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#one last poem for richard
versosdeunlunatico · 10 months
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One Last Poem for Richard
by Sandra Cisneros
December 24th and we’re through again.
This time for good I know because I didn’t
throw you out — and anyway we waved.
No shoes. No angry doors.
We folded clothes and went
our separate ways.
You left behind that flannel shirt
of yours I liked but remembered to take
your toothbrush. Where are you tonight?
Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again
and old ghosts come back home.
I’m sitting by the Christmas tree
wondering where did we go wrong.
Okay, we didn’t work, and all
memories to tell you the truth aren’t good.
But sometimes there were good times.
Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep
beside me and never dreamed afraid.
There should be stars for great wars
like ours.
There ought to be awards
and plenty of champagne for the survivors.
After all the years of degradations,
the several holidays of failure,
there should be something
to commemorate the pain.
Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster.
Till then, Richard, I wish you well.
I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water,
and women kinder than I treated you.
I forget the reason, but I loved you once,
remember?
Maybe in this season, drunk
and sentimental, I’m willing to admit
a part of me, crazed and kamikaze,
ripe for anarchy, loves still.
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litany-writes · 28 days
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tower of babel (from genesis 11:3)
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randomrichards · 2 years
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ONE LAST SHOT:
Friend sabotage friend
First with Trailer Park Boys cast
Drunken pet shop boss
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oolong-strawbby · 5 months
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Analysis of Richard Siken’s Scheherazade
More below
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havingapoemwithyou · 3 months
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one last poem for Richard by Sandra Cisneros
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voli-tile · 4 months
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doomed by the bloody narrative
unknown but likely @/scribbleshrimp on tiktok // richard siken, wishbone // @achillics on tumblr // karese burrows, persephone writes a poem // sandra cisneros, one last poem for richard // @theskeletonprior on tumblr // catherynne m. valente, deathless // catherynne m. valente, deathless // richard siken, snow and dirty rain
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kyoukamybeloved · 6 months
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”In other words, the suicidal maniac wants to live. Is that it?”
“I’ve come to think it’s worth trying.”
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"You used Corruption, believing in me? How beautiful."
skk webweaves: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
//strange gods - Roxane Gay// the portrait of a lady - Henry James// art from @/_mwk19_ on Twitter// say yes to heaven - Lana del Rey// the grudge - Olivia Rodrigo// litany in which certain things are crossed out - Richard Siken// art from @/suya1414 on Twitter// Kyoto - Phoebe Bridgers// we’re in love - boygenius// writings prompts for the broken-hearted - Eden Robinson// anyway - Richard Siken// art from @/AB0to on Twitter// things I never give myself permission to say - Chelsea Dingman// art from @/ssmi_0215 on Twitter// the whetting of teeth - Jamaal May// no light, no light - Florence + the machine// cosmic love - Florence + the machine// letters to Felice - Franz Kafka// art from @/rokkyun1 on Twitter// the sorrow festival - Erin Slaughter// norman fucking rockwell - lana del rey// remember my name - mitski// art by @bananana2217// townie - mitski// misheard lyrics - car seat headrest// you couldn’t just leave - Trista Mateer// art from @/T__rate on Twitter// your love finds it’s way back - Sierra DeMulder// a pearl - mitski// humpty - mitski// art by @yuyonyu// abandon me - Melissa Febos// where did you go - Hishaam Siddiqi// I should hate you - Gracie Abrams// art from @/qmthtdy on Twitter// killer - Phoebe Bridgers// a poem for Haruko 10/29 - June Jordan// crush - Richard Siken// pandemonium - Lauren Oliver// art from @/1110yu_ku_si on Twitter// catalog of unabashed gratitude - Ross Gay// steamboat - Adrianne Lenker//
hey remember when I said last part would be the final one? yeah uh about that, turns out I still have some inspiration yippee. hope you liked it :)
tags:
@dinosaur-mayonnaise @philzokman @amagami-hime @nnavia @homuncvlus @vinylbiohazard @bunglegaydogs @zamxii @ghostsinacoat @slug-behaviour @vivid-vices @atsuwushi @gorotic @pendragonstar @ricelover888 @oatmilkbasic @thou-shalt-cha-cha-real-smooth @the-gayest-sky-kid @lotus-reblogs @whiteapplesandblackblood @dazaiyuri @evermorehypewoman
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soracities · 1 year
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what are your suggestions for starter poetry for people who dont have strong reading/analysis backgrounds
I've answered this a few times so I'm going to compile and expand them all into one post here.
I think if you haven't read much poetry before or aren't sure of your own tastes yet, then poetry anthologies are a great place to start: many of them will have a unifying theme so you can hone in based on a subject that interests you, or pick your way through something more general. I haven't read all of the ones below, but I have read most of them; the rest I came across in my own readings and added to my list either because I like the concept or am familiar with the editor(s) / their work:
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times (ed. Nick Astley) & Being Alive: The Sequel to Staying Alive (there's two more books in this series, but I'm recommending these two just because it's where I started)
The Rattlebag (ed. Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes)
The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (ed. Ilya Kaminsky & Susan Harris)
The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa (ed. Robert Hass)
A Book of Luminous Things (ed. Czesław Miłosz )
Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns by Robert Hass (this may be a good place to start if you're also looking for commentary on the poems themselves)
Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World(ed. Pádraig Ó'Tuama)
African American Poetry: 250 Years of Struggle and Song (ed. Kevin Young)
The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief and Healing (ed. Kevin Young)
Lifelines: Letters from Famous People about their Favourite Poems
The following lists are authors I love in one regard or another and is a small mix of different styles / time periods which I think are still fairly accessible regardless of what your reading background is! It's be no means exhaustice but hopefully it gives you even just a small glimpse of the range that's available so you can branch off and explore for yourself if any particular work speaks to you.
