Previously, The Mister was a book about a rich nobleman wanting to bang his new housekeeper who, unbeknownst to him, was an illegal immigrant brought to the country by sex traffickers. They kissed a few times and then the sex traffickers found her, and he took her to one of his estates outside of London to protect her, where they continued falling in love and also doing not much else for some hundred pages, so not a huge surprise really that they were caught totally off guard by the sex trafficker plot coming back.
The Mister: Chapter 21
The chapter opens with Maxim furiously driving his car back to the house where he left Alessia, all alone, where they are at because they were on the run from sex traffickers who had had tracked her to Maxim’s house, right after a break-in had been discovered at his London home. I don’t want to belabor this point too much, but it really feels like this plot is only progressing because everybody just completely forgot about it.
Meanwhile, the sex traffickers are in the house, where Alessia is hiding from them in the bathroom, but they quickly find her and begin trying to knock down the door. Most of this passage is Alessia scared out of her goddamn mind, and – to be fair – it’s not as laughable as Fifty Shades‘ flirtations with its own thriller subplot, if not primarily because the antagonist doesn’t speak exclusively in an endless string of profanity. Just, you know mostly.
“You in here, you fucking bitch?” Dante calls out, and rattles the bathroom door […] She’s dizzy with fear. Feeling powerless, she quickly scans the room looking for something to use to defend herself. Anything. His razor? Her toothbrush?
Probably the former over the latter.
Maxim arrives at the scene.
I spot an old BMW encrusted with at least a year’s worth of dirt, and it’s abandoned haphazardly outside the garage.
Fuck. They’re here. […]
I pull up and park the car hard against the gate. They won’t get out that way.
And thus the world’s most incompetent sex traffickers met their downfall doing what they loved, incompetently sex trafficking.
Maxim sneaks into the house, goes to the gun cabinet where he conveniently brought them home for cleaning after their shoot yesterday. The two sex traffickers get into the bathroom and start beating Alessia, and Maxim corners them at gunpoint.
She screams as pain shoots through her body, leaving her gasping for air.
“Step away from her, you fucking piece of shit!” Maxim’s voice bellows through the room.
What?
Alessia opens bleary eyes. He’s here.
Maxim is standing on the threshold, shrouded in his dark coat like an avenging archangel, his eyes flashing a deadly green, and he’s brandishing his double-barreled shotgun.
And, uh, that’s apparently the end of the sex trafficker subplot, it would seem.
No, seriously, the rest of the chapter is basically just Maxim’s staff showing up and helping him restrain the traffickers, calling the authorities, and taking Alessia away to a safe location. Just as suddenly as they reappeared in the story, it really kinda seems like the sex traffickers are immediately no longer a threat.
So… we should talk about what The Mister is even trying to be, because unless something crazy happens after this point, The Mister doesn’t really want to be a story about victims of sex trafficking. What it wants to be is a love story. But it’s not a love story between two star-crossed lovers, really. This is a love story for how billionaires are going to save us, which coincidentally has no problem exploiting victims of sex trafficking.
Hear me out.
Much like Fifty Shades before it, The Mister is a rags-to-riches Cinderella story. A love story between the haves and the have-nots on the surface, but more about the old “have” standby that is meritocracy. This story doesn’t give a shit about Alessia’s plight on a systemic level. It only exists so that a billionaire has something to save her from, which she is worthy of being saved from because she is so beautiful, because she is so talented, because she is so charming (although that last point is sort of lacking from any actual support in the text itself, IMO).
In case it seems like I’m being dramatic, take a look at Maxim’s conversation with the police and tell me if Alessia is really of any importance to this story:
“And we’ll need to interview your fiancée,” PC Nicholls says. She’s around the same age as me, tall and willowy, bright-eyed and keen, scribbling down every word I utter. I drum my fingers on the dining-room table. How much longer are we going to be? I’m anxious to get to Alessia, my fiancée….
Yeah, no, you didn’t miss a bit where I summarized that Maxim proposed to Alessia. Maxim has just decided on his own that the best way to protect Alessia out with her immigration status right now is to lie to the police that she’s his fiancée.
“Oh, and congratulations on your impending nuptials.” Nancarrow offers me his hand.
“Thank you. I’ll pass your well wishes on to my fiancée.”
I just have to ask her to marry me first….
Meanwhile, while Maxim is sealing Alessia’s fate for her, Alessia has been taken into Danny’s care. (Danny is one of Maxim’s many employees whose job description I don’t fully understand, and I largely suspect does not actually matter.) Here, Alessia gets to wonder things like “where am I being taken?” and “what’s going to happen to me now?” and “why does Maxim’s cook live in a house so much bigger than Maxim’s?” Because don’t forget Maxim still hasn’t told her who he is.
Which, sure, is a huge improvement over her previous situation. But it’s not a good situation. Alessia’s well-being is now the exclusive domain of the whims of a billionaire. To be fair, it does actually seem at points like The Mister is trying to draw a parallel between her new and old life…
Ylli’s words sound in her head.
“Nëse me pastruese do të thuash konkubinë.”
If by cleaner you mean concubine.
Concubine.
The word is apt. She doesn’t want to acknowledge it, but it’s the truth. […] she had no choice. If she had stayed in Kukës, she would be married to a volatile and violent man. Alessia shudders. She had begged her father to stop the betrothal. But he ignored her and her mother’s pleas. He had given that man his word of honor.
But this is also a love story for Maxim and Alessia (despite their thorough lack of chemistry), so it’s pretty clear what direction this is ultimately going to go in. In the meantime, Alessia’s complete lack of options can sure as shit be exploited for drama!
Being with him has filled her head with illusions. Just as her grandmother had done—giving her crazy ideas about independence and liberation. Alessia had left her homeland to escape her betrothed but also, in good faith, expecting to find work. That’s what she needed to do. To work, to be independent—not a kept woman.
She stares into the dissipating bubbles in the bath.
She hadn’t expected to fall in love….
DRAAAAAAAAAMAAAAAAAAA
“His lordship will be along as soon as he’s dealt with the police. Come now.”
“His lordship?”
“Yes, dear.”
Alessia frowns, and Danny’s expression echoes hers.
“Did you not know? Maxim is the Earl of Trevethick.”
But don’t worry about it because billionaires will save us.
Anyway, this is just a dumb book, but if you’re fired up about the rich deciding who gets to be a citizen, you could make an IRL difference by donating to bail funds that help families separated from their children in detention centers at the border. I’ve made a few donations to Freedom for Immigrants and Fair Fight Immigrant Bond Fund, and more options and information is detailed in this zine by Sarah Mirk:
And you can also help keep this blog going by joining our Patreon, where for a mere $1 a month you can come hang out with us in our new Discord! Or if you want to make a one-time donation, you can buy us a cup of coffee on Ko-fi:
“she quickly scans the room looking for something to use to defend herself. Anything. His razor? Her toothbrush?”
Hey, don’t knock the toothbrush. Ever wave a used toothbrush at someone? She could gross them out enough to run.