All Comments on 'Just Once, Oh You Do'

Good story! I wish you had allowed scoring. I would have scored it a 4 or 5.

Pretty good, at least Marcy remains a narcissistic , lying whore in this as in all the other sequels. Rick didn’t go scorched earth on all the cheaters as he should have. I didn’t understand all the financial maneuvers, but someone will break it down for me. Although I’ve enjoyed most of the stories, it just seems like 50% of LW consists of spin-offs of either Kal’s Just Once or GA’s February Sucks. It’s a little like the endless remakes or sequels available in tv and movies. Good? Usually, but good authors doing something new would be great.

You are not a good enough writer to pull off the story you tried to write.

This was the first of many

pains taking You obviously meant painstaking

Get a decent editor or at least a proof reader. There were many more than just this one.

I liked this story. The best of all the responding tales to Kalimaxos 'Just Once...

Had you allowed stars to be given, I would have left 4⭐s

The epilog was a nice way to end this version.

Thank-you for the read.

Pasqual

Excellent!!! Well-done!!! Five Stars... even if you ain't countin'!

*** I guess we will be reading these follow-ups for a year or more!! Nice read. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing...

Entertaining read

It’s a shame you don’t post more.

Thanks again.

You did a good job. Please keep writing. Thank you for sharing.

Not bad, but not very good too. Just an easy read. 3*

Nice

Well done, good ending

It was quite fun in the first page, then it got bland in the near end. But still it was a good read for me. I felt Marcy has lost her love for Rick when Rick was in Korea, I think that was where it ended for Marcy as at that point she was looking or having affairs till the last day in Bogota. The author was very consistent in showing Marcy's colors -- at least Marcy unlike many of cheating wife in Loving Wives havn't done, Marcy had fun as a whore with much sex till she couldn't do it no more. Again the ending was flat -- Rick being friendly with Marcy but hey that is the way the author wants it, so be it. Thanks author.

Thank you for following the suggestion that the story be finished. I thought it was way too rushed at the end and the backsliding by the MC was nauseating. But you did wrap it for the most part. This isn’t an easy story to resolve in 3 pages.

~Enkidu

Very good story. Marcy and that doctor should have both physically and mentally paid dearly, maybe the ultimate price. As far as her whoring while he was in the military, the military keeps her slutty ass, and all of ours, safe. As far as getting into her slush fund, IT'S MARTIAL PROPERTY. He actually should get back with her and give her REAL medicine and treatment. Wonderful story for bad series, in general!

Great story

Thank you for sharing.

I see you turned off scoring, that drops your 2.5 to a 1

coward

If you had allowed rating I would give it 4 stars. There have been better answers to the story but you did very well, Just saying

Unsure in this story (all versions) about the combat in Korea leading to his near cheating. The time line doesn’t add up for the story. Every time I read a new version Rick ends up as a 70 o 80 year old in my mind at which time I think who cares... he’s old AF. The closest combat time would be desert storm or Iraq. That’s a 30 - 20 year gap of time that matches the technology and experiences being described.

Sorry... this is not this writers problem. Just a problem for the story arc overall

Meh, just OK I guess. He doesn't show must anger after being told what she will do with the Dr for six weeks, learning she was already cheating with the Dr, and also she had long term affairs earlier in the marriage. The guy was just "oh well" lets divorce.

One of the worst follow-up yet. It taints some of the better ones. Sorry

2* & 1/2* more out of pity

Agreed with Impo_64 #"

This had a good premise but got bogged down in minutiae. Who was speaking was confusing at times and your timelines seemed mixed up. You have a nice easy way of telling the story but get an editor. It could have been so much better. Good luck.

You should turn voting on, I really liked your first effort and would give you 5 stars!

"I was momentarily confused with the Jimmy Carter reference, then remembered his "lusting in my heart" comment.

/

I understand not wanting to upset a serviceman in a war zone, though I'm not sure that I would classify Korea that way, but to not even tell him that she WAS meeting a man at the Red Roof Inn?

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Sigh, of COURSE he has an "IT go-to guy." How about stories with ordinary guys who DON'T have IT go-to guys?

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"This man was A-One Prime both in and out of bed." - She hasn't slept with him yet, has she?

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God, of course there are complicated financial dealings.

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Too much "dialog by letter," and the ending narration seemed disjointed. Kind of cowardly turning off scoring. Would have been a generous 3*.

This became quite disjointed by the end. We have Rick's POV and Marcy's POV and at the end we get a mysterious narrator who states, "I suspect some PTSD finally caught up with Rick and he no longer takes full charge of his life." Who suspects it? What the hell does not taking full charge of your life entail? You tried to answer every possible question and even anticipate questions no one would ever ask. Many readers like to be spoon fed the next 20 years. I do not. A story is a snapshot of time in a life, or lives. Readers do not need to here about great-grandkids. Keep posting but work on staying on point with the plot and not rambling at the end. Knowing when to fold 'em is the toughest part of writing.

