Fx M or F A Delicious Pastime for Devoted Playmates

[Madam Mim]

Last Update: 02 2023 12:42pm EST
What's New: Updated cravings. Rearranged a few things based on very helpful feedback. Remembered what a bitch and a half that is.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS​

About Me

Cravings

Rules

F-List and Settings Cliff Notes

Plots

Song Prompts

Optional Prefab Characters

Writing Samples​

Welcome to my new and improved request thread! I've been wanting to clean things up and make it easier to browse for a while, as well as add some writing samples. I've added a table of contents and jury-rigged a search function for browsing by keyword and kink using what I could with BBCode. I'd really appreciate feedback on these new facets and ways I can improve them.

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ABOUT ME​

For those for whom it matters, I'm a 30-something bisexual cis woman living in the EST timezone (GMT -5). I have no preference for your real-life age, sexuality, or gender so long as you're a good writer. I've been writing fiction prose nearly my entire life, and started RPing via passing notes with my best friend in math class in 7th​ grade. I've been RPing online since my mid-teens and in my late teens/early twenties was a mod on a small RP forum before the website fizzled after having our members poached. This is all to say: I view RP primarily as cooperative story-telling. BMR just happens to be smutty cooperative story-telling.

Grad school is done and I have very little social life or connection to the community I'm currently living in, so I'm taking on as many RPs as I can handle at the moment. I write only in threads and PMs, and don't typically take things off site unless I know you well. In the plots section, anything struck out is either being used and I'm not looking for another take, or I'm not currently accepting offers to write that plot.

Rules are a must-read, and your PM will go directly into the trash if you haven't. I would prefer if you at least skimmed plot ideas and/or keywords, and if none of that vibes with you that's fine and we can work something out. But it will give you an idea of the sorts of stories I like and the ones I'm likely to say no to. Also, please don't message me proposing sex and only sex.
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CRAVINGS​

Tag Cravings: age difference, altered states, bad guys, historical, morally grey, slow burn
Kink Cravings: blindfolds, collars, corruption, dubcon, interracial, multiple partners, nipple piercings
Plot Cravings: A Slow Apocalypse, Black Powder Mage, Don't Stand So Close To Me, Madman and Machine, Our Father in Heaven, Take the Money and Run

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RULES​

What You Can Expect From Me​

What I Expect From You​

Long term Literate to advanced (but no purple prose) Generally 2-4 paragraphs, but they can be longer. My intro posts tend to be accidentally monstrous because I like to get a feel for my character. I don't do one-liners or less than a paragraph. Because I view RP as cooperative story-telling and there's no point in writing less than a paragraph since it neither advances the story nor gives the other person anything to work with. Post at least once a day, often more depending on rl circumstances Always plot-central, though I'm never opposed to a good steamy scene; usually 60/40 in favor of plot Good spelling and grammar, but I'm not immune to slip-ups Third person past-tense, usually but not always limited. I admit to a tendency toward head-hopping in a scene where I'm writing for multiple characters, but this can be necessary for the flow of the story Domme, sub, or switch Always female unless playing a homicidal psychopath, multiple characters, or reciprocal love interests (includes canon fan characters) Real characters, not breathing sex toys Threads or PMs only Since people sometimes slip through the cracks and apparently only read parts of my rules and not, y'know, how I do things, go ahead and tell me your favorite color in your intro PM so I know you've read this part. If things aren't working out and we haven't built up much of an ooc relationship, I reserve the right to ghost. If we have built a relationship, chances are I'll either talk to you about it or tell you why I'm dropping.

Literate At least two paragraphs (I need something to work with and don't want to be the only one putting work into it) If you do one-liners or I feel like I'm putting more work/thought into this for more than a post or two we're done Post at least once every couple days, more preferable but I understand we all have real lives and that takes precedent Decent spelling and grammar Stay in third person past tense Give me a real character to interact with, not a breathing sex toy Threads or PMs only Miscellaneous Housekeeping: Check my F list in my sig for anything else you might want or not want, and when in doubt ask. Also, do me a favor? Tell Me your favorite animal in your initial pm or post so I know you've read the rules You also reserve the right to ghost me if we haven't built much of an ooc relationship and you feel like the RP isn't worth your effort, or even if you're just losing interest. I'll likely PM you if you haven't posted for a week or two, just to see if you're alright or if you got busy or something, but if you're dropping me you don't owe me a PM back. If I haven't had a PM I usually give it a month before I remove a thread from my subscriptions; if life just got busy and you weren't able to message me back and it's been more than a month you'll have to message me to rekindle the RP, but otherwise you don't owe me anything.

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F-LIST AND SETTINGS CLIFF NOTES​

The link to my full F-list here, and is in my sig also. I encourage you to go read the whole thing! There may be something there that works that isn't listed here, this is just top of the pops. Things are listed in no particular order.

You Have My Attention​	We'll Talk About It​	Slow Your Roll​
Corrupt Catholic priests (whether they are the corrupted or corruptor) Cults Light bondage Risk of pregnancy/pregnancy Forced marriage Forbidden love Manage a trois/throuple Trauma bonding Pirates, gypsies, any sort of wanderer Lovable rogues Speculative fiction: Post-apocalyptic (non zombie), Dystopia Historical settings: medieval, Vikings, hippies. Alt-history and historical fantasy welcome! Low- to mid-fantasy	Choking Face slapping Double penetration Sibling incest Modern settings SciFi Stomach/throat bulging Androgyny Humanoid monsters (demons, vampires, etc.) Anal	All the standard hard stops (bathroom-related/gore/vomit/etc.) Slice of life RPs Smoking; alcohol and drugs are fine, but smoking is just a major turn-off for me Anthros/Furries/beastiality/anything animal-shaped (werewolves fine but sexy times will be happening in human form only) Futas Extreme pain and humiliation Parent/child incest, regardless of age Unrealistic cum Unrealistic body proportions Messy (copious of cum/sweat/other bodily fluids, because if sex without bodily fluids were a thing I'd be all about that) Gratuitous depiction of pubic hair

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PLOTS​

All plots can be made FxF, but I've noted certain ones I think are particularly well-suited. In the key word tags, "structured" means I have definite ideas on how I want things to at least start out while "loose" means it's mostly a vague idea. Even the structured plots have room for tweaks, compromises, etc. "Altered states" refers to an altered mental state be it through drugs, magic, possession, insanity, etc.; anything that puts a person not in their right mind. Please note that all kinks and keywords are suggestions not requirements to get your imagination going and are not in any way set in stone. Like a plot but not the keywords/kinks? Totally fine. Like a particular set of keywords but not any of the plots? Also fine! PM me and we can work something out either way. This section is solely for inspiration and to give an idea of the sorts of stories I like to write.

Reality-Based Historical and Alt-History Plots

Search by Keyword

Age Differences 1 2	Bad Guys 1 2 3	Good Guys 1 2 3	Multiple Paths 1	Religion 1 2 3 4	Slow Burn 1 2 3
Altered states 1 2	Crime 1 2 3	Loose 1 2 3 4 5 6 7	Mystery 1	Revenge 1 2 3 4	Structured 1 2
Bad Ends 1	Cross-Cultural 1 2	Morally Grey 1 2	Politics 1	Royalty 1	Wanderers 1 2 3

Search By Kink

Biting 1	Competition 1 2	FFM 1 2 3	Lima/Stockholm Syndrome 1 2 3	Photography 1 2	Tantric Sex 1
Blackmail 1 2 3 4 5	Corruption 1 2	Forced Marriage 1 2 3	Masks 1 2 3 4 5 6	Physical Restraints 1 2 3	Teasing 1
Blindfolds 1 2 3 4	Dubcon 1 2 3 4	Infidelity 1	Master/Pet 1	Power Play 1 2 3	Touch Deprivation 1
Breeding 1	Edging 1	Informality 1 2	Master/Slave 1	Praise 1 2	Uppity 1 2
Clothed Sex 1 2	Exhibitionism 1 2 3 4	Interracial 1 2 3	Multiple Partners 1 2	Romance 1 2	Voyeurism 1 2
Collars 1 2 3	Femdom 1	Light Bondage 1 2	Obedience 1 2	Stockings 1 5	Wax Play 1 2 3

Historical​

Time Period: 1050-1350 Keywords: crime, good guys, loose, revenge Kinks: blackmail, blindfolds, collars, light bondage, lima/stockholm syndrome, masks, physical restraints, uppity, wax play We Merry Men A Robin Hood sort of setting. We can use Robin Hood without Maid Marian (I've got my own sort of character in mind), or we can make up a figure who's essentially Robin Hood, but without the accompanying lore. Suggested kinks mostly include the possibility of capture so keep that in mind. Because really sex in the woods has some pretty open possibilities but also some definite limitations. This one is really open as far as plot. Back to Search

Time Period: 1050-1400 Keywords: loose, politics, religion, royalty, slow burn Kinks: blackmail, blindfolds, collars, competition, ffm, forced marriage, masks, obedience, physical restraints, praise, throuple, wax play A Spoiled Princess I'll be honest I mostly just have the smut portion of this figured out but I'd really like to work out an actual plot to go with it. We could figure out some political or religious intrigue, throw in some magic if you'd like. A young woman of a noble house is married off to an enemy prince in the name of peace, tale as old as time. While awaiting the wedding she finds herself falling for his childhood best friend, a knight in her own right, and...well...it's not as though there would be any evidence that she had found pleasure in the arms of another woman before she was married. Meanwhile the best friend is struggling with her attraction to the new princess and balancing it with her loyalty to the prince. Their affair gets even more complicated when the princess begins to actually like her new husband. Back to Search

Time Period: 1690-1730 Keywords: bad guys, loose, morally grey, wanderers Kinks: blackmail, dubcon, exhibitionism, light bondage, lima/stockholm syndrome, power play, romance, voyeurism Under the Black It's the Golden Age of Piracy, and you've just taken a prize: a transportation ship bound for the Colonies. There's some provisions, and a few casks of Madeira wine meant as a bribe for a plantation owner waiting at the destination, but largely the cargo is people. In the way of pirates, a "trial" is held for the captain--who's promptly executed--and a place on the crew is offered to any man willing to sail with them. Among the volunteers is a woman, one of only a handful in a cargo of over 100 British criminals and African slaves, and the only woman to join. She's hanged either way, she figures; might as well die free and with a little money in her pocket. Even when her chance to jump ship comes at Nassau she chooses to remain with the crew. The woman with the mysterious past is intriguing to the [taciturn captain/ambitious first mate/powerful quartermaster], who slowly begins to trust her as she joins them on hunts and weighs in on both ship and port politics. Create your own pirate, use an established historical or a fictional pirate, or combine history and fiction a la Black Sails. Back to Search

Time Period: 1750-1850 Keywords: age differences, altered states, bad guys, multiple paths, religion, slow burn, structured Kinks: blackmail, clothed sex, collars, corruption, dubcon, masks, multiple partners, power play, praise, stockings, wax play Our Father in Heaven Partially inspired by this scene, partly inspired by Joseph Feinnes's character in American Horror Story: Asylum, partially by The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wild. England or Ireland: A Catholic priest from a small village in the countryside comes to a large city with the best of intentions. He meets a society woman who pulls him into a life of decadence and sin...the problem is he likes it too much to try very hard to escape it. OR contrariwise, a Catholic priest from the city comes to a small town, bringing with him sin and vice. Back to Search

Time Period: c. 1850-1910 Keywords: cross-cultural, loose, morally grey, revenge Kinks: dubcon, ffm, forced marriage, interracial, lima/stockholm syndrome, masks, uppity Wild West A wounded outlaw strays into Indian territory, in need of help but too far from the next settlement to get it. One of the native people comes upon her (and her horse) and takes her back to his village to be healed. She doesn't trust them, nor they her, but she's stuck there until she can heal. The longer she spends there, however, the more she comes to like the place and bond with the people. And the more she hears about the western expansion encroaching on their land and killing their people and their livelihood, the more she wants to do something about it. Back to Search

Time Period: 1885-1937 Keywords: bad ends, bad guys, crime, loose, revenge, wanderers Kinks: biting, blindfolds, edging, exhibitionism, femdom, infidelity, informality, masks Take the Money and Run A criminal chic Bonnie and Clyde story. In a podunk Midwestern town (frontier town?), there's a woman married to the town drunk. Sure he wasn't always like that, but he's...changed. Everyone knows he beats her but she's never filed a report so there's nothing the cops can do. And in any case, his daddy practically owns the town; arresting him would be career suicide. The mousey, battered wife starts going around with a drifter who rolled in a few months back, and that affair is an open secret, too. Nobody tells her husband--they know he'd kill her--but she doesn't miss the judgmental looks from the neighbors. Eventually her lover, tired of having to patch her up and seeing her body bruised and her spirit broken, starts whispering in her ear. They could leave, run away together. She resists; he'd follow them, and kill them both. Well then why not solve the problem permanently? After a particularly vicious beating, she breaks. The Other Man sneaks through the back door, only to find the husband tied up to a kitchen chair. She wanted her husband to see, wanted him to know, before she killed him. They don't bother with hiding the body or cleaning up the blood; they simply take a bath, change their clothes, and take off. This triggers a crime spree; the couple travels the country getting away with murder, robbery, fraud...anything we want. The world is ours. After she murdered her husband she discovered that she really rather gets off on violence. We're talking blowing up a train and fucking in the glow of the flames. Back to Search

Time Period: 1922 Keywords: crime, good guys, loose, mystery, slow burn Kinks: masks, photography, physical restraints, stockings, teasing, touch deprivation, voyeurism Crawlin' the Walls In a smoky cabaret there's a blues and jazz singer with a warm honey voice and ribbons in her backseams. It's New Orleans in the 1920s and the infamous Axeman is back, or at least someone very much like him. Panic is gripping the city, and it's her job to chase away the boogeyman. True, she doesn't mind too much considering a killer who likes jazz is good business for a jazz singer, but her main job is entertaining in a smoky speakeasy in the French Quarter. She isn't too concerned, until she gets a note. The Axeman likes her music. At first she feels a little safer, knowing he likely won't kill her because he likes her. But then she gets more notes...then roses. Finally, after being persuaded by a friend she takes the notes and the roses to the police, who assure she'll have their protection as they investigate. You're the detective assigned to the case, and to the singer. She starts to fall for you...but can you save her from the axe? (bonus points if you're also secretly the Axeman, and/or interested in an interracial relationship in the 20s; credit to title goes to the song of the same name by Dave Gross) Back to Search

Time Period: 1939-1941 start, game moves through 1945 or so Keywords: cross-cultural, good guys, religion, revenge, structured Kinks: clothed sex, exhibitionism, interracial, romance, tantric sex The Fog of War War has been declared in Europe and it's now spring in Munich. But Spring doesn't always bring new life. A soldier, forced into the Nazi army upon penalty of death, has deserted the cause he never supported and crawled and climbed through muddy forests, paved cities, and the ever-growing flame of a world at war with itself to get back home. His parents are gone, emigrated to Portugal to try and escape this madness, and the only people in the city he trusts not to turn him in are the ones he would endanger most. Still, the Fleichmanns get a knock on their door early in the evening on the Ides of March. The soldier's closest childhood friend is thrilled to see him, as are her family; they feared him dead after some of the things they'd been hearing on the radio, and had kept him in their prayers. They understood that his joining this insanity was not his choice. Still, he cannot stay here. The patriarch gives him three days in his home, enough to sleep off his travels and get a few good meals, before he must be on his way again. Maybe France. One of the daughters, his childhood friend, can't bear to see him cast back out into the world alone, so on the third night she sneaks out with him. A few months later, homesick they risk coming back to see her family only to find that they've been transported to Dachau as "dangerous enemies of the state." Stories like this had been cropping up more and more, with rumors that more camps for more than just detaining purposes were being built. After the initial shock and mourning--after all, nobody ever came back from Dachau--they decide something must be done. The Black Forest is the safest place for them to hide anymore; cities are too dangerous. The couple begin smuggling Jews, Gypsies, and others persecuted out of Germany through the forest. Word spreads amongst those who need it, and they begin to become legend. Every now and then a few people stay on until they have a small camp in the forest and even begin waylaying trains chugging their way through to the concentration camps. History, adventure, and romance await. Back to Search

Time Period: 1963-1975 Keywords: age differences, altered states, loose, religion, wanderers Kinks: blackmail, blindfolds, breeding, competition, corruption, dubcon, exhibitionism, ffm, forced marriage, informality, interracial, master/pet, master/slave, multiple partners, obedience, photography, power play, tantric sex Cult of Personality A naive young college student has been to a few meetings of a group she learned about from a flier on campus. She's just curious is all, about these weird spiritual types she sees at airports or hitchhiking down the highway. Or so she tells herself, anyway. The leader of this group encourages meditation to better connect with her spiritual self, and if she's honest she has been feeling a lot more relaxed lately since she started following his suggestions. And no one has ever really shown her the sort of attention he does; he makes her feel special. When he makes convincing arguments for rebelling against patriarchy and societal expectations, she drops out and, along with other similar disciples, follows him to a ranch in the country to live closer to the land. The question is whether she realizes she's in a cult, and how long she can stay before things turn ugly. Back to Search

Historical Fantasy, Historical SciFi, Fantasy, SciFi, Modern, Future

Search by Keyword

Age Differences 1 2 3	Bad Guys 1 2 3	Good Guys 1	Morally Grey 1 2	Realistic 1 2 3 4 5 6	Slow Burn 1 2 3 4 5
Altered States 1 2 3 4 5	Cross-Cultural 1	Loose 1 2 3 4 5	Multiple Paths 1 2 3 4	Religion 1 2 3 4	Structured 1 2 3 4
Automata 1	Fantasy 1 2 3 4	Historical 1 2 3 4 5 6	Mystery 1 2 3	Royalty 1 2 3 4	Supernatural 1 2 3
Bad Ends 1	Future 1 2	Modern 1	Politics 1 2 3 4 5 6	SciFi 1 2	Wanderers 1 2

Search By Kink

Anatomically Correct 1	Competition 1 2	Gynoid 1	Multiple Partners 1 2	Photography 1 2	Uppity 1
Biting 1	Demons 1 2 2	Infidelity 1 2	Magic 1 2 3 4	Physical Restraints 1 2 3	Voyeurism 1 2
Blackmail 1 2 3 4	Dubcon 1 2 3	Informality 1	Masks 1 2	Stockings 1 2 3 4	Wax Play 1 2 3
Blindfolds 1 2 3	Edging 1	Interracial 1 2 3 4	Nipple Piercings 1 2 3 4	Tantric Sex 1 2 3
Breeding 1 2	Exhibitionism 1 2	Light Bondage 1 2	Obedience 1 2 3 4 5	Teasing 1 2
Corruption 1 2 3	Femdom 1 2 3	Lima/Stockholm Syndrome 1 2	Power Play 1 2	Throuple 1
Clothed Sex 1 2	FFM 1 2	Master/Pet 1	Praise 1 2 3 4 5	Touch Deprivation 1
Collars 1 2 3	Forced Marriage 1 2 3	Master/Slave 1	Pegging 1 2	Tribal 1

