#woman facing prison for abortion

[thepeacepigeon]

The 4B Movement: How South Korean women are leaving the patriarchy behind 

(Getty Images)

In 2016, a 34-year-old man named Kim Sung-min waited inside a unisex restroom outside exit 10 of Gangnam Station, Seoul South Korea. Six different men came and exited through the restroom over the span of an hour, until a 23-year-old woman entered, and Kim proceeded to stab and kill her with a 12-inch-long sushi knife. In court, Kim stated, “I did it because women have always ignored me.” Kim’s actions and thoughts are not out of the ordinary amongst Korean men—violence against women is extremely common in South Korea. 

(BBC)

South Korea has a long record of female subjugation. Between 1953 and 2021, abortion was illegal in almost all circumstances, and current law allows a woman to get an abortion only if she has consent from a male relative or her boyfriend/husband/partner. A 2015 South Korean government survey revealed that almost 80% of women had been sexually harassed at work. A survey released by The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family found that 57.8 percent of women felt vulnerable to misogynistic violence. Digital crime and sexual harassment are extremely common— “molka”, up-skirt photos, and secret cameras hidden in restrooms are rampant, so much so that any cellphone purchased in South Korea has a mandatory chime when photos are taken. The World Economic Forum’s 2022 Global Gender Gap Index ranks South Korea at number 99 out of 146 countries for gender equality. Legislation actively works against women trying to report sexual assault. Men accused of stalking or harassment can “ask” their victims to drop charges, and in 2022 a man murdered his former colleague after she refused to drop charges against him for stalking her since 2019. South Korea has the highest gender pay gap of all the OECD countries—the top wealthiest 37 countries, globally, with women earning on average a third less than men. These alarming statistics have come years after the “Gangnam Station” murder, and South Korean women continue to be targeted for their gender.

(Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images)

Despite Kim’s own testimony, government authorities explicitly denied the misogynistic motive, and the prosecution announced that the case was not being investigated as a hate crime. Kim was eventually sentenced to 30 years in prison. In response to the murder, women took to the streets outside Gangnam station and the surrounding areas in protest. The women, many of whom had never considered themselves feminists or activists, but the nature of the crime and the misogynistic motivation, as well as the court's refusal to acknowledge it, outranged them. The murder incited intense debates about misogyny within the country, and the gender inequities women faced both socially and economically. Five months after the murder, Cho Nam-Joo’s novel Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was published. The book devastatingly details an everyday woman’s daily experiences of nonstop sexism, inequality, and misogyny in contemporary South Korea, and served as another enraging eye-opener that would develop into what would become known as the 4B Movement. 

The four B’s (or “Four No’s”) of the movement represent the four major components that women of the movement are rejecting; Bisekseu (sex), Bichulsan (child-bearing), Biyeonae, (dating) and Bihon (marriage). South Korean feminists define the 4B movement not as a fight against the patriarchy, but a complete step away from it— leaving it behind. In 2017, the Escape the Corset campaign swept across the country. The word “corset” is used by Korean feminists as a metaphor for the societal mechanisms that control and repress women, for example, the extreme and toxic beauty standards. Both 4B and Escape the Corset condemn and reject the influence that beauty holds within every aspect of South Korean life. Pioneers such as feminist author Cho Nam-Joo, and photographer Jeon Bo-ra, who photographed women who shaved their heads in rebellion. Social media has played a large role in the 4B movement, with bloggers and beauty influencers like Lina Bae speaking up against unattainable beauty standards and societal pressures, and Summer Lee who was inspired to cut her hair, throw away her hyperfeminine clothes, and post pictures of herself without makeup. 

(Jean Chung/Getty Images)

Despite increasing conversation on women’s rights, feminism is still considered a taboo, contentious, or even “dirty” word for many South Koreans. It is often associated with “man-hating” and perceived as overly aggressive. The country's current president Yoon Suk-yeol has promised to close down the South Korean Ministry of Gender Equility and Family, and any other organizations that fund or support women and victims of sexual violence, claiming they “treat men like potential sex criminals”. A January 2023 article in the South Korean newspaper The Sisa Times reported that 65% of women in the country do not want children, 42% do not want to get married, and over 80% of those cite domestic violence as their key reason. As a result, concerns regarding the rising average population age and declining birth rate in South Korea have increased greatly. The country's birth rate is less than one per woman as of 2021, and the country saw less than 200,000 marriages. In recent years, the South Korean government has commissioned a number of soap operas and reality TV shows to promote an idyllic view of romantic heterosexual love, and to encourage marriage and reproduction. 

(Yonhap)

The 4B movement and Escape the Corset campaign have had a tremendous impact on the way young South Korean women view the countries cultural grip on women’s appearances and lives. Between 2015-2016 and 2017-2018, Korean women spent over 5 billion Korean Won less on beauty products and cosmetic surgeries, instead investing their money in cars and choosing independence over objectification. The movement is calling for boycotts of any business that uses sexist advertising, and encouraging women to eat at women-owned restaurants, drink in women-owned bars, and shop at women-owned stores—women’s money goes into the pockets of other women. Women’s universities have also been on the rise in South Korea, with most cities housing one or several women-only institutions. Similarly, women’s only spaces have begun to expand, women’s parking spots closer to entrances and exits in parking garages, women’s only hotel floors and common rooms, and women’s only subway cars. These spaces allow feminism to spread and flourish, and give Korean women the ability to find community with other women without the interference of men. 

(Ian Baldessari/CityLab)

Since 2016, Exit 10 of Gangnam Station has become a symbolic site for South Korean feminism. The South Korean feminist movement developed out of particularly misogynist conditions within their country. The 4B movement represents a radical way that women have sought to create an online and offline world devoid of men—rather than engaging in arguments and altercations, they simply refuse to interact with men in every aspect of their lives. These actions have had a profound impact on the functionality of South Korean society and have opened an uncloseable door too the discussion of women’s rights. 

McCurry, Justin. “Calls for Stalking Law Overhaul in South Korea as Woman’s Murder Shocks Nation.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 23 Sept. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/23/calls-for-stalking-law-overhaul-in-south-korea-as-womans-shocks-nation.

Teehan, Katie. “What Is the 4B Movement?” Service95, 16 Apr. 2024, www.service95.com/4b-movement-explainer/.

Izaakson , Jen, and Tae Kyung Kim. “The South Korean Women’s Movement: ‘We Are Not Flowers, We Are a Fire.’” Feminist Current, 16 June 2020, www.feministcurrent.com/2020/06/15/the-south-korean-womens-movement-we-are-not-flowers-we-are-a-fire/.

Lee, Min Joo. “Why so Many South Korean Women Are Refusing to Date, Marry or Have Kids.” Yahoo! News, Yahoo!, 15 May 2023, news.yahoo.com/why-many-south-korean-women-123250959.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHmBVorK4v6bdzwcJMRyRdXkKtzUlpQYWn5Ot-BPzs-YRNNZFW5JBwC65OTaPrRImn3F3G56r0gfNydadUzlQtPS61hOi6uggk_OkwZqqvLvS-YN4HbPrpwKvK9_7g0e9yqu9fiRRvOVJkGRv__L7AZGoYtfHVxjKLLPDi9DI2fu.

Park, Seohoi Stephanie. “Murder at Gangnam Station: A Year Later.” KOREA EXPOSÉ, 2 Mar. 2023, koreaexpose.com/murder-gangnam-station-year-later/.

Dockeray, Hannah. “Why Some South Korean Women Are Rejecting Beauty.” Sky News, 14 July 2021, news.sky.com/story/plastic-surgery-south-korea-faces-beauty-backlash-11871654.

#thepeacepigeon #peace activism #feminism #4b movement #politics #nonviolence #womens rights

[odinsblog]

A Florida woman, unable to get an abortion in her state, carried to term a baby who had no kidneys.

Deborah Dorbert's son Milo died in her arms on March 3, shortly after he was born, just as her doctors had predicted he would.

"He gasped for air a couple of times when I held him," said Dorbert, 33. "I watched my child take his first breath, and I held him as he took his last one."

She said her pregnancy was proceeding normally until November, when, at 24 weeks, an ultrasound showed that the fetus did not have kidneys and that she had hardly any amniotic fluid. Not only was the baby sure to die, her doctors told her, but the pregnancy put her at especially high risk of preeclampsia, a potentially deadly complication.

Her doctors told her it was too late to terminate the pregnancy in Florida, which bans nearly all abortions after 15 weeks. The only options were to go out of state to get an abortion or to carry the baby to full term, and Dorbert and her husband didn't have the money to travel.

What followed was an agonizing 13 weeks of carrying a baby she knew would die and worrying about her own health. It left Dorbert with severe anxiety and depression for the first time in her life.

Florida law allows abortions after 15 weeks if two doctors confirm the diagnosis of a fatal fetal abnormality in writing, but doctors in Florida and states with similar laws have been hesitant to terminate such pregnancies for fear someone will question whether the abnormality was truly fatal. The penalties for violating the law are severe: Doctors can go to prison and face heavy fines and legal fees.

(continue reading)

#politics #deborah dorbert #abortion #florida #republicans #ron desantis #reproductive rights #reproductive justice #healthcare #war on women #religious reich

[pronoun-fucker]

Like many people in Britain, you probably watched with horror the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, thinking, “Thank goodness women could never be prosecuted for having an abortion here.”

But let me tell you, it already happens here.

Two women are currently awaiting criminal trial in England for abortion-related offences, both facing charges that carry a maximum sentence of life. At least 17 women have been investigated by police over the past eight years for having had abortions.

In Oxford, a 25-year-old mother of one is facing trial for allegedly taking the drug misoprostol – one of the two pills routinely prescribed by doctors to abort a pregnancy. But her baby was born alive and she was subsequently reported to the police. She is being charged under the Offences Against the Person Act, a law passed by parliament in 1861, before the invention of the lightbulb and before women had the right to vote. The law states that a woman must be “kept in penal servitude for life” if she procures an abortion.

Another woman is facing trial after she took abortion pills she obtained from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by post when rules were relaxed during the pandemic to allow this. She was allegedly 28 weeks pregnant at the time and is facing charges of “child destruction” (note the visceral language) under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act from 1929, which also comes with a maximum life sentence. She could spend the rest of her life in prison.

We so often think that the 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortion. But it did no such thing. It partially decriminalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales, so long as strict conditions were in place, such as a confirmation from two medical practitioners that the pregnancy had not exceeded 28 weeks (subsequently reduced to 24 weeks in 1990), or that the termination was necessary to prevent injury or mental harm. Any abortion outside these criteria is still a criminal offence.

We know that it is overwhelmingly vulnerable women who are investigated and prosecuted for having abortions. One woman collapsed in the dock when she was sentenced to two and a half years in 2015 for taking tablets she had bought online to induce a miscarriage after the 24-week period of gestation. The court heard that she had “a history of emotional and psychological problems”.

Another woman, a mother of one, ordered pills online to induce an abortion in 2019 after her abusive boyfriend had told her not to go to the doctor. She had believed she was eight to 10 weeks pregnant but after a traumatic miscarriage in her bath tub, where she has described sitting in an inch of blood, she realised her pregnancy had been much further along. She was arrested in her hospital bed and served two years in prison.

These are just some examples of women who have faced trial: there are multiple other women who face gruelling police investigations. In 2021, a 15-year-old girl was investigated for a year after suffering an unexplained stillbirth. Her phone and laptop were confiscated during her GCSE exams, she was self-harming, and the investigation only ended after a coroner concluded that the pregnancy ended due to natural causes. Another woman was arrested in hospital last year and kept in a prison cell for 36 hours after a stillbirth at 24 weeks, and is now suffering PTSD. My question is this: if a woman has had an abortion late in the gestation period, or a traumatic miscarriage or stillbirth, should she go to prison or should she be offered support from medical practitioners at what is clearly a horrendous time, both mentally and physically?

Women in 2022 are being shackled by a 160-year-old law made at a time when we were not even allowed to set foot in the House of Commons. Urgent reform is needed to protect more women from harm, which is why organisations such as BPAS and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) are calling on the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Max Hill QC, to drop all charges against these women. The RCOG this month has gone further, calling on ministers to finally legalise abortion. There is absolutely no public interest in sending vulnerable women to prison for terminating pregnancies. Instead, these prosecutions will only serve to put off women seeking help from doctors because they might get arrested, pushing more women into unsafe and underground options.

Meanwhile, according to the criteria of the Abortion Act, a woman has to show that she would suffer grave permanent injury to her mental health if she did not have an abortion after 24 weeks. Why should women still have to pathologise themselves as mad, hysterical, unfit or suffering to legally access healthcare?

The state currently has a triple lock on women’s bodies. By not legalising abortion it has the right to force pregnancy, birth and motherhood upon us. Look to the rules on organ donation: it is illegal to donate people’s organs after they die (however desperately they are needed by people on waiting lists) without their permission. The law at present, which denies women the right to abort a pregnancy on their own terms, is to give us less autonomy than a corpse.

Link | Archived Link

#abortion #USA #uk #radfem #radical feminism #misogyny

[thepro-lifemovement]

Lawmakers in the South Carolina House passed a bill on Thursday protecting preborn children from abortion beginning at the point of fertilization — the first moment of their existence.

H. 3552, or the Human Life Protection Act, passed in an 83-31 vote. Representative John McCravy said the bill “sends a message that the days of abortion as birth control are drawing to an end, and it is now time for our pro-life Senators to keep their word and vote to pass this bill.”

The bill specifically references the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision handed down last June, which overturned Roe v. Wade, pointing out that South Carolina is exercising its political power to protect preborn children. The bill defines abortion as “the act of using or prescribing any instrument, medicine, drug, or any other substance, device, or means with the intent to terminate the clinically diagnosable pregnancy of a woman with knowledge that the termination by those means will, with reasonable likelihood, cause the death of the unborn human being….”

The bill states:

It is not a violation of Section 44-41-820 for a physician to perform a medical procedure necessary in his reasonable medical judgment to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, a substantial risk of death of a pregnant woman due to a physical condition, or the substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman, not including psychological or emotional conditions.

In reality, induced abortion — which deliberately ends human life in order to end a pregnancy — is not necessary to save the life or health of a pregnant woman. Emergency C-sections, preterm delivery, miscarriage treatment, and surgery for ectopic pregnancies are not considered induced abortions and are not prohibited by this bill:

It is presumed that the following medical conditions constitute a substantial risk of death or substantial risk of substantial physical impairment of a major bodily function of a pregnant woman: molar pregnancy, partial molar pregnancy, blighted ovum, ectopic pregnancy, severe preeclampsia, HELLP syndrome, abruptio placentae, severe physical maternal trauma, uterine rupture, intrauterine fetal demise, and miscarriage. However, when an unborn child is alive in utero, the physician must make all reasonable efforts to deliver and save the life of an unborn child during the process of separating the unborn child from the pregnant woman, to the extent that it does not adversely affect the life or physical health of the pregnant woman, and in a manner that is consistent with reasonable medical practice. The enumeration of the medical conditions in this item is not intended to exclude or abrogate other conditions that satisfy the exclusions contained in item (1) or prevent other procedures that are not included in the definition of abortion.

Women who undergo abortions would not face any penalties under the bill. Someone who illegally commits an abortion, however, could be sued for up to $10,000 for each violation, and also faces up to two years in prison. Additionally, the bill requires the biological father to cover 50% of pregnancy-related costs.

#prolife laws #prolife news #way to go South Carolina!!!! #and having men pay too! #good law #prolife #pro life #pro-life #anti abortion #south carolina #abortion #live action #news

[gatheringbones]

[“The fact remains that the most effective long-term solutions to protecting and empowering victims of abuse are policy changes that would grant victims reliable access to health care, housing, livable income, paid sick leave, child care, and safety from criminalization. Yet bureaucratic impediments on the federal level, lack of leadership from Democrats as a serious “opposition party” against Republicans, and general inaction have stalled meaningful, nationwide, progressive economic legislation for decades. As a result, too many victims are forced to stay in dangerous, traumatizing relationships solely for economic reasons, in a country where poverty can be a death sentence, and those who experience poverty are disproportionately policed for “survival crimes”—what we call being punished by the state for its own failure to invest in community resources, and its reliance on commodifying and profiting off incarcerating the most vulnerable.

Despite how frequently cases of rape and domestic abuse are invoked to justify policing and prisons, women who are victims of abuse face more severe punishment for “enabling” child abuse, pregnancy loss, or even surviving abuse, broadly, than their abusers do. The many documented cases of this include Marshae Jones, a Black woman in Alabama who was jailed for fetal homicide in 2019 after miscarrying from being shot in the stomach. Sex workers who report being victimized are disbelieved and often criminalized by police officers themselves (a 2007 study found 44 percent of police officers said they were unlikely to believe a report of rape from a sex worker), while the rapes and sexual violence cases of Black and Indigenous women and girls are chronically ignored by police departments and media.

Victims of abuse with the least resources and social capital are more likely to face punishment than anything else when they seek help from authorities, rendering it more likely they would seek criminalized means to protect or provide for themselves. In too many documented cases that disproportionately implicate people of color, pregnant people are criminally charged for ostensibly endangering fetuses—for example, due to substance use struggles—and even prior to the overturning of Roe, for self-managed abortions. Many pregnant people have faced charges or incarceration for miscarriage or stillbirth, and even for harms inflicted on them while they were pregnant, like Marshae Jones.

This is in part because about forty states have feticide laws that were written with the intention of protecting pregnant people from domestic violence. It’s an important crisis to address, given how high homicide rates targeting pregnant people are. Yet all too often, feticide laws are co-opted and misused by anti-abortion activists and prosecutors to criminally charge pregnant people who lose their pregnancies. Misuse of fetal homicide laws has contributed to the nearly 1,300 criminal charges for pregnancy loss doled out between 2006 and 2020 alone—a number that’s tripled from 1973 to 2005, according to research from Pregnancy Justice. Let’s not forget that it’s police officers who are the primary enforcers of abortion bans, a role they’ve enthusiastically stepped into: In February 2022 the city of Louisville paid a police officer $75,000 in settlement fees almost a year after the officer was suspended for protesting outside a local abortion clinic while armed and in uniform. After being suspended with pay for almost half a year in 2021, the officer sued the city for supposedly violating his constitutional rights while off-duty and discriminating against him for his “pro-life” views. The incident is part of a long history of police officers either ignoring or enabling violent anti-abortion protesters at clinics, and apparently even joining protesters themselves.

Fetal homicide laws are just one example of legislation that accords unborn fetuses with legal personhood rights, resulting in extensive legal risks for pregnant people, and particularly those who experience abuse. Dana Sussman, deputy executive director of Pregnancy Justice, told me in 2022 that there’s “simply no way to grant fetuses ‘personhood rights’ without subjugating the rights of pregnant people by creating a false tension between the rights of the fetus and the rights of a pregnant person.” When a pregnant person’s “rights are secondary to the fetus, or at odds with the fetus, that lends to an environment in which violence—whether it’s state violence like imprisonment, or interpersonal violence—can be committed against pregnant people with far less accountability.”]

kylie cheung, from survivor injustice: state-sanctioned abuse, domestic violence, and the fight for bodily autonomy, 2023

#kylie cheung #currently reading #cw rape #cw abuse #history stuff

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Thought I’d let you know that the op of the abortion post (pronoun-fucker) is a terf. When I looked at the recommended post it was suggesting a bunch of terf shit and when I check their blog yeah they’re a terf. You don’t have to answer this just thought I’d let you know cuz I reblogged the post without even realising.

