All Comments on 'Cross Passage'

... with a sweet ending, Mr. Fiddleheads. Nicely done.

That was a great Siren's Song entry , just what I was hoping to find from this great event .

This is some of the best storytelling that you've done MFH , IMHO . Really top shelf work .

5 *'s

I miss your work, so this new offering was quite a treat. Thanks.

One of the best from one of the best!

Another great story from you sir. Enjoyed it emencly.

Finest kind. Seriously well done.

The Academic world seems to have its perils. There are even trade-offs.

I could never understand the life of a married sailor back in the 18th and 19th

centuriés.

of Stockholm Syndrome, TK U MLJ LV NV

...but unfortunately, there is something wrong with this story's setup on the LIT App. Only the first quarter of the text is displayed; it ends abruptly. Perhaps somebody from LIT could repait it?

BTW: Thanks to BlackRandi for setting up this fine event!

Read it twice. Enjoyed it a lot

Well told, beautifully written. My home city and the rugged coast of one of my favorite states made it just a bit sweeter.

Great story telling says it all!

I have a friend who is engineer on a cargo ship, and the life described by MFH matches my firend's description quite well. As far as the plot, I think the good Captain achieved a significant upgrade, even though it was painful to go through. Good story!

I really loved this story.

Very well-written characters that were plausible, and the wife's fall from grace while her husband spent time at sea was also believable (unlike so many stories here).

Thanks for a really great read. Five stars easily.

You paint a vivid picture of your characters: Their backgrounds, day-to-day lives, habits, & local haunts. Your locations seem as vivid as your characters. Well done again, really nice story.

I just flew through it. Very engaging, great character development. Tragic ex-wife. Having friends in the merchant marine, throughout the great lakes, the story is all too common. From both men and women. Sailors and sailors wives. Just like many other service fields. Keep on writing MFH. 5-stars from me.

You’ve touched every emotion that a LW story offers. Always look forward to another of your storys.

Damn, what a great story. Thanks so much for your effort, as well as the efforts of your colleagues! Again, well done!

Thank you, my friend. You never fail to deliver, and this was no exception. Randi.

"Those foolish bastards that imagine burning the bitch is some great soul cleansing experience have never loved a woman like this. Oh they talk about it, about getting their pound of flesh but none of them ever stand in the ashes of what they wrought. I stood in the empty room and cried like a fucking baby, a six foot two inch two hundred pound blubbering shell. Then I went to Henry's and got drunk."

He would ascribe stupidity and sub-human status to those that assert you can feel good by 'burning the bitch/bastard'. then he would stupidly claim they cannot fathom a love as deep as yours being the reason. then your main character chooses to run from his problems in a beer bottle. That about sums it up, yea? Ashes of what he wrought? She cheated and lied, many times. He didn't 'wrought' shit. He didn't even btb. He just divorced her. He didn't burn her things or throw them out. He didn't hurt or manipulate her. So he's wrong about that. He's wrong about 'true love' being above hate, hurt, and pettiness. He's wrong about revenge feeling good and sometimes being healthy. He's wrong about running to a beer bottle after his sanctimonious speech. I suppose he can be forgiven as being such an emotional wreck, he is allowed to say stupid things. But it does feel like you the author are talking through him, like you're ascribing some maxim, and not even properly. I'm here to tell you that anger is good, it keeps the hurt and self pity at bay. It can motivate you to LEAVE a bad situation. It also helps keep drinking your problems away. But this wishy washy, b-but my true love....i'm so sad i'll self distruct. yes, people cope that way, but it's no virtue, it's folly.

Lit app version of this story is truncated at "In a week I was readying myself for another port call with the burdens of an uncertain marriage and decisions I couldn't make."

I actually loved the line: "Those foolish bastards that imagine burning the bitch is some great soul cleansing experience have never loved a woman like this." I have actually said the same exact thing in my posts on this site. In many of these LW stories, how could some of these protaganists say they loved this woman above themselves for 10, 15, 17, 20, 24 years, depending on the story, and then she fucks another man and they do everything to hurt her, leave her in poverty, take her children away from her for life, turn all her family and friends against her, etc, etc. What a bunch of shit that they ever loved that woman. What they loved is how that woman made them feel. And now that she hurt their little ego they want to strike back like immature little children.

