All Comments on 'Broken'

Awesome!

Wow, Ben! A very beautiful story! Thank you!

Oh, I adore you. This story, like all your stories, moves me. Leave it to you to have me run the gamut of emotions. Very well written and romantic, and as usual steamy.

This is a nice story. The characters are well-developed and the premise is unusual, even if it stretches credulity a bit.

Thank you for writing and thank you for sharing your work.

Sweet love story. Love the blind / color blind theme.

No idea why you included race as a factor in this story. Took a lot away from what would have been far better without it.

Having read the story and some of the comments, I’d say the colour theme was a positive, tbh she could have had Vitiligo, a port wine birthmark, or even been the victim of an acid attack etc, the authors point was someone falling in love with somebody based entirely on non-vision related attraction, the counterpoint of realisation and the colour blind/everyone’s black joke was a touch clumsy but illustrated the way language doesn’t work without sight at times.

Many thanks for writing and posting, cheers Ppfzz 5⭐️

P.S. Look up the old 1950’s B&W film “The Enchanted Cottage” for a similar plotline.

Good story!

5

Thank you

Enjoyed this romantic piece. The hospital scenes with Angel fun with touch of poignancy and the “review” of former lovers an interesting contribution to the storyline. Although I would have preferred he stay blind, the ending works out fine. This piece is the first of yours I’ve read; must rectify that soon.

Always an enjoyable story from you. Thank you for sharing with us.

Thanks PurpleFizz - you seem to have understood the idea completely.

The story came from an off-hand joke said one day by a friend when we witnessed a blind man with a cane. He laughingly asked if he had a black girlfriend, could he tell, and would that make him 'colorblind'. That idea rattled around for quite some time before becoming this story. For the anonymous racist who thought it detracted from the story, that WAS the story.

I debated about putting this in the "Interracial Love" category, but then it wouldn't have been a love story that included different races, it would have been a racial story that included love. The "joke", which I didn't pull off as well as I could have (in hindsight) would have been no surprise if I had given it away with a "interracial" theme.

Thanks all for the mostly positive feedback.

Beautifully written! I was worried there for a bit, thinking that when he 'thought' he had a girlfriend that it might all come crashing down. What a lovely finish to a lovely story. Thank you for sharing with us!

10 stars!

Love it. Was fully expecting Jennifer to be Teresa's little sister, but your reveal is much better. Love is Blind, Love is Love, and nothing else matters.

Great story! More about love than about the sex. Very well done.

As anonymous: AKA: Fat_Dad

well done... LOL I didnt see that comming :)

Jeff’s inner monologue about his dating worries seems silly, considering he went on a date with Maria.

Wow.

What a superbly crafted story!

Loved the seemingly innocuous comments sprinkled through the story: Does he know? Her first experiences were with Black fellas. Plus some others.

(Gotta admit I was taken by surprise when the obvious was finally revealed!

(Didn't see it coming!)

So nice when visual perceptions can be excluded from emotions.

Congrats on a most unique story.

Cheers.

Billybard

Excellent story, well written. The way the lack of sight was handled was clever, and the skin colour ideas were great. This wasn’t about race as one comment said, but about perception, assumption and reaction. Funny how the ‘obvious’ passed me by completely and her reveal was a complete surprise.

Very good story. Not enough GOOD stories with blind people and even less where the main character is blind! Keep it up!

What a great story. Has to be one of my favorites.

Ben I always enjoy each story you write! You have a gift and talent to share your wonderful characters and their experiences with us. Well done!

What about her hair? Did he ever feel it? Would have been a big clue, don’t you think?

Deserves more than 5 Stars! What a Wonderful Hot Romantic story of “Blind” love between him and his Angel. The descriptions of the emotions and difficulties were on the mark as he had to relearn how to survive. Jennifer and Pat were everything to him. Thank You and Best of Luck in the Comp!

Uh, and this is Summer Lovin’ how? Minus 2* for that alone.

Corny but I liked it. Always like a happy ending.

Thanks for the comments all. First, as a response to the latest re: being a Summer Lovin theme, yes a legitimate gripe. Although the thought that the original joke that inspire the story could be incorporated into a “summer romance” story, in the long run it kind of fell apart. Introducing them, making them fall in love, all in a summer, just didn’t work out. Best laid plans…

So, do I pull this and not submit as it didn’t take place “just” in the summer? The reality is I love people reading and enjoying my stories, and a whole lot more people read stories that are part of a contest than they do normally, so I went for the free advertising. Minus two points to Gryffindor!

