It was late November 2015. I was 51 and one year past my divorce (which was not related to cheating) when I became so disgusted with myself that I knew I had to pick myself up. I was alone for the long holiday, and although I wasn't really sad or lonely, I felt empty. However, I had some extra time to consider how does one picks oneself up.
I made a list of potential New Year resolutions that were individually realistic. Some were really easy and stupid like “have your chipped front tooth fixed” and “take & post a selfie”. These smaller tasks fueled my confidence and provided the energy boosts needed to tackle the more challenging resolutions, like starting a weight loss challenge at work.
Skip ahead to March 4th 2016. I had a Friday lunch date with a married client that I met two weeks prior. Of course, it was not a real date, as I wouldn't impose myself on a married woman, nor would I risk my career or my ego, especially if the signals she seemed to be sending were just a product of my wishful thinking, stimulated by checking off some boxes on the list on the fridge dated 1/1/16.
The following is my thank you note to her for a great date as well as for helping me check a lot of boxes over the past few weeks. I sent her a link to it as it is in the form of my first ever online post (one more check box, YAY!).
************************************** We were only 1 minute in the hotel room; her jeans in a ball on the floor. She sat at the foot of the king sized bed and backed her way into the stack of oversized pillows lining the headboard. I followed as If attached by a leash. I landed somewhat awkwardly on my elbows between her legs finding myself squarely face to face with the tattoo. This tattoo, that she so shamelessly revealed just a week ago, the same tattoo that has been scorching my thoughts and the same tattoo that she promised me complete and unlimited access.
It’s been a long time since I have been here or anywhere near as nice as here, between the legs of a beautiful woman 20 years younger and far out of my league....even when I was her age. I took a second to drink in my fortunate situation. I admired her panties. All day I was so hoping she would wear those same panties as before. She didn’t. These were different but similar enough. The delicate lace and silk perfectly framed the tattoo on her hip. She did not disappoint. There is a fruity jasmine scent, intoxicatingly pleasant, and oh so subtle. It is not here. I’ll need to find its source. I want more of that. (I remember being thoroughly impressed and thinking to myself “This girl is good”.)
I briefly forgot that there was someone else here besides myself and the tattoo. How long have I been down here perving out on her? I wondered. I hesitated, and then apologetically looked up half expecting a well-deserved snarky glare. What I found instead was an ear to ear compassionate smile followed by a tilt of her head and an arch of her eyebrow that said “I like that you like that, carry on”.
With confidence restored that we were still in sync, I adjusted myself so that I was in a good position to thoroughly enjoy what I came to do. I kissed the tattoo hard and gave it a good lick. The challenge for today was “Taste the Tattoo” and I won. I did a small celebration gesture that she rolled her eyes to. I continued to kiss and taste all around until every freckle got some personal attention. As I got to the upper most reaches of her inner thighs, I looked up to check in as I was about to cross a new line. For the first time she was not looking back at me but had laid her head back deep into the pillows, her eyes closed. I took that as a yes!
I marveled at the softness of her inner thighs on my cheeks as I gently placed kisses up one and down the other. As I kissed her through her panties, her hips responded by arching her up in anticipation of each next kiss. Before long, those wonderful panties were just getting in the way. I stopped and pondered whether to just slide them aside or remove them or to risk interrupting the mood and attempt a complete wardrobe removal as we were both still fully dressed except for her jeans.
I didn’t have to ponder long as she knew what she wanted and it was not any of the options I was considering. Still lying back with her head semi submerged within the pillows, she held out her arms as if gesturing for a hug. I moved up her body and when I got close enough she pulled me in for a kiss.
Unbelievably, this was our first kiss. I found it odd that we had not kissed yet and was grateful she thought to stop for a moment to have a kiss. We kissed some and then I settled in to thoroughly enjoy it. However, the kiss to come was not the kiss I was expecting or a kiss I was ready for. It was a kiss that could ruin everything.
Technically, there was one kiss before. It was an awkward kiss 5-10 minutes earlier just after we entered the room. All in about the time it took for the hotel door to close behind us, she tossed her bag on the sofa, had her jewelry off and set on the nightstand while I emptied my pockets and silenced my phone.
We approached each other, and as we met I was looking at the place where the tattoo would be under her shirt and behind her jeans. They were higher cut and could not be pulled down that far to get to the tattoo. They would have to come off. To just reach in and do that would be an uncharacteristically bold move for me. But I did have unquestionable permission to have the tattoo in any way that I desired. I reached down with both hands and took hold of the waistband on each side of the button. I didn’t see her simultaneous move in at me at first. Just as I felt the metal of the button, I felt her reaching her arms around my neck and realized that she was tip toeing up for a kiss. It caught me unexpectedly and I think it showed on my face that it did. I tried to recover and moved back in to accept her lips on to mine but it turned into an awkward peck.
I scolded myself for the selfish moment and just as I was trying to formulate a recovery gesture, she, without missing a beat, gently dismissed my fumble and gracefully restored the momentum. “Oh” she said with surprise in her tone, while looking down at my fingers ready to release her button. Then, in a more playfully quizzical tone, she followed with “I guess you want to get right to THAT then” and she stepped back away from me where I lost grip of her jeans. She replaced my fingers on the button with hers, paused, maybe waiting for me to look up to her eyes, which I finally did, then flashed me a devilishly naughty smile and pulled her jeans down to the top of her boots. She then proudly announced, mostly to herself, “You really are going to let me have fun with you, aren’t you!” seemingly shedding any doubts in her mind that I would go through with this. She then sat at the foot of the all white linen king sized bed, removed her boots and jeans and backed her way into the stack of oversized pillows lining the headboard.
Back to our kiss. The kiss that from now on I will reflect on as our first kiss
Responding to her hug gesture, I moved up her body and when I got close enough she pulled me in for a kiss. I didn’t flub it this time, but again, I didn’t know it was coming, and prolly I should have. It took only ten seconds to adjust and synchronize to each other’s kissing form. It was warm and succulent and sweet and was wonderful. I really was surprised at how nice this felt. I don’t recall married kissing being this enjoyable. I remember saying to myself “Damn, this girl can kiss”.
I was on top, in a position that wasn’t going to be comfortable for as long as I wanted this to last, so I backed away to reposition but she held tight indicating she didn’t want me to move. I gestured at the space next to her and she relented. We then settled in facing one another side by side; her smile confirming that this was a nice place. We were hugging and kissing, pulling each other closer and looking into each other’s eyes. Our legs intertwined and our hands were roaming, but not really in a sexual way, more like trying to make as much body contact as possible. I couldn’t get over how I felt so much more familiarity than there was. What I did not recognize at the time was that this was the physical intimacy catching up to match the virtual intimacy we have been sharing online.
Soon the intensity escalated and it was getting very hot very quickly. The intensity and passion that was building was not something I ever expected or planned for. This was the rare kind of making out where accidental hickeys happen and inadvertent “Oh god I love you’s” slip out. Not that either of those was going to happen but my safe, non-committal no emotional strings encounter was getting too hot to not risk introducing emotions into the situation. And that could happen.
At some point I was no longer kissing her lips and mouth but was kissing her.
I broke contact to catch a breath and maybe get some control of the fire. We stopped for a moment to breathe and cool off. She slid herself on top and I rolled over on to my back to accommodate her. She looked at me with eyes that appeared to agree that it was a good time to slow it down. She closed her eyes and she seemed to enjoy that I was rubbing her back with both hands that I slipped up under her shirt. She presented her lips for me to kiss and then her cheek for the same, then neck and ear and lips again. Her long hair had fallen down around us, surrounding our faces like a vail creating a tiny private and even more intimate space. Inside here it was darker and the temperature and humidity rose quickly. We were breathing each other’s breath between kisses. All of a sudden I noticed that Jasmine was back. Not subtle this time, but deep and fulfilling. I loved it.
This fragrance stuff really works. The next morning just after waking up, I caught an unexpected subtle whiff on my skin under my watch and my heart jumped by 20 beats. Who’d a thunk it possible?
The passion was building again but since I was aware and cautious now, I wanted to enjoy and go with it. I thought I could keep it measured and I did for a while as it does take two. The kissing slowed to half and so did the passion. However, the rest of our bodies started to make up for it and the touching evolved into the sexual. She was still on top of me and my hands were exploring and squeezing on her panty covered butt, then under and in those panties. Her body contact became more targeted as she was now very deliberately mashing her fun stuff all over my fun stuff. The kissing subsided but replaced with the audible accompaniment of her squeaks, moans and quicker breathing timed with her mashing I was no longer in control. The passion was under control but being replaced with something intimately erotic.
