The Chelsea Drugstore

So this happened.....

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Thu, 23 May 2013 23:59:23 GMT

Cyclist dies in SF garbage-truck crash.

About five blocks from my apartment, basically right on my route to work when I wake up early enough to ride my bike the long way for extra miles.

Next Friday is Critical Mass. I wonder if they'll dedicate to today's casualty.

The A03-Three Things Meme

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Thu, 23 May 2013 22:43:07 GMT

Ganked from multiple people on my F-list, but I'll give credit to aeron_lanart, since she has a birthday coming up and there is every chance I will flake it totally. So here's a chance to give her a shout-out.

I currently have 276 works posted on AO3. Choose a random number - no peeking! - between 1 (most recently posted/updated) and 276, and I will tell you three things I currently like about that story.

Please note, the order of these fics is totally buggered relative to when they were original written and posted to LJ. I'm in the process of importing everything, but it's happening in a very slow and random way. A lot of these will be the drabbles written during the Drabble-a-Day project of 2011.

In case you're jonesin' for a "Remix" fix....

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Wed, 22 May 2013 20:02:10 GMT

and sad because Remix Redux is apparently NOT happening this year.....

The lovely Bessemer Process is hosting Reverse Remix: The Second Switch.

You provide the fandoms you will re-mix in and fellow authors offer up their stories for you to do so. It all has to fit into a comment box. It sounds like fun.

"My Bottom Is a Treasure House" British Comedy RPF

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:24:24 GMT

Title: My Bottom Is a Treasure House
Word Count: 3470
Disclaimer: None of this ever happened and I'm not making any money for saying it did.
Summary: What will people do to support Children in Need and meet a deadline? Victoria is about to find out.
Rating: PG13
Notes: Written for Britcom_Fic_Challenge 2013.
Special thanks to drunken_hedghog for Beta and Brit-picking.
Warnings: Includes humorous references to disability, political figures, and classism. Please read at your own risk.
Characters: Victoria Coren, Ross Noble, Dara Ó Briain, John Bishop. References to others.
Pairings: Victoria Coren/John Bishop (UST) Victoria Coren/David Mitchell (mentioned)

Team: QI
Characters: Victoria Coren, Robert Webb, Jo Brand, John Bishop, Frank Skinner, Jimmy Carr, Ross Noble, or any other comedian who has appeared on QI
Prompt 1: yellow
Prompt 2: mystery
Prompt 3: the last straw

A Geordie, a Scouser and an Irishman walk into a bar…

Victoria saved the phrase to her phone, along with the date, September 13, 2011, thinking it might make a good lede for the column she was supposed to be writing. Of course, what had really happened was that Ross Noble, John Bishop and Dara Ó Briain sauntered into Skylon, a rather expensive venue known for cocktails that no self-respecting chav would be caught dead guzzling. They were now sitting in armchairs overlooking the river as a waiter took orders for drinks and nibbles.

Not nearly as funny, but relevant to a problem she was having with the assignment. She’d just been to the premiere of Derek Paravicini’s concerto at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Now she had to write about it, but she knew full well that it wasn’t the music or the performance of the Orchestra of St. John’s that anyone gave a damn about. It was the “miracle” of the blind, brain-damaged savant who had composed the piece, and Victoria had no idea what to say about that. She didn’t know if she was meant to add to the sheaves of hyper-emotional twaddle already written about Derek’s gift, as well as his amazingly good-natured personality, in conjunction with his disability. On the other hand, it was remotely possible that the Observer actually wanted her to write the truth; that the concerto would probably never have gotten this level of attention if it were composed by an equally talented musician who didn’t have the same obstacles as Mr. Paravicini.

She knew exactly what she couldn’t do, which was express the acute discomfort that she’d experienced following the performance of the concerto itself, when Derek was literally led out to interact with audience and display his skill at musical improvisation. Victoria might have felt that, but “Victoria Coren,” was not about to write any such thing. There was a level of sarkiness that was acceptable and the one step further she might go on a panel show to great titters of shock, but still within bounds.

Ross would understand. He could get away with taking the piss out of Bono and Geldoff because the audience had already bought into a talking owl with a blanket and whatever other madness came out of his mouth. Victoria had spent some time with Noble and knew he’d calculated both of those bits to a fraction of how long they could go on without going too far.

Too far, in her case, would sound like the barely whispered commentary on the performance, the composer and the audience she’d gotten from her “date” for the night. The original plan had been to go with Ronni Ancona, followed by dinner at Skylon, where they would hash out ideas for the column. Victoria was hoping to rely on Ronni’s ability to be subversive in the sweetest way possible. Ronni had phoned that morning to beg off as one of her daughters was ill, leaving Victoria looking for a substitute. David was out of the question, for many reasons, ranging from his loathing of both classical music and formal wear to the fact that he had specific plans for that night and they were the sort she knew better than to interfere with.

After being turned down by both French and Saunders, she’d ended up with Jo Brand. She knew Jo slightly, in that way she knew pretty much every comedian and presenter in the UK, through those awkward five minutes spent in a green room at ITV or the BBC trying to find some basis for comradeship before going out to face the cameras and a possibly hostile host together. When she reported this to David, he had raised his eyebrows in an expression that clearly said “this is a terrible idea, but I refuse to tell you why.” By that time it was too late to get another replacement and Jo couldn’t be that bad. “That is all just for the cameras, right?” Victoria had asked in a slightly desperate tone.

Jo was exactly the same bitter, bitchy Jo that she was in her stand-up act or on the QI panel, with none of the tact toward Derek Paravicini or his admirers that Victoria would have expected or at least hoped for from a former psychiatric nurse. It was brutal and hilarious at the same time, making life even more difficult for Victoria as she attempted to avoid inappropriate laughter at Jo’s remarks, which were ever so spot-on, especially regarding the level of exploitation and self-aggrandizing sympathy involved.

“It doesn’t matter how well the dog talks; it’s still a bloody talking dog, isn’t it? Might be reciting Shakespeare, but it doesn’t know Romeo and Juliet from James Wellbeloved.”

That was a bit harsh. The gift was real. The music was lovely, even if the composer had the IQ of a five year old and couldn’t button his own shirt.

There was a deadline looming. She could fall back on the fact that Derek’s story had clearly inspired that House MD episode with Dave Matthews a few years ago, but then she’d end up going off on a tangent about how no one ever pointed out that House was just a cross between Cracker and Doc Martin, which would generate hate-mail, most of it from Stephen Fry. It was worse than Brooker and his obsession with The Wire.

Maybe she’d ask John, Ross, and Dara for their opinions, since her initial impression was that they must have been to the concert as well. Dara with his background in mathematics could opine on the statistical chances of the phenomena or just go all sentimental on the loveliness of the music. John, she knew mostly through a bit of flirting done during a charity poker tournament a few years earlier. It hadn’t gone anywhere, more through lack of opportunity than any lessons Victoria might have learned about the perils of shagging married men. She could count on him to say something about the Derek Paravicini phenomena that would be both gentlemanly and middle-of-the-middle-class-road humorous, maybe with a reference to his wife and kids.

“Well, if it isn’t the Yoko Ono of British Comedy.”

Amazing what a man could get away with when he was good-looking and dressed in a nice suit, right down to a yellow pocket silk. He was smiling, but when a Liverpudlian calls you “Yoko,” it means something.

“You bastard,” she muttered, while grinning against her will and briefly wishing they could just piss off together and pick up where they’d left off, which amounted to no more than a quick snog behind the bicycle sheds.

She didn’t have the time to list all the ways in which she wasn’t a “Yoko,” starting with the sexism of the whole assumption and the unfairness to the real Ms. Ono. The fact that Robert and David were together in the flat working on new material and she hadn’t even bothered to ask David to don a tuxedo and accompany her to the concert should speak for itself.

“Hello Victoria,” said Ross, loping into view with his most simian gait. “Has John convinced you to join our team?”

“What kind of game are we playing,” she asked cautiously.

Victoria had taken notice of the clothing on her new table companions. Suits on Dara and John. Dara had matched John’s yellow pocket silk with a similarly hued tie. Certainly fashionable, but not suitable for the event she’d just attended. Ross’ loose-fitting bright sun-burst of a tunic would have brought not only the fashion police, but South Bank Security. In other words, they couldn’t have been at the concert.

They all looked vaguely guilty, which wasn’t a good sign either.

“Ah. Well, then,” Dara started with the look of a man about to lay some thick Irish blarney around.

She spotted a paper napkin in Ross’ hand, with what appeared to be a list of some sort, although the scrawl made it impossible to guess what it might be.

“Well, clearly you’re the yellow team.”

Ross nodded enthusiastically.

“Scavenger hunt?” she guessed.
“Nope,” John replied. “Skinner was supposed to be on our team, but he blew us off at the last minute. Some bloody concert he had to go to. Bastard!”

John looked properly miffed,

“Is this a Children in Need thing?”

“It is,” Dara admitted coyly. Of course. The event was in a few months and pretty much all of the British entertainment industry was being consumed in some way or another. David and Robert were trying to come up a sketch for the big show itself and the lead-up events were coming fast and furious, all slightly ludicrous, but you couldn’t argue the cause, any more than you could argue the magic of Derek Paravicini.

“It’s all about arses,” Ross announced, emphasising the last word. “We have to get back to the Chocolate Factory by midnight with the most perfect arse in England.”

Victoria felt an odd sense of relief and familiarity. Yes, this she was prepared to opine on. Bums were right up her alley as it were.

“What do we have so far,” she asked briskly, opening a new document on her phone, and catching Dara rolling his eyes as she apparently was taking over his role as team captain. Someone had to. Clearly this needed a methodical approach. And more drinks.

She caught John smiling slyly at her as he made himself comfortable in the chair opposite her, while Dara and Ross took the ones on either side. She put out her hand for the napkin, and squinted at it until she could make out what the boys had come up with.

1. Cheryl Cole
2. Kelly Brook
3. Pippa Middleton
4. Carol Vorderman
5.
Then came some manic (and slightly obscene) doodling and at the bottom of the page the words “Ann Widdicombe,” followed by a large, bubbling question mark. Victoria assumed the Widdicombe suggestion meant they’d at least considered the other possible definition of “perfect arse.”

“Do the rules actually say which kind of arse we’re looking for? Are we talking beautiful buttocks or…I don’t know…Piers Morgan?”

