#jackoconnellvibes

[hpney-b33]

Me when I know it was a bad thing to do but I did it anyways

[hpney-b33]

⤷ ゛Paddy Mayne x brothel-worker!reader ˎˊ˗

⤷ Summary: In a smoky, blacked-out London club during the winter of 1944, Paddy Mayne walks in like he already owns the room. One look at you and he decides you’re his for the night. No charm, no negotiation — just raw, deliberate intensity and the kind of rough, commanding sex that leaves no room for anything but him.

⤷ Warnings (18+ ONLY): Dominant / commanding Paddy with a quick temp, Dirty talk, Power imbalance / transactional sex turning intense/Light restraint / pinning, Orgasm control / denial elements/No aftercare.

⤷ Word count: 4.7k

⤷ A/N: I have been watching SAS Rouge Hero’s, and I couldn’t help it. There are so many good looking men on that show but Jack as Paddy is just Chefs kisses he is so good looking through out the show mama like. If you like this like and repost comment too i love all the feed back !

The place is loud before you even see it.

Music bleeding out into the blacked-out street — a trumpet doing something unsteady, a piano keeping time badly. Laughter too sharp to be genuine. The door opens and closes often enough that the cold keeps cutting in between bodies and cigarette smoke, carrying with it the bite of a winter that doesn't care what year it is or what's happening across the Channel.

Inside, it's heat and cheap perfume and something sour underneath. Whiskey and sweat and the particular desperation of people trying to forget they are living inside a war.

Women draped over chairs, over men, over the arms of worn velvet sofas going thin at the seams. Silk stockings — real ones, which means someone paid well for them or someone lied for them. Lips painted red because red is the one extravagance the ration book can't touch. Voices pitched just high enough to carry over Glenn Miller bleeding from a gramophone in the corner, the record slightly warped, the brass coming out just a half-step wrong.

Everything practiced. Everything for sale.

Blackout curtains pulled tight across every window. No light escaping. The war insisting on itself even here, even in a place that has done its level best to pretend otherwise.

No one is still.

Until he walks in.

He doesn't hesitate at the door — doesn't slow, doesn't stand in the frame taking stock of the room the way men do when they want to be seen doing it. He just steps inside like it was already settled. Like the decision had been made somewhere else entirely and he was only now catching up to it physically.

Boots heavy against the floorboards.

The sound doesn't match the room. Too solid. Too deliberate. Everything else in here is soft — soft voices, soft light from shaded lamps doing their best against the dimness, soft jazz from a gramophone that's seen better days. His footsteps cut through all of it.

A few heads turn. Not all, but enough. Instinct more than interest — the way animals register a shift in the air before they've worked out why. There's something about him that doesn't fit the rhythm of the place. He isn't in uniform, but he moves like someone who doesn't know how not to be. His jacket is dark, his collar open, and there's a tiredness to him that isn't the kind that comes from a bad night's sleep. It goes deeper. It's settled in.

Not drunk enough. Not loose enough.

Too aware.

His gaze moves once across the room.

Not lingering. Not searching in the way the others do — not looking for pretty or easy or willing. Something quicker than that, and less interested in any of the obvious things. He isn't cataloguing women. He's cataloguing the room.

Doors. Corners. The man by the bar who's been watching the entrance all night. The one near the gramophone pretending to read a newspaper two days out of date.

Who's watching who. Who's pretending not to.

Then —

He stops.

Not in the middle of the room. Not dramatically. Just — still. The way something goes still when it's already made a decision and is simply waiting for the rest of the world to catch up.

And that's what draws attention.

Because men like him don't go still unless something has already been decided.

You don't realise at first that it's you.

You're halfway through a practiced laugh, leaning into a man who smells like Brylcreem and impatience, one hand resting on the lapel of his suit jacket in a way that says interested without quite committing to it — when the shift hits. Subtle. The way a room changes temperature before you can name why.

Your skin tightens before your mind catches up.

You glance up.

And he's already looking at you.

Not smiling. Not performing anything. Just looking — direct and unhurried, like he's already worked out something you haven't told him, and you're the last piece of it clicking into place.

The man beside you keeps talking. Keeps touching. His hand finding the curve of your waist, thumb pressing just a little too firmly, unaware that the dynamic in the room has shifted entirely. He's still telling you something about the races, about a horse he backed last week, about how the war's been good for certain kinds of business if you know where to look.

