Jim and Pam on familiar ground. Spoilers (perhaps) up to mid-Season 4.Poor Jim. This just breaks my heart. In a good way.
Porn soup? Porn soup? That, right there, is genius. Pure genius. I thought I would fall out of my chair laughing.
What kind of dumplings do you put in porn soup? Or maybe you use meatballs? Yeah, I'm gonna waste the rest of today trying to come up with a recipe for porn soup. Thanks, Annabel!
I think the dumpling recipe is similar to smutcakes, but with a little less sugar. :D
Thanks, NEJ!
He felt like an island beneath her, the current breaking all around them.
Love that line. How DO you so consistently come up with these marvellous images?
when his lips closed innocently around her nipple.
Innocently? Really? :D
lightening rod
Because I love you, I will point out that I think you meant "lightning".
Pammy Mammy
I can totally see Michael saying this. And Cranky!Pam clobbering him with the fax machine.
‘Is it going to be an homage to that night we spent at Dwight’s place?’ Jim asked... ‘Maybe,’ she retorted. ‘But with less Mose.’
LOL! Wonderful!
‘Oh, I’m sorry…can I help you?’
Ooo! Bad Jim. In a good way...
I anxiously await the next installment!
Hey, didn't Cousin Mose carve a Venus of Willendorf statue for Ryan as an apology on "The Initiation?" Or am I misremembering?
Loved all of this story. Sweet of Jim to want to take her to Paris. And you got the physical limitations of pregnancy down cold. Loved Pam's line about scaring the baby. Hee!
Well done!
Oof! Blow to the gut, there. I look forward to seeing how this plays out!
ZING! Shocker ending--I like it! I always like it when an author surprises me. You caught Jim so well here; his despair and resignation and longing and all those angsty bits of him. Well done. I enjoyed this.
Author's Response: Thanks, NeverEnoughJam, glad it was effective!
Love this. Perfectly captures the feeling of having your heart broken, and then the unsettling realization that no matter how much it hurts, by some miracle you go on breathing. Very well done.
Poor Jim.
at least the “declining” RSVP from the attorney representing her mother and sister was on lovely stationery.
LOL! And yet "Ouch", too. So very Jan.
I loved number 0. :) Thanks for a lovely story.
Excellent! And I love the time warp prank. We know how anxious Dwight From the Future always gets....
Member's Choice - For just a brief second, he feels almost happy. Or at least not unhappy. Maybe the absence of unhappiness is the new happy.I love the way you tie together Karen's overelaborate cooking with her expertise in bed with
It turns out, there are recipes to follow in bed too.
Great line. And I love the insight revealed in this line:
Where there’s impulse – messy and imperfect - instead of technique
Well done, Colette. A pleasure to read, and excellent insight into Confused!Jim.
She saw the iPod as she was packing her stuff into boxes. It had been tucked away in a drawer for months. She never listened to it anymore; the memories were too painful.
This is almost too painfully honest to read. I congratulate you on your uncompromising look at one relationship that is splintering from the inside (Roy and Pam) and one that is eroding due to neglect (Jim and Pam). Your "voice" for Jim is great, as always. So is your voice for "Pam"; I especially like her desperate attempts to pick up the pieces after she's shattered Jim by rejecting his present. Painful and real. Well done, sir.
Author's Response: Thanks, NEJ. I'm rarely in the business of writing painful stuff, but this one was weighing on my mind.
You had me at After nine years, it ended because of an eye roll. God, yes, that's exactly how a long relationship can end--not with a bang but a whiimper, so to speak. Your insight into this kind of thing is almost supernatural.
This line: Tom Beesly wasn’t big on emotions and conversation tells me so much about why Pam stayed with Roy for so long. She was comfortable with a guy who reminded her of her dad. But now she's a grownup and is beginning to realize that she's more comfortable with a guy who is comfortable with emotions and conversations. Great insight again, BL. Also, Roy's reaction to Pam's leaving is so ... generous of you. You could have made him an irredeemably insensitive clod, but you made him an ordinary guy who Just Doesn't Get It. A guy we've all known.
You made me love Jim Halpert all over again with this: that act of decency, as much as wanting to distance himself from Pam, that had led to him from abstaining from pranks against his former nemesis.
Oh, and I love it that Phyllis and Darryl gossip. It never occurred to me, but yeah, that makes perfect sense when I think of it. Heh.
So this is me, begging for more. I'd love to read another chapter. Please?
Barrettes, bras, neck ties (things that open and close.)
Set sometime between The Job and Fun Run; no spoilers.
10 words dissolving against his tongue - Lovely image!
When he unfastens it, it feels like a tiny silent explosion. - More wonderful.
his surrendering moan...the lush ache of him lingers inside her ... What can I say? Superb use of the language, Colette, as always. You say so much, so richly, in so few words. I love the way you evoke such eroticism from a few breaths, a trailing kiss, and that low masculine voice of Jim's, yet leave us at all times in Pam's head, slightly stunned yet not at all helpless. She's so real here. Thanks for a lovely story.
