In challenge to myself,

I must find a more loving tout.

Something I can...

No.

That won't do.

My husband loves me.

The poor soul.

I am not delicate, hardly... at all.

I am like a whip, cracking against the earth.

Quick and swift, rugged across the delicately bound lace from the Earth I struck.

Air ripples around me, cross and resistant to my form,

but we mold each other, for I am bold.

When I dress?

I dress in the likes of femininity,

hardly boorish but nothing... perverse. For I know the ways a man's mind might converse.

Try to guess at my body, make jabs in ways.

I like to tease my husband in the best of our youngest days.

For there is no guessing to be had with little clothes, and I am not Roxanne. I'm not a whore out for show.

If only my personality was more feminine.

Poor man.

He's probably missing out.

He said he doesn't mind it too much, but I can read the doubt.

He loves me.

Loves me fiercely.

A passion I've never written so,

but in my attempt to find something dainty and loving,

I find I am hardly a doe.

I am rough, rigid, and thrilling, but hardly the dainty, loving and willing.

So I write today,

tonight,

tomorrow,

in passion to my husband's delicate compassion,

to give form to his burning desire,

so that I can show him a more mirrored love.

I love you, my dearest husband.

I love you so.

You managed to pick a uneven tempered stallion so.

To love her is to scrawl her name in my mind,

to cut corners and edges and make it tiny and divine.

For when issued the nickname,

it confesses my devotion to her.

Let's ache of my heart,

and establishes our connection here.

To love her... is to give upon good kisses,

lavish in the way a man wishes he can hold her, appreciate her, for every curve of her body, and imperfection of her skin.

Because beauty is not within what nature gave her,

or passed from parents to kin,

but the very essence of the soul piece she gave to me.

That I cherish within.

Peace of mind in my soul is knowing she loves me,

that she looks at me with fondness when my day is ended,

but I get to watch her sleep when it begins.

Some nights, some days, we may only see each other in brief passing,

but I cherish it anyway.

Loving her is to scrawl her in my memory,

even if nature robs her from my mind one day.

Should I see her face in kind, the one I first remembered, though I may not recognize her now, I'd probably fall in love again.

I love her all.

She is the embodiment of life, she is the thing I live for most.

She is scrawled deep within my soul.

The essential essence that drives my mind.

My one, true eternal...

Damn my nosy persistence.

I found myself standing at the end of the door to James’ door. Sure, he wasn’t high council anymore, having moved down to being a court judge for middle-class vampires, overseeing their cases and sorting out trivial property disputes, but I wanted to know something.

I lifted my fist, hesitating then knocked on the door. I heard a clatter, then something seemed to fall before the door opened, and I noticed his collar looked a little… funny, but I left it. Forcing myself to stop scrutinizing him, my eyes danced up to that rather rhombus shaped forehead of his before settling on his slate-blue eyes.

“I have a question,” I said to him. “Do you have time?”

He looked at me, then back behind him before he slowly stepped out the door, shutting it behind him and I glanced towards the room behind him, but his body largely obscured it. Oh well, I suppose that’s what happens when you put a six-foot one or so man in front of a woman around five-foot seven. It just was what it was.

“What is your question?” he asked as he adjusted his collar.

Lecher. “I was looking to see if you were willing to impart me a personal question,” I said rather calmly.

“Of course,” he said rather nervously.

I looked down at my hand slowly, regarding it. I wasn’t one to blackmail, but— I wasn’t going to stoop to that. That wasn’t me.

“I heard you were caught out with a scandal regarding your habits back from our younger days,” I told him, closing my eyes. “And I wanted to impart a little information with you. Advice, I suppose,” I told him.

“Mhm,” he answered, and I looked up to see him looking at me, almost… nervously guilty. Why? Did he know something I didn’t?

“Rumors are spreading, and if you have any intention of preserving your dignity, you should likely step down from your judicial position before it explodes out of control.”

He tilted his head up, staring down at me before giving one single skeptical nod. “I— see,” he said carefully. “Is that all?” he asked.