“He’s more of a twat,” Dara pointed out. “The fact is, we can go either way, and I’ve got a tip that Paul Merton’s trying to get his “pal” Boris Johnson to do it for team blue. I figured we can’t beat that unless we actually got Rupert Murdoch or something.”

“And that would be a perfect cunt,” John stated, to agreeing nods all around.

“What about someone who just acts like an arse, but does it really well….Lee Mack, maybe?” Victoria suggested.

David always insisted that Lee was actually quite charming and the whole lad thing was a put on. Seeing as how she’d never been in a room with Lee for five minutes without some crude sexual remark ensuing, Victoria wasn’t convinced.

“That would be lovely,” Ross replied with a rueful grin, “if he weren’t the captain of the red team.”

“Oh bugger.”

“Yeah,” Dara agreed, “So how quickly can you help us find a woman with a great bum, who we can actually get onstage so we help raise money for the poor little kidddies?”

“Are the other teams all men as well?”

“Sue Perkins is on the black team,” John offered.

“Yeah?”

“Along with Frankie Boyle, Jimmy Carr and Wossy,” Ross advised.

“That’s an ASBO just waiting to happen.”

“It’s not like this whole event is exactly accumulating PC points, is it?” Dara pointed out.

“Right. Well allow me to remind you gentlemen that it’s not just ladies who can have attractive derrieres.”

As if to illustrate the point, a waiter in noticeably tight black pants with a nearly perfectly posterior region arrived with a smile and a new round of drinks.

Team Yellow were clearly looking a bit uncomfortable with the idea and even Victoria wasn’t quite brazen enough to suggest that they grab this fellow and abduct him to the Chocolate Factory to have his assets put on display, even if it was for a good cause. Better to find someone with a fabulous arse who was well-known for a lack of modesty. She had just the bum in mind. A few hints to Google and she had the evidence on her phone to share around. Never had a man looked so good from the back. The period clothes and the braces didn’t hurt, but honestly, he really did have a perfect arse.

She could still sense reluctance. They were men, after all, although none of them struck her as remotely homophobic or concerned about perception in that area. It just hadn’t occurred to them, but the idea was breaking through that if they could make this happen, there was chance to finesse the competition, and at the very least put on a good show.

“And you just happen to know where we can find our arse of arses do you?” Ross asked with a cheeky grin.

Victoria nodded, feeling just a bit smug. She tossed back a potent martini and raised a glass to her recently-acquired compadres who did likewise, before she led them out into the foggy night in search of a cab and the perfect arse.
@@@@@

“Sorry, he’s not here.”

It was starting to dawn on Victoria that in the haze of smugness and Sloane’s gin, she’d omitted the crucial step of making a phone call to ascertain that the quarry was actually in town.

Victoria felt three sets of eyes on her in the dim light outside John Barrowman’s townhouse in Holland Park. In the cab, the only eyes she’d been aware of were John’s as their knees got awfully close and their fingers managed to touch. She really had been swept away on the alcohol and her own cleverness.

Now everything was going tits up. For a second, she entertained the notion of inviting Barrowman’s extremely attractive partner to appear in his stead, but Mr. Gill was notoriously shy about those matters and while the glimpse she’d managed to get of the rear view wasn’t bad, it wouldn’t be good enough to match whatever political prat Paul Merton might manage to snag, much less some over-inflated reality show bimbo, which was what she imagined Sue and her Lost Boys would end up with.

Victoria had a phone list that was the envy of half the bookers at the BBC. She’d knock on 11 Downing Street and get Nick Clegg, if she had to. Or pop over to the Beckham’s and get both of them. You couldn’t get two more perfect arses in all senses of the world than those.

If only her hands would stop sweating, making the phone all slippery and the fog wasn’t helping either. Of course she ended up dropping the bloody thing, and immediately snapped, “No, I’ll get it,” before anyone else could kneel down. It was only after she’d bent over to pick the phone up, in a dress that she hadn’t realised until that moment was quite so tight around her bottom, that she saw her “team” looking at her a bit too avidly. John’s teeth were showing in a fully wolfish leer.

“Oh no!” she said emphatically. “No, no, no, NO!” One know for each of the team and an extra one for Scott Gill who was still standing in the doorway looking slightly askance at the comedy that was unfolding on his doorstep. Scott shrugged, as if to say, “Hey, you got them into it,” before closing the door and leaving her alone with three desperate comics.

“No,” she said weakly, as Ross managed to get another cab, basically by jumping into the street in front of a cab who had his lights off and terrifying him into carrying them to the Chocolate Factory as something resembling the speed of sound. By then Victoria had mentally given in to the inevitable. It would certainly make an entertaining column, even if it wasn’t the one she was supposed to be writing.
@@@@@
“You was robbed, love.”

“That seems to be the consensus,” Victoria agreed, shaking her head and letting out an exhausted yawn that seem to fill the back seat of yet another taxi. Finally, and with great difficulty, she turned her phone off. Within minutes of the final result being announced by a rather bemused David Tennant, who was serving as Master of Ceremonies and taking a great deal of Doctor Who-related ribbing with good grace, Victoria had been deluged with texts of concern. All the British comedy world seemed to know that she’d come in second in The Most Perfect Arse contest and more importantly thought it was important enough to let her know how sorry they were.

It wasn’t as if she had cancer, Victoria thought in the voice that she imagined David would use.

No, she didn’t. And at least it had been second place.

Lee’s team, rather appropriately couldn’t be arsed to come up with anyone outside of their own team leader, who received a resounding round of applause when he dropped his trousers to prove the point, but at least kept his pants on, in deference to the BBC, who were filming and would be dropping highlights into the big broadcast. They still came in last, which caused Victoria at least a minimal amount of schadenfreude.

Her own appearance had gotten a restrained, but friendly response and she gave it her all, turning her back to the audience and gyrating to a hastily chosen Lady Gaga track while her “boys” stood around her with her arms crossed in various threatening postures as if to fend off anyone who would dare come near the perfection that was Victoria’s bottom.

The real competition had come from Paul Merton, Andy Hamilton, Danny Baker and Mark Steel, who actually scored quite the coup in presenting a truly epic arse. Victoria had gasped as she looked at the monitor and realised that they’d somehow got Robert Kilroy-Silk who was being booed royally and taking it like a good sport. Either the bastard had a great devotion to Children in Need or Paul had some really incriminating photos.

“Bloody hell,” exclaimed John and Dara, nearly in unison, while Ross began muttering “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The cursing only got louder when Kilroy-Silk took the microphone and actually repeated his “immortal” performance of the words, “Their fate will be in each other's hands as they decide whether to share or to shaft.”

So under the circumstances, coming in second wasn’t half bad. She’d beaten Lee Mack and the odious Kilroy Silk, but she couldn’t beat Team Black. Sue may have spent the night stuck with four immature, lecherous lads, but she was also on the winning team, and she seemed to know it when she saw Victoria in the ladies room and wouldn’t tell her who exactly they’d brought. Maybe Victoria should have known that Jonathan Ross would pull in his most notorious partner in crime, but without Barrowman’s gorgeous globes there was nothing she could do about it.

Nothing and no one was going to beat Russell Brand in leather trousers. The Chocolate Factory exploded in shrieking so loud it was as if England had won the World Cup again. After that it was literally all over but the shouting.

“Nightcap?” John suggested softly, reminding Victoria that they were now alone in a cab, and it was very, very late. John had taken his jacket off and he was sprawled out against the seat facing Victoria. His hair was tousled, his smile was warm and she had that feeling again, this time with no alcohol and little smugness. Just exhaustion and vague regrets.

He was staying at Threadneedles. It would be simple enough to go, sit in a bar and pretend to make a decision about going up to his room. She had some interview to do in the morning, and a column to write, and David waiting at home. She looked at John again, sexy and sleepy-eyed and fuck all if life was sometimes extremely unfair.

John must have known what she was thinking.

“Was it the Yoko thing? Cause I know that was totally out of line.”

He looked so sincere, she practically changed her mind, but the cab was coming up onto her street.

“Yes, it was, and no it’s not that.”

“It’s really serious with you and Mitchell then?”

She nodded, and smiled before leaving him with a peck on the check and a ruffle of his hair that she couldn’t resist.

Victoria watched the cab taking John Bishop away again and sighed, even though she knew she’d done the right thing. She’d been that girl before and she might be again, but not tonight.

Cheating on David really would make her a perfect arse.

RIP Ray Manzarek

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 21 May 2013 00:57:06 GMT

The Doors' Ray Manzarek dies at 74

Merry Month of Masturbation 2013-Day 6- House MD House/Wilson Post-Series

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Mon, 20 May 2013 21:23:15 GMT

Title: Every Day Sees Another Scar
Fandom: House MD
Pairings: House/Wilson (UST and Angst ONLY), Wilson/Julie, reference to House/Stacy
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 4490
Warnings: Final Season Spoilers. Dark-fic, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug addiction, IV Drugs, Angst, Gambling, Violence. Canon heterosexuality. Internalized homophobia. Possible triggers. Read at your own risk. Seriously folks, if you loved the finale and have a happy place involving House/Wilson together and hopes of healing cock---this ain't the fic for you.
Notes: Post finale fic. Written for MMOM Day 6. Prompt from petitecuriosity. Beta by my always amazing betagoddess.
Summary: Five times Wilson got a message and one time he left one.
Newsletter mods, please note this will be cross-posted to housefic, house_wilsonand house_slash.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life babysitting a junkie?

House always said Stacy was smart. Even when he was calling her the most vicious names he could summon from the depths of his agony, he'd never called her stupid. So naturally she’d figured out that House had faked his death and managed to track down the cell phone that was registered in Wilson’s fake identity.

Nice timing too, Wilson was forced to admit. He got the text five minutes after a certain “clinic” in the abundantly not-nice Niceville, Florida opened. The day was already humid, leaving him feeling grubby. He’d wanted to shower before they left the motel, but House was on edge, claiming the previous day’s riding had aggravated the pain. There was always a reason; always a too much. Maybe Wilson should have pointed out months earlier that a motorcycle odyssey would put continual pressure on House’s leg. That was when he was still caught up in the illusion of freedom and the belief that being alone with Wilson would somehow alleviate House’s pain. Now he knew better.

House was in a make-shift trailer getting enough Oxy to feed his addiction for a few more days. Then they’d cast around for some new route to ride or an “adventure.” That was inevitably a chance for House to mock the pleasures of normal people, until it was time to settle into yet another motel room where they’d both hope for decent reception and maybe some Monster Trucks on ESPN. And that was a good day. A bad one would end with House scoring somewhere considerably less civilized and Wilson worrying about exactly what House was putting in his veins.

