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vickyvicarious · 7 months

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3 October, part 2

I am already so worn out

oh I love the several individual flicks of paper. The frustration and rage and deliberateness of him moving one page at a time to get to the right spot

"As I must do something or go mad," I. I........

"The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day." I AM SO SAD

their voices together...

THE WAY HE ASKS WHAT END

oh my god his little sniffle before "to work!"

NO I FORGOT ABOUT THIS we get to hear Renfield yelling agggggh I was not prepared at all and now I'm crying again

"the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort—no matter how painful—should be kept from her." I love how you can hear the rage at himself and determination to never ever ever fail her this way again

the fear, the trembled edge as he says "her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr"

I love the way she says "I shall die." perfect delivery, gets across the 'like a fact' so simply and so well

"I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!" She looked at him meaningly as she spoke." she is so good at manipulation. Something about the way she says this is perfectly pointed, so deliberately calm and not requesting but absolutely requesting and framing it as love and friendship and what is deserved

I really love the way he says "you must not die!" each and every time

"you must struggle and strive to live!" this sentence has such a good sound

"She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do" oh Mina

"Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal." I think this is new vampire lore, that he cannot change shapes or anything during the day. It makes sense but hasn't come up I don't think

"the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness were flying from us" I just love this phrasing

the house in Piccadilly that Jonathan hunted down. so, so, so glad he did

the way Jonathan says "the precious, precious time!"

"Don't - wait - more than need be..." he is trying so hard

van Helsing is so good at knowing how to get away with breaking the law <3

I wonder if this story about the guy who sold the stolen house is based on true events

van Helsing's laugh at the story is so nice

the way Art says "I can be of some use here" he is trying so hard to help. this is the only time he's wrong because his carriages are too fancy richboy for the situation

Jonathan not mentioning Mina's pointy teeth...

van Helsing's "do you forget" is SO king laugh. oh my god

the way Jonathan says "did I forget" lkadjsflkdjsf;kds

"I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember" Mina's hoarse voice...

the way Jonathan sighs when saying Mina was the most cheerful

MINA'S SCREAM AND THE MUSIC HOLY SHIT

"my poor darling" the way he says this

fuck, the way she sobs "Unclean" and "polluted flesh", how her voice cracks on "before the Judgement day"

JONATHAN CUDDLING HER INSTANTLY

"For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together," this line

the way Jonathan says this line so softly: "There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation."

~holding hands while pledging to save Mina~

HERE IT IS

"To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks." this line. and the delivery. almost soft at the end, but completely resolute.

van Helsing has at minimum 56 holy wafers left. and that is after his antics at Lucy's tomb. he really just took a giant sack I guess

Jonathan waving to Mina in the window <3 and her waving back <3

Art looking out for Jonathan's future <3 and utilizing his privilege and title

oh I love the frustration as Jonathan snaps "Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought!"

god, the description of Jonathan. love the music on "he is like a living flame"

oh I have always been pronouncing it "skolomance" in my head

"He is experimenting, and doing it well;" I love the delivery of this line

"Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone." I really don't think this is the case. I think he didn't feel the need to move them all by himself at first, not that he didn't think he could

"He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South." the USEFULNESS. the PRECISION ABOUT TIMJE

"Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!" and "I would sell my soul to do it!" Jonathan is AFLAME

the delivery of the "w- for him" when van Helsing is scared they literally destroyed the boxes is so funny

oh I love the way van Helsing figures out his movements and the music as he does so

THE MUSIC AS DRACULA ARRIVES AND THEY FIGHT

so exciting kill him kill him

the slice!!!

the loot drop!!!!

again the disgust as JAck describes Dracula

I love the window breaking noise so much, not only just for itself but for what it means. Dracula is reduced to ungainly flight. he's snatching money off the floor and jumping out a window, tumbling to the ground. He's still losing money when he gets there!!!! (the ting is so good). Meanwhile Jonathan will skitter after him no problem at all

the way he says "You!" all scoffing but with a little edge to it. This whole speech. He is trying so hard to sound in charge and unbothered and terrifying and he is failing

Jonathan had no problem with the window but sadly a locked door yet again defeats him :(

Mina still finding time (and blood) to blush at descriptions of Jonathan's love for her <3

THE WAY SHE SAYS "Jonathan." so much love I cannot handle it at all

Mina speaking of pity for Dracula now... it's about herself as well of course. She is trying to sound so calm and compassionate but she is also so so so afraid here.

Jonathan's hatred for Dracula <3

"I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you—and with equal cause for anger—may deny it to me!" Jonathan thinking well that will never happen because I will never let it.

The way she repeats "my husband". The way her voice shakes. I imagine her touching his hair as she talks about it...

The way he says "This, I know." The way he cries as he talks about how much more he loves her. I can't....

"I am not sleepy myself, though I am weary—weary to death." God, the way he says this line is agonizing. And how he gasps into his next breath... gahhhhh the way he starts to fall asleep as he writes

Mina's fear at someone in the hall is SO GOOD. And Quincey's so so so gentle "go back to bed. It's all right..." I love them so much I am crying about it, literally

oh SHIT there's music

OH YOU FUCKER YOU ABSOLUTE JACKASS

I literally tensed every single muscle in my body as I hear Dracula start to sing. Oh my GODDDDDD every line is so good and so inFURIATING holy shit the smug bastardddddd

the music is. so CHEERY. fa;lkdfjas;kdjlas god he is so delighted with himself this is. I cannot. ASJKDFLKDDJ DRACULAAAAAAAA

this song is amazing. with every single new line I. I- incredible.

#dracula daily #re: dracula #jonmina #jonathan harker #mina murray #van helsing #arthur holmwood #quincey morris #jack seward #count dracula #holy SHIT. i am shaking

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ajstudio · 1 year

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Edit November 9th, 2023: I corrected the date of Dracula's defeat to November 6th like the book dates since I am currently finishing the audiobook a second time.

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On September 6th, 2022, I shared this realization with my friends on Tumblr and I remember going bonkers over it:

I shared this with Maddie. I realized something while I was going through the novel, Dracula, again. So the events take place in the month and year the book was published in May 1897. But doesn't that seem off? Then it occurred to me that the seven-month-long events of the book happened before it was published.

Then I remembered that Jonathan and Mina have a son at the end of the book and it's mentioned that seven years had passed. So the events of Dracula took place in the year 1890 or as early as 1889 before the book was published.

So my idea is Abraham Van Hellsing had Bram Stoker publish the book with the year changed.

Also, while a sequel was written by one of Bram Stoker's descendants (which wasn't well received by the fandom) it did mention Abraham had Bram Stoker publish the book because he wanted to help other people that went through the same ordeal he and the others had with Dracula.

So according to Jonathan he and Mina had Quincey on November 6, 1890. One year after Quincey died and Dracula was defeated.

======

So I am making this post because I not only made a mistake on the year the events of the book take place, but I have two possible years the book is set in.

The clue I am going by is the conversation Mina has with Abraham Van Hellsing when she recounts to him Jonathan's shocking although justified reaction to Dracula showing up in London. She mentioned it happened on a Thursday, and earlier in the book she wrote and dated the episode happening September 22nd.

With this information, I went to Time and Dates to look at 17 calendar years for a September 22nd landing on a Thursday and found three: 1881, 1887, and 1892.

I want to believe the events happened in 1887 since not only would Quincey Harker have already been born and seven by the time his family and their friends return from visiting Dracula's Castle in Romania but following these events Abraham Van Hellsing gathers the handwritten and audio accounts of their time dealing with Dracula.

He writes the manuscript that would become the Dracula novel or he meets Bram Stoker who writes the novel after meeting Abraham because Mr. Van Hellsing wanted to help other people that would likely deal with vampires like he and his group did.

After having a difficult time getting the novel published Dracula finally hits the shelves on May 26, 1897, which is ironically Dracula's Day.

I needed to dig a little more before settling on which year Dracula took place in, and boy I hit something and find another clue I overlooked: the Demeter.

After reading up on Bram Stoker and an interesting article about his time studying for the elements pertaining to his novel on Time's website, apparently, the book was centered around real-life events and real-life people.

Jonathan Harker, his wife, and Dr. Seward were real people. The Demeter Incident was real, but the ship was called Dmitri. The sailors said the incident happened a few years ago. Bram Stoker started working on Dracula in the summer of 1890. So I can without a doubt say it was set in 1887. Which gladdens me.

When he tried to hand over the manuscript to be published as a non-fiction book his editor refused it since it pertained to events centering around a mass murder and then before it was finally published in 1897 101 pages were cut out, the epilogue was shortened, and other alterations were made to avoid a mass public panic since the madman was believed to still be around.

I never expected to learn this much about the book and its events to this magnitude but I was certain I would need to change some of the dates on my previous post about vampires and ghouls.

Sources

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Dracula by Bram Stoker

@merumely @thirstyforlulu @alucardownsmyass @doodleferp @diamond-star @sundove88 @michi-tala @amikartest @trashbaby92 @goblins-riddles-or-frocks @blood-and-cigars @the-hellsing-organisation @icecry @thecrimsonwingsfckerabridged @elixirvitae @therejectkat @alucrd @autumnaaltonen @valentine-bites @theloveandthedead

#hellsing #alucard #Bram Stoker #Dracula #Vlad Dracula #Vlad Alucard #Mina Murray #Wilhelmina Murray #Wilhelmina Harker #Mina Harker #Quincey Morris #Quincey Harker #Abraham Van Helsing #Abraham Van Hellsing

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yallemagne · 1 year

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i do however think that jonathan eventually bonds with them (i mean, evidently so since he and mina name their child after all of them and i doubt he'd agree to that otherwise). of course he expects them to stay in touch with mina after the whole ordeal is over, she was everyone's favorite, no shit, but during that time jonathan himself would grow closer to everyone else too. both because he gets to interact with them in a non-vampire hunting constantly working life threatening scenario that does Not consume him wholly and prevent him from perceiving anyone around him, but also because they also realize that huh okay turns out jonathan has not been in his default setting this entire time and he's a completely likeable and approachable guy when he's not in intense murder work mode. plus they've been through like,,,severely traumatic events together so either way the whole group's just kinda glued to each other, even if jonathan never got full on chummy bud pal with them he knows that they're his people now, he's not just there as mina's husband.

i also like to think he'd have one of those Random Ass 3 am deep conversations slash therapy sessions slash bonding moments with quincey a little right before the end. but that's completely and unashamedly just because it makes the end Even sadder and i love to give my favorite characters pain. which would be even sadder considering all that because that would make quincey the first one out of the group that jonathan kind of warmed up to and felt connected to. and then like a day later he'd have to watch him d

im extremely sorry for this the anonymity of these asks gives me too many rambling tendencies and makes the angst gears turn.

OKAY. GOD. ONE DAY YOU GUYS ARE GONNA HAVE TO STOP ASKING QUESTIOns-- ᵒʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ ᵗʰᶦˢ ᵒⁿᵉ'ˢ ˢᵒ ˡᵒⁿᵍ

so the anonymity is the cause huh? hmmmmm

tiny callout "i doubt he'd agree to that otherwise" oh honey. Do you think he'd say no to Mina wanting to name their child (the one she birthed) after her best friends? Especially the friend who died to save her life just like he promised? I don't think Jono would deny her that, even if he never got closer to the others... ever.

Dunno how you'd have VH and Jonathan bond, and yet I wrote it into my fanfic. But well, that comfort scene required rewriting their entire meeting from the book. I had to change the focal point of the scene from being all about praising Mina in order to have these two interact on a greater-than-surface level. Yeah, I feel like this relationship's probably bunk in canon. "oh yeah, that's my wife's sexist adoptive father who actively endangered her life every chance he got. I still don't look him in the eyes come Christmas time."

Guys, the more you ask me about this the more aggressive against Van Helsing I get. I'm not trying to hate on him but you just keep reminding me he's a fucker.

I think there's potential for Jonathan and Arthur to develop a closer relationship post-novel. If Arthur's keeping to his word and being a proper brother to Mina, he's sure gonna be in both of their lives. They even got a headstart being stuck together on a boat. He's also just very weepy. It's so much easier to trust a man who allows himself to cry.

Meanwhile, if Jack stays at the asylum, I never see Jonathan opening up to him. Jonathan's a working middle-class man with sooo much baggage, confiding in a man who owns an asylum feels too much like selling yourself out to the cops. Jonathan gets to be a bit wary there. Who will defend him if Jack thinks he needs to be locked up? Mina, of course! But their team has gone against Mina in the past. Hopefully, Jack gets a new job.

Jonathan and Quincey having a heart-to-heart before they all split up... yeah sure. And I can even believe Jonathan not recording it if, say, during the conversation, he let slip that he did not intend to outlive Mina, no matter what needed to be done to prevent such an occurrence. But that comradery is taken to Quincey's grave.

There's also just the issue of what does Jonathan have in common with any of these men? 'Cause that's a big part of actively being friends with someone as opposed to acquaintances: shared interests and hobbies. What shared interests and hobbies do the Suitors have amongst themselves? Camping, hunting,,, gay sex. What do they share with Jonathan? Mina... maybe also gay sex but that's something you work UP to when you're trying to establish a long-lasting relationship.

Like, none of them like to write. And Jonathan is a poor city boy. His experience with roughing it out in the wilderness was very traumatic. I feel like if he ever does bond with the boys? It's gonna be hard. Really fucking hard on his mental state. Because he'll have to stretch himself thin doing stuff they're interested in and watching as they have fun together while he blends into the background. I know that because that's the story of my damn life. It's not enough to know rationally that people are trying to make you feel included because the very fact that it isn't working is enough to make you want to curl into a ball and ask to be sent home.

#am i projecting too much anger at VH onto Jonathan #of course i am- there's the door if that's an issue #update #people ask me things #jonathan harker #dracula daily #dracula

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amyaderman · 1 year

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I've gotten behind on reading my Dracula e-mails, and the day before Halloween is a good time to work on catching up. Some thoughts:

I always liked Lucy, but reading the novel in this way for the first time has made me love her. It's so upsetting when her entries are staggered out. Her entry when she writer about how much better she feels leading up to the night in which she and her mother are attacked immediately followed by Mina's letter to her is heartbreaking! One of the things that really makes an impact on me is how drawn-out her struggle is from the first time Dracula attacks her to her death. When I'm reading the novel as it's written, I can go as fast or slowly as I want, but reading it in real time shows how long Lucy is in mental and physical agony before her death, and even then she isn't at peace.

The zookeeper being unimpressed by Dracula and telling him off outside Berserker's cage is fantastic. I would love to see an "extended version" in which Jonathan collects interviews from all the people who ran into Dracula during normal situations and dragged him. Another example: the first time Mina sets eyes on Dracula is recorded in her September 22 entry, and she can't stand him.

Mina and Jonathan: relationship goals. When she finally reads his diary she wonders at first if there's "any truth in it at all" like most people would, but she thinks it through and decides it may be true, or that there's at least some truth in it. And then she goes straightaway into transcribing his diary in case it's needed. Not only because it may be helpful, but also "I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all." It's wonderful realizing not only how well these two love each other, but how well they know each other. Jonathan knows that he's safe leaving his diary with her, and she knows that if he wrote this sort of record, it can't be all in his head.

Van Helsing's speech patterns are often goofy, but when he meets Mina for the first time and says to her, " 'There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights.' " !!! Their entire meeting is heartwarming. Even though our cast at large is starting to realize how much danger they are all in, I love reading about how much the characters take to each other right away, and care about each other, and rely on their relationships (both old and new) to get them through. Even though it's horrifying news for Mina to learn from Van Helsing's later communication that Jonathan's journal is all true, I can't say enough how reassuring it must be to have a near-stranger take her seriously right away.

#dracula #dracula daily

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inblackwoods · 3 years

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A thank you to @vanhelsingenthusiast for setting my thoughts running on Seward and Dracula parallels and causing a rough, sleep-deprived ramble.

It ties back into the ongoing “Dracula is a story about love” war that I’m waging. At the core of their personalities, I think Seward and Dracula are similarly ambitious, deceitful, and capable of cruelty, but they end up in different places; Dracula alone and hunted and Seward being an essential member of a loving family dynamic.

