We return to Smolder with a reminder that Laurell K Hamilton really needs a series bible. I simply cannot imagine that she has one and references it.

Buzz, a staple bodyguard in the Anitaverse, returns to the dressing room where Anita was getting her makeup redone in order to touch base with her and see if she was actually prepared to go out there and be around “normal” humans considering her powers remain unchecked.  After Anita insists that she’s fine, she reveals that the reason she lost control is because “I think I was picking up on Rodina and Ru”… something that Buzz points out isn’t supposed to happen because they belong to her.

But why… why is the metaphysical connection between Brides and their… Dracula… a one-way street? Why is it that it’s “normal” for Anita to experience this connection from Nicky because she loves him and not from the Wonder Twinset? The Anita Blake series also has such a problem with dehumanizing characters based on their proximity to Anita’s love. So Nicky – introduced as an assassin with a horrid past who gets mindwiped into being one of Anita’s baes – is worthy of connecting with Anita because she loooooves him… but Rodina and Ru aren’t? It’s weird that their emotions bleed into her because she doesn’t love them?

(Which also doesn’t make sense considering the past of the series where Anita could not stop getting other people’s emotions on bleed through?)

One of the vampire strippers doing Anita’s makeup gets a name because it gives us room to have Anita anxious as heck out of nowhere and looking for a distraction so she doesn’t have to think about the fact that she cares for Rodina and Ru in her own stunted way. The vampire’s name is Hart and he’s a tall vampire who’s new to stripping but not to being a vampire. He is of course, clearly and flamboyantly coded as gay, telling Anita that, “Honey, if you keep having that much power running through you I’m going to mess up this lipstick and have to start over with the base,” after she plays metaphysical footsie with Jean-Claude.

This was such a short chapter that we’re immediately moving on over to chapter nineteen and the reintroduction of a character I’ve mentioned already this spork as living proof of how Anita dehumanizes people (of color) in this series and the way characters devolve into their worst possible selves.

Graham, a bodyguard that “made [Anita] want to argue with somebody”, is now a sex pest.

Graham was six feet and in obviously good shape in that I-lift-weights-in-the-gym kind of way. His short black hair was cut similar to Ethan’s but his was baby fine and utterly straight so the haircuts looked completely different on them, which was probably not my thought, but I was metaphysically connected to several people who would notice things like that. Physically he was built like his tall, Nordic, former military dad, but the hair and the dark brown eyes with their slight uptilt at the edges was his Japanese mother. How did I know all that? His parents were still the only ones who had ever come to Guilty Pleasures to see where their son worked.

None of the above was why I was frowning at him sitting on the other side of me from Ethan. He leaned over with a smile that was too close to his usual smirk. I tensed, waiting for his usual lascivious and creepy remarks. “Thank you for trusting me with your safety tonight, Anita.”

(As an aside, why on earth did his parents come to Guilty Pleasures to watch him strip??)

Graham used to be annoying. He longed for the taste of the ardeur and was clear that he’d rather be food than cannon fodder. The problem is that Anita has never seen him that way and has made it clear in her own right that he’s never going to be on her menu. I’ve been reading this series for like… eighteen years and Graham first showed up when the ardeur was introduced. I think he might have been a guard in Danse Macabre and he was clearly fetishizing vampire powers and had slept with some vampires in a quest to get that sensation.

Again, annoying.

Not a sex pest.

But Hamilton has a habit of uh… priming the pump when it comes to making readers hate a character. Haven, the lion shifter from Chicago that Anita picked up ages ago, was primed to be killed off at least two books before his actual end. He became more and more possessive of Anita, attacked other shifters, and ultimately did harm to one in a way Anita couldn’t ignore and so she put him down. Same for Kane, the hyena shifter that’s Asher’s animal to call. When he was introduced, he was a reasonable amount of jealous for the relationships abounding in the current timeline… but now he’s past the point of return so he’ll probably die either this book or the next one.

So Graham being reintroduced as a character who makes “lascivious and creepy remarks” on the regular – even though Anita’s other guards are the ones who have the hierarchy based on who gets to fuck her – means… he’s probably going to die miserably sooner or later. Seriously, this series is not kind when it comes to shaving down the extras.

But for a few moments, things are fine and Graham hasn’t done anything yet to warrant being yeeted yet in this chapter. And we do get some worldbuilding… that I don’t think is very good? So first, Graham is going to start training up to be part of the new werewolf bodyguard unit Jean-Claude and them are putting together as werewolves in St. Louis don’t have a background in the military and so they’re behind and unevenly weighted when it comes to training. The reason for that?

“We don’t have many active militaries in parts of the world where actual lycanthropy is prevalent,” I said.

