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secretmellowblog · 6 months

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People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

#November 5th #november 5 2020 #the fifth of november #just a random ramble #November 5th 2020 is such an important day to me #it really is a holiday #but it does confuse me when I see people analyzing it primarily as a supernatural thing #instead of a ‘hysteria over an election reaches a breaking point when inane zero stakes fandom news comes out and we all latch onto it’thing #but yeah!!#this is my personal essay out of love for the holiday

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Gig apps trap reverse centaurs in Skinner boxes

Enshittification is the process by which digital platforms devour themselves: first they dangle goodies in front of end users. Once users are locked in, the goodies are taken away and dangled before business customers who supply goods to the users. Once those business customers are stuck on the platform, the goodies are clawed away and showered on the platform’s shareholders:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

Enshittification isn’t just another way of saying “fraud” or “price gouging” or “wage theft.” Enshittification is intrinsically digital, because moving all those goodies around requires the flexibility that only comes with a digital businesses. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can’t rapidly change the price of eggs at Whole Foods without an army of kids with pricing guns on roller-skates. Jeff Bezos, grocer, can change the price of eggs on Amazon Fresh just by twiddling a knob on the service’s back-end.

Twiddling is the key to enshittification: rapidly adjusting prices, conditions and offers. As with any shell game, the quickness of the hand deceives the eye. Tech monopolists aren’t smarter than the Gilded Age sociopaths who monopolized rail or coal — they use the same tricks as those monsters of history, but they do them faster and with computers:

https://doctorow.medium.com/twiddler-1b5c9690cce6

If Rockefeller wanted to crush a freight company, he couldn’t just click a mouse and lay down a pipeline that ran on the same route, and then click another mouse to make it go away when he was done. When Bezos wants to bankrupt Diapers.com — a company that refused to sell itself to Amazon — he just moved a slider so that diapers on Amazon were being sold below cost. Amazon lost $100m over three months, diapers.com went bankrupt, and every investor learned that competing with Amazon was a losing bet:

https://slate.com/technology/2013/10/amazon-book-how-jeff-bezos-went-thermonuclear-on-diapers-com.html

That’s the power of twiddling — but twiddling cuts both ways. The same flexibility that digital businesses enjoy is hypothetically available to workers and users. The airlines pioneered twiddling ticket prices, and that naturally gave rise to countertwiddling, in the form of comparison shopping sites that scraped the airlines’ sites to predict when tickets would be cheapest:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/27/knob-jockeys/#bros-be-twiddlin

The airlines — like all abusive businesses — refused to tolerate this. They were allowed to touch their knobs as much as they wanted — indeed, they couldn’t stop touching those knobs — but when we tried to twiddle back, that was “felony contempt of business model,” and the airlines sued:

https://www.cnbc.com/2014/12/30/airline-sues-man-for-founding-a-cheap-flights-website.html

And sued:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/06/business/southwest-airlines-lawsuit-prices.html

Platforms don’t just hate it when end-users twiddle back — if anything they are even more aggressive when their business-users dare to twiddle. Take Para, an app that Doordash drivers used to get a peek at the wages offered for jobs before they accepted them — something that Doordash hid from its workers. Doordash ruthlessly attacked Para, saying that by letting drivers know how much they’d earn before they did the work, Para was violating the law:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/tech-rights-are-workers-rights-doordash-edition

Which law? Well, take your pick. The modern meaning of “IP” is “any law that lets me use the law to control my competitors, competition or customers.” Platforms use a mix of anticircumvention law, patent, copyright, contract, cybersecurity and other legal systems to weave together a thicket of rules that allow them to shut down rivals for their Felony Contempt of Business Model:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Enshittification relies on unlimited twiddling (by platforms), and a general prohibition on countertwiddling (by platform users). Enshittification is a form of fishing, in which bait is dangled before different groups of users and then nimbly withdrawn when they lunge for it. Twiddling puts the suppleness into the enshittifier’s fishing-rod, and a ban on countertwiddling weighs down platform users so they’re always a bit too slow to catch the bait.

Nowhere do we see twiddling’s impact more than in the “gig economy,” where workers are misclassified as independent contractors and put to work for an app that scripts their every move to the finest degree. When an app is your boss, you work for an employer who docks your pay for violating rules that you aren’t allowed to know — and where your attempts to learn those rules are constantly frustrated by the endless back-end twiddling that changes the rules faster than you can learn them.

As with every question of technology, the issue isn’t twiddling per se — it’s who does the twiddling and who gets twiddled. A worker armed with digital tools can play gig work employers off each other and force them to bid up the price of their labor; they can form co-ops with other workers that auto-refuse jobs that don’t pay enough, and use digital tools to organize to shift power from bosses to workers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/02/not-what-it-does/#who-it-does-it-to

Take “reverse centaurs.” In AI research, a “centaur” is a human assisted by a machine that does more than either could do on their own. For example, a chess master and a chess program can play a better game together than either could play separately. A reverse centaur is a machine assisted by a human, where the machine is in charge and the human is a meat-puppet.

Think of Amazon warehouse workers wearing haptic location-aware wristbands that buzz at them continuously dictating where their hands must be; or Amazon drivers whose eye-movements are continuously tracked in order to penalize drivers who look in the “wrong” direction:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/17/reverse-centaur/#reverse-centaur

The difference between a centaur and a reverse centaur is the difference between a machine that makes your life better and a machine that makes your life worse so that your boss gets richer. Reverse centaurism is the 21st Century’s answer to Taylorism, the pseudoscience that saw white-coated “experts” subject workers to humiliating choreography down to the smallest movement of your fingertip:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/21/great-taylors-ghost/#solidarity-or-bust

While reverse centaurism was born in warehouses and other company-owned facilities, gig work let it make the leap into workers’ homes and cars. The 21st century has seen a return to the cottage industry — a form of production that once saw workers labor far from their bosses and thus beyond their control — but shriven of the autonomy and dignity that working from home once afforded:

https://doctorow.medium.com/gig-work-is-the-opposite-of-steampunk-463e2730ef0d

The rise and rise of bossware — which allows for remote surveillance of workers in their homes and cars — has turned “work from home” into “live at work.” Reverse centaurs can now be chickenized — a term from labor economics that describes how poultry farmers, who sell their birds to one of three vast poultry processors who have divided up the country like the Pope dividing up the “New World,” are uniquely exploited:

https://onezero.medium.com/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs-b2e8d5cda826

A chickenized reverse centaur has it rough: they must pay for the machines they use to make money for their bosses, they must obey the orders of the app that controls their work, and they are denied any of the protections that a traditional worker might enjoy, even as they are prohibited from deploying digital self-help measures that let them twiddle back to bargain for a better wage.