On lying and toying with others: Dracula teasingly says Jonathan can leave and then calls wolves to the door, obviously making it deadly for Jonathan to actually leave as he wanted and trapping him in the castle [Chptr 4]. He’s not letting Jonathan go anywhere. He’s lying almost constantly in the first four chapters, but this instance is noteworthy in how directly cruel it was and how it seemed mostly just for the fun of it. Later, Seward offers Renfield a cat in an attempt to get an interesting response from him that can be studied in order to gain scientific notoriety. This is more clearly exploitative when considering that Seward only makes this offer after refusing earlier to give him one [”Tonight he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him” Chptr 9]. Morally, Seward has already admitted to being against giving Renfield a cat, and though his morals can flip multiple times in a single sentence [a post for another time], I don’t think he would’ve gone back on this. I think he’s only interested in lying to Renfield, offering the cat to get information but never delivering. Dracula and Seward have different intentions here, Seward probably thinking he's more justified, but what's happening is similar: toying with the vulnerable for some sort of personal benefit. They’re both ambitious, they both lie, and they are both capable of being cruel because of these traits.

On love, connectivity, and technology: these topics seem separate but I think tie nicely together. Dracula is barred entirely from any stable or caring society. The locals around the castle fear him and understand him to be a threat, effectively warding him off and warning others against getting close to him. The only people he has, the three women, actively laugh at and defy him [Chptr 3]. More importantly, there is no one to help Dracula in any of his endeavors. He doesn’t even have servants so that he has to drive the coach to get Jonathan himself [Chptr 2]. Seward, though he is occasionally used as a joke [Van Helsing teasing him to cheer up Lucy in Chptr 9], is never treated cruelly or barred from interacting with the rest of the CoL in any way. It’s lighthearted, sweet, and productive. Seward is, more than anything, welcomed into the crew by teasing like this as it shows how close everyone is and how they help each other, Seward and Van Helsing working together to make Lucy feel better [Seward is never upset by this teasing]. If Dracula ever needs someone, he has no one but himself, and when Seward needs someone to help him save Lucy, Van Helsing drops everything to come to him immediately [Chptr 9].

Technology also makes Seward more accessible to others. He's able to better connect to the rest of the CoL through his use of the phonograph, allowing Mina to understand the depths of his emotions in a way that even writing out his feeling wouldn’t have accomplished. She mentions that the phonograph is “a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart.” The phonograph allows Mina to truly be “more touched than I can say by your grief” [Chptr 17] because it allows her to hear his voice and its variance as he recounts his loss and heartbreak. Before all of this, it also allows Mina and Jack to connect with one another through a shared interest in advancing technology, Mina enthusing about the phonograph and Seward enthusing about teaching her how it works. And, of course, when Seward very poorly attempts to lie to Mina in this chapter, she doesn’t laugh at him or treat him cruelly for how awkwardly he fumbles, she just tries to and succeeds in gaining his trust [they interact differently than Mina and the other two suitors do, but again, another post]. Dracula, being unable to use technology like the telegraph or phonograph, is completely barred from either method of communication! He is implied to be archaic and too deeply stuck in some sort of “old world” to be able to integrate into the “new world” enough to use its technology. [It’s significant that Van Helsing uses the phonograph in Chptr 24 as it shows that Van Helsing can also use technology that Dracula doesn’t yet have access to and makes parallels between them as well. This is also the same chapter where Van Helsing mentions that Dracula is attempting to learn of “new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic the law, the finance, the science, the habit of new land and a new people who have come to be since he was.” It’s not that Dracula can’t learn these things, it’s that he hasn’t yet.]

TLDR: Dracula and Seward are both capable of immoral behavior, but Seward won’t ever fully cross the line into being completely “evil” or even a full-blown “mad scientist” because he's able to connect with other people who love him and remind him of what’s important in life; caring for those who he loves being placed above ambition. If he was as barred from love and community as Dracula was, he would have nothing to keep him from hurting and exploiting others for his own gain, perhaps to an equivalent extent that Dracula does.

#Dracula #Jack Seward #Abraham Van Helsing #This is kind of clunky and could be smoothed out #But that's what 2am gets ya #It's all in the name of fun :》#If anyone has thoughts please add them #My head is empty #Also Quincey calls Seward out on treating Renfield oddly so something to be said of that as well #Seward's friends keep him in line and won't put up with his nonsense without question #nabalysis

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hoodharlow · 4 years

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Mr. Hood [Teacher!Cal AU]

Chapter 1

AN: so I'm rewriting my teacher!cal fic. Let's hope I make it past one chapter. Lol jk I’m like half way done with Chapter 2. The story is based on #28 from a sentence prompts one of my faves posted a while back. As usal thankyou to my mamas @d-oaks ilysm, D.

Requested?: no lol

Warnings: smut lol

Word Count: 5.4k words

“Did you finish your homework?" Odalis asked her 8 year old daughter, Mina, through the phone. She pulled her leather jacket closer to her. It was mid January; a surprise to many, it’s not always 70 degrees and sunshine in San Diego. It can get cold as fuck, especially when it rains days straight like now .

Odalis was outside some club that her friends, Destiny and Sana, dragged her to on recommendation from their other friends. According to them, she was in desperate need of a night out dancing. Even Mina’s dad, Aubrey, and his boyfriend, Jonathan, agreed.

Aubrey and Odalis have known each other since they were in middle school. Bonding over the fact that they were the only brown kids in a low-key racist Catholic middle school. The night of her quinceañera, her cousin Ghost brought a blunt to the after party. Aubrey and Odalis ended getting stupid high after one hit each. Aubrey had the genius idea to have sex with her to make sure he wasn’t gay.

Turns out that he’s gay, gay.

Thanks to the useless sex education they received in Catholic schools—high schools in general— and their push for celibacy until marriage, neither teenager thought of using protection.

"Yeah, but I don't like multiplication. My teacher’s stupid.” Mina huffed, bringing back Odalis from her thoughts.

"Don’t say shit like that. You know your papi gets mad when we say shit like that," She playfully scolded. “Speaking of, let me talk to one of them.”

"Which one?"

"El que sea."

There was some shuffling on the other end. Odalis could hear Mina tell her dad she wanted to talk to him.

"Dalis, stop calling every hour. You swear like she’s never spent the night with us,” Aubrey said in a frustrated tone once he was on the phone.

“I know, I’m just bored. All we’ve done is drink,” She said softly, playing with the end of her jacket.

“No shit, it’s a club. Stop calling and go get dicked down.” He hung up.

Odalis locked her phone and walked back to the entrance of the club. When Destiny, Sana and her got here, there hadn't been a line like there was right now.

'Sucks to be them,' she thought to herself, and made a beeline to the door.

“Get in line.” Edgar, the bouncer, said. He stretched his arm across the door frame, blocking her.

“Seriously?” She scoffed. She crossed my arms challenging him. She knew all this fucking attitude was because she rejected him when he asked her out for a date a few weeks ago.

“Miss, just listen—”

“Tú no te metas,” she snapped at whoever called behind her. She turned to see who was butting in, only to see an incredibly cute guy. She turned back to Edgar, “Next time you—”

“Look, you’re holding up the line,” Cute guy interjected, again. He had an accent.

“No one’s talking to you. It’s none of your business,” she snapped at him once more.

“Actually it’s everyone’s business since you think you can just cut while the rest of us are waiting to go in.”

“I went in a while ago. I only stepped out to take a call, so back off.” She huffed. “Edgar, stop being dick to me just because I didn’t want to go on a date with you. Let me in y a este güey para que pare de chingar.”

Odalis pushed past the bouncer and went inside. She wove through the people until she got to the table where her friends were. She plopped in her seat and took a long sip of her Cantarito.

Fuck it, she told herself and downed the rest of the drink. She felt the alcohol run through her veins. It would be a lie to say this was the first drink of the night that she chugged shamelessly.

“Jesus!” Sana gasped.

“No!” Destiny whispered in shock.

In their ten year friendship, Sana and Destiny always gave her those reactions whenever she did something questionable or unsafe.

“Edgar,” Odalis said before eating the tamarindo candy that came with the drink. “He wouldn’t let me in, not to mention some pendejo kept butting in.”

“I still can’t believe he’s still mad because you wouldn’t go out with him, pathetic.” Sana said as she took a swing of her Angry Orchard.

“He’s disgusting. I’ve heard him talk about women all the time.” Destiny cringed.

“Let’s dance?” Odalis asked them. They agreed, getting up. They left their coats, claiming the table with their now empty drinks. As they made their way to the dance floor, “Gangsta” by Kehlani played. Destiny and Odalis shared a look as Sana’s face lit up instantly. Her love for Kehlani is beyond what words can describe. Honestly, she could give YG a run for his money. Odalis wrapped her arm around Sana’s shoulder and started to sway with her as she sang.

***

Calum finished his drink and wandered over to the bar. All his friends were coupled up, leaving him to be the spare tire. It had been like that for the past few years ever since he broke off his engagement.

It was mutual. She wanted bigger things in life while Calum was content with his life as is. He liked his job. For once he didn't overthink his life choices and was proud of what he accomplished.

From the corner of his eye he saw someone take the empty stool next to him. It was the woman from a while ago. She set her bag down, claiming the seat. She wasn’t even fully sitting when some guy approached her.

“Mate, let her settle in her seat before you fail to talk her up,” Calum said out loud, gaining her attention. The guy that walked up behind her turned back without saying anything.

She rolled her eyes before adjusting the back of the stool. “I can fend myself thank you very much,” she said as a matter of fact. She leaned forward, looking for a bartender.

“I’m aware.” He smirked as he took the final sip of his beer and looked away.

He felt her eyes on him, taking him in. He wore a white short sleeve button down and black pants. He knew he looked good. It was mainly his arms that caught women's attention. He wasn't sure why, but they always talked about his arms and hands. He turned back to her and she went back to searching for a bartender.

Calum watched her huff as the bartender ignored her when she tried getting their attention. She sat back in defeat. He raised his arm and the bartender quickly dropped their towel and walked over to him.

"I could've gotten the bartender myself," she said,tucking her hair behind her ear.

"Who said I was getting the bartender for you? I need a refill." He said smugly, showing her his empty glass.

Another guy from the other side tried approaching her. "Yo ma, I saw you shaking that—"

She raised her hand, stopping him from continuing. "There's only one person that calls me 'ma', and you don't look like my 8 year old," she deadpanned. At the mention of her daughter, the guy bolted, earning a snort from Calum.

"That was quite some fending you did," he commented sarcastically. Before she could say anything, the bartender came back with his beer. "Thanks, mate," he told the bartender and paid for this drink.

He shamelessly gave her a glance over. His eyes stayed an extra millisecond on her ass before walking away.

***

The bartender turned to Odalis. She struggled to make Destiny’s order and water for Sana and her. She was flustered. She was usually unfazed when someone openly checked her out, occasionally calling them out. With him, she felt something pool at the pit of her stomach, and panties.

The bartender handed her the drinks, and she made her way back to Sana and Destiny.

“What?” she asked them defensively. They both made a face and sipped their drinks. "¿Qué se traman?”

“He was cute.” Sana smirked.

“Who?”

“The cute guy at the bar. You both were eye fucking each other when the other wasn’t looking. Odalis, you even did that hair tuck you do when you’re nervous.” Destiny added.

"Doesn't matter." Odalis shrugged.

She doesn't have time for dating. She owns a bakery. Almost everyday she has to be up at four in the morning to be there at five for prep, so she can open at six to then close at six in the afternoon. She barely spends time with Mina as it is. Her daughter spends most nights with Aubrey, so Odalis is only with her when she picks her up and brings her back to the bakery. Even then she's busy working while Mina is at her table doing homework or coloring.

Sara snapped her fingers in front of Odalis' face. "Stop overthinking it. He’s probably looking for a quick fuck. I’m not saying that you need it, but your dry spell is three years old. Three years without having a man in—”

“I know.” Odalis slumped in her chair.

She sensed someone approach their table. She turned back to look at whoever was behind her.

“It’s me, save your little speech about your child. I only came to drop off your bag." the guy from earlier said. He raised his hands in surrender. "You’re lucky my friends love alcohol and sent me to get them more. I’m Calum by the way.” He set the bag down in front of her.

“I have to use the restroom.” “I’ll go with you.” Sana and Destiny said before bolting.

“You friends always leave like that?” He asked, his eyes following Destiny and Sana before looking back at Odalis.

“They know I can fend for myself,” She said pridefully. She watched him as he sat down next to her.

“Right, your ‘I have a daughter’ excuse.” He lightly shook his head before taking a sip of his beer.

“It’s not an excuse.” She said defensively, “I actually have a daughter.”

“I'm not saying you don’t. I’m just curious why you have the need to bring her up.” He rested one of his arms on the table and the other around the back of his chair.

“Why do you care, Calum?”

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” He asked, changing the subject.

"Nelly." she said. It was a fake name she gave them, on the rare occasion she was going to leave with them. The only time she gave her actual name, it ended badly. The guy she had slept with somehow found her bakery and showed up there. He caused a scene. Police were involved. Since then she vowed to never give her real name to strangers.

'Where are Sana and Destiny?' she thought to herself. As if the FBI agent in her phone read her thoughts, her phone vibrated. She glanced down. Destiny texted that they’re in the bar. She glanced up to search for them.

“Nelly,” he repeated to himself. He then looked up at her again. “There’s something about you that’s awfully familiar.”

“Oh please, not that line. Last time someone used that one me they said I looked like their future spouse. Be more creative.” Odalis laughed

A waiter set a cantarito in front of her. He pointed back to Sana and Destiny. Odalis met Sana’s eyes and she made an obscene gesture, showing her where she should put Calum. Her mouth. Her cheeks flushed at the thought of having him in her mouth.

“What do you do?” She asked him, changing the subject. She was mainly curious as to why he kept dismissing her when she mentioned that she has a kid.

“I teach at an elementary school,” Calum said.

She choked on her drink. “Bullshit!” Never did she imagine he was going to say teacher.

“On my mum’s future grave.” He crossed his heart. “I started my first teaching job right after winter break. I was in Sydney visiting my family when I got the call. I did all of my lesson plans on my flight back.”

Their conversation centered around him and Odalis didn't mind.

Calum was originally going into law like one of his best friends. When he did volunteer work at a school, he decided to switch to education. He got his teaching degree and his masters work at UC San Diego.

In the fall, he mostly did substitute teaching until he got a job offer at an elementary school because they fired one of their teachers. They never disclosed why she was fired, but one of his students claimed that she was always sick and took her medicine through her nose in front of the class.

Hearing Calum talk about his work made her realize how kind, compassionate, and selfless he was. He loved what he did. He mentioned how one of his students was very opinionated and was not one to let others talk down to her. It reminded Odalis of Mina.

Aubrey and her taught Mina not to be afraid to say what’s in her mind and to always politely defend herself when others made her feel less than what she was. In the first week of school Mina's teacher, Miss Kenedy, called Aubrey and her to talk about her behavior. Turns out she was only defending her friend because one of her peers was being mean to her.

Odalis barely talked the whole time, focused solely on him, as if he was the last man on earth. Hearing him made her drip with desire for him. Maybe Destiny was right. He seemed like someone to take her out of her dry spell.

“Sweetheart, is your daughter’s father still in the picture?” He asked.

“Yeah, but not like how you think.”

“So he wouldn’t mind if I kissed you?”

“He’d be relieved actually.”

Odalis took notice of how close they were. Their chairs were practically on top of each other.

His hand gently caressed her cheek, his thumb tracing her bottom lip.

“Would you mind if I kissed you?” He asked cautiously.

Odalis shook her head and smiled shyly at him. Calum pulled her by the back of her neck and gently kissed her lips. Lust quickly took over as their kiss intensified. He held her in place with his other arm as his lips dominated her. She was practically on his lap now.

She pulled him closer by his shirt, wanting more of him. She hated the taste of beer, but on his lips it tasted so delicious.

The both pulled away, out of breath, but ready for their lips to meet again.

“How far do you live from here?” she asked.

“About fifteen minutes walking. Why? You wanna get out of here, sweetheart?” He smirked. On the outside, Calum seemed cool and collected, but he was really freaking out at what she might say.

“If you’re down.” She shrugged.

