A Game of Chance

[Penelope Street]

Scum

I didn't get the idea that he was scummy at all. My impression was of a somewhat romantic man with a job to do.

So far, I think I'm the only one to label Jeffrey as scum, at least before he shoots her. Maybe I have a broader definition than most regarding what constitutes scum, but drug runners are a good starting point.

Then gambling for a woman's favors without even discussing it with her? Yep- scum again.

And when she tries to get out of the deal she didn't even make, he makes threats to secure her compliance:

She got indignant. She still had plenty of anger left over for me. "Keep your voice down. I don't belong to you or anyone. Just who do you think you are anyhow?"

It was the way she looked at me that did it, that dismissive, condescending face. So many times I'd run into that same face, that same tone of voice from women just like her. I felt a sudden surge of excitement, like when I play cards.

"You really don't know, do you?" I asked.

She showed me an elaborately bored face and that did it. I felt that sudden surge of adrenalin I always get before a high-stakes bluff and I decided to go for it.

"You know a man named Grecco?"

It worked. She looked at me and I could see the fear in her face now. It felt good.

Oh- I'm supposed to excuse that because he maybe had a wee bit of a woodie for her? I don't think so. And 'It felt good'? If nothing else is scummy, that is! Even if he did make her orgasm afterward and developed some manner of affection for her, he's still scum. Romantic scum? Well, maybe, but scum nonetheless, at least in my book. If anyone else's book is different, well, that's why we all have books, isn't it?

At this point I'll say that in the first run through of the story, Jeffrey was a bad-boy hero. The story was nothing more that a bad-boy-takes-girl reluctance story. It grieves me that he came across as especially scummy.

I don't understand why me thinking the he's scum should result in any grief. If I had created a multi-dimensional character like Jeffrey, I'd be quite pleased to get different reactions from different readers.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Penelope Street]

How many times have you read about a woman murdered by her husband or lover ... and wondered whether she ever saw it coming? Did she think he loved her, right up until the end?

Too many times. Such an excellent point. Thank you.

Chicks love a man who hides his tender side.

Not that it has any relevance to the story, but I prefer a man who shows his tender side early and often.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Pure]

Penny knows scum

I'm with Penny on this one. I hope the dr does not make the antihero any prettier or throw in too many "she's coming, i think i love her" scenes.

He has the air of a small time hood or wannabe. Not the innocent good guy who gets a windfall (gold dropped in his lap).

In effect he gets a rape for free, as he engineers it (she can't complain). Indeed, doc was quite wise in NOT making her simply do the hood's bidding. So our little guy bears moral responsibility. (He could just say, "Well, lady, you were promised, and I figured you'd do as told, but if you're going to be a 'bad sport' and get into this 'rape' lecture, forget it."

The middle part is classic literotica 'screw her into loving you' (and 'she just needs a good fuck') fantasy. The end redeems.

This is either fantasy, noir, or comedy. Hoping for noir. What's that comedy movie about Uma Thurman 'given' by a gangster to some fella as a kind of favor. That's more the comedy.

http://movies.yahoo.com/shop?d=hv&id=1800184184&cf=info&intl=us

MAD DOG AND GLORY
is a hilarious take on a bizarre love triangle between three vastly contrasting individuals. Robert De Niro stars as Wayne "Mad Dog" Dobie, a cop who wants desperately to be an artist. After interrupting a holdup and saving the life of mobster Frank Milo (Bill Murray), his life takes a dramatic turn. Milo, a gangster with the desire (if not the talent) to become a stand-up comic, rewards Wayne by lending him his girlfriend, Glory (Uma Thurman), for one week, a week in which Mad Dog, initially repulsed by the idea of Milo's gift, gradually begins to fall in love with Glory.

 

[angelicminx]

Okay, I gotcha. The word scum creates different images for each of us. I admit, I'm a sucker for the bad boy with a romantic streak. Thank God I never met one THAT bad, lol.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I'm not softening anything. It's a good fucking story if you ask me, and I'm quite pleased with it.

I could make Jeffrey a nicer guy and more respectful of women, but then what's going to happen when he gets her to the hotel? "Thank you ma'am. Sorry about that silly bet thing. Good night." I mean, where's the story?

My main question really had nothing to do with poker or scuminess, but with what murdering a character does to a porn story. Is there a legitimate place for something like this in porn, or does it just render the sex ridiculous and trivial?

I'm going to publish this story pretty much as it is. I'll clarify her motives for going with Jeffry a little bit, but overall I think it's very powerful and disturbing as it is, and I figure if it haunted me, it will haunt some other readers too.

I expect I'll get a lot of hate mail for it, and I expect that some readers will hesitate or shy away the next time they see a story with my name on it ("Oh yeah. He's the one who kills off his charcaters. No thanks.")

The same thing happened to me with the Tsunami story I pulled, but in that case I could see where that might hurt people who'd had personal losses in the wave. This one is offensive on a different level. It's a betrayal of what we expect from a porn story, and I think that's a very interesting area to explore.

---dr.M.

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm not softening anything. It's a good fucking story if you ask me, and I'm quite pleased with it.

Glad to hear it. I think it's a good fucking story too. You should be pleased with it. In spite of the detailed discussion of the nature of Jeffery, I didn't hear anyone say he wasn't a great character. You might get a few snide comments, sure, but I expect the general reaction will be, "Wow!"

Take Care,
Penny

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Happy Ending

Just for the heck of it, here's the original ending, the "happy" ending.

================

We slept, we woke up, we made love again. We couldn't go back to sleep because now there was no question but that she was coming with me, and we lay there through the early hours making plans. Chicago, Amsterdam, Paris, it didn't matter. First we'd be going to Athens anyhow where Josh was holding my money. The cash I'd taken from Bogdan would see us that far in great style. There was only one worry, and she wouldn't do it.

"I'm not afraid of him, Alena, and I can't go without seeing him face to face."

