Story Insight: A Night in Manhattan

WARNING: If you haven’t read A Night in Manhattan, go read it now! There are spoilers below!

Alright, I know it was just released, but still! I like doing these, and some of you like reading them, so I figured I’d write this before it all fades into the part of my memory that I can no longer access.

This story, A Night in Manhattan, started when I found the model for Hope. She, as I am sure almost all of you will agree, is just GORGEOUS. Her hair. Her lips. Her skin and her breasts. All of it is is yum, and yum enough to immediately earmark her for an ongoing character in the Raptureverse.

Quickly, Hannah’s model I found at the same time I was collecting images of Hope. The search engine I was using, Bing, suggesting that I would like a picture of Hannah, if I was interested in pictures of Hope.

Now, that’s easy to do — choosing a model. But harder to find her a story to be in. And though sometimes that search takes years (looks at the thousands of neatly separated models folders in my Google Drive with a heavy sigh), for Hope it took seconds.

Not because she had a consistent look that drove me in one particular direction, but instead because in her various galleries across the net, she has two distinct looks. A few of them clearly from when the model was younger and the others, from when she was a little more mature. Seeing those two available looks, I immediately came up with the idea of two stories. One, where hope is younger and weaker, and the second where she is older, more mature, and more of a force to be reckoned with.

Now, the latter story can be found on the previews page, and will pit Hope vs. Beatrix from Pretender, a sexfight story that goes heavily in Beatrix’s favor. The former, as you may have guessed, is A Night in Manhattan, which at first and for a long time, was called The Fire Dies Not.

That title reflected my original intent for the story, which was to have the story be a pure sexfight.

A soft, sensual sexfight, where Brandon, everyone’s favorite neanderthal, would pass out and remain passed out until after the conclusion of their battle. Therein being the link, that though the man they wanted was out, the fire in them did not die.

But, then came the Uber ride. One in which I almost lost control of my typing hands. The words just pouring out of my head and onto the stark white Google Doc page without me even feeling in control of what was being written. Despite that feeling, I loved what I did there. Not because it is brilliant or perfect, but because I really enjoyed their mutual feeling of betrayal.

Both Hope and Hannah, at one point, feeling as if they could soften and want one another, only to have the other, as they saw it, throw that desire back in their face.

In fact, I loved it so much, that it dictated how I was to write the rest of the story. Not that I didn’t try to keep to my original sexfight plan foolishly. As I did, my commitment to that style lasting until Hannah’s sudden rebellion, when the two were about to trib on the bed.

My reasoning, oh so long ago when I came up with the softer take on the tale, was driven by how hot I thought Hope and Hannah having a soft, sensual, passionate sexfight would be. After all, they’re both just so scrumptious and innocent looking.

But as I went over the Uber scene, again and again in my mind, it just wouldn’t make sense for Hannah to trust Hope. Not after what happened before. Not after she had sworn to make her regret that same perceived betrayal.

So, the violence began. A flash of it, cruel and malicious though it was. And though I was tempted to just make the rest of the story a catfight, it didn’t make sense to me. To A. have them fight hard and desperately, when Brandon was there and could wake up at any minute. And B, to have the desire each did have for the other mentioned, have it be key to their heightened anger, and then let it disappear entirely.

And though that makes it sound like I then, after Brandon’s sudden interruption and departure, let the story return to being a sexfight, I can hear a thousand sexfight fans cry out as one.

It wasn’t a sexfight! They were catfighting!

And in response to them, catfight fans would reply, it wasn’t a catfight! It was sexfight!

And while they’re shouting at each other, I can tell you, they’re both right.

It was kind of … both — and yet neither. They were just struggling. To overcome the other. With sex. With violence. With whatever they had. In part because they were young and in part because they were conflicted, which I think the story gets across.

Now, as conflicted as they were, and as mixed as they styles may have been, the punishment phase was a little more specific. Not that there wasn’t orgasms and pain, but because it was an attempt by me to have the punishments in some of my stories be a little more intense.

I had someone ask me, which of my stories they should read if they wanted the loser of the fight to be completely destroyed. At that time, I really couldn’t give them one. As, I didn’t really have a story that ended in such a way.

Since then, in stories like Breast is Best, Daddy’s Girl, and this one, the punishment has been so acute, so humiliating (at least in my mind), that I could give that person a recommendation now.

It won’t be the way I end all my stories from now on, but some of them. When I feel like severance of the pairing is more important than a continuance of their connection.