Historical Fantasy/SciFi​	​
Time Period: 1050-1400 Keywords: fantasy, historical, loose, politics, realistic, religion, royalty, slow burn Kinks: blackmail, blindfolds, collars, competition, ffm, forced marriage, magic, masks, obedience, physical restraints, praise, throuple, wax play A Spoiled Princess I'll be honest I mostly just have the smut portion of this figured out but I'd really like to work out an actual plot to go with it. We could figure out some political or religious intrigue, throw in some magic if you'd like. A young woman of a noble house is married off to an enemy prince in the name of peace, tale as old as time. While awaiting the wedding she finds herself falling for his childhood best friend, a knight in her own right, and...well...it's not as though there would be any evidence that she had found pleasure in the arms of another woman before she was married. Meanwhile the best friend is struggling with her attraction to the new princess and balancing it with her loyalty to the prince. Their affair gets even more complicated when the princess begins to actually like her new husband. Back to Search
Time Period: 1560-1630 Keywords: altered states, bad guys, fantasy, good guys, historical, multiple paths, mystery, politics, religion, slow burn, structured, supernatural Kinks: biting, corruption, demons, dubcon, edging, femdom, infidelity, magic, obedience, physical restraints, tantric sex, teasing, voyeurism, wax play The Witch Drums It's the height of the witch trials in Europe. Very few women are safe and all of them are learning to toe the line of gender norms and behavior in the shifting social and economic landscape, lest they be next on the pyre. Most of the accused are innocent...but a few have actually been witches. For good or ill they plied their magic and paid the price, now other witches throughout Europe are treading very carefully, lest their traditions die out altogether. There are a few ways this can go: Good Witch: In a village there's a midwife and healer who has been known never to lose a baby. When she does lose one, however, the village starts to talk and to think about any other strange happenings. Her neighbor's crops failing that one year. A little boy crushed beneath a wagon shortly after she had passed by. Sick and dying livestock of someone she had once quarreled with. A witch finder had been called to the village even before that baby died, and now his sights are set on her. As a different kind of witch finder, he bides his time in the village, observing the behavior of the accused before making any arrests, and has become a sort of temporary fixture in the village. He observes her and, as he gets to know her, finds himself praying more and more for guidance in his duties and protection from witchcraft...which can be the only reason he feels the way he does... Evil Witch: The pressure is ramping up and she can feel the noose tightening around her neck. A witch finder has been called in and if she takes too many risks not even her gods will be able to save her from the fire. Several other women have been executed already, though to her knowledge none of them were actually witches. When the witchfinder is called in for long-term observation to rip out evil by its root, her husband the village councilman harbors him under their roof. This could put a damper on her plans to control the [region/country] in the name of her gods, for power and eternal youth. As far as she knows, neither the village nor the witch finder himself suspect her, so perhaps if she can slowly enspell him, she can turn him to her dark ways before he realizes what's even happening. Back to Search
Time Period: 1750-1850 Keywords: age differences, altered states, bad guys, historical, multiple paths, realistic, religion, slow burn, structured, supernatural Kinks: blackmail, clothed sex, collars, corruption, demons, dubcon, magic, masks, multiple partners, power play, praise, stockings, wax play Our Father in Heaven Partially inspired by this scene, partly inspired by Joseph Feinnes's character in American Horror Story: Asylum, partially by The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wild. A priest performs an exorcism on a possessed young woman who, having been spared eternal damnation, becomes quite attached to the handsome young priest. But even the Devil can quote scripture to suite his purpose, and the young woman may not even be aware of the demon still lurking inside her. Back to Search
Time Period: 1780-1850 Keywords: altered states, fantasy, historical, loose, mystery, politics, royalty, supernatural Kinks: blindfolds, demons, interracial, magic, physical restraints, tantric sex, teasing, touch deprivation Black Powder Mage This is really just a vague idea that I would love to brainstorm with you about. Inspired and influenced by Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, but not set in that canon, I want to explore magic as a discipline during the Industrial Revolution and/or Napoleonic Wars, when warfare was still very much horse-and-musket. Magic itself is fairly rare--maybe one in fifty can use it--and takes no small amount of talent to use effectively. To the promising young men (emphasis on men) of well-to-do families it is taught as an academic discipline with practical uses the way the child of a respectable family might be taught Latin or the piano. Creativity outside of the accepted culture is discouraged by strict tutors as well as socialites, and teaching a girl how to do magic--regardless of aptitude--would be received the same way as teaching her how to use a pistol then giving her a military commission. On the flip-side, street magic is frowned upon by polite society: a patchwork of various cultural traditions where innovation, creativity, and flamboyance encouraged, and anyone with a knack is taught. There are laws restricting the practice and application of street magic, which limits its practitioners largely to fortune-telling and parlor tricks. Officially, anyway. I want to explore magic in this alternate history at the intersection of class, race, and gender as a socialite and a street magician work together to handle a crisis that no one in either of their worlds is taking seriously. Back to Search
Time Period: 1790-1830 Keywords: altered states, automata, bad ends, historical, morally grey, multiple paths, politics, realistic, royalty, scifi, structured Kinks: anatomically correct, blackmail, clothed sex, dubcon, exhibitionism, gynoid, master/slave, nipple piercings, obedience, pegging, stockings Madman and Machine Meet Widget: everything your modern Georgian Period man might need for both work and play. YC is a gentleman scientist and engineer who's created this modern marvel powered by [steam, proto-electrical circuits, clockwork, dealer's choice] initially as a servant and now as a—ahem—companion. She's still learning how to function in society, and you're still working some of the bugs out, but with every orifice covered in synthetic skin of your own design and lubricated with mineral oil she's a delight to have around the house. If you so choose you might even lend her to a friend or political ally (or rival) for the purposes of garnering favors or blackmailing them into doing what you want, though of course they wouldn't be able to tell her apart from a human woman. Eventually you'll outfit her with weapons of war, whether that's for helping your country go to war with an enemy, to seek revenge for a personal or professional humiliation, or just because you like to watch people bleed. In any case, as time goes on your mental state begins to spiral until even your once-close friends appear to be enemies, and only Widget can protect you from the plans they're surely concocting against you. A word of caution: you may have built her too well. Although Widget will start out as your obedient servant, those manmade circuits will start to connect like synapses and she'll start to develop wants and needs of her own. She may disagree with how you use her despite having no choice but to obey her programming, or she may struggle between a programmed loving devotion to her master and an acquired fondness for a member of Society. Or perhaps she does love you, and only you, obsessively, to a point where it may have been easier for you or the world if she'd never been built at all. Back to Search
Keywords: cross-cultural, fantasy, historical, loose, multiple paths, mystery, politics, religion, royalty, wanderers Kinks: blindfolds, breeding, competition, femdom, ffm, forced marriage, informality, interracial, lima/stockholm syndrome, multiple partners, nipple piercings, tribal Time Travel No specific sort of plot; we'd work something out in PMs before posting a thread. However, you'd play a time traveler from the modern day or the future, whichever, while I would be a woman from whichever time period you land in (whether it was the one you meant to land in remains to be seen). Time periods I'm looking to play in: American Revolution, American Civil War, Pre-historic era, the Irish fight for independence from Rome (Boudicea era), WWII, Vikings. Can be historical fantasy, alt history, or realistic. Back to Search

Present/Future​

Keywords: age differences, altered states, bad guys, modern, realistic, slow burn, structured Kinks: blackmail, corruption, femdom, infidelity, light bondage, nipple piercings, obedience, pegging, photography, power play, praise Don't Stand So Close To Me Based on the Police song of the same name. Set in the 1990s to avoid the information risk of today (cameras in every pocket, phone on you at all times) while still having access to phones, photographs, and some advanced technology. YC is a teacher, and one of the more well-liked teachers at that. But in your class there's a girl who you find very...distracting. She's bright, and has all the potential in the world, and with the extra study halls and after-class visits it's clear that you're her favorite teacher. Rich School Option: she's a student here on scholarship, or a the very edge of the district, working hard because she has everything to prove and everything to lose. Poor School Option: she could have a future, she clearly knows the material, but she doesn't apply herself without your encouragement. It seems she tries only for you. Either way, her fondness for you is clear but you're not sure she realizes what she does to you with the way she dresses, how close she stands, the fond little touches...While chaperoning a field trip, it becomes clear she's known exactly what she's doing, and seems to have an idea of how poorly your marriage has been lately. You feel guilty betraying your spouse, but you have needs and she's so sumptuous and willing… And you don't realize until it's too late that she holds all of the power. Quickly she becomes like a drug to you, and you're willing to risk everything—job, spouse, money, freedom—just for another word of praise from her. Everything she's done to this point has been to spin you into her web of power and control, and no matter how you struggle, no matter how many times you say it's wrong and try to break it off, no matter how suspicious your spouse is, you'd still crawl over broken glass to feel her ride you again. Can also be FxF, with the teacher married to a man and in denial of her sexuality. High school student age 16-17 and teacher age 22-27 or college student age 18-20 and professor age 35-40 Back to Search

Keywords: age differences, future, loose, morally grey, politics, realistic, scifi Kinks: breeding, collars, forced marriage, interracial, light bondage, lima/stockholm syndrome, master/pet, nipple piercings, obedience, photography, praise, stockings, uppity Survive and Advance Not quite lifted wholesale from A Handmaid's Tale, but a lot is taken from it. There's no theocracy, but there is a virus which, a generation ago, wiped out most fertile women. She was the last of her generation to be born fertile and has been raised and groomed for the moment she was old enough to be sold to the highest bidder, and congratulations: you're the highest bidder. What do you want to do with your mail order slave bride? Breeding is mandatory, of course, but do you pamper her or make her part of your house staff? Do you actually care about whether you like her, or she likes you? Most importantly, is she as brainwashed and docile as she let on when she was on the auction block? Back to Search

Keywords: future, loose, realistic, slow burn, wanderers Kinks: exhibitionism, interractial, praise, stockings, tantric sex, voyeurism A Slow Apocalypse Literally just me wanting to write out my agrarian isolationist escapist fantasy lol Apocalyptic media and roleplays are often violent and fast-paced, but I want a gentler end to the world. Society as we know it has fallen, not with a bang but a whimper. A woman has withdrawn into herself, creating her private Eden on the property she owned before the end with her garden and her chickens and her bees, trading with what few neighbors are left for what they each need. Her world and her peace are upended with the arrival of a wounded refugee from The City. She takes the refugee in and cares for them, helping them recover and falling slowly while she does. I'd like to figure out a larger conflict surrounding them as the refugee recovers, but this is more a vibe than a plot that I'm craving. Cottagecore but the gay kind not the tradwife kind; very FxF friendly. Realistic, but could work in some soft supernatural elements if you wanted (forest spirits, etc.). Back to Search

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SONG PLOT PROMPTS​

So here's some songs that have sometimes vague, sometimes more structured plots. Others I just like the general idea and I think with the right creative mind we could hash out a plot. Some of them are just earworms that I'd like to see in the background of a scene, others it's just like...a vibe I want to work into a plot. Enjoy the playlist if nothing else, but if anything catches your fancy story-wise PM me and we'll figure something out! ^.^ To be updated as I remember more songs, but I think this is a good start.

• Sons and Daughters The Decemberists
• Look Away Big Country
• Raggle Taggle Gypsy The Chieftains ft. Nickel Creek
• Go Home, Girl Gaelic Storm (we could keep the age difference and make it nonsexual adorable fluffiness, or age the girl up and make it more adult)
• Lover's Wreck Gaelic Storm
• What Was I Thinkin'? Dierks Bentley
• Gunpowder and Lead Miranda Lambert
• Take Me to Church Hozier
• Try P!nk
• Soldier, Poet, King The Oh Hellos
• Detectorists Johnny Flynn
• She Dodie
• Cherry Wine Hozier
• Airheart Steam Powered Giraffe
• Flaming Red Hair Howard Shore
• Isle of Skye - Going Home Runrig
• Jackie and Wilson Hozier
• Strawberry Blond Mitski
• Ophelia Lumineers
• Virginia (Wind in the Night) The Head and the Heart
• You and Me on the Rock Brandi Carlile
• Everything I Saw The Weather Station
• Like Real People Do Hozier

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PRE-FABRICATED CHARACTERS​

Of course this is optional. But it may give you an idea of the range of characters I can play. May add more later, but here are a few to start. Click each image for a larger version.

Charvi

Use: Modern, post-apocalypse, scifi, dystopia
Age:19-26
She's my sort-of modern catch-all and ranges from bookish and traditional to tough and callous. Not much to say about her since I can make her pretty much whatever we need her to be.

Gwenner

Use: Medieval, fantasy
Age: 20-35 (human years)
A dwarf based on my D&D 5E barbarian, Gwenner is a gentle soul who's fiercely protective of her companions. And I mean fiercely. Violently. Though she's now a peaceful, if not stolid tavern owner she used to be a shield maiden and warrior in the fighting pits until she took one too many hits to the head and had a "religious" experience. She can be a bit forgetful (see: "one too many hits to the head"), but her penchant for carrying what most people would consider "useless" items does come in handy; the five pound bag of flour and some pocket sand are her best friends. Tender-hearted and loyal, she tries to see the best in everyone and loves animals to the point of vegetarianism and calling a carbuncle adorable. She does have a black-and-white sense of morality and an overdeveloped sense of justice.

Tamsyn

Use: Medieval, fantasy
Age: 16-17, ages and matures as we play
The daughter of a blacksmith, destiny is about to push her into something more. The trouble is, she doesn't want "something more." Though she knows she's adopted she loves her father and wants to continue the family business, but circumstances--and her father--will convince her that there are more important things than fine craftsmanship. She's untrained with any sort of martial weapon but surprisingly handy with one of her forging hammers. Incredibly stubborn, Tamsyn is slow to change, slower to trust, and doesn't like to depend on anyone for anything even when she knows she has to.

Widget

(her insides aren't quite so pretty)
Use: Steampunk, scifi
Widget is an automaton powered by a combination of steam and electricity. She is programmed to obey and be helpful at all times. She can keep the house tidy or possibly become a machine of death, and of course serve her function as a pleasurebot, but be careful; over the course of a game she may develop wishes and conscience of her own. Ideal for a mad scientist looking to expand his/her horizons.

Nyrissa

Use: Fantasy, medieval, historical
Age: 27-35
Another 5E character (bard with charisma out the ass), Nyryssa isn't quite so...wholesome as the other prefab characters. She's a lesser noblewoman who runs a brothel and uses sex to get what she wants. Her brothel has privte backrooms for all sorts of political alliances and strategizing but you can bet your ass she doesn't apply the "private" rule to herself. Her brothel has been threatened by the church in the past and so she keeps an eye (read: spies) on the deals that go down there to protect herself. She knows some magic and uses it to influence her friends in high places. If you want to play a plot with Nyryssa, don't expect to find a committed relationship unless you can really impress her or offer her what someone else can't.

Mara

Use: Modern, historical, fantasy, steampunk
Age: 19-25
Mara can go one of two ways: naive, innocent, fun-loving flower child who will do anything you say and trust you unconditionally (even if you're secretly a not-so-nice person), or batshit crazy super-dominant fighter who will lock your hands to your sides while fucking you with a strapon and you'll like it. It really depends on the plot of the RP.

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WRITING SAMPLES​

Characterization and Setting

NSFW

Sadness

Anger

Please note that because I don't have my partners' permissions to post their works, I've posted only my side of the RP. I tried putting things in block quotes to make it easier to read, but many of them were prevented from expanding. So if you've got any ideas besides spoilers in spoilers, please let me know.

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[Madam Mim]

Keywords: automaton, obedience, period piece, scifi, steampunk, surreptitious

Context: A man in Victorian England has created an automaton for companionship and possibly world domination

Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. It was still a conscious process for her, but it got easier the more she did it. Tilt head. Smile. Funny thing, smiling: you had to show all your teeth, but only in the correct circumstances. She didn't know whether this was the correct circumstances, but people on the street seemed to be responding. Left foot. Right foot. The parasol was useless, of course. Her skin could become neither burned nor tanned, but this appeared to "be the fashion," as he had put it. What that meant she had yet to learn. A man shifted his body between her and the woman he was with and she pulled her lips back to smile more widely. It seemed as though the wider you grinned, the happier you must be to see someone. She wasn't certain how closely she could approximate the sensation of happiness, but it seemed to be a cornerstone of London society, from what she'd learned. Amber eyes which seemed to glow if you looked too closely--or if it was dark--stared disconcertingly from above the smile which never reached her eyes. Left foot. Right foot.

"How do you do?" Widget turned her smile to a woman with exposed, ripped stockings and worn-down shoes who was leaning against a brick wall as they passed.

"You wot?" she demanded around the cigarette hanging loosely from her lips, straightening a little and throwing her chest out. Widget didn't detect the aggression in her stance, but stopped and inclined her head the way she had been shown.

"How do you do?" she repeated in the same tone and cadence, still grinning. The woman's dress sagged off of her shoulders and she pushed off the wall, slouching toward them.

"So yer wanna 'ave a go, do yer?" the woman demanded. "Fink yer better'n me wiv yer fancy clothes an' yer fancy gent, hm?" She jerked her chin toward Master. "If you'da been done the same wrongs wot I been done, you'd be in the 'zackt same place 's me. Dun fink you wouldn'."

Widget tilted her head, unsure how to respond. This was not something he had prepared her for. "All I said was 'how do you do,'" she finally replied before moving on, leaving the bedraggled whore shrieking impotently at their backs, aware that if she'd torn a society lady's face of like she threatened to do there would have been coppers on her like that. Left foot. Right foot. Widget tilted her head to look at her companion, her gears clicking as she attempted to work out what had just happened. Even so the entire time she grinned in her best attempt at politeness, unblinking.

"I'm not sure why you've brought me out, Master," she admitted after a few moment's thought. Right foot. Right foo--no. Left foot. Right foot. "You don't want me to be discovered for what I am, and yet you insist on teaching me these 'manners' and taking me out for walks. I'm afraid I don't see the point. If you would rather me not be seen, I would just as much rather not go out." It wasn't that she wasn't enjoying herself. She didn't have the capacity to enjoy walks, not yet anyway, but inasmuch as she could she didn't entirely mind them. But if Master didn't want her coming outside, she wasn't sure why he brought her out anyway.

"We've been sent beautiful weather, haven't we, Master?" Widget said suddenly, turning her uncanny smile and unblinking stare onto him from beneath her parasol. "Was that good 'small talk,' Master?"

Master assured her that she wasn't the one who had done anything wrong in her interaction with the street woman. He had taught her common courtesy, and apparently no one had taught the woman the same. It didn't occur to Widget, as it didn't seem to occur to him, that she had been perceived as rude and condescending. It also didn't occur to her that this mixing with whores--she hadn't been taught yet about social classes, nor about prostitutes--might bring scandal upon her or her master, should anyone recognize him. Master assured her that he didn't want to keep her hidden away indoors and she nodded.

"I shall become greater than humanity, then," she affirmed. Left foot. Right foot. It was becoming easier to delegate that process to background noise. Widget made an attempt at small talk and was pleased to know she had succeeded. When Master asked whether she had a follow up, she thought for a minute. "It is not raining," she attempted, though the sky was dull and cloudy, "and you look very handsome today, Master." She didn't know what it meant to not look handsome. All Widget knew was that she found his sharp cheekbones and tall, narrow stature aesthetically correct, and that he seemed pleased when she said that he was handsome. And whether it was successfully imitating then surpassing humanity or telling him he looked handsome, that was the point, wasn't it? To please Master?

"And remember, when we are out and about, address me as Lachland. Master is only for the confines of the house," he reminded her and she nodded.

"Yes, Lachland," she assented, her manic grin not moving as they stopped and he stared at her. Widget stared back, her eyes boring into his, lips unmoving, teeth exposed, smile never reaching her eyes. Master Lachland ordered her to blink and she tilted her head again. "Blink? I'm sorry, Lachland...I don't understand." She understood what blinking was, of course, but she didn't understand why it was done or why she specifically had to do it. She had also privately tried blinking once or twice, and had wound up with her eyes closed for five minutes; the nuances of blinking still escaped her.