I abruptly escaped by gently rolling her over on to her back then getting up and knelling between her legs. I took a moment to catch my breath and wanted to say “That is getting WAY too intimate. Can we get naked and have sex now?” However, I tugged at her panties and said something dorky like “can we take these off now?” Yes, we were still both fully dressed except for her jeans
Since I am the kind of guy who doesn’t kiss and tell, (well, only tells about the kisses) and this is not the forum for it, I am not going to talk about the sexy part over the next 30 minutes. I will tell you that we did finally each get ourselves unceremoniously naked and then the sexy part finishes where it started, with me finishing all over that beautiful tattoo. Of course I did a small celebration gesture that she rolled her eyes to.
*************************************************
Cuddle time. Our snapchats leading up to this encounter were heavy on the anticipation and buildup but didn’t contain a lot of detail about or define what stuff would happen during our “fun” time together.
Me: “Ok then, tomorrow lunchtime, I’m in.”
Her: “OMG Are you saying that you are REALLY going to come here and let me have fun with you?
Me: “I’m REALLY going to come there. I am REALLY going to fully inspect that tattoo, as well as the neighborhood where the tattoo lives.
Her: “I so can’t wait to get my hands on you.”
Me: “WOW….Now that this is real and going to happen, my heart is beating so hard that I am afraid that people can see it through my shirt.”
Her: “You have to tell me, are you being SERIOUS right now? You can’t say this and not show up. It’s OK if you are teasing, but you have to say so that you are now….not tomorrow!!!”
Me: “I am SERIOUS and I PROMISE I will be there. You have gotten to me, BAD. All week with the way we have been talking..err..I mean snapchatting; I can’t get you out of my head. Then today with those tattoo snaps you sent; I can’t get up from my desk. LOL…..NOT kidding NOT teasing.”
Her: “I am BAD, and I like having FUN. I am going to have so much fun with you!!!”
************************************************
The only specific things I recall us acknowledging we would do with our “fun” was tattoo inspection and cuddle time. So as soon as cleanup from sexy time was done we both knew what time it was. For me, as good as the inspection was the cuddle was better. Just as during the sexy time we changed things up and we got to cuddle many ways. We started face to face full contact hugging just like our kissing time with some but less kissing and more being in the moment.
We were still hot (temperature hot now) and sweaty so that didn’t last long. She turned over and we spooned some. I was still craving full body contact but it was still so hot that we had to separate a bit. No contact spooning if you will, with just my one hand caressing her exposed shoulder and arm and hip with an occasional butt cheek squeeze.
It was about that time that we had our first ever personal conversation. On the project there were lots of flirty banter and some personal stories but almost always as part of a group. We had many phone calls and a few project meetings with just us two but never did the conversation get personal. Until now the only personal talks (Chats) we have had have been via Snapchat. I don’t recall who asked the first question of the other, but it was like a dam broke and we started filling in the details of our lives, our feelings and all the things we chatted about.
There was a lot to tell and we were giddy like children (child) best friends re-meeting on the first day of school catching each other up on our summer vacations. At one point she had something compelling to say and faster than a fish out of water she flipped back to facing me so she could gesture with her hand and punctuate through her expression. She landed close. Closer that I think she meant to at first and just a bit awkward I felt. But I was wrong. She didn’t back up an inch. I really couldn’t see her hand but I could feel that she was using it in the 2 to 4 inches of space between our chests. Her face was right into mine. She would lean back or up just an inch when she wanted me to see her eyes or smile or frown for emphasis, then settle back into the pillows with our foreheads or noses or cheeks touching. It was the farthest thing in the world from awkward.
If there was a recurring theme for the day it would be HOT; in every sense and synonym of the word. Again, it was getting too sweaty to remain that close. This time she broke contact to catch a breath and escape the heat. We stopped talking for a moment to breathe and cool off. She sat up, crawled to, and grabbed the (sexy time) clean-up towel that was at the far foot of the bed. She turned around so that she was kneeling facing me as she brought the towel up to her chest to absorb the beads and drips of sweat that had accumulated. As I watched, I again thought of my great fortune to be right here right now feeing what I feel and seeing the beauty before me. She pushed the towel down across her belly button and it fell into her lap.
I observed the soft sunlight reflecting off the white sheets, the white towel, and the white pillows bathed her in perfect light creating just a hint of subtle shadows in all of the right places on her angelic white skin. I started consciously taking photos with my mind. I wanted to capture every nuance and note every detail. I don’t know if I will ever be here again.
I don't recall if my next realization was comprehended in a split second, or if it took ten seconds to develop, but a terrible fear washed over me that for the first time in forever, she was beyond my touch and her next action might be to look for her panties or go jump in the shower. We were after all, deep into the second hour of her hour long lunch.
As I was preparing myself for the pain soon to come, I couldn't understand where it was coming from. I had the BEST DAY EVER, but I felt like an exhausted child who just watched the Disney fireworks finally and knows what that means.
What the hell? What is happening in my head? I don't even know this girl, let alone have feelings for her beyond she made my dick feel good at lunchtime.....and, I guess my ego is healthier since I met her. I have not cheated on my diet since she turned on the flattery the week before. I was sure it had to be somehow manipulative, but I hoped that if only a 5% chance it wasn't AND she liked me AND her mom was single, made it easy to keep my snacking to peas & carrots.
My self esteem has been skyrocketing too, as I have been checking a lot of boxes on my refrigerator. LOL, so many in fact, that I have been adding things to the list after they happened that I didn't dare put on it as they seemed pretty unobtainable just two months before. "Get sent a nude selfie, check. Have the confidence to send one back, check. Take a hottie 32 year old client out to lunch and fuck her brains out, check.
Did I just discover that I like girls who make my self esteem feel good more than I like girls who make my dick feel good?
Shit, that wasn't even on my top ten list. Smart, funny, pretty, Kind, whatever is the opposite of bitchy, fun in bed, boobs and/or an age appropriate figure is always nice, curious, someone you can trust to see you at your worst. Before today, "genuinely being a boost & support of my self esteem" was 10th.
Then BAM. I was hit in the face with the towel. Damn girl, I hope you can handle a spanking because I was just on the verge of making an interpersonal discovery of some importance over here, I thought to myself. I noticed the slightest or possibly mock look of concern on her face as she asks "you're not having any regrets or second thoughts over there are you?". I reflexively replied "Oh god no". Then with some emphasys, I continued "today was incredible. I REALLY needed this and you were PERFECT, thank you".
Again she did not disappoint. She crawled to the top of the bed on the far side and then to me over the pillows and laid down at a 90 angle to me on her stomach parallel to the headboard with her head nearly right on top of mine. She propped herself up a bit on her elbows and we kissed deeply. It was nice.
I made a few attempts to shake my internal drama, get out of my head and get back to my goal of picking my self up after my divorce. Oops, I mean back to pleasing a beautiful woman who clearly was not yet done having her fun with me. The emotional rollercoaster ride over the last hours, days & weeks completely blew out my brains ability to generate or absorb endorphins or whatever happens in a situation like this. Shortly after we had joked around while showering together, kissing goodbye (just like when I kissed my endorphin killing ex wife) and going on back to our separate lives.
I drove the hour or so home, brought my dog to the park and had healthiest and happiest cry I ever had. I don't know what I was feeling or why, but I was feeling again and it brought me much relief and contentedness.
We texted a bit that evening confirming that we each enjoyed our time together and agreeing that we should do that again sometime. The next day, Saturday, her husband took their 5 & 8 year old sons somewhere for the day. We checked in with each other again over text and chatted some about our lunch but the spark or excitement we usually had was not the same.
I reached out again that evening and asked if she was in a place that we could talk on the phone. She resisted but did call me (our first personal phone call). It took her 24 hours to let her cry bubble up. It turns out that our emotional experiences were remarkably similar, albeit from different perspectives.
She much later reveals that she felt emotionally dead for her hubby. She evolved to a bad place where she wanted fuck anyone but her hubby but still fucked him twice a week and had to appear happy to do it, killing her brain chemistry.
We rode the best and worst roller coaster in the world for 6 or 8 months....until the the Cocaine eventually wore off or the unobtainable became obtainable and it wasn't the the same rush for either of us any longer. She was the closest thing to a drug addiction that I ever felt. I never wanted anyone or anything like I wanted her.
My hope is that this story helps one person answer the question "Why the hell would he/she risk giving up their wonderful & loving family for an hour with a douchebag or a skank?"

