All Comments on 'After the Fall Ch. 01'

This was a good story. It is scary to think that something just like this could be happening now. Anyway, I liked it and can't wait for the 2nd chapter to come out. Thanks for sharing your talent. :) Sunshine.

Thank you so much. I'm really glad you enjoyed it! I have to admit, the setting is the product of some of my own sources of anxiety. They aren't what the story is about, but they provided the environment for it. Chapter Two is on its way soon!

Holy shit. Amazing writing. Incredibly hot stuff with really really good writing and setup, this is the kind of erotica that can be so hard to find. Please write a million chapters :) I will devour them all.

riveting..... so so so good!!!!

This is my favourite new story - I’m so excited to see where it goes! Very well written

Thank you for your comments. It's very rewarding to know you enjoy the story. It's great motivation! One note about anonymous feedback I receive: I don't have a way to reply to it. If you register, I'll be able to respond directly. Otherwise, you might want to leave your questions publicly. (You can do so anonymously, even if you're registered.) A couple of you have asked privately and anonymously when the next chapter will be out. I don't have a way to respond directly, but I'm thrilled you're looking forward to it!

Chapter 2 is being edited now, so it should be ready for submission within a few days. I don't know for sure how long it will take to be published. My first submission only took a couple of days to show up, but I've also read that Lit spaces the chapter releases out by two weeks. I don't know if that's true. I will add a note on my profile page when Chapter 2 is submitted.

If you're registered, you can log in and click on any author's profile page, and at the very top, there's a place to add the author to your favorites. If you do that, you can just go to your Lit home page and look under the tab for "My Authors Activity" and you'll be able to see when you your favorite offers have published a new story. Hope that helps!

I hope you find this constructive. It is only one readers view. But you did ask and I tried to be honest. I note you mentioned that reader feed back would guide future submissions. Please always write for yourself first. What you see, what you feel, the story you want to create and share needs to come from you. Never write to please the audience it’s impossible to please us all. Thank you for being willing to create this amazing context, willingly sharing it with us, and allowing us to “critique” it.

First I enjoyed the story. For a first chapter it was very deep. It served well in fleshing out the personas of the characters and clearly from the comments below helped build strong emotional connections with your readers to them. Mariah is strong, confident, self made and serves well as your protagonist. Michael is... Michael is clay. Clay is solid but it still needs to be shaped into something more before it’s final form is revealed. And Michael needs a lot of shaping up. But I LOVE and am completely enamored by the two character flaws you built into Michael. The first is that Michael is not an Alpha, he’s just a Beta wearing an Alpha’s clothes. His own admission the for 35 yeas of his life he simply existed by doing what daddy wanted. No man does that for 35 years. Let alone strong confident man. This exchange sets it all up...“For God's sake, Michael. You were an adult. Are you saying you were powerless?" Michael struggles to respond to her authoritarian voice and says..."I wasn't powerless. My options were limited.. I acknowledge that I didn't try very hard to explore them. I don't know how to explain it. My father punished disobedience severely. Perhaps I was conveniently blind to chances I could have taken.” All very passive and all in fear of Daddy’s spanking machine. Allowing the readers know he is simply a wanna be who got a lucky break cause daddy finally died, is brilliant. So many exciting ways to play this over time (too much of this...to little of that...to timid, too strong, too whatever) to shape him into the man he wants to be, or Mariah wants him to be, or he needs to be for both of them, or...is his need to be the Top in the bedroom because he is tired of 35 years as a Bottom? SO MANY OPTIONS. Add in his failure to believe he could ever win the heart, mind, and body of the woman he obsessed over for years without resorting to blackmail. Yes this is already shaping up as an HEA story but seriously “give me your pussy and I will let you save 100 people” is a real shitty pick up line even after the fall. This piece of clay has a long way to go before we discover if he’s an ashtray or a Ming vase

