All Comments on 'Then Surely We'

Finally, after a month, something amazing in LW. Malraux is one of the top writers on this site. Any site, for that matter, in this, or any other genre. This is what writing is supposed to be like. Gripping drama, beautifully detailed characters and plot. You make most of us look like dabblers, my friend. Thanks for the beautiful story. Randi.

Needs just a touch of follow-up, something to wipe away any of that remaining arrogance. Very well done.

Not quite as good as "The Shooting at Our Merciful Lord," but that's one of the best stories ever on here. I agree with Randi. This is by far the best story since DTIverson's "Beyond the Pale." Impressive.

Keep it up. My favorite is Catching Colleen

This is what writing actually is. A salutary lesson for so many scribblers who taint this site with their, quite frankly, insulting submissions. A pleasure and a joy to immerse oneself in such beautiful prose. Certainly meriting five stars.

Multiple POV characters work in longer works because the reader can develop an understanding of the characters beyond two dimensional tropes. This story doesn't have the necessary length to establish that depth and is really just cheap tropes thrown in a blender in front of a crowd so jaded by the crap routinely published here that they'll blow the ego of anyone posting anything well written without a critical thought of how the story doesn't really work mechanically.

You're better than this.

this was not payback, it was a reckoning. TK U MLJ LV NV

Wasn't that easy to follow at times , and I think you realised that , as you did make efforts to separate who was narrating .

The finale was short but very sweet ........ maybe could have been made more of ?

I think I would have enjoyed reading of the ruination of his military career !!

This was always your story , and you told it well.

I enjoyed ..... thanks for sharing.

I no longer had any desire to see Kyle have any ounce of respect for Jill, much less love.

In fact, I had wished, at that time, that the story would shift completely to be about Kyle and Mo.

Jill was just simply too sullied with smelly crap to be redeemed, as a character.

It is ONE THING to be in a situation where you had to fuck someone, for one time or even a few times....

But to fuck them until you're pregnant, lied about it to your husband, went with your Col. to get an abortion, lied more to your husband to MAKE IT SEEM like you lost a baby both you & husband would have loved to have... so you'd get sympathy from him... and THEN to go right back, one month later, to fucking AND RECORDING such activities... screaming ON TAPE how the Col. was fucking your VIRGIN ass and that HE NOW OWNED IT and it'd be, from then on, difficult to have sex with your husband?....

And then SAVED ALL THAT and sent it to your husband?

Just a fuckin' awful person.

Now, here's the hard decision: whether or not to let Ayla, Gil, and Ayla's parents see those emails and the laptop video.

If I were Kyle, I'd just send the whole thing to Ayla and it's up to her whether or not to share it with her parents: that THAT's what their beloved daughter had become... all the way up to her last deployment... so they'd have a better and more realistic perspective on someone that everyone loved and honored as an honorable, vituous woman, daughter, wife, and Marine...

nothing will happen to Kyle as it would reflect badly on the corps. Jill was a piece of shit and affairs most likely started in Okinawa. Mo will make him a good wife and fit in with the dead whores family replacing her completely. The colonels wife is young enough to start and new wife and probably well known enough to become a senior officers wife replacing one whose wife had passed.

4* since you didn't end the story, left it hanging. You have the basis for a complete new story here.

I got to the bottom of the tedious 1st page and saw there were 7 more to go. The technical aspect of the writing was good, but it was slooooooow.

Because she willfully chose to deny the affair. She knew husband had other affairs.

An 8 page story about an affair, yet the affair was only partially discussed on page 7.

Certainly the author could have written another half page providing an ending.

I recall Kyle's statement about a bad taste in his mouth.

Characters in story left me with similar taste

The mirroring with both mo and Kyle, the comparisons between the two marriages. His insight about Kyle needing to know the depth of his humiliation (I had never seen it explained like that exactly--and I think I'm well-read. Brilliant writing there.) like others i want more dessert in the form of a sequel but realize it is a complete story. Thank you.

I really enjoyed this, though truthfully it was far too long; should have got Kyle or Mo to edit it. Perhaps in a shorter form you might have paid more attention to the ending. I don't understand why so many authors here on LW fail to realise that the ending is like the cream on the cake & can make a huge difference between a good & a great tale. I think you let yourself & this story down somewhat by the abrupt finish. There is so much potential left hanging here. Still good work. 5 *****

Malraux, I love your work. "The Shooting at Our Merciful Lord" is one of my all-time favorites.