Player Character

Basic Information

Reddit Account: u/a_dolf_in
Discord Tag: ArcElliott
Name and House: Olivia Redwyne
Age: 26
Cultural Group: Andal
Appearance: Olivia has a very confident aura around her at all times, the result of just being in charge and often being the only competent person for miles around for more than a decade. In typical Redwyne fashion, she has red hair and her eye colour sits somewhere between green and blue (depending on the light). Her hair is long, reaches down to her lower back, and is usually braided in some way to keep it tame. Other than that, she is of average height and has a very hourglass-figure.
Trait: Mariner
Skill(s): Admiral (e), Cunning, Tactician, Malicious
Talent(s): Sommelier, Drawing, Gymnastics
Negative Trait(s): -
Starting Title(s): Grand Admiral of the Arbor
Starting Location: opening feast
Alternate Characters: -

Biography

Olivia was born in the year before the conquest to Osric and Joanna Redwyne, as their second child. In the very next year, Osric would be fatally injured by dragonfire at the Field of Fire, and pass before he could even be brought to a maester. Therefore, the young Redwyne never really knew her father, but both her and her older brother would soon be adopted by their uncles Simon and Lucas, the latter of which their mother Joanna would then marry and have another child with.
It is usually said that every Redwyne is born with a natural inclination towards the sea. For Olivia that turned out to be much stronger than for most others, and was only further reinforced each time one of her uncles took her along on a journey across the Arbor Strait or on some journeys south. What started as jokingly giving her command during a trip once, quickly turned into a lot of surprise for the crew when the then 6-year-old began barking orders as if she had spent four decades at sea. With each journey she was progressively given more and more responsibilities until she eventually commanded her own ship. In that regard she was outpacing her brother Clovis massively.
She was 14 when her brother Clovis, then Lord of the Arbor, ran off to Essos. Within the week she was on board of her ship sailing east in order to find him and bring him home. Unfortunately for her that happened to be precisely when the fighting was going on in the Stepstones, and upon request by Queen Rhaenys she was forced to partake in the fighting first, giving her brother more than enough time to get lost somewhere in the eastern continent.
So, for about four years she sailed from town to town giving chase until she finally caught his trail and chased him down in Qarth, drunk out of his mind, in the courtyard of some local magister. She quickly put him on a ship and sailed back to the Arbor with him.
The following years proved rather uneventful. There was the occasional Ironborn party which came too close to the island for comfort and needed to be met with force. An occasional escort for some trade convoy. Most of the time, however, she spent tending to her family’s lands whenever Clovis again decided to sail to Essos on “business”. Whenever he overstayed, it was her duty to go and fetch him again.

Timeline

Family Tree

· Osric Redwyne, deceased, father
· Joanna Redwyne, 52, mother
o Clovis Redwyne, 31, brother - AC
o Olivia Redwyne, 26 - PC
o Lydia Redwyne, 21, cousin/half-sister
· Simon Redwyne, 55, uncle
· Lucas Redwyne, 52, uncle/step-father???

Supporting Characters

Samuel Bellamy – Master-at-Arms
Henry Avery – Ship Captain

Auxilary Character

Basic Information

Name and House: Clovis Redwyne
Age: 31
Cultural Group: Andal
Appearance: For lack of a better word, Clovis Redwyne looks very polite. He’s got the typical red Redwyne hair and blue eyes, along with soft curves to his face. He’s got a short beard which is just the result of him too often being too lazy to just shave properly. Along with that his cheeks also have a bit of a red tint to them as he is often at least a little inebriated. He is a bit taller than average and surprisingly fit considering his lifestyle, but that stems mostly from him just walking so damn much.
Trait: Numerate
Skill(s): Scrutinous, Broker, Apothecary
Talent(s): Sommelier, Merchant, dodging responsibilities
Negative Trait(s): -
Starting Title(s): Lord of the Arbor
Starting Location: opening feast
Alternate Characters: -

