J LeRoy

Yeah, I'm just gonna bow out here.

I never said that I didn't like Nick. That's kind of putting words into my mouth and the opposite of my opinion of him. You are correct that I don't approve of some of Nicks' actions, but that's not the same as not liking him. I also understand why he did what he did, even if I think some of what he did was questionable at best and monstrous at worst. I even understand Nick lying to himself, to Adrian, and to the readers about his motivations. It's human instinct not to want to be a "villian in our own story." But being candid, Nick is lying. He's rewriting his own history to suit a narrative that changes his role in his own eyes. Six months after the stroke, he's rationalizing his poisoning of Adrian with statements like he had to choose between being Adrian's caretaker and Bobby's protector. My argument is not whether it was right or wrong to poison Adrian. My point is that there is little to nothing in the text of the story to back-up Nick's claim that he was ever Bobby's protector. Instead, there are at least two explicit incidents that depict Nick doing the exact opposite of protecting Bobby, even going so far as to metaphorically throw Bobby to the wolves with a comment like "He's all yours." I'm not judging Nick based on any morality. I'm just highlighting the lie. Pointing out that something is untrue isn't automatically an accusation of immorality. People lie all the time. They lie to themselves, to their loved ones, and strangers. Their reasons for lying are just as diverse. Sometimes we even lie because the truth is just too cruel. I even leave the door open to the idea that this is what Nick is doing, that he's lying to himself because he's not ready to cope with his role in preserving this toxic relationship for twenty years and the horrible things that he did and may have done to protect it. I'm not sure that I understand how any of that is incongruous with any of the points that were made in the earlier chapters during Nick's class. My understanding of the point of this story was that people are not two-dimensional heroes and villains. People are messy. People are complicated. And I think you've done a fantastic job of creating a trio of messy, complicated people. Adrian is, to some extent, a lost cause. Of course, we sympathize with his horrible childhood. We should because it WAS awful. No child should have to go through that. Narcissists are created, not born. Most parents who create narcissists do so accidentally. They don't set out to do it. Adrian's parents, however, seemed determined to create a narcissist like it was their life goal. That's messed up. But it doesn't change who he is now. Adrian will never be cured, will never be emotionally self-sufficient. He will never naturally see any perspective other than his own. He will never step into anyone else's shoes. He will never empathetically feel their pain. He can, however, be taught to fake it in a healthy way as long as he stays in therapy for the rest of his life. He is treatable if he wants to be, and it seems like he wants to be. But he will never be cured, and the emotional black hole will always be there. Bobby is a young man damaged by a broken home, an emotionally broken father, and a mother who we are told is "a bitch." He's a physically beautiful young man who has weaponized his attractiveness in the past to get what he wants. He has been transactional in some of his behavior but also revealed that he wants and is capable of more. At the beginning, he seems to be only interested in throwing wrenches into everything just to see the machinery of Nick and Adrian's toxic relationship break and seems only interested in doing so for the sheer entertainment value of it. If he'd stayed that way, he'd be a two-dimensional agent of chaos character. But you revealed that he isn't that and that there is so much more to Bobby than readers believed at first. The initial perceptions were incomplete. But then there's Nick. Nick is the one character that, thus far, views don't really have seem to have shifted all that much. And that's what I find interesting because there's plenty of information in the text to suggest that Nick isn't the protagonist or the hero that many readers seem to be making him out to be. Just because readers aren't using the words, doesn't mean that they aren't there between the lines. They seem to be there, especially within the reactions to my observation that Nick is lying. Poisoning Adrian doesn't make Nick interesting. Poisoning Adrian just makes Nick vindictive, at worst, or petty, at best. And those are generally "meh" qualities of a stereotypical, two-dimensional Disney villain. It's the lying about his motives for poisoning Adrian and his attempts to frame it as some kind of altruistic "gotta protect Bobby" feeling that he had that makes Nick interesting. The lying makes him human and complicated, and messy. I will say that I'm somewhat astonished that you would reject that theory.

