MarkStory: Blog

Chapters 8-9 of "The Peanut Butter Babysitter" are now posted. I put these two together because chapter 9 is a short one, a journal entry from Aimee reflecting on recent events.

This is the first time in this story we've gotten to see some things from Aimee's point of view. It won't be the last!

Thanks to all of you who have reached out to me about this story. I'm glad it's reaching people -- that's really, really gratifying!

One more image added to the AI-generated photo album for this story. The chapter 8 image is a little goofy but it makes me laugh. :D

More chapters soon. The tension is building, but I promise I won't build it forever!

Chapter 7 is now posted. Aimee and Beth have their first...encounter. Just a little one, but what will it mean for the future? The door is cracked open now.

Thanks to everyone who has voted, commented, emailed. Please keep the feedback coming!

One image added to the AI gallery for chapter 7: Peanut Butter Babysitter

...is now posted. The dam finally bursts for Jim and Aimee, as they finally get a chance to be alone.

But Beth is still watching, thinking, learning.

Also: I've been playing around with ChatGPT to create some reference images for these characters. It's maddeningly slow and frustrating, especially with anything that brushes the edges of eroticism. And the rules are inconsistent; one day it can happily create images of people kissing, the next day it can't.

Here's what I have so far -- three reference images for our main characters, and then an extra one of Aimee from chapter 6:

Images for the Peanut Butter Babysitter

Don't look if you haven't read chapter 6 yet. And don't look if you don't like AI-generated characters.

I'll keep playing around with it in the future, but again -- it's inconsistent. Future images of "Beth" and "Aimee" aren't necessarily going to look exactly like the ones before. (Hell, the two of Aimee up right now aren't identical matches.) That's just the nature of the technology right now. Readers can decide which version is "real" for them, or can choose not to look!

Thanks for reading, voting, commenting, and emailing me. Please continue!!

Chapter 5 of PBB is now posted! Although I revised chapters 1-4 fairly heavily, chapter 5 is the first new content of this story since 2010!!

I really like how this story is coming along. I like the 2025 versions of Jim, Beth, and Aimee more than the 2006 versions. The story is deeper, more mature, something I’m proud of.

A logistical note. Most of the story is from Jim’s point of view. But sometimes we get Beth’s POV, and that’s in italics.

No sections of Aimee’s POV, at least not yet. Might integrate something later. But in this modern revision, I think this is more a story about Beth and Jim than I originally envisioned.

Please share your thoughts on this story with me. More chapters coming soon!!

So...

In 2004, a much younger MarkStory, inspired by a friend he made on "LiveJournal," of all places...started writing a little story about a chance encounter between a married man and a young woman at the grocery store. My LiveJournal friend gave me the actual "meet cute" between herself and a "DILF," as she called him.

My LJ friend and I drifted apart after a while, and I had a difficult time deciding where I wanted the story to go without her influence. I picked it up in 2010 and wrote one more chapter, but I never really loved the story as a whole. So I shelved it, left it "Incomplete and Inactive." That always nagged at me like a splinter under the skin, and occasionally readers would send me notes, begging me to finish the story.

After I finished "Who's the Blonde Stranger (On Broadway)?" I took another, critical look at PBB. And I didn't love it. The bones of the story were decent, but the prose itself was immature, with a distinctly "locker room-y" tone in its descriptions of the female characters. The 2004 version of this story was about a horny married guy, a sexpot college student, and a nagging wife. Those are not very interesting character types to me, not anymore. I'm older, maybe wiser, and now have a 20+ year marriage under my belt (yes, now I'm divorced, but still). 2004 Mark didn't have that experience.

I understand the rhythms of a long-term relationship now. Understand that things aren't always black and white, that life is most interesting in the shades of grey.

So I rewrote chapters 1-4, maturing the language, making the characters and the scenario more interesting (I think), eventually taking it in a different direction. Those chapters are either posted now or will be very soon.

I've got chapters 5-7 mostly written, and am currently working on 8. I think the story will have 10-12 chapters when all is said and done.

Since American Thanksgiving is a pivot point in this story (chapter 4) I love that I'm getting this reposted and revived just before the 2025 version. It's not likely that I'll have the story finished by Thanksgiving, but likely by the end of 2025.

Let me know what you think!