All Comments on 'Traci'

This is a couple of paragraphs FROM a story. This was a complete waste of time. I'm sure glad it was not longer.

Thanks

and stupid. I know of no cases or a wife who had a strong masculine firefighter for a husband.... Then left him for a fat pasty White accountant that was under 5' 8" tall

Ah well. Sometimes suspicions are no more than suspicions.

A nice little story, well written and an easy read.

Lue

I have no idea what this was. Was there a point, or you just wanted to post something? Well, this is something, but it's a mystery to me what. It wasn't disgusting or anything, so I'd be inclined to give a good score. Since it left me bewildered, no score.

Any husband who is triggered without evidence, is the type that will murder a woman on a whim.

This feels like a prologue to an actual story, where we find that she is actually cheating and she just didn't catch her.

Also, why perpetuate the myth that cheated-upon spouses can file mysterious lawsuits to get justice for the affair? You specified that this takes place in Kentucky, which abolished alienation of affection lawsuits in 1992.

This 'writer' has the audacity to critique others, but puts crap like this out! 1*

That seems to be your MO. MULTIPLE POVs. Perceived and actual realities. Good setup. You dangled the bait. I’ll bite. Thanks *****

Interesting tale. However, without a continuation it doesn't mean a whole lot.

no rating yet...

didn't you just lecture the other night about how the LW section is extra marital fun, swinging, and sharing? I see none of that here, not even jokes or parody or a situation where an incriminating situation turns out to be a big misunderstanding.

. . . was in honor of the LW writer whose villain is always named Traci. 😀

Agree with comment by Luedon . But of course there is the ebb and flow of married life. He has it all, a good regular job, children and an attractive wife but insecurity has set in. She is not always there when he comes home, perhaps things they did together at weekends take a back set and her hours are irregular. Very different to their life of many years previous. the seed of possibility and doubt creep in for no other than reason than it is possible she is cheating. He spends a lot of money which proves nothing except she did not cheat while being observed. He is no further forward.Surely the best way when there are concerns is to confront them, i don't accusatory but to gently voice his feeling of insecurity and why he feels that.To explain that there is so much cheating and divorce going on and irregular pattern of work coupled with less time together has brought on his feeling of insecurity. Not to accuse but simply voice concern. Carefully observe her reaction. Maybe there is more to come with this story or simply it's a story for what it is, how doubts and insecurities can creep in. Whatever, they can unless dealt with be very destructive. Good yarn.

Isn’t it?

"Jim Cramer sat in his car on a side street, watching Raleigh Lytles leave his house in the morning. He knew Mr Lytles' routine just as surely as he had learned his wife's. A stop at Dunkin' Donuts for a large coffee, and then off to the fire station, where he'd be for twelve hours. That was plenty of time.

Jim checked the GPS tracker he'd hidden under Raleigh's Fire Department vehicle, and once he saw that yes, he'd gotten to the fire station, Jim got out of his own discreet sedan, walked up to the house, and knocked on Traci's door."

-------

I had thought about that ending, but decided to leave it where I had, The story was written in the first person, and the two concluding paragraphs were third person, and were things that Raleigh didn't know.

As far as Raleigh is concerned, he suspected Traci of cheating, but that was completely circumstantial: she could have cheated, had the opportunity to cheat, but he had no real evidence of it. He spent a lot of money trying to get evidence, and the PI had turned up nothing; maybe, he had to think, his suspicions were unfounded. Still, all that Raleigh really knows is that the PI had found no evidence that she had been having an affair during the six weeks that he'd had her investigated.

"I know of no cases or a wife who had a strong masculine firefighter for a husband.... Then left him for a fat pasty White accountant that was under 5' 8" tall."

That was deliberate, a snark on the usual LW trope of the wife always leaving for a big, athletic black guy with an 11" cock.

. . . the Parkette Drive-In is a real place, and is exactly as described. A long-time Lexington attraction, with good food.

This was well written, no typos and the protagonist's voice was consistent and felt real. But this writing was pointless without more. There is no dialogue between him and his wife. He is free five days out of the week to do what he wants. He could help his wife sell houses and spend time with her; he could fuck his hot wife during down time.

This could become a really good story. No score from me until it does.

reasonable man

When is the next paragraph being published?

Thats it? This has to be a set up to part two. The accident is key.

could be smoldering debris. TK U MLJ LV NV

She is very good at SDR's, not that she loves him enough not to cheat, right?

Did I miss something? Like maybe a real story? Put the hash pipe down, Reed, you're embarrassing yourself and wasting people's time.

So, no apparent affair, but no resolution of his suspicions, either?

I realize that is life, sometimes there ARE no answers, but we don't come to Lit for real life. Yes, we (or at least I!) want the story to be as realistic as possible, but that doesn't mean that I want to read a story about nothing.

not much of a story sorry

As a story, I can't go more than 3. It would have been more interesting if the story had continued to explore his relationship with Traci and determined what course it could take to regain some health.