Biography

Clovis was born a few years before the conquest. He was the firstborn and heir of Osric Redwyne so, naturally, the man built up a very close bond with his son. Unfortunately, it did not take long for him to die. And while the young lordling still had a loving mother and two pretty cool uncles, he was still undeniably left with some deep-rooted emotional issues. Putting him in a castle with the largest wine reserves on the continent was never going to end well.
He was a bright kid, skilled with numbers writing, but while his younger sister was out sailing with her uncles, he was in the cellars getting absolutely steaming, shitfaced, three sheets to the wind, plastered, buckled, bollocksed, flutered, scuttered, rotten, tit-faced drunk. Many attempts were made to keep him sane and safe, but somehow, he always managed to get his hands on some wine to self-destruct with. Sometime during all this, someone in the family got the bright idea to arrange a marriage for him, hoping that a wife would somehow make him get his life back on track.
It backfired, and a week before the arranged wedding was to take place, Clovis and some of his friends got on board of a ship and fled Westeros. However, the journey did very soon become a big mess, as none of those present were skilled sailors and managed to get stranded somewhere near Volantis. Surprisingly, it was this event which put his life on A track, not the right track, but A track. He was still a Redwyne, and Wine was still in his blood, both figuratively and literally, so in Essos he found a use for his talents, by becoming a renowned wine merchant. He would travel from Free City to Free City, from vineyard to vineyard, tasting and trying and buying and selling some of the best and most interesting wines there were.
His renown even got him as far as the gates to the jade sea, where he was hired by a magister of Qarth to obtain wine for a feast the man planned to host. It is there that his younger sister eventually found him and brought him back to Westeros to actually be the Lord of the Arbor in more than just name.
With all being said, he was actually rather decent at the job too. Well, liked by his people, competent enough, and crucially, a very skilled wine merchant. A combination of these managed to bring a time of prosperity to the island province.
In the years which followed, he would still frequently travel to Essos but also to major wine-producing areas of Westeros to do the same thing he had done before: taste and try, buy and sell the best and most interesting wines out there.

Hello guys, I am 20 M from Cyprus and I started my laser hair removal journey back in December. I have done my 6th session back in 30th of April where I have to reschedule my next session in 3-4 weeks from then. But the thing is, I don't want to, it's a bit expensive and i want to spend my money on something else. Plus, I need some break from the burning sensation. The question is, will my hair regrow back to it's normal length and thickness? I can say that I don't get much hair anymore in most areas ( except my behind because it was like a jungle ) and I only have some patches of hair on my legs that I wouldn't mind shaving every now and then. Please let me know, I don't want my money to go to waste, I spent almost 1000 for these sessions and I would be devastated if my hair just regrows back long and thick.
EDIT: My treatment areas were Bikini, Buttocks, Legs, Underarms, Nipples, Tummy, and Mustache

I 23(F) worked for an 80(M) Dentist for about 3 years, and what I observed and endured as an employee during that time traumatized me and made me quit dental assisting in general, not because I didn't like it but because I loved it just not the dentist and I'm going to just break it down the best I can.
Starting off this specific dentist is really well known in my city, he has been practicing for 50 years now. However not much has changed in that 50 years. His office is so old that patients will come in from 1989 and say how not a single thing has been updated or changed. The floor is carpeted with rotting wood underneath and he just doesn't care. He has like creepy dolls all around the office and creepy clowns. I almost feel like he won't change anything because he wants to still feel like he's in his prime like it's the 80's/90's still.
He denies the fact that he's getting older, he says he is 44 years old when physically and literally he is not. So maybe this is some type of symptoms of a disorder. This is just some background so you can understand the full picture.
So he only hires women of lighter complexions, also certain body size, small not to skinny but curvy but not too big. You have to have long blown out hair that's always fixed, his old rule used to be that you could not wear your hair up bc it's not appealing to him. Also you can't wear glasses for the same reason. If you were trying to get a girl to work there he would have to see a picture of her first and she couldn't have tattoos or "bad teeth" even though he would put braces on staff members for free and I witnessed that, if it was "too much" the person would be a no for him. Even having a simple nose ring was against his rules.
I started working for him when I was 19 turning 20. So I was pretty young and didn't really realize until later that all of this was just so toxic and it gets worse.And so when I found out my pregnancy was healthy I announced it and they decided to not train me on patients for pretty much my entire pregnancy because they thought i would just have my baby and leave
After being post partum and working while also being a first time mom to a baby, I begin to lose a lot of weight because I guess I was stressed. I went from being my normal weight 135 to 116 pounds.
The doctor would comment on my body and say things about my weight loss in front of patients. It made me very insecure and uncomfortable two things I have never felt in my life at a job. I started to have body dysmorphia from working for this man. When he looked at me it felt as if he was staring through me and picking me apart. And no one should I have to feel like that in the work place.
I fell into a deep depression because feeling like I can't go find a new job because as terrible as it sounds, I was attached to the toxic abuse cycle there. He would love bomb and compliment you so heavily that you almost felt bad for thinking of leaving cuz he was so old. He would say things like how much he loved your personality, you were the best employee, best with patients. It was definitely creepy. Also I felt as if I were to try to leave he would be upset or it felt like I was breaking a trusted bond. So I continued working and things...got worse
Enough about my personal experience but now for the patients.The doctor treated each patient nothing more than a dollar sign. Unless they were a known person in the community, a family friend, he would give them treatment but if they had questions or concerns about their teeth he would be very dismissive, and if they argued back he would pretty much belittle them and make them feel like they were stupid for asking a question. Saying what they wanted was "impossible" because that's "the way their teeth were". I watched him take braces off of patients and their teeth were still not aligned properly, I watched him accidentally set a patient on fire, I watched him give a girl bone loss, she lost her tooth because of something he did incorrectly.
Not to mention his entire staff has not been to any type of dental school, every single person hired basically with no experience. I was told because he couldn't "afford it", yet the man has multiple million dollar homes and luxury cars....
To even scam us further he sent us to take a super lax unsupervised "test" that he said would make us certified assistants. Came to find out that was nothing more than a piece of paper.
Not to mention probably more things he has done, like practicing half blind, also urinating on himself daily and it being reported and nothing done about it.The sterilization was absolutely horrifying. Their method is not to use an autoclave but to throw all dirty instruments in a basket and throw them in an old machine that had sterilization and water and put them through an oven baking them.
Also cold sterile which was not monitored properly, and did not soak for 24 hours. Sometimes 5-10 minutes. I just got so tired of not only him being misogynistic, but not caring for health and safety of patients, or even staff members.
And the rest of the current staff members, my heart does hurt for them for them to be in this kind of abusive cycle for so long and not want to remove themselves and realize they deserve better. This kind of environment should not be normalized. And I've watch him say god awful things about every single one of them behind their back and it's honestly sad. Why would you stand by this especially for the incredibly low amounts of pay.
Making yourself look weak to him while he sits back and laughs. It's really sad and I pray for them. And I'm telling the truth and stand by it on everything I say. No I did not get fired, I quit the job. Because I couldn't take the negativity any longer. But the more I think about it the more it angers me for people that give their money to this man.
Im currently enrolled in the Dental Hygiene program at a college. I'm really excited to become a an RDH but the thing is I'm scared working for him and just cold quitting will ruin my career. Also My question is should I report him to OSHA?

