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OP
OP
- Joined
- Dec 14, 2012
- Location
- Australia
Happy 2018 everyone, hope all had an enjoyable and safe New Year's!
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Finally, after around thirty posts and forty-thousand words, Todd Lowry and Hannah McKay have met in person, in Dulce Periculum, and now the real depraved fun can start!
I have to say this is one of the most mentally draining stories I've ever written - in a totally enjoyable way - not only because I'm still a little intimidated by the ability of my partner to post a thousand word reply in an hour, but in trying to make a psychopathic, sociopathic serial-killer character who comes to care for a woman romantically, believable.
Anyone who knows me would be aware that, the characters - not the writing, exotic worlds, fantasy creatures or settings, 'epic' adventures and the like, but the internal drivers of people and their motivations - are the story to me, and to receive some validation that I've been able to achieve that above aim with Todd Lowry, not just from my partner, but from an unbiased observer, honestly makes it all worthwhile. In that regard, I've received some of the best feedback I've ever received on any story, from a reader on E.
That's what drives me to keep getting better, and I wouldn't be able to do it without an incredible partner who challenges me every step of the way.
-------------------------------------------------------------
And speaking of incredible partners - well, I think everyone I write with is incredible -, a special shout-out to Silv, and our The Heiress and the Hacker story, which has just celebrated its three-year anniversary!
Our second story together, I wasn't totally sure where it was headed when we first started, but I quickly came to love it. I can't recall whose idea it was to bring back Adam and Sophie from our original collaboration, but I'm so glad we did. That duo, plus Lexi and Richard, are definitely amongst my favourite pairings ever.
Thanks, Silv, for being such a fun, relaxed, reliable, easy-going, no-stress, no hassle collaborator, not to mention an amazingly talented writer whose characters are full of sass and personality and the epitome of the independent-minded type of women I look to pit my males with. I still plan on writing that Historical with you one day!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally, after around thirty posts and forty-thousand words, Todd Lowry and Hannah McKay have met in person, in Dulce Periculum, and now the real depraved fun can start!
Dulce Periculum[/color] - (Quix & Flick)]
“Well, I'm at Tatiana's coffee shop. On the corner of Third. If you wanted to join me.”
The first words Hannah ever spoke to Todd coincided with the low rumble of an engine and his vehicle headlights illuminating the darkness. Soft and feminine with no hesitation or fear in her tone, blood turned to ice in his veins.
Arousal?
Fear?
Nerves?
A combination of all. Arousal elicited by the memory of what they'd discussed over the dark web and the possibilities that lay in store and for Hannah herself. The fear and nerves brought on by the imminent reality of pursuing what up to now had still remained only a theoretical concept, and the thought that he'd lost control.
With his victim's Todd was an unstoppable supreme force, the man who selected the time and place, who grabbed, raped and tortured them. Who had them beg and plead at his feet for mercy and decided when the lives they grovelled to maintain reached a brutal end. He was God, and treated those women as inferior creatures, toys to play with, who existed solely to satiate his depraved desires. No differently than Biggles treated the occasional rodent he captured and brought inside, seeming to comprehend its Master's predilection for witnessing the weaker animal die slowly and painfully.
Would Biggles ever befriend a mouse, come to care for it as an equal? Didn't that deny the very laws of nature? Of the predator and prey dynamic?
So why would Todd invite a woman into his life?
That fear of the unknown and the knowledge that in sharing with another person he'd be handing at least some control of his own destiny over to her scared the shit of him. He should cut the cord before they met, however, was that even any longer possible.
Hannah knew his first name, the identities of Ellie Shaw and Cherise McMahon, information a skilled investigator could use to potentially track him. If he vanished or, alternatively, snuffed out Hannah McKay, what would be the result?
She could have left a note, a diary, in the event that something happened. On her computer, in a safety-deposit box, anywhere it would be found by someone before Todd. Had she painted the controlled and always-in-charge Lowry into a corner? Surprised by how just talking to Hannah, and the resultant unique notion of screwing a woman with her pleasure in mind rather than the infliction of pain, managed to excite him, had he been led by his cock instead of his brain.
