Rico and Rikishi walk into a locker room victorious after a tag-team match earlier. Both men worked up quite a sweat to get this victory tonight.
“Whew! Yeah! We did it tonight big man!” Rico celebrated.
“Yeah we showed them,” Rikishi replied.
Both men opened their respective lockers, Rikishi toweling the sweat off his face while Rico drank from his water bottle. Rico took a few swigs before thanking Rikishi.
“Ahh…you know, I never got to say thank you for filling in for my partner tonight. And for bailing me out back there.”
“Yeah, no problem,” Rikishi replied. “Those punks jumped Charlie and got what was coming to them.”
“Speaking of Charlie, I thought he’d be here recovering” Rico asked between drinks.
“Heh, probably out with Miss Jackie,” Rikishi joked.
“Ugh, that’s so Charlie.”
“You don’t mind Haas with your girl? I thought you too were close.”
“Jackie’s more of a friend. I’m thinking of a different kind of ass right now…” Rico said as he stared at Rikishi unclasping his signature belt. His back was turned so Rico was eyeing his thick tanned ass, clad in a large black thong.
“Oh yeah? Whose ass?” Rikishi chuckled as he bent down to untie his shoes. Rikishi’s eyes widened and mouth gaped as her felt Rico’s hands slowly grab his cheeks and Rico’s crotch press against his ass. Rikishi slowly rose and turned to face Rico.
“Woah…what’re you doing?” Rikishi asked with a warning.
“Just appreciating the ass that saved mine,” Rico joked.
“Oh, don’t tell me…you wanna join my special club?” Rikishi asked.
“Oh yes please! I tried to show Mr. McMahon that I’ve got what it takes but he told me to ask you instead. I’ve been thinking about your ass ever since our first match together. Sometimes I wish it was me under your stinkfaces and Banzai Drops,” Rico confessed.
“Well, you were the first person to actually enjoy taking a stinkface from me,” Rikishi admitted.
“Believe me, I’m far from the first person to enjoy it and wish for seconds,” Rico replied.
“…Really?...”
“Oh yeah Kish. Can I call you Kish?” Rico asked as he slowly moved his hands to Rikishi’s ass again.
“There’s something about your ass that’s…special…”
Rico squeezed Rikishi’s ass cheeks prompting Rikishi to grab Rico’s wrists and push him against a locker. Rico sat down onto a bench and raised his hands to apologize.
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked first. That was very rude of me. I’m sorry.”
Rikishi exhaled and calmed down before he let go of Rico. He stood there for a few seconds before Rico spoke again.
“I just wanted to show some appreciation. That’s all. Can I please…put my face in it?”
“Are you for real?”
“Yes! Think of it as a stinkface but you don’t have to do anything. You’ll enjoy it too. I promise.”
Rikishi sighed and gave his answer.
“Alright fine. But you’re gonna get more than just my ass.”
“Oh, you spoil me…” Rico replied sultry.
Rikishi shook his head and turned around. He then bent over and rested his hands on the opposite bench so that his ass was raised. Rico smiled giddily as he sat on the bench, his face a few inches away from what he wants. He once again groped Rikishi’s tanned, toned ass feeling the muscle in those cheeks. Rico slapped one cheek and it gave only a slight jiggle. Rikishi had been working out his ass a lot recently, it being his best asset and all. Rico also noticed that there weren’t any hairs or pimples on this magnificent ass.
“Someone’s been watching their ass,” Rico joked.
“Just taking care of myself.”
“Sure…”
Rico then smothered his face into Rikishi’s thong-clad ass. He gripped Rikishi’s thighs as he savored the ass of his dreams. Rikishi winced slightly but wasn’t uncomfortable. He experienced this several times throughout his career and enjoyed most of them. Rico smeared all sides of his face into the delectable derrière, the sweat from their earlier match giving it a certain taste and musk.
“Oh God yes…” Rico said as he gave repeated kisses to Rikishi’s cheeks. Rikishi wouldn’t admit it but he started to enjoy this as well. Both men’s cocks started to twitch from the pleasure they were receiving.
“You know, when you stinkfaced me the first time, I pretended to be sick. But then I started to like your ass. The last time you stinkfaced me, God did I wish you pulled your thong to the side to give me a little extra flavor,” Rico reminisced.
“You can get more than a little extra flavor you know,” Rikishi teased as he slowly gyrated his hips while pulling his sweaty black thong down to his crack.
“Oh please Kish. Allow me,” Rico said as he hooked his fingers around Rikishi’s thong. He got off his bench and on his knees so that he can look up Rikishi’s ass. Rikishi smiled with arousal and anticipation as he felt his thong slide down to his ankles. Rico used one hand to caress one of Rikshi’s cheeks and used the other to rub his cock and balls. He was staring at what he could only have in his dreams: Rikishi’s bare ass, in all its glory, just for him.
“Lick it good and you can have my ass any way you want,” Rikishi teased.
Rico could only moan as he spread Rikishi’s cheeks apart and nearly fainted at all the tasty treats before him: Rikishi’s dark puckering asshole, firm ballsack, thick veiny cock and enough cheek to cover his entire face. Rico braced himself before pushing his face in and letting it be engulfed by Rikishi’s ass.
Rico’s lips kissed Rikishi’s asshole and his nose was deep in the Kish’s crack. He licked around the hole before slowly sliding his tongue into it. Rikishi gritted his teeth from the pleasure of this rimjob. He grabbed the back of Rico’s head with both hands and started wiping his ass with Rico’s face. Rico was in heaven as he tasted the deepest part of Rikishi’s ass. His tongue was only a few centimeters inside but was still able to lick the inside of Rikishi’s asshole.
“Fuck…,” Rikishi moaned as he jerked his head and ass up. Rico was now licking Rikishi’s taint, chin pressed against his balls. With thirst, he licked his way up from the taint to the crack. He repeated this until Rikishi pulled his ass away to get a break from this new pleasure. Saliva trailed from Rico’s tongue to Rikishi’s crack. Rico wanted more but hungrily licked his lips when he saw Rikishi’s throbbing cock leaking pre-cum.
Rikishi’s break was cut short when Rico scooted forward and took the tip of Rikishi’s penis in his mouth. Rikishi shifted his position so he can insert the rest of his cock into Rico’s mouth. The feeling was new for Rikishi but not for Rico. Rico expertly sucked Rikishi’s cock, head moving up and down. The current position made it difficult for Rico to swallow the entire cock but he didn’t want to make Rikishi cum just yet. Rico pulled his mouth off Rikishi’s fully erect cock, licked the pre-cum off his tip and suckled his balls for a few seconds.
Rikishi decided that he had enough foreplay and got into position for the main event. He moved to the side and got on his hands and knees. He looked behind him to see Rico panting hornily.
“What’re you waiting for? Come get this ass,” Rikishi teased as slapped his cheeks.
Rico nodded and smiled as he stood up and pulled the straps of his blue wrestling singlet from his shoulders. He teasingly swung his hips as he pulled his singlet down past his knees. Rico licked his lips and sexily pulled around his pink thong, erect cock bulging through. He slowly pulled down his thong down past his knees, got on his knees and gripped Rikishi’s ass again.
Rico circled his index finger around Rikishi’s asshole and inserted it deep inside. Rikishi moaned as his asshole was fingered. Rico pulled out his finger and sucked on it, moaning at the taste. He then adjusted his cock and slowly entered Rikishi’s ass. The licking and sucking from earlier lubricated his asshole enough for Rico to enter smoothly. Rikishi braced himself as Rico fucked his ass at a steady pace. Rico steadily sped up his rhythm as thighs slapped against cheeks and balls slapped together.
“Oh fuck yes!” Rico moaned as he pounded Rikishi’s ass. He then bent forward and hugged Rikishi from behind. He reached around and used one hand to grab and stroke Rikishi’s thick cock. Rikishi gasped as he was being jerked off by Rico. The two men soon felt their orgasm approaching.
“Rico…don’t cum in my ass. Not…yet…” Rikishi uttered between moans. Rico tried his best not to cum yet, switching to long hard thrusts.
“Pull out before you…ohhh!” Rikishi was cut off by his orgasm. He threw his head back and groaned as he ejaculated on the floor. Seconds before Rico could cum, he pulled his cock out of Rikishi’s ass and wedged them between his massive cheeks. Rico used his hands to squeeze Rikishi’s cheeks and sandwich his cock. After a momentary buttjob, Rico came all over Rikishi’s ass and lower back. Rico fell back and caught his breath in the afterglow. After a few minutes, both men spoke.
“Whew! God that was great! Hoo!” Rico gasped.
“Damn right. Now you know why my ass is called the ‘Ass of Life,’ Rikishi proudly explained.
Rico was smiling and panting until he felt a piece of cloth land on his face. He raised slightly and pulled the fabric off his face. It was Rikishi’s black thong. Rico looked up to see that Rikishi was bare naked smiling down on him.
“Give those back to me when you're ready for another round with the Kish,” Rikishi said as he turned to walked towards the showers, tauntingly slapping his cum-covered ass.
Rico put the thong in his face and breathed in the Kish’s goodness before stripping off the rest of his clothes. He was intent on showering with Rikishi but he was stopped and told to go another stall. Rikishi wanted his privacy and even though Rico was a bit disappointed, he obliged. Rikishi was such a tease.

Context

This story fits into my world-building as an example of how people of the tribe at Saàkirlaasiik name one another. It illustrates that names are given by men to one another within their trade groups. Women ask their potential husbands to name them at their binding ceremony. This story illustrates both of those things.
The story is about two characters - 'Rows-in-loud-waters' and 'Hatchling'. They are on a battlefield against a tribe that broke apart from them long ago. Things get rough and a naming ceremony happens in the end. This takes place between the border of Saàkirlaasiik and Saàronit. It takes place in the second age after the Great Sundering.

Spoiler TL;DR

Summary: Rows-in-loud-waters is something of a squad leader to Hatchling. The two of them are in the alligator clan and are waiting for the 'Deceived' to come and fight them. When they finally do, the men fight with one of the Deceived for the majority of the story. This leads to some banter back and forth, but in the end, Hatchling dies. Hatchling tells Rows-in-loud-waters what he would have named his would-be wife if she had asked him to wed her. At the final end, Rows-in-loud-waters gives Hatchling a true proper name.

If You Read / Enjoy

Please drop me a comment. Just hearing that someone liked it would be awesome.

