone-based childhood or promote a more independent, real-world childhood. (I have assembled a list of many of them.) One that I co-founded, at LetGrow.org, suggests a variety of simple programs for parents or schools, such as play club (schools keep the playground open at least one day a week before or after school, and kids sign up for phone-free, mixed-age, unstructured play as a regular weekly activity) and the Let Grow Experience (a series of homework assignments in which students––with their parents’ consent––choose something to do on their own that they’ve never done before, such as walk the dog, climb a tree, walk to a store, or cook dinner).

Parents are fed up with what childhood has become. Many are tired of having daily arguments about technologies that were designed to grab hold of their children’s attention and not let go. But the phone-based childhood is not inevitable.

The four norms I have proposed cost almost nothing to implement, they cause no clear harm to anyone, and while they could be supported by new legislation, they can be instilled even without it. We can begin implementing all of them right away, this year, especially in communities with good cooperation between schools and parents. A single memo from a principal asking parents to delay smartphones and social media, in support of the school’s effort to improve mental health by going phone free, would catalyze collective action and reset the community’s norms.

We didn’t know what we were doing in the early 2010s. Now we do. It’s time to end the phone-based childhood.

This article is adapted from Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

#phones are bad #childhood

114 notes · View notes

pureastrologywisdom · 1 year

Text

12𝔱𝔥 ℌ𝔬𝔲𝔰𝔢 𝔖𝔶𝔫𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔶

12th house synastry can be viewed as scary. Often we are told bad things about the 12th house in our own charts or synastry. I always like to start off by saying that this is a part of out chart that runs very deep, this is not an area that deals with surface level matters in relationships. As we know the connection differs depending on what planets are going into the 12th house and which sign rules over the persons 12th house.

This is a house where you can avoid each other, or maybe one does. If both people aren’t awake to this 12th house energy and connection it can scare them. They may not fully understand it and this leads them to avoid it. However they will find its not just as easy as ignoring it because once it’s there it won’t go away, they will feel it for a very long time. It may feel as if once they run away it is out of sight out of mind, but it will creep back in once they least expect it. This is a connection where all of a sudden it can just click for someone, they can have an epiphany where they realise how important this other person is to them. This is the type of connection that stays with you, it feels as if it is rooted deep within you and nothing can fully purge these feeling from you. And nothing can dig as deep in comparison.

There can be this pattern of one or both people feeling as if they aren’t ready in some way, especially when it comes to the vulnerability of this connection. Often it feels as if the planet person has direct contact with the most hidden and sensitive parts of the 12th house person, like they quite literally have a grip on their soul. This can create a a feeling of exposure for the 12th house person, it can make them feel powerless which can cause them to fight this connection between them. The irony is that most of the time the planet persons intentions are pure. They have a care for the 12th house person and often have this desire to help them. ( thought this is not 100% of the time, once again this goes back to the question of how developed is this person?)

Thus house, in my opinion, holds some of the best yet the worst synastry there is. It’s not easy, however the profound connection that is found here is so beautiful. There are a few factors that will determine if two people with this placement will thrive or die a hard death. If there are more stable placement within their synastry this will help this. Also ,as I am always saying, it is really dependant on the two individuals in this connection. How developed are they? This is the key to their relationship succeeding.

The 12th house in synastry rules over that spiritual kind of connection. It is the key to that mind, body AND spirit type of love or relationship. It can feel as if there is something there that you cant put your finger on. You can’t quite understand or figure out why you feel the way you do for this person because it is unexplainable. This is one where you can show each other things about each other that you weren’t aware of. This can be painful sometimes as it can reveal past wounds. It can also make both people involved more spiritually in tune with themselves and can be a trigger for a lot of growth within the individuals, even if this is painful sometimes.

I have also noticed how this connection between two people has a feel of ‘no matter how far or distant I am I am always with you’. It is as if you have this invisible bond that tethers you together , sometimes for life, even if you aren’t actively in each others lives at certain points. This can be such a pure and potent form of love between two people. If they find themselves at the right place and time in their lives/ development. If both can put away their egos and surrender to the vulnerability they will be rewarded with a connection that can heal and enlighten them.

credit - pureastrologywisdom

#astrology blog #astro notes #astrology #love astrology #synastry astrology #astro observations #12th house #12th house synastry

640 notes · View notes

marquezian · 4 days

Text

u guys dovis biography is just an ode to his friends and what it means to experience life together in a community 😔

"the joys of returning home again and again" "i would feel more comfortable wearing a suit if there was mud on the starched shirt" "i wish motogp was about connection" "my friends, partner and daughter are a triangle of serenity" "friends are the mirror i look into to feel normal again" "i find even my relationship with my mom is affected by my fame, which is embarrassing" "life is for the time we spend together and going grocery shopping for the meals we cook" (<- this one got me so bad bc ive noticed he Loves doing that but i thought i was reading into itttt) "what would I have become if I surrounded myself with a court of jesters who are always telling me how good and handsome i am". says that the social atmosphere of the paddock is a "mine field". "starting from universes apart, we found ourselves here [note: being motogp riders together], different but similar: shall we talk about it? listen to each other? exchange experiences?"

mentions he doesn't consider any of the other riders his friends (which he regrets! hed like that connection) but then specifically talks about marc and how what they have is also special (profound is the adjective he uses) because its a relationship you can only have with another athlete. even compares marc to his dad (huge compliment)

SAYS SOMETHING SOOOO INSANE ABOUT HIM HERE first of all this paragraph starts with "A me Marc piace. E i nostri famosi duelli del 2017 li ho interpretati anche come un modo per conoscerci meglio." ("I like Marc. And I interpreted our famous duels in 2017 as a way of getting to know each other better.") and then THIS:

the following may contain inaccuracies: "Deep down, however, he isn't crazy either, although he tries two maneuvers [on their last lap battle in Austria 2017!] that are neither in heaven nor on earth. Theoretically, and even practically, they have no logic. Yet I don't get pissed off, [unsure what this says]. I'm rather surprised to see what he tried to do to win, a kind of "I don't believe it," an astonished curiosity at how he tried to go into unfamiliar terrain where, as a consequence, I followed. It's amazing. As if together we had dug the new seam of a mine: the gold we won't share, of course, because I will take it, however, we dig the earth together as if we were pioneers. And that can't help but create a bond, whatever it may be."

(source is his autobio "Asfalto" for all of this!)

#the way u can translate una figata to german very easily but to english ? nuh uh #i really like him :(#i think hed hate getting posted about so much which maybe i should stop doing lol !#this is all just from a couple pages.... might do a part 2 if people want!!#andrea dovizioso #ad #mm #*#text #asfalto

56 notes · View notes

mewpangxin · 8 months

Text

⊹˚ Loneliness ࿐

FT. Malleus Draconia X GN! Reader.

( TW: Angst — It's Malleus suffering hours! )

“Is there a point to be a king if I'm unwanted? What use is my power if it's not for you?”

─── ‎♪ 𓈒𓂃꙳･ ꪔ̤̥ ‎♪ 𓈒𓂃꙳ ───

𓆸 AND WHAT COMES to one's head when you say his name? Would it be the congeniality? Liveliness? He believes not, it's horror that strikes their beings.

Perhaps he was destined to linger like this.

And he did until you tumbled into him that is.

You were a bearer of a plethora of aliases by them.

A magicless student.

A beast tamer.

An enigma.

You were well-known in the beginning because of the absurdity your crew did. Malleus was worried for you, why are you always in risky situations as these?

He grew accustomed to being with you.

His mind revolves around what you say, your capabilities and your thoughts about his character.

Malleus treasures you.. he understands this.

However, he could not confess even if you may be viewing him in the same way as how he sees you.

That's what this means to be a prince.

You don't know how much it anguished him for it.

To love in which he has no right to have.

•━━━━༻❝ 🐉 ❞༺ ━━━━•

Lilia helps him with his skills in culinary.

Malleus turns that down and went away.

He was appreciative.. since he doesn't have the appetite, the housewarden gloomily walked out.

A wise decision.

•━━━━༻❝ 🐉 ❞༺ ━━━━•

He thought of scenarios about this.. what if you choose Twisted Wonderland? What if you like him?

Would he be able to give up being an heir?

To forgone— everyone and it all for you?

The answer to this was unputdownable.

Because he does not understand how he'll select.

And will you call him as yours?

Malleus can dream about those illusions of his.

Not that it can ever be a reality.

“Hoho~ What could be troubling you?”

The older fae swooshed in from a tree branch above, his vice head had that cheery grin radiating to him.

“It's nothing. I am strolling here as per usual.”

“Drop that, you are thinking about that person, aren't you, hm? Why the solemnity and no less by you?”

The housewarden of Disasomnia wished Lilia was not as discerning, though he was a general before. Why wouldn't he be witty or profound than Malleus?

“.. Something in me said that I should whisk them away from here and take them to a faraway...”

The taller male admits his deplorable behavior.

“I could make that true for you.”

Who was Lilia to go against his words?

“Humans wouldn't be okay with it.”

Malleus spoke as he halted before Lilia persisted.

“Child, when were we heroes in these stories? If you don't do anything to it, you'll hurt yourself.”

Is that it? The dorm leader carped at this.

“I care for them, so I will not..”

And in his, it rung out pyrrhic and empty to himself.

“You'll torment yourself, Malleus.”

And you'll be saddened after it— was unsaid.

“Then so be it.”

It came out as he gazed the horizon, cloudless nights with moonlight shining through. It seems he was a blank canvas, he was doomed to be by himself.

The protector did not look frisky with him.

His poignancy will be worth your smile, it has to be.

#twisted wonderland #malleus draconia x reader #twst x you #twst x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland x you #twst imagines #twst prompts #twst malleus x reader #disney twisted wonderland #twst headcanons #twst scenarios #disney twst #gender neutral reader

198 notes · View notes

hrefna-the-raven · 6 months

Text

Web of faith

Masterlist- BG3 masterlist

Chapters: 1 - 2 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7

Words: 790

Chapter 3

"Oh you're serious?", you exclaimed in surprise, brushing a strand of Kar'niss' white hair behind his ears.

"Yes", he murmured, feeling a blush creeping up his cheeks.

He wasn't totally completely oblivious of the little daily life gadgets that were used but some of them were not as common in the noble district, just like that small lantern you always brought to your secret sanctuary.

"Well it's just an ordinary lantern, my beloved", you giggled, holding it up for him to see.

"But it glows like the moon."

The warmth of his smile and the innocent wonder in his eyes never failed to melt your heart.

"Silly Niss, you've never seen the moon."

"I may not have seen it, but I still know about it," he replied, rolling his eyes playfully as if offended by your comment, "besides I find its light almost as beautiful as you, my tiny beloved", he chuckled, pulling you into a tight hug.

You had strongly advised your companions against journeying through the depths of the Underdark to reach the shadow-cursed lands, sparking many heated debates. They all acknowledged that taking that route would have been quicker and easier, considering your extensive knowledge of the alternative paths and its inhabitants, but you adamantly refused. Each and every aspect of the Underdark served as a painful reminder of the profound loss you had endured - the day your beloved, the one who still held your heart, failed Lolth's test and perished. Deep within, a small part of you clung to a glimmer of hope, perhaps unaware of the concealed truth behind that fateful trial. However, your mind implored you to bury that hope, recognizing it as treacherous, for its revelation could inflict even greater anguish than the mere contemplation of his death. It took you a considerable amount of time to develop enough trust in your companions to share the heartbreaking tale of your past. However, it brought solace to your heart when they eventually grasped the magnitude of your pain. With their understanding, you embarked on the journey through the mountain pass. It took an unnatural amount of climbing, an unexpected travel to the astral plane, where you finally met your dream visitor only to defy a githyanki queen, whom you barely escaped with your life and the long rumbling abd mumbling of a legendary wizard. Now, as you finally sat here by the campfire, fixating on the dancing flames, you struggled to suppress the overwhelming sense of dread that lurked just down the path. The shadow-cursed lands, a corrupted place inundated with necrotic energy and harmful to any living being that passed within.

Kar'niss bowed before Ketheric Throm in the throne hall, graciously accepting the bestowed moon lantern from the chosen's outstretched hand.

"You will be the light of the Absolute and guide her True Souls and faithful to this safe haven", the general's words reverberated throughout the hall as he addressed the drider, "your task shall start tomorrow. For now, you're free to spend the rest of your time in the chamber you chose."

"We have our queen's favour. She speaks to us. Protects us. Graces us with her blessing. We bring more to her church every day", Kar'niss murmured with an almost zealous fervour, tightening his grip around the lantern, "we live to serve our Queen."

With a dismissive gesture from Ketheric, the drider turned and made his way towards the upper levels of the tower. A strangely familiar warmth enveloped his thoughts as his gaze fixated on the lantern, holding it up with one hand, bathing in its gentle glow. An almost innocent giggle escaped his lips.

"We are silly, yes my Queen, but we do know the moon, we have seen it now and you graces us with your blessing."

Climbing up the walls of the library's top floor, he squeezed his way through a gap in the ceiling. Kar'niss carefully laid a soft woollen blanket on the dusty attic floor, propping the moon lantern against a wooden beam before settling down. This was his new home, his small sanctuary, in close proximity to his beloved new queen, where he could hear her speak only to him, the place he'd finally found purpose and worth. With a contented sigh, he reached for a small silver ring adorned with diamonds, which he had previously placed in this space. As he held the ring, something deep within him stirred, as if a faint echo from the past beckoned him to keep it. The true significance of the ring was lost within his fragmented mind, a hazy fragment of a memory whispering to him. Though not as loud as his queen's voice, it persisted with an alluring beauty he was drawn to and felt almost treasonous towards the Absolute.

#baldur’s gate 3 #bg3 #kar'niss #karniss #bg3 kar'niss #kar'niss x reader #kar'niss x you

77 notes · View notes

thewinterpillarhashira · 4 months

Text

a gift?

spring. the season she bought something just for her.

on the day following her return from a mission, riri discovers eva in a state of solitude beneath a blossoming sakura tree.

however, the winter pillar seems to have been searching for the glacier pillar. why is that?

an akari fuyutsuki x eva himeko oneshot.

// eva himeko rightfully belongs to my beloved, @muitsuri!

spring, when the world bursts forth with life.

spring, where a symphony of delicate miracles unfolds.

spring, a season when verdant tendrils awaken from their slumber, where the gentle touch of the sun's caress breathes vitality into every corner of the earth.

amidst this exquisite tapestry of rejuvenation, beneath the boughs of a resplendent sakura tree, a lovely lady found herself caught in a momentary enchantment.

her graceful figure, adorned in hues of soft pastels, became the focal point of a whimsical dance. with closed eyes, her lashes fluttered like the wings of dainty butterflies, lending an air of ethereal serenity to her gorgeous countenance.

the fragrance of blooming flowers enveloped her, infusing the air with a sweet intoxication that stirred her senses.

the sakura petals swirled around her with a grace befitting a ballet, encircling her form in a delicate waltz. each petal, kissed by the gentle breeze, pirouetted and twirled in harmonious synchrony, their ephemeral beauty mirroring the ephemeral nature of this captivating season.

the cherry tree stood tall and proud, its branches reaching towards the heavens as if yearning to touch the cerulean canvas above. and beneath its protective canopy, the glacier hashira found peace, a sanctuary where her thoughts could wander amidst the petals' tender embrace.

her delicate lids fluttered open, anticipation filling her being.

yet, instead of being greeted by the expected rosy vista, her irises were met with a mesmerizing azure expanse that halted her tranquility in its tracks.

the chestnut-tressed maiden could practically hear her heart cease its rhythmic dance, only to resume with a frantic tempo as she realized that those majestic blue irises belonged to none other than the winter pillar. the hashira, with a mere tilt of her head, seemed unperturbed by their proximity, as if she had initiated this encounter herself—which was most likely.

silence enveloped the pair, stretching into an eternity, as they locked gazes, delving deep into the depths of each other's souls. the weight of unspoken words hung heavy in the air, a testament to the profound connection that existed between them. and then, like a soothing melody, a familiar voice, flat yet mellow, graced the ears of the flustered maiden.