Every one of questions and concerns ran through his mind, but ultimately each was irrelevant. Todd was going to meet up with Hannah simply because he was drawn to the woman like iron filings to a magnet, damn the consequences. She wasn't a victim, another Ellie or Cherise, she was a woman unlike he'd ever before encountered, and Todd had already mentally mapped out the quickest route to Third street.
"I'm a half-hour away, and I'll take a double-shot latte, two sugars and full-cream milk. Doubt I'll live long enough to need worry about high cholesterol."
A coffee-shop, where'd she'd be safe in a crowd. Todd pondered if Hannah was as calm and collected as she sounded, or if he wasn't the only one concealing his nerves and fear. What if it was a set-up? He was just about to place more trust in one person than he had in the rest of humanity combined during his thirty-one years on Earth.
"I look forward to seeing you. Don't disappoint me." Todd pressed the end call button. His hands shook too much and his mind remained too occupied to be able to concentrate on the road and speak to her at the same time.
Half an hour, he'd told her, although the drive was only fifteen minutes. Wary, but more composed when he arrived, he surveyed the coffee shop from a distance. After sensing no danger, he casually walked by the exterior, knees almost buckling and heart jumping into his mouth when he spotted a mane of blonde hair, and the woman it belonged to, seated at a table. Hannah.
Attired in a charcoal suit and cream dress shirt, sans tie, he appeared a twin to many of the other men who inhabited Taitana's. Todd collected a newspaper from the complimentary reading rack on his way in.
"Mind if I join you?" Thirty seconds later, the man, having courteously manoeuvred his way through the throng of customers, paused at her table. Blue eyes crinkled behind black-rimmed spectacles and he could have been a wall street banker, a stockbroker, a young advertising exec or a budding partner in a Law Firm, unremarkable in his boyish, friendly appearance and demeanour. "Not safe for a woman to be alone in this city."
He tossed the newspaper down in front of her, front-page up and displaying a high-resolution, full colour image of a beaming and beautiful Ellie Shaw, now a brutalised corpse lying on a slab in the morgue, flanked by her proud parents at her High School Graduation ceremony, and slipped into the seat opposite. If Todd Lowry didn't feel in control of the situation, he made a good pretence of it as he then shot the only human being he ever intended to be allowed to see beyond his facade of normality and survive to tell the tale, a smile. "Hello, Hannah. You're even prettier in person."
“Well, I'm at Tatiana's coffee shop. On the corner of Third. If you wanted to join me.”
The first words Hannah ever spoke to Todd coincided with the low rumble of an engine and his vehicle headlights illuminating the darkness. Soft and feminine with no hesitation or fear in her tone, blood turned to ice in his veins.
Arousal?
Fear?
Nerves?
A combination of all. Arousal elicited by the memory of what they'd discussed over the dark web and the possibilities that lay in store and for Hannah herself. The fear and nerves brought on by the imminent reality of pursuing what up to now had still remained only a theoretical concept, and the thought that he'd lost control.
With his victim's Todd was an unstoppable supreme force, the man who selected the time and place, who grabbed, raped and tortured them. Who had them beg and plead at his feet for mercy and decided when the lives they grovelled to maintain reached a brutal end. He was God, and treated those women as inferior creatures, toys to play with, who existed solely to satiate his depraved desires. No differently than Biggles treated the occasional rodent he captured and brought inside, seeming to comprehend its Master's predilection for witnessing the weaker animal die slowly and painfully.
Would Biggles ever befriend a mouse, come to care for it as an equal? Didn't that deny the very laws of nature? Of the predator and prey dynamic?
So why would Todd invite a woman into his life?
That fear of the unknown and the knowledge that in sharing with another person he'd be handing at least some control of his own destiny over to her scared the shit of him. He should cut the cord before they met, however, was that even any longer possible.
Hannah knew his first name, the identities of Ellie Shaw and Cherise McMahon, information a skilled investigator could use to potentially track him. If he vanished or, alternatively, snuffed out Hannah McKay, what would be the result?
She could have left a note, a diary, in the event that something happened. On her computer, in a safety-deposit box, anywhere it would be found by someone before Todd. Had she painted the controlled and always-in-charge Lowry into a corner? Surprised by how just talking to Hannah, and the resultant unique notion of screwing a woman with her pleasure in mind rather than the infliction of pain, managed to excite him, had he been led by his cock instead of his brain.
