Calendar Girl (October) Chapter 9:
Mia has a meeting with her show’s executive producer, Leona Markham, who is apparently smoking hot. Mia details how sexy the producer is for multiple paragraphs. Not only is this a weird digression, but I feel offended on Leona’s behalf for Mia’s fixation.
I shouldn’t have complained, though, because after this Mia tells us about the new segment she’s been editing with Wes. Carlan probably puts about a half hour into writing these books. She just has to sit down and write some stream-of-conscious nonsense from Mia, copy/paste some things from previous chapters, and BOOM! She’s done.
“Sorry I’m late. Shandi and I were just looking over the initial notes on the fireman/ rescue dog piece Mia just edited with her fiancé, Mr. Channing.”
Like everything else Mia touches, it turns to gold of course.
This is the perfect segue for Leona to explain why they’re all meeting. In fact, Mia’s aunt/agent is on the phone as well.
My aunt’s voice rang through crisp and clear on the speaker phone. “I am. Thank you for having me. Now, to what do I owe this pleasure?”
This time, I looked down and tried to breathe through my desire to snort with laughter. Millie only talked with a high-handed tone when she wanted something or wanted to impress someone. I had a feeling it was the latter.
How…is this tone high-handed? I double-checked the definition of high-handed and it’s “using power or authority without considering the feelings of others.” But she’s not using power or authority…and just basically sounded polite?
Leona explains that the show has basically increased it’s audience by 100000% since Mia started, and at first they thought maybe it was because of all the press around Mia and Wes, but three episodes in they’re somehow confident it’s just because Mia is incredible. I’m skeptical, but sure! They want Mia to have more screen-time. Everyone is happy and they’ll have an offer ready by tomorrow.
Mia talks about how icky Dr. Hoffman is, but this doesn’t seem to influence her decision at all.
Without even thinking, I snarled and made a gag noise.
“What?” he looked at me indifferently.
I scowled. “Really? You just snapped your fingers at your assistant. Totally rude!”
[…]
Man, I hated when he called me darling. It always sounded icky even though I know he meant it as a compliment.
This can only end well?
Speaking of things that can only end well: Wes’ night terrors continue!
Wes did have twisted dreams that night, only his response was very different.
I have read the chapter in its entirety now, and I still have no idea how his response is very different. I promise you, this is a copy/paste job.
“Sweetheart, I’m fine.” His tone was harsh, but the fact that he used an endearment was a plus.
Mia is really scraping the bottom of the barrel here for positive spins on this.
I guess maybe tonight is different from all other nights because when Mia asks Wes if he loves her, he doesn’t respond…at first?
“Yes. I love every fucking inch of you. I love fucking you. I fucking love you,”
He begins fingering Mia aggressively, but she doesn’t actually have an emotional reaction to any of this. It’s so incredibly strange and disturbing to read.
“Where are you, baby?” I asked through the haze of lust, my hips moving in counterpoint to his shallow thrusts.
“In you,”
Tonight is different from all the other nights apparently, but to me it reads exactly the same. Wes’ behaviour has always been this alarming to me.
His cock was hard as stone and unrelenting as he slammed into me.
“Gonna take you over and over, sweetheart. Need it. Need your sweet cunt. Need your wetness. It’s so dry, so fucking dry. I can’t breathe!”
Again to me this reads as rape (I think Mia is the one who’s dry even though she’s told us she’s wet. Honestly, I’m confused and upset), but Mia just says that HIS TONE OF VOICE IS WRONG. What the fuck am I even reading? “Need your wetness”???
“No moisture. You’re my oasis in this hell hole,” he murmured while biting into the skin of my lower back. He bit down so hard I shrieked, but he only bit harder.
OH MY GOD THE DIALOGUE IS SO BAD FOR A SECOND I DIDN’T NOTICE HE’S ACTUALLY PHYSICALLY HURTING MIA NOW!
But then Mia tells us she comes four times anyway. Four times! But she’s worried because he hasn’t been able to come yet. I am honestly not sure what this scene is supposed to be doing. Whatever it is, it’s doing it horribly!
Mia makes Wes have sex with her in a different way so he can climax and continue to tell her she’s paradise. I still don’t really get how this night is any different than all the others we’ve been reading about. Please go get help, Mia/Wes.
Not to spoil the ending of the book or anything, but I figured I’d reassure everyone that in Wednesday’s post they DO finally make Wes go to a therapist, since this subplot is probably legit stressing people out.
Like, the book is still shiiiiiiiiit, but at least it is ending on a “and that’s why therapy is good” note.
It already make Calendar Girl better than 50 shades. Grey has a therapist in the first book but E L James made a terrible work in talk about therapy and trauma (when Ana tells him that she’s intimidated by Christian, his therapist was like “but you’re saving him 1!!! You need to fix Christian!”)
Before I read Matthew’s comment I was like “how can this book almost be over because nothing has happened.” That’s still true, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel now. Maybe?
This is kind of irrelevant but I’ll say it anyway: is blog is legitimately half the reason I decided to study English literature at university, which I’m doing now. Though always hilarious,the commentary has genuinely helped me in many occasions, in class or when I’m writing essays. Both of your excellent perspectives on gender have made me reconsider the way I read and write. TL;DR: you’re both amazing, this blog is my goddam everything and, were I not a poor unemployed uni student, I’d be a patron in a flash.
This comment was the highlight of my week. I’m floored to hear that someone finds us helpful! This was so very kind of you to say! Keep on keepin’ on
“He bit down so hard I shrieked, but he only hit harder.” WHAT THE HELL
Hey uh what the fuck
Like okay, question, why do we need this many variations of this scene? This subplot doesn’t need to be happening at all and makes no sense, but even were that not the case, we would only need to see it happen once, at most. If Wes’s problem were actually being treated as a problem, we would have gotten this scene once and it probably wouldn’t have been, like, trying to be sexy?
Like, I don’t want to say Audrey Carlan published an elaborate rape fantasy under a thin veneer of consent [and we can agree that this is pretty well coerced, right? I’m not the only one reading it that way? Or like, even if she does apparently want to have sex with him, he’s gonna do it without considering her opinion either way, so there is no good way to look at this] in her alleged romance series or whatever it is, but, uhhhhh?
Like maybe she didn’t do it on purpose? But? Someone should maybe have stopped this from happening?