We started talking to each other on social media and then decided to meet one day. He lived in the same city as mine. We met one fine day and he was extremely polite and gentleman like. He proposed to me the very next day. It was very surprising as we barely knew each other but he claimed to love me like no one else. He showered gifts on me and listed all the pros of marrying him like transferable jobs, his salary slip etc etc. It almost sounded like a business deal but I went with it anyway as I believed that he truly loved me. Fast forward, after 6 months we got married.

1. First night of our marriage, I tried to kiss him but he said his parents are sleeping in the room next to us and that makes him uncomfortable. We did not touch each other.
   
2. We went for a honeymoon in a few days after marriage. We didn’t have even a single heart to heart conversation. He was glued to his phone throughout the trip. He got annoyed when I told him to click my pictures so we had an argument. He did not show any interest in getting physically intimate with me here too.
   
3. We returned and I observed that he never took any interest in knowing me or my life. Our conversations always revolves around politics science and stock market. I yearn for deep conversations with my partner and it never happened anytime in more than one year of our marriage.
   
4. Never cared to call my parents even when they are sick or to know about their whereabouts. He did not know who my friends and cousins not until this one year when I categorically pointed it out.
   
5. He would be particular about how I look when we go out to meet his friends and he would praise me and my hobbies in front of them. But at home he never took any interest in my creative pursuits, he would get bored when I talk about it. He is very different in front of his friends.
   
6. He kept mentioning in conversations that he pays for the house rent although I look after all other household expenses. Later I decided to pay him half of the rent every month and he happily took it. Currently I look after household expenses in addition to half of rent although his salary is more than twice of mine.
   

7.He has gone twice on holiday trips without me once to Paris because I told him I could not afford to pay such high expenses at the moment and second time he spent his new year(our first) with his guy best friend on a guy’s trip. I had taken a week off which he knew but then I was so heartbroken I spent the entire holidays at home alone. We haven’t been on any trip since honeymoon.
8.He is not empathetic to my emotions. Once I broke down to tears in front of him but he continued to watch TV while I cried sitting beside him on the sofa. No words of consolation, no hugs.
9.One autoimmune disorder relapsed and it keeps getting worse. I had to go to the doctor with my brother while he was hanging out with his friends at the time. He did not care to even ask me what the doc said and what my medications are till date.
10.He says mean things like I wouldn’t have gotten married to you if you looked like this( when I showed him pictures from my college time, my teeth were not aligned, I got braces and my face looks pretty fine now). He says I wouldn’t have married you if you had no job. He has told me clearly not to ever leave this job and even if I want to I have to make sure I earn more than 5 times the current monthly salary. He doesn’t like it when I wear glasses at home, that looks ugly to him.
11.He has very litte to no emotions. He claims to not even remember when he last cried not even during his school days. He never apologises for anything even if it is his fault. He puts the blame on everyone else but him. He has only two emotions , happy or rage. I have never seen him upset or sad.
12.He is self obsessed. He constantly compliments or praises himself and expects me to do the same. He tells me how lucky I am to have him, that I will never get anyone like him. He believes that he is always right and that people should always follow what he says.
13.He gave me earphones 3 days before my birthday. On my birthday he did not even buy me a cake or plan anything. After his office I told him we should go out for a movie as it’s my birthday or else we would have been home.
14.We haven’t seen our marriage video together yet. It’s been more than a year. There is no interest on both sides.
15.There have been times when he would belittle me. He believes himself to be very intelligent and superior. He would ask me difficult questions and would make embarrassing faces if I am unable to answer them.
16.He wouldn’t help me in the kitchen. He would sit and watch TV while I work. Both of us are working so I naturally expect both of us to contribute at home but it’s not the case.
17.I shifted to his city before marriage and we took a house closer to his office. I had difficulty reaching the train station from home which was 2-3 kms away but he would never drop me. He did on my insistence once or twice but that was it. He did not want to spare 15-20 mins of his time to drop me although my office was farther than his.
18.He would never change his clothes in front of me. Few months after marriage he took another room and would sleep there.
19.I tried to be intimate with him at the beginning of the marriage but he would move away. It never went beyond hugs and kisses on cheeks. Even lip kisses were hard to come by. One day I bought condom and removed my top in front of him(wearing just the bra) and sat on his lap. He hugged and kissed me on my cheek and then continued to watch TV while I sat next to him. I have tried to get intimate multiple times but he would come with an excuse like he is hungry or sleepy or there is a big meeting the next day. I have asked him if we could shower together but he did not show any interest.
20.I confronted him about the sexual intimacy and he blamed it all on me saying he thought I wasn’t ready. I had never said so. All I said was that I wasn’t ready for kids just yet.
21.He is extremely polite with his friends but rude to his mother in particular in frivolous matters. I hate this behaviour of my husband. When I asked him regarding the cost of the wedding reception, he had no idea. There were two huge receptions so I believe the expenses were huge and were borne by his father. What was surprising that he did not even bother to find out the total expense.
22.My husband’s education loan was borne entirely by my father in law. His higher education expenses were huge as he studied in the top business school of the country. While other kids repay their student loans themselves, he cares not even if his parents are paying it from their retirement funds.
23.He would not pick me up from airport even if it is midnight or 1-2 am on the other hand we would pick his friend from airport at 8 am in the morning. He never worries when I am working late. Even when I go on trips he never enquires when and how I am travelling and when will I return. Takes no interest in my whereabouts.
24.We are sleeping in the same bed for more than one year and we haven’t even taken off our clothes once and touched each other sexually, forget consummation. There is absolutely zero physical intimacy. Even if we try to kiss each other it seems forced and awkward.
25.On our first anniversary, we made no plans. There was no excitement. His parents came over and took us out for dinner. I gifted him some clothes. He did not buy me any gift. One gift was picked by my mother-in-law and that was given to me on behalf of him.
25.He says this is a blissful marriage, tells his friends proudly that this is a love marriage(which it isn’t). I told him I am unhappy in this marriage and I want divorce and he tells me if I do so my father in law will get a heart attack,his health has not been well lately. Since I started talking about divorce, he is being extremely loving and nice to me which I know isn’t genuine.
I loved this guy, I was head over heels for this person once but all my love has died for him. When I saw him unbothered at the time of my pain or sadness or sickness, I knew that he never loved me. He is incapable of love and feelings. Despite staying together for one year we don’t know anything about each other. We are strangers living together. I feel so lifeless, unworthy and empty living with him. I am dying a slow death. I dream of dying in my sleep. I dread to think how will I live remaining years of my life with this person,I am 31 now. I have been in multiple failed relationships prior to marriage so somehow I am blaming myself if there is something wrong with me. I am confused if he is a narcissistic person or it is me? I want to leave but not with the guilt that I am hurting my parents, they are particular about their social image.

We all know the meme about letting the Rolex AD sleep with your wife in order to ascend to a higher position on the wait list. Well, I am here to tell you that it actually happens. You may wonder why I, Pisstank, am always writing dark stories about horological enthusiasm. The simple answer is that I am bitter, and writing about watch culture helps me to cope. Allow me to explain.
Ten years ago I was really hitting my stride in my professional career. I was earning well and had acquired much of the indicia of success (e.g., a nice house, a Porsche, a gorgeous wife, notoriety in my chosen field, etc…). It was at this time that I began to notice the really nice watches on the arms of my contemporaries. This awakening became painfully clear at a work lunch one particular day when I returned to the table after visiting the restroom to find my colleagues trying unsuccessfully to mute their snickering. I learned later from a friend that while I was away the entire table was making fun of me for wearing my beloved Seiko 5 Sports watch (everyone else wore Rolex, Patek, AP, and Hublot). I was aghast.
In my defense, I was born into a poor family of gun runners and human smugglers. When I had just turned 9 years old my entire family was viciously murdered by corrupt DEA agents. I escaped alive only because I happened to be across town at the time selling crank at a middle school.
After being orphaned, the state placed me with a foster family that would instill in me good, solid working class values. This is when my life turned around. In fact, this is what really saved my life. I learned the value of hard work and struggle. I worked to put myself through college without student loans, grants, scholarships, or help from anyone. I did the same to put myself through grad school. Once out of school and employed I worked my way up the ladder. It took time, a lot of time. But I managed to climb to the top and become very successful.
My contemporaries at the time were quite different from me. They were born into great wealth. They did not even HAVE to work. They only do so because it is the gentlemanly thing for people of their pedigree to do. I resented having to fit in with these fuckers. But corporate culture places a very high value on networking and contacts. You will lose out on many lucrative deals an opportunities to advance if you are not accepted into the elite group. So I played the game.
This is what was so horrifying about the lunch ordeal. Notwithstanding all my years of hard work and struggle, I almost fucked it up and lost EVERYTHING because I was still wearing that Goddamned Seiko 5! I was blinded by my damn middle class values. I had to act quickly and decisively or I would lose everything I had, and everything I had become.
The next day found me at a Rolex AD. Boy, did I get an education that day. I picked out a couple affordable pieces that appealed to me. The AD said he would be happy to sell them to me, but asked if I would be happier with something a little more desirable. God bless him, he could tell I was a virgin when it comes to Rolex culture.
Desperate to maintain my business and social stature, and near the point of an anxiety attack, I burst out in tears right there in the store. I started telling the salesman, Tango, about my situation. I could barely get any words out due to my blubbering and gasping for breath. Then a beautiful thing occurred. Tango placed his index finger on my lips and gently whispered “Shhhhhhhhh….”. The electricity that passed between us at that moment was exhilarating!
Tango took me into a back room at the Rolex store. Curiously, it consisted of only a queen size bed with rubber sheets and a trash can. I will leave what happens next to your imagination. It is not important. What IS important is thereafter Tango took me under his wing and taught me all about Rolexology, including culture, history, trends, and all the technical stuff. After Tango’s tutoring I was a bona fide Rolex Man.
Tango was brutally murdered shortly thereafter in a carjacking, so unfortunately he was unable to see the product of his work. I vowed to be the real deal from that point on in honor of Tango. Every time HBO or some other channel airs the film “Tango and Cash” I break down and weep uncontrollably.
Suffice it to say that going forward I was a pure Rolex Chad. Co-workers envied me. Subordinates wanted to be me. I would no longer be excluded from the elite because now I WAS THE ELITE. Getting MY approval was now required by those on the outside and trying to get inside.
Bunny and I were never in love. Personally, I could not stand the bitch. If she didn’t have a pussy and those good looks she would be worth nothing to anyone at all. The marriage was more of a business deal. Her well-to-do family told her she needed to get her shit together or she would be cut off from the family wealth. So she married a young up-and-comer. I married Bunny because she was from a well-connected family and it would open opportunities for me that I would not otherwise have as a single man.
Bunny could not give me a child. It turned out that she had been scraped so many times that she cannot even have kids. See, abortions leave scar tissue on the uterus. Usually it is no big deal. But after many procedures and you build up a shit ton of scaring. The egg cannot attach to scarred tissue. There is a surgery you can have to get rid of the scar tissue in order to increase the chances of pregnancy. But Bunny refused to have it. She said that such a surgery would label her a “whore”, and she would not have her station tarnished. We soon transitioned to an open marriage. Bunny had her lovers, and I had mine.
When the crypto boom came, and neckbearded yo-yos started making big money, the luxury watch market went mad. Prices surged. Inventories were restricted. It was a fucked up time. Long wait times were common. This drove me crazier than most anything else. I tried everything I could to advance on the wait lists and shorten my wait time (bribes, gifts, frequent visits, blow jobs, tickets to sporting events, etc…). It got to the point where I questioned my own importance.
Look, I owned several Rolex time pieces by this point. But I wanted more. Opulence must constantly be demonstrated in order to be revered. Power means nothing unless those around you KNOW of your power and envy it.
As I see it, with great power comes great responsibility. See, power causes envy. Envy is a primary motivating factor to drive an individual to strive for, and maybe obtain, great success. In order to facilitate envy, one’s power must be COMMUNICATED. We do this through opulence. In fact, for the good of the nation and humanity, powerful men have a DUTY to communicate their power so as to inspire others achieve. Most will fail, of course. But that is ok too because but-for peasantry we would not be gods among men.
It is against this backdrop that I sought out many luxury items, including time pieces. When it became difficult to obtain luxury watches, especially Rolex, I was incensed! Oh yes, it added to the whole exclusivity vibe that is part of Rolex culture. But more importantly, it prevented people like me from obtaining them. It also resulted in a bunch of booger-eating incels in crypto getting their dirty, sticky little hands on them. How pathetic! I resent this greatly. It cheapened the experience. This perhaps more than anything is going to destroy the culture of Rolex as a symbol of the personal success and power of a gentleman.
One day after a session of marriage counseling I took Bunny to a local Rolex AD. I was on their wait list for several pieces. I thought I would check in and buy Bunny some jewelry to build upon my purchase history. During our visit I noticed that the salesman, Chadwick Von Bangaho, was eyeing Bunny like a hungry wolf eyeing a raw steak. A light went on over my head!
I pulled Bunny aside and told her what was going on. It took very little convincing to get her to agree to fuck Chadwick. I then set it up with Chadwick. The son of a bitch would not guarantee me how many spots this would move me up on the list, only that “it would be taken into consideration when making inventory distribution decisions.”
So Chadwick took Bunny into the back room with the bed and banged her while I waited in the store. Thereafter we left together. About a week later Bunny tells me she would like to help me acquire my preferred time pieces and was willing to fuck Chadwick again … for ME. Truth be known, I don’t give a shit about bunny on any emotional level. I care about her as a prop in my life. Sure, she is a convenient lay. But I don’t love her. She is with me strictly to fulfill a certain role in my life that I play to my benefit. Essentially, she is like a Rolex on my wrist. So, yeah, I sold her pussy to the AD. Why the fuck not?
I continued to let Chadwick slay Bunny’s cooch for the next few weeks. Chad must have been hung like a horse because after he fucked Bunny it was like throwing a hot dog weenie down an empty hallway for me when I banged her. Finally, I got fed up with waiting and demanded to know when I was going to obtain my next preferred piece for all my effort. Chadwick told me that I definitely earned a bump up on the list for all the shit I bought from him, and that bartering Bunny’s ass to him was a smart move that got me higher on the list. Then shit got weird.
Chadwick told me that he had developed feelings for Bunny, and that Bunny felt the same way toward him. In fact, Bunny decided to leave me for Chadwick. He further explained that once he owned Bunny’s heart, the payoff to me stopped. I was infuriated!! I had been taking Bunny to this weasel for WEEKS!! Yet I only got credit for giving him my wife’s pussy TWO FUCKING TIMES!!!! Chad claimed that after the second fuck Bunny was HIS and that I was no longer the beneficiary!!
I flew into a rage and slapped Chadwick across his face. He then jumped over the counter and whipped my ass. Thereafter, the rest of the sales team beat me. Apparently, there is some sort of corporate culture at the AD that if you fuck with one of them, then you fuck with them all.
Right before I lost consciousness Chad said “You are off the list, Fucko!! Try to get in my store again and I will have you arrested!” After being unconscious for God knows how long, I awoke in an alley down the street. I hurt, bad. I also noticed that my butthole was sore and burning. I think those fuckers may have took me to the fuck room and raped me.
I made my way home with my tail between my legs. Upon entering my home I found there was a flurry of activity inside. Bunny was moving out and had an entire crew there to help her. “What the fuck is going on?!?”, I demanded. Bunny’s well-connected and powerful father suddenly appeared before me and punched me in the face. I lost consciousness again.
When I woke up my house had been ransacked. It looked like a disaster area. I decided I needed to get away and find some sanctuary. I needed some time to get my head together. So I threw a few personal things in a bag, including my Hulk, Kermit, and root beer GMT, and left.
I traveled to a vacation spot up in the hills that caters to the elite, called ‘Aristocrat Valley’. Inside the business office I managed to talk the clerk into renting me one of their luxury hillside chalets even though I had no reservation. When I attempted to pay with my credit card, the transaction was declined. I was mortified!! I tried another card, which was also declined. I assume this was Bunny’s doing. The bitch!!!
I was escorted out of the office by two large men, named “Killer” and “Meat”, who beat the shit out of me, literally, and left me bleeding and bruised in the parking lot. I crawled to my Porsche. But it would not crank up. I noticed that the fuel light was on. “Shit!”, I said. Out of gas and out of credit. Motherfucker!!
I traded my Kermit for a Toyota Camry and a tank of gas at a nearby store. The dude also required a blow job as a “convenience fee”. After he finished he beat the crap out of me and robbed me, taking my other Rolex pieces. It turned out that he had stolen the Camry. I became aware of this fact when I was pulled over later for a busted taillight. When the officer ran the tag number it came up as reported stolen during a BLM rally. The attending officer promptly beat the hell out of me and took me to jail.
I lost my job, my wife, my wealth, my social standing, and worst of all, my superlative time pieces. Today I manage an Arby’s in Birmingham, Alabama and I am married to an unemployed woman named ‘Heather Ray’. She was such a sweet, young, sexy thing when we first met at a meth sting operation. Who would have known that she would blow up to over 300lbs? Just more of her to love! She gave me my children: little Brandi Lee and her big brother, Chad Tom.
I tell this story not to scare anyone, but to educate. Is a shallow, social climbing ethos the best way to live? You are damned right it is!! Sure, I turned out to be a peasant. But that is ok because without people like me there would no winners for us to aspire to be. God bless us all, and God bless the United States of America.

As you know, I have an aggressive homosexual Bigfoot stalking me, and it has followed me home. I consulted my uncle Roy, a noted Bigfoot Hunter, about the situation and he agreed to help me kill the animal. He rode home with me after Thanksgiving and is now staying in an extra bedroom in my house. As soon as we arrived at my home we started devising a plan.
Uncle Roy advised that there is nothing more dangerous than a horny Sasquatch. I recently posted an encounter story told to me by Roy in which he was sexually, and brutally, assaulted by one of these monsters. Roy swears it happened. He even showed me the resulting scars he still has. It was a very violent attack.
While we were sitting by the roaring fire in my fireplace, talking and sipping cognac, Roy told me that he knew a secret about Sasquatch. Roy started in, saying “What most folks don’t realize is that Bigfoot is a sexually frustrated critter.” I asked Roy what he meant by that. Roy continued.
“Ya see, son, that Sasquatch feller has got a teeny little pecker. That’s why they are so damn timid and act like a peepin’ Tom all the time. Now understand, they ain’t all like that. Sum them critters are really hung, like the one that up and attacked me. But most of ‘em are tiny. When it comes to wangs, they is like the chinks of the animal kingdom.”
Roy continued. “Why ya think there ain’t many these thangs around? It’s cuz even when their peckers git hard, they still can’t get it up in them bitch-squatch twats fer enough to impregnate them. Most of ‘em are no bigger than a flashlight battery.” I asked, “Like, a size D?” Roy leaned toward me, squinted his old, wild eyes, spit in the fire, and said “no, son.. AAA size batteries. Compared to most Bigfoots, we humans are like Lexington Steel.”
“My God”, I said. Taking a sip of his cognac, Roy said “Indeed.” We sat in silence for a few moments so I could take in this information. Then Roy spoke, “Son, there’s 2 kinds of male Sasquatch out there. Nine outa ten of them suffer from micro dick syndrome. They caint fuck and they get all frustrated. The other 10 percent have huge wangs. There ain’t no in-between. They is either tiny or they are huge.”
“So, how does this affect my situation?”, I asked. Roy seemed to ponder a moment, moving his glass of cognac in circles and making the liquor swirl around his glass. Then he spoke. “The tiny dicked animals give up on a’fuckin in thar adolescence. They basically live out their lives as eunuchs. The one with the big dicks sire the offspring. THEY are the only make Bigfoots that become sexually active.”
Roy continued, “Son, if that thar horny critter that is stalking you can jack-off a load on yer patio, then it is a sexually active Sasquatch. That means it has a dinosaurian cock. We’re talking 30 inches, minimum. And not to scare ya or anything, but it most likely wants to pound your colon with ever inch of it!”
I started getting a queasy feeling in my stomach. Sweet bleeding Jesus... Then Roy added “And its big around as a fucking paint can! Heh heh heh!” I looked at Roy, with shock and fear in my eyes. Old Roy took pity on me and put a hand on my shoulder. He said “Now don’t worry, boy. I is here now. I ain’t a’gonna let no Bigfoot ass-rape my nephew!”
Roy continued talking: “The weird thang here is that yer stalker be a faggot foot. Now, sum times them great old big Sasquatches get all confused and think that human men are bitches cuz they am so much smaller than they is. But this here situation is different.”
Roy said “First of all, Bud, you is a big, strapping young lad. Ain’t no critter gonna confuse you fer a bitch. Second, if’n that stalker squatch wanted to simply rape ya, it would have ripped inta yer house and jest dun it by now. But it did not. Instead, it jacked a load onto your patio. This suggests two possibilities. One, it is shy and was a spying on ya through the winder when it wuz a’yankin it’s chain. Or, two, it twere tryin ta court ya. What I mean by this is that it was signaling fer ya, the same way you signaled fer it when you jacked off at its gifting spot.”
Roy continued, “By the way, Son, I been meanin’ to ask ya, what in the hell are ya doing jacking off in the goddamn woods right smack dab in the middle of an active Bigfoot area?!?” I explained that I wanted to monitor their reaction to such a vulger communication. Roy shook his head, looking clearly displeased.
Roy said “Boy, that was about the dumbest fucking thing ya could have dun. Who jacks off on a gifting area?!? Let me ask ya something: when you got Christmas presents as a kid did you yank out yer dick and jack-off loads all over yer Christmas tree? Of course you didn’t!!! You dumb motherfucker!!!”
I did not like the way Roy was talking to me, but he was right. I said “duly noted, Roy. I fucked up. I was fucking with them. I was not intending to rile up one of the animals so that it wanted to fuck me. I was messing with them. That’s all.”
Roy continued, saying “Yeah, I get it. It’s ok, I ain’t mad wit ya. Jest keep it in yer pants from now on, boy.” I nodded.
Roy went on to say that this particular beast is most likely all fucked up in its head because, as a long-dick it is expected to fuck the bitch squatches. But it won’t because it’s a fag squatch. This most likely made it a social outcast in the clan, a real weirdo. It was probably shunned. At best it would would only barely be tolerated. But now, misinterpreting my gesture at the gifting area, it thinks it has found one of its own and has developed a squatch crush on me.
Roy advises that this creates a very dangerous situation because if the long-dick is rejected it will be angry. It will probably take all of its frustration, resentment and anger that have been building as the result of his social isolation in the clan and, upon sensing rejection, will direct all of said anger and resentment on me. Roy said the likely outcome, without intervention, will be a very messy and brutal death-rape.
Upon a moment of reflection on that last sentence my sphincter tightened such that I could probably open a bottle of beer with it. Roy looked at me and said “Boy, YOU... is in a fuck-load of trouble here! He is coming back fer ya, of that you can be certain. If you let it have its way with ya, then it’s big old whomping stick will pummel yer innards and you will die as the result of the internal trauma and bleeding. If you fight it, thereby rejecting its sexual advances, it will rip ya to pieces while raping ya. Nasty shit.... real nasty shit.”
I looked at old Roy and asked, “What are we going to do?” Roy smiled and said, don’t you worry, boy, I got us a plan. This .... this, despite what I was just told, made me feel reassured. We are going to kill that homo squatch!
Then suddenly came a loud crashing sound that shook my house. BAM!!!!!!!! Roy and I ran to the back door and saw that one of my big, old oaks had fallen in my back yard. “What in fucking hell?!?” I thought. That tree was healthy. Then BAM!!!! A second tree fell and crashed into my back yard. I was stunned. Roy said “He’s here, boy! He’s come fer yer man-pussy! We gots to act fast!!”
Old Roy looked at me and said “Quick, boy, get nekkid!!!!” I glared at him incredulously. “What are ya waitin’ fer, dumbass?!? Lose the sock and show yer cock! NOW!!!!!” Grudgingly, I did as he ordered.
Roy then grabbed my arm and said “This is it, boy. You got to trust me. I am going outside and then flank the beast while you keep him distracted by playin with yerself in front of yer sliding door window in yer kitchen.”
Roy continued, “Quick, what’s the biggest gun ya got in the house?!?!” I told him I had a couple .308 rifles. Roy’s paused a moment, his face reddening with rage. Then he took off his hillbilly hat and hit me with it while he repeatedly called me a “Faggot”. Then I told him I had a pair of DE .50 AEs on the counter in my bathroom, locked and loaded. Roy said, “Well, that’s more like it.”
Roy ran off and retrieved the two pistols. When he came back into the room he was talking about dual wielding the two jammies, then abruptly stopped. Roy said “Gooooooooooooddamn it, you sumbitch. Git busy!” I asked, “doing what?”
Roy demanded that I stand bare-ass naked, with the lights on, in front of my sliding glass door, looking out onto the patio. Further, he said I had to jack off so that I would distract the Bigfoot outside, giving Roy an opportunity to get the drop on it. Again, I hesitated. Roy hit me with his hillbilly hat again and said “If’n ya don’t do what I say, and I mean RIGHT NOW, you is gonna be ass-fucked tonight by a Sasquatch pecker!”
With a sigh, I stood there looking out onto my dark patio, with all my kitchen lights on, completely naked. My left hand rested on my hip as my right had a hand party with my cock. I heard my front door close as Roy headed out with my Deagles to ambush the horny critter. After a couple minutes I started getting into my task. “What the hell? I may as well enjoy myself”, I thought. So I closed my eyes and started fantasizing about banging that Ocasio-Cortez chick up the wazoo and then painting her white. I call blowing a pearly white load on a brown person’s face a “Grand Wizard.”
“I could not hold it any longer. I let out a loud, continuous moan as I busted a nut on my glass door. The volume was huge!! This must of been because of the whole dangerous thrill of the moment. But it was a lot. It made Peter North look like a total fag by comparison. Finally, it came to a conclusion, as did my stroking. I slowly opened my eyes, planning on inspecting my hearty load trickling down the glass door. But instead, I was shocked by what I saw.
There standing on my patio, just feet away, was Mrs. Jenkins from down the street. Apparently she saw the whole show. Her eyes were fixed on my still hard member. She then looked up and our eyes met. I winked at her, then she slowly licked her lips, looking me right in my eyes. I knew this MILFY bitch was up for a good time. I was going to have to compose myself quickly.
I reached for the door to invite Mrs. Jenkins inside. I said, “Hey there, what brings you this way?” She said, “Well, Bud, Mr. Jenkins and I heard some loud noises coming from up here and I thought I would walk up here to make sure you are ok.”
I reached out for Ms. Jenkins’ hand to guide her into my home in a gentlemanly manner. Keep in mind that my cock was still out. Of course, I had completely forgotten about Bigfoot and uncle Roy. Instead, I was locked into the hunt.
Mrs. Jenkins stepped into my house. Immediately, her right foot slid out from under her when she stepped inside and she went down. Unfortunately, she slipped on my puddle of jizz on the floor. I caught the chick before she hit the floor, then I pulled her tight to me so she could feel my rock hard member throbbing against her stomach.
I was just about to plunge my tongue down her throat when I heard Roy yell out “Die, motherfucking Sasquatch!!!” Then BAM!!! BAM!!! BAM!!!!! Three shots rang out from what was obviously my .50 AE Deagles.
Ms. Jenkins’ head exploded like a melon. My face and my whole upper half was covered in blood and brain. My ears were ringing too, and they fucking hurt from the multiple blasts at such close range. I was standing there in shock when Roy stepped out of the darkness and onto the patio. He said “Who the fuck is that?!? Whar’s that thar fucking Bigfoot?!?”
I knew it would be useless to bark profanities at Roy. So I just calmly walked to my bathroom, ran a shower, and got in so I could wash off all the blood covering me. I heard a few more blasts from outside and figured Roy was shooting the neighbor’s dog or something.
I got out of the shower and dried myself off. Then I picked out some clothes that I thought would be comfortable to wear in jail. I then walked into the kitchen to retrieve my phone to call the police with, dreading the sight of that bloody mess I left behind. But man, what a surprise I got!
My kitchen was absolutely spotless. It was like a major felony did not even take place in there moments earlier. Even my puddle of jizz was cleaned off the floor and my glass door. There was not even any streaking on the glass! Then in walked old Roy.
I said “Roy, what the fuck happened in here?!? It was a complete fucking horror scene 10 minutes ago.” Roy just grinned and said he took care of it. I asked about the body and Roy said “what body?”, then winked. I said, “Now wait a minute, that was Mrs. Jenkins from down the street. Her husband is going to be looking for her.” Roy said “Dead men tell no tales, son. You got somethang to eat around here? I’m hongry.”
Then came the sirens. I thought, “Oh fuck, here it comes... accessory to mass murder.” Roy saw that I was getting nervous and agitated. Now, what happened next really pisses me off. But at the same time, I get it. Roy had created a real nasty mess here. But instead of just running off, he decided to fix it. This shows me that he really does value our relationship.
In one quick motion, Roy took the butt end of one of the pistols I gave him and violently struck me on my head. I went down immediately, cussing Roy but unable to do much about it. I did not lose consciousness right away, so he violently struck me again. I was out like a light. The last thing I remember is feeling the blood trickling down my face.
Now, allow me to digress for a moment. In my forty-plus years I have been single most of the time. I was married once for a few years, but that ended over a decade ago. During the course of my single life I have inadvertently accumulated a wide variety of sexual toys and devices that are occasionally used with some of the more adventurous types I bring home. There’s dildos, vibrators, butt plugs, etc ... I keep them all in a cardboard box in the closet right outside my bedroom.
When I finally regained consciousness, I opened my eyes to find that I was lying on my back on the couch in my living room. I look around and see uncle Roy sitting by the still burning fire (Roy had obviously been tending to it, keeping it going, while I was out). Roy had my box of sex toys in his lap and was going through it. At one point he had the huge glowing dong out, holding it close to his face and examining it like he was a wildlife biologist who had just discovered a new species of snake.
My head was aching, but eventually my head cleared enough to ask Roy why he had knocked me out. Dong in hand, Roy turned to me at the sound of my voice and asked “Son, do you stick this here thang up yer asshole?” I said “Forget the dong for a second and tell me what happened. Why did you hit me over the head, you old bastard?”
Roy told me that he had to fix the messy situation and that I was only getting in his way. Essentially, Roy knocked me unconscious for my own good. Apparently, Roy called the police and told them that he was visiting with me and that he had heard shooting at the Jenkins’ place while I was in the shower and he went to investigate. He told the police that when he arrived on the scene he saw a couple black guys leaving in a hurry, then he found the bodies. That’s when he said he called the police.
When the police asked where I was, Roy told them I accidentally cut myself, saw a little blood, and then passed out like “a total pussy” on the couch. I pondered this for a moment, appreciating the fact that we were still both free men. Then I asked Roy, “Did the police buy your story?”
Roy said “What Story? It happened jest like I sed. I heard gun shots then saw a couple n!ggers fleeing the scene. Shit fire, that right there describes 90% of all crimes them thar cops investigate. What reason do they have to doubt it? We’re white, the victims were white, and 2 negroes was seen leaving the scene. That’s jest what them thar fellers want to hear. Now they got them some probable cause to go bust some negroes they had their eyes on. Case closed!”
Roy continued, “Now, did yer old Uncle Roy fix this shit or what?” I said, “Well, it seems that you did. Thanks, Roy. You saved my ass.” Then I had to ask “But what about the Bigfoot that was out there pushing down trees?” Old Roy turned to me with a deathly serious look on his face. I knew he had seen it.
Roy said “I seen it. It’s worse than we thought. That sumbitch is about 18 ft tall, I reckon. It had them real evil glowing red eyes. It’s also a “Long Dick Squatch”. That thar thing had a stiffy when I spotted him out back, behind yer shed back there. Its erection was a good 48 inches, and it glowed fire red, jest like the sumbitch’s eyes.”
“What happened?”, I asked. Roy said “I’m tellin ya what happened, dumbass! Now shut your asshole and listen.”
Roy continued, “I wuz fixin to put a bullet in that beast’s head when that Jenkins skank came strolling up. The Bigfoot was watching you jack off in the doorway, getting all hot and bothered. Then it saw you putting the moves on that bitch. The Sasquatch got pissed and started charging ya’ll in a jealous rage, so I started throwin lead down range.”
Roy paused. I asked “What happened to the Sasquatch, and how did Mrs. Jenkins get shot?!?” This is where Roy got dire.
Roy said “Son, them little old .50 AE rounds are faggot shit. It would not do anything but make that monster pissed. It would have killed us all: you, me, and the Jenkins whore. So I did the only humane thing I could do in that thar situation. I figured a gun shot was a preferable way to die than being ripped to shreds by that big bastard. So I shot the bitch. If’n I didn’t, that huge beast would have killed you and her. This way, the gun shot scared off the Bigfoot and that poor skank got to die humanely.”
I asked Roy why he did not just fire a shot into the air to scare off the beast so that Jenkins did not have to die. Old Roy looked at me and said, “Son, hindsight is 20/20.”
“So what now?”, I asked. Roy said “This here wuz jest Round One. We is gonna Kill that thar beast. But we is gonna need sum bigger guns. Did ya hear what I said to ya boy? That dang monster is 18 feet tall! It is fucking HUGE! And it’s got a four foot schlong aching to bang YOU!”
Roy continued, “Son, I’m sorry I had to bang you over the head like that. But it was fer ya own good. This here is sum damn serious shit, and we is balls deep into it. We gots to finish this.” I nodded. Roy can be a real prick, but there is nobody else you want to go into battle with.
Roy said “You Get ya sum rest, boy. I won’t let that thang get ya. And don’t ya worry none. While you wuz sleeping I called up a couple good old boys. They is on their way here right now, and they is bringing some big guns with them.”
“Who are these people you called?”, I asked. Roy said they are a couple “associates” of his. One is called “Skull Crusher”. He is supposedly ex-military and saw a lot of action in Iraq. The other one is called “Johnny Murder”. I asked Roy if Mr. Murder has a military background too. Roy said “Son, you don’t need to know about old Johnny’s background.”
Roy told me to rest my head and get some sleep. Skull Crusher and Mr. Murder would be here in the morning.