All of this sets the stage for a phenomenon called algorithmic wage discrimination, in which two workers doing the same job under the same conditions will see radically different payouts for that work. These payouts are continuously tweaked in the background by an algorithm that tries to predict the minimum sum a worker will accept to remain available without payment, to ensure sufficient workers to pick up jobs as they arise.

This phenomenon — and proposed policy and labor solutions to it — is expertly analyzed in “On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination,” a superb paper by UC Law San Franciscos Veena Dubal:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4331080

Dubal uses empirical data and enthnographic accounts from Uber drivers and other gig workers to explain how endless, self-directed twiddling allows gig companies pay workers less and pay themselves more. As @[email protected] explains in his LA Times article on Dubal’s research, the goal of the payment algorithm is to guess how often a given driver needs to receive fair compensation in order to keep them driving when the payments are unfair:

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-04-11/algorithmic-wage-discrimination

The algorithm combines nonconsensual dossiers compiled on individual drivers with population-scale data to seek an equilibrium between keeping drivers waiting, unpaid, for a job; and how much a driver needs to be paid for an individual job, in order to keep that driver from clocking out and doing something else. @ Here’s how that works. Sergio Avedian, a writer for The Rideshare Guy, ran an experiment with two brothers who both drove for Uber; one drove a Tesla and drove intermittently, the other brother rented a hybrid sedan and drove frequently. Sitting side-by-side with the brothers, Avedian showed how the brother with the Tesla was offered more for every trip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UADTiL3S67I

Uber wants to lure intermittent drivers into becoming frequent drivers. Uber doesn’t pay for an oversupply of drivers, because it only pays drivers when they have a passenger in the car. Having drivers on call — but idle — is a way for Uber to shift the cost of maintaining a capacity cushion to its workers.

What’s more, what Uber charges customers is not based on how much it pays its workers. As Uber’s head of product explained: Uber uses “machine-learning techniques to estimate how much groups of customers are willing to shell out for a ride. Uber calculates riders’ propensity for paying a higher price for a particular route at a certain time of day. For instance, someone traveling from a wealthy neighborhood to another tony spot might be asked to pay more than another person heading to a poorer part of town, even if demand, traffic and distance are the same.”

https://qz.com/990131/uber-is-practicing-price-discrimination-economists-say-that-might-not-be-a-bad-thing/

Uber has historically described its business a pure supply-and-demand matching system, where a rush of demand for rides triggers surge pricing, which lures out drivers, which takes care of the demand. That’s not how it works today, and it’s unclear if it ever worked that way. Today, a driver who consults the rider version of the Uber app before accepting a job — to compare how much the rider is paying to how much they stand to earn — is booted off the app and denied further journeys.

Surging, instead, has become just another way to twiddle drivers. One of Dubal’s subjects, Derrick, describes how Uber uses fake surges to lure drivers to airports: “You go to the airport, once the lot get kind of full, then the surge go away.” Other drivers describe how they use groupchats to call out fake surges: “I’m in the Marina. It’s dead. Fake surge.”

That’s pure twiddling. Twiddling turns gamification into gamblification, where your labor buys you a spin on a roulette wheel in a rigged casino. As a driver called Melissa, who had doubled down on her availability to earn a $100 bonus awarded for clocking a certain number of rides, told Dubal, “When you get close to the bonus, the rides start trickling in more slowly…. And it makes sense. It’s really the type of shit that they can do when it’s okay to have a surplus labor force that is just sitting there that they don’t have to pay for.”

Wherever you find reverse-centaurs, you get this kind of gamblification, where the rules are twiddled continuously to make sure that the house always wins. As a contract driver Amazon reverse centaur told Lauren Gurley for Motherboard, “Amazon uses these cameras allegedly to make sure they have a safer driving workforce, but they’re actually using them not to pay delivery companies”:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88npjv/amazons-ai-cameras-are-punishing-drivers-for-mistakes-they-didnt-make

Algorithmic wage discrimination is the robot overlord of our nightmares: its job is to relentlessly quest for vulnerabilities and exploit them. Drivers divide themselves into “ants” (drivers who take every job) and “pickers” (drivers who cherry-pick high-paying jobs). The algorithm’s job is ensuring that pickers get the plum assignments, not the ants, in the hopes of converting those pickers to app-dependent ants.

In my work on enshittification, I call this the “giant teddy bear” gambit. At every county fair, you’ll always spot some poor jerk carrying around a giant teddy-bear they “won” on the midway. But they didn’t win it — not by getting three balls in the peach-basket. Rather, the carny running the rigged game either chose not to operate the “scissor” that kicks balls out of the basket. Or, if the game is “honest” (that is, merely impossible to win, rather than gimmicked), the operator will make a too-good-to-refuse offer: “Get one ball in and I’ll give you this keychain. Win two keychains and I’ll let you trade them for this giant teddy bear.”

Carnies aren’t in the business of giving away giant teddy bears — rather, the gambit is an investment. Giving a mark a giant teddy bear to carry around the midway all day acts as a convincer, luring other marks to try to land three balls in the basket and win their own teddy bear.

In the same way, platforms like Uber distribute giant teddy bears to pickers, as a way of keeping the ants scurrying from job to job, and as a way of convincing the pickers to give up whatever work allows them to discriminate among Uber’s offers and hold out for the plum deals, whereupon then can be transmogrified into ants themselves.

Dubal describes the experience of Adil, a Syrian refugee who drives for Uber in the Bay Area. His colleagues are pickers, and showed him screenshots of how much they earned. Determined to get a share of that money, Adil became a model ant, driving two hours to San Francisco, driving three days straight, napping in his car, spending only one day per week with his family. The algorithm noticed that Adil needed the work, so it paid him less.

Adil responded the way the system predicted he would, by driving even more: “My friends they make it, so I keep going, maybe I can figure it out. It’s unsecure, and I don’t know how people they do it. I don’t know how I am doing it, but I have to. I mean, I don’t find another option. In a minute, if I find something else, oh man, I will be out immediately. I am a very patient person, that’s why I can continue.”

Another driver, Diego, told Dubal about how the winners of the giant teddy bears fell into the trap of thinking that they were “good at the app”: “Any time there’s some big shot getting high pay outs, they always shame everyone else and say you don’t know how to use the app. I think there’s secret PR campaigns going on that gives targeted payouts to select workers, and they just think it’s all them.”

That’s the power of twiddling: by hoarding all the flexibility offered by digital tools, the management at platforms can become centaurs, able to string along thousands of workers, while the workers are reverse-centaurs, puppeteered by the apps.

