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Little Women, Louisa May Alcott

Chapters 11-12

XI.

EXPERIMENTS.

"The first of June! The Kings are off to the seashore to-morrow, and I'm free. Three months' vacation,—how I shall enjoy it!" exclaimed Meg, coming home one warm day to find Jo laid upon the sofa in an unusual state of exhaustion, while Beth took off her dusty boots, and Amy made lemonade for the refreshment of the whole party.

"Aunt March went to-day, for which, oh, be joyful!" said Jo. "I was mortally afraid she'd ask me to go with her; if she had, I should have felt as if I ought to do it; but Plumfield is about as gay as a churchyard, you know, and I'd rather be excused. We had a flurry getting the old lady off, and I had a fright every time she spoke to me, for I was in such a hurry to be through that I was uncommonly helpful and sweet, and feared she'd find it impossible to part from me. I quaked till she was fairly in the carriage, and had a final fright, for, as it drove off, she popped out her head, saying, 'Josy-phine, 135 won't you—?' I didn't hear any more, for I basely turned and fled; I did actually run, and whisked round the corner, where I felt safe."

"Poor old Jo! she came in looking as if bears were after her," said Beth, as she cuddled her sister's feet with a motherly air.

"Aunt March is a regular samphire, is she not?" observed Amy, tasting her mixture critically.

"She means vampire, not sea-weed; but it doesn't matter; it's too warm to be particular about one's parts of speech," murmured Jo.

"What shall you do all your vacation?" asked Amy, changing the subject, with tact.

"I shall lie abed late, and do nothing," replied Meg, from the depths of the rocking-chair. "I've been routed up early all winter, and had to spend my days working for other people; so now I'm going to rest and revel to my heart's content."

"No," said Jo; "that dozy way wouldn't suit me. I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple-tree, when I'm not having l———"

"Don't say 'larks!'" implored Amy, as a return snub for the "samphire" correction.

"I'll say 'nightingales,' then, with Laurie; that's proper and appropriate, since he's a warbler."

"Don't let us do any lessons, Beth, for a while, but play all the time, and rest, as the girls mean to," proposed Amy.

"Well, I will, if mother doesn't mind. I want to learn some new songs, and my children need fitting up for the summer; they are dreadfully out of order, and really suffering for clothes."

"May we, mother?" asked Meg, turning to Mrs. March, who sat sewing, in what they called "Marmee's corner."

"You may try your experiment for a week, and see how you like it. I think by Saturday night you will find that all play and no work is as bad as all work and no play."

"Oh, dear, no! it will be delicious, I'm sure," said Meg complacently.

"I now propose a toast, as my 'friend and pardner, Sairy Gamp,' 136 says. Fun forever, and no grubbing!" cried Jo, rising, glass in hand, as the lemonade went round.

They all drank it merrily, and began the experiment by lounging for the rest of the day. Next morning, Meg did not appear till ten o'clock; her solitary breakfast did not taste nice, and the room seemed lonely and untidy; for Jo had not filled the vases, Beth had not dusted, and Amy's books lay scattered about. Nothing was neat and pleasant but "Marmee's corner," which looked as usual; and there Meg sat, to "rest and read," which meant yawn, and imagine what pretty summer dresses she would get with her salary. Jo spent the morning on the river, with Laurie, and the afternoon reading and crying over "The Wide, Wide World," up in the apple-tree. Beth began by rummaging everything out of the big closet, where her family resided; but, getting tired before half done, she left her establishment topsy-turvy, and went to her music, rejoicing that she had no dishes to wash. Amy arranged her bower, put on her best white frock, smoothed her curls, and sat down to draw, under the honeysuckles, hoping some one would see and inquire who the young artist was. As no one appeared but an inquisitive daddy-long-legs, who examined her work with interest, she went to walk, got caught in a shower, and came home dripping.

137 At tea-time they compared notes, and all agreed that it had been a delightful, though unusually long day. Meg, who went shopping in the afternoon, and got a "sweet blue muslin," had discovered, after she had cut the breadths off, that it wouldn't wash, which mishap made her slightly cross. Jo had burnt the skin off her nose boating, and got a raging headache by reading too long. Beth was worried by the confusion of her closet, and the difficulty of learning three or four songs at once; and Amy deeply regretted the damage done her frock, for Katy Brown's party was to be the next day; and now, like Flora McFlimsey, she had "nothing to wear." But these were mere trifles; and they assured their mother that the experiment was working finely. She smiled, said nothing, and, with Hannah's help, did their neglected work, keeping home pleasant, and the domestic machinery running smoothly. It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the "resting and revelling" process. The days kept getting longer and longer; the weather was unusually variable, and so were tempers; an unsettled feeling possessed every one, and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do. As the height of luxury, Meg put out some of her sewing, and then found time hang so heavily that she fell to snipping and spoiling her clothes, in her attempts to furbish them up à la Moffat. Jo read till her eyes gave out, and she was sick of books; got so fidgety that even good-natured Laurie had a quarrel with her, and so reduced in spirits that she desperately wished she had gone with Aunt March. Beth got on pretty well, for she was constantly forgetting that it was to be all play, and no work, and fell back into her old ways now and then; but something in the air affected her, and, more than once, her tranquillity was much disturbed; so much so, that, on one occasion, she actually shook poor dear Joanna, and told her she was "a fright." Amy fared worst of all, for her resources were small; and when her sisters left her to amuse and care for herself, she soon found that accomplished and important little self a great burden. She didn't like dolls, fairy-tales were childish, and one couldn't draw all the time; tea-parties didn't amount to much, neither did picnics, unless very well conducted. "If one could have a fine house, full of nice girls, or go travelling, the summer would be 138 delightful; but to stay at home with three selfish sisters and a grown-up boy was enough to try the patience of a Boaz," complained Miss Malaprop, after several days devoted to pleasure, fretting, and ennui.

No one would own that they were tired of the experiment; but, by Friday night, each acknowledged to herself that she was glad the week was nearly done. Hoping to impress the lesson more deeply, Mrs. March, who had a good deal of humor, resolved to finish off the trial in an appropriate manner; so she gave Hannah a holiday, and let the girls enjoy the full effect of the play system.

When they got up on Saturday morning, there was no fire in the kitchen, no breakfast in the dining-room, and no mother anywhere to be seen.

"Mercy on us! what has happened?" cried Jo, staring about her in dismay.

Meg ran upstairs, and soon came back again, looking relieved, but rather bewildered, and a little ashamed.

"Mother isn't sick, only very tired, and she says she is going to stay quietly in her room all day, and let us do the best we can. It's a very queer thing for her to do, she doesn't act a bit like herself; but she says it has been a hard week for her, so we mustn't grumble, but take care of ourselves."

"That's easy enough, and I like the idea; I'm aching for something to do—that is, some new amusement, you know," added Jo quickly.

In fact it was an immense relief to them all to have a little work, and they took hold with a will, but soon realized the truth of Hannah's saying, "Housekeeping ain't no joke." There was plenty of food in the larder, and, while Beth and Amy set the table, Meg and Jo got breakfast, wondering, as they did so, why servants ever talked about hard work.

"I shall take some up to mother, though she said we were not to think of her, for she'd take care of herself," said Meg, who presided, and felt quite matronly behind the teapot.

So a tray was fitted out before any one began, and taken up, with the cook's compliments. The boiled tea was very bitter, the omelette scorched, and the biscuits speckled with saleratus; but Mrs. March 139 received her repast with thanks, and laughed heartily over it after Jo was gone.

"Poor little souls, they will have a hard time, I'm afraid; but they won't suffer, and it will do them good," she said, producing the more palatable viands with which she had provided herself, and disposing of the bad breakfast, so that their feelings might not be hurt,—a motherly little deception, for which they were grateful.

Many were the complaints below, and great the chagrin of the head cook at her failures. "Never mind, I'll get the dinner, and be servant; you be mistress, keep your hands nice, see company, and give orders," said Jo, who knew still less than Meg about culinary affairs.

This obliging offer was gladly accepted; and Margaret retired to the parlor, which she hastily put in order by whisking the litter under the sofa, and shutting the blinds, to save the trouble of dusting. Jo, with perfect faith in her own powers, and a friendly desire to make up the quarrel, immediately put a note in the office, inviting Laurie to dinner.

"You'd better see what you have got before you think of having company," said Meg, when informed of the hospitable but rash act.

"Oh, there's corned beef and plenty of potatoes; and I shall get some asparagus, and a lobster, 'for a relish,' as Hannah says. We'll have lettuce, and make a salad. I don't know how, but the book tells. I'll have blanc-mange and strawberries for dessert; and coffee, too, if you want to be elegant."

"Don't try too many messes, Jo, for you can't make anything but gingerbread and molasses candy, fit to eat. I wash my hands of the dinner-party; and, since you have asked Laurie on your own responsibility, you may just take care of him."

"I don't want you to do anything but be civil to him, and help to the pudding. You'll give me your advice if I get in a muddle, won't you?" asked Jo, rather hurt.

"Yes; but I don't know much, except about bread, and a few trifles. You had better ask mother's leave before you order anything," returned Meg prudently.

140 "Of course I shall; I'm not a fool," and Jo went off in a huff at the doubts expressed of her powers.

"Get what you like, and don't disturb me; I'm going out to dinner, and can't worry about things at home," said Mrs. March, when Jo spoke to her. "I never enjoyed housekeeping, and I'm going to take a vacation to-day, and read, write, go visiting, and amuse myself."

The unusual spectacle of her busy mother rocking comfortably, and reading, early in the morning, made Jo feel as if some natural phenomenon had occurred, for an eclipse, an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption would hardly have seemed stranger.

"Everything is out of sorts, somehow," she said to herself, going down stairs. "There's Beth crying; that's a sure sign that something is wrong with this family. If Amy is bothering, I'll shake her."

Feeling very much out of sorts herself, Jo hurried into the parlor to find Beth sobbing over Pip, the canary, who lay dead in the cage, with his little claws pathetically extended, as if imploring the food for want of which he had died.

141 "It's all my fault—I forgot him—there isn't a seed or a drop left. O Pip! O Pip! how could I be so cruel to you?" cried Beth, taking the poor thing in her hands, and trying to restore him.

Jo peeped into his half-open eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino-box for a coffin.

"Put him in the oven, and maybe he will get warm and revive," said Amy hopefully.

"He's been starved, and he sha'n't be baked, now he's dead. I'll make him a shroud, and he shall be buried in the garden; and I'll never have another bird, never, my Pip! for I am too bad to own one," murmured Beth, sitting on the floor with her pet folded in her hands.

"The funeral shall be this afternoon, and we will all go. Now, don't cry, Bethy; it's a pity, but nothing goes right this week, and Pip has had the worst of the experiment. Make the shroud, and lay him in my box; and, after the dinner-party, we'll have a nice little funeral," said Jo, beginning to feel as if she had undertaken a good deal.

Leaving the others to console Beth, she departed to the kitchen, which was in a most discouraging state of confusion. Putting on a big apron, she fell to work, and got the dishes piled up ready for washing, when she discovered that the fire was out.

"Here's a sweet prospect!" muttered Jo, slamming the stove-door open, and poking vigorously among the cinders.

Having rekindled the fire, she thought she would go to market while the water heated. The walk revived her spirits; and, flattering herself that she had made good bargains, she trudged home again, after buying a very young lobster, some very old asparagus, and two boxes of acid strawberries. By the time she got cleared up, the dinner arrived, and the stove was red-hot. Hannah had left a pan of bread to rise, Meg had worked it up early, set it on the hearth for a second rising, and forgotten it. Meg was entertaining Sallie Gardiner in the parlor, when the door flew open, and a floury, crocky, flushed, and dishevelled figure appeared, demanding tartly,—

"I say, isn't bread 'riz' enough when it runs over the pans?"

Sallie began to laugh; but Meg nodded, and lifted her eyebrows 142 as high as they would go, which caused the apparition to vanish, and put the sour bread into the oven without further delay. Mrs. March went out, after peeping here and there to see how matters went, also saying a word of comfort to Beth, who sat making a winding-sheet, while the dear departed lay in state in the domino-box. A strange sense of helplessness fell upon the girls as the gray bonnet vanished round the corner; and despair seized them, when, a few minutes later, Miss Crocker appeared, and said she'd come to dinner. Now, this lady was a thin, yellow spinster, with a sharp nose and inquisitive eyes, who saw everything, and gossiped about all she saw. They disliked her, but had been taught to be kind to her, simply because she was old and poor, and had few friends. So Meg gave her the easy-chair, and tried to entertain her, while she asked questions, criticised everything, and told stories of the people whom she knew.

Language cannot describe the anxieties, experiences, and exertions which Jo underwent that morning; and the dinner she served up became a standing joke. Fearing to ask any more advice, she did her best alone, and discovered that something more than energy and good-will is necessary to make a cook. She boiled the asparagus for an hour, and was grieved to find the heads cooked off and the stalks harder than ever. The bread burnt black; for the salad-dressing so aggravated her, that she let everything else go till she had convinced herself that she could not make it fit to eat. The lobster was a scarlet mystery to her, but she hammered and poked, till it was unshelled, and its meagre proportions concealed in a grove of lettuce-leaves. The potatoes had to be hurried, not to keep the asparagus waiting, and were not done at last. The blanc-mange was lumpy, and the strawberries not as ripe as they looked, having been skilfully "deaconed."

"Well, they can eat beef, and bread and butter, if they are hungry; only it's mortifying to have to spend your whole morning for nothing," thought Jo, as she rang the bell half an hour later than usual, and stood, hot, tired, and dispirited, surveying the feast spread for Laurie, accustomed to all sorts of elegance, and Miss Crocker, whose curious eyes would mark all failures, and whose tattling tongue would report them far and wide.

143

Poor Jo would gladly have gone under the table, as one thing after another was tasted and left; while Amy giggled, Meg looked distressed, Miss Crocker pursed up her lips, and Laurie talked and laughed with all his might, to give a cheerful tone to the festive scene. Jo's one strong point was the fruit, for she had sugared it well, and had a pitcher of rich cream to eat with it. Her hot cheeks cooled a trifle, and she drew a long breath, as the pretty glass plates went round, and every one looked graciously at the little rosy islands floating in a sea of cream. Miss Crocker tasted first, made a wry face, and drank some water hastily. Jo, who had refused, thinking there might not be enough, for they dwindled sadly after the picking over, glanced at Laurie, but he was eating away manfully, though there was a slight pucker about his mouth, and he kept his eye fixed on his plate. Amy, who was fond of delicate fare, took a heaping spoonful, choked, hid her face in her napkin, and left the table precipitately.

"Oh, what is it?" exclaimed Jo trembling.

"Salt instead of sugar, and the cream is sour," replied Meg, with a tragic gesture.

Jo uttered a groan, and fell back in her chair; remembering that she had given a last hasty powdering to the berries out of one of the two boxes on the kitchen table, and had neglected to put the milk in the refrigerator. She turned scarlet, and was on the verge of crying, when she met Laurie's eyes, which would look merry in spite of his heroic efforts; the comical side of the affair suddenly struck her, and she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. So did every one else, even "Croaker," as the girls called the old lady; and the unfortunate dinner ended gayly, with bread and butter, olives and fun.

144 "I haven't strength of mind enough to clear up now, so we will sober ourselves with a funeral," said Jo, as they rose; and Miss Crocker made ready to go, being eager to tell the new story at another friend's dinner-table.

They did sober themselves, for Beth's sake; Laurie dug a grave under the ferns in the grove, little Pip was laid in, with many tears, by his tender-hearted mistress, and covered with moss, while a wreath of violets and chickweed was hung on the stone which bore his epitaph, composed by Jo, while she struggled with the dinner:—

"Here lies Pip March,

Who died the 7th of June;

Loved and lamented sore,

And not forgotten soon."

At the conclusion of the ceremonies, Beth retired to her room, overcome with emotion and lobster; but there was no place of repose, for the beds were not made, and she found her grief much assuaged by beating up pillows and putting things in order. Meg helped Jo clear away the remains of the feast, which took half the afternoon, and left them so tired that they agreed to be contented with tea and toast for supper. Laurie took Amy to drive, which was a deed of charity, for the sour cream seemed to have had a bad effect upon her temper. Mrs. March came home to find the three older girls hard at work in the middle of the afternoon; and a glance at the closet gave her an idea of the success of one part of the experiment.

Before the housewives could rest, several people called, and there was a scramble to get ready to see them; then tea must be got, errands done; and one or two necessary bits of sewing neglected till the last minute. As twilight fell, dewy and still, one by one they gathered in the porch where the June roses were budding beautifully, and each groaned or sighed as she sat down, as if tired or troubled.

"What a dreadful day this has been!" begun Jo, usually the first to speak.

"It has seemed shorter than usual, but so uncomfortable," said Meg.

"Not a bit like home," added Amy.

145 "It can't seem so without Marmee and little Pip," sighed Beth, glancing, with full eyes, at the empty cage above her head.

"Here's mother, dear, and you shall have another bird to-morrow, if you want it."

As she spoke, Mrs. March came and took her place among them, looking as if her holiday had not been much pleasanter than theirs.

"Are you satisfied with your experiment, girls, or do you want another week of it?" she asked, as Beth nestled up to her, and the rest turned toward her with brightening faces, as flowers turn toward the sun.

"I don't!" cried Jo decidedly.

"Nor I," echoed the others.

"You think, then, that it is better to have a few duties, and live a little for others, do you?"

"Lounging and larking doesn't pay," observed Jo, shaking her head. "I'm tired of it, and mean to go to work at something right off."

"Suppose you learn plain cooking; that's a useful accomplishment, which no woman should be without," said Mrs. March, laughing inaudibly at the recollection of Jo's dinner-party; for she had met Miss Crocker, and heard her account of it.

"Mother, did you go away and let everything be, just to see how we'd get on?" cried Meg, who had had suspicions all day.

"Yes; I wanted you to see how the comfort of all depends on each doing her share faithfully. While Hannah and I did your work, you got on pretty well, though I don't think you were very happy or amiable; so I thought, as a little lesson, I would show you what happens when every one thinks only of herself. Don't you feel that it is pleasanter to help one another, to have daily duties which make leisure sweet when it comes, and to bear and forbear, that home may be comfortable and lovely to us all?"

"We do, mother, we do!" cried the girls.

"Then let me advise you to take up your little burdens again; for though they seem heavy sometimes, they are good for us, and lighten as we learn to carry them. Work is wholesome, and there is plenty for every one; it keeps us from ennui and mischief, is good for 146 health and spirits, and gives us a sense of power and independence better than money or fashion."

"We'll work like bees, and love it too; see if we don't!" said Jo. "I'll learn plain cooking for my holiday task; and the next dinner-party I have shall be a success."

"I'll make the set of shirts for father, instead of letting you do it, Marmee. I can and I will, though I'm not fond of sewing; that will be better than fussing over my own things, which are plenty nice enough as they are," said Meg.

"I'll do my lessons every day, and not spend so much time with my music and dolls. I am a stupid thing, and ought to be studying, not playing," was Beth's resolution; while Amy followed their example by heroically declaring, "I shall learn to make button-holes, and attend to my parts of speech."

"Very good! then I am quite satisfied with the experiment, and fancy that we shall not have to repeat it; only don't go to the other extreme, and delve like slaves. Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life become a beautiful success, in spite of poverty."

"We'll remember, mother!" and they did.

XII. Camp Laurence

147

XII.

CAMP LAURENCE.

Beth was post-mistress, for, being most at home, she could attend to it regularly, and dearly liked the daily task of unlocking the little door and distributing the mail. One July day she came in with her hands full, and went about the house leaving letters and parcels, like the penny post.

"Here's your posy, mother! Laurie never forgets that," she said, putting the fresh nosegay in the vase that stood in "Marmee's corner," and was kept supplied by the affectionate boy.

"Miss Meg March, one letter and a glove," continued Beth, delivering the articles to her sister, who sat near her mother, stitching wristbands.

"Why, I left a pair over there, and here is only one," said Meg, looking at the gray cotton glove.

"Didn't you drop the other in the garden?"

"No, I'm sure I didn't; for there was only one in the office."

148 "I hate to have odd gloves! Never mind, the other may be found. My letter is only a translation of the German song I wanted; I think Mr. Brooke did it, for this isn't Laurie's writing."

Mrs. March glanced at Meg, who was looking very pretty in her gingham morning-gown, with the little curls blowing about her forehead, and very womanly, as she sat sewing at her little work-table, full of tidy white rolls; so unconscious of the thought in her mother's mind as she sewed and sung, while her fingers flew, and her thoughts were busied with girlish fancies as innocent and fresh as the pansies in her belt, that Mrs. March smiled, and was satisfied.

"Two letters for Doctor Jo, a book, and a funny old hat, which covered the whole post-office, stuck outside," said Beth, laughing, as she went into the study, where Jo sat writing.

"What a sly fellow Laurie is! I said I wished bigger hats were the fashion, because I burn my face every hot day. He said, 'Why mind the fashion? Wear a big hat, and be comfortable!' I said I would if I had one, and he has sent me this, to try me. I'll wear it, for fun, and show him I don't care for the fashion;" and, hanging the antique broad-brim on a bust of Plato, Jo read her letters.

One from her mother made her cheeks glow and her eyes fill, for it said to her,—

"That does me good! that's worth millions of money and pecks of praise. O Marmee, I do try! I will keep on trying, and not get tired, since I have you to help me."

149 Laying her head on her arms, Jo wet her little romance with a few happy tears, for she had thought that no one saw and appreciated her efforts to be good; and this assurance was doubly precious, doubly encouraging, because unexpected, and from the person whose commendation she most valued. Feeling stronger than ever to meet and subdue her Apollyon, she pinned the note inside her frock, as a shield and a reminder, lest she be taken unaware, and proceeded to open her other letter, quite ready for either good or bad news. In a big, dashing hand, Laurie wrote,—

"Dear Jo, What ho!

Some English girls and boys are coming to see me to-morrow and I want to have a jolly time. If it's fine, I'm going to pitch my tent in Longmeadow, and row up the whole crew to lunch and croquet,—have a fire, make messes, gypsy fashion, and all sorts of larks. They are nice people, and like such things. Brooke will go, to keep us boys steady, and Kate Vaughn will play propriety for the girls. I want you all to come; can't let Beth off, at any price, and nobody shall worry her. Don't bother about rations,—I'll see to that, and everything else,—only do come, there's a good fellow!

"In a tearing hurry, Yours ever, Laurie."

"Here's richness!" cried Jo, flying in to tell the news to Meg.

"Of course we can go, mother? it will be such a help to Laurie, for I can row, and Meg see to the lunch, and the children be useful in some way."

"I hope the Vaughns are not fine, grown-up people. Do you know anything about them, Jo?" asked Meg.

"Only that there are four of them. Kate is older than you, Fred and Frank (twins) about my age, and a little girl (Grace), who is nine or ten. Laurie knew them abroad, and liked the boys; I fancied, from the way he primmed up his mouth in speaking of her, that he didn't admire Kate much."

"I'm so glad my French print is clean; it's just the thing, and so 150 becoming!" observed Meg complacently. "Have you anything decent, Jo?"

"Scarlet and gray boating suit, good enough for me. I shall row and tramp about, so I don't want any starch to think of. You'll come, Bethy?"

"If you won't let any of the boys talk to me."

"Not a boy!"

"I like to please Laurie; and I'm not afraid of Mr. Brooke, he is so kind; but I don't want to play, or sing, or say anything. I'll work hard, and not trouble any one; and you'll take care of me, Jo, so I'll go."

"That's my good girl; you do try to fight off your shyness, and I love you for it. Fighting faults isn't easy, as I know; and a cheery word kind of gives a lift. Thank you, mother," and Jo gave the thin cheek a grateful kiss, more precious to Mrs. March than if it had given back the rosy roundness of her youth.

"I had a box of chocolate drops, and the picture I wanted to copy," said Amy, showing her mail.

"And I got a note from Mr. Laurence, asking me to come over and play to him to-night, before the lamps are lighted, and I shall go," added Beth, whose friendship with the old gentleman prospered finely.

"Now let's fly round, and do double duty to-day, so that we can play to-morrow with free minds," said Jo, preparing to replace her pen with a broom.