“Alright. I’m going to tell my friends that I’m leaving. I’ll meet you where your friends are. Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She nodded.

They both got up. Odalis collected Sana and Destiny’s coats and walked over to them.

“I’m going back to his place.” She mumbled to them, handing them their stuff.

Sana and Destiny exchanged knowing smiles and turned back to her.

“Finally, I was about to fall asleep here,” Sana said.

“Share your location when you get to his place, and text us when you get home.” Destiny reminded her.

Odalis looked over to where Calum and his friends were. One of them was whispering something to him. He rolled his eyes and slipped on his jacket. He met her eyes and quickly bid his friends goodbye.

“Ready, sweetheart?” he asked her when he reached her.

“Yeah.” She tucked some hair back. She reached over to hug her friends.

“Bye, make sure he uses a condom. We don’t want another baby.” Sana said, hugging her. Then she turned to him, pointing her finger accusingly, “We are trusting her with you. I’m a forensic artist with perfect memory. Anything happens, and I can have a BOLO about you.”

“Your friend is going to be in great hands.”

***

According to Calum, his place was only fifteen minutes from the club. What he hadn’t taken into account was how important it was to stop at almost every wall and make out until they couldn’t take it.

When they got to his building, he inserted the code to get them in. Odalis followed him all the way to where the elevator was.

“I rarely do this, but would you mind giving me your number?” He asked her as he pushed his phone out to her.

“Um, actually I do.” She said, quietly. She pushed his phone back to him. “I rarely do this too. Besides, I want to focus on my daughter. Tonight I was only supposed to have girls night, but her dad basically forced me to come out. I’m sorry.”

“So this is going to be a one time thing for us? ” He put back his phone.

“I assumed you also wanted the same.” She confessed.

“Here I thought you found me appealing, but you just wanted me for my cock.” He said in disbelief, but there was a hint of playfulness to his tone.

“Well, if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here." She smiled at him. "In another life I would have given you my number. Right now I just have so much to figure out with my daughter. So doing this again is out of the picture.” She rambled, looking down at her heeled boots.

“I guess I have to give you the best sex of your life, so you can reconsider.” He smirked just as the elevator dinged open.

Calum gently pressed his hand onto her back, guiding her into the elevator. She watched him press the 3rd floor from the lobby. He pulled her close and wrapped an arm around her. Their lips met once more, reminding them what brought them there in the first place. They got to his floor, and he led them to his apartment. She lightly pushed him against his door and claimed his lips. She let her hand wander down and gently palmed him as he grew harder in her hand.

Calum pulled her hand away, “My neighbor’s a cop, and I’m pretty sure he can arrest us for public indecency if we don’t stop.”

Odalis fake pouted at him, so he gave her a quick peck. He fished out his keys, and quickly opened his door and pulled her in. He shrugged off his jacket and threw it on his couch. She did the same and reached down to take off her boots. She rolled up her socks and shoved them in one of her boots. She fished out her phone and sent Sana and Destiny her location.

After shoving her phone in her bag, Calum pressed her against the wall, caging her in as he captured her mouth. His hands slid down and gripped her hips. He pulled away from her lips and kissed down her neck. He lightly nipped and licked her neck as he kissed her until he found her sweet spot.

He struggled a bit as he kissed her because Odalis wore a turtleneck. Had she known she’d end up like this, she wouldn't have worn it.

“Smell so sweet, like berries and sugar, ” he whispered in her ear before kissing her jaw.

“Thanks,” she said breathlessly.

Calum slid one of his hands in her top and pulled down her bra, releasing her breasts. His hand came out and he lightly tugged at her nipples through her top. She let out an inhuman sound, making him snicker.

Odalis wrapped her arms around him, pulling him back to her lips. Her hands played with this curls as they kissed. She loved how soft they felt against her palms as she grabbed his head when he let her take over. Calum pulled her off the wall and pushed her against the couch as he kneeled down in front of her.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“This.”

Calum slowly opened her legs and put them over his shoulders. He ran his hands over her thighs before he bunched up her skirt around her hips.

“These are nice.” He commented on my burgundy lace panties, he traced the band and gripped them “Though, I hope you don’t like them too much.”

Odalis was too busy thinking about what she thought he was going to do to me that she almost missed the ripping sound of her panties.

“Hey! I liked those,” she scolded him as he tossed her ripped panties off to the side.

“You should’ve said something, sweetheart.”

He pulled her closer to his face, opening her legs more. She tried closing them.

“No one’s ever done this to me,” she heard herself say.

Calum looked up at her in disbelief. “You’re joking.”

She shook her head.

“Well, I guess I have the privilege to be the first to have a taste.”

Calum watched her squeeze her eyes shut, unsure of what he's going to do.

“Are you okay with me eating you out? Because I don’t have to if you feel uncomfortable,” he said. Relief filled her face when he said that. He got up from where he was kneeling.

“Are you mad?” she asked him quietly.

“Why would I be? Whatever we do, you have to be 1000% on board with. Yeah?” He ran his thumb over her cheek.

Calum left her speechless. She may lack sexual experience, but the handful of times she had sex, no guy has been patient with her. They never took time to make sure this was what she wanted. They all kinda just followed their own agenda.

Nonetheless she wanted this. She wanted him.

Calum let her do what she wanted. Even if he was to be with her just this one night, it was going to go about on her terms.

She gave him a devilish smirk as she unbuckled his belt and slipped her hand in his boxers. She slowly pumped him as he pulled her into a kiss.

Calum let out an incoherent groan as she pulled away from his lips and kissed down his jaw. All while her hand was still inside him. He couldn't handle her hand anymore, so he pulled her hand out of him and put it on his shoulder. He wrapped her legs around his waist, lifting her off the couch. He carried her to his room, his lips never leaving mine.

Odalis took in his room. It was simple. Bed in the middle wall with a nightstand on each side. A tv on a tv stand across from his bed. Her eyes landed on a dog bed next to a chest.

"You have a dog?" she asked.

She could’ve sworn she didn’t hear any barking when they got here. It would have come out to see who was with their owner for sure.

Calum smiled thinking about Duke. “Yeah, but he’s at my mate’s. He likes taking him to the dog park, so he can meet women.”

“What kind of dog is he?”

“I’m not sure. I got him a few years back at a shelter. My other friend, Michael, suggested that I get a dog through a shelter. Which worked out perfectly because I wasn’t looking for a puppy. I wanted an older dog that could just hang out while I graded or made lesson plans. He loves going to Petco. It’s his sanctuary. You got any pets?” He asked her.

“Yeah, a brown and white pitbull-lab mix, her name’s Canela. My daughter named her because she reminded her of a cinnamon bun; canela means cinnamon in Spanish. My dad gave her to us for Christmas two years ago. He is a firefighter, and a month before Christmas there was a fire at this dog breeding place. Turns out the place bred dogs for dog fighting. They would breed the dogs and send them down to Tijuana, Tecate and Mexicali where they fought them. My dad found her in some corner under a bunch of ‘undisclosed items’ when they were clearing out the place. She was about 13 weeks old. I love her so much; she’s the best. I joked that it took my dad over 20 years to give me a dog.”

Calun smiled. He saw that she was very nurturing and kind, but there was more to her, which is why he wished this wasn't a one time thing.

“How did we go from about to have sex to talking about our pets?” she asked, bringing him back to reality.

Calum looked down at the tent in his pants, “I mean I don’t seem to have an issue with it. Then again how can I when you’re the view.” He said softly.

Odalis hid her face in his shoulder, embarrassed at the fact that was probably the nth time he made her blush. She took advantage and grabbed his neck and started kissing his jaw, nibbling it lightly. He let out a soft groan when she found his sweet spot once more.

He watched her face when he set her on the bed. She was processing something.

"Is something wrong?" He asked her.

"No just realized how strong you must be. You were able to have a whole ass conversation about our dogs while you held me up. Sure, you had me against the wall. But we talked as if I wasn't in your arms— and I'm rambling again."

"You're cute when you're not being a smartass, sweetheart." He smirked at her. She blushed once more and laid back on the bed.

Before climbing on, Calum slipped off his t-shirt and pants. He laid next to Odalis, waiting for her next move. He watched her sit on the edge of the bed. With her back to him, she slipped off her shirt. She looked over her shoulder to him and gave him a small smile.

Then Odalis got up and unzipped her skirt, throwing it to the pile of clothes and straddled his lap. Without leaving his eyes, she unclasped her bra. Calum cursed under his breath.

“Such a beautiful sight.” He whispered.

He let her push him down on the bed. Her hands delicately ran over his body like she was making sure he was real. He gave her hips a gentle squeeze before he slid his hands up to her breasts. His thumbs delicately run over her pert nipples as she melted into his hands. One of his hands made its way back to her hips and lazily ran his finger tips around her core, sending her goosebumps all over.

Odalis leaned down and kissed him. She sighed against his lips; she could never get tired of how his lips felt against hers. She pulled away and gasped as he pulled his middle and ring fingers out of her. She wasn't sure when they slid in her, but she wasn't complaining. She stared at him in awe as he quickly slipped them into his mouth and slowly licked them clean.

“Sorry,” He grinned shamelessly, slipping them back in her, “I wanted a quick taste.”

Odalis rolled her eyes and leaned down to kiss him. She moaned as his fingers fucked into her at a deliciously slow pace. As if her hips had a mind of their own, they rode Calum’s fingers. In a matter of minutes she was close.

“Cal-”

“I know, sweetheart.” He pressed his thumb against her clit and increased his pace.

“Sh-Calum.” She moaned out.

Calum felt her body come undone. Her nails tightly dug into his chest as Odalis moaned out his name.

She had never come with that kind of intensity. The many times she's gotten herself off, she'd never felt so satisfied. If he can do that with just his fingers, she can’t imagine what he would do with his dick.

She rolled off him, breathless.

“You good?” He asked. He pushed some hair off her face.

“Yeah, I… I need a minute.” Odalis panted.

Calum smiled to himself. He reached over to the night stand, and grabbed a box of condoms from a drawer. He opened the box and pulled out a few. He set them next to his lamp.

Odalis rolled onto her side and kissed him once more. In a matter of seconds the kiss deepened, and they couldn't get enough of each other. Calum pushed her down on the bed and he hovered over her. He coated himself with her arousal, and gently pushed himself in her.

“Wait, condom," she said, pushing him off her. "I’m not on any birth control. I stopped using the pill a few years back because it fucked my liver. I’m not even on the other stuff since I don’t have sex enough to need it. I’m clean nonetheless—”

"I got that covered… literally." He said and gestured down.

Her eyes widened as she looked down at his condom covered cock. 'Hijo de su chingada madre. How’s that going to fit in me? He’d probably split me half,' she thought to herself.

“We good?” Calum asked.

“Um, yeah just be gentle. I've never been with someone so…you know… big."

"Of course."

With that he started to enter her.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “You feel so fucking good, so fucking tight.”

After a few slow thrusts, letting Odalis get used to him, Calum sped up. He tilted her head up so he could kiss her. His lips and tongue kissed her at the pace he took her. He wrapped one of her legs around his waist and brought them closer as he continued to take her.

Calum entered her in one delicious stroke. Her breath hitched at how good it felt. Calum must have noticed, and continued to take her like that, stroking that spot in her. A few minutes went by and that familiar feeling came over Odalis. She knew she was about to come and so did Calum.

“Come on let go for me, sweetheart.” He encouraged her.

Odalis let go. Repeating Calum’s name over and over until her high faded.

"Can you take another?" Calum asked her.

"Yeah," She said breathlessly. "How do you want me?"

"Hands and knees." He said.

Odalis hesitated, nervous because she's never had sex like that.

"We don't have to if you don't want to." Calum quickly said. "We can just—"

"It's okay. I just never had sex like that, but I trust you." She smiled at him. She squeezed his hand and got on her hands and knees.

Calum pulled her closer to him. He pressed a few kisses on her back and pressed her shoulder down, so only her ass was in the air. He slowly slid back into her. He had a strong grip on her hips as he slowly began to speed up.

Odalis was close. The thought of how exposed she was to Calum made her body surrender to him. After a while, she felt Calum’s thrusts get messier. She was grateful for that because she was sure she wasn’t going to last any longer.

"Please Calum," she moaned out.

“Shit, sweetheart, please tell me you’re close.” he pleaded. She barely managed to nod.

It took everything in Calum not to come. He always made sure his partner came before him. He pushed himself off Odalis and took hold on her hips once more, holding her in place. He silently cursed when he released inside her but kept going until she came.

Calum gently laid Odalis on the bed next to him. He pulled off the condom and placed it in the bin next to the nightstand. She stayed quiet. Unable to process how he made her come twice.

After a few minutes he spoke up. “How about we wager it?” He suggested, sitting against the headboard. She looked up at him confused.

“Wager?” She sat next to him, pulling his bed sheet over her chest.

“Since you’re so adamant about not doing this ever again. How about, after tonight, if we ever see each other again, you go on a date with me? ”

“Fine,” she agreed.

“But for now, you’re min,.” he said.

He pushed her back on the bed and claimed her lips. She was in for a long night.

Taglist: @another-lonely-heart @sunshinebabycal @calumscalm @karajaynetoday @cherryxwildflower @myloverboyash @idontneedanyone @findingliam-o @5-secondsofcolor @spicycal @sexgodashton @sunshinebabycal @another-lonely-heart

#aclum hood smut #calum hood imagine #calum hood story #calum hood series #calum hood fanfic #calum hood fan fic #calum hood fanfiction #calum hood fan fiction #teacher!cal #teacher!cal series

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x--daughters-of-darkness--x · 3 years

Text

Life Is Proud: Life Of Agony’s Mina Caputo: “I don’t like being called transgender or transsexual… I’m a beautiful human being”

Pioneering Life Of Agony singer Mina Caputo opens up about letting go of the past, spirituality, and the Pride movement during the third instalment of Kerrang!’s Life Is Proud campaign.

“You’re setting off landmines inside of me!” says Mina Caputo. We’re 35 minutes into a filmed interview which we are conducting as part of Kerrang!’s Life Is Proud campaign in celebration of Pride Month.

Our conversation thus far has embraced everything from the work of psychologist Carl Jung and his study of the dark side of the mind through to the disinformation of modern media, and on to the liberating impact of artists such as Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury.

The “landmines”, though, consist of a few questions about Mina’s remarkable career and her own journey to find herself. They do, indeed, trigger explosions – delivered with her customary frankness and forays into deeply emotional territory.

Mina’s story starts in Brooklyn where she was born in December 1973. At the age of one, she lost her mother to an overdose. Her father was also an addict – “I grew up pulling dope needles out of my dad’s arm,” she told Kerrang! last year – and when he OD’d she had to identify his body. Both moments, she says, armed her to face the real world, providing her with “spiritual juice” as she also began to seek solace in music.

Raised by her Italian-American grandparents in a brutally traditional atmosphere, Mina experienced a sense of gender dysphoria from a young age – something she carried with her when she formed alternative metal band, Life Of Agony, in her teens. Her sense of alienation increased as the band’s popularity grew and she continued to feel at odds with the bristling machismo, muscle-flexing and sheer violence within the East Coast scene.

“Life Of Agony were a very different band from the jump,” she says. “But that time taught me to protect my neck. It taught me how to be afraid of my own unique authenticity. The first five or 10 years of my career, we were abused. There were lots of comments, like I’m a gay junkie, because I looked differently and I sang differently. We were left out of scenes and we were left off bills. But I knew why: because were bad-ass and we rose to the top really, really fast. People didn’t like that. Other bands didn’t like that.”

For Mina, her quest to find herself had become a key issue which she had to address. In a conservative scene, her experimentation with her image and sense of sexual exploration came at a price.

“I started painting my fingernails and toenails with Jonathan [Davis] on a tour with Ozzy Osbourne and Korn [in 1996], and that was seen as rebellious!” she smiles. “And I started going onstage wearing a big women’s fur coat and getting so much shit for just being different – and for being someone unlike the scene had ever really seen. I was a trendsetter, a physical trendsetter. And being in that scene, it was horrifying.”

Things came to a head following the release of Soul Searching Sun, Life Of Agony’s third album, in 1997, when Mina finally decided her only option was to leave the band. Against all odds, LOA would reform in 2003 and continue to release a string of acclaimed albums, their story documented in the no-holds barred documentary The Sound Of Scars.

