Cupid's Melody, continues, part two...

The Chronicle continues as the Loinfire Club turns to chapter two:

having a labour dispute threaten the completion of the scenery...

The Anthropologist objects to having labour disputes in her romance novels. The Watcher points out that if Charlotte Bronte did it in Shirley, her Serious Novel, then so can anyone else.

Stacy is sitting in her office, doing things, angsting, worrying about her attraction to Nic, gazing at her garden...

The Anthropologist: "I think there was supposed to be dramatic music here, but she forgot we can't hear it."

Stacy has many man-rejecting thoughts to assure the gentle reader that she is, indeed, not a slut and is rightly deserving of love.

The Balance: "She's a repetitive not a slut."

After this many years, she should be used to it, yet remembering Anthony's betrayal...

Cathed: "I'm sure Brad is very sad about the fact he's forgotten."
Further speculation about how he has a biker past and when he rides into the sunset on his motorcycle. He's just going to buy some Jack Daniels and a shotgun, due to his tormented feelings over Stacy constantly forgetting the fact that he.

What happened to the other gardener?

The Dwarf: "Clearly Brad couldn't find one that looks normal and wasn't not a hunk. This is Romance Land, you know."
Azrael: "You have to know where to look for ugly people. The villain, rapists and uncles...."

The theory is brought back around to the frequency of rape, otherwise known as "forced seduction" in romance novels. The Anthropologist explains, "There are two sorts of rape: ugly rape is bad and good rape by pretty people. It must really speed up court cases if you can't rape anyone who's uglier than you."
Big L: "It's clearly just surprise pity sex."
Azrael: "In other words, charity."

Stacy angsts about how her life revolves around her sister, how she wants flowers to draw energy from...

Sordan speculates that Nic will be giving Stacy some flowers for her office soon.

The Anthropologist: "So wait, we're going to take a character who has massive issues about the fact that she likes singing but her sister can sing better than her and her only consolation is her gardening... Then pair her up with a guy who can garden better than anyone else in the world..."

The Club marvels at the lack of sex in the book, as it would have long surfaced were this a Connie Mason. Big L guesses that something hot and steamy will happen on p.32. The rest of the Club demands that there is no spoiling. Sordan puts her hands on her ears and starts singing Lalalalalala...

Anthropologist: "We must experience this book exactly as she intended it."

Sordan: "We have to get to page 32! Keep going!"

"They keep me going through the Chaos."
He arched one eyebrow. "Chaos?"

The mention of the word Chaos triggers a call from all the secret cultists among us.
The Balance: "The natural enemies of Chaos are the daffodils!"

Stacy says some deep and meaningful things about irises and roses, showing that she's beautiful and unique.

Sordan: "Who the hell talks like this?!"
The rest of the Club finds Nic's behaviour overwhelmingly patronising.

Stacy invites Nic to eat Chinese takeaway with her.

Oh, jeez.
The remarkable choice of swear word triggers the Club to cry out their own choice favourites (mostly from previous romance novels):
"God's Nightgown!" (Connie Mason's The Dragon Lord
"Stones!" (Cupid's Melody, itself)
"Jupiter's mighty rod!" (Joy Nash's Celtic Fire)

The Anthropologist: "She obviously lives in some sort of rich community. Would anyone be really that surprised that she's boning the gardener? Isn't that partly what she's paying him for?"

"I'm ordering Chinese, and they won't deliver if I only order enough for myself."

Big L: "What's the place going to do? Ask how many are eating and just refuse to deliver?"
Sordan: "Single woman don't deserve to eat!"
Azrael: "Clearly single woman assault the delivery boy because they're too lonely."

The Anthropologist demands vodka very desperately to keep her going as the book is getting to her. From across the room she is passed the Tolstoy, it is horrible. Balance confuses Leo Tolstoy (great Russian novelist: War and Peace, Anna Karenina) with Leon Trotsky (Bolshevik revolutionary, Stalin's arch nemesis, killed by ice pick) much to the amusement of all.

He didn't look all that dirty to her.
Porn soundtrack kicks in.

She'd never done anything like this before.
Sordan: "What? She's never ordered a Chinese takeaway for two before?"

Nic stumbles into Stacy and holds her "accidentally."

