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.