No scoring allowed means no reading. I'll happily ignore anything else you post.

I would give this one 3 stars at best. I found the story confusing and discombobulated. However, there was some good writing here too. (Just not enough). I do encourage the author to keep at it as there is obvious untapped talent.

Didn't like it.

I think Marcy is way beyond simple narcissism. Her response when she is served is a wife who cares nothing for her marriage or her husband apparently without reason for such a cold response. She is calculating, manipulative, and entire driven by her own self-interest. Is she a sociopath?

poor try

Pretty good. The epilogue was too long and unnecessarily detailed. Please learn the difference between "principal" and "principle". Anyone can be a "principal", but no one is a "principle." This is a common error in LW

Apparently Leslie is also a relationship expert which is why is story is pathetically stupid. I mean all versions of this story are pathetically stupid because the original story Is pathetically stupid

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Even worst Is that anybody who has EVER written a sequel to this incredibly stupid preposterous abortion of a story is a mental retard

The wife as painted here didn't seem to care and really didn't seem to pay in any way for her behaviour. If she felt so little for her husband she should have sought a divorce before her big event. I see many like this ending but I felt it fell flat. Writing was decent so would have been 3 stars if available.

Not a bad story overall but the rushed ending diminished the earlier effort. 3*

I’ve read quite a number of “sequels” to the original story. Yours was, at least for me, one of the better ones. No real original twists, but high marks for realism. I’d have given 4 stars.

Pretty good for your first story. I’d have given it a 4. Complicated financial maneuvers by Rick I didn’t quite get but the ending seemed realistic given the characters and circumstances. Do you have any original tales in you?

Better proofreading will help: tenses along with singular and plural.

Ok.........I suppose.

Pretty sterile and passionless.

Not good. Not bad. Just average. 3*

Didn't like it much... Felt like a newspaper's article in the end.

An interesting story but kind of boring. I was intrigued enough to finish.

Up until your Epilogue, just another not particularly original BTB tale devoid of erotica or real character development. Might consider developing your Epilogue, which shows signs of feeling; that is, how do characters move post-divorce. Just a thought.

The end didn’t fit with Rick’s character. His letter explained why forgiveness wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t have helped her setup a new place, and certainly wasn’t going to be her friend later on. Also, Marcy was far too much a narcissist to admit her betrayals, and certainly wasn’t going to put it in writing.

So I think the story was a strong start that lost its direction. BUT unlike many other authors, you wrote a real ending - not an unfinished chapter.

Pretty good, a little robotic but not bad at all

We deserve something different. Everyone bounces off when she comes home. Her goose was already cooked when she left. There has to be some really good way for her to come back and get a dose of "IT". We have seen her lose her money, her husband, her home, her job, her friends, there has to be something appropriate. She needs to really lose her dignity.

Forgot to add, I read it again and it was really good for your first effort. A *5 from me.

Since there is no voting I grant you TWO** Enough said.

A flat and unemotional ending to the original story. You could use an editor or do a better job of proof reading. Your technical skills aren't very good. And that hurts the overall quality of the story.

2 stars

It was OK, really. I think definitely in the top 80%, or 90%. I doubt the competition is over yet.

The last few years of the marriage were so tepid and distant and shallow that I cannot appreciate either spouse caring all that much that they are now free to find a decent human being for a life partner. I would like to say Cardozo did him a favor, but it appears that there are several men who participated in allowing Marcy to exercise and demonstrate her true inner rot. She's just another workplace whore who wants her cake and to eat it too. Since she has no real morals or ethics why not? She doesn't have anything she truly values to lose. Nothing.

So it was OK and I hope you continue. Thanks for the effort.

Ho hum story with little emotion or anything to get excited about. Gave it a 3* as it was your first story.

A lot of telling, and not enough showing. Marcie has her back up about Rick's "perfidity" but, despite her letter accepting blame, doesn't think there was anything out of bounds in her squirreling a quarter mil away? C'mon!

Nice opening salvo. A sober and staid writing style. Believable characters and behavior. I especially appreciated how you extended their stories in the epilogue. All in all, an enjoyable read. Thanks. I hope you submit more.

Nice try, but no cigar. You need an editor. I'd rate it a 2 1/2.

horrible. Full of errors. Terrible writing. Is this the first draft?

nice but ok. storyline in abundance but little dialogue. an editor would be a help.l keep writing and work at it.

Boring and sterile writing style. Like a 1970's Scandinavian film withe all decorations white.

Yawn.