Oh, gross. Alright then, let's see...

Cool, okay, so the post was literally just the text of the linked newspaper article, so allow me to recreate it here:

Like many people in Britain, you probably watched with horror the US supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, thinking, “Thank goodness women could never be prosecuted for having an abortion here.” But let me tell you, it already happens here.

Two women are currently awaiting criminal trial in England for abortion-related offences, both facing charges that carry a maximum sentence of life. At least 17 women have been investigated by police over the past eight years for having had abortions.

In Oxford, a 25-year-old mother of one is facing trial for allegedly taking the drug misoprostol – one of the two pills routinely prescribed by doctors to abort a pregnancy. But her baby was born alive and she was subsequently reported to the police. She is being charged under the Offences Against the Person Act, a law passed by parliament in 1861, before the invention of the lightbulb and before women had the right to vote. The law states that a woman must be “kept in penal servitude for life” if she procures an abortion.

Another woman is facing trial after she took abortion pills she obtained from the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) by post when rules were relaxed during the pandemic to allow this. She was allegedly 28 weeks pregnant at the time and is facing charges of “child destruction” (note the visceral language) under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act from 1929, which also comes with a maximum life sentence. She could spend the rest of her life in prison.

We so often think that the 1967 Abortion Act legalised abortion. But it did no such thing. It partially decriminalised abortion in England, Scotland and Wales, so long as strict conditions were in place, such as a confirmation from two medical practitioners that the pregnancy had not exceeded 28 weeks (subsequently reduced to 24 weeks in 1990), or that the termination was necessary to prevent injury or mental harm. Any abortion outside these criteria is still a criminal offence.

We know that it is overwhelmingly vulnerable women who are investigated and prosecuted for having abortions. One woman collapsed in the dock when she was sentenced to two and a half years in 2015 for taking tablets she had bought online to induce a miscarriage after the 24-week period of gestation. The court heard that she had “a history of emotional and psychological problems”.

Another woman, a mother of one, ordered pills online to induce an abortion in 2019 after her abusive boyfriend had told her not to go to the doctor. She had believed she was eight to 10 weeks pregnant but after a traumatic miscarriage in her bath tub, where she has described sitting in an inch of blood, she realised her pregnancy had been much further along. She was arrested in her hospital bed and served two years in prison.

These are just some examples of women who have faced trial: there are multiple other women who face gruelling police investigations. In 2021, a 15-year-old girl was investigated for a year after suffering an unexplained stillbirth. Her phone and laptop were confiscated during her GCSE exams, she was self-harming, and the investigation only ended after a coroner concluded that the pregnancy ended due to natural causes. Another woman was arrested in hospital last year and kept in a prison cell for 36 hours after a stillbirth at 24 weeks, and is now suffering PTSD. My question is this: if a woman has had an abortion late in the gestation period, or a traumatic miscarriage or stillbirth, should she go to prison or should she be offered support from medical practitioners at what is clearly a horrendous time, both mentally and physically?

Women in 2022 are being shackled by a 160-year-old law made at a time when we were not even allowed to set foot in the House of Commons. Urgent reform is needed to protect more women from harm, which is why organisations such as BPAS and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) are calling on the director of public prosecutions for England and Wales, Max Hill QC, to drop all charges against these women. The RCOG this month has gone further, calling on ministers to finally legalise abortion. There is absolutely no public interest in sending vulnerable women to prison for terminating pregnancies. Instead, these prosecutions will only serve to put off women seeking help from doctors because they might get arrested, pushing more women into unsafe and underground options.

Meanwhile, according to the criteria of the Abortion Act, a woman has to show that she would suffer grave permanent injury to her mental health if she did not have an abortion after 24 weeks. Why should women still have to pathologise themselves as mad, hysterical, unfit or suffering to legally access healthcare?

The state currently has a triple lock on women’s bodies. By not legalising abortion it has the right to force pregnancy, birth and motherhood upon us. Look to the rules on organ donation: it is illegal to donate people’s organs after they die (however desperately they are needed by people on waiting lists) without their permission. The law at present, which denies women the right to abort a pregnancy on their own terms, is to give us less autonomy than a corpse.

Link | Archived Link

And, just to be clear, while is a situation that is 100% rooted in punishing women for having sex and also primarily affects women, women are NOT the only people affected by it. Trans men and enbies also can get hit by these laws, and we shouldn't forget them.

#abortion #also fuck transphobes with a cactus‚ just so we're clear #feminism

[rapeculturerealities]

Honduras referred to UN human rights committee over total abortion ban

The Center for Reproductive Rights and the Honduras-based Centro de Derechos de la Mujer (Center for Women’s Rights, CDM) filed a petition with the UN human rights committee this month on behalf of a woman known as Fausia, who underwent a forced pregnancy after being raped and denied an abortion under Honduras’ draconian laws.

Honduras is one of five Latin American countries – along with Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic – where abortion is prohibited in all circumstances, even in cases of rape, incest, or when the pregnant woman’s life is at risk. Until last year, it was also the only country to outlaw emergency contraceptives.

Women who have an abortion or medical professionals who perform one can face up to six years in prison. The ban was reinforced by a constitutional amendment in 2021, which raised the threshold of votes needed for congress to modify the abortion law.

This strict ban is now being challenged for the first time via an international body. The organisations backing Fausia’s complaint want the UN committee to rule that the total abortion ban is a violation of women and girls’ fundamental rights, and recommend that Honduras regulate access to abortion as an essential health service.

#honduras #abortion #reproductive rights #Total abortion ban

[no-passaran]

The baby was already dead when the pregnant woman got to the hospital, but the doctors didn't help her because they were afraid that they would be jailed for providing an abortion. They didn't give this vital healthcare, so the woman died. It's not the first time it happens and it won't be the last as long as abortion is illegal.

(...) A strict anti-abortion law is still in force in Poland, which has already led to the death of several pregnant women. For example, Dorota’s fate is reminiscent of the story of thirty-year-old Izabela, who also died of sepsis after the loss of amniotic fluid. Then, the doctors were waiting for labor to start on its own, or for the baby in Izabela’s body to die.

They were afraid that otherwise they would violate the new abortion ban. It forbids abortion under any circumstances. Only a few exceptions are allowed – in addition to rape and incest, is the threat to the mother’s life. However, the interpretation of the law was initially unclear, and doctors face up to three years in prison for violating it. Although Izabela had a legal right to an abortion, they preferred not to perform it at the hospital.

#reproductive rights #feminism #poland #abortion #💬

[greater-than-the-sword]

“The first time I realized there were abortion clinics in our country was in 1988. I said to my husband, ‘these are the death camps of America.’ I saw people sitting in front of abortion clinics in Atlanta, and I’ve been involved ever since.”

-87 year old woman Eva Edl, survivor of communist concentration camps

Eva was arrested in 2021 on charges of violating the FACE act, blocking access to an abortion clinic, a matter which was a misdemeanor charge according to local police, but has been picked up by the FBI and she now could be sentenced up to 11 years in prison.

#pro life

[mamadoc]

The next chapter of my story is posted. This one is a bit of a roller coaster with lots of feelings being revealed.

Here’s an intense part of it to pique your curiosity.

“Can we just take them out then?” Ashley asked, her eyes still closed. “This place is like a prison. The babies aren’t doing well. Let’s just be done.”

Dr. Green smiled and put her hand on Ashley’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you’re so miserable. I wish my magic wand wasn’t broken so that I could make all of your pain and sadness go away. I don’t think taking them out right now is in the babies’ best interests. Even with the shots you got when you first came here, the babies may still struggle to breathe if they’re born right now because they’re still so young. We want to give them the best chance to survive without assistance as possible. As a general rule, every one day inside will save them two days in the NICU. But it’s a balancing game. We never know when we’ll see signs they’re not doing well and need to be delivered.” She glanced over at Tim who was also looking at Ashley, her eyes still closed with her hands laying over her face.

“Staying here a little bit longer is what’s best for the babies, Ash,” he said.

For the babies. For the babies! Ashley squeezed her eyes closed even more tightly and rubbed her forehead. “And what about me?” she asked just above a whisper. “What about what’s best for me?”

Tim and Dr. Green looked at each other for a moment, neither knowing exactly what to say.

Ashley cracked her eyelids open to look at them. “See. I knew you wouldn’t know what to say. My life, my worth as a person, is gone. I have no value other than an incubator,” she said quietly. Then her voice started escalating in volume as she continued. “I have no family. My former friends are all hundreds of miles away. I don’t think I have a job anymore since I haven’t been there in weeks. My body is unrecognizable to me. You can’t tell I have bones in my ankles anymore, my toes look like little sausages, my belly has grown so much that I can’t bend over at all, and even my stretch marks have stretch marks! I’ve been miserable for nearly thirty weeks. And for me to not be miserable anymore, you’ll have to cut me open to take them out. And then when they’re out, I’m supposed to take care of them for the rest of my life?” She was shouting at this point in time, and both Tim and Dr. Green had taken a couple steps back from her.

“NO!! I MATTER, TOO! I hate this pregnancy, and I want it to be over.” She was sitting up straight in the bed. Her face was flushed with anger. The alarms on her monitors started to beep with her elevated heart rate. Dr. Green quietly silenced the alarms as Tim moved closer to try to calm Ashley down.

“Ash…” he started in a quiet, calm voice as he reached his hand out to touch her arm.

“No!” she screamed, pulling her arm away from him. “Don’t touch me. You’re the whole reason I have to be here and go through all of this. You and your stupid sperm. The sex isn’t even that good. And then you didn’t want me to get an abortion. I should have just done it, and it not told you about it.” She paused for a beat to take a big breath and narrow her eyes at Tim. “I gave you the biggest ultimatums I could think of so that you would give in and agree to an abortion. And you just gave up everything. Your job, your friends, your dog, your house, the city you’ve lived in for most of your life, and even the woman you love more than me!”

Dr. Green gasped loudly. She felt like she should leave the room. This was getting very personal, and she felt like she was intruding. So she slowly started backtracking toward the door. Tim and Ashley noticed her retreat, but they didn’t say anything.

Tim’s eyes were wide, and his jaw dropped. Ashley had never shared anything like this before, and he was shocked that it was coming out now. “That’s why you kept asking me to give things up? So I would agree to an abortion?”

“YES!” she hissed. “I was never meant to be a mother! I HATE being pregnant! And pregnancy apparently hates me too,” she said as she grabbed an empty emesis bag and waved it as evidence.

“Ash…” he said quietly. Emotional confrontations like this were not his forte. From his childhood on, he had learned to walk away, avoid the subject, or hide from any conflict to avoid getting hurt literally or figuratively. He wasn’t equipped to handle something like this.

“No. Stop.” She took a deep breath and looked him straight in the eye. “Just tell me, honestly, right now. Do you love me?”

Dr. Green froze in the doorway. They didn’t seem to care that she was there, and her morbid curiosity turned her to stone right where she was. Medusa herself couldn’t have done a better job. Only her eyes moved as they ping-ponged back and forth between Tim and Ashley.

Tim’s eyes opened as wide as they could. His mouth moved, but no words would come out. He knew what the truth was, but that wasn’t the answer she wanted to hear. As words started to form, they were shaky and quiet. “I have given up almost everything in my life for you and the babies. I have done everything you’ve asked me to do.”

“That wasn’t my question,” she snapped back at him. “I know what you’ve done.”

“Isn’t that enough?” he asked softly, shrugging his shoulders.

“No, Tim. It isn’t. You don’t love me. You love the babies. From where I’m sitting, it looks like you sacrificed all of that for the babies, not me. It’s always for the babies,” she sassed at him with anger lacing every word.

“But aren’t you sort of a package deal? I did it for all of you.”

“We will not be a package deal for long. I am done with this pregnancy. Done!” With that Ashley started to take off all of her monitors. Once her belly was free, she ripped out her IV. Then she slipped on the flip flops she had there, which were the only shoes she could fit on her feet anymore, and marched toward the door.

Tim moved to stand between Ashley and the door, holding up his hand. “You can’t do this. You’re risking your life and our daughters’ lives.”

“I don’t care anymore,” she spat.

Then Ashley moved to go past him, and he grabbed her forearm. “Don’t do this. Please? We’ve already made it this far. It may not be for much longer. Please just stay.”

“Or it may be for a couple weeks. FOURTEEN DAYS,” she replied, her eyes narrowing at him. “I’m not going to stay.”

“Ashley,” he said, frustration and anger creeping into his voice. “You can’t go. They’re my babies, too. I won’t let you risk their lives.”

“What are you going to do to stop me?” she challenged. She took her other hand and pried his fingers off of her forearm. “Are you going to hurt me to keep me here?” she asked, pointing to the finger impressions she now had on her arm. “You’re going to turn into you dad and slap me around? You’re exactly like him.”

Tim gasped and withdrew his hand as though he had been burned. He didn’t realize that he had been squeezing her arm tighter in his anger. “I… I would never…” He scrubbed at his face with both of his hands. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m so sorry.” He dropped down on the edge of her bed, looking down at his hands in disbelief.

“See,” she retorted. “We should never be parents. We’re just going to screw them up.” With that she turned and took a few more steps to the door.

“Are you going to stop me?” she asked Dr. Green, challenging her.

Did you like it? Read the rest of the story here.

#chenford #the rookie #tim bradford #fanfic #ashley mcgrady #fanfiction

[abla-soso]

It's sad and frustrating to see many Western muslims - especially converts - start to get influenced by right-wing Christians even when their beliefs clearly do not align with Islam.

I see it especially when they talk about abortion and the rights of the mothers and the pre-born babies. They've adopted the mantra of "life begins at conception and all abortions are murder that should be punished with prison time". When they know that is clearly not the case in Islam.

In Islam, life does not truly start until the soul enters the body of the fetus (most scholars agree that this happens after 120 days of conception, roughly when the fetus is 4 months old).

Abortion - for no justifiable reason - before this point is not considered "murder". It's a sinful act, for sure, but it's not akin to ending an actual human life. It's wrong because it unjustly ends the potential life of a living fetus that was growing into a human being with a soul. But it doesn't require any legal or financial penalties. The woman simply needs to ask forgiveness from God and do good deeds.

Even when the woman has an abortion after 4 months of pregnancy - without medically needing to - and the abortion is considered an act of killing a human being, it is factually wrong to call it "murder punishable with prison time" in Islam because it is simply not the case. In Islamic figh, there is no prison sentence. The woman would be religiously obligated to either: free a child slave or fast for 2 months, and then legally obligated to pay a financial penalty.

The right-wing Christians of the pro life movement aim to make all abortions punishable with prison time. There is a woman in Ohio currently facing this charge.

In Islamic figh, that is an unjust punishment.

I wish the Muslims who blindly aligned themselves with the right wing pro life movement cared about what Islam deems fair or unfair more than they care about fighting the radical feminists 😑

#islam #tw: abortion

[hyperfixationsporfavor]

Kindred Spirits (Gojo/Reader)

Kindred Spirits (Gojo x Reader- Part 4 of The Marriage)

Author’s note: Hey guys! Another installment of this fic for anyone that’s interested. Gojo’s back for this fic because I miss him, okay? Next chapter will include a little flashback with him and reader, just for escapism purposes (from stinky Kenjaku). Also Choso’s mom makes a cameo. We don’t know much about her yet but I wanted to give her some background. A certain someone who’s connected to her might make a cameo later (Hint: big brother). Anyway, hope you guys enjoy and beware of the warnings.

Warnings: suicidal thoughts, thoughts of abortion, unsettling imagery, kidnapping, implied noncon, going into labor, minors dni

When you managed to get back to the room you were being kept in you finally broke down. Uraume shut the door behind you, immediately after you stumbled to the bathroom and vomited. You felt the damning reality of everything crashing down on you all at once. Your husband was sealed, your children were being used as pawns in some battle royal. The balance of everything was being haphazardly disregarded by throwing former civilians and reincarnated sorceres into destructive fights. And you were here, under the care of a man who had violated the sanctity of your dreams. A monster who was offering you to another monster once he had secured your baby. 

Once you had finished relieving yourself, you tried to get up and make your way back to the bed. But your legs gave out underneath you, and all you could do was sink back down to the cool tiled floor. How was it only days ago you were in bed with your husband trying to decide on baby names for your child? Now your child wouldn’t have a name. They wouldn’t know who you were, who their father was. A tear escaped your eye, then another. You allowed yourself this moment of pity, because in his presence you wouldn’t show weakness. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being some tragic woman. You’d die on your terms. 

~

The skeletons extended their boney fingers towards him in an effort to feel his warm flesh. 

Satoru knew it was all in his head, nothing held weight in the prison realm. He leaned back against nothingness as he pondered his options. He couldn’t say he was worried, he had faith in his comrades. He’d be free soon enough. His mind flashed to you, and your anxious phone call. He was a fool for not taking your apprehension seriously. Did you suspect something before he was sealed? He couldn’t worry about that now. The estate was the safest place you could be. The barrier would protect you from anything. Surely Ichiji would dispatch Kento or Kusakabe to the Gojo estate to ensure your protection. 

He wasn't worried. 

One of the skeletons looked up to face him and spoke. 

“Satoru Gojo even apprehended your arrogance.”

He just huffed. “What is this? Some party trick?”

“No,” it answered. “I think you’ll come to find your time here rather amusing.”

It hunched over and began to morph into something else. Satoru felt his throat close up when he came face to face with a disfigured Kento Nanami. The left side of his body was completely scorched, and devoid of an eye. 

“No,” he mumbled. This isn’t real.”

He nearly jumped when another skeleton put a hand on his shoulder. When he turned around he discovered Toge Inumaki with a bloody stump in place of his left arm. 

“How do you know what’s real?” he uninhibitedly asked. “You’re in here while those who admire you are slaughtered in mass by the very curse you fought to save.”

“Satoru?” your voice called out. 

“(Name)?” he abruptly stood up from the pile of skeletons he stood on. “(Name)?”

You appeared before him with a small bundle in your arms. Before he could say anything a menacing figure stood behind you. A towered beast with four arms and two faces. 

“Ryomen Sukuna.”

~

Kenjaku held the prison realm in his steel grip, as he lounged on the bed of the former Kamo leader. He held it up closer to his face when the eyes scattered across the object began to erratically blink. 

“Get comfortable, Satoru Gojo,” he chuckled. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

~

Your days were spent in confinement. Uraume brought your morning and noon meals to your room, clearly under duress. In the evenings you’d dine with Kenjaku, not exactly an ideal escape. You found yourself pacing back and forth between your bed and the empty dresser most days. Your thoughts raced through your mind trying to figure out what to do. Surely you couldn’t so readily accept your fate? You had to fight back. But how? 

Even if you used your technique on Uraume or Kenjaku, there was no guarantee it would kill them. And even if it did, where would you go? Your only knowledge on the situation beyond the Kamo estate came from your captor, and what he provided was rather bleak. 

In your darkest moments, you laid awake, you debated ending your life, and your child’s life by default. A part of your brain had convinced you death by your own hands would be more merciful for the both of you. 

Your fingers brushed over your pulse quite often at night. But you found yourself fearfully retracting those notions whenever your mind went to such horrible places. Holding your own mortality in the palm of your hands was too much to bear. 

Your hand rested on your stomach, and you did something you remembered from your visits with Tsumiki. 

“Hi sweetheart,” you whispered.

Much like the hospital visits you were greeted with silence, but you continued speaking into the darkness. 

“I’m sorry I’ve put you in this position. And I’m sorry that Daddy isn’t here right now,” you choked out. “Sweetheart just know, whatever happens to us, that your parents love you so much.”

