kingdomsofrain | texts texts texts

texts texts texts

this one is for texts!

There’s a lot’s been taken from you.

Reprehensible, I call it. Reprehensible it is.

Reprehensible, she herself or at the least her acts, though I’ll still my tongue on speaking that thought further.

Everything you’ve got for giving, everything you dreamed to give, and it was mangled piece from piece.

[ … ]

The wonder is you’ve got your heart remaining. I mean to say broke as it’s been wrung through, still you’ve got it in you, and still it’s clear it guides you. Speaks through all the burial’s been brought upon it.

It’s a strong sort of heart, strong soul that endures so.

Vitaly. Talik.

I get the sense you’d be a fine husband, and that’s underselling it.

Fact is I’m in agreement your every point around attentiveness and where focus, energy, like, goes first.

Fact is I don’t doubt you’d be as good as equal to your words.

Like to be there, now, where you are. I’d like to hold you, aye, and I can’t think there’s ever been a man nor in need of holding, nor more worth such hold.

Fucking sorrowful, I

[ … ]

Look. Put it this way. If there were a man with eyes on a comet, aye? And if that man’d seen half of what you’ve been through, and spoke with half the heart of you. I’d be very much inclined to twine my arms around him. Sit like so, long as he was amenable, long as he might need or like.

Not so skilled with hypotheticals, that’s me. But maybe my meaning found its way through. Or else you saw it, never mind the twists around what’s said.

[ … ]

Anyrate.

Life’s long yet, aye Talik?

Might be you’ll have the chance to be that husband still.

I’d like to think that for all the cruelties in this world, there’s kindness just as well. A balance against all that’s awry.

You’ll get there. Only hold on and believe it.

I'll try to answer all the questions you have for me, and then I may be silent for a time. I'd like to read these ~~informations~~ articles that you sent. I truly do mean I'm interested in the academic sense. I've never heard of phalloplasty.

It is [...] a very particular thing to know about.

Also, before I answer-

You play the cello! I'll confess I'm not familiar with classical music as much as I should be. My parents prefer jazz, blues. Nina Simone. They blast jazz like heavy metal. Sergiy, though -

~~If she has done nothing for him but this~~ His mother insisted he hear classical music even before he was born. So, if you meet him, he can talk to you of Vivaldi and I can nod along and pretend to understand, eh?

[...]

Maybe you could share with me what you like best. Tell me why, and what I'm hearing. An education?

[...]

I say 'if you meet him'. It's only caution; I'd like for you to meet him eventually. But with him, I'm cautious. Always, no matter who or what.

It speaks nothing of you, or my mind about you.

But much as I feel I can trust you, what if you

A few dates first, and then we could

[...]

Here, let me bring this again to your music. Is this what you do for work? I'd like to hear you play. It isn't 'nerdy'. I may not know classical, but there are musicians who play music familiar to me, and I've liked that very well. [...] And I like that there is so much to you. Singing, and cello, children, a wife-now-friend. Intelligence; casual speech but cleverness.

Vevay, you may be flawless -

[...]

No, not flawless. Wrong word. [...] Without equal?

Peerless!

Well, the compliment isn't so effective with trying to find the correct word, but please, take it anyhow.

Edited 2024-02-11 23:23 (UTC)

My parents are called Mama and Tato and I would have a shoe thrown at me for saying anything otherwise. My mother has very, very good aim.

[...]

Their names are Oksana and Petro, for anyone else but Sergiy. (Baba and Dido, respectively.)

Ah, and I have siblings. Nosy siblings. My brothers, Andrii and Maksym, one older and one younger. My sister is Iryna, between me and Maksym.

You should be warned now, in case - well. In case of anything. My entire family is full of questions and hard faces, such that it feels interrogating, but all of them are very sweet when their curiosity is satisfied. ~~Except they hate Madel~~

~~...Perhaps it was a sign~~

They didn't care for my marriage. Though maybe it was because they liked the man I dated before her a great deal, and liked her much less.

So no need for worry about [...] anything. If you were to meet them. Open books don't have to worry.

What else, what more did you ask -

Dodo will come with me, yes. She travels with me and I hire people to watch over her if there are places she can't go. Sen has mentioned his new [...] protégé? He has a sister who will watch her this time. For the party. Esma's dog would be a problem.

Have you met her before? Esma?

Okay, okay, I'm reading this now, and will say more after.

Edited 2024-02-11 23:26 (UTC)

[ Around 15 minutes later, he has the gist. He also helped himself to finding out specifics of what 'stage 3' means. ]

You have a [...] [...]

You remember the button on shoes, the Reebok? Pump and they tighten, hold and they loose?

You have a shoe pump.

[...]

If it were most any other piece of the body, I would ask to see.

Does this hurt?

Eh, eh, wait, could you choose how it all looks? And you can remain up until whenever you like?

That seems very unfair.

Not that I'm complaining about my own components - I'm satisfied very well with mine and wouldn't care to sound ungrateful - but! Some men would kill for that opportunity.

Well, maybe it's fair, after all, with you not having one in the first place...

Hm. I'll allow it's more fair than not.

[...]

Remaining up until whenever you like seems just a little like cheating, though.