As the example of Adil shows, the algorithm doesn’t need to be very sophisticated in order to figure out which workers it can underpay. The system automates the kind of racial and gender discrimination that is formally illegal, but which is masked by the smokescreen of digitization. An employer who systematically paid women less than men, or Black people less than white people, would be liable to criminal and civil sanctions. But if an algorithm simply notices that people who have fewer job prospects drive more and will thus accept lower wages, that’s just “optimization,” not racism or sexism.

This is the key to understanding the AI hype bubble: when ghouls from multinational banks predict 13 trillion dollar markets for “AI,” what they mean is that digital tools will speed up the twiddling and other wage-suppression techniques to transfer $13T in value from workers and consumers to shareholders.

The American business lobby is relentlessly focused on the goal of reducing wages. That’s the force behind “free trade,” “right to work,” and other codewords for “paying workers less,” including “gig work.” Tech workers long saw themselves as above this fray, immune to labor exploitation because they worked for a noble profession that took care of its own.

But the epidemic of mass tech-worker layoffs, following on the heels of massive stock buybacks, has demonstrated that tech bosses are just like any other boss: willing to pay as little as they can get away with, and no more. Tech bosses are so comfortable with their market dominance and the lock-in of their customers that they are happy to turn out hundreds of thousands of skilled workers, convinced that the twiddling systems they’ve built are the kinds of self-licking ice-cream cones that are so simple even a manager can use them — no morlocks required.

The tech worker layoffs are best understood as an all-out war on tech worker morale, because that morale is the source of tech workers’ confidence and thus their demands for a larger share of the value generated by their labor. The current tech layoff template is very different from previous tech layoffs: today’s layoffs are taking place over a period of months, long after they are announced, and laid off tech worker is likely to be offered a months of paid post-layoff work, rather than severance. This means that tech workplaces are now haunted by the walking dead, workers who have been laid off but need to come into the office for months, even as the threat of layoffs looms over the heads of the workers who remain. As an old friend, recently laid off from Microsoft after decades of service, wrote to me, this is “a new arrow in the quiver of bringing tech workers to heel and ensuring that we’re properly thankful for the jobs we have (had?).”

Dubal is interested in more than analysis, she’s interested in action. She looks at the tactics already deployed by gig workers, who have not taken all this abuse lying down. Workers in the UK and EU organized through Worker Info Exchange and the App Drivers and Couriers Union have used the GDPR (the EU’s privacy law) to demand “algorithmic transparency,” as well as access to their data. In California, drivers hope to use similar provisions in the CCPA (a state privacy law) to do the same.

These efforts have borne fruit. When Cornell economists, led by Louis Hyman, published research (paid for by Uber) claiming that Uber drivers earned an average of $23/hour, it was data from these efforts that revealed the true average Uber driver’s wage was $9.74. Subsequent research in California found that Uber drivers’ wage fell to $6.22/hour after the passage of Prop 22, a worker misclassification law that gig companies spent $225m to pass, only to have the law struck down because of a careless drafting error:

https://www.latimes.com/california/newsletter/2021-08-23/proposition-22-lyft-uber-decision-essential-california

But Dubal is skeptical that data-coops and transparency will achieve transformative change and build real worker power. Knowing how the algorithm works is useful, but it doesn’t mean you can do anything about it, not least because the platform owners can keep touching their knobs, twiddling the payout schedule on their rigged slot-machines.

Data co-ops start from the proposition that “data extraction is an inevitable form of labor for which workers should be remunerated.” It makes on-the-job surveillance acceptable, provided that workers are compensated for the spying. But co-ops aren’t unions, and they don’t have the power to bargain for a fair price for that data, and coops themselves lack the vast resources — “to store, clean, and understand” — data.

Co-ops are also badly situated to understand the true value of the data that is extracted from their members: “Workers cannot know whether the data collected will, at the population level, violate the civil rights of others or amplifies their own social oppression.”

Instead, Dubal wants an outright, nonwaivable prohibition on algorithmic wage discrimination. Just make it illegal. If firms cannot use gambling mechanisms to control worker behavior through variable pay systems, they will have to find ways to maintain flexible workforces while paying their workforce predictable wages under an employment model. If a firm cannot manage wages through digitally-determined variable pay systems, then the firm is less likely to employ algorithmic management.”

In other words, rather than using market mechanisms too constrain platform twiddling, Dubal just wants to make certain kinds of twiddling illegal. This is a growing trend in legal scholarship. For example, the economist Ramsi Woodcock has proposed a ban on surge pricing as a per se violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act:

https://ilr.law.uiowa.edu/print/volume-105-issue-4/the-efficient-queue-and-the-case-against-dynamic-pricing

Similarly, Dubal proposes that algorithmic wage discrimination violates another antitrust law: the Robinson-Patman Act, which “bans sellers from charging competing buyers different prices for the same commodity. Robinson-Patman enforcement was effectively halted under Reagan, kicking off a host of pathologies, like the rise of Walmart:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/27/walmarts-jackals/#cheater-sizes

I really liked Dubal’s legal reasoning and argument, and to it I would add a call to reinvigorate countertwiddling: reforming laws that get in the way of workers who want to reverse-engineer, spoof, and control the apps that currently control them. Adversarial interoperability (AKA competitive compatibility or comcom) is key tool for building worker power in an era of digital Taylorism:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

To see how that works, look to other jursidictions where workers have leapfrogged their European and American cousins, such as Indonesia, where gig workers and toolsmiths collaborate to make a whole suite of “tuyul apps,” which let them override the apps that gig companies expect them to use.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/08/tuyul-apps/#gojek

For example, ride-hailing companies won’t assign a train-station pickup to a driver unless they’re circling the station — which is incredibly dangerous during the congested moments after a train arrives. A tuyul app lets a driver park nearby and then spoof their phone’s GPS fix to the ridehailing company so that they appear to be right out front of the station.

In an ideal world, those workers would have a union, and be able to dictate the app’s functionality to their bosses. But workers shouldn’t have to wait for an ideal world: they don’t just need jam tomorrow — they need jam today. Tuyul apps, and apps like Para, which allow workers to extract more money under better working conditions, are a prelude to unionization and employer regulation, not a substitute for it.

Employers will not give workers one iota more power than they have to. Just look at the asymmetry between the regulation of union employees versus union busters. Under US law, employees of a union need to account for every single hour they work, every mile they drive, every location they visit, in public filings. Meanwhile, the union-busting industry — far larger and richer than unions — operate under a cloak of total secrecy, Workers aren’t even told which union busters their employers have hired — let alone get an accounting of how those union busters spend money, or how many of them are working undercover, pretending to be workers in order to sabotage the union.

