Bookflog: Flirt chapter one

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The first chapter of Flirt is available to download on LKH's site! It's 18 pages of unformatted, PDF joy.  According to the promo page, this is what the book is about:

When Anita Blake meets with prospective client Tony Bennington, who is desperate to have her reanimate his recently deceased wife, she is full of sympathy for his loss. Anita knows something about love, and she knows everything there is to know about loss. But what she also knows, though Tony Bennington seems unwilling to be convinced, is that the thing she can do as a necromancer isn't the miracle he thinks he needs. The creature that Anita could coerce to step out of the late Mrs. Bennington's grave would not be the lovely Mrs. Bennington. Not really. And not for long.

This just makes me think that Anita will stand on the edge of the grave and wave Scooby Snacks over it, or have a fishing pole with marshmallows on the hooks while she coos, "c'mon, if you don't get out of your grave, I'm going to kick your dog."

It also says this about the book's release date:



I had to ask someone just in case it was a strange American crazy vowel thing, but apparently not. Oh dear.

The first thing that hits me about this PDF isn't just that it's got all its formatting marks in there and there's, like, zero effort to make it presentable, but that the formatting is eerily similar to that of Micah with the GIANT FONT SPACES AND MARGINS in an effort to pad the book out more than it should be.

Here's a screenshot to show you what I mean:



And here's a couple of pages from Micah:



And what's worse, the chapter beginning starts halfway down the page so there's fields of blank space before you even start.  I weep for the trees that will be used in this thing, and I really hope they don't follow through on copying the Micah format when each chapter got its own title page as well as starting each new chapter halfway down the next page.

Annnnd straight away we're in dire straits, as this is the opener for the book:

"I want you to raise my wife from the dead, Ms. Blake," Tony Bennington said, in a voice that matched the expensive suit and the flash of Rolex on his right wrist. It probably meant he was a lefty.  Not that his handedness mattered, but you learn to notice primary hands when people try to kill you on a semiregular basis.

It's nice to see a man who can coordinate his voice with his outfit and accessories.  Though, this does not necessarily mean that he's left-handed, nor does wearing his watch on the right mean this. Some people just like wearing their watch on their right hand. I don't know how many of them can get their voice to match it, though.

Not to mention, if it doesn't even matter if he's a lefty or a righty, why even bring it up? This whole thing might make more sense if Tony Bennington was trying to kill Anita (with his left hand!) in one of those semiregular attempts on her life.

But alas, this is not to be.

"My condolences," I said automatically, because Bennington didn't display any grief. His face was composed, almost blank, so that if he was handsome in that gray-haired, I'm-over-fifty-but-keep-in-good-shape way, the lack of expression took all the fun out of it. Maybe the blankness was his way of showing grief, but his gray eyes were steady and cold as they met mine. It was either some steely control of grief, or he didn't feel anything about his wife's death; that would be interesting.

*massages temples* Hold on a second and let me dissect this:

Bennington didn't display any grief.

Maybe the blankness was his way of showing grief.

It was either some steely control of grief, or he didn't feel anything about his wife's death;

PICK ONE. NO, REALLY, JUST FUCKING PICK ONE AND RUN WITH IT! And then, wow, what a revelation it would if the heroine found out later that she was wrong about reading her client's lack of expression.

But FOR THE LOVE OF RAINBOW-FARTING-PONIES, do not keep going with the "it was one thing, but not, only it was, but sort of wasn't," crap because this sort of unnecessary waffle makes everyone's eyes glaze over and the confusion of "wait, what? What the hell does this even mean? DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?" starts. Or maybe it's just Cassie Palmer me.

His face was composed, almost blank, so that if he was handsome in that gray-haired, I'm-over-fifty-but-keep-in-good-shape way, the lack of expression took all the fun out of it.

Cute older guy in the office, I get that part. But just back up a second here, the guy's wife is dead. I don't think he's going to be a barrel of laughs and the bestest guy to have around for fun stories around a campfire or strip club (remember that time when we had to bury a hooker out in the desert and then got totally drunk and punched a bear? GOODTIMES). But maybe not being so much fun is part of that crazy grief thing that may or may not be (but is? Or isn't?) going on.