When the sun peeped into the girls' room early next morning, to promise them a fine day, he saw a comical sight. Each had made such preparation for the fête as seemed necessary and proper. Meg had an extra row of little curl-papers across her forehead, Jo had copiously anointed her afflicted face with cold cream, Beth had taken Joanna to bed with her to atone for the approaching separation, and Amy had capped the climax by putting a clothes-pin on her nose, to uplift the offending feature. It was one of the kind artists use to hold the paper on their drawing-boards, therefore quite appropriate and effective for the purpose to which it was now put. This funny spectacle appeared to amuse the sun, for he burst out with such radiance 151 that Jo woke up, and roused all her sisters by a hearty laugh at Amy's ornament.

Sunshine and laughter were good omens for a pleasure party, and soon a lively bustle began in both houses. Beth, who was ready first, kept reporting what went on next door, and enlivened her sisters' toilets by frequent telegrams from the window.

"There goes the man with the tent! I see Mrs. Barker doing up the lunch in a hamper and a great basket. Now Mr. Laurence is looking up at the sky, and the weathercock; I wish he would go, too. There's Laurie, looking like a sailor,—nice boy! Oh, mercy me! here's a carriage full of people—a tall lady, a little girl, and two dreadful boys. One is lame; poor thing, he's got a crutch. Laurie didn't tell us that. Be quick, girls! it's getting late. Why, there is Ned Moffat, I do declare. Look, Meg, isn't that the man who bowed to you one day, when we were shopping?"

"So it is. How queer that he should come. I thought he was at the Mountains. There is Sallie; I'm glad she got back in time. Am I all right, Jo?" cried Meg, in a flutter.

"A regular daisy. Hold up your dress and put your hat straight; it looks sentimental tipped that way, and will fly off at the first puff. Now, then, come on!"

152 "O Jo, you are not going to wear that awful hat? It's too absurd! You shall not make a guy of yourself," remonstrated Meg, as Jo tied down, with a red ribbon, the broad-brimmed, old-fashioned Leghorn Laurie had sent for a joke.

"I just will, though, for it's capital,—so shady, light, and big. It will make fun; and I don't mind being a guy if I'm comfortable." With that Jo marched straight away, and the rest followed,—a bright little band of sisters, all looking their best, in summer suits, with happy faces under the jaunty hat-brims.

Laurie ran to meet, and present them to his friends, in the most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception-room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Meg was grateful to see that Miss Kate, though twenty, was dressed with a simplicity which American girls would do well to imitate; and she was much flattered by Mr. Ned's assurances that he came especially to see her. Jo understood why Laurie "primmed up his mouth" when speaking of Kate, for that young lady had a stand-off-don't-touch-me air, which contrasted strongly with the free and easy demeanor of the other girls. Beth took an observation of the new boys, and decided that the lame one was not "dreadful," but gentle and feeble, and she would be kind to him on that account. Amy found Grace a well-mannered, merry little person; and after staring dumbly at one another for a few minutes, they suddenly became very good friends.

Tents, lunch, and croquet utensils having been sent on beforehand, the party was soon embarked, and the two boats pushed off together, leaving Mr. Laurence waving his hat on the shore. Laurie and Jo rowed one boat; Mr. Brooke and Ned the other; while Fred Vaughn, the riotous twin, did his best to upset both by paddling about in a wherry like a disturbed water-bug. Jo's funny hat deserved a vote of thanks, for it was of general utility; it broke the ice in the beginning, by producing a laugh; it created quite a refreshing breeze, flapping to and fro, as she rowed, and would make an excellent umbrella for the whole party, if a shower came up, she said. Kate looked rather amazed at Jo's proceedings, especially as she exclaimed "Christopher Columbus!" when she lost her oar; and Laurie said, "My dear fellow, did I hurt you?" when he tripped over her feet in 153 taking his place. But after putting up her glass to examine the queer girl several times, Miss Kate decided that she was "odd, but rather clever," and smiled upon her from afar.

Meg, in the other boat, was delightfully situated, face to face with the rowers, who both admired the prospect, and feathered their oars with uncommon "skill and dexterity." Mr. Brooke was a grave, silent young man, with handsome brown eyes and a pleasant voice. Meg liked his quiet manners, and considered him a walking encyclopædia of useful knowledge. He never talked to her much; but he looked at her a good deal, and she felt sure that he did not regard her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which Freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume; he was not very wise, but very good-natured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. Sallie Gardiner was absorbed in keeping her white piqué dress clean, and chattering with the ubiquitous Fred, who kept Beth in constant terror by his pranks.

It was not far to Longmeadow; but the tent was pitched and the wickets down by the time they arrived. A pleasant green field, with three wide-spreading oaks in the middle, and a smooth strip of turf for croquet.

154 "Welcome to Camp Laurence!" said the young host, as they landed, with exclamations of delight.

"Brooke is commander-in-chief; I am commissary-general; the other fellows are staff-officers; and you, ladies, are company. The tent is for your especial benefit, and that oak is your drawing-room; this is the mess-room, and the third is the camp-kitchen. Now, let's have a game before it gets hot, and then we'll see about dinner."

Frank, Beth, Amy, and Grace sat down to watch the game played by the other eight. Mr. Brooke chose Meg, Kate, and Fred; Laurie took Sallie, Jo, and Ned. The Englishers played well; but the Americans played better, and contested every inch of the ground as strongly as if the spirit of '76 inspired them. Jo and Fred had several skirmishes, and once narrowly escaped high words. Jo was through the last wicket, and had missed the stroke, which failure ruffled her a good deal. Fred was close behind her, and his turn came before hers; he gave a stroke, his ball hit the wicket, and stopped an inch on the wrong side. No one was very near; and running up to examine, he gave it a sly nudge with his toe, which put it just an inch on the right side.

"I'm through! Now, Miss Jo, I'll settle you, and get in first," cried the young gentleman, swinging his mallet for another blow.

"You pushed it; I saw you; it's my turn now," said Jo sharply.

"Upon my word, I didn't move it; it rolled a bit, perhaps, but that is allowed; so stand off, please, and let me have a go at the stake."

"We don't cheat in America, but you can, if you choose," said Jo angrily.

"Yankees are a deal the most tricky, everybody knows. There you go!" returned Fred, croqueting her ball far away.

Jo opened her lips to say something rude, but checked herself in time, colored up to her forehead, and stood a minute, hammering down a wicket with all her might, while Fred hit the stake, and declared himself out with much exultation. She went off to get her ball, and was a long time finding it, among the bushes; but she came back, looking cool and quiet, and waited her turn patiently. It took 155 several strokes to regain the place she had lost; and, when she got there, the other side had nearly won, for Kate's ball was the last but one, and lay near the stake.

"By George, it's all up with us! Good-by, Kate. Miss Jo owes me one, so you are finished," cried Fred excitedly, as they all drew near to see the finish.

"Yankees have a trick of being generous to their enemies," said Jo, with a look that made the lad redden, "especially when they beat them," she added, as, leaving Kate's ball untouched, she won the game by a clever stroke.

Laurie threw up his hat; then remembered that it wouldn't do to exult over the defeat of his guests, and stopped in the middle of a cheer to whisper to his friend,—

"Good for you, Jo! He did cheat, I saw him; we can't tell him so, but he won't do it again, take my word for it."

Meg drew her aside, under pretence of pinning up a loose braid, and said approvingly,—

156 "It was dreadfully provoking; but you kept your temper, and I'm so glad, Jo."

"Don't praise me, Meg, for I could box his ears this minute. I should certainly have boiled over if I hadn't stayed among the nettles till I got my rage under enough to hold my tongue. It's simmering now, so I hope he'll keep out of my way," returned Jo, biting her lips, as she glowered at Fred from under her big hat.

"Time for lunch," said Mr. Brooke, looking at his watch. "Commissary-general, will you make the fire and get water, while Miss March, Miss Sallie, and I spread the table? Who can make good coffee?"

"Jo can," said Meg, glad to recommend her sister. So Jo, feeling that her late lessons in cookery were to do her honor, went to preside over the coffee-pot, while the children collected dry sticks, and the boys made a fire, and got water from a spring near by. Miss Kate sketched, and Frank talked to Beth, who was making little mats of braided rushes to serve as plates.

The commander-in-chief and his aids soon spread the table-cloth with an inviting array of eatables and drinkables, prettily decorated with green leaves. Jo announced that the coffee was ready, and every one settled themselves to a hearty meal; for youth is seldom dyspeptic, and exercise develops wholesome appetites. A very merry lunch it was; for everything seemed fresh and funny, and frequent peals of laughter startled a venerable horse who fed near by. There was a pleasing inequality in the table, which produced many mishaps to cups and plates; acorns dropped into the milk, little black ants partook of the refreshments without being invited, and fuzzy caterpillars swung down from the tree, to see what was going on. Three white-headed children peeped over the fence, and an objectionable dog barked at them from the other side of the river with all his might and main.

"There's salt here, if you prefer it," said Laurie, as he handed Jo a saucer of berries.

"Thank you, I prefer spiders," she replied, fishing up two unwary little ones who had gone to a creamy death. "How dare you remind me of that horrid dinner-party, when yours is so nice in every way?" 157 added Jo, as they both laughed, and ate out of one plate, the china having run short.

"I had an uncommonly good time that day, and haven't got over it yet. This is no credit to me, you know; I don't do anything; it's you and Meg and Brooke who make it go, and I'm no end obliged to you. What shall we do when we can't eat any more?" asked Laurie, feeling that his trump card had been played when lunch was over.

"Have games, till it's cooler. I brought 'Authors,' and I dare say Miss Kate knows something new and nice. Go and ask her; she's company, and you ought to stay with her more."

"Aren't you company too? I thought she'd suit Brooke; but he keeps talking to Meg, and Kate just stares at them through that ridiculous glass of hers. I'm going, so you needn't try to preach propriety, for you can't do it, Jo."

Miss Kate did know several new games; and as the girls would not, and the boys could not, eat any more, they all adjourned to the drawing-room to play "Rigmarole."

"One person begins a story, any nonsense you like, and tells as long as he pleases, only taking care to stop short at some exciting point, when the next takes it up and does the same. It's very funny when well done, and makes a perfect jumble of tragical comical stuff to laugh over. Please start it, Mr. Brooke," said Kate, with a commanding air, which surprised Meg, who treated the tutor with as much respect as any other gentleman.

Lying on the grass at the feet of the two young ladies, Mr. Brooke obediently began the story, with the handsome brown eyes steadily fixed upon the sunshiny river.

"Once on a time, a knight went out into the world to seek his fortune, for he had nothing but his sword and his shield. He travelled a long while, nearly eight-and-twenty years, and had a hard time of it, till he came to the palace of a good old king, who had offered a reward to any one who would tame and train a fine but unbroken colt, of which he was very fond. The knight agreed to try, and got on slowly but surely; for the colt was a gallant fellow, and soon learned to love his new master, though he was freakish and wild. Every day, when he gave his lessons to this pet of the king's, the 158 knight rode him through the city; and, as he rode, he looked everywhere for a certain beautiful face, which he had seen many times in his dreams, but never found. One day, as he went prancing down a quiet street, he saw at the window of a ruinous castle the lovely face. He was delighted, inquired who lived in this old castle, and was told that several captive princesses were kept there by a spell, and spun all day to lay up money to buy their liberty. The knight wished intensely that he could free them; but he was poor, and could only go by each day, watching for the sweet face, and longing to see it out in the sunshine. At last, he resolved to get into the castle and ask how he could help them. He went and knocked; the great door flew open, and he beheld—"

"A ravishingly lovely lady, who exclaimed, with a cry of rapture, 'At last! at last!'" continued Kate, who had read French novels, and admired the style. "''Tis she!' cried Count Gustave, and fell at her feet in an ecstasy of joy. 'Oh, rise!' she said, extending a hand of marble fairness. 'Never! till you tell me how I may rescue you,' swore the knight, still kneeling. 'Alas, my cruel fate condemns me to remain here till my tyrant is destroyed.' 'Where is the villain?' 'In the mauve salon. Go, brave heart, and save me from despair.' 'I obey, and return victorious or dead!' With these thrilling words he rushed away, and flinging open the door of the mauve salon, was about to enter, when he received—"

"A stunning blow from the big Greek lexicon, which an old fellow in a black gown fired at him," said Ned. "Instantly Sir What's-his-name recovered himself, pitched the tyrant out of the window, and turned to join the lady, victorious, but with a bump on his brow; 159 found the door locked, tore up the curtains, made a rope ladder, got half-way down when the ladder broke, and he went head first into the moat, sixty feet below. Could swim like a duck, paddled round the castle till he came to a little door guarded by two stout fellows; knocked their heads together till they cracked like a couple of nuts, then, by a trifling exertion of his prodigious strength, he smashed in the door, went up a pair of stone steps covered with dust a foot thick, toads as big as your fist, and spiders that would frighten 160 you into hysterics, Miss March. At the top of these steps he came plump upon a sight that took his breath away and chilled his blood—"

"A tall figure, all in white with a veil over its face and a lamp in its wasted hand," went on Meg. "It beckoned, gliding noiselessly before him down a corridor as dark and cold as any tomb. Shadowy effigies in armor stood on either side, a dead silence reigned, the lamp burned blue, and the ghostly figure ever and anon turned its face toward him, showing the glitter of awful eyes through its white veil. They reached a curtained door, behind which sounded lovely music; he sprang forward to enter, but the spectre plucked him back, and waved threateningly before him a—"

"Snuff-box," said Jo, in a sepulchral tone, which convulsed the audience. "'Thankee,' said the knight politely, as he took a pinch, and sneezed seven times so violently that his head fell off. 'Ha! ha!' laughed the ghost; and having peeped through the key-hole at the princesses spinning away for dear life, the evil spirit picked up her victim and put him in a large tin box, where there were eleven other knights packed together without their heads, like sardines, who all rose and began to—"

"Dance a hornpipe," cut in Fred, as Jo paused for breath; "and, as they danced, the rubbishy old castle turned to a man-of-war in full sail. 'Up with the jib, reef the tops'l halliards, helm hard a lee, and man the guns!' roared the captain, as a Portuguese pirate hove in sight, with a flag black as ink flying from her foremast. 'Go in and win, my hearties!' says the captain; and a tremendous fight begun. Of course the British beat; they always do."

"No, they don't!" cried Jo, aside.

161 "Having taken the pirate captain prisoner, sailed slap over the schooner, whose decks were piled with dead, and whose lee-scuppers ran blood, for the order had been 'Cutlasses, and die hard!' 'Bosen's mate, take a bight of the flying-jib sheet, and start this villain if he don't confess his sins double quick,' said the British captain. The Portuguese held his tongue like a brick, and walked the plank, while the jolly tars cheered like mad. But the sly dog dived, came up under the man-of-war, scuttled her, and down she went, with all sail set, 'To the bottom of the sea, sea, sea,' where—"

"Oh, gracious! what shall I say?" cried Sallie, as Fred ended his rigmarole, in which he had jumbled together, pell-mell, nautical phrases and facts, out of one of his favorite books. "Well they went to the bottom, and a nice mermaid welcomed them, but was much grieved on finding the box of headless knights, and kindly pickled them in brine, hoping to discover the mystery about them; for, being a woman, she was curious. By and by a diver came down, and the mermaid said, 'I'll give you this box of pearls if you can take it up;' for she wanted to restore the poor things to life, and couldn't raise the heavy load herself. So the diver hoisted it up, and was much disappointed, on opening it, to find no pearls. He left it in a great lonely field, where it was found by a—"

"Little goose-girl, who kept a hundred fat geese in the field," said Amy, when Sallie's invention gave out. "The little girl was sorry for them, and asked an old woman what she should do to help them. 'Your geese will tell you, they know everything,' said the old woman. So she asked what she should use for new heads, since the old ones were lost, and all the geese opened their hundred mouths and screamed—"

162 "'Cabbages!'" continued Laurie promptly. "'Just the thing,' said the girl, and ran to get twelve fine ones from her garden. She put them on, the knights revived at once, thanked her, and went on their way rejoicing, never knowing the difference, for there were so many other heads like them in the world that no one thought anything of it. The knight in whom I'm interested went back to find the pretty face, and learned that the princesses had spun themselves free, and all gone to be married, but one. He was in a great state of mind at that; and mounting the colt, who stood by him through thick and thin, rushed to the castle to see which was left. Peeping over the hedge, he saw the queen of his affections picking flowers in her garden. 'Will you give me a rose?' said he. 'You must come and get it. I can't come to you; it isn't proper,' said she, as sweet as honey. He tried to climb over the hedge, but it seemed to grow higher and higher; then he tried to push through, but it grew thicker and thicker, and he was in despair. So he patiently broke twig after twig, till he had made a little hole, through which he peeped, saying imploringly, 'Let me in! let me in!' But the pretty princess did not seem to understand, for she picked her roses quietly, and left him to fight his way in. Whether he did or not, Frank will tell you."

"I can't; I'm not playing, I never do," said Frank, dismayed at the sentimental predicament out of which he was to rescue the absurd couple. Beth had disappeared behind Jo, and Grace was asleep.

163 "So the poor knight is to be left sticking in the hedge, is he?" asked Mr. Brooke, still watching the river, and playing with the wild rose in his button-hole.

"I guess the princess gave him a posy, and opened the gate, after a while," said Laurie, smiling to himself, as he threw acorns at his tutor.

"What a piece of nonsense we have made! With practice we might do something quite clever. Do you know 'Truth'?" asked Sallie, after they had laughed over their story.

"I hope so," said Meg soberly.

"The game, I mean?"

"What is it?" said Fred.

"Why, you pile up your hands, choose a number, and draw out in turn, and the person who draws at the number has to answer truly any questions put by the rest. It's great fun."

"Let's try it," said Jo, who liked new experiments.

Miss Kate and Mr. Brooke, Meg, and Ned declined, but Fred, Sallie, Jo, and Laurie piled and drew; and the lot fell to Laurie.

"Who are your heroes?" asked Jo.

"Grandfather and Napoleon."

"Which lady here do you think prettiest?" said Sallie.

"Margaret."

"Which do you like best?" from Fred.

"Jo, of course."

"What silly questions you ask!" and Jo gave a disdainful shrug as the rest laughed at Laurie's matter-of-fact tone.

"Try again; Truth isn't a bad game," said Fred.

"It's a very good one for you," retorted Jo, in a low voice.

Her turn came next.

"What is your greatest fault?" asked Fred, by way of testing in her the virtue he lacked himself.

"A quick temper."

"What do you most wish for?" said Laurie.

"A pair of boot-lacings," returned Jo, guessing and defeating his purpose.

"Not a true answer; you must say what you really do want most."

164 "Genius; don't you wish you could give it to me, Laurie?" and she slyly smiled in his disappointed face.

"What virtues do you most admire in a man?" asked Sallie.

"Courage and honesty."

"Now my turn," said Fred, as his hand came last.

"Let's give it to him," whispered Laurie to Jo, who nodded, and asked at once,—

"Didn't you cheat at croquet?"

"Well, yes, a little bit."

"Good! Didn't you take your story out of 'The Sea-Lion?'" said Laurie.

"Rather."

"Don't you think the English nation perfect in every respect?" asked Sallie.

"I should be ashamed of myself if I didn't."

"He's a true John Bull. Now, Miss Sallie, you shall have a chance without waiting to draw. I'll harrow up your feelings first, by asking if you don't think you are something of a flirt," said Laurie, as Jo nodded to Fred, as a sign that peace was declared.

"You impertinent boy! of course I'm not," exclaimed Sallie, with an air that proved the contrary.

"What do you hate most?" asked Fred.

"Spiders and rice-pudding."

"What do you like best?" asked Jo.

"Dancing and French gloves."

"Well, I think Truth is a very silly play; let's have a sensible game of Authors, to refresh our minds," proposed Jo.

Ned, Frank, and the little girls joined in this, and, while it went on, the three elders sat apart, talking. Miss Kate took out her sketch again, and Margaret watched her, while Mr. Brooke lay on the grass, with a book, which he did not read.

"How beautifully you do it! I wish I could draw," said Meg, with mingled admiration and regret in her voice.

"Why don't you learn? I should think you had taste and talent for it," replied Miss Kate graciously.

"I haven't time."

165 "Your mamma prefers other accomplishments, I fancy. So did mine; but I proved to her that I had talent, by taking a few lessons privately, and then she was quite willing I should go on. Can't you do the same with your governess?"

"I have none."

"I forgot; young ladies in America go to school more than with us. Very fine schools they are, too, papa says. You go to a private one, I suppose?"

"I don't go at all; I am a governess myself."

"Oh, indeed!" said Miss Kate; but she might as well have said, "Dear me, how dreadful!" for her tone implied it, and something in her face made Meg color, and wish she had not been so frank.

Mr. Brooke looked up, and said quickly, "Young ladies in America love independence as much as their ancestors did, and are admired and respected for supporting themselves."

"Oh, yes; of course it's very nice and proper in them to do so. We have many most respectable and worthy young women, who do the same and are employed by the nobility, because, being the daughters of gentlemen, they are both well-bred and accomplished, you know," said Miss Kate, in a patronizing tone, that hurt Meg's pride, and made her work seem not only more distasteful, but degrading.

"Did the German song suit, Miss March?" inquired Mr. Brooke, breaking an awkward pause.

"Oh, yes! it was very sweet, and I'm much obliged to whoever translated it for me;" and Meg's downcast face brightened as she spoke.

"Don't you read German?" asked Miss Kate, with a look of surprise.

"Not very well. My father, who taught me, is away, and I don't get on very fast alone, for I've no one to correct my pronunciation."

"Try a little now; here is Schiller's 'Mary Stuart,' and a tutor who loves to teach," and Mr. Brooke laid his book on her lap, with an inviting smile.

"It's so hard I'm afraid to try," said Meg, grateful, but bashful in the presence of the accomplished young lady beside her.

"I'll read a bit to encourage you;" and Miss Kate read one of 166 the most beautiful passages, in a perfectly correct but perfectly expressionless manner.

Mr. Brooke made no comment, as she returned the book to Meg, who said innocently,—

"I thought it was poetry."

"Some of it is. Try this passage."

There was a queer smile about Mr. Brooke's mouth as he opened at poor Mary's lament.

Meg, obediently following the long grass-blade which her new tutor used to point with, read slowly and timidly, unconsciously making poetry of the hard words by the soft intonation of her musical voice. Down the page went the green guide, and presently, forgetting her listener in the beauty of the sad scene, Meg read as if alone, giving a little touch of tragedy to the words of the unhappy queen. If she had seen the brown eyes then, she would have stopped short; but she never looked up, and the lesson was not spoiled for her.

"Very well indeed!" said Mr. Brooke, as she paused, quite ignoring her many mistakes, and looking as if he did, indeed, "love to teach."

Miss Kate put up her glass, and, having taken a survey of the little tableau before her, shut her sketch-book, saying, with condescension,—

"You've a nice accent, and, in time, will be a clever reader. I advise you to learn, for German is a valuable accomplishment to teachers. I must look after Grace, she is romping;" and Miss Kate strolled away, adding to herself, with a shrug, "I didn't come to chaperone a governess, though she is young and pretty. What odd people these Yankees are; I'm afraid Laurie will be quite spoilt among them."

"I forgot that English people rather turn up their noses at governesses, and don't treat them as we do," said Meg, looking after the retreating figure with an annoyed expression.

"Tutors, also, have rather a hard time of it there, as I know to my sorrow. There's no place like America for us workers, Miss Margaret;" and Mr. Brooke looked so contented and cheerful, that Meg was ashamed to lament her hard lot.

167 "I'm glad I live in it then. I don't like my work, but I get a good deal of satisfaction out of it after all, so I won't complain; I only wish I liked teaching as you do."

"I think you would if you had Laurie for a pupil. I shall be very sorry to lose him next year," said Mr. Brooke, busily punching holes in the turf.

"Going to college, I suppose?" Meg's lips asked that question, but her eyes added, "And what becomes of you?"

"Yes; it's high time he went, for he is ready; and as soon as he is off, I shall turn soldier. I am needed."