“Also, a lot of Muslims see wolves as a type of dog, and dogs are considered unclean, so they’re less likely to accept werewolves into their military groups,” Ethan said.

“Which means that fewer of our military get attacked by werewolves, so they don’t get medically discharged to work in the private sector,” I added.

Please tell me how any of this is supposed to make sense?

Any of it.

Also, this feels racist. I could explain, but I don’t want to.

Just… trust me on this.

Oh my god then Anita gets in a dig at Graham even as she acknowledges that he’s not who she thinks he is, thinking that she’d “ pegged Graham as one of those men who thought trying to get into women’s pants was his main purpose in life and hit the gym just enough to make that more likely. He’d age badly into one of those dirty old men who forget they’re not twenty-five anymore”.

I want to fight fictional characters on the regular but Anita and I will square up. I will learn enough STEM to perfect transmigration and then I’m going to beat that woman’s ass.

Ugh.

With that bad taste left in my mouth, we move to Jean-Claude (and Nathaniel?) doing the routine with Jean-Claude starting the act by puling a Jungkook, “levitating at the highest point of the room” before floating down in a way that shows that he has massive angel wings. Then he pulls a Gojo (see the latest episode and the part in the subway station where he uses the force field of his technique to move over the heads of the crowd below) to move to the stage itself.

I’m sorry I’m screaming so hard.

This is hilarious.

The chapter doesn’t end with Jean-Claude’s full routine but it does end with this cringeworthy bit after Graham takes in the sight of Jean-Claude floating above them and expresses a bit of envy:

“Besides,” Graham said, “how’s a poor werewolf supposed to compete with that.”

Under other circumstances I’d have said But it’s not a competition, we’re poly, but I was too busy watching Jean-Claude fly. Holy shit.

(What on earth does their polyamory have to do with the price of beans in St. Louis when Graham is not part of the polycule and has spent years on the outside looking in?)

At the start of the next chapter, Anita realizes that the Wicked Truth – vampire brothers who are beholden to Anita and now work as guards in Guilty Pleasures – are actually doing crowd control because of how vulnerable Jean-Claude is above the heads of a touchy, boundary averse audience of horny women.

Then we get more of Jean-Claude’s routine. I won’t describe it here because I am again laughing so hard that typing is troublesome… but y’all… it is hilarious especially as its interspersed among Anita describing his pale perfect body like it’s the first time that we’re ever “seeing” him.

There’s something in the air in Guilty Pleasures because what comes next… the crowd tries to rush the stage. It’s so dangerous that Ethan and Graham have to move Anita out of the way and they get her backstage. She’s safe and so is Jean-Claude… although Jean-Claude is a little… high on power as the crowd outside tries to break down the door to get to him.

It’s great.

He’s laughing.

They’re trying to get to him and tear him to shreds and he’s laughing.

Good.

Because so am I.

 Jean-Claude touches Graham and “sobers up”, losing the giddy high from before:

He seemed utterly sober now, as if he’d drunk a dozen cups of coffee and been dunked in ice water in the last few seconds. He was still wearing the leg-hugging blue leather boots and the thong, but the clothes didn’t matter; he was suddenly every inch a king, dominant to everyone and everything he surveyed. Jean-Claude hid it most of the time; I think it was habit because playing the fop who got by on his looks and seducing the right people had been how he’d hidden in plain sight from other powerful vampires for centuries. He’d hidden just how powerful he was even from me at first, and I was good at judging ages and power levels. Standing there in an outfit that would have made most people put him in the beautiful-bimbo box, suddenly all the camouflage was gone. He stood there in a mantle of power and command that didn’t need crowns or scepters. The intelligence in his face and the certainty with which he held his body said he could walk into a throne room dressed like a stripper and it wouldn’t matter, they’d still curtsy as he passed and believe he had a right to sit down wherever he damn well chose.

God, Hamilton cannot write.

Once Jean-Claude has decided to girlboss his way out of the situation and figure out who’s trying to hurt them by controlling the audience, the trio (him, Anita, and Graham) decide to head back out onto the floor to stem the chaos.

And friends, you will not believe what happens next.

I know I didn’t.

Whatever it is trying to control Anita and Jean-Claude gets… itchy when werewolves are concerned and so Graham, one of the few werewolf guards, is an excellent tool to use to distract the crowd and get in the way of the unspecified bad guy.

