Yeah…you bet your ass I went back into His Golden Shackles. Once I had safely returned to my hotel room, I jumped on the bed, turned on the Kindle, and started reading at page one.
Chapter 9
Still unhappy with my bangs, I gaze at my reflection in the window, and furrow my brow in frustration…
And then I was Annabelle Stone, heroine of His Golden Shackles.
Here’s the quick character sketch on Annabelle: Quiet, humble, quirky and cute, relatable, looks like Kristen Stewart but has more bounce in her step. She’s unable to land a good job out of college so she goes to a temp agency to offer her services. The temp agency assigns her to do clerical work at Greenworld Enterprises, a multi-billion dollar conglomerate owned by a gorgeous, but troubled, young wizard named Christoph Green.
The novel begins with Annabelle’s treacherous commute to Greenworld Enterprises in lower Manhattan. Playing Annabelle, I kept my cool as I nearly lost a shoe getting off the subway (a kind stranger fetched it and threw it out as the doors were closing), and then I held it together when my bus never showed and again when I had to run five blocks to the office.
This was my second time going through this scene at the beginning of the book. The author puts Annabelle in the middle of a nightmarish morning where she’s trying to get to a new job on time and everything is working against her. It’s a hackneyed way to begin a story, but I don’t care. It’s fun.
As Annabelle, I was five minutes late when I arrived at the front desk, and the receptionist was snippy with me about it.
“You’re late,” she said. “I was just about to tell the agency to send someone else.”
The receptionist was a beautiful brunette in a sharp business suit with a Bluetooth behind her ear.
“No, no. Please don’t,” I said. “I just had some bad luck out there.”
“Chill Babe. Lucky for you, we’re very short-handed today and you’ll get your shot,” the receptionist said. “How fast is your typing?”
I remembered from the test at the temp agency that I could do 110 words per minute.
“I don’t know, 80 or 90 words a minute,” I said.
She sighed heavily, like my answer pained her. “That will have to do, I guess. Christoph’s assistant is out sick today and he wants someone taking notes on a conference call.”
“Christoph? You mean…Christoph Green?”
“You know any other Christophs? Come on. I’ll take you to him. The conference call starts in two minutes. You’ll be seated at a laptop out of view. Write down every word you hear.”
“Oh…umm….okay.”
She led me down a long hallway to a corner office with huge oak double doors and left me standing in front of them.
“Go inside,” she hissed at me. “He’s waiting.”
“Yes, okay, here I go.”
I opened the door to find him seated at a desk in the center of the room. The corner office was a beautiful, extravagant place, bigger than my apartment, with a high ceiling. Windows all around might have given a glorious view of New York, but the shades were drawn, which was disappointing.
Christoph turned to look at me and I forgot any disappointment about the view. He was much better to look at than the Manhattan skyline.
Young, yes, he was young, but behind his eyes was a maturity that belied his years. He stood to welcome me, and he was the perfect height. A full head above me, but nothing more. Six-two maybe. He wore a charcoal suit that fit him so perfectly my eyes got lost following the lines of his body, at the artistry of it all. And his emerald tie brought out the haunting shade of green in his eyes. I imagined myself buying fifty more green ties for him so I could view his eyes in fifty shades of green.
“Hello. My name is Christoph,” he said.
He spoke with such authority, even when going through the motions of a simple formality like introducing himself.
And then we shook hands. Eegads. I remembered this from my last trip through this book. I think it was even more exciting on this second go-round. Now, the stream of sexual energy that came from his touch was charged with memory of where all of this was headed, and I felt a tiny explosion of pleasure deep inside me.
Here’s what’s cool about His Golden Shackles. At this point in the story, Annabelle tells the reader, “I felt like, with him near me, I was more than another anonymous nobody.”
What a great line.
To be somebody, to be noticed—that’s what Annabelle wants from a man. That’s what I want too. I want to make a connection with a guy in such a way that when he looks at me, he doesn’t see another pretty place to put his penis, he sees a partner who makes him better than he is on his own. I want to be with someone who wants to become something special, not by himself, but together with me.
And that’s how LA Jones, the author of His Golden Shackles, created Christoph. Yes, he is a deeply troubled man in need of a woman to rescue him (aren’t they all?), but what really makes him work is the man he could be when that rescuing is done. Christoph Green isn’t just another magical billionaire who is unhappy because he hasn’t found love. He is a good man whose own inner torment makes him behave like a selfish child.
Unlike Christian Grey and most of his imitators in the Kindle store, Christoph Green is not a benevolent billionaire whose business is a net good for society. Christoph owns strip mines that destroy the landscape, and factory farms that aren’t terribly nice to the animals they slaughter. He has stakes in precious metals and gemstone companies, and doesn’t care if they use children in the mines or work in a war zone. He has plenty of money in the defense industry, profiting handsomely from all the wars around the world. And the text hints that he built this empire using a hefty dose of sorcery, that he wasn’t above using magic to destroy his rivals or grow his bank account.