"and here I thought you wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.”

as the pillar’s words lingered in the air, akari finally leaned back, causing a tumultuous storm of emotions to surge within the latter’s heart—a mix of both fortune and dismay.

though the azure-eyed maiden's words may have carried a hint of sarcasm, eva understood that they held a genuine sentiment, devoid of mockery, but rather a straightforward observation.

"i wasn’t actually asleep, you know..."

the glacier pillar felt a surge of gratitude as her words flowed forth without a single stutter. however, her tone remained meek, leaving her uncertain if they were even heard, or if they simply dissolved into the ether.

naturally, the latter heard her—akari unconsciously exerted more effort whenever it involved eva, after all.

however, to her surprise, akari; though renowned for her analytical disposition, found herself unexpectedly taken aback, her eyebrows arching being the sole giveaway to her genuine astonishment.

"you weren't?"

a hint of perplexity laced the winter pillar’s voice as she raised a hand to her chin, her head tilting slightly as she hummed in thoughtful contemplation. "strange. everything about you seemed to suggest otherwise, but i suppose i was mistaken."

“eh?"

eva, in turn, tilted her head slightly, her expression a mix of confusion and curiosity. did it have something to do with her appearance? had something changed? or perhaps it was due to the winter pillar’s unique perception of auras? so many questions stirred within her, yet remained unspoken—

"if you appeared so serene with only your eyes closed," akari continued, her words laced with a touch of intrigue. "i can only imagine how much more captivating it would be when you are truly asleep."

oh…

was that meant to be a compliment? the heat of embarrassment crept up eva’s pretty face, coloring it with a rosy hue.

normally, she would be quite talkative around the winter pillar, but in this moment, she found herself rendered speechless. her mouth parted slightly, but the words she longed to utter seemed to elude her, trapped in the depths of her being.

as the hashira settled into a more relaxed position, abandoning her previous crouch in front of eva, the glacier pillar struggled to regain her composure. the contrast between her disheveled state and the seemingly unfazed composure of the lady before her was evidently striking.

yet, as if fate had finally decided to show her mercy, eva’s eyes caught a glimmer of light reflecting off what appeared to be a snowflake-shaped object in the winter pilar’s free hand. upon closer examination, it became clear that it was a hairpin.

an idea sparked in the sable-head’s mind, causing her to perk up. "how beautiful! do you need help with that? i can assist you in putting it in your hair—“

"what? no."

the cobalt-head’s sudden interruption caused the radiant smile on eva’s face to freeze. a wave of uncertainty washed over her, as if she had committed a grave mistake. akari’s deadpan expression translated into a look of incredulity through eva’s eyes, igniting a spark of panic within her.

"sorry, that must’ve been weird of me to ask..”

"what?..no it isn’t. i only declined because this hairpin isn't for me."

the glacier pillar paused, finding herself confused for the second time within such a short span. if not for herself, then for whom?

was akari planning to give it to someone else?

the thought sent a pang of pain through eva’s heart, and her feeble attempts to conceal her expression of sorrow proved to be futile.

yet, in the fleeting instant that ensued, akari’s next words swiftly dissipated all of her concerns, replacing them with a comforting sensation that enveloped her like a cozy embrace, leaving her head swirling with warmth and delight.

"i saw this earlier and...” lost in wonder, she absentmindedly, yet carefully toyed with the object, her voice trailing off. extending it towards the bewildered maiden in front of her, she resumed, "it’s for you. i saw it earlier, and thought of you."

in response, eva’s stunning eyes widened. "m-me?" she stammered, a mix of disbelief and bashfulness evident in her voice, along with a profound sense of gratitude.

trembling slightly, eva reached out, her fingertips gently brushing against the hairpin, treating it as if it were an exquisitely delicate treasure. "this is for...me?" she repeated, as if struggling to grasp the reality of the situation.

akari simply nodded. in contrast, her features still withheld any hint of her internal musings. "yes, for you."

"just for you."

at the lack of typically verbal responses, her head tilted slightly as she arched a brow, "is it not to your liking?—“

"that’s not it!!"

the glacier pillar swiftly interjected, shaking her head vigorously, causing the winter pillar to worry that she might become dizzy.

“huh?..”

“the contrary, actually..” releasing a heartfelt sigh, eva shifted her gaze, tenderly looking at the gift she had just received, a loving smile gracing her lips. "i like it, a lot.” she confessed.

she turned her gaze back to akari, her smile softening even further. "i love it, actually.” she whispered.

her eyes fluttered shut, forming a closed-eyed smile that gradually transformed into a cheerful grin as her head swayed slightly to the right, reminiscent of a joyful dance.

as the diaphanous breeze danced through the air, its celestial touch gracefully tousled eva’s lustrous locks as the sun joined in this symphony of beauty, casting its golden rays upon her countenance, illuminating her features with a resplendent radiance. her smile, a beacon of joy, radiated a warmth that had akari mesmerized, rendering her unable to divert her gaze from the majestic sight before her.

"you really are pretty.”

in response, a rosy blush bloomed across eva’s cheeks, the flush of warmth coloring her delicate visage.

she lowered her gaze, her fingers tenderly tracing the contours of the precious object she held—a reflection of the tender emotions that stirred within her. the subtle intensity of her feelings ignited a longing within her soul, a yearning for more moments such as these.

a gentle sigh escaped the hashira’s lips, a melody of mingled pleasure and vulnerability. "you.." she murmured, her words laced with a hint of playful defiance, "you should really stop with those out-of-nowhere compliments." she pouted, her eyes gracefully closing as she sought refuge in the solace of darkness, a brief respite to regain her composure. though she cherished the accolades bestowed upon her, a lingering fear whispered in her thoughts, warning of the perilous bewitch of such sweet words.

it just might be the cause of her death someday. the extravagancy of the thought nagged at the glacier pillar’s mind, causing her to let out a modest chuckle that merely fueled the winter pillar’s confusion.

wasn’t she simply stating the truth? that was the only fact reverberating in akari’s mind as she attentively absorbed eva’s words. however, the winter pillar quickly brushed aside her perplexity as her ears were blessed with the sound of the glacier pillar's laughter.

how melodic it was...

as eva’s honeyed giggles continued to reverberate in the depths of akari’s mind, the heavenly maiden within her imagination had already fixated the exquisite ornament to her hair.

however, just as she was about to delicately secure the hairpin in place, a familiar gloved hand benignly interposed, halting her graceful movement.

with utmost grace, akari relinquished the delicate treasure from her grasp and gracefully descended onto her knees, a dancer's poise enshrining her every motion. she meticulously shuffled closer to eva, her eyes gleaming with an unspoken intention, as if she were an artist composing a masterpiece.

slowly, yet deliberately, akari positioned the hairpin on the right side of eva’s lustrous tresses, forsaking the left with a careful precision. every movement was executed with a refined elegance, as if she were an artisan sculpting an ephemeral masterpiece.

"that’s better…" she murmured, her voice a gentle caress, her breath mingling with the air as she tenderly brushed a stray strand away from eva’s enchanting visage.

as the lovestruck maiden’s irises quivered with an indescribable feeling, her heart pounded with the intensity of a symphony, as if it were an instrument played by the divine.

her lips, delicately pursed, mirrored the graceful curvature of akari’s own, forming a sublime duet of emotion and desire.

the winter pillar’s smile, faint yet resplendent, held an air of perfection in eva’s eyes—a fleeting moment of flawlessness that seemed to transcend the boundaries of mortal existence.

"i would prefer if this hairpin didn’t get in the way of that streak of your hair." akari uttered, her words an enchanting incantation that held both longing and reverence. the subtle plea in her voice carried an unspoken desire to preserve the natural beauty that adorned eva’s being, to honor the ethereal essence that danced with every strand.

in that sublime instant, bathed in the sun's golden rays that transformed the sakuranbo into a canvas of warmth and luminosity, they found themselves enveloped in an otherworldly realm.

there, the boundaries between dreams and reality blurred, and a humble object possessed the extraordinary ability to ignite a love that surpassed the confines of time and space.

—spring, where and when i fell even more for you.

#❄️ 𝐫𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐬𝐮𝐤𝐢⎯⎯#❄️💞 𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐫𝐢—#demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #original character #demon slayer oc #demon slayer x oc #kimetsu no yaiba oc #kimetsu no yaiba x oc #kny #kny oc #ds #oc x oc #when can i have an akari #when can i have an eva

39 notes · View notes

astrojulia · 1 year

Text

All about Cancer

Navigation: ੈ♡˳Masterlist

ੈ♡˳Askbox ੈ♡˳Sources

I always start by talking about people I know who have this sign… So, it's only in this short excerpt that I speak fully as a person who experiences astrology in everyday life and not as an astrology student (and a would-be astrologer). I can't escape the fact that I see people of this sign as highly emotional. No, it's not something negative (when well-performed), and it doesn't even mean that it's someone who cries for everything. It's just that it's a person who acts more emotionally than rationally (because we are all emotional beings).

As a general energy, I see that Cancer shows how we are beings trying to live a material life... There are several ways of seeing life, with beliefs or not. You can believe in the soul, spirit, etc. But you can't deny that we seem to see life through a window in our eyes, and there is a part of us that is not material. You can't deny that it's hard to live, but it's the best experience in our life. This energy of not being something material and that we are in a shell is what this sign represents for me.

As always, I need to say that when I write in the post, I need to put what the experts and the most important astrological community say and think, because I am responsible for every word I write, but here I always say that it is just my point of view, my studies and my evolution, because I’m the type of person who always wants to be better the next day. So let me tell you this: for me there is no underdeveloped aspect! For me, the underdeveloped part will always be our “Shadow self” that will appear when we most need to defend ourselves! Underdeveloped is our deepest instinct and we need to look at it as a Digivolution and not a Pokémon evolution (nerd references!!!).

Cancerians are all about nurturing, taking care of their peeps, and doing their best to help those close to them. They can be pretty over-protective sometimes, and may make decisions that reflect what they believe is best rather than what's actually going on. But that's just because they care too much.

Cancerians' greatest strength lies in their emotional intelligence, and when they harness it effectively, they truly shine. In today's society, emotions often have a negative connotation, causing many of us to suppress our feelings and view emotional expression as a weakness. This can lead to moodiness and a tendency to romanticize things that shouldn't be romanticized. However, when Cancerians embrace their emotional side, it becomes nearly impossible to knock them off balance. They have a deep understanding of their own emotions, as well as those of others, which allows them to navigate relationships and situations with ease.

They are highly sensitive individuals, with an emotional depth that sets them apart. While their sensitivity can be a great strength, it can also make them emotionally vulnerable at times. They often feel things deeply and may be more affected by negative events or criticism than others. However, their vulnerability is also a testament to their immense capacity for empathy and caring, which is a hallmark of their personality.

They are known for their remarkable intuition and deep understanding of the world around them. They possess a natural sensitivity and an ability to read between the lines, which allows them to connect with others on a profound level. However, they can also be withdrawn and shy, sometimes retreating into their own world when they feel overwhelmed. This tendency to be reserved should not be mistaken for a lack of interest or engagement; rather, it is a reflection of their need for privacy and reflection. In moments of quiet, Cancerians can access their deepest thoughts and emotions, allowing them to recharge and reconnect with their intuition.

Cancerians are individuals who possess a deep well of emotions and a profound attachment to the people and memories that are important to them. They have a unique ability to cherish memories and relationships with great depth and passion, and they are often sentimental about the things that matter most to them. Their sensitivity and sentimentality are a testament to their caring and empathetic nature, which allows them to connect with others on a profound level. However, at times, their sentimentality can cause them to become overly emotional and maudlin. They may become lost in nostalgia or overly focused on the past, making it difficult for them to move forward and fully embrace the present moment. While their sentimentality can be a strength, it is important for Cancerians to balance it with a healthy perspective that allows them to appreciate the present moment and the opportunities that it presents.

They have a deep appreciation for tradition and are often drawn to the customs and practices of the past. They find comfort in the familiar and enjoy the sense of continuity that comes with following longstanding practices. However, at times, their attachment to tradition can cause them to become overly bound by the past, making it difficult for them to embrace new ideas and ways of doing things. While their respect for tradition is a strength, it is important for Cancerians to balance it with an openness to new experiences and perspectives. By doing so, they can broaden their horizons and grow in ways that enhance their lives and enrich their relationships with others. When they are able to strike a healthy balance between honoring the past and embracing the present, Cancerians can tap into the wisdom of the past while remaining fully engaged in the world around them.

They have a strong attachment to their homes and families, and often derive great satisfaction from nurturing and caring for those closest to them. They are domestic in nature, and find comfort in creating warm and inviting spaces that reflect their personal style and values. However, at times, their focus on the domestic sphere can cause them to become overly sheltered, limiting their exposure to new experiences and perspectives.

So, in other words:

At their best, Cancers are:

Nurturing: Cancers have a natural inclination to take care of others. They are empathetic and compassionate individuals who enjoy making others feel loved and cared for.

Kind: Cancers are kind-hearted and will go out of their way to help others. They believe in treating others the way they want to be treated and always try to put themselves in other people's shoes.

Loving: Cancers are affectionate and express their love openly. They value close relationships and are devoted to their loved ones.

Honest: Cancers inspire others to admit, face, and accept the difficult truths in their lives. They have a strong sense of integrity and believe in being honest with themselves and others.

Supportive: Cancers are incredibly supportive of those around them. They encourage others to pursue their dreams and offer a shoulder to lean on during tough times.

At their worst, Cancers can be:

Passive-aggressive: Cancers may resort to passive-aggressive behavior when they feel hurt or upset. They may say one thing but mean another or use sarcasm to express their feelings.

Irrational: Cancers can be highly emotional and may let their feelings cloud their judgment. They may make decisions based on their emotions rather than logic, which can lead to poor outcomes.

Moody: Cancers can have drastic mood swings, going from happy to sad or angry within a short period. They may have a hard time controlling their emotions and may take their feelings out on others.

Expecting repayment: Cancers may do good things for others but always with the expectation of being repaid in some way. They may keep track of their good deeds and expect others to reciprocate in the future.

Victim mentality: Cancers may adopt a victim mentality, feeling sorry for themselves and blaming others for their problems. They may have a hard time taking responsibility for their actions and may feel helpless or powerless.

As the fourth sign of the zodiac, Cancer is the first reflection of what we really are. After the certainty that comes with the strength of Aries, Taurus stirs things up, and that's why we need to return to the past, to our origins, to review what we really are.

As a water sign, Cancer is the surface that reflects everything above. It's there, and at the same time, it's not, always being an illusion, a mirage. As a cardinal sign that seeks things, Cancer seeks security, just like the crab that has its shell to protect itself from everything and is always looking for a home that can better comfort it (Paguroidea).

The connection between Cancer and its opposite sign Capricorn is incredibly intricate, as it delves into the interplay between our instincts and our super ego. It represents a harmonization of the child's desires and the adult's needs, or even the reverse dynamic

Cancer, as a zodiac sign, is ruled by the Moon, which is often associated with the realm of emotions. Being influenced by the Moon, Cancer symbolizes the depths of our instincts, the richness of our feelings, and the core of our fundamental desires.

(CC) AstroJulia Some Rights Reserved

Sources:

“Os astros sempre nos Acompanham” by Claudia Lisboa

“DEPTH ASTROLOGY: An Astrological Handbook”, Volume 1, by Gargatholil

Servant of the Fates on tumblr

PSD by wildfireresources on deviantart

#astrojulia #astrology notes #all about astrology #astro observations #cancer #cancer sun #cancer moon #cancer rising

110 notes · View notes

the-nightraven · 1 year

Text

Astrology with Raven.

Greetings, little astro-birdies! This is a continuation of serving an astro-blog. Hence, here are some speculations over your curios requests:

Lilith is a point that narrates about dark sides of a native’s soul, which can be detected during intensive periods of life or it is considered as a concealed desire that can be in an exaggerated form. In order to perceive it in a more accurate way, you can observe a perception difference between Saturn and Lilith placements in houses - as an example, 5 house placements: a Saturn native tends to refrain himself/herself from aspects of life that emanates from a house effect, in our situation, which are hobbies, leisure time preferences, an entertainment, sex, romantic relationships and grasps; where as a Lilith native can have an obscured, sealed interests in an exaggerated form, as it was stated previously, in topics that a house concerns.