What's In A Name

“Stand firm! Men of Nafóótkirriinhaa”, Leans-on-the-spirit, chief of their clan spoke over all present before him. Riding by on a horse, he raised a spear and pranced the line of warriors. “It saddens me that we will shed the blood of our cousins! But they come to steal, pillage, and destroy. Show no mercy, brothers. For, I assure you, the Deceived will not return it.” His dark hair streamed in the air behind him as his steed carried him far down the line of men and out of earshot from him. Men cheered as he galloped by and smacked the flat of their weapons against their chests.
Hide banners whipped as the wind bid them to their will and the trees bent with each gust. Each banner displayed the spirit patron of the clan lined up to do battle. Some tribes gathered hides from the animals that embodied the attributes of their families' skills and nature. Behind him, alligator scales bent against the howling air. They dyed the animal biting its tail with an eye in the middle. A single line split the banner in the middle horizontally, and the eye peered out from the line. It represented the watchful eye of the clan, looking from the lands around Eversun. Sniffing, he smelt the hint of trees mingled mostly with warpaint against his flesh. A drum rang out behind him, then another sounded in the distance echoing it, and further out another did the same. This echoed on for a few more raps. His heart pounded in his chest, but he steeled his face.
The dark brown hair smacked the back of his tanned neck and his dark eyes scanned the woods before him. Across the grassland, they stood like a wall in the distance, dense and ominous. He had fashioned leather armor from the scaled hide of his swamp-dwelling, neighbor beast. He added stone studs to it in places that stuck out. On either side, men stood around him and he glanced out of the corner of his eyes. Younger men stationed themselves on either side of him entirely still and they both wore similar garb.
Each man painted their body with different symbols to display their strength, ferocity, or, in his case, battles fought. He used the black dye they made to draw scales against his skin where it remained exposed to the elements. Each drawn shape represented the number of times that he challenged a Deceived in combat and won. To his right, Paako Saàchalkoorrich Tínafsorlor, whom he lovingly calls Hatchling, dyed his face with ferocious teeth in the hope of scaring his enemies.
Hatchling's eyes widened as a horn sounded in the distance. Lootookcholatnapàrooti placed his hand on the young man's shoulder and smiled. Not showing his teeth, the sparkle in his eyes faded as quickly as it came. Recalling his first battle, the now chief, captained his line then. He hoped he could offer as much hope as the chief did then.
"Hatchling, I understand. This is your first bout with the Deceived. The tales we've weaved of them are terrifying and vicious. I must tell you, those tales are half true, but the half is still terrible" Lootookcholatnapàrooti's eyes trained on the forest head of them across the clearing. Any motion in the trees hid from his view and he sensed it lingered beyond the tree line, in the underbrush.
“Rows-in-loud-waters”, which Lootookcholatnapárooti meant, said Hatchling, “I don’t like the nickname. I am strong and proven in the tests.” Rows-in-loud-waters almost heard the pout on the young warrior's face. Smirking, he gave the young soldier a soft elbow to the ribs. “You’ve fought them enough times. How well do you know their tactics?”
Choosing to ignore the dislike of the nickname and how proven he may or may not be, Rows-in-loud-waters answered, "More than fought them. I engaged the enemy when the sundering happened, those years ago, when the clans had made it across Saàronit and into the valleys of the east. When Kolotatliíchiit revealed himself as the spirit of lies and trickery known to us as Naríhììnanathìnafòò”, chortled Rows-in-loud-waters. His mind rowed back to the day on the ship of his mind through the sea of memories. Every day, the river of life eroded them from his mind and they became less and less tangible.
The young man remained silent but peered from the corner of his sockets with intent. The horn blew again and the wind howled against the dusk sky. Rows-in-loud-waters guarded the lands of the tribe for several years, being an ‘eye in the swamp’. The Deceived envied Eversun and believed it promised to them instead of the men around him now. They fell, though, tainted themselves with the lies of the evil their false god fed them. The land of ever-sun had been promised for believers of the beat-giver, not the nest-stealer.
The horn sounded again, this time a bit closer. Rows-in-loud-waters tensed his hand around the shoulder of the young man again, in an attempt to reassure him. He worried the giant they built in tales to keep children near the settlements, backfired in moments like these. Fear, if unchecked by faith and courage created by faith, ravaged a man and tore through his resolve like the monsters created in stories of the age past and gone. “I have heard the Deceived are industrialized people with forges and explosives.”
"They hold fewer explosives and kilns as they once operated in the realms of Setting-Sun and the Teal Forests. We all practiced forging or so I’m told. The sundering was a quick bout of brother against brother and clan against clan. At the base of the white-ridged mountain, where the Nòònchààrrílììsììnat dwelt, we fought for what seemed like hours. We fought until our muscles ached, until our bones hurt, and until our lungs screamed for relief. In the end, Kolotatliíchiit fell and their usurper king called the retreat", he retold the story, holding on to the ax in his hand, keeping it at the ready in his off-hand. "The spirit of Naríhììnanathìnafòò spread over those who lost their way and inhabited all of them. It spread like sickness and as they fled, it fled with them." He shook his head and removed his hand from the young man's shoulder. "Half the priests left with them, and four of the seven first tribes dictated by Wááchlachtat, the great beat-giver."
Hatchling murmured a short prayer, both, Rows-in-loud-waters thought, in reverence for the name of their god but also the fear his heart currently harbored. "And they come now astride giant wolves, Rows-in-loud-waters and hunt in the dusk to find weaknesses in our resolve and steal into the land of promise. There they hope to kill our king, our clan chiefs, and place themselves at the seat of it all. How many times have they tried?" Fear waivered in the voice of the young man, but he kept his eyes straight ahead. They both did. The last they needed, Rows-in-loud-waters thought, wolf-mounted cavalry running them down while they stared into one another's eyes.
"Since the sundering", Rows-in-loud-waters asked and pondered in silence. The horns dinned again and got a bit closer. "In a host of the size the scouts report? Here I face them a second time, but they have always sent scouts almost yearly and they try skirmishes against us almost every five years. So in the twenty years since the sundering, there have been four skirmishes and two battles. Neither side seemed eager to meet the other in open war." To keep the young man from falling deeper into despair, Rows-in-loud-waters kept to himself the assumed reason. The potential allied dark powers of the Deceived deterred the king and the clan leaders from open war. They feared, maybe rightfully so, that the enemy sought other children of Naríhììnanathìnafòò like the Chììktonààn with their horrid owl-shaped faces and wrinkled talon-like hands.
Though none have seen a Chììknààn in a generation, tales of their malice lingered around the fires of public areas. Elders spun tales of heroes fighting the demi-god-like beings. Their eyes could see a spirit walker, and their strength could wrestle to the ground men twice their size. The claws, razor-sharp on each wrinkled and pimpled hand, extended its arm into the spirit world itself and could yank a spirit walker out from between the realms.
He ventured to guess the enemy refused open war with them because of the fear of the great beat-giver intervening against them, as he had done at the sundering. Spirits of the eagle, the buffalo, and the snake descended from the skies and took shape around them. The eagle came to the aid of the great teacher and fought with him against the enemy. The sight still filled Rows-in-loud-waters with awe and fear. These great spirits with such power existed in their realm - the Wààchlachtatpààtiit. Who knew what else existed beyond the reaches of the seas and northern mountains? The horn blew again, but this time it had not moved. He grabbed the other hatchet on his belt with his right hand.
"They're stalling", Hatchling breathed out, almost in a whisper as if he dared not alert the enemy to his position...
"They are and it is not like them to do so. But remember the spirit of our clan. We watch like the eye in our banner. We wait. We strike. Let the panther clan hunt through the woods and draw them out. We are to wait here." Rows-in-loud-waters convinced himself but pondered what the spirit-walkers of the panther clan waited for, or worse if the Chììktonààn horde lingered within the enemy host and snatched them from between the material and immaterial. "We wait." He echoed again and stood at the ready. The scales on his armor glinted in the setting sun to their left as it sank over the rolling hills at the place where the mountains met the lowlands and fled into the prairies.
A sea of pinks, reds, and oranges washed over the sky to the left of them as they faced north. The sun sat at the bottom of it all, at the horizon in the planes before the Saàronit. He failed to see it but, past the seas of grass - it sank. The sun sought its evening home beyond the lands of teal forests and red cliffs. In the land of gold and beautiful ridged coastlines. It almost yanked him away from the battle before him. It almost drew him away from the moment.
"So they're not as bad as you've told me my whole life?"
"They're bad, but they're human. They bleed and die like you do. The tales your elders have taught you as a child have not been altogether false or altogether true. They *do* practice human sacrifice of those they capture", Rows-in-loud-waters stated. He hid the fact they often sacrificed young children of their clans in the event they captured no one. "But they are not able to speak with wolves or command spiders. These are lies for story-telling effectiveness."
The young man grinned, "Ah then I will bring back my weight in scalps and wolf heads to the feasts of the return party." The young man raised his hatchet in response. "Each being an honor to my family and a possible trophy to convince Fóó Pafààlktiit Tínafsorlor to ask me to give her a name. Been courting her for two years now, and she still hasn't asked me. Perhaps this shows her my ability to provide and protect." Rows-in-loud-waters nodded. Sometimes spoils of war could convince a woman to request a naming. He wondered if women had it better in their tradition of naming. A woman received her name from her husband at the naming ceremony, but a man got his name from his peers. One bad name could stick forever.
His eyes scanned over to Chàànatatnafsorhapààt, named for hiding during a skirmish with the Deceived a handful of years ago. At least his name, he thought, sat in the middle of the road. Not too over the top to be too ridiculous but not to note some character flaw. Once given a name, your name stuck with you for the rest of your life. Shaking his head, he heard screams in the woods before them. "Get ready", he squatted in his ready position. Silence oozed over the field as the sun made a half-eye like of their banner against a pink sky.
"Fóó pafààlktiit tínafsorlor, I will bring you back spoils! I will show you I am a man to father your children", the young man mimicked the position Rows-in-loud-waters took. The two of them stood side by side. "Wááchlachtat, please be with us. Guide our strikes. Smite our foes", the young man glanced up at the sky. Rows-in-loud-waters followed his gaze with his own eyes and witnessed a single eagle flying overhead. “A good omen”, he noted. "He is with us", the young man shouted and pointed up to the sky. "He. Is. With. Us." The fervor spread through the line as men glanced up to spot the eagle before it disappeared.
"Don't get too ahead of yourself, Hatchling. Have faith, but the battle is not yet over. Wááchlachtat is not ours to master. We are his. His will is not ours. He will do as he wishes with this day." Then they came. Oversized wolves burst from the treeline and the men in the front of the formation readied their spears. "When the charge breaks, move with me. Understood, Hatchling", Rows-in-loud-waters asked. The young man nodded a response and the two of them faced their full attention to the front. Drums around them wailed with each passing moment and the panther clan did their duty - pinching the Deceived and drawing them out.
Rows-in-loud-waters smelled them before they got close enough to attack. They reeked of sulfur, oxidized iron, and sweat. Of all the deceits sown by the evil spirit, the greatest blazed fire and iron. Though he lived too few years to have experienced the splendors in the teal forests. The forest they laid bare, the mountains and valleys they flattened to build large metal works. All of this culminated in the great lie the beat-giver gave them conquest as a purpose. Their people knew the truth as inherited from the great beat-giver. Upon creation, he gifted man with more than a heartbeat, but also a goal, a purpose, and a stewardship over the world. The Deceived abandoned it and clad themselves in metal armor atop their steeds.
Charging furred beasts broke against the spears of the stag clan who had adorned their heads with antlers and little white speckled furs along their backs. Wolves howled and snapped their jaws at them as they died against the spears. The drool from their large agape mouths dripped onto the stag clansmen and drenched their armor. The area around Rows-in-loud-waters filled with the reek of wet dogs, which, smelled more pleasant than their riders.
One Deceived soldier, overlapping plated armor, hopped from his beast as it hit the spears, and landed behind the line, rolling as he did so. Tumbling to his feet, he drew two swords made of crude metal and eyed around the Rows-in-loud-waters and Hatchling. He licked his filed-down teeth and stepped forward to the two of them. The smell shifted back to the scent of sulfur and rust. Evil, its stench, hung to the Deceived.
Rows-in-loud-waters turned to face him and tugged Hatchling to do the same. The two of them flicked their hatchets in their hands and semi-circled the Deceived man This outsider appeared like they did: dark tanned skin, darker hair, dark eyes, and markings along his skin denote his tribe. This one hailed from the wolf tribe, which drew its heraldry from the initial Coyote tribe of Kolotatliíchiit. "Traitors", the wolf warrior shouted and raised his sword to charge forward. Rows-in-loud-waters noted the warrior before them bore the scarred claws of the man-butcher on his face. Three scarred lines trailed down his face and missed his eyes by a half-inch.
Other men broke through the formation of spearmen at the front of the line. One by one, more Deceived lingered into the lines of their tribe and the tempest of blades and shields whirled to life. Swords clanked against hatchets, spears against armor, and maces against faces. He heard the crunch of bone under the pressure of horse hooves. The air filled with the smell of metallic liquid, not like rust but a bit more like copper.
Hatchling and Rows-in-loud-waters moved in and, like the jaws of the mighty alligator spirit, pinched the Deceived warrior between themselves. Hatchling threw a slashing move with one of his hatchets, preparing a parry with the other arm. As he did so, Rows-in-loud-waters lunged forward and hacked hard downward to put a severe dent in the helmet of the enemy. The outsider struggled between them. He blocked one blow from Rows-in-loud-waters, then turned around to parry a blow from Hatchling. Sparks flew off the crude metal weapon as their chiseled stone axes hit it. The two of them stepped back from the Deceived outsider before he could counterattack.
Charging in again Hatchling dented his armor, leaving scuffs and scratches, while the enemy pushed Rows-in-loud-waters back away. "Traitors? You fight for the enemy, cousin!" Regardless of how far out the family they believed all clans related through the first men created by the beat-giver. "Turn your heart to Wááchlachtat and see! See the error of your ways and your kindred, they betrayed our ways and clung to Kolotatliíchiit even when revealed himself as the enemy!"
"Kolotatliíchiit was a hero, a paragon of our people! He hunted and slew the Chììktonààn. He mastered the realm given to us and showed us how to bend it to our will", with each phrase the enemy slammed his sword against Hatchling. Raising both his axes to catch the oncoming slash, Hatchling grunted as each hit staggered him backward.
"Perhaps it is not ours to shape?" Hatchling posed the question now and pride welled up in Rows-in-loud-waters’s heart. The young one came to grasp the purpose, the great mission for all of the men on Laaliíoota, one of them anyway. They lived in harmony with nature, not against it, not bending mountains to their will. To protect the young soldier, he jabbed forward with the ax in his main hand and moved back. It acted as a deterrent to pressing the young soldier further.
Around them, the din of battle drowned out the sounds of any other thoughts or fears. The Deceived soldier before them held their full attention. Another enemy sped toward them but caught a spear in the back of the neck. It pierced through him and pinned him to the ground. Gurgling nearby, he struggled and flailed his arms against the ground. A pool of crimson soaked the grass.
"Why", he pushed back Hatchling with his foot. "Would the beat-giver", he slashed and cut a gash in Rows-in-loud-water’s arm. "Give us", he kicked again trying to keep Hatchling back. "a realm to exist in. He wants us to conquer it."
Glancing at the blood running from his arm, Rows-in-loud-waters shook his head. "Then you are lost, cousin. The beat-giver never commanded us to conquer anything. He asked us to live in love with one another, to defend the wilds and beauty he created, and to worship him." Rows-in-loud-waters spun his hatchets around his hands and stepped back. Love of nature, love of others, and love of Wááchlachtat existed as the key commands of their god. The spirits echoed this in their defined sub-goals for each clan.
"Cousin", Rows-in-loud-waters said, "I will ask you once more to lay down your arms and come to try and reform... And we will see to it you are integrated with your people. That you see the truth and the life." In all ways, if possible, he felt required to extend out to the lost and try and pull them back to the way. His eyes met the Deceived man’s eyes and they shared a moment. Contemplation washed over the features of the enemy for but a moment as he narrowed his eyes to Rows-in-loud-waters.
"Never. Your way is a lie. Designed to deceive us." He kicked Hatchling back away again when the gap between them closed, then turned and charged. Rows-in-loud-waters and the enemy met at full force. The two of them traded blows. A slash on the cheek of the Deceived, bleed and he could see the ivory teeth within his joules. He hissed with pain and stepped back again. Droplets of blood oozed from the wound of the enemy’s mouth and down his chin. He reached up and wiped the blood away and licked into the wound with his tongue.
Hatchling charged at him from behind and jumped up into the air to attempt to plunge his axes upon the Deceived's shoulders with two raking blows. Rows-in-loud-waters rose his axes to try and deter the young warrior from his actions against the Deceived. With sudden premonition and supernatural celerity, the Deceived turned around and jammed his sword upwards in a single motion. Hatchling stopped in his tracks, his body caved save for the spasms. The pain must have racked him as he shuddered when the enemy pulled the blade out and fell to the ground.
"No!" Rows-in-loud-waters shouted and charged, but even as he charged forward Hatchling continued to fight. Standing from his prone position, he struck the Deceived in the back of the leg with his hatchet and it bit into him. Crimson liquid sprayed out onto the ground, but he pressed against his abdomen with his left arm. Slashing with the other arm in rapid succession. They wasted too much time, thought Rows-in-loud-waters and he needed to press the combat now. The enemy must fall before Hatchling expired.
Rows-in-loud-waters smacked him with the flat side of his weapon so he turned back around. The blood of his fellow clan mate dripped from the crude metallic blade. The air smelled of rusted metal. Fuming inside, Rows-in-loud-waters swung his weapon again and cleaved through the enemy's collarbone. The Deceived’s neck slacked and the weapon fell to his side. Ringing against his armored thigh, the sword clacked there, tapping as the enemy struggled to hold on.
Heaving for breath, Hatchling continued slashing with his axes and making deep cuts against the enemy until he stopped moving. Blood, a mixture of his own and the Deceived’s covered his face and shoulders. His body rested over the Deceived’s body and he lay there motionless. The battle swirled around them, cousin against cousin. Night fell around them and the three sister moons lit the darkness. The pale, vulnerable light glinted off crude metal and seeped into obsidian weapons.
Rows-in-loud-waters dropped to his knees beside the two bodies as Hatchling gasped for breath. The battle waged on, but numbers weighed on their side. The Deceived brought a thousand men to this battle, where they fielded three times. His ally wrapped both arms around his stomach to try and slow the bleeding.
"Rows-in-loud-waters, tell Fóó Pafààlktiit Tínafsorlor I wish I could have made it back to her. This", he lifted the scalped hair of the enemy soldier on the ground beside him, "is for her." He placed the skin and braided hair into Rows-in-loud-waters’s hand. "Tell her", he coughed, "I would have named her... The most poetic names." The scalp’s blood leaked from the cracks in his hands and down his wrist.
Wrapping his fingers around the other man's hand, Rows-in-loud-waters nodded his head. "What would have named her, Hatchling?" He squeezed as the young man faded a bit more, though he looked far older now than he had ever looked at him before. The mission at the moment remained to keep the young man from dying in fear and panic. Blood gushed from the open wound under his rib cage.
"I would have named her for the way the crickets sing in the summer as the sun sets under the moss-draped trees - Saàriifòònaforchiínaforchiit. I could have named her for the light reflected in her eyes as the fire burns under a full moon and frogs croak out beats for our souls to dance to. I would have named her", he gurgled blood between the words, "queen of my heart - Kiwáátattalkti. Most importantly, Rows-in-loud-waters, I would have named her my wife..."
"I know, friend. I know. I will tell her", blood leaked from the scalp in his hand and down his wrists as he pulled Hatchling's head into his lap. "Rest now, friend." Rows-in-loud-waters leaned in close to his friend and embraced him. He wrapped his arms around the wound with him and tried to provide him warmth as all the blood left his body. The savage blade of the enemy, ripped as it came out. Shuddering, Hatchling closed his eyes, knowing the end came soon.
"Tell her", he whispered again.
"I will", Rows-in-loud-waters responded.
The battle wrestled to an end with the final Deceived being chased away from the battle lines and into the woods where the Panther clan decided to let them go further by themselves. Rows-in-loud-waters watched from his place on the ground and hand on the side of Hatchling's cheek. A set of footsteps jingled through the battlefield behind him, but he kept his face downcast. A clattering of bones against quartz rung with each step. Blotting out the light from the moon, a shadow towered over him.
"Rows-in-loud-waters, losing a soldier in your line is unforgettable and crushing of the spirit, but he is not gone forever. You will see him again when we return to the beat-giver and live with him in the land of peace. Do distress yourself." The chief of the alligator clan knelt and placed a hand on Rows-in-loud-waters’s shoulder. He remained silent for some time, and Rows-in-loud-waters continued to look at the young man who served beside him.
"He fought valiantly, but even in the halls of the beat-giver he will be unnamed."
"Because he has not earned a name? Do you believe he has not earned a name, Rows-in-loud-waters? I hardly think that is fair." The chief shook his head and clicked his tongue against his teeth disapprovingly. Rows-in-loud-waters placed both hands of his friend on his chest and then placed his arms at his sides to shake out the anxiety and pent-up energy there.
"But, Leans-on-the-spirit, no one named him in life. He would not know it when we meet him in the halls of the beat-givers home. How would he answer". At this question, the chief sat and nestled into the ground near Rows-in-loud-waters. Squeezing his shoulder with his hand, and looked into the warrior's eyes.
Removing his hand from the shoulder of Rows-in-loud-waters he lifted the hand of Hatchling to his lap and took in a deep breath. "Do you imagine the names we give one another are for them to know who they are? Do you think our understanding of self is so small we have to have our brothers explain our behavior to ourselves?"
"So the names we give one another are for those around us."
"They're not for the beat-giver to know us", the chief chortled in response. "He already knows who we are before any name is given." The chief looked into Rows-in-loud-waters’s eyes and Rows-in-loud-waters sensed a tenderness and joy in the life of the man which grew in him like a ripened fruit. Here, the fruit offered out to him in guidance and words. “He knew us before the foundation of Laaliíoota and before the breath of the first man”
“Then I have a name for him.”
The chief motioned his hand. “Go on, Rows-in-loud-waters. He fought his trial against the Decieved. He may not have survived, but as far as I am concerned. He passed the test.”
Rows-in-loud-waters pondered for a moment and then closed the eyes of Hatchling on his lap. The wreckage of the battle around them reeked of shit and blood. "Goodbye, Nilchiiltatnawànàt." He inhaled and let out a long sigh. It ripped through him. He sobbed and tears dropped. "Goodbye..." The name echoed in his mind, and the meaning of the syllables slammed together. *Goodbye*, he thought, *Goodbye Died-in-honors-of-all.*
The chief bent over him, wrapping his arms around him and holding his shoulders. "We will see him again. I promise." Standing, he turned his back to Rows-in-loud-waters and looked over the battlefield. "Many of the men who died here will be seen again. Some will be seen in the final moments of the Last End. When we line up before the beat-giver he unfurls the hide of our hearts and examines the colors we dyed there. Should he find there are more colors of lust, hatred, envy, or pride than of love for one another and Him... We will have to answer for that."
Rows-in-loud-waters rose behind him and looked over the battlefield, he knew even the Deceived, flawed, and wrong, stood before the judgment of the beat-giver, regardless of their beliefs. Mangled men lay with broken arms and legs twisted in unnatural directions. The great wolves splayed out with matted fur and broken jaws. He scanned the carnage and another tear came along the curve of his cheek. "Will they attack again?" The sound of men directing clean-up echoed throughout the mass grave before him.
"The enemy will continue to push, ever-escalating the power at his disposal until he is finally defeated in the final moment of the Last End." The chief of the alligator clan offered his words and it warmed Rows-in-loud-waters' heart.
"I don't understand why we must wait for the living spirit of the forest to take on human flesh to defeat Naríhììnanathìnafòò'', a hint of anger rose in Rows-in-loud-waters’s voice as he placed his hatchets back against the belt that held his pants in place. "Why can we not hunt the enemy." He kicked the head of one of the enemy soldiers near him, forgetting his place and not respecting the dead that now belonged to the spirits.
"Even if you hunted every vessel of evil. Even if you slaughtered all the clans of Chììktonààn. You would remain with yourself and the evil in your blood and heart." The chief’s mouth twitched a bit, as he knelt and placed the enemy’s head back where it lay before the kick.
Rows-in-loud-waters took a step back, staggered by the thought he harbored some part of Naríhììnanathìnafòò in himself. "What do you mean? I have never accepted the tenets of evil. I do not forsake my vow to stewardship. I do not forsake my family. I do not forsake my god." He listed out the beliefs every man of the tribe agreed in their ideology. But the chief shook his head in response.
"You are thinking too largely, my friend." The chief pointed softly to the muscles over the heart of Rows-in-loud-waters and pointed out to the battlefield for them both to see. "It is not these large acts, though terrible, that will weigh our hearts with the ink of debt. It is the small ones. Like putting your wants above your wife's needs. Or talking back to your parents. The taint of Naríhììnanathìnafòò is in all of us from the earliest days of his coming to us. Big and small all these evils stain our hearts the same. The smaller ones are easier to commit."
"I... I don't know what to say", Rows-in-loud-waters stammered and stared down at his own feet.
The chief shrugged his shoulders. "Seldom does anyone. It is hard to imagine the taint or the extent of contamination that exists in the world. What we can do is attempt to bring our cousins back into the fold, so to speak, and lead them to a life of stewardship over the realm Wááchlachtat has given to us." The chief’s eyes closed and he mumbled under his breath. Turning again, he left the battlefield and the warrior behind him.
The banners flapped against the wind as they packed up. Men from each clan gathered the dead they had and placed them either over the backs of horses or over their shoulders. The three sisters, moons each larger than the last, trailed across the sky in various phases. Rows-in-loud-waters chose to carry Nilchiiltatnawànàat instead of casting him to the side on the back of a horse. The man's limp arm fell down Rows-in-loud-waters’s back and blood dripped. It trickled the sections of bare skin on Rows-in-loud-waters’s back.
They marched on into the night, headed back south toward their families in Eversun and the drums played a slow, solemn tone with each step they made through the woods. His eyes scanned from person to person. All their eyes cast down to the ground as if looking to make sure they would not trip and fall, but he knew they felt the pain of losing a young one or an unnamed one, or even a brother or a friend.
As they marched, the air started to smell more like home and less like sulfur and metal. The hint of pines, the stench of swamplands, and the sound of water lapping against the sides of shallow ponds in the soft wind. An inhale drug air into his lungs and past his nose where he sniffed the familiar smell of rotted leaves. As they left, he heard a voice from his left. When he turned to face and looked at the voice, no one stood in the darkness of the trees. A voice in his ear, or his heart, told him all calmed for now.

HUGE Comprehensive Skincare Review (50+ products over 2 years)

Hi all! Since being in this sub, I’ve only recommended products here and there, but I wanted to give back- put in the effort to actually write a review of everything I’ve tried over the past 2 years. I appreciate users who post cohesive and knowledgeable reviews of entire brands or multiple products at once. Shoutout to the one person who inspired me on a recent rant and the person who made the legendary Isntree brand review post. Please feel free to add your thoughts here, ask me questions, or offer up some criticism on anything mentioned
About me: 23, F, combo oily around nose/forehead/chin but overall slightly oily in general. Dry and flaky when it hits below 60 degrees F.
Concerns: Diet and hormone imbalance triggered acne jawline and cheeks, slightly enlarged pores around the cheeks, perpetual sebaceous filaments on chin that never go away. Genetically predisposed to rosacea but it’s never flared up before. Slight greyish hyperpigmentation from picking acne, redness.
Climate: US South, so, dry, humid, monsoons and dust storms all at once!!! Lots of triggering environmental allergens. Very hot very sunny. You can guess what state.
Foundation color: Mac NC25, Nars madeleine/Oslo, Chanel BD21, Cushion 21N (23s go orange)
Current routine:
Morning: COSRX Low pH good morning cleanser, Round Lab Dokdo toner (soak tissue on cheeks for 5 minutes for makeup prep), and AXIS Y Glow serum as moisturizer. Dear Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream/or Youth to People air whip moisturizer if I’m dry.
Night: Muji Mild cleansing oil, Roundlab Birch Cleanser, or every third day I use Papa Recipe Blemish Enzyme Cleanser, after cleansing oil. Dokdo toner layered 2-3 times. On days I don’t exfoliate with the Papa recipe, I use BOJ Ginseng Revive Eye serum and Abib Sedum Hyaluron Creme to finish.
I will split up the products by hair, skincare, makeup, subcategorize by brand, and rate them on a scale of 1-10 along with a short blurb on how/if it worked out for me!
_____________________________________________________
Hair
Elizavecca
Elizavecca Collagen Coating Protein Ion Injection (CER-100) 50mL: (8/10) Was good, not heavy and smoothing on damp hair for the days I didn’t feel like styling or wanted to give my dead hair a rest. Would not recommend for daily use, especially if youre someone who’s hair can’t handle much protein. Also not a fan of collagen as a topical marketing gimmick! WRP Because it’s affordable.
A’pieu
A’Pieu Raspberry Hair Vinegar: (7/10) Smelled better than using diluted ACV like I sometimes did, but it didn’t do much but encourage me to massage my scalp and do a biweekly deep clean of my hair. I will be oily regardless because of working out, styling, climate, and my tendency to touch my scalp. WNRP.
Makeup
2aN
2aN Dual Cheek #3 (8/10) Really pretty layered watercolor type of blush combo, comes with a super high quality brush and a cover for the bristles. Only downside is that all of the colors are so so so light, they only show when I am pale. WRP if darker shades offered.
Clio
CLIO Pro Eye Palette Ingeolmi At Home Special Edition Ingeolmi Daeng Daeng (7/10) Versatile light nudes/beiges with neutral colors. Just not a fan of the glitters. WNRP.
CLIO Sharp So Simple Waterproof Pencil Liner (Renewal) in Vanilla Beige and Black Brown (10/10): VB for aegyosal shadow and triangle zone, black brown for emphasizing lash line. Perfect no makeup makeup staple, doesn’t move all day and blends with precise, thick brush. WRP.
Dasique
dasique Mood Blur Lip Pencil 08 Over Pink: (8/10) Lasts a while, but is slightly chalky. Comes with a lot of liner but this brand is always overpriced considering there is barely variation in their products. WNRP.
Fillimilli
Fillimilli Scalp Cooling Brush (10/10): Super easy to pull hair from, doesn’t collect dust at all, 99% of my brushes do. Not detangle friendly though. WRP but it seems durable so I may never need to.
Fillimilli Pure Cotton Puff 100 Sheets: Not rating because its an unfair judgement. I purchased these thinking that they were much thinner, pads for making DIY toner masks, but these are too thick and are better for wiping off makeup or cleansing. WNRP
Fillimilli Point Liner Brush 514: (10/10) Super dense and perfect for blending aegyosal and eyeliner, I love it. Fluffy enough to not be streaky either. WRP
NAMING
NAMING. Layered Matte Fit Cushion in 21N + Matching Primer in Regular Size: (8.5/10) This is a great cushion for people with skin concerns that run oily. It is low/medium coverage, on days where I need to put something on but want my skin to breathe, I’ll use this. I’m a firm believer in a light base and concise spot concealing. After 5 hours, there were no oil spots on the side of my nostril. This ran slightly pale, but it was perfectly neutral. Lasted very well and wasn’t a powdery matte finish, especially with the primer, I never broke out with it. WRP the normal finish cushion.
peripera
peripera Pure Blushed Sunshine Cheek in Rosy Brown: (6/10) Very pigmented and blended well, but virtually 0 lasting power even with nuclear weapon grade setting spray. I thought it would be more beige or muted. This leaned very orange on my neutral skin, but it would potentially look beautiful blended with contour on a warmer person. WNRP.
peripera Pure Blushed Sunshine Cheek in Calm Pink: (7/10) I think this color is agreeable and looks good on anyone. Neutral AF, just doesn’t last. WNRP
peripera Ink Thin Thin Brush Liner in Brown Film and Black noir: (9/10) Super affordable, flick isn’t messy even with my hooded eyes, lasts 8+ hours. Felt tip doesn’t fray with use. WRP
peripera Water Bare Tint Peritage Collection in Mute Paradise: (9/10) A lovely bunny tongue color. Super super super pigmented, doesn’t cling to my dryness or create dead skin buildup in the creases/corners of my lips. Would not be darker skin friendly. WRP.
peripera Water Bare Tint in Universal Coral: (7/10) Just bright pink, not coral in any sense. Lasts forever though! WNRP.
peripera Ink Mood Glowy Tint Set Maltese Special Edition in Cerise Pink: (5/10) Pretty but unfortunately too light for me, not sure how considering I’m pretty white. WNRP
ROM&ND
romand Juicy Lasting Tint Bare Juicy Series 22 Pomelo Skin: (10/10) Brownish pinkish nude that is my exact lip color. Wear it every day. WRP.
romand Juicy Lasting Tint Bare Juicy Series 23 Nucudamia: (10/10) Pomelo base, nucudamia inner lip. If warm nudes look goofy and washed out on you, try this. WRP
romand Juicy Lasting Tint Bare Juicy Series Bare Grape: (10/10) Everyday cool tone necessity, this is my second favorite one.
romand - Juicy Lasting Tint Autumn Fruit Series 11 Pink Pumpkin: (9/10) Surprisingly not a casual lip color, like firetruck red, brown and coral were all mixed. Looks good on my darker skinned friend though. WNRP.
romand Glasting Melting Balm 01 Coco Nude (8/10) Finally a gorgeous true brownish nude and not a glorifed muted pink AGAIN! Does melt super super easy so I can’t carry it around where I like, and it does pill up with even slight dryness. Rating it 8 just because the color is too good. WNRP.
Too cool for school
too cool for school Frottage Pencil #11: (5/10) This was so pretty and such a pigmented, easy to apply, muted glimmer. Potentially the best aegyosal hack. The tip broke and every time I sharpened it, it kept breaking..got to use it twice. WNRP.
Skincare
Abib
Abib Collagen Gel Mask Sheet Heartleaf Jelly: (8/10) Great absorption into my skin, helps redness infinitely. Slips off so much that you have to lay flat. WNRP.
Abib Collagen Gel Mask Sedum Jelly: (7/10) Not the most hydrating and same issue of slippage. WNRP.
Abib Gummy Sheet Mask Collagen Milk Sticker: (9/10) Loved it, tons of product and extremely nourishing. Barrier repair day mask. WRP, just hate the collagen branding again, but whatever it is: it works!
Abib Gummy Sheet Mask Hyaluron Sticker: (9/10) Yielded the same results as the Collagen Milk. This may be better for oily super super acne prone skin! WRP.
Abib Gummy Sheet Mask Heartleaf Sticker: (10/10) Holy Grail potential. Mother potential. So calming and hydrating and soothing and all of the above without the risk of possibly breaking out. WRP and have RPd 5 times.
Abib Mild Acidic pH Sheet Mask Heartleaf Fit : (10/10) Feels about the same as Heartleaf sticker, but I think it leaves less of a finish and no stickiness. WRP.
Abib Mild Acidic pH Sheet Mask Yuja Fit: (10/10) Was genuinely so brightening I almost bought the toner! WRP!!!!
Abib Pine Needle Pore Pad Clear Touch: (9/10) Lasted for freaking ever and kept my oily tendencies at bay! Not sure it did much for clearing up sebaceous filaments or blackheads, but it did approve the tightness of my skin GENUINELY- not from appearing or feeling dry.
Abib Sedum Hyaluron Crème Hydrating Pot: (8.5/10) Was sorta scared this would break me out, but it didn’t! Makes your base makeup gorgeous, no possible patches or separation, just make sure your base is water based not oil. MRP? There are better, more moisturizing products, but the gel/creme hybrid feel of it is great for combo people.
AXIS Y
AXIS Y Dark Spot Correcting Glow Serum: (10/10) Been using it super consistently for 2 years, this product is probably the reason I don’t have a trillion acne scars making my cheeks look like a coral reef or dull complexion. Had a few sunburns over the summer and this helped the sunspots tremendously, taking care before they could even fully fledge. Recommend this to everyone. WRP, HRP.
Beauty of Joseon
Beauty of Joseon Revive Eye Serum: (10/10) I was so timid to use retinoids and while this isnt strong at all, its not nothing! It works, genuinely. Closed comodones are few and far between since I started using this on my face. Haven’t seen eye results, but this product is GOOD!!! WRP, in my cart.
Dear, Klairs
Dear, Klairs Midnight Blue Calming Cream: (10/10) Probably the only product aside from masks that has immediately helped with inflamed red skin. I was scared it would be pore clogging but it’s safe for clog-prone skin! Genuinely so nourishing and can be used as a pack at night or in the morning too, it’s not too rich. WRP I just need a SALE!
Isntree
Isntree Green Tea Fresh Cleanser: (9/10) Definitely cleaned very well especially if you’re using an oil cleanser as well, good on its own too! No squeaking or dryness on my skin detected. WRP.
Isntree Onion Newpair Gel Cream: (8/10) Wanted to love this, and for the most part it was fairly beneficial for my skin, tranexemic acid is great for my skin. It couldn’t really double as a moisturizer, even during oily times, so it sort of felt like an extra step that was a bit heavy on my skin and at times my makeup pilled if I added this to the mix. WNRP but it was a good product and it could work for others.
Isntree Ultra-Low Molecular Hyaluronic Acid Toner: (10/10) Saw a glowing review from a skincare vlogger I actually trust and was not let down! However, I prefer Round lab in terms of feel. This needed to be layered 3+ times until it felt genuinely nourishing, but my skin looked awesome, felt bouncy and moist and hydrated. Not in the “glowy” way influencers try to sell you when it’s literally just freaking WET OR OILY, but legit, this makes you look alive. If you’re trying to decide between this and round lab dokdo, this one doesn’t exfoliate. Both are holy grail material just choose according to your needs. WRP
Laneige
LANEIGE Water Sleeping Mask: (5/10) Just as useless as the lip masks. Literally doesn't absorb at all. WNRP. Abib sedum has the same feel and actually works.
MEDIHEAL
MEDIHEAL The I.P.I Ampoule Mask Sheet: (10/10) Had a new freaking face the next day and it definitely was not placebo or coincidence. Love this, its always sold out though. I think this is the lightmax rebranded! WRP!!!!!! Ranked 2nd in my Mediheal stash.
MEDIHEAL D:NA Proatin Mask Sheet: (7/10) Unfortunately just kinda sat on my skin and never absorbed? WNRP. Unsure of the buzzwords in this marketing too lol.
MEDIHEAL Watermide Essential Mask Sheet: (8/10) Decent, not the best in the Essentials though. WNRP.
MEDIHEAL Tea Tree Essential Mask Sheet: (10/10) THE Mask you use mid breakout or you're infinitely stressed, anticipating one. Somehow dries out every cystic pimple monster aninch into the epidermis but also hydrates your skin? Amazing how its basically spot treatment but works all over your face too. I bought 40 of these last month. WRP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ranked 1st.
MEDIHEAL Vita Essential Mask Sheet: (9/10) Was neglecting skincare for a bit because I stopped breaking out, and felt dry and dull. Another tried and true mediheal mask, my 4thfavorite. WRP
MEDIHEAL Madecassoside Essential Mask Sheet: (10/10) Great for pre-makeup, soothing inflammation and nourishing. Sometimes I won’t even wear makeup after doing one in the morning. One of the very very few products that yielded immediate results for me. WRP and just bought 10.
MUJI
MUJI Mild Oil Cleansing: (9/10) I tried to use this on and off frequently and sparingly over a few months to determine if it was helping or making my clogged pores worse. Luckily, my skin, which is suuuuuuuper reactive to these kinds of products (balms, oils) did take this well. I’d say its pretty heavy duty and can be slightly drying even! WRP and have twice.
Numbuzin
numbuzin No.5+ Vitamin-Niacinamide Concentrated Pad 70P: (9/10) Loved these bad boys! Not moisturizing, but they definitely are brightening, after a little over two weeks my dullness was improved by a lot, even though I thought the ingredients wouldn’t work for me. If you are a young woman from India with a Twisted movie pfp, thank you for your glowing rec of these!! WRP but not while I’m actively breaking out.
Olive Young
Olive Young Care Plus Scar Cover Spot Patch 324 Counts: (1000000/10) I use these as routinely as I take my meds in the morning and afternoon. Get the biggest sizes available! You think you won't need that size but you will, trust. If you cut your face dermaplanning or shaving, put one over the cut and it will keep it from getting infected, worse or scarring. WRP and have 4 times.
papa recipe
papa recipe Blemish Enzyme Powder Cleanser: (8/10) I love powder enzyme cleansers because my first kbeauty purchase was the TONYMOLY rice one! This one isn’t as exfoliating as the TONYMOLY one, but I do like to use it when my nose area starts to get flaky under makeup. Good ingredients. MRP.
ROUND LAB
ROUND LAB Birch Juice Moisturizing Cleanser: (8/10) Solid, not dehydrating nor moisturizing, but not irritating either. MRP.
Round Lab 1025 Dokdo Toner: (10/10) Deserves all the hype. Hydrating AND occlusive, with the ingredients list and research to back it. Read a JSTOR article about one of the ingredients effectiveness and realized not many products even use it! WRP and have about 3 times.
ROUND LAB PINE CALMING CICA MASK SHEET: (10.10) Felt like a new layer of skin once I peeled it off! It absorbed a lot but it didn’t go dry quickly. Bigger and stretchier than most masks and stays on SO well, love the gauzy feel.
SKIN1004
SKIN1004 Madagascar Centella Ampoule: (7/10) Pretty moisturizing and feels nice, but I think initially it may have broken me out a tiny bit. Does nothing for redness but helps any inflammation from picking or allergies. WNRP.

