He Sends His Regrets by Huck Pilgrim

[HuckPilgrim]

This is the first story I've posted to the list and I'd love to hear your feedback.

http://www.literotica.com/s/he-sends-his-regrets

It's in NonConsent/Reluctance. The tag line I used is, "An Ivy League professor must pay a karmic debt." It's from a series of first person confessional stories I did last year. I'm a professional writer, but this is the first time I've tried to do smut.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I thought I would get more feedback on my work.

I suppose the rating is feedback. It's hovering somewhere between 3 and 4, which seems like a C or C+. That's... disappointing.

I had hoped that by writing about something scandalous like rape, and then giving the character his just deserts, I'd create a popular title.

Can this story be improved? How?

 

[LadyVer]

I have a hard time with equating raping an unconscious woman to the karma the rapist experiences. I mean, if you want to use the professor's humiliation by Natasha as a way to show he got his just deserts, that's your right as a writer. The thing is, women who are raped aren't going to buy it because you've turned the ultimate assault against women into a porn story under the guise that the rapist finally realizes what he did was wrong. I almost didn't read past the first sentence but decided to give your story a chance since you're new. Although you're a good writer, this is not a story that makes me want to ask for more.

 

[AMoveableBeast]

It's well-written and ambitiously dark and sort of sinister.

It's excellent, in a bleak, understated way, one I really appreciate, but it's too gritty, too controversial and too revolting to garner high marks.

I'm shocked that you thought it would.

Many people, most, really, read here to get off. That story isn't going to get a lot of people off. And it's going to offend a bunch of others.

Doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. It is. To many here, though, it simply isn't erotica. More a sub-genre of especially lurid short-fiction.

For my part, I really enjoyed it.

 

[kaitlyn_sun]

I have a hard time with equating raping an unconscious woman to the karma the rapist experiences. I mean, if you want to use the professor's humiliation by Natasha as a way to show he got his just deserts, that's your right as a writer. The thing is, women who are raped aren't going to buy it because you've turned the ultimate assault against women into a porn story under the guise that the rapist finally realizes what he did was wrong. I almost didn't read past the first sentence but decided to give your story a chance since you're new. Although you're a good writer, this is not a story that makes me want to ask for more.

I have to concur. You DO write well, but the main character is a reprehensible monster, and the fact that he feels *really* bad about it doesn't make it any better. It isn't a pleasurable reading experience to spend the whole story hoping someone castrates the central character.

I'd like to hear about the first girl, know how she handled her situation, how she overcame it, where she is now... but the piece of shit that raped her... unless it's a story about him bleeding to death under a bridge, then I couldn't care less about him or his bullshit confessions.

See? You have to write pretty well to illicit such strong reactions... just pick less reprehensible subject matter.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'd say lit does not allow rape stories, because they do say it. But they have a non consent section so I won't waste breath saying your story did not belong here. I don't blame you for posting it here. After all what does non consent mean?

I did not give it a full read because the subject matter makes me twitch. But I was curious because I like revenge stories-although I am more vicious with mine, think "I spit on your grave" -and also a couple of people called out it was well written.

I do agree the writing is pretty good as is the concept, but I don't think you will find a reader who is satisfied that he really "got his" rape is a horrific crime with no excuse or justification and it forever changes a woman's life. There is no price short of being jailed and losing his life for a period of time that can even it up, other than some terrible physical damage of course and even then the woman has still been hurt so....

But what amazes me is the score is low a 3.57 showing on your page. Now 3 says keep writing 4 is very good so technically people are saying it wasn't bad. But stick around here awhile and you will see the voting is mostly 5's with some bombs tossed in.

So your score is an indication it is not going over well and to you, the author, don't worry about that. If you're happy with what you wrote then that is what matters.

But the low score shows that rape stories and rapists do not go over that well in the category made for it. Most likely because it is mixed with reluctance which is apples and oranges.

Goes to show the site wouldn't mind Laurel having a real rule in place rather then her funny little, "No, we don't allow those, BTW have you seen our non con section?

 

[sr71plt]

The up side is that two months from now someone will post a "read it, want to read it again, can't remember the title, and can't find it" request on this story.

 

[LadyVer]

PS I read two other stories earlier and the voting function wasn't working.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

The thing is, women who are raped aren't going to buy it because you've turned the ultimate assault against women into a porn story under the guise that the rapist finally realizes what he did was wrong.

Humm. I can see what you're saying. Too much. Thanks so much for giving me an answer. I'm going to give your feedback some consideration as I figure out what else to post. I mostly work somewhere along the non-consent/reluctance spectrum, but this is pretty far to the one side for me.

