Cane23

The moment forces both characters to acknowledge what has long been disavowed - that their hostility masks desire, that their fights are rituals of intimacy, that neither of them has gotten over the past. Especially Lyn as the question above fractures his self-narrative: Alexander is an asshole. I hate him. I’m into Brad. Period. There is some special intimacy in the scene when Lyn undress Alexander and iron his shirt. The whole scene tells us this isn’t just about attraction. These are two lonely men trying to remember how to belong - to someone, to a moment, to the selves they used to be. Domestic choreography as emotional language, because they afraid to say it. Lyn tells himself it’s aesthetic perfectionism. But what it really is - is care. He’s grooming Alexander for others but also for himself. They are 'playing home' but it's not performance. I'm confused by Brad. His mask is the most intriguing one as he is sending so many contradictory messages. He’s organizing a wedding. He knows the social dynamics. But he chooses to put his emotionally repressed ex-nerd best friend and his enigmatic, cool, sexually teasing ex-rival in the same room. Does he want them together, does he want power control over them, or he is just oblivious? Golden boy likes to gossip?!? Brad's decision to gossip about Alexander signals insecurity. Perfect people don’t gossip - jealous people do. @Laura S. Fox, scratch a little bit Brad's mask for us, I'm really curious what's beneath it! 😉 If you don't give him some human personality, I'll lose any sympathy for the character. I'm already thinking Lyn and Alexander should run away together. I'm wondering...was Alexander the one who knew where Lyn was all the time?

But it is funny that they have sex in a Vince's car in the middle of the swamp, beside the biggest house (with thousand rooms) in the count! Ok, I understand the logic...catch the moment!

Guys, the Review I've published has been the most difficult one to write (and it is the Review nr. 121). Thanks Lord, I did my homework with earlier comments so, there was enough material to do it. Anyway, enough with silence, let the applause begin! 👏👏👏

“Unfortunately there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” - Carl Jung This story doesn’t just tell a tale, it contemplates one. In many ways, it reads like a literary essay written in flesh and feeling, unfolding slowly through the lives of three deeply entangled characters: Nick, Bobby, and Adrian. Love, shame, betrayal, longing, it’s all there. But beneath the emotional realism is something even deeper: a quiet, haunting meditation on Jungian themes. @CasualWanderer82's secret receipt is here - three individuals, haunted by their own demons, caught in a net of toxic relationships. Oh, @CasualWanderer82 bring the new dimension to the term 'toxic relationship'...read and find out how! The story feels like an exploration of the shadow self - that hidden, often repressed part of our psyche. Each character carries a burden they try to bury, and the drama between them isn’t just interpersonal - it’s psychological. They act out old patterns, echo traumas they inherited, and repeat roles they can’t escape. The choices they make aren’t always rational, but they’re deeply human, shaped by wounds that go deeper than words. Throughout the story, the ocean plays a powerful symbolic role. For Jung, the ocean often represents the collective unconscious—vast, mysterious, full of forgotten truths. The sea becomes a place where characters confront themselves or let go. It’s where memory returns, where desire dissolves, and where silence speaks. The mood is cinematic and poetic—like a European film from another time. It doesn’t rush. It lingers in glances, pauses, bedsheets, and half-spoken words. Settled in Tarkovsky's landscape, with Bergman's psychological depth, interrupted with few Tarantino's shocking scenes and Hitchcock's final word, this story will leave you breathless. In the end, this is not a story about answers. It’s about seeing. Seeing the shadow, seeing the damage, seeing the love that maybe came too late. It’s quiet. It’s aching. It stays with you. This story doesn't shout, it whispers Jung and sometimes, that’s louder than anything else. This story screams silence! Finally, a note to the readers. @CasualWanderer82 is not writing a “tasteful” psychological drama. He's writing something braver: a poetic, morally ambiguous, erotically charged story where moments of stark physicality rip through beautiful language the way trauma and desire rip through people. If everyone’s comfortable, the writing probably isn’t doing enough.