Twiddling will only get an employer so far. Twiddling — like all “AI” — is based on analyzing the past to predict the future. The heuristics an algorithm creates to lure workers into their cars can’t account for rapid changes in the wider world, which is why companies who relied on “AI” scheduling apps (for example, to prevent their employees from logging enough hours to be entitled to benefits) were caught flatfooted by the Great Resignation.

Workers suddenly found themselves with bargaining power thanks to the departure of millions of workers — a mix of early retirees and workers who were killed or permanently disabled by covid — and they used that shortage to demand a larger share of the fruits of their labor. The outraged howls of the capital class at this development were telling: these companies are operated by the kinds of “capitalists” that MLK once identified, who want “socialism for the rich and rugged individualism for the poor.”

https://twitter.com/KaseyKlimes/status/821836823022354432/

There's only 5 days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon's Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they're DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

Image: Stephen Drake (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Analog_Test_Array_modular_synth_by_sduck409.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

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Louis (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chestnut_horse_head,_all_excited.jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A complex mandala of knobs from a modular synth. In the foreground, limned in a blue electric halo, is a man in a hi-viz vest with the head of a horse. The horse's eyes have been replaced with the sinister red eyes of HAL9000 from Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"]

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marleyybluu · 11 months

Text

Another Man's Treasure

Oscar Diaz x f!reader

Word count: 6.8k (I am so sorry lmao)

Warnings: 18+, shitty husband, smut, p in v, unprotected (but pls don't be this stupid), creampie, dirty talk, cheating (but is it really if your husband is an ass), flirting, fluff, love at first sight type shit, Spanish/English pet names (pretty lady, hermosa, cariño), limited use of y/n(I literally used it once) idk lmk if I missed any.

(I only mention the first song but the other two are more for the… spicy scene😏)

——

The only escape from reality you had was the small moments of disassociation you had between the screaming of your children and the-

"Are you fucking kidding me?!"

The shouting of your overgrown child of a husband playing his stupid games on his stupid PS5 that you wanted to set on fucking fire. This is not the life you pictured as a stay-at-home mom, yes the piles of dirty laundry were expected, and the mountainous dishes in the sink but you never predicted you'd be doing this alone. Your own mother stayed at home with you and your two brothers but your dad would still help her around the house so that she got the time to kick her feet up and relax.

You never got that.

You were living with this dark cloud over your head and deep regrets in your mind, why did you marry this man? You did think he was the love of your life, three years together before you got married proved your theory but never did you think it was going to end up like this. The amount of work you did was overwhelming, just one look at the number of toys on the floor made tears sting your eyes. You were tired, exhausted, drained and absolutely depleted.

If this was a job, you'd quit, you would take your children and quit. You wanted to so badly but the small hope of him changing clung to you like a piece of lint. You sighed holding your eleven-month-old on your hip while you made him a bottle, anything to keep him from wailing in your ears-- Jesus, half the time you couldn't hear.

"Babe!"

Your eyes rolled, you loathed his voice at this point. "What?"

"Can you pass me a water bottle?"

"Get up and get it, I'm making Malakai a bottle."

He groaned. "For fuck sake, you're in the kitchen already."

Your nostrils flared, and your eye twitched. You wanted to cuss at him, shout at him until your voice box shattered but you kept whatever calm you had left and ignored him. A small hand landed on your nose and you smiled kissing the tiny palm. "I love you too bubba."

He flashed a little smile and your heart sobbed at the fact that your last baby was growing so fast, teeth already emerging from his gums when just months ago he didn't have any. You could never regret your three little creatures, you loved them dearly, so much so you were willing to put up with the man that helped you create them just so they could have a two-parent household but you didn't know how much longer you could take this.

Heavy footsteps trailed inside the kitchen, you could tell he was angry at the fact that he had to pause his little game just to grab some water. He looked over the sink, utterly disgusted by the site in front of him and instead of just keeping his mouth shut or for once volunteering to do them he decided to spit out a sentence that made you want to knock his head off with the glass bottle you were holding; "You need to wash the dishes."

Your blood was boiling, if life was a cartoon you'd have steam coming out of your ears. "Why don't you get off of the game and do them?" You bit.

He cracked open the bottle cap. "Hey, I'm the one that works all week, you just stay home and do nothing."

Nothing? NOTHING!?

That was it.

That was the tip of the iceberg.

Your shoulders dropped and he left the kitchen, there was that ringing in your ears again that came and went every time you zoned out. Ever since you got married you'd felt nothing but unappreciated by him, you quit your job to stay home with your children and not even a thank you, you made sure he had a good meal when he went to work and all you got in return was an "it was okay." And the disgustingly dirty dish tossed right in the sink you'd just emptied. You were at the end of your rope.

You held back your tears and lightly kissed your son on his head handing him his bottle and putting him on a beam bag so he could lay down and drink. You trotted upstairs to check in on your oldest twins who were in their room colouring and getting along for once. Then you headed to the bathroom locking the door behind you, your body sliding down to the floor, you curled up in a ball burying your head between your knees you let out a long and heavy sigh before your river of tears took over.

A cry session your body and mind were so used to. You wailed into the void, muffling your weeps so that your children wouldn't hear you and come asking what was wrong, a question you couldn't answer without them turning on their father and you didn't want to ruin that relationship they had with him.

You were just so tired.

As night fell you remained mute when it came to your husband, whatever he had to say you didn't respond to, you were just happy that it was Sunday and soon he'd be out of your face for a few hours.

With the kids all asleep you were in the kitchen on FaceTime with your older brother. "The kids are great, they're sleeping." You conversed.

"And how have you been?"

There was no hiding how you felt when it came to your siblings, you were the baby and the only girl so when you were hurt they knew and they'd do whatever they could to fix it. "I'm okay... I'll be okay." You reassured. He was the only one who knew some small details about what you were going through and you begged him not to say anything not even to your mother until you figured out how to deal with everything yourself.

"Hey, listen, Jordyn is going on vacation next week, she's hitting Fiji, and I think you should go with her."

You squinched up your face, you didn't have a problem with your brother's wife, always so thankful for the sister you never got but what about your kids? Could you even trust that man to take over your duties even for a day?

As if he read your mind he continued. "I mean it'll be summer break next week, and they can stay by me if you want. I just, I really think you need time away from life. I want to see my little sister happy."

You pouted, it really touched your heart how concerned he was. A vacation would be wonderful, it was all you could dream of after the kids were born, you loved them but you just wanted to be by yourself.

"I'll think about it."

"Well, don't think too hard." He joked. "Whatever. I gotta get their lunches together, I'll call you when I make my decision."

"Sounds good, night."