Second his sociopathic nature that just abruptly appears when he is challenged and like above, forced to face a situation he doesn’t want to deal with. Like his response to when she questions his weakness was brilliant! “Whatever mistakes I made in failing to oppose my father in the past, he is no longer an obstacle”, was pure genius. In one line he admits he’s weak, dismisses and dehumanizes his own father, steps over dads rotting corpse pretending he’s fixed that problem, and declares he is now ready to save all of mankind. DAMN!!! That line should have been in the Joker movie. Its cold, brutal and borderline psychotic. Just a question did he kill dear old dad? Or what about Instant jealousy episode about a dog. Oh wait, that’s right, he didn’t know it was a dog...PLEASE!! He watched her for years, he knows all her clothing sizes, he listened in on conversations with her and her friends FOR YEARS but doesn’t know her dogs name? He played voyeur for years and on the day she moves in with him he pretends this is the one day he didn’t watch the monitors. That he didn’t know that no man, woman, or child returned to his house with her? But when Mariah mentions a male name he is instantly furious. Loving it!!! Possessiveness a very bad trait and clearly one he will need to correct before long.

As for the erotic scene at the end, I found it to be hot, honest, and highly charged. Very exciting and well written.

Questions I look forward to hearing answers to...

What REALLY triggered Michael’s obsession with Mariah?

Did he kill dad and why the need for blackmail (but I mentioned those earlier)?

What does Paula know about the real Michael and when will she share it with Mariah?

Why is Paula ok with Michael forcing Mariah into this business deal?

Who is fucking all the men in Michael’s security team? Are there families? Where are they? Any interesting dynamics in those characters?

An amazing first chapter and I look forward to more. Thank you.

LostnFoundBin, thank you for the fantastic feedback!

I'm very pleased that the psychology comes through, but I am absolutely dying because I didn't think about having Michael kill Daddy. I would have had to come up with a reason why the guy who didn't even sneak out of the compound offed Pops, though. I think you might have liked one of the scenes I had to cut, though. He buried Daddy on property, and didn't want anyone to help him. It didn't make the final version because it was extraneous and the first chapter was already longer than I wanted it to be. Daddy just died of a heart attack, probably due to excessive meanness. His passing is just a footnote to the story's history. He deserves no better.

Some of your questions will be answered in future chapters. Others I can explain now.

What REALLY triggered Michael’s obsession with Mariah?

Nothing triggered his attraction to her, which is natural. There's something in his background that will be revealed in Chapter 3 that should provide some context for his obsessive behavior towards her.

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Did he kill dad and why the need for blackmail (but I mentioned those earlier)? - I only wish I'd thought of it. That would have been fun. I don't feel like I can write that in at this point because, as you probably noticed, he hasn't even realized an appropriate amount of anger toward Dad, much less a patricidal rage. There are things he has to acknowledge in himself before he can see what was wrong with Dad.

The need for extortion is what you've already touched on. He doesn't believe he could win Mariah on his own. He hasn't even worked his way up to ashtray, after all. He's offered the only thing he has to offer her. I don't want to say much about either Michael's or Mariah's character because I don't want to color anyone's perception before the story unfolds.

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What does Paula know about the real Michael and when will she share it with Mariah?

This is addressed at length in Chapter 3, so I won't spoil it here.

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Why is Paula ok with Michael forcing Mariah into this business deal?

Paula knows or at least strongly suspects that it's not kosher, but only Michael and Mariah know the terms of their agreement. Mariah certainly isn't going to tell anyone. Chapter 3 will reveal more about Paula's attitude towards this issue.

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Who is fucking all the men in Michael’s security team? Are there families? Where are they? Any interesting dynamics in those characters?

There are two sets of relatives among the staff and security. You know Paula is Andy's mom. If you mean parents with little kids, there are none of those. You haven't met everyone yet. I was afraid introducing everyone in Chapter 1 would make it too hard to remember everybody, and might seem unnatural.

