I think my biggest question as I started this segment of Smolder is “are Graham and Anita gonna smash?”.

As we covered last time, the Anitaverse is not kind to characters of color and their characters get assassinated in a way that white male characters usually don’t… unless they (allegedly) represent one of Hamilton’s former loves. Graham is one of those characters that has never felt like he was respected in the narrative. He was a character who was mildly annoying and almost instantly removed from the running for a shot at being one of Anita’s sweeties… and it was frustrating because Graham is not good enough to be a boo but serial rapist and murderer Olaf might be? It’s infuriating.

Anyway, Smolder chapter 22 begins with Anita, Nathaniel, and Graham getting to the office to have sex and soothe the ardeur or give Jean-Claude a little boost of bonus power. And of course, Anita is anxious about it:

BY THE TIME we got to the office I wasn’t exactly getting cold feet, but I was unsure how to transition from not having sex to Hey, baby. I was good on beginnings, and great once the clothes came off and things were happening, but I had a lot of trouble with the transition between the two. No amount of experience seemed to make me better at it. If it had been one of the loves of my life, or even a regular friend with benefits, I would have just said something awkward and it would have been over and things would have progressed, but Graham wasn’t either of those things.

So of course, Nathaniel has to ease her into getting down with a new guy.

And uh… it doesn’t work. When he confesses that he found the grinding onstage hot… Anita gets mad. I don’t get it and uh… neither does she.

But Graham is all “well since I’m not your type, I get that you don’t want me” and he tries to draw away… But then Jean-Claude’s power drops and Anita realizes that she kind of has to sleep with Graham anyway. So then they get the heart-to-heart where Graham apologizes for not being what Anita wants… and we get another retcon that makes zero sense:

I frowned at him; Nathaniel jiggled my hand to get me to look at him instead of frowning at Graham. “He didn’t say anything wrong, Anita.”

I let out my breath slowly, trying to let go of the anger that was just there ready to come up and engulf me and everyone around me. “I know he didn’t.”

“Then why are you mad at me?” Graham said. “It seems like you’re always mad at me. I’m sorry I get on your nerves. I thought you had a good time out there with Jean-Claude and me. I’m sorry that you didn’t. I’m sorry that I misread that and you.” He sighed and looked like he was trying to think hard before he said the next part. I appreciated that he was trying so hard not to piss me off more.

“You didn’t misread it, Graham, but I’m fighting years of being raised to be a good girl, and what I did out there doesn’t go under the good-girl code I was raised with, and the wedding is forcing me to deal with my folks more than normal, and it’s bringing up a lot of old issues.”

“I get that,” Graham said, “family is hard. My dad wanted me to follow him into the military, and my mom hates that I work at a strip club. The only thing that would embarrass her more would be if I danced onstage, so she’d really hate tonight.” He gave a half laugh that managed not to be funny at all.

Buddy… pal. Graham’s parents weren’t like this when they were introduced. I’m just… so terrible. I’m just so annoyed. Graham’s parents, as far as I remember, had zero publicly negative reaction to him working at Guilty Pleasures. This set up just exists to have  Graham be Just Like Anita right down to the shitty family that loathes his chosen career. But uh… his chosen career was bouncer. Not actually a job to sneer at even if it’s at a strip club. This retcon makes no sense and just serves to put Graham’s family on the same level as Anita’s suddenly shitty family.

Nathaniel is like “oh man yeah I would love to see you two fuck but also I’m just a pervert so anyone would do” and Graham makes the gracious offer that, “if there’s another wolf here tonight that you’re more willing to feed on, we need them in here now”.

And then the door opens to a new wolf and the end of the chapter.

I HADN’T SEEN RICHARD in so long it was a shock to see him standing there, all six feet one inch, broad-shouldered, athletic body in a suit and tie. “You look fabulous,” he said as he reached back and undid his hair. It fell in long brown waves around his shoulders, framing his face with those high sculpted cheekbones, the dimple that softened the utter masculinity of his face. Nothing ever seemed to take away from his physical beauty.

Y’all Richard… Richard is the new wolf who appears in chapter 23. I’m gonna fucking shit.

Richard apparently rolled up to sate Anita’s hunger because everyone with eyes understood that Graham wasn’t getting any. (And while I did not want Graham and Anita to smash, I also do not want the return of Richard.)

One of the things the later Anita Blake novels do that I hate is the constant performative polyamory, conversations about consent and the valid relationships everyone is having… that ultimately stop up the text and make reading boring.

Like here:

Richard took another step toward us. “Let me be the wolf that you and Jean-Claude need tonight.”

Nathaniel’s hand tensed in mine. It made me look at him. I realized he was shielding about as hard as he ever did from me, so that even holding his hand I couldn’t feel what he was feeling or thinking. “You were encouraging me to have sex with Graham.”

“I was.”

