Erotica Harem

Item Reviewed: "Invalid Item" 
Chapter: "Invalid Entry" 
Author Lady Rook
Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈
           
Review posted in

Invalid Item  This item number is not valid. #619464 by Not Available.

           

As always, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.
           
Plot
Sarah goes with Morven on an outing with his friends to the Lake. She mopes about while he hits on her, then lets him take her home and invites him up to her apartment. He says she needs to see a psychiatrist (the silver-tongued fox), and then reassures her that it's probably just the security where Roland works. This perks Sarah up so much she drops a glass and slashes her ankle. While Morven's stitching her up (he's got more talents than just his silver tongue), Sarah gets the cryptic message from Roland via Knox.


           
Style and Voice
Third person limited, in Sarah's pov.

           
Referencing
Consistent. I had one minor question about shipping personal belongings.

           
Scene/Setting
Excellent. In places it felt a bit like narrator intrusions; that's easily fixed, I think, with a reference to Sarah watching or reacting in some way.

           
Characters
I still don't trust Morven. Sarah seemed to go from depressed to manic a bit too swiftly for me.

           
Grammar
I thought I noticed a lot of adverbs, but was surprised when a count of "-ly" words turned up 48 of them. That's a lot, as I'm sure you know. They really did become noticeable.

           
Just my personal opinion
I seem to have been super-picky on this chapter. Lucky you. I'm enjoying the plot and the characters. There are good hooks to keep the pages turning.

           
Line Edits
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in RED.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GREEN.
           

Chapter Six

Training zipped by. My Comment: This feels like the author intruding to state a fact. Sarah knew her way around the labyrinthine halls of Department 33 as if it were the small apartment she used to navigate at college. Things were easy as long as she concentrated on her work. In fact, after two weeks of no return coms, she’d left her compad in her sleek new apartment. She was too easily distracted by it, even though it never rang.

At the end of her third week, she bumped into Morven when she was waiting for the night shuttle to take her home. He leaned against a hover cart looking distracted as he watched the flight screens for his number to come up.

“Hey Morven. How’re you doing?”

He spun to see who’d said his name and broke out in a wide grin.

“Sarah Cloudheart!” He stumbled toward her, his arms wide. “So good to see you again.”

His embrace was friendly, but it made her feel guilty. She stepped away and reached for her purse out of habit before he could get a decent grip on her. “How are the ducks doing?”

“Aw great,” he said. “Really great. We had ninety-nine percent successful hatching. All growing on schedule as predicted. No growth hormones. Completely organic.”

“Fantastic,” she said.

“How about you? Still feeling down about coming all the way out here?”

She chewed her lip for a moment. “I’m um, hanging in as best I can.”

“Maybe you just need to get out sometime. A bunch of my friends are going to Gallagher Lake this weekend. You want to come?” The shuttle bus came to a whooshing halt in front of him. He glanced at it, groaned, and nodded at Sarah. “What do you say?”

“Um, I don’t know.” She swept a fallen lock of hair behind her ear. “I better not.”

He fished in his pocket and held out a metal card for her to take. “Com me if you change your mind.” He waved at the shuttle. “This is me.” She took his card, the cold feel of it in her hand somehow disheartening.

He gripped the handle on his cart and hurried up the ramp into the shuttle bus. Sarah watched him through the back window until the long vehicle vanished from sight. It was not until that moment that she understood how much she’d closed herself off from everything around her. And for what?

Her shuttle bus came along and she marched aboard, standing the whole way home. Determined, she made her way to the black door and keyed in the entry code. Her mediocre belongings still looked funny in the upscale apartment. She’d kept her mismatched chairs and the old comforter she’d had since she was a teen. Even the bent fork that she ate dinner with every night. It reminded her of Roland.

Her compad sat on the kitchen counter. She snatched it up and dialed his number. As usual, the line buzzed ten times before a digital voice mail picked up and directed her to leave a message.

“Roland, it’s Sarah. You better call me in the next twenty-four hours or it’s over.” Her voice hitched before she could say anything else. She clicked the End button and set the device back on the counter. “Who am I kidding?” she grumbled. “It was over the day I left.” She refused to cry anymore. Sarah stripped and marched for the shower. Tonight, she was going out. And maybe this weekend, too. She was tired of waiting.

* * * *
Gallagher Lake was a disturbingly beautiful, romantic place.My Comment: This, too, feels like an author intrusion. Can you put this in Sarah's POV? Silver puffs of mist rose from the deep blue, rippling water. Macree’s orange sun hung low above the scene, casting golden color over the center of the lake. Three of Morven’s ducks swam in a straight line in front of the pier. True to his word, he’d brought along a gaggle of his friends, most from his work unit and two from Drink Development, lesbians who stood apart from the others and held hands, watching the sunset. Sarah envied them. They had each other.

