Reluctant Cuckold Paperback – December 15, 2011

David McManus quickly became my favorite author of erotica when I first read Reluctant Cuckold. When I finished that book I immediately read his other book Cuck Storm Horizon a great sequel.I first read Reluctant Cuckold a month or so ago. I recently read it again. McManus is a gifted story teller and that, in my opinion, is what separates him from many other writers of this genre.The story is about two sexual submissives that end up married to each other. The wife comes under the influence of her best girl friend, who has a dominate personality, and she exerts her influence over her married friend. The dominate friend eventually persuades the wife to be unfaithful to her husband. The author hints this may not be her first adulteress encounter but offers no details.The adulteress encounter occurs at a party with coworkers. The male participant brags about his conquest and it soon becomes a rumor that spreads rapidly throughout the company. The author begins the story with the wife telling the husband about the rumor, but implies it isn’t true.The husband appears to accept his wife’s version but his doubts escalate and he eventually confirms the story is true and confronts his wife. She admits to her adultery but offers no details or explanations for her actions. And her husband strangely enough doesn't request any either.It is at that point the story takes form. The husband becomes deeply conflicted. His wife’s adultery terrifies him but it also excites and arouses him. He discovers he is incapable of confronting her, for fear she will leave him, and this fear paralyzes him. He becomes unable to have normal sex with her. He becomes fixated on the erotic aspects of her extra marital encounters. The mental images of her having sex with another man becomes more stimulating to him than having real sex with his wife.He discovers he is too embarrassed to seek professional help to deal with his mounting insecurities and inexplicably turns to the internet for help. He decides to seek the advice of others who have experienced something similar. These encounters, with faceless strangers, eventually connect him with a man that seems to understand his predicament better than anyone else. This stranger exhibits the empathy and understanding he is desperately seeking. He provides his faceless internet buddy with intimate details, including pictures, of his wife and himself.The internet stranger indicates he has helped others fix similar problems and restore their marriages. He indicates these restored marriages end up even stronger than they were originally. This is exactly what the husband is seeking and agrees to meet with the stranger and eventually introduces his wife to the stranger who the author identifies as a guy named Mike.Mike proves not to be the empathetic friend the husband believes him to be. He is in fact a dominate sexual predator the husband has stupidly invited into their lives and his wife’s bedroom. The husband stubbornly refuses to acknowledge he has become his wife’s cuckold even after Mike has taken over his bedroom.The author presents an emotional glimpse into the cuckold lifestyle and what fuels this sexual fetish as well as how destructive it can become when both parties are not voluntarily into it.

This is well written, overly heart felt, but that's how you write when you don't understand yourself. Dave loves his wife, Ashley. He hated that she cheated on him except that it shined a shaming light on his submissive masochistic cuckold self. Dave procured his confidence from an online cuckold site with Mike. Mike was a 'Bull' in cuck clothing.In short, because McManus gives the unabridged version of his personal shame, this is a fetish, a lifestyle, and a transformative change to marriage. Is it for the good? Is is for evil? The next book may give it up, but for now, Dave is certainly a reluctant cuckold, but his inadequacy and insecurity as a man has found solace in the sexual proclivities and advances of another man. I think he likes it, and so does his wife. Together with lots of communication, patience, and understanding, the marriage could become stronger, but Mike will be the ring leader as he easily gets Ashley to doff her 2+ carat Diamond ring when ever he reminds her husband who the owner of her sexuality is.

Dave Martens, our main character, seems to have it made. He’s 34, is known as Mr. Hedge Fund Guy, makes a very good living, and has been married for the past year and a half to the beautiful, sexy Ashley whom he adores; they live in a luxury apartment in Manhattan. But his ego takes a big hit when he find out that his beloved Ashley had sex with one of her coworkers in the bathroom at a company party while he, her husband, was in the next room and even knocked on the door. Soon everyone knows about it and is laughing behind his back. Unfortunately for him, this discovery is only the first in a series of events that will batter his ego and suck him into a vortex of ever deepening humiliation.The story is told by Dave himself about his own personal experiences. It is vivid and extremely realistic, a novel about a man who finds himself turning into a cuckold against his will. The plot is elaborately designed and developed with much attention to detail. The characters and situations are believable. The reader encounters this world from inside Dave’s mind. We feel his shock, his pain, his intense arousal, his jealousy, his love for Ashley, his fear of losing her, his humiliation. David McManus is a very talented writer. The story is powerful, by far the best piece of cuckold erotica that I have ever encountered.

This needs a spoiler alert. This is the story of David and Ashley. David is a successful trader in NY and he is married to Ashley. She had a once only event with a coworker. This sends David into a relationship tailspin. He meets a guy who sets David up to get Ashley into bed. That is the story. My problem is that I find it difficult to believe that a trader could be so naive as to set his wife up with a guy he just met. I also find it difficult to believe that Ashley has very little resistance to the come on from a guy she just met. David is naive and Ashley is so unbelievable easy as to defy imagination. David is so clueless that he uses his real name online in chat rooms! The extended period of angst that David experiences is tedious and the way the third guy enters David and Ashley's relationship is very predictable. In fact, that could be the whole review; predictable.