Much earlier in this story I envisioned Kyle slugging the Colonel, but as I read on, I thought that you would probably not be writing that. So I was pleasantly surprised when you did. I laughed out loud when Mo wondered if she would soon be dating a convict. It was very satisfying to see Kyle extract some vengeance for the whole family, of which he was once again a part.

I think, Ximand, that the whole Corps will end up finding out about the Colonel now. In fact, it sounds as if people already knew something. From what I've read here in comments by others who have served, he will pay a price for his seduction of a subordinate. And maybe for his wife, it will have been the final straw.

I did not have a problem with the changing point of view, but I am only used to seeing it used here, and usually by lesser authors.

They were recognizably whole again after the exorcism. Well played.

His writing is amazing. That said, I really think this story would have been much better with one POV and far less filler. We were given the betrayal early in the story. Rather than proceed to the conclusion, we were taken back to all of the stuff about their youth and first experiences. That was well written but that part was pretty boring, especially once we knew the end result was betrayal. The POV thing was just awkward as hell. A writer as capable as this one has no need to resort to different POV's. It defeats the purpose of fist person story telling. Its akin to cheating. If you cannot deliver the goods in one POV, which I am sure Malraux can do, use narrative. The idea of showing a POV switch when the POV remained the same was really unnecessary. I thought the writer confused POV's at the end when Mo referred to 'Mom', who I thought was really Jill's mom, but I could be wrong. Excellent plot and writing. That is a given. Multiple first person POV's and tossing in so much filler were the negatives. It's like being served the prime rib and then being given soup while you are looking for the dessert. Who the hell needs the soup? The dessert (the ending) was absolutely delicious!

The brave, the proud, the Cheaters. A Fun fact I read recently gathered info nation from retired military and discovered that 80% of the females serving in the US military cheat on the loved ones they left at home. Also a fact is that travel and sex is the main Enlistment motivation for the female forces and especially the Marines.

This story line is crazy. For some unknown reason, Jill cheats on her loving husband with her big dicked boss, gets pregnant and aborts the baby. After the abortion she becomes his personal slut. She gives up her anal virginity to her lover just before leaving on her final vacation with her husband to visit their family at home. One text intercepted by the husband exposes everything. Husband falls apart and the slut supposedly gives up her big dick without explanation?

If she loved her husband it would never have happened. If she really wanted to break it off with big dick she would have told him why and told him that she would share her evidence of the affair with her husband to decide what to do. Armed with the videos and texts, husband would have been able to get big dick court martialed. That would have been more satisfying than a sucker punch that would get Kyle arrested. The story was way too long but still didn't answer the questions: did big dick's wife know of the affair?; how many other subordinates did big dick take advantage of?

You put a lot of work into the story but it was filled with too much repetition because of the multiple POVs but still missed out on important facts. If Jill wanted to be a soldier all her life, she wouldn't have studied accounting she would have been a fighter or helicopter pilot. Women are now involved in combat these days not just in support.

3 stars

reasonable man

Speaking both of the author and the story. This story was so clearly professional quality in the way the plot took you where it wanted, in contrast to the more amateur stories whose plots stick out like yellow brick roads.

But, some of the commentators, oh my goodness. The morons remind me why I decided to work hard, to educate myself to an advanced level, to learn to control my whims and emotions, to learn to become a better person, because I didn't want to be one of these pathetic, uneducated, nasty, emotional little morons caught in a whorl of mediocrity and failure that is their life.

Fuck me that was LONG WINDED!!!!! Then you leave it with a piss poor ending. What happened? Did you get bored with your own story?! Where are the minus scores?

Then the non-ending ruined it for me. Loved the line "Semper Fi my ass"! Sure would like to know what happened after the punch.

However, I feel like we’re missing the ending. Does the Colonel get court-martialed for adultery? Possibly brig time? Or does this get swept under the rug to preserve her reputation? Does Mrs. Devereaux divorce him?

A little too much side story and long winded, the end sucked fix

Spent too much time wallowing for me; it was beautifully-crafted wallowing, to be fair, but it still felt like a lot of filler that didn't really add to the characterization or moving the story forward. And, with a story this long, it really needed an ending rather than just a place it stopped.

The wife felt too schizophrenic to me; I never really had a handle on her character. At first, it seemed like a basic "She loved her husband, and thought she could have some excitement/physical relief on the side, and now regrets that choice" scenario, but the videos didn't support that.

Apparently, she once deeply loved her husband, then had a fling with big dick soldier boy which led to an abortion and cooling down--at which point perhaps things could have been saved/things made sense--but then moved on to a full-blown emotional affair in which she seemed to love BDSB more than her husband... but then after the discovery, severed the relationship with BDSB without a word, indicating that she loved her husband and not BDSB... but also prepared her little care package from beyond the grave, which seemed designed to be as cruel as possible without (so far as we're told) also including any sort of after-video note trying to mitigate the harm.