You stopped yourself before you could start crying again. 

~

“What’s the matter (Name)? You’ve hardly touched your food.”

You looked up from your uneaten dinner to face Kenjaku.

“I’m not very hungry,” you mumbled. 

“But I had Uraume make a special dinner just for you. Something to commemorate our two month anniversary.”

Had you only been with him for two months? It felt agonizingly longer.

You placed a hand on your bump and felt your baby kick against your fingertips. 

“Don’t feel too bad (Name). Your child will serve a greater purpose. Your death won’t be in vain.”

Any day now until your baby was born. Until he handed you over to Sukuna. 

“You bastard,” you hissed through clenched teeth.

“Do I need to give you a good thrashing?” he playfully asked. “I was just trying to be considerate.”

“If that’s what your idea of consideration is. I can see why your children feel the way they do towards you,” you retorted.

He sighed. 

“Being a parent isn’t for the faint of heart.”

Over your many dinners together Kenjaku had shared a multitude of stories about himself with you. Or the many versions of himself. While your loathing of him only increased as you learned more, you knew the information could be potentially useful. So you remained quiet and listened. 

“I don’t think anyone understands that sentiment more than the mother of the death paintings,” you noted.

Kenjaku’s gaze settled on your stomach, much to your dismay. He took a moment to reflect on the woman who he knew all those years ago. 

“I suppose you’re right,” he mused. 

“What was she like?” you suddenly asked. 

His gaze moved up to meet yours. 

“Surely you learned about her during your time as an academic?”

You sat up a little straighter in your chair. “I know the story. A woman gave birth to a curse and took refuge at the Kamo estate until Noritoshi Kamo- or you decided to use her as a lab rat. But you’ve never taken the opportunity to elaborate on it.” 

He sneered. “Because there’s nothing to elaborate on. She had a useful ability so I took advantage of it.”

You ignored the implications of that statement and pressed on.

“But who was she as a person? That’s what I’d like to know.”

Kenjaku tilted his head. “Why?”

“I feel sorry for her. There’s no ulterior motive,” you admitted.

He snorted. “Vice principal Gojo. You’re becoming increasingly soft.”

“Looming death changes people.”

He just snorted and rested his chin on his palm. 

“I truthfully can’t remember a thing. Honestly.”

He paused for a moment. 

“Actually, there is one thing,” he mumbled. “I remember her screams. Yes, whenever I took her, she screamed.”

You grew nauseous as his smile deepened. 

“It was…a beautiful sound.”

~

Satoru’s sanity was starting to wear thin. He didn’t know how long he’d been sealed. All he knew was what the ghosts of the prison realm showed him. Grotesque reenactments of the slaughterings of those he cared about most. One after another. And he couldn’t escape. Even when he closed his eyes their voices whispered in his ears. 

He had no way of knowing if this was the bastard that took Suguru or a harsh reality. He saw you often, calling out to him and crying yourself to sleep. 

Once he tried to reach out to touch you, only to have you disappear and be replaced by a skeleton. It wrapped itself around his shoulders, and whispered.

“The walls will soon be painted red with the blood of your wife.”

He snapped and grasped the skull in his steel grip. 

“I don’t know if you can hear me but when I get out of here, I’ll destroy you,” he hissed. 

With that he slammed the skeleton against the floor and shattered it into a million pieces. 

~

A woman appeared to you in your sleep. Someone you hadn’t seen before. She wore a white kimono with a purple shawl wrapped around her. Her eyes were striking, beautiful but filled with sadness. The two of you were in what looked to be a small shack. 

Outside you could hear the commotion of the streets, people talking and laughing. 

She wandered aimlessly around the small room while you took the opportunity to look around. 

The structure had been converted into a lab, with tables littered with notes and rusted examination tools. A small cot sat in the middle of the room. Its surface was stained with blood and other fluids. You took a step back in disgust. The smell was abominable, with the lack of windows only adding to the issue. 

“Awful isn’t it?”

You looked up at your silent companion. 

“Did you just speak?” you uttered. 

“I did, but I must admit. I have difficulty finding my voice these days,” the woman responded.

“What is this place?” you asked.

She looked around the room in reluctant defeat, equally as disgusted as you. 

“My salvation, then my prison.”

She waved you over to join her in the corner of the room. When you got there you noticed the depleted structure, broken and covered in dust, was a cradle. 

“What do you see,” she asked you.

“Nothing.”

“This was meant to hold my child. My children, I should say. But he deemed them unfit to live. Lord Noritoshi Kamo,” she hissed. 

“You're the mother of the death paintings,” you murmured. “But why am I seeing you?”

She shrugged and waltzed over to the cot. 

“Perhaps I am to serve as Charon and guide you to the afterlife.”

You tensed up. “Am I dying now?”

She turned to face you, staring daggers and piercing your soul. 

“Only if you continue to be meek for that- that devil,” she roared.

“What can I do?” you restored.

“Fight back.”

You blinked.

“I can’t-”

“You have to,” she interrupted. “I had no desire to be a mother. But you do.”

“What’s your point?”

“We cannot allow that man to kill another woman. How many have fallen victim to his circumstance?”

She stormed over to you and took your hand. “Please live (Name). Your family needs you. Don’t become me.”

After a moment you spoke. “Who were you before all this?” 

Her eyes widened. She couldn’t recall the last time someone had asked her anything about herself. 

“I…enjoyed reading. Anything I could get my hands on really. Romance novels, newspapers, poetry. Anything to take me away. When I was a girl I’d climb trees and pretend I was standing atop of a ship, going off to places unknown.”

She smiled. A genuine smile. 

“Thank you (Name).”

~

You woke up with tears in your eyes, feeling a peaceful energy wash through you for a brief moment. 

The briefest of moments. 

You gasped when you felt a contraction.

“No,” you whispered. “Not yet.”

More pain shot through you and an involuntary groan escaped your lips. 

Footsteps came rushing towards your room and Uraume appeared at the door. Their eyes widened as they approached you, a gleeful smile decorated their face. 

“Finally, it’s time.”

~

The End. 

Taglist: @mc-reborn

#gojo x reader #gojou satoru x reader #jujustu kaisen #jjk fanfic #angst warning #ongoing series #ao3 fanfic #hyperfixationsporfavor

[ukrfeminism]

2 minute read

TW: femicide.

A dangerous sexual predator who brutally beat to death aspiring lawyer Zara Aleena as she walked home alone from a night out with friends has admitted murder.

Jordan McSweeney, 29, trailed Ms Aleena through the streets at night before launching a ferocious attack, sexually assaulting her, and leaving her to die on the driveway of a home in Ilford, northeast London.

McSweeney, a heavily convicted criminal, carried out the attack in the early hours of June 26, just nine days after he had been set free from prison.

The “savage and brutal attack” on Ms Aleena, 35, was caught on terrifying CCTV, while McSweeney had been seen following a series of other women earlier in the evening before selecting Ms Aleena as his victim.

At the Old Bailey on Friday, he pleaded guilty to murder and sexual assault, and now faces a life sentence. The guilty plea follows a series of aborted court hearings when McSweeney had avoided psychological assessments, refused to leave his prison cell, and was suspected of attempting to disrupt court proceedings.

Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb adjourned sentencing to December 14, when members of Ms Aleena’s family will outline the impact of the murder on them.

In the days following her murder, her family paid tribute to Ms Aleena as a “joy to all of us” who had set her sights on becoming a lawyer at the age of five.

“Zara was friendly, she was everybody’s friend. She was everybody’s daughter, everybody’s niece, everybody’s sister, everybody’s cousin. She was pure of heart.”

Referencing the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, the family said Ms Aleena “walked everywhere” and “believed that a woman should be able to walk home”. 

“Sadly, Zara is not the only one who has had her life taken at the hands of a stranger. We all know women should be safe on our streets. She was in the heart of her community, ten minutes from home”, they said. “In a savage, sickening, act she was murdered by a stranger.”

At an earlier hearing, prosecutor Oliver Glasgow KC said the attack happened at around 2.45am when Ms Aleena was minutes away from reaching her home following a night out with friends.

He said McSweeney caused the “violent death of Zara Aleena who was attacked in the early hours of the morning of June 26”, saying she was “a lone female late at night making her way home, a woman who stood no chance”. 

“Emergency services were called after her body was discovered in a driveway on Cranbrook Road.

“She was bleeding, struggling to breathe, and had clearly sustained serious head injuries. She was also partially naked.

“The injuries she had sustained at the hands of this defendant were so severe that nothing could be done to save her.”

Ms Aleena studied law at the University of Westminster and she had recently completed a Legal Practice Course to be able to practise as a solicitor. Introducing the evidence, Mr Glasgow said: “Eyewitnesses and CCTV directly links this defendant to the savage and brutal attack on Zara Aleena.

“In the early hours, he was following and observing a number of different women. He was obviously interested in them and their movements. Tragically, for Zara Aleena, it was her on whom he became fixated.

“He is seen on CCTV to set about her on the ground. He is seen kicking and stamping repeatedly on her body.

“When the body was discovered, she was clearly already fatally wounded as a result of the onslaught.”

The court heard McSweeney was tracked to a caravan when police officers discovered a bag of blood-stained clothing and shoes.

His fingerprint was also found in blood at the scene of the attack. 

The killer, from Dagenham, refused to speak in his police interview and repeatedly refused to leave his prison cell as court proceedings progressed.

When his barrister asked for a further delay to proceedings, the judge replied: “The defendant has now had three opportunities to meet with the psychologist and he hasn’t attended on any of them. He hasn’t attended today, and I am not prepared to put the case over until November.”

The court heard he made threats to police officers after his arrest and claims to suffer from ADHD and a split personality disorder.

McSweeney has 28 convictions for 69 offences, including for assaults on police officers and members of the public.

He was released from prison on June 17, 2022, after serving his latest sentence for burglary and theft of a motor vehicle.

[2amtechnicolor]

Milgram Project and Spec Ops: The Line - The Only Way to Win is Not to Play

"They are guilty. But what is justice? And how would you see it dealt?" - Konrad, Spec Ops: The Line (2012)

[TW: mentions of murder, violence, various war crimes, and the American military]

So Fuuta's second MV and voice drama premiered last night...and it's a lot. This is our first time hearing directly from a "Guilty" prisoner and honestly, probably one of the best example of how a vote can change personalities in Milgram next to Haruka's second VD.

(I will be pulling Milgram ENG translations from @onigiriico)

So we all know the basic premise of Milgram, the music videos. We watch a prisoner sing about their "murder", we listen to their talks with the warden, Es, and then we voice them "innocent/justified" or "guilty/unjustified" accordingly.

In season one, us, as the audience, had a sense of naivete. We had no idea what a "guilty" or "innocent" vote would do to the prisoners. There was no real explanation for what the consequences of our actions would be. Now, the curtain has been pulled back. Sure, we heard the story from Jackalope, but listening to a second-hand account and a first-hand account are two different things. One is clinical observation, the other is emotional.

One person's death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic.

When just given the factual events (Kotoko attacked Amane, Mikoto, Mahiru, and Fuuta before being subdued by Kazui), it's easy to digest. Person A moves to Persona B and commits Action C.

A 17-year-old boy strangles a 10-year-old girl.

An 18-year-old girl aborts her child.

A 20-year-old man harasses a middle schooler online until her death.

At face value, any one of these could easily be voted "guilty" from one sentence according to your own values. It's when you get into the specifics, when we see their point of view for ourselves, when we hear it from their mouths, that it becomes more complicated.

Why is Muu, a girl who stabbed a classmate, more forgivable than Fuuta, who never laid his hands on anyone?

Why is Mahiru, a woman whose boyfriend committed suicide, less forgivable than an organ harvester?

Does internet harassment justify losing an eye? Does a toxic relationship justify being on the brink of death? If you had known the outcome, would you even have chosen differently?

Fuuta: "You and I are exactly the same breed!...Like I’d let someone like this judge whether I should be forgiven or not!"

This brings me to Spec Ops: The Line.

For all of you who don't know what SO:TL is, it's a military shooter game in the Spec Ops series, released in 2012, near the height of the military shooter genre's popularity (Gears of War, Halo, Call of Duty, etc.) However, SO:TL isn't a video game--it's an art piece.

You play as Captain Martin Walker, a special ops soldier in the US Army, searching Dubai and the surrounding area for an missing army comrade of his: Lieutenant Colonel John Konrad, the 33rd Infantry's commander. Konrad had defied orders in an attempt to bring order back to Dubai after the worst of sandstorms in its recorded history hit.

I won't go into detail on the whole plot, but while the player searches for Konrad and the rest of the 33rd you also:

use white phosphorus against opposing forces, killing 47 civilians who were evacuated for shelter in the process

execute either a Emirati civilian who stole water from the desert city or a member of the 33rd who was sent to apprehend him, killing the civilian's whole family in the process. Choosing to not choose kills them both.

assist in decimating the water supply of Dubai, dooming the city's inhabitants to dehydration

and many, many more atrocities.

In the end, when you finally find Konrad, the man who has been taunting you over the radio the whole game...he's dead. He's been dead for a while. You, the player, as Captain Walker, did all this, killed all those innocent people, justifying that it would all be worth it in the end, to find a man that was already dead.

Konrad: "There were 5,000 people alive in Dubai the day before you arrived. How many are alive today I wonder?"

There is no way out of these missions but through. You have to use chemical weapons, you have to murder civilians in cold blood. You have no choice.

But...There's always a choice.

In the words of the game itself: "If you were a better person, you wouldn't be here."

You don't have to play this game.

Turning your console off and never touching the disc again is a valid choice.

You don't have to be a war criminal. You have the choice to walk away.

You don't have to vote in Milgram.

You, the audience, are Captain Walker. By playing SO:TL, you are responsible for the destruction of Dubai.

We, the audience, are Warden Es. By voting in Milgram, we are responsible for Kotoko's vigilante justice. We are responsible for Fuuta losing an eye. We are responsible for Mahiru's near-death experience, and Amane's broken mental state.

But we don't have to be.

...

However, There's one major difference between SO:TL and Milgram, and I'm not just talking about genre.

Spec Ops: The Line is a singleplayer video game.

Milgram is decided by majority vote.

If you choose to opt out of Spec Ops: The Line, no one has to die.

If you choose to opt out of voting in Milgram...you can't necessarily stop everyone else.

So if a "guilty" or "innocent" outcome is inevitable, which is the most moral decision?

Not voting?

Or voting with your conscience without knowing the results of your outcome?

Are you setting a shattered bone, or breaking it in another place?

...

I can't answer that for you.

Es: "It’s alright. If you and I really are the same kind of person like you say, I’ll end up like that sooner or later anyway."

#milgram #milgram project #milgram es #kajiyama fuuta #shiina mahiru #sakurai haruka #kashiki yuno #yuzuriha kotoko #spec ops #spec ops the line #martin walker #john konrad #meta #essay #long post #lux talks

[kaatiba]

flash fiction challenge with @ragewrites | prompt 01

a scene which takes place in a temple, or other site of worship. (500 words or less.)

The sunlight is soft here, dust-laden, filtered through high windows into slanted pillars against the mosaic floors. Your mother looks beautiful and very young, her hair as long and as vibrantly red as your own, her face soft and unlined and full-cheeked, not hollow or careworn.

You’ve never seen her like this before; she had no history in your world, and so no photographs documenting her youth. For you, she’d always been short-haired and too thin, deep lines carved into her brow and around her mouth, dressed perpetually in jeans and a soft and oversized t-shirt.

You recognize her anyway. You would know your mother anywhere, in any world.

She walks now, dressed in elegant blue and purple, gold threaded through her hair and adorning her hands, towards the raised altar in the center of the circular room.

The altar that will be, in the future, your prison. Where you once were (or will be) chained by magic, there is a towering mass of melted candles, a little city in and of itself arcing around the gold and marble rune-tiles that channel the offerings the worshippers give their god. Your mother kneels before one such tile with remarkable grace, considering the swell of her belly, and places her palms over the tiles, breathing in once, long and slow.

On her exhale, the runes glow, fed by the essence of magic she’s poured into it. The offerings keep the city safe, because the city is built from the bones of a god, and though the god is dead, the vitality in the bones are not—not after hundreds of years of offerings. The bones are strong and unassailable, and so the city is strong and unassailable.

And in return, sometimes, when the god deigns to, the worshippers are gifted something in return.

It happens now, with your mother. She stiffens, her eyes flying open and then rolling back until all you can see are the whites. She doesn’t breathe, doesn’t move, for a small eternity. And then all at once she gasps and jerks away with a shudder and half-aborted cry, curling over on herself.

When she straightens, she looks more like the woman you remember, the beginnings of worry lines touching her face, her eyes dark and sad like they were all the days of her life that you knew of.

“No,” she says, to herself or to something you can’t see or maybe to the god’s bones, voice strained and broken. “No. You can’t have him. I’ll take him away—somewhere you can’t reach. Even if I have to break the world to do it.”

And then she looks straight at you, even though this is a memory preserved, even though you aren’t really there, even though it isn’t possible. “I’ll keep you safe,” she swears to you, fervent. “The gods can’t have you. You’re mine.”

technically this fits my wip oracle but is likely to get jossed as I write it further. I'm very happy with this scene though and it's got me thinking thoughts about my plot

taglist (ask to be +/-): @muddshadow, @lockejhaven, @tracle0, @anonymousfoz, @hyba

#oracle.wip #kaatibawrites #this was fun! #thank u so much for reaching out and setting this up #im excited to do more prompts!

[darlingshane]

Expensive Delights: Part 4

Julian Kaye x F!Reader

— Read below or at AO3.

Summary: Julian didn’t know how heavily that was weighing inside him. He doesn’t give it much thought nowadays. Hearing you say that, only validates those restless nights in prison that had him wondering if it was his fault or not. He wondered if he should have gone into a different direction after being released, instead of falling into old habits. But he promised himself that it'd be under his own terms this time. 

Word Count: 22,3k (7 Chapters)

— Rating: 18+

Warnings!!!! Explicit, Smut, Male Escort, Voyeurism, Sex, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Menstrual Sex, Public Sex, Public BJ’s, Mild Anal Play, Attempted Sexual Assault, Mention of Attempted Sexual Assault, Murder, Attempted Murder, Mention of Grooming, Mention of Underage Sex, Mention of Past Abortion, Kidnapping, Sex Club, Trauma, PTSD, Smoking, Guns, Non-Con Touching, Non-Con Drug use, Non-Con Kissing.

A/N: This part came out very dark, angsty, and with a lot of warnings. They're all listed above, make sure to go through those before jumping into it.  Julian and Reader go through a lot, so buckle your seatbelt and read with caution. Also, this might contain 2 potential spoilers. I've made up the plot of this part out of tidbits of information about the show, and I'm predicting that at least one of those will happen.

Links: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Series Masterpost / AO3

Chapter 1: Exposé

 “How well do you know Julian?”

It's a question you've been fearing. It comes out of one of your best friend's mouth. The three of them– Eve, Sasha, and Yvonne sat you down when you went back to Portland to collect the rest of your belongings and sort some things out in your old apartment.

It was official. You were going to move permanently to Los Angeles, and you couldn't afford to keep a lease to a place you barely lived in anymore. So, after finishing your tour on the east side of the country, you went back to Portland.

Before you could attend to any of that, you found yourself in the middle of an intervention that your close-knit group of friends staged. They found out what Julian truly did for a living and ganged up on you, trying to convince you to really think things through before moving away for good.