Since Lilith can be interpreted as a Black Side of Moon, natives can negate all those characteristic in themselves, however since it is a little morsel of their Moon, there is still a deprivation of those characteristic:

A person with Lilith in Cancer or in a Cancer degree - 4, 16, 28 - may negate everything, concerning a mother figure, an emotional connection and their own emotional nature. The placement polarises a vision to an emotional deprivation of natives: they need an emotional connection, however Lilith distorted their perception of a guardian - they might have had problems with a mother figure and have felt an absence of emotional protection from her side in their childhood. Lilith in the 4th house can have resemblances in parental situations, home-relationships’ conditions that are deteriorated, where a profound human need in close family relationships grows, however due to the trauma with it, they might reject any kind of idea towards constructing their own family.

Lilith gives an erratic opinion over the house’s topics. For instance, an owner of 5th house Black Moon will be in periods of wanting to have a lot of children or periods of disdain towards the thought of having any child in his/her life; a fluctuation of thoughts about getting into romantic relationships - it must happen with only being absorbed with a romance or an utter abandonment of any kind of lover-relationships.

Lilith in Capricorn needs social praise and being able to function in a social hierarchy, gaining a better social placement, however might face obstacles. The inner self of natives is pretty conservative and solemn.

Lilith in Aries has an inner problem with aggressive emotions, liberating them. I have a few acquaintances, owning this Lilith in Aries, including me: all representatives have concealed anger issues - natives can not express it in a healthy way, periodically condensing everything inside. Secretively they have a tendency to make disputes and debates, serving polemics - we are secretly fond of them.

Lilith in the 12th house tends to be immersed in their unconsciousness, hidden thoughts and meaning - I have a friend with this placement. These natives are prone to be escapists with a convoluted mind. Their concealed desire is to be embedded in a delusional idea, to unravel.

The 4th house in Capricorn indicates a strict parent, profoundly, a mother. A family is much more a conservative one, where an emotional connection is absent - relationships within family relatives are distant, especially with the main female figure, a mother. My beloved little brother has a cuspid of the 4th house in Capricorn, so… A mother tends to be imperative over a child and insists on social principles and regulations.

You might get irritated by a person with the same Moon sign as your Lilith due to them being an embodiment of your concealed features and tendencies to behave and serve your life. The person with the sign of your Lilith might trigger something inside for your sake - an acquaintance with him/her might embolden you to accept your inner self and to begin a personality elaboration.

Uranus in the 5th house is an indicator of having peculiar, promiscuous hobbies and having a vast spector of them. Preferences in sex and serving romantic relationships are rebellious and also peculiar that definitely stands out in a social circle. I might assume that it is an indicator of being possibly involved by LGBT communities due to the untraditional sexual orientation.

Sun in the 4th house is an indicator of a father figure that was immersed in a family situation. However, rather it was a negative influence or a positive one might depict only aspects: if there are harsh ones with Uranus, Pluto or Saturn, a father might have been absent and it negatively affected a situation in the family. Nonetheless, it is a paramount field - a family - in native’s life. A family does not have to be only with blood relatives - a person might value a lot his own country or a place, where he/she has dwelt in. Hence, a person might be patriotic, especially in terms of Sun, Venus and Mars placed in the 4th house.

If you have an interest in some aspects or placements, you can ask in the comments and I will include it in my further posts.

Sincerely, your Raven ♥

#astrology observations #astrology notes #astro notes #astro observations #astrology #natal chart #astro community #lilith #4th house #uranus #5th house #Spotify

293 notes · View notes

bijouxcarys · 3 months

Text

Allure (Brian May x fem!Reader)

Masterlist

This has been on my Ao3 since June, but I thought I’d put it on here properly. This is probably the filthiest Bri fic I’ve ever written… I’m proud of it🥲

NSFW, minors dni

Summary: You slip up at work. Luckily for you, Brian May can get anyone out of anything…

Tags: @whothefuckisanja @celestial-dragoness you don’t have to read this, but I thought I’d tag you just in case 🥹

It started off as any other day. Up at 7am, shower by 7:30am, breakfast by 8am, out the door by 8:30am.

Except, this wasn't an ordinary day. Not by a long shot.

I guess I should have been more prepared for the fact that my job as a journalist meant I'd have to speak to some pretty well-known folk here and there. Granted, I was only an apprentice journalist, but I should have known it wouldn't be so easy.

There I was, stood by my front door, at 8:31, debating whether or not I was right for this career. And I was tempted to turn, disrobe, and bury myself in the covers of my bed until the apocalypse came.

My mentor, Candice, had thirty years on me, and twenty years of experience in the field, so I trusted that she would be blunt and honest with me about what I should expect when interviewing somebody of high status. She just didn't warn me about how important this experience would be for me.

But then again, I'm not sure anybody could have prepared me for what was to come.

I managed to make it to the car park, however, of where Candice and I had set to meet, just shy of ten o'clock. I still wasn't 100% sure where abouts in London we were heading that day, as I was just told to bring an overnight bag due to the possibility of having to stay at a hotel, depending on how long we would be. Turns out, we were going to Germany by the Eurotunnel.

But, man, did I know who I'd be in the presence of that day. I'd thought about nothing else for weeks.

It was June 14th, 1998 – Brian May had just released his second solo album 'Another World' two weeks earlier, and it was my job to assist on the interview he was set to do with Isabelle Brinkman. She wasn't that much older than me, but definitely had more experience. I wasn't at that point in my career yet where I could conduct interviews myself. I just had to sit on the side and naively watch as somebody who could do the job better did it instead. To top it all off, I was merely there to take notes from a translator, as I did not understand a single word of German. That made it all the more terrifying for me. Perhaps they just wanted to see how I would adapt to a foreign setting.

As Candice and I stepped foot into the studio in which TMF conducted their interviews, a sense of anticipation permeated the air. Our rendezvous with Isabelle awaited us, serving as a prelude to the highly anticipated interview. While the interview itself was schedules for later that afternoon, the studio surroundings provided me with ample opportunity to acclimate myself to the dynamic atmosphere that awaited me. It was a chance to familiarise myself with the intricacies of the environment I was about to enter—a world where words held immense power and where every question had the potential to unravel hidden truths.

As the minutes ticked away, my mind oscillated between nervous excitement and a profound realisation. I would soon find myself in the presence of none other than Brian May himself—a legendary figure whose musical contributions had resonated with generations. The magnitude of this encounter began to sink in, and with it came a mix of awe and trepidation. Thoughts swirled in my mind as I pondered the upcoming exchange—how would I react in his presence? Would I have able to articulate myself with the clarity and precision they deserved? Hopefully I wouldn't have to actually speak to him... Just being in his presence was privilege in itself.

Yet, amidst these swirling thoughts, a flicker of determination emerged. I reminded myself that this was an extraordinary opportunity—an invitation to engage with a living legend, to witness him delve into the depths of his creative process, and to extract insights that would captivate audiences around the world. With each passing moment, I sought solace in the knowledge that, despite any apprehension, this experience was a testament to the trust placed in me by my more-established peers. I was being given a chance to contribute, even if it was from the side, to the legacy of Brian May—and artist who, I believed, had shaped the very fabric of music.

As the hours stretched before me, I endeavoured to channel my nervous energy into thorough preparation. I immersed myself in research, diving into Brian May's two albums, and reading through archived interviews he had done before, mostly so I could strike out any repetitious questions Isabelle may have had prepared for him. But I also was just intrigued by him, and I wanted to know what I was going to be in the presence of. Through my research, every lyric, every note, every word, became a mosaic of inspiration.

The late 80s proved to be quite a tumultuous period for him regarding his relationship with the media, and his relationships in general. An intricate dance between his public persona and the unyielding scrutiny of the media.

I wasn't totally naïve. I was acutely aware of the parasitic nature that permeated our realm—a cesspool of opportunistic souls who revelled in tearing down the very individuals they claimed to admire. Yet, I steadfastly refused to succumb to that dark allure. My fascination lay in unravelling the enigmatic tapestry of these extraordinary beings, basking in the brilliance of their craft, rather than dismantling their lives for the mere pleasure of it.

To me, celebrities were not objects to be consumed, but multifaceted individuals with their own joys, struggles, and insecurities. Their private lives, as tempestuous or serene as they might be, had no bearing on the rest of the world. Behind the glamour of their fame, they were simply human beings, not so dissimilar from you and me, navigating the labyrinthine paths of existence.

I approached my work with an unwavering respect, seeking to bridge the gap between the public and these luminaries, offering glimpses into their creative realms rather than prying open their vulnerabilities. I yearned to understand the essence of their artistry, to unearth the inspiration that fuelled their endeavours, and to convey their stories with the reverence they deserved. It was a mission guided by empathy, driven by an insatiable hunger to celebrate and preserve the legacies these individuals were shaping. Not destroy them.

While others revelled in salacious scandals and gossip-laden headlines, I found solace in the sacredness of their artistic endeavours. I revelled in the melodies that stirred souls, the words that painted vivid landscapes, and the performances that transported audiences to ethereal realms. It was this inherent love for the craft, this yearning to explore the inner workings of these extraordinary talents, that propelled me forward amidst the chaos.

So, the public image of Brian May that derived from the late 80s and the scandal involving his affair with his current partner, Anita Dobson—the scandal that whipped the media landscape into a frenzy wasn't of interest to me. I clung to my convictions, navigating the treacherous terrain with a blend of naivety and determination. I understood that the world I inhabited was stained by the shadows of exploitation, but I remained resolute in my pursuit of genuine connection—the kind that transcended gossip and scandal, diving deep into the heart of creativity, and fostering a genuine appreciation for the luminous souls who graced our stages and screens.

However, that changed slightly once I actually saw the man.

As I found myself standing in the formidable presence of Brian May, a wave of energy cascaded over me, leaving me utterly entranced. It was as if the very air crackled with a magnetic force that defied description. In that moment, any semblance of composure or rational thought disintegrated before my eyes. Within the first fifteen minutes of his arrival at TMF, Brian May effortlessly shattered my preconceived notions, transforming into an awe-inspiring figure who commanded attention and reverence.

The sight of him was nothing short of breathtaking—an embodiment of perfection that seemed plucked from the realms of mythology. His chiselled features bore the unmistakable mark of divinity, as if the gods themselves had sculpted his visage with meticulous care. The symphony of his presence reverberated through the room, overpowering every other sensory experience. It was impossible to avert my gaze as he greeted everyone on set; I witnessed the personification of physical beauty in its purest form.

I didn't approach the welcome committee. I stood as far away from them as I could, trying to act inconspicuous and making myself as invisible as possible as I observed.

A cascade of dark curls framed his face and sat, slightly draping, over his shoulders, their lustrous strands captivating the light and casting an ethereal glow around him. His eyes, a mesmerising kaleidoscope of celestial depth and hazel intensity, even from this distance, seemed to hold the wisdom of ages. They were windows into the realm of profound emotion, reflecting a captivating blend of passion, intellect, and sensitivity.

Every contour of his face, every sculpted angle, exuded an aura of strength and grace—a testament to the artistic precision with which he was formed. His strong jawline bespoke of resilience and determination, while his lips, seemingly touched by the same gods that created his being, were etched with a subtle hint of enigmatic allure. And when he smiled, it was as if the sun had emerged from behind the clouds, illuminating the room with an effervescent radiance.

I instinctively lowered my head, trying to blend into the background as he navigated his way through the crowd in the studio, a sea of eager faces vying for his attention. Perched on a small stood, clutching a notebook and pen tightly in my hands, I silently prayed that I would go unnoticed. The last thing I wanted was to embarrass myself in front of him. It was safer to keep my distance and retreat into the safe haven of my own fantasies.

"Didn't fancy joining the rest of them?"

His voice, soft and melodious, pierced through the clamour of the room, sending a shiver down my spine. My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach, leaving me momentarily breathless. Summoning every ounce of courage, I swallowed hard and took a deep, steadying breath, lifting my gaze to meet the man who had taken my breath away mere moments ago. From my seated position, his commanding presence loomed above me, radiating an aura of undeniable power. I had to tilt my head upwards, straining my neck to meet his piercing gaze.

"I'm Brian," he introduced himself, extending his hand towards me. My throat felt dry and raspy, a nervous rasp that I quickly cleared before attempting to speak. I timidly reached out, expecting a perfunctory handshake, but instead, my smaller hand was enveloped firmly within his, a testament to his unyielding determination.

"I know who you are, Mr. May," I managed to murmur, hoping he would perceive my passive greeting, one that he had received from everyone else, as a signal to proceed with the scheduled interview alongside Isabelle, who was comfortably seated on the cream-coloured sofa amidst the orangey décor of the set.

"Don't you have a name?" His low chuckle reverberated through the air, adding an unexpected layer of complexity to the encounter. I could feel his gaze penetrating through me, raising an inferno of sensations within. It was both exhilarating an unnerving.

"What?" I stammered, my voice betraying my awe, caught off guard by his presence.

"What's your name, love?" he inquired, his words laced with a mixture of warmth and intrigue.

"Y/N," I replied, my voice barely audible, resembling a small squeak that escaped from my lips.

He didn't respond immediately, but a final squeeze of my hand conveyed more than words ever could. A smile graced his lips, a smile that could rival the radiance of the sun before he turned to continue his path towards Isabelle.

I quickly realised that resistance was futile. The power he held over me was undeniable, a force that stripped away my inhibitions and left me vulnerable, willingly surrendering to his captivating energy. The sheer magnetism and allure he emanated transcended mortal boundaries, weaving a spell that ensnared me completely. Every facet of his being—the physical, the intellectual, the artistic—melded seamlessly, forging an embodiment of perfection that surpassed the realm of ordinary mortals.

From that moment on, I understood that my perception of beauty had irrevocably changed. Before me stood a true titan, a modern-day manifestation of the gods themselves.

During the course of the interview, Brian effortlessly settled to the plushness of the sofa, exuding an air of both confidence and ease. His body language commanded attention, with one arm casually draped across the backrest, and his other leg bent upon the cushions, positioning himself towards Isabelle with captivating allure. However, my attempts to absorb the content of their conversation proved futile as my gaze became entranced by his mesmerising presence.

From my vantage point, I relished the opportunity to observe him from a distance, allowing my eyes to linger appreciatively on his impeccable attire. A navy-blue two-piece suit enveloped his frame with sartorial perfection, accentuating his refined taste and sense of style. Beneath the well-tailored blazer, a crisp white shirt peeked through, its top buttons undone, revealing a tantalising glimpse of his sun-kissed upper chest. The subtle contrast of his slightly tanned skin against the pure white fabric was a testament to his natural allure and radiance.

Adorning his neck were two carefully chosen necklaces, their delicate details harmonising flawlessly with his complexion. Each pendant seemed to dance in unison, subtly emphasising his features and drawing attention to his undeniable charm. The interplay between these intricate accessories and the warm tones of his skin created a symphony of visual aesthetics, highlighting his magnetic presence.

Amidst the flurry of the interview, my eyes were irresistibly drawn to his captivating appearance. Every intricate detail of his attire beckoned for closer inspection, each aspect a testament to his impeccable style and timeless elegance. The room faded into the background as my gaze became fixated on the contours of his form, the way his clothing accentuated his stature, and the natural grace with which he carried himself. It was a visual feast, an opportunity to savour the beauty that surrounded him, and I couldn't help but be captivated by his magnetic charm.

Fortuitously, a small earpiece nestled in my ear, providing a direct channel to the translation of Isabelle's introduction and any other German dialogue that followed. But more significantly, it granted me an intimate connection to the melodic cadence of Brian May's voice. The mere thought of his voice coursing through that earpiece ignited a surge of anticipation within me. Little did I know that the experience that awaited me would transcend all expectations.