Everyone currently in the compound is introduced by the end of Chapter 2, including two women. That's not where the security guys have been getting theirs, though. None of them currently has a romantic relationship. The venue for their casual encounters will be apparent much later on, but it doesn't have anything to do with the story. I haven't forgotten about them, though. With new people coming into the compound, they're going to make some interesting acquaintances.

Michael and Mariah will remain the focus of the story, but my plan is to advance other characters' stories as part of the main plot. You will definitely get more insight into Nate, Ezra and Paula. I expect the same will be true with other characters, but only Nate, Ezra and Paula are talking to me so far. (I know you only saw Nate's name once, but you'll see more of him in Chapter 3.) That's one of the areas where there's a lot of room to adapt, according to what people would like to know more about.

Sir, you have a beautiful, imaginative name and have crafted a beautiful and most impressive story. You have managed to meld the erotic with the story in a masterful way. I can imagine many paths you could take. My favourite of these would be if she, the submissive, managed in many small steps to mold the poor damaged rich boy into a complete and fulfilled man. No matter - looking forwards to whichever way you choose to take it.

I'm very glad you're enjoying it. I don't think it's giving away too much to say that Michael and Mariah will both be changed by their experiences with each other. I'm pleased you liked the balance of erotica and story line. It's going to be challenging to maintain it in each chapter.

what a jerk! he really needs to learn to respect her boundaries, and she needs to learn to stand up for herself. I was sooooo frustrated with her for not taking advantage of the opportunity to set her own conditions to the sexual part of the relationship, but I suppose it makes sense that she just didn't think it through. I would love it for them to get into conflict some time soon so they would have to renegotiate the conditions from both sides, this dude really needs to be put in his place a bit.

Dear Anonymous Grrr. ;)

I have to admit that I'm a bit thrilled that you're so aggravated. It makes me feel like the characters are coming through the way I want them to. The characters are frustrating, particularly Michael. I find myself having to re-write scenes where I've been rather unkind to Michael because he's just such a jerk. His character develops over the course of the story. You will see the first significant conflict in Chapter 3. The balancing of the arrangement will not take place until sometime after Chapter 5. Thank you for your thoughts on this.

I particularly enjoyed the economic commentary.

Dear Damoiselle,

Thank you! That means a lot coming from the author of the Imperius series! The economic issues will be visited again later, too.

Let me tell you what all I love.

1. The seriousness of the writing.. It's good enough to be a novel and Not just literotica

2. Background explained smoothly with the plot though I glazed them over a bit.. Might not have read every word

3. Writing is so perfectly Emotions and desire inducing... I mean I reacted physically while reading this.. And intensely. I just loved it. Thank you! Will read the rest of the story ASAP! Quite an interesting dystopia you have created for their sexual escapades.

Dear MissClassy,

I'm thrilled you're enjoying the story so far, and I hope you'll continue to do so. I did load an awful lot of background into the first chapter. There's quite a bit in the second, also, but I hope that the payoff will be in the stage that's set for the plot going forward. I'm currently writing Chapter 6, and it's the chapter where some of the larger pieces of the larger story arc will start falling into place That's the plan, anyway. Sometimes the characters don't cooperate. I really appreciate the feedback about the character's sexual chemistry. I'm always a little uncertain about that. Thanks for your comment!

Normally, I don't touch anything NC/R. It's not how I'm wired. But thanks to your nudge, I took the plunge and I was rewarded with smart world building, intriguing (if infuriating) characters and a plot which grabbed my attention, all packed in a tight, fluent and mostly well-edited package. Very well done. Now on to the next chapter!

Dear Blind_Justice,

Thank you for giving the category a chance. :-) You are too kind. I think there are other stories here you'll like, too. Some of them even have characters who won't drive you nuts. Scratch that. NC/R is full of aggravating characters. That's how the little buggers wind up in this category!

I love a good Reluctance story. The world building for this story is incredibly detailed as well as highly plausible, it’s really disturbing to be honest.

