First, let me say. I don't mind at all if you didn't like a chapter. If criticism is voiced as respectful and constructive as in your post, I find it really helpful and interesting. I think there was only a single time when somebody voiced a criticism over one of my stories that I took offense with and that wasn't even because of what they criticised but because they suggested that the creative choices I made were "mistakes" because I just didn't know how to write it correctly because I'm a woman. So you're always free to voice your disappoinment, I really don't mind that.
What I found most interesting about your post was that you said
That I found fascinating because this revealed to me that you have a very different reading of the earlier chapters from how I view them. I would say that chapter 8 dials up the ruthlessness and cruelty to 11, so much so that my main worry was that I might have gone too far and portrayed him a bit out of character with how ruthless and sadistic he is here.JTCK wrote: Mon Aug 25, 2025 1:17 pm I feel like he isn’t as determined as he was at the beginning of the story. (...), and the spanking scene doesn’t have that same ruthless I-take-what-I-want mentality.
For me, the central idea behind Mark was always that he is NOT an uncaring psychopath but someone who is capable of empathy. And he views his empathy as an obstacle to overcome. He compartmentalizes his empathy and guilt by playing the role of a psychopath. And that role has two major facets: First, in his conversations with Claire he constantly acts as if her rape is just some everday occurence that is no big deal. When he talks to her about the room temperature, how she likes her sandwich or whether Eugene respects her, he trivializes what he's doing to her. And in chapter 3 he remarks himself how cruel that is:
That is the moment where his own empathy literally gets the better of him. He knows his persona would require to throw another jab at her but he can't bring himself to do it and just lets her rest unbothered for a moment.Mark had taken a few steps back. When Claire didn’t respond, he had stopped talking as well. She looked so lifeless to him. She was just staring at that clock. He could feel that unwanted feeling of pity slowly creeping up his spine and reaching his brain. Maybe, just maybe he had overdone it a little.
(...)
He decided to finally reduce the temperature in the room a little and take another bathroom break, not that he needed one. He knew that he should ask Claire again about the temperature but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He would rape her anyway so it was okay if he let the mask slip for a moment, right?
And the second facet of his psycho persona are the sadistic taunts during the assaults.
My point is, Mark has always been hesitant in the story. Whether that's in chapter 3 when he leaves Claire alone to recalibrate in the bathroom because her suffering is affecting him too much, in chapter 4 before the moment of first penetration when he shuts down his rising guilt with a cruel joke, in chapter 5 when in response to getting bitten the first time he does not respond by beating her up, or in chapter 6 when Claire weaponizes his own rules designed to assuage his guilt against him and then proceeds to tear down the casual indifference part of his persona with her emotional outburst.
What Mark wants is to overcome the resistance of his victims within the rules he has set for himself. As an aside, that also explains why he doesn't just use a ton of lube, viagra or sedatives on his victims to make his life easier. He would view that as cheating, like an athlete doping their body to achieve victory. He wants the fun and thrill of the rape, the feeling of victory, without feeling too much like an irredeemable monster. He can't view himself as good, but he wants to see himself at least as not as bad as someone who doesn't give a fuck at all.
You once said that you liked just reading the dialogue without the narration. And the interesting part for me about that is: The part that defines his character and his struggle is lost when you do that. And if you choose to view Mark like that early on in the story, then I get where you are coming from. Then you can read him as just the ruthless psycho who takes whatever he wants. And then it makes sense to look at chapter 8 and ask yourself: "Why does he bother with this whole spanking and humiliation routine and does not just take what he wants?" But if you view his character like I intended, then you see that just as earlier he simply operates within the rules he set for himself. If he doesn't threaten her with death or extreme violence or literally just beats her up until she surrenders, then there is just nothing he can do to just take what he wants. But if you view him through the lens of his own rules, then what he does in chapter 8 is the most cruel thing he did in the entire story. It reveals how this "I'm not that bad..."-story he tells himself is a farce. He proceeds to break her by poking at her identity as a mathematician, by having her reexperience his cum leaking over and over again, by dragging her crush, her father, her childhood friend into the experience. That is an escalation in the psychological brutality that he justifies to himself by saying "Hey, it could be worse. It's not like I cut one of her limbs off and ate it in front of her. I'm not Hannibal Lecter."
So what I take away from your comment is that I seem to have failed in the earlier chapters to communicate all this properly. Most likely because I felt like I was already spending too much time on Mark's internal struggle and I didn't want to make him too sympathetic. I feared that after chapter 3 readers might actually pity him and with chapter 5 I wanted to shut these thoughts down, essentially showing that there is nothing worth feeling sorry for.
I'm very curious to see how you will view the final three chapters. Because the narrative will now bring these things to the forefront. The central narrative question for chapters 1 to 5 was "Will he rape her or will Claire find a way out of this?" and we know the answer to that. Chapter 6 was a reset point for the whole story. The central narrative question now is "Will Claire be able to maintain her perception of herself or will she let him define how she views herself?" And for Mark the question similarly is one of self-perception. Will he be able to keep the mask on until the very end and revel in victory as he breaks his record? In the typical three act structure for stories we have reached now the low point of the story when all hope seems lost and the protagonist seems completely and utterly defeated. Chapter 8 is the end of The Empire Strikes Back in Star Wars, the bleakest moment in the entire story for the protagonist. Claire and Mark fought over that kiss, Mark won and as a result Claire's self perception has been altered to viewing herself as a cum receptacle.
And chapter 9 will now bring all this to a conclusion. But I can tell you already that from the perspective of wanting Mark to be this ruthless psycho who just takes whatever he wants without any restraint, you will probably not enjoy the chapter very much. Because I never intended to write a story like that.
And yeah, about what you said about the dialogue feeling less sharp. I agree for Claire in this chapter. Especially compared to her voice in chapter 6 or the hints of sarcasm in chapter 3, I think her dialogue is less interesting here. I'll be honest, it's really difficult to write something really clever for a character that is just so utterly and completely defeated as she is in this chapter. Explosive anger or wittiness is much easier to make compelling than despair. But for Mark I disagree. For me, Mark's dialogue serves perfectly what I tried to describe earlier. I think compared to most stories you read on the forum, his taunts are clever, they strike at Claire individually and are not just some generic "Oh you like that you little slut, don't you?" once the victim gets wet against her will.
