The Mister Chapter 12: THE SEA! The Sea! ThE sEa tHe SeA tHe S

Previously, Maxim took Alessia to one of his other properties to evade the human traffickers who are determined to get this one girl back from under the protection of a lord, of all people. Ariel spent some time digging through the many lines about how Maxim “want[s] her, yes. But I want her wet and willing – I want her to want me, too […] When did I acquire a conscience?” to find how deeply buried the bar is for what qualifies as a “good” man.

The Mister: Chapter 12

The chapter begins with Alessia is screaming, which I can relate to as I feel similarly every time I open up this book and start reading it. It’s just a Goosebumps-level fake-out insofar as the cliffhanger is immediately revealed to not be a real threat, she got scared of how much darker it is here than London, which reminded her of the truck she was trafficked on. “Just” doesn’t feel especially fair since there are some real lingering effects of Alessia’s PTSD in here, but this is a work from the mind that brought you Fifty Shades of “You’re a virgin? We’re going to rectify the situation right now“ Grey, so the PTSD scare becomes a narrative excuse to give them a reason to be partially undressed around each other…

“I am sorry,” she whispers.

“Hush. Don’t worry. I’m here.”

She glances down at my chest, and a slow flush pinks her cheeks.

“Yeah, I normally sleep naked. Count yourself lucky I put these on,” I quip.

Her mouth softens. “I know,” she says, and peeks up at me through her long lashes.

“You know?”

“Yes. You sleep naked.”

“You’ve seen me?”

“Yes.” Her smile is unexpected.

“Well, I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

…and then right into bed together, as every romance we read on this blog apparently must have the romantic leads get into bed because of some contrived circumstance rather than just something utterly wild like, I dunno, feeling like it.

I’m not going to leave her to face these gruesome nightmares on her own. In one swift movement, I stand, cradling her against my chest.

She gasps in surprise.

“I think you should sleep with me.” And without waiting for a response, I carry her into my room

Wow, gosh, this after a whole chapter about Maxim’s inner turmoil that Alessia give “wet and willing” cons– ok, yeah, this isn’t a huge surprise.

She blinks rapidly.

Shit. Perhaps I’ve really overstepped the mark.

A reminder that this isn’t a “bad” book just because Maxim is a man who makes mistakes! This would probably be an even worse book if he were a boilerplate woke 101 dude who behaved more like a checklist than a human person. I genuinely do think Maxim is a more interesting character than Christian Grey because of his fumbling attempts to navigate this power dynamic.

The problem is that The Mister doesn’t seem to know what it actually wants to do with that power dynamic. And keeps defaulting to the same frustrating thing James did in Fifty Shades. Except this time she also googled some pub trivia about Albania.

Mister Maxim. Saving her again.

Her own Skënderbeu… Albania’s hero.

In Alessia’s perspective, she worries about how her parents would be horrified that she is sleeping with a man who is not her husband, then tries not to think about it. What do you think the odds are that Alessia’s already married? More or less likely than a some dumb, forced Fifty Shades crossover in the third act?

Before they go to sleep, Alessia notices that Maxim’s tattoo is a double-headed eagle, which just so happens to be the symbol of Albania and the shield from Maxim’s family’s coat of arms. Try not to be too shocked at this wild coincidence.

They wake up and Alessia has climbed all over Maxim in her sleep. Maxim actually charmingly describes this as “Alessia has trespassed onto my side of the bed” before he somewhat less charmingly narrates that “my cock is wide awake and rock hard”. They both masturbate while thinking about the other in the shower. Try not to be too shocked at this wild coincidence.

“Hungry?” I know I am. And not for food.

She nods.

“Do you really mean yes?”

She frowns.

“You said in the car yesterday that in Albania [nodding and shaking your head is] the opposite.”

“You remembered.” She sounds pleased and surprised.

AGAIN, THE BAR FOR A GOOD MAN REMAINS EXCEPTIONALLY LOW. Speaking of which, it’s time for Maxim to grapple with Alessia’s virginity.