"He's dangerous," she said. "He almost killed a man once. He beat him with a wrench when he caught the man breaking into his car. It was horrible what he did. When he finds out I'm leaving with you, he'll come over with his friends and they'll kill you."

"Then don't tell him. I still have to see him though."

We were drinking coffee by the French doors, and the sky still held some of the intense blue of the fading night. Below us a streetcleaning truck drove down the street spraying water on the sidewalks and gutter, washing down yesterday's grime.. Alena hadn't touched her croissant or fruit.

'Here's my plan," I said, taking her hand. "You call him and don't tell him where you are. Just tell him I'm here at the Metropole and I have his money. Then when he leaves to come here, you can get into your place and get your things. We'll meet back at the Café."

"No, she said. "He'll beat you, Jeffrey. He'll hurt you. I know it. He's like that."

"Alena, I can't leave until I've seen him again, and I don't want you here when I do."

"Is it the money?"

"Money's involved, yes."

"Oh God, Jeffrey! I don’t like this. I'm scared."

I picked up her hand and kissed her palm. "Go. Go somewhere near your place and call him. Here's your cell."

"And you'll meet me at the café afterwards, the one where you were playing cards?"

"Yes. It won’t take long. I'll be fine."

She smiled and I knew what she was thinking. "It seems like that was so long ago, when we met. I thought you were another of his gangster friends, but you didn't look like a gangster. There was something decent about you."

"I saw you and I fell in love," I said. "That's what you saw when you looked at me."

I hustled her out and watched from the window as she got into her cab. It was six thirteen. Twenty minutes for her to get home and make the call, half an hour maybe more for Bogdan to get his posse together, twenty more for them to get here… It should all be over by seven thirty or so.

I went and finished packing my things, got what I needed from my suitcase and left it by the front door. Then I went down and settled my bill and tipped the concierge.

I came back up and moved an armchair over by the window so I could see the the front door. I put the money on the table, two thousand euro's. The curtains were blowing in on the morning breeze and it looked like it would be a beautiful day, hot and clear.

Alena's rose still stood in the glass of water from last night. I got up and brought it over to my chair and put it down next to it. It was almost like having her with me. I hoped she wasn't having any trouble.

Sometimes life is so strange. We go looking for one thing and we find something entirely different, something that changes our entire lives and every decision we've made up to that point mean something new. It's like one of those stories where you find out that the bad guy was the hero's father all along and you have to go back and reread the whole story because it all means something new now.

I should have been nerous waiting for Bogdan, and I should have been scared, but I wasn't. Somehow Alena had left me with this sense of peace and purpose. I just had to wait now, and waiting wasn't hard with that sweet breeze lifting the curtains.

I wasn't far off. They got there at seven twenty two. I heard three car doors slam outside. I slipped a blue nitrile glove on my right hand.

I heard the eleavtor door, and then nothing. There was a knock on the door, a pounding, and then the handle turned and Bogdan kicked it open so that it slammed back against the wall. He burst into the room carrying a piece of plumbing pipe in his hand and looking terrible, like he hadn't slept or changed clothes since yesterday morning. Dimmy and Ivor were with him. Dimmy carried a golf club with a big brass head, and Ivor had a knife. Ivor closed the door beind him and locked it.

"Get up you son of a bitch!" Bogdan said, kicking over a chair. "You fucking asshole! Where's my money? Where's Alena?"

"Alena's not here. Your money's on the table, only it's not yours. It's mine. I won it."

"Mother fuck you did! You cheat! You were cheating all fucking night! You cheated me at cards and then you cheated me with my whore wife. I'm going to fuck you up, man. I'm going to fuck you up so bad no one will ever look at your fucking face again. And then I'm going to fuck her up. She gets it too. Understand me, asshole? You hear me? "

Bogdan started for me and I reached inside my jacket and pulled out the Heckler & Koch P2000SK 9 mm and got to my feet, thumbing off the safety.

That froze him. That froze them all. Bogdan went white.

"Now I've got a message for you, Bogdan. I've got a message for all three of you. I should have given it to you yesterday but the opportunity never arose. The message is this: Turgay Ozalan knows what you and Grecco have been up to and he wants it to stop. He sends you this."

"Holy Mary Mother of—!"

I pulled the trigger and a little black hole appered in Bogdan's forehead while a spray of red shot out the back, splattering against the white Mediterranean walls. Bogdan fell like a rock, the pipe in his hand clattering dully to the tile floor. Dimmy screamed like a woman and Ivor staggered back till he hit the wall and he stopped there, his eyes wide, mouth open.

I picked up the money and put it in my pocket and dropped the gun on Bogdan's chest. Another tragic suicide in this unstable, former eastern-block country. I picked up my bag and walked out, noticing that Ivor had pissed in his pants. I didn't look back. Not once.

I heard the sirens as I was finsihing my coffee, just when I was starting to get worried about her. It was seven forty and the day's card games were starting up. I was on the patio where I could see up and down the street, and there I saw her, a little speck in a blue dress with blonde hair, just as I'd seen her yesterday morning, her long legs scissoring up the street, a big suitcase in her hand.

She started skipping when she saw me and I went to meet her. I hugged her right there in the street, not caring who saw me, and then I hailed a cab and we were on our way.

 

[Pure]

hmmm

my opinion.

that 'happy ending' is OK, and does represent a logical continuation of the romanticized pornerotica in the center of the story. It would give you a solid B, in the thriller romance category or the 'reluctance' literotica category (fucked-into- loving fantasy genre)

what you have now is more unusual, and an "A" story, possibly publishable, given a few adjustments OPPOSITE to those romantic tendencies realized in the 'happy ending.'

As to
My main question really had nothing to do with poker or scuminess, but with what murdering a character does to a porn story. Is there a legitimate place for something like this in porn, or does it just render the sex ridiculous and trivial?

