Wallbanger Chapter 4: The Meet Not So Cute

Last time in Wallbanger...Caroline tells her boss and two best friends about Simon's wallbanging. Nothing else happened.

Chapter 4

“The next few nights were blissfully quiet.”

Sweet, cause I was getting tired of every chapter just being about our MC's neighbor having sex.

“I met some of my neighbors, including Euan and Antonio who lived downstairs.”

$5 says they are the token gay best friends.

“'Darling, wait until you see our dear Simon. What a specimen that boy is!' Euan exclaimed.”

Called it! And since this is pretty much Sex and the City, I will fan cast them as Stanford and Anthony.

We get some unrealistic dialogue from Euan and Antonio until Caroline decides to tell them about Simon's revolving door of women.

“...unless I dished the dirt, they would not reciprocate.”

Man, Caroline is a gossip. Yeah, she “has an excuse” but really she just wants tell anyone who will listen about Simon's sex life.

“They clung to every word like fat kids at buffet.”

Except that childhood obesity is a serious a problem and trivializing it undermines the physical and mental problems that may be effecting such a person.

“Simon was a freelance photographer who traveled all over the world. […] Simon worked on projects for The Discovery Channel, The Cousteau Society, National Geographic – all the bigwigs.”

So is he a photojournalist or just a photographer? There is a slight difference. And as a side note, I have a feeling he is a “tortured artist” programmed with the most tragic back story.

“He'd won awards for his work and even spent some time covering the war in Iraq a few years ago.”

So he's probably a photojournalist, which means that he also writes the articles that goes with his photos.

Caroline describes the car he drives, a black Range Rover Discovery

“The kind people drove before the yuppies got a hold of them.”

Are you lightly mocking yuppies? Caroline, you are the definition of a yuppie.

Caroline becomes “more intrigued” about Simon because we all know they will end up together. A few days later, she noticed his car has moved.

Page break – Okay I need a picture for page breaks, if any of y'all have a suggestion I'm willing to take it.

“Each year, I took a week and vacationed somewhere totally alone.”

“Somewhere exciting, and I never went to the same place twice.”

“Going to Europe was becoming prohibitively expensive in this economy...”

Please, tell me more.

Again, I know this is a “me problem” but it seriously feels like bragging. You know what my vacation is? My two days off, and even then I call into work to see if I can pick up more hours. But you know what they say

Anyway...

Caroline catches glimpses of Simon, the usual dark hair/dark clothes stuff, but does not see or hear him.

“But no harem, and therefore no wallbanging.”

I know I keep nitpicking, but “harem”? I know people use this to mean “a collection of women that one guy sleeps with” but that's not accurate. It is the place in a household reserved for the women where men can't go. This includes daughters and servants. And if she meant harem like harem animes, the main characters aren't sleeping with all people interested in them. Haruhi only likes Tamaki. Keitaro only likes Haru (although I still don't know why). But really, what I think bothers me about the way she uses it, is that it is intended to be mean. It's framed like she is just being funny, but she's being very judgmental.

“However, we did sleep together most night. He played Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller on his side of the wall, and I lay in bed on my side, listening shamelessly.”

Given how clearly you can hear him through the wall, I'm not sure if the listening could be deemed either shameful or shameless. It's kinda inevitable.

But it is not long before she hears more than piano and trumpets. It's LF1 (Spanx) and the next morning Caroline watches through her peephole again.

“I marveled at his taste in women. She was the total opposite of what I'd seen of Purina, who looked like a model.”

This is supposed to make me swoon but instead it irritates me. This will be a long rant so if you want to skip to the gif of Hades from Hercules that's cool

1. The author has just robbed the Lady Friends of their agency. They went from being consenting adults with their own lives, dreams, and desires acting on personal motivations in order to partake in this relationship with Simon, to being a narrative prop designed to show how Simon isn't a judgmental asshat. It is meant to show the audience that Simon doesn't care about looks, he will have sex with average looking women too. How does this rob them of their agency? Because their diverse body types are only there to make Simon look good. “Spanx” could be any average woman, just like “Purina” could be any model. I was more comfortable with their characters until this one line.
2. I would not go so far as to say she is the “total opposite” of a woman with a supermodel figure. She is described as short, pleasantly plump with a sizable butt. So she is pretty much Meghan Trainor.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   And that's awesome. I love me some Meghan Trainor, but there is a vast chasm between Meghan Trainor and Tess Holliday

And she is a model. What I'm trying to say is that his tastes don't seem to be as varied as Clayton is trying to make it sound. The two we have seen are pretty white women. One happens to be tall and willowy, and the other short and slightly round.
2. I hate that this woman is obviously coded fat when she isn't fat. It sends the message that women with curves are fat. This happens a lot in romance novels. Leading romantic female characters are never actually fat or ugly, just think they are. They may not be the height of what is attractive, but they are always a little conventionally pretty.