Anita asks Tony why he'd like his wife raised as a zombie (...my first guess is that because she's dead - living people don't exactly zombify too well and there's all the yelling and screaming when you bury them), and he replies that he's willing to pay her ridiculously expensive rates, it really shouldn't matter.  Anita pithily replies with "It does, to me." and this pisses Tony off so that he snaps that it's "personal" and Anita "doesn't need to know it to raise [his wife] as a zombie."

Anita's big comeback is, "This is my job," and "You don't know what I need to raise a zombie." The zombie is not going to go to high school, let alone college. I'm pretty sure you don't need to start a trust fund for it, just buy it some lamb to munch on every now and then and you'll be okay. Remember, kids, a zombie isn't just for Christmas, it's a committment until it finally decomposes or you put it back. Also, don't poke the zombie with a stick, they can't feel it and you might pop something that oozes gross stuff that stinks. And then who'll be cleaning it up? You will be. Don't think that you won't.

Tony proves that he can Google zombies, and says his wife hasn't been murdered, wasn't a witch, or "gone near any other religion that might make her more than a normal zombie" - wtaf? Religion can now fuck with your mad zombie raising skills? PS, WHEN WILL THE FUCKERY ABOUT MURDER VICTIM ZOMBIES GOING ON A RAMPAGE END? This is my personal crusade for book canon consistency, I have been so OMFGNO about it since it first turned up in Incubus Dreams. I am not letting this go until I get some kind of answer.

However, lolling over the wife being raised "as a vengeful flesh-eating monster." Just...what the hell does he think zombies eat, regardless of vengeance? No, really. I want to know. I don't think you can buy zombie kibble. (Does Soylent Green count?)

Anyway, Anita is like "Wow, you really did do your reaserch, but I still need a reason," and being paid really isn't enough. I want to live in this crazy world where I can have a really great paying job, but still have the power to say "fuck you," to my boss and to clients because it's their fault for not giving me a good enough reason to do what they're asking (and paying) me to do. Honest to god, why the hell does Bert even keep her around? She's missed N many days at the office due to fuckery with vampires and lycanthropes, being beat up, being arrested that one time (and still somehow working with the police). I don't even know if Bert knows that she's in the office today. If he does, he'd probably have a heart attack that Ms Entitlement Bitch has deigned them with her glorious presence.

Man, I just realised that Anita is That Person in the office that everyone hates. You know the one.  If nothing else, she should get fired for pissing off her clients.

Back to the story -- Anita still wants to know why this guy wants his wife zombified, and we're treated to this stunning piece of conversation:

"What do you hope to gain from [having your wife raised as a zombie]?"
 
"Gain," he said, "I don't know what you mean by that."
 
"I don't, either, but you keep not answering my original question; I thought maybe if I rephrased it you would."
 
"I don't want to answer either question," he said.
 
"Then I won't raise your wife. There are other animators at Animators Inc. who will be hapy to take your money and they don't charge my rates."
 
"Everyone says you are the best."
 
I shrugged. I was never sure what to say to things like that, and found silence worked best."

Okay, fine, let the client go to one of the other animators! Let that guy get a nice commission on a zombie well done. But nooo, let's just now pander to Anita's sense of awesome. Tony's Googled her! He knows that she's a necromancer! And has killed a lot of monsters!

I shrugged. "That's a matter of record, so yeah, but it has no bearing on what you want from me, Mr. Bennington."
 
"I suppose it has as little to do with my request as your reputation as a sort of female Casanova."

O SNAP. I like this guy. Now I'm going to be picturing him as Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I hope this doesn't mean I just condemned Tony to die.

Anita goes on the defensive to say that this has nothing to do with raising a zombie (WHICH IS WHAT HE JUST SAID!), but then Tony continues to sass with, "If you can truly control all manner of undead, then it might explain how you can slay vampires and still date them."

ZING! I really love Tony right now.

Anita goes off into an internal monologue about Jean-Claude, where he stands in their relationship (hint: somewhere near the back of the closet, but not quite in Narnia) and says, "Jean-Claude and I were in the papers recently, so that didn't take much research."

That's your cutting comeback? "Hey wow, you can read something that wasn't on the internet. Or maybe it was. Anyway, you can read. Go you." Anita gets all embarrassed because Tony said she was PRETTY and then Anita does that thing where she realises she's dumb but still can't figure out what's she's missed in her state of dumb. There's no clarification as to what that thing might be, and she doesn't even ask.