I don't think the plot and ending take it out of the 'quality erotica' category, though they make it atypical as porn, and unsuitable for Penthouse letters.
If the sex is linked to the plot and ending, it's not ridiculous or trivial, though at present the author has not made it clear the the 'romanticism' of the sex scenes is possibly ill founded, or if not, irrelevant to Jeffrey (i.e., even assuming this love-- given J's past, being burned etc., and his seedy plans for the future in drug running--it is not going to be decisive for him.) my two cents.

 

[Pure]

Note to Sher--seeing it coming

Hi Sher,
you said,

Exactly. How many times have you read about a woman murdered by her husband or lover - Laci Petersen - and wondered whether she ever saw it coming? Did she think he loved her, right up until the end? Did he think so too? How many people are that wrong about a lover and never find out, because there's never a reason to kill?

I remember wondering when the Petersen case was first in the news, and there were all those adorable pictures of the happy couple, whether there was ever a moment of genuine affection on his part, or if he was just good at playing the role.

I basically agree with this, and with the idea that sometimes even(or especially) with intimates, one can't see something coming.

The Petersen case is certainly surprising, if, as you say, you look at the pictures along the way, then the corpse.

What needs to be mentioned, however, is that you're essentially talking about a third person view. As if the doc was telling us about Jeffrey being all lovey dovey and Alena getting swept into lust/love.

Consider, however, what the Petersen thing might have looked like, had we a copy of his diary. {Added: Of course if the diary merely said, 'day 1: we had great sex and I readlized how much I loved her.
day 3 i killed her and dumped her in the bay. or said 'day 3 she disappeared I wonder what happened', we'd conclude he censored his diary and for some reason did not put his thoughts there.}

Doc has the problem that Jeffrey is narrating; Jeff says he's in love; Jeff never, apparently, questions that she's fallen for him and not just making a strategic relocation with a new minor gangsta.

This is a problem for the Doc, and the present draft ensures surprise by having scarcely a clue except Jeff's resentment over reluctant woman, and Jeff's thinking beauty is a danger. OTOH, it would not work for us to hear Jeffrey thinking, "Yeah, she's great, but this connection could get to be a real drag."

 

[shereads]

BTW, I agree with Penelope's assessment of Jeffrey's character, but "scum" is such a negative term. I prefer to call him a Pondlife-Derived American who is morality-challenged.

 

[Boxlicker101]

There are some typos or misspellings and I have put them in bold with no comments. Otherwise, comments of mine are in bold.

Dr. Mabeuse:
I reached for his cards like an eager tinhorn and he grabbed my wrist. His smile had worn razor thin over the course of the night; his eyes were exhausted but still hard enough to flash in anger for an instant over his tints before they warmed to the old charmer look.

Boxlicker101: Would you be able to see that through his dark glasses? Also, wouldn’t that ruse of wanting to look without calling be so phony that he would be suspicious?

DM: "Ah-ah-ah!" he warned. "No looking."

[typo:] even if he had gone to school in Wisonsin, USA.

He and his pals Ivor and Dimmy had attached themselves to us last night in the hotel casino without so much as an introduction, pushing their coke and trying to impress us as a couple of local gangsters, talking it up about their boss Grecco and his ties to the Ozalan Turkish mafia. Josh and I had just dropped 50 kilos of hash off in Bari, Montenegro and I knew something about Ozalan and these guys weren’t shit. They'd made us for a couple of American marks and were out to take us, and they were wrong on both counts.

If we'd been able to get alone with Bogdan for five minutes we could have taken care of everything, but his pals and their pals were always around in a big crowd, and then Josh started playing cards with these guys and I got sucked in, and right away broke a tooth on old Boggy and almost came to blows. I had my reasons for not liking him from the start. He got under my skin and wouldn't get out and so here were at eight in the morning still playing.

BL: I’m puzzled about this paragraph. In the previous one, you say Bogdan and others have “attached” themselves to you against your wishes and in this para. you sound like you have some business with him.

DM: She came into the café and stood getting her bearings, then walked over. As soon as our eyes met something clicked, clunked, and locked into place, like the door on a big, iron safe. I felt the wheels of destiny turning, and my stomach ejected into my chest.

BL: “Clunked” is somewhat negative to use here. Something else would work better but you don’t really need anything else.

DM: Worse, I knew that the same thing was happening to her. I saw the little hitch in her step when it did. It was like we shared the same network, like we were already connected.

BL: How could you “know” that. You could think that or hope that but not know it. Later, it turned out you were wrong, at least at first sight.

DM: Just like that the roof fell in on me. Just like that my heart popped out of my chest and fell into her lap. Knowing what I knew about Bogdan, my heart went out to her, but there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say.

BL: “Roof fell in on me” is really a cliché.


DM: “Oh, it’s no joke. I lose, and you spend the night with him. I win, I get all our money back.”

BL: I can’t actually believe that he would have offered that bet or that she would have gone along with it. Still, a writer is allowed one basic premise, that can be illogical.

DM: He laughed and shuffled the cards. I couldn’t tell whether she believed him or not, or whether she thought it was a tasteless joke and that was bad enough, but
On a hand Bogdan dealt I pulled a straight on the seventh card. It had been tight hand with nothing showing but my small pair, and there was a big pot. I figured Bogdan for two pair or three of a kind because he kept on raising my bets. It was perfect.

BL: If you have just a small pair and you figure him for three of a kind or two pair, would you keep calling his raises? Presumably, he had a pair showing and had you beat on the board. Since your first three cards were nothing, would you have bet or called his bets at all?

DM: [typo:] It had been an clean win.


DM: We walked away from the café fast. She was angry, so I just kept my mouth shut. I was hoping she’d stay angry, so angry that she’d fuck me out of spite.


DM: "Where are you staying? " she asked. “Do you have a car?”

"No. Dmitiri drove. I’m staying at the Metropole."