Okay, one thing I disagree with that you're saying. There is nothing in the story that shows he learned anything new. I'd argue he knew it was wrong from the very start. I wanted to show what happens to him is a result of that kind of behavior. I think Natasha treats him pretty much that same as he treated his friend, with the exception that Natasha is able to do it while he is conscious, because his behavior has left him in such a needy place.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

It's well-written and ambitiously dark and sort of sinister.

It's excellent, in a bleak, understated way, one I really appreciate, but it's too gritty, too controversial and too revolting to garner high marks.

I'm shocked that you thought it would.

Many people, most, really, read here to get off. That story isn't going to get a lot of people off. And it's going to offend a bunch of others.

Doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile. It is. To many here, though, it simply isn't erotica. More a sub-genre of especially lurid short-fiction.

For my part, I really enjoyed it.

Thank you AMoveableBeast!

I did think it would rank higher, so it's helpful to know your thinking on why it does not.

I tend to agree with you. People want to feel good about smut stories. I have always been drawn to the dark side. My wife tells me all my characters are too unlikeable. I keep trying. It's not as if I set out to write unlikeable characters. It just sort of happens. I like to put people into difficult spots. That said, there are some scenarios that work better than others, especially for non-consent. This one was an experiment. It went over better on another site/writing group I frequent.

Can we put links in our posts?

http://www.erotica-readers.com/GD/TC-EF/He_Sends_His_Regrets.htm

I am going to try a few more stories out on this site and lurk a little more. I am very grateful for your feedback. Thank you!

 

[HuckPilgrim]

The up side is that two months from now someone will post a "read it, want to read it again, can't remember the title, and can't find it" request on this story.

Hahah. It is the way of the Internets.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I do agree the writing is pretty good as is the concept, but I don't think you will find a reader who is satisfied that he really "got his" rape is a horrific crime with no excuse or justification and it forever changes a woman's life. There is no price short of being jailed and losing his life for a period of time that can even it up, other than some terrible physical damage of course and even then the woman has still been hurt so....

Not to pick on your lovecraft, because I agree with all you're saying about rape. But is this a useful stance for writers of fiction?

Fiction is about the human condition. Should we limit ourselves to just uplifting behavior? Should the mystery writer not include murders? I chose rape because on some level, it's the ultimate objectification. I think it's interesting that the professor is then objectified by Natasha in the second half, but her behavior (to me at least) seems much more palatable, even though on an emotional and spiritual level, it's not one bit different than what he did to the original girl who was passed out.

To me that's like a totally worthwhile thing to explore with fiction and God forbid any of it should happen in real life.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I have to concur. You DO write well, but the main character is a reprehensible monster, and the fact that he feels *really* bad about it doesn't make it any better. It isn't a pleasurable reading experience to spend the whole story hoping someone castrates the central character.

I'd like to hear about the first girl, know how she handled her situation, how she overcame it, where she is now... but the piece of shit that raped her... unless it's a story about him bleeding to death under a bridge, then I couldn't care less about him or his bullshit confessions.

See? You have to write pretty well to illicit such strong reactions... just pick less reprehensible subject matter.

Thank you kaitlyn_sun. I appreciate your response. I'd love to hear what you think to some of the things I've said in response to the others. I don't disagree with any of what you're saying here. I do need to figure out how to write more likeable characters. Or failing that, how to write more engaging stories that leave readers feeling good about what they've read.

 

[LadyVer]

Well, I think the learning anything new issue is quibbling. As someone who has been raped while conscious and also as one who has woken up to a "friend" 's hands between my legs, both men are fucking lucky I didn't have access to a gun. It's been several decades since each event. I still wish I had had a gun. Some things you don't forget or forgive. And with the way the justice system works, rape victims get raped again by the system. And then porn writers, usually men, think writing about rape is a great way to show how much they know about women, sex, and erotica.

 

[lovecraft68]

Not to pick on your lovecraft, because I agree with all you're saying about rape. But is this a useful stance for writers of fiction?

Fiction is about the human condition. Should we limit ourselves to just uplifting behavior? Should the mystery writer not include murders? I chose rape because on some level, it's the ultimate objectification. I think it's interesting that the professor is then objectified by Natasha in the second half, but her behavior (to me at least) seems much more palatable, even though on an emotional and spiritual level, it's not one bit different than what he did to the original girl who was passed out.

To me that's like a totally worthwhile thing to explore with fiction and God forbid any of it should happen in real life.

A personal stance is a stance in all facets of life. I believe rape is abhorrent period and spent a lot of years working with women who have been assaulted. I teach them self defense as a volunteer at a woman's center. I can assure you my re writing of your story would have the professor eating his severed cock.

Now if you are saying that as authors we can't have any "stances" or let personal feelings trickle into our writing, then that's an idealistic idea that won't hold true. People's personal feelings affect their writing in many ways.

Also to your only writing "uplifting" material, Spare me. I've published darker more violent material than is allowed on this site by far and proved that by having stories banned from here. So let's back off the "oh, what you can't right "bad things" game.

