And he kisses me.
A slow, deep pull.
His hand drags down my arm,
fingers hot in the November freeze.
The cold slashes around us,
but the warmth of his kiss slides through my body.
His mouth.
His breath.
The taste.
Goosebumps raise across my skin.
My heart can’t sit down any longer.
She’s got a lighter up in the air,
swaying like this is a fucking ballad.
Until Guilt snatches the lighter right out of her hand and blows out the flame?—
How the fuck you plan on confessin' now, genius?
TRACK NO. 05: THE ASTOR CLOCKHOUSE
// ANDREW - PLAYED AT 33 1/3 RPM, MEMORY LOOP //
Vivienne Astor fell in love once.
Timing was shit.
Some say war took him.
Others say another woman did.
Bullet or betrayal, it doesn’t matter now. Time smudged the details, but grief never cares about how it arrives or dies. Whatever the reason, it gutted her.
Daughter of a watchmaker, she came into the world in 1874 with time stitched into her bones, gears in her teeth, and a ticking in her chest. Her pops, Johann Wilhelm Astor, wasn’t one ofthoseAstors. Not the fur-trade fortune, not the Fifth Avenue palaces. He was the forgotten cousin who fell in love with a seamstress, mocked for being the Astor who counted minutes instead of dollars. The family erased him. Vivienne made sure they couldn’t erase her, turning their curse of clocks into her uprising.
Her old man spent his life trapping time behind glass.
Vivienne wanted to smash it to pieces.
After her fiancé disappeared, she did too—three years off the map, then came back with no explanation and a roll ofblueprints under her arm. That was her rebellion—brick, brass, and a backbone in every beam. She built herself a fortress outta spite and steel. A place where time couldn’t haunt her.
In 1912, The Astor Clockhouse opened its doors.
It was her way of saying:My father wasted his life serving time.
I’ll build a place where time serves me.
Four clocks, four lies on each side—none of ‘em tellin’ the same time.