As a reader (and as Annabelle), you don’t know exactly what motivates Christoph to be the way he is, but you know it’s something. He doesn’t apologize for or excuse the actions of his business. Instead, he does what he wants to do and dares anyone to step in his way.
We finished our introductions. To show his immediate interest in me, Christoph delayed his important conference call so he and I could chat. He served me a cup of Earl Gray tea (I read somewhere that the author has a big crush on Patrick Stewart). We talked for an hour. Christoph asked questions about Annabelle’s personal life, and spoke with such command she couldn’t help but answer honestly.
I sat back inside Annabelle and enjoyed the ride. Annabelle was already head over heels in love with Christoph, and I was too. I knew full well where this was going, and I couldn’t wait to get there.
“So…our conference call this morning,” Christoph said.
This was a nice touch, I thought. Here we were in Chapter 1 and he was already referring to the conference call as ‘our’ call. LA Jones had written Christoph to connect with Annabelle right away. Now in my second time through the book, I could see that Christoph was lonely and sad right until the moment when Annabelle walked into his office. Her rescue of this troubled man began the moment she stepped inside.
“Yes, what about our conference call?” I said.
“I have recently purchased an electronics manufacturing outfit in India that is bleeding money because of some poorly timed purchases of precious metals,” Christoph said. “This morning I will be speaking with the managers about this. The call will be recorded, but that’s just for the lawyers. I want to have my own notes on the call. That will be your job. Write down as much as you can during the call. When it is over, we will go over your notes and I will have you modify them as I see fit.”
“Okay, I can do that,” I said.
“Of course you can. Take your place over there, please and we will begin.”
He pointed to a laptop in the corner of the room, out of view of the camera he would use for the call. I took a seat, he contacted India, and the call was on.
He was breathtaking in his command of the situation. His managers in India
threw lots of complicated jargon his way, but he cut right through it and got straight to the point. Somebody screwed up. I took careful notes, writing down as many exact phrases as I could. They were speaking about gold, silver, and copper components used in circuit boards and wires. The managers in India used options and futures contracts to control the prices of their purchases, but between the metals purchases and the demand forecasts and the production plans, it was clear that there was lots of confusion in India.
The last time I went through this scene, and played it as the author wrote it, Christoph finished the call with a frightening diatribe about a list of names of people who were to be fired immediately. It was a scene that taunted the reader, showing Christoph at his most ruthless, and daring the reader not to find him attractive anyway.
And even as cute little Annabelle typed away, getting more and more turned on as Christoph’s rant increased in intensity, I found myself thinking through the problems that Christoph was trying to solve, and realized the author had missed the obvious solution to all this confusion about metals prices in India.
As I had done with Catherine Earnshaw when she left her bedroom to find Heathcliff in the night, I took control of Annabelle’s character and changed the story. I stood up from my chair in the corner and stepped into Christoph’s line of sight.
“Excuse me,” I said. “May I make a suggestion?”
Christoph, who was right in the middle of a diatribe about laziness and incompetence, stopped shouting midsentence and looked at me with awe in his eyes. I could tell he was intrigued that I had chosen to do this, but would be gravely disappointed if I didn’t deliver.
“Certainly,” he said. “What is your suggestion?”
“Well, you know how many of these circuit boards you’re selling every day, don’t you?”
“We should. But let’s ask. Dinakar, do you know exactly how many circuit boards you sell on any given day?”
“Of course we do, Mr. Green,” answered the man on the other side.
“And you know exactly how much precious metal is in each circuit board?” I asked.
“Dinakar?” said Christoph.
“Mr. Green, yes we know. Can we please get back to--”
“Hush, Dinakar. The lady is speaking. Please continue Ms. Stone.”
“If you know how many circuit boards you’re selling every day, and you know how much metal is in each board, then you know how much metal you’re selling every day,” I said. “Why not make an arrangement to buy the exact same amount of metal at the end of every day as you just sold?”
Christoph looked at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
“Did you hear that, Dinakar?” he said.
“Yes, sir, that is a strategy that--”
“That is a strategy that will work,” Christoph said. “It solves everything. Only one day of exposure to market fluctuations. All this inane complexity you’ve tried to work in with production schedules and futures contracts. Seriously, Dinakar. Why didn’t you think of this already?”
“If it is what you want us to do, we will do it.”
“Of course it’s what I want you to do! Let’s check in next week and see if you’ve gotten your head on straight by then.”
He ended the call and stood from his chair.
“Any other ideas you’d care to share with me Miss Stone?” he said.
“No,” I said. “That one just came to me because…well, because I listened to what you were talking about.”
“How much are we paying you?”
“You’re actually paying the temp agency, Mr. Green.”
He held up his hand. “Please. Call me Christoph.”
Wow. In the original version of the novel, Annabelle has to call him Mr. Green until Chapter 12. I must have really impressed him with my changes.
“And come with me to HR,” he continued. “We’re going to pay the agency whatever is required to release you from your contract so you can work for me. Is $50 an hour okay to start?”