“I felt afraid, I felt like dying,” reflects Mina on the struggles she endured as she quit the band. “I felt like my cellular structure was continuously dying and I wasn’t alive or living, I wasn’t sharing my true self. I was definitely afraid. It took me to quit the band because I wasn’t being true to myself. I had to get away from my band, the label, everyone I worked with.”

A hugely varied solo career spanning over 10 albums and endless collaborations followed, but Mina still feels that history weighs heavily on her.

“No-one wants to let go of my past story. Every lame rock journalist starts of the article in the same way because there’s no more creative writing anymore. Everyone’s cutting and pasting. ‘Mina Caputo – once Keith Caputo’,” she snorts.

“Everyone has to keep reintroducing the fact that I’m a freak, born anatomically a boy. No shit! I’m a different creature. I’m not trying to be a boy, or trying to fit into your dickhead masculine world! Nor am I trying to fit into the genetic female world. I don’t give a fuck! I don’t give a fuck about fitting into your marginalised soulless, fear-based spiritually bankrupt world. I’ve gone my own world, my own internal world. I’ve got my music. I’ve got small selection of friends. I’ve got my money. I’ve got my divine protection. I’ve got my studies. I’m not a stupid motherfucker! I study quantum physics! I study Hopi American prophecies! I study philosophy. I’m well-equipped for this fucking world!”

Mina’s bravery in the face of adversity remains inspirational. Experiencing the distrust of ‘otherness’ during her childhood, she has battled against prejudice most of her adult life. And, yet, she admits that her decision to come out as transgender in 2011 was far from easy.

“It was very, very scary,” she reflects. “I didn’t tell a lot of people until my body started to change and I couldn’t hide it anymore. For the first year of hormone therapy, I kept it hidden.”

She is also honest enough to admit that, even a decade on, she still suffers from moments of self-doubt.

“It’s not like, ‘I’ve arrived! I’m fucking whole!’” Mina says, triggering another explosion. “I battle with things every day. Some days I think about going back to living as a guy. The pressure of the world, of politics, of the garbage surrounding me – if I let it get to me, I can get sick. My immunity will collapse if I let the world fuck with my power and who I am. And it’s a good thing that I’ve been doing yoga for 30 years. I’ve been meditating for just as long. Thank the ancient gods and that I’ve downloaded the wisdom codes to give me the strength to carry on.”

Mina’s self-preservation and spirituality is evident in most of her interviews, and yet her quest has also contributed to her ongoing sense of frustration with the world she sees around her.

“I think I am a gentle and considerate human being and I believe in true equality. I want everyone to be in love with their lives and the planet itself,” she nods. “That’s what life is about, but there are people and organisations that try and get in the way of that so I get frustrated and angry about that.

“Society, the political paradigm, all of it – it’s one big farce, one big façade! It’s very inorganic and anti-life. I don’t care if you’re Democratic or Republican, nobody is leading with love. Nobody!” she continues. “Even in Britain. Your policies around trans people – and it’s the same in America – they’re trying so very fucking hard to continuously disempower the human species!”

The idea of codification is something that Mina frowns upon, so how does she view the Pride movement as a whole?

“Pride is a very ego-driven ideology and I work really hard to cut the strings of my ego,” she explains. “Pride means different things to different people. The LGBTQ community wants love from the outside world, but I think the LGBTQ community needs to start loving on one another. We’re never going to get respect from the rest of the world if you don’t do that. You have gay guys constantly coming down on trans girls, you’ve got trans girls coming down on trans girls, you’ve got a new fucking word every day and you can’t say this or you can’t say that.

“If Pride gives people a feeling of wholeness, then it’s a good thing. I know it makes a lot of people happy. But you’ve got to create your own circle in a sense rather than be defined by someone else’s narrative.”

Describing herself as “a lone wolf”, Mina concludes our conversation by pointing out her issues with the labels ascribed to individuals by society.

“I don’t like being called transgender, or transsexual, or trans-this or trans-that. I’m a beautiful human being. I’m a gender-creative child. I’m very different. I don’t subscribe to these one-dimensional ideas. My mind is too vast, my mind is like the Dao, you know? I wear my heart on my sleeve all the time and that’s what being genuine and authentic is all about,” she offers as one of her parting shots. “But if you’re asking me how I am? I’m full of love, full of harmony and thankfulness. What else do you want?”

#Mina Caputo #Life of Agony #2021 interviews #pride month

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anncanta · 3 years

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Hierogamy: Dracula BBC and the myth about Kora-Persephone

Today I would like to talk about the mythological drama in the series Dracula and some of its aspects, without which, it seems to me, the perception of this text will remain incomplete, and the understanding will not be as deep as it deserves.

But first, perhaps, it is worth saying a few words about why it seems to me that it is so significant to consider the mythological drama in a work of fiction in general and in Dracula in particular. Isn't it enough just to look or read, perceiving the text as it is, and not going into the study of some complex deep layers? Sometimes it's enough. But more often – no, it isn't. The answer to the question of why so lies in the very nature of a story and the art of storytelling.

The mythological drama is never fully developed in the text at the formal level, although there is where it precisely can be seen. This seems to be a contradiction just at first glance: the drama (in its original ancient Greek meaning) is a kind of ‘deep development’ underlying all events and scenes. It is like a labyrinth, a skeleton, a matrix on which the rest is built and grows.

That is, why is it important to look ‘from here’? For the same reason that it was important for Jonathan Harker in the film to find a map: in order, firstly, to understand how the castle is arranged (and therefore Dracula himself), to relate himself to it in a certain way – and to get out of its boundaries, that is, to include the castle in a wider context, which will allow the character to find freedom.

Finding freedom, in this case, should be understood quite literally – as going beyond the limits of restrictions and, as Dracula and Jonathan each correctly note in their own way, – a look from above.

This view has many advantages, but the main thing is the ability to perceive what was seen in its integrity.

Because in a good story, ‘how’ is always ‘about what’, so if you don't understand ‘how’ or ‘for what’, or even ‘what it was’ in general, most likely you haven't read the text, and it remained for you something like a set of colored spots on the wall, beautiful or annoying, but – as researchers of the brain and psyche never tire of reminding, – in the absence of a ‘key’ such thing does not exist as the story itself.

It is not at all necessary, by the way, should be a mythological or psychological, archetypal, or fairy-tale ‘key’. Or all at once. At one stage or another in life, each viewer and reader needs their own set of the ‘keys’ or a specific one. First of all, it is the literal sense of the story at the plot level. But without a ‘key’ at all – there is no text. At least because the text itself, as a phenomenon consisting of – whether linguistic, pictorial, or auditory – signs, is a key – to our ability to imagine things that do not exist ‘in reality’, and to ideas, images, and meanings.

But back to the text.

In Dracula, the mythological drama is present at all levels, and there are no parts, ideas, or interactions between characters in any moment of the film where it would not be important in one way or another.

We will not consider all aspects in which the mythological context directly manifested itself, as it will take too much time. Let's see just one – the one that is the main motive of the film and somehow creates the main plot collision, and with it – the metaphor and essence of the story itself.

And this is the motive of hierogamy.

Hierogamy as a concept can be considered in two aspects. The first is mythological, in which it represents the name, description, and modeling in the ritual a sacred marriage (from the Greek ιερός γάμος, Latin hieros gamos) of the god and goddess, and the second is alchemical (archetypal), denoting the combination of male and female principles in the process of creating a philosopher's stone.

Hierogamy in one way or another includes a sexual context, in the sense that it puts at the center of the event and experiences ‘connection’ and ‘dissolution of boundaries’ to create a single one that will be greater than the sum of its parts.

In Dracula, both of these aspects are present and can be recognized from the very first minutes.

We will not go into details, just list a few examples.

The most obvious and conspicuous is Dracula's castle as the fruit of love between Petruvio and his wife (whose portraits hang side by side on one of the floors and, as we learn later, are the ‘entrance’ to the mystery of the castle and its structure, and at the same time – the ‘exit’ to the outside world), Jonathan as the bride of Dracula, thanks to the interaction with which the Count is able to leave his ‘prison without locks’, the connection of Mina and the remnants of Jonathan on the verge of space separated by the sacred bread, allowing Dracula to penetrate inside and give rise to a new interaction of the male and female, and so on.

But the fun begins to happen in the second episode.

Given as a prototype, a form and a plot configuration, the mythological drama of hierogamy has so far been satisfied with literal images of heroes and disclosure at the level of the plot. It was difficult to suspect something more in it than a direct (allegorical) depiction of mental and emotional processes. But in the second episode, a new layer appears in this story. Or rather, it stops hiding.

It's so simple, so obvious and so cheeky frank that when you watch it for the first time, you miss it in an attempt to follow the plot. And only by the end of the episode you do guess that you should follow something else.

Yes, we do not yet know – and we have nowhere to find out – that the action of the prologue of the second episode takes place on the same ship, which will become the stage for the internal and external drama, but the style and images, the very structure of the situation, gradually suggest what will be discussed here.

And it will be the drama of Kora-Persephone.

Let me briefly recall the content of the underlying ancient Greek myth about Kora, Hades, and Demeter.

The daughter of the goddess of fertility Demeter, Kora, attracted the attention of the ruler of the underworld, the god Hades, and he kidnapped her, taking her to him, to the lands of the dead. There Kora spent some time, communicating quite closely with Hades, after which she begged him to let her go to the ‘upper world’ for a while so that she could see her mother, whom she was terribly longing for. Hades fulfilled Kora's request, but on the condition that she would return, and gave the girl several pomegranate seeds for the journey. During her stay in the kingdom of Hades, Kora refused to eat anything, so by the time she received the gift she was very hungry, and therefore, soon after she found herself on earth, she ate the seeds. And since the pomegranate is the fruit of Hades and the symbol of marriage, this made her return to Hades a must. Meanwhile, in the ‘upper world’ fields and plants ceased to bear fruit, and eternal winter came, as Kora's mother, Demeter, mad with grief and longing for her daughter, turned away from people and nature. Zeus found a solution to the problem. He decreed that Persephone (that was the name of the goddess who had ceased to be a girl) should spend six months on Olympus, that is, with her mother, and six months – in the kingdom of Hades, now her husband.

Thus, the myth, on the one hand, describes in the language of an archaic worldview the logic of the changing seasons (Persephone on Olympus – Demeter rejoices, spring and summer come on earth, Persephone in the kingdom of Hades – Demeter suffers, autumn and winter come on earth), and from the other, represents the mystery cycle of successive transformations of a girl into a woman and the unification of male and female in sacred marriage.

Let's see how this mystery cycle unfolds in the film – on a formal and substantive level.

The ship on which Dracula sails to England is called Demeter. In the center of the plot of the episode are the abduction of a virgin (a nun is by definition a virgin, if not physically, then symbolically) and the interaction of the hero with her on a ‘lower’, deep level. Lower, in the sense – detached from the everyday, visible to everyone, taking place in the light of universal attention and perception.

The hero who kidnapped the virgin (by the way, we have no doubt that he kidnapped her, from the very beginning – just do not know how exactly it happened; and therefore our desire to follow them closely is so intense) does not completely belong to the world of the living, although he does not belong to the world of the dead either. He seems to live on the border, not being part of either of these two realities. So that no one has any doubts about who he represents, let us recall that Hades was not always associated with death among the Greeks, and was never considered the master of hell and a synonym for death and destruction. He created a kingdom for himself, which he called by his name, in order to live away from everyone. And only later did he become the ruler of the world of the dead.

Obviously, the description of Dracula's life in the castle refers to the reality of Hades in the underworld, largely parodying it. Because, although Hades is the king of shadows, he is still a king, and his kingdom is real. Whereas Dracula lives, in fact, in a dump filled with bad memories and rotting broken dolls, locked in the boxes.

But Hades also kidnapped Persephone, not on great terms.

Both stories, the mythological one, and the story told in the film, lead us to the fact that the hero (the masculinity, the organizing principle) for completeness and development lacks a partner, another view of the same world, a beloved-opposite.

Dracula finds her at the gates of the convent and, according to the logic of the mythological drama, drags her to him. There is an interesting moment: hardly, having captured Agatha, Dracula went with her immediately to the ship. Most likely, he first brought her to his home, that is, to the castle, and only after that, when the time came, he sent her to Demeter. So, their interaction began in the castle, in the literal realm of the dead, and continued on a ship in the middle of the sea, in a transitional space, in a space of changes. This fully corresponds to the myth of the transformation of Hades, who has gone from voluntary loneliness to becoming a king in the world of the dead, where everything is indefinite, mobile, unsteady and although it does not change in the sense in which it happens on earth, it represents the idea of change as it is.

Everything is possible in the space of changes, therefore, here the most important thing for the whole film takes place, and that will give the story an impulse to move forward and being resolved in the form, which we see in the third episode.

Let's turn now to Agatha's story.

On the ship, she travels in the role of Kora – at first, abducted and held in the ‘underworld’ and not realizing her position (Hades, let me remind you, having kidnapped Kora, did not immediately make her his wife, and she was sort of his guest – until the moment when she persuaded him to let her go to earth to see her mother), and then – in fact, the mistress of this very kingdom.

Why mistress? It is rather difficult to answer this question. But there are details in the text that give hints and, on close examination, leave no room for double interpretation.

The simplest and most obvious is the physical location of the characters in the frame. They are on an equal footing, both in the center, and although Agatha is shorter than Dracula, she is as ‘in her place’ as he is and feels just as confident.

The second is how they communicate. In addition to the fact that the dialogue, the beginning of which we see in the prologue of the episode, is quite friendly and mutual (no one hangs over anyone, does not threaten anyone, and does not try to pressure – for those who have forgotten what it looks like, there is the final conversation in the convent), Agatha's position is read from the phrases thrown by Dracula in passing, but very eloquent. Such as ‘You choose’ – in response to the question of who will play black and who will play white. And this is only the upper layer of interaction, there are more of them, and on each one, it is acutely felt that here Agatha is not a prisoner, but a partner.

You might say, – of course, this is all part of an insidious plan to keep Agatha in the dark, and no real courtesy (not to mention real respect and closeness) is out of the question. Dracula is just playing with his victim. But this is the essence of the story and what happens on Demeter, as well as in the space of the original drama. Hades kidnaps Persephone as something alien, beautiful, and unfamiliar, something that attracted his attention in the distant upper world and that, like a fruitful grain, fell into his dark hermetic kingdom and ignited the spark of life in it.

Hierogamy and everything that precedes it is a mutual process, otherwise it makes no sense.

But then a moment comes in the story, which in the mythological drama corresponds to the stage of the earth, empty due to the grief of Demeter and the despair of Kora, yearning for the upper world.

On the ship, which has lost most of the passengers and half of the crew, because of Dracula's appetite, tension grows, and in the same way, it grows inside Agatha, who despite her quite comfortable position, begins to realize that something is wrong here.

Internal and external tensions converge at one point – on both sides of the doors of cabin number nine. And when the doors open, the mythological drama comes to the surface.

Interestingly, the story here does not even try to hide what it really is – from a detective in Agatha Christie's style, turning into a mystery action. Moreover, it directly admits it – when Dracula invites passengers and crew members of the ship to cabin number nine and brings them to Agatha's bed, he opens the curtain.

But what is going to happen here?

Let's see what the situation is in terms of structure.

The hero, who for a long period of time keeps a woman abducted by him from the ‘upper’ world, alien to him, experiences the invasion of this very world and is forced to present this woman to those around him and somehow explain her presence in this place and their relationship. Let us recall that the relationship between Kora and Hades also remained ‘unnoticed’ for the time being, or rather, until the moment when its uncertainty began to create problems.

Let's forget for a while about the individual needs and questions of passengers and crew – the important thing here is that all the ‘inhabitants’ of the ship demand to explain what is happening and to open cabin number nine.

Demeter demands Kora to her. She does not agree to put up with the current situation and calls Hades to account.

What remains for the hero? He, as in the Greek myth, acts with cunning: in this case, in the film, he tells the story that the woman lying in (his) bed is a murderer, the terrible eater of people whom passengers and crew have been unsuccessfully looking for throughout travels.