I just have to say how incredible a journey this has been. What stands out to me is not just how well @CasualWanderer82 has portrayed Narcissistic Personality Disorder and the trauma experienced by those exposed to NPDs but, also, how each of these characters are shown to be much more than what readers perceived them to be at the beginning. @CasualWanderer82 set out to create a story where all the characters were antagonists of some form. I think he has succeeded. Bobby was first presented to readers as a troublemaking brat who did little else but needle the pseudo-protagonist that the readers were given to identify with: Nick. He even went so far as to delight in watching Nick discover Adrian cheating on him with Bobby. But so much changes so quickly with Bobby that, by this point, he has been revealed to be a victim and a survivor. At first introduction, Adrian is a strong, successful, confident, attractive, sexy-as-all-hell, middle-aged "daddy" who likely made many of us swoon and raise our hands shouting, "Pick me! Pick me!" Even when he tried to drug Nick in Chapter One, I'm certain there were many readers--I won't say I wasn't one of them--yearning for more dominating buttsex from this man. But, he was quickly revealed to be anything but all of those things. Yes, he was physically powerful. Yes, he was sexy-as-all hell. Yes, he was successful. But confident he was not. It was all a veneer that prevented us from seeing the emotional blackhole that Adrian really is, sucking people in and crushing them under the immense gravity of his own selfish needs and demands. He is the dragon that must be vanquished. Last but certainly not least is Nick. Unlike @The Donling, I find it difficult to weep for Nick. I empathize with the trauma he has endured during the twenty years that he was married to Adrian. I empathize because I've been through a relationship with an NPD, and I know how devastating it can be. But, I don't weep. I don't weep because, for me, this chapter is where Nick's antagonistic role is fully revealed. I'm not going to get into a debate about Nick's long-term poisoning of Adrian and whether or not Adrian "had it coming." That, to me, is almost like trying to referee two monsters duking it out. I say this because this chapter left me feeling that Nick is just as much of a monster as Adrian is, just of a different type. Nick lied in this chapter. He talked about how he protected Bobby, or tried to protect Bobby, for years. I have to call bullshit on this. Other than not wanting Bobby to come to the beach house, when and where did Nick ever do anything to protect Bobby? He certainly didn't do anything to protect Bobby when Adrian punched him during the kitchen table fuckfest. Nick left and stepped outside while Adrian, after hitting his son, pinned Bobby down to a couch, covered his mouth, and proceeded to rail into him for two hours. As I said on another site, there could be a debate as to whether this was or was not rape. Bobby consented, originally, but with Adrian covering Bobby's mouth to prevent him from speaking, we'll never know if Bobby ever said "No." I'm still inclined to call this rape because I find it odd that Adrian would cover Bobby's mouth for any other reason than to stop Bobby from being able to revoke his consent. He didn't need to keep him quiet anymore, as the secret was out. Nick's reaction to this potential assault on Bobby was deep satisfaction and a feeling that it was "music to his ears." That's not protection. The fact that Nick instigated that entire scene is the complete opposite of protection. I still feel that Nick deliberately provoked Adrian's violent reaction. After all, Nick did something similar in the past with that blond boy at the club. Furthermore, after Adrian exhibited violence against Bobby, Nick left Bobby alone in that house with the man. Whether this was intentional or just negligence really doesn't matter, I don't think, because either is a failure to protect. I think Nick is lying to himself and everyone else in an effort to rationalize his own awful behavior. We were given one scene where Nick had the opportunity to step in between Adrian and his son to protect Bobby from a physical assault. He didn't. He delighted in it from just outside. We were also given a scene where Nick had the opportunity to remove Bobby from a volatile situation, but instead left him behind. Bobby was, again, physically assaulted and almost killed. Nick even called it rape after the fact. Yes, Nick is good at tending to bruises. But stitching up someone's wounds is not the same as protecting them from getting those wounds in the first place. And, in this chapter, Nick seems to be trying to convince himself, Adrian, and the readers that protecting is what he did. He didn't. And the fact that he's lying about it is troubling and almost comes across as some rendition of toxic martyrdom. The only salvation, I think, for Nick is if the reason he got in the car and left Bobby all alone is because he KNEW that he was lying and that he didn't lift a finger to protect the boy when he should have. That he knew, at the moment, he was just as toxic as Adrian, and that remaining in Bobby's life would be detrimental to Bobby. I'm not sure what will happen in the final chapter but, with the revelations that were given to us in this one, Nick is very much the monster at the end of this book to me. Run, Bobby! Run!