If you were a worthy person to start with the worst thing you can do to her is divorce her and leave her. Then she will always remember you with pain of what she has lost and even if she moves on she will feel the guilt of hurting someone worthy and she will look upon her acts of betrayal with shame. If you exact BTB all you're doing is helping her move on and showing you are a classless bully picking on a woman. Not only that you are actually showing someone else that they hurt you to the core, took away your manhood and made you a eunuch, so that you had to turn around and try to hurt her back. Prisons are filled with impulsive morons (average IQ in US prisons are between 80-85). Reacting that way puts you well into that category. One trash react that way, not successful men.

I feel sorry for you if you think pissing on her clothes, setting them on fire, etc, etc, somehow made you a man. It makes you a pathetic, unthinking little child and makes one realise that your abandonment by her was likely well deserved.

Tammy admitted that she was hooked on this guys cock like it was some drug, an addiction. And she became hooked when she sampled this guys cock out of curiosity. So was Tammy thinking her curiosity and her addiction would magically disappear, or had her disrespect for her husband become so ingrained that she just thought he would continue to be trusting and clueless? She comes off looking very stupid, juvenile, and completely self-centered. Adding to her stupidity, what made her think fucking the old toad would somehow end the black mail threat? Which begs the question, how did the Captain ever see anything worth marrying in this empty headed conniving bitch? She turns into the drunken town bike after her divorce. Either Tammy was flawed all during their marriage, or its another case of Martian Slut Ray. Her sudden loss of virtue and character makes no sense. Or she was a slut from day one and the Captain was blinded by lust and love.

I get it, Tammy is just a plot prop to setup the Captain for his romance with Kirsten. She doesn't really have to make sense, she just needs to provide the cheating slut role.

It was a good story, if puzzling. By the end, Tammy and the Captain are so different in morals and ethics that their marriage doesn't make sense to begin with. Glad he ended up with Kirsten. Couldn't care less what happened to Tammy. Good riddance.

Thanks for the effort.

I broke up with a woman I had been living with for 5 years. We still saw one another daily because we owned a successful business together. When we broke up she told me she understood and didn't fault me. She started dating very heavily and fucking a lot of very rich attractive men. She tried to rub it in my face telling me how great they were, how much better they were than me in bed, what beautiful beach houses they had, etc. I met some of them they were men that had a lot going for them, and she was a very beautiful woman so attracted top shelf. So while she had said she understood when we broke up obviously she was extremely hurt and was trying to hurt me, and her comments definitely hurt my ego because I still loved her. The thing was that I realized she was out of control and was behaving very self-destructively. About a month or two of this behavior I bought her out of the business and we weren't seeing one other that much, but I was really worried about her so kept tabs on her. One day she came to my office, I realized she was very depressed and suicidal from everything she was saying and she was a different woman, detached from this world. That minute I closed down my business, grabbed her, grabbed some clothes for the both of us and flew us that evening to NYC for a week. Every night I took her to the symphony, opera, musicals, etc. Wanted to fill her with beauty and music as much as I could. It scared the heck out of me because she was detached from the world, her eyes had changed and she wasn't faking being suicidal. One night she even asked me if I will help her jump from the high rise hotel window, because she said she didn't have the courage to do it on her own. Anyway, soon after we came back she met a man she ended up marrying, has a beautiful son who I'm the godfather of. She is a very successful executive today making high 6 figures low 7 figures. We are still good friends to this day, and have both business and personal interactions regularly.

So it reminded of Tammy's behavior of getting drunk and going out and picking out men left and right. And like the protaganist in this story, even though she had done some things to be very hurtful towards me, I went out of my way to take care of someone I had dearly loved for years. I could have reacted like some of these commenters suggest like a little hurt little boy (she did hurt my ego pretty badly at that time as she was lashing out at me), and said fuck her or actually tried to add to her misery by exacting some kind of BTB. But you show your value as a human being when you can step beside yourself and see beyond your little hurt male ego and see how much this woman is hurting. By being the bigger person not only do you feel better about yourself in the long term, it actually makes the other person realize their wrongdoing and value you as a person for life.