As Isabelle initiated the conversation, a symphony of words flowed through the airwaves and gently caressed my eardrums. And then, there it was—Brian May's voice, like warm butter gliding smoothly across my senses. The velvety timbre carried a magnetic quality that effortlessly captivated the listener. Each word resonated with a seductive charm, a richness that wove a tapestry of emotions within me.

The power of his voice was unparalleled, evoking a multitude of sensations that transcended the realm of rationality. It wrapped around my consciousness, enveloping me in a cocoon of warmth and enchantment. Every syllable held a certain allure, drawing me deeper into his world, where time seemed to stand still.

The boundaries of reason crumbled, leaving only the ethereal essence of his voice, a sonic embrace that caressed the very core of my being. It was a voice that defied age, carrying the wisdom and maturity of a man who had traversed five decades of life. Each information exuded a richness and depth, a testament to a life well-lived and experiences etched into the fibres of his being.

As his words reached my ears, I found myself spellbound, unable to resist the intoxicating allure that emanated from his every utterance. It was as though his voice held the power to awaken desires and emotions that lay dormant until that very moment. The experience was nothing short of transformative.

In that fleeting moment, I could have sworn that Brian's hazel eyes, though perhaps coincidental, locked onto mine from a distance. It could have been a passing thought, a random gaze that happened to intersect with mine, but the impact was undeniable. The weight of his attention, even if momentary, unleashed a surge of emotions within me.

Under the piercing intensity of his hazel gaze, a tempest of sensations coursed through my body, sparking an unfamiliar and overwhelming response. A wave of desire washed over me, as if an invisible force had taken hold of my very core. Unbeknownst to him, his mere presence had ignited a primal longing that rendered me powerless, leaving me trembling in its wake.

In that profound instant, my purpose became blurred, and the world around me faded into insignificance. The boundaries of my job seemed trivial, overshadowed by an insatiable craving to bask in Brian May's dominance and surrender myself to his every whim. The realisation struck me with an intensity that was as terrifying as it was intoxicating.

The clenching of my thighs, an involuntary response to the overwhelming desire that surged within me, was a physical manifestation of the inner turmoil I grappled with. It was a battle between reason and raw passion, where reason ultimately stood no chance against the allure of Brian's commanding presence.

Throughout the unfolding interview, a subtle dance of power and desire materialised between Brian and I. With each passing moment, I became increasingly aware that that gaze that I had noticed before was in fact for me.

It was a captivating display of dominance, a silent declaration that sent a shiver down my spine.

As the questions flowed, Brian's eyes kept meeting mine with a compelling force, even with myself being well-hidden behind the camera set-up. His presence enveloped me, it was a game of seduction, a battle for control, as his penetrating eyes sought to unravel the depths of my desires.

With each subtle shift of his body, a wave of power emanated from him, asserting his dominance over the room. His confident posture and deliberate movements spoke volumes, conveying an unspoken command that ignited a fire within me. I found myself willingly succumbing to his overwhelming presence, yearning to explore the unspoken desires that lingered in the air.

Through the veil of professionalism, his eyes whispered secrets that stirred a primal response within me. In their depths, I glimpsed a hunger, a hunger that mirrored my own, as if he were daring me to embrace the intoxicating allure of submission. It was a dance of power and surrender, an unspoken invitation to explore the depths of passion under his watchful gaze.

He spoke with Isabelle, showing her the album cover, his fingers grazing over parts that he detailed. But the electricity that crackled between us grew more potent with each passing second. His dominant presence commanded my attention, drawing me further into a world where his desires and mine entwined. In the recesses of his eyes, I discovered a realm where control was relinquished, and the boundaries of pleasure were pushed to their limits.

But as the interview continued, I was left with a lingering uncertainty. Was it merely a game of dominance, a tantalising tease to stoke the flames of desire? Or did his eyes convey a deeper truth, an unspoken invitation to submit to his commanding presence? Or, perhaps, I had been utterly spellbound by that man's presence that every little thing he did translated as sexual and intoxicating seduction. The questions lingered, suspended in the air, as the energy between us remained tantalisingly unresolved.

As the interview drew to a close, a lingering sense of anticipation remained. He had created uncharted territory, without him even knowing—unless he did know... I'm still not sure.

Suddenly, the world around me seemed to fade into the background as Brian's presence intensified. Time slowed to a crawl, and every detail of his captivating demeanour etched itself into my memory. Isabelle's closing remarks echoes in the room, yet my attention remained fixated on the enigmatic figure before me.

A mischievous smirk played upon Brian's lips, radiating confidence and a hint of playful intrigue. His eyes, like pools of intensity, surveyed the room with a subtle air of dominance. A glass of water rested in his hands, his long, slender fingers tracing a mesmerising path along the rim, leaving a trail of anticipation in their wake.

It was then that a startling realisation washed over me. Throughout the entire interview, my hand had unconsciously clung tightly to the pencil, rendering it immobile. As I reluctantly tore my gaze away from Brian's captivating presence, I glanced down at my neglected notebook, only to discover its pristine pages untouched by a single word.

A mix of awe and bewilderment coursed through my veins. How had I become so utterly transfixed by his presence that I had neglected my professional duties? It was as if time had suspended itself, and my sole purpose had shifted from capturing his words to capturing the essence of his being.

The blank pages of my notebook served as a stark reminder of the power he had over me, and in that moment, I understood the depth of his allure and the undeniable impact he had on those in his orbit. As the weight of the realisation settled upon me, a mixture of embarrassment and fascination flooded my senses.

An overwhelming wave of panic washed over me as I sat there, paralysed by the realisation of my negligence. The enchantment that had held me captive for the past twenty minutes shattered, leaving me vulnerable to the harsh reality that awaited. Candice, my ever-watchful colleague, would undoubtedly discover my failure, and her disapproval would be swift and scathing.

My heart pounded against my ribcage like a drum, its frantic beats mirroring the chaotic thoughts racing through my mind. How could I have allowed this to happen? The dream of advancing my career, of one day becoming a renowned journalist, now seemed like an elusive mirage, fading away before my very eyes.

Self-recrimination echoes through my thoughts like a relentless chorus. The weight of my own stupidity bore down upon me, squeezing the air from my lungs. I berated myself for succumbing to the allure of Brian's presence, for allowing it to eclipse my responsibilities. The consequences of my foolishness loomed over me, casting a shadow of doubt and regret.

The sound of Candice's voice calling my name snapped me back to the present. Her stern tone pierced through the haze of my thoughts, jolting me to action. It was time to face the consequences, to confront my failure head-on, and accept the repercussions of my actions.

I watched as Candice approached with an expectant expression. Dread coiled in the pit of my stomach, knowing all too well what awaited me. With every step she took, my heart sank deeper into the depths of remorse.

Candice's sharp eyes scanned the notebook in front of me, her gaze narrowing in disbelief. The realisation hit her like a tidal wave as she noticed the pages, void of any lead reflections from the interview. A mix of disappointment and fury twisted her features, and I braced myself for the inevitable scolding.

The room seemed to hush, the air thick with uncomfortable tension, as Candice's voice boomed through an angry whisper. "What on Earth is this, Y/N?" A collective murmur rippled through the small bunches of people that surrounded us as curious eyes turned toward our direction.

Heat rushed to my cheeks, my gaze dropping to the floor, unable to meet the accusing eyes of my colleagues. Shame wrapped around me like a suffocating shroud, tightening with every word that spilled from Candice's lips. Her reprimand echoed in the silence, a blistering reminder of my failure, and I swallowed hard, my throat constricted by a mixture of guilt and embarrassment.

"I-I'm sorry, Candice. I got caught up in the moment, and I just... completely forgot to write anything down, I promise it won't happen agai—"

"You were given a responsibility, and you let it slip away because you were too mesmerised by the answers? This is not acceptable, do you understand how poorly this reflects on our team?" Her eyes narrowed, and her voice was laced with irritation.

"I know, I'm truly sorry. It was a lapse of judgement."

Candice's scolding continued, her words filled with a mixture of reprimand and concern for my professional growth. The weight of her disappointment pressed upon me, intensifying my remorse.

A peculiar sensation tingled at the back of my neck whilst my supervisor continued to reprimand me in the corner of this studio, drawing my gaze elsewhere and hoping she would stop soon so I could just go home and bury myself in the covers of my bed. I met the intense gaze of Brian May, who hadn't left yet, much to my demise, and watched the scene unfold from a distance. His eyes held a mix of curiosity and intrigue, remaining an observer, captivated by the drama playing out before him.

It was a moment of profound humiliation, and yet, there was something strangely captivating about the way Brian watched. His silent presence added an extra layer of tension to the already charged atmosphere. It was as if he recognised the vulnerability within me, the weight of my mistake, and found a fascination in the spectacle.

As Candice walked away, her words lingered in the air, mingling with a mix of determination and self-reflection. I felt the stinging of tears in my eyes from the sheer embarrassment of my lack of competence. I rested my elbows on my knees, bringing the notebook up to my face and burying my head in it in shame.

I stayed there for as long as I could, not wanting to meet the judgemental gazes from those around me, and it had cleared out somewhat by the time I decided to actually stand up and gather my things. The bottle of water I had with me had been completely dried out from the constant sips I had to take whilst watching Brian's interview. My mouth was dry from Candice's scolding, and I whined under my breath just from the thought of anything else going wrong today.

It can't have been that far after four in the afternoon when I was collecting myself in the hallway of the studio, preparing to get a taxi back to the Euro so I could fuck off home and never emerge from my bed ever again. But before I could make my hasty exit, a soft voice called out, interrupting my thoughts.

"Excuse me?" the voice said, drawing my attention. I looked up, my eyes still slightly watery from the threats of tears, only to lock gazes with the very person who had inadvertently disrupted my responsibilities. It was none other than Brian himself, standing a few paces away, holding out the empty notebook towards me. "Sorry to disturb you, but, uh, you left this in the studio."

Confusion mingled with surprise as I furrowed my eyebrows, my emotions still raw from the earlier events. Taking a deep breath, I cautiously reached out, accepting the notebook from him. My voice quivered slightly as I murmured my thanks, unable to meet his gaze for more than a fleeting moment.

Concern etched across his face, Brian leaned against the wall, hands tucked casually in his pockets. The audacity of his next words caught me off guard, a mixture of bluntness and subtle insult towards Candice.

"Are you alright?" he inquired, his tone laced with genuine curiosity. "I couldn't help but notice you being lectured by an old sow earlier."

My surprise turned into astonishment, my eyes widening at his audacious remark. The unexpected camaraderie in his words momentarily eased the weight on my shoulders, and I met his gaze, finding solace in his directness.

"I... I'll be fine," I replied, my voice steadier now. "Just one of those days, you know?"

Brian's expression softened, a knowing smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The air between us crackled with a silent understanding, as if he knew the struggled that came with navigating the industry.

"May I ask what happened?" Brian inquired, his gaze fixed on me. The mere sound of his voice sent a shiver down my spine, leaving me at a loss for words. How was I supposed to hold a conversation with him when his presence alone had already rendered me speechless? I felt the weight of inadequacy pressing on me, threatening to unravel any semblance of coherence I had left.

It's nothing," I managed to squeak out, my eyes involuntarily darting downwards to take in the details of his attire illuminated by the strip lights in the hallway. "Just some... technical issues," I lied, my voice betraying the fabricated story. I couldn't let him know that I had been so foolish as to let his allure overpower my ability to do my job.

"Oh," he responded, briefly averting his gaze. "So, why were you being told off? That's what it seemed like, anyway." He shrugged, shifting his weight on his feet.

A blush crept across my face, and I found myself unable to meet his eyes, instead fixating on the flawlessly polished surface of his shoes. "I... I never wrote down the notes I needed to..." I mumbled, embarrassment washing over me once more. "By this time tomorrow, I'll probably be back in assistant mode, fetching coffee for everyone..." My voice trailed off, the reality of my prediction causing it to waver with distress. I felt the sting of tears welling up again, and I averted my gaze, desperately seeking solace in a different direction.

The internal self-deprecating thoughts echoes within me. How unprofessional, crying in front of Brian May. I couldn't help but feel the weight of my own perceived inadequacy crushing my spirit.

"Hey... I'm sure that won't happen," he smoothly assured me, his voice like velvet. In that moment, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder, sending a thrilling shockwave through my entire being. Turning my head, I found myself face to face with Brian, his hand extending toward me, offering a pristine handkerchief. His warm, non-judgemental eyes conveyed a silent reassurance as he lightly waved the handkerchief, inviting me to accept it. With a shaky hand, I reached out and took it from him, mustering a feeble thank you. Although my mind should have been consumed with thoughts of potential demotion, I couldn't help but feel a surge of excitement at the thought of using Brian May's handkerchief, to dry the tears over something he had inadvertently caused.

A rueful laugh escaped my lips. "No, it probably will happen," I nodded, my gaze fixed straight ahead. "It's a joke."

Brian let out a slight huff, as if in agreement, clicking his tongue and crossing his arms. He allowed a pause to hang in the air before speaking again. "Where are you staying? You can't be that old, I don't want you to be wandering about on your own."

"I am twenty-two, thank you very much," I chuckled. "I was supposed to be at the hotel down the street, but... after everything that's happened today, I think it's best if I just get on the Euro and head home," I replied with a somewhat wistful smile. "I don't really want to be around everyone right now. I can already imagine the judgemental looks they'll be throwing my way all night." I let out a sigh of resignation.

"Is it really that bad?" Brian raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

"You have no idea..." I trailed off, my voice tinged with a mix of frustration and vulnerability.

"I don't know about that," he smiled, a mischievous glint in his eyes. "I toured the world with three other drama queens and had to spend nights in hotels with them," he said, giving me a pointed look.

I met his gaze with a shy yet genuine expression, a smile slowly spreading across my face. "You've got me there."

"What was it that you were supposed to take notes of, if you don't mind me asking?" he inquired curiously.

"My job was to note down your answers in shorthand," I replied, a hint of disappointment still lingering in my expression as I recalled the embarrassment of my failure. "For the British papers," I shrugged.

He hummed, his gaze shifting as he pondered for a moment. I couldn't help but feel a flicker of hope as his eyes seemed to briefly sweep over me, but I dismissed it as mere wishful thinking.

"Well..." he began, his voice dropping slightly lower, his eyes still locked with mine, a mischievous glimmer dancing in their depths. "I have an idea that might just solve your predicament."

My heart skipped a beat as I waited, captivated by his words and the magnetic pull of his presence. There was an unmistakable air of authority and confidence about him, and allure that made it impossible to resist.

"Why don't you come back to my hotel with me?" he suggested, his voice laced with an irresistible charm. "We can sit down, go through the interview together, and you can take your notes directly from me. That way, you won't have to worry about losing your job over a simple technical glitch."

His proposition hung in the air, tantalising and daring. The thought of being alone with him, in the intimate setting of his hotel room, sent a shiver of anticipation down my spine, despite the lingering knowledge of the committed relationship that was awaiting him back in London. It was an offer I couldn't refuse, despite the lingering doubts and fears that swirled in my mind.

His gaze held mine, an unspoken challenge conveyed through the subtle arch of his eyebrow. He exuded a domineering aura, a man who was accustomed to taking charge and getting what he desired, when he desired. And in that moment, I couldn't deny the thrilling temptation of surrendering to his authority, even if it meant stepping into the unprofessional, and the unknown.

I took a deep breath, my voice barely a whisper as I mustered the courage to respond. "Alright," I acquiesced, my heart pounding in my chest. "I'll come with you."

A slow, knowing smile curved his lips, a silent victory that revealed his satisfaction at having ensnared me in his web. With a gesture of his hand, he beckoned me to follow, his subtle dominance asserting itself even in this small act.

The ride to his hotel was a tense affair, filled with a mix of anticipation and self-doubt. I settled into the plush leather seat of the car, my palms slightly clammy as I clasped my notebook tightly, its empty pages a stark reminder of my shortcomings.

Brian sat beside me, radiating an air of casual elegance as he reclined comfortably, his gaze occasionally flickering towards me. The silence hung heavily in the air, pregnant with unspoken desires and uncharted territories. It was as if the car itself had transformed into a cocoon, isolating us from the outside world and intensifying the connection between us.