Dracula is trying to explain Agatha's presence here and now, on this ship and in these circumstances – not only to deflect suspicions from himself, but also to structure the situation in which they find themselves – not so much because he wants it, but because that he has no other choice.

What happens on deck is a logical consequence of his decision. Brought to light Kora is no longer the same as before – having visited the kingdom of Hades and entered into a close relationship with him, she can no longer remain a girl and just a daughter of her mother. Her innocence is left in the arms of the lord of the underworld. And since he really does not intend to let her go, all that remains for him is to make their relationship ‘legal’.

The hanging scene, entirely built on the interaction of Agatha, Dracula, and the ‘choir’ consisting of the crew of the ship and passengers, looks like another erotic at the same time (after the first scene in the convent), in which Agatha again from above and again largely dictates conditions, – and as a kind of coronation scene.

But not only the one.

There are so many meanings in this scene, and they are so closely intertwined and interconnected, that in order to see them all, you should carefully examine it – slowly, gradually.

First, Agatha is placed on a barrel and a noose is thrown around her neck, intending to execute her.

It would seem, what does Hades' marriage to Persephone have to do with it?

According to ancient pagan beliefs, the remnants of which are also preserved in Christianity, the bride, who left her home and married the fiancé, was considered dying for her previous life and being born for a new one.

Not everyone on the ship agrees that an unfamiliar and barely breathing woman is indeed guilty of the murders on the Demeter, and a dispute erupts between the judges hungry for justice. Among others, the captain speaks out and says that the woman standing on the barrel is the wife of the mysterious Mr. Balaur, who paid generously for her transportation in cabin number nine, without attracting unnecessary attention.

The word ‘wife’ is important. Firstly, because Dracula (Hades) still knows more than Agatha (Kora), even if he did not fully formulate it for himself. And secondly, because in the mythological reality in which the characters undoubtedly are, words matter. Let us recall that events still take place in a transitional space in the midst of changing and constantly moving waters. In this reality, what is not uttered is not defined. What is not shown does not exist. (I don't think I need to explain to anyone that cabin number nine is Schrödinger's box.) Thus, the one who utters the word determines this reality.

In the noise that arose after the recognition of the captain, most of the spoken words are lost, but two of them are heard clearly and turn out to be the main ones. This is the word ‘bride’, declared as a negation, and ‘wife’ disputed by no one.

At the plot level, this is just a confusion, a skirmish of frightened and distrustful people, but at the symbolic level, everything is clear and logical.

First, the bride announced that she is not the one (‘I'm not Balaur's bride!’).

Second, another person declared publicly that she was the wife of Mr. Balaur. Who, in turn, is nothing more than a mask, a pseudonym for Dracula. This is not enough for marriage, you say. Yes, sure. At the plot level, no doubt. But the characters are in symbolic space. And here, in this space, it is important who utters these words.

The captain pronounces them – a person who, by his position, is the master on the ship, who has the right to judge and resolve disputes, the right to execute and pardon, and – to seal marriages.

But this is not enough either. There are almost no coincidences in such texts. It was not in vain that I mentioned that the word ‘wife’ was not disputed. A mythological drama is being played out before us, but it is being played out in a nineteenth-century setting. Therefore, for a legal marriage, another formula becomes significant.

‘And if there is anyone among us who knows the reason why this marriage should not be contracted, let's tell now or be silent forever.’

Then one final touch is missing to complete the ceremony.

The moment when Agatha asks who has the courage to knock over the barrel and hears Dracula's answer: ‘Me,’ on a metaphorical level, ‘closes’ the frame of the ritual action.

The fiancé approaches the bride and makes a movement to ‘end the game’ – literally to kill Agatha, and symbolically, to complete her transition from bride status to wife status. Here even blood is present as an attribute of the loss of virginity, even though, in this case, the bride has long since said goodbye to it. But we are talking about the symbolic aspect of what is happening.

Let's not forget, however, that the lord of the underworld kidnapped Kora-Persephone and involved her in marriage without her direct and informed consent (more on this later). Therefore, Agatha's actions, when she spits blood in Dracula's face, literally designed to reveal his vampire nature for everyone, symbolically signify the resistance of Kora-Persephone and the desire to escape from her husband. But some things, having started, are quite difficult to stop, so Dracula still knocks over the barrel. Having successfully landed surrounded by ‘guests’ at the wedding, Agatha survives. But on a symbolic level, her death was not the goal. The goal was to physically separate one part of her life from another. This is exactly what happened.

Thus, we can conclude that after the end of the second episode, we are no longer facing Kora, but Persephone – the queen of the underworld.

But, as in the myth, Persephone at this stage is still the point of intersection of the conflicts of several characters. This is Hades, who wants her to return to him from the upper world, Demeter, who does not think to retreat, and... Persephone, who needs to deal with herself and who she is now, and how she will continue to be.

At the mythological level, it is the conflict that will become central in the third episode.

In the myth, at the request of Persephone and Demeter, Hades released Persephone to the upper world, giving her (some sources say – forcing to eat, but this is unlikely since it does not correspond to the function of that types of objects in myths and fairy tales) several pomegranate seeds... It was because of this that Persephone, having eaten them already on earth, was forced to return back to the underworld.

Do you remember what happens in the third episode?

Zoe van Helsing (a doctor, who, by profession, every day deals with the reality of both the ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ worlds, and exists and works on their border) – who can be considered a kind of ‘earthly’ incarnation of Agatha, Persephone from ‘upper world’, meets Dracula, whom she did not think to meet. By her own admission, she never really believed that Dracula would be found. And Dracula, seeing that his ‘wife’ does not remember him and does not want to return, gives her his blood and offers to ‘read’ it – if Zoe guesses how to do it.

That is, you understand – he does not directly offer her to drink his blood. He only gives her what she wants. Just like in the myth.

Zoe is a researcher, and besides the fact that she may have hoped that Dracula's blood would somehow help her recover from a fatal disease, she probably really wanted to know the secret of vampire blood, as any real scientist, inquisitive and hungry for knowledge.

Now let's turn to myth again. Persephone ate the pomegranate seeds that Hades gave her because she was hungry because she refused food all the time she was with him.

By the way, these seeds originated from drops of Dionysus blood.

The connection of Dionysian ecstasy, wine, blood, intoxication, and the processes occurring at the level of the ‘lower world’ – the world of the corporeal and the unconscious, is spoken directly in the text several times, but I think there is no need to dwell on this here.

After that, it is not surprising that the symbolism of the field appears here, – in the middle of which Zoe finds herself after drinking Dracula's blood. If in the second episode Demeter was present as a ship, a womb, a mother, carrying the potential of the future and protecting her child, then in the third she appears before us as a fertile layer, a bed, giving Agatha-Zoe-Persephone her blessing and, thus, the opportunity to complete the transformation and become a full-fledged spouse of her husband, at the same time, keeping the connection with the mother on a new level.

All this allows the story to unfold in the finale in a mysterious – alchemical context.

The fact is that the cult of fertility, the cult of Kora-Persephone, presumably formed the basis of the Eleusinian mysteries, mythology, and philosophy of which greatly influenced the views of medieval Western European alchemists. From here comes the similarity and continuity of images, ideas, and descriptions of processes, a close, often inherited metaphor, and, in a certain sense, an underlying common myth.

As the screenwriters themselves remind in one of the interviews, Dracula is a story of resurrection. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that in the finale of the third episode and the entire film, the mythological motive of Kora-Persephone and the alchemical one – coniunctio oppositorum* – are combined in one hierogamy.

This is openly stated in the text as well. In one of the last scenes of the series, Dracula says, addressing everyone present at once, and indirectly to the viewer: ‘Journey's end. Lovers meeting.’ This is a literal description of the alchemical stage of the union of the masculine and feminine principles.

Therefore, in the final scene, he and Agatha are making love – at the level of the plot, this is due to the development of their relationship as individuals, as a man and a woman, but at the symbolic level this is because the opposites they represent have reached a state where they can merge to give the beginning of a new one.

It is important to remember here what the story is constantly showing visually: there is what is happening on the ‘outer’ plane and what is on the ‘inner’ plane. The space of the film is constantly divided into two levels-states: Dracula's castle and the monastery, the monastery and the area in front of the monastery gates; what is happening in Agatha's workshop and the same thing – recorded in Dracula's blood and played in Zoe's head, Dracula and Agatha, lying on the table in Dracula's apartment, and Dracula and Agatha together in a golden light.

Let me remind you again: a real myth, an archetypal drama, very rarely unfolds in front of the viewer or reader directly, told in literal, poster language. Most often they turn out to be ‘wrapped’, embedded in the shell of a legend, parable, or fairy tale. In this sense, nothing has changed since the time of the ancient Greeks. The basic narrative structures are the same. How, perhaps, we all remained the same. Therefore, stories like this work. Therefore, they are important.

And also – because they are all-conquering beautiful.

* Сoniunctio oppositorum (Latin) – the combination of opposites. One of the key stages of alchemical Work.

P. S. In conclusion, I would like to show a few symbolic images from alchemical treatises. I will not show the corresponding scenes from the film – I think you yourself will recognize them. The first two illustrations are prints from the Splendor Solis, the third – from the Rosarium philosophorum.

#dracula 2020 #bbc dracula #count dracula #agatha van helsing #meta

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see-arcane · 2 years

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Love, Vampirism, and Metaphor in Dracula: Van Helsing and the Suitors VS The Harkers

I’m writing this on the day of the September 29th entry, fresh from the second death of Lucy Westenra, Bloofer Lady and Beloved of Many. I see myself posting this on October 3rd, the day of Dracula in the bedroom and the holiest love quote. You know the one.

‘To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks.’

Harrowing, horrifying in its implications for our good friend Jonathan Harker, and, when held up against the wall-to-wall likeminded alignment of the Suitors Three, of Van Helsing, and, it seems, of Mina ‘Down to Self-Sacrifice’ Harker, a quiet but unmissable sore thumb sticking out of the rest of the novel’s dogma. Let’s turn the pages back a bit.

Say, to Jack Seward’s thoughts on the Bloofer Lady resting in her box, September 27.

‘It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective?’

Here, Lucy is completely prone in her vampiric torpor. No action, no will. Just the same deathly stillness of the Count in his coffin, radiating an ominous miasma—the difference for her being that she rests with her eyes shut, and has no power to jumpscare her visitors with a turned head or the paralytic magic of Dracula’s ‘basilisk gaze.’ She is nothing more than a pretty corpse and yet Jack feels only mounting disgust in her presence. And, following the adventure of catching the Bloofer Lady in the act with his fellows, the cruelly tossed child, the supple supplication—

“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!”

—and the grand reveal of her monstrous face when thwarted by Cross and Wafer, we come to the scene of Van Helsing and the Suitors Three in the tomb, hammer and stake at the ready.

‘She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity.’

[…]

“Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilation of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: ‘It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best;’”

[…]

“My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!”

[…]

‘Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered.’

[…]

‘There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign forever.’

‘Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to him:—'

"And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?"

‘The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:—'

"Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace.’

‘He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:—'

"And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now—not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!"

…

……

………

Now, this is old ground. Old, old, old, essay-strangled ground. Throw a dart and you’ll hit a dozen far more articulate pieces about the undercurrents of it all.

The parallels with the Brides of Dracula. The Lilith-rooted fear of the Sexual, Powerful, Child-Endangering/Killing/Unmaternal Woman. Purity > Carnal Voluptuousness. We must destroy the sensual evil to rescue and preserve this fair maiden’s purity~. Made all the easier because 1) Lucy was implied to have given her consent and urging to Van Helsing on her deathbed to carry out just this procedure, purest pure sweet virginal angel maiden that she was, and 2) the boys had Abraham ‘Definitely not a Saintly Stand-In Patriarch Figure’ Van Helsing to follow as he gives his wise and brilliant and Godly orders (my child).

I get it. You get it.

But most importantly, and barely ever brought up, Jonathan Harker gets it. He has gotten it well before he ever learned about Lucy’s own hell with Dracula.

He had a front row solo-show of three vampires murdering a child. Then overhearing a second child’s death. Not a little sip! Not dainty nursing from wee pinprick bites! The Weird Sisters drank two kids like a three-way Capri Sun. They tried on multiple occasions to hit him with that sexy-soothing hypnosis to take their turns with him and drag him into the undead girl gang against his will. The first time he got away lucky with Dracula’s intervention—he had no clue what was happening, no one there to counter the effect or prove he wasn’t dreaming. They just stuck their hooks in his head and he laid there, frozen. In the ensuing attempts he clocked them and could only run to dodge their effect.

This is the same man who, when all other options were lost, gambled his life on the cliffside and the wolves versus staying locked in Dracula’s stone box to let the Brides drink and turn him. He has more vampiric terror experience than the rest of the cast combined, even with Van Helsing’s secondhand know-how. He gets it.

…But now, here’s Mina.

Mina, Mina, Mina.

Bitten. Turning. If they do not end the Count in time, she will be a vampire.

Already she’s mulling suicide.

(Hello, flashback.)

Already the stalwart men around her are quietly steeling themselves should the worst happen and they must deliver the same mercy they did for Lucy.

(Hello, flashback.)

Already Jonathan has decided he will join her in undeath rather than have her be alone in the condition.

(Hello—wait, what?)

What? Everyone put down your crucifixes and holy cracker crumbs! Mr. Harker, say again?

Let’s look at all this implies on paper. Really look.

1. Jonathan has witnessed and endured the attentions of vampires with far fewer scruples and friendly attachment than Lucy the Bloofer Lady ever had.

2. Jonathan has learned of how vastly Lucy changed post-vampirism. Her danger, her ‘wanton and impure’ personality, the crazy demon bat face, all of it.

3. Jonathan knows she reached for Arthur. She still knew Arthur. She wanted Arthur with her.

4. Jonathan knows now that if he had powered through the spell of the Count’s inflicted fear and finished him off in his box back in Transylvania—if Jonathan had simply stayed with Mina, stayed awake and kept watch—she would not be in the peril she is. Lucy would be alive. So many would still be alive. Is he damned already for allowing this all to pass? What more is there to lose?

5. Jonathan is not Abraham. Neither Van Helsing, nor the biblical namesake who would slay the person he loves most under God’s command. It no doubt comes as a shock to him; him who has been protected by the icon of the Cross, has breathed endless prayers for his and Mina’s sake. Yet there it is. He loves Mina more than God. More than purity. More than humanity or sanity. He cannot bring himself to destroy her, regardless of what form she takes. And perhaps that is partly why…

6. Jonathan will give himself to vampirism, to Mina, to the Devil—Transylvanian or otherwise—rather than raise a hand or stake to her. If the curse cannot be lifted, they will be cursed together. Let Van Helsing and the Suitors kill two vampires if need be. But whatever she suffers, he will too.

7. Jonathan sees no point in being alive, human or not, if Mina ceases to exist.

Now, here comes the Big Issue.

The trouble of comparing the In-Canon, On-Paper Morality of this stance VS the Metatextual Metaphoric Morality.

On paper, his private oath is at once tragic, horrific, and skirting towards borderline villainous. Jonathan is willing to deny Mina’s desire to be destroyed rather than become a vampire and, by implication, endangering the lives of Van Helsing and the Suitors Three, and any potential future victims, by dint of planning to defend Mina against their wishes.

Now, this could just mean safeguarding her corpse, hiding her away from the others until she wakes as the undead. Hiding in the dark, sleeves rolled up, shirt collar open. Waiting.

It could mean a grudging confession and pleading session as he implores the others to let her wake long enough to turn him, to let them both be slain by their stakes and blades. If not, well, he was willing to die long before any of them. He won’t live long after her either way, so they may as well…

It could mean taking grislier methods if pushed into a corner. Because if Mina’s existence takes precedent over everything in Jonathan’s perspective, including the Will of God Himself, his new buddies will have a violent surprise coming if they try to pull their undead euthanasia routine on his watch.

It could mean, somehow, with all the worst stars aligned, Mina becomes a vampire under their noses, and approaches Jonathan at just the right time to see them both vanish into the night without notice. Maybe they go to join the Count. Maybe they stay behind, forced to follow murderous orders. Maybe they luck into the willpower shown by those mischievous Brides, and skulk away despite Dracula’s explicit commands, two monsters running away; eloping.