Wilson had made the decision that he would not be his cancer, because cancer was boring. It just hadn’t occurred to him that without his medical puzzles or even regular access to a piano, House would be nothing but his addiction.

He ran a hand over the beard he’d started growing because there was no reason not to, and felt sweat rolling down his neck. There’d been an incident in Bonifay. House’s bike ended up damaged and they had to get money wired for repairs. Maybe that was how Stacy had tracked them down. He trusted her not to tell anyone, but he’d never trust her not to want House back and even though he knew better, he’d never trust House not to want her. Wilson considered Stacy a friend, but on some level she was still a rival for House, at least as far as respect was concerned.

House came out of the trailer in his leather jacket, jeans and sunglasses. He leaned on the cane for a second, maybe trying to see through whatever opiate haze he was now in. This was his House, even if he was going by a different name and had given up everything else that gave his life meaning. He was now completely dependent on Wilson and drugs. It was a victory of sorts. Wilson texted quickly to let Stacy know he’d won.

Absolutely.

@@@@@@

It wasn’t the first time he’d woken up to the sound of House masturbating.

There was a kind of music to the deep-throated groans and the rhythmic jerking. Without his piano and guitars, House’s only instrument was himself and he played it expertly. Wilson would have offered to help out, but House was a soloist at heart.

Wilson could remember, with what had become a bitter nostalgia, the games he and House used to play. Back then he would kiss a barely awake Julie good-bye, with a whole scenario planned for the afternoon. It was all about planning to get caught, while still letting House think he was doing the catching. Making sure he gave Evelyn the afternoon off when he knew House was eavesdropping. Locking his office door, but making sure the window looking out the shared balcony was uncovered. The leisurely beginning of a session of self-pleasure that could seemingly last for hours, all based on the anticipation of the moment when he would look up, cock in hand, and find House staring through the window, eyes especially bright, expression rapt.

Nothing had ever made him hotter. He and House would stay there, staring into each other’s eyes, while Wilson kept going, stroking harder and faster, feeling release build through his entire body and finally groaning his way into a hot, sticky orgasm, all while seeing his own passion reflected on House’s face.

Good times, he thought, listening to House’s voice rise in pitch to a near-whimper.

Wilson reached under the waistband of his boxer shorts, just to see if House’s semi-private symphony might have woken up his own dormant dick. Nope. Nothing happening there. Not a surprise. He honestly couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything resembling some real wood.

He was tempted to offer a jocular “Want some help with that?” but couldn’t face a replay of their first night together after House’s “death.” They’d gotten as far as a Hampton Inn near the Delaware Water Gap, and made it through their first check in as “John” and “Kyle,” an act subversive enough on its own to nearly give Wilson an erection at the front desk.

After a stiff drink and a hot shower, he came out of the bathroom prepared to find out if all those games meant anything. He’d seen this man stare at him in the act of self-gratification. House had done his utmost to destroy every single meaningful relationship in Wilson’s life, making sure that even his closest friends were eventually estranged by having their true natures exposed. Why bother if there wasn’t an underlying desire beyond mere companionship? He’d already forced House to admit their emotional connection, down to the word love. If this was the price for the escape that House represented, Wilson was willing to pay it.

He'd found House sitting up in one of the double beds, a familiar Vicodin bottle next to him and an atlas open; it looked like Ohio was in their travel future.

They were already in a hotel room. The rest should be easy. Only this was House and nothing was ever easy.

“House,” he said in the voice he’d used to address so many women in similar circumstances. House looked up. Wilson raised his eyebrows and parted his lips at the same time, expecting House to rise and kiss him or be more aggressive and pull him down onto the bed.

Instead House shook his head and fixed him with a look that Wilson had once believed was reserved for members of his team who came up with a spectacularly misguided diagnosis, especially one based on emotion or--worst of all--trust. In other words, House was treating him like Cameron.

“Who do you think you are?” House asked, reaching for the bottle, his voice reflecting incredulity more than disgust. Wilson retreated to the second bed, absorbing the truth, and wondering whether he was more relieved or hurt. Maybe love didn’t mean what Wilson had thought it did. House had chosen to be with him to the bitter end, but they were still alone.

Listening to House let out the last groan of orgasm, he got the message again. House had never lied to him about the most important thing.

People don’t change.

@@@@@

Gregory House, MD, was dead; the man calling himself John Blythe wasn’t doing much better.

Wilson desperately wanted to give the doctors and nurses of Baptist Memorial Hospital a full medical rundown of their patient’s history and insert himself completely into his care. But of course, “Kyle Calloway” wasn’t a doctor and wouldn’t know the correct terminology or details. He was just a guy whose friend John had gotten roughed up by some local thugs; something about a back-room poker game.

There were so many things he couldn’t tell them, including the fact that “John” had been worked over by professionals after deliberately pissing them off, following a non-lovers quarrel instigated by House’s insistence that Wilson had been flirting with the blonde tour guide who showed them around Graceland. As if Wilson even had a fraction of his old mojo, even assuming Ginger had been interested.

He didn’t know whether to be furious at House or just worried about him. So what else was new? Except that this time House was jeopardizing everything. No, that was pretty much the same too. Maybe he’d been naïve to think that House would put his own death-wish on hold in deference to Wilson’s illness.

House probably hadn’t given any thought to the possibility of blowing their respective covers when he picked his moment to be an ass. . He’d been deprived of the ability to show off his intellect for too long and finding a mob boss with an obvious medical defect at the same time he needed to punish Wilson for daring to smile at a pretty girl must have been the ultimate temptation.

And being House, in his own sick way he’d won. Wilson was once again completely absorbed with House, while House got to sleep it off with his good friend, Sister Morphine, at taxpayers' expense since he’d come to the emergency room and been admitted with no health insurance. Wilson wondered how long they’d be able to get away with that one. Maybe a while. The pain had to be worse than excruciating. The bastard with the baseball bat had gone straight for House’s bad leg.

Wilson was pretty sure they were not going to make it to Nashville by Thursday, or even go to that blues club on Basin Street that House had been talking up just before the Ginger Incident. Even if House’s DNA didn’t ping an alarm somewhere, there was still the matter of a police report for his injuries or even the goodies that might turn up on the tox screen that must have been done before they decided to give a junkie his wet dream come true.

Something bad was going to happen; it was just a matter of what.

“Mr. Calloway?”

“Huh, who, what?”

He still wasn’t very good at being Kyle. Luckily the nurse who had woken him up was either too kind or too stupid to notice that he didn’t seem to recognize his own name. She was very pretty, reminding him a bit of Nancy, the peds nurse at PPTH. He’d managed to have an affair with Nancy while she was still seeing Foreman and use Foreman’s relationship as a cover so House never found out.

“There was a man looking for your friend.”

Wilson got a very sick feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with his thymoma.

“What man?”

“He was wearing a suit and had white hair. He was asking after Mr. Blythe, but Dr. Benoit told him to come back with a warrant. He don’t like law enforcement types bothering his patients. The man said to give you his card. Said you’d know what it meant.”

“Thanks.”

As soon as he glanced at the card, Wilson knew that “John” was going to lose his lifeline to bliss a lot quicker than he’d planned.

“House,” Wilson whispered, “we have to get out of here.”

It would take more than that to wake House up at this point and Wilson didn’t know if he’d be able to whisper loudly enough to get the job done without attracting enough attention to impede their departure.

“It’s Tritter,” he said, a little louder, hoping the name of their old nemesis would do the trick. He looked at the card again, reading the message scrawled on the back, which said succinctly The jig is up, but that wasn’t the truly disturbing part. It was the agency emblem on the card itself that gave Wilson and Kyle a serious case of the heebie-jeebies just thinking about the “clinics” and the shooting galleries and even a certain dead junkie who House had thought was his way out.

“Tritter’s here… and he’s DEA now.”

@@@@@

“James?”

There was a certain catch to Julie’s breath when she was scared or guilty. He knew the message was from her, even before he heard her name. The hesitation was followed by conviction. She might be scared or guilty, but somehow she still knew she was right. That was Julie all over. Maybe she was just confused by the “Kyle” message, complete with fake hearty voice on his cell phone voicemail.

On the other hand if she had the number at all, she knew about the fake identity. Thanks, Stacy. He grimaced. Maybe he’d mentally declared victory a little too soon.

“James, it’s Julie. I know….we’ve been through so much. But I never stopped loving you. I never wanted the divorce.”

Too bad she hadn’t told her particularly avaricious lawyer that.

“I know you’re….sick. I don’t want you to be alone. Please come home. Let me take care of you.”

He wasn’t alone; he was with House. And he’d never felt so alone in his life.

“I love you. Please call me back.”

He was not going to call her. He wasn’t even going to think about her. House would be back any minute from the “beer run” he’d left on over an hour ago, and then they had plans to take a guided tour of locations from The Wire followed by a baseball game at Camden Yards.

They’d been lying low since their escape from Memphis and Wilson was starting to believe that the Tritter appearance might have been the conjuring of his own guilts and fears, although the card remained in the pocket of his leather jacket, untouched, but never quite forgotten.

Becoming Kyle meant leaving everything behind, so he had no pictures of Julie, but hearing her voice reminded him that she’d come to Amber’s funeral. He’d meant to offer perfunctory thanks and then ended up weeping in her arms and her ability to comfort him had led to a quick trip back to the house.

They’d gotten into a fight right afterwards. About House, naturally. Still, it was a good memory. He really had loved her and it was a shame things had gotten so screwed up. He couldn’t blame her for cheating; even he didn’t have the capacity for that level of hypocrisy. He could only blame himself for being a good doctor and a lousy husband.

Really?

That was the combined voices of House and Julie in his head. All three of them knew better.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to an empty motel room.

“Prove it,” said the Julie he had been determined not to think about.

“I can’t,” he said sadly, patting the front of his jeans, as if to show her that the thing that had gotten him in so much trouble was no longer a factor. Only, there it was. Not necessarily a throbbing erection, but the beginning of arousal. More than he’d produced in months.

He lay back on the bed and undid his fly to investigate further. If House came back and caught him…well it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?

He went back to the quickie after the funeral. Guilt and sorrow and lust and anger all in one great image of Julie on her knees, undoing the zipper on his black trousers. It had been a hot day in May; there were insects buzzing in the back yard, and Julie had a brooch on. He remembered her black silk blouse and the sun-tanned breasts with a sprinkling of freckles and how had he been stupid enough to get caught screwing around on her?