She was a serial slut and he can prove it. All their finances were together so he should have split her 250,000 . I disagree that Rich we so upset about losing her. He should have BTB after what she had done during their marriage. Also your PTSD angle is BS in my opinion. He has alot going for him, don't feel moving on would have been a problem. There are my thoughts what ever they are worth.

Decent writing and OK plot. An editor would help you catch some of the garbled or incomplete sentences. More importantly, there were too many places where I couldn’t understand what you were talking about: there were a number in the descriptions of the financial moves (too detailed and complicated.); another was the out-of-left-comment about PTSD and Rick’s no longer taking full charge of his life (what does that mean? how/why does a guy who ran a complex op against his unfaithful wife suddenly become passive?); there were many others. I’m sure you had more in mind than I got from what you wrote; you have to put yourself in the readers’ shoes and not assume they’re making all the connections you might. Harddaysknight’s comments were also on point: skip the grandkids, either make the PTSD part of the story or (better in this case) eliminate it entirely—quit while you’re ahead. I look forward to reading more from you.

This felt more and more rushed as I read further on. There were too many times when your text didn’t make sense. Your plot idea is sound, and I can’t pick on characters you inherited, but your ending could have spent more effort fleshing them out, making them feel real. Take your time. When you get stuck or feel a push to finish, put it away, and come back later to read it before you continue to write. Even then, you’ll leave errors (I know I do!), but you’ll wind up with a story that’s written consistently, and is much more readable.

Just my humble 2 cents, but I’d like to read a story of yours written with more care. If this comes across as harsh, I apologize. I think you can be an excellent writer here, and hope you’ll read this in a constructive light.

To start with, good job posting your first. I was disappointed that voting was off. Can't be afraid of the score.

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As mentioned by others, you really need an editor. Just install the free copy of Grammarly if nothing else. It would have caught most of what is wrong.

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It would have improved a lot if more of the narration was dialog.

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The characters didn't feel consistent with the original stories characters. That bothered me more than the grammar things.

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Marcy's letter seemed unrealistic. It didn't feel like a female voice and didn't feel like something the Marcy-character would have written (to me anyway).

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Just my opinions, for what that's worth (as much as you paid for for them most likely).

No idea how it all went. The most over used cliche in LW so quickly into the story "My Military Intelligence mindset kicked in" lends credence that no one wants to think outside the box anymore.

If it was good I hope folks liked it, but I for one can never get beyond tired cliches.

Good luck on your next one.

She fucked him over, He fucked her over......now the rest is a kum ba ya moment and and a let down. Right up to the line of justice and then back off and punt.

At least it was well written and an enjoyable read, until the end.

Not bad

Disappointing, difficult to follow, and at times, disjointed. Better editing would help. I think writing a sequel is difficult for several reasons. Coming close to the original author’s writing style is tricky. Most if not all of the “BTB” elements have been done in other stories (renting a storage unit, selling the house, finding the cheater’s secret bank account, hacking the cheater’s email, informing the other spouse or spouses involved in all the cheating to let the other spouses punish cheaters constituting further revenge, and of course, the cute young bubble-gum-chewing process server snapping a photo while handing over the divorce papers). For a first story the author did pretty well despite the above criticisms. Even though the star ratings have been turned off, I give this three stars. Thanks for writing.

*1. Not much different than most of the other efforts to end this tale. Maybe I've forgotten but where does "Just Once" come from? Marcy fucked behind his back while he was in Korea! That was the Once. The trip to Columbia was Twice!

First part is OK,not great but at least OK: 3***. The last part after service of papers is awful, particularly the "letter from Marcy." Nobody uses language like that, not even a good lawyer. It's stilted, awkward and also unrealistic that a divorced spouse would ever do a mea culpa like that. The whole story is bloodless, no sense of character or motivations or anything else. Why is Marcy OK with blowing up a 25 year marriage? I know, sex and you had to live with the set-up in the original story. But why tell Rick about the doctor? That is a flaw in the original story but some explanation no matter how weak in her thoughts. But the reaction you give of her saying to herself, "Oh well, I guess my stupid ploy didn't work after all" is implausible. Finally, the sale of the house at a bargain basement price would have resulted in Rick paying her the difference between a reasonable appraisal and the actuual sale price. No court would have allowed him to get away with that (not saying he didn't have lots of reasons to screw her over, just that this part of it was not going to fly).

including mental stress, pain, and busted egos. TK U MLJ LV NV

I'm sure it was just an oversite, but the Diedre incident happened in Iraq, not Korea. I doubt it was a deliberate change to the story as I saw no follow-up that was connected. Look, when writing these stories we all can miss something no matter how much we try to be organized.

My original had mistakes in it as well. I apologize, but hey, it, just as this piece, is FREE.

As for the timeline, just a clarification:

Rick was in Korea sometime in the late 90s. Iraq in the mid 00's.