But what it absolutely means in all these cases, is that Jonathan is willing to put his friends and who knows how many strangers at risk, while purposefully going against Mina’s plea for holy destruction rather than vampiric existence. Jonathan is putting his own heart over the wishes of everyone else.

He will give all of himself under any other circumstances, will trust in God’s protection as far as he can, but he understands in this moment, without doubt, he will not, cannot, give away Mina. Not to a divine cause. Not to her own martyr’s mindset. Not for anything.

It is selfish, sweet, sad and nearly sinister in how covertly all this must play out in his mind and buried under the text.

So it must also look through the bluntest take on the novel and Stoker’s messages of Madonnas and Whores and the Preservation of Purity and the Heroic Killing of Evil that keep being cudgeled in throughout the narrative.

…But, even without a 21st century lens, you only need about two seconds’ worth of examination to see the metric ton of metaphoric power underscoring the difference between how Jonathan Harker loves and how Arthur, Jack, Quincey, and Van Helsing love. In plainest terms:

Jonathan Harker’s love is unconditional and all-encompassing.

I will love you no matter what you become. Whatever we must weather, I will weather it with you. I will take on any pain you have and make it my own. I will never abandon you, never hurt you, never judge you. I will love you forever, and if you must be a monster, I will be too.

Van Helsing and the Suitors’ love is conditional and hinges on the fair maidens in their lives being, ‘pearls among women.’

You are not what you were, despite all my efforts to stop this change. I will destroy the imperfect Thing that has usurped you. This is all I can do. All I will do. I will love the memory of what you were before I had to kill you.

Now, obviously, there is some nuance to appreciate here. There’s a whole separate essay to be had in examining the toxic nature of relationships built on a partner loving the other half to the point of worship, refusing to find fault or leave the romance when it’s clearly gone sour or dangerous. If Jonathan had fallen in with a legitimately cruel partner, with or without a monster angle in play, that talk might hold water. But not here.

Not when the whole crux of the vampirism threat for Lucy, Mina, and the Brides—once you scrape Stoker’s varnish off—is the Threat of the New Woman.

The Threat of Power Equal or Greater Than Men’s, Unrestrained Sexuality, and Unmaternal Behavior from the Pretty and Virtuous Young Lady. Or, considering the undertones of focusing on madness as another horrible affliction, vampirism as a mental illness and/or the assumption of mental illness.

(What’s up, “The Yellow Wallpaper,” parallels, didn’t think you’d make it in here!)

Or, if we want to knock down all the era-specific boundaries, vampirism is the conversion into, or revealing of, Otherness. The vampire is Wrong. The vampire is Not Like Us. The vampire is Unholy, Imperfect, Impure. Insert your marginalized group of choice here.

Against the Vampire-Other, we see Van Helsing and the Suitors positioned as the moral defenders, destroying the tainted and converted Bloofer Lady, preferring to see this New Lucy dead rather than suffer her vile voluptuous self to exist. It is too much! She would not want this any more than we would! Away, demon!

Then we take this hard swivel to Jonathan Harker, fully aware of their stance, of the full spectrum of vampiric menace, of Mina’s own hardwired, ‘Martyrdom! I am sullied and unclean because I was violated against my will! Self-sacrifice! I must give of myself until there’s literally nothing left!’ mentality, and of how it’s been painted that ending her may be the only way..!

And Jonathan discreetly but emphatically flips the bird to the whole concept.

Mina’s changing? Mina might be different? Mina is possibly doomed to be a monster, to be the Other, seemingly ruined by the very explicitly rape-coded assault on her by a predator? Hm. Hmm.

Fuck that, decides Jonathan.

He will not abandon her, period. No equivocations. No moral quandaries. No hand-wringing hemming or hawing. Just:

“Mina might become a vampire? Shit, I’ll have to be a vampire too. Let the rest of the world deal with it.”

Oh, sure, he’ll give it his all to prevent her turning with the rest of the vampire hunter gang. Even if vampirism didn’t come into it, he has a hell of a grudge to settle with Dracula for all the shit he’s pulled. But if that isn’t enough? If the fatal blow comes too late and Mina turns? That final choice is already premade in his mind. Whatever Mina is, he will be. Whatever fate waits for her, he will take it himself. Simple as math.

And, because you read the title up there, we must also address Mrs. Harker herself. Dear, devoted, devastatingly down for self-sacrifice Madam Mina, who would have herself destroyed by her husband and the others just as Arthur slew Lucy.

It is what’s right!

It is what must be done!

She dare not risk harming another as a foul new pet of the Count’s..!

Unless, we have to wonder.

Unless the shoe was on the other foot.

What if it was not her, but Jonathan in her place?

Jonathan, freed from considering his wife’s impending conversion, Jonathan, who was already prepared once to get himself killed for the sake of avoiding the Brides’ kisses, Jonathan, who is so much a mirror of Mina’s caring and self-giving nature that I can picture him parroting her own demands for a proper destruction rather than rising as a vampire to imperil the others.

What then, Mina?

Mina, who witnessed Jonathan at his lowest—struck down by fever and trauma and a shock so powerful and mixed with physical illness that it left him too weak to stand even for their wedding vows.

Mina, who fell in love with a gentle and sweet Jonathan, a boy so many, many leagues away from the lauded Man’s Man archetype. The inverse opposite to the New Woman, so endearing and warm and kind and eager to be an equal with her rather than a bully or married warden.

Mina, who chose a sweetheart over a common chest-pounder groom, who never thought less of him when shock and sickness left him weak, who chose again and again in a hundred little ways to stay by him, to love him, to protect him, to never abandon him, no matter his condition.

Mina, who would give anything for the man she loves.

Mina, who, I cannot help but suspect, would give her humanity and eternity itself.

(In another world, in another story, the quote changes: ‘To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Jonathan must be a vampire in the end, then he shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone.’)

Do not endanger yourselves with my devilish form! Destroy me, save yourself!

They are hypocrites, these two. They are selfish. They hold one another above all else, beyond good and evil, God and Devil.

To the point of madness in the book.

And to us outside the pages, to the point of holiest love.

#Nice job Bramarama Stoker #You accidentally composed a brilliant narrative for the power of loving the Other despite all pressures to perform the contrary IDIOT #jonathan harker #mina harker #arthur holmwood #jack seward #quincey morris #abraham van helsing #dracula #dracula daily #holiest love

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vickyvicarious · 11 months

Note

So far, what I see between Jonathan and the one time Mina Murray wrote is that they think of each other, naturally as they're engaged, but also how Mina wrote that she wants to be like a real journalist, and fill out a planner (and not the ones with brief Sunday spaces!), with discoveries in new places. And currently, Jonathan has kind of been acting like a journalist about new places? so they are sort of synced in action while being countries away. But a nice indicator of symmetry since we have never seen them interact

Yes! They have a lot in common, and also are influenced by one another's interests. I won't spoil you but there's at least one later entry that puts a few details of the types of things Jonathan takes note of in some of his first entries take on a really sweet added meaning.

So far we have confirmed: the shorthand they're practicing together; the way they both prefer to wait and see how things turn out/find evidence rather than get too caught up in speculation; Mina wishing to emulate a journalist while Jonathan kind of did so in real time; shared interest in travel... Obviously they love one another but also you can kind of see their shared plans and hopes for the future in their entries even when they are separated and not interacting. They are both looking forward to working together in Jonathan's law practice (not his, Mr. Hawkins', but you know what I mean) and hope to travel and see the different parts of the world together someday. They are a very detail-driven and forward-looking couple. Even down to small stuff like both of them noting down what time they're writing, or what seems like it might be a shared habit of snatching up a small opportunity to write (his diary for Jonathan, her letter to Lucy for Mina) when they've got something to say, rather than waiting till later. The timing of them starting their diaries is kind of linked too, even if Mina doesn't begin hers until later (this is going off her intention to do so). Both of them want to begin as they set out to travel somewhere, and with the intention of potentially sharing it with one another. So it shows them wanting to share their life and experiences while separated, which is really sweet and informs their efforts to be more observant/descriptive. Especially since they both are expecting to have exciting or fun things to talk about when they decide to keep that record (Jonathan: seeing different cultures and places, Mina: spending a pleasant summer at the seaside with her friend).

#dracula daily #jonmina #jonathan harker #mina murray #anonymous #replies

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missluthorwillseeyounow · 4 years

Text

Never To Touch And Never To Keep

Westenray AU (NBC Dracula)

A/N: So, here it is, the Westenray AU where Henry Cavill is Lucy’s beard. Fair warning, I didn’t really watch much of the show, just the Lucy scenes, and not even all of those. Basically, this is a peeled-back modern AU of the whole story, without the Dracula stuff. It’ll follow canon for a little bit, unfortunately *cringe* but I need a happy ending for my gays.

Also, this gets quite dark before it gets better. TW: gaslighting, attempted suicide, poisoning, and manipulation. Like for real, guys, I promise a happy ending, but if any of these trigger you, please don’t read it.

Lucy and Mina have been friends since they were fifteen. Lucy's father is an affluent businessman, and Lucy grows up with her every whim catered to. She’s at the center of everyone’s attention. All heads turn whenever she enters a room, and she accepts the adoration as her due.

She and Mina meet at boarding school, and the bond between the two girls is immediate.

That first year is spent in bare feet and nightgowns, dancing idly to Fleetwood Mac, drunk on youth and the vodka Lucy stole from the headmistress’ office. In the acrid scent of illicit cigarettes being passed from one to the other, and the soft curve of Mina’s lips under Lucy’s fingers whenever she slips the cigarette into Mina’s mouth.

Mina is quiet and earnest, where Lucy is vivacious and impertinent. Mina gently chastises her when she breaks yet another boy’s heart, and Lucy merely laughs.

And when Mina breaks Lucy’s heart and falls in love with Jonathan Harker, Lucy just laughs and laughs, and cruelly breaks another boy’s heart in retaliation.

Between the two of them, Mina is the more logical one, whose head and heart are grounded and centered, while Lucy is a creature of flight and fancy -- the one who flits from one thing to another, the charming social butterfly who lights up any room she walks into and creates a spectacle to hide every insecurity she keeps inside.

Lucy lives with bravado, but retreats behind a glittering mask. Mina, she thinks, is the one who is actually brave, the one who is unafraid to live her life as herself.

At the time of this AU, they’re around 21, and Mina and Jonathan are engaged. They're still quite young, but they've been together for years. The "perfect couple", it was only a matter of time before they got married.

Mina is in med school at this time, when she meets Alexander Grayson.

Grayson is a wealthy businessman, the new owner of the hospital where Mina’s father had practiced before he died. He encounters Mina once, at a benefit for the hospital’s cancer ward. Mina speaks to him in her gentle, forthright way, and Grayson is immediately drawn to her.

The encounter leaves an indelible mark on Grayson, and he decides he has to have her.

He’s no stranger to manipulation, and he comes at the problem on all sides. The key, he knows, is isolation. If she has no one left to turn to, Mina will come to him.

Harker, he thinks, is easy enough. With his uncertain finances, the young man is insecure and doubts his place in Mina’s esteem or at least in her social circles. It’s easy enough to see in the way his teeth grit and his jaw tightens whenever Lucy delightedly plucks on this particular insecurity like a note well-played.

Grayson buys into Harker’s graces through his wealth, offers him a career in which he can succeed. The work keeps Harker rewarded and therefore docile, out of the shadow Mina’s condescending friends, and high on his own sense of self-importance for the first time in his life.

His seduction of Mina, however, requires more thought and subtlety. He applies himself to discovering more about her, the things that interest her and resonate with her.

He finds out about her admiration and respect for a prestigious doctor, Gabriel van Helsing, and he extorts van Helsing into offering his mentorship to Mina. He finds out about her passion for helping children and starts a charity for children in need, and offers her the chance to be more involved in the project.

Through it all, Grayson places himself as the supposed catalyst of her advancement.

And Mina, grounded though she is, is still fallible. Grayson seems to her a kind man, misunderstood by some perhaps because of his brooding disposition, but still -- a good man. And he is attractive, that’s undeniable. Enigmatic, charming in a mysterious way.

Slowly, but surely, Mina is lured in.

Because Grayson presents himself as a pleasant and urbane gentleman, most people rarely suspect him of anything nefarious.

Except for Lucy.

Like recognizes like, and Lucy has used her own charm to get her way enough times to know when people use it for their own machinations.

Grayson knows that Lucy is less susceptible to his manipulations and will be more difficult to eliminate as competition.

However, he learns that his intervention is not required. Someone like Lucy, whose emotions overrule even her own penchant for manipulation, will set her own self on fire. All it takes is a few whispers in Mina’s ear, and Lucy orchestrates her own destruction.

Lucy has been hiding her feelings for years, and she's become adept at it. But Grayson’s arrival has thrown Mina into turmoil and by extension, Lucy is thrown into turmoil as well.

And Lucy, when backed into a corner, always lashes out. She barely hides her resentment for Grayson, alienating herself from Mina, who thinks so highly of him, for the first time in their friendship. Not even her disparaging of Jonathan had lowered her in Mina’s esteem, but this causes the first real point of contention between the two of them.

For the first time, Lucy feels her slipping away, and her reflexive response is to pull closer, fearing the loss of Mina in her life. She holds fast to the bond between her and Mina, and clings to her friend.

And one night -- an ordinary night that finds Lucy stretched out on Mina’s bed as usual, their faces inches apart as they seek each other under Mina’s covers like they always do -- Lucy, grateful that no matter what contention they have about one man, they still find each other, becomes brave enough, desperate enough to close that familiar distance between them and press her lips to Mina’s.

"We could be so much more.... I've always loved you, Mina."

"Has our whole friendship been a pretense?!?"

Grayson’s insidious whispers flare in Mina’s mind, and every moment of their friendship is called into question. Every embrace, every sweet word, and every barb thrown at Jonathan viewed in the light of this new and terrifying revelation.

"You need to leave."

And leave Lucy does, feeling small and worthless and hollow, as if a crater has opened up in the middle of her chest. This is not a feeling she knows -- not this shame and this hurt and this dejection.

She’s suffered for Mina before, the heartache of seeing the woman she loves in love with another. But this.... it feels as if all the love she’d kept in her heart has been spit back at her in acid.

It rankles at her skin, and claws at her pride, and so Lucy does what she knows best. She claws back.

Harker is almost laughably easy, a pawn Lucy moves with disturbing ease -- she almost feels sorry for Mina that she loved a man whose loyalty can break with a pair of tear-filled eyes and a silk robe. Almost.

When Mina catches them together, as planned, Lucy catches Mina's eye with a level look over Jonathan's shoulder. She pushes Jonathan off, his erection twitching unsatisfied between them. Lucy rises to her feet, slipping on her silk robe -- never taking her eyes off Mina -- then brushes past her without another word.

And Mina... Mina knows Lucy. She knows how cruel she can be, and has long accepted it as a part of her, but never has that cruelty been directed at her.

This, more than anything, seals it all in Mina’s mind.

The two most important people in her life have betrayed her, and it feels as if the very foundations of the life she’s known until now have been shaken.

The only person she can confide in, who listens to her and comforts her with a solemn touch of a hand, is Grayson.

And Grayson thinks, now that he has her, he means to keep her.

He makes her happy, makes her smile and laugh, builds her back up when her life is at its lowest. When she cries at her losses, he embraces her, and bids her forget about them.

A year later, Mina discovers she’s pregnant, and her Alexander is overjoyed. It’s a difficult pregnancy and keeps her weak and bed-ridden for most of it. Through it all, Alexander is the one person she can depend on.

It’s an even more difficult birth, but Mina immediately falls in love with her baby. But her pregnancy took its toll on her body, and she’s still having a hard time bouncing back. Her energy flags more and more, and at first, she attributes it to the enormous stress of juggling her studies and a new baby. She's just stressed, Alexander says, maybe they should go for a vacation.

A vacation smack in the middle of her training?? It’s unthinkable at first, but as Mina finds herself more and more fatigued, she relents. Perhaps it will do her good.

During the vacation, without the stress of med school and all the worries at home, Mina finally has some time to think about her old life before this whirlwind romance she’s found herself in. As much as she loves Alexander and their baby, she knows there are some things that were left unresolved, and she’s been covering them up long enough.