"Night."

The call ended and you finished packing the twins' lunch placing the bags on the only empty spot on the counter. You huffed at the dishes and your husband's words replayed in your head. Nothing. You do absolutely nothing.

The longer you stared a vengeful plan began to brew. You were about to show him what doing nothing meant.

You decided you were going on that trip, Jordyn was excited and your brother was happy with your choice. The week flew by quickly, you kept up your normal appearance of keeping the house clean and to your husband's liking and by each day you grew more distant from him not like he cared in the first place.

On the last day of school you explained to the twins that you were taking a trip with Aunty Jordyn and they, unfortunately, couldn't come but they'd be staying with their uncle and they'd loved that man to death so they were excited either way. Your house was a mess and for once you smiled at it, you'd been letting everything pile up for the last two days, packing the clean clothes they did have in advance. The only explanation you gave your husband was that they were all staying by your brother for the week but you didn't mention that you weren't coming back.

You were leaving tonight and there would be no stopping you. You loaded the van with their stuff and yours and hollered for them to get their little butts in the car. "Last one in the car has stinky feet!" You laughed at the building volume of stomping feet coming across the hall and down the stairs, your twins were out and your youngest sat on your hip giggling at their antics. You happily wrote a short note.

Bye.

That's it.

You showered your baby in kisses and grabbed your keys before heading out the door, you locked it and made your way to the car, buckling in your baby and making sure the other two were in securely. You closed the door and first time in a long time you felt a weight off your shoulders, you smiled in satisfaction at how you left the house knowing you were not going to answer a single phone call from that man.

Jordyn squealed. "Ugh! I am so excited I don't even know what to do with myself!" You laughed at her enthusiasm as you put your hair up in a ponytail. It was day 2 of your trip and you were living life, you couldn't remember the last time you felt this relaxed. Now, of course, you missed your children it'd been the longest you'd ever been apart from them so you were a bit clingy with the calls but it was all understandable.

You two were hitting the beach today and you were a bit nervous, nobody had seen your body in almost a year not even your husband but Jordyn had persuaded you to find your behind in a two-piece bikini and you argued that you'd wear it as long as you could wear a cover-up so it was a deal. You looked yourself over in the mirror, you felt oddly confident. You looked fucking good. Three kids did your body right.

"You sure you want that cover-up?" She teased watching you admire yourself. "Hmm," You angled your lower half so you could check out your bum, how plump it had become over the years. "Maybe not."

She winked. "That's my girl."

You two grabbed what you needed and headed down to the beach which was right in front of the hotel you were staying at. The slight wind brushed against the water sending a cool and comforting breeze your way, your ears wiggled at the sound of the waves, and the giggles of other vacationers enjoying their time like you were.

The cushiony sand had greeted your toes after overflowing onto your sandals. You two travelled until you found a decent spot, it was close to the bar and the body of water. You set up your area as best as you could but you were in a battle with the beach umbrella Jordyn insisted on bringing. She watched with her hand covering her mouth to camouflage her laughter. "Okay, you know what, I'll handle this and you go handle us some drinks."

You childishly stuck out your tongue and strutted your way over to the bar, you hopped on an available stool. The bartender noticed you asking for you to just give him a minute. "No worries." You responded. You went on your phone and checked the many pictures your brother sent of your children, you smiled and a bit of sadness tugged at your heart. You missed your babies dearly.

The number of messages went up and it could only be one person. You promised you wouldn't look but you just had to, you swiped and tapped on your husband's name.

Where the fuck are you!?

The house is a fucking mess!

I'm not cleaning up, I hope you know that.

Baby, come on, we can work this out. Please.

You scoffed at the last message and put your phone down casually being greeted by the bartender who watched your various emotions while you went through your phone. "Everything's okay?"

Oh. Wow.

He presented a sweet smile, your eyes slightly widening at the sight in front of you. He was handsome, scratch that, he was fine as fuck. The shaved head didn't usually work on a lot of men but it did him justice, the scattered tattoos on his pretty and tanned skin, his broad shoulders that looked like they were made for legs to be hooked on and not to mention his big arms that looked like they could hold you snug and tight all through the night.

"Uh, yeah, everything's... everything is good." You stammered, a queasy feeling crept through you as it settled in your lower stomach. Butterflies? But you couldn't even remember what that felt like in order to come to that conclusion.

"Good to know. What can I get you, ma?"

You shuddered at his voice. He could talk to you all day.

"One Long Island, and one Piña Colada please."

He nodded. "Starting off slow I see." He chuckled. "Eh, we're on vacation, gotta soak it all up before we go back."

"I see," He multitasked making your drinks and conversing. "And when does the pretty lady go back?"

You blushed, should you even tell this literal stranger when you're actually leaving? But he felt... comfortable, easy to talk to and it's not like you'd ever see him again. "End of the week."

"Oh, you have plenty of time to get shit-faced." He encouraged. He'd finished your order and placed the liquored-down drinks in front of you. "Don't worry about paying yeah? It's on the house. Enjoy your vacation pretty lady."

"Y/n... you could just call me Y/n."

Not like you wanted him to, pretty lady was working just fine

"Nice to meet you. Oscar... Diaz." He winked. "Thanks, for the drinks."

"Anytime, pretty lady."

Your legs felt wonky as you walked away, and your breathing quickened. You did your best to walk back to Jordyn without looking back, if you did you were pretty sure you'd fall, just clumsy as fuck. "Girl, that man was watching you walk away." She whispered. "Stop." You poked, shoving her drink toward her. "Oh please, his eyes were on you." Jordyn gazed over to the bar, "He's still staring."

You casually whipped your head around and sucked your teeth when you noticed he wasn't. You glared at her. She snickered taking a sip from her Long Island. "Makes good drinks too."

You sighed, "Shut up."

The topic was silenced, you downed a few more drinks but sent Jordyn to get them instead while you swam around in the cooling water, floating around enjoying the peace the water brought you. But you couldn't help but occasionally look over to the bar. Oscar Diaz... nice name. Nice face. Cute little moustache that sat above his lips and a goatee that sat below. Pretty rosy pink lips...

Your eyes darted away. You're married.

Are you though?

You swam back up to the beach, it was beginning to get dark and the patrons on the beach became scarce. You wrapped yourself in a towel and collected anything Jordyn hadn't packed up yet. "You want one more drink before they close up? Maybe your new friend will allow it." She teased. You took off your flip-flop and threw it at her but your reaction only made her laugh.

A familiar voice was heard behind you. "So she's beautiful and she's got good aim, better watch out."

You quietly gasped. "Hi... Oscar."