I, female (28) and male (29) have been together for 6 years and have an amazing daughter (5). Little back story.. boyfriend and I met back in march 2018 and got pregnant 1 month into our relationship… our relationship was really hard due to being young, having health issues and him having Christian parents. I don’t have parents or family so we thought they would be able to help out with a room in their 5 bedroom house but they said the rules are we had to be married if we want to live together. We eventually ended up living with my aunt and it was the best decision we could’ve made.
My boyfriend recently decided to join the military and was advised we should get married so we can stay together once he’s stationed somewhere. We talked about it and I agreed with marrying this man because I truly loved him and he’s an amazing father to our daughter. We got married feb 2024. We kept him joining the military & our marriage a secret from everyone because I wanted it to be Our special intimate experience. But also because he knew his parents wouldn’t agree.
Both of our childhoods have been rough and now having our daughter we worked really hard to show her what true love is and what it’s like being in a healthy family.
My husband decided to tell his parents one day before he had to leave (that was his decision) because he knew there was going to be some tension and maybe his father wouldn’t be happy about his decision. And of course he was right…. There was a lot of back and forth and his stepmom asked me if there was any grudges I was holding against them because I never got close to them. I said yes, I said it’s not fair that they let my husband’s Ex live with them but not me who had their grand baby.
Backstory… my husband had mentioned the ex had no place to live so they helped her out. That was it that was all he told me.
Well the stepmom ended up saying “well because they were married!”. I was taken back. I looked at my husband and said “what is she talking about”?? He said no it was nothing like that. The stepmom then said “I saw the divorce papers and we went out to eat to celebrate.” He then said “we’ll talk about it later”.
Later comes and all he says thats it’s not true he just doesn’t like talking about the ex because she used him and he felt dumb. I asked him did you buy her a ring? did you go to the courthouse and said I do? And he said no he denied all of it and I believed him because I trusted him and loved him.
Fast forward, now he has left to bootcamp but my gut feeling kept telling me that I need to find the truth. Cause why would the stepmom say that?? So I decided to go the courthouse and there it was he got divorced in nov 2018 when I was 6 months pregnant.
(Edit post: him & his ex were separated and she had already moved out when we first started talking. He just never mentioned he was going through a divorce. His divorce was finalized Nov 2018 and we were 7 months dating and 6 months pregnant)
I have no way of talking to him cause he doesn’t have his phone right now so I decided to talk to his aunt and she told me everything. She said everyone knew they were married and they assumed he told me.
He went 6 years keeping this secret. Now my memory of my first wedding day is ruined. It’s ruined with lies and betrayal. I feel like a fool because his parents, his sisters all helped him keep this lie from me. I’m honestly so hurt and heart broken and now I don’t know what to do.
•I would like to mention they got married February 2017 and separated January 2018. Yes only married for 11 months but they were together since high school. He only told me she didn’t have a place to live not that they were married.
•she cheated in 2015 before they got married and he gave her another chance.
•now married she cheated again with the same guy and moved in with the new guy and once she moved out with new guy she filed for divorce march 2018. 2 months after they separated. so he claims she only used him for a place to live.
•we started talking maybe a few days after they filed for divorce. And I didn’t find out I was pregnant until June 2018. So no, he didn’t cheat with me.
•his divorce was not finalized until November 2018 and I was already 6 months pregnant.
•also, yes we got pregnant really fast but I had told him from the very beginning I had health problems that wouldn’t let me be pregnant. so when we did get pregnant first doctor visit we asked doctor what the heck and he said I guess it’s a miracle. But due to my condition my pregnancy was a high risk. Had to visit once a week just to see if baby still had a heart beat. When we found out we sat down and talked if he was ready to become a parent and if wasn’t he can step out. I told him I was keeping baby because I felt like it was a gift sent from heaven from my mom. So no I didn’t force him to stay with me.
• I would also like to add, when we actually got married they asked us both if we’ve been married or divorced before and we both said no. So when I went to the courthouse and found his dissolution of marriage I asked the gentleman and said it’s this perjury? He said no cause his divorce was finalized way before we got married.

I was bored Saturday night. I had already fucked Maria, my housekeeper twice this afternoon before I sent her home, so I was not really looking for a fuck puppet at the moment. Sigh … I finally decided I would go out for a bite to eat.
I got cleaned up and dressed casual-upscale. I chose one of my exquisite Patek timepieces for my wrist, along with the normal digs (bracelets, rings, chokers, necklaces, etc…). I did not really desire any company tonight, but ultimately decided I needed to adorn my presence lest I be diminished in the minds of others. I chose “Azure”, one of my beater chicks. I called her up and asked her out to dinner. Of course she accepted my invitation immediately. She is a very attractive girl. I think she models, or acts, or some shit.
I picked up Azure at her flat at 9:30 pm. I drove my Aston Martin for the date, as I know this will send a tingle down her leg. We arrived at Nobu a couple minutes before 10. The maitre’d, Claude, looked a little pissed because it was so late, so I slipped him a hundy and he grudgingly seated us. I made a mental note to call Brad, the manager, tomorrow and complain. Brad and I play squash together at the club. I will have that prick Claude fired and homeless by this time tomorrow night.
I just wanted to sit back, sip on a glass or three of 25yr old Glenlivet, and people-watch. However, Azure had other plans. I am a very successful and handsome gentleman. It is not a brag; it is simply the fact of the matter. Literally thousands of attractive young ladies in this town would love to land me as a husband. Azure was no exception. As soon as we sat down she was all over me. Within 5 minutes she was stroking my cock through my trousers.
Frankly, I was not in the mood. Moreover, Azure is like a corpse in bed. I much prefer getting my rocks off with my feral housekeeper, Maria, than some cold fish like Azure. Maria fucks like a wild dog in heat.
Getting annoyed with her, but not wanting to ruin the chill vibe I yearned for tonight, I handed Azure a small silver pill box containing some primo nose candy. When she saw what it was a big grin came over her face and off she went to the restroom. I leaned my head back against the booth and relaxed, sipping my Scotch.
A swarthy looking waiter calling himself “Bruce” stopped by my table, disrupting my solitude with all sorts of pestering questions. Growing frustrated with what appeared to be a concerted effort to fuck up my evening, I grabbed Bruce by the collar of his shirt and yanked him close to me. With my other hand I flicked open my Microtech knife and put it to his throat. I told him that when I want to talk to him I will call him, and that if he comes to me uninvited again I would cut his fucking throat wide open and watch him bleed to death right there on the table before me. I asked the peasant if he understood. He nodded. Then I told him to fuck off, which he did. Back to my Scotch.
A few minutes later I received a phone call from Brad on my cell phone. “DID YOU JUST THREATEN TO KILL ONE OF MY WAITERS?!?”, he demanded to know. I calmly responded, “Jesus, Brad. I figured you would be more upset that I am fucking your wife than over me having a few words with one of your disgusting peasant waiters.”
Brad paused. In fact, I was not fucking his wife, not anymore. After she was diagnosed with colon cancer I just could not go there any more. It would just be … gross. In fact, she confided in me about her condition before she even told Brad.
I remember that we had just finished fucking in her and Brad’s bed. She started blathering on, so I went online on my phone shopping the gray market for a new Rolex Daytona. “What? What was that, sweetheart? Oh no, cancer!!!”, and yada yada, who gives a shit, right?
We hid the affair from Brad. But he probably suspected somebody was banging his wife, as was clear when he paused just then on the phone at my mere suggestion that I was bedding her down. Then he blurted out, “Fuck you, man! Ha ha ha!! But seriously, Bruce is a great guy and I don’t want to lose him. What am I supposed to do here?!?” I responded, “Fix it”, then hung up on him. I did not see Bruce after that, for the rest of the night.
Azure finally made it back to our table. You could almost hear the “buzz” coming through her eyes. “What a degenerate fucking bimbo”, I thought to myself. This dumb bitch could fall off the face of the Earth tomorrow and humanity would not even notice. She has family, I guess. But besides that, she is nothing to anyone (maybe not even her own family). If not for her willingness to be used as a whore and a social ornament, she would have absolutely no purpose in life whatsoever. I might feel sorry for her and her empty existence if I were capable of such a thing. But I am not, thank God.
I considered asking Azure back to my penthouse suite after dinner just so I could fire her off the fucking balcony and to the street below. But there would be police reports and all that bullshit. So I merely allowed her to blow me in my car as I drove her home. Honestly, I think she struggled with whether she should swallow or spit me into a ziplock baggy inside to preserve it as a trophy.
We said our goodbyes and Azure exited the car and headed toward her front door. I won’t lie, the thought of gunning my car and mowing her down on the curb crossed my mind. But, again, I did not want to have to deal with all the red tape.
It was already a little past midnight, but I was not quite ready to go home. I decided to drive over to “Zen’s Pleasure Palace”. Zen’s is an upscale sex club not far from Nobu. Usually single guys are not allowed entry. However, I know the manager, Ned. I did not even want to fuck, per se. I wanted to shoot some H and relax with some Scotch as I watched others fuck.
By 2:30 am I was in a sex room and layed out on a beanbag watching a very serious orgy unfold. I was tight too, and feeling good. Pretty soon this Asian chick had my erect member out of my pants and in her mouth. The pleasure was intoxicating and I was enjoying it immensely, as was she. Suddenly there came a screaming that interrupted my ecstasy.
“GET THAT FUCKER’S COCK OUT OF YOUR MOUTH!! I DON’T WANT YOU GETTING SHIT IN THAT MONEY MAKER, YOU FUCKING WHORE!!!”, said the intruder.
Of course, I knew exactly who it was. It was Milo, a/k/a Jersey. He is a Cambodian sex trafficker that leases his women to brothels such as Zen’s. I honestly did not know Milo was working this side of town tonight, so the mistake was an honest one on my part.
I opened my eyes and looked at the sad fucker. “Hey man! What’s going on?”, I said to him. The silly bastard then had the audacity to pull a pistol on me. I asked, “Come on, dude, are you still pissed about what happened on the docks?!?” I could tell from his expression that he was.
See, 6 months ago I was banging some of Milo’s Asian whores down at a place on the docks called “Sammy’s”. I was coked out of my mind, and banging 2, 3 girls at once. I paid for them, of course. It was a wild scene. Everybody was flying high and having a good time.
Then my Coke dealer, Rodriguez, came storming into the club, guns blazing. He had learned earlier in the day that I has been fucking his wife, the most beautiful and sexy Tatiana, from the Nuevo Cartel. In fact, he left a voice mail that I heard earlier pledging to hunt me down and murder me. But then I got so jacked on blow and liquor I completely forgot about it and went whoring.
In fact, it was worse than that. See, Rodriguez owns Sammy’s. But like I said, I was completely out of my mind. I guess some of his minions informed him of my presence there while he was out trying to find me.
Rodriguez walked right up to me as I was being blown by one of Milo’s chicks and said, “esse’ you got a lot of nerve coming here, of all places.” I knew I had to act fast. I quickly reached over to my coat and retrieved my smg, then I opened fire with extreme prejudice. Interestingly, the Asian chick on my cock did not miss a beat through all this.
I dropped the empty mag and loaded another. By the time I was finished the only living creatures left in Sammy’s was me and the lil Asian chick still attached to my cock. Growing paranoid as a result of this assassination attempt and all the blow, I heard my voice in the back of my head say “No witnesses”. So I blew my load, twice. I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to determine which load was blown first.
Getting back to Milo, he was incensed. “Of course I am still pissed about the docks!!! You whacked 17 of my girls that night, you fucking degenerate asshole!!”, he said. I shrugged, which seemed to irritate him more,
Finally, I sighed, let my head fall backwards, and said “Fine. Fine. How much?” Milo asked “How much for what?” I said “How much for the fucking whores I offed that night at the docks. Jesus Christ, Milo.” Milo thought for a moment, then said $20,000.00. I said “I will give you ten”. Milo agreed, I paid him, and then I got back to what I was doing before he barged into my good time.
It was now around 5:00 am. I was getting a little tired, but I still was not quite ready to go home. I hopped into the Aston Martin and took off. I realized I was near the south side Rolex AD (authorized dealer). I had the manager, Chad, on my speed dial.
“CHAD!! Hey, buddy! It’s me! Get your ass up and meet me down at the store in 10 minutes. I want a new watch!”, I said. Chad hem and hawed around, saying is was Sunday morning and that he was in the hospital with his wife who had just been in a terrible car wreck earlier in the evening, and other bullshit.
“Come on, Chad. Don’t be a fag! I am ready to buy, buy, buy!! What you got?!?”, I asked. Chad started fake crying, telling me he was not sure his wife was going to pull through, and how he did not know what he and the kids would do without her. I rolled my eyes. I was flying down Lexington Avenue doing 110 mph, just a couple minutes from the AD. “Dude, she is not going anywhere. She will be there when you get back. It is not like she is fucking dying or anything”, I told him, completely oblivious to Chad’s prior comment that his wife may not pull through.
Chad is married to this Ukrainian whore named Slovakia or some stupid ship. I used to feed her coke and fuck her silly while Chad was working. It’s too bad she was about to bite the big one. But, who fucking cares, you know?
I finally got Chad down to the store at 6:15 am. He told me his wife kept flatlining but he had a handful of timepieces in the back he was eager to show me. These Rolex ADs, ha ha ha! They don’t care who is fucking dying if it means getting a commission of a $20K watch!
By 8:00 am I bought a Newman Daytona and a used Kermit. We had a few drinks there too, and did some lines. By 9:00 am I was on a phone call with Milo to get some of his whores sent to my penthouse for me and Chad to party with. We agreed to a price, I paid it, and he would have 5 Vietnamese girls at my place by noon.
With time to kill, I told Chad that we needed to score some more blow, for us and the girls. He agreed. First, we stopped by the liquor store for a couple fifths of Johnny Walker Blue, which we sipped on as I drove us over to Frédérique’s flat for coke. Fred is one of my dealers, and he has got some good shit.
We were at Fred’s place for an hour. Fred was higher than a fucking kite and talking a million miles an hour. He insisted on lecturing Chad and I about the finer points of West Coast thrash metal vs. East coast hardcore. It was, frankly, excruciating. Then shit took a weird turn.
Suddenly, some blond dude in a Hawaiian flower shirt busted out of one of the rooms in Fred’s flat blasting shots from a high caliber revolver. I looked over at my buddy Chad, then “SPLAT!!!!!” One of the bullets from this maniac’s gun hit Chad in the head, blowing his head apart like an invigorated Gallagher smashing watermelons with his Sledge-O-Matic. Blood, brain, and bone fragments were everywhere.
Unbeknownst to me, Fred’s wife, Anaconda, had entered the room behind me carrying a sawed off shotgun. “BAMMM!!!!” The mysterious gunman was on the floor dead from buckshot ripping his brain into shreds. Fred and Ana then got into a huge argument in a foreign language, with Fred following her as she stormed off into another room. I decided it was time for me to leave lest I be late for Milo.
As I was making my way out of Fred’s place I heard another gunshot. I winced at the possibility of losing my best dealer. “Son of a bitch!”, I said to myself.
I got home at 5 til noon. I let myself inside and made myself a drink. Time passed. That shit Milo never showed up. And I had already paid him $5,000.00 on my credit card. I was getting pissed. I was also getting horny. Maria did not come in that day. I went through the contacts on my phone. Azure, Tatiana, Brandy, Ameko, Donnaella, Domino, Slovakia ….
“Ohhhhhh … Slavakia!! That is one hot piece of fuck meat!! Let me call her!!!”, I said. I rang her up but there was no answer. I called a couple times more but still no answer. Not wanting to be denied, I texted her “Hey, baby!! Can’t wait to see you again soon and pound that sweet ass of yours!”
An hour later and still no return communication. I thought to myself, “What the fuck?!? Did you fucking die or something?!? Jesus Christ!!” Then I had a wicked thought. “Maybe I will tell Chad I have been fucking his wife. That will fix her! Ha ha ha ha!!!!”
I started feeling kind of shitty after that. I tried to remember when I last ate, but could not. I was very aware that I was super strung out at the moment. I was unsure of how long I had been awake. I needed sleep.
I took some ludes and drank half a bottle of Cabernet. Pretty soon I started calming down and relaxing. By this point it is late Sunday afternoon. I needed to pull myself together. I had to show up straight in Delaware tomorrow for the plea deal. As much as I dreaded it, at least after tomorrow everything will finally be over with for good. Sigh…
Suddenly, I got a notification on my phone. It was a text from dad. It said, “Good luck in court tomorrow, Beau! Dad”.

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Synopsis:
Juliette Contzen is a lazy, good-for-nothing princess. Overshadowed by her siblings, she's left with little to do but nap, read … and occasionally cut the falling raindrops with her sword. Spotted one day by an astonished adventurer, he insists on grading Juliette's swordsmanship, then promptly has a mental breakdown at the result.
Soon after, Juliette is given the news that her kingdom is on the brink of bankruptcy. At threat of being married off, the lazy princess vows to do whatever it takes to maintain her current lifestyle, and taking matters into her own hands, escapes in the middle of the night in order to restore her kingdom's finances.
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Action, Fantasy, Copious Ohohohohos.
Chapter 231: Out With The New, In With The Old
Dorlund was in an excellent mood.
Of course, he wasn’t feeling particularly excellent before. He’d had his door blown down.
Again.
He could barely believe it. He’d purposefully eschewed the usual magical doors of obsidian baked in dragonfire and sealed with a magical lock which not even he himself could break should he lose the key.
It didn’t matter. It never did.
The fact was that if a magical door existed, then so must magical treasure to be burgled behind it. Or the logic of every thief in the known world went.
It’d taken him until he’d learned how to colour his greying beard back to a hearty black before he finally realised that stronger did not mean better. All it did was lure even better looters, robbers and even adventurers into his abode–of which that girl had been one of them.
Oh, she’d been the pick of the bunch.
Not only breaking his door, but looking righteous about it as well.
If he wasn’t already used to the careening ethics of adventurers, he would have booted her to the very edges of the Summer Kingdoms.
Sadly, age and experience had taught Dorlund many things. Patience being one of them. And also the stickiness of adventurers. The last one he’d sent to enjoy a cliffside view of the Beryl Sea while dangling off a branch. He’d returned with a fine collection of seashells to sell to him.
No, there was nothing about that girl which intrigued him.
At least not until he saw what sword she held.
He recognised it. Not the blade itself, of course. He was no blacksmith. To Dorlund, fanciful castle forged swords taking up room in the carriages of troll merchants were no more distinguishable than the blades of alleyway cutthroats.
What he did recognise, however, were the enchantments.
An obscene amount. Of which most lacked practical function.
There was the usual assortment to keep the blade immune from the effects of wear and tear. But then there were things like Mixie’s Sacred Caffeine Dissociation Ward. A highly complex spell of which its only purpose was to make a sword immune to the effects of coffee spillages.
It was absurd. Not only was this functionally worthless, but it overlapped with the regular suite of enchantments to prevent minor damage as well. A showcase of eccentricity. And Dorlund had always been of the opinion that magic was only as good as its practical application in real world settings.
He remembered the worst of them. And so he remembered the blade.
And he also remembered that it wasn’t held by her the last time he’d seen it.
Dorlund stopped scribbling onto his scroll as a memory swept through his mind.
One of his least pleasant ones. He winced as he thought of one of the few scars his body had ever received. He’d not expected that woman to have a temper quite so similar to a primal gorilla. But perhaps when given a magical sword, the willingness to test it also came with it.
A curious thing, then.
Despite the blade possessing no new enchantments, its current user was able to wield it with even greater proficiency. Even now, he saw light spots in his eyes as though the sun had shone into his face.
A terrible thing for an aberrant shadow demon.
But also wonderful for his ongoing research in the behavioural patterns of rare and exotic monsters.
It wasn’t his plan to study any shadowy aberrations today. But research was fluid and so was his priorities. In quick order, he recorded his final observations, before finishing with a cursory glance over the legibility of his notes. He understood less than a quarter. Perfect.
He smiled in satisfaction–and then promptly realised a draft was entering his tower
His visitors had left just as they came, leaving his door shattered into a thousand fragments.
Dorlund bemoaned the state of his tower. It wasn’t much, admittedly. But it was practical and spacious. Much more so than his formal study, crammed with so many books that he was certain one of them was multiplying when he wasn’t looking.
He needed to return. And not just to make sure books hadn’t consumed half the continent.
The scroll needed to be transcribed into his untitled compendium of monsters. His life’s work, even if he’d never spent a moment of his life purposefully working towards it.
After all, there was little need.
The powerful were drawn to the powerful, and tonight, this included both adventurers and monsters.
He sighed as he gazed around at the strewn wreckage of his chamber once more.
Even the candles were ruined. Flames lit by holy oils worth more than the treasuries of ancient families now wasted. He’d need to tidy it all up. And likely with more than magic too. For the smallest pieces, he’d need to resort to using a dustpan and brush.
… He could do it later.
There were more doors in his tower. And he doubted if anyone else would be so curious as to risk his ire tonight.
Dorlund tucked the scroll under his arm. He took in a shallow breath.
“[Arcane Teleport].”
And then an almighty snap filled the air.
The next moment, the wizard was gone.
Colours and unknown visages blended together as he swept through paths unseen by ordinary eyes. Rivers, cities and mountains parted like curtains at a speed which would have seen even the greatest of mages faltering directly into somebody’s garden wall.
Dorlund considered himself greater still.
Which is why–
“Hmm.”
The next sight he saw was that of his study.
A homely thing. And thankfully not overrun with books. They were on their shelves.
Most of them, at least.
A room which was even smaller than the chamber he’d just left. But he hadn’t chosen it for its size, but rather for its location. A permanent residence at one of the finest institutions of learning in the Grand Duchy of Granholtz, frequented by the great, the powerful and the drunk.
The Lost Mermaid Tavern.
Dorlund had a very generous room discount.
Sadly, it was far too noisy. Granholtz’s taverns were famed for many things, but civility was not one of them. Especially when academia and alcohol was involved.
Regardless, it was the closest thing he had to home. And his boasted enough tomes laden on every shelf and toppling pile on the floor to match any great library. In these works was the accumulated sum of his research. And none of it was to be touched or removed.
An unfortunate thing, then, to find he was not alone in this room.
He frowned as he peered at the lifeless body upon his floor.
Beneath the blackened thief’s attire, dried blood spilled from some wound which failed to be cauterised by his fulmination rune, and thus threatened the edges of his shelves.
He’d need to make a complaint afterwards.
Magical defences or not, he paid not only to stay, but also for housekeeping.
Stepping over the corpse, he searched for the appropriate tome on his shelves.
He found it at once. A large compendium which he swung to the section concerning shadow demons. His amendment would be small, but important. Aberrant behaviour was rare, and needed to be documented to know if any change was indicative of something widespread or localised.
There was much they still didn’t know about the fiends they called monsters, but Dorlund was endeavoured to chronicling it.
Creaaaak.
Providing he wasn’t disturbed, of course.
A woman in the finer years of her life burst through his doorway, her sister’s habit fluttering like a banner from the sheer strength of the magic in her hands. A golden orb of holy flame simmered in her grip as she readied to launch a sermon in the form of a swift trip to the heavens.
A moment later–
“Dorlund! You old fox, I didn’t know you’d returned! Gods, I almost turned you into a … well, that.”
The sister nudged her chin towards the partially charred corpse on the ground.
For his part, Dorlund only had eyes for the last puff of holy fire before it was extinguished. One of these days, he’d ask for the secrets of the Holy Church to be able to imbue such power amongst its sisters. And one of these days, he might actually receive an answer.
He offered a gentlemanly smile.
“Just a brief visit, no more. I’m here for my compendium. I discovered an aberrant shadow demon. Not only was its behaviour highly inordinary, but it was also undetectable by my magic. A splendid specimen. I was rather sad to see it go. I’m here to transcribe my notes.”
Sister Pomona, 3rd of the Sonnenritter, allowed her shoulders to fall.
A sigh exited her lips. Not once, but twice. He felt both were unnecessary.
“Is that so? How very much like you, Dorlund, to suddenly teleport knowing full well the racket you’d be making. I thought someone was burgling your room.”
“And I see you rushed to see it was averted. A needless act of studiousness on your part, but one I offer my gratitude for nonetheless. I apologise if I took you away from your business in the tavern.”
“You should. My business with my wine is crucial. Do you know the number of economies which rely on my tastebuds?”
Dorlund almost considered giving a number, even if he knew it’d be an underestimate.
Instead … he was drawn to a commotion behind the sister’s shoulders.
Although the flames in her hands had vanished, the same could not be said for the other guests in The Lost Mermaid Tavern.
A mage in scarlet threw a lance of black lightning, the magic rebounding throughout the hallway outside. It struck two of the other guests, painting holes in their chests as they fell on the spot. A moment later, the mage himself cried out as his crimson robes were set alight. Frozen flames covered his body, immune to his attempts to snuff them out as he was swiftly turned to soot.
Screams and shouts. Carnage and mayhem. Magic and smoke.
Dorlund raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
“Did two rival professors enter an argument about cheddar vs gouda again? If so, the barkeeper should know to put a stop to it at once. It’s really not worth vaporising each other over. Especially since cheddar is clearly superior.”
“It’s not about cheese. Not this time, at least. It’s the Cowled Magisters.”
“Well, tell them to stop. This is a tavern, not some Granholtz fighting pit. And unlike most others, I actually see a distinction between the two.”
“You can tell them. They took insult to the suggestion they could not even pour an ale, much less raise Rozinthe back to prominence. As a result, they’ve now opted to pause the process of restoring their nation to its rightful place as the hegemonic authority on the continent in order to show everyone their talent at dispensing various ales. All who disagree with the foam percentage are vaporised.”
Dorlund didn’t bother holding back his snort.
“Cowled Magisters. No matter how they cloak themselves, their lack of foresight still hurts the eye.”
“Not even the slightest sympathy with their cause?”
“There are better ways to further the cause of magic than to shovel away at its institutions every few years. Out with the old and in with the new stops being meaningful once everything is new and still continually being destroyed.”
“Perhaps they should look to the Holy Church. Why, with us, it’s always ‘in with the old’ … even when we only want to leave. My latest retirement request has been declined.”
“You’re far too admired to be allowed to retire.”
“As are you, and yet you’ve erased yourself from society.”
“An excellent thing too. If those magisters believed I was available, they’d lasso me at once.”
“It wouldn’t be a bad thing. Rozinthe has always been a magocracy. You assisting would simply formalise it. And grant you a bigger room in the process. One with space to add another shelf. What do you say? I hear they’re hiring.”
The sister turned to the side, gesturing outside as an amused smile played at her lips.
A contrast to the agony upon the face of a guest now realising that [Cloud Barrier] was exactly as the name suggested. It did as much to stop a fireball as a wall of marshmallows.
“I believe I’ll pass,” said Dorlund, suffering as he failed to ignore the crass spellwork. “I’ve neither the wish nor the need to waste good seconds on seeing how Rozinthe’s secret cabal of mages chooses to make a mess of everything they touch.”
Sister Pomona smiled, then closed the door.
He wondered how much time he’d need to offer before it was socially acceptable to open his compendium and begin working. A consideration he made not only out of politeness. But in the knowledge that making the wrong estimate would hamper his ability to write considerably.
“It is a pleasure to see you again after so long, Dorlund.”
“The same with you, Pomona. I regret that my research takes me to places where contact is limited.”
“I’m aware. The last I heard, you were secluded in some faraway refuge.”
“You heard correctly. A forest in the Kingdom of Tirea. Lovely place. Quiet. For the most part. I’m rarely burgled more than once every two months. Even so, I find I’ve little time for smaller matters.”
“Smaller matters. Like ensuring I hadn’t died yet?”
The hand that’d been creeping towards opening his compendium stilled. A bead of sweat ran down his face as he thought of the correct response.
“Rest assured, I would have known immediately if you’d died. You’ve nothing to fear on that account.”
He suspected from the look he received that his words were incorrect.
Unfortunate. He could hardly know her living status if he was dead first.
A scowl later, the sister crossed her arms and leaned against the door. Neither of them were leaving anytime soon, apparently.
“You should consider an apprentice,” she said simply. “I’m certain you’d make a fine instructor.”
“I’m certain I would. Much more than an apprentice would make a good student. I’m afraid they’re more of a hindrance than a help these days.”
“You’d be surprised. There is no shortage of prodigal talent, but as is often the case, talent needs to be tempered before it can be wielded. If you offer enough time, the results will speak for themselves. Only 1 out of 100 will give you a headache to make you wish you’d returned to sinning in The Flailing Hog.”
Dorlund paused.
A scholar, a philosopher and a great wizard. As all of these things, he understood the fabric of the cosmos more than almost any, speaking a dozen languages now lost to time. But even so, he had to think as he looked at the woman’s irritated expression, her eyes turned to some unseen window.
A silence ensued, filled only by the noise of running in the corridors. And at least one person having their torso turned to powdered chalk.
Then, he cautiously coughed.
“Ahem … did something happen recently?”
The sister gave a long, drawn out sigh. Yet although her expression only became more pained, he knew at once he’d made the right query.
After all, that expression wasn’t aimed towards him.
“I don’t even know where to start. Frankly, I’m considering becoming a hermit myself. A problem as the heavens are far more capable of knowing where I am than people are regarding you. One of my colleagues, and my own former trainee no less, has managed to get herself arrested.”
Dorlund nodded, all the while stepping over the corpse.
He discreetly burned away some of the blood with a wave of his hand as he went. Then, he opted to take a seat upon the only chair present. He suspected this would not be swift. And as mannered as he was, he wasn’t prepared to let the vacant seat go.
“Perhaps you even saw her being dragged away in chains yourself. I sent her to Tirea, you see. And not even for anything remotely devious. Somehow that makes the humiliation even more palpable. I hoped she’d learn a bit of basic management and accountancy skills. Assisting the finances of an ailing chapel. The most peaceful and quiet job in the world. And she blew up a mine.”
Sister Pomona placed her face in her palms, the lines on her face becoming more pronounced than anything holy magic could do to soothe them over.
“She’s always had a talent for drawing out my headaches. But this goes beyond anything I could have envisioned. I’ve no idea what was going through her mind. And can you guess the result?”
“I cannot,” replied Dorlund as his compendium slowly began to open.
“She was defeated by an adventurer. And now I’m told she’s being shipped off to some … bizarrely named island, apparently to aid in the manufacture of toiletries. It is galling. I’ve half a mind to leave her there for a decade and let my successor deal with grovelling for her release.”
Dorlund nodded as he knew he was expected to.
In truth, he didn’t mind. It was rare to find someone who wished to have a conversation not involving robbing him of knowledge. Sister Pomona was one of them.
But maybe that’s because there was little the heavens hadn’t already told the 3rd of the Sonnnenritter.
“... And what about you?” she asked, to the snapping of a book again. “Have you discovered any headaches of your own worth comparing with?”
Dorlund gave a hum.
“There are always headaches in the field of magical research. But unlike yours, mine are a joy.”
“Good. I’m glad to see that being a hermit has done nothing to change your candour. Even so, I must confess that Tirea doesn’t strike as the sort of place you would choose to conduct your research.”
“True. But for a small kingdom, it routinely conjures up the largest surprises.”
“Yes, overly large badgers and cattle. Really now, I see little reason why you need to play at being a recluse other than to further your own image as some aloof wizard. You can do such a thing in any decent mage’s tower in Granholtz. Somewhere you can more easily ensure I haven’t died.”
Dorlund coughed into his fist.
Partly to hide his awkwardness around the only person who’d ever insisted on drinking games with him. But also to hide the fact that he was hardly the only recluse that kingdom had.
He decided that Sister Pomona had quite enough troubles to deal with.
Moreover, he had absolutely no desire to bring her and the entire Sonnenritter right to his doorstep.
And they would come. All of them.
As intrigued as he was to see the ensuing results, he preferred that at least a fraction of his tower remained. And also the kingdom which housed it.
There’d been more than one reason why he didn’t wish to direct a girl who’d knocked down his door to his neighbours. Because as dark as that shadow in his tower had been, there existed things that even a sword with a hundred unnecessary enchantments could not shed light upon.
Then again, she’d managed to make that sword shine more than even its previous wielder.
Perhaps it could be brighter still.
He’d need to take notes.
​
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UPDATE: omg thanks so much for all the replies!! my favorite ones were the replies thinking that I was a big, burly, gay gentleman due to the bear flair. I'm a straight female. :) AGREED that all of us sad sacks should get together haha!
I know this has been asked in some way or another before. Sorry if my flair is incorrect. Idk what I’m doing, I almost chose the bears one.
I’m recently single, 38F, and want to start dating, and also feel generally pretty friendless and lonely in this city despite having lived here since 2008. It feels like everyone got married and moved to the suburbs to have kids.
I’ve been on dating apps but hate how image centric they are and that the worst fear is “not looking as good as your photo” (ghasp… the horror….) and nearly all of the men on there either wanted kids or were polyamorous (i am neither).
I am looking to meet people who live in the city and/or at least actively do stuff within the city.
I dont mind sports but not a huge fan. I tried social field hockey once and people took it way too seriously, dodgeball gives me nightmares about middle school gym class, but otherwise would be open to a social sports league where no one cares if you suck. Does this exist?
I like museums and art. Creative stuff.
I like going to dive bars. Open to stuff like trivia nights.
I live in Fenway and am intentionally car free.
I hate the suburbs. Love traveling and trips to NYC.
Love live music. Hate Morgan wallen and his fan base.
I work in marketing/social media/advertising.
Love curb your enthusiasm/always sunny and trashy reality tv.
Pro 420, occasional mdma is fun.
Very progressive/liberal.
Open to outdoors stuff, not a big hiker but I love walking and I like kayaking and camping.
Any ideas on meeting single men? Is speed dating a thing to try? I don’t care too much about looks, def don’t give a shit about height (so weird to care), but it’s important to me that my date is not Trumpy or annoyingly libertarian, and I like to meet people who are funny and adventurous.
Or even how to make some friends?
Or has everyone been priced out of Boston except students and couples?