When they return from the vacation, Mina begins to write letters:

Dear Lucy,

You cannot imagine how much I long to see you again. Today will make it a year, nine months and fifteen days since we last saw each other. I can't believe it's been that long. Remember when we had that fight in chemistry class and you didn't speak to me for three days? Before our separation, that was the longest we'd ever been apart. I miss those days.

Every letter I have sent to you has returned unread and unopened. I know you don’t want anything to do with me anymore, and after the way I treated you, I wouldn't blame you if you never wanted to see me again. But still, it doesn't erase the yearning to see your face again.

I miss the nights we would sleep in each other's beds, talking until midnight. Your face -- your dear, loving eyes and your beloved smile -- would be the last thing I saw before falling asleep, and the first thing to wake me in the morning. I never knew what a blessing that was, until I was deprived of such a gift.

Too much has happened. We both hurt each other, I know. You hurt me -- yes, it still hurts -- but I know, I hurt you first. I realize now that what you did was born out of anger and deep pain, because of what I did.

You were never anything but loving toward me. My sweetest friend who always stood by me, always lifted me up, and gave me whatever happiness you could. With others you were always so cold, so cruel, that I could hardly believe you were the same person, because with me, you were so soft, and you took such great care to be gentle.

And I cast you aside. I treated you as if your love as something to be ashamed of, when really, I did not deserve any of it. You betrayed me out of pain, but I betrayed you without provocation. And I am so sorry. God, if you could only know how much I regret everything I said that night...

My infant daughter is sleeping beside me as I write this. My daughter, Lucy. Can you believe it?

She is so beautiful. She has a shock of jet-black hair that is resistant to combing (I can already tell we will have problems with that), and such mesmerizing grey eyes, and the cheekiest smile. She reminds me of you, but that might be because I love her so much.

I've named her Lucy Alexandra Grayson. After Alexander, and after you. Her father likes to call her Alexandra. I'm afraid he doesn't like your name, my dear, but he can't stop me. I've taken to calling her Lucky, as I confess, there has only ever been one Lucy for me, and always will be.

And anyway, Alexander is far too happy, spending time with the baby. He's so proud of her, and it makes me happy to see Alexander happy. He spends all day with us, and is devoted to me and my happiness. He tells me every day that Lucky and I are everything to him.

Oh, Lucy dear, if you could only know the joy I feel at this moment. I wish you were here so i could share this with you. I so wish that you could see Lucky. If you did, you would love her, I know. She is perfection. I can hardly believe that she came from me. That I made something so beautiful and precious.

Oh, Lucy, today my joy knows no bounds, save for one. I feel as if you should be here. Your presence, as warm and sorely missed as it is, would complete my happiness.

Love, Mina.

Mina feels better during the vacation, but when they get back home, she becomes worse. Fatigue sets in quickly, and she gets daily headaches so bad that she has to stay home. She finally admits that her body is having a hard time bouncing back and handling the stress of it all, and after spending several sleepless weeks thinking about it, Mina finally agrees when Alexander suggests she take a break from medical school. This way, she can stay home and rest. Her body can recuperate, and she’ll have more time with Lucky.

What she doesn’t know is that her symptoms are not part of an illness. Grayson has been slowly introducing medication into her system. Nothing life-threatening, or anything that would raise alarms. He’s much too careful for that. But enough that its effects keep her weak and drained of energy

After they returned from their vacation and Mina had expressed her desire to reconcile with Lucy, Grayson had decided that it wasn’t safe yet to stop drugging her, and so the small doses of the medication resumed.

As for the letters, Lucy never receives any of them. Grayson makes sure of it. He even takes precautions to make sure that every email, every text is blocked. Now that Lucy has excised herself out of Mina’s life, he’ll make sure she remains that way.

As for Lucy herself, in the passing years since their separation, she’s made quite a few changes.

Lucy has always been... aware of the effect she has on people. She knows she appears as a charming coquette, and as she makes her own way in the world, she uses that to her advantage. In fact, she delights in it.

She rarely lets anyone see how clever she is until it's too late, and by then, she's already destroying their lives or their reputations. It makes people underestimate her abilities, and she gets to still play in her glittering little world.

Lucy meets Nick at a friend’s bachelorette party.

When they first meet, he’s a stripper hired for the night.

It would have been easy to dismiss him then, but Lucy, clever as she is, sees his potential and cleans him up.

She had been planning on using Nick’s past as a stripper and her role as his benefactor to hold over him as blackmail if needed, but she soon realizes that he genuinely does not give a fuck about that.

“What are you getting out of this, then?”

“Aside from the suits and the Maserati? Honestly, I’m just along for the ride. This beats dancing Friday nights at Hunk-O-Rama. Besides, you’re cute.”

Lucy laughs derisively. “You’re not my type.”

Nick throws his head back and laughs even louder. “I have a feeling you don’t hear this a lot, but you’re not my type either.”

Aside from Mina, it’s easily the closest relationship Lucy has ever had. Nick is one of the few people perceptive enough to really see her, and surprisingly enough, he’s not enamored by her. Which works well enough for both of them.

Nick sees Lucy for the mess that she is. When they’re not in public, he treats her like an annoying, reckless little sister, and it amuses him to watch her wreak havoc and play her little games. When she doesn’t annoy the crap out of him.

Nick, however, knows very little about Mina.

All he knows is that she’s a sore subject. He's deduced by now that Lucy was in love with her, but beyond that, he lets Lucy keep her secrets.

As for Mina, over the years, Grayson’s manipulations become more and more overt, and it becomes harder and harder for her to leave.

As Lucky grows up, Alexander showers her with affection and spoils her, making the little girl devoted to him. “Daddy’s little girl” he calls her.

"Mummy, why are you and Daddy fighting?"

"Daddy wasn't being nice."

“But Mummy, Daddy's the nicest! He loves us. He says so all the time."

Mina tries to leave once, when Lucky is 7 years old. She tries to take Lucky with her, but her daughter runs to Grayson and clings to him. “No! I want to stay with Daddy!”

And Grayson levels Mina a look, daring her to separate her child from her father, or leave her behind.

From then on, Grayson keeps Lucky close. She hears him whispering things into the child’s ear (”Mummy’s sick. She’s not well.”) and it reminds her so forcibly of the things he used to whisper in her ear.

That’s when she knows. She has to leave, for her daughter’s sake.

She takes some of the pills she keeps in the cupboard, carefully calculates enough to make her sick but not kill herself. She only needs enough to be taken to the ER, and put in a temporary psych hold.

It's dangerous, her plan. She could actually kill herself, and if she's on psych hold, Lucky will be left alone with Alexander, and though she's sure Alexander won't hurt her, because Lucky is his bargaining chip to get Mina back, she can’t be sure of what he’ll be putting into her daughter’s head.

Her attempt fails when Grayson brings in a doctor friend of his to help her instead of taking her to the hospital

He performs gastric lavage on her at home to flush the drugs from her stomach. As Mina lies on her bed, lethargic with the tube in her nose, Alexander grips her wrist and murmurs under his breath "You are everything to me. I won’t let you go."

As Mina recovers, she finds herself locked in her room. She asks in vain for Lucky, but Alexander’s only reply is that “She shouldn’t have to see her mother like this.”

Days pass, and the sense of urgency and panic rises, unstoppable, in Mina’s throat like bile. She knows she has no choice. When she’s strong enough, she pushes herself out of bed, locks the door to buy herself time, and breaks one of the windows. She picks up one of the shards, and thinking of her beautiful little girl, Mina cuts through the flesh of her wrists.

It takes a while before Grayson and the doctor realize what she’s done, and she loses enough blood that the doctor decides she needs to go to the hospital or she will going to die.

Once she's at the hospital, she asks a kind nurse to contact Lucy, but she’s told that Lucy’s number is unlisted. The nurse tries the business number, but gets the usual run-around.

And so, as a last resort, Mina gives the nurse the address to Lucy’s family home, hoping and praying that someone there -- Lucy’s father or her mother -- will see her name and remember it. Then she gives the nurse a bundle of letters. The ones that were returned unopened, and the ones she wrote but didn't send because she knew by now Lucy wouldn't read them.

The nurse kindly agrees, and Mina wishes she could tell her everything, that it could help her and her daughter. But Alexander is too influential, and he has Lucky with him, and Mina will not risk her daughter.

The letters are forwarded to Lucy. Nick hands them to her over the breakfast table. But when Lucy hears who they’re from, she goes silent and refuses to open them.

"Do what you want with them. Take them, or they'll end up in the fire. I won't read them."

Nick reads them. The next day, he approaches Lucy again, letters in hand. "The letters, that Mina wrote you..."

Lucy doesn't even look up from her cup of coffee. Her jaw twitches. "I don't want to hear it."

The letters drop onto the table next to her plate. "I think she may need your help. I think she's being abused."

Lucy applies herself to recovering Mina and Lucky, as well as sinking Alexander Grayson, like Nick has never seen her apply herself to anything before.

Nick loses track of how many people Lucy bribes, threatens or blackmails to get Grayson arrested and the charges to stick, or how long it takes for her to get Grayson’s properties seized and his assets frozen.

He’s lost count of how many times he’s seen Grayson’s face in the news, getting condemned and absolutely dragged by every news outlet Lucy and her family have access to.

Nick also has no idea know how she managed to get a decent-sized portion of Grayson’s fortune back for Mina and Lucky -- and honestly, given Lucy’s pervasive, systematic destruction of everything Alexander Grayson holds dear, he’s kind of afraid to ask.

As Lucy’s “business face”, Nick has to field everyone from the press to the lawyers. Fortunately for them, he’s a competent son of a bitch, and he tells Lucy the one time she’d asked "Don't worry about it, kid. Your family is my family."

Lucy doesn't quite know what to respond to -- the declaration that Nick considers her family, or that he thinks Mina is her family. "They're not my family."

"Sure, whatever you say, babe." Nick just laughs and walks away. "Oh, and I better get a raise after this."

Nick, however, does suspect that Lucy’s almost manic focus on sinking Grayson to the mud is at least partly so that she doesn’t have to deal with Mina being back. The fact that she had stashed Mina and Lucky in one of her summer homes, hidden away from her, is evidence enough of that.

Lucy says it’s to keep them out of the public eye, and while that’s true enough, there is also some truth to Nick’s theory.

Ruining Grayson is easy. Revenge is easier and altogether more satisfying that hashing out old feelings that never really died -- just got shoved to the back of her mind, and only came up whenever Lucy was with another woman and, instead of red hair, she'd see Mina's black curls; or when she said the wrong name in the throes of an orgasm.

And looking across the courtroom at Grayson with a triumphant smile on her face is infinitely easier than looking Mina in the eye.

Lucy puts off visiting the summer house as long as she can. But she has to eventually, to let Mina know how the trials went

For once, Lucy, the social butterfly who can charm birds off trees, has no idea what to say. Mina is quiet too. She wants to tease Lucy for her awkwardness, and if it had been 8 years ago and the Lucy of old, she would have.

Now all she can really do is stare at Lucy and drink her in, cataloging every feature that has changed or remained the same

In the end, Lucky saves them. The little girl looks up at Lucy with a sweet smile "Hi! You're Lucy!"

Lucy can only stare at her for a second before shaking herself with a nod. "I am."

"We have the same name! But my Mummy calls me Lucky."

Lucy finally meets Mina's eye. "So I've heard."

Lucky quickly warms to Lucy, and Lucy, who has never spent more than an hour with any person younger than herself, finds herself feeling strangely attached to the child.

Lucky is what brings Lucy and Mina together.

In truth, they're each so desperate to know the other again, to somehow find their way back to how things were before that night. They've both changed so much, but they both want to see how much has remained the same, how much they can still salvage and patch together.

It's too much to say, but too much to leave unsaid, so they focus the affection they can't give the other on Lucky

Lucy and Mina are never quite alone together at first. Lucky is usually a buffer between them

Then one day, Lucy brings Lucky a whole new wardrobe of dresses and Lucky tries them on for her and Mina one at a time. As Lucky flounces off to change into another sparkly tulle dress, Mina chuckles, “Remember that time we got drunk and we snuck into the the props room in school and tried on all of the costumes for ‘Hamlet’?”

Lucy smiles. "I remember having to drag you there because you were too scared of getting caught.”

"And I remember you trying on every gaudy thing you could find. Just like Lucky.” Mina laughs, her eyes softening. “I swear, sometimes I think she's your child."

Lucy looks away for a second, but Mina murmurs "She reminded me so much of you all those years."

Lucy hides the tremor in her voice behind an arrogant smirk. "She's amazing then."

Mina looks at her, eyes clear and bright. "She is."

Nick joins them some weekends, and Lucky adores him almost as much as Lucy. On one particular visit, he comes bearing some “sensitive information” for Lucy.

When Mina had first been rescued, she had asked Nick if he had any information on Jonathan Harker. When he reported this to Lucy, she had tasked Nick to find him. Not out of sentimentality for the man, she couldn't care less about Harker. But for Mina...

Nick finds Lucy and Mina in the sunroom, talking quietly. Mina is reaching over to brush a non-existent stray hair out of Lucy's face, and Lucy is smiling in a way Nick has never seen before. Gentle, almost tender.

And this is the woman who has left a trail of broken hearts a mile long behind her.

Nick almost doesn't interrupt them -- but then Mina leans forward, bringing her that much closer to Lucy... And the smile disappears on Lucy's face like water evaporating. She pulls away abruptly, her eyes sliding away from Mina's to find Nick in the doorway.

He holds up the folder for her to see. Lucy rises and leads him to her office, where they won't be overheard. When Nick hands her folder, she scans it silently, her jaw tight. The file contains all of Harker's information, including how to contact him.

"He's unmarried and working as a writer for a newspaper."

Lucy closes the folder and hands it to Nick, her eyes stony. "Give it to her."

Nick blinks and pauses. "Are you su--"

Lucy silences him with a sharp look that berates him for daring to question her. "Give it to her."

Nick's lips narrow. "Yes, ma'am."

Lucy cringes inwardly. She knows she was a little bit too blunt with Nick, but honestly she's in no mood to be nice. "Oh, and have my team prepare the jet."

"Where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here."

Lucy flies off to see a frequent bedfellow in Paris for a week. She heads to Italy for another the next week. By the time she gets back, she’s informed her that Mina and Lucky are gone. Nick tells her that he gave Mina the file on Jonathan and she left the next day.

Lucy arrives home to an empty summer house, and finds that she misses Mina and Lucky too much. She misses Lucky's mischievous giggles and Mina's light laughter. She misses having tea with Mina in the sunroom, and sitting in the library while Lucky reads her old children's books to her.

She misses the days spent on the lake, Lucky swinging into the water from the old rope on the tree, and somehow managing to coax Lucy along with her, while Mina, quietly radiant in her white linen dress, sips tea and watches them from the dock. She used to laugh whenever Lucy and Lucky emerged dripping wet from the lake, hair stringy and waterlogged, dresses stuck uncomfortably to their skin, but having the time of their lives.

Everyday there just reminds her more of what she doesn't have anymore. So she goes back to her home in the city. It's not much better there, but at least there aren't any reminders of Mina or Lucky there

Mina calls her several times, but Lucy ignores each call.

When they were younger, she used to listen to Mina talk about her relationship with Harker, not a secret between them, except one. And Lucy was just content to listen because it kept her in Mina's life.

And while she doesn't want to lose Mina again, she thinks she's grown up enough to set limits on what she can or will take. And she doesn't think she can take hearing about Mina's new life with Jonathan. How she's rebuilding her old life with him, and shaping her new one around it.

She does allow herself some bitterness over the thought of how perfect that new little family would be. Mina and her old love, Jonathan, a perfect new father for Lucky, to replace the twisted one she got.

It's perfect for them, she thinks. Absolutely fucking meant to be. A happy ending after the hell Mina went through. She deserves that, Lucy thinks as she downs yet another glass of wine

And Lucy bets that within the next six months, she'll receive a call from Mina asking her to be her bridesmaid. A year later, Lucky will be getting a new brother or sister.

On nights like these, when Lucy drowns herself in enough wine to numb the crater in chest, Nick has to scoop her up and take her home himself.

