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

The Chronicler returns to find everyone in pain over the stupidity of Nic, who still hasn't figure it out yet. Or felt correctly guilty about cheating on his wife and potentially hurting her feelings. Or guilty about separating her from Kevin.

And Antony made sure she'd known she never would be [the right one]...

Sordan: "Who the fuck is Antony! And what horrible thing did he do to her?"

Azrael hypothesises that the author is subconsciously sprinkling the name Anthony in because she's just broke up with someone with that name and that it's not part of the plot at all.

The Dwarf: "Maybe Antony is Brad in a Jeckyl and Hyde sort of way."

Nic kisses her again, against her will as she accuses him of being after her sister:

Now, this was what the songs were about, even then the music could only begin to capture the sensation. Lyrics were inadequate.

Almost Jesus: "We've already covered that Kevin's songs are deeper than hers."
Azrael: "Clearly it's just shallow rape she's been writing songs about."
Big L: "And Kevin's songs are about deep penetrating rape."

There are many assurances that Stacy is not a slut and that her lack of inhibition surprised her.

Almost Jesus: "It's those cannibalism overtones again."

"You're not Anna."

The Loinfire Club is appalled.
The Dwarf: "You fucker! Just like Antony!"

She brought her hand to the forehead...
The Anthropologist: "I've never heard that literally before."

Kissed her with enough passion to make oceans boil.
Again, it snarks itself.

Stacy isn't morally appalled about Nic being married. She considers firing him.

But her garden... [...] never looked so vibrant, so alive this early in the season...
Sordan: "How could she do this to her rhododendrons?!"

We swap to Nic's point of view and he's full of the same angst. Exactly the same angst.

Diana was his future, his soul mate, but he was male enough to be tempted by Stacy...

Almost Jesus: "It's a measure of maleness now to be attracted to Stacy."
The Chronicler can't help but add that the book has been peddling the idea that Diana is the attractive, sexy one and that Stacy was the dowdy one, so in theory that statement makes little sense.

The Dwarf: "In my mind, this book can end in the next ten pages... what is the rest of the book about?"
Clearly the Dwarf knows little about the Big Misunderstandings that ravage romance novels.

Nic's insistence about knowing both the women is annoying, especially since one is a stranger and the other was reborn and has been living a different life with a new personality.

she let mischief dancing in her eyes...

Azrael: "Clearly Mischief is one of those flower fairies that serve Nick and it's dancing on her eyeballs."

He hardened, recalling the many hours he and Anna had spent making love...

The Anthropologist: "The first actual hard cock appearing on p.58 is a record!"

In the most stupid leap of logic on earth, Nic disobeys his dayderam which tells him that Stacy is Anna, he decides that Stacy was trouble and that trouble meant Titania...

Almost Jesus: "He has failed the woodlouse test!"
Azrael: "Thus Stacy is Titania! I see it all now!"

Hero in a fit of cleverness decides to pair Stacy with Kevin, Diana's fiancé: He would match Stacy up with Kevin...

"What! You fucktard?!" Sordan says.

Stacy spends more pages feeling sorry for herself, feeling conflicted about Nic (who has a wife.)The real gardener appears.

Brad Tarrington sent me.

Almost Jesus: "I'm liking Brad more every minute."

After her remarkable ease (gullibility, even) with Nic in the opening sequence, Stacy is very suspicious of her gardener, this Steve, who even has a letter from Brad. Stacy calls Brad.

Sordan: "Squee! Brad's going to have some screentime!"
Cathed: "Brad has a private number!"

There is more speculation about Brad. And his Jack Daniels. And his shotgun. And his scorpions. And his repression. And he kills a cobra, because he's that hardcore, with his teeth. (He imports the cobras there specially to be killed by him.)

The truth comes out about Nic. Some more boring things happen.

Sordan: "Reccap: Nic thinks that Stacy is working for Titania trying to get him raped by Titania. Stacy thinks Nic is trying to rape Diana or has already raped her...."

Nic confronts Steve, the gardener, whose fashion choices, we incidentally condemn.

Nic hesitated, then focused on Steve. "Are you single?"

Almost Jesus: "He's worked out that he'll have to share the cottage. So now he knows if he..."

"Close to your family?"

Big L: "So no one will notice if he gets killed..."

Nic magically transports Steve to the Bahamas with his pockets full of infinate cash, seemingly to keep his job as a gardener for Diana. Stacy witnesses all of this and confronts him

Azrael: "By my power over the element of plot, Bahamas!"

Reality had become unreal...

The Dwarf: "This book just jumped the shark..."

"Are you an alien?"

Sordan screams in pain. Pain that she doesn't enjoy.

The Anthropologist: "Now, you have to look at this from the Marxist persective. He's not the little fairies, but the sort that exploit the labour of the little fairies, who are downtrodden and must revolt..."

Stacy is teleported with Nic to Palmyra Peak.

"Teleportation always stops people running away," observes the Balance.

[Nic] lifted his eyebrows. "I can. With magic, nothing is impossible."
Big L: "Except for thinking, clearly..."

The long, protracted revelations to Stacy that Nic is a fae and has been alive since the dawn of time takes far too long. Stacy doesn't seem to get it.

"But that was painted over twenty-five years ago."

Sordan: "Dawn of time includes 25 years ago..."

Her mind refused to grasp this concept.

Lkjgdkasljgakldjgjlkdsafkdsakjg;lgdk (The Chronicler loses the will to live.)

More fucking exposition. Lots and lots of annoyance. There are some wisecracks about how Nic jammed his fingers into his hair. Screeches of "Idiot?!" fill the room. The entire plot is recounted to Stacy, including how Anna died.

The pieces of the puzzle slid together. The portrait of his wife looked identical to... "You think Diana is your reborn wife."

There is a round of applause for Stacy figuring this out.

Luca declares this the first evidence of a brain cell in this book.

Lots of angst erupts left right and center in Stacy and really really..lkdsakhfkhr;lkjsgfed6hjdsflh (The Chronicler is getting really sick of this.)

If you resort to [magic] to make Diana love you, then it's not really love...
Almost Jesus: "Because it's rape."

Nic further proves he's a cunt by asking Stacy (who is obviously attracted to him and has problems about self worth) to help him woo her sister.

The Club wonders why being an immortal Nic can't just wait, say, eighty years or so and see which sister is still alive.

Nic toys with the idea of trappying Stacy in the magical realm. (There is clearly no limit to his power.) He talks to Titania's portrait, resolves again to woo Diana, not Stacy. Stacy sees him, decides Diana deserves to have someone like him love her for eternity and agrees to help him. He tells her about Titania's supersecretplot to make him her boytoy.

Sordan: "You fucker! He is such a cunt! Suck a cunt!"
The Dwarf: "Nic is legendary."
The Anthropologist: "She's repressing the fact that Kevin is actually a really awful guy and is trying to kill Diana because she secretly wants this to happen."

The technicality of Tolstoy not being Vodka is brought up again, which contains a tiny shard of Tolstoy's soul, literary genius and all. Who is not appearing in this book and the only literary genius in this blogpost.

Everyone urges Almost Jesus not to taste the Tolstoy. He rather unwisely decides to and declares it nailpolish remover. The Club is impatient for the book to get more interesting, as we've not even had a glimmer of sex and the repetition of the angst is getting to us.

And Cupid's Melody is passed onto the Anthropologist.