I glared up at him. “Considering the rumor,” I said, staring at him harshly. “Yes. Pray tell it doesn’t come across my desk,” I told him. “I’ll be sure to file it properly along with an internal investigation.” I suppose I was threatening him now, wasn’t I? Well, if he was guilty. “The Duchess is getting tired of upper-class grievances, and I’m beginning to think she might start implementing more harsh measures,” I bluffed.

“Consider yourself carefully,” I told him before turning away and I felt a tiny bit of self satisfaction in that.

Prick. I stamped my way down the hallway, feeling good about myself for once. It was a tiny glimmer of joy to my abysmal lifestyle, but it helped take the edge off.

Slender, long thin arms attached to a robust frame. Staring into the mirror long enough, it felt so strange, seeing the plump body attached to the arms that I typically stared down at. Who would have thought small dainty hands that I considered ugly, because I thought my fingers were short and stubby only made me feel so overtly feminine that all I felt like was a piece of meat when men looked at me.

I considered cutting off my long hair again, but considering the time it took to grow it back, I didn't want to be called a little boy again by my peers because I was long past that stage of life.

Having lived for over five-hundred years, it was hard to justify the way people assumed that by my looks I was some child they could take advantage of. Instead, it surprised them when I opened my mouth to articulate my position, and when my expression changed from friendly to serious, I think they finally saw me for something they hadn't before. Aged.

I opened my mouth, tipping my head to the side as I put one hand to my chest, my fingers pushing against my breasts as the other hand held out, extended away from me dramatically.

"Victoria, you look positively voluptuous today," I mimed out loud, recanting twice-widowed Senior Officer Lyam Blair told me. I turned my head the other way, swapping hands to extend the other. "Victoria, are you sure you want to continue to remain single since Chancellor Mylan Burchard unwound the marriage?" I wrinkled my nose at that sting, irritated at that. That was the underhanded slight that Marie Blythe said to me to try to pair me up with her lecherous brother.

"Hag," I grit out. "Of course I don't want to marry your idiot brother," I said out loud. I wished I'd said that to her face, but I didn't have the nerve.

My hand dropped, and I sighed. I wished Jaskier had taken my complaint seriously that I had been poisoned. I wished that he'd let the politie open an investigation up to find the criminal who attempted it, but he'd said it too difficult to press considering the onslaught of men and women dying to W.

I only wished I'd heard back from Liaison Frasier. Maybe I could have gotten somewhere further with him, but I'd fallen ill around the time I meant to call, and it took me eleven months to get well, only for it all to get folded up and resolved.

"It was all the Bludhavens," I said, my voice dropping as emotion worked up through me, and my chin quivered as I tilted my head back, staring in the mirror at myself. At the green eyes and strawberry blonde hair that almost tinged amber in the right light.

"Get a grip, Victoria. Can't you tell the case closed?" My mouth quivered, the corners turning down as I tried to keep my emotions, repeating the hateful, vile words Jaskier said to me. "It's just one baby."

I forced my eyes closed, unable to keep my emotions in check as I tried to steady my breathing.

"It's just one-" my breathing stuttered, "baby."

I clenched my teeth, shoving my palms into my face as I curled in, breaking down. My shoulder quivered, and a shuddered sob racked my body as I sobbed loudly for a second. I screamed through my hands, trying to shove out the grief out of my chest, but it wouldn't let up. It hadn't let up.

I couldn't take it anymore, but I had to.

"Put yourself back together Victoria," I seethed through my teeth and extended fangs, stifling my sobs. "GET IT TOGETHER!" I lifted my head from my hands and stared at my reflection, but the anger welled in my chest and I grabbed my filigree decorated brush by the handle and flung the metal thing at the glass, shattering it as I screamed at it.

"NO!" I screamed, my breathing stuttering as I felt my teeth ache. "No." I don't want to.

That's what I told myself at least. That's what I said, night after night for five years post recovery before I found myself sitting in the day-to-day task, returning to my chair, running my seat a hollow husk of what I felt all I had left.

"Victoria," a voice said, and I lifted my head up from my computer to look at Peace Officer Frasier, but I didn't smile.

"Yes, Mr. Frasier," I said to him.