Hi, am post vac now 2.7 yrs and post covid 6 months.
Neurological symptoms affecting my breathing and swallowing started 2 yrs ago. Including random fasciculations.
Was tested 18mths ago with lumbar puncture ,MEP, MRI, EMG, SEP and all good. Developed a semi permanent fasciculation on my right lower lip after repeatedly picking pimples and plucking hairs on my right side chin (yaaay middle age woman!) That came and went. Got another MEP last September just begore I caught covid and was fine again.
Now, since covid, it's 24/7 and very fast on my right lower lip. I get random tongue twitches and eyelid twitches and also all over my body with Long periods in between, but the lip is now all the time. Absolutely scared out of my fucking mind, am alone and without any family or friend network.
The only time it stops is when I pluck more hair or squeeze the crap out of my chin, then 5mins later it starts up, very fast and constant.
Keep checking my tongue, it's fine.
Next Neurological appointment is end of May and I already have the muscle weakness , shortness of breath and atrophied chest muscles causing restricted breathing and diaphragm atrophy (thanks covid, because my thorax just wasn't paralysed and scary enough). The head neurologist at that practice laughed me off so I'm seeing a colleague of his, my GP gatekeeps me hard and being in Germany, it's very difficult to get seen and taken seriously ad no doctor wants to be responsible for bad news.
Got nobody to talk to about this, in a very dark place, got my tarot read that said I had some nerve related disease and needed a second opinion (I'm a scientist and this is what I'm reduced to... scared, going down an woo and esoteric rabbit hole which is TOTALLY NOT ME).
Am borderline hysterical and cannot get my HR under 130 after searching "fasciculations " on here and google.
Since covid (at the 2mth mark) I tested positive for Neurological receptors GRPK or whatever they are called that I was negative a year ago. Googling that was a big mistake.
Not sure what to do, despite being confirmed post vac, I've received no support for it and go it alone , I have no choice.
Am always waiting. I've emotionally eaten myself 50kgs heavier, which is a nightmare with muscle weakness. I don't want to die a vegetable, I'm 45f and had a full and good life finally after years of trauma. Just to have this cut me down as my life got better and i was happy for the first yome in my life. Am very easily triggered about neurological degenerative disease and it occupies my thoughts 24/7 since the injury.
I've lost everyone, my family, my partner, hanging onto my job as an engineephysicist by the skin of my ass.
Am in a VERY dark place right now and feeling somewhat unstable .
Is there anyone who can ease my mind or who has had the same?

I'm a 31 year old female, and I got diagnosed with mono for the first time in my life back in mid October of last year. I'd had a crippling, nonstop headache for about two weeks, along with fever spikes and hot flashes that would come and go. I had no idea what was wrong, and when I couldn't take the headache pain anymore, I went to the ER and after some tests, they said it was mono. I only ever had those two symptoms with my mono. Fast forward to around the end of December, and I'm feeling pretty much back to normal besides some minor fatigue. After about 2 or 3 weeks of feeling fine, I started getting canker sores in my mouth and on/undealong the sides of my tongue. Never had them before. Instead of going away, they just stayed. I am now in my 3rd month of constant canker sores, and they get more painful with each new one. They pop up in clusters of 3 or 4, all grouped together, nothing helps them or makes them go away, I have tried it all. Went back to my doctor and she thinks where I never experienced mono as a teenager like a lot of people usually do, that it is just hitting me harder and attacking my immune system more than normal. She gave me a prescription for 1000mg Valacyclovir, twice a day for 2 weeks. By about day ten, they were pretty much gone and no more were popping up. Within 4 days of finishing that medicine, they started coming back worse than before. It's excruciating. I can barely eat, I'm losing weight because I can't eat well, it hurts to talk, drink, anything. Orajel gel helps for maybe 2 minutes then fades. Orajel mouthwash doesn't help at all. Hydrogen peroxide, saltwater gargling, nothing is helping. I currently have about 14 of them right now, and there have also been little blister-like pimples popping up inside my cheeks, just red bumps filled with clear liquid. My doctor is stumped because she said that medicine is strong and should have taken care of them. The only thing she could think of to do was give me a 3 month supply of a lower dosage Valacyclovir (500mg once a day), but that has not been doing anything at all. I'm just so done. I'm frustrated, I'm in pain, and I don't know what to do. I have no other symptoms at all, just cankers all over. And now my entire uvula is covered with them and is red and swollen to about twice its normal size, and I can't even swallow without intense pain. I don't know if it matters, but I do not have my tonsils, had them out when I was 9. I'm sorry this is so long. If anyone out there has had this experience, or has any ideas that would help relieve this pain, I'd very much appreciate it. I'm at my limit, and as of right now, the only thing I can think of to do is go back to the ER, but I don't know if they'd be able to do anything, and I really can't afford the bill at the moment. Is this common with mono? Could it have turned into something else that I should be worried about? Do I just have to ride it out and wait for them to go away on their own? It feels like they'll never go away at this point...

I was nodding off when my Lit teacher told everyone in our class to pair up. At the sound of scampering feet, and chairs scraping the linoleum floor, I snapped awake, straightened myself up, and looked around. The others had chosen their partners. And not one of them thought to approach me.
“Jejomar, looks like you’ll have to pair up with Alberto,” said the teacher.
My stomach curled when I spotted a lumpy shadow in the far corner at the back of the classroom looking like a sad sack of potatoes.
Berto the Weirdo.
That was the unfortunate name my peers had tacked on him. And they weren’t exactly wrong. Berto was a strange 17-year-old boy. He’d say the most peculiar, sometimes outlandish, statements. One of them caused a ruckus at school the previous month, and it nearly got him expelled.
He had cut off our history teacher mid-lecture, and blurted out that Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president, was going to rise from the dead and invade the school along with his dead army of Union soldiers. And he advised that we should heed his warning carefully. There was going to be an invasion.
The class fell dead silent. We all gawked at him. He couldn’t be serious, we all thought. But he didn’t blink, his dried lips didn’t crack a smile. Berto was serious. After a moment of suspense, someone burst into laughter. Then, one by one, the others joined in.
“Lincoln wasn’t even buried in this state!” the history teacher cried through his laughter. They didn’t see how Berto’s eyes narrowed, how his ears burned red, and how he ground his teeth and muttered under his breath, “You’ll see soon enough.”
The following day he swaggered into school dressed up like a gunslinger with a Winchester rifle slung over his shoulder and a set of daggers underneath his long leather coat. But Abraham Lincoln and his dead army of Union soldiers didn’t rise from their graves and invade the school. The rifle was fake, though that couldn’t keep him out of trouble. The school was put on lockdown and everyone else scattered to the closest rooms they could find and locked themselves in, until the cops arrived.
After that went on, somehow Berto was allowed to stay at the school. Some said it was because his dad, a rich businessman of an obscure trade, wrote the School Board a fat check. Money talks, as they say.
Now, Berto the Weirdo was going to be my partner for a stupid class assignment.
“Um...” I uttered as I shot my hand up in the air.
The teacher turned from the chalkboard and raised a brow. “Yes?”
“Can I work alone?”
“No.”
“But--”
“I think I’ve told you to pair up with Alberto!”
“Fucking hell,” I grumbled.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing!”
I braced myself. I needed every ounce of the universe’s mystical powers to get me through this hour-long ordeal.
Seeing that the lumpy sack of potatoes wasn’t going to move where I was, I picked up my notebook and textbook, and plopped into the empty desk beside him. Berto didn’t have his textbook, not even a pencil or a notebook. I knew right then I’d be carrying the weight of the assignment for both of us. And I’d completely forgotten what story we were reading in class.
"Hey, do you even know which chapter we’re supposed to be reading?” I asked him, but he didn’t respond, not even a glance over in my direction. He was busy biting the skin around his thumb and staring at the bloody progress he’d made chewing it off.
I waved my hand in front of his face. He slowly turned. His gaze crept along my skin. I shuddered. An unsettling presence lurked behind those brown eyes. I couldn’t put a finger to what exactly it was, but it frightened me.
“I can’t hear with my right ear,” he said, flatly. “You’ve got to be on my left side.”
Grumbling, I lifted the desk slightly off the floor and scooted over to his left side, wedging myself between him and another student, who threw me a nasty look for bumping into her leg and letting one of the legs of the desk stomp on her backpack on the floor. But after I had settled down to flip open my textbook, a sudden gust of wind came out from nowhere and leafed through the pages.
I watched in confused shock until it landed on a page with a picture of the Devil. Flashing his pearly whites, he seemed to stare at me from the page, with barely conceived malice. It was a chapter on the portrayals of the Devil in classic literature with excerpts from Milton’s Paradise Lost, Goethe’s Faust, and Dante’s Inferno.
I scooted my desk closer to Berto and laid the book between us. He glanced at the picture and giggled. With his face turned away from me, he was whispering to someone else, though there was no one on the other side of him.
I tapped him on the shoulder.
Slowly, he turned to face me. “Yeah, what?”
“We need to get started on the assignment.”
I still didn’t know what exactly we were supposed to do. I squinted at the chalkboard trying to make out the chalky scribbles. I needed to focus but Berto’s giggling was distracting.
“What are you laughing about?” I snapped.
Grinning, he shrugged. “It’s nothing.”
“Well, if it’s so funny, then I want to know.”
He stroked the sparse hairs on his chin and pondered for a moment. And then, he leaned over and, tapping a finger on the Devil’s picture, he whispered, “Mr. Friendly thinks he’s much more handsome than this coxcomb here,” slapping a hand over his mouth to hide his snickering, “but I told him that all goats look the same anyway.”
“Who the hell is Mr. Friendly?”
I thought perhaps he had a Bluetooth piece in his ear and was chatting with someone on the phone. But then he pointed to his right ear. The ear with which he claimed he couldn’t hear well.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“He lives right here,” he said, rubbing the ear. “I think it’s why I can’t hear with this ear; Mr. Friendly takes up all the space inside and—damn—he sure is a loud talker.”
I didn’t know how to respond, honestly. I scanned the room hoping that maybe—just maybe—there was another classmate without a partner. The students, however, were all perfectly paired up, and by the look on their faces, they were glad to not have ended up with Berto. Some threw a pitiful glance at me.
Berto frowned. “You don’t believe me, I know.”
Of course not! Why would anyone believe anything he said? This was the same guy who was convinced that the tomato sauce in the school’s cheese pizza was made with the blood of aborted fetuses. That rumor spread faster than wildfire ripping through a dry-ass Arizona field on a summer’s day. It riled up some folks. They stormed the cafeteria and screamed at the workers. A vicious brawl broke out, and it ended with the head lunch lady being sent to the hospital with a spork in her eye, but no arrests were made.
“Don’t you know what you’re saying?” I asked him. “I mean it’s...” I paused to search for the right word without setting him off. “It’s...just--I mean---just so, bizarre!”
He glowered.
“Besides,” I went on, “it’s probably earwax that’s clogging your ear canal.”
He rummaged through his backpack and pulled out a small flashlight. “See for yourself,” he said, handing me the flashlight. I balked but he egged me on. “Come on, look!”
He twisted his body around, so that I could peer into his right ear with the light. Aside from the white flakes sprinkled about in the outer part, his ear canal was deep and pitch-black, meaning that there was nothing there.
As I was about to tell him how much he was full of shit and that I was quite sure it was a thick wad of earwax sitting deep in the canal, when I thought I heard—no, no, couldn’t be—but there it was again...a distinctive, clear and crisp, voice saying, “Salutations Jejomar,” and then the squeaking hinges of a door being shut closed.
A loud smack rang in the air. I jumped.
The teacher had slapped a long ruler against the chalkboard, and it had broken in half.
“Jejomar! Alberto! This isn’t playtime!” she shrilled, glaring at me and Berto. “Get back to work!”
I shoved the flashlight back into his hands and attempted to read a passage, but I couldn’t focus. The words on the page blended into one inky whirlpool. My mind wondered back to Berto’s right ear, and it made me remember the time when my dad took my little sister to a healer.
After she had complained about mind-numbing headaches, my parents drove my sister to the doctor who conducted several tests and yet found nothing wrong. Healthy as an ox, he told them. But then she started bleeding from her eyes and nose. My dad carried her to the healer who lived in an old apartment complex down the block.
The healer was an elderly man who we called Papay. My dad laid my sister down on the couch. Papay grabbed an egg from the kitchen and rubbed my sister’s head with it, while mumbling a prayer under his breath. At that time, I thought ‘oh, boy, here we go. We were going to get swindled out of a hundred bucks.’
Those thoughts, however, were erased when Papay cracked the egg into a bowl and, instead of, the clear egg white with the yolk at its center, it was deep brown spotted with white fuzzy spores. He told dad that my sister had a malicious spirit inside of her. He called it a demònio. To extract the demònio, Papay concocted a special drink. He stirred hot water in a mug with calamansi, a root, and a white powder.
My sister’s face scrunched up. The taste was too sour and too bitter, but she did what she was told and drank every drop. Then, the mug slipped from her hands. Her head whipped back, and she let out a terrible gut-wrenching scream as a tiny wrinkly hairless pink creature with the face of a red-eyed rat crawled out of her nostril.
The demònio made for the door, but Papay, who was as swift as a hawk, caught it with his left foot, pinching it between his big toe and pointer toe. With a quick snap, he popped its head like a fat red pimple squirting out a gush of yellow pus.
My stomach churned just thinking about it. But then, an idea sprung up.
“I’ll believe you,” I said to Berto, “if you do a simple test.”
Intrigued, Berto raised a brow. “A test?”
“Yes, it’s a test to see if you’re telling the truth.”
“All right, test me, then!”
I dug through my bag and retrieved an egg from a small Tupperware. It was a hard-boiled egg, but I thought it would do the trick the same as Papay’s.
“Rub your right ear with this and if the egg turns black and moldy inside,” I explained, “then that means Mr. Friendly is there, and if it’s white—”
Berto snatched the egg from my hand before I could finish. He rubbed it on his right ear in circles and handed it back to me, looking on expectantly. As I peeled off the shell, a revolting odor dominated the classroom without mercy. It ripped through my nostrils and watered my eyes. It was as if I had stepped into a public restroom where the smell of urine and excrement thickened the moist air.
“No eating in class!” the teacher screamed. She pointed to a poster of classroom rules on the wall. “Put that aw--” she stopped abruptly, her face turning green. Slapping a hand over her mouth, she bolted out of the classroom.
The other students were retching. They knocked over the desks and chairs as they scrambled for the door. Some went straight to the windows and flung them open.
I also rushed to the windowsill and gasped for air. When I swerved around, sliding to the floor completely winded, I watched Berto pick up the rotten egg off the floor, sniffed it, and gobbled it up. There was no doubt in my mind that a demònio was living in Berto’s ear. And judging by the stink the egg exuded, it was an incredibly malevolent one. Now, I realized, perhaps it was the reason why he’d say and do things that were so...unhinged.
“All right, I believe you,” I said, settling back into my desk.
Glaring at Berto, the other students returned to their seats and whispered among themselves. And with the teacher being absent, a few took the opportunity to ditch the class.
Berto’s eyes lighted up. “Oh, do you now?”
“Yes, sure.” I nodded. “But don’t you think that Mr. Friendly isn’t so—well—very friendly?”
Again, he stroked the hairs on his chin and thought hard. “He’s been annoying me lately. He never shuts up. Sometimes he wants me to do things. I mean, sometimes they’re fun things. Like the time when we snuck into the principal’s house and brought his cat home with us.” He chuckled fondly at the memory.
My eyes widened. “That was you!” I had heard about the principal’s missing cat and had seen the ‘lost cat’ posters around the school. “What happened to it? What did you do with it?”
He sighed. “Mr. Friendly got hungry.”
“Fuck, Berto!”
“But he crossed the line when he wanted my dog!”
“So, do you want to give Mr. Friendly an eviction notice, then?”
He nodded with a mournful look. “You don’t understand how this is driving me close to the breaking point!” He yanked at his hair. “I need help. Can you help me?”
“Why would I help you?”
“Because you’re my partner in this class.”
Well, not by choice. But I kept my mouth shut.
“And you’re the type,” he continued, “to help a fellow man, no matter who it is, whether he be a bum on the streets or not. You have a good sense of morals; you know what is right and wrong.” “How can I help, though?”
Berto’s eyes twinkled with a glimmer of hope that I might finally offer him the relief that he so desperately craved. And though Berto and I weren’t the best of friends, I was willing to save another fellow human being.
“I’ve tried to pick him out with a pair of tweezers,” he said, “but it was too difficult. There’s something in the way. And I was a little scared to continue; I thought I might accidentally puncture my eardrum.”
“You want me to try to pick your ear?”
He rifled through his pockets and took out the slender tweezers. “Yes,” he affirmed, handing me the tool and the flashlight.
I grimaced.
Normally, if anyone were to ask me to clean their ear, I’d downright turn them down. But this was different. This was another human being who was suffering. He had a demònio in his ear, and he needed help. My help. So, peering into his ear with the flashlight, I inserted the tweezers, going deep, until it bumped into something hard. I poked at it a couple of times.
“Ah, ah!” Berto cried.
“Does it hurt?”
“No, it’s just loud. Like you’re banging on a door inside my ear.”
“Hold on. I think I’ve got it.”
I squeezed the tweezers on something, and after a few tugs, something gave way, and I withdrew of what appeared to be a door made from amber-colored wax with its hinges and doorknob of a hardened blackish crust.
“Ah, wonderful!” Berto whooped. “I can hear clearly now!”
I flicked the wax chunk away and shined the light into the ear canal.
“Do you see him?” he asked.
“No, I can’t.”
He laid his head on his desk with his right side facing up. “Look a little closer.”
I upped the brightness on the flashlight and, drawing myself closer to his ear, I squinted. A gust of hot wind whipped about me, lifting notebooks, textbooks, pencils, and papers up into the air in circles. Every second the wind grew stronger, hotter.
Covering my head with my arms, I ducked under a desk, and when the storm had calmed, I opened my eyes and found myself in a scorching tunnel. At one end was a bright light, while on the other end was the pitch-black abyss. I tried to turn on the flashlight, smacking it against the wall, but it only lasted a fleeting moment before flickering away and dying.
I had this unshakeable feeling that something was watching me from the darkness. Then a voice called out to me. Every nerve in my body screamed at me to run. Something was coming. Closer and closer. I made a mad dash towards the light end of the tunnel. And as I ran to the light, the ground began to shake, throwing me off my feet. And a great amber wall of wax materialized before me, completely blocking the light and sealing me in the darkness.
I wanted to scream but the torrid air burned my throat and lungs. My eyes wilted and crumbled like crushed autumn leaves. My mouth dried up and tongue shriveled like a sundried pepper. All the moisture in my body was evaporating, and I crumbled to the ground. I lay there powerless, too weak to fight off Mr. Friendly as he dragged me by the legs into his lair.