Basically, I have a hard time buying that she loved her husband in the end, thanks to that care package, but her actions of breaking things off that way seem implausible if she *didn't* love him. Maybe the real answer is that she was playing a deeper game, and had just pretended to break things off while learning how to hide them better?

(If we believe that the wife did truly love the husband by the end, then the care package almost feels like it was imposed by authorial fiat as a way to get around the obstacle of the husband not having a plausible way to get answers, which seems like a big narrative flaw to me. I have difficulty understanding why she would have recorded those sessions in the first place, let alone hold on to them afterwards; the "not wanting to hide things from him" doesn't seem plausible to me, since the text messages seem adequate to fill in the blanks without being that heartbreakingly cruel.)

I don't have any problems with a flash story lacking an ending and leaving so many unanswered questions, but for one this long, it felt like we spent an awful lot of time on unimportant things and not enough on what mattered.

With what I consider a non ending, I wont score it very high with all the interesting story continuations and possible outcomes.

Overall I very much enjoyed the read... Too bad

Very well written but some components were telegraphed. One way I view a story's strength is the emotional reaction in the reader. This was great.

This story was well developed with great people and compelling. I had to put it down a few time and couldn’t wait to get back to it. It is among the few best short stories that I have ever read. I know it’s done but I’d love to know the rest of their story.

Thanks for sharing your marvelous talent with me and I look forward to reading more of your work.

An ending or could have been a 5

Loved It! This story is a work of a mastercraftsman. I appreciate the time Malraux spent finding the correct pacing and lines of narration in which to tell his tale. Thank you!

The non-ending really sucked. I like your work. But your style is frustrating for many like me that wish for a more fulfilling end where Mo & Kyle get together with honesty in their feelings for each other.

WS

A superbly written and crafted tale. As others have said, I believe this author to be one of the best in the business. "Jonas Agonistes" is, beyond doubt, among the very best stories on the site. I always look forward to one of your, infrequent, contributions.

There was a little too much dithering about to be the perfect story. The "no ending" crew lack imagination, and you have the usual low-brow comments from some who don't enjoy any story that involves anything more complicated than murder porn. They may be safely disregarded, and you have complimentary words from people who actually know writing and the elements of a good story. I would score this 4.75, if I had that option. Since I do not, you get a solid five. Please write another story soon.

Mal, you have a very real talent for writing. The plot, dialogue, characters, etc are second to none here. There were a coupla little errors but they did nothing to detract from the story. I loved it.

We would all like to see Chapter 2 but I think we'll probably have live with what we can supply in our heads.

Semper Fi!

that I have read on this site in quite a while. Now finish the damn story!

I didn't make it for me. It's probably me. Too depressing. Too long. Lots of boring details. The continuos change of point of view was confusing and irritating and didn't add much to story, except when Kyle talked.

Again maybe it's me, but too long, pretencious, confusing and depressing.

Yet another great story by a fantastic author. Only real thing is that unless the regulations have changed, notification of next of kin has to be performed by a person of equal or higher rank. No biggie though, just an observation. Keep up the good work, please.wk

I didn't have a problem with the POV changes, but respect HDK's comment. I thought Jill's final letter to her husband was very moving - the lady realized her mistakes and sincerely regretted them. The scene where Jill's dad tells her to never again say Semper Fi was very powerful but sad. I would have liked an epilogue - the ending was sort of like, the alarm bell just rang, so that is the end.

... it feels unfinished without knowing what consequences the colonel and Kyle faced. To me, the loose ends make a 5 star story a 4.

First time I have been moved to comment. Excellent job with the characters. I had actual tears in parts of it. I don't usually read 8 pages but I am glad I made an exception .

The letter to Kyle was powerful and would have swept the day if she had not sent the computer and the telephone. They left me completely against Jill.... but then she did give up her big cock didn't she??

Great job, really grabbed me , a tour de force and best story in a long time. . Thx for sharing!

Your comment included the line: "It defeats the purpose of fist person story telling."

Now, I simply must know - was that deliberate, or a typo?

If deliberate, it is one of the most excellent literary jabs in recent LW commentary history.

If a typo, then it is one of the greatest typographic malapropisms in LW history.

heheheheh!

Quality writing. Full marks, wish I could give more. Quite above LW standards mostly.