Edited 2024-02-11 23:35 (UTC)

Your parents’ve got taste. Got a fondness for blues my own self, jazz as well, and an appreciation for anyone blares the music, credit to em. Those claiming allegience for classical’s a gambit, as I’ve found it. Can be feeling it and appreciation, or more often a shorthand for full on snob shitery.

Simone herself was trained classical, aye? Beautiful work, hers.

You mentioned music familiar to yourself. What’s that look like? Or eh, what’s it you’ve an ear for?

Can’t call my playing work, not so much though wouldn’t I love if that were so. Get paid here and there, pit orchestras and ensemble gigs mostly. The symphony’s a volunteer basis, and anything beyond’d ask more time to my own improving than I can give.

Or’ve figured how to give. Truth be told I could stand to devote more time to practice, less to mucking around with gaming and E, but day jobs’ll get the best of me. Wears on a man, that’s so.

Paying work’s mostly through odd jobs. Got a reputation hereabouts so people come with what they need. Otherwise I do some electrical work, some repair. Some with lighting rigs and boards. There’s also the work more aligned with Darius & Co., which is talking for another time, but I know people who know people who know where things’re found, aye. Used to do more auto maintenance, but worked beside one too many sackless wankers leading in one too many injuries to hand and wrist and it got to not be worth the risk.

What is it you build your days of, Talik? Work or otherwise, not bothered one way or another.

And back to the music, fair warning’s I risk running deep in the weeds any time I start on recommendations and eh explanations. Glad to do it, that’s sure, and truth is I’m keen on sharing it all with you.

Saint-Saens I’ve mentioned, and there’s Dvorak up there for me, with a fondness for Kodaly’s sonata and for Glass done solo. On the inverse side, anyone speaks Pachelbel, I run. …Would like to, anyway. Trouble is that’s a fav for wedding gigs, and that’s where peak payment lies.

Asinine piece of music, that. If one can so far as call it music.

Not the point, right. I’ll send along some links, performances like, you can watch em as you feel or else listen?

Like to talk with your Sergiy about music sometime, that’s sure. [ … ] If the time comes, or when that ‘if’ should come to pass. [ … ] I don’t mean to be pushy on the point, yeah? Like to meet him sometime, very much would, but at once I’m aware there’s no good rushing. And you’re right keeping caution with your son. That’s nothing save sensible. Admirable, aye.

He play anything himself? Or [ … ] right, truth I’ve got no sense of when kids start playing these days hereabouts, let alone across the seas so can’t say whether that’s askin ahead of times.

…And that was me sayin ‘these days’ like I’m all the advanced age of seventy chrissake. Sounding like Senan himself. That’s me meandering near out of hand as well, so I’ll lead this part of my messaging to a close, but.

Final note for this one. I’d like to play for you, that’s a truth. Happens I was planning on bringing the cello with, seeing as I’ll be a few weeks away at least, and I don’t like going long without.

So, eh, if you’ll allow and yr time allows. Maybe there’s another opportunity for some visiting.

Fingers crossed, as they say.

Can’t say I’ve met a lot of curious families. Or many families full fledged. Roza was out from contact with hers, and there’re few lengthy relations I’ve had beyond, so not much meeting of the parents or sibs or anylike. And you know the look of familial relations among the Shithead Sphere.

Seems nice, maybe? Seems a lot, as well. Glad you’ve got them, if nothing else, long as it’s not all tearing your hair out over em. They Ukraine based or out in the States, or where? You get on with them all right?

[ … ]

Occurs to me, or rather it’s been occurring to me or I like the notion, you might like to meet Rozalia sometime. You’d like her, I think, and she yourself. She’s a level minded one, right sharp, and she’s the sort’ll take not a moment’s worth of nonsense. ~~Like you to meet Liza and Nicky as well, assuming they’re ever~~ ~~If ever I’m back in contact with the kids, might be you’d like to meet~~

She tells a good story, that’s also the truth.

I’ll thank you and I do thank you, noting that about your family and that boyfriend past. Goes a long way to setting some questions quiet. Hypothetical though the need for any such questions might be, aye, still I like to count myself prepared.

Can’t say I fault their disliking

Well. Would’ve been nice having their support behind you, I’d warrant

Do they know what she

Sen’s protege, Blake, is that the one? Didn’t know he had a sister. I owe that man an apology or two for chatting his ear off, never mind it was Lolly said the boy could use a friend or however in fuck the wazzock put it. Lucky sister, spending quality timing with the Dodo.

Lucky Dodo, not spending time near a Boyle’s dog. Fair play, I’m told one of em’s not the worst, but what I hear of the rest’s been enough to send me ducking for cover. Managed to avoid meeting Esma or the other, something with a W, thus far. See if I can make it past this get together as well.

[ … ]

Speaking of.

[ … ]

[ … ]

Something Sen mentioned.

Full transparency, something I asked after and he answered. Might be worth mentioning maybe, and likely you’re aware and all, but eh [ … ] came up that [ … ] your wife’s liable to be at that party.

Don’t know if that’s, eh, [ … ] [ … ] liable to cause difficulties for you? Or likesaid, might be you know and maybe it ain’t my place to mention. ~~Just from the sounds of it I’m thinking maybe she’s not said a thing or~~

It’s no trouble on my account, of course. Only eh. In case no one’d said, figured someone should say, and all.