Greeting everyone ! I am a DM with years of experience and a player on a Curse of Strahd campaign. Our party just left Vallaki.
I have an other campaign which I'm running for 2 years and half now, but I fell in love with the module so I'm going to DM for a day and making discover to my regular players Curse of Strahd ! I'm super excited and we'll play the whole day ! Since also I'm a player, I'm careful with spoilers.
So I'm planning to run the Death House with MandyMod advices, but since we have the other campaign, we'll just do this with a true ending. I want to add lore concerning Strahd, Ireena and the thing with Tatyana so my friends can have an overview of the story.
The party will be composed of : A barbarian, a fighter, a monk, a bard and a life domain cleric.
So, this is how I'm planning to run the game :

• The players meet Vistana at Daggerford for a mission. They spend the night with them. The Vistana tell about a story how they met a prince they rescued, which was Strahd when he was conquering Barovia. They tell it because this is how they can travel between plans because of the deal with Strahd. The next morning, the players are in Barovia, with the Vistana and their belongings gone.
• They travel until the village of Barovia and hear people shouting and screaming. Among them, there's a woman, it's Ireena. She begs people to check the Death House because since last night, she can hear Rose and Thorn's screams and it's unbeareable. The barovians are afraid and reject her because she attracts Strahd and he bite her twice already.
• At the same moment, Ismark arrives to cover and take her at their home. Their dad has just died, so he's the new bourgmester. But he won't come alone, he's with a little noble and gentleman from Vallaki named Vasili von Holtz.
• The plan made between Ismark and Vasili is to take Ireena to Vallaki so she can be safe from Strahd. At this moment, the players meet all of them. But Ireena refuses to go to Vallaki if someone doesn't check the Death House. Ireena will say she'll go to the House, but Ismark of course will refuse and will propose his help to the players to go with them. And Vasili will also offer his help to the players, so he can seduce and please Ireena.

At this moment the players will have the choice to take Ireena, Ismark and/or Vasili to the Death House with them. But at least one of them must stay at the village.

• If Ireena come to the Death House, she will do the most as she can to help Rose and Thorn, but she can't fight like the party. But she'll bond with them.
• If Ismark come, he will take his duty as a bourgmester to help the kids. He'll do the most as he can to protect Ireena.
• If Vasili come, he will be outgoing but make his best to offer his help. But he can't fight. If Ireena come along, he'll try to bond with her, and also, with the party.

And then the adventure goes like the module. But in the house, I added several things :

• A portrait of Strahd as he is now above the chest where his letter is found. Several claws marks are on it.
• In the letter where Strahd calls Walter ''bastard'', he says ''I'm not the prince who you are begging.'' because Mrs Durst made sacrifices for him in the hope to get eternal life like him.
• If the players play on the piano in ballroom, they'll see the specters and memories from the previous lives in the house. There will be Gustav and Elizabeth Durst, Margaret, but also, Sergei, Tatyana and Strahd. We can see Gustav and Elizabeth in a small and cold argument, and Elizabeth finish with ''I'm going to visit the prince.'' which she refers to Strahd. She's going to meet him while Sergei and Tatyana reach Mr Durst. While they are chatting, Strahd is looking toward Tatyana's direction. Sergei reachs also his brother, and we can see they have a great bond. (I want to portray them like Guts, Griffith and Casca's relationship in the golden age)
• In the kids bedroom, there is a message and an old picture of Sergei, Tatyana, Rose and Thorn which would say ''I'll be back soon, and I'm excited to take you out in the gardens again, meeting you was cheerful for me and my fiancee. I'll return once we'll get married. - With love, Sergei''. The thing which it has to strike the players is Sergei and Vasili look alike, and Tatyana to Ireena.
• I would like to put a sunblade in the prison where the prisoners were for the cult. To help the player against the monster in the cave. If they give the blade to Vasili, he will destroy it.

The party will follow the path until the sacrifice room where Walter's supposed to be. And knowing them, one of them or Ireena would like to sacrifice. (I won't put Lancelot in this one shot) But I have to find a reason why Vasili can't take the sacrifice or can't go to the sacrifice room. Maybe by hurting him during the combats ?? Whatever if he comes or not in the Death House, there's gonna be the reveal that he's Strahd in disguise. And he's taking his brother appearance to seduce Ireena.
SO HERE HOW THE ENDING CAN COME :

• If Strahd stays outside of the House, I imagine him welcoming the players outside the Death House with Rahadin and a nice bucket full of food. If Ismark stayed with him outside, he'll take him as a hostage to put pressure on the players to give him the sunblade and Ireena to join him. If the players accept and give him Ireena, he will allow them to return to their home.
• If none of the siblings stayed outside, Strahd will just put pressure and mindgame with the players. If they give him Ireena and the sunblade, he will allow them to return to their home.
• If he's with the players until the end, I guess he's stop to play along with them ? He had the fun he wanted and got to know the players. (since this group is really into RP) Rahadin would've taken the sibling who would've stay outside. I'm stucked how he can do the reveal, at least one player guess he's Strahd, I want the reveal to be theatrical !

With what they saw in the Death House, and the Dark Powers, the players will know the guy is powerful since everything is build around him. I know my players are smarts and they will know Strahd made a deal with the Dark Power and he wanted his brother fiancee who is reincarnated into Ireena. They'll see how much dangerous Strahd is and how much of a predator he is. Party at level 2 cannot fight him. They'll be exhausted after the Death House and if one player made the sacrifice. But they can get out from this nightmare by delivering Ireena and the sun blade to Strahd, but doing this, this will be the bad ending of Ravenloft.
If the players refuse to give Ireena, they will be doomed into the eternal mist and they'll be prisoners within a sadistic game Strahd will put on repeat.
So what are your thoughts about it ? How can I make the reveal theatrical ? If you had the chance to DM Curse of Strahd to a bunch of newbies players who cannot play the whole campaign, would you do it like this ?

Hi everyone! 👋
I had the absolute pleasure of spending a couple of days in Bowral, attending the 3x01 screening and exclusive garden party. You probably have read a version of these notes on socials earlier this week, but I wanted to go through everything while it's still relatively fresh and write up a full outline. Big thanks to Sea_Dragonfly and ArdentCastle for helping me fill in the blanks.
Below are MAJOR SPOILERS for 3x01. Read on with caution. I've outlined the entire episode and included some visual aids. The details may not be 100% correct, but the jist is all there. Please enjoy.
We begin with the opening LW voiceover. It’s the same lines we’ve heard from Tudum and the trailer. "Dearest gentle reader, we have been apart for far too long.”
There are lots of shots of the ton, people walking around, reading the Whistledown pamphlets. Portia and Penelope arrive at Featherington House in green dresses, and Varley greets them on the stairs. Portia says something like, “It’s good to be home,” and Pen agrees.
https://preview.redd.it/ds12vxb0vlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=1665507e91ecef1d073971d267e2562006375220
“At last, London smart set has made its return and so too has this author.” We see another sequence of Penelope and Portia in the markets. Portia seems to be buying up big. Penelope looks around at everyone reading LW and seems very proud of herself.
“As the season begins, the question on everyone's minds is, of course: Which newly minted debutant will shine the brightest? The crop this year, appears to be rather dazzling indeed. Unfortunately, not every young lady can attract the light."
Cut to the inside of Bridgerton House. Violet and Gregory are at the door, listening into Fran’s room, while Eloise rolls her eyes alongside. Benedict teases Eloise as Kanthony turns up, and Violet asks them if they could ask the person playing in the drawing room to quiet down so they can eavesdrop.
https://preview.redd.it/n3vfpr9yulwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=c382a5e4773d5dfeba620abb62388f08ea85c88a
Oops! The family walks into the drawing room, and Violet calls for Francesca multiple times before she stops playing. Fran got up early and was already ready to go. She had been practising the piano because “it’s just another day” and it’s not a big deal. They all get ready to leave the house for the Queen’s presentation.
Then there’s a final line from LW that wasn’t included in the TUDUM reading - this talks about which gentleman will make a splash in this year’s social season. Cut to the docks - our favourite pirate, Colin, gets off the boat and walks down the gangplank, throwing his bag into the carriage before getting in. The carriage starts toward the city.
https://preview.redd.it/55o51kx1vlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=5d151adc0c6458e0bdc2e62fc4848f256d423d73
Cue title credits! Colin Bridgerton’s name is swirled across the tree, and we get three new pieces of iconography alongside some of the same from last season: a piece of parchment with a pen, a butterfly, and the hot air balloon we will see later in the season.
Back from the credits, we find Penelope in the gardens between the houses in Grosvenor’s Square. She’s spying on the Bridgertons as they fuss in front of the house. She looks longingly at Eloise. There’s some commotion further down the street—a gaggle of ladies are surrounding Colin. One of them “accidentally” drops her glove on the ground; he picks it up, kisses her hand (as per the trailer), and then swaggers away.
Penelope watches all of this happen. His family seems shocked that he is home—Colin blames presentation traffic for being late. Everyone hugs, and Colin briefly sees Penelope snooping in the street but looks away, distracted by his family. Penelope takes this really badly.
https://preview.redd.it/nbsrjhs2vlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=8f6856a19fb746fbd6dd72bc63b0fa20f4a87441
Cut to Colin and his brothers in the carriage as he gets changed for the presentation. Anthony comments that they didn’t hear much from him this time; who is this new person? He says it’s weird that Colin didn’t write to them because he usually has so much to say. Colin waves them off with vague comments about his trip and finding new proportions. Gregory mimics Colin’s tone and phrasing, and his older brothers laugh and smirk at him.
Then, we have a montage of the Queen’s presentation. We see some of the new debutantes and their families this season, but the Queen is completely bored of them. Freshly changed from his pirate gear, Colin slips into the room next to Eloise, who ribs him for it. El: “Since when are you one to slide into rooms?” Colin: “Since when are you one to wear so many ruffles?” El: “They are the fashion for the season.” Colin spots a group of debutantes across the room and winks at them (and the audience), and everyone swoons.
https://preview.redd.it/kkezo7d8vlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=d6689f42b8832d75748929ab6d532efd395c4f33
After some nerves, Francesca presents to the Queen. QC smiles briefly at her but then returns to her bored and uninterested expression, and everyone in the room seems quite concerned that no one has taken her fancy.
We now return to the Featherington household. Prudank and Phinch are on the couches, bickering with each other. Prudence comments about “how much better our wedding was than yours.” There’s a set-up with their Great Aunt Petunia and how they have allegedly inherited a bunch of money from her. Penelope says she likes this aunt, and Prudence rebuts, saying, “Well, of course you would, both of you being spinsters.”
https://preview.redd.it/7w3eby49vlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=aeb014fe620bdf353b874ec7a150b78d599989a2
They all leave for the garden party, and Penelope lingers in the drawing room while Varley and Portia speak in the foyer. When Pen finally joins them, Portia asks, “Are you done with your daydreaming?”
We see everyone arriving at the Livington Garden Party. Everyone is concerned that the Queen hasn’t named a diamond at the presentation and has not shown up to the party specifically designed for her to name one. Penelope sees Colin and Eloise arrive and looks distressed, especially when Cressida arrives to talk and leads Eloise away in conversation. During the party, Kate and Violet chat about the upcoming season and Kate’s new role as Viscountess. Violet apologises for not finding a home yet and that it’s all a bit much with two girls in society. Lady Danbury greets them, “Lady Bridgerton!” and they both respond.
There is a montage of Colin flirting with everyone at this party. It becomes pretty obvious that he’s picked up some lines; he’s laying them on really thick. They are all really fake and cringe, but the ladies are all lapping it up. Francesca is talking to some of the other debutantes about their ideal suitor, and when Fran responds with “someone kind”, they all scoff at her. “Well, obviously, you don’t want someone unkind.”
As per the trailer, Colin eventually finds Pen. “It’s good to see you.” “Is it?” Pen tells him he looks distinguished, “but you always do,” and Colin says his look was influenced by his travels in Paris. He asks Penelope what’s up with Eloise and Cressida Cowper, trying to gossip with her, but Penelope doesn’t give him a direct answer, except that “time moves rather quickly” before she leaves. Colin watches her go with a confused expression.
https://preview.redd.it/d4umc2navlwc1.png?width=1440&format=png&auto=webp&s=9a1d3eabc8cdafeb678e7ef8d603360eb4d8f5bd
The rest of the Featheringtons are talking about Lord F and his sudden departure. Prudence says something like, “And then he left, and he didn’t even take me with him,” while holding the arm of her new husband, who does not seem troubled in the slightest. Portia drops the news about the firstborn son inheriting the estate, and Pru and Phil look shocked.
On the way back to the carriages, they ask why this hasn’t come up before. They seem excited by the prospect of becoming a baroness, but Penelope corrects them: “Our son would be the Baron; we would just be the Baron’s mother.” Prudence scoffs and asks Pen, “You really think you are a part of this race?’ Portia tells the two married daughters to get on with it, “A baker doesn’t need to be taught how to bake”, and then tells Penelope that she’s so glad she’ll always be around to look after her.
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That night, Penelope tosses and turns. She gets out of bed and scowls at her closet and the old yellow dresses. The next morning, she’s at the modiste talking to Gen. She says she doesn’t want to be in citrus colours anymore and has to take a husband; she can no longer live at home. Gen asks if she has a suitor in mind, and Pen says she needs to be sensible—someone “kind” who will give her privacy because, well, you know. Gen asks if she has any colours or dresses in mind, and she says she wants to dress in the styles like they do in Paris.
Back at Bridgerton House, Colin is giving out gifts to everyone. Gregory has a new bow, and Francesca has new sheet music from Italy. Gregory and Hycainth go to use the bow and arrows inside, and Anthony ushers them outside. There is no necklace, but there is a gold stopwatch for Violet, and Colin and Mum have a nice moment together before she has to rush off with Fran and El to the modiste.
Before they go, Colin tries to give Eloise an intellectual book he got for her, but she fobs him off. She says she’s reading Emma instead. Colin seems confused that she’s reading romance, but she says the “real romance” was all the feminist works she read last season. Colin asks, “What of Penelope?” and asks Eloise why she’s hanging around with Cressida. Eloise says they have grown apart and that Cressida showed her kindness in the country when no one else did. Eloise suggests that Colin might be lonely (I can’t recall the full context) before she leaves.
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Bridgertons arrive at the modiste, and Eloise and Pen run into each other in the front. Pen asks her new maid, Rae, to wait outside, and then she tries to apologise to Eloise again. Eloise isn’t having any of it and says something like, “Are you sorry about what you said or sorry that I found out it was you?” Eloise also claims Penelope was “hiding away in the country.” The fight does not resolve, and they are still very much at odds.
Cut to Will’s Bar. ABC are having drinks. Anthony thanks Benedict for looking after the estate while he and Kate have been on honeymoon. Ben says it was fine; it was nice to have some purpose, and the camera cuts to Colin, who has a look on his face. Will comes over to say hi, but it is interrupted by a new arrival. The man has news about Alice’s deceased relative - and as the only male in the succession, Alice and Will’s son will become the Baron of Kent Estate.
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The next day, we find Kanthony making out in bed. Anthony ducks under the covers and goes down on his wife. He says he’s very diligent at making them an heir. Kate teases him that that’s not how one does that, and when they hear a commotion in the house, she gets up, saying that as the new Viscountess, she needs to make a good impression and get ready for Lady Danbury’s ball.
Penelope is also getting ready for Danbury’s Ball. Her maid Rae is about to do her hair, and Pen asks her if she can do something differently and shows her a little pamphlet of a particular style that she likes. We then see the montage of Pen getting ready, putting on her necklace, rouge, and gloves, and then turning the handle to walk out the door.
We arrive at the Four Seasons. It looks gorgeous - people are running around setting up flowers and dance cards and pouring wine. We see a wide shot of the ballroom - QC and Danbury are watching from the balcony. The Bridgertons arrive through the main doors. Danbury greets them, saying, “As the first ball of the season, I have to make sure I impress.” The party begins, and Cressida and Eloise are talking in the crowd. Cressida asks what LW might write about this season as the Feathertingtons arrive. Portia, Prudank and Phinch go ahead while Penelope has to remove her cloak.
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Cue the staircase moment. Gayle's ABCDEFU song begins to play as Pen walks down the stairs. Everyone stops and stares at her. Prudence and Phillipa think everyone is looking at them, but Finch turns around and smiles at Pen, declaring, “I don’t think they are looking at us.” Cressida tells Eloise, "Oh, well, now we have our answer.” Colin is at the bottom of the stairs talking to a few other gentlemen and does a double take as Penelope walks past. In the next shot, you can see him looking for her in the crowd.
Penelope moves into the party, looking a little overwhelmed, and finds a position near one of the refreshment stands. Two men approach her (!!!) and compliment her on her new gown, to which Pen responds with, “Thanks, you too.” She fumbles over her words and struggles to talk to the gentleman and it’s really hard to watch. Nearby, Eloise is half-watching Penelope as she is trapped in a conversation with Cressida and some other ladies about needlework and their favourite types of stitches. Eloise says she likes the “shift stitch” because she’d like to shift this topic of conversation. The ladies are not amused. “Oh, that was a jest.”
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Penelope finally exits the awkward conversation with the gentleman and hurries away. We see her overhead as QC and Danbury watch her weave through the crowd. QC asks who she is, and Danbury explains that she is Penelope Featherington, and it’s her third year on the marriage mart. She then redirects QC to the new debutantes - the mothers of the ton are concerned that she hasn’t named a diamond yet. Per the latest clip, Danbury goes on to provoke QC with the reminder that LW announced the diamond in the first season. Behind them, Brimsley looks incredibly concerned with Danbury’s meddling.
Francesca is talking to a group of men, including Fife, who are asking her about her hobbies. Anthony is in the background, glaring daggers at the group. She replies that she likes to play the pianoforte, but when they press further and ask her, “What makes you tick?” she gets overwhelmed and flustered and leaves. Then follows the Kanthony clip—Fran takes a break under the tree while Kate and Anthony take to the dance floor.
Penelope watches from the sidelines alone until Fran comes over to keep her company. Pen says her line from the trailer: “It seems as though every Bridgerton was born to attract notice.” She notes that Fran doesn’t like the notice as much as her siblings do. They both agree that they are very different from their siblings, and Pen laments that “for some of us, the notice is very slight.” She tells Fran to get back out there because “once you end up on the wall, it’s difficult to get off it.” A man comes over to ask Fran to dance, and she reluctantly leaves with him.
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Penelope moves from her spot to the other side of the room, taking one of the desserts from the stand. She swallows a huge mouthful and seems disgusted by it. As she’s doing this, Lord Debling appears! He references one of the women giving Pen a withering stare and implies that Pen can hold her own. Pen doesn’t stumble over her words nearly as much as before, and the interaction with Debling seems genuinely kind and friendly.
Cressida is watching this interaction, and in the middle of it, she steps on the edge of Pen's gown and the fabric rips. Debling says, “Accidents happen”, and then offers to get Pen a maid to assist her, and when he leaves, Cressida leans forward and says, “Oh, well, if it weren’t such cheap fabric, it wouldn’t have torn.” Cressida leaves smugly, and Eloise, who has witnessed the whole thing, looks incredibly stricken. She starts to apologise, “I’m so sorry,” but Pen rushes off before she can say any more.
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Penelope runs up the stairs past a group of men, including Colin, near the entrance. Colin notices her leaving and comments, "She didn’t look very well.” The other men ignore this, more focused on wanting to hear about Colin’s trip. Colin abandons the conversation and runs outside to follow her.
Outside, Pen pauses under the arches. She’s crying, wiping her face with her gloves and throwing her hair piece onto the ground in frustration. Colin arrives behind her. “Pen!” “Colin.” She asks what he is doing here, and he says he’s getting some fresh air. He compliments her dress and says it looks “charming,” and Pen replies, “Do not mock me.” “No, I mean it. The colour rather suits you.” Then we have the full Mr Bridgerton clip. Penelope storms off at the end and goes home to write a scathing review in her LW column. We see her at her desk and her quill scrawling Colin’s name over the parchment.
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The following morning, Portia has an unexpected visitor to Featherington House. It’s the Queen’s squire (the same man who spoke to Will and Alice), and he’s in charge of ensuring the ton's titles and families are maintained. He brings up the incident with Lord F and implies they are a bit suspicious about the document Portia has. Portia says it’s definitely not forged and expects to hear from one of her daughters about a pregnancy any day. The squire says he hopes they don’t lose their beautiful home.
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Eloise and Cressida are on a promenade. El is not very happy with how Cressida treated Pen and calls her out on it, saying it was cruel and unnecessary. Cressida admits that she hasn’t always been kind and that the marriage mart always pits ladies against one another. She seems genuinely excited to have found a friend in Eloise. They agree that they should not worry about anyone else, only themselves.
We return to the Bridgerton House, where Kate works in her study. Anthony arrives and kisses her over the chair. Kate says she’s overwhelmed with being Viscountess and already misses her husband. Maybe they could extend their honeymoon and let Violet stay in the house a little longer while El and Fran are out in society. She says she’s run a household in India for years, and they have all the time in the world to be Viscount and Viscountess. Anthony tells her not to talk about his mother anymore and lifts her onto the desk, sweeping all the papers off the surface.
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Francesca and Volet are in the drawing room, debriefing after the ball. Violet tells Fran that finding a love match is like playing a duet, and you are looking for someone with the perfect harmony for you. Fran says that what Violet and Edmund, Daphne and Simon, and Kate and Anthony found is rare, and while she’s open to finding love, she does not expect it to happen. Someone calls for Violet - the Viscountess wants to speak with her.
Now we move to Penelope in the gardens. Rae interrupts her reading: “You have a visitor, miss.” Colin walks into the shot, and Rae quietly leaves, great chaperoning there. Colin immediately comes out apologising. u/TryingToPassMath had the full dialogue for this scene; thank you for that, so I will include it here.
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Colin: "I am very sorry for my callous comment here last year. It pains me to see you upset."
Pen: "Then perhaps you should not have come."
Colin: "I am not the man I was last season, and I'm most certainly not ashamed of you. The opposite is true, in fact. I seek you out at every social assembly because I know you will lift my spirits and make me see the world in ways I could not have imagined. You are clever and warm, and I am proud to call you my very good friend."
Pen: “It has been vexing... watching you walk back into society with such ease. With every year, I pray I might finally feel that way amidst the marriage mart, and that comfort never materialises."
Colin sits beside her on the bench and says, “If a husband is what you seek, let me help you.” Penelope looks at him dubiously and says he can’t whisper in her ear at every ballroom. Colin suggests that they conduct lessons, something she would pick up easily because she’d be a quick learner. His travels to seventeen cities have shown him that charm and confidence can be taught.
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Colin stands and offers Pen his hand to shake. Pen looks at him, confused. “You want me to shake your hand?” “Of course. Are we not friends?” “Friends.” They shake hands per the trailer, and then Colin grasps her hands with both of his palms, lingering for a second longer. He tells her he’ll see her soon and then leaves.
Penelope stands in the garden for a long moment. She seems overwhelmed by what just happened and takes a few deep breaths to calm herself down. Then, in the distance, we hear someone calling out that LW is here. Penelope snaps into action and sprints out of the garden towards the house. Pru and Phil are reading the pamphlet in the drawing room. Pen tries to snatch it from them, claiming that the column is early today. Pru says that Colin has been mentioned in it, and Pen tells them that whatever LW has written about him is a lie.
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The LW voiceover starts. We return to Kent Estate, where the Mondrichs arrive via horse and carriage. The staff greets them at the entrance, welcoming the new baron to the estate. At the palace, QC is reading the column too. In the voiceover, LW calls out the Queen for not claiming a diamond yet this season. She suggests it might be “fortitude or fear” and then says, “Your serve, your majesty.” Brimsely asks if QC plans to play LW’s games and QC smirks. “I am so often the victor.”
The voiceover continues, saying that this author is embracing change. Colin arrives home as Eloise reads the pamphlet in the lobby, and the voiceover pauses as she stops. El hides the column behind her back, trying to shield it from Colin, but he holds out his hand for it, and she reluctantly hands it over, saying he’s been mentioned in it.
LW: “It appears that some people have embraced change too much. Mister Colin Bridgerton has come home with an entirely new personality. Is this the real him, or is it just a ploy for attention? Does Mister Bridgerton even know?”
Colin scowls. He’s pissed, and he tells Eloise that he doesn’t forgive LW for how she treated Lady Crane and for almost ruining Eloise. El tries to backtrack and tentatively asks Colin if he has any idea who Whistledown might be. Colin says, "If I ever find out, I’ll make sure that it is her life that is ruined.”
He storms off into the house and the credits roll.
And that's it! Sorry, Netflix, please don't come for me. 😎 I'm so excited for the rest of the season, I cannot wait for you all to watch this episode in its full glory in three weeks—it's a beautiful feast for the eyes, and I hope it's been worth the wait!