Two gripes. Amongst a parade of rich and wonderful characters, Jill appears as something of a two dimensional facade. She seems to have discarded everything to become a size queen slut, I won't call her a whore because I have to much regard for whores. My contempt for Jill is complete. She appeared as a cartoon character cast with serious actors in an otherwise moving drama.

My second concern is that you, in no way, convinced me that Jill loved Kyle, quite the opposite actually, and I believe you should address these two concerns.

You let Jill off easy with her death but, if you have it in you, maybe you could write this from the one person's perspective that could give some insight, namely Jill's.

I really liked your characters other than Jill and loved MO.

Thanks from an appreciative reader.

The material in the tapes was too much. The wife could not possibly have loved Kyle and acted as she did, and retained and sent him this stuff. So that killed the tension in the story for me. I just despised her and lost interest. This is the story Malraux wanted to tell, and he is just about the best author on this site, but the extreme sluttiness and abortion killed this one for me. Why, given not what she did but how she felt about it, would she break off the affair? Much more likely to dump the husband.

Good but a lil long.... Some will not like the abrupt ending not knowing the final outcome. The Marines will have to press changes against Kyle, even if Devereaux tries to drop the charges. But when Kyle is brought before the Magistrate and the charges get dismissed due to the evidence Kyle will have to give to NCIS putting an end to Devereaux's career and he likely will get Court Martial not just for the fraternizing of a married subordinate and impregnating her but the illegal use of DoD funds for the California abortion trip. He will be discharged from the Service under-less-than-honorable circumstances and loss of possible retirement. And to Jill, may she rot in hell.

Mrs. Devereaux will surely divorce his ass as she has personal honor at stake. And especially when she discovers an aborted child that he would not give her.

And we know the obvious happy ever after of Mo and Kyle. I just hope Kyle gets his PhD. to stay par with his surroundings, even if he doesn't need it.

To Malr, the mark of your stories is how many times I have to hit the dictionary - well I had to hit it five times. And I thought my Master's, honorary PhD-abd, and age gave me a large vocabulary. Salute - hooyah!

I do appreciate the brief, if very inadequate, glimpse at Jill through her last letter but it does seem incongruous with the details of her fuckery.

I concur with @gatorhermit completely.

Your employment of grief as an emotional wellsink here was apt and very effective as almost anyone who has experienced true grief in their lives will always have their heartstrings start to hum loudly again in sympathetic vibration to those notes (in truth, they never really stop - it's a bit more like how we can eventually grow a bit nose-blind to the same odor being experienced repeatedly over time).

It worked, and from then on, we were all along for the emotional ride. I almost got to experience throwing the punch at the end. If that was your intent, call it a near miss, but I thank you for the effort.

This was a terrific story as-is, and while an epilogue would have been great, well, that's what our imaginations are FOR, at least in part, right?

I am another who will eagerly await your next submission. 5*

and a great story. The wife didn't need to be quite as heartless as you portrayed her and you offered no convincing rationale for her diligently collecting keeping and organizing all the shocking details of her affair for her saintly husband to find. We don't even know her reasons for fucking her CO. But those are quibbles. Can we expect a sequel?

is how Jill could betray her lifelong values for good orgasms. I mean she betrayed her husband, humiliated him, belittled him verbally and physically, killed an innocent human being without much remorse, so she could go back to getting more orgasms. She betrayed her family, her upbringing, broke several of the 10 commandants, broke the Military Judicial Code of Condut, etc I mean it is really pure evil personified at that point.

But this conundrum, how she could do these evil things, has troubled many great thinkers on the nature of evil throughout time. How evil starts, gets roots, and manifests itself. It is not a big bang, it is banal, as such causes one to scratch their head.

Surely a sequel will be following.

Normally, when an author ends a story without dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's and finishing the story 50 years in the future, I don't mind. Here I do. The story progressed in what can best be described as a stately manner with much character development and introspection and little plot movement. Here, there are far too many unfinished threads: Does the Colonel get out of this with a broken jaw and lots of sympathy for being attacked by a distraught husband or does his career end with a resignation or court martial? What does his wife do? What about Mo? The best way to describe this story is to compare it to a banquet where the first dish is foie gras, the second dish is a rich lobster bisque, and the main meal is cheese and crackers. Another analogy is that 1-7 are the Count of Monte Cristo and p8 is "See Spot Run."

At the many comments people make about a story being unfinished.

This story ended at the high point. All was well with the world:

Kyle recovered from his depression and got his honor back. Colonel Devereaux lost his - even though he didn't understand it at the time. Kyle and Mo will find a way to be together and the Kinnison family will be able to heal. And all of that was foreshadowed in the final climactic scene.