My association with the LOTR were Frodo's words at the end of the novel - "We set out to save the Shire, Sam, and it has been saved, but not for me,". Nick says - “I think part of love, the real kind, is knowing when to leave before you destroy the things you treasure most.” ... “I didn’t leave you, Bobby. I left us.”

Why am I feeling like quoted here? A silence that speaks volumes... This story is a Symphony. The silence at the end of Mahler’s 9th is traditionally interpreted as death - but not in a theatrical or final sense. It is transcendence, a return to stillness after immense emotional turbulence. And just like Adrian’s final moments in the sea, Mahler's final bars don’t end so much as they dissolve...into ether, into memory, into something larger than self. In Mahler 9, the Adagio movement disintegrates until all that remains is a breath - then nothing. In the story, Adrian undresses physically, emotionally, spiritually. Each layer dropped is not shame but truth. This is musical phrasing in prose. The story becomes music, and music becomes the story. For Adrian, this silence is not physical death, it is the death of the false self, of the defensive self, of the mask. It is Mahlerian in the truest sense, not tragic but transcendental. The moment Adrian is held by the ocean, he becomes just one part of the world, not above it, not outside it. That is peace, not despair. Like Mahler, who so feared death, and yet composed something that made space for its acceptance, even its beauty. Abbado’s performance of Mahler’s 9th with Lucerne is especially pure one. What makes it devastating is not just Mahler’s score but that Abbado himself was dying when he conducted it. There’s a direct link between acceptance of mortality and awe-filled restraint in that final silence. At the end, nobody wants to start applause, nobody wants to disturb the sanctity of the moment. And here is the answer why are we (the readers) still so restrained with comments and analyses... Just as the conductor disappears at the final bow, @CasualWanderer82 does too. The prose vanishes into the sea. No applause. No explanation. Only the readers, like the listeners, left still, hushed, perhaps blinking back tears, not quite able to speak just yet. Because what you’ve done @CasualWanderer82, like Mahler, is not end a story. You’ve breathed into silence, and you’ve left us there. It’s beautiful. So, let us enjoy the silence, admiring your masterpiece @CasualWanderer82 before discussion emerges!

This line - What about me?!

There's one thing we didn't say about Adrian. In this chapter, he becomes his father in a tragically complete way. This isn’t just a resemblance or mimicry anymore. The transformation is total, and it is so devastating. Throughout the story, Adrian fights, masks, rationalizes, or projects his way out of that inheritance. But by this chapter, the trajectory is fulfilled: he doesn’t just echo his father - he inhabits him. Not just through behavior, but in essence. Before, Adrian could still pretend. His charisma, his intellect, his aesthetics, his power gave him the illusion of freedom. But now, the mask cracks. He’s not playing his father anymore - he is his father.

@J LeRoy you've made me read, reread and read again both the story and your comments. I don't know, am I more thankful or frustrated for putting my mind on a light speed mode! 🙂 So, Nick -a protector, savior, liar...or all together? If we read “protector” as someone who shields another from harm, Nick doesn’t do that. So, from that lens, the word protector seems dishonest. Nevertheless, how I see it - Nick’s form of saving or “protecting” Bobby was not about shielding him from pain but confronting him with it. He lets Bobby fall, not to abandon him, but to push him through something. Nick never protected Bobby in the soft, paternalistic sense, he rescued him from self-delusion, from emotional paralysis, from denial. And this required force, maybe even cruelty. Bobby would have told him to fuck off if Nick came gently, as some therapist or moral preacher. Nick shows Bobby his shadow - he doesn’t rescue him from the wolves, because the wolves are part of what Bobby must face. But what he does do is stay just close enough, quietly holding the life belt out of view. Nick orchestrates a moment of collapse that becomes Bobby's turning point. Vindictive or petty ...the same as questionable and monstrous - this is all said from the moral framework. Nick doesn’t poison Adrian to punish him, he does it after years of failed hope, spiritual exhaustion. It’s not revenge; it’s resignation, not cruelty but cracked mercy. Nick doesn’t enjoy this choice, he mourns it. Calling Nick petty ignores the gravity of the internal war Nick’s been waging for years. It also ignores how long Nick avoided making this decision. This was the last resort, not the first. This! Yes, Nick is a liar! Mostly lying himself, for years, as you said. Nick must believe he did it to protect Bobby. Because the alternative, that he gave up on a man he once loved and killed a version of him to save what was left of himself and the boy he failed to shield is intolerable. So, he builds the narrative: I was Bobby’s protector. I had to choose. It’s a rationalization, but not a hollow one. It feels like truth to him because it’s stitched from desperation and love. Finally, as we all agreed, Nick isn’t the hero. He’s also not a villain. He’s a failed idealist, who tried to save two people, maybe even love them both, and couldn’t.

