An Unfortunate Misstep

[Mister X]

I like this story very much, because it is well written, short, arousing, and for me there is enough background story.

[AdmiralPiet]

@Claire
While I do understand why you are not very fond of this story by your own standards, I think you are a bit too harsh here.

I liked the depiction of the struggle and the twist in the end.
It was a clever implementation of the title.
You had me thinking it was her ex, and the other guy we didn't even know was a surprise. I think that was a good case of "subverting expectations". Some authors today seem to think that means do the most crazy/impropable/unbelievable shit you can imagine, or just do what the audience does not want. Here it came very unsuspected, but it was still possible and believable within the story. Why not?

Also his misstep. Lucky for her, but criminals make mistakes and have unfortunate accidents, as everyone does. One argument was that he might kill her now to cover it up.
But it is one thing to desire her so much that he would become a rapist. Something that propably needed some time, and self-justification before he could do it.
Another thing to make the rational decision to end her life to cover up. Also he left lots of DNA there, and next is the question: What to do with the body?

It could happen, of course. A panic reaction of course. In germany two guys kidnapped a young woman to get money from her rich dad, but they had no plan at all. So when they realised that they lost and the girl could identify them, they killed her and made it all worse for themselves.

I can easily see her recover from this and meeting him as he is led outide the courtroom after the verdict. Him being downtrodden as he looks at a bleak future, she hurt but head held high.
"Was it worth it?"

I also don't have a problem with Leah being a bit of the strong independant woman trope, and not much deeper than that. Not every character needs to be the one-in-a-billion standout.

You wrote a short, well written and easy to read rape fantasy. Mission accomplished.

[Claire]

The ending was odd. It seems like what happened to me with my story The Blowout where I couldn't come up with an ending happened here with your story.

The ending was actually what I planned from the start. If I remember correctly, that was the first thing I came up with. The mirror breaking during the early struggle is a bit of foreshadowing but I agree that the ending doesn't feel inevitable either.


@AdmiralPiet Thank you for the very detailed feedback. Usually, I would respond to that in similar detail. But all in all you are just right and I'm probably too harsh on the second story I ever wrote. And I would never criticise the story of another author this harshly. I just dislike how forgettable it is and it hurts my soul a little every time this gets attention over other stories I wrote that are just better in every dimension. That feeling hasn't gotten better ever since Misstep became my second most popular story on AO3.