But in any case, for individual collections, I would try:
anything by Sara Teasdale
Devotions / Wild Geese / Felicity by Mary Oliver
Selected Poems and Prose by Christina Rossetti
Collected Poems by Langston Hughes
Where the Sidewalk Endsby Shel Silverstein
Morning Haiku by Sonia Sanchez
Revolutionary Letters, Diane di Prima
Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved by Gregory Orr
Rose: Poems by Li-Young Lee
A Red Cherry on a White-Tiled Floor / Barefoot Souls by Maram al-Masri
Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky
Tell Me: Poems / What is This Thing Called Love? by Kim Addonizio
The Trouble with Poetry by Billy Collins (Billy Collins is THE go-to for accessible / beginner poetry in my view so I think any of his collections would probably do)
Crush by Richard Siken
Rapture / The World's Wife by Carol Ann Duffy
The War Works Hard by Dunya Mikhail
Selected Poems by Walt Whitman
View with a Grain of Sand by Wislawa Szymborska
Collected Poems by Vasko Popa
Under Milkwood by Dylan Thomas (this is a play, but Thomas is a poet and the language & structure is definitely poetic to me)
Bright Dead Things: Poems by Ada Limón
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth by Warsan Shire,
Nostalgia, My Enemy: Selected Poems by Saadi Youssef
As for individual poems:
“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
[Dear The Vatican] erasure poem by Pádraig Ó'Tuama // "The Pedagogy of Conflict"
"Good Bones" by Maggie Smith
"The Author Writes the First Draft of His Weddings Vows (An erasure of Virginia Woolf's suicide letter to her husband, Leonard)" by Hanif Abdurraqib
"I Can Tell You a Story" by Chuck Carlise
"The Sciences Sing a Lullabye" by Albert Goldbarth
"One Last Poem for Richard" by Sandra Cisneros
"We Lived Happily During the War" by Ilya Kaminsky
“I’m Explaining a Few Things”by Pablo Neruda
"Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" //"Nothing Gold Can Stay"//"Out, Out--" by Robert Frost
"Tablets: I // II // III"by Dunya Mikhail
"What Were They Like?" by Denise Levertov
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden,
"The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider
“I, too” // "The Negro Speaks of Rivers” // "Harlem” // “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes
“The Mower” // "The Trees" // "High Windows" by Philip Larkin
“The Leash” // “Love Poem with Apologies for My Appearance” // "Downhearted" by Ada Limón
“The Flea” by John Donne
"The Last Rose of Summer" by Thomas Moore
"Beauty" // "Please don't" // "How it Adds Up" by Tony Hoagland
“My Friend Yeshi” by Alice Walker
"De Humanis Corporis Fabrica"byJohn Burnside
“What Do Women Want?” // “For Desire” // "Stolen Moments" // "The Numbers" by Kim Addonizio
“Hummingbird” // "For Tess" by Raymond Carver
"The Two-Headed Calf" by Laura Gilpin
“Bleecker Street, Summer” by Derek Walcott
“Dirge Without Music” // "What Lips My Lips Have Kissed" by Edna St. Vincent Millay
“Digging” // “Mid-Term Break” // “The Rain Stick” // "Blackberry Picking" // "Twice Shy" by Seamus Heaney
“Dulce Et Decorum Est”by Wilfred Owen
“Notes from a Nonexistent Himalayan Expedition”by Wislawa Szymborska
"Hour" //"Medusa" byCarol Ann Duffy
“The More Loving One” // “Musée des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden
“Small Kindnesses” // "Feeding the Worms" by Danusha Laméris
"Down by the Salley Gardens” // “The Stolen Child” by W.B. Yeats
"The Thing Is" by Ellen Bass
"The Last Love Letter from an Entymologist" by Jared Singer
"[i like my body when it is with your]" by e.e. cummings
"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski
"The Cinnamon Peeler" by Michael Ondaatje
"Last Night I Dreamed I Made Myself" by Paige Lewis
"A Dream Within a Dream" // "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (highly recommend reading the last one out loud or listening to it recited)
"Ars Poetica?" // "Encounter" // "A Song on the End of the World"by Czeslaw Milosz
"Wandering Around an Albequerque Airport Terminal” // "Two Countries” // "Kindness” by Naoimi Shihab Nye
"Slow Dance” by Matthew Dickman
"The Archipelago of Kisses" // "The Quiet World" by Jeffrey McDaniel
"Mimesis" by Fady Joudah
"The Great Fires" // "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart" // "Failing and Flying" by Jack Gilbert
"The Mermaid" // "Virtuosi" by Lisel Mueller
"Macrophobia (Fear of Waiting)" by Jamaal May
"Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" by Ocean Vuong
"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou
I would also recommend spending some times with essays, interviews, or other non-fiction, creative or otherwise (especially by other poets) if you want to broaden and improve how you read poetry; they can help give you a wider idea of the landscape behind and beyond the actual poems themselves, or even just let you acquaint yourself with how particular writers see and describe things in the world around them. The following are some of my favourites:
Upstream: Essays by Mary Oliver
"Theory and Play of the Duende" by Federico García Lorca
"The White Bird" and "Some Notes on Song" by John Berger
In That Great River: A Notebook by Anna Kamienska
A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib
The Book of Delights by Ross Gay
"Of Strangeness That Wakes Us" and "Still Dancing: An Interview with Ilya Kaminsky" by Ilya Kaminsky
"The Sentence is a Lonely Place" by Garielle Lutz
Still Life with Oysters and Lemon by Mark Doty
Paris, When It's Naked by Etel Adnan
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metamorphesque · 7 months
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Do you have any poems about a love you can't have? 💔
Morning by Frank O Hara
We Don't Know How To Say Goodbye by Anna Akhmatova
Never Seek to Tell thy Love by William Blake
from “An Attempt at Jealousy” by Marina Tsvetaeva
Pad, Pad by Stevie Smith
If You Should Go by Countee Cullen
I am not yours by Sara Teasdale
One Last Poem For Richard by Sandra Cisneros
Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II) by Edna St. Vincent Millay 
I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII) by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The Philosopher by Edna St. Vincent Millay
I think I should have loved you presently by Edna St. Vincent Millay
The More Loving One by W. H. Auden
Appeal by Anne Brontë 
You Who Never Arrived by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Side Effects of Eating Too Many Clementines by Alessia Di Cesare
“the winter sun says fight” by Peter Gizzi
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cassandraclare · 3 months
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I still have some questions about Belial:
1) How did Belial make Tessa with his curse?
2) Was Belial's debt to Jem originally planned as something other than passing on a message?
3) Why would Belial give powers to James and esp Lucie when they could use them against him (and in the latter's case, he didn't care about her)? I just still can't understand why they would be taken away with his death or why he'd intentionally bother with that.
Thank you in advance!
Okay! I would say strap in for some boring technical the-nature-of-fantasy-writing stuff.
How did Belial make Tessa with his curse?
We already know Belial can, in fact, walk on the earth if he possesses someone. In the case of possessing an ordinary human, the body falls apart quickly. If he possesses a demon it lasts longer, and he could wander about for a while as a demon if he liked, he's just not interested. He's obsessed with the idea of being on the earth in a human body: i.e. James. Anyway, he possessed the Eidolon demon that took the form of Richard Gray, Tessa's father.
2) Was Belial's debt to Jem originally planned as something other than passing on a message?
It took me a while to try to understand this question, and I'm still not totally sure I do. I thought it was a question about what the favor was, but I think it's "Did you ever plan for Belial to owe Jem for some other reason?"  To which the answer is no. It was always planned to hinge on the deal that is made re: the Herondales. While Jem frames it as "passing on a message" that is in fact, not what the favor was.
3) Why would Belial give powers to James and esp Lucie when they could use them against him (and in the latter's case, he didn't care about her)? I just still can't understand why they would be taken away with his death or why he'd intentionally bother with that.
These seem like two different questions, so for the first one: Belial didn't give powers to James and Lucie in the way you seem to be framing it. He gave a specific power to Grace, which is why Grace, you know, remembers that happening. James and Lucie just have powers because they are related to Belial. Same reason Tessa has her power. Belial had no idea what the specifics of all his mortal descendants would be—how could he? Shadowhunter/demon hybrids had never existed before. He may have thought they might have powers of some sort, but he did not handcraft them and send them to James and Lucie for Demon Christmas. :-)
As for why, I guess, Belial didn't kill them in the womb or something (assuming he could have done that) — this seems to be the question, "Why would Belial ever make a mistake or take a risk?" And the answer is, "Why wouldn't that happen?" Being a demon doesn't insulate Belial from having flaws or being in error (some might say that's the essential nature of demons.) It's a bit like asking why Satan made war on God in Paradise Lost when he was certain to lose because you know, God. Milton kind of wrote his entire epic poem to answer that question. And (Cliff Notes): the answer was pride. Pride blinded Lucifer, and if Lucifer can be blinded by pride, then Belial can also be blinded by his own flaws, specifically hubris and a misunderstanding of the nature of human beings. While Belial knew James and Lucie had powers, he never thought those powers posed a significant risk to him and he wrongly assumed he would always be more powerful than they were and easily able to turn their powers to his advantage. Jem explains Belial's error fairly plainly:
"There was also the great weakness of demons: they did not understand either love or faith. Belial had underestimated not just Cordelia, Lucie, and James, but also their friends, and what they would all do for each other."
As for why J&L's powers vanished with his death: I think there is a confusion here between two kinds of magic. Rules-based magic, and numinous magic. Rules-based magic being what it sounds like, and numinous magic being magic that has an almost mystical element that cannot be explained like a math problem but is rooted in the resonance of human experience, of myth and fairy tale. Rules-based magic needs to be explained to us in fiction. Numinous magic we understand because we're human and we know. (Jo Walton has a good essay on the two kinds of magic and the ways they work together and apart here.)