Every one of questions and concerns ran through his mind, but ultimately each was irrelevant. Todd was going to meet up with Hannah simply because he was drawn to the woman like iron filings to a magnet, damn the consequences. She wasn't a victim, another Ellie or Cherise, she was a woman unlike he'd ever before encountered, and Todd had already mentally mapped out the quickest route to Third street.
"I'm a half-hour away, and I'll take a double-shot latte, two sugars and full-cream milk. Doubt I'll live long enough to need worry about high cholesterol."
A coffee-shop, where'd she'd be safe in a crowd. Todd pondered if Hannah was as calm and collected as she sounded, or if he wasn't the only one concealing his nerves and fear. What if it was a set-up? He was just about to place more trust in one person than he had in the rest of humanity combined during his thirty-one years on Earth.
"I look forward to seeing you. Don't disappoint me." Todd pressed the end call button. His hands shook too much and his mind remained too occupied to be able to concentrate on the road and speak to her at the same time.
Half an hour, he'd told her, although the drive was only fifteen minutes. Wary, but more composed when he arrived, he surveyed the coffee shop from a distance. After sensing no danger, he casually walked by the exterior, knees almost buckling and heart jumping into his mouth when he spotted a mane of blonde hair, and the woman it belonged to, seated at a table. Hannah.
Attired in a charcoal suit and cream dress shirt, sans tie, he appeared a twin to many of the other men who inhabited Taitana's. Todd collected a newspaper from the complimentary reading rack on his way in.
"Mind if I join you?" Thirty seconds later, the man, having courteously manoeuvred his way through the throng of customers, paused at her table. Blue eyes crinkled behind black-rimmed spectacles and he could have been a wall street banker, a stockbroker, a young advertising exec or a budding partner in a Law Firm, unremarkable in his boyish, friendly appearance and demeanour. "Not safe for a woman to be alone in this city."
He tossed the newspaper down in front of her, front-page up and displaying a high-resolution, full colour image of a beaming and beautiful Ellie Shaw, now a brutalised corpse lying on a slab in the morgue, flanked by her proud parents at her High School Graduation ceremony, and slipped into the seat opposite. If Todd Lowry didn't feel in control of the situation, he made a good pretence of it as he then shot the only human being he ever intended to be allowed to see beyond his facade of normality and survive to tell the tale, a smile. "Hello, Hannah. You're even prettier in person."
I have to say this is one of the most mentally draining stories I've ever written - in a totally enjoyable way - not only because I'm still a little intimidated by the ability of my partner to post a thousand word reply in an hour, but in trying to make a psychopathic, sociopathic serial-killer character who comes to care for a woman romantically, believable.
Anyone who knows me would be aware that, the characters - not the writing, exotic worlds, fantasy creatures or settings, 'epic' adventures and the like, but the internal drivers of people and their motivations - are the story to me, and to receive some validation that I've been able to achieve that above aim with Todd Lowry, not just from my partner, but from an unbiased observer, honestly makes it all worthwhile. In that regard, I've received some of the best feedback I've ever received on any story, from a reader on E.
"I enjoy perusing it because, well, honestly, I'm hooked on the story. The concept is intriguing, the characters are complex, the writing is brilliant. I've always had a fascination with stories dealing with characters who are definitely not psychologically normal. And, just gotta say, I love Mr. Biggles. The presence of the cat gives a chance to see how Todd can form connections with other living things that aren't people. Plus, that name is adorable..........I look forward to seeing their twisted romance play out."
That's what drives me to keep getting better, and I wouldn't be able to do it without an incredible partner who challenges me every step of the way.
-------------------------------------------------------------
And speaking of incredible partners - well, I think everyone I write with is incredible -, a special shout-out to Silv, and our The Heiress and the Hacker story, which has just celebrated its three-year anniversary!
Our second story together, I wasn't totally sure where it was headed when we first started, but I quickly came to love it. I can't recall whose idea it was to bring back Adam and Sophie from our original collaboration, but I'm so glad we did. That duo, plus Lexi and Richard, are definitely amongst my favourite pairings ever.
Thanks, Silv, for being such a fun, relaxed, reliable, easy-going, no-stress, no hassle collaborator, not to mention an amazingly talented writer whose characters are full of sass and personality and the epitome of the independent-minded type of women I look to pit my males with. I still plan on writing that Historical with you one day!
