All Comments on 'Death in Absentia'

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story. Thank you.

Excellent, Excellent, Excellent!

That's it? No burn the bitch revenge? What a cheat this story is, what a waste of time.

Wonderfully written! Engaging from beginning to end.

This was an excellent story, and Maureen proved to be a true loving wife.

did alicia never have an affair until charlie 4 months before leaving, as she told maureen, or was she the cheating slut from the beginning, as she told jason? Did she say that to jason to make it easier on him to completely destroy her memory? But if so, she continues with her actions to just cause as much pain to the man as possible. She left because he was a lousey lover is better than, she wanted to see the world and not be tied down to family responsibilities? The bitch just can't be honest with herself or anyone else. Sad, in this closure getting exercise, more important than any lies, would be her apology. It seems she never shed a tear, and never said she was sorry. Pathetic Bitch! radk, good story, and effective, because it really pissed me off! Thanks for writing, can't wait for the next one!

Well thought out, real people and no Saturday afternoon, melodramatic, clift hanging, "See you next month" nonsense.

Thanks!

Thanks for sharing.

Much like the Florida woman. Good story I liked it. A little payback would have been nice but I have no idea how he would get it.

To me this is a case of short term pain versus long term gain. radk did quite a nice job breaking up the story to cover the most worthy parts of the twenty plus year span the story covered. In addition he covered Alicia's nigh sociopathic tendencies in terms of her disregard of consequences for all concerned in the wake of her abrupt departure.

I do have some quibbles that bear mentioning. The children angle was very undercovered in terms of their reaction during & after their mother's hiatus. Likewise Alicia's ability to play her part as loving mother & wife seems iffy. Outside of her ducking the issue of more kids, she had the narrator completely fooled. Frankly Alicia didnt seem that bright.

Some excellent wrinkles worthy of praise were Alicia being in estate settlement which availed her new paperwork and ID. k admired the red herring thrown in about her being a potential murderess. Then radk came up with a facile explanation as to why Alicia was merely guilt of extremeself absorption.

Kudos on ressuracting the sidelined story & giving us a nice twist ion the recent rrunaway mom news tidbit. Full marks.

Glad you resurrected this story from the vault. You did a great job capturing the feelings of Jason. The ex-wife even displayed a litte bit of humanity by lying about her behavior when they were married. She painted herself in an even worse light than she deserved to allow Jason to heal. It was the only decent, unselfish thing she ever did.

First off, I have no clue as to why this story was not worthy of publishing. It's an excellent tale, well written with plenty of detail. It's obvious you thought long and hard on this one.

Now to the tale. That cunt was the lowest form of person imaginable. The most selfish, self-centered woman who ever lived. In the end she gave a truthful account to the unknowing husband. I say truthful because all she did was amplify her slutty ways. Yeah he finally found closure but there was no retribution. It should have ended with her trying to commit suicide but failing but living in a paralyzed state unable to do anything but be fully aware and conscious. You were too easy on her. That's just my bitter feelings on the cunt. It was a great tale and I look forward to reading many more. Thanks.

Great story....slut comes home and releases husband from 24 years of mental confinement. radk each of your stories gets better. Statue of Limitations was good...this was outstanding!

Readers .....check radk other stories ....right up there with cpete and Nakdsub....

treasures! great authors one and all

Like so many women, Alycia expects that her husband is a mind reader. Lacking that, she projected herself onto her husband. She didn't need him, so she believed he didn't need her. It would be an upsetting couple of months, but everyone would get over it just fine. Certainly SHE never looked back.

I also like the subtle points. She remembers her trips...kind of. But she can't remember the names of any of the people she shared it with. Which says quite a bit about her right there.

I DID get a bit miffed at the protagonist. Excuse me: victim. Life didn't throw him any disappointments that he couldn't get over her leaving in less than 9 years? Huh. This made him seem VERY weak to me. He didn't harbor ANY resentments at this woman who treated him so shabbily? After 24 years? No, instead he goes straight into fetal position. The story really didn't need that much.

But in a nice sort of 'Through the Mirror Darkly" scenario, we see the inverse of the other in the two women. one a dedicated housewife and mother and the other a self indulgent deubtant. That juxtaposition shined right through.

