Danse Macabre--chapter 37

I keep expecting logic and plot progression from this book. I'm not going to get it, but I keep expecting it and I don't know why.

THE FIGHT ROLLED over the couch, and vanished from sight for a minute. Noel shivered on top of me, and it wasn’t pleasure. “Are you hurt?” I asked.

OF COURSE HE'S NOT AROUSED. There's a fight going on under the couch that you are blithely ignoring. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT SEX. OR ABOUT YOU.

Seriously, writer-readers? Do not let your plot revolve around your main character. If nothing else, make sure they don't start it. They just end it. And if they do start it they'd better by god learn how to never do that again.

Noel tells Anita that she's about to pick another Animal to Call. That's why she's drooling over Haven. He's her body's choice. Not her choice. Her body's choice. Once again the haywire combination of Anita's were-whatever hormones are ripping all concept of consent out of the text. Because NOT GETTING TO CHOOSE YOUR OWN SEX PARTNERS is fucking sexy.

“He’s (Nathanial) your animal for Damian and you, but Richard is your animal with Jean-Claude.”

Okay. Time out. No. Anita does not have two tri-whatevers centered on her. She's got one centered on Jean Claude in which she's a partner. The Damian/Nate/Anita tri-whatever is the one that has her as a focus. Richard is Jean Claude's Animal to call and that is one reason why Richard can't just say "fuck it" and book. Jean Claude's the one with the iron grip on the metaphysical reins here.

The two lion-boys explain to Anita that Joseph, the were-lion leader, does not give one flying fuck who Anita picks as a lion as long as that lion is Not Haven. Haven, the boys explain, would take over their pride which is one of the few prides in the country that isn't a total psychological mind-fuck for its members. Everywhere else, it's dominance and submission headgames and basically all the nonsense I've hated in every were-whatever pack since Richard said "Whoopsie, we're going to stick with the old ways". In Joseph's pack, the people get to be people who just happen to turn furry once in a while, and everyone in the pack/pride/whatever understands that this quality is very important and very fragile, and Haven is just strong enough to take over if he makes his home in St. Louis.

Richard and Haven are still fighting.

Nobody else seems to give two shits. At least not until Richard calls the fight and Haven tries to break Richard's knee. Then Anita finally gets her gun out and tells Haven to knock it off. she reminds all of us that this guy is a mob enforcer because that's supposed to be an upgrade from "fucking scum". Then he begs to be told what the rules are. Apparently "Don't be a shitty person and put other people in danger because you want an ego stroke" isn't simple enough.

Anita decides to explain the rules.

“The rules are, you don’t harm the weak. I’ve got no use for bullies. If you get into another fight like tonight, when you know you’ve lost, you’ve lost. You don’t try for one last bit of damage. That’s street fighting, and that’s not what we do here.”

...what planet are you living on, Anita, where you think you have held to any of that? How about when you RAPED RICHARD, and then continue to force an emotional connection with him when he's made it damn fucking clear he wants to break off? How about fucking raping LONDON after he admitted he was weak against the arduer? And you promised you wouldn't take advantage of that? I can name numerous times when other people have called you a rapist, abuser and murderer TO YOUR FACE and you go for the verbal jugular because you know damn well you cannot fight those accusations AT ALL.

You are not a good person, Anita. You are effectively demanding that other people follow the rules while you get to shatter minds and bodies right and left just because you want to. You are the ultimate egotist, you are fucking poison to everybody you touch and the safest thing any person in your universe can do is get very, very, VERY far away from you.

 Anita and Haven face off and she says a few more very grand sounding things that have no moral backing whatsoever, and we are supposed to buy this as Anita protecting something, and not as yet another pissing contest with a potential lover.

I've met ten year old boys with more maturity. RECENTLY.

The chapter ends with Haven agreeing to be nice because Anita has proven her kill-face is a bigger, badder kill-face than Haven's kill-face, and Anita lowering the gun.

This book will never end. It will just keep going and I will spend forever doing it. And I did it all for you. Congradulations, loyal-blog readers. You're reading a slow account of my ongoing descent into insanity.