[Report This]Date: May 23 2024 6:16 PM Title: Chapter 21: The Enemy
Well that certainly put a new perspective on the past series of chapters!
I have to admit, I figured that Grisham was behind the extremists and that he would somehow be documenting Trish and Thomas's cat and mouse game. Hell, I even figured he would find out about and try to exploit Trish playing goddess for her hippie followers (I didn't think he would actually be hiding among them in person, though).
However, I absolutely didn't see him becoming an unwitting worshipper of Trish coming! That was a brilliant little twist. It seems our humble fetish has corrupted this poor corrupted government official.
Reading Grisham's through process throughout the whole process of arresting, prosecuting, and spying on Trish was really eye-opening, and for a lot of reasons. Like I mentioned above, it was quite enjoyable to read his evolving thoughts on Trish, going from viewing her as a monster to seeing who she truly is while still clinging desperately to that initial judgment at the same time.
Then, after causing Thomas so much trouble and judging him for liking giant women, he becomes obsessed with giant Trish, the thought haunting his dreams as he denies how he really feels about even his darkest thoughts of what's coming. It seems that, deep down, he has grown to want Trish to become the monster Dr. Vale believes she is. In an odd way, he has sort of become what Trish thought Thomas was when she first found out about his fetish.
Admittedly, I think it's a bit more complicated than just that, but I think that this is ultimately true, given his dream of her eating Chicago (and him being lucky enough to be spared) and the fact that he didn't use the cat and mouse footage to salvage his reputation, instead keeping it for himself.
But maybe the bigger revelation here is that the bureaucratic machine in Washington wasn't nearly as involved in the plan against Trish as I first thought. Grisham was pretty much acting alone after hearing Vale's story. So while I thought all of these fun recent chapters were building toward some big government assault on Trish's public image (and maybe just her in general), this story seems to be going in a completely different (and continuously refreshing) direction. I really have no idea what's coming now, and I love that!
I loved the way you used the second-person perspective in the first half of this chapter. It was really creative to work it into Grisham's first-person narrative like that, and it gave that part of the chapter a real conversational feel. It was a nice change of pace, and, as I noted above, helped to frame Grisham's whole character in a new light.
In a weird way, it was kind of sad that neither Thomas nor Trish recognized Grisham (although Trish almost did), despite the fact that her interaction with the former government agent made her think about him. It was a nice piece of irony, but it also helped to demonstrate just how far that cocky, hard-nosed FBI agent we met more than 10 chapters ago has fallen.
Trish was really fun to read here, in some ways even moreso than the previous chapter. Whereas her actions were a lot sexier during the cat and mouse game (and her attitude regarding it), that all happened with a single, more-than-willing co-participant. While her playing with Grisham was much more brief and less intense, there's something about seeing her in particular take charge and playfully punish an unwilling person like that.
We caught a glimpse of that when she dealt with the extremists, but that was different both in that those actions seemed more justified (since they were trying to take her life and all) and that she was just realizing that this part of herself existed. Here she embraced it and just did what she wanted, noting that her only reason for not doing so was Thomas. Now, with the "threat of escalation" removed because of her size, she's starting to act more freely.
And I could say a lot about that moral reflection Trish had after she finished with Grisham, particularly the balance between that freedom from consequence and her concern for disappointing Thomas, as well as how all of that meshes with her as a person. That's actually a pretty deep philosophical concept if one were to deep dive into it. For now, though, I think I'll just sit back and enjoy how this new understanding plays out for Trish moving forward. The only thing I feel confident saying about it is that I think Trish may be feeling a little eager for someone to do her wrong again, and it might not even take a grievous offense to put her back in this kind of mood!
“Mhm.” She hummed. “My poor, tiny lover. He needs to be the goddess's conscience but can’t help getting off at her being naughty.”
Hey look, Trish finally caught up with the story!
But seriously, it was a bit gratifying to see Trish verbalize the internal conflict that Thomas has been dealing with from the start, and in such a light-hearted way, too! Also, given that moral reflection I mentioned above, this realization on her part could lead to some new fun between them. I could see a super-confident Trish "enticing" Thomas to give her the go ahead to mess with someone a little bit. Having a flawed inner conscience can be a lot of fun, especially when said inner conscience is actually her decidedly exterior, comparatively tiny fiancé whose flaw is that, deep down, he kind of wants you to do the bad thing. Again, it's a bit more complicated than that, but this is at least partially true for Thomas, at least to an extent.
Author's Response:
Thank you! I was worried that the perspective would be a little weird but it's good to hear you liked it!