http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/2015/05/dead-ice-richard/
Here’s the second in the blog series leading up to the June 9, 2015
release of Dead Ice. Since we started with Jean-Claude, it had to be
Richard next.
Richard by Brett Booth
Question: Is the character of Richard Zeeman based on your ex-husband?
Answer: No.
Secrets to Share: This was a rumor that I never saw coming, because
it was just so not reality. My ex-husband’s sister thought it was the
funniest thing ever that people thought her big brother was the basis
for Richard. I think that Richard’s skin tone might be the same as my
ex, but there the resemblance ends. Personality wise, Richard is
actually closer to me when I was just out of college with my BS in
Biology.
But he, like all my characters that truly come to life on the
page, has grown and changed in ways I never saw coming and certainly
didn’t plan. He’s become his own man, for better or worse.
Question: Are Richard and Anita ever going to marry?
Answer: Highly doubtful, I’d just say no, but I’ve been wrong so much
about my own character’s personal lives that I’m hedging my bet.
Secrets to Share: In fact, I think one of the reasons Anita and
Richard didn’t end up together was that I created him to be the perfect
husband for her, or thought I did. The more I tried to push the two of
them together, the more they fought it, but my original plan was for
them to marry and live happily ever after. So much for me being the
omnipotent Deity of my fictional universe. When Richard was created I
could never have dreamed where Anita’s life would go, or my own for that
matter.
Fiction doesn’t mirror fact, but we’ve both done our own
version of going from the conservative “good girl” to the much happier
people we are today. As for you small, but vocal minority that are still
urging me to kill off Jean-Claude and Micah, so that Anita can ride off
into the sunset with Richard – no. Not only no, but absolutely,
positively, not happening. Move on, nothing to see here.
Question: Will Richard ever find another person to be his one and only love?
Answer: I don’t know for certain, he’s surprised me too much over the years for me to say yes, or no.
Secrets to Share: I hope he does, and I have a few potential women in
mind, for him it will have to a woman if it’s a new character. I think
if any man could float his boat enough to have a full-fledged
relationship with them then Jean-Claude would be that man. Richard is
having a bondage and submission relationship with Asher but no sex. It
meets a lot of bondage needs for both of them, but I don’t think either
of them would want to actually date each other.
What works great in the
dungeon doesn’t always work outside of it.
I still have hopes that
Richard, Jean-Claude, and Anita might be a fully functioning menage a
trois, but I think too much has happened for it to be what it might once
have been, more’s the pity. I keep hoping that special female werewolf
will come along for him but he keeps wanting to date women that have no
preternatural ties which doesn’t really work for the Ulfric, wolf king,
of St. Louis.
He also keeps dating women who like pretty standard
vanilla sex and that really isn’t what Richard likes. I’ve even written
a short story, “Shutdown,” where he tries to have his vanilla cake but
keep his bondage cupcakes.
I’ve had talks with people I was dating about
polyamory and bondage, and I know people that seem to be successfully
married to vanilla and, with full knowledge and permission of their
spouse, they get their bondage needs met elsewhere; but it is not an
easy talk to have and it takes a very special person to be okay with it.
I’m not sure Richard is ever going to find someone that special, but I
hope so, because I’d really like him to be happy and content with his
life and himself.
Sneak Peek from Dead Ice:
Richard drew Jean-Claude in tighter against him and moved his other
hand so that it was free, leaving room to wonder what he’d do if Asher
tried to touch Jean-Claude. It was the kind of thing you do when
someone is touching your girlfriend too much in a bar, and Richard gave
him the challenging look that went with it. It was a way of saying, Mine, stop touching it, without saying anything.
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