END OF RANT

Naturally, next is Purina. Caroline tries to get Clive drunk on tuna and catnip but it only winds him up. When he hears her meowing, he starts attacking the wall and yowling back.

“...I was amazed they could maintain their control and focus with the racket going on.”

She decides it is Simon's “Wondercock”. The next morning is the same as the first but she glimpses his jawline

“He gave great jaw.”

Her day gets shitty from there on. It turns out the contractor for her client was getting high on the job.

“The whole third floor smelled like a Dead concert.”

The Grateful Dead? Or the band that some of the members formed after The Grateful Dead that was just called “The Dead” either way you are missing some words there.

Her special ordered Italian tiles came chipped and cracked, but it would take 2 weeks for the manufacture to reship them.

“Any time major construction takes place, the project end date is an estimated time of completion. However, I had never missed a deadline...”

This is the first truly relatable thing she has said. It sucks when a project is stalled and there is nothing you can do about it except pray the client isn't pissed. But any and all good will is lost a few sentences later when a random person whispers “hey” in her ear.

“...I froze in terror. Flashbacks poured over me, and I saw spots. I felt cold and hot at the same time, and the single most horrifying experience of my life passed through my mind.”

No, she wasn't raped and this isn't the guy who killed her parents (We haven't heard or seen them yet so I assume they are dead). This is the last guy she had sex with, the one that took her orgasm away.

I know this is supposed to be funny, but I won't even dignify it with the cue laugh track picture. PTSD is nothing to joke about. Sure, Moseley mocked anyone with mental health problems by making her characters unrealistic, but this is down right offensive. I will give Clayton credit, that was more well written than anything Moseley did in Boy Window, but the fact that it was used for humor will forever piss me off.

They talk. He is all

and rightfully, she is all

She goes home and is grouchy. She goes to put pjs on but realizes she hasn't done laundry in a while. She, of course, has no choice but to wear lingerie.

“I grumbled and fumed and finally pulled out a pink baby doll nightie.”

Which, of course, means she will be meeting Simon tonight. Well, I guess that's something to look forward to.

She puts on some INXS (because I guess she likes Australian rock as much as American big band) and proceeds to masturbate. It isn't graphic and I won't describe it, but, again, her tastes seem a bit too old for her to be just out of college. She fantasizes about Jordan Catalano from My So-Called Life, Jason Bourne, and George Clooney, all of which would have been popular when she was between the ages of 4 and 12. I'm not saying that she can't like these things. I totally had a crush on Trent from Daria, and that show ended when I was about 12, but I got over that and moved on to other fandoms. Am I to believe that she only masturbates to prominent actors from the 90s? What's next Scott Bakula?

Simon and “The Giggler” interrupt her fantasy beyond repair and she finally decides to say something to him.

“I stomped my front door, my heels pounding into the hardwood floor.”

Why is she wearing heels? She didn't mention putting them on for fetish purposes, was she always wearing them? Did she change into the nightie with her shoes on? Did she never take them off when she came home? Is this a thing?

She is so livid that she beats the door until Simon opens up. And we get a description of him.

“I gazed down his long, lean body. He was tan, but not a premeditated tan...”

I'm glad you pointed that out, it would have been tragic to think that this artsy sex god is not white.

In short, he is your standard tall, dark, handsome adventurer type. The chapter ends but not before we get this little bit of info

“He

Was

Still

Hard.”

I can only say this so many times but, of course he was. And really, why was this structured that way? Just for emphasis? Because Clayton thought that “He was still hard” would be too casual and it needed to be more lyrical, like a poem? Idk, but I'm annoyed with this chapter so I'm going to walk away before I get mean.