They explained that someone recognized Julian in one of the photos Von had on the display wall in her studio. It was a former classmate, Claire from high school, who came into her shop. According to this woman that you’ve only talked to twice in your life, she had a friend who worked with Martina Duvall– young billionaire extraordinaire, big LA socialite, and heir to Duvall Cosmetics along with her three sisters. Claire boasted about being invited to Martina’s 25th week-long birthday party in a yacht and the set of boy toys the billionaire had hired for her and her friends’ entertainment. One of them was Julian– Martina's personal favorite.

Not only that, but they went further and searched for anything on him and discovered about his time in prison too from old news clips on the internet.

It’s not the fact that they found out about Jules that's bothering you. Had it been up to you, you would’ve told them the truth a long time ago, but it was never your truth to tell. It was his. And he chose to keep it a secret for this exact same reason.

The judgmental look on their faces, plus the earnest sympathy for you cause they think he had duped you somehow, and the time they put into investigating him, is what truly shocks you. You’ve always had very open-minded friends, but at this moment they’re showing just the opposite.

“He never lied to me,” you have to explain, “I knew who he was from the beginning and I know what I’m getting myself into.”

“Okay, so he’s an escort, that’s fine. We can look past that,” says Sasha, “but he’s also a murderer. Doesn’t that worry you?”

“No, cause he isn’t. He was set up.”

“That’s what he told you?” Von scoffs, “are you hearing yourself? He was set up. That’s gotta be one of the oldest excuses in the book, along with my dog ate my homework.”

“That’s the fucking truth,” you mutter, exasperated, with an eye roll.

“We’re just looking out for you, hon. You have a tendency of picking the wrong guys.” Eve words out in a condescending tone, “And right now, you’re about to do something drastic you might regret one day. We’re just asking you to really think it through before it becomes another Logan situation.”

“Fuck you, Evie!” you breathe fire through your mouth and nose at the audacity of her trying to compare this to what happened with your ex, “this is nothing like Logan’s.”

“You haven’t been the same since,” Sasha adds, “and you don’t seem like yourself right now… I mean, you even blew that meeting with that agent I set you with the other day. You’ve never done something like that.”

“Are you serious right now? That meeting was a joke,” you pause, “I didn’t blow it. That agent was a fucking sleaze bag. He got all over me in the first five minutes and wanted me to blow him off. How’s that? Do you think I shoulda stay, huh?” you pause again, and swallow, showing a firm hand, “that’s really unprofessional of you to bring that up in the middle of this, Sasha. This is not the place.”

She stares at you, perplexed, and suddenly her gaze falls to the ground, mumbling her apologies.

“If you guys were truly looking out for me, you would ask about how I feel. You’d listen to what I’m saying cause it’s really not sinking in… I love Jules, and he loves me. He’s nothing like Logan. He’s never lied to me or hurt me. And the only thing I’ll regret one day, is doubting myself and not moving out faster.”

This argument was just the cherry on top after the disastrous trip you’ve had. You were prepared to have some setbacks, but everything went from smooth sailing to dire straits the second you flew to New York and then came back. You didn’t have time to recover from nearly being sexually assaulted when you were forced to sit and listen to all this. You haven’t even told Julian yet cause didn't want to do it via phone.

With a heavy heart, you pack half the stuff you had left here and donate the other half.

You were supposed to stay for another week but as soon as the paperwork is done, and all your things are sorted, you just want to go back to your new home. So, you book the first fly available that you can find.

After handing out the keys and leaving the building for the last time to wait for your cab, Sasha shows up.

“Hey, can we talk?”

“I don’t have much time,” you stand on the stoop, clutching the handle of your suitcase in your fist.

“Look, I'll get straight to the point,” she draws some air and gestures with a hand, “I talked to the agency and told them what that creep Gillespie did to you. They just called me back, apologized, and said that they're still interested in meeting with you. They're sending someone new here if you want.”

“Why are they doing that?”

“What do you mean, why, babe? You're killing it right now. They're not dumb. Just tell me when you're ready, and I schedule it for you. It'll be someone legit this time. I'm making sure of that.”

“Thanks. I uh, I owe you an apology…” you look down for a beat, “you’ve been asking me for months to get off duty and I haven’t listened. It was really easy for me just to work with you, cause I’ve known you forever.”

“No need to apologize. I love working with you, but there are some barriers I can’t cut through like someone who’s an actual agent would… I’ve been winging it, really.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You’re doing amazing. And whoever they send, they'll never be as good as you.”

“So, we're cool?”

“We're cool.”

“Wait…” she then notices your baggage next to you, “you’re leaving already? I thought you were staying a few more days.”

“I changed my mind.”

“Because of our conversation the other day?”

You nod, “there’s nothing to think through. I already did… for months. It’s not a decision that I made overnight, like Evie said. I love Julian and I know what I’m doing. You don’t have to like it, or him. You just gotta accept it. And if I changed somehow… it wasn’t because of him. He’s not manipulating me in any way… this all just me, finally doing what I always wanted to do.”

“That’s the other thing I came here to say. I’m sorry too… It wasn’t right the way we cornered you like that… or how I brought the meeting up without talking to you first in private, that was only our business. I’ve been thinking about what you said… and even though I can’t help worrying about you… I do trust you, and I accept that you’re doing what it’s best for you. I’ll always have your back a hundred percent.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, keeping tears away from rolling down your cheeks.

“I know you do, you always had… and I’m sorry about the way I reacted. I didn’t wanna keep that from you. I can only tell you that Jules has never fooled me and I’m fully aware of what I’m getting into.”

“So, you really love him?”

“I do,” you sigh, watching the cab pulling up at the end of the street.

“Do you wanna talk about what happened in the meeting?”

“No, not now. Cab’s here.”

“Well, call me then.”

“I will.”

She hesitantly extends an arm in your direction, and you release the handle of your suitcase to give your friend a tight hug before parting.

“Don’t be a stranger, hotshot,” she kisses your cheek and lets you go.

By the time you arrive at Los Angeles it’s already night and Julian picks you up from the airport.

Even though you made up with Sasha, you’re still emotionally drained from everything and barely have anything to say during the ride. He knows about your friends, but you still haven't built up the courage to tell him about what happened in New York, and it keeps gnawing at you.

Back home, you change into comfortable clothes, order some food and sit at the breakfast bar to have your meal.

“Are you mad that they found out about me or what they told you about what happened at the yacht?”

“Neither,” you say, playing with your fork, tidying your thoughts, “it's the way that they chose to share that with me… made me feel like a child who didn't know any better.”

“No matter how you look at it, there's no right way to tell someone something like that.”

“Are you taking their side?”

“No, baby. The only side I'm taking is yours … I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I'd like to have friends who cared about me like that. And if I were in their shoes, I'd worry too about seeing you dating someone like me.”

“You're sweet,” you extend your hand to the side and pet his hair, “I wish they could see this side of you.”

“Just give them time to adjust. They'll come around like Sasha did.”

He's right, sooner or later you'll sit down again with them and probably laugh about the whole thing, but right now it still hurts a little.

“Oh, I forgot to show you something,” he licks his thumb and rises from the bar stool to procure his phone.

On the screen, he shows you a picture of a dog, an adult Siberian Husky, with five newborn-pups curled close to her.

“They’re Bailey’s,” he explains, “you said once you wanted a dog, and she’s given them for adoption. Asked her if she could save one for you if you want.”

You stay silent, staring at the lovely picture.

“You don’t have to decide right now… they gotta stay at least another month or two with their mom.”

“No, I’ve always wanted to have one,” you glance at him, as he lays his phone down on the counter, “I’d love to, but… are you sure we’re ready to have a puppy right now?”

“It's not like we’re having a kid.”

“Still, it is a big step.”

“Bigger than you moving in with me?”

You shake your head, and exhale, “can I think about it?”

“Yeah, take your time, baby.”

After dinner, you fall half-asleep on the couch watching TV while he does the dishes.

“C'mere, sweetheart,” Julian carefully picks you up and transports you to bed.

Curling to your side, you tuck your arms to your chest, as he settles behind you, hugging your body.

He then kisses your ear, having his hand nicely massaging your bare thigh in circles, switching from using his fingers to knead and brush his knuckles afterwards. You try closing your eyes but instead of lulling you to sleep it evokes your mind and body to wake up.

“Hmm, Julian, baby, you're turning me on.”

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” he scoffs, and nips at your neck just to tease you further.

“It is. I got my period yesterday.”

“You know, I don’t give a fuck about that.”

“I know you don't,” you smile to yourself, sending a hand back to caress his head, “but last time we did, we made a mess out of the sheets. It looked like a crime scene.”

His laugh is printed on your skin before pulling his head back, “you want me to stop? We have all the time in the world, sweetheart.”

You glance over your shoulder to find his eyes, “no, I don't want you to stop.”

His head bows to capture your lips slowly while his hand slips between your legs. You're so sensitive, he doesn't have to press hard to have you bucking against his hand.

When you press your ass back against his crotch, you feel him swelling. You push harder, earning you a groan that vibrates into the kiss.

“Wanna take your cup out, honey?” he purrs, and pecks your lips twice more, sending a shiver down your spine.

How does he even make that sound sexy is unbeknownst to you.

You comply with his wishes and disappear into the bathroom to remove and clean your menstrual cup while he lays a couple of towels on the bed.

Admittedly, no matter how messy it gets, some of the best orgasms you've had were during your period. Especially with him. You've never had a boyfriend who was as ready to go with your flow as Julian is.

Sans clothes now, you climb into bed with him and return to your former position, lying on your side, with your back leaned on his chest.

“This is how you want it, sweetheart?” Jules peppers your neck with kisses, letting his palm mold the bared plane of your curves.

“Yeah,” it comes almost in a half gasp.

Your body temperature seems cooler than your center, and you drape a thin sheet over your body while he adjusts your top leg, so he can penetrate you better.

“Go slow, baby,” you request as he lines up and breaches your entrance smoothly.

“Like this?” His hips sensually wave, slipping in and out gently out of you.

“Yeah… that's perfect, Jules,” your lips part against the pillow, as your top hand clutches to his muscled thigh, following his movements.

His warm breath covers the curve between your neck and shoulder with sweet praises and I love yous, as his hand massages your tender breasts with great care.

Your thighs are quickly coated in a layer of your fluids the more he moves. When you're close, his fingers travel between your legs, blindly finding your clit. He easily tips you over the edge and has you moaning at his name with gentle circles, and the twitching of his cock.

It feels really intense, and somewhat oddly amazing when your walls clench around him.

He carefully slips out, letting the hot mixture of you and him gush down your leg. You feel it at the back of your thigh and reach with your hand to wipe yourself with the towel and roll the fabric around your waist. Mess avoided.

He wipes his fingers and cock and engulfs you in his arms once more.

“You're so beautiful like this,” he coos, kissing your jaw, reiterating, “so damn beautiful.”

You huff a breathless laugh and tilt your head to the side, so you can see and seize his plump lips.

Sighing pleased, you capture his mouth with love, exploring his kiss as you keep melting, and falling deeper for him, if that's even possible anymore.

Chapter 2: Deep Waters

A few days after you've fully settled, things start looking up again… for a millisecond. This hasn’t been your month so far, and no matter how happy you are when you’re with Julian, there are things happening outside the world you’ve made with him that could burst your little bubble of happiness.

Julian is reclined on one of the loungers by the pool in the patio, clad in flowered-trunks, an unbuttoned shirt, and aviators, reading the paper like an old man while you swim laps.

“Hey,” you stop after a few minutes and splash some water on him to claim his attention, “are you gonna come in, or you're just going to sit there looking pretty all morning?”

He snorts, peeking at you behind the newspaper, “you're the one who wanted to swim.”

“Yeah, it feels good. You should try it,” you brace your arms on the edge of the pool and rest for a minute, kicking your legs slowly in the mass of water.

“I prefer watching you.”

“Oh, I see, you don’t wanna mess up your beautiful hair,” you keep messing with him.

His lips turn into a smirk and after a second he sets the paper on the floor, removes his sunglasses, and shrugs off his shirt as he stands up; making you regret your words by the way he playfully looks at you.

You push yourself off the edge and swim backwards, as he elegantly steps into the water by sitting on the edge first, and submerging himself fully before swimming underwater towards your direction.

When he reaches you, he grabs your waist, and pulls himself up, emerging to the surface in front of you.

“What did you say, again?” He breathes out.

Huffing a laugh, you push his hair off his forehead and link your arms around his neck.

“I said that you’re too vain for swimming.”

“Am I now?”

“Uh-hmm. I’m pretty sure you’ve never used the pool until I got here.”

His lips frown downward quickly, amused, as you kiss the bridge of his nose.

“C'mere,” he secures his feet at the bottom, grabs your legs, and tucks them around his hips.

Having his hands holding your ass, he licks his lips and cocks his head to capture your mouth. His tongue delves past your teeth and twirls firmly with yours.

You hum into the kiss, clutching harder to his neck as his bulge bumps with your center.

“Jules,” you mumble, noticing him getting a hard-on behind the fabric.

“What is it, honey?”

“People are going to see us.”

“You're getting shy now? Didn't you give me a handy in a restaurant once?”

“Ugh, don’t say handy like that. And that was different,” you chuckle, “these are our neighbors.”

“You should've thought of that before getting me to swim with you, huh?” he pushes you further back until you're pressed between his body and the wall of the pool.

All of a sudden, the wind is knocked out of you when he fuses his lips with yours, clearly determined and enticed on having you begging for more. Underwater, he presses and rubs himself against you, earning a moan out of you.

His lips then move away to nibble at your neck as one of his hands finds a way to curl beneath your leg and tease at your entrance over the fabric of your swimwear.

“Jules, baby, let's go upstairs,” you gasp, “please.”

“Yeah?” he gives a final lick to your neck and quickly ushers you out of the pool.

You can barely restrain from tearing each other's swimsuits in the elevator. As soon as you're inside the apartment, clothes fly off and with no time to get to the bedroom, he bends you over the back of the couch. He massages your clit with the blunt, hard tip of his cock before sinking into your opening. He frames your hips and slams into you with unbridled passion until you're filled with him.

It's not even noon when you relax on the couch and go at it once more. Slowly this time. Facing him, you drape your leg over his hip and guide his length into you.

Sharing his warmth breath, you nip at his bottom lip, as you rock your hips back and forth, swallowing him whole.

His top arm curls beneath your hip, extending his fingers to drag your juices to your asshole. He smears them around the sweet nerves of your tight orifice with a nice massage.

“You're gonna make me come,” you heavily pant.

“That's the idea,” he grins, pressing a little harder, “how does it feel?”

“Good… so fucking good,” your lips curve up, utterly mesmerized and overtaken by the electricity of his fingers exploring new places of your body.

“Oh God, I love you,” you moan as your walls flutter by surprise around his cock.

“Not as much I love you, sweetheart,” he exhales, removing his fingers off you, having his cock twitching in the middle of your orgasm, coating your walls a second time.

You’re both absolutely spent after that, and after lunch you take a little nap.

That has been the best part of your day so far.

Things roll into a different direction in the afternoon after Eli, Julian’s friend and associate, shows up, bringing Jules’ convertible from the car wash and his dry-cleaning.

“Can’t believe he makes you pick up his clothes too,” you say amused.

“Hey, he pays well.”

“I bet he does.”

You go out for a walk and pick up some groceries while they talk business.

When you come back, Eli is gone and Julian is tensely braced to the kitchen bar, staring at your phone.

“What's wrong?” you ask, leaving the grocery bag on the counter, standing on the other side of the bar, parking your ass on one of the stools.

“Who's Adam Gillespie?”

You swallow, as your stomach suddenly drops, “where did you hear that name?”

He points at your phone, frowning at you, “you left it here… it was blowing up, so I took the call and this guy started yelling like an asshole about getting fired because of you. He said that you were going to regret ever opening your mouth, and threatened to ruin your life for being a… so, I'm asking who's Adam and what the hell is he talking about?”

“I uh, this is not how I wanted to tell you,” you sigh, glancing at your hand as you anxiously scrape the skin of your thumb. “I didn't know he was fired… on my last day in New York I had a meeting with him, and we barely got to talk when he got…he got his hands on me and tried to kiss me…”

“Did he hurt you?”

Your eyes sting, welling up quickly, unable to put a sentence together.

“No… not physically… he said that… you know, the usual… that if I get to my knees and… he'd make sure I'd have a great career… I just… I pushed him off and ran… I told Sasha, and she called his agency, and I guess they weren't happy about it.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I was going to… I wasn't ready yet.”

“Why not? Don’t you trust me?”

“Why are you making this about you? I just told you that I wasn't ready. I was embarrassed, and wanted to forget about it, alright?”

“I thought we weren’t keeping secrets.”

“That’s ironic!” your anxiousness suddenly snaps into anger.

“What does that supposed to mean? I’ve told you everything.”

“You think I don’t know that you’re texting and calling your clients when you’re home? How I’ve been pretending not to notice when you sneak out to smoke?”

“That’s different. That is for work.”

“Well, that was a business meeting for me, so how is it any different? And I've never given you permission to pick up my phone. I don't care if it was on fire, I never told you that you could.”

You stand up and storm towards the bedroom before letting him see you cry. You're not sure which part makes you angrier and sadder. The fact that he didn't react like you expected him to, or that he invaded your privacy like that. He knows about your ex, so he's clearly aware that picking up your phone wasn't the best idea.

You slam the door shut and bury your face in the pillow, wanting to scream your lungs out of your chest.

Julian, on the other hand, feeling like an asshole, stays unmovable from his position; chocked up and annoyed at himself from not handling that better. He was betrayed by his own insecurities that feared you were keeping this from him on purpose before he could process what was done to you. He couldn't even bring himself to yell at that asshole when he picked up the phone.

He’s now stunned by the thought of someone trying to hurt you, and gives himself a timeout to find the right words to say before talking to you again.

A beep goes off from his phone reminding him that he has to leave in an hour, so ready or not, he arms himself with courage and love and cautiously enters the bedroom. He finds you crumpled on your side of the bed, clutching the pillow.

You’re done crying, but you still refuse to look at him when you hear the door closing.

“Sweetheart…” you feel the bed shifting as he sits on the edge.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” it comes out watery out of your throat.

“I won't. I was just going to say that I’m sorry… You’re right. I shouldn’t have picked up your phone or pry that out of you in that manner. I just… I heard him say all those things about you and I thought… I don’t know what I thought.”

“You thought that I’d lie to you?”

“No, it wasn’t that…” he pauses, “can you look at me, baby?”

You shake your head.

“Then, tell me what to do. I just want you to feel comfortable talking to me about anything.”

“I don’t know… It felt like you were judging me, Jules.”

“I wasn’t, baby. I swear. It’s not an excuse, but this, what you and I have, is very new to me… I've never lived with a partner before, and I have my insecurities too. But I didn't think for a second that you were making it up… you didn't deserve that… and if I could, I'd knock the lights out of that motherfucker right now.”

You sigh, processing his words.

“What are you insecure about?”

“That one day you'd realize that I'm not good enough for you, and see that there are better men suited for you out there. I still wake up every day wondering how I got you… you're everything I've ever wished for and more. And you’re absolutely right, I have my secrets too, and If I screw this up… I don't know what I'd do without you… did I screw up?”

“No, you didn't screw up. You just saved yourself,” you finally glance over your shoulder.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you swallow the knot in your gullet and tentatively reach with your hand.

“Can I touch you now?”

You nod, and he picks your hand, lifting it up to his lips to kiss your knuckles.