She’s definitely stuck between a rock and a hard place, he’s offering her an amazing dream by dangling all of the improvements he said he wants to make. It’s a direct feed into her desire to want to help others but it’s an illusion because it comes at the price of her free will.

Given the dystopian society she’s just come from she’s likely to end up an emotional wreck bouncing between extremes of emotion. In a BDSM relationship it’s very easy to fall into a heightened sexual awareness, everything becomes erotic. That sexual tension gets hitched higher and higher with random sexual touches and innuendo. Despite all that it’s still possible that she could develop feelings for him, or rather something beyond hate for stealing her free will. She doesn’t have a choice in all of this she had to agree because by agreeing to his demands she gets the opportunity to help more people and make a real difference. There’s a strong possibility that she will never be able to truly love him, that resentment is justified.

My biggest concern in her situation would be pregnancy, who in their right mind would want to bring a child into that world? They had unprotected sex so it’s possible. I don’t think that gender has a bearing for survival, both have their strengths and weaknesses. As far as he goes he comes across as an epic arsehole he’s careful, calculating and very very obsessed. That obsession could easily lead to violence, it’s already easy to see that he’s going to resent any easy friendship she builds with the guards, he already said as much before she went to get her things and that’s without the jealousy for her dog. So he could just as easily he could loose his focus and keep her as a slave without her consent.

I agree wholeheartedly with other readers that this story would do well with general publication to a wider audience. I’d like to be able to read more but that non consent thing might bug me too much. Best of luck with your writing.

Tess (UK)

I really enjoyed reading this for the character dynamics and /some of the world building. The strongest part was the sex scene. It was really hot and the build up was worth the payoff!

What I really didn't care for was the political backdrop shoed into the earlier part of the chapter. Because the context for the story was basically a quickly evolving climate crisis via slow, insidious climate change, I think that focusing on how countries are currently addressing climate change and reflecting that into the political context would have been far more interesting then some of the rehashed global dynamics mentioned. The bits about Russia and China don't really seem to fit in any other way than to appease readers sense of injustice towards America's enemies. While China would likely play a large role in your proposed crisis, I think that as the world's second largest GDP, it's quite dismissive to say that the role is limited to market manipulation and a vague statement that conflates modern China to China of nearly 40 years ago. Meanwhile, modern China is actually taking some of the largest steps towards mitigating climate change and has some of the most progressive plans regarding the issue. In this case, it might be more appropriate to involve countries with large oil reserves and their largest buyers as some of the main progenitors of conflict.

BUT OTHERWISE, I really enjoyed the chapter and look forward to reading more! (And apologies for the massive tangent)

I'm glad you at least found the sex rewarding! :-) I'm also pleased you engaged with the backdrop, even if you didn't agree with it. I think I can provide a little context.

The cause of The Fall was socioeconomic. The geopolitics played a pretty small role. They were the sparks in the powderkeg. The backdrop is about the corruption of unchecked greed. It's summed up best in these two paragraphs:

"...The world’s wealthy and powerful were united by a common goal: amassing more wealth and more power. To do so, they used corporations as the vehicles to take full possession of the levers of governmental power. Years of power brokering and kingmaking yielded slates of unapologetically corrupt candidates beholden to the ultra-wealthy and the corporations through which they acted.

"They bled the world dry."

The role of countries like Russia and China in The Fall was the role that could have been played by any adversary. The point was that there was an attack on infrastructure that the governments could not deal with because they had become so corrupt. There's more in Chapter Two that explains Russia's role in The Fall. All of the documents and facts referenced as occurring prior to 2020 are real documents and real facts that you can look up and verify.

The reason for the international focus was that I was trying to explain a worldwide crisis. Earlier drafts did include countries around the world, including the middle east, that would be prone to playing such roles. I cut massive amounts of material because nobody (but me) cares about my extremely long and detailed vision of The Fall. I realized that I needed to get to the story sooner. What you've read in Chapter One isn't the whole story. There's more about the attacks on infrastructure in Chapter Two. Much later (haven't gotten there yet), there will be more about the climate crisis. Chapter Seven is just starting to get a little further into the pandemics.