"Hey, uhm, listen I own a club not too far from here and you know it's a decent hangout for the locals... and the visitors." He winked. "Wanted to know if you two would like to come check it out?"

You fought back a smile. "We could try." You answer without even thinking. "I'll take that," He reached into his pocket handing you a folded piece of paper, you assumed had the address of the place he owned. Your fingers brushed against his, prickles felt like they were forming on your skin and those weird feelings returned in your lower stomach.

He sent you another wink and headed back off to the bar to close up.

Of course, Jordyn was down to go. You groaned internally as you two pulled up to a crowded place, looking up at the illuminated sign reading Cloud 9. Hmm, cute. You pulled down your dress as it rose up with each step, your heels clicking against the cold ground, the music booming so loud you could feel your body vibrating the closer you got to the entrance, flashing lights of different colours beamed through the door every time it opened blinding whoever entered. "Where's your friend?" Jordyn asked. "Have patience, I just told him we got here."

"Mhm." She sassed. Your heart thumped in your ears, it pounded against your chest. What were you doing? It was a question you asked yourself from the moment you got back to your room and began to get ready for tonight. You shook off your thoughts and shifted your eyes over to a black door that slowly began to open. "Hey, over here." Oscar waved you two over and you followed. "What's going on, pretty lady?... And pretty lady's friend."

Jordyn nodded at him as a silent greeting, she was just here to observe your anxious behaviour for her entertainment. "Come on," You followed him through a dimly lit hallway and up a flight of stairs, your nerves building and sudden regret forming in your bones until you entered a brighter atmosphere, the loud music returning to your eardrums. He had led you two to a section that only had a few people, you could assume it was the VIP section.

"Anything you two want to drink just let me know and I got you."

Jordyn raised her eyebrows at the tempting bottle of unopened champagne sitting in a bucket of ice. Oscar chuckled granting her permission to open it, she shimmied her shoulders in excitement and got to work. You shook your head at her, you travelled over to the balcony and looks down at all the patrons having the time of their lives, a few familiar faces from the resort and others that weren't recognizable which you could only assume were locals.

Oscar found his place beside you and nudged your shoulder with his. "You want anything to drink?"

"No, not yet, I'm good."

He slowly nodded. "So, what are you doing in Fiji? Besides vacationing."

You huffed, "I just needed time to myself... to get away from shit."

"I hear that." You could just feel those sweet and curious brown eyes boring into the side of your head, you poked the inside of your cheek with your tongue and looked down at your shoes, just anything to not make eye contact with him. You were shy, you were never shy not even with your husband when you first met him. It's like this was a new feeling, you were queasy and nervous and it honestly felt good in a weird way-- it felt good to not be comfortable, to get all flustered over someone like a schoolgirl crush.

"You really own this place?"

He scrunched up his face. "Half own, I guess. My brother and I came here for an escape just like you and we ended up staying. Now, we own Cloud Nine and I work down at the resort once in a while."

"Oh, you're a busy man."

"I try to be." Oscar chuckled. He was so easy to talk to, why was he so easy to talk to?

You found yourself moving a bit closer. "What were you trying to escape from?"

"Life. I wasn't happy where I was living and I wanted better but... given the circumstances, we just couldn't get it. So I threw a dart on a map, so to speak, it landed on Fiji and we've been here ever since."

"Where are you from then?"

"Originally born in Mexico, we moved to LA, and then out here."

"Would you ever go back to the States?" You asked finally looking up at him knowing he hadn't taken his eyes off you all night. He leaned forward, officially entering your bubble. "If I had a good enough reason... yeah."

You looked up at him through your lashes and softly smiled, meanwhile, Jordyn sat on the couch sipping and shaking her head at the sight in front of her. She would playfully scold you in the morning but tonight she'd let you have your harmless fun.

As the party went on you were getting a bit bored being upstairs so you grabbed your girl and headed downstairs to where the crowd was and of course Oscar was right behind you, he felt a sense of protection over you two tonight given this was your first time out here and inside his establishment. You had found enough confidence to start dancing around, a little two-step from left to right to get you going, but soon the constant flow of drinks Jordyn handed you helped you loosen out of that as well.

The DJ was beginning to play all the oldies, and that was your specialty. Oscar watched in adornment as you killed every lyric, every adlib and every beat to whichever song came on. It had transitioned from a bit of Hip-hop to something a lot slower.

"Right now, we're gonna slow it down a bit, so grab your lovers and take your time."

The lights changed to blue and a recognizable first note had you close your eyes.

Mmm ooooh, my my my my my my my babyyy ouuuuuu

Jordyn had already found herself dancing with a random woman. She looked widened her eyes at you and quickly flicked them over to Oscar, trying her best to encourage you to make your move. But he was faster. You felt yourself being pulled into his warm embrace, his strong chest against your exposed back, his hands carefully snaking around your waist as if he was worried about you rejecting his touch but you gladly welcomed it.

Melting into his hold you two swayed side to side, he leaned down comfortably nuzzling his head into the crook of your neck. You were lost in the vibes of Keith Sweat's Right and a Wrong Way. You reached back hooking your arm around his neck lightly scratching his scalp with your nails. "You smell so good, mamita." He whispered, it was a miracle that you heard him. Your lips parted slightly as you felt his warm breath tickle your skin. His swift hands ran up your sides resting right under your breasts and gliding back down to your hips.

A thumping began between your thighs, now that was something you hadn't felt in a long time. You put that feeling to the side no matter how hard it was to do so. The rest of the night it felt like all the songs were targeted for just you two, you hadn't eased up on him once-- always in close proximity to him. He touched you in simple ways, ways you hadn't been touched in almost a year.

It was getting super late, almost three in the morning and you couldn't recall the last time you were out like this, it'd give you hell when you woke up but it was worth it. You and Jordyn rode back to the resort with Oscar, she exited the car first thanking him for the night out and wobbling her way inside. You giggled watching her walk away, "I should get in there before she tries the key on the wrong room."

But you didn't want to leave him.

And he didn't want to leave you.

"Thanks for tonight, I had a lot of fun."

"No problem, anything to help a pretty lady escape." He bit his lip. "What are your plans for tomorrow?"

"Recovering," You laughed, "But other than that nothing."

"Can I see you again?"

You gulped and nodded. "Mhm."

He laid out his palm your eyebrows furrowed as you rested yours on top of his, he brought the back of your hand to his lips and placed such a gentle kiss on your skin. "Goodnight, mamita."

You wanted to scream. You left the car putting a little swing in your hips as you walked away, you looked over your shoulder and sent him a cute little wave before disappearing behind the doors.