Neither is a better kind of magic in fiction than the other and most good fantasy contains both. An example: The Ring in Lord of the Rings. It has a numinous power: it exerts an evil influence, but that evil influence doesn't work in a specific, ordered way, and it works differently in different situations and on different people, often without an obvious reason why. But it makes sense, as long as you keep the essential nature of the Ring in mind. The Ring also has another power. If you put it on, you become invisible. The end. Works the same for everyone. The Ring has both numinous and rules-based powers.
If you are looking for a math-type answer to why James and Lucie's powers vanished with Belial's death, there is not one, as their powers were inherently numinous to begin with, and we already have both rules-based and numinous magic in the Shadowhunter world. In fact, we already have examples of magic coming apart when the magic-creator dies in the Shadowhunter world. When Sebastian dies, the Endarkened die with him. When Johnny Rook dies, his wards fail.
To go back to Lord of the Rings, when Sauron dies, his fortress of Barad-dûr collapses. This is not because it was architecturally unsound. It is because we understand things like Sauron's fortress to be the expression of someone's will in the world, and when they die, their will is broken.
The breaking or undoing of that will is concretized in fiction (just like all metaphor is) — so while James and Lucie couldn't have predicted that their powers would vanish with Belial's death as their situation (being a Prince of Hell’s Shadowhunter grandchildren) is literally unprecedented, it makes sense to them that their powers would go when he went. They don't seek a rules-based explanation since 1) they already live in a world where magic sometimes disappears or collapses when the magic-creator dies and 2) they don't need one. As James says, "Not because [the gun] no longer fires at my command, though that is true—but because it only ever worked for me because of Belial, and Belial is gone."
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tubborucho · 4 months
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Tommy and Tubbo – Pages: How to melt your essence with someone’s soul
taglist: @pastelvangelion @smallz-o @salineroses @dynamicworms @cindersnows @deadfishisyeq @snyland @missstrawberry @frubbotoxicyuri @haloberry @thecardboardbutterfly @avianchorus @qtubbo @an-egghead @codaattheend @mikaikaika
dm me if you want in or out of taglist
credits:
Prologue
1. “time collapses. love takes your hand and leads you from the world” layla starr
Page 1
2. “Imitations of Drowning” Anne Sexton
3. @.insomniac-arrest
4. https://twitter.com/sainticide/status/1476212797369319424?s=21&t=iGrZnWG5aLGizZ_iGCZR4A
5. “Twenty-One Ways of Leaving” Koleka Putuma
6. https://pin.it/4Iy5VQI
7. @.dvoyd
8. http://hollowworld.co.uk/threads/halvar-vignette-s.55468/post-829118
9. “If There’s A Way Out I’ll Take It” Lora Mathis
10. “Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn; in a letter to Hortense Flexner and Wyncie King” Martha Gellhorn
Page 2
11. https://pin.it/1QpJ0iz
12. https://pin.it/6WwyKF6
13. “Wayward son” Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch
14. https://pin.it/5Mgyjhs
15. @.galactic-mystics-writes
16. @.dazzlingtiredeyes
17. “The Next Time We Talk on Facebook” Clementine von Radics
18. N/A
19. Fall Out Boys – Young Volcanoes
Page 3
20. https://pin.it/3Nxa6eV
21. “Jesus Texts” Pádraig Ó Tuama
22. @.codaattheend
23. https://pin.it/3YFQf7P
24. by Edward Lee
25. “The Five Stages of Grief” Linda Pastan
26. “A song for a lover of a long time ago” Bon Iver
27. “Icarus || Percy Jackson” SarcasticSunshine
28. https://pin.it/59O2ivf
Page 4
29. “Selected Letters of Martha Gellhorn” Martha Gellhorn
30. @.aretherestarsinhell
31. “One Last Poem for Richard“ Sandra Cisneros
32. “Poem of the End” Marina Tsvetaeva
33. https://pin.it/7mGA0UT
34. https://pin.it/1TKqm7d
35. “Norwegian Woods” Haruki Murakami
36. by Friedrich Nietzsche
37. “For Your Own Good” Leah Horlick
Page 5
38. “When Rome Falls” Yves Olade
39. https://pin.it/5CnTcJ9
40. “Whatever You Need” Marley C.
41. @.eridan-ampora
42. “Pillow Thoughts by Courtney Peppernell” Cierra
43. https://pin.it/e9k4bKp
44. “Sunstone” Octavio Paz tr. by Elliot Weinberger
45. by Kiersten White
46. https://pin.it/1i7tkZg
47. https://pin.it/4S39jLe
Epilogue
48. @.jovialtorchlight
All the other little pictures are free stickers from PicsArt
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ceilidho · 2 months
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hi hi hi ceil! I hope you're doing well. My new year's resolution is to read more books, and I was just wondering if there were any you would rec? I really enjoy the stuff you right, and wondered where you get the inspiration from
hi hi!!!! im doing great actually, i had a nice day :))
oh i have SO many!! these are just my personal favourite and i read a lot of literary fiction and non-fiction and 'weird' lit, so hopefully something on this list sounds fun to you:
glass, irony, and god by anne carson [poetry - although i would recommend absolutely anything by anne carson]
half-light: collected poems 1965-2016 by frank bidart [poetry - honestly one of the poets you MUST read if you love poetry in my opinion - bidart, carson, dionne brand, louise gluck, paul celan, maggie nelson, adrienne rich, rainer maria rilke, t.s eliot, jan zwicky, kahlil gibran]
rings of saturn by w.g. sebald [literary fiction - unnamed narrator takes a walking tour of suffolk, england, and the book is about the encoded meaning found in everything; i love sebald so so much]
house of leaves by mark danielewski [architectural / weird horror; cult classic; spooky and eerie in the best way; high concept, a bit complicated to follow but worth it]
drive your plow over the bones of the dead by olga tokarczuk [fiction / thriller, a bit - read this last month and this book hooked me oh my god, it was so good]
severance by ling ma [apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic - possibly one of my fave books in this genre]
the overstory by richard powers [environmental fiction - multiple different narratives that sometimes converge, sometimes don't; truly had me weepy at points] (also, if you like environmental books, the golden spruce by john vaillant)
the complete cosmicomics by italo calvino [strange literary fiction, short stories - oh these are so delightfully strange and zippy and weird, they feel like eating starbursts or something!!!]
underland by robert macfarlane [non-fiction - this consumed me for days when i read oh my god. all about underground structures, catacombs, caves and caving, mines, radioactive waste disposal, etc]
the lonely city by olivia laing [non-fiction - a sad book, but still hopeful; she has such insightful commentary on art and queer history too]
the library at mount char by scott hawkins [weird fiction - so cool, SUCH a cool fun book oh my god. very interesting premise and executed to perfection]
some other names i'd recommend: eileen myles, maggie nelson, rebecca solnit, and ursula k. leguin (for your scifi/fantasy needs)
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weirdworldofwinnie · 4 months
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Oasis in a Desperate Land of Dark Desire - Part Six: Lover's Games
Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer x Female Wife Reader NSFW 18+ only
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Summary: You feel a need to follow up with Ernest Lawrence, much to Robert's dismay, and also uncover buried information that makes you turn rather rebellious.
Word Count: ~7,592
Warnings: Martial angst, infidelity, age gap, unwanted advances, slight physical violence, period stereotypical gender roles, clothed sex, some orgasm denial and sexual humiliation
Usual disclaimers apply, obviously NOT based on complete real life historical accuracy. It is essentially very much a dramatization and AU fantasy/fiction with Cillian as Oppenheimer, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Jack Quaid as Richard Feynman, etc. from the film only while other characters are my own entirely made up ones!