Tony says that he needs to know how much of her reputation is bollocks, and Anita replies, "I've earned my reputation," YES, YES YOU HAVE, SWEETIE. But she continues to say that she doesn't raise zombies "for kicks, or thrill seekers, or tormented relatives unless they have a plan."

Wait. Wait. What. So, you can't raise a zombie just to say goodbye to a loved one? You can't be a tormented relative with a will despute? What about that guy that abused his daughter, she killed herself, and he had her raised as a zombie and refused to put her back? Anita sure as hell made an exception on that one, albeit to put her back rather than dig her up. She also stepped in real quick in GP to help Zach raise a zombie so that vampires could torture it. She's accdientally raised zombies, too.

Oh my god, and then it gets dumb again:

"A plan, what kind of plan?"
 
"You tell me. Why--do--you--want--your--wife--raised--as--a--zombie?"
 
"I understood the question, Ms. Blake; you don't have to say it slowly."
 
"Then answer the question, or this interview is over."

Yes, let's talk to the paying client who Googled your embarrassing public love-life like he's a retarded toddler. That'll totally win him over and get him to confess his dark desires for his zombie!wife.

Tony sits and stews, and Anita gets up to leave. She'd "been polite because [she] knew how much money he'd paid just to talk to [her], and since [she] was going to refuse [she] wanted him to feel he'd gotten something for his money, but [she]'d had enough."

Really? This kind of behaviour is appalling to me. If this is her definition of polite, Anita needs to be slapped with a frozen fish and sent to deportment college. At least there, she'd learn how to sit in a chair with her knees together. This could be a valuable life skill.

But threatening to walk out and leave the client without her awesomesauce is enough to get him to spill! There isn't much left of Deady McWife because she was exploded. No, really. She was exploded. Other animators need a reasonably intact corpse, and well...Anita's raised zombies with much, much less. This is actualfax book canon rather than fanciful retconning (iirc, this would be Bloody Bones when Anita raised the Bouvier ascendants). So, Laurell gets a star for remembering this much. But not a gold one. Maybe a yellow one.

I'm going to take a moment here to just pause. It's been six pages of text to basically lay out all this; one third of the opening chapter to assert that Anita is a bitch even under the best circumstances and has no respect for grieving widowers, even ones that can read and use Google.

Seriously, if she'd been trying to grill me about raising a zombie, I'd probably just throw out, "necrophilia," as a reason, and watch her get squicked. She asked for a reason, doesn't mean it has to be the honest or even right one. Barring that, "FOR GREAT JUSTICE!" is always a good one.

Okay, back to the chapter. And oh man, way to continue to be a dick, Anita. She points out that yes, she can raise an awesome zombie and sometimes they don't even realise that they're dead, but Tony can't keep his zombie wife. She'll rot. And he's suddenly turned into a mess of, "NO ONLY YOU CAN DO THIS THING!" and Anita's like "WELL IF I COULD RESURRECT HER FOR REALS, I TOTALLY WOULD. BUT I CAN'T."

Or she could just put the woman's soul back into her body and stop the corpse from rotting like Dominga Salvador did in The Laughing Corpse. It might not be a true resurrection, but it's the next best thing.

This is like a broken record. Anita says again that she can't resurrect Tony's dead wife. He gives her a plaintive look and asks,  "It's too late for her to be a vampire, then?"

I SHOULD THINK SO, WHAT WITH HER BEING EXPLODED.

Anita waffles that it probably is too late, because the wife would have needed to have been bitten by a vampire before she died.  And then she exploded. There's more monologue about how fire kills pretty much everything, and it's really difficult to raise a zombie from chargrilled jerky pieces. But, Tony does make a good point in asking if it's the fire itself that presents a problem with the zombie raising rather than the chargrilled jerky pieces themselves, and Anita has to mull it over. She doesn't give him an answer, because she doesn't think it's ever happened.

In any case, she starts to show him out, and Tony points out that Anita's dating Jean-Claude, so if she can't bring back Tony's wife, then maybe JC can. Anita has to repeat that no, rules is rules and the wife would have needed to be bitten and not exploded for this to work. She also monologues internally about how she's JC's human servant and the police mistrust her because of it.