— —

And that's how you spent the rest of your trip, shamelessly flirting with Oscar. You got to know each other a lot more, when you weren't spending time with Jordyn you were with him. Giggling like an airhead and blushing red like Rudolph's nose.

Jordyn constantly teases you about the crush you'd seem to quickly develop.

"Is this stupid?" You ask shoving your face in the pillow. This all felt too good to be fucking true, a guy that you met only four days ago was treating you so much better than the man you married four years ago. Oscar had flowers for you at the front desk of the resort every morning and sent you the sweetest messages throughout the day about how he was thinking of you, how he caught a glimpse of you today and you looked stunning, calling you the prettiest woman he'd ever seen step on this island.

You convinced yourself they were all lies, sugarcoating you like he probably did every woman but who were you fooling? Certainly not yourself and certainly not Jordyn.

"It's not."

"I'm married." You argued tiredly to which she fake yawned. "I don't see a ring on that finger and I don't see that man treating you any better than Oscar has. Just saying."

The fingers on your right hand brushed your vacant ring finger, you'd taken it off the minute you got on the plane, you didn't want to be reminded of him on this trip at all and yet there was that piece in the back of your mind that reached out to him. Checking his messages once in a while but never responding, he was giving you the attention you wanted but it didn't feel right.

The fact that you had to spontaneously leave to get even a fraction of what you were asking for was bullshit. Downright bullshit.

You groaned sitting up the pads of your fingers now rubbing your temples, tired and stressed. The trip was almost over and you dreaded going back to that house that was no longer a home. He'd sent you pictures that he'd finally cleaned up but you had a feeling once you returned home things would go back to the way they were and you did not want that.

"I think your brother would agree with me, you've smiled more in these past few days than I've seen back home, I mean you two are always so distant when you come over. And don't think I don't hear your rants when you and your brother are on the phone. Now I don't condone cheating but, hey, I didn't see shit."

You sighed checking your phone for any recent texts from your husband but Jordyn caught wind of what you were doing and snatched your device. "Enough with him. Flirt and have fun before you have to go back to normalcy."

You heard your phone buzz in her hand, she looked at the message for you. "Speaking of, someone is downstairs."

You felt nauseous. "Where are you two going anyway?"

"Down to the beach, said he has to restock the bar... and I wanted to spend time with him so I offered to help."

"Mhm." She winked. You grabbed your phone back from her grasp and told her you'd be back soon. You left your room, entered the elevator and headed downstairs where Oscar was happily waiting for you. "Hola querida." He become more comfortable speaking Spanish around you, especially when he noticed how the little nicknames got a reaction out of you.

"Hi," Oscar noticed the shaky tone in your response and made note of it You had comfortably slipped your hand inside his, he immediately hooked his fingers in the spaces of yours. Like he was your puzzle piece.

You two headed down to the decent-sized Hut, your eyes widened at the number of boxes sitting on the sand. "Don't worry, I got the heavy bottles, you just get the small ones." He reassured pressing a kiss to the top of your head. You loved those, so innocent and sweet, although you wish sometimes he'd kiss you on your lips or you had to courage to kiss his. "Think I can't handle the big boxes?" You scoffed walking inside after him.

"I think you can, I just don't think my pretty lady needs to."

My pretty lady.

ugh!

With music playing in the background you two got to work, "Do you still think about running your own restaurant?" You asked sparking a conversation, you squatted down to the lower shelves and propped the glass bottles in an organized fashion, eyes tearing through the material of your sundress and you could feel them. "I do, yeah. Why?"

You bit your lip. "Would it still be down here?"

There was a beat of silence. "Most likely."

Another pause in the moment aside from your soft humming to the music. "You excited to see your kids?" He asked. You smiled at the mere thought of them. "I am. My three little headaches." Oscar found himself next to you, leaning against the counter, you stopped your movements and looked up-- he had one arm folded over the other and a bit of a scowl on his face.

"What?" You innocently question standing up to match his eye line, well more-like chest line. "Nothing, just trying to take my time to remember this face." He reached for your cheek, his fingers ghosting your flesh. "You flirt like this with all the girls here?"

A question that was supposed to come out jokingly but you were a bit serious. "Nah," You squinted at him watching his lips press together, his chest stuttering as he held back a laugh. "You asshole, I knew it." A dramatic hand to your heart as you playfully pouted at him and fake cried. Oscar's arms enveloped you in their warmth, you attempted to push him off but it was no use, your feet suddenly off the ground, you squealed and giggled as he switched positions with you plopping you on top of the counter.

He placed his palms flat on the side of your thighs while he was positioned comfortably between them. "To be fair, hermosa, it is kind of my job. But believe me when I say I've never spent any time with them. And I've definitely never brought them back here after hours." His thumb and pointer finger pinching your chin. "Just you, princesa."

You melted, your whole body could be seen physically slumping in his hold. His eyes sparkled while he looked at you, the crinkles in his eyes appearing as he smirked. Before you could comprehend anything his lips brushed yours, your head suddenly becoming foggy with the inappropriate images of him that you'd conjured up these past few days.

His nimble fingers danced along the hem of your dress, a rush of heat passing over you as he hiked it up further exposing more of your flesh.

This was no longer a want... it was a need.

Your hands landed right under his jaw as you pulled him in crashing your lips onto his and he happily reciprocated your energy, his hands wandered up to your hips tugging you closer to him as if it were possible. Your lips moved as one, tongues passing by in the heat of the moment, the only thing on your mind was him and you wanted it to remain so for as long as possible.

Tingles scattered around your body, both of you flushed with lust and arousal. Your hands travelled to the bottom of his shirt quietly begging for him to take it off, you needed to feel his skin, thankfully he got the message-- pulling away for a brief moment to remove his top. Your eyes glazed over his lightly tanned skin, little scars here and there you can only presume he earned before he got here.

You smiled at the strewed ink on his torso, chest and ribs. "What are you thinking about?" He inquired. You looked back up into his brown iris'. "I wish I had met you first." You mumbled drawing him back down, this kiss was a lot more passionate and slow unlike the first.

Oscar's hands gently tugged at the neckline of your dress, your breasts spilling over and his calloused hands finding them. You softly moaned against his lips, your nipples hardening from the cool breeze and his fondling. He pinched and rolled them between his fingers, your head tipped back and his teeth nipped at the column of your neck.

You were forming a small pool in your panties at his teasing. His tongue grazed your neck continuously licking and sucking a specific spot that was getting a squirming reaction out of you. You felt his devilish smile, he knew what he was doing to you and he liked it.

His hands moved from torturing your swollen breasts back down to your thighs shoving your dress up until your little black panties were on display. You sat on the edge of the counter making it a bit easier for him to remove them, the cool air hitting your soaking slit.