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Keywords: modern, scenery, supernatural

Context: A psychic who doesn't believe in psychics and a demon hunter meet against all odds in a quaint town neither of them are from

Clouds hung heavy, pregnant and ready to burst. They lumbered darkly over the low-slung brick buildings occasionally broken up by tell-tale municipal granite, picking and choosing which ones to victimize like a man at a feast deciding on the dishes he most anticipated. Who would lose power? Who would lose control of their car? Who would lose everything? A keening wind threaded up the side streets, spilling over onto Main and sending leaves skittering end-over-end across the pavement and brick. The old gods of the bare-wooded mountains watched the village impassively.

Main Street itself was largely abandoned at three in the afternoon the day before the first real snowstorm of the year. It had come early, and so even the winter crickets who had procrastinated on winterizing had their milk and bread and had gone home for the afternoon. The sun hadn't dared to show itself all day and for all anyone knew the fog shrouding the town and hiding the river from view marked the end of the known world. Businesses and city services were open, but there was only a handful of citizens and half a mouthful of tourists downtown to meander in and out of the quaint shops and restaurants. Main Street, Montpelier was a place clearly designated for and dependent upon the tourism industry, described by nearly all visitors as "adorable" while they ignored the feeling of being watched from between the buildings. Even flatlanders knew, somewhere in the way backs of their minds where they never looked, that what lived in the woods didn't always stay there. It was best to be polite or, at worst, pretend you didn't know they were there.

From behind the counter of Bagitos Bagel And Burrito Cafe, Emily Gale felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle. There was nothing in the cafe; she had checked, as she always did at the beginning of her shift. Still, something about the day felt off, and Em had a feeling that the only thing protecting her was the glass of the storefront. For what felt like the millionth time she scanned the empty restaurant. Same number of differently-shaped tables with mismatched chairs crowding the narrow room; same wall plastered with both new and years-old fliers for live performances, art festivals, and political rallies; same antique hutch modified to serve as a coffee-station-slash-trash-station against the wall; same even antiquer piano in the far corner opposite the door. But the sign had blown over. Again. With a sigh she pushed a bit of hair out of her face and stepped around the counter, hesitating only for a moment at the door.

Em had lived a rootless life to this point, often describing herself as a tumbleweed for more reason than one; her mother had trucked her all over the Southwest, and it wasn't until Dot had called it quits and Em had taken over the camper that she had struck out for more varied climes. Vermont had taught her quickly that while dry heat was more of a relief, dry cold was not. It was a maliciously biting dry wind that pierced her bare arms and whipped her hair while she straightened the sandwich board sign ("Now serving authentic Indian dishes!") and bolstered it with praise and encouragement against the weather. Five more hours, she told it. That's all it had to do was five more hours. With a frown she noticed that the flier the owners had allowed her to tuck into the board had flown off. Again. Once she was back inside, Em took another flier from the stack in her bag in the closet-sized breakroom and, instead of attempting to stick it to the board, taped it to the inside of the door. Let's see the wind steal that!

While she felt better about her advertisement, it didn't put her at ease about whatever had been watching her all afternoon. And now it had her name.
Em Gale, Spiritual Adviser
Tarot
Palm Readings
Auras
Chakra Realignment

Seances By Appointment Only

galeofthewest@zoho.com

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Keywords: automaton, fantasy, future, multiple characters, scifi, steampunk,

Context: In a steampunk retrofuturistic world, a pleasure ship docks in port to have one of their bots fixed

A warm wind blew out over the bay, carrying the scent of salt and sand off of of the harbor. Mersong drifted across town on the breeze. Travelers and tourists were beginning to converge on Port Mazanca in anticipation of the solstice, but the Merfolk had started early. They always did. Tamsyn smirked; the Merfolk knew how to have a good party, and more than once she'd snuck out to the pier in the middle of the night to follow what her father only half-jokingly called the "siren song." He would be keeping a closer watch on her until after the solstice and for that reason alone she highly suspected that Julen knew of her adventures.

She wiped the sweat off her brow and glanced sullenly up at the sun, then wiped again. She had stepped out of the stuffy mechanic's bay to get some air, but not even the breeze had cooled her despite the early hour. With a sigh Tamsyn began to turn back toward the shop, but paused as an aeroship began docking. She scowled at it for a moment before turning her head to call inside.

"Hey Pa!" While she waited she never took her eyes off of the ship. "Whad'ya think?" she asked as Julen emerged. "Some sorta Confederation junker?" She folded her arms across her chest as they watched.

Tamsyn bore no physical resemblance to her mother; Minette--long since passed--had been wide-hipped, with soft curves and soft chestnut eyes and hair and a voice like nightwaves. Nor did she bear resemblance to her father, tall and broad Julen with thick forearms and strong shoulders, with hair black where it wasn't gray and his piercing gaze. They had never discussed the fact that she was adopted, but she knew it for a fact nonetheless. Twiggy, freckle-faced Tamsyn whose only notable curves came from the ripe blossom of womanhood--and those only average--whose vulpine coloring always made her easy to find in a town like this, had known from a young age that anyone would have to be blind or stupid not to see that her mother had not birthed her. But as they stood at the bay of their garage in nearly identical stances, arms folded the same way, chins tilted up, eyes squinting against the sun, there could be no doubt whose daughter she was. As they watched the new ship, a stranger in a port which saw few of those, she nudged Julen with her elbow and pointed.

"That figurehead, hey?"

It was difficult to spot from here, but those with sharp eyes might be able to make out the flowing, maned figurehead of a dragon. The newcomers were recklessly brave, fools, or dangerous. Or some combination of the three.

"What'd you figure they want?"

"Lady Nyrissa, huh?" Tamsyn continued to squint up at the ship as it berthed. "Welp, something tells me that wherever she's lady of, they don't know she's here. Where better to get something fixed or manufactured when you want to keep it a secret than somewhere like Port Mazanca?" With a sniff and a shake of her head, she rolled up her sleeves, pulled her goggles back down over her eyes, and headed back into the garage bay. "Whatever you agreed to do for her Pa, I sure hope you know what you're getting into."

~*~

"Widget darling, this is no time for games. We're already late as it is." Lady Nyrissa wasn't actual nobility; far from it. But Madame Nyrissa had always seemed too crass, too on-the-nose for her tastes. She pushed the back onto her earring and glanced in the mirror at the gyndroid. "I realize your programming has told you that it's appropriate for midmorning but we really must work on your discernment. Do put some clothes on please."

Widget frowned slightly and tilted her head. "But it is 10:15," she pointed out. "You always have need of me at 10:15."

"Nearly always," she corrected, smoothing down her skirts. "Sometimes our routines are interrupted, dear. And for the last time, put on some clothes. I won't parade you naked down the street like that." She gestured vaguely to the automaton, whose dress lay pooled around its feet. "It isn't respectable, and you know my feelings on respectability."

This was the primary reason they had come to Port Mazanca. Nyrissa had asked around for a mechanic who knew what they were doing, but who was also subtle. That had led them to this little nowhere tourist town and to Maza Mechanical. Widget had, in addition to a few physical issues, been questioning and second-guessing. It was irritating at best, but it had also meant that she'd had to take her out of port rotation until the issue was fixed. It wouldn't do, after all, for it to get around that Lady Nyrissa had a disobedient automaton who questioned her customers. She was losing money now with Widget out of the equation but it would be bad for business in the long run if she allowed the defect to continue in front of patrons. Once the bot was finally dressed Nyrissa strode briskly across the room and took her hand, opening the door impatiently with the other and almost immediately nearly tripping.

"Gwenner." She raised her eyebrows in mild surprised and looked down at the dwarf. "You're coming assure with us?"

Gwenner shrugged. "Is Solstice." This seemed to be enough explanation for her.

The Last Dwarf in existence was in general a woman of few words, at least without copious amounts of alcohol to pry her open. She also seemed to struggle with grasping Common, even after five years out of the ice which had preserved her, but what could you do? Language changed a lot in 12,000 years. Her face was generally a facade of craggy stone, and watching her moved to expression was a bit like watching water trickle along a mountain face, carving rivulets and canyons across eons. Even now as Nyrissa watched she thought she saw a fractional upturn of the corner of Gwenner's lips, perhaps a dull sparkle of excitement in her slate-colored eyes, but one could never be certain.

~*~

"So what exactly do you plan to do for Solstice?" Nyrissa inquired as they moved through the crowd. People stared at Widget, but she hadn't the capacity to care and Nyrissa had long since grown accustomed to it.

Gwenner shrugged. "Eat. Drink. Bed strange mens end be kicking out of them in mornink." She looked up at Nyrissa. "Is still how Solstice is of doing, yes?"

She inclined her head briefly. "Generally. Here, this is it."

Maza Mechanical Garage and Repair wasn't a large operation by any means, but it looked like they had their fair share of business. An airship was docked in one bay while in the other a security bot waited for attention. They really did do all sorts, didn't they? Nyrissa closed her parasol hooking it over one wrist and taking Widget by the hand with the other as they stepped into the mechanics bay where it was shadier but no cooler. With instructions to the robot to stay, she carefully stepped over to a pair of legs sticking out from under the airship and tapped them gently so as not to startle the mechanic. To her surprise a girl rolled out, no more than seventeen, and pushed her goggles up onto her forehead.

"Help you?"

"Yes, I'm looking for Julen minCarlile?"

"You Lady Nyrissa?" At a nod, the girl tilted her head back and her chest inflated before bellowing, "PA!! Lady Nyrissa's here!" The call echoed in the high rafters of the garage. With a grunt she sat up, then pushed herself to her feet and wiped off her hands. "Tamsyn monJulen," she said, sticking out her hand to shake. Widget provided a handkerchief once Nyrissa had done so. Tamsyn turned and looked down, and her eyes went wide. "You're a dwarf!"

"The Lest Dorf," Gwenner confirmed, shaking her hand firmly. "End you are gorrel."

Tamsyn nodded. That was fair enough. "The only girl," she returned, "here, anyway. And you are...?" She stuck her hand out to the pale woman.

"I am Widget." The answer was somewhat stilted and Tamsyn thought she caught a glimpse of displeasure in Lady Nyrissa's expression. Widget shook her hand. "Pleased to meet you." The smile was unsettlingly stiff, and she didn't blink. Her eyes seemed to glow slightly, but surely that was just a trick of the light coming into the bay of the dim garage.

How many posh ladies does it take to visit a mechanic? The opening of the joke made Tamsyn's lip quirk a little in amusement, and though she was quick to hide it she suspected Lady Nyrissa had caught it. The Lady's dress with its coppery-iridescent sheen put her in mind of a bug. Maybe something in the beetle family, Tamsyn mused, or a grasshopper.

"Widget is why we are here," Lady Nyrissa informed her in a very businesslike manner. "But I think it best if we wait for your father." The information was met with raised eyebrows, which was as much as Nyrissa had expected. A town like this she didn't imagine saw many pleasure bots, and certainly none as sophisticated as Widget. Nyrissa had built her herself, after all; a better, more advanced gynoid. She had a few of the cheap, mass-produced Xen bots lying around...but they weren't as lifelike and they broke easily. You got what you paid for. Widget was her primary moneymaker, usually even outearning her flesh-and-blood girls.

"She's very advanced," Tamsyn said, stepping forward to get a better look. "I mean, I've never seen one in real life before, but I've seen pictures of the Xen line. One of the guys had a calendar up in the office." She blushed a little. Julen had told Garreth to take it down because he didn't want his daughter seeing "that trash" in the shared office, but it was one of the few sources of ideal feminine beauty she had seen. "But you can still tell they're bots, even in pictures. It's in the eyes, and they hold themselves too stiff. May I...?" She gestured to the tiny nick in synthetic skin at the nape of Widget's neck. Without a mechanic's eye, no one would have seen it if they hadn't already known it was there.

Nyrissa nodded. Carefully Tamsyn removed the hair and peeled back the synthetic skin, revealing smooth musclework held together and functioning by thousands of tiny gears. Gradually she peeled back more and more, down to Widget's waist, and as she uncovered the skull she found the multifunction; pleasure bot, weapon, fixer. Tamsyn breathed in sharply as she counted all the functions in the skull alone.

"She's beautiful," she murmured, admiring the gearwork.

"Thank you." The voice was the same, but it was disturbing to watch her talk without lips to form the words.

Tamsyn looked up at Nyrissa, pausing as she circled Widget. "Steam?"

She inclined her head slightly. "And a bit of magic."

"So what's--Pa!" She stood on her toes to look over Widget's shoulder as Julen appeared. "You didn't tell me it was a bot like this!"

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Keywords: period piece, scenery, unhappiness

Context: A married woman in a frontier town takes up an unexpected affair with a stranger

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of domestic abuse

Keota, Colorado
Summer, 1885

The tall grass rustled with the wind as it came curling down from the distant mountains, clashing with the prairie breeze. It was a dry sort of rustling, with the memory of April rains already long gone; not even July and green was starting to fade into dry, dead brown. Lenora missed the rain. Growing up in Ohio she had always found rainy days dreary and dull, and the snow endless and heavy, but now what she wouldn't give for a good deluge or a blizzard. Sure it got plenty cold in the winter, but the old timers said a drought could last for years here. Years. Well, it hadn't been years even though it felt like it, but the little frontier town seemed to dry up and blow away every May to October with nary a drop to spare. Thank God this year the trains had started bringing in water to pump into the new water tower to get them through it, she reflected as she wistfully watched the clouds hovering over the distant mountains. Even if they didn't rain themselves out entirely over the peaks, they'd never make it here.

Her husband Leroy had moved them out here two years after they got married. He'd been a dashing, heroic sort of figure, twenty years her senior, a war veteran though he'd neglected for several years to mention that he had fought alongside his brothers back in his native Arkansas. As a friend of her father's and with a decent education it was a smart match; nobody doubted he would be able to take care of her, especially not when they were heading for California and the riches of the coast. But their ox had died in Keota, and they knew they would never be able to make it over the mountains with nothing but a sack and a mule, so here they were...and Keota had little use for lawyers. So Leroy had improvised his trade and made his living as a wagoner, something his wife secretly rather resented for all the mobility it presented to strangers but none for her. Still, they were well-respected and well-liked, and Leroy made enough as a wagoner and lost little enough at poker that they were able to take care of themselves.

The ceiling fan swung in lazy circles in the general store, doing little to cool either owner or patrons. Lenora glanced reproachfully up at it before stepping up to the counter with a smile. Mr. Hoskins, the proprietor, and his wife were an older couple who always had a smile and a kind word for everyone, but especially, it seemed, for Lenora. They reminded her a bit of her grandparents. Today it was Mrs. Hoskins, rosy-cheeked and steel-haired, behind the counter.

"And what can I get you today dear?" she beamed.

Lenora couldn't help but grin back. "Five pounds of beans, a pound of fatback, a pound of cornmeal, and lard if you've got it. Please," she added.

Mrs. Hoskins put a finger to the side of her nose. "Sounds like some of that delicious cornbread of yours. What's the occasion?"

She shrugged. "No occasion. Just got a hankerin'." Hankerin'. It was a word she had picked up from Leroy, and a word that made her sound like she fit in better here. Most of the people Out West, it seemed, were from the South. The Hoskinses themselves were from Kentucky.

"Will that be all honey?" Mrs. Hoskins began wrapping the bundle as the door open and closed behind Lenora. "I'll be with you in a moment, sir," she called over Lenora's shoulder. As she looked back down to her work, her eyes found the younger woman's exposed forearms. Lenora covered them quickly with her shawl, but it wasn't quick enough to avoid Mrs. Hoskins from studying her more carefully and catching the corner of another bruise at her collarbone and along the curve of her neck. "Need anything else?" she asked again. "Bandages? Compress? No charge..."

"Thank you Mrs. Hoskins, but no," Lenora said quietly with a weak smile as she laid out her money on the counter. "Think I might take a look at those books on the circular though. I'm not out of your hair just yet." After tucking her purchases under one arm Lenora made good on her promise, ambling over to the circular rack to look at the new shipment of paperbacks that had just come in.

Everybody knew about the Browns and their...troubles. They knew that Leroy was at the saloon nearly every night, drinking and whoring. They saw the bruises along Lenora's arms and neck and speculated about what horrors her clothes might hide. They knew his patterns, and they knew when not to expect to see Lenora for a few days, until the swelling had gone down and the majority of the bruises had faded enough for people to pretend that their eyes hadn't wandered to her cheek or her lip more than once. Nobody said anything though; what a man did in his own home was his business, and it wasn't like he'd ever broken bones or anything. (Dr. Fisher had once set a finger for Lenora, and gently pushed her nose back into place so it would heal mostly-straight, but that was doctor-patient confidentiality wasn't it?) Chances were that sweet as she was in public she was a scold behind closed doors; while women expressed sympathy, the menfolk often joked amongst themselves that Leroy set an example for them all and they ought to do the same if only they weren't worried that their wives might run off. So thusly, the Browns remained well-liked among members of their respective sexes and suspected among those of the opposite. It was for this reason that Mrs. Hoskins would offer Lenora compresses for free while pretending to Leroy that they had run out of corn liquor, but Mr. Hoskins would sell it to him gladly.

Lenora had stayed in the store for more than one reason, however. She had caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of the man who had walked into the general store behind her; he was a stranger. While Keota itself was a stop on the Prairie Dog Express, it was one of the last stops and strangers in these parts were few and far between, and untrusted. Anyone who got off for more than a stretch instead of going on to Denver was suspect at best. The good folk of Keota looked after their own and closed ranks whenever someone new rolled through town. With Mr. Hoskins out of town to fetch a shipment of flour and sugar from the city after unexpectedly running low, his wife was here all on her own. She knew she couldn't do much, but Lenora felt it her duty to stay with Mrs. Hoskins and "browse" while the dust-covered stranger in the black hat filled his order then, hopefully, went on his way.

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Keywords: breeding, feisty, future, scifi, scenery, trickery,

Context: A young woman has immigrated to a far-off planet to escape her life on Earth

Final approach commencing.

The cool voice interrupted Tamsyn's thoughts and she glanced out the window before immediately regretting it. She hadn't even liked flying on Earth; what made her think she'd be able to tolerate looking out the window of a space shuttle? She closed her eyes and leaned her head back, taking slow, deep breaths through her nose. She had saved up a little extra for the cryosleep class, keeping a couple years on her lifespan and saving her unnecessary views of the maddening infinity of space, but they had woken everyone in cryosleep nearly an hour ago to ready them for landing on the colonized planet. Ararat was what they called it...a place for new beginnings. A place she desperately needed.

Anthropology had been...well, it had been a stupid decision was what it had been. It wasn't as though she could have gone down to the anthropology factory, put in a hearty blue collar 9-to-5 building anthropologies, then cracked open a cold one with the boys after work. But it had been her passion and her mother, whatever else she had been or done, had always encouraged her to pursue her passion. Don't matter if you make a million bucks a day if you're miserable doing it. It was sound advice and for a time, Tamsyn had been happy. Sure, she hadn't been looking forward to the publish-or-perish world of academia once she'd completed her PhD, but that was years off. She had been perfectly content working as her professor's assistant.

It had been specializing in cults where she had gone wrong.

Well, that wasn't entirely true either. Where she had really gone wrong was underestimating exactly how dangerous the leader was and embedding herself in the group for academic purposes. Not realizing that Dr. Philips had been compromised hadn't helped either. In danger, needing a place to get away, uncertain whether she would survive another attempt on her 19-year-old life, Ararat had seemed like a good idea at the time. It had seemed like a good idea all the way up until the point Tamsyn had found herself sitting in a chair pointed face-first toward the sky with a maddeningly calm countdown coming through her pod speakers.

Initializing docking sequence.