Then it gets creepy with Tony asking if Anita could raise the wife so that she didn't realise she was dead. Anita says yes, she's done it, but points out the whole rotting thing while Tony is like "I just want to say goodbye! I want to be with her!" And Anita takes a moment to be "Ew, necrophilia? Do not want." No, really. "I almost asked if by 'be with her,' he meant sex, but I did not want to know. I didn't need to know because I wasn't raising this zombie."

I was having a discussion the other night about how this is a sad indictment on Anita and the series in that she automatically assumes this is a sexual thing. The guy's wife died in a horrible manner, and he wants to say goodbye. For all we know, he would want to take her on a picnic at the beach at sunset and appreciate the person she used to be. It doesn't have to be about getting your freak on.

Anyway, Anita goes back into monologuing that sometimes zombies have been raised for surprise! necrophilia and there's something now in the contracts that they make very clear to clients that zombies will not be raised for these purposes. If you want a zombie, it goes back in the ground the same night as it was raised.  Foo to that, Dominga Salvador was pimpin' corpses and rolling in the dough.

But foo, looks like I won't be getting zombie!sex in the books after all. "[Anita]'d seen too many zombies to think sex was ever a good idea with the shambling dead." WAY TO DASH MY HOPES, LAURELL. You're abandoning the crack! And since LKH has claimed that she hasn't found her squick limit in writing porn, I ask why the hell not have zombie!sex? If Anita can raise a zombie that's so alive that it doesn't realise that it's dead, where is the squick factor?

For the record, I do not support necrophilia. But for the purposes of AB:VH Sex Bingo, there should totally be a zombie square. And one could argue that boning vampires is technically necrophilia because they're dead too. So, if Anita hasn't got any problems with doing vampires, she really shouldn't have a problem with a well-raised, non-rotting zombie.

Anita shows Tony the door. Again. Still? IDEK. He leaves.

And then Nathaniel shows up, and Anita's brain totally shorts out. God, I don't need to read Nathaniel's description again, I know who he is.

But lol.

I tried to look reasonably intelligent before he turned around, beacuse if just seeing him from behind made me stupid-faced, the front view was better.

BOY PRETTY, ANITA LIKEY. This could be why Nathaniel has such long hair, so she can club him over the head and drag him back to her cave.

Oh look, and Jason's here too.

He had that look in his eyes, that mischievous look that said he was going to push his luck in some way. There was no malice to Jason, just an overly developed sense of fun. I gave him the frown that should have told him, Don't do anything that I'll regret. It did no good to say he would regret it, because he wouldn't.

Everyone take this opportunity to go get a sandwich while we're treated to his description. Or just stand there with a coffee and mock it.

What made Jason appealing -- than the blue eyes, the yellow-blond hair now long enough that he'd started having Nathaniel French-braid it for dance class, which was where they'd been, which explained the almost-not-there tank tops and shorts, which showed that he had his own muscular and very nice body, all packed into a nice five-foot, four-inch frame -- wasn't the packaging, it was that grin, that light of mischief that made his eyes bright with thinking naughty thoughts.

THIS IS ONE SENTENCE. brb, weeping for the English language.

Not sex, though that was in there, but just a host of things he knew he shouldn't do, but so wanted to do.

Yes, it's totally necessary to tack that onto the end to clarify everything that that was already said in the previous paragraph.

To cut off any boy related shenanigans before they even start, Anita loudly offers more condolences on the late Mrs Bennington, which makes Jason shut up, but Nathaniel, the sensitive soul that he is, continues to melt Anita's ovaries.

[Nathaniel] knew what kind of work I did, and knew that I dealt with more grieving relatives than most police.
 
I had a moment to see those huge violet eyes, like an Easter surprise in a face that was somewhere between beautiful and handsome. I could never decide if it was the eyes or all that hair, then he'd put the hair back so you could see the face, and I'd gazed at him often enough asleep to know that he was just that beautiful.

...okay, dissection time again.

[Nathaniel] knew what kind of work I did, and knew that I dealt with more grieving relatives than most police.

O RLY? I'm gonna guess it has something to do with raising people from the dead. You don't usually deal with grieving relatives when police have to bust up a rowdy party, or issue a speeding ticket.

On a side note, why is it that none of the animators have to go through some kind of grief counselling course so that they can handle other people's trauma in a more effective and possibly even helpful manner? Why isn't there a psychologist on staff to help both clients and the animators deal with their issues? Do animators hang out with funeral directors and coroners for support?