All exacting BTB does is make it easier for the other person to move on, think lowly of you and that they made the right decision to abandon you or cheat on you. And it makes you feel like shit in the long run for treating someone you supposedly loved like shit. It takes a man to control his emotions and move on and if he can even help the other person he loved along the way, even if she had wronged him unintentionally. It takes an impulsive, intellectually challenged, man-childs to lash out and try to exact BTB. There are a lot of those kinds of men living in trailer parks and in prisons.

Amongst your self-righteous speeches where you smugly pat yourself on the back, I spotted this little gem:

"If you exact BTB all you're doing is helping her move on."

So what you're saying is that if you really love a woman and want her to move on after the relationship has ended, you should burn her cheating ass?

Because if you don't:

"Then she will always remember you with pain of what she has lost and even if she moves on she will feel the guilt of hurting someone worthy and she will look upon her acts of betrayal with shame."

Oh dear! So if you really love a cheating wife, of course you wouldn't want her to feel pain, guilt, and shame for the rest of her life! Probably best to go all out on revenge then, right? After all, it takes a real man to look out for her long term mental health...

Perhaps if you'd reacted to your ex behaving like a bitch at the start, she wouldn't have had to go to such extreme measures to try and provoke a reaction out of you. Then she wouldn't have felt such self-loathing at her slutting around that she ended up being suicidal...

That's entertainment 🔝❗

Plot is efficient, with an economy of word use that is unsurpassed. The characters were developed well enough to make an impression. Your descriptions of the locations were a bit sparse. Less than I usually get from a story by Mainefiddleheads. I understand that Maine and South Carolina have been in many of your stories. But it would have been a pleasure to see more of Germany, lol.

Thanks for a wonderful time.

AMerryman

Real Christianity was shown in his treatment of his ex wife. “Vengeance is mine, says the Lord,” means we should not seek revenge. She greviously wronged him, he did the right thing, he withdrew himself from her. Living well is truly the best revenge, he did what he could to help her, as we are commanded to do to all in need, and went on to live at peace with a loving wife and daughter.

How could the story have ended better?

Chilley

Some times there are little add ons, like ancient bearded nudist hippies, but usually the tone is one of maturity, yankee cussedness, and stoicism to find one's way through the shoals and waves of life.

The passion and brokenheartedness is alluded to, but is not on display. No operatic highlights like you would find in a Stangstar tale, or operatic love which leads to self loathing and destruction, such as one finds in a Richard Gerald or a DQS tale.

No, there is an accounting. Yes, love exists in all these male characters. But it is not the only consideration in life. One would never find a 'Breadwinner' where a man had his spine and testicles emotionally removed by his whore of a wife.

These men are, as stated, mature. "Will I give this woman the ability to destroy and hurt me again? Does the feeling of love and worth I feel from her surpass the pain and distrust I feel?"

On the whole I celebrate such an attitude rather highly. There is (despite your potential protestations) an openness to Christian Charity and Grace in many of your characters which is too frequently lacking in this genre.

I don't demand that a character forgive. But it should be at least considered.

I enjoyed the story muchly and verily.

The marine part of this story was excellent.

Shame the rest was a bunch of "I don't know if"'s.

4 out of 5 from me.

First, have the courage to post under a signon so everyone could identify a pattern in your postings. But even though you're a coward hiding behind anonymity, I will still respond.

She didn't become suicidal because she was "slutting" around, you misogynistic neandrethal. The loss of our relationship was what was causing her to "slut" around, as your pea brain put it, and what caused her to become totally depressed. She lost the person she was around almost 24 hours a day (we worked and lived together), that she wanted us to marry and not break up with. After long term relationship breakups, especially when one party is the one broken up with, often dates a lot of people because they want the reassurance that they are still attractive to the opposite sex. They feel abandoned and want that reassurance. But for your little misogynistic brain threatened by a woman's sexuality, when she goes through such a period she is a "slut". Someone to be called names. There is no attempt to try to step aside from your limited life experience and try to understand the psychological needs and perspectives of someone different than you.