"I'm so sorry. So sorry... I," In her haste, Lenora attempted to stand up, but as her hair caught on his button, she screamed. "Aw!" She cast an apologetic glance at him while struggling to undo the hair. However, she had to open his button to do that, without thinking, she did so and became even more flustered when her hand brushed against the fair smooth skin underneath the dirty coat he had on. The beggar cleared his throat causing her head to snap to his. Her face flushed with embarrassment. Quickly removing her hair, she stood away from his body. "Again, thank you." He said, reaching to take up her purse, "You should watch where you are going pretty missy." For some unknown reason, Lenora found herself blushing at that. Pretty?  Some onlookers noticed her and started reaching for their phones just before he handed her the bag. "Are you Miss Lenora?" "What? Lenora Paige?" "Are you certain that she is the one? Given her attire, I nearly didn't recognize her." "Oh my God, how is it that she would so blatantly appear at this time?" "A whore with no shame!" Lenora cursed when she remembered her scarf had slipped off when she fell. She began to become alarmed as she noticed the little crowd forming around her. However, the next minute, the beggar took off his jacket and covered her head with it, stunning Lenora.  Her body stiffened further when he wrapped his hands around her waist. Not from anything but the fact that he touched her torn wounded back. "Come on." The jacket was stinking so badly that for a moment, she couldn't breathe but as if her body was under his control, it began moving after his deep manly voice fell on her ears. Still, in a daze, Lenora let him lead her to a safer place. An absolute stranger! They reached a quiet street shortly after, where she removed her jacket to give him. She handed him a black card after digging through her bag without saying a word. "Here. I appreciate your assistance so much. Use the million in this to take care of yourself." Like everyone else, Lenora anticipated that he would accept the card with joy — as any beggar would. The latter, on the other hand, gaped angrily at her. "What?" "I don't want your money. I saved you twice and you molested me on the streets, yet you give me a million as compensation?" Lenora blinked in shock as she tried to gather her thoughts after being rendered speechless. Molested? Her hands hardly touched him! "Ugh... That..." she cleared her throat, "I'm sorry Mr..." "Preston." "Mr Preston, I'm sorry and thank you for saving me," she muttered perfunctorily, putting the card back in her purse, after all, she was no longer the heiress of the Gonzalez family. They had cast her out just like her mom so why reject money that was rejected?   Preston tried to clamp his hands down on hers when she turned to leave but she swiftly dodge and continued on her way. In as much as she was grateful for his help, she hated strangers touching her. After walking for a bit, she soon realised she had no idea  where she was. The streets looked the same and since she was new to the area, she had an impression that she was lost. Of course, she wasn't ready to go ask anyone for directions, not with the scandal on the Internet. Instead, she took a quiet street while checking her bag for her phone. Huh? Where is it? I remember putting it here. She unknowingly walked passed a group of guys who are known to be gangsters. They all became silent as she walked by pinning their eyes on her.  Lenora took notice of it and tightened her fist while quickening her stride. She wanted nothing more than to leave that vicinity quickly. However, luck wasn't on her side as she bumped into two males in front. "Oh, what do we have here?" "I'm so sorry." she hastily said and tried to walk away but one of them took hold of her hand.  "Sweetheart, there's no need to leave so quickly when you're here. Hasn't anyone told you this street is off-limits? What? Lost? I can help you find your way dear.  In bed." A bark of laughter rang out in the area as the men gathered around her.  Slap! Lenora ripped her hands off his and smacked him, causing a loud echo across the area. Wrong move. She knows that but she can't stand being insulted.  Instantly, the men fell silent. She...did she just hit their boss? "I will leave now," she said as she tried to move away from him, but unpredictably his hands sprang up, catching her and slamming her head to the ground.  "Fierce. I like it, but did I permit you to do so? Hold her down!" For a moment, she couldn't hear anything, her vision blurred, and the only thing she could do was gasp in pain. Even though she has some skills in fighting, there was no way she could fight them all, as men, their strength was simultaneously higher than hers! "Yes, boss!" four men grabbed hold of Lenora before she regained her baring. Pulling out a knife, he tore the shirt off her body snapping her out of the muddled state. "Y-you... What are you doing? Let go of me quickly! Do you know who I am?"  Fear flashed in her eyes when she noticed all the men staring at her exposed chest. She was so ashamed because she wasn't putting on anything underneath! And to make matters worse, her shackled hands prevented her from covering herself. She was left vulnerable and could only trash on the ground! This was even more embarrassing than having her pictures up on the Internet. "Beautiful isn't she? How about we all have a taste of this wildcat?" his hand trailed from her flat tummy going up. Just as he was about to grab her breast, a knife flew in the air slashing his wrist, earning a grunt from him. "Who is it? Who dare to..." His voice trailed when he saw the person. All those who noticed him froze and quickly let go of Lenora who in turn rushed to cover herself.  "I- it's not what you think! I can explain..." their boss stuttered at the sight of the beggar. When he got no reply, he cursed and ran away with the rest of the gang on his tail.  Glancing up, Lenora's lips trembled. It's him, again! Preston, the beggar! "You..." He took that same jacket off, came forward and draped it over her shoulders.  "Thank you." Preston turned a flashlight saying, "You left this with me." "Oh." she blinked upon seeing her phone. "Come, let's get you treated, my place isn't far from here," he said, handing the phone to her while walking away.  Lenora touched her tremble, seeing the blood, she didn't reject the offer but hugged the stinking jacket to herself and rushed after him.         ........ "Aw!" A hiss escaped her as cleaned her wound with a cheap but neat cloth using water.  "Sorry, missy, it's all I have." She assumed that when he stated "his place," he meant at least an old house, but no, it was far from that. It was a place worst than a slum. The area smelled like hell, rats were going about and he... he has an old torn box spread on the ground, one that he uses as a bed.  For someone who has never been to such a place in her life, it was a nightmare for Lenora, but she made an effort to ignore the smelly area, while concentrating on him. Thanks to the light reflecting from the pole on the street, she was able to make out his features. He had plain look, with freckles and big pimples over his face. His hair looked like they haven't been washed in ages. His ragged clothes were ripped apart and looked too dirty like he's been sleeping in pits. Well, he has... In one word, he looked ugly! The only thing great in his body was his height and eyes. He had a mystic set of blue eyes, one that was rarely seen by anyone. They were Azure to be precise.  Subconsciously, she reached out to touch them, but the man quickly seized her hands and stopped her. "Trying to molest me the second time?" "Huh?" she blinked. "You're the first woman privilege of touching my body, you need to take responsibility!" Shocked, Lenora stared at him. Of course, she was the first woman to touch him, who would want to sleep with a beggar?  Her usual self will try to pay him off with the money but instead, she blurted, "Marry me." "What?" It was Preston's turn to blink in shock. "Marry me, Preston and I'll make you a billionaire." she grinned as a crazy idea formed in her head.  Do the Gonzalez think they could cast her out after everything she had done and she'd leave just like her mom? Never! She's different from her mother, she wouldn't go down without a fight! Maybe she's crazy for proposing to a beggar and she may regret her decision when this is over but who cares?  What did they usually call her again, crazy? Rude and spoilt heiress? Oh, I'll definitely show them how spoilt I can be. She never considered herself marry at the age of twenty since she was sure that all men are trash. They are only interested in her because of her wealth. His eyes lit up, "I... Are you serious? I've got nothing to offer." Lenora patted his shoulders, "You, you'll offer me yourself." His lips started to play a lazy grin, revealing his hideous brown teeth. Almost squeezing her into a tight hug, Preston drew her into his arms right away. "Wifey. Thank you so much. I will marry you!" Lenora grimaced at the pain in her back whilst holding her breath. She might have chosen to wed a beggar, but she wasn't yet ready to get physical with a complete stranger. "Preston, let go! You're smothering me.." He quickly released her go, checking to make sure he hadn't touched her head wound before giving her a dreamy look and saying, "Oh, sorry Pretty, Missy" "The name is Lenora," said Nora as she elegantly smoothened a hand over her shirt. "Lenora." the name rolled out in his tongue as if he was testing how it sounded making Nora's heart skip. Why did it sound so good in his mouth? "Wifey, when should we go get a marriage certificate?" he said jumping excitedly like a kid who has just found his lollipop. Lenora's mind went blank. "Uhh..." she wasn't planning on getting married immediately after getting engaged! Before she speaks, he cut her off, "Wifey, I'll be moving into your place? I've got nowhere to stay." Lenora became even more speechless. Should I be regretting my decision now? "Preston, I also don't have a place to stay. Here." she thrust the card into my hand. "Use this to lodge a hotel room and get some necessary items. I have things to take care of this week so we'll meet in a week for an annual gathering. After the event, we'd get married, what do you think?" After he released her, Lenora secretly shifted backwards not trusting his grabby hands. She then grabbed her business card and handed it to him, "Call me in a week." with that she ordered an Uber with her phone which came back sooner and then she left. Naturally, she missed seeing a posh black automobile that pulled up beside Preston nor a man rush towards him and bow. "Sir, it's time to return home."  "Why should I return?" he muttered in a deep baritone voice that was completely different from the man who stood before Lenora some minutes back.  "Y-you...!" the guard's lip twitched in anger. "You! Preston interrupted him by saying, "Find out everything I need to know about Lenora Paige Gonzalez before tomorrow, she's my wife."  "I..." Before he could speak, Preston turned on his heels and began walking away from the slum area causing the latter to panic even more. "Sir! The car is over here! Damn it!" If they found out he made Preston walk, he would undoubtedly lose his job, ahh! Preston, on the other hand, kept moving away while grinning foolishly. He was anxious to squander his wife's money. Read more

I keep getting these itchy little pimple-like bumps on my body possibly from when I'm around marijuana smoke - it's worse with high potent dispensary weed. The bumps have a pimple head and the surrounding skin is red and a little puffy. My brother-in-law smokes and said he had them once under his tongue as well so he stopped smoking the high potent stuff, but I'm unsure if it's really from being around marijuana smoke or actually from this turmeric body scrub l used previously (Ingredients: turmeric extract, sea salt, vitamin e, jojoba oil) or maybe a combination of both? Right after I used the scrub, these pimple-like outbreaks started, but that doesn't explain why my brother-in-law had them too though so l'm thinking it HAS to be from the high potent marijuana right? I stopped smoking because the bumps keep turning into scars, but I'm still getting them just from being around marijuana smoke it seems like. Sometimes it seems like they just randomly appear too though, but more often when I’m around marijuana smoke. The bumps are never in a group, always isolated. They occur on my side torso, butt, back and the my back legs. The SAME EXACT PLACES I used that darn turmeric scrub. Has anyone experienced these bumps after smoking/being around smoke and/or after using a turmeric scrub on the body? I’m unsure if I should visit an allergist or a dermatologist. Please help me :(

I am pretty sure I have Herpes and I will test for it when I am ready. I’m a gay guy in my 30’s. I was single and celibate for 2 years and then just one day decided I’m going to try and hook up. The first guy I made out with turned out to have hsv1 on his lips and the 1st guy I hooked up gave it to me everywhere else. What a bummer. I also think I unknowingly spread it to places on my own body.
I’ve had a big and extremely painful blister in my nose, pretty sure it’s in my eyes as well, I have had rashes on my inner thigh, had one tiny sore that resembles a small pimple on the inside of both my thighs, sores in my mouth and in my tongue, I had blisters under my thumbs, and a big blister on one of my big toes. Pretty much in every place the guy put his mouth I get a rash, red patch or small blister. On top of that I have constant balanitis like symptoms and had something resembling a long paper cut under my foreskin.
Everything is quite mild so it’s manageable but when I realized I might have it I went into a deep dark depression. Jeez, I was in bed for like 3 months. Really bad time especially having been through other medical issues that added to my depression. I think the hard part was how everything is constant and feels like it just takes turns to be in different places. The biggest worry was my eyes.
But I have been placed on depression and anxiety meds the last 3 months and I have to admit it has helped so so much. It definitely helped with the dread and doom of the whole situation and gave me a new perspective on things. I feel much lighter and accepting of my situation and have turned over a new leaf. I started working out again and taking better care of myself. I also started focusing on getting out more, seeing more places and experiencing things. I think the biggest thing I’m doing is making new friends and building new communities to be part of. I’m trying to fill my life with all the good stuff and trying to build really strong friendships. My world has really opened up and I feel different. I used to approach everything with dating/relationships in mind but approaching everything in a friendship building way has definitely allowed me to experience people in a completely different no-pressure way.
Although I am sad about what happened I do believe I can do this. I believe I can still have a good life and fill my life with great adventures. I don’t lock myself away from the sun. I go out and I take it all in until my symptoms become uncomfortable. I think the hardest thing is feeling like I constantly have jock itch between my legs but I just push through it. Also masturbation is out of the question.
So yeah, for now I guess I’m trying to build strong friendships and communities. Once I feel comfortable in having that support system I can think of approaching romance. I just don’t think I can deal with romance without having a life to fall back onto when I’m rejected.
I just had to write this down, get it out and put it somewhere.

Brandi Rhodes stood across the ring from Rikishi and Taguchi, behind her Cody was jumping up and down and shouting shit at them. How had she got into this position? Normally New Japan wouldn’t allow intergender matches, but ROH was much more easy going with WWE lite stuff like that, and this was a cross promotional show. That was the explanation for bringing in Rikishi, he was a nostalgia pop, so many people had fond memories of him in the attitude era, and even now whenever WWE brought him back he still got a massive pop. The stinkface was somewhat ironically praised as one of the most memorable finishing moves in the world. Looking at the size of his posterior that had only magnified in girth in the intervening years made her think it certainly would be memorable. Still, she’d only agreed to be in this match if ROH told him explicitly, repeatedly that the stinkface was banned. There’s no way her perfect face, with its flawless skin and lovely eyes would be anywhere near an obese Samoan man’s stinking ass, or a weedy, old Japanese guys ass either for that matter.
Rikishi had different ideas. He came back to wrestling for one reason, and that was to follow the legendary advice that Taguchi had given Kenny, to use the ass. Sometimes in his private moments he wondered what it was about sticking pretty women’s faces up his oversized ass. Was it the power? The humiliation? The gulf between something so beautiful and something so horrible being smushed into an unwilling combination? Yes, he guessed, to all of that, but at the end of the day it was about finding a way to scratch his never-ending itch. In the years following his semi-retirement his addiction to food had only grown, as had his problems with IBS, as he packed on the pounds he lost other things, like the ability to bend, or wash his ass properly. It didn’t matter how he bent in the shower, it was just too big for the water to ever fully cleanse. Sure, he might get cheeks cleaned, but in the depths where the sweat and fecal matter really built up, they were left untouched. He found on his frequent returns to wrestling that there was one cure, and that happened to be stuffing peoples heads up there. He could get them in deep, nuzzle their noses so close to his asshole it was just about possible to dislodge the sticky slimy substances that seemed to only exist to create a permanent, drilling itch that would haunt him his every waking moment.
Rikishi tagged in and Brandi immediately dashed towards Cody and tagged out. This was basically a handicap match anyway, there was no way she’d be taking much offense from either disgusting man. If it came down to it, she’d rather Cody get beat up than her. It would serve him right for boring her with comic books trivia every moment of every day. Seeing him opposed to Cody she realized how much bigger Rikishi had gotten in the intervening years. In WWE he’d been an obese man, yes, his legs had always looked like gelatinous tree trunk, his stomach had always bulged out like it was a balloon that was a little too inflated, he’d always had to make a noise like a deflating water bed if he got puffed out, but he’d still be relevantly human looking man. Now he was closer to Yokozuna levels of weight. Everything about him was oversized but being a Samoan most of the weight did go to the ass, which was a hideous sight to behold. It had always been bigger than her head, and indeed most people’s heads, but now it looked like it could consume her entire body. Brandi watched in fascinated horror as the two cheeks jiggled around like bean bags on a running machine. Wrestlers are famously cheap people, so while Rikishi grew he never even thought about buying wrestling gear that fit better. Most of his thongs had disintegrated due to overuse or just endless supply of ass sweat that they had to soak up on a nightly basis, but there was always old reliable, his first thong, the one he spent the most money on, and the one he never washed. As all other thongs fell in battle he developed the theory that washing them sped up the disintegration process. As such he refused to ever wash this one, much to his wife’s and children’s chagrin. He couldn’t lose this one. He had too many good memories of it. It was the thong he wore all those years ago when he gave Lita the stinkface. He was proud of that one. Other people seemed to like it too. Some weird anonymous guy on twitter messaged him almost monthly letting him know that was when he discovered his sexuality…it was weird. This was the thong that he wore when he stinkfaced Trish, the longest stinkface in wrestling up until that point. Over the years this thong and him had experienced so many different face shapes, people with big noses that pressed deep into his asshole like some kind of bead, people with small noses that squashed up against his asshole and made him feel like he was getting a prostate massage, no he’d never let this thong fall in battle, even if it barely fit anymore, and revealed so much of his he might as well not been wearing anything at all. He did admit it whiffed a bit.
As Brandi and Cody found out over the course of the match that while the stinkface was something to worry about, it was impossible to get through a match with Rikishi without gagging. The dried sweat that had gone rotten months ago that lived in between his fat belly folds would let out a pungent odor reminding everyone it was there. No matter how well ventilated the area if you’re even near a seven hundred plus pound man, who’s wearing an ancient piece of unwashed underwear and who has the ass about the length of an average child you will be able to smell that man’s ass. The smell was so foul that just standing on the ring apron Brandi felt like she was going to gag. It was like a malevolent brown cloud, that was just expanding and expanding encompassing everything in its smelly presence. She just wanted this match over. How much stamina could a man that fat have? He had to way about the same as a rhino, right? Did they have much energy? Brandi didn’t know much about animals apart from that she liked to hunt them, so while her mind slipped away from the match and she pondered the fuel reserves of rhinos she totally missed Taguchi locking in the ankle lock and Cody tapping out. The ringing of the bell snapped her out of her musings and she looked down on her husband screaming in pain on the floor. Well, she thought, at least the match is over and I can go back to spending his money, hope I won’t have to hear him whine about this for too long. She hated watching him talk too much, his tongue was so big and fat she thought he must be having a constant overreaction to something, that was the only reason it could be so swollen.
The crowd roared with shock as Rikishi kicked his legs out and landed full force on Cody’s chest. Brandi could see, and worse smell where the narrative was going and tried to make a quick exit, but Taguchi had already perved (and yes that is a verb) his way behind her and had grabbed both her arms and shoved them up behind her back. She screamed and kicked out her legs as Taguchi forced her into the ring.
‘Please don’t do this Taguchi.’ Brandi screamed as she writhed around and tried to stop herself being pulled by both arms into the ring. The struggle was futile. Rikishi had already waddled over and was lending a pudgy hand. A hundred and forty-four-pound woman fighting for her life can put up quite the battle. Rikishi was working up a second sweat just trying to keep her in the ring. Brandi flung her arms, kicked, screamed, tried everything she could to wiggle out of the two men’s grip. Deep down she knew it was pointless. If you were a woman and got in the ring with Rikishi, there was really one ending. He had an ass and it needed to be satiated. After putting up the best effort to escape she could she felt the last bit of energy leave her body. She wanted to keep going, but her legs felt like iron and arms like limp noodles. The two of them dragged her to the corner and forced her down onto her bum. Before adrenaline and terror could give her a second wind Taguchi had already darted out the ring to grab both her arms. He wrenched them back behind her. Brandi hated books, and never read anything but gossip magazines and as such didn’t have the literary prowess to describe his grip as anything other than vice like, as cliched as that was. Taguchi holding her arms back also did have the unfortunate side affect that it caused her head to jut forward. She could feel the eyes of the crow drill holes into her. It was almost a similar physical sensation as the drilling itch deep in Rikishi’s ass. She wanted to sink into the corner, hold her hands over her face and hide. Hide from the expectant and hungry glares of the hundreds of American fans, all of whom were chanting ‘stinkface, stinkface’ louder and louder. God how could anyone cheer for this man? Brandi personally believed all fat people should be locked up in cages, only to be wheeled out when beautiful people like her started to feel bad about themselves. They would serve as a reminder of the discrepancy in human’s value. Their only use was for reconfirmation of how perfect she indeed was. Fidgeting her arms desperately she gave one last attempt to worm her way out of this quite literally stinking situation. Putting both her legs on the matt she pulled with all her might and for a second she almost felt Taguchi’s grip break. She closed her eyes and strained with every muscle she had, she could feel his grip going. Something a lot of non-wrestlers don’t know is how hot it is under those lights, each one feels like a mini little sun blaring down on you. This was especially true in a small ROH show in a poorly aired out building in the middle of southern California in the middle of summer. Everyone was hot, everyone was sweating, and in the effort for freedom Brandi had worked up quite the sweat, which was making her skin slippy, it was almost impossible for Taguchi to hold on. He had to, he knew that. Kenny had won the title with a stinkface, Rikishi was getting booked, ass-based wrestling was starting to gain prevalence. Deep in his heart he knew ass attacks were the future of wrestling, but one man can not fight the stigma of the world alone. He needed Rikishi as an ally, and if that meant helping him stinkface women wrestlers stupid enough to get anywhere near a ring with him in then that was a price a he was willing to pay.
To Brandi’s horror her face sunk into something warm and smelly. Please don’t be his ass, she said to herself as she stopped fighting and opened her eyes, it wasn’t his ass, it was in fact his crotch, during her struggle he’d waddled over to her, he wanted to surprise her with a stinkface while her eyes were closed, but he got too close, and she’d nutted him in the balls. Rikishi knew it was an accident, but he was mad now. He was already planning on giving her a long one before this, but now he was going to try and break the record. Brandi took a second to fully register how disgusted and embarrassed she was with her positioning, it descended upon her like a vampiric predator.She flung herself backwards to get away from his crotch. To her dismay this allowed taguchi to regain his grip. There really was no escape now. Brandi sighed with acknowledgement of her fate. Rikishi was close to her now, and the smell wafting from him was unbelievable, he smelt like a blocked-up sewer if someone had poured a load of rotten fruit into it, just to add extra spice to the aroma. She tried to bargain, it was hard to do between all the spluttering and coughing that was a body’s natural reaction being this close to a sweating, unwashed, mostly naked monstrously overweight man.
‘Please, please Taguchi, let me go. I’ll let you stinkface me after, or Cody, whatever you want, just don’t keep me here.’ Said Brandi shaking her arms for emphasis. The thought of having a forty-year-old pervert doing his funky butt dance in her face was almost equally unappealing but she could smell a different kind of funk wafting from Rikishi and she knew Taguchi was at least well washed. Taguchi had to admit it was a tempting prospect. It was fairly well agreed on that Brandi was one of the better-looking women in New Japan. It was also sort of a default as she was the only one. It also wasn’t like many people were jumping to go up his ass, even if it would give them a chance to get to know the innovator of the future of wrestling a little bit better. Unfortunately for Brandi the universe has a sense of narrative. It’s like when you wake up and tread on a piece of leggo, or the keys you through on the floor after an exhausting shift at work, in the eyes of the universe that’s the start of a narrative that your day is only going to get worse, and it will do it’s damndest to make that narrative unfurl. It’s the same case if you’re in the ring with Rikishi, once he’d decided you’re going up his ass there’s not a lot you can do to unravel that narrative. Taguchi being knowledgeable in the ways of ass himself knew this. Also, he didn’t particularly want Rikish’s wrath to turn to him. He tightened his grip on Brandi’s arms as an answer. No way out she thought to herself and tried to steel herself for the degradation to come. But if smells could melt steel, it’d be possible for the odors wafting out Rikishi to do so. Brandi moaned again. Rikishi turned around. She was face to face with his ass now. She didn’t want to see it, especially not this close, they were only a couple of inches apart. Her eyes dropped down. Don’t look she told herself over and over, but in times of stress your brain goes into survival mode and sometimes causes you to do things you desperately don’t want to. Brandi knew that when she was submerged in there she’d have to find a way to breath, his ass needed a bit of study to work that one out. Slowly she brought her eyes up, noting the discoloration rash on his meaty thigh where they rubbed together when he walked. The skin was all red and some of it was blistering, the view only got worse she took in his two great cheeks. If you looked up cellulite in the dictionary there’d be a picture of Rikishi’s ass. Worse than that was the number of dimples, pimples and zits, his ass looked like cracked rock left out in Sahara dessert. In every way it was the exact opposite of Brandi’s flawless face. It was covered in stretch marks, they looked like little lines to map, but no matter how you followed the directions of the map it only ever lead you up his ass. Finally, she looked as deeply as she could in the crack, she swore she could see his skin darken. She hoped it was just another discoloration and not anything else. Oh God she was going to find out soon. The crowd was getting louder and louder. How had this been allowed for so many years? Allowed on national tv at that, it was the most humiliating thing imaginable. Her gorgeous face was going to be used as toilet paper for a sweaty beast of a man. It was too much. It was all too much. Brandi’s resolve broke and she screamed at the horror of it all. The second she opened her mouth Rikishi plunged backwards. The fumes were making tears fill Brandi’s eyes, they widened in terror as she saw Rikishi’s butt crack open as he bent towards her, and then before she could grasp what had happened her face had been gobbled up in the fat mans ass. The crowd erupted. For a moment neither moved. They were both taking stock of their entirely different situations. Rikishi was feeling great. While Brandi’s nose wasn’t very big, it was large enough he could already feel it pressing into his leathery thong. Her face would certainly be suitable to scratch his itch, maybe give him a couple days reprieve from it. Brandi’s thick jet-black hair was tickling the sides of his bum cheeks causing them to twitch and jiggle. He loved that feeling. He also loved that he could feel her head struggling around in his lower extremity, sometimes she’d press into the side of a cheek and take a breath through her mouth, as she exhaled he could feel her cool breath on the side of his cheek. It was like having a very gentle fan in your butt. Yes, having a pretty woman up your ass was the way to live.
Brandi on the other hand was in a very slimy, sticky and worse of all very real nightmare. She hadn’t had a chance to close her mouth before the assault of Rikishi’s ass and now she was tasting all kind of foul substances. Some of them tasted like iron, others salty, they were all beyond foul. His ass was so big and so deep she felt like there was no limit to how far her face could sink into its abyss. His two giant butt cheeks hugged her head. Every time his butt tensed and relaxed it felt like she was surrounded by very fleshy shifting sand. More than anything in the world she wanted Taguchi to let go of her arms, so she could as least push against the doughy cheeks, at least slap them or do something to distract her from the fact that she was actually, factually up another human being’s ass. How can one come back from something like that? The worst part of the stinkface, one could argue, was that for the rest of your life you’d know that at one point in rime you were nothing more than a human butt plug for a unhygienic fat man. However, one wouldn’t argue that because the worst part of the stinkface was the smell. The move lived up its namesake, it stunk. Descriptions of the smell flashed through Brandi’s head, images of blocked drain pipes, festival porta loos loomed in her mind, but none of them grasped the muskiness of his ass. It was like having your head pushed into a very damp, incredibly humid swamp. The slime and ass sweat coated her face. It dribbled into her mouth. She could feel the liquids corrupting every pore of her face. She tried to close her mouth, to stop the attack but Rikishi pushed backwards harder causing her tongue to roll out and lick the inside of his cheek. Brandi gagged while rikishi laughed with joy. The crowd was chanting faster now. To match them Rikishi had started twerking his ass. With every twerk Brandi sunk in deeper until there was nowhere left. Her face smushed up against his asshole. There was a thin layer of fabric covering it, but that was almost worse. From his time in WWE Cody had told Brandi how Rikishi only had one thong left and it’d never been washed. Behind it she could feel the outline of a gaping asshole. Her nose was being shoved against it so hard by Rikishi she could almost feel it going in. How many women had been in this position she wondered. Lining the unwashed thong was probably long forgotten particles of their makeup, of their skin and tears as they endured the same torment Brandi was enduring now. Her belly moaned. It was so hot, and the smell and tastes were so foul, she felt so nauseous and the rhythmic thrusts of his ass weren’t helping. Rikishi was now moving his ass in a circular motion. Brandi tried to resist, but it was like trying to resist the undercurrent of the sea, her head lolled backwards and forwards at the whims of another mans ass. How long had she been up there? She could feel the sticky mucus that leaked out his Rikishi’s ass minute by minute coat itself over her face. It burnt her eyes and tongue, it tasted oddly sweet, but with a tinge of copper. Was he ever going to let her out of his stinking crater? Brandi had been struggling against the grip of Taguchi, but after what felt like an eternity her arms went limp. It was so hot, she’d be so thoroughly dehumanized and embarrassed. She was so tired. As he rubbed back and forth with reckless abandon Brandi reflected that she was being treated as little more than human toilet paper. She could feel all the months of built up sludge and grime dislodge itself and find a new home on her face. Stink particles were worming their way onto her skin particles and making an unholy alliance with each other. Her face had been corrupted by his soggy ass. Rikishi after a lot of rubbing, a lot of jiggling, finally, finally felt like he was clean down there. The itch had been satiated.
Rikishi let Brandi go. Her head rolled forward she felt all the blood rush to her face in utter, abject embarrassment. The fans eyes bore into her. They’d seen it all, her degradation had been way too public. Now they were watching to see what her reaction was. She just wanted to scrape and scrape at her face to remove all the, hopefully, invisible filth. Her legs had turned to water and her stomach felt like it had turned into a blender. She choked and spluttered. She bit against one of the ropes to try and get the taste of ass sweat out of her mouth. Taguchi let go of her arms, they flew immediately up to her face, she dragged them over her stinking skin trying to get the dirt of Rikishi’s ass off her. It didn’t matter, she could feel it all over her skin. She’d been expecting for the stench to subside when he moved away, but she’d been up his ass so long the smell had really burrowed into her skin. Even now in clean air there was no reprieve from the scent of the man’s ass. Cody stumbled over holding his chest. He went to cradle her head and help her out the ring, but the stench of ass was almost like a physical wall. Her eyes widened as he recoiled. Cody loved his wife and took the hit of passing through the forcefield of stench. He made sure not to touch her face though. He helped her out the ring. As they stumbled towards the back, Brandi in between dry heaving and gagging turned and got one last look at Rikishi, him and Taguchi were dancing like mad men in the ring. Brandi made a promise to herself that as soon she got to the back she’d use every cleaning product ever manufactured to try and pull this stench off her skin, but the truth of the matter was she’d spent almost ten minutes up another human being’s ass, it would be a long, long time before the stench of it ever left her nostrils.