“I’m UIfric leader of our pack; by wereanimal law I don’t need to get anyone’s permission except for Anita’s, but we aren’t just animals, and before you sleep with another man’s girlfriend in a poly relationship you have to have his permission, too.”

Nathaniel looked startled and didn’t try to hide it. “I don’t know what to say, that’s . . . I appreciate you treating me like Anita’s partner and asking my permission.”

“You’re welcome, and do I have your okay for this?”

Nathaniel let out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding. “I hate the way you’ve treated Anita and me in the past, but if tonight has proved anything it’s that Jean-Claude needs his own wolf to call, so if Anita is okay with it, then so am I.”

Mind you, Anita has not said she wanted to fuck Richard.

He doesn’t even ask for Anita’s permission.

He asks for Nathaniel’s – which is because he has been horrifically homophobic in the past towards him – and it’s progress but also… bad?

Anyway, the clothes come off and Anita gets to see Richard naked for the first time in ages:

THE CLOTHES CAME off without any preliminaries, and I got to see that Richard hadn’t been hitting the weight room as much as the last time I’d seen him nude. It made his body smoother, closer to the way he’d looked when I first started dating him. When he’d left us, he’d also had to leave our gym that was set up for supernatural strength and abilities. There were other gyms in the area that had facilities for supernaturals, but they were all public gyms and Richard was still in the closet. To most of the world he was a mild-mannered college biology professor, and Clark Kent couldn’t go to Superman’s gym.

First of all, “in the closet” to describe being a shapeshifter not publicly announcing a thing like that? Still weird.

Second of all, why doesn’t his freakishly massive werewolf pack have a gym of their own? Do you know how weird it is that his pack does not have basic facilities for each other?

Third of all, Superman does not use the damn gym. That’s kind of a clear thing in the DC Universe: yes, Clark Kent has to pretend to be a normie for a lot of his day to day life but like… Superman also does not go to the gym. He doesn’t need to. His body is peak perfection, and he doesn’t gain or lose weight the way that we do as humans. It is just a terrible analogy for a terrible book.

But I will couple these complaints with a kindness: I do love the callback to Richard’s original physique because he was kind of… you know back then?

Okay so this next bit made me hurk:

Nathaniel stood and offered me his arm, while Graham kept my hand. The two of them walked me toward Richard, and it reminded me of the discussion we were having about who was going to walk me down the aisle if my father bailed on me. Nathaniel and Micah were one of the ideas for escorting me. Yes, we were nude, and it was very not a wedding, and it was Richard and not Jean-Claude, but once the man in front of me had proposed and I’d said yes. We’d spent years trying to force each other to meet in the middle. Him wanting white-picket-fence monogamy, me wanting black-barbed-wire polyamory. Now here we were.

I don’t even understand the purpose of this paragraph.

I don’t.

I’m tired.

Anyway, then there’s this:

I’d had moments of hating the high heels tonight, but now I was suddenly five-eight to Richard’s six-one. I might never wear them outside the bedroom again, but I’d never been able to look Richard in the eye like I could in this moment. Jean-Claude had a moment of looking through my eyes, and he loved that Richard was gazing into our eyes with unabashed desire. There was regret in Jean-Claude that Richard had never looked at him that way. The moment of sharing was cut off abruptly as Jean-Claude got back in control of his thoughts and emotions. Richard’s face never changed, and I was pretty sure that if he’d just heard in his head what I had, he wouldn’t still be smiling down at me with uncomplicated lust in his eyes. He was entirely too conflicted about Jean-Claude, or any man when it came to sex. For the first time I realized that it wasn’t me that still wanted Richard, it was Jean-Claude. Damn.

For years, I’ve been trying to figure out what was going on there with Jean-Claude and Richard. And this tells me where we’re at, but not where we started.

I want to know why Jean-Claude chose Richard.

I want to know why he won’t let go of him.

Because the werewolf dick he’s not even getting can not be that good.

Oh and then we get a reminder that Richard is still not actually into dudes in the last sentence, with Anita noting that, “He was entirely too conflicted about Jean-Claude, or any man when it came to sex. For the first time I realized that it wasn’t me that still wanted Richard, it was Jean-Claude. Damn.”

Honestly, it was tough to make it through this but y’all…

I hate the way that Anita and Nathaniel talk to each other.

This is corny as fuck.

“I love you,” he said, and pressed a string of condoms into my hand.

“I love you more,” I said, smiling at him.

“I love you most,” he said, then moved to lean against the edge of the desk. 

Ew.

Then there’s this line from Anita thinking about Richard:  I stared up into the face that had once launched my heart like a thousand ships, and then we’d sunk the ships in a battle that had destroyed us both.

Ugh

I’m just…

I literally went to the top of this document and decided to do myself justice… I’m tapping out. I changed it to me ending it at 24 rather than 25. I cannot be bothered to subject myself to the fuckening.

Next time… November or December… I’ll get back to it.

But I do not want to subject myself to this shit right now.