"My son- err, Liaison Frasier is requesting documents revolving around a Lycan boy, but we don't have record of him. I went ahead and requested for the proper paperwork and filled it out ahead of time since they're moving to extract him, but I was looking to see if you could check the database for him. If he doesn't have any matching records to the missing persons, can you create a new datafile for him?"

"Of course," I told him, bowing my head slightly as he slid me the file folder. When I opened it, seeing the blur of a photo of a boy with deep black hair and bright blue-ish eyes that I wasn't sure if they were somewhat brown or not, I flipped through the next page and turned to my computer to type in the information.

I just had to transcribe files, create official records for refuges, and assign them placement in the system for who they were warded to, and what jurisdiction they'd be assigned in the system.

That's all it should have been, but somehow... When I entered this boy's information only for him to show up weeks later at my desk for his final photo ID, and a proper set of papers to name him in our network before sending him back home to the U.S., I felt a flash of jealousy in me that reignited so much pain that I almost thought I couldn't function in my job, and so I resigned from the official records office, turning over to do more menial things.

Assigning dockets to criminal cases, court cases, and it should have ended there. My pain should have ended there, but I should have known better.

For nearly three-hundred years, the pain laid dormant, festering in me like a mold until it corrupted me through and through, and my mind was as weak as my plush exterior. Short, soft hands... a soft, plump chest, and a child-like exterior because of my average build, because I wasn't thin and narrow like others. Where I would have probably preferred.

I stamped another file for the lower courts, passing that paperwork on, shuffling it into a stack that wasn't mine to transcribe. Stacey would do those. I only dealt with high profile cases, with upper epsilon within our ranks. They rarely got more than a slap on the wrist, but that was only because Jaskier was lax with them, just like he was with his bastard nephew, but he was the only one who ever got what he was really asking for. Even though Jaskier had been removed from his position about forty years ago, his legacy lived on, and the new council members seemed hardly apt to enforce some new era to right his wrongs.

They were all lazy. Despicable, gutless and spineless rakes. I wrinkled my nose as I stamped the paper in front of me when I heard voices chattering away giddily as they crossed into the office.

"He's done it again," one of the girls said.

"Who?"

"James of course!" she chirped. "He's gotten himself in a mess of tickets for attempting to bribe a winery to create drug-laced wine, and Duchess Adeline threatened to truly gut him if he didn't keep his nose to himself." When the other girl laughed, I felt myself sour a little more. I was sure I'd see that file in no time soon enough.

I rolled my eyes.

"Yes. Apparently it was an old dig up, and he said it was far past the statue of limitations," she laughed, and I wrinkled my nose. Perhaps not, I thought instead. Maybe I'd never see a file on it if it was that long ago.

"I guess it was all in that mix-up about the Bludhaven's and their supposed tampering with the wine. Something about him dabbling with a dangerous concoction of drugs. He said he was just trying to make some sort of euphoric drug, but I doubt she'll buy it."

I looked up at them, staring at them, wondering when they'd leave, but then the other girl said something to the first that really got my attention.

"Well, it wasn't just any brand. It was apparently a very exclusive wine, I suppose. Cachet wine, I guess, and the batch was very exclusive. I suppose only a few bottles were made."

I stared at them, feeling the room twist around me. Cachet? I used to drink Cachet all the time before they went out of business. In fact, it'd been a preferred before I figure out I was a few months pregnant, but they also had a blood packaging service that I often found myself favoring. My stomach churned. James, you prick. I sighed, huffing as I got up from my desk abruptly, interrupting their talk as I heard them stop chattering.

I was sure my chair was noisy enough to startle them. I picked up my papers to walk them around the desk for the file cabinet and stopped to look at them. "Talking about the cases is prohibited, even if it's between workers," I told them, and I recognized one of them. Chelsea. With her slender frame, long deep brown straight hair and tiny lips, she was just shy of everything I wanted out of her body except that tiny mouth of hers.

She gaped at me for a moment, and then aptly shut her mouth because I held seniority over her, and she nodded. "Naturally. I apologize." She grabbed the other woman's arm to tug her along, but I didn't correct that. I just let them walk away.