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Tag List: @forgottenpeakywriter, @frozenhuntress67, @immyowndefender, @szde8-blog, @bypurple, @irenethewoman, @uniquetacofun, @noirrose21-blog, @gridmouse86, @lacontroller1991, @kishie8, @anime-lover-forever-1127
If you'd like to be added to the list, let me know please.
June 1943
You waited a couple of weeks after the party to move past the point of just taking actual action only in consideration in the sense of springing a scheme by meeting up with Lawrence, keeping Robert under the radar all the while and he himself was certainly distant, (distracted by work of course) but also deliberately choosing to give you space. It was fine, but it made you uneasy of how much he was extracting his emotions and you were starting to feel as if you were on a carpet of thin eggshells every moment you and him were alone together, which was usually only at night sleeping in the same bed.
Weekday dinners were a polite affair as well and you mostly ate for yourself, him eating a portion of his plate before he went to shut himself in his designated office room and came to bed hours into the wee morning. He was gone longer now during the day and one early evening, you found yourself cleaning the house alone with no company or pressing responsibilities to attend to, and you went into his office, rearranging his paperwork and dusting the bookshelves when you decided to take a peek into his desk, knowing he kept many personal writings there. Perhaps a poem or musing that could give an indication of what was happening inside his brain and why you were hitting a cold patch in the marriage.
After sifting through many documents, discarded calculations, and correspondence letters, you finally found his dearest belongings buried in the bottom drawer. You knew several of these, for they were cards - birthday, anniversary, well-wishers from the wedding - and some of your own (love poems, really) that you had exchanged with him and even simple notes of wanting to meet for dinner, a party, vacation at his Perro Caliente ranch, anything that merited invitation. You grew teary at a few, oddly nostalgic even though it was only a couple of years ago. But this project had somehow changed everything out of alignment.
A thin stack of folded papers wedged in-between a Valentine's Day card from you last year and inside an envelope that had a wax heart the color of dried blood stamped on it caught your attention and you carefully peeled the corners back to extract the papers, which looked to be three separate pieces creased into halves. You took the one on top and unfolded it to reveal a letter. It had no formal or informal greeting and you blinked, reading the words in your husband's scrawling cursive handwriting. The first few lines seemed more like a diary entry than anything else until you read further...
Well, I am wearier lately than anyone could possibly guess because I have grown adept at adopting a mask of confidence and optimism. But it is a foolish man's desire to remain unchanged and hopeful in his situations that require more than words to express... I know you understand the moody tides well, my love, and I often wonder if you are feeling the bluing void edging on again as you often do, verging on the whole of complete consumption. Though it would be more appropriate to call it black as death itself; blue has been wrongly shamed in this case, although you could drown in my eyes.
Safe to say, I very much miss your presence and touch, the way you find comfort in me as if we are beyond mortal man and woman. Naturally, there are other parts of me that yearn for you as well, but I'm sure you could pinpoint exactly what. It wouldn't be proper to state it here, although I will never be sending this to you Jean. I sincerely hope you never read this because if you do, that means the war is ongoing and I have not evolved past this spout of melancholy. It is hard to determine the future when oneself is so pegged on the past and present... I feel as though I am stuck between the slides. How do I let myself be with you and yet here all at once? You feel light years away from me, though it is only a mere thousand miles, isn't it? I feel closer to the dying stars than compared to my active obligations here on Earth.
"Don't be an idiot, Robert, and alienate the few people who most understand you because one day you might need them." I can hear you say it now and I'm afraid I did exactly that to you but for reasons more monumental than myself. I thank you for being understanding over the phone, but I must remain in this slide while you are busy in your own microcosm of the world and it is easier to miss you, but I should place a bet against myself to see exactly how long this separation lasts. If you'll have me, I look forward to loving you in two or three year's time. I hope by then I do not fall out of the concept of love entirely and with an expiration date instead because that would be a tremendous dissatisfaction if you found another bull who could never match my (nor your) intellect. He would never deserve such a naughty angel as yourself and I myself won't let you linger past my mind too much longer, I promise.
Forever yours (or not, though I hope the prior),
Robert
He had added a postscript, written in original Sanskrit from The Bhagavad Gita and you squinted, seeing familiarity. You jumped up and went to the bookshelves, seeking out his copy and thumbing through the pages, finding the scripture that matched his handwriting and you recognized the passage as he had shown and translated it to you once.
And now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
Why the fuck would he add that in as a PS in a pining love letter to his ex-girlfriend?
You put the book back and went to sit down on the floor beside his desk with the letter and other ones, which you dreaded opening in case they were more in the tone of lovesickness about Jean. You felt stunned and yet at the same time, unsurprised as if this was to be expected and maybe it was. It further proved that Robert hadn't completely emotionally filed Jean away as you'd thought and was planning on loving her again someday... Or he had just been really, really drunk when he composed this, but you highly doubted it.
Hands shaking, you set that letter aside gingerly as if it contained a deadly chemical and picked up a second folded piece of paper. When you opened it, you audibly gasped.
My Kitty,
I do hope you are well and pursuing a better life for yourself in the useful field of biology. Forgive me, I must be ridden with a fever, but wouldn't it be fortuitous if we perchance crossed paths in San Francisco one summer day? My flamboyant impossible imagination has flooded me again, so I'll indulge here: I'd see you out shopping and hopefully you would be with only female company (I take it your husband would be working, unless you have divorced) and we could strike up a conversation that led us to my Cadillac parked in the shadows of the shade, and I'd let you take refuge from the heat as my passenger and then I'd take your beautiful hand...
He had deeply scratched out the rest, but you could definitely make out a few lines of erotic poetry. In reaction, you bit your bottom lip so hard you nearly drew blood, and then reached for the last one, which was not a letter in the traditional sense, but more of a hastily scribbled note on an index card.
I need to see you soon. From one 'R' to another, you always have me at my truest regards.
You angrily swore aloud and started crumple this note, but paused. If you confronted him about it, this could blow up for both of you and you couldn't have that right now in the midst of life here for the project. No one was or could get divorced, that was not an option. No, you had to keep this secret and try to get back at him more stealthily. Robert clearly loved other women too much, that was it, and this was tangible of that. Enough was enough and it spurred on you to see the fellow you'd been avoiding since the party.
The next day, you went to Technical Area 1 and walked towards one of lab buildings, immediately noticed by the soldiers on guard and they came over, shaking their heads at you and your security clearance button, lower than permitted in such a site. You'd had to sweet talk your way just past the fencing to get to this point, but these particular hardened men didn't look swayable.
"I need to speak with my husband, it's urgent. Please," you begged dramatically, wringing your hands, and the men glanced at one another.
"He's preoccupied with his colleagues now, but we'll be sure to let him know about whatever it is, Mrs. Oppenheimer."
You pursed your lips, realizing they weren't going to let you just waltz into the building without an extremely good excuse, which you couldn't say.
"Fine. Good day, sirs." You walked far away from them and they went back to their business as you glanced around inconspicuously for an alternative entrance, going to another side. You found an unoccupied back door and hurried towards it, heart picking up pace.
"What are you doing?" a male voice called shrewdly from nearby behind.
"Shit," you muttered, whipping around to see a very suspicious Officer Nichols standing several feet away. Thankfully though, he was solitary.
"I'll have to report this, you know," he warned as you backed towards the shut door, forcing a big smile.
"Or what? You'll shoot me for finding my own husband?"
"Depends on the context. Dr. Oppenheimer is a very busy man and I'm sure he has much better to do with his limited time than to entertain his diligent token housewife."
You flushed angrily, feeling for the doorknob and of course it was locked.
"I swear to God I'm not doing anything else but speaking to him. I hardly know squat about quantum mechanics and the nature of his work," you lied, trying to appear absolutely innocent.