BL: Why did Dimmy drive? I thought you met them at the casino.

DM: “Does he know that’s where you are?”

"Bogdan fucked with the wrong people this time." I said. "I don’t bother with small-timers like this but he was asking for it, and now he’s into me for twenty-five hundred E’s, his shitty little boat and his wife.”

BL: This is the first time a boat was mentioned, or is this part of the bluff? Are you saying that Bogdan OWES you 2,500? His wife could have seen that you were betting money so why would he actually owe you anything, and why would she have believed that he did?

DM: I stood behind her, reached up and my fingers were shaking like I had the DT’s. I pushed her hair out of the way and got a whiff of fresh warm female. I fumbled with the knot **oat**[typo] the back of her neck and got it untied and threw the two ends down over her chest. Her hands came up and she grabbed the dress just as it fell, trapping it against her chest. The back slipped down to the top of her ass, and I was looking at the most gorgeous human back I’ve ever seen.

BL: I’m wondering about her dress. If she has a dress that has a strap or cord running from two sides of the bodice and that ties behind her neck, when you untie the knot, the bodice part might fall forward, but she caught that before it went too far. The back wouldn’t fall at all. It would not have been held up by the cord and, even if it had, catching the front would have prevented the back from following. Did she also have a zipper on the back?

DM: “I didn’t take that bet lightly,” I said. “It was almost twelve hundred euros. And you know what? It was a bargain.”

BL: I thought you fronted Bogdan 500 E, which he lost. The last hand was not 1,200 either.

DM: [typo]. Befoe I could find anything else to say...

I bent down and picked her up. Without even thinking about it I bent down and picked her up like a groom picks up his bride. She tried to twist away but I held her close and again I got that thrill of using my strength against her, against those frail womanly arms. I held her tight and carried her into the bedroom. Staggering just a bit because my legs weren’t working properly.

Another man’s wife. That’s what she was and I couldn’t forget it. The knowledge made me desperate.

BL: This paragraph seems somehow disconnected.

DM: I stood up and started tearing off my clothes, and she lay there breathing hard, her eyes closed, waiting. I knew the clock was ticking, that I only had so much time. The morning light was coming through the shutters in bars, striping her body like a prisoner, and I could tell she was already feeling remorse.

BL: You have 24 hours and, after playing cards all night, you almost have to sleep some of that time.

DM: I got naked and got onto the bed next to her and took her in my arms, but she turned her face away.

[typo] my cock found her and sunk into that tight, swollen pussy.

[typo] A biref shudder on her part

...

I marveled again at what an astonishing idiot Bogdan must be.

"Jeffrey, that was exceedingly stupid, to bring his wife here. You know what I'm thinking."

BL: Wouldn’t he shorten your name to “Jeff”?

DM: I put the phone down, went to the front door and made sure it was locked, then I slipped my Travel-lock over the deadbolt and locked that on too. I glanced at the bedroom door and then slid the key under the rug, locking us in.

"I'm not his whore," she said. "I stay out of his filthy games. I wasn't going to come with you at all. I was just angry and wanted to get away from him, but then you frightened me with that Grecco talk. I believed it when you said Grecco worked for you. He doesn't, does he? You don't even know who he is."

BL: This plan seems very complicated and time consuming and risks a substantial amount and the gain is doubtful, and not all that much, when split four ways. They risked 2,000 or so euros, about $2,400 and plan to prostitute the man’s beautiful wife and murder you, for an unknown gain. That seems risky and not very likely.

DM: I didn’t lie. I didn't say anything. She smiled a weary, knowing smile. "I knew it. You don't fuck like a thug. You don’t fuck like anyone I've ever met."

She hugged herself, still hiding her breasts. "He's stealing from Grecco you know. And Grecco's stealing from Ozalan. They all steal from each other. It's all fucked up."

BL: Earlier you were confident that Bogdan didn’t work for Grecco. Now, it turns out you were wrong. If he really is a hood, wouldn’t he have shut up about it?

DM: [Text omitted] (There's another sex scene her, starting in the shower and leading to pretty hot sex in handcuffs on the bed. She loves it and he does too. Their mutual affection deepens. They're beginning to fall in love and Marija wants to leave Bogdan.)

[typo] I lay with my head on her stomach s ...

She told me how it was now, with no place to turn, how the fact that everyone was waiting her to leave Bogdan ....

[typo] We dressed...and ordered dinner. I took her cuffs off and we ate in companiable silence. ...

She really was mine, for now at least. I could do whatever I wanted to her and she couldn't escape, couldn't defend herself. The thought sunk into me like a shot of liquor and must have showed in the way I caressed her, for she felt it too.She closed her eyes and sighed and pressed herself into the bed.

BL: The previous handcuff scene was omitted but wouldn’t you have gone into all this at that time? If so, it is redundant here.

DM: There was no way she could deny it. Her lips were parted, her eyes were glazed with lust and excitement at my sudden violence. Her arms over her head brought her breasts up and into prominence. She squeezed her knees together, but that wouldn't help her now. I took a breast in my hand and squeezed it It was soft and warm and heavy. The nipple was so hard it tickled my palm like a raisin.

BL: Wouldn’t lying like that, arms above the head, cause her breasts to flatten?

[typo] DM: I could feel her worried eyes on me, feel the tensiuon in her body as she gripped the chain. ...

Another man's wife, another man's lover. I couldn't help but think of Bogdan out there somehwere fuming, drinking, cursing the night, and it made her all the sweeter. The clock was ticking, the moon was rising over the hills to the east of town. I ate her like I kissed her, using my tongue and my shoulders, even my chest and my belly to urge her on and find the sweetness in my mouth. Just let her come, I thought. Just let her feel one tenth of what I feel for her. Just let her feel my love.

BL: Why do you keep thinking of her as “another man’s wife? Somebody in your line of work wouldn’t care about that, especially when the man is somebody you dislike so much.