This!!! This is the crucial moment, the most controversial scene in the story! It is the moment when Nick, finally start the process of embracing his Shadow. To embrace the shadow means: facing your dark side (becoming aware of the parts of yourself you disown or fear); accepting without judgment and, finally, integrating the shadow: Finding a conscious place for those traits in your life. Why Nick does this - because what you repress controls you. Of course, confronting the Shadow can have positive as well as negative impacts. Facing denied, dark or painful traits can cause emotional distress or moral reckoning. Or, in Nick's own words: This is the Nick's ultimate try. This is the moment when he says it's all or nothing. This is the moment he says - I'm standing naked before you, it is the last thing I have, and I give it to you! He is no longer pretending to be the “good influence.” He’s meeting them in the dirt. Bobby, though shaken, allows himself to be exposed, even when punished. He feels more than Adrian. The fact that he looked into Nick (and Adrian noticed) means he’s drawn toward the truth. He wants to see, even at great cost. Adrian, in contrast, reacts with violence and control - he’s threatened by Bobby’s gaze, by Nick’s attention, by anything that punctures his mask. Sex, as usual for Adrian, becomes a tool of power or possession, not revelation. It's a moment where Nick is trying to integrate the triangle through an act that is erotic, sacrificial, and morally ambiguous - and only one of the three can bear the cost of truth. I was surprised with revelation that Adrian's stroke has been induced by poison delivered by Nick. It shows how strongly rooted Adrian's self-portrait was - so much that even body could not rebel against such monstrous psychological auto engineering without attack from the outside. It shows, simply, there was no other way. I don't know was it morally or not, but I see it as act of self-defense. As for the Nick leaving Bobby - was it really running away or giving a chance? That's the ultimate sacrifice - Nick saved Bobby from Adrian but, this was moment to save him from himself. Grief is not good enough foundation for a stable relationship. Grief can be very destructive; we've seen it in The Good Son. Time is the only good medicine for the grief. Finally, what will be with Adrian. I think, in order to reintegrate, he must have his own meeting with Richard and his own bath in the Ocean. Is he going to become one with the Ocean and join Lorenzo, or he is going to step out of the water, reborn - I leave it to the poetic imagination of @CasualWanderer82!

You're probably right but, that's my way of self-protection. If I allow myself to involve too much emotionally in @CasualWanderer82's story, he'll break me!

I'd like to believe that Nick's departure is moment when Bad Education becomes a Man Up game! "Professor Morrisey, you ever think," Caleb said, "that maybe disappearing for someone isn't weakness, but a different kind of presence?" Nick didn't answer. He just looked up, lips parted, words caught somewhere behind his teeth. Caleb took a step backward, then another. "Maybe love isn't about being seen. Maybe it's about being the one thing they can't stop feeling, even when you're gone."