“What secrets are you keeping from me?” You wonder, and sit up, crossing your legs.

“There’s…” his voice wavers, “there’s something that I never told you about how I started, how I became an escort.”

“You said Anne introduced you to that world.”

“She did.” He pauses and exhales, “I don’t want you to think less of me if I tell you this.”

“Jules, I'm not gonna, I promise.”

“Okay,” he clears his throat and after a moment of gathering his thoughts he confides in you that he was groomed by Anne when he was only 16. She was 30, and he didn’t know how inappropriate that was, or had any notion of what grooming meant at the time. Being with an older woman was something he and his friends had been fantasizing about since they hit puberty, and he never thought twice of saying no to her offer. He used to clean her pool and care for her garden and plants, and one day she asked him if he wanted to make some extra money. That little extra took him to her bedroom, where she took the top of her bikini and asked him to give her a massage. The first few times, it was just that. Then, it quickly escalated, and eventually she became the first woman he ever had sex with, and the first who ever paid him for it. He was caught in her net and fell for it, completely. She taught him everything he knew, dressed him, and lavished him. But it wasn’t until he was 18 that she’d introduce him into the world, where she set him up with his second client right before he went to college. She even paid for half of that too to keep him close, he believes. And no matter if he did enjoy the experience, there’s no doubt in him that, as a grown ass man, he’d never do something like that to someone that age. It’s unthinkable to him. He got a few moments of clarity in prison, that was one of them. It was really fucked up, and kept him up at night for months.

You listen to it all, perplexed, and absolutely appalled at her behavior as he finishes telling the story…

“Sex and money were the same to me, she taught me that, and at some point I couldn’t have one without the other. Not until Michelle, and then… you. You both showed me what real love feels like, and that broke that idea that was implanted in me at a very young age. I guess finding out about Adam triggered something…”

You inhale sharply, having a huge knot building up in your throat.

“Please say something,” he pleads under his breath.

“I love you,” you say, plain and honest, extending your hand to caress his neck, “I’d never think less of you for that, Jules. It wasn’t your fault to be abused, the same way it wasn’t mine either. Nobody should be subjected to something like that.”

“But I couldn’t say no like you did.”

“Babe, you were a kid. We’re told that grown-ups know better since birth, and it isn’t until we’re old that we realized that half of them are fucked up. I saw how tense you were at the restaurant in Santa Barbara when we saw her; and the way she talked to you and called you Julie… it makes me sick to know that she used you like that and have the nerve to think that you'd even entertain the idea of working for her again.”

Julian didn’t know how heavily that was weighing inside him. He doesn’t give it much thought nowadays. Hearing you say that, only validates those restless nights in prison that had him wondering if it was his fault or not. He wondered if he should have gone into a different direction after being released, instead of falling into old habits. But he promised himself that it'd be under his own terms this time. To be honest, he doesn't believe he's that good at doing anything else, and likes both, money and sex, too much to give that up. He's living up to his promise, however. His work doesn't come first as it used to. His life with you is the most important thing to him, and given the chance, he'd go broke before letting go of you.

“Do you have any more secrets?” You ask, “maybe not as big as that one… if you do, I want you to feel comfortable talking to me too, y'know?”

“That was it. The things I do for work, they're not really a secret, baby. But I gotta keep those for your sake and their privacy. You have to understand that.”

“I do understand. I wasn't asking about work.”

He makes an effort to dive deep into his thoughts and shakes his head, “I got nothing else, then. Now you know everything about me. Is there anything you wanna tell me about?”

“Well… I guess it's only fair to tell you that I did something too when I was young that I never told anyone, not even my friends or my family.”

“What was it?”

“It wasn't anything bad. It was something very heavy and personal.” You grant yourself a couple of beats before uttering those words for the first time since it happened. It's odd to hear them out of your mouth, like it didn't happen to you, “I got pregnant when I was in college and I couldn't… I had an abortion as soon as I could. It really messed me out for a while. Though, I was positive that I'd never have kids, there were a few weeks when I felt like I'd done something really, really wrong.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No, not all,” you quickly emphasize, “I've never wondered what if. I know it was the right choice.”

“Were you alone?”

“No, I had a boyfriend.”

“What did he say?”

“Oh, he was very supportive. I was really nervous to tell him, but he stepped up and said he'd have my back no matter what I chose. He was with me every step of the way, and took care of me when I felt like a mess… I mean, It was as much his fault as it was mine. We were caught up in that haze of being so smitten with the other at the beginning that we ran out of condoms a couple of times and we both just said– fuck it,” you flicker a nervous smile.

“He sounds like a keeper. What happened to him?”

“Caught him cheating on me a year after that. Think he got another girl pregnant too… someone told me right before graduation.”

“Not a keeper, then.”

“Nope.” You smack your lips comically as the beeping of his phone goes off, “do you really have to go?”

“Yeah, it's one of my regulars. Why?”

“I just wanna keep talking to you like this,” you sit on your knees, link your arms around his neck, and kiss the corner of his mouth.

“I want that, too, sweetheart,” he palms your back. “It'll be only a few hours. Want me to wake you when I come back?”

You slide your palm around his head, having your fingers caught massaging his earlobe sweetly, “Yeah, I'd like that.”

That conversation feels like the most taxing thing you've done in a while. But it's gratifying to be open like that with him. You don't like keeping secrets, but there are still parts of you that you hold to yourself because you're often afraid of being judged. And so does he. You could tell he was apprehensive of sharing that with you.

After composing yourself, you work on your computer while Julian gets ready for work.

He kisses you goodbye, and you spend another hour finishing an article for a magazine you occasionally write for.

When you’re done, you decide to go for another swim. It relaxes you. You’ve been doing it every other day before going to bed, and it works like a charm. Especially when it’s this hot.

Mrs. Rosenbaum from 4C had the same idea as you, and you chat some with her before she goes back up to have dinner with her husband.

It’s already dark, and after several laps you catch your breath at the end of the pool where you can stand, listening to the music blasting from a car parked on the other side of the wall.

You swim two more laps, and when your head emerges from the surface at the deeper end, it's suddenly pressed down back underwater by an unwavering hand, or two, you assume by the force that's put into it. It grips at your hair, which makes it impossible for you to swim away.

You can still hear the music muffled underneath as you gasp for air, try to yell, kick your feet in the water as hard as you can.

There’s a distorted shadow on the surface of the water when you manage to look up once. You fight it and fight it, growing weak by the second until the little breath you have left is replaced by water and everything goes black…

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There’s a pressure on your diaphragm when your eyes open again, like a jolt, you start coughing up water violently. The burning that spreads through your lungs doesn’t ease up until you’ve expelled the tiniest drop that was clinging to your air passage. It leaves your chest hurting terribly bad.

Then, you notice someone talking to you, but you’re not sure who they are or what they are saying. They roll you to your side, soothing your back gently. You can only shiver and meltdown, unaware if this is a nightmare or if someone just tried to drown you for real.

You hear sirens, and suddenly you’re being moved again and checked out by the paramedics, you recognize, before they stretcher you into an ambulance.

After missing four calls from the lobby of the apartment building, Julian finally picks up the phone after stepping out of the shower. His heart almost shatters in his chest, hearing the night concierge giving him the news that one of the neighbors saw a man trying to drown you just minutes ago and that you were just taken to the hospital.

He doesn’t think twice. He quickly collects his car keys and hops into the convertible to drive back to Los Angeles. He’s an hour away and calls Eli to go check on you in the meantime.

With a steady lead foot on the pedal, he doesn’t stop until he’s at the hospital where they’ve taken you.

There are two officers that just took your statement who are heading out, and tell him what they know so far…

According to Robert, key witness and neighbor from apartment 2B– he saw a man holding you underwater from his window and ran down to your rescue. He alerted the concierge at the front desk, who called the police. By the time Robert got downstairs and out to the pool, the man had dragged your body out of the pool and was taking a picture of your almost lifeless body, stretched on the hard surface. The attacker was fully dressed in black, with gloves and balaclava masking his identity, and quickly climbed out the wall before they could get to him.

Your rescuers performed CPR on you, saving your life in a matter of minutes. They said you weren’t out for longer than two. Everything happened so fast, they couldn’t even tell.

It’s a relief to hear that at the end, but you’re still understandably shaken, and terrified.

Eli and his girlfriend haven’t left your side for the past hour, that has felt like a year. And when Julian comes into the room, you burst into tears.

He holds your hand, and you see his eyes become glossy under the fluorescent light.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he says gruffly, gently wiping the tears off your cheek with his free hand. You can’t bring your mouth to say anything, so you just lean on his touch, and hold tightly to his hand.

Your friends quietly step out, giving you two a moment.

You pull his hand, and he settles next to you in the bed, cuddling you.

“I shouldn’t have left you.”

“You didn’t know,” you finally say, chocked up, “it could have happened anyway.”

“Still, I should’ve been with you…”

“You’re here now.”

He kisses your temple, feeling useless on how to comfort you better. The truth is that just him being here, holding you, makes you feel already safe.

Chapter 3: Kafkaesque

There are a lot of sayings about hope… right now, you only feel dread and despair making themselves at home in your chest. There are no feathers, or birds singing for you, only a shadow that shoves all promises and dreams deep into that pool along with you.

You can still taste the chlorine in your mouth when you wake up in the hospital bed. They kept you for the night to observe how your lungs and vitals responded before discharging you in the morning.

You dress up in clothes that aren’t yours, cause the only thing you had on when they brought you in was your swimsuit. It’s such a minuscule thing to care about; and when they hand you that piece of clothing in a hospital bag, you ask Julian to throw it away. That is a reminder you don’t want to hold on to.

When you arrive at the apartment building, you take the elevator straight up to the 8th floor to avoid bumping into anyone altogether. You don’t have much luck, though. When the doors open, there’s a determined woman poking around the hallway, waiting for you. A woman that seems to know Julian already.

“Mr. Kaye.”

“Detective Sunday.”

She then takes a good look at you, and her stoic expression grows more puzzled the longer she stares at you.

After a moment, she apologizes and introduces herself to you, badge and everything, telling you that she's been assigned to your case, and she'd like to talk to you.

“Now is not a good time,” Julian responds for you, keeping you close with one arm around you, as you make your way to the door.

“We can do this here or at the station. Whatever you prefer, ma’am.”

“It's okay, I'll do it,” you nod at Julian.

You'd rather not do this at all, but you wanna see that the person who did this to you is brought to justice.

Your boyfriend opens the door and gives the open space a glance-over before letting you in. He shows the detective to the dining table, where you can settle and talk. He brings you a soda and gets the coffee machine going, listening to you recount what you remember from last night.

Detective Sunday then explains that your file landed on her desk because she's been investigating a series of murders where women are being drowned. Her theory was very far-fetched when she drove here, but after meeting you, she's absolutely certain your attacker is the same who killed those women.

What surprised her a minute ago is the uncanny resemblance you share with the other victims.

Your throat tightly knots as she lays down on the table the pictures, showing the four women in just regular snapshots of their life before they were murdered.

“Do you recognize any of them?”

You shake your head, unable to pull your eyes away from the photos. You can see parts of yourself in these women. They all have a similar complexion to yours, same eye and hair color, features close enough in proportion; and all are roughly the same age.

“What does it mean?”

“We don’t know yet?”

“But you have a theory?”

“My best guess is that someone is infatuated with you.”

What leads the detective to that conclusion is that he not only let you live, but the attacker slightly changed his MO. The other women were drugged prior to being murdered. It’s almost ritualistic, she explains. They were first injected with the drug, then they were drowned and placed somewhere nearby outside the water in a very specific position.

According to your blood work from mere hours ago, you weren’t administered a sedative like they had. He wanted you to feel it for whatever twisted reason he made up in his mind.

There’s also the other factor that got her here–  your tattoo. The officer who took your statement at the hospital saw it printed on your skin and made a note about it on his report.

“Can you show me your arm?”

You lift your arm to let her see the dragonfly inked near your wrist, on the outer side of your forearm.

She proceeds to take a picture of it and question you when you got it and if it has any special meaning to you.

“I got it when I was 18. It was something my friend sketched that I liked,” you shrug and take a sip of your soda, “what does it have to do with all this?”

“Well, we've kept it under wraps, but the four women had the same tattoo temporarily placed on their arms.” She opens the folder placed between her elbows, “I'm going to show you another picture, and you tell me if it's the same or not.”

You nod, and she slides a photo across the table that shows a close up of an arm where you can clearly see the tattoo is basically a copy of yours.

Julian joins you at the table, placing a mug with coffee for the detective, and sits down on the chair next to yours.

“Why me?” You swallow and shift uncomfortably on your seat, glancing at their photos, “why them?”

“I'm not sure yet,” Sunday pauses to taste her coffee. “How long have you two been together?”

You look at the other and respond to a series of questions about your relationship.

“Do you have any enemies? A disgruntled ex-boyfriend, maybe?” she asks next, and you look at Julian.

“Tell her,” he utters, placing a gentle palm on your lower back.

Sighing, you proceed to tell her about your ex, Logan Palmer, and that psycho that called yesterday to say he was going to ruin your life. You doubt Adam Gillespie has anything to do with this, but the detective takes note of everything.

“When did you last see your ex?”

“Three years ago.”

“And you didn’t extend that initial restraining order?”

“No. Last I heard, he went back to Canada, and I didn’t think he’d be a problem anymore.”

“I’ll look into it. What about you, Mr. Kaye, did you make any enemies in prison?”

His lips frown downwards, “No. I kept my head down.”

The detective stays silent for a long moment, going through her papers.

“Why did he take a picture of me?” your voice trembles when you ask that out loud.

Julian’s hand soothes up and down your back.

“We don’t know yet. All women were found in a very specific position, like he was staging a photo, or a painting… and for your neighbor's statement, you were placed just like that.”

“Were they raped?” you question right after that.

Sunday shakes her head, “nothing indicated in the examination that they were forced into having sex.”

“But they could have.”

“For what the records show, they didn't suffer. They were treated gently; worshiped almost,” she says in the same stern, monotone voice.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” your voice breaks, “a psychopath held me underwater until I couldn’t breathe. That didn’t feel gentle… It was more violent than you can imagine.”

“No, you're right. I can't imagine. I'm sorry, ma'am,” you see the calculating woman hesitate for the first time.

You look to the side, swallowing a sob, wiping the tears sliding down your face.

“What now, Detective?” Asks Julian.

“She's our only lead right now. I'm going to put a detail on her until we get more information.”

“What about the security cameras?”

“My officers are on it right now, but this guy is highly skilled. He's managed to trespass any security system he's encountered, and there's no trace of him anywhere.”

“Have you checked into that? Maybe he's some sort of… hacker.”

“We're looking into every angle, Kaye,” she tucks everything back into her folder, “if you don't have any more questions or information, we're done for now.”

“Software engineering,” you mumble, without looking at her, “Logan. That's what he does. I'm not sure if that…”

“Got it,” the detective notes that, before reminding you lastly, “It goes without saying that what you just heard is all confidential.”

She leaves a card on the table with her contact information, and Julian shows her to the door.

You walk up to the balcony to see the patio far down below, where maintenance is cleaning the pool like nothing ever happened.

After the door is closed, Julian calls your name softly, and you turn your head to the side.

“You have to call Sasha,” he tells you.

“I uh… I’ll do it later.”

“Babe… you can’t put it off. It’s better if they hear it from you and not the press.”

“Why would the press say anything?

“This is LA, sweetheart. Everyone wants their pound of flesh. As soon as they find out, they’ll be lining up outside… I know it’s one hell of a thing to tell anybody, but your friends need to know.”

You gulp the knot in your throat and pick up your phone with much apprehension and call your friend Sasha.

Julian was right. Hours after you got home, news broke, and reporters started showing up at the doors of the building.

A week later, there are still a few showing up daily waiting for you to come out.

Given that you were the only one who survived out of the five, there’s been a lot of speculation in the news about you. You've kept the TV off, but according to Sasha, they’ve dissected any piece of your life they could find on the internet. Your online print has slowly grown in the past few months, so there’s a lot to dig into. Luckily, most of it is about your work, there are only a few real tidbits of yourself out in the open. Still, you have no interest in whatever the so-called experts in those crime shows have to say about you. And you cross your fingers, hoping this doesn’t splash or reflect badly on your friends or Julian. You’d hate to be the cause this interferes with their lives.

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing, either, to the point you had to shut it off for hours at a time.

It’s not something you're proud of at this moment, but after your identity was revealed, the book sales went off the charts, and suddenly everyone wants a piece of it. Because pain sells, you've been approached by more than one publisher that has offered insane amounts of money for a deal. It'd be great if any of them hadn't come with the pesky condition that in exchange you'd have to write an all-tell book about what happened to you. It might be naive and crazy to pass up an opportunity like that, but as tempting as it is, you don’t wanna cash in your trauma. It’s hard just to live with it as it is, and you’d never be comfortable selling that part of you.

On the other end, you got yourself caught researching the other victims, trying to find a link with them other than the obvious resemblance. Just a click away from your fingertips, you can easily find each of their names, their hobbies, where they lived, what they did for a living… It only serves to unsettle you even further.

You blame yourself for their deaths. Especially after that specific piece of information you got from Sunday. They were marked with the same dragonfly you have on your arm, as if someone was trying to make a copy out of you. For what purpose? You’re not sure. Maybe they’re just infatuated with you, like the detective said. Or perhaps they have a festering grudge towards you, and they’re trying to scare you.

Your mind unravels with all the information you get your hands into. If you had trouble sleeping, this just serves to fuel your restless state.

How does someone bounce from something like that unscathed?  You’ll probably need some help along the way. This has brought all the weakness to the surface you’ve worked so hard to push through, and they all paralyze you at once. It’s actually ridiculous, you can’t even take a bath without thinking of someone pushing your head underwater. You can’t sleep for more than an hour or two before reliving that in your dreams.

Detective Sunday calls a couple of times to give some information after digging into your former boyfriend; and Adam Gillespie. The latter has airtight alibis for each of the murders, and the night you were attacked. Logan, however, seems to be missing. He was in Ontario for a couple of years, but his current girlfriend, and mother to his one-year-old baby, reported his disappearance five months ago. It's really concerning given that's about the time when they found the first victim.

You haven’t left the apartment in 10 long days, though you had gone up to the rooftop, mostly at night with Julian, just to get some air and see the stars. He hasn’t left your side, either, other than to go pick up grocery deliveries and care packages your friends have sent. If something good has come up from this is that you’ve settled your disagreements with Von and Eve, and that’s been a huge help to get through this while the investigation is ongoing.

Julian has been incredibly patient and has put all his energy on making you feel comfortable that you feel that he’s put his life on hold for you, unconditionally. So, on the 11th day of your seclusion, you make an effort to get out of bed before he wakes up and prepare breakfast for him.

He's half awake when you carry the tray to the bedroom. His body stirs up at the smell, and turns to the side, and his mouth lovingly quirks up at the corners.

“Good morning, baby,” you whisper.

“Morning, honey,” he sits up against the headboard, and you place the tray on the mattress, so it’s hovering over his lap, “is this for me?”

Nodding, you lean closer and smooch his lips.