• Liziana 💛

When I was a child, there was a story about a dragon becoming a cat called the Dragon Tamers by Edith Nesbit, so here it is.
There was once an old, old castle--it was so old that its walls and towers and turrets and gateways and arches had crumbled to ruins, and of all its old splendor there were only two little rooms left; and it was here that John the blacksmith had set up his forge. He was too poor to live in a proper house, and no one asked any rent for the rooms in the ruin, because all the lords of the castle were dead and gone this many a year. So there John blew his bellows and hammered his iron and did all the work which came his way. This was not much, because most of the trade went to the mayor of the town, who was also a blacksmith in quite a large way of business, and had his huge forge facing the square of the town, and had twelve apprentices, all hammering like a nest of woodpeckers, and twelve journeymen to order the apprentices about, and a patent forge and a self-acting hammer and electric bellows, and all things handsome about him. So of course the townspeople, whenever they wanted a horse shod or a shaft mended, went to the mayor. John the blacksmith struggled on as best he could, with a few odd jobs from travelers and strangers who did not know what a superior forge the mayor's was. The two rooms were warm and weather-tight, but not very large; so the blacksmith got into the way of keeping his old iron, his odds and ends, his fagots, and his twopence worth of coal in the great dungeon down under the castle. It was a very fine dungeon indeed, with a handsome vaulted roof and big iron rings whose staples were built into the wall, very strong and convenient for tying captives to, and at one end was a broken flight of wide steps leading down no one knew where. Even the lords of the castle in the good old times had never known where those steps led to, but every now and then they would kick a prisoner down the steps in their lighthearted, hopeful way, and sure enough, the prisoners never came back. The blacksmith had never dared to go beyond the seventh step, and no more have I--so I know no more than he did what was at the bottom of those stairs.
John the blacksmith had a wife and a little baby. When his wife was not doing the housework she used to nurse the baby and cry, remembering the happy days when she lived with her father, who kept seventeen cows and lived quite in the country, and when John used to come courting her in the summer evenings, as smart as smart, with a posy in his buttonhole. And now John's hair was getting gray, and there was hardly ever enough to eat.
As for the baby, it cried a good deal at odd times; but at night, when its mother had settled down to sleep, it would always begin to cry, quite as a matter of course, so that she hardly got any rest at all. This made her very tired.
The baby could make up for its bad nights during the day if it liked, but the poor mother couldn't. So whenever she had nothing to do she used to sit and cry, because she was tired out with work and worry.
One evening the blacksmith was busy with his forge. He was making a goat-shoe for the goat of a very rich lady, who wished to see how the goat liked being shod, and also whether the shoe would come to fivepence or sevenpence before she ordered the whole set. This was the only order John had had that week. And as he worked his wife sat and nursed the baby, who, for a wonder, was not crying.
Presently, over the noise of the bellows and over the clank of the iron, there came another sound. The blacksmith and his wife looked at each other.
"I heard nothing," said he.
"Neither did I," said she.
But the noise grew louder--and the two were so anxious not to hear it that he hammered away at the goat-shoe harder than he had ever hammered in his life, and she began to sing to the baby--a thing she had not had the heart to do for weeks.
But through the blowing and hammering and singing the noise came louder and louder, and the more they tried not to hear it, the more they had to. It was like the noise of some great creature purring, purring, purring--and the reason they did not want to believe they really heard it was that it came from the great dungeon down below, where the old iron was, and the firewood and the twopence worth of coal, and the broken steps that went down into the dark and ended no one knew where.
"It can't be anything in the dungeon," said the blacksmith, wiping his face. "Why, I shall have to go down there after more coals in a minute."
"There isn't anything there, of course. How could there be?" said his wife. And they tried so hard to believe that there could be nothing there that presently they very nearly did believe it.
Then the blacksmith took his shovel in one hand and his riveting hammer in the other, and hung the old stable lantern on his little finger, and went down to get the coals.
"I am not taking the hammer because I think there is something there," said he, "but it is handy for breaking the large lumps of coal."
"I quite understand," said his wife, who had brought the coal home in her apron that very afternoon, and knew that it was all coal dust.
So he went down the winding stairs to the dungeon and stood at the bottom of the steps, holding the lantern above his head just to see that the dungeon really was empty, as usual. Half of it was empty as usual, except for the old iron and odds and ends, and the firewood and the coals. But the other side was not empty. It was quite full, and what it was full of was Dragon.
"It must have come up those nasty broken steps from goodness knows where," said the blacksmith to himself, trembling all over, as he tried to creep back up the winding stairs.
But the dragon was too quick for him--it put out a great claw and caught him by the leg, and as it moved it rattled like a great bunch of keys, or like the sheet iron they make thunder out of in pantomimes.
"No you don't," said the dragon in a spluttering voice, like a damp squib.
"Deary, deary me," said poor John, trembling more than ever in the claw of the dragon. "Here's a nice end for a respectable blacksmith!"
The dragon seemed very much struck by this remark.
"Do you mind saying that again?" said he, quite politely.
So John said again, very distinctly: "Here--is--a--nice--end--for--a--respectable--blacksmith."
"I didn't know," said the dragon. "Fancy now! You're the very man I wanted."
"So I understood you to say before," said John, his teeth chattering.
"Oh, I don't mean what you mean," said the dragon, "but I should like you to do a job for me. One of my wings has got some of the rivets out of it just above the joint. Could you put that to rights?"
"I might, sir," said John, politely, for you must always be polite to a possible customer, even if he be a dragon.
"A master craftsman--you are a master, of course?--can see in a minute what's wrong," the dragon went on. "Just come around here and feel my plates, will you?"
John timidly went around when the dragon took his claw away; and sure enough, the dragon's wing was hanging loose, and several of the plates near the joint certainly wanted riveting.
The dragon seemed to be made almost entirely of iron armor--a sort of tawny, red-rust color it was; from damp, no doubt--and under it he seemed to be covered with something furry.
All the blacksmith welled up in John's heart, and he felt more at ease.
"You could certainly do with a rivet or two, sir," said he. "In fact, you want a good many."
"Well, get to work, then," said the dragon. "You mend my wing, and then I'll go out and eat up all the town, and if you make a really smart job of it I'll eat you last. There!"
"I don't want to be eaten last, sir," said John.
"Well then, I'll eat you first," said the dragon.
"I don't want that, sir, either," said John.
"Go on with you, you silly man," said the dragon, "you don't know your own silly mind. Come, set to work."
"I don't like the job, sir," said John, "and that's the truth. I know how easily accidents happen. It's all fair and smooth, and 'Please rivet me, and I'll eat you last'--and then you get to work and you give a gentleman a bit of a nip or a dig under his rivets--and then it's fire and smoke, and no apologies will meet the case."
"Upon my word of honor as a dragon," said the other.
"I know you wouldn't do it on purpose, sir," said John, "but any gentleman will give a jump and a sniff if he's nipped, and one of your sniffs would be enough for me. Now, if you'd just let me fasten you up?"
"It would be so undignified," objected the dragon.
"We always fasten a horse up," said John, "and he's the 'noble animal.'"
"It's all very well," said the dragon, "but how do I know you'd untie me again when you'd riveted me? Give me something in pledge. What do you value most?"
"My hammer," said John. "A blacksmith is nothing without a hammer."
"But you'd want that for riveting me. You must think of something else, and at once, or I'll eat you first."
At this moment the baby in the room above began to scream. Its mother had been so quiet that it thought she had settled down for the night, and that it was time to begin.
"Whatever's that?" said the dragon, starting so that every plate on his body rattled.
"It's only the baby," said John.
"What's that?" asked the dragon. "Something you value?"
"Well, yes, sir, rather," said the blacksmith.
"Then bring it here," said the dragon, "and I'll take care of it till you've done riveting me, and you shall tie me up."
"All right, sir," said John, "but I ought to warn you. Babies are poison to dragons, so I don't deceive you. It's all right to touch--but don't you go putting it into your mouth. I shouldn't like to see any harm come to a nice-looking gentleman like you."
The dragon purred at this compliment and said: "All right, I'll be careful. Now go and fetch the thing, whatever it is."
So John ran up the steps as quickly as he could, for he knew that if the dragon got impatient before it was fastened, it could heave up the roof of the dungeon with one heave of its back, and kill them all in the ruins. His wife was asleep, in spite of the baby's cries; and John picked up the baby and took it down and put it between the dragon's front paws.
"You just purr to it, sir," he said, "and it'll be as good as gold."
So the dragon purred, and his purring pleased the baby so much that it stopped crying.
Then John rummaged among the heap of old iron and found there some heavy chains and a great collar that had been made in the days when men sang over their work and put their hearts into it, so that the things they made were strong enough to bear the weight of a thousand years, let alone a dragon.
John fastened the dragon up with the collar and the chains, and when he had padlocked them all on safely he set to work to find out how many rivets would be needed.
"Six, eight, ten--twenty, forty," said he. "I haven't half enough rivets in the shop. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll step around to another forge and get a few dozen. I won't be a minute."
And off he went, leaving the baby between the dragon's fore-paws, laughing and crowing with pleasure at the very large purr of it.
John ran as hard as he could into the town, and found the mayor and corporation.
"There's a dragon in my dungeon," he said; "I've chained him up. Now come and help to get my baby away."
And he told them all about it.
But they all happened to have engagements for that evening; so they praised John's cleverness, and said they were quite content to leave the matter in his hands.
"But what about my baby?" said John.
"Oh, well," said the mayor, "if anything should happen, you will always be able to remember that your baby perished in a good cause."
So John went home again, and told his wife some of the tale.
"You've given the baby to the dragon!" she cried. "Oh, you unnatural parent!"
"Hush," said John, and he told her some more. "Now," he said, "I'm going down. After I've been down you can go, and if you keep your head the boy will be all right."
So down went the blacksmith, and there was the dragon purring away with all his might to keep the baby quiet.
"Hurry up, can't you?" he said. "I can't keep up this noise all night."
"I'm very sorry, sir," said the blacksmith, "but all the shops are shut. The job must wait till the morning. And don't forget you've promised to take care of that baby. You'll find it a little wearing, I'm afraid. Good night, sir."
The dragon had purred till he was quite out of breath--so now he stopped, and as soon as everything was quiet the baby thought everyone must have settled for the night, and that it was time to begin to scream. So it began.
"Oh, dear," said the dragon, "this is awful." He patted the baby with his claw, but it screamed more than ever.
"And I am so tired too," said the dragon. "I did so hope I should have a good night."
The baby went on screaming.
"There'll be no peace for me after this," said the dragon. "It's enough to ruin one's nerves. Hush, then--did 'ums, then." And he tried to quiet the baby as if it had been a young dragon. But when he began to sing "Hush-a-by, Dragon," the baby screamed more and more and more. "I can't keep it quiet," said the dragon; and then suddenly he saw a woman sitting on the steps. "Here, I say," said he, "do you know anything about babies?"
"I do, a little," said the mother.
"Then I wish you'd take this one, and let me get some sleep," said the dragon, yawning. "You can bring it back in the morning before the blacksmith comes."
So the mother picked up the baby and took it upstairs and told her husband, and they went to bed happy, for they had caught the dragon and saved the baby.
And next day John went down and explained carefully to the dragon exactly how matters stood, and he got an iron gate with a grating to it and set it up at the foot of the steps, and the dragon mewed furiously for days and days, but when he found it was no good he was quiet.
So now John went to the mayor, and said: "I've got the dragon and I've saved the town."
"Noble preserver," cried the mayor, "we will get up a subscription for you, and crown you in public with a laurel wreath."
So the mayor put his name down for five pounds, and the corporation each gave three, and other people gave their guineas and half guineas and half crowns and crowns, and while the subscription was being made the mayor ordered three poems at his own expense from the town poet to celebrate the occasion. The poems were very much more admired, especially by the mayor and corporation.
The first poem dealt with the noble conduct of the mayor in arranging to have the dragon tied up. The second described the splendid assistance rendered by the corporation. And the third expressed the pride and joy of the poet in being permitted to sing such deeds, beside which the actions of St. George must appear quite commonplace to all with a feeling heart or a well-balanced brain.
When the subscription was finished there was a thousand pounds, and a committee was formed to settle what should be done with it. A third of it went to pay for a banquet to the mayor and corporation; another third was spent in buying a gold collar with a dragon on it for the mayor and gold medals with dragons on them for the corporation; and what was left went in committee expenses.
So there was nothing for the blacksmith except the laurel wreath and the knowledge that it really was he who had saved the town. But after this things went a little better with the blacksmith. To begin with, the baby did not cry so much as it had before. Then the rich lady who owned the goat was so touched by John's noble action that she ordered a complete set of shoes at 2 shillings, 4 pence, and even made it up to 2 shillings, 6 pence, in grateful recognition of his public-spirited conduct. Then tourists used to come in breaks from quite a long way off, and pay twopence each to go down the steps and peep through the iron grating at the rusty dragon in the dungeon--and it was threepence extra for each party if the blacksmith let off colored fire to see it by, which, as the fire was extremely short, was twopence-halfpenny clear profit every time. And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week.
The baby--named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short--began presently to grow up. He was great friends with Tina, the daughter of the whitesmith, who lived nearly opposite. She was a dear little girl with yellow pigtails and blue eyes, and she was tired of hearing the story of how Johnnie, when he was a baby, had been minded by a real dragon.
The two children used to go together to peep through the iron grating at the dragon, and sometimes they would hear him mew piteously. And they would light a halfpenny's worth of colored fire to look at him by. And they grew older and wiser.
At last one day the mayor and corporation, hunting the hare in their gold gowns, came screaming back to the town gates with the news that a lame, humpy giant, as big as a tin church, was coming over the marshes toward the town.
"We're lost," said the mayor. "I'd give a thousand pounds to anyone who could keep that giant out of the town. I know what he eats--by his teeth."
No one seemed to know what to do. But Johnnie and Tina were listening, and they looked at each other, and ran off as fast as their boots would carry them.
They ran through the forge, and down the dungeon steps, and knocked at the iron door. "Who's there?" said the dragon. "It's only us," said the children.
And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: "Come in, dears."
"You won't hurt us, or breathe fire at us or anything?" asked Tina.
And the dragon said, "Not for worlds."
So they went in and talked to him, and told him what the weather was like outside, and what there was in the papers, and at last Johnnie said: "There's a lame giant in the town. He wants you."
"Does he?" said the dragon, showing his teeth. "If only I were out of this!"
"If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you."
"Yes, I might," answered the dragon, "but then again I mightn't."
"Why--you'd never fight him?" said Tina.
"No," said the dragon; "I'm all for peace, I am. You let me out, and you'll see."
So the children loosed the dragon from the chains and the collar, and he broke down one end of the dungeon and went out--only pausing at the forge door to get the blacksmith to rivet his wing.
He met the lame giant at the gate of the town, and the giant banged on the dragon with his club as if he were banging an iron foundry, and the dragon behaved like a smelting works--all fire and smoke. It was a fearful sight, and people watched it from a distance, falling off their legs with the shock of every bang, but always getting up to look again.
At last the dragon won, and the giant sneaked away across the marshes, and the dragon, who was very tired, went home to sleep, announcing his intention of eating the town in the morning. He went back into his old dungeon because he was a stranger in the town, and he did not know of any other respectable lodging. Then Tina and Johnnie went to the mayor and corporation and said, "The giant is settled. Please give us the thousand pounds reward."
But the mayor said: "No, no, my boy. It is not you who have settled the giant, it is the dragon. I suppose you have chained him up again? When he comes to claim the reward he shall have it."
"He isn't chained up yet," said Johnnie. "Shall I send him to claim the reward?"
But the mayor said he need not trouble; and now he offered a thousand pounds to anyone who would get the dragon chained up again.
"I don't trust you," said Johnnie. "Look how you treated my father when he chained up the dragon."
But the people who were listening at the door interrupted, and said that if Johnnie could fasten up the dragon again they would turn out the mayor and let Johnnie be mayor in his place. For they had been dissatisfied with the mayor for some time, and thought they would like a change.
So Johnnie said, "Done," and off he went, hand in hand with Tina, and they called on all their little friends and said: "Will you help us to save the town?"
And all the children said: "Yes, of course we will. What fun!"
"Well, then," said Tina, "you must all bring your basins of bread and milk to the forge tomorrow at breakfast time."
"And if ever I am mayor," said Johnnie, "I will give a banquet, and you shall be invited. And we'll have nothing but sweet things from beginning to end."
All the children promised, and next morning Tina and Johnnie rolled their big washing tub down the winding stair.
"What's that noise?" asked the dragon.
"It's only a big giant breathing," said Tina, "He's gone by now."
Then, when all the town children brought their bread and milk, Tina emptied it into the wash tub, and when the tub was full Tina knocked at the iron door with the grating in it and said: "May we come in?"
"Oh, yes," said the dragon, "it's very dull here."
So they went in, and with the help of nine other children they lifted the washing tub in and set it down by the dragon. Then all the other children went away, and Tina and Johnnie sat down and cried.
"What's this?" asked the dragon. "And what's the matter?"
"This is bread and milk," said Johnnie; "it's our breakfast--all of it."
"Well," said the dragon, "I don't see what you want with breakfast. I'm going to eat everyone in the town as soon as I've rested a little."
"Dear Mr. Dragon," said Tina, "I wish you wouldn't eat us. How would you like to be eaten yourself?"
"Not at all," the dragon confessed, "but nobody will eat me."
"I don't know," said Johnnie, "there's a giant--"
"I know. I fought with him, and licked him."
"Yes, but there's another come now--the one you fought was only this one's little boy. This one is half as big again."
"He's seven times as big," said Tina.
"No, nine times," said Johnnie. "He's bigger than the steeple."
"Oh, dear," said the dragon. "I never expected this."
"And the mayor has told him where you are," Tina went on, "and he is coming to eat you as soon as he has sharpened his big knife. The mayor told him you were a wild dragon--but he didn't mind. He said he only ate wild dragons--with bread sauce."
"That's tiresome," said the dragon. "And I suppose this sloppy stuff in the tub is the bread sauce?"
The children said it was. "Of course," they added, "bread sauce is only served with wild dragons. Tame ones are served with apple sauce and onion stuffing. What a pity you're not a tame one: He'd never look at you then," they said. "Good-bye, poor dragon, we shall never see you again, and now you'll know what it's like to be eaten." And they began to cry again.
"Well, but look here," said the dragon, "couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon? Tell the giant that I'm just a poor little timid tame dragon that you kept for a pet."
"He'd never believe it," said Johnnie. "If you were our tame dragon we should keep you tied up, you know. We shouldn't like to risk losing such a dear, pretty pet."
Then the dragon begged them to fasten him up at once, and they did so: with the collar and chains that were made years ago--in the days when men sang over their work and made it strong enough to bear any strain.
And then they went away and told the people what they had done, and Johnnie was made mayor, and had a glorious feast exactly as he had said he would--with nothing in it but sweet things. It began with Turkish delight and halfpenny buns, and went on with oranges, toffee, coconut ice, peppermints, jam puffs, raspberry-noyeau, ice creams, and meringues, and ended with bull's-eyes and gingerbread and acid drops.
This was all very well for Johnnie and Tina; but if you are kind children with feeling hearts you will perhaps feel sorry for the poor deceived, deluded dragon--chained up in the dull dungeon, with nothing to do but to think over the shocking untruths that Johnnie had told him.
When he thought how he had been tricked, the poor captive dragon began to weep--and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates. And presently he began to feel faint, as people sometimes do when they have been crying, especially if they have not had anything to eat for ten years or so.
And then the poor creature dried his eyes and looked about him, and there he saw the tub of bread and milk. So he thought, "If giants like this damp, white stuff, perhaps I should like it too," and he tasted a little, and liked it so much that he ate it all up.
And the next time the tourists came, and Johnnie let off the colored fire, the dragon said shyly: "Excuse my troubling you, but could you bring me a little more bread and milk?"
So Johnnie arranged that people should go around with carts every day to collect the children's bread and milk for the dragon. The children were fed at the town's expense--on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk.
Now, when Johnnie had been mayor ten years or so he married Tina, and on their wedding morning they went to see the dragon. He had grown quite tame, and his rusty plates had fallen off in places, and underneath he was soft and furry to stroke. So now they stroked him.
And he said, "I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk. I am a tame dragon now, aren't I?" And when they said that yes, he was, the dragon said: "I am so tame, won't you undo me?" And some people would have been afraid to trust him, but Johnnie and Tina were so happy on their wedding day that they could not believe any harm of anyone in the world. So they loosened the chains, and the dragon said: "Excuse me a moment, there are one or two little things I should like to fetch," and he moved off to those mysterious steps and went down them, out of sight into the darkness. And as he moved, more and more of his rusty plates fell off.
In a few minutes they heard him clanking up the steps. He brought something in his mouth--it was a bag of gold.
"It's no good to me," he said. "Perhaps you might find it useful." So they thanked him very kindly.
"More where that came from," said he, and fetched more and more and more, till they told him to stop. So now they were rich, and so were their fathers and mothers. Indeed, everyone was rich, and there were no more poor people in the town. And they all got rich without working, which is very wrong; but the dragon had never been to school, as you have, so he knew no better.
And as the dragon came out of the dungeon, following Johnnie and Tina into the bright gold and blue of their wedding day, he blinked his eyes as a cat does in the sunshine, and he shook himself, and the last of his plates dropped off, and his wings with them, and he was just like a very, very extra-sized cat. And from that day he grew furrier and furrier, and he was the beginning of all cats. Nothing of the dragon remained except the claws, which all cats have still, as you can easily ascertain.
And I hope you see now how important it is to feed your cat with bread and milk. If you were to let it have nothing to eat but mice and birds it might grow larger and fiercer, and scalier and tailier, and get wings and turn into the beginning of dragons. And then there would be all the bother over again.

Aoa
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I am 17 at the time of writing this id like to clarify
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I am from a religious and well-off household living in Islamabad and its thanks to my mother a professor that I learnt something so crucial and to my sisters for providing me the book[its called sexuality in Islam by Abdelwahab bouhidba] that changed me on how i thought about sex ed in Islam. I used to say that what's the need once a person gets married they find out now i sit and wonder wtf did we do. WE ERASED THE MUSLIM SEX ED thanks to EXTREMISM from all sects of thought whether liberal or Islamic. I will try to explain and keep this as short as possible but i cannot provide a 2 line conclusion lest i want to create discrepancies.
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I write this for my age group guys and gals who want to learn more about all of this. Dear guys and gals remember your parents never had the luxuries you and i have right now. Neither was their an open air for discussion for topics of such sorts like Sex and neither was any room given by the populas of Pakistan majority of which was illiterate. You need to understand that not all Hafiz are alims and not all muhadtheen or Qadi or alims are hafiz, there is a lotta difference between all of them. Plus our adults don't wish to embarrass themselves as this was how their parents dealt with them when they were younger so please spare them the bad words.
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My journey began when i read sexuality in islam and learnt of the fact that Sexual intercourse was given as a gift from allah to us humans not only as a process to reproduce but to create a bond between the 2 pieces of the process and it is a fact that a man and women are both one of the same body hence the story goes that eve or hazrat hawa was created by adams rib and adam himself out of clay thus one of the same body.
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i was shocked when i started reading more and more i.e i read the fact that Prophet PBUH used to answer such questions of the sahaba and female sahaba within a mosque.
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It isn't that Islam hates sex or the pleasures of sex instead it is said that.
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“Among its benefits is that it helps to lower the gaze, brings self-control, enables one to keep away from haram things, and achieves all of these things for the woman too. It brings benefit to a man with regard to this world and the Hereafter and benefits the woman too. Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to enjoy regular intimate relations with his wives, and he said, In your world, women and perfume have been made dear to me. (Narrated by Ahmad, 3/128; al-Nasai, 7/61; classed as sahih by al-Hakim) .
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moving forwards i started delving into the past of the muslims and was ASTONISHED i tell you as to what i found.I shall briefly explain what i found with some examples.
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The idea that we muslims have today that women are the devils servent as many of us say that hazrat hawa ate the forbidden trees fruit first and then made adam eat it too thus getting them both kicked out of heaven. THIS is very much a christian concept used in the dark ages to justify the locking up of women there and turning them into more or less slaves , this was the christian churches narrative and the priests used to castrate themselves to show off the fact that they were no longer working for worldly pleasure as what we like to think today that in islam we must cut off all worldly pleasures including intercourse when allah has said that;“Among its benefits is that it helps to lower the gaze, brings self-control, enables one to keep away from haram things, and achieves all of these things for the woman too. It brings benefit to a man with regard to this world and the Hereafter and benefits the woman too. Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to enjoy regular intimate relations with his wives, and he said, In your world, women and perfume have been made dear to me. (Narrated by Ahmad, 3/128; al-Nasai, 7/61; classed as sahih by al-Hakim) .Allah sent this as a gift with principles meaning not to have sex outside of marital relations and what has been deemed halal.
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. Women's right to sexual pleasure' Another interesting point is the Islamic view of sex, which, again, used to be much more favorable in Islamdom than in the West. It is not a secret that mainstream Christianity, and especially Catholicism, has not been a great fan of intimacy, at least until modern times. Medieval Christianity even exhibited, in the words Orthodox theologian Nicolas Zernov, an "exaggerated fear of sex." But Islam, from the beginning, regarded sex -- within the bonds of marriage, of course -- as God's blessing. It was not seen as just a duty of procreation but also a source of pleasure for both sexes. There are hadiths (sayings) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad advising husbands to be a gentleman by giving more time to foreplay. Hence even the more conservative scholars of the shariah wrote about "women's right to sexual pleasure." The conceptualization of intimacy, too, was remarkably different in pre-modern Islamdom than the West. American historian Daniel Pipes, who is often accused of being too critical toward Islam rather than apologetic, notes this in his book, "In the Path of God." "Unlike traditional Western views of the sexual act as a battleground where the male exerts his supremacy over the female," he writes, "Muslims [saw] it as a tender, shared pleasure." Sexual satisfaction, Muslims also believed, "leads to a harmonious social order and a flourishing civilization." The great irony of our times is that while Islamdom lags behind the open-mindedness in its origins, Christendom -- if there is still such a thing -- has evolved immensely. Why this is the case is the million-dollar question. But it is also the right one.\
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I was shocked by all of this and when i went down the rabbit hole of history I was completely destroyed by what i found.
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THE OTTOMAN empire had schools for it elite that taught both men and women all subjects islamic and worldly such as science or math's alongside all of this SEX ED was mandatory in all ways for both men and women. the difference i realize now between us and European sex ed would be the fact that european sex ed is geared to make both genders a sex crazed machine and to help all such industries like the porn or contraceptive industry flourish. They keep both genders in one place to and simply give them a run up of what a vulva or penis is and tell em to simply watch stuff on how either works.
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mean while the sex ed of the ottomans and the Muslim empires including the persians and mughals was completely different. It builds the person brain by first talking about the non sexual topics in example how muslim men should behave and how women should behave accordingly to islam and how should one interact with a women of islam if she has a mahram with her or not and even what is regarded as premissible for sexual relations by Islam meaning the wife or slave. Lastly would they talk in books that were more than a 100 pages long as to what is the penis or vulva and THE ottomans had a special syste by which Courtiers wether men or women were trained in terms of sexual prefrences through books and manuals.These things blew me up completely.
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Questions then arose within me what HAPPEND to all the stuff like this. My foray for the answer to that led me down history lane again and i found this. Ill keep this short. When the 18th century arrived many forms of extremism grew amongst muslims of all sects the ideas of Wahhabism and Shiism were very repressive of such topics in particular and as they spread in Iran and the ottoman empire the comman illiterate man began to turn upon the liabraries and such places of knowledge where these manuals and sex ed books were kept and destroyed most of em. It was due to these riots that the ottoman sultans closed the schools for the elites and began destroying these books and sex manuals. Just to keep the empire stable.
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we no come to today where this topic is a taboo topic not by the laws of islam but by the laws of our illiterate men and women of the extremes from liberal to islamic. Both damage islam in special ways and direct ways.
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I tell you young fellow wether guy or gal that sex is fun and you shouldnt stop from thinking about it but dont do it outside of marriage.
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I hope you enjoyed reading about my ongoing journey and hope may good give our next generation the guts to talk about this topic openly to our children. I leave a google drive link i made for the purpose of keeping my books and digital media for this topic in it. It contains a digital version of the book SEXUALITY in ISLAM. Its a good book but requires a lotta knowledge of islamic law,Fiqh and Philosophy alongside arab literature and history to read and is quite fun to read. Do read it and the other books i even found a coupe of sex manuals for muslims during my hunts and was amazed that from sexting to oral sex to BDSM is allowed by islam although parts OF BDSM that involve cutting your partner or hurting them arent premissible.
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but keep your sexual secrets confined between ye and your partner not publicize them thats a lesson for ye and Please stay away from porn.also share this as much as you can if you want to.
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here is the link to my google drive. its free to access and ill keep updating it with more books as i go on forward upon my journey.
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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1z6S6U2NU2bssZFYcHfMNTsM9wdjKiOqJ?usp=drive_link
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dont repress your thoughts research them my fellow bros and sisters.May you have a brighte future.
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If any questions you want answered feel free to leave comments or chat me up on reddit.
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providing that your identity remain a secret wther guy or gal ill answer.
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May god be with ye.
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see ya when i see ya.
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was salaam.
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My other posts related to this. https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/OhvbmbFHLI
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https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/CcAfxPYJ6D
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https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/fK8GfSCsgX