He broke the silence, his voice low and velvety, filled with a hint of weariness. "You know, these press dates can become quite tiresome after a while," he confessed, his tone tinged with a touch of frustration. "Having to repeat the same anecdotes, answer the same questions—it can feel like a never-ending cycle."

I listened intently, my heart aching with a mixture of sympathy and guilt. His dedication to his craft was evident, yet here he was, taking the time to accommodate my incompetence, going above and beyond to salvage my position.

The weight of his sacrifice settled on my shoulders, and I couldn't help but feel a sense of responsibility for the burden he had shouldered on my behalf. A subtle pang of remorse washed over me, mingling with the lingering excitement that coursed through my veins.

"You didn't have to do this," I murmured softly, my voice tinged with gratitude and regret. "I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused."

He turned his gaze towards me, his eyes filled with understanding and something deeper, something that hinted at a hidden power dynamic between us. "Sometimes, we all need a little help," he replied, his voice carrying a hint of command. "And besides, it gives me an opportunity to spend some time with someone who appreciates the nuances of my work."

His words hung in the air, charged with unspoken implications. The car journey continued, each passing moment bringing us closer to his hotel, to an encounter that held the potential to blur the boundaries between professional obligations and personal desires.

As the city lights streaked past us in a mesmerising blur, a wave of apprehension washed over me. The weight of potential consequences bore down heavily, my mind conjuring images of disapproving glares and lectures from Candice. The thought of her disapproval and the potential damage to my professional reputation loomed like a dark cloud over this impulsive decision. But also... there was something in the back of mind that found that danger enticing.

I glanced at Brian, his profile illuminated by the passing lights, a captivating blend of charisma and enigma. The subtle shift of his features hinted at the complexities that lay beneath the surface. Yes, he was a renowned musician, an idol to many, but he was also a man with his own commitments and responsibilities.

My thoughts veered towards Candice's hypothetical reprimands, reminding me of the line I was treading. I wrestled with the inner turmoil, questioning my judgement, and yet, the allure of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the chance to glean insights from the man himself, called to me like a siren's song. The boundaries of reason blurred, and the forbidden fruit of possibility dangled temptingly before me.

I couldn't deny the excitement that coursed through my veins, even if we were simply going to talk about the interview. But something told me that he wouldn't have invited me to his hotel room if he only wanted to repeat what he'd told Isabelle. But reality, too, had its grip on my conscience. Brian's relationship status, thought not conventional in the traditional sense, added another layer of complexity.

The conflict within me intensified, the battle between reason and desire waged in my mind. And as the car whisked us closer to the hotel, I knew that a pivotal moment awaited me on the other side of those doors. A moment that would test the limits of my self-control and challenge the very fabric of my professional identity.

As the car pulled up in front of the grand hotel entrance, I couldn't help but be awestruck by its opulence. Towering pillars adorned with intricate carvings framed the entrance, while a cascading waterfall nearby added a touch of serenity to the bustling city surroundings. The lobby, with its marble floors and sparkling chandeliers, exuded an air of sophistication and exclusivity.

Brian stepped to get out of the car, his presence commanding attention as he glanced back at me, his eyes inviting me to join him on this adventure. I took a deep breath, my heart fluttering in anticipation, and followed suit.

The moment our eyes met, a magnetic connection sparked between us. A subtle exchange of glances spoke volumes, conveying unspoken desires and hidden depths. It was in those stolen moments that the tension between us grew, the unspoken understanding that something powerful was unfolding.

As we stepped into the lavish lobby, the plush furnishings and hushed atmosphere enveloped us. Brian's hand brushed lightly against my lower back, a simple gesture that sent shivers down my spine. The touch was fleeting yet deliberate, a tantalising hint of the electricity crackling in the air.

We made our way to the elevator, managing to be inconspicuous to the very few people who were actually in the lobby, the soft chime signalled its arrival. The enclosed space became our private sanctuary, the air thick with anticipation. The mirrored walls reflected our proximity, capturing the unspoken intensity that hung in the air.

In the confined space, Brian's scent enveloped me, a heady combination of musky cologne and a hint of adventure. Every moment felt deliberate, every breath carried a weight of anticipation. Our eyes locked in the reflection, mirroring a depth of connection that defied words.

As the elevator ascended, our proximity grew, the space between us closing with each passing floor. Brian's voice, laced with a husky undertone, broke the silence. "I must say, the view from my room is quite breathtaking," he remarked, his voice a seductive whisper that sent shivers down my spine.

I leaned in slightly, my voice barely above a whisper. "I can only imagine," I replied, the innuendo hanging in the air, adding a subtle layer of flirtation to our conversation.

A playful smile tugged at the corners of Brian's lips, his eyes holding that same mischievous glint as earlier. His hand casually brushed against mine as the elevator came to a halt, the touch electrifying and tantalisingly brief. The doors slid open, revealing a corridor bathed in soft, warm lighting.

We walked side by side, the click of our footsteps echoing in the hushed ambiance. The anticipation between us was palpable, a dance of desire and restraint. The subtle glances exchanged spoke volumes, carrying a shared secret that only we understood.

Arriving at his room, Brian fumbled for the key, his hand brushing against mine once again as he unlocked the door. The room's interior exuded luxury, with plush furnishings and a panoramic view of the city skyline. The atmosphere was charged with an undeniable energy, as if the room itself held its breath in anticipation of what was to come.

Brian motioned for me to take a seat on the plush sofa, while he made his way to a side table adorned with crystal glasses and a sparkling bottle of water. His movements were controlled, each action carrying a subtle authority that commanded attention.

He poured a glass of water, the liquid cascading effortlessly into the glass. With an almost calculated grace, he handed it to me, his fingers grazing mine ever so slightly. The touch sent a jolt of electricity through me, and I found myself captivated by his commanding presence.

Settling into a nearby armchair, Brian's gaze fixed upon me with an intensity that made my heart race. He picked up my notebook, his fingers tracing the empty pages as he glanced back at me, his eyes filled with a mix of curiosity and dominance.

"Let's go over the interview, shall we?" he suggested, his voice laced with authority. I nodded, my voice momentarily escaping me in the face of his dominant aura.

As we delved into the conversation, his proximity grew, our arms occasionally brushing against each other's as we gestured or reached for the notebook. Each touch was a subtle reminder of his control and my vulnerability.

His gaze never wavered, his eyes piercing into mine with a sense of ownership. He dissected each question and response with precision, his tone firm yet enticing. The atmosphere crackled with an undeniable tension.

Brian's hand occasionally found its way to the small of my back, a subtle gesture of possession that left me breathless and wanting more.

As we concluded our review of the interview, an unspoken understanding passed between us. Brian's gaze held a hint of satisfaction, as if pleased with my progress under his guidance. I couldn't deny the thrilling allure of his dominance, the way he effortlessly took charge and led me down a path of unexplored sensuality, purely in the way he spoke and answered the questions.

Once we'd finished, a sense of relief washed over me. I placed my pencil down on the coffee table, grateful for the notes I now had to present to Candice. But little did I know that the night was far from over, and the dynamics between Brian and I were about to take a new turn.

As I sat back on the sofa, taking a sip of water from the glass Brian had graciously given me, he caught me off guard with an unexpected question.

"Why don't you ask me about my relationship?" His words hung in the air, laden with a mix of curiosity and challenge.

I nearly choked on my water, my eyes widening in surprise. His question was so sudden and unexpected that I struggled to find the right response. "W... What?" I stammered, my voice betraying my confusion as I carefully set the glass back on the coffee table.

"Everyone else does. Why don't you?" Brian rose from his seat, striding over to the armchair across the room. He reached up, gracefully removing his navy-blue blazer and draping it over the back of the chair. His movements were confident and self-assured, his hands casually returning to his pockets.

I watched him in awe, captivated by his every gesture. The way he carried himself, the slight tilt of his head, the way he rolled up his sleeves to reveal his forearms—each detail seemed to heighten his allure. His hair, with its enchanting allure, seemed to beckon to me, and I couldn't help but feel a magnetic pull toward him, yet again.

Feeling a heat rise in my cheeks, I cleared my throat, crossing my legs in an attempt to steady myself. I hoped he wouldn't notice the effect he had on me, even though the atmosphere had been charged with flirtation throughout our time together thus far. Deep down, a small voice whispered that it was all in my head, that Brian was simply being accommodating.

"I, uh..." I began, my voice slightly shaky as I took another sip of water, hoping to steady my nerves. "Well, I don't see why I should ask about your relationship," I replied, attempting to sound nonchalant but failing to hide the perplexed undertone in my voice. "It's really nobody's business, right?" I added, my brows furrowing.

Brian's lips curled into a partly playful, partly impressed, smile, and he moved closer to me, now stood right in front of me, like he was when we first met eyes earlier that afternoon. His eyes locked steadily onto mine. The air once again crackled with anticipation and unspoken feelings.

"That's true," he said, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. "But sometimes, it's intriguing to delve into the depths of someone's personal life, don't you think? To understand their desires, their secrets..."

His words hung in the air, charged with an undeniable seductive energy.

"So, I'm going to ask you, Y/N..." Brian's voice drew me in, his words laced with a magnetic allure. He moved away slightly, only to settle beside me on the sofa, his body angled toward mine. I couldn't help but feel a surge of prospect as I realised that he had remembered my name, speaking it for the first time since he'd met me.

"What about you?" his voice was a seductive whisper, gently coaxing me to reveal the depths of my own desires. My breath caught in my throat, the intensity of his presence almost overwhelming.

"What about me?" I managed to whisper, my voice betraying a mix of nervousness and curiosity.

Brian let out a low chuckle, a sound that sent a rush of heat coursing through me. As he shifted his position, resting his arm casually across the back of the sofa, he mirrored the way he had sat with Isabelle during the interview. But this time, his proximity to me was closer, his energy more focused. It was as if the space between us had become charged with an unspoken understanding.

His hand reached out, deliberately smoothing over the slight ruffle in my black skirt. The touch was gentle, but its intention was unmistakable. I couldn't help but feel the electricity that surged through me as his fingertips lingered on my knee. A wave of desire washed over me, causing my thighs to clench and a quiver to run through the depths of my being. I briefly closed my eyes, my senses overwhelmed by the intoxicating tension that enveloped us.

But my eyes snapped back open, meeting his gaze when he finally responded. The air seemed to crackle with anticipation, and I hung onto his every word, eager to unravel the depths of this enigmatic man before me.

Brian's eyes sparkled with a mischievous glint as he locked his gaze with mine. He had seen through my feeble attempt to divert the conversation and now he was toying with me, like a skilled predator playing with its prey.

"You know, Y/N," he began, his voice dripping with subtle amusement, "I can't help but wonder if those technical difficulties were just an excuse. Perhaps there's something else that prevented you from taking those notes." His words hung in the air, laden with implication.

I felt a blush creep up my cheeks, a mixture of embarrassment and fascination. How did he manage to see through my façade so effortlessly? It was as if he possessed an uncanny ability to unravel the truths hidden beneath the layers of my carefully constructed lies.

"You're quite perceptive," I admitted, my voice carrying a hint of vulnerability. "There might have been... other distractions that prevented me from fulfilling my duties."

Brian's lips curled into a knowing smile, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. His hand, still resting on my knee, exerted a subtle pressure, a silent reminder of the power dynamics at play. It was a gesture that sent a jolt coursing through me, making me acutely aware of his commanding presence.

"Well, Y/N," he murmured, his voice lowering again, "if you were indeed distracted, perhaps its time we address that distraction head-on."

I swallowed hard, my heart once again pounding in my chest. It was as if the world around us had faded into the background, leaving the two of us locked in this exhilarating dance of desire and power. I was drawn to him, unable to resist him, and he knew it.

"What do you suggest, Brian?" I exhaled, my voice a velvet whisper that teased the air. I teetered on the precipice of desire, my every fibre ready to succumb to his captivating dominance, yearning to explore the uncharted depths of passion that enticed us both.

His piercing gaze intensified, a searing ember of authority glowing in his eyes, beckoning me further into his world. "Y/N," he purred, his voice a sultry blend of command and invitation, "Perhaps it's time we plunge into the depths of these tantalising distractions. It would be such a waste to let them slip through our fingers, wouldn't it?"

He meticulously grazed his teeth against his plump lower lip, his predatory eyes descending upon my body with a swift hunger. "Are you seeing somebody?"

I took a deep breath, my eyes locked on his hand resting on my knee. It felt like an anchor, grounding me in the midst of the swirling emotions that Brian had effortlessly stirred within me. I shook my head slightly, my voice barely above a whisper. "No..."

His grip on my knee tightened ever so slightly, a subtle display of dominance that that sent a jolt of excitement coursing through me. Tense, the weight of his question hanging in the silence. Brian's gaze continued to bore into mine, his eyes filled with an intensity that made it hard to look away.

"But I'm assuming you have," he prodded gently, his voice laced with a mix of curiosity and desire. As he spoke, his hand shifted, his fingers tracing a path of electrifying warmth up my thigh. Every inch of my skin burned under his touch, igniting a fire deep within me that I struggled to contain.

My thoughts became hazy, a cocktail of longing and forbidden fantasies swirling in my mind. The allure of Brian's commanding presence was overwhelming, captivating me in ways I couldn't resist. Rationality wavered as I found myself yearning for his dominance, for him to physically take control and guide me into uncharted territory.

I mustered the strength to respond, my voice trembling with a potent mixture of apprehension and desire. "Yes," I finally confessed, my admission punctuated by a shuddering breath. The confession hung in the air, a tangible invitation for Brian to delve deeper into the depths of my past and desires.

"Of course, that was a silly question for me to ask you." Brian's laughter, a melodic symphony, echoed in the room, mingling with the charged atmosphere that enveloped us. That mischievous glint in his eyes danced with a hint of desire as he playfully taunted me.

"A pretty thing like you... No way a man hasn't approached you. No way you can't have experienced such things that come with it." His words, dripping with seductive confidence, sent shivers down my spine, awakening a dormant fire within me. As he continued, his hand embarked on a daring expedition, traversing the landscape of my thigh with deliberate intent. The tantalising proximity of his touch ignited a flame of exhilaration, intensifying his charm.

"Is this okay?"

Caught in the magnetic field of his presence, my breath hitched. His audacity, his audacious exploration of my boundaries, both thrilled and unnerved me. His question, whispered like a forbidden secret, hung in the air, enticing and provocative.

My gaze met his, locked in a fierce battle of desire and restraint. His head tilted ever so slightly, offering a glimpse into a world of untamed passion that lay just beyond my peripheral vision. It was a challenge, a temptation I couldn't ignore.

"Yes..." I gasped, a delicate confession of my yearning. The room seemed to pulse with the rhythm of our shared anticipation, each heartbeat echoing the unspoken desire that had been crackling above us since he asked me if I had a name back at the studio.

With every fibre of my being attuned to his touch, I met his piercing gaze, a hunger ignited within myself. The anticipation hung thick and heady in the air, as my body responded to his unspoken desires, yearning for the raw intensity that lay just beyond our fingertips.

His hand, once resting on the back of the sofa, now ventured into the depths of my hair, fingers dancing through the strands with an almost possessive tenderness. My breath hitched, a mixture of excitement and anxiety coursing through me veins.

His voice, a velvety caress, laced with his characteristic authority, penetrated the atmosphere. "You said you were twenty-two?" he asked, his touch a sensory symphony that sent shivers cascading down my spine to the fullest. I nodded, my lips instinctively finding refuge between my teeth, an unconscious response to the mounting tension that enveloped us.

"So young and full of life," he mused, his words a tantalising invitation into a world of hidden desires. The weight of his statement settled upon us, passing through us like a current. "You do understand what I'm trying to do right now, don't you?"

I knew exactly what he was attempting to do, and the thought alone could have caused me to climax on his sofa right then and there.

A barely contained breath escaped my lips, as I chuckled and shifted my body to face him fully as an answer. The crossing of my legs changed, creating an open pathway to explore our proximity. As if attuned to my movements, Brian's hand left my leg momentarily, only to reclaim its rightful place on my thigh, a possessive declaration of his intent.

