Not His Kiss to Take

Okay ... so here's the thing ... I read and can enjoy almost anything: Mpreg, Tentacle Porn, Insta-Love, Brocest etc., even badly written stories can charm me if I can see the good bones underneath. This is a convoluted way of saying that this didn't work for me. At all. Full disclosure, I got this purely because of the cover, so I've got no reason to complain.

The constituent parts of this story are all tropes that I've enjoyed in the past but somehow put together or the way this was written was a HUGE turn-off for me: the cheesiness of Evan calling Jamie Angel all the time; the fact that we are constantly in both MCs heads and their thoughts are transcribed in italics; Jamie's million-and-one iterations of “Dr-blah-blah-blah”, which are surely meant to be funny but are not (more like ignorant and phobic everything). There's a whole bunch of other stuff which made zero sense, and had even less plausibility, such as Jamie's fairly sudden GFY, without ever saying he's gay or having any sort of self-reflection, save “this feels good”. That wouldn't be too bad if it weren't for the fact that the author wants to portray him as a smart cookie who's overcoming a hardscrabble life. In fact there are so so so many story points that are posited and then just dropped by the wayside and never heard from again. Some of this might be slightly spoilerish but I can't bring myself to care
***Evan's headaches disappear and no explanation is given. Jamie's magical presence? Who knows? Maybe???
***Jamie's search for his father? Gone like 70's bellbottoms and no retro fashion can bring it back.
***Jamie's relationship with his mother and her husband Derek? Who knows?
***Will Evan get back to practicing medicine? how?
***Does Jamie get any kind of counseling, other than BJs, to help him deal with assault? Nope.
***Out of left field we're told that Evan is something of a Dom. He & Jamie enter into a somewhat BDSM relationship in the bedroom, but with ZERO conversation on the subject. Excellent. Also, he's the worst Dom ever.

I could go on, but I'm boring myself. I've read worse, more outlandish, badly written, and firmly rooted in Bad-Wrong that I've enjoyed more. Aside from all the regular nonsense which I routinely overlook, this book lost me by hanging the story on something very real and very painful for many people, Gay or Straight: sexual assault. Jamie is assaulted, sexually and otherwise, which leads to Evan taking him home and taking care of him. While the healing is going on there is forced proximity, Evan's already inappropriate attraction grows, and Jamie gets curious. That's fine. It could happen. But the execution is absolutely WRONG.
When Jamie is finally healing, after having been assaulted and penetrated with a bottle by homophobic assholes, he starts eating solid foods and, understandably, becomes constipated. The solution, of course, is an enema, because his rectal area is still healing. At this point he is still firmly asserting that he's straight and isn't even bicurious. So of course this is Evan telling him all about it and later actually doing it: "And I'm going to enjoy giving you that enema. Just imagine the feel of me lubing you up and sliding that big nozzle right up your ass. You have a cute ass. I'm gonna love it. Then I'm going to enjoy watching Dr. Sharpe fondle your balls while he bends you over and ever-so-politely asks you to turn your head and cough."

Doctor Play as a Kink is fine but this isn't that. Survivors of sexual assault can go on to lead healthy sexual lives, but it's generally a hard fought battle, and this doesn't even flirt with the notion of healing, unless you count Magic-D as a cure. etc. etc. etc.

You might enjoy this. I didn't.

2022 Reread:

Decided to read this one again for my medical kink fix until Hazard's Expert comes out next month. It's one of my fave kinks, and there's surprisingly little of it in the m/m genre