You really did go and read all of that, didn’t you?

Bless you for a saint or and an academic through and through.

Not that I doubted you would read. Only [ … ] it’s not often any take an interest, yeah? Beyond asking after what it’s all about and expressing either ‘aye that’s well’ or ‘fuck of with ye.’

Isn’t to everyone’s taste, that’s a truth. But then I make a point of sorting out the chaff as I can, nixing the need for any more, eh, disconsonant reactions.

Can’t say I’ve heard it likened to a Reebok pump. Won’t say you’re wrong about the likeness, or that you didn’t crack a laugh from me. Sure, it’s something like that. The device part of it, which I find I’m glad for. Adds something to the experiencing, aye?

For what it’s worth, I try to keep honest about the time it’s kept up…

Mostly, any rate. c;

The function helps do the job. Doesn’t hurt for self soothing processes, either.

There’s an amount of choosing the look, aye. Depends some on how much can be taken from a grafting and the site it’s gleaned from, and how much eh mass you’ve got at said site. Suffice to say I figured I’d try to keep proportional, aye?

Rest assured were it any other part of this body, I’d’ve shown you already. As it is, had to remind myself it’s not so refined to send photos of the thing. ~~Might be sometime you’ll see for yourself. Might be sometime I’ll witness your own satisfactory components~~ There’s no pain to it, not beyond the surgeries and healing spans. And the good that stems of it’s a far sight better than what I knew or felt before, if you ken my meaning.

[ … ]

Don’t know if I’m bein too direct in all of this. Tell me if it’s discomforting or eh coming on too strong, aye? It’s brilliant what’s technology’s got to, is the point I’m getting toward here.

And a year-plus in, I’ve got a solid handle how to wield it.

Nova!

[...]

No, no, don't change yourself for my sake, or any other's! But I'm trying to be respectfully academic about your shoe pump and you're talking about self-soothing and solid handling of wielding!

I'm not uncomfortable - only scandalized by the unexpected.

(But of course I read all of it. It's part of you, and you shared it with me. Did you think I wouldn't be ravenous for any detail about you? I want to know you. The more I do learn, the more I want to know.)

[...]

[...]

Well, you opened the door; I'll ask what I'm curious about but can find no way of asking delicately.

Surely you've handled at least one other, so you know generally how they work. Is it different? How your body responds compared to [...]

Verne is a bad example, only because I don't want to hear about Verne's dick and then see him in New York afterward.

Someone's, then. Another man's.

And -

You took a graft from where?

[...]

[...]

Are you only not sending a photo because it isn't a "refined" thing to do?

What a highly suspect thing to say after talking about self-soothing.

[...]

I'll confess something to you. You made me laugh, as well. You, this conversation. I feel I haven't laughed in a long time, not like that. Not [...] freely. Not with humor or happiness.

I knew that part of myself was strangling, not just from one thing or another, but the sum of it all.

I didn't know how much it had died out, or how good it would be to feel it revive.

[...]

How I've needed you, Nova.

[...]

I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. It's a complicated thing to tell someone. You'll pretend not to have read it, won't you?

[...]

It's something I would tell a lover. Maybe I'll have the chance to say it in the future to someone who deserves most to hear it.

Anyhow, please. You wrote so much, but I worry if I try to answer everything and then ask questions of my own, we'll create a thousand conversations. So, briefly for some: yes, I would like to meet Roza. I would love to hear your music. My siblings live in Xania/Kyiv - Iryna, Kyiv - Andrii, and California - Maksym.

I get along with my family very well. They're good people. Iryna is [...] a little odd, maybe, but good.

Sergiy is taking music lessons, but what he plays changes often. He hasn't found what he likes, except for football.

Real football.

And -

It doesn't surprise me that Madeline will be there, but I had hoped she wouldn't.

[...]

[...]

It's your place to mention, Vevay.

And you don't need to worry. I won't pretend not to know you, and I wouldn't care to leave your side for her.

Well, you don't need to hear that.

I may have to speak to her at some point to be civil, maybe to arrange a visit with my son, but that's all.

[...]

Here, this must be said again because I can say nothing else that I'd like: it's your place.

As though those words hold worlds in them.

Please, know your place with me. Know your right.

Edited 2024-02-12 20:11 (UTC)

[ … ]

[ … ]

Shite.

That’s me floored, is what that is.

[ … ]

You ought to know yourself free to laugh. Ought to know yourself that way, feel the extremities of what you are and how your soul you heart’s got breath, got worlds of life within however you can find it.

Damn her for striking that from you

Damn everyone who let it slide, keep sliding

Fuckin beyond stratospheric, you are.

You are a marvel of a man, that’s so. And see the thing about us beings on this earth is we’ve got capacities for flitting free, turning to something beyond what we’re told and given, imposed into aye? Thing is as well we’re quashed each corner that we turn, or the most of us are.

Meaning it isn’t everyone who feels this or reaches for it. Isn’t everyone can acknowledge the rightness in this reaching.

All the strangling you’ve been given, and still you remember how to breathe, still you open up your lungs when brought to the moment for it. Still you’ve got vision for what’s more than slammed upon you.

If I can give you cause for laughter, best believe I’m glad for it. Honoured too, that’s so.