Fuck, he was hard! Take that, cancer, he thought, gripping his cock tightly, savoring the reminder that he was still alive. That someone still wanted him as a man.

He’d been so angry that day, and Julie had given him the perfect outlet, letting him thrust his rage at the world into her mouth before pushing him back onto the bed. It went fast after that.

This time he wanted to draw the experience out, but couldn’t. Old rhythms took over. He’d never been a hair-trigger guy before. Wilson had always prided himself on making sure his partner was satisfied before he let himself come.

Not that day though, and not this one. Today he sweated and grunted and brought himself off as quickly as Julie had. Maybe he felt just as smug at the familiar spurt of fluid as Julie had looked when she reached for a tissue to clean herself while Wilson was still half-dressed and flustered on what had been their bed. He wondered if smug looked as good on him as it used to look on House and if House would notice when he got back. Make that if he got back; he’d probably got completely sidelined scoring. Why bother with a fictional stash-house when he could go to a real one?

He wasn’t going to call Julie, but he certainly owed her something. He just wasn’t sure what.

@@@@@

It hadn’t been easy for Wilson to get the test results, but making himself look at them was even harder.

He’d had the blood drawn at a lab in Windsor, Ontario, having crossed the border using Kyle’s documents -- a slightly nerve-wracking moment, but a risk he had to take and one that produced nothing more frightening than an inquiry as to whether he was transporting any agricultural goods, followed by a cheery welcome to Canada.

From there, the blood had been sent overnight to one of Wilson’s former professors at McGill who had a long-running cancer study. Wilson knew his particular case barely qualified, but he managed to convince Professor Shapiro to look at “Kyle’s” sample in order for Wilson to provide a second opinion on a terminal diagnosis.

The really hard part was not only setting up a PO box, but making sure that House truly believed that a side trip to Ann Arbor was his own idea. It worked, but that left Wilson to wonder if House was getting bored with their aimless wandering.

There hadn’t been any repeats of Memphis or any Tritter sightings for Wilson to worry about. On the other hand, there had been more sulking and gambling. Wilson wasn’t above using any of House’s addictions to manipulate him. The Ann Arbor trip had been predicated on a nearby Indian casino, and Wilson knew he had time to check the results because he’d left House playing video poker at a bar near the campus. He might easily blow a thousand dollars before Wilson got back.

House could afford it, at least for a while, thanks to his father’s estate. Maybe that’s why he felt compelled to piss away as much money as possible on things the old man would disapprove of. The same old man whose first name he was now using and whom he’d get sentimental about if he climbed too deeply into the Maker’s Mark. Sadly enough, those were the moments when Wilson still felt the greatest emotional connection.

He stood outside Mailboxes Inc., nodding at the students who stopped to check out the bike and trying not to be too interested in some of the prettier coeds who couldn’t possibly be giving him the eye. Leaves were exploding in their last array of color before the desolation of winter set in.

Wilson hadn’t expected to be alive with the holidays just around the corner. It wouldn’t be the first Christmas he’d spent eating Chinese food with House, but it would be the first time he had no other options.

That’s what was nagging at him; the reason he’d gone behind House’s back to make sure. What if his diagnosis had been wrong, or he’d gone into remission? What if he’d given up his old life but was still doomed to live? He opened the envelope and pulled out the white pages, covered with lists of tests and the numbers that represented the results. His practiced eye ran over the numbers before turning to the prognosis section at the bottom. He started smiling, then giggling with relief.

He was definitely dying.

Six months, tops.

@@@@@

The shave made all the difference.

An old-fashioned shave, complete with hot towels, warm lather and an expertly wielded straight razor that had scraped every bit of Kyle’s patchy beard off his face. He’d never really enjoyed the feeling of that growth, but he’d let it go, simply out of laziness and lassitude and the feeling that it didn’t matter anyway.

“Butch drag,” House had cheerfully called the jeans and flannel shirts, along with the motorcycle jacket that he’d worn on their journey, and he had a point. It might be Kyle, and it was certainly House, but it wasn’t him.

He felt the cold wind of a Massachusetts December against his newly bare skin and it tingled; made him feel alive. Without House there to roll his eyes at the internal assertion of well-being when the facts were anything but, Wilson smirked at himself. He’d been so busy trying to die that he’d forgotten how much he loved life. That was the difference between him and House and why he’d finally made the decision.

The end of the road had come in Provincetown. Tourist season was long over, but House had found a small guesthouse still taking reservations. It was the final irony to be greeted as the couple they looked so much like, but never would be. The guesthouse owners took it for granted they were together, as did the boys at the Atlantic House, where they landed after dinner. The place had pretty much everything House could have wanted, including a pool table where he showed off some trick shots -- a few using the cane itself -- and a beat-up but functional piano where he banged out his repertoire of old blues songs. Wilson sat at the bar, nursing a beer, thinking this was what he’d come on the journey for. He’d never felt so at peace with his own impending death. He wondered if they could just stay here---like this, forever.

If House was this happy, maybe, just maybe, he could at least try to taper off the drugs.

He noticed a good-looking young man next to him, bringing his thigh awfully close in the crowded space and was prepared to shrug it off patiently, as he always did in those situations. Just because he’d been willing to try it for House didn’t mean he really had those impulses.

“Your boyfriend’s hot.”

Wilson nodded, not bothering to correct either assertion, because even if neither was true, in some way they both were.

That’s when he saw House get up and head for the men’s room. Nothing strange there. His new friends had been willing to buy beer as long as “John” kept them entertained. But he wasn’t going alone. There looked to be a whole party heading in that direction.

Was House about to have sex in the john, Wilson wondered, remembering the rejection at the beginning of their journey. Then he realized what was going on and sort of wished it was sex instead, especially when House emerged with the gang and it was clear they hadn’t been doing anything that could be passed off as pain relief or even addiction to opiates. It might have been cocaine, which he knew House had experience with, but he guessed it was meth. He felt sick and sad, having been reminded again that House wasn’t here to share Wilson’s death; he was there to make Wilson watch his.

Hours later House was still awake and wired and on one of his more brutal truth-seeking missions to unearth every lie Wilson had ever told him. This was House at his ugliest, the opposite of everything that had ever made Wilson want to be friends with him. House even made him admit that he genuinely liked watching House destroy other people because Wilson was too weak to do it himself, and that he’d been relieved when Amber died.

Finally he couldn’t take it anymore and started screaming at House to shut up.

“Awwww….can’t handle the truth, sweetheart. Don’t want the neighbors to hear what a wuss you are? Should I make some noises so they think we’re having make-up sex? Oh, but I forgot, you thought we were going to have sex, didn’t you? You thought I wanted to fuck you. “

“No, House, I thought you loved me. Clearly I was mistaken.”

That actually shut him up for a few minutes and Wilson was hoping this whole night would be over and they could get up in the morning and ride away and pretend it never happened.

“You lied about the threesome, didn’t you?”

“What?” He only vaguely remembered even mentioning a threesome to House.

“You told me you’d never had one. Got me to set one up for you…remember….Kyle?”

“For heaven’s sake, of course I lied. Why would you even believe such a stupid thing?”

“Because….” There was a painful pause. When he spoke again, there was raw resignation in his voice. “Because I wanted to.”

Wilson didn’t know when or if House ever fell asleep, but at least he stopped talking.

There were no apologies, just a shrug over coffee as if to say none of it had ever happened. Wilson nodded, but that afternoon he called Julie to find out if she’d been serious or just guilty. She said she’d come to Boston and get him.

He tried to warn her. House would probably come after him, maybe even drive a car through her living room.

“I can handle Greg House,” she said confidently.

“Well, I can’t anymore,” he confessed.

If House saw the clean shave, he’d know immediately, but he’d given House the slip by saying he was heading out early to buy whale-watching tickets and he’d meet him at Plymouth Plantation. Two more lies for House’s next meth binge, Wilson supposed, but the important thing was having their hotel room empty so he could leave a note before riding to Boston to meet Julie.

If he waited too long or thought too much he’d have second thoughts and the guilt would be overwhelming. He tried to remember that he had the right to be selfish, that this was his death, which House had tried to co-opt.

Finally he settled on something that, as much as it was going to hurt House, wouldn’t be a rationalization and wouldn’t be a lie. He left it on a pillow along with an extra bottle of Oxy that he’d brought along as back-up for when the pain got too bad for either of them. House was definitely going to need it when he read this.

I’m going home.

For all Wilson knew, it might be the last message he ever left for House.

He could live with that.

Merry Month of Masturbation 2013-Day 5-"Hot Fun In The Summertime" Mad Men

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Sat, 18 May 2013 15:29:20 GMT

Title: Hot Fun In The Summertime
Fandom: Mad Men
Character: Joan Harris
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 810
Notes: Written for MMOM Day 5. Prompt from cuddyclothes. Unbeta'd. Comments and concrit welcome. Slight spoilers for previous seasons.
Summary: In which we find out what really floats Joan's boat.

Saturday afternoon was the best time, Joan knew from experience.

The boat was filled with tourists; out-of-towners trying to keep track of their screaming moppets and rented binoculars while buying an over-priced Italian Ice to try and fend off the heat. The men might be tempted to wolf-whistle, but the presence of their over-weight wives would usually keep them in check. Even if they took a good, long look, they wouldn’t see anything beyond her curves. She had a head-scarf to protect her hair from the breeze and large sunglasses covering her eyes. They’d never see her, and that was exactly what Joan wanted.

She left mom to watch Kevin, claiming it was too hot for her to stay in apartment, which was true, but not true at the same time. New York was having a typical late-August heat wave. The papers were full of dogs dying from heat stroke and the Mayor had gone on television urging people NOT to open up the fire hydrants, which had about as much effect as anything else Lindsay had tried to accomplish.

It wasn’t just the weather, though. She’d had this feeling before, sometimes in the dead of winter. The urge, the need feeling she might explode from within. In the old days---old, she thought bitterly, being all of two years---she might have been with husband. The word felt slightly rancid in her mind, but whatever else she could say about Greg, most of it still full of white-hot anger, he was good at that.

If she wanted a man, she could have one, at least for a few hours. Too bad she didn’t; or wouldn’t. Not after Herb Rennet.

Besides, she reminded herself, there were other ways to get relief from the heat. The cab let her off at Pier 83 and although the river itself smelled rank, there was already an excitement building up as she joined the line of rubes to buy her ticket and made her way to the lop level of the boat taking a standing spot where she knew the vibrations would be best when the mighty engine throbbed into life.