Second, there are two ways to move on. Yes, if you treat her like shit she will move on and not look back with rose colored glasses and miss you and miss the relationship with you. However, BTB takes away humanity from BOTH the implimenter and implimented. So for both of their long term mental health it's not the best option. In addition, every time we treat people with unnecessary harshness they become more cynical and pass that on with everyone else they interact with. Especially if you have children with the ex, do you want her to be a more cynical, broken person which can only affect and harm the lives of your children? But even if you don't have children, how about your in-laws, her friends and others that care about your ex. In your need to lash out, to assuage your pain, you are very likely causing pain and suffering to multitude of people.

I'm in no way saying excuse, make light, or accept the cheating. I'm simply saying you cut that person out of your life as much as possible and divorce them (if you want to reconcile that's the person's choice, but it most likely wouldn't be my choice). But what I am saying is you put things in perspective, and you think of the long term well being of both yourself, your children, and yes even the person you loved for a long time, but who fell short. Losers react emotionally and impulsively with their "lizard brain".

If I wanted to get kudos and pat myself on the back on the LW section of this site I wouldn't have posted what I did. Because this section seems to attract a lot of broken misogynistic men who hate women because they were one way or another rejected by them (sometimes all their lives). I realized when I posted what I did that most likely it would get criticism. But knowing the type of broken man-childs that would be criticizing it's water off my self-congratulating back!

Even has Maine in it...typically well crafted story. About the only criticism I have is with his wife, we never really understand why she goes for the strange, and why when she has the chance she doesnt make right. Hubby could have understood her being alone and doing it, but why is she so obsessed? To me, it doesnt work as well with the woman is a sex obsessed slut, sonething was driving her:)

Thank you Fiddleheads. I always look for your postings and I wish there were more of them. Please keep them coming.

anon.1

I had difficulty at times keeping track of scene switches; who was where, and when. It's not something I encountered in other stories of yours. I enjoyed it nonetheless.

5 stars from us. Always look for a new story from you and this one didn't disappoint. Thanks for a very good "Loving Wives" story. Enjoyed the locations and the maritime background.

A fully well written story not the usual btb. But I guess if a woman doesn't get the man she loves it is as well as a btb. Thank you for finishing the damn story. One out of four so far has finished a story.

Just what you would expect from Mainefiddleheads. Really detailed, finely crafted story. Best actually nautical story yet. Captain really kept his wits about him, although a bit too forgiving. Tammy as a fine girl, but a good wife she couldn't be. Her husband, the sailor, found a good wife while at sea. Thanks for the best yet.

So what's with the changing scenes, one sentence he is in one place, next one he's elsewhere talking to who knows?

Also what era? The language didn't seem to match the settings either, don't know why there is so much praise for an overly wordy story, could have cut 2 pages our of it.

Really good, solid story from one of the best storytellers of the site.

Solid story, though the wife made no sense, but far more entertaining was reading the anon tear into that self-righteous cuck and the hypocrisy he hadn't even noticed within his own paper thin rationalisations, leaving him sputtering out the usual empty cliches, "anon coward" "misogynist" rather than accept that he just might be wrong. It's okay to admit that you simply enjoy slurping cream pies and not worry about morally justifying your predalictions or overcompensating for your obvious insecurity about it by feigning at being somehow superior or more evolved because you let a woman trample all over you. That's not equality. It's just sad.

Thanks for the story.

Cog

... ever justified her behavior for those many years, or how she managed to reconcile her overt perfidy with her professed love in her marriage.

Perhaps it was the idea of the familiar and secure.

But then her bedding several men while hubby was out to sea puts paid to the notion that she was deserving of one after initiating the other.

I guess I just don’t get women...and I even more don’t get how they can be OK with crap like that. I can’t. It’s why I don’t cheat. I all people outside my wife and children at arm’s length.

By the same token, the pundits are still claiming that men commit adultery far more often than women (that is, more men are caught or admit to it, than women). My experience suggests the numbers should be about equal, with a slight edge in favor of the women (that’s more affairs, not less).