Favorite line: She was tempted to throw the cup Alycia was drinking from out the window but it's been stuck shut for the last few months,

I hope she got her new dishes

I was heartened to hear that this woman finally got it. That her negligence was so thoughtless that claiming to be a round heeled slut was actually a step UP for her! Additionally, I like that she attempted to salve his feelings by making that claim. After the decades of pain she inflicted, a little lie to salve his wounds was much better than "I didn't give you a thought for 24 years." How painful would that be to hear? Better to be the slut.

For those worried about Maureen's 'lie by omission', I refer you to an Italian Proverb:

"I never tell a lie, NEVER, but the truth is not for everyone." Or to paraphrase Jack Nickleson "You can't handle the truth!"

Weak kneed Jason could not handle the truth. Should they break him with it?

It might have been better if the cheating element had been dropped completely, showing a different kind of loving wife story altogether, but it worked. It's nice to see a story that takes things more along the old wife vs new wife tack rather than the stereotypical husband's view. I think it's sad that this was made to be more about the husband when the worst thing she did here was not cheating but completely abandoning her own children and treating them as absolute non-entities. Four stars.

Despite liking Absentia, lost a lot of respect for Maureen at the end of the story, though. After being pumped up as the super-loving wife, the woman Jason should have had all along, the woman who would never act so disrespectfully or lovelessly towards her husband - after all that, she conspires with the slut that abandoned him to lie to and otherwise completely deceive him. Why was that necessary? It was made clear in the course of the womens' conversation that his ex HAD cheated on him and that was more than enough to square away her memory. She cheated, abandoned her kids, got married half a dozen times.

Why would Maureen get on board with all the lying? Lying about the most traumatic event in someone's life is not therapeutic, respectful, or loving, particularly when the lie isn't meant to spare that person pain.

It's possible that Jason was such a spineless rag of a man that she thought it might be better to cut things more cleanly, but someone that spineless doesn't deserve a clean cut.

You should have published this a long time ago. It's a fantastic tale.

I can't imagine why you wouldn't have posted this earlier, it's very well written and something a bit different. Great job, thanks for your efforts!

Thank you for writing my story. I was Jason in the Military. She left when I was in the First Gulf War. I mean just left. I found her two years ago. Your story filled in a lot of the blanks. Thanks again! And yes, I did love her way too much!

Born in the early '60's I was raised in a time of expanding freedom and expectations for women. Many of the girls I grew up with turned into "Alycias". They looked down on marriage and children, and sought their own satisfaction in the "pleasures of the world." Sadly, these same women are now childless, or old single mothers dragging their child through another selfish fantasy. They never wanted to do the work of being a life partner and member of a family and thus they will never receive the rewards of that life. They will die alone in the emptiness of their own creation, deceived by the lies of the Devil.

Why would the husband believing that his ex-wife cheated on him with multiple men and didn't love him make it easier for him to accept her abandonment then just telling him the truth (which was basically the same, except that she only cheated with one man)? I mean, either way, she abandoned him because she was a selfish bitch who didn't give a shit about him or the kids. I would think that it would be even harder for him to accept that she and numerous men, possibly including some he thought were friends, laughed at him behind his back. The ending made no sense.

Well written and very entertaining. Thanks for sharing.

believe is that someone as stupid as the character jason had a job and raised kids.

Radk has certainly caused me some conflicting emotions in this fine tale. On one hand you have “The Best Revenge is Living Well.”, as it certainly turned out for hubby with new wife, and family he always wanted.

On the other hand the Ex-wife defied Karma by screwing over everyone that trusted her, and ended up with everything she wanted (and more) with no blowback whatsoever (at the end of tale jetting off to a villa in Italy to live in luxury off others wealth)

Nice job all the way around on this posting. The moral seems to be “There is no Justice, in or out of Court.”

Elements that make this a great tale:

-Mystery, with two stories drawn by wife one, leaving truth in some question.

-Sharply drawn characters.

-Obsessive love by Husband, beyond reason.

-Family strength and love displayed by wife 2 and husband.

-Upbeat ending after all the pain experienced.

-Complexity of plot, but story captures readers and carries them to the end.

Thank you, RADK. Dan

Radk nice ride, you had this jewel setting under a rock shame shame shame

Very good!

Got me thinking. That's good!

Riveting, and terrifying tale.

And Alycia is a Karma Houdini, storywise. Hurting people she claims to love, without a thought, while never being hurt at all. No revenge on her, no pain, no justice. Would've been nice to see an epilogue where she feels or receives pain from her extremely callous ways, in one way or another. Alas....it is too much like real life, where bastards and bitches hurt others without ever feeling pain themselves...