...face that was somewhere between beautiful and handsome

...I'd gazed on him often enough asleep to know that he was just that beautiful.

So he's beautiful. Not handsome, or stuck in-between, he's definitely beautiful. And Anita is Edward Cullen in watching Nathaniel sleep. I'll bet she'd oil his window, too.

JFC, why so clinical in "the face" and "the hair" -- they're totally attached to a living breathing dude that's standing right there, not this abstract wig or face just floating around in the admin area. That sort of thing only happens around Picasso, Dali and Jackson Pollock.

Too soon?

Tony finally notices the guys that Anita is all but drooling over, and asks her to introduce him to them. Wait, what? Tony's still there? He left already. *scrolls* No, he did. But now he's inexplicably back. Cher's had less farewells.

Anita replies, "Maybe they're not mine to introduce,"even though she's still stupid-facing over them in the worst possible way. Tony further dazzles with his knowledge of Google and says tha the knows the guys are strippers at Guilty Pleasures.  This is a great opportunity for Anita to infodump about stripper names, and why the guys have them. Because there might be someone who reads this book who has never seen an episode of Law & Order, or any other cop show, and they may not know these things. The information stream turns to how there's still discrimination against shapeshifters, legal hunting due to varmint laws, and how Anita is some kind of "living vampire" thanks to all the metaphysical fuckery with marks with JC, some wiki on JC including his entire life history starting with Belle Morte, the need to feed on "love and lust as well as blood, but I'd inherited the need to feed through sex and love. If I didn't feed periodically I began to die."

It doesn't take a biology degree to realise that. Food = not dying.

But this is where we get to marvel at how selfish Anita is, because she admits that she could be stubborn enough to refuse to feed the ardeur and die anyway, but then Nathaniel would die and Damian would die, and Jason possibly could die. Everyone dies. Woe. But it's okay because she's getting good at controlling herself now! (She's been saying this since Incubus Dreams) And the guys are getting really good at controlling there lycanthrope-ness so they appear to be normal, so normal that even she can't sense their beasts.

Meanwhile, everyone's just standing there. Tony gets out his phone! "It was one of those phones with the big screen so you could watch video on it, if you don't mind having the picture be the size of your palm." The wonders of technology never cease. So, he scrolls through and finds a photo of his wife to show everyone. Jason does not recognise her, neither does Nathaniel. Tony gets his Batman on because HIS WIFE IS DEEEAAAAD! and then basically shoves the photo in Anita's face.

The woman was blond, and beautiful in that Hollywood way, so that she was truly beautiful bu tthere was nothing to make her stand out from a dozen other blond beauties. It was a type of attractiveness that always seemed artificial, as if they were all made at the same factory and sent out into the world to seduce and marry well.

Oh that explains everything. The wife was a tall pretty blonde, naturally she had to die horribly by being exploded. *facepalm* What are the odds that she was also evil in some way?

Nathaniel said, "I'm sorry."
 
"Why are you sorry?" [Bennington] asked, and that flash of anger was back.
 
"Anita said she was sorry for your loss; isn't your wife who you lost?"
 
Bennington nodded.
 
"Then I am sorry."

No, Nathaniel, she's dead. "Lost" implies that she might be under a couch cushion, with some lint, spare change, a remote, and Jesus. Or possibly wandering around a tropical island with Matthew Fox.

Anita goes to let Tony out....again, only this time Micah shows up. Cue more brainsplosion.

Micah had been planning to join us for lunch, if he could, and there he was, joining us. He stepped in, my height with brown hair that curled past his shoulders, tied back in a ponytail that had too many curls to make his hair lie flat. His eyes were green and yellow, and not human. That beautiful face -- and for Micah it truly was beauty, not handsome, more delicate jawline, more slender -- was only just masculine. The leopard eyes in that lovely face just added to the impact. He wore sunglasses most of the time to hide the eyes.  He started to get the glasses out automatically as he glimpsed the man behind me.

MICAH IS A PRETTY PRETTY LADY, I GET IT OMFG. HE'S A PRETTY LADY WITH A GIANT WANG. But this description does nothing to set him apart from all the other pretty ladies with giant wangs that are in St Louis. So Anita? Don't you go judging Tony on his choice of cookie-cutter wife, you're just as guilty.

