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[haggle]

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text; un: kboy88

[kobes]

guess who just landed bitcjhhhhhhhhhhhhjjjjjjj

[haggle]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH bodyguard barbie's back in town 💖
where u at slut i'm already yelling

[kobes]

im fucking dead in my fineass hotel room what u think
flight was ass i had to fly business instead of first so i took all my xannies so i didnt have to listen to ppl snore 😭😭😭😭

[haggle]

livin my dream
die pretty stay sexy forever
and you didn't save me jackshit?? koby 😭 i thought we had something special

@mr.wright – text

[masticated]

I hear there's a party tonight.
Save some of your time for me, for old time's sake.

[haggle]

anything for you, mr. wright
you were always my favorite dance partner ❤️
none of these other guys know how to tango

how's my baby doing?

[masticated]

And you were mine ♥
Very few can keep up with your skill.

[knowing her she could be talking about his cat.

she's definitely talking about his cat.]

He misses you.

[he misses her.]

[haggle]

very few can keep up with me at all, honey 😘
that was never any trouble for you, huh?

i miss him too 💔
you treating him right? or do i gotta steal him away?

text 🌙 @SELENE

[nightsung]

How are the yoni steams treating you? Hopefully they're clearing the rabble out 🩵

[haggle]

jennie i think i'd need a full fucking exorcism for that
why did i let any of these pricks into my
what do you call it
"sacred temple"

[nightsung]

If you do need an exorcism, Emmrich and I could perform one. But I don't think it's necessary yet.

Moments of weakness happen in the search for connection. Just remember that you don't have to let unclean energies make a home inside you.

[haggle]

coulda fooled me
got some demons that keep crawling back

i'll keep that in mind when my next mistake bends me over
is there some kinda ritual for NOT attracting bullshit

— action.

[ailerons]

[ The hallway outside of her room. The door is closed perfectly shut, the doorknob unturned, not an atom out of place. It's only obvious in the hallway: a single poker chip from outside the manor, rimmed in bright yellow, lying flat against plush carpet. Ten grand, from one of the larger casinos on the strip.

Inside, Jake's on her bed. Like he belongs there, like he never left it. A dark henley and jeans, shoes kicked off, one arm pillowed behind his head, legs stretched out with his ankles crossed over one another. The other hand holding open a book against his stomach, the meat of his palm hiding the title as he reads. He holds it from the top, his middle finger splitting between the pages.

He grins at her the minute she enters. Bright, gleaming. He doesn't even so much as straighten. From a small gap in the curtains, a soft ray of sunlight blooms, catching against the necklace he wears. Gold band, linked through on a silver chain. ]

Hi, honey.

[ How long's it been since he saw her. Couple months, almost a year? No outside calls while he'd been locked up. Not a lot of ones before then, either. A postcard on her birthday, maybe; a call at Christmas, never from the same number. ]

[haggle]

( she knows the smell of a set-up. even robe-clad and sun-drunk, even sleepless, even spun sideways by melancholy, she can still sense it. because it reeks of late nights tucked into jake's neck, nicotine and aftershave. the rasp of stubble against her cheek, nodding off to the sound of his pencil scratches on stolen blueprints. a camera here, a blindspot there. whispers against the crown of her head about timing and getaways like a lullaby, security protocols turned into pillow talk. 

her toes nudge the landmine of that poker chip. ten grand's worth of fuck you. the first — and only — tell. a calling card only left behind when someone wants to get caught. she doesn't need to peel it off the floor to sense the tickle of a trap at her brainstem. she hears it in her skull, a gut instinct that's always sounded like jake's voice whenever she's about to walk into a bad fucking deal. don't step there, baby. don't agree to that. don't trust the man with the million-dollar smile and no fingerprints.

anora's private little secret: sometimes she does, anyway. just to see if he'll show up to save her.

she peels it from the floor. not because she wants to. because she isn't going to be a pussy intimidated by jake seresin's ghost. and if it's some asshole's idea of a joke, she'll brain them with the vase of dying roses on her nightstand.

the chip launches at his head, a flimsy bullet, the minute he opens his big fat mouth. gives her something to focus on, other than the stunned wobble in her chin, the fuck-you tears in her eyes that appear and burn up just as fast, the haunted hitch of breath at seeing something crawl out of the grave she thought she shoved it in. a casket packed away. here lies jake seresin's love for anora mikheeva.

no. it's stupid, so stupid, to think he's back for her. bigshot jake, always chasing something shinier than what he already has. even when it loved him back. )

Congrats, dickhead. You just earned Gecko his next fucking payout.