Curiosity burned within me, emboldened by his unabashed dominance. "Do you do this a lot?" I ventured, resting my arm on the back of the sofa, a subtle invitation for him to delve deeper into the intricacies of his world. The revelation of his true intentions liberated me, allowing me to respond in kind, the allure of the forbidden dance consuming my thoughts.

Brian seemed a little taken aback by my question, but his initial surprise quickly dissolved into a low chuckle, a hint of intrigue glinting in his eyes. His gaze momentarily shifted to his hand, which had settled on the back of my thigh, his thumb tracing tantalising circles against the soft skin, exerting a gentle tug.

"I wouldn't say a lot... but every now and then, I stumble upon someone I really, really like," he confessed, his voice descending to a husky whisper as his eyes flickered up to meet mine. "Someone I simply can't resist," he added, his words resonating with an intensity that left no room for doubt. "And you, my dear, are the most captivating creature I've encountered thus far."

His compliments reverberated within me, causing me to sink deeper into the plush embrace of the sofa, my face suffused with a bright crimson blush. "Am I?" A small smirk danced on my lips as I raised an eyebrow, my inquiry carrying a weight that went beyond the surface. Unintentionally, I had invoked the presence of Anita, his partner, and now the unspoken tension lingered between us.

His eyes narrowed, the spark of recognition igniting in his gaze. But instead of letting the unspoken words bloom, he chuckled once again, his grip on my thigh tightening with a tantalising force. In one swift motion, he pulled me forward, until I found myself ensconced upon his lap. The unexpectedness of the action electrified the air, sending waves of desire coursing through me, my core pulsating in eager anticipation, yearning for the layers of clothing to vanish, to feel the raw heat of his skin against mine.

"You're asking too many questions, darling," he mused, his voice laced with a mixture of amusement and desire. His hands boldly found their place at my hips, sliding beneath the thin fabric of my blazer, their touch sending a jolt of electricity through my entire being.

A mischievous smirk tugged at the corner of my lips as I playfully retorted, "I thought that was my job," my lashes fluttering in a seductive display. Yet, my attempt at teasing seemed to have an unexpected effect on Brian. His hands clamped around me with a vice-like grip, the sensation of his fingers pressing through the fabric of my skirt sending a thrilling jolt through my body.

A low, almost predatory growl rumbled from his throat as he spoke, his voice a dangerous blend of desire and authority. "You're a bit mouthy, aren't you?" he murmured, his words laced with a hint of reprimand. "Just as I thought you were so innocent... sitting there on that stool with this little skirt almost exposing you to the whole world, not knowing a thing about it..." With each word, he pulled me down onto him, the force of his action making it clear that he was taking control. "Thinking I didn't notice that you were staring at me the whole time," he clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "And here you are, now sat on my lap, all shaky and needy."

His gaze roamed over my face, observing my every reaction to his sudden shift in demeanour. This was precisely the dynamic I had been seeking, a captivating dance between dominance and submission. The air hummed with an electrifying tension as I found myself entranced by him, surrendering to the intoxicating mix of vulnerability and desire that pulsed between us.

Brian's subtle manoeuvre in his lap caused me to instinctively cling onto his shoulders, seeking stability in the midst of escalating desire. His self-satisfied smirk revealed his pleasure at my reaction, fuelling the fire that raged between us. "There's a few things I want to go through with you before we go any further, sweetheart," he hummed, his hand firmly grasping the back of my neck, drawing me tantalisingly close to his face, our lips hovering inches apart. The anticipation was palpable, my breath hitching in anticipating of his next words. "Have you every been with anyone older before?"

I exhaled softly against his mouth, my eyes half-lidded with a mixture of nervousness and longing. I shook my head slightly, my hands finding solace in the firmness of his shoulders. "Maybe, like, a thirty-year-old, but..." My voice trailed off, the unspoken admission hanging in the air.

"Nobody as old as I am?" he finished my sentence with a knowing smile, fully aware of my unspoken answer. I nodded, my teeth earnestly biting down on my bottom lip, a nervous habit that betrayed my inner turmoil.

"Well, Y/N, I should warn you," he began, his hips abruptly surging against mine, stealing the air from my lungs. The intensity of his touch sent chills coursing through my body. "As an almost-fifty-one-year-old who knows what he's doing, I can guarantee that you will cum at least five times tonight," he purred, his fingers encircling my throat in a gentle yet possessive grip. "And with any luck, you'll struggle to walk out of that door in the morning."

With a swift, decisive movement, our lips finally connected, a torrent of pent-up desire exploding within me. The metaphorical fireworks ignited, their radiant bursts cascading through my body, kindling a symphony of tingles and shivers that coursed from my stomach to my throbbing core. The long-awaited contact between our lips unleashed a tempestuous passion that left me yearning for more.

"Stand up for Daddy," he murmured, his voice filled with a mix of desire and possessiveness. The unexpected pet name he bestowed upon himself sent a surge of excitement through me. It was a name I had imagined slipping from my own lips, and now that he had uttered it, I felt an intoxicating thrill. His eyes fluttered open, meeting mine for a brief moment. "You don't mind that, do you?" he asked, his grip on my throat loosening. Even in the midst of our escalating passion, Brian remained considerate and a gentleman.

"I'm more than okay with it," I replied, my voice laced with eagerness. I nodded, a spark of anticipation igniting within me. A smile tugged at the corners of his lips as he bit down on the lower one, an expression that hinted at the wild desires swirling in his mind.

"I knew you would be perfect for me, you naughty little thing..." he growled, his words laced with a primal hunger. He pressed his lips against mine one last time, a fierce and demanding kiss that left me breathless. With deliberate yet cautious movements, he guided me to stand in front of him. His legs were spread out, and his hands firmly settled on my waist, grounding me in his commanding presence.

"Let's get those clothes off of you," he breathed, his voice husky with anticipation. Sitting up, he leaned back slightly, creating a space for me to step between his legs. His hands roamed my waist, teasing an exploring, as he revelled in the sight before him. "I bet you look mesmerising, you sweet thing," he murmured, his words stirring a fire deep within me.

With Brian's guidance, I slipped off my blazer, letting it fall carelessly beside him on the sofa. My attire consisted of a form-fitting long-sleeved t-shirt, neatly tucked into a sleek black skirt. The fabric of the shirt clung to my body, accentuating every curve and contour, and I could sense Brian's gaze lingering on the enticing view before him.

"Keep going, love," he smoothly instructed, his voice laced with command. With his arm casually draped over the back of the sofa and his other hand resting suggestively over his own clothed arousal, he watched intently as I continued to undress, gradually revealing more of myself.

I slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt, exposing a teasing glimpse of the soft skin nestled between my breasts. The fabric parted, revealing a tantalising V-neckline that halted just at the beginning of my cleavage, leaving much to the imagination. Brian's eyes darkened with desire, his focus fixed on the seductive reveal.

Encouraged by his unwavering gaze, I continued to undress, peeling the shirt from my body with deliberate grace. Each movement involved in unzipping and shimmying down my skirt was accompanied a subtle sway of my hips, a deliberate invitation to indulge in the forbidden desires that simmered between us. The shirt slipped off of my shoulders, pooling at my feet, leaving me standing before him in nothing but my underwear, vulnerable and exposed.

Brian's hungry eyes drank in the sight, savouring the contours of my body outlined by the delicate lingerie that adorned it. His breath hitched, and a primal hunger flashed across his face.

"My, my, my..." he mused, his voice a low, throaty rumble. Leaning forward, he focused his gaze on my chest, his eyes lingering on the delicate white lace bra that adorned me, before trailing down to the matching pair of underwear that concealed the very essence of my being—a part of me yearning to be devoured by Brian's primal desire.

A subtle flush of embarrassment tinged my skin, blending with a tingling sense of prospect as I stood before Brian, acutely aware of his gaze that stripped me with its intensity. It was a an undeniable turn-on, this vulnerable exposure, yet I couldn't help but wonder if he desired something more from me.

"Turn around," he commanded, his tone blunt, his finger tracing an authoritative arc in the air. Without hesitation, I obeyed, pivoting silently on my heel until my back was completely exposed to him. And then, in a split second, a fierce sting erupted across my backside, the resounding slap from Brian's hand reverberating through the room. A gasp escaped my lips, mingling with a mixture of surprise, excitement, and a hint of pain.

Brian rose from the sofa, his presence expanding behind me like a towering shadow, and with a firm grip on the band of my underwear, he yanked me back against him. I could feel the undeniable evidence of his arousal pressing forcefully against my backside, the bulge in his trousers growing with each passing moment. Lowering his head, he released a low growl that sent a shiver up through my core, while his other hand firmly grasped my head, tilting it to the side, exposing my vulnerability.

"Good little girls answer their Daddy," he whispered, his voice a seductive blend of dominance of desire. His hand slid around my lower stomach, applying pressure that coerced me to press my backside more firmly into him. "Don't they?"

A gasp hitched in my throat, a mixture of shock and exhilaration coursing through my veins as Brian spoke to me in such a degrading yet intoxicating manner. "Y-yes..."

"Yes, what?" he demanded, his fingers intertwining with my hair, his fists closing with a possessive grip as his lips brushed against the sensitive shell of my ear. "If you want even the slightest taste of the sweet release you crave, you must address me accordingly, little one."

A quivering smile danced upon my lips, an eagerness to comply swirling within me. "Yes, Daddy."

"Good girl," he praised, his words hot against my ear, his breath fanning the flames of my desire. Resting the side of his head against mine, he directed his gaze downward, his hand venturing lower, ghosting over my core, teasing and tantalising. "I can't wait to feel your cunt wrap around my cock... I bet you're so tight and warm for me," he murmured, a promise that elicited a suppressed whimper from my lips. "Oh, the thought of that excites you, doesn't it?" he tested, his voice wicked.

"Yes, Daddy," I replied, my voice trembling with a potent mixture of obedience and unquenchable longing.

He chuckled, a sound tinged with satisfaction and amusement at my swift adaptation to our dynamic. "That's a good girl," he breathed against the sensitive skin of my neck, his lips claiming me with a fervent, sloppy kiss before abruptly releasing me, leaving me yearning for his touch and craving more.

"Stand back a little," Brian's voice commanded, an authoritative tone that brooked no resistance. I complied, taking a step back, my anticipation mounting as he took control. With a swift movement, he spun me around, his hands asserting their presence on my body, yet withholding any intimate touch. The air crackled with an electric charge, heavy with unspoken desire.

"No touching until I say," he declared, his voice laced with a mixture of authority and anticipation. Stepping back himself, he lowered his hands to his belt, his gaze never wavering from mine as he skilfully unbuckled and unzipped his trousers. The sound of the metal against metal reverberated in the room, heightening the intensity of the moment. His trousers cascaded down to his knees, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of his bare flesh, while his shirt billowed around him, hinting at the hidden secrets it concealed. He stepped out of the confines of his restrictive clothes, gracefully kicking them aside, leaving him standing before me in only his partially unbuttoned shirt.

My eyes couldn't help but be drawn downward, magnetically pulled to the sight of his own underwear. His bulge, sizable and still growing, strained against the fabric, a visual testament to the desire that consumed him. Heat flushed through my veins, a mixture of nervous anticipation and a primal hunger to taste him.

"I'm assuming you've given somebody a blowjob before, yes?" Brian's voice cut through the charged silence, his head tilted in a patronizing yet knowing manner. His words hung in the air, a challenge and an invitation entwined. He awaited my response, his eyes burning with a mixture of curiosity and desire, never once breaking our unyielding eye contact.

A tremor of excitement coursed through me, mingling with a tinge of apprehension. I nodded, my voice momentarily stolen by the intensity of the moment, my desire to please him amplifying with each passing second.

"Yes, Daddy," I finally managed to respond, the breathless admission hanging in the air, a testament to the intimate encounters of my past.

A predatory smile tugged at the corners of Brian's lips, a gleam of satisfaction illuminating his gaze. The flicker of dominance danced in his eyes as he took a deliberate step forward, closing the distance between us. The bulge in his underwear pressed against my senses, a physical manifestation of his hunger and anticipation.

"Good," he murmured, his voice husky and thick with desire.

I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside me, and I couldn't help but shuffle side to side to deal with the intense desire to get my hands or my mouth on Brian's arousal, especially when he moved to sit back against the sofa.

"Please can I taste you, Daddy?" I whispered, glancing up at him with an innocent expression.

He hummed, his hand coming down to move some of my hair out of my face. "So good, asking for permission," he praised, lowering his head and biting a little into my shoulder before turning his head and growling back into my ear. "I want you on all-fours, looking up at me with those pretty fucking eyes."

"Yes, Daddy," I moaned just at his response, but was quick to do as I was told, moving back to give myself space to do as I was told, whilst he got to work in removing his underwear from his body. I arched my back, showing off the round of my curves for him like I noticed he enjoyed so much. He took his length his hand, giving it a few strokes before shuffling forward a few inches. I couldn't stop staring at its appearance, pulsating, red, veiny, and everything I dreamed it would be. I took the hint and propped myself up on one hand, using the other to move my hair from my face, before finally leaning forward and licking from the base, right up the pronounced vain on his shaft, and up to the tip. I teased him, glancing up at him as I slowly flicked my tongue over the redness. I could taste the saltiness of his pre-cum already, which only encouraged me to keep going. But apparently, the teasing wasn't enough.

"Oh, you don't want to tease Daddy, little one," he drawled, one hand coming behind my head to tangle his fingers once again in my hair. "I have to feel your mouth all over my cock, alright?" His natural dominance was toned back, and I could tell that he was testing where my comfort level was. But I was too far in my comfort zone here. So, I pushed him.

With a mischievous smirk, I only wrapped my lips around his tip, sucking ever so slightly.

"You really want to play games?" He asked with an amused tinge to his voice. He chuckled, right before he pushed my head further down, causing his cock to slide into my mouth and to my throat as far as it could go, a gag automatically sounding from my throat. It made my core throb yet again.

His grip loosened briefly, in order to breathily ask me if this was okay. I hummed around his cock in confirmation, my eyes peering up at him the best they could. Just like that, he knew where my head was at, and his grip resumed, and his hips drew back, just to thrust back again. He showed me – demonstrated – the pace he wanted, and I was obliged to deliver.

Once I had my head bobbing along his shaft how he wanted, my hand wrapped firmly around the base, my gag reflex had been temporarily diverted, but not completely eradicated. Brian, however, smacked my hand away from him, making me keep my hands down on my knees and allow him to force himself however far into my mouth as he wanted.

As my mouth encased the warm length, my own arousal picked back up, feeling myself clenching around nothing and wishing his cock was balls deep inside me. But that only encouraged me to do a better job on him. I found myself moaning as his taste, the way he grunted and breathed above me. I'd never heard anyone sound so fucking beautiful.

"That's it, baby... Fuck," he groaned, his jaw clenched in sheer ecstasy. "Let me see that pretty face, Y/N." His request fuelled my desperation and desire to please him. With a whimper, I adjusted my position slightly, ensuring that my movements on his cock remained relentless, my lips tightly sealed around him.

As I complied with his command, my eyes flicked up to meet his gaze, aware of the redness that had undoubtedly consumed them. My lips, swollen from our passionate kisses and the way they enveloped him, added to the visual proof of our intense connection. Tears welled up at the corners of my eyes, a mix of pleasure, vulnerability, and overwhelming sensations.

However, what truly pushed me to the brink of desperation was the sight of him. He looked like a god, an ethereal being of pleasure and dominance. His hair fell forward, framing his face as he gazed down at me. His mouth was slightly open, allowing soft moans and growls to escape. His chest rose and fell with each ragged breath, a testament to his state of euphoria. His heavy-lidded eyes exuded a mix of desire and satisfaction, capturing me in a moment of profound intensity.

"Such a beautiful little slut, aren't you?" He sighed, running his hand back through my hair to bunch it up at the back, helping me through my pace. "Yeah... such a good girl for Daddy..." He mumbled, mostly to himself as his eyes looked back at my backside. His free hand reached forward and felt over my curves until he reached his destination, grabbing a handful before lifting and landing his palm against the skin with a forceful smack. It sent me moaning and whimpering yet again, the small sting sending shocks to my arousal and shivers to my skin. He did it again, this time a lot harder. He must have been testing the waters beforehand. I flinched this time, my back arching more.