On one such night, she doesn't come home to an empty house. Mina's waiting for her there. She follows Nick to Lucy's room then gives him a small smile. "I'll take it from here."

Lucy is half passed out, but Mina manages to get her to drink some water and helps her change out of her clothes. Then she tucks Lucy under her covers and slips in with her.

Lucy's eyes open blearily, "Aren't you going back home to Jonathan and Lucky?"

Mina smiles at her. "I left Lucky with my cousin, and I'm sure Jonathan can manage without me."

Lucy mutters something into her pillow.

"What was that?"

"He doesn't deserve you."

Mina brushes her hair back "Then who does?"

"No one."

"You think too highly of me."

"Rightly so."

"Even after..... even after the way I treated you that night?"

"That night wasn't your fault," Lucy mumbles sleepily, voice slurred from the wine. In vino veritas. "It was my fault. It was me -- my feelings. I was responsible for them, not you. I was doing so well before that, and you, you my darling brilliant Mina, are so stupid when it comes to love. You would never have known anything if I hadn't opened my stupid mouth - or kissed you with it."

Mina's eyes search hers in the dim light. "Would you never have told me? Would you have kept it a secret from me forever?"

Lucy nods, making herself slightly dizzy. Her eyes close and she murmurs. "If I could go back, I would never have kissed you."

Mina doesn't speak for a while. She just listens to the sound of Lucy's breathing even out to sleep. She just stares at Lucy. "It's funny. I often think about things I regretted about that night. I regretted the way I acted toward you, the things I said.... But that kiss was the one thing I never regretted."

When they were at the summer house, there were several moments when Mina almost got carried away and kissed her, her eyes flicking down to Lucy's lips, lush and candy-pink. She's spent nights reliving that kiss over the years, trying to recall details of it, but it's been blurred by time and guilt and confusion.

She wonders how she never knew how Lucy felt. She wonders if Alexander hadn't been manipulating her, if she would have said the things she did. If she hadn't been so in love with Jonathan then, would she have kissed Lucy back?

She looks at Lucy now and wonders if she would taste the same.

But every time Mina lets any hint of these thoughts show on her face, Lucy looks away.

Lucy -- who, even after all these years and all this turmoil, has opened her heart and home to her and her daughter -- shows all the fear of a trapped animal whenever Mina looks at her with want in her eyes, and closes herself off.

Mina knows she's damaged that beyond repair. Lucy -- dear Lucy who never kept a secret from her but this one -- showed one moment of vulnerability and Mina had all but slapped her in the face

And she still knows Lucy well. Lucy always lashes out from hurt at first, but after, she hides in dark corners where no one can see, like a heart-hurt little kitten seeking the comfort and safety of being unseen.

So she doesn't bring it up in the morning, when Lucy pads softly into the kitchen where Mina is making her breakfast and the hangover remedy she came up with in college.

Lucy looks up at her gratefully, if a little confused. Her eyes are a little cloudy, and her perfect hair tousled just enough for Mina to want to run her hands through the golden mess.

She knows she can. This is Lucy, and since they were teenagers, touch has been a language between them. Mina's heart twinges, and she wonders if this is how Lucy felt all those years ago, wanting to touch her as she always does, but this time with a lover's hand, each nerve ending coming alive with the stark difference.

Lucy watches her with a question on her lips that Mina can almost see, even as she hesitates, her mouth fearful and unwilling to open.

Mina reassures her with a gentle smile as she places a plate of Lucy's favorite scrambled eggs in front of her. She leans forward and kisses the top of her head. They don't have to talk about it now.

Hope is a cruel thing to entertain, she knows from years living with Alexander. And she knows that sometimes the best defense from it is to reject it.

And right now, she knows they're both brimming with it. The rigidly suppressed hope in Lucy's eyes, marshaled by years of emotions never expressed, and the answering hope in Mina that prays she still feels the same way

This is not a conversation that can be had while Lucy is hungover and barely awake. Lucy waited for her for years before that kiss, then the duty of waiting fell to Mina. She thinks she can wait a little bit longer for Lucy.

After breakfast, when her wits are more collected, Lucy sits with her feet curled up on the wicker love seat, and Mina sits opposite her. Lucy's no longer drunk, but she nurses a cup of tea in both hands, gripping the porcelain as if her life depends on it

"Why are you here, Mina? Shouldn't you be at home with Jonathan and Lucky?"

Mina regards her with a tranquil look. "I told you, Lucky is at my cousin's place. And Jonathan... I don't know where Jonathan is."

At that, Lucy looks up. "What do you mean?"

Mina shrugs. "I haven't seen him since the day I went to visit him."

"Haven't you moved in with him by now?"

Mina casts her an exasperated look. "I've been living with my cousin for the past few weeks. You would know that if you answered any of my phone calls."

Lucy is quiet, and Mina ducks her head so she can meet Lucy's eye. "Did you think I moved in with Jonathan?"

Lucy looks up at her, and there's something almost accusatory in her green eyes. "You went back to him."

Mina gives her a level look. "Of course I went back to him. I loved him for years, Lucy. I owed it to Jonathan to see him again. We were together since we were teenagers! We were engaged to be married, before Alexander. I owed it to myself."

Lucy has turned away again, not wanting to meet her eye, and Mina wants to shake her. "..... But Lucy, above all that, I owed it to you."

“Me?? You went back to your old lover for me?" Lucy scoffs, tears forming in her crystal eyes. Her voice breaks, but Lucy is always Lucy, and her words bite back, even if she's hurt -- especially when she's hurt.

"Forgive my skepticism, Mina, but I fail to understand how returning to the man you loved first, the man who could have given you everything I never could -- the first man you chose over me -- could possibly be about me."

"Because!" MIna can feel her voice rising out of desperation and frustration and anger and love at this woman who owns her heart now. "Because you deserve the truth.... Because you deserve to look me in the eye and know beyond a doubt that I'm telling the truth when I say I choose you. Not Jonathan. Not Alexander. You."

Lucy's mouth drops open, and Mina feels a sense of satisfaction that she has managed to render Lucy Westenra, of all people, speechless.

"I went to see Jonathan, I let him hold me in his arms, and I knew that what I feel for him, even what I felt for him then is not even half of what I feel for you. After all these years. After everything we've all been through -- you are the one I choose.... It might not mean anything at all to you now, after what I did to you, but I know now without a single doubt that it's the truth. And so do you. I choose you, Lucy."

Lucy just stares at Mina, her eyes wide. Her hands are shaking so much, Mina fears the tea in her cup will spill. She crosses the room and kneels down in front of her chair. She takes the cup carefully from Lucy’s hands and sets it down.

Lucy has looked away from her again, like she does now whenever Mina tells her the truth, with her eyes or her words. Mina almost sighs, because she was right. She has damaged this beyond repair.

But then, Lucy's trembling fingers catch her own in a fearful, hopeful grip. "Please tell me it's real. Tell me you're telling the truth."

“Oh, Lucy...” Mina reaches up and her fingers curling around the nape of Lucy's neck. She brings their foreheads together, until she can practically taste the salt of Lucy's tears. "I love you. I'm so in love with you."

Finally she kisses her, the taste of Lucy touching her lips, unadulterated by blurry memory and guilt. This time, it's Lucy who hesitates, who is still beneath Mina's mouth, and Mina knows the terror of Lucy that night, whispers the same prayers Lucy did into the kiss of so many years ago.

Then Lucy's mouth parts beneath her with a soft sobbing moan, and bliss floods Mina's whole body. She never knew bliss tasted like Lucy and her tears. She laughs into the kiss, her own tears slipping from her closed eyes to Lucy's waiting lips.

Lucy's hands, greedy and fearful, grip onto her dress and haul her up into the chair above her. The love seat is small and cramped, but Mina doesn't care, not when Lucy holds her like she's never ever going to let go, like she's afraid Mina will change her mind.

She imagines that it will take some time, for Lucy to truly believe that she's here to stay. So Mina holds her gently and firmly, like a cherished thing, pushes her down into the soft cushion of the chair just so Lucy can feel her weight, the permanence of her and her choice.

Mina will wait and she'll show her. She will show Lucy every single day of the rest of their lives.

#westenray #lucy westenra #mina murray #katie mcgrath #jessica de gouw #dracula #westenray au #i am tired and aware that this is a mess #ANOTHER night without sleep w00t w00t #my writing #tw: abuse #tw: suicide #tw: poisoning

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speedygal · 4 years

Text

In the rain; I walk, with careful thought, but fall

Jonathan was on a walk around the castle after coming back from a trial that featured strange characters that were lucrative in many romanian leu and his reputation ballooning up into the world of the law. His hands were in his pockets as he went over the events of the month, tracing over the events that lead him into criminal law with one leg in being a realtor and Dracula keeping his presence out of that life style as part of a small but mutual discussion.

The count was part of the life of a vampire, one that Jonathan was part of, a fine film between the living and the dead. More of a very thick curtain hanging on a railing in front of the window blocking views of another life that was different to the one inside. A drip of a wet droplet landed on his forehead so Jonathan looked up toward the sky spotting the clouds were heavy.

Jonathan’s smile faded as he continued to walk in the sprinkling rain alongside the curved and paved road as the dirt became muggy with each step forward. He followed the age old path that he had taken outside of a vehicle or any known associates keeping his private life a secret. Jonathan had been careful to keep his colleagues from getting too close to his life in the early 20th century so well that it seemed perfectly logical to assume it could be continue.

He walked on, casually, with a whistle. Once, as a mortal being in the rain would have bothered him. All the mud, the moisture in his clothing, all of that could be peeled away by a simple arrangement that had become part of his routine, just as had blood sucking, mastering the art of it without being soaked in the blood of the fallen victim, the dirt was a reminder of what was still there; life, filth, and inconvenience. It was a piece of a relatively old normal that still lingered of which he disliked but embraced.

This was all comforting and keeping him sane even the thought that Mina was living in England having moved on and proceeded to live her life without him but rebuilt, stronger, better, and whole. Jonathan’s thoughts of Mina finding herself a new suitor for her new existence and how she were doing finding the right man for the new Mina. With these thoughts, he was distracted on autopilot walking on.

Jonathan put his right foot forward then slipped forward with a yelp. Jonathan slid down the hill then crashed into a mud puddle and crashed on to his butt with a yelp. Jonathan sat there as it raised processing what had just happened to him. A deep rich laugh drew his attention off the matter facing up toward the older vampire who welded a umbrella above his head with a walking stick left embedded in the ground as his free hand was held out for Jonathan.

“This was most unexpected, my dear Jonathan.”

Jonathan took Dracula’s hand then was lifted up to his feet.

“Strange to find you out here during a rainstorm, Count Dracula.”

Dracula had a tiny precious smile at Jonathan’s comment as he took the walking stick out of the mud.

“Liked hopping around in your mud puddle?" Dracula lifted his thick eyebrows. "Got some steam off? General fun?”

“I slipped and fell. A fairly long slip." Jonathan admitted then frowned before adding. "Felt I were on a very long roller coaster.”

“How far along?” Dracula asked.

“From there,” Jonathan pointed on then gestured to where he were standing. “To here.”

“How so very interesting.”

“You should have seen me trying to regain control, flailing, struggling, trying not to fall on the way down!” Dracula’s brows rose at once at the upset younger vampire. “However, that failed and now my best suit is thorougly ruined.”

Dracula hummed as he surveyed the younger vampire.

“Mr Harker, this isn’t one of your best suits.” Dracula said.

“Yes, it is.” Jonathan was quite disturbed by the comment taking it as a insult. “I had the best tailor make it. Even checked out the fabric before ordering it.”

Dracula shook his hand.

“You are very mistaken.” Dracula said.

“This is my suit.” Jonathan argued as he gestured back toward himself. “I know every inch of it.” Dracula shared the umbrella with his companion. “I would know if it were less than best!”

Dracula smirked, softly, back at Jonathan.

“Unless, you switched it out.” Jonathan deduced.

Dracula’s smirk became a big smile.

“I switched the best one out for your tenth best one this morning after your clothes were done drying while you were showering.” Dracula held up a finger as he proceeded to explain. “And it is the tenth best one because it has your first hand stitches in it that are silver and not brown.”

Dracula’s index finger moved toward the lapel of the suit with a faintly visible silver gray odd pattern.

“It stands out so well to the average eye without needing voluntarily inspection.”

Jonathan looked toward his lapel then back.

“Stop switching out my suits.”

“Well, it has been helpful in finding clients for your line of work, has it not?”

“Yes, but that’s invading my privacy---"

Dracula was the first of the duo to walk on so Jonathan followed.

“--and we have a deal about stepping through the curtain we made between these two lives to keep our profiles low.” Jonathan continued as he caught up wit the count. “I don’t want to rely on you then one day discover the most vampire that I am familiar to is dead because of a meal and I can’t keep up.”

Dracula grimaced as he contemplated the one possible future that Jonathan had spoken of.

“That wasn’t in our initial deal.” Dracula acknowledged then grimaced. “Penciled in words, yet solidified in ink.” the older vampire’s features became softened. “Your concerns are very well founded.”

Jonathan was quiet looking back at the artistic picture that he had seen of Dracula and his brides, just once, when going on his first hunt. Being without them but with Jonathan Harker was different. He could tell from after work that his companion had missed his own kind in a way that was quite evident from a lonely vampire.

“Do you miss them?” Jonathan asked.

It was quiet between them as they walked.

“My first three brides.” Dracula said as he turned his attention toward Jonathan then nodded before adding, “Every day.”

“Your . .” Jonathan was at first trying to be careful but the anticipation of his companion indicated the words wouldn’t hurt. “very seductive monstrous jailers.”

The count turned his attention away as he appeared to be regretful for how things had turned out looking on distantly toward the direction of the castle that was partially seen in view ahead of them as a distant specter. Just as the past were to the men, just as their lives had once been, their once normal used to be. That past of before was a figment made of memories tinged in fondness, warmth, and comfort and little to lacking of needing to be in what everything was now. The count wasn’t insulted by Jonathan’s comments.

“If you knew them, met them in a different way, they would eat that up and embrace it.”

Dracula was watching a transparent memory unfold before his eyes, lovingly and sadly as his voice became far more softer.

“Those were the kind of people they were.” Dracula snickered before continuing on with passion in his voice recalling them with dotting love.

Jonathan listened to his companion.

“Blood was a necessity.” Dracula admitted. “Apart from that; they were lively, charismatic, bubbly, and unique characters when not wooing a meal.”

Jonathan lifted a brow.

“They could knit a sweater if you asked and make it into a long dress!” Dracula turned his attention toward Jonathan as he regaled over his former companion’s skill. “In fact, most of your pajamas were made by them. Made enough to last for a eternity.”

“Never going to run out.” Jonathan noted.

Dracula nodded, somberly.

“Ever.” Dracula said. “One of my brides once said those materials will outlast them." a small sad smile was cast as he looked up toward the sky. "I never believed it." his features fell. "Now, I do.”

“Then why were they in white, gray, and yellow dresses?” Jonathan asked. “If they were so skilled in knitting.”

“It was their choice to be in those gowns.” Jonathan’s curiosity was satisfied. “They liked the aesthetic.”

It was quiet among them once again.

“How different is knitting from stitching?” Jonathan asked.

Dracula turned his head toward Jonathan.

“Very different, Mr Harker.” Dracula confessed. “Possibly not in your skill set.” then he smiled back at Jonathan. “Stick to stitching, you’re not half bad at it.”

“I don’t see why I should just stick to stitching.” Jonathan said.

"Knitting takes time and patience.” Dracula lowered his head so his eyes met with Jonathan as the rain beat against the umbrella quite lightly. “You don’t have that patience. . . yet.”

Dracula lifted his chin up then resumed walking.

“Oh, would you like to bathe in the hot tub?” Dracula changed the subject from patience to warmth. “The heater is on in the area that normally gets flooded during this season is all free.”

“And you?” Jonathan asked.

“I have a fire pit to warm up in front of." Dracula said. "I am not the one covered in mud!”

Dracula walked on ahead and Jonathan chased after the safety of the umbrella.

"Count Dracula, slow down!" Jonathan plead.

/Fin.

#bram stoker's dracula #jonathan harker #Dracula x jonathan #dracula

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