As I gripped my papers tighter, I walked forward to the cabinet to grab a few more manila folders to categorize the papers respectively. As I put a paperclip on the outer open edge to keep the papers in and the file closed, I paused, a little irritated by what I heard.

Surely I wasn't... buying during that time, right?

Here,

We can lie across long couches,

one leg lifting long and out stretching past the length of the bent other

then rest it there, atop of the peak of that other.

And let thy leg bounce.

Twisting the ankle,

bone protruding proudly in the softest of curvatures as the foot may dance back and forth.

And your eye might linger there for a moment, then slowly follow the shapely gain of that leg. Up the curved back of the calf, plump and soft, down the back of the knee encapsulated by the robust and firm shape of the top, then up to the widening thighs which touch hips.

And your breathing might grow heavy.

Not in ways that it might stagnate, but more in the ways like a dog licks its lips at the dangling treat.

For there is something there. Something hungry.

And if you dare touch it... It best be yours, not theirs or any others. Purely yours, because no sane man wants to share his dinner with others far too aware of what pleasures it gives him.

I've submitted my first manuscript to an anonymous critic today. Stonzi and I are nervous. I went ahead and even rewrote the beginning and added a prologue, and I'm so excited but heavily nervous at the same time because I'm afraid it'll miss the mark. I spent HOURS editing this story, once for coherency, and again to change the format from third omni to a first person POV with third person chapters for outside occurrences relevant to the story's movement.

Wish me luck.

If you'd like to query to also read the submitted works, please reach out via Messages.

I stared across from us at my reflection in the blackened window. Despite it being pitch black dark outside, it wasn’t really what I was staring at. No, I was staring at myself. Because the window had become more of a mirror, giving me the reflection that I was slowly starting to believe was showing what I looked like on the inside. Gaunt. Pale… Two red eyes staring at me that seemed like they were drooping at the corners, pulling my face into this somber and pathetic look that made me look so weak and vulnerable that I wanted to smash the glass reflecting me.

I feel my heart and soul,

like it's been stolen from me.

As if the person took no time to remove it,

snapping each attaching piece attaching it to my body and then promptly yanking it out.

Tearing my heartstring in their profession,

My character's demise is the angle of their direction.

Here, we might bow and greet each other with formalities.

Still, I'll feel gutted post-hand for what I've done to stand up for myself.

For what I wanted to right, where there was wrong.

And somehow in the whirlwind of it all,

I think my own voice might drown out the sound.

"Stop talking, and listen."

"Listen and understand."

"Listen and understand."

"Answer the question."

"Answer it."

"Answer it!"

-sigh-

I just have to be kind... to myself.

Bring myself peace.

I just have to remember that I'm here, and it's not with me.

It's just a memory.

For there is no peace of mind when at the podium with a man who only pays you in kind.

I feel as if I've been gutted, and the creativity in me can't even begin to fathom how much my chest aches. Today isn't a good day. The day prior wasn't either. Too much. Too much at once. I tried to trudge along and all I feel for it is gutted.

Please.

If anyone is there. If anyone can hear me.

I don't feel good today.

My soul feels tired.

My soul feels sick.

I think the angle in which I'm trying to be understood is merely just a trick. It's harsh, and cruel, but it's all lessons learned about people who aren't genuine. People who aren't good.

Strung up,

String away.

Entrails line the walls today.

Mine.

My stomach in shambles,

I try to tuck it all back in.

But my body can't handle.

Can't handle being turned inside out while being inside in.

Down within itself until I'm sick and wishing for him.

Wishing for him to stop digging in, turning me inside out.

His hand is one of many, just like so many before.

Dig and push, dig and push.

Like he's looking for something. Probing.

Ah, it's okay.

I guess he's no different.

Just another person taking a professional turn on the pedestal.

Just another community member making it their endeavor.

Looking. Digging. At my behest.

Turning me inside out,

Making me wish I wasn't here.

I just... want to be whole.

Not twisted up inside,

Not on display for all to see.

Fucking hell. I'm feeling broken and torn.

It's an ugliness I have to lay bare.

I need it to go out of me,

and I need to breathe.

Because if I let it win, it'll break me.

From outside in.