( as if she'd let richard bury him in a hole with the rest of her fuck-ups. she stumbles out of one stiletto, anyway, its purpose clear: reloaded ammunition, just in case she needs to take another shot. )

[ailerons]

[ The chip bounces off his temple, lands somewhere in the sheets that he's mussed up, and Jake laughs. It's a clean sound. A loud sound, with teeth and real amusement. He smiles at her and there's a spark of spearmint-green in it, gum snapped between the molars of a mouth that always needs to be occupied. Had been the same back then, too, trying to give up smoking. Folded, not even a few months later. A pack of Marlboro reds, classic American-flavored bullshit, now sitting open on her bedside table, right next to her dying roses. No ashtray in sight.

One of two habits Jake Seresin never could quite kick.

Lightly, the book he's reading falls forward, landing flat on his chest with a dull noise. Hardbound, embossed, the title clear now in both English and Russian: The Master and the Margarita. Love leaped out in front of us like a murderer in an alley leaping out of nowhere, and struck us both at once. Coup de fucking foudre. ]

Missed you too, Ani.

[ Always Ani, behind closed doors, as if he never gave up the right to say it. Stay with me, Ani. I love you, Ani. Marry me, Ani. Jake raises his hands in a gesture of surrender like it doesn't wear like a joke over him, all languid ease as he exhales a laugh, even with the threat of another thing thrown. Shakes his head as he straightens up against the headboard, but doesn't move to get out of her bed.

Finders keepers. Oldest rule in the book. He folds his fingers neatly together, patiently, and stares at her instead. His gaze travels from head to toe, then cuts to the fourth finger of her left hand. A weathervane that tells him the season, whether a diamond sits there or not. ]

You look good.

[ It come out plain. Happy. Conversational, as if this is all part of their routine, as he looks back into her face. ]

I like your robe.

[haggle]

( there it is. one last standing ovation to the tune of her center-stage heartbreak. it always was his favorite act. ani's lips tighten into a forced smile, eyes dull as backstage bulbs burned out, with the smooth abruptness of a quick costume change. becoming the woman who laughs along with her ruin like she hasn't been made the joke, all while the rest of the world plays her tragedies off like they're watching a fucking comedy.

the script flips. she skips her usual lines — doesn't give him the dignity of the familiar. shucks both shoes off, toes sinking into the shaggy velvet carpet like she's preparing herself for the next scene. one heartbreak closer to curtain call. showgirl-poised to take her bow. )

You think so? ( it floats up, soft and breathy. the kind of baby-voiced, ingénue performance that once earned her encores in smoky jazz bars. back when the act was fresh-faced and vibrant, and so was ani. now, it's just comfortable distance she sets between them. her stage voice, unreachable, center-light. jake, front-row again. ) Rehab glow, right?

( plain. unblinking. conversational, as if she isn't fitting herself into the role he's laid out for her, fluidly following his stage direction, with the aim of grating at him. ani slinks down the set dressing of her room. doesn't ask as she plucks a cigarette from the nightstand. lights it up to inhale deep, the way she used to smoke on fancy hotel balconies — cinematic in silk. like she was a breath you fall in love with just in time to get lung damage.

every single one of her fingers sits naked. the only sign she's being kept at all is in the bruised smudges of fingertips along the peach-skin of her thighs, visible through the window parting of her robe when she stretches out onto a chaise. a deliberate backstage glimpse, maybe. or just coincidence.

hard to say. ani makes everything look fluid, including the exhaled smoke she blows into jake's proximity, the slip into russian. low, satin. )

Wrong author for you, honey. You're Pushkin's type of guy, not Bulgakov's man.

(a modern eugene onegin in the making. what they are given doesn't take their fancy. they must have the forbidden fruit, or paradise will not be paradise for them. )

text | un: @goat

[dualitys]

( at some ungodly, early hour a new message arrives. good morning, ex-wife #3. tbh, there was probably a video of him jacking off earlier in the week so enjoy something tamer than usual. )

[haggle]

( it should be tragic. should be the kind of bait that makes ani pour more dirt onto the grave that is their marriage, just to make sure it stays where it belongs — dead and buried. double homicide committed by two dumbasses who never stood a chance. fp, most of all — ani's never been good with beginnings. she always skips to the end, right to the heartbreak, like it's inevitable, writing on the wall.