Okay. I just have to start by saying that I love, adore, and absolutely fucking envy the way you are able to mirror events from your earlier chapters, especially the first chapter, and create credible equal and opposite situations. You did this in Man Up and you've done so again here at the end of this chapter. Chapter One saw Adrian give Nick a pill. Nick doesn't take them. After Nick was supposed to have taken said pill, Nick awoke to overhear Adrian and Bobby having a conversation about him. He then proceeded to witness Adrian fucking Bobby in the shed. In this chapter, we see Nick give Adrian two pills. Adrian takes them. While Adrian is zonked out, Nick and Bobby have a conversation about Adrian. Adrian wakes up to witness Nick and Bobby having sex and it's obvious they've been at it a long time. I'm wondering if this will become a Casual Wanderer trademark. I think Bobby has shown a lot of growth. It takes a lot of maturing to be the one to pull back from what feels like a burgeoning relationship and say, "I need space before we do this. We both do." I don't know at what point during the six-month gap between the first love scene (not calling this a sex scene because it's CLEARLY not) and the point where Bobby comes back after being away but some time has clearly passed. I look forward to discovering what "that day" was and what happened. I'm confident that it's not the day of Adrian's stroke, at this point. Something else is going to happen that drives the final wedge between the three characters. And it's apparently powerful enough that Bobby and Nick seem to go zero contact for over four years. That said, I do think it also speaks to both Nick and Bobby's maturity that they did go zero contact. They've both been traumatized by the same man for years. Yes, they bonded and became intimate emotionally and physically with each other. But, I think, had they leapt from Adrian to each other and tried to start up a relationship, that Adrian would always been lingering in the background. He'd be in the very foundation of their relationship and I can't imagine that would have been good. Another great chapter, CW! You've encapsulated the NPD so well!

I love the time that you are taking with these characters. I remember commenting (on another forum) at the end of Man Up, where I suggested that you might consider letting the characters breathe, and you seem to be doing that. If that's the case, it's produced some of the best chapters that I've read from you. You've taken two wounded souls and allowed them the opportunity to not feel and to just be. They go through mundane motions. Nothing is grandiose. They stand in water just to feel nature. They cook a meal together because a person has to eat. They go to a vintage video store (how much I HATED putting those three words together!) just for the distraction. It's watching them find catharsis in the simple, calm moments after spending a life that, I expect, was full of turbulence. Your portrayal of two people suddenly finding themselves granted a brief respite from the source of their trauma is incredibly poignant and moving. As someone who has experienced life with an NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), thank you for this.

This was a beautiful chapter. I love the use of August, especially. Animals, especially dogs, are so intuitive when it comes to picking up on human emotions. They can sense pain and are almost eager in their desire to soothe it, even if the human feeling the pain is a complete stranger. There is a humanity in them that I think we humans could learn from. I thought it was touching that August saw Bobby hurting and his only instinct was to convey "you are loved" to him. I hope that Bobby has an August in his life somewhere in the "five years later" section that just hasn't been revealed. He needs one. I was both surprised and not surprised to learn that Nick and Bobby don't seem to have remained in contact five years later. At least, I was left with the impression that they were zero contact since Bobby didn't seem to be aware of Nick's book. If they were still having even sporadic contact, I expect that Nick would have told Bobby about it. I was surprised because of how this chapter ends in a way that suggest that Bobby and Nick seem to be forming some kind of bond. The dissonance between that and the idea that they are no longer in each others' lives leaves me with two potential reasons why they haven't spoken. The first is that something either happens after that moment or is something comes to light that drives a wedge between them and shatters the bond in its infancy. The second is that, while shared trauma can bind people together, having the person with whom you share a trauma in your life day-to-day can be a constant, painful reminder of the past. Always hovering in the background. Always lingering. Perhaps even perpetually defining the relationship by creating a painful context to its birth. The Donling, I thought the same thing about Nick's strength when he carried Bobby up the stairs. But, I kid you not, the song "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" queued up in my head the moment Nick picked Bobby up and lumbered up the stairs with him. My eyes may have watered, not gonna lie. Again, CW, another fantastic chapter and another wonderful display of telling us what to expect and meeting those expectations, but doing so in a way that we both expect but also don't see coming. This is one of those stories where readers could have a million different theories of what will happen next but, once we read what does, we are left hit with the realization "Of course! That's the only thing that could have happened!"