Chapter 2 is a continuation of the lawyery bullshit from the first chapter. I’m still mad that this stupid plot was announced at the end of book 4, then completely ignored for all of that useless book 5, and now we’re getting a ton of explanation about why or why not these guys could/would have raped a Seelie woman. It’s so BORING.

The line of questioning has transitioned to just how many dudes Merry can bang in a night. I’m not joking.

“I fail to see the humor in being forced to wait weeks for sex, Captain Doyle, Lieutenant Frost.”
“I would see no humor in that either,” Doyle said, “but when the number of men grew larger, Princess Meredith changed some of the parameters for us all.”
“I’m not following,” Nelson said, “Parameters?”
Doyle looked at me. “Perhaps you better explain, Princess.”
“When I only had five lovers, it seemed fair to make them wait for their turns, but as you point out, waiting two weeks, or more, after centuries of celibacy seems like another form of torture. So when the number of men went up to double digits, I upped the number of times I make love during a given day.”

It fucking continues, because of course no one in this world can give a succinct explanation of anything. Merry has to explain to them that she fucks multiple men in a lovemaking session, so that her men are only waiting a day or two, tops, for their “needs to be met.”

First of all, fuck this. “So, you see, gentlemen, ladies, a two-day wait between sex, or less. There are married men who have to wait longer than that for their needs to be met.” FOR THEIR NEEDS TO BE MET. Men’s needs. I hate this so much.

Oh, then we get yet another fun reminder of just how prude us fucking lillywhite Americans are. Remember, we have such a warped, puritanical view of sex that there mere thought of having MULTIPLE PARTNERS multiple times a day would cause SUCH A SCANDAL if the public were ever to find out.

Now, sure, that may have been America in the early to mid part of the 20th century, but I’m pretty sure since, like, the 60s, Americans have calmed the fuck down about that. This book was released in 2007, which totally isn’t some backwards time where we all ran terrified from sex that LKH thinks it is. I dunno, I hate this book so much so far, and I’m not even 2 full chapters into it.

Since we’re only on the second chapter, we get so much rehashing of stuff we’ve already learned in this stupid series. The Seelie try to mimic human behavior (LKH uses the phrase “ape human behavior” which, what). Merry was the first of the fey to attend college. Merry’s father’s murderer was never found. Blah blah blah. This takes up about 2 pages to discuss.

Taranis has accused Merry’s guards of being the killer of her father. His reasoning? Because the guards were unable to find the murderer OF COURSE they killed him. Merry assures the lawyers that this accusation is bogus, and it’s all because Taranis wants to divide anyone’s loyalty to Merry. Merry and her guards believe that the rape accusation is just intercourt politics, which pisses the lawyers off, because who’d ever have thought that abusing American courts to take your petty faerie revenge would make people angry! Anyway, the chapter ends with Merry and Co happy that the lawyers believe in them.