I know who it is! It's @kbois!!! 😂🤣

I don't have to imagine, @CasualWanderer82 wrote it: "Some would argue losing yourself for someone else is the easiest path to destruction." Caleb tilted his head. "Or maybe it's the only honest one." Nick's voice sharpened, only slightly. "And what if you...become invisible in the process? What if you vanish completely?" Caleb was quiet, contemplative. "Then maybe that's still love. Tragic, but…love doesn't always need to be...seen. It just needs to be given." Nick looked at him long and hard. "Even if it hurts?" Caleb smiled, soft and crooked. "Especially if it hurts."

Before I leave you guys for a few hours, I'll answer this question (although I'm eagerly waiting @The Donling's authentic approach). If he really integrates, embrace his shadow, break his persona, exorcise his father... Adrian will deserve to be happy. It doesn't mean to get together with Nick and Bobby because I'm not sure they'll be able to trust him ever again. But let's leave @CasualWanderer82 surprise us in final chapter! 😉

Exactly...and, what's even more painful, he didn't sacrifice 'only' his principles and ethics; he sacrificed his love. He deliberately hurt the man he loves to save him and his son! This, my friends, is another one @CasualWanderer82's masterpiece worth of the Greek Tragedy!

Fighting my time!

So, it was a sacrifice... Nick sacrificed something holy, a really big part of his own soul to save Bobby. It is tragic, brave and painful!

As @The Donling, I need a time to do my homework, but I have to highlight the metaphor... “Aminocaproic acid” literally stops bleeding by promoting blood clotting - so in the physiological sense, it’s about halting loss and damage. But metaphorically, it’s profound: when Nick says, “Some wrongs feel like mercy when love rots beyond recognition,” he’s acknowledging that sometimes harm, even betrayal, feels like an act of mercy or protection when the original love has decayed into something poisonous. It’s not about justice or redemption...it’s about stopping the bleeding (the ongoing emotional and physical destruction) before it kills both of them - Adrian through his self-destructive behavior and Bobby through emotional abuse and neglect. It’s a beautiful but brutal metaphor for a love that’s no longer love, and a mercy that’s also a weapon. Bravo @CasualWanderer82!!!!

Pregnant Rory - constructing scenarios in his head where is his husband sneaking in the night!!! Drunken wrestling with Garran who likes boys! 😱 Convincing Rory is going to be difficult for Kieran as much as tests itself! I, almost, feel sorry for him ... Poor arrogant bastard is going to need a patience of a Buddhist monk!

Oh my...she's fast! At one moment I've understood only mama and papa (daddy)... I've never been to US so, my first impression of the 'south' came from the miniseries "North & South"! Not to go into slavery thing but, it was amazing to see that kind of American aristocracy and chivalry that exists on American south. Oh, Patrick Swayze as Orry Main was not bad on the eye too! 😉

Impatiently waiting your comment! 🙂

LOL, it must have been your poetic style, combined with southern charm that misled me! Well, after all those triangles, can you blame me?! 🙂 Nevertheless, @CasualWanderer82 everything is unique in your style, friendship including. One of the most beautiful scenes, the one I've been reading and rereading hundreds of times...is when Oliver kissed Jason's mouth, with Charlotte and children around, in final chapter of the Summer Rhapsody. It is so sensual and gentle, erotic but not passionate. Sexual in the most innocent way. Writing this, I feel the contradictions of my words, still, I don't know how, but you did it! That platform scene from this chapter is as almost as beautiful as the kiss from OSR.

It is not just love - friendly, brotherly or romantic...it so much more. Kind of adoration! Cash has put Jackson on pedestal as something beautiful, pure, untouchable. Something that should be used only to look at. He does it to hide and burry deep his true feelings. And Jackson...he's mesmerized by the bad boy. Blake awakes him - emotionally, sexually... It's wild, it's forbidden... There is chemistry, there is passion and lust...alas, Blake doesn't seem like a long-term boy material. I'm afraid, when it comes to real feelings, Blake tends to run away. Bulls are piece of cake comparing to feelings when it comes to Blake! I just love the Cinderella entrance Jackson has made! Very cinematic again @CasualWanderer82!