Well done, the women was so into herself ,the world was her toy and to hell with those who got into the way.so much for this pathetic wench

A real heart wrenching tale what a cold cold heart can do to break a warm loving heart.

Agree with several that Alycia FINALLY did a thoughtful and noble thing to help her former Hubby, who she never fully understood! By greatly exaggerating her sexual offenses, she offered him an easy target to reject! The real truth would have left him with recurring doubts about how he coulda and shoulda SEEN into her brain and emotions and figured out a way to give everyone everything they wanted. That is, of course, an impossible task but an irresolute man such as this would worry himself regretting his failures with his first wife for the rest of his life. Alycia did Hubby and Sweetie a HUGE favor ivy recognizing and accepting HER failure and then fixing it as best as she could in such a short time!

Easy FIVE (even if little erotica)

RADK should really consider giving up his day job!

Alycia tells one story and he tells another. This is a Rashomon situation.

The thought that she was a sociopath entered my mind but the fact that she redeemed herself by convincing him that he never should have had any reason to love her. One point that was not clear to me, did she love him for a while, or just had fun with him? TU

A really well written tale of duplicity, and what stress can do, totally believable, and unlike some comments, I don't regard Jason as a wimp or his second wife as someone acting against his interests. People are devastated by the sudden loss of a loved one, some for more years than Jason was, and honestly, what would be gained by the conversation between the two women being disclosed to him.

How do you invoke remorse in the remorseless? This woman, while not a sociopath, certainly ranked very low on the empathy scale. HOWEVER...for those wondering how much she loved him, she had 2 kids with him and lived a life she dreaded for several years. It was made clear that her HUSBAND was more than adequate. It was the domestic side which made the deal unpalatable...and they wound up with a values mismatch. Nobody's fault but a lack of clear communication.

As far as karma? See the first line. Now, it would be nice to some if she got hit by a bus, lost her legs and had to be cared for by strangers who stole from her, but life isn't like that. If there was any justice, Chairman Mao should have died after a week of being gang raped by syphilitic Mongolians.

But...as she's in another anonymous hotel room, having come from looking at ANOTHER ruin totally alone in a crowd, trying to get to sleep, she can remember that she could have people around her that cared. That her 'emergency contact' card is totally blank. She now has a metric against which she can measure her life. And one day she will question her decisions.

In fact it already started with her. Weak sauce, I know, but you take what you can get.

Well that was convenient.

Different.Thought-provoking. Subtle twist to have the selfish ex do a gracious and caring thing as her last act, by painting herself as a miserable slut not worthy of him before she deserted him. Five stars.

... which I found certainly more than a little flat. Maybe anticlimatic would be a better word. At any rate, I felt the better place to end the story would have been after the confrontation between Maureen and Alycia. It just seemed too weird, after all his problems over her disappearance, for the story to end with Jason's "oh well" acceptance of Alycia's explanation.

Good story, and I'm pretty sure that I know the news story referenced in the header from well the area we probably hold common. You only moved your origin city a few hours heh. I can see where if this story was written before that news segment, why it would trip your sense into wanting to publish this, but the stories are miles different, besides the wife just disappearing in a puff, and both of the wives being basically mental cases.

Anyway still a good story, although the hubby is about as nutsofuckso as the wife so....(and I don't mean just because he spent time in a mental institution). Maybe it could have been fleshed out a little more, but the story reveal was done really well, wish I could give it a 4.5, I'm just not sure its a pure 5. so... 4/5. Thanks for the read.

I speak from experience, she didn't.

My own mother was bi-polar (with some other goodness not relevant), but refused to ever medicate or regulate her highs and lows. She enjoyed the highs to much. Combined with that she felt zero empathy towards anyone. By the time I was 13 I'd had enough experience living with her to write her out of my life completely. Never saw her in person again.

Now, 20 years later, she's living half the world away, hasn't seen her children in 20 years, and has only spoken to them a couple of times recently. She's 60 and alone looking at spending the next 20 years the same way.

White lye. She told the true to Maureen. She had an extramarital affair before her disappearing.

She understood she must help Maureen and Jason connection and she must paint their mariage darker to the true, and she MUST DISAPPEAR AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

Damn excaptional story. Why did not you publish it earlier?????????