"I am glad of that!" exclaimed Meg. "I should think every young man would want to go; though it is hard for the mothers and sisters who stay at home," she added sorrowfully.

"I have neither, and very few friends, to care whether I live or die," said Mr. Brooke, rather bitterly, as he absently put the dead rose in the hole he had made and covered it up, like a little grave.

168 "Laurie and his grandfather would care a great deal, and we should all be very sorry to have any harm happen to you," said Meg heartily.

"Thank you; that sounds pleasant," began Mr. Brooke, looking cheerful again; but before he could finish his speech, Ned, mounted on the old horse, came lumbering up to display his equestrian skill before the young ladies, and there was no more quiet that day.

"Don't you love to ride?" asked Grace of Amy, as they stood resting, after a race round the field with the others, led by Ned.

"I dote upon it; my sister Meg used to ride when papa was rich, but we don't keep any horses now, except Ellen Tree," added Amy, laughing.

"Tell me about Ellen Tree; is it a donkey?" asked Grace curiously.

"Why, you see, Jo is crazy about horses, and so am I, but we've only got an old side-saddle, and no horse. Out in our garden is an apple-tree, that has a nice low branch; so Jo put the saddle on it, fixed some reins on the part that turns up, and we bounce away on Ellen Tree whenever we like."

169 "How funny!" laughed Grace. "I have a pony at home, and ride nearly every day in the park, with Fred and Kate; it's very nice, for my friends go too, and the Row is full of ladies and gentlemen."

"Dear, how charming! I hope I shall go abroad some day; but I'd rather go to Rome than the Row," said Amy, who had not the remotest idea what the Row was, and wouldn't have asked for the world.

Frank, sitting just behind the little girls, heard what they were saying, and pushed his crutch away from him with an impatient gesture as he watched the active lads going through all sorts of comical gymnastics. Beth, who was collecting the scattered Author-cards, looked up, and said, in her shy yet friendly way,—

"I'm afraid you are tired; can I do anything for you?"

"Talk to me, please; it's dull, sitting by myself," answered Frank, who had evidently been used to being made much of at home.

If he had asked her to deliver a Latin oration, it would not have seemed a more impossible task to bashful Beth; but there was no place to run to, no Jo to hide behind now, and the poor boy looked so wistfully at her, that she bravely resolved to try.

"What do you like to talk about?" she asked, fumbling over the cards, and dropping half as she tried to tie them up.

"Well, I like to hear about cricket and boating and hunting," said Frank, who had not yet learned to suit his amusements to his strength.

"My heart! what shall I do? I don't know anything about them," thought Beth; and, forgetting the boy's misfortune in her flurry, she said, hoping to make him talk, "I never saw any hunting, but I suppose you know all about it."

"I did once; but I can never hunt again, for I got hurt leaping a confounded five-barred gate; so there are no more horses and hounds for me," said Frank, with a sigh that made Beth hate herself for her innocent blunder.

"Your deer are much prettier than our ugly buffaloes," she said, turning to the prairies for help, and feeling glad that she had read one of the boys' books in which Jo delighted.

Buffaloes proved soothing and satisfactory; and, in her eagerness to amuse another, Beth forgot herself, and was quite unconscious 170 of her sisters' surprise and delight at the unusual spectacle of Beth talking away to one of the dreadful boys, against whom she had begged protection.

"Bless her heart! She pities him, so she is good to him," said Jo, beaming at her from the croquet-ground.

"I always said she was a little saint," added Meg, as if there could be no further doubt of it.

"I haven't heard Frank laugh so much for ever so long," said Grace to Amy, as they sat discussing dolls, and making tea-sets out of the acorn-cups.

"My sister Beth is a very fastidious girl, when she likes to be," said Amy, well pleased at Beth's success. She meant "fascinating," but as Grace didn't know the exact meaning of either word, "fastidious" sounded well, and made a good impression.

An impromptu circus, fox and geese, and an amicable game of croquet, finished the afternoon. At sunset the tent was struck, hampers packed, wickets pulled up, boats loaded, and the whole party floated down the river, singing at the tops of their voices. Ned, getting sentimental, warbled a serenade with the pensive refrain,—

"Alone, alone, ah! woe, alone,"

and at the lines—

"We each are young, we each have a heart,

Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart?"

he looked at Meg with such a lackadaisical expression that she laughed outright and spoilt his song.

"How can you be so cruel to me?" he whispered, under cover of a lively chorus. "You've kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day, and now you snub me."

"I didn't mean to; but you looked so funny I really couldn't help it," replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach; for it was quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and the talk after it.

Ned was offended, and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her rather pettishly, "There isn't a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?"

171 "Not a particle; but she's a dear," returned Sallie, defending her friend even while confessing her short-comings.

"She's not a stricken deer, any way," said Ned, trying to be witty, and succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.

On the lawn, where it had gathered, the little party separated with cordial good-nights and good-byes, for the Vaughns were going to Canada. As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate looked after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice, "In spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice when one knows them."

"I quite agree with you," said Mr. Brooke.

#hellsitesonlybookclub #bookblr #Little Women #Alcott

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curiousartemis · 3 years

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Simon and Daphne dancing together in episode 2 of Bridgerton gave me Falk and Laurie feels 😊

#oc thoughts: laurie #so yeah let's say that's their first dance together #squee #poor laurie was exhausted after THAT? 😂

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chrisevansgoodgirl · 3 years

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i am incredible

summary: these two sluts were not as sly as they thought they were being

warnings: so much smut. cheating discussions. anal shit. choking. that daddy stuff.

word count: about 10,250

pairing: andy barber x reader

a/n: (never again will i pick a song to use if it’s unreleased but honestly, you guys weren’t even supposed to like this. i didn’t know anyone would want more than one chapter) part 1, part 2, part 3

You weren’t sleeping, you’d just been pretending for all of five minutes before Andy got too impatient. He kissed your cheek and you didn’t move. He kissed the corner of your mouth, your jaw, your collarbone, and you didn’t move. Then, he pressed a soft, wet, open-mouthed kiss to one of your nipples and your body instinctively arched up for more.

Pulling away, he chuckled.

You finally opened your eyes, sighing. “Seriously?” He’d woken you up several times throughout the night. Since it had always been with his fingers at your clit, you decided not to complain.

But now, six in the morning, you were just shy of exhausted. How did he want to fuck you this many times? It seemed a blur now, you truly could no longer put a number on how many times you had been wrapped around his cock.

He didn’t say a word, just proceeded to repeat his actions to the opposite breast.

“Daddy,” you breathed.

He glanced up at you.

“Fuck me.” Okay, so, yes, he was waking you up a little too often but that didn’t mean that you didn’t like the reason behind it. Besides, each time, he’d rolled you over on top of him. You didn’t want that, you wanted him pinning you flat down to the mattress with his body, fucking you in all the ways he promised he would.

Smirking, he placed his hand on your hip to get you on top of him.

You grabbed his wrist, shaking your head. “Like this, fuck me like this.” You took his hard cock in your other hand, pulling him toward your pussy.

Slowly, he sunk into you, watching your face to make sure it wasn’t too much for you to handle.

“Fuck,” you breathed, “fuck, fuck, fuck—” Still such a tight fit. You were sore, especially between your legs, but you couldn’t stop wanting more of him. It made no sense to you, you’d never experienced need like this. You’d never wanted to fuck someone after you’d already fucked them. All the losers you’d been with before, the idea of being intimate with them after sex made you sick.

When he was pressed flush against you, you brought your hands up to his shoulders. “Daddy, you feel so good.”

“Yeah?” he muttered against your cheek. You smiled as he kissed all over your face. You were getting used to his beard against your skin, it might have still hurt, but you were starting to like it.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

At that same agonizing pace, he pulled his hips back and you whimpered as his cock slipped completely out of you. The next second, he slammed back in. Your scream was one of surprise and pleasure, a sound you immediately tried to clamp your mouth closed on. You clung to him, arms wrapping over his shoulders and he smirked. Andy was a man who needed to be needed and you more than fit that bill.

He repeated this several times. The sound of his skin slapping against yours, your wet pussy eagerly taking his cock, your shameless moans, his gravelly grunts.

“Choke me, daddy.”

One of his hands came up, circling your neck. He thrust harder to elicit those same desperate sounds from you, the ones so loud even lack of oxygen couldn’t stop them from spilling from your opened mouth.

He fucked you like this until you were coming, a slow, gentle end that left you shaking underneath him. You theorized this had to be reaching the 20 range in this small 24-hour time span. It was a lot, more than you could wrap your mind around, you trusted him. You knew Andy would take care of you, so you never once asked him to slow down.

As your head rolled back, as he continued thrusting into you for his end, he kissed all over your jaw and his hand tightened. You always knew what that meant, his hips began to snap up harder as further proof. Soon, he was spilling into you, grunting softly, as you touched him wherever you could reach.

He kissed his way up your skin back to your mouth until you had to break away because you just couldn’t stop smiling. “You good?”

You nodded. “The best I’ve ever been.”

He glanced down and sighed, preparing to move his body from yours. “I’m gonna wake up before you again, and I’m sure I’ll be hard. Again.”

“Good. Fuck me awake.”

He looked back up, eyebrows lifted. “Really?”

“Really.”

“I might have to fuck you again after hearing that before I can fall back asleep.”

You snorted. “Well, I have no objections to that.”

It had been three weeks of pure bliss and you just couldn’t stop smiling. Ever. For even a second. Well, obviously you were busy doing other things with Andy, but whenever you were alone, grocery shopping, taking Jacob for a walk, anything else, you were smiling like an idiot.

You’d only seen Jacob a handful of times. Andy knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer. People were going to notice that you were at the house, but Jacob wasn’t. He just wanted a little bit of time with you.

But with Laurie being gone, you had to be extra cautious. You couldn’t show up at his work, especially not without an assignment as an excuse like the last time. That meant Andy had to indulge your fantasies as well as he could at the house.

He was working one morning but promised he would let you know when he was done. For nearly an hour, you were naked on the bed, peering into your closet for an outfit. Only, his text came before you had located that slip of lingerie and you had the bright idea to forget clothing completely.

Besides, once Jacob was back, you’d never be able to do this. You walked downstairs to Andy’s office, shameless, naked, with obvious impure intentions.

He stopped typing as soon as you opened the door.

“So…I need legal advice.”

He scoffed. “Cute.”

You moved in, pressing the door shut behind you. He shifted and swallowed audibly, eyes glued to your swaying hips as you moved closer. “But I am very poor…there’s only one way I could think to pay you for your time.”

Rolling his eyes, he pushed back in his chair. It was an invitation for you to climb on top of him. You straddled his lap, using his shoulders for balance, and immediately, your mouths connected. Andy’s hands roamed along your thighs and ass, and you ground your cunt against his cock until he was hard.

You set your feet to the floor and stood only to tear his pants out of your way. You were about to toss his belt aside, but he pulled it away from you. After you pulled his cock out from his pants, you watched his face as you crawled back onto his lap.

“What are you doing with the belt, daddy?”

One hand grabbed your hip and he jerked you closer before his hand moved down to find his cock. He didn’t say a word as you started to slide down his length.

Your head rolled back, a moan breaking the silence of the room as soon as you were seated on his lap. Your favorite thing in this world was having him this deep inside you. It felt like he was part of you, it made you forget that he wasn’t truly yours.

“Daddy, what’s the belt for?” you whined impatiently.

“Does my little girl want to be spanked with it?”

“No,” you claimed, looking back at him. But it was a weak protest, one that held no sincerity. Before he’d brought it up? Never crossed your mind. Now? Your skin was practically burning with the desire to be hit with it.

“No?” he scoffed before he leaned in to kiss you again. He took both your hands arms and brought them behind you. You didn’t say a word as he started binding your wrists with the belt.

You simply nipped at his lip and he pulled back to see your face. You wanted to ride him. That was the plan, not you getting tied up.

He saw that little pout that was starting on your lips and grabbed your waist. “It’s okay, princess. Daddy’s not going to let you fall.”

You figured out how to use your knees and thighs to pull your body back up. You bounced up and down on his cock, the chair squeaking underneath the weight of you both, a noise easily quieted by the noises pouring from your open mouths.

Andy kept a good hold on you, fighting his urge to take control. He wanted you to have your fill of this fake office fantasy, using his cock to pleasure yourself until you needed him to be in charge. But he knew he was going to need something else, hence the belt. He just needed to wait.

With your orgasm, you stopped moving. You let your pussy rest around him as you fell against his chest. He gave you the time to come down, petting your hair and whispering about how beautiful you were.

He waited for a sign that you were firmly back in reality, a sign that came in the form of you kissing his neck. That had been your little way of telling him you were ready for more, whatever it was that he wanted to give you.

He started to stand but didn’t pull out until he was on his feet. He let you settle on the ground the same way before he grabbed your hips and turned you away from him.

You didn’t wait for him to push you down, instead, you bent yourself over the desk and spread your legs wide. You didn’t care how cold it was or how uncomfortable turning your neck was. You simply waited as his hands roamed your body. He stared with your hips, leaning over to kiss your back, down your spine until he reached the curve of your back.

He pushed back in fast, your pussy echoing wetly around the intrusion. Your face felt hot, but he paid no mind to your humiliation. He grabbed the belt around your hands and pulled you down the desk a little. With space to move you, he used the belt to push and pull you along his cock. It was fast, hard, almost animalistic the way he used you.

One of his hands curled around your pelvis tightly, his fingers rubbing firmly against your clit even as he continued to fuck you with his hold on the belt. He knowingly stimulated your clit the entire time, pulling finish after finish from your exhausted body.

By the time he spilled into you, your voice was raspy with overuse, your throat ached, the muscles in your legs were burning, you were drooling all over the desk, and you knew your cunt had been dripping everywhere. You were a complete mess and he had never found you more beautiful.

It wasn’t that you thought this was going to be a summer of pure sex and you weren’t going to have to lift a finger. You remembered why it was even possible that you were staying with Andy, you remembered why Laurie had trusted you enough to allow you in her home. You weren’t stupid.

Maybe just a tad unrealistic. You had thought you were just going to be able to dive right back into it with Jacob. You hadn’t considered the fact that he had aged since you last cared for him, entering a much different phase of development that you weren’t familiar with. You hadn’t considered that there would be changes in his mood and behaviors because he missed his mom.

Not that he was saying that, he probably didn’t even know that. It was just that this was the hardest morning you had ever had with him. In fact, it was the only hard morning you’d ever had with him.

Not simply because he wanted to fuck you, Andy had enrolled Jacob in a neighborhood group. You had listened to them both speak about it a couple of nights before at dinner, but Andy had sent you a text and well…you were incapable of focusing on anything but that text and what he promised for that night. It was the first time he had to use the gag.

Regardless, Jacob was half an hour late. He was currently in his bedroom, screaming at the top of his lungs and you had no idea why. He was never like this with you. He never acted out at all. He was perfect to the point of your genuine confusion about why others didn’t want to babysit him.

Andy was going to be annoyed with you. You had one job. Why couldn’t you do this one simple thing and make sure Jacob got to his stupid club meetings on time?

It was almost fifteen minutes later after you finally had the kid dressed that you thought maybe you’d be able to get him there for half of the meeting. They called them meetings, didn’t that mean it had to be some type of weird boy-scouts thing? You had no idea, just assumptions.

Regardless, on the way out, he had another meltdown. He was in the hallway, screaming again, when Andy found you in the kitchen leaning on the counter with your face buried in your hands.

“Hey.”

You startled, turning back to him. “Andy? What are you doing here?”

“I got a call from Derek’s parents. They were wondering why Jake didn’t show up.”

“They couldn’t hear?” you scoffed, attempting to make light of a situation that was causing you extreme distress. “It’s fine, I’m so sorry. I should have texted you—”

“No, it’s okay, I just wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

“It’s fine. You didn’t need to leave work.” You tried to move around him, but he caught you by the shoulders and settled you in front of him.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

“Nothing. Go back to work.”

“Stop,” he said softly, but it was final. He wasn’t going back to work until he got to the bottom of this.

“Nothing,” you repeated. “Okay? He’s just having a bad morning.”

“Take a minute,” he directed, sensing the stress you were feeling. “Just breathe, okay? I’m gonna see if he’ll talk to me.”

Much to the pleasure of your ego, Jacob did not want to talk to Andy. He simply screamed and cried until he fell asleep. Andy carried him to bed and came downstairs to find you trying to drown yourself in a cup of coffee.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He made his way to you, wrapping his arms around your back and pulling you into his chest. “What happened?”

“I don’t know…he’s never been like that with me. I’m sorry, I’ve dealt with this a million times with other kids, I was just caught off guard.”

“It’s okay.”

You sighed, pressing your face against his shirt. “I feel terrible that you had to leave work.”

“Don’t worry about it.” He kissed the top of your head. “But I do have to get back.”

Of course. You were expecting that, but you still hated hearing it. “Five minutes?”

He hummed, pretending to think about it. “How about ten?”

You finally hugged him back.

He left you with a kiss and a promise that it was all okay. You felt useless. You never thought your relationship with Andy would take you away from Jacob. It was supposed to be the opposite. But then, weren’t you fucking his mom’s husband, his married father? You knew even Jacob would hate you if he found out. Anyone in their right mind would.

Jacob had slept nearly the whole day, save for the one brief period of consciousness when he asked you to make him lunch. You were still tense, wallowing in how useless you felt. But just before he was heading back upstairs, he hugged tightly at your legs and muttered an apology before scurrying off.

A few hours later, you were getting ready with your door opened, just in case Jacob woke up again. You were kind of hoping he would, knowing you would have an actual excuse out of this. But no such luck, Andy showed up and Jacob was still out, and now you had no reason not to go to the party your boyfriend begged you to attend.

You’d nearly forgotten how to do your makeup, a struggle you had just finished when Andy found you.

“Hey,” he started, eyes immediately taking you in. He wasn’t just staring, he was trying to piece together your actions. You hadn’t done your makeup or even gotten dressed up since your first day there.

You were in a tiny skirt, a tight top. You wondered if that would bother him. It never had before, but then, that was before you had sex with him. “Hey…Jacob’s been asleep most of the day. I made him lunch, he seemed fine, but then just right back to bed.”

He nodded, leaning against the doorway. “You going somewhere?”

“Yeah…um, just a party.” Which sounded stupid and immature to say to him. You didn’t feel your age anymore. The people your age were seeking things out that you had already found in Andy. Why did you want to hang out with them? “Unless you need me here. I can stay—”

“No, no. You deserve a night off.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. You know, I’m his dad. I’m not completely helpless.”

You scoffed. “No, I know, but I’m here for a reason…I don’t want to just leave—”

“It’s okay,” he insisted. “Whose party?”

“Um…Lily’s.” Now, you did feel like you were your age. You knew he didn’t much like Lily and he didn’t like that you were friends with her. He claimed she was a sneak, self-serving person. You figured you did not want the back story behind that conclusion of his.

He hummed. “Right. The one she throws every year. I usually have a few parents calling me afterward, vaguely asking me how likely it is their children will end up doing time for the stupid shit they do there.”

You started wringing your hands. Yeah, the party was usually horrible. People had sex with people they shouldn’t, there were fights, cheating, drugs. All of that, stuff that never really bothered you, things you were simply uninterested in.

“But I know you haven’t really talked to anyone but me for the past three weeks, it’ll be good for you to get out.”

“I’m fine just talking to you, though,” you promised. “You’re not terrible company.”

He smiled. “Just be safe, and call me if you need anything. Okay?”

You nodded and then he was turning to leave. “You’re not going to kiss me?”

He scoffed, keeping his back to you as he stopped in the doorway again. “If I do that…I risk not being able to let you go.”

After all the things he’d done to you, that shouldn’t have been able to give you butterflies. Yet, it did. You stood there, biting your lip and smiling as he rushed out of the room. He hadn’t told you that you looked beautiful, but that was more than enough to give you all the confidence you needed to face your overly critical friends.

Hours later, you returned much later than you had planned. You hadn’t intended to stay with Lily to clean up, but you ended up being there near the end and it was clear no one else was going to help. Once she asked you about the huge fight with your boyfriend, you knew it would just be better to stay behind a little. You had to vent before you went back to Andy.

Three in the morning but he was still awake, so was Jacob. At three in the morning? You weren’t trying to be judgmental…but, what?

“He’s sick,” Andy explained. “A fever…I don’t want you catching it…”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. I get every vaccine I need to stop these walking germs from getting me sick.”

He scoffed. “A positive way for a babysitter to talk about children.”

“Y/N,” Jacob called out, pointing to the screen. “Finish the movie with us?”

You had sobered up a little so you were sure you would be able to. You made your way to the couch next to Jacob and he detached himself from Andy to lay his head on your hip. You pressed your hand to his forehead and made a sympathetic noise when you felt how hot his skin was. “Oh, baby—goodness.”

“It’s okay,” Jacob promised. “Because you’re here and you’re my favorite person and you’ll make me feel better, and my dad is going to come home early every day until I’m not sick anymore. And he’s one of my favorite people, too. Sometimes.”

You sent Andy a smug smile and he arched an eyebrow back, amused. You knew it wasn’t like he wanted you to be Jacob’s mom, but he must have felt something deep and twisted over the fact that you were in his home, caring for his son who he loved more than anyone else in the world. Andy was a domestic man who you were sure was affected by you behaving in domestic ways.

He used his son’s distraction as an opportunity to really watch you. He knew something was off—you’d walked home instead of calling him or getting a ride from your loser boyfriend, you had your heels in your hands when you showed up, and your makeup was missing, cried off or faded with something else—but it was clear that he wasn’t going to find out what that was for a while.

Jacob immediately started filling you in on the movie and Andy paused it to get something from the kitchen. He returned with a plate of Jacob’s favorite fruit—cantaloupe, weird kid—and a glass of water for you.

If you hadn’t been so tipsy, you might have been able to figure out the movie. Instead, it was just a bunch of noise and movement that you could hardly focus on. It was hard being back in that environment. You felt that you didn’t fit in with those people anymore, that your life had changed so much, but you also felt a little lonely. You couldn’t stop seeing your friends.

Before Andy went to put Jacob to bed, he directed you to get in the shower. By the time you were getting out, he was just making his way in. He wrapped you up in a fluffy towel and kissed you until you were dried off. “You good?”

You nodded. “Mhm.”

He was extra careful with your hair before he slipped you into one of his shirts. Much to your surprise, he didn’t ask anything else, he didn’t even speak. He simply put you to bed and explained that he had a couple of emails to answer before he could turn in with you for the night.

When you woke up, it was morning. You put on some leggings and rushed downstairs. You usually woke up at 8 to get ahead of Jacob. Apparently, Andy had woken up extremely early to make breakfast, a plate of pancakes was left for you, next to a note explaining Jacob was at Derek’s again and he would pick him up on his way home.

Derek was sick as well and Derek’s mother, Dina, was staying home anyway and offered to take Jacob. That was one family you never babysat for. The winter of 2018, Maya, a girl two years older than you had fucked Derek’s dad and Dina found out. It was a huge thing and since there wasn’t going to be a divorce, Dina refused to let anyone babysit for them ever again. Any time she had a conversation with Laurie and Laurie would suggest you take the kids so they could spend some time together away from their motherly jobs, it was clear that Dina didn’t trust you. She also got super judgmental toward any of the mothers who needed help. So yes, you were just a bit annoyed that Andy had taken him there.

When Jacob and Andy got home, Andy said he had work to do in his office. You and Jacob spent the rest of the day watching pre-approved scary movies. Since Jacob was sick and couldn’t stay awake for longer than 30-minute periods, it was a pretty quiet afternoon.

When Andy finally came out of his office, it was to check on you and Jacob. He carried his son upstairs and told you to get some rest. You thought that was strange, you thought he would have wanted to talk about the party. But since he promised to join you in a couple of hours, you didn’t protest.

When you woke up the first time, the clock informed you that you’d only been unconscious for about two hours. Andy wasn’t in bed yet, but you knew you wouldn’t be able to stay conscious enough to go look for him and lure him into bed. Instead, you used your energy to get into the bedside table because tired or not, you were always thinking of ways to tease Andy.

The second time, it had been a total of nearly five hours and Andy still wasn’t in bed. Regardless of if you were sufficiently awake, now you were just worried. You got yourself out of bed and headed downstairs, finding him on the couch in front of the television again.