I whined, the hand that was propping me up gripping into the bedsheets as I tried my very best not to rub my thighs together for friction I so desperately needed. Brian took notice and let go of my hair, pulling his cock from my mouth. A string of saliva still connected us, and my face was completely fucked out.

"Look at you, darling," he purred, taking a hold of my face with one hand and pressing my cheeks together. "You enjoyed having my cock in your mouth, didn't you?" With a deliberate slowness, he traced his thumb over my swollen lower lip, savouring the aftermath of our intimate encounter. It was a silent question, a rhetorical inquiry that required no verbal response. Instead, I responded with a breathless nod, my eyes locked on his, conveying my pleasure and desire.

But in an unexpected twist, his hand swiftly left my lip, and a sharp, stinging sensation erupted on the side of my face. A decent slap, delivered with purpose, but cautiously landed, not giving his all in the event that I wasn't into that kind of treatment. Of course, I would let this man do anything to me.

The impact took me by surprise, integrating with the haze of pleasure. Yet, as quickly as the pain registered, he seized me once again, his grip possessive and firm. His actions were a reminder of his control, a reminder that I existed in this moment solely for his pleasure. It was a moment of sharp contrast, the pain mingling with desire, further fuelling the intensity of our connection. "What did I say about answering Daddy?"

"Yes, Daddy—sorry, Daddy," I breathed out, looking up at him with watery eyes. "Can I have more, Daddy?" I batted my eyelashes.

Releasing his hold on me, he sat forward, his shirt clinging to his body, evidence of the sweat that adorned his skin. With a purposeful motion, he discarded the garment, revealing the glistening contours of his middle-aged physique. Rising to his feet, he positioned himself near the edge of the sofa, his foot resting upon the plush surface for support. His hand encircled his throbbing cock, exerting a firm grip as he glided his fist along its length, eliciting a deep groan of pleasure.

"What are you waiting for? Show me what you're capable of," he commanded, his voice laced with a potent mixture of authority and desire. His invitation beckoned me forward, and without hesitation, I eagerly reattached my mouth to him, my lips enveloping his engorged length. Balancing myself on the edge of the sofa so I could reach him, I rested my hands on the sofa, surrendering to the primal rhythm that coursed through us.

Brian's hand gathered a handful of my hair at the back of my head, ensuring a firm grip as he began to thrust into my mouth with abandon. He paid no mind to the reddened hue of my eyes, nor the cascades of saliva that spilled from my lips, consumed by the raw pleasure that surged between us. Each forceful thrust of his hips sent a jolt of ecstasy through my being, a delicious combination of pleasure and submission. The intensity of our connection intensified, the boundaries of control blurring as we surrendered to our most primal desires.

"Do a good job, and then Daddy will make you cum all over his tongue, okay?" He moaned down at me, making me nod, and whine a muffled "Yes, Daddy," with his cock still shoved in my mouth.

I maintained my position, allowing him to forcefully thrust into my throat, my head held firmly in place by his unyielding grip. I looked up at him through teary eyes, my face glistening with a mixture of saliva and tears, a testament to the depths of pleasure and submission I was experiencing.

The sound of his hissing voice filled the air, blending with his deep groans of satisfaction. "Yes... So perfect," he gasped, overcome by the intense sensation of my mouth enveloping him. The mixture of pain and pleasure, dominance and surrender, fuelled the fiery connection between us, heightening the raw, primal energy of the moment.

I felt his thigh shake beside my head, and he pulled my head all the way down onto his cock, my nose pushing into the mass of pubic hair at the base of his arousal. I let out a heavy breath, closing my eyes and relaxing my throat to allow him to slide down it with ease. Then, without warning, he yanked me back, his cock completely slipping out of my mouth. It was glistening with a mixture of my thickening saliva and his pre-cum, matching with the way my lips sparkled with the same kind of adventure.

Gasping for breath, I found myself being pulled up to my feet by the firm grip of Brian's hand, entwined in my hair. The forceful manner in which he yanked me upright only heightened the intensity of our encounter. Our lips crashed together once again, igniting a wild and insatiable passion that consumed us both.

The kiss was anything but gentle. It was a raw display of desire, marked by urgency and need. Our mouths melded together in a feverish dance, tongues clashing and intertwining in a desperate battle for dominance. It was as if Brian couldn't get enough of the taste, eagerly seeking to reclaim a trace of himself on my lips.

Every swipe and flick of his tongue against mine sent electric jolts of pleasure surging through my body. The hunger in his kiss matched the fiery desire coursing through my veins, building an intoxicating tension that threatened to consume us both. Our lips and tongues moved in a frenzy, an unspoken declaration of our insatiable lust. It made me wonder what his lips and his tongue would feel like on my aching core.

With one hand wrapped around my throat, he pulled me back enough to speak to me. "Get on the bed for me, love," he demanded softly, letting me go and pushing me slightly in the direction of the bed.

"Yes, Daddy," I obeyed, swiftly turning and heading for the large king-sized bed. I lowered myself onto the sleek silk, my heart pounding in raging lust as my core continued to flutter and tighten at the pure thought of being devoured by Brian. "You sucked Daddy's cock so well, little one," he praised with a patronising flare, as he slowly made his way towards me, closing in on me like I was some sort of prey for the taking. He stopped right in front of me, leaning down so both of his hands were placed flat on the surface of the bed, and his face was mere inches from mine. "Do you think you deserve to have my face buried between your legs, baby?"

His question stirred a whirlwind of sensations within me, causing my entire body to tremble with a mixture of pleasure and anticipation. My thighs involuntarily clenched, and a breathy sigh escaped my quivering lips. Brian had a way of rendering me speechless, making it nearly impossible to form coherent words as I struggled to catch my breath against his intoxicating lips.

"So precious. I get you this hot, you can't even speak," he hummed, amusement dancing in his voice. One hand found its way back to my throat, asserting his dominance over me. His thumb grazed over my lower lip, teasing it down and allowing it to spring back against my teeth. Leaning closer, he guided me down onto my back, his presence looming over me like a commanding giant.

Once he fully hovered above me, his aura radiating power and desire, he whispered with a menacing grunt that sent shivers down my spine. His words held a primal hunger, a promise of untamed pleasure.

"Would you like Daddy to taste your sweet pussy, darling?"

The question enough made me writhe a little under him, and I whined a small "Yes please, Daddy" up at him, making him chuckle and shoot me that sexy smile of his.

"Stay there," he whispered, his voice laced with a commanding edge. With a swift motion, he pulled himself up to his feet, his strong hands gripping my ankles firmly. I felt myself being effortlessly dragged to the edge of the bed, my legs hanging over the edge. The anticipation prickled across my skin as he took a moment to appraise me, his eyes roaming hungrily over my half-naked form.

His fingers hooked into the band of my underwear, and in one fluid motion, he tugged them down my legs, leaving me completely bare from the waist down. The sudden exposure left me feeling vulnerable, every inch of my body open and ready for his intimate exploration. I could feel the cool air caress my heated skin, heightening my senses and intensifying the anticipation that pulsed through me.

His touch ignited a fiery sensation across my skin as he parted my legs, positioning my knees closer to my chest. The intimate vulnerability of my exposed core made my heart race. The throbbing of my clit intensified, yearning for the exquisite sensation of his lips wrapping around it, ready to be devoured by the force of his desire.

His fingertips trailed a tantalising path down the back of my thighs, leaving a trail of electric sparks in their wake. The pressure he applied against my legs urged me to instinctively open up for him, surrendering myself to his skilled ministrations.

As he lowered himself to his knees, his breath caressed my most sensitive flesh, sending shivers cascading through my body. The warmth of his breath teased and enveloped me, igniting a primal desire that caused my breathing to quicken in sync with the mounting tension.

The realisation struck me with a jolt. Few men I had been with had truly taken the time to explore the depths of my pleasure. But Brian was different. He possessed an insatiable hunger to please me, to delve into the realm of my desires. To show me he was capable, at his age, of making a young thing writhe and arch at his talents. This was not a mere obligation but a ravenous craving that consumed him, a thirst that he longed to quench with my pleasure as his ultimate reward.

I felt a surge of gratitude for Brian's genuine desire to please me. It was a rarity, a precious gift that I would savour with every fibre of my being. The weight of his intention settled over me, heightening the anticipation that coursed through my veins.

His hands moved with purpose, exploring the contours of my thighs, tracing delicate patterned that elicited soft moans from my lips. I felt my body responding to his touch, arching instinctively, seeking more of his caress. The intensity of his focus ignited a fire within me, fuelling the craving for his skilled tongue to explore me.

With a deliberate yet tender touch, Brian's fingers found their way to my most intimate core. His fingertips danced along the wetness that coated my folds, teasing and tantalising, as if he were an artist painting strokes of desire upon my canvas. Each stroke of his touch sent ripples of pleasure cascading through me, building the intensity with each passing second.

The room was filled with an intoxicating mix of our shared breaths and the sound of my own heart pounding in my ears. Every nerve in my body stood at attention, poised for the exquisite release that awaited me. I closed my eyes, surrendering myself to the sensations that enveloped me, allowing the anticipation to swell and consume me.

And then, with a flicker of his tongue, Brian made contact with my swollen, throbbing clit. The jolt of pleasure shot through me, causing my back to arch and a gasp of pleasure to escape my lips. His skilful tongue explored every crevice, every delicate fold, igniting an inferno of sensation that spiralled within me.

I lost myself in the maelstrom of pleasure, my fingers grasping the sheets beneath me as waves of ecstasy crashed over my body. Brian's rhythmic movements, a symphony of pleasure orchestrated by his expert tongue, bringing me closer to the brink of oblivion.

Brian, ever the master of control, sensed the depths of my pleasure and revelled in his power over me. He intensified his assault on my sensitive nub, his tongue swirling and flicking with unrelenting precision. Each stroke, each caress, pushed me closer to the edge of ecstasy.

As the intensity mounted, I could feel the coil of desire winding tighter within me. My body trembled with anticipation, my moans growing louder and louder, more and more urgent. Brian's grip on my thighs tightened, a silent command to surrender completely to the overwhelming pleasure he was orchestrating.

I was teetering on the precipice, my entire being consumed by the need for release. But just when I thought I couldn't bear it any longer, Brian pulled back, denying me that final plunge into ecstasy. The absence of his touch left me achingly empty, my body pulsating with unfulfilled desire.

With a predatory glint in his eyes, Brian rose to his full height, his dominance radiating from every pore. He seized my wrists and effortlessly pinned them above my head, his strength asserting his control over my quivering body. I was at his mercy, my desire reaching a fever pitch as I yearned for his next move.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against my ear, his voice a low, commanding growl. "You think I'm going to let you cum that easily, my little plaything?" he whispered, the words igniting a fierce ache deep within me. "No, my sweet, I'm going to make you beg for it."

His words sent a shockwave down my spine, my breath catching in my throat. I wanted to plead, to beg for release, but he silenced me with his dominance. He relished in the power he held over me, revelling in my desperation.

With a deliberate slowness that bordered on torturous, Brian trailed his fingers along the length of my body, tantalisingly close to where I craved his touch the most. Every nerve in my body screamed for his contact, my hips instinctively arching toward him, begging for his release.

But Brian was in control, and he dictated the pace. He continued his maddening exploration, his touch teasingly light as he traced circles on my inner thighs. The anticipation grew unbearable, my need for release becoming an all-consuming ache that threatened to overwhelm me.

Finally, just when I thought I could take no more, Brian yielded to my pleading body. His fingers found their way to my throbbing core, delving deep into my wetness. The penetration was swift and intense, a primal connection that shattered any remnants of self-control.

He moved with an effortless rhythm, his fingers expertly stroking every sensitive spot within me. "How tight you are, sweetheart... definitely need to warm you up a bit before I stretch you out," he moaned down at me, the pleasure coursing through my veins and my body convulsing beneath his touch. I writhed against his unyielding grip, lost in the sea of sensations that consumed me.

"D-Daddy..." I whined, my head pressing back into the silk sheets. "Feels so good..." Was all I could whimper out as his two fingers sloppily stroked inside me, generating the lewdest of noises. I was no longer an individual, but a vessel of desire, completely surrendered to his command. "Yes..." I hissed, my back arching.

"You almost there, angel?" He looked down at me, moving his head to meet my gaze and mirroring my whimpering breaths. "You gonna cum on my fingers like a good girl for Daddy?"

I nodded feverishly at him. "Yes, Daddy, I'm gonna cum so hard... Please, c-can I cum, Daddy?" I plead, looking up at him with innocent eyes. He bit on his lip hard, his gaze averting down to where his fingers connected with my body, enjoying the sight.

"I did promise you at lease five orgasms, didn't I?" He started, each question rhetorical. "I would be a pretty lousy daddy if I let you go without fulfilling those promises, wouldn't I?" He looked back up at me, his eyes as black as anything. "Cum around my fingers, sweetheart."

With a commanding nod from Brian, a surge of desire shot through my veins, compelling me to yield his dominance. My jaw slackened, and my back arched painfully as an intense pleasure coursed through my core, tightening, and pulsating around his lengthy middle fingers.

"God, you feel so good," Brian growled, his voice laced with satisfaction. "Squeeze around me, baby. Show Daddy how much you enjoy it."

A whimper escaped my lips as I obediently clenched around his fingers, my body quivering with mounting pleasure. My thighs instinctively clenched around Brian's wrist, attempting to hold on to the overwhelming sensations that threatened to consume me.

"Relax those pretty thighs, darling," Brian commanded, his voice dripping with authority. "I want you completely open for me. I want to see every tremor of pleasure."

I fought against the instinct to resist, forcing my thighs to loosen their grip, granting him unrestricted access to my pleasure. Waves of numbing ecstasy washed over me, rendering me breathless and lost in a state of euphoria.

I could hear the wet sounds of his fingers moving inside me, the slick friction only adding to the intensity of the moment. Each deliberate stroke pushed me closer to the edge, my body teetering on the precipice of release.

Brian's husky voice filled the air. "Cum for me, baby. Let yourself go."

The words echoed in my ears, igniting a surge of desire and surrender within me. The coil of tension within me tightened to its breaking point, until finally, I couldn't hold back any longer. My entire being convulsed with pleasure as a powerful climax consumed me, leaving me breathless and trembling in the wake of the intensity.

Brian forcefully withdrew his fingers from my throbbing core, causing me to gasp in both pleasure and loss. He didn't waste a second before shoving those glistening digits into my mouth, filling me up and silencing any protest with his dominance.

I moaned around his fingers, my eyes watering with a mix of desire and submission. The taste of my own arousal mingled with the salty tang of his skin, creating a sinful concoction that fuelled my insatiable hunger.

"Open wide, my obedient little slut," Brian growled. "Taste yourself. Show me how much you crave me."

I obediently parted my lips wider, taking my fingers deeper, feeling them brush against the back of my throat. The overwhelming sensations threatened me, my senses heightened by the knowledge that I was at his mercy.

I clung desperately to his wrist, my nails digging into his flesh, seeking an anchor in the midst of this dizzying pleasure. The taste, the submission, the raw power he exerted over me, it all blended into an intoxicating cocktail that pushed me further into the depths of desire.

Brian's eyes bore into mine, their intensity burning like a searing flame. He relished in the sight of my vulnerability, the surrender etched across my face. I could see the hunger in his gaze, the hunger to possess me completely, to claim me as his own.

As my body trembled with the aftershocks of my release, Brian's grip on me tightened, his dominance unwavering. He knew we were far from done, that the fire between us still raged, demanding to me stoked.

"You're mine tonight, and I'm not done with you," Brian growled, his voice laced with a primal hunger. "You belong to me, body and soul." He took his fingers from my mouth, moving some hair out my sweat-sheened face. "I need to be inside you, pretty thing," he breathed, kissing me sloppily before pulling himself up onto his knees. "Hands and knees," he once again did that thing with his finger, spinning it in a silent command that I acquiesced to without question. I weakly held myself up in an all-fours position, Brian stalking behind me.