Thank Christ! Tamsyn risked opening her eyes and swallowed nervously, unable to see anything out the window anymore except for the shuttle next to them. With a deep breath she unbuckled herself and waited for her pod to open.

What followed next was a cacophony of voices, all of them shouting different instructions at her. At one point she was physically hustled along into a line where she stood with other women. A tall man in fatigues came down the line as they waited, grabbing each woman's arm in turn and pressing something similar to a piercing gun to her skin. Tamsyn frowned when he reached the woman next to her. Some sort of immunization?

"Arm." He sounded bored as he reached for her wrist, then scowled when she pulled away. "Gimme your arm, Miss."

"What's it for?"

"It's required." The soldier looked down at her, then pointed at the shuttle when she didn't budge. "Look, you don't want it fine. You can get right back in that shuttle and go back to whatever shithole you just came from. Otherwise, give me your goddamn arm. I got shit to do today."

She only hesitated a moment longer before sighing then sticking her arm out with a sneer. "You still haven't told me what it's for." She jutted her chin out stubbornly, but hissed with pain when the needle went in.

"It's in your blood, kid, not the tissue. So don't get any fuckin' ideas, alright?" The soldier moved to the next woman without explaining further what he'd meant or what was in the needle. Needles, plural; when Tamsyn looked at the mark on the inside of her elbow there were three pinpricks.

"Next!"

She hefted her pack—it seemed strange to her that all of her worldly possessions now fit in a single rucksack—and stepped forward.

"Name?"

"Camden," she said, and peered over to read the names on the list upside-down. "Tamsyn Camden." The woman with a severe bun looked up at her and arched an eyebrow, to which she shrugged. "Yeah I'm pretty sure my parents hated me, too. I'm here for anthropology assignment."

The soldier scanned the list before marking her name off with a pencil. "You're assigned to Lieutenant General Faro. Your residency breeding quota is two. Next!"

"What?" Tamsyn laughed nervously then reached into her pocket. "No, I'm sorry there's been some mistake. I've got a breeding waiver." She unfolded the slip of paper the recruiter at the dock had given her and slid it over to the soldier. "See? Just here to work, that's all."

She took it, glanced it over, then snorted. "Yeah this is fake. No such thing as a breeding waiver. Next!" She crumpled up the waiver and tossed it into the waste bin at her knee.

"What?" Her head swung wildly back and forth as she shrank away from approaching soldiers and bumped into the woman behind her. "No, there's been a mistake! I didn't sign up for this, I—Get your fucking hands off of me!"

Tamsyn struggled against the men with Security Forces patches on their arms. They were bigger than her, and certainly stronger than her, but she wouldn't allow them to do this to her. If she couldn't fight, she would have to run, and unfortunately her only option was deeper into the docking station. The one holding her arm apparently didn't expect this, as he wasn't holding her that firmly and she managed to slip under his arm and sprint down the hall. Boots thudded behind her on the polished linoleum. Or was that just her pulse? It didn't matter: she only made it about twenty yards before she felt the full body weight of one of the beefy MPs against her back. They went down together with a grunt and she more heard than felt her skin make an almost cartoonish squeaking sound against the linoleum as they skidded a few feet.

"Let go of me! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" She looked around wildly as she squirmed under the soldier's thick body, but nobody moved. Rather, they watched as though she was a particularly interesting animal at the zoo.

The soldier had managed to push himself to his knees and turned her onto her back, where held the wriggling girl by the bicep while his other hand went for his cuffs. "Tamsyn Camden, you're being detained for trying to—oof!" He let go in surprise when she brought both boots squarely into his chest with all of her strength. Tamsyn tried to scramble to her feet, but tripped and nearly faceplanted when he managed to catch one of her ankles and drag her towards him. "Tamsyn Camden," he began again, "you're being det—motherfucker!" He reeled back, clutching his face as his blood dripped onto the clean powder blue tile. She would have a hell of a headache once the adrenaline wore off, but headbutting him had seemed like the right thing to do in the moment.

Again Tamsyn scrambled to her feet and this time managed to get some traction. Another twenty yards. Fifty. One hundred. She was just starting to think maybe she could outrun them when her entire body exploded in pain and she was left twitching and dazed on the ground. Above her the two soldiers swam into view, one of them still holding the taser and the other—the one with the bloody nose—sneering and gripping his baton.

"You're lucky we're not allowed to leave bruises," he snarled before kneeling at her side. "Tamsyn Camden, you're being detained for trying to enter the planet illegally and evading your contractual obligations. You will be remanded to the custody of your legal guardian…"

~*~

She was late. SSgt Ramirez glanced nervously at her watch, then at the General. She had served with him at the battle of Thule. He was a good man. At first she hadn't understood why he was here of all places, surely a man like him could… Well, but that was it, wasn't it? Married to the job, and not the type to fraternize. She supposed that made a sort of sense. Still, it wasn't a good look that she was late.

"The shuttle was a bit slow in docking," she lied. "She should be here any minute." Ramirez glanced at her watch again, then up the gangway where other so-called Colony Brides met their sponsors with smiles and cordial handshakes or sometimes hugs. Fifteen minutes. Where the piss was she?

Cahill and Abel came down the gangway, frogmarching a girl between them. She was cuffed and sullen and…muzzled? Ramirez frowned and strode to meet them.

"The fuck is this?" she demanded. "Cahill, the fuck happened?"

"She happened." Cahill sniffed uselessly. This apparently ripped free the fragile clot in his nose and blood started leaking again. "One of the recruiters told her about the breeding waiver."

Ramirez rolled her eyes. "Christ on a bike! LT needs to do something about them. Give her to me." She took Tamsyn's arm gently and looked at her with what Tamsyn supposed was the closest approximation of kindness she could manage. "You alright sweetie? They hurt you?"

"Did we--!" Cahill bit down on his outrage at an impatient gesture from his NCO.

"Why's she got this?" She gestured to the muzzle. Cahill and Abel glanced at each other and shifted uneasily.

"She uh...she bites, ma'am." Abel held his forearm out, where there were several imprints of teeth. Most were bruises, but one had managed to draw a little blood.

"And that, Abel, is why you don't roll your sleeves." Ramirez smirked up at him before looking at Tamsyn. "Let's make a deal, sweetie. I'll take that off, and you don't bite me. Deal?" When she was met with only a glare she sighed and rubbed her face. "Look, work with me kid. If you're here, means you ain't got nothin' left back home. There's no such thing as a breeding waiver, and even if you could go back research has started coming out that multiple cryo rounds shorten your telomeres by like 50%. You know what telomeres are?" When Tamsyn nodded she sighed again. "Look, I'm sorry you were lied to, but this is where you are now. General Faro's a good man. You could do a hell of a lot worse." Reaching around, she unlocked the muzzle and hooked it to her belt. Tamsyn spat. Ramirez sighed. "Fine, whatever. I'm done playing nice."

Gripping the center of the cuffs, she dragged the girl over to General Faro. "You want the muzzle too, sir?"

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Keywords: evil, fantasy, magic, period piece, scenery

Context: A witch hunter has been sent to oust a witch in northern Scotland. Little does he know that his host's wife is the witch, hiding under his nose the whole time

Druimkinneras, Scotland
1573

Stories about witches. They always began with "it was a dark and stormy night." They always took place in the middle of winter, in the dead of night. And they always ended with the wicked, ugly hag drowned or burned or hanged by the righteous townspeople for her sins against God and Man. Time would tell whether this story would end the same way, but it was most certainly destined to at least begin differently.

It was not a dark and stormy night, nor was it the dead of winter. It was, in fact, in the bright days of a waning summer. The end of August had occasional days warm enough to make a man sweat, but often it was pleasant during the day and cold enough for a coat or a shawl at night. A wagon trundled along the long road from Glasgow, pulled by a donkey and laden with tinker goods and a man who had paid for passage crunched up in the very back. The driver had been humming "The Bonnie Banks O' Loch Lomond," or at least the one verse he knew, since yesterday, but the alternative was walking the remaining twenty miles. As they passed fields along the increasingly steep hillsides, the passenger could see farmers in their fields harvesting and putting crops up for the coming winter, and the smell of new-mown hay was pervasive on the golden air. The sun seemed to set earlier here, though, with the mountains hiding it from view, and the tinker agreed to continue at least a little while after dark so that they could make good time to Druimkinneras.

Druimkinneras. The little town a day's walk from Inverness, quickly becoming known as Baile Buidseach in the Highlands, was the passenger's destination. The bishop of Glasgow had sent him to investigate, to save the mortal souls of the poor villagers and root out any brides of Satan that might be lurking. Six witches had been found there in the past four years, and it was his duty to intervene before it got any more serious. They had even sent a letter begging for help, signed by the magistrate, the priest, and all five members of the village council. For nearly a week he had been traveling: walking, buying or bartering passage on boats going up river or across the loch, walking some more, and finally a ride on the tinker's cart to save his feet or at the very least his boots. Not long now, he was assured; the woods always got thicker before you hit Druimkinneras proper.

Warm, golden noonlight flooded over them as they broke through the trees and the cart track took them along the river. A woman stood in the river, singing as she bathed, standing waist-deep in the gently flowing water. Long, dark, soft hair covered her breasts from sight as she turned to look at the source of the noise, and she made no attempt to hide her nakedness at the sight of two men traveling so near to her. Her voice was honey-warm, and she didn't stop singing when she spotted them. Instead she locked eyes with the passenger of the cart, singing in a language few yet knew, the ends of her hair floating on the gentle current. Crystal blue and gimlet-sharp, her gaze held his steadily as she sang to him in that same entrancing voice.

He blinked. She was gone.

The driver seemed to have never noticed the woman in the river.

It was another hour to Druimkinneras, trundling along the river, and as they neared the village center more and more people looked up curiously at the stranger. Some children dashed off to spread the news. With the way he was dressed there was no mistaking it; the witch finder had arrived. Finally the tinker's cart reached the village center and, without ceremony, the tinker himself set out to ply his trade, leaving the witch finder to get his own bearings. He had paid for a ride, after all, not a grand tour and a who's who. But three men waited there for him already. The position of one was obvious: the priest's vestments gave him away, but the earnest Father Turnbull introduced himself anyway. Another, tall and athletic even in his middle age, with a broad-brimmed hat, identified himself as the magistrate Mr. MacCabe. The third who stepped forward identified himself as Alastair Carlisle, a councilman. Carlisle was average height, perhaps slightly on the tall side, and wiry, but that didn't keep him from having a slightly menacing air about him. Government men tended to be dangerous sorts anyway, but the difference between MacCabe and Carlisle was clear: the former traveled in shadows and fought with words, the latter knew between precisely which ribs he ought to slip a knife. They both, however, knew when such actions were called for and when to show restraint. With poor Father Turnbull standing slightly behind the other two, slightly bouncing anxiously on the balls of his feet, it called to mind the image of a labrador puppy standing between a rottweiler and a doberman.

"Lacking an inn as we are," said Mr. MacCabe, "Mr. Carlisle had graciously offered to open his home to you." MacCabe pulled his lips back and showed his teeth, and if the witch finder squinted and turned his head a little it might look a bit like what MacCabe probably thought a gracious smile was supposed to be. His lips covered his teeth again and fell into a smirk with which he was very clearly much more comfortable.

Alastair Carlisle was a bit more successful at the welcoming smile as they shook hands. "It will be my honor, sir, really. Anything to help the church in these trying times, beset by devilment on all sides. Here, allow me." He took one of the witch finder's bags before gesturing across the square. "My wife has been anxious for your arrival," he said by way of making conversation. "Two of the witches were her friends. We couldn't believe it, not really. But all the evidence was there, plain as day, and it couldn't be helped. When she heard the diocese was sending a true witch finder, she nearly cried with relief. Here we are."

The house was larger than many in the village, though certainly not the largest, and made of good, sturdy stone covered in whitewashed plaster. The gate opened onto a small path, on either side of which was a garden full of vegetables and herbs although most of those seemed to be put up already. Upon hearing the front door open a servant girl appeared with a smile and a curtsy, taking the witch finder's bags upstairs while Carlisle took him through to the room beyond. The windows of the well-appointed parlor were open, letting in some of the last warm air before autumn came, and a woman sat in a chair facing the window which overlooked the hills beyond, her head bent to needlepoint.

"Magda?" Carlisle tapped once on the door frame so as not to startle her. The woman raised her head and stood, turning to greet the men with a curtsy. "My wife, Magdalene."

Magdalene Carlisle was quite short, barely clearing five feet, and her clothes allowed for curves which a hand might find easy to rest upon, never having been graced with motherhood. Her smile was warm and reached her eyes as she greeted the stranger, nodding her head in another quick greeting before setting her embroidery down on her chair and stepping around it to greet the witch finder. Her hair was pinned into a tidy braided updo, but her eyes still sparkled and seemed to peer through him, inside him, as though she could see to his very soul. Her hands were slender, soft as she took his hand.

"You can't know how grateful we are to have you, sir." Her voice was soft, honey-warm, and she had a habit of maintaining eye contact as they shook hands and spoke. "It feels already as though a great cloud has lifted from us!"

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Keywords: crime, feisty, period piece

A 17th century conwoman has been transported for her crimes, but her ship was waylaid by pirates before it could reach its destination

CONTENT WARNING: Depiction of corporal punishment

1690
Somewhere in the Atlantic

Blood smeared the deck and Miri's hands. Her knuckles ached and the rope cut painfully into her wrists. The pirate captain paced in front of her, the crew circled around them like a makeshift court, but she refused to break eye contact. Break now and she would never earn their respect. She tightened her grip behind her back, digging her nails into her already sore palms, and at least part of it was out of spite.

"Give me one good reason I shouldn't throw you over the side right now." Captain Shrike bent almost double to look her directly in the eye.

She glared directly back. Miri lifted her chin and rolled her shoulders back. Her grip tightened. "Because if I was a man this would be a clear-cut case of self-defense," she snarled. "What man here would have allowed himself to be raped?" The emphasis curled over her tongue and forced its way out between her teeth as she hurled it at him.

"You're lucky Donnelly has actual surgical training!" the captain spat back.

Miri shrugged without concern. "Plenty of men here what's missin' a couple fingers."

It had been two weeks since she had come aboard the crew of the Widow's Wail, to no little amount of attention from the others. All of the other women, those poor African souls being transported as cargo, had all gone ashore at some island whose name she didn't know. Most of the others on the beach had been as Black as the slaves she'd been in the hold with, so she didn't worry too much about them. The other prisoners transported with her from England were all men, and those who had stayed aboard had integrated into the ship just fine. Of course as the sole woman on the ship Miriam Leitner had expected to deal with men being, well...men, and at their very worst at that. But she had been on watch in the wee hours of the morning with a man named Black who hadn't taken no for an answer and it had come to blows. She had held her own, much to Black's surprise, but while she wasn't in the habit of starting fights with men that much bigger than her she was in the habit of finishing them. In the flash of a knife Black had lost the same fingers he'd been too free with, and the ship's surgeon and the captain had been woken by the rest of the overnight skeleton crew. Word traveled fast in such a confined space, and now the stars weren't the only ones standing in judgement.

Shrike sighed and rubbed his face, and Miri suppressed a smile. She had a point and he knew it. They all knew it. They were pirates; what they did ashore, she was sure she didn't want to know. But for now at least, she was their crew mate. Order and justice had to reign between them, or Shrike wouldn't be able to keep control of his own ship. And once the captain lost control, there went the prizes. He stared at her. Hung his head. Rubbed the back of his neck. Finally he looked at her.

"Three lashes." He ignored her indignant cry and looked out at the crew. "Three lashes, one per finger. What say you?" There was a general cry of approval, and Miri cried out and struggled against the bosun and the quartermaster.

"I've done nothing wrong!" she shouted. With her hands bound at the small of her back she wasn't as strong, but she was just as slippery. She managed to slide out of the officers' grasps and charged after the captain's retreating back. "What the fuck justice is this?"

Shrike spun on his heel and leaned into her face. "My justice!" he shouted back. "You took your own when you took his fingers, bully for you, girl! But I can't have my men settling their debts with blood." He stepped back, out of her face just as she lunged to bite at his nose, and jerked his chin to the nearest mast. "Tie her up."

Miri shrieked and cursed, wriggling and kicking against the bosun and quartermaster. Finally her bonds were cut, but the quartermaster's strong grip kept both of her wrists in one large, callused hand as he lashed them to the mast. Captain Shrike's expression betrayed no emotion, neither anger nor pity, as he stared at her. He didn't look away as he handed the whip to his first mate.

"Whether you go easy on her is up to you," he said sotto voce, "but at least make it look good. She has to bleed, you understand."

Miri struggled even as they lashed her to the mast, but it was mostly for show. One man bigger than her she could handle, but two? With more ready to jump in? It would be suicide, especially when she was no stranger to pain. The first mate, one Mister Sullam, chose to get theatrical with his whip. Wind whistled as he swung and it took concentration to keep the muscles in her back and shoulders relaxed. The first blow stung, of course, but not as much as it could have. Miri flinched but didn't cry out, instead letting out a slow breath.

The second lash was another matter. It burned across her back, especially where it crossed the angry welt of the first blow. Sullam slashed through her shirt with the tip of the boiled rawhide and this time drew blood. She clenched her teeth so hard she thought they might crack and squeezed her eyes shut tight. A choked squeak of pain escaped from her throat, lost under the chant of the crew, and she was grateful for the dark of the night. It hid the flush of pain and the look of concentration. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction of crying out if she could help it.

The third blow nearly broke her resolve. A small yelp as the leather burned across her back and she felt blood run warm across her flesh. With her shirt ripped open by the second blow, there was nothing to stem the bleeding as it seeped slowly down her abused back. The bosun was cutting her down even as Sullam barked orders. She wasn't paying attention to what he said; she didn't care.

"You better sleep with one eye open, Leitner." The old navigator took her gently by the arm and helped her stagger down the stairs. Most of the men went by their last names unless they were close friends, or sometimes by nicknames of origins unknown to her. But Martin, quiet, gentle Martin, was always just that: Martin. He'd so far treated her no differently than he did the other men, though neither had he sought her out. "Donnelly and his lot'll be out for blood. In here." He jerked his chin toward a door.

It was a store room, where he directed her to sit on a barrel with her back toward him and politely turned around while she shed the remnants of her ruined shirt. Miri flinched and hissed at a cool, stinging sensation on her back. He was as gentle as he could be with the ointment. The navigator turned around again while she ripped up the fabric of her shirt and fashioned it into a bandeau of sorts, pulling the fabric back around and tying it in front between her breasts. She readjusted her head scarf in a feeble attempt to preserve what little modesty she had left after working with her skirt girded and bare feet for the better part of a fortnight and now making do with a destroyed shirt. At her word Martin turned back around and gave her a dipper from a water barrel.

"Mr. Sullam wants a word," he said. "When you're ready." It was a small kindness, and Miri nodded her thanks for it.

Topside, Jonathan Shrike clapped a hand on his first mate's back as he watched the girl go. He had suspected before that Miri Leitner had more to her than met the eye, and now it seemed that she had a bit of bite to her.

~*~

"Miriam. 'S a good name. Like the Bible?"

"Like the Torah."

Shrike nodded, and looked her up and down from across the desk in his cabin. "Is that why you were being transported?"

"Of course it is," she sneered. "Haven't you heard? My people dance in the woods at night with your Devil, and we steal Christian babies to drink their blood. I've always preferred toddlers, myself. I just didn't know the baby I stole belonged to a judge."

He didn't dignify the biting sarcasm with an answer. Instead he sat with her in silence for a very long minute. "I can't have a woman distracting my crew. I'll set you off at the next port, you can make your own way from there. I won't have your hanging on my conscience."