There it was; the deeply powerful rumble stimulating her belly and thighs, sending tremors through her whole body. She curled her toes inside her high heels, bracing herself, trying to pace her own level of excitement. After all, the tour lasted over two hours and she honestly couldn’t care less about any of it, which was just as well. The recorded voice giving the tour monologue could have been recorded by Edison, given how garbled it was.

Gracie Mansion, Grant’s Tomb, the Cloisters, and Yankee Stadium. None of it mattered, despite the occasional “oohs” and “ahs” she heard filtered through the wind that cooled her skin, even as the sun glared back from the water, nearly blinding her with burning tears behind her sunglasses.

Three rivers, seven bridges, five boroughs and it all meant nothing except a way to be alone and get the thrill she needed in her loneliness. She’d let it build up against her body until she felt she have to scream or explode, then take a break, a breath and a stretch before starting again. Two and half hours. The Circle Line had more endurance than any man, and she knew exactly when to time the last surge, to keep her belly pressed against the edge of the boat, rocking herself against the tide.

The boat must have hit some kind of a current, because Joan felt someone lurch into her back-side only to stagger away with many profuse apologies uttered in what sounded like a Boston accent.

In her imagination, he stayed there.

Yes, he’d only seen her from behind and he was completely enamored; a phantom lover pushing his hardness against her ass, strong hands gripping her thighs, whispering something she couldn’t hear over the noise of the boat and the tourists and the wind, but knew was filthy. That was the moment, as the Circle Line finished the tour to a rousing shout from the passengers, including a muffled gasp and cheer of release from one Joan Harris, the happiest girl in New York City, if only for a few seconds.

As the passengers disembarked, sweat cooled on Joan’s face. Tourists streamed toward their next destination, including men who might desire her, but none of whom would ever touch her. She felt legless and lazy and satisfied, vaguely planning to stop at Gristedes when she got back uptown. Maybe she’d pick up a cold meat supper and some wine. Not that her Mom needed anymore booze, but Joan was feeling generous.

She slid into a cab, wondering absently if Pete Campell could set up a meeting with Circle Line. Joan thought she had a great pitch, one worthy of Don Draper himself.

Feel the post-boatal glow.

Merry Month of Masturbation 2013-Day 4 -"Stoney End" The Wild Wild West (TV Show)

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:04:38 GMT

Title: Stoney End
Fandom: The Wild Wild West (Original TV Show, NOT the 1999 Movie)
Pairing: Artemus Gordon/James West
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 1475
Warnings/Kinks: Prostitution, under-age, child prostitution, cross-dressing. Read at your own risk.
Notes: Written for MMOM Day 4. Prompt from khylara and vanillafluffy. Unbeta'd. Comments and concrit welcome.
Summary: Corset, chaps and a rain-storm.

The Wanderer wasn’t going anywhere and neither were Jim and Artie.

Torrential rain was pouring down on the entire Sacramento Valley, threatening to flood the banks of the American River for the fourth time that year and thunderclaps kept booming around the station from which they’d been planning to depart that evening.

Artie watched as Jim filled the time making sure each gun was oiled and in working order and that each throwing knife was sharpened to its most lethal capacity. Meanwhile Artie took a complete inventory of his disguises and the various accoutrements that went with them. Frayed collars were mended, boots were polished, and even the fake mustaches and beards were carefully groomed in preparation for their next use.

With his weapons, lovingly attended to, Jim then dealt with some outstanding correspondence, including a report to their superiors in Washington. President Grant was always curious as to what went on in California, especially where Governor Haight was concerned. They two men were known as friends, but Grant was savvy enough to know that friendships didn’t always transcend politics and Haight had his own ambitions which might extend beyond Sacramento. There was also the matter of requisitions and expenses, for which Jim referred to the ledgers that Artie so painstakingly filled out to keep track of exactly how much it cost to solve crimes, protected the President, and foil the plans of megalomaniacs to take over all or part of the United States. It wasn’t cheap.

As nighttime fell, and candles were lit, Artie sensed a restlessness building up in their shared accommodation. Neither of them had ventured out for hours. To open any of the doors was to risk a thorough drenching. Jim was getting bored and Artie knew where James West’s mind was likely to go at time like that. It was time for one of his favorite indulgences.

The train had no shortage of whiskey or fine cigars, but as Artie ostentatiously opened a volume of Shakespeare, as if planning to immerse himself in an evening of reading, he heard the words that never failed to produce a deep-seated rush of passion throughout his being, in this case punctuated by the flash of lightning just outside the passenger car.

“Get the corset.”

The corset had been his mother’s and it had seen years of use before Artie volunteered to work the mines in her place. She tried to talk him out of it, but her cough and shaking hands said more than she ever could. Those very same hands laced his fourteen year old body into the corset for his first day alone among the miners.

He quickly learned there were two kinds of men; the ones who would have preferred a girl and those who actually wanted a boy, but didn’t necessarily want to admit that they did. With the help of the corset, a wig and some pots of face-paint, he was able to service both. It was the earliest revelation of his talent for impersonation, the skill that would eventually get him out of Kentucky when he met a mining engineer working for the US Geological Survey. He rode away from the mines without looking back and began a career in government service that led to a partnership with one James T. West.

James was different than any man he’d ever known. His liking for the ladies was no secret, and he’d never chosen to approach Artie for those purposes, no matter how long they might be without female companionship. On the other hand, he’d always shown a fascination with Artie’s ability to transform himself into the feminine form when the job required it. Something about the corset, maybe its rigidity, or the elaborate ritual of the lacing seemed to spark his interest, a very particular kind of interest.

Artie was no longer the boy whose painted smile had often been smeared earning enough to keep him and mama fed, but he still knew how to negotiate for what he needed in return.

“You get the chaps.”

“All right.”

Eventually they sat facing each other in near darkness, one flickering candle between them.

Jim didn’t need Artie to get into a dress or even to don a wig. It was Artie himself, clearly a man, cock exposed and engorged, his upper body encased in the corset that he wanted to say. Maybe he liked the contrast between freedom and constraint, between male and female, or maybe he just had a bit of an inverted streak and this was the only way he felt comfortable acting on it. Artie didn’t care, he was just happy to give James what he wanted and get his own personal object of desire in return.

It was Jim, naked except for a pair of leather chaps. God he was beautiful. His body lean and taut, chest and abdomen well-muscled, and his prick a thing to be worshipped, which Artie would have done in a heartbeat.

The rain continued to batter the top of the train and surrounded countryside to the same rhythm that Artie picked up as he began stroking himself, wanting to breathe deeply, but unable to do and there was a certain tense eroticism to that fact. He knew Jim liked the little whimper that emerged as his torso strained against the whalebone.

Jim’s pace was more leisurely. Artie noted a certain lazy insolence to the way he slouched in the armchair, a leg casually draped over one arm, making himself even more exposed to Artie’s hungry gaze. A bit of a performer himself, James West was, even if he didn’t go in for theatrics the way Artie did. Right now he was putting on a show and Artie didn’t want to miss a moment.

He wished he could cross the space between, reach out, touch the smooth skin, feel the coarse pubic hair against his fingers, breathe in James’s scent.

Instead he watched Jim work himself, as skilled at masturbation as he was at acts of physical violence with what were almost delicate hands.

Artie took a second to pinch one of his own nipples and James indicated his approval with a grunt and an upward thrust of his hips, which gave Artie of world of imagination of Jim inside him, while Artie sat in his lap, and that same thrust pushed him in deeper.

Too much. Too much to ask. Too much to think about. He slowed himself down, spreading his legs wide, stroking his own thighs, showing Jim how much he had to offer, watching as Jim sighed deeply in what sounded like appreciation. They had all night to sit there in the rain and caress each other’s bodies with their eyes while each pleasured themselves. Artie touched his balls, feeling the tension rising again. His mining engineer had named Gordon and suggested it would make a good last name for his new life. He’d also had a taste for having his balls licked. Artie had been happy to oblige; as happy as he would been to display his prowess on Jim’s heavy sac.

It would feel so good in his hand and against his tongue. He’d make James West lose all composure with a few carefully time licks.

“Oh god,” he exclaimed, not even meaning too, and Jim’s throaty, somewhat lewd chuckle echoed in the car as if he knew exactly what Artie had been thinking at that moment.

Whether he did or not, something was propelling him now.

Artie could see Jim’s pace picking up, his cock bobbing up and down. He could smell leather and sweat and cigars and whiskey and everything that was James West permeating the railroad car. He could feel his own skin getting clammy and the corset digging into his flesh and he could hear Jim’s breathing growing nearly as shallow as his own.

“Jim,” he called out as his hand moved faster, his toes curled and the shiver of released came up through his body shaking him until he ejaculated in hot spurts, reminding him again of the vicious satisfaction he’d gotten making those filthy miners lose themselves in his hand, at his power.

Jim didn’t say anything intelligible, but in Artie’s mind he was coming inside him and for him. In that moment, James West was his. They were together; that’s what was important.

Artie could have slept where he was, but the corset needed to come off and James required a bit of cleaning up, so Artie rose with a long leisurely stretch and yawn, to carefully remove and store the precious garment. He saw a certain dreamy quality to Jim’s eyes in the candle-light that he chose to call love.

It might be weeks or even months before he needed the corset again, but when he did…when James did… the corset would be there.

Ready and waiting.

RIP Dr. Joyce Brothers

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 14 May 2013 00:09:04 GMT

Dr. Joyce Brothers, Psychologist Who Advised Millions, Dies at 85

Random notes....

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 23:51:24 GMT

Spoilers behind the cuts.

Because none of my MMOM prompts are writing themselves right now.

Doctor Who

New Who-episodes-Journey to the Center of the Tardis and The Crimson Hour

Why Moff, why? I like Clara so much more than I ever liked Amy, so why can you give me some plots with her that even pretend to bother to make sense? It's not even Timey Wimey anymore with some kind of internal logic. It's as if you did such a good job of screwing up River's time line that you feel you are the Doctor Victorious and nothing matters anymore.

You've actually written a character as likable as Sally Sparrow and you've got NOTHING interesting to do with her but all sorts of fake clues and hints. Which are risking turning her into a speshul snoflake.