I have written a couple of rape scenes in some of my works as it moved the story and set up some serious payback and explains the character, but I did not write it for titillation which is where I "draw my line" with my feelings. Writing it as part of story a plot device so to speak, fine.

To write rape to stroke to? Never will I and I have no issue with saying the men who stroke to hardcore rape fantasies are not people I would like to know and they sure as hell would not like to know me.

But what I was saying in my post to you is the simple human reaction to the crime which you did not glorify or write for arousal which I respect, you did it as the revenge motif set up which fits the points I made above. But bottom line I don't feel that people would think that what Natasha did could truly "even the score" as it cannot take back what he did. That was the only point I was really making.

That and your score shows that even in the NC category rapists garner no sympathy which I find somewhat comforting.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

As a female non-con fan, my take on this may be different from some of the other feedback you've had. I appreciated your fine attention to detail and the parallel structure of the violation by increments of both his account of progressing with his assault and with the things he would accept Natasha doing.

Where I think you made a fundamental wrong turn with the plot, however, is in taking objective humiliation and conflating it with subjective punishment. It didn't occur to me at all that he was actually suffering with Natasha but rather that he was discovering something that turned him on and she was leading him deeper into it. He doesn't seem to be under her thrall but under those of desires he just hasn't explored before. He gets hard, he has orgasms, he keeps repeating because she's giving him greater intensities of what he wants. This simply doesn't read as a punishment tale to me because he feels no real remorse and is humiliated as part of a game he enjoys with eyes wide open to what's happening.

 

[robertreams]

If your protagonist's attempt to find his "crime child" were extensive, there should have been more detail concerning the search. There is no excuse for rape, no amount of sucking other men's cum can atone for rape and abandonment. (Especially since your protagonist enjoyed it all, in his twisted way.)

Even so, the story was well written from an editor's standpoint, except that some of the episode could have turned me on, but didn't. The description was too sparse and the interludes way to short. You have described three, four, I lost count, sexual adventures in only two pages.

One other aspect bothered me I think, more even than the rape. This man seems like a sex magnet. Everywhere he goes, whatever he does, some chick is attracted to him, yet he feels compelled to use his power as teacher to further his animal lust. His love shows no sign of touch or caress or finesse, no hint of tenderness or affection or humanity. Throughout the story he has, despite the cum sucking, taken, taken, taken, and given nothing. Yet he gets girls, and STILL feels compelled to rape.

My own daughter pole danced her way through school. I am happy that she met few men like your protagonist. It would seem that he (one can only hope this story is in no way autobiographical, though I suspect some of it is). Your character apparently sees womwen as MEAT. God forbid any woman in your story could be a person.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

Well, I think the learning anything new issue is quibbling. As someone who has been raped while conscious and also as one who has woken up to a "friend" 's hands between my legs, both men are fucking lucky I didn't have access to a gun

That's awful. I'm sorry that happened to you, LadyVer. It's a reprehensible crime, and I can only imagine what it must feel like to have lived through it. Twice.

I think you're right about the quibbling and I'm the first to admit I'm a novice with erotica. I look forward to learning more! I appreciate your willingness to engage. I probably should have posted something else for my first story. Bear with me!

 

[HuckPilgrim]

Where I think you made a fundamental wrong turn with the plot, however, is in taking objective humiliation and conflating it with subjective punishment. It didn't occur to me at all that he was actually suffering with Natasha but rather that he was discovering something that turned him on and she was leading him deeper into it. He doesn't seem to be under her thrall but under those of desires he just hasn't explored before. He gets hard, he has orgasms, he keeps repeating because she's giving him greater intensities of what he wants. This simply doesn't read as a punishment tale to me because he feels no real remorse and is humiliated as part of a game he enjoys with eyes wide open to what's happening.

Yes! Exactly. It's not really punishment right now, but maybe (I think you're saying) it should have been? That's an interesting point. I think you totally get what I'm trying for in this piece. I do think he is enjoying himself on some level, but it's an enjoyment that's tearing him to pieces, kind of like the initial rape, where he knows what he's going to do, but he won't let himself think about it in the front of his mind.

I have a drug history in real life (long time ago) and I drew on the experience of being obsessed to write this piece. It's the same sort of push pull, craving for something that you know is killing you.

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

I'd say the feedback you're getting here is that readers wanted him to be punished in some way. You did your job of setting him up as horrible in the beginning too well.

For me, the secret of erotica is satisfaction in the narrative. That doesn't mean that the end gets wrapped up completely, at least not for me. Some readers will always feel the story is poor or incomplete without a just ending. These are the same people who like their comedies to end with a wedding. There's nothing wrong with that - good enough for Shakespeare, right? - but some readers like a more jagged edge. In a story like yours where your unabashed rapist protagonist doesn't end up, say, locked inside an old refrigerator slowly sinking into a pig farm lagoon, you need another kind of satisfaction.