Azrael: "How hard was he trying to knock?!"
The Anthropologist: "I'm sorry, I tripped and fell and ended up in her vagina somewhere."

A short diversion happens as the Balance threatens to eat the chocolate map which Azrael needs to choose a chocolate. Chaos ensues.

How could something so wrong feel so right?

The Anthropologist: "She's writing songs about her rape fantasies, for her sister to sing?!"

The I'm not a slut moment gets out of hand.

"What should I order for you?"
"I like it all." His voice was quiet, the hint of an accent teasing her sense. "Something spicy, perhaps?"
Yes, that fit him. Definitely spicy.

Azrael laments that he'll never be able to read a Chinese menu innocently again.

Something about this man, about his touch, affected her like a perfectly played sonata.

The Anthropologist: "Is this going to be repeated for every sense? He smelled like a symphony..."

Nic and Stacy's conversation drifts towards interior decoration. He says to her:
"I bet I can tell you which of the rooms you decorated."

The Anthropologist: "Why is does she not find this creepy? She's only just met him!"
Sordan: "Clearly she can't actually remember: I can't remember which rooms I decorated! Please tell me! It's been driving me crazy."

Stacy joined him and led him into the formal dining area, where dark red curtains draped the tall windows, and a heavy wooden table filled the room. The decorations were sparse here: a burgundy table runner providing the only color to contrast with the white walls."

Azrael: "The all important question is left unanswered: does the carpet match the drapes?"

The Club finds this fixation with interior decoration and gardening distressing.

She relished every chance to make music.

The Chronicler: "Like babies."
The Anthropologist: "Babies are like music, a sort of noisy, loud, annoying, sticky music."

Stacy angsts about how she is forced to write popsongs and that her true calling is to write ballads which her sister would never sing. Nic gets confused since Anna would never play a popsong so therefore Stacy isn't Anna (but the same doesn't apply to Diana who sings them.)

Diana turns out to be a fan of Nic's paintings and has his portrait of Anna in one of her rooms. They look at it and much is made of how much the artist and model love each other.

The Chronicler: "Anyone find his obsession with Anna rather creepy?"
The Anthropologist: "It's the problem with reincarnation, it encourages necrophilia."

There is talk about Azrael's motions resemble that of a robotic arm when picking chocolate.
Azrael: "Well, where I work you can't get the robotic arms to mimic humans so the humans have to mimic the robotic arms."
There is speculations with over him possibly being brought up by robotic arms.

Nic recounts how his wife used to say "I love you more" to his declarations of love. Plot point, as we all know. He angsts about how he killed her.

There is discussion about the differences between the Vivamort and the Tolstoy as Big L turns to chapter three.

Further complications ensue as a mistake occurs concerning the scenery Stacy ordered for Diana's concert.

Brad is still everyone's favourite character, when he is mentioned.

Californian gardeners, as everyone know, are like manwhores. There is discussion about acceptable relationships. And how great Brad is, of course. And the possibility that if Brad turns up we may like him less is brought up, but if he fails to meet our exacting standards then clearly it's an imposter. We know Brad.

Accusations fly of the Anthropologist hogging the ice cream.

Did that mean he's a few notes shy of a song?
The Dwarf: "Not possible! His smile's the whole damn orchestra!"

Stacy talks to Nic, tells him about her problems then sits in her office. She calls herself Bad girl, and feels conflicted about her attraction to the gardener.

She had more important things to worry about than attracting a gardener.
The Anthropologist: "You don't need to attract gardeners! You just have to increase their pay slightly!"
Sordan is proved right as Nic brings Stacy lilacs.

There is much enthusiasm about page 32. And many objections as to where he got the oil paintings he's showing Stacy to prove that he can paint, and thus paint the set of Diana's concert.
It vibrated with colour, with life, with magic.

The Anthropologist: "Isn't it suspicious that he's painted that in about four minutes?"
It is revealed that Nic has been painting all along, but no one is convinced.

Nic is still confused about Diana/Anna/Stacy. One being his dead wife (he's very convinced, despite not having seen her in person) and the other he's just going ga-ga over.

Against all logic, he wanted a different kind of payment.