As for Gatiss and the Crimson Horror---ok that was sort of gross, but fun, however, I'm kind not buying into a Sontaran as basically a neutered pet, only good for comic relief. I feel pissed on behalf of the Sontarans as it were. (I just saw Invasion of Time--more on that later.) Also, I'm so not in love with the whole Vastra/Jenny thing. It's all just so self-congratulatory I CAN'T wait to get back to my verrrrrry eeeeeeevil fic plans for that bullshit.

Worst of all....we finally got rid of Amy and her door-mat and now I have to put up with KIDS? Cute, smart-ass kids who are totally down with time travel? No. NO. NOOOOOOOO!!!!! Fuck you Moff....a very hearty FUCK YOU!

I will give massive kudos to Dame Diana Rigg----who I didn't even recognize....and I'd just seen her looking young and gorgeous in On Her Majesty's Secret Service the night before. That was some impressive hammery right there, that was.

Doctor Who-Old School-Invasion of Time

Wow....much as I love Sara Jane...Lis Sladen never got to show cleavage like that...or maybe she just never had cleavage like that. Somewhat hilariously, I mostly know Louise Jameson as Louisa's slatternly mother in Doc Martin.

Yeah, I'm staying here. I've fallen in love with this guy I've had like two scenes with. See ya round. On one hand...whatever...on the other---it's a better ending that most New Who companions have gotten. No angst. No drama. No mind-rape. etc etc.

The Time Lords all seem to be involved in a contest to see who can camp it up the most.

That's some impressive special effects---aliens made out of cellophane. But at last the Sontarans were properly Sontariffic.

James Bond

Hubby and I are doing a complete Bond re-watch and just finished what I would call the first section: Dr. No to Diamonds Are Forever, including the 1967 Casino Royale and On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Obviously we have a long way to go through Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan before we even get to Daniel Craig, but you can really see how long a shadow Sean Connery cast and how very perfect he was for the role and the world in 1963.

My thoughts on the first section

Best song-The Look of Love.
Best Bond Girl-Pussy Galore-no one else even comes of close. (Sorry Diana Rigg! Sorry, multiple badly dubbed European women in the earlier films.)
Best Baddie-I know they were only "hench-baddies" and I understand they're considered problematic, but I loved Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever.
Best performance by an animal-The terrified cat in Thunderball.
Most Cringeworthy scene-(I know, lots of competition) Bond "becoming" Japanese in You Only Live Twice. *shudder*

Noir at the Roxie-Saturday, May 11.

Under Age
MEH! But at least it's short and has a bizarrely tacked on, unbelievable happy ending. Another one of those deals where the girl has given no indication whatsoever of caring about the guy...and marries him. I do love the euphemism of "hostess" for "prostitute" in the post-code movie world. Tom Neal, famous for Detour is the nice guy here by the way.

Johnny O'Clock
Perfect noir. Everybody smokes and wears fedoras. Everybody talks smart. Lee J. Cobb plays a schlumpy cop and looks and acts pretty much he same as he did thirty years later playing a schlumpy cop in The Exorcist. The hard-boiled dames are Evelyn Keyes, Ellen Drew and NINA FOCH! (NCIS fans will know her as Ducky's mother.) Random characters get great scenes and leave never to be seen again. And there's all kinds of subtext between Johnny and Charlie. If this movie were made now, those two characters would have a slash fandom going before the first show ended.

Oh Dick Powell...how I love you! Powell and Alan Ladd are my favorite noir actors. Yeah, I know Mitchum and Bogart SHOULD be the tops, but they're not...I just love that Dick Powell was the chirpy, callow musical lead in the classic Busby Berkeley movies and then...he was Philip Marlowe and Johnny O'Clock---and married June Allyson and died of cancer. SAD!

Anyway, this movie is great and gorgous. I can't believe it's not out on DVD.

Ellen Drew is now up there with Lizabeth Scott as my favorite Noir Dame.

She also plays "the girl" in The Monster and the Girl. This one gets lured into becoming a "hostess" as well, by the way.

I can't even describe this---except that if you like monster movies and Noir, this is the movie for you. Plus the cast of supporting baddies is epic and it's got the worst medical examiner and cops in movie history. After years of listening to the ME in procedurals go all Quincy and explain stuff, it was almost a treat to hear this dialogue:
Dr. Knight: No bruises, no abrasions, but practically every bone in his body is broken.
Police Lt. Strickland: How'd it happen?
Dr. Knight: I find them dead - that's my job. You find out how they got that way. Good night!

Something I'm sure the admin did NOT mean to say:

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:44:20 GMT

Can you send me a few flight time (noon time) from SFO to John Wayne Gacy Airport?

And the worst part is, now I'm ALWAYS going to think of Orange County that way.

Happy Birthday donutsweeper

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Sun, 12 May 2013 19:37:56 GMT

John is VERY excited about your birthday!

Good news! It's Noir time again at the Roxie!

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Sat, 11 May 2013 20:18:20 GMT

I'm looking forward to doing all three movies today, especially Johnny O'Clock, which I remember watching when I saw movies on TV, with commercials, in the middle of the night, the way they should be. (Get off my lawn, kids.) It may be the first time I saw hard-boiled noir-Dick Powell as opposed to chirpy Busby Berkeley musical Dick Powell and I totally fell in love with him.

Anyway---I'm going to try and make as many films as possible during the festival.

Friday, May 10 - Thursday, May 23

Another barrier-busting barrage of Hollywood hokum, film noir style! This season's marathon features an astonishing THIRTY films, bona fide classics as well as the customary overflow of ridiculously rare rediscoveries that have come to brand the Roxie as San Francisco's premiere showcase for film noir!

Hardcore favorites like I WAKE UP SCREAMING, CRISS CROSS, and SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS will share the screen this spring with exciting re-discoveries and noir hybrids like BLUES IN THE NIGHT, THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, UNDER AGE, ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT, NIGHTMARE, and JOHNNY O'CLOCK as well as tributes to Cornell Woolrich, Joan Crawford, Beverly Michaels, George Sanders, Arch Oboler and much, much more!

Programmed exclusively for the Roxie Theater by Elliot Lavine.

Here is the schedule for the Roxie's 2013 "I Wake Up Screaming" noir festival.

Merry Month of Masturbation 2013-Day 3-"A Kind Of So So Love" Sherlock

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:37:02 GMT

Title: A Kind Of So So Love
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Pairing: Mycroft Holmes/Sherlock Holmes
Rating: NC17
Wordcount: 2265
Warnings: Darkfic, drug-addiction, prostitution, incest, dub-con, possible triggers, read at your own risk.
Notes: Written for MMOM Day 3. Brilliant beta by filthgoblin. Takes place pre-series. Prompt from daasgrrl.
Summary: Mycroft reacts to a piece of news about his brother.

Mycroft wasn’t remotely shocked when Genevieve brought the news that Sherlock was now actively working as a prostitute in order to support his drug addiction. He was only surprised that it had taken this long. Although perhaps he should count the three months of living rent-free at Cyprian DeLouche’s home in Belgravia as the beginning of Sherlock’s selling himself, in which case, his estimate would have been right on schedule. Certainly Cyprian must have been demanding favours and couldn’t have been shy about lending Sherlock out to his criminal cohorts either.

As his assistant recited the details of precisely which streets and parks in which Sherlock had been observed plying the whore’s trade, Mycroft glanced out the window, taking brief notice of the drizzle that was beginning to come down.

“Shall I go on, sir?”

Mycroft nodded. He knew Genevieve was uncomfortable, but she was new to the position and he was still in the process of training her, which mean exposure to the darker side of humanity, which Mycroft dealt with every day. She needed to overcome her squeamishness and Mycroft needed to hear the full report, both for his own edification, and perhaps as a kind of punishment.

He let her finish up with the more graphic details, including the specific acts that Sherlock had been observed performing, the amounts he was collecting, and the inevitable and immediate outlay for drugs that tended to follow. How Sherlock must be enjoying his own debauchery, knowing full well that Mycroft had eyes and ears everywhere. Each time he spat a mouthful onto the grass in St. James Park, or went through the junkie’s ritual of shooting up, he was taking careful aim his brother, his parents, his class and or whatever new demon he’d chosen to add to his list of adversaries.

Watching Genevieve’s body language, Mycroft could tell she had something to say. It probably wouldn’t shed much light on the situation, but Mycroft thought it would be better to find out what was on her mind, lest she choose to break protocol and share it elsewhere.

“Yes?”

“In school, some of us would joke that if things ever got too bad we could go on the game. And then I’d think, at least it’s not so bad for the boys.”

He watched as she let her discomfort with the thought move through her back and shoulders, before shaking her head in disgust at what she’d previously imagined about the “rent-boy” life.

“It’s a bit tawdry, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Ms. Boulez. It’s extremely tawdry. It is a dark and dirty and foul situation. What made you think it would be anything else? My brother, who possesses what is possibly the finest intellect in the world, is currently selling himself in order to support an addiction to a chemical that he specifically uses to numb that intellect. There’s nothing exciting or romantic or remotely erotic involved in the transactions. I assure you, he will not be finding “true love,” if such a thing exists, in an avenue or alleyway. He will not be rescued by a Prince Charming, nor will he actually enjoy anything that he does or is forced to do out there. Perhaps you need to upgrade your taste in entertainment from whatever brand of fiction you are currently reading or watching that’s given you these notions.”

Genevieve blinked, and Mycroft detected a hint of a wobble in her lower lip, but she stood her ground and covered it well. The girl definitely had potential, Mycroft thought approvingly. Perhaps he’d been slightly out of line. It honestly hadn’t occurred to him that he had such strong feelings on the matter.

“Uh, shall we arrange for an arrest? I’m sure our friends at the Met could have him picked up on some charge.”

“To what end, exactly?”

“To get him off the streets and into a treatment programme.”

Mycroft smiled indulgently.

“No point. Not yet, anyway.”

He knew a few things about addiction and quite a bit more about his brother. Sherlock was in no way ready to be helped. Not while he still had the illusion of control over the situation. His youth, his looks, his self-esteem, as well as his conviction that he could think himself out of trouble. The image of himself as the pretty young thing, able pick his clients and dictate what he would and would not do. All of that would need to be stripped away and Mycroft had no doubt that it would, without a single bit of assistance from him. Perhaps a single beating from a disgruntled customer would do the trick, but Sherlock was a stubborn fellow. He would have to hit a very low bottom, as they said in the recovery racket.

“Are you sure?”

“Keep me posted.”

“Yes, sir.”

With Genevieve gone, and a pile of more pressing matters ahead of him, Mycroft determined to put the matter from his mind until there was a more proper time to consider it. A time when he could be alone with his memories of Sherlock from better days.