BTW 5***** She understood Maureen well, her role to burry the ghost in the thomb. She did well!!!!!!!!! Maureen and the children connection will not disturb by the far living ghost. The ghost told she was/is a selfish person, who does not deserve any mercy idea. Hyper super story! She was good for her ex at the end to strenghten his marriage with Maureen and Maureen's connection to Jason's kids!

The selfish cunt bitch was once in her life GOOD! She shtrengthen other's marriage and to assisted to heal up total a wounded soul.

rather unusual. a really good read. God what a Bitch. sorry word does not convey how despicable that woman is. would someone please expand on how low life she is. Thanks again for a really good read

Radk always goes for the extreme in his stories. I'm glad he published this one, as I enjoyed reading it.

I think it could have used some tightening. I thought the beginning was very good, the end was good, and both the plot and theme were original and interesting.

I thought it bogged down in pages 3 and 4 a bit, and the writing seemed sloppier in that portion of the story, with a lot of re-hashing of the same information.

If this story were cut down to 3 pages, it would probably be just as effective and a much tighter, better read.

I debated giving it a 4, but enjoyed it too much so gave it a 5.

i had a hard time with the Ex. she was a cheating cunt - right on there. but did she lie to him at the end to help him forget or did she lie to the wife so as not to look to bad and then think, what the hell.

but in the end FUCK THE CHEATING CUNT- you did good as usual.

Thank you for creating such a fascinating and intriguing female character in the form of Alycia. She is the one character that I want to know about and whose motivations are the most interesting.

She’s a con artist, a narcissist, and most likely a murderess. The likelihood of her surviving 3 husbands under such circumstances is so statistically improbable as to be a fantasy. She likely killed husband number 3 and definitely number 4, only husband number 2s demise seems truly an accident.

And true to form, when Alycia is finished with a husband she leaves the state. This time though she is leaving not only the state but the country and continent. Let the Seattle police pursue her to Italy if they can.

The only mistake Alycia admits to making is with Charlie, who she obviously did not know was married at the time.

I truly believe that Alycia was honest in telling her story to Maureen. However, it would be interesting to know why she decided to lie to Jason. It was an act of kindness that parallels the reason why she decided to visit Jason one last time. Her motives here are not divulged.

As for Maureen, she may be Jason’s new wife but she protects him very much as his mother had done previously. Maureen lies to Jason by not exposing the inconsistency in Alycia’s story. Is there something about this man that women in his life feel needs protecting? We don’t know but we can guess.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story because of the strong female characters, something we don’t often see in the LW category. The only issues I would quibble about were the 2 instances when farts were used as a metaphor. In both instances the scenes called for something stronger to be stated. Even so, I would have rated this story above a 5 if I could.

Very intriguing story. The wife was so selfish it was scary! Did she lie to him as to why she vanished to spare his feelings?

Why would the cops let her walk when she was obviously guilty of identity theft? Other than that I truly enjoyed this story. 5 stars.

It's rare to find a truly different story one here, and this certainly was one. Enjoyed it very much, trying to figure out what her (Alicia's) Story was. For a while I thought she was a black-widow, and left him out of true love, the only married man to survive her. The twist of the ex- telling the lies about her past in order to help heal him almost made her human.

Very well done, thank you.

Very well written story... A few plot-related questions. Did you consider having Alycia write a suicide note so the police would not try as hard to find her? Why would Jason believe she had multiple affairs during their marriage since the police and he never found any evidence of such affairs? What other hints at her selfishness and disregard for her "loved ones" could you have described in her back story?

For that matter, why didn't Alycia just divorce Jason and give him custody of their children? Of course, your plot choices make a more dramatic story!

I really enjoyed this one. Hard to believe something like that can happen but apparently it happens all the time.

truth and knowledge is acceptable, TK U MLJ LV NV

Well written, thought provoking story with a plot I haven't seen before. Great job!

The true question here is: How dense do you have to be to marry someone like that ?

im pretty much a misanthropic person. this story just confirms in my gut the visceral feeling i have everyday interacting with homo sapiens. i really hold out no hope for this race... none. mindless apes ravishing the world and others. no wonder the aliens wont land on our planet...

Sociopaths?

in what is laughingly called "real life."

People do some bad stuff.

This is a very true to life story. A real 5* tale.

At least she didn't take him for everything and expect alimony. Guess we need to remember that all people are not good.

by Daphne du Maruier??