“Isn’t it great?” Morven asked, interrupting her thoughts.

She raised her chin to look up at him. He plopped down beside her on the pier and reached for her hand. She pulled it away and clasped her fingers together to avoid him. “Yeah. The lake’s fantastic. I never realized how pretty it was.”My Comment: This doesn't quite fit with her being a newcomer who's cloistered herself in her apartment and work. If she said, "I never imagined it could be his pretty," that would fit better, IMHO.

He frowned, his gaze fixed on her hands. “What’s the matter, Sarah? Back in school you always seemed so…happy.”

She wrung her hands together.My Comment: "hands" repeats from prior paragraph. How could she explain to him what she was feeling? It would only give him the chance to say all the right things and make all the right moves. And she didn’t want that. She wanted Roland back. Two days had passed since her call. Now she was beginning to wonder if he was all right. He’d been nothing but sincere when they were together. She had to believe he wasn’t using her.

“Sarah?”

She faced Morven and tried to smile, but it didn’t work. “I was engaged before I left Earth. Kind of a spur of the moment thing.”

His happy-go-lucky expression faded. “Oh.”

“But I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Oh,” he repeated but it came out entirely too hopeful. “You want to talk about it?” He scooted closer until his shoulder bumped into hers.

She sighed. “Not really, no.”

“Well. If you ask me, he’s an idiot.” He stretched his long legs out before him and tapped his shoes together as if he were nervous. “He should have married you and come here. No better place than Macree. Right here. Right now.”

She waited for him to put his arm around her, to try something, but he stayed put, watching the sun slowly dip beneath the lake’s surface on the horizon. His ducks flapped their wings and flew up onto the pier to preen themselves. My Comment: I stumbled at "his ducks," and then realized these must be his genetically engineered ducks. Probably just reviewer lag. The hodge-podge group of friends he’d come with meandered back to the path to start a fire in the huge pit near the park tables. Even the two women who were so clearly in love, left them alone. My Comment: I hesitate to comment, but the comma looks wrong here.

Morven leaned back and lay down, sprawling across the wood. “Check it out.” He pointed to the sky.

Sarah lifted her face and stared.

“First moon has an eclipse. See the red edge all around it. Pretty neat, huh?”

She looked sideways at him, his face so full of wonder at everything around him. “You’re all right,” she said. “Thanks for inviting me to come even though I’m a huge downer.”

“Anytime.” He beamed at her before returning his attention to the heavens. “Maybe he got tied up.”

“Maybe.” She slowly leaned back until she was lying on the pier beside Morven. “Yeah, maybe that’s what happened.”

“They gave me a new assignment. Pygmy goats. Do you believe that?”

She giggled. “Goats. I thought your specialty was water fowl.”

“It is…was, um.” Then he snatched a hold of her hand and held it before she could pull away. He had long, thin fingers and he was warm. The air started to chill now that the sun had gone down. A breeze blew over them, and Sarah stared at the sky wondering where Roland was, how far away, on what planet, and if he was safe or even thinking about her.

“So, yeah. Pygmy goats. And get this.”

“What?” she asked, trying to relax and get her mind out of the rut she’d fallen in. His holding her hand didn’t mean anything and it wouldn’t. Ever.

“The Morvens are on the list for colonization approval.”

“Holy crap, really?” She turned to see that he was staring at her now. Sarah quickly looked back at the sky.

“Yeah. So um, along with your plants, if my birds get approved, they’re going to new worlds. That’s good stuff.”

“You’ll need to think of a name for the goats.”

“Morvahs.”

“Ech. That’s wrong.”

“Morven and Sarah.”

“I get it. Don’t do it.” She tried to tug her hand away, and he let her after a small struggle.

Silence spanned between them for a while after her rejection. She counted the stars around the eclipsing moon and wished she were with Roland wherever he might be. Maybe she’d made a mistake going to Cordilew. She could have applied at Mercer; she could have followed him anywhere. That was what her mother had done, followed her father from planet to planet.

Morven nudged her. “You hungry?”

Sarah sat up, glad to get out of the intimacy of being alone with him. “Yeah. Let’s go see what they’re burning over there.” Morven stood and snapped his fingers at his ducks. They followed him like dogs as he and Sarah headed for the fire. She could tell everyone around the fire had been friends for a while. The way they joked, falling into well worn stories or old teases, made her feel out of place.