Hey my name is Anthony i’m 24 i have black hair and blue eyes
i have 3 cats and a dog
i love to listen to music and go to concerts
i like old rock and roll and some new rock and i also like rap
i’m big into cars i like the specifics of them i don’t know all the ins and outs about them tho
i like someone who has a good sense of humor is looking for something long term and not short term someone who isn’t afraid to be themselves
if i sound interesting to you then send a chat back
i am also an open book so just send me a chat and let’s get to know each other better

If you were to give any character a weapon for fanfiction purposes, what would it be and why? The weapon can be anything from anywhere(other series or smth you made up), as long at it doesn’t have some broken ability.
I’ll start, I would give swordsman Naruto something like the Soul Split Katana but without the soul damaging property. I would give this to swordsman Naruto because I feel like the sword fits him personality-wise, and isn’t so big like the executioner blade that he can’t maneuver it around reasonably. Plus I feel like he could apply jiraiya’s hair techniques to the lil patch of fur at the bottom of the blade on the sword, which would make combat interesting to write.

He had mixed up the characters in the long novel he was writing. He forgot who they were and what they did. A dead woman reappeared when it was time for dinner. A door-to-door salesman emerged out of a backwoods trailer wearing Chinese robes. The day the murderer was supposed to be electrocuted, he was buying flowers for a certain Rita, who turned out to be a ten-year-old girl with thick glasses and braids.... And so it went.
He never did anything for me, though. I kept growing older and grumpier, as I was supposed to, in a ratty little town which he always described as "dead" and "near nothing."
Charles Simic

Hi,
I'm an artist and writer, and I need help making a character based on with a goth subculture.
Violet Campbell, is 16 year old girl, who like science and tinkering,(making tech with random bits and bobs). She lives with her Mum, her twin Azura and her little brother Charlie and their Dachshund, Cupcake. Violet's Mum is a psychiatrist. Violet's BFF, is Michelle, a cheerful, energetic, anime-loving girl.
Violet, is a smart girl but she is chill, and a little laid-back. At first she can seem a little mean, but as you get to know her she is surprisingly sweet. Violet is innovative and has a little robot called,(no name yet)
Violet, has a violet short and fluffy hair. She has blue eyes with square-framed glasses.
Her main attire is a black one shoulder top, with the devil star. Leather pants, with a chain with a Kumomi keyring (gifted by Michelle). She wears knee high shoes with thick heels. (I have a feeling I'm leaning more into grunge but if I am can people give me casual ideas, no skirts)
So what do you think? Please be honest, I really want to make a character outside of the stereotypes.
Also I really want to listen to some Goth music, any ideas on where to start? I have taste for rock. (Måneskin ect).

Has anyone been able to get off of birth control after a long time without losing their hair and their acne severely returning? ((For the sake of the reddit rules, I'm looking for EXPERIENCES, not medical advice, but feel free to suggest supplements for my research. I will be speaking to my gyno next month before I stop my pills. :))
I started birth control after my 15th birthday because I was having really heavy periods and they'd only come once every 2-4 months. My doctors just threw me on it. I've been taking it for almost 10 years now. Since then, I've been dealing with depression, bad insomnia (it takes 3 hours to fall asleep), high heart rate, light acne, slight balding on my temples, memory issues, and light brain fog. Then last year after a chance ultrasound, they discovered cysts and officially gave me the PCOS diagnosis.
I'm really wanting to get off of birth control, but I'm terrified of losing my hair and my acne getting insanely bad! I can deal with the heavy bleeding and pain, but afraid of the hair loss and acne. I'm ready to make dietary changes and take supplements but my problem is that I'm autistic and my severe texture issues make it really difficult to tolerate certain foods. I don't like the taste and texture of avocados, fish, mushrooms, nuts, and bananas.
My mother doesn't want me stopping it because I'm sexually active and come from a very fertile family. :') I'm sure the PCOS already reduces my fertility? Regardless, condoms, etc.
Has anyone successfully stopped birth control without going bald and severely breaking out?

I've wanted to shave everything i have from the neck down for a long time now but i haven't had the courage to do it yet. I've now finally decided to go all in and shave finally but now that I've decided that i want to go through with this, i don't really have a clue how. I was planning on using a duplicate of the razor i use for my face because it's a great razor all-around, and the shaving cream i use should be suitable too. Im just wondering if I should get a different razor all together, and if so what should i get? Plus, what do I do with all the hair when im done? I have quite the excessive amount of hair all over my body and idk how I'm even gonna clean it up afterwards, or where the best place to shave even is. Please somebody help 😭😭

Gonna keep this concise, if anyone even cares, anyway, scene by scene:

• Black sludge: Sauron post-killing by Adar; "reforming" himself in Lindon and infecting the region, causing decay and starting the panic of the elves
• Group scene with Galadriel (hair up), Elrond, and some other elves, seems to me more likely a flashback scene than a present-time scene. Unclear what this would be though.
• Scene with the Mystics performing some ritual. Hands are slashed, some gold flakes flying around. Completely unclear what's going on.
• Tree roots in Lindon sneaking around. Sauron's influence in Lindon.
• Sauron (Annatar) revealing himself initially to Celebrimbor. Flashback scene...?
• Annatar walking right into Celebrimbor's forge while the city is falling
• Miriel getting eaten by the Wurm/Wyrm/Whatever. Probably the civil war between the Faithful and the King's Men.
• Durin (elder) buried under rocks. Next scene is giant rock falling on a bridge in Khazad-Dum and mostly destroying it. NOT the balrog landing on the bridge like I initially thought.
• Elendil screaming in a crowd, probably trying to stop Miriel from being executed if I had to guess.
• Galadriel screaming in a red scene; The scenery doesn't quite fit but my initial thought was this was her noticing Sauron in Mt. Doom (vision); but that's probably wrong, honestly.
• Orc licking his blade. Very nice.
• Ost-in-Edhil prior to siege, looks real nice...shame...
• Shot of Gil-galad, Galadriel, and (Celebrimbor?) wearing the 3, Gil-Galad has 3 additional rings on too.
• Shot of the tree in Lindon blooming with life
• Shot of Durin (Elder) holding a Ring with a GIANT blue gemstone
• Arondir tries spinning (I hear it's a good trick) with Isildur very confused in the background
• Ar-Pharazon flies into the capitol on an Eagle and draws his sword. Yo, What?
• Theo crying
• Isildur looking up ominously
• Big ol' flaming boys flying into Ost-in-Edhil
• Adar screaming
• Stranger slams the ground in some desert with some...monument thing in the background
• Two oddly harfoot-looking creatures are being nearly blown away by a desert storm
• Galadriel (hair down) fires flaming arrows in a forest
• Orcs blown up
• Elrond in armor leading a cavalry charge
• Celebrimbor looking very banged up trying to incinerate a bunch of rings in his forge
• Annatar standing in a destroyed forge with a squad of elves drawing their weapons, flips his hands out presumably blasting them away or something
• cutaway to a scene in Forodwaith where we see a giant explosion turning everything to ice (probably, flashback of Adar killing Sauron). In the scene you can just make out one figure hovering over another figure on its knees, at the center of the explosion => Adar cutting down Sauron?