“Daddy?”

He turned to you, sitting up straight. “What’s wrong?”

You almost smiled. Of course, his automatic thought would be that you were seeking him out because something was wrong. Well, something was wrong, it had been too long since he was inside you, but you were sure that wasn’t what he meant.

“Nothing. What are you doing down here?”

“Just can’t sleep.”

“Well…you could be upstairs with me,” you pointed out.

“Looked like you needed rest.”

“I need you more,” you assured, moving closer to him. “Always.”

“Come here.”

You needed no further prompt, stopping just inches away from him. He curiously watched as you took his hand and guided him under the shirt. He thought you were going to lead him to your pussy, but you went around, letting him feel the plug that you had slipped in earlier that night.

He yanked his hand out of yours and grabbed your ass.

You gasped, hand flying up to your mouth to keep yourself quiet. Jacob was here, this wasn’t even supposed to be happening, but neither of you were going to say no at that point.

He gripped your skin tightly until you whimpered softly, then he got a hold of the plug and slowly pulled it out.

You brought your free hand back to grab his forearm for balance. Your legs shook as he gently pushed it back in. “Daddy, fuck.” You were so deliciously stretched and worked up since you’d put the plug inside you, desperate for him to make you come.

He did this several more times, careful not to make you cry out too loud, but enjoying how much easier it was becoming each time he did it. He stopped only to move his pants out of the way, keeping only his boxers on. He made sure the plug was settled inside you before he pulled you in to sit on one of his thighs.

You wrapped your arms around his neck and leaned against him. “Are you worried about a case, daddy?”

“No, just not tired.”

“But you’d tell me if there was something wrong?”

“It’s not your job to take care of me. It’s mine to take care of you.”

You frowned, pulling back to look at him. “Why can’t we take care of each other?”

“Come on, don’t be argumentative tonight. Did you have fun at the party?”

You scoffed, settling back against him. A conversation for later, apparently. “No…not really. I…I guess I just kind of missed you.”

He hummed. “I missed you, too…but you shouldn’t cut your friends out of your life.”

“Those aren’t my friends. They’re just my parents’ friends’ kids… I’m not trying to ignore them, I’d really just rather spend time with you.”

He touched your face and you turned, nuzzling against the palm of his hand. “You didn’t have any fun?”

“Well,” you admitted, “I don’t hate everyone.” Besides, Lily had gotten really drunk really fast and was trying to fight with some high school dropout that was several years older than everyone because he was trying to prey on some freshman girls.

He hummed as he removed your arms from his neck. He then took your waist and turned you forward.

“What are you doing?”

“You wearing panties?”

“No…I was hoping you would eventually join me.”

“I’m sorry for getting distracted.” His hands started at your thighs and you instinctively pulled them open more.

“Daddy, please.”

“If we do this…you’re going to have to be very quiet, baby.”

You nodded. “I will, daddy. I promise I’ll be so quiet.”

“I know you will, baby girl, because you’re such a good girl. And good girls don’t lie to their daddies, do they?”

“No. Never.”

“Did he touch you?”

Your eyebrows pulled together and you looked back at him curiously.

“Your boyfriend.”

“Oh…no.”

“You need to tell me. You got here and you were upset, and I can’t help if you don’t tell—”

“No, it wasn’t that… We broke up.” Though you simplified it, it was anything but simple. He had cornered you at the party, and you were scared he would cause a scene, so you suggested going upstairs. He thought that meant sex and when you informed him that was the last thing on your mind, he began accusing you of cheating on him.

He said he wanted to break up. Obviously, you didn’t want to put up much of an argument. He didn’t deserve what you were doing to him, no one did, no matter how much of a dick he could be. Cheating was cheating, two wrongs didn’t make a right, that meant you weren’t about to manipulate him into continuing the relationship.

Even after all the terrible things he said, you only cried for two reasons. First, your alibi was gone. If you weren’t dating him, that would open the door for questions about your romantic life. Second, you realized you were always going to need an alibi when it came to Andy. Because he was married. He was older than you. He had a child. To some people, you were just a child.

You spiraled a little, overly emotional because of the alcohol. You were just wondering what all of this meant. When Laurie got back, what? Were you guys over until the next time she was gone? Were you going to have to get yet another boyfriend just to hide again? Would you have to go back to just texting every night?

“Oh…and you were upset about that?” He seemed a little bothered by the idea of you caring about your boyfriend. After everything.

You made a face. “No, definitely not.” It was hard to care about someone who talked to you the way he had at the party. Though, not all of it was completely unwarranted.

“Then I’m lost, sweetheart.”

“I just…I just feel bad for lying. I feel like a bad person, I guess.” Now, that was not untrue. You were not lying to him. But you could not, under any circumstances, explain the emotional episode you had worked yourself up over to Andy.

“You’re not a bad person.”

You were. What cemented that was that you were more upset about having to hide your affair than the fact that you were having an affair.

“You know I think you’re the sweetest little girl,” he reminded. He kissed your face until you couldn’t help but smile.

“I know,” you confirmed.

“I don’t want you worrying about any of this, okay? It’s on me. I touched you first, I started this—”

“It’s cute that you think that.”

He arched an eyebrow at you. “Excuse me?”

“Andy, come on. You had to know, all those times in the car, that I was wearing the tiniest skirts, acting like I had no idea that they were moving up—”

“You tempted me but I was the one who took the bait,” he insisted. “Baby, it’s not on you. You’re not married, I am. You don’t have a child, I do. And I know I shouldn’t feel this way about you, but I do. I’m the one that’s wrong, okay? Not you…you…are perfect.”

You kissed him. “I don’t think you’re a bad person either, though.”

“I know you don’t. You’re too nice for that.”

“You think I’m nice, daddy?” you teased, one of your hands moving inside his boxers. You took a hold of him and he sighed sharply.

“You can be a brat, when you put your mind to it,” he admitted. “Like this stunt with the plug. I never gave you permission to do that.”

You merely shrugged. “I don’t want your permission.”

“You better watch yourself. He will be gone soon enough, and I’ll spank your ass red, baby.”

You hummed. “With the belt?”

He kissed your cheek. “I’ll get more creative if you keep mouthing off.”

You smirked, pushing your hips up his thigh. It was a little awkward getting him out of his boxers and inside your cunt, but once you had managed, you were both moving on pure instinct and need. He touched you everywhere, through the huge shirt you were wearing because he wanted to tease. You rolled your hips slowly in that deliberate way that you knew made his ability to control himself just snap.

It was only minutes later that his hand wrapped around your neck, squeezing hard enough that you knew you wouldn’t make enough noise to wake Jacob. Andy took his other hand and held you inches above his lap. He drove his cock up hard, slamming into you ruthlessly until you were both coming together. Your mouth dropped in a silent scream, a choked whimper the only sound you could manage, as he pressed his face to your back and groaned.

It didn’t take long at all, must have been withdrawals from having gone more than a few hours without him inside you. He didn’t stop, though. In typical Andy fashion, he kept fucking you until he was soft. His cum had spilled out of you onto your thighs, his, and the couch.

When he let go of your neck, you took huge, grateful breaths. You couldn’t stop yourself, you knew you were about to say something stupid, so stupid, but you wanted Andy to know. You reached one arm back, hand pressing to the back of his head and you turned back to see him. “Daddy…”

“What, baby girl?”

“I think…I think I lo—”

He cut you off with a fierce kiss until you were breathless again, pulling away only when he had sufficiently rendered you incapable of speaking for a moment. “I know, baby,” he breathed, resting his forehead against yours. “I do, too, so much…but we can’t say it. Not right now. All night, I’ve been thinking the craziest things…if you say it, I’m sure I’ll just lose my mind and do something we’ll both regret.”

You waited for a moment, until you were sure your voice wouldn’t crack. “When?”

He frowned. “One day, angel, I promise. Okay? Just give me a while to figure this all out.”

You nodded. Of course, he had to think this all through. He had a life, a child, and even if he didn’t love Laurie anymore, he still had a lot to lose.

“What are you thinking?”

You thought for a moment. Your mind was racing, you were thinking a million things. You’d nearly told him you loved him, you’d never said that to anyone. You had almost convinced yourself that he would be furious that you allowed yourself to get in this deep, but the fact that he was right there with you was a huge relief. But that wasn’t the most pressing thing on your mind. “That this summer is going by too fast.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I haven’t talked to my parents once…and I wish I could keep it that way for the rest of my life.” But eventually, you would have to return home.

“I think I should get you an apartment.”

You looked back at him, eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

“An apartment,” he repeated. “So, you don’t have to stay at home anymore. I know you were thinking about getting a job at the end of the summer…I don’t want you to. I want to get you an apartment and just let you figure out what it is that you want to do. No pressure from your parents or your friends.”

“Andy…I don’t know.” That would be kind of hard to explain. How was someone without a job going to afford an apartment?

“Let me take care of you. Please.”

“We’ll talk about it later, okay? When it gets closer.”

“Okay,” he relented. He glanced down at the mess you’d both made of the couch. “Shit.”

You scoffed. “Your fault.”

He kissed your shoulder. “You want to get up?”

“No, not really.” You took his arms and pulled them around your waist. “I want to stay here forever.”

“We can’t even stay here another hour.”

“No, I want to fall asleep here. With you inside me.”

“Yeah?”

You nodded, laying against his chest and setting the back of your head on his shoulder. “Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“When you’re hard again, you should fuck me, but don’t wake me up. I want to wake up full of your cum and imagine all the ways you used me.”

That did nothing for Andy, the idea of fucking you while you were unconscious. He knew it was a kink for some, but he wanted you responsive. However, hearing that you would allow him to do this to you, that you were placing that much trust in him, did do something.

In a second, he had his hand back around your neck and his other hand at your pussy, hurriedly rubbing his fingers over your clit. He turned his head, his lips finding yours, swallowing those tiny sounds that managed to escape you.

Jacob was still sick a few days later and since Andy was at work, you were bored. He was sleeping it off and that left you downstairs trying to watch television. Your mind was moving with all this time alone, you thought about Laurie and what was going to happen. You thought about what people would say about you, about Andy. It would be terrible if anyone ever found out.

But what if they didn’t because nothing changed? You knew how you felt for Andy, but how long could you do this? How long could you fuck him while he was still with his wife? These were things that you hadn’t suspected you would care about. You were stupid then, acting purely out of your own selfishness. You just knew you wanted him so badly. And you were sure you always would, but you couldn’t do this forever.

You’d set your alarm for when Andy was supposed to be home. You didn’t want him to catch you watching those trashy true crime shows, he would surely side-eye you. It hadn’t been that long when you heard someone on the porch. Turning off the TV, you checked the time. It wasn’t time for his lunch break, let alone time to be home.

You headed to the door, peeking out the window at the side. Lily was standing there, arms crossed, pacing. You pulled open the door, leaning out just slightly.

She let her arms fall to her sides. “Hey.”

“What are you doing here? I can’t have anyone in here if I’m the only one with Jacob.”

“No worries, it won’t take long. Can you step outside for a second?”

“Is everything okay?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

You hesitated at first, concerned that Jacob would wake up and go looking for you. But your curiosity was the reason you went outside with her. You guys weren’t best friends, you had no idea why she would ever show up here to speak to you. “What’s up?”

“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?” But just like that, your heart was pounding. You felt like your legs were going to give out on you any second. Your stomach was twisting and your face felt hot, you were going to be sick.

“Mr. Barber,” she clarified. “You are fucking him.”

There was no way anyone in the world could possibly know. You scoffed harshly, feigning irritation. “You are out of your mind. Is this why you came here? This is not okay. I am working and you are wasting my time—”

“You haven’t been talking to any of us, and after your breakup…it seemed weird. I was talking to him and—”

“Why were you talking to him?” you demanded. “You’re supposed to be my friend, not his.”

“He said he thought you were cheating on him, and I told him that wasn’t possible. I told him that you seem so happy and so in love, and I realized that that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in love with him. I babysit for the Yoo’s neighbors, Y/N. I know Jacob was there for days and you were here.”

“No, that’s not happening. You’re projecting because you sleep with all of the father’s you babysit for—”

“Yeah, I do, so drop the innocent act because I know it’s bullshit.”

“It’s not. Andy wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” she claimed. “And I believed that, for a while…but he’s human. And if he cares about you, he definitely would.”

“He doesn’t, he’s in love with his wife—”

“Yeah, what about her?” she demanded. “What are you going to do about that? Is he going to leave her?”

“No!” you blurted out. “Because nothing is happening.”

“I’m not planning on telling anyone,” she promised. “That’s not why I’m here.”

“Well, it’s not happening.”

“I already know, I can see it on your face!”

“You need to leave.”

She grabbed your arm before you could run inside. “Listen, I just wanted to check on you, okay? I know how you are; I know that you don’t do this often, and that means that you have to honestly care about him. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You can’t be here. Ever again.”

She pulled her hand back. “Fine, I will go, and I’ll never say another word about this. But when this blows up in your face, you know where to find me.”

Without another word, you disappeared inside, locking the door as soon as you slammed it shut. You were panicking. What were you supposed to do? Should you tell Andy? What if it was for nothing? What if she meant it and she wasn’t going to tell anyone? You didn’t want to get him worried for no reason.

But you also didn’t want him to be caught off guard, but the last thing you wanted was for him to be upset with you. Would he think that you were being careless? Would he think you let her know on purpose? Laurie was a looming problem, you didn’t want him to think you did this to force him to deal with it.

“Was that Lily?”

Startling, you whirled around and found Jacob in front of the fridge. “Hey, what are you doing down here?”

“Got hungry.”

“How long have you been awake?”

He shrugged as he pulled out the carton of milk. “Not long. Why was Lily here?”

“Oh…um, she just wanted to talk.” You moved into the kitchen to look for the cereal. Jacob couldn’t reach it on his own.

He sat down at the table and waited for you to join him. You poured the cereal and the milk into the bowl in front of him, forcing yourself to remain calm. “Why did she ask if my dad was going to leave my mom?”

You looked at him, shaking your head. “She didn’t. No, she wasn’t talking about your dad or your mom.”

“Then who was she talking about?”

You stood up to get him a spoon. “I can’t tell you that…it was one of your friends and I don’t want you to worry or anyone else to worry. You know Lily, Jacob.”

“Yeah…my dad says she gossips.”

“She does.” You sat back down, handing him the spoon.

“So, my dad and my mom are still in love?”

“Of course. Why would you ask that?”

“They used to fight a lot.”

He hadn’t told you that, but this needed to end right now. This all needed to stop. “No, they’re fine. Sometimes…adults just fight, but that doesn’t mean anything. I don’t want you worrying about this, Jacob, okay?”

“I’m not worried.”

“Good.”

“No, I mean…I think it would be cool if I had two houses and two bedrooms. My friend, Dylan, has divorced parents and he said they both buy him whatever he wants. My dad wouldn’t buy me a pet snake when I asked him last week.”

“Okay, well, sorry to disappoint you because your parents are staying together. You only get one house and one bedroom, and you are not getting a pet snake.”

He sighed. “I was going to name it after you if you were on my side.”

You couldn’t ask Andy anything about the fights with Laurie. You wanted to know, you wanted to get an idea of how he felt, if he had only done this with you because they were fighting, or if it was something that you had caused. But to ask, you would need to tell him Jacob told you.

And why would Jacob tell you? You would have to answer a lot of questions that you didn’t want to. It was better to pretend that this just wasn’t happening. No one knew, as far as Andy needed to know. You’d known Lily since you were four, you were sure that she meant it when she said she wasn’t going to tell.

You didn’t need to act like the sky was falling just yet.

When Andy got home, you were just getting out of the shower. Jacob had fallen asleep again and from his past few days, you figured he would be out for the rest of the day.

He smiled as he made it into your room, pressing the door shut behind him. “Hey, baby.”

You sat on the edge of the bed and held your arms out to him, hugging him as soon as he was in your reach. “You have the strangest kid in the world, just so you know.”

He became very still. “Did he do something?”

You leaned back to look up at him, eyebrows pulled together. “What?”

“He just…sometimes…acts out. You saw him the other morning.”

“No, that was a temper tantrum, Andy, all kids have them. But I’m referring to the snake he wants. He told me, that if I had been on his side in that argument, he would have named it after me.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, he says some…colorful things sometimes.”

“Yeah.”

He leaned down and kissed your forehead. “What about you? What else did you do today?”

“Just watched TV.”

He hummed, hands coming up to the tucked-in part of your towel. You let him unwrap it from your body and laid back as soon as you were naked. He stared at you for a moment, one hand coming up to touch your face. He started at your cheekbone, sliding his fingers down your jaw, your neck, your chest until he was at your breasts. He closed his hand around one, pulling back to pinch your nipple, and did the same to the other.

You liked fucking Andy, but you hated having to be quiet. You reached down and he gave you his hand. You brought it up to your lips first, kissing his palm before you led him down to your neck.

As he wrapped his hand around you, his fingers continued moving down your stomach, until he was at your cunt. You opened your legs for him, and he slowly pressed two fingers inside you. Your eyes fell shut and you rolled your hips, urging him deeper inside you.

“I could watch you like this, naked, coming for me, for the rest of my life.”

Not that that really cleared anything up. It only reminded you that he cared for you, the same way you cared for him. But you weren’t a child, you knew that sometimes, love wasn’t enough.

“I just want to know why you didn’t tell me; I want to know why you treated it like some huge secret.” Andy had been going on for the past ten minutes, appalled at the idea that you would keep any secrets from him.

It wasn’t as if this relationship started on the best note. You were both supposed to be committed to other people enough that you wouldn’t have been involved with other people. And no, you weren’t saying that either of you were terrible people who never deserved happiness, but he should definitely reframe his expectations.

If you could partake in an affair, you could keep a secret.

“Do you have an answer?” he pressed.

You could remember a time when car rides with him were a lot more pleasant. Crossing your arms, you turned to glare out the window. “You know why.”

“Because you were ashamed.”

You turned back to him. “No, because you’re a snob!”

“I’m a snob?” he demanded. “Me?”

“Yes, you!” You rolled your eyes, changing the radio station.

He gave you a warning look as he went to change it back.

You turned it off. “And you’re judgmental.”

“I am not,” he argued. “I am a lawyer. If I wanted to judge, I would have.”

You made a face. “You would never win that election. You’re a jerk.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“What someone watches on television is their own business!”

“It’s dramatized trash.”

“You’re a snob!” you repeated. “A Crime to Remember has won an Emmy!”

“That is not as good of an argument as you think it is.”

“Do not speak to me like a lawyer,” you warned. “Do you want to argue, Andy? Do you want me to go round up a fucking judge and a jury?”

“I’m the best lawyer in Massachusetts.”

You glared at him. “Thank you, I now know what I want to do with my life. I’m going to law school and then I’m going to become a lawyer and you know what? I’m gonna ask Neal to be my mentor.”

He looked at you, shocked that you would say that to him.

You shrugged. “I bet he wouldn’t judge me for watching true crime shows.”

“How far does this go?” he wondered. “Do you watch those terrible Netflix documentaries?”

“They’re not terrible! Okay, you know what? We are done talking about this. Why is this drive taking so long? I thought we were picking up Jacob.”

“We are…later tonight.”

“Then where are you taking me?”

“You watch true crime shows, haven’t they prepared you for this?”

You glared. “Andrew.”

“No, don’t call me that.”

“I’m not calling you daddy. My daddy isn’t a snob.”

“Your daddy is going to punish you tonight if you don’t quit with the attitude.”

“My daddy,” you said again, “tells me where he’s taking me.”

It was only seconds later that he pulled into a parking spot in front of this apartment complex you always drove by on the way to the nearest shopping mall. See, you knew that he wasn’t going to drop the apartment topic, but you did not suspect that he would ambush you like this.

“Andy…”

“Look, we have to talk about this.”

“We did, and I said we would resume the conversation when Laurie was almost back.” This was not a solution; it just created more problems. Maybe you should have told him about Lily, maybe he would have felt the need to be a lot more discreet about all of this.

“She called.”

You turned to him. “And? What does that have to do with anything?”

His hands were still on the wheel and he wouldn’t look at you. “She’s coming home early.”

Early. Wow. It seemed like it was just right around the corner but at least you were going to have time to come to terms with this. At least you were going to be able to make the best of your last days. The best did not include arguing about television. And now you were going to have to argue about this stupid apartment. These were expensive and they were close enough to him, but still, it wasn’t ideal.

“Oh… When?”

“Soon.”

You wouldn’t be getting a more specific answer than that. You both stayed silent for several moments, and you had no intention of ending that. He could have told you this before. He didn’t need to lie and bring you here and then throw the news on you like that. Was he just planning on moving you out and starting this stupid apartment plan?

You were supposed to have a month left, an entire four weeks before she got home. Why the hell was she coming home early? She had seemed excited for the work trip, whatever it was. You couldn’t remember anymore.

“Say something.”

You scoffed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Just be honest.”

“I’m upset.”

“I know, I wish it wasn’t like this.”

“I’m not upset with you, Andy.”

“Why don’t you want this apartment?”

“Because…I just…I don’t know. I just wanted everything to stay like it was. I…wanted everything to pause.”

He set his hand to your thigh, rubbing his thumb over your skin. “I understand. Will you please come inside with me? Will you at least look at it?”

“I guess…” You shrugged. “I guess we don’t have many other options.”

It was just an apartment. Were you supposed to fall in love with it? You didn’t like the picture that you were getting from it. The living room, you would be waiting there every day for Andy to possibly sneak away and come see you. And for how long? An hour at most, before he had to get back to work or get home to his family. The bedroom was big for nothing. It was a bedroom for two people. The same with the kitchen. It was too big for you, you would get lonely in a place like this.

No more than 50 words were exchanged between you and Andy. He was mostly speaking to the woman giving the tour, and you lagged behind them like a miserable child about to throw a tantrum. You hated this beyond comprehension. You hated that she was coming home early. And you hated Laurie, which made you feel terrible.

It wasn’t her fault, none of this was. But you didn’t want to go home, and you didn’t want to have to live alone. You blamed this current predicament on her even though you knew that was irrational and out of line. You were fucking her husband, you were living in her home. But you were still so angry.

The drive was silent as well. He tried to hold your hand, but you pulled away from him and turned to stare out the window. You didn’t want to take it out on him, but then, it wasn’t like you could or should take it out on Laurie. Maybe you should call Lily and just be a bitch to her.

You were out of the car as soon as he parked, storming to the door. It wasn’t a completely logical plan since he needed to unlock the door.

“Are you going to speak to me?” he inquired after he opened the door.

“I don’t appreciate being ambushed like that.” You stormed in and started pulling your jacket off.

He assisted you, figuring the denim getting stuck on your sleeves would only further annoy you. “If I had been honest, you wouldn’t have gone.”

“So, that makes lying to me okay?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

You turned to him, glaring. “What are you saying?”

He wasn’t sure what he could say that would make you feel better. This was terrible and he knew it, but you weren’t the only one that felt that way. It wasn’t like he was going to be happy with the new arrangement. He liked seeing you every morning and every night, he liked falling asleep next to you.

“Look at you two, fighting like a married couple.”

It was Laurie’s voice and you and Andy instantly froze upon that realization. You turned to your side, finding her at the dining table. She had her hair in a bun, not an ounce of makeup on her face, but the red lines in her eyes told you the glass of wine in her hand couldn’t have been the first.

“Hey,” Andy greeted. “I thought you were getting here next week.”

“I lied,” she asserted, her eyes flitting between you two. “I wondered if I would walk in on you two actually having sex or if it would just be something like this. Something so sweet and domestic, in my god damn home.”

“Laurie,” Andy started, “I don’t know—”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to deny it,” she scoffed. “Please tell me you’re not a complete piece of shit.”

He fell silent at that.

She turned to you. “And what about you? Are you going to be honest?”

“Laurie…I’m sorry, I don’t know what you have been told—”

“Do you know who told me?”

Fuck, if it was Lily, you would hit that bitch.

“It doesn’t matter,” Andy cut in. “This is a conversation between us. She doesn’t need to be here.”