Miri shrugged. "Conscience or not, I'm hanged either way. I'm a hard worker. Give me six months on half shares and I'll prove it to you that I'm worth keeping on."

He shook his head. "Two weeks."

"Three months."

"One."

"Fine." With a flash of that green glare and the jangle of jewelry, she shook his hand.

~*~

"Do you know why women are bad luck on ships, Jackson?" the captain said in his characteristic quiet tone. "It's not because they've angered the sea or any rubbish like that. It's because on a shipfull of men they're a distraction. It leads to situations like this, and worse." He looked sideways at the first mate. "I want you to keep an eye on that one. And keep her on night crew for now, until the lads get used to her. Til then we'll keep 'em too busy to bother her." With a final pat on the shoulder, he turned on his heel and stalked back toward his cabin to try and salvage what he could of the rest of the night's sleep.

Twenty minutes later, Miri joined the first mate quietly at the railing. She hauled line without being told, and without saying anything herself. The light of the full moon told the story of her naked skin: in addition to the glistening ointment across the lashes on her back and the abrasions from the rope, bruises the size and shape of Black's hands mottled her arms and throat. Thick, ropey scars crisscrossed her back, and smaller scars of various shapes, sizes, and depths decorated her arms and legs. An old burn rippled the flesh of her neck, just below her right ear. With her shirt tied as it was, a small tattoo was visible between her breasts in stark contrast to her pale skin under the moonlight, just under where the fabric crossed over itself. She offered commentary on none of this, but silently hauled line.

"Thank you," she said eventually. "I know you didn't have to go that easy on me, and I do know that that was going easy." She glanced over at him, and with a flourish and the flash of a grin produced a pack of cards from somewhere in her tied-up skirts. "One good turn deserves another," she said. "I can tell you your future, if you want. It's only fair."

If she was going to be called the Witch of Threadneedle Street, after all, she was going to earn the title. And earn it she had. Three months ago she had drawn Death followed by the Eight of Cups, and the Three and Two of Wands, respectively. Since then it had been nothing but Swords and Hanged Men, and she hadn't understood it until she'd come up in front of the judge. Miri herself wasn't always certain she believed fully in the cards of Marseilles...but they sometimes had the habit of being uncannily accurate.

"Martin said you wanted a word?" she prompted, already shuffling the deck regardless of Sullam's response.

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[Madam Mim]

Keywords: wlw, period piece, Shakespeare
Kinks: blindfold, breast worship, fingering, light striking, physical restraints

Context: An 18th century countess has fallen in love with her sister-in-law. wlw

"He hugged you." Olivia laid in the grass between the flower beds, idly playing with Viola's fingertips. "I think Sebastian may have finally forgiven you, despite all your best efforts to be the one to give me a child instead." She grinned teasingly over at her wife before rolling onto her side then leaning over Viola and kissing her deeply. "I've never been so happy," she said truthfully when she came up for air before leaning down and peppering kisses over her throat and chest. Slowly she unlaced the front of her wife's dress, then her corset, to continue her kisses over her breasts.

"I love these," she mumbled against her skin, sucking gently at a rosy nipple as she slid one leg across Viola to straddle her. "I love you." Olivia spent a few minutes in silence, kissing and suckling at Viola's breasts and generally letting her hands roam freely over her body. "So I was wondering..." she said finally, not taking her attention from her wife's creamy skin, "I mean, I had a few thoughts..." Her fingers cupped her mound through the layers of skirts. "You remember how I went into town for a few hours last week, and wouldn't let you come with me?" She moved her hand against Viola and scraped her teeth against her chest. It was a bit of an awkward topic to approach straight-on, but she didn't think Viola wouldn't at least try it. "I was working on a surprise for you. I went to...well, to one of those shops," she tore her attention away from her breasts long enough to give her a significant look, "and the woman who owned it gave me a few...suggestions. I didn't say anything that would put us in jeopardy," she added quickly. "I was sure to mention my husband. But I was wondering whether...well...whether you'd be open to some of those suggestions? I figured our anniversary would be the perfect time to start experimenting." Her hand resumed its attentions through her skirt--just enough pressure to tease but not enough to lead to any sort of satisfaction--and she bent her head to her wife's breasts exposed to the open air, hidden as they were by the flowers.

"We don't have to if you're not comfortable with it," she added before circling the tip of her tongue around one nipple. "It's just...you know how your body is the altar at which I worship. I only want to take my devotion further."

They'd made love in the gardens a number of times, but Olivia didn't intend this to be one of those times. She grinned as her wife writhed beneath her, opening herself to her touch, begging with both her words and her body. It was so very sweet, listening to how Viola craved her even as she denied her what she wanted most; a novel change of pace from her usual dominance, not that the countess ever complained about that, either.

"Well I can't really tell you," she said slowly, grinning against her wife's skin, "but I can show you."

A bit clumsily, Olivia pushed herself to her feet before helping Viola up. She insisted with more kisses and a line of love bites along Viola's collarbone that she keep her breasts exposed to the open air until they were in absolute peril of being seen. Olivia had developed some exhibitionist tendencies over the past few, glorious months--the gardens, the balcony, the chapel altar, the dining table--but contented herself with limiting them to the shade of night or the protective embrace of the hedges. The openness of it and the risk of getting caught brought a thrill of excitement to their marriage. Once Viola had re-fastened her corset (though not without some playfully petulant interference from her wife) Olivia led her up to their room, but made her close her eyes and sit while she made things ready. Just to ensure her compliance, Olivia fastened one of her silk sashes around Viola's eyes and stood back, biting her lower lip and admiring the way her wife looked before taking her purchases from their hiding places.

"Alright you can look."

On each post of the bed was a length of silk onto which had been attached cotton cuffs for the wrists and ankles with little silver buckles, and across the pillow was a matching lavender silk ribbon just wide enough to cover the eyes. In the middle of the bed Olivia had laid out a number of polished wooden toys, the kind of which they had never used before, accompanied by a queer-looking harness and gag. Next to them was a wooden-handled flogger with strips of suede the same lavender as the restraints (she hadn't been brave enough for the harder leather yet), a long ostrich feather, and a diamond-studded, embroidered collar which buckled in the back and to which had been tied a leash. Olivia stood next to the bed in her corset and stockings, her dark hair still pinned into its elaborate style, jewels glittering at her ears and throat and her wedding ring seeming somehow more prominent as she gripped one bed post.

"I want you to do whatever you want to me," she said in a low voice, just a tad bit nervous. They'd never done anything as creative as any of these options would offer. "Or to make me do whatever you want to you."

Olivia couldn't help but laugh a little when Viola put on the harness and announced it to be appropriately queer. "One of those is supposed to go in it, I think," she said, goosebumps raising on her skin as the cool, smooth wood traced along her skin. It didn't take much persuasion on Viola's part to accept her tongue and curl her own around it, her hands resting on her wife's hips as she stepped closer. Obediently she laid down and allowed herself to be buckled into the cuffs.

"The doctor said we should be gentle for now," she said, leaning up to kiss her wife's temple as her kisses passed from one shoulder to the other and she bound the other wrist. "Not exceedingly gentle, but too rough and the baby could be hurt. He's very delicate right now."

Viola's kisses continued down her middle and along her thighs, making her squirm under the pleasure of it and ache for more. With her ankles bound spread-eagle the air moved against her wet slit, making her eager and needy. She almost wished she'd stripped naked before letting Viola see her, wearing nothing but her ring...but this way, in her garter and corset, Viola could unwrap her like an anniversary present and slowly expose her to the open air with nothing she could do about it. The idea made her shiver in anticipation.

"Blindfold me," she said decisively. "You looked so pretty sitting there like that, minette, it's only nice to return the favor. Besides, I like surprises." She grinned and lifted her head to allow Viola to tie the blindfold behind her head, then laid it back down and waited anxiously for the pleasure to come.

"What?" Olivia giggled, blushing and trying to look innocent. "You are my pretty pussycat, non?" She grinned at the wordplay even as Viola blindfolded her. The feeling of her wife's lips on her throat, however light, was enhanced by her blindness.

"Mm!" She giggled again and squirmed as Viola tickled her against the sensitive underside of her arm. "I think it would be good for some things...!" She tried not to yelp too loudly as it tickled her. She was discovering she was more ticklish than she'd thought. Olivia's breasts swelled as she took a deep breath, happy to be free of a corset which seemed more and more constraining every day. She twitched her nose when Viola tickled it with the feather while palming her breast. That was a little itchy.

"Maybe you like something else more?" her wife suggested.

"We can try." Olivia felt strands of something trail over her nipples and knew it could only be the flogger. This she was a little scared of, but she knew Viola would never hurt her on purpose, and that the second she said stop it would stop. Now the anxiety came from the anticipation, not knowing if or when her wife would strike her.

The actual strike was painful...but surprisingly pleasant. It stung but in a weirdly appealing way. Olivia winced if nothing else because she'd been surprised and a small noise escaped her throat. Viola's hand over the stinging spot was comforting and pleasurable, causing Olivia to groan quietly and move toward that hand. Another blow evoked a light gasp and she bit her lip when Viola tentatively stroked her slit. She tried to move, to bring her hands to her wife's hair but found her hands could only move a few inches. She lightly tugged uselessly at the restraints as Viola begged her to tell her whether she enjoyed this, and found that just as much as she enjoyed the sting of the flogger, she enjoyed being bound and blinded and at Viola's mercy. It spoke of an unquestioning trust and made her feel all the closer to her wife for it.

"I love it," she breathed, smiling in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. "I'd love it even more if you kissed where you struck. Your hand felt good; your lips would feel better." Olivia moved against her in an attempt to feel her wife's fingers against her slit, but it seemed like teasing was half the fun. "Do it again Viola. My Viola...oh my love..."

Olivia moaned and writhed impotently, jumping with each unexpected strike of the whip and sighing at the delicious heat of her wife's tongue. When she questioned when she'd become so naughty, the countess smiled and opened her mouth to answer. Instead she let out a brief yelp of surprise when the flogger came down on her once more. Slowly Viola kissed her body and worked her fingers in and out of her, building the anticipation.

"Maybe it was when I learned how wonderful my wife was," she suggested, "and started thinking about how good a mistress she could be to me." She wasn't quite used to dirty talk like this, but she liked it. Olivia breathed in sharply as the whip came down twice more, her walls clenching needily around her fingers. Viola built her up to her orgasm but seemed to know exactly what to do whenever she came to close, to not let her have her release.

"Cum for me, my love. Show me how much you like this."

Viola brought the flogger down again and Olivia didn't need telling twice. It was mere moments between her command and Olivia arching her back, crying out in her release, her walls pulsing around her wife's fingers as she plummeted over the edge of control and into ecstasy. She longed to bed her knees, to writhe with her legs around Viola, but at the same time the restraint was a sweet reminder that there was more to come. Her breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath, Olivia turned her face in the direction of her wife's voice.

"Viola," she moaned, licking her lips. "Oh my precious Viola, my sweet wife..."

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Keywords: age difference, breeding, future, scifi
Keywords: breeding, choking, clothed sex, hair pulling, internal cumshots, large cocks, mating, sexual exhaustion, standing, stomach bulges

Context: A young woman driven by biology and planetary forces to reproduce finds herself unable to keep her hands off her mate after he defends her from sexual harassment and physical assault.

When he leaned down to her, she took Seb's arm with one hand and cupped his cheek with the other. Leaning in, Tamsyn kissed him warmly. She continued kissing him. She deepened the kiss. Pulling herself away, she allowed Sebastian to straighten.

"Why don't we give the president and his wife some room?" she suggested with a wink. "I seem to be somewhat of a lightning rod this evening." He was probably moreso, but it was blame she was willing to shoulder.

Gently she steered him away, through the crowd, to a door she hoped would lead to cabins. Delighted to see she was right, Tamsyn giggled and pulled him down the hall eagerly, stopping every now and then to pull him into a hard kiss. At the door of the cabin marked for the chancellor she stopped for a moment to fight with something around her legs. She stuffed the damp tangle of her panties into Seb's pocket before forcefully pulling him into the room.

The stateroom was stately, she was sure. Tamsyn didn't take the time to look around but instead pressed her back to the wall and began desperately undoing Seb's belt.

"Remember when I said we could be animals later?" she panted, finally fumbling the damned thing open. "It's later."

Simultaneously she pulled him down by the lapels to kiss her hard and wrapped the leg freed by the slit in her dress around his hip. Bracing her back against the wall, using it and his shoulder for support and her own thigh strength for leverage, she pulled her left leg up and around to desperately climb her mate.
Tamsyn laughed when Seb warned her that her stockings probably wouldn't make it through this encounter. "Just don't fuck up my hair."

She pulled him to her by the stiff collar of his uniform, not allowing him up for air. He teased at her sex with his hardening cock, making her squirm and mewl against his lips. She forced her tongue into his mouth, begging for the same from his body. His hands were too slow with her dress; she needed him right now! Tamsyn helped, hastily bunching the fabric up around her hips while he instructed her to spread wide. Seb called her shoes ridiculous and she smirked.

"You like the ridiculous shoes," she mumbled against his lips. "Sebastian, please..."

He mussed her hair, the one thing she had explicitly instructed him not to do. Well...they would see how open he was to a little correction of his own. Later. Right now she needed all of him she could get; no frills, no fuss, just two bodies finding their completion together in more ways than one. Tamsyn clung with her thighs, tightening them around his middle while she adjusted until her feet were finally settled--carefully--somewhere around his waist.

"Reach down," Sebastian growled. They locked eyes and she obeyed, understanding. "Show me where you need me. Tell me what you need."

"I need you," she moaned, reaching down between them and stroking what part of his shaft she could reach. "I need you deep inside me, Sebastian. I need you to fuck me so hard this wall cracks." He leaned in as though to kiss her but drew up short, demanding again that she show him what she needed. So Tamsyn did the only thing she could think to do. She leaned forward.

Tamsyn bit him. Hard.

It would leave a bruise, the bit of his throat she had exposed by forcing down his stiff collar, and lipstick smeared over the gold edging. But she neither withdrew nor apologized. That was what she needed.

"I need you so deep inside me I don't know where I end and you start," she murmured against his skin, kissing where the bruise was already forming. "I need you to fuck me as hard as you would have thrashed them."
Tamsyn screamed when finally Sebastian impaled her on his cock, using her weight as leverage, though it most certainly wasn't a scream of pain. Unlike any other time she had been with him so far, there was no care, no experimentation, no slow acclimation. All there was, all they were, was feral pleasure and wild rutting. She was forced to cling to his shoulders to avoid slipping, still very aware and cautious of hurting him with her shoes, as he crushed her against the wall. She bit his throat again, the other side, as he pulled animal sounds from the depths of her soul.

"Mine," Seb snarled.

"Yours," she panted with a frantic little nod.

"You. Are. Mine."

Tamsyn howled with each thrust, but through the blind pleasure managed to find grip to force him to look her in the eye. "You are mine," she snarled back, only barely conscious of what she was saying and unheeding at all of the deeper implications.

She gasped at the sudden overwhelming feeling that washed over her. It was something holy, something sacred, something...right. A sort of sense of purpose and belonging she hadn't felt since she was very young, an overwhelming sense of something bigger than her and yet a part of her that left her feeling very small in the universe...and then it contracted down to the two of them. She could give him children. In that moment she could give him anything he wanted. His tempo increased and she felt the inexplicable bond between them strengthen as a purple light bathed the room.

The auroras are good luck for mating.

She had wanted to see the auroras, having only ever seen pictures of the ones at home, but right now she couldn't care less. Her only focus was on finding completion with him in every way possible. With one hand she reached for his, guiding his large palm against her throat and carefully arranging his hand with his forefinger and thumb just beneath her jaw.

"I tap three times," she gasped, tapping his forearm to demonstrate, "you stop. Immediately." Tamsyn pulled him in for another hard kiss, moaning as his grip slowly tightened, yet again giving him all of her trust completely unearned. "Fuck...Sebastian..." She bit his lip and pressed her thighs tighter to his sides. Her howling, feral pleasure took on a more strangled quality as she climbed that peak. "Cum...for me..."
Tamsyn felt herself clench lightly around him when Sebastian confirmed that he was, in fact, hers. When she pulled at his hand, however, he refused. With a snarl she yanked at his other hand, crying out when he buried himself to the hilt all at once. That was the only thing that caused her to pause in her direction. She hadn't even finished before he was squeezing, making her convulse around him again in need and pleasure.

"I own you," he snarled, and she narrowed her eyes. "I own this beautiful body...this incredible mind...this fertile young womb..." Her hand flew on its own, connecting to his cheek with a sharp smack. It was unlike any blow to the face she'd delivered earlier, in her own defense, nor was it angry; rather, it suggested that it was a punishment that would have paired well with a length of rope and a blindfold. In response Seb pressed his thumb to the most delicate part of her throat. "I own the very breath in your lungs."

Tamsyn would have slapped him again, had he not leaned his forehead against hers and pledged himself to her entirely. She shuddered and convulsed around him in need. "Fuck...Sebastian..." she panted. She bit his lip and pressed her thighs tighter to his sides. Her howling, feral pleasure took on a more strangled quality as she climbed that peak. "Cum...for me..."

It was impossible to tell whose climax came first, or whether they came simultaneously. For a few long, ecstatic moments all Tamsyn knew was their mingled roars of pleasure, a sudden loss of the ability to breathe, and the sensation of motion. When she came back to her senses they were on the floor and she was on top of Sebastian, splayed across him while he slowly grinded her against him. She still convulsed lightly around him and winced at the sensitivity, but there were worse things in the world than that.

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Keywords: foeyay, mlm, period piece, virginity
Kinks: anal, blowjobs, hair pulling, hand jobs, hate fuck, internal cumshots

Context: Two airship captains on opposite sides of the law and a historic rivalry fall into a firey affair as one of them comes to terms with his sexuality. mlm

"Anne Marie knows, I'm dead certain," Kieran admitted with a shrug. As they walked down the hall he glanced behind them before casually taking Colin's hand. "But she's also been trying to tell me all this nonsense for years. Professor Swift and Sam...I dunno, maybe. Rick's completely fooled, poor bugger." He chuckled and shook his head. He could see why Sam liked Erik, but sophistication coupled with naivete wasn't his cup of tea. They reached his bedroom door all too soon.

"Mate, it's not about them..." The pirate looked concerned that they might just be looking for an excuse to ignore what he was. "It's about...well, never mind." Goosebumps rose on his arms as Colin gently caressed his cheek and it took a deep breath to control himself.

"Still, there are certain behaviors I'd rather not overlook..."

"Oh?" Kieran grinned that charming grin. "Y'mean like this?" He gently pinned Colin's body between his own and the door, leaning in and kissing him deeply. One hand drifted to his waist while the other slid around the back of his neck.
Kieran was caught slightly off guard when Colin switched their positions. He grabbed the lapels of the officer's jacket in an attempt to bring their bodies closer together before untying his tie and starting on the buttons of his shirt. There were too many bloody buttons. There was a sharp inhale at Colin's fingernails running down his stomach, not of pain but of pleasure and arousal. Kieran's hands slid down and grabbed his firm ass as Colin cupped him through his own trousers. The officer teased him and though he knew it was just teasing--sexy teasing--some prideful inferno was lit in his chest and shone in his eyes. He wasn't new at sex! Just sex with a man, and even at that Anne Marie had occasionally accommodated his...tastes. The element of surprise was on his side as he reached back to turn the doorknob and fall with Colin into the room. Using momentum he flung the aristocrat onto the bed and kicked the door closed behind them.