"Then what is so important you need to interrupt proceedings?" Officer Nichols asked sharply, coming closer.
"It's a highly urgent personal matter."
"I see." He paused, darting his eyes up and down the length of your body for a second before he spoke curiously.
"You haven't physically left The Hill since your arrival, is that correct?"
"Yes...?" you replied, unsure of where he was going with this.
Nichols stared at you for a moment through his glasses glinting in the midday sun and you looked back, locked in a strange thirty second unnerving silence of equilibrium. Finally he moved, stepping forward and nodding.
"I'll personally make sure that you never do."
"But no, I... I was planning on going shopping for supplies with some of the ladies this weekend in Santa Fe?"
He was silent and you were surprised when he took out a ringlet of keys, going to unlock the door.
"We all must make sacrifices, Mrs. Oppenheimer, and I'm sure your husband would agree. This is your reward for the loss of such a privilege, so go now before I change my mind and report you to General Groves."
You quickly darted inside without a backward glance, heart thudding in aftermath of the interaction. Did he really mean that? Would he get in trouble if someone found out? Or more importantly, would you get in a tight spot for sneaking around?
You strode through the maze of hallways past lab rooms, offices, and the like until you heard dull voices up ahead and saw Robert's back, face to the chalkboard, through a half-cracked door. The scientists turned to stare when they heard your heels come to a halt in the doorway, looking away from their paperwork and the blackboard. The awkward silence was deafening; a pin could drop at any moment and a man coughed, just to relieve the stagnant air. The lone female physicist of the group, Dr. Lilli Hornig, gave you a curious look with a quick polite smile as she scribbled something on a piece of paper. Robert froze with a cigarette in one hand and a piece of whittled chalk in the other, his blues boring into your face out of sheer shock.
"Y/N, what are you doing here? Is something wrong?"
"No. I merely need to borrow that man right there for a moment of time. It's a personal matter," you announced crisply, pointing straight at Ernest Lawrence, whose expression morphed from surprise and to utter bemusement.
"Excuse me, then," he muttered and stood up, shuffling papers self consciously before making his way to you, moving down the hallway. You randomly led him to an empty storage room and opened the door, lightly pushing him inside.
"What are you doing?" he asked empathically as you faced him in the middle of the room, steadying yourself as you looked up at him, unaccustomed to being so close to a man considerably taller and bulkier than Robert's physicalie.
"Remember a couple weeks ago in May at last month's party?" you asked briskly and his brow furrowed in realization.
"Admittedly, not as much as I should. Oppie jokingly mentioned the next day afterwards about needing to restrict the amount liquor we're consuming at the house when you're hosting because we're not frat boys," he replied with an honest shrug.
"Do you recall that kiss you gave me out of the blue?"
His face flexed, eyebrows shooting up as his mouth twitched in guilty humor and you narrowed your eyes.
"Yes, perhaps a bit of it. In my defense though, I wasn't quite all there and there was talk going around, silly talk. I was dared into doing it, actually."
Now your own eyebrows mimicked his at this confession and you stepped closer, toe-to-toe with his shoes.
"Who dared you?"
"Promise to keep it to yourself?"
"Sure."
"Richard was the instigator and then the rest of the guys coaxed him on. Absolute ridiculousness we never would have done otherwise, I swear to you it's the high altitude of this place having an effect on our immature raucous behavior combined with alcohol."
"Feynman? The rascal, I could've guessed," you rolled your eyes disapprovingly and he sighed, shifting slightly on his feet.
"I really do apologize for the regrettable behavior, I sincerely promise it won't happen again," he told you seriously and you cocked your head slightly, giving him a once-over.
"Do you find me attractive?"
Lawrence immediately grew reserved and reluctant, making a grimace.
"Oh, I... I, oh no, I don't think it would be permissible to answer that."
"Go ahead. I dare you."
He swallowed nervously and came close with intimidation, making you stagger back all the way to the wall behind you, where he placed a hand up on it by your head, leaning in intimately and his warm breath tickled your cheeks.
"Yes, I suppose. But I'm happily married and certainly not looking for trouble or to wreck your own marriage. You must think I'm a very lousy friend," he admitted quietly.
"I think you underestimate me, Doctor," you whispered, nearly a purr, as you moved close and brushed his cheek with your fingers. He tried to speak, but you shushed him and gently removed his glasses, letting them dangle in your grip as you tilted into him, pressing your other hand firmly to his broad chest, squeezing the fabric of his vest.
Footsteps suddenly sounded from the hall outside, so you made it fast, giving Ernest a fast peck on the lips, just in time as then the door briskly yanked open and Robert poked his head in dubiously. You leaned back, still holding the glasses and Lawrence fumbled for them, accidentally interlocking fingers as your husband stared in confused disbelief.
"Y/N? What is the meaning of all this? We have work to do, why are you taking up his time?"
"Oppie, it's fine, we were just..." Ernest paused, readjusting rims of the glasses back on his face and he turned to you, a bit breathless.
"What were we talking about exactly?"
"All your great achievements, including the Nobel Prize, in contributing to the advancement of science, most notably your famous cyclotron and I was inquiring about the exact mechanics of how such a thing works. Something along the lines of high energy particles and acceleration...?"
"Right, because you were going to write to your father, who is curious about it," he caught on, proliferating this cock-and-bull conversation.
"And why do you need to interrupt our work about that? Aren't you supposed to elsewhere?" Robert asked, not hiding annoyance in plain sight. You could feel Ernest staring, gaze locked on you and your stomach butterflied, but you gave a brave face.
"You mean my womanly duties at home?" you snapped back.
"Yes, or however you may call it. Now, we need our physicist back if you'll pardon me." He beckoned Lawrence urgently and the man reluctantly pulled himself away from you, clearly ashamed and flustered. Once he was out of the room, Robert stepped inside and shut the door closed with snap. His face was taunt and irritated, fingers habitually fiddling for the ghost of a cigarette.
"What are you playing at here?" he demanded, already hurt without any explanation.
"Just a follow up to our last meeting," you said causally enough to anger him. He crossed to meet you in two strides, catching your wrist and lifting up your arm, interlacing his fingers very tightly with yours as he spoke lowly, intensively.
"What is the matter, am I not giving you enough? Do I not provide enough for you? You feel an urge to court my best man and colleague all of a sudden because you are bored of your humdrum domesticity? Is that what you love about Los Alamos, the fine selection of like-minded substitutes once you tire of me? Am I not enough?" His voice raised before he caught himself, releasing a shaky breath. He was genuinely upset and you felt rotten, but only for a second. It's not like he was clean in this either.
"Don't be ridiculous. I swear, you always assume the worst of me," you scoffed in response.
"Well, I certainly know a cheat when I see one," he said bitterly, twisting his fingers out of yours and dropping his arm.
"Yes, you would know indeed. But Jesus, Robert, he's only a friend, your friend I might add, and it was only a bit of fun, nothing serious. You said it yourself, it's good for him to loosen up. What else are parties for?"
"Right. Oh, yes, I'm sure that's exactly it," he replied sarcastically.
"He started it, you know, after Richard dared him to kiss me apparently at the party."
"Then I'll be speaking to both of them. But you need to stop it, quit acting so childish and inappropriate over this. You're smarter than this shtick and there is too much at stake to be partaking in silly juvenile romantic games."
"You do realize I'm at least fifteen years younger than you, right? You can't expect me to be, well, whatever it is called to be at your age. Old, is it?" you mocked and normally that would've sounded very rude in any other situation, but he knew your sharp side all too well to take it too seriously, especially when delivered with a teasing smile.
"You couldn't think of a worse slander than 'old'?" he scoffed, unimpressed, and you snorted, tapping the knot of his tie affectionately.