A look at what might have happened between The Job and 'round about Money. Lots of steam in the beginning, then some angst for good measure.the surprisingly silky skin of his neck, the velvet of his ear lobe...the round tightness of his ass
It's the little, sensual details like that that really make a story. Love every little detail you give us here!
I love the cucumber wrestling. I can see this happening.
She was ready, hungry, desperate for him. So he had followed her lead.
Go, PAM! So nice to see someone writing Pam as aggressive, take-charge. I think that would really turn Jim on, and it's a side of her we don't get to see very often. And then Jim "on a mission"....wow. I mean....wow. Hot, much?
He never left her without kissing her. Awwwwwwww.....how sweet!
a pair of lime green panties from Victoria’s Secret.
Wow, Jim's gonna look hot in those! Kidding, I know where they're from. But just for a moment, that image was in my head. Thank you for ruining my composure. :D
I like the phrase Iwishyouwould resounding in Jim's head. It's the kind of catch phrase that might stay with him when all the carefully thought out speeches fail (which, with these two people, is most of the time!). Just the kind of thing that would echo in his head until it made him nuts. Well done!
I found the idea of Pam being jealous a little hard to believe, that's just me, but this rang ABSOLUTELY true to me:
the sting of humiliation when she thought of how pitiful she must have seemed to Phyllis and Kelly and others who only knew part of the story.
Pam has a certain amount of pride under that quiet exterior, and I think this kind of humiliation would really linger with her. I like the way you brought it out.
Okay, and Dwight and the head cheese? Genius. I bet he and Mose make their own.
the “bonfire of the green panties” in his Weber grill.
Wow. All kinds of joke material there...:D
“You’ve got frosting in your chest hair.”
Okay THAT is one of the sexiest phrases I've ever read in fanfic. In fact, I want them to use that phrase on the show.
Good story. I enjoyed it all very much!
Now I have that Wham! song stuck in my head THANK YOU VERY MUCH for the rest of the day. Or week. Ack. :)
This was a lovely bit o' fluff and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I especially liked Pam teasing Jim with that bend-over maneuver. Heh. From now on, Jim will be storing everything he owns on the bottom shelf...
Jim and Pam are Jim and Pam, only...not really.10 Ohhhhhhhhkay. Ashes. My brain has totally turned to ashes. I have a more or less strict rule about not reading WIPs and I totally broke it because of the buzz about this story, which turned out to be 100000000% true, and now my brain has turned to ashes with HOW FANTASTICALLY WONDERFUL this story is. What an original concept! How magnificently executed! Every single detail rings true, even as I am sitting here reading and saying to myself, "Self, this is not Jim Halpert. And yet... it is. It so is." I love your take on these two--a sharper, more intense, less sweet but still believable interpretation of Jim and Pam. You render them back to us through this prism of angst and lust and uncertainty and the slow discovery that they are soulmates after all, with all their insecurities and faults and love.
I am just in totally freakin' AWE of what you've done here. I read all the chapters up to here, with this chorus in my head of "Ooo. Gotta remember to quote that phrase and tell Stablergirl how cool that is. No, wait, I'll quote that one. No this one. NO, gotta be this one..." until finally my head went all 'splody and I couldn't pick out one or even a dozen phrases out of so many to praise. I love the hate turning into love, I love Heather, I love love love Steve, I love the bar-girl-chasing Jim and the insecure, self-loathing Pam and I love the people they are growing into under the influence of one another. This is just so fine. I can't wait to read the rest. I'll stop now, I'm gushing, but that's all your fault 'cause you turned my brain to ASHES.
“You’re way too good looking,”
“I say that to myself every morning,”
Hahaha! Loved that exchange.
part of the appeal, she thinks, is the way that they tease each other into some kind of desperation
True, how true.
I've enjoyed this whole trip so much. Thank you for sharing it with us. You do "inner dialogue" really well, but what I like most about this chapter is how Jim just leans against that window, looking at her, saying very little, but he's still the center of the universe who pulls her back to him like a magnet. Thank you again.
all of the things she knows about him now that make her think about his penis probably twice as much as she used to
True for so many of us...
She can have her totally wicked way with him and the world will be none the wiser.
Ooo I love the way this Pam thinks.
I really enjoyed this entire story. It's a unique and interesting take on the show and the characters. They're Pam and Jim...and yet not ... and yet they are. It messes with my head in a good way. Thanks for a very original story!What really got me in this most excellent piece was how well you captured Pam's passivity. She is astute enough to realize what's going on with Jim (that radar between them never fails), but she waits until he brings up the subject and then disappoints him. It never occurs to her to bring up the subject first, allowing him to retreat gracefully ; just like on Casino Night, she lets him put it all out there on the line before she lets him down. Classic, classic Pam. You caught her perfectly. And him, too. That last line is purest Jim Halpert--self-effacing, running away, yet not quite giving up hope. Well done, well done.
Pam and Jim, later that night....
This is a 55-worder that takes place the night after "Chair Model" ended.
LOL! Well played, sir!
Fanfic is a fun outlet for me after a long day at the office, but it's also a chance to work on some writing issues: character development, style, pacing. So thanks to anyone who gives me reviews!