“Your boyfriend,” she went on. “Ex-boyfriend now. He wasn’t sure but he had a suspicion, and then I called around everywhere and found out about Jacob being gone while the both of you were here…but see, I still believed nothing was happening. I still thought my husband would never do this—”

Andy stepped in front of you. “Laurie—”

“Then I went upstairs and found everything you bought her, all the sex toys, the lingerie—”

This was the worst way this could have played out. Seeing the bedroom, everything in it, must have been earth-shattering. There were handcuffs, gags, the red paddle that Andy was dying to try out. You had wondered if that would happen tonight on the drive over, if you were being bratty enough. That was what was going through your mind. The one thought you’d never had was that Laurie would have to see the room.

Andy looked back and you started urging you out of the house, despite your protests. When the door was shut, he handed you his keys. “You should go.”

“No, we should both talk to her.”

“No, you shouldn’t be here for this. I did this, I don’t want her blaming you—”

“Stop, I don’t need you to protect me—”

“Hey, we are not debating. You are not going to be here apart of this. I will call you as soon as I can.”

You shook your head as he started putting his keys in your hand. “No, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you with this. You weren’t the only one.”

He touched your face. “Go to the apartment, okay? Please. I will call you soon.”

“Andy—”

He cut you off with a rough, short kiss. You were stunned silent when he pulled away, but he knew you still wanted to argue. He knew you didn’t feel comfortable leaving the scene, and he knew what you needed to hear to have faith that he would handle this situation and go see you as soon as he could.

“I love you.”

Your eyes widened. “What?”

“I know now is a bad time to say it, but I do. I love you. Please.”

You finally took the keys. “I love you, too.”

“Go to the apartment, okay?”

“Okay, fine.” You hurried to his car and he didn’t go inside until the car was out of his sight. Shit, this was everything that you didn’t want to happen. This was everything that you both were so careful to prevent.

You pulled over to check your phone. Laurie said that she called everyone and if she had done so while she was drunk, you weren’t confident that more people didn’t know. You weren’t expecting to see texts from your parents, but as soon as you read them, you knew you were correct.

The last message from your mother after nearly thirty between them ordering you to get home or to call, was, tell me this is not true.

You were not going to that stupid apartment, that much you knew.

chris tags:

@onetwo3000 @chris-evans-indian-fanfic @donutloverxo @kleohoneyao3 @cevans-fics @gotnofucks

incredible tags:

@evansislife @ilovetheeagles @tenaciousperfectionunknown

#andy barber x reader #my writing

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 years

Text

One Night🌙6

Warnings: noncon sexual acts (to be warned later in series), nocturnal playtime, unwanted touching.

This is dark!Andy Barber and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: One night changes your entire life.

for @kittykatlow‘s 200 Follower Celebration

Note: I’m working on more drabbles and Eye of the Storm! But for now, enjoy some Andy.

Hope you enjoy it. Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Your appointment went as well as it could have. The doctor ran bloodwork and several other tests as Andy nodded knowingly as if to say ‘I told you so’, which he also did aloud several times after. The drive home was a reiteration of what you should, and more enthusiastically, what you shouldn’t do.

It was really starting to feel like he believed you were an actual child. Your own father had never talked to you in such a way. You couldn’t say the same for your mother but even she could reel it in long enough that you didn’t feel like a complete moron. Andy just seemed to latch onto every mistake you made and sink his teeth in until he tasted blood.

And like the teenager he treated you as, when you got back to his house, you stormed up to the guest room and slammed the door. You fell onto the bed and screamed into the pillow. Oh yeah, that long lost adolescent rage returned. Then it all drained from every inch of you and you rolled over to stare at the ceiling.

You could hear Andy below. You listened to him moving around, the decisive click of his polished leather shoes. He climbed the stairs and you heard him stop outside your door. He sighed and retreated to his own room. Your day off an you’d spend it like this; raging at your new warden.

The knock on your door made you flinch.

“Hey,” Andy’s voice sounded decisively through the door. “I’m going into the office for the rest of the day. I’ll be in around six.” He paused and the handle jiggled but didn’t turn. “You know where everything is.”

You didn’t answer him. You waited until he left, the footsteps on the staircase, the front door, the soft rollover of his car engine. You sat up and pulled out your phone. A single voicemail; your parents’ number.

“Hey, kiddo,” Your dad’s voice rose from the speaker. “Your mom wants to know when you’re getting the rest of your stuff.” A slight pause and a cough. “You know I don’t care and you take your time but if she asks, I told ya to come get it… Love you.” The line buzzed. “And your mom loves you too but she’s just as stubborn as you, you know? Well, anyway, uh, bye.” Another glaring silence. “Oh, and it’s still my house. I’ll be happy to see ya, kiddo.”

You saved the message and dropped your phone to bounce on the mattress. You put your head in your hands as you tried to resist the overhwelming swell of sadness that overcame you. You didn’t care about your stuff and you couldn’t bring it here. You wouldn’t. Sell it, toss it, you didn’t care.

You sat up and dropped your hands to the bed in defeat. You were such a fuck up.

🌙

You avoided Andy for a few days. You found excuses to stay in your room when you weren’t working and even spent a good deal of time in the backyard, weeding the overgrown garden. It didn’t matter. Autumn was close and most of the plants were dead. It must have been her job, or maybe a cherished hobby.

Aside from Andy’s prickly nature, she made it harder. That stranger; Laurie. You were an imposter in her place; usurping her as she laid in a hospital entirely unaware. You only knew what the press put out. He never said much about it. Did you really expect him to? All he ever spoke about was you, the baby, and everything you did wrong.

After a rather long day at work, made longer by your suddenly returned appetite and the smell of cinnamon and coffee, you returned to the house and found yourself back in the yard. You sat at the patio table and scrolled through your phone.

Felicia wanted to meet up the next night. You hadn’t told her yet. If she took you for drinks, as she always did, she’d figure it out pretty quickly. Well, why were you hiding it? You wouldn’t be able to for much longer. You already felt a little bigger, wider at least. Would it be so bad to tell? To not be alone?

You swiped away her text and bit your thumbnail. You’d think about it and send your answer before you went to bed.

The screen door clattered and you sat up straight. You looked up as Andy emerged and strode across the deck. He had a beer in hand and placed it on the glass table as he neared the other side of the table. His tie was gone, his top button undone, and his sleeves were rolled to his elbows.

“Here you are,” He said as he pulled out a chair and sat. “How was work?”

You shrugged and turned over your phone. “It was work,” You sat back and crossed your arms. “Do I ask you? Is that the right thing to do?”

He chuckled and popped the cap of the beer and took a swig. “Well, it was an exciting day. Had a defendant attack the judge. Didn’t get very close but a they took him out,” He turned the bottle on the table. “He got me good on his way out, even if he missed my face.”

You let your arms fall to rest over your stomach. You didn’t know what to say. Did he want pity? Surely you couldn’t relate to his courthouse crusades.

“Well, that sounds… scary.” You offered.

“It happens. Not a lot but you can never predict people,” He took another gulp of beer. “What are you doing out here? It’s gonna rain soon.”

“Yeah?” You looked up at the grey clouds. “I never minded the rain much.”

He was quiet as he picked at the label of his bottle. His toe tapped and he pushed his shoulders back.

“Your mother came to see me,” He said gently. “Said something about tossing your stuff out on the lawn.”

“Shit,” You winced. “She shouldn’t have--”

“You haven’t talked to her?”

“And say what, exactly? She made her feelings about me pretty clear.” You played with the case of your phone as you turned it over. “My dad called me but… I don’t care about all that shit.”

“We can go get it. It’s not--”

You laughed and shook your head. “Why? You’re so eager to erase my former life, why would you care?” You threw your hand up and planted your elbow on the table. “It’s just books. A few stuffed animals. I never really could afford much of value. The poor pauper girl.”

“I never--”

You stood and slid your phone into your pocket. You still wore the plain black shirt and matching pants from work. Your fly was half undone to relieved the pressure and your shirt had caught in your waistband. You pulled the hem down and pushed in your chair.

“I’m hungry. I’m going to get changed and make something to eat.” You said.

You left him there and went inside. After slipping into some leggings and a loose tee, you swept into the kitchen and surveyed your options. Some linguine with chicken and spinach. That didn’t sound too bad.

You pulled out a chicken breast and the cutting board. You put the water on boil and heated the frying pan. You started to chop up the chicken into chunks as you heard the back door. Andy appeared and set his bottle down across from you as he stood on the other side of the island. It gave a hollow clink; empty, already.

“So, what are you making?” He leaned on the marble.

“Pasta,” You answered curtly. “You have any hot peppers? Hot sauce?” You opened the fridge. “I wouldn’t mind something spicy.”

“Check the door,” He said. “You must be past the nausea. You know, I always heard the cravings were the worst part. I never really considered pickles anything to drool over but---”

“Stop, please,” You interjected as you turned back with a jar of banana peppers. You could dice them up and mix them into the sauce. “It’s miserable. All of it.”

He sighed and stood straight. He rounded the counter and opened the cupboard. He added oil to the pan and it crackled. He put it back and turned to grab the spinach and rinsed it in the colander. He set it on the counter and turned back to watch you slice the chicken.

“You gonna keep this up?” He asked.

“What?” You set the knife down and dumped the chicken into the pan and washed your hands..

“You gotta try to meet me halfway,” He turned.

“Meet you halfway? Andy, christ,” You spat as you stirred the chicken and seared it. “How much more can I give you?”

“Bit of courtesy, maybe,” He said. “I’m trying here but you won’t even--”

“There you go again, speaking to me like a child. I am not a child. Let’s start there,” You pointed at him with the spatula. “You should know that.”

He considered you, his blue eyes drifted then returned to you. He gave a small smile. “I definitely know you’re not a child.”

“I’m serious.”

He nodded and exhaled. “Alright, I’ll try to ease off.”

You squinted at him. “I really wanna believe you will.”

He scoffed and brushed past you. He went to the fridge and grabbed another beer. He flipped the cap off and leaned against the door.

“I’m a lawyer. I can’t help it.” He shrugged. “But for the sake… of the baby, I’ll take my foot off the pedal. A little.”

“Cool,” You set the spatula down. “So you won’t mind if I go out tomorrow night. My friend Felicia wants to have dinner.”

“Dinner?” He repeated. You raised a brow. “Yeah, fine. That sounds like fun.”

“Great,” You smiled and grabbed the linguine noodles. “And you know, you’ll get a night to yourself. Win-win.”

🌙

You texted Felicia after dinner and for the first time in a while, you felt excited about something. So excited you found it hard to settle down. A bigger problem because you had an opening shift the next morning and you were already constantly exhausted.

You laid in bed and tossed and turned. You stared at the ceiling, then rolled over and stared at the window, then tried laying on your stomach until your leg fell asleep. It was at least an hour of endless turmoil, trying to force yourself to doze, before you just resigned to blinking into the dark.

You listened to the gentle spatter of rain. As always, Andy was right. It was really annoying. You sighed and peeked out the window as the rivulets streamed down the glass. The moonlight shone through the droplets in silver orbs. You turned onto your side and counted them, hoping it would coax you to sleep.

Then you heard it. At first, you were certain it was nothing. The wind, maybe. But it continued, steady, slowly mounting. The heavy breaths coated with sultry groans. You froze and craned your head to look over your shoulder as you listened. You’d left your bathroom door open without thinking and could hear a little too much through the one at the other end.

You dropped your head back to the pillow as the voice continued; deep and drawn out. It wasn’t hard to guess what was going on; what the only other person in the house was doing. Andy was only human after all. Well, you’d fucked him almost on sight. You were no saint. Yet it felt so wrong, hearing him like that. Worse that as you closed your eyes, you could only imagine him in the other room with his hand…

You pulled the duvet over your ear and pressed your head to the pillow. You felt a tickle between your thighs and squeezed them together. Ignore it, just listen to the rain. But his voice only got louder and louder until it finally peaked in a sharp grunt. Your lips parted and you shuddered. He was done, thank god.

It was silent for a few minutes, all but the gentle patter of rain. Then the bed groaned through the wall and soft footsteps. You were tense as you listened, moreso as you heard him near the other side of the bathroom door.

Shit, he had to clean himself up and…

The door opened and you heard his feet on the tile. He let out a growled and cranked the sink on. Your door was still wide open. It sounded as if he was right beside you as the water flowed and his breathing evened out. He turned off the faucet but lingered in the bathroom.

Then he stood in the door to your room. You could feel him there, looking at you. You were thankful your back was to him. Slowly, he crept closer and you felt him looming over you, just at the side of your bed. Your nerves were on fire, every hair on your body was on end.

The blanket moved just a little as he tugged at it. You made yourself stay still as he paused, waiting for you to react. He let out a long breath and yanked harder to dislodge the duvet from under you. You squeezed your eyes shut, terrified. You should say something, do something, tell him to fuck off!

He bared your leg and the cool air raised goosebumps along your skin. Your shorts offered little coverage and had ridden up your ass. He let the blanket rest on the other side of your leg and his fingertips grazed your calf and thigh. He touched your ass and pressed more firmly against it.

Then suddenly he recoiled. You heard him swallow and he pulled the blanket back over you. He turned and retreated into the bathroom, your door clicking closed behind him, the second which led into his own room. The silence was pierced by his muffled voice.

“Shit.”

#andy barber #dark andy barber #dark!andy barber #andy barber x reader #dark!andy barber x reader #dark andy barber x reader #fic #series #defending jacob #dark fic #dark!fic #one night

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ifearmetoo · 3 years

Text

Future fic to look for:

The shape/xreader/the pig

It's back to the fire after the match. You aren't excited to face your teammates this round, shoulders launching forward to make yourself smaller and thus impose on the group's attention. No doubt there will be some half bitten off sentences and acidic comments about you.

You deserve such.

Unlike Meg, your speed isn't the refined muscle of months of labor but reliant on the candle wick of fear that burns hot and fast when a match begins. You've always been an easy scare. Saying this. You are known to be not so quick to help your teammates. It's pure cowardice that you freely admit you're at fault for. Offering your position up for others to escape is admirable in a moral world. However the entity's realm isn't that.

One of the Legion bagged you this match. However, before that you'd kept quiet while Kate screamed in familiar agony. You had all the chances to help her.

A grudge is there, a physical wall to you making friends. They teeter on feeling pity for your obvious inadequacy and vitriol.

Nea asks you a question. " What do you think about the new guy? Terrifying right?" Nea bless her heart, tries to bring you into the fold.

The man, if you could call him that, is a unit of solid muscle and steel. "He's big." You say. Best to keep it short.

She snorts and lays her chin down.

This is the fullest the circle has ever been. Laurie, poor thing, is spaced off looking tired as usual. She's one of the only people kind to you. That's on part because your selfishness has limits when it comes to the younger group members.

They really are just kids. It burns the back of your throat that they are here, the entity is a merciless God. When it comes to the teens, whatever distraction they need to get away from a killer you provide.

She absently gives you a smile.

You open your arms and she timidly sinks into them taking the comfort you offer silently.

Feeling the eyes of other survivors on you, the woods look more tempting by the second. You haven't dared explore them yet but now's as good a chance as any.

"I'll be back."

A chorus of acknowledgements and you march off.

Stepping in the branches reach for you. The crackle of the fire grows distant. The woods are overall silent. Eerie but what here isn't so?

Snapp walks these woods and so does Ash. Usually joking and wishing for a beer.

You miss home. Wherever home is. Memories are foggy. Some part if you isn't sure that you had a life outside.

Whenever they talk about the outside world they do so with yearning, recalling putting up feet on the dashboard of a cherry red car, drinking smoothies, studying, sneaking into a movie theater, skateboarding down a hill with the sun on their back and breeze cradling their smiles.

You don't have that.

So alone. No one to hold.

People at camp fuck. A common secret that everyone keeps low. They savor the serotonin a quick orgasm gives them and chase the feeling of being in a better place, less blood, more sunshine. A grown woman like you should be taking these escapades too.

You haven't had the chance nor the urge to seek a partner of your own.

A familiar pant of breath grazes your ear. Myers. You turn to the camp and make a mad dash for safety. Crying out for Ash or-

Your throat is seized by an ironclad grip. Knocking your temple hard against a thick trunk of wood. Skin scraped off as easily as butter.

Already you're sobbing and tossing your head about, the pain. You're not ready for the pain.

The sticky blood trickles down to his hand in what you imagine is a common feeling. You pant.

"Please don't…" but he sticks his knife to your side with little fanfare. The answering scream is brutal, belts your throat. No matter how many times it happens the stab comes with all the same shock and pain as the very first one. A hot slide as it glides deep into meat, grazing bone, you can barely muster the strength to beg over the pain.

But it's a chore to him. No burst of interest or pleasure when he thrusts it in deeper.

You cradle the back of his shoulder. Fist grabbing the jumpsuit. Futile.

You go limp, without will or fight. The pain doesn't cease

Your shirt is a caked rag. Your skirt is a hiked belt over your stomach. Covering nothing. You would have noticed except the piercing hurt overcomes all other sensation.

He doesn't miss this.

It's an alianting feeling that sticks out like an awful squishy bruise against emotions such as anger, annoyance, disdain

It's calling his name, tugging at his pinky. This way. Come here. The voices are murmuring, hissing in response, grudging recognition.

What is this sudden shift?

He twists.

Blood bubbles out.

A female voice. Cold. Unaffected, branches through. "What are you doing?"

But like fog his form turns insolid. Gone.

You lie there with the pain as a bedfellow, shake it off your still in danger your mind screams. You manage a jolt upwards.

Looking for the voice among the branches proves futile as does cupping waterver blood seeps out the wound. A figure is formed in the fog, shockingly crimson.

"We can't kill you outside the match." The Pig. Her voice barely registers in the aftermath. Coppery stream slides down your throat in a warm spill, the only thing warm in your body.

"Thank you." It's strange to say that to someone that has killed you before. You smooth down your skirt over chilled thighs and thumb the edges.

The pig mask is a gruesome sight but strangely less so than the man you were faced with earlier.

She lunges close. Snarling. "But we can hurt you as much as we want."

You stumble blind into the light of the campfire. A sound, soft chuckling follows.

Exclamations of concern meet you. Ash guides you down onto a mat to look over the damage.

Your mind replays the chuckle and feel of light brown hair when entering sleep. Your dreams, usually blank and too exhausted to come up with a scene, now have a personal mind real with a front row seat.

The two killers you met in the woods are there. Not hinting you, but watching, always watching

Lucky you.

#love triangle #slasher #michael myers #the pig #ao3 fanfic #x reader #dbd

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seafrost-fangirl · 4 years

Text

Lovely Letters I - A Day’s Difference

Laurie x March!Reader

1126 Words

Requested by @psychshawnjuleshanluke

A/N I’m aiming to make this series three parts, and I have two other Laurie one-shots planned for after this one.

~*~

The day your life changes began the same as the days before. Waking just before the sun's rise to help Marmee with her morning preparations and lending a hand to Hannah in the kitchen before Jo would come blundering down the stairs with Beth at her heels, Meg telling them to slow lest they fall and break their ankles, and Amy, ever the lady, trailing daintily behind Meg. Today, however, was special. Meg and Jo were going to a dance in town this evening. You had been invited as well, but you'd hurt your ankle ice skating the other day. Although it wasn't broken, you feared dancing would only aggravate the injury.

"Are you absolutely, positively sure that I can't go?" Amy whined. "Y/N isn't going. Couldn't I take her invitation?" Meg glared disapprovingly at her youngest sister. "Amy, twelve is much too young for this kind of engagement. You'll have plenty of chances when you're older." Amy merely huffed in response.

"Count yourself lucky, Amy." Jo countered. "I thoroughly wish I wasn't going!" You scowled at Jo and swatted her arm. "Oh do behave Josephine March! It was very kind of the Thompsons to invite us this evening. You don't have to stay the whole time, but you must at least make an appearance in order to be polite." Your comment made Jo groan and go thundering back up the stairs, stomping all the way.

The rest of the day was spent in preparation for the party that evening. While it mostly consisted of Meg fretting over her and Jo's dresses and Jo hiding in the attic, that's not to say the day wasn't without its headaches. Jo seemed to exist purely to torture poor Meg. From not having the proper gloves to burning off a lock of Meg's hair, you didn't feel your nerves settle themselves until they left sometime after sundown.

After shutting the door behind your sisters, you turned around to survey the scene in the sitting room. Marmee had come home some time ago and had placed herself in her comfortable chair by the fire, Amy was still pouting in her corner chair, and Beth was content on the floor with her dolls. As much as you longed to spend some time with your family, the day exhausted you more than you realized. You walked over to your mother and kissed her goodnight.

"Retiring so early dear?" She asked voice laced with a mild concern, perhaps thinking you may be ill. You gave your mother a tired smile. "My sisters have drawn all my energy from me Marmee, and though I have a little left I would rather use it to prepare for bed than have them drain the rest upon return." She nodded and gave your cheek a quick pat. "I'll try to subdue them when they arrive home so as to not wake you, darling." You thanked your mother for her kindness before saying quick goodnights to your remaining sisters and began ascending the stairs that seemed much shorter earlier that day.

A lifetime later you arrived at the room you shared with Meg and Jo, though it seemed only two girls lived here as Jo would often sleep in the lonesome attic to write her stories. You quickly brushed the tangles from your hair and slipped into a night-dress, and fell into a wonderfully dreamless sleep devoid of dances, responsibilities, and loud sisters.

Pity that didn't last long.

You woke after what seemed like only minutes of rest when you heard loud bangs and shouts from downstairs. So much for Marmee keeping the girls quiet. You felt wicked for thinking such a though, especially when you heard Jo repeat the words ‘Meg’ and ‘hurt’. You were awake in a moment with the most horrible thoughts firmly lodging themselves in your mind. Had she fallen? Had she been attacked? Was she bleeding or did she have any broken bones?

You flung yourself down the stairs so fast you missed the figure standing at the front door.

“Marmee! Meg! Is everything alright?” The sight you saw before was not nearly as terrible as you had envisioned. Meg was sat up in Marmee’s chair with ice on her ankle and her head in her hands. “Oh Y/N! It’s nothing, truly, I’m sorry we woke you. I’m more embarrassed than anything, really.” You let out a sigh of relief and glanced down at Marmee who was knelt down beside Meg, but instead of you or Meg, she had her eyes cast past you to the door.

“And this, Mr. Laurence, is my other daughter Y/N.” You turned and finally saw the stranger who darkened your doorway and were fully unprepared to find your breath stolen from your lungs. There, stood before you, was the most handsome boy that had ever graced your sight.

The first thing you noticed about him was his eyes. A shinning green that seemed to resemble the emeralds you’d seen in Aunt March’s finest jewelry. The waves of his hair reminded you of the soft lull of the sea on a spring day. And his smile - oh his smile! The happiness radiating off of him could bring joy to even the most destitute of souls.

You all at once became very embarrassed that you were in a nightgown in front of a stranger, and hoped he’d think your flushing cheeks the result of standing so close to the hearth. You gave a quick bow of your head and greeted him simply with “Mr. Laurence.” and cursed the small tremble of your voice.

When you looked back to him, his smile had morphed into a playful smirk. “Just Laurie, please. No one calls me Laurence save my grandfather.” Marmee stood from her spot next to Meg and brushed the dirt from the front of her skirts. “Well,” she declared “then Laurie it is.”

Laurie. The boy, the savior, thief of breath and heart. Laurie.

All too soon he was leaving your home, his only purpose truly being to deliver Meg and Jo safely. As Amy and Jo assisted Meg to your room, you saw Laurie to the door.

“Well Ms. March, due to the lateness of the hour I think it is high time I head home. No doubt my grandfather is waiting up for me and shall make the fact known the second I walk through the door,” said Laurie, as he stepped down onto the small porch. He gave a quick bow of his head, but before he could depart you said “Y/N actually. No one calls me Ms. March,” mirroring his own words. Once again, his burning smile blazed to life.

“All right then,” he replied. “Y/N it shall be.”