Many persons accustomed to travel the old York and London road, in the days of stage-coaches, will remember passing, in the afternoon, say, of an autumn day, in their journey to the capital, about three miles south of the town of Applebury, and a mile and a half before you reach the old Angel Inn, a large black-and-white house, as those old-fashioned cage-work habitations are termed, dilapidated and weather-stained, with broad lattice windows glimmering all over in the evening sun with little diamond panes, and thrown into relief by a dense background of ancient elms. A wide avenue, now overgrown like a churchyard with grass and weeds, and flanked by double rows of the same dark trees, old and gigantic, with here and there a gap in their solemn files, and sometimes a fallen tree lying across on the avenue, leads up to the hall-door. Looking up its sombre and lifeless avenue from the top of the London coach, as I have often done, you are struck[21] with so many signs of desertion and decay,—the tufted grass sprouting in the chinks of the steps and window-stones, the smokeless chimneys over which the jackdaws are wheeling, the absence of human life and all its evidence, that you conclude at once that the place is uninhabited and abandoned to decay. The name of this ancient house is Gylingden Hall. Tall hedges and old timber quickly shroud the old place from view, and about a quarter of a mile further on you pass, embowered in melancholy trees, a small and ruinous Saxon chapel, which, time out of mind, has been the burying-place of the family of Marston, and partakes of the neglect and desolation which brood over their ancient dwelling-place. The grand melancholy of the secluded valley of Gylingden, lonely as an enchanted forest, in which the crows returning to their roosts among the trees, and the straggling deer who peep from beneath their branches, seem to hold a wild and undisturbed dominion, heightens the forlorn aspect of Gylingden Hall. Of late years repairs have been neglected, and here and there the roof is stripped, and "the stitch in time" has been wanting. At the side of the house exposed to the gales that sweep through the valley like a torrent through its channel, there is not a perfect window left, and the shutters but imperfectly exclude the rain. The ceilings and walls are mildewed and green with damp stains. Here and there, where the drip falls from the ceiling, the floors are rotting. On stormy nights, as the guard described, you can hear the doors clapping in the old house, as far away as old Gryston bridge, and the howl and sobbing of the wind through its empty galleries. About seventy years ago died the old Squire, Toby Marston, famous in that part of the world for his hounds, his hospitality, and his vices. He had done kind things,[22] and he had fought duels: he had given away money and he had horse-whipped people. He carried with him some blessings and a good many curses, and left behind him an amount of debts and charges upon the estates which appalled his two sons, who had no taste for business or accounts, and had never suspected, till that wicked, open-handed, and swearing old gentleman died, how very nearly he had run the estates into insolvency. They met at Gylingden Hall. They had the will before them, and lawyers to interpret, and information without stint, as to the encumbrances with which the deceased had saddled them. The will was so framed as to set the two brothers instantly at deadly feud. These brothers differed in some points; but in one material characteristic they resembled one another, and also their departed father. They never went into a quarrel by halves, and once in, they did not stick at trifles. The elder, Scroope Marston, the more dangerous man of the two, had never been a favourite of the old Squire. He had no taste for the sports of the field and the pleasures of a rustic life. He was no athlete, and he certainly was not handsome. All this the Squire resented. The young man, who had no respect for him, and outgrew his fear of his violence as he came to manhood, retorted. This aversion, therefore, in the ill-conditioned old man grew into positive hatred. He used to wish that d——d pippin-squeezing, hump-backed rascal Scroope, out of the way of better men—meaning his younger son Charles; and in his cups would talk in a way which even the old and young fellows who followed his hounds, and drank his port, and could stand a reasonable amount of brutality, did not like. Scroope Marston was slightly deformed, and he had the lean sallow face, piercing black eyes, and black lank hair, which sometimes accompany deformity.[23] "I'm no feyther o' that hog-backed creature. I'm no sire of hisn, d——n him! I'd as soon call that tongs son o' mine," the old man used to bawl, in allusion to his son's long, lank limbs: "Charlie's a man, but that's a jack-an-ape. He has no good-nature; there's nothing handy, nor manly, nor no one turn of a Marston in him." And when he was pretty drunk, the old Squire used to swear he should never "sit at the head o' that board; nor frighten away folk from Gylingden Hall wi' his d——d hatchet-face—the black loon!" "Handsome Charlie was the man for his money. He knew what a horse was, and could sit to his bottle; and the lasses were all clean mad about him. He was a Marston every inch of his six foot two." Handsome Charlie and he, however, had also had a row or two. The old Squire was free with his horsewhip as with his tongue, and on occasion when neither weapon was quite practicable, had been known to give a fellow "a tap o' his knuckles." Handsome Charlie, however, thought there was a period at which personal chastisement should cease; and one night, when the port was flowing, there was some allusion to Marion Hayward, the miller's daughter, which for some reason the old gentleman did not like. Being "in liquor," and having clearer ideas about pugilism than self-government, he struck out, to the surprise of all present, at Handsome Charlie. The youth threw back his head scientifically, and nothing followed but the crash of a decanter on the floor. But the old Squire's blood was up, and he bounced from his chair. Up jumped Handsome Charlie, resolved to stand no nonsense. Drunken Squire Lilbourne, intending to mediate, fell flat on the floor, and cut his ear among the glasses. Handsome Charlie caught the thump which the old Squire discharged at him upon his open hand, and[24] catching him by the cravat, swung him with his back to the wall. They said the old man never looked so purple, nor his eyes so goggle before; and then Handsome Charlie pinioned him tight to the wall by both arms. "Well, I say—come, don't you talk no more nonsense o' that sort, and I won't lick you," croaked the old Squire. "You stopped that un clever, you did. Didn't he? Come, Charlie, man, gie us your hand, I say, and sit down again, lad." And so the battle ended; and I believe it was the last time the Squire raised his hand to Handsome Charlie. But those days were over. Old Toby Marston lay cold and quiet enough now, under the drip of the mighty ash-tree within the Saxon ruin where so many of the old Marston race returned to dust, and were forgotten. The weather-stained top-boots and leather-breeches, the three-cornered cocked hat to which old gentlemen of that day still clung, and the well-known red waistcoat that reached below his hips, and the fierce pug face of the old Squire, were now but a picture of memory. And the brothers between whom he had planted an irreconcilable quarrel, were now in their new mourning suits, with the gloss still on, debating furiously across the table in the great oak parlour, which had so often resounded to the banter and coarse songs, the oaths and laughter of the congenial neighbours whom the old Squire of Gylingden Hall loved to assemble there. These young gentlemen, who had grown up in Gylingden Hall, were not accustomed to bridle their tongues, nor, if need be, to hesitate about a blow. Neither had been at the old man's funeral. His death had been sudden. Having been helped to his bed in that hilarious and quarrelsome state which was induced by port and punch, he was found dead in the morning,—his head hanging[25] over the side of the bed, and his face very black and swollen. Now the Squire's will despoiled his eldest son of Gylingden, which had descended to the heir time out of mind. Scroope Marston was furious. His deep stern voice was heard inveighing against his dead father and living brother, and the heavy thumps on the table with which he enforced his stormy recriminations resounded through the large chamber. Then broke in Charles's rougher voice, and then came a quick alternation of short sentences, and then both voices together in growing loudness and anger, and at last, swelling the tumult, the expostulations of pacific and frightened lawyers, and at last a sudden break up of the conference. Scroope broke out of the room, his pale furious face showing whiter against his long black hair, his dark fierce eyes blazing, his hands clenched, and looking more ungainly and deformed than ever in the convulsions of his fury. Very violent words must have passed between them; for Charlie, though he was the winning man, was almost as angry as Scroope. The elder brother was for holding possession of the house, and putting his rival to legal process to oust him. But his legal advisers were clearly against it. So, with a heart boiling over with gall, up he went to London, and found the firm who had managed his father's business fair and communicative enough. They looked into the settlements, and found that Gylingden was excepted. It was very odd, but so it was, specially excepted; so that the right of the old Squire to deal with it by his will could not be questioned. Notwithstanding all this, Scroope, breathing vengeance and aggression, and quite willing to wreck himself provided he could run his brother down, assailed Handsome Charlie, and battered old Squire Toby's will in the Prerogative[26] Court and also at common law, and the feud between the brothers was knit, and every month their exasperation was heightened. Scroope was beaten, and defeat did not soften him. Charles might have forgiven hard words; but he had been himself worsted during the long campaign in some of those skirmishes, special motions, and so forth, that constitute the episodes of a legal epic like that in which the Marston brothers figured as opposing combatants; and the blight of law costs had touched him, too, with the usual effect upon the temper of a man of embarrassed means. Years flew, and brought no healing on their wings. On the contrary, the deep corrosion of this hatred bit deeper by time. Neither brother married. But an accident of a different kind befell the younger, Charles Marston, which abridged his enjoyments very materially. This was a bad fall from his hunter. There were severe fractures, and there was concussion of the brain. For some time it was thought that he could not recover. He disappointed these evil auguries, however. He did recover, but changed in two essential particulars. He had received an injury in his hip, which doomed him never more to sit in the saddle. And the rollicking animal spirits which hitherto had never failed him, had now taken flight for ever. He had been for five days in a state of coma—absolute insensibility—and when he recovered consciousness he was haunted by an indescribable anxiety. Tom Cooper, who had been butler in the palmy days of Gylingden Hall, under old Squire Toby, still maintained his post with old-fashioned fidelity, in these days of faded splendour and frugal housekeeping. Twenty years had passed since the death of his old master. He had grown lean, and stooped, and his face, dark with the peculiar[27] brown of age, furrowed and gnarled, and his temper, except with his master, had waxed surly. His master had visited Bath and Buxton, and came back, as he went, lame, and halting gloomily about with the aid of a stick. When the hunter was sold, the last tradition of the old life at Gylingden disappeared. The young Squire, as he was still called, excluded by his mischance from the hunting-field, dropped into a solitary way of life, and halted slowly and solitarily about the old place, seldom raising his eyes, and with an appearance of indescribable gloom. Old Cooper could talk freely on occasion with his master; and one day he said, as he handed him his hat and stick in the hall: "You should rouse yourself up a bit, Master Charles!" "It's past rousing with me, old Cooper." "It's just this, I'm thinking: there's something on your mind, and you won't tell no one. There's no good keeping it on your stomach. You'll be a deal lighter if you tell it. Come, now, what is it, Master Charlie?" The Squire looked with his round grey eyes straight into Cooper's eyes. He felt that there was a sort of spell broken. It was like the old rule of the ghost who can't speak till it is spoken to. He looked earnestly into old Cooper's face for some seconds, and sighed deeply. "It ain't the first good guess you've made in your day, old Cooper, and I'm glad you've spoke. It's bin on my mind, sure enough, ever since I had that fall. Come in here after me, and shut the door." The Squire pushed open the door of the oak parlour, and looked round on the pictures abstractedly. He had not been there for some time, and, seating himself on the table, he looked again for a while in Cooper's face before he spoke.[28] "It's not a great deal, Cooper, but it troubles me, and I would not tell it to the parson nor the doctor; for, God knows what they'd say, though there's nothing to signify in it. But you were always true to the family, and I don't mind if I tell you." "'Tis as safe with Cooper, Master Charles, as if 'twas locked in a chest, and sunk in a well." "It's only this," said Charles Marston, looking down on the end of his stick, with which he was tracing lines and circles, "all the time I was lying like dead, as you thought, after that fall, I was with the old master." He raised his eyes to Cooper's again as he spoke, and with an awful oath he repeated—"I was with him, Cooper!" "He was a good man, sir, in his way," repeated old Cooper, returning his gaze with awe." He was a good master to me, and a good father to you, and I hope he's happy. May God rest him!" "Well," said Squire Charles, "it's only this: the whole of that time I was with him, or he was with me—I don't know which. The upshot is, we were together, and I thought I'd never get out of his hands again, and all the time he was bullying me about some one thing; and if it was to save my life, Tom Cooper, by —— from the time I waked I never could call to mind what it was; and I think I'd give that hand to know; and if you can think of anything it might be—for God's sake! don't be afraid, Tom Cooper, but speak it out, for he threatened me hard, and it was surely him." Here ensued a silence. "And what did you think it might be yourself, Master Charles?" said Cooper. "I han't thought of aught that's likely. I'll never hit on't—never. I thought it might happen he knew something about that d—— hump-backed villain, Scroope, that[29] swore before Lawyer Gingham I made away with a paper of settlements—me and father; and, as I hope to be saved, Tom Cooper, there never was a bigger lie! I'd a had the law of him for them identical words, and cast him for more than he's worth; only Lawyer Gingham never goes into nothing for me since money grew scarce in Gylingden; and I can't change my lawyer, I owe him such a hatful of money. But he did, he swore he'd hang me yet for it. He said it in them identical words—he'd never rest till he hanged me for it, and I think it was, like enough, something about that, the old master was troubled; but it's enough to drive a man mad. I can't bring it to mind—I can't remember a word he said, only he threatened awful, and looked—Lord a mercy on us!—frightful bad." "There's no need he should. May the Lord a-mercy on him!" said the old butler. "No, of course; and you're not to tell a soul, Cooper—not a living soul, mind, that I said he looked bad, nor nothing about it." "God forbid!" said old Cooper, shaking his head. "But I was thinking, sir, it might ha' been about the slight that's bin so long put on him by having no stone over him, and never a scratch o' a chisel to say who he is." "Ay! Well, I didn't think o' that. Put on your hat, old Cooper, and come down wi' me; for I'll look after that, at any rate." There is a bye-path leading by a turnstile to the park, and thence to the picturesque old burying-place, which lies in a nook by the roadside, embowered in ancient trees. It was a fine autumnal sunset, and melancholy lights and long shadows spread their peculiar effects over the landscape as "Handsome Charlie" and the old butler made their way slowly toward the place where Handsome Charlie was himself to lie at last.[30] "Which of the dogs made that howling all last night?" asked the Squire, when they had got on a little way. "'Twas a strange dog, Master Charlie, in front of the house; ours was all in the yard—a white dog wi' a black head, he looked to be, and he was smelling round them mounting-steps the old master, God be wi' him! set up, the time his knee was bad. When the tyke got up a' top of them, howlin' up at the windows, I'd a liked to shy something at him." "Hullo! Is that like him?" said the Squire, stopping short, and pointing with his stick at a dirty-white dog, with a large black head, which was scampering round them in a wide circle, half crouching with that air of uncertainty and deprecation which dogs so well know how to assume. He whistled the dog up. He was a large, half-starved bull-dog. "That fellow has made a long journey—thin as a whipping-post, and stained all over, and his claws worn to the stumps," said the Squire, musingly. "He isn't a bad dog, Cooper. My poor father liked a good bull-dog, and knew a cur from a good 'un." The dog was looking up into the Squire's face with the peculiar grim visage of his kind, and the Squire was thinking irreverently how strong a likeness it presented to the character of his father's fierce pug features when he was clutching his horsewhip and swearing at a keeper. "If I did right I'd shoot him. He'll worry the cattle, and kill our dogs," said the Squire. "Hey, Cooper? I'll tell the keeper to look after him. That fellow could pull down a sheep, and he shan't live on my mutton." But the dog was not to be shaken off. He looked wistfully after the Squire, and after they had got a little way on, he followed timidly. It was vain trying to drive him off. The dog ran round[31] them in wide circles, like the infernal dog in "Faust"; only he left no track of thin flame behind him. These manœuvres were executed with a sort of beseeching air, which flattered and touched the object of this odd preference. So he called him up again, patted him, and then and there in a manner adopted him. The dog now followed their steps dutifully, as if he had belonged to Handsome Charlie all his days. Cooper unlocked the little iron door, and the dog walked in close behind their heels, and followed them as they visited the roofless chapel. The Marstons were lying under the floor of this little building in rows. There is not a vault. Each has his distinct grave enclosed in a lining of masonry. Each is surmounted by a stone kist, on the upper flag of which is enclosed his epitaph, except that of poor old Squire Toby. Over him was nothing but the grass and the line of masonry which indicate the site of the kist, whenever his family should afford him one like the rest. "Well, it does look shabby. It's the elder brother's business; but if he won't, I'll see to it myself, and I'll take care, old boy, to cut sharp and deep in it, that the elder son having refused to lend a hand the stone was put there by the younger." They strolled round this little burial-ground. The sun was now below the horizon, and the red metallic glow from the clouds, still illuminated by the departed sun, mingled luridly with the twilight. When Charlie peeped again into the little chapel, he saw the ugly dog stretched upon Squire Toby's grave, looking at least twice his natural length, and performing such antics as made the young Squire stare. If you have ever seen a cat stretched on the floor, with a bunch of Valerian, straining, writhing, rubbing its jaws in long-drawn caresses, and in the absorption of a sensual[32] ecstasy, you have seen a phenomenon resembling that which Handsome Charlie witnessed on looking in. The head of the brute looked so large, its body so long and thin, and its joints so ungainly and dislocated, that the Squire, with old Cooper beside him, looked on with a feeling of disgust and astonishment, which, in a moment or two more, brought the Squire's stick down upon him with a couple of heavy thumps. The beast awakened from his ecstasy, sprang to the head of the grave, and there on a sudden, thick and bandy as before, confronted the Squire, who stood at its foot, with a terrible grin, and eyes that glared with the peculiar green of canine fury. The next moment the dog was crouching abjectly at the Squire's feet. "Well, he's a rum 'un!" said old Cooper, looking hard at him. "I like him," said the Squire. "I don't," said Cooper. "But he shan't come in here again," said the Squire. "I shouldn't wonder if he was a witch," said old Cooper, who remembered more tales of witchcraft than are now current in that part of the world. "He's a good dog," said the Squire, dreamily. "I remember the time I'd a given a handful for him—but I'll never be good for nothing again. Come along." And he stooped down and patted him. So up jumped the dog and looked up in his face, as if watching for some sign, ever so slight, which he might obey. Cooper did not like a bone in that dog's skin. He could not imagine what his master saw to admire in him. He kept him all night in the gun-room, and the dog accompanied him in his halting rambles about the place. The fonder his master grew of him, the less did Cooper and the other servants like him.[33] "He hasn't a point of a good dog about him," Cooper would growl. "I think Master Charlie be blind. And old Captain (an old red parrot, who sat chained to a perch in the oak parlour, and conversed with himself, and nibbled at his claws and bit his perch all day),—old Captain, the only living thing, except one or two of us, and the Squire himself, that remembers the old master, the minute he saw the dog, screeched as if he was struck, shakin' his feathers out quite wild, and drops down, poor old soul, a-hangin' by his foot, in a fit." But there is no accounting for fancies, and the Squire was one of those dogged persons who persist more obstinately in their whims the more they are opposed. But Charles Marston's health suffered by his lameness. The transition from habitual and violent exercise to such a life as his privation now consigned him to, was never made without a risk to health; and a host of dyspeptic annoyances, the existence of which he had never dreamed of before, now beset him in sad earnest. Among these was the now not unfrequent troubling of his sleep with dreams and nightmares. In these his canine favourite invariably had a part and was generally a central, and sometimes a solitary figure. In these visions the dog seemed to stretch himself up the side of the Squire's bed, and in dilated proportions to sit at his feet, with a horrible likeness to the pug features of old Squire Toby, with his tricks of wagging his head and throwing up his chin; and then he would talk to him about Scroope, and tell him "all wasn't straight," and that he "must make it up wi' Scroope," that he, the old Squire, had "served him an ill turn," that "time was nigh up," and that "fair was fair," and he was "troubled where he was, about Scroope."Then in his dream this semi-human brute would approach his face to his, crawling and crouching up his[34] body, heavy as lead, till the face of the beast was laid on his, with the same odious caresses and stretchings and writhings which he had seen over the old Squire's grave. Then Charlie would wake up with a gasp and a howl, and start upright in the bed, bathed in a cold moisture, and fancy he saw something white sliding off the foot of the bed. Sometimes he thought it might be the curtain with white lining that slipped down, or the coverlet disturbed by his uneasy turnings; but he always fancied, at such moments, that he saw something white sliding hastily off the bed; and always when he had been visited by such dreams the dog next morning was more than usually caressing and servile, as if to obliterate, by a more than ordinary welcome, the sentiment of disgust which the horror of the night had left behind it. The doctor half-satisfied the Squire that there was nothing in these dreams, which, in one shape or another, invariably attended forms of indigestion such as he was suffering from. For a while, as if to corroborate this theory, the dog ceased altogether to figure in them. But at last there came a vision in which, more unpleasantly than before, he did resume his old place. In his nightmare the room seemed all but dark; he heard what he knew to be the dog walking from the door round his bed slowly, to the side from which he always had come upon it. A portion of the room was uncarpeted, and he said he distinctly heard the peculiar tread of a dog, in which the faint clatter of the claws is audible. It was a light stealthy step, but at every tread the whole room shook heavily; he felt something place itself at the foot of his bed, and saw a pair of green eyes staring at him in the dark, from which he could not remove his own. Then he heard, as he thought, the old Squire Toby say—"The[35] eleventh hour be passed, Charlie, and ye've done nothing—you and I 'a done Scroope a wrong!" and then came a good deal more, and then—"The time's nigh up, it's going to strike." And with a long low growl, the thing began to creep up upon his feet; the growl continued, and he saw the reflection of the up-turned green eyes upon the bed-clothes, as it began slowly to stretch itself up his body towards his face. With a loud scream, he waked. The light, which of late the Squire was accustomed to have in his bedroom, had accidentally gone out. He was afraid to get up, or even to look about the room for some time; so sure did he feel of seeing the green eyes in the dark fixed on him from some corner. He had hardly recovered from the first agony which nightmare leaves behind it, and was beginning to collect his thoughts, when he heard the clock strike twelve. And he bethought him of the words "the eleventh hour be passed—time's nigh up—it's going to strike!" and he almost feared that he would hear the voice reopening the subject. Next morning the Squire came down looking ill. "Do you know a room, old Cooper," said he, "they used to call King Herod's Chamber?" "Ay, sir; the story of King Herod was on the walls o't when I was a boy." "There's a closet off it—is there?" "I can't be sure o' that; but 'tisn't worth your looking at, now; the hangings was rotten, and took off the walls, before you was born; and there's nou't there but some old broken things and lumber. I seed them put there myself by poor Twinks; he was blind of an eye, and footman afterwards. You'll remember Twinks? He died here, about the time o' the great snow. There was a deal o' work to bury him, poor fellow!"[36] "Get the key, old Cooper; I'll look at the room," said the Squire. "And what the devil can you want to look at it for?" said Cooper, with the old-world privilege of a rustic butler. "And what the devil's that to you? But I don't mind if I tell you. I don't want that dog in the gun-room, and I'll put him somewhere else; and I don't care if I put him there." "A bull-dog in a bedroom! Oons, sir! the folks 'ill say you're clean mad!" "Well, let them; get you the key, and let us look at the room." "You'd shoot him if you did right, Master Charlie. You never heard what a noise he kept up all last night in the gun-room, walking to and fro growling like a tiger in a show; and, say what you like, the dog's not worth his feed; he hasn't a point of a dog; he's a bad dog." "I know a dog better than you—and he's a good dog!" said the Squire, testily. "If you was a judge of a dog you'd hang that 'un," said Cooper. "I'm not a-going to hang him, so there's an end. Go you, and get the key; and don't be talking, mind, when you go down. I may change my mind." Now this freak of visiting King Herod's room had, in truth, a totally different object from that pretended by the Squire. The voice in his nightmare had uttered a particular direction, which haunted him, and would give him no peace until he had tested it. So far from liking that dog to-day, he was beginning to regard it with a horrible suspicion; and if old Cooper had not stirred his obstinate temper by seeming to dictate, I dare say he would have got rid of that inmate effectually before evening.[37] Up to the third storey, long disused, he and old Cooper mounted. At the end of a dusty gallery, the room lay. The old tapestry, from which the spacious chamber had taken its name, had long given place to modern paper, and this was mildewed, and in some places hanging from the walls. A thick mantle of dust lay over the floor. Some broken chairs and boards, thick with dust, lay, along with other lumber, piled together at one end of the room. They entered the closet, which was quite empty. The Squire looked round, and you could hardly have said whether he was relieved or disappointed. "No furniture here," said the Squire, and looked through the dusty window. "Did you say anything to me lately—I don't mean this morning—about this room, or the closet—or anything—I forget—" "Lor' bless you! Not I. I han't been thinkin' o' this room this forty year." "Is there any sort of old furniture called a buffet—do you remember?" asked the Squire. "A buffet? why, yes—to be sure—there was a buffet, sure enough, in this closet, now you bring it to my mind," said Cooper. "But it's papered over." "And what is it?" "A little cupboard in the wall," answered the old man. "Ho—I see—and there's such a thing here, is there, under the paper? Show me whereabouts it was." "Well—I think it was somewhere about here," answered he, rapping his knuckles along the wall opposite the window. "Ay, there it is," he added, as the hollow sound of a wooden door was returned to his knock. The Squire pulled the loose paper from the wall, and disclosed the doors of a small press, about two feet square, fixed in the wall.[38] "The very thing for my buckles and pistols, and the rest of my gimcracks," said the Squire. "Come away, we'll leave the dog where he is. Have you the key of that little press?" No, he had not. The old master had emptied and locked it up, and desired that it should be papered over, and that was the history of it. Down came the Squire, and took a strong turn-screw from his gun-case; and quietly he reascended to King Herod's room, and, with little trouble, forced the door of the small press in the closet wall. There were in it some letters and cancelled leases, and also a parchment deed which he took to the window and read with much agitation. It was a supplemental deed executed about a fortnight after the others, and previously to his father's marriage, placing Gylingden under strict settlement to the elder son, in what is called "tail male." Handsome Charlie, in his fraternal litigation, had acquired a smattering of technical knowledge, and he perfectly well knew that the effect of this would be not only to transfer the house and lands to his brother Scroope, but to leave him at the mercy of that exasperated brother, who might recover from him personally every guinea he had ever received by way of rent, from the date of his father's death. It was a dismal, clouded day, with something threatening in its aspect, and the darkness, where he stood, was made deeper by the top of one of the huge old trees overhanging the window. In a state of awful confusion he attempted to think over his position. He placed the deed in his pocket, and nearly made up his mind to destroy it. A short time ago he would not have hesitated for a moment under such circumstances; but now his health and his nerves were shattered, and he was under a supernatural alarm which[39] the strange discovery of this deed had powerfully confirmed. In this state of profound agitation he heard a sniffing at the closet-door, and then an impatient scratch and a long low growl. He screwed his courage up, and, not knowing what to expect, threw the door open and saw the dog, not in his dream-shape, but wriggling with joy, and crouching and fawning with eager submission; and then wandering about the closet, the brute growled awfully into the corners of it, and seemed in an unappeasable agitation. Then the dog returned and fawned and crouched again at his feet. After the first moment was over, the sensations of abhorrence and fear began to subside, and he almost reproached himself for requiting the affection of this poor friendless brute with the antipathy which he had really done nothing to earn. The dog pattered after him down the stairs. Oddly enough, the sight of this animal, after the first revulsion, reassured him; it was, in his eyes, so attached, so good-natured, and palpably so mere a dog. By the hour of evening the Squire had resolved on a middle course; he would not inform his brother of his discovery, nor yet would he destroy the deed. He would never marry. He was past that time. He would leave a letter, explaining the discovery of the deed, addressed to the only surviving trustee—who had probably forgotten everything about it—and having seen out his own tenure, he would provide that all should be set right after his death. Was not that fair? at all events it quite satisfied what he called his conscience, and he thought it a devilish good compromise for his brother; and he went out, towards sunset, to take his usual walk. Returning in the darkening twilight, the dog, as usual[40] attending him, began to grow frisky and wild, at first scampering round him in great circles, as before, nearly at the top of his speed, his great head between his paws as he raced. Gradually more excited grew the pace and narrower his circuit, louder and fiercer his continuous growl, and the Squire stopped and grasped his stick hard, for the lurid eyes and grin of the brute threatened an attack. Turning round and round as the excited brute encircled him, and striking vainly at him with his stick, he grew at last so tired that he almost despaired of keeping him longer at bay; when on a sudden the dog stopped short and crawled up to his feet wriggling and crouching submissively. Nothing could be more apologetic and abject; and when the Squire dealt him two heavy thumps with his stick, the dog whimpered only, and writhed and licked his feet. The Squire sat down on a prostrate tree; and his dumb companion, recovering his wonted spirits immediately, began to sniff and nuzzle among the roots. The Squire felt in his breast-pocket for the deed—it was safe; and again he pondered, in this loneliest of spots, on the question whether he should preserve it for restoration after his death to his brother, or destroy it forthwith. He began rather to lean toward the latter solution, when the long low growl of the dog not far off startled him. He was sitting in a melancholy grove of old trees, that slants gently westward. Exactly the same odd effect of light I have before described—a faint red glow reflected downward from the upper sky, after the sun had set, now gave to the growing darkness a lurid uncertainty. This grove, which lies in a gentle hollow, owing to its circumscribed horizon on all but one side, has a peculiar character of loneliness. He got up and peeped over a sort of barrier, accidentally[41] formed of the trunks of felled trees laid one over the other, and saw the dog straining up the other side of it, and hideously stretched out, his ugly head looking in consequence twice the natural size. His dream was coming over him again. And now between the trunks the brute's ungainly head was thrust, and the long neck came straining through, and the body, twining after it like a huge white lizard; and as it came striving and twisting through, it growled and glared as if it would devour him. As swiftly as his lameness would allow, the Squire hurried from this solitary spot towards the house. What thoughts exactly passed through his mind as he did so, I am sure he could not have told. But when the dog came up with him it seemed appeased, and even in high good-humour, and no longer resembled the brute that haunted his dreams. That night, near ten o'clock, the Squire, a good deal agitated, sent for the keeper, and told him that he believed the dog was mad, and that he must shoot him. He might shoot the dog in the gun-room, where he was—a grain of shot or two in the wainscot did not matter, and the dog must not have a chance of getting out. The Squire gave the gamekeeper his double-barrelled gun, loaded with heavy shot. He did not go with him beyond the hall. He placed his hand on the keeper's arm; the keeper said his hand trembled, and that he looked "as white as curds."Listen a bit!" said the Squire under his breath. They heard the dog in a state of high excitement in the room—growling ominously, jumping on the window-stool and down again, and running round the room. "You'll need to be sharp, mind—don't give him a chance—slip in edgeways, d'ye see? and give him both barrels!"[42] "Not the first mad dog I've knocked over, sir," said the man, looking very serious as he cocked the gun. As the keeper opened the door, the dog had sprung into the empty grate. He said he "never see sich a stark, staring devil." The beast made a twist round, as if, he thought, to jump up the chimney—"but that wasn't to be done at no price,"—and he made a yell—not like a dog—like a man caught in a mill-crank, and before he could spring at the keeper, he fired one barrel into him. The dog leaped towards him, and rolled over, receiving the second barrel in his head, as he lay snorting at the keeper's feet! "I never seed the like; I never heard a screech like that!" said the keeper, recoiling. "It makes a fellow feel queer." "Quite dead?" asked the Squire. "Not a stir in him, sir," said the man, pulling him along the floor by the neck. "Throw him outside the hall-door now," said the Squire;" and mind you pitch him outside the gate to-night—old Cooper says he's a witch," and the pale Squire smiled, "so he shan't lie in Gylingden." Never was man more relieved than the Squire, and he slept better for a week after this than he had done for many weeks before. It behoves us all to act promptly on our good resolutions. There is a determined gravitation towards evil, which, if left to itself, will bear down first intentions. If at one moment of superstitious fear, the Squire had made up his mind to a great sacrifice, and resolved in the matter of that deed so strangely recovered, to act honestly by his brother, that resolution very soon gave place to the compromise with fraud, which so conveniently postponed the restitution to the period when further enjoyment on his[43] part was impossible. Then came more tidings of Scroope's violent and minatory language, with always the same burthen—that he would leave no stone unturned to show that there had existed a deed which Charles had either secreted or destroyed, and that he would never rest till he had hanged him.

CHAPTER I
The Judge's House
Thirty years ago, an elderly man, to whom I paid quarterly a small annuity charged on some property of mine, came on the quarter-day to receive it. He was a dry, sad, quiet man, who had known better days, and had always maintained an unexceptionable character. No better authority could be imagined for a ghost story.
He told me one, though with a manifest reluctance; he was drawn into the narration by his choosing to explain what I should not have remarked, that he had called two days earlier than that week after the strict day of payment, which he had usually allowed to elapse. His reason was a sudden determination to change his lodgings, and the consequent necessity of paying his rent a little before it was due.
He lodged in a dark street in Westminster, in a spacious old house, very warm, being wainscoted from top to bottom, and furnished with no undue abundance of windows, and those fitted with thick sashes and small panes.
This house was, as the bills upon the windows testified, offered to be sold or let. But no one seemed to care to look at it.
A thin matron, in rusty black silk, very taciturn, with large, steady, alarmed eyes, that seemed to look in your face, to read what you might have seen in the dark rooms and passages through which you had passed, was in charge of it, with a solitary "maid-of-all-work" under her command. My poor friend had taken lodgings in this house, on account of their extraordinary cheapness. He had occupied them for nearly a year without the slightest disturbance, and was the only tenant, under rent, in the house. He had two rooms; a sitting-room and a bed-room with a closet opening from it, in which he kept his books and papers locked up. He had gone to his bed, having also locked the outer door. Unable to sleep, he had lighted a candle, and after having read for a time, had laid the book beside him. He heard the old clock at the stairhead strike one; and very shortly after, to his alarm, he saw the closet-door, which he thought he had locked, open stealthily, and a slight dark man, particularly sinister, and somewhere about fifty, dressed in mourning of a very antique fashion, such a suit as we see in Hogarth, entered the room on tip-toe. He was followed by an elder man, stout, and blotched with scurvy, and whose features, fixed as a corpse's, were stamped with dreadful force with a character of sensuality and villany.
This old man wore a flowered silk dressing-gown and ruffles, and he remarked a gold ring on his finger, and on his head a cap of velvet, such as, in the days of perukes, gentlemen wore in undress.
This direful old man carried in his ringed and ruffled hand a coil of rope; and these two figures crossed the floor diagonally, passing the foot of his bed, from the closet door at the farther end of the room, at the left, near the window, to the door opening upon the lobby, close to the bed's head, at his right.
These Two Figures Crossed the Floor Diagonally, Passing The Foot of the Bed. "These Two Figures Crossed the Floor Diagonally, Passing The Foot of the Bed." He did not attempt to describe his sensations as these figures passed so near him. He merely said, that so far from sleeping in that room again, no consideration the world could offer would induce him so much as to enter it again alone, even in the daylight. He found both doors, that of the closet, and that of the room opening upon the lobby, in the morning fast locked as he had left them before going to bed.
In answer to a question of mine, he said that neither appeared the least conscious of his presence. They did not seem to glide, but walked as living men do, but without any sound, and he felt a vibration on the floor as they crossed it. He so obviously suffered from speaking about the apparitions, that I asked him no more questions.
There were in his description, however, certain coincidences so very singular, as to induce me, by that very post, to write to a friend much my senior, then living in a remote part of England, for the information which I knew he could give me. He had himself more than once pointed out that old house to my attention, and told me, though very briefly, the strange story which I now asked him to give me in greater detail.
His answer satisfied me; and the following pages convey its substance.
Your letter (he wrote) tells me you desire some particulars about the closing years of the life of Mr. Justice Harbottle, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. You refer, of course, to the extraordinary occurrences that made that period of his life long after a theme for "winter tales" and metaphysical speculation. I happen to know perhaps more than any other man living of those mysterious particulars.
The old family mansion, when I revisited London, more than thirty years ago, I examined for the last time. During the years that have passed since then, I hear that improvement, with its preliminary demolitions, has been doing wonders for the quarter of Westminster in which it stood. If I were quite certain that the house had been taken down, I should have no difficulty about naming the street in which it stood. As what I have to tell, however, is not likely to improve its letting value, and as I should not care to get into trouble, I prefer being silent on that particular point.
How old the house was, I can't tell. People said it was built by Roger Harbottle, a Turkey merchant, in the reign of King James I. I am not a good opinion upon such questions; but having been in it, though in its forlorn and deserted state, I can tell you in a general way what it was like. It was built of dark-red brick, and the door and windows were faced with stone that had turned yellow by time. It receded some feet from the line of the other houses in the street; and it had a florid and fanciful rail of iron about the broad steps that invited your ascent to the hall-door, in which were fixed, under a file of lamps among scrolls and twisted leaves, two immense "extinguishers," like the conical caps of fairies, into which, in old times, the footmen used to thrust their flambeaux when their chairs or coaches had set down their great people, in the hall or at the steps, as the case might be. That hall is panelled up to the ceiling, and has a large fire-place. Two or three stately old rooms open from it at each side. The windows of these are tall, with many small panes. Passing through the arch at the back of the hall, you come upon the wide and heavy well-staircase. There is a back staircase also. The mansion is large, and has not as much light, by any means, in proportion to its extent, as modern houses enjoy. When I saw it, it had long been untenanted, and had the gloomy reputation beside of a haunted house. Cobwebs floated from the ceilings or spanned the corners of the cornices, and dust lay thick over everything. The windows were stained with the dust and rain of fifty years, and darkness had thus grown darker.
When I made it my first visit, it was in company with my father, when I was still a boy, in the year 1808. I was about twelve years old, and my imagination impressible, as it always is at that age. I looked about me with great awe. I was here in the very centre and scene of those occurrences which I had heard recounted at the fireside at home, with so delightful a horror.
My father was an old bachelor of nearly sixty when he married. He had, when a child, seen Judge Harbottle on the bench in his robes and wig a dozen times at least before his death, which took place in 1748, and his appearance made a powerful and unpleasant impression, not only on his imagination, but upon his nerves.
The Judge was at that time a man of some sixty-seven years. He had a great mulberry-coloured face, a big, carbuncled nose, fierce eyes, and a grim and brutal mouth. My father, who was young at the time, thought it the most formidable face he had ever seen; for there were evidences of intellectual power in the formation and lines of the forehead. His voice was loud and harsh, and gave effect to the sarcasm which was his habitual weapon on the bench.
This old gentleman had the reputation of being about the wickedest man in England. Even on the bench he now and then showed his scorn of opinion. He had carried cases his own way, it was said, in spite of counsel, authorities, and even of juries, by a sort of cajolery, violence, and bamboozling, that somehow confused and overpowered resistance. He had never actually committed himself; he was too cunning to do that. He had the character of being, however, a dangerous and unscrupulous judge; but his character did not trouble him. The associates he chose for his hours of relaxation cared as little as he did about it.
CHAPTER II
Mr. Peters
One night during the session of 1746 this old Judge went down in his chair to wait in one of the rooms of the House of Lords for the result of a division in which he and his order were interested.
This over, he was about to return to his house close by, in his chair; but the night had become so soft and fine that he changed his mind, sent it home empty, and with two footmen, each with a flambeau, set out on foot in preference. Gout had made him rather a slow pedestrian. It took him some time to get through the two or three streets he had to pass before reaching his house.
In one of those narrow streets of tall houses, perfectly silent at that hour, he overtook, slowly as he was walking, a very singular-looking old gentleman.
He had a bottle-green coat on, with a cape to it, and large stone buttons, a broad-leafed low-crowned hat, from under which a big powdered wig escaped; he stooped very much, and supported his bending knees with the aid of a crutch-handled cane, and so shuffled and tottered along painfully.
"I ask your pardon, sir," said this old man, in a very quavering voice, as the burly Judge came up with him, and he extended his hand feebly towards his arm.
Mr. Justice Harbottle saw that the man was by no means poorly dressed, and his manner that of a gentleman.
The Judge stopped short, and said, in his harsh peremptory tones, "Well, sir, how can I serve you?"
"Can you direct me to Judge Harbottle's house? I have some intelligence of the very last importance to communicate to him."
"Can you tell it before witnesses?" asked the Judge.
"By no means; it must reach his ear only," quavered the old man earnestly.
"If that be so, sir, you have only to accompany me a few steps farther to reach my house, and obtain a private audience; for I am Judge Harbottle."
With this invitation the infirm gentleman in the white wig complied very readily; and in another minute the stranger stood in what was then termed the front parlour of the Judge's house, tête-à-tête with that shrewd and dangerous functionary.
He had to sit down, being very much exhausted, and unable for a little time to speak; and then he had a fit of coughing, and after that a fit of gasping; and thus two or three minutes passed, during which the Judge dropped his roquelaure on an arm-chair, and threw his cocked-hat over that.
The venerable pedestrian in the white wig quickly recovered his voice. With closed doors they remained together for some time.
There were guests waiting in the drawing-rooms, and the sound of men's voices laughing, and then of a female voice singing to a harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall over the stairs; for old Judge Harbottle had arranged one of his dubious jollifications, such as might well make the hair of godly men's heads stand upright for that night.
This old gentleman in the powdered white wig, that rested on his stooped shoulders, must have had something to say that interested the Judge very much; for he would not have parted on easy terms with the ten minutes and upwards which that conference filched from the sort of revelry in which he most delighted, and in which he was the roaring king, and in some sort the tyrant also, of his company.
The footman who showed the aged gentleman out observed that the Judge's mulberry-coloured face, pimples and all, were bleached to a dingy yellow, and there was the abstraction of agitated thought in his manner, as he bid the stranger good-night. The servant saw that the conversation had been of serious import, and that the Judge was frightened.
Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to his scandalous hilarities, his profane company, and his great china bowl of punch—the identical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of London, good easy man, had baptised this Judge's grandfather, now clinking round the rim with silver ladles, and hung with scrolls of lemon-peel—instead, I say, of stumping and clambering up the great staircase to the cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood with his big nose flattened against the window-pane, watching the progress of the feeble old man, who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he got down, step by step, to the pavement.
The hall-door had hardly closed, when the old Judge was in the hall bawling hasty orders, with such stimulating expletives as old colonels under excitement sometimes indulge in now-a-days, with a stamp or two of his big foot, and a waving of his clenched fist in the air. He commanded the footman to overtake the old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him his protection on his way home, and in no case to show his face again without having ascertained where he lodged, and who he was, and all about him.
"By ——, sirrah! if you fail me in this, you doff my livery to-night!"
Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with his heavy cane under his arm, and skipped down the steps, and looked up and down the street after the singular figure, so easy to recognize.
What were his adventures I shall not tell you just now.
The old man, in the conference to which he had been admitted in that stately panelled room, had just told the Judge a very strange story. He might be himself a conspirator; he might possibly be crazed; or possibly his whole story was straight and true.
The aged gentleman in the bottle-green coat, in finding himself alone with Mr. Justice Harbottle, had become agitated. He said,
"There is, perhaps you are not aware, my lord, a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail, charged with having forged a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty pounds, and his name is Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of that town."
"Is there?" says the Judge, who knew well that there was.
"Yes, my lord," says the old man.
"Then you had better say nothing to affect this case. If you do, by ——, I'll commit you! for I'm to try it," says the judge, with his terrible look and tone.
"I am not going to do anything of the kind, my lord; of him or his case I know nothing, and care nothing. But a fact has come to my knowledge which it behoves you to well consider."
"And what may that fact be?" inquired the Judge; "I'm in haste, sir, and beg you will use dispatch."
"It has come to my knowledge, my lord, that a secret tribunal is in process of formation, the object of which is to take cognisance of the conduct of the judges; and first, of your conduct, my lord; it is a wicked conspiracy."
"Who are of it?" demands the Judge.
"I know not a single name as yet. I know but the fact, my lord; it is most certainly true."
"I'll have you before the Privy Council, sir," says the Judge.
"That is what I most desire; but not for a day or two, my lord."
"And why so?"
"I have not as yet a single name, as I told your lordship; but I expect to have a list of the most forward men in it, and some other papers connected with the plot, in two or three days."
"You said one or two just now."
"About that time, my lord."
"Is this a Jacobite plot?"
"In the main I think it is, my lord."
"Why, then, it is political. I have tried no State prisoners, nor am like to try any such. How, then, doth it concern me?"
"From what I can gather, my lord, there are those in it who desire private revenges upon certain judges."
"What do they call their cabal?"
"The High Court of Appeal, my lord."
"Who are you, sir? What is your name?"
"Hugh Peters, my lord."
"That should be a Whig name?"
"It is, my lord." "Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters?"
"In Thames Street, my lord, over against the sign of the 'Three Kings.'"
"'Three Kings?' Take care one be not too many for you, Mr. Peters! How come you, an honest Whig, as you say, to be privy to a Jacobite plot? Answer me that."
"My lord, a person in whom I take an interest has been seduced to take a part in it; and being frightened at the unexpected wickedness of their plans, he is resolved to become an informer for the Crown."
"He resolves like a wise man, sir. What does he say of the persons? Who are in the plot? Doth he know them?"
"Only two, my lord; but he will be introduced to the club in a few days, and he will then have a list, and more exact information of their plans, and above all of their oaths, and their hours and places of meeting, with which he wishes to be acquainted before they can have any suspicions of his intentions. And being so informed, to whom, think you, my lord, had he best go then?"
"To the king's attorney-general straight. But you say this concerns me, sir, in particular? How about this prisoner, Lewis Pyneweck? Is he one of them?"
"I can't tell, my lord; but for some reason, it is thought your lordship will be well advised if you try him not. For if you do, it is feared 'twill shorten your days."
"So far as I can learn, Mr. Peters, this business smells pretty strong of blood and treason. The king's attorney-general will know how to deal with it. When shall I see you again, sir?"
"If you give me leave, my lord, either before your lordship's court sits, or after it rises, to-morrow. I should like to come and tell your lordship what has passed."
"Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o'clock to-morrow morning. And see you play me no trick, sir, in this matter; if you do, by ——, sir, I'll lay you by the heels!"
"You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I not wished to serve you, and acquit my own conscience, I never would have come all this way to talk with your lordship."
"I'm willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; I'm willing to believe you, sir."
And upon this they parted.
"He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick," thought the old Judge.
The light had shown more effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky.
"D—— him!" said the Judge ungraciously, as he began to scale the stairs: "he has half-spoiled my supper."
But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it, and the evidence was all, as any one might perceive, the other way. CHAPTER III
Lewis Pyneweck
In the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman. The old man stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear on his recognizing the livery. He very gratefully accepted the proffered assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the servant's for support. They had not gone far, however, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying,
"Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, won't serve me, and I'm unable to stoop low enough; but if you will look, you shall have half the find. It is a guinea; I carried it in my glove."
The street was silent and deserted. The footman had hardly descended to what he termed his "hunkers," and begun to search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamplighter down a lane to the right, and was gone.
When an hour later, the watchman brought the man in livery home, still stupid and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly, swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indictment for taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered him with a perspective of the broad street leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the cart's tail, and the hangman's lash.
Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge was pleased. It was a disguised "affidavit man," or footpad, no doubt, who had been employed to frighten him. The trick had fallen through.
A "court of appeal," such as the false Hugh Peters had indicated, with assassination for its sanction, would be an uncomfortable institution for a "hanging judge" like the Honourable Justice Harbottle. That sarcastic and ferocious administrator of the criminal code of England, at that time a rather pharisaical, bloody and heinous system of justice, had reasons of his own for choosing to try that very Lewis Pyneweck, on whose behalf this audacious trick was devised. Try him he would. No man living should take that morsel out of his mouth.
Of Lewis Pyneweck, of course, so far as the outer world could see, he knew nothing. He would try him after his fashion, without fear, favour, or affection.
But did he not remember a certain thin man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judge's lodgings used to be, until a scandal of ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—a man whose thin lips wore always a faint unpleasant smile.
Had not that scoundrel an account to settle with the Judge? had he not been troublesome lately? and was not his name Lewis Pyneweck, some time grocer in Shrewsbury, and now prisoner in the jail of that town?
The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a sign that Judge Harbottle was a good Christian, that he suffered nothing ever from remorse. That was undoubtedly true. He had, nevertheless, done this grocer, forger, what you will, some five or six years before, a grievous wrong; but it was not that, but a possible scandal, and possible complications, that troubled the learned Judge now.
Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to bring a man from his shop to the dock, the chances must be at least ninety-nine out of a hundred that he is guilty?
A weak man like his learned brother Withershins was not a judge to keep the high-roads safe, and make crime tremble. Old Judge Harbottle was the man to make the evil-disposed quiver, and to refresh the world with showers of wicked blood, and thus save the innocent, to the refrain of the ancient saw he loved to quote:
Foolish pity Ruins a city. In hanging that fellow he could not be wrong. The eye of a man accustomed to look upon the dock could not fail to read "villain" written sharp and clear in his plotting face. Of course he would try him, and no one else should.
A saucy-looking woman, still handsome, in a mob-cap gay with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered silk, with lace and rings on, much too fine for the Judge's housekeeper, which nevertheless she was, peeped into his study next morning, and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in.
"Here's another letter from him, come by the post this morning. Can't you do nothing for him?" she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his neck, and her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe of his purple ear.
"I'll try," said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading.
"I knew you'd do what I asked you," she said.
The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made her an ironical bow.
"What," she asked, "will you do?"
"Hang him," said the Judge with a chuckle.
"You don't mean to; no, you don't, my little man," said she, surveying herself in a mirror on the wall.
"I'm d——d but I think you're falling in love with your husband at last!" said Judge Harbottle.
"I'm blest but I think you're growing jealous of him," replied the lady with a laugh. "But no; he was always a bad one to me; I've done with him long ago."
"And he with you, by George! When he took your fortune, and your spoons, and your ear-rings, he had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his house; and when he discovered you had made yourself comfortable, and found a good situation, he'd have taken your guineas, and your silver, and your ear-rings over again, and then allowed you half-a-dozen years more to make a new harvest for his mill. You don't wish him good; if you say you do, you lie."
She laughed a wicked, saucy laugh, and gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap on the chops.
"He wants me to send him money to fee a counsellor," she said, while her eyes wandered over the pictures on the wall, and back again to the looking-glass; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy troubled her very much.
"Confound his impudence, the scoundrel!" thundered the old Judge, throwing himself back in his chair, as he used to do in furore on the bench, and the lines of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to leap from their sockets. "If you answer his letter from my house to please yourself, you'll write your next from somebody else's to please me. You understand, my pretty witch, I'll not be pestered. Come, no pouting; whimpering won't do. You don't care a brass farthing for the villain, body or soul. You came here but to make a row. You are one of Mother Carey's chickens; and where you come, the storm is up. Get you gone, baggage! get you gone!" he repeated, with a stamp; for a knock at the hall-door made her instantaneous disappearance indispensable.
I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh Peters did not appear again. The Judge never mentioned him. But oddly enough, considering how he laughed to scorn the weak invention which he had blown into dust at the very first puff, his white-wigged visitor and the conference in the dark front parlour were often in his memory.
His shrewd eye told him that allowing for change of tints and such disguises as the playhouse affords every night, the features of this false old man, who had turned out too hard for his tall footman, were identical with those of Lewis Pyneweck.
Judge Harbottle made his registrar call upon the crown solicitor, and tell him that there was a man in town who bore a wonderful resemblance to a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail named Lewis Pyneweck, and to make inquiry through the post forthwith whether any one was personating Pyneweck in prison and whether he had thus or otherwise made his escape.
The prisoner was safe, however, and no question as to his identity.
CHAPTER IV
Interruption in Court
In due time Judge Harbottle went circuit; and in due time the judges were in Shrewsbury. News travelled slowly in those days, and newspapers, like the wagons and stage coaches, took matters easily. Mrs. Pyneweck, in the Judge's house, with a diminished household—the greater part of the Judge's servants having gone with him, for he had given up riding circuit, and travelled in his coach in state—kept house rather solitarily at home.
In spite of quarrels, in spite of mutual injuries—some of them, inflicted by herself, enormous—in spite of a married life of spited bickerings—a life in which there seemed no love or liking or forbearance, for years—now that Pyneweck stood in near danger of death, something like remorse came suddenly upon her. She knew that in Shrewsbury were transacting the scenes which were to determine his fate. She knew she did not love him; but she could not have supposed, even a fortnight before, that the hour of suspense could have affected her so powerfully.
She knew the day on which the trial was expected to take place. She could not get it out of her head for a minute; she felt faint as it drew towards evening.
Two or three days passed; and then she knew that the trial must be over by this time. There were floods between London and Shrewsbury, and news was long delayed. She wished the floods would last forever. It was dreadful waiting to hear; dreadful to know that the event was over, and that she could not hear till self-willed rivers subsided; dreadful to know that they must subside and the news come at last.
She had some vague trust in the Judge's good nature, and much in the resources of chance and accident. She had contrived to send the money he wanted. He would not be without legal advice and energetic and skilled support.
At last the news did come—a long arrear all in a gush: a letter from a female friend in Shrewsbury; a return of the sentences, sent up for the Judge; and most important, because most easily got at, being told with great aplomb and brevity, the long-deferred intelligence of the Shrewsbury Assizes in the Morning Advertiser. Like an impatient reader of a novel, who reads the last page first, she read with dizzy eyes the list of the executions.
Two were respited, seven were hanged; and in that capital catalogue was this line:
"Lewis Pyneweck—forgery."
She had to read it a half-a-dozen times over before she was sure she understood it. Here was the paragraph:
Sentence, Death—7.
Executed accordingly, on Friday the 13th instant, to wit: Thomas Primer, alias Duck—highway robbery. Flora Guy—stealing to the value of 11s. 6d. Arthur Pounden—burglary. Matilda Mummery—riot. Lewis Pyneweck—forgery, bill of exchange.
And when she reached this, she read it over and over, feeling very cold and sick.
This buxom housekeeper was known in the house as Mrs. Carwell—Carwell being her maiden name, which she had resumed.
No one in the house except its master knew her history. Her introduction had been managed craftily. No one suspected that it had been concerted between her and the old reprobate in scarlet and ermine.
Flora Carwell ran up the stairs now, and snatched her little girl, hardly seven years of age, whom she met on the lobby, hurriedly up in her arms, and carried her into her bedroom, without well knowing what she was doing, and sat down, placing the child before her. She was not able to speak. She held the child before her, and looked in the little girl's wondering face, and burst into tears of horror.
She thought the Judge could have saved him. I daresay he could. For a time she was furious with him, and hugged and kissed her bewildered little girl, who returned her gaze with large round eyes.
That little girl had lost her father, and knew nothing of the matter. She had always been told that her father was dead long ago.
A woman, coarse, uneducated, vain, and violent, does not reason, or even feel, very distinctly; but in these tears of consternation were mingling a self-upbraiding. She felt afraid of that little child.
But Mrs. Carwell was a person who lived not upon sentiment, but upon beef and pudding; she consoled herself with punch; she did not trouble herself long even with resentments; she was a gross and material person, and could not mourn over the irrevocable for more than a limited number of hours, even if she would.
Judge Harbottle was soon in London again. Except the gout, this savage old epicurean never knew a day's sickness. He laughed, and coaxed, and bullied away the young woman's faint upbraidings, and in a little time Lewis Pyneweck troubled her no more; and the Judge secretly chuckled over the perfectly fair removal of a bore, who might have grown little by little into something very like a tyrant.
It was the lot of the Judge whose adventures I am now recounting to try criminal cases at the Old Bailey shortly after his return. He had commenced his charge to the jury in a case of forgery, and was, after his wont, thundering dead against the prisoner, with many a hard aggravation and cynical gibe, when suddenly all died away in silence, and, instead of looking at the jury, the eloquent Judge was gaping at some person in the body of the court.
Among the persons of small importance who stand and listen at the sides was one tall enough to show with a little prominence; a slight mean figure, dressed in seedy black, lean and dark of visage. He had just handed a letter to the crier, before he caught the Judge's eye.
That Judge descried, to his amazement, the features of Lewis Pyneweck. He had the usual faint thin-lipped smile; and with his blue chin raised in air, and as it seemed quite unconscious of the distinguished notice he has attracted, he was stretching his low cravat with his crooked fingers, while he slowly turned his head from side to side—a process which enabled the Judge to see distinctly a stripe of swollen blue round his neck, which indicated, he thought, the grip of the rope.
This man, with a few others, had got a footing on a step, from which he could better see the court. He now stepped down, and the Judge lost sight of him.
His lordship signed energetically with his hand in the direction in which this man had vanished. He turned to the tipstaff. His first effort to speak ended in a gasp. He cleared his throat, and told the astounded official to arrest that man who had interrupted the court.
"He's but this moment gone down there. Bring him in custody before me, within ten minutes' time, or I'll strip your gown from your shoulders and fine the sheriff!" he thundered, while his eyes flashed round the court in search of the functionary.
Attorneys, counsellors, idle spectators, gazed in the direction in which Mr. Justice Harbottle had shaken his gnarled old hand. They compared notes. Not one had seen any one making a disturbance. They asked one another if the Judge was losing his head.
Nothing came of the search. His lordship concluded his charge a great deal more tamely; and when the jury retired, he stared round the court with a wandering mind, and looked as if he would not have given sixpence to see the prisoner hanged. CHAPTER V
Caleb Searcher
The Judge had received the letter; had he known from whom it came, he would no doubt have read it instantaneously. As it was he simply read the direction:
To the Honourable The Lord Justice Elijah Harbottle, One of his Majesty's Justices of the Honourable Court of Common Pleas.
It remained forgotten in his pocket till he reached home.
When he pulled out that and others from the capacious pocket of his coat, it had its turn, as he sat in his library in his thick silk dressing-gown; and then he found its contents to be a closely-written letter, in a clerk's hand, and an enclosure in "secretary hand," as I believe the angular scrivinary of law-writings in those days was termed, engrossed on a bit of parchment about the size of this page. The letter said:
MR. JUSTICE HARBOTTLE,—MY LORD,
I am ordered by the High Court of Appeal to acquaint your lordship, in order to your better preparing yourself for your trial, that a true bill hath been sent down, and the indictment lieth against your lordship for the murder of one Lewis Pyneweck of Shrewsbury, citizen, wrongfully executed for the forgery of a bill of exchange, on the ——th day of —— last, by reason of the wilful perversion of the evidence, and the undue pressure put upon the jury, together with the illegal admission of evidence by your lordship, well knowing the same to be illegal, by all which the promoter of the prosecution of the said indictment, before the High Court of Appeal, hath lost his life.
And the trial of the said indictment, I am farther ordered to acquaint your lordship, is fixed for the both day of —— next ensuing, by the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice Twofold, of the court aforesaid, to wit, the High Court of Appeal, on which day it will most certainly take place. And I am farther to acquaint your lordship, to prevent any surprise or miscarriage, that your case stands first for the said day, and that the said High Court of Appeal sits day and night, and never rises; and herewith, by order of the said court, I furnish your lordship with a copy (extract) of the record in this case, except of the indictment, whereof, notwithstanding, the substance and effect is supplied to your lordship in this Notice. And farther I am to inform you, that in case the jury then to try your lordship should find you guilty, the right honourable the Lord Chief Justice will, in passing sentence of death upon you, fix the day of execution for the 10th day of ——, being one calendar month from the day of your trial.
It was signed by
CALEB SEARCHER, Officer of the Crown Solicitor in the Kingdom of Life and Death.
The Judge glanced through the parchment.
"'Sblood! Do they think a man like me is to be bamboozled by their buffoonery?"
The Judge's coarse features were wrung into one of his sneers; but he was pale. Possibly, after all, there was a conspiracy on foot. It was queer. Did they mean to pistol him in his carriage? or did they only aim at frightening him?
Judge Harbottle had more than enough of animal courage. He was not afraid of highwaymen, and he had fought more than his share of duels, being a foul-mouthed advocate while he held briefs at the bar. No one questioned his fighting qualities. But with respect to this particular case of Pyneweck, he lived in a house of glass. Was there not his pretty, dark-eyed, over-dressed housekeeper, Mrs. Flora Carwell? Very easy for people who knew Shrewsbury to identify Mrs. Pyneweck, if once put upon the scent; and had he not stormed and worked hard in that case? Had he not made it hard sailing for the prisoner? Did he not know very well what the bar thought of it? It would be the worst scandal that ever blasted Judge.
So much there was intimidating in the matter but nothing more. The Judge was a little bit gloomy for a day or two after, and more testy with every one than usual.
He locked up the papers; and about a week after he asked his housekeeper, one day, in the library:
"Had your husband never a brother?"
Mrs. Carwell squalled on this sudden introduction of the funereal topic, and cried exemplary "piggins full," as the Judge used pleasantly to say. But he was in no mood for trifling now, and he said sternly:
"Come, madam! this wearies me. Do it another time; and give me an answer to my question." So she did.
Pyneweck had no brother living. He once had one; but he died in Jamaica.
"How do you know he is dead?" asked the Judge.
"Because he told me so."
"Not the dead man."
"Pyneweck told me so."
"Is that all?" sneered the Judge.
He pondered this matter; and time went on. The Judge was growing a little morose, and less enjoying. The subject struck nearer to his thoughts than he fancied it could have done. But so it is with most undivulged vexations, and there was no one to whom he could tell this one.
It was now the ninth; and Mr Justice Harbottle was glad. He knew nothing would come of it. Still it bothered him; and to-morrow would see it well over.
[What of the paper I have cited? No one saw it during his life; no one, after his death. He spoke of it to Dr. Hedstone; and what purported to be "a copy," in the old Judge's handwriting, was found. The original was nowhere. Was it a copy of an illusion, incident to brain disease? Such is my belief.]