"Strip," Kieran commanded, pulling his shirt off and tossing it aside carelessly, "and we'll see who has to be gentle. Because let's get one thing straight here, love: I am captain here." His voice wasn't loud, nor was it angry, but it was authoritative and he had a somewhat haughty look to him as he surveyed the man on the bed. In one swift motion he pulled his belt from its loops but didn't toss it aside, instead letting it hang loosely in one hand. "I don't play second to the English, not even here." He smirked as he walked toward the bed, undoing his trousers as he went, before crawling up Colin's body and kissing him hard.

When he came up for air Kieran noticed that Anne Marie had been expecting something to happen. On the nightstand was an assortment of oils and lubricants as well as several extra towels. There was probably a similar setup in Colin's room. He couldn't help but chuckle before looking back down at Colin and running his fingers through his hair, hand clenching into a fist at the base of his skull.

"Well it's not gonna suck itself, love," he murmured with a smirk.
Kieran hadn't quite expected such ready compliance, but was pleasantly surprised when Colin pushed him onto his back. He ached as the officer kissed his way down his toros and tugged away the remnants of his clothing. The masculine hand around his throbbing shaft was heaven. Kieran closed his eyes in a quiet sort of bliss as Colin pumped his hand up and down his length, smirking as Colin complimented him on it. He slid his hand back down into his hair and gripped it tightly.

"Thought I told you to strip and suck, not talk," he growled huskily. "Do as you're told for once."

Colin still played with him, but not for too long. Kieran watched, keeping eye contact with him, as he played his tongue around his head. He groaned and bit his lip, letting his head hang back for a moment when Colin wrapped his lips around the tip and sucked gently. The officer came up to ask what he thought, and Kieran didn't intend to answer him with words. Just as he pushed his head back down Colin seemed to voluntarily take the entirety of his not inconsiderable length. Impressive to be sure.

"Oh God..." Kieran murmured, clenching his hand in Colin's hair. Of course he'd been sucked off before, but something about it being a man was...different. A man, after all, would know what another man would like. The pirate let his head fall back onto the pillow and his cock throbbed in Colin's mouth as he imagined flipping him over and fucking him silly. It was all he could do not to execute such a plan at this very moment...but as hard as he was he knew Colin was too, and his needy cock was as of yet unattended. Kieran planned to let him stay that way for the time being.
Colin was talking again. Kieran pressed firmly on the back of his head, encouraging him to shut up and keep sucking. He had a hard time finding words as Colin talked about him cumming in his mouth. The idea was divine, to be quite frank...but he wasn't ready to give in. Not yet. Again an Englishman seemed to be telling him what to do as he took Kieran's stiff length into his mouth and the back of his throat. That would be excuse enough, really. Colin stroked his perineum and the pirate almost lost it, but managed to hold back for now. That was a little too fast, it seemed, and he was still nervous about it.

Instead of giving Colin what he wanted, cumming copiously into his mouth, Kieran gripped his hair again and pulled him up off of his cock. "I'll cum in your mouth," he murmured, maneuvering their positions and pushing the Englishman to his hands and knees, "but not quite yet."

He nibbled the rim of Colin's ear before reaching for one of the oils on the nightstand. He coated his fingers generously before sliding one into the Englishman's tight sphincter. He gently pulsed that finger in and out, stroking Colin's hard member in time before adding another. Gently he moved his fingers, widening his hole. Kieran would have had no issue with fucking Colin silly with no preparation whatsoever, but thought that might be a bit rude.

The pirate leaned down and murmured in his ear as he stroked his cock and added a third finger slowly. "Tell me how much you want my cock inside you."
Kieran's mouth watered as Colin declared how much he'd been dreaming of him, of his need to be filled. Colin's hand wrapped around his, squeezing his cock gently, and the Englishman begged to be fucked. Well who was he to deny him? Gently Kieran pulled his fingers from his ass and cleaned them off before dripping more oil into his hand, this time stroking his own cock. It would be hard to hold back, but he was determined to last longer than Colin.

The pirate slipped his hand from Colin's cock to grip his hips with both hands before sliding in, up to the hilt. Dear fucking God this felt amazing! Two or three women, including Anne Marie, had allowed him to try it before but it had never felt quite like this. He pumped in and out slowly a few times, leaning over to bite Colin's shoulder blade and once again take his cock in his hand.

"You want me to pound you?" he growled. "Want to see stars? Want me to stop holding back?" He grinned.

Without warning he shoved Colin's face into the pillow with his free hand. One hand remained on the back of his head, gripping his hair, while the other stroked his cock at the same quick pace he pounded his ass. God but it was hard not to cum right now!
Kieran kept a firm grip on Colin's hair and his cock as he continued to thrust into him, harder and harder. He tilted the Englishman's head to the side and leaned in to growl into his ear, "Do I have to fucking gag you?" The threat was followed by a nip on the ear before he straightened up again for better leverage.

Colin tried to play games, tried not to let on how much he was enjoying it. But he moaned and his cock pulsed and Kieran knew better. He grinned before letting his hair go and gripping his hip, grunting as he thrust harder, faster. It was only out of sheer stubbornness and will power he hadn't cum yet; Colin's ass was so tight, so goddamn perfect! It was only their power struggle that made Kieran close his eyes for a few moments in an effort not to cum before the officer beneath him.
Kieran couldn't help but grin. Colin's cock hardened more in his hand and he bit his shoulder in several places. He was so close...they were both so close...

"That's right baby," the pirate murmured in his ear, stroking him harder, rubbing his thumb around the very tip of Colin's swollen head as he came closer and closer. "Cum for me. Oh God please cum for me Colin..."

He felt Colin explode and cried out, only just barely keeping himself from the same. The Englishman's seed erupted onto the bedcovers, across his chest, into Kieran's hand. The pirate brought his fingers to his lips, moaning as he tasted Colin's seed from his fingers. Salty, tangy...entirely unexpected but so, so good! With Colin taken care of he gripped his hips with both hands, sliding into him harder, deeper, leaning back slightly as his testicles tightened.

"Oh God...yeah...fuck...!" Kieran slammed into Colin's ass a final time, bending over him as he exploded with a strangled cry.

He came inside Colin harder than he could ever remember having cum before, blinded temporarily by his orgasm. By the time he was spent he was shaking, feeling weak as he slowly pulled out and fell next to Colin onto the bed with a weak laugh. Kieran reached over, grabbing at the officer's waist and pulling him down to the bed and against him. The mattress was large enough they could both sleep quite easily with plenty of room even with the mess on the bedspread.

"That was...incredible," he panted at length, a dopey smile plastered on his face. "I...oh god...Already I want to go again." He chuckled and looked down at Colin, filled with a sort of warm fuzzy glow.

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[Madam Mim]

Keywords: modern, death, drama, hurt/comfort, loss

Context: A two-fisted action scientist brings his pupil-to-friends-to-lovers to meet his wife who was driven mad by torture 20 years prior and is kept a la Jane Eyre

CONTENT WARNING: Mental illness, dementia, death of a child, alcohol, sugar

"It isn't dramatic at all," Anne Marie said with a dismissive wave. "I learned long ago that it is best to let you divulge the details of your private life in your own time. If this is what you need, Algie, then this is what I will give you."

She let him have a few moments as he paused outside the car. It was a beautiful home. Garlands still decorated the stone facade and a wreath still hung on the door as though tomorrow were Christmas. It was charming, but Anne Marie was unable to be charmed at the moment. She dreaded whatever might lie within. She knew she shouldn't, but she couldn't help it. This was the remaining tie to Algernon's life outside of the Society, before her, before Gustav even. It was alien and terrifying because God only knew what effect it might have on her, on them. But her concern oughtn't be for herself and she knew that. As Algie started repeating himself while helping her out of the car, she took a firmer hold of his hand and smiled in what she hoped was a comforting matter.

"Breathe, mon amour," she said gently before bringing his hand to her lips. Gently she kissed each finger before squeezing his hand then taking his arm properly and letting him lead the way inside.

She was slightly alarmed at the sight of the squat woman brandishing a cudgel before pretending it was a walking stick. But Mrs. Heath didn't mention it and Anne Marie's expression remained placid, as though she believed that it was a walking stick. Even if she'd had no relation to the professor, this was not a woman to be trifled with.

"Madame," Anne Marie returned politely, curtsying gracefully in return and managing a small smile. She liked Mrs. Heath. Her smile faltered, however, when Algie offered her his arm again and asked her to join him. Taking a deep breath she took his arm and nodded. "But of course."

Madame LaMonte's heart pounded as they mounted the stairs. Would he tell his wife who she was, and who she was to him? Or would she know before he could even tell her? Would his Mrs. Swift understand? Anne Marie had never gone among mad people before, and while this was vastly more accommodating than Bedlam she was still nervous. She felt like she was intruding upon a marriage, like she was staking claim to a man who wasn't hers even though the woman had been detached from the knowable world for more than two decades. Even more worrisome, however, was the doubt which had haunted Anne Marie ever since Algie had told her that his wife was still living: would she measure up? Was she good enough for him? This was the woman he had chosen to marry; she was his pupil, his colleague, his friend, young enough to be his daughter, and arguably some of the only friendly female contact he'd had outside of work after Gustav LaMonte had tortured his wife to madness. It felt almost like she was cheating in having won his affections. Or else like she was the consolation prize, the woman he was with simply because she was there.

But this wasn't about her. It was about Algernon. Anne Marie swallowed her feelings of inadequacy and her fears, fixing in place that mask which had been painted on for so many years. Leaning up she kissed the professor's cheek gently, squeezing his arm encouragingly as he reached for the door.

This was Hell. The car had crashed on the way here and now Anne Marie was in her personal Hell, having to watch the pain in Algernon's eyes as he looked over the woman he loved. And he did love her, that much was plain. She felt selfish for noticing that, for feeling for herself that he loved Maggie, not her. How could he? This woman was bright and vibrant and expressive, free with her emotions; nothing like her at all.

Anne Marie let out a soft, surprised oof when Maggie embraced her, but wasted no time in leaning down hugging her back. Maggie's grip on the taller, willowy woman was firm and strong but gentle. It was the sort of hug that would have been suited to a mother, if only...

"We can find your doll later, Maggie. I want you to meet..."

But Maggie pulled away and Anne Marie blanched. She tried for a friendly smile but her throat had closed and her mouth had gone dry. LaMonte had had a habit of infantilizing her sometimes, putting her hair into girlish ringlets, dressing her in short, frilly pink dresses and giving her dolls before beating and raping her brutally. To this day she never wore pink. If she had survived his games, what on God's good earth had he done to this poor woman? There were very few secrets she'd kept from Algernon but that had been one of them, and she wondered whether he knew what had been done to his wife and, worse, whether to tell him. As Maggie came back to herself Anne Marie managed to swallow a few times and work up a more genuine-looking smile when Algernon finally managed to introduce them.

"Very well, Mrs. Swift," she managed to answer, shaking Maggie's hand, "and you may call me Anne Marie. I insist. How do you do?" She could see the pain clearly in Algernon's eyes when Maggie proudly showed off her manners. She wished she could take his hand, that she could gather him to her and somehow kiss it better. But even if he allowed her to, she didn't want to upset Maggie. "Were you sketching before we came in?" she asked politely, looking over to the pad on the table. "I'm afraid I've never been a very good artist myself. I would love to see some of your drawings."

When Algie pulled her to his chest Anne Marie didn't fight it. Instead she put one hand on his shoulder, which then crept to his neck as her fingers ran through and tugged absently at the ends of his short-cropped hair at the nape of his neck. He said he should have known that she would have worked out what had been done to Maggie, but did he know? Did he know about the dresses and the dolls, about the lollis and the toys? Did he know about the ropes and gags and blindfolds, about the canes and chains and whips? Did he know about the electrified clamps? About the choking and the scratching and biting which broke enough skin to lead to infection? No...if Maggie had always been in that state then there was no way he could know.

"I'm just so...so...so selfish," Anne Marie sobbed into his chest. It was all she could do to manage English at the moment. "You...you love her and...a-a-and that should have been me..." Indeed the only reason it wasn't her was because she'd killed him first.

But when Algie began to cry too her selfish thoughts were pushed away. Anne Marie wrapped her arms around his neck in the best sort of hug she could manage while they sat on the kitchen floor and cried their grief into each other. At last he was done--though she didn't feel quite done yet, but could manage for now--and he noticed her cake. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes, managing a choked laugh.

"Mais oui, but I haven't frosted it yet. I had planned on doing something pretty with it...but that doesn't matter right now." Anne Marie wobbled to her feet and quickly spread the frosting she'd made over the cake, trying to smooth the thick chocolate as much as she could before declaring it done. It wasn't pretty, but it would be delicious. "You do not owe me anything, you know," she said calmly, cutting two very large slices and moving them to plates. Once the slabs were on plates and the brandy poured she led the way in moving to the sitting room. "You had a plan and I agreed to it. We both had our reasons." Sinking less gracefully than usual into an armchair near the fire she took a large bite. With the emotional state she was in, Algie's presence was the only thing keeping her from picking up the cake and eating it with her fingers.

In such a state of emotional exhaustion and distress Anne Marie was more than happy to get drunk with Algie. She didn't get drunk often; she got tipsy sometimes, but not roaring drunk, as he'd put it. But laying on her back on the floor three bottles later, finding pictures in the plaster patterns on the ceiling, Anne Marie realized that she was very likely roaring drunk.

"J'ai chaud!" she complained as she laid in front of the roaring fire. Instead of moving away she pulled at her blouse and tugged it up. At one point she found herself stuck and laid there giggling uncontrollably for a few minutes before managing to wriggle out of it and tossing it away. "It might...my chemise it...I...I don't want it to prendre feu," she explained as she struggled out of her skirt, not realizing that it might be easier to get off if she undid the buttons. She laid now in front of the fire in a bra, slip, and stockings. She hadn't the first idea where her shoes had gone, as she didn't remember taking them off when they'd come in from the snow.

"Algie," Anne Marie said, looking over had him. "I--pfffft!" She burst into giggles again and it took her quite a while to regain her composure. "Is that why you don't like it?" she asked before realizing that she hadn't followed her train of thought aloud. "Because it sounds like Étang d'étang? Well!" she declared without waiting for an answer. "You are the cutest écume I've ever seen, in any case. And by far the smartest." But she couldn't help but burst into another fit of giggles upon thinking of his name again. When she'd finally gotten a hold of herself she rolled onto her side and looked at him seriously.

"Algernon," she tried again, still heavily slurred. "You...you know I love you non? You are mon âme soeur, ma vie." There didn't seem to be a language Anne Marie wasn't having trouble with. "Am I? Am I votre minette? When you make love to me, is it only to me?" This seemed vitally important to ask, to make sure he understood just how serious she was about him. "Tu es tout por moi." She drained her glass before turning her gaze back to him, tears glittering in her eyes. It seemed to her that at any moment he would declare that this had all been a cruel joke and now she had to leave.

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Keywords: discomfort, hurt/comfort, period piece, relationship dysfunction, virginity, wlw

Context: A Countess makes a political marriage only to find herself in love with her husband. She doesn't know that her husband and his fraternal twin sister swapped places and she is in love with the sister. Now the siblings have swapped places again and she is finally consummating her marriage with her husband

CONTENT WARNING: Sexual manipulation

When Sebastian pulled out almost entirely before driving himself back inside her Olivia gasped and felt her throat tighten. It was terrible, not knowing whether she was holding back tears of elation at finally consummating her marriage, or of pain, or of disappointment at the lack of perfection she had imagined it being. Her husband thrust into her again, asking whether it was everything she wanted. How the hell was she supposed to answer that?

"Yes," she lied, gasping as he thrust even harder. "And more." Thank God she had somehow gotten wet or this would hurt even more. Olivia pulled her husband's face into her neck when he told her he was close, closing her fists around his hair and kissing his temple. "Please my love," she whispered. "Oh please cum inside me." She gasped when she felt his hot seed flood her womb, arching her back at the most erotic thing she'd felt since he'd entered her. But she knew that meant it was over. She met Sebastian's eyes and gave him a watery smile, kissing him gently. When he pulled out it left her feeling empty and incomplete, but she laid her head on his chest when he pulled her against him.

"You were incredible, too," she murmured softly.

What was wrong with her? This was what she'd been waiting for, dreaming of for over a month now and she hadn't even cum. What had she done wrong? Surely it couldn't have been any fault of Sebastian's; he'd made her cum plenty of times before. But that had also essentially been hours of foreplay. There had been no foreplay here, no teasing, nothing of what they'd previously shared. Was that the difference between play and sex? Was it wrong to enjoy one but not the other? Sebastian seemed to have known what he was doing; surely that meant that others enjoyed it. As Olivia lay against her husband, holding back tears and chasing elusive sleep she couldn't help but feel disappointed, feel...well, used. That hadn't been what Sebastian had done, had it? Used her? Could a husband use a wife who so adored him? These thoughts followed her into a fitful sleep in the early hours of the morning, leaving her wondering what exactly was wrong with her.

"Viola?" Olivia glanced cautiously at her sister-in-law as they walked together through the gardens. Without Sebastian. "Has your brother...I mean do you know if...well...Do you know if Sebastian's, er...been with anyone else? Before we were married?" She didn't know why she was asking Viola instead of Sebastian, or indeed why she was asking at all. In her heart she already knew the answer and she knew that an honest answer would bring her nothing but pain. Perhaps, she thought, it would help her figure out what was wrong with her, why last night hadn't been everything she'd dreamed.

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Keywords: betrayal, crime, death, forgiveness, future, personal past, reunion, scifi

Context: A young woman's lover discovers the extent of her criminal record and past lover

CONTENT WARNING: Abuse, abortion, criminal activity, disordered eating, prostitution

Nothing could ruin her mood.

Even the quickly darkening sky didn't hold the threat it normally did for Tamsyn. The low rolls of thunder heralding the approaching storm didn't make her jump, for once, though it did make her miss Sebastian. Mina knew--of course she'd been able to tell the moment she'd seen her--so it was nice for someone to know, though she had sworn her and Mills to secrecy. And now she was being sent on field assignment to connect with the native population. The first lady was interested in their mating rituals, but Tamsyn herself hadn't known there even was a native species and so was fascinated with the entire project from start to finish. Mina had sent her home with a tablet on all the information they'd gathered so far, but she was too restless to read in the transport. She needed to tell Seb all about the new project. And to be with him. Halfway through the meeting she'd been taken and consumed by a deep yearning to surrender herself to him entirely, and by now the need was almost painful.

The only reason she hadn't hopped out of the transport while it was still slowing to a stop was because the doors locked automatically.

"Sebastian?" Tamsyn kicked off her shoes at the front door and set her tablet down. The ARTs would tidy up later. "I thought you were gonna wait for me?" She wandered from room to room, calling to him but not finding him. "We'd never done it in the transport, I was really looking forward to that y'know. But now that we're home, there is that bench in the gym I think would be fantastic for a tie-down." She frowned, having completed her circuit of the first floor. By the time she'd walked the floor she'd unbuttoned her shirt, leaving her bra exposed. "Love?" she called up the stairs.

She found him in the library, in one of the oversized chairs (which really was just a normal chair when he sat in it), with a drink and a tablet on the small table beside him. There was a folder under the tablet, but she paid it all no mind; clearly he was in A Mood. With a sigh, Tamsyn approached and settled down cross-ways in his lap, draping her knees over the arm of the chair. She ran a hand through his hair, which he had grudgingly grown out a little at her behest, grumbling all the while about regs and dirty hippies. Grumpy old man, she thought fondly. Grown out, his hair was thick and soft, and streaked with more black than it had appeared when she'd first arrived. Probably a function of the buzz cut, she'd figured.

