Decisions within replacement.

As I posted a while ago, I've got back into Replacement and I think I'll finish it this year. 

This is actually a rewrite of the previous (unfinished) version I did a few years ago.

I abandoned that because I was unhappy with it for a few fundamental reasons.

1. It moved way to fast with Ashley becoming a full on femdom Domme in the first chapter.

2. I had way too little of Dave's introspection and self-defeating internal monologue.

3. There wasn't any point to it - just Dave getting cucked in more and more extremesituations until the story stopped.

However, as I wrote the replacement Replacement, I felt I was falling into the same traps again. 

Here's some of the questions I grappled with. (Some spoilers for this, but TBH by the time I finish, you'll have forgotten)

1. Watching is key. Mike is pressuring Dave to watch all through 'Horizon'. Should Dave watch during this book? Or, save it for a denouement? Or never happen. 

In more than one chapter I get close to this, so much so that I stop writing, becuase (a) if he watches, is there anything left to the story or have I 'shot is bolt' so to speak? (b) If I keep upping the ante, in ever more explicit situations, it becomes unbelievable that he doesn't end up watching. 

Related to that - does Ashely want him to watch? She doesn't really seem to want this during Replacement or Horizon. But in this I strongly hint that she does. 

Why? Because Mike wants this.  She's ambivalent. She doesn't think she'd feel comfortable with Dave watching. 

But, she doesn't like aspects of Dave's reaction to her cucking him. She doesn't feel guilty exactly, but she worries that he's becoming isolated and depressed and that he will grow away from her. Mike claims (to her in private, off-screen) that if Dave can accept and embrace the situation (by watching) then all will be well. She believes him at first, but over the course of the story she begins to doubt Mike's honesty.

I like this working out of the dynamic. I think it goes some way to solving the lack of a plot too. Ashley slowly beginning to mistrust Mike is a core theme running through it. 

But - if during the story Ashley wants Dave to watch (for his own good - she'll get over her discomfort in order to help him) wouldn't that just happen? Dave is drawn to be being cucked like a moth to a flame. If both Mike and Ash want him to watch and lot of the story is them fucking, then won't it happen?

I think I've solved this, although with some straining credulity. Dave will get close to watching a couple of times but it never quite happens. Until the end.

2. Ashley fucked Jim Murta and dishonestly hid it from Dave. The admission scene in Reluctant is brutal. If, (and I can't ever let this go) Ashley really loves him, this is problematic. Mike is totally different. Dave set them up like a cuckold cupid and let them at it. The bathroom scene was secret and hidden. She lied about it. Ashley only 'confesses' because Dave is about to find out anyway.

Dave never really goes there in Reluctant or Horizon. He gives his little 'All I want is to know the truth' speech in the bar and he pretty much sticks to that line ever after. Even when Mike takes her through the blow-by-blow recreation Dave isn't ever thinking of her as 'cheating'.

So if she loves him and is essentially a good person, how does she justify his to herself? Even if her justification is not spelled out, writing some kind of happily-ever-after denouement has a giant Jim Murta elephant in the room. 

Here's a digression. Many people who've written reviews or have emailed me about this story take it as read that Ashley is a selfish hypocrite. I don't subscribe to this. Not because of anything in the OG stories - that's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to draw from what McManus wrote. He never really makes a judgement on Ashley. 

But I just don't pray that way. For me every female lead character in a cuckold story is a blameless angel who loves her cuck husband. That's just the way I'm wired. See my post on the Syril and Dedra relationship here. 

So, to get around this, I'm going to have to give Ashley some reason and context, and some blame. 

So, we get a conversation with Tamara where she brings Dave back to remember some incidents before their marriage. Ashley flirting with other guys. Dave being weird and cucky about it. Ashley insisting on them being apart in the weeks before their wedding. His resting-cuck demeanour. The whole thing about him as Carrie puts it. And in another conversation Carrie makes him realise that what's happening to him is just as much about him as it is Ashley. 

So when they're in the bathroom, yes Ashley is horny and thrilled at the transgressive idea of fucking her coworker while Dave is outside. But, at the back of her mind is the idea that Dave might like it. She's not 100% certain but she has a gut instinct. 

Afterwards, she's just not brave enough to tell him. She's not really certain. She worries that even if she's right about Dave, it might still blow up their marriage. Why not confess? Why not be at least a little bit remorseful?

 Because she doesn't regret it. She loved it. She wants to do it again. Not with Jim, she recognises that was a big mistake, but with anyone else. At that time she is conflicted.  But then Tamara tells her that Jim has blabbed and there are rumours. Tamara advises her to come clean, that Dave will like it, and if not, then fuck him. But Ashley panics and tries to cover it up. She regrets that decision, obviously. But almost immediately Dave changes. Even while he doesn't know the rumour is true, she can see a change in him and the idea that he is a cuck gets firmer and firmer. Well before he introduces Mike she knows he's a cuck and she looks for situations where she can get fucked again. 

3. Does Ashley want Dave to watch? There's zero hints of this in the OG novels. In fact, everyhting takes place behind closed doors. She doesn't seem to mind him listening, but that's kind-of driven by Mike.

In my head-canon, yes, she does, but not as an end in itself. She actually thinks she might be uncomfortable with it. She'd do it, but it's not a goal for her. BUT she does worry about Dave. She knows for sure he enjoys this, but she can see his tortured internal conflict. She thinks maybe that's just how it should be, but it's a background niggle for her. More importantly, she worries that the cucking is making them grow apart.

They have reacted to the original cucking in different ways. Dave becomes more submissive to Ashley. She seems powerful and beautiful and wonderful to him. He's even more in love with her than ever but he's also ashamed and confused about his feelings. Sharing those feelings with Ashley is terrifying and shameful to him. So he becomes furtive and secretive - hides at his parents house. Jerking off in bathrooms etc. He won't 'open up' as Ashley wants.  

Ashley feels exhilarated and powerful. She's becoming the sexual person she always was but was too repressed by convention to express. She's on a cloud of euphoric sexiness all the time. Cucking Dave, his submissive behaviour make her love him all the more. She wants to share how she feels with the man she loves and to understand and share in his feelings. But he's hiding from her. He won't 'open up'. 

And she's getting bad, self-serving advice from Mike. He tells her that if she can get Dave to watch, he'll be able to accept everything and he'll open up. So, she does work towards that - but she wants him to watch as a means to an end.

Mike? In my head-canon, he is, to some degree, a bad actor. I won't go into it to much now, but for Mike, fucking Ashley is a side-benefit. His main motivation is bullying and dominating other men. He really wants Dave to watch him fuck Ashley because he gets off on the shame and humiliation he's causing. He's kind of a twisted bully. He lacks the ability form normal relationships with other men. He likes Dave, a lot. But he expresses that by wanting to utterly dominate him sexually through his wife. 

So, it's complicated, and getting all that onto the page is difficult, especially as my tendency is to write endless sexual dialogues between the main characters which tell rather than showing.