~~I’d like to keep doing the same long as I draw breath.~~ [ … ] It’s an aim. Eh, a dream I’d like to entertain and seize in my own hold. To keep doing the same as long as I draw breath.

There’s little better, little more important, aye, than to give breath to find breath or, aye, share a breath with those holding meaning.

With those who matter and hold mattering, and aye, I’m speaking here of you, Talik.

It’s fucking wretched, your not having cause to laugh freely

But we’ll fix that, eh?

It’s no small part of what friends ~~and other than friends~~ and other academic [ … ] co-adventurers are here for.

Nothing to be faulted. Nothing to be pressed. (Unless some pressing’s wanted.)

[ … ]

I’ve some sense what you mean about strangling. Different avenues, likely. Eh, surely, but with similar results. What feels like, is like losing sight of what’s shining all above, or having that sight stolen. Like forgetting there’s air to breathe at all.

There’s lots of bodies want to bury a man, bury any self tries to speak beyond what the most vocalizing arseholes want of a man.

Resilient, you, for not holding in burial. Blessed, lauded for the same.

For myself, I’ve kept myself free enough not to be drawn in too deep, but then I’ve been lucky, or else I’ve known myself forewarned. See enough, of eh [ … ] scathing early on, one gets to be primed wary.

Used to be more wary. I’ve got a better knack for sussing out when something’s off or someone wants what I’m not giving.

[ … ]

That isn’t you, is part of what I mean.

You’re like no one I’ve met before, and I speak that as the keenest complimenting.

If I’m cautious, Talik, it’s that I don’t want to be a cause of undue discord, or set off ~~her~~ [ … ] any body’s ire with you.

If I know my nerves all shaking at the thought of having place, well. Well, what man and else what being is there to fault? And whose opinion would I care a damn for?

When there’s one name and one opinion, just one belief I hold dear above all else.

The fact is I’ve needed you as well. I know it know, and’ve known myself in lacking for a while, years now.

Isn’t anything that asks acknowledging just now. Only I wish to speak it. Only I know it and so share it as my truth, and as a truth writ apart from my opinion.

Aye. Perhaps someday I’ll have opportunity to speak the whole of my opinion and the fullness of my feeling to the one who draws it, who is eminently worth of it.

Someday, aye, that person supposed, that person in fact shall hear it. And I’ll know my own joy in this speaking.

Edited 2024-02-13 04:49 (UTC)

Pushed a little far there maybe in the messages above. Glad there’s no discomfort and guess I can manage a spot of scandalizing, long’s it’s no harm nor damning feeling placed on you.

I get a little free with speaking sometimes. Comes of having to speak it, maybe, or having to speak what I am before I had, eh… Proof to show, like?

Feel fuckin clarht headed saying so, seeing as I know there’s no need for ‘verifiable proof or whatnot.’ Shite gets in your head, turns itself to mind games and the truth is I knew from the get go I wanted a drink, aye, but thinking turns murky among matters of well what makes a man and knowing it ain’t the organs, yeah?

[ … ]

Mindfuck of a world we’re living in, Talik.

Though it don’t feel that way with you.

Thing about Verne’s he’s got a damned decent dicking down game, and asks fewer questions than one might think.

Fuck of it is I nearly believed there had to be more than fix or six neurons firing up in that thick skull of his. Eh, more fool, I. Christ, ain’t the Lollycentric therapy hour

Can’t speak ill of his dick though.

In terms of responding, it’s not so far different now. Helps the path I took with the surgeries, integrating the bits I had before with them I have now. Clitoral burying, that’s the term for it. Showing excitations means pumping up the Reebok, but it terms of eh tension through the body, nerves gone star shot, it’s not so far different. Far as I understand it anyway, and it’s truth I’ve cases to compare against. Have been with plenty of men and people all along the scales, is what I mean.

Never anyone of your stripe, that’s sure.

And my speaking, guess I meant to nudge that door open. I’ve no qualms against speaking what I know and’ve experienced. Doesn’t need to be anything other than academic, or doesn’t need to be otherwise in speaking. If I’m say crass, it’s just a way of speaking, aye?

What’s explicit’s more in photographs, or so I feel it, or in [ … ] witnessing, personal experience and sharing one to one.

…Guess it’s worth noting monogamy’s my way. Eh. For the sake of academic data, call it.

Right. So. Graft’s from the right thigh. Scarring’s visible still, even beneath the tattooing, but that much is all right with me. I’ve no plans on veiling where I’ve been, where I’m come through aye?

And the rest, eh, put a little space between talk of all that

And talk of what else you’ve mentioned.

Credit to your Sergiy, football’s a fine sport for taking up. And finding the right instrument for singing through, if any instrument at all and not everyone tends that way like it or not, takes time. [ … ] Didn’t know my fondness for a cello til I met my aunt’s, took it up as my own.

Added to which, there’s nothing you’ve said that I’ll feign to have slipped over in reading, though I’ll stray from its speaking now. Not driving it out from my memory, is the thing. Can’t see it’s wrong form me to keep, and hold now as my own.

And for the party [ … ] all I ask’s you tell me if she’s liable to turn explosive on you, yeah? Truth is I’d like to spend that evening ahead beside you. Truth’s also we’ll have days beyond for meeting here or and there. Take care of yourself and your Sergiy, Talik. Promise me that, aye?

