The Virgin’s Secret Marriage: Post 15

Chapter 11: The Sanctity of (an unknown) Marriage (of convenience)

(Posts for the foreseeable future may be a bit brief and slapdash. Sincere apologies—it’s been a heck of a few months and the Commissioner is digging her way out of them.)

“Saul and Margaret want to see me—and my new wife—at their estate at seven-thirty this evening for dinner. Because I am now an employee under contract with the Storm, the option of no does not exist” (141).

I dunno, dude. The very fact that you were summoned like that makes me wonder. Sure, if you were only an employee, I’d agree. But you are also now their son in law, and they invited you two through the coach and via you (instead of Emma) and the whole thing smacks of ickiness.

Emma says he has to go (as employee) but she doesn’t. Joe, however, does not agree. He puts a “possessive” arm around her.

“If I have to go, you have to go. That’s what being my wife means” (141).

Suddenly my choice to remain single has been validated and clarified. It’s 2015 (or within a few years of that, since this book isn’t exactly hot off the presses.) Being married does not make you chattel and does not mean you have to go where you’re told by your spouse!

Emma does not argue, however, because she needs to put her Detecting Plan into action. So instead she tells Joe that his mother needs him (she doesn’t) in order to get rid of him. Hannah-the-Mechanic is outside, in her prearranged place, looking at the engine of Emma’s car and shaking her head sadly. The Subplot Groom does not hesitate for an instant when Emma asks if she can borrow his BMW, but alas, all the planning is for naught when Emma whips open the trunk expecting to find all the stolen hockey memorabilia but instead discovering only a single, forlorn, unidentifiable, plain black puck.

That better not be a clue. I haven’t played hockey in almost a year (with one exception) due to health and then landing in the Appalachian-Land-of-No-Freakin’-Rinks, but I would not in the least bit be surprised if there were a puck still in my car’s trunk. And probably a water bottle and some stick tape, too.

When Emma gets home, Joe questions her and threatens to “kiss it out of” her if she doesn’t confess as to why she’d sent him to his mother and why she’d borrowed the Subplot Groom’s car (142). Emma manages to evade answering him, despite the fact that they’re both wearing only towels as they prepare to go to her parents’ house and he’s being all demanding and apparently sexy.

“And do you know… that when you’re at your bossiest and most demanding—like right now—that I…”

Joe’s sexy grin widened.  “You what?”

I want to give you everything you want. And more (144).

Oh Emma. If you have a BDSM fetish, that’s totally fine. Go find yourself a proper dominant. But stop finding Joe’s every-day ordinary browbeating to be sexy and romantic.

The newlyweds—are they? They’ve technically been married for seven years… They should be at the “Seven year itch” at this point, right? At any rate, the two of them show up at the home of Emma’s parents where everything is very “civil” and very “tense” (145). After the hor d’oeuvres, Saul starts insisting that Joe go on Tiffany Lamour’s show.

Oh FFS, novel, seriously?

Joe’s response is that he doesn’t want to talk about his personal life on tv, in order to spare Emma. Margaret’s response is sort of horrifying, in my opinion.

Margaret shrugged… “Emma’s reputation as a proper young woman went out the window the moment the two of you were caught on camera, sans clothing” (146).

On one hand, yeah, I get it. On the other, this seems so dismissive, as though Emma doesn’t get to have a private life because she was caught on camera in a bizarre accidental nudity moment. Does her own mother not care about Emma’s desire now because she has lost her reputation?

Margaret goes on in a vein that I suppose is meant to characterize her as caring, but frankly the whole thing seems very self-interested to me.

“For you to get yourself in the predicaments you have with Joe tells me that there is something special between the two of you. All your father and I are asking is for the two of you to accept the fact that like it or not you both are very much in the public eye. … That means you are role models to a lot of young people” (147).