You stop hearing it.

Paddy doesn't move closer straight away.

That would be too easy. Too much like every other man in here who mistakes interest for invitation and invitation for ownership. He stands where he is and he watches — long enough that it crosses from glance into something deliberate, long enough that you can't quite return to what you were doing without feeling the weight of it pressing at the edges of your attention, quiet and patient and absolutely certain of itself.

Then he moves.

Straight line. No hesitation. Not fast — not the lurch of a drunk or the swagger of a man performing confidence. Just direct. The way someone moves when they don't consider the possibility of obstruction because obstruction tends to rearrange itself around them.

The man beside you barely has time to process before Paddy is simply — there. Not loud. Not aggressive in any way you could point to or report. Just present in a way that makes the air in the immediate vicinity seem to reorganise.

"Move."

One word. Flat and low. Not a shout, not a threat, not anything you could call rude if you were being precise about it. Just a word that carries an absolute and complete expectation of being obeyed.

There's a pause. Brief. The man beside you tries on an expression of indignation, gets halfway into it — and then something behind Paddy's eyes makes the expression quietly reconsider.

He moves. Gathers his drink. Finds somewhere else to be.

Paddy doesn't thank him. Doesn't acknowledge the vacancy he's just created. His attention is already back on you, as though the interruption was administrative. Already finished.

Closer now, you can see it properly — the tension he carries in his jaw rather than his hands, the way his hands are never quite still even when the rest of him is. The stillness doesn't read as calm. It reads as restraint. Like something carefully held behind the eyes, a constant low-level pressure that has become so familiar he no longer notices he's doing it.

There's a scar along one side of his jaw. Faint. Old. Another at his collar. He makes no effort to conceal or explain either. They're simply part of the inventory of him — part of what the war has added and what the man had always been underneath it.

He doesn't reach for you. Doesn't touch.

Just stands there, looking down at you with the particular patience of someone who has learned to wait in conditions considerably worse than this, measuring something that hasn't yet decided to reveal itself.

"You working," he says. Voice low. Flat. No lift to it that would make it properly a question.

The gramophone sticks on a bar, hiccups, recovers.

Somewhere behind you, a woman laughs — high and bright and entirely manufactured.

And you look up at him, into eyes that are giving you absolutely nothing you didn't earn, and you understand instinctively that whatever you say next is going to matter in a way you haven't quite worked out yet.

You don't answer straight away.

Not because you don't know what to say — you've said it a thousand times, in a thousand rooms that all smell the same, to a thousand men who blur together after a while into one composite shape of want and impatience.

But something in the way he's looking at you makes the usual responses feel useless. Too rehearsed. Too weightless. Like handing someone a stage prop when they've asked for something real.

The silence stretches a beat longer than it should.

"Yes," you say finally.

It comes out quieter than intended. Less performance than truth. The word stripped of the particular softness you usually wrap around it — the invitation, the practiced warmth. Just the answer, plain and undecorated.

Something in his gaze settles. Not satisfaction. Not the flicker of victory that most men can't quite suppress when they get the answer they came for. Just — acknowledgment. The way someone looks when a thing they already knew has been confirmed.

He nods once.

"How much."

No lift at the end. Not a negotiation, not an opening. Just a fact requiring completion. As though the money is already accounted for and this is only the formality of naming the figure.

You tell him.

He doesn't react. Not the faint wince of a man recalculating, not the attempted charm of someone looking for a different number. Just reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket — unhurried, certain — and produces the notes already folded, already counted, like the amount had been decided before he crossed the threshold downstairs.

He places the money on the table beside you.

Not in your hand.

It's such a small thing. Such a precise small thing. And yet you feel the distinction register somewhere you didn't expect — the difference between giving and placing. Between offering and determining.

You look at the notes, then back at him.

"Upstairs," you say, because that's the shape of this. Because this is what comes next and you know the sequence the way you know your own reflection — without having to look.

He holds your gaze for half a second longer. Something moves behind his eyes, brief and unreadable, like a door opening and closing faster than you could see what was on the other side.

Then he moves.

You have to stand quickly to keep pace.