And just some quick thoughts on major plot points, I think Annatar will be split between flashbacks and current time, Celebrimbor will realize when Annatar walks into his forge who he was all along. I think the black sludge creature will be a flashback of Sauron reforming himself in Lindon and corrupting things there. I think the only explanation for the Ar-Pharazon Eagle scene will be that Ar-Pharazon will fly in trying / pretending to try to save Miriel, and will obviously be just too late, then take over the kingship pretending to be a unifier, while actually being an anti-elf anti-Valar leader of the King's Men. It'll be a sneaky sneaky coup d'etat where Ar-Pharazon initially claims neutrality/innocence.
I kinda hope that the galadriel crimson red scene is Galadriel literally seeing Sauron in Mt. Doom putting the One Ring on his finger; he should have it on him after all. I think the shot of his hands where it cuts away to Forodwaith is deliberate to show that while he is wearing the One Ring, it can't be perceived on his finger. But that's speculation.
The thing I really don't understand is how they will handle the forging of the rest of the Rings and whether Annatar is really supposed to be in Ost-in-Edhil in real time, AFTER they've already forged the 3 elven rings. Then again it'd also be really hard to have him be exclusively in the past, as they decided on rings, specifically, while he was there as Halbrand. It's gonna be tough to reconcile with the lore given that the other rings were supposed to be made first and were "practice rings" essentially. One way to reconcile this which would be...not satisfying but at least ok, I guess, would be that Celebrimbor was hiding information from everyone; that really they had already been long working on rings of power but didn't want to reveal it for fear of being shut down by Gil-galad, until they had sufficiently advanced rings (the Three) to show Gil-Galad.
Anyway without getting crazy long that's my scene by scene thoughts and theories. Thoughts? Stuff I got totally wrong?

Hello, so I’m looking for some advice on this, other opinions, mostly for myself as everyone else who knows I did this doesn’t seem to think so, but I can’t help but feel guilty and awful for it.
So, my brother and his girlfriend were together for over 3 years, it was all long distance, they lived in other countries and would see each other twice a year 2 weeks at a time. During this time, his gf and I became really good friends, I’d consider us to be best friends tbh. My brother and I are also really close. His gf and I talk a lot, texting every day, playing games together etc. Over the past few months, his gf has been very open with me about her relationship with my brother, and it’s a shit show. He is very controlling and toxic. Having been and escaping from a toxic, controlling relationship myself, I felt for her, so as time went on, the more she told me about him and how he treats her, I eventually told her she should break up with him. At first, she was dead against this, she loves him too much blah blah blah, but a week ago, she did it. He hadn’t changed and it became too much for her, so she broke up with him. This was her decision however, having told her to do it multiple times I can’t help but feel responsible. My brother has no idea, he didn’t know we even talked about her relationship with him. The part that makes me feel like an asshole, is when my brother FaceTimes me to talk, which he does often, and I see the look on his face when he mentions her or things that have been said since the breakup, and then I feel so sorry for him and sad, it breaks my heart.
They kept in contact after the break up, up until yesterday when she finally blocked him because he was calling her a cheating whore because she got her hair cut, cheating even though they aren’t together… makes sense. He was saying she’d met someone new etc. Here I encouraged her to block him and she did. I was relieved. She was free. I am devastated for my brother.
There is so much more I could write in this post, I could go into detail about every single thing he did wrong in their relationship but I would be here all day. So I think based on the last “cheating whore” part, you might get a general sense of how it was.
So, AITAH?
Thank you for reading my post.

But i definitely meant to be, throw away obviously, but I (M19) broke up with my girlfriend (f19) 2 months after moving out of her parents and everything has exploded to the max today with her family, specifically her parents but I already know her whole family is going to switch.
Some context: I got kicked out by both my parents (mom because she was a narcissist and my dad when he was drunk over cookies) before I was 18 and my best friend, then girlfriend, and now ex’s parents took me in after my dad. They pretty much adopted me as their child and so did the rest of her family.
We started dating close to 11 months ago and we both have severe mental health issues, I’m pretty sure I’m autistic with bpd and a nice thick layer of trauma and cptsd or ptsd (can never be sure until diagnosed obviously but I’ve done a lot of research). I’m going to a psych ward for a work accommodation form this weekend because I’m having a hard time with my job and to hopefully finally get medication and diagnosed. My ex is diagnosed with severe adhd, bpd, and ptsd.
Sorry I’m giving a lot of context it’s just a very complex situation that just exploded 2 hours ago.
So as you can see I’m not doing good and after trying for so long I just couldn’t anymore and had to break things off before it went on any longer. Before we started dating I had been living with her for a year and a half when a ton of things happened with my ex and mental and a very long road of trying to help her get through everything.
Her parents were not good parents, father was an extreme alcoholic from the beginning of her life and still is. Her mom didn’t really care until she “could take care of herself” so her older sister pretty much raised her.
Her father the whole time I lived there was a complete dick bag, constantly creating issues, never communicating with anyone, very poor gaslighting and manipulation because he’s not that smart, constantly using his wife’s money to go to bars when he’s been unemployed for well over a year and a half, etc. her mom was completely fine and was only mean if her husband was being a dick or something.
For 2 years I put up with him until we moved out so I wouldn’t blow up on him, the same reason my ex’s older sister and fiancé moved out, they couldn’t handle it anymore and it almost ruined their relationship. All while dealing with my own stuff, holding down a job and supporting my girlfriend, moving out for the sake of the family’s relationship, being basically a father figure to my little brother, and trying to be the best person that I can be.
Ik I shouldn’t have exploded but it’s been brewing for 2 years with everything, I now feel … free, like I can actually do the things I wanna do in my life. I never realized how stuck I was in everything, and I would still be there if it weren’t for the people that stood up for me and helped me stand up for myself.
Context with the car: I am on her parents car insurance and me and my ex bought it 50/50 and so I was going to pay her half no problem even though I don’t need to.
Anyways sorry that’s long kinda turned into me venting a little bit. But I did what I thought was right and texted her parents letting them know about the situation with me and my ex, I did the same to her aunt who has helped us out a lot and is a wonderful person and her older sister and older sisters fiancé. Just the ones most prominent in her life. Here’s how it went: here