"The point is, I am indeed younger than you."
"So? I have no issue with that and you have proved yourself very capable of co-existence so far, I think you are quite mature for your age actually, at least until now... But I don't think biological age matters in love."
"I was just over eighteen when you began courting me and you used to flirt with your few female physics students that were no older," you reminded him and he diverted his gaze, tapping his foot anxiously and he distractedly flicked out a cigarette from his pocket pack, lighting it in a second and puffing in response. You stepped back from the plume of smoke, glancing towards the window and crossing your arms. He exhaled loudly and jerked his hand to point the cigarette at you and then spoke with ultimatum.
"I don't want to see you enter this laboratory with the intention of unnecessary interruption ever again. I will tell the officers outside to stop and restrain you if you do. Hell, I'll take these matters to the General if I have to, you hear me on that?"
"I certainly do as a matter of fact and I also know for a fact that you'd be wasting his time. Petty marriage squabbles isn't a high priority or forte for a high-ranking military man like him. But as for you, well, now you know what it feels like to be jeopardized over another human being," you countered.
"My ties are very different and I would never think to do it so publicly! I am discreet about such internal, highly private business," he exclaimed, getting frustrated with this discussion and this made you laugh humorlessly.
"Bullshit and you know that. I saw you a week before our wedding walking hand in hand with Jean down Shasta Road and what about that time afterwards when our friends saw you dancing with-"
He quickly talked louder, running over your words heatedly.
"No, no, no. You are just feeding into this ridiculousness and fabricating a relationship that isn't there!"
"Maybe so, but I thought it would be a good lesson, or test, for you and if this is any indicator, you've been bothered. I take heart in that you must love me so that it has unnerved you to see me with another man."
"There was never any doubt that I love you. Christ, if that's what this is all about..." He sighed, rubbing his creased forehead briefly before walking backwards to the door, opening it up and you could hear the dull chatter of voices from the other room.
"Well?" you asked when he didn't do anything, just standing with hands on his hips.
"I want you to do whatever it is that pleasures you, just as long as it doesn't happen to be luring my top physicist and close friend in a back room during the middle of a workday. Have some standard decency for God's sake," he spat, the words stinging, and you crystalized, uncrossing your arms and shaking your head at the hypocrisy.
"I never noticed it until we came here, but Ruth sure has your attention, doesn't she?"
"Pardon?" He blinked.
"You heard me."
"Ruthie has nothing to do with this and how dare you drag her name through your muddled mood today."
"Ruthie?" You rolled your eyes at clear affection underlying his tone.
"Listen to yourself Robert, you have feelings for her, you've always been close."
"She's a very dear friend, one of the few people I can truly confide in and share my emotions with, nothing more," he insisted.
"Am I part of that select number of confidants?"
"Of, of course. Has our entire marriage been for naught? I cannot believe your attitude over this, it's deplorable."
"It must be very nice to be you, Robert. No one here in Los Alamos casts open judgement upon you," you commented bitterly and he cringed, closing his eyes for a brief moment before staring back at you.
"Not yet, anyway," he answered with a tone of cryptic ominousness and you only frowned, shoving past him to exit the building.
A full twenty four hours passed without further incident until you haphazardly ran into Feynman on the street, just the man you were looking for.
"Richard?"
"Yeah?" He stopped and gave you a familiar cocky smile which dropped at the narrowed eyes and serious expression you were giving him.
"Oh, is this about the party? I didn't think he'd even do it, I apologize for our frivolousness that night. Clearly very unacceptable." He cleared his throat awkwardly and you leaned close, speaking in a low murmur.
"Do me a favor?"
"Uh, sure...?"
"I have an assignment for you: Find me a single man - preferably scientist - in this town, anyone remotely attractive will do, but no close friends or direct colleagues of Robert's, it has to be at least second or third tier from his inner circle and single - I'm not crossing into some other woman's territory - and arrange me a date with him in secret. Think of it as an experimental equation: One attempted devoted wife plus one all-but-labeled womanizer husband plus unsuspecting stag. It's time to give someone a taste of his own sweet and sour medicine."
"Oh, you feel like causing a scandal, do you? It won't take a mathematician to see what it'll will add up to." He chuckled in disbelief but then dropped his voice, casting wary glances around at passing residents, or civilians, as everyone who was non-military were officially called.
"Are you quite sure about this?"
"If I let my conscience speak, then no. But if I let every other fiber of my being, then yes. Will you do it?"
"I... I can't, no, this is beneath us," he protested, scratching the back of his neck in discomfort.
"It's one event at a casual party, it's quite another outside... Well, you know. Real tampering with people's lives has consequences and I'm not sure I'm the man for this job, I think if maybe, it-"
"I'll pay you," you interrupted quickly and he quirked an eyebrow and leaned closer.
"How much?" he whispered curiously.
"Twenty?"
"Make it 100 and you've got yourself a deal. I'll do it and you can pay me later at your convenience. Now excuse me, but I have some business elsewhere."
He hurried off and there was no further word until one early morning you came into the kitchen as Robert was dressing his toast and brewing coffee, and you were surprised to see a bouquet of long stemmed red roses on the table. Naturally, you looked to him as his habit of flower gifting was infamous, but he was staring just as confounded as you were. He seemed positively rattled, in fact.
"Did you...?" he asked and you echoed that same question.
"Did you?"
"No, I haven't been flower picking as of late," he replied dryly with a taut closed smile and then it dawned on you. Could it be from the mystery date you'd sent Feynman to set up?
"I'll put them in the living room, shall I? They'll get the strong afternoon light that will illuminate their velvety rouge petals," you expressed and he nodded emotionlessly, turning back to the toast and grabbing the pot of coffee.
Once you were alone in the lounge, you carefully inspected the flowers; they were beautiful and fairly fresh, only one or two were curling at the tips from the heat and as you held it up to admire, there was a small square piece of paper taped on the bottom of the skinny glass vase: It was a thin note, reading of a scrambled code of some sorts. You smirked, knowing it had to be Feynman who did this; he was always writing letters in code to his ailing sweetheart stuck in Albuquerque.
"Y/N, have you seen my badge? It's gone missing!" Robert called anxiously from the kitchen and you quickly tore the note off the bottom and tucked it into your pajamas.
"You probably left it on the dresser," you called back to him absentmindedly.
Once he left for the day, you sat down and worked to crack the code, which wasn't terribly hard considering it was predictable; boiling down to an address, date and time. You'd hoped for a name of the mystery gentleman, but didn't seem to get one.
That evening, you dressed in one of your finest silk dresses, red in color as the roses, and made your way to the bachelor's dormitory on the other side of town. You technically weren't allowed to be transversing around here, especially at this hour, and you cringed at a couple of catcalling whistles from young drunken men loitering outside. You ignored them, hurrying up the stairs to the mystery man's dorm and knocked once. The door opened, almost cautiously, and a decent looking young man stood there, his short brunette hair combed back and he wore a well pressed suit but with a blue tie slightly out of alignment.
"Good evening, Ma'am," he greeted in a pleasant voice and you automatically blushed, staring into his eyes which were a very watered-down literation of Robert's own blues; if his were the ocean, this man's were a lake on a grey skied afternoon and it made you feel a tad sad about doing this. Of course no man's eyes could ever quite compare.
"Hello...?" you trailed off, needing a name to this blind date of yours.
"My name is Anthony, Mrs. Oppenheimer."
"Pleasure to meet you and please, that makes me sound old and tethered. Just call me Y/N."
He nodded, stepping aside and you went inside, closing the door behind you as you surveyed the somewhat neat living quarters consisting of basic furniture and scattered paperwork and magazines.
"I apologize if this is rather awkward, but I take it Richard gave you the details?"
