Narcissus in Chains Chapter 5

Okay, first up: Remember, boys and girls, you'll get an excerpt of Planet Bob on the fifteenth. That is three days from now.

Second up: Buy Things that I have written so that my stepfather will stop talking about tattoos.

Third up: 12:12:12 12/12/12. There. I posted about it. The world didn't end at midnight, it won't end at noon. This is the kind of thing that happens when you have calendars. It didn't end at 06:06:06 6/6/06 either (and technically it would be 06:01:06 because our ability to do math in hebrew really sucks)

Why we think the world will end Dec 21st is beyond me.

...do I have to blog about this book? Really? You're gonna make me? Fine.

Chapter five opens with a non-consensual kiss between Anita and Richard.

Oh, but you see she gets into it after he kisses her. She was going to tell him no but she didn't get the chance, and now...yeah. Sorry. If you are thinking no and it happens anyway it is NOT something you really want. Why write it like this? Please explain.

Also? Laurel K. Hamilton has a thing for food.

But all I could do was taste his mouth, feel his lips, try to drink him down my throat, as if he were the finest of wines and I was dying of thirst.

This is NOT the first time something sexy has been compared to something edible. Also, if you are dying of thirst wine is the LAST THING you should be consuming. Water is much better for you, and it tastes better. I recognise dehydration when the thought of drinking caffinated beverages makes me feel sick. That is my body screaming DRINK WATER, STUPID.

But yeah, things are always chocolate and cupcakes and cookies, shapeshifters, magicians and, apparently, BDSM clubs are "flavors". I guess I feel like I'm watching that kid in A Christmas Story lick the flag pole, only it's not a flag pole.

(...hey, if Bella ever...um...yeah...since Edward is so icy, does that mean her tongue got stuck?)

Anyhoo, back to the suck.

Richard is wearing a needlessly detailed costume of black vinyl pants. more knee high boots and a studded dog collar. This is SO OOC for Richard it's kind of nasty. Richard's character has been driven by his absolute hate for violence, his absolute disgust with how werewolves run themselves, and the Mr. Rogers dignity of a high school teacher hiding a dark and ugly secret for the sake of the children. Richard wasn't even made by violence, he was made by a fucked up blood transfusion where nobody caught the lycanthropy until it was too late. And now he's in a massively sexualized costume that the dude from two books ago wouldn't be caught dead in.

This is not character development. This is a lobotomy.

Richard and Jean Claude apparently had a deal that whomever Anita called first would then call the other one. Because...uh...magical werewolf/vampire/necromancer connection thingy? I don't know. Remember: Six months of no contact between any of these people. Only Richard asked Jean Claude to keep it a secret because

“Because if I’d played fair I still wouldn’t have gotten a kiss. I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you tonight and not touching you.”

One: you don't know that. She was drooling long before you kissed her.

Two: FUCKING. EW. That is SO very rapy. So very, very rapy.

And then Jean Claude asks if they could go back to "Marrying the Marks" which is the only reason the three of them are together again, only they're going to do it ON A STAGE in front of the ENTIRE CLUB. EW. EW. EW. Also: KIDNAPPED WERELEOPARDS. FOCUS, ANITA. DO NOT MAKE ME BRING OUT PEANUT.

And finally, FINALLY, the make out session commences. We get a play-by-play of how difficult it is to french kiss a vampire, Anita cuts herself on his fangs, and things get more urgent as

the urgency of it grew, until it was as if he were feeding from my mouth, trying to drink me down.

Yay, more food references. But they're not done:

Then the boundaries that held our auras in place gave way. Think of it as if you were making love and suddenly your skin slid away, spilling you against your partner, into your partner, giving you an intimacy that was never imagined, never planned, never wanted.

Please note: This is the SECOND non-consensual sexy-sexy in this chapter. This is supposed to be romantic, and i do not find it so. See, when stuff happens during romantic things like sexy kissing and you don't want it, in the real world what happens is you get turned off.

So, in front of the ENTIRE CLUB, two of the most powerful men in their community lick their way to Anita's holes--in her aura, mind--and...uh...then the world exploded? It's not really clear. The whole club applauds, though, so it must have been really special. Asher comes up to make sure everyone is okay, and he's all like "blink if you can hear me" which sounds less like post-sex afterglow and more like what you'd say to somebody in a coma.

Then Narcissus comes out and is all like "ha ha, ha ha, a good time was had by all. Show's over, everybody go home." And then he force-kisses Jean Claude, who pushes him away using magic. Narcissus asks to have a private talk with everybody, Anita agrees, and Jean Claude looks bothered. Really, scarily bothered. The men help poor, fragile Anita, she of thigh high boots with the knives at the knees, into Narcissus's office. The chapter ends

Next chapter: Fair warning? This is the chapter that broke me. This is the chapter that was, without a doubt, THE worst reading experiance of my life.