"Touch me, please, touch me." You whined not caring about how desperate and needy you sounded. Oscar listened to your pleas and dipped one hand between your legs, his fingers quickly finding your slick folds. You shuddered as he glided two fingers up and down, dipping them inside you once in a while.

You were soaking, you were throbbing, and you just wanted him inside you where he fucking belonged. He slowly plunged his fingers inside, you clench around them happy to have something pleasuring you. Your eyes are closed and your legs spread further for him, nails digging into his shoulder blade hopefully leaving little indents.

He pumped them in and out of you with the squidgy noise of your wetness to follow. "Yes... oh yes, like that."

Oscar felt himself twitch under his boxers using his other hand to undo his belt and pulled down his materials. His dick is hard and his tip a rosy pink turning cherry red oozing with a bit of cream, his hips buckled once his hand brushed over it-- equally as desperate as you were. Your erotic moans were like music to his ears, so much sexier than he could've pictured. You whined once he removed them your hole flexing around nothing as you caught your breath.

Oscar hooked your legs over his arms spreading you to his desire, you reached between your bodies firmly (but not too tight) grasping his length and guiding it to your entrance, his swollen head prodding inside you as the rest of him followed.

Your jaw slacked at the feeling of him deliciously stretching you out, he was so thick and it felt so nice. Oscar croaked out a moan while burying himself deep inside your warmth-- coating his dick with your sticky walls, so slick and welcoming that he didn't want to move.

You caressed the back of his neck as he pressed another kiss on yours, trailing it up the side and finally landing on your mouth. You giggled into the kiss, Oscar pulled back with a questioning look. "I can't tell the last time I felt like this." You mumbled under your breath but he heard you. He didn't want you to leave, hell if you didn't have kids he'd probably try to convince you to move out here with him.

He didn't say anything in response just pulled out and pushed back in. "Fuck." You both moaned.

His head dipped back down, nibbling on your sweet skin.

You whimpered through every tantalizing stroke he gave you, his tip poking right at your hot spot and you knew you wouldn't last. "You feel so good!" A sentence broken by little gasps. Oscar grunted, violently gripping your thighs as he pounded you, pulling the filthiest sounds from your pretty little throat. So loud and erotic he was sure they could hear you back at the resort.

Your eyes squeeze in absolute bliss, your head hazy from the constant pleasure you received, quickly feeling a sensation in your lower belly a wave of heat threatening to take over. Your palm lay flat on his back while the other gripped the edge of the counter.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Oscar!"

He lifted you off the counter a bit, relentlessly slamming into you now. Your high getting closer and closer. "I can, shit, I can feel you mamita. So fucking tight."

Your toes curled and your eyes rolled. "Baby, ohhh, I need to..."

Oscar smiled. "You wanna cum for me, baby? Come, mi amor, all of it."

His words tipped you off the edge, your back arched and your body trembled from the shockwaves of your orgasm, he held you closely revelling in your pulsating pussy dripping down his shaft.

He quickly brought you off the countertop, your wobbly legs barely holding your support. He turned you around, you barely recovered from the first position.

You were sensitive and extra wet just how he wanted you. You flinched when he pressed himself against your entrance once again, pushing in ever so carefully. "Fuck... you."

He laughed menacingly, his hands squeezing your hips. "That's what I'm doin' pretty lady."

You wanted to give him a smart-ass answer but it was cut short when he began to move. Your nipples were hard against the surface, you rested your head down and whined. "So fucking good."

"Yeah?" He chuckled spanking you. He was enjoying the pornographic sounds that you provided, all going straight to his dick.

He wrapped his arm around your waist pulling you up against him, back pressed on his chest, his warm breath in your ear. "Can't get enough of you I swear." He admitted.

He poked and prodded against that familiar spot, tears of overwhelming pleasure threatening to spill when he pinched your nipple. "Fuck! I'm gonna miss you, so fucking much."

"You gonna think about me?"

"Yes! Oh!"

You felt him twitch inside you, you smiled egging him on. "I won't stop thinking about you, when I touch myself I'll picture it's you-"

"Fuck, cariño,"

"Ou, you're the only one I want inside me."

You convulsed around him feeling another orgasm quickly building and getting ready to fall apart. A few more thrusts and Oscar held himself still inside you, your body shivering at the warm cream he just spilled inside you. His high triggering yours. You reached behind hooking your arm around his now sweaty neck.

The sound of the wind against the water and the waves crashing describe exactly how you felt right now.

"Oh... my god." You said breathlessly.

"You're okay?" He asked with a laugh. You giggled tipping your head back on to his shoulder. "Better than okay."

He sighed kissing your back. "I meant it..." You said.

"What?"

"I'm gonna miss you."

He smiled sheepishly. "I'll miss you too."

Those moments replayed in your head constantly, it was the only thing getting you by once you came back home. You two still talked every day, called and FaceTimed but it wasn't enough. You would stare at the prices of tickets and sigh, you couldn't afford to go back right now.

Your life was the same, unloved and unappreciated, despite the embarrassingly desperate messages your husband had sent when you were on your trip. You stared at another pile of dishes, your shoulder sinking with exhaustion. With your two older ones at school and your son almost an hour into his nap you decided to just relax. You clicked on Netflix and attempted to finish Bridgerton's, Queen Charlotte.

Your eyelids felt heavy, sleep threatened to take over but the doorbell had them shoot open. It wasn't just one ring it was multiple and it was annoying so you assumed it was your brother. You groaned trudging to the door. You swung it open aggressively, ready to give him a piece of your mind. "You're going to wake-"

There he was. Standing in front of you, on your doorstep... at your house. "O-Oscar..." You poked his chest to see if he was really there. "Said I'd come back when I have a good reason." Your eyes softened, your arms reaching for him. His lips immediately find yours. "I," kiss, "fucking," kiss "missed you."

Your legs wrapped around his waist as he stepped inside closing the door. He carried you over to the couch and plopped you on the cushions. You laughed, your mood immediately changing with him around. "Jordyn told you where I lived didn't she?"

He nodded. You rolled your eyes. "Of course."

"Not happy to see me?"

You pulled him down for another kiss.

"Beyond happy."

I was going to wait until the weekend to post this but I am a little too excited to get this out.

Shoutout to my girl @darqchilddaydreamz for her input on a few things and her encouragement. Holdin it down ✊🏾

if you liked this fic feel free to like this fic, comments and reblogs are appreciated.

Alsooooo thank you for 800 followers, yall cool as fuck thanks for fucking with me and my antics.

Peace and love see you in the next one✌🏾

🏷: @darqchilddaydreamz @skyesthebomb @realhotgurlshit

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