A neighbor of mine that has now split with his wife was catting about exclusively with married women. His batting average was about 700, meaning most nights out, he got laid, but good. He could do this, because his supposedly faithful wife worked nights every other month and was required to attend two week-long conferences a year. When she got suspicious and had him followed, she discovered his tendency toward married women and his careful use of condoms. When it hit the fan the explosion was nearly nuclear, because apparently he had also had her watched on multiple occasions and learned that their second child was not his and that she had had had over 300 lovers, several of them long-term before she pitched a fit at him. Almost all were married men.His biggest surprise was her overt hypocracy over his activities, several times resorting to angry public outbursts and violence, considering that she had been sexually active outside their marriage since shortly after the birth of their first child. He only started when his suspicions of her were confirmed in brilliant technicolor. He just couldn’t understsnd how she thought it perfectly acceptable to screw around on him at every possible opportunity, but if he even sneezed in the direction of another woman, she went ballistic.

Now that it’s over, she doesn’t (or at least is reportedly less active) cat around as much. He’s moved to the Midwest and has remarried....but once burned, keeps his eyes and ears open. Ex-wifey has become more selective, but is still really just an alley cat....possessive of every man she beds, but cheating on every man she claims. Bed hopping in some rotation only she understands every 4-6 weeks.

Go figure.

I’m sure there are as many stories about how men have messed up the lives of good and decent wives and those of their children.....but in the end, I still see the apparent imbalance in the “cheater numbers” to be a manufactured misrepresentation of reality.

Anyway, thank you. I really enjoyed the nautical orientation of this piece.

Had to let you know that the 2* I gave this story was a mistake. Unfortunately, the Lit app on which I was reading had it ended in the middle of page 2. The complete story merits a much better rating, but I see no way to change it at this point.

Tammy is just like another Tammy (Tammy Baker--T.V. Evangelist's Wife) She wanted Her Cake and Eat it.... "They even made a song about Her"

Yeah I Enjoyed It Immensely ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ WOOF!

Enjoy it more each time

Great writing, I'm always happy to see a new story from you. I've read everything you've written and thoroughly enjoyed doing so. Nicely done.

Ive been reading Lit for about five years now and I can say this is the first and only time I've discovered a writer giving his protagonist EXACTLY the action I would have taken in his shoes, something that perfectly somes up his feelings for a worthless piece of shit former aquaintance and represents the appropriate level of disdain and comtempt for such a douchebag:

"I pulled out my cock and pissed on his knocked out face."

Perfect.

Mainefiddleheads, you are a mind reader.

5*

This was a great read! Been reading on this site for years and for me this is not only one of your best but one of the best ever. Thank you so much for the story and I look forward to your next. Please make it soon. A 5 for me.

"Buckeye Fan"

Such an enjoyable writing style. Thank you.

I don't know if it was Deja Vu, or whatever, but somehow this felt familiar to me.

I noticed you misspelled "queue," to wait in line, several times.

I know it's certainly handy as a plot device, as here, but I never got the big deal about toilet seats. It's not like men never use them! What do men to if the need to shit and the seat's up? They put it down - it's not rocket science!

They're separated; she's already cheated on him. I certainly wouldn't expect her to be chaste, and there's no reason for him to be, either!

How could it NOT be over with Tammy? She cheated with Thomas, then it turns that she had ANOTHER lover who "just happens" to be in the same city with her!

"You can't mean this, Max, you can't!" - She CAN'T be serious! She had been cheating with Jim BEFORE he caught her with Thomas, her "getting away from Pryor" was just an excuse to shack up with Dahlberg. How can she think it's not all over?

"I want to come home and try to get back what I foolishly and recklessly threw away" - He wanted a faithful wife. How does it feel to want?

"Max, I didn't want any of this" - Then she shouldn't have been fucking Jim, then Thomas couldn't blackmail her!

What, is Jim some sort of Casanova? You're trying to save your marriage; when he shows up, you kick him in the balls. If necessary, you say fuck the job and go back home, not shack up with him in Vancouver! Of course, when Jim encouraged her to go to Vancouver, it NEVER occurred to her that he might have an ulterior motive!

Nuff said.

a true master, you make it look easy.

nice grown up story. just enough of everything that makes a great cheating story.