The lack of time and intimacy were real factors that needed resolved.

Hopefully they can grow closer with more honesty and intimacy.

I believe he crossed a line by spending her money and he owes her an honest conversation and apology which would be a good segue into opening up about his feelings of neglect and desire for more intimacy with her.

.

Because I banged her in a show house

Please continue.prh

Really good writing. I hope this is just an intro to real story.

Maybe you should have written it in 3rd person and used that ending, at least there'd be something to sink our teeth into. I know it's been done before, the PI investigating the wife he's cheating with, but still.

This "story" was like drinking a watered-don cup of cold coffee.

Is it a complete story? I think that the PI is banging her!

As a troll of the BTB crowd, I'd give it a 4 - not enough of the obvious tropes, and a bit too much residual ambiguity. To really work, half the anonymous comments would have to claim she really was cheating despite no evidence to the contrary - the PI doing "perhaps in the past" was a good try, but didn't have the sticking power you needed. The "luckily it was mostly Traci's money" was a nice piece of snark.

As a story, I'd give it a 4 because while there is growth on the part of the protagonist, in a weird way there isn't as well... the cheating issue wasn't resolved. Now, this point has been covered before (how do you prove an absence of a thing?). but still you left your audience hanging, as a story.

Meh - I'd go for more blood than you did, and really more "homage" than I caught in my read.

Sorry about the fairly superficial comment.

Green-something

. . . well, not quite paranoia, but how a man took circumstances, the absences caused by Traci's career, saw it as opportunity, then saw opportunity as evidence. It was magnified by the experiences of his best friend at the fire station, influencing Raleigh's own mindset.

Think about how many LW stories have the cheated on husband knowing that his wife had plenty of opportunities to screw around, but suspected absolutely nothing until he got gobsmacked by someone telling him about an affair his wife was having. This is the deliberate reverse of that.

Had I used the alternate ending, it would have been a far more typical LW story, but then the responses would have been along the lines of 'WTF, she is screwing the PI, and she's gotten away with it? 1* fag cuck shit!' Instead, it's not a cuck story, because she hasn't cheated -- that we know of -- it isn't RAAC, because there's no reconciliation required, and it's not BTB, because there's nothing to avenge. The readers who hate cheaters shouldn't object, because there's no (known) cheating going on in this story.

Yes, it's different from the usual LW story fare. Shouldn't that be a good thing?

Oh, well, the very first commenter said that he was glad that it wasn't longer, so even those who hated it couldn't have wasted too much time on it.

Nice set up for a story, are you going to continue?

As soon as Raleigh got home Traci started on him demanding to know what slut he had spent $4500 on.

She's actually on her way to become a man; convinced to make the change after selling a house to a Gypsy midget.

In fact it is a good example of a particular type of fictional short story, called a vignette.

And it was nicely executed.

it was different! Lacked a climax (no pun intended). It worked as a story of paranoia, but without any conflict with the emotional antagonist (the wife), it had no punch, no pzazz. A conversation, or two between husband and wife highlighting his loneliness and paranoia, her "not getting it" or her compassion for him but inability to change because of her job, or perhaps her just not understanding how sad he felt at the lack of intimacy would have added a great deal.

A resolution, after she realized how much he spent, driven by his fears, and realization that their relationship needed some serious attention (along with a sound tongue lashing for blowing that kind of money), with a scene or two showing her re-commitment to the relationship and his work to better communicate (and contrition over blowing their hard earned cash in a fit of paranoia) would have made the story a five star affair (again no pun intended).

Still, I thank you for your effort. Looking forward to your next endeavor in LW.

Okay sweetheart, now that your husband has gotten the PI report that they can't find any evidence of our cheating we can resume that wonderful sex that we have been having this past year and a half. That month we had to lay off fucking was worth it. Now where is that vacant house and I'll meet you there at 4:00. God I'm horny.

I see this as a story about a man who is afraid his wife is cheating--she certainly could have been and a lot of the signs were there. Anytime your woman has a drastic change in her normal lifestyle, such as spending less time with you, having sex less often, making up excuses about being too tired, (not sure RR included this one, but it's very legit) and any one of a hundred other actions, a wise man starts to check things out.

I think this story, while it could gave found a home in other categories, fits here also. Just this time, the cheating is in hubby's mind.

Four stars from the Lowcountry

Great idea: write the story!

No mention of this being a first chapter in the beginning and no "to be continued" at the end, so I assume this is a stand alone story. If that's the case, why bother? He's suspicious. He has a lot of spare time. Why not follow his wife himself? Is he going home to confront his wife? Or has he been convinced she's not cheating? Two weeks isn't much time to follow someone if they're having an affair. It could be a once-a-month deal. Too many unanswered questions and if this is it and the story is over, it was a complete waste of time to read as nothing really happens. Just plain BORING!

Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story! Finish The Damn Story!

The PI investigated Traci for six weeks, not two. The two week investigation was all it took when Floyd had his second wife followed.

It wasn’t so much that Traci and Raleigh were having sex less often as it was that things didn’t pick up once the kids were out of the house.

Traci was written as very interested in sex as a teenager and into her early twenties. Things tapered off once the kids started getting old enough to understand what mom and dad were doing, as happens very frequently in real life, and continued at an infrequent level once Traci got a job. It was stated explicitly that Raleigh expected things to pick up once the kids were gone, but that didn’t happen.

What this story reflects is habit: the presence of children may be the impetus for a sex life of diminished frequency, but over 24 years, it becomes more of a habit than lack of opportunity.

The impetus for that point comes, of all things, the real estate shows on HGTV, in which I’ll see new parents looking for homes worried that the master bedroom is too far away from the bedrooms of younger kids, so mom won’t hear them if they have nightmares or some other issue. The problem with that is that, when the children get older, they’ll be able to hear mom and dad when they get it on.

Sometimes some authors become trolls..............

Excellent! The confrontation and conversation would have made a real story, whether she got pissed, was understanding and they TALKED about his/their issues, we'd have us a story, instead of... this.

I was thinking about all the commenters who keep clamoring about the writer needs to Finish The Damn Story and I read this. Thank you Reed Richards for this, seriously. All the readers who can not imagine their own way through the writers mindset need to get help so they do not injure themselves trying to walk. This is not to defend those stories that are just bad but I can see a writer putting it out there so the book club commenters can show their bias to everyone.

...to find nothing. With no evidence seems like a couple VAR gadgets would be the first step. There's plenty of room to follow-up with what's (not) going on.

Use our imaginations? Isn't that the writer's job? Why should we bother reading a story if we have to use our imaginations? Why not just write our own?

nothing. Thanks for the honesty.

Yes, actually, I do hope that readers will use their imaginations. I usually leave out certain details most other writers here include, such as how big someone’s cock is or bra size. I didn’t tell you what color Traci’s hair is, nor describe their home. I noted that Raleigh is average sized, but that was his total description, not his dick size. I even wrote that Floyd claimed to have a big dick, but expressed it that way because that was what Raleigh knew, the claim, not whether it was true or not.

The seven clients Traci entertained? I never said what they looked like, nor specified their race; the details are unimportant to the story, and I leave it to the reader’s imagination.

Instead, I provide details on the scenery, such as my accurate, if still spare, description of the Parkette Drive-In, to try to draw the reader into the scene.

The real detail that I left out was what readers seem to want to know most: was Traci cheating? Since Raleigh didn’t find out, and the story was written in the first person, that’s a reasonable omission.

lifeless and empty. Waste of my time.

This is the most that I have seen an author need to explain and defend a piece they have written. That just begs a continuation. A good strong foundation. Please build the rest of the story. I like it so far.

Some commenters should save their carple tunnel syndrome instead of offering useless snide opinions and then hide behind Anonymous.

A lot of wasted writing for no payoff, one way or the other.

I’m not sure what to make of this piece. Is it the beginning of a story or the musings of an insecure husband? Whichever, it is well written.

Because quickies and blowjobs.

I appreciate your leaving unresolved as to whether or not Traci was cheating. But you also left unresolved how Raleigh deals with this uncertainty. Does he remain in suspense, does he conclude that she isn't cheating, does he want to investigate further? Are his emotions in turmoil, or is he satisfied?

This is lacking.

It remaind me of an story in this site about a cop in Northern Ireland that have to stand guard for a VIP and a female guess, that he thinks its his wife (doesnt leave his post to get a positive ID and cannot reach his wife either by some BS mission parameters), cut to the story of his life, youth, first day on the job, meeting her, all while he have to endure a weekend not knowing with certainty if his wife its sleeping with that person, so after 4-6 pages of angsting, the mission ends, he drives to home hoping to cacth the wife (remember no communication with her for the weekend) but in the road he have to stop a crime in progress, get shot, wake up in the hospital with his wife at his side telling that she is pregnant... and thats all folks.

I mean a get it, you are not the first one to leave several things in the air on porpuose... but thats why the story fails, what we know, husband believes that wife its cheating, the PIs cant find hard evidence for that, but the circunstancial evidence its strong (there is not any good reason as why have to hotel, motel rooms, only the dinners are justified) and then the lack of resolution, you don give us anything resembling to closure. And then argue that "Now its up the readers use there imagination", it bothers me because (imamateur spanish writter in FF net, damn im even lower than that, so dont wrotte in english) i personally considered that as a lazy excuse.

You spent most of your reply about inconsequential details, which frankly, I agree with you.