[typo] DM: and we retraced our steps from yesterday, We made a game of looking at people's shoes, ...

=======


BL:I enjoyed the sex in the story but I have some quibbles to make about other things.

You locked the door and made the key unavailable. How then did room service get in and how did you leave?

I can’t figure out who you are. Are you a small-time criminal smuggling 50 kilos of hash or are you a hitman for the Turkish mafia. If the former, there was no need to kill Alena and it could be dangerous. She was seen with you and you probably left fingerprints and DNA all over, and she can be traced to you. If you are a hitman and the smuggling was a cover, the same thing would apply. Besides that, fooling around like that on a job can also be very dangerous.
__________________

 

[Boxlicker101]

I read the "happy ending" after posting the previous post. I can't believe they would have come at you with weapons like those, even if all they wanted was to work you over. First, they wouldn't have taken a chance on you being armed and, second, they wouldn't have taken a chance on you being a marital arts expert. They would have had guns aimed at you and then started to use the pipe or whatever.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

This poker thing is out of hand. Let me clarify what happened in the fatal hand: Cards in parentheses are hole cards i.e. not shown)

In order to make this one easier to figure, I gave Jeffrey a straight to the 6 as final hand. In the story is says straight to the J. The principles are the same.

Here's the hand. There was a 10 E ante by each side.

Deal:
Jeffrey: (6 spades) (4 diamonds) 10 Spades
Bogdan: (J Clubs) (Q Hearts) 8 Clubs

Bets: Jeffrey opens: 50 E B: Sees, raises 10 E J calls Pot Value 140 E
-----
Jeffrey (6 S) (4 D) 10S 3H
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8H 5D

Bets: J-50 E B: Sees,. raises 20 E J calls Pot Value 280 E
------
Jeffrey (6S) (4 D) 10S 3H 3 C
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8H 5D QD

Bets: Jeffrey: 100 E B sees, raises 100 E J calls Pot value: 680 E
-------
Jeffrey (6C) (4 D) 10S 3H 3C 5S
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8H 5D QD JH

Bets: Jeffrey 150 E B: sees, Pot Value: 980 E
----------
Jeffrey (6C) (4 D) 10S 3H 3C 5S (2 H)
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8H 5D QD JH (A S)

Bets: Jeffrey: 250 E B calls Pot Value: 1480 E

Jeffrey has a straight to the six caught on the last card (filled an open ended straight. Odds: ~1/13*)(*My mistake. The very rough odds are 8/52, or 2/13, or ~1/6.5)

Bogdan has 2 Pair, Q and J. He had reason to think he was ahead. His only mistake was over-aggressive betting

So now we can understand J's thinking this way: in 4 cards he has a 3-cards straight, which, at this early point, is worth staying in for. In his next card he pulls a pair, which is better than anything B has, so again he stays in. On his 6th card he has a 4-card open-ended straight. The odds on hitting that one are very roughly 1/7, so it's definitely worth staying in.

Bogdan's drunk and coked up, but I imagines his thinking was something like this: Jack and Queen in the hole is a strong hand, worth staying in with. Jeffrey's showing nothing until he pulls the second 3, at which point B pulls his second Q. After that he pulls a second Jack, and he's pretty much got to stay in.

J gets his payoff on the 7th (hole) card, and pretends to bluff, betting high and giving B the "I'm bluffing" tell of blowing in his hands. B bites and loses.

Jeffrey was very lucky in that none of his straight is showing. Bogdan was unlucky in that his hand was good but not good enough. There's nothing especially skillful about J's play. Winning this hand - and Alena - was the result of staying sober and smart all night long. That's how poker works. Anyone can win one hand. It's how you do over time that separates the good players from the bad.

If Bogdan screws up anywhere, it's in his over aggressive betting. But by this time he was drunk, coked up, and thiinking with his balls. And who knows? Maybe he was planning to bluff and just never got the cards he needed. This is the kind of hand that a single high pair can scare everyone off.

 

[Boxlicker101]

This poker thing is out of hand. Let me clarify what happened in the fatal hand: Cards in parentheses are hole cards i.e. not shown)

In order to make this one easier to figure, I gave Jeffrey a straight to the 6 as final hand. In the story is says straight to the J. The principles are the same.

Here's the hand. There was a 10 E ante by each side.

Deal:
Jeffrey: (6 spades) (4 diamonds) 10 Spades
Bogdan: (J Clubs) (Q Hearts) 8 Clubs

Bets: Jeffrey opens: 50 E B: Sees, raises 10 E J calls Pot Value 140 E
-----
Jeffrey (6 S) (4 D) 10 S 3 H
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8 H 5 D

Bets: J-50 E B: Sees,. raises 20 E J calls Pot Value 280 E
------
Jeffrey (6S) (4 D) 10 S 3H 3 C
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8 H 5 D Q D

Bets: Jeffrey: 100 E B sees, raises 100 E J calls Pot value: 680 E
-------
Jeffrey (6C) (4 D) 10 S 3 H 3 C 5 S
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8 H 5 D Q D J H

Bets: Jeffrey 150 E B: sees, raises 200 E J calls Pot Value: 980 E
----------
Jeffrey (6C) (4 D) 10 S 3 H 3 C 5 S (2 H)
Bogdan (J C) (Q H) 8 H 5 D Q D J H (A S)

Bets: Jeffrey: 250 E B calls Pot Value: 1480 E

Jeffrey has a straight to the six caught on the last card (filled an open ended straight. Odds: ~1/13)
Bogdan has 2 Pair, Q and J. He had reason to think he was ahead. His only mistake was over-aggressive betting

Actually, the odds would be better than that. Before the last card was dealt, there were eight cards that would complete the straight, four deuces and four sixes. Ten cards are visible to J and none of them is a six or deuce so he knows the ods would be 8 out of 42. J was betting very aggressively. After three and four cards, he had only a ten-high. After five cards he had a very low pair and an outside chance at a straight. I don't know if he was bluffing or not but he was betting pretty high for having such a poor hand. B actually had the better hand until the last card. I wouldn't call that over-aggressive, I wouyld call it good luck for J.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Okay. Can we now talk about something important? Like the color of Jeffrey's socks?