One has to achieve the excellence of 'kalimaxos', before continuing his narration.

Unfortunately Author "failed"

No, your story does not do the original story justice, your Rick is just too fucking nice about what his bitch wife did to him. She hardly suffered in your tale, in fact it could be argued she prospered.

You will learn we like the bitches punished in some way, really punished.

You fail to set up voting, l suspect u did this because you know what the reaction will be.

We are your readers, you need us more than we need you.

So, please consider writing to what your fans to be want. No surprise there.

I score you 2/5.

WTF- First it was February and now Just Once. When will this bullshit stop? You can only twist a story so much and to be honest none improved on the original. February was nothing but a repeat of the same old crap and so is this one. Please write an original and stop trying to improve other's garbage.

Rather than just taking half (reported to lawyer or not). That was treacherous of her and she got away with it, even though he actually knew about it and used it to make some money himself. But there was no way he made 1/2 of the quarter million that she hid away. Then he lets her get away with it? Pa-sha, I say.

Nothing like a calm divorce. But she certainly deserved a BTB ending;;;

When you take over another author’s wor and do a re-write you at the very least have a strong moral obligation to GET WHAT THEY WROTE RIGHT! Unfortunately your efforts here failed in that regard. It was the first of several disappointments. The money she has squirrelled away is not dealt with adequately, the whole emotional crises becomes a comic book, and your protagonist lacks any depth that might allow the reader to find empathy. This attempt, like so many others, does nothing to improve the original story. In my book it gets a fail d=grade.

Good ending to the story. Sad but thoughtful.

very nice

I liked this ending. Thanks for writing.

You tried to make your version as though the MC didn't cheat, he did (in the original) So your tangent is FUBAR. I'd like to say that this was a good effort, but I'd be doing an Oliver North.....

nearby a very likely end

Great story but the ending is rather "soft"

Special thanks to @WetheNorth, @Anonymous, who mentioned specific word spellings/misuse problems. Grammarly only caught two more real problems.

(Grammarly turned out to be impossible to get working in Win7, except for the "paste your text" version. It also failed several times to correctly parse English sentences).

Thanks too to @Kalimaxos, whose user name I got wrong at the beginning. Sorry. The link does go to the correct author. I did not realize the "Police Action" in Korea was long over when Rick was there.

My true motivation in writing this story was to try and answer an impossible question. Excepting the Martin Slut Ray, how does a wife get to the point where she will <effluent> over her spouse in the absence of good cause?

Obviously, Marcy's letter did little to answer that question, and didn't explain to any commentator's satisfaction what the process could be.

C'est la vie.

1 for this attempt and no comment

As Deus ex machina the backups work just fine.

SUCKS AND IT GETS A ZERO....

The wife was a bitch. No reconciliation would have ever been possible.

so many different names that became complicated. Who was who?

Terribly written, too verbose with no direction and BS finish

terrible, unemotional, verbose, reads like a technical manual

Poor! A waste of space and time.

This ending is an interesting follow-up to the original. Not the ending I would have chosen but valid non-the-less. Thanks for your view.

Another SWAMP DONKEY joins the herd..

Classic... When will 40 something wives wake up and realize that at that age they start loosing power in the relationship...

The older men get, they get better looking, more distinguished and their investments start paying off..

So women figure I'll just tell husband that I want to date and he will either beg me not to, or he will be forced into letting me because he loves me so much and could never picture his life without me...

Guys this is where you have to hang tough, if she is also hanging tough than the following Dec 20th take her out for a drink and then point out the SWAMP DONKEYS that are at the watering hole , and who are alone just four days before Christmas... tell her if she listens real close she will be able to hear said SWAMP DONKEYS making desperate calls to their children and ex-husbands, pleading that they are alone and miserable....

Little things kept detracting from the story.

Editors help authors avoid such things.

Unlike many of the others, it seems, I enjoyed the story-- until the end. Marcy should've been made to suffer more for her 6 wk cheating. I didn't notice that the hospital was sued at all re: morality clauses. And at the end written about Dierdre & Rick, up in the air as to their future together, I wasn't keen on that, nor to his bedding Leslie, which to me detracted from the story. Actually, if the epilogue was shorter & edited, might've better served the story.

Nothing exceptional in this story. That Marcy post divorce did decently was disappointing. No mention where the request of the doctor or Marcy being fired went. Also nothing that Rick filed law suits vs. the hospital... or even the doctor! The ending for Rick didn't seem all that clear. Overall, nothing biting in this story. There's no ratings but would give it 3 stars for mediorcracy.

Blah, blah, blah

One of the better sequels.

Why did he ignore the money she "stole" from the marital assets? That made absolutely no sense.

Why bother nothing substantial other than making Marcy a happy old lady