He doesn't touch you as you lead him through the room — doesn't take your arm or your hand, doesn't place his palm at the small of your back the way men do when they want to signal possession to the room. But he stays close. Close enough that you feel him there like a change in air pressure, a warmth that shifts the space behind you, and the people you pass register it without seeming to understand why they're registering it.

A girl near the gramophone glances over. Glances away.

A man at the bar tracks you for a second, something wary moving across his face, and then finds something else to look at.

The hallway beyond the main room is narrower. Darker. The music dulls behind the walls, becoming something muffled and remote — the trumpet going soft, the warped piano losing its edges until it's more feeling than sound.

You reach the door to one of the rooms at the end. Push it open with a familiarity that requires no thought.

Step inside.

He follows.

The door closes behind him.

The latch catches — a small, quiet sound, barely anything — and still it seems to change the nature of the air. The room reduced suddenly to just the two of you and the few feet of space between you, and the low amber glow of the lamp on the nightstand doing its best against the dark.

The room is small. Bed, chair, washstand with a porcelain basin, a mirror above it spotted with age at the corners. A window behind blackout curtains, the war pressing itself against the glass like it always does, insisting. The sheets have been changed recently enough to be clean, often enough to have lost any illusion of newness.

Familiar. Predictable. Controlled.

You turn to him — let the familiar sequence take over, the way water finds its level, the way the body moves when the mind has agreed to go quiet for a while. Let your expression soften by the exact necessary degree, the warmth that says safe without quite meaning it. Your hand reaches for the lapel of his jacket, fingers already knowing the gesture —

He catches your wrist.

Not harsh. No violence in it. But the certainty is absolute — your movement simply ceases, as though the wrist has forgotten it was going anywhere.

His hand is rough. You notice it now in a way you hadn't fully before — the hardness of the palm, the pressure of fingers that have done serious work and carry the evidence of it. He doesn't grip. He doesn't need to.

The fact of his hand is enough.

"Don't."

One word. Quiet. Not sharp, not angry, not the edge of threat you've learned to identify early and account for.

Just — final. Like the closing of something.

Your breath catches. Not fear — you know fear in this context, you know the particular way your body braces for it. This is different. This is closer to the feeling of a room tilting a half-degree on its axis, the floor still present beneath your feet, but somehow recalculated.

You look up at him.

He's watching you with that same unreadable directness — the look that gives you nothing you haven't earned, that doesn't soften at the corners or perform patience. He holds your wrist a moment longer than stopping you required. Long enough for the touch to become something other than restraint.

Then his hand moves.

Not releasing you — shifting. His grip loosening into something more like a guide than a hold, fingers adjusting with a deliberateness that takes its time about it. He moves your hand — slowly, with an exactness that has nothing careless in it — away from his jacket.

Sets it aside.

The warmth of his palm lingers on your wrist even after the contact ends.

You feel it then. Properly. Not impatience, not irritation, not the restless energy of a man who has paid and is waiting on a transaction.

Control.

Deliberate and grounded and very exact. The kind of control that has been practiced under conditions that would make this room look like a sanctuary. He wears it as naturally as his own skin — not performance, not demonstration. Just the way he is. The way he moves through everything.

Like he has already decided what this is going to be, and it isn't what you walked in here expecting.

His gaze drops to your hand where he's set it aside, then travels back up to your face. Slow. Unhurried. Reading something in your expression that you weren't aware you were showing.

"Not like that," he says.

Still quiet. Still flat. The voice that lowers rather than rises, that becomes heavier and more deliberate the more it means.

He's closer now. You didn't track when that happened — one of those incremental shifts that happen below the level of conscious awareness, the distance between you reduced by some amount that you couldn't measure but that you feel in the changed quality of the air, the warmth he puts off, the way you've become very aware of the exact degree of space remaining.

Your shoulders come back slightly. Your breath steadies itself, or tries to.

The back of your thighs meet the edge of the bed — a gentle stop, not a stumble. Barely anything.

You don't step away.

His eyes register it immediately — the stillness, the decision not to move back. Something in his face shifts, slight and brief, the way a river surface changes when something moves beneath it without breaking through.

Of course he notices.

He notices everything.

And in this room, with the warped music barely a ghost through the walls and the blackout pressing against the window and the lamp casting the both of you in something warmer and more honest than the light downstairs —

you find you don't mind.

His hand doesn’t leave you.