the five Northumbrian counties you will scarcely find so bleak, ugly, and yet, in a savage way, so picturesque a moor as Dardale Moss. The moor itself spreads north, south, east, and west, a great undulating sea of black peat and heath. What we may term its shores are wooded wildly with birch, hazel, and dwarf-oak. No towering mountains surround it, but here and there you have a rocky knoll rising among the trees, and many a wooded promontory of the same pretty, because utterly wild, forest, running out into its dark level. Habitations are thinly scattered in this barren territory, and a full mile away from the meanest was the stone cottage of Mother Carke. Let not my southern reader who associates ideas of comfort with the term "cottage" mistake. This thing is built of shingle, with low walls. Its thatch is hollow; the peat-smoke curls stingily from its stunted chimney. It is worthy of its savage surroundings. The primitive neighbours remark that no rowan-tree grows near, nor holly, nor bracken, and no horseshoe is nailed on the door. Not far from the birches and hazels that straggle about the rude wall of the little enclosure, on the contrary, they say, you may discover the broom and the rag-wort, in which witches mysteriously delight. But this is perhaps a scandal. Mall Carke was for many a year the sage femme of this wild domain. She has renounced practice, however, for some years; and now, under the rose, she dabbles, it is thought, in the black art, in which she has always been secretly skilled, tells fortunes, practises charms, and in popular esteem is little better than a witch. Mother Carke has been away to the town of Willarden, to sell knit stockings, and is returning to her rude dwelling by Dardale Moss. To her right, as far away as the eye can reach, the moor stretches. The narrow track she has followed here tops a gentle upland, and at her left a sort of jungle of dwarf-oak and brushwood approaches its edge. The sun is sinking blood-red in the west. His disk has touched the broad black level of the moor, and his parting beams glare athwart the gaunt figure of the old beldame, as she strides homeward stick in hand, and bring into relief the folds of her mantle, which gleam like the draperies of a bronze image in the light of a fire. For a few moments this light floods the air—tree, gorse, rock, and bracken glare; and then it is out, and gray twilight over everything. All is still and sombre. At this hour the simple traffic of the thinly-peopled country is over, and nothing can be more solitary. From this jungle, nevertheless, through which the mists of evening are already creeping, she sees a gigantic man approaching her. In that poor and primitive country robbery is a crime unknown. She, therefore, has no fears for her pound of tea, and pint of gin, and sixteen shillings in silver which she is bringing home in her pocket. But there is something that would have frighted another woman about this man. He is gaunt, sombre, bony, dirty, and dressed in a black suit which a beggar would hardly care to pick out of the dust. This ill-looking man nodded to her as he stepped on the road. "I don't know you," she said. He nodded again. "I never sid ye neyawheere," she exclaimed sternly. "Fine evening, Mother Carke," he says, and holds his snuff-box toward her. She widened the distance between them by a step or so, and said again sternly and pale, "I hev nowt to say to thee, whoe'er thou beest." "You know Laura Silver Bell?" "That's a byneyam; the lass's neyam is Laura Lew," she answered, looking straight before her. "One name's as good as another for one that was never christened, mother." "How know ye that?" she asked grimly; for it is a received opinion in that part of the world that the fairies have power over those who have never been baptised. The stranger turned on her a malignant smile. "There is a young lord in love with her," the stranger says, "and I'm that lord. Have her at your house to-morrow night at eight o'clock, and you must stick cross pins through the candle, as you have done for many a one before, to bring her lover thither by ten, and her fortune's made. And take this for your trouble." He extended his long finger and thumb toward her, with a guinea temptingly displayed. "I have nowt to do wi' thee. I nivver sid thee afoore. Git thee awa'! I earned nea goold o' thee, and I'll tak' nane. Awa' wi' thee, or I'll find ane that will mak' thee!" The old woman had stopped, and was quivering in every limb as she thus spoke. He looked very angry. Sulkily he turned away at her words, and strode slowly toward the wood from which he had come; and as he approached it, he seemed to her to grow taller and taller, and stalked into it as high as a tree. "I conceited there would come something o't", she said to herself. "Farmer Lew must git it done nesht Sunda'. The a'ad awpy!" Old Farmer Lew was one of that sect who insist that baptism shall be but once administered, and not until the Christian candidate had attained to adult years. The girl had indeed for some time been of an age not only, according to this theory, to be baptised, but if need be to be married. Her story was a sad little romance. A lady some seventeen years before had come down and paid Farmer Lew for two rooms in his house. She told him that her husband would follow her in a fortnight, and that he was in the mean time delayed by business in Liverpool. In ten days after her arrival her baby was born, Mall Carke acting as sage femme on the occasion; and on the evening of that day the poor young mother died. No husband came; no wedding-ring, they said, was on her finger. About fifty pounds was found in her desk, which Farmer Lew, who was a kind old fellow and had lost his two children, put in bank for the little girl, and resolved to keep her until a rightful owner should step forward to claim her. They found half-a-dozen love-letters signed "Francis," and calling the dead woman "Laura." So Farmer Lew called the little girl Laura; and her sobriquet of "Silver Bell" was derived from a tiny silver bell, once gilt, which was found among her poor mother's little treasures after her death, and which the child wore on a ribbon round her neck. Thus, being very pretty and merry, she grew up as a North-country farmer's daughter; and the old man, as she needed more looking after, grew older and less able to take care of her; so she was, in fact, very nearly her own mistress, and did pretty much in all things as she liked. Old Mall Carke, by some caprice for which no one could account, cherished an affection for the girl, who saw her often, and paid her many a small fee in exchange for the secret indications of the future. It was too late when Mother Carke reached her home to look for a visit from Laura Silver Bell that day. About three o'clock next afternoon, Mother Carke was sitting knitting, with her glasses on, outside her door on the stone bench, when she saw the pretty girl mount lightly to the top of the stile at her left under the birch, against the silver stem of which she leaned her slender hand, and called, "Mall, Mall! Mother Carke, are ye alane all by yersel'?" "Ay, Laura lass, we can be clooas enoo, if ye want a word wi' me," says the old woman, rising, with a mysterious nod, and beckoning her stiffly with her long fingers. The girl was, assuredly, pretty enough for a "lord" to fall in love with. Only look at her. A profusion of brown rippling hair, parted low in the middle of her forehead, almost touched her eyebrows, and made the pretty oval of her face, by the breadth of that rich line, more marked. What a pretty little nose! what scarlet lips, and large, dark, long-fringed eyes! Her face is transparently tinged with those clear Murillo tints which appear in deeper dyes on her wrists and the backs of her hands. These are the beautiful gipsy-tints with which the sun dyes young skins so richly. The old woman eyes all this, and her pretty figure, so round and slender, and her shapely little feet, cased in the thick shoes that can't hide their comely proportions, as she stands on the top of the stile. But it is with a dark and saturnine aspect. "Come, lass, what stand ye for atoppa t' wall, whar folk may chance to see thee? I hev a thing to tell thee, lass." She beckoned her again. "An' I hev a thing to tell thee, Mall." "Come hidder," said the old woman peremptorily. "But ye munna gie me the creepin's" (make me tremble). "I winna look again into the glass o' water, mind ye." The old woman smiled grimly, and changed her tone. "Now, hunny, git tha down, and let ma see thy canny feyace," and she beckoned her again. Laura Silver Bell did get down, and stepped lightly toward the door of the old woman's dwelling. "Tak this," said the girl, unfolding a piece of bacon from her apron, "and I hev a silver sixpence to gie thee, when I'm gaen away heyam." They entered the dark kitchen of the cottage, and the old woman stood by the door, lest their conference should be lighted on by surprise. "Afoore ye begin," said Mother Carke (I soften her patois), "I mun tell ye there's ill folk watchin' ye. What's auld Farmer Lew about, he doesna get t' sir" (the clergyman) "to baptise thee? If he lets Sunda' next pass, I'm afeared ye'll never be sprinkled nor signed wi' cross, while there's a sky aboon us." "Agoy!" exclaims the girl, "who's lookin' after me?" "A big black fella, as high as the kipples, came out o' the wood near Deadman's Grike, just after the sun gaed down yester e'en; I knew weel what he was, for his feet ne'er touched the road while he made as if he walked beside me. And he wanted to gie me snuff first, and I wouldna hev that; and then he offered me a gowden guinea, but I was no sic awpy, and to bring you here to-night, and cross the candle wi' pins, to call your lover in. And he said he's a great lord, and in luve wi' thee." "And you refused him?" "Well for thee I did, lass," says Mother Carke. "Why, it's every word true!" cries the girl vehemently, starting to her feet, for she had seated herself on the great oak chest. "True, lass? Come, say what ye mean," demanded Mall Carke, with a dark and searching gaze. Last night I was coming heyam from the wake, wi' auld farmer Dykes and his wife and his daughter Nell, and when we came to the stile, I bid them good-night, and we parted." "And ye came by the path alone in the night-time, did ye?" exclaimed old Mall Carke sternly. "I wasna afeared, I don't know why; the path heyam leads down by the wa'as o' auld Hawarth Castle." "I knaa it weel, and a dowly path it is; ye'll keep indoors o' nights for a while, or ye'll rue it. What saw ye?" "No freetin, mother; nowt I was feared on." "Ye heard a voice callin' yer neyame?" "I heard nowt that was dow, but the hullyhoo in the auld castle wa's," answered the pretty girl. "I heard nor sid nowt that's dow, but mickle that's conny and gladsome. I heard singin' and laughin' a long way off, I consaited; and I stopped a bit to listen. Then I walked on a step or two, and there, sure enough in the Pie-Mag field, under the castle wa's, not twenty steps away, I sid a grand company; silks and satins, and men wi' velvet coats, wi' gowd-lace striped over them, and ladies wi' necklaces that would dazzle ye, and fans as big as griddles; and powdered footmen, like what the shirra hed behind his coach, only these was ten times as grand." "It was full moon last night," said the old woman. "Sa bright 'twould blind ye to look at it," said the girl. "Never an ill sight but the deaul finds a light," quoth the old woman. "There's a rinnin brook thar—you were at this side, and they at that; did they try to mak ye cross over?" "Agoy! didn't they? Nowt but civility and kindness, though. But ye mun let me tell it my own way. They was talkin' and laughin', and eatin', and drinkin' out o' long glasses and goud cups, seated on the grass, and music was playin'; and I keekin' behind a bush at all the grand doin's; and up they gits to dance; and says a tall fella I didna see afoore, 'Ye mun step across, and dance wi' a young lord that's faan in luv wi' thee, and that's mysel',' and sure enow I keeked at him under my lashes and a conny lad he is, to my teyaste, though he be dressed in black, wi' sword and sash, velvet twice as fine as they sells in the shop at Gouden Friars; and keekin' at me again fra the corners o' his een. And the same fella telt me he was mad in luv wi' me, and his fadder was there, and his sister, and they came all the way from Catstean Castle to see me that night; and that's t' other side o' Gouden Friars." "Come, lass, yer no mafflin; tell me true. What was he like? Was his feyace grimed wi' sut? a tall fella wi' wide shouthers, and lukt like an ill-thing, wi' black clothes amaist in rags?" "His feyace was long, but weel-faured, and darker nor a gipsy; and his clothes were black and grand, and made o' velvet, and he said he was the young lord himsel'; and he lukt like it." "That will be the same fella I sid at Deadman's Grike," said Mall Carke, with an anxious frown. "Hoot, mudder! how cud that be?" cried the lass, with a toss of her pretty head and a smile of scorn. But the fortune-teller made no answer, and the girl went on with her story. "When they began to dance," continued Laura Silver Bell, "he urged me again, but I wudna step o'er; 'twas partly pride, coz I wasna dressed fine enough, and partly contrairiness, or something, but gaa I wudna, not a fut. No but I more nor half wished it a' the time." "Weel for thee thou dudstna cross the brook." "Hoity-toity, why not?" "Keep at heyame after nightfall, and don't ye be walking by yersel' by daylight or any light lang lonesome ways, till after ye're baptised," said Mall Carke. "I'm like to be married first." "Tak care that marriage won't hang i' the bell-ropes," said Mother Carke. "Leave me alane for that. The young lord said he was maist daft wi' luv o' me. He wanted to gie me a conny ring wi' a beautiful stone in it. But, drat it, I was sic an awpy I wudna tak it, and he a young lord!" "Lord, indeed! are ye daft or dreamin'? Those fine folk, what were they? I'll tell ye. Dobies and fairies; and if ye don't du as yer bid, they'll tak ye, and ye'll never git out o' their hands again while grass grows," said the old woman grimly. "Od wite it!" replies the girl impatiently, "who's daft or dreamin' noo? I'd a bin dead wi' fear, if 'twas any such thing. It cudna be; all was sa luvesome, and bonny, and shaply." "Weel, and what do ye want o' me, lass?" asked the old woman sharply. "I want to know—here's t' sixpence—what I sud du," said the young lass. "'Twud be a pity to lose such a marrow, hey?" "Say yer prayers, lass; I can't help ye," says the old woman darkly. "If ye gaa wi' the people, ye'll never come back. Ye munna talk wi' them, nor eat wi' them, nor drink wi' them, nor tak a pin's-worth by way o' gift fra them—mark weel what I say—or ye're lost!" The girl looked down, plainly much vexed. The old woman stared at her with a mysterious frown steadily, for a few seconds. "Tell me, lass, and tell me true, are ye in luve wi' that lad?" "What for sud I?" said the girl with a careless toss of her head, and blushing up to her very temples. "I see how it is," said the old woman, with a groan, and repeated the words, sadly thinking; and walked out of the door a step or two, and looked jealously round. "The lass is witched, the lass is witched!" "Did ye see him since?" asked Mother Carke, returning. The girl was still embarrassed; and now she spoke in a lower tone, and seemed subdued. "I thought I sid him as I came here, walkin' beside me among the trees; but I consait it was only the trees themsels that lukt like rinnin' one behind another, as I walked on." "I can tell thee nowt, lass, but what I telt ye afoore," answered the old woman peremptorily. "Get ye heyame, and don't delay on the way; and say yer prayers as ye gaa; and let none but good thoughts come nigh ye; and put nayer foot autside the door-steyan again till ye gaa to be christened; and get that done a Sunda' next." And with this charge, given with grizzly earnestness, she saw her over the stile, and stood upon it watching her retreat, until the trees quite hid her and her path from view. The sky grew cloudy and thunderous, and the air darkened rapidly, as the girl, a little frightened by Mall Carke's view of the case, walked homeward by the lonely path among the trees. A black cat, which had walked close by her—for these creatures sometimes take a ramble in search of their prey among the woods and thickets—crept from under the hollow of an oak, and was again with her. It seemed to her to grow bigger and bigger as the darkness deepened, and its green eyes glared as large as halfpennies in her affrighted vision as the thunder came booming along the heights from the Willarden-road. She tried to drive it away; but it growled and hissed awfully, and set up its back as if it would spring at her, and finally it skipped up into a tree, where they grew thickest at each side of her path, and accompanied her, high over head, hopping from bough to bough as if meditating a pounce upon her shoulders. Her fancy being full of strange thoughts, she was frightened, and she fancied that it was haunting her steps, and destined to undergo some hideous transformation, the moment she ceased to guard her path with prayers. She was frightened for a while after she got home. The dark looks of Mother Carke were always before her eyes, and a secret dread prevented her passing the threshold of her home again that night. Next day it was different. She had got rid of the awe with which Mother Carke had inspired her. She could not get the tall dark-featured lord, in the black velvet dress, out of her head. He had "taken her fancy"; she was growing to love him. She could think of nothing else. Bessie Hennock, a neighbour's daughter, came to see her that day, and proposed a walk toward the ruins of Hawarth Castle, to gather "blaebirries." So off the two girls went together. In the thicket, along the slopes near the ivied walls of Hawarth Castle, the companions began to fill their baskets. Hours passed. The sun was sinking near the west, and Laura Silver Bell had not come home. Over the hatch of the farm-house door the maids leant ever and anon with outstretched necks, watching for a sign of the girl's return, and wondering, as the shadows lengthened, what had become of her. At last, just as the rosy sunset gilding began to overspread the landscape, Bessie Hennock, weeping into her apron, made her appearance without her companion. Her account of their adventures was curious. I will relate the substance of it more connectedly than her agitation would allow her to give it, and without the disguise of the rude Northumbrian dialect. The girl said, that, as they got along together among the brambles that grow beside the brook that bounds the Pie-Mag field, she on a sudden saw a very tall big-boned man, with an ill-favoured smirched face, and dressed in worn and rusty black, standing at the other side of a little stream. She was frightened; and while looking at this dirty, wicked, starved figure, Laura Silver Bell touched her, gazing at the same tall scarecrow, but with a countenance full of confusion and even rapture. She was peeping through the bush behind which she stood, and with a sigh she said: "Is na that a conny lad? Agoy! See his bonny velvet clothes, his sword and sash; that's a lord, I can tell ye; and weel I know who he follows, who he luves, and who he'll wed." Bessie Hennock thought her companion daft. "See how luvesome he luks!" whispered Laura. Bessie looked again, and saw him gazing at her companion with a malignant smile, and at the same time he beckoned her to approach. "Darrat ta! gaa not near him! he'll wring thy neck!" gasped Bessie in great fear, as she saw Laura step forward with a look of beautiful bashfulness and joy. She took the hand he stretched across the stream, more for love of the hand than any need of help, and in a moment was across and by his side, and his long arm about her waist. "Fares te weel, Bessie, I'm gain my ways," she called, leaning her head to his shoulder; "and tell gud Fadder Lew I'm gain my ways to be happy, and may be, at lang last, I'll see him again." And with a farewell wave of her hand, she went away with her dismal partner; and Laura Silver Bell was never more seen at home, or among the "coppies" and "wickwoods," the bonny fields and bosky hollows, by Dardale Moss. Bessie Hennock followed them for a time. She crossed the brook, and though they seemed to move slowly enough, she was obliged to run to keep them in view; and she all the time cried to her continually, "Come back, come back, bonnie Laurie!" until, getting over a bank, she was met by a white-faced old man, and so frightened was she, that she thought she fainted outright. At all events, she did not come to herself until the birds were singing their vespers in the amber light of sunset, and the day was over. No trace of the direction of the girl's flight was ever discovered. Weeks and months passed, and more than a year. At the end of that time, one of Mall Carke's goats died, as she suspected, by the envious practices of a rival witch who lived at the far end of Dardale Moss. All alone in her stone cabin the old woman had prepared her charm to ascertain the author of her misfortune. The heart of the dead animal, stuck all over with pins, was burnt in the fire; the windows, doors, and every other aperture of the house being first carefully stopped. After the heart, thus prepared with suitable incantations, is consumed in the fire, the first person who comes to the door or passes by it is the offending magician. Mother Carke completed these lonely rites at dead of night. It was a dark night, with the glimmer of the stars only, and a melancholy night-wind was soughing through the scattered woods that spread around. After a long and dead silence, there came a heavy thump at the door, and a deep voice called her by name. She was startled, for she expected no man's voice; and peeping from the window, she saw, in the dim light, a coach and four horses, with gold-laced footmen, and coachman in wig and cocked hat, turned out as if for a state occasion. She unbarred the door; and a tall gentleman, dressed in black, waiting at the threshold, entreated her, as the only sage femme within reach, to come in the coach and attend Lady Lairdale, who was about to give birth to a baby, promising her handsome payment. Lady Lairdale! She had never heard of her. "How far away is it?" "Twelve miles on the old road to Golden Friars." Her avarice is roused, and she steps into the coach. The footman claps-to the door; the glass jingles with the sound of a laugh. The tall dark-faced gentleman in black is seated opposite; they are driving at a furious pace; they have turned out of the road into a narrower one, dark with thicker and loftier forest than she was accustomed to. She grows anxious; for she knows every road and by-path in the country round, and she has never seen this one. He encourages her. The moon has risen above the edge of the horizon, and she sees a noble old castle. Its summit of tower, watchtower and battlement, glimmers faintly in the moonlight. This is their destination. She feels on a sudden all but overpowered by sleep; but although she nods, she is quite conscious of the continued motion, which has become even rougher. She makes an effort, and rouses herself. What has become of the coach, the castle, the servants? Nothing but the strange forest remains the same. She is jolting along on a rude hurdle, seated on rushes, and a tall, big-boned man, in rags, sits in front, kicking with his heel the ill-favoured beast that pulls them along, every bone of which sticks out, and holding the halter which serves for reins. They stop at the door of a miserable building of loose stone, with a thatch so sunk and rotten, that the roof-tree and couples protrude in crooked corners, like the bones of the wretched horse, with enormous head and ears, that dragged them to the door. The long gaunt man gets down, his sinister face grimed like his hands. It was the same grimy giant who had accosted her on the lonely road near Deadman's Grike. But she feels that she "must go through with it" now, and she follows him into the house. Two rushlights were burning in the large and miserable room, and on a coarse ragged bed lay a woman groaning piteously. "That's Lady Lairdale," says the gaunt dark man, who then began to stride up and down the room rolling his head, stamping furiously, and thumping one hand on the palm of the other, and talking and laughing in the corners, where there was no one visible to hear or to answer. Old Mall Carke recognized in the faded half-starved creature who lay on the bed, as dark now and grimy as the man, and looking as if she had never in her life washed hands or face, the once blithe and pretty Laura Lew. The hideous being who was her mate continued in the same odd fluctuations of fury, grief, and merriment; and whenever she uttered a groan, he parodied it with another, as Mother Carke thought, in saturnine derision. At length he strode into another room, and banged the door after him. In due time the poor woman's pains were over, and a daughter was born. Such an imp! with long pointed ears, flat nose, and enormous restless eyes and mouth. It instantly began to yell and talk in some unknown language, at the noise of which the father looked into the room, and told the sage femme that she should not go unrewarded. The sick woman seized the moment of his absence to say in the ear of Mall Carke: "If ye had not been at ill work tonight, he could not hev fetched ye. Tak no more now than your rightful fee, or he'll keep ye here." At this moment he returned with a bag of gold and silver coins, which he emptied on the table, and told her to help herself. She took four shillings, which was her primitive fee, neither more nor less; and all his urgency could not prevail with her to take a farthing more. He looked so terrible at her refusal, that she rushed out of the house. He ran after her. "You'll take your money with you," he roared, snatching up the bag, still half full, and flung it after her. It lighted on her shoulder; and partly from the blow, partly from terror, she fell to the ground; and when she came to herself, it was morning, and she was lying across her own door-stone. It is said that she never more told fortune or practised spell. And though all that happened sixty years ago and more, Laura Silver Bell, wise folk think, is still living, and will so continue till the day of doom among the fairies.