How could you want anything more?

Sex is a powerful driving force, an essential and integral part of the human condition. As much as I abhor Jill's actions, I do not believe the character can be described as evil or without any merit. This tale is as much about honour as it is love, and is deeply moral in it's basis, but the characters are never one dimensional to me. I may be woefully under-qualified to judge but this to me has some real literary merit. Well done!!

As did the story....

So now we have to use our feeble imaginations to take "the rest of the story" in whatever direction we want it to go.

As always, I really enjoy your writing, but agree with others that Jill seems like an unlovable cardboard cutout when compared with the substance and depth of the other characters. As to her motivation for turning a one-off incident into an affair, maybe the infamous Martian Slut Ray claimed another victim. ;-)

It's always a good day when you drop something new on us. Thanks!

I would like to see an epilogue some day but this well writing story is complete as it is.

Yes, adultery is a crime under the UCMJ, but in real practice it doesn't mean much more than a reprimand. An old friend of mine (this was in the 90s) had his wife, a First Lieutenant, deployed to South Korea (an unaccompanied tour), where she wound up hooking up with a Captain. Said friend complained to her base CO when they returned, charging adultery, and a slap on the wrist would have been harder than what they got.

Unless it was determined that the Colonel sent the Major on a dangerous mission to get rid of her, or exposed her to classified information she didn't need to have, the most he would have gotten would be a letter of reprimand, which would leave him topped out as a Colonel; he'd wind up retiring. The charges against Kyle would have been dropped quietly.

Everybody knew what was coming when Kyle agreed to go to the return ceremony, and surely his family ought to have known; I have to ask why they didn't stop him from going. All that he could do was cause trouble, and he just made public what their daughter had done. For the readers who wanted some kind of revenge, this was a decent ending, but for the characters in the story, nothing good could have happened.

Unlike many commenters, I had no problem with the story ending where it did.

. . . that most of the readers will answer negatively; can a married woman have an affair, and still love her husband?

The story claims that Jill loved her husband, and the affair was just hot sex. So many commenters stated that Jill couldn't have loved her husband, but that ignores the fact that human beings are complicated; sometimes that really is the case.

Rather than greiving the loss of his wife, Kyle now has ammunition to ruin her lover's marriage and career. He now knows that after helping her recover from a miscarriage and the loss of their child, she became her bosses sex toy. She gave him more than her own husband. To answer RR no a wife who does this doesn't love her husband.

f-ing outstanding !..almost lost me there in chapt.7.tho..fine ending..Jill we hardly new ya......stlcris...this secutity code thing sucks

"Kyle! Kyle! KYYYYYLLLLE!" - As many times as we see this, I'll never understand it; how can a wife who SO loves her husband that she's crushed when he walks out, cheat on him? The very act of cheating indicates a lack of concern for him.

"Why did he open my phone?" - So, his "invading her privacy" is worse than her infidelity?

"I've wrecked the most important relationship of my life." - Well, ya! But it's not like wrecking the car in an accident, this was done deliberately, knowing it was wrong.

"Her duties continued, including a suddenly scheduled assignment in California." - I figured it was an abortion because it wasn't Kyle's!

Silly dig at comments!

There's some dropped text between Pages four and five.

When Mo said, "No, not a boyfriend," I thought she was going to say a girlfriend!

"I wondered how far their relationship had progressed" - It hadn't progressed at all, that's why Kyle tried not to notice her.

I think there's an editing glitch when Kyle called after the funeral. Gil said that he thought that Kyle SHOULD read it the letter, I think he was saying that he thought he SHOULDN'T!

I find it hard to believe that she would have saved all that stuff! Kyle didn't say anything about whether Devereaux really was that big, not that it would make any difference.

I'd like to read more about what happened, but maybe that's greedy.

Not true faithful love, no. She only loved herself and got what she wanted. Not outlandish at all. They call it cake eating. People like this, and there are many and always have been, bring the expression "sense of entitlement" to a whole new level.

Good story!

WHERE'S THE REST !! YOU SERIOUSLY CANT LEAVE IT THERE!

Terrific story. Loved it! ***** But....that piece of shit of a Marine officer did not suffer enough. That's what I feel is the only negative thing that can be said about this really great story. The officer needed much more pain. If one of the author's goal was create a character you really wanted to see suffer, mission accomplished.