One more thing, and I’ve touched on it but it bears lingering. It’s more than I’d’ve thought to ask, having any place with you.

It’s what I’d like, that’s sure. Or it forms no small part of my wishing.

That place, that right. I’d value and do value. And do the best by [ … ] my Talik I possibly can.

No, she isn't likely to speak aggressively; for the most, we were civil to one another. Cold, but polite. I thought it best to stop speaking to her when I filed for divorce this time because I thought she would do something as she had the last two times. It was never her way to shout; she knows how to wound without raising her voice at all.

She doesn't need your presence to speak that way, or any other reason at all save that I'm not relenting this time.

But of course, I'll take care.

I won't say I'm not disappointed, though. More caution becomes necessary when I know she might be watching.

[...]

~~Unless~~

[...]

~~Nova, would you~~

We [...] could meet before. Sen (Rin, more likely) is collecting me at some unnamed hour from my hotel. In someone's limousine, I hear, in order to perturb Esma. "Spilling out rogues, wretches, thieves, and peasants like a clown car," he claims.

Maybe you could come have a drink with me before. If the meeting goes poorly, we can sit at separate ends of a limo and pretend it never occurred, eh?

[...]

~~Or - suppose it were to go well. If I were to hold your hand in the car, no one would speak of it to her~~

Either way - drinks or at the party - it makes no difference; I'll meet my Vevay. I'll see you, know your presence near my own. That means the world.

May I see the tattoo? It isn't anywhere of questionable nature, eh, and surely the artist took a photo?

I enjoy tattoos, and I am often awed by those done over scars.

And I have a suspicion that you've already seen many of mine if Senan showed you photos of me. It's only fair!

[...]

Unless you'd like to wait for some future situation. I could respect that.

[...]

For the rest.

I think you know how I feel. What there is growing within me, what has grown enough with these talks of ours that I no longer feel lethargy about my divorce. I feel urgency to end it, to meet you as you should be met. To end any waiting as soon as I can.

[...]

Whatever door it is you're trying to open, I should say that I don't take hints well. I speak English well, but sometimes [...] context clues? I miss them.

Do you want to tell me personal things?

Academically, of course.

Or are you looking to ask me questions, as I've pried so about you?

If either, I've been a willing participant in this conversation from the start.

[...]

I think here is where I should say - I'm not particular about whether my partner is polyamorous, so long as we discuss it before I learn they have another in their life.

I'm not so.

There's only one for me.

I'm growing more certain of it by the hour.

[...]

No, don't ignore the meaning of anything I've said. I told you to know your place with me, after all. Know your importance and your right to every word I've said.

[ In a separate message, he includes the name of the hotel bar, an address, and his arrival time. ]

~~Please come~~

Please, only consider it.

Knave’s gallery of a limousine, how could I pass it over? Count me in for one ticket to the circus, aye.

Moreover and more critical, meeting you before’s precisely to my liking. Read your proposition and my eyes lit themselves, is the thing. A chance to find you one to one, have time to take you in and begin to learn your voice, know your presence?

There’s nothing needs considering about it. I’m in and I’ll be there, that’s counted on. And I’ll consider the car ride with yourself and at your side a savoured bonus, nor will I hear talk of staking out opposite ends.

Fact is, I’d’ve otherwise shown up at Boyle’s and begun seeking you straight off. There’s something of the romantic in finding your not so stranger through a crowd, aye, but I’ll choose one to one time with my Talik any day.

Got a lot to look forward to once that plane's landed, I do. Got a place I mean to find, and stay beside, often as I can.

Edited 2024-02-14 21:06 (UTC)

That suspicion of yours is well placed and played, as Sen did send a few pics, aye, and aye it was at my asking.

Caught me, eh? c:

And fairness sake, you yourself revealed some of your marks, that sofa shot with Dodo. For Sen’s, eh, there’s you and he and couple of bathroom signs. You and the motorcycle I’m guessing’s yours or was? (The longer hair’s good on you, though fair to say all hair looks good on you, or all I’ve seen.) Yeah and then the, eh. Yourself in what looks for all the world like a pool, cigar in hand tattoos bared.

To quote myself, words redacted once for propriety’s sake, now given with total appreciation: Fuck me running.

See. Right. For sake of full disclosure and at risk of coming off shallow, not to say I’ve no touch of the superficial in myself, you are a full on stunner of a man.

I’d be wild for you even were you not, that’s so, the way you had my interest from the go, the way you’ve gleaned it further every word you’ve sent. Add in that face of yours, that laugh that smile, that body and fuck me you’re a tall one, I’m slain five time’s over’s what I am.

Five times, minimum.

Won’t pretend I didn’t save every photo for my keeping. Won’t say I’ve not reviewed em time and again, the ones Sen sent and yours with Dodo.

I’ll take any and all photos you’ve got. You’ve a face and you’ve a self a man couldn’t begin to tire looking at, that’s so. What I mean to say is jesus, my suspicion’s I won’t be keeping my eyes off you, nor my attention off your speaking.

Well, right, but that still leaves me with a view of your ink, and you with no shot of mine. So here’s the photo, or rather photos.

[ The first photo shows most of the tattoo’s breadth: It begins gathered at Nova’s thigh, spreading up across his back, to his shoulder, ending with a few searching ends of vines, leaves, and a small floral bloom at his neck.