As for the “hair” comment - just what is there about her hair that would allow him to discern her race - without some more racist assumptions? Kinky hair, dreadlocks, both are now usurped as “racially black” - people who have braided their hair in dreadlocks have been accused of usurping a standard in “black” hair, but the mental image I had of Jennifer was my favorite actress, Halle Berry, back when she had long hair. And as for touching her hair, he did comment when he was first getting to know her that he had never touched or stroked her hair, but yet the first time she sat in his lap at the bowling alley he commented that he did “know that she had medium long hair”. So yeah, IF she had Something about her hair that he could have attributed to a racial characteristic, perhaps it “would have been a big clue.”

Or not.

Good story and I loved the twist in the end when he got his sight back. 5*

Nice story. I like the colour blind aspect, to a blind person skin colour is irrelevant , as it should be for all of us. As for not being summer loving, I don’t think a story needs to only take place in summer to count, but summer should be important to the story. Not really the case here, although the wedding is in June. Perhaps a metaphorical approach could have been used more, Jennifer took him out of winter, after his accident into summer.

Cannot really say that the premise of Summer Lovin' was missed. The story could have started in the summer and I also look at it as it's not a season but a time when love flourishes. So there's a differdnt take here.

Loved it that he fell in love with a black girl and that he got his sight back. Being blind for a few years must have made Jeff appreciate the sense he lost, momentarily, but also gave him advanced other senses which I hope he used in life. 5 from me.

This is a sweet, old-fashioned romance story, told at a relaxed pace--with some nice scenes of explicit sex well integrated (no pun intended) into it. Structurally, the story is very clever, with the hospital scenes nicely bracketing the narrative. Another clever move was giving us the minor character Maria, in the middle, to bring a temporary shift of tone. The delirium scene at the beginning was especially well done.

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I also enjoyed some of the subtle humor--for instance the school's "sex non-education euphemism class." Hey, I took the same course! -- only with a few outright lies added to the euphemisms. 5 stars.

Great story, loved it.

Really enjoyed this one...and the ending!!!

Most excellent! Loved your characters and descriptive text. Thoughts gave us insight into his feelings after blindness and gave us a sense of how he coped. Jeff was an amazingly strong-willed character. I have a friend who was blinded in a tank explosion. He didn't cry, whine, or have a pity party. He just went on with his life. He married and has 3 kids. Plus, he is now a therapist.

Enjoyed the story. I did wonder if she was missing a leg, was cross eyed or was uglier than a mud fence when her friends made their remarks about him not knowing. Glad it worked out and thankful that both sets of parents were approving.

Thoroughly enjoyed the story from beginning to end--especially the ending. Love is truly blind! Good luck in the contest.

Another great story from the author

Another great story from the author; an intriguing capture of our attention and building to the "surprise" discovery and the pleasurable rainbow ending. Thank you Ben.

Winner!

Solid opening scenes but the drama of traumatic blindness was swapped for a series of romantic vignettes that lacked punch by comparison. The 'does he know' remark was a tipoff that something was amiss but I didn't suspect the racial angle. I was thinking an age difference or something unfortunate in her history. Overall, strong work. 5*.

Oddly, I was out bowled by a blind guy when I was in college. Admittedly, I was a terrible bowler, but he threw a respectable 184. Enjoyed the story. While regaining his sight was a nice plot point, sadly it rarely happens.

True, it is rare, but it does happen. Take the case of Edwin Robinson, who in 1971 was involved in an automobile accident it left him blind and partially deaf. In 1980 he was struck by lightning, and his hearing and site both were restored.

The end was tear jerking but I loved it. I just started reading your stories and they were all excellent.

nice, liked this story a lot.will have a look at the rest of your work now

This Edwin Robinson, I wonder if he was the same author of 'Richard Corey' and 'Mr Flood's party'? Excellent poems both. Great story. You didn't have to document every agonizing minute to give your readers the FYI on the life struggle of the recently blinded. Five stars. (Ben, It's sight not site. Damn those homonyms.)

Anon56

Exactly! Thanks for the reminder, although I can’t find the site that you cited. I ran through word find, and the only two examples of “site” I could find were “oppoSITE” and “exquiSITE”. Must be an overSIGHT in my search engine…

Thanks for the comment and vote.

good story. just wondered why he never touched her hair and thought she might be black. Guess after the 1st few times with condoms, she got on the pill. also wonder what college freshman is not on the pill or an iud