I agree completely that a spouce, of either sex, can have a sexual, and even an emotional, affair and still actually love their mate... BUT, there is a limit to cognitive dissonance. The extent of Jill's attachment to the Colonel, being so happy to have a part of her body solely his, her sadness at having aborted his child, her retention of all the grossly sexual tapes and emails (as a person well-schooled in security)-it all just doesn't square with a genuine love of her husband. When she consciously realized and said "fucking Kyle will never be the same", could she love him, remain with him? Methinks not!

Writing gets it 4 stars. Period. Only things missing to make it a 5, is the lack of anything actually erotic, and no understanding of the wife in what is the "Loving Wives" category. Honestly Literotica should have a category called, "Despondent Husbands," since so many stories that are written in this category, would be better suited for a category of their own.

The colonel would be busted and court marshaled and mustard out of the marines.if he gave those videos ,abortion, and affair to the IG. Any charges against him would be dropped. Also does he marry MO. That's why you should finish this great story.

I guess a good story elicits the emotions of the reader. This story took me through a whole gamut of emotions - positive and negative. I was left with a sense of anger, loss, the need for revenge (loved it when he decked the bastard) and a need for more. I'm not sure where the story can go, but I think some resolution of the relationship between Kyle and Mo would be good and the continuing relationship with the family. Probably wouldn't be in the Loving Wives section though.

Jill leaving video evidence of her affair was odd. She became the Colonels depraved slut and totally shit on the husband in those videos... What kind of evil bitch would show the husband that?

It was a shame there were no details about her death. I hope it was painful!

One of the best stories I've ever read here. 5* - not enough.

First reason is she is a complete cold-hearted bitch who wanted the evidence as the last paying homage to the relationship she had to the Colonel. She wanted Kyle to know it went deeper and there was love and true infatuation there.

Second and I believe the more likely reason is she truly loved Kyle and wanted to give him his freedom after her death. She knew his finding out the depth of her betrayel would sour his feelings towards her. While it would add to his pain in the short term, in the long term it would sour his feelings towards her and he wouldn't look back on the relationship wistfully and would help him get over her loss.

She was obviously infatuated with the Colonel. What happens often if you're into a certain lifestyle, you tend to admire those into that same lifestyle as well. For whatever reason she was into the whole Marine thing and dedicated her life to it so it's not hard to imagine she would have respect and be infatuated with the Colonel. That was the world she respected and understood. So while she had a lifelong love and relationship with Kyle that was a given to her. The Colonel was one she actually chose and he came at the top of the chain (at least as far as she saw and had access to) of the world that she believed in. So it wasn't hard to see her being lost into that infatuation. But I believe in the end she had that depth of love, even if no longer the romantic love, of Kyle that she sacrificed his having fond memories of her, keeping her post-mortem memory in high regards, to give him release and allow him to move on.

Otherwise, her sharing the evidence with him makes no other sense except to think of her as a callous bitch who wanted to hurt Kyle and there was no hint of that in her. She obviously hurt him, but her affair was not done to hurt him conciously. Sharing the evidence was done conciously to hurt him and I believe it was to done out of love to release him.

Beautifully written.

There couldn't be a better end to the story, 5*

A very abrupt end to an interesting story. It felt like reading a book where the last half of the last chapter had been torn out. Or is this just the first part of a two-part series?

Some see a contradiction between Jill's professed undying love for her husband, her ending the affair, and her sending him the hurtful evidence. I agree that there would be, but our author never confirmed that Jill was telling the truth about ending the affair. I think the author may have intended for US to see through that deception, while leaving the husband in doubt. I'm sure if the Colonel were single, she would divorce Kyle in a heartbeat. In her eyes, their marriage is one of convenience. She probably still held some level of fondness for Kyle, but the videos left no doubt that he was no longer the man she put first in her life.

As far as complaints go, I find that the story being so long and detailed (perhaps overly so) is what made the ending feel too abrupt. After dragging us down into the depths of despair, it would have been much more fulfilling to get more of a glimpse of the romance between Kyle and Mo, unless that is being saved for a future story. I'd also like to know if Kyle served any time for the punch.

Thank you for the awesome story.

Cog

Just wow.

Very sad, infuriating, and ultimately less than satisfying story. My take on Jill's final revelation of the depth, and totality of her betrayal was to free Kyle to get on with life. After the reveal about the affair, the abortion, and the lying, how could he possibly forgive, and grieve for her. Grief, and regret for what he lost would have held him back from moving on and building a new life. She totally wiped away any love he may have felt for her memory. I believe that deep down she did love him, but despite being the perfect, in control, super Marine, she was at heart a weak woman, who fell victim to a predator. Maybe there was career pressure, or he was an idolized figure for her. She wasn't strong enough to resist. Like many high ranking officers in the news, over the past few years, the colonel was in position to take advantage of a subordinate, and probably not just one. My one , real, problem with this story, is that the colonel did not get what he truly deserved. The loss of his beloved career, his power, and his entire life would only be a beginning to justice for Kyle, and even for Jill.