 

[Pure]

Request

To Box and all. Please do not repost an entire story in commenting on it. Use email if you're that involved. For several to repost a story will create massive and unwieldy threads.

Box, please [now] delete all but the immediate para (or occasionally two) that you are commenting on. If it's necessary, summarize what's taken out, in a sentence. You might also consider just making a private list of minor typos and PMing them to the doc. This is your chance to do your own abridging, rather than have me deal with the issue.

Some of your comments are quite good, but they don't require 10,000 words to make sense.

Thanks.
the mod

 

[Boxlicker101]

To Box and all. Please do not repost an entire story in commenting on it. Use email if you're that involved. For several to repost a story will create massive and unwieldy threads.

Box, please [now] delete all but the immediate para (or occasionally two) that you are commenting on. If it's necessary, summarize what's taken out, in a sentence. You might also consider just making a private list of minor typos and PMing them to the doc. This is your chance to do your own abridging, rather than have me deal with the issue.

Some of your comments are quite good, but they don't require 10,000 words to make sense.

Thanks.
the mod

Okay, I cut out at leaast 80% of the words but it will make it harder to follow.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Some of Box's points are largely do to my clumsy attempt to condense the story the night before I posted it. Some of them are more substantive.

--Bogdan's eyes—he's "looking over his tints". That's why his eyes are visible. "Tints" is slang for sunglasses

--Believability of the Bet: This is of course, the whole point of the story, and to say it's unbelievable is like saying that Cindy Lou's experience on the bus isn't believeable either. It's the unbelievability that makes it a story worth telling.

The motivation for Jeffrey's accepting the bet is open to interpretation, but I think it's believable. He's been playing cards all night and he's sick of it. At least this 500 Euro's will end it one way or the other. If J wins, Bogdan's done. If J loses, he can finally beg off and go home. Also, it gives him an in with Alena. It's a conversation starter if nothing else, and it'll show her what kind of prick her husband really is, which is in J's favor. And finally, what choice does he have? Bogdan's nickle and diming him to death.

It was a tough scene to write, because of course it's outrageous and unbelievable, and if anyone has any suggestyions on making it more believable, I'm certainly open to suggestions.

In my defense I'll say that it was intended that Jeffrey not really take it seriously either at and he says so as they're walking back to the hotel. He knows it's absurd, and yet he hopes to use it as a kind of wedge to get to know her, a kind of shared joke they can both laugh about, though with intriguing sexual overtones. Something happens to him when he sees that dismissive, supercilious look on her face though, and he decides to try and intimidate her or frighten her. When he scares her and then says "It felt good," that's what he means—it felt good to wipe that look off her face and make her take him seriously.

The bet itself wasn't so much a motivator for either of them as it was an excuse. Jeffrey is fascinated by Alena and wants to be with her. Alena was looking for a way out of a lousy relationship; she found Jeffrey physically attractive, and she was looking to get back at Bogdan. The bet was a way to hoist B on his own petard.

What finally makes up her mind to go along with it is in the licking scene. I suppose she was expecting him to order her to lie down and spread 'em, and instead when he falls to his knees worshipping her with his mouth, it sets something off in her. She's never been treated like this and it shocks and confuses her.

The scene where they first meet and he can tell what she's thinking—well, if you've ever had one of those meetings with someone, then you know that's not unusual at all. Sometimes you just click with someone and you know exactly that they've clicked with you and you can see the exact second when that click takes place. To me, it's just like a click and a clunk, or maybe a click and a rush. It's one of the more magical and mysterious moments in life.

--The Dress. It's a halter top. That means the bodice ties behind her neck. I pictured it as being kind of a sheath. Untie it, and it falls. Author's license.

--Bogdan, his boys, guns, and the Badger game: Bogdan is a small time thug. He probably sells coke, hustles cards (or tries), and does small-time muscle jobs for Mr. Grecco: slashing tires, stealing cars, courier jobs, intimidating people, junk like that.

He doesn't have a gun. Remember, this is Croatia or Montenegro, not New York. Guns are rare here. Guns are pretty rare everywhere except the USA.

In my experience, most small time shady characters are not like what you see on TV. They're not obviously criminal or even evil, they're not criminal geniuses, they don’t sit around in hangouts with shoulder holsters under bare light bulbs, they don't kidnap people and rub them out. They're very often inept, sometimes impulsive, occasionally bullies with a penchant for violence, but for the most part, if you saw them in a line-up you wouldn't know they were criminals

I gave some thought as to what kind of weapons B and his friends would use. A pipe and a golf club are about right, I think. They're the kinds of things you can keep in the trunk of your car, they're not suspicious, and they do a hell of a job. They're not expecting any trouble from Jeffrey, who they still think is an American tourist.

The badger game scam is entirely appropriate for someone like Bogdan. It would have worked like this: Alena would have gone back to J's room, J thinking he was going to get laid. She'd excuse herself and cal Bogdan on her cell and tell hm where they were. Before the sex starts, Bogdan shows up pretending to be the enraged husband and demands money from Jeffrey to assuage his anger and pride. They get their money, Alena keeps her 'virtue', The badger game is a very old hustle that's still being played today. So Alena wouldn't have to actually screw anyone.

Bogdan's take on it is this—whenever he plays cards and loses big, he'll toss Alena to the winner. He wants her to go with the guy and find out where he's staying, call Bogdan and unlock the door, and the B and his pals can come in and rip the guy off for whtever he has and get their money back under the guise of the badger game. It's something he'd do occasionally. It certainly wouldn't be a professional, full-time occupation for Bogdan.