He picked up a memo from the Deputy Prime Minister’s office, his hands immediately itching for a large red pencil in which to address not so much the misapprehensions about the state of national security, but the poor choices in phrasing and several mistaken homophones. He used to go over Sherlock’s early essays, and while they tended to be grammatically pure, he would occasionally find a write/right or threw/through error, which being the solicitous older brother, he’d point out for the boy’s own good.

After nearly ten minutes of trying to figure out exactly why Mr. Clegg believed the greatest danger to the British people was an impending attack from Turkmenistan when things were actually far more unstable in Tajikistan, he put down the paper and admitted to himself that Sherlock loathed having any weaknesses pointed out to him and started putting errors into his written work merely to bait Mycroft. In other words, the better days were an illusion.

It was a typically vicious calculation on Sherlock’s part; that he would destroy himself not only with narcotics, but by selling the part of himself that he personally valued least but which he knew Mycroft prized highly. After all, it was Mycroft himself who’d first directed that smooth hand and supple wrist, teaching Sherlock how to relieve his own frustrations and then taking advantage of Sherlock’s willingness to perform the act on his older brother in return for certain considerations. That wasn’t even remotely comparable to the current state of affairs he reminded himself. Just a bit of brotherly love, and Mycroft did love his brother so very much.

All right, he thought. The work needed to be done and he needed to clear his mind of distraction. It was simple enough to lock the door and indicate via all of his electronic means of communication that he did not wish to be disturbed.

The rain had increased in intensity. That couldn’t be good for business. His mind turned to a particular neighborhood mentioned in the report and the sight of his brother standing in the downpour.

Poor Sherlock, desperately needing money for a fix, and the wet streets of Soho yielding nothing in the way of customers. Sherlock was never one for crying, but the rain on his cheeks as he took refuge in a doorway might just pass for tears.

He can’t stay there long, before he’ll be told to move on, but it’s enough time for a black Jaguar to pull up and for the passenger in the back seat to take a good look at his potential purchase. Coat collar turned up around his neck and a rather bedraggled looking scarf. He might be over-dressed for the present weather, but the on bad days the chills come on early.

The door opens and an outstretched hand beckons the prey inside. Yes, Sherlock would do his best to maintain his façade of indifference, perhaps looking over the man in the back seat as if he were prepared to reject him and return to the door of the Pink Flamingo, or some other gauche club, when in fact, he was barely hiding the relief of being out of the rain, and possibly within a few strokes of attaining his goal for the evening.

He forced a tweak in the mental narrative. At an unspoken direction, the car would take off at a speed generally not possible in the City, but Mycroft liked the idea of implicit danger in the scenario; he wanted Sherlock to feel the threat of what was happening, to be reminded just slightly that he was not in control. Ah yes, there it was.

Fear flickers in those beautiful hazel eyes made more compelling by the flecks of yellow, even as he commences the usual pedantic negotiations.

Sherlock is hoping to get away with merely a hand-job, the one his older brother had thought him to perform so proficiently, but this customer senses his desperation and bids for something a bit fancier involving his mouth with manipulation of the testicles and a bonus for a finger inserted in the anus.

Facing forward, trying to hide both the disgust and the shaking in his legs that revealed how badly he needed that next shot, Sherlock is holding out for a number that would justify the degradation.

At that point, Mycroft felt his erection asserting itself. Degradation. Such a lovely word to be applied to his younger brother with his delusions of superiority and contempt for all of humanity besides himself, especially those with actual physical longings.

While he believed Sherlock was still capable of love, he’d known for quite some time that Sherlock felt nothing remotely human when it came to the lusts of the flesh. Oh, he could perform the acts, but it was, in the end, always a performance.

So yes, the gentleman in the car will produce enough currency for Sherlock to remain gloriously numb to all the pain and anger he’s internalized, but not until they’ve arrived at a sufficiently ominous secluded location near a deserted stretch of Chelsea Embankment.

The man undoes his trousers and slightly lifts his rear off the seat, leaving to leave room to pull them down to below his knees. He does not remove his boxers. He likes having Sherlock reach into the slit to access his prick. Sherlock is forced to touch the man’s undergarments with his lips and tongue as he exposes the shaft itself, not quite at full hardness; he really will have to work for this.

The thought of Sherlock faced with less than utter adoration - an anonymous john who expected his whore to put a bit of effort into it - was profoundly gratifying.

He had his own cock out now, quite fully engorged and in need of release. Remembering that Sherlock had only learned to perform fellatio after several less than satisfactory attempts made the imagery that much better.

The man is rather well endowed and while Sherlock is doing his job, he is clearly in distress, eyes open and just a hint of real tears as his hands move down to the bollocks, perhaps hoping that he can bring the act to its culmination earlier rather than later.

But he wants that bonus and that means he has to get the man off, in his mouth, and have that finger up his bottom at the same time. He clenches his eyes closed and feels just the hint of fluid seeping out of the corners, and as he nearly gags on the man’s girth and eases one hand under the man’s bottom feeling for his opening. His finger has already been moistened, but he still approaches this action with distaste. It’s one of the things he’s managed to fend off until now, not even for Mycroft…

Mycroft clenched his own buttocks against the finger he’d never be able to get Sherlock to use in that capacity. The expression of pain and disgust and anger on Sherlock’s face as he sucked off the anonymous, potentially dangerous stranger in the black sedan, and fondled his balls with one hand while working that finger against the tight ring of flesh…

Sherlock is gagging a bit, saliva easing what he must do for the only thing he still cares about, the thing that is so alluringly close even as he feels the need retch over what he is doing to get it.

His strokes culminated in the nearly-too-tight squeeze that he’d trained Sherlock to hold until he was finished pumping his release into his hand and a full-bodied sigh of pleasure, even as he let the final sequence of the fantasy play out in his mind to sound of the pouring rain.

Rain drips down on Sherlock, washing the disgust off his lips and hands, the money is safe inside his coat as the car pulls away having dropped him in front of the café where his dealer holds court. He grits his teeth against rising nausea, telling himself he just needs a fix, and then perhaps a hot cup of tea and he’ll be fine. Just fine.

With his mind considerably clearer, Mycroft called for Genevieve to bring him a cup of tea and re-instated all of his communications, sighing at the deluge of bureaucratic drivel that still awaited him, starting with the Deputy Prime Minister and his geopolitical ineptitude. The work was tedious, but at least there were problems that Mycroft could solve immediately.

Unlike his brother.

I hate my body

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Sat, 11 May 2013 18:39:15 GMT

I hate the fact that my body is genetically pre-disposed to creating fat cells and storing large amounts of "energy" in them.
I hate that I have no sanity when it comes to dealing with fat and/or sugar and especially the combination of fat and sugar. One is too many and a thousand never enough.
I hate that I have the mental programming that will never really allow me to have body acceptance as long as I have a butt and gut that exceeds the current societal norms for beauty.
I hate that I can still cycle at length but that running or long walking tends to trigger muscle spasms in my back and hip.
I hate that the core work I need such as crunches and push-ups also triggers these spasms and therefore can keep me from doing further exercise until the pain alleviates.

However, the self-hatred I would like to talk about today involves keratin. Specifically the keratin covering part of my fingers. Yes, I would like to offer a hearty fuck you to my fucking finger nails. As some of you know, I generally keep my nails done in acryllics. This is a plastic tip glued onto the top of the nail (i.e. a more grown up version of the old Lee Press-on Nail) and then an acryllic paste is painted onto it creating a fake nail which is then filed, buffed and polished to perfection creating what I call "goddess nails."

About a month ago, Tina, the artiste who creates my goddess nails brought to my attention that I had developed an infection under one of my nails, the ring finger of my right hand. She basically had to carefully cut off about two thirds of the nail in a v-pattern, let the pus run out and apply some kind of Chinese ointment. Yes, you may all indulge in a chorus of EWWWWWWW!

Since I now had one naked, nearly missing nail, there was no point keeping a set of acryllics on the rest of them and so I've been keeping my nails short and manicured with clear polish while waiting for the other nail to grow back. But the thing I hate....HATEHATEHATE about my body is that it somehow cannot produce the keratin in way to allow me to grow my nails. AT ALL. I have to get them cut and filed down because the minute I get a fraction of growth on there, it breaks and chips and splits, sometimes causing more excruciating pain.

Along with the keratin based stuff growing out of my head, which I continue to keep dying in an effort to fend off its true color and the encroaching grayness, I hate these short, stubby, ugly, broken nails so much.

The infection is completely over and the nail IS growing back, it's just doing it unbelievably slowly and it may be at least two more weeks if not longer until I can get a new set of acryllics and not hate the sight of my hands again.

And please---do not say the word "gelatin." Just don't.

Happy Birthday recrudescence

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:35:14 GMT

From me and this gentleman, in all his sartorial and tonsorial splendour!

One of my favorite Ficathons is coming back!

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Thu, 09 May 2013 00:03:49 GMT

Ficathon Walks Into a Bar-Livejournal

Ficathon Walks Into a Bar-Dreamwidth

You can sign up at either one.

Basically you pick a character to walk into a bar. You offer four fandoms that the character is not in...and they pick a character from one of those fandoms for your character to me....and you write a story.

Go. Sign up. NOW!

A hearty fuck you to the Gwen haters.....

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Wed, 08 May 2013 23:35:04 GMT

Because let's face it, a lot of their venom tended to spill over to the lovely and talented Eve Myles.

And look who's got their own series on BBC1?

BBC Website-Frankie

So let's see, that makes Barrowman on Arrow and with a guest shot coming up on Scandal, not to mention his now-you-see-it, now-you-don't appearance in Zero Dark 30, Burn Gorman doing incredibly high profile work like Spies of Warsaw and Game of Thrones and now the LOVELY and TALENTED Eve Myles starring in a series.

SUCK IT, HATERS! Cause I see RTD nowhere in sight...and there she is.

A few notes about the Sacramento trip

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Wed, 08 May 2013 22:47:32 GMT

1. Train travel is awesome. I realize you can't get everywhere on Amtrak, but damn it, if you CAN get there and you've got the time, you should. No strip searches, no naked pictures, no shoes off...they don't even ask for ID. Lots of leg room.