Nice double ending.

At a loss for words. How do you describe the devil reincarnate masquerading as a human? And that is being generous.

Reading this story is like being strapped to an emotional rollercoaster. If that was the authors intent, he succeeded. I have to give 5*'s for what I think he tried to accomplish. No one could accidently write such a story. I give credit where it's due. Even though I absolutely abhorred one of the characters. Wow.

Most certainly deserve a five for this fine story, and actually more than that if the scale was higher.

Comments are also interesting. In more than a few ways the ex wife character is very much like my first wife, who took off and left me with two little kids to raise. At least my ex did relinquish custody and did the divorce. I thnk my ex's thinking and motivation were very similar to those of the ex in the story. Well written and interesting story.

The tale Alycia told Jason, showing her to be a lifelong slut, was just too easy a plot device. The story told to Maureen put Alycia in negative but not gotta-hate-her light -- a bit more nuanced, a bit harder for Jason to process, with the payoff of a genuine catharsis, not just an easy I'm-rid-of-that-bitch wash. Still, a well-told tale, 4.5 stars.

A well written story, well thought out with a plot and a conclusion that satifies. Even the English is generally correct. Well done!

I doubt she had any true remorse - too self centered for that BUT she took pity on her victim and gave him an easier way out of his pain - not a simple plot device an alternative truth for his mind only -

Nicely done -

characters confronting someone;;; think not. cry, cry, cry, darling.

He had a 'nervous breakdown' over a bitch who just up and left her two little children? He was so obsessed with that creature that he couldn't even act like a man, take responsibility for his kids? God, what a sad little, pathetic excuse of a man!

What a fucked up situation. I can understand the husband's difficulties, even though the PTSD (and the years in treatment) is hard to imagine from an outsider's point of view.

I *AM* curious however why Alycia lied in his conversation with Jason right at the end of the story. Did she think it was the only way to make up for her abandoning her husband and the kids, or did she feel remorse?

Best well thought out displayed authorship on this site!

Sometimes I wonder if people are as cruel as depicted here but then I remember my own ex and say Yeah they can be and they can be worse!

The lie about the affairs focused his feelings on a good reason to get completely over her just leaving.

One of the best!

To Anonymous on 02/17/14: The poor husband had a nervous breakdown LONG before (23 years) he ever knew what his bitch ex wife did to him and his kids. The man wasn't a wimp, he was devastated! Cripes! Have a heart.

some religions believe a person's soul passes on to the after life. It's questionable what will happen to her upon her death as she clearly has no heart or soul.

I too question her explanation to Jason after all the years

recommend readers take the time to do look up missing persons in the country they live in , it's shocking how many people just vanish each year ,

& a small percentage of them do show up from time to time , years after they disappeared .

loved this story , i was hooked from start to finish . this Author manages to torture the soul of his reader(s) almost as well as he does his protagonists .

Alycia screws them both over at the end , maybe unintentionally , but the result is the same , Maureen & jason , now have diferent versions of events , what should Maureen do ? tell jason the version Aly told her over tea in the afternoon . or stay silent & let Jason believe what Aly said to him that night ..

either way its another mindfuck .. hopefully Maureen is able to tell Jason what was said while he was out , when they visit his mother the next day to discuss it all...

best to get it out , don't let it fester .

anyhow , godbless & be well

tries to eliminate all mix-ups from the past. TK U MLJ LV NV

Enough said. 5 stars

Boy what a terrific story, I loved it . What a bitch ( sorry dogs ) Alycia was, the only good thing she did were the lies she told Jason at their final meeting. 5 big *****

Perhaps not depicted here, but there is justice for such a person as Alycia. The justice is that she has to live with herself for the rest of her life. A person that does not love their own children more than their own life is a person who has never experienced love. Not that she wasn't loved. Her husband certainly seems to have loved her. She never felt love within. She never learned how to create love and to share it with another person. She was a sociopath, a cold, selfish, simplistic psyche. I have met women who are like this and I have met others that made similar bad choices concerning their children or lack of children. The ones that are not sociopaths wind up as angry, bitter old women. Their anger was originally at the men in their lives - because they felt that they couldn't trust men. Later, their anger is at themselves because they realize they are to blame for screwing up their lives. Only the cold blooded sociopath can breeze along as if nothing matters - because nothing does to them - they cannot feel the pain of being alone because they never felt connected to another person. A question that arises is how did her husband not notice his wife's lack of love? Sociopaths have to make a huge effort to conceal their lack of feeling. In close proximity and over time - it becomes evident. They cannot keep up the act all the time.