Being ex-Navy myself (west coast) I always love stories where the protagonist is a sailor and this was a damn good one. My only gripe is the "wife tried a big cock and then got hopelessly addicted to it" trope. I've known far more women who complain about the few times they've been with a "big one" than ones who become size queens, and most women I've met in nearly 20 years in dabbling with the swinging/open marriage scene simply don't give a shit, they've got a list of good and bad concerning various lengths and thicknesses along with different curves vs straight rods, and even cut or uncut. It's all good to them if the guy knows his business.

Well worth the read.

I never would have given her the chances though.

Thank you for your story.

Bit on the long side and he should have dumped Tammy the day he came home and saw get out of the car,it would have saved him a lot of heart ache.

Just great.

WHY IN ALL HELL WOULD YOU EVEN THINK OF GIVING HER ANOTHER CHANCE TO CHEAT ON YOU? ONLY THE BRAIN DEAD WOULD DO THAT.

You just knew the LW readers would be out in force with the “cuck” comments! 5 stars from me, however.

I haven’t read your stories for a while, and that’s my fault. I’m glad that I stumbled upon this collection. You introduce me to places and ways of life that are unfamiliar with your detailed well-researched settings. That’s what I love about reading fiction. Thank you for writing and thank you for sharing your work.

I think putting together a short story as you do that has enough character development where I actually care for them is a real talent. Great touch.

BTW some years ago I was asked to give a talk I some place called Castine at the MMA. After a very long drive to what I thought must be the end of the world - I arrive at one of the loveliest place on this earth. This story brought me back there and I thank you.

You are an excellent writer and you can surly put words together, but this was not your best work. The plot was very weak.

First of all Tammy had nothing to loose or gain. They were in a childless marriage more of convenience then anything else. You could have summed this story up in just a few sentences.

He came home found her cheating they divorced and went their separate ways.

That unfortunately was all I could take away from this story.

What a stupid cunt! She's caught with Pryor, goes to Vancouver so she and Max can separate and work things out and she shacks up with Dahlberg for the six months she's there!!! For God's sake , the woman is in her late forties, isn't she mature enough to turn down a proposition, especially since her marriage is in the balance? Then when Max catches her, she says the classic, idiotic phrase, " Max, it's not what you think"!! -- coming out of an interrupted shower after obviously being just fucked! The woman's unbelievable! Well written. Five stars

Great work!

Know women who are housewives who go with their child /children visiting people in old folks home as have no one else visiting

They call and get name(s) and spend a few hours each week with the ones in that situation

3 stars believe ancients Greeks etc. Love and hate opposite sides same coin

Loose one turns to other side

Don't know any friends or acquaintances who divorced due to cheating who even cared for spouse after finding out about cheating beat up guy etc scratched car badly etc only deals with spouse concerning children

But story after story still love?!?!

Continued

Cut up clothes burned

Thrown out given away

Car scratched awarded by court to cheating wife

People with my mindset don't play

Cheating destroyed vows not broken DESTROYED

Your writing has lovely imagery. My husband is from Maine. I am from New England too but our chowder is clear :)

This is a fantastically good story. Beautifully done.

This is a brilliant story. The vocabulary used here especially seeing that our protagonist is a seafaring man is wonderful and has a feel so original that it reads like a novel - very well written. When he came home using the side gate I had this feeling of déjà-vu and you knew what was about to happen that his missus was stepping out on him and I’m so glad he did not catch her in the act with Prior for he would have killed the bastard if you look back at the overhead left he gave Jim Dahlberg and almost broke his jaw. Not that I would have mind. Thanks for writing and sharing this with us mere mortals with not even half your talent! FULL MARKS!!!

Well told story, love the old Market Street Saloon circa 2006! Miss Big Johns dive, but now go for cocktails at the Spectator. My favorite in Bremerhaven was the Haverkampf Hotel or Lloyd’s on the lock. Just a few technical details if you carry on the story line... 1st officer and 1st mate are the same thing, officer used more on foreign flag, mate on US. Mates, officers and Captains are not engineers, nor is an engineer a mate unless you met Paul picking up cans in Castine who is a Master Mariner holding both deck and engine licenses (Until his wife left and wanted half, so she now gets half his bottle and can money!). Also a recreational license in Maine is 5 traps. Pedantic points, not criticism from an engineer who’s been there. Keep the stories coming!