I thought the ending was fitting. The only thing lacking was to see the colonel's career torn down around him and his humiliation. Well done story.

After two pages, nothing really was added but the pain.

Sure some backround facts, but pretty colourless

after the light of the big bang.

3 out of 5 from me.

very well written story here. it shows true love and how it can change in a heart beat without thinking. just a lapse in judgement and things can turn completely around forever. in a marriage it takes two to make it work not one working for it and one hiding what they are doing on the side of it. he did the right thing at the end of the story good for him. keep writing as ur story was excellent.

I have to be honest with my natural dislike for these kinds of stories. By that I mean stories that go so far to make you despise one character and feel for another, but end with a payoff that is in no way proportional to the effort it took to get there.

This story portrays Jill as a rotting onion, with every layer peeled revealing something even more foul than the last. As it is, she's presented as a person whose every redeeming quality is eventually either called into question or outright obliterated. Not only is she a cheater, but she's a manipulative, self-serving, wanton slut of a cheater with no discipline or self-control to speak of. And to the Pro-Lifers among the readership, she's a baby-killer as well. It just goes on and on, and with her being dead from the jump she's more of a force of nature than a character; something that just *happens* and the rest of the cast is left to deal with the devastation left in her wake. So by default we'll never actually see her get what she deserves, yet you still spend eight pages telling us that she does, indeed, deserve it.

Why go to such lengths when the dragon has already been slain and there is nothing that can be done about all the villages it burned? In my view, it really only serves to cheapen the Kyle character. Instead of winning the audience over with his own merits, we're rooting for him because of the mountain of shit shoveled on top of him. It works, but that doesn't make it any less cheap.

There's a name for this kind of thing: A "Shaggy Dog" story. Lots of build-up for something that either ends up being underwhelming or doesn't happen at all. Like if in Saving Private Ryan, Ryan was already dead by the time they found him and they just turned around and went back to base. I don't think I'm alone in saying I'd feel more than a little salty about an ending like that, regardless of how good the movie was as a whole.

Some think Kyle punching out Dwight is "satisfying", but it's almost laughably anti-climactic considering what Dwight did to him through his wife. Maybe that wouldn't have been the case if not for the frankly baffling decision to leave off with a Sopranos ending. Literally nothing else is implied or left to the imagination in this story, yet the ending, the all-important carrot on the stick, ends up being so much vapor; insubstantial. For all we know Kyle got hauled off to get his ass kicked by a bunch of Marines for one more shovelful of shit to top things off, so I don't know how or why some people are considering this some kind of "win" for him. At the very least tell us that by the time Kyle did it, the evidence of what Dwight had done was well on its way to his superiors and his wife's email inbox.

All that said, this one gets 4 stars from me. I simply can't ignore that ending and how the main character seems to exist only to get dumped on and mope about it. He literally does nothing else until the very end. Not a character I particularly want to read about, which is why I'm glad for the frequent POV shifts. All in all I still found it a bit of a refreshing read, even with the traps it falls into. I can't really recall the last time I read a story where the wife was the deployed Marine(for all the difference it made).

wow.

WOW... this was an unlikely military chest story... I was not expecting the end

And sad. Like others I am puzzled by the ending, it leaves too much up.in the air. What was Jill's real story with the affair, was it the freedom to be the bad girl, dud she fall for the colonel because he was the uber marine and then got too deep? And why does she write that letter that she says it was all about sex, that she didn't love the colonel yet what she left for him said otherwise? And why leave the videos or the truth about the abortion, did she realize if Kyle didn't know the depths of her debasement he would wonder whether he was at fault? It doesn't sound like she wanted to.humiliate him, so why? If a sequel is possible Aya might be able to decipher what the hell had happened and maybe give Kyle closure, that Jill in the end did love him and her think with the colonel was her letting her obsession with the marines go too far rather than being anything wrong with kyle.....and to tell him to move on, that she left him with the one thing she didn't give in life, the truth.

Plus of course you want the arrogant ass of the colonel to pay for what he did, that the military will Likely try to cover it up and dump shit on Kyle, prob try to paint him as a deranged husband blaming the marines for jill' s death, and you want to see the colonel get what he deserves, which should be both time in the big and loss of pension and so forth, plus you want to see Kyle move on with mo.