“Hmm, love some sugar in the morning,” she says gruffly, tracing your jaw with his fingers as you pull your head back. “Are we celebrating anything special?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Hm-huh,” you kneel by his side, let out a sight before rambling, “I just wanted to say thank you for taking care of me. You’ve gone up and beyond to make me feel safe, and I’ve been nothing but useless…”

“Babe-”

“No, let me finish, please… I’ve always been very independent, and now I feel like I can’t function if you’re not here, and it’s not fair to you or me… I know I’m going to be fine eventually. I just wish I could leap to the end. I hate feeling this scared all the time…”

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he opens an inviting arm, and you curl against his side as he presses his lips to your temple, “you don’t have to thank me. I’d do anything for you.”

“I wish we could just go somewhere and forget about this.” You contemplate, pillowing your head on his shoulder, having your fingers playing with his gold necklace.

“Yeah? Where do you wanna go, baby?”

“I don’t know… somewhere we can drink cocktails by the beach.”

“Hmm, I know exactly the place,” he picks up a piece of toast from the tray and starts devouring his breakfast with his free hand, “I’ll take you there for our anniversary.”

You smile to yourself and relax in his embrace while he finishes his food. You end up falling asleep. He rolls you carefully to the side and leaves you resting for a while.

A few minutes after starting his workout, he receives a message from Eli, who's telling him to turn on the news.

When he does, he’s absolutely dumbstruck by listening to the reported death of another woman in the same fashion as the other four. This one in particular, he knows personally. It’s his highest profile client to date– Martina Duvall. He was present during the extravagant celebration of her 25th birthday that lasted a week, and three other separate occasions she’d hired him.

Julian sits on the couch and watches Detective Sunday make a statement, announcing that she was found in her yacht, and confirming that it is the same MO.

One thing that puzzles him is that Martina doesn’t look anything like you. One would believe that it might be a copycat taking advantage of the open case to pin this on The Baptist– the name the media has chosen for the perpetrator. But Sunday herself wouldn't have made that official statement if she had any doubts. He trusts the detective surprisingly. Even if she was who arrested him in the first place 16 years ago.

His level of trust only reaches so far, and after turning off the TV, he texts Eli to come by. He needs to place a special order for something, a gun, and doesn't wanna ask over the phone.

He's not sure how deep this goes, but one thing he's certain is that he's going to do everything in his hand to protect you. If the killer has the intention of coming back here to finish the job, he's not going to get caught empty-handed.

It might not be the best idea, but he can't come up with anything better at this moment.

Julian looks out the balcony to see that the three reporters that were out in the street yesterday have multiplied again into 30 after Martina.

Then, he catches Detective Sunday making her way into the building, ignoring the questioning of the vicious attack of the press surrounding her.

Julian checks that you're still asleep and closes the bedroom door before having Sunday back in the living space.

She's not here for you this time, though. Her objective is questioning Julian after learning about his odd affiliation with Martina Duvall. She had him listed as her driver.

The detective confirms that Martina had the same drug in her system as the others, and the key temporary dragonfly tattoo placed on her arm. Those two clues haven't been made public, so certainly she can tell it is the same killer and not a copycat.

Sunday's theory veers into a different direction, however. She's not completely convinced someone is infatuated with you anymore. But without discarding that possibility, she plays with the idea of someone targeting you because of Julian.

There are a few other coincidences she’s discovered that have her believing someone wants to hurt Julian by going after you. The main reason being that a couple of hours ago, she found out that Martina was about to get married to someone twice her age. Nobody knew about it, except for her family and closest friends.

The man she was engaged to is about to make an appearance on TV, offering a 20k reward to whoever points them in the right direction of the killer.

His name is Richard Stratton, tech mogul and philanthropist, who was once married to Julian's old sweetheart, Michelle Stratton.

Julian told you about her a long time ago. They had an affair before he went to prison.

She visited him a handful of times at the beginning but after a few weeks, she moved to England, where his husband was expanding his business. From then on she'd sent letters that stopped after a while too. Much to his surprise, he received one 5 years ago when he was still in prison, where she explained that she had a kid and apologized for not staying in touch. He tried to reach back, but his letters were always returned. He figured she gave him a fake address, so her husband wouldn’t find out.

Like every flame, that one faded eventually. And Julian understood why she had to move on. They were nothing at all to begin with. He wasn't expecting her to wait for him those 15 years he spent locked up. It'd have been crazy if she had.

Not as crazy as discovering she died six months ago right here in Los Angeles in her house on The Hills. He saw her picture on the papers. Being married to Stratton took her to the front pages, but according to those, they were already divorced by the time of her death. Someone suspected foul play, and Stratton was investigated, but his alibi cleared him from suspicion.

They never said how she died, and Julian would’ve never imagined that today he’d find out she was found in her pool. She had hit her head on the edge and drowned for lack of assistance.

It was ultimately ruled an accident, but Sunday is not discarding any possibility right now.

If her new angle is correct, you might be in danger because of him, and he can’t have that.

Chapter 4: Between Two Lungs

You feel trapped in these four walls. They're like a cage. You could go outside if you wanted to. Nobody is stopping you; only yourself. You’re still too scared to do something as simple as taking a stroll or go swimming like you used to. You doubt you ever will again, at least not on your own. That’s how deep fear has reached you.

You’re holding your breath for this to be over, and you pray internally that it happens soon, so you can move on, start again, and do normal things you used to do instead of being obsessed 24/7 with the case. Every new piece of information just makes the puzzle more complicated. And after finding out about Martina and Stratton, you’re not sure what to believe anymore.

This evening, you shift gears and decide to have a little dinner date. An official one with candles, music, and wine.

You put on a simple wrap dress in your favorite color, and it helps to bring your old self back a little. It’s such a shallow thing to worry about, but you feel like you’ve been slowly disappearing into all those hours when you couldn’t get out of bed.

Julian reaches out from behind and loops the necklace he gave you for your birthday around your neck and clasps it at the back. It has a little half moon pendant that you touch for a moment, as his lips meet the curve of your neck.

“You look beautiful, sweetheart,” he hums, and kisses the other side of your neck.

“Thanks, handsome,” you turn around to see him clad in jeans, and a black t-shirt that hugs his chest and biceps tightly. You smooth your hand on his arm, as you lean to capture his lips.

You have a lovely evening and enjoy a homemade meal you cooked earlier together for a change. You've been relying mostly on takeout for days now, and it feels nice to eat something you've prepared and has turned out to be good.

After dinner, with your hands clinging to his neck, you swing slowly to the music in the middle of the living room without shoes. His palms frame your hips, as his forehead touches yours.

His heart feels heavier than ever at this hour. You can feel it in the way he exhales and suddenly stops moving.

“I have to tell you something,” his voice comes lower than a whisper.

“What?” you scratch his nape softly.

“I uh… I bought a gun. Eli brought it this morning while you were sleeping.”

Letting the silence fill the room for a long moment, you close your eyes and process it.

“Why?” you simply protest, even though you know the answer to that.

“You know why.”

“Jules… I don't want you to get into trouble.”

“I won't. It's just a precaution.”

You inhale sharply, sliding your palms across his chest.

“Say something, sweetheart.”

“I just… I think you should give it back. I don't feel comfortable with it in the house.” While you can appreciate him wanting to protect you, you're not sure that this is the best way.

“It's locked in the safe. If everything goes right, it'll stay there.”

Taking a step back, and pulling away from his touch, you turn around and start clearing the table.

“What did I say?”

“Nothing. You're just not listening to me,” you go around the breakfast bar and put the plates in the sink.

“I’m listening… You want me to get rid of it and I can’t. It’s my job to protect you, and I’m simply not going to be caught off guard if anyone decides to come back and finish the job.” He braces his hands on the edge of the bar, watching you violently scrub the plates.

“That is not your job, Julian,” you counter, annoyed, “that’s what the police outside are for.”

“It’s just a gun. What is it really that you’re worried about?”

“It’s not just a gun. I’m worried…” you pause, take a deep breath, and turn off the faucet, “I’m worried that you’re going to get yourself hurt for me. All eyes are on us now… I hate it, but as long as they’re watching, nobody is going to try anything again… now tell me why you need to have it so badly.”

“I don’t need it. It’s just an extra measure,” he expresses, giving you only half the truth behind that choice of purchasing a weapon.

“Alright, don’t tell me,” you quickly dry your hands in a kitchen towel, and walk past him, heading towards the bedroom.

He swallows his pride and after a moment he trails behind you.

“Look, what do you want me to say? That I’m scared?”

“I want you to tell me the truth, Julian,” you respond quickly, having your voice wavering in your throat, “I know you’re as terrified as I am, but you’re playing with fire. The last thing we need right now is you getting caught with a gun.”

“Look, you’re right. I am terrified, but not for the reasons you think…” his head bows, taking a step forwards, so he can have you closer. He holds your face in his hands, meeting your gaze, as he utters, “I’m terrified cause I know this is my fault-”

“It isn’t,” you interrupt.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, sweetheart. But I’m not going to let anything happen to you, you got that?” he exhales, stating with passion, “nobody is going to put a hand on you again. So help me God… I don’t give a shit if I end up rotting in prison, as long as you’re safe. That's all that matters. Can you accept that? ”

“No, I can’t accept that,” your eyes well up, “I won’t have you doing anything stupid for me.”

“Well… what are you gonna do about that? How are you going to stop me?”

A tidal surge of mixed emotions makes your heart race between love and fright. It pushes you to lean and capture his lips to shut his mouth.

You anchor your hands to his sides as he lends you his breath and warmth. You feel it pass from his lungs to yours as the kiss grows more heated.

The pain ebbs at the edge of his kiss, and everything else fades as his tongue moves past your teeth.

“Hmm, touch me,” you urge, grabbing his hands and guiding them from your face to your hips.

He presses you against the wall, as his lips shift from sweet to vicious. He sucks your lip into his mouth, at the same time his hands blindly undo the strings holding your dress together and slip beneath the fabric to meet your skin. He smooths the plane of your body and grips at your ass, pushing his hips against yours.

As you circle your arms around his neck and find his tongue again, he molds your skin with desire, awakening your sex drive from slumber.

He hums and pulls away from your kiss, bringing his hands to remove your dress off you. Pushing it over your shoulders, it falls at your feet along with his gaze that scans your body, stripped to only your pair of panties now.

You shiver as his knuckles softly draw the curve of your breast, “so damn beautiful.”

He licks his lips, as one of his hands slide up to frame your chin, pressing your head carefully against the wall. His deep brown stare captures the gloss in your eyes, watching you gasp as his other hand slides under the elastic of your panties to massage your pussy.

“There’s my girl,” he purrs, collecting your arousal around his fingers.

You half-smile and trap your bottom lip under your teeth, holding for dear life to his neck, while he circles your clit with great skill.

His head bows to nip at your neck and capture your moans right from your throat when he presses a little harder.

His lips slide, descending from that point and down your body, stopping to kiss and lick your nipples before letting his tongue leave a wet trail to your navel. You can tell what his intentions are as he subtly gets down on one knee and pulls your underwear down.

Your breath catches as he glances at you with nothing but hunger for a beat before delving between your legs. He lifts one of your thighs over his shoulder, and blows some air on your slicked folds before tasting you.

You can't help but moan and grip at his hair as the wild swirl of his tongue touches every inch of your vulva before sucking your clit. It sends a shiver down your spine, and makes your back arch, pushing your center against his avid mouth.

His hands keep your jerking hips in place as he quickly drives you to ecstasy. The orgasm overcomes your body by surprise, and if he wasn't holding you, you'd totally fall on your face.

Julian gets to his feet without letting go of you. You link your arms around his neck, and he picks you up, bridal style, and carries you to bed.

As he lays your body down, you pull at the hem of his tee, and he takes it off. You extend your hands and undo his jeans before having Jules crawling on top of you. He pulls his bottom layers down, nestles between your legs, and you hug his torso as he tenderly brushes his plump lips over yours.

You're still very sensitive, but you tuck your hand in the small space between your body and his, grab his semi-hard length, and pump him leisurely until he’s fully grown. A pleasured hum falls from his lips as you guide him into your opening.

He catches you trembling as he slowly pushes into you.

“You okay, sweetheart?”

“Hmm, yeah,” you assure, palming the length of his back.

He pecks your lips, as you curl your legs around his hips. Then buries his face in the crook of your neck, fucking you ever so delicately, making you melt around him the longer he drags it out.

As much as you love having him inside you like this, in the middle of it you lose your focus and the pressing need for orgasm wanes out of the blue before even getting to that sweet edge.

He grunts and breathes against your skin, urging you to come with him, but you can't. You're too far away to bring yourself to orgasm again. Must be a first. It makes you anxious, cause he puts all his effort into it, and you can't even reciprocate when he spills inside you.

His breath steams the skin on your collar bones, and he stays there for a moment until he can speak again.

Clearing his throat, he props himself on one elbow, slips out of you, and reaches with his opposite hand to finish you off. He starts rubbing your folds, but you don’t let him finish.

“It’s okay,” you mumble, grabbing his hand and setting it aside

“You don’t want me to?” his brow creases. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Jules. I… can you just hold me?” you let out a tired sigh.

He nods, and you shift together, turning to the side, so he can spoon you.

“It felt really good at the beginning,” you reassure after a moment, smoothing your hand on his forearm.

“Yeah?”

“Hmm.”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to try again?” He insists, having his hand slipping down your body to grip at your thigh.

“No, it’s not gonna work.”

“Not gonna work? You’re hurting my ego, babe,” he quips, pressing his smile on your shoulder.

“You can tell your ego to go fuck himself,” you laugh softly, blindly finding his hand and lacing fingers with him.

“Listen, I think it’s time you and I get out of the house. Maybe just for a drive. What do you say? It’ll be good to clear our heads. Think about it.”

After long deliberation you decide that yes, it is time to leave the house, even if it's just for a little drive.

The next day, you step out of the apartment, filled with apprehension, for the first time in 15 days. It’s too hot during the day, so you wait for a milder temperature in the late afternoon, which is near to impossible. One of the things you miss about Portland, besides your friends, is the weather, and the smell of rain. Here, even the grass blades could burn your feet, especially in a summer blaze like this.

No matter what, he was right–  it's nice to be out and breathe the ocean breeze as he drives along the coastline.

Just like the movies, he has the hardtop of the convertible down, so you can feel the sun on your face, and the air blowing your hair. You relax on the passenger seat, having your heart calm the longer you’re out. It'll be nicer if you didn't have the undercover police car following you everywhere, but it's a small price for security.

Safety is an illusion, you realize. Here or at home, anything can happen anywhere, at any time. Being locked up has only given you more anxiety than you ever thought. At least out here, you’re not a sitting duck waiting for something to happen.

Your mind clears as you stop by the beach and watch the sunset peacefully going down before driving back home.

It’s the apartment that flips that internal switch in your head the second you’re inside and takes you to spiraling again. You anxiously sit at your desk and turn on your laptop to check your emails while Julian gets a beer from the fridge. Your phone is pretty much dead to you at this point. You rely only on the written word from your friends and the news. There’s a couple in your inbox from Sasha, the subject line screaming urgency in all caps. You open the first one, where she explains she’s been checking your Instagram and found a few photos you were tagged on at one of your first book signings in Los Angeles from a couple of months ago. There’s a few of you meeting people, reading, and signing some books. And she’s highlighted the ones where you can see the crowd at the back, and in a couple of them, she’s spotted a familiar face– your ex-boyfriend, who is currently MIA. On the second email, she dived further to all the signings you’ve done, and found some more from several cities where Logan followed along.

You’re unsure what her findings are making you feel… obviously, unsettled. Has he been stalking you all this time? You wonder. And if so, why did he wait all this time to try… whatever he had in mind? He was clearly in Boston and New York, where you went all alone. He could’ve easily taken the advantage of that, and he didn’t.

You show them to Julian and send them to Detective Sunday before calling Sasha.

Then you go through every memory you’ve collected of him. He was clearly disturbed, especially at the end of your relationship, but you’d have never pegged him as a killer. He couldn’t have, could he? Despite the way he treated you, you can’t bring yourself to believe this was him. But you’re not in the best mind set right now to form any rational assumptions. You haven’t seen in a long time either, so who knows what his game is.

It’s not the pictures Sasha finds that help crack the case, not at all. It only adds up to the pile of evidence Detective Sunday has come upon against Logan. Because the next day, while you’re taking a shower, Julian realizes that they’ve pulled the police detail off you without notice, almost 24 hours after you contacted Sunday. He runs downstairs and circles the block to see that none of the inconspicuous vehicles he's spotted for the last couple of weeks are anywhere in the vicinity.

“What’s wrong?”

You’ve just dressed yourself and come when you see him locking the bolt of the door and quickly grabbing the phone.

“The police are gone. I’m gonna…” he dials directly Sunday’s extension but doesn’t pick up on the first few tries.

You turn the TV on and flip from channel to channel until you land on the news to see they’ve apprehended their prime suspect, Todd Harrison, aka Logan, who has been using a false identity all this time. Someone saw him lurking around Martina’s yacht, and called in a tip. That’s all the media knows so far.

You don’t receive more insight until later, when Sunday finally calls and informs you that they're absolutely certain your ex was the one who tried to drown you and killed those women. They're still processing the amount of evidence collected from his place that included hundreds of videos and photos of all of you, the transfer tattoos, personal items of each of the victims…

The detective paints a pretty grim picture by the way she speaks. It looks like you were his main inspiration and was currently preparing himself for something bigger. He had your laptop hacked and wasn't shy on recording you using your own camera when you had the lid open.

None of this makes sense to you yet. It's hard to accept someone you dated was capable of something so heinous.

Chapter 5: Enmeshment

In the aftermath of Logan’s arrest, there’s no peace as you once knew it. You can’t find it in yourself yet. Him being in jail is supposed to make you feel better, but it doesn’t. Something is still off, and you can’t quite figure out what’s causing you to stumble into your every attempt of regaining some sense of normalcy because there isn't such a thing as normal, and that’s a fact. You’re still being watched and scrutinized, and the end of this is not coming as fast as you’d want to. The case continues unfolding, and the only coping mechanism to navigate all of that, is to put on a mask and pretend everything’s okay while you bury yourself in your work. Otherwise, you’d fall apart. It’s a lame coping mechanism, but it’s the only thing that keeps you afloat. It only lasts for so long. Soon, the mask starts to crack, and you find yourself acting up in ways you can’t even recognize.

You fill your wine glass a few more times than you’re used to for dinner. It helps you fall asleep faster, especially when Julian isn’t home. He goes back to his usual routine too, though he’s only working on weekends now. It makes you feel helpless having to have someone watching over you as if you were a fucking toddler. You pick up fights with him about nothing sometimes. It feels like the world to you in that very second, no matter how small it is. A minute later, you feel like the biggest asshole. It's very conflicting. At times, you can't leave his side, at others, you can't even touch him or look at him. You engage more often in sex, too, you've realized. On impulse. It has to be quick and rough. It's not like your libido has gotten stronger, it's that you'd kill to feel anything other than whatever is going on inside you.  

Any of this isn't right, you're barely aware of how wrongly you're losing control in very few moments of clarity. They pass just as fast as they come. You can't stop yourself. You've taken pride in always being put together, doing everything by the book, and following every rule that you were bound to break at some point. This is it. You're not processing everything that's been accumulating inside you and can't put it into words either. Not out of your mouth and not in your writing. It's like a void you can't escape.

Julian is not blind to it, he's been treating you with kid's gloves from the start, and he continues to do so. He indulges you, gives you space when you need, and it's always there to hold you afterwards. He also entertains any of your recently acquired bad habits without judgment. You truly don't deserve him. He casually mentions going to therapy a couple of times when you're calm. You've considered it… briefly. Your pride, ego, self-destruction, or whoever is in charge of you now keeps insisting that everything will pass on its own, that this is just temporary.