"Whatever that hateful old bitch said, don't listen to it," she cooed, leaning her forehead against his jaw and stroking his hair. "She's just...well, I dunno if she's jealous, but there are some people in the world who are just evil and want nothing more than to make everyone around them miserable. Honestly, love, I don't know why you went in the first place." She kissed Seb's cheek, but frowned. He wasn't reacting to her touch, wasn't holding her or returning her kisses, there was no sign of arousal against her as she moved in his lap. He was like he had been that first day. "Sebastian, what's wrong?"

Tamsyn followed his gaze to the tablet and the folder. With a glance at him she picked it up, and flicked open the folder. Her mugshot glared sullenly back at her. Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, her long hair buzzed on one side, two-day-old makeup giving her a raccoon-eyed effect. Her granny would've said her face looked like she'd gotten caught in a trout line, with a piercing in the center of her lower lip, one in a nostril, two in her eyebrow, and numerous along the cartilage of her ears. Those piercings had since healed, something she assumed they'd done to her in cryo, and she hadn't yet gotten them redone. Her collarbones were sharply visible, but the photo didn't show the rest of her undernourished, too-skinny body. A metal chain hung around her neck, thin but still clearly purchased from a hardware store. A cheap, heart-shaped pet store tag had been attached with a jump ring. She snorted.

"What, did she think I didn't tell you this?" she scoffed. But something in Seb's look told her to keep reading. She winced as she scrolled down the summary of her rap sheet. Public nudity. Throwing bricks at cops. Spitting on cops. Petty larceny. Burglary. Armed robbery. Drug possession. Underaged intoxication. All the old hits from the Party Days. But she went cold when she saw what she had preferred to forget. Her multiple arrests for prostitution.

"Oh."

There were also four outstanding warrants: two more counts of prostitution, aiding and abetting (which she had no recollection of), and felony abortion.

"...Oh."

Taymsyn swallowed hard and kept scrolling. Corrine had been kind enough to include the parts of her record which had been expunged once she'd turned 18, including all of the "false" reports to CPS and Paul's subsequent murder, along with photos of the murder scene. Paul had no face left, and barely any of his skull, and of course her fingerprints had been smeared in the blood on Mama's good cast iron skillet. She'd also included a photo of Tamsyn at a protest, naked as the day she was born with SURROGACY=SLAVERY painted in large red letters across the entirety of her torso. And also--

"Jack..." She breathed the name and her throat tightened. It was a copy of the photo booth pictures they'd taken at the county fair that day. A series of four photos, smiling and laughing, pulling silly faces...kissing. Tamsyn glanced up at Seb, then reached for the tablet.

The Jack she saw was a little unfamiliar. He'd always worn his hair shoulder-length when she'd known him, and he looked a little older. Tamsyn scrolled, skimming over all the familiar charges and stories. But there was an incident dated eight months after he'd died, six months after she'd followed Dr. Phillips to Children of the Sunrise. She frowned. Then choked and covered her mouth, tears springing to her eyes.

She slipped out of Sebastian's lap, setting the tablet back on the table. She shook her head, smoothing her hair back, then covered her mouth again with both hands while she paced. Tamsyn looked at him several times, opened her mouth to explain, then closed it with a choked, squeaky noise and shook her head again while she tried to process not only the fact that Jack was alive, but the onslaught of conflicting emotions that came with that.

She was relieved, but also...wary? Disappointed? It felt like she owed it to him to go back, to try again, to try and get him out of prison. He'd done so much for her.

But he'd also left her holding the bag. 17, pregnant, alone, suspected of another murder. Their relationship had been so volatile, so passionate, so...codependent. She had felt controlled and suffocated sometimes, and had wondered whether he was worth it. But at the same time she had felt deep in her soul that he was the best she would ever have. Ever deserve.

She looked at Sebastian. A muscle worked in her jaw. Finally, she sat down in the chair opposite from him.

Tamsyn took a deep breath. This was going to be a long afternoon.

"Jack Dalloway," she told her knees croakily, still struggling against her tears, "was not my pimp. He was my best friend. He was my do--" She stopped and looked at Sebastian. He didn't want to hear that, not after learning this. "My boyfriend," she corrected, though she knew it was too late. "We met in college, I was a sophomore he was a senior." Which sounded much more innocuous than the bare fact that she'd just turned 15 and he had been nearly 23. "Hit it off immediately. We lived together after a while. He'd cover expenses and I'd pay him back out of what I made. If it was a hard month he'd... help me find work." It was always a hard month. Deep down Tamsyn knew what it had been, but she wouldn't allow herself to see it that way. Couldn't. Not even now. She took a deep breath, still addressing her knees. "He did this." She touched her ribs gently where her tattoo was hidden by her open shirt and the band of her bra. "He didn't mean to. He...it was my fault. He was high, we got in an argument, I lipped off. That's always been my problem. Anyway, I landed against a radiator. He didn't mean to hit me that hard. He um, he OD'd a month later. He had a habit of disappearing sometimes, but he was never gone for more than a week. So I reported him missing after two, and they didn't care. What's one more dead junkie right? Two days later they're dragging me into the precinct, questioning me, wouldn't let me see the body..." She sniffed and wiped quickly at her eyes.

Tamsyn sat in silence for a long moment before she managed to drag her eyes back up to meet Seb's. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you, love," she said, chin trembling. "I...I didn't have enough funding for tuition. I didn't qualify for housing, and students can't be on food stamps. I needed the money, and it made more than I could've ever hoped to make at some goddamn chicken shack, and I was able to work it around my class schedule. There wasn't much of a choice, and when Jack told me about what he'd heard from some girls he knew..." She shook her head. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she repeated. I just...I...there came a point in that first week where I didn't want you to think that I was lying. That I was faking it. I swear to you, I'm not. I wanted you to see me. Well...the me I wanted to be. I didn't want you to see who I really am. I didn't want you to see the desperate baby-killer whore. I didn't want you thinking I was just saying whatever you wanted to hear. I didn't--" Her voice failed her. It was a force of will to find it again, and when she did it was watery and weak and faded in and out. "I didn't want you to ever look at me the way you're looking at me right now."

It was too much. She buried her face in her hands and curled up in her chair, pulling her legs up to where she crouched behind them and leaned her forehead against her knees. The words "I'm sorry" came repeatedly, more breathed than spoken over vocal cords that refused to work.

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Keywords: children, hurt/comfort, loss, death, period piece, reunion

Context: A woman's husband has been away at sea for a decade seeking supernatural cures for their terminally ill daughter, leaving her to raise their five children mostly alone. After being kidnapped by his enemies, she's finally returned home to her family

*CONTENT WARNING:* Crime, death of a child


The Esmerelda did not return to England by way of Spain. They stopped in Morocco before sailing straight for the British Isles then around to the western coast of Ireland. The Sparrows with their loot--all of the things Ching Shih had promised Jenny if she'd stayed--were able to find a taxi to take them to Lahinch, and from there they walked the few miles out to Hags Head and the cozy cottage Jenny had managed to buy with their life savings. Within a few yards of the house she dropped her pack and sprinted toward the door, bursting in to find a surprised Peter and Ion who had been standing together and talking in low voices. Night had fallen hours ago and the children were in bed. Jenny looked wildly at her brother and her friend.

"Anne?" she asked breathlessly.

"Sleeping," Peter said, knowing better than to tease her for not giving a better hello. "But Jen you gotta know, she's--"

Jenny didn't stay to hear what Anne was. She hurried to each door until she found Anne. It wasn't hard to tell: in the darkness her breathing was rattling and labored. Every few breaths the girl was wracked by a wet, hacking cough that made Jenny's lungs ache in sympathy. Quietly she closed the door and went to kneel by her bed and take her hand. A Shadow slipped under the gap in the door and knelt next to her, silent and unseen but shaking as though in laughter.

"Mumma?" Anne wheezed and stirred, shifting in bed.

"Yes, Mummy's here," Jenny murmured, squeezing her hand gently. Her skin was so cold! "And Daddy and Jack are close behind. Not to worry love."

"Mumma I--" She was interrupted by more hacking. The Shadow Thing knelt on her chest--insomuch as Shadow Things can kneel--and snickered as she struggled to breathe. "I'm...so tired..." Anne wheezed once her coughing was done.

"I know, baby," Jenny replied, trying to keep the tears out of her voice even if she couldn't keep them out of her eyes. "Just hang on Anne. Please. You're...you're such a fighter..."
John brought out a stoppered bottle and gave it to Anne. "Please..." Jenny croaked, though even she herself was unsure whether she were begging her husband not to drag this out any longer or her daughter to drink it and give them just a little more time together.

Jenny fell asleep kneeling on the floor, holding her daughter's hand, but awoke in her own bed. Doubtless she'd been carried there by her brother or husband. The smell of breakfast came wafting in and when she'd dressed she found Ion making porridge. From the way he moved familiarly about the kitchen it seemed he'd been helping out for quite some time. Both parents and the children's eldest brother had been gone for eight months, Peter had work and Sarah had her own three children to care for in addition to her nieces and nephews. Jenny supposed help was in order. There was an emotional reunion wherein the twins and baby Stephen--almost two now--gathered around their parents and big brother. The joy didn't last long, however.

Anne had made it through the night and Jenny spent all day at her side. She made it through the next day, too, and the next. For three days Jenny refused to leave her daughter's bedside as her condition grew worse and worse. Her knees ached from kneeling on the hard floor and her throat hurt from singing songs and lullabies, from telling stories and from praying. The Shadow Thing went unseen, prowling around the little girl's bed. On the third day Anne's breathing turned from a wheeze to a rattle and Jenny felt a cold dread pour over her. Anne had been pale for days but now there was a faint yellowish tint to her skin. Without asking because he knew his sister would say no, deny that it was time, Peter sent for Father Simms, the village priest.

"They cut me down and I lept up high," Jenny sang, trying to comfort her daughter and push away her own fears, "for I am the Life that will never, ever die. I'll live in you if you'll live in Me. I am the Lord of the dance, said He."

"Heaven is a beautiful place," Anne said after a few long minutes of silence, trying to take a deep breath then coughing. It took a full three minutes for her to stop: whenever she coughed she would run out of breath and choke, causing her to cough even more. "Daddy...you've done bad things, haven't you?" She turned her head with great effort. "But that's...okay. When I'm in Heaven...I'll ask...Saint Peter to let...to let you in...anyway...coz there's no sin...so big that...that God...can't...forgive..."

It took all Jenny had not to burst out sobbing then and there. "That's right, baby," she croaked, voice cracking from use and tears. "There's no sin too big for God." She stroked Anne's hand almost obsessively and even so it seemed to grow colder.

"I love you Mumma," Anne wheezed, voice no louder than a whisper. "Love you Daddy."

"No..." Jenny croaked. "Anne Mary Sparrow don't you say your goodbyes. Not now."

"I just...I wanna go...to sleep," she whispered. "I'll see you...when I wake..." She managed to push her mouth into a small, weary smile that was more a grimace. "Don't worry...Mommy...I'll always be...safe."

"Okay," Jenny acquiesced, swallowing tears and nodding as though if she did it would be true. "Alright baby. I'll see you when you wake."

A few minutes after Anne fell asleep Father Simms came in to anoint her and perform last rites. Jenny didn't listen, couldn't bring herself to, because if she didn't listen then it wasn't happening. She only said "Amen" after a long look from the priest. Once he'd left she vigilantly watched the rise and fall of her daughter's chest. Fwee was held in the crook of her arm and the twins had relinquished custody of Scraps the sea turtle for their sister's comfort. Rise and fall...and rise and fall...her breaths were getting shallower. Rise....and fall...and...rise...and...fall...Even in her sleep she rattled and coughed weakly. Rise...and...fall...and...

And...

And...

Jenny collapsed off of her aching knees to the floor. Her sobs were all but silent since her voice had finally gone, but sob she did into her arms. Finally her voice came back to produce a long, loud wail of anguish. "My baby!" were the only words she could form, over and over. She wanted to die. Right then and there Jenny wanted to just lay down and close her eyes and never open them again. She had never had her heart broken quite like this and hadn't believed that she would actually be able to feel the pain of her heart shattering into a million tiny pieces. If she could rip it out maybe she wouldn't have to feel it anymore...

For hours she was inconsolable. Even after the sun had gone down and the other children sent to bed crying Jenny refused to leave Anne's room even after the body was taken. It fell to Peter to pray with the young ones and put them to bed. Finally, exhausted and unable to protest her brother carried her to bed. And there she stayed. For days she refused to eat or to leave her bed. It wasn't until the funeral that Jenny finally rose, washed, ate enough to keep her upright, and began to distract herself by caring again for her other children. She tried not to be angry at God and in so doing turned her anger on the weather, which was far too sunny and warm for an October's day, far too cheerful for burying her eleven-year-old daughter.

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[Madam Mim]

Keywords: adultery, affairs, betrayal, period piece, wlw,

Context: An 18th century Countess in a political marriage was tricked into marrying her husband's twin sister. After discovering the switch and processing her feelings she's decided to take her sister-in-law as her wife

She realized she was a little late in coming down to dinner, but he could wait. Doubtless he would leave immediately after to go spend time in the arms of his mistress, so what was the harm in making her wait a few minutes longer? Even as she fumed over the idea she realized that she had a mistress too and was being hypocritical...but Sebastian had taken a mistress first and that was the point! Harnessing her anger she took a deep breath before striding into the dining room.

"So sorry I'm late," she said lightly, sitting down and waving the servants away once they'd placed their meals in front of them. "I was with your sister." Olivia watched her husband out of the corner of her eye as she took a bite. "I had decided to put aside my feelings and invite her here for your birthday as a surprise, since you two are so close. It was too late to ask her not to come when I realized the double life you've been leading." Olivia chewed slowly and set down her fork before looking at Sebastian. She'd practiced this a hundred times in her head, even before Viola had come back.

"All I asked of you was patience, Sebastian, and you couldn't even give me that." Her tone invited no argument as she gazed at him steadily. "All I wanted was for you to give me time to work through things and work up to sharing a bed with you. I was frightened and confused and hurt and just needed time, and you denied me even that. Well...I don't care who she is and I don't want to know. I've known for some time how often you go into the village and come back reeking of cheap perfume and beer and I've made a decision." She straightened her back and drew herself up to her full height sitting down, liquid black eyes boring into him, gauging his reactions as she laid down how things would be. "Don't you dare bring disease into this house, and I'll sire no bastards so you ensure that you don't either. Do I make myself clear?" She didn't wait for an answer before continuing. "I propose we come together on agreed-upon evenings each week or every two weeks--every month; however you'd like it--for the purposes of siring children. Other than that you carry on your affairs and I'll carry on mine. It seems to me that the first incredible month of our marriage was simply a lure, now that I can clearly see that you have no respect for me, for my intellect, or for my feelings. Given that the love I thought was there wasn't, I see no point in being a wife in anything other than name, and I'm sure you know me well enough by now to know that allowing only you to take a lover while expecting me to remain faithful is an unacceptable solution. So I propose we ask for no names of lovers, no details, and show enough respect for this forced but holy institution to discuss finances before buying gifts. Sound fair to you?"

Her tone made it clear she expected no answer other than 'yes,' but she picked up her fork and began eating again while waiting for Sebastian to digest her barrage and decide whether this was an acceptable arrangement to him. Hopefully he would come to the conclusion that she intended to take up male lovers, rather than devoting herself entirely to his sister.

"I'll take no man you know as a lover, and you take no woman I know," Olivia agreed tacitly. She cocked her head to the side and watched him curiously while he ate. "But what makes you think you have no say in the matter?" she asked. "Sebastian I love you--or, at least, the you you used to present to me--and I want you to be happy. Clearly you were unhappy with me taking in everything in my own time, relearning to trust you, figuring everything out, and so you sought out your own happiness. I can't grudge you that." She shrugged. "But you can't grudge me mine, either. I was on my way to repairing that trust, to reconciling what I thought I knew with what was real. But I never have and still cannot tolerate disloyalty and I'm afraid that those fractures are now irrevocable."

Olivia sighed and took a sip of her wine. She did love Viola. She loved how Viola loved her, how she made her feel, how they'd spent their days together. But it really would have been so much simpler if that had all just been Sebastian. As it was, the real Sebastian had made a fool of her.

"You showed no respect for me," she continued eventually, "you made me look foolish and weak. You were disloyal and dishonest, when that and patience were all I ever asked from you. You do get a say in the matter, Sebastian, so tell me: does this arrangement sound unfair to you? I haven't asked who she is, haven't demanded you stop seeing her, I haven't even--and please do correct me if I'm wrong--made a big scene about it. Sebastian, I don't even care whether you fall in love with her or with someone else so long as you sire no bastards. So exactly what say would you like? And I don't ask that rhetorically or sarcastically. I really do want to know." She looked at her husband evenly, genuinely interested in what more he could possibly want. Not to be cuckolded, certainly, but that was off the table. He'd done it first and she wasn't going to allow him to forbid her from her own relationships while he carried on his down in the village like some boor.

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Keywords: affairs, betrayal, discovery, modern, threats

Context: An early-20th century international assassin and her tutor in espionage have kept their affair a secret from the rest of their team. She feels their discovery would be a threat to their lives and will do anything to keep this secret.

"Get in there," Kieran barked, shoving Colin roughly towards the billiards room. He had plans for a certain pool cue. "And don't you fucking dare--"

"--you cry out for me, beg for my pleasure in the middle of the night when you think no one can hear you." Madame LaMonte was on her back, sprawled across the table, her wrists bound and arms stretched awkwardly behind her. Leaning over her with his face in her decolletage, pinning her shoulders to the table and thrusting between her thighs was--

"Oh my God..."

It was a soft curse from behind Kieran's hand but it was apparently loud enough for Madame LaMonte to hear. The pirate wasn't sure he had ever seen her caught quite so off-guard as to be clumsy or disheveled, and it was an unnatural sight. Her eyes were wide and her hair entirely out of place as she tried to use her bound arms to scramble to push herself into a sitting position. The billiards cue bound to her ankles kept hitting Professor Swift in the back of the thighs as she...well, flailed was probably the right word for it.

"Algie," she said as she struggled, unable to think of anything else. "Algernon!" The shock of being caught in such an intimate, compromising position had wiped her mind blank of all training, all composure, all reasonable response. It wasn't what they were doing--a few wives or friends had walked in on her before--so much as with whom she was doing it which was so mortifying.

"I knew it!" It was all the pirate could think to say, rooted to the spot. Madame LaMonte he had seen naked and put into compromising positions plenty of times, but Professor Swift...well, he was practically a monk, wasn't he? And the two of them...?? "I knew you had a--"

"Get out!!"

He had never heard Anne Marie LaMonte shriek like that before, nor had he ever seen her blush when it wasn't carefully calculated. Knowing better than to press his luck, he grabbed Colin by the shoulder and dragged him back out into the hallway, slamming the door behind them. The entire exchange had taken maybe thirty seconds. Kieran stood there in the hallway with a bemused expression. Between the shock and seeing Professor Swift's cock his erection had wilted almost entirely; it was like walking in on your parents, really.

"Well that's..." He wasn't sure what it was. He had always imagined the two of them two professional for casual trysts with coworkers--his had been therapy, of course--and... "Wait, your name is Algernon?" he called through the door. Certainly he had never thought his first name was Professor, but the idea had never occurred to him that he even had a first name, never mind one so stuffy. "I mean--"

"One more word and I shall ensure your unidentifiable body washes out of the Seine in small pieces six months from now." Even through the door Anne Marie sounded mortified.