Rikishi stood in the middle of the ring. He'd cameoed in a few WWE segments over the past few years, he was getting used to being back. In one of the segments he'd even given Sasha the stinkface, much to the horror of the fans on reddit. It still felt odd to be back in a WWE ring, he'd gained an extra couple of pounds since he'd stopped wrestling regularly, the heat from the arena lights made him sweat so much more than he used to. He could feel his massive as getting slimy underneath his moomoo. Of course it was always a little moist with sweat, but today it was going to become a full on swamp. His thong which had always been ill fitting was now so small and insubstantial he was fairly certain if he took of his robe people behind him would think they were looking at a bare ass. He didn't really know why he'd bothered to wear it, he was here tonight to announce his induction to the hall of fame, he wasn't planning on giving anyone the stinkface, still you never knew what could happen in a WWE ring. He remembered what it was like stinkfaceing Sasha, how easily her pretty face had slid into his stinking crack, how good it felt as her nose massaged his anus. Rikishi had found when you get as fat as he was, with an ass that accumulates mass like a magnet acquires metal, its almost impossible to reach certain areas of the ass when washing or wiping, there was always a gnawing itch deep in his ass, Sahsa's face had relieved that itch for a little while, he wanted it gone again, part of him preyed a human would come out and get in his face, so he could get their face up his ass.
'Well, I have to say it's good to be home, and now my home's a hall, the WWE hall of fame, to be inducted by my two sons I can't say what an ho...'
Before he could finish is sentence a loud screech came out of the titantron. The three members of absolution led by Paige came strolling out onto the stage. Paige had never looked better, her jet black hair flowed behind her, her pale, porcelain skin was flawless, while she was off with neck injury she'd managed to gain some muscle, making her look strong and toned, and less like a vampire. Behind her were Mandy and Sonya, both of them twirled a pair of handcuffs round their fingers. Without fear they marched down to the ring. Rikishi stood there, patiently waiting for them. The crowed roared, with anticipation, something was going to go down, three of the cruelest women in the locker room in the ring with a man with the worlds fattest ass and a love of smearing on women's faces, someone was going to get humiliated, it was just a matter of who.
Paige climbed into the ring, a smirk covering her face.
'Well, well, if it isn't the legendary Rikishi, I'd like to say its an honor to meet you...' Her thick norwhich accent invaded the fans ears, as usual they cringed and realized it was a myth that the English had a sexy accent. '...but seeing what a blubbery mess you've become since I watched you as a child is just sad. I know I said on the stone cold podcast you were one of my favorites growing up, but at least back then you least looked human, now you look like a beached whale man.' Rikishi's face frowned, they interupted him for this?
'And my God, the smell, yeesh' added Sonya. She was being cruel, but it was true, the amount of stagnant sweat that must be trapped in his folds must've been beyond comprehension, he smelt like a compost heap, she couldn't believe he used to rub his ass in peoples faces, if he smelt this bad up here, what would it be like trapped down there. Still, Paige had a plan, that shouldn't be an issue today.
'I think the thing I remember most from you, is of course the stinkface...' Paige continued '….And yes in my private moments I might've had a man or two's faces up my ass, but the amount of women you stinkfaced back in the day was just insane, I've always thought you should know it felt.' Before Rikishi could respond Paige swiftly kicked him in the balls. Him falling to the ground looked like collapsing land mass, the whole ring shook as he feel onto it. The pain shock up through his stomach, and down his leg, he felt sick.
'You're gonna know how it feels, the great rikishi getting a stinkface from a Paige, a pale bitch from England, sounds good to me, Sonya, Many, handcuff him'
The two women cautiously rounded him, watching him try and get back off the floor looked like a baby elephant trying to regain its footing, it was slow, and sort of pitiful, but at the same time you could still see how much strength the animal housed. As they got closer to him the foul aroma that was expelled from his sweat covered skin became stronger, they wouldn't be surprised if a swarm of flies flew round him as he slept. They tried to lift his arms to handcuff him, his limbs felt like tree logs. To their horror they realized his wrists were to fat get the handcuffs round. Rikishi was regaining his senses, the pain was fading and being replaced by a searing rage.
Paiges smug smile was starting to fade.
'What's the holdup girls?' She asked, her voice quivering a tad.
'We can't get the handcuffs on, he's too fat.'
'What no, I saw him get handcuffed back in the 2000's'
'Yeah but he must've gained like two hundred pounds since then'
Paige didn't have time to respond, Rikishi's legs were still shaky and his balance was still off, he stumbled and crashed into Paige, who was swept off her feet as the mini mountain collapsed into her, they both tumbled into the turnbuckle, Paige felt her wafer slim body crushed against the pads, all the air was expelled from her body, for what felt like an eternity as Rikish's warm dough like blubber pressed against her. Rikishi managed to regain his fotting and move away from Paige, who's legs gave out, and she fell onto her butt on the floor. Still seeing red Rikishi charged at Mandy and Sonya, insticntualy they knew he couldn't hurt them, it was against company policy for a man to hit a woman in the WWE, but if you see something roughly the size of a Rhyno moving towards you at any speed you run. They both dived from the ring, leaving a dazed and confused Paige...and worse an angry and vindictive Rikishi. In the haze of pain and anger all senses had drained from Rikishi, as they returned he could hear the hum of the crowd. A woman was on her ass with her lolling against a turnbuckle, with Rikishi in the ring, they all knew what was coming. Rikishi picked up the abandoned microphone, and the equally abandoned pair of handcuffs. Sonya and Mandy took too long to realize what was going on, before they could pull from Paige from the ring Rikishi had handcuffed her arms to the ropes, the keys had fallen out of Sonya's pockets in the scuffle, he saw them glinting in the middle of the ring, he walked over and picked them up.
'Well, I've eat worse things' He said with a smile and dropped them down his throat.
Through the mists of pain, Paige started to regain her conscious, she couldn't move her arms fully, the clinking woke her up fully, and real visceral panic started to set in, she got up to her feet and pulled with all her might against the pair of handcuffs, the metal clinked but didn't budge. Rikishi let out a laugh.
'Oh no honey there's to escape, those handcuffs were too big for me but seem just write for you, so let me see, you interrupted me accepting the hall of fame honor, you kicked me in the nuts, and you were going to embarrass me in front of these thousands of fans, if anyone deserves what's coming it's you. Now, it's common knowledge I used to have three things, one I always washed, one I sometimes washed, and one I never washed. Now my wife through away the first two but let me keep the unwashed one for nostalgia.'
Horror dawned on Paige, this couldn't be real, it had to be a bad dream, an awful nightmare, as she pulled against her binds with a mix of frustration and terror she could feel the fans eyes bore into her exposed skin, the almost animalistic desire to see her brought down a level, but if Rikishi did what he was threatening she wouldn't be brought down a level or two, she'd be brought down to whatever level toilet water dwelled in.
Rikishi had paused to let the knowledge that the thong he had on under his fat man gown hadn't been washed in the last eighteen years sink in, he continued
'Well I don't ever come to a WWE event without my signature thong on, and as I've only got the one, I'm afraid you're not in for the easiest trip. I'll give you a moment to consider it, but at least you'll get to be up close with a piece of material with years of history, years of sweat.'
'Please, Rikish, please, I'm sorry okay, I was just joking, you’re my idol, I grew up watching you, I was going to stinkface you, you're my idol.' Paige was talking frantically, her words blurred into a hum. The crowd was getting louder. Paige's usually pale face had flushed with panic.
'Well, soon you'll get to worship at the base of your idol.' Said Rikishi as he disrobed, he walked forward and Paige was forced to back into the corner unless she wanted her face to be pressed into his sweaty crotch, she gave the handcuffs another desperate tug, the cold metal was unyielding. The meaty stench from Rikishi almost made her gag, she wasn't even touching him, how much worse could his ass possibly be than this. He'd gotten so big, his belly rolled over the top of his thong, Paige couldn't see anything past his bulging stomach, she was back on her ass and couldn't but be disgusted and amazed at the girth of his jiggly legs, they were wider than Paiges entire body, as he moved the fat jiggled.
Rikishi slowly turned, and instead of a crotch and belly blinding Paige's vision now was the largest ass she'd ever seen in her life. If there was a bigger ass in the world she couldn't imagine it. It was almost like how she remembered it from watching him on television, but the non HD cameras had never fully captured the amount of cellulite folds, the amount indentations and pus covered zits covering it. To her horror she couldn't even see the thong, his ass must've been almost the size of her entire torso, and like a hungry elephant it had gobbled up the garment that attempted to house it. Rikishi's ass covered her entire field of vision, her entire knowledge of the world was consumed with his ass. Only a few people had such a close-up view of it, and the grossness of it was beyond description. A thought struck Paige with such clarity it brought to tears to her eyes, Rikishi's ass was the most horrible thing she'd ever seen. Not to mention, of course, the smell, noxious fumes were wafting out of the crack, encircling her, she could almost see a brown mist forming around her, tears filled her eyes and she looked into the deep crack that soon her face would be plunged into. Somewhere far off the crowd screamed with anticipation, and she heard Rikishi speak in his deep booming voice (that made the cheeks of his ass jiggle like two very large bowls of jelly).
'So, Paige, you pissed me off, you got outsmarted, brace yourself, we both know where you're going now. '
Paiges entrance music started off with a scream, those in attendance swore her screamed as Rikishi pushed backwards and her head sunk into his ass was almost as loud the opening screech of her song. It was an amazing site seeing the crystal white face of the beautiful woman be engulfed by bulbous, tanned cheeks of the obese samoan.
At the moment of impact Paige wished two things with all her heart, one she'd closed her eyes, she'd wanted to but the vision of that smelly crater plummeting towards her had been like a car crash, no matter how badly she wanted to look away she couldn't, and two she hadn't screamed, now bulging sweaty ass skin was pushing its way into her mouth and yellowing her teeth. Rikishi's ass was worse than she could have ever imagined, the skin was soggy with what paige hoped was sweat, but as it smeared across her delicate face she worried it was something worse, Rikishi's butt cheeks clamed either side of her face, and rubbed her against her eyes, as he moved her in deeper she could feel them clapping against her. The warmth of his damp skin was sickening, it felt being submerged head first into compost on a warm summers day. The handcuffs let her arms just about stretch up his giant ass cheeks, she felt around on them, trying to get a sense of how deep she was in his ass, her smooth hands ran over pulsing pimples, and more dimples than she could count. His cheeks felt like overstuffed bean bag chairs.
The day earlier Rikish had eaten a large takeaway curry, and while he knew it was a mistake, especially with his appearance on WWE television he just couldn't help himself, as usual the spices and and peppers had caused a massive IBS flare up, he'd spent the majority of the morning on the toilet, and while he'd showered before the show, he couldn't stop the surplus of sticky, slimy mucus dribbling out of his rectum. To his delight he could feel Paige's head slushing against it. As the mucus lubricated her face Rikishi found it much easier to gyrate his amble ass against her face, and as he shook her from side to side he couldn't quite her nose in the position to scratch the itch that tickled his asshole every second of every day, but he wasn't going to give up until he got her there.
Paige could barely breath, she didn't want to, but human instinct took over, she had to bury her nose into one side of his ass cheek to find an air pocket, just to catch a breath, she wanted to breathe through her mouth but that was being filled with the remnants of his unwashed leathery thong, as she breathed the attack of foul aromas made her stomach gurgle. Before today she had no idea what a fat mans ass would smell like, but to her horror she found it smelled like a dank apartment, and damp logs, but with a sickening meaty stench of rotten sweat intermingling it. Her tongue gagged and licked the side of Rikishi's ass, God only knew how old the mildewed sweat that was dislodged and feeling into her mouth was, but it was so salty it seared her tongue. Fresh mucus was the next thing her tongue dislodged, it shook on her tongue like living jelly, then slid down her gullet, it tasted strangely metallic. Paige had little time to think about the horrors of what she was consuming as Rikishi's gyrations had sped up. Returning from a neck injury and having a fat man viciously twerking on your face was a bad mix. She wanted to resist his swiveling, to pull her head away, but he was too strong, she felt so helpless trapped in-between his clamp like ass cheeks, have to follow his ass with every movement. After one particularly vicious thrust to the left Paige felt her nose felt her nose sink against something, she realized the only thing between her and Rikishi's asshole was a tiny string of leather.
Rikishi stopped swiveling, Paiges nose was dug in just right, and she was finally in a good position to scratch his never-ending itch. Under the layers of fat, and up inside his hot, steaming ass Paige felt Rikishi stop, she hoped with all her heart the torture had ended, and he was going to release from this sweaty hell. Her hopes were dashed as he started to rub up and down, up and down, the force of which he pushed got harder with every wipe. Layer after layer of sweat and mucus coated her face, she felt like she was being gunged in a nickoloden show, but instead of it being harmless slime, it was with a fatmans ass juice. Sharp little hairs that grew in the depths of Rikishi's ass pricked Paige on the face, little stabs of her ass hair constantly attacked her skin .As he rubbed she couldn't help but think of all the years of sweat and fecal matter that must've amassed on his thong, and now she was being shoved up against it. Paige pulled against her bonds with all her strength, surely, she could break them, she wanted more than anything more in the world to be out of this stinky chamber, but her chains locked and bound her to her smelly nightmare. She cried out in rage, but the scream was muffled with ass flab and sounded nothing more than a wet slob. Rikishi moved up and down faster and faster, enjoying her nose hitting against his asshole, he could feel the dirt and grime that he could never reach in the shower coming loose and attaching itself to Paige's face rather than his ass. He was going to feel fresh after this. Paige could feel that very dirt sinking into her skin, corrupting it, she felt like the smell and the foulness was yellowing her teeth. This was beyond dirty. As he wiped, the crowd chanted in unison 'you deserve it' the chant was deafening. How could anyone deserve this? She still felt their eyes drilling into her, thousands of people were watching her get turned from a beautiful woman, into human toilet paper, and worse millions of people at home were watching her ultimate degradation. Tears filled her fume stung eyes. Rikishi enjoyed the extra lube.
The audience had no idea of just how horrific it was up his backside, to them it was just a fun moment in the bizarre sport of wrestling, and it certainly did look bizarre, Paige's petite face was so deep in Rikishis canyon like ass they couldn't see it anymore, there was only her jet-black hair jutting out of the crack, it made rikishi look like a very fat, very ugly horse.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity Rikishi felt like he'd satiated the never-ending itch....at least for a little while. He stepped forward enjoy the slurping sound as Paige's face dethatched itself from the inside of his ass.
Free of rikishi's smothering ass Paige gulped for air, the relief to be able to breathe again was sullied by the fact there was no fresh air, just the stench of his ass. Too many ass particles had attached themselves to her skin, her face well and truly stunk.
Rikishi turned to look at her, she'd turned beet red, her tongue extended from her mouth desperately wiggling to try and get the taste of his ass juice off, her eyes were blurry and bloodshot from the noxious fumes. He imagined she was instore for a vicious bout of pink eye.
The handcuffs were too short for Paige to be able to reach her face, but she wanted to, more than anything, she could feel an invisible layer of dirt covering every inch of her skin, she wanted to claw it off, but was stuck fighting with her bondage. The crowd applauded as she choked on the stench. This was going to haunt her for the rest of her life. In her quiet moments the damp smell of his ass would come back to her. The feel of her head sliding against his ass would haunt her as she tried to sleep. The foul taste of his slime would ruin every meal she ate. His ass would stalk her every waking thought. There was no coming back from such thorough dehumanization. Rikishi looked down on her and picked up the mic one more time.
'Well, I guess I never did find out what the stinkface was like, but I think you have a pretty good idea, hope you enjoyed that as much as me, if you ever need a reminder, you know I'l lbe around.' With that the lights went low, and Rikishi's music played. He exited the ring. Mandy and Sonya rushed over, they wanted to comfort their leader, but the smell wafting from her was too strong. Paige was left alone with the smell, the taste and the memory of the fat man's ass.