But Morven wouldn’t let her. He took Sarah’s arm and hauled her to the metal table to eat beside Hannah and Shedran, the women she’d seen before. After introducing her to all of his friends, he brought Sarah a plate loaded with far too much food. She ate, trying to be polite, trying to follow three different conversations at once, and doing her best to laugh when the moment called for it. But in all truth, she just wanted to go home and be alone.

The evening waned on until her repeated yawns got Morven to offer her a ride home. He gave his ducks, now tucked into their hover carrier, to Shedran to bring back to the lab, and gladly escorted Sarah on his arm to a rental shuttle in the lot.My Comment: "gladly" puts us in Morven's head, besides being an adverb, to which I am allergic.

She stared out the window as he drove to her apartment. Mostly silent, but nodding when he said something that needed a reply, she endured and couldn’t help but admit that he was a nice guy. Rain drizzled down in sheets of haze when he parked in the lot at her building.

He stood outside her open shuttle door getting wet. “Can I walk you up?”

She nodded but really wanted to say no. They were quiet in the lift. Sarah tapped her foot, anxious to escape back into her apartment, but to what, she couldn’t say. There would be no message from Roland. She needed to get over him and move on.

“This is mine,” she said, typing her entry code into the door’s release. She looked back at him. He was swaying from foot to foot looking overly nervous. “You want to hang out for a little while?”

He stammered and then nodded. “Yes! I thought you wouldn’t ask. Fabulous!”

Fabulous. Not really, but it’s probably better than moping about. Sarah went in and her friend followed after. She switched on the auto lights in the living room and sat down in an easy chair. Normally she’d have gone for the couch, but she didn’t want him getting the wrong idea or trying to sidle up next to her.

Morven gawked around, taking in his surroundings. “Eh, you like a lot of color.”

“Yeah.” She waved a hand in the air. “Lots of salvage here. I don’t like to waste anything.” She pointed at the lime and red chairs by the fancy stone bar. They looked so out of place here. “I got those outside a garbage bin back in New Phoenix. They’re really old. Antiques.”My Comment: Hmmm. You know, it seems strange that they'd pay to transport furniture interstellar distances, especially as you've implied most of it was inexpensive student furniture. That would imply the shipping costs were phenomenally low. Wouldn't it be more cost effective to give her an allowance to furnish her new apartment?

He nodded, looking confused. “Have you ever thought of maybe painting them?”

Sarah shrugged and pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them in.

Morven plopped on the couch and crossed his arms over his chest. “Sarah?” His tone became serious. “Maybe you should see a psychiatrist.”My Comment: Well, that was a pretty insensitive way of raising this subject. Are you telling use something about his character here?

“Think I’m cracking up?” She peered at him over her knees and frowned.

“A little, yeah.” He looked past her, probably at the kitchen with its small pile of dirty dishes. “Have you tried to get a hold of him—the guy you were gonna marry?”My Comment: This is at least the second time you've written "a hold of" something. I understand people talk this way, but it reads strangely to me. In this case, I'd think it might be more natural to delete the article.

“I left a message.”

“Do you um, know where he is, exactly?” She watched the way Morven took everything in, and it became clear to her how much she’d ignored her new apartment, dumping everything as if her life were on hold until Roland’s contact. There were still unpacked boxes stacked in the hall outside her bedroom. Morven’s usual happy spark seemed to dwindle in the midst of her gloom.My Comment: I would have tied this to her speech in the next paragraph rather than to Roland's speech since it's part of her reaction to what he said.

“He took a job with Mercer. I have no idea where he’s stationed at. He wasn’t allowed to tell me.”

“Right, right. I understand. My uncle works for them. They have really high standards, My Comment: "high standards" would imply, to me, that their quality standards were high. Since he's referencing security, wouldn't he say "tight security standards, especially for new employees?" crazy about security when you’re new.” His voice ground out in disappointment. “That’s probably all it is, you know? He’s not allowed to talk to anyone on the outside. That’s all.”My Comment: "that's...al" repeats.

She let go of her knees. “Really?”

Morven nodded.

Sarah grabbed the throw pillow in her chair and chucked it at his head. It beamed him in the face, and he burst out laughing. “Wh-what was that for?”

“You just made my night.”

“Oh! Glad to help.”

She got up and went to the kitchen, then turned on the water to wash the dishes. She rinsed and stacked them first then dropped a glob of soap in the rising hot water.My Comment: Mr. Tim has taught me that "then" is not a coordinating conjunction, and one should write "and then turned on the water..." Also, shouldn't there be a comma after "first?" (The second "then" is correct, since it's used as a conjunctive adverb, right?)