Ummm. Well, Joe might be, as, you know, an NHL player. And sure, hockey players’ wives and girlfriends typically do a lot of charity work and such, but I wouldn’t say that any of them are role models, let alone role models because they married a hockey player. (Yes, little Susie and little Jane, you two can grow up and marry an NHL player and be just like Emma!) I mean, how many hockey wives can you name besides Carrie Underwood? And Candace Cameron (Bure)? And, um, Ovechkin was (is?) dating a Russian tennis player, right? But these—even if I could think of more—actually prove my point because all of those women were famous before dating their hockey players and for reasons completely separate from dating hockey players.

Emma is a wedding planner. I don’t think they have to worry.

Did it mean now that the sanctity of her marriage had to be sacrificed for the benefit of the darn hockey team? (147).

Well, I wouldn’t go that far, Emma. Because your marriage doesn’t have any sanctity. You (re)married because of the ‘darn hockey team’, remember? Geez.

The conversation continues, with her parents pushing that the scandal won’t die until Joe answers questions and it’s Emma who doesn’t want him to, because that would put him in the claws of Tiffany Lamour, “in a position where he was vulnerable to the whims of a vindictive, scandal-hungry heiress” and “her interest in Joe seems a lot more than simply professional…. “(147 emphasis and ellipsis original).

The lady doth protest too much. (I get paid to teach Shakespeare; I’m allowed to quote Hamlet). Emma’s concern over the “sanctity of her marriage” and Joe being “vulnerable” to Tiffany are both smokescreens as far as I’m concerned. She’s really just jealous. This is the female-version of the romance novel trope that has men wanting to pee in circles around the heroines when another male character so much as looks at them.

“All we are asking is that you let the world in on a little of the excitement or happiness or whatever it is you find with each other,” Margaret said softly (148).

That line makes me laugh. Earlier Margaret declares how the two of them must have something special, and here it’s “excitement or happiness or whatever it is…” I don’t think the author meant to write Margaret as so dismissive, since she’s not described that way when Emma thinks about her, but her actions and words seem awfully shallow and disinterested in Emma as a person, let alone as her daughter.

Joe and Emma go home after Joe agrees to do Tiffany’s show. He tells Emma that he’ll do it because it’s the only way to protect Emma and as her husband that’s his job. Everyone clear? According to this chapter, wives go where their husbands say, and husbands protect wives by going on sports & gossip television programs.

Emma asks that she go on the show, too, since the situation is at least half or more her fault. (I imagine it’s also because of her jealousy.) But Joe declares that she cannot because that’s not what’s done and anyway he refuses to hide behind her.

Then there’s sex in the kitchen, during which Emma is afraid that that when everything has been smoothed over and they’ve been together for a time, after she’s lost her heart, Joe will leave her. If you’re thinking that makes for a less than sexy sex scene, you’d be right. Also less than sexy is Joe’s celly when Emma climaxes.

I totally picture Joe doing this, post-coitus.

A satisfaction that was even better than throwing the puck into the net flowing through him, Joe held her until her shudders stopped (152).

You know what, Book? How about a moratorium on hockey terminology when you’re in a sex scene? Because while I’m sure there’s a way to do it well, this isn’t it.

Then there’s more sex and apparently it is so wildly amazing that Joe is now convinced that their marriage will work forever. Then they have more sex 5 minutes later. This second bout exhausts Joe, but Emma is too worried about Joe’s hockey memorabilia to sleep. So she calls his brother (the sheriff, not the doctor).

Because OF COURSE HE DOES, Joe wakes up while Emma is on the phone, being all furtive. He figures out it’s his brother, Joe, and when she hangs up, she spots him and Joe decides she looks guilty.

Well, so much for that marriage working forever, eh?

Offside: Post 19

Chapter 24: Voyeur Cat is Watching You Porn

Please note that posts may be a little irregular and a little slapdash for the month of March.

Logan dashes into the bar, all avenging irrationally jealous lover, prepared to pound Jason’s head into a pulp for daring to look at Billie’s ass, but thankfully Shane stops him. This is not the first time that Shane has been the voice of reason in this book and it really makes me wonder why he went to prison (although, as with so many things I’m curious about, not curious enough to pay for his book.) He points out that if Logan causes a scene, especially since Sabrina, Maiden of the Towels, is there, it’d be bad for Billie, and that’s enough to calm Logan down. (Never mind that it would also be breaking his word to Billie, no, that’s not important at all.)