Beautiful story; great writing. I wouldn't bother with the following corrections except that I wish for the story to be presented perfectly:

"a man was laying prone on the floor" He might be laying tile, but not prone. lying

"Standing que to go through the Suez, unfortunately." queue

"The craftsman had soldered the latch" Don't try to solder an iron gate.

"I filled the Styrofoam four pocket container with heaps of pulled port and ribs" pork

Amazingly that's all I found! Good work!

Disrespects and betrays him, and yet he helps her? Oh yeah, he's an IPA drinker. That explains it...

This story was pretty long winded. There's a lot that was added in there for no reason other than to extend the life of it. Anyway. I've always said that no job is worth a marriage, The way he tells it, or as I understood it is that he's home twice a year? In the story, he see's Kristen more in the short time he's known her than what he saw his wife in the twenty years they were married? Really? Did the author really try to make us believe that a wife would stand by and see her husband twice a year, and be happy about it? I don't believe that the author honestly believes that there is a woman out there that would stay faithful just to get some from hubby twice a year. I really don't like this stories that just keep adding to the wife's peccadillo just to justify what the husband does as far as divorcing her. And then they drop her, there's no mention of the wife except to build him up into what a nice person he is. Another thing, there's to many phrases that I didn't understand Pulled Port for one. Que is another. Que is Spanish for What? Well, Good luck anyway. maybe your next story will be more self explanatory as all stories should be. And maybe next story you will reread it and make sure the readers understands what you're trying to convey. Try to understand that not all of us were merchant marines, and not all of us are familiar with their lingo. Same way with Cowboys or Welders Etc. An author is supposed to walk a reader through his story. Take him to different parts of the world, introduce him to different people's and culture's. not get him confused where he has to run to his library to decipher words only to find out they were typos done by a lazy author that couldn't take his time to go over his story and rectify his mistakes.

Loved the description of the time at sea.

But would all the authors please stop with the,"she destroyed my heart but I still love her" BS.

No man could endure what this woman did, and was, and still love her; especially with the much better woman he found.

Also, please stop with the "closure" device.

What the woman did was crystal clear. The why and the how is a cheap device to keep an utterly predicable, thus boring, story line going.

You've written some fabulous stories here and did not Resort to those cheap devices.

Please he had taken 4 girls using in Your future works.

All the truly great authors here and to avoid it and I think you should as well.

Aside from those small things I think your fantastic right and I look forward to all under stories.

Entertaining read. I’d tend to agree with some comments it was a little long in places, but on the other hand many time it set the mood for the next plot line. Overall, I give it 5*.

This is a great story. I don't feel it was overly long employed word fillers.

I really like the use professorial

terminology to add realism.

I agree with a couple commenters points below. ALL LW authors PLEASE stop using devices like "closure", "I hate the bitch but still love her with all my heart", Those devices are pure cliche and derail a good story. A great story doesn't need them.[Saddletramps stories are great examples where those devices are eschewed].

That aside, THIS was a marvelous story. In might even be a good Netflix type of offering.

Excellent writing. But I am sick of the blackmail themes as well as the massively endowed lover that the wife becomes addicted to. Whatever. I wish authors realized the statistical distribution of punishment sizes. Less than 1/1000 men are over 8 inches let alone thick to boot. Heck Peter North was 8 inches but looked bigger with camera angles. Of cohrse he ejaculated like a fire hose... My point is that if a wife of many years chooses to chest because she is curious good freaking luck finding huge strange cocktail to become addicted to. The chances are freakishly small. And yet for some authors it seems amazingly common.

A well deserved 5 stars. Another good realistic tale from you thats simply enjoyable to read..Keep up the realism throughout your future stories as it does impact how good the story is read.. Just a suggestion for the future stories...remember if some form of retribution is in them,go after the right person unlike you did in this story..SHE was the instigator. If she says NO! he can do nothing,no sex or affair,he just took what she offered with a smile. He suffered a broken jaw,her nothing.Not right..

