But she won't enjoy it:
If she’d been a man I would have just let her kiss me— was I really this homophobic?No, Anita. You're straight. This is what happens when someone you are not attracted to puts the moves on you. You don't like it. Congratulations on discovering what the rest of us figured out during proms and awkward first dates. Pretty soon you'll have understood healthy bounderies and what constitutes consent and what poly really is.
Her kiss bruised my mouth and I tasted blood, sweet, metallic candy on my tongue. The moment I tasted the blood, it hurt. She’d cut the inside of my lip on my own teeth.
At the risk of TMI, I remember a phase where my blood tasted good. I was also having prolific nosebleeds, which was how I discovered this. I was diagnosed with anemia not too much later. Our bodies are really good at telling us what we need. Anita might want to go get that looked at.
Thea, meanwhile, manages to sum up what's wrong with the entire series in one rather nice paragraph:
“My deepest apologies, Anita; it has been so long since I met anyone who could withstand my desires that I simply kept trying to force. Forgive me.”
I think if you replace "desires" with "no-editing clause" you'll get something really meta.
So. Do we get to find out WHY Thea the siren is assaulting Anita the Succubus? Other than sexy fun times? That sounds like Thea's really lonely...
Thea then apologizes, but her apology is "I'm sorry I didn't realize you were strong enough to tell me to get fucked" and not "I'm sorry I violated your personal space and tried to take over your will." Because that's pretty much par for the course in an Anita Blake book.
The nearest thing we get to an explination is that Thea is addictive, and Anita is addictive, and apparently Thea wants something to get addicted to, and somehow this involves her sons because ONLY ANOTHER SIREN can awaken a siren's powers and Thea doesn't do incest...but she hopes that Anita can do it.
Anita is a succubus. Not a Siren. You're SOL.
Anita says she doesn't like Thea pimping out her sons. Thea asks what pimping out means, which I call bullshit on because if this white girl knows what it is, it's mainstream enough to fully penetrate the Earth's core. Thea doesn't live in France, she lives in fucking Cape Cod. She has television. SHE SHOULD KNOW THIS.
“If your power is not close enough to mine, then we will stay for the parties, and the ballet, but you will not have to look at them as pommes de sang. We will take our sons home and you will not have to worry over your discomfort.”
And this is the point where you say "How about let's not, and say we did," and go with that, because Anita's heavily implied that the whole "Candidates for blood apples" thing freaks her the fuck out.
Instead, Anita asks what the side effects are. Thea says that nothing SHOULD happen...but if she fucks up it'll awaken the ardeur, and that means an orgy in the important meeting room. Gee. I wonder what's going to happen next.
Anita finds out that two of Thea's sons are seventeen.
I looked at her, and didn’t know what my face showed, but it felt like nothing pleasant. “I don’t do teenagers. Hell, I didn’t do teenagers when I was one.”
First of all, give it a couple more books. It'll change. Second...I really hope that just means Anita didn't have sex as a teen. Otherwise she was screwing twenty plus guys when she was still in highschool, and that gives her character layers of fucked-up I don't ever want to touch.
- I wanted to say out loud, Your first time should be with someone you care about. Your virginity should go to someone you love.
Yeah, one of Thea's sons has never done it before. Guys, I'm a southern Christian, and that comes with a lot of baggage, but virginity IMHO is like the pop top on a jar of pickles. It doesn't really matter to the pickles.
Anita remembers that she might be preggers, and Thea picks up on this. Anita decides to bullshit her way out of it and says that Sam is only the second master vamp to ever have kids and...
Wait. Wait a second. Wasn't a MAJOR subplot in one of the earlier books that Vampires could only insiminate a living female if they were recently dead enough? And that this involved hot tubs and prayer and a lot of other things. SAMUEL IS ESTABLISHED AS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD. HOW THE FUCK DOES HE HAVE BIOLOGICAL SONS.
I really hope they're somebody else's, because that's a pretty major part of the lore LKH just broke.
The chapter closes with Thea tasting Anita's power again...and once again, they have to make out to do it.
This book is never going to end.
Whoooa, that’s so weird/cool about liking blood when you’re anemic! Very interesting.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I do like women and I’d have not enjoyed this stranger, no matter how pretty, forcing a kiss on me out of nowhere at all. It’s got squat to do with homophobia. I find it a little weird that Anita would be fine with a man doing the same, but considering that she seems conditioned to accept rape at this point from male supernaturals, I guess the only thing about this she would see as ‘off’ is that it’s a woman forcing herself on her for once instead. God, that is sad, no wonder she turned into a maniac rapist too and can’t even see it.
Yeah, the entire idea that “only a siren can awaken another siren, so let’s have Anita do it because she’s got the ardeur and that’s SORTA like being a siren” is totally ridiculous and shouldn‘t have much chance at working. And I especially don’t see why they need Anita specifically, as Belle Morte type vampires are among the most common. They don’t all have the ardeur, true, but enough seem to that they should be able to find someone else who isn’t as dangerous to ally with as she and JC.
LKH has this odd idea that a person originally coming from an older time means that they will never fully pick up on modern language or concepts. With vampires I can see them getting slower at this as they get older and older, but I don’t buy it with Thea. She’s a siren. Which is a type of mermaid. And mermaids, unlike vampires, did not start as humans. They were *born* with the brains that it would take to be able to live for centuries, which means not just shutting out all new information after a certain point like I think happens with some vampires (which, unsurprisingly, means they don’t advance or thrive, and often don’t even survive for long after than point either---which of course never happens to anyone in Anita’s posse despite the fact they all have to be quite old because that’s Cooler)
Nah, Anita was a perfect virgin until she did it with her college fiancee, whose meanie mother then made him break up with her because she wasn’t white enough, and then she never had sex since until…either with Richard or JC first, I don’t remember. She’s just reminding us what a Good Girl she is and always has been.
The older son is actually like 70 or something and just *looks* younger because he’s a merperson like his mom, but even that is way too young to be from Samuel.
I looked at her, and didn’t know what my face showed, but it felt like nothing pleasant. “I don’t do teenagers. Hell, I didn’t do teenagers when I was one.”
ReplyDeleteHello Nicky and Ethan!