~*~

Taglist For Laurie

@theshowtunecockatoo

#laurie laurence #laurie laurence x reader #little women #little women reader insert #theodore laurence x reader #theodore laurence #laurie x reader

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drpeppertummy · 4 months

Note

Endless sunny pls

tiny little thang 4 u my friend

[tail end of stuffing, tummyache]

Sunny was beginning to wonder if somebody was dumping more food on his plate when he wasn't looking. He felt like he must've eaten five pounds of potatoes by now, but the pile before him never seemed to grow smaller. His full belly let out a whining grumble, and he placed one hand on it. It felt like a bowling ball. He scooped up another forkful of home fries.

The diner was infamous for its large portions. Most people left with more food in their boxes than in their distended bellies, set on meals for the next two days. Sunny was infamous for attempting to avoid the boxes. He was small and slight, and the plate on the table was larger than his entire abdomen, but that wasn't going to stop him--not from trying, at least. He and Laurie had decided to go out for breakfast that morning, and he'd ordered a stack of blueberry pancakes with a side of home fries. The pancakes alone were more than enough to fill his skinny tummy, but he could never resist the allure of the potatoes. Now, with a seemingly endless heap of them sitting before him, he was wondering whether they had been a good idea.

"Why don't you take the rest home?" Laurie suggested, reaching out to poke his bulging tummy. "You look stuffed."

"I'm fine," he said. She rolled her eyes. Sunny would eat a rock off the ground if she implied that he shouldn't.

"Make yourself sick, then. See if I care." Sunny stuck his tongue out at her and they both returned to their breakfast.

Laurie was enjoying a plate of French toast with strawberries. It was one of the few items on the menu that were possible to finish in one sitting, and she was on her final slice of toast. Sunny still had half a stack of pancakes and a pile of home fries that seemed to be regenerating after each bite. While Laurie was feeling comfortably full, Sunny felt absolutely stuffed. His stomach bulged hard against his sweater, and his belt, which had fit his narrow waist perfectly when they'd sat down, was becoming painfully tight around his now-distended middle. He wasn't sure how much more his belly could take, but after his brief chat with Laurie, he decided he had to try.

Laurie watched as Sunny struggled with his enormous breakfast. She was taking her time finishing up her own, knowing there was no rush; they'd be there all morning if Sunny was hell-bent on cleaning his plate. She glanced down at his belly. It was chilly out, and he was wearing a thick, cozy, oversized sweater. She thought it looked adorable on him; he was practically swimming in it, and it had concealed the shape of his skinny torso entirely when she'd picked him up that morning. Now, the curve of his bloated tummy pushed out against the fabric. Her eyes wandered back up to his face, and her brow furrowed. He looked miserable, although he was clearly trying to hide it. His poor belly must have ached terribly, and the food had clearly lost its appeal.

"Sunny." Laurie reached out and gently took the fork from his hand. Ordinarily, he would have put up a fight, but right now, he just didn't have it in him. He looked up at her, trying to put on an annoyed expression but instead looking ill and exhausted.

When the waitress returned, Laurie cut Sunny off to ask for a box, which was met with a pouty stink eye from her overstuffed friend. Still, he never would have admitted it, but he was relieved. He didn't think his tummy could take another bite.

#writing #belly kink #tummy kink #stuffing #stuffed belly #message #suggestion #xsunnyx #xlauriex

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barnesandrogersfanfics · 4 years

Text

Rose Coloured Glasses - Part 11

Warning!! Spoilers from Defending Jacob!!

I didn't hear from Andy again for hours, it wasn't until around 10:30 that my phone started ringing.

"Hey" i answered quickly "how bad is it?"

"The worst..... the partial finger print they found was a match for Jake.... Y/N they've arrested him!".

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

"Ive had the police at my house all day, they've torn the place apart..."

"Shit..... i'm so sorry...."

"I tried to tell them this doesn't prove Jake killed Ben.... they knew each other, they have the same classes.... there could be a hundred different reasons for that fingerprint!" I could tell by his tone that he was more than likely pacing as he told me what had been happening.

"So what happens now?"

"I had to hire him a lawyer, we're going down to the courthouse first thing in the morning for the arraignment, find out what the bail is gonna be set at. We went down to the station to see him earlier, it was awful having to leave him there.... it broke my heart. How can they think my son is capable of killing this kid... his a good kid"

"I wish there was something i could say to make you feel better...." i sighed picking at a loose thread on the cushion in my lap.

"I know. You don't have to say anything its nice just having someone to talk to"

"Hows Laurie handling it?"

"I don't know, shes been pretty quiet. She wont talk about it.... shes been tidying Jakes room since we got home"

"You should go check she's okay..... she's going to need you Andy"

"And what about what i need?....."

"You'll need eachother..."

"Thats not what i need....." he mumbled quietly but i still heard.

"You should go try and get some sleep, if you need me you know where i am"

"Okay.... thank you Y/N"

"Anytime".

We said our goodbyes and ended the call, i tossed my phone on the coffee table shaking my head. Id met Jacob a couple times over the months id worked with Andy and he seemed like such a sweet kid.... how was this happening?

Around 11 i headed to bed, i wasn't tired at all but i had to try and get some sleep. I laid in bed staring at the ceiling for way too long! My head whipped towards the bedroom door when i heard a light knocking at the front door. I sat up kicking off the sheets and walking over to the window, peering out i saw Andy standing there! Looking down at myself i realised i was only wearing a tank top and my panties, i grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the door and quickly slipped it on as i made my way downstairs.

"Hey.... sorry to just stop by like this i know its late...." he said as soon as i opened the door.

"Its fine.... you okay?"

"I don't know, i went for a drive to clear my head and ended up here" he shrugged shaking his head.

"You wanna come in? I can make you a cup of tea...."

"Okay, yeah that'd be nice. You sure?...."

"Of course, come in. I couldn't sleep anyway" i smiled opening the door wide enough for him to come in. He followed me into the kitchen taking off his coat and tossing it over the back of one of my dining room chairs. I pulled a couple of mugs out the cupboard and flicked on the kettle, when i turned around Andy was walking towards me undoing his top button of his shirt and loosening his tie. He looked exhausted.

"Thanks again for this" he said quietly leaning against my kitchen sink crossing his arms as he watched me make the tea.

"Honestly Andy its fine. I don't mind at all...."

"Y/N...?"

"Yeah?" i turned to face him and he held his hand out towards me, i didn't even think about it, my hand automatically reached for his and i let him pull me towards him until there was no gap between us. His arms tightened around me holding me close.

"Andy...." i started to say leaning back to get a look at him but i was cut off when he closed the gap between us again and kissed me. This kiss was different to the others we shared and nearly took my breath away, i had to push him back a little to catch my breath.

"Maybe we shouldn't be doing this right now...." i gasped trying to clear my head.

"Why not? I need you.... i was thinking we could pick up where we left off this morning" he said with sexy as hell grin.

"I just.... i don't think its a good idea...."

"Is this because of whats going on with Jake? You don't want me anymore?" He took a step back looking down on me like i had physically hurt him.

"What...?! No! It has nothing to do with that! You know i'm on your side!"

"So what is it? Whats changed...."

"Its just, your family needs you and your here with me.... i feel guilty"

"Well don't. I cant do anything for Jake until tomorrow anyway and Laurie and I barely speak on a good day"

"And your not just here because your lonely?"

"No! Im here because for the few minutes/hours i'm with you.... you make everything seem okay.... i cant stop thinking about you"

"And i'm not just a distraction?..... i've done the whole casual thing and that doesn't work for me...."

"I don't want this to be a casual thing. I don't want to have to share you with the likes of Frank" he pulled me close again "i'm too possessive to share you. I want to know that your mine and only mine" his hands moved down and untied the knot on my dressing gown before slowly pushing it open "look at you...." he mumbled bitting at his bottom lip as his eyes took in my half naked body "your not wearing much sweetheart"

"I wasn't expecting company..."'i replied breathlessly and he pushed the dressing gown all the way off until it pooled around my feet.

"Please tell me you still want this.....that you still want me..." he whispered as he pressed kisses under my ear, his hands running under my tank top caressing my back.

"I want you" i nodded quickly as i got lost in his touch. That was apparently all he needed to hear, Andy picked me up like i weighed nothing and carried me through to the bedroom.

I was woken up by kisses being placed over my collarbones and up my neck before he reached my mouth.

"Mmm i could get used to that kinda wake up" i smirked as i stretched and tried to open one eye at least! It was then i noticed Andy was sat beside me fully dressed.

"Your leaving already?....."

"I don't want to believe me! I would be more than happy to just stay in bed with you..... but i have to get home and get ready for Jacob's arraignment"

"Okay" i gave him a smile as i run my fingers over his bearded jaw "call me later?"

"Of course. Im gonna tell Laurie about us.... i don't want to hide this from her"

"Is now really the time?..."

"It'll be fine" he leaned down and kissed me "go back to sleep"

"Okay, hope everything goes okay with Jake"

"Thank you" Andy smiled, quickly kissed me again and then covered me with the blanket that i must have kicked off in the night "i'll call you when i get home from the courthouse" he said as he headed to the door, he gave me one last look then he was gone.

All the news channels were covering the Ben Rifkin murder. I sat watching as Andy and Laurie walked into the courthouse behind an older woman who must be Jacobs lawyer. The reporters swarming around them shouting questions and hoping for some kind of comment from them, but they both just carried on walking into the courthouse their faces void of any emotion. I decided i didn't want to watch anymore and headed to the kitchen to make some breakfast and a cup of coffee.

A couple hours later Andy was calling me as promised.

"Hey" i answered "how'd it go?"

"Horrible.... but his home. Pretrial is set for August 21st"

"Is Jacob okay?"

"His tired, his sleeping at the moment"

"Im guessing he didn't sleep much last night, poor kid" i shook my head at the thought of him in a cell all night.

"I told Laurie about us" he suddenly blurted out "we've got reporters camped outside the house and following us everywhere, i didn't want her to find out through them"

"Okay, how'd she take it?"

"She was fine with it, she actually asked when she was gonna meet you"

"Oh..... i don't know about that" i shook my head feeling my heart race.

"Y/N its fine, like i said its been over between us for a while now. We're like best friends.... please?"

"Andy....."

"There's something i need to talk to you about as well"

"Fine. You coming to me or am i coming to you?"

"Could you come here.... i don't want to leave Jacob and Laurie alone with the reporters camped outside"

"Okay. Do you guys need anything? I could stop by the store on my way" i asked biting my at my nail nervously.

"That would be great actually"

"Okay text me what you need, im just gonna go get dressed and then i'll head out"

"Okay sweetheart, thank you".

After ending the call with Andy i went upstairs to get ready. I was already a nervous wreck at the thought of meeting Laurie but part of me knew i needed to do it, just so that i could put my mind at rest that she really was okay with me and Andy.... that i wasn't being a 'home wrecker'.

Everything taglist: @jesseswartzwelder @dumblani @barnesandrogersworld @patzammit

Rose Coloured Glasses taglist: @readermia @princess-evans-addict @jennmurawski13 @matsumama @ex-bloodjunkie @kaithezaftig @rynabarnesrogers-reading @rainbowkisses31 @ms-betsy-fangirl @supernaturalwintersoldier

#chris evans #andy barber #reader insert #andy barber x reader #chris evans x reader #rose coloured glasses #defending jacob #defending jacob spoilers

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conjaime · 4 years

Note

Hii can you do a Theodore Laurence imagine pleasee💜💜

ego death ; theodore laurence

Laurie could die by your hands and have no qualms or regrets because you would be the last thing he saw. He had studied a tiny bit of philosophy, of only for you to pique some interest that he happened to be skimming through popular works of René Descartes. He thought that would make him more interesting and somehow make him stand out against the crowd, but you soon moved onto crochet by the time he had actually absorbed anything.

Without you, he couldn’t breathe and his mind began to blur the lines of truth and fiction. His fantasies of you were scribbled with things he would be too mortified to ever read aloud and would always stare when in close vicinity. Even beside the creepiness, it’s not as if you would notice him and all his strange tactics for attention. You never did.

He’d often like to say that you were his first heartbreak, but that would be inaccurate as you two had never really had a romantic connection. Let alone, a steady conversation without him being flustered or blushy. But when you announced your departure to Asia, it felt like some part of him had died.

Stage One: The Spiritual Awakening

He woke, eyes fluttering open with the urge to continue on his daily routine of being a pest to everyone in sight. But he stayed in bed, staring up at his ivory ceiling with something strange clawing at him. Laurie couldn’t describe it, like a piece of him had ripped from his clutches and now he was forced to wallow in some pitiful despair.

His eyes wander around the room, maybe finding something to keep his mind off of you. And his eyes land on Descartes, the name reading clear against the spine of a crimson skinned book. He’d never actually had remembered anything that the man had published, a few quips here and there to impress you; but philosophy bored him and older men telling him how to live his life was even worse.

But his nimble fingers prick at the spine and maybe a bit of refreshing wouldn’t do him any harm.

Stage Two: The Dark Night

Laurie’s a complete mess, others have noticed it and it’s come to the point where he’s utterly aware of his disparity. Jo has given up because she claims he smells like grease and sweat while his grandfather occasionally comes in to only feed him before leaving. He can’t deal with this hole threatening to tear him apart, even with his constant studies, all his mind manages to do is wander back to you.

He looks in the mirror when he figures he looks better than other times and realizes how truly pathetic he is, he can’t even recognize himself anymore. He’s a shell of the boy he used to be, all of this due to your absence. There is nothing but you that remains within his soul.

Isolation, he figured, would always be a fate worse than any death imaginable. But it’s become his only skin that’s left to bare. He feels naked and it’s what propels him to do the right thing.

Stage Three: Exploration

Despite the common misconception about spirituality in fields other than religion, you always had a soft spot for tarot readings and certain types of energy healing. There’s something about it that attracts you to it and your reminded interest in it draws Laurie to explore it more.

He likes citrine out of all the crystals he’s come across, researched to find out it carries some meaning of prosperity and optimism. It’s hung right around his neck, covered by the fluff and frill of his everyday outfits. Sitting at the piano and writing repetitive sonatas that sound good to his ears.

He hopes that sitting and working his fingers to the bone will only lead to reward. He hopes that once you arrive home that you will hear and adore his symphonies all inspired by your lovely memory. Laurie hopes that he can become a better man for you.

Stage Four: Glimpse of Enlightment

When he looks at himself in the mirror, the bags underneath his eyes have become less striking. His sense of self has gone, something that frightens him when he suddenly awakens from a deep slumber in the middle of the night and can’t recall his own name. But this sensation simultaneously intrigues him to discover more.

Books have told him about something underneath what his identity connects to, something labeled as his True Nature. He wants to relish this feeling forever, this gradual enlightment that has been bestowed upon him during your absence. It’s not enough to starve himself of what he craves every singular day of his treacherous life.

Enlightenment is what he seeks and perhaps this heavenly experience will only grow his everlasting affection for you.

Stage Five: Soul Growth

He realizes this doesn’t occur until he’s forced to join Amy during her travels to Europe. Well I. His reflection, that’s when he’s fully aware of the effects occurring during the cycle of ego death. His soul is maturing, maybe not his outer appearance but he can feel it growing tender with each lesson he forces his mind to remember.

He still keeps the citrine wrapped around him, a momento that all of the spirituality stemmed from your jumping interests that changed as quickly as the sun setting. He’s knows Amy has been sent off to find a suitable, meaning wealthy, match for herself and can only assume that you have done the same thing for yourself.

He only wish is that once you return to his home with your husband that you may familiarize yourself with the man he’s grown into. That you may finally notice him as something other than a flustered little boy that can’t even stutter out a full sentence. That in your eyes, he may no longer be a “poor baby” and rather a fully grown cherry to pick from the orchard.

Stage Six: The Surrendering

He has let go of what was most dear to him, your attention and validation. And although some part of him is depressed that his only goal for your relationship has been discarded, it makes him realize that he can expand on what was previously built. That you may guide him into salvation without any insecurities built up by his pathetic ego.

He trusts in his lack of knowledge, that his anger has only been a cover for what had been possessing him all along. He has no fear of what the future may present him, he only knows that soon enough he will return to you and your lovely embrace.

Stage Seven: Awareness and End

It’s the spring when you finally arrive once again, unhappily married and noticeable exhausted. He feels saddened by the result of your exposition but that feeling is subsided once you wrap your arms around him. He’s missed your touch, he’s missed everything about you.

You release him to his disappointment, but the smile stretching your lips apart melts any grievances against the lack of contact during your first meeting in what feels like decades, maybe even centuries. Laurie’s adoration hits him like a ton of bricks and your eyes are enough to send him blushing. He’s grown but under your touch, he’s rendered weak.

“Laurie,” you whisper softly and cup your hand to his rosy cheek, he’s finally been noticed. “the spring is always too kind your features.”

He pressed his head against your hand, lightly kissing your palm. He’s always been some sly romantic, sneaking around acts that he thought you wouldn’t catch. He takes you for a naive fool at time, but his innocence is endearing enough.

“And it’s even more ravishing when I see you against yours.”

You roll your eyes, soft touch turning into a pinch which he yelps at, “You’re such a tease, refreshing compared to the men on my travels.”

He hears that sentence and the butterflies within hi stomach flutter with previously unfound zealousy. This equivalence works in his favor, he’s a man to you now and you’ve grown into his idealistic partner. He wishes he could just melt into you and pepper your face with kisses, but that will have to wait.

After all, you’ve only just returned to your childhood friend, the only man who could truly capture your attention.

“A walk in the garden, my dear?” He dips low into a dramatic curtsy and extends out a hand.

He’s always been a fan for theatrics and you can’t help but accept with a bow of your own. Promptly smacking the back of his head once whole charade is over.

“You’re making me tea, don’t patronize me with exercise.”

idk maybe i like gave up on this when i reaches stage four, but this was probably inspired by listening to ego death in thailand.

#teddy laurence x reader #laurie one shot #teddy laurence #imagine #reader interactive #reader insert #laurie laurence x reader #laurie x reader #little women #little women spoilers #little women 2019 #theodore laurie laurence #laurie laurence #theodore laurence #laurie #one shot

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ziracona · 4 years

Note

good morning! just read your replies and feel a bit embarrassed that the 2nd ask was cut off for some reason, I think only the emoji and (2/2) are missing but hhh and admittedly I relate a lot to Meg with her internal struggle, and oof yeah Quentin has like a dozen people he gotta split his time for.. Christ.. this boy just deals with constant pressure in any context, poly Kate/Laurie/David is a lovely idea QwQ

Morning! Or afternoon. Either. Dw about that haha, and yeah, Meg is relatable & a fool. Poor Meg I love her—my fool girl. She acts super assured 24/7 and goofy but girl was in love with Nea for months, maybe years, and said nothing because she was trying to wait for a time she was sure it would work because she wasn’t sure Nea liked her and didn’t want to mess it up, and frkn Kate’s the one who mentions how nice it was to joke with Meg about “Paris” and have like, inside-knowledge buddy rapport, but Meg is low-key into Kate earlier (girl is low-key into everyone lol) and def thinks she’s amazing & talks about that to other people, but both Meg /&/ Kate assume the ‘I’m not as important’ @ each other when that one joke isn’t in rotation again because Kate only has 1 kind of friend experience/translation system and it’s extroverted & affectionate as hell, and Meg has a bad track record and some level of rejection sensitivity dysphoria (ah the sweet sweet side of ADHD 🙃) making that so much more fun, so they both be internally like “Man. 😔 I miss being best friends and hanging out. I wish I knew how to fix it. But I tried how I think was my best try shot & nothing happened. That’s ok. : ( : ( maybe after a while.” Frkn dumbasses. Literally bravery-period-was-a-character-arc-no-self-confidence Susie is the one who tells Meg she has feelings, even though Meg probably caught them first. And it’s not like Meg isn’t super self confident in other ways, she’s just the biggest self doubting dumbass in the world when it comes to believing she has lasting value to other people, when historically she never has. I love this stupid girl so glad she’s finally got like 40 long term lifelong friends. She deserves it and she’s so happy. She loves so hard and so fully and now she gets to pour endless amounts of enthusiasm and adoration on close to 50 people who deserve it. She and Kate could plan like, the world’s BEST night out, because they both have the both skill for it, and the boundless love for their friends to motivate that to peak perfection.

Haha, yeah, poor Quentin too. It’s actually kind of amazing for him he has like an endless stream of people wanting to hang out and show him stuff, because he’s a stupid self-sacrificing fool who spent way too much time isolating himself to try to protect others and feeling unworthy of a lot of things because of things someone else had done, and I’m so happy for him he’s constantly bombarded and dragged around, because he needs it, but I am sympathetic simultaneously to how totally exhausted and discombobulated he is 24/7 because of that 😂. I’m sure he’ll catch stride after a few years, but he’s running a marathon rn. A friend-healing-fun-times-travel-work-party-extravaganza marathon, but one none the less. Hopefully when he needs/I’m sure at least occasionally when he needs, boy just passes out for a while (though likely at the behest of Nancy or his dad or Laurie instead of by his own decision alone dumb martyr push past his own limits boy). I’m v glad he and Min ended up siblings, because she would both boss him around and drag him into stuff that he needs even if she has to fight him, but also is one of the best 2 characters period in-fic at also recognizing when people need space and to like, just be alone to detox and think and chill. A good balance. They make me v happy. 💙 Haha and glad you enjoy hypothetical Kate-Laurie-David. I really have no concrete idea myself what relationships happen post ILM, only that the ones already running at the time stay intact and happy in the long-term too, but that is one that would be super cute and sweet if it happened. TuT

#ask #in living memory (fic)#in living memory #ilm spoilers #anonymous #dead by daylight #Kate/David/Laurie would be both adorable and at times ridiculous and v funny #theyre like a gang lol but in a cool way

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su8arandspite · 5 years

Text

For Old Time’s Sake

Summary: It’s 1995 in Hawkins. When Heather Johnson returns home for the Hawkins High School reunion, she comes face to face with an old lover. Or, alternatively, the one where Steve falls in love with Heather all over again.

Steve Harrington x oc

Warnings: 18+, mature content, smut

Tags: @casaharrington

The town of Hawkins kept its secrets well. From the outside, and to every kid who made a run for it after high school, not much about the town changed. Small town stillness washed over the buildings and suburban homes that Heather Johnson passed on the drive home to her parents’ place. If not for the empty lot where the Dairy Queen had been and the newly painted houses, Hawkins could have been a time machine to 1985.

She parked curbside outside of her childhood home. Through the trees, just past the Harrington home, she could vaguely make out the ruins of what was once Hawkins Lab. Even abandoned, it brought bile to her throat. When Heather left Hawkins, danger eschewed the rosy lens of childhood she knew it under. Time blurred and muddied her memories, but fleeting images of a boy with a baseball bat comforted her; whatever it was, they defeated it together.

Heather yanked the keys from the ignition. She didn’t come back to dig up old nightmares. Steadying her breath, she hauled her suitcase from the hatch of her car into her old home. Whatever she saw ten years ago in that shadowy building couldn’t hurt her now.

She retired to her bedroom that night with a head swimming in unsaid words and forgotten dreams she bottled up and left here in Hawkins. Traveling through the hallways of her parents’ house brewed an unwelcome, lonely sense of dejavú that could swallow Heather whole.

The door closed softly behind her. Heather looked to the window next door, partially out of habit, partially wrapped up in foolish hope, but instead found the curtains drawn. She longed for the secret notes passed through window panes on late nights and the stolen kisses as he stumbled into her bedroom. That was- they were- long gone now.

Now, standing alone in her girlish lilac bedroom, she felt like a stranger in her own life. The knick-knacks, trophies, polaroids, and photo booth strips belonged to someone else entirely. She thumbed over the picture frame sitting proudly on her nightstand, swiping the dust away from the picture-perfect memory of two smitten teens. Her mother must have retrieved it from the floor and replaced it sometime after she left. The crack down the center obscured her face, but she cared more about the way Steve looked at her. Just as she let herself want, her finger caught on the crack and blood sullied the cheap frame. Cursing, she cushioned the wound between her lips to dull the bleeding.

Heather Johnson blossomed into her own person through the past decade; she had a place to call her own, a job she felt passionately for, everything she once doubted she could earn without her Daddy’s help. Something about Hawkins, though, made that woman shrink slowly back into the scared girl who ran away from it.