Your ex-boyfriend isn't speaking to the police. What they found in his possession speaks volumes for him, however. You had to go to the station to identify some items Logan had taken as trophies. You recognize your swimsuit, the one you were wearing that night and that you had Julian throw away.

You shouldn’t have, but you ask the detective to show some of the pictures he had taken of you. Most of them are just candid pictures in your daily life. Seeing through his vile eyes is absolutely terrifying and unnerving. The last one you see, though, that one takes the cake. You almost wanna throw up at the sight of yourself laying by the pool, soaking wet and lifeless. That’s the one he took that night. You’d tear it apart if you could, so nobody could look at it again. You gulp, turning it around and sliding it across the desk.

“Is he saying anything yet?” You ask.

Detective Sunday shakes her head, “word is he’s going to plead guilty.”

“Like he’s making a deal?”

She nods, “he’s got a good lawyer too.”

“Then, what am I doing here?”

“Procedure.” Sunday clears his throat, picking up the irritation in your voice, “listen, I hate this as much as you do, trust me. I’ve looked at these pictures more times than I can count. If it was up to me… he’d never see daylight again.”

Her words aren't very reassuring. You can't imagine what kind of deal he could be offered after what he's done, but no matter how many years he gets, it'll never be enough.

Your lack of judgment was truly poor when you met him. He was very sweet, you said. Nothing sweet about him anymore.

Julian is waiting for you in the parking lot when you get out. He has a cigarette between his lips, and you extend your hand, pick it up, and take a long puff.

“How did it go?”

You simply shrug, “he's making a deal or something.”

“That's batshit… they got him dead to rights. Why would the DA make a deal with him?”

“Beats me,” you blow out the smoke and pass the cigarette back to Julian, “he's got a good lawyer, apparently.”

You believe the absence of irrefutable physical evidence in the crime scenes is what might save the asshole. He really had this planned through and saw to leaving no trace. There's no digital evidence either, he's used his skills too to leave no mark, so anything in his possession is not comparable to what he could be charged with, had there been any of the mentioned.

They keep asking you if you remember seeing something that night. If only you had, this would be much different. So your testimony is pretty much worthless too.

As Julian sets the car in motion, it feels like someone else inhabiting your body when you reach with your fingers to curl around Jules' crotch while he drives out of the lot.

“Babe, you're playing a dangerous game there,” he gazes at you behind his aviators, then back at the road as you start pumping his length.

It's one of those impulses that shuts up all the unnecessary noise in your head. Keeps you distracted from going down on a spiral after what you've learned at the station.

“Let's go to Lorenzo's,” you propose. He's been wanting to take you to his friend's club for a while, and it has always intimidated you to go there. Not anymore.

“I thought you had to work.”

“It can wait.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“So? It is open, right?”

His head nods.

“C'mon, I wanna do something fun,” you insist as the car comes to a stop at a red light.

“We could go to the beach.”

“It's too hot,” hastily, remove your hand off him, “you know what? Forget it, let's go home.”

He sighs through his nose and thinks for a beat before grabbing your hand again and putting it back where it was.

“You wanna go to the club? Stop acting like a little brat and earn it,” he chooses to enable you.

You press your bare teeth on your bottom lip and fondle him softly. You don't want him to crash the car, either. You might be in the middle of a crisis, but you're not that far gone, so maybe there's still hope for you yet.

Enzo's club is not like any other club you’ve ever been. Let’s just say it doesn’t fit in the legal bounds of what constitutes a regular club. Part of it, at least. The bar side is legit. The gambling room at the back isn't however. And neither is the underground level, where he's created a safe space for casual sex, and prostitution. It operates closely to a kink club, where only vetted members can enter. Julian, being an old friend of his, has always had access to it. He's been wanting to get you here, partly cause he has been curious to see you in that ambience since the moment he met you and pegged you as a voyeur. There are a few rooms with one-way mirrors for people who like being watched and those who enjoy watching. He's always thought you might like that.

He's not wrong. You’ve been toying with the idea for months, and now you have nothing to lose. The worst thing that could’ve ever happened to you, it already happened. Maybe this is part of getting over all of it. Trying new things, and uncovering other parts of yourself you’ve kept mostly hidden.

You leave the car in a parking garage a block away from Enzo’s and walk the rest of the way.

Julian has an arm around your waist when you cross the door. There's not many people at this hour, so you're able to quickly get a drink at the bar for starters. The music has some people dancing on the dance floor. It's a very high-end space with a VIP section and a small stage.

You pick up your cocktail and since he refuses to dance with you, you stride alone towards the dance floor and have fun by yourself, swinging to the rhythm of a semi-upbeat song.

“Hey,” someone pats Julian on the shoulder while he watches you, and he turns his head to see hide friend Enzo, “never seen you here this early, Kaye.”

“It was her idea,” Jules points at you with the beer bottle in his hand.

“Is that your girl? The one from…”

“Yeah, that's her.”

“How's she doing?”

“She's really hurting right now,” he glances at you and sees you, trying to escape from all that pain by sipping your cocktail from a straw while you move, “she wanted to come here, do something different.”

“I bet. Are you staying long?”

“Yeah, for a while. I'm taking her downstairs.”

“That's good,” his friend nods, “you two have fun, yeah? I have a lot of work to do here today. It's nice seeing you.”

“You too.”

Afterwards, Julian finishes his beer and joins you, curling his arms around your waist from behind. .

“You ready?” he whispers in your ear.

“Hm-hm.”

Then, he guides you to a little hallway at the back, guarded by a security guy. Julian shows him some sort of pass, and he leads you into a room that looks like a coat check.

A woman behind a desk greets you and places a plastic box on the surface for you to leave your phones or any other recording devices. She recites a set of rules that boil down to no recording or photographing. No drugs or smoking allowed. No harassment and no interference with other people's activities. And several important rules about safety, consent, and protection.

You both place your cellphones in the box and check your pockets. You left your bag in the car, so you only have a small wallet that you keep with you.

She hands you a key after locking your phones in a square locker, and Jules tucks it in his wallet.

The receptionist presses a button and a door buzzes on the side. You go through it; it buzzes again as it closes behind you. You climb down the set of stairs to a small reception area with more security and a display of toys for purchase on the side.

You head straight to another door and Julian gazes at you before opening, “are you sure you wanna do this?”

“Hm-huh.”

He grins at you and opens the door to a much bigger space than you expected. You hadn't really pictured it in any way, but by the secrecy of it, one would think it'd be something more dungeon-like. It’s not like that at all. There's a plethora of things that shouldn’t go together, but somehow they do. It's all cream colors and red, neon lighting, with velvet curtains and leather couches in alcoves. There's a bar area and two separate hallways that lead to bedrooms behind those big curtains.

Mellow music playing in the background and a few people just hanging out in the bar. A group is casually conversing in one of the alcoves. Another one is occupied by a couple intimately touching the other. But your eyes are drawn to the man kneeling by an ottoman sucking a woman's toes in a different nook.

“Do you want another drink, sweetheart?”

“Uh… sure.”

You order another cocktail and take Julian's hand. He guides you through one of the curtains to show you one of the main attractions. It leads to a much darker hallway, full of windows on either side. Most of them are covered. There are a few people watching through the ones uncovered, where you can observe people having sex. The first one you pass by, there's a woman lying on her front with a mask on and four people brushing her body with feathers. On the second one, you see a man shoving his cock into his kneeled partner's mouth. The third one holds a picture of a woman with strap-on pegging a man. A fourth window holds a man walking slowly around a bed, observing the form of his partner, tied up to the bed. You stop at the fifth one, where a man is giving the pound of his life to a woman. He has her on all fours, punishing her ass with his hips, occasionally slapping her flesh with his palm, and yanking her hair. There's nothing special about it. It's just rough sex, and yet it evokes that something in you. Even though you can't hear anything that goes in there, they seem to be having fun by the way their faces contort.

“You like that, sweetheart?” One of Julian's arms circles your waist from behind while you sip your drink.

“Hmm.”

“What do you like about it?”

“I dunno… I guess they both seem detached from the other, like… she's acting for him, and he only cares about his own pleasure but not really wanting to connect on a deeper level. It feels… liberating.”

“Yeah?”

“I'm not sure that I've ever done that. You know, I can't fully commit to sex if I'm not cared for, and vice versa.”

“I know what you like, baby.”

“I wish I could do that sometimes… just not to care, you know?”

“But I love that you do so much, and that you have such a big, beautiful heart.”

“Well, it's broken right now,” you sigh, “I'm sorry, I'm such a downer right now. I just…”

“You wanna feel something different. I get it. Don't apologize to me. I got you, okay?”

“Okay,” you glance over your shoulder, smiling at him.

Watching other people having sex it’s entertaining, but not as much as you wanted it to be. Maybe in a different headspace, you'd be able to enjoy a little more being witness to those snaps of intimacy right in front of you.

Afterwards, you go back to the main space and take a seat on one of the alcoves.

“Who pays for all this?” you wonder, settling glued to Julian's side, draping your legs over his thigh.

“It relies on member fees and donations.”

“Hmm. But you don't come here often?”

“Yeah, I don't get as much here for a night as I do out there, but I still pay a fee. It helps keep it running. Make it safe and all for other people.”

“How much would you get here?”

“I don't know. Three or four hundred? Depends on the day.”

“And that's not enough for you, Mr. Greedy?” you utter playfully, “you rather take the risk out in the open?”

“Makes it more interesting,” he palms your denim covered thigh.

“Well, how about we make this more interesting,” you drink from your glass, settle it down on the table and tuck your hand in his pants' pocket to collect his wallet.

Julian stares at you, intrigued about what you’re concocting, as you take out a hundred dollar bill from it before giving his wallet back.

“Let’s say, for a hundred bucks you can do whatever you want with me,” you gesture with the bill in your hand, “what would you do with me?”

“You want me to pay to have sex with you?” he snorts.

“Would you?”

His head tilts to the side, considering, “I would… but a hundred bucks? You’re selling yourself cheap, sweetheart. I’d pay thousands to be with you.”

“What if I wanna be a cheap whore?” You fold the bill in your hand, slide under the hem of your v-neck blouse, and tuck it in one of the cups of your bra.

He clicks his tongue and sends one hand to hold your face, brushing his thumb ever so slightly on your bottom lip.

“Why do you wanna be a cheap whore?”

“Cause…” you exhale and pause for a beat, “I don’t wanna be me right now.”

“You can be whatever you wanna be, baby,” he sighs, pulling down your lip a couple of times, picking up on what you’re inquiring of him, “you want me to use you? Is that what you're asking?”

You nod.

“Yeah?” He brings your face closer, so you feel his warm breath on your lips, “want me to treat you like a little slut?”

Your cheeks heat up hearing him saying that, and you simply hum.

“You don’t mind people watching?”

You shake your head in his warm palm, spread across your chin now.

He quickly licks his lips and then swipes that same tongue on yours before ordering, “then get on your knees and earn that money.”

You swallow and slide between his thighs to kneel on the floor as he opens his fly and belt. You lean your head and kiss his bulge over his underwear.

You’re taken again by that urge of escaping from your entire being that you don’t give a fuck where you are or if there’s people around watching or not as you go down on him. You get lost in pleasing him, you exist only for that right now. And it’s easier to slip into that mindset than you’d ever thought.

You peel back his boxers, and watch him go hard in your fist as his fingers toy with your hair. Immersed in your role, you pump his length with ease, occasionally gazing at him. He bites his lip as you open your mouth to get a taste of his pre-cum with just the tip of your tongue. You swirl around his head, and trace his slit before wrapping your lips around the stately flared cock. Filling your mouth with hit, you bob your head, spreading your spit along his velvet skin. Julian hums and pushes your head down for you to go faster. It’s what you asked for anyway.

You rub your thighs together, feeling the arousal pooling between your folds as he mutters and praises what a good slut you are.

His cock twitches between your teeth, and he buries a grunt deep in his throat as he feeds you his warm load.

You suck him dry, swallowing every drop of him as if it was sweet honey. Pulling your head back, you lick the remains that stick to your lips under the sultry shadow of his stare.

While he catches his breath, he brings his hand closer and inserts two fingers in your mouth, slipping them in and out, as if he was still fucking your lips.

“You're something special, sweetheart.”

Playing your part, you hum pleasantly around the motion of his fingers, shamelessly blowing them off until he pulls them out, letting your spit dribble down your chin.

“Did I taste good?”

“Hmm,” grinning, you reach for the napkin near your cocktail to clean your mouth, as he tucks himself back into his pants,

You get on your feet, and he pulls down onto his lap, sideways, letting his hands roam your body, and his lips nibble your partly-exposed chest while you hug his neck.

You tilt your head back as he covers more ground, noting his hand sneaking under your blouse at the back. His fingers press and glide with electricity all over the plane of your skin, as his opposite hand grips viciously at your ass.

The scent of your skin intoxicates him, making him groan at the top of your breasts.

“Can we get a room?” you pant.

“Yeah, we can get whatever you want, baby.”

He pulls his head back and holds your face momentarily as he kisses your lips. Then, you both shift and stand up to get a key from the bartender.

You hit the ladies' room first while Julian settles himself in the bedroom. He moods the LED lights to a soft purple and lets the curtains cover the mirror, cause he’s not sure if you wanna be watched or not. He also makes sure that everything is cleaned and that they’re stocked with the complementary condoms, lube, and wipes in the nightstand. Everything’s perfect as he waits for you.

After ten minutes, he starts to worry that you’ve suddenly gotten sick, or have changed your mind when you don’t show up. He lets another two or three minutes pass by and then peeks out the hallway to see if you’re close. You’re not. He strides promptly back to the main space, and heads straight to the restroom. He calls your name, knocking on every stall’s door, asking if you’re okay, but there are no signs of you in there.

A woman coming out of one of the stalls gives him a look, and he apologizes. He’s about to get out when he glances at the floor and sees the half-moon necklace you were wearing. With a deep crease in his brow, he picks it up and swallows. Something it’s wrong here, he realizes all of a sudden. He inspects the bathroom further and sees a small trail of blood on the side of one of the sinks.

You’re dead. It’s what first crosses his mind. He’s let his guard down, and he’s killed you.

Julian rushes out of the bathroom and starts asking about you to everyone in his way. The bartender plainly tells him you just left, but he doesn’t buy it.

He makes another swipe around the lower level before heading up. A woman stops him and tells him that she saw you passed out, being carried by one of the security guys, and that you had blood trickling down your temple.

Rushing up the stairs, he collects his cellphone and yours and steps once more into the club. His eyes frantically search for you all around, but you’re still missing. Then, he notices security keeping an eye on him, and there’s no doubt in his bones that there’s been foul play in your disappearance. Someone has taken you. He’s sure.

Julian makes a quick decision and dashes straight to the employee's closed area, and enters Enzo’s office, locking the door behind him before anyone can get to him.

“What did you do with her?” he questions his friend, and quickly eyes a flashy gun with a gold finish on top of a filing cabinet.

“What are you talking about?”

“You knew exactly who she was when you looked at her… Nothing happens here without you knowing it. Who did you call?”

“She’s been all over the news. Everyone knows who she is.”

“Bullshit.”

Suddenly, there’s a relentless banging and pushing on the door behind him.

“Tell them to stop.”

Enzo pulls his palm up calmly and raises his voice to tell his men to stand back.

“Look. The best thing for you to do know it’s to get a drink, calm yourself, and go home, Julian.”

There’s a pounding in his chest that urges him to grab Enzo’s arm, twist it to his back, and push his front flush against the wall.

“What the fuck did you do?” Julian mutters, having Enzo pinned with all his force.

“I had no choice,” Enzo struggles to speak, “I owed a lotta money.”

Julian keeps him secure with his dominant hand, and reaches with the other to pick up the gun he saw before, cocks it and puts it against Enzo’s nape

“You fucking sold her?”

“I didn’t… someone was already after her.”

“Yeah, he’s in jail.”

“No,” Enzo tries to shake his head, “that wasn’t him. Logan was set up, just like you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter. She’s already gone… she's untouchable now.”

“Give me a fucking name!”

“You know his name.”

Julian sighs and lowers the gun, uttering, “Stratton.”

“He was after you,” Enzo explains, “and got obsessed with her.”

“Where is he taking her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me,” he presses the muzzle of the gun again against his temple now, “I thought we were friends. Where is he taking her?”

“I swear, I don’t know!”

“Then, you’re no use to me, are you?”

“Wait, Julian… I can call him and find out.”

He gives the desk a once-over and locates Enzo’s phone. Without lowering his aim, he lets him move freely to get to it and make the call.

“Put it on speaker.”

Enzo clears his throat and dials Richard Stratton.

Julian can barely keep his thoughts straight for more than a second as the dial tone goes off three times before Stratton answers.

“What do you need now?” the man on the other side asks curtly.

“I uh… I just need to know that we’re squared now.”

 “We are. You delivered. Your debt is gone, Lorenzo.”

“You’re not gonna hurt her, are you?”

 “I promised I wouldn’t. She’s safer with me than with that degenerate, trust me.”

“Where are you taking her?”

“That’s none of your business.” There’s a pause before Richard speaks again, “is he there with you?”

“Who?”

“Julian. He’s there, isn’t he?” Another moment of silence as Julian's rage levels go off the roof when hearing Richard talking to you, “you wanna say goodbye, sweetheart?”

“Jules,” he hears your shaky voice come out of the speaker, and he lowers his gun, “are you there?”

“I’m here, baby, I’m here. Where are you?”

“I don’t know, I can’t… they hit me,” he can identify the fear in your voice as you speak and half sob, “we’re moving, but I don’t know… I’m scared.”

“Shh, shh, I’m gonna come for you, okay?” Julian’s own throat betrays him, as he tears up, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

 “Promise.”

“I promise, baby. I’ll find you.”

“Time’s up,” Richard utters, and he hears you yelling his name in the background before the call is cut off.

“So help me God, Enzo, something happens to her, I’ll come here, and I’ll kill you myself. Tell your men to back off.”

“Logan,” Enzo utters in a last attempt to make him feel better.

“What about him?”

“If someone knows where Stratton is going, it’s Logan. He’s been covering all his tracks. Knows more about him than he realizes.”

Running against the clock, Julian takes Enzo’s gun and sets a lead foot in the pedal, driving straight into the big house. His thoughts go as fast as the car. He calls Detective Sunday on the way and tells her what happened, and to meet him there. He knows he can’t do this alone, as much as he wants to, he’s going to need her help.

Chapter 6: Clipped Wings

“Where are we going?” You keep asking in the back of a very luxurious vehicle.

Next to you is Richard Stratton. On the front seats, behind an opaque glass, are the driver; and the guy that you tried to fight off in the bathroom and hit you in the head with the butt stock of his gun, so you would stop struggling. You saw them briefly, when you woke up about an hour ago, you believe. Stratton closed the glass partition after that, and the car hasn’t stopped since.

You finally managed to stop crying after talking to Julian. Your wrists are restrained with a zip tie over your lap, and your head is still hammering from the blow. The door windows are completely blocked, too, so you can’t see where you are or where they’re taking you.

“If you're going to kill me, at least tell me why.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I'm not going to kill you. I'm saving you from him.”

It's utterly appalling the way he uses that pet name.

“You call this saving?” you show your join hands up in exasperation.

“That's for your own protection. Once you see what I've done for you, you won't need that.”

“You're crazy.”

He slides his hand over your thigh, and you flinch at his touch.

“Don't touch me.”

He laughs at you and squeezes your knee before removing his hand.