Essentially, Graham offers himself up to Jean-Claude and Anita as a focus for their power and as the aforementioned attraction… and Jean-Claude reveals that he’s leveled up further in his power… to the point of being able to implant new memories in humans:

I knew Jean-Claude had grown in power, but I hadn’t really understood what it meant until now. He filled the audience with new memories; there had been a contest for them to vote on which of the security people they’d most want to see dance onstage at Guilty Pleasures. I felt that some of the women had small scrapes and bruises and the pain made them doubt the story, but he took their pain away as his gaze could take the pain of the bite away, except he did this without meeting their eyes, or needing to; they just went back to their tables, and the security walked or limped over to put the overturned chairs back so they could sit down. Jean-Claude took their confusion of rushing the stage and trying to claw their way past the guards into them seeing the guards try to dance onstage, take their shirts off, some were awkward, and it was endearing. Some of the women laughed, as if it were happening in front of them. Some of the guards moved well onstage, and then Jean-Claude had asked them to vote on who they most wanted to see, and Graham had won.

This leads to… Anita and Jean-Claude stripping Graham on-stage for the mind-rolled audience of humans caught in Jean-Claude’s thrall. I’m not very pleased?

Because with Graham, you see the same issues present with Rafael and with Bernardo: men of color are exoticized and eroticized – bordering on dehumanization – in a way no white men are in this series? Even with the vast character changes since Cerulean Sins, Asher is still a person before he’s a point of pleasure for Anita. He’s loved. He’s cared for.

With men of color in the Anitaverse, they’re primarily… food. They’re not sweeties. I’ll say this as many times as I have to, but it’s the honest truth. Anita doesn’t love any man of color. What has happened is that some of them, like Micah, get retconned parentage to get a little unspecified ethnic spice… but that’s not even recurring.

Anyway, Graham gets some of what he wants… and a lot of what he doesn’t… with Jean-Claude and Anita sandwiching him on-stage and giving him the most confusing boner in the history of confusing boners. It would be great to read if I didn’t have plot foresight and couldn’t pinpoint exactly how badly this could go for Graham.

Also, I’m gonna be real: while I do not find Hamilton’s writing sexy at this point in time, the semi-threesome with Graham would’ve shattered me as a teenager. I would’ve been a mess. I can see exactly how horny this scene is and where it’d work if I didn’t have my own experience as a writer, reader, and pervert.

Of course, Graham instantly tries to push boundaries the second he gets a chance (as he’s got Anita’s legs wrapped around his waist and their bodies in very close contact)… and gets shot down:

“Do it.” I whispered it against his face.

“I want to fuck you.”

“No,” Jean-Claude and I said together.

But then Anita gives him an erotic out, telling him that he can grind her into the stage. When he asks if that won’t hurt her, she tells him “I want to feel you on top of me, Graham, pushing that hard, solid piece of you against me.”

This once again raises the question of… why doesn’t Hamilton write out the words for those body parts? It’s been thirty years and I don’t think she’s ever written any “obscene” word for genitals? And it’s weird like… just say “erection” if you’re allergic to “cock”. She also doesn’t say “clit” or “g-spot” or “squirt”, reverting to useless euphemisms every single time. What is she so afraid of??

I can’t get over that when I was a tadpole writing horrific Lucius Malfoy/My Jailbait OC – see my ep on Fansplaining for that reveal —  I was more adventurous with the language I used in my sex scenes than LKH, a woman actually old enough to be my mother.

Anyway, the sexy sexy briefly stops and Jean-Claude pinpoints the presence, a vampire whose power had snuck into Guilty Pleasures under the cover of Jean-Claude’s power as if that makes any sense whatsoever. But no matter the method, Anita and Jean-Claude have to get the “taint” cleared before they end up with a catastrophe where every human in the club is possessed.

So of course, this means Graham finally gets to get his hands on Anita in-depth (literally, at one point he’s fingering her onstage which I feel is illegal in most areas in the US) and he’s going to get to fuck her (maybe) in the next chapter.

The chapter ends with every single werewolf they can muster getting on stage to bolster Jean-Claude’s power with their own as Nathaniel leads Anita and Graham off stage to go feed the ardeur and give Jean-Claude the boost he needs to take on the vampire controlling the audience… A thing I do not like especially when you read the last sentence:

Graham was very still as he held my hand like a rabbit freezes when the fox is near. No, he’d frozen like the fox hiding just outside the henhouse waiting for his chance to go inside and eat his fill. He was sorry for the emergency, but he wanted to go with us and help feed the ardeur. He’d wanted it for years. It was part of what would make him a high-energy feed for me. I squeezed Graham’s hand a little tighter and let Nathaniel lead us toward the staff-only door. Looked like Graham was finally going to get his wish; he was going to be food.

Like I cannot explain how stressful and frustrating I find this all of this. Some of it is irrational, I know. But I just do not feel as though this is a good idea or something that will go well for Graham because Anita spends so much of her internal monologue dunking on him and misrepresenting him. He isn’t valuable. He’s useful.

Once they’re done with him and he gets expectations of what the future will bring?

She’s going to “have to” kill him.

Bet.