Excellent story, well written, rounded out, Really, no need to know a lot more about Tammy and how many guys, when, where and above all why. She really did the unforgivable by not disclosing the affair with Dahlberg and keeping it up for the six months in Vancouver. Max is a well drawn character and worth the time spent to read this story. 5***** story.

Just an excellent read! I appreciate getting to read this. The depth and reality of the background is superb. You've taken your readers on adventures with your MC here. I find I like the guy. And I like him having compassion for his messed-up ex, even though they are done. Bravo.

The entire story could have been limited to 3 pages with the removal of so much thinking and detail ridden paragraphs.

I spent 20 years sailing aboard 1 diesel boat and 4 nukes that included a 6 month stint in the North Charleston shipyard on the diesel boat. An awful smelling paper plant was built near by in the hopes of tempting tourists from Mobile, AL.

The story became (almost) interesting when the story said that Max was a captain of a container ship that carried over 6,000 containers. The ship was registered in Panama but I was wondering why the captain was standing bridge watches while at sea. I never saw a US flagged ship on which I served as Radio Electronics Officer have it's senior officer standing bridge watches. Ships that size carried, at a minimum, 4 deck officers; The Captain, Chief Mate, 2nd Mate and 3rd mate, all of whom were qualified to be in charge of the ship while at sea.

On my off time, at sea, I went to the bridge to ask how we were doing. The Mate on watch often mentioned that he was keeping it (ship) between the anchors, or, that we were lost but making good time.

Ah, them were the days.

Good but long story. Well written. Tammy was a selfish strange cock addict. What a slut. She obviously knows she fucked up and even kicked out Jim Dahlberg the cock stud, but way too little too late. She had her chance to come clean. Lied by omission and then couldn't keep it in her pants. Jim Dahlberg needed more severe punishment. He wrecked their marriage. He suggested Vancouver and then went after her. Uggh. Deplorable.

Very good story or tale. Read "Ten days at sea" for another good story without the anguish of divorces, cheating.

In my opinion, the best example of your work. Well plotted, not too myth-like, the characters breathe, and it held my attention throughout. Well-done...

5*****! This is real story telling. This is one of the best stories from one of the best writers here. Lovely and compelling!

I would echo Just Words! This is GREAT story telling! Wonderful character development and complexity, interesting vistas shown in accurate detail ( I have been to Charleston often and you nailed it!) and a satisfying, enjoyable ending. I like a good BTB, but his treatment of his ex-in-need fit the character well. Sad they only let me give it 5 stars.

CAPTAIN BUNYON WAS A CUCK!! WHY GET MARRIED WHEN YOU SPEND WEEKS/MONTHS AWAY

Excellent piece, really enjoyed this, full 5*.

Hard to accept that anyone is stupid enough to think that a childless wife of a seaman isn't going to have affairs when he's away for weeks at a time. It's just unreasonable to expect fidelity under such circumstances.

Before you start to complain intimacy is an essential part of weekly if not daily married life, if you can't provide either don't get married or let someone else do the job.

I liked it, nicely done.

Just goes on and on without really going anywhere. Sorry

A well written, pleasant story of a man steadfastly making his way through life. What's not to enjoy? It was paced beautifully, there was real craft in the writing, the characters weren't toxic. One to be savoured. Thank you for sharing.

Mainefiddleheads is one of the very best authors here. His stories are original and creative, but more importantly they ring true. Great story from an excellent writer! Thank you for sharing.

Still reading. Just a comment. Most readers will not recognize the German character that resemble "B" which is called "eszett". We're I you I would just say "Street" or if you will, "Strasse". Using the eszett character for mainly English readers is not particularly useful. Just my thought...

JPB

While a bit tedious at times still a five star story. One more comment. Properly called Frankfort am Main, (on the river Main) the duty is so major that people more often just call it Frankfort.

JPB

I am not sure how a reader can have sympathy for a husband who is away from home more often than not. As a result i lost interest in anything the mc did.

5*

If there was a Mt. Rushmore of Literotica, MainefiddleHEADs would be on it. :)

I continue to enjoy reading your stories. Thoroughly. I especially enjoy your descriptive turn of a phrase.

‘sitting on the couch looking like a Canadian Chipmunk.’ Indeed. Carry on.

Nice slice of life, great story.