"More or less," Anthony answered and the way he was ogling at you wasn't so much like piece of meat, but out of respect and disbelief that he had actually had a date with the wife of the top dog scientific director of Los Alamos.
"Would you care for a drink? I just have, uh, scotch if that's alright. Probably different from what you're used to," he murmured the last part and you assured him quickly it was alright.
"Yes I would, thank you."
He handed a half filled glass to you gently and you noticed his hands were trembling slightly.
"You don't have to be nervous, I'm really not all that remarkable. I may have my husband's name, but I'm certainly not him, you know. We all bask in the long reaching shade of Oppie, don't we?"
"Right, of course," he chuckled, offering you a seat on the sofa and taking a sip of his own, regarding you impressively.
"Have you ever been with a woman before?" you asked tenderly and he shrugged, still rather timid.
"I was dating a girl back in college but we broke off right before I signed onto the project."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty four," he answered.
"Good, not younger than me; I suppose we are perhaps compatible then in that respect. You don't need to hear my life story, but I was a year in studying medicine at Stanford until this and now I suppose I'm just another housewife at the moment." You sighed, taking a small sip and nodding at him pleasantly.
"So what do you do here, generally? I take it you aren't one of the boys in Oppie's so-called cult?"
"No, I'm an engineer actually. I work in one of the labs, hands on, none of that theoretical bunch."
You nodded approvingly and there was a lapse of silence until he gestured with his glass, sloshing the liquid slightly.
"So I take it you're quite unhappy with... with Dr. Oppenheimer if you wanted to meet with another man?" he asked cautiously, disguising excitement.
"No questions, if you don't mind. I'm not here to talk about him," you replied seriously and he nodded fervently, setting the drink down on the side table.
"Yes, right. I apologize. I guess that doesn't leave much formalities then." He paused, swiping his tongue across his lips.
"I'd like to kiss you if that's not rushing too much," he proposed politely, but with a tone of urgency.
"Go right ahead." You braced as he leaned in, inches from your lips and you shared air for a second before he plunged forward, groping your mouth fast and lightly. But it felt all so wrong. You lightly pulled back, his hands not even holding your face like Robert always did so there wasn't much real intimacy, and glanced to the floor self consciously.
"I'm sorry, I can't do this," you murmured guiltily. Maybe it wasn't even your conscience; maybe he just wasn't the right guy.
"But I thought you wanted it...?" Anthony's brows furrowed in hurt confusion and offense, so you quickly backpedaled.
"Not here, we can't do anything here. How about... Do you want to come over to my home?" you blurted out abruptly and he swallowed.
"But is-isn't your husband home?"
"That's the point."
Gathering courage for the both of you, Anthony then stood and took your hand to walk you to the door, leading you out down to the street level and the two of you walked all the way to Bathtub Row together. You could tell he was in awe of these homes that were larger and much better constructed.
"So this is how the other side lives." Anthony gave a low whistle and you laughed, bumping his side gently.
"Don't worry. We use the same water, electricity, and plumbing as you do, it's just a little more glamorous and I promise you anyone living in Los Alamos to work on the project is not substandard or lower class, even if the military may be rather degrading at times. It's all just a socially constructed hierarchy."
He squeezed your waist affectionately and you led him to the house, telling him to wait by the shrubs as you walked around to peer into the windows to see if Robert was still up, which you'd be surprised if he wasn't, and indeed he was: reclining in an armchair by the fireplace, reading and puffing on his pipe.
You signaled to Anthony to come closer and he crossed the yard to stand by the side of the house, appearing wary. He mouthed 'do you see him?' and you nodded, turning your back to the window and beckoned to him to move close. He carefully did so until he was a few inches from your face and you swallowed at the intimacy, the daring nerve to kiss a man right in front of the windowpanes where your husband sat in the living room.
"Kiss me, but passionately this time, no holding back. Just pretend it's only the two of us, okay?" you whispered and he breathed in, parting lips.
"Is this a dream?" he whispered and you giggled lightly, straddling his body and cupping the back of his neck, hairs bristling your fingers.
"Only if you want it to be, but no telling anyone when you wake up, understand?"
"No one would believe me... I feel as though I'm about to commit a great sin against the Oppenheimer unity, I can't believe I'm going to do this," he admitted with a dark chuckle.
"I can," you breathed and before you knew it, his lips connected to yours and the kiss was actually amazingly passionate indeed for two people who just personally met tonight. You breathed in his musky scent and intertwined tongues, smooshing noses and you felt him push you up against the window, arms embracing you whole and you secretly hoped it would eventually catch Robert's attention. Your intention was just one full kiss, but now this man had you, he seemed reluctant to let go as you began to lean back from his mouth, head lightly conking against the window. Anthony groped your breasts hungrily and you felt his hard-on pressing against your thigh as your bodies rubbed, the kissing becoming sloppier and for a moment, you completely forgot what you'd done this for. A faint yell came from somewhere and Anthony grew more attached, tightening his grasp on your frame, kissing harder and you started to feel a slight wetness in your panties.
"Stop! Get off of her! Please, that's my wife!" Robert's voice called in audible distress and you realized this must look a lot worse than it was, and you had to admit this man was getting a bit rougher as his more primal desire came to fruition and you grunted, turning your head and trying to wriggle out from underneath his locking embrace.
"That's enough, enough," you murmured anxiously, but he wasn't stopping.
"You said this could be my dream, can't ya let me finish first?" Anthony growled in your ear, but you were done, having successfully alarmed your husband. This wasn't meant to go further and quite frankly, you were unnerved how quickly it had escalated. He wasn't quite the shy gentleman scientist anymore once he was aroused, but you supposed these types of adventures did bring out the animalistic behavior in most after all.
Simple souls, Robert had said once of human beings.
Unfortunately, he was now witness to such a 'simple man' about to take you right on the windows of his stone and log cabin style house.
"STOP THAT NOW!" Robert yelled off to the right and you felt Anthony being forcefully tugged away, his arm flailing out and trying to grasp, catching your hair and you winced as he accidentally yanked painfully.
You were suddenly released and you gasped, sidestepping and watching in shock as Robert tried to jump on the man, his belt removed from his waist and gripped tightly in his hands as he wrestled it aggressively around Anthony's neck, constricting with enough force to make him gag and choke.
"Robert, no!" you shouted, rushing forward and attempting to pull him away, but it was as if he were deaf to the wind.
"I demand you to LEAVE my property at once and to NEVER see my wife, or this won't end on civilized terms," he threatened loudly and you'd never seen such a fire in his piercing eyes before. It intrigued and frightened you, considering he was not a brute in any sense. Anthony pleaded through his choking, whimpering pathetically, until Robert finally backed off, snapping the belt and huffing.
The other man stumbled up to his feet and held up his hands in surrender as Robert squinted in the dark, trying to fully identify him.
"I'm terribly apologetic Dr. Oppenheimer, sir, I won't bother you or the Mrs. anymore, I'll be right on my way!"
Anthony ran like a bat out of hell from the property and once it was silent, Robert turned to you with heavy breaths, the belt hanging limply at his side. You took one look and then rushed inside in the house, kicking off your heels in the hallway and dashing into the bedroom, slamming the door, heart pounding a sprint.
Moments later, you heard his clodding footsteps and anxious voice calling out desperately, the door bursting open.
"Jesus Christ, are you alright?" he gasped as you shrunk away from him, still feeling Anthony's hands all over you and the whole guilt imploded, resulting in a sudden overflow of tears.
"Fuck, Robert! It's all my fault, I told Richard Feynman to set us up and I told Anthony to come here as a show to make you jealous and it advanced, I promise he meant no harm, we just wanted-"
"You did this on purpose?" he interrupted, betrayal lighting his features and you wiped messily at the tears streaming down your own.