“That’s me, Morven the duck man, here to help in any way I can.”

“You’re a big help, that’s for sure.” She smirked at him. “Thanks for trying. I’m really sorry I’m like this. It’s not fair to you.”

He stood and hurried to the kitchen. “Can I?”

“Clean up my filth? Sure. Anytime. What are friends for?”

“For helping each other out whenever we can.” He bumped shoulders with her and started in washing while she rinsed. “I haven’t done dishes like this since I was a kid. Mom was big on the washer. Yours broken?”

“Nope. Sometimes it’s good to do things the old-fashioned way.”

Sarah was drying the last thick glass when her compad let out a shrill set of chimes. The glass slipped through her fingers and landed on the stone tiled floor with a crash. Shards flew every which way as she dashed to the counter to grab the device. Her heart raced; she couldn’t breathe quite right. She clicked the Accept button and read the screen aloud.

“Prof.M.Knox: Dr. Kaldek sends a message to you that your argument against cloning with root crops was wrong.” She scratched the side of her head, perplexed. “What the hell does that mean?”

The broken glass plinked as Morven dropped the pieces in the waste recycler. “I have no idea.” He sucked in a startled breath. “Sarah?”

“What?” she snapped, still riddling through the odd message.

“You’re bleeding.”

She looked down at the drops of blood leading straight to her. One of the shards had cut her ankle, and she hadn’t even felt it. Blood heated her sock as it soaked in. “So I am.” She let out a startled laugh. “Oops.”

He brought a dry dishcloth over and pressed it to her cut. “Hold this here. Where’s your bandages?”My Comment: I write this all time, as a colloquialism. Mr. Tim always says it's horrible grammar and educated people never speak this way. I'm glad to see you taking my side in this argument.

“Um, bathroom. First door on the right down the hall. I have a full first aid kit.”

He ambled away, half running to rescue her.My Comment: "ambled" and "half-running" don't seem to fit together. Maybe he "rushed" away? As he fumbled around in the bathroom, knocking over something metal, she replied to the message.

Res.SarahCloudheart: Tell Kaldek he’s an ass. She wanted to say more but figured that ought to get a response. “Sending me stupid coded messages. Jeez. Three weeks and this is the best he can do?”

A warm hand slowly pushed up her pant leg. She watched Morven clean away the blood with an antiseptic pad and carefully inspect her cut. “It really should be stitched.”

“Just glue it,” she said, impatient.

He shook his head. “No. Stitches would be better. I don’t think the glue will hold.”

“I don’t want to go to Med.”

“Fine.” He tugged off her shoe. “I’ll stitch it, but there’s nothing to numb it.” He rolled off her soiled sock. “So no whimpering while I work.”

“Ha. You’re the best, Morven.”

He flushed bright pink. “You’re only saying that because you don’t want to have to explain why you tried to kill me with a glass.” He went to wash his hands and pull on a pair of gloves from the med-kit. When he returned, again he swiped the wound clean with a cold antiseptic pad. Bright red blood streamed out soon after he did, but he stuck her with the med-kit suture needle and began to close up the gash with the smallest, neatest stitches she’d ever seen.

“You’re pretty good at that.”

“Uh huh. I’m good at fixing things.” He worked away, nearly half done before her phone chimed.

She looked over the message. Prof.M.Knox: Dr. Kaldek says yes, he is an ass, and he misses arguing with you as much as he misses his little run-ins with me after class.

“Is it him?” Morven asked without looking up from his work. “You were having it on with Knox?”

“Gross! No. I mean, no on Knox. He’s talking to Roland somehow.”

“Roland Kaldek. Uh huh.”

She narrowed her eyes and glared at him. “What do you mean ‘uh-huh’?”

“Hold still.” He slapped her leg lightly. “It’s gonna be all crooked.”

“Sorry. Did you know Roland?”

“Everyone knew who he was. Nobody really knew him, if you get what that means. The guy was weird, full of all kinds of whacked ideas. I mean come on, cloning people to fit into certain work positions. What the hell? That’s as bad as Old China’s ideals of no one standing above anyone else.My Comment: I don't get this--it doesn't seem connected at all to the cloning idea. ” He swiped over the stitches and eyed them. “There. Now keep your leg elevated or it’s gonna swell up like a balloon. Should be okay by Monday to go back to work.”

She barely heard him, staring plaintively as she was at the compad screen, hoping for another message. Something. Anything. But no new message came that night.



           

Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!

Bill, AKA Mathguy, AKA
Max Griffin
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