“Sure,” I said, smiling at the interesting twist this story had taken from my one little change.
In the original version of the story, Annabelle and Christoph continued their flirtation for a week before anything happened. But in this new version I initiated with my brilliant business idea, Christoph and Annabelle ended up in the Den of Decadence that very night.
He had me stand in front of his full length mirror and undress myself.
“I want you to look at your body,” he said. “I want you to appreciate your own beauty.”
Five minutes later he had me strapped to the St. Andrew’s Cross at the back of the room and we were having a grand old time. When we finished, he untied me and we collapsed onto the floor.
Lying next to me, rubbing my bangs out of my face, he said, “I want to take you on a trip.”
A trip? Now we were very far removed from the plot of the book.
“Okay,” I said. “Where shall we go?”
“Somewhere far away,” Christoph said. “We’ll leave tomorrow, and we’ll just keep going and going. I want to leave this world behind. I want nothing to demand at my attention, so I can give it all to you.”
Swoon.
I was looking at him now. Lying there, gazing into my eyes, there was no denying it. I had fallen for a character in a novel.
What was it that made Christoph Green so attractive? Yes, he was a beautiful man, and yes, the things he did in bed (and on the table, and in the sex sling, and on the St. Andrew’s Cross) were mindblowing. But there was something more to him than that. There was so much mystery behind those eyes. What was his real story?
I was pondering the enigma of Christoph Green when a dangerous idea crossed my mind. Inside the Kindle, I had the power to learn exactly what his real story was. All I had to do was look at him….to think about being him….to want it bad enough…..
Chapter 10
The shift into Christoph’s body was immediate and unsettling. It was much more intense than my last gender bending switch. While Blair the Werewolf had been a strange mix of horniness and penis jokes, Christoph was a big mess of angst, power, and horrible memories.
Orphaned at a young age, picked up by human traffickers, flown around the world, I saw Christoph’s entire history in my memory, and it made me cringe.
I saw a blonde woman with bright red lipstick pulling on the lapels of my jacket and bringing me in for a kiss. She was forty or older. I was just a teenage boy who had been sold into her possession.
Helga. Her name was Helga. She was the wealthy widow of a mob boss. She called me “Komondor,” which was a type of sheep dog, and used me as her sex slave. She trained me to protect her from her enemies, which I did with great force. By the time I was eighteen, I had murdered half the mob bosses of Eastern Europe.
Then I murdered her. I used a kitchen knife to slit her throat, and as she fell to the floor, I told her, “I’m emancipating myself. Today I declare my independence.”
I saw my own escape to Central Asia. I saw a trek across Mongolia, first as a hitchhiker, then on foot, then on a camel. I saw myself taken in by a local villager after I got lost. I became part of his tribe. I saw a medicine man teaching me the basics of sorcery.
I saw myself learning all the village sorcerer had to teach me, then killing him and stealing his power. I saw myself traveling the world to learn more about magic, and then, when I was the most powerful wizard in the world, using my powers to build a vast business empire that made me wealthy beyond my wildest dreams.
Being inside Christoph’s body was like living in in a mix of urban fantasy and torture porn. Horrible visions, one after the other, were just waiting to pop out and dominate my memory, and every one of them had to be appeased with action or magic. As Christoph, I wanted to dominate, I wanted to own, I wanted people to fear me, I wanted the universe to bow to my every command, and all of these desires were tied to heinous memories from my past.
I looked into Annabelle’s
eyes and felt a longing to escape all of this. I saw in her a strength and intelligence that was….
That was otherworldly.
Horrified at the experience, I begged the Kindle to let me go, and landed in my hotel room, my heart racing.
“What the fuck?” I whispered between huge, heaving breaths.
Who creates a character like that for the leading man?
Or maybe I should have asked: how could I have been so attracted to such a monster?
But even as I asked the question, even in the depths of my revulsion at who Christoph was and what he had done, I still felt a longing for him. Now it was about more than sexual desire. It was about sympathy too. Some motherly instinct to protect him and save him from his demons had kicked in hard.
“Motherly?” I whispered, realizing that word had been in my own thoughts. “Yuck!”
I set the Kindle down on the nightstand and stepped away from it, wondering if my mixed up thoughts were mine alone or if I had a piece of Annabelle in there with me.
Whatever it was, this was starting to get a bit too weird for my taste. I walked over to the window, away from the Kindle, and called Vivian.
“What’s up, Holly?” she said.
“It’s still happening,” I said.
“What? Your reading thing?”
“Yes, I’ve been living inside books pretty much nonstop since the last time I talked to you.”
“And this is bothering you? I thought you liked reading. You’re an English teacher.”
“I feel like I’m beginning to lose touch with reality.”
Vivian sighed.
“This is about more than reading, isn’t it?” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Holly, you’ve never properly dealt with the fact that you caught your fiancée in bed with another woman,” Vivian said.
“Well, she wasn’t exactly a woman,” I said. “More of a girl.”
Holly and Her Naughty eReader Page 7