"Yes! I kissed him on purpose! I wanted to spite you, I'm sorry but I cannot handle this anymore! I wanted to hurt and infuriate you like you do to me with your blatant love of other women! I bribed Richard $100 for a date with a single scientist, I didn't know what I'd get, but I'm glad you saw us together, it is only fair when I have to read love letters to past girlfriends... or are they just current 'friends'?!"
His mouth gaped and the frown lines appeared, creasing his forehead in prudent anger.
"The audacity... I suppose I indeed underestimated you, my sweet Aphrodite," he said lowly, voice a low rumble and despite everything you actually felt a shiver of arousal in your core.
In two strides, he met you at the foot of the bed, grabbing your head in a vice and in a bizarrely dominant twist, pinned you down to the bed, trapping you underneath him and yet you saw the uncertainty flicker. He was pretending to be so dominant, but couldn't take the reins fully.
Oh, Oppie.
"Roll over," you ordered sharply and he did, collapsing onto his back as you unbuttoned his pants and yanked them down hastily, staring at his cock straining against his boxers. You placed your palm on it, teasing him and he moaned softly, shaking his head at the deviousness on your face.
"No, please. Please, let me out, please don't do this, please..."
Begging. He was actually begging. After he just had attacked a man outside and was reeling from your confession, he was here at an embarrassingly burgeoning erection.
"I'm so close that I don't need you inside me, but I think you need a bit more help, is that right?" you whispered condescendingly and he gulped, eyes wide dilated marbles.
"I'm sorry about all of it, I never meant t-to-" he sputtered off as you clapped a hand to his mouth and you straddled his body, legs quivering with anticipation.
His penis grew harder and a clear wet stain bled through the fabric, causing him to squirm underneath you and you smiled, bumping up and grinding against clothed erection. You yelped at the sudden rush of internal pleasure and his hands gripped your dress at the hips, gasping along with your heaves and whines, but he himself was yet to peak. He seemed mortified as you then sat back and placed firm hands down on his crotch, holding his bulge tightly. He groaned, mortified as you wouldn't let him go, and after stretching him out to his limits for too long, a single squeeze brought him to a full climax, absolutely soaking his boxers and he threw his head back on the pillow, reveling in the orgasm.
Panting, you climbed off him and he weakly sat up, holding out a hand with the other on his wet crotch in sheer humiliation. You left the bed, gathering your appearance and catching breath.
"No, don't... Don't leave," he requested desperately from his spot on the bed and you shook your head, tousling hair as you glanced over at him.
"Clean up your own mess, darling," you told him firmly, a metaphor as much as a literal one.
He sighed, swinging legs off the bed and hobbling off to the bathroom as you began to undress, slipping out of the dress and into a bedtime robe.
He came back in, clean but utterly naked, and his dick was still dripping a smidge at the tip.
"You very much ruined a good pair of my underwear," he complained and you merely shrugged, patting the bed as you crawled in and he joined, scooting under the sheets and pulling you close, resting his forehead at yours, speaking in a mutter.
"You just had to stoop low with that male 'catch' of yours, didn't you?"
"That's not very nice, darling. Anthony seemed like a nice man and he's an engineer, I'll have you know."
"He isn't a third of the man I am."
"No one is you, Robert. That's why I went to another man in the first place."
"I truly wanted to suffocate the life out of him, I would have maimed him quite seriously had I lacked control. I haven't thought of doing such a terrible action since my Cambridge episodes, my terrible fits of jealousy... I suppose I expressed protection over you," he mused grimly.
"It's the thought that counts," you commented darkly.
"I can be so impulsive and erratic... You and everyone knows quite well how I was going to poison my tutor; I had injected potassium cyanide in the body of that innocent apple and left it on his desk..."
You remembered it had been Jean who had offhandedly first mentioned this story to you and she had assured you it was only because he was going through a very difficult phase in his life and actually all he needed to feel fulfilled was to just "get laid" as she aptly put it. Funnily enough, 'getting laid' was the least of Robert's problems now.
He took your hand at the moment and grasped too hard, squeezing your fingers, leaning towards you anxiously and speaking urgently.
"Listen, and I mean this very much: Don't ever see another man, I don't think I can do this again without gravely spraining my heart."
"And your enormous ego," you added the obvious with a small smile and he returned it, also giving you a light kiss on the cheek and cuddling in close.
"I love you," he offered gently and you shot him a glance, unable to hide the blushing smirk.
"Touché."
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here’s the issue with the concept of duality of man: eventually, you’re going to have to disagree.
Into the Earth, Lorna Shore // Missing Limbs, Sleep Token // unknown author // Lullaby, Lord Huron // The Abyss Surrounds Us, Emily Skrutskie // Portrait of Fryderyk in Shifting Light, Richard Siken // Saint, deathbyromy // Unfinished Duet, Richard Siken // The Worm King’s Lullaby, Richard Siken // Porcelain, Skott // YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN MORE OF A DOG PERSON, T. Das // Honey, CUTTS // First From Peripiety, Jen Mazza // Planet of Love, Richard Siken // One Last Poem for Richard, Sandra Cisneros // Cursed to Die, Lorna Shore x2 // SAD, VUKOVI // Saint, deathbyromy // james cemeterything // To A Dead Friend, The Plot In You // unknown author // why do i still care?, Grim Salvo, Savage Ga$p // Straw House, Straw Dog, Richard Siken // myself // Welcome Back, ‘O Sleeping Dreamer, Lorna Shore // Pain Remains I: Dancing Like Flames, Lorna Shore // haiku bot, ft myself
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evilprincesss · 1 year
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i. Thoroughbreds dir. Cory Finley ii. Becket written by Jean Anouilh iii. Yellowjackets iv. Old Friend by Mitski v. Scream dir. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett vi. Us Against U written by Fredrik Backman vii. Jennifer's Body dir. Karyn Kusama viii. A letter to W. D. Snodgrass from Anne Sexton ix. House of the Dragon x. I know it won't work by Gracie Abrams xi. Avatar: The Last Airbender xii. One Last Poem for Richard written by Sandra Cisneros xiii. Sober II (Melodrama) by Lorde xiv. tolerate it by Taylor Swift xv. Thoroughbreds written by Cory Finley
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kyoukamybeloved · 5 months
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“You hate Dazai-san right.”
“Don’t act like a detective! That bastard is just.. just very, y’know.. It’s not hate.”
Looks like some complicated feelings.
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soukoku webweaves: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7
creds:
cold spot - Trista Mateer// art by @taxolotl// wishbone - Richard Siken// ICU - Phoebe Bridgers// bubble gum - Clairo// so we must meet apart - Gabrielle Bates & Jennifer S. Cheng// essays in love - Alain de Botton// youth - daughter// dear Arkansas daughter - lady lamb// fleabag - Phoebe Waller-Bridge// sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler// art by @pleucas// the first bad man - Miranda July// in the aeroplane over the sea - neutral milk hotel// the beach - the neighbourhood// gilded lily - cults// waiting room - Phoebe Bridgers// boyish - Japanese breakfast// art from @/HiChuya on twitter// the hours - Michael Cunningham// yves olade// art from @/rokkyun1 on Twitter// stigmata: escaping texts// Hélène Cixous// wolf OR7 - Natalie Diaz// art by @thornedarrow// poem for a birthday - Sylvia Plath// unknown// art by @pleucas// lev st valentine// art by @bamfxp// vicious - V.E Schwab// I know it’s over - The Smiths// misheard lyrics - car seat headrest// be nice to me - the front bottoms// paper bag - Fiona Apple// trista mateer// art from @/1hys12 on Twitter// back to the old house - the smiths// let the light in - Lana del Rey// one last poem for Richard - Sandra Cisneros// art by @bananana2217
tagging moots and users who liked the other parts :)
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