(usually, it is.)

but there's something about mutual loneliness she could never give up. something filthy and familiar in the way they circle back like addicts, ready for the next high, the next crashing comedown. )

divorce looks good on you
if you still love me you'll aim the camera lower

[dualitys]

if i still loved you, baby, you would have gotten to keep the porsche

( because admitting having any sort of feeling that's not tied to lust, to want. does he still love ani? no. does he love the way he felt once when he had nothing but her smile and affections focused on him? yes. does he crave the way she scratched his back up after the first fight? the answer's easy. ) i'll do you one better

( the thing that comes through is a video, taken from above instead of in the mirror - from FP's perspective. it's him pushing his shorts down, letting his cock spring free but it cuts short after he wraps his fist around the base. she always did say she liked to leave him wanting, didn't she? )

[haggle]

( asshole. she would spare a better man from the truth. fp jones, touchdown darling and private disaster, isn't a better man. killshot-quick, a bullet aimed right at a god complex: )

good thing i never married you for love, baby
got to keep something way fuckin better anyway 💗

( the patchwork scraps of her heart, mostly. and the only fun mess he made, outside of the warzone of their bedroom: danny, who likes her more than his daddy ever did. lost ten months of her lifetime, gained a devotion that won't fucking die. makes them even, as far as she's counting, after all the broken plates and ruined nights he wrung her through.

she doesn't clarify. just leaves him to the guessing game, same type of edging tease he wants to pull. a returned photo comes through: the perky swell of a breast, squeezed tight in the vice of someone's hand, a fading bite mark engraved in creamy skin. in the other corner of the picture: the spill of ani's silk sheets, a middle finger raised to the camera. only the lower pout of her lip is visible, cracked open in a sharp smile. )

thanks for the preview
since you're feeling sentimental, figured the least i could do is remind you of the biggest fumble of your career
xoxo

text — un: LITTLEPRINCE

[hymen]

[ late, late, late at night, when he's 100% positive ash is asleep. ]

i'm pretty sure they could hear you guys fucking in wales.

[ he's intimately familiar with the kind of ass-beating that comes with all that fucking noise — glorious and sexy and absolutely ruinous and fuck he wishes he was in the room while it was happening, he wishes any part of it had happened to him. they have to be more careful than usual here. there are so many fucking guests. ]

i know he's good at the aftercare, but how's your pussy?

[haggle]

( a handful of minutes ticks by. ani counts them down in cigar puffs, cedar and leather and cum on her tongue, nicotine-buzzed. it's a calculated type of starvation when embry's always barking in her ear, lighting up her phone like a damn dog waiting to be fed. the mutt who thinks he's the master.

finally, once she's had her fill of leaving him dangling, the one little act of rebellion embry moore lets her keep without rehab and ndas and bitching: )

then hit me with a fucking noise complaint, counselor
i know you're just dyin to give me another boring ass lecture on "discretion" and all your little rules

( she shifts, careful not to nudge into ash. asleep, dead to the world. the only time he looks warm, the ice in his eyes thawing. is warm, maybe. they don't touch in their sleep — ash's aftercare begins and ends with what's standard practice. sugar, hydration, lotion gently kneaded into the swollen, abused swell of her ass. still as pink as the silk of her sheets, ani thinks, as they caress her overheated skin.

but never any holding her. she tells herself it's more honest that way. that she likes the ruin. that she can go without the coddling, if someone needs her, looks at her. if she matters. if she isn't someone the world can ignore anymore. love fades, but status? that lingers, if you make it. )

pussy's perfect, thanks for asking
you wanna come check her out? maybe kiss the president’s bruises away like a good little deputy? 🥺

[hymen]

[ he can picture the scene. he’s been in it, and now he’s not, pushed out like a dog sent back to the pound. ash is one pristine bathroom over, embry sulking fully clothed in the adjoining suite, sitting at the table with a stubbed out cigarette and a tray that’s just arrived moments ago, a impulse request because he’s desperate for attention and one person in that room is as immovable as mount everest. the other person is anora. ]

come to my room. you’re not doing anything else, and i got a present for you.
bed’s all fluffed up and i’m not even in it.

[ he moves the tray to the bed, three little bowls of perfect ice cream scoops, housemade by the fancy chef — london fog, rosemary citrus, and blueberry cheesecake, complete with delicate wafers and sprigs of mint. he pours himself a gin while he waits, respectfully not drinking straight from the bottle (anymore). ]

come onnnnnnnnn
pretty please anora

1/2

[haggle]

( )

[haggle]

( god, what a moody asshole. as if he wasn't telling her to gargle dicks hours ago, or stamping her exes with the scarlet letter of anora's fuck-ups, or insisting she would be crawling into the gutter to find someone to share her bed.

karma, the name is embry fuckin' moore. her reply is an instant bullet, this time. no point in pretending she isn't enjoying him whining for her attention like the starved prick he is. )

i don't get out of bed for less than 4 carats