Billie catches sight of Logan and acts really weird. I think the purpose is twofold. First, she’s acting as if she’s not involved with Logan because they’re at the bar with all of their leaguemates. Second, she’s flirting with Logan. If those seem fairly mutually exclusive to you, know that I agree. It comes off like Billie has lost her marbles, in my opinion.

“Logan,” she said casually…. She took a sip from her bottle, her tongue flickering [sic] along the edge. “I didn’t even notice you were missing until what,” she turned to Jason and giggled, “the third period?” (395).

I don’t know that I want to know how a tongue flickers. (Flicks, sure. Flickers...?) Logan wonders if Billie is drunk, based on the above. One of the other players asks Billie if she’s told Logan about the tournament the team has signed up for.

“Not me. I haven’t seen the guy since last Friday” (395).

I know I’m overly critical—that’s the point here—but I feel like these sorts of responses are super-forced. Like, Billie, you’re better than this.

Logan doesn’t notice because he’s too busy watching Billie.

The tip of her tongue was slowly rimming the bottle in her hands and he was very aware that the bulge between his legs was going to grow to epic proportions if he didn’t do something (396).

Then Billie brings up Skype and how “cool” it is. She explains it as if Logan had never heard of it before, all so that he’s thinking about the “crotch-less lingerie and peek-a-boo skirts” she was wearing the night before while they Skyped. Billie continues on, telling Logan he should try Skype some time, like when he’s on a business trip, because it’s a good way to keep in touch with people, like his “mother for instance” (397-98).

I wish Billie had chosen any other person to bring up as a non-sexy person to reference here because I’m already deeply concerned about Logan’s relationship with his mother.

At any rate, it all becomes too much for the both of them. Logan claims he has something he has to talk to Billie about and they leave “before he was forced to pound his fist into every single guy in the bar” (398). Logan’s possessive streak is beginning to creep me out. He practically drags her outside.

…for the first time really hating their dumbass arrangement. Logan decided right then and there that he was done playing games. He was done hiding (400).

I guess this is supposed to seem like he wants to be all super public about their relationship because he’s super serious about it. However, it’s a little bit problematic. First of all, he knows what she’s going through regarding the way the town is treating her, and he agreed (without any qualms at the time) to abide by her wishes in keeping their relationship a secret. As I’ve said, I’m not convinced that keeping it a secret is actually all that helpful, but my point is that this is not a unilateral decision that Logan gets to make. Second, “done playing games”? Again, not playing games is in character—it’s one of the first things that Logan says to Billie after they kiss for the first time (and it’s all supposed to stem from how Betty treated him after “they” slept together) but given that Billie’s car was vandalized and she was stabbed because she wants to play men’s hockey, and she sees her relationship with Logan as potentially being seen in the same light, as ergo dangerous, it’s not like she’s ashamed of him or playing games. She’s fearful. Third, I suspect this wanting everyone to know is supposed to be seen as romantic, because this is a “real” relationship (whatever that is) in a way that none of his previous ones have been. However, because it comes hard on the heels of how Billie is being hit on by other people, and Logan’s terrible reaction to that (which we also saw when he took her out for the first time), it only comes across as possessiveness and as isolating her from other people.

They drive superfast to Logan’s house and have sex in the hallway, and Logan is particularly excited because Billie isn’t wearing underwear. They get to the bed before actual penetrative sex and are both horrified to discover that Weird (the cat) is watching them.

“Son-of-a-bitch.”

She followed his gaze and swore. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

They had an audience. A furry, purring little thing, who flicked a crooked tail back and forth while holding out a paw to be licked.

A cat with one eye. An eye for porn (409-410).

And that’s where the chapter ends. I seriously think that this author was uncertain how to end sex scenes and thus capped them all off with Voyeur Cat.

Cats watch their people. They just do. I don’t think Weird the Porn Cat is particularly weird.