Aoa
I am 17 at the time of writing this id like to clarify
I am from a religious and well-off household living in Islamabad and its thanks to my mother a professor that I learnt something so crucial and to my sisters for providing me the book[its called sexuality in Islam by Abdelwahab bouhidba] that changed me on how i thought about sex ed in Islam. I used to say that what's the need once a person gets married they find out now i sit and wonder wtf did we do. WE ERASED THE MUSLIM SEX ED thanks to EXTREMISM from all sects of thought whether liberal or Islamic. I will try to explain and keep this as short as possible but i cannot provide a 2 line conclusion lest i want to create discrepancies.
I write this for my age group guys and gals who want to learn more about all of this. Dear guys and gals remember your parents never had the luxuries you and i have right now. Neither was their an open air for discussion for topics of such sorts like Sex and neither was any room given by the populas of Pakistan majority of which was illiterate. You need to understand that not all Hafiz are alims and not all muhadtheen or Qadi or alims are hafiz, there is a lotta difference between all of them. Plus our adults don't wish to embarrass themselves as this was how their parents dealt with them when they were younger so please spare them the bad words.
My journey began when i read sexuality in islam and learnt of the fact that Sexual intercourse was given as a gift from allah to us humans not only as a process to reproduce but to create a bond between the 2 pieces of the process and it is a fact that a man and women are both one of the same body hence the story goes that eve or hazrat hawa was created by adams rib and adam himself out of clay thus one of the same body.
i was shocked when i started reading more and more i.e i read the fact that Prophet PBUH used to answer such questions of the sahaba and female sahaba within a mosque.
It isn't that Islam hates sex or the pleasures of sex instead it is said that.
“Among its benefits is that it helps to lower the gaze, brings self-control, enables one to keep away from haram things, and achieves all of these things for the woman too. It brings benefit to a man with regard to this world and the Hereafter and benefits the woman too. Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to enjoy regular intimate relations with his wives, and he said, In your world, women and perfume have been made dear to me. (Narrated by Ahmad, 3/128; al-Nasai, 7/61; classed as sahih by al-Hakim) .
moving forwards i started delving into the past of the muslims and was ASTONISHED i tell you as to what i found.I shall briefly explain what i found with some examples.

1. The idea that we muslims have today that women are the devils servent as many of us say that hazrat hawa ate the forbidden trees fruit first and then made adam eat it too thus getting them both kicked out of heaven. THIS is very much a christian concept used in the dark ages to justify the locking up of women there and turning them into more or less slaves , this was the christian churches narrative and the priests used to castrate themselves to show off the fact that they were no longer working for worldly pleasure as what we like to think today that in islam we must cut off all worldly pleasures including intercourse when allah has said that;“Among its benefits is that it helps to lower the gaze, brings self-control, enables one to keep away from haram things, and achieves all of these things for the woman too. It brings benefit to a man with regard to this world and the Hereafter and benefits the woman too. Hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to enjoy regular intimate relations with his wives, and he said, In your world, women and perfume have been made dear to me. (Narrated by Ahmad, 3/128; al-Nasai, 7/61; classed as sahih by al-Hakim) .Allah sent this as a gift with principles meaning not to have sex outside of marital relations and what has been deemed halal.
2. . Women's right to sexual pleasure' Another interesting point is the Islamic view of sex, which, again, used to be much more favorable in Islamdom than in the West. It is not a secret that mainstream Christianity, and especially Catholicism, has not been a great fan of intimacy, at least until modern times. Medieval Christianity even exhibited, in the words Orthodox theologian Nicolas Zernov, an "exaggerated fear of sex." But Islam, from the beginning, regarded sex -- within the bonds of marriage, of course -- as God's blessing. It was not seen as just a duty of procreation but also a source of pleasure for both sexes. There are hadiths (sayings) attributed to the Prophet Muhammad advising husbands to be a gentleman by giving more time to foreplay. Hence even the more conservative scholars of the shariah wrote about "women's right to sexual pleasure." The conceptualization of intimacy, too, was remarkably different in pre-modern Islamdom than the West. American historian Daniel Pipes, who is often accused of being too critical toward Islam rather than apologetic, notes this in his book, "In the Path of God." "Unlike traditional Western views of the sexual act as a battleground where the male exerts his supremacy over the female," he writes, "Muslims [saw] it as a tender, shared pleasure." Sexual satisfaction, Muslims also believed, "leads to a harmonious social order and a flourishing civilization." The great irony of our times is that while Islamdom lags behind the open-mindedness in its origins, Christendom -- if there is still such a thing -- has evolved immensely. Why this is the case is the million-dollar question. But it is also the right one.\

I was shocked by all of this and when i went down the rabbit hole of history I was completely destroyed by what i found.
THE OTTOMAN empire had schools for it elite that taught both men and women all subjects islamic and worldly such as science or math's alongside all of this SEX ED was mandatory in all ways for both men and women. the difference i realize now between us and European sex ed would be the fact that european sex ed is geared to make both genders a sex crazed machine and to help all such industries like the porn or contraceptive industry flourish. They keep both genders in one place to and simply give them a run up of what a vulva or penis is and tell em to simply watch stuff on how either works.
mean while the sex ed of the ottomans and the Muslim empires including the persians and mughals was completely different. It builds the person brain by first talking about the non sexual topics in example how muslim men should behave and how women should behave accordingly to islam and how should one interact with a women of islam if she has a mahram with her or not and even what is regarded as premissible for sexual relations by Islam meaning the wife or slave. Lastly would they talk in books that were more than a 100 pages long as to what is the penis or vulva and THE ottomans had a special syste by which Courtiers wether men or women were trained in terms of sexual prefrences through books and manuals.These things blew me up completely.
Questions then arose within me what HAPPEND to all the stuff like this. My foray for the answer to that led me down history lane again and i found this. Ill keep this short. When the 18th century arrived many forms of extremism grew amongst muslims of all sects the ideas of Wahhabism and Shiism were very repressive of such topics in particular and as they spread in Iran and the ottoman empire the comman illiterate man began to turn upon the liabraries and such places of knowledge where these manuals and sex ed books were kept and destroyed most of em. It was due to these riots that the ottoman sultans closed the schools for the elites and began destroying these books and sex manuals. Just to keep the empire stable.
we no come to today where this topic is a taboo topic not by the laws of islam but by the laws of our illiterate men and women of the extremes from liberal to islamic. Both damage islam in special ways and direct ways.
I tell you young fellow wether guy or gal that sex is fun and you shouldnt stop from thinking about it but dont do it outside of marriage.
I hope you enjoyed reading about my ongoing journey and hope may good give our next generation the guts to talk about this topic openly to our children. I leave a google drive link i made for the purpose of keeping my books and digital media for this topic in it. It contains a digital version of the book SEXUALITY in ISLAM. Its a good book but requires a lotta knowledge of islamic law,Fiqh and Philosophy alongside arab literature and history to read and is quite fun to read. Do read it and the other books i even found a coupe of sex manuals for muslims during my hunts and was amazed that from sexting to oral sex to BDSM is allowed by islam although parts OF BDSM that involve cutting your partner or hurting them arent premissible.
but keep your sexual secrets confined between ye and your partner not publicize them thats a lesson for ye and Please stay away from porn.also share this as much as you can if you want to.
here is the link to my google drive. its free to access and ill keep updating it with more books as i go on forward upon my journey.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1z6S6U2NU2bssZFYcHfMNTsM9wdjKiOqJ?usp=drive_link
dont repress your thoughts research them my fellow bros and sisters.May you have a brighte future.
If any questions you want answered feel free to leave comments or chat me up on reddit.
providing that your identity remain a secret wther guy or gal ill answer.
May god be with ye.
see ya when i see ya.
was salaam.
My other posts related to this. https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/OhvbmbFHLI
https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/CcAfxPYJ6D
https://www.reddit.com/PAK/s/fK8GfSCsgX

I am 22 years old ENFP female and I dated an ESTP male (25years old) for three months, met in November so for the first one and half month everything felt nice even though he and I were different in some ideologies and other stuff. From the starting only I was just swept off my feet , he was completely different then the guys I have met or talked, something about him made me more attracted towards him , he basically wooed me with his charm and words and I just fancied his dominant extrovert personality too and physical traits like beard and his stature and how strong he is as he used to do boxing in past but in those three months old relationship I was never able to fully open up with him , because it was very difficult for me to believe that the way he is showing love and care and that top notch gentleman behaviour is genuine or not , he confessed his love to me within 25 days I guess that was super fast for me to even process and I was still trying to open up , this relationship went super fast for me. I was somewhat scared of him also like he would try to correct me also on somethings which I did wrong , from starting only I used to feel that somethings are off about him but I was ready to accept him because he fulfilled my criteria of that dream guy I always wanted to have .. So he didnt like the concept of male best friend that much , he is very protective, in his past relationships also he removed all the male best-friends of his girlfriends because he believed that they are not that really nice and that they are friends just because they want to get in your pants someday or the other
He had very bad experiences I guess in his life with her exes and women in general or female friends that he is unable to trust women as he told me , the only women he trust is his mother . Even if these things were a little off for me I was in this thought process that I will change his perspective and will show him that not all women is same or not all male best friends are like this , because I was getting obsessed with him and he was not that bad because he still supported me like for example he didn’t bring his anti feminist thoughts on me (he was anti feminist that was completely wrong as I am feminist, completely different from each other) After a month in December 2023 last year he got upset with me and that’s the time all the things started going downhill , I went to my male best friend’s birthday party who he didn’t like and wanted me to cut off my relations with him because they had some heated argument when they last met , he also said always prioritise me over your friends as that very day he also wanted to meet me,
he said whenever he is angry he just gives silent treatment because he won’t fight or abuse me in any way, I always felt that the thing he does as he did this in past also with his exes was wrong , but when I got to experience this my world totally got upside down as he started ignoring me, he didn’t want to sort , he didn’t want to communicate so after going again and again to his house he finally after 3 weeks forgave me but after two days another incident happened ,some misunderstandings happened and he wanted to break up that day only but maybe because of hearing me cry he didn’t leave me and said love you just to console me and I was again trapped and that same loop of me getting ignored , going to his house every week without informing him prior because he didn’t want to meet me but I wanted to sort it out…, my mental health started fucking up again I am preparing for competitive exams for a job so my studies got fucked up I was unable to concentrate , I was consumed by his thoughts I will like to add something that why I handled this behaviour of his was because he was the one I lost my virginity, so automatically he became so special for me because I was like now this will be the guy I will marry , I wanted to do everything to save this relationship and be normal once again I realised one thing when he started this ignoring thing I started to fall more deeply in love with him and wanted to do anything out of love for him I used to go to him once a week because studies were also there and whenever I tried to communicate things face to face he just didn’t talk properly and always was not ready to listen to me and understand me when I was with him , I used to go with the thought that I will end things or I will explain everything, I will make him understand, but this didn’t happen and we always end up having sex and I will be ignored after meeting him for another week, I was fed up after doing this for two three weeks so ultimately I wanted answer that if he wants me or not or wants to get into long term commitment with me or not , he asked for two days time and when I went again to his house , his friends were there so I didn’t went up to his room , he came down outside his home and broke up with me , I was devastated I did not handle rejection well , my ego got hurt , he said to me that he still loves me but is unable to trust me , he said he can stay friends with me until I find another guy, I felt used because why didn’t he break up with me last month only, why he wasted my time !???? He said he was unable to tell me the truth. My friends always warned me , they said that this guy is not good for you , but I wanted to prove everyone wrong because we did also have some amazing time as well I guess the post is getting too long I just want to ask I am just unable to get over him I still messaged him and talked to him on call once a week for two minutes max , after doing this process for quite some time he was the first one to say that you can come if you want to and now he clearly said he wants to see me but timings are not matching a little but he is clearly interested in sex with me , he wants to have sex with me even when our things ended in complicated way and he was the one to break up because of trust issues , and it was me only who used to call him after break up and now after almost 2 months he has also started showing a little interest that is just to have sex with me , does he still cares about me I think he still loves me but as an ESTP can he think of coming back to me again or he just wants to have sex , btw he never had any casual relationships in past , he is commitment type of guy and after his two relationships I was his 3rd body count basically !! I have my exams in two months and btw he is also going to give that exam too , I just can’t stop thinking about him and I am just holding him even though it hurts because I am little skeptical but still I believe he can come back, maybe he will see that I am really good for him and not like the other girls I am just unable to let him go but now i know what went wrong and i want to amend things to and i am ready to make him feel the most loved person if he is ready to give me chance
Our things got ended in complicated way as i mentioned above too I know he is also alone because he also have some high standards in dating girls but as an estp guy I don’t think he really thinks or overthinks like me and is not overly emotional but still he also is ready to see me What should I do !? I think that I won’t be able to get guy like him because I have seen his love also and also he has those qualities that I want to see in my man I know I just fucked up real bad this time and also thank you for reading this I am still very much tangled in my thoughts so I am not able to explain clearly but still I tried my best .

Let me preface this by saying that I love, if not all then almost all the relationship dynamics played out in this episode. They're sometimes sweet, sometimes heart-breaking, sometimes hilarious, always 100% entertaining.
Violet is in top form. I giggle the moment she comes on screen. I just know it's going to be a hoot. I mean look at them:
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Even Mary can hardly stop herself from laughing and that's An Achievement for Violet, considering Mary's current emotional state.
I also love, love their verbal sparring. Mary defends Lavinia, Violet points out it was a peculiar behaviour for a gentleman to threaten a woman, Mary says she's glad Violet thinks him a gentleman, Violet says the important thing is if Mary thinks him a gentleman (aka girl what are you doing), to which Mary says:
"I don't think it matters much to me."
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She doesn't think it matters if Carlisle is a gentleman. Let that sink in for a sec.
Because it's true on many levels. First of all, in terms of class Carlisle is definitely not a gentleman, he's self-made, he wasn't even born in middle class. From what we're left to understand he's from quite a humble background, and if Rosamund is to be believed he doesn't behave as a gentleman either.
And that DOESN'T MATTER to Mary. None of it. Not the fact that he's not an aristocrat, not even the fact that he's not a kind man.
Why, you ask?

1. because she doesn't think she'll have another chance at marriage (especially one that would allow her to remain in her social sphere) and if she ends up a spinster she'll not only be a laughingstock she'll be dependant on Matthew for the rest of her life and God knows she wouldn't want that.
2. because she can't risk continuing to be unmarried when the Pamuk situation might rear its head at any time and ruin the family.
3. because she didn't think Matthew, a good man, would take her as she really is, so what's the alternative? A man, who is not good. Because she is not good, therefore that's what she deserves, and what she can have. After all, if she simply wanted a good man who wasn't Matthew, she could have whistled and Evelyn would come running. He didn't care about her scandal, he was titled, he definitely lept at the chance to marry her after Matthew died, God knows he'd have taken her now. But Mary wouldn't think she deserved him either (and he was an option, because he was at Downton literally at this time).

FFS Mary you dramatic B-
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Violet's face tells us exactly what she believes of that pathetic assessment.
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By the way, Dr Clarkson stuck between a hard place and a hard place when Isobel and Violet start clashing over the state of the Downton as a convalescence home is such a sight. His face - something between amusement and constipation, he knows he's too far involved now to escape the battlefield. A+ acting.
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Not her leaping at the chance to help Anna. And through Carlisle too, she's so excited. He might be a crook, but he's a useful crook! Mary 😭
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Poor Lavinia, they cornered her like a rabbit. But she's not a rabbit and she holds her ground and turns the conversation around to different topics with expertise, and I'm so proud of her and it only makes me sadder that she died (curse you Fellowes she didn't deserve that!).
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A comedy of errors in 4 easy steps:

1. Mary sees Matthew's unexpected arrival, makes her own immitation of a dead fish, knows she might do something stupid if she walks up to him so she keeps busy and runs away like a coward.
   
2. Matthew casually walks in the patients' room (follows her) looks around pretending to be interested in the proceedings and immediately beelines to Mary like an idiot.
   
3. They start flirting immediately, as you do, in the middle of a room full of injured officers while they're both involved with other people.
   
4. He said "I think my general should visit here, it's exactly the sort of thing people like to read about" while he looked at her LIKE THAT. Marvelling at her ability to be helpful and dismissive of that help at the same time. And STILL imitating a dead fish when he looks at her.
   

Mary why are you smiling this is INSANE you should both be ashamed of yourselves.
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Not Mary walking into a war counsel family meeting and just getting them going like a forest fire. Also, hello Evelyn, nice to see you obvious choice for a husband for Mary that Fellowes decided not to go along with because torturing 1 innocent bystander (Lavinia) and 1 asshole (Carlisle) made things simpler.
Note: I love Cora's continued appreciation for Evelyn, he made such a good impression on her in his first visit. I'd also recommend giving it a re-watch and looking out for the expressions on the faces of the people NOT talking. Clarkson is really going through it.
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She's so proud her idea to ask Carlisle pulled through, and she got the information Anna needed. She is really a very loyal friend, and I think it might have been a comfort to her that Carlisle would help her when she needed it (what she obviously didn't know is the fact that some men ARE helpful when it comes to a woman they're courting, it's once they've secured their position in the woman's life that they can change their attitude quite dramatically. Very, very naïve.)
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I love the difference in composition of this scene vs the one of Rosamund, Violet, and Lavinia. With Lavinia the contrasts were more stark, light with dark walls and corners, and the camera angle was such to make the room seem imposing, as they were trying to intimidate her. Here they're bathed in light, showing the openess and honesty of the conversation, and they all sit in equal footing. Nobody's going to try and push Mary into doing anything she wouldn't wish to do, or say. Not that they succeeded with Lavinia, not at all, but they're not attempting to do it here. They know Mary, and they know she wouldn't fold either.
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Mary's indignation is excellent. We do get a good insight into her character here as well.
"The politicians broke the law, Lavinia did nothing wrong."
She has a very clear sense of what she considers morally wrong, and doesn't hesitate in standing up for what she thinks is right. She does that repeatedly, with William, and now with Lavinia, and with other characters later on. It's not just that she stands up for people she thinks of as "her people" in a way, but also because she stands up for what is right, and won't bother denying it even if it would be in her benefit.
Also "It was only Lloyd George" i.e. it's the labour government why do we even care.
LMAO how did I get here, loving a tory voter mocking labour 💀 I guess Mary hasn't actually voted for the tories yet, my conscience is still clear 🙏 Yet another reason not to ever watch past season 3 when Mary is over 30 and a landowner which means she did eventually vote for the tories omg GIRL-
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Things change ever so slightly, when Rosamund suggests Carlisle and Lavinia were lovers. Now this, is definitely something that shocks her, as I'm sure she'd never see that coming from Lavinia. Not only because she honestly thinks she's a good woman but also because she's someone Matthew loves.
I do love that Mary gave Lavinia the benefit of the doubt, something that wasn't given to her under similar circumstances (and she certainly didn't appreciate Violet and Rosamund making fun of Lavinia).
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Hmmmm, I wonder if Lavinia knew there was something not-quite-cousin-ly about these two. Maybe it was the violin music swelling when they'd look into each other's eyes.
Mary walks up to Matthew and doesn't even say anything, they don't need to greet each other, they just joke for a moment before he walks on never even greeting Lavinia.
Yeah yeah, you two are doing great, this is very sustainable.
Absolutely insane.
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They were lucky Rosamund gave herself away in her glee to, idk, put a nice woman like Lavinia back in her place, whatever that place was???
Anyway it distracted Lavinia enough to ask what's up with Rosamund and not "Hey Mary, what's up with you and Matthew?" That would have probably made an even more awkward topic of conversation (and match the frame above perfectly).
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Mary doesn't say anything. She gets upset at Rosamund's glee, at what her aunt considers confirmation of what she'd assumed, and then she looks like she'd rather jump out the window than besmirch Lavinia's name in front of Matthew. Never mind the fact that Violet literally practically made an accusation against Lavinia right there at the table in front of all those people.
Mary really, really doesn't want to hurt Matthew. And she doesn't want to get between him and Lavinia. Her conversation with Matthew that I make fun of them for (and slightly judge them, they are being very stupid) are something she doesn't have control over. She loves him, she can't suppress it entirely, but she wouldn't wilfully place herself in a position to wreck his relationship.
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Which is why when Lavinia pulls her in an empty room, she says "You don't have to explain yourself. Not to me." I.e. I don't need to know the truth of what you've done, it's not my business, if you have anything to confess, confess it to Matthew. I think she also simply treats Lavinia the way she'd want to be treated. Mary never got the chance to talk about her own secret willingly up to that point, Edith (and Cora, in private, to Violet) did that for her, she wouldn't do the same to Lavinia.
I guess, I could give Carlisle some credit here for, potentially, wanting to protect Mary.
Maybe he thought Lavinia throwing her uncle over to save her father made her an unsuitable relation to have because one could never be certain of where her loyalties would lie? She didn't choose to betray her uncle out of a sense of rightness, but out of self interest after all, even if that was loyalty and love for her father.
It does seem rather odd that Carlisle would threaten her for the sake of it. I do think he's a waste of space, so personally I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibilities that he's just that mean, but if you wish for an alt explanation, there you have it.
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Matthew, satisfied to know he does indeed have exceptional taste in women. Asshole.
Mary saying "the truth is we're very much alike". Of course you are. Both Mary and Lavinia follow the below code:
Loyalty to those we love > doing what is right based on our moral code > family loyalty
Mary occassionally falters between the last two. She picked her sense of rightness over family loyalty for William, she picked family loyalty over her sense of rightness for Bates.
And that's how we get Mary's priorities all straightened out. In contrast, this is Matthew's:
Doing what is right based on our moral code > Loyalty to those we love > family loyalty
Obviously, nobody upholds that all the time, it's not possible (we know exactly when Matthew faltered with this one). But I thought I'd share in case anyone's wondering why Mary and Matthew would butt heads on occasion in the future.
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https://preview.redd.it/lkkdbp75bxuc1.jpg?width=773&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4104f4628fe9c462025cda2882d7a6601708a130
Oh good, at least he didn't neglect saying goodbye to Lavinia as well as hello (he did make sure to say goodbye to Mary as well though).
Is anyone else surprised Lavinia herself let that circus go on for as long as it did? I guess she was just that in love with Matthew, and probably hoping it was all in her head, but they were, really, so very obvious.

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, my first one here. I would appreciate some honest yet kind feedback, if at all possible.
My wayward husband (WH) and I have been married for 20 years. He demanded we make a long-distance move four years ago because it was what he always wanted, and he would then be close to his parents and sister. I agreed, reluctantly, as I was moving away from my friends and family, including my adult son.
Within days of completing the move, WH began to act as if I didn't exist. He's always been obsessed with work and working as much as possible, whether or not we needed the money. He became fixated on a coworker and eventually had an emotional affair with her, right under my nose. When she rejected him, he turned to dating apps, but he got no traction there, either. That was when he panicked, knowing he would have a very hard time finding someone else, so he seems to have settled for me.
I thought we had a somewhat okay marriage, but looking back, we did not. Aside from the lies, WH's level of rigidity, addiction to work, need to control, and his disinterest in having close relationships with anyone but his sister have taken a massive toll. And that's not even including his awful lies and betrayals in which he has engaged, especially during the last few years. If I may, allow me to describe my marriage in more detail.
WH reached out to me online while I was nearing the end of my divorce. I was so thrilled to have male attention that I fell hard. My ex said I would marry the next guy who paid me a little bit of attention, and my ex was right. Within a year, WH and I moved in together. And that was when things started to go to hell.
During our year of dating, WH and I would have sex about once a week, when we saw each other. Because of his work schedule of 60+ hour workweeks, seven days a week and my custody schedule, weekly was the best we could do. However, he would never, ever initiate sex. I thought he was being gentlemanly, but now, 20 years later, he has initiated sex a grand total of five times. When I would initiate sex, often, he would "joke" that I was a "dirty whore." Ha ha, I guess? He aways said his couple of exes weren't that into sex, which was a problem for him. But then when he met me, who was actually into sex, he seemed put off by it.
We moved into our first house three months before our wedding. And that was when sex died, and he decided he had to work even more hours. This was not a financial necessity. I thought maybe he was stressed out living with other people for the first time who were not his family of origin. He had refused to go away to college because he didn't want to "live with strangers," and his sister was the same way. They preferred to live with their parents.
I thought it was pretty weird that I had to push for sex maybe every couple of weeks during what should have been our honeymoon phase, and I made sure to only initiate on the nights my son was with his dad. WH would try to make excuses to not have sex. When I kindly and gently mentioned that I thought his disinterest might be a problem, he exploded. "All right! Pants off!" That was the first time he actually scared me.
Over the years, getting him to have sex is a chore, and he behaves like he's doing me a favor. He'd rather watch porn than have sex with me. For him, sex should be infrequent, must always be done in bed, and he must not put in too much effort.
A few years into our marriage, he decided he didn't want to sleep in the same bedroom any longer. This was not due to any health problems he had, nor insomnia. He just didn't want it. He started to become very protective of HIS things. HIS closet. HIS room. HIS bathroom. HIS space. I was not to touch his laundry, as he liked it folded just so. I was not to prepare any food for him; he wanted to make food the way he wanted it. He no longer wanted to eat dinner together, preferring to eat very late, which I can't do. Grocery shopping had to be done separately. I was not to enter his bedroom without texting first. He rolls his eyes and gets upset if I dare to use the bathroom that he has claimed as HIS bathroom, despite the fact this is the main bathroom of the house.
Very soon after marriage, the mask started to fall, but I still didn't get it. I twisted myself into knots, figuring I was just a bad and undesirable wife. But nothing I could do would make him want me or want to be near me. Physical affection, shortly after marriage, diminished to next to nothing. He flinches when I touch him, and he leans away if I go in for a hug. He has not complimented me or said he loves me since we got married.
His level of rigidity and control are things I passed off as quirks, but I now realize how damaging they are. He controlled the money for a long time, always having much more disposable income than I, but pretending I had access to funds. All I had to do was ask, according to him. But when I'd ask, it was never a good time. All major purchases must be researched and approved by him.
Everything must be proper and conservative. Hair, clothing, must all be bland and not draw attention. That's not me, and I refuse to get on board with that. One must not laugh too much, or too loudly. At sporting events, light clapping is okay, but any cheering or displays of emotion are not acceptable and deemed "embarrassing."
The only person WH is comfortable with is his sister. She is very much like him, and never dates; she's in her late 40s. They share a checking account, go on vacations together, attend concerts, go out to dinner together, and she is the only person for whom he will take time off from work. WH has never had close friends, and his relationships are all very shallow. Despite promising he would try with my son, who is now an adult, WH has nothing to do with him.
Let's get back to the work situation. Have there been times we've needed to work more due to needing money? Yes. But WH has been working excessive hours since he was 15; he's 51 now. He almost didn't graduate from high school because he would miss school due to working so much. I have honestly never known another person in my life who is this much of a workaholic.
WH has always had a thing for lonely, needy, vulnerable, low-income single moms at his places of employment. He would fixate on doing tasks for them and becoming overly-involved in their lives. Inevitably, once they started dating, there would be fallout. What boyfriend wants their girlfriend all but dating a married guy?
Interestingly, WH had PLENTY to say about people who had affairs, including emotional affairs. But when he had one, it was acceptable, because he, apparently, had not been happy in the marriage for "a very long time."
His need for control, his rigidity, his workaholism, his "moral code" (which bends only for him), his fastidiousness around sex and appearance, his extreme deference to authority, and his high levels of discomfort showing emotion, or being around anyone who dares to show emotion, this really seems like OCPD to me.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar with their partner?

The Saint was baptized as a child with the name Christodoulos ("servant of Christ") by his pious parents, and was from Adrianople in Thrace. He was a meek, quiet and well-disposed man, very devout and a fervent Christian.
Christodoulos would become saddened when he heard Christians would become Islamized and he tried in every way to prevent it. But that which saddened him with others, happened also to himself. How did this take place?
At the age of nineteen the Saint was a tailor and he had to rent his own tailor shop. He happened to lose some money, which was to pay his debts for the new shop, and business was not going well to earn it back quickly. Not even having enough money to buy some bread, he became very desperate and was ashamed to reveal his situation to others.
One morning he went to the cafe of a certain Armenian. Once the coffee maker saw him, he joyfully greeted him and gave him some coffee. As he drank his coffee he told the Armenian, who himself had Islamized, that he was going to change. However, he didn't say this with the intention of changing into a Muslim, but that he was going to close down his shop. So he told the Armenian: "I'm going to go close my shop and come back."
But the Armenian understood things differently. He told him to sit down and he would take care of the matter so he would not have to close his shop. The Armenian then poked his head out the window and called for some Turks to come, telling them that a Christian gentleman inside would like to convert to Islam.
The Turks came and forcefully circumcised him. Out of his grief, he fainted. They recovered him with water and vinegar. After a few days his circumcision healed, and the Armenian wanted to make him a son-in-law by marrying him off to his daughter and thus become an heir of his estate. But the Saint did not want to hear any of that, but only tried to figure out a way to return to his Christian faith.
For this reason he went to Constantinople, and found there a spiritual father, but the spiritual father would not receive him, suspecting a trap, with the excuse that this was the seat of the Ottoman Empire, and if the Turks learned of this the Christians would be in danger. So the Saint left in sorrow.
He returned to Adrianople and prayed with much pain of heart, especially to the Theotokos. There he found a certain Christian who brought him to Ainos, a city of Thrace, to the port. They found a boat that belonged to Dionysiou Monastery of Mount Athos, which the monks had brought to buy beans for the Monastery. He confided his case to a monk, who consoled him, and the monks accepted him onto the boat even though he wore Turkish clothing.
Arriving at Dionysiou Monastery, Christodoulos confessed to the Abbot Stephen, who comforted him and put him under a rule to restore him. Thus the Saint joined the brotherhood in the spiritual struggle with perfect obedience, fasting, vigils, prostrations and his eyes constantly flowed with tears. Eventually the desire grew within him to become a monk and return to Adrianople to die for his faith. The Abbot encouraged him to be patient and wait for God's will in the matter.
The Saint thus engaged in more asceticism. All the monks were amazed by his change and spiritual progress. Whereas the Abbot, perceiving his willingness and zeal, tonsured him a monk and gave him the name Christophoros ("bearer of Christ") or Christopher, and also allowed him to communicate of the Immaculate Mysteries. Then his desire for martyrdom grew to such an extent that he refused to eat until he was given a blessing to confess his faith in Christ and die a martyric death. After four years at Dionysiou Monastery, the Abbot gave him his blessing, and asked that if his longing is fulfilled, he would intercede on his behalf as well on behalf of the brotherhood.
Having received the blessing of the Abbot and asking forgiveness from the brotherhood, he left accompanied by two other monks. By ship they arrived at Ainos and from there they went on foot to a village outside Adrianople, where the Monastery had a dependency. The next day was Palm Sunday, and the Saint received communion. On Holy Tuesday he and the two monks left for Adrianople.
Initially they went to see a former colleague of his who was a tailor and said to him: "I am Christodoulos and I came to die a martyr for Christ. Ask that supplications be made for me, so God would help me." Then he went to the house of the Pasha and asked to appear before him.
Christopher told the Pasha that he was born and raised a Christian, and that now he wanted to die a Christian. At the same time he threw to the floor his Turkish head covering, saying: "Take your religion, and give me back mine."
Once the Pasha heard this, he became enraged, and ordered that the legs and back of Christopher be beaten, then that he would be thrown in prison. Every day they beat him to weaken his resolve and return to Islam, but he remained steadfast. All the torments he endured bravely and with gratitude.
Eventually they realized Christopher would not be persuaded, so he was condemned to die by beheading. As he was led to the place of execution, he chanted, "Christ is risen from the dead...", since it was also the Tuesday of Renewal Week, and his face shone like the sun. Arriving at the place of execution, he knelt down, bent his head forward, and received decapitation, thus earning the crown of martyrdom.
As was the habit of the Turks, his body remained exposed for three days for the crowds to see it. At night a heavenly light descended on it, witnessed by both Turks and Romans. The Christians rejoiced and glorified God, while the Turks believed God was trying to set his body on fire to burn it. Then after three days his body was taken to the river and cast in, so as not to be buried with honors. But some fishermen came upon his relic, and they took it and buried it in a safe place.
(from johnsanidopoulos.com)

It should be noted that not every SB wants the same thing therefore this needs to be personalised. But let's do some basics:

What is your SR?