“Don't worry. After a period of adjustment, you'll beg me to touch you.”

“I'd rather die.”

“You already did. Four times.”

It takes you a moment to process, but by your count there are five women dead, not four.

“You killed all those women? Why?”

“They were imposters. See, they looked like you, but they didn’t feel like you or smell like you, or talk like you.”

“Why?” you keep repeating, having tears threatening to pour out of your eyes.

“Because I love you, don't you get it? I only want you. I was trying to ruin Julian's life, but when I met you… being with you was the only thing that mattered all of a sudden. I guess taking you away from him is sort of a tragedy for him. Two birds, one stone.”

“You don't know me.”

“Oh, I do. I've been watching you and learning everything that is to know about you to build the perfect place for you.”

He's truly out of his mind.

“Why did you want to ruin Julian's life?”

“If you must know… a few months ago, I found this letter that Michelle wrote to him but never sent. I guess it was too much to explain over paper… she was telling Julian that our son, my son Colin… was never mine, that was the offspring of that fucking bastard all along.”

“And you killed Michelle for that too,” you mutter, slowly processing this new shocking information.

“She had it coming. She's just a whore like him.”

“You weren't married anymore.”

“She was trying to take away my son. I gave that boy everything for 14 years, and one day she decides I'm a bad influence?”

The shoe seems to fit. Of course, you don't say that out loud. You swallow the dryness of your throat and try not to break into tears. You know you'll meet a similar fate, no matter what he says.

“What about Logan? Why did you bring him into this?”

“Hmm, you're such a curious cat, but I'll bite. Logan hurt you and had to pay for it. You know, actually, he's the one who tried to drown you. He thought that you'd be safer if the world was watching you… he never intended to kill you. He did kill Martina to get back at me. Tried to stage it to pin it on me, when we both knew he'd be taking the blame for all of it. Thing is he did me a favor, she was insufferable. It blew my cover, but I'll find another one.”

“Oh, it must really suck to be you.” You spit out ironically before you can stop yourself, “psychologists are going to have their field day when they catch you.”

You must have hit a nerve there, cause your head suddenly jerks to the side, having the backside of his hand striking across your face terribly hard.

“The others weren't this insolent either.” he mutters, “I was going to wait for you to settle in our new home to do this, but I guess this is a good time to start.”

You glance at him and see him produce a small case from a compartment that holds some vials and syringes. He takes out one of the syringes from its wrapper and loads it with one of the injectables.

“What the hell is that? Is it what you gave them?”

“Oh, no. I had this made especially for you.”

You try to squirm out of his reach, but he locks an arm around you, pulls at your hair to have your head tilted to the side, and shoves the needle in the crook of your neck. It goes stiff as you feel the strange liquid invade your body. You wince and tears slip out of your eyes.

“I’m sorry I had to do that,” he removes the needle and pets your head, “It’s going to feel good really soon, sweetheart.”

“What is it?” You let out a sob.

“Attitude adjustment. It’s a drug we’ve developed to help you be more… compliant.”

“You’re a fucking psychopath.”

Your head falls back against the headrest, hearing his evil laugh mocking you. Closing your eyes and clenching your teeth, you focus on fighting the pain of the oddly, cold sensation under your skin, and try not to panic. It’s going to be fine. He promised he was right behind you. Any minute now, you think. Any minute…

Whatever he drugged you with, it works fast. Soon, your jaw goes slack, and so does your body. Your pulse speeds up, and it goes faster the more you try to move. There’s an overwhelming sensation building up in your chest as your anxiety levels skyrocket. You’ve never done any hard drugs or have ever been medicated with something stronger than Vicodin from when you got your wisdom teeth out, but this one has a huge kick.

“Relax. It’ll feel worse if you try to fight it,” you hear him say and notice that he’s touching your head again, cleaning the blood from your wound, “I’m sorry he did that. I told him not to hurt you, but you were a little feisty.”

“Go to hell,” you barely exhale.

You close your eyes again and wait and hope and pray for this to be over.

Then, something creeps out from inside you when you feel his lips touching your neck, as he sniffs the scent of your skin. You wanna move, hit him, kick him, anything… but your body isn't responding to the signals your brain is sending.

“You smell like him,” he utters, as one of his hands slips under your shirt to grope your breast over your bra, “we're going to fix that later.”

“Please, don't,” you babble, bursting into tears.

“Relax, baby. It’s going to feel really good.”

He grabs at you harder, and sucks disgustingly at your neck. You yelp between sobs pleading for him to stop, over and over. You try to move your arms, but they're not strong enough at the moment to get him off you.

His grip hurts so much that it awakens just the ounce of strength you need, strong enough for you to send your hands to dig your nails into his neck and draw blood, forcing him to stop.

“I see you like it rough, huh?” he slaps you again, “you should've said that b-”

Someone must have heard you pray, cause on a dime something explodes, making the car jerk violently before it stops, shoving Richard against the glass partition.

It sounded like the front tires.

You had a seat belt on and all you felt was the whiplash. Stratton however didn't, and ended up with his head smashed against the glass mid-sentence. He still looks alive, but he's completely out, curled in an awkward position between his seat and the partition.

You fumble trying to unbuckle your seatbelt and get out of the car for a long moment until someone tries to open the door on your side. It’s locked. You freeze and don’t say anything at all, wondering if someone is trying to help you, or if it's just one of Stratton’s men.

Then, a gunshot goes off, and you duck your head. There are a couple more afterwards, spaced out, and you hear a man shouting to stay down. It must be the police.

You try to unlatch the seat belt again. With your wrists restrained, and your senses impaired by the drug, it’s almost a victory when you do.

Feeling helpless afterwards, you tuck your arms to your chest and freeze, drowning in your own tears, waiting for someone to come to your aid.

It feels like hours, but it’s only a minute after that you hear sirens going off and someone successfully opening your door.

“Are you okay, ma’am?”

You shake your head, unable to look at this new person.

“Are you hurt?”

There’s nothing you can compare this moment to. This is the most pain you’ve ever felt. Inside and out. You can’t respond. There’s something blocking you from doing so, must be the drug or the shock. Your mind feels warped and dizzy in a way you can’t really explain. All thoughts are seeping in your mind like water through a colander.

“Can you move?”

Can you? You’re not sure. You swallow and hold your trembling hands forwards, so this person can see that they’re bound. You can’t really tell if it’s a man or a woman speaking to you, but you’re aware enough to see that it's someone in a uniform.

You feel a couple of people maneuvering around you with great care. There is a click, and finally you can pull your hands apart from the other.

Someone offers you a hand, and you hesitantly take it and test if you can step out of the car. It's a learning experience. Your legs quiver on you as you stand up to feel the striking heat of the sun in the middle of nowhere.

You let them guide you to take cover in one of the two patrol cars while the other officers take care of the men that held you hostage.

They bring you water and keep asking you questions you can't really answer.

With a lost stare, you watch the scene as they remove the device they set on the road to stop the car. Julian must have called the cops, it dawns on you out of nowhere, otherwise, you'd still be in that car. That thought quickly dissipates when Stratton wakes up as they pull him out of the car and is handcuffed immediately. He yells all sorts of threats at the officers, and he’s quickly locked in the second cruiser.

Ambulances show up next. They care for the two men shot, and your captor. A paramedic mends the gash on your temple and notices there's a bump on the curve of your neck like a bee sting. It itches the same, but you know it was from the needle.

Then, you are set aside like a science project, waiting for CSI to roll by and collect the evidence from your fingernails and take pictures of you.

“She's in shock.” You hear them say. You must be cause you're completely unable to respond to anything the more time passes. It feels like an out-of-body experience. As if you were watching someone else's life.

You can't seem to snap out of it. It's numbing and utterly disturbing. You try remembering what you did earlier in the day to dig yourself out of that hole… You were mad when you woke up. You had to go to the station, and you weren't really up for it. Julian, being annoyingly sweet, drew a heart on your palm to make you smile. You rolled your eyes instead. It was one of those moments you were mean to him for no reason. You should have stayed at home, kissed him, and told him that you love him. Maybe this wouldn't have happened if you had.

There’s your anchor. You focus on Julian and the way he traced a piece of his heart on your palm, while someone brushes the gunk in your nails. You open your opposite hand and pretend that the comic-shape heart is still there, carved over the lines of your palm.

“Baby, can you hear me?” he's choked up, you can tell by the way his voice breaks.

He's there now, and you can’t tilt your head up to look at him. Your gaze states fixated on that imaginary spot until you see his fingers move ever so carefully to wrap around your hand as he crouches in front of you.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, sweetheart,” he bows his head and kisses your knuckles, “we’re going to get you out of here now, yeah?”

Time fluctuates and in that daze from when you were injected to the moment you wake up in a hospital bed for a second time, and there are several pieces missing. It’s night now, you can see through the window having its shutters pulled up, and Julian is seated on a sofa, reading a copy of your book, with a deep crease of concentration in his brow.

After that trip you feel utterly lucid now, sleepy but lucid, thankfully.

He doesn’t realize you’re awake until you mumble a husky, “hey, do they sell those at the hospital now?”

His stare is torn from the pages and looks at you, having his expression soften as he rises from the two-seater, placing the book down open on the page he was reading.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he sits next to you, and tentatively reaches to caress your face, “someone left it in the waiting room.”

“Where are we?”

“I got you a private room.”

“Fancy,” you feel your lips pull up on their own.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” you sigh, trying not to think too much about what happened, “better, I think. How long was I out?”

“Sleeping? Just a couple of hours… before that? Three or four without… Do you remember anything?”

“Some of it. He… he gave me something,” you point at your neck with your hand.

“Yeah, they found his stash in the car… Said it was PCP mixed with something else. They’re still trying to figure it out,” he glances at your neck, “the swelling is gone now. I should go get some-”

“No,” you stop him, “not yet. In a minute.”

You ask him to fill the gaps you have. And he tells you how they found where Richard was taking you by doing something impossible. Between him and Detective Sunday, they convinced Logan to give up the location. Apparently, Stratton was blackmailing him and threatening to kill his family. In exchange for their safety, he followed you for months, kept tabs on you and sent all that to Stratton. Logan was just a pawn. He tried to get out of it and keep you safe at the same time by making it look like someone tried to kill you, he never intended to actually do it; like Stratton told you in the car.  That last part you knew, but it seemed like a vague memory of a dream until Julian confirms it. Logan kept quiet and let Stratton pin the murders on him, cause there was still a gun pointed at his family.

In trade for that information, he had Sunday reassure him that she’d see that his girlfriend and baby would be protected.

Afterwards, you try to fill some of those too for Julian. You remember questioning Richard, but  there are some facts you’re completely unsure if they’re real or not. If your memory serves you right, he killed Michelle after finding out their son was actually Julian’s. He confessed to killing the other women too, except for Martina. He said Logan killed her. The situation was less than ideal to gather information like that, but you’re almost 90% sure that’s what you heard before being drugged.

“You have a son,” you say under your breath, and he looks at you as if you were making it up, “I’m not sure if it’s true, Jules, but it adds up.”

Shutting your eyes, you attempt to pry the name he gave you out of your mind. It starts with a C. Maybe Cole or Charlie. It sounded close to that.

“That’s impossible,” his brow narrows as he stands up to look out the window, “she’d have told me.”

Would she? You remember something about a letter that wasn’t sent. Maybe she did, but didn’t have the courage to send it while he was in prison. It’d probably broken his heart. Just as it’s doing now.

He can’t accept it, but part of you knows it’s true.

Chapter 7: Epilogue

They say time heals all wounds… Abigail’s were temporarily patched at best because the moment she stepped into that house, she felt the demons buried in that place prying at every opening of her being. Time stood still between those walls. The same furniture her mother kept spotless was occupying the same space to the millimeter. Except for pictures. There were no pictures of her in the house anymore. There used to be two on the wall leading up the staircase that were replaced by some of her cousins. The Angels. On the mantel was another one when she got her portrait taken at the back of the dollar store when she was 7 or 8. It had one of those fake sky backgrounds. She was wearing the dress she wore for church only, and wasn’t allowed to smile.

Days before she had that taken, Adventurous Abby had fallen on her face while she was roller-skating, and one of her front teeth was chipped after hitting the edge of the sidewalk. It made her feel ugly that her own mother told her to keep her mouth shut cause she looked like a fucking pirate. Sans the curse word, of course. Her palm covered her mouth more often than not when she spoke until she got that fixed years later. She did. Not her mother. And definitely not her father chipped in for her chipped tooth. They say it was a punishment of God for being cheeky. That was their logic. In all truth, those skates she rode belonged to her best friend, who wanted to show her to see how fun it was. Abby never had any of the fun toys. Only a couple of stuffed animals on her bed and a creepy porcelain doll that she couldn’t care less about. She hated her– Christine. That’s what her mother called her doll. She sat on a shelf looking over her bed with her perfect, glossy hair and skin, and beautiful dress, mocking her while she slept. She was convinced it gave her nightma---

“You gotta eat something, sweetheart,” Julian interrupts your flow, holding a plate with food close to your face, while you're typing on your laptop your second novel, “you’ve been at it for hours.”

“So? Can’t you see that I’m on a roll here?” You protest animatedly.

“I can see,” he scoffs, glancing at the screen, “but I can also hear your stomach growling from across the room.”

“That’s not my stomach, that’s the lil guy snoring,” you slide your chair back to show him that the puppy has fallen asleep by your feet, under the desk.

It’s three months later when everything starts to go back to some sort of normal. A new normal. Not better or worse, just different.

The tremor you've had in your hands since the day you were kidnapped finally stops altogether. You’re counting the days it lasts, six so far, and your pulse is as steady as ever. They believed it was psychosomatic, cause physically you’re perfectly fine. Therapy helped. Having a weekly session didn’t seem much at the beginning, but it truly has been a game changer.

Right now, your steady hands are full with your new puppy, working on your second novel, and helping Julian with his situation.

Inspiration struck you a few weeks ago, and you’ve outlined and drafted fully a new story that you feel pretty confident about. You finally got an agent, a trustworthy one, and two publishing houses are interested in your new novel after reading the early draft of your manuscript. Not having to worry about financing another book of your own pocket takes a load off your mind. You’ve broken even, and you’re just starting to see the fruits of years of work.

But the thing that has brought the most joy to your life is your new puppy– Flynn. You decided to adopt one of those doggies from Bailey, and now you have a black and white Siberian Husky with crystal clear, blue eyes. He's cute as a button; joyful, and active as they come. You’ve had him for a month and besides Julian, you’ve never loved anything as much as you love that dog. Caring for him, taking him out and getting into training classes with him is part of your new routine that’s keeping you uplifted. For a while, you thought you’d never leave the house again and now, with a few exceptions, you’re able to go out on your own with him. He follows everywhere you go and tonight, after eating his food, he started licking your ankle and fell asleep on the floor while you wrote. That’s how much time you've been spending writing, you've bored the little thing to death.

Julian on the other hand has been preoccupied with another matter. It took him a while to accept that he had a son. With the help of Sunday, you found out that Colin Stratton was living in England under the care of his grandmother and guardian, Evelyn.

There was no trace of him online, despite him being 15. The only photo you could find was one in Michelle’s Instagram account from when Colin was around 10. You could see a certain likeness to Julian, but it was very inconclusive. He didn’t look like Richard, for sure. He took after his mother, definitely.

It wasn’t a decision that was made lightly, no. The last thing Julian wanted to do was to disrupt a young boy's life. He merely lost his mom months ago, and the man he knew as his father just went to prison.

After long conversations and consideration, Julian decided that he wanted to meet him and go from there. Ideally, he wanted to be in his life at any capacity the boy considered. If it was none at all, he’d have to accept it. He was ready for it. He’d stepped up, had he known, back then; and was determined to do it now. There was nothing he could’ve done from prison, but he deserved to know the truth. If there’s something he could resent Michelle for, it was that, but he understood her reasons. He got a copy of the alleged letter that was in Stratton’s possession that was meant for him all along.

Via lawyer, Julian made his intentions clear to Evelyn Stratton, and added that letter. She didn’t reply right away. The request was simple enough, he just wanted to meet Colin. The lawyer called a couple of times, and she kept dismissing him.

There was another force at work, cause one evening, a week ago, when you two came back home from a walk with Flynn, you found the 15-year-old-boy waiting in the lobby. Up close, it was clear that Colin had grown to look more like Julian. Except for his eyes that were hazel, like Michelle’s, his features were a fresh-printed copy out of Julian’s. His hair was just as dark and abundant, and when you saw them walk side by side, you could see that they both carried themselves the same way. Julian didn’t believe you, of course, but you could tell.

Colin had a proposition of his own, he had been wanting to leave the boarding school he’s been enrolled in since he was 12. He loathed it and wanted to come here with Michelle, but Richard never allowed him to do so. Even now, his guardian was carrying Richard’s plan of not letting come here. He took the opportunity of visiting his aunt, Michelle’ sister, in Burbank during holidays, and found out where Julian lived. He knew about him, his mother told him about his real father a couple of years ago. Colin just needed a paternity test and the chance of fighting Evelyn and Richard for custody, so he could emancipate and live with his aunt.

It wasn’t an instant connection or anything. The boy was very stern in his intentions and was very skittish about meeting Julian, but he did, cause he had been looking to get away from that family that never truly treated him or his mom right. She always feared he’d hurt them if they tried to get away, and she was right. Now that Richard was locked up, this was his chance.

Julian agreed. His mind was already made before the boy came here that he’d help in any capacity he could.

“Did you love her?” Colin asked. It seemed very important to him to know that about him.

Julian stared at him for a long moment before standing up and picking up a book from the shelf. He sat back down and opened the front of it to collect a picture strip of him with Michelle. He just showed it to him.

“She looks really happy,” Colin kept his eyes on the pictures of her mother framed by love and joy in her eyes.

“She was,” Julian simply said.

Close to midnight, you save your document, leaving Abigail to rest for the night. Then, turn off your computer, put Flynn in his crate, and check that the door is closed before getting on with your nightly routine and joining Julian in bed.

“Thought you weren’t coming to bed,” Jules grins, placing the book he was reading down on the nightstand, while you slide into bed.

“Hmm, have you missed me, handsome?” you lean closer, and he links his arm around you, pulling you into his chest.

“Always,” he hushes, having his thumb back and forth rubbing your shoulder.

“Yeah?” you sigh, tilting your head up to look at him, letting your palm smooth his chest up to his neck, “sorry I’ve been absent the last couple of nights.”

“Don’t be. I’m proud of you.”

“I’m really proud of you too, baby,” you say back, touched, and lean closer to capture his lips.

Kissing him slowly, your fingers slip into his hair that it’s gotten longer, and you play with his curls at the back of his nape.

Julian gingerly shifts your body, removing your clothes in the process, so he can make love to you with all of him– lips, tongue, fingers, and cock, all work together to stroke every inch of your body. He claims all of you, including your heart and soul, during those delightful orgasms he gives you in return. His body buzzes, collecting the pleasure that vibrates out of you every time you moan and scream at his name.

He makes you feel vivid and precious, more than you ever imagined, with every caress and word.

“Look at me, sweetheart” he says, locking eyes with you, holding your face, getting you closer to the edge a third time. Your lips part against his, and you can barely mumble a felt I love you as you melt all around him.

#expensive delights #julian kaye x reader #american gigolo #julian kaye #jon bernthal #jon bernthal fanfiction #jon bernthal smut #fanfiction #darlingwrites #this post is excessively long #let me know if you prefer separate posts for each chapter