I don't entirely follow what you're saying about the references to China. I wasn't trying to make China the bogeyman. There are only three sentences about China, and they relate to things that are actually happening now. Market manipulation is not just a thing of the past, and it's the fact that they are such a huge economic power that makes it so problematic. Lots of countries do it, but when such a big economic power does it, it's significant. Currency manipulation and artificial pricing are verifiable facts. China has gotten much, much better about currency manipulation, but remember that while the story is talking about things in the past, they are things in our future. If you do all the path from the one date given, you can work out the timeline to find that The Fall took place from about 2021 to about 2028, and the story begins in about 2031. (I didn't want to make it easy to focus on dates, but I knew some people would need a chronological anchor.) The currency manipulation is simply my prediction of what China would do after The Fall was underway, given the totality of the circumstances described.

There is only a general reference to oppression in China, but one only needs to look to the internment camps in which they are incarcerating the Uighur Muslims to see that it's a modern reality. I didn't even touch China's One Belt One Road initiatives and what they're doing in Africa.

I think you're right that there could have been a much bigger role for some of the oil-rich countries. I did give the idea some thought, but I kept coming up with terrorism as the method by which they might act, and I really didn't want to go in that direction. Terrorism is not entirely predictable or preventable. I wanted to focus more on the very predictable attacks on countries' infrastructures that the governments could have easily dealt with if they weren't slowly dying from corruption.

That's really the whole point: corruption, greed, and inequality. That's what brought everything to the tipping point. The factors that tipped everything over were attacks on infrastructure, instigation of civil war, accelerated climate crisis, and pandemics. All of these things contributed relatively equally, each compounded the other, and all were completely preventable.

If you continue to Chapter Two, I think it will make more sense if you look at it through that lens, rather than a geopolitical lens.

I'm really excited that you got into the backdrop enough to disagree with it, though! I wasn't sure many people really noticed it. It's not a strong presence in the story after Chapter One, but bits and pieces do emerge along the way.

Please don't ever apologize for a tangent! I love them. I thought you had an interesting perspective, and your comments make me realize that I should have done more to explain what the root cause of The Fall was, in contrast to the things that precipitated it. I hope you'll keep reading and keep commenting.

The world building is quite interesting, the sexual situation is a bit meh, it looks a little bit like a post-apocalyptic 50 shades of grey. I will keep reading, maybe it will develop in an interesting way later.

I'm glad you're enjoying the world-building, but sorry you aren't enjoying the sexual situation. Shades of Grey was not what I was going for! I do hope you find something to enjoy, though.

I appreciate the comment. If you'd like, let me know here or through private feedback what you'd be interested in seeing in the sexual dynamic. I can't fit every type of scene into the story, but this series is ongoing and I do make adjustments based on reader requests.

Thanks for reading!

To be honest, it is an overused trope: "narcissist idiot that goes crazy whenever things do not go exactly as he says, fucking an idiot woman that cannot stop creaming herself because he's too handsome and rich." Those two idiots really found each other! Maybe I could not get into the sex scene because I really loathed all the people involved.

Thanks for the additional feedback, and your honesty!

I'm a bit surprised because none of what you described is how I intended to portray either of them. I'm sorry it came across that way to you. I wouldn't enjoy that trope, either.

The story is very character-oriented. If you loathe the two main characters, I'm afraid you're not going to enjoy this story very much at all. The plotlines for what's going on in the world outside of the compound take a backseat for several chapters. I hate to say it, but I don't think this is going to be a good story for you. Loathing the main characters is kind of disqualifying for a story! I'm glad you gave it a chance, though. Thanks again for letting me know what wasn't working for you. It really does help.

I'm rereading your story because I enjoyed it so much the first time. I sincerely hope that your next chapter will be here before the end of September, as I'm very much looking forward to it, as well. I may not always like or understand the characters' actions or motivations, but I must stay that this whole scenario seems very timely. We are seeing the consequences of unrestrained greed, as well as the specter of a real pandemic which far too many do not take seriously until it affects them personally. Keep up the good work!