For people who find just the idea of his humiliation hot, that's all the satisfaction they need. That's a variation on a cuckold fetish which is unusually divisive on Lit. For people who don't find just reading about that particular scenario satisfying, you need to lead them into it by using enough detail to get them to identify with it, which your story doesn't really do in addition to the hurdle of the reader not wanting to identify with him to begin with.

Great erotica can be written about terrible people. Hell, "Little Birds" is practically unreadable for sympathetic characters. But it always brings other kinds of satisfaction.

 

[PennLady]

My own daughter pole danced her way through school. I am happy that she met few men like your protagonist. It would seem that he (one can only hope this story is in no way autobiographical, though I suspect some of it is). Your character apparently sees womwen as MEAT. God forbid any woman in your story could be a person.

But the story is told from the protagonist's POV. Perhaps he does see women that way. I'm not disagreeing with you, btw, just observing.

I've looked the story over but I'm so put off by the beginning, which seems to go against Lit's no-rape rule, fuzzy though it is, that I cant give much of an unbiased assessment. Given Lit's rules, I don't think it should have been approved in the first place.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

One other aspect bothered me I think, more even than the rape. This man seems like a sex magnet. Everywhere he goes, whatever he does, some chick is attracted to him, yet he feels compelled to use his power as teacher to further his animal lust. His love shows no sign of touch or caress or finesse, no hint of tenderness or affection or humanity.

Interesting comment.

At the end the girls he "gets" are prostitutes.

Desire is selfish.

 

[HuckPilgrim]

I'd say the feedback you're getting here is that readers wanted him to be punished in some way. You did your job of setting him up as horrible in the beginning too well.

For me, the secret of erotica is satisfaction in the narrative. That doesn't mean that the end gets wrapped up completely, at least not for me. Some readers will always feel the story is poor or incomplete without a just ending. These are the same people who like their comedies to end with a wedding. There's nothing wrong with that - good enough for Shakespeare, right? - but some readers like a more jagged edge. In a story like yours where your unabashed rapist protagonist doesn't end up, say, locked inside an old refrigerator slowly sinking into a pig farm lagoon, you need another kind of satisfaction.

For people who find just the idea of his humiliation hot, that's all the satisfaction they need. That's a variation on a cuckold fetish which is unusually divisive on Lit. For people who don't find just reading about that particular scenario satisfying, you need to lead them into it by using enough detail to get them to identify with it, which your story doesn't really do in addition to the hurdle of the reader not wanting to identify with him to begin with.

Great erotica can be written about terrible people. Hell, "Little Birds" is practically unreadable for sympathetic characters. But it always brings other kinds of satisfaction.

I tend to agree with your assessment of erotica. Interesting comment about how to re-work this story. I'm not sure how I would do it, but that's a separate issue. I found this one difficult to write and abandoned it in my drafts folder a few times. Not sure I want to take on revising it. But what you're saying is an interesting academic exercise. I appreciate your comment!

Why do you think cuckolding is divisive on Lit? Does a cuckold not find his, ah, "predicament" arousing? I'm new to erotica, but I thought that was the point with those kinds of stories?

 

[stlgoddessfreya]

Possible Rework

Been thinking about how I might do this differently to give more across - the - board reader satisfaction while still maintaining the dark core of your character. I think it's all about power.

His initial rape, like all rapes, is about power. He does it not because he wants her but because he is in a situation, however brief, where he can bypass her economic power over him. In the second described encounter with the student dancer, he has power over her as her professor but she has power over him by controlling the kinds of encounters they have. I'd still say that's about an 80/20, since she wouldn't otherwise have any sexual contact with him. I think you wanted to show a reversal of that with Natasha, with her primarily in control, pushing him, helplessly, further down the path she wanted. I think it comes off more as a joint endeavor, since he never seems to be doing what she wants to keep her so much as doing what she wants to keep doing what he also wants. If she were in a stronger position to begin with, I.e. a fellow professor and he was in love with her or infatuated by something other than the sex, I think her pushing his surrender would be stronger and more narratively satisfying.

 

[lovecraft68]

I vote for him being drugged and waking up tied face dwon ass up and having an entire sorority peg him in the ass with 8" strap ons

I mean if you're going to try to go the Lex Talionis route then why keep the gloves on?

Trust me, write that one and sit back and watch the "Oh yeah!" responses.

But....The only problem with that is men can't be sexually abused on lit only women so scrap that idea.

The cock(both the literal cock and the figurative cock of a character) must be protected here at all costs.

Because if you wrote a story here about a woman waking up and getting gang raped by an entire fraternity it would be a big hit, who knows it might even get a green E as the person who runs the site is obviously a big fan of the abuse of women.