Many screams of "raype" and recoiling in disgust. There is talk of visual aid to help envision this scene. The Dwarf volunteers to re-enact this with Almost Jesus.

Just a taste. Surely that would be enough to ease this longing.

Arael: "Does she taste like an orchestra?"
The Dwarf: "Or a string quartet?"

The Anthropologist: "There's a remarkably low level of angst about the fact that he's committing adultery here. Or fear that Diana might find out."
Azrael: "I'm waiting for the plot twist where it's revealed that it's neither of them and it's all just Titania fucking with him all along..."
The Balance: "Then he needs to find another mortal."

He seduced her lips...
Lady Miriam: "What? He took them out to dinner?"

swallowing her soft moans as if he could swallow all of her...

Almost Jesus: "You see! Canabilism!"

to experience the shattering bliss he'd nearly forgotten...

The Anthroplogist: "If your bliss is shattering, you're doing it wrong."

The phone rings, the couple stop snogging. In the next scene, Diana comes home in a flurry of chaos:

"And guess what, SBJ Productions asked me to write the song for their new movie. Kev told them yes, of course. What a coup."

Cathed: "I don't think coup means what you think it means..."
Sordan concludes that Diana is a "Bitch!" as she asks Stacy to write her song for her.

Diana gives Stacy a gift that she doesn't like. Nic is watching from the shadows ("That's creepy!" squirmed the Anthropologist.) Diana then meets the gardener.

[Diana] drew her hand back, the look of a woman seeing something she liked.
And she hits on the gardener...

Cathed: "See, she understands how the world works!"

Plot complications ensue as Titania's portrait enters the "mortal realm," through Diana who has just bought it. Nic gets paranoid. There is wonderment at how the painting was identified as one of Nic Stone's considering that he's only painted one other portrait.

Big L: "She's fucking with you. Who'd have guessed?"

Her kiss provided enough electricity for a whole city.

The Dwarf: "She swallowed a small nuclear reactor."

There is a brief tangent into J. R. Ward's Lover Unbound and the gayness therein.
Almost Jesus: "No heterosexual man would ever allow those words to pass his lips."

Kevin shows up and jealousy flares within Nic. It is revealled that he's Stacy's manager and fiance. Nic remains unrepentant that he wants to get into his reborn wife's sister's pants. And there is much posturing and declaring of ownership.

Stacy liked Kevin and more importantly, trusted him. Few of the male species could fill that requirement. Especially after Anthony.
Sordan: "Then who the fuck is Anthony?!"
Cathed: "What about Brad?"

Some positioning later we realise that Kevin has been standing in a here-is-my-crotch pose.

Big L: "Clearly Kevin's after some threesome action."

Last time he and Dianna had shared a Jacuzzi, they had completely flooded the room.

Big L: "He's obviously pheararsome!"

Nic suffers much angst about Diana/Stacy/Anna, again. The Chronicler wonders if anyone hasn't figured out that Stacy is blatantly Anna reborn at this point.

Oh... my... God...
Stacy sees Nic's work on the backdrops. There are compliments and a confrontation about the previous kiss. There is wonderment at a pop concert having oil paintings as a backdrop.
There are many amusing imitations of what she does. Speculations about medical conditions fly.

But it was just canvas.
The Anthropologist: "Or rather, wet paint!"

Some of the hardness left his voice...
Big L: "But nowhere else."

His presence exuding masculinity.
Big L: "Oh my god! My masculinity is escaping!"

"You just kissed me because I like flowers."
Azrael: "Better that than being deflowered because you like kisses."

Titania materialises and talks to Nic. Her nearly translucent gown revealed as much of her voluptuous curves as it covered, but even naked she wouldn't appeal to him.

Sordan: "So the secret slut character is Titania."

The secret plot twist is revealed:

"If you tell the wrong woman you love her, then [...] you belong to me."

Nic decides that this gives him no choice and that he must ignore his attraction to Stacy and love Diana, since she's clearly his dead wife. And it was his freedom at stake here.

As we turn to the next chapter, Stacy is angsting. It's getting really annoying.

His slow smile added an extra grace note to her pulse...

In more musical metaphor fun, the musicians in the room speculate the possible rhythms her pulse could be playing.

Then the Chronicler leaves to the toilet, and some things must go unrecorded...