Nicole,
I have finally gotten around to reading your story, in spite of my friend JJ's fevered insistence that I do so over a year ago! Why did I wait so long? I am a highly educated man who appreciates a good story better than almost anything else in life. And I get disappointed 'WAY too often. I love science fiction, and that is why I hate science fiction movies, with few exceptions. SciFi movies are guilty until proven innocent, in my opinion.
If a writer is so inconsiderate of readers that she/he won't use proper paragraphing, I won't bother to read what is written.
Am I a snob? Looks like it.
After I read JJ's epic "The Death of Friendship", and I learned your "Games People Play" had inspired it, I was interested, but not convinced. I have had some fine correspondence with that lovely and gracious gentleman, and he praises you to the moon and back.
I guess I'm chicken. A chicken snob.
Today I read your story. I'm kicking myself for wasting a year. It is brilliant. It is breathtaking. It is so erotic that I had to stop three times while reading it to get my heartrate and respiration down below the red line.
I wish I thought people would read this. If they will, and if they'll believe me, I'll tell anyone who will listen, "Read THIS story if you don't read ANYTHING ELSE on this forum!" If it isn't the best thing I've ever read here, it's tied for best. It's literate, it's artful, it's not In Your Face; it brings you in and lets you feel with the Ler and the Lee. I love it.
You owe it to yourself to read this story.
Humbly,
Derek O. Mann