J's aware that this might be a badger scam as soon as he screws her, which is why he takes the batteries out of the phone and locks her in.

The lock, by the way, is a traveler's lock that either fits over a dead bolt or goes in the door jamb. He puts the key under the rug in the apartment so he can open the door anytime. A doesn't know where the key is though. I can see where it might look like it says he puts the key under the door though, so I've changed it to say he drops the key in a potted plant.

In any case, Bogdan & co. certainly wouldn't be looking to kill Jeffrey, just scare him or push him around as needed, and take everything he has. A badger scam is basically like a mugging, only less dangerous for the perpetrator.

The idea that a martial arts expert could take on three armed men is simply TV fantasy. Oh, I suppose there are some dedicated martial artists who could do it in the right circumstances, but a martial arts expert wouldn't be out snorting coke and playing cards all night either.

Every fight—real fight—I've ever seen where someone tried to use karate etc has ended up with both guys rolling around in the gutter punching and kneeing just like in any other fight. Unless he's a truly dedicated practitioner, it's fantasy to think a man with his bare hands can defend himself against a man with a weapon, let alone three. Jackie Chan movies are fantasies.

--Jeffrey: Again, I think TV has influenced what we expect of a "hit man". The cliché is a highly-trained super-efficient killing machine. The way you say "someone in his line of work" or "if he were a real hood" seems to imply you're expecting someone from central casting.

The way I think of Jeffrey is this: mid-20's, college drop-out. Very smart, not much conscience. Learns he can make big $$$ running hashish from the middle east to eastern europe, and makes 2-3 trips. On his last trip, one of his Turkish contacts maybe tells him that Bogdan and Grecco have been ripping the Turks off and that Mr Ozalan would look very kindly on anyone who could send them a message to stop. J sees this as his chance to maybe move up into the big time and tells the guy he'll take care of it. It's not like he gets a badge saying "Hitman for the Turkish Mafia" or has to pass a test or anything.

In any case, the "warning" he sends Bogdan is so terribly unprofessional and out of proportion to the crime that we know there's something wrong with him. These are small-time hoods. You don't kill someone for something like that.

The truth is, most "criminals" are very much like we are. They get lonely, they fall in love, they screw up, they love their mothers and are afraid of their wives, etc. What makes Jeffrey truly horrible is that he differs from you and I in just that one tiny detail. If he were the Terminator from the start the story wouldn't work at all. It's the banality of evil that does it.

Anyhow, he really doesn't know what he's going to do with Bogdan. He doesn't have any diabolically clever plan. Before he can find Bogdan or Grecco, B runs into him in a casino by accident, and Bogdan starts acting all friendly, effectively putting J in a clinch and tying his hands. If you've ever been set upon in a foreign country by a tourist-hustler, you'll recognize the type: impossible to get rid of.

If you read the beginning again, you'll see that J never says that Bogdan doesn't know Grecco. He says that "these guys weren't anything", meaning that B and his pals were just very small time and not the bigshot gangsters they pretend to be. The story's full of this kind of ambiguity, because if course I'm hiding Jeffrey's treu nature. When Alena asks Jeffrey whether he really knows Grecco, J says, "I didn't lie. I didn't say anything."

--Dmitri drove them from the hotel casino to the café where they played cards. I have to make it clearer though that the hotel with the casino is not the hotel J is staying at.

 

[wishfulthinking]

I'm not softening anything. It's a good fucking story if you ask me, and I'm quite pleased with it.

Good for you. Stick to your guns. When you know it's [fucking] good, it's fucking good.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Quote:
Originally Posted by dr_mabeuse
I'm not softening anything. It's a good fucking story if you ask me, and I'm quite pleased with it.

Good for you. Stick to your guns. When you know it's [fucking] good, it's fucking good.

I agree. It is a good story and I would only make the kinds of changes you detailed in your posts. I can't empathize with the central character but that doesn't mean anything against it.

 

[Pure]

doc said in part

The bet itself wasn't so much a motivator for either of them as it was an excuse. Jeffrey is fascinated by Alena and wants to be with her. Alena was looking for a way out of a lousy relationship; she found Jeffrey physically attractive, and she was looking to get back at Bogdan. The bet was a way to hoist B on his own petard.

What finally makes up her mind to go along with it is in the licking scene. I suppose she was expecting him to order her to lie down and spread 'em, and instead when he falls to his knees worshipping her with his mouth, it sets something off in her. She's never been treated like this and it shocks and confuses her.

I hope you stay true to the first person narrative, with that person having no extra powers, mind reading, seeing at a distance. It's good for the reader to find Alena a bit enigmatic, for instance, it's good to leave open the possibility that Jeffrey mere *thinks* he's licked her to lifelong devotion.

If you have time, I'd like to hear from you about how you solved the problem of Jeff apparently candidly telling a story, so that one thinks they know his mind. Then he does something very out of the ordinary as far as we know at least. IOW, on the surface, to have Jeff as narrator seems the most difficult way to go, if he's to do the unexpected.

Did you plan a total absence of clues? That would be a kind of 'acte gratuit' as in The Stranger, where the narrator is on the beach, and the sun gets in his eyes and he kills an Arab.

Did you place some subtle ones, beyond a couple I mentioned (beauty as dangerous). Do you agree, that, like a detective story or a mystery, the reader has to find some 'sense' after the fact. Or as you OK with the readers saying, "Holy Jesus, that's a surprise. I guess all of us have those moments where something is done 'for no apparent reason,'--like an impulsive suicide--.
For these events, no amount of 'delving' could ever 'explain' the thing, so we can only accept that they exist."

 

[dr_mabeuse]

doc said in part



If you have time, I'd like to hear from you about how you solved the problem of Jeff apparently candidly telling a story, so that one thinks they know his mind. Then he does something very out of the ordinary as far as we know at least. IOW, on the surface, to have Jeff as narrator seems the most difficult way to go, if he's to do the unexpected.