There are many kinds of sugar relationships. Some people want to date for networking in socialite, some want to support as single mothers... Mentorship, luxury life, travel, preferring age gaps, funding education, preferring openly laid out relationships... (I encourage everyone to contribute their own types if its not listed here) All of these are things people can be in the sugar bowl for. Obviously, depending on what kind of relationship you want, your green flags will change.
I am going to use examples from myself for accuracy. I am a "mentorship" kind of SB. I prefer the wisdom, experience, advice of a successful partner who supports my ambitions and encourages my personal, mental, professional, emotional growth. For me some green flags were:

• Asking about my life plans at M&G
• Focusing on my needs & obstacles above my wants and spoiling me
• The SD has actual experience and advice to give
• The SD says they are in sugar dating to support people they care about and believe in

Obviously, you may need a different list if you want a luxury life or someone to travel with.
Conclusion: Know thy desires! Jokes aside, what do you want? Think about it.

What is the Sugar Bowl you are in?

It is a global world, sure you can find a sugar daddy anywhere but for the love of all basic wisdom please don't travel with or to a man you just met. Aiming kind of locally is wise. So what is the local sugar culture? So far I have noticed three major sugar bowls: USA, EU-UK, Middle East. There may be more, please comment if you know more. And these sugar bowls seem to have different cultures. Like how American SBs mention M&G gifts, something I have never seen in EU before or how for EU-UK, long-term sugar dating seems a bit more of a goal. Middle East, I am familiar with it only because I am Middle Eastern, I avoid it. To many "fly to me" and marriage arrangements for my taste. (This scene isn't really on this server tho)
I noticed most these patterns in this server. So you might be standing on the source for that. Understand what to expect from your surroundings.

What do you offer?

If you have heavy self-criticism, use the "review my account" posts but genuinely ask yourself what makes you stand out. Is it skills, being bilingual, exceptional fitness, education, kinks, adaption to a certain lifestyle... If it exists, there is someone who prefers it. In best case scenario, you will emphasize your specialties in parallel to what kind of SR you seek. I am not saying there won't be a luxury life SD out there who can appreciate your education but think of it like a demographic. What kind of man do you want to date? What kind of woman would that man want to date? Like, if you want to date someone fit, you might want to hit the gym yourself. If you want someone into luxuries, you might need to develop a taste for them. Sugar Bowl is one of the few places where women outnumber men.

What is realistic?

Exceptions exist BUT you will be unicorn hunting to get the following: Non-intimate sugar relationships, sugar mommies, young hot wealthy and non-sociopathic sugar daddies... Do they exist? Yes. Can you go into the sugar bowl counting on finding one within your area? No, not really.

What are you willing to accept?

Let me start by saying: You don't have to accept anything. But the pickier you get, the longer it will take you to find the one. I am saying that as an exceptionally picky SB. Are you willing to date someone married and deal with the possible drama of it? Can you handle culture clash? Are you okay with exclusivity/polygamy? Can you actually travel with someone on their schedule (gets hard very fast)? Do no go into relationship thinking you can put up with something long term for the money. That turns into resentment, toxicity and self-hate. Not worth it. If you can't find someone, that is better than finding someone you have to tolerate the company of.

Finally, basic red flags for vetting:

These are my absolute baseline red flags that should apply to anyone. I will follow it with a list of things that I don't consider to be red flags even though they may be to you. I found some things are red flags to others due to culture or expectations.

1. Sexting before an M&G or any arrangement talk. I will answer questions like "Are you okay with XYZ as a kink?" with "Yes/No/Maybe, we can talk details after an arrangement is arrived". But anything beyond is to me tasteless. I am not dirty sexting to someone before even basic acquaintance is achieved or an arrangement is brought up. These men tend to also be sex-focused, which I find a bit soulless as a long-term romantic SB. So, sexting is saved after the mutual agreement at the least and better left to natural development if he is a gentleman. This includes demanding nudes in ways you may be uncomfortable with.
2. Not knowing what he wants. Okay, new SDs exist. But a man who doesn't know what he wants from a relationship often will take everything you have to give and may still be confused and unsatisfied. Unless you are experienced enough to hold his hand and lead him, don't take on a man who can't clearly answer "What do you want out of your ideal sugar relationship?". For the sake of clarity, I will give you an example to a clear answer: "Someone I can see x times a week, often for (insert date type like dinners) followed by an intimate evening. Preferably someone long/short term..." That is roughly what a real preference sounds like. "A fun time" isn't a clear answer
3. Avoiding arrangement talk. Arrangment talk sounds like "How many times a week/month would you like to meet?" "Do you prefer ppm or allowance?" "Do you expect to be exclusive" "What was your past arrangements like?"... Long story short: A man who can't even talk about an arrangement, can't uphold one without constant problems.
4. Dismissing my needs, terms, boundaries. This one I am just going to give examples of things I was told by vetted out SDs: "I don't think an SB can have redlines in bed" when I said I am not okay with a specific kink. "You don't know what you want" when I said I was not okay with traveling overseas just yet... If it would seem like a red flag when a vanilla relationship says the same thing, it often is also in the sugar bowl. You are an adult human being. Do not put up with dismissal, disrespect, denial of your autonomy, infantilization...
5. Avoiding M&G or insisting on suspicious ones. M&Gs are a must. If someone can't do it, it is a deal breaker. And if someone wants to have an M&G at a remote location, near their house, in a hotel restaurant... Red flag. You wouldn't hike with a tinder match. Same logic applies.
6. Lying. About things that actually matter like whether he is married or not. It is okay for an SD to not reveal their real name or company. They are dealing with risks too. That is just self defence. But if they deceive about something that mattered in my decision making, that's a big deal.
7. Entitlement. If they act like they own you, or your body, or your time, you can't trust them behind a locked door when they are in a bad mood. I have seen adult men throw temper tantrums over being rejected. This gets only worse when they have the money to stalk and harass on extreme levels. Don't start things with people already out of control.
8. Delaying, forgetting, missing sugar. Please don't tell me a man who makes that much money, runs a business, and pays their workers doesn't know how to set a reminder for someone they are eager to see. If he somehow can forget, I question his competence. I don't date incompetent men. Human error exists but it can't repeat.
9. Making a fuss about STD tests or protection. Just no. Your body deserves more consideration.

That's on top of my mind. If you all add your own flags, I will edit and extend the list. Here is to things I think are not red flags but can be based on personal preference:

1. Not paying for or gifting on a M&G. That seems to be a USA thing. I met great men from EU who won't do this but are endlessly generous regardless.
2. Wanting or not wanting - exclusivity/poly. It is one of those "everyone to their own" things
3. Wanting/not wanting love. Same story.
4. Not trusting. I have heard some horror stories from some SDs. Have understanding for them, many scammers prey on them.
5. Not giving things that aren't agreed on before in the arrangement. They may have families, other commitments, costs of a business... They are adults who make their own financial decisions. "No" is a valid answer to random requests.
6. Having unique/weird kinks. You don't have to agree to anything. Just don't judge. Everyone is in the bowl looking for what they want.
7. Talking about exes. Have you ever met a widower? You might. They are often older and have history. Unless they make it graphic and weird, it is normal to share.
8. Being busy. You are in for business-style dating in the Sugar Bowl.

Now of course there are green flags too. There are so damn many green flags from non-toxic chivalry to noticing small things. But basically what is a green flag in vanilla dating also is in the Sugar Bowl.

Questions worth asking overall:

1. "Did you sugar date before?" if yes, "What was your past arrangments like?"
2. "How often do you want to meet?" "Do you want to be having overnight stays?"
3. "Do you need discreation?" "Are you married?" "Do you have kids?" "Does your partner know?"
4. "Are there any kinks, needs, desires that you would feel bad about not having in your relationship?"
5. "Do you now or in possible future want to be exclusive?"
6. "Do you want to be travelling?" "How long at once?" "How often?" "Where to?"
7. "Do you prefer PPM or allowance?" "What is your preferred payment method?" (I recommend cash btw) "What is an average PPM/allowance to you?"
8. "What can I offer you?"
9. "Do you want a long term or short term relationship?"
10. "What makes you prefer sugar dating over vanilla dating?"
11. "Can we take STD tests? Both of us." Even if you are okay with just condoms and not doing this, see if they would have been careful and considerate otherwise.

I hope this helps. Add your notes, I will edit and update with everyone's comments as far as I can. This is based on Germany, sugar dating twice (once at 19 and now at 25) and what worked. I have some lessons mixed from failed vanilla relationships. I am not omniscient. Help me if I got something wrong instead of flaming me please. I am trying to be helpful.

Author's note: This story takes place prior to Jerry and the E-Girls.
"Thank you very much for this opportunity," I told the Engagement Liaison for the Notre Dame University Guest Speaker program. As I'd come to expect, she didn't smile, she just gave me another look that, if I didn't know better, would have seemed incredulous.
I smiled, but she didn't smile back, so my smile died a slow, torturous death as I failed to figure out what, exactly, to do with it.
This woman, Lucinda Wright, had been acting as if I'd offended her since I arrived. And she was my sole point of contact for this whole speaking engagement. I racked my brain to try and recall anything I might have done that might have pissed her off, but nothing occurred to me. She did look kinda familiar, but that was it.
"So, uh..." I went on, uncertain of how to proceed.
"The talk starts in five minutes," she said primly. "If you go left out of my office, the door to the backstage area is marked 'speaker'."
"Ok," I said, and then I couldn't remain quiet any more.
"Did I do something to offend you?" I asked. She regarded me like a scientist studying a new species of cockroach for a second.
"Why do you ask," she stated. Not asked. Stated.
"I just, uh... I feel like you don't... Uh, really care for me."
"Have I done something to insult you?" she asked.
"No, but... It's just..."
"Ahh, I understand. You're used to women fawning all over you. Well, I'm afraid my fawning days are over."
I flushed bright red as the heat filled my cheeks. "I don't... I mean, I'm not... You weren't..." I stammered, trying to regain some semblance of balance, but it was too far gone for that.
"Four minutes," she said, and it took me a moment to realize what she meant.
"Oh, uh, right," I said. I stood up and offered her a hand, just on instinct. "Thank you again," I said. She stared at my hand until I dropped it.
"I'll just, uh..." I hooked a thumb over my shoulder. She quirked an eyebrow at me, so I let discretion be the better part of valor and scurried out of her office. I was so flustered that I turned right instead of left out the door and walked for a solid two minutes before I realized I'd gone the wrong way. I hurried back, finding the door marked 'Speaker' and stepping in, where I found a young production assistant.
"Mister Williams?" she greeted me, smiling. The smile helped a lot. I really wished I'd known why Lucinda didn't like me. This PA was a pretty blonde with short, spiky hair and a neat business suit. A part of my brain absently noted how thin she was, and wondered what Inanna would think. Inanna's tastes in women were really all-encompassing, and it was more a matter of imagining how she might compliment the petite girl than wondering how attractive she'd find her. The answer to that last question had always ever been a simple 'yes', after all.
"Yes," I said, smiling back. I made sure I was clamping down hard on my aura. No sense in making a scene.
"You're almost on," she said. "There's no time for makeup, if you'll come with me, please?"
"Of course," I replied. She led me through a curtained archway, where I could hear the host just wrapping up my introduction.
"...unarguably the most prolific spellwriter practicing, as well as arguably the most prolific artificer, not to mention his efforts in protecting the world from various supernatural threats. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to introduce you to Doctor Jerry Williams."
A polite round of applause began and the production assistant gave me a little shove towards another set of curtains. I walked through them, emerging into bright stage lights that made me squint. I'd done this enough times to know not to bother shading my eyes, so I simply walked onto the stage and spotted the host, sitting in one of two comfortable-looking chairs surrounding a small table with a pitcher of water and two glasses on it.
I stepped forward, where another production assistant handed me a wireless microphone, and then made my way to the empty chair and sat down, giving the crowd a polite wave and a smile.
"Welcome, Doctor Williams," the host said. I recognized him as the regular host of these talks, which I often watched on the public-access station at home or in my office.
"Doctor Moore," I replied, holding up my mic so it would catch my voice. "The pleasure is entirely mine, I assure you." I reached across to shake his hand before we both settled back into our seats.
"So, Doctor Williams. I was wondering if you could speak a little on the subject of your latest white paper, the description of the cross-planar trawling taps. The design is quite intriguing and, if properly executed, promises to revolutionize the collection of arcane energies for use by both wizard and artifact."
"Yes, of course," I said, feeling a lot more at ease now that I was back in my comfort zone. "So the inspiration came from the way that I and other demidivine individuals were accessing energy, through the wells, and the way that..."
----
For ninety minutes, we had an enjoyable chat about some of my newest research as well as some of the politics and culture around the still relatively new field of arcanology. Dr. Moore was articulate, polite and extremely knowledgeable, despite his degree being in particle physics. A lot of the older wizards out there had advanced STEM degrees that predated the return of magic, and Moore was one of the most prominent among them.
I enjoyed pointing out many of his contributions to the field, and going into some detail about how I'd built upon his work in a lot of my own. When it came time to take questions from the audience, they kept it remarkably free of questions about my more violent exploits, focusing on my work and the intricacies of magic.
When our two-and-a-half-hour time was up, I bid the audience goodbye to a much louder cheer than had welcomed me (they were probably relieved it was finally over) and made my way backstage. I found a gaggle of production assistants and Lucinda waiting for me.
She wore the same look of disapproval she'd had before the talk, and the PAs all seemed a bit muted in her presence.
"Thank you for attending," she said, snatching the mic out of my hand. Coming down off the good feeling of the talk, and being tired, I let my annoyance override my confusion for a moment.
"What the hell did I do to you?" I asked.
"Excuse me?" Lucinda replied. The PAs all froze and went silent, staring at us. I could feel their stares boring in to me, but I'd gotten my blood pressure up already, and I had some momentum to ride on, so I pushed through.
"You've been glaring at me since I first met you," I said. "You've been short-tempered with me, you made, frankly, offensive assumptions about me, you refused to shake my hand... I don't even know you, but you seem to have some massive grudge against me. What did I do? I'm not some kind of jerk who just goes through life without a care for anyone who gets in my way. If I knew what it was, I could apologize for it, or try to make it right or something."
I started almost angrily, but my voice had turned pleading by the end.
"You don't know me," she said. Then she laughed once, ruefully. "That's right. You don't know me. You've never known me."
She turned and marched away. I glanced around, finally meeting the gazes of the shocked PAs, who were still standing around.
"If any of you know what the issue is, I'd really appreciate it if you told me," I said.
One of them, the same pretty blonde who'd greeted me here earlier, raised a tentative hand. I met her eyes.
"Miss Wright just got divorced a few weeks ago," she asked as much as said. "She's been a little on edge since."
"Yeah, but not like today," one of the others said. The whole group nodded in agreement that her behavior with me was atypical.
----
I had a lot going on at work, so thoughts of angry Lucinda faded quickly. The whole incident quickly slipped itself into that particular set of memories that only return when I'm laying in bed, trying to sleep, and my brain decided to remind me that I'm a moron and an asshole instead of simply slipping unconscious.
It was about two weeks later when I got a call from Notre Dame.
"This is Williams," I answered.
"Doctor Williams, this is Tammy from Notre Dame. We met at your speaking engagement a couple of weeks ago."
"Uh... Tammy..." I said, trying to jog my memory.
"Short, spiky blonde hair," she prompted.
"Oh yes!" I exclaimed. "The production assistant. You were quite pleasant, as I recall. What can I do for you?"
"We're all looking for Miss Wr- Sorry, Miss Ramirez. She didn't show up for work today and wasn't answering her phone. When I went to her apartment to check on her, I found it unlocked and empty, and, uh..."
"Have you called the police?" I asked, my brain going to the worst place immediately because, well, thanks brain. It's really nice to always be assuming the worst. I'm sure there's no correlation between that and all the gray hairs on my head and in my beard.
"I did, and the detective said he was going to contact your company, so I told him I had your direct office line, and he asked me to call."
"Let me speak to him for a moment, please," I said.
"Sure, one sec," she replied. I heard muted voices and some shuffling, and then a male voice came on the line.
"Doctor Williams," he said.
"That is I," I replied. "To whom am I speaking?"
"I'm Detective Brown with the Baltimore Police."
"Good to meet you, Detective Brown," I said, trying to recall if I knew him or not. "Can you tell me anything about what happened to Lucinda? I'll start putting together a response team, right now."
"This is more about speaking to you than involving the Group in my investigation," he said, catching me off guard.
"Okay," I replied rotely.
"What can you tell me about your relationship with Miss Ramirez?"
"Uh, I only met her the one time. She didn't seem to like me very much. In fact, she seemed to have a marked dislike for me, though I have no idea why."
"You only met her once when?"
"When I was there a couple weeks ago for the talk," I said. "Why do you seem to think I have some kind of relationship with her?"
"Well, Doctor Williams, do you think you could come down to the station to answer some questions anyway? I'd like to find out exactly what's going on here, and I think you might be able to shed some light on the situation."
"How about I meet you at Miss, uh, Ramirez' apartment? I can be there in less than one minute." Something about that name was niggling the back of my mind.
"Uh..." he said, and I could hear him playing it all out in his head. He was trying to figure out if I was trying to get one over on him by suggesting this. I wasn't, and he seemed to be a smart man, because he continued just a second or two later. "Sure, we can do that."
"All right," I said. "Give me the address and I'll be right over."
"I'll see you- Oh, the address. Yes, one second. It's, uh... Two-thirty-three Chancery Road."
I typed it into Google and zoomed out a bit on the map that popped up. I checked the satellite view, then the street view.
"I'll see you in just a moment," I said.
"All right," he replied.
----
I teleported myself to a point a few hundred feet off the ground, scouted out the layout as I began to fall, then teleported myself to the ground before I built up too much momentum. It was the easiest, safest way to teleport to a new place. And it didn't have the effect that me descending from the heavens would on anyone already there, which was nice.
I found Detective Brown, whom I recognized, even though I don't think I've ever worked with him before, out front. We shook hands and re-introduced ourselves, and then he cut down to brass tacks.
"Look, I'll be straight with you. We haven't ruled out foul play yet, and in the event that's what happened, you're our prime suspect at the moment. That being said, I don't think you did it. It doesn't make sense given the circumstances, you've got too much to lose, and it doesn't jive with everything I've ever heard about you. So I'm happy to treat this like an assist, provided you can answer some questions for me."
"Fair enough," I said. "I'll answer as honestly as I can."
"Thanks. So, you're sure you don't know her from before the other week?"
I frowned and thought. "I'll be honest, I thought she looked a little familiar, and something about her maiden name was familiar, too. But I've tried to recall where I know her from, and I'm coming up blank. Maybe there's something inside that'll refresh my memory."
"We'll take a look. Before we do, I want to prepare you."
My eyes widened. "For what?" I asked.
"There's a shrine," he said, and I knew immediately what he meant.
Look, I'm kind of a celebrity. I'm no Timothee Chalamet, mind. Hell, I'm not even a Deacon MacDouglas. I'm just played by one, on TV. My face is not as familiar as his, and the truth behind the nonsense I've gotten involved in is not as well known as the plot of the show. But it is somewhat well known. I do get recognized sometimes.
My point here is that I've seen a few Jerry Shrines before. Pictures of me, printed off the internet or cut from magazines. Trinkets similar to my things, or sometimes actual possessions of mine that I'd lost over the years. The worst one I'd seen was a sex shrine built by a masochist, in which a bunch of casings from one of my guns had been embedded into the largest, most intimidating Bad Dragon I've ever seen in my life.
Ahem, if you don't know what a Bad Dragon is, then don't google it. Just count your blessings.
"Well," I said with a resigned sigh. "Let's see it."
As shrines went, Lucinda's was pretty tame.
There was my graduation photo, printed out at four-by-six and taped to the wall above a dresser in her bedroom. Below that, a couple of printouts of online news articles about me were stuck to the walls with pins. On the dresser top, there were more printouts. I began to look through them until one caught my eye.
"Holy shit," I said, burning up my first allotted curse word for the day.
"What's that?" Brown asked. I showed him the printout. It was from a college newsletter, many decades back. The print wasn't even text, but what looked like a photograph of one of the issues. It described how an unnamed student had voluntarily left the school after accusations of attempted rape.
"Lucinda, that's what was throwing me. When I knew her, she went by Cindy."
"You know who that was?" Brown asked, scanning the article quickly.
"It was me." He turned an arch look on me.
"I didn't actually do it. The guy she started dating... I walked in on him molesting her as she was unconscious at a party and I tried to stop him, but he was a lot bigger than me. His friends helped him, too. They pulled my pants down in the process of beating the tar out of me, kicking me in the groin and stuff. When she woke up from the commotion, she saw me, bloody and beaten, with my pants down. She drew her conclusions from that."
"Shit, and you had been trying to stop it, huh?" Brown said, clearly taking my story at face value. Or appearing to, in any event. I nodded.
"She'd actually been coming onto me that whole night," I said. "But she was so drunk that I was very uncomfortable. It felt like taking advantage."
"Smart man," Brown said approvingly. "I'm having trouble picturing you getting your ass kicked, though."
I shrugged. "I wasn't always a wizard," I said. He shrugged back.
"So why do you think there might be some foul play?" I asked. "Aside from the fact that she apparently left without locking her door."
"Blood in the living room," he said. "Not a lot, but it's clearly blood."
"Hmm, let me take a look," I said. I ran through the events of the past in my mind. The last time I'd seen Cindy was the day she'd found out the truth. After the night of the party when the incident happened, she had started dating the guy who had actually taken advantage of her. I guess she saw him as having saved her from the creepy weird guy, namely me. He'd convinced her to file a complaint against me with the school, which resulted in me leaving the school to go to my second choice. A few months later, I'd ran into them, and found Asshole (the boyfriend) alone. I confronted him, calling him a rapist, and timing it so that she'd hear when he finally got flustered and confessed to what he'd actually done.
She'd been apologetic to me after, but my trust had already been broken. I had really liked her, and for her to immediately believe that I could do such a thing, especially because it meant taking the word of a drunk fratboy she didn't even know over mine, was more than even my desperate, lonely heart could handle. I'd given her a ride home, but told her in no uncertain terms that I never wanted to see her again.
Apparently, that had hurt her. And she'd held onto that grudge for decades.
I poked through the other papers, then checked her nightstand. I found a final divorce decree there. So her divorce had been finalized just yesterday.
Brown showed me the spots on the carpet. Immediately, I began to doubt his suspicions. For starters, there were six spots, and they led from the front door to the bathroom. I knelt down next to the one closest to the bathroom and touched it.
The blood was dry, but not too old. I felt the magic inside of it, and I could feel life there. Not the life of the blood cells, which were long dead. But residual life magic, along with something that wasn't blood. I used some knowledge magic to check it and found that it was urea.
"This is menstrual blood," I said. I used a little bit of time magic to get a reading on the age of the blood. It was about fifteen hours old. I moved to the next spot, and checked that. It was very close in age, but just barely older.
"Yeah, this isn't an indication of foul play," I said. "She came inside while leaking urine last night. I think she had an accident and the urine pulled some blood from her tampon or panty liner. You notice how the blood looks a little thin?"
"I figured it was a little older. Maybe a day or two."
"There any pets?" I asked and Brown snapped his fingers. "I knew that felt off," he said. "Yeah, no pets."
Pets walking across a trail of tried blood would have explained why each spot had a dark ring, but was thinned out in the middle. It was the sort of thing they teach detectives about, one of those weird little quirks of life that only matter to those in very specific careers. I wouldn't blame him for seeing their state and immediately assuming a pet had trampled the spots, because it was really very common.
"You're sure about the composition of those droplets?" he asked. I nodded. "Very much. This blood is also menstrual blood, I'm certain of that, as well."
"So, more likely she had a night out drinking," he said.
"Yeah," I replied. "That seems more likely. She held it in on the way home, but leaked a little on her way to the bathroom."
"I can write it up as a missing person, then," he offered. I nodded, rubbing my chin thoughtfully.
"You got some idea of what happened to her?" he asked.
"Maybe," I said. "Where's Tammy?"
"The girl that called us? She's out front, why?"
"I want to ask her some questions."
----
"Did Lucinda say anything about me after the day of the talk?" I asked.
Tammy's eyes slid away from mine and she looked nervous.
"I'm not going to be mad at you for telling me," I assured her. She fidgeted for a moment, then spoke.
"She went on a rant about how selfish you were. How you hold everyone's mistakes against them. It was... Really awkward. It was like she wanted us to hate you."
"Huh," I said.
"So the question, then, is where she went," Brown said.
I thought about it. Then I turned to Tammy. "When was the last time she mentioned me?"
"She's been complaining about you since the talk," she said.
"So her divorce got finalized yesterday, she was fuming about me," I said. "And she likely had a night out drinking. A *lot* of drinking."
"Are you in the white pages?" Brown asked, catching on.
"No," I said. "But my offices are."
----
I walked into the lobby with Tammy and Detective Brown hot on my heels. I'd called to ask if there had been a disturbance, and sure enough, there was one ongoing.
"..fucking assholes!" Cindy Ramirez was shouting at a pair of guards, both of them holding up their hands in pacifying gestures. Neither was really trained for this. Generally speaking, disturbances involving the Group tended to be a lot more violent and weird.
"I've got this," I announced to them when they looked up to see what fresh hell was coming through the door for them.
Cindy spun, fixing glassy, angry eyes on me.
"You fucking asshole," she spat.
"Tell me what's wrong, Cindy," I said.
"You fucking asshole!" she repeated, louder.
"Cindy, we haven't spoken in decades. Why are you angry at me now?"
"Because all of it started with you!" she spat, as if that explained it.
"All of what?" I asked, keeping my voice soft and level.
She snarled, then sobbed and fell to her knees. I honestly had no clue what to do here. Should I try to comfort her physically? Put my arms around her? Should I keep my distance? Shit, I needed someone who knew this sort of interpersonal stuff better than me to tell me what to do.
I drew up some knowledge magic and infused my brain, then reached out to Kathy with a mental message. Hey, I have kind of an emergency situation here. Are you free to consult?
Her response was almost immediate. Consult? With you? I mean, uh, yeah, but like... On what?
There's a woman in the lobby having a crisis. I knew her in college. There was an... Incident. We'd gone to a party and she got really drunk and was hitting on me. I know, it's hard to believe anyone would hit on me back then, but we had been friends and I'd been comforting her through a breakup. She was really drunk though, so I put her in one of the rooms upstairs to sleep it off. When I went to check on her, I found a guy molesting her and tried to intervene. As expected, I got my ass kicked. When she woke up, that guy told her that he caught me molesting her and she believed him. That's why I changed colleges, my Junior year. A few months later, she found out what really happened and tried to apologize, but I was hurt and I told her I didn't want to be friends anymore.
Okay, and she's in the lobby upset with you now? What, like, twenty years later?
A little more, I sent, But yeah. It's been a long time.
Okay, I get it. So let's see... I don't really know enough to really dig into it, but I'd guess she's had bad luck in love ever since then. Did you guys run into each other recently?
Yes, I sent. I gave a talk at Notre Dame a few weeks ago. She was my primary point of contact there.
Okay, that tracks. It brought you back into mind. Do you know if she had any other incidents?
One of the PAs told me she got divorced a few weeks prior. The surname she was using then was her married name, and she's switched back to her maiden name since.
Wow, this is making a bit more sense. Okay, so -and bear in mind, this is not a formal diagnosis, or even a particularly detailed one- I'll lay this out as best I can.
Hit me.
Okay, so for starters, I'd guess that she had a crush on you even back before you were helping her through that breakup. I can't really say if it's more likely than not, but it's possible that the crush on you precipitated the breakup, at least in part. Which was fine enough until she ended up divorced, and then just a few weeks later, runs into you. Now, she's feeling lost and adrift, which is normal following a divorce, especially if it went quickly. But she's looking to make it all make sense, and the way to do that is to blame you. I'd bet she's had a few failed relationships before she got married, too, which would only reinforce the thought that you turned her down the wrong path.
Okay, I sent. So what do I do?
You can't really help her. She needs someone to talk to. And don't even think about bringing her home to Inanna. That'll only make things worse.
I have no intention of doing that, I assured her. Can I comfort her? Give her a hug?
Yeah, but don't try to do any self-deprecating stuff. Seriously. Don't admit to being wrong, partially because you weren't wrong to cut things off, that was kind of fucked up of her to take some rando's word over her friend's. But mainly because you'd just be feeding into her rationalizations. Be clear that you're not apologizing or admitting anything, and that you're not open to 'fixing' anything. At the same time, you can offer her forgiveness. You had a right to be upset, and if she's this worked up about it, it's got to be because a part of her knows that. She very well may try to kiss you or something. Don't let her. But you can give her a hug, get her back home and tucked into bed. Is she drunk?
Extremely, I said. She peed herself, looks like last night, and enough that it made her tampon or pad drip onto the floor.
Ugh, that's gross. Well, to be fair, Lya actually did the same thing, once.
Yeah, I recognized it because Inanna's first period after Sara was born, we went out drinking and she overdid it.
Still gross.
Agreed. But drunks, so... Forgivable.
Yeah. For the record, it's never happened to me.
Good to know, I sent, making sure my deadpan tone carried through. I heard her laugh in my mind.
Alright, I followed up a second later. I'm going to try to get her back home. Anything I should know about followup?
A therapist is what's needed. But it might be helpful to talk to you about it all, in the future. For now, just focus on calming her down and getting her home. Getting her to agree to talk to someone would help, too.
Thanks, Kathy, I sent.
Good luck.
I took a steadying breath, then knelt down next to Cindy and put an arm around her shoulder. She tensed as she felt the touch, but then relaxed. Then she leaned into me.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I didn't know what to believe. There were four of them, and they all said the same thing, and I remembered trying to get you to come upstairs with me. I thought that we did, and started doing something and I passed out. But Norm convinced me that it wasn't innocent. He said he had locked the door while I was sleeping, and that you picked the lock and they heard you making noises, which was how they knew."
I sighed. "Cindy, that's the distant past. We're both much different people. I don't have any hard feelings over it any more."
"Everything went to shit after that," she said, sniffling. "Norm was an asshole, and you exposing him in that library was the only good thing that's happened since. I dated more guys like him, until I finally married one. And then I caught him in bed with a sixteen-year-old."
"Jesus Christ," I muttered.
"Yeah," she sighed. "He's in jail. The divorce went really fast."
"Cindy," I said. "You need to be talking to someone. This stuff is not the kind of thing that a person can just power through."
She didn't say anything, but I felt her head move slightly. She was turning her face towards mine. I once again -seriously, this was like, the millionth time- notched up my estimation of Kathy's psych knowledge. I turned my own head slightly away, a very subtle movement that would make it so that she'd have to pull away to get her lips in range of mine.
"Let me get you home, okay?" I asked. "You're pretty drunk right now, and you could really use some sleep."
She laughed. "Is that funny?" I asked.
"It's stupid," she said. "The last time I really talked to you, I got drunk, and you helped me into bed to sleep it off."
I realized that she was right, but I didn't know quite what to say about it. So I let my mouth do its own thing.
"Yeah, well, this time, I'll clear the house of horny frat boys. And if there are any, I'm pretty sure I'll win the fight."
----
Tammy and Detective Brown waited in the living room while I got her tucked into bed. Cindy was all but incoherent at this point. The Detective had already cleared out the shrine. There was no advantage to letting her hang onto that stuff.
"If you fucked me, I'd be happy about it," she muttered.
"No, you wouldn't," I said. "At least not for very long."
"I dreamed about it for years," she said. I didn't say anything, I just tucked the blanket under her. I'd only taken her shoes off, not anything else, because I didn't want to give her ideas. Apparently, taking her shoes off had been enough.
I flipped off the lights.
"I'm going to have someone call you," I said. "A therapist. A friend of mine. You'll like her. One day, we'll talk again, I promise."
"Mmm, g'night," she muttered. It was two o'clock in the afternoon.
"Good night," I said, pulling the door gently shut behind me as I left.
"Well, that went a lot better than most MPs I work," Brown said.
"Is she gonna be all right?" Tammy asked. I shrugged. "My friend, Kathy, is the best psychologist I know. She's helped quite a few people through some stuff. I'm going to ask her to call Cindy tomorrow. Hopefully, she'll work through it."
----
My phone rang as I was driving back to the office. It was Inanna.
"Hey baby," I answered.
"Hey. I called your office, but I didn't get any answer. When I called the duty desk, they told me you were involved in some kind of altercation in the lobby."
"Yeah..." I sighed. "Do you remember, years ago, I told you about Cindy Ramirez? The girl who accused me of sexually assaulting her?"
"Yeah. You were trying to be a gentleman, and she ended up believing some horny frat boy over you, right?"
"Right. Well, she was my contact at Notre Dame for that talk. I didn't recognize her, because of the time, and she gave me her married name, despite going through a divorce. Well, it turns out that she's had really back luck in love, and was blaming me for it."
"She tried to attack you?"
"No, she wasn't particularly violent, just upset. She broke down, crying at the end."
"Well shit, bring her home. I'll comfort the shit out of her," she said. I smirked, shaking my head.
"I spoke to Kathy about it. That's the last thing she needs."
"Shame. But you owe me fifty bucks."
"Wait, what?"
"I told you when we first met that you were a sexy bitch. And you told me you knew for a fact you weren't. Well, you'd already broken one heart by that point. Non-sexy bitches don't break hearts."
I groaned.
"I'll bring you some cash," I said.
"I'd prefer to collect in ass," she said.
"Yes, dear."