High school for Heather looked picture perfect. In some ways, it had been, yet a part of her always felt sandwiched into the tiny pond that Hawkins was and desperate to swim upstream into the outside world. For someone with as many friends and as surrounded by people as Heather the Cheerleader had been, she never felt more lonely. Her friends’ parents worked boring desk jobs that required no traveling and most of them had one boyfriend or another to waste their time with. She kissed as many boys as she could just trying to make up for the loneliness she felt in her parents’ absence; it always found its way back. Until Steve.

Steve Harrington lived next door. He talked too much, slept around quite a bit, and had a poor taste in friends. Heather might nod along and listen as Laurie or Becky rambled off reasons why he could not be trusted, but she never cared to listen. She liked to think she knew Steve perfectly well.

The first time Heather met Steve, she might have agreed with what her friends thought of him. They knew each other only through summer block parties and whatever other events their parents dragged them to until 1982. That summer leading up to sophomore year changed a lot for Heather; her body filled out and her Dad started leaving home more. She took up a job lifeguarding at the community pool and returned to school in August sunkissed, slightly curvy, and in need of a little trouble. Steve, who received a shiny new BMW for his sixteenth birthday, looked exactly like the kind of trouble she wanted.

She had him completely, utterly wrapped around her finger by the end of September. Heather and Steve soiled every inch of that car as summer came to autumn. She only meant to distract herself, but her desire for fire and trouble died down into an ache for the boy next door. Heather let herself love him wholly. Steve became her future; he tamed her rebellious spirit into a lovestruck girl who wanted only for him to stay with her forever.

Forever, for Heather and Steve, instead became the beginning of junior year. He stomped on her heart and spit it right back at her. As Heather pulled back to lick her wounds, Steve zeroed in on his next prey. Nancy Wheeler stood for everything Heather could never be. Girls like Nancy didn’t just offer up their virginities to the first boy who called them pretty or invent their own hangover cures out of necessity. Heather hated the thought of Steve with someone like that, because she could never be half as good. Good girls like Nancy shone like blank canvases void of any tarnish and squeaky-clean enough to bring home to Mom; Heather the Whore and her Father-sized baggage could never compete with a girl like that.

Even now, the sight of that swimming pool nauseated her. Mr. Harrington had it drained years ago, but she only saw the very end of Barbara Holland’s life, the thing that took her, and the boy she still loved already falling for Nancy Wheeler, all right outside her bedroom window. Heather yanked her curtains shut. The demogorgon might be unreachable now, but nothing so far healed her battered little heart.

---

“Joey, you little shit! Let go of your sister’s hair”

Heather clung to the kitchen island, watching as the red-headed toddlers tornadoed across the living room. Carol stormed out of the bedroom sporting only one shoe and looking more grown up than Heather ever imagined she would be. Tommy and Carol’s wedding unsurprisingly predated the prompt birth of their first child by mere months. Between the two nightmares currently messing up their house and the heavily pregnant bump in her purple gown, Carol looked about one temper tantrum away from a spectacular breakdown of her own.

However exhausted parenthood and married life looked to someone like Heather, that new sheen in Carol’s eyes and the bizarrely adult change in Tommy’s demeanor suggested otherwise. The life of a Hawkins housewife, with all its cliquey glory and PTA snobs, suited Carol’s catty nature and, to everyone’s surprise, fatherhood had calmed Tommy’s recklessness. Heather took one look at their messy, chaotic, love-filled life, and her confidence crumbled. Her life in New York outpaced anything Hawkins could offer her, but she couldn’t pretend that she had once not wanted anymore more than this life with Steve.

“For fuck’s sake Tommy, would you hurry up?”

Carol herded her husband towards the door, cursing under her breath at his inability to correctly tie a necktie. If not for the wedding rings and Carol’s baby bump, Heather might have mistaken the scene for a recreation of their senior prom night.

Heather piled into the backseat of Carol’s mini-van. Tommy stuck his head out of the driver’s seat as they sped off to Hawkins High, screaming:

“Class of ‘85, motherfuckers!”

Carol yanked him back into the car by the collar. She added a swift smack to the head for good measure. Heather smiled to herself; at least some things never did change.

As the burgundy minivan pulled into the spot once reserved for Heather’s Jeep, she saw her life from the outside. Without the safety of her green and white cheerleading outfit, Hawkins High School looked a whole lot less impressive than back in the day.

Tommy and Carol dispersed into the crowd not long after their arrival, while Heather gravitated towards the open bar. She greeted passersby who recognized her and watched the crowd swell. She stirred her drink absently and watched the night unfold around her.

Old cheer squad members earned careers in fashion or television or teaching. Her third grade best friend married her ninth grade lab partner. Old Hawkins friends gathered like nothing ever changed, but Heather felt acutely aware that everything had.

Meanwhile, Steve tore himself away from a conversation with a few classmates he only vaguely remembered. He stopped a few feet away from her, as if unsure whether or not to proceed.

Time dealt Steve Harrington the short hand. He stayed in Hawkins, he told himself, not out of fear but just to keep an eye on things for a while. Jim Hopper promised to call if any more monsters popped up. No need, he said. I think I’ll stick around a while longer. First, Nancy and Jonathan Byers, even Billy Hargrove, graduated and took the fast track out of town. By the time Dustin and Lucas and Mike and the rest of the rugrats set off to college, Steve was fresh out of excuses.

Hopper took a quick visit down to the record store where Steve took up a job to pay his bills. He leaned down over the counter Steve worked behind and lowered his voice:

“What the hell are you still doing here, kid? We both know you don’t belong in this shithole.”

“Yeah,” he deadpanned. “You’re probably right”

Hopper, more a father to Steve than his own ever was, refused to let him give up like this. Where Steve saw in himself the self-righteous asshole who vandalized the town movie theater, Hopper saw the young man who readily put his own life on the line to save those kids.

“Look, I don’t really care what you do,” he lied. “Just quit feeling sorry for yourself and do something with your life.”

The next morning, Hopper arrived at the station to find Steve Harrington sitting with his tail between his legs in the chair facing his desk. By that time the next year, he was the latest member of the Hawkins PD. And a damn good one at that, he might add.

For the first time in his life, Steve had everything he could want. Everything, that is, except someone to share it with.

His heart skittered as he worked up the courage to get Heather alone. He’d heard that she came alone and wanted little more than to catch her attention. Things ended so badly between them- his fault, really- that he hardly imagined she wanted to see him again. So, with the same sense of humility as that fateful morning in Chief Hopper’s office, he tapped her shoulder:

“Save me a dance? For old time’s sake.”

Gooseflesh rippled her bare arms; she would recognize that voice anywhere. Heather set her cocktail glass on the bar, turning her head towards him. He looked the spitting image of the nervous boy who first asked to take her out to the movies. Hands scrunched in his suit pockets, and sporting the very same crooked smile she remembered, Steve Harrington stood before her.

Heather’s powder blue dress blended well with her skin tone in the dim gym lighting and her dark hair popped against the fabric. His heart swelled at the sight of her standing in the very same gym they shared their first kiss in. Steve wondered how he ever let a girl like that slip through his fingers.

“Okay,” she said. “For old time’s sake”

He led her by the hand to the makeshift dance floor, feeling for the first time in ages the sweaty anticipation of a lovestruck school boy. Her rosy cheeks swelled with a smile in tandem with her shaky hands as they locked between the ducktail of hair at the nape of his neck. His hands resting easily on her hips, they danced.

“Y’know,” he chuckled. “I really didn’t expect to see you again. I’m glad I did”

The way he looked at her, even after all these years, sent Heather to the verge of tears; no one had looked at her like since she was a teenager. Since she and Steve were in love.

“Yeah,” her voice came out soft and small. “Me, too.”

They’d come full circle. Although life led them in different directions, and took Heather and Steve to the wrong people in their journey to find the love they first had in each other, it seemed their story looped back to that dingy old gym. Steve knew the second he saw her that tonight would be a whole lot more than reminiscing with a lost lover. Even if Heather didn’t know that, yet, Steve didn’t mind waiting.

Steve would wait forever for her if it only meant that he could see that smile one last time. The way her brown eyes sparkled in the dim lighting, the way her hips filled out the fabric of her gown, the way her delicate touch ghosted over him as they danced; Heather was filled with reminders of the way he once loved her. The way Steve still loved her.

Heather cupped his cheek, stroking it with her thumb and watching after him with a melancholy smile.

“I am so proud of you,” she whispered.

Heather clung to her once-lover long past the end of slow songs, the two swaying to synthetic pop tunes. It seemed that each of them darted around fears that, should they let go of each other, they might never get the chance to do so again. Whether she admitted it to herself or not, Heather let herself believe that, maybe, she was always meant to find her way back to him. She felt not like an adult but once again like a teenage girl nervously dancing with the prom date of her dreams.

He nuzzled his nose forward against her cheek. His hot breath fanned out against her skin and pulled her in even more. The sweet, mesmerizing scent of Steve’s rosewood cologne, the ghost of spearmint chewing gum, and a hint of musk hypnotized Heather. As he finally kissed her, Heather folded into his touch. The kiss was a decade in the making, the kind featured on movie screens and cheesy discount novels. Every word they were too afraid to speak into existence and all their repressed emotions poured into the kiss.

Reluctantly, he broke off the kiss. Only as the final song of the night faded into its closing note did Heather pull herself away from his warmth. Steve stole a quick kiss to her cheek. They walked slowly towards the edge of the dance floor.

“Here,” he said. Steve draped his sports coat over Heather’s shoulders.

Hair bouncing along with his lopsided grin, Steve couldn’t take his eyes off of Heather and that captivating laugh of hers. Even as she led him away from the dance floor, Steve found himself absorbed in her. Her neatly styled hair fell rebelliously out of place, the heat on her cheeks and perspiration from nerves and the dancing all adding just the right amount of lived-in smudge to her make-up. Heather looked radiant. The words fell out of his loose lips like thoughts so strong that his mouth couldn’t contain them:

“You’re beautiful.”

She slumped into a seat, letting out a breathy laugh. He slid into the empty chair beside her. Although his mind seemed acutely aware that they were running on borrowed time, Steve swore that the night would last forever. Time was edging on despite his best efforts to run backwards against the current; he would never be fifteen again, and their relationship would never be from a clean slate again.

She thanked him quietly. Another stolen kiss followed. The night grew thin around them, their classmates retiring to whatever lives they put on pause for the night's trip down memory lane, but neither could be bothered to tear themselves away. Heather was quiet for some time afterwards, trying to make sense of her emotions. Steve turned to her, forehead pulled in thought:

“We made quite the mess, didn’t we?”

Heather paused, tearing herself away from the fears of yesterday. Her eyes flickered to him. She smiled sadly. All Steve has to do was stay. When it was Heather’s turn to choose Steve, she decided to run instead. It seemed neither of them had the courage to face the very real feelings between them that even time and betrayal couldn’t seem to erase.

“Yeah,” she said eventually. “We sure did.”

He chuckled dryly, rubbing his palms together in thought. The universe seemed to laugh at them, to revel in the tragedy of their bad timing; love itself just wasn’t enough to make them work. His eyes begged Heather to ease his nerves. Steve needed Heather to give him some sign that this was more than just in his head.

“Why is this so hard for us?”

The worry in his tired face looked all too familiar to Heather. A sinking feeling returned to her stomach.

It wasn’t until the summer after graduation that Heather let herself start to forgive Steve for breaking her heart. With the drama and confines of high school now behind them, Heather and Steve vowed to make that summer theirs. A last hurrah of bad decisions with minimal consequences. What they intended to be a string of crashed house parties and getting drunk by the quarry instead was a summer filled with late-night conversations on the hood of Steve’s car. With Heather often teetering between sunburnt and sun-kissed after a shift at the community pool and Steve sticky and burnt out from serving ice cream at Starcourt Mall, they lacked much time or energy to live out the summer they outlined.

Neither of them really minded the extra time to themselves. In fact, Steve soon found himself excited for his shift to end and comforted by the knowledge that Heather was waiting for him in the parking lot, food in hand. By late June, Heather had his order memorized and Billy Hargrove had stopped trying to get her to hang around with him past closing time. That was how they found themselves devouring take out from Dairy Queen, still in their work uniforms, and sitting closer than necessary on the BMW.

She wiped the grease from her fingers with a napkin, laughing. Heather caught a glimpse of Steve in her peripheral vision- dripping with happiness, a shine to his eyes, his Scoops Ahoy sailor hat sagging lowly on his head.

Having Heather back in his life, even if only for brief, stolen moments on the hood of his BMW and late summer nights thick with their past, the future; it patched up the broken parts of his battered heart. She felt like home. It might only be for the summer, but Steve fully intended to hold onto every second with Heather that he could.

“Hey, Steve?”

He looked so eager, so happy to see her. Steve wouldn’t even know what hit him. That summer, he slowly tore down the walls their break-up built against her and she knew from the start that she couldn’t take him with her. The thing about running away from her problems, it seemed, was that Heather had to abandon every good thing in her life right along with the bad. Unfortunately, that included Steve.

She knew she should have told him from the beginning, that she never should have let herself get that close to him again so soon before leaving town. Heather should have told him, and yet she couldn't bring herself to break it to him. Not that Heather hadn’t tried to; she had, many times. It just hurt too much.

His laughter tapered off into an inquisitive hum.

“Do you ever think about leaving Hawkins?”

Maybe it had treated him less than kindly the past year or so, but it was still the only home Steve had ever known. The thought of skipping town never crossed his mind. He decided a long time ago that he would stand his ground and fight until his dying breath if he had to- Steve was braver, more stubborn than Heather that way. Another reason she would tell herself they didn’t work out; Steve Harrington was a fighter but Heather Johnson was a survivor. And sometimes that meant putting herself first.

“No, I can’t say that I have. Why?”

She shrugged, uncharacteristically shy:

“I don’t know,” she balled the napkin up into a makeshift stress ball. “I-I just think maybe I need to get out of this town, Steve. Parts of me can’t seem to shake what I saw, what I did-“

She let Barbara Holland die. Heather watched from her bedroom and did nothing as the thing ate her whole. And when she saw the damn thing again, she hadn’t been strong enough to kill it. She couldn’t save its future victims.

“Hey,” Steve pulled her under his arm. “Don’t say that, okay? You did what you could… We all did. It’s not your fault.”

Tilting her chin upwards with his fingertips, Steve pressed a meaningful kiss to her lips. She leaned into him. His embrace quieted her thoughts enough to mute her worries away. It wasn’t the first kiss they shared that summer, but something hid behind it that made Heather unable to shake him- so much so that she lost her nerve to break the news to him. She left Hawkins the next morning, while Steve dreamt of seeing her again.

The guilt ate at her from the inside out until the town she once loved only suffocated her with living nightmares and her own inadequacies. Deep down, Heather knew that running away from her problems would not solve anything. Still, she craved a change of scenery, an escape from the reminders of what Hawkins truly was under its all-American suburban facade. Hawkins was, quite simply, home to the gates of Hell and Heather didn’t want to stick around and wait for them to crack their way open again.

They had, eventually, done just that; only, Heather wasn’t by Steve’s side that July Fourth when he needed her the most.

Steve stood abruptly, offering her his hand:

“You want to get a drink?”

Nodding, she smiled. The last thing she wanted was to leave Steve’s side. Heather took his hand and followed him through the parking lot. They walked in a comfortable silence. She squeezed his hand in hers.

“Steve?”

The pair paused beside his car. Heather glanced up at him with the guilt of a child caught breaking their parents’ valuables while playing inside the house.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you I was leaving,” she paused. “I should have.”

Steve’s eyes softened. He brushed loose hair from her face, smiling sadly.

“I know you are,” he said. “It’s okay, Heather. That was a long time ago.”

Forgiven or not, Heather still juggled her feelings of guilt and lingering feelings for Steve between stolen glances on the drive home. He may have absolved her, but Heather still needed

to forgive herself first.

“Come on,” Steve opened the passenger door. “How ‘bout that drink?”

---

The pair of them stumbled into Steve’s old bedroom between stolen kisses and wandering hands. Retracing steps from a lifetime ago, they fumbled blindly in the dim lighting, too utterly consumed in each other to care much for the world outside those walls. There was only the electric rush of pure, raw sexual chemistry and unresolved feelings.

Steve pulled back momentarily, lips dripping in unspoken words. Heather shook her head, stroking his cheek sensually with her thumb:

“Not now, Steve,” she shushed him, her waiting kiss soaking up his silent fears.

He pulled her hips flush against his torso, working blindly on her dress zipper. Steve’s rough palms explored every inch of her flesh that he could reach. He pinched purple hickies into the crook of her neck, chasing after her as her head flopped in pleasure. Heather hadn’t let anyone mark her skin that way in years. Steve made her feel young again, like his touch was the Fountain of Youth and she was Ponce de Leon, drinking him in deeply.

Her dress pooled on the floor around her feet as Steve pushed the thin straps from her shoulders. She looked even more mesmerizing than he remembered. Heather grew into her curves; time transformed her from a bewitching teenage beauty to the woman of Steve’s dreams. And he wanted to feel, to taste, every inch of her.

Spreading her legs apart ever so slightly, Steve dropped to his knees before her. He thumbed at her through the meager fabric of her lace panties. Another hickey on her smooth upper thigh. He groaned at the smell of her arousal. His expert mouth latched hungrily onto her core through the fabric.

Heather wriggled in pure, hot pleasure against his magical lips. Her fingers dug into his scalp, pulling on his hair just the way she knew drove him crazy. Steve pushed aside her panties, buried his nose, his lips into her most sensitive nerves. She tasted like heaven to him, the mere sight of her writhing above him an ethereal vision. Her taste dizzied him and Steve coddled her closer to his lips.

Steve loved the chase almost as much as the kill itself. He knew what he was doing, and knew he was damn good at it, too. If Steve had been a wolf in the bedroom as a teenager, then the only thing to stop him now was a silver bullet. And Heather was his full moon.

Her first orgasm hit hard and unexpectedly early, received by Steve’s eager tongue. He pulled her in by the neck for another kiss. The salty taste of her own arousal clinging to his breath intrigued Heather; touching Steve turned all her other experiences into blurry non-memories. Touching Steve felt like coming home after a long day.

The sight of Steve in all his naked glory sent Heather into a tizzy. She licked teasingly along his length, easing her way into giving him the head of his life. As she worked, Heather focused in on the bliss reflected in his face.

“Jesus,” he whined. “I forgot how good you were at that.”

Eager to be inside her, Steve reluctantly pulled her back up to her feet. He backed her up against the bed. Heather melted back against his pillows, a siren waiting for him to fall right into her trap. He kneeled over her figure. Steve kissed her sweetly. One hand thumbed at her clit. In one fluid motion, he pushed inside her.

Steve loved the way she clung to her. Her touch only egged him on. Steve rutted into her deeply. He made love to her with a veracity and dedication that put every other man she’d been with to shame. It was only Steve.

With one final grunt sandwiched by her name, Steve came deep inside of her.

She fell back against his sheets, spent in a fucked-out bliss. Heather felt her life in the city slipping further from her mind the more Steve Harrington and his magnificent cock drew her to a future here.

“Do you remember what you said to me the night Nancy and I broke up?”

Heather hummed in her sleepy daze, nodding:

“Sure, I do.”

“Did you mean it?”

She rolled over on the pillow to face him, fully awake now. Heather blinked through the darkness. Grasping in the dark, she clamped their hands together. From behind his messy hair, Steve looked like a shivering puppy left out in the rain. A soft smile graced her lips. She thought of the last time she saw that look.

“She never loved me.”

Nancy might have been the good girl toying around with Hawkins’ playboy, but instead she tore Steve to shreds and ran for the hills. Now, he wanted someone to sympathize with him. Heather, though, had no room in her life to be anyone’s second choice.

Heather tossed the hat to her candy striper costume on the duvet, sighing. She pawed at the vomit stain on her skirt with a damp towel. Perhaps the only person in town who had missed Steve and Nancy’s fallout, Heather left Tina’s party early to lull a dangerously intoxicated Brittany Matthews home before she ruined anyone else’s costume.

“What? Why are you even here, Steve?”

“I don’t know,” he shrunk down. “This is the first place I thought of.”

Oblivious to his pity party, Heather fussed about. She tried to clean the night’s memory of her drunken, sophomore team mate nearly passed out on Tina’s front porch right off her dress right along with the stain.

“What the fuck are you talking about, Steve?”

“Nancy,” he suddenly fell sheepish. “She never loved me.”

Heather watched after him, incredulous. Her hands gripped at the soiled towel as she bit her tongue. Steve, craving some sort of reaction from her, pressed on:

“I should have known,” he sulked. “I mean…God, when did I become such a fuck-up? This is bullshit. Of course it was. I should have known no one could love me-”

“Oh, fuck you! I did! I loved you so much, Steve. You had to have known that.

“What? Heather-”

“You broke my fucking heart, Steve. I’m not about to pretend that I didn’t see this coming and I’m sure as hell not your shoulder to cry on”

She tossed the soiled washcloth right at his chest. If Steve hadn’t been crying before, he sure was now. Still no movement.

“But-“

“I think you should leave.”

When he made no moves to do so, some part of her snapped right along with the last string of her heart that still reached out for Steve. She plucked the picture frame from her nightstand, their picture, and chucked it towards him, only narrowly missing his head. It landed on the floor under her dresser, as cracked and broken as their relationship, where it stayed until well after Heather graduated and left home.

“Get the fuck out, Steve.”

He faltered a moment, her words hitting him full-force with the one thing he must have known and feared but chose to ignore for the past year. Thick layers of tears caked his cheeks. Steve moved slowly and fluidly back towards the window he snuck in through, hoping all the while that he might uncover some magic words to undo the damage he slung onto her poor heart. He found only silence, and by the time his feet hit the ground, Steve knew he’d really done it this time.

He wanted only to be the carefree fifteen-year-old who got to kiss her in secret moments shared in the backseat of his BMW and late at night in her bedroom, when her parents were asleep. Steve wanted Heather back, but this was too little, too late. She locked the window behind him.

Looking at him now, her heart ached. The stubborn parts of her hadn’t forgiven him for breaking her heart all those years ago. Yet, she mostly just wanted him.

“Yes.”

Steve pressed his lips lightly to her knuckles.

“For what it’s worth, I loved you too.”

Steve leaned over the extra pillows to face her.

When Steve awoke the next morning, he found himself surprised to see her messy hair splayed out across the pillow beside him, and utterly bewitched by the sight of Heather curling into the sheets as she slept soundly in his bed. He thought, though not for the first time in his life, that he might like to wake each day to the sight.

Later, as he walked her to her car, the idea still bounced around his mind. He grabbed at her hips, using every last drop of cheekiness to woo her away from that car. Steve let Heather go once before and he spent the next ten years regretting it.

“Stay.”

“You know I can’t.”

“What’s keeping you?

She exhaled with a soft laugh. Her home, her friends, her career, all waited for her back in the city. The only thing Hawkins, Indiana had that New York City didn’t was Steve Harrington.

“I’m sorry,” she kissed his lips sweetly. “Goodbye, Steve.”

He stood at the curb, hands balled into his shorts pockets, and watched her drive off until the Honda turned out of sight. Steve smiled after her, sporting the same smile he’d flashed the first time he told her his name, only this time a bitterness hid behind it.

Like Lot’s wife fleeing Sodom, Heather knew better than to turn around, knew his puppy dog eyes would trap her here forever, melt her down into a pillar of salt. And, like Lot’s wife, she did anyways.

She knew she’d see him again, if only in her dreams.

-----

Heather nervously twirled the phone cord around her finger. She stared at the slip of paper and dialed his phone number, her mind stuck over the words. The last time she felt this afraid, Heather lodged an axe into the neck of an interdimensional monster. This time, though, she knew that wouldn’t solve her problems.

“Steve? I need to see you.”

The trek to Indiana did little to calm her nerves. She drove silently, the radio turned down to silence. No matter how many times Heather practiced the speech in her head, it didn’t get any easier.

She stood at his doorstep. Fiddling with her hands, she contemplating blowing him off. Heather felt out of place at his apartment. To her, Steve would always be the boy next door. No matter what happened tonight. She thought of him always as he was then- handsome, full of life, brimming with dreams. Full of love for her.

