Taking Chances, by E. L. Van Hine and L.H. Nicoll

[David]

Louisev,

     I have no trouble with seeing Ennis in a "Dom" role.    I think most succesful sexual relationships have defined roles.    As people get comfortable with eachother those tendencies (dominant or submissive) can be explored and refined.     Of course not everyone has a partner that shares such feelings.    But those who do,  well you get some of the hot, explicit scenes you have portrayed for us.

    As for the fictional Ennis, I think his characters repressed youth and poor anger management could certainly produce a Dominant and aggressive person.     I liked your earlier comments on how Ellery is an extrovert in public, yet submissive in private.  Just as Ennis is an introvert in public, yet Mr.Coyote comes out in private.     

[scudder]

Louise,
Ennis is overcoming years of repression and fear and failure to accept who he is.  The sexual unfolding with an accepting and encouraging partner in private, is helping him accept himself as he is accepted by Ellery.  At the same time, he is slowly coming out publicly.  But that takes time, plenty of time, more than a few months and more than hot and heavy sex (but it is helpful, and how!).

[louisev]

David, Scudder,

Thanks for the commentary, that is what I as going for.  I tried to include in "Looking for Answers" some explanation from Ellery as to why he was attracted to Ennis... the moment he growled at him defensively when Ellery started asking him questions, and his own internal reaction to Ennis's growl told Ellery what kind of a man he was sexually.  And that was the springing off point for Ellery attempting to get closer to him at that time.

[Lumière]

Okay, gang...

For those who have followed Ennis from his first fumbling grope at the Rose Hotel back in chapter 23 of "Taking Chances" to his rope tricks in the middle of "A Second Chance", I want to know how you felt about the development of Dom!Ennis and his experiments with domination and bondage.

Hmmm...bondage , I am so tied up with Ennis' take-charge attitude when it comes to his sexual relations with Ellery (so far in Looking for Answers) that I am sure Ennis' experimentation with bondage won't be too much of a leap for me 
If Ellery is up for it (which I bet he is) - then I am up for it too! 

I really wanna catch up and get to A second chance, but I don't wish to rush myself ...although it'll help if I didn't read the bedroom scenes 5 times over ...

[louisev]

hehehe Lucise, take your time, at least you aren't clamoring for me to write five chapters a day.  Today I am pretty tired... I had to go to the immigration office early this morning after a late night writing last night and I have to travel tomorrow afternoon...

but I am really trying very hard to make every intimacy between them mean something, beyond the entertainment factor of course... something that shows the level of trust and intimacy between them as well as the unfolding sexual dimensions of a man who spent his life in repressed fantasy.  There are plenty more bedroom scenes to go!

[Lumière]

but I am really trying very hard to make every intimacy between them mean something, beyond the entertainment factor of course... something that shows the level of trust and intimacy between them as well as the unfolding sexual dimensions of a man who spent his life in repressed fantasy.  There are plenty more bedroom scenes to go!

Knock yourself out Louise!     No complaints coming from anybody here! 

[louisev]

Update to "A Second Chance"

http://louisev.livejournal.com/62433.html  "Chapter 46:  Ruskin for the State"

[MaineWriter]

In response to Louise's question, posted a few comments ago...

I actually wrote "my" Ennis (A Love Born From Steel Ennis, that is) to be opposite, that is, he comes to acknowledge and accept he's gay before moving into the realm of more adventurous and experimental sex. Near the end of the story, actually, Ennis starts asking Jack about "different types of queers" and Jack stocks the new nightstand with a few toys, which Ennis seems pleased to find and think about how to use.

I think it is not so much the order in which these events occur, rather, that there needs to be a deep and underlying love to establish the trust needed to "go there" -- wherever "there" may be. To that end, Louise, I think you have written the love very effectively, from Ellery's first "I have a theory--we're falling in love"; to Edna saying to Ennis, "He loves you very much" and Ennis being able to answer, "I know, he tells me all the time"; to most recently (and this is one of my most favorite lines in recent chapters), "You are precious to me." To me, it is that love that is more representative of Ennis's growth and unfolding, more than the sex (although the sex works, too).

This is probably going to sound like heresy to some people, but I think we have gotten to the point where Ennis loves Ellery more than he loved Jack...or maybe, to phrase it better, more completely. The point he is at now is exploring how to share a life with Ellery, something he never did with Jack. As I wrote in my story, Ennis and Jack were fuckbuddies who got together 2 or 3 times a year...fuckbuddies in love, yes, but there was no basis to their relationship other than that. He has matured, with Ellery, to the point that there is a relationship which transcends the sexual component.

L

[louisev]

Well, I don't know that it is "heresy."  He could not conceive of living with a man, due to his traumatic upbringing, in 1967.  After losing Jack, after losing his own home, family, profession, and sitting in a room for two years, hanging on to bare existence with his fingernails, he had to change his conceptions.  I think with this new relationship he has a context and more than that, PERMISSION to love, that he had not been granted in his relationship with Jack.  So rather than thinking of it as "loving him more than he loved Jack", he is able to express himself in ways he did not have before, lacking the experience in doing so.  If he knew how, when he and Jack reunited after those four years, he would have expressed it then, but he did not know how.

[MaineWriter]

The people who think that it can only be Ennis and Jack would be the ones who would think it is heresy that not only does Ennis love someone else, he loves him more. Your phrase "he is able to express himself in ways he did not have before" is probably better and what I was trying to get at with "loves more completely."

I wonder, if Ennis had been able to get together with Jack in 1967, would it have worked? A large part of me says no, since I don't think either of them had the maturity, at that point, to face what would have been very high barriers. That is part of the reason I set my story in 1976. I know there are fics that have them getting together in 1967 (I even read a few paragraphs of one that had Jack objecting at Ennis's wedding...that would have been 1963). To me, that is implausible for many reasons but mostly because of the emotional maturity issue that is not being addressed.

To keep this on your story, Louise, I think you address all these issues very well.