The second focuses on the graft site, where the tattoo’s colors are particularly vivid, the flowers most numerous.

The third gives an image better showing the way the tattoo’s climb foray’s along Nova’s side, his chest, where the tattoo nears but doesn’t cover the scars left by years’-old top surgery.

The tattoo is a spread of vines and flowers, somewhat abstract and twined here and there with music staves that read a partial, darting melody. Through this series of photos, it’s clear the colors turn softer, more muted as the tattoo winds its way up Nova’s back, his shoulder, until the ink that shows upon his neck is unfilled, its lines lighter than the rest. ]

Took a fair few sessions, aye?

Edited 2024-02-14 21:26 (UTC)

You’ll have to tell me what’s behind your marks sometime, hey?

Meant and I mean the ink, but while I’m on it, the scars as well, if you’re of a mind.

No need talking what’s discomforting, of course, but all that’s writ on skin has stories and so forth. My own, there’re the obvious, those taken on through surgeries and choices. Got plenty of others beside, origins more grown from impulse, my own or others’, and from not shying out of what’s rough in life, sometimes not having much say in shying or no.

[ … ]

Bears saying also I’d like you to see my own tattoo in its fullness and in a future situation, supposing that future situation should ever be, which I’m thinking it won’t surprise you to hear I’ve hopes toward. I’d like it, that’s sure. To have you see my full self. To see you in your own.

Like to trace the outlines of your tattoos, that’s true as well.

Not pushing nor rushing, I mean it for when time’s right ~~and if you still feel, but then why give voice to doubts I’ve no interest or belief in~~. Take it careful Talik, aye? I’ve seen enough of Scarlett’s eh more social circle based acquaintances to know there’s vindictiveness aplenty and money to back it up. Which is telling you precisely nothing you don’t know, sure, but what I mean’s I know the need for keeping cautious til all’s sorted with you and Sergiy.

And, bears repeating, I’ve no grudge against a wait, however long. And whatever keeps for waiting, still speaking with you’s worlds itself, and now I’ve got this meeting, these drinks for looking ahead to.

Got a lot for looking ahead to, could be and I’d like to think it’s so.

What you said, re polyamory and discussing, that’s the rub of it for myself as well. I’ve had partners who had other partners, more power to em. I’ve no call toward it myself [ … ] and less so at the present moment than I’ve known before. Having myself a certainty that there’s one match for my self, and one man I’d wish.

I’m getting toward saying transparency’s what’s needed or it’s what I ask, and I’ve got no cause to think it’d be a trouble with you. You keep speaking, I’ll keep speaking, we listen alike and don’t leave each other blind, yeah?

Chattering away again, I am. Last to say for now, I don’t know there’s any particular door I’m opening. More pushing what I come up against, giving a nudge to see what follows, what’s for speaking what’s for knowing. Showing also, or trying to show maybe, there’s no flinching on my own end from talk of any sort, casual convo or Real Talk or flirtations or talk of body, talk about desires.

All’s open for the speaking, and nay, there’s no ignoring every meaning held.

[ … ]

Thank you, Talik. It means more than I’ve words for telling, your speaking that your meanings stand. I’m holding each one dear, and would like to keep them so. Between yourself and I at least, until all’s sorted.

Speaking it again, you’ve a wondrous heart. Sets me reeling all of its own.

Romantic, Vevay?

[...]

I ask, as though I can pretend I hadn't thought the same. To be in a crowd, to turn and see you in a parting of bodies like water. I've been thinking all this time of what I would say to you, of whether I would take your hand. I'll confess to you that I'm oftentimes imaginative, and in one or ten of these hypotheticals, the meeting took on a very cinematic nature, accompanied by a soundtrack. One of the composers you mentioned before. Or a blues strain.

(I'll leave you to draw conclusions on your own about how I greeted you then.)

My romantic notions didn't involve an interruption to our meeting at all, much less by - Well.

It's a disappointment.

Less so with this new possibility. I do want you to myself, for many reasons. We all act differently in a crowd of known faces, isn't that so? And conversation would be difficult. Of course, I mean nothing untoward! I won't invite you to my room or sequester us in some shadowy corner.

How fortunate I'd be to have a few precious moments apart with you.

[...]

I suppose if any text might damn me should she read it, this would be the one. I still mean not to be caught in breach of that contract, but what can be done about maybe-wishful thinking?

It's still only that. What I would like, what I dream, how [...] a single word wakened my heart in a way little else has. 'Romantic'.

(And 'my', echoing 'my'. Yes, Vevay, I think I am that in a way I have been for no one else.)

[...]

An offer - one which you might not need, but which I feel is only right. Please, at some time in New York, let me show you the divorce papers. Let me give you evidence that I'm being truthful about my situation.

If you mean to wait, then you should be sure of my intentions.

[...]

You asked early on in our conversations to say what I want.

I want my son.

Oh, Nova - I want you, too.

More than either, I want to be the kind of man who would do anything for ~~those he l~~ you both.

The tattoos are beautiful artistry; the one on your thigh is masterful, yes? I would like to know whether the music is anything. What do all of them together mean for you?