Charlotte Rikishi stood outside the ring, he was watching his daughter in law facing off against the woman’s champion, Charlotte. Ric Flair was moving round the ring, his devious eyes locked onto the ring.
Every time his beautiful daughter hit a move a loud piercing ‘woooo’ would sound around the arena. Naomi had asked Rikishi to come out there and be the veteran in her corner to try and counteract Ric Flair. Rikishi was trying his best, but he was so fat now, he’d checked the scales this morning and he was hovering at the six hundred pound mark. He couldn’t get round the ring as fast as he could in the olden days. Not to mention how uncomfortable he was. He’d wanted to dress up for the occasion, so was wearing his big white leather pants, and jacket, but the match had been going on for a long time, and he’d forgot how hot it got under those bright lights. He was sweating out of every orifice of his body, especially his giant ass. Ric Flair slid round to the other side of the ring and grabbed Naomi’s foot causing her to trip and which Charlotte took advantage of and locked into the figure eight. The match was over. Naomi rolled out the ring, her legs were locking in pain and she fell into the big Kish’s arms.
“It’s okay girl, you’ll get her next time” Said Rikishi, giving her a one arm hug. As they walked away to leave Charlotte to celebrate they heard her smug, satisfied voice reverberate round the arena.
“Well, well, I think we once again realized who the champ is, who is dominant, and who’s nothing but trash.” Charlotte paused, a big grin spreading across her face “N’aww, poor Naomi, I guess you just didn’t have it in your DNA to defeat me. Us Flair’s were basically born better.” The both of them stopped.
“No, no, keep walking you two, walk the hell out of arena, go be loooooosers somewhere else’ Said Charlotte, dragging out the worder ‘loser’ for dramatic effect. Rikishi felt himself getting angry, but Naomi was hurt and he just wanted to get her to the back and let her put her feet up. Not to mention he was already sweltering hot, and wanted to get into a nice, cold shower. Last night he’d made the mistake of eating a bigger than usual dinner with lots of garlic, which caused his IBS to flare up. He’d had to go to the toilet so many times today, and try as he might he just couldn’t get bend the right way to wipe his ass. He hadn’t been able to in a long time, but he’d at least managed to fit a shower in before having to go out to a ring, or interact with humans. Not that the shower’s did much good, his ass was so craterous that the water only cleaned the tops of it. He just couldn’t find a way to get up into the deeper bits of his ass. They’d been dirty for longer than he could remember.
“Go on, get, you two, I mean really, look” at the two of you, Naomi I just proved you’re a joke in the wrong, you should be ashamed to call yourself an athlete, and Rikishi, I’m surprised you haven’t been harpooned and stripped for blubber. Now look at me, tall, gorgeous and a natural champion. I’m ashamed to be even be standing in the same vicinity with you.” Charlotte said. Why was she gloating this much? What was the point? What good she think would come? Rikishi wasn’t sure on what he was planning on doing as he turned around. Of course the stinkface as a punishment was always on his mind, but Naomi was hurt, and he wasn’t sure he could contend with Ric Flair, who old though he might be, was one the trickiest and dirtiest veterans in all of wrestling, as well as Charlotte. How would he even get her into position for the dreaded move. It’s not like he could kick her over. Still, he was striding towards the ring. Maybe he couldn’t teach Charlotte the smelly kind of lesson that he was so good at, but he could at least kick…no he couldn’t do that anymore, his stomach had bulged out too much, he could at least sock the old legend in the jaw.
“Oh my goodness dad, look at him waddle back. Is he walking, I can barely tell he’s such a fat slob of a man.” Charlotte said while pointing and laughing at the big man.
“Wooooo, you tell ‘em baby girl’ Ric Flair said clutching his sides with laughter. Rikishi got into the ring and squared up to them. Naomi was following, albeit slowly, her legs still hurt from the figure eight. Real or kayfabe that move hurt like a bitch to take. Charlotte almost immediately regretted taunting him. Even just standing close to him was disgusting. She could smell day old sweat and mildew wafting from him. She imagined how many deep folds he had and all dank sweat that must’ve been ruminating in them, it was enough to make anyone feel sick. “What ya gonna do fat man, try and take me on, woooo, I’m Ric Flair, I’ve forgotten more about wrestling than you’ll ever know, woooo!” As Ric Flair screamed this into the microphone the Uso’s music hit and they came running down to the ring. Before anyone had time to react they’d already double kicked Ric Flair.
“You can’t do that, the mans a legend!” Screamed Charlotte in her horror, but it was okay he seemed to be fine, he took two step forwards to fight back and fell straight on his face. Charlotte was starting to get nervous now, she’d seen women be in the position so many times before, but it was okay, this wasn’t the attitude era, they couldn’t force her in the corner, all she had to was leave the ring.
“Well, I’d love to stay in the ring with you three fatso’s but you just kicked my dad in the face and I think he needs some medical attention, so I’m gonna scoop him leave and get out of here. Don’t eat to many buffet’s before I beat your daughter again.” Charlotte turned to leave and walked straight into Naomi’s ass. Her legs had strength enough to perform her finishing manuver. Charlotte stumbled backwards and crashed against the corner. She was groggy from the attack and fell down on her ass. Her head ached, it was hard to think straight, she knew she needed to leave but couldn’t remember why or get the energy up to do so.
Naomi went over and hugged her husband.
“No one, but me insults my baby girl.” He said putting an arm around her.
“Big Kish, I think you have something she’s been asking for, for a long time” Said Jay pointing out to Charlotte collapsed in the corner, her head rolling back.
“I sure do, but she took it too far. A stinkface is too good for her.” Jimmy kicked Flair out the ring and turned back to his father.
“Oh and what does she deserve?” He asked.
“Well I have some ideas, but I think its definitely going to be a two part stinkface, with double booty.”
Rikishi took off his leathery clothing revealing his fat, stretch mark infused body. He was so sweaty from standing under the lights for so long. He turned to look at Charlotte in the corner, her head was lolled back but she was starting to regain awareness. Deep down in the depths of his ass an insatiable itch was driving him mad. With his new weight it was impossible to get clean down there, he couldn’t bend that way, but Charlotte was unwillingly going to help him with that. He had big plans for her.
The fog was starting to clear in Charlottes mind, it was a repulsive odour that brought her back to her senses. It smelt like a musky swamp, but with hints of something more foul under the surface. Her head had been rolled back between the two turnbuckles, she sat up straight and was greeted with one of the worst images a WWE superstar could ever see, Rikishi’s stretchmark backside mere inches from her face. He’d moved into position while she’d been recovering from Naomi’s rear end. All around her the crowd was going wild. She’d seen so many other women end up in this position, she couldn’t believe she was here and this was about to happen. She didn’t want to but she had no choice but to study Rikishi’s giant ass. For some reason she couldn’t close her eyes. She was about level with lower bit of the crack. Inside it she was it was lined with a brown wall all of shit, she wondered how long it had been coating him down there. When was the last time he showered? From the way he smelt it couldn’t have been this week. Even if he did shower how on Earth would he wash that enormous thing. She’d heard from The Uso’s he only had one thong left, and it had never been cleaned. With all his weight gain she could barely see the thong, just his bulging butt cheeks.
“Please Rikishi, please, my father has money, I have money, you can’t do this” Charlotte said, she tried to push him away and regretted it immediately. His backside was so hot and sweaty her hands immediately slipped off. How much worse would it be in-between those doughy cheeks?
Rikishi heard her complaints, but he didn’t care. At this point instinct took over. They both knew where she was going now. He laughed feeling her trying to move him, he weighed the same as a small rhino, she has no chance of budging him. He inched a little closer, he wanted her to reflect on all the horrible things she said. The Flair’s had always lived the good life, money, cars and whatever they wanted, he bet after a round with his ass Charlotte would gain some humility. Still it wasn’t just going to be his ass, oh no, he had bigger plans for her. Rikishi made a motion to Naomi to come over and join him.
“Now, all the WWE universe knows my ass is the biggest, but you’ve got a pretty impressive one yourself, hon. What do you say we go in for the first ever double stinkface?” The crowd roared with approval and a wide grin spread over Naomi’s face. “Oh hell yeah” She said, and moved to stand hip to hip with Rikishi. Charlotte groaned. She wanted to escape but there was nowhere to go, both their asses were mere inches away from her face. Any sudden movements and they’d plunge her face in. “Please don’t, anything, money, anything, just please don’t stinkface me.” Pleaded Charlotte, she never got a reply, the two massive asses crashed against her face in unison. All she could feel was a mesh of skin, some of it smooth, other bits pimply, they were both rubbing against her face, crashing into her. Wafts of Naomi’s body spray mingled with the fresh sweat assailed her nostrils, and occasionally whenever Rikishi’s giant ass rubbed against the stench of something much worse flooded in. Still she was almost glad it was happening like this. She’d seen so many videos of diva’s submerged so deep in his flesh buttocks that their heads had totally disappeared. With the two of them crashing against her in unison Rikishi could bury her deep up his massive ass. While it smelled, in a way she’d been spared.
After a minute or so they stepped forward. The itch was still there for Rikishi. He’d wanted to Naomi to get to experience the sensation of giving a diva a stinkface before he offered Charlotte her real punishment.
Rikishi and Naomi stepped away.
Charlotte lolled in the corner, worn out and embarrassed, but relieved. It could’ve been so, so much worse. She’d seen what the three of them had done to Sasha a couple of months ago, people had said she’d never been the same since.
“Boys hold her?” Rikishi said, his two sons darted forward and grabbed both her arms. Charlotte’s heart rate rose again. What was happening? Why were they doing this? She’d taken the stinkface, it was time to move on with the show.
“Did you enjoy giving Charlotte the stinkface, hon?” asked Rikishi looking at Charlotte struggling in the corner. Her eyes were wide and scared, terrified of what was coming next.
“Oh hell yeah, but I do feel like I took away from you a little bit.” “No worries about that, Charlotte over here said some really cruel things, to all of us, for no reason…not reason at al. Now, I ain’t ever stinkfaced someone for no reason. It’s to teach a lesson, give a come uppance, and I think she deserves a big one for what she said. The double stinkface was just the beginning. Boys, bring her to the middle of the ring on her knees.” Rikish commanded, the two Uso’s obeyed their dad, wondering what he had in mind. Charlotte was stronger, stronger than most, but two big burly guys were too much for her to over power. Their arms were like iron, she kicked out her abnormally long legs, stamped them against the floor and tried to push back, but she couldn’t out muscle them. The two of them hoisted her up and dragged across the ring. Charlotte screamed and cursed so loudly the whole arena could hear her, in between their thunder cheers. She’d been champion for so long now, and it was time for her to get what was coming to her. They hadn’t seen the stinkface for a while and it reminded them of wilder times, a different era even. They wanted to know what else Rikishi had planned. As Charlotte kneeled in front of Rikishi she looked up into his eyes, well as best as she could, his bulging belly got in the way. How did he get so big, he was closer to Yokzuna’s size than his wrestling one. A sedentary lifestyle mixed with a slow metabolism was a bad mix. It was so to in the arena, so loud to. Charlotte’s face burned with embarrassment, forced on her knees, at the whims of an obese whale of a man, the only thing bigger than his stomach was his ass, which she’d already got up close and personal with.
“So, you got two asses, but I think it’s time for you to get to know the main one very well. See, hon, I get so itchy in my retirement, no faces to rub this big ole booty on, and you went and volunteered yo’self, but your pressed all up in the corner just ain’t good enough for the disrespect you show the big Kish family.”
Rikish turned to face away from Charlotte, his bulging ass once again level with hers. Charlotte’s big blue eyes bulged out as she was once again forced to count the pimples on it. God, it smelt so bad, even inches away she could feel stagnant, swampy aroma’s seeping out of the crack. Charlotte was a starred athlete, one of the best bodies in all of wrestling, toned, muscular, how could a human be so far away from her perfection? To her horror, and the crowds roar of approval, she saw the thing starting to slip down. Rikishi jiggled his ass a little as the thin cord clung to his sticky crack, but he yanked the garment free and let it drop to his feet. Charlotte was face to face with a totally bare ass. Rikishi always made sure to wear a cup to the ring, you never know what might happen when stepping into a wrestling ring, so the crowd didn’t get to see little Kish, but Charlotte was getting an eyeful of his main asset. She wanted to close her eyes so bad, but they were wide in terror.
“Boys, I’m gonna bend over, on three I want you to shove Miss Flair’s head so deep into my ass that we’ll have to surgically remove her.” Rikish said, the crowd cheered so loudly, Charlotte couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. She thought she got off lightly, on the contrary she was going to get one of the worst stinkfaces of all time.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me” Charlotte screamed, PG be damned, they couldn’t do this to her, could they?
“1”
Rikishi bent over, her nose sunk a little bit into the crack. The smell was overpowering. She was stuck staring at it, brown flakes lined each side of it, soon they were going to cracking of and covering her face.
“Please, no, oh God, no” Charlotte screamed. Her scream was met by one of the worst replies a plea can be met with, a long groaning fart. It smelt like expired garlic that had been mixed in with manure, the air blew her into her face and down into her mouth. She could taste the noxious cloud of gas.
“2”
Charlotte could feel the boys hands tense, getting ready.
“Rikish, my dad’ll give you anything, just don’t do this.” He last attempt to get out of this shitty (literally) predicament. “Sorry hon, but we both know where you’re heading now…3!”
With that Charlotte was plunged face first into Rikishi’s bare ass. What she then experienced, was one of the foulest, most dehumanizing experiences she could imagine happening to anyone. It was hot up his ass, he’d been sweating for hours now, and she could feel his heat. It was like being into a sauna. Slippery, salty sweat covered Charlottes face as she was pushed in between his to doughy cheeks, which she could feel part and then come back together, squashing her face, it felt like being buried in soft clay. They jiggles against her face, but she was past the cheeks and inside the crack. It was swampy in there. Rikishi let out so much mucus with his fart and as it intermingled with his already sweaty buttocks she felt like there was more slime then skin. As the Uso’s pushed her in she felt the muck coat her face, goblets of juice clung to her skin, found their way up into her nose, and coated her eyes. Every time Charlotte took a breath the fuscous liquid snorted up into her nose, like she was breathing in a big bogey. Rikishi was shaking his up and down, causing her to slip and slide around his ass, all the gunge made good lubrication, Charlotte realized her face was basically being used as human toilet paper. She tried with all her might to push against Rikishi’s big cheeks, but the two brother hands just pushed her in further. Her nose squished up against his puckered asshole, she could feel it convulsing in and out in pleasure. Charlotte had always been called horselike due to her big nose, now Rikishi got to enjoy this feature as he caressed his asshole against it. Charlotte had always hated her nose, and now more than other, it was slipping and sliding against his asshole, to her horror once or twice it actually slipped in, then with big push by the Uso’s it penetrated Rikishi’s asshole and stayed in there. She could barely breath, she had to open her mouth, much to her horror, just to catch a breath. The month old flakes of shit dislodged from the inside of his crack and found a new home on her tongue. They tasted bitter and acrid, she wanted to gag, but too much was going on. Somewhere far off the crowd was roaring, they had no idea what she was going through. Charlotte’s eyes burned as salty sweat, and much worse things irritated them. She felt like she’d been swimming underwater in chlorine with no goggles on. The smell was the worst part. It was like being buried first face in a festival porta loo toilet. The swampy aroma mixed with the meaty stench of shit, was repulsive. Charlotte was no longer the WWE’s woman’s champion, but instead a human dildo for Rikishi’s ass. Or that’s how she felt as foul substances coated her face, and sullied her golden hair. Her nose was as wet as a dogs, wet with what she had no idea. She let out a piercing cry of protest as Riksihi shook side from side, his massive as cheeks slapping against the sides of her head. The cry was blocked by Rikishi’s flab and was nothing more than a pitiful gurgle. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her. Rikishi thought about letting her go, but not before one more final humiliation. He let out another fart, it cracked against her nose as the Uso’s let up enough for her to dislodge it. The fart splattered against her face, she could almost feel it corrupting the particles of her skin, turning them the shame shit brown as the inside of his ass.
Finally Ric Flair came back into the ring, he chopped, low blowed and woo’d the Uso’s off his daughter, who fell on to the floor, tears streaming down her eyes. Rikishi looked down at what was left of the woman, her face had turned into beetroot, she was scraping at the invisble layer of muck he’d left on her face. Her long body was curled nto the fetal position. Her stomach convulsed as she dry heaved. He bet she didn’t feel perfect now.
Ric went to hug her, but the smell was too much. They’d get her cleaned up, but he’d keep his distance till then.

Cooties are everywhere. Let us all be aware.
As a newly single woman, I'll be entertaining suitor(s) for the post of husband. Okay.
We should all aim to maintain good health. We should eat a balanced diet. We should exercise our bodies regularly. We should get adequate sleep. We should maintain low stress levels. We should be up to date with our shots. We should also avoid sexually transmitted infections and sexually transmitted diseases.
Now, how can you know if someone has a STD or STI? Well common practice would be to get tested before having sex. But what about kissing? Doesn't that put someone at risk for getting any sort of infection? Ah. Good question. Also, what if there was some way to know beforehand that someone was or wasn't ill so you could cut your losses quickly and move on, saving money and time spent on testing after a long courtship period? Another good question.
Here is my personal method for assessing a possible new partner's sexual health barring a blood test.
Don't kiss on the first date. Don't sleep with them on the first date. A first date is the time to get to know someone. It's to establish a dynamic between two persons, one of romance, one of intent, one of non platonic ness. It's to see them all dolled up. It's to dance the mating dance. It's for nerves, jitters, blunders and stories to tell at the 20th anniversary party. It isn't time to have sex. Save that for later.
A first date is the time to get a little bit closer to your date. Look at their lips. Are there any bumps, bruises, oozing, anything out of the ordinary? Save for acne, irritation, an allergic reaction or anything along those lines, does it look odd? You can inquire about it, gently, not too seriously to find out some more information about a worrisome area.
Also, look at their mouth. Do they have all of their teeth? Do you see evidence of plaque buildup? Gingivitis? Does it look like they floss often? Make them smile. Tell a joke. Do you see any obvious cavities? Make them belly laugh. Look inside their mouth. Is their tongue excessively white? How about their breath? Is it pleasant? Does it seem like they brush their teeth often? Are there any mouth sores that you can see from your position? All of these factors can point to poor dental hygiene, which can be a turn off. Imagine kissing someone with sour breath. Yuck. Imagine someone with actively oozing pustules in and around their mouth going down on your privates. No.
Also, there are some sexually transmitted infections that are orally transmitted. Look them up. Know how they manifest in the mouth. Keep an eye out. Yes, some infections are dormant. Yes, there are sometimes outbreaks. But, if someone is a carrier, they may not be able to hide it forever. Time can reveal all. Sometimes you just have to wait things out and see how they play out.
Moving on. The skin is the body's largest organ. It covers its entire surface, and if you can read someone's skin, you can often infer as to their health. A visual assessment of someone is oftentimes a first level diagnosis that a doctor makes. You and I dear reader may not be doctors, but we can adopt some of their techniques.
I like to see a man after a shower. I'd like him to remove all product. Remove all perfumes - lotions, creams, all products that obscure him in his natural element. Some men do wear makeup. Nothing wrong with that. But studio lighting, angles, and a little foundation can do wonders for a man's image. There is a saying, "Take a woman swimming on a first date to see the real her." I say the opposite. "Tell a man to shower to see the real him."
Then, I'd like to give him a full body massage. Yes, I'd love him to be relaxed. But it's also an investigative mission on my end. I'm touching each part of him and looking. I'm looking for boils. I'm looking for rashes. I'm looking for anything out of the ordinary that could signal danger for me and my health. I'd look at his privates.
I'm looking for a regular looking penis. Nothing that oozes pus. Nothing inflamed, or sore to the touch. Healthy penis skin. Healthy balls skin. Ingrown hairs are fine, especially if he is Black and shaves his pubic region. It comes with the territory. Pubic acne is fine. Today's modern diet with all its sugar, dairy, hormones and other disruptors give persons pimples all over their body. Irritation because of products he uses on his privates are fine. In between tissue paper, wipes, laundry detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, lotions, ball perfumes, harsh soaps, shampoos, conditioners, sweat, urine, underwear that is too tight and a myriad of other things, more than likely he could have some irritation. I'd probably advise that he change out his soap to a gentler brand and see if any irritation he has clears up.
Also, use the rest of your senses. Smell. Can you smell him after he had a bath? Does he smell of urine? Feces? Can you smell his privates from a distance? Touch him. Are there any parts that feel odd? Any scaly parts? Any rough parts? Any heavily discolored parts? You're looking out for your best interest here. Now isn't the time to be overly generous or considerate in your assessment of him, especially when it isn't needed, or he hasn't necessarily earned your benefit of the doubt. He's proving himself here. So be as discerning as you wish.
This is a side note. I'd never date a man with an extra finger. It looks weird to me. That's my hill I'm standing on. I know I'd see the little guy upon first meeting so we wouldn't get to this stage, but wow. No.
So yeah. If upon your initial screen, things were okay, well then it's up to you to ask that they get tested. Maybe there are some areas of concern, and you'd like to give it some more time to see if things clear up or improve. It's up to you how quickly you want to progress to sharing your body with another.
What about if they were with someone within the last six months? It takes six months for diseases to show up on a blood test, so maybe wait six months with you both being celibate before getting intimate with them? Maybe you work your way up to things, kissing, touching under clothing, full body massages, moving through the bases slowly taking care to keep a watchful eye out for anything concerning?
You always have the right to revoke access to your body should anything pop up that has you concerned. You always have to keep an eye out for things that may be suspicious in the end. Trust, but verify is the motto.
You can't prevent a partner from cheating. You can protect yourself by ensuring you go into the relationship healthy, and picking a partner that values fidelity when with you. With that, luck, and some prayer to the one above, maybe you can navigate this dating world and come out unscathed. Godspeed.
On we go.