Good reading and story. Sad too, that a person has to go through the grief of a loss not knowing why. It was life saving to have met and connected with Maureen. Cheers!

Of all the stupid, selfish women written about on Literotica, Alycia gets the award as the biggest, most heartless monster of them all. In other words, good job, radk! You really summed up the selfishness along with the total 'entitlement mentality' of so many women!

The worst thing to get from someone you love is apathy. Alycia was one of the biggest monsters I've read about here- I don't know if her husband was too blinded by his love to see the warning signs, but she's clearly a psychopath and it would be hard to behave like a good wife with nothing holding it together underneath. The end is a bit confusing, in that she actually stepped up and did a compassionate thing in the end. Hard to believe she had it in her. An excellent story, and I hope it doesn't haunt my dreams.

Gives a whole different perspective on selfish.

Had a sibling like that who I met again years later.

The ending didn't really fit. I can't see someone that self centered shifting the blame without getting something personal out of it.

Still, a good story.

So maybe she isn't a complete monster with that ending. Curious about her feelings for her kids.

I got as far as I could and then couldn't stomach Alysia any more. Good job radk. You know how to write selfish. A little too much wallowing in the past though. Cut too close to the bone for me.

Good work

He has in Maureen. Gentle, loving, caring about her husband and children always before her own needs. She pushed her own feelings and hurt aside, to love and care for her husband first. She exuded an inner strength that is sadly missing in many people these days. And like all truly loving wives and mothers, she is fiercely protective of her family. Everyone seems to focus on the ex wife, whose name I can't even recall, but for me, Maureen stood head and shoulders above every other character. A truly Loving Wife.

Why did you put THIS one up on the shelf? Couldn't you recognize that it was likely one of the best stories that you have written?

Some of you mentioned Maureen's 'Lie of omission'. There is a HUGE difference between a lie told to protect your own selfish interests, and not telling the person you love a truth that will hurt them more. Maureen not telling him was ALL about protecting her husband, with no thought to herself. If you can't tell the difference between a lie told in order to deceive and protect your own guilt, (Please God, don't let anyone find out about me or what I've done. Protect me), and a lie to protect others, (No honey, Your ass doesn't look big in that! You are as beautiful as they day we met! In fact, you grow more beautiful each day.) then you need to look harder. See the difference between my two examples? The first one was all Me, me, me, I, I, ....and the second example focused on You, we us....only thinking of protecting others from upset or hurt. Lying about an affair etc. is all about protecting yourself from loss or blame, never about protecting others. Not telling someone you love a truth that you know will hurt them, though not honest, can be for the best at times.

Or do you all tell your kids that Santa and the Easter bunny don't exist?

Is absolutely first rate.

Just wow.

It seemed to corny how she disappeared. Until the BC thing showed up.

I couldn't stop reading it. I love good who dunnits.

MCPO Jim

If you're an old navy fart, like me, you know that this means "this is as good as it can it!"

I missed it when it was first published. 5*

what the hell is this shit? 5 pages of shit piled on the protagonist while the whore walked away living the good life.

what is wrong with this pathetic, fucking author? get your head checked, moron, or at least kill yourself and rid us of your presence. 1*

Lots of untied ends - just like everyday life. Still worth five stars.

...and she wasn't prosecuted by the Seattle police for identity theft and fraud?

Just reread this story. I had forgotten the way Alysia changed the story that she had told Maureen. I think Maureen's evaluation of her as shallow and self-centered was completely accurate. She told Jason the story she did because there was a shred of humanity in her, and it was all she could do to atone for her cruelty 24 years earlier.

Wonderful work. Thanks radk.

I think Alycia should have told him he was a great lover, she just needed more.

If she painted him as a lousy lover, it gives her a bit of motive. If she paints him as good, she just needed more, that puts her in an even worse light.

I think the Seattle Police are one reason Alycia is headed for Italy. As for her different stories: which is the truth, and which the lie?

Can't top that. You misjudged your talent in putting this story away before. It was great. Thanks for the opportunity to read it.

Wonderful, sensitive, well written - just beautiful. Thank you.

Extremely one sided

a bit long but readable