I'll hold my comments on the rest for now. Words for speaking in person someday - perhaps if I am ever able to see the entirety of the tattooing?

But I think you might have sent more limited photos if you didn't intend me to say that you are breathtaking.

[...]

Strange to think you find me attractive. I'm not [...] what is it. Fishing? Fishing. I don't feel myself to be particularly so. I will tell you I wish Senan hadn't sent the bathroom sign photo; I was at least drunk and at most on three other substances. I barely remember it.

...The pool photo? I don't remember that one at all. Would you send it to me?

The most recent of what you've seen is the one I sent of me with Dodo, but my hair is still a little long. Comes and goes. The motorcycle, I crashed, but I'm not opposed to another.

And that is the story of some of my scars; motorcycle accident.

The one on my face, a soldier with a knife. It isn't as bad as it could have been.

If I missed any questions, ask me again, won't you? Each time I try to read back, I'm caught on the same words and feel -

Closer to myself than I have in a very long time, Vevay. Closer to someone I once was, and liked.

[...]

Something more!

May I see other photos of you?

Perhaps with clothes on, eh?

[...]

Hold, now, how tall are you?

Ah. One other comment I'll make now, because I think there's more than call to trust your intentions.

Madeline can be vindictive, yes, as we can all be now and then.

Madeline does not have money.

I do.

Our contract gives her access to a portion of my assets.

Of course, too, I provide for Sergiy - and whether I like it or not, I provide for her...well. And whoever's filling her bed these days. Deforest, I suppose.

That way you put it, just so.

The parting of a crowd and music with its motion, collision of discordant notes to harmony, something eliding high and rooted deep, prelude to the limitless. Not a point of ending, nay, and the song to follow’s not been written yet.

[ … ]

Related, I’d say. My tattooing, the music therein’s bits and pieces. Phrases from songs written I’ve played, from music I’ve writ myself. Nothing culminated, nothing that begins nor ends nor forms a eh completion outside myself.

Romantic I am, and I’ll make no claims otherwise. Try to keep grounded, but there’s room for a daydream always, and hope for daydreams brought to life.

So I’ll dream on how you’d have greeted me, and how I’d greet yourself. How I’d like to greet my Talik, and someday shall.

When that contract’s a past thing, and no act, no text can turn to hazard.

Know that I’d have let my hand seek out your cheek and settle. Know I’d have met you with all the romance kept within this frame. Know I’d’ve stared at you like looking to a universe new born.

Aye, and I warrant you’ll see that look, regardless. No harm in nor helping the way a man looks when he’s stricken. Happens it’s more propitious still, this taking drinks before, this meeting you apart from any crowd’s disrupting. Means there’s one man only who’ll bear witness to the way I look at you on first sighting.

That’s yours, for my Talik alone.

Others can see my look in recurrence and renewing, but that first’s yours to have, and yours alone. Can’t say that I mislike the idea. Couldn’t say that, at all.

Won’t say it wasn’t on my mind at all, how those photos make a showing of myself. Happens they’re also the best, eh, most inclusive of the tattoo.

And I’ll look forward to those someday words in person. Something more for I to dream on, aye? Truth.

Guess I started on the meaning in the ink above, because part of it’s that eh it’s a thought on continual creation yeah? Creation and discovering, something grown of what I’ve always been, given chance for [ … ] flourishing, that’s it.

[ … ]

All these words I’ve sent you and still I’ve trouble pulling speech together on that art. Feels pretentious when I set it out in texting, that’s half the trouble. Worrying I’ll speak it wrong, might be. Part of what I mean or what it means for me’s that there’s no barren land about this body, or it’s nothing needs to feel unnatural, aye? The way it did before, I mean. And sure, what flourishes is from the ways I’ve had it changed to meet myself, be one self more whole.

The music’s intrinsic, aye. The reaching upward, toward what’s beauty, that as well.

[ … ]

Here, look. There’s more to be said sometime if you’re for hearing. More I’d put maybe better into speaking than to what’s before me on a screen for thinking and rethinking. I appreciate your asking, means a lot your asking. It’s my responding doesn’t meet with the occasion, and I [ … ] want to say it right, or maybe what I mean’s I want for you to see it for thine self before I speak it more.

That. That, I think’s the case.

And on tattoos, here’s this for you, that photo sent by Sen.

[ And there it is, the infamous pool-maybe-a-pool-def-a-cigar photo. That Nova gives himself a minute to appreciate before sending along. ]

Don’t mind sending it at all, nor the chance to look it over once again. More than once again, I’ll gladly cop to that.

I say again, jesus shite but you’re heart stopping. Breathtaking, as well. Christ alive.

At the risk of [ … ] steering into troubled waters, I’ve got to wonder what’s got you thinking yourself less than mesmerizing. Not something you need to speak nor dwell upon (don’t I know the causes for eh self misliking or else downplaying can be rancid), nor is this to say I doubt you at all, only it’s strange to me you’ve not seen it. Even setting aside my own tastes, there’s no refuting the beauty you are, the absolute appeal.

Added to which. Much as I admire that photo above, I think my favorite’s that with Dodo. Both touch my heart, aye, but there’s something something to the sight of you, in your home relaxed looking alight with happiness, effected so by your girl’s presence.

Does me in, it does.

[ … ]

I’d like to set it to my phone’s background, if you’d not object?