One quibble , the dad served in the marines so when he says to jill 'you and your marines' it rings badly, bc marines once they serve always consider themselves a marine....and as such, you can bet the dad and others would exact justice on the colonel too. One of the things military people hate is those in the service who go after the spouse or so of a fellow soldier, it is widely despised.

i do hope there is going to be another chapter to this

Absolutely one of the best.

Thank you

I'd be reluctant to marry as long as I was deployable military. A lot to ask of a wife. Much more to ask of a husband. No way I'd marry a military woman till she got out. If we are both military and have kids then we will deploy at different times and so rarely see each other. If I'm military or not, my wife would be deploying with a bunch of guys. I'll pass.

I've seldom been so moved by any story, here or elsewhere. Fantastic writing, plot development and sharing of the narrative. Thanks for giving him (and us) Mo as a balm.

emotion yummy yummy gimme gimme

This was a well written and very enjoyable story, emotive and containing a deep and well thought out messsage. No one is a saint but there genuinely are people who, when they give, give their all. And they do not spare thought for themselves. They tend to be hurt the easiest or the worst. Perhaps they have a naivety that leads them to expect others think as they do. It's sad to see when that naivety is lost. It's a death of optimism.

Yet there is something we can all recognise in the character of Kyle. Something timeless but sadly, right now, quite out of fashion. It's not his trust in others. It's a sense of decency and conviction, a sense of honour. It's not pride but it is part of self respect. And you're right, Malraux, it's not something that is chosen but rather something one is.

I particularly enjoyed his gradual journey from shell-shocked survivor to angry avenger and glad he was given the time to find his direction. I did feel the ending left a sense of things yet unresolved, especially since there were earlier chapters from Marge's POV and hope that the colonel would get his just desserts, from his own divorce or a DD from the Corp. Nonetheless, this is still, by far the best story I have read this year and a refreshing drink of cool clear water in the dusty desert of LW.

Thanks for the read.

5*

How is it that super-cautious Marine officers were so stupid as to make videos of their trysts?

Sorry, but adulterers making video evidence is just plain stupid, and you don’t get to be a colonel or a promoted below the zone major if you are stupid.

This excellent story deserves more. Perhaps that could go into the romance section as I'm sure that it should concentrate mainly on Kyle and Jo's relationship although like others i really want to see what happens to Kyle and the Colonel right after this story ends.

WOW. You’ve taken the loving wives stories to the next level. Well done. I keep thinking about this story - because it so disturbed me - which means the writing was outstanding. Please keep writing.

> The story claims that Jill loved her husband, and the affair was just hot sex.

Yes, the story *claims* that. What it *shows*, however, is Jill (a) recorded herself talking about having to abort her lover's baby, ending with "I wish..." and then crying, which seems to have an obvious interpretation of "I wish I could have had your baby"/"I wish we could be together" or some similar words of dedication, (b) recorded herself giving her ass to her lover, declaring that her ass was dedicated only to her lover, and saying that "Fucking [my husband] will never be the same", and (c) deliberately showed those recordings to her husband.

That seems pretty clear to me that the affair was a lot more than hot sex and that there was a point where she loved her lover more than the husband. I also find it difficult to believe that she loved her husband at the end, as those videos seem relationship-destroying, and more than a little soul-destroying. I have to wonder if her letter was all lies, and her real intent was to force the husband to take the step she didn't have the will to do, and decisively end the marriage, freeing her up for her lover.

‘Nuff said. Thanks for a great read!

Eventually this became an LW story, and a good one. No faulting the character development of so many characters ... nicely done. What is ironic is that a major component was the topic of editing and editors, but IMHO, it could have been a great story had it been edited down to 4-5 LIT pages. Hope Hubby didn’t end up in front of a firing squad ... I think Marge would have squelched that, though!

4*

I like your analysis that giving Kyle the evidence of her perfidy enables him to put her firmly in his rear view mirror and move on with his life.

One of the most boring stories I've ever read. You told us what happened in the beginning. Everything after was just repeating the same non sense in a different POV. Then in the end we find out the wife didn't know... SHOCKER!

I keep reading that readers think the story should not have ended where it did. Sorry you are so wrong, it ended in the perfect place.

The only story remaining that I can see is the the story of the Colonel and if he ever learned the true meaning of "Semper Fidelis" in what remained of his hopefully short and miserable life. Unfortunately it seems that true assholes never die young.

i guess i should have finished the story before commenting that end was pure shit wow maybe even worse than shit good read tho at least up till the end tho