If you could’ve seen my mom in July, you honestly would’ve thought that we were going to lose her. She was diagnosed with stage four metastatic breast cancer that had spread to her skin bones and lungs. Now if you see my mom you wouldn’t even know she has cancer and she isn’t doing chemo right now. Just hormone blockers.
You want to build your immune system up. I had her taking, zinc, quercetin, vitamin D, to keep her immune system up. And we bought an ozone generator on Amazon for $50 and make ozone water. Ozone is an activated more concentrated oxygen and when you’re sick your body sometimes lacks oxygen, making it harder for your organs to function. So drinking the ozone infused water helps your body function. My mom said the first thing she noticed when she started drinking the ozone water was that she had more energy, she was using the bathroom more often, which I think mean her organs were functioning better and she was sleeping better. If you’ve heard of hyperbolic chambers that’s ozone. Oxygen therapy.
Another thing she started to do was drink organic soursop tea leaves. Supposedly the soursop fights cancer cells and she was drinking it daily. Along with taking apricot kernels every once in a while supposedly the cyanide in the apricots does something to the cancer. When my mom started doing this stuff she gradually continued to get better. it was around the time when she stopped chemo too after the first round because her lungs were filling up with liquid. So she has only been on hormone blockers and this regiment and we saw a huge improvement. But what the big game changer was when we learned that cancer is extremely acidic and we had to make sure my mom practiced an alkaline diet but we started to implement a baking soda and water with lemon and drinking it.
Sounds crazy right? Well here’s the science. Cancer is acidic at pH 5.5. This treatment is Alkaline pH8.5..to neutralize!
1/2 a squeezed lemon, in a cup…add 2/3 tsp of alkaline: baking soda not arm and hammer that contains aluminum buy bobs red mills baking soda.
It will fizz, quickly add water and drink!
This is alkaline pH8.5 when consumed.
Do 2x day, 3 if your strong! Drink at least 30 minutes before or after meals, to not clash with digestive acids. Do for 2 weeks, then stop for 5 days. For body to adjust. Then. Repeat process!
Buy PH test strips and you test yourself in the morning and in the evening, once your PH levels get to 7.4 alkaline stop the drink until your PH levels drop again.
This has definitely worked as my mom’s thriving and people don’t even think she’s sick now when they see her. It is possible! You have to heal your body. Another good thing is to take one teaspoon of magnesium hydroxide powder add to seltzer water, shake it and place in fridge for 30 mins after 30 mins shake it again, keep in fridge for 8 hours, then you can consume. Don’t shake anymore and avoid white setiement at the bottom.
They say that when you’re deficient in magnesium the cancer progresses quickly. And magnesium strengthened the T cells against cancer cells it helps fight off the cancer!!
she has been taking digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes is what helps break down your food and we believe that it helps break down the cancers as well. Once she is feeling crappy we make sure she does a coffee enema cleanse to get the toxins out her body. Look into Nicholas Gonzalez studies on digestive enzymes.
Another thing she does she had in the beginning a golf ball sized tumor on her chest and it has noticeably shrunk more than half.. it’s nearly flat.
My mom is thriving while we still have a long way to go but I am telling you the things we are doing are working! And cancer treatments is a billion dollar business so they don’t really help people!! Just cutting out the cancer and not changing anything about the way you’re living you have high risks of dealing with it over and over again! Our bodies are meant to heal ourselves if you just give it the right tools to do it. Look into Barbara oneil she talks a lot about these types of methods. IT WORKS! There’s hope! Don’t give up!
You’re seeing this message for a reason, please spread this info far and wide because big pharma and the government want to poison us and keep us sick! I’m not saying be anti all cancer treatments but HEAL YOUR BODY and find what works!
Good luck, Godspeed.

I grew up in a small rural ski town where I was one of the poorest kids in my elementary school. My mom had just moved my brother and me away from my dad and we were struggling, we lived in motels for a bit and crashed at some of her friends' houses before moving into a cheap basement suit with two bedrooms, my brother got his own while I shared a room with my mom. There was only one twin-sized bed so she would usually sleep on our armchair in the living room so I could have the bed. She worked two jobs at a grocery and convenience store while putting herself through night school in the town over. We didn't have much money for food so my school lunches were always one item, usually some form of squash or a Ziploc of lentils. Being in a mountain town in Canada you can imagine how cold it was in the winter; we didn't have a car so my brother and I had to walk to school in freezing temperatures, by the time we got there I was in tears with a red nose and my hair frozen solid. It took a while for things to get better but they did when my mom got her nursing license and picked up a stable job, eventually, we moved up to middle class and the moment I was old enough to work I wouldn't stop. I saved almost everything I made from the age of thirteen. My brother joined the military and I focused on school and sports so I could get into college which I'm glad to say I successfully did. I moved to the city for school and everything was so different, all of the friends I made came from ridiculously rich families and went out almost every night since they had the money to spend on drinks and clubs. I'm in engineering while the majority of my friends are in some form of the arts, we got along because I'm a bookworm. I was speaking with one of them who I'll call Shannon, she's in screenwriting and cinematography in the hopes of becoming a director. She mentioned to me that she wants to make her student film centred around poverty and the working class to shine a light on it. During this discussion, The Florida Project (a great movie) was brought up, I told her that I related heavily to that movie and she kind of huffed a laugh and then said "What? Did you live in a motel or something?" To which I answered "Yes," With a straight face. I could tell that Shannon felt bad since she clearly didn't know how I was brought up since it isn't something I tend to slip into casual conversation. Shannon asked more questions about my childhood and what it was like to live in poverty, we left the topic alone after that day but two weeks later she came to me with her screenplay and asked me to read it. I was appalled to say the very least. She had taken my very personal stories and turned them into an extra shitty episode of Euphoria. Everything I had told her had been put into her script but not as I told them, the main character went through these things and was unphased by everything that happened, disappointed in her mother for not doing enough and fighting with her evil drug addict brother. I wanted to cry, specifically at the depiction she had turned my family into, my hard-working and loving mother was written off to just be a slacker when in reality she was doing absolutely everything she could to give both me and my brother a good life and then my straight edge military brother was turned into the scum of the earth. The depiction of my poverty she wrote had me sick to my stomach, the main character was a sex addict, the mother was an alcoholic, and the brother had a drug addiction as well as abused the main character. I told her that not every person living in poverty was poor because of an addiction or crutch and sometimes it was just an unfortunate circumstance, in our case, it was fleeing from my abusive dad and trying to get on our feet. It also irked me how she had written it to be completely tragic and sad but I was a child for most of it and didn't realize how bad it was; when the power would go out it would be a fun game of lights out for me and my brother, we didn't understand why my mom was so stressed out when we had to stay in hotels, all we knew was that we got to share a bunk bed and go swimming in the indoor pool. I wanted her to understand that we were still regular people when we were impoverished, we were just that, regular people who didn't have much. Shannon seemed embarrassed that I was so upset about what she wrote, it took me fifteen minutes to read the entire thing and we sat in complete silence as I did so, when I reached the last page I was crying. At first, she thought I was crying because I was so moved by her glamourization of addiction and poverty before I told her that I hated it. That was when Shannon began to cry. I had shut down her screenplay as soon as I finished it and I asked why she was crying. She moved on to say "It's loosely based on what you told me, it isn't meant to be you and your family." I wanted to laugh when she said this, even the name of the main character rhymed with mine, she kept the tragic events and cut out the good memories as well as the good nature of my mom and brother, I was livid. I want to tell you about one scene that made me want to strangle her: The family's power went out on the main character's birthday so they lit tea candles to see in the dark, the mother lit a cigarette with one of the candles before calling her daughter a slut and putting it out in her birthday cake- what happened in real life was the power had gone out on my birthday, my mom worked all day and came home with a discounted pride cake since my birthday is in June. My brother and I had lit the tea candles long before my mom came home, she smeared the 'Happy Pride!' text on the cake replaced 'pride' with 'birthday' using Nesquik then used the tea candles to light the candles for my cake. This was the first time I had ever gotten a birthday cake, I was eleven and it's one of my happiest memories to date. I'm realizing this is too long so I'll finish it off, she's proceeding with the student film despite me asking her not to and offering different plots to follow instead. Shannon had blocked my number and I haven't heard from her in a week aside from awkwardly seeing her around campus to which she looks the other direction and ignores me.