Unable to see him, I could only imagine his gaze raking over my exposed form, his hunger growing with each passing moment. A low, primal grunt escaped his lips, a telltale sign of the torturous pleasure he was inflicting upon himself, stroking his hand along his length, relishing in the decadent excitement.

The air crackled with tension as he closed the distance, the bed shaking with his movements. I could sense his presence behind me, his heated breath caressing the nape of my neck as he leaned over me. The promise of his possession hung in the air, electrifying and intoxicating.

"You're so eager, my little temptress," he growled in a seductive rumble against my ear. "You've been aching for me, haven't you? Since you knew how to... They all ache for me like this, but you're so lucky to have me behind you, about to stretch all of you out with my cock."

My body trembled in response, craving the euphoria only he could provide. "Are you on the pill?" I promptly nodded back at him, just needing him to be inside of me already.

And then, without warning, I felt the tantalising pressure of his length at my entrance. He teased me, brushing against my slick folds, denying me the fullness I craved. It was a torment that pushed me to the edge of madness, but I knew it was all part of his exquisite control.

"Please, Daddy... I need to feel you," I practically cried out, my hips wiggling a little.

The moment stretched out, time suspended in a haze of desire. And then, in one swift, powerful thrust, he claimed me as his own. Pleasure and pain collided within me, a symphony of sensations that left me gasping for breath. The world dissolved into a symphony of moans and carnal pleasure as we became entwined for the first time.

"Jesus Christ..." he exhaled. "You surpass every fantasy, darling," he praised, his hands firmly gripping my hips, guiding me backwards to meet his initial thrust. "Does it hurt, love?"

A strained whimper escaped my lips as I lowered my head, my senses overwhelmed by the intense sensation of his cock filling me, stretching me with its commanding presence. "Just a bit..." I confessed, my words barely audible in a whisper. "But... I-I like it."

"Of course you do," he chuckled darkly, savouring the power he held over me. He withdrew, creating a fleeting void within me, only to reclaim it with a forceful thrust that elicited a gasp of pleasure. His movements grew rougher, a deliberate test to gauge my response. "You're such a dirty, naughty little girl, aren't you?"

He continued with a relentless rhythm, each thrust penetrating deeper, igniting a primal fire within me. My body quivered under his command, surrendering to the pleasure he bestowed upon me. The room filled with the sounds of our joining, a symphony of moans and the wet, rhythmic slapping of our bodies colliding.

Brian's grip on my hips tightened, his fingers digging into my flesh, marking me as his. With each forceful thrust, I could feel his power and dominance asserting itself, claiming me completely. I was his vessel, a conduit for his pleasure and my own.

"You were made for this, my sweet." He placed a hand between my shoulder blades and pushed me down, causing me to collapse onto my upper body, my back arching deliciously, and making Brian's thrusts hit me deeper than ever, which made me practically scream out in ecstasy. "There you go... I was waiting for you to scream for me," he breathed through a smug grin. "Now, lets see if I can get you to cum like this, then..."

With an insatiable hunger, Brian embarked on a relentless rampage of lust, thrusting into me with an unbridled force that left me breathless. The sound of our bodies colliding echoed through the room, mingling with the symphony of my moans and the lewd expletives that escaped my lips.

My senses were overwhelmed as pleasure surged through every fibre of my being. I surrendered completely to the symphony of sensations, losing myself in the wild rhythm of Brian's hips. As the pleasure built within me, I could feel the familiar stirrings of my second release. The excitement swelled, my breathing grew heavy and shallow, and I instinctively laid my head to the side on the cool pillows. My entire body moved and jolted forward with every powerful thrust that Brian delivered. I clung to the sheets, my fingers gripping them tightly.

"Yes, yes... Fuck, right there, Daddy," I moaned, my mouth hanging open as he hit every right spot within me. "Fuck, I'm gonna cum again, Daddy, please—“

"That's right, baby, let me feel you cum on my cock," he encouraged with a breathless exalt. He sent a sharp slap to the side of my arse, which edged me even closure. "Come on," he coaxed me, railing into me with a more viscous vigour, his hands pulling me against him with each thrust.

With each passing moment, the intensity escalated, pushing me closer to the edge of another mind-shattering climax. Brian's expertise and unrelenting passion drove me closer and closer, his actions meticulously calculated to elicit the most profound response from my quivering body.

The world around us faded into insignificance as I teetered on the brink. I was lost in a whirlwind of sensation, my mind consumed by pleasure, and all that mattered was the overwhelming connection between us.

And then it happened. The dam within me burst, unleashing a torrent of ecstasy that washed over me like a tidal wave. I cried out, my voice a symphony of raw desire and fulfilment. My body convulsed in rapture, every nerve ending ignited in a frenzy of pleasure.

Brian's thrusts continued, prolonging the ecstasy, each movement pushing me further into the depths of euphoria.

However, he didn't allow me a moment to catch my breath. With an almost frantic urgency, Brian swiftly positioned himself beneath me, his face now nestled between my legs. His hands gripped onto me, pulling me upwards until I was straddling his face, fully exposed to his hungry mouth. His lips claimed me once more, his skilled tongue lapping at my folds, delving deep into my entrance.

I couldn't help but run my fingers through my hair, my head falling back as the overwhelming stimulation consumed me. Brian was relentless in his pursuit of my pleasure, determined to extract another orgasm from my quivering body. He disregarded the fact that I hadn't fully recovered from the last climax, his singular focus on pushing me to new heights of ecstasy.

There was no room for hesitations or reservations. It was a raw and primal exchange, a symphony of desire and surrender. Brian's hunger for my pleasure was insatiable, his actions an unspoken command for me to abandon myself completely to the sensations coursing through me.

As I shifted my hips, I felt the firm contour of his nose glide teasingly over my sensitive clit. A surge of pleasure shot through me, and I seized the opportunity to use it to my advantage. Brian recognised my intentions and eagerly encouraged my movements. His hands gripped my backside, guiding me to grind against his face, his nose and tongue working in perfect harmony to ignite the most exquisite sensations within me.

Every glide and stroke over my swollen and aroused nub sent waves of pleasure crashing through me. I surrendered to the primal rhythm, my hips undulating in sync with Brian's skilful ministrations. His tongue ventured deeper, exploring the depths of my core with a fervour that matched my own mounting desire.

The air was thick with the heady scent of arousal, mingling with the sounds of our shared passion. Moans and gasps filled the room, a testament to the intensity of the connection we shared. In this moment, there was no room for pretence or inhibition. It was an unadulterated celebration of pleasure.

Time lost all meaning as the sensations intensified. I was on the precipice once more, teetering on the edge of an impending release. The world narrowed down to the overwhelming pleasure radiating from my core, the delicious torment building within me.

"O-Oh, shit... Br—Daddy," I mewled, looking down and seeing Brian's eyes glaring up at me, with a knowing look. He growled against me, now moving his head against me to intensify the feeling of his nose against my clit. And just like that, another climax ripped through me like a stampede of hormones. But he didn't stop, like I thought he might have. He flipped us over, so that I was now laid with my head on the pillows, looking up at the ceiling with his head still firmly shoved between my legs.

"Oh, God..." I weakly stuttered, the pain from the sensitivity unfolding into another type of pleasure altogether. The baby hairs on my head clung to my forehead, my skin flushed light pink and starting to glimmer ever so slightly with a light sheen of sweat.

Brian grunted with determination, continuing his movements on me, his fingers slipping inside me and continuing with a heavy ministration. The free hand that wasn't holding me firmly in place, yanking me even closer to him, now travelled up to my chest, using every ounce of his strength to pull down my bra, not bothering with unhooking it beforehand. He seemed to hold onto it for leverage. My whines and moans were totally unfiltered by this point, but I didn't give a single fuck.

The small glance I made down at him showed his head moving along with the motions of his tongue, completely in a world of his own as he went down on me. It made me feel better knowing he enjoyed it seemingly as much as I did.

My thighs were starting to shake uncontrollably as well as the rest of my legs, the combination of the sensitivity and the brief visual I just got of him was edging me closer and closer to another release. Already.

"Holy fuck, Daddy, I'm gonna cum again..." I groaned out one of my arms laying out on the bed beside me. My eyes shut as I revelled in this feeling. Most of my body went completely numb, but I was able to feel my forbidden, scandalous, older lover's free hand slide into mine, intertwining our fingers together. It was such a small, subtle action, but it made my heart flutter and my core clench deliciously. I squeezed onto his hand, my nails digging into the back of his as I started to grind my hips against his face.

I didn't even anticipate my second release; it happened so fast and sudden.

My voice broke and cracked as I whined out, this climax much more intense than the last one. My back was not the only part of my body that arched off the bed this time; this time, my hips rose off the bed, seemingly having a mind of their own as Brian stayed attached to me. He let me ride out the cluster of orgasms he'd just given me before eventually lifting his head up from between my legs. I was still recovering, my head buzzing and my body still tingling. I didn't even realise that Brian was crawling up and over me, watching me try to recover from that mind-altering experience.

He granted me a brief respite, allowing me to descend from the dizzying heights of pleasure. But just as I began to regain a semblance of control, he swiftly reclaimed it, his grip tightening around the back of my neck. With a commanding tone, he ordered, "Open up, love..."

My body trembled with a mixture of anticipation and vulnerability as I obediently parted my lips, ready to receive his intimate offering. Brian provocatively gathered saliva in his mouth, savouring the lewd act before releasing a single droplet into my waiting mouth. The taste of him mingled with my own essence, an intoxicating blend that sent shivers down my spine

"Do you have any idea how amazing you taste, sweetheart?" he purred, his voice laced with a breathless whine. The audaciousness of the act ignited a forbidden desire within me, a thrill that I had never experienced before. In this moment, with Brian, I revelled in the taboo nature of our encounter, embracing the depths of my desires without reservation.

His unyielding gaze never faltered, and as his hand descended to his throbbing shaft, a wicket smile played upon his lips. He dragged his slick length over my sensitive core, causing me to tremble with the onslaught of pleasure. The delicate touch against my clit sent electric shocks surging through my body, amplifying the intensity of the moment.

Without delay, Brian pressed forward, his cock sliding effortlessly into my eager depths. A guttural moan escaped my lips, merging with his deep growl of satisfaction. "One more, my perfect little thing," he whispered, his voice thick with desire and dominance. He increased the tempo of his thrusts, each one driving us closer to the edge of oblivion. Our bodies collided with a symphony of flesh, a crescendo of passion that echoed through the room, fuelling his insatiable hunger for release.

I locked eyes with him, our gazes merging in a dance of primal desire. His sculpted form glistened with a sheen of perspiration, his dishevelled hair framing his face in a wild halo, and his jaw clenched with unrelenting determination. He embodied raw masculinity, and untamed force that overwhelmed my senses.

As our bodies moved in perfect synchrony, the tension grew with each passing second. The room became a sanctuary of pleasure, filled with the cacophony of our moans and the intoxicating scent of our arousal. Every thrust brought us closer to the precipice, our shared climax shimmering on the horizon, a tantalising promise that held us captive.

"Oh God, Brian," I gasped, losing the pet name, the closer I got to what would be an other-worldly release.

He met my subtle plea with a wicked grin, his thrusts growing more forceful, driving us to the brink. "Hold on tight, darling," he rasped, his voice dripping with carnal hunger.

With each primal thrust, the crescendo rose, pleasure and ecstasy threatening to consume us. I clung to him, my nails digging into his flesh.

"Cum for me, one last time, baby, I know you can do it for Daddy," he reaffirmed one last time. And in the final crescendo, time stood still. Our bodies moved as one, a frenzy of need and desire. The air crackled with electricity, the room filled with the sound of our moans mingling, our rhythm reaching a fevered pitch.

And then, with a primal roar, we shattered. A surge of ecstasy coursed through me, radiating from the depths of my core to every sinch of my being. It was an earth-shattering climax, an explosion of pleasure that consumed us both, obliterating any thought or sense of self.

As waves washed over us, our bodies convulsed in tandem, locked in a euphoric embrace. My mouth hung open, and broken cries fell from it, as I experienced the most intense, harsh orgasm of my life.

"Fuuuck!" Brian's animalistic growl rang in the air, as he stilled inside me, shooting his thick load deep within me. Brian May's release. Inside of me. He clung to me, dropping his head down to bury his face in my neck as he slowed his thrusts. He let out whimpers of his come down, his arms wrapped tightly around me.

As our laboured breaths mingled in the air, a moment of surprise interrupted the post-coital haze. Sensing a different sensation, I glanced down, my tired eyes widening in disbelief. A pool of wetness glistened beneath me, evidence of an uncharted territory of pleasure.

"Oh, God..." I gasped, my face flushing with a mix of embarrassment and astonishment. I instinctively covered my face, overwhelmed by the unexpected release. Brian, still catching his breath, followed my gaze, his expression shifting from confusion to a knowing smile.

Chuckling softly, he gently removed my hands from my blushing face, his eyes filled with a mixture of admiration and amusement. With tender reassurance, he pressed a loving peck on my nose before capturing my lips in a lingering kiss.

"Darling," he murmured, his voice laced with affectionate amusement. "You've been with the wrong people if they've never made you squirt before."

With a smug smirk at his accomplishment, he swiftly stood up from the bed, momentarily disappearing into the bathroom and then returning a short while after with a small face cloth. He kneeled in front of me, placing one hand on my knee and gently guiding it to the side so he could have access to me. He was clearly experienced in this, and it made me blush as he cleaned me up; he did it as slow as ever, his eyes feasting upon my worn-out state. After all, he had just given me five mind-altering orgasms. Just as promised.

"There we go," he sighed, throwing the cloth to the side and leaning down above me. "All perfect," he gave me another heated kiss, his tongue rolling into my mouth sensually, making my eyes flutter shut. He broke the kiss and smirked down at me. "Happy you didn't get on the Euro?"

"Definitely," I breathed out with an airy laugh. "I have to say, I wasn't expecting this to happen today..." I bit my lip, for some reason finding it difficult to look him in the eyes.

"I'll be honest, I didn't either," he chuckled, moving beside me and pulling me into his side.

The only thing now was figuring out how to leave. Surely, there'd have to be that conversation. And surely, he didn't want me staying there. After all, he was a renowned rock star, in a committed relationship with someone much closer to his own age, on a press tour, eyes on him 24/7.

"What's going on up there, love?" He propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at me. "I'm not throwing you out, if that's what you're wondering."

I looked at him, shocked. "Really?"

He laughed down at me smoothly, admiring my innocent state. "Of course not. Why would I get rid of something so perfect?" He purred down at me. My perplexity stayed, but I lacked the energy to question him further.

"We'll talk in the morning, sweet thing," he stroked over my hair. "Now, I think we should sleep."

Like a train conductor, he commanded our every act, and we did exactly that. Sleeping next to Brian May in a luxury hotel in Germany, after being pummelled into the mattress of his king-size bed, was so much better of an alternative to staying in a three-star hotel with colleagues that would reprimand me non-stop for my slip up at the studio. I hadn't even received a call from Candice to check up on me, or ask where I was, since I did disappear without notifying anybody.

I must have overslept, since by the time morning rolled around, the bed felt ominously cold and void of any other human presence. I fluttered my eyes open, stretching my arm out instinctively to find that Brian was no longer beside me. But as I came round, I noticed a piece of paper sat delicately on the bedside table. I tiredly sat up, crawling over to it and picking it up, letting my eyes gaze over the pristine cursive that adorned its surface.

Y/N,

Last night was incredible, and I found myself sat awake in the early hours of this morning, whilst you slept beside me. You looked so perfect and at ease. Anyway, I had to run out and get some stuff done this morning, but don't worry, my perfect Y/N, you stay right where you are, and I shall be back before midday. In the meantime, order room service, take a shower, do whatever you need to do. And maybe call that old sow from the studio and tell her you quit. I needed a new PR person, anyway. And you? You're perfect for me.

See you later, sweet girl.

Bri x

42 notes · View notes