Before I neglect answering your question, my height’s dependent on the shoes, yeah? Truth of the number stands 5’8” so middling I suppose.

Yours I can guess at right enough, having seen that shot with Sen. Guessing that’s part of the reason he passed it on, alongside his habit of quenchless trolling. Man’s of the fae, he and Rin alike.

Man knows my tastes, no denying. He’s also been speaking well of you, hopes for you, so figure it wasn’t too hard on the trolling there.

Any rate, fair’s fair and I’ll give you for that photo you’ve no remembrance of one I can’t recall myself.

[ The photo’s taken in what looks to be a particularly grimy dive bar or pub, location unknown. Nova - his shirt a neon-bright tank top, head adorned with a wreath of strung-together napkins - has one foot up on the bar, one on a precariously balanced stool. In one hand there’s a bowl of crisps half-tilted, their contents spilling through the air. The other’s fixed in a three-finger point toward someone out of frame and he seems to be attempting adamantly to assert some point or other. Behind Nova’s someone’s clearly approaching, could be a bouncer or a patron, arms out to pull him off the stool.

A second photo follows, taken shortly after the first. In this, Nova has indeed been restrained by the figure from the first photo, arms crushed at his side feet not quite touching the floor. He’s evidently aware his picture’s being taken, because he’s giving the camera an exaggerated wink and grin. ]

Like I said, there’s no memory of this night remains in my head. Gone out drinking with Lolly, Sen, whoever was around. I’m told there was some point I was making about the ascendency of simply salted crisps, none of that bbq shite.

Shame of it is, I’ve no quarrel with barbecue. Don’t know what had me up in arms that night. Do know or understand that’s where I chipped a molar. Also’s where the eh, there’s a burn scar to my wrist, came from that one.

Speaking of. That knife wound of yours, pub fight or something other? Know you said soldier and there’s no need elaborating should you prefer not, just had a few encounters of the military much inebriated stripe.

Ah, fucking [ … ] what I mean to say’s I don’t care to assume one way or another, and also I mean it about your not needing to say.

There’s other photos I’ll send your way, not leaving you with those two alone, though the rest’ll take some thinking and I've likely poured enough on you as is by way of words. Anyway, figure I’ll let those two stand in their glory.

Edited 2024-02-15 04:25 (UTC)

About that offer, you’re right thinking I don’t need proof. Wouldn’t’ve thought to ask it. Your word’s better than enough, Talik.

If you prefer it, I’ll take a look. Fact is I’m sure of you, and sure of your intentions as it is.

Put otherwise, I know and I believe it well that you’re precisely the kind of man you want to be.

On the matter of papers and contracts, think is I’ve been speaking with some people. Lawyers, like, trombonist and another professional she knows, and from the sounds of it there’s a chance that contract’s been

Nay. More to be looked at yet, and maybe best left out from texts.

[ … ]

Thing about me, I never know what to say around matters of money, not really. ~~Seems right fucked, her taking from you all this time~~ Save to say it can’t strike me as right, this having been taken on top of everything else. And that Deforest Scarlett’s a fanged fuck of a weasel. Didn’t say it before, but I won’t believe for a moment your the only man’s brought him up against a threat, nor that he doesn’t call each one on hisself. Watched Rin near lay into the boy once, ended in Senan’s hand bloodied in intervening.

Can’t say I wouldn’t end in a punch up with the shite, were I in his company long enough.

It's right fucked, Vitaly, and that's a fact.

Edited 2024-02-15 04:40 (UTC)

I think I do know what you mean: the constant growth from the essence toward perfection, or towards flourishing. Vibrancy. What you are, Nova. What I hope you show me and speak of to me while I learn your tattoo.

By touch, if you'd let me.

[...]

It feels disrespectful to ask that of you. Seeing it written out so, it's unworthy. Something to be spoken, not asked in a text. [...] I've never been good at that sort of thing. Intimate texting. You see, I'm anxious for having asked to touch your tattoo? The irony of it is, I don't have reservations about intimate acts -

Only speaking of them.

I don't mean sex. Or I do, but everything else, as well.

...All of this, for academic knowledge. Of course.

[...]

Something else of intimate nature:

Vevay, will you play your music for me? What you've written: I'd like to hear it.

For the rest, I won't say more except that my daydreams have new depth to them. New suppositions of touch and sights.

And that my heart is pounding as though it hasn't beat at all - for a lifetime. I feel [...] anticipatory? Yes, that word. As though I'll shudder apart with waiting for two weeks to pass.

~~Well. I've waited this long already; what do two more weeks matter?~~

You spoke 'romance' first. Remember that when you grow tired of a fool's romantic notions, eh?

I hadn't realized you knew Deforest, or else I missed your saying so.

For a moment - only a moment! - I felt that dreadful sinking when one sees the worst is coming. Or simply dread.

He took something from me; I've been stranded in this entropic fucking marriage -

Well. What if he took something I think I might value beyond measure?

[...]

What if. So many 'what ifs', but then I remembered that I'm thinking of Deforest, but not of Nova.

Would my Vevay ever, after all we've spoken? Could I imagine you doing anything like that?

Not to me, no, but as well, not to anyone else.

All at once, I felt warm again - confident.

Why am I so certain of you?

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