-Jack
Every kid growing up in Gympie in the early 90- 2000s knew about the Love Tunnel.
The love tunnel was located over the hill from the skatepark on the Riverbank. It was a massive storm water drain filled with spray paint and lore unbound throughout the generations; the glowing dick, whose name is the furthest in, the people who live inside, the bull shark that lived under the bridge just outside, all that fun stuff.
It collapsed in the late 2000’s in a flood and was eventually rebuilt, but it was all fancy, modern, safe and not the same. Back in the day it had decades of graffiti, crumbling cement, jagged metal pole framing bent and jutting out from the sides. You know, real character.
I remember when I was just a kid at the skatepark and I spotted a bunch of other kids at the metal grating of a drain. I joined them and gazed down a few metres to some older teenagers, they had trekked through this “love tunnel” under the massive hill all this way. Badass I thought. LEGENDARY.
I talked about it at school, about this mysterious “love tunnel”. It was in view from the road when I crossed the bridge everyday on my daily commutes from the backseat of mums car.
I would gaze down at the weir and see the top of the love tunnel, sliightly hidden from view by a hill. It fascinated me.
I learned all these mysterious tales; this person slept with this person there, someone took a dump at the entrance and some other girl stood in it and now she had a nickname, someone found needles, another found a homeless woman and she screamed at them. I was pumped for the next weekend. I was going to go see it for myself.
I saw too much.
Early Saturday morning I was riding my push bike through town and toward destination adventure! I started out at the skatepark, met up with a few of the regulars, a mix of 5-19y/o everyone on the half pipes and ramps had a code of comrady that I've never found in a public place anywhere else and you always had someone to hang with.
My usual crew slowly arrived through the morning, a bunch of other 10/11 year old misfits like myself and we headed on our first place on our journey, Hungry Jacks. Now we never technically stole, we found a loophole…
One or two would order a stunner meal, then we'd take privilege of the free refills and fill up the empty plastic 4L juice jugs that we all had prepped in our backpacks. Coke and red Fanta for days.
So we got our supplies and headed behind HJ, past the volleyball courts and headed down a bush track down to the river.
We walked along the banks to loop back down to where the bridge was, we passed a few teenagers fishing and a couple other groups of kids swinging from rope swings into the water or huddled in groups smoking things they shouldn't.
We eventually arrived at the weir and the stormwater drain that I had been so intrigued by. The Love Tunnel.
Climbing up the hill and seeing it up close when you were just a tiny human. It was like staring into the dark abyss of hell.
There was a small stream of water flowing out of the big grey cylinder and it was covered in multicolored quotes and crude pictures that was very eye opening at the time.
Our voices echoed as one by one we climbed up the grassy, eroding clay edging that was the makeshift path into the mouth that probably changed each time it rained. Each of us had pulled out clumps of grass that we thought were handholds. If you fell, you fell down an embankment of slippery jagged rocks poking out from the fast flowing river.
So were inside and began to walk a couple of metres in then around us the light abruptly disappeared into complete darkness. And I remember the way the sounds traveled you could feel it through your chest it was mesmerizing.
I remember bravely stepping into the darkness and taking five or six steps in. That thick darkness was something else, I ran myself back to that entrance and light, heart pounding from the adrenaline.
This turned into a game of who could go in the furthest. This stopped when one of the boys screamed out from the darkness in pain.
He was back in the light teary eyed a few moments later wet on one side and feigning a laugh. He'd slipped down and cut open his knee, it was hilarious. We teased him saying he was going to get gangrene and leprosy and a myriad of other ailments we had no idea actually was.
We decided to bail, we forgot torches, we didn't plan that part out too well, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon being little menaces.
We met the next day with a game plan, we had an array of various sized torches, from small ones that didn't do anything, one of those giant rectangle ones that was our main light source, a couple of handheld ones, one which flickered and the other stopped working before we even got into the tunnel.
We got in safely and tested out our torches and began walking into the unknown. It was pretty much the same as before, but there were strange things, old makeshift bongs, shopping bags, random shoes, a shopping trolley, a mattress that was all moldy and rotted. I still to this day do not understand how people managed to get that shit in there.
We passed a section where someone had thrown a can of red paint all over the walls, the amount of those ‘S’ symbols was more terrifying.
We saw light up ahead, we were passing our first grate. It was kind of daunting looking up towards it. Even getting on each other's shoulders we couldn't reach. There was an array of broken beer bottles and glass was everywhere, under the grate was a dead snake amongst some debris.
We had a debate whether to go further, we ended up going on at least until the next grate, we came to a fork, one seemed like a smaller offshoot so we stuck to the bigger side.
There were more offshoots and we came to a part where the big pipes split off into three under another grate. We gazed up hoping to get an identifier of our location, but all we could see was blue. We called out to see if we could get anyone's attention.
“Cooooweeee” we shouted in unison, the sound echoing in all directions.
We were laughing and having a grand time until something shouted back, something that still shakes me to my core to this day.
Some yobbo crackhead chick in her fifties with this ratty pink tank top that was all stretched half showing her saggy titties. “What the fuck you think you little cunts doing down here.” This chick screeched at us through her few teeth or something along the lines of that. She just exploded at us with a barrage of threats.
We were shocked silenced moving together to make one mass.
One of the boys screamed when a skinny guy emerged from the darkness. He was covered in tattoos with scraggly hair and a beard, he was all crazy eyed and pantless.
Someone yelled out to run and it was all the motivation we needed.
We could hear them screaming and the guy ran after us, we heard glass shattering behind us, they must have thrown a bottle. We were legging it.
We got split up in our running, I fell down, tripping over some rubbish, one mate stayed back to help me, this left us without a torch. We came across the same kid who slipped over yesterday, he had slipped down again cutting open his other knee. He wore those with badges of honor at school, but he was blubbering like a baby at this point.
He had the flickering torch and it disoriented us more than helped, as it turned on and off every time he took a step. I thought we were lost but we found the other grate, then eventually the entrance.
The others were already climbed down, we were soon by their side panting in the grass and wiping away our tears so the others couldn't see.
We ran back over to the skatepark and immediately told every kid we saw.
That was the wildest shit we had ever experienced. Sure we’d seen crazy up on the street but to have it jump out at you from the shadows in a storm water drain was next level.
By that night one of the other boys had spilled to his parents about our escapades and a couple of other mums got phone calls, three got in trouble, two of us didn't, including me.
I never stepped foot back in that tunnel, I swam at the weir more times than I could count afterwards though and never encountered anyone else too sketchy.
I think only a year or two later I saw on the news people dying in storm water drains somewhere else in Aus, we never realized how dangerous they could be back then. Lol.
Every party or get together afterwards it was a crowd favorite to bring up. It was a good conversation starter and joined the tales amongst my friends of the weird shit that happens in ‘Helltown’.
Growing up and looking back they were probably just homeless drug addicts freaked out from a bunch of children's voices yelling out coooweee from the underground where they thought they were alone. That would have scared the shit outta me if I was them.
Good times.
.VJ
Tl:Dr kids go into storm water drain and find creepy couple who scream at them.

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