As I'm sure you realize, my comment was in response to the Anon who said that we should use our imaginations to figure out what did/didn't happen.

I read stories so that the writers can use THEIR imagination to tell me a story. I have enough trouble using my imagination to write my OWN stories, thank you very much, I can't be bothered to use it on yours, especially since you can't seem to be bothered to do it!

Yes, we can only know what Raleigh knows, but as the writer, you can have Raleigh learn more, and you simply couldn't be bothered.

There were no hotel or motel rooms that needed to be justified. At no point in the story did I mention rented rooms.

I did note that the PI was able to gain entrance to two of the homes Traci showed, and looked for evidence of sexual intercourse, with no such evidence being found.

Honestly, solely based on what was written here, you can hardly call this a story.

Not at all a standalone, barely a first chapter... all we got here is the intro to a tale, and not even that detail. I mean, Raleigh and Traci spent the better part of two decades together and, if ReedRichards is to be taken seriously, it was only because... they fucked well together? Really, so far, doesn't sound like he cares too much about his wife - noticed how the word 'love' never came out of his mouth, while describing his relationship to wifey. Not saying he doesn't - just looks like her cheating would be more of a pride thing for him than heartbreak.

Which, you know, doesn't change the fact she shouldn't do it. But still.

In any case, if this is all we're going to get, out of this premise, might as well not have posted it at all. Can't even judge it for what it is - it's good, but nothing happens here! 'Guess I'll have to ignore its existence... until the author bothers given us an actual first chapter.

There simply isn't enough here. There's no reason to think one thing or the other, no build up, no black moment, no conclusion, really. Just a description of their history, current circumstances, and nothing.

You can do better.

But to make this story about the journey toward suspicion and frustration it needs more angst and tension as well as some sort of ending. I think many read this and are not feeling any sort of journey or investment in the story. Make us feel something for the character and draw us into his paranoia (justified or not). It needs some sort of resolution as well. Does not have to be a tidy wrap up, but does need to make us feel like we moved along in the story. Even if it’s just to find there is no answer to the “is she cheating?” question. As it stands.l now, it’s lacks to much to really be a story and really could be summarized up in one sentence and elicit the same response from us. Fireman pays private eye to investigate his wife and still doesn’t know if she is cheating.

but didnt come anywhere close to reeling it in! Where is the rest of the story?

This was completely devoid of emotion, it even lacked mystery or drama. It was a complete waste of time, mine and yours. And the fact you didn't finish it...left me kinda glad you didn't. Sorry to say this but this sucked so bad...I know I'm nowhere near being a good writer, but you can write, but your story had no substance. Sorry. I gave it a *.

Maybe you should have just written this as a true loving wife story, where she hasn't cheated and really just loves her husband and dinner with strange men her own age without the entanglements of sex.

But i agree with patillie.

we, the readers, are led up the garden path, but after all the category is called "loving wives" so we shouldn't be too upset to discover that the wife was after all being faithful, oh how disappointing.

How on earth is he going to explain the spent money on the PI?

Hey it's like a story about a hypochondriac going to a very expensive consultant to examine a trivial symptom which he thinks is terminal, with a big sigh of relief when he's told it's nothing, a kind of dear diary episode, all in the name of "boredom's been given a very bad press...." I like the suggestions made by others that the PI is the one doing it.

First off he shouldn’t be paying him with a check . Also her being so susessful so quick quick is a red flag . Many agents close deals by jumping in bed with clients. You would love to believe that everyone is great honest and loyal especially when that is how they seem but unfortunately in more times than not there is cheating. When there is smoke there is fire. I’m sure he’s gonna catch her and with a fireman’s schedule I know he can look into it himself

Where Traci finds out that he spent $4500 having her followed. That should be fun.

I know a couple who role play with each other. I’ll might suggest to his to them.

My imaginary finish says he goes home to Traci and finds her with Floyd. I don't have enough imagination to finish the story.

The man gave up when his PI told him there was no proof his wife was. cheating. But a week later he hired a new PI in the area...a female PI. In less than a week, she had proof that his wife was cheating with both her husband's boss and the first PI!

I feel like this was supposed to have a part 2

For what I say is an unfinished story

when is part two coming????

Where's the conclusion?

What a nothing story!

So when is the next 3 chapters coming ?

IT ISN'T A STORY. IT'S A FUCKING P.I. REPORT. NO SCORE!

????Where is 'the rest of the story' ????

I can't comment on a half written story with no ending.

Decent start, no finish. 1 star for now.

Story never crossed the finish line.

this ended like premature ejaculation... wtf

No bugged car, telephone,etc ???

Not much of an investigation!

Too many sales in down market and getting full price?!!

Cheating

Still think she was cheating with Floyd. She’s Hooked’s ex anyway.

Under contract. And what does she do to garner said contracts?

Good story!

4

Really? That's it?