"Right," he muttered, jerking his head back the way they had come and looking at Colin. "Let's uh...go back to the salon, shall we?"
"No," Anne Marie said quietly, pushing herself all the way up and clinging to Algernon's shoulders. She leaned her forehead on his shoulder, biting on the inside of her lip in an effort to stop the tears from coming. There was no reason to cry, none at all. She should be furious, willing to walk into the salon and shoot them both between the eyes for what they had seen. And she was...but she didn't want to. She couldn't, and she couldn't let Algie do it. She instead felt humiliated, saddened that the secrecy had come to an end, upset that Algernon's dignity had been compromised in front of anyone on the team but most especially in front of them.

"No," she whimpered again, sniffling and still hiding her face in his shoulder. "It isn't f..." Fairness had never been a consideration before. It oughtn't be now. She sniffed and approached it from a different angle. "We should...we should go speak with them. We need the team...we're no good with only half of our backup." It was no good. The tears fell anyway and her fingers dug into his shoulders. "I'm sorry," she sniffed through her tears. "There's no reason for me to...It's...it must be the baby, I...I don't know why..." She gave up on the sentence and let herself sink into him, clinging to him while she sat on the edge of the table until she could gather herself.

~*~

He still knew his drink. Kieran noticed this as he took a gulp or two of whiskey before slowing down. After that sight, he needed something incredibly strong and Colin seemed to automatically remember just how to fix it.

"It...makes a certain sense, does it not?" Colin said shakily. "They were always...close." Kieran nodded slowly, still sipping his drink. "I think," he said, starting again, "that we should say nothing of this. To anyone. Ever."

"Aye," Kieran agreed. "Don't think they'd much appreciate it, or that anyone would ever believe us." He sank into a chair, then bounced to his feet again at the thought that maybe they had...Well, they had an awful lot of downtime together between missions, didn't they? God knew what they had done, or where they had done it. "I think--"

The door burst open and Anne Marie came striding in briskly. Her hair was put back together, her makeup redone, her dress unwrinkled. She took a seat in a wingbacked chair, sinking into it and aiming her pistol at them. Nonchalantly she pulled back the hammer, still aiming it at them, her finger on the trigger.

"If either of you intend to say anything to anyone, even to your own teammates, your own family, tell me now," she said said calmly. "I prefer to have you on your feet, armed, and facing me when I kill you; I think after all the missions we've carried out together I owe the two of you that much."

Kieran raised his eyebrows, a smirk playing at his lips. "Madame, we've been friends for nigh on a decade! You wouldn't--"

"Wouldn't I?" The aim of barrel of the gun moved from between the two of them to squarely between the pirate's eyes, threatening to blow apart the shocked expression. "I know that you and I play our games, Kieran, but believe me when I'm saying that I am not playing now." Madame Fleuriste's voice was calm and measured, soft, but with a deadly serious tone and a steely glint in her eye. "We are not going to pretend that what just happened did not happen. What you two have seen is a threat to me and to whom I hold very dear. Testing the limits to which I am willing to go to protect that will not end well for you, I'm afraid, friends or not."

"I believe you," the pirate said, slowly setting his drink down and holding his hands up near his shoulders. He wasn't going to go for a weapon, not on Anne Marie. Something deep inside didn't believe her, although his brain knew that she had never been one to make idle threats and empty promises. "Let's have some trigger discipline, hey?"

"Are you implying that I do not intend to pull the trigger?" She uncrossed her ankles and sat forward in her seat.

"Not at all," he replied carefully. "I just don't want any nasty accidents is all. Let's just...calmly talk this out."

"Who isn't calm?" Anne Marie's eyebrows rose in mild surprise. She gestured to the sofa with the pistol. "Have a seat then and let us talk, the three of us. Four, if Algernon ever cares to join us." She glanced for a split second at the door before returning to the captains.

"Alright then," Kieran said softly, slowly moving to the couch and sitting with his hands still up. He looked at Colin then jerked his chin towards the cushion next to him. "Let's talk."
"Those are your secrets," Madame Fleuriste countered tersely as Colin smoked perhaps half of a cigarette before stubbing it out, "forgive me for wishing to protect my own. It is not that I do not trust you to keep your mouth shut, but my dear Captain Drake if I figured out your proclivities long before Samantha's indiscretions, what makes you think I have enough confidence that my enemies could not suss it out from you?" In the corner of her eye she saw Algie lean against the door frame, but didn't acknowledge him for now. He had his own style, after all. "As for whether I might be able to shoot you while you attempt to reach for your weapon, well..." She chuckled softly. "I know for a fact you would rather not test that hypothesis."

"Samantha is correct," Algernon Swift remarked. "Your language does become stilted and overly-correct when you are angry."

"She is quite adept at tells, is she not?" Madame LaMonte put in casually. He took a seat next to her and rested his hand gently on her forearm.

"My dear," he murmured, "I believe we can trust Captain Drake to keep his word." A brief pause. "And Captain Shane as well, if he grants it."

"Yeah of course," Kieran agreed quickly, still unable to quite believe that Anne Marie would actually kill him. "I'll take it to my grave. Later rather than sooner, if I get any say about it." He nodded at the gun.

The muscles in Anne Marie's shoulders and face visibly relaxed. Sitting back in her chair, she took her finger off of the trigger, uncocked the gun, and reengaged the safety. The pirate had always had an idea that Professor Swift might hold more sway over her than they let on--particularly from the way she had complained about him when they had gotten drunk together in Bordeaux--but it seemed now as though he was a man holding a tiger upon a very fragile chain. She set the gun upon the small table between herself and the Professor, within easy reach but for now pointed away from them.

"Forgive me," she said with a smile which seamed a little weary. "I wished to ensure you knew the seriousness of this situation. Not that I make empty threats," she added, inclining her head toward the gun. "But I--we both--have very deadly, persistent, unconscionable enemies. To have attachments is to have weakness, and there are a good many people who would give a lot of money to know our weaknesses. I am afraid that trust does not come as easily to me as I may have let on."

"Could've fooled me," Kieran snorted before sitting up and holding up his hands again when she looked sharply at him. "Joking! Jesus Christ..."

"When Erik and Samantha have returned we shall hold a meeting," Anne Marie said after another moment or two of glaring daggers at the pirate. "So far we have not talked about internal fraternization because what the rest of you do is none of our business and we do not report it to the Society. Unless, of course, there is paperwork to be filled out when two agents marry; then we somehow just did not pick up on it until it happened. But not only does Erik deserve to be in the loop, but this is a very...different sort of situation."

"Different how?" Kieran felt at ease enough again to reach for his drink, which he desperately needed.

"Think of it as a security briefing," she replied after some thought. "For it is a matter of security. And if through deliberate action or carelessness there is a leak," she paused to look pointedly at one then the other, "well...you have seen how I handle threats." She smiled and reached for a bell on the side table. "Tea?"
"He does seem rather upset," Anne Marie agreed mildly, still looking where Colin had exited. "He's even forgotten that I am a Marquise, in his quest to be so rigidly formal." She shrugged and shook her head, ringing for tea. "He may take it up with me and speak plainly with me about it if it is truly that upsetting for him. Quite frankly I wouldn't have grudged either of you a similar reaction, had you been in my place." This she addressed to Kieran, who was still sitting gobsmacked across from them.

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Keywords: feisty, future, scifi, technology, trickery

Context: A young 22nd century woman has discovered that she was lied to by the recruiter about citizenship requirements when immigrating to a new planet, and she's been forced into the planet's breeding program

CONTENT WARNING: Mention of sexual assault, imprisonment

Yes she's been lied to! Tamsyn shrieked against the muzzle, but she may as well have not spoken at all. Not even muffled sound escaped. If she'd known she was coming to a planet halfway across the galaxy to be someone's brood mare, she might have considered just taking her chances back home.

The man--Lt. General Faro was what the processing lady had called him--stepped up to her and she had to crane her neck back to look him in the eye. She had always been small to begin with and was used to having to look up at people, but this man had nearly two feet on her and was two or three times as wide. He was older, obviously, but muscle shifted beneath his clothes as he moved and knelt down to her height. She shook stray bits of firey hair out of her face where they had fallen from her long ponytail in the struggle, and kept eye contact his entire way down. Cold steel met hard, unyielding jade and her entire body radiated fury.

"She's my property until her debt is paid," he said, and whatever else he might have added was lost to the rush of blood in her ears. Tamsyn's head was already throbbing, but if she'd thought that headbutting him too would have helped she'd have done it.

But it wouldn't.

Two soldiers who already hated her, one who clearly respected this enormous slab of a man, and of course the man himself. She was outnumbered and out-muscled, and she frankly didn't like her odds at running. Not here, anyway, with plenty of military personnel around and only one exit. Her best bet was likely to be out there, whatever "there" looked like. Or maybe she could sneak out of whatever quarters she was given after he'd left her alone for the night; he had to sleep some time, and from what she'd heard Colony Brides weren't exactly guarded by squadrons of cops. Some of them even signed up just so they could join their husbands and partners already here. Sure, a day of sexual assault wasn't preferable, but it was better than--

Tamsyn's undignified squawk of surprise was, thankfully, lost to the muzzle when Faro grabbed her and slung her over his shoulder potato sack-style. She pounded with her fists on his chest, first cuffed then uncuffed until he grabbed both wrists up in one large, calloused hand. So her boots met his back repeatedly, and once the muzzle came off shrieking protests and profanities commenced even as he left calmly, carrying her as though she were no more than a squirmy kitten. She tried biting again, but the bits of his chest and torso she could reach were not only covered by clothing but also harder and more difficult to grip, layered as they were with toned muscle. She'd also already tired her jaw out on the soft flesh of Private Abel's forearm.

Eventually the fit faded. Blood drained to her head, leaving her dizzy and a little sick, and her pack had slipped up her back and was bouncing against her head with each step. The large men's Army surplus overshirt fell over that and her tank top rode up to expose her midriff, everything lending itself to a very undignified look. Tamsyn had to content herself with gripping Faro's waist for support and digging her nails into him as hard as she could until he finally dumped her into the transport vehicle.

"Fuck you," she spat, folding her arms across her chest and slouching down in the passenger's seat once he'd settled himself. In the time it had taken for him to walk around the vehicle she'd tossed her pack between her knees on the floor and pulled her shirt back down, and felt like she might be taken a little more seriously now. "You know I was scammed and you decide to do this anyway? It's not my fault your dick don't work! Fuck you!"

This was the entirety of the conversation Tamsyn was willing to offer. The rest of the ride she spent in stubbornly taciturn silence regardless of any attempt on Seb's part to make conversation. Instead she chose to stare out the window, taking in her new surroundings. The planet was...well, she should have expected it to be alien, shouldn't she? She'd been to Arizona once and this reminded her of that: dust and rock, plateaus. Flat. There were some mountains, tiny in the distance and capped with what looked like snow, but they rose dramatically and briefly with a flatness around them so flat she could see the curvature of the planet. Only it was all tinged red instead of yellow, and instead of sage and tumbleweed the landscape was dotted with various vining and clustered plants of different colors, like succulents made of pliable stone. Some appeared to be weird flowers at a distance, when they drew near she saw that they were also of the same leathery or stony composition. Rumors on Earth had been that Ararat was a paradise far away from the ruins of climate change and pollution they had been left in on the homeworld when the Powers That Be gave up on saving her and just finding somewhere else instead in what was being tentatively called the New Terran Empire. But this wasn't paradise.

She'd come all this way, just for Alien Arizona.

In the far distance were several enormous glass domes. Ararat had been terraformed extensively in the past few decades, but everyone knew there was still work to do. Those domes were probably the more populated cities, where agriculture and atmosphere to support such dense populations were still being worked out. Mentally she named one--the one with skyscrapers so tall she could make them out even from here--Flagstaff. The other she called Phoenix. As they trucked along a third, much smaller dome appeared over the horizon and that became Needles. Alien Arizona. Fuck.

Finally they slowed and turned off of the highway track, winding through a canyon dotted with homes set into the canyon walls, then up a steep incline until they came to the top of a plateau. A single, large home was up here and Tamsyn stared. The transport door opened automatically and she slid out, hoisting her bag back up onto her shoulders, and stood staring at the smooth stone and glass, the hint of greenery on one side that indicated potentially a garden. She blinked, then shook her head and took a deep breath.

"Well then..." Tamsyn took a step forward as though to go voluntarily to her doom, before immediately pivoting and sprinting for the edge of the plateau toward the incline they'd just come up. Her lungs burned as she tried to outrun her captor. If she could lose him in the canyons she could find help and--

And she found herself promptly knocked on her ass at the edge of the plateau. She blinked, dazed, and pushed herself into a sitting position in time to see a sparkle of blue fade into nothing. Tamsyn hadn't even noticed that Faro hadn't run after her. She pushed herself to her feet and tried the incline again, but her boot hit something solid. She kicked, hard, and the forcefield glittered at the point of impact. She could see the way out and the world beyond. It was right there! But she tried again and it was like kicking a concrete wall. She pounded her fist against it and a glint caught her eye. She turned her attention to her rolled-up sleeve and the puncture wounds that hadn't yet had time to heal. They, too, glinted blue whenever she hit the field.

An invisible fence, she realized. I'm trapped like a fucking dog!

Tamsyn screamed.

Wildly she pounded and kicked at the forcefield, screaming and swearing and venting her tearful anger on what she knew would never give until she was exhausted. She slumped to her knees, pounding weakly one last time with the flat of her fist on that fucking wall before letting her hands fall into her lap. She stared at her scraped knuckles, her dirty nails, her dusty clothes...and wished Flynn had managed to kill her.

No.

The word was cold and solid, and came to her like someone else speaking in her ear. It was a voice she'd heard often enough before, when she was tired of running, tired of fighting, and tired of being so exhausted. She hated that voice sometimes.

You got through that, you'll get through this too. Get off your ass, get in the house. Get some food and some sleep, and start over again tomorrow. There's a way out of this. There's always a way out.

She sighed. The voice of reason, of pure survival instinct, of the will to go on even if it was just out of sheer cussedness, was right. It was always right. Even when she'd been a razor or a bullet away from just getting out of all this bullshit, it was right. Tamsyn swallowed hard and wiped her eyes, though there were still tear tracks left in the dust on her face, and forced herself to her feet. One foot in front of the other. One day at a time. If that's what this would take, that's what she would do. Her boots and her pack weighed her down like lead as she trudged back to Faro, then past him to the house.

"So, where's my room?" she asked dully, standing in the foyer. She was impressed with the house, but determined not to show him that. For all he knew, she had lived in nothing but mansions that took up entire blocks back home. Right, because that's the kind of woman who comes here. She turned to look at him. "Or do I sleep in your bed and play wifey?"

Faro took a step forward, intentionally towering over her. Tamsyn looked up to stare him in the eye, but planted her feet and squared her shoulders to stand her ground. Plenty of motherfuckers had tried the I'm-taller-than-you game before and if this gorilla-looking motherfucker thought he was any different-- "You're not a wife. You're my property here to give me a child. So I'll take you wherever I want."

She didn't realize she was going to hit him until she already had. Three punches in rapid succession, straight to the gut, with the stance and technique of an experienced street brawler; the blows landed solidly, but it was pointless against the wall of muscle. All she succeeded in doing was jamming her bad wrist. Again. Faro stared down at her. She stared back defiantly, jutting out her chin.

The backhand was, for him, merely a swat. Tamsyn, on the other hand, staggered and blinked away the reflexive tears. She sniffed away the urge to sneeze from the sting of the blow, shook her head, then squared herself against him but didn't try it again. She recognized a warning when she felt one. Instead she narrowed her eyes and grabbed her own hand, pulling and twisting to unjam her wrist with a nasty crack without breaking eye contact.

"Feel better, big man?" she sneered. Yes, she had started it. Yes, he had finished it. But surely size and circumstance had to count for something.

"There's no need for us to share a bed," he continued as though nothing had happened. "You have no assigned duties other than to be impregnated and carry to term. Although it's my right to demand you remain a year for formative care after a successful birth if I desire." He let the humiliating reality of her situation hit like the brick it was. "Now, I'll show you where you can settle in."

…

The enclosure was anything but little. It was again an effort for Tamsyn to keep her mouth shut when she stepped into her room, then ventured into the bathroom and out again. All that was missing was a kitchenette to make it like her apartment back home. No...it was bigger than her apartment, and much nicer. Hell, the bathroom alone probably had half the square footage of her entire basement studio. She noted a bit more softness to Faro's tone when he told her that this would be her sanctuary, her private retreat, so long as she didn't use it to keep him from...

From raping me.

A gilded cage was still a cage. She swallowed hard and shook her head at the mention of ART. "I don't do robots," she said. "Not the humanoid ones. Gives me the creepy-crawlies. If I need 'em I'll tell 'em to just put whatever it is outside my door." When he informed her that they didn't have to meet except when he took her, Tamsyn finally turned to look at him again. Finally, he introduced himself. "I know your name, Sebastian Faro." She said his name like she was spitting out a poison. "And if you want me to at least not hate you, try not to fucking refer to it as taking me, deal? And you don't need to threaten me: I'm here. I'm trapped. There's a limited fucking number of places I can run or hide, and you know the terrain a hell of a lot better than I do. I don't have the fuckin' energy for hide-and-seek rape, do you?" She stared him down, noticing the microscopic cringe around the corners of his eyes at the word. It was the first time either of them had said it aloud.

But he didn't dignify it with a response. "Do you have any questions for me?" he rumbled.

"I get to decorate this place the way I want?" she gestured around. At his affirmative, she nodded. "I'll get you a list in the morning." If he was paying for everything, she would waste every cent he had on her every whim if she had any say about it. It only seemed a fair trade. "When's dinner? I'm fucking starving." Eighteen hundred. Dinner. Dessert. Rape. Lovely. She didn't allow her expression to change. "Good. Now get the fuck out. I need a shower." She tossed her pack sullenly on the floor at the foot of the bed, kicked her boots off next to the bag, then shrugged off her overshirt on her way to the bathroom. This left her in cargo pants, her tanktop with a purple sports bra visible underneath, and a pair of colorful but mismatched socks. She unbuckled the ragged friction belt holding her pants up, but paused at the bathroom threshold and looked over. "Whaddyou got cotton in your fuckin' ears? Is this my sanctuary or not? I told you to get the fuck out! Close the door behind you."

She slammed the bathroom door and locked it before letting her pants fall and turning on the shower. After stripping she examined herself in one of the large mirrors. Burn marks from the taser prongs marred her pale, freckled back. Other scars and marks from a rough life--her pre-academic life--puckered her biceps and thighs. Two particularly large and nasty scars--one on her ribs, and another along her spine--had been covered by art of her own choosing. Flynn had thought that tattoos on women were distasteful, that they were mutilating their God-given beauty with ugly, whorish cave drawings valued only by primitive savages.

Well. Fuck that dimestore Manson, anyway.

Tamsyn pulled out her hair tie, letting her hair fall to her hips, and stared at her own face in the mirror. It...didn't seem like it belonged to her. Like she was looking through the eye holes of a mask, and the face staring back was one she was just wearing for a little while. Her jaw clenched and she tried to look away, but couldn't. She tasted metal and her chest heaved, and she was forced to press a hand against the mirror to support herself as her vision darkened and narrowed to a pinprick. Still hyperventillating, she crawled her hands along the wall until she found the stone and grout of the shower. Carefully she lowered herself to her knees, then sat on the floor of the shower, letting the water rush over her until she finally came to herself. She was sobbing uncontrollably. She wasn't certain when she'd started doing that, nor when she had pulled her knees up to her chest under the flow of water.

It was only after she got out of the shower, over an hour later, that she realized the distant but constant screaming had been her.

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