Thanks for the reviews, guys; as always, I'm so stoked that you find my little AU so interesting and continue to stay with it. I need to address the very serious concerns that a reviewer has brought up. It never occurred to me that certain things would come across the way they have but I will do my best to answer them, if that is at all possible.
Emotionally intelligent people do all sorts of not-so-smart things all the time. In fact, that's the thing we humans have found out about emotions, right? We can't control them. Added to the fact that someone who has nearly unlimited resources – a billionaire, politician, people in authority – will feel, as we have seen from the news on a nearly daily basis, that they can use these resources (power) to acquire anything/anyone they desire. In this case, David fell irretrievably in love with a young countertenor whom he had never met.
I'm sure that people have fallen in love with a type of person they had never previously thought they'd have any interest in. Romantic literature is full of these stories. Dave may have been predominantly heterosexual but he had some interest in his own sex; he would never have been as promiscuous as Puck who was a sexual athlete of the first water but he wasn't inexperienced in that area. Vanilla, yes, but certainly no stranger to boy-on-boy encounters.
We seem to have missed remembering that Kurt was more of a 'player' than Dave, maybe because I didn't dwell on that aspect. My bad. Dave, having fallen in love with Kurt and conceived this monumentally stupid idea because of his obsession, was not in a mind space to even regard the feelings (what feelings?) of his shallow, gold-digging girlfriend.
No one, as far as I know, having fallen in love, immediately knows how to handle the situation in which they find themselves. I thought my writing was explicit enough on the point that NO ONE behaved 'perfectly' – humans are imperfect beings, after all – and Dave could not have predicted the gold digger's responses and reactions. Could anyone have – if they hadn't known the individual was capable of that behaviour in the first place?
Dave – not just Kurt – is risking his heart after handing it on a platter to someone whose sexual affairs have been recorded and reported in tabloids over the years. We make ourselves vulnerable when we fall in love. Kurt, the diva that he is, would never believe David would want someone more than he wants him unless David's behavior indicates that. He is not a paranoid person and people in the first flush of love don't automatically expect the loved one to cheat. Dave, on the other hand, is understandably distrustful of people like Cooper who show their interest quite blatantly in someone who is obviously attached and uninterested. I know people like that, unfortunately, and life would be perfect, wouldn't it, if everyone followed the commandment – thou shall not covet?
Thank you for your interest and I don't mind constructive criticism at all. It makes me aware of what people are thinking and how I might possibly improve my story-telling skills. I do not come from an affluent background – I'm just very well-educated – and had the benefit of parents who tried to expose my siblings and me to as many positive experiences as possible. I'm also a voracious reader.
So, to wrap it all up, there will be upheavals because life is not perfect, and how boring would it be for our boys without some fireworks, eh? Thanks again for reading and enjoying this saga and please, keep shooting me those observations and comments, okay, I love them.
Terry Hines