It shifts—firmer now, less patient. Not asking.

You feel it immediately: the thick, hard length of his cock pressing against your ass as he steps in closer, trapping you against the table. No space left. Your back is flush to the edge, and he doesn’t give an inch. He wants you to feel every inch of him—hot, heavy, already straining against his pants.

His hand slides from your wrist to your waist, then lower, gripping your hip and pulling you back into him. You don’t pull away. That’s what does it.

His jaw tightens.

“Stop thinking,” he mutters, voice low and rough, right against your ear.

Your breath stutters. His cock twitches hard against you in response.

He doesn’t hesitate anymore. One arm bands around your waist and yanks you flush against him, grinding his erection into the cleft of your ass with deliberate pressure. There’s no pretending this is casual now. He’s thick and rigid, the heat of him burning through fabric.

His head dips, lips brushing your ear.

“Look at me.”

You do.

The second your eyes meet his, something snaps into place. His grip tightens on your hip, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he rolls his hips forward again, letting you feel the full, heavy weight of his cock dragging against you.

Your hands fly up instinctively, fisting his jacket, then his shirt, clinging to anything solid.

He notices. A low, satisfied sound rumbles in his chest.

“Yeah,” he breathes, almost to himself. “That’s it.”

His movements lose the last of their restraint. He spins you around to face him, then lifts you onto the table in one smooth motion. Your legs part automatically as he steps between them, crowding in close. His hands shove your skirt up your thighs without ceremony, palms rough and possessive as they spread you open.

He doesn’t rush, but he doesn’t hold back either. One hand slides between your legs, fingers stroking over your panties, feeling how soaked you already are. A low groan escapes him when he feels the wet heat.

“Fuck,” he mutters, voice thick. “You’re dripping for me.”

He hooks two fingers under the fabric and pulls it aside, exposing your slick pussy. His thumb circles your clit once, slow and firm, before he pushes two thick fingers inside you without warning. You clench around him instantly.

He watches your face the entire time, eyes dark and intense as he curls his fingers, stroking that spot that makes your back arch off the table.

“Stay,” he orders, low and commanding, when your hips start to buck.

His free hand pins your waist down, holding you exactly where he wants you while he fucks you with his fingers—deep, steady, relentless. The wet sounds of his fingers plunging into your cunt fill the space between you.

His cock is still trapped in his pants, thick and throbbing visibly against the fabric, but he doesn’t free it yet. He’s focused on working you open, on making you feel every deliberate thrust of his fingers until your thighs are shaking and your juices are coating his hand.

He knows exactly what he’s doing.

And he’s nowhere near done.

He knows exactly what he’s doing.

And he’s nowhere near done.

His fingers keep pumping into your soaked cunt, slow and deep, curling hard against that spongy spot inside you with every thrust. Wet, obscene sounds fill the room as your slick coats his hand, dripping down his wrist and onto the table beneath you. He adds a third finger without warning, stretching you wider, scissoring them apart to open you up for what’s coming.

You’re clenching around him, hips trying to chase the pressure, but his palm stays pinned to your lower belly, holding you down.

“Greedy little pussy,” he growls, voice low and filthy. “Look at you—taking my fingers like you were made for it. So fucking wet already. You’ve been thinking about this cock, haven’t you?”

He grinds the heel of his hand against your swollen clit while his fingers fuck you harder, faster. Your juices are everywhere now—running down your thighs, soaking his sleeve, puddling on the table. Every time he pulls back, your cunt makes a lewd, squelching sound that makes his cock twitch visibly in his pants.

He finally pulls his fingers out with a wet pop, leaving you empty and aching. You whine at the loss, but he just brings those glistening fingers to his mouth and licks them clean, eyes locked on yours the entire time. His tongue drags slowly over his skin, savoring the taste of you.

“Sweet,” he mutters. “But I want more.”

He doesn’t give you time to recover.

Both hands grip the backs of your thighs, rough palms spreading you wider as he yanks you right to the very edge of the bed. Your ass hangs off the mattress, knees hooked over his elbows, pussy completely exposed—flushed dark and glistening, lips puffy and parted, clit swollen and throbbing visibly in the low amber light. He drags the thick, heavy head of his cock through your soaked folds once, twice, coating himself in your slick, then lines up and slams in with one brutal thrust.