2. The bicycles were fairly easy to deal with. The BART from Embarcadero Station to Richmond was no problem, but we did go at around 9AM and it was nearly empty on Friday morning. At the Richmond Amtrak station we got in the wrong car...the one that DIDN'T have bicycle storage and had to switch to the next car at Martinez. The bicycle storage is slightly unwieldy, but once you're in, you're in. We did it much more smoothly on the way back. The really nasty bit was coming from Richmond back to our 16th and Mission BART Station on a Sunday afternoon. You have to switch trains at MacArthur and both trains were packed making us quite the crowded spectacle. UGH.

Let me say emphatically that I will never again take for granted the BART announcements about which elevators are in or out of service.

At the Citizen hotel we were able to park the bikes in front of the hotel for the afternoon and then keep them in the room over night. At the Hyatt Regency, we were able to check them in with the bell captain. (Aye, aye sir!)

Why two hotels? The joy of being a travel agent. Sometimes you can get a free hotel, but never more than one night.

3. It was hot as BALLS in Sacramento. Coming from San Francisco, it's always weird to be in a place where air conditioning is required. UGH!

4. Sacramento is a great bicycle city. Nice wide, smooth streets with bike lanes almost everywhere. We even rode through the mall near Old Town. About the only bike-related hassle was the fact that most of the streets are one-way and many times we were on a street going the wrong way---luckily over the weekend, it was quite easy to ride on the sidewalks.

5. Old Town is crap. But it's better if you're just cruising by on a bike.

6. The Capitol Building is awesome. Our tour-guide, Curtis was both well-informed and QUITE opinionated. We liked him a lot. We also toured the Leland Stanford mansion and got a private tour from Annie, as we were the only ones there.

7. Friday Night Concerts In The Park.
That would be the park directly across from our hotel room. The concert sound check started VERY LOUDLY around 6PM and the concert ended sometime after 10PM. Did I mention it was very loud?
Thus we got to hear: ELEMENT OF SOUL | Musical Charis | They Went Ghost | DJ Epik, all for free from our hotel room, at the free concert.

8. American River Bike Trail-very nice. We rode most of Saturday morning and afternoon. Except for the places were the trail gets lost or at least we did. At one point we were cruising up and down tree-lined streets in suburban Sacramento, which was nice too. Then we found the trail again and rode through Discovery Park and back into Old Town, before trying the other side of the trail. We also sat on the bank of the American River watching various goings on there. Boats, fishing, jet-skis, dogs, ducks and a drunken idiot jumping off a not-very tall bridge. No injuries, but definitely a stupid thing to do.

9. We watched a lot of the Weather Channel. Hey, it was Tornado Week!

10. Went to see Iron Man 3 on Saturday Night. Imax/3-D and all that was left when we got there was the Front Row! I'll do a separate review post for the movie.

11. Meals-we had a free dinner at The Grange Restaurant at the Citizen Hotel....very froofy, but hubby had an amazing rib-eye. The breakfast buffet at the Hyatt Regency was generic, but the fruit was extremely fresh, so YAY Hyatt. We had lunches at Bernardos and Ambrosia, which are both the type where you order at the counter and then they bring the food. Hubby hates those. He's likes full service dick-sucking, if you know what I mean. We did get that at Capital Park Cafe where we had Breakfast before the big bike ride on Saturday. Everything we love---booths, table service, good prices. Late Saturday after the movie, we went to Amourath 1819 bar at the Hyatt for bar nibblies. Meh, but hey, it was open when most of Sacramento was closing down.

12. Saturday was prom night! I got to take pictures of awkward teenagers in tuxedos and prom gowns and take the piss out of them while they were leaving the hotel afterwards.

13. Got home and pretty much immediately went out for Karaoke. As you do.

RIP Ray Harryhausen

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 20:10:49 GMT

Hollywood effects wizard Ray Harryhausen dies at 92

The sword-fighting skeletons are still one of my favorite things ever!

Belated Happy Birthday to crashgirl82

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Tue, 07 May 2013 04:17:35 GMT

Going away for two days....

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Fri, 03 May 2013 07:08:18 GMT

WITH NO COMPUTER!!!

Hubby and I are taking the Capitol Corridor Amtrak train to Sacramento and will spend two days biking around there. It's going to be seriously hot and since packing space is limited I'm going without the laptop. I'll pick up with MMOM when I get back.

Merry Month of Masturbation 2013-Day 2-"Hateful" Sherlock

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Fri, 03 May 2013 06:02:55 GMT

Title: Hateful
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/Sally Donovan
Rating: PG13
Wordcount: 500
Notes: Written for MMOM. Day 2. Beta'd by evila_elf. Takes place prior to The Reichenbach Fall.
Summary: Sherlock needs the perfect partner for his fantasy.

“Come on Sherlock, don’t knock it. What was it that Woody Allen said? At least it’s sex with someone you love?”

Lestrade's announcement came in response to what must have been the expression on Sherlock’s face following the tale of a suspect who'd been apprehended while in an act of self-gratification in the gentlemen’s loo at St Pancras.

Sherlock looked at Lestrade, feeling more than usual the gap between himself and the rest of the so-called “normal world.” It wasn’t necessarily the criminal’s foolishly timed need for a wank that perplexed him, as much as the idea that there was any love involved in the process.

He knew his intellect made him the superior of virtually any living human, equal only to his brother, and for that he held himself in great regard. But love? He thought not. Sherlock knew he was not a good man, nor a kind one. His own weaknesses disgusted him and his failures hung in his memory like a bad smell. Whether it was Molly’s cloying affections, John’s doggish loyalty or even the smothering devotion of his mother, there was nothing of those emotions in his feelings toward himself.

Thus when he did give in to physical manifestation of base desires, he inevitably chose a fantasy partner he could count on to hate him as much as he hated himself. Sally Donovan, cheekbones taut with disdain and voice heavy with sarcasm, showing Sherlock her surprisingly voluptuous body, while castigating him as the deviant, repulsive, self-loathing fraud, that only she could see clearly while the rest of the world chose to cover him in accolades.

So potent was the fantasy that a session of stimulation rarely lasted long. He’d timed it down to a mere two minutes from the point he ascertained his own arousal, counting the time to disrobe and apply lubricant. The minute he thought of DS Donovan sneering at his erection, he’d feel his buttocks clench and his hand would start moving faster at her imagined orders to bring himself off, and prove exactly what a piece of filth he really was. He’d obey her demands and if he was feeling particularly randy, the fantasy might culminate with her permission to spill his ejaculate onto her breasts, only on the condition that he clean it off with his tongue.

That was the ultimate frisson; the soiling of Sally and his own debasement.

It did occasionally make it difficult to keep up the face of indifference the next time he encountered her, but Sherlock was nothing if not a consummate actor. For instance, right now he was feigning the urgent need to leave the pub and get home because one of his experiments was approach its culmination and he needed to be there.

Whether Lestrade believed him was irrelevant as long as his true reason for departure went unsuspected. No need for his friend to think he was going anywhere other than Baker Street.

“Where to?” asked the cabbie.

“St Pancras, and please hurry.”

Happy Birthday _tallian_

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Thu, 02 May 2013 22:56:53 GMT

Only Joy, a photo by karaokegal on Flickr.

Wishing you this on your birthday!

100 TV Shows #62-Six Feet Under

kitty64ster@gmail.com — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:13:20 GMT

Six Feet Under

This is the story about the only time I have literally "rage-quit" a show over a single episode. Looking at the dates, I'm surprised this happened so long ago, specifically on July 18, 2004.

Six Feet Under wasn't necessarily a super-Zeitgeist show. I don't think it was ever the show EVERYONE was talking about, but it was the one that a lot of people recommended and it sounded interesting and quirky. So we did the first season on Netflix. All I really remember, because I'm done my best to block it ALL out is that my "crush" character was Nate, of course, and how funny it was to see Matthew St. Patrick as a gay cop, when he'd been playing a cop who was stuck being the jerk ONLY because he was actually trying to stop the gangsters on GH and by that time on GH, the gangsters were the "heroes."

And oh yeah, David. I loved David. The scene where he's doing the vacuuming and it goes into the musical fantasy number clinched it for me.

I do remember that general sense of dread, even when things were funny/quirky, something bad was always going to happen. (What is it about those HBO shows that ALWAYS ends up that way?) This was before I watched the Sopranos, but same kind of thing. Especially the introduction of Brenda's brother and their creepycreepy backstory. But it was interesting/funny enough that we got through the first two seasons on disk and might have had the first disk of the third season in the apartment when IT happened.

It was the night that I was in Santa Cruz for the Wharf to Wharf run. As always we were staying at the grossly over-priced Travel-lodge. We did some kayaking that Saturday if I recall correctly, and came back to the hotel to get some sleep, normally to the sound of this awesome channel they always show at the hotels in Santa Cruz, which is basically nothing but surfing videos. I love surfing videos.

Instead of surfing videos, Hubby happened upon HBO, and the beginning of Six Feet Under. I didn't want to watch, because it was a new episode of Season 4 and we still had Season 3 on disk waiting at home. I wasn't quite as OCD about watching TV in order as I've since become, but I really didn't want to watch this episode. Hubby went with "there's nothing else on," and he was basically only there in Santa Cruz so I could do this run and he could meet me in Capitola afterwards and take me home.

So we watched. We watched all of Season 4, Episode 5, That's My Dog.

I'm not a big fan of trigger warnings. Sometimes I'm less than sympathetic to claims of being triggered. My feeling is we're big boys and girls and the world isn't always going to cater to our personal issues.

That being said, every single second of the plot-line with David and the car-jacker was a full-blown, screaming, anxiety attack, crying trigger for me. The forced drug-taking and undertone of sexual violence and manipulation had me totally freaking out. I can honestly say I have never been so upset by something I saw on television INCLUDING the last episode of Twin Peaks.

I don't KNOW if it would have been any better if I'd seen the episode in its correct order and immediately been able to see the next episode, or if it was always going to be exactly that horrible. Let's just say Hubby soon figured out he had made a terrible mistake.

When we got home, I put the Netflix disk back in its envelope, sent it out and never watched another episode. I don't know what happened in the finale. I don't care. I try not to think about this too much because I can still feel the terror that I had empathizing with David in that episode.

The feeling is so strong that even though people tell me how great Dexter is, I haven't been able to watch it and I think part of the reason is NOT wanting to be in a situation where I'm caring about Michael C. Hall and have to be afraid of bad things happening to him. (Yes, I know on Dexter, he's mostly the one doing bad things, but just looking at him might be disturbing.)

Strangely enough I was able to go and watch all of Sports Night with no problems, but I never cared about Nate the way I cared about David and I've never been as pissed off at a show for hurting someone I cared about.