Did you experience oxalate dumping symptoms from a carnivore/animal based diet? Please comment with your experience and how long you were carnivore before symptoms began.
Symptoms include (from Susan Owens Autism, Oxalate, and Sulfur Research):
BRAIN ISSUES/MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES - MOOD & SLEEP ISSUES:
Anger / sudden rage
Anxiety
Brain Fog
Depression
Fatigue
Headaches
Hormone issues
Insomnia
Irritability
Panic Attacks
Stroke
Seizures
BREAST ISSUES:
Sore/Swollen Breasts/Breast calcifications (sometimes)
BREATHING ISSUES:
Air hunger (Dyspnea) / Shortness of breath (hard to get a full breath)
Asthma
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease [COPD]
Cystic Fibrosis
Dry Cough /phlegmy cough (mucus in lungs)
Sinus issues
DIGESTION ISSUES:
Bloated Stomach
Diarrhea /Constipation / Alternating Diarrhea and Constipation
Irritable Bowel Disease [IBD]
Stomach pain/nausea
EAR ISSUES:
Ear Stones [Otoliths]
Fluctuations in hearing
Increase in ear wax
Odd sensations in the ears (fullness) / plugged ears
Tinnitus
Vertigo and dizziness
ELIMINATION ISSUES/ STOOL ISSUES:
Black specks / white specks/ crystals in stool
Burning stool
Diarrhea / Constipation / (alternating diarrhea and constipation)
From Susan - You can see an onset of diarrhea including sometimes very sandy stools and stools with black specs. (This may be oxalate, but we don't yet have stool testing to confirm that.)
Light colored stool
Sandy stool
ELIMINATION ISSUES/ URINARY ISSUES:
Bladder pain [Interstitial Cystitis (IC)]
Blood in urine/foul smelling urine/cloudy urine
Chronic Urinary Tract Infections (UTI's)
Frequent Urination
Inflammation of Prostate Gland/Nonbacterial Prostatitis
Redness in genital area
Temporary worsening or onset of urinary issues like: Genital pain (penis/vulva) - E.g. Vulvodynia (VVD) (pain at opening of vagina)
Urinary Frequency or Urinary Urgency
EYE ISSUES:
Burning / red / gritty / crusty eyes
Cataracts
Eye Pain
Floaters in eyes
Styes in the eye
GALLBLADDER ISSUES:
Gallbladder pain
Gallstones
HEART ISSUES:
Heart palpitations
HORMONAL CHANGE ISSUES:
Hormone Issues
Menstruation Issues – Some members have had issues around the time of ovulation and/or with their menstruation after lowering oxalate.
Monique Attinger (admin) said, “I have absolutely heard* of issues with menstruation after lowering oxalate... and I've experienced it. I've also talked with many clients who have talked about how they get the start of a dump timed with their cycle (usually pre-menstrual) and that there does seem to be some kind of affect on hormones by oxalate.” E.g. Some members get joint pain around the time of menstruation or they haven't had a period for a long time and when dumping they get their period back.
KIDNEY ISSUES:
Kidney Pain
Kidney Stones
Lower back pain
LIVER ISSUES:
Liver pain
Liver stones
MISCELLANEOUS/VARIOUS ISSUES (maybe from a lack of vitamins and minerals that oxalate chelates):
Achy all over
Candida Overgrowth
Chills/Cold Skin (listed under Thyroid and Skin Issues too)
Craving Oxalate Foods (oxalate has an addictive quality)
Flu like symptoms
(Flu like symptoms could include achy all over and chills/cold skin because oxalates can be stored in and impact the thyroid which regulates our body temperature. Oxalates can also impact iron and possibly lead to anemia because transferrin's carbonate ion can be replaced by oxalates if oxalates can gain access to this site at sufficient concentrations. When that happens, unlike the carbonate ion, the oxalate anion won't let go of the iron, so it sequesters iron irreversibly.)
Hiccup
Internal trembling/shaking
Pain From Old Injury Sites
Swollen lymph nodes
Thirst
Weight gain/loss
MOUTH AND THROAT ISSUES [see also Breathing Issues]:
Air hunger
Burning tongue / mouth/ lips
Difficulty swallowing/Narrowing of the esophagus (esophageal stenosis/esophageal stricture)
Dry cough [phlegmy cough]
Headaches [Sinus, Tension, Stress]
Hoarse voice/vocal chord issues
Loss of ability to speak (Aphonia)
Salivary Stones [Sialoliths]
Sinus Issues
Sore Throat
Tonsil Stones [Tonsilloliths]
MUSCLE ISSUES:
Muscle pain
Muscle twitching
NERVE ISSUES:
Peripheral neuropathy (Nerve pain, a pins-and-needles sensation, numbness, and weakness)
SKELETAL ISSUES:
Achy all over
Back and or Neck Pain
Bone Marrow Issues
Burning Feet/ skin
Frozen Shoulder
Internal trembling/shaking
Joint pain
Osteopenia
Osteoporosis
SKIN ISSUES:
Bruising – Possibly.
Susan Owens says that "when oxalate leaves your tissues, it is still oxalate and oxalate has been used by scientists as an anticoagulant/blood thinner in a test tube. This hasn’t been tested in human beings yet."
Chills/Cold Skin
Cold Sores
Crystal like shards coming out of the skin - usually white or black (testing is needed to verify if its oxalate for sure)
Psoriasis flares
Possibly acne, little bumps and pimples
Rashes/Hives
From Susan - Strange rashes appear that you have not seen before. This can include livedo reticularis, which is an inflammation of blood vessels that makes them show up vividly in the skin, looking a little like a road map.
Really dry, terribly itchy skin
Wrinkles/Loose Saggy Skin
TEETH ISSUES:
Inflamed gums (Periodontium)
From Susan - (in rare cases) can lead to reabsorption of the roots of teeth, which starts to make the teeth become loose. Oxalate crystals can cause gum problems in addition to the teeth problems mentioned above. If symptoms of this type begin, you may need more antioxidant protection.
Loose teeth (rare)
Tartar (Lots)
Tooth Resorption (rare)
THYROID ISSUES:
Chills/Cold skin [listed under Skin Issues and Various Issues] because oxalates can be stored in and impact the thyroid which regulates our body temperature. There can be micro-calcifications of oxalate in the thyroid.
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Laundry day was both the best and the worst day of the week. Worst because my family produced an inhuman amount of laundry which was solely my responsibility to deal with, and best because I got to spend a couple of hours with my two best friends in the whole world, Shay and Lyn.
I’d push and pummel my family’s laundry into two of those big, flimsy-looking canvas bags, then huff and puff my way up the hill to the laundromat on Main Street. I was usually joined halfway by Shay – small and frail looking as a child half her age – wearing two huge and ratty backpacks on her front and back. Lyn was always there first, being the organised one. By the time we got there, she’d be sorting clothes into piles, with one headphone wedged in her ear blasting study notes loud enough to drown out the omnipresent hum, bang and clatter of the machines.
Unlike my family and Shay’s, Lyn’s family wasn’t actually poor – they were just super tight with money and knew the laundromat owners, so got a discount. It made more sense for their youngest daughter to lug all their clothes three blocks and wash them than to buy a machine and use their own water to do them at home. I guessed there was also some kind of disciplinarian aspect to it – like making sure Lyn knew her place as the dutiful daughter – but Lyn herself never talked about that. Of course, she’d never tell her folks that she actually enjoyed it, because then they’d probably take the chore away from her.
Lyn also made a point of never talking about, or scrutinising, our clothes. My brothers’ clothes usually stank of accumulated sweat from their obsessive sporting exploits, and could generously be described as borderline threadbare. There were also the knitted monstrosities mom had made all of us since we were born. They came in an eye-watering array of cheap colours – socks, sweaters, beanies, anything you can picture in itchy wool, and all of them carried mom’s dire warning to wash and dry on the much lengthier cool settings, or they would shrink. I’d never been bold enough to test this; I’d already endured enough bullying at school because of her clothing choices for me. I really didn’t need ‘shrunken’ added to the sad list of adjectives used to describe my skint chic.
As for Shay? Her family’s income was inversely proportionate to the number of kids they had. ‘Threadbare’ in this instance would have been an overly generous description of their earthly garments; which her mother insisted just highlighted how lavishly clothed their souls were, or something like that. I often reflected on how it was a shame that this apparent spiritual richness didn’t translate into a full belly, because if Shay hadn’t been notorious for hanging around the trash cans at school to nab any decent uneaten food, you would have accused her of being anorexic. I was constantly amazed she had the energy to carry all her family’s clothes, let alone go through the rigamarole of washing them too.
Anyway, despite our ‘diverse’ backgrounds, labouring at our weekly chore had meant we’d quickly become friends. We made sure our washing days always synced up. It was a couple of hours free from any other people or responsibilities, so there we sat together in the weirdly liminal space of the Main Street Laundromat, talking shit and watching clothes circle in the massive industrial washers and dryers. Like I said, it really was the best day of the week.
Or at least it had been. Until we found the note.
​
Lyn spotted it as she opened one of the still-warm dryers; the paper creased, frayed around the edges from its ordeal inside the machine, but the ink bone-dry, unsmeared. She carefully unfolded the note to read it, and I peered over her shoulder while I set yet another additional 10 minutes on my cool cycle.
“Probably someone’s lost homework” she joked, “Should probably check and return it to them.”
Shay’s untidy mop of blonde appeared over Lyn’s other shoulder,
“Yikes, if it is homework it’d be kinder to throw it away. That handwriting alone is gonna get the kid a fail.”
I was the fastest reader of the three of us (the library being the least expensive hangout in our town) and I scanned it at a glance.
“Um, that’s not homework,” I told them.
Spreading the note flat on one of the folding counters, Lyn adjusted her glasses with one businesslike finger, and began to read aloud, her voice only just audible over the heavy hum of endlessly revolving machinery:
“To who ever finding this note. I discover now a wonderful something! Riches beyond wild dreaming are mine and I have wish to share fortune”
“Jeez, are we being telemarketed by a fucking washing machine note?” I quipped under my breath.
“Shhhhh!” Shay admonished.
Lyn pursed her mouth, then continued louder:
“…wish to share fortune. I not believing at first, but there is world on other side of these machine! Don’t ask how I discover, is not happy story. But discover yes I did! If you go inside machine at after midnight, it take you another place. Strange place, many losted cloth and losted thing, but also losted money! Pile and pile of coin, old coin new coin, in big heap like snow, all clean and shining polish from machine trip. I have tape one coin to here note for you examine, it show my story real. Friend I big hope you find fortune also!”
“There’s no coin,” Lyn said, disappointed, touching the rough patch where scotch tape had clearly ripped off the bottom of the note.
“Ooh one sec,” Shay replied, and hoisted her skinny legs easily into the mouth of the dryer.
After a few moments her pink, pimpled face peered out, then broke into a slow smile as she held out a gleaming silver coin, easily overlooked against the shiny steel of the drum’s interior.
“That looks old,” I said.
“Old, definitely. And maybe valuable,” Lyn posited, taking a photo, then immediately opening a browser on her phone.
It didn’t take long to verify that the coin was from around 1920, somewhat rare, and that a specimen could fetch somewhere between forty and two hundred dollars at auction, depending on the condition.
Shay’s pale blue eyes seemed all shiny coin themselves, glowing at this information.
“Can we put it up on eBay?” she said, breathlessly, “Like, split it three ways?”
I glanced askance at Lyn. She half-nodded, half-shrugged, re-folding the note. “Sure, I don’t see why not. I mean, technically *you* found the coin Shay, so it’s up to you.”
Shay gave a little whoop of joy, and punched the air with the coin in her fist.
In the excitement of it all, we virtually forgot about the incredible claim on the note.
The silver coin (real silver, it turned out) sold two weeks later. The week after that, we met up at the laundromat, to divvy up the spoils. The auction capped out at eighty-eight dollars, and Lyn, the only one with access to her own bank account, reverently passed Shay and I a crisp new twenty dollar bill, plus a five dollar bill each.
“Now, if you two can keep an eye on my load, I’ll go buy us ice-creams,” she declared – and we readily agreed.
Twenty minutes later we were sat in our regular spot, watching our family’s dirty clothes slap and bang inside the big machines, blissfully eating our treats.
Shay picked at the corner of the faux-leather cushioning on her seat, where the ancient yellow foam had started to come through.
“You know. I could really get used to this,” she said, eyeing the nibbled-down stub of her cone.
“I mean, yeah,” I agreed, “But what are the chances we ever find another coin like that?”
That peculiar light entered Shay’s eyes again, and she stared at me with unnerving intensity.
“Come on. You both know what I’m thinking.”
Lyn shook her head definitely, matter-of-fact.
“No. It was either a prank, or it was some schizophrenic asshole who randomly found a vintage coin somewhere. There is no fucking way you are climbing into a clothes dryer after midnight to look for a mystical laundry dimension full of collectable coins.”
I could still feel the sharp-edged crispness of the newly minted twenty-dollar bill as Lyn had pressed it into my palm. That feeling, for me, had been borderline magical. For Shay? It must have been mind-blowing.
Shay nodded morosely, then stuffed the end of the cone in her mouth, closing her eyes and grunting contentedly as she crunched.
But I had to wonder if those eyes, beneath their thin lids, still shone with that same, pale and feverish light.
We didn’t notice anything hugely different about Shay at school, except that she seemed happier and hung out with us a bit more, and spent less time hanging around the trash for free sandwiches. I don’t know why I assumed that was because she’d been eking out her twenty-five dollars. The girl had all the poor impulse control that I had – and I’d blown all my share in two days. Lyn was the smart one who was good with money and suchlike; Shay and I joked she’d probably invested it, and had already doubled her windfall.
Maybe I fooled myself that I didn’t see the weird, long bruises across Shay’s shins, like nothing that had never been there before, or that one day she arrived at school with a swelling bump on the side of her head and was vague all day; unable to focus or pay attention.
I mean, she was happy, even that day. Happier than I’d ever seen her.
​
The first red flag was when she didn’t turn up for laundry day.
This happened sometimes with one of us; someone would be sick, or have other plans, sometimes family stuff going on. But we’d always let the others know via IM. I did know wi-fi access was a bit spotty for Shay, but she’d always make an effort to let us know if she wasn’t coming – even if it meant sending one of her multitude of siblings to tell us.
Now, Lyn and I weren’t dumb. We suspected exactly what you did; that Shay had been sneaking out at midnight to climb into the industrial dyers and look for coinage. The existence of the note, that first rare coin, Shay’s subsequently full stomach, her general demeanour of happiness – it all pointed to the idea that maybe she had found a way into some liminal space inside the laundromat where ‘losted things’ accumulated.
“What about her injuries?” Lyn asked, “What if she’s, like, being abused by someone for money?”
“As in, like, sex work or something?” I responded, incredulous.
“I dunno, sure. Maybe kinky stuff? It’s a more plausible explanation. Occam’s razor and all that.”
I knew Lyn didn’t want to discuss the note. She didn’t believe, she couldn’t, and I’m not certain I actually did either. I tried to be as logical at Lyn always was.
“What if... what if the note and the coin just gave us enough doubt for her to do something else? To let her do whatever else it is that she’s doing, but to let us *think* she’s going to some stupid laundry pocket dimension?”
Lyn nodded, “Maybe, yeah. But it still doesn’t explain where she is.”
“I’ll check on my way home – stop in at her house.”
“OK, cool. Let me know what you find out.”
Shay’s mother, a harassed-looking woman in her late 40s with a newborn on one breast, told me she hadn’t seen her for “probably about a day”. Questioning the three brothers she shared a room with proved more fruitful; they claimed they hadn’t seen her for two nights.
Her mother was loath to call the cops and report her missing, even after I told her I knew it had been long enough to worry. After I had a brief txt exchange with Lyn, Lyn convinced her parents to call the police and report our friend as a missing person.
We waited for two more anxious days before both Lyn and I were contacted to come into the local station to answer some questions.
The police officer was a woman, and she was really nice, offering us tea or coffee. She broke the news gently but plainly: Shay’s body had been found. Her mother had been informed, and they were in the process of releasing the information, whatever that meant. She asked us a few questions about Shay’s state of mind, her home life, then said she would try to answer any questions we had.
I was shellshocked, but Lyn stayed composed.
“Where? Where did you find her?” she asked.
The officer’s expression was genuinely sympathetic.
“In the Main Street laundromat. A woman doing her laundry late last night found the body - uh, Shay – inside one of the dryers.”
“The one two from the right on the back wall” I said, barely audible.
“Yes, that exact one,” the cop said, incredulous, and slightly suspicious, “How did you know that?”
Lyn’s eyes were huge now.
“Do you have... pictures?”
The woman shook her head, “Look, the images are quite disturbing. It certainly isn’t suitable for you to view them, they…”
He voice became a flat buzzing sound in the background, as I imagined what had happened. A kid at school once told me, with gruesome boyish relish in the details, about how his toddler brother had put their kitten inside the dryer at their house. Their mother heard an ungodly banging inside the machine and opened it to check, but too late. The cat was inside, wedged and tangled in white sheets, the stink of cooked blood. The poor animal was still just barely alive when they pulled it out, pink froth bubbling from its nose and mouth, the huge, swollen purple slug of its tongue blocking the airway. Its body convulsed for minutes in the miserable throes of death until it finally expired, stiff-legged, on the spattered linoleum.
“…yes, in fact... there was something odd,” I emerged from the memory to hear the policewoman answering Lyn.
“What?” I managed, “What did you say?”
The woman gave me a sharper look. “There was something odd about the situation. Very odd.”
“Well?” Lyn prompted.
The officer sighed, then passed us a photo as if it was against her better judgement.
“Her pockets, and her backpack, were full of these. We think that likely contributed to her death – the weight of them inside the machine may well have knocked her unconscious. The coroner will judge whether the heat, the battering, or both, were the ultimate cause of death.”
I already knew what the photo would show, and so did Lyn. But we looked anyway.
Piles and piles of coins. Many identifiably old, even with the perspective of the photo, where they might have been little drifts of silvery snow.
​
Laundry day isn’t the same anymore.
Lyn and I have a new place; neither of our parents let us go back to the Main Street Laundromat after the incident. Now we meet at a smaller, dingier place, six inconvenient blocks away.
We don’t really talk about Shay. We both know what actually happened, and we both stayed tight-lipped, knowing the cops wouldn’t believe us – or believe the note.
I believe it now, though.
So every night, Lyn and I take a picture of ourselves in our bedrooms, after midnight, and send it to each other. We’re sort of each other’s conscience now, because otherwise Shay died for nothing. I don’t know about Lyn, but whenever I start to think about the note, it feels impossible that I won’t go back to the Main Street Laundromat. Wouldn’t you want to see for yourself?