When he opened the door to let her in, Steve couldn’t dull his smile. He looked almost the same as the boy in her memories. The love hadn’t quite left his eyes yet. It was with the comfort of this thought that she stepped inside.

Steve’s apartment was neat, small, homely. She could see him settling down before the TV with a beer or fussing over his hair in the mirror by the door. The thought made her smile.

He sat down with her on the couch, hands clasping with hers. His bright eyes watched her closely, waiting and ready to accept her back into his life.

“Is everything okay? You sounded upset on the phone.”

“I just- I wanted to talk.”

“Talk?”

He blinked. Steve knew this song and dance and he was tired of trying to keep her here. Tired of letting her toy with his heart.

“I haven’t seen or heard from you in months and you came all this way just to talk?”

Steve told himself he would hear her out, but his emotions got the best of him. He raised his voice in frustration. The abrupt shift in tone caught her off guard. She hadn’t meant to upset him. Heather deflated in her seat, the speech she’d had prepared now stuck in her throat.

“Forget it,” she rose. “I don’t even know why I came here.”

He followed her out onto the sidewalk. Heather walked out of his life too many times for him to let her go again.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know! Home, I guess.”

“Don’t you dare walk away from me again!”

The brunette stopped in her tracks, whirled around to face him. Angry, frustrated tears welled in her eyes. He stood just close enough for her to touch. Close enough for her to feel his heart breaking.

“And why not? We both already know how this ends.”

“I love you so much that it hurts. Why can’t you just admit that you want this, too?”

“That’s not why I came back, Steve.”

“Well, then, what? Is this some kind of a game to you-“

“I’m pregnant.”

His expression blanked. Steve didn’t know the first thing about fatherhood. His own gave him next to nothing to start from; the last thing he wanted was to find himself repeating his father’s shitty parenting style. He liked to think that he had finally shed the damage his absentee parents did to him, and that he had found a way to fill the gap their cold demeanor created where affection should have been in his childhood, but that didn’t stop his fears of repeating the vicious cycle.

Heather looked just as afraid.

“Do you really think we’re ready to be parents?”

“No,” he held her hand tighter in his. “But I know that I’m not my father and we can learn from our parents’ mistakes. You’re my future, Heather”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course, I do.”

They sat together on his front porch steps. Silence engulfed them for a moment as her earth shattering news settled in. Fear crept back up on Heather the longer he stayed quiet. Did Steve want to raise this child with her? Did he want her? Her questions and insecurities were overwhelming.

She broke into tears. “I’m scared, Steve.”

“Me, too.”

He held her close to his chest as she cried. A few tears slipped from his own eyes. Steve combed his fingers through her hair and whispered comforts into her ear. Suddenly, he saw a future for himself. A modest, comfortable cottage with a nice yard for the kids to play in, maybe a dog too, and Heather standing beside him with all the love in the world in her eyes. It was comforting, warm. He wanted that future, with her.

“Stay here, with me. I love you, Heather, and I want to raise this baby with you, if you’ll have me.”

Sniffling, she turned her chin upwards to face him.

“Okay,” she said. “Yes, I will. I love you, too, Steve.”

As he pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead, Steve knew that everything would turn out okay. He loved Heather Johnson and that was enough for him.

#steve harrington #stranger things #hawkins #school reunion #angst #smut #steve harrington smut #lost love #fanfic #steve harrington x oc #female oc #new #send feedback

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nebris · 5 years

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We’re Not Done Here

How the MeToo movement became a feminist sexual revolution.

Laurie Penny | Longreads | January 2018 | 19 minutes (4,764 words)

The problem of sexual violation can not be treated as distinct from the problematic of sexuality itself. The ubiquity of sexual violations is obviously related to what is taken to be routine, everyday sex, the ‘facts’ of pleasure and desire. — Linda MartAn Alcoff, Rape and Resistance

This kind of mania will always at some point exhaust itself. — Andrew Sullivan, New York Magazine

***

Oh, girls, look what we’ve done now. We’ve gone too far. The growing backlash against the MeToo movement has finally settled on a form that can face itself in the mirror. The charge is hysteria, moral panic, hatred of sex, hatred of men. More specifically, as Andrew Sullivan complained in New York magazine this week, “the righteous exposure of hideous abuse of power had morphed into a more generalized revolution against the patriarchy.” Well, yes. That’s rather the point.

Sullivan is far from the only one to accuse the MeToo movement of becoming a moral panic about sexuality itself, and he joins a chorus of hand-wringers warning that if this continues — well, men will lose their jobs unjustly, and what could be worse than that, really? The story being put about is that women, girls, and a few presumably hoodwinked men are now so carried away by their “anger” and “temporary power” that, according to one piece in the Atlantic, they have become “dangerous.” Of course — what could be more terrifying than an angry, powerful woman, especially if you secretly care a little bit more about being comfortable than you do about justice? This was always how the counter-narrative was going to unfold: It was always going to become a meltdown about castrating feminist hellcats whipping up their followers into a Cybelian frenzy, interpreting any clumsy come-on as an attempted rape and murder. We know what happens when women get out of control, don’t we?

Charges like this are serious. Too serious to dismiss out of hand. I don’t mean to do so, not least because I am a queer person, and I do not take the notion of sex panic lightly. Why, then, are so many people so anxious to believe that this is one? There is at least one simple answer. It is easier — much, much easier — to manufacture an attack on sexuality than it is to imagine an attack on patriarchy.

Sex is not the problem. Sexism is the problem, along with the upsetting multitudes of men and women who seem unable or unwilling to make the distinction. An attack on sexuality, however, will always find recruits from across the political spectrum as well as from armies of amoral keyboard droppers who just want to read about what celebrities get up to in hotel rooms. An attack on patriarchy, male supremacy, and sexual oppression — that is far harder to accept. It is far harder to allow. Easier to transpose it into a key of prurience and wait for the whole thing to stroke itself into exhaustion. But — forgive me — if you think this movement has blown its load already, you’ve no idea how women work, and you’ve no clue what’s coming.

***

Alright, ladies, you’ve had your fun, and you’ve given us all a fright — but that’s enough now. If we relegate this all-out revolt against male sexual entitlement to the kitchen shelf where it belongs, everyone would be a lot more comfortable — at least, the men in the room would be, and we all know that’s what really matters.

Just look at what happened to poor old Aziz Ansari. They warned us that this sort of thing was coming, and we didn’t listen. A famous and successful man in his 30s goes on a date with an unfamous woman in her 20s, they go home together, he pesters her for a shag, she isn’t strong enough to say no or slap him away like a real woman ought to, like women used to do back in the day, so like the snowflake she is, she gets upset and goes home — and we all know how this one goes. He wins an award, and she decides to take revenge. She goes to the press, the press report the encounter in cringeworthy suck-by-blow detail, the feminazi #MeToo hive-vagina takes over, the hysteria mill rattles into overdrive, and boom — just like that, his career is over. Now everyone’s calling the poor guy a monster and a rapist. He’s blacklisted from every network. He’ll never work again. Another fallen soldier in the sex wars. Predictable. Tragic. Just goes to show how weak modern women really are, how much they hate men and sex, how they always take things too far, how they never miss a chance to play the victim.

At least, that’s what it might’ve gone to show if any of that had actually happened. What actually happened was quite different.

What actually happened was this: A man was rude and sexually entitled, fucked up and hurt somebody, and she told him so. He apologized and took it to heart. An unscrupulous trash publication chased this woman down and got her to tell her story, which it reported in the lurid language of celebrity sex scandal. Babe magazine framed it in a way designed to garner maximum attention, derail important activist work, and humiliate everybody involved. The original piece at Babe magazine is an object lesson in how scummy gutter journalism can be when literally all it cares about is keeping readers salivating. The piece pruriently portrays both parties in the worst possible light: Ansari comes out of it looking like an entitled dick on training-wheels, and “Grace” comes out of it looking not like an honest young person who had an upsetting experience, but like a spiteful child who wanted to hurt a man who hurt her, who wanted to ruin him just like the papers warned us all women do. The reporter makes her look hysterical, which is something she definitely isn’t, because nobody is, because hysteria is a fake disease made up by a sexist medical establishment a hundred and fifty years ago to pathologize women who were traumatized and frustrated and wanted their lives to be different.

Unfortunately for those who were hoping for a crowbar to shove in the wheels of this barrelling machine of social and sexual change, what this moment illustrates is a remorseless and prurient witch hunt failing to happen. Ansari still has his career. He’ll be fine — not because the hand-wringers called time on a movement that went too far, but because this movement is honest. This movement is more than just a ballroom full of fainting maidens who collapse at the sight of their own ankles. It turns out that most women can, in fact, distinguish between sexual assault and a bad date. It turns out that sex is just one more thing we really do not need mansplained to us.

***

You want to talk about sexual repression? About wanting women to act like fainting Victorian ladies? The idea that it’s women who are the enemies of freedom in a world where, for centuries, the very worst thing you can call a woman has been “loose” or a “slut,” where for a female or queer person to be openly sexual is to incite violence or excuse it after the fact — that would be laughable anywhere, but in America? In a nation where legal abortion is all but impossible to access in all but the most liberal states, where conservative lawmakers in every district are going after not just safe pregnancy termination, but contraception? We have not even begun to have a real conversation about creating the conditions for meaningful sexual liberty that works for most human beings. If you want sexual liberation, make contraception, reproductive health care, and pregnancy termination easy to access and free at the point of use. Then, Mr. Sullivan, we can talk about “defending sex.”

If anyone is confused about the difference between sex and violence, if anyone is operating under the assumption that men are always and only animals who cannot be expected to control their erotic compulsions, it’s not women. It’s men, because they’ve been socialized to understand sex and violence as synonymous, and it’s the mainstream press, because stars, sex, and violence have always sold copy.

Part of the confusion has arisen from the obvious glee with which the press has sunk its indiscriminate fangs into individual offenders, luridly repeating details of alleged transgressions and sidelining the experiences of victims and survivors, as if sexual activity itself were the so-called scandal rather than whether or not the sucking and fucking and flowerpot-wanking was consensual. There’s always been a ripe news economy of sexual hypocrisy. The same tabloids that sell millions of issues printing pictures of topless teenage girls will gladly jump on any slut-shaming bandwagon that trundles by on its way to the frigid past.

It turns out that women, largely, are not the ones who are confused between sex and violence — not when the stakes are this high. Which is incredible, really, because most of our lives have been spent, especially if we are straight, being gaslit and bullied into believing that sexual violence is normal and fine. We have been socialized to think we need to be reticent and shy about our own desires — that our bodies are for men to desire and own — and yet we are also the ones responsible for setting the boundaries. We have been told that the absolute maximum we can expect, if we are good and quiet and not too provocative or angry, is not to be violently raped.

We are also supposed to put other people’s comfort before our own in every remotely sexual situation. We must not be rude. We must not upset or threaten the man. We must say no when we mean it, but we must take care not to offend him or threaten his masculinity, because heaven knows what will happen then. That’s where this backlash has backfired. Instead of exposing a movement that has overreached itself, instead of proving that MeToo is simply, as a well-reported letter in the French press put it, an attack on men, the Aziz-and-Grace story has opened up a whole new conversation about what we expect from sex, even when it is technically consensual. It turns out that we’re not done here.

We are far from done.

***

There will always be cowardly and conservative elements in society just desperate to take even one irresponsibly reported story and use it to damn an entire movement, and we must not let them, because this matters too damn much. There’s a reeking double standard in the room. Right now, if a man makes a mistake and hurts someone, it might, just for once, ruin his career — but it seems that if a woman makes a mistake and hurts someone right back, or allows her pain to be twisted to serve someone else’s agenda, she damns not just herself, but all other women by association.

This is what happens when patriarchy is on the run. It gets nasty. The mind games ramp up. Women are always the first to lose. But I have a word of advice for those who tried and failed to use this flashpoint to condemn the entire movement:  Gentlemen, do not test us. Women who love their own freedom are all too used to hearing that we have gone too far — in fact, we’ve been hearing that for centuries, whenever we’ve tried to take a single step. The truth is that we have not gone nearly far enough, and we have very little to lose. Attacking our reputations, calling us liars, trying to humiliate us and drive us apart — we’ve seen all that before. Try it and see. This is not going to go the way you want it to go.

No, really. I have crept across the lines of this messy culture war to give you this advice, so please take it seriously, because it is for everyone’s good.

The terms of this war of sex and power have changed, and so have the weapons. Physical violence and threat won’t work for you here. You are trying to fight against whispers and rumors and inference, against righteous rage, against charges of hypocrisy, exploitation, and crass dehumanization that hit home with career-ending accuracy. And you’re trying to fight this war with an arsenal you don’t know how to use, against an army that has been training with these weapons for generations, because these tools of emotional warfare are the only ones they have ever been allowed, because they are women.

You are going to lose.

I don’t care that you’re fighting on your home terrain, that you’ve always been told that sex and power belonged to you and you could set the terms. You want to fight women over who has been more wronged in the field of sex and power. A lot of people also tried to invade Russia in the winter.

I’m sorry to break it to you, but women are not out of control here. They are very, very angry. There’s a difference. Turns out that this is not a runaway train, that women are still driving this sexual revolution — for that is what it is — and the pain and rage fueling the engines are far more profound than we wanted to imagine. It turns out that women want more. More than the right simply to go about our working lives without being constantly sexually harassed. More from men than just being able to keep their fool hands to themselves in the office. It turns out that this is also about the bedroom. It always has been. It’s terrifying, I know, but yes — women want more, women expect better, and it’s time we got it.

***

Back, if you can bear it, to the Aziz Ansari case. If we believe what Ansari himself has confirmed about that night, three things are true about this story:

Ansari acted in a shitty, entitled way towards a young woman. The way that he behaved was not okay or fine.

He does not deserve to go to jail or be blacklisted for it, but that doesn’t make it okay and fine.

Almost every woman I know has had a similar sexual experience — and no, that still doesn’t make it okay and fine.

That last point inflects the first two. The fact that this sort of experience is so goddamn common is precisely why it deserves attention, and should not simply be filed away in a closet marked “women who make too much of a fuss.” Women don’t make enough fuss about how much sex can suck for us even when it is, technically, consensual, even when no crime has been committed. We’re socialized out of making a fuss, just as men are socialized into thinking about sex as something they have to bully and pester out of women. Shitty, dehumanizing sex is not normal, and it is not okay — it’s just very, very common. And because it is so common, because it is a chapter in so many of our stories, it is easier to write this sort of thing off as a “bad date.” The story of the bad date, the bad fuck, and the bad marriage is easy and comforting to tell — almost as easy and comfortable as the story of the young woman who goes hysterical and ruins a man’s life over a bad date. What a pity it isn’t quite so simple.

Sex is many things, but it is rarely simple. Contrary to the popular narrative that opponents of the MeToo movement have propagated, most women don’t like to think of themselves as victims. Most of us would prefer the version of the story where we were in control the whole time, where the hurt and disappointment were our fault, because that way it’s easier to own the horrible things that have happened to us and make sense of the way they make us feel about our own bodies, and about sex in general. It’s easier to smile and repeat the lines that are required of us every time we stand up and demand that women be treated with a bare minimum of human decency: We don’t hate men. No, we don’t hate sex. We’re not like those angry, prudish feminists of the frightening fictional past with their burning bras and man-skull necklaces, ready to castrate any passing politician who accidentally brushes the wrong knee. We are not fainting Victorian maidens. We don’t hate sex. We love sex, and we love men, ok? All of us love sex and all of us love men, all men, no matter how badly they behave, because that’s what it means to be a good woman — it means loving what you’re told to love no matter how much it hurts you.

Love is such a huge, strange word, a word that stretches to contain all the silence, pain, and longing that crowd around the corners of your bed. To speak personally, yes, I love sex, but sometimes I also get angry at it — and sometimes wish it did not have to hurt so much. That’s something I’ve heard from a lot of women and girls I am close to, in this rare time where we have been able to talk about this with a little less censure. Maybe you love sex, but you wish it did not come at the cost of your dignity, your livelihood, your self-esteem. You wish you were able to have it on terms that you could bear. You wish you could ask for what you wanted and be heard. You wish you could talk about all those times you didn’t really want it but went along with it anyway to keep him happy, or to keep yourself from harm. Maybe you wish you could remember how to be hungry. Maybe you wish you could still feel the pleasure you used to anticipate before abuse and trauma left their fingerprints all over your body. And maybe people have simply used sex as a weapon against you so many times that you don’t love it anymore, not right now, and you know what, that’s fine too. Asking women if they love sex (implied: with men) is like asking the front-of-house staff how they feel about their work when the boss is listening.

Repurposing an attack on sexual injustice into an attack on sex itself is convenient and easy and wildly, wildly wrong. It also works like a dream. Nobody wants to be called frigid, which is the word for women who aren’t sluts. The actress Catherine Deneuve, along with a hundred other co-signatories to an open letter in Le Monde, condemned the women speaking out about assault as enemies of “sexual freedom.” The problem is that sexual freedom is not something that can be enjoyed in isolation when more than half the human race still fights for the basic freedom to choose when and how and who we fuck.

I resent being ordered to declare my love for sex by milquetoast liberal commentators who think that women routinely lie about rape and by slimeball anti-feminist shock jocks who spend the other half of their time trying to ban contraception because Jesus said so. The entire world hates sex. Yes, we do. If we didn’t hate sex, we wouldn’t talk about it the way we do behind its back.

Those fragile Victorian ladies, with their corsets and their smelling salts, they seem to come up in every banal and predictable condemnation of the MeToo movement — it’s worth asking who they were and what part they play in the long, weird story of human sensuality. Why were those women so apparently frightened of sex? They were frightened because not so long ago, sex was legitimately terrifying if you were a woman — as it still is for many women and girls around the world. Sex was dangerous. It could kill you, or ruin you, and the fact that you probably wanted it made it that much worse — when you crave something that could mean disaster, that doesn’t make the desire go away, it just makes it that much more horrifying.

A lot of men don’t quite understand why women policed sexual morality in the first place: not because they did not have desires, but because they were made to pay such a heavy cost for men’s desires before they even thought about having their own. Because sex was dangerous. Within living memory sex was extremely goddamn treacherous for women — and in many places it still is.

In fact, we do not have to choose between fighting against sexual violence and being sexual. Today still, as it has been for centuries, we are told: one or the other. We could not demand the right to have our bodily autonomy respected and still expect to get to be sexual, to dress like that, to walk like that, to suggest that we might want something good girls don’t. Men could be asked nicely not to attack when provoked, but if we actually showed any scrap of sexual desire ourselves, all bets were off.

The fight against sexual violence and the fight against sexual repression are two sides of the same struggle: to divide one from the other is to collapse the whole enterprise. So-called sexual liberationists of our parents’ and grandparents’ generation failed, and failed badly, by thinking they could have sexual freedom without tackling male supremacy and sexist violence, by clinging blindly to the cozy delusion that women aren’t actually sensual beings in the way that men are, that women’s sexual freedom can remain an afterthought, and any woman who acts as if it isn’t can and should be punished.

This is why in so many places where abortion and contraception are strictly controlled, exceptions are made in cases where the person seeking to end a pregnancy has been raped: because the real issue is and always has been sexual control, and the problem is not unborn babies but adult women with the temerity to think they can fuck who they want and get away with it. Only men are allowed to get away with that.

In the real world, nobody has so far been sent into career exile for asking someone out. There’s a difference between a polite invitation and repeated, aggressive pestering or a boss who refuses to keep his hands to himself because he thinks that power and seniority gives him a right to your body. Flirting is still allowed, but judging by the panicked responses to any MeToo narrative that isn’t clear-cut rape, it is not women who are confused about the difference between flirting and aggression, but men. This is, sadly, a predictable consequence of an erotic consensus that constantly associates male sexuality with violence, that tells straight men and boys that their sexuality is dangerous and uncontrollable and that if they fail to persuade women to “take” it, they are not men at all.

Understand that until women’s sexuality is not closed on all sides by a big, ugly wall of violence and intimidation, until we are allowed to actually access our erotic impulses honestly and think about what we want, until our bodies are no longer bargaining chips for the crumbs of power men sweep off the table for us to fight over, women will not be sexually free — which means that nobody will be sexually free. Understand that rape is a tool of sexual repression as well as of sexual oppression, and that a fight against rape culture is a fight for sexual liberation — the foundation without which true sexual liberation is going to fall flat on its face in a pool of its own juices.

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The MeToo movement has not gone “too far.” We have not gone far enough. We won’t have gone anywhere near far enough, not until we achieve something like actual sexual liberation — for everyone. I believe that the next stage is going to involve a process of truth and reconciliation. Rape culture and misogynist entitlement are the key in which our current chorus of dissatisfaction is sung. What that means is that a lot of sex that is technically consensual is nonetheless dire and disappointing, especially for the women involved. This is why the demand for better sex — for fewer Cat People and coercive hookups and woke boys taking too long to understand when you’re just not into it — is also revolutionary.

As Ellen Willis notes in her seminal essay, “Towards a sexual revolution,” sexual coercion is “a tool of sexual repression.” We aren’t calling out men and condemning them to career assassination for being shitty, inconsiderate lovers, and a couple dozen humans in the Northern Hemisphere will be glad to hear me say that — but it’s worth asking why they so often are. Turns out that unless you pay attention to the needs and desires of the person opposite you — or however you happen to be angled — you’re going to be a bad lay. She might not say so, because she’s worried that if she upsets you or hurts your pride you’ll hurt her in far more measurable ways, and she might not be wrong. But trust me: Treating women as people, people who have wants and desires and messy, meaty insides, people who have to live in patriarchy just like you, people who can change their minds and get shy and sometimes take all their past traumas to bed with them just like you do — that’s the one position that’s guaranteed to win with almost everyone. The trick is that there’s no trick to it.

It’s possible that the best sex of our lives, as my friend Meredith Yayanos told me the other day, does not exist yet. When it does, it will be in a world beyond rape culture. In 10 years of trying to fuck like I lived in the early days of a better nation, I’ve found spaces where it seemed that, for a time, something like real sexual liberation was possible. Usually they were queer spaces, or at least spaces with their own reasons to mistrust received ideas about gender and pleasure. But they were mere cracks in the carapace of violence, little chunks in the brittle social exoskeleton of bitter sexism and shame sealing us off in units of terrified longing, even when the clothes came off. I found myself running up against rape culture over and over again. The retinue of bad and selfish and shitty behavior of grown men in bed. The violent fragility of masculinity that could have been so much more. I wanted more. I still want more. And women who want more are a problem.

I’m not promising that the great consensual anti-sexist revolution to come will mean an end to broken hearts and hurt feelings. I would never lie to you about a thing like that. I would anticipate that it might make the breakage cleaner and the scarring easier, but I have only my own experience to go on there. I have been let down and messed around in my time by a few rare and special snowflakes who managed to find entirely new ways to hurt me — ways that did not involve being sexually violent or at any point treating me as less than human, even though I was female and they were not. You can be anti-sexist in theory and in practice and still be a goddamned brat and a soul-sucking mindfucker, it just takes a lot more work and creative chops. I take my hat off to these rare young men, and I will probably end up taking off other things in the future, because people are fascinating and the flesh is weak.

Only when we consider the possibility that male sexuality might not be inherently violent and exploitative can we ask why so much of it is. Why does the joyless, coercive sex that we so often have to settle for under patriarchy have to be the norm? Can’t we do better?

We can, and we must, for reasons that go way beyond the bedroom. If the main problem with rape culture and sexual repression were the fact that they make sex less satisfying, well, there are simple ways around that, and they plug in at the wall. But the rolling crisis of toxic masculinity does not just kill the mood, it kills human beings. It ruins lives. It is a species-level disaster that causes trauma on a scale most of our tiny minds cannot stretch to comprehend. And it can’t go on like this. There is a bigger and scarier social and sexual revolution on its way, and the fact that it will make fucking a lot more fun in the future is just a bonus.

Buckle up.

Note: The original version of this essay has been slightly amended to provide additional context on the Babe magazine story about “Grace” and Aziz Ansari.

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Laurie Penny is an award-winning journalist, essayist, public speaker, writer, activist, internet nanocelebrity and author of six books. Her most recent book, Bitch Doctrine, was published by Bloomsbury in 2017.

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