All Comments on 'Mr. Black'

not the happy ending I was hoping for - ah well...

I don't like saying it, but I didn't care for this one. It seems remarkably derivative, and these characters are pretty thin--as is the rest of the story. Let me show you what I mean:

[[Pagan? You're a witch or something?" Val asked incredulously.

Carla laughed. "No, I'm a pagan. No warts or green skin or riding around on a broomstick. Just simple earth magic."]]

Now how many Literotica Halloween stories have we read this exact same exchange in? Too many to count, I'd wager. I think most readers scarcely need this explained to them anymore. For that matter, Val here seems quite provincial for needing it spelled out for her. She works in a bondage club, are we seriously meant to believe this is the first pagan she's ever met? (Not that the two things are mutually exclusive, mind you, but even so, find me one BDSM club in America that has never had a witch in it and I'll eat my harness.) When someone says, "I need to make it to my coven?" who can't put two and two together on that? For that matter, aren't these women friends? Is this really the first time that Carla has ever mentioned this? And as long as I'm carping on things, why is this exchange here at all? These characters exit the story in a few paragraphs and the things we learn about them here ultimately contribute nothing to the tale.

[[He was a bit over 6 feet tall, dressed in a jet black suit which was molded to him like a second skin and showing off a lean muscular frame. His hair matched the suit's darkness. Piercing eyes in a drop-dead handsome face settled on the ladies and a smile cracked his lips.]]

Well of course he was. How else was he going to look? I'm fairly confident most readers could have guessed this description just from the title. And how many times have we all read someone's eyes described as "piercing"? What does that even mean? I don't think I've ever once met a real person with such eyes. I've seen eyes that are bright or dark, and eyes that are beautiful. I might, if I was feeling particularly self-indulgent, even say I have met someone whose eyes are intense, though I suspect that has more to do with their face than the actual eyes and in any event I'd probably hate myself for it in the morning. But never once have I seen eyes that pierce. And even if I had, I'd still be sick of reading it.

[["You will always be safe now, my pet," he murmured to her. Wings blacker than the night unfolded from his shoulders and they slowly rose from the ground as a Nurse, Witch, and Dancer fell to the ground, sobbing over the broken body of the Princess lying under the flickering headlights of a drunken driver.]]

A drunk driver, of course. I'd hazard 70 percent of all Literotica story fatalities happen in cars, and 70 percent of those are alcohol related. It's the go-to cruel twist of fate for the 21st century reader: random enough to seem appropriately senseless, but still with the necessary degree of human agency to seem oh-so extra tragic.

[[The man passed by them into the club. As he did, the computer gave a single bleep and records disappeared from the database. Carla sighed. "I'm so bored. I don't think we've had anyone through those doors in hours."]]

Ohhh-kay? Why did he bother having that little exchange at all, if he's so powerful that he could have just walked right by them? Why this elaborate pantomime of his name and the list and an ID and that cute little moment about her biopsy? What did he get out of that? Only the reader benefits from this, which makes it contrived--except, even we don't really get anything out of it, because what do we learn? That the Mysterious Stranger has some unearthly power? We knew that from the moment he showed up. And even if we somehow failed to clue in on that, we'd find out again in a minute.

This feels like the kind of story someone may write when they're simply bereft of ideas. Maybe that's presumptuous of me: Maybe this story was the result of a lot of hard work on the part of the writer and my saying that borders on cruelty. I have no way of knowing. I only know what the end product looks like, and in this case, it looks played out. Maybe others will enjoy it more than I did. Good luck in any case.