Tony also knows who Micah is! Because he knows, Micah does not Horatio his glasses! Somewhere, the Who is sad. :(

Micah stopped trying to fish his glasses out of his suit jacket pocket and just stepped in with a smile. "I believe if [lycanthropes] keep hiding what we are, it just adds to the fear factor."

If that's so, then why the hell does he wear sunglasses to hide his eyes? And why doesn't he just wear coloured contacts? They have those now.

In any case, Micah and Tony shake hands and it's wonderfully normal. Anita tries to usher Tony out the door (still!) and Tony maintains that he'll find another animator to raise his dead wife. He'd still prefer Anita because of her major ju-ju, and she points out (again) that the zombie won't actually be Mrs Bennington, due to being a zombie. But he's okay with that so long as the wife doesn't realise she's dead. It's really creepy to me just how important it is that the woman doesn't realise she's dead.

But this mention of Mrs Bennington being dead (still!), sets off a new round of condolences, this time from Micah. He adds that Tony should listen to Anita, because Anita's right about everything.

Tony gets even creepier with a, "It's a terrible thing to lose the one you love, Mr. Callahan."And everyone else seems to miss this oblique threat in favour of staring at each other. Finally, Tony is resigned that he won't get a zombie wife, Anita still can't get her Jesus on and perform a real resurrection and...then Tony asks if Anita loves all three dudes that are standing in the middle of the reception area. Anita has to think about it! She splits hairs on the difference between love-love, and like-love, but in the end it doesn't matter because she's having sex with all of them, and they all know where they stand in this weirdo relationship. Finally, she replies with a yes.

Tony continues to be sad and creepy. "I've never been able to love more than one person at a time. It would be easier if I could."And he said that if three of Anita's boyfriends show up at the office, then Perez Hilton the rumours about her must be right.

Anita's got no comeback for htat.

"You keep leaving me not knowing what to say, Mr. Bennington."
 
"I thought women always knew what to say."
 
"I don't."
 
"My wife was a very different kind of woman than you, Ms. Blake."
 
"I hear that a lot," I said.

Really? You heard that Ilsa she-wolf of Hollywood wasn't like you and you heard this all the time? There's one last-ditch effort to get Anita to raise Ilsa, Anita refuses, Tony leaves (again! Finally!), and whatever awkward the whole situation caused is forgotten because Anita gets to kiss Micah. Nathaniel still wants to go to lunch, he promises, "Jason and I will flirt outragiously, and make you smile."And Micah has a moment of DNW. There's something about how he doesn't mind Nathaniel flirting with him at home, but in public that's bad. Jason offers to leave, but there's a group hug! Jason comments about how Anita's clients suck, and she's like "yeah, it's a good job except for all the people who have lost loved ones."

And finally, Mary the secretary chimes in, because they're crowded around the front desk and she still works there. Alas, she's all flirty and "oh Anita, I wish I had your mad skills for hot dudes, if you happen to find one that's over thirty, throw him my way!" and there's some laughter because this is the jokey-banter part of the chapter. Anita takes a moment to internally monologue that maybe she failed the client but reconciles that she told the truth and ultimately that will hurt less. And then she replies that Mary isn't into vampires, which is when Mary gives a girlish squeal and tells Anita to have a long lunch IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN AND I THINK YOU DO *conspicuous wink to mens*

Jason kisses Mary's cheek and then they all traipse off to lunch. The end!

But I can honestly say it's kinda disturbing that Tony is hell-bent on having his zombie!wife not remember that she's dead. I'm sure in the hands of a clever writer, this would be some tragic and touching tale of a husband that wants to fulfil one final wish with his wife. Or he could decide to bring her back as a zombie so he can hack her to pieces with an axe because she had the indecency to get exploded before he had a chance to kill her, but since she's a zombie he can be creepy and grope her a lot. Or he could be Donnie Pfaster, and lop off her fingers to eat later. I mean, if you're going to have the necrophilia, you might as well have the cannibalism too.

The point is, someone else could make this story interesting. And less repetitive.

I still can't get over the razorblade on the front cover of a book named Flirt. These things don't go together in my brain, romanticising self-harm aside, this doesn't make sense to me unless someone's putting razorblades in Valentine's candy.