No warning. No easing in.

He buries every thick inch to the hilt in a single stroke that punches the air straight out of your lungs. The stretch is vicious—burning, overwhelming, your walls forced wide around the impossible girth of him. You feel every vein, every ridge as he bottoms out, the heavy weight of his balls slapping tight against your ass. Your back arches hard off the edge of the bed, a broken cry tearing from your throat.

Paddy goes dead still.

That dangerous, warning stillness settles over him instantly. Jaw locked so tight the faint scar along it stands out white. His eyes lock onto yours, dark and unblinking, voice dropping to that low, heavy register that means he’s already one breath away from snapping.

“Stay. Fucking. Still.”

The words are flat, deliberate, edged with that quick flash of temper. His fingers dig harder into the soft flesh of your thighs, hard enough to bruise, pinning you exactly where he wants you—legs folded almost to your chest, cunt stretched obscenely around his cock. He pulls back slow, almost all the way out, until just the fat head is stretching your entrance, then drives back in even harder. The wet slap of his hips meeting your ass echoes loud in the tiny room. The bed creaks under the force.

Again. And again.

Each thrust is deep, punishing, measured like he’s testing exactly how much you can take. Your cunt flutters and clenches around him, trying desperately to adjust, but he doesn’t give you time. He fucks you like he’s burning off the constant chaos always simmering under his skin—hips snapping forward with brutal precision, the thick base of his cock grinding hard against your clit on every stroke.

“Fuck,” he growls, voice rough and low, barely above a breath. “Look at this greedy little cunt. Swallowing every inch of my cock like it was made for it. So fucking wet you’re dripping down my balls already.”

He leans in closer, chest pressing you down against the edge of the mattress, the heat and solid weight of him overwhelming. One hand leaves your thigh just long enough to shove your skirt higher up around your waist, then both rough palms are back—calloused, possessive—gripping hard as he yanks you down onto him with every thrust. The angle has you completely open, helpless, your soaked pussy taking him to the hilt again and again. Every time he bottoms out you feel the blunt head of him kissing deep inside you, the heavy slap of skin on skin mixing with the filthy, obscene squelch of your juices coating his shaft and dripping down to soak the sheets beneath your ass.

Your hands fly up instinctively, grabbing at his shirt, trying to pull him closer or steady yourself—you’re not even sure which.

Wrong move.

His hand snaps down lightning-fast, pinning both your wrists above your head against the bed in one iron grip. The motion is fast, instinctive, that edge of violence he carries like breathing. He leans in until his face is inches from yours, breath hot against your lips, voice dropping even lower and slower—the way it always does when the anger flares.

“I said stay still.” The words are heavier now, controlled but right on the knife-edge. “You keep moving those hands and I’ll fuck you so hard you won’t be able to walk out of this room. Understand?”

You nod, breath shaky. He doesn’t wait. He releases your wrists only to grip your hips with both hands, fingers digging in deep enough to leave marks as he starts fucking you in earnest—relentless, punishing strokes that make the bed rock beneath you. The wet sounds are filthy now, loud and constant: the slick drag of his thick cock stretching your cunt open, the lewd squelch every time he bottoms out, your juices coating his shaft and dripping down to soak his balls and the sheets.

“Yeah… that’s it,” he mutters, almost to himself, eyes fixed down between your bodies where his cock disappears inside you again and again. “Look at you. Stretched so wide around my cock. Perfect little whore taking every inch like you can’t get enough.”

He shifts his angle slightly, driving harder, hitting that spongy spot inside you with ruthless accuracy on every thrust. Your thighs start to shake uncontrollably. The pressure coils tight and vicious low in your belly. He feels it—the way your walls flutter and clamp down hard around him.

“Don’t you fucking come yet,” he snarls, voice thick with that dangerous edge. One hand slides between you, thumb pressing hard against your swollen clit, rubbing tight, mean circles that don’t match the brutal pace of his hips. “You come when I say. Not a second before.”

You try. God, you try. But he’s too deep, too thick, too relentless—the drag of his cock against your walls, the constant grind against your clit, the way he’s holding you down and using you exactly how he decides. Your orgasm crashes over you anyway, sudden and shattering, your cunt spasming hard around him, gushing slick down his shaft and soaking the bed.

Paddy’s eyes flash with pure temper.