Did you plan a total absence of clues? That would be a kind of 'acte gratuit' as in The Stranger, where the narrator is on the beach, and the sun gets in his eyes and he kills an Arab.

*L* I wish I could take credit for being so skillful. The fact is, the story was originally written with a "happy ending". I wanted Jeffrey and Alena to fall in love and run away together.

Stephen King says something about plot that I like a lot. He says you don't create plot as much as you unearth it, like digging up a bone. You never know what kind of bone it's going to be until you start digging.

I just about had this one out of the ground and mounted on a stand when it hit me, "Jesus! What if he was everything he pretended to be and he ends up killing her?!" And at once I saw how perfect that would be.

He's already pretending to be something he's not, and the reader's in on that. We see Jeffrey trying to impress her, and we see that she doesn't believe him when he tries to come off as a gangster. It nevber occurs to us that he might be telling the truth, or at least not lying. All I had to do was change the ending and I could leave everything else just as it was, and it would be a wonderfully effective shocker. His revelation at the end was as much a surpise for me as it was for the reader, and since I was already so invested in the happy ending, I think it was probably harder for me to take.

That's why I had to bring the story here and see if the ending was just too shocking and cynical.

Had I known the ending when I started writing, I don't think there's any way I could have written the story so effectively. I would have been putting in clues and foreshadowing and giggling at how clever I was being. As it was, the "evil" ending fit perfectly on the story I'd already written. I just had to change a few lines at the start to imply that maybe Jeffrey knew who Bogdan was back then. I kept those ambuguous enough so that you can't really tell what they mean though.

As far as the ending goes, I really had the feeling of discovering something that already existed, like in King's bone analogy. I didn't write the story as much as I discovered it. It just all fell into place.

 

[drlust]

Hi:

I've been working on some other things, so I came to this late. But coming late has the advantage that I've been able to read the entire discussion before kibbitzing. I like this story very much and wouldn't change the ending for any money. I might add a word of two in the crucial paragraph to increase the reader's sense that he/she never actually knew Jeffrey as the stone-cold type that he is, but I think it's a brilliant twist. Don't use that sappy (sorry, but it's sappy) happy ending. Montenegro is not a place where sappy works. It was and remains a land of serious hard cases, even if a lot of them are small time shits like Bogdan. Danger lives just beneath the surface all over Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, parts of Albania and parts of Macedonia--the same way it does in some of the scarier parts of America's cities, but it's a danger you evoke well in this story. Bogdan is a knucklehead from Wisconsin who thought he could go there and be a big shot and it didn't work out. Poker is a perfect metaphor for that lurking presence of danger, and the two handed game makes it even better, because both players are assuming that the other is the "patsy".

I think the flow is good and, like all of your stories, the sex is very well done. If I were going to change anything, it's this. The twist doesn't quite fit with the guy who had to hold down the phone plunger while pretending to be Greco's boss. If he's that stone cold that he'd kill her in broad daylight in a public park, then he wouldn't be feeling that anxiety at that moment. At least I don't think so. This little detail bothered me when I cast my mind back over the story, because suddenly Jeffrey seemed just a bit too soft in the apartment. I'd be interested to hear you take on this.

Two points from earlier postings:

1. I too loved the back licking scene. Keep it!

2. Montenegro is awash in guns, as are the other places I listed above. And not just hand guns. Personal heavy weapons are all over the place. At the moment, most of them are put away, but they're in bedroom closets, under beds, and in the trunks of cars. So it's perfectly believable that there would be so many guns floating around.

By any chance did you recently read Jon Jackson's Badger Games? This story reminds me a lot of that book. If you haven't read it, check it out of your local library before you sign off on this one. Jackson's opening chapters suck you into Kosovo just before it descended into hell in 1999 and give you a sense for the suppressed violence of the place.

Sorry if I'm invoking expert knowledge here, but I have spent a lot of time in that part of the world. The characters you create are all there, and I've met a couple of them in various forms in pubs. Fortunately, I never ran into anyone quite as bad as Jeffrey, but there are thousands of Bogdans and Alenas all over the region.

Allan

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Jeez, Dr. L. I'm terribly flattered, and not just from professional courtesy either (one Dr to another.)

I think you're right about that phone scene. That was left over from an earlier version, in which Jeffrey was just a small time dope-runner trying to look badder than he was. I left it in because, at this point in the story, that's still the way I want the reader to think of him, and because I think that Jeffrey himself at this point is just trying to get into Alena's pants, and is not above a silly little gesture like that, just as he's not above dropping Grecco's name and then not following up on it.

If Jeffrey were really a hard case, he could have just gone and got his gun and come out and told her that she and Bogdan were on the hit list and so she'd better put out if she wanted to live, but that would have ruined the story. On the other hand, there should have been some slightly moresophisticated trick he could have used besides pretending to talk into the telephone, which is pretty juvenile.Your point's well taken.

I'm afraid it's also academic though. Once this discussion kind of petered out, I made some minor changes to the story and submitted it. It should be up in a couple of days or so. The only change worth mentioning is that I gave Jeffrey a younger sister whom he mentions while they're talking, saying how he's paying her tuition back in the states. It's an attempt to make him seem more domestic to Alena, but is actually kind of corny. Oh well.

To tell you the truth, I hadn't even considered the recent history of the region when it came to guns and violence. I was afraid to specify exactly where the story took place and so I intentionally left it vague, but I did have a sense of that entire Adriatic area being a hot spot for smugglers and shady characters of all kinds, as well as being a beautiful tourist spot, something like Miami in the '80's without as much wealth.

My big concern now is to see how the readers react to an erotic heroine being killed off by her erotic lover. I expect a lot of people won't like it at all, but we'll see.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I guess the story posted last night.

With 12 votes, it's my lowest rated story with a 3.83.