Have you ever felt the taste of human flesh hit your tongue, the sweet but tangy flavor seeping into your taste buds as you crunch down on the flesh covered meat, well it's what I long for.
A boy had grown up in a small town, yet he remained unnoticed and invisible to those around him. No one noticed his perfect emerald green eyes that glistened when rays of sunlight hit them or his bush of hair that curls together just right, but I noticed him. I noticed how every Tuesday he would walk to the library to catch up on his studies and biweekly he would go to his grandma's nursery to sew with her.
Even though we grew up in the same town and went to school together, the two of us had officially met at a charity event in Lesotho. It was an event where we helped build new homes for the community. Oren and I were placed in the same group. As we worked together, I got to know him better and I immediately grew obsessed with him. Once the event was over and we returned home, sorrowful thoughts suffocated me. Being away from Oren felt as though my heart was getting ripped out of my chest. Having to go a day without his energetic laugh and alluring scent of burning wood, surged an aching through my stomach. Before I knew it, I began to long for his touch and his presence.
When I started university at Bridgeport, I had found out Oren was attending Bridgeport as well. Walking through the tall doorway into my biology class, sitting there, looking as perfect as ever, was Oren. He waved at me. Butterflies penetrated my stomach as I walked over and sat in the seat next to him. Just as I sat down, the bell rang and the teacher started his lecture.
After an hour and a half of painstakingly enduring biology class, Oren and I decided to walk to a cafe nearby. As we were seated, engaged in a conversation about our class, a girl approached us. The girl sauntered up to Oren with a provocative sway of her hips and breast practically jumping out of her shirt. It seemed someone else had noticed him too.
My mind was consumed with resentment as I watched the girl talk to Oren, completely disregarding my existence. The sound around me seemed to fade away, as if my ears had become deaf to everything else once they began discussing the idea of hanging out. I felt an urge to release a piercing wail and assert my ownership over him, but I couldn't ignore the painful truth: he wasn’t mine. I was aware of the wandering eyes of Oren glancing at me and giving me the look as if asking if I'm okay.
I nod my head, deciding to enter myself into their conversation, “Where are you guys thinking about hanging out?”
Almost looking offended, the girl replied, “I’ve got two tickets for a movie.”
“I'll pay for a third ticket so Liyla can join,” Oren blurted out.
“I don't mind,” the girl replied. Obviously she minded.
The girl then bellowed at me, “I don't think we've met before, I’m Nevada.”
“Liyla,” I uttered.
Nevada smiled distastefully. She turned her attention back to Oren, continuing to seduce him in front of me. Not able to stomach anymore of their flirting, I excused myself to the restroom. Instead I went straight out the door of the cafe. I didn’t care if Oren saw me. My heart was broken. Tears flowed uncontrollably along my pimple-filled cheeks, as I walked aimlessly around.
I continued walking in a random direction for what felt like hours until I found myself back at my dorm. Walking inside, I hear the ding of my phone and see a message from Oren.
Are you alright?
I threw my phone against the wall, hoping to shatter it into pieces. I sprang into my bed, burying my face into my pillows.
That night felt different. The air was suddenly thick, like a smoker's lung filled with mucus. It felt as if clouds covered my shining sun. Unable to get out of bed, I decided to skip my homework and go straight to bed.
In the middle of the night, I suddenly woke up. My body was unable to move.
Great another night of sleep paralysis, I thought, having been through this many times before. I lie there waiting for the hallucinations to start. In the corner of my room, I saw a short and stubby man wearing the typical trench coat, but with a sombrero. I wanted to laugh but the grip of sleep paralysis was a virus in my body. I then moved my eyes to the other side of me to see the exact same figure.
Now a little startled I try to keep my eyes closed in order to have this pass, when I feel the touch of a person's lips around my calf, biting me. The pain grew as if it felt that someone was tearing my skin off, when I tried to scream nothing came out, just the breath from my lungs.
Next thing I knew I saw the face of a man appear as if it's coming down from my ceiling like a spy, while unable to scream the figure laughs at me struggling to move. The figure then drops through me, I can feel the coldness take over me and my thoughts become not my own. The feeling of dread suffocates me after. Eventually laying there for maybe an hour, the biting sensation on my calf stops, I start to feel the droopiness off my eyelids, and I pass out.
As the sun awoke, so did I, I roused to the overbearing feeling of hunger. I swiftly make my way into my kitchen where I devour anything in my sight: raw meat, vegetables, raw noodles, you name it. Still this feeling of hunger never left.
My attention is driven to the notification from my phone, walking over to the cracked phone, I checked to see that Oren had texted me, it read ‘we’re meeting at the movies in an hour, see you then?’ I responded with a thumbs up and checked the time. It was already 7:30 pm, and I slept all day.
Getting ready was hard, my tear filled eyes restricted me from looking my best. After I put on my clothes,I skipped doing my makeup out of fear of it getting messed up and looking worse than I already did. While I'm getting ready the intense feeling of hunger never leaves, but gets worse; It felt as though someone was ripping me from the inside of my stomach.
Locking the door behind me, I started the 10 minute walk to the movie theaters. The whole walk it felt as though someone was watching me, I couldn't shake the feeling. No matter how much I turned my head or how quick, I never saw a person or even an animal nearby.
Walking up the sidewalk to the theater, I see Oren and Nevada talking rather close to each other. I assumed they were waiting for me; when I noticed them walking inside. Dumbfounded, I came to a stop and checked my phone to see a message from Oren.
Change of plans, we aren't going anymore.
My heart shattered even more than it already has, I've officially been replaced. I slowly walk inside and walk up to Oren, “Thanks for ditching me,” I say, not letting myself cry in order to not show weakness. He doesn't respond and I see a sly smile on Nevadas face, admitting my defeat, I decide to walk away.
Once I walked out of the theater, I began to start running. The ravenous craving of food with a mixture of immense dismal, seeped into my blood. so, I decided to go to the cafe.
Walking inside, the fluorescent lights make my eyes shift from the gloomy atmosphere to the liveliness of the cafe; I sit down at my usual table and wait for one of the workers to come take my order. I finally get the chance to calm down and examine my thoughts.
Following a short wait, a lengthy woman comes up to me and asks, “Can I get you anything?”
“I'll take a jelly bun and one large coffee with 3 pumps of caramel and 5 pumps of cream,” I responded.
As she was writing down my order I couldn't help but look at her arm, that's when the intrusive thoughts started appearing.
I wonder what she tastes like
fills my thoughts as if not my own, unable to control the overwhelming thoughts I decide to just walk out.
Walking in a random direction I notice a park in the distance, thinking I could sit there to clear my thoughts; I walk up and sit on a swing. A few minutes later a child comes bouncing along the pathway with her pigtails that look like curly fries. The thoughts come back ‘eat her.’ I gasp and jump off the swing while flying in the air. Tumbling while getting up, I ran, not knowing where to run to, I just ran. Not too long later I ended up back at my dorm.
Unlocking my door with shaking hands, I quickly barricade myself inside. unable to stomach the pain anymore, I decided to call Oren to see if he could come over to help. After talking to a sorrowful and concerned Oren, he agreed to come over. I soon heard the knock of the door and ran to it, opening the door.
I see Oren as gorgeous as ever, dressed in what I imagine is his best casual wear. That's when I look to the left of him and see Nevada holding onto his arm; The tenderness of my heart turned to ice. “Come inside,” I mumble while holding my stomach. That's when both of them walk inside my dorm and sit on the couch hand in hand.
Feeling like I'm about to get sick, I say I'm using the bathroom and walk towards the washroom that's in my room. While sitting at the toilet, throwing up all of the junk I've eaten today, I feel inside of me like something is moving throughout my body, slowly taking control of each limb. As my body becomes not my own, I stand up quickly and head towards my bedroom once more.
That's when I instinctively grab something from underneath my bed, a box. In this box I keep my firearm which I'm not technically supposed to have, but I do incase of protection. In almost a trance- like state I grab the gun out of the box and load it with ammo; what am I doing?
Slowly walking out of my room, I pointed the gun right at Nevadas head. Oren nor Nevada could see me as the couch was facing away from my room, this felt right. I pulled the trigger under my finger, the deafening sound of the gun rang through the room. I look up to see Nevada no longer in sight, but Oren right next to her aiding her. This is what he should be doing to me, I'm the one in pain, I'm the one who called him here, only him, not her. This enrages me as I lift up the gun again, point it right at Orens heart, and as I did before, and pulled the trigger.
I strolled over to Oren to see him lying there, gasping for air and coughing up blood. As he says his last words, "Why."
The guilt pierces my heart like the bullet I just put in his, no this is his fault, I shouldn't feel guilty for him picking another girl over me.
An intense smell hit my nose, the smell was indescribable, and it made my mouth water like never before. That's when I realized the smell was coming off the corpses below me. I kneel down and lick the skin of Oren, a rush fills me as my taste buds grow excited at the taste of his skin. Whatever was inside me, controlling me, made me long for more of Oren, not in a sexual way, but I wanted to ingest him.
Going into the kitchen, I grab the largest knife I have, then make my way back to the bodies on my floor. Immense anger filled me as I looked at Nevadas face, still more beautiful than me, even after life. I lifted up the knife and plunged it right into her stomach, blood oozing out as I moved the blade out of her, just wanting to make sure she's finished off.
I lick the blade of the knife and the sweet taste of blood hits my tongue. I then go into a fury of chopping up Nevada piece by piece, making sure to cut bite sized chunks to feast on. Slowly the feeling of hunger disappeared and the discomfort faded, I felt accomplished.
After I finished my meal, I realized I was left with nothing but bones, hair, and the body parts I'd prefer not to eat.I grab some rags and cleaning spray, and get to work cleaning up all of the blood on my floor. After I quickly grabbed a box and shoved the discarded organs,,rags from cleaning, and the knife into it. At this time it was pitch dark out so I sneakily made my way out of my dorm with the box, and to a nearby dumpster where I know stray dogs like to roam. I place the box just outside of the dumpster with stuff on top of it to hide it from the human eye.
As I made my way back to my dorm I quickly scanned over the crime scene to make sure I cleaned it back to the way I left it, so that my roommates wouldn't get suspicious. After that I stroll into my bedroom, take a deep clean shower in order to wash all of the blood off me , and make sure to put my bloody clothes into a trash bag that I will throw away in the morning. I then make my way into my cozy bed and soon find myself dozing in a deep sleep.
Once again I woke up to the feeling, or rather not the feeling, of my body. Already expecting what was about to happen, prepared myself for the inevitable. As I was staring at my ceiling, I saw the sombrero man appear like a dangling spider, not really scared of him, but more intrigued. I tried to talk but my vocal cords feel as though someone is ripping them as I tried. As he is moving toward me he sticks out his tongue and licks my face from cheek to forehead, and said, “Good job my little prodigy,” he then screamed an inhuman like screech and fell into me, coldness shook me to the core.
I must've passed out because next thing i knew i opened my eyes to daylight, surprisingly my anxiety was low this morning. I got dressed in my usual sweats and a sweater, then grabbed the bag of bloody clothes and my backpack as I exited my front door. I was off to my first class, but not before stopping at a different dumpster than the night before.
As I'm walking into the classroom, I glance at the seat Oren had sat at the day before. I sit in the chair next to it and wait for the teacher to do roll call of the classroom, as he does each day. After hearing Orens name called and getting no response, a feeling of pity flows through me. Why do I keep feeling bad for him? This was his fault. During class my thoughts wandered to the sombrero man I kept on seeing. Being a huge believer in the paranormal I decided to google any past deaths in my dorm. Turns out in 1947 there was a man the age of 23 who ended up killing 18 women and men, and eating them. This man hung himself in order to escape the police right here in my room. Past people in my dorm have stated seeing the man in a sombrero, no one believed them, but i did.
I realized I liked this life. I liked eating people and the thrill of covering up the discarded body parts. It made me feel as though I was the most powerful when ingesting the meat of humans. This delight would soon be crushed, as the justice system would soon catch up with me. News went around that there was a box found next to a dumpster full of human body parts. ‘Shit.’ Almost as quickly, people soon noticed that Oren and Nevada were missing, Nevada more than Oren. I went on with my life, soon forgetting about Oren and Nevada, as I was now focused on finding my next meal.
One morning I got a knock on my door, my roommate was out so I got my lazy butt up off my bed and walked right up to the front door, opening it I saw the police. By heart dropped, they knew. All i could do was let them search my dorm, they found loads of evidence against me and arrested me right on the spot.
I was thrown into a jail cell for around 5 months before my trial, the food was terrible, tasted nothing like the flesh of a human, it was tortuous. At my trial I saw the families of Oren and Nevada, all of them were crying and or giving me a death stare. I couldn't help but smile at each and everyone of them. Turns out eating people isn't taken too lightly in my country, and I received the death penalty. I wasn't scared, or sad, all I could think about was the sensation of flesh hitting my tongue.
Being tossed into a solitary confinement cell this time, I spent the next 32 years there, being alone, having nothing to do, and away from any human contact, not even my family wanted to visit me. the food was a little better at least, i received raw lamb at my request, it was the closest tasting to human in my opinion. On the morning of another Monday, it turned out to be my execution day.
To my surprise, my cell door swung open. Standing there I saw a scared woman, I could smell it, in a police uniform holding a pair of handcuffs. Knowing the drill, I turned around and put my hands behind my back, ready to feel the icy metal against my skin. Her shaky hands put the cuffs on me and led me out of my cell. Walking through the prison was nostalgic, as we were twisting and turning through the prison, we made it to a door, the door led us outside and the light of the sun blinded me, after not seeing it for so long. Waiting for us was a van that I figured out was leading me to my death.
Sitting in the chair, where I was about to die, was oddly calming, the knowledge that death is near gave me the thrill I had missed all these years. I wonder if this is how the man felt as he was dangling there, unable to breathe, and slowly losing consciousness. I wonder if it gave him that thrill. After waiting for what felt like forever, there was a man that came in with gloves on, along with other people around him assisting him as he hooked up the needle to the poison I assumed. The needle was placed into my arm and slowly I felt the substance seep into my blood, he then switched the substance with another mixture, this one made me feel drowsy. I started to slowly lose consciousness as the man switched the bag one more time. That's when I felt cold, I could feel my body slowly starting to fail.
I felt the tight grasp of hands wrap around my neck, fingertips digging into my larynx.
Just then the face of the sombrero man appeared as I closed my eyes, his face an angry expression “You failed me little one,” he said in a disappointed tone, “now you must face the same fate I did.”
His grip tightened around my throat, I closed my eyes and felt tears leave my eyes. Even though I never asked for this, the sensation of failure lingered within me. I wanted more than anything to still be out in the world, tasting the flesh of humans; but I wasn't prepared for this. Accepting this fate I felt as the breath from my lungs started to slow, and my once beating heart turned to a hollow void. There was nothing but a rigging in my ears as I was trapped in my own body, unable to move. This was my end.

Have you ever felt the taste of human flesh hit your tongue, the sweet but tangy flavor seeping into your taste buds as you crunch down on the flesh covered meat, well it's what I long for.
A boy had grown up in a small town, yet he remained unnoticed and invisible to those around him. No one noticed his perfect emerald green eyes that glistened when rays of sunlight hit them or his bush of hair that curls together just right, but I noticed him. I noticed how every Tuesday he would walk to the library to catch up on his studies and biweekly he would go to his grandma's nursery to sew with her.
Even though we grew up in the same town and went to school together, the two of us had officially met at a charity event in Lesotho. It was an event where we helped build new homes for the community. Oren and I were placed in the same group. As we worked together, I got to know him better and I immediately grew obsessed with him. Once the event was over and we returned home, sorrowful thoughts suffocated me. Being away from Oren felt as though my heart was getting ripped out of my chest. Having to go a day without his energetic laugh and alluring scent of burning wood, surged an aching through my stomach. Before I knew it, I began to long for his touch and his presence.
When I started university at Bridgeport, I had found out Oren was attending Bridgeport as well. Walking through the tall doorway into my biology class, sitting there, looking as perfect as ever, was Oren. He waved at me. Butterflies penetrated my stomach as I walked over and sat in the seat next to him. Just as I sat down, the bell rang and the teacher started his lecture.
After an hour and a half of painstakingly enduring biology class, Oren and I decided to walk to a cafe nearby. As we were seated, engaged in a conversation about our class, a girl approached us. The girl sauntered up to Oren with a provocative sway of her hips and breast practically jumping out of her shirt. It seemed someone else had noticed him too.
My mind was consumed with resentment as I watched the girl talk to Oren, completely disregarding my existence. The sound around me seemed to fade away, as if my ears had become deaf to everything else once they began discussing the idea of hanging out. I felt an urge to release a piercing wail and assert my ownership over him, but I couldn't ignore the painful truth: he wasn’t mine. I was aware of the wandering eyes of Oren glancing at me and giving me the look as if asking if I'm okay.
I nod my head, deciding to enter myself into their conversation, “Where are you guys thinking about hanging out?”
Almost looking offended, the girl replied, “I’ve got two tickets for a movie.”
“I'll pay for a third ticket so Liyla can join,” Oren blurted out.
“I don't mind,” the girl replied. Obviously she minded.
The girl then bellowed at me, “I don't think we've met before, I’m Nevada.”
“Liyla,” I uttered.
Nevada smiled distastefully. She turned her attention back to Oren, continuing to seduce him in front of me. Not able to stomach anymore of their flirting, I excused myself to the restroom. Instead I went straight out the door of the cafe. I didn’t care if Oren saw me. My heart was broken. Tears flowed uncontrollably along my pimple-filled cheeks, as I walked aimlessly around.
I continued walking in a random direction for what felt like hours until I found myself back at my dorm. Walking inside, I hear the ding of my phone and see a message from Oren.
Are you alright?
I threw my phone against the wall, hoping to shatter it into pieces. I sprang into my bed, burying my face into my pillows.
That night felt different. The air was suddenly thick, like a smoker's lung filled with mucus. It felt as if clouds covered my shining sun. Unable to get out of bed, I decided to skip my homework and go straight to bed.
In the middle of the night, I suddenly woke up. My body was unable to move.
Great another night of sleep paralysis, I thought, having been through this many times before. I lie there waiting for the hallucinations to start. In the corner of my room, I saw a short and stubby man wearing the typical trench coat, but with a sombrero. I wanted to laugh but the grip of sleep paralysis was a virus in my body. I then moved my eyes to the other side of me to see the exact same figure.
Now a little startled I try to keep my eyes closed in order to have this pass, when I feel the touch of a person's lips around my calf, biting me. The pain grew as if it felt that someone was tearing my skin off, when I tried to scream nothing came out, just the breath from my lungs.
Next thing I knew I saw the face of a man appear as if it's coming down from my ceiling like a spy, while unable to scream the figure laughs at me struggling to move. The figure then drops through me, I can feel the coldness take over me and my thoughts become not my own. The feeling of dread suffocates me after. Eventually laying there for maybe an hour, the biting sensation on my calf stops, I start to feel the droopiness off my eyelids, and I pass out.
As the sun awoke, so did I, I roused to the overbearing feeling of hunger. I swiftly make my way into my kitchen where I devour anything in my sight: raw meat, vegetables, raw noodles, you name it. Still this feeling of hunger never left.
My attention is driven to the notification from my phone, walking over to the cracked phone, I checked to see that Oren had texted me, it read ‘we’re meeting at the movies in an hour, see you then?’ I responded with a thumbs up and checked the time. It was already 7:30 pm, and I slept all day.
Getting ready was hard, my tear filled eyes restricted me from looking my best. After I put on my clothes,I skipped doing my makeup out of fear of it getting messed up and looking worse than I already did. While I'm getting ready the intense feeling of hunger never leaves, but gets worse; It felt as though someone was ripping me from the inside of my stomach.
Locking the door behind me, I started the 10 minute walk to the movie theaters. The whole walk it felt as though someone was watching me, I couldn't shake the feeling. No matter how much I turned my head or how quick, I never saw a person or even an animal nearby.
Walking up the sidewalk to the theater, I see Oren and Nevada talking rather close to each other. I assumed they were waiting for me; when I noticed them walking inside. Dumbfounded, I came to a stop and checked my phone to see a message from Oren.
Change of plans, we aren't going anymore.
My heart shattered even more than it already has, I've officially been replaced. I slowly walk inside and walk up to Oren, “Thanks for ditching me,” I say, not letting myself cry in order to not show weakness. He doesn't respond and I see a sly smile on Nevadas face, admitting my defeat, I decide to walk away.
Once I walked out of the theater, I began to start running. The ravenous craving of food with a mixture of immense dismal, seeped into my blood. so, I decided to go to the cafe.
Walking inside, the fluorescent lights make my eyes shift from the gloomy atmosphere to the liveliness of the cafe; I sit down at my usual table and wait for one of the workers to come take my order. I finally get the chance to calm down and examine my thoughts.
Following a short wait, a lengthy woman comes up to me and asks, “Can I get you anything?”
“I'll take a jelly bun and one large coffee with 3 pumps of caramel and 5 pumps of cream,” I responded.
As she was writing down my order I couldn't help but look at her arm, that's when the intrusive thoughts started appearing.
I wonder what she tastes like
fills my thoughts as if not my own, unable to control the overwhelming thoughts I decide to just walk out.
Walking in a random direction I notice a park in the distance, thinking I could sit there to clear my thoughts; I walk up and sit on a swing. A few minutes later a child comes bouncing along the pathway with her pigtails that look like curly fries. The thoughts come back ‘eat her.’ I gasp and jump off the swing while flying in the air. Tumbling while getting up, I ran, not knowing where to run to, I just ran. Not too long later I ended up back at my dorm.
Unlocking my door with shaking hands, I quickly barricade myself inside. unable to stomach the pain anymore, I decided to call Oren to see if he could come over to help. After talking to a sorrowful and concerned Oren, he agreed to come over. I soon heard the knock of the door and ran to it, opening the door.
I see Oren as gorgeous as ever, dressed in what I imagine is his best casual wear. That's when I look to the left of him and see Nevada holding onto his arm; The tenderness of my heart turned to ice. “Come inside,” I mumble while holding my stomach. That's when both of them walk inside my dorm and sit on the couch hand in hand.
Feeling like I'm about to get sick, I say I'm using the bathroom and walk towards the washroom that's in my room. While sitting at the toilet, throwing up all of the junk I've eaten today, I feel inside of me like something is moving throughout my body, slowly taking control of each limb. As my body becomes not my own, I stand up quickly and head towards my bedroom once more.
That's when I instinctively grab something from underneath my bed, a box. In this box I keep my firearm which I'm not technically supposed to have, but I do incase of protection. In almost a trance- like state I grab the gun out of the box and load it with ammo; what am I doing?
Slowly walking out of my room, I pointed the gun right at Nevadas head. Oren nor Nevada could see me as the couch was facing away from my room, this felt right. I pulled the trigger under my finger, the deafening sound of the gun rang through the room. I look up to see Nevada no longer in sight, but Oren right next to her aiding her. This is what he should be doing to me, I'm the one in pain, I'm the one who called him here, only him, not her. This enrages me as I lift up the gun again, point it right at Orens heart, and as I did before, and pulled the trigger.
I strolled over to Oren to see him lying there, gasping for air and coughing up blood. As he says his last words, "Why."
The guilt pierces my heart like the bullet I just put in his, no this is his fault, I shouldn't feel guilty for him picking another girl over me.
An intense smell hit my nose, the smell was indescribable, and it made my mouth water like never before. That's when I realized the smell was coming off the corpses below me. I kneel down and lick the skin of Oren, a rush fills me as my taste buds grow excited at the taste of his skin. Whatever was inside me, controlling me, made me long for more of Oren, not in a sexual way, but I wanted to ingest him.
Going into the kitchen, I grab the largest knife I have, then make my way back to the bodies on my floor. Immense anger filled me as I looked at Nevadas face, still more beautiful than me, even after life. I lifted up the knife and plunged it right into her stomach, blood oozing out as I moved the blade out of her, just wanting to make sure she's finished off.
I lick the blade of the knife and the sweet taste of blood hits my tongue. I then go into a fury of chopping up Nevada piece by piece, making sure to cut bite sized chunks to feast on. Slowly the feeling of hunger disappeared and the discomfort faded, I felt accomplished.
After I finished my meal, I realized I was left with nothing but bones, hair, and the body parts I'd prefer not to eat.I grab some rags and cleaning spray, and get to work cleaning up all of the blood on my floor. After I quickly grabbed a box and shoved the discarded organs,,rags from cleaning, and the knife into it. At this time it was pitch dark out so I sneakily made my way out of my dorm with the box, and to a nearby dumpster where I know stray dogs like to roam. I place the box just outside of the dumpster with stuff on top of it to hide it from the human eye.
As I made my way back to my dorm I quickly scanned over the crime scene to make sure I cleaned it back to the way I left it, so that my roommates wouldn't get suspicious. After that I stroll into my bedroom, take a deep clean shower in order to wash all of the blood off me , and make sure to put my bloody clothes into a trash bag that I will throw away in the morning. I then make my way into my cozy bed and soon find myself dozing in a deep sleep.
Once again I woke up to the feeling, or rather not the feeling, of my body. Already expecting what was about to happen, prepared myself for the inevitable. As I was staring at my ceiling, I saw the sombrero man appear like a dangling spider, not really scared of him, but more intrigued. I tried to talk but my vocal cords feel as though someone is ripping them as I tried. As he is moving toward me he sticks out his tongue and licks my face from cheek to forehead, and said, “Good job my little prodigy,” he then screamed an inhuman like screech and fell into me, coldness shook me to the core.
I must've passed out because next thing i knew i opened my eyes to daylight, surprisingly my anxiety was low this morning. I got dressed in my usual sweats and a sweater, then grabbed the bag of bloody clothes and my backpack as I exited my front door. I was off to my first class, but not before stopping at a different dumpster than the night before.
As I'm walking into the classroom, I glance at the seat Oren had sat at the day before. I sit in the chair next to it and wait for the teacher to do roll call of the classroom, as he does each day. After hearing Orens name called and getting no response, a feeling of pity flows through me. Why do I keep feeling bad for him? This was his fault. During class my thoughts wandered to the sombrero man I kept on seeing. Being a huge believer in the paranormal I decided to google any past deaths in my dorm. Turns out in 1947 there was a man the age of 23 who ended up killing 18 women and men, and eating them. This man hung himself in order to escape the police right here in my room. Past people in my dorm have stated seeing the man in a sombrero, no one believed them, but i did.
I realized I liked this life. I liked eating people and the thrill of covering up the discarded body parts. It made me feel as though I was the most powerful when ingesting the meat of humans. This delight would soon be crushed, as the justice system would soon catch up with me. News went around that there was a box found next to a dumpster full of human body parts. ‘Shit.’ Almost as quickly, people soon noticed that Oren and Nevada were missing, Nevada more than Oren. I went on with my life, soon forgetting about Oren and Nevada, as I was now focused on finding my next meal.
One morning I got a knock on my door, my roommate was out so I got my lazy butt up off my bed and walked right up to the front door, opening it I saw the police. By heart dropped, they knew. All i could do was let them search my dorm, they found loads of evidence against me and arrested me right on the spot.
I was thrown into a jail cell for around 5 months before my trial, the food was terrible, tasted nothing like the flesh of a human, it was tortuous. At my trial I saw the families of Oren and Nevada, all of them were crying and or giving me a death stare. I couldn't help but smile at each and everyone of them. Turns out eating people isn't taken too lightly in my country, and I received the death penalty. I wasn't scared, or sad, all I could think about was the sensation of flesh hitting my tongue.
Being tossed into a solitary confinement cell this time, I spent the next 32 years there, being alone, having nothing to do, and away from any human contact, not even my family wanted to visit me. the food was a little better at least, i received raw lamb at my request, it was the closest tasting to human in my opinion. On the morning of another Monday, it turned out to be my execution day.
To my surprise, my cell door swung open. Standing there I saw a scared woman, I could smell it, in a police uniform holding a pair of handcuffs. Knowing the drill, I turned around and put my hands behind my back, ready to feel the icy metal against my skin. Her shaky hands put the cuffs on me and led me out of my cell. Walking through the prison was nostalgic, as we were twisting and turning through the prison, we made it to a door, the door led us outside and the light of the sun blinded me, after not seeing it for so long. Waiting for us was a van that I figured out was leading me to my death.
Sitting in the chair, where I was about to die, was oddly calming, the knowledge that death is near gave me the thrill I had missed all these years. I wonder if this is how the man felt as he was dangling there, unable to breathe, and slowly losing consciousness. I wonder if it gave him that thrill. After waiting for what felt like forever, there was a man that came in with gloves on, along with other people around him assisting him as he hooked up the needle to the poison I assumed. The needle was placed into my arm and slowly I felt the substance seep into my blood, he then switched the substance with another mixture, this one made me feel drowsy. I started to slowly lose consciousness as the man switched the bag one more time. That's when I felt cold, I could feel my body slowly starting to fail.
I felt the tight grasp of hands wrap around my neck, fingertips digging into my larynx.
Just then the face of the sombrero man appeared as I closed my eyes, his face an angry expression “You failed me little one,” he said in a disappointed tone, “now you must face the same fate I did.”
His grip tightened around my throat, I closed my eyes and felt tears leave my eyes. Even though I never asked for this, the sensation of failure lingered within me. I wanted more than anything to still be out in the world, tasting the flesh of humans; but I wasn't prepared for this. Accepting this fate I felt as the breath from my lungs started to slow, and my once beating heart turned to a hollow void. There was nothing but a rigging in my ears as I was trapped in my own body, unable to move. This was my end.