He doesn’t slow. If anything he fucks you harder through it, short, punishing thrusts that drag out every pulse of your climax until you’re shaking and whimpering beneath him.

“Fuck—greedy little thing,” he growls, the words rough and filthy. “Couldn’t even wait, could you? Had to come all over my cock like you own it.”

He buries himself deep one last time, hips snapping forward as he comes with a low, guttural groan that vibrates through his chest. You feel the hot, thick pulses of him inside you—endless, flooding your cunt until it’s leaking out around where you’re still stretched obscenely around his cock. He grinds slow and deep through it, like he wants to push every last drop as far inside you as it will go.

For a long moment the only sounds are your ragged breathing and the faint creak of the bed.

He stays buried to the hilt, still hard, still holding your thighs open. His forehead drops to rest against yours—brief, almost reluctant—like even that small closeness costs him something. Then he eases back just enough to slip free, his come already trickling down your thigh in a warm, messy trail.

He tucks himself away with quiet efficiency, then his hands move to you again. Rough palms smooth your skirt down over your hips, straighten the fabric, fix what he just wrecked without a single word. No asking if you’re all right. No soft apologies. Just the silent, decisive care that’s the only kind he knows how to give.

When he’s done he steps back half a pace, still close enough that you feel the heat rolling off him. He lights a cigarette the same way he does everything—match struck on the edge of the nightstand, slow drag, eyes never leaving your face. That unreadable stare is back, but heavier now.

He drops into the chair facing the bed, legs spread, cigarette between his fingers. One boot hooks around the leg of the bed like he’s anchoring himself there.

“Stay,” he says again. Same flat certainty. Same low voice.

Not a question.

Just the decision he’s already made.

[hpney-b33]

Was watching the absolute radio and I thought this was so sweet of Jack to say !♡

I just know he is the sweetest kindest person ever

[hpney-b33]

PLEASE TELL ME THAT SOMEONE HAS MADE AN EDIT OF JACK WITH THIS SONG 😩 I will make one if not he is such a handsome man I love him

[hpney-b33]

hey writeblr 𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾

I’d like to announce that my Story or at least parts of it has been posted onto Wattpad ! It will be posted on Ao3 soon as well!

Story Premise

In 1893 rural England, restless 22-year-old Eleanor Hart finds her only freedom in the neglected gardens of her family estate. When self-taught gardener Jack Kavanagh is hired to restore the grounds after the old gardener’s death, Eleanor discovers a quiet, intensely watchful man who sees her as she truly is — not as a future to be managed or a room to be furnished.

As her father gently pushes her toward a “safe” marriage with the charming but possessive Charles Aldwell, stolen moments in the garden spark a slow-burning, forbidden connection. Torn between the controlling love she’s always known and the dangerous desire to want something openly for the first time, Eleanor must decide whether the cost of reaching for Finn is worth the ruin it may bring.

A Victorian slow-burn romance about grief, sexual awakening , and learning to want without permission.

A gentle reminder the watchful, brooding Jack exists in these pages in the image of Jack O’Connell. (can't you tell)

Let him steal your heart.

I tried to get every glance, every quiet intensity, every slow-burning moment is written with him in mind. Enjoy the ride. 𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾

[hpney-b33]

Another teaser for you guys, I couldn't help myself I have so many ideas between Eleanor and Finn ughh I can not help to post something abo.ut the two.

Reminder everything is still in progress, I have no idea what to even call this story! I'm still reworking thing all the time. Hell sometimes I even get confused!

Well enjoy this snippet!! 𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.

(Finn is inspired by Jack O’connell and a few of his characters he plays) he's so fine

“Beggin’ your pardon, milady,” he said, voice low and carrying the soft Derbyshire lilt. “Didn’t mean to startle thee. Just clearin’ t’ path.”

Eleanor’s pulse gave a small, unwelcome flutter. She smoothed her skirt. “Not at all, Mr. Kavanagh. I was… looking at the roses. Or what remains of them.”

He glanced at the tangled beds, a faint crease between his brows. “They’ve had a hard few years, milady. Soil’s decent enough, but they need prunin’ proper and feedin’. Old varieties is strong, though. They’ll come back if tha gives ’em half a chance.”

There was quiet authority in the way he spoke of the plants, no false deference. Eleanor found herself listening more intently than she should.