I'm really glad you enjoy the series so much. I'm afraid I'm not going to have the next chapter out by the end of the month. I've been dealing with some covid-19-related family medical issues.

I love that you see the parallels with the real world. My frustration over greed and selfishness and their inevitable consequences was the biggest thing that motivated me to write this.

I am working hard on the next chapter. Sorry I won't be able to get it out this month!

You are a brilliant writer please keep going!

Thank you !!! I really need that encouragement right now. I'm very happy you're enjoying the series. More to come soon.

Love this! It's so good to have a strong non-virgin heroine that I can relate to! The female characters in Non-Con stories are almost always young, inexperienced, and frail, and I guess that's part of the fantasy for many, but some of us ladies want to read about someone who's more like us! Your writing is great, I hope you find a publisher! xx

I really appreciate that. I would like to publish a re-write of this someday. I'm glad you find the heroine relatable. I enjoy a little uncertainty in a character, but I also wanted inner strength and just a bit more realism overall. It's not that I don't enjoy the other kind of non-con story, but it's a little like eating one flavor of ice cream all the time. I enjoy complex characters. Fainting virgins have their place, but probably not in my stories. ;)

Given Michael's admittedly sheltered like until recently, it does not make sense that he: (A) was so utterly experienced in the art of lovemaking; & (B) stepped so easily into the role of a dom.

The story would be more consistent and believable if he had his own doubts and nerves. Since Mariah seemed to have previous experience with sex, perhaps it would be more logical for her to give him on-the-spot lessons. Since she seemed to be so paranoid by his unnegotiable terms, this would have helped her at least retain some feelings of control. A meek Michael and a confident Mariah flows much better with the storyline.

I very much like when characters are likeable and are multifaceted. Your characters are. I enjoyed this chapter very much

While I wish that I'd been able to be part of the original discourse, the binge reading pleasure far outweighs the exclusion. I just have no patience to wait months for the next chapter of a new series. I'll often browse the Hall of Fame or Random Story sections for complete or at least well established series. I'm less likely to encounter the abandonment issue also. All this being said, I love that the author has been responding to commentary questions and wish I could have asked for more clarity about where Michaels Dom experience came from or his need for sexual subjugation came from in the first place. You just don't self teach the level of experience he displays. I would love to here the experiences that formed his desires and clearly established skills!

Would have been more exciting if they hadn't jumped into sex straight away. He comes across as a total jerk actually, I hope she builds her backbone back up again.

The story appears to have been abandoned by the author after hooking readers on eight chapters. It has been two years since the next chapter was promised — with no communication while the author publishes commercially. Thus, will not even consider purchasing the works of this talented author.

***On January 21, 2010, the United States Supreme Court decided that corporations had the right to free speech, and that free speech included the ability to funnel unlimited funds into the country's political machines.

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And why shouldnt for profit corporations have that right? Unions did, political action committees did. Lets not forget this all got kicked off becuase Hillary Clinton was using backroom political connection to use government power to quash a documentary highlighting her corrupt history of using backroom political connections to abuse government power

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Corporate influence grew until meaningful democratic representation was completely choked out. At noon on January 20, 2023, the term of the last democratically elected U.S. president expired without an elected successor

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I think you meanr Jan 20, 2021

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***actively discouraged renewable energy in favor of fossil fuels.

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to be fair fossil fuel pollute far less than green renewable energy, less child slave labor in fossil fuels as well

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***Climate change dramatically outpaced the models for worst-case scenarios.

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how bad? cause currently the extreme worst case projection have the earth warming to a temperature FOUR degrees COLDER than the last interglacial period of the ice age we are currently in right now

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Also Mother Tersa was a sadist, and Gandhi was a pedophile, but given all the other leftist trappings that probably doesnt bother you, so Gandhi was also a racist