“You’re a virgin?” I whisper, and open my eyes to study her face.

She blushes. “Yes.”

Her simple affirmation is like an ice bath to my libido. I’ve only slept with one virgin, and that was Caroline. It was my first time, too, and it was a disaster that nearly got us expelled from school. After that my father took me to a high-class brothel in Bloomsbury.

If you’re going to start fucking girls, Maxim, you’d better learn how to fuck.

I was fifteen, and Caroline moved on….

Until Kit’s death.

Bloody hell.

OK WAIT THERE’S A LOT TO UNPACK HERE

While we can’t and shouldn’t ignore James’s prose which can incongruously turn any passage in The Mister into a reminder that Maxim’s brother is dead (usually accompanied with a “Why, Kit? Why?” to the degree where a very ill-advised drinking game could be made of this), we really need to appreciate how The Mister has fucking glossed over Maxim’s father forcing him to go to a brothel that would take on a fifteen-year-old as a client, which constitutes statutory rape, either willingly or reluctantly because of said client’s father’s unimaginable wealth, neither of which is particularly great. This dude’s got tons of PTSD of his own he doesn’t seem to have worked on. Should we be glad Maxim isn’t more fucked up than he is?

Her inexperience is an issue. I like sexually adventurous women who know what they’re doing, know what they want, and know their limits. Breaking in a virgin is a big responsibility. I towel-dry my hair.

It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it.

Might as well be me.

I stare at the cad in the mirror.

Dude. Grow up.

Or some word more appropriate than “glad”.

Just in time for me to remember I’m supposed to be writing for a humor blog, Maxim ponders the idea of a long-term relationship and gives us an unintentionally great Tommy Wiseau-esque recap of his dating history.

Arabella was too into drugs for my liking. I mean, who doesn’t like a bump now and then, but every day? No way. I think she’s in rehab again.

After her shower, Alessia finds Maxim cooking breakfast in the kitchen. I find that this chapter’s “E.L. James writes unnecessarily detailed prose about people using technology” does not disappoint either:

I turn the Sonos volume down via the app on my phone.

They get into a weird, unnecessary conflict where Alessia thinks Maxim is mad at her when he insists on cleaning up the kitchen after breakfast, but it gets resolved without much issue. I super don’t care.

Despite all Maxim’s ham-fisted hand-wringing over consent and virginity, it is somehow Alessia who gets this chapter’s most embarrassing bit of character sketching when she finally gets her trip to the sea and forces us to consider the possibility that Alessia might be a bit of a manic pixie dream girl.

“The sea, the sea!” she cries, and twirls around, her arms in the air. […] “The sea!” she shouts again above the roar of the water, and she gesticulates wildly, her arms like a crazy windmill, welcoming each wave as it crashes to the shore. […] She runs toward me with childish abandon and grabs my hand. “The sea!” she cries once more, and drags me to the crashing waves. And I go willingly, surrendering myself to her joy.

What’s really embarrassing is this is probably more personality than Anastasia Steel ever got. Otherwise, I’m really running out of things to say about how boring these two are. This is the kajillionaire author of the Fifty Shades phenomenon, and I have less to say about her second pair of original(ish) characters than I do about the romance in fucking Trigger Warning. Those two idiots only have complaining about not wanting to be woke in common, and that’s easier to buy than any chemistry between Maxim and Alessia. Hell, those four sentences about Maxim’s cokehead ex-girlfriend Arabella overshadow the chemistry between Maxim and Alessia. And passages like this one where Maxim is, what, reminded of the splendor of life because Alessia has turned into a quirky child because of the majesty of the sea doesn’t really suggest there’s anything more to their budding relationship than novelty.

---

If you enjoyed today’s post, please consider becoming a Patron to support the blog, or buying the BBGT writers a cup of coffee on Ko-fi. It means a lot to us!