Welcome to another edition of “You guys will have my fiancée pick books forever”!

From now on, I’m going to start speeding up the chapters. I’ve been averaging about two or three per post, but I’ve read ahead a bit again, and they’re starting to get very uneventful. As in, nothing happens. It’s like how in The Princess Bride, where the narrator comments on how certain skipped sections of the “real” book were about forty pages of packing and unpacking and repacking? It’s like that.

What we’ve got so far is a book that’s about 90% refusing to accept what’s in front of them, and 10% trying to take what isn’t. The amount of incredulity is staggering, but that’s not my complaint – it’s rather the tacit acceptance of some pretty unbelievable things. If it were me, I’d freak out when I found out I had been flung a thousand years in the future. At the very least, I may have a bit of a “Everyone I know is dead” fugue state. Magnus? Marvel at how it works, then go traipsing out to find if he can still have sex.

You have to admit, the guy is dedicated.

(Again, NSFW tag on this from now on.)

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Magnus Ericsson Has A Question. This is, to him, the most important question in the world, and he’s willing to walk five miles out to the nearest church to get an answer. He’s familiar with the Christian God, of course, even if he thinks it is a silly idea, but he respects priests of all kinds enough to Ask The Question. Which Grandma Rose thinks is “How can Angela and I get married?”

The real question, of course? “Will having sex with a condom break my celibacy vows?”

It’s a very close distinction, I’ll admit. You can’t blame anyone for getting confused.

The priest, of course, has a very welcome response to Magnus’s question. Condoms are unholy and vile things, but any celibacy vows that are not part of a priesthood is a matter between him and God. Which means Magnus has a lot more leeway to take advantage of.

Imperiously, he storms up to Angela’s condo and bursts in when she opens the door, slamming her against the wall and demanding she explain why she hasn’t had sex with him yet. Birth control exists, which means he has every right to tend his crops even if she said no. While she’s stammering at him pulling her clothes off her, he picks her up and forcibly starts plowing. Or at least has his farming implement fully – okay, look, I have trouble writing this and agricultural metaphors are failing me right now. He’s in her all the way and doesn’t move; he’s frozen.

Magnus opened his glazed eyes finally and blinked at her. Then he did the most outrageous thing. He pulled out of her, sank to the floor, and put his face on his arms, which were folded over his bent knees. She’d landed on her feet, but continued to lean back against the wall.

Oh, my God! He’s changed his mind. He doesn’t want me after all. Is it my body? Now that he’s really seen me naked, I’m probably not that desirable to him. “Magnus? What’s wrong?” She barely got the words out, so empty and bereft and, yes, still very aroused did she feel.

Without looking up at her, he said, “I came here in anger. I just realized that I do not want to make love to you in anger. Not the first time. Not ever.”

…

I…need to take a moment.

do do do do do do do do do DO…do do etc.

Let’s back up a second. Magnus comes in, doesn’t let Angela get a word edgewise, strips her completely, “impales her to the hilt” (like a spear, Angela notes), all out of anger, and she’s wondering what she did wrong.

I’m done. I’m just going to accept it and move on. I understand this is a thought pattern not uncommon to abused women (which it’s been hinted at with Angela, if not outright stated). I’ve also spent too much time discussing Twilight with Cleolinda to discount the appeal of this sort of indulgent fantasy. Here is a man who, like Edward Cullen – I hate myself for drawing this comparison, I’ll have you know – wants you so much that he can barely control himself, but he does stop himself because his love is so great it moves mountains. His concern for your needs supercedes his own.

Even if that need is to rape and pillage. That is how much he loves you.

I do get it. I don’t agree with it, but I understand it. Therefore, I’m moving on.

Angela finally agrees to sleep with Magnus, and he’s been so pent up that he’s champing at the bit. I mean, they’ve ground against each other so much thus far that his underpants must be crusty as all hell. He’s been waiting years and endured a time vortex and his wait is finally over. His penis is ready to explode is what I am trying to say.

So what does he do? Tie Angela up and go take a cold shower. Because of course.

With that, Magnus left the bedchamber and headed for the bathing chamber, where he intended to take a cold shower – or spill his own seed… anything to slow down his arousal for this love game he had started. In the meantime it would be good for Angela to anticipate what would come next.

Not that he knew what that would be.

He hoped she didn’t fall asleep waiting.

I was going to say something about how completely unrealistic for a temporally-shifted Viking in Los Angeles to immediately go for the hours of foreplay and focus specifically on the woman’s needs before his own, but then I sat down and looked at what I was writing. (It’s the “We live in a spaceship, dear” effect.)

And besides, I can’t really fault the author for this. It is girl porn, after all. A large part of female desire and tittilation (I am generalizing here for the sake of simple sentence structure) is a partner who is caring, devoted, attentive to her needs, focused on her pleasure and desires, and – this is important – knows what a clitoris looks like. And besides, it’s not like pretty much any of the fantastical situations in guys’ porn are any more plausible.

(I trust I don’t need any citations for that statement, but if I do, the Big Sausage Pizza line of videos are just one of many, many completely ridiculous examples.)

(No, I’m not linking it.)

So no, I have absolutely no problem with this idea that Magnus would be the perfect first-time lover. Which is why I will instead direct your attention to the Absurd Foreplay Conversation. I’m not going to re-type all of it, as that would bring me closer to violating Fair Use than I’m comfortable with, but I’ll list some highlights.

“Yes, sweetling. I am back. Did you miss me?”

Is that a trick question? She nodded.

“Speechless, are you? Now, that is a wonder.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“Nay, just gazing at your body… and wondering where to begin. Do you have any preferences?”

“Are you cold?”

She laughed. “Are you kidding? I’m hot, hot, hot.”

“You find humor in making mock of my manliness, do you, wench?” There was amusement in his voice now. “Ne’er have I had a woman compare my man part to a finger afore. The skalds would write a saga about this event, if they ever found out… which they will not. ‘Magnus the Needle-Cock’ or some such ignominious title, I would imagine.”

“Really, Magnus, you make much ado about nothing.”

“Ha! Do not ever tell a man the size of his man part is nothing.”

This last takes place just after Angela says that a man looking at a vagina is a woman’s worst nightmare.

On a completely unrelated side note, this book is dedicated to her deceased mother, who was her biggest fan in life, and Magnus is named after her grandfather. There is no point for me to mention this.

Not a moment too soon, the foreplay is over, and then…

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o]

After passing out from the exertion, Magnus wakes up and orders pizza. Because of course. While he’s waiting, he flips through a newspaper, marvels at how this new future is so different from his home, and checks out the comics.

Ah, who is this Hagar the Horrible? Methinks I would like to meet this dumb Norseman. He appears a fine, though misguided fellow.

Hand to God.

Magnus can’t hold it in anymore, though, and he tells Angela he’s from the past. Naturally, she doesn’t believe him, so they have sex. Then they go to Barnes and Noble to do some research on Vikings, where he lists off details and they check out, and they go to the parking lot and have sex. Later still, she leaves him at home to watch Viking stuff on the TV, and make plans to go have sex – spotting a theme here? – but they get interrupted by Grandma Rose calling.

Someone set the Blue Dragon on fire.